Senator Sinema is no longer a Democrat

[Hardkill]

Kyrsten Sinema has left the Democratic Party. 

She is a traitor and she was never a true Democrat.

https://www.michaelmoore.com/p/eps-the-meaning-of-independent-sinema#details

[Tyler Robinson]

What's a true Democrat? 

 

[Leo Gura]

Careful calling moderate politicians traitors.

She's simply a moderate/centrist. Progressives love to demonize centrists even more than Republicans.

Edited December 10, 2022 by Leo Gura

[Hardkill]

34 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

Careful calling moderate politicians traitors.

She's simply a moderate/centrist. Progressives love to demonize centrists even more than Republicans.

Yeah, but she has constantly shifted from being a "progressive" in her 20s to being more and more and more to the center until she became a moderate conservative Democratic. Now she has become a moderate conservative Independent.

I hoped before that she would be more like of a center-left or a moderate liberal Democrat like Schumer or Pelosi or Harris or Biden, which would've been good.

Why was she never even as liberal as the other US Senator from Arizona, Mark Kelly?

Edited December 10, 2022 by Hardkill

[DrugsBunny]

@Leo Gura People knocked on doors, did canvasing and grassroots fundraising to get her elected. She betrayed the values she ran on, how is this not a traitor?

I'm personally willing to call her far worse things than a traitor but lets just stick with that for now.

[Hardkill]

5 minutes ago, DrugsBunny said:

@Leo Gura People knocked on doors, did canvasing and grassroots fundraising to get her elected. She betrayed the values she ran on, how is this not a traitor?

I'm personally willing to call her far worse things than a traitor but lets just stick with that for now.

Yeah, I agree!

People in Arizona weren't doing that to Mark Kelly because they perceived him to be someone who definitely represented the values and political beliefs of most people in Arizona.

Edited December 10, 2022 by Hardkill

[Leo Gura]

People knew she was a moderate. And Arizona is a purple state so she actually fits that.

[Godhead]

1 hour ago, Leo Gura said:

she's simply a moderate/centrist. Progressives love to demonize centrists even more than Republicans.

@Leo Gura No, that's not the point. While she has shown a left-liberal voting record in the Arizona Legislature, she moved increasingly to the right in the House of Representatives. That sounds either like deliberate deception to gather votes or a 'genuine' value shift.  

Either way, it fits my definition of a traitor. 

 

[Hardkill]

2 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

People knew she was a moderate. And Arizona is a purple state so she actually fits that.

Still doesn't explain why Senator Kelly was noticeably more to the left and less difficult to work with in DC than she was.

Even Senator Tester who comes from Montana, which is a red state is even more to the left than she is and he has turned out to be a much more reliable Democratic voter in the Senate than she is. He even supported making permanent filibuster changes and a filibuster carveout for those voting rights bills and abortion rights bills that didn't get passed. Sinema, on the other hand, has always been one of the only two Democrats in the Senate along with Manchin who have been against eliminating or even making any changes to the filibuster. Why is she really against changing or eliminating the filibuster when she doesn't even come from a conservative state like West Virginia?

Furthermore, have you seen her poll numbers? She has actually become very unpopular for over a year now with both Republicans and Democrats in Arizona. She's likely to be primaried or lose re-election if she runs again. Even James Carville said in a vox article earlier this year, "I can’t explain it, and no one else can. The only explanation people have given is that she wants to be the next John McCain. But she’s not going to win a primary against Rep. Ruben Gallego, I’ll tell you that damn much. And I will personally volunteer to help him fundraise because I think we can keep that seat if he runs."

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2022/09/kyrsten-sinema-approval-rating-equally-unpopular-everyone.html

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/22893113/james-carville-joe-manchin-biden-democratic-party

Btw, how come Manchin who is the most conservative Dem in Congress and comes from a deep red state was for raising taxes on the rich and corporations, but Sinema wasn't for it at all? In fact, why was she the only Democrat in the Senate who did not support raising taxes on the rich and corporations?

Also, why are Senators Ossoff and Warnock a lot more to the left than she is even they too are from another purple state?

What about Senator Baldwin who's actually a real progressive representing Wisconsin, which is arguably an even more purple state than Arizona is? 

How about Senator Brown who's another real progressive from Ohio, which has become more of a red state since 2016?

