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nwhikerProgressives got their lunch handed to them in Seattle last night: defund the police people failed, Seattle may well elect its first R in over three decades, the business backed law-and-order candidate won the mayor's race. A lot of this is tied to the issues with unhoused folks in Seattle (and in the whole area, but Seattle is at a critical point, I think).
On my side of the lake it looks like we're getting a Dem as our councilmember. The R was the last holdout in a completely blue area and had run unopposed for two decades. This time she got a challenger and looks to be going down in flames. She tried in a very racist ad to tie her opponent, a middle aged white woman, LOL, to a Black Seattle-elected county council member as puppet master, Kamala Harris, Bernie Sanders, and Seattle CITY council member Kshama Sawant. It was disgusting, it was racist, and while I think she would have lost anyway -see: district is getting more and more blue each year, as well as more and more diverse, it's waaaay more diverse than Seattle- this was a "cards on the table appealing to racists" moment that appears to have failed. My -fingers crossed!- new rep is not a centrist or a progressive, but a solid liberal.
Terry McAuliffe, a centrist, white male, also got his ass handed to him. The LG race, which had two black women, saw the crazy-ass-gun-toting woman win.
A socialist candidate for mayor of Buffalo NY was beaten... by a write-in candidate. Ouch.
A progressive won in Boston.
My take?
We're descending into fascism, in the same way Hungary did, with a slow erosion of the basic institutions that could prevent the fall (read: Anne Applebaum's Twilight of Democracy: The Seductive Lure of Authoritarianism). This is an existential struggle. Instead of fighting that, explicitly, we're going around demanding Medicare for All and defund the police, and pushing socialism on one side, and Manchin and Sinema refusing to do anything on the other. We desperately need universal health coverage, but there are some concepts that are poison pills and by clinging to them, we're sinking ourselves.
We need liberals.
For many -and I include myself- the term progressive is a hateful one in itself. Oh I share almost 100% policy agreement with so-called progressive (exceptions: I don't think M4A is the best way to get to the goal of universal health coverage, and I don't support no-questions-asked-no-restrictions student debt erasure), but when I hear progressive my knee-jerk reaction is "those asshole ratfucker Sanders supporters who didn't bother to vote in '16 because of their 'conscience', or voted for Stein, and elected Trump."
I have a completely irrational hatred of "socialist" having lived in a socialist country. It's not pretty, my friends. Enough wit the socialism, talk about a social democracy, or find another term. Young folks might not see it, because, hey, the USSR has been gone for a long time, but I suspect many of us older than 30 still have images of the empty shelves in Moscow in our heads (and yeah, lived them, though not in Moscow.) We need to stop trying to reclaim the word socialist and imply is means social democracy. That isn't working. People see dreary Soviet apartment buildings, not Danish parks.
I think our values are solid, on the left. I think our messaging stinks, and it sticks to our messengers.
We need to stop with 'progressives' and 'socialist' and 'centrist' and talk about Democrats. All of us. Not moderate Democrats, not 'neoliberal shills' not 'incrementalists'. Democrats.
At our core, we believe that government is there to help people. To facilitate life, to protect the most vulnerable. TBC: this doesn't mean that all Democrats are perfect and not corrupt whatever, but the core principles of the left are based, I think, in everyone being able to fully participate in society.
Fully participate in society. This means access to birth control and abortion for women. This means universal pre-school and help with child care, so all kids get a solid start. This means cleaning up and preserving the environment. This means education and access to technology. This means access to health care. This means treating our elderly with respect and compassion so they can live out the end of their lives with dignity, and not in poverty. This means public health as a priority, so immunocompromised people, older people, disabled people can participate. This means striving towards racial justice and towards equity, so opportunities are there for all. Etc.
We need to find a way to articulate that. To contrast our 'everyone should be able to fully participate in society' to their attitude of 'a good part of the country are trash people and deserve to be thrown away'.
The Republican's -the GQP- entire platform is based on throwing away people: first and foremost, of course, Blacks. Other people of color. Any woman who is not 100% on board with their terrible platform, and even some of them. Any woman who wants access to birth control or an abortion. Anyone who is not a whole male who might need something from government. Anyone who might need society to be responsible and not breathe virus on them.
