Democrat lessons for losing '22 midterms?

[Crossbow]

Originally Posted by Hercules56

I have no problem with Federally mandated police reforms dealing with accountability, oversight and tactics. But viewing police as an "occupying army" is just more Antifa rhetoric that most of America considers to be extremist nonsense.

I feel like its 2016 all over again, with Hillary refusing to acknowledge her many campaign and policy mistakes that led to her defeat.

Just in case you have not heard by now, but Hillary Clinton actually did win the 2016 election.

[Hercules56]

Originally Posted by Crossbow

Just in case you have not heard by now, but Hillary Clinton actually did win the 2016 election.

LOL

[lobosrul5]

Originally Posted by Hercules56

I have no problem with Federally mandated police reforms dealing with accountability, oversight and tactics. But viewing police as an "occupying army" is just more Antifa rhetoric that most of America considers to be extremist nonsense.

I feel like its 2016 all over again, with Hillary refusing to acknowledge her many campaign and policy mistakes that led to her defeat.

The problem is, that in many cases its the police who view themselves that way.

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/...-industry.html

[Donal]

Originally Posted by Hercules56

Police are "armies of occupation"????

Nice Antifa logic you got there. Really helpful with winning national elections.

They walk around with military-grade weapons and armor, use force to put down peaceful protests, they cross-train with military units and intelligence agencies, and refer to people who are not police as "civilians". Oh, and they have intelligence units.

[Hercules56]

Originally Posted by Donal

They walk around with military-grade weapons and armor, use force to put down peaceful protests, they cross-train with military units and intelligence agencies, and refer to people who are not police as "civilians". Oh, and they have intelligence units.

There is no police force in the USA who regularly wear armor and carry military weapons.

There is no police force in the USA who regularly use force to put down peaceful protests.

There is nothing wrong with referring to the public as "civilians".

[lobosrul5]

Originally Posted by Hercules56

There is no police force in the USA who regularly wear armor and carry military weapons.

There is no police force in the USA who regularly use force to put down peaceful protests.

There is nothing wrong with referring to the public as "civilians".

Look at the attached image.. see the guy on the left. He's a Bernalillo county sheriff's deputy. That's their normal attire, that's not the SWAT team or something. I've even seen them wearing helmets for a traffic stop.

[Hercules56]

Originally Posted by lobosrul5

Look at the attached image.. see the guy on the left. He's a Bernalillo county sheriff's deputy. That's their normal attire, that's not the SWAT team or something. I've even seen them wearing helmets for a traffic stop.

In what world is a non-kevlar vest, without a helmet, considered "military gear"?

[Donal]

I love the qualifier "regularly". It means nothing and everything.

Originally Posted by Hercules56

There is no police force in the USA who regularly wear armor and carry military weapons.

For the NYPD, bulletproof vests are mandatory. And their "semi" automatic Glock-19 handguns are modified to military specifications. LAPD issues M4 carbines for their cars. A lot of the gear may be reserved for "Special" units or situations, but you'd be amazed how many situations are "special".

Quote:

There is no police force in the USA who regularly use force to put down peaceful protests.

They are trained specifically to do that.

Quote:

There is nothing wrong with referring to the public as "civilians".

There is nothing wrong with referring to them as an army of occupation since that is how they see themselves. Hell, I wish they conducted themselves like a US military unit. The Army has way stricter Rules of Engagement.

[Hercules56]

Originally Posted by Donal

I love the qualifier "regularly". It means nothing and everything.



For the NYPD, bulletproof vests are mandatory. And their "semi" automatic Glock-19 handguns are modified to military specifications. LAPD issues M4 carbines for their cars. A lot of the gear may be reserved for "Special" units or situations, but you'd be amazed how many situations are "special".



They are trained specifically to do that.



There is nothing wrong with referring to them as an army of occupation since that is how they see themselves. Hell, I wish they conducted themselves like a US military unit. The Army has way stricter Rules of Engagement.

What is wrong with police wearing kevlar? What about this is militaristic? I don't see it.

What is militaristic about a Glock handgun? They do not shoot full-auto, you can buy the same gun right now if you like.

Police are definitely NOT trained to disrupt and put down LEGALLY sanctioned peaceful protests or ones that do not impede traffic or pose a safety hazard.

