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“elitist” - I think we can’t have a meaning discussion since I hold that term as a positive. I also generally worry that criticisms of pomposity are veiled anti-intellectualism. While “neoliberal” might be a fair criticism of Gore (maybe, depending), taking the assumption for granted, given the options there was no non-neoliberal option, only a choice between two neoliberals or a protest vote abdicating agency.
Given the fact that Clinton was focusing on OBL and Al Qaida, which the Bush admin dropped, there’s no guaranteed 9/11 in a Gore pres. if we’re playing the fictional alternate history game. There would have been a lot of other upsides to a Gore pres., though.
Anyway, I’m back to work. Toodles.
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You only have agency when voting for neo-liberals?
Except that the problem of communications between agencies was still a key part of the communications break down that allowed 9/11 to happen in the first place, yeah? That’s a systemic problem, not a partisan one - as is our 60 years of policy decisions that led to the formation of groups like AQ.
I would like to add that a third party which receives a large uptick in votes as compared to the prior election will be noticed, and a smart major party should want to shift its platform to attract the large bodies of support which at least two third parties currently hold (and in my opinion, will continue to hold throughout this election).
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Eh, I certainly believe there are a good many ways to achieve change, write-ins or (good god) not voting for any items on the ballot will not achieve that end. They don’t feed back into a system, they don’t make a person less complicit.
But aren’t you assuming that the only legitimate activity then, is the ballot box? I disagree here. I think that putting pressure on politicians that represent you is also a key part of living in a democracy.
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I am not so much as stating that writeins are a complete failure to put any pressure on politicians to represent your interests. “Legitimate” is less accurate than “effective”.
They are not going to effect change. I can not argue with how a person feels like voting, but I can certainly know that it doesn’t make the party care about your ideal platform.
As I lived in Florida, by that act I directly contributed to his win.
What about voting for a third party candidate who is on the ballot?
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How exactly did Nader reform the DNC?
Bernie’s changes happened not through actual action. Not foot stamping. We know the DLC corporatists exist. We need to replace them, not throw tantrums that don’t affect the status quo.
I wasn’t in the room, but if I had to hazard a guess there was a minor ‘how can we get these people to vote for us instead of the other side’ set of convos…which was probably much more dramatic with Perot… which does correspond somewhat with an apparent shift to the center-right (Think Jimmy Carter’d stand a chance now? Or would he be seen as to the left of Bernie?)
Such things have effects, it’s just that those effects are almost guaranteed to be seen as ‘opportunity’ by party strategists. Plus they have to be big enough to really scare them to make a difference IMHO.
Mind you, I don’t see ANYTHING turning either party into an actual party for the people… no more than I expect people who share well to start winning at Monopoly.
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How does voting for their anointed candidates lead to reform, though? Plus, what @William_Holz said… Do you think that there have been no changes to the party since the 2000 election? We can see marked changes in the GOP side of things regarding influence of libertarians and the moral majority coalition. Such a large bureaucracy can take years to change, which is why outsider politics actually matter in the grand scheme of things. Of course, those bureaucracies want to stay as they are, and that means change is often piecemeal and hard to come by.
Sander’s campaign, in contrast, did create changes, tangible ones, in the platform, though. We can actually see his impact as a candidate in the DNC platform. Whether those are material changes or just cosmetic, time will tell.
Again, I wish you’d stop with the language that seems to indicate that you think differences of opinion on how get get changes is the same as childish temper tantrums. I don’t think that’s either helpful or fair.
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if you were a mathematician you would have said “Hindsight is 1” : P
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I’m surprised Tebbit isn’t back in Govt already.
[quote=“Phrenological, post:183, topic:81337”]even if it gets us more Scalias and Thomases.
[/quote]
That’d be the Scalia who was unanimously confirmed without any opposition from Senate Democrats? And the Thomas who largely owed his confirmation to close Clinton ally Joe Biden?
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Very much so, but more generally I’d point out that just about anything could have tipped it one way or another, simply because the result was so close. It’s like six years later, when Colbert could say the senate was lost because of an old-school jingle.
In most circumstances a jingle could hardly be said to prevent a proper democratic choice, and neither would third party candidates, or even the petty anti-democratic measures that were going on. They apply here only because there was barely any such choice; to a first- or even second-order approximation, the electorate really didn’t know if they preferred Bush or Gore. Very nearly half the voters, taken through electoral weighting, would have their choice either way.
There are lots of reasons this metaphorical coin landed as it did, but I think the underlying one is that it was a toss in the first place. I’ve stated my thoughts on third party candidates, but I don’t think it’s the main issue. I feel like these arguments about strategy often lose site of the point that you shouldn’t expect there to be a way to consistently beat a party that keeps getting half the votes.
In the long run, that half is the main concern. If Trump wins, there will be lots of little things to point fingers at, but they all depend on him being a genuinely popular choice for president. That’s the real anchor on the democratic system to keep in mind.
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In a sense. In the modern US electoral system, you’ve got two meaningful choices that can affect the outcome of that election (assuming you live somewhere your vote counts - I never have). You also can give up your agency in making that choice by protest voting/whatever. Those protest votes might be fun, and might feel vindicating, but in practical terms have no effect on the system, and are an abdication of (a minuscule) agency. If we lived in a different system that might not be the case, but we don’t, we live in the broken morass we live in.
Sure, there’s no saying if an administration keeping a focus on preventing terrorist attacks would have prevented them vs. the administration we had that ignored the threat. Alternate history is necessarily fiction.
Voting for the one that will give the best possible Supreme replacements keeps that aspect of our system of government from degrading further.
But my point is primarily not that I believe supporting a mainstream candidate is somehow “reform”, but third party support after the party has selected their candidate is not an action that will better the quality of Democratic candidates or the platform. It is working outside, not within.
