So, Nina Turner lost her primary. She was ahead, but as always, the establishment cannot let us have nice things, so ran a massive smear campaign against her, leading to her losing the race.
I mean, they really did her dirty. They attacked her basically for not going along with the establishment agenda, but did it in a way that made her look like a right winger. For example she wouldn't vote for the democratic party platform out of principle so they framed her as being against a higher minimum wage and medicare for all. They framed her comments about voting for Biden being like eating half a bowl of crap, ignoring the fact that it was an analogy showing her views on lesser evil voting, with Trump being the full bowl. So, by pushing half truths, they were able to make Nina look like not a left winger at all, and they managed to outflank her from the left.
All while Nina Turner is further left. It's amazing. Then these same people get up there and are like ERMAHGERD CENTRISTS WIN CENTRISTS WIN! YOU SEE, YOU STUPID PROGRESSIVES, "THE VOTERS" WANT PRAGMATIC MODERATES WHO GO ALONG WITH OUR LEGITIMATELY ELECTED JOE BIDEN. THEY DON'T WANT PROGRESSIVES WHO ATTACK DEMOCRATS. Uh, well maybe if those comments were framed properly, it would be a different race.
Which is bringing me to a big reason I wanted to discuss this. I've seen a lot of neolibs framing progressives calling the election "rigged" as being the same as when Trump did it. And I want to strongly rebuff this. No it's not the same at all, and I'll explain why.
First of all, we're using different definitions of the words rigged. When a Trumper claims the election was rigged, they literally think there were dead people voting and fake ballots voting for democratic candidates, and that if only legitimate people voted, Trump would've won in a landslide. This is nonsense. And this is NOT what progressives claim when we attack dems for "rigged primaries".
On paper, the democratic primaries, not just this one, but 2016 and 2020, were fair. They were legit. They had the proper procedures, and people voted, and the results were what they were. There was no vote rigging, no dead people voting, we can rest easy about the integrity of elections. Stop comparing us to Trumpers, okay? We're not trumpers.
What we say when democratic primaries are rigged, is essentially that the system is designed a certain way to funnel voters toward a certain predetermined outcome. Voters voted, and their votes were counted, and they voted how they voted. But it's the process of getting people to vote in certain ways in the first place.
You see, a lot of the actors surrounding primaries are not impartial. The democratic establishment has their preferred candidate. Nina wasnt their preferred candidate. neither was yang in 2020 or in the mayoral race, neither was Bernie Sanders. Heck, I always argue the dems colluded to stop Bernie, specifically by making phone calls to candidates to encourage them to drop out to consolidate divided voting blocks to push voters a certain way. Here, what happened was the democrats came out swinging for their person. They brought out all the big names, and got tons of endorsements from establishment politicians. And any voter who does not have a dog in the fight and is trying to make up their mind is like "gee, shontel brown sure has a lot of endorsements, oh, hillary clinton and jim clyburn endorsed her? I like them, so I'll vote for her." Then you got media coverage. The media is the big factor, and the media is in bed with the party establishment and corporate interests. And again, what did they do? They attacked Nina. And the typical voters is gonna be like, wait, Nina isnt for the minimum wage going up? She's not for universal healthcare? She thinks Biden is crap? What is she, a republican? I'm voting for Brown. Framing is everything. The media narratives are everything. Everyone acts like it's that voters are mdoerate and just want pragmatism, but I really dont think that's necessarily the case. Yes, there are some who are like that, but for the most part, I think the media and the party officials just scare people out of supporting progressives via dirty campaign tactics, and toward the establishment. Essentially, it's what Noam Chomsky said about manufacturing consent. The process manufactures the peoples' consent. It frames the candidates and issues in certain ways, and funnels a lot of relatively ignorant people toward their own ends. And that's why, it doesnt matter how good of a platform you have, or how good of a campaign you run, as long as the establishment puts their finger on the scales, they will win the vast majority of the time. Because they control the machinery, that controls how people think, and informs how they will vote. It's not that the actual voting is rigged. it's all legitimate on paper. So many voters came out, they voted a certain way, they were counted, they won. It's a matter of playing the numbers to get the outcome they wanted.
