The State of the Democratic Party II

[Senkaku]

Senate Dems Drop the Dreamers

Welp... Guess the shutdown really was worthless.

CHIP wasn't nothing.

The shutdown wasn't about CHIP (though arguably it should've been). It was explicitly about securing DACA's future.

I understand there are practical considerations and maybe this is the right move there, but from an optics perspective, they look like a bunch of spineless idiots who overplayed their hand and have backed down and the GOP comes out looking strong.

[Arlenton]

Senate Dems Drop the Dreamers

Welp... Guess the shutdown really was worthless.

They dropped it from the spending as a potential proposal, we still have trump talking about a pathway to citizenship and various anther immigration topics, chances are they're looking to set up immigration talks separate from funding. Nothing wrong with this. After all the Dems lost the messaging battle during the shut down so actually negotiating a DACA deal
Separate from the budget is good for them. Support for a permanent legislative solution for DACA that essentially gives Anniston to dreams and a possible pathway to actual citizenship (something they didn't have under obamas executive order). Considering how popular that is on both the left and the right it's better for them long term since they got a little scuffed up in the shut down. Better to disappoint a base that's still probably going to vote for you then to alienate swing voters and moderates who you actually need to win elections.

Democrats are as spineless as ever

>bipartisanship is b-b-bad!

You sound like those republicans who declared the four gang of 8 republicans as party traitors for tackling bipartisan immigration reform.

True.

"Base" people on both sides are very annoying and prevent stuff from happening.

[Petrasylvania]

Was anyone surprised by this?

Hope is the first step on the road to disappointment.

Stupidity is hoping Trump will remain focused when he talks about immigration reform and actually try to get it passed. But some people need their fix of schadenfreude and children's tears from families being broken up.

[Myrensis]

Well, guess we can confirm that Schumer is a moron.

To recap, he's now given up their only leverage for pushing for a DACA bill, offering a clean spending bill in exchange for a Republican agreement to address it separately...which is exactly what Republicans wanted in the first place.

So after staging a shutdown fight for DACA...they've now gone back to the original Republican offer, and effectively handed the GOP and media a gift wrapped "Unconditional Surrender" narrative on a silver platter, with no real counter argument other than, "Well...yeah, but it was the responsible thing to do!".

That'll definitely fire up the base and show the moderates that the Democrats have some backbone!

And they've now pretty much utterly ceded leadership on DACA and Immigration reform to Republicans. If Republicans delay and dither...Democrats have no means of pressuring them. If by some minor miracle they do take it, the story will be, "Hey, this is exactly what we said we were going to do from the beginning, the Democrats just decided they wanted to hurt our troops and children for no good reason!" and again, Democrats will have no real counter argument other than, "Well, we didnt believe them the first time! But we did the second time even though the circumstances were exactly the same...vote Democrat, we know what we're doing!".

If you're going to go all in you go all in, they should never have pushed the shutdown in the first place if they weren't going to follow through, now we're launching the midterms with a message of "Democrats are weak and ineffectual and not even sure what they're trying to accomplish."

[Petrasylvania]

Well, guess we can confirm that Schumer is a moron.

To recap, he's now given up their only leverage for pushing for a DACA bill, offering a clean spending bill in exchange for a Republican agreement to address it separately...which is exactly what Republicans wanted in the first place.

So after staging a shutdown fight for DACA...they've now gone back to the original Republican offer, and effectively handed the GOP and media a gift wrapped "Unconditional Surrender" narrative on a silver platter, with no real counter argument other than, "Well...yeah, but it was the responsible thing to do!".

That'll definitely fire up the base and show the moderates that the Democrats have some backbone!

And they've now pretty much utterly ceded leadership on DACA and Immigration reform to Republicans. If Republicans delay and dither...Democrats have no means of pressuring them. If by some minor miracle they do take it, the story will be, "Hey, this is exactly what we said we were going to do from the beginning, the Democrats just decided they wanted to hurt our troops and children for no good reason!" and again, Democrats will have no real counter argument other than, "Well, we didnt believe them the first time! But we did the second time even though the circumstances were exactly the same...vote Democrat, we know what we're doing!".

If you're going to go all in you go all in, they should never have pushed the shutdown in the first place if they weren't going to follow through, now we're launching the midterms with a message of "Democrats are weak and ineffectual and not even sure what they're trying to accomplish."

The establishment needs to go. Away.

[Arlenton]

Well, guess we can confirm that Schumer is a moron.

