Simply put, it swings (pun not intended) both ways. Yes, the Democratic party should absolutely be reaching out to the younger and/or minority, non voting demographics. I don't disagree on that, especially considering that I am hispanic. At a certain point, however, these voters need to realize that if the party isn't listening to them, they need to make the party listen to them. And that means voting. Like it or not, politicians go to whomever will vote. Not voting makes you easy to ignore. Personally? I don't want to be ignored when it comes to how the country is run.
You are making the exact argument that the tweeticle above notes is entirely condescending and paternal to young minority voters. "If they want to be heard, they need to come out and vote for us." But the same is not asked of moderate white republicans that are too scared, so they have an (I) by their name instead - they are constantly pandered to, and worse, actually have policy adjustments made to win them over, even though the whole point is that *they voted for Donald Trump*!
No, the point is that they voted, and do so regularly.
If you sat the last election out because "the candidate didn't speak to me" in the face of the existential threat that was Donald Fucking Trump there's a strong argument that it's not worth the time trying to convince you to give a fuck rather than convincing someone that already did that my guy is better
Simply put, it swings (pun not intended) both ways. Yes, the Democratic party should absolutely be reaching out to the younger and/or minority, non voting demographics. I don't disagree on that, especially considering that I am hispanic. At a certain point, however, these voters need to realize that if the party isn't listening to them, they need to make the party listen to them. And that means voting. Like it or not, politicians go to whomever will vote. Not voting makes you easy to ignore. Personally? I don't want to be ignored when it comes to how the country is run.
You are making the exact argument that the tweeticle above notes is entirely condescending and paternal to young minority voters. "If they want to be heard, they need to come out and vote for us." But the same is not asked of moderate white republicans that are too scared, so they have an (I) by their name instead - they are constantly pandered to, and worse, actually have policy adjustments made to win them over, even though the whole point is that *they voted for Donald Trump*!
Look, buddy, I'm not fucking happy about it either. But it's the world we live in. Minorities have to work harder for the things we want. It fucking sucks. We should be listened to without condition. But we aren't. So we have to make them listen. The alternative is to, what, just sit around and hope that this time for sure they'll give a shit about us? No thanks. I'd rather vote to move the party in a direction I like than wait for a mythical savior to 'inspire' me to action.
And I've posted multiple times in different threads about how we shouldn't be pandering to 'moderate' white voters. They've been offered more than enough, and they have to take some responsibility for what they've done (read: Trump).
Look at the Tea Party as an example of a movement that has been very effective at changing a political party, especially when considering its electoral impact in relation to the size of the movement. Did the Tea Party accomplish this by threatening to not vote in the general, and then Republican leaders went "we better cater to these 'swing voters' that might not show"?
No. Instead they voted, they made it clear that they voted, and they especially voted in primaries. That's how you wield power as an interest group. Not-voting is a stupid way to exercise electoral power.
The "good cop/bad cop" routine that the white majority parties play when it come to issues that involve these communities always works in the GOP's favor in practice. The Democrats need to start treating these voters as a company would a potential market and create products they like, even if that means upsetting the conservative white moderate votes that both parties crave.
The Democrats can't afford to "upset" any faction that supports them, particularly swing state factions.
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Sir Landsharkresting shark faceRegistered Userregular
Look at the Tea Party as an example of a movement that has been very effective at changing a political party, especially when considering its electoral impact in relation to the size of the movement. Did the Tea Party accomplish this by threatening to not vote in the general, and then Republican leaders went "we better cater to these 'swing voters' that might not show"?
No. Instead they voted, they made it clear that they voted, and they especially voted in primaries. That's how you wield power as an interest group. Not-voting is a stupid way to exercise electoral power.
The "good cop/bad cop" routine that the white majority parties play when it come to issues that involve these communities always works in the GOP's favor in practice. The Democrats need to start treating these voters as a company would a potential market and create products they like, even if that means upsetting the conservative white moderate votes that both parties crave.
The Democrats can't afford to "upset" any faction that supports them, particularly swing state factions.
Well, other than progressives/socialists, who just need to suck it up
What are the expected swing states this year, and the target demographics in those states? Any chance of FL going blue (last I heard there was some fuckery with the felony re-enfranchisement ballot that passed in 2018).
Please consider the environment before printing this post.
Non-voters also din't vote because its not easy to vote. They have to work on election day. I voted in a county that is predominantly white and Republican so it has lots of voting areas so they're not busy. I had to drive like five miles to a snowmobile club to vote. There are no sidewalks or busses going there if you don't have a car.
That's not even taking into account that in a bunch of predominantly black areas they closed a bunch of voting spots and those areas tend to have long lines. So if a person isn't motivated to vote for a candidate they're not going to take hours out of their day to vote.