Solid, dyed in the wool, liberal policies enabled by solid, dyed in the wool messaging.
If we don't do anything, and do it fast, we will reach a point of no return. We may have already passed it.
On my side of the lake it looks like we're getting a Dem as our councilmember. The R was the last holdout in a completely blue area and had run unopposed for two decades. This time she got a challenger and looks to be going down in flames. She tried in a very racist ad to tie her opponent, a middle aged white woman, LOL, to a Black Seattle-elected county council member as puppet master, Kamala Harris, Bernie Sanders, and Seattle CITY council member Kshama Sawant. It was disgusting, it was racist, and while I think she would have lost anyway -see: district is getting more and more blue each year, as well as more and more diverse, it's waaaay more diverse than Seattle- this was a "cards on the table appealing to racists" moment that appears to have failed. My -fingers crossed!- new rep is not a centrist or a progressive, but a solid liberal.
Terry McAuliffe, a centrist, white male, also got his ass handed to him. The LG race, which had two black women, saw the crazy-ass-gun-toting woman win.
A socialist candidate for mayor of Buffalo NY was beaten... by a write-in candidate. Ouch.
A progressive won in Boston.
My take?
We're descending into fascism, in the same way Hungary did, with a slow erosion of the basic institutions that could prevent the fall (read: Anne Applebaum's Twilight of Democracy: The Seductive Lure of Authoritarianism). This is an existential struggle. Instead of fighting that, explicitly, we're going around demanding Medicare for All and defund the police, and pushing socialism on one side, and Manchin and Sinema refusing to do anything on the other. We desperately need universal health coverage, but there are some concepts that are poison pills and by clinging to them, we're sinking ourselves.
We need liberals.
For many -and I include myself- the term progressive is a hateful one in itself. Oh I share almost 100% policy agreement with so-called progressive (exceptions: I don't think M4A is the best way to get to the goal of universal health coverage, and I don't support no-questions-asked-no-restrictions student debt erasure), but when I hear progressive my knee-jerk reaction is "those asshole ratfucker Sanders supporters who didn't bother to vote in '16 because of their 'conscience', or voted for Stein, and elected Trump."
I have a completely irrational hatred of "socialist" having lived in a socialist country. It's not pretty, my friends. Enough wit the socialism, talk about a social democracy, or find another term. Young folks might not see it, because, hey, the USSR has been gone for a long time, but I suspect many of us older than 30 still have images of the empty shelves in Moscow in our heads (and yeah, lived them, though not in Moscow.) We need to stop trying to reclaim the word socialist and imply is means social democracy. That isn't working. People see dreary Soviet apartment buildings, not Danish parks.
I think our values are solid, on the left. I think our messaging stinks, and it sticks to our messengers.
We need to stop with 'progressives' and 'socialist' and 'centrist' and talk about Democrats. All of us. Not moderate Democrats, not 'neoliberal shills' not 'incrementalists'. Democrats.
At our core, we believe that government is there to help people. To facilitate life, to protect the most vulnerable. TBC: this doesn't mean that all Democrats are perfect and not corrupt whatever, but the core principles of the left are based, I think, in everyone being able to fully participate in society.
Fully participate in society. This means access to birth control and abortion for women. This means universal pre-school and help with child care, so all kids get a solid start. This means cleaning up and preserving the environment. This means education and access to technology. This means access to health care. This means treating our elderly with respect and compassion so they can live out the end of their lives with dignity, and not in poverty. This means public health as a priority, so immunocompromised people, older people, disabled people can participate. This means striving towards racial justice and towards equity, so opportunities are there for all. Etc.
We need to find a way to articulate that. To contrast our 'everyone should be able to fully participate in society' to their attitude of 'a good part of the country are trash people and deserve to be thrown away'.
The Republican's -the GQP- entire platform is based on throwing away people: first and foremost, of course, Blacks. Other people of color. Any woman who is not 100% on board with their terrible platform, and even some of them. Any woman who wants access to birth control or an abortion. Anyone who is not a whole male who might need something from government. Anyone who might need society to be responsible and not breathe virus on them.
Solid, dyed in the wool, liberal policies enabled by solid, dyed in the wool messaging.
If we don't do anything, and do it fast, we will reach a point of no return. We may have already passed it.
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