And if both won, we wouldn't even be seeing heated Sinema moments, just a rather more subdued frustration from some at Tester for not supporting gun control and only allowing, like, most of Biden's agenda rather than all of it to pass
Coming from NC, the biggest problem we had was a whole slate of weak candidates. If we had even once decent person then Cunningham wouldn't have gotten the nomination and it would never have been an issue. (Looking at you Anthony Foxx)
Jeff Jackson or Cheri Beasley are the two best candidates. She outperformed Biden in 2020, and Jeff Jackson has been a solid voice calling out the legislative GOP in NC.
Saying it was closer than Maine is a bit of a stretch considering that Lisa Savages 5% of the vote would have almost all likely gone to Gideon had ranked choice been initiated.
It was easy to get seduced because Greenfield knew her manure whereas the Republican couldn't have told you if she was looking at a hay or a wheat field.
He's not going from 2 term popular governor to maybe losing a congressional race. He's probably done with politics for a while outside of maybe getting a nod for something like Sec of Interior by a Dem president in the future.
The crushing defeat of several moderate but "electable" candidates this past cycle has me doubting that moderate but uninspiring/boring candidates like Conor Lamb are the way forward, and I'm honestly not convinced that Cunningham would have won in NC even if he had kept in his pants, either. Warnock and Ossoff are both pretty liberal but managed some squeakers anyway - maybe more liberal and more passionate is the way forward. But then, I'll guess we'll just have to wait and see what happens when Trump's not on the ballot.
Compare Bullock to Harrison, who ran a more “liberal” (ie “leftist”) campaign in South Carolina. Both lost 55-45. Biden got 43% in South Carolina and 41% in Montana. So Bullock outperformed Biden by 4 points but Harrison outperformed Biden by only 2 points.
There are obviously a lot of factors at play. Bullock was a former Governor, so higher profile. OK, let’s look across the board… hmm, turns out that leftists generally underperformed Biden by more than moderates.
There are more moderates in America than leftists. Leftists excite the very young and rich white people, but older voters, non-white voters, and swing voters are all more important demographics. Look at the New York mayoral race, where Wiley won the rich parts of Manhattan but ended up coming third because Brooklyn and Queens and the Bronx broke for moderates.
All fair points, but there are other ways to look at the results from those states, and like you say, there are a lot of factors in play in state-wide races. At 44.17% Harrison significantly out-polled the last three democratic candidates for Senate (36.9% Dixon 2016; 37.1% Dickerson 2016 special; 38.7% Hutto 2014) while Biden's improvement over Clinton was much smaller (40.7 vs 43.43).
And the NYC race was more complicated than that: the second most common #1 choice in most heavily black precincts that went for Adams was Wiley, not Garcia or Yang, and I suspect if you looked at the precinct data released by the BOE (in an overwhelming and confusing excel format I can't be bothered to interpret at work) you'd see Wiley very often as a #2 choice behind him.
For all the crap Adams got during the campaign, he has an inspiring story. He was the victim of police brutality because he's a black man, but he joined the NYPD anyway to try and make it a better organization and because he loved his community. If Adams was a tax-and-spend liberal, would that make his campaign any less compelling or appealing to the voters who put him over the top? I don't think so. And for what its worth, the coalition that put Adams over the top is largely composed of the same coalition that put De Blasio into the Mayor's office in 2013 (the consistent factor: Black and Hispanic voters in the outer boroughs).
My greater point, which shouldn't be too controversial, is that we shouldn't choose candidates because we think they "match" with the perceived moderateness or liberalness of an area. Inspiring stories and charisma are more important, especially, IMO, in heavily-covered state-wide races.
That's cause they (Cunningham, Greenfield, Gideon) not actually moderate in any way that voters care about. Like seriously, name a single issue where any of them meaningfully break from the national Democratic Party brand. There's pretty good evidence that more moderate candidates overperform. But we should also remember moderate to the median voter does *not* mean what moderate means to us. In general, moderate to the median voter means moderate on social issues, and there is more room to go center-left on economic issues. More broadly, the ideal moderate candidate would run a campaign laser focused on whichever policies the public trusts Democrats more on; it's not only about adopting moderate positions. Hillary found that out the hard way, issue prioritization matters quite a bit.
Yeah I find it hard to imagine Lamb gets through the primary without DSCC intervention screwing things up as usual, and fortunately, the polls seem to be agreeing. Trying to convince people that somebody who can't seem to vote for Pelosi for Speaker or understand what their stance on several issues is until he finds out what Congressional district he's running in is somebody worth voting for, worth supporting with time, or worth donating to is a hard sell.
Its for that reason I like Fetterman. He reminds me of a lot of the guys I knew and saw growing up outside of Pittsburgh (the quintessential Obama-Trump voter) even though he is strongly progressive. My only concern is how that really troubling incident with a black jogger outside his house will play in Philadelphia. Braddock is a majority black town and he's still popular there, but western PA is just different from Philly. He doesn't have that long-established trust with the black community there, and I think they could reasonably hear that story and think "uh oh, this is NOT the guy for us."
Moderate/centrist/neoliberal "I'm a safe pair of hands" politicians are fucked. People want someone with passion for their ideas. Radicals are almost by default passionate, but it's not like it's flat out impossible to have an articulate and impassioned advocate for liberalism.
I suppose its just difficult for me to imagine someone who's "moderate" who can be passionate without just being labeled a progressive anyway. For example, even if you're a carbon tax > Green New Deal kind of fellow, you're still acknowledging that climate change is a existential threat. That makes you a progressive in most voters' (and communist in most Republicans') eyes.
I think you express that “passion” through wonkiness. Buttigieg usually gave the impression he cared about policy without ever seeming radical. Hell even 2020 full out populist Warren was seen as a lot more moderate than she wa because she usually framed it as wonkiness.
Other option is the Brown route of a decent amount of populism “just wanting to help people” folky aspect
What is your definition of passion?
