I like that American left are miserable

[The Grand Nudger]

What...are you willing..to compromise?  How many mexicans?  If the answer is "none"..then you aren't willing to compromise, plain and simple.

[TaraJo]

You know what pisses me off about the American left?  This is something I've noticed over the past few years of being involved with some very VERY left wing communities:  the left adamantly refuses to compromise their message, even the slightest, even if it helps them better communicate good ideas.  There's a kind of frustrating intellectual elitism going on with it.  

Meanwhile, I watched a documentary about far right groups, especially white nationalist groups and, you know what?  They took the exact opposite route: they're hiring PR people and gladly changing their messages in order to take terrible, hateful ideas and make them more likable, more popular, to the public.  

The far right seems to care about PR and public opinion far more than the far left.  And, by the way, that plays a role in the country gradually moving to the right and with republicans winning so many elections with candidates that would make Forrest Gump look like a genius.  

I wish the left would actually acknowledge that to promote their ideas, their ideology, they're going to have to work with the public instead of just trying to piss off as many people as possible.

Is this Satire?  Cause it's hard to tell.

The left are the party of compromise.  That's why we got Obamacare instead of Single Payer Healthcare. 

The Alt-Right on the other hand, solely do things to piss off the left.  That's why you've got a bill in Missouri that requires all adults over the age of 18 to own an AR-15.  That's why there's constant talks of banning abortion.  They DO NOT compromise.  It's their way or the highway.

So either this has it completely backwards, or it's satire that's become difficult to tell because of the political atmosphere we have today.

Yes, that's part of the problem:  Our elected officials will compromise left and right, constantly.  But many of our pundits, they won't compromise anything.  Democrats have good ideas, but they're shit at sticking with those ideas and they're even worse at communicating them with moderates who actually decide elections.

[Belacqua]

Democrats have good ideas, but they're shit at sticking with those ideas and they're even worse at communicating them with moderates who actually decide elections.

Or it may be that Dems with power don't actually want to implement those ideas.

It's often said in lefty circles: the Democratic Party is where good ideas go to die.

[TaraJo]

Democrats have good ideas, but they're shit at sticking with those ideas and they're even worse at communicating them with moderates who actually decide elections.

Or it may be that Dems with power don't actually want to implement those ideas.

It's often said in lefty circles: the Democratic Party is where good ideas go to die.

I can believe that.  I heard someone say that the corporate financiers of the elections pay republicans billions of dollars to fight for them while paying democrats billions of dollars to throw that fight.

[Mister Agenda]

It could be that ompromise is why we got Obamacare instead of nothing.

[Yonadav]

It could be that compromise is why we got Obamacare instead of nothing.

That's a good example of how even when things are done the Republican way, the Republicans don't budge an inch. Obamacare isn't Obama's brainchild. It is Mitt Romney's. It's a Republican healthcare program, and all the Republicans have done ever since, is to attack it.  They have been intentionally sabotaging it, and intentionally driving premiums up. They have intentionally caused double digit inflation in the cost of insurance. They have greenlighted the sale of junk plans. They have practically encouraged pharmaceutical companies to gouge consumers. 

Here is an article in which a Clinton style Democrat argues that it is time for the center to pass the baton of leadership to the Democratic Socialists, because compromise with Republicans has been completely untenable, and the center's calculus concerning compromise has been proven to be 100% wrong.

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/...rad-delong

[The Grand Nudger]

It could be that ompromise is why we got Obamacare instead of nothing.

That's true, but it was intra-party compromise that created both ends of that coin..why we got anything, and why we didn't get single payer. In the house, a single republican voted for it, in the senate, none. The reds had no power in that negotiation, but they didn't need it, since they could sit back and watch the blues fuck themselves at every opportunity, lol. That;s the field of play, that's what it looks like when one side of the coin is willing to compromise and the other stands locked arm in arm.

Pandering to the nutballs doesn't work because they won't support you even if you crib their ideas.

[TaraJo]

The compromise I'm thinking of, where democrats give way too much and republicans don't give anything, are the constant battles over tax cuts and economics. Biggest example was when John Boehner proudly claimed he got 95% of what he wanted from shutting down the government a few years ago. Billionaires keep getting their taxes cut, everything for the middle/lower class gets cut, republicans fight tooth and nail to make it happen and the democrats turn completely spineless. Immigration, GLBT issues, war and all the other political issues we have to deal with go on as normal, but when it comes to the fact that the corporate class is fucking the entire country, we always get the same game: Republicans fight for the billionaires, democrats don't fight for anything and unless you make a million dollars each year, you get fucked.

[Mister Agenda]

A lot of the compromise I'm thinking of is between the near-conservative and left progressive ends of the Democrats, in order to get enough votes to pass legislation the GOP is against. Democrats have to be united to pass their agenda, and that often means cobbling legislation together that no Democrat congress critter thinks will cost them reelection. The GOP will have to lose a lot of ground before more progressive legislation can be counted on to pass without the support of Blue Dog and New Democrats. It's not enough to hold both chambers, Democrats will have to dominate them.

The Blue Dogs are a dying breed though, a lot of them have been replaced by Tea Party Republicans, which is definitely not an improvement.

[Equinox25]

I'm not sure how to reply to this