someone who believes in unconditionally and indefinitely supporting the democratic party
I didn’t say that though. I said to support the Democratic party in 2024 because there was, at that time, no other viable electoral alternative to Trump, and Trump is worse for more people. You extrapolated that “unconditionally and indefinitely” from your own preconceptions. You do realize that that exactly is the problem we’re talking about right?
It’s not about whether you say the exact string of words “you’re acting in bad faith”, it’s the presupposition that the person you’re talking to doesn’t know the meaning of the words they’re using (or that your personal definition is fundamentally more valid), and the extrapolation of their own stated beliefs into the most uncharitable possible interpretation.
Oh, so you don’t believe in supporting the democratic party unconditionally? What would it take for you to not support them? Say, for example, they were actively arming a genocide, would that do it?
Or you don’t believe in supporting them indefinitely? How long then, should we continue supporting them unconditionally before we’re allowed to try something different? Let me guess, at some vague, indefinite point in the future when conditions have changed (not by anyone defecting from the democrats to build an alternative, ofc, but when somehow a powerful enough third party emerges despite nobody voting for it).
You can play coy all you want but my assumptions are entirely reasonable based on what you’ve said.
and the extrapolation of their own stated beliefs into the most uncharitable possible interpretation.
Except what liberals do is not only “extrapolate our stated beliefs into uncharitable interpretations” they completely reject that we hold our stated beliefs at all and assign us completely different beliefs based on whatever they make up. These things are very obviously and categorically different.
Whether it’s right or wrong to support the democrats unconditionally and indefinitely is a seperate question from whether that’s the position being described (which it is).
Personally, I would argue that it’s an incredibly short-sighted, ineffective, and illogical tactic. It sacrifices every ounce of bargaining power before negotiations have even begun.
The “logic” of lesser-evilism is easily disproven. We are given $100 to split, I make an offer, you choose whether to accept or refuse, if you refuse, neither of us get anything. What value should you accept? According to lesser-evilism, you should accept even if I offer a $99-$1 split, because $1 is the lesser evil to $0. But if I know that you’ll accept $1, that’s all I’ll ever offer you. In reality, when this experiment has been tried in practice, most people reject offers below about $30, and few people do the $99-$1 split because they know it’ll get rejected. The “optimal” strategy of lesser-evilism only makes sense if the game is not repeated, otherwise, it makes much more sense to set an absolute minimum condition and reject any offers below that number.
The position that y’all argue for is accepting the $99-$1 split in a political context, of having no conditions, no negotiations, nothing. It’s absurd! If we can present a credible threat that a critical mass of voters won’t go along with a certain policy (like genocide), then the party will have no choice but to give it to us if it wants to remain relevant. And if it refuses anyway, then, conveniently, the same action let’s us build up a third party towards potentially replacing them with someone more cooperative.
Lesser-evilism is presented as if it were obviously correct and indisputable. In reality, it is a specific tactic and one that has proven itself completely ineffective, and also doesn’t hold up under scrutiny. It is a choice to subscribe to lesser-evilism, and at least in my view, the wrong choice.
Well, I’m not american, but their politics touch the rest of the world.
I think people should have voted democrat because people were offered the 99-1 split, refused to choose, and got nothing.
Don’t get me wrong, what the u.s is funding is abhorrent, but under trump its going to be worse.
If both sides are fundamentally unacceptable, then the only thing that matters is changing the fundamental situation. And the most effective means of doing that is demonstrating a credible threat that we won’t just fall in line behind a 99-1 split. Building power in this way is more important than getting one genocidaire elected over the other, because it is only through building power that we have a chance of having an option that isn’t a genocidaire.
The left (or what pitiful excuse for the left we have in the US) has been following this inane strategy of lesser-evilism for decades now, and it’s a large part of the reason things have gotten this bad in the first place. Even if we could’ve elected a democrat, the underlying conditions that gave rise to Trump and that are feeding fascism will never be addressed by the democratic party, especially if people refuse to apply genuine pressure to them. As long as those conditions are not fixed, we will keep getting Trumps and people worse than Trump.
The system is the way it is by design. They want to force us into a position where we have to chose the lesser evil. The democrats have even funded far-right republican candidates in order to put voters into a position where they have no choice but to vote for them to stop them - the same “pied piper” strategy that Clinton used with Trump.
