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Radish posted:Yeah. I don't get how this attitude persists with people not on the DNC payroll when you can see the fruits of their strategy with your own eyes. The thing about McGovern that is always ignored in favor of a “the left can’t win” narrative is the fact that McGovern was stabbed in the back by his own party. The centrists in the dem party actually rebelled and advocated for people to vote for nixon. I expect the same will happen if bernie wins the nom in 2020, and if the centrists successfully ratfuck him and get a republican in you can count on another 30 years of “the left can’t win when we betray them to side with the far right”
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Jul 28, 2018 13:16
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Yeah that stuff is why the idea centrists politicians are allies or "agree on 95% of the same things" is ridiculous. They have been willing to burn things down rather than move left on multiple occasions and openly so. Even within the last few years you always hear about Bloomberg threatening to run as a third party spoiler if someone along the lines of Bernie wins meaning to him Trump and his fascism is preferable to healthcare and better wages for most of the country. Waiting for them to do good things by asking nicely means you will literally wait forever since they fundamentally don't agree with leftist ideology. Think of the sort of person that wants to be a "centrist" when one side wants everyone to have healthcare and the other wants to put children in cages based on their race. Actual "centrist" voters I think are actually winnable if "good things are possible and we have enough money" starts getting more traction. When you are told by politicians that a certain ideology (conservative economics and meh on social issues until the public forces your hand) is the only adult one you start to internalize it. Look at how abolishing ICE is like 35% popular now when if you did that in the last year of Obama's administration that would probably be less than 10%. I think most Democratic voters would vote for both Bernie or a more right wing Democrat. It's really the people in power that are the huge blockade since they actively and hugely benefit from the status quo. Eggplant Squire fucked around with this message at 13:54 on Jul 28, 2018 |
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Jul 28, 2018 13:42
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we need "winnable" "common sense" positions i keep saying as the entire government is run by psychotics whose policy positions are all based in fantasy.
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Jul 28, 2018 13:54
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Another issue is the caveleer attitude of "vote Democratic and problems will be addressed." https://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/immigrant-mom-loses-effort-regain-son-us-parents/story?id=16803067 This started in 2007 and then in 2012 was resolved with the courts ruling in favor of the literal kidnapping of the child. Obama's solution was to continue to try and appeal to right wingers on immigration. When right wing Democrats are in power these issues are generally ignored or written off as not a big deal since attacking Democrats on these results in claims of "disunity."
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Jul 28, 2018 16:53
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Seems like the right time to hold the Dem leadership to account is always after the next election. It's really no wonder why the top level of the party is chock full of absolute incompetents given this attitude.
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Jul 28, 2018 17:28
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Radish posted:Yeah. I don't get how this attitude persists with people not on the DNC payroll when you can see the fruits of their strategy with your own eyes. I think it stems from them defaulting to a belief that the status quo/mainstream Democratic approach is better until proved otherwise. Unless you can show that moving to the left will improve their chances electorally (which just happens to be pretty much impossible to prove or disprove), they default to the assumption that the current way of doing things is the best way of either defeating or at least minimizing the wins of Republicans. Of course, this doesn't really make sense; the default should be whatever is morally/ideologically best, unless proved that it will have negative electoral effects*. And they absolutely have not proved that left-wing politics will result in Democrats losing electorally. Their best evidence is more mainstream Democrats usually winning primaries, but that's easily explained by them usually being the incumbent or "default" choice with the most institutional and financial support. * and even then it's often still worth advocating for what's morally right; it's just that you'd have to balance the benefits of making positive progress against the harm of increasing the chances of Republicans winning
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Jul 28, 2018 17:36
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Cerebral Bore posted:Seems like the right time to hold the Dem leadership to account is always after the next election. It's really no wonder why the top level of the party is chock full of absolute incompetents given this attitude. 