 

Edited December 10, 2022 by Hardkill

[Danioover9000]

@DrugsBunny @Hardkill  Can you two pack it in with the bullying of moderate centrists? At this point you guys will never ascend to Spiral Dynamics stage yellow with all this demonizing, name calling and inflammatory use of language, for somebody you hardly know. Come on, be respectful, senator Senima is not a traitor as she is a moderate, in Arizona as a purple political state. Communism, Nazism, Adolf Hitler and Stalin are way more accurate for being traitors.

[Hatfort]

What she says about being independent is bullshit. No senator of the Democratic party should always agree with everything, that's a given. But they are there representing their voters, not themselves and their personal interests. There may be instances when deviating from whatever the party says could be fine. But, come on, this woman was against all policies that could affect big companies one bit in favor of the people.

She got to be in power by advocating for a much more progressive agenda and then she just changed her mind, in some cases being a decisive vote. She didn't get there on her own, no way she could have done that without the Democrat apparatus. Unlike Bernie Sanders, it didn't work against her, but for her.

This is also a calculation for her own interest, she wasn't going to make it in the next primaries, so she prefers to at least run as an independent. This is just the best way for her to continue doing what she was already doing, supporting the economic conservative agenda. She may be done though, we'll see.

[AtheisticNonduality]

6 hours ago, DrugsBunny said:

@Leo Gura People knocked on doors, did canvasing and grassroots fundraising to get her elected. She betrayed the values she ran on, how is this not a traitor?

I'm personally willing to call her far worse things than a traitor but lets just stick with that for now.

This is Green DrugsBunny vs. Yellow/TURQUOISE Leo, in case you were having some difficulty figuring that out or even picking up on the slightest hint of that.

Edited December 10, 2022 by AtheisticNonduality

[Leo Gura]

Well, if voters don't like it, they can unelect her in 2 years.

In the end a Senator must work based on her values, not popular outcries. Representative democracy does not mean that Reps are slaves of the voters. This is a common misconception. This is actually wrong. Reps should exercise independent judgment because voters are shallow and have narrow interests.

Edited December 10, 2022 by Leo Gura

[DrugsBunny]

@Leo Gura Her independent judgement is shit. I'm trying to imagine the contempt for the working class one must carry to actually use their senate vote to flamboyantly thumbs down a $15 minimum wage. 

Content warning: incredibly cringeworthy crime against humanity seen below

 

6 hours ago, AtheisticNonduality said:

This is Green DrugsBunny vs. Yellow/TURQUOISE Leo, in case you were having some difficulty figuring that out or even picking up on the slightest hint of that.

@AtheisticNonduality The conflation of blind centrism with "stage yellow/turquoise" has got to be the most pussified sentiment commonly seen on this forum. As if it isn't spineless enough ascribing people's actions to some flimsy colors model instead of precisely articulately your specific grievance with their position. 

9 hours ago, Danioover9000 said:

Communism, Nazism, Adolf Hitler and Stalin are way more accurate for being traitors.

@Danioover9000 You rarely have any modicum of a clue what you're talking about when I read your posts. Hitler never betrayed the values he touted when he rose to power. He was very popular in Germany at the time, and he rose to power through the Nazi party by creating a mass movement around the same values that he enacted when he took power.

Communism is an economic system unto itself... No self-contained system, no matter how controversial, can be a traitor to its own values. This is just asinine, you clearly have no idea what you're talking about.

If, as an embarrassed response, you want to retroactively insist that your use of "traitor" is more loose-ended, or that you simply meant that the subjects in question harmed humanity, then Sinema obviously fits this definition by siding with republicans. 

9 hours ago, Danioover9000 said:

Come on, be respectful, senator Senima is not a traitor as she is a moderate, in Arizona as a purple political state. 

Your view of the world is insultingly simple. Democrats are supposed to have a 51 - 49 lead in senate seats. Except in actuality, they do not, because Sinema will now side with republicans. You think the constituents who helped get this traitor elected are out of bounds for not giving respectful deference to her callous betrayal? Millions of lives will be affected by her actions.

9 hours ago, Danioover9000 said:

Can you two pack it in with the bullying of moderate centrists? At this point you guys will never ascend to Spiral Dynamics stage yellow with all this demonizing, name calling and inflammatory use of language

Honestly dude, your posts never fail to make me cringe to infinity. As if my spiritual development is hindered by calling a spade a spade.

[AtheisticNonduality]

@AtheisticNonduality The conflation of blind centrism with "stage yellow/turquoise" has got to be the most pussified sentiment commonly seen on this forum. As if it isn't spineless enough ascribing people's actions to some flimsy colors model instead of precisely articulately your specific grievance with their position. 

