General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: "Making the perfect the enemy of the good." [View all]Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)That's a petty implication to make about such things.
I would never sacrifice the needs of the people out of some sort of inflated sense of self.
And I can't imagine any issue where you and I would be at opposite extremes, so your choice to frame things that way is puzzling. I respect you and would always listen to whatever you had to say.
There isn't anyone in the Republican House or Senate caucuses willing to listen to reason anymore-willing to meet us even close to halfway. Nor will there be again.
Those who came out against Trump's ACA repeal, for exxample did so only because they were forced to due to massive pressure from below, by Indivisible, the labor movement, mainstream women's, LGBTQ and POC groups and activist groups to the left of both working together to hold their feet to the fire.
Today, there are no non-reactionary Republicans. Even the "moderates" are massively to the right of the Goldwater types from fifty years ago. None of them are interested in compromise. They simply want to annihilate everyone even minutely to their left. Look at how they treated Bill Clinton-a man who came into office bragging about how much he agreed with them. He met them halfway from the start and they went scorched-earth anyway.
There aren't any issues where conservatives are going to work with people on our side of the spectrum. They've proved that by the way they went totally steamroller on Bill-a guy who came into office agreeing with their agenda 40% of the time.
I'm FOR negotiation in extreme circumstances...always have been...but it can't be our main strategy for getting things passed. We need, as a party, to be working just as hard as the Right does to actually win the argument in public opinion on the issues of the day. If we lead with that, we will be in a much stronger position to negotiate when we have to.
What is so terrible about at least introducing legislation in an undiluted form and gaging both congressional and public support. That's what was done with the Civil Rights Act of 1964. At the end, very tiny compromises, compromises that had no actual practical effect, were made, but the bill was brought in in a strong form. If the original bill had been introduced in a deeply compromised form, it wouldn't have ended up being any stronger at all than the Civil Rights Act of 1957...a bill whose passage ended up being totally meaningless.