Breaking the illusion of 2 party system
2d 23h ago by lemmy.world/u/K1nsey6 in latestagecapitalism
These people provide public justification to drop the peaceful part of peaceful protest. They force it.
Remember when the far right wanted to kidnap her during COVID?
When’s the next #NoKings performance?
That's an oopsie daisy
One less candidate to have to consider in 2028..
Her presidential ambitions were doomed the moment this photo was published. I think she has just given up and doesn’t care what people think anymore.
Like how can you go through life as a functional adult thinking shit like this is going to fly
You can when everything had been handed to you until that point.
Where are all those people that love commenting "bOtH SiDeS"?
This is the shit we're talking about. They both corrupt and evil af.
When choosing the lesser of two evils one is quick to forget that you are still choosing evil.
But it's still lesser, until bitching fuckwads consistently vote we can't shift to the left in this country. Politicians don't give a shit about people who aren't going to vote or throw their vote away on people who don't have a chance of winning. So the people who are voting for the lesser of two evils have shitty choices the more people who vote consistently especially in primaries to shift left the better chance we have of moving left.
Stop pretending that dishonest primaries reliably represent the will of the people.
We’re pretty far into the we should get armed, and trained with firearms, and form militias territory / community defense territory.
Sure voting, but also we need to prepare for the likely scenario our current parasite class will not cede peacefully.
we should get armed, and trained with firearms, and form militias territory / community defense territory
You should read "What Is To Be Done" and grasp a bit of theory before you start pulling a trigger.
Adventurism never seems to benefit left wing organizers in the long run.
Things don’t need to be mutually exclusive. Political parties and whatnot can still be formed and built alongside community defense groups and militias. If anything they will both make each other stronger.
I bring up getting armed and organized because the working class is lacking on that front & being unilaterally disarmed is not productive when the parasite class is more than willing to use violence against us.
Political parties and whatnot can still be formed and built alongside community defense groups and militias.
Sure. But these are large scale long term projects. While the "time to buy a gun and sandbag my front yard" crowd seem to expect some kind of revolutionary action overnight.
I bring up getting armed and organized because the working class is lacking on that front
It's lacking on a whole host of fronts. Just for starters, where do people even meet anymore? Younger people are poisoned against church. Unions are dying out. People don't just hang out at the bar after work for hours at a time. Where do you go with your coworkers as a group? Where do you go with your neighbors as a group?
Who do you even talk to about this sort of thing? It's not like every street has it's own gun range.
It seems like any large congregation of people that isn't a private ticketed event is a crime. Down in Houston, the police got called on a big park because of a "teen takeover " (ie, too many young people in the same place at the same time).
You seem weirdly determined to deter people from obtaining a means to defend themselves and communities.
But it’s still lesser
Maybe we try supporting the greater good rather than the lesser evil next time.
The lesser evil is the greater good. We will never shift left if people don't vote. It's so ignorant to keep letting Republicans win because the Democrat option isn't great, every time that happens the country gets dragged to the right. If Republicans stopped winning they would have to shift left, which would shift Democrats left as well.
Liberals of all stripes are not the good guys.
Who is she saying this to? Hot mic means this was at a location that had a purpose, like a fundraiser or conference. Why is there only a tweet with NO CONTEXT?! We know people don't show up to vote so there won't be backlash. The question is if the person she was talking to is someone that would look somewhere else.
It was Oracle CEO Clay Magouyrk in regards to this project that no one wants
Fuck this data center moment generally, but where is source of lead image/headline, OP? This is the only quote from her in your article?
"I will only ever open Michigan to companies that respect our strict environmental standards and protect our air, land and water, the Barn meets all those high standards," Whitmer said. "Here in Michigan, we are setting an example for the rest of the nation, the rest of the world, for that matter. We have the right guardrails to ensure responsible adoption of AI and create jobs."
Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer speaks at groundbreaking for Saline Twp. data center
Wanted a source, myself, so I went digging. Found a video here (sorry to have to link to X, even if via xcancel, but it's what I've got).
Obviously this is a fairly brief snippet, but with the context of this being her talking to the CEO of Oracle at a data center groundbreaking event, it's hard to imagine this not being exactly what it looks like.
