- cross-posted to:
- chat@hexbear.net
You must log in or register to comment.
At what point do Democratic voters get to sue Biden / Harris for gross professional neglegence? Setting aside the morality of supporting genocide, the level of sheer political incompetence and mismanagement that led us to this result is mind boggling.
Remember this the next time the Democrats tell us that a real primary isn’t needed, or the next time they put a thumb on the scale to push a particular nomination. The Democratic establishment is entirely unworthy of their positions.
The sad thing is that this is the perfect time to set up a progressive third party.
AOC and Bernie, maybe even Katie Porter for good measure. If they announced they were leaving the DNC to form a progressive party, I might even quit my job and join them.
And don’t give me the “BuT tHeY wIlL sPliT tHe VoTe!” Bull shit.
The DNC is splitting the vote.
I keep giving actual IRL examples of a populist 3rd party breaking a duopoly in other countries, and people are still downvoting me on c/Politics for such an insane and radical idea.
I’m disappointed the progressives within the Democratic party haven’t contemplated this, because they still feel as if they can fix the party from within, as if their own primaries aren’t rigged every election season.
Like yes there is a big chance you won’t win a majority the next election, but it sets you up as a proper competitor to the system, and soon supporters of both Democrats and Republicans will switch sides en masse after they experience the results and realize there is a better alternative.
I wish it were bullshit. It’s just math and some pretty basic political science. There is no way to get even the majority of the Democratic voters base to switch at the same time, and if the shift is gradual the vote is split (whomever you want to say is splitting it) and we lose everything.
It’s also a juvenile fantasy - the dream of just starting from scratch and getting right this time. There are tens of thousands of elected seats in state and federal government - nevermind local. For a party to threaten the Democrats, they would need a large percentage of those offices. State government runs elections and decides who gets on the ballot. You can’t just bypass it. The moment you are a threat, ballot access will be pulled out of reach.
Assuming you could put together a large enough coalition to overcome these obstacles, you are going to have a hell of a time keeping the same corrupting forces from taking over. How many times have we elected politicians with progressive rhetoric only to see them turn on us once elected?
Anyone who has the clout to build a party from scratch, keep it on target, and displace one of two ruling parties would be more than capable of taking a party over, and would do so much more easily with a lot less risk.
You could use the exact same arguments you have for not voting at all, because a single vote doesn’t matter.
Unfortunately, that is also a fact
Those not voting for Harris sure as fuck mattered. Minus 1M vs minus 12M. She definitely made sure she didn’t get any votes she didn’t want. She didn’t want Nortinios, Muslims. or Unions; and she damn sure didn’t get them.
Yup, exactly. And that’s exactly what I mean about a third party. It needs to happen yesterday and it needs to ignore the “they can’t get in because it just splits the vote” crowd. It needs to be better than the democrats in every way that counts and it needs to do what the people want. So that nobody can go “a single vote doesn’t matter”.
This attitude is exactly why nothing will be achieved in electoral politics and Americans will only get to know freedom when the rest of the world imposes it on you. If the blatantly antidemocratic actions undertaken by the Harris campaign still have you undyingly loyal to this party, you’ll stand by them even after they shoot your mother and run your dog over.
What attitude? There is no attitude, just reality that some folks can’t face. It’s like every damn election people think third parties are a new idea, or that this time they will work. It’s not undying loyalty to want to oust party leadership, it’s just a better strategy.
It’s not a strategy that will ever lead anywhere. The Democratic party is the death of any kind of leftward movement, and it is specifically designed to work this way. You’ll never change it from the inside, and every bit of effort you spend trying to reform it because it’s the “better strategy” would be better spent on building parallel power structures: unions that are independent from either major party, communist parties, mutual aid orgs, community defense orgs in minority communities, bail funds, etc. Because those things won’t win elections but they will create the conditions under which transformative change can take place. I would hope that the genocide in Gaza should illustrate the necessity for abandoning the Democratic party and adopting an entirely different strategy.
