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this post was submitted on 17 Jul 2024
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Just for fun, I looked at the last 50 years to see WHEN they could have codified Roe. There were only 4 periods with dem trifectas:
-1977-81 senate majority 6
-1993-95 senate majorty 4
-2009-11 senate majority 9 (10 for a month)
-2021-23 senate majority 1
The senate majority is the number of senators you could loose who didn't want to get rid of the filibuster on this topic OR who were pro life (like Harry Reid, the senate majority leader from 2005 to 2017, though in the senate from 1987-2017)
The problem is the Dems have TWO conservative senators who refused to codify Roe. Joe Manchin and Kirsten Sinema both refused to suspend the filibuster.
So we did NOT have a filibuster-proof majority 2021-2023.
So ONLY 4 times when there was absolutely nothing standing in their way except themselves?
That they don't do what they promised on the rare occasions where they DO get the magic majorities they ask to get first isn't exactly a good argument in their favor..
We got the ACA in the last one, and in the most recent one two Democrat senators defected to oppose it so it couldn't go forward.
Which they negotiated into a giant giveaway to insurance companies with no price controls or other ways to limit profiteering. WITHOUT any Republicans forcing them to or even voting for the bill.
Yeah, there's always a rotating villain or two who acts as a roadblock and scapegoat. So very convenient for a party that votes for legislation that their rich owner donors want much more often than legislation that the people at large want.
Especially since the rotating villains are always heavily promoted by party leadership and paid more party funds for their campaigns than most other candidates.
The ACA, while not perfect, literally saved my life. It prohibits lifetime maximums and eliminated the idea of pre-existing conditions.
Without that, I'd be dead.
Don't let perfect be the enemy of good.
This place is full of people who want to turn an aircraft carrier on a dime. They'll never be happy with anything and it explains why their big ideas will never happen.
They turn everyone off and discourage everyone because nothing is ever good enough. It would be one thing to be happy but not satisfied but even that isn't enough.
I know.
They have unrealistic expectations about how the world works and feel like anger, even if justified, should be enough.
the flaws in the ACA only exist cause follow up bills to patch the holes that came up after rollout couldnt be passed due to, you guessed it, republicans.
cause republicans are against anything and everything that benefits the 99.9%
Indeed. Everyone tries to blame Democrats for, when they have the slimmest of majorities, for not doing everything, when there are literally 49 Republican senators out there who are the ones who are truly blocking progress.
I'm glad it saved your life and I am aware that it was an improvement over the former status quo.
That being said, though, it's inadequacies HAVE lead to the deaths of many, perhaps thousands or even hundreds of thousands, from not being able to afford treatment before it's too late.
Dems had a unique opportunity to save as many lives as possible, and they negotiated themselves down to a tiny step in the right direction and then pretended that it's the best anyone could possibly do.
It's been over a decade and a half since they took that tiny step and they're still resting on their laurels and vehemently opposing anyone who suggests that improvements are needed or even possible.
I'm so fucking tired of that lame argument for complacency.
Incrementalism isn't good. Taking a tiny step in the right direction and then declaring victory as the other party predictably makes it worse than it originally was as both parties gradually turn further and further right isn't good.
It's throwing rare scraps to the starving masses from the banquets they throw for their owner donors, including the health insurance industry leeches that the ACA massively enriches.
Politics is about incremental progress, which is not sexy enough for you guys. If you want the revolution, go start it. Shit or get off the can. All this moral grandstanding is vacuous and meaningless
Because that's what the powerful have decided for you, NOT because it's the best way.
"If you don't like my favorite band, make better music yourself" 🙄
Yeah, expressing dissent should be for those with the power to change things themselves only. What a great idea! 🙄
Just my opinion, but this is not expressing dissent: This is nihilistic apathy. Expressing dissent typically comes with a call to action or a plan. Being politically active is not the equivalent of starting your own band and the fact that that's what you took from it is very telling. Again, if you've resigned yourself to what has been charted out by the powerful either shit or get off the can. This is just political apathy disguised as voicing dissent for edgy points.
You clearly don't have any idea what either of those two words mean.
No. It's possible and in fact a good thing to speak up when the people who are supposed to represent you aren't doing their job. Whether or not you have everything they need to do in stead ready for them to reflexively reject.
I was using a simplified analogy to illustrate the folly of your "fix it or shut up about it being broken" approach to government, not making a 1:1 comparison.
As is clear by my dissent, I have NOT meekly resigned myself to the status quo, like you seem to have m
I can make unreasonable demands too: either learn what words mean and get a better catch phrase or shut up.
