There are all kinds but I didn't mean to single out any specific need, whether social acceptance or self aggrandizement, as the main underlying reason for why people profess political beliefs they don't care much about. Group identity aside, the point isn't to identify or judge the precise underlying emotional need, but merely that the stated political belief is secondary to some other emotional need (or some complex mix thereof). That alone is enough to ensure the persistent mismatch between the action and the stated belief.

The other trend I'm seeing is that what's left of organized religion is increasingly becoming commercialized and politicized - in some ways it mirrors the media landscape.

Completely agree with the bolded. But I think you are confusing a tactical mistake with an strategic one. We both see the same mistake by the left with regards to the treatment of racism but you see a deep strategic flaw while I only see a tactical mistake in the way the strategy was pushed.

With regards to religion being politicized, well I think religion is inherently political But not in the sense of if you a christian then you most vote democrat but more in the way a certain sect develops. Liberation theology is the example I proposed but perhaps Nation of Islam is a better example for this thread. Malcolm X wasnt just a spiritual person, he was a smart politician and he managed to give a spiritual message in a certain political context which allowed such message to be succesful within a specific demography.

That's true. Like, for a long time I gave you the benefit of the doubt with your concerned moderate conservative act. It's pretty clear you're just a low-calorie ikestoys. My read was not good.

Boom! Hope you have a better day tomorrow you seem a bit surly.

I recently read "One Nation Under God: How Corporate America Invented Christian America " by Kevin Kruse. He traces this back to the New Deal. Book was ok, but not great imo.

I will concede, and have, in fact, conceded in other threads that religion must be taken seriously. Just not unserious religions. Within every major faith that I'm aware of, there exist serious persons, and I don't mean those serious persons (not usually). An awful lot of people are straight up lying about their deeply held faith. I don't mean casual hypocrisy. And I don't think conservatives are incapable of serious adherence, either.

Within these traditions is often where 'radical' moral progress is made. But, it's pretty far from their exclusive domain. What the **** is the Sermon on the Mount if not taking a rhetorical position that is maximally upsetting to others? Like, I'm legitimately questioning, in a non-rhetorical way, your reading comprehension abilities if you're saying what you seem to be saying.

"Well, you see, when I said this my definition was blah blah."

Just publish the goddamn Tractatus already.

All at once.

Submit reply.

I take the unserious religion of Discordianism very seriously, and I think the world would be a much better place if more people seriously embraced its unserious take on serious religion.

Free trade agreements are regarded as one of the main reasons for massive decline of the working class jobs, which is why it is electorally unpopular which is why Hillary flip flopped on the issue and did not boast she loved it during the election. To blame Sanders for wedging her on it, because it allowed Trump to do it is ridiculous. He was her opponent.

Clinton's had no popular message, apart from more of the same, and Trump is a prick. That's why she failed, she had no real message.

The 'Centrist' label is purely relative. The political landscape has moved so far right, in the country, that Obama might have appeared Centrist but he was largely just an extension of the previous Bush and Clinton neoliberal policies, as was Hillary which is why he hired the same staff to run the show behind the scenes. It's all a scam.

The problem the left usually has with religion is because they tend to confuse certain organized religions with the general need of spirituality human beings have.

The recent phenomenon we have seen in some religious groups is a tendency to offer a very parochial world view with strong social elements within the group but not very open towards people outside the group.
In a way people are protecting them from the world to a group that gives strong support. It's very likely those groups take some reactionary elements from bigger organized religion. Those latter groups are usually influential on richer folks who basically need a spiritual system that doesn't make them guilty.
In other words Jesus revolutionary message of defending the weak and universal brotherhood is absolutely deprived of its progressive meaning and we end up with hating the gays and going to church on Sunday. To me the answer to that isn't hating on religion but doing exactly the opposite, promoting Jesus revolutionary message.

So Democrats need to get more religious now? This is really the conclusion you guys are making?

Not looking for a cosign, but PB's black community analysis is seeming a bit trumpian, just more intelligent and verbose.

Or,

Black people aren't ****ing space aliens.

No, what I'm saying at least is that democrats should try to understand why people take certain religious views. People don't became evangelical Christians because they are dumb they became evangelical Christians because they live in a specific social and cultural context. Let's try to understand that context and their believes and then let's see if we can find some common ground. Maybe they will tell democrats to **** off but you know trying to understand people instead of patronizing them may actually work.

