This was an awful lot of words to explain that you don’t understand how your government works. It’s not a “framework of “lesser-evilism.”” It’s just how the system works.
If you don’t think the one of two candidates closer to your side is far left enough, primary them. It’s that simple.
Do you know why we all know this is how it works? The GOP did it 15 years ago. Right leaning voters showed up consistently, and so they dragged the GOP to the right. You (yes you!) could do the same to the Democrats, but you refuse, so the GOP wins and the DNC says “wow fuck these progressives let’s try to win over centrists with Liz Cheney!”
You are the reason the DNC you complain about sucks. Should I buy smooth or crunchy, or a mix? I’m leaning towards smooth.
This was an awful lot of words to explain that you don’t understand how your government works. It’s not a “framework of “lesser-evilism.”” It’s just how the system works.
Thank you for proving my point.
You can put me under any government, and I can understand how it works backwards and forwards, and I still will not support the killing of hundreds of thousands of civilians, no matter how “pragmatic” it might appear. The idea that I should is a specific moral framework.
How can I get a fish to understand water?
You are trying to derive conclusions of what I ought to do purely by describing what is. That runs into the is-ought problem, and you cannot bridge that gap without making moral assumptions. If my position of putting principles before apparent pragmatism is a moral belief, then your position of putting apparent pragmatism before principles is also a moral belief. Isn’t that just obvious?
Do you know why we all know this is how it works? The GOP did it 15 years ago. Right leaning voters showed up consistently, and so they dragged the GOP to the right.
The right is far more willing to say “my way or the highway” than anyone on the left, myself included. There’s no shortage of people who will break with the party if they don’t take a strong enough position on issues like abortion or gun control.
And, by the way, if you go into conservative circles and demand people give up their convictions and vote for moderate Republicans as the lesser-evil, you will generally get a negative response. The kind of rhetoric you use would be a good way to start a fight at the poker table, to disrespect people’s moral, political, possibly even religious convictions, that shit doesn’t fly in those circles, from what I’ve seen.
The difference is that the party has chosen to be responsive to their demands. The reason right-wingers don’t break with the party is because the party gives them everything they want. If you actually wanted to learn from their success, you would be trying to get the party to respond to the left’s demands rather than trying to get the left to abandon our demands.
Donald Trump himself threatened to run as a third party candidate in 2016 if he did not get the nomination. Did you forget that? Meanwhile, Bernie Sanders bent the knee and actively campaigned for Clinton. Which of those strategies worked? Which of those factions wields more strength today?
Every time one of you talks about “primaries” you’ve already lost. First, we didn’t even have a real primary in the last election, second, the DNC has argued in court (successfully!) that primary elections do not have to be free and fair because they are a private organization, third, any criticism you might make of “one party states” contradicts that because those single parties have primaries. The CCP has primaries, I somehow doubt that you’d tell a dissatisfied Chinese person to sit down and shut up because if they don’t like the party they can change it by trusting the process.
You are the reason the DNC you complain about sucks.
No, you are. Because you fail to hold them accountable in any way. Because you let them get away with mass murder knowing that people on the left will fall in line regardless.
…is what I’d say if you were anywhere remotely near the left. I don’t understand what problem you even have with the Democrats. You agree with and justify their mass murder. Are you just taking a more critical position rhetorically to try to appeal to me?
Oh, there’s even a saying! Well if there’s a saying, surely it must be true! Wow, you really proved how delusional and out of touch with reality I am! How could I possibly disagree with a saying?
What a joke. The saying exists because liberals like saying it. Liberals like saying it, because liberals love telling people to fall in line. That’s the whole purpose of that saying and the reason for it’s existence. And that saying existing just further demonstrates my point that liberals are far more willing to demand that people abandon all their moral convictions, compared to the right.
I swear, you really need to learn how to think critically. Before accepting an idea, actively try to find ways it could be wrong, and do the same for ideas you’ve already accepted. Did you ever see actual evidence accompanying that saying? Did you ever think to look?
This wasn’t much of an argument. I think you need to calm down. Support your thesis with examples, explain them, draw conclusions, etc. You sound hysterical and condescending at the same time, which is an interesting juxtaposition.
