This guy was screaming and yelling about how Trump was a fascist, and if you didn’t vote democrat then that was equivalent to doing nothing in the face of fascism, or worse.
Not saying there aren’t elements of fash in trumps admin, there obviously are; or that abstaining to vote was the correct strategy, I don’t believe it was, though uncommitteds and 3rd party voters shouldn’t be shamed for following their conscience
Just want to point out where these arguments actually originate, and where exactly they have lead. Maybe there is more to politics than handwringing and rending of garments about impending fascism – maybe politics is something you do and not something you think or, god forbid, repeat uncritically.
This guy was screaming and yelling about how Trump was a fascist, and if you didn’t vote democrat then that was equivalent to doing nothing in the face of fascism, or worse.
Yeah, and he was correct. As we are literally witnessing in real time.
Whatever stupid bullshit the man said before or since isn’t relevant to the validity of that statement. I don’t care if Ted fucking Bundy said it, it would still be true.
That’s not how logic works. You don’t get to just completely ignore a premise because you don’t like a person who might have said it once.
That’s not the logic behind my statements, however logic has a beginning, middle and an end. It leads somewhere. Just letting you all know where a version of this logic leads, and it is the logic of the mainstream dems. I’m not able to articulate the whole case, but I can point to a case study.
You don’t have a monopoly on logic. In fact I guarantee you that I have studied more formal logic than most. The dems abandoned us years ago. I can’t say your logic is incorrect as you also haven’t described yours. You may be horrified to learn that we mostly agree, most likely.
But this goon represents exactly what is wrong with the dems: career political operators whose personal wealth is directly connected to their ability to run elections, and who have no incentive to win. In fact I could almost guarantee that your logic, or the logic of most regular working people, would be more sound than his. The incentives for dems are broken, the party is broken, time to move on and form a workers party. It’s time for a new logic that abandons these sickos who aren’t even that different from the republicans they pretend to oppose.
This guy was screaming and yelling about how Trump was a fascist, and if you didn’t vote democrat then that was equivalent to doing nothing in the face of fascism, or worse.
The headline names two guys. Which are you talking about.
Not saying there aren’t elements of fash in trumps admin, there obviously are
“elememts of” is massively underselling it.
or that abstaining to vote was the correct strategy, I don’t believe it was, though uncommitteds and 3rd party voters shouldn’t be shamed for following their conscience
The exasperation comes from the fact that from a historical and mathematical perspective, voting for the Democratic nominee in the general is the only way to not have a Republican win the race. And in spite of that reality slapping us in the face over and over again the 3rd party voters and non-voters won’t budge. They could stop the rightward slide of the Democratic party by just showing up en masse in the primaries.
If you convince people the only thing they can do to oppose fascism is vote every 4 years, a position that is historically and objectively false – fascists don’t care about democracy – then dont act shocked when their mobilization is underwhelming.
Democratic party leaders were instructing volunteers to remove anyone from their lists who mentioned the Palestinian Genocide. They were intentionally not mobilizing the exact people you want to just mobilize.
Also, have you ever tried to mobilize a group to do political action? It ain’t easy, even when you aren’t tying your own hands behind your back
I’m not trying to undersell the threat of fascism, what is coming is scary and many people are already being harmed by these disgusting policies. But the most important thing I hope to stress is that it doesn’t matter what you call it, it matters what you do to fight it.
That was my assumption but the ambiguous wording combined with the headline implying the article being about Sanders left me unsure. Thanks for clarifying.
If you convince people the only thing they can do to oppose fascism is vote every 4 years, a position that is historically and objectively false – fascists don’t care about democracy – then dont act shocked when their mobilization is underwhelming.
I didn’t say that voting every 4 years was the only thing they could do though. I said “they could stop the rightward slide of the Democratic party by just showing up en masse in the primaries.”
Democratic party leaders were instructing volunteers to remove anyone from their lists who mentioned the Palestinian Genocide. They were intentionally not mobilizing the exact people you want to just mobilize.
Also, have you ever tried to mobilize a group to do political action? It ain’t easy, even when you aren’t tying your own hands behind your back
See this is what I’m saying. The voters in question are waiting for the Democratic party to put a better candidate forward before they will vote for a Democratic nominee. But when there are enough of these voting-eligible people to split the vote and give the Republicans the win, then surely there’s enough of them to put a better candidate on the ballot without the party doing it for them.