There is nothing, and I mean NOTHING wrong with police arresting peaceful protestors who are blocking a highway or street, without a permit to do so. There are common-sense limits to peaceful protest.

[JoeMorgue]

Originally Posted by Hercules56

In what world is a non-kevlar vest, without a helmet, considered "military gear"?

It's not. It's military cosplay which is what cops love doing.

[lobosrul5]

Originally Posted by Hercules56

In what world is a non-kevlar vest, without a helmet, considered "military gear"?

They wear body armor all the time man. I'm really surprised that you aren't aware that most cops wear Kevlar on duty. APD (Albuquerque city) officers also wears body armor, but their uniforms don't look like military gear. The Sherrifs dept go around wearing uniforms that looks like fatigues, and I'd swear some of them wear plate carriers.

[Hercules56]

Originally Posted by lobosrul5

They wear body armor all the time man. I'm really surprised that you aren't aware that most cops wear Kevlar on duty. APD (Albuquerque city) officers also wears body armor, but their uniforms don't look like military gear. The Sherrifs dept go around wearing uniforms that looks like fatigues, and I'd swear some of them wear plate carriers.

Kevlar protects cops from being shot or stabbed. Nothing militaristic about such common sense protections.

Nothing militaristic about a semi-auto Glock. You can go buy one right now.

I doubt any police force regularly wear military fatigues, but if they do that should be changed. But Im sure its quite rare.

[Bob001]

Originally Posted by Hercules56

There is no police force in the USA who regularly wear armor and carry military weapons.

There is no police force in the USA who regularly use force to put down peaceful protests.

There is nothing wrong with referring to the public as "civilians".

The increasing militarization of U.S. police, encouraged in part by the appropriation of federal money to buy military-grade weapons and equipment, has been written about extensively. And police routinely use excessive force against unarmed subjects, including peaceful protesters. SWAT teams are deployed to make minor arrests, sometimes killing bystanders. You're going way out on a limb when you make blanket claims about what "no police force" ever does. There are around 18,000 independent police forces and sheriffs' offices in the U.S., with wildly varying standards for hiring, training, performance and discipline.
https://www.aclu.org/news/civil-libe...tion-of-police

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The 1033 program gives police and sheriff’s departments unique and unprecedented access to military gear. Since the program was created in 1996, the U.S. military has given roughly 10,000 law enforcement agencies $7.4 billion worth of equipment including grenade launchers, batons, combat vehicles, and hundreds of thousands of rifles. Though police first employed these classes of weapons most in raids similar to the one that killed Breonna Taylor, more recently they have also used them against protesters across the country, including in Standing Rock, Ferguson, Kenosha, Austin, Philadelphia, and just last week, in Minneapolis. The frequency of state violence against protesters in the U.S. makes it easy to forget that, if our military used tear gas against protesters elsewhere, it would be a war crime.

And:
https://www.americanbar.org/groups/c...r-on-citizens/
https://leb.fbi.gov/articles/feature...militarization
https://leb.fbi.gov/articles/feature...cratic-society

And Dave Grossman is a notorious author and ex-Army officer who trains police departments across the country in "the warrior mindset," encouraging them to treat citizens as a dangerous enemy force.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dave_Grossman_(author)
https://www.motherjones.com/politics...ilitarization/
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/...killology.html

[Donal]

Originally Posted by Hercules56

What is wrong with police wearing kevlar? What about this is militaristic? I don't see it.

Uh-huh. Of course not.

Quote:

What is militaristic about a Glock handgun? They do not shoot full-auto, you can buy the same gun right now if you like.

Can I buy a Glock-19? Sure. Can I buy it to NYPD specifications or have it modified to such? Hell, no. Which is why I specifically mentioned the specifications they have.

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Police are definitely NOT trained to disrupt and put down LEGALLY sanctioned peaceful protests or ones that do not impede traffic or pose a safety hazard.

And there go the goalposts. Hey, who gets to decide if a protest stops being "legal" or "poses a hazard"?

Quote:

There is nothing, and I mean NOTHING wrong with police arresting peaceful protestors who are blocking a highway or street, without a permit to do so. There are common-sense limits to peaceful protest.