Look at the Tea Party as an example of a movement that has been very effective at changing a political party, especially when considering its electoral impact in relation to the size of the movement. Did the Tea Party accomplish this by threatening to not vote in the general, and then Republican leaders went "we better cater to these 'swing voters' that might not show"?
No. Instead they voted, they made it clear that they voted, and they especially voted in primaries. That's how you wield power as an interest group. Not-voting is a stupid way to exercise electoral power.
The "good cop/bad cop" routine that the white majority parties play when it come to issues that involve these communities always works in the GOP's favor in practice. The Democrats need to start treating these voters as a company would a potential market and create products they like, even if that means upsetting the conservative white moderate votes that both parties crave.
The Democrats can't afford to "upset" any faction that supports them, particularly swing state factions.
Well, other than progressives/socialists, who just need to suck it up
A lot of Democrat factions feel taken for granted in the same way. Black voters REALLY feel that way.
So if a person isn't motivated to vote for a candidate they're not going to take hours out of their day to vote.
Yeah, to depress votes they don't need people to go as far as "The Democrats despise my faction, so I'm protesting by withdrawing my vote" - it's more like "I don't really feel Clinton cares about me, and all the polls say she is sure to win in my district, so I'm not going out to line up round the block with a cold and an early start tomorrow."
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Metzger MeisterIt Gets Worsebefore it gets any better.Registered Userregular
American voters resent being told what they NEED to do, and telling people what's good for them rather than allowing them to decide that for themselves is often seen as preachy and bossy. If the only thing you have to convince people is WELL IT'S THE RIGHT THING TO DO or DO YOU LOVE TRUMP!? then you don't actually have anything to say that they haven't heard before. Valid criticisms of democratic candidates, any of them, are often brushed off as Russian fake news or whataboutism or whatever when these are just as often very real grievances with policy, with past career choices etc.
To be frank, most of the time people treat folks who use their right to choose to not do so as mindless children who need to be guided to the correct choice, either by carrot or stick, and it feels of condescension and pompous indignation.
American voters resent being told what they NEED to do, and telling people what's good for them rather than allowing them to decide that for themselves is often seen as preachy and bossy. If the only thing you have to convince people is WELL IT'S THE RIGHT THING TO DO or DO YOU LOVE TRUMP!? then you don't actually have anything to say that they haven't heard before. Valid criticisms of democratic candidates, any of them, are often brushed off as Russian fake news or whataboutism or whatever when these are just as often very real grievances with policy, with past career choices etc.
To be frank, most of the time people treat folks who use their right to choose to not do so as mindless children who need to be guided to the correct choice, either by carrot or stick, and it feels of condescension and pompous indignation.
Because choosing not to vote when you're able to IS childish. It betrays a lack of understanding about how elections work.
Stabbity Style on
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No-QuarterNothing To FearBut Fear ItselfRegistered Userregular
Short of causing a recession that hits people's wallets directly, I'm not sure what more Trump could do to be a natural turnout mechanism in addition to our own efforts. Either people recognize the difference in sanity in governance between the two parties, or they likely aren't worth the time trying to convince anyway.
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Metzger MeisterIt Gets Worsebefore it gets any better.Registered Userregular
American voters resent being told what they NEED to do, and telling people what's good for them rather than allowing them to decide that for themselves is often seen as preachy and bossy. If the only thing you have to convince people is WELL IT'S THE RIGHT THING TO DO or DO YOU LOVE TRUMP!? then you don't actually have anything to say that they haven't heard before. Valid criticisms of democratic candidates, any of them, are often brushed off as Russian fake news or whataboutism or whatever when these are just as often very real grievances with policy, with past career choices etc.
To be frank, most of the time people treat folks who use their right to choose to not do so as mindless children who need to be guided to the correct choice, either by carrot or stick, and it feels of condescension and pompous indignation.
Because choosing not to vote when you're able to IS childish. It betrays a lack of understanding about how elections work.
I think that depends greatly upon one's reasons for not voting. Why would a socialist vote for ANY capitalist candidate, for example, and why spend a day waiting around at the polling station just to cast a vote for a socialist candidate that, by the design of the system, can't win? Why participate in the system when the system doesn't value your opinion or represent your interests? We can crow all day long about childishness or irresponsibility but at the end of the day Hillary Clinton won the popular vote by damn near 3 million votes and it didn't make a lick of difference. It's almost as if the system is specifically designed to discount the votes of significant portions of the American electorate!
There are a fair amount of people I know online who are thoroughly disgusted with trying to accomplish anything remotely actually socialist and not "considerate capitalism" within the framework of "vote for this Democrat, they are a kinder capitalist, they will let minorities serve in the military and let drone pilots be openly gay while they bomb schools and hospitals! Isn't that wonderful?"
