|
Man I could not disagree more with the arguments against “don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good”. It’s just a heuristic formulation of the scientific method, and is fundamentally aligned with a Marxist analysis of history and social progress*. Don’t let rationalism blind you from what’s actually happening in front of your eyes. The perfect only exists as an abstract concept, social relations in the real world will, by definition, never be perfect. Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good. It’s super weird that y’all don’t understand this *marxist social progress, aka progressivism
|
# ? Dec 7, 2020 08:05 |
|
|
# ? May 11, 2024 12:20 |
|
E: Too aggressive, not worth it
|
# ? Dec 7, 2020 08:17 |
|
Sucrose posted:Progressives are the people out there actually getting poo poo done, while those further to the left sit and wax philosophical like this about how liberals “refuse to take responsibility for a single life doomed in the process” as if the actual alternative to liberalism in the real world was Leftism and not social-service-cutting conservatism. Describing two flavors of neoliberalism as the two halves of the sum total of possibilities in this country is basically the point here. There aren't two halves with a neat red team that wants to do bad things and a blue team that wants to do good things. There is an economic order that requires blood to operate, and two culturally distinct political factions of a neoliberal consensus that take turns seeing that the necessary blood is procured. More practically speaking, Obama also blew kids up with drone strikes, cut social services, increased detention and deportation, gutted the post office, enabled torturers, passed a healthcare bill that fed the entire country to the insurance industry to be cut up for parts, opened new petroleum reserves to exploitation, and lifted the flood gates to finance capital immiserating millions. Because that's what the political economy he defends demanded of him. It's the same one you're defending now.
|
# ? Dec 7, 2020 08:42 |
|
Sharks Eat Bear posted:Man I could not disagree more with the arguments against “don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good”. It’s just a heuristic formulation of the scientific method, and is fundamentally aligned with a Marxist analysis of history and social progress*. Don’t let rationalism blind you from what’s actually happening in front of your eyes. The perfect only exists as an abstract concept, social relations in the real world will, by definition, never be perfect. Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good. It’s super weird that y’all don’t understand this We understand perfectly well when were being accused of being blinded by ideology, that's what we're responding to
|
# ? Dec 7, 2020 16:46 |
|
What is actually happening in front of our eyes is what makes a lot of us extremely hostile to the idea that liberals are interested in progressing anything.
|
# ? Dec 7, 2020 16:59 |
|
OwlFancier posted:What is actually happening in front of our eyes is what makes a lot of us extremely hostile to the idea that liberals are interested in progressing anything. I don't doubt their sincerity in wanting the world to be a nicer place, but defining "what is possible" to mean "what can be achieved via the electoral process in the US" is an absolutely blinkering ideology. The way our system is structured and the incumbent players within it more or less ensures that the range of nationally viable elected politician runs from "far-right chud" to "neoliberal ghoul." And that's where progressives fail - because they would rather sacrifice the outcomes they want than disrupt the system that supports them. Adam Curtis put it this way: quote:And I think that the question liberals and the left have to face at the moment is a really such a difficult question, which is, do you really want change? Do you really want it? Because if you do, many of them might find themselves in a very uncertain world, where they might lose all sorts of things. I mean, what we're talking about, in many cases is people who are sort of at the center of society at the moment; they're not out on the margins, they would have a lot to lose from real political change because it really would change things in the structure of power. To OwlFancier's point about what's happening right in front of us, and to bring this out of the realm of abstract outcomes that liberals don't have to care about because those outcomes don't affect them personally in a material way, look at this map for a moment: Liberals and progressives need to start seriously asking themselves whether those tens of millions of people are going to give a single hot gently caress about whether "don't let us starve," "don't let us freeze," and "don't shoot us" can win a Democratic primary. Because if there is no electoral channel to actually achieve the material outcomes that ten or twenty percent of the country needs to survive the next year, people may not lay down and die in the gutter to satisfy your standards of reasonableness and decorum.
