Lawrence’s quote:
“If you want to pull the major party that is closest to what you’re thinking, you must-YOU MUST-show them that you’re capable of NOT voting for them. If you don’t show them you’re capable of not voting for them, they don’t have to listen to you. I promise you that. I worked within the Democratic Party. I didn’t listen or have to listen to anything on the left while I was working within the Democratic Party, because the left had nowhere to go.” – Lawrence O’Donnell on the 2006 documentary, ‘An Unreasonable Man’.
He’s apparently an idiot, since every time Democrats haven’t won, the entire country has been dragged right.
Immigration is an interesting example of this. Funny enough, when Democrats were in power, policy trended further and further left with amnesty for dreamers and accepting refugees. After losing in 2016, the Democrat position has moved towards stronger enforcement and border security.
If Lawrence has not changed his mind since then, he’s a giant fucking idiot who doesn’t see reality. The problem with not voting for Democrats is that it means Republicans win, and they have a habit of moving all issues to the right.
You want the party to move left? Elect more progressives. Understand why voters are picking moderates over progressives in primaries, and course correct. It isn’t dark money, because there’s been plenty of that thrown around, and fake progressives have had more on hand versus their primary opponents.
And then, even with all the justification all the progressives had for quitting from the political system – basically on par with if the US was directly sending 19-year-old US citizens over to Gaza and having them blow up hospitals and get their balls shot off, or if Biden himself were approving of the brutalizing of protestors, like sending them to the hospital with nightstick fractures, not “just” pepper spraying them and putting cuffs on them – I feel like you can draw this absolutely direct line from 1968 and the disillusionment that stemmed from it into the grim nightmare politics that took over in America, because only the assholes were still voting, from Nixon to Reagan to Clinton until now we have just a wreckage of a system that someone from the 60s wouldn’t even recognize.
Basically I feel like 2016 was a repetition of that same betrayal, and I’m really hoping that 2024 isn’t a repetition of the same fascist takeover that’s enabled by it, because now we’re much much closer to the edge. Daniel Ellsberg said that all the things Nixon did to him that formed one piece of his collapse and fall, they’re all legal now.
I think something we often forget is that people can have spot on analysis and very intellectual takes in the past, but it doesn’t necessarily mean their modern takes are also good. Sometimes that’s an inherent thing too because of changing times. People who criticized US actions in the cold war were likely right – but a lot of them have adopted the imperialist position today that Ukraine belongs to Russia and it should be a pawn between NATO and Russia, instead of a self sovereign country that makes its own decisions.
Makes you wonder a bit how things will develop in the future, but I digress.
I think there’s probably a tendency for a lot of well meaning people to blame Democrats because their civics knowledge is less than comprehensive. And I don’t blame them entirely for that, our education system isn’t great.
Back in the Clinton/Bush era 20 years ago when he said that, I actually think it made quite a bit of sense. The Democrats were a lot more corporate-friendly (dropping corporate tax instead of raising it like Biden did, boosting the WTO instead of telling them to go fuck themselves like Biden did), and the Republicans weren’t trying to kill their political opponents or put minority groups into literal concentration camps.
I’m not even gonna comment on “‘they’ keep scrubbing it from YouTube.”
Lawrence O’Donnell said it best in this extremely hard to find video because they keep scrubbing it from YouTube…
https://youtu.be/FqRNnIMDkUY
Edit:
He’s apparently an idiot, since every time Democrats haven’t won, the entire country has been dragged right.
Immigration is an interesting example of this. Funny enough, when Democrats were in power, policy trended further and further left with amnesty for dreamers and accepting refugees. After losing in 2016, the Democrat position has moved towards stronger enforcement and border security.
If Lawrence has not changed his mind since then, he’s a giant fucking idiot who doesn’t see reality. The problem with not voting for Democrats is that it means Republicans win, and they have a habit of moving all issues to the right.
You want the party to move left? Elect more progressives. Understand why voters are picking moderates over progressives in primaries, and course correct. It isn’t dark money, because there’s been plenty of that thrown around, and fake progressives have had more on hand versus their primary opponents.
Yeah. It’s a big shame. I read Lawrence O’Donnell’s book about 1968. It’s so fucking sad. I couldn’t finish.
And then, even with all the justification all the progressives had for quitting from the political system – basically on par with if the US was directly sending 19-year-old US citizens over to Gaza and having them blow up hospitals and get their balls shot off, or if Biden himself were approving of the brutalizing of protestors, like sending them to the hospital with nightstick fractures, not “just” pepper spraying them and putting cuffs on them – I feel like you can draw this absolutely direct line from 1968 and the disillusionment that stemmed from it into the grim nightmare politics that took over in America, because only the assholes were still voting, from Nixon to Reagan to Clinton until now we have just a wreckage of a system that someone from the 60s wouldn’t even recognize.
Basically I feel like 2016 was a repetition of that same betrayal, and I’m really hoping that 2024 isn’t a repetition of the same fascist takeover that’s enabled by it, because now we’re much much closer to the edge. Daniel Ellsberg said that all the things Nixon did to him that formed one piece of his collapse and fall, they’re all legal now.
I think something we often forget is that people can have spot on analysis and very intellectual takes in the past, but it doesn’t necessarily mean their modern takes are also good. Sometimes that’s an inherent thing too because of changing times. People who criticized US actions in the cold war were likely right – but a lot of them have adopted the imperialist position today that Ukraine belongs to Russia and it should be a pawn between NATO and Russia, instead of a self sovereign country that makes its own decisions.
Makes you wonder a bit how things will develop in the future, but I digress.
Hey, don’t bring history and facts into this, you’re gonna scare ozma!
And then…
https://readsludge.com/2024/03/27/biden-re-election-benefits-from-dark-money-he-says-erodes-public-trust/
Gosh, you mean that he’s playing by the rules that the republicans have put in place and not unilaterally disarming? How scandalous.
They should flush the entire “money is speech” concept, but until we can replace most of the SC with people who don’t suck, we work with what we got.
Oddly, sort of related to some of these same complainers sitting out 2016. Weird how elections can have consequences.
“Don’t threaten me with the supreme court!”
“Omg why did Biden let Roe get overturned?”
I think there’s probably a tendency for a lot of well meaning people to blame Democrats because their civics knowledge is less than comprehensive. And I don’t blame them entirely for that, our education system isn’t great.
Back in the Clinton/Bush era 20 years ago when he said that, I actually think it made quite a bit of sense. The Democrats were a lot more corporate-friendly (dropping corporate tax instead of raising it like Biden did, boosting the WTO instead of telling them to go fuck themselves like Biden did), and the Republicans weren’t trying to kill their political opponents or put minority groups into literal concentration camps.
I’m not even gonna comment on “‘they’ keep scrubbing it from YouTube.”
I’m starting to believe you’re secretly David Brock running a new PAC.