I told you about the most traumatic thing I’d ever experienced, and you responded that it was “funny” and then went on try to to justify the killing of hundreds of thousands of people. I assumed you were trying to provoke me. Responding to that with “hysteria” and condescension seems completely reasonable. I would respond the same way to someone justifying other atrocities, if for example you tried to justify the Holocaust, you would see the same “juxtaposition” of me being “consecending and hysterical.”
Also, I did support my thesis with examples and made rational arguments.
Donald Trump himself threatened to run as a third party candidate in 2016 if he did not get the nomination. Did you forget that? Meanwhile, Bernie Sanders bent the knee and actively campaigned for Clinton. Which of those strategies worked? Which of those factions wields more strength today?
Is this not exactly what you asked for? “Support my thesis with examples?” Are those not examples? Do they not support my thesis? Your only response to those actual, physical examples was to cite a saying, with nothing to back it up except that people say it, except that it is “conventional wisdom.” Maybe you should take your own advice and support your thesis with evidence.
But really, we couldn’t, and can’t, even begin to get into the nitty gritty because of your stubborn refusal to accept that lesser evilism is a specific belief and moral framework, even as I demonstrated logically that it was. If you won’t even allow your beliefs to be defined and identified, then how on earth could we even begin to examine them critically? Before we can really get into examining whether it’s correct or valid, we have to be able to define it clearly and state what it is. So, my arguments were focused on doing that, and I did so quite logically, bringing up for example the is-ought problem. What am I supposed to do when you respond to my arguments like the “that’s not my wallet” meme?
Trump threatening to run as a third party is irrelevant, because he didn’t. He won the nomination. Every tea party chud who dragged the Republicans to the far right did so by winning the Republican nomination, often in noncompetitive districts. This is what DSA and other leftist candidates need to do, and in some cases have done already.
Lesser evilism isn’t a philosophy or belief or moral framework. It’s a strategy. It’s the proven strategy that works. It is the only proven strategy that works because of systemic flaws in our democracy. Do it.
Trump threatening to run as a third party is irrelevant, because he didn’t.
Nonsense. The Republican establishment didn’t want him to be the nominee, and they could have pulled off bullshit to stop him from being the nominee if they really wanted to, because primaries are not legally required to be free and fair. But, if they had done so, and Trump ran as a third party candidate, then they would have lost. Of course, there’s also the fact that many of his supporters were/are passionate and armed, and if they had screwed him over too blatantly, there’s no telling what could’ve happened. So the party establishment bent the knee and acquiested to what their base wanted. Because if they hadn’t, Trump very well could’ve run as an independent and split the vote, at the very least.
As I said, the reason you don’t see Republicans defecting from their party is because the party is responsive to their demands, because the base has already established a credible threat of defection. We can look further back to the last major third party candidate, who also split the right’s vote and gave Bill Clinton the win.
I grew up around these people, in a conservative family in a red state. I understand how they think much better than some “saying” that liberals tell each other about people they’ve never met. They draw all sorts of red lines, and they’re crazy enough to mean them.
When someone says, “You can pry my guns from my cold dead hands,” they’re not likely to fall in line behind a moderate Republican who supports gun control as a “lesser evil” or “the best we can do.” It’s “give me what I want, or else.” My mother, a Catholic, is passionately opposed to abortion, claiming that it’s the same as murder and that it’s worse than the Holocaust in terms of lives lost. When I pointed out the various ways that Trump is a scumbag, she replied, exasperated, “And what am I supposed to do, vote for Clinton, who supports abortion?” I can promise you, if Trump had run third party, and the Republicans had for some reason nominated someone pro-choice, she would’ve followed Trump and voted third party.
A substantial number of these people believe that heaven and hell are literally real and that, as long as they stand by the right principles, whatever happens on earth, win or lose, doesn’t even matter, because they will be eternally rewarded for being on the right side. The right is full of uncompromising fanatics who constantly make demands of their party and who cannot be reasoned with at all, and the party by now knows better than to try and call their bluff.