And again, who makes that call?

[Hercules56]

Originally Posted by Donal

Uh-huh. Of course not.



Can I buy a Glock-19? Sure. Can I buy it to NYPD specifications or have it modified to such? Hell, no. Which is why I specifically mentioned the specifications they have.



And there go the goalposts. Hey, who gets to decide if a protest stops being "legal" or "poses a hazard"?



And again, who makes that call?

If a protest has a permit, its legal. If they are protesting illegally on a highway, its definitely a hazard and needs to be removed.

[Bob001]

Originally Posted by Hercules56

Kevlar protects cops from being shot or stabbed. Nothing militaristic about such common sense protections.
....

I don't think anybody has any problem with police wearing bullet-resistant (never -proof) vests. That's not what's being discussed here. Military body armor is heavier and bulkier, and is often worn by SWAT teams.

[lobosrul5]

Originally Posted by Donal

Can I buy a Glock-19? Sure. Can I buy it to NYPD specifications or have it modified to such? Hell, no. Which is why I specifically mentioned the specifications they have.

I'm unclear whats special about NYPD Glock 19's? They have a heavier trigger pull is all I can come up with. You absolutely can have a gunsmith work on it to increase the trigger pull.

[Bob001]

Originally Posted by lobosrul5

I'm unclear whats special about NYPD Glock 19's? They have a heavier trigger pull is all I can come up with. You absolutely can have a gunsmith work on it to increase the trigger pull.

I don't think there's anything special about the gun. But NY limits magazine capacity for civilians to seven rounds. Police can use high-capacity magazines that hold up to 17 rounds, no modification required. (But that's a trivial example. That's not what most people mean by "militarization.")
https://www.gunlaws101.com/state/law...ty-restriction

[Donal]

We don't know if they will lose both chambers. Does it look good based on a handful of recent polls? No, but the overall polling looks good for the senate.

And besides, we're seeing real issues in traditional polling come to light.

Originally Posted by Venom

1. Abortion rights

And have an actual plan, not just fundraising texts

Quote:

2. Go on the offensive. Attack, attack, ATTACK rightwing media outlets, call out their stooges by name. This I think is the Number ONE reason voters are radicalized.

I wouldn't go after them by name. That just raises their profile and validates them as political influencers. These aren't Karl Rove or Lee Atwater. They are nerds trying to be supervillains.

Get out in front of talking points. The GQP is not subtle or complex in its strategies. They will let you know what they are bringing. Hell, you know they will always fall back on crime and the economy, no matter what the reality is.

Get. Out. In. Front. Don't expect our "pinko commie media" run by billionaires paying millionaires to treat everything like a sporting event with 2 equal sides to be objective. They want a horse race.

Instead of letting the GQP invent a moral panic and try to defend some position you didn't even know needed to be stated, make them answer questions.

I saw recently someone adjusted Plato's cave analogy to contemporary American politics. the voters are the people on the benches looking at the shadows, reality is the light shining in, the media is the wall with the shadows, the Democrats are trying to tell the people on the bench what the shadows mean, and the Republicans are the ones throwing their hands up to cast the shadows everyone is reacting to.

OK, it's a little clunky, but its not too far off.

Quote:

3. Get rid of Pelosi, Schumer, and most of the visible establishment Democrats. At least have younger, more energetic people in front of the cameras.

Ya, where are the young guns* of the Democratic party? Why is a former Republican governor of Florida running as a Democrat for the same job now?

A big part of why Fetterman is winning in Pennsylvania is that he had national exposure prior to even declaring his candidacy. And running against Oz is raising his exposure.

Val Demmings did a great job as an impeachment manager in 2018, but she doesn't seem to have had much spotlight since then. Tim Ryan also could have benefitted from more focus. The reality is more people watch cable news than their local news and get their stories from social media rather than the newspaper.


*relative to time on national stage, not neccisserily age

[JoeMorgue]

Don't worry Progressives someone heard you and tried to get rid of Pelosi.

[Donal]

Originally Posted by Hercules56

If a protest has a permit, its legal. If they are protesting illegally on a highway, its definitely a hazard and needs to be removed.

What if they are crossing a bridge in the middle of a heavy traffic period?

