Electoral Politics and Political Strategies

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Halloween Jack: Sep 12, 2003; Can't post for 2 hours!

Civilized Fishbot posted:

I would really love to see the development of "voter's unions" who don't run candidates but do make demands of candidates in exchange for guaranteeing to provide/withhold their votes.

I don't think that this idea is bad per se, but it strikes me as a bizarre alternative to having real political parties where the voters are actually members and have a say in its internal organization and direction.

volts5000 posted:

All social progress is slow and incremental.

No, it isn't. Depending on what you mean by this, it's either flatly untrue or equivocal to the point of meaninglessness. There are many historical examples of the social environment changing rapidly or top-down changes in policy spurring social change to happen much faster than it would have otherwise.

# ¿ Feb 14, 2024 20:44

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# ¿ May 13, 2024 22:42

Halloween Jack: Sep 12, 2003; Can't post for 2 hours!

volts5000 posted:

Well, there's always a catalyst that starts a change, but it's usually after decades of hard work. Like, the Stonewall riot gave LGBT people more visibility in America, but you shouldn't forget the people who worked hard to get that visibility prior to the riot.

So there are decades of "hard work" but the Hard Work is not the same thing as Change. Then an event happens, known as the Catalyst, which leads to Change, which happens slowly.

This is just working backwards from a conclusion, which is that we shouldn't expect the Party we vote for to accomplish anything in a reasonable timeframe.

# ¿ Feb 15, 2024 14:43

Halloween Jack: Sep 12, 2003; Can't post for 2 hours!

Yes, that's precisely the point I was making. Great job.

You're the one who said that their "decades of hard work" didn't count as "change."

(The actual point is that you're arguing from your unquestioned assumptions and rationalizing them as some sort of theory of change after the fact.)

# ¿ Feb 15, 2024 15:40

Halloween Jack: Sep 12, 2003; Can't post for 2 hours!

To be frank: What the gently caress are you talking about?

# ¿ Feb 15, 2024 16:11

Halloween Jack: Sep 12, 2003; Can't post for 2 hours!

GlyphGryph posted:

Can someone offer a single, coherent, reality based argument that not voting for Biden is better than voting for Biden?

Joe Biden went on television and said that he'd seen photographs of infants beheaded by Hamas militants. Recently he claimed that Hamas wants to destroy Israel due to "ancient desires." (This is unsurprising behaviour from someone who's been a committed Zionist since the 80s.)

Biden is spreading racist, fascist propaganda. He's participating in the Zionist propaganda strategy of conflating Palestine with Hamas, in order to justify massive indiscriminate violence against civilians. He's criminalizing an entire population to justify their extermination.

How is it any different if he were to go on television and said that you can't trust Jews because they're all part of a global conspiracy? (If he did, would you argue that we still have to vote for him because Trump and his supporters are even more anti-Semitic?)

He's a genocidal fascist, dude. Don't vote for fascists.

# ¿ May 8, 2024 15:22

Halloween Jack: Sep 12, 2003; Can't post for 2 hours!

gently caress off with that tone. I don't need to do anything; your'e not directing this conversation.

I don't vote for fascists or genocidaires. If that's not a self-evident value to you, I have no interest in persuading you.

# ¿ May 8, 2024 15:46

Halloween Jack: Sep 12, 2003; Can't post for 2 hours!

GlyphGryph posted:

If you're unwilling to do what I actually asked, though, why even respond to my question? Why did you act like you were trying to? Did you just see it as an excuse to engage in some nonproductive and meaningless emotional venting, perhaps? Not exactly worth much, as far as posts go

I started from the premise that you're not utterly amoral and that the importance of not legitimizing a fascist regime is self-evident to you. Anyway, now that we've dropped the pretense of debate club, what's your goal here? To construct some sort of praxeological checkmate argument for voting for Biden? To rationalize dismissing anyone who refuses to vote for him in good conscience, perhaps?

