Capitol Hill Blue Forums Political Issues Politics In General Is it too soon to be talking 2020?

So--thinking back I was about eight years old. My father was a pragmatist, my mother an artistic type dreamer, and a very good musician I might add. It was Christmas. And I wanted a spaceship. That actually worked! That I could really fly and “go to the moon”.

So looking back, I suppose they both conspired to buy me that cardboard “spaceship” that would take me to the stars. On Christmas I was presented with it. Aside from being spurned during the first time I was attempting to be laid it was my worst disappointment of all time.

What? A phuggin' cardboard box that was supposed to take me into the glorious future and fly me to places unknown that I absolutely wanted to see? And that I absolutely demanded to see! Yet that goddam cardboard box never even had an engine. Or any other sort of power levitation.

Life is full of disappointments Chunky. I suppose sometime your perfect world where everything works in harmony will appear.....and the rest of the fools will fall in line

But I am not holding my breath.

I think you took a long way around the block to let me know that life isn't perfect Ken.
Uhhh yeah.
I've lived long enough to see that in action and perfection is not what I'm talking about.
I have talked about neoliberal fascism, Clintonian triangulation, environmental destruction, and the boomers congenital nihilism that must be overcome and quickly.

Perfection? I don't believe I've asked for that.

But you've also consistently promoted voting third party when the so called "purity" of the Democratic Party does not meet standards.

Now mind you, I am not labeling you a "purity pony", but I suspect you might be able to see quite a few of them in the pasture you're standing in.
In the end, simple mathematics won't be kind. Someday that same math might be, and I would want to look forward to that day by supporting whatever it is that can tip the scales away from the two main parties and toward a third party.

Most of that, however, is generational work. It is tedious, expensive and slow moving. You're talking about changing a couple of centuries of ideas that people take for granted. You're talking about changing the thinking of millions of people all at the same time.

In the end, what Republicans do is capitalize on this and use it to their advantage. This time, that gambit didn't work as well as they hoped. This time, a lot of very liberal committed soldiers found their way into Democratic Party seats.

You may want to tip your hat grudgingly to acknowledge that.
But I could be wrong

PS: Ken, the first time I got laid, I was hoping for someone who resembled a Playboy centerfold, voluptuous, worldly wise and madly in lust with me.
What I wound up with was a skinny blonde teenybopper with 70's aviator glasses who was as inexperienced as I was, and who had a mom who showed up unexpectedly when she should have been at work.

Still, I persisted...bite the pillow, I was going in dry, and I'm sure she spent that one minute or less staring at the cottage cheese ceiling wondering if this was really what it was all about.

Go ahead and vote for the banana sticker of your preference Jeff. If I have a lousy candidate I'll vote green or leave it blank. That's also voting. That's not purity, that's you hectoring people. I'm not voting against my interests any longer.

Two points you brought up Jeff that i thought are worth responding too.

"Most of that, however, is generational work. It is tedious, expensive and slow moving. You're talking about changing a couple of centuries of ideas that people take for granted. You're talking about changing the thinking of millions of people all at the same time."

Not so. It was the boomers who, as a generation, reversed gears and elected Reagan and all that it represented. Reagan was a turning point, in my book, that ushered in a trove of right wing grift and faux freedom language. Even his own age demographic didn't support him. So how does your generational theory square a rejection of Keynesian economic theory and labor movement struggle being rejected in one generations time? Why is it incrementalism for liberal progressives and death of a thousand cut but 'revolution' for conservatives Jeff?....

"In the end, what Republicans do is capitalize on this and use it to their advantage. This time, that gambit didn't work as well as they hoped. This time, a lot of very liberal committed soldiers found their way into Democratic Party seats.

You may want to tip your hat grudgingly to acknowledge that.
But I could be wrong wink"

An embryonic number of committed progressives were elected to congress Jeff but it was not due to the institutional structure of the Democratic party. Instead it was mainly do to the long hard work of street level organizing, canvassing and get out the vote efforts on behalf of committed volunteers backed by separate funding sources than the customary traditional 'dialing for dollars' DNC. One could also request you tip YOUR hat to these progressive grass root efforts that got this small group of progressives elected to congress as well as many more down ballot victories. Victories that were won in regions that the upper class DNC had walked away from and written off as hopeless.
That should be telling you something in and of itself about the DNC makeup and direction. Don't equate progressive victories to the upper corporate party leadership.

I'm satisfied with my voting record. But I'm not satisfied with the direction politics has trended these last few decades. We've landed ourselves into quite the pickle. Remains to be seen how, or whether, we will get out of it.

Taken individually, our votes mean nothing. Vote how you will or don't vote at all, it makes no difference. We're really just observers anyway.

2020 will be an interesting year. I think it will trend blue again. The senate map isn't as easy for Republicans next time around and I feel like Trump can be defeated by a populist candidate like Beto O'Rourke or even Bernie, should he decide to run again.

I was referring to third party votes, and fantasies about third parties overturning the two main parties in a lightning stroke.

You're referring to what is essentially party reboots, which I almost ALWAYS argue in favor of. Don't like the way the Democratic Party shapes policy? Take it over and remake it. It's been done several times in my own lifetime. I watched it happen and so did you.
Same with the GOP.

Party reboots and retools work, and as you pointed out, they can work in a terrifically rapid time interval.

Can't argue with you there Jeff. Retool, takeover, insurgency, you name it but it needs to be done.
The power of the primaries

We're doing it.

We're working on it anyway.

I don't think this administration is going to become more popular over the next two years and Trump likely won't be re-elected. Policy designed for no other reason than to own the libs isn't gonna fly in the long game. Even Our Corporate Overlords know that.

Raking the forests will not stop fires and owning the libs will not bring growth and prosperity.