The Pennsylvania Democrat recalled his time serving as a Hillary Clinton surrogate in 2016, even after he supported Bernie Sanders in the primary.
In the primaries, I supported progressive candidates like Sanders and Warren because I think their policy prescriptions would make for a better America. In the general, I voted for Biden. That was a harm-reduction vote.
What I don’t like to hear, in the primary, is the ‘you have to vote for the candidate who can win’ line of argument, which begs the question it pretends to answer- if everyone who says “I’d vote for x but x can’t possibly win” just voted for x, x would actually win. This gives whoever tells you that “x can’t possibly win” the power to get you to give up on voting for what you want, which seems to wag the dog.
In the general, between dem and gop control, it’s not a close contest for me; it’s between a party afraid to do progressive things the voters want and a party that will do whatever the fuck it wants no matter that nobody wants that.
Yes, our electoral system of first-past-the-post demands that we hedge our bets and compromise in order to avoid the calamity of electing a fascist in this election cycle, but it’s hard to support with evidence the idea that what makes a progressive candidate “risky” isn’t just a self-fulfilling misperception that causes the party to spend (or not-spend) money to prevent progressives from becoming party nominees. After all, research consistently shows that politicians of both parties routinely overestimate the conservatism of the voters.
I’m glad to see the Biden admin embracing the progressive changes it has been able to get to, but I’m also sooo tired of being told ‘we can’t nominate a progressive, they’ll be called a communist’ when no matter who we nominate they’ll be called a communist and decades of voting a harm-reduction ticket has rolled back much of the New Deal
if everyone who says “I’d vote for x but x can’t possibly win” just voted for x, x would actually win.
Not really. It means that person does not have the votes to win. Even if every supporter of X exclusively voted for X, plus a few supporters of Y, X would not win against Z. However, if every supporter of Y voted for Y, plus a few supporter of X, he would win against Z. So we should shift our support to Y because he has more supporters and is more likely to win against Z.
I think what you’re trying to say is that if every Biden voter just voted for Bernie, Bernie would have won. Which…sure, but you could say that about anyone.
It’s a difference between core voters (“I’m only excited about X”) vs swayable voters (“I like X but I think Y has a better chance of winning against Z”).
The point is that Biden has more core supporters than Bernie. Biden has a bigger, more reliable group of people who want to vote for him and only him.
It means that person does not have the votes to win.
It means that people who want to vote a certain way are being pressured to vote a different way.
This in turn means the way the votes went is not a measure of what people want, but rather of what they can be pressured into doing. These are different things, even if it’s convenient to dismiss it as a distinction without a difference.
You just straight up didn’t read my comment huh
No I read it, I just thought you missed my point and wanted to clarify
The subtext of the point I was trying to make was about whether or not your politics leave people feeling understood or respected. NGL I wasn’t feeling either
I don’t like Joe Biden, but this isn’t a presidential approval poll, it’s an election, and he’s clearly better than any of the alternatives. And when it comes down to it, he’s been better than I expected. We could have just had an exclusively centrist presidency, and while there’s been plenty of centrism, he has been persuadable to progressive action.
And frankly even if you can’t bring yourself to express support Biden for some reason, it should be pretty easy to want anyone who willingly associates with Republicans to lose and lose badly, because they’re way beyond stealth-mode fascism now. Even the most jaded “they’re all neolibs” voter from earlier elections can’t possibly ignore that the Republicans are just fash now. There’s a real danger if they win that cities end up with federally tasked jackboots kidnapping protesters like Portland.
When the vote is between someone (and a party) who says “climate change is more worrying than nuclear war” and “climate change is a hoax” the choice should be clear for any reasonable person. All the treason stuff aside (though very important, everyone should already be decided on that), climate change is the biggest issue for everyone I know. Probably for any average person under 50 if I had to guess.
