Kamala came in with some lip service to progressives at the beginning and has essentially adopted bidens platform with little in the way of changes. She’s doubled down on fracking, distanced herself from the green new deal, and courted the center right (Democrat or Republican) from the DNC forward. It’s not surprising but it’s disheartening to see so many people get fooled by what has been the typical Democrat playbook since the 90s. Biden was bad optics so they traded him out. Vote for her because she isn’t trump, but don’t pretend that she’ll do anything different than follow the party line like her and everybody before her.
If you want to make some real change go ahead and vote for the Democrat. Then stop paying attention to electoral politics. Organize in your community. Agitate for worker unions in your work places and tenant unions in your neighborhood, start a political theory reading group, organize a food drive, free store, tool library, something. Literally anything other than wasting your precious time and energy on following the clown show in DC. None of them care about you. None of them want to help you. None of them are planning to make your life easier.
currently most republicans are not center-right, but OP was referring to the (now narrow, but still existing) circle of center-right republicans, not to all the republicans.
Broadly I agree with you and have said more or less the same thing. But there are people who label themselves republican and fall in line somewhere closer to democrat. The two parties aren’t as far apart as we’d all like to think
I think that’s more of a case of mislabelling than of the parties being close together. If 90% of the party disagrees with you, you’re not really representative of the party’s beliefs.
I understand that but they’re still in the party. AOC and Omar are Social Democrats but they still run under the Democrat ticket, for example. On the right we see a mix of right libertarians, fascists, Christian nationalists, white nationalists, esoteric fascistss, and neo-monarchists (I’m sure I’m missing a few), but they’re all running under the Republican ticket because our two party system is broken and incapable of capturing the sheer depth and diversity of political ideologies within the country. The labels of democrat and republican are largely useless on an interpersonal basis and only vaguely useful on a systemic scale.
I’m an anarchist but my voter registration says democrat because I checked that box when I was 18 and never bothered changing it. You’d be “right” to call me a democrat, but only to a superficial and largely unimportant degree. I’m sure there are republicans in a similar situation as well and people who may be closer to democrats but choose to vote Republican due to specific policy issues. Abortion is one that comes to mind. It may be hard to believe but there truly are people out there who only care about abortion and otherwise have no strong political opinions outside of that. They would be a better fit for Republicans than Democrats. Again, the 2 party system is fucked and splitting hairs over people who don’t nearly fit into one of the boxes (which is 99.9% of people) is a pointless distraction
There aren’t two boxes. There are two groups of opinions, and the one you’re closest to is the one that you vote for. Your affiliation probably won’t match the majority of a party for every possible issue, but that’s fine, because there’s no need to put anyone in boxes. Your party is, for all intents and purposes, the one which you most agree with. I don’t know where you think I’m splitting hairs, unless you just mean that people close to 50/50 on party agreement can’t be neatly categorized, which should be obvious.
Single-issue voters don’t have my respect. Mostly because I don’t believe they actually have a single issue; I believe many would choose a new issue if theirs became obsolete, that many are hypocritical in their views on their own single issue or related issues, and most importantly, that valuing one issue over the dozens of other problems that they should be caring about is immoral.
I’m ideologically opposed to party and institutional politics on a foundational level. The fact that people are forced to compromise on their values, the “lesser of two evils” system, the whole “closest to your values” thing is a horrible way to approach politics. It rings true if you don’t think about it too hard but it’s pretty bullshit. At the end of the day, when you are only permitted a political voice at the ballot box, you are forcing yourself into the labels you’ve been given by a group of parasites that do not share your interests…
And yeah, single.issue voters probably have other issues. That doesn’t mean they fit within their chosen party’s platform. There are plenty of pro-lifers who fit better in the democratic camp on other issues but value abortion above the rest. I’m not saying it makes sense or is worthy of respect. It’s simply a thing that is
you are forcing yourself into the labels you’ve been given by a group of parasites that do not share your interests…
I mean, it really depends how close to each party’s most common views you (general “you”) are, doesn’t it? If you’re complaining about compromising on the last 5% of your different views, grow up. If you legitimately think both parties are similar, fuck you, pay more attention. Again, general “you”, not you-“you” in particular.
Sorry that I’m maintaining some degree of this esoteric concept known as having principles. If extremely mild criticism is enough to upset you then I’m not really interested in anything you’ve got to say. Take it easy
If your predecessor beat the guy by using platform A, it stands to reason that a pretty safe campaign strategy is to not deviate from platform A very much.
