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Do Democrat Voters Really Believe This Stuff?
In a cynical ploy to capitalize on our current hysteria over the video of George Floyd’s death, Democratic Reps Rashida Tlaib (Michigan) and Ayanna Pressley (Massachusetts) announced the BREATHE Act last week. This proposed legislation seeks to radically transform America’s criminal justice system through a wide variety of actions:
- Eliminate life sentences
- Retroactively expunge drug crimes
- Permanently shut down multiple federal agencies
- Permanently close many prisons and detention centers
- End gang databases
- Establish pilot programs for universal basic income
- Give voting rights to all illegal immigrants
- Give voting rights to all incarcerated criminals
- Give free lifetime education to all illegal immigrants
- Give free lifetime education to all incarcerated criminals
This sweeping legislation brings up two groups of questions in my mind.
First, do the congresspeople who proposed this bill hope that it will become law? Or is this just their version of virtue-signaling? And if it does become law, do they expect it to help black communities? So they want to defund police and release criminals from jail. And they expect this to reduce crime. How, exactly? Is this a real effort to reduce the crime rate in black neighborhoods, or is it simply a cynical ploy to get votes?
Which brings up my second set of questions:
I have a lot of friends whom I respect who vote Democrat. How many of the proposals above would these Democrat voters be in favor of? Does the average Democrat voter actually believe that you can reduce crime by decreasing the number of police on the streets and increasing the number of criminals on the streets? How, exactly, do they expect that to work?
Which reminds me of another interesting news story from last week:
Kanye West is a rapper, Christian, and now, apparently, a presidential candidate. He recently made a statement about Planned Parenthood: “Planned Parenthoods have been placed inside cities by white supremacists to do the Devil’s work.”
Remember that he has a point here. Planned Parenthood was started by famous eugenicist Margaret Sanger, who started it as “The Negro Project,” to limit reproduction of races she found to be mentally and culturally unfit. She even bragged about speaking for the KKK in this passage from her autobiography: “I accepted an invitation to talk to the women’s branch of the Ku Klux Klan… I was escorted to the platform, was introduced, and began to speak…In the end, through simple illustrations I believed I had accomplished my purpose. A dozen invitations to speak to similar groups were proffered.”
Every year Planned Parenthood gives out its highest award, called “The Margaret Sanger Award” to honor the legacy of its founder. When Hillary Clinton received the award in 2009, she said during her acceptance: “It was a great privilege when I was told that I would receive this award. I admire Margaret Sanger enormously. … I’m really in awe of her. There are a lot of lessons we can learn from her life, from the causes she launched and fought for and sacrificed for so greatly.”
Kanye West has been known to say outrageous things with little basis in fact. But in this particular case, even if one disagrees with him, one can certainly understand how he might reach his conclusion that “Planned Parenthoods have been placed inside cities by white supremacists to do the Devil’s work.”
Anyway, as one might expect, Planned Parenthood took exception to Mr. West’s statement. Nia Martin-Robinson (the director of Black Leadership and Engagement at Planned Parenthood’s national headquarters) said, “Black women are free to make our own decisions about our bodies and pregnancies, and want and deserve to have access to the best medical care available. Any insinuation that abortion is Black genocide is infantilizing. The real threat to Black communities’ safety, health, and lives stems from lack of access to quality, affordable health care, police violence and the criminalization of reproductive health care by anti-abortion opposition.”
So let’s do this again. Same two sets of questions:
First, does Ms. Martin-Robinson really believe that statement that I bolded above? Police violence kills more black people than abortion? A perceived lack of access to quality, affordable health care is more of a threat to black communities than gang violence? The ‘criminalization of reproductive health care’ is more of a threat to black communities than the destruction of the black family? Does she really believe any of that?
And second, does the average Democrat voter out there really believe those things? Are those statements a winning platform for Joe Biden?
