this post was submitted on 17 May 2026
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Republicans turn the wheel counter-clockwise while the Democrats don’t turn it.
The Ratchet Effect.
The last time Democrats had a filibuster -proof legislative trifecta it was for 3 months and they passed Obamacare. When they don't have Republicans blocking them every step of the way, they actually do work to improve things. They aren't perfect by a long shot, but Democrats are the best of two options by far.
You're making the point for us. Obamacare is a 90s conservative proposal, it also completely killed the possibility of single payer healthcare for a generation. Republicans ratchet things right and then Democrats lock it in, great example you provided thank you.
Obamacare was a compromise because single payer didn't have the votes. If you think single payer was happening at any point in the last generation, I have a bridge to sell you.
Of course, the compromise is the republican solution from a decade earlier. What other choice did we have?
Yup. And they did a switch to remove the public option, since they had an obvious ability with 60 votes. They had Lieberman play the rotating villain, and removed the public option so they could supposedly get GOP votes.
When they got no GOP votes, they passed it anyways, through reconciliation - but didn't put the public option back in. They literally chose to leave it out.
The ACA would have passed much faster if they didn't try "working across the aisle" with the Republicans. If I remember, the original plan was to expand medicare to encompass more people who need it but negotiated to what Mitt Romney passed in his state while governor. Then the Republicans all voted against what they wanted. So the Democrats are either a paid opposition party or so absolutely naive to the dealings of Republicans and keep stepping on that rake. As well instead of making it a stepping stone they don't really talk about improving it either. Also in that time they could have enshrined abortion rights into law that is harder to overthrow than a supreme court ruling.
No matter how your parse things, the Democrats aren't good.
I agree, the Democrats aren't good, but they aren't actively evil like the Republicans. They are naive, idealistic, and out of touch, but they are the only party that (for the most part) practices democracy.
“Not good” isn’t better than “actively evil” if it consistently shows it does nothing to put itself between the evil and it’s victims, nor does anything to break down the systems of evil when it has the advantage. The modern Democrat politicians are not some newcomer on the political scene, they’ve had their ups and downs over the decades but even when the balance of power is in their favor they mete out “progress” at a minimum only when they have to, tell their constituents “that’s the best we can do”, then applaud themselves like they’ve changed the world. They are absolutely out of touch, not just with their voters, but with the fact MAGA is not the Republican Party of Reagan and Bush that was going to play political pendulum and trade power back and forth every couple of election cycles while having a gentleman’s agreement that bureaucracy and preservation of the system for the benefit of the elite is the goal.
If you don't think Democrats haven't been standing in the way of Republicans, you haven't been paying attention. Democrats blocked the SAVE act which would disenfranchise millions of American citizens, they just successfully blocked DHS funding over ICE, they just blocked $1 billion for Trump's stupid ballroom, they are blocking the Fair Tax act which would eliminate income tax and the IRS, HR 899 which would eliminate the Department of Education, HR722 which would define life at conception, HR28 which is an anti-trans sports bill, HR129 which would abolish the ATF, and on and on and on.
You and them are so out of touch with reality that you both think playing the old political game represents “standing in the way”. Blocking the SAVE act doesn’t do shit when your opponent is gerrymandering the maps in their favor. People will still be able to vote, they’ve just rigged the system so that who votes where will reliably favor them. And in places democrats control they’re playing the same game in their favor instead of fighting to eliminate the concept altogether. Blocking funding for the ballroom isn’t going to stop him from building it, it’s just going to force him to do it illegally, as he done with so many other projects, at which point they resort to grandstanding condemnation and strongly worded letters. They might have prevented abolishing the Department of Education but they have spent decades allowing it to become a tool in the dumbing down of America’s youth to the point it’s now run by a WWE exec, and frankly I’m not sure allowing it to exist in that condition is the better option. Blocking legislation that codifies anti-trans and life at conception beliefs is showmanship when you do nothing to stop the illegal enforcement of those beliefs by jackboots who deny access to healthcare. MAGA is running on action first, normalizing the violence and denial of rights illegally, then trying to make it the legal standard after and Democrats are acting like blocking the legislation somehow prevents what is currently happening from occurring.
