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Jill Stein has no chance of winning. She is a spoiler for Joe Biden and so voting for her is, for the purpose of counting the difference in votes between Trump and Biden, the same as not voting. We have a two party, first-past-the-post, political system where Republicans benefit from low voter turnout. So Trump benefits from anyone not voting for Biden.
A strawman is an argument that argues against a different, usually weaker, position rather than the other argument's actual position. However if the two positions are in fact equivalent, such as not voting and voting for third party spoiler candidates, then the argument is not a strawman.
100,000 people already voted uncommitted in the Michigan Democrat primary, with more in other Democrat primaries undoubtedly on the way. The point has been made and no new information will be gained from any third party voter turnout in November. There is no reason why the Democrats cannot change course on Palestine and Israel right now. This would be much more beneficial, to the Palestinians, than waiting through a Trump presidency to finally get help to them in 2028.
My argument is that letting Trump win is not only unacceptable, but is counterproductive to the progressive causes your argument claims will benefit from such a scenario. The Democrats will respond to low voter turnout from progressives by shifting to the right to capture more conservative voters. This is a refutation of you argument's central point.
There were nothing but solid replies to your comment. I implore you to reconsider.
The information gained would be we're refusing to vote for genocide supporters. Some people, like yourself will vote for someone in support of genocide as long as they're on the ticket as a Democrat.
If everyone behaves that way, the democratic party doesn't have to change. They can keep pushing moderate fiscal conservatives like Biden, over and over again, and Democrats will permanently retain power.
If they lose the general election by less than the third party vote, they know there are voters to the left that are voting that they could focus on capturing instead of catering to cultish fascists. Your entire original point was predicated on the idea that the Democrats would have to move right, but in a world where:
Republican: 46%
Democrat: 45%
Green: 8%
Other: 1%
There's a very clear strategy for future Democrats to move left to win the election. It's either purposeful ignorance or genuine stupidity to say the above is EXACTLY THE SAME as:
Republican: 55%
Democrat: 45%
This is why the idea of a "spoiler vote" is insanely dumb, especially when you're advocating for voting for an actual genocide supporter.
The Uncommitted Movement is effectively doing this in the primaries, hopefully without the downside of Biden losing in November. Trump winning would still be catastrophic for the Palestinians, even if there is an election 2028. Trump will green light Israel's genocide and millions of people will be killed or displaced in that region of the world alone. The Republican party will kill any hope of a Palestinian state happening, as they will undoubtedly support the settler movement. Biden has at least put sanctions on at least 30 Israeli settlers. There is at least of chance of Democrats working to stop the settlers and supporting a Palestinian state.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/mar/04/israel-settler-violence-sanctions
MAGA supporters are going to keep voting for Trump or an equivalent as long as that is an option. They are driving the Republican Party further right, by consistently voting that way. We could do the same with the Democratic Party to drive it to the left. We need to collectively do the work to support potential progressive candidates for future elections, but Biden is the most progressive option we have right now for this election who has any chance to win.
Exit polling data can break down the ideological differences between Democratic voters. The Democrats will be able to figure out what kind of voters voted for them, without needing progressives to vote third party.
I'm saying it's the same as:
Republican: 50%
Democrat: 48.91%
Other: 1.09%
Where progressives simply do not vote. Since in both cases Republicans win the presidency. The Democrats are only going to cater to people who vote for them in general elections. edit: capitalization
You have an extremely naive view of the world, thinking that exit polling signals the same thing that voting far left does. Constituents aren't the only interest group politicians listen to, we actually have hard data that for the purposes of at least law making they entirely ignore us, and we have very little influence even beyond that.
The miniscule amount of influence we do have is the ability to remove one party from power. Exit polls come absolutely no where near this in terms of influence. When other interest groups want to continue the Palestinian genocide, and you have exit polls signaling that Democrats are against this (as exit polls have suggested for the last 50 years) then Democrats happily ignore this, as they have been.
We're in a unique situation where the genocide is ramping up, and for some reason the American left has latched onto this issue (rightfully so, but still surprising). If we actually funnel this clearly into a signal that we will essentially sacrifice our wellbeing (e.g put Trump in power) just to draw the line that genocide support is unacceptable, we might actually see an anti-genocide Democrat for once.
