Kicking the bums out: retaking the Democratic party

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > C-SPAM > Kicking the bums out: retaking the Democratic party

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MSDOS KAPITAL: Jun 25, 2018

Judakel posted:

Maybe you don't. Maybe the democratic party just fails over time.

Yeah it really has to get to the point where the Democratic label just becomes so toxic that you put yourself at a massive disadvantage just having that (D) next to your name. Then politicians start to jump ship to something else or get drummed out of office, although of course there is not much guarantee that whatever replaces it is any better.

And the thing is, that is true already in a lot of the country! And there are a lot of just incompetently run, anemic state-level orgs that are already dragging down the national party and the number of them will increase quite a lot this decade, I suspect. But entryism is not going to work. You will not be able to take those parties over or whatever, because while they are not able to win elections they are quite good at preserving the existing structure of the party.

# ? Nov 8, 2020 03:08

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# ? May 21, 2024 22:45

Nichael: Mar 30, 2011

Judakel posted:

Maybe you don't. Maybe the democratic party just fails over time.

maybe, yeah.

PERPETUAL IDIOT posted:

Get on the phones and do phone banking - it's like calling people up, but for a candidate. That's how you win, baby!

I don't know what to do to tear down the systems of power in this nation, but at least I've tried. If you come up with better ideas, please tell me. I'm raring to go, and eager to launch an organized opposition to the right wing.

# ? Nov 8, 2020 03:31

Nichael: Mar 30, 2011

MSDOS KAPITAL posted:

Yeah it really has to get to the point where the Democratic label just becomes so toxic that you put yourself at a massive disadvantage just having that (D) next to your name. Then politicians start to jump ship to something else or get drummed out of office, although of course there is not much guarantee that whatever replaces it is any better.

And the thing is, that is true already in a lot of the country! And there are a lot of just incompetently run, anemic state-level orgs that are already dragging down the national party and the number of them will increase quite a lot this decade, I suspect. But entryism is not going to work. You will not be able to take those parties over or whatever, because while they are not able to win elections they are quite good at preserving the existing structure of the party.

This is pretty true. I do think in the immediate, the primary process makes the most sense, but the roadblocks are immense.

# ? Nov 8, 2020 03:32

MSDOS KAPITAL: Jun 25, 2018

Nichael posted:

This is pretty true. I do think in the immediate, the primary process makes the most sense, but the roadblocks are immense.

AOC was supposed to be the Eric Cantor of the Democrats (or rather, Joe Crowley was), but that didn't pan out because whereas the Republicans are interested in acquiring and wielding power, the Democrats are just interested in preserving the structure of the Democratic party. There aren't a lot of levers you can push there, other than actually just replacing every single Democrat at the local, state, and federal levels, along with all of the unelected leadership within the DNC etc. And as craven and incompetent as these assholes are, I think they will see that coming a mile away and mount an effective response. Maybe it depends on the state (I live in a state with an electorally successful state apparatus) but the lower levels i.e. the "grass roots" are just as full of careerist shitheads and sycophantic hangers-on as the upper levels - if anything it's worse.

Tubgoat is right: it would actually be easier to make the GOP into a leftist organization. Not that I'm suggesting that, either.

# ? Nov 8, 2020 03:58

MSDOS KAPITAL: Jun 25, 2018

Anyway:

Nichael posted:

If you come up with better ideas, please tell me. I'm raring to go, and eager to launch an organized opposition to the right wing.

This isn't a call for organization, and it's certainly not a call to any kind of action other than literally the thing I'm suggesting to do but: arm yourself. All leftists should, and learn to use their weapons. And, when liberals try to disarm you, show up and push back against that along side your more chuddy peers. Right or wrong, probably one of the better opportunities for working-class solidarity right now is in defending the 2nd amendment.

# ? Nov 8, 2020 04:37

Nichael: Mar 30, 2011

MSDOS KAPITAL posted:

Anyway:

This isn't a call for organization, and it's certainly not a call to any kind of action other than literally the thing I'm suggesting to do but: arm yourself. All leftists should, and learn to use their weapons. And, when liberals try to disarm you, show up and push back against that along side your more chuddy peers. Right or wrong, probably one of the better opportunities for working-class solidarity right now is in defending the 2nd amendment.

and do what

# ? Nov 8, 2020 04:47

PERPETUAL IDIOT: Sep 12, 2003

Nichael posted:

and do what

You legally have to tell me since I'm asking. Are you a police officer, sir?