Now that being said it would help if Democrats put more effort in trying to build connections with progressive religious leaders. It seems to me they can only do this with the black community and not the white one.

Bernie's base was not Hillary's base. Bernie stealing the nomination from Hillary would not have resulted in a whole bunch of immature stubborn pissed off D voters. Most felt he deserved to win. He started out as a virtual unknown with too large a deficit and an entire country not knowing what socialism actually is, or that it exists in our country today, never mind he's a socialist democrat.

If we re-campaigned today, Bernie would demolish Hillary. If Bernie had started his campaign months earlier than he did, he would've edged Hillary. It was quite obvious that over time Bernie gained popularity and even further so as people became less uneducated over the stigma of him "being a socialist."

I did not make that argument and the hypothetical question was "would Bernie have beaten Trump if he had been nominated?" so I'm not really sure what hypothetical you're talking about...

Now we're talking about religion and all this other bull****.

FFS, it's not like Trump won in a landslide. The Ds lost because their candidate wasn't ****ing good enough. Their candidate was BARELY not good enough...They can totally not change over the next 4 years and crush with Corey Booker or Elizabeth Warren.

In those four years the demographics are going to shift left yet again, depending on Trump's deportation success rate ldo

Dvaut, you could add:

For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? Mark 8:36

Plus, that saves two birds with one scripture by assuaging PB's concerns over that ol' time spiritual impoverishment.

I think it's important to think from the other side here since the left is playing defense here more than anything. Remember that most of the landmark civil rights legislation passed under fortuitous circumstances, before the political realignment, before white resentment rhetoric was perfected, before people understood the far-reaching implications - they would probably be impossible to pass today as is. Of course it's easier to play defense but what's the best way for GOP to dismantle CRA, VRA and all that stuff? There's a bit of fantasy thinking here about pro-black legislation when what's on the table is more like repealing specific provisions of CRA/VRA or the federal judiciary declining to enforce certain provisions or interpreting them narrowly to allow for more discriminate against blacks. How do you stop them from legislative actions or appointing judges that would repeal these provisions?

What is this even in response to? I don't even think you're correctly following your own posts - you were specifically talking about SJWs, whatever that means, but now that stuff isn't SJW nonsense? This particular train of conversation came from my slavery analogy, correct? How do you go from the joke about liberals interested in correcting slavery by creating more white slaves and black slave owners (and this being a clearly less radical solution than what actually happened) to whatever you're talking about? Whatever it is, they aren't the liberals in my joke.

They already have. That's what I said earlier, to Phone Booth. The Democrats are not who you think they are; they are those people and many more. Yes, even white ones, even Evangelicals. But those Evangelicals are rare for a reason. Most of the sincere conservative Evangelicals have, let's be nice, theological issues concerning core Democratic principles.

It actually delivered rhetoric to people that mattered. If you have your own ministry of future leaders, that is action. And to the extent that JC is historical, he seems to have had a lot of influence, so that was radical. I'm not sure what your point is. My point is - aim for change, don't aim for grandstanding.

I'm not sure what it is that you're talking about. Were 2p2 ACists radical? I don't really care about anyone's stated position - I care about what they do.

Ok, it's taken me weeks to notice this, but you guys don't seem to get that the 'liberal' in 'neoliberalism' and the 'liberal' in 'social liberalism' might as well be 2 distinct things in the 21st century.

It's not that off the mark in an etymological sense, like, it's not as if I said, "I liberally scooped a lot of sauce on the pasta," and you thought I was talking about social justice for tomatoes and semolina, but there seems to be this idea that the evil 3rd way neoliberals ruined the country whilst the noble fiscal conservatives of the GOP were trying to save it... If that makes sense.

It was you who referred to the civil rights movement as SJW, I was mocking you. You specifically said 'they are hurting their own cause', apparently blissfully unaware that you are taking up the mantle of ~William F Buckley "why don't they put me in charge." Well, golly, Phone Booth I truly wonder why. I daresay 5five is reading you carefully.

