RustyShackleford
Supporter
- 63,182
- 189,574
- Joined
- Jul 20, 2009
-I honestly think dudes don't fully understand the mechanics of the political and electoral system. Or how coalition building is done
-Do I want the democratic party to more directly address the issues facing the black community, yes. I am aware of the realities of campaigning and coalition building in the system structured against multi-cultural multi-interest collations, yes. Do I think the only policies that can help black folk are targeted ones literally labelled “for black people”, no.
No one is asking folk to act like the Dems are the saviors, or voting Dem is a panacea, they are saying they are clearly the better choice. In fact, the people that blame the Dems for not saving black America are the ones that act like they saviors failing at their jobs. They are useful for what they are, so lets use them for what they are.
In the interim, so what is the Dems good for? How about serving as a fire wall to the real carnage white conservative want to unleash on all minorities especially African Americans. I always hear this "we survived slavery", "we survived Jim Crow", "we survived this", nah you didn't survive that, other folk did that those folks were never in a hurry to risk slipping back into those conditions. This talk to downplays how ****ed up Trump and the entire GOP are. If people think it is this is the worst it can get, they are extremely mistaken.
Ok let us give Trump and the GOP all the power, all of it. Watch how the Supreme Court gets so stacked that now any progressive policy to help black people that may get passed gets voided every summer. Let the GOP gerrymander every state so even if black people all joined together to vote a candidate for a Statehouse of Federal House seat it would be pointless. Watch them make it impossible for the Senate to ever be democratic (in the political and representative sense), basically guaranteeing white rural people an apartheid state at Federal level and in most of the states.
Want to know something Obama did to help millions of poor black people? Expand Medicaid. Millions of poor black people in the deep south, suck in **** states ran by the worst of the worst of racist politicians who routinely cut services to those communities were about to be forced to give million of poor black people free healthcare. But what stopped it? John Roberts’ bull**** interpretation of the commerce clause that allowed states to opt out of the expansion. You wanna know who several years previously predicted Robert would make a BS interpretation of the clause that would hurt the weakest people in America? Barrack Obama when he was a Senator. Now because of Trump we have two more clowns that think like Roberts on the court. Four more years he will get at least 2 more on there, plus all the scumbags he is filling lower courts with. One third of government is about to be extremely hostile to civil rights laws, and it will be so for a generation
White Supremacist knew what a win the Medicaid expansion was for poor African Americans. But some in the black community would say it was not because it was not labeled “specifically for black people”
ADOS includes establishing the voting rights act in the pro-black platform. Without it the black vote is getting suppressed at such a level that elections like the one in GA in November was pretty much stolen from a progressive black woman. Now which dude was the deciding vote on rolling in back the Voting Rights Act? You guessed it, John Roberts.
Obama could have flipped the Supreme Court progressive in 2016 but he couldn’t because the Dems lost the Senate in 2014, the reason for the Senate lost…..turnout, especially black turnout, was low. This not showing up things as already bitten the community in the ***.
That is not all, the Koch brothers want to get enough power to call a Constitutional Convention. If that happens, they can literally rewrite every single law in America and their goal is to completely void most civil rights legislation. Jim Crow unconstitutional? Not anymore. Keep thinking these conservatives are just interested in protecting the status quo, completely disengage, and watch them rob the entire black community of any agency it has. I am not even fear mongering, they have been open about the end game of a convention. If you'll really think the dudes funding black voter suppression across the country gonna act just like some out of touch liberals when it comes time to capture power, you are deluding yourself.
So it is not just a matter of being scared about the current state of affairs. It is about being aware of what is the end game for people that mean you the most harm
-Withholding you vote is one of the most short-sighted political moves a group can do in mass. If politicians don't think a bloc will turn out, that is when they really get ignored. Besides the lobbyist and donors that buy access, the groups that get their needs addressed the most are the ones that vote more reliably. Older people, evangelicals, gun owners, etc. They don't sit on the sidelines and engage in a diet hostage situation, they engage with the system at a higher level than most groups. That is how they get power. Politicians respond to the electorate they face. You make the electorate older, and whiter, then politicians with push policies they like. If you make it more diverse, then more diverse policies can be considered. Look at the rhetoric in the midterms vs. presidential races. Or Senate races vs. Congressional races. Red v. Purple v. Blue districts. You can see how a more diverse electorate produces different policy positions by the candidates.