Ranked choice voting is kind of a catch-22. Neither major party supports it, so unless a third party candidate wins, then we can’t get it (at least on a large scale) - but the fact that we don’t have it makes it much more difficult for third party candidates to win. And even if we got it, there’s still things like gerrymandering, the electoral college, and Citizen’s United, which essentially allows unlimited spending on campaigns, that make our elections undemocratic.
That’s why I consider simply accepting the choices we’re presented with an unacceptable, losing proposition. There are certain demands that must be met, for the sake of the survival of the planet, the defeat of the far-right, and the end of the ongoing genocide. The framework we’re presented with and told is the only way, tells us that these changes are impossible. It’s an unstoppable force against an immovable object, except, the unstoppable force is actually unstoppable, because it is governed by the laws of nature, while the “immovable object” is just a system of arbitrary rules made up by human beings.
Such systems have given way in the past. If they didn’t we would still be living under monarchy. In the times of kings, we did not even have the incredibly flawed form of “democracy” we have now to exert influence over what happens, and yet, the people exerted the necessary influence to achieve change. In the same way, when our so-called “democratic” systems cannot address the many different crises we are facing, we must look to more fundamental ways of exerting force through collective action.
There is no one “magic bullet” solution, but if we can identify the things that absolutely must be done then we can start looking through the full toolbox for what means might be used to achieve them. However, if we set out goals and priorities based on what the system tells us is possible, then we are putting those human laws above natural, physical laws - which is insanity.
What would it take for you to not support them? Say, for example, they were actively arming a genocide, would that do it?
If there was a party that didn’t want to arm that genocide poised to potentially get enough votes to win, I would vote for them. In reality, unfortunately there were only two parties poised to get enough votes to win, and both aimed to actively arm the same genocide. So, I voted for the one less likely to disappear critics of that genocide, or push to raze Gaza to put up a resort with their name on it. I wish that I had a better option, but we can only pay the hand we’re dealt, so I promoted lesser evil.
How long then, should we continue supporting them
Right up until the exact moment there’s a better alternative with enough support to win. I thought I made that clear.
You can play coy all you want but my assumptions are entirely reasonable based on what you’ve said.
Again, this is exactly what people are talking about. You misinterpreted exactly one political stance and now you’ve justified your prejudices to yourself, and I can be tossed into the “lib” bin to be discarded.
they completely reject that we hold our stated beliefs at all and assign us completely different beliefs based on whatever they make up
So you won’t put a single concrete condition on your support and you won’t give a time or plan of action that will ever lead to you not supporting them. “Until a third party (somehow) emerges as viable” you say while not giving them the support they would need to work towards that point and arguing against those who do. That is indefinite, unconditional support, objectively.
I see no reason to entertain your arbitrary distinction that if you had a magical genie at your disposal the things you would wish for would be different from the people you believe in supporting unconditionally and indefinitely. No more than I would entertain Richard Spencer’s arbitrary distinction about how he’s totally not a fascist.
The irony is palpable.
At no point have I accused you of not believing the things you say. So no, there is no “irony.” You think that just because you want different things from liberals, it makes you different from them; I think that because you act exactly like a liberal in practice, that makes you a liberal. It’s a difference on how we define the term, whether it is based on ideas or on actions.
So you won’t put a single condition on your support and you won’t give a time or plan of action that will ever lead to you not supporting them.
Did you not read what I wrote? I just did exactly that. As soon as there is a better viable alternative, I’m jumping ship immediately. The condition on my support is them being the least bad choice with enough support to win. When that condition is no longer satisfied, my support ends. The plan of action is promoting leftist candidates through local to state offices so they can generate the support to be a less bad choice that could actually win. I can’t personally make that happen by myself, so I can’t give you a timeframe.
while not giving them the support they would need to reach that point
You know nothing about me. I support them every single time their campaign is viable.
You again, have yet to respond to that example or acknowledge it’s obvious validity.
Because it’s pointless and inflammatory. You seem to keep bringing up the fact that you can identify one specific closeted fascist in an attempt to either 1) extrapolate that ability to identify ideologues to justify your ideological speculation of me or 2) equate me with a fascist because… what exactly? Some people disagree with other people’s interpretation of their beliefs, and one of those people is a fascist, so because I disagree with your interpretation of my beliefs I’m just like them? I didn’t respond because it’s rhetorically lazy and logically bankrupt.
