So, I've been noticing a lot of streamers like Destiny, Vaush, Emma Vigeland from Minority report, etc. are in DC this week. Cenk Uygur is also there and interviewed Ro Khanna on why nothing gets done in washington. It was an interesting video but not much I have to add to. Would recommend it though.
The stuff I wanted to focus more on are the panel discussions with the ones I mentioned above. I admit I didnt watch the whole thing. It got boring pretty quickly, but what little I tuned into seemed frustrating to me. Like, the whole point of these discussions are to try to stop leftist infighting and to produce a united front against the republicans. And in one of them talked about why there is left wing infighting. And the answer went something like "well leftists focus on morals and end up disagreeing with each other while right wingers all serve capital and its easier to fall in line."
...STOP. JUST STAHP!
My god. This is why the left doesn't get anywhere. Because so often they dont actually understand politics. And instead of discussing why streamers do infighting with each other and how we need to unite, maybe we need to understand a little political science to understand why things are the way they are.
The right has the same divisions the left does. It has hardliners on economic issues, libertarians, it has social conservatives who act as culture warriors, and it has moderates who the more extreme factions call "RINOs" (republican in name only) who they run out of their party.
The left has almost the same divisions. It has progressives and socialists. It has identity politics people and SJWs, it has its own form of libertarians, and it has the moderate sellouts no one really likes but who seem to run everything in the left's case.
Heck, I would argue that the fact that on the right the hardliners are in charge, while on the left, the moderates are in charge, is why there is asymmetry in American politics.
But yeah, the reason the right is so successful is because in the 1980s Ronald Reagan was able to cobble together an enduring coalition social conservatives, libertarians, economic conservatives, etc. And these factions dont necessarily agree with each other. Libertarians and social conservatives may be at odds for example, but at the end of the day, all of these factions generally all come to the table...because they all get something out of it. The economic conservatives and libertarians get low taxes, the american first people get to kick out the immigrants, the social conservatives get SCOTUS justices that drive conservative supreme court decisions, etc.
And the reason why the left is so unsuccessful in American politics relatively speaking is their own coalition. As I've stated, the democrats are made up of three factions. You got a neoliberal moderate wing known as the "third way', who believes in compromise with the GOP as a matter of principle. Bill Clinton and his ilk were considered political geniuses after two decades of political disaster for bringing together this coalition of moderates, minorities, and progressives. The other two factions are the progressives, and the identity politics people/minority vote btw. But that's generally what the dems rely on to win elections.
But the dem coalition isn't very stable...because the third way/centrist faction and the progressive faction are directly at odds. The centrists want to not do anything progressive and believe in being pragmatic, and playing the political game, and often LACK morality if anything. They're ALL politics and compromises as a matter of principle, and the left ends up just being the whipping boy of the coalition. They often get their interests sold out and thrown under the bus while the centrist faction just runs the show. And then when progressives stop showing up, they start losing elections, and the centrists start bullying progressives to show up, shaming them for daring to vote for other parties or not vote at all.
If you dont notice, this very much resembles an abusive relationship, because it is one. The entire democratic strategy is to ignore the left as much as possible and then bully, browbeat, and gaslight the left into voting for them or else. Which is why i have such an adversarial relationship with the democratic party and why im the last person you'll hear talk about unity. Because F these guys. Why should we vote for them when they dont serve us?
That's the nature of coalitions. The parties need to keep their factions happy enough to continue voting for them, and if they don't, then the coalition falls apart. And all coalitions do eventually fall apart. Throughout history, we have alignments and realignments every so often, where coalitions shift and change, break apart and reform. And I'd argue since 2016 we've been undergoing a potential party realignment. I'll discuss the future in a minute, but first, I want to discuss the past.