I wonder how many dudes complaining vote in local elections, go to town halls, make small donations, vote in primaries. There are tons of progressive black candidates that bring forward many more great ideas to help the community, but they don't get the support at the ballot. Some great candidates hope die in primaries, many don't run because they know the support will not be there. This is how you get you needs addressed, by mobbing the system, not disengaging and complaining the Dems are not doing enough to convince you to show up every four years. That at best is a fool’s errand.
And seriously, if folk are going to suggest an alternative, they need to put forward a well thought out alternative. There must be a reason for engaging in an activity that the people that mean you most harm want you to do anyway (racist white conservatives wanting you to not vote) better than "let us try something different". And they need to flush out their demands better. Because if you want to advocate for a change in course, you should be able to answer, “what comes next” and work through the mechanics, and be ready to face the unintended consequences
-Btw on Obama, I am not gonna defend his record but dudes need to drop the "he did for other groups but not us". Obama's thing is being inclusive, he reaches out of every faction of the left-wing coalition. Gay people like that he was the first president to endorsed same sex marriage and defend their civil rights in federal courts, but hate he never proposed formally adding them to the Civil Rights Act. Transgender people liked how he reached out to the community ahead of most politicians, they don't like his DOJ didn't defend them as fiercely as the gay community. Muslim leaders like the respect he showed their communities, they hate his drone war. Immigration activist liked DACA and his advocacy of a path to citizenship, they hate how many people he deported. The list goes on. Regarding black people, Obama also rebuilt the DOJ civil rights enforcement arm after Bush destroyed it and went after a few police forces. Dude tried, most of his best ideas (criminal justice reform, jobs programs, infrastructure programs in poor neighborhoods) got blocked. He didn't have unlimited power for 8 years, nor 2 years, and chose to favor some groups over other. Let us not act like he did for everyone else but one group is disingenuous, it is more complex than that. He did some good for many groups, many groups were still upset at some of his actions, and many groups wished he had done more. That's the reality.
-Do I want the democratic party to more directly address the issues facing the black community, yes. I am aware of the realities of campaigning and coalition building in the system structured against multi-cultural multi-interest collations, yes. Do I think the only policies that can help black folk are targeted ones literally labelled “for black people”, no.
No one is asking folk to act like the Dems are the saviors, or voting Dem is a panacea, they are saying they are clearly the better choice. In fact, the people that blame the Dems for not saving black America are the ones that act like they saviors failing at their jobs. They are useful for what they are, so lets use them for what they are.
In the interim, so what is the Dems good for? How about serving as a fire wall to the real carnage white conservative want to unleash on all minorities especially African Americans. I always hear this "we survived slavery", "we survived Jim Crow", "we survived this", nah you didn't survive that, other folk did that those folks were never in a hurry to risk slipping back into those conditions. This talk to downplays how ****ed up Trump and the entire GOP are. If people think it is this is the worst it can get, they are extremely mistaken.
Ok let us give Trump and the GOP all the power, all of it. Watch how the Supreme Court gets so stacked that now any progressive policy to help black people that may get passed gets voided every summer. Let the GOP gerrymander every state so even if black people all joined together to vote a candidate for a Statehouse of Federal House seat it would be pointless. Watch them make it impossible for the Senate to ever be democratic (in the political and representative sense), basically guaranteeing white rural people an apartheid state at Federal level and in most of the states.
Want to know something Obama did to help millions of poor black people? Expand Medicaid. Millions of poor black people in the deep south, suck in **** states ran by the worst of the worst of racist politicians who routinely cut services to those communities were about to be forced to give million of poor black people free healthcare. But what stopped it? John Roberts’ bull**** interpretation of the commerce clause that allowed states to opt out of the expansion. You wanna know who several years previously predicted Robert would make a BS interpretation of the clause that would hurt the weakest people in America? Barrack Obama when he was a Senator. Now because of Trump we have two more clowns that think like Roberts on the court. Four more years he will get at least 2 more on there, plus all the scumbags he is filling lower courts with. One third of government is about to be extremely hostile to civil rights laws, and it will be so for a generation
White Supremacist knew what a win the Medicaid expansion was for poor African Americans. But some in the black community would say it was not because it was not labeled “specifically for black people”
ADOS includes establishing the voting rights act in the pro-black platform. Without it the black vote is getting suppressed at such a level that elections like the one in GA in November was pretty much stolen from a progressive black woman. Now which dude was the deciding vote on rolling in back the Voting Rights Act? You guessed it, John Roberts.
