A take I’ve heard that maybe you’ll understand is this:
Leftist organizing in the US isn’t going to change the system 90 days before election day. There’s simply too much momentum with the two party system we have.
So now the situation is, vote for whoever you’d rather have in charge of the country while you do your leftist organizing for the next several years. I know I’d rather do that work under a Harris presidency than a Trump one, for a million obvious reasons.
To do anything else is to simply not understand the reality of the situation.
That’s a reasonable argument, but it leads to some pretty uncomfortable conclusions for democracy.
During our next “leftist organizing for the next several years.”, why would the Democrats budge an inch given that they know all they need to do is hold fast until the last 90 days and we’ll all fall into line and vote for them anyway?
We end up like the boy who cries wolf. All our protest and campaigns mean nothing because our votes are, in the end, absolutely guaranteed. The Democrats can have whatever policy positions they like.
I don’t see how 4 years or 4 days makes any difference. If they are guaranteed your vote come election day, they have no reason to shift policy in order to obtain it.
At the risk of feeding a sea lion, there’s actually a simple reason a candidate might shift their position toward voters that are already “guaranteed” to vote for them: if that “guaranteed” base grows, it provides a voting offset that could allow the candidate to worry less about losing the support of less progressive voters.
I’d say then you don’t understand the purpose of on-the-ground political organizing or what it looks like. It’s not about changing the whole system in one go, it’s about radicalizing as many people as possible for a grassroots movement. You use that to get local politicians in power favorable to leftist causes. Then you apply pressure upward.
We’re currently more radicalized as a country than we’ve been since the Red Scare. Just because the progress is frustratingly slow does not mean it isn’t happening.
But this discussion isn’t about grassroots or local politicians. Following the logic espoused in the OP you’d turn out in droves to vote for a local politician who offers policies you agree with.
This discussion is about the presidential election and what to do about two candidates who both actively support genocide.
One could conceivably not vote for Kamala and then massively support your local grassroots movement and politicians, or… You could vote for Kamala and then massively support your local grassroots movement and politicians.
Talking about whether or not to vote for Kamala has no bearing on what you then do at a local level.
And if that local-level politician doesn’t offer policies you like, same logic. Why would they ever do so if they’re guaranteed your vote anyway?
What’s at stake here is people actively arguing that we should just guarantee one political party our votes, no matter what their policies are, out of blind faith.
I got the point. Just not the mechanism. It’s all very well to hand-waive vaguely toward ‘grassroots work’, but its far from clear how, under the voting policy in question, this will affect anything.
Let us say our grassroots campaign went really well and we get some great local politicians. Now what?
They advise Kamala (or her replacement) to drop support for genocide? Why would she listen? They’re going to be in no different a position to us, they have to vote in her favour no matter what all the while there’s a worse person on the ballot.
And why would anyone even advise it in the first place when leftist votes are guaranteed anyway? It’d be political insanity to risk loosing the centrist vote for no gain.
So, explain the mechanism. We get a great local politician and she does what…?
Local politicians > work way into DNC primary machine > work to change how the primaries work > reduce ability for $ and top brass to pave way in primaries for their chosen people > get candidates we actually want winning primaries. It’s a long game.
If you’re asking me how to get Kamala Harris herself to change course on all this immediately, I have no idea. But witholding your vote isn’t going to sway things, either. Even if we got every leftist in the country to not vote in solidarity - that wouldn’t be enough. There’s not enough of us yet. That’s the reality of working within a democracy, you need enough people organized to vote. But you need time and an actual strategy WELL BEFORE THIS STAGE OF THE ELECTION CYCLE. All that would do now is spoil the election, give it to Trump, and that very well may end democracy in the US as we know it.
Regarding “guaranteed leftist votes” you must consider that the opposite also applies. Why would Kamala Harris care about your views if you’re never going to vote for her? (Maybe you would if she vowed to save Palestine and forego allyship with Israel until they stop genociding, though, which is fair. But a lot of folks out here making these arguments are not doing so in good faith.)
Local politicians > work way into DNC primary machine
Sounds very cloak-and-dagger. Aren’t these systems largely democratic? If so, why aren’t they caught in the same trap, they have to give their votes to the least worst candidate?
There’s not enough of us yet.
“Yet”? From when? The beginning of the socialist movement? Is there a point in time you begin to question this slow-and-steady policy? 100 years? 1000?
Is there some threshold at which you might begin to look at the utter failure of such a process, it’s total and utter net support for the status quo and start to question who really benefits?
Because if that day ever comes, you might take a glance at the media promoting such a view and the degree to which their owners and sources of revenue benefit from exactly the outcome this policy results in.
But I’m not holding my breath. Experience has taught me that people these days seems quite happy to believe that when powerful forces get exactly the results which benefit them most, it’s most likely to be a completely fortuitous coincide and anything else is just conspiracy theory.
Cloak and dagger? It’s literally just applying for positions of lower power to help influence systems to open the gates for higher levels of power. It’s… normal everyday shit.
If there were “enough” socialists we’d either have a valid third party or we’d be able to democratically take over DNC primaries. So far that hasn’t materialized.
Given there are other countries, like the Nordic countries, that have achieved greater quality of life for their people through democratic socialist means… yeah I’d much prefer that approach than a full on revolution led by some vanguard and the horrendous amount of risk that entails.