There are a fair amount of people I know online who are thoroughly disgusted with trying to accomplish anything remotely actually socialist and not "considerate capitalism" within the framework of "vote for this Democrat, they are a kinder capitalist, they will let minorities serve in the military and let drone pilots be openly gay while they bomb schools and hospitals! Isn't that wonderful?"
And what are they accomplishing by not voting? Nobody is getting the message "hey, we need to be more socialist!" by people not voting. All they managed to do is disenfranchise themselves and make it easier for conservatives to gain power that they'll use to attack minorities, destroy public institutions, and strip away the social safety net.
But I guess that's a better outcome than voting for a capitalist liberal?
My point was the Democrats tendency to appeal to the middle of the road, while the Republicans are gleefully welcoming fascists of every flavor into their party because they're to the right of Dems, so they're all on the same team, is dooming the Democrats
My point was the Democrats tendency to appeal to the middle of the road, while the Republicans are gleefully welcoming fascists of every flavor into their party because they're to the right of Dems, so they're all on the same team, is dooming the Democrats
They appeal to the middle of the road voters, because they are already voting.
Well hopefully "this guy is in no way what you want and we knew it when we picked him, but our opponent is really bad guys" finally starts working on youth turnout.
Yeah I dunno at the end of the day we can boldly proclaim on an internet forum as much as we want about how non-voters should just vote, but that clearly doesn't work.
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Metzger MeisterIt Gets Worsebefore it gets any better.Registered Userregular
There are a fair amount of people I know online who are thoroughly disgusted with trying to accomplish anything remotely actually socialist and not "considerate capitalism" within the framework of "vote for this Democrat, they are a kinder capitalist, they will let minorities serve in the military and let drone pilots be openly gay while they bomb schools and hospitals! Isn't that wonderful?"
And what are they accomplishing by not voting? Nobody is getting the message "hey, we need to be more socialist!" by people not voting. All they managed to do is disenfranchise themselves and make it easier for conservatives to gain power that they'll use to attack minorities, destroy public institutions, and strip away the social safety net.
But I guess that's a better outcome than voting for a capitalist liberal?
I guess smug superiority is a way to go about trying to understand people. It's not a good way, but it is A Way.
There are a fair amount of people I know online who are thoroughly disgusted with trying to accomplish anything remotely actually socialist and not "considerate capitalism" within the framework of "vote for this Democrat, they are a kinder capitalist, they will let minorities serve in the military and let drone pilots be openly gay while they bomb schools and hospitals! Isn't that wonderful?"
And what are they accomplishing by not voting? Nobody is getting the message "hey, we need to be more socialist!" by people not voting. All they managed to do is disenfranchise themselves and make it easier for conservatives to gain power that they'll use to attack minorities, destroy public institutions, and strip away the social safety net.
But I guess that's a better outcome than voting for a capitalist liberal?
I guess smug superiority is a way to go about trying to understand people. It's not a good way, but it is A Way.
I don't know how I'm the smugly superior one here compared to someone so smugly superior they won't deign to vote for someone who isn't their ideal candidate.
My point was the Democrats tendency to appeal to the middle of the road, while the Republicans are gleefully welcoming fascists of every flavor into their party because they're to the right of Dems, so they're all on the same team, is dooming the Democrats
They appeal to the middle of the road voters, because they are already voting.
People who voted before and then didn't vote are also "already voting". It isn't as though they voted by accident the last time they did vote.
Michael Harriot of the Root did a pretty in-depth article today on Mayor Pete, and his history of race relations in South Bend. This does have a lot of new insights, disputing many of the facts touted by Pete for his firing of the former police chief. It's a very long and well-researched article, so make sure you have your coffee ready.
There are a fair amount of people I know online who are thoroughly disgusted with trying to accomplish anything remotely actually socialist and not "considerate capitalism" within the framework of "vote for this Democrat, they are a kinder capitalist, they will let minorities serve in the military and let drone pilots be openly gay while they bomb schools and hospitals! Isn't that wonderful?"
And what are they accomplishing by not voting? Nobody is getting the message "hey, we need to be more socialist!" by people not voting. All they managed to do is disenfranchise themselves and make it easier for conservatives to gain power that they'll use to attack minorities, destroy public institutions, and strip away the social safety net.
But I guess that's a better outcome than voting for a capitalist liberal?
I guess smug superiority is a way to go about trying to understand people. It's not a good way, but it is A Way.
I don't know how I'm the smugly superior one here compared to someone so smugly superior they won't deign to vote for someone who isn't their ideal candidate.
Something that I think is important to remember is that "perfect is the enemy of good" is the viewpoint expressed by people who are already convinced that the other option is good. Absolutely no one has a problem voting for a Good candidate. The big issue is that people are not universally convinced of where the line for Good is.
