Say for the sake of argument, you're a Democratic president finishing out your last year in office. There's not a lot you're expected to do as a lame-duck, except endorse a Democrat for the upcoming election, but then early in the year something unexpected happens: a Supreme Court justice dies suddenly in his sleep. Vacancies in the Supreme Court are infrequent as it's a lifetime appointment so death and the occasional resignation are the only causes of an empty seat and when it happens, it's the president's job to get the seat filled. So you set about the task of picking a successor - probably the last major decision you will make as president - when the Republican Senate tells you Yeah we're not gonna confirm anyone you nominate and you say well if you think you've got the votes you can reject my nominee and I'll Pick someone else and they say oh no, we're not going to vote against your nominee. We're not going to hold a vote. What are you talking about? I haven't even nominated someone yet. We're not going to convene a vote on anyone you nominate. But that's your job. I make a nomination the Senate holds a vote and democracy decides who sits on the bench Well, that's not what we're going to do. You're a lame duck. The next president will decide who sits on the Supreme Court. That's not how this works. That's not how we've ever done things. Certainly not when your party's had a lame duck in office Well, it's what we're going to do and you say that's not what the Constitution says and they say the Constitution does not explicitly say we can't. Your wife has a saying for when Republicans act up They go low we go high So in considering your current predicament You try to think of what taking the high road might look like the Republicans have always accused you of being too far left So after some deliberation you select a middle-of-the-road utterly Uncontroversial judge the kind of candidate a functioning Senate should have no trouble Confirming you make a display of embracing the spirit of compromise in the hopes They'll change their tune or at the very least be shamed into convening a vote rather than admitting this had nothing to do with the timing or the nominee and was just about refusing to Collaborate with a liberal in response the Republicans announced that not only will they still not convene a vote some say that should a Democrat? Win the election and they don't even know who the candidate is yet They will hold the seat vacant for however long it takes to get a Republican in the White House. You didn't call their bluff they are all too happy to admit that this is absolutely About dicking over liberals and guaranteeing as many conservatives as possible in the Supreme Court There is no official policy for what to do If one party simply refuses to do its job But there is a legal argument that if the Senate refuses to vote on your nominee They are in effect giving you permission to appoint a judge without their approval link in the down there part This is technically a little extra Constitutional but it is the law in many similar scenarios and certainly if they're going to break the rules You're within your rights to bend them but They go low we go high How can you criticize them for going outside the Constitution if you're gonna do it yourself? So being the grown-up you grit your teeth and do nothing seemingly, there's nothing to do but publicly shame them keeping a running tally of how many days your nomination has sat on senators desks without A vote you can play this as keeping your integrity the Democrats seizing the moral high ground But in response the Republicans seize the Supreme Court Their guy wins the election you finish out your term and Republicans will put one of their own on the bench And just before you leave office and the new guy is inaugurated and your nomination expires after 293 days without a vote nearly three times the previous record a Republican senator predicts that under the new administration The Democrats the minority party in the House Senate and now Supreme Court will be the biggest obstructionists history has ever seen. Think of the position this puts Democratic senators into. They have been Preemptively denigrated for the exact behaviors Republicans have relied on for the last eight years after two terms of misuse every means of obstructing an unfit executive branch from Filibustering bills to shutting down the government rather than approve a budget proposal has just been defined as going low Worse in the event of a Supreme Court appointment being literally stolen by the opposing party It might be defensible to not convene a vote on whomever that party nominates Except that's exactly the tactic Democrats have spent ten months condemning if everything that might restore democratic norms is tainted by the Republicans who violated those norms in the first place and the only honorable move left is Compliance. Give Republicans whatever they want confirm their judge as quickly and smoothly as possible Treat the situation like it's fair because that's what they should have done when it actually was. This is somehow going High and that comment from the Republican senator belies the truth They know what they're doing and they're not ashamed. They know Democrats aren't obstructionists They're counting on it. When one party can be relied on to do the exact opposite of your worst behavior Good strategy is to do to them as destructively as possible, whatever You don't want them to do to you. The new Republican norm is You go high we go low. Now, this is a long-standing Republican thing and we'll talk about how the alt-right comes into it by and by. And though it's effective, it's not sophisticated I mean, I just got finished with my intro and I'm already out of things to say about it So let's turn the camera around and ask not why the technique is popular But why Democrats keep falling for it. On the face of it, It would appear Democrats are a lot more concerned with being called hypocrites than Republicans are which would seem a very solvable problem Republicans are going to yell so much for the tolerant left no matter what form our opposition takes So ignore them, but clearly it's not that simple or we wouldn't be having this problem Republicans are striking at something more fundamental to American liberalism that makes these charges of hypocrisy hard to ignore so What's wrong with liberals? The modern American Democrat is in an unenviable position You need two things to win an election: votes and funding and there are a number of things that voters care passionately about And that they have no hope of ever getting from Republicans But unfortunately for Democrats they are the exact things big-ticket donors despise Which is why Democrats in very secure Districts who tend to run unopposed are the ones most willing to talk about them The left is in fact