Opinion For the lefties out there, what issue would you sacrifice?

[koquerelle]

Can't sacrifice something that is mostly a figment of the right's imagination.

I'm a leftist and you have to be pretty fucking stupid to say "a figment of the right's imagination"

 

[IGIT]

Gun control seems like the obvious answer. It's not even an issue that needs to be abandoned or conceded on, it just needs rebranding to "illegal firearms" and result in a crackdown on inner city gangs and further policing of the southern border to prevent the arms trade happening there.

I imagine you could get quite a lot of legit gun owners onside if they concentrate on law and order and southern border security.

hiya jimbob27,

the TS poses a kind of interesting question, though.

while the GOP electorate might want expanded gun rights, i get the feeling that their representatives in congress really don't give a shit about the issue, lol.

gun rights did not expand in Mr. Trump's first term, when he had both houses of congress. as a matter of fact, the POTUS made some truly controversial remarks supporting confiscating firearms and favored ignoring due process - and the GOP still lined up behind him.

what the Republicans in congress want is more tax cuts for the nation's top earners. the GOP who occupy seats in Capital Hill might not care if the Democrats abandon gun control.

- IGIT

 

[moosaev]

You might be right. Antifa usually sticks to destroying Democrat cities so right wingers probably wouldn't run into them. It's like watching Frankenstein getting destroyed by his own creation.

Huh?

 

[Kandyland]

I'm a leftist and you have to be pretty fucking stupid to say "a figment of the right's imagination"

@moosaev is kind of a terrible poster, and it's all because he's so partisan it clouds his common sense and decency.

 

[moosaev]

I'm a leftist and you have to be pretty fucking stupid to say "a figment of the right's imagination"

I said “mostly”. Which is true. Even the FBI director said Antifa isn’t an organization, it’s an idea. The notion that antifa is some major force in the Dem party or the left is a fairytale.

 

[Grenz]

Now that it looks like it's over, I think it's time the American Left dissociate itself clearly from its extreme elements. I get that it was strategic not to do so. Nobody wanted to a chance on alienating a segment of voters. But it's time to call a spade a spade:

- ANTIFA isn't an organized & centralized terrorist cell, it's an idea or a philosophy. That doesn't change the fact it's retarded. Mass protests during a pandemic, no official stated goal (Occupy says hi), violence and then of course that absolute disaster that was CHAZ (or whatever they ended up calling it). Nobody wants what you want (if these people even realize what they want, which I highly doubt), so please fuck off.

- BLM: Yep, there's no denying that racism is alive and well in America, but this is just retarded. No police presence in high crime neighbourhoods? Yea...what could go wrong (see Chaz). More importantly, own up to the numbers. Some police killings are unjustified. Some. However, more are actually justified. If you pull a gun on a cop, you're gonna get shot. We all accept this. It's not some form of institutional racism, it's the reality of law enforcement. And as long as we all agree we're not living in a lawless society, there's going to be cops. To quote Sam Harris from a few years ago: "Some people need to learn how to be arrested without getting killed"

- Gender and sex are two different things. A person who went through puberty as a male cannot compete against females. No amount of HRT is going to erase the advantage of wider and thicker bone structure and muscle tendons. Also, stop fucking playing dumb with the whole "It's not even proven that testosterone provides a performance advantage." Yes, it fucking has. Ask literally any person who's ever taken steroids and then ask yourself why testosterone derived steroids (and testosterone) is banned from literally every single sporting event. Equal rights, yea man, but there's a limit. Sex is sex, and gender is gender. We don't discriminate based on gender, but we discriminate based on sex. We always have, not because it's archaic, but because it's blatantly obvious it makes sense.

 

[TsuFred]

Can't sacrifice something that is mostly a figment of the right's imagination.

Are you fucking kidding me. Now antifa is a "figment of the rights imagination". WOW how biased can you be.