Exit polls are entirely different. They're fine in a world where there is no institutionalized interest in perpetuating some harm, and the Democratic party is split on some issue, they can look to constituent preferences. But as Joe Biden said best, if Israel did not exist in the middle east, the U.S would have to invent an Israel to protect American interests abroad. Preferences will be ignored without consequences for those in power, and if you think otherwise, again, you're being naive.
Exit polling does signal the same thing. We have the technology to identify progressive voters who vote Democrat. This is a nonissue.
This is not relevant to the discussion for the purposes of voting. We need to get corporate and billionaire money out of politics. We have a better chance of doing that with Democrats than Republicans.
We also have the ability to put a party, the Republicans or Democrats, in power by voting for them. This has a much greater impact and influence than not voting.
We are not simply sacrificing our well being by allowing Trump to win but our lives. Trump has already promised to ethnically cleanse immigrants starting on day 1. He wants to round them up in camps and deport them. It seems unlikely to me that there will be no causalities from such an endeavor. The Supreme Court is going to hear a case that could determine if homeless people can be fined and/or arrested for being homeless. They may also find themselves in camps.
https://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/city-of-grants-pass-oregon-v-johnson/
Trans people are being erased from public life, which is a nice way of saying trans people will be homeless, which may soon be a nice way of saying trans people will be put in camps.
American fascists want the government to commit genocide here in the United States. They want to jail Democratic politicians. It's going to be harder to run a progressive candidate in 2028 if Trump wins in 2024 because progressive voters will be dead and/or in camps. Republicans are going to do everything in their power to entrench themselves in power, even if they do hold an election in 2028. Republicans are already trying to remove Democrats from the voter rolls, with little success, in order to disenfranchise Democratic voters now. Republicans will be much more successful if they are in power.
https://www.rawstory.com/trump-voter-rolls/
A two state solution is possible. There is no reason why a state of Palestine and a state of Israel cannot coexist. The current State of Israel will need to fundamentally change to no longer be an apartheid state. Also, Biden's views on Palestine and Israel are severely outdated and do not represent the rest of the Democratic Party. Biden seems to be shifting his stance on Palestine and Israel. Trump is doubling down.
If progressives vote for Democrats in 2024, Democrats will notice and move to the left to capture these voters in future elections. Biden may personally learn a lesson from a loss in 2024 but it is unlikely he will be able to act on it from a prison cell in 2028. The Democratic Party however will not learn the lesson. They will look at who voted in the election for the two parties that have a chance at winning and determine that the Overton window has again shifted to the right.
Exit polling does not signal the same thing, again you're just repeating your incredibly naive point. As you admit, money is in politics, and you hand wave away that fact even though it's a massive point.
With corporate interests in play, constituent preferences have had literally 0 impact on policy in Gaza. I'm not questioning the ability to gather the data, but you're conflating the ability to gather data with the want to listen to preferences. Again, naive. This isn't how the world works. Democrats don't just listen to their constituents, they actually rarely do.
I'm going to keep this comment short because you keep hand waving or ignoring 80% of my point with non sequiturs, so I'm going to take this way slower so you can hopefully keep up.
If progressives vote for another party, the additional message that the Democratic party hears is, we will never be able to win these people's votes. This is the same message they hear when progressives do not vote at all.
It has no bearing on this discussion. How much impact we have relative to corporations does not change the fact we have impact. Not to mention corporations wouldn't be trying to get rid of our impact if we didn't have any.
These are not substantive points nor, I would assume, a core part of your argument, so I did not spend significant time in my argument addressing them. However they were there, so I wrote a response in my argument.
Cynicism isn't an argument. Biden has delivered on numerous policies people want. The Build Back Better bill is one such achievement. However this sentiment in your argument flies in the face of the fact that policies are determined by what voters want. There is no doubt that corporations have an outside influence in our elections since Regan's presidency. That trend is directly responsible for the rise of fascism today. However, pretending we have little to no impact when we do is exactly what corporations want and it would be inherently self defeating to disempower ourselves for no reason.
This gets us back to the topic at hand, whether or not progressives would be better off allowing Trump to win. This is what we are discussing and what your argument in your last comment attempts to distract from. We are decidedly worse off in 2028 if we choose to silence ourselves now out of fear that Biden is an inadequate candidate for delivering a progressive agenda. By making ourselves heard, in a meaningful and impactful way, by voting Democrat, we are acting in the most optimal way to advance progressive causes.
