We should let immigrants in so Democrats will win...?

This whole thing is gross

I’m in full solidarity with immigrant workers, which means I don’t support an unsustainable and massively unpopular immigration system that allows them to become functional slaves.

[Edited on January 31, 2018 at 1:39 PM. Reason : .]

1/31/2018 1:37:59 PM

We've had this discussion before:

https://www.brentroad.com/message_topic.aspx?topic=648190&page=79

1/31/2018 1:43:36 PM

Quote :

"Do you not see the giant overlap between low-wage working class solidarity and minority rights?"

they do not, its impossible for them to see how they are largely the same thing nor do they understand that you can support equal rights and not be okay with a party that is only about identity politics. it's the sad result of coordinated misinformation like CTR.

1/31/2018 1:46:17 PM

Immigrants rights ARE worker's rights. This is a political position

Women's rights ARE worker's rights. This is a political position

LGBQT rights ARE worker's rights. This is a political position


Raising the working and living conditions of the most exploited an oppressed workers of the world IS a political act. Wearing a "YAS Queen" t-shirt and dancing on stage with Beyonce IS NOT.

1/31/2018 1:58:45 PM

I’m sure there are those in the GOP who actually want to have immigration reform to help the low-wage working class but that is so obviously not the goal of this. It’s fomenting fear to retain power. It’s patently obvious that is the case with the constant grouping of MS13 and immigration reform.

[Edited on January 31, 2018 at 2:03 PM. Reason : I may be naive but I actually think Rubio is one but can’t be because of the GOP]

1/31/2018 2:01:42 PM

^^^,^^. No, I get the relationship between worker's rights and immigrant rights. But, unfortunately, that's NOT how it is framed semantically by 95% of the media or by 95% of your average low-wage workers. Dreamers is absolutely categorized as an identity in this country and DACA is categorized as an identity issue.


Please go to a Rustbelt town and try to convince the locals that Dreamers are JUST LIKE THEM!!!!!! Let us know how convinced they are.

1/31/2018 2:10:16 PM

oh, word? Is the South a bastion of racial harmony? There are still confederate soldier statues within a 40 mile radius of your computer seat right this very fucking moment. So let's not pretend that racism is exclusive to the Rust Belt.

1/31/2018 2:13:26 PM

Come on dude, I'm not pretending that. I only use the rustbelt because they're the working class du jour that the media is constantly masterbating to (and because it is the general location where the Dems had the biggest setback in votes).



Edit:

But the point you make is crucial, so long as racism plays a significant role in immigrations discussions, immigrant rights will be framed as an identity politics issue. Solidarity among the working class won't exist as long as the GOP can keep making the easy layup of dog whistles.

[Edited on January 31, 2018 at 2:23 PM. Reason : Edits]

1/31/2018 2:19:20 PM

National Democrats long ago wrote off the South as being unreachable because of "racism." If they now write off the Rust Belt for the same reason, then I fail to see how this will help them win future elections.

If Democrats refuse to learn and speak in the language of worker solidarity (which includes disparate identities), then they are DONE. Republicans are rapidly transforming into a full-throated Nationalist party and openly displaying the elements of fascism. Fascism cannot be defeated by Liberalism. It requires socialist policies to be put forth. Democrats have to actually FIGHT AND WIN important battles. They can't continue to capitulate (like they did with DACA) and expect a dwindling voting base to continue to support them.

1/31/2018 2:30:07 PM

^^Randy Bryce is taking that message to working people, he's doing okay so far

1/31/2018 3:07:03 PM

Quote :

"I’m sure there are those in the GOP who actually want to have immigration reform to help the low-wage working class but that is so obviously not the goal of this. It’s fomenting fear to retain power. It’s patently obvious that is the case with the constant grouping of MS13 and immigration reform."

That, and to reduce the Democrat constituency. And Democrats want immigrants to increase their constituency, to please their base, and to produce cheap labor for donors.

Neither actually care about immigrants. If Democrats did care, they would co-opt the message and promote responsible immigration, which includes reform for the working class as a whole.