Appreciate the caveats, but in the age of AI fabrication like breathing, if the only source is a nazi twitter post, makes a lot of sense to wait for the larger context. Whitmer hasn't really shown this in her character, so we will see.
Doesn't hurt that OP has a pretty fraught post history on top. Some good philosophy mixed in, but someone who is definitely lost in middle of it all.
I feel weirdly like the very noisy audio quality makes this video less likely to be AI, because that's not really the sort of thing it's going to have been trained for, but I definitely respect your reservations here. Would like to see more reliable info about this as well.
Like Clinton said, "You need both a public and a private position" to navigate political negotiations and deal-making. Talk populous to the public and do it regardless of public demand is the modus operandi
You are tge one who introduces false premises without credible support and then you are here arguing them as if confirmed in your own unsubstantiated thread days later? You're a mess, friend.
Her own words are not credible? Someone defending a fascist is a fascist and is no friend of mine
You're not an actual leftist, leftists work from reason and a measured response. You're a right twitter troll embedded in Lemmy of all places? Good luck with the mission, bud. Keep paying Elon that monthly fee for the "real" truth, hat only you can find...
You are confusing leftists with Democrats. WE work with reason, Democrats work with emotion and cult like devotion to their shade of fascism
Thanks. Kinda ugly that she's implying that Oracle should make another one near some other sleepy town with relatively inexpensive power.
Ever wonder why you feel powerless as a citizen? This is why.
The source OP gives doesn't even show her saying that.
Screw data centers but this is clearly a bad faith or ignorant post/tweet
This is only happening because Leftists didn't vote for Hillary Clinton in 2008
Gotta put an /s on this, it's indistinguishable from the real thing
One-liners are the absolute worst kind of political speech. I can't tell if I agree with you or not. Clarify and defend your position*.
Was Clinton a better candidate in 2008 than Obama? Would her winning the primary have led Obama to run against trump in 2016/2020 instead, resulting in multiple terms of Democratic leadership, undermining capitalism? Or would she have lost and we'd have had our republican asshattery years earlier resulting in left-er leadership as the pendulum swung when this AI bullshit arrived.
My point is: if your only contribution is a single statement like "this is their fault", just shut up. Trite comments don't inform.
*I'm actually pretty serious here. I'm new to "Left" and would have called myself a Liberal a few years ago on this forum. Tell me why this is my fault.
Was Clinton a better candidate in 2008 than Obama?
Demonstrably not, given that she handed him dozens of Midwestern states virtually uncontested.
But that's just how Obama stole the election. He villainously campaigned in Red States as though their primary voters actually mattered.
My point is: if your only contribution is a single statement like “this is their fault”, just shut up. Trite comments don’t inform.
So much of political analysis seems to boil down to "you can only win if you do exactly what I say and never disagree with me in public".
Hillary learned hard on that pitch in 2008 and again in 2016. Biden and Harris adopted it in 2020 and 2024.
And every time the message alienated people, it's their fault when the Dem loses.
Strangely enough, I'm still not sure how you feel. I've upvoted you because I think this 'adds to the conversation' even if I eventually disagree with you.
Demonstrably not...
Your line was "... because Leftists didn’t vote for Hillary Clinton in 2008".
So you would or would not have preferred Clinton in the 2008 general election? Over what? I'm serious. I wasn't paying attention at that time to know how she compared to Obama. By the time I was really watching, she was leagues better than trump, but back in 2008, I was a simple straight-ticket blue voter -- doing my duty, punching my card every two years and feeling like I was helping.
(again my point is aimed at inform. Sell me on your point of view. I don't think we're enemies and there is a silent majority who agree on the end goal but maybe not the path.)
How is today's situation on the shoulders of people who didn't vote for Hillary in 2008's Primary?
I know people who have succumbed to not good enough, and let some terrible people win. This is perhaps more pronounced locally, if you start looking, where a handful of votes is the difference between a socialist or liberal winning over a conservative or fascist.
I think this is only happening because capital does what capital does, and it tries to own the narrative. Berating people because the self-appointed leadership failed them is totally not a thing this community is trying to do. right?