In order to have more progressive candidates in 2028 we must drive the Democrat Party to the left. To drive the Democrat Party to the left, we must demonstrate that a substantive voter block exists on that end of the political spectrum. By not voting, Democrats will determine Biden was too progressive. They will respond with a more conservative candidate. This feedback loop will continue until Democrats win an election and believe they have reached the American Overton window.
As an example, after two terms of Regan and a term of Bush Senior, Bill Clinton and the Democrats decided to stop fighting Republicans on economic issues. They decided to embrace neoliberalism because they believed it was within the American Overton window. If we want to counteract this, the Democratic Party needs to see that there is a path to victory by courting progressive voters. In other words, if we want a more progressive Democratic candidate in 2028, we must vote for the most progressive Democratic candidate we have now in 2024. edit: typo
The message Democrats hear from someone who voted Democrat in 2020 and Green in 2024 is that that person will never vote Democrat?
Your position is becoming incoherent and exhausting. Stop arguing in bad faith. Your entire fucking comment is just endless shit like this, so I'm going to take it even slower and walk you through all this shit. Address the above paragraph, then we'll move on to the next point, and hopefully after we're through 3 or 4 of your nonsense points you'll reconsider your position without me handholding you through it.
If you want to help me, just say "yes I understand I was wrong on that point", then I can easily jump into the next point without addressing some new incoherent shit you throw at me.
If progressives refuse to vote for the most progressive president we have ever had then the Democratic Party will conclude that they will not be able to win progressive votes in future elections. They will shift to the right in an attempt to capture more conservative voters.
My argument has a consistent position. Trump winning in 2024 would be disastrous for progressive causes. My argument refuted your argument's central point. Now all that is left in your argument is ad hominem attacks. edit: typo
If people who voted Democrat in 2020 decide to vote for a candidate that is further left than the current fiscal conservative, pro-genocide Democrat, they will conclude that they have to become more progressive to win back the votes of the people who have literally demonstrated that they're willing to vote Democrat.
It's absolutely easier to get a person who voted Democrat to vote Democrat again than to get someone from the Trump cult who has been voting Republican for 40 years to defect.
The Green Party has no chance of winning. There is no difference between a vote for a third party and not voting for the purposes of counting votes between Biden and Trump. So, the Democrats will not see the difference between a progressive who voted for Biden in 2020 and then voted Green Party in 2024, and a progressive who voted for Biden in 2020 and then didn't vote in 2024. As far as the Democrats are concerned, both voters threw their vote away, because the votes didn't go to a candidate who had a chance at winning. As long a we have first-past-the-post voting, American elections will be a zero-sum game between Republicans and Democrats.
If progressives vote Green Party in November they will still be out numbered by moderates. The Democratic party is going to look at the larger group of moderate voters and the smaller group of progressive voters. They will decide it's not worth risking the larger group for a smaller group who may never vote for them no matter how progressive they are.
Not voting for the Democratic Party because they weren't progressive enough isn't a feedback loop the Democrats are going to want to engage with. The Democrats could be more progressive in 2028, but they still weren't progressive enough, so progressives still won't vote for them. Progressives didn't vote for the Democrats in 2024 and then the Democrats became more progressive in 2028, so why should progressives ever vote for Democrats? It's an optimal stopping problem of when to stop not voting for Democrats. The loop has no optimal stopping point because progressives keep getting rewarded by not voting for the Democratic Party so the optimal strategy for progressives would be to never vote Democrat forever.
The Democratic Party doesn't want to be a progressive party or a conservative party, it wants to be the party that wins by representing the largest group of voters possible. If progressives want the Democratic party to be a progressive party, then progressives have to vote for them in the general election. That will prove there is a block of progressive voters that the Democrats can cater to if they move to the left.
https://news.gallup.com/poll/388988/political-ideology-steady-conservatives-moderates-tie.aspx
Interestingly, the Democratic Party specifically has about a fifty-fifty split between moderates and liberals. It's not clear what percentage of liberals would consider themselves progressives. But based on how the word liberal is throw around here on Lemmy among progressives it would seem to indicate that being a progressive and identifying as a liberal is not a 1:1 match.
https://www.vanderbilt.edu/unity/2023/04/07/first-ever-vanderbilt-unity-poll-reveals-52-of-maga-republicans-believe-vladimir-putin-is-a-better-president-than-joe-biden/
This number could definitely have gone up a bit, since last year. I would assume it has yet to reach a majority of conservatives identifying as MAGAites.