Kamala came in with some lip service to progressives at the beginning and has essentially adopted bidens platform with little in the way of changes. She’s doubled down on fracking, distanced herself from the green new deal, and courted the center right (Democrat or Republican) from the DNC forward. It’s not surprising but it’s disheartening to see so many people get fooled by what has been the typical Democrat playbook since the 90s. Biden was bad optics so they traded him out. Vote for her because she isn’t trump, but don’t pretend that she’ll do anything different than follow the party line like her and everybody before her.
If you want to make some real change go ahead and vote for the Democrat. Then stop paying attention to electoral politics. Organize in your community. Agitate for worker unions in your work places and tenant unions in your neighborhood, start a political theory reading group, organize a food drive, free store, tool library, something. Literally anything other than wasting your precious time and energy on following the clown show in DC. None of them care about you. None of them want to help you. None of them are planning to make your life easier.
Republicans are not center right
currently most republicans are not center-right, but OP was referring to the (now narrow, but still existing) circle of center-right republicans, not to all the republicans.
Broadly I agree with you and have said more or less the same thing. But there are people who label themselves republican and fall in line somewhere closer to democrat. The two parties aren’t as far apart as we’d all like to think
I think that’s more of a case of mislabelling than of the parties being close together. If 90% of the party disagrees with you, you’re not really representative of the party’s beliefs.
I understand that but they’re still in the party. AOC and Omar are Social Democrats but they still run under the Democrat ticket, for example. On the right we see a mix of right libertarians, fascists, Christian nationalists, white nationalists, esoteric fascistss, and neo-monarchists (I’m sure I’m missing a few), but they’re all running under the Republican ticket because our two party system is broken and incapable of capturing the sheer depth and diversity of political ideologies within the country. The labels of democrat and republican are largely useless on an interpersonal basis and only vaguely useful on a systemic scale.
I’m an anarchist but my voter registration says democrat because I checked that box when I was 18 and never bothered changing it. You’d be “right” to call me a democrat, but only to a superficial and largely unimportant degree. I’m sure there are republicans in a similar situation as well and people who may be closer to democrats but choose to vote Republican due to specific policy issues. Abortion is one that comes to mind. It may be hard to believe but there truly are people out there who only care about abortion and otherwise have no strong political opinions outside of that. They would be a better fit for Republicans than Democrats. Again, the 2 party system is fucked and splitting hairs over people who don’t nearly fit into one of the boxes (which is 99.9% of people) is a pointless distraction
There aren’t two boxes. There are two groups of opinions, and the one you’re closest to is the one that you vote for. Your affiliation probably won’t match the majority of a party for every possible issue, but that’s fine, because there’s no need to put anyone in boxes. Your party is, for all intents and purposes, the one which you most agree with. I don’t know where you think I’m splitting hairs, unless you just mean that people close to 50/50 on party agreement can’t be neatly categorized, which should be obvious.
Single-issue voters don’t have my respect. Mostly because I don’t believe they actually have a single issue; I believe many would choose a new issue if theirs became obsolete, that many are hypocritical in their views on their own single issue or related issues, and most importantly, that valuing one issue over the dozens of other problems that they should be caring about is immoral.
I’m ideologically opposed to party and institutional politics on a foundational level. The fact that people are forced to compromise on their values, the “lesser of two evils” system, the whole “closest to your values” thing is a horrible way to approach politics. It rings true if you don’t think about it too hard but it’s pretty bullshit. At the end of the day, when you are only permitted a political voice at the ballot box, you are forcing yourself into the labels you’ve been given by a group of parasites that do not share your interests…
And yeah, single.issue voters probably have other issues. That doesn’t mean they fit within their chosen party’s platform. There are plenty of pro-lifers who fit better in the democratic camp on other issues but value abortion above the rest. I’m not saying it makes sense or is worthy of respect. It’s simply a thing that is
I mean, it really depends how close to each party’s most common views you (general “you”) are, doesn’t it? If you’re complaining about compromising on the last 5% of your different views, grow up. If you legitimately think both parties are similar, fuck you, pay more attention. Again, general “you”, not you-“you” in particular.
Do you people realize that if you go against fracking you WILL lose Pennsylvania and then the election? There’s a reason for what they’re doing…
You people? Please enlighten me, who am I?
Sorry that I’m maintaining some degree of this esoteric concept known as having principles. If extremely mild criticism is enough to upset you then I’m not really interested in anything you’ve got to say. Take it easy
If those principles help bring about another Trump presidency, then they wouldn’t have done you much good.
Did you miss the part where I said vote for Kamala? Twice?
Boy you are touchy for such an innocuous reply.
It was a personal attack.
Not at all but go on.
I have the hope that she’ll end up being more progressive after votes are counted.
Partially because she has Walz which is a good sign, but mostly I’m hoping for hopes sake. 🤞
If your predecessor beat the guy by using platform A, it stands to reason that a pretty safe campaign strategy is to not deviate from platform A very much.