Come on, mannn, your potential is better than this.

We're not conflating blind centrism with Yellow/Turquoise, but rather understanding how the moderation/centrism or far-rightism/corruption fits into a larger meaningful system with intricacies that then have to be understood. The more systematically and holistically sound approach to politics or political analysis is not mindlessly and instinctually yelling out your grievances with people's positions. Insulting fascists for being fascists or moderates for being traitors does nothing to analyze the situation. Sure, maybe it does something, but it's not the best approach. You need to truly understand why fascism or centrism exists, the variables that lead to it, and you need to know the variables that lead away from it. And you need to have a mature way of getting people to enter into higher perspectives and to empathize with each other and to see things they otherwise wouldn't. A lot of this is lost when you degenerate into full mouth-foaming leftist keyboard warrior.

[Leo Gura]

35 minutes ago, DrugsBunny said:

Her independent judgement is shit.

I never said it was good. I merely said she was a centrist.

If politicians had good judgment they would be progressive in today's age.

Edited December 10, 2022 by Leo Gura

[Oeaohoo]

2 hours ago, AtheisticNonduality said:

We're not conflating blind centrism with Yellow/Turquoise, but rather understanding how the moderation/centrism or far-rightism/corruption fits into a larger meaningful system with intricacies that then have to be understood. The more systematically and holistically sound approach to politics or political analysis is not mindlessly and instinctually yelling out your grievances with people's positions. Insulting fascists for being fascists or moderates for being traitors does nothing to analyze the situation. Sure, maybe it does something, but it's not the best approach. You need to truly understand why fascism or centrism exists, the variables that lead to it, and you need to know the variables that lead away from it. And you need to have a mature way of getting people to enter into higher perspectives and to empathize with each other and to see things they otherwise wouldn't. A lot of this is lost when you degenerate into full mouth-foaming leftist keyboard warrior.

I think there could be a lot more of this around here! Not that @DrugsBunny will be pleased to hear it…

However, I do wonder how tenable this sort of thing is as you move away from analysis towards practice. How much tolerance can there really be for intolerance? In material terms, intolerance will tend to overpower tolerance. For example, it two people are talking to each other, one open-minded and the other narrow-minded, it is much easier for the open-minded person to constrict themselves to the constraints of the small mind than vice versa, so that the views of the narrow-minded person will end up dictating everything. What is the solution to this?

Edited December 10, 2022 by Oeaohoo

[Tyler Robinson]

@Oeaohoo how would you define a true Democrat though? 

[DrugsBunny]

31 minutes ago, AtheisticNonduality said:

Come on, mannn, your potential is better than this.

We're not conflating blind centrism with Yellow/Turquoise, but rather understanding how the moderation/centrism or far-rightism/corruption fits into a larger meaningful system with intricacies that then have to be understood. The more systematically and holistically sound approach to politics or political analysis is not mindlessly and instinctually yelling out your grievances with people's positions. 

Do you actually listen to yourself? Lol. There was no discussion of cautious epistemic grounding, holistic thinking, or whatever you'd call the drivel described above when I made my post. I simply said Sinema betrayed the values she ran on, and you superfluously chimed in with your brave and indispensable "ewww stage green" retort.

I responded by pointing out that it's more effective to specifically state your counterargument rather than casting people into unsubstantiated categories on some tenuous colors model, and apparently you seemed to think that I overlooked the more substantial conversation taking place where yourself, Leo and everyone else were discussing "the more systemically and holistically sound approach" to understanding politics. 

2 hours ago, AtheisticNonduality said:

A lot of this is lost when you degenerate into full mouth-foaming leftist keyboard warrior.

I've noticed you very commonly fly off the handle with exaggerated condemnations of people you disagree with. First I'm a "brain-rotted authoritarian" for rejecting homophobia, and now I'm a "mouth-foaming keyboard warrior" for rightfully stating that Sinema betrayed her constituents. 

Have fun with that.

[zurew]

5 minutes ago, Oeaohoo said:

For example, it two people are talking to each other, one open-minded and the other narrow-minded, it is much easier for the open-minded person to constrict themselves to the constraints of the small mind than vice versa, so that the views of the narrow-minded person will end up dictating everything. What is the solution to this?

The solution is to create a system where being open minded is much more beneficial than not being open minded. That way the person who is not open minded will be kind of forced to adapt, because if he won't, then he won't have much power in that hypothetical system and not just that, but he will have less power than an open minded person. Of course this assumes, that the system is already in place, the transition part is the tricky question.