It’s an objectively raw deal. For the presidential race there are functionally only two choices.
The down ballot races have choices and primaries have choices and local races have choices. Mamdani surging to the top of the mayoral race for NY is an expression of the voters. 3 years of 4 there’s time to demonstrate public opinion and express unhappiness in any of a variety of ways, but I don’t have a silver bullet to provide.
All I can do is say that, practically, if there are two candidates for the president race and both support arming Israel, I would rather get a half assed attempt at public infrastructure than a government burning gestapo grift. And I think most people agree. If you want to make the argument that I’m the long run trump is a cold shower that we deserve to shock the whole system… I might have agreed in 2020, but now I’m not so sure it will change anything past 2028.
It’s an objectively raw deal. For the presidential race there are functionally only two choices.
That being the case, everything you said falls apart. Voters are not “the only ones we can criticize,” we can instead focus our criticism on the people deciding what our two choices are.
I could just as easily say that it’s the fault of Democratic voters for splitting the vote instead of rallying around PSL or the Green party. The only real counterargument to that is that there are a lot more of them than there are of us. But there are also a lot more of us compared to the singular individual of Kamala Harris. So why does it make sense to say we should be the ones to change instead of her? It’s nonsense. The only reason I can see is that we’re regular people and she’s ruling class.
If you want to make the argument that I’m the long run trump is a cold shower that we deserve to shock the whole system
I don’t want to make that argument, no. My position has never been that it would be better for Trump to get elected than Harris, and I have never argued for voting for Trump.
I mean you can criticize whoever you want and I’m happy to support you doing that. The idea of rallying around a 3rd party candidate is unfortunately a pipe dream. How would anybody know who to rally around because they aren’t allowed to participate in debates or even really participate as a first class candidate? It sounds good on paper but it just isn’t and has never been a reality. It looks a lot more possible if one election like 20% of people vote third party, but it hasn’t ever happened.
There’s no “gotcha” here to be had. There are 2 predictable choices at present and they both suck, but it is clear which is the least worst.
How would anybody know who to rally around because they aren’t allowed to participate in debates or even really participate as a first class candidate?
It looks a lot more possible if one election like 20% of people vote third party, but it hasn’t ever happened.
All the more reason to support them, then. You even spell out the logic yourself, even if they can’t win, if they reached a certain threshold then they’d have to be taken seriously.
Elections are about more than who wins and loses, they’re also about setting precedent. If a third party gets enough votes, if a faction within a party demonstrates a credible threat of defection, then a major party has to start making concessions if they want to bring them into the fold. The Democrats, however, did nothing but spit in our faces, because they made the incorrect calculation that the left’s opposition was just blowing hot air and that we’d come around to the lesser evil (which is generally what has happened in the past and how we got here in the first place).
I see three possibilities, one where the democrats remain stubborn, and a third party eventually emerges and supplants them (as has happened before in history), a second where the democrats start taking the left seriously and start responding to our demands, and a third, by far the worst, where the left gets cold feet and gives up, desperately rallying around the “lesser evil,” thereby ensuring that nothing ever gets fixed, that conditions will continue to decline, and that fascism becomes inevitable.
I’m all for a third party coming up and taking over, my contention is that you might not get free elections that far into the future by allowing trump back in. That was IMO a big red line, and following your ideals is all well and good but I don’t think you can compare trump to either Bush or any president in recent history.
I’m against genocide, but indirect genocide abroad compared to complete collapse of the government here is not a cut and dry issue for me.
I don’t know how you know by way of a direct roadmap, but allowing a second trump presidency feels the same as crossing 1.5 C global warming… It points to something much, much worse.
I don’t think you can compare trump to either Bush or any president in recent history.
Hard disagree. Bush was absolutely terrible, and the only reason he gets whitewashed like this is because he’s no longer the current thing. If anything, Bush was much more capable of enacting his fascist agenda because he was able to get bipartisan support for it. It Trump is worse, it’s only because he’s standing on the shoulders of demons. Bush introduced the surveillance state, extrajudicial detention, and started multiple wars of aggression.
you might not get free elections that far into the future by allowing trump back in.
We don’t have free elections now. We will always have some form of elections though, virtually every country does. Elections are very useful to any aspiring dictator. Give the people a way to feel like they can work within the system and they’ll be much less troublesome, and less prone to engaging in other mechanisms of influencing things that could actually be disruptive.
On top of that, American elections are extraordinary for controlling the people, you get two groups of people who are both adamantly defending different ruling class candidates, hating each other’s guts, and trying to push anyone with a different perspective into that paradigm. It’s one of the most ingenious mechanisms of population control ever designed. Imagine, if we didn’t have elections, you’d not longer have any sort of beef with me at all, and we could be discussing the most effective ways of disrupting the state.
Also, Trump’s nearly 80. Octogenarians are not known for overthrowing governments and establishing dictatorships, on account of how they’ll die soon anyway, even if they had the energy and mental acuity for it. It’s much more likely that someone after Trump will.
Just as the far-right did not originate with Trump, it won’t end with him either. As soon as he’s out of the picture, then you’ll be talking about how uniquely terrifying the next person is, and how you can’t compare him to Trump who wasn’t really that bad and just had a different vision for how to improve the country, or whatever bullshit you say about Bush. Or if you personally don’t, then people will, perhaps young people who weren’t really aware of how awful Trump/Bush was. And you will be right, about the threat being awful and terrifying. But as long as you insist on just treading water, the threat is only going to get worse and worse forever. That path is 100% certain to lead to fascism.