1/31/2018 3:17:02 PM

I’m sure it’s hard to maintain solidarity with the working class when you spend 4 hours a day wrangling money from millionaires

https://theintercept.com/2018/01/23/dccc-democratic-primaries-congress-progressives/

1/31/2018 3:42:23 PM

lol:
https://youtu.be/Hy8UwpenlEA

1/31/2018 3:51:33 PM

^^

Democrats are "history's second-most enthusiastic capitalist party" - Kevin Phillips, former strategist to Richard Nixon


I'd be careful with the "responsible immigration" line, though. Controlling who comes in to the country has zero relevance on where capital goes to find cheap labor. If your goal is to raise the working and living conditions of labor, then protectionism is a dead-end. "Responsible immigration" doesn't matter if global capital is free to move to wherever it wants and labor is not.

[Edited on January 31, 2018 at 4:22 PM. Reason : ]

1/31/2018 4:18:50 PM

You’re right, but I don’t see how we fix the problem globally until we fix it locally. Opening borders without a plan just isn’t reasonable.

[Edited on January 31, 2018 at 4:35 PM. Reason : .]

1/31/2018 4:28:50 PM

Collective bargaining. It's literally the only way to combat the battering ram of global capital that is free to move without consequence. Global solidarity is easy to dismiss as a "pie-in-the-sky" non-starter, but we have to wipe out "responsible immigration" from our vocabulary, because it cedes power to the right-wing who wish to pit competing groups of labor against one another.

If you want to fix it locally, then you have to go into the rust belt and even the deep south and direct the anger of the working poor (which is legitimate) away from foreign scapegoats, and re-direct it to their BOSSES, who actually control when they have to wake up in the morning, how many hours they have to work, what kind of healthcare they receive, when they can take a piss-break, etc. You will NEVER win them over by preaching "tolerance" toward outside groups if you don't tell them who is ACTUALLY profiting by extracting their surplus labor.



[Edited on January 31, 2018 at 5:03 PM. Reason : ]

1/31/2018 4:55:13 PM

Hey we’re on the same page here. I just think it’s a tall order to accomplish that in a global fell swoop. Would love to be proven wrong.

1/31/2018 5:31:56 PM

Joe Manchin wants senators to sign a pledge: Don't campaign against each other

https://www.cnn.com/2018/02/06/politics/joe-manchin-pledge-senators/index.html

2/6/2018 4:06:47 PM

Spineless cowards

A budget deal with zero Dem wins. Now onto an immigration bill with zero leverage.

2/9/2018 8:37:35 AM

Honestly, what can you do when the other side is complete bad faith actors with only one guiding principle (liberal tears)? I’d consider the end of GOP-led austerity a victory but we know as soon as a president has a D in front of it they will cry about deficits again.

[Edited on February 9, 2018 at 8:46 AM. Reason : But in general I agree. DACA folks will be fine but all leverage is gone]

2/9/2018 8:44:35 AM

and people will line up to reelect them so why not cave?

2/9/2018 11:14:33 AM

I was under the impression the Dems were pretty happy about the increase to social spending in the bill.

2/9/2018 11:48:41 AM

Like $30+ Billion. That ain't chump change.

2/9/2018 11:54:24 AM

democrats are pretty split right now according to reporting

2/9/2018 12:33:32 PM

Yea the leadership thinks they won which is the problem. Show me the part of that $300 bil that doesn't have massive bipartisan support.

Military
VA
Disaster relief
Opioid crisis

Also Rep don't give a shit about the deficit they proved that in December

Oh and they get 2 year debt ceiling relief which means for 2 years, or as long as they hold both houses, they don't have to have headlines that say "Republicans raise the debt limit"

2/9/2018 3:21:53 PM

Quote :

"Show me the part of that $300 bil that doesn't have massive bipartisan support. Military "

This part. Or are we talking about the people who pretend to represent us?

2/9/2018 3:25:11 PM

When it comes to budget/economy/etc, there are only two differences between GOP and Dem:

Who deserves the money from working and profiting
Whether social programs deserve money or not

On every single other issue, to include the military, the parties are identical.

Dems don't want to give up social programs but still spend more on the military.
GOP doesn't want to give up on tax breaks but still spends more on the military.

And so on and so forth.

