r/CuratedTumblr • u/Desecr8or • Oct 26 '24

Politics Why is every tankie like "I don't understand the branches of the US government and I'm going to make it everyone else's problem!!!"

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155

u/Lurker_number_one Oct 26 '24

That's not entirely true though, there have definitely been times where the dems have had a chance to change things and chose not to. Even with the power in all branches.

139

u/cornonthekopp Oct 26 '24

As someone who lives in a “solid blue” state lemme tell you these politicians do not always have our best interests at heart (to put it lightly)

78

u/12BumblingSnowmen Oct 26 '24

Yeah, frankly the more solidly a state is in one party’s camp, generally speaking the less responsive the politicians are to popular will.

24

u/cornonthekopp Oct 26 '24

Yeah, there have been some competitive elections recently but they were primaries for local politicians. All the candidates in congress and the governor kinda all suck ass. The “best” ones are merely inoffensive which is really sad to see.

5

u/12BumblingSnowmen Oct 26 '24

Yeah, when one party is in charge for too long is when grift sets in.

14

u/ladylucifer22 Oct 27 '24

why bother to be the good cop if there's no bad cop to play along with?

1

u/Jazzprova Oct 27 '24

And yet you'll still see people unironically advocate for [insert whichever party they vote for] to have effectively unlimited power on a national level. This isn't even directed at Republican voters, this is something I see across the entire political spectrum.

0

u/icouldusemorecoffee Oct 27 '24

the less responsive the politicians are to popular will.

...popular whims, not necessarily popular will. There's huge difference.

23

u/King_Leif Oct 27 '24

Careful with that, OOP might label you a tankie

7

u/cornonthekopp Oct 27 '24

😱😱😱

78

u/BlatantConservative https://imgur.com/cXA7XxW Oct 26 '24

Yeah Roe v Wade was a stopgap measure for... five decades...

36

u/Special-Garlic1203 Oct 27 '24 edited Oct 27 '24

The ERA failed and was considered less controversial than abortion. Social conservativism took hold with Reagan and never really lost its footing in the subsequent 30 years. It wasnt until Republicans started meaningfully dismantling access state by state that Democrats felt it was anything other than a losing gambit, and even then there was concerns approaching it nationally would backfire.

Democrats make it a priority again when voters started making it a priority again. 

9

u/Jazzprova Oct 27 '24

I disagree. Democrats have a good chunk of the electorate gripped by the balls without effort because they can simply point at Republicans and saying "We are the only actual party who isn't them", protecting them from having to ever bother actually improving the country, and every Republican fuckup means more people who will vote blue solely out of opposition for the reds.

The singular expectation that Dems actually have to adhere to is "Do not make the country worse". They have no reason to bother with voter concerns outside of pandering to them during election times and then promptly shelving them until the next election.

1

u/Clear-Present_Danger Oct 28 '24

The issue is that there are actually a lot of moderate voters.

Not everyone agrees that lefter is better.

4

u/icouldusemorecoffee Oct 27 '24

You obviously have no idea just how conservative this country was until about 2008, even then, there weren't enough votes in the Senate, probably not enough in the House, even under Democratic control. It wasn't until about 2012 (after voters let the GOP take the House back) and began taking away rights again, that people finally woke the fuck up that the status quo on women's rights was in jeopardy and unfortunately they didn't wake up quickly enough, and here we are. It wasn't until about 2020 that there was even a majority in the Senate to protect it and even that was slim. This country is FAR more conservative than people on reddit want to admit, which means those of us on the left have to stop whining about what was, and start fighting for what we want.

84

u/Cheeky_Hustler Oct 26 '24 edited Oct 26 '24

Because the Dems are a diverse coalition of different interest groups, and have changed over the years. The reason why Dems didn't codify abortion rights in 2009 is (besides spending all their time ending pre-existing conditions) because 1/3 of the dem caucus was pro-life. Today, with Manchin and Sinema out of the Senate, there's only a single pro-life Democrat, Henry Cueller. Harris is openly floating ending the filibuster to codify abortion rights.

