Didn't "The Left" have a super-majority during Obama's initial term and all they could achieve then was a watered-down plan for healthcare?

I'll be real, if you want things to get better you gotta get rid of first-past-the-post voting.

I think it's easy to blame our inaction or weak policy on our political structures. While the American system certainly isn't perfect, we must work within it to address climate change urgently. Concluding that change cannot happen without replacing the system is nearly as bad as just ignoring the issue in the first place. There are plenty of examples of radical change in the American political history (suffrage, civil rights, slavery - although that one caused a war ;-) and that's what we need badly again today.

Sure but if the half or more believe this is all bullshit and lies, how?

Well, a lot of that half live in places that have been massively impacted by drought, flooding, hurricanes, tornadoes, and other things that are made much worse by climate change.

This year is the first year I’ve personally been impacted by wildfires (4000+ hectare fire on the edge of my town), and it made climate change 10x more real for me than it was before, and I was fully on board before! How long can the right stay on the wrong side of history with respect to climate change when they are losing their homes and farms and dealing with one thing after another?

To butcher a perfectly good quote: It is hard to get a man to understand something when his personality and all of his social connections depend on his not understanding it.

In other words, I wouldn't hold my breath.

Conservatives make up ~30% of the population. The so called "independents" fall for Conservative propaganda because that's all of our media and here we are.

Obama got punked big time by Larry Summers and Rahm Emmanuel. Biggest wasted opportunity in modern political history. Thank goodness COVID gave us a second at-bit, shit would be really fucked if that hadn't happened.

Can you expand on this Summers / Emmanuel thing?

Sure https://twitter.com/mcopelov/status/1332224336728649729 is screen caps form his own biography. Maybe I can find the passage elsewhere if it's blocked without sign in.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/01/opinion/us-economy-covid-... also

See the part at the end about Krugman "tearing his head out", and also

> It was also obvious to me, although apparently not to Obama officials, that they had only one shot at getting it right — that if the plan failed to produce a vigorous recovery, Republicans would say, “See, stimulus doesn’t work,” and nothing more would be done.

No, “the left” did not. They had upper 50s in terms of number of votes that would probably go along with the party, but they were shy of the 60 votes needed, hence the various compromises such as grandfathering old non ACA compliant plans, lack of public option, and “religious” exemptions for plans that do not insure anything.

And they only had that for 6 months in latter half of 2009.

Also it is important to note is that Democrats are the left but they're a center-right party. They're not leftist at all. They're merely to the left of the ultra-conservative party.

The days of Democrats being progressive are over if they existed like we pretend. The President that was most left in this country was FDR and he pulled us out of the Great Depression and set us up for an era of excellence. Democrats ran on left-adjacent policies and held Congress for decades.

Modern Democrats, 1970s forward really, keep rushing to the "center" that doesn't exist to capture imaginary voters as a result of Right-Wing propaganda (Intentional Overton-Window shifting, Two Santa Claus Theory, PR games).

Republicans, and most other morons, think that Democrats had a functional majority starting in 2009. However, Republicans intentionally held up the 60th seat for months. Then Kennedy died not long after Al Frankin was seated. That broke the supermajority.

Democrats have several conservative members (who I think should be expelled from the party but whatever) which resulted in us getting right wing healthcare policy and nothing meaningful being done. You can tell the people who fell for the RNC/Fox News PR campaign as they think Democrats had a supermajority for years rather than weeks.

I agree. But conservatives/right are often actively and openly against human life. That’s, I would say, worse.

One of Obamas many weaknesses as president was that he was incredibly way too open to letting republicans gut the democrat agenda just to appear bipartisan.

Keep in mind that somehow, it’s fascism for democrats to ignore republican input, but when republicans steal Supreme Court appointments, it’s just “how the government works”.

At that point, democrats were still very much playing “if we take the high road, people will see republicans for what they are”, but the problem is that this didn’t happen at all, and it fact, all it took was reinvigorating public displays of racism to fire up their base.

It was democratic/independent Sen. Joe Lieberman who killed the public option.[0]

Party is an abstract to these people, it's all about interests. In Lieberman's case, one of his interests was to protect the health insurance industry which contributed more than $1M to his campaigns over the years. [1]

[0]https://edition.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/10/27/health.care/inde...

[1]https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/2009/1211/Healthcare-holdouts-...

Al Franken was sworn in July, 2009. Ted Kennedy died in August 2009. That narrow window intersecting with the August recess was the first leg of the super majority and then again from the end of September to January 2010 with Ted Kenney’s temp replacement.