A lot of the times if someone wants to tut tut someone for voting far left, they'll trot out perfect is the enemy of good. But most of the times the person voting for the far left does not consider the far left candidate the Perfect one, they consider them the Good one. The reason it's hard to reach out to those people is because they feel that they're already compromising. You see this with a lot of people's anxieties about Biden - sure, maybe he gets the dude in office out. But if he thinks he can work with McConnell, does he actually stop anything that's tangibly hurting people in this country? The way people talk about Biden in this thread, and then say "But I'll vote for him anyway because he's not Trump" - why is it so surprising that you list out all those negatives, and then find out that someone is not comfortable actually voting for that guy after that list?
People aren't choosing to vote for perfect and not for good. People aren't convinced that "Actively Bad, Actually" isn't the option.
Well hopefully "this guy is in no way what you want and we knew it when we picked him, but our opponent is really bad guys" finally starts working on youth turnout.
The solution to this is to build up the kind of support that can get the kind of candidate you want into the nominee position, for positions at all level of government.
I understand that it sucks to have candidates up there that you feel don’t represent you. But the rest of the party gets to vote too, so there will always be some group that feels like they aren’t getting what they want, but that’s life.
Marathon on
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Metzger MeisterIt Gets Worsebefore it gets any better.Registered Userregular
There are a fair amount of people I know online who are thoroughly disgusted with trying to accomplish anything remotely actually socialist and not "considerate capitalism" within the framework of "vote for this Democrat, they are a kinder capitalist, they will let minorities serve in the military and let drone pilots be openly gay while they bomb schools and hospitals! Isn't that wonderful?"
And what are they accomplishing by not voting? Nobody is getting the message "hey, we need to be more socialist!" by people not voting. All they managed to do is disenfranchise themselves and make it easier for conservatives to gain power that they'll use to attack minorities, destroy public institutions, and strip away the social safety net.
But I guess that's a better outcome than voting for a capitalist liberal?
I guess smug superiority is a way to go about trying to understand people. It's not a good way, but it is A Way.
I don't know how I'm the smugly superior one here compared to someone so smugly superior they won't deign to vote for someone who isn't their ideal candidate.
I voted for Hillary dawg, you're reaching. If the only counter you have for people's legit grievances with America's political system is telling them to grow up, you're really no different than republican boomers telling people to bootstrap themselves out of bad situations. "JUST VOTE, SURELY IT'LL CHANGE THINGS THIS TIME!" says the people who've been voting their entire lives and have only seen things get fucking worse. Why should anyone vote for the lesser evil when the choice to NOT pick ANY evil is right there?
Like, I've been living on less than ten grand a year for my entire adult life, friendo. I've got severe mental illnesses, my husband does as well and he's also diabetic, my family's been poor since we came to this shit-ass country and became sharecroppers. No president, not Obama or Clinton or GW Bush or Trump, has ever meaningfully improved our lot or the lots of basically anyone I know.
So yeah, I think you're a smug liberal telling folks what is and isn't good for them.
There are a fair amount of people I know online who are thoroughly disgusted with trying to accomplish anything remotely actually socialist and not "considerate capitalism" within the framework of "vote for this Democrat, they are a kinder capitalist, they will let minorities serve in the military and let drone pilots be openly gay while they bomb schools and hospitals! Isn't that wonderful?"
And what are they accomplishing by not voting? Nobody is getting the message "hey, we need to be more socialist!" by people not voting. All they managed to do is disenfranchise themselves and make it easier for conservatives to gain power that they'll use to attack minorities, destroy public institutions, and strip away the social safety net.
But I guess that's a better outcome than voting for a capitalist liberal?
I guess smug superiority is a way to go about trying to understand people. It's not a good way, but it is A Way.
I don't know how I'm the smugly superior one here compared to someone so smugly superior they won't deign to vote for someone who isn't their ideal candidate.
I voted for Hillary dawg, you're reaching. If the only counter you have for people's legit grievances with America's political system is telling them to grow up, you're really no different than republican boomers telling people to bootstrap themselves out of bad situations. "JUST VOTE, SURELY IT'LL CHANGE THINGS THIS TIME!" says the people who've been voting their entire lives and have only seen things get fucking worse. Why should anyone vote for the lesser evil when the choice to NOT pick ANY evil is right there?
Like, I've been living on less than ten grand a year for my entire adult life, friendo. I've got severe mental illnesses, my husband does as well and he's also diabetic, my family's been poor since we came to this shit-ass country and became sharecroppers. No president, not Obama or Clinton or GW Bush or Trump, has ever meaningfully improved our lot or the lots of basically anyone I know.
So yeah, I think you're a smug liberal telling folks what is and isn't good for them.
Yep, that's me, the Republican boomer, for thinking people who can vote should vote.