So you would or would not have preferred Clinton in the 2008 general election?
Personally? I think it would have been a push. Possible for Hillary to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory in '08 like she did in '16. But I think Dems still end up making all the same mistakes in '09/'10 and set themselves up for a GOP takeover of all those state and local offices two years later. These problems date back to the 1980s and the leadership has only doubled-down on them over the last forty years.
Obama had a unique opportunity to reinvent the party in 2009 and... didn't. Hillary was a creature of the party and definitely wouldn't have done any better. And the need to blame people outside the party for the miserable performance of leadership inside the party means we get Trumpism a little sooner (maybe even War with Iran a bit sooner).
I know people who have succumbed to not good enough, and let some terrible people win.
The notion that the naysayers are to blame for the Democratic Party's lackluster performance is the reason the Democrats keep losing. They only ever know how to blame everyone else. Obama broke the trend in '08 (and kinda-sorta in '12) by rallying such a supermassive majority of support that the "Blame the Greens for our Failures!" caucus got drowned out by people applauding our first black president.
But over the long term, when corporate Dems pick candidates, what we really end up seeing is indie voters getting seduced by liberal-sounding Republicans not green candidates. Trump running as an anti-war candidate, Kasich and Bush Jr and Arnold Schwartzenagger running as "compassionate conservatives", Chris Christie and Ron DeSantis running as "tough on corruption" prosecutors - they all play against the weaknesses of the Democratic Party.
Blaming The Left because you scared off all the unaligned voters is great for rallying BlueMAGA Democrats, but miserable for actually winning elections.
I think this is only happening because capital does what capital does
Capital plays both sides expertly. It's very funny to see someone as dumb and racist as Elon Musk run circles around a guy supposedly as educated and savvy as Barack Obama, and yet that's exactly what happened in 2009. Same with Zuckerberg and Thiel and Bezos. They all suck Democrats into their orbit, milk them for every penny they're worth, and then toss them aside for the next GOP hotness. Hell, even Sam Bankrupt Fraud got the wool over Schumer and Gillibrand multiple times.
The only thing more stunning that Dem leaders who get hoodwinked like this are Dem voters who keep reelecting them.
So I think we're aligned... or at least I'm coming to your side in my Liberal >> Left journey.
A commenter above said you left off the /s and that it was sometimes hard to tell. I went in defending Left from someone who thought that Hillary would have been significantly different from/better than Obama.
I'm assuming with "I think it would have been a push," that you were not actually blaming Left (those here, not colloquial US democratic voters in aggregate) for the current problems, but maybe I'm still missing something.
I wrote up further discussion, but it took me too long to collect my thoughts and I think I missed my chance to have a reasonable window.
I did want to still follow up and say thanks for having this conversation with me, and for going into detail.
The entire system needs to be burned to the ground and built from scratch.
How do we stop it from happening again?
That's the easy part. Remove corporate money from politics and severely punish any hint of corruption before it spreads.
It needs to be made very very clear that these assholes represent their constituents, not big business. Any district has the absolute authority to recall their representative at any point; no argument, no appeal. If they fight the recall, it's treason and is punished as such.
The system isn't without redemption. We're only here because they forgot that they work for US. And we lost the wherewithal to make them remember that. Three...maybe four heads roll (literally), and they'll remember how politics is supposed to work for the people.
For example: The moment Ted Cruz ran to Mexico and left his state in freezing temperatures, his own constituents should have dragged him from his mansion by his toenails and strung him up. If they did, you think the next person would try that shit? If we let them get away with it, they'll keep doing it. Nip it in the bud right from the start. Get out of line and we've got no problem fucking your shit up.
Politicians need to be very afraid of their constituents.
Yup, people need to remember that violence is inherent to any governmental system. Which is why violence is needed to correct the system when it is out of whack.
Remove corporate money from politics and severely punish any hint of corruption before it spreads.
With capitalism? You're asking for capitalism to reign again.
Politicians need to be very afraid of their constituents.
I am not so sure you know what that entails.
Oh I know precisely what that entails and I'm of the opinion that it's well past time.
