I agree but absolute ideological position globally has no meaning. The left in Saudi Arabia might be to the right of the right in Denmark but the only metric that matters is the push and pull to either side of the ideological center of a particular country
It does no good to say "the left in the USA is the right somewhere else" because all we care about is making the USA more left. We work with what is and iterate. This perspective is the only effective perspective
@benroyce @em_and_future_cats I mostly disagree. By any definition, the Democrats are conservative, they maintain the status quo, only doing the minimum to show that they're better than Republicans, and they *definitely* are, don't get me wrong. Now, it's entirely reasonable to argue that conservative and right-wing don't mean the same thing, but they usually do. The closest the US has to a left wing, the Green party, is a joke, something to make the Democrats' centric stance more reasonable.
Again you're absolutely right. I'm just asserting that the functional perspective is more important than the structural perspective. We both want the USA to be more left. I'm concerning myself with how to do that while meanwhile this 10,000 foot view of the status quo you're providing while accurate doesn't provide any analytical value of how to do that.
We start where we are and iterate left. That where we start sucks is true but noting that it sucks doesn't help
@benroyce @em_and_future_cats I think I see what you're getting at. I think, though, that letting Democrats be called "left" lets them off the hook to be better. It makes it seem like someone having an opinion between the Democrats and Republicans is a reasonable position when, really, that just makes them a less extreme extremist. Democrats should be seen as the compromise, the centric position (even though they're more like slightly right-wing).
Because of the FPTP voting system 3rd party only divides the left and hands MAGA the win. So we are stuck with the need to take over, gut and cannibalize the democratic party and make it an apparatus of the left. And we can that. The centrists are weak and the anger is strong
@benroyce @em_and_future_cats Oh, absolutely, I'm definitely not suggesting voting for third party candidates, at least not at a federal level. There is *some* benefit, sometimes, to voting for a third party at a state level, and there's usually benefit to third party votes at a county and city level. As long as the system is plurality, Democrats will continue to get my endorsement, but I'll be damned if I let them off the hook for being centrists.
might i suggest a perspective shift
I mean i don't differ with anything you say but i think it's important
"The democrats" is not some entity we should consider or even characterize. Simply because that mental framework is not useful and even counterproductive
"The democrats" are just an empty shell we fill with our will (or don't, if we don't vote)
That everything we dislike about the democrats is a direct consequence of the assholes out there who didn't vote
@em_and_future_cats @StarkRG @benroyce And get involved in local politics. Those people on you county planning commission may be angling for congress some day.
Besides, if you've watched more than one procedural drama, why not sit in on a few town hall meetings? It's basically free theater and you might learn or shape something.
@benroyce The Democrats are an organisation with a small (9 members) committee that determines the policies and direction of the party and a second, slightly larger (65 members) committee that runs things day-to-day. When was the last time you voted in a Democratic National Committee election? Or an Executive Committee one? They set the rules for how primaries and caucuses are run, they run the fundraisers. Average, everyday Americans get effectively zero say in the makeup of those committees.
if enough showed the fuck up, all of that would be working for us
that the democratic party does not, and serves spineless centrists, is a direct consequence of not enough showing up to vote
what i'm saying is that this organizational inertia argument is real, as you say, but it's essentially nothing but a reflection of our will. *if* we show the fuck up
bad candidates do not lead to low voter turn out
well, they do, but more accurately:
low voter turn out leads to bad candidates
@benroyce It's a bit like that, sure, but it would take a long time of everyone showing up to vote to actually make a difference. I can't imagine the DNC as it exists now, allowing candidates more left wing than AOC or Omar. There's only so much voters can do with the system that exists, and that turns people off voting. Personally, I'm a strong proponent of compulsory voting. Don't just make it easier to vote, make it harder not to.
