Suspending the Election

Tireseas

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Politics only works that way in the tiny DC and DC adjacent communities you work in. Most actual political strategists rather than members of the DC failson class understand that to get the party closer to you to do what you want you have to be organized and willing to deny them your support if they don’t meet your demands. That is how the Koch’s built the Tea Party, how Reagan took over the Republican Party, etc. Your strategy is the pure idiocy of the dem consultant class that has been invented to soothe their consciences as they suck blue dog dick.
1) I haven't been in DC in a decade sans a quick trip in 2011 to escort my brother to some college visits. I've been in Washington in and near Seattle since 2011.

2) This isn't just DC, this is how electoral politics works all over the country. The loudest supporters tend to get the most attention to their issues because politicians want to keep them content. You can actually see that right now with city counsels acquiescing to some of the easier demands (some statutes and monuments) and starting on harder ones. Noise isn't enough, but if politicians think they're siding with popular opinion (even when they may actually be wrong), then they're more likely to push through or act on items that are "top of mind." Shit takes time and political capital, but being loud and giving the impression is a low-political cost item can get your policy towards the top of the agenda.
Protesters seem pretty loud to me.
For now, but nothing is louder in politics than electoral results. If you can deliver a win, you can push an agenda.
 

Worgen

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Whatever, just wash your hands.
Protesters seem pretty loud to me.
Yeah they are and it sounds like they are getting some stuff done. It also really helps that everyone has cameras so people can see the police behaving badly in real time. But, its all going to come down to voting once the protests are over. A lot of people will remember, but with how much is going on, you have to make sure that the message remains in peoples minds. Cause once the news stops reporting on something, it makes people feel like its no longer an issue.
 

Buyetyen

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UBI could be one of the greatest things to come out of this crisis, though I still think it's a long shot. I personally favor a UBI high enough to cover everybody's needs ($2-4k a month) along with a baseline medicare for all system with supplemental insurance (which is closer to what many other counties have and could be more easily be built into our system) while eliminating the minimum wage generally. Contrary to how most conservatives believe, work is rarely something that is solely a monetary venture and the dignity of work is kind of overrated, but a job provides a sense of accomplishment overall, and it would be straight up interesting if, in a society where a person didn't need to work for subsistence, what the wage would actually look like if companies had the real option of wages that they could set if there were no people who were in desperation to pay rent or food. How many people will take a $5/hr job which would only adding a small fraction of their income?
It's a long shot, yes. But the popularity ticks up a little bit more every time it makes it into the conversation. I suspect that a part of the cultural schism is people coming to realize the whole, "You didn't earn this," mentality is founded on some really asinine assumptions about the value of human life.

Yeah they are and it sounds like they are getting some stuff done. It also really helps that everyone has cameras so people can see the police behaving badly in real time. But, its all going to come down to voting once the protests are over. A lot of people will remember, but with how much is going on, you have to make sure that the message remains in peoples minds. Cause once the news stops reporting on something, it makes people feel like its no longer an issue.
Which is the point of these mass demonstrations. You do not give the press a chance to stop talking about this. Not to say it's easy, quite the opposite. But for years the liberal approach was just to play it calm and rational, meet in the middle, let the facts do the talking. Then we figured out none of that shit works on Republicans and fascists (but I repeat myself). You want to beat them, you gotta put on your game face and make some noise. Otherwise they're going to be the ones framing and controlling the conversation.
 