2/9/2018 3:38:57 PM

-Extended CHIP out to a full 10 years (instead of the previous 6, they passed earlier this year)
-$80 Billion for disaster relief (You can claim this is bipartisan, but the GOP dropped the ball repeatedly earlier this year in fully funding recovery)
-$6 billion of opioid and mental health treatment (you can claim this is bipartisan, but the GOP could have funded this at any time over the last year and it would have passed with flying colors, they didnt do shit.)
-$5.8 billion for Child Care and Development block grants
-$4 billion for the VA (ok this one is probably bipartisan)
-$2 billion for NIH research (Doesn't the GOP whine every year about fruit fly research or some shit. EVERY YEAR.)
-$20 billion for infrastructure (probably bipartisan)
-$4 billion for teachers, cops, and firefighter education (meh, who cares)
-$7 billion for community health centers (definitely a Dem initiative)


Not exactly stellar but you also have to keep in mind that the GOP controls both houses and the Whitehouse, that makes life hard. I agree some of these items SHOULD be bipartisan, but the GOP just refuses to lift a finger for anyone except their donors or the Military. As a country, for the last 30+ years, we've depended on the Dems to come in behind the GOP and do what needs to be done and clean up the mess. That's what a good bit of these items are IMO.

2/9/2018 4:15:55 PM

They are fucking up royally on the teacher aspect. I'm pretty amazed that community health centers get more funding than that line item. Half the people that use them wouldn't need them if they were educated properly growing up.

In fact, I bet they could only get the money for teachers by lumping them in with first responders.

2/9/2018 4:47:00 PM

Quote :

"Extended CHIP out to a full 10 years (instead of the previous 6, they passed earlier this year) -$80 Billion for disaster relief (You can claim this is bipartisan, but the GOP dropped the ball repeatedly earlier this year in fully funding recovery) -$6 billion of opioid and mental health treatment (you can claim this is bipartisan, but the GOP could have funded this at any time over the last year and it would have passed with flying colors, they didnt do shit.)"

Yea to my bipartisan support i meant among what congress members claim to support not what voters support. All this shit applies. That's why it's total garbage that the only "concessions" Dems got were things Reps sad they were gonna do anyway. Like, none of it can ever hurt a Rep aside from general spending increase. If only one side hurts in a compromise, it's a bad compromise.

[Edited on February 9, 2018 at 7:30 PM. Reason : Chip was co-sponsored by Orin fucking Hatch ]

2/9/2018 7:27:47 PM

These are people who compromised when they had a supermajority. Of course this is what you will get when they are on the other side of one.

2/9/2018 8:42:02 PM

https://crooked.com/article/mainstream-media-liberal-embrace/

Quote :

"Step two is for journalists to accept that while their organizations aren’t “liberal” in the American-partisan sense of the word, the vocation itself is “liberal” in a more profound and important sense, which is why the right wants to crush it. ... What those people share is a common commitment to basic Enlightenment-era ideals like equality, democracy, and empiricism. ... It should be perfectly possible to apply the neutral rules of modern journalism to both American political parties while accepting that Democrats (and journalists and scientists) descend from the enlightenment tradition, while Republicans (and their allies in conservative media) descend from a different, illiberal tradition—and that this makes the parties behave in different ways. ... Journalists have spent decades responding to this kind of manipulation with varying levels of appeasement, hoping to escape the curse of the liberal epithet. They should try embracing their own particular kind of liberalism instead, and letting their bad faith critics scream into the void. "

2/10/2018 3:23:53 PM

http://www.wltx.com/article/news/local/bill-would-ban-saggy-pants-in-south-carolina/101-521194462

Quote :

"South Carolina lawmakers are hoping to pass a bill to ban saggy pants throughout the state. House Bill 4957 would make it illegal for a person to expose their skin or underwear by wearing their pants "three inches below the crest of his ileum" —the top of the hips. Violation fines equal just enough to buy that much needed belt: $25 for a first offense; $50 or three hours of community service for a second offense; and $75 or six hours of community service for a third or subsequent offense. Violations wouldn't be considered criminal or delinquent, or put state college or university financial assistance at risk. Three Midlands lawmakers co-sponsored the bill: Jimmy Bales (D-Richland), Richard Martin (R-Newberry) and Russell Ott (D-Calhoun). Other co-sponsors include Robert Brown (D-Charleston), Wendell Gilliard (D-Charleston), Joseph Jefferson Jr. (D-Berkeley County), Linda Bennett (R-Charleston County), Carl Anderson (D-Georgetown), Steven Wayne Long (R-Spartanburg) and Robert Williams (D-Georgetown). The bill has been referred to the Judiciary Committee. A similar ordinance was passed in Timmonsville in July 2016, where third-time offenders could pay a $100-600 fine."