You are using a very Phone Booth definition of grandstanding, aren't you? Define it. Because, if you are defining grandstanding as 'that which causes attention and no change' you probably need to say that when you use the word. Like, it's not exactly Merriam Webster.

democrats are going to mostly lose in 2018 regardless but unless there is a complete party realignment (at least ideologically) away from corporate elitism, neoliberalism, and corruption over the next 4 years they are going to lose in 2020 as well.

and what is everyone's fascination with corey booker lately? the guy is a lobbyist yes-man just waiting to promote the same neoliberal policies that lost clinton the election, but even if he somehow doesn't, the most he'll ever be is the marco rubio of the democratic party.

maybe democrats could run warren, but she's not a great public speaker and running elizabeth warren just because she's elizabeth warren sounds a lot like running hillary clinton just because she's hillary clinton.

Are you guys going to continuing repeating nonsense until the end of times?

Lol with the DNC "machinery", what happened in 08, just didn't work then? and what about the RNC machinery, they didn't want Trump, not as evil as the DNC?

Rubio, Kasich had "better pollings" against Hillary, and Trump WON, what happened? your (lazy) poll theory just apply to Bernie/Hillary, but not Trump? You remember Hillary being ahead by a lot, right? like months CLOSER to the election than Bernie polls.

Let's try for one minute this novel and amazing new theory guys, that maybe, just maybe, she won the primary because more people voted for her?

Wow, incredible this theory explain a little better what happened, it explains what happened in 08 primaries (Obama won because he won more votes), it's a little simpler than "the election was stolen to my Messiah Bernie, because of evil DNC"

Hillary was the nominee because SHE WON MORE VOTES, you know, millions and millions more.

Liberals used to be the rational ones, the guys who could understand logic and science, now, over and over plenty of people in the left don't care anymore about facts and logic, and keep repeating debunked nonsense over and over, just incredible.

Some other things about Bernie that could be used in the general:

From Kurt Eichenwald article:


Here are a few tastes of what was in store for Sanders, straight out of the Republican playbook: He thinks rape is A-OK. In 1972, when he was 31, Sanders wrote a fictitious essay in which he described a woman enjoying being raped by three men. Yes, there is an explanation for it—a long, complicated one, just like the one that would make clear why the Clinton emails story was nonsense. And we all know how well that worked out.Then there’s the fact that Sanders was on unemployment until his mid-30s, and that he stole electricity from a neighbor after failing to pay his bills, and that he co-sponsored a bill to ship Vermont’s nuclear waste to a poor Hispanic community in Texas, where it could be dumped. You can just see the words “environmental racist” on Republican billboards. And if you can’t, I already did. They were in the Republican opposition research book as a proposal on how to frame the nuclear waste issue.Also on the list: Sanders violated campaign finance laws, criticized Clinton for supporting the 1994 crime bill that he voted for, and he voted against the Amber Alert system. His pitch for universal health care would have been used against him too, since it was tried in his home state of Vermont and collapsed due to excessive costs. Worst of all, the Republicans also had video of Sanders at a 1985 rally thrown by the leftist Sandinista government in Nicaragua where half a million people chanted, “Here, there, everywhere/the Yankee will die,’’ while President Daniel Ortega condemned “state terrorism” by America. Sanders said, on camera, supporting the Sandinistas was “patriotic.”The Republicans had at least four other damning Sanders videos (I don’t know what they showed), and the opposition research folder was almost 2-feet thick. (The section calling him a communist with connections to Castro alone would have cost him Florida.) In other words, the belief that Sanders would have walked into the White House based on polls taken before anyone really attacked him is a delusion built on a scaffolding of political ignorance.

I was a democratic voter (and still lean their direction). I unregistered and voted Johnson in 2012 bc I was dissatisfied with the obama admins leadership and foreign policy. I was energized by senator sanders because he talked about issues I found important which was scaling down our interventionism, reforming our criminal justice laws, and getting the money out of politics.

I was deenergised by clinton because I hate her foreign policy and she was a mealy mouthed flip floppy empty suit IME. She also had the personality of a wet sock. Don't make it my problem trump got elected, if I were to vote in my own self interest like liberals always complain joe six pack doesn't, I would vote trump because he said lower taxes and do away with the health insurance mandate both of which stand to make me $$$ next year.

I voted for gary Johnson because he said things about the issues I care about. Do you guys really think there aren't other voters who think and felt like I did RE sanders vs clinton?