Current Affairs General US politics (ie, not POTUS related)

[Ruairi77]

Why would people expect McAuliffe and his ilk to do anything different? The top of the party is full of serial failures.

yea, the more I think about it, the more this rings true.
Not sure how the Dems expected a moderate white male Clintonian DC insider to beat out a moderate white male republican in Virginia while the Dems had power. It seems like all the GOP had to do was scare a few white moms about education to tip the scales.
Interesting fact. The governorship of Virginia has switched to the opposition party in every presidents first term since Carter.
Now watch the moderates waste time and energy finding ways to blame progressives for this failure while being sympathetic to Manchin and Sinema.

 

[Pittsburgh Footy]

Like I say we are so far off the original point that there is no reason to backtrack now and risk just repeating ourselves.

Just leave it there as there isn't an impasse or middle ground.

You haven't answered one question about CRT, mate

Even at the beginning

 

[Pittsburgh Footy]

yea, the more I think about it, the more this rings true.
Not sure how the Dems expected a moderate white male Clintonian DC insider to beat out a moderate white male republican in Virginia while the Dems had power. It seems like all the GOP had to do was scare a few white moms about education to tip the scales.
Interesting fact. The governorship of Virginia has switched to the opposition party in every presidents first term since Carter.
Now watch the moderates waste time and energy finding ways to blame progressives for this failure while being sympathetic to Manchin and Sinema.

Which is what they did.

 

[Ruairi77]

Ok here is an example, the slave trade. A standard part of crt.

Do you now teach white people evil version of events. Or do you teach , btw both races were compliant in the slave trade?

Two different perspectives on the same very important event.

only one race was the victim of slavery. Black people.
So you teach how society systematically mistreated black people
The southern states (colonies) joined the revolution in order to preserve their right to own black people
- slavery
- Jim Crow laws
- red lining
- the civil rights movement
- the war on drugs
This country, since it's founding has systematically and intentionally oppressed black people. It is endemic and pervasive in every aspect of society.

A 2015 study found the median net worth for white households in Greater Boston was a quarter million dollars. For Black families, it was just $8.

So you teach everybody that the black race has been treated unfairly by white society since the founding of the country, it will be tough, hard truths will have to be learned, but just like German kids learning about the holocaust, its the only way we, as a country, can move forward.

 

[Ghost Rider]

only one race was the victim of slavery. Black people.
So you teach how society systematically mistreated black people
The southern states (colonies) joined the revolution in order to preserve their right to own black people
- slavery
- Jim Crow laws
- red lining
- the civil rights movement
- the war on drugs
This country, since it's founding has systematically and intentionally oppressed black people. It is endemic and pervasive in every aspect of society.

A 2015 study found the median net worth for white households in Greater Boston was a quarter million dollars. For Black families, it was just $8.

So you teach everybody that the black race has been treated unfairly by white society since the founding of the country, it will be tough, hard truths will have to be learned, but just like German kids learning about the holocaust, its the only way we, as a country, can move forward.

They aren't the only race to experience slavery but for on topic yes they were.

Their original slavers were their own people. That is just as important as what came afterwards. To fill the whole story in. Otherwise it does sound like white westerners just took them out of their beds and shipped them off.

Everything that came after slavery , I e where the good chunk of crt comes into it, everything you say is true. I don't doubt any of that. Clearly it still exists today even from an outside perspective , you could feel the anger last summer in those images.

It's horrible that so much of American history is deep routed in racism, quite scary actually. Even below the main points you can probably find it. Same as in the UK, feels half of Liverpool city centre is slave trade related to the minor details of road and street names.

 

[Ruairi77]

They aren't the only race to experience slavery but for on topic yes they were.

Their original slavers were their own people.

The early slaves were Native Americans and tribes from the Caribbean. The likes of the Irish were indentured Servants.
So black and brown people were slaves.

The Slavers in America were White.

 

[Martin Alvito]

yea, the more I think about it, the more this rings true.
Not sure how the Dems expected a moderate white male Clintonian DC insider to beat out a moderate white male republican in Virginia while the Dems had power. It seems like all the GOP had to do was scare a few white moms about education to tip the scales.
Interesting fact. The governorship of Virginia has switched to the opposition party in every presidents first term since Carter.
Now watch the moderates waste time and energy finding ways to blame progressives for this failure while being sympathetic to Manchin and Sinema.

The reality is that the votes for your progressive agenda just are not there. It's possible that they would be, if the Senate and Electoral College did not exist in their present forms and were proportionately representative by population instead, but I doubt it. You can't accomplish much of that agenda without getting to 60 votes in the Senate. You could dismantle the legislative filibuster, but that means the other side tearing down whatever you build the next time they get unified control.