|
# ? Dec 7, 2020 19:32 |
|
I suppose yes, I should have phrased that as "it doesn't matter how interested they are because we can plainly see that they do not achieve the results we require." They say the same things constantly but it never translates into the needed effects, it is reasonable to conclude, then, that what they say has very little significance when the effects can be predicted so reliably. Whether they are sincere about what they say or not, it does not produce results. OwlFancier fucked around with this message at 19:40 on Dec 7, 2020 |
# ? Dec 7, 2020 19:37 |
|
Sharks Eat Bear posted:Man I could not disagree more with the arguments against “don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good”. It’s just a heuristic formulation of the scientific method, and is fundamentally aligned with a Marxist analysis of history and social progress*. Don’t let rationalism blind you from what’s actually happening in front of your eyes. The perfect only exists as an abstract concept, social relations in the real world will, by definition, never be perfect. Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good. It’s super weird that y’all don’t understand this There are a few key problems with the phrase: - It assumes absolute certainty that one option will be a net lesser evil in the long run - since it's a "pragmatic" judgement, it must by necessity be looking at the net sum impact. In the case of our recent election, it is completely impossible to judge with any certainty whether we'll be in a better or worse position in 10 years if Biden or Trump won. It's essentially trying to insert certainty into a situation where it doesn't exist, because (at least on some level) the people saying this stuff realize that their choices are indefensible on their own merits and must rely upon a pragmatic argument that they're technically better than the alternative. - It erases the degree of differences between the options in question. Frequently "Don't let perfect be the enemy of the good" is used in situations where the "good" in question is not actually good and is much closer to the partisan alternative than it is anything the left actually wants. - It implies that accomplishing the "good" is made less possible by people advocating for the "perfect" (the phrase would be more accurate - and less compelling because it would no longer make the opposition out to be So Dumb and Crazy - if "perfect" were replaced with "better").
|
# ? Dec 8, 2020 01:54 |
|
With Bernie and the Squad all voting for the CARES ACT, I have little faith in progressives successfully infiltrating the Democratic Party.
|
# ? Dec 8, 2020 02:03 |
|
I do think that one of the biggest outcomes of the Biden admin will be the collapse of this sort of "progressive" position. Even if they win both Georgia races, even as the entire theory of Biden and Chuck Schumer as politicians is that they're ideal for precisely this situation, where cajoling one or three moderate Senators is the most important task, the Democrats won't deliver jack poo poo. If you're Paul Krugman or the American Prospect or Vox or whatever you can only go on insisting that the Democrats are secret progressives, no really, for so long before you can't do it with a straight face anymore. I think the facade will collapse before Biden's term is done. The smart ones like Yglesias are already doing a neo-neocon turn and fleeing the ship. Kamala will end up running in 2024 on a basically anti-left platform and will be stomped by Marco Rubio. Also, special mention to Warren and her people, who've been humiliated and clowned to a degree I don't think even the most bearish observers a year ago would have predicted icantfindaname fucked around with this message at 05:05 on Dec 8, 2020 |
# ? Dec 8, 2020 04:52 |
|
icantfindaname posted:I do think that one of the biggest outcomes of the Biden admin will be the collapse of this sort of "progressive" position. Even if they win both Georgia races, even as the entire theory of Biden and Chuck Schumer as politicians is that they're ideal for precisely this situation, where cajoling one or three moderate Senators is the most important task, the Democrats won't deliver jack poo poo. If you're Paul Krugman or the American Prospect or Vox or whatever you can only go on insisting that the Democrats are secret progressives, no really, for so long before you can't do it with a straight face anymore. I think the facade will collapse before Biden's term is done. The smart ones like Yglesias are already doing a neo-neocon turn and fleeing the ship. Kamala will end up running in 2024 on a basically anti-left platform and will be stomped by Marco Rubio. Would I be stupid to think that there could actually be a third party that will actually make waves in ten years time?
|
# ? Dec 8, 2020 05:06 |
|
Ytlaya posted:One of the most ironic things is the way "nothing matters" is used as a pejorative on these forums, because there's really nothing more cynical and hopeless than the belief that anything outside of mainstream Democratic politics is impossible. The question is, compared to what? What's the alternative to our current society? We have to work with the society we've got, not an ideal fantasy version of it. quote:Regarding "don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good," I think the biggest issue is that the people who say this just tacitly accept everything harmful about the status quo and don't view those things as "active harm." The status quo is our starting point. We can't just do away with it. We can't wave a wand and stop all the "harms" that are happening. We have to look at the status quo, and see where things can be improved and where people's lives can be made better. People don't have any healthcare coverage, that's a problem. Single-payer healthcare programs work fine in other countries and there's no realistic reason they couldn't work here, so that's something to advocate for. In the meantime getting more people access to healthcare is good, people getting kicked off their coverage, like when Medicaid eligibility is narrowed, is bad. Our government pointlessly bombing people with drones, that's a problem. That's something we should be constantly advocating against, and we should be voting for the most anti-interventionist, pacifistic candidates we can. What else can we realistically do about it? The same with all the other problems in the status quo. There's problem after problem after problem, but the only thing to do is tackle each problem one at a time and advocate for better policies. We can't just wipe the slate clean of all problems and "harms" in our society, because that's not something that's possible. This is the society we live in, this is what we've got to work with.
