Florida becoming more and more Republican

[hntnhole]

21 hours ago, Yorksub said:

"... falsely ..."?!? He's a slobbering, muttering, idiot. Senility has destroyed far too much of his mind for him to be considered still competent mentally.

Really .... just look at the legislation he's accomplished. 

Remember:  when you point at someone, only one of  your fingers is actually pointed at them.  The other 3 are pointed directly back at you.

[viking8x6]

@hntnhole I think you misconstrued the scope of @BlackDude's comment. I read it as referring to the Democrats who are saying Biden is too old.

[fuckholedc]

3 hours ago, hntnhole said:

I disagree. ... It's not that the D's aren't "doing anything about it", it's that their hands are tied due to processes laid down in the Constitution.  

D's are not mentioning any (or at least many) of the anti-human positions currently popular or gaining currency in the US.  They are also not presenting a positive vision of a future USA.

 

Specifically D's (most D's) are not calling out the rise in homophobia.

Most D's are also not putting the consequences of climate change front and center or even the pocket-book consequences that might in fact have a chance at moving some people  to change their minds and back climate change action.

Many D's are also not calling out racism (although some are).

Practically no D's are discussing the economic oppression baked into US capitalism.

 D's need to present a positive vision for a US future but mostly they aren't.

I *DID* see young D activists try this in local elections in Ohio with mixed results.  I haven't seen FL D's even try this.

Edited October 29, 2023 by fuckholedc

[PozBearWI]

3 hours ago, viking8x6 said:

@hntnhole I think you misconstrued the scope of @BlackDude's comment. I read it as referring to the Democrats who are saying Biden is too old.

Indeed on balance I think Biden has done a good job given conditions on the ground when he started.   For most of us the years 82 - 85 are more challenging.  As a result whomever is VP has a good chance of becoming President.  It might be healthy if the WH starts showcasing Harris as well if Dem's proceed with an incumbent only candidate. 

Further, I think a second (and even a third) candidate allows for healthy discussion within the party; which I think would prove more attractive to undecided voters.   

[BootmanLA]

6 hours ago, hntnhole said:

I disagree.  Since legislation must originate in the House of Representatives

Actually, only appropriations legislation must originate in the House. A bill on any other subject may originate in either chamber. In fact, quite a few bills have passed the Senate and are piled up in the House being dutifully ignored by the GOP majority.

[topblkmale]

1 hour ago, JimInWisc said:

Indeed on balance I think Biden has done a good job given conditions on the ground when he started.   For most of us the years 82 - 85 are more challenging.  As a result whomever is VP has a good chance of becoming President.  It might be healthy if the WH starts showcasing Harris as well if Dem's proceed with an incumbent only candidate. 

Further, I think a second (and even a third) candidate allows for healthy discussion within the party; which I think would prove more attractive to undecided voters.   

Kamala Harris seems like a good candidate for the D's 👍 She's a black woman and likeable. So much so I've noticed there are now three pronunciations of her first name. 🤣

Edited October 29, 2023 by topblkmale
.

[BootmanLA]

1 hour ago, JimInWisc said:

Further, I think a second (and even a third) candidate allows for healthy discussion within the party; which I think would prove more attractive to undecided voters.   

I  would agree if the Democratic party had a history of coming together behind the eventual nominee and turning out even if one's preferred candidate did not get the nod. That happened in 2020, primarily because so many people understood the threat that Mango Mussolini presented to the constitutional order; and I hope they would again, but voters can be fickle.

Look at 2016, when Democratic turnout for Clinton tumbled from Obama's elections, particularly in MI/PA/WI. Had Democratic voters simply turned out for her the way they did for Obama, she would have won all three states and the presidency. It wasn't a case of blue-collar voters switching to vote for Trump; too many of the Democratic votes just stayed home. (And a lot of that was due to decades of lying about Clinton by the hard right, who couldn't stand the thought of a woman being in charge of them.)

To a lesser extent that was true in 2000, when "Clinton Fatigue" was cited by a large number of non-voters as a reason to stay home, especially as Gore was seen as an extension of Clinton.

And a lot of disaffected leftists have a habit of voting third party (Stein, Nader, etc.) rather than vote for a "compromised" Democrat. Nader was the worst example, of course, because the 97,000 votes he got in Florida almost certainly would have swung at least 2-1 (if not 3-1 or 4-1) for Gore, obliterating that >600 final advantage Shrub held in the state.

[hntnhole]

Thanks, fuckholedc, for your thoughts.  

I'm unsure of how you came to these conclusions: 

5 hours ago, fuckholedc said:

Specifically D's (most D's) are not calling out the rise in homophobia

If you mean campaigning against homophobia, I think we're remembered every time we hear the GLBT+ mentioned.  True, it's not every single Democrat every single time, but it's more than we used to hear some years ago.  They know we're a powerful voting bloc, and they make sure to mention us rather often in interviews (along with other at-risk groups.  

 

5 hours ago, fuckholedc said:

Many D's are also not calling out racism (although some are).

It may be that many Dem's are not using that word - racism - since it's such a highly-charged term.  Campaign season is still heating up though, and I'm sure you'll hear it more often.  Consider what you're hearing from the other side, and maybe the Dem's won't be so disappointing after all.  

5 hours ago, fuckholedc said:

Practically no D's are discussing the economic oppression baked into US capitalism

I'll give you that one.  They're politicians, after all, and while we're facing a clear and present threat to the continuance of our Democracy, that's what we're hearing most about.  You're entirely right; that cake has been baked for a long, long time.