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Jul 28, 2018 18:43
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Ytlaya posted:And they absolutely have not proved that left-wing politics will result in Democrats losing electorally. edit: Forgot about Lieberman, but that seems more like a name recognition thing than an actual endorsement of his policies. twodot fucked around with this message at 19:34 on Jul 28, 2018 |
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Jul 28, 2018 19:32
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twodot posted:This got me thinking, has there ever been a spoiler to a Democratic politician that was to the right of the Democratic pick? Is that even possible without just being a Republican? Is the ostensible concern that if Democrats go left we'll get another Ross Perot? George Wallace, kind of, but that's pre-realignment Dems anyway.
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Jul 28, 2018 20:43
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Condiv posted:The thing about McGovern that is always ignored in favor of a “the left can’t win” narrative is the fact that McGovern was stabbed in the back by his own party. The centrists in the dem party actually rebelled and advocated for people to vote for nixon. Now imagine, after all this build-up about Trump's ties with russia and so on, suddenly eating the world's hugest pile of poo poo as they support him over Sanders.
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Jul 28, 2018 21:02
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Freakazoid_ posted:Now imagine, after all this build-up about Trump's ties with russia and so on, suddenly eating the world's hugest pile of poo poo as they support him over Sanders. https://twitter.com/daveweigel/status/1022912575095418883
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Jul 28, 2018 22:39
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https://twitter.com/MarkAmesExiled/status/1023235147297107968
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Jul 29, 2018 15:17
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I posted this on another forum and the peeps there immediately assumed I was white and that Thomas Frank was only talking about the white working class.
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Jul 29, 2018 18:02
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They didn't assume, they recited. Rest assured that they will make you white again in the retelling.
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Jul 29, 2018 18:22
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Ytlaya posted:This whole argument is predicated on the false dichotomy of "you can either be leftist OR beat Republicans." Otherwise, posts like Skex's don't make any sense, because they fundamentally rely on the assumption that moving left will either make it harder to defeat Republicans, or at least won't contribute to beating them (as opposed to a bunch of liberals dunking on Trump, which I guess will for, uh, reasons). Proving that you are still arguing against a strawman rather than my actual argument. Which is this, as a leftist there are two priorities that have to be balanced. One is promoting policies that will improve people's lives. The other is stopping policies that adversely affect those same people from coming into being in the first place. The former is done by promoting good candidates with the policies we prefer and the second is done by denying Republicans the opportunity to enact their own measurably more awful policies. Ergo the strategy of vote your principles in the primaries but party in the general. The thing is that you will never find a politician who perfectly matches your ideology. I sure as gently caress haven't. But it's very loving obvious that while I don't agree with every Democratic politician on everything I do strongly disagree with every Republican politician on literally loving everything. There is also the fact that truly leftist solutions have to be bottom up otherwise they are just another form of authoritarianism. People keep trying political solutions to what is in actuality an issue of education. To be clear I'm not advocating that people should stop fighting for or advocating solutions from the left. What I am advocating is that it doesn't help the cause to give the fascists a free pass by undermining their opposition. The enemy of my enemy may not necessarily be my friend, but it does not make any tactical sense to fight a two front war when it gives the advantage to that common enemy. First priority has to be stopping the slide towards fascism because failure to do so at this point has a strong likelihood of preventing any future much less any sort of socialist paradise. Yes Centrists suck and they are stupid, short sighted, craven and in many ways deluded poo poo heels, however they are still orders of magnitude better than Republicans. The Republican party with it's toxic ideology needs to be crushed and excised from the body politic. That has to be the priority. Once that is accomplished will be the time to fight out the new divisions. As long the Republican party exists in its current incarnation anything else plays to their advantage.
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Jul 29, 2018 19:53
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That can only happen when the controlled opposition is no longer able to defend their fellow Republicans.
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Jul 29, 2018 19:58
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Cuck Schumer is not better than a republican. Claire McCaskill is not better than a republican. Joe Manchin is not better than a republican. John Kerry is not better than a republican. Hillary Clinton is not better than a republican. They're all republicans. They just have a D next to their name. They all support neoliberal austerity and public private partnerships. None of them support anything except their donors wants and needs.