And it is precisely because of this that they have been so successful! Because the “strategy” of lesser evilism is so stupid, even if they wind up rejecting it for the wrong reasons, not understanding why it’s stupid, they still wind up winning.
The problem is, the left has always been extremely compliant historically, bending the knee and falling in line very consistently, going back generations, and now when we say that something is an absolute moral red line, the Democratic party thinks we’re bluffing and that we’ll just fall in line like always. Which is exactly why it’s absolutely essential to prove to them that we are not.
I mean, look at you, still saying “Do it.” As if there was any possibility of that! If you insist on doing it the hard way, thinking that we’re bluffing, then we’ll just have to see how many elections it takes for you to understand our commitment. Honestly, I don’t care whether you agree with me or not, so long as you understand that I have no intention whatsoever of flinching in this game of chicken. Because, once you understand that, no matter how “unreasonable” you think I’m being, your only option to get my vote is to get the party to respect my red lines. Funny how that works, isn’t it?
It’s the proven strategy that works.
Ha! Is this what you call, “working?”
Even when your so-called “lesser evil” candidates win, they don’t do shit to address any real problems. As mentioned, Obama continued a pointless war of aggression that got hundreds of thousands killed and accomplished nothing. Joe Biden raised military spending to record highs. Neither of them did anything close to what’s necessary to address climate change, or wealth inequality, or any number of other crises. Biden had four years to give voters a reason to reject Trump, and he failed. These “lesser evil” candidates can’t even consistently win against a dogshit opponent and when they do win, they fuck up or do nothing, things keep getting worse regardless, and the worse things get the more prone people are to turn to the far right, because they’re the only ones presenting any kind of alternative to the status quo.
Lesser evilism has been proven not to work, which make sense, because it’s also a completely illogical even in theory.
So your argument is that Trump could have sabotaged the GOP and decreased the power of The Right, therefore someone like Bernie should sabotage the DNC and decrease the power of The Left? Great idea, genius. That’s how we slide further into fascism.
Yes, winning elections and passing progressive legislation is my idea of “working.” We’ve done it before. We should continue instead of pissing our collective pants because it isn’t working as fast as you want it to. I see you: you’re an accelerationist. You want the pain of revolution because you are too comfortable and entitled, and don’t understand what real upheaval feels like. Every accelerationist thinks they will be on the winning side.
This was an awful lot of words to explain that you don’t understand how your government works. It’s not a “framework of “lesser-evilism.”” It’s just how the system works.
If you don’t think the one of two candidates closer to your side is far left enough, primary them. It’s that simple.
Do you know why we all know this is how it works? The GOP did it 15 years ago. Right leaning voters showed up consistently, and so they dragged the GOP to the right. You (yes you!) could do the same to the Democrats, but you refuse, so the GOP wins and the DNC says “wow fuck these progressives let’s try to win over centrists with Liz Cheney!”
You are the reason the DNC you complain about sucks. Should I buy smooth or crunchy, or a mix? I’m leaning towards smooth.
Thank you for proving my point.
You can put me under any government, and I can understand how it works backwards and forwards, and I still will not support the killing of hundreds of thousands of civilians, no matter how “pragmatic” it might appear. The idea that I should is a specific moral framework.
How can I get a fish to understand water?
You are trying to derive conclusions of what I ought to do purely by describing what is. That runs into the is-ought problem, and you cannot bridge that gap without making moral assumptions. If my position of putting principles before apparent pragmatism is a moral belief, then your position of putting apparent pragmatism before principles is also a moral belief. Isn’t that just obvious?
The right is far more willing to say “my way or the highway” than anyone on the left, myself included. There’s no shortage of people who will break with the party if they don’t take a strong enough position on issues like abortion or gun control.
And, by the way, if you go into conservative circles and demand people give up their convictions and vote for moderate Republicans as the lesser-evil, you will generally get a negative response. The kind of rhetoric you use would be a good way to start a fight at the poker table, to disrespect people’s moral, political, possibly even religious convictions, that shit doesn’t fly in those circles, from what I’ve seen.
