politics
Welcome to the discussion of US Politics!
Rules:
- Post only links to articles, Title must fairly describe link contents. If your title differs from the site’s, it should only be to add context or be more descriptive. Do not post entire articles in the body or in the comments.
Links must be to the original source, not an aggregator like Google Amp, MSN, or Yahoo.
Example:
- Articles must be relevant to politics. Links must be to quality and original content. Articles should be worth reading. Clickbait, stub articles, and rehosted or stolen content are not allowed. Check your source for Reliability and Bias here.
- Be civil, No violations of TOS. It’s OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It’s NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.
- No memes, trolling, or low-effort comments. Reposts, misinformation, off-topic, trolling, or offensive. Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.
- Vote based on comment quality, not agreement. This community aims to foster discussion; please reward people for putting effort into articulating their viewpoint, even if you disagree with it.
- No hate speech, slurs, celebrating death, advocating violence, or abusive language. This will result in a ban. Usernames containing racist, or inappropriate slurs will be banned without warning
We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.
All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.
That's all the rules!
Civic Links
• Congressional Awards Program
• Library of Congress Legislative Resources
• U.S. House of Representatives
Partnered Communities:
• News
view the rest of the comments
Well you suggest that them lacking higher education and privilege, and being too busy with a family keeps them from seeing the same thruth that you do: that Trump's policies are actually harmful for them. So when you ask "what have the dems done to earn their vote?", you yourself know the answer. Do you celebrate them voting against their own interests because they're less educated?
Lol, that's your question after literally quoting me saying "I’m blaming Trump voters for being idiots" ?
They have not one but many levers to pull, and they chose the one that's going to hurt them (and many others) the most. It's like when Waze tells you you're going to be late for your appointment you do a 180 and drive your car against traffic honking because 'the rational option' wasn't going to get you there on time. Sorry for not wanting to be a passenger in that car, and calling the driver an idiot
Huh? I did no such thing. I merely hinted at the electoral split between people with and without higher education. It's quite clear that more education is strongly correlated with a tendency to vote Democrat. I understand why someone who did not go to college would not necessarily understand how tariffs will raise prices or how trickle down economics has never had empirical success. I made no claim about people of color and their education level. I was simply discussing the measured demographic numbers around who voted for whom.
I watch the news every day and understand that when I worked 60 hours a week making minimum wage, that wasn't really a priority or something I had time for. If I had kids in addition to multiple jobs, it would be incredibly difficult to stay informed about economic and social policies, especially when there are powerful interests pushing disinformation to my tv and phone.
I don't know what the Dems have done for them-- it's a genuine question. They haven't raised the minimum wage, secured women's bodily autonomy with legislation, passed the equal rights amendment, or made any progress on redlining and historical segregation patterns that categocially lead to less wealth generation for non white families in the 2nd half of the 20th century. They didn't prosecute anyone after the 2009 crisis and have adopted the Republican border, China, and hawkish military policies wholesale since 2016.
They haven't even passed drug policy reform legislation -- an issue which has overwhelming bipartisan support nationally. However, I do know that the Dems pushed the 90s crime bill that disproportionately criminalized black men and instituted racialized penalties for drugs that were more common in black communities than white ones.
I guess we can talk about the expanded childhood tax credit, but that was a COVID era law signed into law by Trump, which passed with bipartisan support, so it's kinda weird to credit that to the Dems. Or Obamacare, which came out of the Massachusetts program proposed by the heritage foundation and implemented by Mitt Romney, so it's at least weird to credit that as a liberal policy. It was written by the same people who put Brett Kavanaugh on the supreme court.
Since we're on the topic of Huckabee more generally, while governor of Arkansas, Mike Huckabee pushed for socialized medicine for children in the state. That doesn't make him a good person, but certainly suggests that healthcare/childhood poverty concerns are not in the exclusive domain of the Democrats.
And do you think it's a good thing that this lack of understanding motivates them to go 'pull that lever', cancelling out your own vote?
And do you feel like any of those things you want are more likely to happen with more people voting for the GOP? Is the fastest way to get there to vote for politicians that viciously oppose these measures? Do you think other countries magically got these things passed by voting against them?
No. Other countries got there with protests and organizing the working class and building widespread solidarity. Those rights were earned with blood, not by electing the lesser of two evils.
And, yes, I do think direct action and specific, localized outreach would be the way to build up that kind of movement. Showing up one day every 4 years while the Dems move further right every time is certainly not going to work anymore than voting for the republicans they're trying to emulate.
Unionize your workplace or set up a tenant's union. Establish actual resistance and build up trust with these disaffected communities. Steal food from Walmart and give it to homeless people. Block an ICE detention vehicle or surround an eviction with people from the neighborhood. Power has never been given up willingly and no working class movement has ever succeeded without being a categorical threat to capital. The Democratic party is not that and will never be.
Stop doubling down on polarized partisan poliltics and create instances for solidarity and mutual education. That might actually work.