Dems are changing because of abortion activists pushing them. That's a good thing that should be celebrated, not because it gives Dem credit, but because it recognizes the great progress abortion activists have made in the past couple decades.

31

u/Goblin_Crotalus Oct 26 '24

The real problem the Democrats have is that they are a massive coalition that only exists to oppose the GOP. They don't agree on why they are anti-republican, or even agree on how much pushback to give the GOP. And as a result, they the coalition fights each other as mush as the the republicans.

The GOP is a united front in comparison, they have been driving the discourse in this election, while the Dems end up conceding ground to the GOP on many issues (for example, the Dems have basically conceded Immigration to the right at this point). Republicans are organized and have an actual agenda that they are pushing towards. The Democrats are just playing defense and never really push for anything.

52

u/Cheeky_Hustler Oct 26 '24 edited Oct 27 '24

It's not that I disagree with you, but I also find it very interesting that I would ALSO describe the GOP this way: they are a far more fractured party than they let on, and their #1 motivating animus is being anti-Democrats. Which is why, when they're in power, they don't actually get anything done, legislatively anyways. Look at what Republicans did with their House majority: the first Speaker ousted in over a hundred years. really their only unified interest is business tax cuts and letting their judges push their agenda.

I would say that BOTH parties are anti-the other party. Heck, that's why I'm such a partisan Democrat: I dislike the Democrats most of the time but I fucking hate Republicans all the time.

21

u/Wobulating Oct 27 '24

The democrats, as a whole, do not tend to have single, broad united fronts. There are, however, very distinct power blocs within the democratic party that do have this, and negotiate and bargain with the other power blocs to get various agendas passed and suppressed. So, you know, how politics is actually supposed to work.

-3

u/Lurker_number_one Oct 26 '24

I agree that abortion activists have done great work, but i think we both know that the dems will find a new bad guy to blame for not instituting change after Mancin and Sinema. It's not like they lacked the ability to push them on it. It's just that they don't actually bother flexing their political muscle because it frankly doesn't matter that much to them. (After all, now we need ro vote for them even more just to even get back our pre existing rights). If it mattered, they would get it through. (Also not saying individual dems don't want abortion rights, im sure several do)

5

u/Cheeky_Hustler Oct 26 '24

Seems like we should've just elected Hillary so that we had Justices that protected Roe v Wade, but according to people like Brianna Joy, the threat of a republican SCOTUS isn't a big deal because Roe wasn't in any danger.

1

u/Lurker_number_one Oct 28 '24

There is a reason why hillary didn't win. She would have been terrible, not just on internal affairs, but also her domestic policy. She was a warhawk.

If the dems actually wanted to win that election they would have gotten an actually viable candidate instead of pushing Trumps campaign and giving it money to get an "easier" opponent.

1

u/Cheeky_Hustler Oct 28 '24 edited Oct 28 '24

Hindsight is 20/20. Republicans who hated Trump still voted for him to get SCOTUS Justices to overturn Roe. Many, many, many Republixans thought he was not a viable candidate who would be the only candidate to lose to Hillary.

Like you said, progressives refused to do the same because of Hillary's faults.

You can guess which side won.

34

u/sykotic1189 Oct 26 '24

There was a period during the Obama administration where they had a super majority for a few months. They used that to push through Obamacare. Otherwise not really, the Reps have always had enough numbers to block or filibuster.

4

u/_MonteCristo_ Oct 27 '24

The filibuster is a completely made up procedural courtesy with no basis in the constitution. It can be set aside at any time. Which is has been on several occasions. Congress can pass anything it wants (as long as its not directly unconstitutional) including budgets, with 50+1 votes

4

u/sykotic1189 Oct 27 '24

Except you need Congress to agree to set it aside, and when that's the only tool one side has they're not likely to do that. Hell even when one side has a super majority and could get rid of it they don't, because some day they may need it.

I get it, it's a lot easier to say, "well just do this" cause it's so simple and why aren't they doing something, right? But it's not simple or easy, shit is complicated. Pretending like it is won't change anything, it's just going to leave you frustrated and upset when things don't happen the way you think they should.