This circular, dead end argumentation is, again, the reason the rest of us get annoyed with you all. You’re claiming not to do the exact prejudiced, echo chamber, stereotypical behavior that you go on to precisely exemplify. Why would anyone take this laziness seriously? The “Russian bot” thing is a charitable interpretation. Surely, our staunchest champions of pure leftism can’t possibly be this obtuse, this has to be some kind of psyop to plunge the West into authoritarianism by fracturing the left.
Just like Richard Spencer denies being a fascist, you may deny being an unwitting accessory to the deliberate disorganization of the left, but that is an arbitrary distinction. In practice, you are helping to undermine leftist unity with emotionally charged splintering. I’m not accusing you of not believing what you say, but what you believe fits the definition of “malicious psyop”.
The condition on my support is them being the least bad choice with enough support to win.
That’s not a condition. A condition is a definite, red line, that if they cross it you won’t support it. Saying, “As long as they’re the lesser evil” means that there is literally no limit on how evil the could be and still win your support.
You know nothing about me. I support them every single time their campaign is viable.
They don’t reach the point of being viable unless people support them even when they aren’t viable yet.
equate me with a fascist because… what exactly?
What the hell are you talking about? That is extremely not the point and nothing I said suggested that at all.
extrapolate that ability to identify ideologues to justify your ideological speculation of me
No, it has nothing to do with “my” ability to identify ideologues, it’s about the validity of assigning labels to people even if the person rejects the label. You’re acting as if that’s somehow “bad faith” but obviously, everyone does it and it can be good to do it, at the very least when it comes to an example like Spencer.
This circular, dead end argumentation
There’s no “circular, dead end argumentation” other than your ridiculous and completely ungrounded and unhinged interpretation of my argument.
Just like Richard Spencer denies being a fascist, you may deny being an unwitting accessory to the deliberate disorganization of the left, but that is an arbitrary distinction. In practice, you are helping to undermine leftist unity with emotionally charged splintering. I’m not accusing you of not believing what you say, but what you believe fits the definition of “malicious psyop”.
Ah yes, true “left” unity is when you accuse anyone who won’t fall in line behind liberalism (or attempts to impose a single condition on that support, including “don’t do genocide”) of being a malicious psyop. That’s cool and all, but wouldn’t “liberal unity” be more accurate, since that’s the defining aspect?
Saying, “As long as they’re the lesser evil” means that there is literally no limit on how evil the could be and still win your support.
With no alternative? Uh, yeah. Republicans are literal fascists now. Being less bad is better than nothing until a leftist is polling 70-80 million votes. This “red line” nonsense is strategically stupid and, in practice, identical to someone intentionally trying to fracture the left.
They don’t reach the point of being viable unless people support them even when they aren’t viable yet.
They reach the point of being viable by running for city council, using that experience to fuel a run for mayor, state senator, governor, congressperson, and then go for president. I vote the most progressive person on every ballot I get; until I get to close races between liberals and fascists, in which case I will ignore any third parties and vote lib over fasc
No, it has nothing to do with “my” ability to identify ideologues, it’s about the validity of assigning labels to people even if the person rejects the label.
If you and the person you’re assigning labels to disagree, and you determine your assignments to be more valid than theirs, that is definitively based on your ability to identify ideologues.
It’s strategically the only approach that makes any logical sense whatsoever. The ideology of lesser-evilism is completely incoherent and illogical, it sacrifices every ounce of bargaining power you might have yielded completely unnecessarily.
in practice, identical to someone intentionally trying to fracture the left.
Completely insane perspective. “Anyone who advocates actually effective tactics is intentionally trying to fracture the left.” No wonder the left is so powerless.
“Unity” around ineffective tactics, I really think you should consider calling that “liberal unity.”
If you and the person you’re assigning labels to disagree, and you determine your assignments to be more valid than theirs, that is definitively based on your ability to identify ideologues.
