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Radish posted:It sure sucks that the purity tests from the center are always about supporting lovely stuff like sexual harassers, bad medical plans, or the drug war. The whole "purity test" stuff is just more projection. What is a purity test from the center?
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Feb 27, 2018 14:39
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Radish posted:It honestly gets back to the problems of "less of two evil voting" and why it is poisonous. Calling out Frankin was the right thing to do not because it was advantageous and would get Republicans to expel their own sexual predators, but because it was hard and it was inherently moral to stand up for his victims. When you see everything as a "which is the least poo poo candidate I can support" decision you lose perspective that these people should be held to a standard and you can't say you support women and use that in messaging and then not support them when it might be bad for you. Even if you want to see this as a cold political calculus, people aren't going to respect the "less evil" party if they can't even get that part right and are as evil as their adversaries when it comes to a sexual harasser as long as he is useful. The notion that you must simultaneously: A) vote lesser of two evils B) lose perspective that these people should be held to a standard ...is a false dichotomy. I offer a more accurate philosophy behind Franken's pressured resignation: "Vote the lesser of two evils, still hold these guys accountable."
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Feb 27, 2018 19:48
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Edit- following is aimed at the few who don't vote The fact that this thread exists indicates a failure of a significant fraction of the otherwise progressive posters in SA to recognize the boundary conditions of their present situation, almost to the degree of how libertaryanism fails to understand how the world works. I'm increasingly concerned by the progress of the message "You should disengage to see change." We don't gain recognition of human rights rights by ceding victories and power to reactionary ethnonationslists. a.p. dent posted:OOCC, the point is that centrist messaging loses elections. We don't want the Republicans. We want Democrats who do good things, so we're yelling at them and threatening them with the only power we have: votes. The general election primaries wrongly include static superdelegates. We nearly got a rules change on this last year, but we need more progressives to not only primary right wing Democrats but remain involved after failure to expel a bad Dem. Please don't disengage and let the party delegate gulf widen in favor of bad Dems. a.p. dent posted:We're not fighting about GOP vs Dems, we're fighting about "Democrats who do good things and win" and "spineless Democrats who needlessly cave on everything." Why would you fight for the latter? It loses elections. You can yell all you want, but people hate voting for candidates who say better things aren't possible. And they won't. So maybe we should give them a reason to vote, instead of yelling at them. I feel no need, frankly, to yell at someone who doesn't want to fight for the ticket post-primary when you're up against God Says Electrocute Gays And Deport Browns. This isn't about "owing" anyone your vote, this is about the danger to disadvantaged classes bring real and present enough for you to continue activism and voice in the follow-through. Your vote is your voice. Which represents you most? 1) GOP ethnonationalism 2) Dem centrism 3) Voicelessness I can get where voting centrist lets you feeling voiceless. I had to loving canvas for Jon Motherfucking Pissoff last year while he torched cash and proactively established that he'd happily axe half the progressive platform. Welp, we have someone who wrote a book about jailing lesbians in that seat instead, I'm happy for everyone who didn't engage and come vote I guess. Lol, just lol at "giving people a reason to vote" the reason is plain as party affiliation in most cases, on the basis that the few unions that remain are about to be killed by Neil Gorsuch. My sexual orientation is now protected information per the Civil Rights Act by ruling of US circuits 2 and 9. It would have been great for these rulings to stand long term instead of facing inevitable reversal when Ginsburg/Breyer dies or Kennedy retires. Thanks, internet "progressives." I'm just as convinced as you are that a Hillary justice would've been worse for my human rights than a Trump pick  The route to helping people lies through changing one of the parties. You're free to try to un-fear/un-Nazify the GOP if you want, but I see changing the Dems as a quicker solution that is likelier to succeed. With or without you, Gen Z seems to be dragging the overton window left, fast. a.p. dent posted:
Agreed. We are being held as virtual slaves in a supposed left-of-center versus right wing fight that plays out more like right wing versus far-right wing. I'm not willing to sit aside and allow the far right to build their wall, deport browns, and defund/destroy our few social safety nets and environmental/civil rights/consumer protection institutions. I'll weigh the damage of a bad Dem against someone who caucuses with Rand Paul and neo-Nazis and probably vote Bad Dem every time. Potato Salad fucked around with this message at 20:41 on Feb 27, 2018 |
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Feb 27, 2018 20:33
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Cerebral Bore posted:Not doing that second part is the centrist purity test, btw. That makes sense. ... I'm familiar with the "Oh hey, it's suddenly popular to tell Franken to resign on Twitter"  day last year; did I miss anyone relevant saying that he shouldn't resign?
