this post was submitted on 03 Sep 2023
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Even tougher when you stubbornly insist that it's impossible to change it to more resemble the better one that we "imagine".
If you always act on the presumption that you can't do anything, you'll be proven as weak and ineffectual as you think you are.
You should think more like labor unions and civil rights activists and less like Nancy Pelosi or her protégé, the somehow even worse Hakeem Jeffries.
Labor unions and civil rights activists want to change the party from within. A third party to the left of the Democrats will do nothing but ensure Republican victories from hereon in. They are aware of this. I'm not sure why you aren't.
You're wrong on both points. While some progressives support them and some neoliberals pay them lip service while actively supporting and accepting support from cops and billionaires, many labor unions and civil rights movements (especially the ones with a lot of millennial and gen Z members) have no party affiliation because they've been fucked over by the Dem leadership for the last 30+ years.
The best way to make sure Republicans don't win isn't to keep rushing for the middle ground every time they move farther right, to the point of now being a center right to right wing party. It's staking out and defending a principled left wing position that's much more in line with the actual policy priorities of the majority of the.
Tell me more about how splitting the vote is good thing in a two party system, I need a good fairy tale to send me to sleep
Tell me more about how the world is a tribal binary and has to forever stay that way. When you're done with that, tell me how being almost exactly like your opponents is better for turnout than embracing the policy positions that your constituents want. I need a good emetic to help me puke up the crap you've been feeding me.
Actually, no, I won't tell you more about how splitting the vote in a 50% to win system is moronic, as I lack the patience and inclination of an educator.
I am sorry you were given the education that you have, nobody deserves such a poor grasp on basic civics and mathematics.
Yeah because basic civics and math dictates that a first past the post binary system is inevitable, systemic change is impossible and everyone arguing for something better is just a simpleton arguing from ignorance rather than suggesting solutions to problems 🙄
How does that establishment boot taste?
Not great, mostly like reality tbh
If you don't like the taste, why do you keep licking it and telling others to join you?
The voting system needs to change, absolutely. But voting third party at the current moment does split the vote as they describe. Yes, it should be changed. You're right. But that doesn't mean that voting third party is suddenly effective until the more than 50% of the voting population does it.
How do Republicans lose if the left vote is split into two parties?
Currently, there's a fascist party and a more moderate right wing party and both of them are cooperating to avoid anyone to the left of center getting any power.
Tens of millions of voters are de facto disenfranchised by nobody from either party representing their interests. Hell, a lot of the poor people who have been tricked into voting Republican because they at least PRETEND to care about poor people would NEVER vote for a corporate pro-billionare democrat but would be very likely to vote for a progressive one that ACTUALLY fights for them.
I think you have a lot more faith in people who don't vote than I do if you think it's about political idealism and not just good old American laziness.
I do, yeah. You can say a lot about the American people, but laziness is absolutely NOT a defining trait of the population.
The mainstream (both the neoliberal part and the fascist mainstream like Faux News) gaslighting people of good will into THINKING that anyone victimized by the system and/or the people supposed to represent their best interests are just lazy or otherwise to blame for their disenfranchisement, though? THAT'S as American as apple pie!
Are you joking? Have you seen the number of obese people we have? They aren't getting out there and working hard.
Yeah, because it's just a coincidence that a disproportionately big (no pun intended) share of obese people are poor and live in food deserts where fresh fruit and veg are unavailable and fast food costs less than what healthy food IS available.
It's also just a coincidence that millions if not tens of millions work the equivalent of two or more full time jobs at ridiculously low wages, leaving no time, money or energy for exercise, healthy food and cooking.
You need to get your head out of the ass of corporate stooge media and read more about the greed and abuse that's ACTUALLY the main causes behind most of the country's biggest problems, INCLUDING the obesity epidemic.
Ah, so these people working two full time jobs are suddenly going to take the time to vote if there's a third party. I see.
One of the top priorities of that third party would be to make voting more accessible to everyone. It's one of the many things the Dem leadership have been fundraising on doing for decades without actually doing it. Sorta like enshrining reproductive rights in law.
Anyways, I'm getting pretty tired of spelling out the obvious to you, so unless you have something other than glib demonstrations of your ignorance and slavish devotion to a corporation that doesn't love you back, I think we're done here.
When they don't have the power? How?
Same way all honest politicians get their powers: by showing what they stand for before running for office and then staying true to that once they've been elected.
Even now, the dozen or so actual progressive Democrats in Congress could band together and be a check on the leadership rather than automatically going along with the lesser evil. If Manchin, Sinema and the Freedumb Caucus can use their positions to stand in the way of progress (or in the case of the latter, ensure even worse regression), progressives can wield theirs to stand in the way of stagnation regression.
How did that work out for Ralph Nader? Because that was what he did. He got a tiny percentage of the vote. You are making a lot of assumptions and you don't seem to be basing them on any evidence.
Guess what? Contrary to the convictions of Dem strategists, the year is 2023, NOT 1996. Millenials are the first generation not to become more conservative with age and gen Z are following that trend.
In 1996 where traditional mass media controlled the entirety of the political narrative, there was no way someone could win on the left, but guess what? They don't get to decide the news any more and partly because of that, almost every progressive policy position has 60%+ popular backing even as lesser evil neoliberals call it wishful thinking.
Anyways, we're done here. Neither of us are convincing the other of anything and I have better things to waste my time on than you and your locked in ways. Have the day you deserve.
Basically, as far as I can tell, your argument is that as long as there is an honest candidate running third party, all the people who are not voting now will vote and vote for this person, along with a lot of the people who would normally vote Democrat and/or Republican, giving them enough votes to beat both the Democratic and the Republican candidate and thus gain the presidency. And then they will change the voting laws, presumably somehow unilaterally, to ensure that people like this candidate will get voted into office, which is a 'future influences the past' thing I don't understand.
This is based on so many evidence-free assumptions that I agree, I can't argue with your faith. So I guess we are, in fact, done here.
As a progressive, let me say, you are delusional. Sanders proved three things:
You can legitimately champion free college, legal weed, free healthcare, and student loan forgiveness, and young people still won't go to the polls in overwhelming numbers. If they did, they'd easily decide the winner in every single election. And as someone who also falls into the young person category, there is no excuse that older folks don't also have to deal with.
If a silent majority of pro progressive non voters existed, it clearly pales in comparison to regular voters.
Or, this silent majority doesn't exist.
You're looking for a hail Mary where there is none. Either you work in a left of center coalition to make as much progress as you can against people who want children to starve, or you can continue to wait for an ideologically pure path to show itself.
...
Nice try, Representative Jeffries.
Damn it's almost like some progressives want to get things done instead of lying around bitching and letting Republicans win
ALL progressives want to get things done. It's liberals that start negotiations at "wholly inadequate", offer a shitload more concessions to Republicans and GOP lite obstructionists and then pretend that it's the natural and unchangeable state of things and anyone who disagrees wants the Republicans to win.
Then when elections come around, they pretend to want unity with the left while actually demanding obedience. They'll give tons of concessions to literal fascists, but none to the left wing of their own party, let alone anyone to the left of that.