GlyphGryph posted:

Is this an underlying core value? If so, you then need to describe how the action (not voting for Biden) better advances that value than the alternative. It's also an odd core value, so if it's a secondary value it would help to tie it to a core value in a coherent way, and if it is a primary it might help to explain why someone else should see it as one.
Is this simply your conclusion? If so, you need to explain how the desired action leads to it, and why it is desirable.
Is this a supporting argument? If so, you need to explain what it actually supports and how its relevant.

I mean come on, really? This is goofy.

# ¿ May 8, 2024 16:17

Halloween Jack: Sep 12, 2003; Can't post for 2 hours!

Not targeting you specifically, but it's very strange to me that some people will draw a line in the sand over voting for a rapist, and a lot of other people will respect that even if it's not their own stance. But try telling them that a politician is a war criminal, or responsible for mass death and absolute poverty, and it just doesn't register beyond "Okay, fair point, but..."

I suppose that a lot of people in the political center don't really have ethical principles. They see credible accusations as points scored in a debate; the actual impact doesn't mean anything to them.

# ¿ May 9, 2024 18:15

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# ¿ May 13, 2024 22:42

Halloween Jack: Sep 12, 2003; Can't post for 2 hours!

volts5000 posted:

Still don't see any mention of trans rights, abortion rights, labor rights,

I'm sorry. I'll change my forum signature to a list of issues that I care about, so that you can know that I care about them. That will save time vs. typing them out in every reply.

When you respond to people speaking out on an issue with "But why aren't you talking about..." you're just trolling them from the Right. You forgot to include the violence in the Sahel in that list! BOOM, OWNED! You didn't mention climate change either, OWNED AGAIN! This is stupid.

Are you actually incapable of understanding or believing that someone can care about civil rights without believing that #VoteBlueNoMatterWho is a worthwhile route to achieving them? Do you understand that if #VoteBlueNoMatterWho is your bare minimum requirement to believe that someone is progressive at all, you can only ever preach to the choir, or just annoy people?

I'm trans. Thanks for presuming to speak on my behalf, but my identity isn't a tool for you to whip votes for Racial Jungle Joe. I'm not at all impressed with e.g. a set of Title IX regulations that leave out trans athletes. You seem to have a hard time getting it through your head that a lot of people aren't impressed by promises of incremental change on an absurdly long timeline.

quote:

or Ukraine.

LOL

quote:

I've said it before, electoralism should never be considered as a tool by itself. It has to work in conjunction with other forms of direct action.

I'm not against electoralism per se. I'm just not going to vote for the Democratic Party and try to change it for the better, for the same reasons I'm not going to vote for the Republican Party and try to change it for the better. It's a cliche at this point that Democratic partisans blame the Left when they lose and dismiss the Left when they win. Participation in the discourse is met with constant accusations of "purity testing" and demands that we be eternally grateful for absolutely nothing.

I believe that progressive political party could change this nation for the better, but it will have to trample the corpse of the Democratic Party to get there. Loyally supporting "whoever the Dems are running" isn't working and hasn't been working for a long time. It's a thoroughly rotten institution that isn't able, much less willing, to act as an actual popular coalition.

quote:

Nobody is asking you to be proud or enthusiastic or patriotic. We just want you to vote.

Nobody? Really, nobody? Because it seems to me that the most enthusiastic Party supporters really aren't satisfied with "holding your nose and voting," you have to cheerlead Biden and agree that he's one of the greatest presidents ever and the most progressive since FDR.

I'm not asking people like you to stop voting. I'm asking you to shut up and stop trying to shame people into voting for your preferred war criminal.

World Famous W posted:

if i went to he food bank i volunteer at on election day instead of voting i would have done more to make the world a better place that day

What's really cool about this is that if I want to do non-electoral work, I actually have choices. For example, if I don't want to volunteer for the Salvation Army because of their lovely record on Queer rights, I can volunteer at other shelters. I'm not limited to two organizations headed by doddering bigots!

Halloween Jack fucked around with this message at 19:40 on May 9, 2024

# ¿ May 9, 2024 19:36

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