right but imagining something better is easy. delivering on it takes sustained effort. so we have to fucking vote
it's a nasty analogy but it's true:
MAGA took over the Republicans. called centrist Republicans "RINOs" (Republicans in name only). hollowed out the shitty party and made it something much more shitty: fascism
we can take over and remake the dems as well
it's a shitty analogy because i hate any comparison to MAGA but it's a demonstration that sustained voting works
@benroyce Ooh, I'll disagree with "imagining something better is easy" it seems like it *should* be, but it doesn't seem to be in practice, especially if we say that Democrats are as left wing as we can hope for. We settle for the Democrats because that's the best of what's currently available, but we need to be telling them that we're not happy with them as they currently stand. I want to vote for actually progressive candidates, not just for the people who aren't literally evil.
two things:
1. i was directly referencing your suggestion for compulsory voting. i agree. and? well to get it we have to show the fuck up. idea -> action. however easy or not the idea is is meaningless without the action
2. "we need to be telling them that we're not happy with them as they currently stand." right. but what is that? whining online or writing emails that get canned fake responses? that "telling" your referring to is our vote. vote them the fuck out. that's telling them
@benroyce
1. I agree with having to show up to get changes made. I brought it up because I'm not saying that we shouldn't vote for Democrats because they suck, a lot of non-voters (or third-party voters) think that way.
2. I mean, for a start, by not calling them left wing. You can't vote people out, you can only vote people in, and the people running as Democrats are usually centrists. I literally can't tell them through voting because the people who represent my ideals aren't in the race.
"a lot of non-voters (or third-party voters) think that way."
right because they're morons. of course the dems suck. because the morons don't vote
"You can't vote people out, you can only vote people in, and the people running as Democrats are usually centrists"
because no one shows up in the primaries. how did mamdani get in, despite no support from the dem org? because people showed the fuck up
people not voting is the *cause*, not the *effect*
stop thinking of establishment dems as some alien omnipotent force that must be interacted with. in fact they're quite weak. just fucking ignore them
stop thinking the establishment at all. you build it up to be this insurmountable enemy. it's an illusion that causes inaction
we show the fuck up in the primaries, and then we just own the joint. that's it
it all depends upon people showing the fuck up. beginning and ending of the topic
@benroyce Yeah, I agree with all that. The only thing I really disagree with you on is calling the Democrats left-wing. I'd allow "center-left" but I'd still strongly disagree with that categorisation, they are center-right. Just being less right wing than the Nazis doesn't make them left, it just makes them less right.
there is an ideological center and two parties to either side of it
that this is all much further right than we both want has no meaning. there is a left, because it is the left-er choice
to make it further left, we show up, we sustain, we iterate
there is no other option, and bemoaning things are so far right has no effective or actionable point, and in fact leads to inaction and stasis
it is like this, because the left doesn't fucking vote
@benroyce
I’d like to take this opportunity to explain shifting the Overton Window and its relationship to getting out the vote. In this paper I will
@StarkRG
@benroyce It's not bemoaning things to call the democrats center-right. I'm still voting for them because to do otherwise it's ludicrous. I just disagree with calling them something they're not. Political left and political right are not relative, they have definite meanings and the Democrats simply do not qualify as left wing. That's not to say that they can't become left, the Republicans switched sides after all, but right now they aren't.
Again you're asserting a 20,000 ft view rather than the functional reality. The dems are the left because they are to the left. Whether they are to the left of authoritarian mass murder or to the left of redistribution of billionaire's assets has no meaning
You're accurate in your words but your words lead to no functionality. The functional position is to use language that describes how it is, not how it should be. We can begin to move to how it should when our language is functional
@benroyce @StarkRG
I have heard this before from people who are so wrapped up in “they are not left enough” that they will do a “protest vote” & not vote at all. I think this is why @benroyce is having trouble with this statement too. The reality is, this country has 2 party system, not enough people pushed for having a “leftist” dem party, but the “radical right” got lots of momentum. The whole system is out of balance & we need to start *NOW* to fix it.
@benroyce @StarkRG
Vote in primaries, help anyone considering to run for any office.
