Democrat 2020

[Montmorency]

Monty has a very "damn the torpedos" vibe right now. I like that.

I have drifted very leftward but could never quite put into words with same vim and vigor.

You want to hear something funny? Everyone likes to call politicians like Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio Cortez "radical" - not least among those the selfsame and their supporters. Right? Well, yesterday AOC announced the following:

New policy proposal dropping tomorrow with a special Senate co-lead ��

It’s radical, which I always love, and we’re keeping more coins in your pocket, which I also love.

The proposal, announced today in conjunction with Bernie Sanders in the Senate, was to lower the federal cap on interest rates on consumer credit card debts and loans from 18% to 15%.

There is no reason a person should pay more than 15% interest in the United States.

It’s common sense - in fact, we had these Usury laws until the 70s.

(Max interest rates are record-high for ppl with excellent credit, too.)

It’s a debt trap for working people + it has to end.

Hmm. Sounds like 'technocratic incrementalism' to me!

This isn't a criticism of anyone in particular, it's just continually surreal to me how everyone's messaging about who is and isn't "radical" is so distorted in this country, in discourse and in substance.

When are Dem politicians going to call Republicans "lower than vermin" yet, as prominent Labour politicians referred to Conservatives in the mid-century? The populace certainly deserves to hear the worst about Republicans. Meanwhile, mainstream Republican pundits and politicians poke at the need for the abolition of our liberal order of living memory and the physical neutralization of the 'dangerous and un-American' Democratic party and its constituencies (the just-as-popular but less prestigious pundits, bloggers, and radio hosts say so outright and have been for decades).


*There was one recent incident of an Alabama Democratic state legislator calling Trump Jr. retarded, for which he was roundly condemned, which further goes to show the disparity in standards. This incident "hijacked" a "debate" in the Alabama state legislature where Republicans want to - as yet unconstitutionally - ban abortion outright, is the context. *sigh*

[Husar]

I would assume that changing such an interest cap from 18 to 15% is quite a radical step in your oligarchy. The Republicans may even want to increase the cap to 25% to promote personal responsibility and because the Bible is pro-interest or something.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

I would assume that changing such an interest cap from 18 to 15% is quite a radical step in your oligarchy. The Republicans may even want to increase the cap to 25% to promote personal responsibility and because the Bible is pro-interest or something.

The purist capitalist sort would want the regulation of interest abolished, so that the market could set the interest rate through competition in the market.

[Husar]

The purist capitalist sort would want the regulation of interest abolished, so that the market could set the interest rate through competition in the market.

You're right, I was too generous.

[Strike For The South]

You want to hear something funny? Everyone likes to call politicians like Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio Cortez "radical" - not least among those the selfsame and their supporters. Right? Well, yesterday AOC announced the following:



The proposal, announced today in conjunction with Bernie Sanders in the Senate, was to lower the federal cap on interest rates on consumer credit card debts and loans from 18% to 15%.



Hmm. Sounds like 'technocratic incrementalism' to me!

Radical in the US is democratic socialism. This is a silly place.

It also shows how this country has slipped further rightward under the guise of defending the free market. 15% was the cap 40 years ago.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

You want to hear something funny? Everyone likes to call politicians like Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio Cortez "radical" - not least among those the selfsame and their supporters. Right? Well, yesterday AOC announced the following:



The proposal, announced today in conjunction with Bernie Sanders in the Senate, was to lower the federal cap on interest rates on consumer credit card debts and loans from 18% to 15%.



Hmm. Sounds like 'technocratic incrementalism' to me!

This isn't a criticism of anyone in particular, it's just continually surreal to me how everyone's messaging about who is and isn't "radical" is so distorted in this country, in discourse and in substance.

When are Dem politicians going to call Republicans "lower than vermin" yet, as prominent Labour politicians referred to Conservatives in the mid-century? The populace certainly deserves to hear the worst about Republicans. Meanwhile, mainstream Republican pundits and politicians poke at the need for the abolition of our liberal order of living memory and the physical neutralization of the 'dangerous and un-American' Democratic party and its constituencies (the just-as-popular but less prestigious pundits, bloggers, and radio hosts say so outright and have been for decades).