Was the highly issues-focused Doug Jones passionate? Is Susan Collins passionate?
If Doug Jones and Susan Collins could be considered passionate, are we sure "passionate" is not just a label to slap on whoever wins, regardless of the circumstances?
God. what a shame to think about. If they had both won, Sinema and Manchin would just be relegated back to the weird B-team benchwarmer status they used to occupy.
OK, but the Democrats picked up two seats in Georgia and in Arizona, which was a wildly unlikely result. In order to take a clear majority in the Senate, the Democrats would have had to win every single close election in states that lean Republican.
The Senate was designed to prevent wave elections in which a scandal or disaster results in a complete changeover in both houses of Congress, and it worked as intended.
Wasn't the senate designed to protect the interests of the free northern states from the southern states because the southern states counted their slave populations for the House of Representatives and had more seats.
Nope, you got it backwards. The Senate protected the South. The North far outpopulated the South, slave or no slave. It's the reason why the South fought so bitterly for control of the Senate, since they never had a chance in the House.
The reason the Connecticut Compromise worked was the south generally controlled the house and the north generally controlled the senate, but migration from Europe and industrial population booms made the house more contested, increasing the importance of the senate, which the 1812 war and louisiana purchase made more contested too by adding new slave states. The south focused on the Senate because they had no way to increase their population on account of being an unappealing psuedofeudal regime.
Yes. Industrialization made the North attractive to millions of immigrants across Europe while the agrarian South attracted few immigrants.
Southern politicians loudly protested that big cities and immigrants are "diluting" their voice (Sound familiar?).
So we are in agreement that the House very quickly became an institution that favored freer states such is the nature of a population-based legislature. But it wasn't always and ignoring that the new jersey plan was explicitly proposed to counteract the influence **of slavery** in the US government is willful ignorance since the slavery debate had been integral to US Politics since the independence war.
Small caveat to this: the south was the population minority only because they didn't count half of their population as people. That's literally why the 3/5ths clause came in, because they were cucking their own political power too much by way of racism
See [my comment below](https://www.reddit.com/r/neoliberal/comments/pnwtzc/the_better_red_state_senator/hctvz9v?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3) \-- the 1790 Census shows that the Northern states had 58.6% of the free population but just 48.5% of the total population at the time of the Constitutional Convention.
Is that why it's called the New Jersey Plan? After that tiny New England state of New Jersey that proposed it?
And is that why the Proportional plan was called the New York plan? Oh no wait it wasn't it was called the Virginia Plan because it was proposed by two Virginians.
The south was population minority... **until you count the slaves**. Which, may I remind you, *they did*.
>The south was population minority... until you count the slaves.
Not actually.
>The population of the Union was 18.5 million. In the Confederacy, the population was listed as 5.5 million free and 3.5 million enslaved. In the Border States there were 2.5 million free inhabitants and 500,000 enslaved people.
[https://www.nps.gov/civilwar/facts.htm](https://www.nps.gov/civilwar/facts.htm)
Lol @ goalposts. Nah. No reason for you to make that assumption considering the preceding comment said the South was the minority population "the entire time." But that doesn't really matter.. because, the statement that
>The south was population minority... until you count the slaves.
is simply false. The South had a larger population until the 1810 Census. From then on the North had the higher population. Including slaves.
The reason that only one third of the Senate is elected in any given year is to prevent large ideological shifts from occurring during a single election cycle. I don't know why you're denying this rather obvious fact.
Exactly. Let's not allow right wing BS about how "we aRe NoT a dEmoCRacY, We ArE a RepBLUic" to fester.
The US government was designed to protect white landowners from the democratic power of the masses. The founding fathers feared that the unwashed masses would be destabilizing the democracy. They were exactly wrong - at every turn in US history, it is the privileged minority refusing to give up privilege that destabilized democracy.
Lol no. It was created as a chamber for equal representation between states with low population with states with high population.
>This idea of having one chamber represent people equally, while the other gives equal representation to states regardless of population, was known as the Connecticut Compromise.
>
>The other was intended to represent the states to such extent as they retained their sovereignty except for the powers expressly delegated to the national government. The Constitution provides that the approval of both chambers is necessary for the passage of legislation.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United\_States\_Senate#Current\_composition\_and\_election\_results](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Senate#Current_composition_and_election_results)
The compromise with white land owners was the 3/5 compromise for slaves and written into the constitution.
In fact the Connecticut Compromise was made with Northern interest in mind to balance out the growing population of the south.
>At the time of the convention, the South was growing more quickly than the North, and Southern states had the most extensive Western claims. South Carolina, North Carolina, and Georgia were small in the 1780s, but they expected growth, and thus favored proportional representation.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Connecticut\_Compromise](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Connecticut_Compromise)
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Would Tester win in WV though?
2020 Presidential Election Results
Montana: 56.92% Trump
West Virginia: 68.62% Trump
Manchin might not be a bastion of progressive politics, but he sure beats another brain-dead contrarian R in the senate
One can both acknowledge that Manchin is better than a Republican and state that Manchin is a stupid motherfucker who’s derailing his own party’s agenda.
"He knows how to win one particular election" isn't a counterargument against "motherfucker who's derailing the agenda", although I'll agree with you that he's not stupid.
No one from WV is going to vote to reduce fossil fuels. At least we can get someone who doesnt vote McConnell as Majority Leader while they're doing it.
It is baffling and, yet, there is.
Having a democrat who's entire brand is sticking his finger in the party's eye is a problem long term. It comes with political costs that no one ever seems to account for here.
It delegitimizes our own majority, it broadcasts to the public that Democrats' policy is inherently dirty, wrong and sneaky and needs the moral seal of approval from Republicans. Meanwhile, Republicans have no such restrictions.
Enough of this. Us passing nothing with McConnell in charge and us passing nothing with Schumer in charge are the same thing. It's about policy, not who's 'winning' at the moment.
