politics
Welcome to the discussion of US Politics!
Rules:
- Post only links to articles, Title must fairly describe link contents. If your title differs from the site’s, it should only be to add context or be more descriptive. Do not post entire articles in the body or in the comments.
Links must be to the original source, not an aggregator like Google Amp, MSN, or Yahoo.
Example:
- Articles must be relevant to politics. Links must be to quality and original content. Articles should be worth reading. Clickbait, stub articles, and rehosted or stolen content are not allowed. Check your source for Reliability and Bias here.
- Be civil, No violations of TOS. It’s OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It’s NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.
- No memes, trolling, or low-effort comments. Reposts, misinformation, off-topic, trolling, or offensive. Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.
- Vote based on comment quality, not agreement. This community aims to foster discussion; please reward people for putting effort into articulating their viewpoint, even if you disagree with it.
- No hate speech, slurs, celebrating death, advocating violence, or abusive language. This will result in a ban. Usernames containing racist, or inappropriate slurs will be banned without warning
We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.
All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.
That's all the rules!
Civic Links
• Congressional Awards Program
• Library of Congress Legislative Resources
• U.S. House of Representatives
Partnered Communities:
• News
view the rest of the comments
My point is that the Democrats seem to think they are winnable, or else they wouldn't be so afraid even just to stay the course on progressive policy, much less push it forward. We both agree that it's stupid, I'm saying it's not a winning strategy. Ignore the loyal soldiers part, that was hyperbole, they're still experiencing diminishing returns from courting the conservative vote.
They're running out of winnable votes in the middle, yet they seem to prefer to scrape the bottom of that barrel at all costs, including bleeding votes from the progressive side, which is what is happening when a third party spoils the vote. The democratic party knows this, they have billions of dollars to figure things like this out, and they know how to spin it as not to cast doubt on their own institutions.
People who point fingers at progressive voters (who they otherwise agree with) when a candidate loses, rather than demand for that candidate to win back those compatible but alienated voters, seem to think that the candidates are just innocent victims of circumstance. This is false. They are active players in a game of bets and wagers, running billion dollar campaigns with strategists and focus groups. They know what they need to do to get the winning number of votes, if they really want to.
Every time they ignore what's popular to voters or even tell a group of voters to pipe down, not even acting like they are hearing them out, is a wager that they can win without representing that view. The more voters that toe the party line and guilt each other into doing so, the more they can tell us to pipe down and choose not to represent us. At the most you could say that they have something to lose by inching left, but this is difficult to argue (other than a monetary incentive of course) because of how motivated non-republican voters are just to keep Trump out this cycle. They have plenty of room to motivate the wide open margins on the left
There's no silent majority of Leftists. This is one of the fundamental things you guys need to grasp. Just because all the people you interact with are like that, doesn't mean you're anywhere near a relevant fraction of voters.
Even if that negated anything that I said, you guys sure seem to think they're relevant when they vote third party or become disillusioned and don't vote at all. So they're only relevant when they're not doing what you want? Cause that seems to me like ignoring voters until it bites you in the ass.
There's clearly enough progressives, or voters who find Democrats' current platform objectionable, that you understand you can't win without them. The Democrats could offer them something material to vote for, and/or they can pressure them to vote against their better senses on threats that things will get worse if they lose. They are going exclusively with the latter.
For some reason you keep getting stuck on the semantics of single words that I've used. Missing the forest, so to say. Ignore the word progressive (which is not the same word as leftist but whatever). There are things that are popular to the majority of this country that will motivate people to turn out to vote other than keeping Trump out of office, and those things definitely aren't being tough on immigration or funding Israel's war on the middle east.
There's far fewer leftists in relevant battleground states than there are moderates who we would alienate by a hard turn to the left.
The problem with Leftist "don't vote" rhetoric is that these moderates in battleground states...well, let's be honest. They're idiots. They're easily swayed. They're low information voters. They "don't like politics".
We don't care if a million voters in California break off and vote 3rd party, as long as they do so fucking quietly. If they influence 30,000 voters in Pennsylvania, we're fucked. Not as a party, but as a nation. It's shit, but that's the calculus behind FPTP.
Likewise, earning 15 million votes in California instead of 11 million, by championing Leftist causes, does not help Democrats get elected at all. But alienating just a few thousand voters in Michigan matters a LOT. You don't win Michigan and Pennsylvania and Georgia by championing leftist causes.
So yeah. You guys are too small in number to help us win, but loud enough in voice to help us lose.
And no, I refuse to conflate progressives with leftists. I've seen a lot of leftists trying to co opt the progressive label lately. Fuck that. Y'all are leftists.
lol
Regardless
Ok troll