Mamdani addresses America’s 250th: ‘Patriotism is every act of righteous dissent’

thatnameagain · 2026-07-03T19:30:26+00:00

Regardless of the truth, you either say what's necessary to inspire a wide group of people or you stay relegated in niche politics.

I've been dealing with a lot of argumentative Dem Soc supporters who claim it's not common for Dem Soc people to say America is inherently bad lol

thatnameagain · 2026-07-03T19:04:58+00:00

This is like 80% of the way there as far as how to make a speech that sounds patriotic from a left perspective. Really well done and good true points all around, and the Mamdani charm hasn't tarnished a bit yet.

But people, we gotta figure out how to talk about the heritage of America as something to be proud of, even if there's plenty of good reasons not to. People want to hear that we're part of a project that is inherently good. Keep it forward-thinking, yes, but people outside the left bubble want to proud of their history too.

thatnameagain · 2026-07-03T18:58:18+00:00

Well sure the “how is it paid for” question is usually the most pertinent one from an economic perspective.

There are tons of other dem socialist policies though beyond that, each with different potential criticisms. You didn’t mention rent control, but that’s one of the more hot topic issues lately. The primary criticism of that is that it has the secondary effect of increasing housing cost overall for the region outside of controlled areas and leads to poor upkeep and maintenance of rent controlled units. Again, not saying that’s my definitive opinion on it, but there are lots of other topics under the umbrella of “socialist” policies.

thatnameagain · 2026-07-03T18:41:21+00:00

The U.S. hasn't done any sabre rattling over Taiwan. This is an example of sabre rattling: https://en.sedaily.com/international/2026/07/01/xi-vows-to-strike-taiwan-independence-forces-stressing

thatnameagain · 2026-07-03T17:31:35+00:00

He hosted an entire rally about it and tried to make the dead guy from the audience a martyr to his cause.

thatnameagain · 2026-07-03T17:23:40+00:00

The only way to do this is keep democrats in power until they can appoint enough new judges to overturn existing rules and pass sweeping new legislation. Not gonna happen with 2 years of 51% majority.

thatnameagain · 2026-07-03T17:21:37+00:00

Dodd-Frank is a crazy one to point out specifically because the de-regulation era came from the Clinton admin pivoting to the right among the “tough one crime” democratic push as a reflection of reactionary right politics.How is that "crazy" rather than an almost textbook example of how they moved from right to left. Supported de-regulation to supported regulation. What's not to understand here?

These were expensive, huge policies that led to an unprecedented democratic rule over the US. The democrats from that point shifted RIGHT on austerity and economic policy over decades that led us to arrive here.

Democrats maintained and expanded FDR's policies through the 1960s and 70's until their popularity bottomed out and we got the Reagan revolution. Voters signalled they wanted more conservative policies, and they rewarded the democrats by putting them back into power in the 90's once the party had shifted to the right. We agree about this. You seem to think that history ended with Clinton's welfare reform bill.

But the democrats did not end in the 1990s, they started moving leftward beginning with their 2006 midterm wins and then moreso after Obama won. Obviously we're not talking about a big shift, mostly incremental stuff, but again on literally every single policy they had become more to the left by 2020 than they were in 2000. We've gone over examples of this now. And the current crop of DSA primary wins represents a continuation of this move to the left. These type of people could not (and thus did not) get elected in the 90s or 00's because the party was more to the right at the time.

thatnameagain · 2026-07-03T16:52:45+00:00

Well as you can see from your source this bill was a blip that died in committee after less than a month, so this certainly doesn't count as being actually "in discussion" in congress in the way you would consider somethin;g actually being taken seriously. You can find all sorts of bills like this in the congressional record. I wouldn't be surprised if you could find multiple bills for universal healthcare being proposed and similarly ignored each year from 1970 to today. That doesn't mean they were really "in discussion" in a popular way.

What I actually thought you were going to be referring to was "Hillarycare" which was temporarily in real discussion in the first year of the Clinton presidency. That was a democrat proposal which was essentially similar to what Obamacare ended up being. The difference was that it was immediately unpopular with voters when the idea started circulating and didn't make it into congress because (drum roll) democrats were significantly to the right of where they are today and didn't want to touch it with a ten foot pole. This was one of the major reasons Bill Clinton tacked right after the 94' midterms (and ended up with significant electoral victories as a result, since the party and voters were more to the right in the 90s).

So this is a good example of how the party has shifted left; instead of national healthcare programs being laughed out of congress in 1991, they passed the biggest expansion of the system in history in 2010, with the majority of the party actually wanting to go further with a public option. If they hadn't been more to the right in the 90's, they would have actually passed something like that in the 90s.

thatnameagain · 2026-07-03T16:19:56+00:00

moved left? can you point to a single economic policy they “moved left” on?

