Do we have to talk about how we move the Overton Window?
The Democrats can’t do everything wanted when there’s still a very real chance of losing the election. It’s really that simple. If you want to move the Overton Window, you have to keep voting for the closest thing you want. When the Republicans know they can’t win on their views, they will be forced to change. And congrats you have moved the Overton Window.
(yes yes I know the quote they won’t abandon their views, they will abandon democracy, but as for now they still have a real chance of winning.)
If we need more convincing, why are we having stupid movements to disband the EPA? Because the republicans won elections. They moved the Overton window by winning elections.
this. how to vote yellow, but deluding yourself blue is unacceptable and not voting and getting red while you say "its not my fault, i wanted yellow" and live through the consequences.
It’d help if young voters could be assed to show up even at their own share of the national population during primaries, nevermind at the dominating share they could easily capture if they spent any of the effort they dedicate to feel good marches and poster distributing to spending a couple hours at most to cast a primary ballot.
Especially in states that have gone in the direction of expanding ease of voting in the last few years, changing the party means changing the leadership of the party bit by bit, and that’s done by voting for new leaders!
We're just going to completely ignore Bill and Hillary's third way new Democrat movement, which actively pushed Republicans into being more radical I take it? The movement that actually allowed the current crop of neo fascist echoes to flourish?
The entire problem is this lack of ideology that directly ensures electoral losses.
Or rather I think you’re right about Bill and Hillary Clinton, but the cause and effect works the opposite of how you said.
In 1992 the democrats had won one presidential election in 24 years.
I think the violent betrayal of the antiwar left by the DNC in 1968 just turned too many politically active people away from the Democratic Party. Anyone who really cared probably had been gassed or beaten, or knew someone who had, in Chicago in 1968, and so decided - pretty understandably - fuck this game, I’m not playing.
And so what happened? Did we get the yellow line? Did the DNC suddenly realize, as OP swears he wants them to, that to attract votes they’d have to move to the left?
Fuck no. Instead we got Wall Street, the resurgence of wealth inequality as a defining characteristic of the American economy, death squads in Central America, Star Wars. Finally, a generation of continuous losing later, Clinton decided he could safely abandon the actual left since they weren’t interested in voting anyway, and just appeal to conservative-but-not-Nazi rich white people, and the new face of the Democratic Party was born. And, it worked.
And for one instant partway through that whole thing, an actually liberal Democratic candidate won, did some affirmatively great things, got a whole bunch of resistance from the right and not much support from the left, and then got beat out of a 2nd term because of lukewarm support from an American left wing that was too jaded to really realize that he wasn’t the same people who had cheated them out of actual progress in a recent primary they were still salty about. And so, when he lost, an idiot with fascist tendencies and no real government experience won, and ruined the fuckin world.
So no I don’t think the lesson of Clinton is “this lack of ideology.” I think the lesson of Clinton is, if you want the government to represent you, you need to work (in whatever way) to make sure it does, otherwise the most powerful military and economic power in the world will just be up for grabs for whoever feels like fighting hard enough to grab the wheel. And when that happens it’ll fuck up your day and many other people’s way way worse than what you were saying wasn’t worth voting for.
You vote for the yellow by not letting red think they have a chance of winning, making room for a candidate better than blue in the future elections. Democracy is an ongoing effort, not a magic thing that happens on election day.
Then you’re not doing enough political activism to make people confident that their vote matters, and that a vote for blue is the only effective way to vote for Ranked Choice voting, which is in turn the only way of giving anyone other than red or blue a real chance in the future.
Or… And hear me out here: Biden, the president of the United States, is more responsible than I am for his chances in the general election. I know that’s a hot take for some of you.
She’s still salty that she lost. Meanwhile Bernie, cheated by her and her squad of idiots, is still in Congress so in his actual job. What’s Hilary doing these days? Shilling?
I guess staying quiet enough so less people talk about her and her husband’s connections to the sex trafficker who didn’t kill himself, while still trying to keep relevancy in the political space.
Hillary didnt lose because she wasnt far enough left. She lost because she’s unlikeable, couldnt generate enthusiasm like Obama could and because not enough people understood the danger Trump posed. The polls had her at around a 90% chance of winning and a lot of people didnt vote because “why bother? We have it in the bag anyway and I dont like her.” Bernie’s problem OTOH is that even if he got it, which was exceedingly unlikely DNC meddling or not, congress would have to be left enough not to completely derail and water down most of the things he wanted to do. Which there was a zero percent chance of. He’s not a dictator. He has to actually work with like minded congress critters to get most things done.
First, a true principle and anything built on true principles are timeless. If pepperoni pizza is the Truth then quite frankly we should be eating it for the rest of our life.
Second, the founding fathers never said this. They created the Constitution as a living document. Also, almost every major problem in this country can be traced back to deviation from what the constitution set forth. “Congress shall issue money.” J/k we’re gonna have a private, un-auditable Federal Reserve print money out of thin air and loan it at interest.
So long as both sides suck capitalism’s cock, that’s what you get. Plus most of the 300+ million are too tired, dumb, or blinded to care about anything other than meaningless talking points. So we are left to vote for an imperfect candidate that is less likely to make the hellscape worse. The stakes are high, but i can see why fatalism just sets in and people say “fuck it.”
The only way to maintain relevance and funding as a major political party is to court people with all of the money, so both major parties represent the small minority that makes up the wealthy and ultra-wealthy.
Leftist ideas are popular but we cannot vote for them because both major parties stand for different variations of Capitalism.
Welcome to two-party America. You get to choose between a malicious tyrant, an apparently less malicious tyrant, or waste your vote. Those are your options. Choose carefully, you’re stuck with them for four years!
The first election I voted in was a vote for the ‘lesser evil’. It’s been that way since. Maybe we could try, idk, a non-evil candidate? The evil has somehow grown steadily every time we’ve elected a ‘lesser evil’. Maybe there is something better we could do than legitimize evil. I’m not saying not vote, but clearly we need a rework of this whole thing.
Need to get to get the money out of politics. Theres so much corruption finding the starting point is dounting but I think a good start is heavy participation in getting rid of our worst senators and maybe making a real chance at undoing the damage of all the legalized bribery. Then maybe, just maybe, we can start to make real change happen.
And probably 8 years. Also have to decide which party you’d rather have in office at the end of those 8 years, since we seem to switch back and forth between presidents.
3rd option, use excellent conversation and discussion skills to convince Americans the severity of this problem. This will scare the politicians and they will start getting serious about climate change.
But if that doesn’t work out, vote for Biden cuz he’s closer to the Target. This will result in less casualties to climate change for the time being.
If Repubs would quit voting for white supremacist totalitarianism I would be able to quit voting for white supremacist corporatism and vote instead for someone who is actually progressive. Or if we had score voting or something sane. Unfortunately the only rational option is to vote against the totalitarianism.
Remember when they tried to put Jill Stein in prison just for showing up to speak about her campaign in 2016? Oh, what was she wanting to discuss? Ah, mostly the environment and how we need to make some changes to protect it.
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