Then I hope your mutual aid group overshadows your state.💪
the system isn't without redemption
But how many need to die to redeem such a basically shitty anti-democratic system in the first place? Is it worth it?
Call me a pessimist, but at this point we're not getting out of this without a fair amount of death anyway one way or the other.
So we must spend those deaths redeeming the system. Yes. A better world is a nice thought, but not really possible. We must have anew red terror to elect kamala harris.
To make a steelman argument: frequently proposed reforms include eliminating the spoiler effect, which would force politicians to compete for best instead of second worst.
You are a traitor to the cause of harris-biden '28! OFF WITH THEIR HEAD
I'm hardly one to fall into the 'both sides' argument because, let's face it, one side is clearly far worse than the other. And hell, as your northern neighbour, I'm frankly more interested in the the fact that I see the same kind of crap happening up here, but...
When one of the supposed good ones on the so-called better side get's caught on mic saying that they're "used to hearing their people say fuck no, and doing it anyway", it's clear that modern politicians in general (In both the US, Canada, UK, etc... I dare say everywhere, have gotten cocky and forgotten who they work for.
And we're past the point where a little bit of the ol' ultra-violence is becoming necessary.
Yes! Vote often! Vote violently! But not so violently you tear the paper, because that might void your ballot.
As long as private ownership of the economy is allowed, there will be money in politics. The actual permanent solution is to communalize the economy so that it benefits everyone, instead of just a few rich people who did nothing to deserve it.
To be honest, I actually disagree with that.
Private ownership isn't the problem. CORPORATE ownership is.
When a company is no longer owned by humans and is instead owned by shareholders (who themselves are usually non-human hedgefunds, LLC's, financial firms, etc...), and being run "Boards of Directors"; fat-cats who have no idea what real life is like and are entirely beholden to a stock price.
When humanity is removed so far from the capitalist equation as they are in corporations, we've lost the plot of what capitalism was supposed to be in the first place; human's buying and selling from other human's.
I usually like to use, as an example, my best and my worst jobs. I worked for a locally owned furniture store. The owner was awesome. He built the business ground up with his family. And he was a success. He paid me fairly, gave good benefits, treated me like family. Would just randomly pass out raises if things were good because he believed in sharing success with the people that helped him achieve it.
The very reason he could do this is because he wasn't beholden to a stock price, or a Board of Directors, whose only legal mandate is to increase profit year over year. He was successful, in the multi-millionaire range. Could he have been even MORE successful (monetarily) if he didn't give raises, or benefits, or paid vacations? Sure he could have. But that's not what it was about.
Compare that to my worst job, working for a Telecom in Canada (frontline store manager, nothing major) and being told that no one was getting raises that year because the "company didn't make any money", even though I knew damn well that the company make 6 billion dollars. But the point was that, because at the beginning of the year, analysts forecast the company to make 7 billion, and because they didn't make it, the stock price was going to take a hit, and holding back raises would at least mitigate that hit a little big. (This...by the way...is the moment that fully radicalized me against corporations).
We need more of the first example and the second is the part of the system that needs to be burned to the fucking ground with extreme prejudice.
Capitalism is not synonymous with markets. Humans have exchanged commodities with other humans long before capitalism began, and will do so for long after capitalism ends. Capitalism is literally just a specific mode of production where the means of production are owned by individuals.
Absolutely do not take any agency in your world, do not be considerate of others, and do not consider the consequences of your actions. Those things are for your betters to do.
I'd love to know the context here because I could see this being her saying they're used to these company men saying they would never do xyz then just doing it anyway.
Like there's nothing here that's useful for anything more than rage bait.
The OP doesn't really care about context. They just post "bOtH sIdEs ArE tHe sAmE" content, and if you call them out on it, they will call you a blue MAGA liberal. I am mostly sure that they're a troll, but it is still possible that they're simply terminally online. But feel free to browse their post history to confirm it.
This just in, hot off the presses:
Capitalism gunna capitalism
The whorror!
The context is Democrats don't care for the working class anymore than Republicans do.
Well they seem to be the better option between the two, I'd rather have the Dem oligarchy than the GOP one.