The Democrat party seems to presume that their voters are stupid. In my experience, that is not true. But it does appear that the average Democrat seems to have an uncomfortable relationship with facts. So perhaps it’s not lack of intelligence, but a lack of interest in facts that don’t confirm your biases. For just one example:
Last year, Trump administration officials met with Nancy Pelosi and other Democrats to negotiate about the border wall. Attempting to explain why this wall is so important to American citizens, Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen did a presentation that listed how many criminal aliens have been detained at the border, plus drug smugglers, terrorists, human traffickers, and various other undesirables. To her credit, Nielsen thought quickly on her feet (rather than running away screaming, which is what I generally do when I’m attacked by a rattlesnake). When Pelosi interrupted her presentation and flatly stated, “I reject your facts,” Nielsen immediately shot back, “These aren’t my facts, these are the facts.”
When the facts don’t fit their biases, they don’t propose their own reasoning or logic, they just deny the existence of those particular facts. Democrat voters of normal intelligence see this and vote for it. I don’t understand.
I’ve often wondered how my Democrat friends can vote for this stuff. I can say, “Your party intends to decrease crime by decreasing the number of police on the streets and increasing the number of criminals on the streets. They believe that lack of access to affordable health care is a greater threat to the black community than gang violence. They know what the weather will be like 500 years from now but they’re not sure how many genders there are this week. You won’t listen to a Ph.D. in climate science but you will listen to a Swedish teenager with a learning disability. You scream about Trump’s history of shady business dealings while you vote for Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden. C’mon – you’re voting for this stuff? You’re not stupid. I don’t understand.”
I’m not sure how they would respond, but I’m sure that they would go vote Democrat again. The Democrat party could run a career criminal with no record of success, a viciously unpleasant personality, and an affinity for tyrants and KKK sympathizers, and they would win half the vote.
In fact, in the last presidential election, they did exactly that.
I really don’t understand. These people are not stupid. But they vote for stuff that is absolutely, positively, mind-bogglingly stupid. Over and over and over again.
I just don’t understand.
And what I really don’t understand is how a Republican candidate can compete for the votes of such Democrats. How does one debate with such people? Imagine your attempts to discuss even obvious topics: “Yeah, well, you see, less police, more criminals…how do you think that’s likely to turn out?” And you would still lose the argument. To them. Somehow. I just don’t understand.
Those people are half the electorate. And I have no idea how to change that. Because I don’t understand how they think.
Published in General
Personal advantages: The bill doesn’t need to be “credible” (in the sense that it will get out of committee) as long as members of Congress or the public believe it to be a credible statement of the sponsors’ own beliefs. You take a position in order to raise awareness for an issue (90 comments in this thread!) or gain some stature with some key constituency, either by being seen as fighting for them, or reducing uncertainty about where you stand on an issue. (This is valuable for a politician.)
Procedural advantages: Well if you are the extremist… many models of Congress suggest and show that policymakers with bills that do have a chance at passing tend to try and appease the extremists in a variety of ways, even if they aren’t capitulated to in the substance of the bill. How do you become an extremist on an issue? You have to put out stuff like this consistently in order to separate yourself from the status quo. So now, if a policing bill in the House does make it to serious debate, in the back of everyones’ mind (for the Dems) will be the Squad (if they keep this up). I guess an example I can think of is Feinstein on guns. In the back of everyone’s mind is that a bill has to in some sense “get around” Feinstein.
Conservatives are supposed to use their brain.
It is better to light a light, instead of cursing the darkness. Since Tlaib is in a bullet-proof district, it is better to defeat her in the primary than to complain about her malign influence on Democrats.
There is an irony to this comment, given that you are calling for the election of people with whom you disagree on essentially every policy issue. You’re doing this because you don’t like the Republican candidate.
In other words, you’re acting from a 100% negative position, driven entirely by a desire to destroy a candidate, rather than any agreement with the candidates you’re supporting.
No candles here; you’re simply cursing the man you despise.
There you go with the logic again. This is about the feels.
Whatever the root, seems to me he’s right in this: If we can perhaps help to get people like Tlaib replaced with someone less hateful, someone the least bit more rational, someone not so blatantly evil, we should do what we can.
I can see a certain value in that. But I also tend to think the Dems should clean their own house. If they really want people like Tlaib representing them, I would rather point and say, “See? I told you so!”
Yeah, and what happens then? She’ll claim that Republicans are in with her opponent and probably get reelected. Plus if she’s what they want she’s what they’re gonna get, good and hard. I think I’m gonna have to stick with Napoleon here: “Never interrupt your enemy when he’s making a mistake”.