[Hercules56]

Originally Posted by Donal

What if they are crossing a bridge in the middle of a heavy traffic period?

Protest permits come with a route that police will allow and even protect from oncoming car traffic.

[plague311]

Originally Posted by Donal

What if they are crossing a bridge in the middle of a heavy traffic period?

If they don't have a permit then you put them in the ground, per police procedure.

[Donal]

Originally Posted by Hercules56

Protest permits come with a route that police will allow and even protect from oncoming car traffic.

So John Lewis had it coming?

[Hercules56]

Originally Posted by Donal

So John Lewis had it coming?

Cute.

[dudalb]

Nice discussion, but the Democrats were dealt a really bad hand with the high inflation.
No, they were not to blame, but the party in poweer always gets the blame for economic woes.

[Tero]

It was not exactly this, more like gas is expensive, be very afraid!

[Hercules56]

Originally Posted by dudalb

Nice discussion, but the Democrats were dealt a really bad hand with the high inflation.
No, they were not to blame, but the party in poweer always gets the blame for economic woes.

Government spending can make inflation worse.

[Stacyhs]

Originally Posted by plague311

This is the 4th or 5th of these style of threads being started.

The lessons will be the same as when the GOP lost the House and the Senate and POTUS.

As Lucilla said in Gladiator, "The mob is fickle, brother. He'll be forgotten in a month." The GOP will get hosed in the next round. Rinse, repeat.

Like Brainster initially said, this isn't new or different. This happens all of the time. The only thing the Dems, or the GOP, will learn is to wait until the next election cycle.

That being said, I think this is really just another thread for Hercules56 to bitch about Dem policy. No real interest. I thought we had a few threads for this already.

Exactly my thoughts.

[uke2se]

Originally Posted by Hercules56

Government spending can make inflation worse.

Did government spending make inflation worse in this case? Please reply with evidence.

[Tero]

Originally Posted by Hercules56

Government spending can make inflation worse.

It's a myth. It can affect income thru taxes.

Inflation correlates most with employment.

Plus spending following any passed bills has barely hapoened yet. The pandemic bailouts were the last spending.

[dudalb]

Originally Posted by uke2se

Did government spending make inflation worse in this case? Please reply with evidence.

Correct. Yes, ill timed government spending can make inflation worse. But not in this case.

[Stacyhs]

Originally Posted by theprestige

Here in Portland, the shift from blue to red .

What "shift from blue to red? Mayor Ted Wheeler, elected in 2017, is a Democrat as have been all Portland mayors since 1980, except for one Independent. There was one GOP mayor who served for less than a year and the two before her were also Dems.

Originally Posted by theprestige

seems to be due entirely to the city government's insistence on decriminalizing public camping and drug use

The city government did that, did they? Not according to this:

In Sept. 2018, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that

Quote:

“the Eighth Amendment preclude[s] the enforcement of a statute prohibiting sleeping outside against homeless individuals with no access to alternative shelter.”

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The case gained national attention in 2015 when the United States Department of Justice filed a Statement of Interest brief in the case, arguing that making it a crime for people who are homeless to sleep in public places unconstitutionally punishes them for being homeless.

As for decriminalizing drug use:

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In November 2020, Oregon voters passed Measure 110, which decriminalized the possession for personal use of small amounts of all drugs, including cocaine, heroin, LSD, methamphetamine, and oxycodone.

Arresting and imprisoning people who are addicted to drugs is a waste of time, money, and resources. It's the drug dealers that those resources need to concentrate on. If a drug user commits a crime in connection with his drug use such as robbery, that is still an arrestable offense. But some guy shooting up is not.

Originally Posted by theprestige

What was supposed to be about providing a safe space to admit you have a problem, and do what you gotta do while the social safety net works to get you the help you need, without having to worry about getting arrested, has turned out to be about providing a safe space for you to indulge your problem without having to worry about getting arrested. People are tired of the trash and the filth and not being able to walk on the sidewalks. Of having to send their kids to school through homeless camps full of trash and filth and occasionally violent people.

I guess that's one way of looking at it ...if you're not being honest about what happened and what's happening.

From a 2017 article about the new plan under former Mayor Hales:

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Until recently, the city has a long-standing use of a “sweeping” policy for homeless encampments, where police march through these camps, forcing residents to disassemble their tents and move somewhere else.