|
# ? Dec 8, 2020 16:16 |
|
punk rebel ecks posted:Would I be stupid to think that there could actually be a third party that will actually make waves in ten years time? Yes, because third parties are impossible in a first-past-the-post voting system.
|
# ? Dec 8, 2020 16:17 |
|
Sucrose posted:...The same with all the other problems in the status quo. There's problem after problem after problem, but the only thing to do is tackle each problem one at a time and advocate for better policies. We can't just wipe the slate clean of all problems and "harms" in our society, because that's not something that's possible. This is the society we live in, this is what we've got to work with. So what was the strategy to push the Biden administration left again?
|
# ? Dec 8, 2020 23:22 |
|
Sucrose posted:What else can we realistically do about it? Stop voting for it. I mean, for a start.
|
# ? Dec 8, 2020 23:35 |
|
The reason single player won't work here is the same reason healthcare reform failed a decade ago: the insurance companies will spend a shitload of money to make sure whatever we get will be absolute dogshit.
|
# ? Dec 9, 2020 11:55 |
|
Sucrose posted:The status quo is our starting point. We can't just do away with it. We can't wave a wand and stop all the "harms" that are happening. We have to look at the status quo, and see where things can be improved and where people's lives can be made better. People don't have any healthcare coverage, that's a problem. Single-payer healthcare programs work fine in other countries and there's no realistic reason they couldn't work here, so that's something to advocate for. In the meantime getting more people access to healthcare is good, people getting kicked off their coverage, like when Medicaid eligibility is narrowed, is bad. I'm not sure what you're even saying here. A good analogy to use in this situation is that, using your logic, you would absolutely not be advocating for ending slavery in, say, 1850. Your explicitly stated logic would cause you to be in conflict with abolitionists - after all, you can't wave a wand and end slavery. It's a mindset that fundamentally doesn't work when those with power are directly opposed to your interests. The point is that most of the harm that is caused is enthusiastically supported by both the Democratic and Republican Parties. Your framing of politics stops making sense once you realize that neither party represents anything remotely resembling progress - they're just different flavors of harming people. For every person helped by Democratic policies, multiple people are hurt by other Democratic policies. So the framing of "we should vote Democratic because, even if we can't achieve everything we want to, it's better to make a little progress than no progress at all" is wrong. The most important thing is to acknowledge the reality that we live in a country where the entire "political establishment" (for lack of a better term) is strongly opposed to what the left wants (and interests of the working class in general). The idea of working with Democrats isn't any more reasonable than the idea of working with Republicans. There's no guaranteed solution to this (and definitely no solution in the short to mid-term), but there will absolutely never be a solution until people at least acknowledge the reality we live in. "Being in opposition to both major parties in our political system" is a pretty hopeless position to be in, but it's still less hopeless than "thinking positive change can come through the Democratic Party."
|
# ? Dec 9, 2020 20:33 |
|
Dumper Humper posted:The reason single player won't work here is the same reason healthcare reform failed a decade ago: the insurance companies will spend a shitload of money to make sure whatever we get will be absolute dogshit. It's not that it won't work, it's that it will be strongly opposed by powerful and entrenched groups. The liberal response is "those groups have a point, best not to try, since they fund my campaign." The leftist response is "those groups are parasites and will be removed as part of this, gently caress their money."
|
# ? Dec 9, 2020 20:37 |
|
Sucrose posted:The status quo is our starting point.
|
# ? Dec 10, 2020 01:14 |
|
Not if your goal is to obfuscate, as much as possible, that your raison d'être is to preserve the status quo. I mean, we only have to look through history to see how incrementalism has been so good to humanity, right?
|
# ? Dec 10, 2020 01:22 |
|
KVeezy3 posted:Not if your goal is to obfuscate, as much as possible, that your raison d'être is to preserve the status quo. I mean, we only have to look through history to see how incrementalism has been so good to humanity, right? Incrementalism was never about change, it's about control. The reason that people propose slow and pointless efforts is to frustrate them. It is a very clear attempt to prevent progress while simultaneously appearing to support it. To run a race so slowly that it is effectively identical to forfeiture. And it is shockingly effective, for a time. After a while, people can't ignore that they no longer can afford their insulin, or their rent, and all of a sudden incrementalism collapses just like every single human system ever invented. Everything begins, and everything ends.