Most other countries got there by voting people into power that wrote and voted these principles into law. Voted for people that improved their democratic processes.
If you think it doesn't matter that you voted for the most capitalist candidate as long as you do a little Robin Hood shit on the side, you've seen too many movies and not enough history imo
Nah. monarchies were largely ended by the Napoleonic wars and world war 1. It's ahistorical to say Democracy was earned through electoralism. It also just makes no sense.
The Spanish revolution was definitely a bloody conflict. So was the foundation of Yugoslavia and it's NATO backed dissolution. So was Finnish independence from Russia. Or Ukrainian. Or Polish. Or Estonian or Latvian.
Switzerland was founded by war too. Germany's democracy was imposed by an occupying force-- as was Japan's.
France murdered their entire royal family. British India faced a decades long insurgency and worker strikes. The Magna Carta was signed after the king was fucking kidnapped.
America's founding myth is centered on a symbolic action to destroy private property (the Boston tea party).
The only country (that I can think of) that voted for it's democracy was Canada and that was only after a genocide of the indigenous population and centuries of colonial rule.
I'm not talking about becoming a democracy, I'm talking about *improving *and modernizing their democracies. As well as, well, voting for and enacting all the policy examples you listed
no, no. you must mean how school lunch exists because of electoral poltics and not because the original program was started by the black Panthers.
Or did you mean when US military service members occupied DC to get the GI Bill?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bonus_Army?wprov=sfla1
ah ok. In that case, I'll point you to the bombing of a police vehicle that led to the 40 hour work week and an international holiday for workers.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haymarket_affair?wprov=sfla1
And do you think it was the bombers that wrote this into law, or elected politicians?
edit: and why did other countries manage to get it into law a lot faster than the US?
Also, I need a source about other countries enacting this before the US. In the 1880s, there wasn't exactly a plethora of Democratic governments anywhere. Germany was a brand new idea and so was Italy. France encompassed parts of Spain and Sweden, which was itself an empire with a military dictator. The UK is still a monarchy with colonies that want to secede (namely Jamaica) and the Netherlands is too. Swedish people didn't have surnames yet--they adopted the last name of their employer.
Eastern Europe had serfdom and antisemitic laws were the norm.
I would totally believe the UK got it first, but not without a mass mobilization of working class people.
Seriously, what are you talking about?
Well, the US only enacted it in 1937
So I only have basically all of Europe off the top of my head
Right. So it was a 50 year long struggle led by the working class and groups like the Wobblies and your solution is to vote harder?
To what extent can we credit colonial nations like Portugal and the UK and the Netherlands for extending this right exclusively to white people with political capital?
Is it really a "pass" if the comfort of the homeland was predicated on slavery and/or empire elsewhere?
Not 'harder'. Smarter, better and more consistently.
And yeah the US is the only country that never meddled in or abused other countries for economic gain, or benefitted from slavery in any way, so that's the only one in the world where workers' rights really count. Right
I'm not saying that at all. I'm just saying that crediting the the UK for progressive politics while they enslaved half the world is a weird take.
I would make the exact same claim about the US, considering that neo-slavery (indentured servitude/whites only towns) wasn't abolished until after world war 2.
In fact, one of the most violent events in US history was a white mob that murdered an entire town of black people for trying to unionize.
Those white folks sure understood the power of working class solidarity and it's fundamental threat to capital.
That's also probably why MLKJ was assassinated during the poor people's campaign that sought to unite the grievances of the civil rights movement with the concerns of poor whites.
You sound more concerned about the extremely racist history of the US than how many other nations were able to cement many a workers' right in their legislation through voting for the right policies
You have failed to list a single example of legislative change that didn't have the backing of a mass mobilization and credible threats to capital. I have presented several instances that support the claim that legislative change is dependent on working class organization.
Lots of legislative changes are enacted without mass mobilization, bomb attacks, 'threats to capital'
You can study the evolution of paternal and maternal leave in Sweden as a nice example. The Swedes didn't have to bomb any Ikeas - they just consistently voted for the right politicians.
You mean the country with basically universal union membership and literally 0 legislation around minimum wage?
The one where worker's rights are guaranteed by union negotiations and the threat of a strike rather than national legislation?
I see you want to change the subject lol
Do you think Sweden has a problem with low wages?
I didn't change the subject. I'm saying those right were earned by unions and not gifted by politicians.
As somebody who lives and works in Sweden with a PhD in computer science, I had more disposable income when I washed dishes in NYC. So, yeah, I would say wages are pretty low.
Do you think there are a lot of working poor in Sweden?
https://web.archive.org/web/20160812025917/http://www.iariw.org/papers/2014/GustafssonPaper.pdf
I think the law is irrelevant without a mass movement. You simply won't get the law without the mass movement.
You can't get from where we are to working class liberation without passing through working class struggle.
Sure. Mass movement, politicians, pen, paper, law
Leave one of those out and it probably won't work
Maybe this coal miners strike that was an armed uprising?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Blair_Mountain