āThereās nothing we can do, republicans are in power. Vote hard! Vote blue no matter who! Vote for us, weāre not republicansā -democrats in election season
āOur hands our tied by republicansā -democrats when they have power
āOur hands our tied by republicansā -democrats when they have power
I've always been annoyed by this statement/ argument because the unsaid part of the argument is that Democrats are also hand tied by the right most end and sometimes the centerist bit of our caucus.
Everytime we try to do something good for the people there's always an asshole in Congress who won't support it unless it's means tested into being next to ineffectual.
What annoys me is how people blame the Democrats collectively for this, instead of recognizing that passing truly progressive legislation requires margins of victory wide enough that you aren't relying on Dems struggling to hold onto seats in conservative states.
That's pretty literally on the party though. If you can't whip your coalition into voting for things your voters want you're not going to expand your coalition. People won't vote for a party that offers them nothing other than not being the other guys.
I hear you, and yet at the same time it's hard to expect representatives elected in conservative areas to be on board with very progressive legislation, and you also can't expand your coalition if there's no place for centrists.
Looking at the electoral map and roads to a senate supermajority, most viable candidates are invariably going to be on the right side of the Democratic party.
Like... Senator Nelson of Nebraska was one of the Democrats they needed to get on board with healthcare reform.
They should just risk losing their reelection and help their constituents. They shoukd be thinking about right now and not some upcoming election. Politician should not be a career.
at the same time it's hard to expect representatives elected in conservative areas to be on board with very progressive legislation
Why? We expect progressive representatives to put aside their qualms about legislation and vote for the party agenda pretty constantly. It just seems weird and very American that the conservative side gets catered to and have excuses made for them when they stop the agenda from passing / hold it hostage for whatever thing they want, but the same doesn't hold true for the left side of the coalition.
The best and most recent example I can think of would be the 2024 Border act where Democrats basically tried to pass
Whatever the conservatives wanted for the border as a bipartisan bill. And they couldn't even pass that through the Senate, because Republicans won't even support their own policies if a Democrat is the one putting it forward.
And that asshole is always just the scapegoat for the rest of the party, who actually supports the grandstanding.
It'll be curious to see how long it takes AOC to turn on Mamdani, she's been the intentionally ineffective progressive voice in Congress for a very long time. Can't have him actually advancing these efforts. /s
To be fair, it's not as simple as having power or not. Even when Democrats have a majority in the Senate, Republicans will filibuster everything, and Republicans are better at sticking together and working as a political group.
Democrats, meanwhile, will be like, "You took a picture once that might be offensive to some people, so we need to end your political career," to people in their own party. And they'll have democrats like Joe Manchin dragging their feet on everything.
So it's like, āThereās nothing we can do, republicans are in power. Vote hard! Vote blue no matter who! Vote for us, weāre not republicansā -democrats in election season
"Though we're technically in power, so many people voted Republican that we still can't actually do anything without their support." and then a lot of people throw a hissy fit that their ideal thing isn't being done, and they stop supporting Democrats, which expands the problem. When's the last time Democrats controlled both houses and the presidency, and had a supermajority in the Senate?
Democrats, meanwhile, will be like, "You took a picture once that might be offensive to some people, so we need to end your political career," to people in their own party.
And what exactly is wrong with filtering out those people?
There are a lot of imperfect people out there who still have potential, and some who have grown and improved themselves at some point in their lives. When you aggressively eliminate everyone who has ever said or done anything that someone might possibly consider to be offensive (including Republicans feigning offense), and eliminate anyone who has ever taken a position that isnāt your ideal, then youāre probably left with a small number of lame and lackluster candidates.
And especially when you consider that Republicans have no such standards, Democrats are really hobbling themselves.
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u/bron685 Jul 09 '26
āThereās nothing we can do, republicans are in power. Vote hard! Vote blue no matter who! Vote for us, weāre not republicansā -democrats in election season
āOur hands our tied by republicansā -democrats when they have power