A take I’ve heard that maybe you’ll understand is this:
Leftist organizing in the US isn’t going to change the system 90 days before election day. There’s simply too much momentum with the two party system we have.
So now the situation is, vote for whoever you’d rather have in charge of the country while you do your leftist organizing for the next several years. I know I’d rather do that work under a Harris presidency than a Trump one, for a million obvious reasons.
To do anything else is to simply not understand the reality of the situation.
That’s a reasonable argument, but it leads to some pretty uncomfortable conclusions for democracy.
During our next “leftist organizing for the next several years.”, why would the Democrats budge an inch given that they know all they need to do is hold fast until the last 90 days and we’ll all fall into line and vote for them anyway?
We end up like the boy who cries wolf. All our protest and campaigns mean nothing because our votes are, in the end, absolutely guaranteed. The Democrats can have whatever policy positions they like.
I don’t see how 4 years or 4 days makes any difference. If they are guaranteed your vote come election day, they have no reason to shift policy in order to obtain it.
At the risk of feeding a sea lion, there’s actually a simple reason a candidate might shift their position toward voters that are already “guaranteed” to vote for them: if that “guaranteed” base grows, it provides a voting offset that could allow the candidate to worry less about losing the support of less progressive voters.
I’d say then you don’t understand the purpose of on-the-ground political organizing or what it looks like. It’s not about changing the whole system in one go, it’s about radicalizing as many people as possible for a grassroots movement. You use that to get local politicians in power favorable to leftist causes. Then you apply pressure upward.
We’re currently more radicalized as a country than we’ve been since the Red Scare. Just because the progress is frustratingly slow does not mean it isn’t happening.
But this discussion isn’t about grassroots or local politicians. Following the logic espoused in the OP you’d turn out in droves to vote for a local politician who offers policies you agree with.
This discussion is about the presidential election and what to do about two candidates who both actively support genocide.
One could conceivably not vote for Kamala and then massively support your local grassroots movement and politicians, or… You could vote for Kamala and then massively support your local grassroots movement and politicians.
Talking about whether or not to vote for Kamala has no bearing on what you then do at a local level.
And if that local-level politician doesn’t offer policies you like, same logic. Why would they ever do so if they’re guaranteed your vote anyway?
What’s at stake here is people actively arguing that we should just guarantee one political party our votes, no matter what their policies are, out of blind faith.
That’s not a democracy, it’s a theocracy.
You’ve successfully looped back to my first point.
You vote in the current election to get the conditions to do your grassroots work under.
I got the point. Just not the mechanism. It’s all very well to hand-waive vaguely toward ‘grassroots work’, but its far from clear how, under the voting policy in question, this will affect anything.
Let us say our grassroots campaign went really well and we get some great local politicians. Now what?
They advise Kamala (or her replacement) to drop support for genocide? Why would she listen? They’re going to be in no different a position to us, they have to vote in her favour no matter what all the while there’s a worse person on the ballot.
And why would anyone even advise it in the first place when leftist votes are guaranteed anyway? It’d be political insanity to risk loosing the centrist vote for no gain.
So, explain the mechanism. We get a great local politician and she does what…?
Local politicians > work way into DNC primary machine > work to change how the primaries work > reduce ability for $ and top brass to pave way in primaries for their chosen people > get candidates we actually want winning primaries. It’s a long game.
If you’re asking me how to get Kamala Harris herself to change course on all this immediately, I have no idea. But witholding your vote isn’t going to sway things, either. Even if we got every leftist in the country to not vote in solidarity - that wouldn’t be enough. There’s not enough of us yet. That’s the reality of working within a democracy, you need enough people organized to vote. But you need time and an actual strategy WELL BEFORE THIS STAGE OF THE ELECTION CYCLE. All that would do now is spoil the election, give it to Trump, and that very well may end democracy in the US as we know it.
Regarding “guaranteed leftist votes” you must consider that the opposite also applies. Why would Kamala Harris care about your views if you’re never going to vote for her? (Maybe you would if she vowed to save Palestine and forego allyship with Israel until they stop genociding, though, which is fair. But a lot of folks out here making these arguments are not doing so in good faith.)
Sounds very cloak-and-dagger. Aren’t these systems largely democratic? If so, why aren’t they caught in the same trap, they have to give their votes to the least worst candidate?
“Yet”? From when? The beginning of the socialist movement? Is there a point in time you begin to question this slow-and-steady policy? 100 years? 1000?
Is there some threshold at which you might begin to look at the utter failure of such a process, it’s total and utter net support for the status quo and start to question who really benefits?
Because if that day ever comes, you might take a glance at the media promoting such a view and the degree to which their owners and sources of revenue benefit from exactly the outcome this policy results in.
But I’m not holding my breath. Experience has taught me that people these days seems quite happy to believe that when powerful forces get exactly the results which benefit them most, it’s most likely to be a completely fortuitous coincide and anything else is just conspiracy theory.
Cloak and dagger? It’s literally just applying for positions of lower power to help influence systems to open the gates for higher levels of power. It’s… normal everyday shit.
If there were “enough” socialists we’d either have a valid third party or we’d be able to democratically take over DNC primaries. So far that hasn’t materialized.
Given there are other countries, like the Nordic countries, that have achieved greater quality of life for their people through democratic socialist means… yeah I’d much prefer that approach than a full on revolution led by some vanguard and the horrendous amount of risk that entails.