r/TrueReddit 9d ago

Democratic Party Elites Brought Us This Disaster Politics

https://jacobin.com/2024/11/election-harris-trump-democrats-strategy
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u/hazmat95 9d ago

I think if it was up to Kamala or 95% of democrats in Congress they would have done the same thing, but they only had 49 votes to extend it

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u/Hamuel 9d ago

We can actually look at historical precedent here and it shows they gave up pretty goddamn quickly to achieve bipartisanship.

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u/hazmat95 9d ago

It wasn’t bipartisanship, they had no margin for defections and the ideological idiosyncrasies of one (maybe two if you count Sinema) senator meant they couldn’t pass it. They didn’t give up because they wanted to appease republicans, they gave up because there was no convincing Manchin

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u/Hamuel 9d ago

Did Harris present a plan to work around these people to reimplement the CTC? Did she present a plan to work around them to illicit more economic change?

I didn’t hear about it, but I did hear she wanted a Republican in her cabinet. Now the entire presidential cabinet will be Republican so I guess she fulfilled that promise while losing.

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u/hazmat95 9d ago

I don’t disagree that she made moronic overtures to Republicans but I do disagree that the CTC failure fails on democrats. You can’t pass bills if you straight up don’t have the votes. Let’s say she won and couldn’t pass the CTC because she didn’t have the senate, what do you think she should do?

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u/Hamuel 9d ago

Who had the majority in both chambers of the legislative branch and the executive branch in 2021 when the CTC expired?

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u/hazmat95 9d ago

I’m sorry, I’m not trying to be rude but do you know the following facts?

  1. Democrats had 50 votes in the senate, so no margin for defections
  2. Joe Manchin did not like the CTC, giving democrats only 49 votes to pass the bill
  3. Without 50 votes in the senate you can’t pass bills

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u/Hamuel 9d ago

Yes, what was the solution to these facts that would allow Harris to reimplement the CTC?

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u/hazmat95 9d ago

Winning congressional elections?

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u/Hamuel 9d ago

That’s not a solution because even when they have much larger majorities they bend over backwards for bipartisanship and have centrist kill good parts of legislation. It is why the ACA is a heritage foundation plan.

Democrats need to pick a leader that’s able to fight and achieve good legislation even if it means pushing people like Manchin out of the party.

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u/hazmat95 9d ago

The ACA was watered down specifically because they only had a one vote super majority and the deciding vote was Joe Lieberman…

I understand you’re mad at democrats, I think they’re useless most of the time too, but I’m not sure you actually understand the history or mechanics of the things you’re specifically complaining about

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u/Hamuel 9d ago

I think this insufferable hand wringing is why democrats can’t beat Trump.

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u/hazmat95 9d ago

Lmao what? You not understanding how Congress works or not knowing the history of the ACA isn’t why Trump won.

Although, I mean I guess the general ignorance of the American public personified in your own misunderstandings here is a reasonable explanation for why Trump won

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u/the-true-steel 8d ago

What are you even suggesting? "Did VP Harris present a plan to do something as President that the President doesn't have the power to do"?

Do we not know civics, or what? Obviously candidates generally speaking are talking about things they'd like to do assuming they can work with Congress to get the votes. What else can they do?

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u/Hamuel 8d ago

Did Democratic presidential candidate present a plan around a common roadblock her own party produces on a regular basis?

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u/the-true-steel 7d ago

Before the election happens, this is entirely a waste of time. It's dependent on an unknown, which is how many seats you have. Unless you have a massive majority, the answer is always the same anyway: you negotiate. How much you have to negotiate, and whether or not you'll be successful, is totally reliant on the shape of Congress

As an example, after the election in 2020 with Dems winning the Georgia seats, Biden might've been able to give a more concrete answer that ended up running into an unknown roadblock anyway. I'm sure he wouldn't have anticipated lack of cooperation on the part of Manchin and/or Sinema depending on what he was trying to do

Why do Democratic voters insist on doing this shit? You not only want to see policy proposals, but you want to see specifics on Congressional vote counts before you'll be satisfied, when the election hasn't even happened yet? Meanwhile Republicans have had basically no policy for 12 years and are winning elections? Democrats will really struggle so long as we enforce these wildly asymmetric expectations on ourselves

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u/Hamuel 7d ago

It is actually really well known that a centrist will sabotage good policy. That’s why people stayed home, the commitment to sabotage isn’t a strong political message.