Obama could have flipped the Supreme Court progressive in 2016 but he couldn’t because the Dems lost the Senate in 2014, the reason for the Senate lost…..turnout, especially black turnout, was low. This not showing up things as already bitten the community in the ***.
That is not all, the Koch brothers want to get enough power to call a Constitutional Convention. If that happens, they can literally rewrite every single law in America and their goal is to completely void most civil rights legislation. Jim Crow unconstitutional? Not anymore. Keep thinking these conservatives are just interested in protecting the status quo, completely disengage, and watch them rob the entire black community of any agency it has. I am not even fear mongering, they have been open about the end game of a convention. If you'll really think the dudes funding black voter suppression across the country gonna act just like some out of touch liberals when it comes time to capture power, you are deluding yourself.
So it is not just a matter of being scared about the current state of affairs. It is about being aware of what is the end game for people that mean you the most harm
-Withholding you vote is one of the most short-sighted political moves a group can do in mass. If politicians don't think a bloc will turn out, that is when they really get ignored. Besides the lobbyist and donors that buy access, the groups that get their needs addressed the most are the ones that vote more reliably. Older people, evangelicals, gun owners, etc. They don't sit on the sidelines and engage in a diet hostage situation, they engage with the system at a higher level than most groups. That is how they get power. Politicians respond to the electorate they face. You make the electorate older, and whiter, then politicians with push policies they like. If you make it more diverse, then more diverse policies can be considered. Look at the rhetoric in the midterms vs. presidential races. Or Senate races vs. Congressional races. Red v. Purple v. Blue districts. You can see how a more diverse electorate produces different policy positions by the candidates.
I wonder how many dudes complaining vote in local elections, go to town halls, make small donations, vote in primaries. There are tons of progressive black candidates that bring forward many more great ideas to help the community, but they don't get the support at the ballot. Some great candidates hope die in primaries, many don't run because they know the support will not be there. This is how you get you needs addressed, by mobbing the system, not disengaging and complaining the Dems are not doing enough to convince you to show up every four years. That at best is a fool’s errand.
And seriously, if folk are going to suggest an alternative, they need to put forward a well thought out alternative. There must be a reason for engaging in an activity that the people that mean you most harm want you to do anyway (racist white conservatives wanting you to not vote) better than "let us try something different". And they need to flush out their demands better. Because if you want to advocate for a change in course, you should be able to answer, “what comes next” and work through the mechanics, and be ready to face the unintended consequences
-Btw on Obama, I am not gonna defend his record but dudes need to drop the "he did for other groups but not us". Obama's thing is being inclusive, he reaches out of every faction of the left-wing coalition. Gay people like that he was the first president to endorsed same sex marriage and defend their civil rights in federal courts, but hate he never proposed formally adding them to the Civil Rights Act. Transgender people liked how he reached out to the community ahead of most politicians, they don't like his DOJ didn't defend them as fiercely as the gay community. Muslim leaders like the respect he showed their communities, they hate his drone war. Immigration activist liked DACA and his advocacy of a path to citizenship, they hate how many people he deported. The list goes on. Regarding black people, Obama also rebuilt the DOJ civil rights enforcement arm after Bush destroyed it and went after a few police forces. Dude tried, most of his best ideas (criminal justice reform, jobs programs, infrastructure programs in poor neighborhoods) got blocked. He didn't have unlimited power for 8 years, nor 2 years, and chose to favor some groups over other. Let us not act like he did for everyone else but one group is disingenuous, it is more complex than that. He did some good for many groups, many groups were still upset at some of his actions, and many groups wished he had done more. That's the reality.
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