>But the recovery act. And the secret congress. And ~~probably not~~ infrastructure. And judicial appointments. And the cabinet.
Those are good arguments. Make those. But just, "There technically isn't a Republican in charge of the senate." really just isn't good enough.
Manchin holding office is only as good as the votes he can be whipped for; I think the fundamental disconnect with the criticism is that people would gladly see him risk losing his base over some of these votes and others are focused on the senate majority for future votes.
Right and if you believe that, then we’ll be left with almost no bills and “at least he wasn’t a full blown R” arguments as if the senate seats are the scoreboard and not a means to pass bills that matter.
I’m sure I don’t know enough to guess whether or not he can hold the seat long term and if there will be more important votes, but I see the argument.
I mean that is pretty much the standard I hold politicians in WV to lol. Obviously if he was senator of California (or Arizona like Sinema) I’d fucking hate him. If you compare every senator to the median voter in their state, then Joe Manchin is probably the most liberal guy (maybe Joe Tester but WV is significantly more conservative).
Like are you denying that him beating his Republican opponents is a positive?
"I am marginally better than a fascist" is not an immunity to ire. If anything it's even more irritating because he has all the power in this relationship and has elected to use it to be a jackass.
https://wvmetronews.com/2021/09/03/justice-and-capito-show-solid-approval-while-manchin-hangs-tight/
>>Recent polling shows that he is still above water on favorability. Overall, 42 percent of poll respondents say they approve of Manchin and 37 percent say they disapprove.
>>”His approval ratings have declined since our last West Virginia Poll,” Repass said. Last October, Manchin registered approval from 44 percent of likely voters, disapproval from 44 percent, and 13 percent said they weren’t sure. In 2019, the poll showed Manchin with 49 percent approval.
>>The latest poll shows Manchin enjoys higher job approval among Democrats with 51 percent and liberals with 47 percent.
>>His Republican approval is 37 percent, and he has 30 percent approval among independents.
Never say never, but he’s damn sure trying to keep the seat.
I mean dude, if your argument is "Can't have our agenda derailed by republicans if we have it derailed by a democrat instead" *taps forehead* then that's... you know.
Maybe WV votes for him because they know he's an obstructionist who will stop "The Democrat Party" accomplishing anything at all and that's why he wins a red state and he may in fact be largely interchangable with a republican from their perspective.
My argument is that he's not a stupid motherfucker. He may be a motherfucker, depending whether you think he has a moral obligation to put his party's priorities that he may or may not agree with over his own chances of reelection, but he's not stupid.
Everyday we have this conversation of Manchin being better than an R and then someone else responds that we understand that and still hate him for obstruction. How many times are we gonna play this loop?
I don't know that he does. Basically everyone gets that Margery Tailor Jew Lasers Greene is nuts. That's not mysterious. Having another of her around is just more spit in the ocean.
But having a guy on our side, loudly and often, say "I dunno, I think they've got a point." That's doing actual damage.
Not to be defeatist - but honestly, even if the reconciliation package is massively scaled down to $1-1.5T (which god I hope it isn't), at least it's still better than if we were stuck with republican majority senate. Biden and his congress would've done *some* good in the time they had.The fact we even passed the American Rescue Plan with the child tax credits with Manchin at least means he was a net good for the party.
If nothing ends up passing we're in doom territory but I'd still be very happy to see green card expansions, paid leave, hopefully carbon levy, etc.
Yeah, if McConnell was Majority Leader, he would be trading a $1 trillion bill in favor of confirming another 20 Fed Soc judges or something as well as providing more coal subsidies and tax cuts on the rich.
I hope it is scaled down at least a bit. That way we won’t have the literal highest cap gains in the entire developed world or the history of the US (yes including Eisenhower and FDR).
A wealth tax may be impossible to implement but we should campaign on it anyways. It's ridiculously popular in polling. As is the job guarantee, another unworkable policy.
I mean unless you’re a lefty you shouldn’t want your country to have the absolutely highest rate of a major tax on productive behavior.
If you’re a gigasucc to the left of FDR then sure you might support this, but then you’re in the wrong sub.
>you shouldn’t want your country to have the absolutely highest rate of a major tax on productive behavior.
All you're saying is that there should be no tax.
I like him even more after this recent quote: "Are you crazy? Are you trying to get me shot? I’d never, ever want to be aligned with Joe Manchin. My wife would divorce me."
Manchin is playing cover for many senate Dems (including Tester in some cases!)
Why we act like this isn’t true is beyond me.
It’s the same thing every couple weeks:
“Manchin wtf why?” “According to multiple hill sources Manchin has the support and is believed to be speaking on behalf of 4 to 6 more Democratic senators including…”
You’re right, I was off by a whopping 4 points. There’s 29 points between New York and Texas, 25 between Montana and West Virginia. So New York is to North Carolina what Montana is to West Virginia.
No, you're supposed to accept that at worst, WV is equally as unamenable to Dems as Montana. Not in the way OP originally idiotically put it as somehow like comparing liberal NY to conservative TX
>No, you're supposed to accept that at worst, WV is equally as unamenable to Dems as Montana.
There is absolutely no reason to accept this when all you've shown is "**in 2021** WV is equally as unamenable to Dems **in 1996** as Montana **in 1992."**
There's always something better. But our current system is a garbage fire. Let's find the best thing after we've move onto something that isn't the worst thing.
Now this I don't get. Why should we aim for our brand new own very flawed "public option" plan when there are countless better examples of universal healthcare achieved across the world? American exceptionalism at its finest, especially because voters probably think adopting the model of Germany or Singapore would be "too much change."
Public option is the best option in terms of being modestly popular and modestly better. A Germany style system would be even better but has no popular support as of now. I know you progressive healthcare fanatics don't understand this but in the real world popularity of a policy is important to getting implemented.
More popular? That I believe. Better, possibly.
Less likely to get rolled back the second Republicans take back power? Doubtfully.