That’s not the point of the example. I didn’t bring up Richard Spencer for some dumbass nonsense like, “see how good I am at identifying ideologues, this proves how smart I am,” I presented the example because he is someone who anyone should obviously be able to, and more importantly, willing to assign the label fascist to regardless of the fact that he rejects it. Therefore, you cannot oppose the idea of assigning labels to people that they reject on principle, though you may argue that it’s only valid in certain situations.
It’s strategically the only approach that makes any logical sense whatsoever.
Yeah no, you’ve got that 100% exactly wrong. Red line makes zero strategic sense, it’s childish and simple minded. It’s statements like that which make you look like you’re trying to make leftists look bad and ensure that they lose. You’re living in a bizarro world echo chamber.
“Unity” around ineffective tactics, I really think you should consider calling that “liberal tankie unity.”
Ftfy
Therefore, you cannot oppose the idea of assigning labels to people that they reject on principle, though you may argue that it’s only valid in certain situations.
Correct. The fact that you can identify one fascist does not validate all your label assignments. Your conclusions are not valid.
I didn’t say that though. I said to support the Democratic party in 2024 because there was, at that time, no other viable electoral alternative to Trump, and Trump is worse for more people. You extrapolated that “unconditionally and indefinitely” from your own preconceptions. You do realize that that exactly is the problem we’re talking about right?
It’s not about whether you say the exact string of words “you’re acting in bad faith”, it’s the presupposition that the person you’re talking to doesn’t know the meaning of the words they’re using (or that your personal definition is fundamentally more valid), and the extrapolation of their own stated beliefs into the most uncharitable possible interpretation.
Oh, so you don’t believe in supporting the democratic party unconditionally? What would it take for you to not support them? Say, for example, they were actively arming a genocide, would that do it?
Or you don’t believe in supporting them indefinitely? How long then, should we continue supporting them unconditionally before we’re allowed to try something different? Let me guess, at some vague, indefinite point in the future when conditions have changed (not by anyone defecting from the democrats to build an alternative, ofc, but when somehow a powerful enough third party emerges despite nobody voting for it).
You can play coy all you want but my assumptions are entirely reasonable based on what you’ve said.
Except what liberals do is not only “extrapolate our stated beliefs into uncharitable interpretations” they completely reject that we hold our stated beliefs at all and assign us completely different beliefs based on whatever they make up. These things are very obviously and categorically different.
It was the lesser of evils. Not voting for them lets even more bad stuff happen.
Whether it’s right or wrong to support the democrats unconditionally and indefinitely is a seperate question from whether that’s the position being described (which it is).
Personally, I would argue that it’s an incredibly short-sighted, ineffective, and illogical tactic. It sacrifices every ounce of bargaining power before negotiations have even begun.
The “logic” of lesser-evilism is easily disproven. We are given $100 to split, I make an offer, you choose whether to accept or refuse, if you refuse, neither of us get anything. What value should you accept? According to lesser-evilism, you should accept even if I offer a $99-$1 split, because $1 is the lesser evil to $0. But if I know that you’ll accept $1, that’s all I’ll ever offer you. In reality, when this experiment has been tried in practice, most people reject offers below about $30, and few people do the $99-$1 split because they know it’ll get rejected. The “optimal” strategy of lesser-evilism only makes sense if the game is not repeated, otherwise, it makes much more sense to set an absolute minimum condition and reject any offers below that number.
The position that y’all argue for is accepting the $99-$1 split in a political context, of having no conditions, no negotiations, nothing. It’s absurd! If we can present a credible threat that a critical mass of voters won’t go along with a certain policy (like genocide), then the party will have no choice but to give it to us if it wants to remain relevant. And if it refuses anyway, then, conveniently, the same action let’s us build up a third party towards potentially replacing them with someone more cooperative.
Lesser-evilism is presented as if it were obviously correct and indisputable. In reality, it is a specific tactic and one that has proven itself completely ineffective, and also doesn’t hold up under scrutiny. It is a choice to subscribe to lesser-evilism, and at least in my view, the wrong choice.
Well, I’m not american, but their politics touch the rest of the world.
I think people should have voted democrat because people were offered the 99-1 split, refused to choose, and got nothing.
Don’t get me wrong, what the u.s is funding is abhorrent, but under trump its going to be worse.