This discussion is about electoral strategy, which is one small aspect of political activism. All that other stuff is critically important too, and every one of them just got harder when Trump won. I don’t think the effort would have been “wasted” if a lot more people showed up to vote to keep Trump out of the Whitehouse.
Your electoral arguments are all empty rhetoric. Not one of them is based on reality, or even tries to be. It’s all hand waving, like the left wing version of reactionary politics.
The genocide in Gaza has nothing to do with the “Democratic Party” and everything to do with the people running it. The party itself is an empty shell, but it’s an empty shell that maintains a tremendous amount of loyalty across this country that you have zero strategies to break. These diatribes have been exactly the same for decades.
I’m a rebel by nature. I love the underdog and I love clever strategies that catch Goliath by surprise. I hate the Democratic establishment with a passion and if made god-emperor of America I would gladly see the Clinton’s, Obama, Biden, Harris, Pelosi, Schumer, and a lot of other Democrats do jail time. I should be your easiest convert, and you aren’t even getting close. How the fuck are you going to convince the suburban hordes, the black churches, the union members, and the millions of Americans who put maybe a few minutes a year into thinking about politics? What will you do differently than has been tried for decades?
Your electoral arguments are all empty rhetoric. Not one of them is based on reality
Since Occupy, what success has there been at carving out a space for leftists within the Democratic party? Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib, AOC, and Jamaal Bowman. AOC couldn’t be brought to call the genocide in Gaza a genocide until a few months before the ceasefire, and her support of Biden until the last minute just shows that she’s a lot more concerned with her personal career than doing her job as a “progressive” (meaningless term! and she still can’t live up to it). Ilhan Omar and Jamaal Bowman were better at running opposition against the genocide but still were trapped within a party that is beholden to corporate interests more than anything else, so it was only Tlaib that ever actually said anything directly to Netanyahu. And all of this is just symbolic actions, because they’re powerless. To make matters worse, these are your most “progressive” figures in congress, and they’ll still bend the knee on every other foreign policy issue: they’ll go along with the Uyghur genocide claims, call Maduro a dictator, say almost nothing about the Cuban embargo unless Trump just put them back on the list (gotta #resist queens!), support regime change in Iran, etc etc. So there is no left in the Democratic party, there are only some figureheads that make “progressive” Americans feel like their job is done when they don’t represent any kind of threat or hold any kind of power. It’s an illusion, and you’d be much better off without these clowns at all so that regular Americans didn’t falsely believe they had someone in there fighting for them when the truth is they’re 100% on their own until they pick up a gun and join a union.
Where else should I put my vote?
Did I suggest anywhere not voting for Democrats in a general election? We need to oust these losers in primaries.
Would that be the Democratic primaries? The ones controlled and legally manipulated by the party leadership itself?
If those are the contests you’re depending on for achieving a fair and representative result, I have some oceanfront property in Nebraska to sell you…
I got news for you. (It shouldn’t be news since I just said it, but whatever). General elections are also “controlled and legally manipulated” by the two parties.
No matter what way you come at it, every obstacle to taking over a party also exists in ousting a party, only worse. Like I said, I wish the answer was as simple as a new party, but that’s just not reality.
General elections are also “controlled and legally manipulated” by the two parties.
Not to anywhere near the same degree. Primaries are LITERALLY the party’s contest to do what they want with. They can and will make sure that their favored candidates win, to the detriment of anyone who’s too progressive for the corporate donors they serve.
No matter what way you come at it, every obstacle to taking over a party also exists in ousting a party, only worse
Nope. That’s just not true. What you’re advocating for is to change the rules of the game by letting the opponent continue to be the corrupt referee who has control of every ruling and thus every outcome including the end result.
I’m not saying that working outside of the party to effect real systemic change won’t be extremely difficult, but your way is literally impossible.
Not to anywhere near the same degree. Primaries are LITERALLY the party’s contest to do what they want with.
