Rod Hilton
Young Progressives: "We won't vote for Genocide Joe no matter what! His opponent may be worse but we're sitting out the election in protest!"
(time passes)
Young Progressives: "Why is Joe Biden adopting conservative policies on the border in order to sway centrist voters?! He's not even trying to court my vote!"
Pro-tip for first-time voters: if you publicly state as a group that you're not voting for someone no matter what, you left the table.
AnthonyJK-Admin
@rodhilton @Migueldeicaza @swelljoe
Sorry, but blaming the "progressive left" for Biden lurching right towards positions that he has already championed, when he has already broken every campaign promise to the Left, is nothing more than scapegoating. Progressives overwhelmingly voted for Biden because he promised them he'd deliver on core issues, and he hasn't. Why, especially when Biden seems to be adopting many of Trump's policies, should they vote for getting nothing in return?
Miguel de Icaza ᯅ🍉
@rodhilton @swelljoe we have done the math, but will everyone else do? Skipping over Gaza, the asylum stuff is a fuck you to the base.
Rod Hilton
@Migueldeicaza @swelljoe again, agreed. But I'm sort of not surprised he's adopting policies farther to the right of what I'd like to see, given how much of the progressive left has very publicly stated he's crossed their red line and cannot get their vote. Which is all I'm saying in the post. I don't know what we all expected him to do, there's no electoral incentive to appeal to a block that refuses to vote for him.
Rod Hilton
@Migueldeicaza @swelljoe Democrats, far more than Republicans, are a coalition of people with wildly different goals for the country. The more of us have breaking-point issues, the harder it is to turn 46% into 51% without losing a different 5%.
Sounds like people just wanted him to accept that he's going to lose, I guess? I don't know, there's a vein of "not accepting reality" that seems to cut through a lot of this discussion.
Rod Hilton
@Migueldeicaza @swelljoe fundamentally politics in the US is a fight between two parties for control.
One party is made up of people who agree on very little fundamentally, and will abstain from voting if a candidate doesn't pass their litmus test, and everyone has different litmus tests. Herding cats.
The other party is so far in the opposite direction that there is literally no test, you could be a convicted felon and they'll all still show up and vote just the same. Herding sheep.
Rod Hilton
@Migueldeicaza @swelljoe 🙄 I don't support genocide, I'm against what Netanyahu is doing, and I wish Biden would stop helping.
I also recognize the reality of the election, that Netanyahu is HOPING for a Trump victory, that this would remove any and all pressure for a ceasefire, as well as implement a number of backwards policies in other areas.
3rd party votes aren't viable, there basically IS no vote against genocide on the table right now. It sucks but that's the reality before me.
Rod Hilton
@Migueldeicaza @swelljoe I had a "red line" issue too and it was "supported the illegal invasion of Iraq"
That's why I didn't vote for Clinton in 2016 and abstained from that election.
I was made to regret that decision, and I wish I hadn't made that choice. Now I don't have single-issue red lines anymore.
Joe Cooper 🇺🇦
@rodhilton @Migueldeicaza Biden is not negotiating for votes, he's simply doing what he's always done. But, if he were, this would still be a stupid calculation. The people who want an isolationist nationalist America-first agenda will not choose a light version of that just because Biden got a little fascist at the end of his first term. Fascists want fascism, not merely a few policy concessions. Trump says it with his whole chest. Catering to them merely shows weakness and empowers them.
Miguel de Icaza ᯅ🍉
@swelljoe @rodhilton agreed. Rod’s initial post feels like “if you don’t support genocide, you are going to force to go full fash”
There is a funny cartoon let me find it
Miguel de Icaza ᯅ🍉
@rodhilton Except that is not what is going on. Even those that were going to vote for him feel betrayed by this.
This is not different than Trump's policy.
Rod Hilton
@Migueldeicaza Yeah, exactly. He's courting conservatives because a good enough chunk of progressives have bowed out of the election.
AnthonyJK-Admin
@rodhilton @Migueldeicaza @swelljoe
You talk as if opposing your own people being massacred in a land grab is the equivalent of fighting for your pork barrel.
Also, what binds different constituencies together is a common core set of beliefs and policies. Republicans have their core beliefs (Christian White Nationalism with Ayn Rand "libertarian" capitalism), and are willing to go to the wall to defend and impose them. Democrats only seem to care about feeding their wealthiest donors.
Rod Hilton
@AnthonyJK @Migueldeicaza @swelljoe because a vote doesn't pick your ideal, it just picks if you move closer to your ideal or further away from it.
Even if closer is closer by a millimeter and that's super disappointing, it's preferable to moving further by miles. It takes forever to undo damage in the wrong direction.
AnthonyJK-Admin
@rodhilton @Migueldeicaza @swelljoe
Except, voting for Democrats to prevent Republicans from moving us to the Right for the past 40 years has ended up only moving us further and further away from where we should be. Moving Left by a millimeter when we end up further Right by 10 miles just won't cut it anymore.
And, in fact, it doesn't take that much time to reverse years in the wrong direction, provided that your heart is actually in it rather than just faking it to serve your donors.
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