Is the Left Eating Itself?

@Reason
Could you do a mail-in ballot?


I don't really think the #walkaway movement is as prolific as the right wants people to think. Call me crazy but I think it is just a viral marketing campaign to try and demoralize democratic voters before the midterms. Things are so extreme between the two parties; there are no moderate Republicans anymore. You're either on the Trump crazy train or you are not. Trump's election and policies alienate moderate republicans and even true conservatives. A lot of articles have come out about some prominent Republican switching parties since the election. Republicans in office who do criticize Trump are either retiring or they end up primaried. Hard for me to see people in droves just suddenly switching because there is no compromise or bipartisanship between both parties anymore.

Though if it is true and liberals are suddenly switching parties it could possibly make the GOP more moderate by watering it down. Which is a good thing. I just don't see someone who for example, has been pro-choice and supported healthcare for all and protecting the environment and etc. to suddenly vote for candidates opposed to those things.

Democrats really suck at messaging and forming a united front on issues. I'm voting democratic but I wish they would focus on healthcare and immigration reform and a path to citizenship for DACA recipients are the top issues that most Americans can agree are very important and not get caught up in petty issues (like Maxine Waters call for incivility).
 
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I think conservatives have learned with this election, the blocking of Merrill Garland’s appointment and the election that Al Gore lost, that mainstream Democrats are unwilling to fight against them fighting dirty. It really has weakened the party, reinforcing the bad behavior of the right. It’s why liberals get labeled as snow-flakes because the left is unable to stand up against the conservative hard-line.

I think the splintering of the left has to do with those on the extreme thinking that compromising, Clinton’s “third way,” doesn’t work anymore. In a way, it’s a backlash against that way of politicking, a mirror of the hard-line of the extreme right.
 
acd said:
@Reason
I don't really think the #walkaway movement is as prolific as the right wants people to think. Call me crazy but I think it is just a viral marketing campaign to try and demoralize democratic voters before the midterms. Things are so extreme between the two parties; there are no moderate Republicans anymore. You're either on the Trump crazy train or you are not. Trump's election and policies alienate moderate republicans and even true conservatives. A lot of articles have come out about some prominent Republican switching parties since the election. Republicans in office who do criticize Trump are either retiring or they end up primaried. Hard for me to see people in droves just suddenly switching because there is no compromise or bipartisanship between both parties anymore.

Though if it is true and liberals are suddenly switching parties it could possibly make the GOP more moderate by watering it down. Which is a good thing. I just don't see someone who for example, has been pro-choice and supported healthcare for all and protecting the environment and etc. to suddenly vote for candidates opposed to those things.

Democrats really suck at messaging and forming a united front on issues. I'm voting democratic but I wish they would focus on healthcare and immigration reform and a path to citizenship for DACA recipients are the top issues that most Americans can agree are very important and not get caught up in petty issues (like Maxine Waters call for incivility).
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I don't know if the #walkaway thing is a trickle or a torrent but it seems ill-advised to ignore people's dissatisfaction with the left. I think a lot of the resentment towards the democratic party that is generated in the public sphere has almost nothing to do with Trump but in many things that the Democrats are saying and doing at the moment and in the recent past.

Very good points all around your post although I take issue with this statement:

acd said:
You're either on the Trump crazy train or you are not.
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Not all Trump voters are insane fascist lunatics. Some are misinformed, some dislike Trump but have reason to vote for him anyway, and some are genuinely upset with the Democrats or the left in general in the United States. People are varied and they do things for a great many different reasons.

Civility in this country is dying- I don't think that the left alone is responsible for that, but it is the group I typically support so i tend to address my complaints in this area to them. I'm a classical liberal and more than that a social democrat, I want the European style safety nets that exist in Europe. I just want to leave behind the crazy things that American leftist are attaching to those goals.

I'm all for investigating companies and government bodies for racist policy, i'm not okay with people having their careers destroyed before any investigation has even begun or any evidence even reviewed. I'm all for uplifting the poor and taking in skilled immigrants to work in this country, but I understand that our nation's resources are limited and so not every single living person on this Earth can count on the United States to be it's salvation. There are (in New York If I remember correctly) demonstrators chanting "No Trump, No wall, no USA at all" I'm no fan of Trump and I don't know if the border wall is even practically possible let alone a wise solution to the immigration crisis but i'm very much a pro-USA guy seeing as how I live here. I see completely open borders as a truly terrible idea. I like that there are people who check to make sure that immigrants that come to this country have the skills we need and test them to make sure they're vaccinated and not carrying deadly diseases. I like that there are steps taken to ensure that when we pick up a child and adult at the border that we take steps to determine that they'll actually be tested to ensure that they are related and not a pedophilic sex racketeer and a vulnerable future victim. If we aren't going to separate supposed parents from their supposed children anymore that's fine- but whatever we decide to do as a nation has to work. I'm open to discussing things, but I don't believe that a lot of things that the Democrats are up to really allow for dissention. They seem to be happily pilling up their party's funeral pyre.


