"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*
@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