Nope. That's still not what apathy means. You might mean contrarianism. You'd still be wrong, but at least your false accusation would be logically consistent with the rest of your reductionist pro-establishment rant.
If you want to argue semantics, that's fine. My point stands. It is apathy in the sense that you are here exclusively to promote voter apathy by emphasizing that:
From google/wikipedia (emphasis mine):
Political apathy is a lack of interest or apathy towards politics. This includes voter apathy
I carefully picked these words with intention -not to come up with a slogan.
By looking at the trend in your posts, they all echo the same trend: Voting is ineffective. Now, it's possible you are simply echoing this sentiment by agreeing with other posts/users that have determined for you that political engagement is ineffective, because after all "The powers that be have already decided everything for us". I will give you the benefit of the doubt that you are in fact a human person with good intentions. But either way, you've picked up the rhetoric of disinformation campaigns and determined you agree with it and here we are.
You are welcome to keep expressing dissent over. and over. and over. without any semblance of a path to redress any of these concerns but I am also welcome to call this out as a nihilistic outlook because the revolution hasn't come knocking at the door yet.
Nope, I'm doing no such thing. On the contrary, I encourage voters to be rightfully pissed off and hold their elected representatives accountable.
No, I'm saying DON'T LET THEM!
Again with your insistence that you aren't allowed to voice your dissatisfaction with politicians unless you're ready to do their jobs for them if not outright replace them 🤦
Which is the opposite of what I'm exhibiting. Pointing out alienation ≠ not caring or telling others not to care.
Then you're even dumber than I thought.
That was in reference to your repetition of "shit or get off the pot"
That's not what I'm saying, no. ONLY voting without holding your representatives accountable is ineffective. I consider voting the bare minimum, not the whole solution. Any comprehensive good faith reading would bring you to that conclusion.
Nah, unlike willfully obtuse apparatchiks like yourself, I'm actually capable of independent and logical thought.
You can't be this fucking obtuse 🤦. I'm saying NOT TO LET THEM, not that it's inevitable like the strawman you keep trotting out
Yeah, you made the lie of that clear about 4 strawman repetitions ago 🙄
Another typical establishment shill deflection: " everyone who doesn't agree with me is a bot" 🤦
Yeah. Unlike certain people who don't know what words mean, I'm arguing in good faith as always. You should try it.
Do you rent yourself out to cinemas? Because that's an impressive amount of projection!
Could have fooled me!
Again: it's not my job.
Sure, there's no law about being willfully obtuse and pretending that not falling in line equals both caring. It's arrogant and annoying, but not illegal.
An enabler of the corrupt establishment like you probably hopes it never does. You'd NOT fare well in a system where critical thinking is valued higher than blind obedience.
You said incremental progress is not good enough, right?
So, what’s the best way pray tell?
Comprehensive reform like Women's Suffrage, The New Deal*, The GI Bill*, the Great Society reforms, the civil rights acts of the 60s.
Fundamental systemic change happens suddenly as a result of people protesting so much that the politicians can no longer ignore their will, NOT incrementally over decades as both parties gradually drift further and further to the right.
*without the racial discrimination, of course
Yea, so progress depends exclusively on massive acts of protest now? And none of those changes are being reversed?
Yes, those movements were instrumental in moving things forward but to rely on them exclusively is very disparaging to the mountain of work that happens at the local and grassroots level every day by people who are putting hard work towards that unsexy incremental change that you so despise. It's so minimizing to the people who depend on those policies.
"The price of liberty is eternal vigilance"
That eternal vigilance is that incremental change you are offended by. You can protest day in and night, but without the work to keep the flame of liberty alight it's just that...empty protest. The left is so divided right now, even getting them to protest the same things is almost impossible.
I think you are a good person with good intentions -I really do. But protest without the work to keep democracy going is like hitting rocks hoping the fire stays on.
Yeah, but less people died than they would have if there was no ACA.
Its terrible that people die in the country every day from healthcare issues that are taken care of by every other first world country on the planet.
but god damn, sitting here saying shit like you are screams of nothing but impotent anti-ACA troll flailing.
the ACA needs to have its holes patched, yes, but don't sit here and pretend its not saving a fuckton of lives.
Having a pro-lifer as the majority leader is a big stumbling block. Don't know much about the first two post-roe trifectas, but I do know there was a particular democratic house member that voted to amend the constitution to overturn Roe
Which they put there themselves. Like with most of the barriers they blame their feckless inaction on.
And they awarded him by making him a senator, then VP and then president.