Can someone define "fight dirty" to me?

[Caliman73]

This came out of a side discussion I was going to start in my "Can someone define 'change'? " thread. I have asked the question before in many of the posts about Michael Avenatti.

A poster put out a Vox article https://www.vox.com/2018/5/1/17258866/democratic-party-supreme-court-republicans-trump-election

about how Republicans rallied around the "Flight 93 Speech" and why Democrats have to "fight dirty". Here is what I wrote in response:

What does, "fight dirty" mean?

In my opinion, Republicans are not fighting for Americans. They are fighting to maintain the Wealthy White Protestant Christian Male hegemony that has held influence in this country since it was founded, despite the "fundamental" belief in equality enshrined in our foundational documents.

A great deal of history has been written about the atrocities of the Third Reich and the Japanese Empire during WWII. I am not arguing by any means that atrocities were not committed by Allied troops. There is always heated debate on August 6th and 9th about particular atrocities, plus the fire bombings etc... but I digress. The attitude attributed to the seeming ease with which the Axis powers committed atrocities in their war efforts was that they viewed the world in terms of fundamental survival. It is US or Them, there is no co-existence. It appears that Conservatives have this same way of thinking in degrees of course. The Conservative Power structure certainly does. The reality is, that even during the time period where liberal government was at its most interfering, the wealthiest people and many White people were doing great. There was no imposition on Christianity, and White men were basically in control. Now, the White men being in control thing, that is going to end, just demographically it cannot be sustained in any kind of democratic situation (Direct or Representative). We see that in the incoming class of Democratic Representatives. Women and minorities appear to be the majority of the caucus. If I were White (I am a man), I would be somewhat scared that the world catering to my specific experiences might be slowing down, if not coming to an end. Conservatives have painted the natural changes in a multi-racial society as a fundamental battle for existence, which is why they cheat.

For progressives/Liberals/? it is almost impossible to think this way because our philosophy is to be inclusive of most ideologies, religions, lack thereof, genders, orientations, colors, and other identities because fundamentally our value is inclusion of new information and adaptation for co-existence.

If we resort to the kind of "dirty fighting" that the Republicans engage in, then in my opinion, we are basically doing something that was portrayed in our fighting in Vietnam. We "burn the village to save the village', where our troops would go out and burn down villages where suspected or known centers of support for Viet Cong or NVA soldiers. We then wondered why the people were willing to shelter "the enemy".

So, what in your opinion is "fighting dirty"?

[Garrett78]

1. Faris does a good job of explaining the need to engage in procedural war, as opposed to policy war.

David Faris
Technically, from a constitutional standpoint, all it would require is an act of the California state legislature, signed by the governor of California, and then accepted by Congress.

So here’s what we need to happen: A referendum on breaking the state up into smaller states passes, and then it’s validated by the state legislature and then the governor, who would obviously need to be a Democrat, signs it, and finally, a Democrat-controlled Congress makes it official.

This is not as crazy an idea as people think. There have been several attempts to do it in California already, and you can make a pretty strong argument that the state is far too large to be ruled from Sacramento.

And if Californians managed to pull it off, we’d likely have another 12 Democratic senators in Washington, or at least more than we have now. More Electoral College votes too.

Sean Illing
Tell me about some other “dirty” tactics you recommend in the book.

David Faris
I think they should grant statehood to DC and Puerto Rico. Both states have held referenda that endorsed statehood. We have millions of Americans right now who have no representation in Congress.

To me, it’s just unquestionably the right thing to do. We should grant people the representation they want and deserve, and it just happens that doing so would almost certainly send four more Democrats into the Senate, and probably an all-Democratic congressional delegation from Puerto Rico too.

Sean Illing
You also think the Democrats should kill the filibuster, right?

David Faris
Yeah, I think they should eliminate the filibuster in the first month of the next Democratic administration, if it even survives that long. I think it’s another anti-democratic procedure in the Senate. We already have a constitutional framework that is deliberately difficult to work around to get policy change, and then you add a supermajority requirement in one of the two national legislatures? It’s just bananas. There’s no other country on the face of the earth that has a supermajority requirement to make routine legislation.

Sean Illing
You write, as well, that Democrats should start packing the courts with as many left-leaning judges as possible.

David Faris
The Constitution doesn’t say how many Supreme Court justices we should have, and we have not always had nine. Up until the mid-19th century, it was routine for the number of justices to change based on the whims of Congress, so it’s not unprecedented.

The way I look at it, Democrats have won the popular vote in six of the last seven presidential elections. I went back and added up all the votes for the US Senate since 1992, and Democrats have won 30 million more votes over that time period. I think the American people have pretty clearly expressed their desire to have Democrats staff the federal judiciary, and yet, due to the Republicans’ procedural tactics, they’ve not been able to do that.

[Caliman73]

2. I'll have to read the book.

From the looks of the example however, I would not say that is "fighting dirty". Splitting the state of California up, if it is the will of the people, would not be a dirty trick. Though I am not sure that California would send that many Democratic Representatives to Congress. Some parts of the state are as Red as Oklahoma.