To recap, he's now given up their only leverage for pushing for a DACA bill, offering a clean spending bill in exchange for a Republican agreement to address it separately...which is exactly what Republicans wanted in the first place.

So after staging a shutdown fight for DACA...they've now gone back to the original Republican offer, and effectively handed the GOP and media a gift wrapped "Unconditional Surrender" narrative on a silver platter, with no real counter argument other than, "Well...yeah, but it was the responsible thing to do!".

That'll definitely fire up the base and show the moderates that the Democrats have some backbone!

And they've now pretty much utterly ceded leadership on DACA and Immigration reform to Republicans. If Republicans delay and dither...Democrats have no means of pressuring them. If by some minor miracle they do take it, the story will be, "Hey, this is exactly what we said we were going to do from the beginning, the Democrats just decided they wanted to hurt our troops and children for no good reason!" and again, Democrats will have no real counter argument other than, "Well, we didnt believe them the first time! But we did the second time even though the circumstances were exactly the same...vote Democrat, we know what we're doing!".

If you're going to go all in you go all in, they should never have pushed the shutdown in the first place if they weren't going to follow through, now we're launching the midterms with a message of "Democrats are weak and ineffectual and not even sure what they're trying to accomplish."

The establishment needs to go. Away.

-The Tea Party

[Ngelmish]

CHIP wasn't nothing.

The shutdown wasn't about CHIP (though arguably it should've been). It was explicitly about securing DACA's future.

I understand there are practical considerations and maybe this is the right move there, but from an optics perspective, they look like a bunch of spineless idiots who overplayed their hand and have backed down and the GOP comes out looking strong.

They lost the optics the second they decided to push a shutdown at all; shutdowns are for losers. You also look ugly coming out of them. That said, the tactics of this are a lot shrewder than is generally being covered by critics on either the right or the left. Do senate Democrats have leverage to get house Republicans to do what they want on DACA or immigration more broadly? No, they don't. And even with a shutdown, it was questionable, at best if they did. What they do have now is CHIP is off the table, they can't be threatened on it, military spending still does more to divide Republicans than it does Democrats and the Republicans no longer have a budget to argue about when talking about DACA. And the GOP position on DACA is broadly unpopular. Democrats are betting they can campaign on the issue and hang a deeply unpopular stance around the neck of the majority party. It's basically the GOP playbook from 2014, coming off the heels of a government shutdown that was supposed to hurt them.

Admittedly, this still might not go to plan since a significant portion of the Democratic base seems to be motivated primarily by animus at anything that can be construed as "party establishment" to the point where tactical victories, or even outright liberal policy gains, are important enough to care about. It hasn't gotten to Tea Party levels yet, and probably won't, but it's certainly a harmful and volatile element of the overall situation.

[Petrasylvania]

The establishment needs to go. Away.

-The Tea Party

They ended up controlling the Republicans and the government, why roll your eyes at their accomplishments?

[Myrensis]

The shutdown wasn't about CHIP (though arguably it should've been). It was explicitly about securing DACA's future.

I understand there are practical considerations and maybe this is the right move there, but from an optics perspective, they look like a bunch of spineless idiots who overplayed their hand and have backed down and the GOP comes out looking strong.

They lost the optics the second they decided to push a shutdown at all; shutdowns are for losers. You also look ugly coming out of them. That said, the tactics of this are a lot shrewder than is generally being covered by critics on either the right or the left. Do senate Democrats have leverage to get house Republicans to do what they want on DACA or immigration more broadly? No, they don't. And even with a shutdown, it was questionable, at best if they did. What they do have now is CHIP is off the table, they can't be threatened on it, military spending still does more to divide Republicans than it does Democrats and the Republicans no longer have a budget to argue about when talking about DACA. And the GOP position on DACA is broadly unpopular. Democrats are betting they can campaign on the issue and hang a deeply unpopular stance around the neck of the majority party. It's basically the GOP playbook from 2014, coming off the heels of a government shutdown that was supposed to hurt them.

Admittedly, this still might not go to plan since a significant portion of the Democratic base seems to be motivated primarily by animus at anything that can be construed as "party establishment" to the point where tactical victories, or even outright liberal policy gains, are important enough to care about. It hasn't gotten to Tea Party levels yet, and probably won't, but it's certainly a harmful and volatile element of the overall situation.

The problem is that CHIP was in the spending bill from the start, and the other factors were all also the same.

