So, the blue no matter whoers among us are sharing this article about how the dems are gonna move right if Harris loses as a scare tactic to push stein voters to vote for Harris. I cant read it as im not a vox subscriber, but I'm familiar with this argument and I wanna address it.
Here's the thing. You're darned if you do and darned if you don't. The democrats are gonna move to the right BECAUSE THEY WANNA MOVE TO THE RIGHT. They will use ANY AND ALL outcomes to the 2024 as a pretext to do so. This is one of the things that's hitting me hard in my "post vote clarity" and while I can't really regret my harris vote as I did it for a good cause (save democracy, stop fascism), part of me feels dirty voting for the democrats. Because let's be honest, they're a corrupt organization that doesn't represent my values but tries to extract their vote from me election after election. And normally, I don't concede. This time, I did, because the circumstances require it, but it doesn't stop me from feeling a bit dirty about it. I'll still say if you can vote and havent yet, YES, VOTE FOR HARRIS, but let's be frank, do it to save democracy, don't do it because you like or endorse her or whatever. Do it because you dont want this to be the last election.
If the democrats win elections, here's what they do: "CENTRISM WINS! CENTRISM WINS! YOU SEE YOU STUPID PROGRESSIVES, CENTRISM WINS ELECTIONS AND WE DONT NEED YOU AND BLAH BLAH BLAH!" I watched this happen in 2018, when the dems made massive gains in the mid terms. I knew it would happen if clinton won 2016, which is why i couldnt stomach voting for her, why give a party that's antagonistic toward me my consent to be governed by then, which they'll then use to tell me that they won because of centrism? And they'll do it in 2024. I had high hopes for Harris at first, that she would buck the party establishment and run a bit left, but let's face it. She's more centrist than Biden in some ways. She abandoned universal healthcare. She's running around with liz cheney and promising to put republicans in her administration, she's pushing this "opportunity economy" BS that with me makes me cringe at the very term. And yeah. She has values that dont represent me. I figured she would be better than the other dems we couldve had, but it seems like no matter who we got, it was gonna be a centrist dem. And Harris is falling in line with the rest of them. I personally think this is why she's losing. The honeymoon period is over, the new car smell wore off, and now we're facing the reality that she's not any better than Joe Biden, she's just 20 years younger.
But yeah, I could tell, when the dems were trying to oust Biden, the centrists were licking their lips at the prospect of pulling a coup. They think Biden went TOO far, that he got TOO progressive, and they're pissed he gave progressives a seat at the table. Not the whole table, not any real power, just a seat at it. He hired progressive staffers. He didn't just make sure everyone was in lockstep with the party. He tried to actually do the big tent thing and mean it, oh noes, the horror. But the thing is, the party and the people who run it dont want that. They want CENTRISM. THey're die hard third way "new democrats" from the 1990s. Clintonites. The people who lick their lips at the idea of getting those mccain and romney voters into the party while leaving progressives with the same bitter pill election after election that they gotta vote for their crap candidates or else. And IMO, the only realistic solution long term is to say no.
NOT that I advocate for doing that this time. I wanna make that clear. Please, for the sake of democracy, vote for Harris, but recognize the situation you're in.
But yeah. At some point, the left has to say NO to these people. They have to be willing to buck them and go third party and tell them THIS IS NOT THE WAY.
Now, the democrats, even when they lose, they'll still say it's because we need centrism. They'll say that we appealed to the left too much and we need to run even MORE to the center to appeal to republicans harder. It's like they dont understand, enthusiasm wins elections and their brand of politics, while popular enough among the party faithful to win primaries, isn't popular enough to win the general, and a lot of independent voters HATE that crap. This election is gonna be decided by the so called "double haters", the ones who hate both sides, and those guys arent necessarily centrist, if anything they seem to have a populist streak and want something new and different. They probably went for Obama in 2008 for hope and change, and then trump in 2016 for MAGA, and maybe Biden in 2020 because MAGA ended up sucking. But now they think the dems suck so they want MAGA back, at least that's where they appear to be swinging. You know? They seem to want change, but they also dont know what change they want. So they go back and forth from party to party and candidate to candidate to vote for something new. And right now, that's trump.
Honestly, if we want to align these voters, we need a vision that RESONATES. This crap doesn't. Being 4 more years of biden doesnt. Galavanting around with liz cheney doesn't. The "opportunity economy" doesn't. it might appeal to this mythical suburban moderate the dems are designing their entire election strategy around, but most part outside of hardcore democratic partisans (aka blue maga, resist libs, blue no matter whoers, etc.), most people hate this stuff. You got 1/3 of the country that likes this stuff, 1/3 that's maga, and 1/3 that's in the middle. Exact proportions may vary but you get the idea. Point is you need 50%+ of people and this...doesn't get it.
Either way, yeah. The dems' motto might as well be "the beating will continue until moral improves". If they win, they'll say it's because of centrism and double down on it. If they lose, they'll say it's because they need mroe centrism and double down on it. You can't win with these people. Just screw them all.
Vote for them this time because democracy is on the line, but honestly, we need to do better than this.
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