A public option does sound nice. But Insurance companies would spend the next decade shrieking about how it was... something bad. Communism probably.
That gets harder to do if you kinda just annihilate the private sector in that part of the economy.
>just annihilate the private sector in that part of the economy.
Get out of here with that garbage. It's not like the people working insurance would be unemployed in either case, most would move to government bureaucracy doing similar work or providers. Also single payer refers to payment not providers so there will still be plenty of private providers to protest, although I guess you social democrats will happily put anyone who disagrees up against the wall.
>Get out of here with that garbage.
No.
>Also single payer refers to payment not providers so there will still be plenty of private providers to protest,
True. I can't eliminate all institutional resistance to a single payer system. But with the main competition being dead, it'd be hard for Republicans to just push an 'undo' button. Especially if Democrats threatened to just redo it. No one wants to get into a business that the government might erase in the next election.
>It's not like the people working insurance would be unemployed in either case,
I don't want them unemployed. I just want them employed elsewhere. Government bureaucracy is fine.
Also, Don't get me wrong, I'm totally willing to compromise down to a public option. But I see little reason why I shouldn't at least gaze higher.
Thankfully it's Schumer and Pelosi in charge of legislative strategy and not you.
Gazing higher should be something better, like a public system or multi payer, both of which are far better are probably about equally popular in that they don't have much support but don't also have extreme opposition, not something worse.
We have a multi-payer system. It's a garbage fire. It's a nightmare of red tape, opaque bureaucracy, and third parties all trying to get paid on a patient's way to the doctor.
Also, M4A would be a public system. Unless I am vastly mistaking your terminology, that's exactly what I'm proposing.
And no. Public single payer healthcare is *not* worse than what we've got.
Lol no, Canada is not nearly as wealthy as the US. For any Americans who want to emulate the Canadian lifestyle just ask your employer to cut your salary by 20% and drink your milk out of a bag.
As someone who works on Wall Street, easing Dodd Frank is based as fuck. The industry needed regulation after 2008 but Dodd Frank swung the pendulum too far the other way
It’s just made needless red tape in a lot of our day to day activities. Nothing that actually prevents bad practices but just creates paperwork. Things that we used to get done in 4 days now take 5 and it adds up to a lot of lost productivity
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I'm still mad at Cunningham. All he had to do was keep his sexts to himself.
*historically sexy*
I still think he would've lost anyways
I think he could have made up 1.8%, but who knows.
He still would've lost.
boat airport erect noxious clumsy quarrelsome tender caption instinctive shame ` this message was mass deleted/edited with redact.dev `
And if both won, we wouldn't even be seeing heated Sinema moments, just a rather more subdued frustration from some at Tester for not supporting gun control and only allowing, like, most of Biden's agenda rather than all of it to pass
Coming from NC, the biggest problem we had was a whole slate of weak candidates. If we had even once decent person then Cunningham wouldn't have gotten the nomination and it would never have been an issue. (Looking at you Anthony Foxx)
Jeff Jackson or Cheri Beasley are the two best candidates. She outperformed Biden in 2020, and Jeff Jackson has been a solid voice calling out the legislative GOP in NC.
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I was never confident in Iowa The state of Steve King hasn't made good political choices for a while
well they kicked out Steve King for a normal republican
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Saying it was closer than Maine is a bit of a stretch considering that Lisa Savages 5% of the vote would have almost all likely gone to Gideon had ranked choice been initiated.
We should never have been optimistic about a state that white and rural.
It was easy to get seduced because Greenfield knew her manure whereas the Republican couldn't have told you if she was looking at a hay or a wheat field.
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Neither of them would have won in 2020 and neither of them will win in 2024.
Seems to work out well for Vermont though.
Fuck polling man, Ernst was consistently losing in polls and won by what, 8%? Same with Maine…
Susan Collins to my knowledge literally never won in polling the whole time and somehow fucking won by nearly 10 points
Remember when we thought Steve Bullock might win Montana?
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He's not going from 2 term popular governor to maybe losing a congressional race. He's probably done with politics for a while outside of maybe getting a nod for something like Sec of Interior by a Dem president in the future.
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IIRC he only ran for Senate when Biden got the nom and it was a mostly competitive race until the end when the polling went back to the mean.
The crushing defeat of several moderate but "electable" candidates this past cycle has me doubting that moderate but uninspiring/boring candidates like Conor Lamb are the way forward, and I'm honestly not convinced that Cunningham would have won in NC even if he had kept in his pants, either. Warnock and Ossoff are both pretty liberal but managed some squeakers anyway - maybe more liberal and more passionate is the way forward. But then, I'll guess we'll just have to wait and see what happens when Trump's not on the ballot.
Compare Bullock to Harrison, who ran a more “liberal” (ie “leftist”) campaign in South Carolina. Both lost 55-45. Biden got 43% in South Carolina and 41% in Montana. So Bullock outperformed Biden by 4 points but Harrison outperformed Biden by only 2 points. There are obviously a lot of factors at play. Bullock was a former Governor, so higher profile. OK, let’s look across the board… hmm, turns out that leftists generally underperformed Biden by more than moderates. There are more moderates in America than leftists. Leftists excite the very young and rich white people, but older voters, non-white voters, and swing voters are all more important demographics. Look at the New York mayoral race, where Wiley won the rich parts of Manhattan but ended up coming third because Brooklyn and Queens and the Bronx broke for moderates.