Just for the record, I think we should literally round up the billionaires and redistribute their wealth by force after we execute them for destroying our society and world ... But also yeah voting D is better.
Also that's not context.
But remember, it's important to vote her when the time comes. You can talk about this moment in the primaries. But also, not too loudly or polarizing because we don't want the Republicans to use the same points in the general election. And honestly, we should do it mostly in private and talk about how it was a tough decision where she had no real choices. And that it was good for Michigan because we need the jobs. So remember, this is a great move. She knows way better than the people what is good for them. Vote blue. No matter who.
I feel like you dropped the /s which might be confusing to the average reader who can't see obvious sarcasm.
Am I getting down voted to hell? I turned that off in my app. I really thought my sarcasm was way over the top and didn't need the /s. I honestly don't know how anyone can read that and not think it's sarcasm. But that's a me problem.
It looks like you're in the positive now. You were just a little too convincing.
That totally could have been a Facebook comment that wasn't made sarcastically
You can talk about this moment in the primaries. But also, not too loudly or polarizing because we don't want the Republicans to use the same points in the general election. And honestly, we should do it mostly in private
Not real things that anyone ever says or does but ok
You need to vote blue or else you won't have any choices later!
Our vote is a revolution
Hell yeah! Every vote is a little revolution! Off with their heads at the polls this fall!
The ballot box is our guillotine ironyc-anal!
"Democracy"
They all do as the AIPAC Uniparty demands and keep us infighting while the pedophile class enslaves all of humanity
Um, aktuly it's called Harm Reduction, sweetie. 👻
You vote for the most liberal candidate on the ballot, and then you blame Far Left Russian-aligned non-voting communists for anything bad that happens.
Yep. Those damn far leftists who are too politically irrelevant to take seriously but SOMEHOW are able to make democrats lose elections.
Vote blue no matter who!
🤪
Dont you know that the best way to ensure that we get a government that governs responsibly is to repeatedly express that we will vote for them no matter what their policies are?
And some people get surprised when people start becoming violent against these types
Sounds like she's trying out for Florida governor.
Is that a bingo? irl
That's called being a rapist everybody.
I'm glad i'm not the only one to recognize the abject awfulness of a woman saying that, of all people.
I imagine the analogy is more nuanced than that. It is more like politicians promising their constituents a mutually respectful relation based on consent, then drugging them so that they can rape their constituents without them noticing while the billionaires watch and jerk off to that.
It goes without saying that this is just an analogy and the psychological effects of what is being done here is no where near a rape but we are all adults here and can infer that I think.
Tell that to LovableSidekick 🙃
psychological effects of what is being done here is no where near a rape
I strongly disagree with that. It's extremely harmful in a myriad of ways to everyone and any ecology anywhere nearby. Even if the individual detriments to ones life are not equal to a rape (which I am again I doubt of, not that I think rape is harmless but because this shit is so fucking heinous), the cumulative effects on the millions of people is indeed worse than rape.
No, it's called being a dishonest politician. Have a little respect for rape victims by not using the trauma they went through as a loose conversational metaphor.
You do understand what consent is, correct?
Yes, and you understand what a patronizing tone is, correct?
I've known women who were raped, and bringing it into the conversation to sound cool is lazy social media slop.
I assume we're all adults here, but maybe I was incorrect.
Are politicians literally? In this case we don't know (though statistically, they are convicted of similar crimes more regularly than average.)
The point is to draw a parallel to the fact that the same ideology is being used. Harm is being caused. Consent is being trampled on.
I, too, know individuals who have suffered harm. They're the ones who have said that this is what it sounds like. I'm not "trying to sound cool" I'm trying to get constituents to realize they're being abused, and literally at that.
Is this on par with the harm caused by an actual sexual assault? Of course not. Would someone who thinks this way be capable of said assault? That's an open question. I would name and shame that thought process outright such that it is not accepted and lead to more harm, political or otherwise.
Instead, it appears you're trying to control a narrative, and indirectly or not, aid the politicians by diverting attention from the harm that they cause.
So much verbiage and analysis for objecting to calling political lies "rape". I'm not gonna argue this - I guess just consult a dictionary.
