Do political parties exist to advance causes or do causes exist to advance political parties? A lot of the debates about the Democratic party basically come down to this divide.
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Replying to @HeerJeet
Political parties exist to govern. The are some in the Democratic party who seem to prefer not governing but instead whining themselves into irrelevancy. Others love this country and want it well-governed.
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Replying to @FeinsteinKen
Can "governing" exist in meaningful isolation from actual political positions?
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Replying to @HeerJeet
It can exist in isolation from political positions that guarantee you are never permitted to govern. Yes.
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Replying to @FeinsteinKen
Does taking political positions insure that a party can't govern? In most democracies I'm familiar with, political parties offer voters something and when in power try to enact it.
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Replying to @HeerJeet
There are political positions that guarantee you won't be the one who governs. So they must be avoided. Winning matters. The stakes are very very high.
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Replying to @FeinsteinKen
Do you think abolitionism was a winning issue in 1850?
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Replying to @HeerJeet
Fortunately, chattel slavery isn't a useful analogy for anything going on now.
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Replying to @FeinsteinKen
You don't think climate change is a morally imperative issue that, if not addressed, will lead to a catastrophic future for all subsequent generations?
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Replying to @HeerJeet
The United States only has a limited role in solving that. So it's not analogous. Regardless, that's one of the many reasons why it's important to actually govern. So you can take action on issues of importance.
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But in order to gain power, as you said earlier, you can't stake out positions that lead to meaningful change. In which case, what's the point of governing? Is it just to preserve the phoney baloney jobs of a gerontocracy?
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Replying to @HeerJeet
Meaningful change comes incrementally. We have gay marriage nationwide now even though no one campaigned on it. Obamacare was an important improvement in our healthcare system. Etc.
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Replying to @FeinsteinKen @HeerJeet
Sounds like you just described a meaningful change that didn't happen incrementally and conflated it with an incremental change to bolster your point
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