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Crunch time: Democrats ready for shutdown standoff over Republican health cuts
(www.theguardian.com)
this post was submitted on 28 Sep 2025
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these comments. Alls I see is the dems should do something and when they do alls I see is. They don't really mean it. Its funny. Dems in power and the right says everything bad is dems fault and the left says everything is dems fault. Reps in power and the right says everything bad is dems fault and the left says yeah the dems are responsible. ugh. with american left who needs the right.
It’s helpful to keep in mind that there’s nothing democratic about the DNC it’s just a bunch of old people colluding with corporations and propping up geriatrics as a vanity show. They haven’t even offered their voters the illusion of representation in decades. They are all cooperators in this. They do budget show downs every year, at this point it’s just to create some bond volatility.
Its the party trying to maintain the current system and improve it incrementally. The real problem is that as long as the republicans win they have no real incentive to improve much. If republicans perennially lost to the point of being inconsequential the party would quickly split.
I’ve been on this planet for almost 40 years now and frequently talk to my 95 year old grandma about politics and world affairs. Things stopped getting incrementally better a long time ago and have gotten incrementally worse. We made small advances forward in between giant leaps back the last 25 years. All of this dictatorship business has been planned and implemented slowly over decades. The degradation of the middle class has been a bipartisan effort. There’s really no more room to pretend like trumps charisma has carried this strange new world, and not the careful planning of the political class and the billionaire class… supported by the millionaires thinking they can be in the club. It’s just self perpetuating rot on both sides.
improvements happen but its been two steps back and one forward since reagan and more more like 3 since bush jr and now we seem to be taking a dozen back. Take out the republican controlled periods and we would have advanced pretty decently and that is without all the time wasted recovering all the back steps.
I agree with that for the most part. Democrats never solved the inequality, education, and Fox News indoctrination in time. I see no way out of it at this point. That’s on them for focusing on small minority issues instead of policy that helps the majority of voters.
Then incrementalism has either failed or has succeeded in making things worse.
righty oh. need to get rid of those pesky forward steps to really make progress. /s
You support an ideology that has failed. Spectacularly. If you support incrementalism knowing how useless it is, it's because you like how useless it is.
Except it has. Incrementally. We still have the affordable care act, we still have a bevy of rights (for now). It could be better but its better than worse. Worse is strangely, worse than better. I have yet to see any alternative do anything effective. Maybe if it does someday it will mean something but for now its just folks blowing hot air.
Incrementalists make sure that can't happen.
LOL. The lets trade better for worse crowd keeps better things from happening. The alternative have yet to do anything except complain online how if they existed they would do better. There is no try. DO!
Incrementalists killed the minimum wage increase for you. Incrementalists killed almost all the tangible individual benefits in Build Back Better for you. Incrementalists had it in their power to implement a public option and chose to let people go bankrupt and die for you. Incrementalists love to claim that gay marriage was theirs, but if the courts hadn't stepped in we'd still be talking about civil unions. Incrementalists love almost nothing more than a false maximum they can claim is the pinnacle.
The only times I've seen incrementalists take decisive action is to block progress and, of course, to sell weapons to their favorite person for their favorite activity.
This just ingnores the reality. These were compromises. Yeah that dirty word. You are comparing less good outcome with the alternative which is no wage increases instead of some and no build back better and no obamacare. The problem in all these cases is the republicans. You have to eliminate the worst crap all over you before you can even start getting really clean. If you try rubbing sanitizer on yourself without the soap you will not get rid of the crap and will end up less clean than just the soap.
You are playing "got mine and fuck you forever" to everyone who didn't get the wage increase that only federal workers got because as long as ONE person gets something, incrementalists act like it's solved forever for everyone.
You have to get out of the sewer first. Incrementalists treat a decrease in the rate at which the sewage as rising as a permanent solution. Those of us up to our armpits in the shit they refuse to do anything about, no matter how many times we give their worthless complicit asses majorities aren't going to accept "look at those people over there whose lives we made better. Your problems are all solved now shut up" with the same level of satisfaction as the person who says it.
What are you even talking about with federal workiers??? You were talking minimum wage which at one point did not exist and has gone up regularly although not enough. This is like talking with someone on business speak. Don't do the better thing because magically something that does not currently exist is better. Its like just think out of the box and actualize horizontal integration and drive synergistic growth. What exactly is the alternative solution you are suggesting.
Well, I thought that when you referred to minimum wage going up, you were referring to biden's executive order to raise the minimum wage for federal workers and expecting me to be happy with it. And since one person's wages went up, fuck everyone else forever. You don't care. Incrementalism means "do as little as possible to be able to claim you didn't do absolutely nothing and order your critics to be happy with it."
Your position is "be glad you even have a minimum wage." That wasn't a question. You're fucking right it hasn't gone up enough. And it was the incrementalists you're simping for that made certain it didn't go up enough. Which was my whole point. When we give democrats majorities, incrementalists stand in the way of necessary progress. Progress they promised, but have absolutely no intention of ever implementing. They always find some procedural bullshit to throw in their own way and unconvincingly pretend that they're disappointed. Or not. Sinema's gleeful thumbs down remains the party's clearest most enduring message to the working class.
