Special Election megathread (5/21: CA-20)

[The Right Honourable Martin Brian Mulroney PC CC GOQ]

The Sandercrats have a fundamental misunderstanding.

They think they are like the Tea Party and the more they sh*t on their own party, the better chance they have of getting elected.

That is not how it works.

I've noticed that a decent amount (not all) of the "squad" has learned this. You'll notice some criticisms yes but it's usually directed towards the most moderate members, not the "establishment". AOC for example has a lot less foot-in-mouth moments than she did before.

Nina Turner didn't learn that lesson and it cost her.

Once again I didn't even like her so I don't really care that she lost.

It definitely feels like there is a contingent within the Progressive movement who think burning it all down to build on top is more important than achieving any progressive goals presently. Bernie kinda cultivated this faction in the latter days of the 2016 campaign, which brought them to the forefront. However, as noted, the elected progressives mostly have shunned these commentators - so much so that people like Shawn King and Brianna Joy Grey now seem to be on the outside looking in at the Progressive discussion rather than the other way around. And that is a good thing.

This is why I don't like calling people like Turner "progressive". There is nothing progressive about this kind of all-bark-no-bite flamethrower populism. These types love to attach themselves to FDR because of the New Deal, but even a cursory look at FDR's approach will tell you that he was much more like Biden than this clown Nina Turner.

[The Right Honourable Martin Brian Mulroney PC CC GOQ]

Solid, but non-extremist, liberal won. Good...

This. Which is also why the coverage of this race is ridiculous. Brown is moderate next to Turner i guess, but she's still very liberal. So it's not like this was a liberal vs. conserva-dem situation. But that's what it's being painted as, just because Turner is so extreme.

That's been the left's schtick for years now, they use the fact that America's more right-wing than most western countries to imply that they're somehow the moderates.

I've seen people call Elizabeth Warren "centre-right by European and Canadian standards". Centre-right.

Ah, of course. As we all know, Boris Johnson, Angela Merkel, and Stephen Harper are great proponents of wealth taxes and workers' representation in corporate boardrooms. Brilliant analysis.

[The Right Honourable Martin Brian Mulroney PC CC GOQ]

That's been the left's schtick for years now, they use the fact that America's more right-wing than most western countries to imply that they're somehow the moderates.

I've seen people call Elizabeth Warren "centre-right by European and Canadian standards". Centre-right.

Ah, of course. As we all know, Boris Johnson, Angela Merkel, and Stephen Harper are great proponents of wealth taxes and workers' representation in corporate boardrooms. Brilliant analysis.

Haha, I used to think this way (see below). It's embarrassing. It's so deeply inaccurate but the online left has done a pretty good job of spreading this message farther and wider than you'd hope or expect.

She's basically a moderate if you put her in European politics. America's Political discourse has moved so far to the right however.

Can either you or PC explain how she is a perfect for the Liberal Democrats, or say the Dutch D66 or En Marche? Are those parties Trotskyist?

Perhaps the original post wasn't specific enough; I guess it would be fairer to say that she's a moderate by Scandinavian or Central European standards. I think we're nitpicking though; the broader point is that the spectrum of political ideology and the placement of "extremes" in the U.S. is very far to the right relative to the rest of the world.

I'm guessing your views had something to do with single-payer healthcare, which is often used as a litmus test by the left. Maybe that makes sense in the American context, but transposing the healthcare issue to other countries is the height of bad American analysis. It makes as much sense as using birthright citizenship as a global litmus test, then implying that America is more liberal than Sweden which uses "the rule of blood", or implying Canada is more conservative than the States because of voter ID laws and point-based immigration.

[The Right Honourable Martin Brian Mulroney PC CC GOQ]

https://twitter.com/cinyc9/status/1422996230783836171
Interactive here: https://rrhelections.com/index.php/2021/08/03/august-3-2021-oh-11-oh-15-primary-and-mayoral-races-liveblog

"Cleveland's eastern suburbs - particularly Beachwood - came out to vote and voted heavily for
@ShontelbrownO...Turner's base largely didn't."

Do we suck at electoral politics? No, it's the fault of (((dark money)))

[The Right Honourable Martin Brian Mulroney PC CC GOQ]

Nina Turner is antisemitic

What in the absolute f**k is "[j]ust like South Carolina, corporate Dems turned out white voters to win" even supposed to mean!? Aside from the fact that Biden won the 2020 SC primary's Black vote (which represented 56% of that primary's voting population) in more of an absolute landslide than he won the white vote thereof (which represented just 40% of the SC primary's turn-out), the implication that the votes of "white affluent shaker heights" voters - a.k.a. Jews, because we just so happen to always be the easiest scapegoats to blame for literally anything, don't we? - or even just "white voters" should somehow count for less than other voters' votes is seriously f**ked up beyond any measure of f**ked-up'd-ness.

I guess black voters in South Carolina, who are mostly pretty poor by national standards, are actually rich white people

[The Right Honourable Martin Brian Mulroney PC CC GOQ]

I'm guessing your views had something to do with single-payer healthcare, which is often used as a litmus test by the left. Maybe that makes sense in the American context, but transposing the healthcare issue to other countries is the height of bad American analysis. It makes as much sense as using birthright citizenship as a global litmus test, then implying that America is more liberal than Sweden which uses "the rule of blood", or implying Canada is more conservative than the States because of voter ID laws and point-based immigration.

Healthcare and probably the broader social safety net, which I obviously now understand isn't a great proxy either (of course people will pay higher taxes / the government will fund more social services in a country that's 95%+ white and there's no risk of those funds going to "the other")

In any case it's just funny to reflect on this because I now react very viscerally to those ridiculous memes that show the "perceived" spectrum versus the "actual" spectrum where every US politician is just on the right

I think it's also a status quo thing. Here in Canada, supporting universal healthcare isn't seen as a left wing position, because we already have it and have had it nationally for over 50 years. It's true that Canadian Conservatives support universal healthcare, but that means they support the status quo of healthcare policy - the US equivalent is supporting the American status quo of private healthcare with some public intervention like Medicare, Medicaid, and now the ACA. In that sense, Canadian Conservatives are the equivalent of Susan Collins type Republicans.

If we look at something neither country has, like wealth tax, then that's a more fair comparison. The NDP supports wealth taxes in Canada, like how Berniecrats do in the US. The Liberals support more progressive taxes broadly but don't want a wealth tax, like moderate Democrats. And the Conservatives oppose both the wealth tax and tax increases in general, like the Republicans. This is a more honest way of comparing political parties across borders.

As for the political compass memes, good lord those make my blood boil. The political compass is ridiculously tilted to "Libertarian left", but they place every politician in "Authoritarian right".

Put it this way: Ben Shapiro scored 6.75 economically right-wing. Okay, makes sense. Let's see where they place Joe Biden.

7.5

The political compass thinks Joe Biden's views are more right-wing than Ben Shapiro's, and we're supposed to pretend it's a good tool for ideological placement.