There are a fair amount of people I know online who are thoroughly disgusted with trying to accomplish anything remotely actually socialist and not "considerate capitalism" within the framework of "vote for this Democrat, they are a kinder capitalist, they will let minorities serve in the military and let drone pilots be openly gay while they bomb schools and hospitals! Isn't that wonderful?"
And what are they accomplishing by not voting? Nobody is getting the message "hey, we need to be more socialist!" by people not voting. All they managed to do is disenfranchise themselves and make it easier for conservatives to gain power that they'll use to attack minorities, destroy public institutions, and strip away the social safety net.
But I guess that's a better outcome than voting for a capitalist liberal?
I guess smug superiority is a way to go about trying to understand people. It's not a good way, but it is A Way.
I don't know how I'm the smugly superior one here compared to someone so smugly superior they won't deign to vote for someone who isn't their ideal candidate.
I voted for Hillary dawg, you're reaching. If the only counter you have for people's legit grievances with America's political system is telling them to grow up, you're really no different than republican boomers telling people to bootstrap themselves out of bad situations. "JUST VOTE, SURELY IT'LL CHANGE THINGS THIS TIME!" says the people who've been voting their entire lives and have only seen things get fucking worse. Why should anyone vote for the lesser evil when the choice to NOT pick ANY evil is right there?
Like, I've been living on less than ten grand a year for my entire adult life, friendo. I've got severe mental illnesses, my husband does as well and he's also diabetic, my family's been poor since we came to this shit-ass country and became sharecroppers. No president, not Obama or Clinton or GW Bush or Trump, has ever meaningfully improved our lot or the lots of basically anyone I know.
So yeah, I think you're a smug liberal telling folks what is and isn't good for them.
That's the key right there.
The less you have, the more different you are from the white majority, the more you have to struggle to just get the basic requirements of life. Telling someone whose focus in life is finding ways to pay for rent and food while knowing all the while that one mildly serious illness could topple their entire life over that voting is crucial is nice, but it falls flat when talking to people whose struggles don't end no matter which party controls the White House or Congress.
I think younger voters look at the two candidates and think "They both suck in different ways" and don't vote. Eventually a candidate they really hate gets elected and they figure out what "lesser of two evils" means, which is why non-voters turn into voters when they are older.
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MonwynApathy's a tragedy, and boredom is a crime.A little bit of everything, all of the time.Registered Userregular
I think younger voters look at the two candidates and think "They both suck in different ways" and don't vote. Eventually a candidate they really hate gets elected and they figure out what "lesser of two evils" means, which is why non-voters turn into voters when they are older.
This line of thinking is what Rs are counting on with disinformation campaigns like bribing Ukraine for dirt on the Bidens. They can't make their candidate look good, so they need to make the opponent look just as bad, so voters stay home.
The problem as it relates to a primary is that if your politics are anything other than generic mainstream Democratism, voting in major elections has very little utility toward effecting your goals. The system is very much designed for stability of the status quo, so if you believe the status isn't quo, it doesn't have much to offer you.
That's why outsider/renegade narratives are so powerful. Huge swaths of the voting public want desperately for things to be very different from how they are, and politicians need to be promising to make things very different if they want to capture their imagination. That's why trying to go against Trump is such a tough needle to thread, because the most powerful case against him (he's batpoop) is also the worst argument for yourself (I'm going to return things to the classic, boring status quo that many of you were desperately unhappy with).
It's also why someone like Sanders, for all his faults, has an enduring popularity. The Democratic base needs *someone* they can believe will shake things up.
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jmcdonaldI voted, did you?DC(ish)Registered Userregular
There are a fair amount of people I know online who are thoroughly disgusted with trying to accomplish anything remotely actually socialist and not "considerate capitalism" within the framework of "vote for this Democrat, they are a kinder capitalist, they will let minorities serve in the military and let drone pilots be openly gay while they bomb schools and hospitals! Isn't that wonderful?"
And what are they accomplishing by not voting? Nobody is getting the message "hey, we need to be more socialist!" by people not voting. All they managed to do is disenfranchise themselves and make it easier for conservatives to gain power that they'll use to attack minorities, destroy public institutions, and strip away the social safety net.
But I guess that's a better outcome than voting for a capitalist liberal?
I guess smug superiority is a way to go about trying to understand people. It's not a good way, but it is A Way.
I don't know how I'm the smugly superior one here compared to someone so smugly superior they won't deign to vote for someone who isn't their ideal candidate.
Something that I think is important to remember is that "perfect is the enemy of good" is the viewpoint expressed by people who are already convinced that the other option is good. Absolutely no one has a problem voting for a Good candidate. The big issue is that people are not universally convinced of where the line for Good is.
