I gotta be honest, its fucking exhausting constantly having to explain to the people who just threw the election to Trump why they are the problem.
And honestly, if you don’t know what Blue Maga is, or why that may apply to you, why the fuck do you think its my job to educate you? You are in a politics forum. Go google it. Heres the kym, though it could be updated.
And here is Jon Stewart, in a longer form segment, explaining it further:
The reason you get put into this camp, is the apologetics. Its the approach to rhetoric. Its approaching the issue with the argument “other side worse” as if thats an argument for your positioning. Its Joy Ann Reid saying she’d vote for Biden if he was in a coma. Its Whoopi on The View saying she’d vote for Biden if he was shitting his pants on stage. And when you make these kinds of arguments, like the one you are making, you end up with a candidate who is practically in a coma and is basically shitting their pants on stage: and that loses the election.
Its an approach to electoralism that excuses the consistent and perpetual failure of the Democratic party by trying to shift the focus to how bad Trump is, and it handed the election to Trump. Twice. You don’t win elections this way, you literally push votes away from the party in using this argument. 2024 wasn’t lost because Trump was some amazing candidate. It was lost because Blue-MAGA Democrats told the entire voter base to shut the fuck up and let them run the milquetoast Democrats.
I and (at risk of speaking for others) many of the other commentators agree with at least 80% of what you have written and close to 100% of the spirit of your argument. But a few points to reflect on:
You are not winning anyone over with your rhetoric in your first posts
Infighting, purity tests, and micro-clans are common methods used by the right to fragment the left
Voting third party in a general election in the US as a protest vote is close as to as impactful as not voting, be prepared for those consequences and for people to call you out on it. Of course there is no doubt some justification
Relatedly acceleration is not viewed as a viable political strategy by most on the left (who aren’t naive new comers to political discourse)
You are not winning anyone over with your rhetoric in your first posts
Oh I am though, I promise. This is the one thing I do know without a doubt, because I’ve watched the entire narrative completely flip. And I know whose minds have been changed and I’ve seen how severely weakened the ABWD/ Blue MAGA side has become. I’m also not basing this off one thread or one comment, but all of them, and the complete shift in narrative we (its not just me) have been able to drive by being right in the first place and consistent with where we place our criticism. We made these critiques before it was obvious they would lead to failure; we made them while the process was leading to failure; and we make them again, now that the process has been demonstrated to lead to failure.
We may not be winning over those who are so irrationally committed to a team sport their brain is broken, but what matters now isn’t “winning them over”; its inoculating the rest of the community against listening to them. Those people are lost, broken-brained individuals, those are Blue-MAGA, and like traditional MAGA, its a cult we can’t really expect their heads to ever become fully removed from their own asses. But there are two outcomes to consider in this case. Either A) we don’t need to worry about those voters, because, if they are truly blue MAGA/ ABWD, they’ll just have to vote for the candidate who is going to speak to a populist progressive agenda and get along. Or B) they are voters you were never going to be able to rely on in the first place, and assuredly shouldnt base your campaign around. In either case, basing campaigns around them is a surefire recipe for disaster, as we’ve seen, repeatedly.
To your other points, they are entirely straw men and not worth responding to. You are effectively doing exactly what I’m accusing Blue MAGA of doing. Its a effort to use group identity to silence criticism of that identity.
You write two paragraphs responding to my comments on the effectiveness of your rhetoric and have nothing to say to respond to what you derisively refer to as “straw men” for the other three points I raised in (online) discussion with you.
I’m forced to roll my eyes a bit as I feel vindicated in my point on rhetoric.
I would close by saying, I haven’t seen you assert a compelling positive solution to what you problematize correctly, other than don’t vote / vote 3rd party (which no one sees as the answer, maybe not even you?).
If I may be so bold, some reflection on a solution on your side would be helpful - as would articulating it at the start of your attempt to converse with fellow left/left-leaning internetizians you are seeking to influence
I would close by saying, I haven’t seen you assert a compelling positive solution to what you problematize correctly, other than don’t vote / vote 3rd party (which no one sees as the answer, maybe not even you?).
Where did I assert that? Show me. You (and a multitude of others) make that assumption because I point out that when Blue MAGA brigades against those themselves who may want to discuss a third party, or not voting, that drives people away from the party. Do you see your strawman more clearly now?
And I agree with the sentiment of the biline, I am proposing a solution, at least implicitly:
Stop defending shitty Democrats or the shit polices they insist on. When they are doing dumb shit, call them out on it and stop just carrying water. Hear, acknowledge, accept and support the critique. Demand better candidates, better policies, and better governance from Democrats. Stop engaging in a rhetoric that has results in a race to the bottom of the barrel when it comes to candidate quality among Democrats. When you silence criticisms or try and pretend that voting is a binary, you hurt Democrats ability to win elections. When people tell you they can’t or don’t want to vote for Democrats, hear them, and try to understand why they are saying that, and instead of trying to change the voters opinion to support a lower caliber of candidate, demand more from the candidates themselves.
You can’t move an electorate over the course of a campaign. It makes no statistical practical sense. Projects like that take decades. You always need to meet the electorate where they are at, and if a candidate is insufficient to do so, the candidate or their policies are what needs to change. When you tell voters they’re the ones who need to change their priorities to support a candidate who doesn’t support them, you just lost us another voter, and you perpetually make it harder to get Democrats elected.
ABWD/ Blue MAGA loses us elections. The “strategic voting” trope that tells voter they need to accept less loses us elections. Campaigns that work to tell voters they need to compromise instead of working to change candidates lose us elections.