|
# ? Dec 10, 2020 04:07 |
|
Cpt_Obvious posted:Incrementalism was never about change, it's about control. The reason that people propose slow and pointless efforts is to frustrate them. It is a very clear attempt to prevent progress while simultaneously appearing to support it. To run a race so slowly that it is effectively identical to forfeiture. Like HR departments and complaints processes, the real purpose of incrementalism is to satisfy precisely enough of the needs of the workers to prevent them from rioting or striking without meaningfully impacting the lives of those who benefit from the status quo. The trick was getting people to pre-incrementalise their own demands, then to incrementalise the process of responding to those demands. Oh, we don't have living wages, and you're not even asking for living wages anymore, but we heard you and we have submitted a proposal for even less than that on your behalf! To a committee. And not one that will change anything, but they'll fight to be allowed to talk about it! Always ask: who benefits from doing this halfway, as opposed to us getting all of what we actually want? The answer is almost always the people who currently control the thing and use that control to enrich themselves.
|
# ? Dec 10, 2020 05:40 |
|
KVeezy3 posted:Not if your goal is to obfuscate, as much as possible, that your raison d'être is to preserve the status quo. I mean, we only have to look through history to see how incrementalism has been so good to humanity, right? It's dramatically overgenerous to refer to incrementalism in a discussion like this, because it implies that the Democratic Party's actions are "making things better too slowly," when the reality is that they don't make things better at all on the net, and in fact make a variety of things worse.
|
# ? Dec 10, 2020 05:54 |
|
It’s worth exploring how the lines between 'practicality' & 'idealism' and have been blurred. I agree that, in practice, the neo-liberal era of the Democratic Party “making things better”, is erratic at best in the short-term and blatantly false in the long term. Although this makes their practical claim as incrementalists dubious, the idealist claim remains relevant for us because it accurately depicts their foreclosure of possibility. A concrete example of this foreclosure is in the fetishization of compromise. In circumventing the hard work of genuine conflict, compromise becomes de-substantalized in the name of getting things done. But examining what those things actually are makes you ungrateful. Having any vision at all makes you naïve. The specific term is a positive and self-justifying spin on this foreclosure, which prevents themselves from being held to any objective standards, except that they amass power. When things don’t get better, it’s because they didn’t have enough power. And when they fail to amass power, it’s everybody else’s fault. Incrementalism is violently shoving ‘practicality’ into the realm of ‘idealism’ and calling it the ultimate form of rationality.
|
# ? Dec 10, 2020 17:28 |
|
Ytlaya posted:It's dramatically overgenerous to refer to incrementalism in a discussion like this, because it implies that the Democratic Party's actions are "making things better too slowly," when the reality is that they don't make things better at all on the net, and in fact make a variety of things worse. Yeah the basic problem is just that a huge number of liberals really truly deep down believe that the policy status quo of the George H W Bush administration was optimal. This is maybe changing a tiny bit but that lasted an incredibly long time. Obamacare was just Clintoncare which was literally just a personal mandate fig leaf on what was assumed to be a basically well functioning private insurance market in a mental image of 1991
|
# ? Dec 10, 2020 21:02 |
|
icantfindaname posted:Yeah the basic problem is just that a huge number of liberals really truly deep down believe that the policy status quo of the George H W Bush administration was optimal. This is maybe changing a tiny bit but that lasted an incredibly long time. Obamacare was just Clintoncare which was literally just a personal mandate fig leaf on what was assumed to be a basically well functioning private insurance market in a mental image of 1991 The most shocking thing to me was the immediate adoption of the Bush doctrine by the Democrats. They spent like 4 years screaming about how Bush was a big idiot who ruined everything, and then just kept doing all the lovely things that he started. lovely wars, lovely immigration policy, lovely economics, exactly as though he was still president. People like to say that history might be different if Gore had won, but that sentiment is getting silly especially after the Democratic convention had Colin Powell. They worship Bush as America's sacred defender. To them, his is not a tale of incompetence and failure but misfortune.
