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John Fetterman says he'll 'never understand' progressives who refuse to support Joe Biden
(www.businessinsider.com)
this post was submitted on 13 Sep 2023
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politics
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I don't get it, either. Unless and until we have something like ranked choice voting, purity ponies that lodge "protest votes" only help the fascists. And these purity ponies seem to revel in creating more division within the left (and create more Republicans in the process), wanting to excommunicate each other over ivory tower orthodoxy, with the Oppression Olympics being one of the more egregious versions of that...
Even with ranked choice voting we will not support your war monger capitalist owned dinosaurs. A 3rd party vote is not the protest vote, voting against something like Democrats voting against Republicans is the protest vote. The act of voting for something like a 3rd party candidate is how democracy is supposed to work.
If you say so. What will result is putting more Republicans into office.
Then Democrats need better candidates and better policy
The time for that vote is in the primaries. THAT'S when you make your stand, have your protest, and try to move the party left. Otherwise you are ignoring someone that you agree with 50% of the time and helping someone you agree with 0% of the time.
Who's our primary choice against Biden? Remember when the DnC fucked Bernie?
The choice between a soft R vs a hard R is hardly a choice.
The DNC didn't "fuck over" Bernie. He lost. I voted for him in the primary, and would have loved to see him win the nomination. But he didn't, so I voted for the next best thing (and, you know, the non-fascist).
My understanding was that people are referring to his primary loss against Hillary when they blame the DNC for his loss. But, to be clear, you're talking about his primary loss to Biden?
That's some revisionist history. Some of us still remember Debbie Wasserman Schultz.
These responses were referring to the 2020 election. Wasserman Schultz hasn't been DNC chair since 2016.
Go look up why she turned in her resignation.
When since the 1960s, when primaries started being open to all, have they done this?
Biden "openly championed right wing ideas"? When, in the fucking 90s? And absolutely nothing happened in the years since.
Completely ignore that he's the most progressive president we've had since FDR. Or LBJ at the very least.
Would you be considered good at math? Im asking because the "math" that people have used to prove Sanders "won" is really flawed.
Biden polled better vs Trump and many stepped aside rather than risk a dictatorship in the USA.
As an aside your notion of "right wing" is either historically inaccurate or you are being inappropriately eurocentric in your views.
Move the party left? Unless you have the ability to own our own politicians, there is no 'move the party left'
This is exactly what I'm talking about. Keep putting more people in power that have zero interest in democracy and possibly plan to end it, and then...what?
That'll teach em!
Too bad they'll never have another chance when the GOP finally seizes power as they intend and finishes off what's left of our democracy.
But at least you made your point!
How many decades have we heard Democracy is on the line? Or Democracy is on the ballot? There is no democracy in the US, money has a say in our government and policy, the plebs do not. Youve been sold a bill of fear, and you paid full price for it
Yeah, there totally wasn't an attempt to overturn an election 2 years ago
Which is exactly why we need ranked choice voting because otherwise your not expressing your choices accurately. You should be allowed to vote for your candidate of choice and also pick your poison.
Don't fight against the one thing that will help third party candidates the most.
So much this...the Democratic Party is hardly perfect, and I don't think even most Democrats would claim they are. But, again, the alternative, with the way we vote right now, is....what? Sitting this one out, hoping this time we'll really show those corporate Democrats? Voting for the Greens, which is barely even a serious party in the United States, and probably is compromised anyway?
What is the realistic option, I wonder? Sure, propose alternatives during the primary, but in the general...
It's still a bit of a Catch-22 for people who take your view. You think people should vote for the major party candidate they find least bad, while hoping for ranked choice voting so people can instead vote for the candidate they want most.
But as long as everybody votes the way you do, the parties in power have no electoral incentive at all to change the voting system. It's only when they start losing a significant portion of their voters to third parties that ranked choice starts being an appealing option to them.
I say this as someone who voted Green in 2016 (Clinton state), learned my lesson, and voted for Biden in 2020 (Trump state) and will again in 2024. I've also been much happier with Biden's presidency than I expected to be.
I am a bit encouraged that ranked choice has seen some implementation lately anyways. Hopefully it'll continue to spread. Anyone know if any new states are considering it soon?
And most of the "vote Dem or your fascist" people think political action is about voting rather than being the bare minimum. Democrat PACs fund fascist Republican candidate's primary campaigns too so...
Yes, but those are the choices that it comes down to in the general, really. What do you propose people do?
Well it depends on your own politics and goals so I can only speak from my own perspective. It's a bleak time to be a socialist because we don't have any political representation in NA really. The route I see is more mimicking what civil rights leaders were doing in the 50s-60s which was organizing labor unions. We don't have a big cultural moment like they did though and the labor movement isn't what it used to be, partly because of bipartisan views against it, union busting and policies watering it down, and we're fragmented, there's no class consciousness in today's political dialogue. Huge demonstrations like the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom (where the famous "I have a dream" speech was delivered), or direct actions like the freedom rides, I don't think is really possible in today's cultural setting.
I think if you're just a regular working person you can begin by organizing and trying to unionize your workplace, but even that has risks. Maybe that just means finding coworkers who share your sentiments, but ultimately it's talking to people. I'm in a unionized workplace so what do I do next, I try and get involved and do what I can. I've also joined my workplace's DEI committee to input more solidarity and political economy-aware notions of what that means opposed to the default corporate diversity industry's ideas, I saw an opportunity there and it's been very well received by some key coworkers... So assuming you're doing what you can in your job setting, the one thing that will define your "success" in life, the embodiment of your relationship to capital and the economy. Next you can get involved politically. For me that has been things like canvassing for someone who was running for office who shared my political ideology and goals, for the most left wing party in my country. At one point a close friend ran for office so I got a glimpse of that world, and we were able to increase the party's share of the popular vote in that riding, a highly contested riding between the dominant 2 parties who spend millions of dollars there, so we all considered that a success for a third party candidate there.
I think meaningful political action is really about the context of your own life and what you're able to do. No matter what it is, it really comes down to unglamorous work and talking to people. Maybe that's collecting enough signatures for a motion against a proposed bylaw to be accepted by your municipality, canvassing your own representative by organizing people, volunteering for a candidate you agree with. It could be cultural too like supporting events and causes that your politics aligns with. I have a few direct actions I do personally on the environmental front which involve restoring habitats and bit of civil disobedience (not law-breaking). It's all work though, it's not about liking some social media post or saying "agree" under a post like this, that's all meaningless distraction. Anything done online is meaningless basically.
Most people don't do the bare minimum, so that's what we're screaming about. Gotta crawl before you can walk.
The conditions that allow someone like Trump to come to power are manifested by the neoliberal policies extolled by the Democrat and Republican establishment, alike. Your party leaders are Reaganites/Thatcherites. The biggest policy win for Democrats in recent history was a Heritage Foundation plan that acts as a de facto subsidy to private health insurance.
And most people do not live in swing states so most "protest votes" do nothing to tip the scales.
Liberalism isn't the left.
Create more leftists, actually.
It's the Democratic establishment that abhors populism and typically walks in ivory tower circles. Liberalism and neoliberalism are the dominant ideologies in the Ivy League schools, not socialism.
Ok tankie
Joe Biden is still objectively awful, no lack of alternatives is going to change that.