I’ve seen people saying Hexbear users have been brigading politics communities of other instances. Not sure if it’s true, but it would explain the massive influx of idiotic far right morons with a 6th grade writing level making bad faith arguments.
Hexbear is leftist and lemmy.world defederated from the instance so you’re speaking of phantoms
I think he’s suggesting hexbear users are making accounts on non-defederated instances to troll
So baseless conspiracy without a shred of evidence.
Hexbear is communist, that’s you guys. That’s modern day liberals in the US. You are so fucking confused it’s comical.
Don’t fucking tell me what I am or who “my guys” are. Tankies are almost just as bad as conservatives.
Oh you’re easy to peg but I’m sure that’s how you prefer it anyways.
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They are prioritizing principles over practicality. Which is a great way to hand power to the greater evil.
The key to getting progression policies passed is voting for Congress. Having a democratic President, whether it’s Biden or someone else, doesn’t matter if we only have a razor-thin majority. We just get held hostage by people like Manchin. We need solid majorities in both House and Senate to achieve anything.
the key to getting progressive policies passed is direct pressure. widespread strikes and organizing.
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Only when you have a razor thin majority, which is the exclusive type of majority we’ve given Democrats in Congress for the past few decades.
Except for a few months during Obama’s term.
Which got us the greatest expansion of Medicare in our history and has saved thousands of lives and millions of dollars.
The ONE example we have of voting in a true Democratic supermajority was a massive success.
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We have different definitions of “wildly rejected” lol
dems had a majority when obama was elected and did nothing with it
They only had a majority in both houses for 2 years and still managed to get the ACA passed which was pretty significant. Even Trump couldn’t undo it. Also in fairness to Obama he was focused on staving off financial collapse for a good part of his first term.
They only had a filibuster proof majority for a few months actually.
The ACA was a Heritage Foundation health care plan that acts as a de facto subsidy for private health insurance. The best we ever get is still conservative.
im not impressed with them passing a conservative healthcare plan from the 90s that is basically just free money for healthcare companies and still leaves millions of americans without healthcare. the dems didnt even stave off financial collapse they bailed out huge banks and other corporations while doing absolutely nothing for the american people
Because the Democrstic Party did just about everything it could to try and have it be Senator Conor Lamb. Or by effect, a Senator Oz.
For me Biden represents much of that faction of the Democratic Party. Hence I have trouble assuring Biden my vote even before the primary.
It’s about getting 50%+1 in a democracy, right (or at least it should be)? So at some point the choices should come down to a binary to guarantee a 50%+1 outcome. However, the right candidate in a representative democracy and building of that 50%+1 should be done either with rank choiced voting or 2 round elections (either with a primary as we do it now or with multiple parties in the first round, that winnows everything down to 2 candidates). And an important role of the primaries is to get the resulting candidate to negotiate and build a coalition unifying the the 50%+1 coalition. So that deal that Biden and Sanders struck after Biden won the primary was huge. In the case of the left, the primary helps move the winning candidate left of where they might otherwise be. It’s why I was ecstatic to have Bernie run in 2016 and 2020 (It puled Hilary Clinton and Joe Biden to the left). And I think it’s bullshit that the Democratic party puts its thumb on the scale.
So if you have a left-right linear spectrum constituting 100% of the electorate, there are obviously different 50%+1 coalitions that can be made. Joe Manchin or Conor Lamb wants to be at the center of that 50%+1 coalition. Progressives obviously have an anathema to that and want that 50%+1 coalition to include everyone from the left end of the spectrum to the right of that up to 50%+1. Unfortunately, with institutions like the Senate and electoral college and whatnot, getting that 50%+1 coalition requires building it with Joe Manchin or Conor Lamb. Otherwise, there is no majority.