Revnak

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1) I haven't been in DC in a decade sans a quick trip in 2011 to escort my brother to some college visits. I've been in Washington in and near Seattle since 2011.
Given you were approximately a paid poster for Hilary four years ago, I think we both know what I meant. Also, remind me, how’d that work out again?
2) This isn't just DC, this is how electoral politics works all over the country. The loudest supporters tend to get the most attention to their issues because politicians want to keep them content. You can actually see that right now with city counsels acquiescing to some of the easier demands (some statutes and monuments) and starting on harder ones. Noise isn't enough, but if politicians think they're siding with popular opinion (even when they may actually be wrong), then they're more likely to push through or act on items that are "top of mind." Shit takes time and political capital, but being loud and giving the impression is a low-political cost item can get your policy towards the top of the agenda.
I’m more in favor of the guys tearing them right the fuck down. One burned down precinct building has permanently changed the American conversation on policing. But a hundred half assed speeches by Obama and his suitors has not. I agree with loudness. I think demanding better, absolutely, and destroying any attempt at cooption is how these issues will realistically be addressed and is how they have been addressed in the past.
For now, but nothing is louder in politics than electoral results. If you can deliver a win, you can push an agenda.
Remind me, how’d this kind of reaching out to “ethical conservatives” go last time? What results has the Jennifer Rubin wing of America delivered? Iraq?
 
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Agema

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Hell, we've got right wing talking heads like Ben Shapiro lamenting that the coronavirus stimulus bill torpedoes their argument that we can't afford things like universal healthcare and a UBI.
Maybe.

Spending without taxation to afford it requires borrowing. Borrowing is dependent on international finance: if people won't buy government bonds, that government is mightily fucked. Coronavirus had to be controlled with lockdowns that inflicted massive economic damage, and the only way to stop a meltdown was... government borrowing. In that sense, it likely created a permissiveness towards government borrowing that would not have existed without coronavirus, as all the capitalist class stared at the possibility of ruionous economic collapse, and decided that they'd better prop up the government's stimulus plans instead. It is much less likely they would pay to support other people receiving healthcare and welfare.

UBI and healthcare are arguably easier to reject now, because national debts are going to be up the wazoo and there will be vast pressure to deal with them. The capitalist class can either pay more tax, or push for restrictions on government spending. What do we all think they'll do? Even if we try to tax them, and it will mostly likely result in record flows of money into Swiss, Panamanian and British crown colony banks. Of course that's also risky for the capitalist class, because if the middle class perceive that they're being clobbered to pay off government debt and the rich aren't, they'll be likely to align more with the poor and move leftwards. But it will happen, because the rich aren't a hive mind who will collectively decide strategy, they're a bunch of self-interested individuals who instinctively and institutionally maximise personal gain by trying not to pay tax.
 
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MrCalavera

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For now, but nothing is louder in politics than electoral results. If you can deliver a win, you can push an agenda.
Yeah they are and it sounds like they are getting some stuff done. It also really helps that everyone has cameras so people can see the police behaving badly in real time. But, its all going to come down to voting once the protests are over. A lot of people will remember, but with how much is going on, you have to make sure that the message remains in peoples minds. Cause once the news stops reporting on something, it makes people feel like its no longer an issue.
IDK, the authorities seemed to care the most after that precinct was burnt down.

Then again, you can push for the same political goal with different methods.
 

Worgen

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Whatever, just wash your hands.
IDK, the authorities seemed to care the most after that precinct was burnt down.

Then again, you can push for the same political goal with different methods.
Well, if young people were as down for voting as they were protesting then things would be pretty different, but they tend to be flaky as hell when it comes to the voting booth.
 
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Tireseas

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Given you were approximately a paid poster for Hilary four years ago, I think we both know what I meant. Also, remind me, how’d that work out again?
Yes, clearly I'm paid off for wanting one of arguably the most qualified people on the planet over the clearly racist, incompetent con man who clearly was going to target my friends and family (and who I would later realize was myself), and has pretty much done exactly that.

Seriously. People supporting Clinton did so on a variety of reasons, but arguably her extreme competence on governing with a fairly progressive policy bent kind of was her biggest selling point.
I’m more in favor of the guys tearing them right the fuck down. One burned down precinct building has permanently changed the American conversation on policing. But a hundred half assed speeches by Obama and his suitors has not. I agree with loudness. I think demanding better, absolutely, and destroying any attempt at cooption is how these issues will realistically be addressed and is how they have been addressed in the past.
No, at most, they tend to get the subject highlighted briefly before things effectively return to normal, if a slightly modified one, like they did in 2015 or 2009 or 1992 or 1989 or 1980 or 1978, because once politicians realize people aren't going to vote in their favor after acquiescing to rioter demands, they have no reason to actually carry out the reforms or programs that would have addressed the issues in the first place.

