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I agree with pretty much all of the substance of what you said. I agree, the democratic party, when feeling pressure in a presidential election, always move right instead of left. And that ends up often being the wrong choice. I think I'm just not sure we are reaching the same conclusions - if your post means you feel a non-Harris vote is rational, which maybe I am misunderstanding.
There are two issues if so.
First - and again, I don't even know if we disagree on this - is that voting for third party candidates and hoping to shoot the moon with democratic support flipping to, e.g., green (which I feel is a joke/spoiler party in this country, not even legitimate, but just for example) just does not work in a FPTP election. Maybe you can infiltrate the Democratic party, and by force or subterfuge wear its skin over your effectively-new-party candidate - which is exactly what Trump did with the GOP. But a separate left party is at such a disadvantage mathematically that it almost assures victory for the competing right-wing party for one more more elections (which is not an option right now). And then, if by some chance it succeeds, the same people who were "democrats" will fill into the new party, immediately diluting whatever novel left-wing power it had.
Second, is that even if it's illegitimately birthed, the right-wing propaganda alternate-reality pipeline is a hard anchor that makes left candidates legitimately fear that their blue-collar-friendly policies will be twisted by a Fox News into "communism" or never reach their blue-collar audience, leading to those voters to vote irrationally. For example, I have a different take on Biden, which is that Biden won precisely because he was able to backdoor in messaging about left policies while also appealing to the "moderate" right by being an old white guy who "reached across the aisle." He certainly never had the image of Bernie, a left populist. And the low-info "vibe" voters that likely made a difference wouldn't dig into policies to see if he was "left" enough anyway.
My take is it's the wrong target to look at left policy as an "open lane," or even the "long term" vision of losing a few elections to establish a third party (even without Trump, who changes the election to a referendum on democracy rather than policy). Looking at it that way is just arguing why it's valuable enough to bet it all at the roulette table. But the house always has an advantage - the game itself needs changing to an actual functional multi-party democracy.
We get there by pressuring and choosing primary candidates not on left policies, but singularly, laser-focused on ranked choice voting, elimination of the electoral college, and on creating a truth-in-news law that will leash right-wing propaganda. Pretty much no candidates are even talking about those items regularly, much less campaigning on it, which means we are choosing the wrong candidates to change anything.
Theres like, way to much to un-pack under all of this, so I'm just gonna hit the highs.
Yeah I don't think we agree on that. The whole spoiler mythology has been thoroughly debunked. Also, there is a strong strategic reason why the green party focuses on only the presidential race. Its a test of your knowledge of the American political process if you know what that is. Blaming 3rd parties for the political failings of a major parity is so utterly naive, it needs far more time/ space than we have here to address. Hillary's failures in 2016 were her own, just like Gores failure to go through the appropriate hurdles and demand a proper recount in Florida. Democrats failures are squarely to blame for two of the worst election outcomes we've ever had in this country. Blaming third parties when only 60% of the population votes is such a ridiculous notion, we can just write it off.
Ok, you need to separate out the concept of Left from Democrat. Conservative Democrats behave the way you just describe and struggle because they are chasing the same lanes as their republican opponents. But most of the successes on the Democratic side in the previous 20 years arent' in that lane. They are on the other side of the party in the actually left side of the left, that caucuses with the Democrats, but really didn't find their way into the party till 2016. The fact is that centrism/ moderate appeal is a demonstrated-to-fail strategy over the previous 6 election cycles. And frankley, the same is true for Republican. Neither party does well running to the center because there are no voters in the center. The electorate is, by and large, bimodal at this point. And the important point is that when you at least run, and signal and put on the fan fair thats required to drive out your base, you win (See Obama 08,12, Bernie 16, Biden 20 for examples of running to the left and winning, and see Kerry 04, Hillary 16 for counter examples).
Thats fine, but I dont really agree with the points you've made. And I'm also not even talking about necessarily forming a party. I'm not sure a third party is where the power is or is worth investing in. For example, I think Bernie had his greatest strength as an Independent. Its going to depend on how well the green's do this time around (again for that secret reason that I know that 99% of lemmings don't know about, because as much as they like to come down and spin their wheels, most lemmings really don't know fuck about shit about politics). I gave you some hints where to look for that reason.
I guess I'm confused by this response. So you do think that one should vote for a third-party candidate in this election? Or not?
I think the miscommunication is that you're looking for a game-theory explanation for the best way to vote given a desired outcome, and TDD (forgive the shorthand) is doing a higher-level analysis on large-scale electoral trends and demographics that explain a shortcoming in the democratic campaign strategy. Even working within the 2-party electoral system, democrats have been leaving a lot of voters on the table, and the only outreach they've been doing for those voters (who are getting more and more frustrated) has been to scare them/shame them into falling in line and swallowing their scruples.
The reason why it's dumb to paint Greens or other third-parties as 'spoilers' is because of this implicit assumption that those votes will trickle-down into one of the two major parties if they weren't there. TDD is pointing out that Greens (and RFK before he stepped out, and PSL, ect) are filling political voids that the democrats and republicans have left open by not addressing the concerns of those voters. Assuming those voters would simply make a different choice ignores the fact that there was something about whatever third-party candidate that was motivating them that isn't present in the 2-party candidate. That voter is about as likely to decide not to vote at all as they are to decide to give up their scruples and vote for the party that they were actively avoiding in the first place, especially when that candidate has refused to give those voters/those interests representation.
All of this analysis is on top of a foundational understanding/materialist lens that suggests that the US is heading toward economic/capitalistic collapse independent of whatever electoral showmanship is happening every 4 years. This game-theory bullshit is completely indifferent to the environment that is actively pushing voters away from the center and into more and more extreme populism.
This is a very insightful comment and helps me understand why TDD seems to be responding with intensity while not hitting the points I (at least think I) am making.
And there is an important proviso: I don't consider the "game theory explanation for the best way to vote given a desired outcome" to be "the point" so-to-speak of my comment, but just a premise. I do consider that "game theory" voting (a) results in a definite single rational course of action for this election for anyone who favors democracy or left-leaning policies. But I also, it (b) is not be the endgame and just a mitigation until we prioritize ranked choice voting and other structural reform.
This is fine if there was any indication that the underlying problem of fascism in the US is going to be addressed by the incoming administration, or if you believe it is addressed by voting against it. The problem is that many of us don't believe either to be the case, especially when the current campaign strategy has been to grant concessions to those nationalist solutions while turning away from socialist ones.
When neither of the most likely outcomes address the continued growth of fascism inside the US, the 'game theory' of electoral politics suddenly seems like a naieve indulgence more than any kind of solution, even a temporary one.