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Jul 29, 2018 19:59
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It's intensely funny that you wrote this wall of words in defense of people whose main problem with the republicans is that Trump doesn't let them collaborate on all the horrible poo poo anymore.
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Jul 29, 2018 20:02
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Mmm, yes. Chuck "I won't punish any democrats who vote to confirm Kavanaugh" Schumer is better than a republican.
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Jul 29, 2018 20:03
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Skex posted:Proving that you are still arguing against a strawman rather than my actual argument. Yes, and by portraying it as something that "needs to be balanced" in the first place you're creating a false dichotomy, just as I said (or at least giving the impression that there's some trade-off where doing one thing detracts from doing the other). Have you considered the possibility that advocating for good policy (assuming you think left-wing ideology is good in the first place) might be effective at beating Republicans? And even if it didn't make a difference, there is no alternative here that is somehow "more effective at stopping Republicans." It is obvious that the Democratic status quo is not sufficient to motivate voters to consistently vote against the GOP, so the obvious solution to this is to change the Democratic Party so that it does a better job of motivating people to vote. It's incredibly ironic how you guys always speak about having to compromise and be realistic/pragmatic, but you're the ones whose arguments essentially boil down to "magically make people start voting more for Democrats even if they do little/nothing to change their ideology/policies." If you want to significantly change voting behavior, you need to change the party.
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Jul 29, 2018 20:35
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Ytlaya posted:Yes, and by portraying it as something that "needs to be balanced" in the first place you're creating a false dichotomy, just as I said (or at least giving the impression that there's some trade-off where doing one thing detracts from doing the other). In the November 2018 primary elections, what will bring us closer to that goal? Voting for a D who's milquetoast? Voting for an R or a third party as a protest? Abstaining? None of that precludes lobbying candidates to take more leftist positions, or voting in progressive candidates in primaries or taking any other action to influence voters and politicians, and vice versa. But you can't just magically put zombie Karl Marx on the ballot, and we can't change how the primaries went down (even if we can change how future elections do). Voting for the best outcome, even if it's not objectively good, is still the best outcome. Working to make the best outcome better is the point of activism... that still has nothing to do with what happens in the voting booth, at that point it's already too late.
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Jul 29, 2018 20:58
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Infinite Karma posted:Be reductionist for a moment. is voting for dems that work to make better outcomes impossible the best outcome? i think your analysis is overly reductionist.
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Jul 29, 2018 21:40
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Infinite Karma posted:Be reductionist for a moment. Your "best outcome" isn't good enough, buddy. America is so poo poo right now that you're one actually competent and charismatic fascist away from everything being completely hosed, and if the dems get power and proceed to kick the can down the road yet again you're essentially gambling with the lives of tens of millions that said fascist won't show up on the political stage in the near future. Therefore the objective must be to get rid of the incompetents and grifters and blue dogs from the Democratic party first.
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Jul 29, 2018 21:42
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Skex, the core problem in your argument is the idea that the Democratic party as it exists today is capable of fighting fascism. They have proven that they will not or cannot in the face of literal concentration camps! That's not called being part of the resistance to fascism. That's called being a collaborator. If the Democratic party cannot be pushed and continues to act as a barrier to fighting fascism, then by definition that is a problem that will have to be addressed first.