You want real change, you need to change the laws and institutions, not throw a fit and then show you're not willing to do the bare minimum the political system asks of you. It's painfully slow, but its also the only real way to change the system in a durable manner.
Remind me, how’d this kind of reaching out to “ethical conservatives” go last time? What results has the Jennifer Rubin wing of America delivered? Iraq?
If they're voting for the candidate that get's Trump out, they're doing more than you. Politicians have to attract voters to win, and winning an election is a necessity to get policies passed, because principles don't mean shit if you're not the one driving policy, so either progressives need to take the win they got and fight for Biden and other democrats will determine that your vote isn't reasonably gettable, so they'll look somewhere else. And somewhere else is always going to be more conservative if you're on the left flank.

Ironically, the conservative movement is an excellent template for progressives to follow: They show uniform loyalty in the general, which means their interests get catered to, and they are organized in the primaries, which means their people get nominated and often elected. They push the boundaries when they know they can and fall in line when the general comes around so that every fucking GOP politician wants to cater to their specific whims and interests. They built whole external institutions to funnel conservative law students into conservative lawyers into conservative judges to the point that they have defacto control over the Supreme Court Nomination Process. They primaried insufficiently conservative candidates, effectively scaring every other politician into compliance.

Because electoral power > protests. Every. Single. Time.

You want to win? You have to vote.
 
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ObsidianJones

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Well, if young people were as down for voting as they were protesting then things would be pretty different, but they tend to be flaky as hell when it comes to the voting booth.
I honestly can't blame them.

2016 shows that voting really doesn't matter unless you live in Key States. Hillary won by millions. Doesn't matter. Redmap is so powerful that in states like Pennsylvania, Democratic congressional candidates got 51% of the vote, but actually just a quarter of seats. Removing Democratic Districts by redrawing the maps have just led to democratic being screwed. Why believe in voting when it's shown that money and those in power can just say "Sorry, the will of the American people is whatever we manipulate it to be"?

Tearing down a system by movement has become the only option of choice, thanks to partisan efforts. Because your vote doesn't matter as much as a republican vote. Would any of us sit down to play a board game with someone who constantly remakes the rules so only they can win?
 

Tireseas

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I honestly can't blame them.

2016 shows that voting really doesn't matter unless you live in Key States. Hillary won by millions. Doesn't matter. Redmap is so powerful that in states like Pennsylvania, Democratic congressional candidates got 51% of the vote, but actually just a quarter of seats. Removing Democratic Districts by redrawing the maps have just led to democratic being screwed. Why believe in voting when it's shown that money and those in power can just say "Sorry, the will of the American people is whatever we manipulate it to be"?

Tearing down a system by movement has become the only option of choice, thanks to partisan efforts. Because your vote doesn't matter as much as a republican vote. Would any of us sit down to play a board game with someone who constantly remakes the rules so only they can win?
When it's the only game in town, it's not like you have a choice. Ironically, Pennsylvania is a good example of how Redmap can be undone as between court challenges and the Dems holding the governorship (which has veto power over maps and isn't up for election until next year), the damage can be repaired even if the GOP holds the statehouse.

No matter how bad it gets, not voting is not an option if you want change. For all the problems in the system, politicians still need to get reelected and not all of them can be preserved through redistricting. So be part of a movement, but don't forget to vote, otherwise all that energy and effort in the movement goes to waste.
 

Tireseas

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It's a long shot, yes. But the popularity ticks up a little bit more every time it makes it into the conversation. I suspect that a part of the cultural schism is people coming to realize the whole, "You didn't earn this," mentality is founded on some really asinine assumptions about the value of human life.
Yeah, it's probably going to take a while and probably the death of the modern conservative movement before it ever sees widespread approval.