Blocking ICE funding doesn’t block ICE. The goon squads weren’t pushed out of communities by press conferences and letters to the president. They were blocked and pushed out by citizens who put their safety and lives on the line, sometimes making the ultimate sacrifice, in defense of strangers. Meanwhile Democratic leaders postured for their next campaign run and took to trolling the regime on social media with witty memes. Your leaders have risked nothing and therefore achieve empty victories while the people they supposedly serve are arrested, beaten, disenfranchised, denied rights, dehumanized, raped, molested, and murdered by a regime that doesn’t give a fuck that what they’re doing is illegal because the legal system is in their hands and standing up to them requires more than saying “no” because they don’t respect personal boundaries. You literally have to block them with force equal to or greater than what they’re coming at you with, just ask Alex Periti.
Like I said, this isn’t the Regan or Bush regime that nominally had some sort of respect for the game of power trades, this is fascism. It’s going to walk over us all whether it has the legal justification and funding to do so or not.
So there is literally nothing that the Democrats could do that would satisfy you short of lining up Republicans and shooting them?
Following the law isn't "playing a political game". Giving Republicans an excuse to remove Democrats from power wouldn't help anyone. Did you even know that there are no more US deportees in Salvadoran prisons? That is because Democrats fought for their freedom. Those people were helped and that's not nothing. Real resistance isn't charging in guns blazing. It is showing up every day and saving who you can. Martyrs don't save anyone.
At this point, no. We’re in the final stages of a game that started in the Nixon era. They’ve had their opportunities to thwart the rise of this and instead have played good bourgeoisie/bad bourgeoisie while making damn sure anyone left of their neoliberal centrism was isolated and neutralized. Yes, I expect our elected representatives to leave their halls of power and put themselves shoulder to shoulder with common folk protesting ICE facilities and in the whistle brigades tracking their movements. I expect them to put themselves between tear gas bombs launched at infants, to take the rubber bullets that would blind teenagers, to take down the grown men that jump out of their trucks to assault a squad of teenage girls, to take the billy club blow directed at a priest, and to eat the bullets unloaded into single moms dropping their kids off at school and off-duty nurses filming the carnage.
I don’t doubt that there’s ICE reckless and emboldened enough to shoot Gavin Newsome or someone like him in the face, but there’s still enough of a risk doing so would spin the situation out of control. Their physical presence at scenes of conflict would turn these confrontations from inconsequential brutality to “FAFO”. Instead we get rescheduled ICE facility inspections with a full camera crew documenting the staged approach, denial of entry, and arrest that is sold as “they tried!”. No they didn’t, they told them they were coming knowing full well what the outcome would be and were politely cuffed without incident. It’s the people in frog costumes that get pepper sprayed up the ass that try without knowing if today’s the day they’ll be brutalized.
There would have been no US citizens to rescue from El Salvadoran prisons in the first place if they hadn’t fucked around for the past 50yrs playing politics. Cleaning up a few drops of blood when their previous inaction is exsanguinating the most vulnerable members isn’t heroic, it’s a PR stunt. Not to mention that regardless of whether someone is a citizen or here legally, the rest of the people rounded up by ICE and shipped to foreign hell holes benefit nothing from these too little, too late “heroics”.
Nobody is going in “guns blazing”, we’re just getting blazed for standing between the day to day, street level violence of the regime. ICE doesn’t care if they’re funded or not, just like lunch mobs didn’t do it for the pay. They’re brutal for the thrill, pay is a bonus. Kill a single mom and call her a “bitch” and your fans will crowdfund you a million bucks. People wouldnt be getting martyred if our leaders hadn’t played politics with our democracy until one side called their bluff and started serving unambiguous fascism that the people in power oppose with lip service and photo op’s. They risk nothing but polling numbers while the people risk their lives and freedom.
