The fact that “next election” to you means the presidential election is very telling. There are more progressive candidates penciled on the midterm ballots (let alone the active primaries) than there have been in living memory. And that’s not counting local progressive candidates that are already in office from this election cycle.
But to hear everyone talk, anything short of a leftist presidency is a failure in the same way that anything short of a spontaneous revolution isn’t worth doing. A milquetoast neolib president shackled by a progressive Congress by far the best option in the realm of possibility.
This is what drives left infighting, a complete disconnect on what’s desired and what’s possible. Some limitations are just so obvious that I don’t know how people ignore them.
All media is controlled by billionaire corporate interests who have a ton to lose from the left gaining power. The revolution will not be televised and your left political wave will not come through social media. This will not change and you don’t have the wallet to fight it.
Related, there will never be a viable third party no matter how much wishcasting you project. FPTP firmly entrenched the two party system and it would take a herculean reform effort to uproot it. There’s a reason that the Republican and Democratic platforms have shifted all over the map since the 1800s, you can’t splinter and keep any power.
Following that, the road map for usurping the DNC has already been shown to us. Power is displaced from the bottom up and a presidency is the last thing captured. Unfortunately, as they act as party of controlled opposition, the fight to disrupt that will be harder than it ever was.
Finally, the floodgates have been opened to a fascist takeover of the USA. To a certain extent, there’s no closing Pandora’s box and expectations and plans need to be adjusted for the new world.
So look at those facts and ask simple questions. Can reform by electoralism be attempted in this environment? What is the best chance for harm reduction here? Do the old rules apply in the same way (eg. is not voting blue even an option now)? Can this regime even be removed from office by normal means? What battles will you pick?
If you’ve really thought through all of that and landed on complaining about Harris and Newsome then I don’t know what to say. That is so far down the branch of things we can’t change (media narrative control, DNC establishment power, nascent progressive bloc still solidifying) that it’s not worth discussing.
All that text just to recycle the same old tired lesser evil argument, and tell us that any other form of “resistance” other than voting blue is useless.
By all means, tell me what candidate you’re endorsing, how you’re getting them on the ballot and project their path to victory through the electoral college
FPTP firmly entrenched the two party system and it would take a herculean reform effort to uproot it.
And yet, Britain’s next election will likely be a contest between Reform and the Greens. The center has collapsed and both centrist parties revealed themselves to be incapable of meeting the challenges of the moment.
Yes, you’re right that FPTP produces a two party system. But what people who point this out miss is that those two parties can be switched out. And the nature of power structures means that it’s usually easier to just let one of the entrenched parties completely die than to try and reform it from within. Remember, the Republican Party started as a third party before becoming one of the two main parties. The abolitionists ultimately found that starting a new party was more practical than trying to work within the existing two party structure.
It was possible to reform the Republican party from within, but that likely isn’t possible with the Democrats. The MAGA wing was able to take over the GOP, but ultimately their message is no different than the same crap Republicans have been pushing for generations. They’re not fundamentally challenging the core beliefs of the party. Trump still takes his court nomination orders from the Federalist Society. He still gets his social policies from the Heritage foundation. Racism is still the primary party value. Very little has actually changed, aside from more nakedly fascist methods.
In contrast, reforming the Dems would require fundamentally uprooting their core values and power structure. And historically that just isn’t very practical. It’s easier to just create an entirely new party than to try to completely transform one. At that point, you’re basically creating a whole new party anyway, just within the shell of the old one. Even if you succeed in taking over the Democratic party, all their old financial backers and supporters of centrist policies will walk away and abandon the party. So you’re not even gaining control of the Party’s resources. You’ll have to build that from scratch anyway. And at that point, it’s easier to just build something entirely new.
And yes, the media is a problem. But that’s always been the case.
The UK electoral system may as well be from Mars when compared to the USA.
For one, they have 650 MPs representing a population of 67 million. The US has 535 total reps split across a bicameral legislature. Combining Texas + California, you have 90 house seats and 4 senators representing 70 million people! It’s incredibly important for all of those people to be on the same page when such high leverage seats are on the line.
The byzantine system of the Senate and the Electoral College similarly fuck with election strategy. It doesn’t mean jack shit if your progressive candidates draw 30 million extra votes if those votes come from California and NY.
A motion can dissolve the UK government and trigger a new vote at any time, the US can’t do shit until the next election cycle.
Keep running down the list and it becomes more and more obvious that US elections have extremely high stakes, keeping the establishment parties nice and comfy.