The Democrats did mess up by not taking that 3-4 month window more seriously, but they thought they had Massachusetts in the bag.

There's a page on Wikipedia about what the Obama administration did on energy. A few examples:

- $3.4 billion Smart Grid Investment Grant (part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009), which would affect 49 states and has the potential to reduce electricity use by more than 4% by 2033

- The recovery act included more than $70 billion in tax credits and direct spending for programs involving clean energy and transportation.

- The launch of the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) project under the Department of Energy

- New efficiency standards for home appliances

- Extending the investment tax credit for solar energy

- Extending the production tax credit for wind energy,

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_policy_of_the_Barack_Ob...

This isn’t a left vs right issue especially in an American context where the left is basically center right and has entirely abandoned its historical ideas in favour of other fights. The left has been entirely as bad as the right when it comes to the environment.

Might be, from what I read it is. The republicans, but correct me if I am wrong, do not even pretend to care. Just jobs >> environment, wealth >> environment, USA >> planet etc. If that is not true, please enlighten me what the Bush dynasty (isn’t that oil?) or Trump ever said about the planet. I mean sure many Clinton and Obama did nothing but at least they appeared worried; the former is worse.

Unless they said it but messed up more, but that doesn’t seem to be the case.

The main issue is not that the Republicans pretend they barely care about the environment and I’m not here to defend the awful bilan of the Republican party. The issue is that despite a lot of posturing amongst some of them the Democrats do exactly the same thing when they are in power. For all his worries, the US went from producing less and less oil to the world first producer while Obama was president, something he actually takes credit for.

Democrats aren’t really “the left” in the first place, there’s a left wing within the Democratic Party but it also includes a much larger neoliberal wing with the manchins and schumers of the world.

Which of those wings do you think has been bad on the environment?

Personally I’d say it’s the “pro-economy” neoliberal wing more than the left. Say what you want about how effective or practical the left has been, but generally they’re not the ones stripping regulations on hazmat trains or signing off on drilling in nature preserves or building pipelines across crucial aquifers.

I see, that must be why we see so much dissent from the Democrats in Congress. Must be hard being the whip. /s

This is correct. The US has 2 capitalist parties and no left party to speak of.

I think this was made far worse after the Citizens United ruling.

What was different before Citizens United?

> The left has been entirely as bad as the right when it comes to the environment.

No, they are not. "The concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive." https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/26589529219124838...

This is what the leader of right wing thinks about global warming.

> Right will never care about anything but themselves

Never is a long time. Richard Nixon's administration accomplished quite a bit. Nixon created the EPA and signed the endangered species act. Why couldn't environmentalism become an issue for the Republicans in the future?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Nixon#Governmental_ini...

Do you know what came immediately after Nixon's impeachment?

Fox news. The right wing in the US could never do what Nixon did because they'll get hung in the media machine designed to protect them (and keep them in lockstep)

The error I often see when comparing past presidents to current ones is that both the D and R parties are hardly the same from those even 20 years ago. Nixon, even Reagen, would have a hard time passing so e of the stuff they passed in today's world.

The Hastert Rule in the 90's heralded a new kind of politics where allegiance to & helping the party became more important than helping America. "Never call a vote unless your side would pass it themselves", became the bleak dark worst form. If America suffered, that was fine, so long as the party won. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hastert_Rule

What a sad emboldened new era that was. It was fueled by bold new levels of manufactured consent & spin doctoring. And the result of this ungamesmenly Hastertian dark-realpolitick has been a near collapse of any bipartisanship, and a decay of our union.

Perhaps not, but at least they aren’t actively working to take rights away. In the world where you have to vote in favor of lesser of two evils, it’s sadly the best option. That is, until they too start taking rights away…

Does it matter if they "care about you" if their politics and incentives align? This doesn't seem like a very productive way to spark a conversation.

More than the right/conservative. But yeah it’s a good one: does anyone care? And where does that end?

Still would not vote people that are openly and actively against most of humanity.

The difference between the left and right is mainly rhetoric. Speaking of “bailouts,” 68% of Americans wouldn’t pay even $10 per month more to mitigate climate change: https://www.cato.org/blog/68-americans-wouldnt-pay-10-month-....

Democrats are willing to talk about mitigating climate change, and Republicans aren’t, but the vast majority of Americans aren’t willing to actually incur decreased quality of life. Gas needs to be like $10+ per gallon. But even when it hit $4 last year, Biden was calling to suspend the gas tax to make it more affordable.