A lot of the times if someone wants to tut tut someone for voting far left, they'll trot out perfect is the enemy of good. But most of the times the person voting for the far left does not consider the far left candidate the Perfect one, they consider them the Good one. The reason it's hard to reach out to those people is because they feel that they're already compromising. You see this with a lot of people's anxieties about Biden - sure, maybe he gets the dude in office out. But if he thinks he can work with McConnell, does he actually stop anything that's tangibly hurting people in this country? The way people talk about Biden in this thread, and then say "But I'll vote for him anyway because he's not Trump" - why is it so surprising that you list out all those negatives, and then find out that someone is not comfortable actually voting for that guy after that list?
People aren't choosing to vote for perfect and not for good. People aren't convinced that "Actively Bad, Actually" isn't the option.
This post justifies not courting those voters tho.
That's why trying to go against Trump is such a tough needle to thread, because the most powerful case against him (he's batpoop) is also the worst argument for yourself (I'm going to return things to the classic, boring status quo that many of you were desperately unhappy with).
Or he could get the USA into WW3 and you could get drafted. That'd have people praying for things to go back to the status quo.
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MonwynApathy's a tragedy, and boredom is a crime.A little bit of everything, all of the time.Registered Userregular
There are a fair amount of people I know online who are thoroughly disgusted with trying to accomplish anything remotely actually socialist and not "considerate capitalism" within the framework of "vote for this Democrat, they are a kinder capitalist, they will let minorities serve in the military and let drone pilots be openly gay while they bomb schools and hospitals! Isn't that wonderful?"
And what are they accomplishing by not voting? Nobody is getting the message "hey, we need to be more socialist!" by people not voting. All they managed to do is disenfranchise themselves and make it easier for conservatives to gain power that they'll use to attack minorities, destroy public institutions, and strip away the social safety net.
But I guess that's a better outcome than voting for a capitalist liberal?
I guess smug superiority is a way to go about trying to understand people. It's not a good way, but it is A Way.
I don't know how I'm the smugly superior one here compared to someone so smugly superior they won't deign to vote for someone who isn't their ideal candidate.
I voted for Hillary dawg, you're reaching. If the only counter you have for people's legit grievances with America's political system is telling them to grow up, you're really no different than republican boomers telling people to bootstrap themselves out of bad situations. "JUST VOTE, SURELY IT'LL CHANGE THINGS THIS TIME!" says the people who've been voting their entire lives and have only seen things get fucking worse. Why should anyone vote for the lesser evil when the choice to NOT pick ANY evil is right there?
Because choosing to do nothing is a tacit endorsement of whatever you get.
One of these two parties is going to be elected. That is objective reality. Abstention does nothing other than let someone snark about their moral high ground, and I'm frankly real sick of hearing about it.
IMO, the main issue of the two party system today in America is that the two parties have become the "White Nationalist Party" and the "Everyone who doesn't like White Nationalism Party". The first is small enough to beat with a large enough coalition of the second, but the second encompasses too wide a range of policy and position to be an effective coalition. And until the first can be dealt with in a permanent enough way to prevent a catastrophe like the current political situation if and when they do get into power, there's no realistic way for the second group to split into a more varied number of political ideals to allow more variety and width in ideals.
Well hopefully "this guy is in no way what you want and we knew it when we picked him, but our opponent is really bad guys" finally starts working on youth turnout.
Core assumptions that you need to be socialist to turn out youth voters should be examined in light of the Obama candidacy.
I think younger voters look at the two candidates and think "They both suck in different ways" and don't vote. Eventually a candidate they really hate gets elected and they figure out what "lesser of two evils" means, which is why non-voters turn into voters when they are older.
This line of thinking is what Rs are counting on with disinformation campaigns like bribing Ukraine for dirt on the Bidens. They can't make their candidate look good, so they need to make the opponent look just as bad, so voters stay home.
Well hopefully "this guy is in no way what you want and we knew it when we picked him, but our opponent is really bad guys" finally starts working on youth turnout.
Core assumptions that you need to be socialist to turn out youth voters should be examined in light of the Obama candidacy.
Obama was further to the left than most of his primary opponents by a good amount. So much so that I recall a good number of conservative posters here lamenting his radical leftist agenda.
Meanwhile the last three centrist candidates, well, didn't.
I'm really tired of the insistence that when a relatively centrist Dem loses the solution is to move further to the right.
There are a fair amount of people I know online who are thoroughly disgusted with trying to accomplish anything remotely actually socialist and not "considerate capitalism" within the framework of "vote for this Democrat, they are a kinder capitalist, they will let minorities serve in the military and let drone pilots be openly gay while they bomb schools and hospitals! Isn't that wonderful?"
And what are they accomplishing by not voting? Nobody is getting the message "hey, we need to be more socialist!" by people not voting. All they managed to do is disenfranchise themselves and make it easier for conservatives to gain power that they'll use to attack minorities, destroy public institutions, and strip away the social safety net.