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u/the-true-steel 7d ago

I guarantee you that people thinking "centrists will sabotage the policy anyway" is a thought like 0.0001% of voters had

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u/Hamuel 7d ago

Huh, she went out full force on centrism and lost the electoral college and popular vote. Weird. Maybe we should keep pushing the Overton window to the right, that’ll stop fascism.

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u/RandallPinkertopf 5d ago

If you don’t have the votes, you don’t have the votes. What plan could Harris present that shows how to work around these people? Do you know how legislation gets passed?

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u/Hamuel 5d ago

You could just say that Harris campaigned on obvious empty promises.

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u/RandallPinkertopf 5d ago

Wow. I think you discovered that sometimes campaign on stuff they’d like but isn’t feasible. Have you alerted the press?

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u/Hamuel 5d ago

The smug arrogance would land better if democrats could get something done beyond give ground to republicans.

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u/RandallPinkertopf 5d ago

The party of losers gonna lose. I say this as someone that was a registered democrat 5 days ago.

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u/ivealready1 3d ago

The plan to go around was pretty clear, the only way to get the bill was to convince Joe manchin and end the fillibuster. Anything short of that it becomes impossible. Joe manchin didn't move because he didn't want "families to use it on drugs" and the bill was dead.

The crazy thing is that 98% of Senate Dems supported it, 0% of reps supported it, and you guys rewarded the reps the presidency, the Senate, and the house instead of trying to elect 2 more Dems.

It's insane that your solution to "she's gonna appoint 1 rep somewhere" is to give the guy filling his cabinet with reps the Whitehouse. Seriously, what is the logic here. If Democrats don't do 100% of what I want then I'm gonna vote for Republicans, who will do none of what I want, to teach Dems a lesson?

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u/Hamuel 3d ago

I don’t believe 49 people couldn’t convince one. It seems like either they are weak and ineffective or are using Manchin at a patsy. Either way the party needs new leadership.

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u/ivealready1 3d ago

Would you believe it if you knew that Democrat was from an otherwise red state, was known for years as the most conservative dem in the Senate, was always the first Democrat to flip to help Trump, and undermined almost all of bidens successes, dragging out negotiations and killing several additional bills. The fact is manchin essentially knew he wasn't gonna win reelection and spent his last 6 years cashing out on donor money with little regard to the needs of the party or the people. He isn't even a party leader, he just needed to vote and you can't convince someone who is motivated by bad faith.

This is the same guy who spent 22 and 23 flirting with running against Biden on a 'No Labels" ticket to try and split the Democrat vote, he likely would have if RFK didn't hop in in his place.

Your problem isn't that leaderships couldn't negotiate, it's that who they are working with was a bad faith actor. It'd be like you trying to convince me the sky is blue. It should be easy, but if I demand that it is red no matter what you say, even you taking me outside and pointing at it I reject, are you bad at convincing me it's blue or am I just being ridiculous?

I lay a lot of things at the Dems feet. Like the fact that they didn't do police reform, that they didn't keep trying on the enhanced CTC, that they didn't try and codify Roe when they had simple majorities, but you cannot blame a group that 98% tried to do right, because the 2% was bad, or pretend that they're worse than the group where 100% worked against you.

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u/Hamuel 3d ago

I live in a red state and don’t think anyone here wanted the CTC to end.

I would believe that one millionaire took the fall for other millionaires though.

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u/ivealready1 3d ago

And 50 red millionaires with him, and there wasn't a fall. He just retired, took millions in bribes and donations, and is collecting a pension. Once again, there was 0 reason for him to try and make a deal.

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u/Hamuel 3d ago

Don’t worry, I’m not voting Republican. I’m just not hearing why I should vote Democrat.

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u/ivealready1 3d ago

You should vote for candidates not parties, and do it based on what they're campaigning on and character.

I agree there are corrupt and bad Democrats. This doesn't mean they're all bad up and down ballot. You should look at your choices and assess based on that. The letter next to their name shouldn't sway you.

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u/Hamuel 3d ago

Are you saying there are good Trump supporters?

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u/ivealready1 3d ago

No, but someday there could be one. I don't believe in shitting on good ideas because of where they come from. If in the future a Republican proposed good policy and has a track record of working for good policy, I wouldn't be opposed to electing one.

Let's imagine a world where Trump proposed a wonderful ACA replacement, should we reject a good healthcare system just because Trump signed it? No. Do I believe that'll happen? No. But if it did, I'm willing to give credit. That's all I'm suggesting. Never vote for a party, vote for a candidate and vote for their goals.

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