They were not arrested. As current Mayor Wheeler said, "Being homeless is not a crime."

Quote:

However, with the homeless population continuing to rise and concern for the safety of the individuals living on the streets, the mayor’s office recently instituted a new ordinance that has sparked major controversy; allowing people to legally camp overnight along city sidewalks and public spaces.

The new “Safe Sleep Policy” is a result of a two-pronged reality, the homeless population is increasing, while the total number of shelter beds are declining. The city estimates about 2,000 people are now sleeping on the streets. With the total number of shelter beds at 478, this leaves most homeless citizens to find their own accommodation, a daunting task for the most vulnerable section of the population. Mayor Charles Hayes recognizes this noticeably large gap and has instituted the new policy in order to temporarily address this issue. This policy allows an individual or a group of up to six people to camp on a city sidewalk or city right of way overnight from 9:00 PM until 7:00 AM. The camps must then be dismantled. The idea is to keep the homeless population from gathering together and setting up larger, more permanent encampments, which recently have become sites for fires, violence, and drug use.

Businesses and neighborhood alliances have consistently opposed the city's attempts to create and maintain homeless shelters, including filing a lawsuit against the new "overnight" policy.

Quote:

The shelters that have opened since the emergency declaration last fall have begun shutting down. When the emergency declaration was declared, the city converted the Jerome F. Sears building in Southwest Portland into a temporary shelter for homeless women. It was decided that the building would act as a shelter for 6 months, and then be turned into an emergency-operations center. With the 6-month deadline approaching, the city met with local neighbors to propose a 3-month extension in order to ensure the 165 women who lived in the facility would not be forced back onto the street. The neighborhood alliance opposed the extension. Luckily, when the Sears Building was shut down, the women were relocated to another temporary shelter, the Peace Shelter provided by the local family-owned real-estate company Menashe Properties. However, this shelter closed in July, and once again, the residents were forced to move.

https://www.smartcitiesdive.com/ex/s...regon/1255653/

From this month:

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The mayor of Portland, Oregon, plans to ban camping on city streets and move unhoused people to designated campsites, as the growing homeless population has become the top concern for the vast majority of residents.

“The magnitude and the depth of the homeless crisis in our city is nothing short of a humanitarian catastrophe,” Mayor Ted Wheeler said Friday. “We need to move our scattered, vulnerable homeless population closer to the services that they need.”

The resolution would establish at least three large, designated outdoor camping sites, with the first opening within 18 months of securing funding.

[Stacyhs]

Originally Posted by Pacal

Basically it appears that Republicans have successfully taped into hot button issues that are not really that important. All this hysteria about Trans people in bathrooms etc., is a perfect example of this.

As for rising crime and inflation. Crime is of course a typical Republican hot button issue with the usual dollop of hysteria. Because a very successful Republican strategy has been to make people very afraid especially about things like Trans people, Drag Queen story hour and other nonsense. Meanwhile we can be assured that Republicans will do little to nothing to actually help "ordinary" people.

Of course the great irony in all this is that the Democrats arn't really that different, just another side of the Business party. The idea that they are Radical Progressives out to destroy whatever and turn us into whatever has been a very successful strategy by Republicans of demonization. And of course the continual elevation of the level of fear. (Of TRans peoploe, Gays, Atheists et al, which can be seen in its most extreme form in the wall to wall hysteria of so many Evangelicals.

Americans are afraid, Republicans are very good at stoking that fear, (See Tucker Carlson.), and creating scapegoats. I expect rgwe Democrats to lose control of Congress and the next session will have a megadose of Republicans whining and hysteria in Congress.

Yep!

Trumper: We gotta ban Critical Race Theory!

Reporter: What is CRT?

Trumper: I don't know but it's BAD!

[Delvo]

The fact that it looked better for a while before getting worse again showed something that I practically never see anybody but me admit: the tendency for the majority party and/or the one with the Presidency to lose seats in an off-year election is not automatic. It's a result of being a disappointment while in power. It just looks automatic within the last several decades because not-being-a-disappointment is a strategy which neither party has been willing to try in several decades.