You’re correct that, on this issue, the right cares only about themselves. But so does most everyone else. Even most Biden voters want to be able to take their SUV to the beach this summer without high gas prices. Biden won traditionally red states like Arizona and Georgia blue, because Biden voters are leaving urban areas in the northeast and Midwest for places like Arizona and Georgia where they can afford bigger houses, more cars, etc.

One could argue that Biden is not really left at all, and a true leftist like Sanders or Warren would have gone to the billionaires' pockets to fund all kinds of progressive policies. But since Biden won, it's up to all Americans except for the billionaires to pay.

It depends if “left” refers to a set of policies, or generally the left-leaning half of the country. The latter includes a lot of people who, like Biden, aren’t that liberal. Apart from white moderates, you have a lot of black people and immigrants for whom upward mobility-a big house and nice cars—is a major theme.

Warren barely finished ahead of Michael Bloomberg (2.8 million votes to 2.4 million votes). Sanders did better, but note that he’s extremely careful on environmental issues, since a large share of his support comes from working class hispanics.

Politics aside, “billionaires will pay for it” is the ultimate cop out for the left these days. Reaganism has won so completely that it’s unthinkable that any viable party could ask the middle class or even the upper middle class to pay for anything. They must maintain the illusion that we can have our cake and eat it too—we can mitigate climate change, but we don’t need to make any change to our standard of living or pay higher taxes because billionaires will pay for it.

Biden isn't really left at all, and one reason nobody goes to the billionaires' pockets to fund all kinds of progressive policies is that there isn't enough money in those pockets. To do major new social safety net services, you need ongoing (large amounts) billions of dollars. European-style social spending is funded by drastically higher tax rates on the middle class; the top marginal rate often kicks in at a CPS teacher's salary there.

I am all for taxing the hell out of billionaires, but deference to their interests isn't what's keeping you from having free grad school and high-speed rail; it's deference to the interests of ordinary people living in suburbs holding that back.

For those not familiar with Chicago politics, "CPS" -> Chicago Public Schools.

(tptacek lives in the Chicago area as I recall.)

Yup. I live in Oak Park. Our teachers are in high tax brackets even in the US.

> 68% of Americans wouldn’t pay even $10 per month more to mitigate climate change

The average American has zero savings and is living hand to mouth. If we hadn’t spent the last four decades hollowing out the middle class, maybe people would have the luxury of being able to look past their next paycheck and consider spending extra to avoid ecosystem collapse.

Median household income in America is roughly $70,000 per year. That is a roughly 20% real (not nominal!) increase over the past 40 years.

$10/month would represent 0.17% of that income.

Median household income on its own is an irrelevant fact. It is only relevant in context of median household expenses. By the fact that household debt has never been higher, I think my point stands - even people earning $70k/year are living hand to mouth because their expenses have risen to $69,500/year, if not higher.

Household debt has declined significantly over the past 15 years:

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/HDTGPDUSQ163N

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/TDSP

>"As long as people vote right/conservative this is all going to tank. Right will never care about anything but themselves (and thus, money and power). You see it everywhere they are and where in power. Which means we have huge issue as the underbelly votes right and the right vote right"

I do not have any sympathy to right but I have big doubts about left being those warm and fuzzy creatures that are "for the people". I do not think they give a shit. Only difference in my opinion is whom do they fuck the worst.

Yes, side X hates us and only cares about themselves. You must vote side Y if you care about other people.

I suppose the first question is, why are people voting for your opponent? Probably because they don't like you or your solution.

That's the whole problem of democracy to some people - you have to actually convince others and get them onboard instead of forcing your way.

> I suppose the first question is, why are people voting for your opponent? Probably because they don't like you or your solution.

So, we need a party that solves world hunger, keep us safe, I want iPhone etc etc and the right gives a window for that in the coming 4 years, while the left has nothing but pain. If you believe in a party that has short term (<30 years) solutions, you are already lost. We left it too long for fast grabs. And almost no one looks beyond their own life or maybe their kids.

Real solutions are not short term or simple and they won’t be nice at first. If you don’t suck it up, this time the world is at stake.

People don’t vote for anything beyond their horizon and many will openly tell you, and I am 100% trump would and does, that after their death, who gives a crap.

Also, democracy; what other form is giving us great examples? Not russia surely? China?

Perhaps the left is more inclined to take some sort of marginal actions, but I don't think they are willing to do what it takes to make a difference. Everybody would like to "save the planet", but when the the tradeoff is to renounce to our individual comfort, there are less volunteers. How many people would agree to significantly reduce their consumption habits (e.g. flying, driving big cars, eating meat...)?