 

[Ruairi77]

The reality is that the votes for your progressive agenda just are not there. It's possible that they would be, if the Senate and Electoral College did not exist in their present forms and were proportionately representative by population instead, but I doubt it. You can't accomplish much of that agenda without getting to 60 votes in the Senate. You could dismantle the legislative filibuster, but that means the other side tearing down whatever you build the next time they get unified control.

This was a state election, not federal.
And while running a progressive might not have worked for Virginia, they could have looked for a fresh new candidate. Someone who might appeal to more voters. McAuliff wasn't that.
Democrats have to realize that Biden did really well because people wanted a safe candidate to oust Trump. People were voting against Trump, not for Biden but this won't work against Republicans who are more compassionate and less, well, nuts.

 

[TheFinnFan]

Virginia oh yes!

 

[Pittsburgh Footy]

This was a state election, not federal.
And while running a progressive might not have worked for Virginia, they could have looked for a fresh new candidate. Someone who might appeal to more voters. McAuliff wasn't that.
Democrats have to realize that Biden did really well because people wanted a safe candidate to oust Trump. People were voting against Trump, not for Biden but this won't work against Republicans who are more compassionate and less, well, nuts.

I agree, to a degree.

McAuliffe was more a Hillary type candidate and didn't "excite the base".

But this election did show that playing fear tactics politics works on, to use your words, even the "less nuts" moderates that lean conservative. Which is troubling - people have such short memories, considering the monumental train wreck of the last five years from republican politicians

 

[Martin Alvito]

This was a state election, not federal.
And while running a progressive might not have worked for Virginia, they could have looked for a fresh new candidate. Someone who might appeal to more voters. McAuliff wasn't that.
Democrats have to realize that Biden did really well because people wanted a safe candidate to oust Trump. People were voting against Trump, not for Biden but this won't work against Republicans who are more compassionate and less, well, nuts.

You framed the election in terms of the national political climate by bringing up Sinema and Manchin. That is also what pundits have spent the post-mortem doing, as it's hard to explain the apparent result in New Jersey otherwise. If Murphy badly lags his favorables at the ballot box, as appears to have happened, some factor outside his control must be causal. It's also hard to explain the drubbing the Democrats took in down-ballot elections any other way.

I've already argued here that McAuliffe is a bad candidate. That said, the reality is that experienced political operatives with name recognition are more able to attract the donors necessary to signal viability. Also, losing elections often ends political careers. Unless a rising star has already emerged and been identified by the media, it's unlikely that a career politician will stake that career sledding uphill in a primary against an 800-pound gorilla of name recognition like a former governor with deep Clinton ties and a fairly clean record.

 

[Ruairi77]

I agree, to a degree.

McAuliffe was more a Hillary type candidate and didn't "excite the base".

But this election did show that playing fear tactics politics works on, to use your words, even the "less nuts" moderates that lean conservative. Which is troubling - people have such short memories, considering the monumental train wreck of the last five years from republican politicians

yea, I agree, there definitely seems to be a problem with how to combat politics of fear, especially considering CRT is not on the Virginia curriculum.
I don't know what the answer is, there'll always be far right media spewing fear topics. It sells ads.

 

[Ruairi77]

You framed the election in terms of the national political climate by bringing up Sinema and Manchin. That is also what pundits have spent the post-mortem doing, as it's hard to explain the apparent result in New Jersey otherwise. If Murphy badly lags his favorables at the ballot box, as appears to have happened, some factor outside his control must be causal. It's also hard to explain the drubbing the Democrats took in down-ballot elections any other way.

I've already argued here that McAuliffe is a bad candidate. That said, the reality is that experienced political operatives with name recognition are more able to attract the donors necessary to signal viability. Also, losing elections often ends political careers. Unless a rising star has already emerged and been identified by the media, it's unlikely that a career politician will stake that career sledding uphill in a primary against an 800-pound gorilla of name recognition like a former governor with deep Clinton ties and a fairly clean record.

I just think in 2021, running a former governor with deep Clinton ties was a bad idea.

 

[RAFUH]

It is all going to get very bad before there's a chance of it turning around.

 

[Martin Alvito]

I agree, to a degree.

McAuliffe was more a Hillary type candidate and didn't "excite the base".

But this election did show that playing fear tactics politics works on, to use your words, even the "less nuts" moderates that lean conservative. Which is troubling - people have such short memories, considering the monumental train wreck of the last five years from republican politicians

It has been conclusively shown that this is how public opinion works. Whatever is top of mind influences the answers people will give pollsters on a fairly wide variety of topics, even though their underlying political attitudes remain fairly consistent.

Knowing that, much of politics today has become a game of trying to influence what people have top of mind come Election Day (or whenever they mail/early vote).