But a girl can dream...
 

Worgen

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Whatever, just wash your hands.
I honestly can't blame them.

2016 shows that voting really doesn't matter unless you live in Key States. Hillary won by millions. Doesn't matter. Redmap is so powerful that in states like Pennsylvania, Democratic congressional candidates got 51% of the vote, but actually just a quarter of seats. Removing Democratic Districts by redrawing the maps have just led to democratic being screwed. Why believe in voting when it's shown that money and those in power can just say "Sorry, the will of the American people is whatever we manipulate it to be"?

Tearing down a system by movement has become the only option of choice, thanks to partisan efforts. Because your vote doesn't matter as much as a republican vote. Would any of us sit down to play a board game with someone who constantly remakes the rules so only they can win?
Thats just hand waving the issue, while you aren't wrong, it also is much more important than just presidential elections. You have local elections, you have state elections on top of the federal elections. You don't like the redmap and districts then you need to vote more in the local and state elections since those tend to be the ones that control things like that. Also, I think the whole money talks thing is actually much more overblown than you would think, especially since in the 2020 primaries we saw money not mattering as much as you would assume. Bernie outspent Biden and he still lost, we had a couple billionaire that tried to run too and they were burning money like it was going out of style, one no one remembers and the other was still only barely a blip in the electorate. We even saw Kanye West momentarily throw his stupid hat in the ring and the only support he got was from conservative black folks. It's fun to think of the public as being easily manipulated and sheep lead to the slaughter but that is a very cynical view of things and ignores what happens when a party starts going against what its voters want. Democracy is a huge pain in the ass, but its the best we have at the moment till the glorious sun horse comes down and rules over us with her benevolent dictatorship.
 
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Tireseas

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I think the major difference between the right and the left here is that the right has an easier time organizing since there isn't much nuance in opposing progressive agendas. You don't want public healthcare or legalized abortion or trans rights or any of that stuff. Doesn't matter if you do it because you hate gays and the guy next to you just don't want to revise his hiring process, you can both rally under the same banner. Because not rallying means that the other side might win.

On the left, as the saying goes, the favorite pastime is to fight the left. Because you all want progressive reforms and you can't launch them all at once and you all want differing degrees of reform. So the lesbians will have a huge spat with the gays because the gays have taken over the homosexual rights movement, radical feminists will denounce third wave feminists for being too divisive and third wave feminists will hate on second wave feminists for not being inclusive enough and the people who just want public healthcare will not care for any of that but will get scared when the socialists start talking about empowering the unions again. And around and around it goes.

The whole Bernie/Clinton and later Bernie/Biden conflict are mighty telling for this. When the Bernie Bros didn't get their nominee they'd rather sit in a corner and sulk, thus costing the democrats valuable votes they couldn't afford to lose. All to prove a point about how Clinton wasn't progressive enough. The end result was that Trump won and they got a much worse president. This is not unique to the US, it has been a problem for all leftist movements since at least the 19th century and has often cost progressive movements potential victories (the Spanish Civil War is especially bad for this, were the Anarchists would rather fight everyone if they didn't get theirs and thus fractured an already weak Republican side). It is, sadly, much easier to have a conflict with potential allies over details then it is to fight a common enemy, especially if both you and your ally have to make concessions to reach common ground.
Oh no doubt. It's been a pattern since before 1968 in the US.

It's just frustrating that, of all the things the progressive movement could have taken from the conservative movement, it was the unearned prosecution complex rather than the effective political strategy.
 

Revnak

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Yes, clearly I'm paid off for wanting one of arguably the most qualified people on the planet over the clearly racist, incompetent con man who clearly was going to target my friends and family (and who I would later realize was myself), and has pretty much done exactly that.