# ? Nov 8, 2020 04:52

Nichael: Mar 30, 2011

PERPETUAL IDIOT posted:

You legally have to tell me since I'm asking. Are you a police officer, sir?

people need food, jobs with dignity, healthcare, education, and some kind of hope of progress and a better future. maybe guns are some kind of pathway toward that but I am very skeptical. I get that people are skeptical with other means of opposition, and that's completely fair. I just think the slim chance that has is larger than "buy guns".

# ? Nov 8, 2020 04:56

Azathoth: Apr 3, 2001

Nichael posted:

This is pretty true. I do think in the immediate, the primary process makes the most sense, but the roadblocks are immense.

i've been a pretty public proponent of entryism and i still think that is makes sense, though i think the last few years have taught us that a top down approach isn't going to work and that for any successful entryist campaign to work, it needs to start smaller

it's not widely talked about, for example, but ilhan omar got her start in politics by primarying, Phyllis Kahn, a minnesota house of representatives member who had been in the MN House for 44 years (you read that correctly). she was then able to use that to win an outright primary in MN-05 and get where she is now. it's also worth stating that she developed a great reputation for constituent work during her time in the minnesota house, and that was a huge factor in her winning over voters in the MN-05 primary. i've been involved in a few different local races, some successful, some not, and it's pretty insane just how little money the races cost (mn house elections typically have 10k to 20k budgets, even for competitive elections), and the primary process is often decided by a shockingly small number of dedicated people getting a candidate over the finish line.

getting that foot in the door is absolutely crucial for the next election upwards. larger primary races are often name recognition battles, and being at that lower level for a cycle or two gives an invaluable visibility boost, plus gives practical experience in campaigning and building a volunteer base. plus, when they make the next step up, they've got a turn-key set of volunteers from their previous races that can immediately get to work building out that volunteer network in the new, wider geographic area.

i'm sure that i'll get told that i'm a dumbass for thinking that electoralism is worthwhile and that this is possible, but honestly, big changes are coming one way or another and having skills to organize people is going to be invaluable. getting involved and learning organizational skills via a campaign is, honestly, not a bad way to learn how to do that vs. trying to start up a mutual aid (or other) organization from scratch, if you're not someone who has the skillset to make that successful. there's a lot of good people are out there looking for ways to get involved and even if the campaign is unsuccessful, getting connected with those people is useful on its own

# ? Nov 8, 2020 05:27

Nichael: Mar 30, 2011

Azathoth posted:

i've been a pretty public proponent of entryism and i still think that is makes sense, though i think the last few years have taught us that a top down approach isn't going to work and that for any successful entryist campaign to work, it needs to start smaller

it's not widely talked about, for example, but ilhan omar got her start in politics by primarying, Phyllis Kahn, a minnesota house of representatives member who had been in the MN House for 44 years (you read that correctly). she was then able to use that to win an outright primary in MN-05 and get where she is now. it's also worth stating that she developed a great reputation for constituent work during her time in the minnesota house, and that was a huge factor in her winning over voters in the MN-05 primary. i've been involved in a few different local races, some successful, some not, and it's pretty insane just how little money the races cost (mn house elections typically have 10k to 20k budgets, even for competitive elections), and the primary process is often decided by a shockingly small number of dedicated people getting a candidate over the finish line.

getting that foot in the door is absolutely crucial for the next election upwards. larger primary races are often name recognition battles, and being at that lower level for a cycle or two gives an invaluable visibility boost, plus gives practical experience in campaigning and building a volunteer base. plus, when they make the next step up, they've got a turn-key set of volunteers from their previous races that can immediately get to work building out that volunteer network in the new, wider geographic area.

i'm sure that i'll get told that i'm a dumbass for thinking that electoralism is worthwhile and that this is possible, but honestly, big changes are coming one way or another and having skills to organize people is going to be invaluable. getting involved and learning organizational skills via a campaign is, honestly, not a bad way to learn how to do that vs. trying to start up a mutual aid (or other) organization from scratch, if you're not someone who has the skillset to make that successful. there's a lot of good people are out there looking for ways to get involved and even if the campaign is unsuccessful, getting connected with those people is useful on its own

I largely agree. I also think Delaware is a good state for doing this because win numbers are small, it has a large impact on national politics due to its corporate laws, and symbolically it is now the right wing President's home state. Flipping my state capital to the left is probably my project for the next few years, but that could change depending on how much tolerance I actually have for this hellhole.