 

[moosaev]

hiya jimbob27,

the TS poses a kind of interesting question, though.

while the GOP electorate might want expanded gun rights, i get the feeling that their representatives in congress really don't give a shit about the issue, lol.

gun rights did not expand in Mr. Trump's first term, when he had both houses of congress. as a matter of fact, the POTUS made some truly controversial remarks supporting confiscating firearms and favored ignoring due process - and the GOP still lined up behind him.

what the Republicans in congress want is more tax cuts for the nation's top earners. the GOP who occupy seats in Capital Hill might not care if the Democrats abandon gun control.

- IGIT

The strategy around abandoning gun rights is not to win over GOP reps, it’s to peel off single issue voters that are currently voting GOP only because of guns.

 

[Gutter Chris]

With how divided our country is, it's pretty clear that the left won't get everything we want, practically speaking if you have to abandon any single issue to peel off more voters to gain the edge, what would you sacrifice?

Personally, I think we need to ditch gun control as an issue. The juice isn't worth the squeeze. Focus on healthcare and financially shoring up the poor/middle class, and reforming the justice system and policing. The 2nd amendment is there to stay, all we're doing with anti-gun rants is pissing a lot of people off, there is no viable path to materially change this.

I've been saying this for a while. It doesn't earn the democrats a god damn thing but it makes them toxic as hell in the middle of the country. Im praying to God that Biden doesn't go hard on guns and get the democrats voted right back out again before they can clean up another republican mess.

I don't think it would hurt to scoot a little bit to the right on immigration issues either. I'm not saying be retarded about it like republicans but at least take it seriously

 

[nostradumbass]

It’s pretty clear now that black folks are the reason Trump lost this election (Philly, Atlanta, Detroit, and Milwaukee all made the difference). Throwing BLM under the bus would be the single dumbest thing you could do politically if you want healthcare to be expanded. The fact that people are still taking black votes for granted is mind boggling. Without BLM Trump is still President, you can bank on that.

Trump got a higher share of the black vote than any republican in over 60 years by quite a bit, so that is clearly not true. The only demographic group with whom he got a lower share than 2016 is white males, so white males would be the ones responsible.

 

[IGIT]

The strategy around abandoning gun rights is not to win over GOP reps, it’s to peel off single issue voters that are currently voting GOP only because of guns.

hi mooseav,

sure, that sounds fine. I was more focused on getting legislation passed over the next two years.

- IGIT

 

[moosaev]

Now that it looks like it's over, I think it's time the American Left dissociate itself clearly from its extreme elements. I get that it was strategic not to do so. Nobody wanted to a chance on alienating a segment of voters. But it's time to call a spade a spade:

- ANTIFA isn't an organized & centralized terrorist cell, it's an idea or a philosophy. That doesn't change the fact it's retarded. Mass protests during a pandemic, no official stated goal (Occupy says hi), violence and then of course that absolute disaster that was CHAZ (or whatever they ended up calling it). Nobody wants what you want (if these people even realize what they want, which I highly doubt), so please fuck off.

- BLM: Yep, there's no denying that racism is alive and well in America, but this is just retarded. No police presence in high crime neighbourhoods? Yea...what could go wrong (see Chaz). More importantly, own up to the numbers. Some police killings are unjustified. Some. However, more are actually justified. If you pull a gun on a cop, you're gonna get shot. We all accept this. It's not some form of institutional racism, it's the reality of law enforcement. And as long as we all agree we're not living in a lawless society, there's going to be cops. To quote Sam Harris from a few years ago: "Some people need to learn how to be arrested without getting killed"

- Gender and sex are two different things. A person who went through puberty as a male cannot compete against females. No amount of HRT is going to erase the advantage of wider and thicker bone structure and muscle tendons. Also, stop fucking playing dumb with the whole "It's not even proven that testosterone provides a performance advantage." Yes, it fucking has. Ask literally any person who's ever taken steroids and then ask yourself why testosterone derived steroids (and testosterone) is banned from literally every single sporting event. Equal rights, yea man, but there's a limit. Sex is sex, and gender is gender. We don't discriminate based on gender, but we discriminate based on sex. We always have, not because it's archaic, but because it's blatantly obvious it makes sense.

