Cont: The Biden Presidency (3)

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wareyin said:
How, exactly, should the Democrats be selling electric cars and renewable energy, though? They've for sure been pushing the idea that we need to move to them, but other than Biden and Stacey Abrams hawking used Nissan Leafs how much more can they do?

Fossil fuels are the current standard. Republicans don't have to sell anyone on them, all they have to do is stand in the way of change. Sure, the emptyG's and Montana Rep Parties are going to grandstand about how gas guzzlers are the American Way, but the Dems are already saying the alternative about BEVs and renewable energy.

Any tax incentive for electric cars (or bicycles) is going to run up against the same "oh, the US government can't afford to give away money" or "how dare you use government money to fund private businesses", and never mind the hypocrisy about us already doing that for the oil companies.
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My point isn’t that Dems aren't pushing for the right things. (Although I disagree with some.) It's how they are selling their policy initiatives. Leading with solving global warming is really poor messaging. I'm saying they need to argue that the Dems are working to free Americans from the price gouging fossil fuel companies. Whereas the Republicans don't care that it costs you $400 a month to commute to your job.
 
acbytesla said:
My point isn’t that Dems aren't pushing for the right things. (Although I disagree with some.) It's how they are selling their policy initiatives. Leading with solving global warming is really poor messaging. I'm saying they need to argue that the Dems are working to free Americans from the price gouging fossil fuel companies. Whereas the Republicans don't care that it costs you $400 a month to commute to your job.
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Biden has pointed out price gouging and record oil company profits pretty regularly. The House Energy Committee did so too.
 
acbytesla said:
My point isn’t that Dems aren't pushing for the right things. (Although I disagree with some.) It's how they are selling their policy initiatives. Leading with solving global warming is really poor messaging. I'm saying they need to argue that the Dems are working to free Americans from the price gouging fossil fuel companies. Whereas the Republicans don't care that it costs you $400 a month to commute to your job.
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The DNC needs to purge their political consultants and hire a Madison Avenue advertising firm. Dems have the better product, why do we insist on burying that under policy jargon?
 
Random said:
The DNC needs to purge their political consultants and hire a Madison Avenue advertising firm. Dems have the better product, why do we insist on burying that under policy jargon?
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I can't help but to remember James Caraville's slogan. It's the economy stupid. Talking about other issues is almost a waste of air.
 
Talking about basic economics would help. Actually doing anything positive about it would help more. But those who won't do the latter must avoid the former in order to avoid drawing attention to the fact that they won't do the latter.
 
acbytesla said:
I can't help but to remember James Caraville's slogan. It's the economy stupid. Talking about other issues is almost a waste of air.
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Its worse than that. We can make a good argument on Social Policy stuff. LBGTQ2+ issues, abortion, gun control, police oversight, Dems are on the popular side on a lot of the culture war stuff, but the DNC keeps playing defense in some misguided effort not to offend people who will never vote Democrat.
 
Random said:
Its worse than that. We can make a good argument on Social Policy stuff. LBGTQ2+ issues, abortion, gun control, police oversight, Dems are on the popular side on a lot of the culture war stuff, but the DNC keeps playing defense in some misguided effort not to offend people who will never vote Democrat.
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That too. :thumbsup:
 
bruto said:
It seems worthwhile to note that in 2020, Sanders was vying for the nomination, but he did not lose the election for Biden. 2016 might be open to argument, but nobody gave us Trump in 2020.
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Even for 2016 any "Sanders threw the election for Trump" argument is one that will have been made in bad faith, as Hilary Clinton did far more to sabotage her own campaign than Bernie did.
 
Random said:
The DNC needs to purge their political consultants and hire a Madison Avenue advertising firm. Dems have the better product, why do we insist on burying that under policy jargon?
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A big part of the problem is too many within the leadership of the party don't believe what they are trying to sell. Too much of the leadership have been bought and sold by big oil and other malignant actors within the corporatocracy.
 
Gulliver Foyle said:
A big part of the problem is too many within the leadership of the party don't believe what they are trying to sell. Too much of the leadership have been bought and sold by big oil and other malignant actors within the corporatocracy.
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You're correct about their sincerity, but I think they're just old. They've been there a long time. A long, long, long time. Long enough to see the political spectrum realign more explicitly along social issues and their staunchly left-wing views become centrist, maybe even moderately right of center, and they aren't sure when that happened or how it happened but they don't like it and they're afraid of it continuing to happen.