It’s an objectively raw deal. For the presidential race there are functionally only two choices.
The down ballot races have choices and primaries have choices and local races have choices. Mamdani surging to the top of the mayoral race for NY is an expression of the voters. 3 years of 4 there’s time to demonstrate public opinion and express unhappiness in any of a variety of ways, but I don’t have a silver bullet to provide.
All I can do is say that, practically, if there are two candidates for the president race and both support arming Israel, I would rather get a half assed attempt at public infrastructure than a government burning gestapo grift. And I think most people agree. If you want to make the argument that I’m the long run trump is a cold shower that we deserve to shock the whole system… I might have agreed in 2020, but now I’m not so sure it will change anything past 2028.
That being the case, everything you said falls apart. Voters are not “the only ones we can criticize,” we can instead focus our criticism on the people deciding what our two choices are.
I could just as easily say that it’s the fault of Democratic voters for splitting the vote instead of rallying around PSL or the Green party. The only real counterargument to that is that there are a lot more of them than there are of us. But there are also a lot more of us compared to the singular individual of Kamala Harris. So why does it make sense to say we should be the ones to change instead of her? It’s nonsense. The only reason I can see is that we’re regular people and she’s ruling class.
I don’t want to make that argument, no. My position has never been that it would be better for Trump to get elected than Harris, and I have never argued for voting for Trump.
I mean you can criticize whoever you want and I’m happy to support you doing that. The idea of rallying around a 3rd party candidate is unfortunately a pipe dream. How would anybody know who to rally around because they aren’t allowed to participate in debates or even really participate as a first class candidate? It sounds good on paper but it just isn’t and has never been a reality. It looks a lot more possible if one election like 20% of people vote third party, but it hasn’t ever happened.
There’s no “gotcha” here to be had. There are 2 predictable choices at present and they both suck, but it is clear which is the least worst.
All the more reason to support them, then. You even spell out the logic yourself, even if they can’t win, if they reached a certain threshold then they’d have to be taken seriously.
Elections are about more than who wins and loses, they’re also about setting precedent. If a third party gets enough votes, if a faction within a party demonstrates a credible threat of defection, then a major party has to start making concessions if they want to bring them into the fold. The Democrats, however, did nothing but spit in our faces, because they made the incorrect calculation that the left’s opposition was just blowing hot air and that we’d come around to the lesser evil (which is generally what has happened in the past and how we got here in the first place).
I see three possibilities, one where the democrats remain stubborn, and a third party eventually emerges and supplants them (as has happened before in history), a second where the democrats start taking the left seriously and start responding to our demands, and a third, by far the worst, where the left gets cold feet and gives up, desperately rallying around the “lesser evil,” thereby ensuring that nothing ever gets fixed, that conditions will continue to decline, and that fascism becomes inevitable.
I’m all for a third party coming up and taking over, my contention is that you might not get free elections that far into the future by allowing trump back in. That was IMO a big red line, and following your ideals is all well and good but I don’t think you can compare trump to either Bush or any president in recent history.
I’m against genocide, but indirect genocide abroad compared to complete collapse of the government here is not a cut and dry issue for me.
I don’t know how you know by way of a direct roadmap, but allowing a second trump presidency feels the same as crossing 1.5 C global warming… It points to something much, much worse.
Hard disagree. Bush was absolutely terrible, and the only reason he gets whitewashed like this is because he’s no longer the current thing. If anything, Bush was much more capable of enacting his fascist agenda because he was able to get bipartisan support for it. It Trump is worse, it’s only because he’s standing on the shoulders of demons. Bush introduced the surveillance state, extrajudicial detention, and started multiple wars of aggression.
We don’t have free elections now. We will always have some form of elections though, virtually every country does. Elections are very useful to any aspiring dictator. Give the people a way to feel like they can work within the system and they’ll be much less troublesome, and less prone to engaging in other mechanisms of influencing things that could actually be disruptive.
On top of that, American elections are extraordinary for controlling the people, you get two groups of people who are both adamantly defending different ruling class candidates, hating each other’s guts, and trying to push anyone with a different perspective into that paradigm. It’s one of the most ingenious mechanisms of population control ever designed. Imagine, if we didn’t have elections, you’d not longer have any sort of beef with me at all, and we could be discussing the most effective ways of disrupting the state.
Also, Trump’s nearly 80. Octogenarians are not known for overthrowing governments and establishing dictatorships, on account of how they’ll die soon anyway, even if they had the energy and mental acuity for it. It’s much more likely that someone after Trump will.
Just as the far-right did not originate with Trump, it won’t end with him either. As soon as he’s out of the picture, then you’ll be talking about how uniquely terrifying the next person is, and how you can’t compare him to Trump who wasn’t really that bad and just had a different vision for how to improve the country, or whatever bullshit you say about Bush. Or if you personally don’t, then people will, perhaps young people who weren’t really aware of how awful Trump/Bush was. And you will be right, about the threat being awful and terrifying. But as long as you insist on just treading water, the threat is only going to get worse and worse forever. That path is 100% certain to lead to fascism.