# ? Nov 8, 2020 05:32

MSDOS KAPITAL: Jun 25, 2018

Nichael posted:

and do what

Not necessarily anything, over and above just that. Like join the SRA if you that's your bag but it's strictly optional. Just getting a basic pistol and practicing with it every couple of months is a good idea. And if the libs take action (they will) to further disarm the working class or otherwise impede 2nd amendment rights, then I would say: push back against that like you'd push back against anything else. Approach it with the same energy and tactics you would anything else, and when you do so, do it as a leftist. Show solidarity with your local CHUD assholes even if they're wrong on literally everything else, because on this one thing, they are right. (To be clear, this is not saying that right-wing militias are secret allies or something stupid like that, those people are active threats and should be treated with as such. But otherwise "apolitical" gun people with somewhat reactionary and regressive views, are potential allies and, yes even eventually leftists, if radicalized properly and if trust and a history of cooperation is established first.)

Nichael posted:

maybe guns are some kind of pathway toward that but I am very skeptical. I get that people are skeptical with other means of opposition, and that's completely fair. I just think the slim chance that has is larger than "buy guns".

Yeah obviously. My post was not meant as like "there is one weird trick to achieving communism, and it's guns." Pivoting on gun rights is part of a larger strategy, but it does also have the additional benefit of making us a harder target for the state to take action against.

There are not enough leftists to achieve communism in America. Not yet. There are not even enough leftists to form a formidable (even in the sense of spoiling elections for Dems) third party, in the US. And, while the working class wants poo poo like a higher minimum wage, and healthcare, and labor rights, and and and, merely saying "I stand for those things, I want to do those things" is not on it's own going to win enough elections for progressives to push the Democratic party left. And that is partly because, by the way, that a lot of the people we appeal to with these messages either don't believe we can do these things, or even worse they don't think we're being honest. So the power has to come from somewhere else, and I think that somewhere else is solidarity with people other than leftists. And that necessarily means finding common ground with people who you otherwise disagree with on things. Maybe a lot of things. 2nd amendment rights are one of the very few footholds the left has into, for lack of a better descriptor, the "Joe Rogan Reactionary" element of the electorate. And there is nothing wrong with appealing to them and finding common ground with them on this specific issue, because unlike a lot of other things they believe in and desire, there is nothing inherently reactionary or regressive about 2nd amendment rights.

# ? Nov 8, 2020 06:47

Azathoth: Apr 3, 2001

Nichael posted:

I largely agree. I also think Delaware is a good state for doing this because win numbers are small, it has a large impact on national politics due to its corporate laws, and symbolically it is now the right wing President's home state. Flipping my state capital to the left is probably my project for the next few years, but that could change depending on how much tolerance I actually have for this hellhole.

im in Minnesota and we're seeing some interesting trends regarding the smaller cities outside the twin cities metro. there's a real history of actual progressivism, a lot centered around unionizing, out here, and the way that small town funnel young people into is opening up some interesting opportunities

im well aware of the lovely racial history of the progressive movement, but folks around here, even rank and file dems, very much like to think of themselves as the inheritors of

exactly where i choose to focus is going to depend on which city looks more promising after the coming redistricting (we had a really hosed up gerrymander from 2010), and how the voting numbers look I get a chance to pour over them in the coming weeks

# ? Nov 8, 2020 07:00

kitten emergency: Jan 13, 2008; get meow this wack-ass crystal prison

nichael even though i cracked on your endless jess boosterism during the cycle i respect your effort

idk if you posted it in a different earlier thread but i wonder about the effectiveness of phone/textbanking vs. canvassing + registration vs. digital ads, or specifically what ratio of these things are the most useful. it strikes me that digital + canvassing could be extremely effective in local or statewide races, especially when targeting incumbents. i also wonder if we're on the precipice of digital strategies changing a lot, assuming fb/twitter make changes in response to a biden admin