|
# ? Dec 10, 2020 21:13 |
|
icantfindaname posted:Yeah the basic problem is just that a huge number of liberals really truly deep down believe that the policy status quo of the George H W Bush administration was optimal. This is maybe changing a tiny bit but that lasted an incredibly long time. Obamacare was just Clintoncare which was literally just a personal mandate fig leaf on what was assumed to be a basically well functioning private insurance market in a mental image of 1991 What you're describing is the period of time in which the Boomers have had full and complete control of the levers of power in this country. That isn't going to last forever, and our generation and the one that follows see the world very differently.
|
# ? Dec 10, 2020 21:40 |
|
How are u posted:What you're describing is the period of time in which the Boomers have had full and complete control of the levers of power in this country. That isn't going to last forever, and our generation and the one that follows see the world very differently. While there is generational impact I think that is entirely too optimistic. I hope for better things though.
|
# ? Dec 10, 2020 21:42 |
|
How are u posted:What you're describing is the period of time in which the Boomers have had full and complete control of the levers of power in this country. That isn't going to last forever, and our generation and the one that follows see the world very differently. This is an interesting position, but at a certain point we have to ask "why"? Why do the younger generations reject centrist "progressivism" and start embracing leftist doctrine? How did a declared "socialist" come one heartbeat away from the presidency? It's because of the success of capitalism. Capitalism has so successfully impoverished such a wide swath of younger generation that they reject it out of necessity.
|
# ? Dec 10, 2020 21:45 |
|
Cpt_Obvious posted:Capitalism has so successfully impoverished such a wide swath of younger generation that they reject it out of necessity. This is also why fascism is rising again. Capitalism is going to turn everyone but capitalists into mulch and the only people who don't see that are the people who are last line to go into the chipper: mostly white mostly affluent people who are protected by the status quo and identify as centrist, liberal, progressive, conservative, or ever-so-slightly different variations on those. The circle around "protected by the status quo" shrinks every year - it has to, because that's how capitalism works. What's changed is that since 2000, in the US, the rate of shrink has started to drastically accelerate. We've gone from "the median standard of living goes up to at least" to "the mean standard of living goes up at least" to "things are getting worse, faster, every year, for most people by any objective measure we can think of" in the span of a generation. Everyone who was just barely keeping their head above water after 2008 is now at risk of getting thrown into the street and under our system, the people being made homeless right now will never recover. People who were comfortable but not affluent are now barely keeping their heads above water, and they too will never recover. And the people who were already affluent - who had a lot of liquid wealth to invest in reaping the capital dividend - are the winners. Stonks go up. Real estate go up. The rich are richer than ever. That's how the machine works. For everybody else, it's obvious the wheels are coming off and they're grasping around for whatever answer comes to hand. For people who can claim membership in some kind of protected/privileged group but feel that protection being threatened, they'll grab at something that preserves all their privileges at any cost.
|
# ? Dec 10, 2020 22:45 |
|
How are u posted:What you're describing is the period of time in which the Boomers have had full and complete control of the levers of power in this country. That isn't going to last forever, and our generation and the one that follows see the world very differently. I strongly disagree with this, mostly because the sort of millennial (or younger) to rise into a position of power will be ones from significant privilege, and being privileged as part of an even more unequal age cohort seems to distort peoples' minds at least as much as being a boomer. It's the same reason wealthy kids in poorer countries aren't magically woke and supportive of the working class. Like If i had to guess about the sort of millennial/zoomer to rise in "progressive" politics, it'll probably end up being people like this guy - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Luh_LRanlFk There's a difference in attitude, but it's more a shift from an explicit belief in a meritocracy to a sort of "noblesse oblige"; in both cases the wealthy/privileged will be unwilling to relinquish their position in society, but younger people feel a need to do more mental gymnastics to convince themselves that what they're doing is actually good and helpful. edit: While younger people will make up a greater portion of the voting population, I'd anticipate a relative decrease in political participation, for the same reason that poorer people in general tend to be less politically engaged.
|
# ? Dec 10, 2020 22:47 |
|
Ytlaya posted:edit: While younger people will make up a greater portion of the voting population, I'd anticipate a relative decrease in political participation, for the same reason that poorer people in general tend to be less politically engaged. Why should they be engaged? They did the right thing and they're getting nothing for it.
