Tl;dr: they voted
American and European Leftist heads exploding right now
BuT mUh ElEcToRaLiSm!
If we could get blue voters to vote with the same fervor as the insane right (who vote at if their very existence is at stake) there would never be a red president or Congress again.
If we could do that Bernie would have won the primary easily.
The insane right’s electoral strategy is to threaten primaries, not the general.
Threatening the primaries makes you a credible electoral threat who’s positions should be considered and if possible appealed to.
Threatening the general makes you a moron who obviously cares more about feeling validated than you do about achieving any policy goals since you’re literally declaring your intent to hand the contest to the guy who’s even less likely to give you anything you want.
There was the uncommitted movement for the democratic primaries, but democrats screamed and shat their pants in anger over people daring to challenge party unity. Reminder that these uncommitted votes were just to send the message that biden should stop supporting genocide which should really be a no-brainer and even then democrats threw a fit. The political parties have their primary processes clamped down and completely controlled. If trump threatened the moneyed interests at all, he would’ve been shut down during the party primaries like Bernie was.
“jUsT vOtE” wasn’t the solution. It required the opposition parties to work on getting those votes. If the democrats in the US wanted to learn a lesson, it’d be that they shouldn’t just lean on “sure we suck ass but trump is worse!!”
This excerpt is key:
First, voters punished Modi for putting his Hindu nationalist agenda ahead of fixing India’s unequal economy. Second, Indian voters had some real concerns about the decline of liberal democracy under BJP rule. Third, the opposition parties waged a smart campaign that took advantage of Modi’s vulnerabilities on the economy and democracy.
Note the first point hitting on the economy. Democrats have gone with “actually everything is great and you not being able to afford things is just your feelings”.
Modi won, so you’re basically saying “Democrats should try harder but they’ll still fail.”
That’s what happens with complacency. There’s still a lot of work that needs to be done to dismantle the fascist machine, but it requires sustained full commitment and effort from the opposition. Think about how bad things were with george w bush. Democrats were able to seize that opportunity to get in and do some good things, but they were mostly fine with the status quo and this is what gave us trump.
I think maybe rethinking tactics is in order because what people are doing isn’t working and doing it harder won’t make it work. That’s what I was trying to suggest.
We’re in full agreement here and that was my point when I argued against the “just vote” talking point. Democrats need to change their tactics and apply pressure using what works. Currently their only tactic is pointing out “we’re not trump” and they’re putting their full force behind that tactic and it’s not working (or at least not well enough to enact meaningful change). One key problem is how we get democrats to change their tactics and clearly “just vote” isn’t cutting it because they’re not fazed by threats to withhold votes, so it’s not like they actually care if you vote for them beyond getting them into office. It does nothing to change democratic party policy.
This article was about what strategies and campaign messaging the opposition used to sway voters, and your takeaway from the article was ‘they voted’?
I’m not convinced you read it.
Oooh ooh I know, we refuse to vote for his opponent because this is so tiresome that we have to do this every election / because his opponent isn’t everything we wanted to have in terms of forward progress / because that’ll show the system as a whole that we want better candidates and things will finally move forward as a result / etc
No? Because I have been assured that that is the answer
So, it seems like the secret was the opposition parties actually campaigning on doing things the voters liked and addressing their concerns instead of belittling them. I agree, I think US politicians should also try actually appealing to disaffected voters to get them to vote against tyranny instead of lecturing them.
You forgot the secret blue strategy:
Don’t actually do anything when you can, because you don’t actually want to.
Or, more fairly, have your razor thin margin of control be sabotaged relentlessly by corporate stooges and then do nothing about it.
I celebrate the performance, but the BJP is still the plurality party. Unless a left wing coalition can form a majority (and I’m not nearly familiar enough with any parties outside the BJP and INC) Modi will still be the prime minister just with vastly reduced power.
I’d qualify this less as “fighting” and more “stopping the bleeding.”
How I see it (and so do many others) is that this showed BJP that they won’t get away with anything and everything. That their religious politics is getting old. People want jobs, and growth.
Many thought that defeating BJP is simply impossible. If you followed the Indian media, you’ll know that Modi was portrayed as this irreplaceable leader. Many voted for BJP simply because they thought that they had no other option. This election showed them that it’s not true, that BJP can be defeated. If not anything else, we have a much stronger opposition now. BJP will have to think twice before making stupid decisions.
This. The opposition alliance is a mix of left, right, up and down, who historically and even now have knife at each other. Them coming to power is the worst that could happen to India now, and pretty sure they won’t last even a year at power. It’s the best outcome now, BJP isn’t invincible, religious politics proven not effective. India still a strong democracy. Now BJP can continue their good work, especially at international politics and strong opposition can keep them in check for the policies inside India, which have much room for improvement.
Stay vigilant for the next phase where the fascists start attacking the voting infrastructure to manipulate/discredit the results of future elections. People like this don’t willingly give up power, nor do they care about what voters want
Authoritarians only have to win once