Even pure scientific discovery is an aggressive, penetrative act... There is always some proof that scientists were there, making their discoveries. Discovery is always a rape of the natural world. Always.
To call the unimpeded development of AI data centers anything other than the rape of the natural world is confusing to me. It's a very apt description, I think, and what Gretchen has admitted to is that she's willing to rape the world. Explicitly against the wishes of the people.
If your position is that the rampant creation of data centers and their environmental impact is not the rape of the natural world, then I can't really help you. We fundamentally disagree there.
Edit: That's Michael Crichton's Jurassic Park, by the way.
To call the unimpeded development of AI data centers anything other than the rape of the natural world is confusing to me.
Yes, and if the comment I replied to, which started this side conversation, had contained such explicit context I wouldn't have had a problem with it. But in fact it was a top-level comment that simply said, "That’s called being a rapist everybody," leaving the meaning of "that" up to the reader. I took it to mean a state governor getting caught callously disregarding the will of her public. You might be preoccupied with AI and datacenters, but I think politicians not doing their jobs is a much larger issue - because if we really had representative government the public would be able to stop datacenters when they wanted to, not to mention handling other important issues.
Luigi is no longer enough, we need a second coming of Killdozer.
Shit like this is disillusioning people from voting, even when their life is depending on it.
No, it's telling people that the choice that they have been told is a better option is not the better option because they both represent the same goals.
Blue no matter who!!! 🤡🤡🤡
Yes blue is bad. But red is far fucking worse.
Glad Gretchen Whitmer can count on your support!
Again she's better than the alternative that ran against her if I lived in Michigan I certainly would have voted for her. If you can give me a better choice then please do. If you can't give me a better choice then shut the fuck up.
If people keep voting for any blue candidate, then there's no incentive for the Democrats to run people that will ever actually make a positive change, and things just keep sliding to the right and getting worse. I know it feels like now isn't the time to take that kind of risk, but people have been literally saying that for about 40 years now. It's a big part of why things are as bad as they are now. If people stood up to it like I was saying 20 years ago, we would never have had Trump. And because people aren't standing up to it even now, we'll probably have something worse within the next decade.
So, not voting for her is the better choice in the same way that putting disinfectant on your wound is a better choice than letting it fester, even though at first it stings a lot worse than just leaving it alone. I mean imagine saying "ahhh but this cut hurts so bad, now is the LAST time that I can afford to make it feel any worse!"...and then tomorrow you say "oh god it hurts worse now, now is REALLY not the time to make it hurt worse. I need to wait for a better opportunity at some point later...."
The best choices are rarely found by thinking only one step ahead.
So if not voting for her is the best choice who do you suggest that we vote for? Because not voting is the worst choice.
Thank you for responding politely, it is very appreciated.
Ideally, you would vote for someone that you actually like and want to have represent you. Not someone perfect of course, but someone who doesn't do outright repulsive and two-faced evil things like this lady was caught doing. But if no such person exists, then I think that not voting at all really is the best option, for the reasoning stated above. I don't want to misrepresent my standards to the political entities, because then I'm giving them an excuse not to meet my (what should be low) standards.
I don't really know about what's going on in Michigan, so I looked into it to tell you what I'd do.
It turns out that this horrible Gretchen person is term limited anyways. Probably why she's being so careless. There are two Democrats in the running it looks like. One being a huge asshole sheriff who wants to attract the AI industry by building data centers. and the other being Jocelyn Benson who wants to protect reproductive rights and has endorsements from local labor groups....buuuut she's married to a VP of a real estate company that wants to build a data center in Michigan... 🤔 although he did say he'd recuse himself from the projects if she was elected.
So, for example, I would never vote for the AI Sheriff, even if he was the only candidate. Same for Gretchen, if it were possible for her to run. Because I want to do my part to lift the bar higher than that. As for the other candidate I'd have to look a little deeper to say for sure, but the scandals I'm seeing tend to be in a more plausible deniability realm, and I don't see anything disagreeable in her policies themselves. So tentatively would vote for her.
That doesn't make sense. If people kept voting for any Democrat, then the Republican party would cease to exist. A new major party would pop up to take its place. I mean, that's sort of how we got the Democratic and Republican parties. We didn't start with them.