This isn't even getting into how primary turnout is often abysmal. Like, seriously, we have voter turnout problems in general, with it normally averaging 40-50% in general elections. And democrats love to argue if only more people voted, we would win in a landslide, but republicans try to *cough* rig the system by engaging in voter suppression via voter id, and cutting down on long lines, etc. Heck, a lot of that was the point of that HR1 bill the democrats tried to pass. The republicans constantly "rig" elections in their favor. It's been argued if democrats could run in a fair system without any of these institutional advantages the GOP would never win on the national level again. But okay, it gets worse for primaries. Primaries are low visibility elections where you only get around 25% of people voting. And in most states, this doesn't apply to ohio, but in most states, you need to be registered as part of the party to vote in that primary. This is done for non shady reasons mostly. You dont want tons of republicans coming in and messing with your primary, but at the same time, it does ensure that the people voting...are democrats. And that kind of leads to a system where those who identify most with the democratic party are generally favored to win. Because registered dems are predisposed to like what democrats are selling, while independents and the like..don't. But this leads to an insular percentage of people voting for establishment craplibs, because those craplibs are overrepresented at the polls. So they end up with this situation where they vote for these guys, independents and less affiliated voters stay home, and then everyone has to hold their nose come general election time, with the rest of us being like "how did it get so bad THESE are our candidates?" Remember how Trump AND Hillary both had like a 30% approval rating despite being voted by a comfortable majority of their party's constituents, that's why. Like a quarter of that party's overall voters basically decided the candidates that we would vote on later that year, before the rest of us get a chance. How can we change this? Well, register to vote? I hate the dems, but this is why im registered as one. I couldnt care less about the party, but i wanna vote in the primaries so i am a registered dem. I encourage everyone to do the same.
To be fair, Ohio didnt have this specific problem, as they do have open primaries. Still, they did deal with a lot of irregularities that made this a very low visibility race for the non politically initiated. it was a special primary, on an off year, at an off time, that only the politically savvy know about. Normally primaries take place in the spring in an even number year, not an odd number year in August. Again, special case. And apparently the turnout is very low. I havent found anything official, but message boards are claiming 12%. That's abymsal. 12% of the population voted here. That means that 88% of the people didn't. And while I imagine this district is 2-1 for democrats, that still means this is merely 1/5 of the potential democratic electorate. That's TERRIBLE.
Honestly, a big problem with primaries like this is that not enough people turnout. The independents who hate establishment dems generally are finnicky voters who often dont show up for primaries at all, then complain about how bad the candidates are later. And a lot of the voters who do turnout, either they're establishment supporting loyal dems who are older and vote in every election, or they're passionate outsiders trying to change the system from within like myself, and we're just outnumbered. ANd I'm fully convinced a lot of people just vote for the sake of voting. I dont think the average american is very politically informed. They might watch the 6 PM news at the dinner table, but that's the extent of their political participation. And as such, they end up buying whatever narratives the establishment sells. Hence why things turn out as they are. The fact is, we have a serious apathy problem, combined with a serious ignorance problem. Not enough people care to turn out, and a lot of people are, quite frankly, politically ignorant. And the establishment just uses these facts to ensure races turn out the way they want them to. If they theoretically wanted to, they could've fluffed Nina Turner up every night and made her win. They could've sold universal healthcare to us in 2016 and 2020 and had Bernie win. They could've given Yang a fair shake in the debates rather than cutting his mic, giving him terribly low amounts of speaking time, and then having the Shark Tank guy go on about the dignity of work and how basic income is a crappy idea right after.
Really, we live in a dystopia. We act like we're free, but we're not really free. The narratives of the country are controlled by powerful forces with a vested interest in the status quo and remaining a relatively right wing, pro capitalist country. They've incited the right into insanity, and the left into moderation. And that's why our country is such a dumpster fire. We cant have nice things, and anyone who fights for nice things is mercilessly crushed by the political establishment.
And then they have the gall to lecture us about what the voters want. Yeah, you manufactured their consent, are you proud? It just sickens me.
Either way, I'm not gonna stop arguing for what I believe in, and voting for what I believe in. Everyone else can screw off as far as I'm concerned. I'll be ready when you leave the cave.
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