Have you been paying attention to this election? If it weren’t for BLM Biden would’ve lost Michigan, Wisconsin and Georgia. It’s literally the black voters that BLM activists registered in Atlanta, Milwaukee and Philly that tipped the edge to Biden. It would be incredibly stupid to throw them under the bus. Honestly it’s this impulse that shoots Dems in the foot every election cycle, we’re the only ones that run away from our base.

 

[moosaev]

Trump got a higher share of the black vote than any republican in over 60 years by quite a bit, so that is clearly not true. The only demographic group with whom he got a lower share than 2016 is white males, so white males would be the ones responsible.

That has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that Dems (thanks to BLM activists) turned out historic levels of black voters in the cities. And unlike Trump, Biden’s black voters made the difference between winning and losing.

 

[IGIT]

I've been saying this for a while. It doesn't earn the democrats a god damn thing but it makes them toxic as hell in the middle of the country. Im praying to God that Biden doesn't go hard on guns and get the democrats voted right back out again before they can clean up another republican mess.

I don't think it would hurt to scoot a little bit to the right on immigration issues either. I'm not saying be retarded about it like republicans but at least take it seriously

‘hey there Gutter Chris,

I thought that the point of the thread was to figure out what Democrats could concede to the Republicans in Congress, to get legislation moving.

If the real focus of this thread is to figure out how Democrats should appeal to Republican voters, I think the Democrats have already done it. I mean, they nominated Joe Biden for the presidency. To me, that is scooting way to the right if you consider that the alternative was Bernie Sanders.

- IGIT

 

[Grenz]

Have you been paying attention to this election? If it weren’t for BLM Biden would’ve lost Michigan, Wisconsin and Georgia. It’s literally the black voters that BLM activists registered in Atlanta, Milwaukee and Philly that tipped the edge to Biden. It would be incredibly stupid to throw them under the bus. Honestly it’s this impulse that shoots Dems in the foot every election cycle, we’re the only ones that run away from our base.

I'm not saying throw the baby out with the bathwater. I believe some grievances are absolutely legit, but some aren't. Time to unpack the movement and keep the good elements, like community organization that you mentioned, and get rid of the not so good, like the idea that every cop is racist and all police shootings are unjustified.

 

[IGIT]

That has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that Dems (thanks to BLM activists) turned out historic levels of black voters in the cities. And unlike Trump, Biden’s black voters made the difference between winning and losing.

hiya moose,

If Black Lives Matter motivated as many Republican voters as it did Democratic voters, it’s a wash. A difference that makes no difference is no difference at all.

- IGIT

 

[moosaev]

I'm not saying throw the baby out with the bathwater. I believe some grievances are absolutely legit, but some aren't. Time to unpack the movement and keep the good elements, like community organization that you mentioned, and get rid of the not so good, like the idea that every cop is racist and all police shootings are unjustified.

If the Dems start cracking down even a smidge on BLM they will completely lose support from so many black voters, because the appearance and the narrative will be that ungrateful Dems are more interested in policing their black constituents to appease white moderates than they are in making substantive change on their behalf. It would be disastrous and a very poor political instinct.

 

[nostradumbass]

That has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that Dems (thanks to BLM activists) turned out historic levels of black voters in the cities. And unlike Trump, Biden’s black voters made the difference between winning and losing.

By all means, keep it up then, and continue watching the dem share of the black vote get smaller and smaller

Pretty comical post just a few posts after saying this.

identity politics is actually a GOP thing, look up the southern strategy. Right wingers accusing lefties of identity politics is a huge joke.

 

[moosaev]

hiya moose,

If Black Lives Matter motivated as many Republican voters as it did Democratic voters, it’s a wash. A difference that makes no difference is no difference at all.

- IGIT

But it’s not a wash, Biden flipped a red state, Georgia, and won back 3 Midwest states that voted Trump in 2016. How the hell is that a wash lol? Without BLM activists Biden loses the election, period.

 

[moosaev]

By all means, keep it up then, and continue watching the dem share of the black vote get smaller and smaller

Pretty comical post just a few posts after saying this.

Pointing out that BLM activists tipped the election to Biden is identity politics? lol.