# ? Nov 8, 2020 07:09

kitten emergency: Jan 13, 2008; get meow this wack-ass crystal prison

also a potentially useful question, does covid cause a long-lasting change in voting patterns where VBM becomes increasingly preferred and available, because it seems like that's ripe for exploitation

# ? Nov 8, 2020 07:12

Nichael: Mar 30, 2011

MSDOS KAPITAL posted:

Not necessarily anything, over and above just that. Like join the SRA if you that's your bag but it's strictly optional. Just getting a basic pistol and practicing with it every couple of months is a good idea. And if the libs take action (they will) to further disarm the working class or otherwise impede 2nd amendment rights, then I would say: push back against that like you'd push back against anything else. Approach it with the same energy and tactics you would anything else, and when you do so, do it as a leftist. Show solidarity with your local CHUD assholes even if they're wrong on literally everything else, because on this one thing, they are right. (To be clear, this is not saying that right-wing militias are secret allies or something stupid like that, those people are active threats and should be treated with as such. But otherwise "apolitical" gun people with somewhat reactionary and regressive views, are potential allies and, yes even eventually leftists, if radicalized properly and if trust and a history of cooperation is established first.)

Yeah obviously. My post was not meant as like "there is one weird trick to achieving communism, and it's guns." Pivoting on gun rights is part of a larger strategy, but it does also have the additional benefit of making us a harder target for the state to take action against.

There are not enough leftists to achieve communism in America. Not yet. There are not even enough leftists to form a formidable (even in the sense of spoiling elections for Dems) third party, in the US. And, while the working class wants poo poo like a higher minimum wage, and healthcare, and labor rights, and and and, merely saying "I stand for those things, I want to do those things" is not on it's own going to win enough elections for progressives to push the Democratic party left. And that is partly because, by the way, that a lot of the people we appeal to with these messages either don't believe we can do these things, or even worse they don't think we're being honest. So the power has to come from somewhere else, and I think that somewhere else is solidarity with people other than leftists. And that necessarily means finding common ground with people who you otherwise disagree with on things. Maybe a lot of things. 2nd amendment rights are one of the very few footholds the left has into, for lack of a better descriptor, the "Joe Rogan Reactionary" element of the electorate. And there is nothing wrong with appealing to them and finding common ground with them on this specific issue, because unlike a lot of other things they believe in and desire, there is nothing inherently reactionary or regressive about 2nd amendment rights.

I agree with a lot of your post except what I've bolded. The problem isn't so much insufficient leftists, it's more so convincing the people who don't trust us that we're different. I find that voters are largely pretty left wing already. They just don't act on it.

Azathoth posted:

im in Minnesota and we're seeing some interesting trends regarding the smaller cities outside the twin cities metro. there's a real history of actual progressivism, a lot centered around unionizing, out here, and the way that small town funnel young people into is opening up some interesting opportunities

im well aware of the lovely racial history of the progressive movement, but folks around here, even rank and file dems, very much like to think of themselves as the inheritors of

exactly where i choose to focus is going to depend on which city looks more promising after the coming redistricting (we had a really hosed up gerrymander from 2010), and how the voting numbers look I get a chance to pour over them in the coming weeks

It'd be cool to compare plans as things move forward.

# ? Nov 8, 2020 07:22

Nichael: Mar 30, 2011

kitten emergency posted:

nichael even though i cracked on your endless jess boosterism during the cycle i respect your effort

idk if you posted it in a different earlier thread but i wonder about the effectiveness of phone/textbanking vs. canvassing + registration vs. digital ads, or specifically what ratio of these things are the most useful. it strikes me that digital + canvassing could be extremely effective in local or statewide races, especially when targeting incumbents. i also wonder if we're on the precipice of digital strategies changing a lot, assuming fb/twitter make changes in response to a biden admin

The most useful thing is canvassing and in person events. I have no question of that, and I've always thought that. It blows digital and phone banking out of the water (text banking is a loving joke). However, COVID-19 completely neutered that and many plans I had for things outside the normal door knocking.

