I don’t think that’s a good explanation for why we got the policy outcomes we currently have and how we can get better ones, but – I don’t usually show this side of myself here because I love you all and we share values and I don’t want to dislike each other over how to accomplish them.
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Appreciated — I hope you understand why I’m losing my religion. Would love to be wrong, but can’t bet on it.
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no I get it. It’s wrong and you’re right to be mad and you deserve better and we all do.
I’m characterologically sympathetic to the bearers of bad news because that’s the role I always find myself playing, trying to negotiate between parties and disappoint everyone the least
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“these people are your and my enemy” is actually a much clearer signal of likely political action than “here’s a subcommittee of a subcommittee to analyze the legislation to blah blah”
and that’s why folks trust bernie
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I think this is a common wisdom of the center left that is just… not true
Like, I can’t think of an example where incrementalism didn’t directly undermine larger changes, but I can think of plenty fairly large and recent examples where it has (the fight over healthcare…)
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I absolutely do not believe the past 120 years of social democracy and labor movements were in vain.
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yeah like im all for reforms but there’s a whole literature and debate about “non-reformist” vs reformist reforms on the left that the center left has literally never read or reckoned with
the thing isn’t that “these reforms don’t preclude greater action” it’s that there is no INTENTION of taking greater action, it’s literally not even on the table for centrist dems
you want a great example of non-reformist reform: PRO Act, abolishing electoral college, direct election of all relevant offices, expand supreme court, etc etc. the fact these are seen as revolutionary is itself evident of the problem of center left politics, it continually shifts the overton window rightward by cutting off its left flank as “unrealistic”
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i mean fair warning i’ve spent most of the last five years continually rehashing this specific debate and i have no idea how anyone could change my mind on it other than by proving that better things aren’t possible
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the past 30 years of incrementalism have gotten so micro-managey and… irrelevant policy wonk that they have suffocated the conversation about making effective change.
So uh… just to be clear about how I used my words: incrementalist policies are those that might hypothetically, in a hundred or a thousand years time, add up to a slightly better standard of living, at least according to the predictive models that centrists love.
Those kinds of as stylo said, non-reformist reforms directly undercut major reforms that are the actual aims of labor movements (even as those major reforms are only steps in the right direction).
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I mean, I think this is one of the major divisions in our politics: I think the only way meaningful change can happen is as a consequence of chaotic situations. I don’t think lives can be improved in stable conditions.
Change is an inherently unstable action.
Warren is wasting her time trying to keep a cup of water from spilling during an earthquake because it would be a little more stable than spilt water.
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See: “rescinding the policy that led to family separation,” and “defending the Affordable Care Act,” etc.
This week: Biden’s answer to millions of people losing health insurance is to provide a special enrollment period for exchanges
It’s not a matter of legislative feasibility on some of these issues and that’s where we see true colors.
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This is our fundamental disagreement, yes.
I don’t understand how this is characterized as a priority against funding healthcare? An executive directive can’t create funding. This is A Thing while lobbying for a legislative package that can move the money.
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according to the last book I read (How to Blow Up A Pipeline by Andreas Malm), which is objectively true in all aspects because it’s the last book I read and that just makes things true, center-ish parties are only effective when they have a larger and more radical wing on their flank that makes the center-ish position the lesser evil in the eyes of state power
there are so many examples on both the right and the left of this panning out with like, depression-era CIO and the new deal coalition, mlk in birmingham, and the tea party
so like, I get not wanting to poo poo the incrementalist things that are currently happening, because those are definitely not nothing, but the easiest way to sap the energy that people use to do the grinding work of incremental change is to have people who have broad and significant power to change the status quo tell them that the thing they’re working toward isn’t feasible because of the current circumstances
it’s just so endlessly frustrating the people who have the most ability to change those circumstances are continuously telling everyone that they can’t do so, and the biggest issue with hearing this all the time is that the conversation always ends up focusing more on why exactly things can’t change instead of what can be done to get them to
ah fuck this is the gamestop thread whoops (alternatively: wait this isn’t goodreads)
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If the director of the CDC can exercise emergency power to place a moratorium on evictions, I think a suitably creative CMS administrator can write a 1115 waiver that allows emergency Medicaid enrollment for the uninsured and unemployed.
In the absence of other public plans, I can only evaluate what is A Thing. I cannot will myself to be excited about hypothetical COBRA subsidies.
Yes, this might be where we appear to be disagreeing while not. I don’t consider myself aligned with mainstream Dems but I have a different opinion on what being a good coalition partner entails and how to judge progress made, while still pushing for more – can you lose influence by taking everything as bad faith?
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We don’t live in a parliamentary system with proportional representation. There is no “coalition.” We have increasingly come to rely on the specific ideology and personnel choices of the chief executive and gatekeepers in the legislature. The last Democratic administration compromised to devastating, ruinous, and fatal results on health insurance and immigration against publicly stated goals. This administration is largely comprised of the same people. Bad faith is the default.
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And these individuals are responsive to electoral pressure placed by organized groups including leftist ones. If the leftist groups can enact promises and punish and reward actors they can increase their influence.
We’ve had this fight over the possibility space and where responsibility lies for Obama administration policies before and I know we disagree. I have a very different sense of where the blockage points were and I think the popular narrative assigns far too much agency to the President.
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warren doesn’t want the stock market to reflect “fair value” or whatever. fair value is a concept that literally zero large financial institutions or regulatory bodies give a fuck about, because any magical fair value rebalancing would vaporize trillions of dollars and trigger the great depression. markets are about capital flows. rich people have too much capital, so it sloshes around looking for and creating yield
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broco mentioned index funds earlier and i feel like one reason gamestop stuff is getting so much interest compared to those is from a sense of the failure of common-ground politics in favour of something more zero-sum - the idea that something’s only really working when the likes of hedge fund guys are getting hurt, rather than just being given the opportunity to make money in a slightly different way (through carbon credits, tax-deductible nonprofits, socially conscious investment etc). the awareness of an actual conflict of interests between these things, rather than just a conflict of message or priorities. even though in practice a few hedgefunds being wiped out might still be to the benefit of a few other more shadowy middlemen companies letting it happen!!
the politics of “vengeance” can be kind of a grisly thing to think about but i’m interested in e.g. max haiven’s attempts to distinguish between revenging and avenging imaginations: “revenge fantasy envisions the revisiting of a harm or a debt on its author in the same or a similar form in which it was issued, avenging strives to abolish the order or economy of power that licensed, authorized, or enabled that violence in the first place.” i think that reddit gamer stock assholes with disposable money to gamble with temporarily pulling one over on hedge funds is pretty depressingly just in the first category, but the delight that everyone uninvolved is taking in seeing these institutions bite it for a minute is at least a little bit closer to the second.
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