So while we fixate on Biden and whatnot, Biden and us need to focus on local elections, local referendums, and creating a Manchin-Sinema-Conor Lamb (or his equivalent) proof majority in the House and Senate. It’s obvious to me with several of Biden’s moves, he’s highly responsive to popular will and the votes available, regardless of what his own or his donors’ proclivities are. So if we want paid family leave and assistance with early child care and a pathway to medicare for all and expanded child tax credit, we need to be focused on winning all of these more local elections. Yes, having a popular candidate at the top of the ballot would help, but if you look at Biden’s polling, it’s the left end of the spectrum that’s keeping him from being closer to 50% popularity. Instead of getting angry that we didn’t get all this stuff when Manchin scuttled everything, we should be focused on building majorities that don’t need him.
If John Fetterman hadn’t had the stroke and the resulting depression, I’d be ecstatic about having him run for the presidency. Hopefully, he’ll recover by and be in good shape by 2028. We need a blue collar - union friendly presidential candidate to unify and build that 50%+1 coalition. I was hoping it was Sherrod Brown in Ohio in 2016 and 2020, but he voted against the Rail Worker strike and I think it’s taking its toll on his Senate election chances in Ohio.
Paying attention to those crucial local elections: Biden and the Democratic Party leadership continually campaigned against progressive candidates in their primaries and publicly and intentionally insist on how important it is to them for the Republican Party to be strong.
So for many who don’t support Biden it is about the Democratic Party effort to preserve the conservative coalition with the Manchin-Sinema corporate landscape.
For some it appears Biden and the Democratic Party’s core leadership would sooner lose to Republicans than support, let alone champion, the progressive movement. And so they don’t feel the need or compulsion to support Biden as a result.
And going further back in time some remember Obama’s supermajority and trifecta amounting to very little progressive action whatsoever. So the idea of voting harder i hope of a better majority often rings hollow.
These are factors I would say are being weighed when judging whether Biden deserves support even before a primary.
Yeah, but that Obama super majority in the Senate lasted one year and it was a different time, when Democratic voters and the Democratic party was less liberal than it is now. Hell, compare Biden in his 2008 presidential campaign to his 2020 one. And just look at how much filibuster rules have changed since then.
Anyways, my main point is that you have to remind Biden and Manchin that they need you and Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders in the coalition too and that they’re not going to get much done (like immigration reform) with the two “moderate” Republican senators left in the Senate (Collins and Murkowski).
And yeah, sure Biden and Pelosi and all of them (the Democratic Party apparatus) weighed against the progressive candidates in the primaries and still are. It’s your job to beat them and show that the bulk of our 50%+1 coalition is behind the progressive rather than the moderate. It means fundraising to fight the corporate donors and volunteering for these campaigns, going from door to door to get people to turn out and vote for the progressive candidate in the primary.
And the reality is that without Manchin, we’d have never gotten KBJ, judicial and executive appointments, the provisions in the infrastructure bill and the inflation reduction act. Did Manchin-Sinema fuck us? Yeah, they did. We could have prevented the rise in childhood poverty we’re seeing now if it weren’t for those two. People would be a lot more excited for Biden and the Democrats. But it’s our job to get a majority that doesn’t need those two or those of their ilk in the system we have (and yes, change the system along the way, so that we can have things like popular referendum, etc.).
Did Manchin-Sinema fuck us? Yeah, they did. We could have prevented the rise in childhood poverty we’re seeing now if it weren’t for those two.
Those two? Shit, the senate vote in the last Congress to extend the child tax credit was 1-97. Warren didn’t vote as a progressive leaving Bernie the lone vote in support. And that was the number one factor in reducing the problem.
It can be hard to maintain support for a one-sided coalition for too long. Eventually people start to break. Their support for Biden becomes just like Biden’s support for his own public option plan: disappearing.
That’s what I’m saying. If we only have a majority that depends on Manchin and Sinema, how are we supposed to pass the public option? How do you get a majority without them?