But, like, there's also the fact that if the Democratic party took over, it would likely fracture into it's progressive and centrist factions. That would push the Overton window further to the left. That's how it works, and also how it has worked, and until some form of ranked choice voting is implemented federally, it's how it will continue to work.
As a counter to your example, imagine your algorithm, but it's an infinite tree. You can seek every possible sum Sn to some number n. Doesn't matter what n is, but it can never see the entirety of the tree because not only does our view of the future get fuzzier the further we see, but the number of possibilities will become unmanageable to measure. There will occasionally be some sum Tn+k that'll outcompete Sn. But, that doesn't mean S won't converge to an even better sum later on. Because we can only see so far down the tree. That's why a greedy algorithm is used. You have so many resources, and it's just a debate on how much big you can make n. You would have to determine exactly how your T sum is better, and right now, history doesn't really agree with you.
Thanks for the level headed and quantifiable reasoning. I agree the argument you're putting forth is the most compelling one and the one that most makes me question my own line of reasoning as well. Of course, like you say: it's always possible that something way down the line is going to turn out to make it all worth it, but because we can't see perfectly into the future and the world is really chaotic and hard to predict. I think that is basically the strongest argument out there for just picking the immediate best option.
On the other hand, I'm not exactly saying that we need to look all the way down the tree, maybe just like three or four steps ahead, instead of literally just one. Of course, the predictability goes down with each successive step. But I think we can at least think two election cycles ahead without losing too much precision. Especially in cases where the person running is really reprehensible to us, that helps even out the trade-off too, because in the same way that we have assured benefits from their victory, we have assured drawbacks. In that sense your argument cuts both ways a little. (But mostly against me, I won't deny) I think a lot of the disagreements on strategy here come down to people's personal values for these variables: the predictability, the confirmed costs/payoffs, the potential costs/payoffs. Which are pretty hard to be objective about.
I think the complexity of it that I just talked about would put things in your favor too, if not for the evidence (in my opinion) that the greedy strategy is exactly what has produced our poor historical results. So this is my biggest question for you because you said history isn't on my side. But to me, it seems like we have plenty of record of the same sort of "wait til the next election to be picky, this time we have to win, the stakes are too high!" rhetoric going back decades. And things are undeniably getting worse. So from my perspective, we have already been trying the greedy algorithm strategy for the last 40 years. For me that makes me feel like I have not only a theoretical explanation for why that would make things worse, but also historical evidence of it actually doing so. History seems super on my side to me.
I gel with your reasoning style so I'm interested to hear what you think I'm getting wrong about that perspective.
I think that is fair. I would argue that the multiple steps ahead would probably include things like primary voting and caucusing, and that is where we push for the greatest progressive advances. So, you are mainly right.
Basically, while I understand your approach, I mostly disagree that voting Democratic is the one step ahead... Well, no, that is probably correct, so long as the modifier is that the ONLY thing you do is vote blue. That would, to your credit, not necessarily push change. Like, if, for whatever reason, the Republicans suddenly were incredibly progressive, voting for them would be better than Democrats. It wouldn't happen, but purely hypothetically, voting Democratic in that instance would be bad. But, I think in order to get there, you have to primary or caucus out the worst choices. That is like two or three steps ahead. That choice can get better and better the more steps you do, like joining or starting a mutual aid organization, getting involved in your community, etc. That is like multiple steps. And each one is just their own sum to contribute.
What I will grant you is that we probably have been at a one- or two-step thinking for a long time now. And the hard part about accepting that is that it is difficult to get people out of that mindset. We are quite insular. We are quite individualistic. We are quite lonely. And telling people that it is their responsibility to change that is gonna get a lot of pushback. But, well, I think it is!
So, you are right, and your reasoning is right, but I think it concludes to something that might be wrong. I do push for voting Democratic because the alternative is worse, but I only push it until the alternative is better. And I go to the caucuses. I go to the primaries. I go to my local Democratic meet ups. I question my local representatives and senators, ask why they don't push progressive policies, and then if they fail to do better, I keep pushing for better, annoy the shit out of them, and then eventually, they get switched out or they get better. It looks like one-step, and sometimes (or often), it feels one-step.
