So if you haven't been paying attention, the republicans can't get their crap sorted and get a new speaker of the house. Kevin McCarthy is the frontrunner, but around 20 republicans keep defecting and holding up the whole process in gridlock, wanting a much more extreme candidate. And while most people on the left are just enjoying the opportunity to grab the pop corn and unite around Hakeem Jeffries, the concept of "force the vote" has again come to the surface.
I've largely stayed out of the 2021 internal battles about force the vote. While I sympathized with the aim, I also recognize it's a risky strategy that could effectively dead end one's career as the democratic machine would use the opportunity to deny you any influence in congress and probably primary you next election, so I kind of defended AOC and the likes' decision NOT to force the vote.
But, this idea has once again come to the surface with this, with progressives saying SEE IF THEY CAN DO IT, WHY CAN'T WE?! I mean, it's a valid point, but I do want to discuss a common trend I've noticed between the left and the right. I've been in both parties over the course of my life, and I've seen these things from just about every angle I can think of, and the two parties handle their internal conflicts differently and have a much different culture. Republicans, they're very willing to get into internal power struggles and brawls with each other. They're willing to just start punching each other so to speak and fight for what they want. If a segment of voters isnt happy with a decision by the party, they'll fricking buck the party to get their way. And it works. As we know from reading "What's the Matter with Kansas", republicans had the same internal power struggles democrats often do between the moderates and more extreme people in their party, and the republican establishment basically lost because the voters weren't willing to tolerate their BS.
And that's how it always was. You think 2016 was the first time I ever thought of voting third party? I was a Ron Paul guy in 2008, and I heavily considered voting for Bob Barr on the libertarian ticket, or even Hillary Clinton who was a rather moderate democrat (so moderate I'd vote for her as a conservative). But then Obama being as extreme as I perceived him, I ended up just buying the Fox News and Rush Limbaugh narratives and falling in line. But I did consider it. I didn't like McCain, and after the election, the republicans ended up purging their moderates, becoming more extreme, and then I got alienated and left them because I realized their ideas are actually horrifying and do not work. They were trying to kill unemployment compensation to decrease taxes on "job creators" (yes, just what I need, more "opportunities" to serve rich buttholes), they were passing extreme abortion legislation similar to what they tried to do this past year. And I just could no longer follow them. But, I will say, they know how to get what they want, and the reason they are so successful in politics relative to the democrats is they know how to push for things they want, and get them. The democrats don't.
And this is why, as I shifted left, and started dealing with the "blue no matter who" primary culture within the democrats, I basically experienced a massive culture shock. The idea of just holding my nose and falling in line out of solidarity is just disgusting to me. My vote is my expression of who I want in government, and I won't just hand it over to would be tyrants who want to forcibly extract it from me. That's the kind of crap you read about third party countries doing with their fake "elections". But, most people fell in line. And third party voters like me were largely marginalized under the democratic propaganda machine's force.
But here's the thing. While the right is successful because the voters aren't afraid to go scorched earth on their politicians, the democrats' approach...works...because the culture surrounding how to handle their differences...works. There is a very strong "blue no matter who" sentiment on the left, and there is a lot of internal policing and shaming, where if you DARE point out that you are not going to support the democrats, god help you, because you're gonna be ripped hard for it. And the few people who are willing to take a stand end up just getting marginalized and shamed. Trust me, I've been on the receiving end of this. There's a huge reason why I literally wrote that massive FAQ style post explaining my decision and telling anyone who isn't happy with it to screw off. Because blue no matter whoers can't help but try to shove their arguments down the throats of people who don't wanna hear them. And I just got so sick of debating that subject I just post that article and move on (for the uninitiated).
Even then I have been forced to soften my position on the subject somewhat. This is largely because of how bad this asymmetry has gotten between the left and the right. On the right, these forces of allowing populists to run the party have caused them to get so extreme that they're literally becoming a threat to democracy. On the other hand, the democrats are so complacent that they are ineffective at fighting back in any meaningful way. After telling us for years, we cant do this, we cant do that, we need joe biden because he's "electable", once Biden got in, moderate holdouts like Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema made the situation worse by holding up just about anything Biden wanted to do. So the obnoxiousness of the centrist faction blocking stuff is getting so bad it's even alienating centrists. So Sinema is leaving the party, we picked up Fetterman, and things are a mess. And it's like, we're stuck. We are now in a situation where the right is becoming more and more extreme and dangerous to themselves and others, and the left's exhortation is that we better vote for them or they take over the country. And this puts us really in a tough spot. Even I have to cede my normal position somewhat due to how much someone like Donald Trump is a threat to democracy. As much as I would like to just spite the democrats and use scorched earth tactics to push them left, the fact that we are literally trending toward a fascist dictatorship is disturbing. And I really don't have an answer there. Because the solution to that problem is for the democrats to move left and shift the overton window away from them. But the democrats won't shift left causing them to have mediocre leaders who won't do anything. And the fact that we have mediocre leaders on the left who won't do anything sabotages the left and makes the right winning more of a threat. We can clearly see the results of this dynamic. The right marches toward fascism and becomes more unhinged and extreme each election cycle, and the left just fricking rolls over and enables it through a combination of sucking at governing themselves, and their voters losing enthusiasm and the democrats constantly going more and more "right" as a result, trying to compromise with the GOP.
