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In the wake of the British election, and with the American one looming, we need to ask how are we going to get progressive leaders with progressive politics elected. The right has had the advantage of the consolidation of power over the last century, owning most of the major media corporations, and a ruthless disregard for truth and decency. And it plays to our most primal instincts – tribalism, otherism, etc. The left has been hamstrung by the rules of decorum, connotations of socialism, the ‘femininity’ of environmentalism (a whole thread in itself). So the challenge is massive and critical. There seem to be three main roads ahead: 1) Thoughtful articulation of nuanced policies 2) Violent revolution 3) Charismatic candidate 4) Cambridge Analytica style targeted fuckery 5) Large scale, sustained, non-violent direct action Or some combination of the Charismatic leaders seem to be the most important there. In some ways this is about dissecting the Brittish election - Labour seemed to do everything right, and Corbyn was fine to good. But there just wasn't enough inspiration to get them even close to the line. In Australia, our most successful progressive leader was Bob Hawke, a guy who could charm the pants off anyone. Since then we have been sorely lacking AOC is really the model here. Spit their fire back at them, and do it with class. I made that argument here, and perhaps that is the simplest answer. So how do we find them, and get them in power? Who is out there? PYF progressive firebrands I guess. How charismatic do they even have to be? Katie Hill seems pretty great, and I guess has a charisma of her own, but isn’t necessarily what you would consider to be a typical room grabber. Progressive policies are common sense and usually carry wide support - look at background checks for gun control. The idea of for profit healthcare is so demonstrably stupid, adding another layer of charges on to life saving procedures purely for the benefit of 3rd party shareholders, under the delusion that doing so somehow provides a superior level of service. There is a long fight ahead and it’s worth trying to stake out a strategy forward. (Please excuse the brief and fragmented nature of the OP, I just wanted to get it out there.) TL;DR - how are we going to fix this mess. Bucky Fullminster fucked around with this message at 14:12 on Dec 13, 2019 |
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Dec 13, 2019 03:50
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| # ¿ May 22, 2024 17:14 |
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Really I think the most important thing is to eliminate the power of interest groups by eliminating political advertising. Level the playing field by giving all viable candidates a spot on a debate stage and a few pages of a newspaper and a bit of air time on the television over a few weeks. Boom, lobbyists are irrelevant. Money is worthless. Politics is about policy not who has the deepest pockets. But maybe that is a separate discussion. A violent revolution is unlikely to happen, and unlikely to stick and be effective. When we're up against the already quasi-facist police-states we've got at present, it's hard to see how it would work in reality.
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Dec 13, 2019 04:12
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Oh yeah that’s the other thing: 4) Clinical ‘Cambridge analytica’ style exploitation of data and manipulation of social media Again, the left are often hindered by scruples. Radiolab’s recent ‘Breaking Bongo’ episode had a little peek into what that can of worms might look like.
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Dec 13, 2019 04:52
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Ytlaya posted:This would not be effective, because all media is effectively "political advertising" (and especially news media). People derive their political opinions from everything they see/hear, so as long as corporations are producing most of this content, people will internalize the messages that content directly or indirectly sends. I mean, yes, to an extent, but you can’t tel me that all those millions of dollars of ad buys don’t mean anything. It would probably need to be supported by some legislation about what the media is allowed to cover which is getting into more controversial territory, but could be worked out in theory. It will never be completely even, but it’d be far better than the ridiculous poo poo-show of a money pit it is now Edit - even just the fact that reps have to spend so much TIME fundraising. It’s a massive cancer on the process Bucky Fullminster fucked around with this message at 04:58 on Dec 13, 2019 |
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Dec 13, 2019 04:55
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5) large scale, sustained, non-violent direct action, along the lines of extinction rebellion, who almost looked like they made the needle consider thinking about moving for a second
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Dec 13, 2019 05:15
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I’m not quite sure what you mean, and my understanding is they’re a pretty broad church who are at least nominally aware of their privilege, but my point was more about their methodology than ideology
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Dec 13, 2019 05:25
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Coolness Averted posted:Just the fact that nearly every candidate has had to at least pay lipservice to M4A in the dem primary if they wanted to get into double digits is a sign we're making political gains or that despite an all out media blackout Sanders is still in 2nd or 3rd place in pretty much every state that matters right now is a big deal. This is a pretty important point. The Overton Window isn't exactly two dimensional, but there have been changes which matter. Which make these losses all the much harder to understand. I also think it's worth remembering, we're basically none from three in the last four years (in America/England/Australia). Clinton lost in 2016, Shorten lost in AUS in fucken whatever year that was, and Corbyn lost just now. All of those losses do serious harm and push us back a lot further, but they're not permanent. And they're not just about progressivism. Clinton had Russian fuckery and the nuclear weapon of Cambridge Analytica to deal with (as well as being easy to dislike), Corbyn got kind of hosed by the Brexit Situation, and Shorten started talking about loving with franking credits right before the election which was enough to turn enough people off. The point is that in all of those cases there is more than just thew policies going on. But yeah, the fact that Trump still enjoys a chance is pretty loving troubling.