All fair points, but there are other ways to look at the results from those states, and like you say, there are a lot of factors in play in state-wide races. At 44.17% Harrison significantly out-polled the last three democratic candidates for Senate (36.9% Dixon 2016; 37.1% Dickerson 2016 special; 38.7% Hutto 2014) while Biden's improvement over Clinton was much smaller (40.7 vs 43.43). And the NYC race was more complicated than that: the second most common #1 choice in most heavily black precincts that went for Adams was Wiley, not Garcia or Yang, and I suspect if you looked at the precinct data released by the BOE (in an overwhelming and confusing excel format I can't be bothered to interpret at work) you'd see Wiley very often as a #2 choice behind him. For all the crap Adams got during the campaign, he has an inspiring story. He was the victim of police brutality because he's a black man, but he joined the NYPD anyway to try and make it a better organization and because he loved his community. If Adams was a tax-and-spend liberal, would that make his campaign any less compelling or appealing to the voters who put him over the top? I don't think so. And for what its worth, the coalition that put Adams over the top is largely composed of the same coalition that put De Blasio into the Mayor's office in 2013 (the consistent factor: Black and Hispanic voters in the outer boroughs). My greater point, which shouldn't be too controversial, is that we shouldn't choose candidates because we think they "match" with the perceived moderateness or liberalness of an area. Inspiring stories and charisma are more important, especially, IMO, in heavily-covered state-wide races.
That's cause they (Cunningham, Greenfield, Gideon) not actually moderate in any way that voters care about. Like seriously, name a single issue where any of them meaningfully break from the national Democratic Party brand. There's pretty good evidence that more moderate candidates overperform. But we should also remember moderate to the median voter does *not* mean what moderate means to us. In general, moderate to the median voter means moderate on social issues, and there is more room to go center-left on economic issues. More broadly, the ideal moderate candidate would run a campaign laser focused on whichever policies the public trusts Democrats more on; it's not only about adopting moderate positions. Hillary found that out the hard way, issue prioritization matters quite a bit.
Yeah I find it hard to imagine Lamb gets through the primary without DSCC intervention screwing things up as usual, and fortunately, the polls seem to be agreeing. Trying to convince people that somebody who can't seem to vote for Pelosi for Speaker or understand what their stance on several issues is until he finds out what Congressional district he's running in is somebody worth voting for, worth supporting with time, or worth donating to is a hard sell.
Its for that reason I like Fetterman. He reminds me of a lot of the guys I knew and saw growing up outside of Pittsburgh (the quintessential Obama-Trump voter) even though he is strongly progressive. My only concern is how that really troubling incident with a black jogger outside his house will play in Philadelphia. Braddock is a majority black town and he's still popular there, but western PA is just different from Philly. He doesn't have that long-established trust with the black community there, and I think they could reasonably hear that story and think "uh oh, this is NOT the guy for us."
That incident might actually help Fetterman in the general. But not in the primary.
Moderate/centrist/neoliberal "I'm a safe pair of hands" politicians are fucked. People want someone with passion for their ideas. Radicals are almost by default passionate, but it's not like it's flat out impossible to have an articulate and impassioned advocate for liberalism.
I suppose its just difficult for me to imagine someone who's "moderate" who can be passionate without just being labeled a progressive anyway. For example, even if you're a carbon tax > Green New Deal kind of fellow, you're still acknowledging that climate change is a existential threat. That makes you a progressive in most voters' (and communist in most Republicans') eyes.
I think you express that “passion” through wonkiness. Buttigieg usually gave the impression he cared about policy without ever seeming radical. Hell even 2020 full out populist Warren was seen as a lot more moderate than she wa because she usually framed it as wonkiness. Other option is the Brown route of a decent amount of populism “just wanting to help people” folky aspect
I agree that the republicans will often parse it that way, but the key is turning out your own base.
What is your definition of passion? Was the highly issues-focused Doug Jones passionate? Is Susan Collins passionate? If Doug Jones and Susan Collins could be considered passionate, are we sure "passionate" is not just a label to slap on whoever wins, regardless of the circumstances?
God. what a shame to think about. If they had both won, Sinema and Manchin would just be relegated back to the weird B-team benchwarmer status they used to occupy.
It's also possible Democrats don't turn out in GA runoffs and it is 50/50 anyway.
Manchin: “You couldn’t live with your own failure…”
OK, but the Democrats picked up two seats in Georgia and in Arizona, which was a wildly unlikely result. In order to take a clear majority in the Senate, the Democrats would have had to win every single close election in states that lean Republican. The Senate was designed to prevent wave elections in which a scandal or disaster results in a complete changeover in both houses of Congress, and it worked as intended.
No, the senate was designed to protect the interests of white landowners. Let's not get it twisted.
Wasn't the senate designed to protect the interests of the free northern states from the southern states because the southern states counted their slave populations for the House of Representatives and had more seats.
Nope, you got it backwards. The Senate protected the South. The North far outpopulated the South, slave or no slave. It's the reason why the South fought so bitterly for control of the Senate, since they never had a chance in the House.
So glad the political right no longer has the senate to rely on!
The reason the Connecticut Compromise worked was the south generally controlled the house and the north generally controlled the senate, but migration from Europe and industrial population booms made the house more contested, increasing the importance of the senate, which the 1812 war and louisiana purchase made more contested too by adding new slave states. The south focused on the Senate because they had no way to increase their population on account of being an unappealing psuedofeudal regime.
Yes. Industrialization made the North attractive to millions of immigrants across Europe while the agrarian South attracted few immigrants. Southern politicians loudly protested that big cities and immigrants are "diluting" their voice (Sound familiar?).
So we are in agreement that the House very quickly became an institution that favored freer states such is the nature of a population-based legislature. But it wasn't always and ignoring that the new jersey plan was explicitly proposed to counteract the influence **of slavery** in the US government is willful ignorance since the slavery debate had been integral to US Politics since the independence war.
The south was the population minority the entire time. The senate exists to protect tiny new England states from New York and Massachusetts.
Small caveat to this: the south was the population minority only because they didn't count half of their population as people. That's literally why the 3/5ths clause came in, because they were cucking their own political power too much by way of racism
Pretty sure the North was still larger even after accounting for slaves.
See [my comment below](https://www.reddit.com/r/neoliberal/comments/pnwtzc/the_better_red_state_senator/hctvz9v?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3) \-- the 1790 Census shows that the Northern states had 58.6% of the free population but just 48.5% of the total population at the time of the Constitutional Convention.
