Do you have any analysis to substantiate your claims like the articles I linked?

The historical record of congressional party control shows that in the past 4 decades Democrats have rarely had enough control of both chambers to pass legislation without bipartisan support. Democrats (& independents caucusing with them) have had

• no veto-proof supermajority in both chambers since session 94 (1975–7)
• no filibuster-proof supermajority in both chambers since session 111 (2009–11) briefly
• no simple majority in both chambers since session 117 (2021–3).

Even with a majority, Democrats aren’t a monolith: they still have factions. Overcoming Senate filibuster requires 3/5 supermajority. Enacting legislation still requires presidential approval or veto override with 2/3 supermajority from both chambers. Veto overrides are rare & typically bipartisan, especially the last one, which was against Trump. Consequently, deliberation & compromise to broadly appeal to their own party & enough of the opposition is a practical necessity.

Moreover, Trump was impeached twice. They simply lacked the 2/3 supermajority in the Senate to convict due to insufficient bipartisan support.

The 1st impeachment split by party almost exactly:

• impeachment passed with a simple majority without Republicans
• conviction votes for 1st & 2nd charges didn’t even get a simple majority.

The 2nd impeachment on 2021/1/13 was only days after the 2021/1/6 incitement of insurrection. Despite some Republican support, not enough were willing to defy Trump.

• impeachment passed with some Republican support (all 222 Democrats + 10 Republicans)
• conviction failed with a simple majority approving conviction (all 50 Democrats + 7 Republicans).

Failure to convict on 2021/2/13 imperiled chances of a federal criminal case against Trump’s actions during presidency. At that point, congressional Democrats had exhausted the extent of their powers to prosecute or avail Trump to prosecution. The congressional investigation afterward while lengthy posed no real chance of holding Trump legally accountable for inciting insurrection: it could only make findings & refer criminal charges to prosecutors. Any further action would need to be taken by federal prosecutors in the presidential administration.

While the DOJ investigation started late in 2022 November & failed to enter trial hearings (either due to a corrupt judge or appeals over presidential immunity) by the time Trump was reelected, that failure was entirely the Biden administration’s and not of the Democratic party, who had promptly impeached Trump & failed to obtain conviction, because the numbers weren’t in their favor.

Putting “wrenches in the spokes” goes both ways. Do you know how long congressional Republicans had tried to restrict abortion? They simply couldn’t: they had to circumvent US congress through the Supreme Court & state legislatures. Democrats haven’t been “enabling, aiding, or abetting” Republican fascism or authoritarianism: roll calls indicate the contrary. It’s just Congress operating as unsatisfactory & inefficient as should be expected when half represent crazed-out fascists.

Again, any concrete suggestions for how the “damn Democrats” could “stand up to Trump”?

How do you suggest they do that? They’re the minority in both chambers of congress & already overwhelmingly oppose the president’s party on legislation. From roll call analysis

• polarization is at the highest in the last several decades

• Democrats have lately voted with higher party unity than Republicans

  In the House and the Senate, the average party conformity score was higher for Democrats than Republicans over the nearly 18,000 total votes taken. Democrats in the House voted with their party 90.4 percent of the time; Republicans in the House, 89.3 percent of the time. In the Senate, the gulf was wider: Democrats lined up 89.8 percent of the time while Republicans did so only 86.6 percent of the time.

  Over the past 20 years, Democrats have, in fact, been more likely to stick together on votes than have Republicans.

• non-cooperation between parties is the highest it’s been for at least 6 decades & increasing

  • the frequency of pairwise vote agreements cross-party is at a low & clearly declining
  • pairwise vote agreement networks are clearly splitting by party.

They’re supporting protests against the president’s actions.

So, you’re already telling everyone you don’t understand the spoiler effect, basically advocating the opposition to assure their own loss.

Vote splitting is the most common cause of spoiler effects in FPP. In these systems, the presence of many ideologically-similar candidates causes their vote total to be split between them, placing these candidates at a disadvantage. This is most visible in elections where a minor candidate draws votes away from a major candidate with similar politics, thereby causing a strong opponent of both to win.

A spoiler campaign in the United States is often one that cannot realistically win but can still determine the outcome by pulling support from a more competitive candidate.

Any other bright ideas?

An admin in their matrix room explains they lack access to revive it. It’d been intermittently going down for a while.

I’ve only seen this confusion around liberalism come up in lemmy. I think it’s due to tankie rhetoric poisoning the idea.

When people outside the US mention liberalism, they typically mean social liberalism, which the US severely lacks.

It’s the other way around as explained extensively.

General definitions & the historical development of liberalism are academic & largely accepted worldwide.

liberalism, political doctrine that takes protecting and enhancing the freedom of the individual to be the central problem of politics. Liberals typically believe that government is necessary to protect individuals from being harmed by others, but they also recognize that government itself can pose a threat to liberty.

Some of the earliest liberal practices are found in the US Declaration of Independence, which predates the French revolution spreading the practice of liberal ideals throughout Europe. The US declaration pretty much rehashes core tenets of liberal philosophy

• inherent equality of individuals
• universal individual rights & liberties
• consent of the governed (governments exist for the people who have a right to change & replace them, & authority is legitimate only when it protects those liberties).

Note how capitalism isn’t mentioned anywhere: it’s nonessential. Capitalism predates & isn’t liberalism. Liberalism is moral & political philosophy, not an economic one.

The philosophy is a natural progression of humanist philosophies from the Renaissance through the Protestant Reformation & the Enlightenment that stress the importance of individuality, secular reasoning, & tolerance over dogma & subservience to unaccountable authority. To address unaccountable authority based on dogma & traditions, English & French philosophers defined legitimate authority based on humanist morality pretty much as expressed in the US declaration. They argued that political systems thrive better with limits & duties on authority & an adversarial system of institutional competition whether in separation of powers, adversarial law system with habeas corpus & right to jury trial, competitive elections, dialogue, or economic competition.

In time, goals shifted from addressing obstacles to individual freedom due to government to addressing obstacles due to the rest of society. Thus emerged the distinction between classical & modern liberalism:

• Classical liberalism: minimal government to eliminate traditional obstacles to individual freedom
• Modern liberalism: positive government intervention to address social & economic inequalities in the cause of individual freedom

As explained before, in the US, modern liberalism (which includes social liberalism & progressivism) is simply called liberalism whereas classical liberalism more closely corresponds to libertarianism.

I think US liberals & the rest of the world agree that modern liberalism ought to be standard.

Any moderation that goes beyond the content of a message in context is questionable. Plus, some of us take pride being constantly downvoted as gadflies for challenging lack of critical thought where it’s most inconvenient & unwelcome. Moderating based on “reputation” leads to unreflective conformity hostile to the “wrong” questions.