But I guess that's a better outcome than voting for a capitalist liberal?
I guess smug superiority is a way to go about trying to understand people. It's not a good way, but it is A Way.
I don't know how I'm the smugly superior one here compared to someone so smugly superior they won't deign to vote for someone who isn't their ideal candidate.
Something that I think is important to remember is that "perfect is the enemy of good" is the viewpoint expressed by people who are already convinced that the other option is good. Absolutely no one has a problem voting for a Good candidate. The big issue is that people are not universally convinced of where the line for Good is.
A lot of the times if someone wants to tut tut someone for voting far left, they'll trot out perfect is the enemy of good. But most of the times the person voting for the far left does not consider the far left candidate the Perfect one, they consider them the Good one. The reason it's hard to reach out to those people is because they feel that they're already compromising. You see this with a lot of people's anxieties about Biden - sure, maybe he gets the dude in office out. But if he thinks he can work with McConnell, does he actually stop anything that's tangibly hurting people in this country? The way people talk about Biden in this thread, and then say "But I'll vote for him anyway because he's not Trump" - why is it so surprising that you list out all those negatives, and then find out that someone is not comfortable actually voting for that guy after that list?
People aren't choosing to vote for perfect and not for good. People aren't convinced that "Actively Bad, Actually" isn't the option.
This post justifies not courting those voters tho.
Was that your intent?
I do not believe that a difficulty in courting people translates to a justification not to.
Posts
No, the point is that they voted, and do so regularly.
If you sat the last election out because "the candidate didn't speak to me" in the face of the existential threat that was Donald Fucking Trump there's a strong argument that it's not worth the time trying to convince you to give a fuck rather than convincing someone that already did that my guy is better
Look, buddy, I'm not fucking happy about it either. But it's the world we live in. Minorities have to work harder for the things we want. It fucking sucks. We should be listened to without condition. But we aren't. So we have to make them listen. The alternative is to, what, just sit around and hope that this time for sure they'll give a shit about us? No thanks. I'd rather vote to move the party in a direction I like than wait for a mythical savior to 'inspire' me to action.
And I've posted multiple times in different threads about how we shouldn't be pandering to 'moderate' white voters. They've been offered more than enough, and they have to take some responsibility for what they've done (read: Trump).
The Democrats can't afford to "upset" any faction that supports them, particularly swing state factions.
Well, other than progressives/socialists, who just need to suck it up
What are the expected swing states this year, and the target demographics in those states? Any chance of FL going blue (last I heard there was some fuckery with the felony re-enfranchisement ballot that passed in 2018).
That's not even taking into account that in a bunch of predominantly black areas they closed a bunch of voting spots and those areas tend to have long lines. So if a person isn't motivated to vote for a candidate they're not going to take hours out of their day to vote.
{Twitter, Everybody's doing it. }{Writing and Story Blog}
A lot of Democrat factions feel taken for granted in the same way. Black voters REALLY feel that way.
Yeah, to depress votes they don't need people to go as far as "The Democrats despise my faction, so I'm protesting by withdrawing my vote" - it's more like "I don't really feel Clinton cares about me, and all the polls say she is sure to win in my district, so I'm not going out to line up round the block with a cold and an early start tomorrow."
To be frank, most of the time people treat folks who use their right to choose to not do so as mindless children who need to be guided to the correct choice, either by carrot or stick, and it feels of condescension and pompous indignation.
Because choosing not to vote when you're able to IS childish. It betrays a lack of understanding about how elections work.
I think that depends greatly upon one's reasons for not voting. Why would a socialist vote for ANY capitalist candidate, for example, and why spend a day waiting around at the polling station just to cast a vote for a socialist candidate that, by the design of the system, can't win? Why participate in the system when the system doesn't value your opinion or represent your interests? We can crow all day long about childishness or irresponsibility but at the end of the day Hillary Clinton won the popular vote by damn near 3 million votes and it didn't make a lick of difference. It's almost as if the system is specifically designed to discount the votes of significant portions of the American electorate!
And what are they accomplishing by not voting? Nobody is getting the message "hey, we need to be more socialist!" by people not voting. All they managed to do is disenfranchise themselves and make it easier for conservatives to gain power that they'll use to attack minorities, destroy public institutions, and strip away the social safety net.
But I guess that's a better outcome than voting for a capitalist liberal?
My point was the Democrats tendency to appeal to the middle of the road, while the Republicans are gleefully welcoming fascists of every flavor into their party because they're to the right of Dems, so they're all on the same team, is dooming the Democrats
They appeal to the middle of the road voters, because they are already voting.
I guess smug superiority is a way to go about trying to understand people. It's not a good way, but it is A Way.