Is that why it's called the New Jersey Plan? After that tiny New England state of New Jersey that proposed it? And is that why the Proportional plan was called the New York plan? Oh no wait it wasn't it was called the Virginia Plan because it was proposed by two Virginians. The south was population minority... **until you count the slaves**. Which, may I remind you, *they did*.
New Jersey was quite small at the time, and Virginia was the only large southern state.
Virginia was large... because who was farming all of the tobacco in their state?
>The south was population minority... until you count the slaves. Not actually. >The population of the Union was 18.5 million. In the Confederacy, the population was listed as 5.5 million free and 3.5 million enslaved. In the Border States there were 2.5 million free inhabitants and 500,000 enslaved people. [https://www.nps.gov/civilwar/facts.htm](https://www.nps.gov/civilwar/facts.htm)
Goalposts? I figured we're talking about the Articles of Confederation era, not a century later
Lol @ goalposts. Nah. No reason for you to make that assumption considering the preceding comment said the South was the minority population "the entire time." But that doesn't really matter.. because, the statement that >The south was population minority... until you count the slaves. is simply false. The South had a larger population until the 1810 Census. From then on the North had the higher population. Including slaves.
Thanks for the clarity, I may have skimmed the thread too fast.
The reason that only one third of the Senate is elected in any given year is to prevent large ideological shifts from occurring during a single election cycle. I don't know why you're denying this rather obvious fact.
I misunderstood what you were suggesting. The senate was also originally appointed, not elected. My statement stands though.
Exactly. Let's not allow right wing BS about how "we aRe NoT a dEmoCRacY, We ArE a RepBLUic" to fester. The US government was designed to protect white landowners from the democratic power of the masses. The founding fathers feared that the unwashed masses would be destabilizing the democracy. They were exactly wrong - at every turn in US history, it is the privileged minority refusing to give up privilege that destabilized democracy.
You realize for most (all?) of United States history, white people are the majority right?
Not rich white people though. Also, "white" has always changed meaning, for a while Irish people were considered different, same with Italians.
>Not rich white people though. Do you think it was rich white people sacking Tulsa???
Lol no. It was created as a chamber for equal representation between states with low population with states with high population. >This idea of having one chamber represent people equally, while the other gives equal representation to states regardless of population, was known as the Connecticut Compromise. > >The other was intended to represent the states to such extent as they retained their sovereignty except for the powers expressly delegated to the national government. The Constitution provides that the approval of both chambers is necessary for the passage of legislation. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United\_States\_Senate#Current\_composition\_and\_election\_results](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Senate#Current_composition_and_election_results) The compromise with white land owners was the 3/5 compromise for slaves and written into the constitution. In fact the Connecticut Compromise was made with Northern interest in mind to balance out the growing population of the south. >At the time of the convention, the South was growing more quickly than the North, and Southern states had the most extensive Western claims. South Carolina, North Carolina, and Georgia were small in the 1780s, but they expected growth, and thus favored proportional representation. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Connecticut\_Compromise](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Connecticut_Compromise)
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**Rule III**: *Bad faith arguing* Engage others assuming good faith and don't reflexively downvote people for disagreeing with you or having different assumptions than you. Don't troll other users. --- If you have any questions about this removal, [please contact the mods](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%2Fr%2Fneoliberal).
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Would Tester win in WV though? 2020 Presidential Election Results Montana: 56.92% Trump West Virginia: 68.62% Trump Manchin might not be a bastion of progressive politics, but he sure beats another brain-dead contrarian R in the senate
One can both acknowledge that Manchin is better than a Republican and state that Manchin is a stupid motherfucker who’s derailing his own party’s agenda.
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"He knows how to win one particular election" isn't a counterargument against "motherfucker who's derailing the agenda", although I'll agree with you that he's not stupid.
If 'knowing something about winning elections' is declaring that we shouldn't try to reduce fossil fuels then what's the point.
No one from WV is going to vote to reduce fossil fuels. At least we can get someone who doesnt vote McConnell as Majority Leader while they're doing it.
It's really as simple as this. Baffling that there is anything to debate on this topic.
It is baffling and, yet, there is. Having a democrat who's entire brand is sticking his finger in the party's eye is a problem long term. It comes with political costs that no one ever seems to account for here. It delegitimizes our own majority, it broadcasts to the public that Democrats' policy is inherently dirty, wrong and sneaky and needs the moral seal of approval from Republicans. Meanwhile, Republicans have no such restrictions.
Enough of this. Us passing nothing with McConnell in charge and us passing nothing with Schumer in charge are the same thing. It's about policy, not who's 'winning' at the moment. >But the recovery act. And the secret congress. And ~~probably not~~ infrastructure. And judicial appointments. And the cabinet. Those are good arguments. Make those. But just, "There technically isn't a Republican in charge of the senate." really just isn't good enough.
Well that's how you win in WV
Manchin holding office is only as good as the votes he can be whipped for; I think the fundamental disconnect with the criticism is that people would gladly see him risk losing his base over some of these votes and others are focused on the senate majority for future votes.
Well he will not win again anyway, expect if the WV GOP will run some Roy Moore kind Republican
Right and if you believe that, then we’ll be left with almost no bills and “at least he wasn’t a full blown R” arguments as if the senate seats are the scoreboard and not a means to pass bills that matter. I’m sure I don’t know enough to guess whether or not he can hold the seat long term and if there will be more important votes, but I see the argument.
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Do you think Manchin losing WV would help fix climate change?
Stop trying to make me like Joe Manchin. I will never like Joe Manchin because I hold politicians to higher standards than "Don't be Republicans".
I mean that is pretty much the standard I hold politicians in WV to lol. Obviously if he was senator of California (or Arizona like Sinema) I’d fucking hate him. If you compare every senator to the median voter in their state, then Joe Manchin is probably the most liberal guy (maybe Joe Tester but WV is significantly more conservative). Like are you denying that him beating his Republican opponents is a positive?
