Even if that negated anything that I said, you guys sure seem to think they’re relevant when they vote third party or become disillusioned and don’t vote at all. So they’re only relevant when they’re not doing what you want? Cause that seems to me like ignoring voters until it bites you in the ass.

There’s clearly enough progressives, or voters who find Democrats’ current platform objectionable, that you understand you can’t win without them. The Democrats could offer them something material to vote for, and/or they can pressure them to vote against their better senses on threats that things will get worse if they lose. They are going exclusively with the latter.

For some reason you keep getting stuck on the semantics of single words that I’ve used. Missing the forest, so to say. Ignore the word progressive (which is not the same word as leftist but whatever). There are things that are popular to the majority of this country that will motivate people to turn out to vote other than keeping Trump out of office, and those things definitely aren’t being tough on immigration or funding Israel’s war on the middle east.

My point is that the Democrats seem to think they are winnable, or else they wouldn’t be so afraid even just to stay the course on progressive policy, much less push it forward. We both agree that it’s stupid, I’m saying it’s not a winning strategy. Ignore the loyal soldiers part, that was hyperbole, they’re still experiencing diminishing returns from courting the conservative vote.

They’re running out of winnable votes in the middle, yet they seem to prefer to scrape the bottom of that barrel at all costs, including bleeding votes from the progressive side, which is what is happening when a third party spoils the vote. The democratic party knows this, they have billions of dollars to figure things like this out, and they know how to spin it as not to cast doubt on their own institutions.

People who point fingers at progressive voters (who they otherwise agree with) when a candidate loses, rather than demand for that candidate to win back those compatible but alienated voters, seem to think that the candidates are just innocent victims of circumstance. This is false. They are active players in a game of bets and wagers, running billion dollar campaigns with strategists and focus groups. They know what they need to do to get the winning number of votes, if they really want to.

Every time they ignore what’s popular to voters or even tell a group of voters to pipe down, not even acting like they are hearing them out, is a wager that they can win without representing that view. The more voters that toe the party line and guilt each other into doing so, the more they can tell us to pipe down and choose not to represent us. At the most you could say that they have something to lose by inching left, but this is difficult to argue (other than a monetary incentive of course) because of how motivated non-republican voters are just to keep Trump out this cycle. They have plenty of room to motivate the wide open margins on the left

I don’t know, you tell me why democrats are cedeing ground to the republicans on immigration, climate, and foreign policy instead of making the smallest effort to defend very popular progressive stances.

Edit: Also, yes. That is why they are imaginary. If they’re voting for Trump in 2024 and can’t be simply bought via campaign advertising then they aren’t going to be convinced and they are not marginal voters. But man would democrats like to have that same kind of loyalty.

No, I’d say they’re pretty loyal to republicans (else you’d be correct, Democrats wouldn’t be courting them with republican policy) and they don’t question the status quo or capitalism, which gives Democrats plenty of room to maintain loyalty to their donors.

I mean those perfectly loyal clown fearing pineapple pizza hating plastic people are clearly here in the comments with us. They would have voted for a dementia addled corporate goon if he hadn’t literally gone silent for 30 seconds during a debate.

Right, and every one of those “vote blue no matter who” folks already voted for Biden in the last election and barely eeked out an electoral college win. It’s a dice roll if they can do it again. If democrats want to widen that margin then all they have to do is offer literally anything at all to progressive voters.

Agree with everything you’re saying. The white moderate (re:MLK) is willing to throw anyone under the bus to save their own asses. They will not stand up for what’s right if it comes at the risk of losing their seat, so all you have to do is threaten that seat and they will all collectively sit nice and pretty.

Nope, didn’t say that. I said the perfect voters they are courting instead of progressive voters are imaginary.

Exactly what I’ve been saying. Democrats are clearly making a choice to die on and sacrifice our democracy to the hill of imagined centrist voters that make perfect, unquestioning and loyal followers for their party. If they lose for it then they alone are responsible for their loss and they should be the ones we direct our anger at for leaving voters on the table in what they themselves call a close and existentially important race.