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Feb 27, 2018 20:36
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I liked the part of your post, VitalSigns, where you chose to delete "sexual orientation as protected class" as a reason to vote.
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Feb 27, 2018 20:43
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VitalSigns posted:I vote straight ticket D because it's the lesser of two evils, and I'm tired of D's losing to the nutcases who want to put me in a camp and electrocute me until I'm straight because D's think Republican ultrashittiness is a license to be corrupt and lovely themselves since voters have nowhere to go, and who think "turn out anyway or yooooooouuuu suck" is a good voter engagement strategy. "turn out anyway or yooooooouuuu suck" is what's been happening and it's the framework that our collective moral choices on voting and engagement sits in The amoral reaction is to allow generations of frustration to halt progress. I'm sorry, somehow you missed the memo that America sucks
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Feb 27, 2018 20:47
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VitalSigns posted:(I know I know "lol at building a winning coalition, just lol at trying to motivate voters" maybe think pragmatically about what would win elections?) I mean, yeah, that's why I canvas. Winning coalition is a buzzword that has no meaning in the US without engagement post-primary. I'm assuming you're taking about enfranchising and meaningfully representing as many allies as possible instead of hanging your supporters out to dry after victory?
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Feb 27, 2018 20:55
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In the primaries, yes, but at the bottom line I at least need someone who caucuses with progress over someone who caucuses against it. Lots of narrow congressional votes in the last year and a half have been over extremely important poo poo.
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Feb 27, 2018 20:59
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When you lose a primary to Diane Fuckstein or Jon Pissoff, the next moral decision sits in a space weighing damage of a D vs R. Form this decision usually arises the necessity to vote for whip count.
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Feb 27, 2018 21:03
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VitalSigns posted:All the more reason that general election candidates should appeal to the widest coalition possible then isn't it? This post comes to us under VP Pence.
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Feb 27, 2018 21:04
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Vital, what's your endgame if you vote D tickets and presumably vote progressive in primaries?
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Feb 27, 2018 21:39
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Radish posted:This is actually a huge deal not only because it results in garbage Democrats like Manchin or that Virginian fucker with the Soviet Union flag yesterday, but also because the more public this gets (and it will get more public) the less the threat of lesser evilism works because people check out of the system that where the "less evil" ones are actively encouraging them to. And, what, this is reason to let the gap in the DNC widen in favor of bad Dems? What's your endgame, if not to work up the nerve to not vote in 2018 and 2020?
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Feb 27, 2018 21:41
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" when it comes out that things weren't fair isn't anymore likely to get people over it than "you should have voted for us so it's all your fault!"
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VitalSigns posted:Convince Democrats that I'm not enough and they need more people willing to vote D tickets. It sounds more like the fundamental problem is convincing enough primary voters that you're worth it, and that primary voters can't keep going centrist.
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Feb 27, 2018 21:43
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Neurolimal posted:The issue with "just force them at the primary" is that there's a lot of ways to skew the primary, and people already have diminished faith in a D primary that somehow managed to be less democratic than an R primary. This could have been addressed by lowering/removing cutoff dates for registering as a democrat, mitigating or removing superdelegates, and withholding party funding to incumbents during primaries, but that hasn't been done. Brings us back to the need to close the chair and rules vote gap. This also sounds like a reason to register people D where counter-democratic closed primaries still exist.