a very heterogeneous group with a mountain of conflicting interests and decades of infighting So it's very hard to appeal to all of them and wealthy donors Republicans don't have this problem or at least they don't have it as bad Despite many in some ways even more passionate and fundamental differences conservatives value loyalty and in-group cohesion And this keeps them coming together every four years in a surprisingly unified voting bloc It also helps that they fucking hate us and most would sooner vote for a Republican They despise than any kind of democrat and lucky for them The things conservative voters want are much more aligned with corporate interests So building a coalition on the left is a lot of work, and faced with this challenge, There is a liberal tendency to turn away from policy and focus instead on process Generally uncontroversial things like bipartisanship, compromise, decorum And, fair enough, the absence of these things in Washington over the years is certainly something everyone Left-of-center is sick of but they're not things Democrats can make happen all by themselves and more to the point None of them are results They're means, like a willingness to compromise is not a position and when you over focus on how you should go about things and not What things you should go about, it fosters a certain philosophy about government that is both highly flawed and highly exploitable: The valuing of means at the expense of ends. Most people would say that "the ends justify the means" is a crap moral philosophy. Democrats would agree. But liberals often overcorrect to the point where thinking about the ends at all is thought of as, in a vague reflexive kind of way, innately immoral There's a very Enlightenment way of thinking that implies that with the right means the ends take care of themselves and immoral behavior becomes functionally impossible I want to stress that claiming political group A adheres to philosophy X is always reductive Human beings hold many patterns of thought simultaneously and slip between them depending on context This is less the key to understanding liberals and more one pattern of thinking Liberals often slip into but this idea of the perfect system that can only spit out Justice is how liberals tend to think about democracy We can call this values neutral governance and you can see why it would appeal when you're trying to sum all the demands placed on a Politician under this thinking you don't need to engage with the needs and desires of your constituency, your donors, or even your opposition Because if democracy is working everyone deserving will get what they need as a matter Of course, that's what democracy is for: to divine what is right out of a cacophony of different voices It's okay for people even people with power to have bad ideas Because bad ideas will always be outnumbered By good ideas, checks and balances. Hell, you can have bad ideas and it won't make any difference provided you commit to obeying a just set of rules, only justice will ever be produced by them, and you can see how utterly Paralyzing it can be when half the participants of that system refuse to play by those rules Values neutral governance is an engine that only runs by mutual consent Now the system is supposed to be self-repairing If the rules are broken in a way that it doesn't have specific Contingencies for, you can write those contingencies But you'd have to pass them through Congress or the courts as in you need the cooperation of the People violating the rules. All that's left then is to fix the system without their approval But that's going outside the rules that's thinking about ends and to you The system is morality itself. You can't go outside it and still behave Ethically if the problem is people breaking the rules You can't fix that by breaking them further. At this point the Democratic senator usually throws up both hands and says fuck it then, I'm going to do what the Republicans should be doing I'm going to follow decorum and look for compromise I will not be responsible for the degradation of our governmental system Maybe everything still goes to shit But nobody could claim that I didn't do my job and once upon a time I think they genuinely believed that this was leading by example But I don't think today they're under any illusions that this will right the vessel, appeal to Republicans better nature but Democrats keep doing it because on some level they genuinely believe that Even when it accomplishes nothing Following the rules to the bitter end is the noble thing to do the captain goes down with the ship I'm using poetic understatement when I say this can be very frustrating To us as citizens the most important question is what happens next Republicans break a rule, Democrats take the high road, and what happens next in practice? The answer is always they get what they want, but we get a philosophical victory But when the questions that govern our lives are will I get shot by police or will my kid die in an emergency room for? lack of funds unless it's gonna get my kid a Philosophical blood transfusion, values neutral governance isn't useful and being told to trust in a system That didn't meet our needs so good before it got very obviously broken and our representatives decided It was more honor not to fix it is pardon. My anglo-saxon a bunch of bull Puckey. I'll say one thing for Republicans They believe in something. It's a bunch of classist racist misogynist dual ally But they believe it and they govern according to those beliefs There is no contradiction in blocking a liberal judge and bullying Democrats to confirm a conservative one They want to overturn the right to abortion and will do whatever it takes to put a pro-lifer on the bench It is fully consistent behavior and the problem Isn't that they break a bunch of rules along the way it's that what they're trying to accomplish is wrong But Democrats focus on the rule breaking, and not the intent behind it, because despite what Republicans will tell you many Democrats are Terrified of talking about abortion for fear that taking a stand on a wedge issue will lose them their coalition Believing in a politics where everyone can disagree on everything and democracy sorts it out is wishful thinking born of necessity it feels like it shouldn't need to be said that this ideal has never Existed at any time in history. At the very beginning, who got to own land, who got to vote, and who was or wasn't property were enshrined in our government, and none of these things were the democracy machines spitting out justice. They were Value judgments made by people convinced that them profiting the most off the system was proof it was behaving rationally Anyone who thinks democracy is impartial is going to get played It's also worth noting that this "don't worry about your conscience, just trust