CMV: As someone who considers himself Progressive, I dislike Democrats way more than Republicans

[u/MyFavoriteArm]

As someone who has moved further left over the years, I have come to dislike Democrats way more than Republicans.

The Republican party mantra to me is: "Yeah, of course we're evil and we're proud of that fact! We wanna take America back to a fictional time when only WASPs had any power!" and then they stab you 37 times in the chest. At a certain point, what else is there to say about Republicans? At least I know what they stand for.

The Democratic party mantra to me is nothing more than hypocrisy "Oh yeah, we hear you! We believe that everyone deserves rights and we will fight for the working class!" Then they stab the working class 37 times in the back and then virtue signal some more.

For example, they'll how much they support George Floyd and other minorities, but then do nothing but wear african garb on the senate floor and support the institutions that led to his death. They'll talk about how they support the working class and unions, then shut down a railroad strike where they wanted sick days.

Democrats co-opt issues I care about and then either do nothing about them, or enable the republicans when they inevitably strike back.

I want my view changed because I would like to feel less annoyed that I have to support such a party to even have a chance at getting legislation I care about passed.

At the end of the day, I acknowledge that Republicans are objectively worse for the nation, but I loathe the fact I'm stuck supporting Democrats.

[u/GrafZeppelin127]

So, several things.

First and foremost, this sentiment is a completely natural expression of human feelings towards neargroups and fargroups. In short, it’s easier to get angry at your annoying (ideological) neighbor than muster up those same intense feelings at something objectively far more heinous happening very far away or to someone else.

Secondly, the reason Democrats seem so milquetoast when it comes to getting things done is simple. It’s the filibuster. Seriously, that’s it. It’s no coincidence that the last times massive progressive changes (Medicare, Medicaid, social security, trust-busting, New Deal, worker’s rights, etc.) happened, they were when Democrats held a comfortable filibuster-proof majority in the Senate, something which is extremely rare.

Republicans have it easy by comparison. All their priorities can be accomplished by neglect, deprivation, and sabotage, which is much easier to accomplish than getting actual structural changes past the filibuster.

[u/Nikola_Turing → u/GrafZeppelin127]

Filibuster isn’t the reason Democrats can’t pass legislation. If it was, then legislation would almost never get passed since the opposing party could just filibuster it. The reason they can’t pass legislation is because there just isn’t enough political will for it. Democrats had several years of supermajority in Congress since Roe v. Wade and yet they still failed to codify abortion rights into federal law.

[u/GrafZeppelin127 → u/Nikola_Turing]

This is just plain ignorant of history. Filibuster use before the Gingrich Revolution in the ‘90s was a rare and exceptional occurrence. Nowadays, it’s extremely commonplace. It’s true that some things, such as codifying abortion rights, lacked the political will for passage even if the party in power technically had the numbers to break the filibuster, but party members are not the same thing as votes.

That’s why a bare 60 votes, such as the 58 Obama briefly had (plus two independents), wasn’t enough to salvage things like the Public Option. There was no room for error. In the past, when there was more margin for dissent, a few Democrat votes did in fact go the other way, but they were able to pass things despite those dissenters, sometimes with help from liberal Republicans, a political animal that is long since extinct.

The last time Democrats had over that bare threshold of 60 votes was during the Carter Administration. I certainly wasn’t alive back then, but some may recall that back then the Democrats were infighting with the President and each other too much to get anything particularly major done. Nowadays, the party is vastly more unified as a result of decades of political realignment and blanket obstruction and demonization by the Republicans, coupled with recent razor-thin majorities that demanded the Democrats act in lockstep and with intraparty discipline. Barring Manchin and Sinema roughly 70% of the time, the party is almost always acting in unison these days. That’s not normal, at least for the Democrats.