Again, they should never have staged the fight in the first place if they were going to go this route, because now the result of those 'Shrewd tactics' boils down to "We took a stand and got...exactly what Republicans offered to give us before we took our stand!", While also appearing to abandon all those affected by DACA and giving Republicans an extremely solid platform to claim that they rolled us like chumps.

Truly an inspiring message for the upcoming elections.

I am far from one of the anti-establishment types, doesn't mean I can't view this as a major fuckup on Schumers part.

[Senkaku]

They lost the optics the second they decided to push a shutdown at all; shutdowns are for losers. You also look ugly coming out of them. That said, the tactics of this are a lot shrewder than is generally being covered by critics on either the right or the left. Do senate Democrats have leverage to get house Republicans to do what they want on DACA or immigration more broadly? No, they don't. And even with a shutdown, it was questionable, at best if they did. What they do have now is CHIP is off the table, they can't be threatened on it, military spending still does more to divide Republicans than it does Democrats and the Republicans no longer have a budget to argue about when talking about DACA. And the GOP position on DACA is broadly unpopular. Democrats are betting they can campaign on the issue and hang a deeply unpopular stance around the neck of the majority party. It's basically the GOP playbook from 2014, coming off the heels of a government shutdown that was supposed to hurt them.

Admittedly, this still might not go to plan since a significant portion of the Democratic base seems to be motivated primarily by animus at anything that can be construed as "party establishment" to the point where tactical victories, or even outright liberal policy gains, are important enough to care about. It hasn't gotten to Tea Party levels yet, and probably won't, but it's certainly a harmful and volatile element of the overall situation.

The problem is that CHIP was in the spending bill from the start, and the other factors were all also the same.

Again, they should never have staged the fight in the first place if they were going to go this route, because now the result of those 'Shrewd tactics' boils down to "We took a stand and got...exactly what Republicans offered to give us before we took our stand!", While also appearing to abandon all those affected by DACA and giving Republicans an extremely solid platform to claim that they rolled us like chumps.

Truly an inspiring message for the upcoming elections.

I am far from one of the anti-establishment types, doesn't mean I can't view this as a major fuckup on Schumers part.

^fucking rt^

Schumer and the Dems aren't fucking playing five-dimensional chess here or some shit, they've just fucked up. Another "stand" on DACA or some other issue and they might as well ask KJU to give the party's prospects his famous anti-air gun treatment.

-The Tea Party

They ended up controlling the Republicans and the government, why roll your eyes at their accomplishments?

Yes, and now the country is reaping the whirlwind. Let's not do a decade-long left-wing backlash to the right-wing backlash to Obama, please. It won't turn out better.

[USS Monitor]

And that is why we might be stuck with Republicans who are out to kill us all...

You really need to calm down. America isn't a dictatorship yet. This is why voting in November and in the primary is so important

Everybody on both sides of the aisle needs to calm down. The more I see of the post-9-11 mess, with all the anti-terrorist paranoia and screechy polarized politics, the more I think Kennedy was onto something when he said we have nothing to fear but fear itself. The US has the resources to be powerful and successful and provide for its people, but only if we're willing to calm the fuck down and actually do it.

[Collatis]

Kennedy was onto something when he said we have nothing to fear but fear itself.

[Senkaku]

You really need to calm down. America isn't a dictatorship yet. This is why voting in November and in the primary is so important

Everybody on both sides of the aisle needs to calm down. The more I see of the post-9-11 mess, with all the anti-terrorist paranoia and screechy polarized politics, the more I think Kennedy was onto something when he said we have nothing to fear but fear itself. The US has the resources to be powerful and successful and provide for its people, but only if we're willing to calm the fuck down and actually do it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_ina ... al_address

that wasn't kennedy, that was one of the actually good presidents

[Senkaku]

Kennedy was onto something when he said we have nothing to fear but fear itself.

I laughed, 10/10 made my night

[USS Monitor]

Everybody on both sides of the aisle needs to calm down. The more I see of the post-9-11 mess, with all the anti-terrorist paranoia and screechy polarized politics, the more I think Kennedy was onto something when he said we have nothing to fear but fear itself. The US has the resources to be powerful and successful and provide for its people, but only if we're willing to calm the fuck down and actually do it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_ina ... al_address

that wasn't kennedy, that was one of the actually good presidents

Oops. Memory is rusty. Still was onto something.

