The “if Trump wins” folks are angry at the implication that their vote is tacit support of genocide, but are fine with the implication that not voting for Biden is tacit support for Trump
give Biden and neoliberals hell; make them believe they’re gonna lose all the way to voting day
I agree with this, but people really need to stop qualifying every critique with their intent to vote for him anyway. Biden has already been saying he doesn’t believe his polling numbers are real (why liberals aren’t panicking about that indifference is beyond me), we really can’t be sending mixed signals here.
He risks losing if he doesn’t change course, full stop. He needs to know that risk is real.
“If Nixon wins again, we’re in real trouble.” He picked up his drink, then saw it was empty and put it down again. “That’s the real issue this time,” he said. “Beating Nixon. It’s hard to even guess how much damage those bastards will do if they get in for another four years.”
I nodded. The argument was familiar. I had even made it myself, here and there, but I was beginning to sense something very depressing about it. How many more of these goddamn elections are we going to have to write off as lame but “regrettably necessary” holding actions? And how many more of these stinking, double-downer sideshows will we have to go through before we can get ourselves straight enough to put together some kind of national election that will give me and the at least 20 million people I tend to agree with a chance to vote for something, instead of always being faced with that old familiar choice between the lesser of two evils?
– Hunter Thompson, Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72
Lol, I mean I get why you feel this moment is unique, but i’m looking through NYT articles from 1972 and if you take out the dated references you could almost mistake them for articles written in 2024:
To the Editor: When a Democrat for Nixon says “I’ll vote holding my nose, but McGovern is not a big enough man to be President,” or “I don’t like him, but there is no viable alternative,” or an uncommitted Democrat says “McGovern doesn’t turn me on,” such remarks are liberalese for “I’m doing alright the way things are, and can’t take a risk of any change in the status quo.” - NYT Letter to the Editor 10/19/72
"Lawrence F. O’Brien, the na tional campaign chairman for the McGovern‐Shriver ticket, accused the Nixon Administra tion yesterday of sanctioning tactics of “political espionage” that bordered on those of “a fascist state.” - NYT O’Brien Charges ‘Political Espionage’" - 10/14/72
"Deceit, deceit, everywhere deceit—but especially on the political and cultural left, says Arnold Beichman, and most out rageously in the writings of the youth lovers (Marcuse, Slater, Sontag, Roszak, Reich and the rest). They say “America is al ready a fascist country or is on the road to fascism,” that the country “is guilty of genocide,” that “the Bomber Left … is a moral force” They claim the white “American worker … is a retrograde, decadent, self ish creature: a honky,” that “our political system is an ut ter fraud, particularly the two‐ party system,” that “American values are wholly materialistic,” that “America is insane,” and that our primary need is for “a violent revolution.” " - NYT, “Nine Lies About America”, 10/8/72
I’m having a great time reading through these actually, it’s interesting reading the op-eds from back then.
The Biden administration has told key lawmakers it is sending a new package of more than $1 billion in arms and ammunition to Israel, three congressional aides said Tuesday....
It’s extremely frustrating hearing this repeated so often here.
It’s fine if this is the colloquial definition you’re used to hearing and using, but this is certainly not the way it’s used outside of American politics and pretending like it’s the only use comes off as both ill-informed and condescending.
When used derisively from the left, rest assured it is not referring to either of your adopted generalizations but a very specific ideology.
Like I said, it’s fine assuming your own definition if that’s the one most familiar to you, but that doesn’t mean you have to stubbornly double down on semantics when confronted with a competing definition. When used derisively from the left it is almost certainly being used in the original sense of the word as per John Locke
It isn’t just about it meaning something else when ‘going to another country’. ‘Liberal’ has an actual definition with a history.
I’m honestly kind of confused about american liberals digging their heals in on this definition when it has historically been taken to mean something they don’t seem to agree with anymore.
Doesn’t matter what you or I think, if we want to have effective communication we need to use words as they are used.
