20th November 2018, 10:13 PM
Democrats should start talking more seriously about a few voting rights issues:
- First, the Dems have promised to pass a broad voting-rights bill as their first bill. Parts of it are things this Supreme Court would call unconstitutional and it won't pass anyway, but it's a fantastic start.
- Beyond that though, Dems should start talking about changing the size of the US House. The House really is too small; its size was locked a hundred years ago, and each rep represents too many people now. A larger House makes a lot of sense and there is good analysis on this point out there.
- We also need to seriously push for statehood for Puerto Rico. The Republican Party supposedly supports this too, but neither side has been pushing for it nearly as much as we should... statehood or independence, Puerto Rico, which do you want? Puerto Rico isn't an automatic Democratic win electorally, so this should be possible...
- A solution for the city of Washington D.C. also is important. A lot of people live there now, with no federal representation. Because of the extremely Democrat-heavy voting base this is unlikely anytime soon, sadly, but seriously it's not right.
I do disagree a bit with what you say here -- like, sure, it's good to keep the pressure on, but you SHOULD celebrate victory, 'always act like you're behind' even when you're not is too much pressure. There are many real ways that there should be a little less stress now. For example, once the Dems are in charge of the House, Trump's latest nonsense means a bit less, and that'll be a fantastic thing for the world. Of course though, there is always a lot to worry about, and a lot to fight; Trump is still President after all, and the Republicans look likely to control the Senate for a long time because of the built-in advantage small red states have there. Just stopping Trump is great, but actually getting the good policies we desperately need (particularly for the climate!) seems incredibly difficult... so sure, there's plenty to fight for, and of course Trump may win re-election since he proved he can win in 2016, but we won a battle here and that's a thing worth celebrating. Winning this year was incredibly important, and Democrats did just enough to win one part of the government back.
- First, the Dems have promised to pass a broad voting-rights bill as their first bill. Parts of it are things this Supreme Court would call unconstitutional and it won't pass anyway, but it's a fantastic start.
- Beyond that though, Dems should start talking about changing the size of the US House. The House really is too small; its size was locked a hundred years ago, and each rep represents too many people now. A larger House makes a lot of sense and there is good analysis on this point out there.
- We also need to seriously push for statehood for Puerto Rico. The Republican Party supposedly supports this too, but neither side has been pushing for it nearly as much as we should... statehood or independence, Puerto Rico, which do you want? Puerto Rico isn't an automatic Democratic win electorally, so this should be possible...
- A solution for the city of Washington D.C. also is important. A lot of people live there now, with no federal representation. Because of the extremely Democrat-heavy voting base this is unlikely anytime soon, sadly, but seriously it's not right.
Dark Jaguar Wrote:Just because it's likely doesn't mean it isn't a bad outcome to not have the senate. Yes, we knew it was very likely coming, but let's not fool ourselves here. The reason it was likely is because there's still a LOT of republican loyalists out there, thinking things, choosing things, wanting Trump to "win". If you paint this as "let's stop being anxious", whatever momentum we've gained here will ebb away.Of course there are, but we now know that if anti-Trump voters vote, he loses. As he did this month. And that's a big deal and feels good, as it should.
Quote:I've said before that this is the first presidency that is going to make the rest of the nation age 20 years instead of the president, but that's not a bad thing. You BETTER still be anxious, what happened here is NOT at all a guarantee that Trump will lose the next election. Do not rest, and don't you dare put out the notion that others should. This is why the dems always manage to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.Of course I'm anxious, I am all the time about almost everything you know. But as far as politics go things clearly are getting better...
I do disagree a bit with what you say here -- like, sure, it's good to keep the pressure on, but you SHOULD celebrate victory, 'always act like you're behind' even when you're not is too much pressure. There are many real ways that there should be a little less stress now. For example, once the Dems are in charge of the House, Trump's latest nonsense means a bit less, and that'll be a fantastic thing for the world. Of course though, there is always a lot to worry about, and a lot to fight; Trump is still President after all, and the Republicans look likely to control the Senate for a long time because of the built-in advantage small red states have there. Just stopping Trump is great, but actually getting the good policies we desperately need (particularly for the climate!) seems incredibly difficult... so sure, there's plenty to fight for, and of course Trump may win re-election since he proved he can win in 2016, but we won a battle here and that's a thing worth celebrating. Winning this year was incredibly important, and Democrats did just enough to win one part of the government back.
Quote:And also, democrats need to stop declaring victory before elections. All it does, time and again and again and again, is get people to stay home because "oh well, if it's certain what's the point in going there anyway?".Nancy Pelosi said 'we will win'... and then won. I agree that she probably should have said 'we will win when you vote' instead of what she said, but she was right, so it worked out! I doubt that anyone stayed home because she said that, it surely had no negative effect.
Quote:And what do the dems do whenever they say they've "learned their lesson?" They declare their "new" policy by just restating the old strategy again. "This time, WE ARE GOING TO REACH ACROSS THE ISLE AND APPEAL TO MIDWESTERN AMERICA!" You know, code for "We're going to pretend we're republicans and say words like "Heartland" and "folks" over and over again while hiding what we really are after", the same strategy that fails again and again.Well, if we want ANY legislation to pass in the next two years, the only way to do that is working with Republicans. You can make a good case for saying 'no, we should do what the Republicans did and just block everything and pass nothing', but I don't like that idea because Dems should be what we have been, the party who believes in government. Passing good legislation and letting it die in the senate is important and will happen, but if there are any things Dems could get passed that Trump and McConnell would agree to (not that anything comes to mind offhand...) I'm okay with considering them. It's likely they will be way too compromised to be worth supporting, but you never know?
Quote:There are consequences to undeserved pride and dishonestly representing yourself ABF, and there is a very real chance that Trump will win reelection. The democrats NEED TO ACT ACCORDINGLY, but I'm not seeing that at all from them, so yes, I am still ridden with anxiety.Again, sure, Trump can win re-election, but Democrats just got almost as many US House votes in 2018 as Trump got for President in 2016, and that's something nearly unprecedented in American history! He can win, but we can too if Democrats vote. That's a hard thing to organize of course, but there's more hope than there has been in several years, and that's something at least. I'm a natural pessimist but this election has been great... and it's still not over; Democrats are up to a 39 seat gain in the House now over where they were before, with a chance at 40! That's very impressive. Of course it could go the other way; see how Bill Clinton and Obama both won re-election after the Dems got crushed in wave elections in their first midterm, but will Trump change his approach enough to win re-election, or will he just stay focused on his base? Just his base probably isn't enough for him to win again with, because he didn't win the first time with only his base, it took more than that. 538 made a good analysis of that last point recently.