This is extremely incorrect - it's easy to do so provided that you care about doing it. As in many other countries, legislators are scared, lazy and greedy. If you mobilize behind the scenes, offer to help with the grunt work and let them take credit for the result, it's not hard to get things done. Don't forget that the US is more decentralized than most other countries, which lowers the bar tremendously - maybe you can't quite reach the federal or the state level, but you can do something about your city or town.

But not only did they not help create legislation, but they actively disincentivized politicians from doing anything about it.

I agree with everything else you wrote, but not this part. In the long-term, perhaps, but they can absolutely, and WILL, defect in the short-term by not voting at all. Then you'll really see a surge of groups like BLM, political ends by redressing grievances outside of party politics. Again, not all, but very electorally significant numbers will (correctly) punish the party.

How dare someone run for office and challenge the status quo in a democracy! The nerve of Bernie Sanders to intellectually challenge an out of touch candidate that was running a campaign ignoring her core democratic base. For shame!

You have bought the intellectually empty media's story. It was somebody elses fault that Hillary lost. No, it was her fault. And you are wrong about history and Bernie. History will not look kindly on HILLARY, not Bernie. She was not smart enough to realize she was running a campaign in 2016, not 1996. People have access to more information (both real and made up) more than ever. She refused to adjust. SHE is the one that allowed Trump to win. How hard is it to beat someone that says on tape that he grabs women by the pussy? One would think it would not be that difficult. Hillary's campaign strategy of going to the right was a complete failure. She was nothing more than a sell-out. THAT is what history will look unkindly upon. Bernie will be viewed as a hero.

By the way, for all practical purposes, Hillary is a republican, Bernie is a centrist, and people like Ted Cruz are fringe right wing radicals. Nobody knows what Trump is. He doesnt even know. You forget how skewed this country is to the far right. Hell we're living in a country where everyone in 2016 doesnt have equal rights and everybody mostly seems ok with it. THATS how far right this country is.

In that case my mistake and your point becomes much stronger. BLM and other protest organisations need to work with and alongside an organisation to propose change and fight hard to get it legislated. Town by town, city by city until it becomes the state law and maybe even a federal law.

It's harder than ever to get legislation passed*, and people have been fighting for black Americans to have civil rights for over 150 years. It's not easy and it's not some simple thing, or it would have been done already.

*Unless your name happens to be ALEC

Are you talking about ordinary blacks all over America or young coastal activists? I see zero evidence that any group that SJ rhetoric was supposed to reach turned out in large numbers for the most pro-SJ candidate in history. And if they did, they must have turned out in all the wrong places because last I checked, Trump won the election despite being a terrible candidate who ran a terrible campaign with the least favorable demographics for a Republican candidate in history. I think most blacks correctly perceive the liberal posturing on racism as insincere and I don't think SJ pandering is working at all from an electoral standpoint. What keeps the blacks voting for the Democrats is clearly that the other side is worse. Kind of like how the Muslims went from overwhelmingly Republican to overwhelming Democratic without the Democrats saying or doing anything about them.

These have always been around - the difference was that the Democratic party (and liberal elites) was so unaware of where the political center was that they thought it made sense to incorporate these fringe elements because they weren't so fringe in their own circle. This isn't like the white grievance base on the right where you can easily get to 20% of the electorate with a single coherent message. You can't even get to 5% with any specific thing on the left because the blacks aren't the gay aren't the feminists aren't the socialists aren't the latinos.

I get the feeling that the liberals are also out of touch with ordinary blacks because the "black" perspective they get tends to from the guys who write for the Atlantic or the New Yorker or some other fancy-schmancy rag, some activist with a million followers or fellow urban hipsters, most of whom are outcasts the same way many liberals are and mostly unrepresentative of the broader black community.

One thing you got right in all that--the idea that Black Lives Matter probably is fringe in America, this election has revealed that.

We sure as hell aren't going to stop fighting for it though.

Also, this is a very very common trope of Confederate propaganda throughout the years. If those people would just stop agitating and making noise, they'd get what they want! They make themselves look undignified doing that and that's why people don't like them in the first place.

It's nothing more than a bullying tactic. A lot of words but very little meaning. Giving up and "stop resisting" is what they want you to do. Fight back instead.

Maybe but thhat doesn't mean the correct approach isn't to both agitate and leglislate. That's my position.

It's legislation that makes most of the difference. Agitating is a vital part of the means towards legislation as well as having some other value.