And the general elections are LITERALLY whatever the two parties want them to be. Ballot access is the ballgame for third party candidates and there is LITERALLY nothing preventing them from writing access rules to make it nearly impossible to overcome.
Nope. That’s just not true.
Ah, the “that’s just like your opinion man” argument. I love that one.
What you’re advocating for is to change the rules of the game by letting the opponent continue to be the corrupt referee…
How the fuck do you not get that the rules for national elections come from government fiat ruled by the existing two parties?
I’m not saying that working outside of the party to effect real systemic change won’t be extremely difficult, but your way is literally impossible.
My way has LITERALLY had successes, including big ones like FDR and the New Deal. What successes does the third party approach have to show?
Every damn election we have to pretend like the third party approach has never been tried before. It’s been tried almost every election since forever and has a perfect record of abject failure.
But what if everyone finally just did what your telling them to do, right? If only everyone would just vote how you want them to vote, your political strategy would work perfectly! Damn, you’ve solved politics!
Write in. If you are going to waste your vote you might as well sent it to someone who will work for you. Biden sure as hell didn’t for me.
We’d rather lose than have to reduce our support for genocide.
Pretty much.
During negotiations with the DNC and the Harris campaign, we were repeatedly told by interlocutors that Harris couldn’t meet any of our basic requests (a policy shift from Biden, a Palestinian speaker at the DNC, a statement distinguishing herself from Trump on Israel, or even a meeting with Michigan families who lost loved ones to Israeli bombs) because of AIPAC-aligned politicians like Fetterman, who might take to TV, rile up suburban white and Jewish voters, and fracture the party’s coalition in a swing state.
That political calculus alienated a key voting bloc, although likely not large enough to have shifted the ultimate election outcomes, that should be part of a durable Democratic majority. But few will ever be held accountable for that choice.
A Fetterman staffer condemning Uncommitted for not advocating for Palestinians ‘the right way’ is like an arsonist scolding the fire department for using the wrong hose.
damn… and !unsubscribe did nothing.
Let’s consider the counterfactual: is it possible that this was a calculated decision about a complex topic and that abdicating led to a more positive outcome than not?
The subtext of this post seems to be: if only harris hadn’t ignored the Gaza problem! And I reject that as a premise
By the way, let’s consider another counterfactual: is it possible that Harris (the sitting VP) was privy to more information about the conflict than voters were?
Occam’s razor still applies. Your alternative explanations require additional and sometimes obscure factors, whereas the direct experience of the Uncommitted folks (actual Democrats! With previous Democratic campaign experience!) already gives an explanation that hasn’t been shot down by Harris campaign insiders either.
Can you tell me what you think the confounding factors are?
For example, you’re assuming the Harris campaign knew something we don’t. That’s adding extra variables.
If this is the case, they have to publish the polling data that led them to believe it. Otherwise there’s no reason to give them the benefit of the doubt.
On what planet do you think that American politicians “have to” do anything? They regularly break the law. It’s a bicameral system and until you riot or DDD it won’t change.
Also, your statement makes the assumption that the complexity lies solely in polling and voting, but politics is more complex than that. Israel is a nuclear power. For all we (civilians) know, they can be a regular destabilizing threat actor for the West, have damning blackmail that threatens the DNC, or has enough high powered offensive hacking actors that the US sees its alliance as more important than its ethics
By the way, this entire system of incentives illustrates the complexity of politics in a way that ought to dismiss any kind of black-or-white argument about really any political topic, including the (in my limited opinion, valid) condemnation of Trump.
On the basis that they want to win. It looked like the Democrats sold out in whole to a foreign power to the point that they were sanctioning the killing of American citizens.
And considering the number of unanswered US aid workers killed by Israel this was not unreasonable.
On what planet do you think that American politicians “have to” do anything?
Sorry, I thought it was obvious from the conversation that they “have to” do this if they want to get elected. You get that’s what we’re talking about, right?