So that brings us back to force the vote, should progressive democrats in congress threaten to stonewall the rest of the party to get their way? Well, given it's working with the GOP I can see an argument for it, and I could see that maybe we should have done it all along. Maybe Sanders should've countered Sinema and Manchin's BS on obstructionism to undermine their goals. Maybe rather than have the entire political landscape boil down to who is the most moderate senator, maybe the left should offset that. Maybe the left should push for concessions out of the democrats. I mean, let's face it, Hakeem Jeffries isn't going to be much of an improvement over Pelosi, and he has a history of crapping on the left in the past.
So I can see an argument for it. I'm still not going to shame progressives for NOT doing it, I feel progressives get too hostile and purity testy sometimes, but I am somewhat sympathetic to their arguments here.
At the same time, we do have to worry about becoming the right to some extent. Here's the problem with populism. It's a double edged sword. I mean, I get it, I'm a millennial, I've been crapped on by the economy, I have a very populist flair to my politics, but after watching how extreme some segments of the left have gotten in recent years, I really do think having a legitimate "tea party of the left" might have similar problems that the right's does. I mean, a lot of these people are very extreme and dogmatic. Their purity testing tends to go way too far, and they tend to hate anyone who isn't perfect. I would not pass the modern left's purity tests. Why? Because I'm not a LITERAL COMMUNIST. A lot of these people are becoming literal radical marxists who hate capitalism, whereas I would call myself a human centered capitalist and like Andrew Yang's original philosophy. But these guys hate UBI, they want jobs programs and guaranteed basic services instead, and their vision is just...not what I support. Even if we have some similar goals, like universal healthcare, free college, some sort of climate plan, a higher minimum wage, etc., I'm a "succdem" according to them (basically a derogatory term for "socdem" or social democrat used by communists). But even putting that side, I do tend to have some disagreements on policy with the rest of the left these days. I dont support a full on green new deal, but rather a smaller climate plan focused on fixing the problem without leaning hard into the "job guarantee" idea. I support a UBI, but these guys hate markets, showing any deviation from single payer is looked down upon despite the fact that I support it in principle but am more option to a public option alternative given the cost and my UBI aspirations. I mean, my UBI support and social libertarian ideology does change my ideal vision from progressives a bit, and they HATE people like me for it. They think yang is a sell out and a grifter (to be fair they might have a point nowadays), they hate me for having similar ideas. And let's not get into my non economic ideas. I'm a total craplib. I support Biden's foreign policy, I support our intervention in Ukraine, I support NATO, and im not so rabidly anti war I wanna cut our entire defense budget and open us up to attack from Russia and China. I'm even passively supportive of Israel in a "I dont care but geopolitics are geopolitics" sort of way. On social issues, while I'm progressive, I'm not woke, and wokies HATE me for that. It's not enough I agree with them like 80% of the time for different reasons, the fact that I don't agree with them 100% of the time for the exact same reasons makes me deserving of their scorn.
And what's the problem with this? Well, if you give a movement like this a couple decades to fester, we might come to a point some day where these leftists pose as much of a threat to American democracy as the fascists do now. I've seen these guys radicalize in only 7 years. Imagine what they would do if they got power and wanted to implement their ideas. Some of them would literally try to transition us away from capitalism and impose crazy leftist ideas that dont work. I mean, with me, at least I try to put some data to my ideas. I have progressive ideas, and I know that they can work. And I can argue for them using posts I've written on here. But I've also been very critical of the ideologues and extremists. Because they take things too far and their ideas are literally potentially damaging.
So it's a balance, yes, we want the democrats to be more progressive than they are now. The crap libs really are awful and can't hope to pass anything because their centrist circlejerk is so extreme that they end up becoming a self parody after a while. But then the extremists really are extreme, and I am getting kind of scared of some of these people.
So yes, we need more movement left, but how much is debatable. I would argue there is a point where we've gone too far and need to course correct. The centrists are one extreme, but the extreme progressives are the other. It's like there isn't much room in the modern discourse for just your bog standard social democrat or even a social libertarian like I am. The establishment is too far right, the populists are too far left, and I'm just stuck in the middle hating everyone.
Still, given where we are, is force the vote a good idea? Eh, I'm open to it. If we can use it to shift the discourse left than we should. I guess the best I can do is just ally myself with the faction that makes the most sense at the time and then course correct later. I truly am an independent by this point.
Oh, and if anyone wants to know what Forward's response is to this mess, they're a joke too, calling for more centrism and compromise. Amazing how they went from being the best third party I've ever seen to an absolute joke overnight. But that is what it is. When I say I'm an independent and hate everyone, I really mean it at this point.
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