Should the pandemic persist in the 2022 cycle, we're going to canvass and do events regardless. We can't lose these elections when there's no evidence canvassing with a mask can even endanger anyone.

kitten emergency posted:

also a potentially useful question, does covid cause a long-lasting change in voting patterns where VBM becomes increasingly preferred and available, because it seems like that's ripe for exploitation

Good question. I'm going to be pretty open about something that might not happen, but I suspect we're going to test how much VBM affects things as soon as this Spring. Delaware has many municipal elections that happen outside the normal electoral calendar, and they seem like a laboratory for testing this.

# ? Nov 8, 2020 07:25

breadnsucc: Jun 1, 2020; by Fluffdaddy

i remember when this happened four years ago and it appears to have accomplished

boden

# ? Nov 8, 2020 07:26

Nichael: Mar 30, 2011

breadnsucc posted:

i remember when this happened four years ago and it appears to have accomplished

boden

lol whoops

I warned you all about Delaware for the past three or four years. Looks like we failed to stop this state, and now it is taking over the nation.

# ? Nov 8, 2020 07:27

Azathoth: Apr 3, 2001

kitten emergency posted:

nichael even though i cracked on your endless jess boosterism during the cycle i respect your effort

idk if you posted it in a different earlier thread but i wonder about the effectiveness of phone/textbanking vs. canvassing + registration vs. digital ads, or specifically what ratio of these things are the most useful. it strikes me that digital + canvassing could be extremely effective in local or statewide races, especially when targeting incumbents. i also wonder if we're on the precipice of digital strategies changing a lot, assuming fb/twitter make changes in response to a biden admin

i'm (obviously) not nichael, but something that i would encourage you to take a look at is how ilhan omar and rashida tlaib chose to door knock in spite of the pandemic and used it to get crazy high turnout rates. ilhan got something like 90% turnout of registered voters, which includes those who used mn's same day registration to register then. her district is usually tops in the nation in turnout, but even with the normally high turnout there, that is just nuts.

there's going to be a lot of data coming out of this election, for those who want to process it, about the relative efficacy of each method, but it's pretty clear even from a cursory examination that canvassing is still the best way to drive turnout. i'm curious to see how well phone/text banking ends up faring in the final analysis as well, but it's obvious to me now that there's no substitute for actually getting out and pounding doors, having conversations, and dropping lit.

# ? Nov 8, 2020 07:27

Nichael: Mar 30, 2011

Azathoth posted:

i'm (obviously) not nichael, but something that i would encourage you to take a look at is how ilhan omar and rashida tlaib chose to door knock in spite of the pandemic and used it to get crazy high turnout rates. ilhan got something like 90% turnout of registered voters, which includes those who used mn's same day registration to register then. her district is usually tops in the nation in turnout, but even with the normally high turnout there, that is just nuts.

there's going to be a lot of data coming out of this election, for those who want to process it, about the relative efficacy of each method, but it's pretty clear even from a cursory examination that canvassing is still the best way to drive turnout. i'm curious to see how well phone/text banking ends up faring in the final analysis as well, but it's obvious to me now that there's no substitute for actually getting out and pounding doors, having conversations, and dropping lit.

Dropping lit makes me want to kill myself. It's canvassing and events, or nothing.

To be clear, I didn't make the choice to suspend canvassing for as long as we did. It was done because Jess (justifiably) was concerned about the safety. There was no easy choice to make during the Summer because it is a literal virus that kills people, but unfortunately I do think it had a major impact on our effectiveness.

# ? Nov 8, 2020 07:31

MSDOS KAPITAL: Jun 25, 2018

Nichael posted:

I agree with a lot of your post except what I've bolded. The problem isn't so much insufficient leftists, it's more so convincing the people who don't trust us that we're different. I find that voters are largely pretty left wing already. They just don't act on it.

Do you think maybe they don't act on it because it's skin deep? That's my suspicion, but I can't say for sure.

edit: And when I say that, I guess my angle is not that it's skin deep and so should be ignored, but rather that there is something there to be developed but that will not, of its own accord, translate into results.

MSDOS KAPITAL has issued a correction as of 07:45 on Nov 8, 2020

# ? Nov 8, 2020 07:43

Nichael: Mar 30, 2011

MSDOS KAPITAL posted:

Do you think maybe they don't act on it because it's skin deep? That's my suspicion, but I can't say for sure.