[Delvo]

Originally Posted by theprestige

Here in Portland, the shift from blue to red... a safe space for you to indulge your problem without having to worry about getting arrested. People are tired of the trash and the filth and not being able to walk on the sidewalks.

Please. It's obvious that you're just making this up. Everybody knows Portland was completely incinerated by BLM.

[theprestige]

Originally Posted by Delvo

Please. It's obvious that you're just making this up. Everybody knows Portland was completely incinerated by BLM.

BLM has certainly not been kind to our downtown. It's funny how they're always there when it's time for rioting and looting and arson, but nowhere to be seen when the homeless in our community need shelter and support.

[Stacyhs]

Originally Posted by Hercules56

Wow, again no mention of crime or inflation.

Cuz Americans dont really care about such things, right? Its all GOP propaganda.

Oh, we do care about them...but intelligent and informed people recognize the facts that inflation is rampant in many countries and is the result of "when the Federal Reserve sets too low of an interest rate or when the growth of money supply increases too rapidly."

This is why the Fed. Reserve has raised interest rates in order to slow down inflation. It's a painful but necessary action much like a root canal is temporarily painful but needs to be done for a person's long term health.

As for crime, it's not Dem policies that are causing that if you consider that Red States have just as high, if not higher crime rates. For example, the murder rate is higher in Red states:

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The rate of murders in the US has gone up at an alarming rate. But, despite a media narrative to the contrary, this is a problem that afflicts Republican-run cities and states as much or more than the Democratic bastions.
In 2020, per capita murder rates were 40% higher in states won by Donald Trump than those won by Joe Biden.
8 of the 10 states with the highest murder rates in 2020 voted for the Republican presidential nominee in every election this century.

https://www.thirdway.org/report/the-...murder-problem

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Mississippi had by far the highest murder rate at 20.5 murders per 100,000 residents, followed by Louisiana at 15.79. Alabama, Kentucky and Missouri all had murder rates higher than 14 per 100,000 compared to a national average of 6.5. The only states that voted for Biden to appear in the top 10 are Georgia — a longtime Republican stronghold that went blue by a tiny margin in 2020 — and New Mexico.

https://www.salon.com/2022/03/16/dem...in-red-states/

Quote:

Taking a look at the FBI Crime Data Explorer, which looks at violent crime, Oklahoma had 18,255 in 2020, which per 100,000 people, is a violent crime rate of 458.6.

In New York state it was far lower with a rate of 363.8, and in California just slightly lower with a rate of 442.

https://okcfox.com/news/local/fact-c...ublican-states

Here are the 10 states with the highest crime rates in 2022 and are historically red or blue:

New Mexico
Louisiana
Colorado
South Carolina
Arkansas
Oklahoma
Washington
Tennessee
Oregon
Missouri

TEN STATES WITH LOWEST CRIME RATES:

New York
West Virginia
Virginia
Rhode Island
Vermont
New Jersey
Idaho
Maine
Massachusetts
New Hampshire

[Stacyhs]

Originally Posted by Hercules56

I know this may shock you but the images of the 1% of BLM protests that turned violent totally outweigh the other 99%, in the minds of many Americans.

It was very sad for me to hear friends justify or excuse the arson & looting. Those memories stick in your head more than a peaceful march down Main St.

Are they "justifying" the arson and looting or are they saying they understand where it was coming from, the reasons it was happening. I had a long debate about this with a member who was conflating understanding why something was happening with justifying it.

That, and the investigations found that a large percentage of the looting had nothing to do with the BLM protests but were individuals and gangs taking advantage of the police being elsewhere. IOW: crims being crims.

[Stacyhs]

Originally Posted by Brainster

Well, you know how it is, they looked at it as improving their chances of winning, and didn't consider the downside. Lake was a particularly risky pick, as she's been a tv news anchor for 20+ years, is polished and oozes personality. She's going to be on the short list of potential VPs, and that means she has to be considered a long-term candidate for the top job.

Originally Posted by Hercules56

I disagree on one point I don't think telling people that our Presidential election was stolen by an international conspiracy of Venezuelan & Chinese Communists is going to scare too many intelligent folks. Gots to already possess a certain level of paranoia & stupid to be influenced by such junk.

True...and the GOP base seems to have quite a significant amount of both.