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The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > Electoral Politics and Political Strategies
 
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Rogue AI Goddess
May 10, 2012

I enjoy the sight of humans on their knees.
That was a joke... unless..?

Main Paineframe posted:

You've said it yourself - the existing MPs of the party didn't support Corbyn. Which indicates that even though Corbyn was able to muster enough votes to win the leadership election, he was not able to channel that into gains for leftist MPs in general. It's a lot like how a Bernie Sanders presidency would have been generally lovely, because there were hardly any leftists in the Senate and the Bernie movement wasn't really making any effort to change that, so Sanders wouldn't have been able to get his desired policies passed into law because the left hadn't built the groundwork before making a play for the top position. Corbyn was the Barry Goldwater to Blair's Ronald Reagan. Goldwater, like Corbyn, was personally popular with the base due to his charismatic radicalism, but was unable to channel that into broad electoral appeal or any immediate shift in the position of the party as a whole. On the other hand, Reagan, like Blair, was able to deliver massive electoral landslides for his party, allowing him to reshape the party as he liked while his foes didn't dare to oppose him.

Whether the policies are good or bad is, for the purposes of this thread, besides the point. The fact of the matter is that Margaret Thatcher was the longest-serving Prime Minister since 1850, primarily due to her ability to deliver massive electoral landslides for her party, and that Blair was the second-longest-serving Prime Minister since 1850, once again due to his ability to deliver massive electoral landslides for his party. Thatcherite economics didn't become dominant because of Thatcher or Blair, they became dominant because Thatcherite economics and the politicians that supported them were popular with the electorate, which manifested itself in the form of massive electoral successes for politicians who adopted those policies. While Corbyn may have been personally popular, that did not translate into a massive wave of Corbynite MPs sweeping into power at the next election, and so his attempts to singlehandedly do a 180 on many party positions (such as trying to become a champion of Brexit) went poorly.
If we accept the premise that populism is king, or at least kingmaker, then it follows that a progressive political strategy for success should incorporate a steady barrage of easily digestible messaging to make people uncritically accept its proposed policies. Yes, we already do plenty of education efforts and awareness raising, and yes, those can be useful to sway a particular individual or even an organization, but they have inherently limited impact and are unlikely to deliver that crucial threshold of mass popularity. On other hand, no one is immune to propaganda, and it scales really, really well.

* # ¿ Feb 21, 2024 15:51
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# ¿ May 11, 2024 22:25
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Rogue AI Goddess
May 10, 2012

I enjoy the sight of humans on their knees.
That was a joke... unless..?

B B posted:

You don't even have to be a leftist for the Democratic Party to ignore your views. You just have to be a person who thinks genocide is bad. Providing material support to an ongoing genocide is very important to the modern Democratic Party, and there's not much individual voters or motivated groups of voters like those in Dearborn, Michigan can do to convince the Democratic Party to stop supporting genocide.
They could move to Israel where their vote (or lack thereof) would have proportionally more impact on the people who have direct control over the "more/less genocide" lever.

* # ¿ Feb 25, 2024 14:41
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Rogue AI Goddess
May 10, 2012

I enjoy the sight of humans on their knees.
That was a joke... unless..?
 If there was a credible 2020Biden-like challenger to Netanyahu - that is, someone who is still a pro-apartheid corrupt center right rear end in a top hat, but nowhere as nakedly bloodthirsty and power-hungry as the incumbent - would it be rational for a leftist or liberal Israeli voter not to vote for such candidate as opposed to voting for them?

* # ¿ May 8, 2024 17:44
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Rogue AI Goddess
May 10, 2012

I enjoy the sight of humans on their knees.
That was a joke... unless..?
 As someone who has lived for two decades under an oppressive right-wing dictator before finally escaping to the US, I'd take the option to vote for a lesser evil any day. It may feel frustrating and disempowering, but having the greater evil as the only non-option is worse.

* # ¿ May 11, 2024 15:56
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The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > Electoral Politics and Political Strategies