|
# ? Dec 11, 2020 07:15 |
|
I apologize for asking this in multiple threads, but who are the big progressive SuperPACs? Are there any? As much as particular individual candidates can sometimes overcome funding barriers, it seems to take so much funding to do the canvassing, ads and social media outreach necessary to cut through against opposition attacks and media noise to help a candidate define himself or herself instead of letting external parties do the defining. It takes so much time and money to run for office, which is why wealthy donors and gatekeeping organizations like the DCCC and the DSCC have so much influence over how candidates position themselves. If there were some decently sized funds more left wing than, say, George Soros, willing to help candidates get off the ground and make themselves visible, I'd like to think that would really help things a lot. Recent years seems to have established that the DNC and mainstream Democratic apparatus is overcentralized and varies between incompetent and corrupt (if not being both at the same time), so I think you need funding alternatives so progressive candidates aren't coming in with box cutters while the other side has M16s. I think we're still watching the full disaster of the Supreme Court's Citizens United decision unfold.
|
# ? Dec 11, 2020 15:55 |
|
Somfin posted:It's not that it won't work, it's that it will be strongly opposed by powerful and entrenched groups. Yeah but they're not going to be removed is the catch. Any promise of single payer comes with the implicit understanding that insurance companies are going to be sabotaging it, because there's nobody willing to push back. poo poo sucks. Eric Cantonese posted:I apologize for asking this in multiple threads, but who are the big progressive SuperPACs? Are there any? No because the people pumping money into SuperPACs don't want good things Dumper Humper fucked around with this message at 15:59 on Dec 11, 2020 |
# ? Dec 11, 2020 15:57 |
|
Eric Cantonese posted:I apologize for asking this in multiple threads, but who are the big progressive SuperPACs? Are there any? At a certain point, we are going to need to define what "progressive" means in such a way as it qualifies some things and disqualifies other. As it stands, "progressive" implies progress towards a goal, but that goal has never been identified.
|
# ? Dec 11, 2020 16:30 |
|
Cpt_Obvious posted:At a certain point, we are going to need to define what "progressive" means in such a way as it qualifies some things and disqualifies other. As it stands, "progressive" implies progress towards a goal, but that goal has never been identified. Good question. In many ways, Soros is "progressive," but not nearly to the left as most posters here would like. I was thinking of whether there were SuperPACs supporting Bernie Sanders or any other candidate who supported Medicare for All or the Green New Deal.
|
# ? Dec 11, 2020 16:39 |
|
Eric Cantonese posted:Good question. In many ways, Soros is "progressive," but not nearly to the left as most posters here would like. Again, that depends entirely on how you would define "progressive". What are we progressing towards? What are we moving away from? What does that word mean in a political context? It seems that "progressive" is generally used to refer to members of the Democratic party. So, what makes one Democratic politician progressive as opposed to another? Is there literally anything we can use to delineate between the two sides? Or, is that word a meaningless phrase applied to the politicians we prefer other those that we don't?
|
# ? Dec 11, 2020 16:44 |
|
Cpt_Obvious posted:Again, that depends entirely on how you would define "progressive". What are we progressing towards? What are we moving away from? What does that word mean in a political context? Okay. I don't have a useful response. I was counting on posters to say, "well, [INSERT NAME] is a SuperPAC advocating for single payer healthcare" or "[INSERT NAME] was started to support insurgent candidates and chip away at the DCCC's dominance," or similar pieces of information. Would it help to just eliminate "progressive" from my question? I am mainly wondering how the left will fuel its own advocacy and political organizing when money means so much (even if it shouldn't).
|
# ? Dec 11, 2020 16:50 |
|
Eric Cantonese posted:Okay. I don't have a useful response. I was counting on posters to say, "well, [INSERT NAME] is a SuperPAC advocating for single payer healthcare" or "[INSERT NAME] was started to support insurgent candidates and chip away at the DCCC's dominance," or similar pieces of information. Oh, I wasn't being critical of your question. I just feel like there is a considerable amount of framing that is needed in conversations like this, However, I would say that the fact that money drives all of politics means those with money are much more unbelievably powerful than those that advocate against them. For example you brought up M4A, and if we're going to talk about money in that political equation we have to talk about the fact that private insurers have a whole lot more cash than those who who advocate for M4A. I think you are correct in that advocacy groups are completely outmatched versus those with a vested interest in maintaining the private system.
|
# ? Dec 11, 2020 16:57 |
|
|
# ? May 11, 2024 12:20 |
|
I'm starting to dream about a left-leaning investment fund that engages in some kind of passive or socially responsible investing and then uses the funds to support candidates who want good things and not just capitalist donor pet projects. The contradictions of capitalism and all the other familiar demons means this is probably a really problematic idea that you'll all go HAM on, but it just seems like you need something like this if it doesn't already exist.
|
# ? Dec 11, 2020 17:00 |