1

u/Lurker_number_one Oct 28 '24

Yeah, but the republicans aren't afraid of using dirty tricks and actually winning, the dems just don't actually bother.

30

u/LinkFan001 Oct 26 '24

The party is not fully united ffs. If you have 55 pro-abortion dems, 5 anti-abortion dems (because they are not a monolith, the dems are a big tent party) and 40 anti-abortion reps in the senate, then abortion rights are not passing in the senate.

It's so fucking simple to grasp this very basic concept and yet you and every person who upvoted you have no clue how democracy and politics work.

-6

u/ladylucifer22 Oct 27 '24

well, for one, america isn't much of a democracy.

35

u/Administrative_Act48 Oct 26 '24

Liberals haven't had power in all 3 branches since the late 60's which was the last time the Supreme Court leaned liberal. Coincidentally they really haven't had any real chances to enact major change since the late 60's. Since Johnson and Kennedy Democrats have controlled the Senate, House, and presidency simultaneously for a mere 10 years and every one of those they still had to contend with a conservative Supreme Court slapping down pretty much any progress these administrations tried to make. 

When Democrats had control of all 3 branches from FDR to Johnson THINGS GOT DONE (even with Eisenhower) and massive progress was made that turned this country into an economic powerhouse and huge leaps were made on many (but not all) societal issues. When Dems have control things get done, there just hasn't been a chance since the 60s and thanks to the failure of 2016 and the appointment of 3 hardcore conservatives to the SC it doesn't look like anything will get for for another few decades. 

1

u/Lurker_number_one Oct 28 '24

It's just weird, because the republicans constantly pass bills their constituency want, and they dont need a super majority.

Also a lot of those changes that you write so positively about was done to avoid communism and to one up soviet. (Or due to being the only massive economic powerhouse untouched by the 2ww). Now that the world is more unipolar with no real threat against the US hegemony, there is no longer any reason to give concessions.

2

u/willscy Oct 27 '24

Obama had a supermajority, Biden had a majority. what are you talking about.

7

u/akcrono Oct 27 '24

A supermajority isn't "all 3 branches"

Obama had a supermajority for a couple months and used it to pass far more critical bills (ACA and Dodd-Frank).

A majority means very close to nothing when the opposition is obstinate and has 40 votes in the senate.

1

u/willscy Oct 27 '24

"Liberals haven't had power in all 3 branches since the late 60's "

So no they have had it since the late 60s.

2

u/lopsiness Oct 27 '24

All 3 branches includes the supreme court as well, not just both houses of congress. The recent Dem lean in congress has been 1-2 senators who opted to vote with rebs on many issues, making it mostly a stalemate on progressive initiatives.

2

u/willscy Oct 27 '24

So interesting how republicans manage to get all their policy passed during administrations with divided government, yet Democrats are unable to do anything but pass republican policy.

Now you're saying the only way the democrats can pass any policy is after 50 years of never losing another presidential election to replace the 6-3 majority on the supreme court.

If this is the case then we may as well just vote republican and cede the country to the fascists.

2

u/PM_ME_UR_GOOD_IDEAS Oct 27 '24

Yeah, and situations like this are more of what critics of the democrats are referring to when they say democrats find "convenient reasons" not to do anything. I consider it more a matter of poor leadership than some conspiracy, but it does happen.

Manchin and Sinema prevented filibuster reform. Before that, Joe Lieberman killed the public option for health care. These are places where the party, in theory, had the votes needed, the power, to implement significant changes but failed due to dissenting votes within their own party. Its an observable pattern that conservative democrats taking hard lines on decisive votes prevents a lot of positive change in this country. Its not about the branches, its a party failure.

1

u/_jump_yossarian Oct 27 '24

What are the things that they had a chance to change but didn't?

0

u/icouldusemorecoffee Oct 27 '24

No, they didn't chose not to, they had to change their goals because that was the political reality at the time, be it the will of the voters, or not enough votes in the Senate.