Seriously. People supporting Clinton did so on a variety of reasons, but arguably her extreme competence on governing with a fairly progressive policy bent kind of was her biggest selling point.
See, you’re like a broken record.
No, at most, they tend to get the subject highlighted briefly before things effectively return to normal, if a slightly modified one, like they did in 2015 or 2009 or 1992 or 1989 or 1980 or 1978, because once politicians realize people aren't going to vote in their favor after acquiescing to rioter demands, they have no reason to actually carry out the reforms or programs that would have addressed the issues in the first place.
Because your guys coopted them then threw them in jail, lest we forget who was at the helm during Ferguson. And once again, how precisely did Reagan take over a party? By supporting Nixon? And the Koch’s, how many insane primary challengers did they run? They got to paint their dreams all over this country, but your “progressive agenda” got thrown in the trash by Obama. We kept torturing. We stayed in Iraq and Afghanistan. Nobody who stole my house went to jail. In fact, while catering to blue dog Dems and moderacy for his entire presidency, Obama still wound up losing the congress to tea party madmen who created the modern Trump coalition. Doing this shit is how we got here in the first place.
You want real change, you need to change the laws and institutions, not throw a fit and then show you're not willing to do the bare minimum the political system asks of you. It's painfully slow, but its also the only real way to change the system in a durable manner.
Fine, then to change themI will absolutely refuse to support anything and anyone who refuses to change those laws and institutions. “A fit,” ha, as if a pederast’s loyal wife was so deserving of my support. My loathing of your precious mother isn’t rooted in me “throwing a fit,” it is tactical entirely. I know she hates me and mine. I know she will do nothing for us. So I will do anything and everything in my power to punish the class of individual who demands my loyalty to such an unworthy woman until they learn their fucking lesson. All they have for me in negotiations is the stick, I will treat them the same.
If they're voting for the candidate that get's Trump out, they're doing more than you. Politicians have to attract voters to win, and winning an election is a necessity to get policies passed, because principles don't mean shit if you're not the one driving policy, so either progressives need to take the win they got and fight for Biden and other democrats will determine that your vote isn't reasonably gettable, so they'll look somewhere else. And somewhere else is always going to be more conservative if you're on the left flank.
Brooks, Rubin, the entire never Trump movement, they are the greatest failures at beating Trump that ever were. They had a dozen guys to throw at him. They failed. Their votes amounted to nothing, and they convinced precisely none of the principled suburbanites they are so certain exist to change their vote, who in any case are scum. The true legacy of these rejects should be their greatest accomplishment, selling us on a war old enough to fight itself by being entirely wrong about literally every aspect of how it would go. These are the geniuses you celebrate here.
Ironically, the conservative movement is an excellent template for progressives to follow: They show uniform loyalty in the general, which means their interests get catered to, and they are organized in the primaries, which means their people get nominated and often elected. They push the boundaries when they know they can and fall in line when the general comes around so that every fucking GOP politician wants to cater to their specific whims and interests. They built whole external institutions to funnel conservative law students into conservative lawyers into conservative judges to the point that they have defacto control over the Supreme Court Nomination Process. They primaried insufficiently conservative candidates, effectively scaring every other politician into compliance.

Because electoral power > protests. Every. Single. Time.

You want to win? You have to vote.
I feel like you forgot what spurred all of the greatest conservative reactions in American history. Twice, it was conservatives rejecting the Eisenhower establishment Republicans by not showing up in the general, then screaming for years until they got their way. This got them Reagan eventually. Then they rejected McCain, didn’t show up in the general for him or Romney. They buried the neocons. Then they got Trump. See, what conservatives actually did was not vote for the run of the mill loser and instead kept demanding an insane person until they got their insane person. Your advice is entirely counter to actual history.
 

Seanchaidh

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It's just frustrating that, of all the things the progressive movement could have taken from the conservative movement, it was the unearned prosecution complex rather than the effective political strategy.
Electing Hillary Clinton was never an effective political strategy for progressives. Neither will be electing Biden.