Also, your statement makes the assumption that the complexity lies solely in polling and voting, but politics is more complex than that. Israel is a nuclear power. For all we (civilians) know, they can be a regular destabilizing threat actor for the West, have damning blackmail that threatens the DNC, or has enough high powered offensive hacking actors that the US sees its alliance as more important than its ethics
Sure, it’s possible Harris was playing 4D chess, but then she shouldn’t be surprised that people don’t vote for her. This kind of approach to politics is something that people have increasingly started to reject, so again, terrible approach if you want to get elected.
“Maybe the Democrats weren’t bought off by Israel, maybe they were being blackmailed. Wouldn’t that be better? Or wait, maybe they just really like having access to Israeli spyware and hackers, and consider that more important than not murdering women and children! This is a complex issue and there’s lots of possible reasons that you may not be privy to that the Dems could have sold their souls and the future of the american people for!”
I think you’re trying to mock me but in fact this is exactly what I’m saying
I am very notably not defending Harris but lemmings have spent too much time on xitter to remember what critical discourse looks like
How are any of those things better or worthy of support? Those are all still completely ghoulish reasons to support a genocide. Youre presumably worried about russian interference with trump, but youre cool with the Israelis blackmailing kamala? We’re just supposed to shrug that off and say “oh she didnt have any choice”?
Who wants to change the bicameral system? Is that a new popular trend? What’s the better alternative?
I live in England, that would be a good starting point for your Google search
The US bicameral system is the House and the Senate (a two chamber legislature).
What system is the better alternative that we should riot about? You said it and I’m just asking you to explain.
Oh excuse me. I’m using “the bicameral system” to refer to “the way representation works in USA”. A more accurate and relevant way to point to the bad part would be “the two party system”, since in fact you could reasonably have a bicameral congress with proportional representation
Well they got their ass kicked so you know…
By the way, let’s consider another counterfactual: is it possible that Harris (the sitting VP) was privy to more information about the conflict than voters were?
No. Not possible.
That “America overall” is pro zionist because they are told to, does mean that Netanyahu embarassing Biden/Sullivan by refusing the ceasefires he agreed to, denouncing him to walk back settler sanctions, and denouncing him to walk back 2000lb bomb supply delays is Netanyahu picking Trump as president. Zionist hedge fund managers getting media access to complain about “rising anti semitism” in America, because Biden didn’t Kent State University anti-genocide protests, to shower Trump with money, doesn’t mean the few zionists who kept supporting DNC were paying it to win.
The calculation that more democrats support Israel than oppose genocide is what “DNC/Harris knew”. DNC is a zionist first organization. Liberalism is a talking point, not their ideology. Americans have always been programmed to be on the same side. That doesn’t mean Harris as VP has greater information on what virtue means.
Genocide is a complex topic?
What positive outcome pray tell? Losing some voters for good and depressing turnout? I thought Trump was a threat to democracy, why did Harris allow him to win?
A far simpler explanation is that AIPAC bought politicians of both sides.
You are clearly a genocide denier if you are merely referring to it as a “problem”.
Dems that said “ceasefire would be nice” and “two state solution” after Oct 7th faced the most expensive/funded primary races in history. The ones who’se primary opponents never mentioned Israel despite all the AIPAC money that funded them won.
It is unfortunate. The uncommitted had low bar requests that Harris could have verbally acknowledge without any true commitments and that still was too much.
During negotiations with the DNC and the Harris campaign, we were repeatedly told by interlocutors that Harris couldn’t meet any of our basic requests (a policy shift from Biden, a Palestinian speaker at the DNC, a statement distinguishing herself from Trump on Israel, or even a meeting with Michigan families who lost loved ones to Israeli bombs) because of AIPAC-aligned politicians like Fetterman, who might take to TV, rile up suburban white and Jewish voters, and fracture the party’s coalition in a swing state.
https://xcancel.com/_waleedshahid/status/1887595942100062234
Yes. As my other comment mentioned, DNC both from pro Israel ideology, and “party unity”, needed to support the genocide, and other swing states were at stake. Fetterman now supportive of Trump is icing on the cake.
