Let’s be completely clear about one thing that you both seem to be neglecting in this conversation:
You cannot govern if you lose. And due to how our government is structured and how elections work, an administration gets maybe two years (more like 12-18 months) of actual governing before they have to start focusing on getting (re)elected.
So it’s all well and good to ask for radical change and drastic measures to avert climate disaster. But if the consequence of those actions is that democrats up and down every ticket lose the next election, it’s all for naught, because it’s FAR easier to dismantle hastily enacted radical changes than it is to cement them long term, especially when the people coming into power after you have no scruples about lying, cheating, and profiteering.
due to how our government is structured and how elections work, an administration gets maybe two years (more like 12-18 months) of actual governing before they have to start focusing on getting (re)elected.
That’s completely false and also ridiculous. You can still govern while running for reelection, and even if you couldn’t, our election seasons may be long but they aren’t two years long, much less three.
If that actually were true, then pretty much the only thing worth doing would be passing legislation aimed at shortening election lengths, so that the government isn’t completely nonfunctional the majority of the time, at which point I would have to ask what the democrats have done on that front, to address your exaggerated/made up problem?
Tell me you’ve never worked in US politics without telling me you’ve never worked in US politics, speedrun edition
I’ll try to remember to explain the details to you when I’m not actively deplaning from a week-long work trip, because I’m not down with the “do your own research” attitude. But for real, if you have the opportunity to talk to someone who has actually dealt with state or federal election campaigning I encourage you to discuss the nuance of this with them.
In truth, politicians literally never stop campaigning. Every single decision they make until the moment they decide not to run for office again is colored by the need to get elected again. And even then, they are all thinking about how their actions are going to impact their colleagues and successors
There’s a huge difference between “decisions being colored by the need to get elected again” and “being so singularly focused on reelection campaigns that they are unable to enact policy.” It’s just another BS excuse.
Of course their decisions are colored by the need to get elected again, as they should be in any reasonable government. Part of that includes actually doing their jobs.
If you could spend three times as much time enacting legislation by giving up on reelection, then anyone who’s ideologically committed should simply do that. Biden especially has no excuse, what reason was there for him to spend 3 years of his 4 year term worrying about reelection when he was just going to end up dropping out due to age? If that’s what actually happened, it’s worse than any alternative explanation.
When did I say anything about being “so singularly focused […] that they are unable to enact policy”? They choose not to pursue the policy positions you want largely because it’s politically expedient.
Part of that includes actually doing their jobs
This right here is where you’re not hearing me
What you define as “doing their jobs” and “doing the thing most effective at getting them re-elected” are not the same thing. That’s literally the problem. Humans aren’t as ethical, self-aware, intelligent, and future-thinking as you seem to want to believe.
Humans are, in fact, incredibly easy to manipulate, as it turns out.
Your idealism is noble but untempered by reality. Solving this particular problem will require something far different from simply abstaining from voting or whatever, and until you and others are ready for that, shitting on Harris and Biden for playing the rhetoric game when the alternative at the moment is a literal extreme fascist is not only a pointless endeavor but actually puts other people in harms way
When did I say anything about being “so singularly focused […] that they are unable to enact policy”?
Right here, in the part I quoted:
due to how our government is structured and how elections work, an administration gets maybe two years (more like 12-18 months) of actual governing before they have to start focusing on getting (re)elected.
One can enact policy for many reasons, not just legitimate efforts to govern effectively. Enacting policy for the sake of political expediency is still enacting policy, but not what I would consider actual governing
Let’s be completely clear about one thing that you both seem to be neglecting in this conversation:
You cannot govern if you lose. And due to how our government is structured and how elections work, an administration gets maybe two years (more like 12-18 months) of actual governing before they have to start focusing on getting (re)elected.
So it’s all well and good to ask for radical change and drastic measures to avert climate disaster. But if the consequence of those actions is that democrats up and down every ticket lose the next election, it’s all for naught, because it’s FAR easier to dismantle hastily enacted radical changes than it is to cement them long term, especially when the people coming into power after you have no scruples about lying, cheating, and profiteering.
That’s completely false and also ridiculous. You can still govern while running for reelection, and even if you couldn’t, our election seasons may be long but they aren’t two years long, much less three.
If that actually were true, then pretty much the only thing worth doing would be passing legislation aimed at shortening election lengths, so that the government isn’t completely nonfunctional the majority of the time, at which point I would have to ask what the democrats have done on that front, to address your exaggerated/made up problem?
Tell me you’ve never worked in US politics without telling me you’ve never worked in US politics, speedrun edition
I’ll try to remember to explain the details to you when I’m not actively deplaning from a week-long work trip, because I’m not down with the “do your own research” attitude. But for real, if you have the opportunity to talk to someone who has actually dealt with state or federal election campaigning I encourage you to discuss the nuance of this with them.
In truth, politicians literally never stop campaigning. Every single decision they make until the moment they decide not to run for office again is colored by the need to get elected again. And even then, they are all thinking about how their actions are going to impact their colleagues and successors
There’s a huge difference between “decisions being colored by the need to get elected again” and “being so singularly focused on reelection campaigns that they are unable to enact policy.” It’s just another BS excuse.
Of course their decisions are colored by the need to get elected again, as they should be in any reasonable government. Part of that includes actually doing their jobs.
If you could spend three times as much time enacting legislation by giving up on reelection, then anyone who’s ideologically committed should simply do that. Biden especially has no excuse, what reason was there for him to spend 3 years of his 4 year term worrying about reelection when he was just going to end up dropping out due to age? If that’s what actually happened, it’s worse than any alternative explanation.
When did I say anything about being “so singularly focused […] that they are unable to enact policy”? They choose not to pursue the policy positions you want largely because it’s politically expedient.
This right here is where you’re not hearing me
What you define as “doing their jobs” and “doing the thing most effective at getting them re-elected” are not the same thing. That’s literally the problem. Humans aren’t as ethical, self-aware, intelligent, and future-thinking as you seem to want to believe.
Humans are, in fact, incredibly easy to manipulate, as it turns out.
Your idealism is noble but untempered by reality. Solving this particular problem will require something far different from simply abstaining from voting or whatever, and until you and others are ready for that, shitting on Harris and Biden for playing the rhetoric game when the alternative at the moment is a literal extreme fascist is not only a pointless endeavor but actually puts other people in harms way
Right here, in the part I quoted:
You seem to have misconstrued what “actual governing” means in this context
Then what did you mean by that? Because I think it’s pretty reasonable to interpret “actual governing” as “enacting meaningful policy.”
One can enact policy for many reasons, not just legitimate efforts to govern effectively. Enacting policy for the sake of political expediency is still enacting policy, but not what I would consider actual governing