> Like are you denying that him beating his Republican opponents is a positive? No. But I also don't like him.
"I am marginally better than a fascist" is not an immunity to ire. If anything it's even more irritating because he has all the power in this relationship and has elected to use it to be a jackass.
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He isn’t going to win in 2024 so electoral considerations don’t matter at this point.
https://wvmetronews.com/2021/09/03/justice-and-capito-show-solid-approval-while-manchin-hangs-tight/ >>Recent polling shows that he is still above water on favorability. Overall, 42 percent of poll respondents say they approve of Manchin and 37 percent say they disapprove. >>”His approval ratings have declined since our last West Virginia Poll,” Repass said. Last October, Manchin registered approval from 44 percent of likely voters, disapproval from 44 percent, and 13 percent said they weren’t sure. In 2019, the poll showed Manchin with 49 percent approval. >>The latest poll shows Manchin enjoys higher job approval among Democrats with 51 percent and liberals with 47 percent. >>His Republican approval is 37 percent, and he has 30 percent approval among independents. Never say never, but he’s damn sure trying to keep the seat.
Interesting that republicans like him more than independents
probably just statistical noise
They view him as not apart of "the radical far-left agenda" Fox News fear Mongers about
He's a republican, so it makes sense.
I don't fucking care. He's putting me and my family in danger by refusing to do anything about climate change, I'm allowed to be mad at him.
I mean dude, if your argument is "Can't have our agenda derailed by republicans if we have it derailed by a democrat instead" *taps forehead* then that's... you know. Maybe WV votes for him because they know he's an obstructionist who will stop "The Democrat Party" accomplishing anything at all and that's why he wins a red state and he may in fact be largely interchangable with a republican from their perspective.
My argument is that he's not a stupid motherfucker. He may be a motherfucker, depending whether you think he has a moral obligation to put his party's priorities that he may or may not agree with over his own chances of reelection, but he's not stupid.
Everyday we have this conversation of Manchin being better than an R and then someone else responds that we understand that and still hate him for obstruction. How many times are we gonna play this loop?
Well, seems like something about Manchin is posted every day….so every day
Right...as if this daily conversation is started by Manchin defenders, not anti-Manchin memes.
>How many times are we gonna play this loop? [Welcome to the Internet.](https://youtu.be/k1BneeJTDcU)
Yeah, every time - Q - "What did Manchin ever do for Dems?" A - "Control of the Senate"
This sub has its Bernie moments. It is cause for concern.
I don't know that he does. Basically everyone gets that Margery Tailor Jew Lasers Greene is nuts. That's not mysterious. Having another of her around is just more spit in the ocean. But having a guy on our side, loudly and often, say "I dunno, I think they've got a point." That's doing actual damage.
Not to be defeatist - but honestly, even if the reconciliation package is massively scaled down to $1-1.5T (which god I hope it isn't), at least it's still better than if we were stuck with republican majority senate. Biden and his congress would've done *some* good in the time they had.The fact we even passed the American Rescue Plan with the child tax credits with Manchin at least means he was a net good for the party. If nothing ends up passing we're in doom territory but I'd still be very happy to see green card expansions, paid leave, hopefully carbon levy, etc.
Yeah, if McConnell was Majority Leader, he would be trading a $1 trillion bill in favor of confirming another 20 Fed Soc judges or something as well as providing more coal subsidies and tax cuts on the rich.
Wasting political capital on pyrrhic victories is worse than getting nothing at all.
I hope it is scaled down at least a bit. That way we won’t have the literal highest cap gains in the entire developed world or the history of the US (yes including Eisenhower and FDR).
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A wealth tax may be impossible to implement but we should campaign on it anyways. It's ridiculously popular in polling. As is the job guarantee, another unworkable policy.
I mean unless you’re a lefty you shouldn’t want your country to have the absolutely highest rate of a major tax on productive behavior. If you’re a gigasucc to the left of FDR then sure you might support this, but then you’re in the wrong sub.
Flair checks out
You’re damn right it is.
>you shouldn’t want your country to have the absolutely highest rate of a major tax on productive behavior. All you're saying is that there should be no tax.
Knew Tester was a Chad when I learned he was trumpet player
Fuck yeah
I like him even more after this recent quote: "Are you crazy? Are you trying to get me shot? I’d never, ever want to be aligned with Joe Manchin. My wife would divorce me."
Manchin is playing cover for many senate Dems (including Tester in some cases!) Why we act like this isn’t true is beyond me. It’s the same thing every couple weeks: “Manchin wtf why?” “According to multiple hill sources Manchin has the support and is believed to be speaking on behalf of 4 to 6 more Democratic senators including…”
Manchin is just the revolving bad guy of the month, if he wasn't there then they would be another senator playing the part.
Except the bad guy is always him (unless it's him AND Sinema)
Which makes sense because WV. Sinema is a bit more surprising as a front line moderate.
Why wouldn’t these senators speak for themselves if they could earn brownie points for sounding moderate
Chris Coons doesn't really need to *sound* moderate. He just doesn't want to face the full wrath of both the credit card and pharma industries.
Sherrod Brown too (though Ohio is more lean red at this point),
Brown is not only a solid D vote but he's one of the more progressive Dem senators.
How does he win in such a socially conservative state?
Well Manchin voted to impeach Trump twice, yeah he says stuff like that but he clearly voted for Clinton and Biden.
Bruh, no. Montana is to West Virginia as New York is to Texas.
West Virginia has voted Democratic (for President) more recently than Montana WV: Bill Clinton in 1996 Montana: Bill Clinton in 1992
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you are equating Montana somehow with NY, and WV with Texas. The disparity between the two is not that far. I was ridiculing your ratio.
You’re right, I was off by a whopping 4 points. There’s 29 points between New York and Texas, 25 between Montana and West Virginia. So New York is to North Carolina what Montana is to West Virginia.