Don’t worry about a person “winning” (this is also a problem, because lots of people see it as a sport and want to be on “the winning team” 🙄)
Keep talking around others why voting is important (cite Mamdani and him winning the primaries because people SHOWED UP TO THEM and not just the main election). It’s a full out thing, not “dems are centrist” because that’s from previous election negligence.
@suzannealdrich @benroyce @StarkRG
At this point, I believe that if we just nudge the Overton window slightly more to the right, it will snap around to extreme left.
Looking from an European PoV, the politics in the US has always been a choice between "far right" and “extreme right”.
@airwhale @suzannealdrich @StarkRG
you could say the same about saudi arabia
you might also say that saudi arabia, to move further left, needs to iterate and sustain and inch it's way gradually left
to simply observe the saudi left is further right than the right in europe has no *functional* meaning. it's just looking at the globe and making comparisons that have no impact
well, the same is true of the usa. and it moves further right because the left just can't fucking be bothered to vote
@benroyce @suzannealdrich @StarkRG
Yes, it all needs to be considered within its own context.
@airwhale @suzannealdrich @StarkRG
functionally
your words are valid and true, but more of a structural observation than a functional prescription
to move the usa further left we have to vote, sustain, iterate
it's grueling and a joyless chore, and the payoff is far away
and many people get turned off by that
You might find this article interesting. It shows how compulsory voting in Australia led to policy shifts in government that benefited those on low incomes, pretty much vindicating everything you've been saying about why high voter turnout matters so much.
@StarkRG @benroyce
@ApostateEnglishman
It starts before showing up in the primaries; have to make sure there are primaries to show up to. If there aren't any leftists running, we can't vote for them.
@Fishercat @StarkRG @ApostateEnglishman
and that's where we are right now, before the primaries
some of you reading along here:
RUN FOR OFFICE
we will amplify you
@StarkRG @benroyce Pleasure. And since this is getting boosted a lot, I'll repeat what I said to you before: I know hardcore anarchists - the sort who think all top-down power structures (including the state itself) should be completely dismantled, and the only real democracy is grassroots and community-led - who 👉🏼still vote👈🏼, because they recognise that however broken the current system may be, keeping the far right out of government, both locally and nationally, is still hugely important!
@StarkRG @benroyce @ApostateEnglishman I firmly believe that doing any little bit of harm reduction you have available to you, however insignificant, is worth doing. And voting is one of those things (particularly in local council elections in the UK, where turnout is around 30% but actually the ideology of the council makes a huge difference to things in people's day to day lives like road or cycle lane funding, recycling collections etc)
voting is just tactics in a larger war
and "waah, but i want perfect, waah" is immature impotency
@StarkRG @benroyce @afewbugs Yeah. I was part of a team of 18 volunteers who dropped around 13,000 leaflets across two campaigns - an unofficial one against Reform UK, and an official one in support of the independent candidate - in the run-up to a local by-election. Sadly Reform still narrowly won, but we did manage to shave a few percentile points off their vote share.
Yet most of us think the electoral system is beyond repair. Allowing cynicism to become inaction is, as Ben says, juvenile. 🤷🏻♂️
@StarkRG @benroyce @ApostateEnglishman it's a commitment to personal purity, never sullying yourself by touching a system that's less than 100% perfect, over actually attempting to make things a bit better in the world
@afewbugs @StarkRG @ApostateEnglishman
yup
and this toxic idealism is selfish, self-serving navel gazing ineffectuality
nonvoters don't have political positions, they have psychological positions
it's a form of coping. it has nothing to do with making the world a better place
morality without action isn't morality, it's ego masturbation
also:
action is always imprecise and messy
and toxic idealists can't deal with that
so they are not moral people. they're just utterly useless whiners
@benroyce @afewbugs @StarkRG @ApostateEnglishman It's also a great way of not having to take responsibility for any decisions you make except OOPS it's not. But I'm convinced a lot of people - on some level, maybe not top level but it's in there - think it is.