If both sides are fundamentally unacceptable, then the only thing that matters is changing the fundamental situation. And the most effective means of doing that is demonstrating a credible threat that we won’t just fall in line behind a 99-1 split. Building power in this way is more important than getting one genocidaire elected over the other, because it is only through building power that we have a chance of having an option that isn’t a genocidaire.
The left (or what pitiful excuse for the left we have in the US) has been following this inane strategy of lesser-evilism for decades now, and it’s a large part of the reason things have gotten this bad in the first place. Even if we could’ve elected a democrat, the underlying conditions that gave rise to Trump and that are feeding fascism will never be addressed by the democratic party, especially if people refuse to apply genuine pressure to them. As long as those conditions are not fixed, we will keep getting Trumps and people worse than Trump.
I really wish we had some way of getting Ranked Choice voting, or people who gave a shit about politics.
The system is the way it is by design. They want to force us into a position where we have to chose the lesser evil. The democrats have even funded far-right republican candidates in order to put voters into a position where they have no choice but to vote for them to stop them - the same “pied piper” strategy that Clinton used with Trump.
Ranked choice voting is kind of a catch-22. Neither major party supports it, so unless a third party candidate wins, then we can’t get it (at least on a large scale) - but the fact that we don’t have it makes it much more difficult for third party candidates to win. And even if we got it, there’s still things like gerrymandering, the electoral college, and Citizen’s United, which essentially allows unlimited spending on campaigns, that make our elections undemocratic.
That’s why I consider simply accepting the choices we’re presented with an unacceptable, losing proposition. There are certain demands that must be met, for the sake of the survival of the planet, the defeat of the far-right, and the end of the ongoing genocide. The framework we’re presented with and told is the only way, tells us that these changes are impossible. It’s an unstoppable force against an immovable object, except, the unstoppable force is actually unstoppable, because it is governed by the laws of nature, while the “immovable object” is just a system of arbitrary rules made up by human beings.
Such systems have given way in the past. If they didn’t we would still be living under monarchy. In the times of kings, we did not even have the incredibly flawed form of “democracy” we have now to exert influence over what happens, and yet, the people exerted the necessary influence to achieve change. In the same way, when our so-called “democratic” systems cannot address the many different crises we are facing, we must look to more fundamental ways of exerting force through collective action.
There is no one “magic bullet” solution, but if we can identify the things that absolutely must be done then we can start looking through the full toolbox for what means might be used to achieve them. However, if we set out goals and priorities based on what the system tells us is possible, then we are putting those human laws above natural, physical laws - which is insanity.
If there was a party that didn’t want to arm that genocide poised to potentially get enough votes to win, I would vote for them. In reality, unfortunately there were only two parties poised to get enough votes to win, and both aimed to actively arm the same genocide. So, I voted for the one less likely to disappear critics of that genocide, or push to raze Gaza to put up a resort with their name on it. I wish that I had a better option, but we can only pay the hand we’re dealt, so I promoted lesser evil.
Right up until the exact moment there’s a better alternative with enough support to win. I thought I made that clear.
Again, this is exactly what people are talking about. You misinterpreted exactly one political stance and now you’ve justified your prejudices to yourself, and I can be tossed into the “lib” bin to be discarded.
The irony is palpable.
So you won’t put a single concrete condition on your support and you won’t give a time or plan of action that will ever lead to you not supporting them. “Until a third party (somehow) emerges as viable” you say while not giving them the support they would need to work towards that point and arguing against those who do. That is indefinite, unconditional support, objectively.
I see no reason to entertain your arbitrary distinction that if you had a magical genie at your disposal the things you would wish for would be different from the people you believe in supporting unconditionally and indefinitely. No more than I would entertain Richard Spencer’s arbitrary distinction about how he’s totally not a fascist.
At no point have I accused you of not believing the things you say. So no, there is no “irony.” You think that just because you want different things from liberals, it makes you different from them; I think that because you act exactly like a liberal in practice, that makes you a liberal. It’s a difference on how we define the term, whether it is based on ideas or on actions.
Did you not read what I wrote? I just did exactly that. As soon as there is a better viable alternative, I’m jumping ship immediately. The condition on my support is them being the least bad choice with enough support to win. When that condition is no longer satisfied, my support ends. The plan of action is promoting leftist candidates through local to state offices so they can generate the support to be a less bad choice that could actually win. I can’t personally make that happen by myself, so I can’t give you a timeframe.