5 hours ago, fuckholedc said:

D's need to present a positive vision for a US future but mostly they aren't

This one I'll engage on.  Who else is there advocating for what we can be as a nation?  Who else is talking about human rights, assistance for the underprivileged?  The newly arrived?  All the virtues the US has stood for these past centuries? Given the openly blunt hatreds promulgated by the other political party, the D's sound like angels.  

 

5 hours ago, fuckholedc said:

I haven't seen FL D's even try this

Check out the "Dolphin Democrats" website.  We're very active in Ft. L. 

[hntnhole]

2 hours ago, BootmanLA said:

To a lesser extent that was true in 2000, when "Clinton Fatigue" was cited by a large number of non-voters as a reason to stay home,

Shortly before that election, I recall hearing folks (Dem's) talking about how she wasn't warm, she had a grating edge to her persona, stuff like that.  I didn't feel that way, but a number of folks did.  I didn't think we were electing a surrogate Mom, I thought we were electing a President - which we didn't.  

[viking8x6]

12 hours ago, hntnhole said:

I recall hearing folks (Dem's) talking about how she wasn't warm, she had a grating edge to her persona, stuff like that. 

Those are dog whistles for misogyny.

[BootmanLA]

4 hours ago, viking8x6 said:

Those are dog whistles for misogyny.

Absolutely. Especially for misogyny against a woman who had a career parallel to her husbands while he held elected office and who dared to take on, as a "First Lady" project, something that related directly to policy.

It's true other first ladies have taken up "policy" issues - Betty Ford for breast cancer awareness, for instance - but who's opposed to breast cancer research? Laura Bush was for literacy, Melanoma Trump was against bullying (!). Lady Bird Johnson was for environmentalism, Jackie Kennedy for historical preservation, Pat Nixon for volunteerism - all things everyone could get behind. Clinton had the audacity to support universal health care - something that would inevitably cut off the gravy train for the fat cats who run America's health care "system".

[hntnhole]

Melanoma ??? 🤣

Too much sun turned that wretch of a husband into an orange pumpkin(head), and gave her melanoma ???  Maybe there really is some shred of justice lying in some dusty corner somewhere.

First time I've heard/seen that one .... may I borrow it ??? Of course I'll give proper due credit ..... 

[tallslenderguy]

20 hours ago, BootmanLA said:

Melanoma Trump was against bullying (!). 

Lmao.  "!" indeed.  Perhaps an indirect response of a woman stuck in Stockholm Syndrome?

[BlackDude]

On 10/29/2023 at 10:45 AM, viking8x6 said:

@hntnhole I think you misconstrued the scope of @BlackDude's comment. I read it as referring to the Democrats who are saying Biden is too old.

No, I meant exactly what I said. The Dems are doing nothing. And everytime they are called out on it, we get the same Schoolhouse Rock/Civics nonsense.  As if they don’t have every seat, the presidency, and all members of the SCOTUS, they are handcuffed.

Politics is just the allocation of resources, and there are several strategies they could use, even without a “supermajority”

1. Leverage- If you do this, we won’t do that, etc. See the Tea Party

2. Executive Order

3. Bureaucracy-Money may be allocated by congress, but it’s at the department level that decides where money goes. They could simply squeeze Florida and maldistibute the resources   
 

4. State Level- When there were anti-LGBT laws, many governors got together and decided to restrict some commerce to those states. California in particular. They could do the same for Florida. 

Truth is, Dems may claim they don’t like what’s going on in Florida, but not enough to do anything about it that offends the “casual” racists and bigots they hope to secure votes from.  
 

While the republicans want to reverse time, Dems want to freeze time in place and put you in a perpetual hamster wheel. Even when Obama got EVERYTHING he wanted from voters, they still said “he can’t do anything that harms his re-election.”
 

 You cannot reverse time, or freeze it. Both are unnatural, and impossible. 

 

 

Edited November 4, 2023 by BlackDude

[BootmanLA]

3 minutes ago, BlackDude said:

While the republicans want to reverse time, Dems want to freeze time in place and put you in a perpetual hamster wheel. Even when Obama got EVERYTHING he wanted from voters, they still said “he can’t do anything that harms his re-election.”

I'm not sure when this magical time that you think Obama got "everything" he wanted from voters was. Please clarify.

When Obama took office in 2009, it was with a Senate that had 59 Democrats - one short of the number needed to overcome any filibuster. Mitch McConnell made it clear, even before inauguration, that the Republican minority would block anything and everything that Obama proposed - with the exception of a handful of bills related to recovering from the ongoing GOP-initiated Great Recession.

It took until July 7, 2009 for the legal challenges to the Minnesota election to be resolved, putting Al Franken in the Senate (giving the Democrats the ability to move legislation without Republican support). That lasted about three weeks, until Congress went on its customary August break, during which time Ted Kennedy died, leaving the Democrats with 59 votes again.

Kennedy's replacement, Scott Brown, was appointed and took office on September 24, 2009. The Democrats again had between then and February 4, 2010 - when Republican Scott Brown, elected in the special election to replace Kennedy, took over the seat. Given the regular flow of holiday breaks, etc., this second period of 60 Senators on the Democratic side actually involved only about 5 weeks of actual legislative activity, Combine that with the 3 weeks in July, and you're at roughly 2 months - TOTAL - when Obama and the Democrats held enough of a majority to pass anything.

That's the facts. Despite those headwinds, we got the stimulus bill out (which itself was crippled because some Democrats didn't want it to be as big as the president wanted) and the ACA - which also was limited because some Democrats insisted on gutting some major provisions.

The problem is not and was not the party. The problem is that certain members of the party don't support the party's aims because it's not advantageous for them, politically.