In 2016 and 2020 both major party candidates are servants of the military industrial complex when it comes to foreign policy and servants of the rich and the police state when it comes to domestic policy. The major difference is in how overt they are in their racism (and how tolerable their constituencies find overt racism). There is no ally here for progressives. There is nothing to do with respect to voting that will increase progressive power. Arguably there is damage mitigation if you can stomach voting for someone credibly accused of rape and sexual harassment and if you think that a wolf in sheep's clothing is less dangerous than a wolf (at least in this case, if not generally).

The pattern for at least the last twenty years has been that the party in power becomes discredited by worsening material conditions, and then the other party takes power and becomes discredited by the still worsening material conditions. We don't have a real opposition party when the Republicans are in power, and when Democrats are in power they still manage to capitulate, often preemptively, to Republicans.

Tens of millions of people are out of work and the unemployment insurance just expired and there was no new stimulus check and millions are being evicted. The clearly moral thing to do now is to organize a general strike with the intention of demanding (among other things) a really democratic politics rather than the billionaire-curated 'choice' this sham electoral process has given us, not vote for the other rapist. The people burning down buildings are doing more to accomplish a better world than any amount of voting for centrist Democratic politicians ever could.
 

Revnak

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It's just frustrating that, of all the things the progressive movement could have taken from the conservative movement, it was the unearned prosecution complex rather than the effective political strategy.
YOUR CANDIDATE SAID THAT PEOPLE LIKE ME SHOULD BE THROWN IN JAIL THE PERSECUTION COMPLEX MIGHT BE EARNED
 

ObsidianJones

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When it's the only game in town, it's not like you have a choice. Ironically, Pennsylvania is a good example of how Redmap can be undone as between court challenges and the Dems holding the governorship (which has veto power over maps and isn't up for election until next year), the damage can be repaired even if the GOP holds the statehouse.

No matter how bad it gets, not voting is not an option if you want change. For all the problems in the system, politicians still need to get reelected and not all of them can be preserved through redistricting. So be part of a movement, but don't forget to vote, otherwise all that energy and effort in the movement goes to waste.
You're absolutely right about how it can be undone, but the problem is that you don't get another chance at a first impression.

Hell, when I was growing up watching Animaniacs, even they had skits about how the government was iffy at best. A lot of us were already wary of government. And then to have the promise of fairness legally wrenched out of the hands of the people, you lose interest in the 'system' as a whole. That plus the debt and the pillaging of the Average American's coffers has millennials convinced that this system is corrupt through and through and running for other answers like Socialism.

And all we have to really say is "Yeah, I know it's bad. But you still have to trust in it because that's what we're working with".

That doesn't work for me with the Police. That's never worked with me for a government that marginalized me from literal birth. I still vote. But I can't honestly look at a disenfranchised youth and tell them not to want to buck a system while I am apart of a population that never truly mattered.

And it's not that they don't want to flex whatever power they have. I believe it's just that they don't feel their power will count in the current system. And again. With institutional things like the Electroal College and being able to quietly redistrict and have the highest court in the land (which has a party majority) back the effort that happens to benefit that party in question... This is just a stacked deck.

Hell, I'm not even saying they are right. Just as one disenfranchised party to another... I get where they are coming from.

Thats just hand waving the issue, while you aren't wrong, it also is much more important than just presidential elections. You have local elections, you have state elections on top of the federal elections. You don't like the redmap and districts then you need to vote more in the local and state elections since those tend to be the ones that control things like that. Also, I think the whole money talks thing is actually much more overblown than you would think, especially since in the 2020 primaries we saw money not mattering as much as you would assume. Bernie outspent Biden and he still lost, we had a couple billionaire that tried to run too and they were burning money like it was going out of style, one no one remembers and the other was still only barely a blip in the electorate. We even saw Kanye West momentarily throw his stupid hat in the ring and the only support he got was from conservative black folks. It's fun to think of the public as being easily manipulated and sheep lead to the slaughter but that is a very cynical view of things and ignores what happens when a party starts going against what its voters want. Democracy is a huge pain in the ass, but its the best we have at the moment till the glorious sun horse comes down and rules over us with her benevolent dictatorship.
Hey, I agree with you on a lot of things. But it is the issue for a lot of people.