*There was one recent incident of an Alabama Democratic state legislator calling Trump Jr. retarded, for which he was roundly condemned, which further goes to show the disparity in standards. This incident "hijacked" a "debate" in the Alabama state legislature where Republicans want to - as yet unconstitutionally - ban abortion outright, is the context. *sigh*

I have always thought that the Euros on the thread chuckle whenever they hear folks labeling pols like Sanders or AOC 'radicals.' It is my understanding that they would all be in the "just a notch left of pure centrist" by Euro standards.

[Montmorency]

I have always thought that the Euros on the thread chuckle whenever they hear folks labeling pols like Sanders or AOC 'radicals.' It is my understanding that they would all be in the "just a notch left of pure centrist" by Euro standards.

Rhetorically they are more leftist because they talk of overturning, not accommodating or moderating, the establishment and the economic power of corporate elites. They criticize capitalism directly as a system. And of course they use the word "socialist" - but then again plenty of social-democratic mainstream parties in Europe use that word, such as the old and new-old UK Labour Party and the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party that returned to power in the Spanish general election a few weeks ago.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Speaking of Spain, it's interesting the parallel to America in comparative extremism. This was the country of Franco of course, and their post-Franco centre-right Popular Party has actually always been a home to the hardliners and former Falangists integrated into the democratic system. The party suffered IIRC its worst-ever defeat in the recent election, losing half its seats and voters - but something like half the votes it lost just migrated to more hardline new neo-Francoist parties like Vox, which entered the lower chamber of Parliament with 24 seats on the back of 2.5 million more votes (the PP lost 69 seats and 3.5 million votes, and the other major center-right party gained 25 seats and 1 million votes for reference*). IOW the socialists are social democrats and the conservatives are crypto-fascists in Spain as well. When I said the Republican Party sits on the spectrum between Franco and Pinochet now, I was being perfectly serious.

*You might notice these numbers are not very proportional. This is because Spain uses a regional division of constituencies and the d'Hondt method of apportionment, as the European Parliament does (see Brexit thread)

I think the solid American lefties who actually enter politics are quite self-conscious and don't play all the cards they might like to. For example, when AOC was rolling out the Green New Deal resolution, she or the other people working on it improperly put out an internal FAQ that included extras over the official version such as welfare for people unwilling to work, which of course the right-wing media made hay out of and AOC awkwardly tried to deny and walk back - because "people unwilling to work" is a category most Americans hold on par with 'convicted of capital murder for braining my mother.' See also AOC taking questions from constituents (or whatever the context was, I can't find the clip) where one of them was a RWNJ ranting to her how our most sacred freedom is the "freedom to hate" and how criticizing Trump for encouraging racism and violence is "fascist" (i.e. not the man, the criticism of the man); in a soft voice she gave a very accommodating, lukewarm PC answer about how it's OK to have disagreements but we should be aware of the potential impact of our speech.

Then there's the Green New Deal resolution itself, which was an aspirational document designed to influence public discourse (it succeeded). It provided a diagnosis of a dire situation and further offered a few conditions that would likely have to be met to successfully treat it, of course modeled in line with left-wing ideals (in that it's obviously possible to respond to a climate crisis in an oppressive way or by abandoning swathes of the population to their own devices). But no one, not AOC or Sanders, when talking about "environmental justice" would address the practicalities directly. They like to keep it very positive, talking about "good green jobs" and technological progress, making all the favorable sounds about living standards and the values of the little guy. They wouldn't say out loud something heartwrenching like, 'We must immediately expropriate without compensation the capital of the extractive and energy industries, so that the government may directly operate the transition from fossil fuels on the appropriate timescale. If the people do not mandate our action promptly, even more drastic contingencies will need to be undertaken in the future as the crisis worsens, such as rationing of food and electricity and forced relocation from devastated areas.'