[Senkaku]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_ina ... al_address

that wasn't kennedy, that was one of the actually good presidents

Oops. Memory is rusty. Still was onto something.

I'd argue our various fears of each other has been far more of an obstacle to successful policies and good politics than our fear of terrorism. It's not like the trends we see today that are causing us so much trouble only just started after 9/11 and it's silly and simplistic to take such a reductive view.

[USS Monitor]

Oops. Memory is rusty. Still was onto something.

I'd argue our various fears of each other has been far more of an obstacle to successful policies and good politics than our fear of terrorism. It's not like the trends we see today that are causing us so much trouble only just started after 9/11 and it's silly and simplistic to take such a reductive view.

It's gotten much, much worse since 9/11. Before that, things were at least heading in the right direction, even if there was still a ways to go.

[Washington Resistance Army]

Everybody on both sides of the aisle needs to calm down. The more I see of the post-9-11 mess, with all the anti-terrorist paranoia and screechy polarized politics, the more I think Kennedy was onto something when he said we have nothing to fear but fear itself. The US has the resources to be powerful and successful and provide for its people, but only if we're willing to calm the fuck down and actually do it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_ina ... al_address

that wasn't kennedy, that was one of the actually good presidents

>good president
>FDR

These things are mutually exclusive

[Senkaku]

I'd argue our various fears of each other has been far more of an obstacle to successful policies and good politics than our fear of terrorism. It's not like the trends we see today that are causing us so much trouble only just started after 9/11 and it's silly and simplistic to take such a reductive view.

It's gotten much, much worse since 9/11. Before that, things were at least heading in the right direction, even if there was still a ways to go.

The Clinton administration's partisan catfighting and the 2000 election were "heading in the right direction"? Reagan and HW before him were "heading in the right direction" as they laid the groundwork for the hardline conservative movement? Come on, let's not start doing this whole nostalgic imagined time of peace and progress shit with pre-9/11 too, Lord knows the Boomers do it enough with the '50s.

[Senkaku]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_ina ... al_address

that wasn't kennedy, that was one of the actually good presidents

>good president
>FDR

These things are mutually exclusive

Oh look an Internet libertarian who thinks their memes are still fresh, NEVER seen that before

[Washington Resistance Army]

>good president
>FDR

These things are mutually exclusive

Oh look an Internet libertarian who thinks their memes are still fresh, NEVER seen that before

I never took you for one to like imprisoning ones political opponents, off to Club Trump for 10 years with you :^)

[USS Monitor]

It's gotten much, much worse since 9/11. Before that, things were at least heading in the right direction, even if there was still a ways to go.

The Clinton administration's partisan catfighting and the 2000 election were "heading in the right direction"? Reagan and HW before him were "heading in the right direction" as they laid the groundwork for the hardline conservative movement? Come on, let's not start doing this whole nostalgic imagined time of peace and progress shit with pre-9/11 too, Lord knows the Boomers do it enough with the '50s.

The Cold War ending and racism and sexism being in decline was heading in the right direction.

[Senkaku]

The Clinton administration's partisan catfighting and the 2000 election were "heading in the right direction"? Reagan and HW before him were "heading in the right direction" as they laid the groundwork for the hardline conservative movement? Come on, let's not start doing this whole nostalgic imagined time of peace and progress shit with pre-9/11 too, Lord knows the Boomers do it enough with the '50s.

The Cold War ending and racism and sexism being in decline was heading in the right direction.

9/11 didn't change any of that- it just started to put some very big cracks in the euphoric post-'91 triumphalist hallucinations of a truly better world. Certainly it didn't change whatever imaginary decline in racism and sexism people may have thought was occurring- that lies squarely with movements that took form well before 9/11.

It was a watershed moment and real memorable, and did result in major geopolitical changes and major changes to national security policy. That doesn't mean it actually had an effect on everything. Fobbing the blame off on 9/11 for political problems that Americans can only blame themselves for is ridiculous. If it hadn't been 9/11 it would've been some other major event.

[Corrian]

The issue is the House has pretty much already said that almost any DACA deal is DoA and were saying that before the shut down even happened.

Which is fun considering like 34 Republicans signed something saying they wanted a deal on DACA in the house.

[Petrasylvania]

The issue is the House has pretty much already said that almost any DACA deal is DoA and were saying that before the shut down even happened.

Which is fun considering like 34 Republicans signed something saying they wanted a deal on DACA in the house.

But in the end all 34 will fall in line with "Yes Daddy."