I feel like my vote doesn't count because of how the system is set up. Whether Theist or Atheist, we're all praying to anything that will listen to keep Ruth Bader Ginsberg alive until Trump is voted out. The Supreme Court is already stacked enough on the Republican side. It doesn't need to be a landslide every time.

But firstly, you're falling in the trap that every voter has the same opportunities that you have. The youngest Millennial is... what, 22? 23? Operation Redmap was set about in 2010? By the time Redmap was set up, they were 16. Their first major vote (and yes, people don't understand how important local votes are) seemingly was taken from them. And we have a derisive, toxic figure because of it.

You have to understand why this isn't hand waving. Because people are angry. They don't trust the system. And for a good deal of them, their first time at the bat it was shown to be (in their minds) corrupt. As much as I might respect individual officers, I will never respect and/or trust the Police Force as a concept, because it has treated my family and myself as an enemy for longer than I care to think about.

But Bernie is a great example about what I'm talking about. Hands down, the best presidential candidate in my opinion. He got my vote last election here in the NY primaries. He would have gotten it if he made it to these primaries. There's nothing I questioned about Sanders at all. Nothing.

But people now are scared. Beaten. Trump took a lot out of people. And now they just want safety. Normalcy. They picked to back someone who doesn't hold a candle to Bernie because I feel they think they won't have to worry as much as with Biden as they do with Trump. And they want calm waters now, not the catalyst of change that I believe Sanders would be.

Feelings aren't handwaves, Worgen. It's literally the most important drive for people's voting. And Mileenials feel this system doesn't work. And like I said, I can't blame them.

I won't do their methods. I'm going to vote. But I can see their point. It's up to us to show them the way, instead of chastising them. And it's a hard sell. One that I'm having trouble buying myself.
 
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Specter Von Baren

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Cuttlefish
I think the major difference between the right and the left here is that the right has an easier time organizing since there isn't much nuance in opposing progressive agendas. You don't want public healthcare or legalized abortion or trans rights or any of that stuff. Doesn't matter if you do it because you hate gays and the guy next to you just don't want to revise his hiring process, you can both rally under the same banner. Because not rallying means that the other side might win.

On the left, as the saying goes, the favorite pastime is to fight the left. Because you all want progressive reforms and you can't launch them all at once and you all want differing degrees of reform. So the lesbians will have a huge spat with the gays because the gays have taken over the homosexual rights movement, radical feminists will denounce third wave feminists for being too divisive and third wave feminists will hate on second wave feminists for not being inclusive enough and the people who just want public healthcare will not care for any of that but will get scared when the socialists start talking about empowering the unions again. And around and around it goes.

The whole Bernie/Clinton and later Bernie/Biden conflict are mighty telling for this. When the Bernie Bros didn't get their nominee they'd rather sit in a corner and sulk, thus costing the democrats valuable votes they couldn't afford to lose. All to prove a point about how Clinton wasn't progressive enough. The end result was that Trump won and they got a much worse president. This is not unique to the US, it has been a problem for all leftist movements since at least the 19th century and has often cost progressive movements potential victories (the Spanish Civil War is especially bad for this, were the Anarchists would rather fight everyone if they didn't get theirs and thus fractured an already weak Republican side). It is, sadly, much easier to have a conflict with potential allies over details then it is to fight a common enemy, especially if both you and your ally have to make concessions to reach common ground.
The Democrats have put themselves into this situation though. They've been trying to run on the rhetoric of being the "inclusive" party that will fight for minorities. The problem is that all of these different groups are only united in that they view the Republicans as preventing them from getting what they want which allows the dems to fight against Republican policies but when they try to make their own they can't get all these disparate groups to work together. A split in the Democratic party seems like a necessity at this point because it has no focus.

Side note: How you been Geth? Haven't seen you around for a while.