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Jul 29, 2018 21:44
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i'm not entirely sure how manchin is a good outcome in this situation either. like, i'm sure people will bring up some hypothetical, theoretical way, but we're talking about a dem who wants to support trump's reelection, and is gonna vote for an extremely dangerous SC nominee. if he can't be counted to be with us now of all times, when is he actually gonna be an ally to us? he'll vote with us to deregulate banks, and that's all the centrist dems care about
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Jul 29, 2018 21:46
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It's not just the Democrats. The NYT is absolutely primed to start writing articles about why the concentration camps are absolutely good and required if a competent fascist gets into power and puts even the slightest leverage on them to do so. In terms of Manchin he will flip the second it's personally in his interest to do so. The problem with counting on people like him who have no interest in actual good policy is he has no commitment to the "good" side. He will be the first to flip to help out competent Trump if that guy starts really exerting the scary power of the President. The whole Red State Democrat plan doesn't even make sense since if you have to vote like a Republican to remain elected, you are going to have to continue doing so for very important things like SCOTUS confirmations since if the voters require that sort of conservative voting for minor stuff they are sure as gently caress going to be paying attention to the big things. At that point there's no difference except for majority leader and if you are throwing other elections because you can't be counted on to do poo poo for your voters because Manchin is holding you back or making you look weak as hell when he says he's voting for Trump (maybe  ) or that he can't be controlled is he worth it?Like "voting for the other side's president" is so insane I can't believe that's allowed. Would you even think about a Republican saying they would vote for Obama or Clinton? It absolutely makes the party look like a joke that has no firm leadership. That's not even counting he's talking about Trump, a guy that's openly running on racist policies, the one point where Third Way Democrats claim to be better than the left on. Eggplant Squire fucked around with this message at 22:10 on Jul 29, 2018 |
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Jul 29, 2018 22:01
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Don't think I ever saw a better argument for mass public ownership.
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Jul 29, 2018 22:09
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The only thing that matters is Manchin will vote for Schumer to be majority leader, and Schumer will use his position to pull a McConnell and refuse to bring up Trump's next SCOTUS nominee for a vote. (Just kidding, Manchin along with most other centrist Dems want Trump to put corporate stooges on the court to brutalize labor rights, women, gays, and uppity minorities because that is their ideology, and even if Schumer had the stones to pull a McConnell, Manchin et al will vote with Republicans on a discharge petition give the justice an up-or-down vote and justify it with  )
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Jul 29, 2018 22:10
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VitalSigns posted:The only thing that matters is Manchin will vote for Schumer to be majority leader, and Schumer will use his position to pull a McConnell and refuse to bring up Trump's next SCOTUS nominee for a vote. Yeah exactly. Like if Manchin and Schumer do what they need to and block all conservative judge appointments then he might be worth it. However there's no way Manchin is down with that since he's a conservative and way more in line with Trump than any Democratic voter. The bigger issue is that the country knows Decorum is dead. Any attempt to try that again will be result in huge electoral losses. I'm not sure if the Democrats understand that and don't care or are so deluded in their bubble of DC politics they still haven't realized their ideology is gone. Eggplant Squire fucked around with this message at 22:14 on Jul 29, 2018 |
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Jul 29, 2018 22:11
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Also Schumer will not use his power as majority leader to punish any of them for doing this (just as he has pledged not to do should they vote for Kavanaugh), because putting corporate stooges on the court who will brutalize labor is also his ideology, and while brutalizing women and gays is not his ideology it's still to his advantage to let Republicans and blue dogs do it because he can fundraise off it.
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Jul 29, 2018 22:15
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Centrist Dems must be annihilated and cast from the earth like Republicans, one in the same.
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Jul 29, 2018 22:26
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Both Schumer and Pelosi have admitted in so many words that they view the victims of Republicans as useful PR for their own elections. They have no incentive to fix the problems since they can't campaign on them if they are solved and don't care about suffering as much as they do getting paid. Democrats moving right to pick up "center" right people doesn't exist in a vacuum. One of the reasons Republicans have gotten crazier is that they need to move right as well to maintain their own voting block. Eggplant Squire fucked around with this message at 22:35 on Jul 29, 2018 |
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Jul 29, 2018 22:27
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Nonsense posted:Centrist Dems must be annihilated and cast from the earth like Republicans, one in the same. Really, the only way to deal with them is to throw them into the fires of mount doom.
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Jul 29, 2018 22:29
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Centrist Democrats would have personally marched with the Freikorps and would have worshipped Friedrich Ebert.