So, right now, I criticize the shit out of Gaven Newsom. I criticize the shit out of bad Democrats. I push for better in primaries. And then... I vote the Democrat. Because the alternative is the Republican, and so far, they are worse.
Decades of this mindless thinking has taught Democrats that they can do anything they want without consequence because voters will keep coming back. If you allow a little evil the next evil can be slightly larger. Compounded over 50 years we have our current political climate
That is a very silly thing to say. Evil is fairly subjective, but let's pretend it's not. Right, like absolute objectively good. I don't think any action you can take doesn't have a little evil in it. That's kinda the point behind there being no ethical consumption under capitalism. That's why you aim for the least amount of evil, right?
But, you also didn't really counter the fact that history agrees with me. Feel free to wax philosophically about why that is.
A slow death from cyanide is no different than a fast one if the result is death. Liberals accept their slow death because they've been told by people they trust there are no other options.
Could we get a source on the hot mic? Need so I can send to some people.
I meant source on hot mic, not the event itself, though thanks for that itself
Didn't this woman survive one assassination attempt already?
Organized and then busted by the FBI, yes.
His voters realising that they who promised to list isn't even as good as "the least worst" option.
Why even have a government if it isn't representing the people? Why even have civilization or division of labor?
Because it's the latest part of the two thousand year old police state. There's a REASON the battle is won. Can't tell if a person is crazy or a cop. Is that guy doing fetty on the light rail a cop? That's what's known as a "crackhead" to those in the industry. A "pot head" is a festival cop! Trump's a cop, too. Same as Epstein, who is alive. Same as the Clintons and Hunter Biden. It's a police state!
Whoops, looks like you just posted an image of the Tweet, not the video.
Now that days have passed, participants are publicly denying this is what was said and claiming that audio was manipulated. OP is willingly pushing far right BS misinformation and has a post history demonstrating similar acts in bad faith.
Get off of twitter, OP.
They are denying it because they got caught for being the right wing trash they are. It's you that needs to get their head out of their ass and see the people they are defending are the same people you claim to hate.
You're working to manufacture a truth you want from something so thin. Bigger than that, you're spending time on twitter willingly, which is extremely telling - You have zero credibility.
Someone like Fetterman showed his ass, that one isn't a stretch and nobody had to "catch" anything. The bad people can't help but show you who they are, loudly and frequently. Whitmer doesn't have that history. There's also a reason right efforts would want to have a story that confused search results for her name - our broken justice system just released one of the men who was rightfully convicted of plotting to kidnap the sitting governor.
You're working TOO hard to makes this single, likely manipulated example, the reality you want. I hope you know on some level that you're actively dishonest and trying to trick people, because otherwise you are just so lost.
Defending liberals and you talk about credibility?
I get that this is bad, but extrapolating from an individual comment to "both parties are the same" is pretty sketchy.
The Democrats have way more datapoints than this one.
As a non-ideological centrist with a nuanced opinion on politics, the adult in the room, if you will, I must point out that this is of course a rogue actor, and not indicative of a fundamental problem inherent in the democratic party and indeed liberal democracy as a whole. Additionally, if Whitmer is ever up for election, the only rational thing to do is to support her, in the name of harm reduction. The only way forward is business as usual politics, and any claim to the contrary is radical, and can, as such, be dismissed. In conclusion, if this event has caused you to reconsider your voting strategy, you need to grow up.
This is not satire these are my actual opinions. Anyone who thinks otherwise needs to grow up.
is this satire? i think you need to mark it as such
Done
I down vote this for several reasons:
- I think getting an even vote split adds to the meta-irony
- The straight-forward reading is of course obnoxious and misguided
- That is in part because it's an over-the-top caricature, and the implication is that voting for sightly less bad candidates that might win is worse than voting for better candidates that have no chance or not voting at all
- I personally find meta-irony humorous but I think it's detrimental to political discourse
See this is the problem right here, I genuinely can't tell the difference between sincere liberals and shitposters mocking them without an /s
Lol I see what you did there.