The difference is that the party has chosen to be responsive to their demands. The reason right-wingers don’t break with the party is because the party gives them everything they want. If you actually wanted to learn from their success, you would be trying to get the party to respond to the left’s demands rather than trying to get the left to abandon our demands.
Donald Trump himself threatened to run as a third party candidate in 2016 if he did not get the nomination. Did you forget that? Meanwhile, Bernie Sanders bent the knee and actively campaigned for Clinton. Which of those strategies worked? Which of those factions wields more strength today?
Every time one of you talks about “primaries” you’ve already lost. First, we didn’t even have a real primary in the last election, second, the DNC has argued in court (successfully!) that primary elections do not have to be free and fair because they are a private organization, third, any criticism you might make of “one party states” contradicts that because those single parties have primaries. The CCP has primaries, I somehow doubt that you’d tell a dissatisfied Chinese person to sit down and shut up because if they don’t like the party they can change it by trusting the process.
No, you are. Because you fail to hold them accountable in any way. Because you let them get away with mass murder knowing that people on the left will fall in line regardless.
…is what I’d say if you were anywhere remotely near the left. I don’t understand what problem you even have with the Democrats. You agree with and justify their mass murder. Are you just taking a more critical position rhetorically to try to appeal to me?
This is patently false. There’s even a saying:
Nothing else you said was really worth responding to because of this fundamental misunderstanding. You simply don’t know what’s happening in reality.
Oh, there’s even a saying! Well if there’s a saying, surely it must be true! Wow, you really proved how delusional and out of touch with reality I am! How could I possibly disagree with a saying?
What a joke. The saying exists because liberals like saying it. Liberals like saying it, because liberals love telling people to fall in line. That’s the whole purpose of that saying and the reason for it’s existence. And that saying existing just further demonstrates my point that liberals are far more willing to demand that people abandon all their moral convictions, compared to the right.
I swear, you really need to learn how to think critically. Before accepting an idea, actively try to find ways it could be wrong, and do the same for ideas you’ve already accepted. Did you ever see actual evidence accompanying that saying? Did you ever think to look?
This wasn’t much of an argument. I think you need to calm down. Support your thesis with examples, explain them, draw conclusions, etc. You sound hysterical and condescending at the same time, which is an interesting juxtaposition.
I told you about the most traumatic thing I’d ever experienced, and you responded that it was “funny” and then went on try to to justify the killing of hundreds of thousands of people. I assumed you were trying to provoke me. Responding to that with “hysteria” and condescension seems completely reasonable. I would respond the same way to someone justifying other atrocities, if for example you tried to justify the Holocaust, you would see the same “juxtaposition” of me being “consecending and hysterical.”
Also, I did support my thesis with examples and made rational arguments.
Is this not exactly what you asked for? “Support my thesis with examples?” Are those not examples? Do they not support my thesis? Your only response to those actual, physical examples was to cite a saying, with nothing to back it up except that people say it, except that it is “conventional wisdom.” Maybe you should take your own advice and support your thesis with evidence.
But really, we couldn’t, and can’t, even begin to get into the nitty gritty because of your stubborn refusal to accept that lesser evilism is a specific belief and moral framework, even as I demonstrated logically that it was. If you won’t even allow your beliefs to be defined and identified, then how on earth could we even begin to examine them critically? Before we can really get into examining whether it’s correct or valid, we have to be able to define it clearly and state what it is. So, my arguments were focused on doing that, and I did so quite logically, bringing up for example the is-ought problem. What am I supposed to do when you respond to my arguments like the “that’s not my wallet” meme?
Trump threatening to run as a third party is irrelevant, because he didn’t. He won the nomination. Every tea party chud who dragged the Republicans to the far right did so by winning the Republican nomination, often in noncompetitive districts. This is what DSA and other leftist candidates need to do, and in some cases have done already.
Lesser evilism isn’t a philosophy or belief or moral framework. It’s a strategy. It’s the proven strategy that works. It is the only proven strategy that works because of systemic flaws in our democracy. Do it.