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Feb 27, 2018 21:49
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Neurolimal posted:To make sure we're on the same level WRT the current status of the democratic party; it's hemorrhaged most of the top donors that they alienated everyone else to appeal to, they're massively bankrupt as a result of continuing to fund three elections worth of consultants yearly for no reason, democrats are buckling to republicans WRT stonewalling the budget in defense of dreamers (itself a buckling of pro-immigrant support rhetoric by focusing on 'legitimate' immigrants), democrats are repeatedly being found less popular than Donald J Trump, remaining megadonors are holding funding hostage over holding their buddies accountable to sexual assault, and they are pinning many of their hopes on stirring up enough anti-russian sentiment when the majority of voters struggle to name anything about russia that they take offence with or meaningfully affects their personal life. I look forward to the You aren't dragging bad Dems left or ousting them by disengaging. The "cut me a better deal" mentality doesn't work. HTH.
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Feb 27, 2018 21:58
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VitalSigns posted:Lol The gently caress? We will only eliminate closed primaries and superdelegates by force, not by sidelining ourselves.
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Feb 27, 2018 21:59
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self unaware posted:voting in the primaries/registering dem is a fool's game, it's a privately owned organization and the funders make the calls/rules, not the voters Having participated in day-of ground game in Atlanta during the Perez/Ellison, gently caress off. This is winnable. VitalSigns posted:Counterpoint: prominent Dems cosponsoring M4A which they definitely loving wouldn't have if "better ideas will never ever happen" had won "Better to virtue signal a bill that can't pass in Red Congress than to win a SCOTUS seat" You're probably not worth engaging, but this is indeed fun, and it's helped my doorstep game a lot.
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Feb 27, 2018 22:16
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self unaware posted:"centrist democrats" is a bit redundant, there isn't a democrat out there who's not a poo poo compromise Our political revolution was never about winning the White House alone. It was about building a movement of millions of Americans uniting to upend the status quo and transform our country. It is about fighting and winning, not just in blue states and districts, but also in places Donald Trump won. Because the continued decline of the middle class, grotesque levels of income and wealth inequality, disastrous trade policies and an inadequate educational system affect them, too. -Bernie about 8 minutes ago
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Feb 27, 2018 22:17
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 "At least losing this time around resulted in lip support for a bill that can't pass before 2020."Do you deny that the ACA is going to cost us ~25B more this year despite covering fewer people?
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Feb 27, 2018 22:19
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Josef bugman posted:If it is "winnable" the question then becomes what are you winning it for. Winning it for the capacity to eliminate superdelegates, get a progressive into the chair. I'd like to see a chair to prioritizes support for local footsoldiering, which more than anything in the last year has turned people out. Josef bugman posted:Otherwise it is just "So what if you are not that, it's not making my life any worse, and how are you different?" gently caress yeah. Josef bugman posted:Also as a quick thing Potato Salad, if the democrats lose the next presidential campaign would you be willing to see the advantage in whole sale root and branch reform of the party? Reform by who, the guys who didn't turn out?
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Feb 27, 2018 22:29
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self unaware posted:why do I care about what Bernie "Vote for Hillary" Sanders has to say? I mean, he's better than 99% of federal level politicians, but he's still a far cry from "good"  FYI you're far enough out that I'm not going to read this further.
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Feb 27, 2018 22:31
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Yeah this movement is hosed when we can't pull in one of the few socialists in American public office.