You wanna know what made FDR such an effective force in politics? In 1932 there was a party realignment. And we got the new deal coalition. The new deal coalition was a coalition of voters so powerful it changed politics in its wake, and allowed the left to pass progressive legislation it never was able to pass before. We got the new deal, workers rights, and all kinds of great things out of it. But it too, was relatively unstable. It had a progressive faction, and a moderate one. With the moderate one being southern democrats who were against expanding racial rights. In order to pass his legislation, FDR and the like often ended up throwing minority groups under the bus to make the racists happy.
But then in the 1960s Johnson decided that he could win over black voters by passing civil rights legislation and did just that. And that....caused the southern whites to fracture the new deal coalition by leaving it. You can argue the morality of such actions all day, and what Johnson did was moral, but it also destroyed the new deal coalition. It floundered from 1968 onward, only winning in 1976 when Nixon's scandals were a thing that reflected badly on the democrats...and then reagan sealed the deal with his coalition.
As such, you can see morality has little to do with winning in politics. It's about coalitions, and keeping coalitions happy. And right now the left is in a position within a hostile democratic party in which people wanna bully people into voting dem, and that's exactly what the likes of vaush and the majority report are for. Those guys HATE third party voters with a passion. And they're trying to show a united front in 2024 so they're going on about unity and blah blah blah. I don't buy it. And neither should you.
HOWEVER, I will say this, it is probably in our best interests to vote for Biden in 2024. Because any hope at fighting back against the democratic party long term will be crushed if the republicans win, and then destroy american democracy by turning us into a one party state. The GOP coalition has been dying for a while, but between voter suppression, and quite frankly, the dems not motivating their own voters to come out enough for democratic candidates, they're remaining viable and if they win, they could make it easier to win in the future despite demographics going against them simply by suppressing democratic votes, overturning elections so they dont matter, what have you. The modern GOP doesnt give an F about even the veneer of democracy any more, and we should fight them with everything we got just to show that that's okay. THEN we can deal with the democrats.
Also, it's not like Biden has been bad. Child tax credit, build back better, $15 minimum wage, paid family leave, union protections, student debt forgiveness, etc. Even if he didnt get to implement most of these things, he's tried at various points in his presidency, and failed...mostly for reasons beyond his control. Dont fault him for that. Lay the blame where it belongs. On the GOP as well as DINOs like Manchin and Sinema.
But yeah, honestly, i support biden for the general in 2024 simply because, it's in our best interests to support him. Doesnt mean I always agree, but I do believe this is a year we gotta suck it up and play defensively. We can worry about vision, policy, etc. in 2028, but right no, defeating trump is the priority or we wont have a democracy left to work within.
Either way, pushing unity for unity's sake and going on like "cant we all just get along" isnt gonna help. Blaming lefties for being too "moral" isnt gonna help. Honestly, the left is in a hostile relationship with the democratic party. let's admit that. But let's also admit that that's not the biggest priority on the chopping block right now. Trump is. Because we can't do ANYTHING we want if the nutcase wins and overthrows democracy. Yes, the dems need to be taught a lesson, but Trump first. Then we worry about the democrats.
And that's my appeal. Im not gonna argue unity for the sake of unity, Im gonna argue "for the love of god if we dont do this we might not have a democracy left to work within in future elections". It's a shame that it's come to this, but for once, the whole "this is the most important election in your life time" might actually be accurate. It's not just a dem talking point right now, take it from the dude who hates the dems. It's for real.
So yeah. When we talk unity for 2024, that's what we need to hone in. This isn't us all just sitting around and singing kumbaya, this is a cease fire for the purpose of defeating an even larger enemy. Once the threat passes and democracy is no longer in immediate danger, do whatever you want. Write in Mickey Mouse or Karl Marx, I don't care. We still have our differences, our differences will continue to exist, and if the left wants a more LASTING coalition, they need to either bring the left to the table in a serious long lasting way to keep them voting democrat, or they need to replace them with another faction to pad out their numbers. Ya know? This whole "party unity" crap isnt gonna work. ANd if it does, it means the left just gave up. But just this one time, let's freaking make sure the bigger threat to democracy is defeated before we start messing with coalitions. We can negotiate this stuff in 2028.
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