7 Democrats co-sponsored this bill

2/21/2018 11:22:49 AM

Hmm, my relatives are going to love this, but will be conflicted since it's co-sponsored by dems... although their "sources" probably just won't mention that part.

2/21/2018 11:37:14 AM

^^ in South Carolina....

2/21/2018 11:44:46 AM

it's okay for democrats to be racist in south carolina? how about party leadership holding them accountable?

2/21/2018 11:47:31 AM

What the fuck year are we in?

Extreme racism or war would be the one thing bipartisanship could work with. Why wouldn’t it.

2/21/2018 11:55:55 AM

i know right?? i thought we got past saggy pants legislation a decade ago.

2/21/2018 11:57:02 AM

it’s extremely stupid and racist, but I’m not going to freak out about a few Bill Cosbys in South Carolina

2/21/2018 11:58:16 AM

Quote :

"how about party leadership holding them accountable?"

jimmy bales appears to be a committee chairman, so presumably he is pretty senior in the party

2/21/2018 11:58:49 AM

i meant national leadership, but i know it's not reasonable to expect much from them. that's pretty funny though.

[Edited on February 21, 2018 at 12:00 PM. Reason : .]

2/21/2018 12:00:18 PM

This is local politics. National leadership shouldn't be involved.

2/21/2018 12:21:28 PM

state politics and yes it definitely should when it involves racist legislation

2/21/2018 12:24:39 PM

Quote :

"Extreme racism or war would be the one thing bipartisanship could work with."

This reminded me of a synopsis I read recently of the book How Democracies Die, specifically, the section titled, America’s problems long predate Donald Trump:

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/2/2/16929764/how-democracies-die-trump-book-levitsky-ziblatt

Quote :

"The norms sustaining our political system rested, to a considerable degree, on racial exclusion. The stability of the period between the end of Reconstruction and the 1980s was rooted in an original sin: the Compromise of 1877 and its aftermath, which permitted the de-democratization of the South and the consolidation of Jim Crow. Racial exclusion contributed directly to the partisan civility and cooperation that came to characterize twentieth-century American politics. The 'solid South' emerged as a powerful conservative force within the Democratic Party, simultaneously vetoing civil rights and serving as a bridge to Republicans. Southern Democrats' ideological proximity to conservative Republicans reduced polarization and facilitated bipartisanship."

[Edited on February 21, 2018 at 12:27 PM. Reason : ]

2/21/2018 12:26:27 PM

https://twitter.com/BarackObama/status/966350067287363584?s=20

lol are you kidding me

2/21/2018 1:56:37 PM

what about that tweet isn’t factual?

“a religious person prayed for people and lots of religious people really liked them”

[Edited on February 21, 2018 at 2:02 PM. Reason : .]

2/21/2018 2:00:40 PM

a "progressive" should not be honoring billy graham, noted anti-feminist, anti-gay, anti-abortion, anti-jew, war pusher

[Edited on February 21, 2018 at 2:09 PM. Reason : .]

2/21/2018 2:05:13 PM

don’t know that I would say that he’s “honoring” him

2/21/2018 2:06:31 PM

He is. He liked him and is very religious. I don’t agree with him but it’s fairly obvious Obama’s liked him.

Which is strange for a Muslim.

[Edited on February 21, 2018 at 2:08 PM. Reason : It’s nothing to be outraged at though. Obama can personally like whoever he wants.]

2/21/2018 2:07:31 PM

Quote :

"a "progressive" should not be honoring billy graham"

... that's an obama tweet

2/21/2018 2:14:44 PM