The left is moving in a bad direction by my estimation which I admit may be marred by a lack of information or by simple faulty reasoning on my part. But until I have assurances and things have stabilized I must insist:

no, I am not going along with this party until it regains its senses.
 
acd said:
@Reason
Could you do a mail-in ballot?
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Well i'm not sure what state i'll be living in come the midterms so, no. I suspect i'll have other things to sort out in the aftermath of the move that will keep me too busy to worry about it but maybe that's just a cop-out on my part. What a mess.
 
Reason said:
Well i'm not sure what state i'll be living in come the midterms so, no. I suspect i'll have other things to sort out in the aftermath of the move that will keep me too busy to worry about it but maybe that's just a cop-out on my part. What a mess.
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I hope you're able to sort things out as smoothly as possible. I guess it would be an absolute pain to figure out voting on top of the hassle of moving. A lot of places have registration deadlines so that wouldn't make it any easier or maybe even possible all depending. I don't know your situation. I hope everything is ok. But I understand having to deal with personal things first.
 
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the problem with the less is that they try to understand a world where everything is balance, they use information to brainwash people to believe it's possible to achieve that
that's why they created social science and do prison experiments that don't prove anything
but if you write them nicely and make them trendy people will think they are the deal, and it's cool to be a rebel
SAD.
 
Reason said:
Centrist voters and disenfranchised democrats... these are the people you need to win, especially when you remember that the Democrats lost the last election. But the response to these people turning their noses up at this mess is basically "goodbye Nazi, didn't need you anyway". 2 problems: first, they are not Nazis & second: yes, yes you do need them.
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I'm one of these... i.e. a disenfranchised something, not a Nazi (tho...)

When I was younger and considered myself much more liberal, I could not have imagined that radical liberalism, or rather angry liberalism would be such a problem. I was a dumb kid then, though; now I'm a dumb adult.

I'm very frustrated with politics in the US at the moment, which isn't atypical for me, but it's getting to be too much for me.

As someone who isn't white and has parents that were not born or raised in this country, it astonishes me how the left has eschewed acceptance in favor of shaming.

A lot of the modern liberal ideologies can do more harm than good if not tempered with an attitude of understanding, e.g. intent vs impact. I was harshly criticized once (by a white person, ironically) for not being aware that "colored person" is essentially a slur now. I apologized and made a mental note of it, but I was instantly grateful I wasn't a renowned figure of some kind. I've also witnessed some appalling clashes between feminism vs womanism, and in the last few years I have often felt less accepted for my cultural background by the left than the right.

I often feel bad that the targets of this shaming and intolerance are people that are struggling to keep up with how things have changed, and I wish the left would strive to encourage an environment of teaching and acceptance, instead of a vitriolic "us vs them" mentally.

The left really could use more supporters (such as me) that make mistakes but mean well, but at the moment I am so alienated by aspects of the modern liberal movement that I'm just not sure.
 
noisebloom said:
not a Nazi
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Don't lie- you're one of those non-white white supremacists

LMAO jk

Thanks for sharing, I know it's frustrating. You can tell the party has lost it's mind when they are claiming that the entirety of the walkaway movement is Russian bots. They can't even admit that they're making ANY mistakes at all. It's sad that the left after dominating politics in the aftermath of the Bush era squandered thier advantage to become the thought police. I hope that they can move past this. Then perhaps we can enact liberal policies to the betterment of our country.
 
Reason said:
It's sad that the left after dominating politics in the aftermath of the Bush era squandered thier advantage to become the thought police.
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It is the nature of things.

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noisebloom said:
at the moment I am so alienated by aspects of the modern liberal movement that I'm just not sure.
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What sort of weird propaganda have you gotten yourself involved with lol

noisebloom said:
I wish the left would strive to encourage an environment of teaching and acceptance, instead of a vitriolic "us vs them" mentally.
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It's not "the left" it's stupid people of all walks of life being stupid, as they do
 
Wyote said:
It's not "the left" it's stupid people of all walks of life being stupid, as they do
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Reason's implication earlier was that the extremists are setting the bar, nowadays. There are plenty of liberals that are NOT part of the problem, but are they the primary driving influence of the party/movement? Or is it the extremists?
 
Wyote said:
What sort of weird propaganda have you gotten yourself involved with lol
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I don't know, man. I grew up in the upper Midwest and everyone was closer to the center, politically. Since I've lived closer to the West, the environment has seemed more polarizing. More extremism on both sides. Lots of anger. It might just be because the political climate has changed so much over time.

I really don't believe the US stands a chance at being politically united unless both sides start coming together and working towards a common understanding, but it feels like we're splintering instead.
 
Reason said:
But that's the topic of this thread...
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Right right. It's just important to speak in terms of the boundaries of the discussion, imo, when possible.
Conflating language is a significant factor in how things end up being more extreme type scenarios.

noisebloom said:
but are they the primary driving influence of the party/movement? Or is it the extremists?
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As stated above, I feel like it is a conflation from the extremists' perspective. All are at fault in some way, with the source originating from extremist thoughts/ideologies.
Like a pulse wave. Spreading out but with weaker strength the further it goes.

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