I don't know how I'm the smugly superior one here compared to someone so smugly superior they won't deign to vote for someone who isn't their ideal candidate.
People who voted before and then didn't vote are also "already voting". It isn't as though they voted by accident the last time they did vote.
Asking someone to vote for something like "basically the same, but with a blue color scheme, instead of red" is going to work much longer
The GOP accepted an endorsement from actual Klansman David Duke, for fucks sakes
The GOP and DNC are not playing with the same rules
https://www.theroot.com/mayor-pete-s-invisible-black-police-1840727624
Something that I think is important to remember is that "perfect is the enemy of good" is the viewpoint expressed by people who are already convinced that the other option is good. Absolutely no one has a problem voting for a Good candidate. The big issue is that people are not universally convinced of where the line for Good is.
A lot of the times if someone wants to tut tut someone for voting far left, they'll trot out perfect is the enemy of good. But most of the times the person voting for the far left does not consider the far left candidate the Perfect one, they consider them the Good one. The reason it's hard to reach out to those people is because they feel that they're already compromising. You see this with a lot of people's anxieties about Biden - sure, maybe he gets the dude in office out. But if he thinks he can work with McConnell, does he actually stop anything that's tangibly hurting people in this country? The way people talk about Biden in this thread, and then say "But I'll vote for him anyway because he's not Trump" - why is it so surprising that you list out all those negatives, and then find out that someone is not comfortable actually voting for that guy after that list?
People aren't choosing to vote for perfect and not for good. People aren't convinced that "Actively Bad, Actually" isn't the option.
The solution to this is to build up the kind of support that can get the kind of candidate you want into the nominee position, for positions at all level of government.
I understand that it sucks to have candidates up there that you feel don’t represent you. But the rest of the party gets to vote too, so there will always be some group that feels like they aren’t getting what they want, but that’s life.
I voted for Hillary dawg, you're reaching. If the only counter you have for people's legit grievances with America's political system is telling them to grow up, you're really no different than republican boomers telling people to bootstrap themselves out of bad situations. "JUST VOTE, SURELY IT'LL CHANGE THINGS THIS TIME!" says the people who've been voting their entire lives and have only seen things get fucking worse. Why should anyone vote for the lesser evil when the choice to NOT pick ANY evil is right there?
Like, I've been living on less than ten grand a year for my entire adult life, friendo. I've got severe mental illnesses, my husband does as well and he's also diabetic, my family's been poor since we came to this shit-ass country and became sharecroppers. No president, not Obama or Clinton or GW Bush or Trump, has ever meaningfully improved our lot or the lots of basically anyone I know.
So yeah, I think you're a smug liberal telling folks what is and isn't good for them.
Yep, that's me, the Republican boomer, for thinking people who can vote should vote.
That's the key right there.
The less you have, the more different you are from the white majority, the more you have to struggle to just get the basic requirements of life. Telling someone whose focus in life is finding ways to pay for rent and food while knowing all the while that one mildly serious illness could topple their entire life over that voting is crucial is nice, but it falls flat when talking to people whose struggles don't end no matter which party controls the White House or Congress.
Both sides the same, vote for someone who has no chance of winning and is mathematically indistinguishable from a proxy vote for the fascists I guess
This line of thinking is what Rs are counting on with disinformation campaigns like bribing Ukraine for dirt on the Bidens. They can't make their candidate look good, so they need to make the opponent look just as bad, so voters stay home.
That's why outsider/renegade narratives are so powerful. Huge swaths of the voting public want desperately for things to be very different from how they are, and politicians need to be promising to make things very different if they want to capture their imagination. That's why trying to go against Trump is such a tough needle to thread, because the most powerful case against him (he's batpoop) is also the worst argument for yourself (I'm going to return things to the classic, boring status quo that many of you were desperately unhappy with).
It's also why someone like Sanders, for all his faults, has an enduring popularity. The Democratic base needs *someone* they can believe will shake things up.
This post justifies not courting those voters tho.
Was that your intent?
Or he could get the USA into WW3 and you could get drafted. That'd have people praying for things to go back to the status quo.
Because choosing to do nothing is a tacit endorsement of whatever you get.
One of these two parties is going to be elected. That is objective reality. Abstention does nothing other than let someone snark about their moral high ground, and I'm frankly real sick of hearing about it.
I said I voted Democrat, as did @Metzger Meister
Core assumptions that you need to be socialist to turn out youth voters should be examined in light of the Obama candidacy.
Ukraine isnt why Biden is dog shit with the youth
I didnt say that Spool.
Meanwhile the last three centrist candidates, well, didn't.
I'm really tired of the insistence that when a relatively centrist Dem loses the solution is to move further to the right.
I do not believe that a difficulty in courting people translates to a justification not to.