They might be on the popular side of the culture war stuff - "LBGTQ2+ issues, abortion, gun control, police oversight" - but that doesn't mean it's their personal view. You don't have to go all that far back to find statements from now-Dem leadership condemning gay marriage, being tough on crime, pro-life, etc. Most managed to pivot to some degree or other to keep up with the reality of the situation, but there's enough holdouts and lip-service that the heart of the party isn't really in it and no one wants to push it hard enough to risk a schism. So Manchin says "no" on everything and everyone just shrugs, because if it weren't him it'd be one of the other six or seven blue dog dinosaurs obstructing the party that outgrew them.
 
Gulliver Foyle said:
A big part of the problem is too many within the leadership of the party don't believe what they are trying to sell. Too much of the leadership have been bought and sold by big oil and other malignant actors within the corporatocracy.
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...to such an extent that they'd rather "lose" elections to the other party than give up on the corporatist principles that unite them with the other party anyway. That's why they fight their own voter base harder than they'd ever even think of fighting the other party, and keep insisting on the least-electable candidates they can find while proclaiming that those are the most (or only) "electable" ones. Just in this pre-primary alone, they've already tried to re-order the state primaries in their corporatist Chosen One's favor, gotten their media cronies to pretend the other candidates don't exist, cancelled any primary debates, and had TikTok cronies ban accounts that favored another candidate, all while knowing perfectly well that the people don't want their corporatist Chosen One back... because the party is just soooo "democratic". :rolleyes:
 
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Democrats working on a
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discharge_petition
for debt ceiling. Story is behind paywall

someone gave me this link
https://archive.ph/vmyt7
Democrats say the beauty of the Mr. DeSaulnier’s bill — which Republicans have ignored — is that it long ago passed the threshold of being held in committee for at least 30 days, the minimum length of time to initiate a discharge petition to force action on legislation.
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The beauty of the bill is that it admits some form of parliamentary gamesmanship that not all bills admit?

I confess that's a rather disappointing standard of beauty. For me, a bill is beautiful when it results in some great good thing. "The rules let us force this through over the objections of our opponents" seems pretty ugly, to me.
 
theprestige said:
..."The rules let us force this through over the objections of our opponents" seems pretty ugly, to me.
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:id:

It's even more ugly when the minority uses some kind of tactic against the majority. It feels very ugly when McConnell pulls one sleazy tactic after another. That bastard would love for Senator Feinstein to resign because he can refuse to let another Democrat be approved for the Judiciary Committee. That leaves him with a way to block any nominee from getting out of committee to a floor vote. That means judicial appointees need 60 votes and not 50 + Harris. IOW no more Biden nominees to the federal bench.

The GOP are the kings of the ugliest sleaze.

I keep wondering why the Democrats never do it.

As for the GOP holding that slim majority in the House, yeah right with all the gerrymandering surely they really are the majority party.:rolleyes:
 
Gulliver Foyle said:
Even for 2016 any "Sanders threw the election for Trump" argument is one that will have been made in bad faith, as Hilary Clinton did far more to sabotage her own campaign than Bernie did.
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I don't think the Sanders voters styaing home cost Hilary the election, ubt it was still stupid and still did not help matter.
Reminded me of the German leftists who in 1932 did not vote for the SD's instate of the Nazis because th SD's were not far enough to the left.
 
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Gulliver Foyle said:
A big part of the problem is too many within the leadership of the party don't believe what they are trying to sell. Too much of the leadership have been bought and sold by big oil and other malignant actors within the corporatocracy.
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Don't tell me, Workers control the means of production will fix everything....
 
Politicians confused about "stuff" they do in Washington. Even McConnell forgets it costs.

Democrats think Biden would have a better chance of getting McConnell to support a clean debt ceiling increase, or maybe a bill more palatable than the legislation the House narrowly passed last week to raise the debt limit in exchange for $4.8 trillion in spending cuts.

“The president and Sen. McConnell have a long working relationship,” Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) said.

McConnell voted for the $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure package and the Chips and Science Act, a $280 investment in domestic semiconductor manufacturing and scientific research, two major Biden administration achievements.

McConnell also negotiated a deal with Biden when he was vice president to extend the expiring Bush tax cuts after the 2010 midterm election, a deal to raise the debt limit in August of 2011 and another deal to avoid the fiscal cliff at the end of 2012.
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https://thehill.com/homenews/senate...ck-mcconnell-into-the-vortex-on-debt-ceiling/
 
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