I don’t actually disagree with you, I just find it frustrating trying to use a more precise meaning to make a point and being met with resistance. I think a part of the problem is that leftists are trying to point at a distinction that exists within the overbroad american-liberal label that separates leftism proper and center-right democratic institutions, and i feel as if some centrists don’t enjoy the discomfort of being singled out from the more progressive side of the caucus. I could be wrong, and I don’t really care if I am, but I think it’s important to acknowledge the tensions and to try not to erase the diversity of ideology that exists within the ‘liberal party’.
I’ll happily state my case for whatever usage I’m adopting, and ask for clarification when I suspect someone is operating on a different one, but I don’t see any case to be made for the vague american label when discussing anything beyond american electoral politics - for the same reason i’m happy to jab at the usage in the same context, because it’s the assumption of neutrality it asserts that I take issue with and am calling attention to.
Because to them, the positions of our rulers are completely immutable while the moral convictions of voters are up for debate.
A million times, this.
By far the worst aspect of liberalism is the deflection of systemic critique in favor of blaming the individual instead. When liberal democracy fails it won’t be because people didn’t vote hard enough, it will be because the system failed to respond to the needs of the governed.
As a voter, I have no power and my [available] choices don’t reflect on me at all
You’re actually not that far off. A liberal democracy will never provide choices that undermine its own ideological supremacy. Leftists have always known that true progress is borne outside of the electoral system, not from within it. If that weren’t the case then we wouldn’t have such a deep and rich history of violent and non-violent protest.
I didn’t say ‘democracy bad’. I said systems of power do not provide the tools for their own subversion.
If a system of power grows from the influence of private wealth over a democratic institution, that institution isn’t going to spontaneously provide an option to rid itself of that influence. A democratic institution will always need extrademocratic force in order to keep corrupting influences out.
Jesus bud, take a breath. Any grass is fine, better if it’s accompanied by some fresh air
democracy is great only so long as there’s an extrademocratic means to make sure the people vote the right way!
I didn’t say that. Extrademocratic force (e.g. protests, civil disobedience, BDS, ect) is used when democratic institutions don’t provide adequate choices, not in order to ‘make sure people vote the right way’. That’s how every civil rights movement in the US has happened since its founding.
? Sorry, i’m not actually sure what you’re asking…
Extrademocratic is just my way of describing activity that exists outside of electoral politics. Protests and civil disobedience work by pressuring systems of power through force or the threat thereof. The same way a union strike pressures an employer to make concessions in collective bargaining, a protest pressures a democratic institution to make concessions to protestors.
The threat of withholding support and lowering popular support is the vector by which democratic institutions are made to provide better choices.
Even if you include things like civil disobedience within your concept of liberal democracy, there will still always be limits to what a liberal democracy will tolerate, even given popular support
the system of power isn’t limited to the immediate outline of the government. In a liberal democracy in-particular, outsized power is granted to private entities through ownership and is protected through the state. An organized protest can just as easily be put down via disenfranchisement and employer boycotts as with water cannons and pepper spray, and often they are put down with both simultaneously. Especially when essential arms of liberal democracy are privately owned (I assume you consider mass media and journalism to be essential arms of democracy), it can more than protect itself from effective protest when that protest represent serious threats to its functioning.
All that to say: it’s a bit disingenuous to claim a lack of support for any particular systemic change when that system actively defends itself against those changes by - among other things - manufacturing consent against them and lashing out against those who push for it.
Single Issue Voters will save the world! (lemmy.world)
Oh boy, they're both the same, I can't decide... (lemmy.world)
Biden administration is sending $1 billion more in weapons, ammo to Israel, congressional aides say (apnews.com)
The Biden administration has told key lawmakers it is sending a new package of more than $1 billion in arms and ammunition to Israel, three congressional aides said Tuesday....
Funny, those guys don't usually agree on that much (lemm.ee)
Do any of them know what the word “liberal” actually means?
Don't worry, I'm sure you'll be privileged and safe (lemmy.world)