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 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.