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Democratic strategist calls for ‘new generation of leaders’ as party plots response to Trump’s victory
(www.theguardian.com)
this post was submitted on 28 Dec 2024
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The Democratic strategists predictably have both learned nothing from this losing this election and are planning on shifting the party to the right. Accelerationism is useless. There was no leverage over the Democrats, instead they are going to chase after moderates and conservatives who voted. If we are lucky enough to have another election, please vote and encourage other people to vote.
Vote for who? The democrats were unelectable this election and will remain unelectable until they ditch their corporate status quo nonsense. This isn't to say Trump is a better option, but the GOP and DNC were never competing on the same level and thinking they are will only lead to more Trump or Trump wannabes because no matter how much you (or anyone else) tell people to vote people won't vote for the current DNC.
Democrats of course because they are the furthest left, by virtue of being the least conservative, viable party we have. They are the only political tool available because of our first-past-the-post system.
Democrats cannot be leveraged by not voting for them. They have to be pushed to the left by voting for them. If they see there is a large block of socialist and progressive voters in the electorate they will move to capture these voters.
Until leftists learn to see their vote as a routine utility based decision they will not have any political power. To not vote is to give up power. Getting better candidates comes from grassroots movements between elections.
If we don't want to live under fascist rule then as long as we still have elections we need to vote for the Democrats. We need to tell people to vote for the Democrats and explain why. If anyone has the energy to argue on the internet then they can argue for the most useful approach we have.
No one thinks the Democrats are a great political party. But voting is the means of liberating ourselves from Republican rule in a two-party system. If people won't vote for Democrats then they will be ruled by fascists.
People will vote in their own self-interest. The amount of energy that goes into trying to make the most useful things people could do during elections, vote for Democrats, seem useless is of course to the benefit of the owner class and Republicans.
Counterpoint: Progressives (and many other groups) voted for Biden in large numbers for the DNC, and what came out of that was the 2024 shitshow and a lame duck president. The DNC thinks, only partially correctly, that as long as progressives don't have a viable third party they'll be forced to vote blue like it or not and that as a result the party can shift right as much as it wants. You say that voting for them gives you leverage, but what good is leverage that you can't use?
Fewer numbers than in 2020. Biden got 81,283,361 votes in 2020. Kamala only got 75,000,783 votes in 2024.
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2020-elections/president-results
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-elections/president-results
The Democrats look at who votes. Democrats don't think about leftists, because as far as Democrats are concerned people who don't vote don't exist. The Democrats want political power and they are willing to chase voters, not non-voters, to get it.
They don't just think they can shift right, they think they have to shift right in order to win. If leftists can't be asked to vote for Republicans or Democrats then the Democrats thinks they are a lost cause.
It is not about leverage. It's about power. Voting gives people power not leverage. If a group votes for a political party then that political party caters to that group. If a group doesn't vote then political parties chase other groups that do vote. Grassroots movements can get better candidates between elections.
This whole idea of leverage has been demonstrated to be false in this election. There is no fulcrum on the political spectrum. Democrats should be clambering to get leftist votes right now according to the hypothesis of leverage, but the evidence shows the opposite, the Democrats are frantically looking for moderate and conservative votes.
Political parties have to be shoved in the desired direction. The way to shove political parties during elections is by voting for them.
No you don't get me. The party platform shifted to the right in 2024 despite getting progressive votes in 2020. By your hypothesis this shouldn't have happened. Progressives voted for the DNC in 2020 and yet were abandoned by them in 2024.
That aside your assumptions here are game theoretically false. You cannot get someone to act in your best interest if you promise to support them no matter what they do. It simply doesn't make sense, as we have seen from how the DNC treated progressives this election.The DNC doesn't follow leftist (or really working class) votes because they're behold to their corporate donors (and because they're led by fossils who should've retired or died decades ago), not because it's successful electoral strategy.
This ignores the incremental shift to the left by Biden after the 2020 election which supports my arguments and refutes your argument.
The Democrats won in 2020 when more people voted for them and shifted left.
The Democrats lost in 2024 when fewer people voted for them and shifted right.
The 2024 election is the evidence that refutes your argument's position. People didn't vote for Democrats and the Democrats are now looking for moderate and conservatives who voted. It was the people on the left claiming they wouldn't vote so it's reasonable that leftists are making up part of the difference in the popular vote count.
People always act in their self-interest. The goal is to get people to understand that voting for the viable mainstream political party that is the furthest to the left is the most useful strategy to forward their self interest.
The evidence from this election in fact demonstrates my argument to be correct. My argument is that if progressives don't vote they won't be catered to by Democrats. Progressives didn't vote and now they aren't being catered to by Democrats.
While both parities are beholden to the owner class, the corporate donors can only provide money to seek out votes. Democrats still need a voting base to cater to. The votes are still the essential resource to win elections as that is what is counted in an election. We still need to co-opt the Democrats to get a socialist and progressive agenda to get rid of the owner class.
The DNC doesn't seek out leftists because leftists don't vote. The DNC seeks out people who vote.