The G.O.P. abandoned a bipartisan border security bill that also aided Ukraine after Democrats called their bluff on immigration, agreeing to tough measures Republicans demanded.
But Democrats tripped them up by offering substantial — almost unheard-of — concessions on immigration policy without insisting on much in return. Now it is Republicans who are rapidly abandoning a compromise that gave them much of what they wanted, leaving aid to Ukraine in deep jeopardy, border policy in turmoil and Congress again flailing as multiple crises at home and abroad go without attention because of a legislative stalemate.
Wait, dems don’t ask for anything when conceding to right-wing bullshit? Wait, repubs don’t actually want the things they say they want? Repubs don’t actually want to govern?
Call me surprised.
They’ve effectively ceded the entire narrative around the boarder to Trump and accepted that there is a ‘crisis’.
The risk they took was that this would actually have gotten passed, which would be stupendously horrible and almost certainty would have cost them the election.
They got a shitty paper victory (which wont mean shit in 3 weeks), gave up any kind of distinction on the boarder, effectively accepting that Donald Trump is ‘right’ about border policy and they were ‘wrong’, risked the passage of an incredibly stupid and draconian border bill, and have generally shown that they are weaker than they were even considered to be.
This entire community seriously needs to stop cheer leading Democrats and develop some critical thinking skills. This a ‘victory’ like removing single payer was a ‘victory’ under the Obamacare negotiations. Supposedly, it was going to get them Republican votes (spoiler: it didn’t).
This whole thing is actually a huge loss for the Democrats, because they’ve effectively given Trump a W in terms of the entire framing of the border issue. It will come back to bite them, book mark this comment, and we can come back to it when it does. Effectively, Democrats have handed leadership on border policy to the Republicans. Democrats need to do so much better than they have been and dumb ass shit like this is not how they need to be doing better.
Broadly, if the NY Times is calling something a victory, you should seriously consider it with greater scrutiny.
That’s one way to look at it, I see the Democratic response to be more like, “I don’t think there is a crisis but if stronger border security will shut you up and let us run the government like functional adults, I suppose that isn’t so bad. We like security, too.”
Republicans have been fear-mongering over the border every election cycle with moderate success, and this takes the wind out of their sails without much of a downside. I don’t object to stronger borders/immigration reform even though I don’t think it’s as important an issue as the xenophobic right seems to.
The problem is that right now the Democrats are all that the US has. These decisions need to be made right now and the Democrats are the only ones who physically have the ability to get them made in vaguely sane ways.
So maybe you don’t like them, maybe you think they’re crap, maybe you think they’re doing a poor job. But that’s still the best you’re going to get right now, which is all that really matters for some very important things going on. And so we cheer them on.
It’d be great if next chance the Americans get they swap them out for people who are better, but that chance isn’t coming along for a little while yet. And they’re stuck with a pretty shitty electorate, too, so that needs to be taken into account.
Recognizing how shitty they are is A PART OF recognizing where we are.
We are stuck in a burning forest. Republicans are the arsonists who started it, and the Democrats are a half-fouled moped that we must use to get out.
Though we MUST recognize that we’ve been given a half-fouled moped and not a Land Cruiser…
Republicans want to unload a tanker truck of gasoline on the fire, while Democrats are negotiating to only pour a couple of gallons on the fire, as opposed to arguing in favor of water.
Democrats are not a part of the problem, the are the problem in the same way Republicans are.
Pretending this was some kind of Democratic victory is self-delusion at its finest and the Lemmy community needs to do better.
Almost entirely agreed. They aren’t a problem in the same way, but the point still stands in that the result is the same: us burning alive in a forest fire while Democrats cheer about falling in to a ravine with fewer trees…
There are long term electoral and policy consequences for these kinds of faux victories. We just watched the ratchet effect happen in real time. Republican border policy is now Democrat border policy.
If the end result is stagnation there are less risky approaches. My biggest concern here is that Democrats will see this as a victory, and next time they are feeling their oats, they’ll try it again and get their hand slammed in the rat trap, and some insane piece of legislation will be one step closer to becoming law.
It was a stupid fucking plan and they got lucky. To your point, the Dems are all we have. They shouldn’t be taking these kinds of low reward, high risk plays.
And perhaps that’s a sacrifice that’s worth making to prevent Ukraine from being genocided by Russia. Your judgment of what is a “low reward” is not necessarily shared by everyone.
Ah yes, you worry about Ukraine while our entire democracy here at home slips away…
Fucking pathetic target fixation from you.
Your democracy isn’t going to vanish because you’ve got some overly-strict border controls for a while.
Ukraine can vanish if Russia is able to conquer it. Millions of people can die in gulags, of starvation, or have their children taken away and “reedcuated.” It’s literally happened to Ukraine before. Russia is explicitly trying to do that to it again right now.
So excuse me for my priorities.
It’s not the border policy that would end the US. It’d be Democrats failing to make the evil murderers of the Republican party look like the evil murderers they are. When the US cannot tell who the baddies are, it is EVERYONE’S problem.
The Republicans have an actual plan, laid out in writing, to take over the government. They WILL try. We need an America capable of handling that, not one myred in Democrat’s capitulations to Republicans.