Why didn't Biden prosecute Trump for insurrection from Jan. 6th? He still believes you need a Republican party at all, like we need people further right than the Democrats. They could have prevented this entire situation by going after the organizers, of Trump stealing documents alone. But they slow walked us into this.
Nancy Pelosi - we need a strong Republican party
Don't forget Obama doing the same thing now
Now I missed that one. Wasn't that after her husband was attacked?
Because the executive branch doesn't have the power to prosecute anyone. The legislature tried to impeach Trump over Jan6 but that was blocked by Republicans. The classified documents case was slow-walked by a Trump loyalist judge until he was reelected and became immune from prosecution. The law did go after the organizers and many were hauled only to be pardoned by Trump. Democrats did all the law allowed.
You're getting confused by the good cop bad cop routine they got going on. The bad cop slaps you and the good cop comes in an gives you and ice pack. They both want to railroad you into confessing to a crime you didn't commit. Twenty years later they're going to be laughing it up retired at 55 and fishing together while you're still in prison for a crime you didn't commit.
That's what they're doing, the good cop saying aw man he doesn't need to be so mean, but twenty years later both parties' politicians are incredibly wealthy and youre making less than you made in 90s in real dollars.
Then its time for a third option.
There is no third option until both a better option arises and one of the two existing parties is weakened enough to be supplanted. We aren't anywhere close on either front.
We do have a better option: it's called the Green Party. I do agree that the Democrats are nowhere near weak enough to be replaced, but that could change very rapidly depending upon how the next few years turn out.
The Green Party is not a realistic option. The best they have ever done is 2.7% of the popular vote for president and they have never held a single Senate or House seat. I think the more likely event is that the right splits into MAGA and America First parties, allowing a left supermajority that then splits into Progressive and a traditional Democrat parties.
...which is a lot more than any other leftist political party is doing. This is due to how difficult it is to get a party up and running, and then keep it running. Which we Greens have done for decades.
Plenty of people have thought they could do better, and where are those parties now?
Obamacare was the implementation of a 1989 Heritage Foundation plan to implement an individual mandated health care system.
Also by no available metric did Obamacare "improve things". Healthcare costs rose significantly above the pre-ACA trend, bankruptcy increased, and health outcomes plummeted across nearly all metrics.
Didn't the ACA get rid of insurers denying coverage based on "pre-existing conditions"?
now they just deny coverage with AI generated reasons and force you to nag and beg for them to pay what they're obligated to. much better!
Hey, they were already doing that as their policy well before AI started helping them reject covering things their policy holders need
Yeah I edited in the old method after I posted. Don't want them trying to blame this all on AI.
Wrong. The number of insured people went up. The uninsured rate dropped to a historic low of 7.7% by 2023. That is a tangible improvement in the lives of millions of Americans.
What good is insurance with a deductible I cannot afford to pay? Mandating people buy shitty insurance is not the win you think it is.
Just because you don't have insurance doesn't mean more people don't have insurance. Obamacare didn't create high insurance prices. That was happening no matter what. Also remember that Republicans tried to repeal the ACA more than 70 times and stripped several elements from the plan, so of course it isn't working as well as we would want.
I didn't question whether more had insurance. I questioned the quality and utility of the insurance they were forced to purchase by penalty of fine. One of the elements the republicans stripped was that fine, which existed entirely as a handout to insurance companies who swore up and down that having to cover preexisting conditions would bankrupt them unless you forced everyone to buy their "product". (Not that the republicans did it out of any altruism or anything, they just wanted to use that as part of a ploy to repeal the ACA entirely, which failed)
When was the last time Republicans had a 60-vote majority in the Senate? Why do you need 60 votes to fix that which didn't take 60 votes to break?
I don't know that Republicans have ever had a 60 vote majority in the Senate. You need 60 votes to make fundamental changes to the system that the opposition will not support. Things like constitutional amendments.
If you don't even know the vote threshold required for a constitutional amendment, maybe don't speculate on paths to political change...