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Feb 27, 2018 22:38
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Josef bugman posted:Yes. If you feel that people who haven't put in the time and energy that you have don't deserve to have as much of a say in how the party is supposed to be run I'm wondering if reading this aloud would help you out. For the dumb: you're not getting progressive representation in the party by refusing to put progressive representation in the party. Potato Salad fucked around with this message at 22:42 on Feb 27, 2018 |
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Feb 27, 2018 22:40
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Ytlaya posted:The longer-term results of Trump's election have the potential to change my opinion regarding whether it's always objectively best for the Democrat to win. It's still far too early to actually come to any conclusions, but if this somehow results in the next Democratic administration embracing ideas like M4A and Trump doesn't start a war with North Korea, one could actually argue that it worked out better in the long run than Hillary winning (I feel pretty confident saying that Sanders and his brand of politics wouldn't have nearly as much influence had Hillary won). The long term hindsight on this administration aside, it's with unforseeable fortune that we're still on the ACA, that Medicare is still kinda funded, that we haven't funded the wall, and that stays on the Muslim Ban were eventually respected. It's hard to provide these wins as positive given that CHIP barely made it out of the executive hostage standoff, and that DACA immigrants are hosed provided there's a nonzero chance of SCOTUS seeing this before June.
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Feb 27, 2018 23:02
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Josef bugman posted:Your arguing this from the point of view of a member of the democrats, you want to get more people into the party in order to push it more towards what you want, and that is admirable, but ultimately the best way of appealing outside of what you already have is going to have to rely on people in elections. People who are not part of the democratic party. You want progressives to do the hard work, to get in place and run candidates and so on, and absolve the larger structure of the democrats of problems through this method. Unfortunately the frequently undemocratic nature of the primaries and the obvious bias in some sections of the party apparatus discourages people from taking part and I can't blame people for doing so. You're talking about Dems deserving stuff....or something. I'm talking about mowing them over.
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Feb 27, 2018 23:03
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VitalSigns posted:If anything this seems like it bolsters the case of the "don't vote for Dems if you want single payer" people. I'm the 2036 M4A bill supported by all 4 Dem senators in Disengagement Future. Progress! (I'm bolstered by this year's turnout rates and spike in offices contested by progressives and first-timers, so I'm actually not this pessimistic)
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Feb 27, 2018 23:05
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Josef bugman posted:What I am trying to argue, as best I can, is that you want to Well Destroy the establishment majority. We're not far off, given how small the 2017 DNC chair vote gap was. A ton of Perez voters were feeling the Bern, but cowered into submission. Potato Salad fucked around with this message at 23:09 on Feb 27, 2018 |
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Feb 27, 2018 23:07
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You tell me, I'm a lot more interested in how someone with a disengagement knee-jerk reaction responds to the war plans of the DSA and social democratic movement: -Contest offices, no matter how red or small. We have a socialist in a Trump VA area as a result of this. -Register progressives D for later participation -Primary hard, as in feet on pavement. Ground games have been winning elections, go figure. -Overcome the DNC establishment vs progressive vote with these fruits. This is already narrow. -Open primaries, gently caress superdelegates, per Ellison. You get that last step and it's all up to finding a qualified, willing far left candidate for the general.
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Feb 27, 2018 23:19
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Voting for the caucus diminishes human suffering. You can do all these things and also keep the ethnonationalism party away from supermajorities. Fortunately, enough people held noses and showed up in Nov 2016 to prevent this. Please don't let that slip in 2020, we don't need constitutional amendments for religious freedom. Potato Salad fucked around with this message at 23:35 on Feb 27, 2018 |
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Feb 27, 2018 23:32
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OwlFancier posted:In the immediate term, however it is arguably counterproductive to the goal of overthrowing the democrats and replacing them with a better alternative Why? Do we need to scare the poo poo out of people during periods of R majority to motivate people to turn out for progressive candidates? Why is it necessary to endanger people in order to reform the party, given the ground game plan above?
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Feb 27, 2018 23:39
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VitalSigns posted:lmao if the Democrats were interested in minimizing human suffering they would be unrecognizable as a party. Guess we better just let them carry on carrying on? C'mon.