You know nothing about me. I support them every single time their campaign is viable.
Because it’s pointless and inflammatory. You seem to keep bringing up the fact that you can identify one specific closeted fascist in an attempt to either 1) extrapolate that ability to identify ideologues to justify your ideological speculation of me or 2) equate me with a fascist because… what exactly? Some people disagree with other people’s interpretation of their beliefs, and one of those people is a fascist, so because I disagree with your interpretation of my beliefs I’m just like them? I didn’t respond because it’s rhetorically lazy and logically bankrupt.
This circular, dead end argumentation is, again, the reason the rest of us get annoyed with you all. You’re claiming not to do the exact prejudiced, echo chamber, stereotypical behavior that you go on to precisely exemplify. Why would anyone take this laziness seriously? The “Russian bot” thing is a charitable interpretation. Surely, our staunchest champions of pure leftism can’t possibly be this obtuse, this has to be some kind of psyop to plunge the West into authoritarianism by fracturing the left.
Just like Richard Spencer denies being a fascist, you may deny being an unwitting accessory to the deliberate disorganization of the left, but that is an arbitrary distinction. In practice, you are helping to undermine leftist unity with emotionally charged splintering. I’m not accusing you of not believing what you say, but what you believe fits the definition of “malicious psyop”.
That’s not a condition. A condition is a definite, red line, that if they cross it you won’t support it. Saying, “As long as they’re the lesser evil” means that there is literally no limit on how evil the could be and still win your support.
They don’t reach the point of being viable unless people support them even when they aren’t viable yet.
What the hell are you talking about? That is extremely not the point and nothing I said suggested that at all.
No, it has nothing to do with “my” ability to identify ideologues, it’s about the validity of assigning labels to people even if the person rejects the label. You’re acting as if that’s somehow “bad faith” but obviously, everyone does it and it can be good to do it, at the very least when it comes to an example like Spencer.
There’s no “circular, dead end argumentation” other than your ridiculous and completely ungrounded and unhinged interpretation of my argument.
Ah yes, true “left” unity is when you accuse anyone who won’t fall in line behind liberalism (or attempts to impose a single condition on that support, including “don’t do genocide”) of being a malicious psyop. That’s cool and all, but wouldn’t “liberal unity” be more accurate, since that’s the defining aspect?
With no alternative? Uh, yeah. Republicans are literal fascists now. Being less bad is better than nothing until a leftist is polling 70-80 million votes. This “red line” nonsense is strategically stupid and, in practice, identical to someone intentionally trying to fracture the left.
They reach the point of being viable by running for city council, using that experience to fuel a run for mayor, state senator, governor, congressperson, and then go for president. I vote the most progressive person on every ballot I get; until I get to close races between liberals and fascists, in which case I will ignore any third parties and vote lib over fasc
If you and the person you’re assigning labels to disagree, and you determine your assignments to be more valid than theirs, that is definitively based on your ability to identify ideologues.
It’s strategically the only approach that makes any logical sense whatsoever. The ideology of lesser-evilism is completely incoherent and illogical, it sacrifices every ounce of bargaining power you might have yielded completely unnecessarily.
Completely insane perspective. “Anyone who advocates actually effective tactics is intentionally trying to fracture the left.” No wonder the left is so powerless.
“Unity” around ineffective tactics, I really think you should consider calling that “liberal unity.”
That’s not the point of the example. I didn’t bring up Richard Spencer for some dumbass nonsense like, “see how good I am at identifying ideologues, this proves how smart I am,” I presented the example because he is someone who anyone should obviously be able to, and more importantly, willing to assign the label fascist to regardless of the fact that he rejects it. Therefore, you cannot oppose the idea of assigning labels to people that they reject on principle, though you may argue that it’s only valid in certain situations.
Yeah no, you’ve got that 100% exactly wrong. Red line makes zero strategic sense, it’s childish and simple minded. It’s statements like that which make you look like you’re trying to make leftists look bad and ensure that they lose. You’re living in a bizarro world echo chamber.
Ftfy
Correct. The fact that you can identify one fascist does not validate all your label assignments. Your conclusions are not valid.