So, Dean phillips came up on a forum I'm on, and a lot of the response i got to him was very negative. It read like concern trolling. First, people said that he wasn't a serious candidate, and then people said that democracy is too much at stake to have anyone challenge biden in the primary, and we need to rally behind Biden.
And I'm going to be blunt. I HATE these arguments. The dems pulled this crap in 2016 and 2020 vs Bernie/Yang and their supporters, and it's just SO hacky and dishonest. Even if you believe that, in 2024, you should vote blue no matter who because you think Trump is too dangerous to be let back into office (and I'm leaning that way this election cycle), that doesn't mean that we shouldn't have a FAIR AND COMPETITIVE PRIMARY.
Heck, I'm going to be even blunter. This kind of concern trolling is counter productive. A HUGE reason i ended up going with Jill Stein in 2016 and Howie Hawkins in 2020 is explicitly BECAUSE of crap like this. Because my sense of democracy is so strong that I refuse to bow to anyone who attempts to artificially limit my options or try to bully me out of my perspective. This behavior just makes me want to double down and vote green in the general, JUST TO SPITE THE DEMS.
Seriously, dems, the more you try to force people into backing biden, the less I wanna back Biden. And I'm to the point that if we didn't full on have a literal fascist who has previously attempted to overthrow democracy itself running on the republican ticket, I would be perfectly fine with letting the dems to lose again, and again, just to prove a point. I won't do that this time because Trump IS effectively an outright fascist in my mind at this point, and I absolutely CANNOT tolerate or overlook the Jan 6th crap, but let's face it, the enemy of my enemy isn't necessarily my friend. And any alliance with the dems that I have is somewhat shaky and subject to change in the future. And a lot of it IS because of crap like this.
Either way, do people NOT understand that a primary isn't the same thing as the general election? Dems have this idea that if ANYONE challenges their establishment candidate, that they MUST be threatening the stability of the party. CHILL, it's a PRIMARY, and that's kind of the point, for the candidates to duke it out so the best person wins. For some reason, the democrats dont like their candidates challenged, because obviously that means the party MUST be divided going into the general, meaning they won't win.When, if anything, the big reason the dems end up being divided is because there are different ideologies within the democratic party, and a lot of them dont appreciate being suppressed.
Heck, this whole leftist movement is a thing because of the original sin of 2016. Ya know, all the radical marxists screaming they won't back "genocide joe" because of his support of israel? Yeah. The reason we got a lot of people who got this extreme was because the democratic party so alienated some people that they lost faith in the system and become radicalized. Trust me, I know how it works. I was a bernie bro, and ive been watching these guys over the years. One day it's "the dems screwed us" and the next its "peaceful change within the system is impossible, only a marxist revolution will save us." As JFK once said, those who make peaceful change impossible make violent revolution inevitable.
Since 2016, American democracy is coming apart at the seams. Yes, to some extent it's because of literal fascist elements like trump, but what's driving people to both revolutionary and reactionary ideologies is the refusal of the political establishment to allow organic change. To actually allow democracy to prevail where if people want things like a $15 minimum wage or universal healthcare, the system actually gives that to them. If you can't accomplish that, then some people are going to go off and become radical.
As for me, I might be more radical than the dems, but keep in mind, I'm also far more moderate than most leftists and i actually try to work within the system, even if it is clear the odds are stacked against me. Because revolution is dangerous. And we really dont want that. And these tribalistic extremist nutcases are actually dangerous.
What we need is someone like an FDR to save democracy. Again. And that change has to come from within the democratic party.
I don't deny Joe Biden has tried to do some good things, but he ain't no FDR. To some extent, he never tried to be, and to some extent, what he did try to do was largely roadblocked. I understand that. But uh...I read the poll numbers, you guys realize the dude has like a 31% approval rating, right? You realize most people don't actually want Biden to run again, right? You realize trump is like 5-6 points down from where he was in 2020, where he barely beat trump, and that I only give him a 11.5% chance of winning, right? Seriously, this guy is Jimmy Carter all over again, holy crap. This is bad. Very bad. These aren't numbers you wanna go into 2024 with.
And sure, even I said it, I'm not sure if Marianne Williamson or Dean Phillips would stand a better chance. To some extent the people just dislike the democrats in general, and I'm not sure if a change in direction would help. However, wanna know what would be a good way to figure it out? A FAIR PRIMARY!
Seriously, we don't even have polling data for Williamson or Phillips vs Trump. And sure, they have terrible numbers vs Biden, but to be fair, who the heck knows who they are? Unless you regularly follow anti establishment politics, you're not gonna know. Biden's high numbers come from the fact that most would prefer the guy they know over the guy they dont, and because most of those who call themselves democrats enough to register as dems in the primaries are the types who explicitly do like Biden. Like they are mostly that 31% who do approve. Which is why Yang wants a more open primary system, and I have to agree.
But that's the thing. We don't know if Dean or Biden would catch on, and we never will, unless we have a primary. They're like schrodinger's cat, except instead of the cat being dead or alive, it's whether williamson or phillips do better than Biden. Until the polling is observed and we have a fair system, they exist in a period of superposition where we dont know, and given how in 2020, Biden was objectively the most electable candidate, people are gonna go into 2024 thinking that, including me, because that's all the data we have.
Of course...if we went into 2020 with only the data we had from 2016, the logic would be that bernie would BTFO trump in a landslide if allowed to run, because in 2016 he was very strong vs trump relative to hillary, while in 2020 he was similar to biden at best, and a bit weaker at worst (especially in states like arizona and georgia).
So while my posts on Biden being the most electable are based on limited data and conventional logic, we won't actually know, unless there's a serious primary where we give someone else a serious chance.
But the dems don't want that. They seem to want to choose their candidates in smoke filled back rooms, and the concept of the primary is merely ceremonial. It's just something they have to get through and pretend to go along with, but in reality they have their finger on the scale the whole time. They tilt the process to justify the outcome they wanted in the first place.
In any other election cycle, I would be making a bigger deal about this. I voted green in 2016 and 2020, and honestly, I think the democratic party needs a reckoning where they realize it's not THEM who are the true owners of democracy, it's WE, THE PEOPLE.
However, that shouldn't happen this time. Not when an actual lunatic who tried to overthrow the entire system of democracy is the opponent of these guys. There is too much at stake. And yes. I know the dems say that every election, and every election people fall for it, and now they're getting fed up, but, this really isn't the right time to protest vote. It REALLY isn't. Let's stop our democracy from going full weimar republic before we talk about getting the dems out here and proving a point to the.
Still, to some extent, I can't blame people. I'm fed up with this crap too. I want better than Biden. Biden is okay, he's tolerable, he's done some things I like, but at this point, Dean phillips is an improvement, and Marianne Williamson is de facto running on close to my ideal platform.
But yeah. My personal electoral strategy for 2024, I WILL be voting in the primary, I WILL be advocating for Marianne Williamson. But if(when) she doesn't win, I'm going to just back biden to keep power out of the hands of the republicans, who are the psychos from Rammstein's angst music video. It's all I can do at this point. This election cycle has been a depressing mess. No one actually wants biden, the alternative on the GOP side is trump. It's another election cycle of being screwed. Normally I'd consider a third party run if the right candidate arose, but i just ain't doing that with Trump on the ballot, and with most "leftists" running third party being too psycho for me to support on the other end of things.
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