People throwing their votes away to third parties isn't how political parties judge where to move on the political spectrum. The Republican Party looks at the MAGA voting block, that do no make up a majority of conservatives but keeps voting for Trump, and they move further into fascism in response. This is true whether Trumps wins or loses, by the way. Trump lost in 2020, but Mitch McConnell endorsed Trump this year because Mitch is a coward and the MAGA voters keeping voting for Trump.
This should be true for Biden as well. Even if Biden loses, but their is a high voter turnout among progressives for Biden, Democrats should see that a core part of their voter base is progressives. The Democrats should want to cater to progressives in that case, where progressive voter turnout is high for Democrats. Are the Democrats bad at communicating this? They sure are, because back in 2016 and now in 2024 people are accusing the Democrats of thinking their entitled to votes. If MAGA voters can drag the Republican party to the right despite being not being a majority of the Republican voter base, then progressive voters can drag Democrats to the left despite not being a majority of the Democratic voter base.
The difference between someone who doesn't vote and someone who voted Democrat in 2020 and Green in 2024 is you know two facts about the latter person that you don't know about the former:
they are willing to vote Democrat in some circumstances
they prefer far left policies
You can play dumb all you want and pretend these facts aren't true, but that doesn't change the reality of the situation, no matter how many words you write to overcomplicate the issue.
It tells the Democratic Party that the voter voted for Democrats in the past. They get the same information from someone who voted for Democrats in 2020 and then did not vote in 2024.
It's not just far left policies, it's further left than the Democrats are currently offering. And more to the point, it's different policies than what the Democrats are currently offering. That's true of any vote for any third party or nonvoting. It's not useful information to the Democrats, because the Democrats want to chase mainstream voters and people who vote for them. They have no interest in being a fringe party for fringe voters who they have to chase by surrendering a larger block of voters that they need to win. If progressives want to be catered to by the Democratic Party, a typical mainstream political party, they need to vote for them. That's what typical mainstream political party's do. They choose policies based on their constituents views.
There is a lot more to write on this issue than a few words. However, comments are deceptive in their length on the screen. My last comment takes a little over three minutes to read out loud, based on what I timed with my computer. Given this topic, I think that's a fair length to read. But, I don't exactly cover a lot of ground, although I do attempt to tie my argument in my last comment to my central point. I take the time to elaborate on my position, not to over complicate the issue, but to provide clarity on what I mean. I've attempted to address what I think are natural counter arguments based on our discussion.
For example, the implication that your argument keeps trying to raise is that, by progressives voting green, Democrats would see there are progressive voters, who are move progressive than the Democratic Party is currently. The idea being that Democrats could then choose to move to the left to capture those votes. This reasoning is flawed and this becomes apparent when we continue to look ahead at future elections. My argument in my previous comment covers this so I'm going to repost it here.
In short, if progressives are rewarded with a more progressive Democratic Party later by not voting for Democrats now, progressives should never vote for Democrats in order to keep driving the Democratic Party to the left. The Democrats are not incentivized to engage with this feedback loop because they never get any votes from progressives. So, if progressives want the Democratic Party to be more progressive, they need to vote for Democrats. The Democrats will see progressives voted for them and adjust their policies accordingly. This will undoubtedly attract more progressive voters, which is a feedback loop that both progressive voters and the Democratic Party benefits from. Since this feedback loop creates the proper incentives it is what the Democratic Party will engage with.
The feedback loop spoiler idea only works if there are literally no material goals, only an idealist goal to move towards progressivism. This isn't how reality works.
Not supporting genocide is a large material goal, and the Israel/Palestine conflict wasn't at the worst it's ever been in 2020, but it is in 2024. The material goals changed. In 2020 the biggest issue I was aware of was stopping fascism in America. Now that doesn't even come close to stopping the ramped up genocide, that happened as a direct result of the endorsement of Israel by the Biden administration.
I would vote for a Democratic candidate that wants to end the genocide. Sure, they can still be a corporate boot-licking liberal. Biden was in 2020 and I still voted for him because the material outcome I wanted was satisfied.
It is not satisfied in 2024. The Palestinian genocide is far more important now, as it's happening literally faster than any time in history. You claim that leftists have some idealist goal to just move Democrats to the left, so a refusal to engage with these leftists is the only option Democrats have, but this ignores a massive difference between socialists and fascists, socialists are materialists and fascists are idealists.