Remember, the Republican Party started as a third party…
It emerged at a time when both major parties were losing ground with their voter base, not spontaneously from one side of the political spectrum. In 1854, 5 new parties were vying for seats which gave them lots of room to maneuver. [They had even more room than today when you compare 1800s representation against the 435 rep cap we have now.]
Today there’s no MAGA splinter party; the GOP is in a firm lockstep and polls indicate that their core base will never waiver. Unless you can totally supplant the Dems on the left in one fell swoop, you’re still stuck at their negotiating table. You might get a new party logo on your name tag but you’re as much at the whims of fascist collaborators as before.
[MAGA did] not fundamentally challenging the core beliefs of the party
This is incredibly ironic because decades of grooming went into supplanting the old 20th century GOP platform. It feels like nothing changed but that’s due to how persistent and focused the campaign was. Look at John McCain. One of the last true, piece of shit, old school Republicans and he ended his long established career blocking MAGA.
reforming the Dems would require fundamentally uprooting their core values and power structure
The lack of core values has been a criticism for decades, they’re a blank slate in that department. Would it be a more drastic heel turn than shifting the “party of small government and tax cuts” into “record breaking debt, spending and raising taxes”?
Donors and DNC power structures only matter as tools of suppression. If you can break the seal and get the votes in spite of those roadblocks, you can keep the votes without them.
old financial backers and supporters of centrist policies will walk away
If the campaign money shifts away from a newly progressive Democrat party, where will it go to? A new center right party courting R votes? They’ve shown that strategy doesn’t work. A new spineless, controlled “leftist” opposition party? Well then they’re stuck building against all the two party roadblocks they put up themselves!
I mean when talking about presidential candidates running for a presidential election, it does kinda make sense to use “next” even though there is technically another one before then, because the “true next” one doesn’t involve presidential elections. It’s called context. That doesn’t mean that they’re not voting at midterm elections, it just means that they understand that presidents aren’t elected until presidential elections and we can disregard midterms when talking about presidential candidates.
It’s like saying “I’ll see you at the next baseball game” to your friend when leaving the stadium, and him understanding that you mean the next home game not flying to Chicago to see them play at Wrigley on Tuesday.
Reread the OP. There was no mention of presidential elections anywhere, just “liberal candidate” generally in “elections”. You made the same assumption, which just goes to show how the media landscape has conditioned us to think like that.
A) “Let’s dissuade people from participating in radical politics” is only during presidential election season, when’s the last time you saw an ad for midterms? The DNC barely participates themselves. Be real.
B) So? The comment you replied to chose to talk about the presidential election which is no less valid of an interpretation. Maybe they didn’t want to dox themselves more locally than “US,” you are the one who chose to reply to that comment specifically instead of making your own top level comment about midterms.
C) Almost everyone in this thread interpreted it to be directly about Kamala. It doesn’t mention her by name, no, and yes, all the rest in the DNC are just as incompetent of candidates, but people get mad when you remind them of that and if you agree with me, we’re the outliers here, as sad as that is for a supposed anarchist community. That said, it was likely OP’s intent even without naming her (or it’s an old meme about Biden or Hillary because tbh they KEEP doing it for presidential elections especially like they want to lose.)
The fact that “next election” to you means the presidential election is very telling. There are more progressive candidates penciled on the midterm ballots (let alone the active primaries) than there have been in living memory. And that’s not counting local progressive candidates that are already in office from this election cycle.
But to hear everyone talk, anything short of a leftist presidency is a failure in the same way that anything short of a spontaneous revolution isn’t worth doing. A milquetoast neolib president shackled by a progressive Congress by far the best option in the realm of possibility.
This is what drives left infighting, a complete disconnect on what’s desired and what’s possible. Some limitations are just so obvious that I don’t know how people ignore them.
So look at those facts and ask simple questions. Can reform by electoralism be attempted in this environment? What is the best chance for harm reduction here? Do the old rules apply in the same way (eg. is not voting blue even an option now)? Can this regime even be removed from office by normal means? What battles will you pick?
If you’ve really thought through all of that and landed on complaining about Harris and Newsome then I don’t know what to say. That is so far down the branch of things we can’t change (media narrative control, DNC establishment power, nascent progressive bloc still solidifying) that it’s not worth discussing.
Wow, inspiring stuff 😂
All that text just to recycle the same old tired lesser evil argument, and tell us that any other form of “resistance” other than voting blue is useless.
By all means, tell me what candidate you’re endorsing, how you’re getting them on the ballot and project their path to victory through the electoral college
And yet, Britain’s next election will likely be a contest between Reform and the Greens. The center has collapsed and both centrist parties revealed themselves to be incapable of meeting the challenges of the moment.
