If the dems wanted the left to stand behind them, they should have gotten rid of the filibuster and passed actual free, universal healthcare instead of the republican plan that just amounted to extra subsidies for insurance companies. Also they shouldn’t have bombed a dozen Middle Eastern and African countries while bailing out the banks that just foreclosed on millions of homes and deporting more people than either Bush or Trump.
When you betray the voters who elected you by giving republicans half the discretionary budget and adopting their policy even when they’re going to vote against it, you decrease turnout. When you improve people’s immediate material conditions, you increase turnout.
If you want more, then vote in more Senators so Lieberman can’t water it down. That’s how it works.
Not to mention the oddity of “we didn’t get exactly what we wanted in the first months, so we’re just going to give up for the next 6 years and then let Trump in. Surely that will work!”
It doesn’t work that way for republicans. When republicans are in power, they don’t handicap themselves with the filibuster or the parliamentarian or PAYGO or let single members block everything without the threat of getting kicked off committee assignments and denied GOP funding/campaign resources.
They chose to let Lieberman be the villain of the week because they don’t want the same things the left wants.
You can whine that people won’t vote for politicians who don’t do what they elected them to do, but that’s not how democracy works. Doing things that are unpopular with the base and failing to do the things you were elected to do decreases turnout.
Dems manage to filibuster plenty.
Added this to my previous reply so you probably didn’t see it: There’s also the oddity of “we didn’t get exactly what we wanted in the first months, so we’re just going to give up for the next 6 years and then let Trump in. Surely that will work!” Want progress? Dems need consistent and overwhelming victories. Not 2 years out of every 16 years (the average of when the Dems have all 3 of presidency, house of reps, and senate).
Oh ml user. Why do I bother.