Harry, I am trying to defeat the members of the “Squad.” The Squad’s proposal is the subject of this post. Have you become so Anti-Anti-Trump that you discount everything said by someone who you disagree with about Trump?
We cleaned out Steve King and Roy Moore. We should help them clean out the Squad.
How are they going to know? All my federally reported information states is the name of my employer and my occupation.
When I was a child, my mother would exhort me to try new and different foods. I am asking you to give money to defeat one of the worst Anti-Semites in Congress. Surely that is a worthy goal.
The second benefit is that you can see what a strong platform “Act Blue” is. It funds any Democratic Candidate, incumbent and challengers. The problem with the Republican platforms is that they are not user friendly, and they don’t fund all candidates.
Would you thank the Dems if they “helped” with “cleaning out” Steve King and Roy Moore? Or do you think it’s something that should be done without ‘help” from “the other side?”
Don’t you have that backwards? Don’t you WANT the Democrat funders to NOT support people like Tlaib?
There is some writing in the small print that says, as a private law abiding citizen, you are required to snap into the fetal and wet yourself upon any interaction with a criminal element allowing them full rights to your property and accepting all bodily harm or you will be charged with hate crime and incarcerated.
As for “do they believe it?” I think they do. I think it feels really good so it’s gotta be right. I call it first circle thinking and we all do it but its grossly prevalent in politics on the left. Never think about what’s next, secondary and tertiary effects, just what feels good now.
You and Jim did good.
Did they stop doing “What Happens Next” on Sesame Street?
Yes. I want Democrats and Republicans to fund Brenda Jones who lost to Tlaib 31% to 30% and hopefully will knock Tlaib out this time. Earlier I gave to the woman who was trying to knock out AOC.
To answer the question at hand, yes they really believe it. They believe there is an unknown system they can build because they are smarter.
They also believe that certain problems are only certain problems for reasons that don’t cause the problem. For example, if you get rid of prisons and police, give that money to people, people won’t steal.
A lot of this is ironically enough white privilege. White people who oppose gentrification of run down neighborhoods to make them better, while not wanting poor people ruining their schools.
“progressives” have been trying to dismantle the Constitution since 1900.
Pandering to the lowest common denominator.
The objective is power and a society governed by ‘technocrats’.
Democratic leaders don’t care about their voters. They view them as a means to gain power. Remember, Karl Marx had contempt for the working class.
Regarding 50% of the electorate believes in this insanity, Democrats control the cities and urban areas but are irrelevant everywhere else.
Those people are half the electorate. And I have no idea how to change that. Because I don’t understand how they think.
rather than think, they react
I Walton
The Democrat party is controlled by very wealthy media giants, companies with falling marginal costs, and thousands of their technically educated employees who don’t understand much but are smart and successful so think they do, the gullible who want to be part of the group support them, the dumb who don’t understand much support them and those who get the goodies support them. We have to find ways to split the top media giants as they are monopolies and will get more powerful with time. They have to because they don’t cover their costs and growth supports their stock prices making the owners wealthy. We must separate the natural monopolies from the normal companies they are increasingly controlling. I don’t know how but I know its necessary and appropriate.
Perhaps it has always been this way, but it looks like our country is run by lawyers, making the rules so that we have to hire one to help make sense of it. Like George Carlin put it, it’s a club and we’re not in it. In France, I pay 15 euros a month for my internet bundle because there is true competition, here our choices are limited at rip-off prices. Higher education can inflict significant debt. Our partisan political system is geared to raise money by stoking our emotion. Campaign funding is an alien concept in more civilized countries. News is ratings driven commentary. Had the Obama administration not sold out to oil and gas interests, hydrogen fuel cell cars would have become more common by now.
With the pandemic, who is getting kicked in the face, and who is finding a way to profit from it?
Exactly this (Jim’s reply). As for convincing sometime Democrat voters, remember that one only has to persuade a small fraction of them to make all the difference. Also, I view this as similar to an oil tanker which takes a very long time to reorient because of it’s enormous mass. Persons think in election cycles, but these changes are probably only clear over the decade time scale.