John-John is dead (at least we think so).
Also please explain what HRC could possibly have done as President that remotely compares with the radical right wing Supreme Court crafted by Trump and the Federalist Society.
Bonus question to Jill Stein voters: How fucking green do you feel now?
This thread was started in such colossally bad faith that I don’t feel obliged to provide a substantive response to any part of it.
Yeah, gotta agree with ASL_v2.0 that this is also a bad-faith question. Although I’m not any more enthusiastic about his progressive bashing of centrists than about centrist bashing of progressives, it is not really legit to interpret criticisms of Clinton as representing “the faction of the Democratic Party whose mismanagement and incompetence has led us here” as though they were equivalent to claiming that Clinton’s actions as President would have been comparable to “the radical right wing Supreme Court crafted by Trump and the Federalist Society”.
Saying “Clinton is the problem that ultimately gave us Trump” is not the same thing as saying “Clinton would have been just as bad as Trump”.
It is, if the same person voted third party or did not vote, which is only the case part of the time but can’t be entirely discounted.
Or if they voted for Trump in 2016 because they thought it would bring on the revolution. (One of the reasons Susan Sarandon gave to justify voting for Stein.)
The problem that brought us DJT was mostly obstinate blindness to how a two party system works given its inherent faults, and blindness to the importance of federal judicial appointments. It would be nice if we had a parliamentary legislature in which small parties could particpate in coalition governments, but we don’t. “Voting for X because at least they’re not Y” can sometimes be the most powerful motivation of all, because in that case there’s all the more reason to do everything possible to keep Y out of office.
In that case the two statements are motivating the same action, true, but that still doesn’t mean that they’re making the same claim.
Even worse, we could have continued the work on climate change/environment started by Obama, albeit more slowly than one would like. Instead we get alarming reversal even before the court targeted the EPA.
I’m telling you, if I voted third party, didn’t vote, or, god forbid voted for Trump…jesus, I don’t know how I’d feel watching the republican horror show unfold. Every fucking thing we warned about is happening. Even things we didn’t predict, like covid-denial and, now, general vaccine denial.
Every time democrats don’t vote, republicans gain more power to dismantle our rights, including the right to vote. Believe everything they say because that’s what they’re going to do to us next and more.
I voted for Clinton. Not enthusiastically, I admit, but I did vote for her.
I would have voted for Biden. (I was unexpectedly in another state in the hospital with my daughter on election day). Not enthusiastically, by any means, but I would have.
I’m starting to wonder why. I’m beginning to feel like the Dem equivalent of a Log Cabin Republican; voting for a party where a significant portion of the membership has made it clear they wouldn’t piss on me to put out a fire. If it wasn’t for the Sauron-level evil of the Republicans, I doubt I’d even give my unenthusiastic support for a party that would gladly boot me (and the others like me) to the curb the second they believe they can get away with it.
Dammit, Janet! (Really, those were the words out of my mouth when that came out.)
Well, granted, eventually it did get around to some kind of uprising to bring down the system… though surely they are a bit puzzled that it’s not the one they expected.
(Can’t fail but notice that those looking forward to The Revolution (if of the left) or The Boogaloo (if of the right) seem to assume THEY have nothing to fear from it…)
There’s this strange but very human notion that elections should have popular candidates that align with our (individual) interests and positions rather than candidates that can at least partially appeal to a plurality or majority.
Over several decades of life, there has never been a single candidate that I would have wholeheartedly approved of. And I don’t mean the eventually nominee for a major party but at any level, even at the “I’m going to try this politics thing out and get beaten by 23 other people in the primary” level.
At any rate, the “why” is very simple and not like the reasons the Log Cabin Republicans use. The Log Cabin Republicans vote for candidates who would not only fail to piss on them to put out a fire, they vote for candidates who would set them on fire and laugh as they burned.
The Democratic establishment may not be ideal and may have different opinions from yours, but they are nowhere close to denying the fundamental humanity and rights of people who aren’t like them.
And the hinting at a false equivalency between the two is not only disheartening, it’s asinine.