And the reality is that passing the public option isn’t simple. Look at the institutional holders of three of the top insurance companies (United Health, Cigna, and Humana):
https://money.cnn.com/quote/shareholders/shareholders.html?symb=UNH&subView=institutional
https://money.cnn.com/quote/shareholders/shareholders.html?symb=CI&subView=institutional
https://money.cnn.com/quote/shareholders/shareholders.html?symb=HUM&subView=institutional
All those mutual funds hold a lot of people’s pensions/retirement. So if you pass medicare for all, what do you do with those investors. It’s not just rich fat cats, but also folks looking to retire.
I wish we’d have a real discussion beyond medicare is more comprehensive, cheaper (I don’t think a lot of people realize that you still owe 20% of part A bills and have to pay a premium every month for part B, and still have to deal with paying for drugs as part of Part D, and that medicare gap is only available through private companies (forget medicare advantage), and patient friendly. We have to figure out how to handle the consequences of essentially nationalizing an entire industry.
And it’s not just the insurance companies their investors that you have to battle here. You have to deal with big pharma who are doing everything possible to block medicare from using their market power to negotiate lower drug costs. And this whole private system leads to such ridiculous allocation of spending. You usually see big Pharma spending more money on SGA (https://www.fiercepharma.com/special-reports/top-10-pharma-drug-brand-ad-spenders-2022) than R&D. Yet they’ll argue that getting drugs through the three stages of clinical trials is really expensive and justifies the prices they place on these drugs.
Of course if you get rid of that inefficiency, it’s a whole bunch of advertisers and executives out of the job, and they ostensibly spend less money in the economy or find jobs in a different field. It’s all a giant, interconnected web, and we’re just trying to redistribute the composition of it.
I often point to the Kaiser Permanente poll on the popularity of Medicare for all. Sure people are for it. But then when you tell them that their private insurance would go away, favoribility drops to 30%. Can you imagine if you told them their pension funds or retirement is invested in health insurance companies or big pharma? See figure 9: https://www.kff.org/slideshow/public-opinion-on-single-payer-national-health-plans-and-expanding-access-to-medicare-coverage/
And I agree with you about feeling the coalition’s one sided. But I think Biden is trying with his executive and judicial appointments which only have to go through the Senate. And you really have to walk that fine line between negotiating a better deal/agenda reflective of your needs/wants and not being taken for granted (something the progressive caucus in the House did a terrible job at in negotiating with Manchin) and letting the right extreme coalition run everything. And one of the ways to do that is to run your candidate in the primary (we focus too much on the presidential, when we should be looking at more local representatives too), working for them or volunteering for them, and engage in dialogue that reaches their ears about your demands if they want you to be part of that coalition.
Primaries are for ideas and ideals. General elections are for harm reduction.
ITT: people who defend Manchin every single time he votes against his party expecting perfect lockstep from those he keeps betraying.
Edit: I summoned one.
Look, another person intentionally misrepresenting this opinion.
One more time: People aren’t defending Manchin, they’re pointing out that he’s not passing this shit on his own. That there are 50 other senators that are pushing this shit, yet people blame the Democratic party and completely ignore the existence of those other people.
I see Reddit’s r/Politics hard liberal cast has migrated wholesale and now drowns out lemmy’s leftists.
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Duhh
Oh, because i support progressive people, not union busters
This president made an empty promise about continuing to work for paid sick leave after preventing a strike by railworkers at the end of 2022. Except, that it actually worked. Almost every union did get paid sick leave for its members within six months aided by continued pressure from the White House.
He’s a pretty lousy union buster.
Those paid sick days still count against the attendance records of the railroad employees via the actually insane “points” system, a system that the rail unions were fighting against. It’s strange how all of the neoliberal papers that are sucking Biden off over this “win” neglect to mention that.
Telling workers they can’t fight for their own rights, and have to wait for politicians to do it for them us not progressive, and its not pro-labor. It’s on a long list of swiftly festering bandages that only stave off death for a little while. If we don’t empower our workers, we stifle them. Even if we bribe them candy when they demand steak.