If they would rather lose elections than court progressive voters, if they would like to win without us as they so clearly do; because we are less convenient to their bottom line than the aforementioned loyal centrist; then that should be laid bare for the world to see. We shouldn’t let them pass their strategic failures off on voters for having morals and sticking to them.

I invite you to do the same and to be skeptical of lofty claims that aren’t evident in the behavior and stated policy of the politicians that you support. If they are going to do something that motivates you as a voter then they will run on it, not just sell you “good faith” and let you fill in the blanks with whatever ideal picture that paints for you.

That one justin bieber song from when he first got famous

You are living in pure fantasy.

If she’s already elected then what reason does she have to listen to you?

Oh well America can be beat so I guess the only righteous path here is to subject your own population to potential decades of American bombing and embargoes in pursuit of that goal.

Raw can also refer to the lack of a protective layer. One can rub their skin raw, for example, meaning the skin was rubbed so hard that the top layer was removed. The “cooking” in this case would be the skin healing back. And putting a condom over it for safety.

Oh, so you’re just trolling. Got it 👍

Lmao I’ve never told anyone to read theory or to sit at home but go off I guess.

That’s my point. I’m not convinced that my vote is protecting my interests at all, and what’s changed to make the story any different with the plan from 10-15 years ago?

The voting system works well for Republicans as it is currently. They have no reason to make the radical changes in the next four years that are being fearmongered right now. At least not any that the Democrats, with or without the president, would do anything to stop.

Every bogeyman propped up as reasons to vote against republicans has not slowed down under recent democratic administrations, who refuse to defend the rights and meet the demands of the people even in the face of clear power grabs by the other side. There is no firm policy being presented, only vague projections that it won’t be as bad as under republicans, who have shown us that don’t need the presidency. The tail is already wagging the dog in that respect and the side that claims to represent the left believe in decorum too much to say enough.

It is up to the democrats alone to convince anyone otherwise. We should not be scolding voters for being disillusioned by poor and ineffectual governance. If that’s where we’re at; blaming the voters for the failures of politicians that are first and foremost chosen by monied interests; then we’ve already lost democracy.

We can do this again in four years, just like we did it four years ago and four years before that, or we can get what we want right now by banding together and telling them that our votes are on the table only if they make a good faith attempt to meet our demands, and if we’re serious we will put our votes where our mouths are when the day comes. It’s not impossible to win that way, we just watched it happen when they switched out Biden for Kamala.

You’re going to have at least as much success doing that as you are scolding american voters every four years for voting their conscience just to then turn around and somehow convince them to be more politically active. Because that’s who you’re alienating, the handful of voters that actually care about the state of politics and may hold just enough power to swing a federal election. Certainly not the voters that are won just by having a larger campaign budget.

You can’t beat them, so join them. Do not let this political moment go to waste, do not let yourself be complicit in genocide. Put pressure on the democrats to acknowledge the genocide in gaza, to stop arming Israel. That will get everyone on the same side, along with being a show of good faith that voters wishes still matter to Democrats. At a minimum, open your mind to that possibility.

Do not let the establishment intimidate you into forgetting what power we hold as a collective, into actively working against collective’s own interests and shielding the establishment from the electoral consequences of their actions.

I don’t want anyone to vote against democrats, I want left wing voters to make demands and for the democrats to show a good faith attempt to meet those demands instead of relying on the republicans being a worse choice.

How does this differ from the plan 10-15 years ago? Should we not be seeing returns if lesser evil voting did anything other than ratchet us over to the right? Should a politician have to do anything to earn the votes that put them into office?

Right, well you keep guaranteeing your vote for Democrats every year and attacking anyone that criticizes them for being ineffective and see how much that gets you, since their current platform and every election leading up to this one hasn’t been enough to prove that they don’t really care that much about defending progressive policy and will throw both it and their voters under the bus if they think it will help them tap into the republican base instead. Continue directing your ire at your fellow voters instead of using it to hold your elected representative’s feet to the fire. That definitely seems like a sound plan and totally isn’t more of what got us here in the first place 👍

I’m just saying that’s not a strong argument and you should stop using it if you’re actually trying to convince anyone to vote for Kamala.