No, I think they don't act because there is zero reason to trust me, or someone like Jess or Kerri or any other random volunteer. They've been hosed by this nation for decades, what exactly is different about any given leftist that comes up to them promising change? Even a simple act of voting is a massive annoyance to people who are otherwise occupied with the struggle of everyday life.

While I've had many interactions with people where I get otherwise apathetic or hopeless people to take action, my skill there can't really be replicated en masse unless you clone an army of Nichaels. And even if you could do that, there's a ton of other people out there who aren't going to listen to me give a stirring pitch because they just flat out aren't going to open the door or answer the phone ever.

# ? Nov 8, 2020 07:47

Azathoth: Apr 3, 2001

Nichael posted:

I agree with a lot of your post except what I've bolded. The problem isn't so much insufficient leftists, it's more so convincing the people who don't trust us that we're different. I find that voters are largely pretty left wing already. They just don't act on it.

yeah, this hits the nail on the head

one thing that i personally think is important to remember is that most people don't have a coherent internal ideology, so i tend to not even try to think of most folks as "leftist" or "corporate dem" or whatever. think, for example, of the 15% of people who said that they wanted a candidate more conservative than hillary and who supported bernie in 2016. for 2020, i know a good number of people who supported klob in the primary and who had bernie as a strong second, some of them are even quite politically active, show up to volunteer, etc.

voters are, as anyone who has canvassed and had good conversations will tell you, really really down with left wing policy but often recoil at explicitly left wing labels because they've been propagandized to for so long against them. it's getting across that propaganda gap that is the problem, and if there's a way to do that outside of face to face conversations and in person events, i don't know about it.

quote:

It'd be cool to compare plans as things move forward.

i'd like that. feel free to drop me a dm whenever you want to talk, i'll give you my contact info there.

# ? Nov 8, 2020 07:50

Nichael: Mar 30, 2011

I just have to say this, I know it is not my imagination that probably most people I speak to are rather left wing by American standards. They want universal healthcare, free college, dignified minimum wages, etc. Sometimes I come across people who are even more left than that, or have leftist politics while defying the normal stereotypes. I've met 70 or 80 year olds who identify as hardline socialists, BLM activist progressives in McMansions who have vowed to only vote for people like AOC for now on, and people in struggling neighborhoods whose main concern is "gender fluidity".

But clearly these people aren't actually voting for leftist candidates most of the time. There's a massive disconnect here, and the most important thing is fixing that, and getting the already existing leftists to take action. Finding common ground with amenable gun :chud:

s isn't as necessary to me (though it's not pointless either).

# ? Nov 8, 2020 07:53

Azathoth: Apr 3, 2001

Nichael posted:

Dropping lit makes me want to kill myself. It's canvassing and events, or nothing.

To be clear, I didn't make the choice to suspend canvassing for as long as we did. It was done because Jess (justifiably) was concerned about the safety. There was no easy choice to make during the Summer because it is a literal virus that kills people, but unfortunately I do think it had a major impact on our effectiveness.

i think there may be a difference in either terminology or methodology here, as when i say dropping lit, i mean going up to someone's door and knocking and trying to canvas, but then leaving lit behind if they don't answer the door. leaving something behind and not knocking is about the dumbest thing that i can think of doing with a volunteer's time

# ? Nov 8, 2020 07:53

taqueso: Mar 8, 2004

I have a bunch of friends that are nominally left as hell, but have had exactly zero positive outcome from engaging with politics and have seen ~~almost~~ every politician give them lip service at best and more typically just gently caress them over. Any political action they might have taken, say protesting iraq war, had no impact whatsoever. And reveals that the gov't lied about reasons behind that stuff are common. They know poo poo is hosed, but I don't know what it would take to move them unless things get dire.

People say "half the country voted for trump" but it was actually ~36% (70 mil / 193 eligible). I think the real silent majority habitually doesn't engage.

taqueso has issued a correction as of 08:00 on Nov 8, 2020

# ? Nov 8, 2020 07:57

Nichael: Mar 30, 2011

Azathoth posted:

i think there may be a difference in either terminology or methodology here, as when i say dropping lit, i mean going up to someone's door and knocking and trying to canvas, but then leaving lit behind if they don't answer the door. leaving something behind and not knocking is about the dumbest thing that i can think of doing with a volunteer's time

oh in delaware "lit dropping" is just literally leaving the spam flier in their door, and not trying to talk to them. the DelDems insisted on doing that poo poo in competitive local races and got :yooge:

schlonged! it is mind numbing and pointless, and the idea of people acting like it's some great favor to do it makes me livid.