“You can’t strike, but I will try to talk to your boss to get you some of what you desire” is still union busting. The union doesn’t have the power anymore.
I dont really blame you, theyve done quite the PR on this. There’s an electrical worker union, with a branch dealing with railroad electricians. They supported the pre-strike deal the railroad companies offered, they likely already had things like sick leave. If youve seen reports on reactions of rail workers to the post-strike-busting situation, you very likely only saw quotes from this union. Of electrical workers.
I’m still soured by how the primary shook out in 2020. Before any votes were cast, all everyone said about all the candidates were that anyone could beat Trump. Bernie won the first 3 races, and the Democratic establishment fought anyway they could to kill the movement, including pressuring flailing campaigns to back out. Biden finally won and the only message is for the left wing of the party to get in line. Kind of a hard pill to swallow when the Democrats claimed to be the party of the youth, but the youth voted 80%+ for Bernie in the primary. Ended up voting Green in 2020. Will I do so again in '24? Who knows, but at this point it isn’t looking good. I don’t like that the right wing of the Democrats (center-right overall) expects the left to follow along no matter what they do.
I’m not sure I buy this whole “third party votes are wasted votes” or “third party votes are a vote for the opposition”. The US system heavily heavily biases towards having a two party system, but third parties exist, and just because Democrats and Republicans are the two major parties right now, doesn’t mean they will be in the future. The Whigs were one of the two major parties for 25 years of US history, even winning the Presidency a few times, but now they’re not. It took people not willing to accept the party line and jumping ship to change that, which again the system biases against, but it still happened. Democrats aren’t the end-all-be-all of lefty politics. The next left wing party won’t be the end-all-be-all either. Democrats have no incentive to change the current system. By continuing to vote for them, whether you believe it or not, you’re approving and perpetuating the behavior. It isn’t a useful method of change to say “I don’t agree with anything the Democrats say, but that’s the world we’re in”. That’s how you end up in a situation where 70% of the country supports universal healthcare, but only 5-6 members of Congress do. Voting for a further left party than the Democrats will cause the Democrats to wise up to what their traditional base wants.
Politics in Democracy is not a passive system. Passivity leads to what we have now, two parties that write the rules for the states and the governments that represent the interests of almost no one, but have convinced us that they’re the only and best options. There are agents of the Democrats currently in jail for breaking election law in their efforts to keep the Greens off the ballot. I’m sure the same is true for Republicans. Don’t tell them its okay by giving them your vote. Don’t give in to the political version of the Paradox of Thrift.
The Green Party received a quarter of 1 percent of total votes in 2020. The third best showing they’ve ever had. Four years prior Jill Stein received an entire 1% higher than that against probably the two least liked candidates of all time. They ain’t it.
Voting for a further left party than the Democrats will cause the Democrats to wise up to what their traditional base wants.
Maybe after like a decade, after losing a few presidencies in a row.
But we don’t have time for that. The Republicans plan to effectively end democracy if they win the House.
First Past the Post is the unfortunate reality, and yes it’s fucking us hard.
This is always what Democrats say.
Um, ok.
Is there an aspect that you think is untrue?
“We don’t have time for that” is what they always say to stop us voting for another party or something demanding am more progressive candidate in the general election.
The party just continues to move rightward
Yes. But have you seen the Republicans
You proved my point… It’s “vote for us because they’re even worse”
Which is true.
So I don’t really understand your point I guess.
Very well said. And this method of strategically protesting the status quo has awarded better outcomes in NYC and got NY, Minnesota, Alaska and some othera to have ranked choice. But we can’t just do that from nothing on the federal scale. We’re gonna get ranked choice voting federally by leveraging third party State reps. And Senators to change the constitution.
Bernie won the first 3 races,
Oh no, don’t you remember? They fucked the Iowa caucus to make sure he didn’t win, handing a victory to the nobody Buttigieg instead.
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