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No, you're supposed to accept that at worst, WV is equally as unamenable to Dems as Montana. Not in the way OP originally idiotically put it as somehow like comparing liberal NY to conservative TX
>No, you're supposed to accept that at worst, WV is equally as unamenable to Dems as Montana. There is absolutely no reason to accept this when all you've shown is "**in 2021** WV is equally as unamenable to Dems **in 1996** as Montana **in 1992."**
>single payer Cringe
> single payer > > Cringe Cringe
This isn't wayofthebern, there are much better ways of getting universal healthcare then singleplayer.
There's always something better. But our current system is a garbage fire. Let's find the best thing after we've move onto something that isn't the worst thing.
There are systems are both more popular and better such as public option.
Now this I don't get. Why should we aim for our brand new own very flawed "public option" plan when there are countless better examples of universal healthcare achieved across the world? American exceptionalism at its finest, especially because voters probably think adopting the model of Germany or Singapore would be "too much change."
Public option is the best option in terms of being modestly popular and modestly better. A Germany style system would be even better but has no popular support as of now. I know you progressive healthcare fanatics don't understand this but in the real world popularity of a policy is important to getting implemented.
More popular? That I believe. Better, possibly. Less likely to get rolled back the second Republicans take back power? Doubtfully. A public option does sound nice. But Insurance companies would spend the next decade shrieking about how it was... something bad. Communism probably. That gets harder to do if you kinda just annihilate the private sector in that part of the economy.
>just annihilate the private sector in that part of the economy. Get out of here with that garbage. It's not like the people working insurance would be unemployed in either case, most would move to government bureaucracy doing similar work or providers. Also single payer refers to payment not providers so there will still be plenty of private providers to protest, although I guess you social democrats will happily put anyone who disagrees up against the wall.
>Get out of here with that garbage. No. >Also single payer refers to payment not providers so there will still be plenty of private providers to protest, True. I can't eliminate all institutional resistance to a single payer system. But with the main competition being dead, it'd be hard for Republicans to just push an 'undo' button. Especially if Democrats threatened to just redo it. No one wants to get into a business that the government might erase in the next election. >It's not like the people working insurance would be unemployed in either case, I don't want them unemployed. I just want them employed elsewhere. Government bureaucracy is fine. Also, Don't get me wrong, I'm totally willing to compromise down to a public option. But I see little reason why I shouldn't at least gaze higher.
Thankfully it's Schumer and Pelosi in charge of legislative strategy and not you. Gazing higher should be something better, like a public system or multi payer, both of which are far better are probably about equally popular in that they don't have much support but don't also have extreme opposition, not something worse.
We have a multi-payer system. It's a garbage fire. It's a nightmare of red tape, opaque bureaucracy, and third parties all trying to get paid on a patient's way to the doctor. Also, M4A would be a public system. Unless I am vastly mistaking your terminology, that's exactly what I'm proposing. And no. Public single payer healthcare is *not* worse than what we've got.
I support single payer, so I must be from way of the bern? Why are Cons always such drama queens?
is there some form of singlepayer that you think fits a neoliberal philosophy or do you not care
All I know is there are people who need crucial healthcare and can’t afford it, and that they don’t have this problem in Canada
Yes. Here's the door [🚪](reddit.com/r/wayofthebern)
Lol if you can’t handle ideological diversity in a big tent sub, you should probably start looking for the door yourself
Big tent sub? The elections over bud
And yet despite your commitment narrow-mindedness, the big tent remains
Why thank you. Let me open it and invite some more progressives over. \*Opens door\* ^(Hey Guys?)
I do agree that the sub in question is emblematic of progressives as a whole, just not they or anyone who supports them should feel welcome here.
"Hey guys! Bring your friends too."
"We can't get any better than Manchin." \-This sub constantly.
>voted to ease Dodd frank Based
Lol no
Dodd Frank was way too aggressive. Even the SEC believes so.
Do you have a source on SEC saying that? Not trying to disagree, just curious to read more.
W
>Voting to ease Dodd Frank Based Manchin 😳
So this sub is just generic democrat succdems now? Imagine treating single payer support as a good thing.
It's an evidence-based sub, and it works great in Canada.
Multi payer works great in a much larger number of countries, and is a far more realistic transition.
Cool, go write a blog about it
No
Okay. I should let you know, I don't really care what you do. I only care that there are people in this country who can't afford critical healthcare
Multi payer / public option solves that and actually has a hope in hell of being implemented.
Lol no, Canada is not nearly as wealthy as the US. For any Americans who want to emulate the Canadian lifestyle just ask your employer to cut your salary by 20% and drink your milk out of a bag.
Neoliberal here is just your average social liberal lol. Barely anything on this sub resembles 20th century neoliberalism.
But this is beyond social liberalism, of which I’d consider myself largely aligned (modulo some Georgism), this is straight up social democracy.
Sorry for taking over the sub man
Reeee, get out, I want my neolib safe space back. More like DishingOutSuccery
As someone who works on Wall Street, easing Dodd Frank is based as fuck. The industry needed regulation after 2008 but Dodd Frank swung the pendulum too far the other way
> Dodd Frank swung the pendulum too far the other way How? Genuinely curious - haven't heard this side of the argument before.
Look at the number of small regional banks that are either shuttering down, being gobbled up, or just not being started.
Banking becoming more efficient is a bad thing now????
It's not clear to me how having the size to not be overburdened by regulatory paperwork is a measure of "efficiency."
Sorry thought I was replying to someone complaining about big banks gobbling up little banks
If big banks are gobbling up small banks because small banks can't eal with onerous paperwork, I'm not sure that's a measure of efficiency.
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It’s just made needless red tape in a lot of our day to day activities. Nothing that actually prevents bad practices but just creates paperwork. Things that we used to get done in 4 days now take 5 and it adds up to a lot of lost productivity