I’ve posted in previous threads with sources … over 99% of the legislative offices around the country (state legislatures and US Congress) are held by either a Democratic or Republican nominee. And we are one presidential election away from it being 60 years since a 3rd party candidate received a single electoral vote. Ross Perot received just shy of 19% of the national popular vote in 1992 and received zero electoral votes. I’m not saying the Democratic party deserves every non-Republican vote, but the winner of over 99% of every race at the state and federal level will be won by either the Democratic nominee or the Republican nominee. Punishing the Democratic party in the general hasn’t done anything to move the party left, and we saw Bernie’s campaign in 2016 see the DNC adopt many of his campaign planks, and that led to more progressives running in and winning primaries. We see how well the threat of well financed primary campaign makes incumbents support an agenda. So clearly the primaries are where we should be applying pressure on the Democratic party.
Thanks for your input. I believe the Uncommitted movement was originally a movement to pressure Dems in the primaries, and I think that the result of that movement was that they couldn’t be moved left, at least not on the issue of Israel who is carrying out a genocide. So there were a lot of people who made the same political calculation as you did. This time, it didn’t seem to work. I am opposed to the idea that the mainstream of the dems even can be moved left, but I know a lot of people who hold out hope, and are showing up to try and make that happen.
There’s probably a lot that can be accomplished locally, to a certain extent. And while I remain skeptical I’m not going to like brow beat or sabotage someone who disagrees with me (unlike the democrats.) But to me, the dems represent the same class interests as the republicans, just maybe a different faction of that class. But I agree that we live in a real world with real existing social forces, and if we want to change things then we have to deal with the world as it is, not as we want it to be. The actual left doesn’t have the resources to deny reality like the republicans, and many democrats; we have to deal in hard and fast truths.
So I guess my strategy is to organize who I can on the far left, while others (like you maybe) organize on the center- left, and when things get bad enough that the mainstream of the democrats can no longer abide any positions to the left of Chuck Schumer, then you and I can come together to create that third party I hope for.
We call this the “dirty break” strategy, where we prepare for a split from the dems but in the mean time work within the existing framework to fight against the worst abuses of maga and the billionaire class, while trying to achieve progressive gains for workers
This comment was downvoted more than upvoted, but it hits the nail on the head. In fact, the final argument about politics needing to be done is exactly counter to the thing Bernie objects to: playing dead or doing nothing. How do people fail to get this point?
Wake up, dems. Your party has abandoned you. All signs from inside point at centrality and forcing out the Left.
You’d think I was trolling for how many down votes I got. It just goes to show that in the times we live, nothing is more controversial than the truth.
Also people get so upset when you tell them that politics is practical and not ideological. The bourgeois liberal mind can’t comprehend
This guy was screaming and yelling about how Trump was a fascist, and if you didn’t vote democrat then that was equivalent to doing nothing in the face of fascism, or worse.
Not saying there aren’t elements of fash in trumps admin, there obviously are; or that abstaining to vote was the correct strategy, I don’t believe it was, though uncommitteds and 3rd party voters shouldn’t be shamed for following their conscience
Just want to point out where these arguments actually originate, and where exactly they have lead. Maybe there is more to politics than handwringing and rending of garments about impending fascism – maybe politics is something you do and not something you think or, god forbid, repeat uncritically.
Yeah, and he was correct. As we are literally witnessing in real time.
Whatever stupid bullshit the man said before or since isn’t relevant to the validity of that statement. I don’t care if Ted fucking Bundy said it, it would still be true.
That’s not how logic works. You don’t get to just completely ignore a premise because you don’t like a person who might have said it once.
That’s not the logic behind my statements, however logic has a beginning, middle and an end. It leads somewhere. Just letting you all know where a version of this logic leads, and it is the logic of the mainstream dems. I’m not able to articulate the whole case, but I can point to a case study.
You don’t have a monopoly on logic. In fact I guarantee you that I have studied more formal logic than most. The dems abandoned us years ago. I can’t say your logic is incorrect as you also haven’t described yours. You may be horrified to learn that we mostly agree, most likely.
But this goon represents exactly what is wrong with the dems: career political operators whose personal wealth is directly connected to their ability to run elections, and who have no incentive to win. In fact I could almost guarantee that your logic, or the logic of most regular working people, would be more sound than his. The incentives for dems are broken, the party is broken, time to move on and form a workers party. It’s time for a new logic that abandons these sickos who aren’t even that different from the republicans they pretend to oppose.