Nonsense. The Republican establishment didn’t want him to be the nominee, and they could have pulled off bullshit to stop him from being the nominee if they really wanted to, because primaries are not legally required to be free and fair. But, if they had done so, and Trump ran as a third party candidate, then they would have lost. Of course, there’s also the fact that many of his supporters were/are passionate and armed, and if they had screwed him over too blatantly, there’s no telling what could’ve happened. So the party establishment bent the knee and acquiested to what their base wanted. Because if they hadn’t, Trump very well could’ve run as an independent and split the vote, at the very least.
As I said, the reason you don’t see Republicans defecting from their party is because the party is responsive to their demands, because the base has already established a credible threat of defection. We can look further back to the last major third party candidate, who also split the right’s vote and gave Bill Clinton the win.
I grew up around these people, in a conservative family in a red state. I understand how they think much better than some “saying” that liberals tell each other about people they’ve never met. They draw all sorts of red lines, and they’re crazy enough to mean them.
When someone says, “You can pry my guns from my cold dead hands,” they’re not likely to fall in line behind a moderate Republican who supports gun control as a “lesser evil” or “the best we can do.” It’s “give me what I want, or else.” My mother, a Catholic, is passionately opposed to abortion, claiming that it’s the same as murder and that it’s worse than the Holocaust in terms of lives lost. When I pointed out the various ways that Trump is a scumbag, she replied, exasperated, “And what am I supposed to do, vote for Clinton, who supports abortion?” I can promise you, if Trump had run third party, and the Republicans had for some reason nominated someone pro-choice, she would’ve followed Trump and voted third party.
A substantial number of these people believe that heaven and hell are literally real and that, as long as they stand by the right principles, whatever happens on earth, win or lose, doesn’t even matter, because they will be eternally rewarded for being on the right side. The right is full of uncompromising fanatics who constantly make demands of their party and who cannot be reasoned with at all, and the party by now knows better than to try and call their bluff.
And it is precisely because of this that they have been so successful! Because the “strategy” of lesser evilism is so stupid, even if they wind up rejecting it for the wrong reasons, not understanding why it’s stupid, they still wind up winning.
The problem is, the left has always been extremely compliant historically, bending the knee and falling in line very consistently, going back generations, and now when we say that something is an absolute moral red line, the Democratic party thinks we’re bluffing and that we’ll just fall in line like always. Which is exactly why it’s absolutely essential to prove to them that we are not.
I mean, look at you, still saying “Do it.” As if there was any possibility of that! If you insist on doing it the hard way, thinking that we’re bluffing, then we’ll just have to see how many elections it takes for you to understand our commitment. Honestly, I don’t care whether you agree with me or not, so long as you understand that I have no intention whatsoever of flinching in this game of chicken. Because, once you understand that, no matter how “unreasonable” you think I’m being, your only option to get my vote is to get the party to respect my red lines. Funny how that works, isn’t it?
Ha! Is this what you call, “working?”
Even when your so-called “lesser evil” candidates win, they don’t do shit to address any real problems. As mentioned, Obama continued a pointless war of aggression that got hundreds of thousands killed and accomplished nothing. Joe Biden raised military spending to record highs. Neither of them did anything close to what’s necessary to address climate change, or wealth inequality, or any number of other crises. Biden had four years to give voters a reason to reject Trump, and he failed. These “lesser evil” candidates can’t even consistently win against a dogshit opponent and when they do win, they fuck up or do nothing, things keep getting worse regardless, and the worse things get the more prone people are to turn to the far right, because they’re the only ones presenting any kind of alternative to the status quo.
Lesser evilism has been proven not to work, which make sense, because it’s also a completely illogical even in theory.
So your argument is that Trump could have sabotaged the GOP and decreased the power of The Right, therefore someone like Bernie should sabotage the DNC and decrease the power of The Left? Great idea, genius. That’s how we slide further into fascism.
Yes, winning elections and passing progressive legislation is my idea of “working.” We’ve done it before. We should continue instead of pissing our collective pants because it isn’t working as fast as you want it to. I see you: you’re an accelerationist. You want the pain of revolution because you are too comfortable and entitled, and don’t understand what real upheaval feels like. Every accelerationist thinks they will be on the winning side.