TALK TO SOMEONE YOU ASOCIAL LOSERS

# ? Nov 8, 2020 07:58

Nichael: Mar 30, 2011

taqueso posted:

I have a bunch of friends that are nominally left as hell, but have had exactly zero positive outcome from engaging with politics and have seen ~~almost~~ every politician give them lip service at best and more typically just gently caress them over. Any political action they might have taken, say protesting iraq war, had no impact whatsoever. And reveals that the gov't lied about reasons behind that stuff are common. They know poo poo is hosed, but I don't know what it would take to move them unless things get dire.

Have you tried making stuff fun? That might sound glib, but the most common feedback I got from Jess super volunteers is that they sunk time in because I and the rest of the team were funny and nice to hang out with. In contrast, when they worked on campaigns after, they frequently complained that the other teams were sterile and joyless.

I think doing that requires divorcing yourself from professional, corporate organizer speak, and leaning into full (or nearly full) C-SPAM :matters:

humor. That resonated really well with volunteers, and that approach also resulted in me forming some extremely strong relationships with people over the past year.

We lost (we got :yooge:

schlonged!) but we also did achieve the largest amount of voter contact attempts in Delaware history, and we ended up training what must've been 15 to 25 very capable organizers.

# ? Nov 8, 2020 08:02

Azathoth: Apr 3, 2001

Nichael posted:

oh in delaware "lit dropping" is just literally leaving the spam flier in their door, and not trying to talk to them. the DelDems insisted on doing that poo poo in competitive local races and got schlonged! it is mind numbing and pointless, and the idea of people acting like it's some great favor to do it makes me livid.

TALK TO SOMEONE YOU ASOCIAL LOSERS

lol holy poo poo that's terrible. i guess i'm lucky in that i've never heard of anyone in the dfl here doing that, though i'm sure that it's happened, what with incompetence not being unknown here either. though seriously, if someone suggested doing that here, i would straight up laugh and tell them that if they want to do that, they should just pay the post office to mail them out, it'll be about as effective and then the volunteers could actually do something useful.

even when i've canvassed in high dem areas, it's always "here's a list of doors to knock, here's the script, here's lit to hand them either as a conversation piece or as a leave-behind if you have a good convo, if they don't answer, stick it in their door but don't put it in their mailbox, that's illegal"

# ? Nov 8, 2020 08:10

Nichael: Mar 30, 2011

Azathoth posted:

lol holy poo poo that's terrible. i guess i'm lucky in that i've never heard of anyone in the dfl here doing that, though i'm sure that it's happened, what with incompetence not being unknown here either. though seriously, if someone suggested doing that here, i would straight up laugh and tell them that if they want to do that, they should just pay the post office to mail them out, it'll be about as effective and then the volunteers could actually do something useful.

even when i've canvassed in high dem areas, it's always "here's a list of doors to knock, here's the script, here's lit to hand them either as a conversation piece or as a leave-behind if you have a good convo, if they don't answer, stick it in their door but don't put it in their mailbox, that's illegal"

campaigns I'm a part of don't do lit drops, but Delaware Dems love that poo poo because they are soulless monsters

# ? Nov 8, 2020 08:13

MSDOS KAPITAL: Jun 25, 2018

Azathoth posted:

one thing that i personally think is important to remember is that most people don't have a coherent internal ideology, so i tend to not even try to think of most folks as "leftist" or "corporate dem" or whatever. think, for example, of the 15% of people who said that they wanted a candidate more conservative than hillary and who supported bernie in 2016.