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Feb 27, 2018 23:40
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OwlFancier posted:Beause supporting the status quo and looking to overthrow the status quo are mutually exclusive goals. Not in a two party system. I really like your post, it brings this full circle to the issues with our electorate and whether to support half-assed liberalism, the modern conservative movement, or hold out for storm reform. Potato Salad fucked around with this message at 23:43 on Feb 27, 2018 |
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Feb 27, 2018 23:41
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VitalSigns posted:sorry you have to get humans to vote for you maybe you could do something about that insidious demos in democracy Like, say, wrest for control of the Dems?
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Feb 27, 2018 23:44
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OwlFancier posted:What about that magically breaks basic logic? In the US, I can't vote far left within a coalition that will ultimately lock horns to protect the poor , discriminated, and disenfranchised. Coalition building in the US takes place, sorta-kinda-not-really in the primaries, and the constraints of two parties are so hosed up that you can't refuse participation without ceding power to the right. Even ranked voting won't help us much without going multiparty first or at the same time. This isn't the "multiple parties now" thread, so 
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Feb 27, 2018 23:51
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Cerebral Bore posted:Given your own arguments ITT your game plan makes no loving sense if you think about it even medium-hard. As in, it cannot possibly work if people behave like you want them to. Yes, progress doesn't come from activism, it comes from internet thoughts and prayers
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Feb 27, 2018 23:53
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Never in history, people tell me never in history has a party realignment or severe shift ever happened. Apparently.
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Feb 28, 2018 00:09
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Control Volume posted:Theres nothing to be gained from blaming the non-voters for not voting other than the moral high ground. It doesnt magically make them voters. If all you want is to feel righteous while the country burns down around you, cool, but also gently caress you. I mean, by all means, don't primary centrists I guess.
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Mar 1, 2018 13:25
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Main Paineframe posted:Maybe unions would have voted for the Dem if the Dems had done basically anything to benefit them in the past *checks watch* twenty years or so? The Dems have been abandoning unions for political gain more and more openly ever since Carter, and unions have been becoming more and more disgruntled with the Dems over the past years. The Obama administration had a rocky relationship with labor leaders, who couldn't help but notice that they were completely ignored when Dems controlled all three branches and that union-busting efforts in the states failed to gain much Democratic opposition. The Clintons made hostility to unions one of the features of their triangulating centrism, and while Hillary's presence on the Wal-Mart board of directors was mostly attacked for their tremendous wealth and lovely wages, let's not forget that Wal-Mart is also stridently anti-union. What you're describing is centrist Dems slowly and painfully being dragged left on LGBT equality despite not being primaried out of office. You're literally describing a change that took place slowly because nobody primaried these fucks out of office. No sane person would deny the existence of a feedback loop between party minority status and platform realignment, per VitalSign's M4A example. You can lose and lose and lose to drag the establishment at snail's pace to the left. Woohoo, congrats  However, there is greater efficacy in engaging in, to invent a term, first strike activism where you elect leftists and don't need to endanger anyone by empowering a hostile majority. That isn't helped by ensuring that the progressive movement is as cynical and disengaged as possible. Sure, fine, hold out for the 2012-style , after-the-fact evolution of party policy if you want. I don't loving trust centrist Dems enough to crawl leftward quickly enough to address oppression and discrimination, particularly the Religious Freedom movement, adequately. Stick to your suggested path and we're going to see a Potato Salad fucked around with this message at 13:41 on Mar 1, 2018 |
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Mar 1, 2018 13:29
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Spanish Matlock posted:I mean history will ultimately tell whether the Trump administration did more harm than any eventual swing back can undo On issues like DACA (deportation), poverty (functional slavery, missed opportunity), healthcare (death)... there are victims without an "undo" option.
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Mar 3, 2018 18:17
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twodot posted:No. How does that work? Earlier you suggested there was some sort of requirement to vote for one of the two parties that have a majority of votes. That implies if it's 99% Republican, you need to vote for Republican. Show your work. And I'm the one posting in bad faith?
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Mar 3, 2018 18:21
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