I'm starting to really like Jamelle Bouie's writing on politics. While He still essentially has a liberal perspective (as opposed to a radical or left perspective) he's really good at identifying and criticizing liberal process, technicality and hypocrisy-based criticisms of the right.
These are criticisms that don't address the gulf in values, morality, or outcomes, but focus instead on things like finding hypocrisies, or showing how the right is failing to live up to the constitution. 1/
The problem with simply showing that the right is hypocritical is that they know this and do not care. They don't want to treat people equally or apply rules fairly.
Take the whole supreme court mess. The hypocrisy is staggering! "You blocked Obama from appointing and yet did not apply the same standard for Trump, instead you enabled his appointments!"
To this the right says "Of course. We are trying to win. What on earth are you playing at?"
And for what it's worth I think we could use more thinking like this in liberal circles. The left isn't big enough or popular enough to lead the conversation, making our best hope at surviving and growing being that more moderate people wake up to the zero sum game the right is playing.
There will be no norms, no decorum, no respect for the integrity of institutions. They will stretch the letter of the law to meet their ends, and when that fails ignore the laws.
@futurebird this is a really big distinction and it's hard to not be on one "side" or the other - the right is trying "to win". But what does it mean when the left declares moderate candidates like Biden and even...Pelosi (horrors!), who "can win", to be total non-starters; the only way forward is "overthrow the whole system" - which is how these various 3rd party candidates come about, who essentially work against the D's in states that dont have ranked choice
No one serious, or not taking astroturf money is really doing this.
The most significant player doing this is Dr. West, who announced a presidential run to a massive collective shrug from the left.
What is a non-starter at the moment is thinking that voting alone is a solution to any of the issues. It's more important to keep boosting the growing labor movement, organizing locally, and maybe electing some people you really like at that level.
@futurebird OK! I hope you are right. I thought that Jill Stein, Nader etc. really helped tilt the scales the wrong way in extremely tight contests. I just find that to be very frustrating
3rd party voters are complex and hard to predict. I think many of them show up to vote if there is a 3rd party candidate they like but would not vote otherwise.
US elections have such low turn out it's much more about who shows up than it is about swaying voters from one candidate to another.
Trump managed to trick some people in 2016 by making vague anti-war noises and by pissing off establishment media which some people find delightful. He's lost a lot of those people forever.
@futurebird@zzzeek This is the issue that gets me the most. For most of my lifetime, voter turnout among registered voters has been around the 50% level. I absolutely understand the various voter suppression policies that have helped with this, and have kicked into high gear as Republicans see themselves losing the demographic advantage, but that doesn’t account for all the nonvoters. Is it just everyday cynicism? Too hard to vote? Other? 🗳️
In some cases it's that it is too hard to vote. The locations change, people are removed from rolls, after moving, you have to re-register etc.
In places like NYC where voting is frankly pretty easy, often there isn't much to vote about. Close elections are rare, so a lot of the low turn out is from very blue or red areas where showing up doesn't change much.
@futurebird
Texas has enacted election laws whose effect is to make urban voters have to wait in long lines to vote, while rural voters can be in and out in 5 minutes.
There is also a strong fatalistic attitude ("the Republicans are going to win anyway").
If you're certain that your vote won't change anything, and you know voting is going to be an ordeal, AND you think Democrats won't help you either..? Then a lot of people will not vote.
@futurebird
OTOH, in the country, where I live, there are flagpoles everywhere with:
blue-line flag
Texas separatist flags
Taxes Enough Already TEA
Trumpist/MAGA flags
Like, huge yard displays. Proud fascists.
When I went to vote in the 2022 Primary, they directed me to the Republican table w/o asking. I had to object. This is public shaming -- it's what you have to do to vote against dictators in sham democracies.
In case anyone thinks there are lines in the cities in TX because cities have more people, in NYC I have only ever waited in line once 20 years: 2016 for about 10min.
And that was more like a party than a line, everyone wanted to vote for the first black president (south bronx)
I do wonder why that 10min line isn't there every time. Further, I suspect if the line was there often they would increase the number of polls. I never wait. No one should.
A few years ago I posted a question on /askreddit “why don’t more young people vote?” I got a LOT of replies and about 98% said voting is “too inconvenient,” AND the respondent would absolutely vote if it were online and secure, like bank or credit transactions.
I’m disabled and could not vote if CA didn’t have mail-in ballots. It’s time to adjust to people’s needs. We haven’t had a higher turnout than 67% since 1900, and Midterms average about 45%.
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