It's wild that you made this specific example because when I read that, I'm not thinking of a person who has incoherent beliefs at all. I'm thinking of a person who broadly speaking wants the stuff that Hillary (claimed to) stand for in 2016 i.e. the stuff on her platform that was cribbed from Bernie, but that didn't like her position on gun control (or something else popularly identified with "conservatism," but gun control is a really obvious one). It's worth noting that Bernie, broadly speaking, is not a politician who has courted the gun control crowd. And so when they say "more conservative" they are not using that word the way you or I would: they just identify gun rights with conservatism because the Republicans have happily picked up the cause of protecting and expanding gun rights in this country, while Democrats have, at best, a shall we say "nuanced" position on gun control (varying from, on one end: "we don't want to take your guns but we aren't going to defend your rights, either" to: "we're going to take all your loving guns except maybe your bolt-action rifles and double-barreled shotguns, and you should consider yourself lucky we're leaving you with those"). And I would go even further and say that, if you were talking to this person, and this person knew you were a Democratic activist, they are probably being deliberately vague here, because they do not want to get in an argument about guns either (they assume you are in favor of more gun control). So you just get "I want someone more conservative."

It's not the only explanation. Maybe they're doing the big brain thing where they want someone more conservative because they think that person is more likely to win. But my way fits, too.

Anyway you really could not have picked a better example to illustrate what I'm getting at, here.

I don't think most people are "incoherent" in their beliefs, they just have different priorities that conflict with one another in weird ways, and that they resolve in ways that would seem bizarre to us if we even knew or understood what they were doing (and we usually don't), and they use language to express their beliefs which shares much of our vocabulary and jargon, but with very different semantics. People with functioning brains generally try to detect and then resolve cognitive dissonance, and when you encounter someone who seemingly has some glaringly obvious contradiction in what they profess to value, and yet does not budge from their position even when you point it out for them, it is more likely that there is just some information you don't have: priorities they aren't sharing with you, stuff that they value that seems trivial, or indeed just plain specious logic. Sometimes the values they are acting on are incompatible with our own (e.g. "women should not be allowed to vote", "some races are inferior to others") but I think this is usually not the case. And, fwiw, I think everyone jumps to "they are doing logic wrong" as the explanation for this stuff, but it is seldom the case (like people make logic errors, but really dumb mistakes about things that are actually important to them, should be kinda rare).

Nichael posted:

Finding common ground with amenable gun s isn't as necessary to me (though it's not pointless either).

So, per above, I think we're kind of talking at cross purposes. And also, to be clear, I am not talking about like literal driving-around-with-a-flag-on-your-car CHUDs here. Associating with those people as a leftist, even a pro-gun rights leftist (hell, especially a pro-gun rights leftist) is both low ROI and also dangerous. I think a lot of the people you would target as a pro-gun leftist, aren't going to be people that you can just go out and find and ask them about their thoughts on gun rights. Rather, you have to stand for gun rights, and let them come to you, if that makes sense.

# ? Nov 8, 2020 09:23

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# ? May 21, 2024 22:45

Azathoth: Apr 3, 2001

Incoherent was a poor choice of words. The point I was driving at is that while people do have broadly left or right frames (where frames is short for frames of reference, general world view and stated beliefs, lens for processing and interpreting political events, etc), any candidate's given ideology is a poor fit for why people support them and that's a fundamental hurdle that must be understood to be overcome in trying to support leftist candidates.

A lot of otherwise centrist or general liberal or nonpolitically active folks supported Bernie as an example because he, unlike a lot of politicians, spoke to them in a way that made them felt understood. That same thing was Bill Clinton's whole schtick, to use a centrist example. As much as "I feel your pain" became a jokey thing to make fun of, he really did make people think he did feel their pain.

A leftist frame is really, really good at finding this common ground, since mutual solidarity is as close to a grounding principle as anything across leftist ideology. But that just opens the door, as Nichael points out, getting someone to trust your candidate beyond that is a big ask.

Most voters don't have strong opinions on a lot of different issues and instead have general right or left framing that drives them instead. Ask the average person what their opinion is on, for example, policing and racial justice issies, they're going to have opinions that if you really dive into it, aren't particularly well fleshed out. Lotta people don't see any problem with wanting increased police funding and harsher sentencing while earnestly believing themselves to be antiracist. Both, obviously, can't simultaneously be true, but plenty of people hold those conflicting ideas as part of their politics.

# ? Nov 8, 2020 10:11

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > C-SPAM > Kicking the bums out: retaking the Democratic party

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