Yes, you’re right that FPTP produces a two party system. But what people who point this out miss is that those two parties can be switched out. And the nature of power structures means that it’s usually easier to just let one of the entrenched parties completely die than to try and reform it from within. Remember, the Republican Party started as a third party before becoming one of the two main parties. The abolitionists ultimately found that starting a new party was more practical than trying to work within the existing two party structure.
It was possible to reform the Republican party from within, but that likely isn’t possible with the Democrats. The MAGA wing was able to take over the GOP, but ultimately their message is no different than the same crap Republicans have been pushing for generations. They’re not fundamentally challenging the core beliefs of the party. Trump still takes his court nomination orders from the Federalist Society. He still gets his social policies from the Heritage foundation. Racism is still the primary party value. Very little has actually changed, aside from more nakedly fascist methods.
In contrast, reforming the Dems would require fundamentally uprooting their core values and power structure. And historically that just isn’t very practical. It’s easier to just create an entirely new party than to try to completely transform one. At that point, you’re basically creating a whole new party anyway, just within the shell of the old one. Even if you succeed in taking over the Democratic party, all their old financial backers and supporters of centrist policies will walk away and abandon the party. So you’re not even gaining control of the Party’s resources. You’ll have to build that from scratch anyway. And at that point, it’s easier to just build something entirely new.
And yes, the media is a problem. But that’s always been the case.
The UK electoral system may as well be from Mars when compared to the USA.
Keep running down the list and it becomes more and more obvious that US elections have extremely high stakes, keeping the establishment parties nice and comfy.
It emerged at a time when both major parties were losing ground with their voter base, not spontaneously from one side of the political spectrum. In 1854, 5 new parties were vying for seats which gave them lots of room to maneuver. [They had even more room than today when you compare 1800s representation against the 435 rep cap we have now.]
Today there’s no MAGA splinter party; the GOP is in a firm lockstep and polls indicate that their core base will never waiver. Unless you can totally supplant the Dems on the left in one fell swoop, you’re still stuck at their negotiating table. You might get a new party logo on your name tag but you’re as much at the whims of fascist collaborators as before.
This is incredibly ironic because decades of grooming went into supplanting the old 20th century GOP platform. It feels like nothing changed but that’s due to how persistent and focused the campaign was. Look at John McCain. One of the last true, piece of shit, old school Republicans and he ended his long established career blocking MAGA.
The lack of core values has been a criticism for decades, they’re a blank slate in that department. Would it be a more drastic heel turn than shifting the “party of small government and tax cuts” into “record breaking debt, spending and raising taxes”?
Donors and DNC power structures only matter as tools of suppression. If you can break the seal and get the votes in spite of those roadblocks, you can keep the votes without them.
If the campaign money shifts away from a newly progressive Democrat party, where will it go to? A new center right party courting R votes? They’ve shown that strategy doesn’t work. A new spineless, controlled “leftist” opposition party? Well then they’re stuck building against all the two party roadblocks they put up themselves!
I mean when talking about presidential candidates running for a presidential election, it does kinda make sense to use “next” even though there is technically another one before then, because the “true next” one doesn’t involve presidential elections. It’s called context. That doesn’t mean that they’re not voting at midterm elections, it just means that they understand that presidents aren’t elected until presidential elections and we can disregard midterms when talking about presidential candidates.
It’s like saying “I’ll see you at the next baseball game” to your friend when leaving the stadium, and him understanding that you mean the next home game not flying to Chicago to see them play at Wrigley on Tuesday.
Reread the OP. There was no mention of presidential elections anywhere, just “liberal candidate” generally in “elections”. You made the same assumption, which just goes to show how the media landscape has conditioned us to think like that.
Well,
A) “Let’s dissuade people from participating in radical politics” is only during presidential election season, when’s the last time you saw an ad for midterms? The DNC barely participates themselves. Be real.
B) So? The comment you replied to chose to talk about the presidential election which is no less valid of an interpretation. Maybe they didn’t want to dox themselves more locally than “US,” you are the one who chose to reply to that comment specifically instead of making your own top level comment about midterms.
C) Almost everyone in this thread interpreted it to be directly about Kamala. It doesn’t mention her by name, no, and yes, all the rest in the DNC are just as incompetent of candidates, but people get mad when you remind them of that and if you agree with me, we’re the outliers here, as sad as that is for a supposed anarchist community. That said, it was likely OP’s intent even without naming her (or it’s an old meme about Biden or Hillary because tbh they KEEP doing it for presidential elections especially like they want to lose.)
To be fair, they are also doing work to discredit the left flank for the midterms, too.