Quote (thundercock @ 6 Dec 2020 15:48)

There's merit to this argument but you also need to adapt to the times. Successful politicians evolve and learn. Unsuccessful ones i.e. Bernie Sanders, the least successful Jew of all time become pariahs or simply lose elections. I certainly wouldn't characterize Biden as being a pushover either. The guy is Mr. No to progressives. He has proven to not be afraid of publicly taking a shit on their beliefs. As for the crime bill, this is leftist revisionist history that would make the 1619 Project blush. It passed the House by VOICE VOTE and only had 4 Senators opposing it. Black people WANTED this so it certainly wasn't "unnecessarily punitive." As for amnesty, that's been talked about for nearly 50 years now. Reagan did it and it's going to happen again eventually for a large portion of illegal immigrants. It's just the pragmatic thing to do if someone is contributing to this country and lived here for multiple decades.

You've also been saying that populism is a good thing so how is that any different than governing according to the polls?


Um, he has a lot. You must not be paying attention.


They were "communities" in the sense that Fallujah was a community lol. The streets needed to be cleaned up, plain and simple.

Quote (thundercock @ Dec 6 2020 03:48pm)

You've also been saying that populism is a good thing so how is that any different than governing according to the polls?

Quote (ofthevoid @ Dec 6 2020 01:43pm)

I should have been more specific he doesn't have any ideological positions. His positions consist of basically what the democratic party's positions are. He didn't make it close to 50 years in politics by standing for things that would damage his reelection.

Biden's positions can be encapsulated by this:

>I'm not Trump
>I'm exactly the same as Obama

Do you really disagree with the notion that 2020 was a referendum on Trump and instead Biden got election because of his positions?

Quote (excellence @ Dec 6 2020 01:41pm)

yes the people destroying the streets needed be cleaned up yes. i dont think dime-bag dave or dana were the root causes of bad streets

Quote (Black XistenZ @ Dec 6 2020 01:25pm)

Governing by the polls is dangerous. Polls can be genuinely off. They can be off on purpose, e.g. push polls or what I would call "propaganda polls" funded by actors with a partisan intest. Public opinion can also be fickle or ephemeral. And last but not least, it can be better for the country to lean back and wait and see rather than to enact sweeping change based on narrow majorities with large and enthusiastic opposition.

Populism, in the broadest sense, pits the interests of the common people against those of elites or institutions, and prioritizes the former. Hence, the success of populism (on the substantive level) hinges on appropriately determining what the interests or the will of the common people actually are. Polls are a very flawed and unreliable way of filtering out this "true will of the people". They are also prone to manipulation.

Quote (ofthevoid @ Dec 6 2020 03:43pm)

I should have been more specific he doesn't have any ideological positions. His positions consist of basically what the democratic party's positions are. He didn't make it close to 50 years in politics by standing for things that would damage his reelection.

Biden's positions can be encapsulated by this:

>I'm not Trump
>I'm exactly the same as Obama

Do you really disagree with the notion that 2020 was a referendum on Trump and instead Biden got elected because of his positions?

Quote (thundercock @ 6 Dec 2020 16:52)

Biden is not a hardliner if that's what you're saying. He is never going to be the pillar of a particular ideology like Ron Paul. People who ARE pillars make horrible politicians and are better suited for activism. When you have a diverse country, you NEED to be flexible. I agree that 2020 was a referendum on Trump. That was always going to be the case no matter who the nominee was.

Black people are not responsible enough to make those type of decisions. Just listen to the rap songs. Ben Carson and NDT are looked at less favorably than Tupac. Even Kamala prefers to smoke weed listening to Tupac than to watch a space documentary. In all seriousness though, violence goes hand in hand with drugs because that's the primary enforcement mechanism.\



Who determines that the interests of common people are valid though? I agree that polls can be manipulative but I'd take those over pundits who are driven exclusively by profit.

Quote (thundercock @ 6 Dec 2020 22:52)

Who determines that the interests of common people are valid though? I agree that polls can be manipulative but I'd take those over pundits who are driven exclusively by profit.

Quote (Black XistenZ @ Dec 6 2020 02:05pm)

Not sure what you mean by the word "valid". (Probably an understanding issue on my part.)

The fundamental assumption of democracy is that the interests of common people are legitimate and deserve to be taken into account.
The fundamental assumption of populism is that the opinion or interests of common people are by and large good for them, and the country.

Quote (thundercock @ Dec 6 2020 05:12pm)

One could argue that globalism, neoliberal economics, and free trade benefit the common people by a huge amount. Hell, there's empirical evidence that the common people are the primary beneficiaries of those policies. Those are NOT populist positions though. What I'm asking is, how do you know that alleged populist positions ACTUALLY benefit the people AND that the people really do want those positions (as opposed to a vocal minority like AOC).

Quote (EndlessSky @ Dec 6 2020 02:22pm)

All choices have a cost. The cost is higher than the benefit for the working class, which is obvious if you arent a coastal elite.