the system" argument is the exact opposite of the "don't worry about the system, just trust your conscience" argument that liberals use to defend ethical capitalism. Just saying. But on the subject of getting played we circle back to the alt-right itself Who, as is the trend, do the same as conservatives do, only unfiltered What would be the effective ways to combat the alt-right? Kick them off social media, shut down their websites, cut off their funding police their organizations as hate groups, and if all else fails be willing to deck someone at a counter protest if it prevent greater violence, So what do they do to us? Falsely report our tweets as hate speech, DDoS our websites, try to shut down our patreons, report us to the police as terrorists, and beat and murder people in the streets Now these are all things they enjoy doing regardless But they serve a strategic purpose: if we consider doing to them any of what they've done to us we get the performative self-flagellation you wouldn't want to Stoop to our level now, would you? And then they tell us it would be wrong to kick them off Twitter or stop them from Organizing even though they keep killing people. What argument did they give us? They invoke the First Amendment. They defend not their actions But the process. They don't believe in universal free speech or the right to assemble But they know we do. What the right knows and the alt-right has weaponized is that the system liberals imagine has no mechanism for engaging with beliefs Beliefs are supposed to be things you hold in your heart, and if the system doesn't conform to them, you have to trust its wisdom If the alt-right breaks the rules, liberals can only request that they be followed and if the alt-right Follows the rules, wears a tie, and talks like an academic Liberals can only trust that these ideas will be voted against. In either case they don't know how to call a fascist a fascist, and they don't have any plan for fighting fascism other than to just Never lose an election. And they're not very good at that. The response to this is usually "but we can't go calling our opponents fascists, What if they did that to us?" To which I might first respond, "what do you mean, what if? Everything they tell us not to do is part of their core strategy but also shouldn't the Determination of whether it's wrong to call someone a fascist depend at least a little on whether they actually are one? But that question can't be posed within values neutral governance. Values neutral governance once rules that are correct in every scenario, regardless of context. If the left and the right stand across the aisle yelling "you're the fascist" at each other, it can Condemn both or neither, but it can't determine who's the fascist without taking context into account But in case you're wondering these guys are the fascists, and they don't vote for Democrats Everyone can see what the alt-right is doing But no one knows how to oppose it within the rule set. And they never will, an action has no intrinsic value wholly separate from its outcome a Kentucky clerk breaking the law by refusing to sign a legal gay marriage license is wrong and the California Clerk, breaking the law by signing an illegal gay marriage license is right There is a moral imperative to disobey rules when following does not lead to justice Some say rules are what separate us from the animals But I've always preferred the adage that what separates us from the animals is that we have a conscience This isn't to say we shouldn't act better than our opposition. But that maybe we shouldn't let the people going low define for us What counts as going high, and to consider that pursuing justice rather than manners may be taking the high road. To my understanding, being a grown-up sometimes means taking a kid's toys away until he can behave himself It's clear from looking at Republicans that you can govern on your values and be successful It's just a question of which values you govern on. The rules will not protect us from bad ideas The only solution to a bad idea is a better idea
A nice addition to this video would be that Liberals are totally capable of going low. Its just that they only do it against the left.
I don't think rivals is a word I would ever use to describe fascists. A rival, to me, is someone who competes with you for the same goal... My goal is a better future. A progressive future, where everyone can be themselves and only be judged for their actions, where we help the weakest members of our society so that their needs are covered and the wants are what we work for.
I would be surprised if you could find a fascist who finds any of that even acceptable.
Nothing beats Innuendo Studios when it comes to breaking down complex topics and explaining them as succinctly as possible. Ian Danskin is the best! <3
I've seen the whole playbook and I still don't get the alt-right
IS’s whole channel is the best leftist study guide I’ve ever seen, and I’ve rewatched the entire channel at least once.
I already understand my rivals. Unfortunately, retraining them isn’t like teaching a dog a new trick. It’s like birthing and raising a child. It’s constant hard work that takes a decade to do. That’s if they don’t fight you every step of the way.
I just don’t have time, anymore, for people that lack empathy, disregard science, and blame shift. It fucking sucks that they use their voting power to hurt others but their days are numbered. America is steadily becoming more progressive and more diverse. Republicans, as they are, will not remain viable. Alt-right will die with them.
Liberals aren't their rivals, they're ours. They will literally always sell us out to these freaks, because they were never allies of ours in the first place. JFC.
As a Christian what interests me most about this is Republicans and conservatives not minding the charge of hypocrisy at all and how that relates to their supposed Christian base.
I don't believe the Republican party gives a single solitary shit about Christian belief only Christian support. I'm not sure how much Christian support the Republican party really has... but I do believe it has a "Christian Identity".
It's classic tribalism. It's everything Christian when it's convenient... without any of the inconvenient, troublesome morals or ideals it demands of it's followers. "We can't have Jesus interfering right now... there's too much at stake" but they are more than happy to use this identity when it suits them - like fomenting fear and anger in order to push people towards what they perceive as the only party that defends their positions.
It's choosing the immoral to defend yourself against those you perceive as attacking your moral foundations... you know....
Hypocrisy.
The series might be from a more liberal point of view, but a lot of the rest of the series is a great look at the right.