Personal life yes. I do what I can in my small ways.
What should I support going forward?
I am center left and have long been of the position that running a candidate who recognizes the legitimate challenges being face by those living in rural America and who runs in the middle lane is the way to go.
Harris ran that campaign.
Maybe the hard progressive side deserves their shot next time?
I’m sure the next election will feature an open primary; there’s no incumbent and no clear successor.
If the hard progressives can win a primary, they’re welcome to try. If they can’t even win a primary, that might tell you something about their odds in a general election.
In the next primary? Whoever aligns with your views, I’d say.
I’m more concerned about supporting someone who will win. Whoever that is will be more with my views than the GOP candidate.
My views may be the more common ones, moderate centrist Left. But that lost. Center doesn’t seem to appeal.
As the saying goes ‘deserve got nothing to do with it.’ The center plus the left as a whole is maybe a very bare majority in the U.S. at the best of times, but concentrated in a way that hurts their ability to win national elections. Progressives (which I would very loosely consider myself) are a much smaller minority. They can win in some locales, but not on the national level.
It’s remotely possible a very charismatic hard progressive left candidate could win the Democratic nomination. Hard to pull off, but plausible. But I cynically don’t see any possibility they could win the country. You need a somewhat charismatic center-left guy (sadly, quite possibly a guy) to even have a chance of pulling it off against the built-in EC advantage.
A huge contingent of people doing nothing and just waiting for it to blow over is what will cause it to get worse.
I like this a lot. That’s where I want to get to. Ain’t happening today. Tomorrow, maybe. Soon regardless.
About as much as Hitler deserved his shot. Some sides need to be banned from the game, period.
I think it’s all about charisma.
The thing Reagan, Bill Clinton, George W Bush, Obama and Trump have in common is that they had personalities that cut through the noise and got people to pay attention.
That’s more important than any other aspect of which candidate would make a good pick. That and voter sentiment about the economy seem to be the only things that matter. I don’t think policy details matter in presidential elections.
this is such a reductive and simplistic position and entirely incorrect in my opinion. People are complex beings and sometimes do things that are inconsistent with their character. No one can say in the aggregate why this happens, because the reasons are varied and can be so complex. I will say that if someone you believe does something that is at odds with the person you believe them to be, then talk to them to try to see if you can understand what is going on. You may get some valuable insight into the human condition. Either that or just instantly and indiscriminately demonize them and forever disown them from your life. I’m sure that’s entirely helpful too.
A “decent” person voting for Trump isn’t being “inconsistent” with their character, they’re showing you what their real character is.
which, in the case of almost every single person on earth, contains a heady and messy mix of things you might and might not approve of, internally inconsistent ideas, half-formed or incorrect beliefs, barely controlled impulses, and inchoate moral guideposts. We can disagree on this, but trying to discern whether a person’s character is binarily “good” or “bad” based on a single vote is absurd. You are doing a disservice to both yourself and the other person.
What should people on the left do now? One answer comes from the IWW songwriter Joe Hill, who just before being executed by the state of Utah told the organization, “Don’t mourn–organize!”
Find good like-minded people. Talk to them. Share some food. Talk about how you feel and what you can do as a group to support each other and influence others. Think in terms of campaigns rather than protests and single events. Read. Write. Talk. Link with others.
Easy to say, harder to do, but positive action with others is a good thing to do.
That’s about all the energy I’ve got left for at this point, though.
I posted a thread earlier on my attempts to do just that - and obtained zero insight. The answers I received impressed me as - to be polite - ignorant, bordering on nonsensical. I have not yet heard anyone say anything positive that Trump stands for - other than some idea of cheap eggs. To the contrary, what he says he intends to do, I am confident will cause harm to many people.
But, I shouldn’t post much more, because one thing this person on the left intends to do is spend less time on-line thinking about such things.
Could a person be a member of al Qaeda and support the work of bin Laden and still be a decent person?
Ahhh…you should read the room. This is the wrong venue.
That you think that this is an apt comparison explains why Trump won.
The fact that you don’t explains why Trump won. Only dark skinned people commit terrorism to half of America.
January 6 did far more harm to American democracy than 9-11 but the attackers weren’t Arabs so they get a pass.
I would still like an answer from @We_re_wolves_not_werewolves
Nice straw man, but no, there’s plenty of right wing white nationalist terrorism; I certainly don’t deny that.
Not every Trump supporter was in the Capitol on Jan 6, though. Being an Al Qaeda member is more like being a Proud Boy than like being a generic MAGA voter.
Yeah, I’m sure there’s a lot of stuff about any given Trump supporter that I might find admirable. Hitler loved animals, and all that. I’m not interested in panning for good in the face of someone who is (at worst) screaming slurs in my face or (at best) studiously pretending its not happening because letting people strip me of my human rights helps line their wallet.
Fuck 'em. I’m tired of being lectured to about how I shouldn’t judge people who are actively trying to harm me. These are people who just voted in favor of a guy who campaigned on putting people in concentration camps, and I’m supposed to try and see the good in them?
To hell with that bullshit.