I know what blue maga means. That’s why I asked you to explain why the hell you’re so eager to lump anyone who ultimately makes a pragmatic choice in the general election, after all other choices have been exhausted, in with the crowd that has spent months/years actively pushing to ensure the worst possible option is running against a fascist.
The wildest part is we dont even disagree, so save your fucking smugness.
I gotta be honest, its fucking exhausting constantly having to explain to the people who just threw the election to Trump why they are the problem.
And honestly, if you don’t know what Blue Maga is, or why that may apply to you, why the fuck do you think its my job to educate you? You are in a politics forum. Go google it. Heres the kym, though it could be updated.
And here is Jon Stewart, in a longer form segment, explaining it further:
The reason you get put into this camp, is the apologetics. Its the approach to rhetoric. Its approaching the issue with the argument “other side worse” as if thats an argument for your positioning. Its Joy Ann Reid saying she’d vote for Biden if he was in a coma. Its Whoopi on The View saying she’d vote for Biden if he was shitting his pants on stage. And when you make these kinds of arguments, like the one you are making, you end up with a candidate who is practically in a coma and is basically shitting their pants on stage: and that loses the election.
Its an approach to electoralism that excuses the consistent and perpetual failure of the Democratic party by trying to shift the focus to how bad Trump is, and it handed the election to Trump. Twice. You don’t win elections this way, you literally push votes away from the party in using this argument. 2024 wasn’t lost because Trump was some amazing candidate. It was lost because Blue-MAGA Democrats told the entire voter base to shut the fuck up and let them run the milquetoast Democrats.
I and (at risk of speaking for others) many of the other commentators agree with at least 80% of what you have written and close to 100% of the spirit of your argument. But a few points to reflect on:
Oh I am though, I promise. This is the one thing I do know without a doubt, because I’ve watched the entire narrative completely flip. And I know whose minds have been changed and I’ve seen how severely weakened the ABWD/ Blue MAGA side has become. I’m also not basing this off one thread or one comment, but all of them, and the complete shift in narrative we (its not just me) have been able to drive by being right in the first place and consistent with where we place our criticism. We made these critiques before it was obvious they would lead to failure; we made them while the process was leading to failure; and we make them again, now that the process has been demonstrated to lead to failure.
We may not be winning over those who are so irrationally committed to a team sport their brain is broken, but what matters now isn’t “winning them over”; its inoculating the rest of the community against listening to them. Those people are lost, broken-brained individuals, those are Blue-MAGA, and like traditional MAGA, its a cult we can’t really expect their heads to ever become fully removed from their own asses. But there are two outcomes to consider in this case. Either A) we don’t need to worry about those voters, because, if they are truly blue MAGA/ ABWD, they’ll just have to vote for the candidate who is going to speak to a populist progressive agenda and get along. Or B) they are voters you were never going to be able to rely on in the first place, and assuredly shouldnt base your campaign around. In either case, basing campaigns around them is a surefire recipe for disaster, as we’ve seen, repeatedly.
To your other points, they are entirely straw men and not worth responding to. You are effectively doing exactly what I’m accusing Blue MAGA of doing. Its a effort to use group identity to silence criticism of that identity.
Friend.
You write two paragraphs responding to my comments on the effectiveness of your rhetoric and have nothing to say to respond to what you derisively refer to as “straw men” for the other three points I raised in (online) discussion with you.
I’m forced to roll my eyes a bit as I feel vindicated in my point on rhetoric.
I would close by saying, I haven’t seen you assert a compelling positive solution to what you problematize correctly, other than don’t vote / vote 3rd party (which no one sees as the answer, maybe not even you?).
If I may be so bold, some reflection on a solution on your side would be helpful - as would articulating it at the start of your attempt to converse with fellow left/left-leaning internetizians you are seeking to influence
Where did I assert that? Show me. You (and a multitude of others) make that assumption because I point out that when Blue MAGA brigades against those themselves who may want to discuss a third party, or not voting, that drives people away from the party. Do you see your strawman more clearly now?
And I agree with the sentiment of the biline, I am proposing a solution, at least implicitly:
Stop defending shitty Democrats or the shit polices they insist on. When they are doing dumb shit, call them out on it and stop just carrying water. Hear, acknowledge, accept and support the critique. Demand better candidates, better policies, and better governance from Democrats. Stop engaging in a rhetoric that has results in a race to the bottom of the barrel when it comes to candidate quality among Democrats. When you silence criticisms or try and pretend that voting is a binary, you hurt Democrats ability to win elections. When people tell you they can’t or don’t want to vote for Democrats, hear them, and try to understand why they are saying that, and instead of trying to change the voters opinion to support a lower caliber of candidate, demand more from the candidates themselves.
You can’t move an electorate over the course of a campaign. It makes no statistical practical sense. Projects like that take decades. You always need to meet the electorate where they are at, and if a candidate is insufficient to do so, the candidate or their policies are what needs to change. When you tell voters they’re the ones who need to change their priorities to support a candidate who doesn’t support them, you just lost us another voter, and you perpetually make it harder to get Democrats elected.
ABWD/ Blue MAGA loses us elections. The “strategic voting” trope that tells voter they need to accept less loses us elections. Campaigns that work to tell voters they need to compromise instead of working to change candidates lose us elections.
I know what blue maga means. That’s why I asked you to explain why the hell you’re so eager to lump anyone who ultimately makes a pragmatic choice in the general election, after all other choices have been exhausted, in with the crowd that has spent months/years actively pushing to ensure the worst possible option is running against a fascist.
The wildest part is we dont even disagree, so save your fucking smugness.