The headline names two guys. Which are you talking about.
“elememts of” is massively underselling it.
The exasperation comes from the fact that from a historical and mathematical perspective, voting for the Democratic nominee in the general is the only way to not have a Republican win the race. And in spite of that reality slapping us in the face over and over again the 3rd party voters and non-voters won’t budge. They could stop the rightward slide of the Democratic party by just showing up en masse in the primaries.
I was talking about James Carville
If you convince people the only thing they can do to oppose fascism is vote every 4 years, a position that is historically and objectively false – fascists don’t care about democracy – then dont act shocked when their mobilization is underwhelming.
Democratic party leaders were instructing volunteers to remove anyone from their lists who mentioned the Palestinian Genocide. They were intentionally not mobilizing the exact people you want to just mobilize.
Also, have you ever tried to mobilize a group to do political action? It ain’t easy, even when you aren’t tying your own hands behind your back
I’m not trying to undersell the threat of fascism, what is coming is scary and many people are already being harmed by these disgusting policies. But the most important thing I hope to stress is that it doesn’t matter what you call it, it matters what you do to fight it.
That was my assumption but the ambiguous wording combined with the headline implying the article being about Sanders left me unsure. Thanks for clarifying.
I didn’t say that voting every 4 years was the only thing they could do though. I said “they could stop the rightward slide of the Democratic party by just showing up en masse in the primaries.”
See this is what I’m saying. The voters in question are waiting for the Democratic party to put a better candidate forward before they will vote for a Democratic nominee. But when there are enough of these voting-eligible people to split the vote and give the Republicans the win, then surely there’s enough of them to put a better candidate on the ballot without the party doing it for them.
I’ve posted in previous threads with sources … over 99% of the legislative offices around the country (state legislatures and US Congress) are held by either a Democratic or Republican nominee. And we are one presidential election away from it being 60 years since a 3rd party candidate received a single electoral vote. Ross Perot received just shy of 19% of the national popular vote in 1992 and received zero electoral votes. I’m not saying the Democratic party deserves every non-Republican vote, but the winner of over 99% of every race at the state and federal level will be won by either the Democratic nominee or the Republican nominee. Punishing the Democratic party in the general hasn’t done anything to move the party left, and we saw Bernie’s campaign in 2016 see the DNC adopt many of his campaign planks, and that led to more progressives running in and winning primaries. We see how well the threat of well financed primary campaign makes incumbents support an agenda. So clearly the primaries are where we should be applying pressure on the Democratic party.
Thanks for your input. I believe the Uncommitted movement was originally a movement to pressure Dems in the primaries, and I think that the result of that movement was that they couldn’t be moved left, at least not on the issue of Israel who is carrying out a genocide. So there were a lot of people who made the same political calculation as you did. This time, it didn’t seem to work. I am opposed to the idea that the mainstream of the dems even can be moved left, but I know a lot of people who hold out hope, and are showing up to try and make that happen.
There’s probably a lot that can be accomplished locally, to a certain extent. And while I remain skeptical I’m not going to like brow beat or sabotage someone who disagrees with me (unlike the democrats.) But to me, the dems represent the same class interests as the republicans, just maybe a different faction of that class. But I agree that we live in a real world with real existing social forces, and if we want to change things then we have to deal with the world as it is, not as we want it to be. The actual left doesn’t have the resources to deny reality like the republicans, and many democrats; we have to deal in hard and fast truths.
So I guess my strategy is to organize who I can on the far left, while others (like you maybe) organize on the center- left, and when things get bad enough that the mainstream of the democrats can no longer abide any positions to the left of Chuck Schumer, then you and I can come together to create that third party I hope for.
We call this the “dirty break” strategy, where we prepare for a split from the dems but in the mean time work within the existing framework to fight against the worst abuses of maga and the billionaire class, while trying to achieve progressive gains for workers
This comment was downvoted more than upvoted, but it hits the nail on the head. In fact, the final argument about politics needing to be done is exactly counter to the thing Bernie objects to: playing dead or doing nothing. How do people fail to get this point?
Wake up, dems. Your party has abandoned you. All signs from inside point at centrality and forcing out the Left.
You’d think I was trolling for how many down votes I got. It just goes to show that in the times we live, nothing is more controversial than the truth.
Also people get so upset when you tell them that politics is practical and not ideological. The bourgeois liberal mind can’t comprehend