Ahh, so you’re a moderate Democrat.
There are a whole lot of fires to put out, and only so much piss to go around.
If it were not like the Sauron-level evil of the Republicans, the Democrats would have more resources to focus on your needs. Either the Republicans need to stop being evil, or they need to be thoroughly defeated at the ballot box.
One of the problems with the Democrats is that they represent such a wide array of special interests, each demanding that they are the priority, and if they are not given everything they ask, then they feel maligned, and take actions that further weaken the Democratic party, making it even harder for the Democrats to resolve their concerns.
I don’t know what your particular interest is, and maybe the Democrats are not good at focusing on them, but you know who is? The Republicans, except they will be focusing on working against your interest, whatever it may be.
There’s a difference between not getting the candidate you want, and being used as a whipping post every time the main stream candidate fucks up. Hillary Clinton couldn’t beat Donald fucking Trump. That’s on Clinton, and a failed Democratic platform, but assholes like the OP are still trying to pin the blame on progressives for losing what should have been the easiest election in the history of democracy.
And I don’t want to be a sanctimonious bothsideser here (or do I? opinions are divided), but ISTM that all the Democratic/liberal infighting, whoever starts it and however directed, is just taking energy away from all the multifaceted defenses of rights that are desperately necessary right now.
Sure, we don’t want to imitate the sort of ideological conformism that has put the Republican Party in thrall to Trumpism, and we need to be able to continue to disagree with one another. But I think the main focus should be on fighting on whatever front of the battle we happen to find ourselves, without taking time out for gratuitous faultfinding with fellow Democrats/liberals concerning past defeats.
Some time ago I was watching a Republican strategist being interviewed either on CNN or CBC and he was talking about how much of a disaster Trump was and how damaging he was to the country. He then said that there was no way he would ever vote for a Democrat.
I suspect that in the US there a re literally millions of people who think that way and, because of their blind, ideological allegiance to one party, they’re contributing to the trashing of the country. And the Democratic voters who refused to vote for Hillary are equally guilty IMHO.
Agreed on the OP for the most part but easiest election in history? Really? In 2020, Trump picked up millions of additional voters he didn’t have in 2016 and the 2nd most votes ever cast for any US Presidential candidate. And that’s after 4 years of actual, not potential, public malfeasance and mismanagement.
I have said before there are those who are delusional about how progressive the general American voter actually is, and this is part of it.
If the mainstream candidate is appointed by an individual or small group of people, then there’s a point there to be made. If the candidate is mainstream because more people voted for them in the primary, then your issue is not with the Democratic leadership, it’s with the actual members of the Democratic party who voted for her.
I’d say that’s on the people who didn’t vote for Clinton, personally.
If the Democratic platform is failed, then it should probably try catering to fewer special interests, not more.
I’d say that they are pinning the blame on those who didn’t vote for Clinton in 2016, a perfectly reasonable position.
During the primary season, sure, let’s disagree a bunch and stuff. But once a candidate is nominated, we need to get behind the nominee.
I can see how the OP can see the ongoing consequences that stemmed from that defeat, and I can see how they would still feel bitter towards those who enabled it.
And yes, anyone who didn’t vote for Clinton in 2016 enabled the consequences that we are now facing. Personally, I don’t hold animosity towards them, as long as they have learned that perfect is the ally of evil, and turned out in 2020 for Biden, will turn out this fall for their congressional elections, and will get behind whoever the Democratic nominee is in 2024. If they are not willing to do so, then they didn’t just cause harm by their naivety in 2016, they are planning on continuing to do harm in the future.
There are more independent voters than there are Democratic voters. In order to win in the general, a candidate needs to be able to attract the more moderate portions of the electorate. That the most radical progressive to toss their hat into the ring doesn’t get nominated is a feature, not a bug, of the primary system.
And a guy named Eric Arthur Blair would like to have a word with y’all about how this has worked out in the past . . . ya just have to read some of his books/essays.
?
It doesn’t seem to me that Orwell’s writings are exactly a vindication of partisan infighting.