The court packing would be on the "dirty" side. It didn't work out too well for FDR when he tried it, even though it did loosen up the bottleneck on some of the New Deal legislation. There was however, no Fox News or right wing media to constantly blare out propaganda.

Killing the filibuster again, not a dirty trick. It is a rule of courtesy in the Senate to allow the minority a method of opposing legislation. The Republicans have all but killed it already.

Republicans cheat by deliberately lying and taking the right to vote away from people. I know that gerrymandering is not technically illegal, unless it is done for the purpose of disenfranchising people based on a protected status. Republicans know that but they do it anyway, just under the guise of disenfranchising Democratic voters. That is dirty. Lying about which day voting occurs is dirty. Not putting enough, or putting faulty machines in Democratic districts is dirty.

I would never suggest that Democrats use those tactics above.

[Garrett78]

4. Faris is just using "fight dirty" as a figure of speech and "procedural war" is what he means.

The main point is we must understand that policy isn't what's winning elections. Maybe someday it will be, but in the meantime, Democrats must engage in procedural war.

David Faris

...my point is that no policy platform is going to win three or four consecutive national elections for Democrats because we know policy isn’t what decides elections; that’s not how most voters make decisions.

So there are no policy changes that are going to reverse the overall trajectory that this society is on right now. We have to address some of the structural barriers to progressive power in this country, and we need to take those things as seriously as we do the policy fights within the party.

Sean Illing

I definitely want to get into some of these structural barriers, but let’s be clear about this point you’re making. A lot of people still think there’s some meaningful connection between policy outcomes and voter decisions, but there’s a good bit of political science research to suggest that’s just a fantasy.

David Faris

Right. People just don’t seem to make the connection between policies and the party in power.

So, for example, the Democrats passed Obamacare and gave millions of people heath care, and yet tons of people who benefited from it have no idea what it is or how they benefited. And it’s like that with a lot of policies — voters simply don’t connect the dots, and so they reward or punish the wrong party.

I think the idea that we’re going to deliver these benefits to people and they’re going to be like, “Thank you Jesus, thank you for everything that you’ve done, let me return you with a larger majority next time,” is just nonsense. It’s the wrong way to think about politics.

That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t do things for people, but we’ve got to be serious about how elections are won. And they’re not being won on the basis of policy proposals or policy wins.

Sean Illing

In the book, you say that Democrats are engaged in “policy fights” and Republicans are waging a “procedural war.” What does that mean?

David Faris

The Constitution is a shockingly short document, and it turns out that it’s extremely vague on some key procedures that we rely on to help government function at a basic level. For the government to work, cooperation between parties is needed. But when that cooperation is withdrawn, it creates chaos.

Since the ’90s, when Newt Gingrich took over Congress, we’ve seen a one-sided escalation in which Republicans exploit the vagueness or lack of clarity in the Constitution in order to press their advantage in a variety of arenas — from voter ID laws to gerrymandering to behavioral norms in the Congress and Senate.

Sean Illing

What the Republicans did to Merrick Garland was one of the most egregious examples I’ve ever seen.

David Faris

Right. They essentially stole a seat on the Supreme Court — a swing seat, no less. But they correctly argued that they had no clear constitutional obligation to consider the president’s nominee for the seat. They didn’t violate the Constitution. They violated the spirit of the Constitution. They violated the norms that have allowed these institutions to function normally for years and years.

This is the sort of maneuvering and procedural warfare I’m talking about, and the Republicans have been escalating it for two decades. And they’ve managed to entrench their power through these dubious procedures.

The result is that the structural environment is biased against Democrats and the Republicans have engineered it that way.

[uponit7771]

3. K&R, The MSM has defined fighting dirty as telling the truth, holding the rights feet to the fire,..

... not allowing false equivalencies and being pro middle class.

Bout it

[Caliman73]

5. Perhaps I am being pedantic then...

I get that from time to time, especially from my wife "You focus too much on words!"

I prefer "fighting back" "fighting hard", or simply "fight". Fighting dirty to me, implies cheating, which is exactly what I think that Republicans do. They know that voter ID will block mainly Democrats from exercising their right to vote. They know that they cannot win based on their ideas because there policies basically serve the wealthiest people. They break the law and they operate way beyond ethical principles to retain their power because they cannot do it by staying within those boundaries.

When the middle class benefits, hell, when the poor benefit, the wealthy benefit (just not quite as much).

Thanks for the input.

[elocs]

6. So what's up with the "can someone define" posts?

"Can someone define "fight dirty" to me?"
"Can someone please define "Change" for me?"

[Caliman73]

7. To spark discussion and get some answers.

The phrases have been thrown around a lot lately especially in terms of the mid term elections and recently the "change" has been associated with the selection of the incoming Speaker of the House.

With everyone seeming to say, "We need change" and "We need to fight dirty, like the Republicans" I was curious to know what exactly people are thinking when they put those things out.

Bots can't really make articulate answers so I figured real DU posters could have a bit of discussion/debate/dialogue around them.