It's a disingenuous portrayal of how leftists actually think. I suspect you're conflating socialist thought with fascist thought either because you're a liberal or because you're unfamiliar with socialist theory. Either way, it's worth getting more educated, the extreme left does not function the same way the extreme right does, and you seem to think it does.
A shift to the left for the Democratic Party means adopting progressive policies, ie material goals. It is not about an idealist movement to progressivism.
Moving away from supporting Israel is a policy which would go against seventy years of US policy for either Republicans or Democrats. Biden's initial response was inline with standing US policy. So for starters, the fact Biden has moved as far to the left on this issue as he has in response to the Uncommitted Movement is phenomenal. I think we still have further to go, but it's a good sign so far.
No, like any voting block progressives want Democrats to enact progressive policies, which would be a shift to the left. Opposing Israel's genocide would be one such policy. My point is that Democrats will respond to progressives voting for them by shifting to the left. They will not shift to the left or in any direction on the political spectrum because of third party voter turn out, as they are not incentivized to do so.
Socialism and fascism are not constrained by concepts like materialism and idealism. Both socialism and fascism hold ideals about what they envision for society. These ideals vary wildly between those two groups and I would argue that a fascist's idea of an ideal is nightmarish to say the least. A socialist ideal would be equality. In the workplace sure, but in general as well. A fascist ideal would be harkening to an imagined past or believing in a pretend purity of a bloodline or a system of nonsensical skull measurements. Both socialism and fascism have materialistic goals as well. Socialists would like to see corporations owned collectively by workers as opposed to share holders or a single individual. Fascists want to see workers of minority groups discriminated against and ousted from the workforce by employers, forced to live on the street by landlords, and then sent to die in death camps for homeless people by the federal government.
I recommend Ken Rudin's Political Junky.
https://www.krpoliticaljunkie.com/
Also, Vaush.
https://www.youtube.com/@Vaush
Recommendations aside, I would say in terms of how typical mainstream political parties work, the strategy for all voting blocks is the same. If a voting block wants to drive a typical mainstream political party in their direction on the political spectrum all they need to do is vote for that party. The political party will see that the voting block is voting for them and enact policies that reflect the voting block's political ideology.
Exactly like you said, it's not about an idealist movement towards progressivism, that's exactly why the feedback loop isn't an issue. When certain material goals are met, progressives are satisfied. It's not an endless pit of progressive ideals, it's about actual changes we want to see in Democrat policy. Once those changes are made, we vote Democrat to reinforce good behavior.
A shift to the left means adopting progressive policies. There is more than one progressive policy. As Democrats shift to the left they will adopt some progressive policies. It would take multiple elections for the Democratic Party, currently a center right party, to move to even center left on the political spectrum, let alone left on the political spectrum. Although there are a finite number of progressive policies, it would still take multiple elections for the Democrats to adopt them all.
Democrats will not respond to a feedback loop that involves progressives not voting for them now, to get a more progressive Democratic Party later. Especially when this loop would take multiple elections to adopt all progressive policies. Democrats want to win elections. The Democratic Party is not going to spend even one election cycle, let alone multiple elections cycles, chasing progressive voters who didn't vote blue because those progressive voters didn't get everything they wanted.
The Democratic Party caters to mainstream voters and people who vote for them. Since progressives aren't the former they are going to want to be the latter. Progressives repeatedly turning out for the Democratic Party will cause them to shift to the left, ie adopt progressive policies.
Democrats won't respond to a bunch of uncommitted voters beyond just lip service. The genocide will continue, fiscal conservative austerity politics will continue. The best we'll get is a return to the world of 2015. That's the absolute best case with another Biden term, and even that is unlikely.
I know the genocide isn't a big deal for you or other moderate libs, and you're more concerned with getting America back to its status quo than doing anything that might actually help Palestinians in the future.
The Democratic party caters to power. They want to stay in power. If enough people vote green who previously voted Democrat, they know there's something that moved them that way, and they'll know that some of those voters can be recaptured. You have an incredibly naive and rosey view of bourgoise democracy.
It's not easier to pull a Trump cultist who has been voting Republican for 40 years, over a person who voted Democrat in 2020 and Green in 2024. It's quite easy to reason out, and even if you don't understand this simple fact, Democrats in 2028 will at least, because it's essentially their full time job to maintain power.