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Dec 13, 2019 13:54
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To be clear, I'm not advocating for violent rebellion, I'm just wondering academically about how it's all going to play out.MSDOS KAPITAL posted:If capitalists control the game board literally the only options you have are to play their game and continue to lose, or flip the board and come at them directly. Well.. Please go ahead and tell us how, this fight would work on such uneven ground? Be specific. Like, what does it look like in your mind. ACADEMICALLY of course. UnknownTarget posted:I'm sick with the flu but I got out of bed and grabbed my laptop because I wanted to write a long form reply to this post. First hey, my pleasure, glad it's appreciated. A website like that sounds like it'd be a good start. I'm not sure what help a global profile would be to a local candidate though. But an easily accessible database of organising tactics and branding templates etc might help? Would have to be careful about local campaign finance laws, as has been stated though. To be honest, I haven't heard the term 'electoralism' in my whole life as much as I've heard it in the last few days, so I'm not really that familiar with it. For the people saying it's not the way forward, I guess my question is, what does that look like? General strikes? Funnily enough, outside of these forums, I think the only real mention I've heard of general strikes is from Kanye West, in the middle of a long interview with.. maybe Fast Company... when talking about athletes making political points. It's one thing to take a knee, but would they be willing to miss a game or a paycheck? How else are we going to stop the apparatus? Anyway, if not strikes, what does a non-electoral approach look like pragmatically? This is why I asked about extinction rebellion style disruption. I know they have succeeded in physically stopping (some of) Australia's coal exports for up to a few days for example, by shutting down coal lines. And of course they livestream the whole thing, calmly sitting up there talking about the whole issue while politely declining the cops' requests to come down. To me, it seems like Justice Democrats are the closest to the right tracks at the moment, at least in the US. They've identified a good approach and it's already reaped huge rewards. Getting someone like AOC in, even just to make a few tweets about things like election day being a public holiday, is hugely valuable. Let alone the work she does on the floor, and the fire she spits back. Even if she's one in a million, that means there's 200 of her in America alone. We don't seem to have anyone of her calibre in Australia (nor do we have a primary system like that). But rather than that being a problem of sexism in the electorate, it feels more like a problem of good women not wanting to join any of the parties to rise up the ranks like that. So it's hard to find anyone on any ballots. So do we need to make a career in politics more appealing to kick arse people? Or are people rejecting that because it plays into 'electoralism'? It does feel like that is the first branch of our flow chart - Electoralism or Not Electoralism, and I'm still not sure what the latter looks like.
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Dec 15, 2019 05:49
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ChrisBTY posted:I'm not feeling much in the way of 'hope' here. Well I guess that's the critical first step, hope, so yeah that's important. I have hope. Pretty pointless otherwise. Sorry if I gave you a different impression. I think we've had some bad draws the last few years, combined with some pretty deep structural stuff, but I don't think it's insurmountable. But to entertain your question, if no hope, then just nihilist indulgence I suppose.
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Dec 15, 2019 08:01
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I don't think capitalism is going anywhere. We need to temper its most outrageous elements, and recognise that a profit motive isn't always the best tool to solve problems and deliver optimal services, like health care. And I think that's getting more and more traction over the last 12 months, which is promising.
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Dec 15, 2019 08:12
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| # ¿ May 22, 2024 17:14 |
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Sanguinia posted:I live in the most republican-voting district in the entire Rocky Mountain region according to Wikipedia. I see Trump bumper stickers and magahats every day, and my US Rep is such a piece of poo poo that his siblings endorsed his opponent, one of which did so on the grounds that if his brother had his way, he'd be dead right now. It’s just such a straight-forward equation. You can either have patient / service, or you can have patient / BILLIONS OF DOLLARS IN PROFIT TO A 3RD PARTY / service. And that’s before we even get to the perverse incentives of denying claims, and people forgoing attention because of fear of costs. I know we can’t expect much, but that’s a pretty simple concept for people to understand.
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Dec 15, 2019 09:17
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