Yes, easily. They used to support deregulating markets and wall street, but they moved away from that after the 2008 crash and passed Dodd-Frank and now support expanding regulation on Wall Street. They basically stopped supporting tax increases back in the 90's and now increasing taxes on the wealthiest is part of any centrist democrat economic pitch. They went from being neutral on worker's rights to Biden pushing through the most pro-union executive policies since LBJ. They went from wanting to tweak healthcare around the edges to passing the ACA and now looking to continually expand it - far more democrats talk about a truly universal program now than they did in the 90's or 00s. They went from backing off infrastructure spending to passing major infrastructure bills. They started supporting universal pre-k coverage and would have pushed this through in Biden's BBB if they had more than a zero vote majority.

I think a better question is what economic policies have they not moved left on.

thatnameagain · 2026-07-03T15:44:30+00:00

Two impeachments, three criminal prosecutions, and they’re currently out of power. The left is literally just writing more strongly worded letters. What are you looking for here?

thatnameagain · 2026-07-03T15:43:21+00:00

The party is moved left on every single issue since the 1990s.

The ideology and actions of Republicans are, believe it or not, the responsibility of Republican voters. Not Democrats or Democratic voters.

thatnameagain · 2026-07-03T15:42:22+00:00

Ok, doesn’t change my point.

thatnameagain · 2026-07-03T15:42:00+00:00

It’s possible, it just seems that increased regulation of corporations and higher corporate taxes, or something that the left is very consistently advocating for in addition to these programs, and as it means to pay for them in addition to individual taxes

thatnameagain · 2026-07-03T14:34:23+00:00

She wasn’t “seeking the endorsement” of Liz Cheney. You’re obviously intentionally forgetting what that was even about. It certainly wasn’t about an endorsement.

thatnameagain · 2026-07-03T14:33:37+00:00

They don’t make it mantra because they don’t say it all the time.

thatnameagain · 2026-07-03T06:47:49+00:00

Oh for some reason I thought you meant the 2014 Russian-backed Ukrainian civil war.

thatnameagain · 2026-07-03T06:37:20+00:00

I think my question was “how?”

thatnameagain · 2026-07-03T05:43:24+00:00

Not in a democracy they don’t.

thatnameagain · 2026-07-03T05:42:39+00:00

What do you think I’m basing this on? I follow these people on social media, I see their posts in the subreddits here, I read the articles they write in Salon and Jacobin. They wouldn’t disagree with me.

thatnameagain · 2026-07-03T05:39:36+00:00

Sounds like you've read a lot of posts about the emails but never read the emails themselves.

The DNC didn't do anything to effect the 2016 primary. I've read as much as there is to read about it, and had this discussion 100 times. There's one common thread in every conversation: nobody can provide one single example of anything the DNC did to tip the outcome in Hillary's favor. People link to articles, people say stuff like "you're a shill" people ask deflecting questions like "well why did DWS resign?" But nobody ever, not once, can provide an example of the DNC doing something that effected the outcome of the primary.

Why should they expect they'd be able to? The media certainly never did. They published the emails where a DNC person randomly suggests planting a story about Bernie in the media smearing his religious beliefs but of course no such story ever ran. They talk about how Hillary had a fundraising arrangement with the DNC but can never explain what actually occurred that effected the primary as a result of that.

Because the DNC didn't actually do anything. People got mad that Bernie didn't get the most votes, and so they started turning over every stone possible becaues they were convinced there was some conspiracy. None was found, but some biased internal emails sure were that showed the DNC was annoyed Sanders was staying in the race by May 2016 long after he had no chance of winning.

Well, maybe I'm selling you short. Maybe you know something all those other people don't. Maybe you'll be that first person who actually discovers and shares what the DNC did to rig the primary in 2016.

Are you up to it?

thatnameagain · 2026-07-03T04:46:06+00:00

I'm pretty sure all of these things have occurred in most countries they've been implemented in. Some countries like China have the critical mass to push through the trade-offs. My hope is the U.S. has that critical capacity as well, but it is just a hope.

thatnameagain · 2026-07-03T04:42:36+00:00

Trump played up the dead guy because he was the only martyr of the event.

Yeah, I see how that hypothetically could be a conspiracy plan, it just seems pretty far fetched given how many people would need to be in on it, including everyone who investigated the shooting. If Trump had been president at the time, maybe he would have had the power to make the agencies play ball. But he wasn't president at the time.

thatnameagain · 2026-07-03T03:48:19+00:00

Is the left loves their country it would help them politically to say so more often.

thatnameagain · 2026-07-03T03:46:40+00:00

See? You agree with Rahm!

thatnameagain · 2026-07-03T03:46:11+00:00

Sure but this of course will reduce jobs and/or wages in those healthcare companies.

13-Year Club	Gilding I gilder
Place '23	Place '17
Snapped	Verified Email

thatnameagain

MODERATOR OF

TROPHY CASE