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Jul 29, 2018 22:41
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Condiv posted:is voting for dems that work to make better outcomes impossible the best outcome? i think your analysis is overly reductionist. Cerebral Bore posted:Your "best outcome" isn't good enough, buddy. America is so poo poo right now that you're one actually competent and charismatic fascist away from everything being completely hosed, and if the dems get power and proceed to kick the can down the road yet again you're essentially gambling with the lives of tens of millions that said fascist won't show up on the political stage in the near future. I live in California, and I can vote for Feinstein or de Leon. I'll vote for de Leon because he's better than Feinstein. I voted for Alison Hartson in the primary, because she was an actual progressive, and Hartson lost. So now we vote for the next best choice, it's really that simple. Is there a better choice for me at the ballot box? Did I make a wrong choice in who I voted for in the primary? Please explain how I can annihilate Centrist Dems and get rid of assholes like Schumer with my vote.
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Jul 29, 2018 22:42
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Joe Manchin is not better than the fascist because Joe Manchin is a fascist.
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Jul 29, 2018 22:54
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reignonyourparade posted:Joe Manchin is not better than the fascist because Joe Manchin is a fascist. But he's a controllable fascist (except that he said quite confidently that he is absolutely not).
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Jul 29, 2018 23:00
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Radish posted:But he's a controllable fascist (except that he said quite confidently that he is absolutely not). Just like Kurt von Schleicher thought Hitler was controllable - look how well it worked out for him! 
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Jul 29, 2018 23:02
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Infinite Karma posted:Be reductionist for a moment. But now you're engaging in a completely separate (and pretty irrelevant) argument. The sort of thing Skex mentioned is usually brought up in the context of people criticizing/attacking Democrats, not people explicitly saying "I think it's best to not vote for them." And even if it was in that context, this sort of lesser evil argument is clearly not sufficient to get people to vote! No lesser evil argument of this nature is going to spontaneously change people's voting habits to the extent that they start consistently electing Democrats, even if the Democrats don't improve politically. Like, you make up this goofy "electing zombie Karl Marx*" thing, but you're the one who is essentially advocating for millions of people to spontaneously decide they're suddenly willing to vote for politicians they don't like when they weren't willing to do so before. You're doing the same thing conservatives (and many liberals, unfortunately) do where they take issues involving entire populations/countries and boil them down to individual decisions. * Speaking of this, it's a pretty good litmus test for whether the person saying it is a disingenuous shithead, because it's almost always used against people demanding some incredibly milquetoast basic social democratic reforms. Infinite Karma posted:I live in California, and I can vote for Feinstein or de Leon. I'll vote for de Leon because he's better than Feinstein. I voted for Alison Hartson in the primary, because she was an actual progressive, and Hartson lost. So now we vote for the next best choice, it's really that simple. Is there a better choice for me at the ballot box? Did I make a wrong choice in who I voted for in the primary? Please explain how I can annihilate Centrist Dems and get rid of assholes like Schumer with my vote. This is the thing, you guys always redirect things to this voting argument, when it's probably one of the most irrelevant things to focus on. No change will come from constructing some foolproof argument that voting for lesser evil Democrats is technically possibly-in-the-short-term preferable to not doing so (except for possibly negative change, since there's nothing more demoralizing than being told to suck it up and accept that the best you can hope for is little/zero positive change). Nothing you're talking about here has any chance of significantly increasing voting for Democrats, and nothing the people you're arguing with are talking about will significantly decrease voting. The only difference is that the latter are advocating things that might increase voting if what they desire comes to pass. Basically, the decrease in voting experienced by the Democrats is not going to reverse itself without the change the left desires (or some other change that improves conditions for Americans, though I can't think of any). It is a natural result of the status quo, and it will not significantly change unless said status quo is also changed. Ytlaya fucked around with this message at 23:28 on Jul 29, 2018 |
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Jul 29, 2018 23:19
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Obama having a total majority, even if only for a year, and doing very little to alleviate the actual issues facing Americans to Trump basically setting everything on fire, both home and abroad, due to personal whims and the country basically being forced to go along with it has shattered the idea that small incremental steps are literally the only way to do things as the system just doesn't like big changes. It just so happens huge crazy changes are absolutely possible, it's just the people in charge only want certain ones to happen. When even primaries against these people are being called too divisive it doesn't really give the impression that things will ever get any better with the current leadership in charge.
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Jul 29, 2018 23:26
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