Absolutely. Unfortunately we're gonna be going in the wrong direction on legislation for at least two years. But that's why I'm calling my Rep and Senators every day. There's going to be a lot of legislation passed and believe me activists are organizing and attempting to put pressure on lawmakers already.

Couldn't the Dems just find a left-wing version of Donald Trump? The same shoot-from-the-hip mentality only in support of extreme left stances?

There is no top-down solution, as has been mentioned earlier in this thread. Every Dem out there has to activate, get organized, start phone banking, start volunteering, and make things happen starting on the local and state level right away. No candidate is going to save us.

For those calling at home, here's a current strategy I'm using:

Senators:
Ask them to oppose Jeff Sessions for AG. Ask them to oppose repealing Obamacare. Ask them to oppose Donald Trump's proposed Muslim registry.

Representatives: Same thing except no Jeff Sessions, Reps don't confirm.

What is everybody else doing?

That may have to take the form of organising to support candidates for election who support what we want.

and that may include refusing to support the least worst candidate a lot. There's nothing like a block of the electorate with the balance of power to win their hearts and minds.

Yeah, it's nice having a 30 point IQ advantage from any member of the RNC. Let's use that to our benefit like Obama did.

It really pisses me off that you don't start more threads around here. What's it like having 40 consecutive walls of text that are pure gold, but lost in thousands of posts? I mean JFC bro, start threads, run for prez, or I'll come to Michigan and slap the **** out of you. Those are your options now

Not many imo. Damn near everybody had their mind made up about 2016 in like, 2009. Everybody else's vote was easily manipulated by a picture of Santa holding a gun pointed at a member of ISIS.

Oh man, that's a mix of funny and sad.

I don't think Elizabeth Warren needs a phone call from me to do what I think she should do. I'll do #j20 in NYC. Then maybe I'll start hoarding food and build a survival bunker.

Still it doesn't hurt to stay connected. You could call and thank her for her hard work and offer your support, and encourage her and all other Dems to stand firm and even speak out loudly against the fascists that are now occupying the White House.

The survival bunker is not a bad idea either.

That was a badly written post by me. Let me try again.

1) I basically agree with Zizek ( the crazy slovenian guy from the link OAFK posted ) that the problem Hillary Clinton had was that she was both Wall Street and Occupy Wall Street at the same time. It just looked fake.

That's the main issue in politics for me , the economical platform parties have.
I made my post supposing that everybody was going to agree with my framework prima facie when it clearly isn't the case. For me any analysis that doesn't start from there is going to miss the point.

With that being said , of course there are multiple factions ( maybe identity is a better term) within the democratic broad support. To yuppies that want their kids to learn about dinosaurs to black people that vote for them as a lesser evil. A political discourse can't be only economics , it needs to start from there but articulate itself with all kinda identities that are different from one another. In this sense I agree with phone booth that the cultural agenda of the democrats should have a moderate left of centre approach.

2) I think there needs to be a distinction with the work a main stream left party does and the work a social movement does.
The main objective of a mainstream party has to be to win votes in the short term. In this case the democrats have 4 years to find a winning combination in the electoral college and you won't do that protesting in Berkley.
However a social movement should look to build a long term solution even if they upset some people on the short run. Black lives matter needs to fight racism in the long term and increase awareness of the issues they face , it's none of their ****ing business to make 110% sure they don't hurt the feeling of white working class people in the rust belt , that's the DNC job.

3) The main strategic problem I see with the strategy of moving to the left in economics and staying more moderate in social issues that I propose ( I'm not entirely sure that is what phone booth is advocating) is that is vulnerable to a centrist candidate that panders a lot to minorities in the primary. This is what happened to Sanders against Clinton. He got destroyed with the vote of black people. I can see a way out of that problem with black voters because economical issues are race related as well ( this needs to be properly framed of course ) but the lgbts are going to the center.

This can't be the strategy of a party. If you ran into that super charismatic candidate that's cool but you can't count on that.

Plus you still need to win other elections apart from the presidency.

Heh, more like I guess I did a horrible job expressing my point, because I fully agree with your post. Like, practically 100%. It's what I/we have been saying in some form another for awhile.

You mean like Bernie straight up boss Sanders? **** yeah we could. And we will.

Oprah Winfrey

Going back to America for the holidays and leaving before inauguration day. Got some long-term travel planned.

Fight the good fight einbert.

The irony is that playing-both-sides-Hil is the most authentic Hil there is.

Remember when she ran for senate and needed a focus group to decide whether she she declare as a mets fan or a Yankees fan?