But incrementalists can be proactive and industrious when it's something they want to do, and they're willing to violate actual law to do so. When there's Palestinian hospitals that haven't been properly introduced to American-made munitions, they leap into action, law be damned.
Still waiting for the alternative to making things better as you can which you call incrementalism. Speak to me of the great victories of your alternative. I have had many a back and forth with your type and its all complaints and hot air. Having republicans run everything is not the way to go.
Actually using the majorities we give them to do the things they ran on.
The great victories of incrementalism are all preventing any victory by progressives. Congratulations on your victories over working people and living Palestinians.
How? How is incrementalism preventing these great progressive victories? Again its all out of box integrate to new synergy buzz speak that I am hearing.
Progressives aren't the ones who just happen to have just enough no votes every time. That's the incrementalists blocking progress.
Incrementalism has failed to make things better. It is inadequate to the challenges its proponents claim it to be a solution for. We've tried incrementalism for decades and we're staring down fascism as a direct result of the utter uselessness of incrementalism and incrementalists. You're touting a 15 year old law that's based on heritage foundation policy that wasn't far enough to the right for incrementalists, so they nerfed it even further.
Incrementalism is great for fascists and the single best cover that cryptofascists ever invented.
Incrementalism has worked for decades and has been progressive. Just not progressive enough and ultimately it will never be progressive enough for what any particular person thinks is progressive. Some people who voted for trump honestly think in their brain that maga is progressive. What you call incrementalism is just work. The every day work of a democratic government system. Not working and or achieving anything and saying you totally would if other folks who are working would not do such a half assed job is just comical. Honestly I think we are just at an impasse. Im not going to stop trying to make things better and im not going to put my efforts to get you to help pull as its wasted effort. You will be you and I will be me and I will reduce, reuse, recycle, find as much joy as I can in simplicity, and engage in all levels of civic engagement available to me as long as I draw breath to push for a better society.
It worked at the only thing it's for: preventing progress until republicans can get back in and wreck shit. I don't care what centrists pretend is progressive. Incrementalism has been responsible for decades of sliding rightward. And it's by design.
It certainly has not. Its in the name it moves progressive but slowly. The slide comes from allowing the right to win and move the window. Again this is stupid at this point as its clear we disagree.
I've shared many examples in this thread of the people you keep falsely calling "progressive" killing progressive legislation for you. You've ignored every last incrementalist victory over the people you want to suffer.
Democrats spent all of last year supporting an ongoing genocide. They are completely uninterested in moving the window in any direction other than right, just like you.
Oh the us controls all countries like puppets on string argument. Since the democrats have been out israel has gotten more powerful weapons, aid to palestine has been eliminated, and israel is outright annexing palestine. All because of people like you. Im out.
When centrists' policy is implemented for them by republicans and they have to pretend they dislike it, they blame anyone to their left and only their left.
I'd argue Democrats have instead intentionally hampered any real progress, not trying to improve it "incrementally." Or at least, they sure don't seem to mind when the Republicans stop them from doing anything worthwhile over the last 20 years.
I disagree. Last 20 years have had 12 years of democrats which resulted in obamacare, dodd-frank, end to don't ask don't tell, fair pay act, daca, iran nuclear deal, paris accord, restoration of cuban relations, loan forgiveness (despite all the stuff knocked down they still got the save plan), getting rid of non competes. Yeah and some were knocked down by republican actions but thats the problem. Then you add that a lot of time was dealt with stimulus from the bad economic practices of republicans again and having to wind down their wars. Its like your blaming them for not improving the building when they have to spend most of the time putting out the fires. Get rid of the people starting the fires and plenty of progress can be made.
The 4th of july funding bill needed a cloture vote by senate dems that they never should have given. I hold no ill will to house democrats but the senate democrats fucked up big time.
yeah that is one thing but the republicans crafted that bill. Get rid of the shit all over us and then we can work on combing the hair and such.
It'd probably go better for the Dems, if they didn't have the exact same donors as the Republikkklans do. You don't want ANY politician, of any stripe, to have their first (and only?) loyalty to people that pay them more than voters do.
Unfortunately thats a pretty high bar. Anyone who wins will get donations from the large players and turning them down would be foolish. Definately need to get rid of citizens united and bring back regulation for donations and the media and such.
It's a bar that much of the rest of the world seems to have cleared quite well. What you Americans call "donations" and "lobbying", the rest of us call Bribery. Your attitude explains American gun rights, too, where many of you think you have a god given right to own military hardware, even as your neighbors kids are being butchered by those same weapons. The rest of the world has mostly addressed gun rights in a civilized way, and only Americans think like that, and think gun legislation is hard. You NEED to start holding your do nothing politicians to the fire, about these issues. You NEED to do it years ago. Not everything needs to be about profit and money.
And I do which is why I push for an end to citizens united and bringing back regulation. Things that the rest of the world does not have allowing them to clear the bar. Much of what is really fucking the us today is from court rulings and I would caution the rest of the world if their courts have power of interpretation.
Lmao couldn't have put it better myself.