A flip side of the things I’ve said so far — I don’t mean a contradiction, I mean the underside of the same truths — yes, there is a lot of holier-than-thou political purism widespread amongst us 3rd-partiers. A very low consideration for expediency, practicality, and in particular the need to work with other people if you’re ever actually going to get things done. And if you’re not going to work with other people, how goddam democratic can your political process actually be? And isn’t that the shit that you say matters the most to you, being fair and keeping things equal, no unfair of putting some people above others ?
So, yeah, in case it’s not obvious that’s my thoughts about the “us” that I’m a part of, the 3rd-partiers, i.e., a self-examination.
Politics can’t just be about developing your own strong opinion about how things ought to be. It can’t just be about expressing that opinion and getting others to agree with you. Although both of those things are necessary. It’s also eventually got to be about structuring the work and organizing the workflow, actually doing it, being government, which means working with people.
Intentions and shared perspectives aren’t enough without developing your own decision-making structures. Bad unfair oppressive social systems arent’ what they are because the wrong people are in the structures, they are what they are as a consequence of the structures. The origins of our country were about moving from monarchy to what we intended to be a more democratic structure. I mean, yeah, we were pissed at George III, but it wasn’t that we wanted a better king, we wanted a democracy. Or said we did.
To what extent have we continued to move in that direction, working towards having more democratic and equal decision-making structures?
A binary 0-1 yes/no Harris/Trump structure is sure as hell not a more democratic decision-making structure.
I can’t say as how I find the 3rdPartiers (Greens, etc) to be shining as much light in those directions as one might hope, if this were your priority, politically,to see us becoming better structured in the sense of more democratic.
I guess that’s my central politics, the structuring of decision-making. That’s my political priority, coming up better, more democratic, structures.
I fully understand defining the negative as coercive authoritarian structures, I’m on board with you there.