Do Democrats also promote Candidates that will work against voter's interests?

wrath
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The 2 party system is to blame, and it directly results from our reliance on winner-takes-all to decide who wins an election. People must choose from only two parties, or else cede the election to a possible minority vote winner via the spoiler effect.

This has two very hostile and negative effects on the democracy:

  1. Voters MUST vote strategically – e.g. not vote for the candidates who they prefer, and instead must vote for the candidate who will win. Unfortunately, strategic voting is HIGHLY nonintuitive, and the insistence that they vote strategically – i.e. “anyone but candidate X” – confuses, disenfranchises, and disempowers voters. Democracy is about choice, and strategic voting negates that.

  2. Invariably this results in a Two Party system, consisting of two parties who literally have little incentive to work hard on behalf of the voters. You’ll witness anomalous candidates like Obama and Trump who are able to ride in on waves of popular appeal from time to time, but most of the time the parties focus on what’s best for their donors.

E.g. Obama was allowable because he was a liberal centrist, but much of the opposition to his more expansive vision for a healthcare system came from his own party, a pattern which would repeat itself a handful of times over his 8 years. Bernie was blatantly disallowed because, despite his popular appeal, the party apparatus found his rhetoric threatening to the corporate donors.

Now the GOP’s story is very interesting. Instead of mere failure to work on behalf of their constituents, they decided back in the 70’s to wag the dog instead: they crafted a popular narrative of revulsion to Civil Rights and anything even loosely resembling “liberalism”. Their think tanks worked overtime to create wedge issues around abortion, guns, taxation, and race, and with the rise of talk radio and Fox News they were able to saturate and own their voters with a consistent and self-reinforcing narrative. Gone from the discussion were such questions as “who shipped American jobs overseas?” and “why is my healthcare so expensive?” replaced by false narrative of “Big Government liberalism running amok with your tax dollars!”

When social media came along with its propensity to echo-chambering, targeted messaging, and Russian trolling things got even WEIRDER for the GOP. The memes their think tanks had lovingly crafted over the past couple of decades mutated into conspiracy theories, massive paranoia, out-in-the-open racism, xenophobia, and fear. Trump is the bastard offspring of Fox News propaganda, social media, and foreign intrusion.

But the problem I see again and again is that we tend to focus blame on the parties or individual actors: “THE DEMOCRATS are the problem!!!” or “Trump is reprehensible and repugnant in every way!” instead of the simple mechanical reason why we’re stuck with two parties in the first place: winner takes all.

There are some states and cities conducting their local elections using Ranked Choice Voting (nee Instant Runoff Voting), which seems like an easy-to-implement and attractive alternative to Winner Takes All, and which would loosen the grip of (if not entirely eliminate) the two party hegemony. RCV eliminates the spoiler effect, and allows voters to choose a number of candidates ranked according to their preferences.

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Has moved. (Kind of; Our Revolution is a 501(c)(4) that can take dark money, and Common Cause has accused it of doing so.) Nobody has won the presidency in modern times with this approach, so there’s no proof that it can be done, and it is just bizarre to make this the lynchpin of an attack on Biden.

With respect to M4A, universal health care was a central plank in the Democratic platform from the time of FDR; Carter’s nomination over Kennedy was the first nail in that, as his subsequent loss led to the rise of the DLC, which dominated and distorted the party until Obama’s win (with Biden at his side) initiated a swing back. We’ll get there. It might or might not happen in a Biden administration, but he’ll be a solid step in that direction. He has already called for free, no-questions-asked universal health care for corona-related illness, and many of the arguments he gave for that apply to all illness. The fact that he won’t do a complete 180 degree reversal right at this moment from his campaign position to that of an opponent who he beat is not a rational litmus test.

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well there’s your problem

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This is so blatantly, obviously false that it doesn’t actually need a refutation, but here are a bunch anyway.

You are actually arguing that the party that favored slavery in 1860 has only ever moved to the right from that position.

You’re arguing that the party supporting the KKK during Reconstruction has only moved to the right from that position.

But let’s look at more recent changes. You’re arguing that the Democratic Party of 2020 is to the right of the 1992 Democratic Party on LGBTQ issues. You’re arguing that the Democratic Party of 2020 is to the right of the 1984 Democratic Party on nationalized healthcare. You’re arguing that the Democratic Party of 2020 is to the right of the Democratic Party of 1920 on the social safety net.

I get that you’re frustrated that it’s not moving left fast enough for your taste, but COME THE FUCK ON.

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To be pedantic about it, “ranked choice” is a method of voting, and “instant runoff” is a method of counting ranked-choice votes. There are other possible counting schemes, and an established gaggle of political scientists arguing about why to use one or another.

People tend to introduce the subject with instant-runoff because it’s relatively easy to understand.

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Despite what you may be feeling, I am making no “attack” on Biden. I am characterizing his statements as evidence that he is not working for the voters, at least not to a degree that satisfies me in the context of the DNC forcing him upon us - the theme of this topic remember.

Its not a “litmus test”. And no, I don’t think its unreasonable for him in the midst of a Pandemic to conclude, you know what, Bernie was right on this. How could anybody not. I also don’t think it makes sense to take steps of moderation when the Republicans will willingly go from duplicitous compassionate conservative to border line nazi narcissist. Take a lesson from the right - do what you believe. You might find it builds your support.

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Lets just vote it out, the point of the thread:
Do Democrats also promote Candidates that will work against voter’s interests?

  • Yes Democrats do this.
  • No Democrats never do this.

0 voters

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The number of logical fallacies this hits is off the charts.

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Well, this is interesting. I wonder how the DNC and voters will react to it:

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OK, clarification. I’m talking about in the last 40-50 years.

Start off with the Powell Memorandum. No alternatives to predatory capitalism can be permitted or even discussed. We can work with genocidal authoritarian governments but never, ever Socialist ones. Yeah, Carter gave Powell a seat on the SCROTUS for that one.

Then there’s the official Democratic strategy. For decades we’ve been told that the Dems have to “triangulate” and allow “no airspace on the right” which means always being just slightly less terrible than the worst of the Republicans. They have systematically defunded LIberals and Progressives and have purged them from the Inner Party and the ranks of the superdelegates replacing them with corporate and oil industry lobbyists. We are told that any movement to the Left “must be incremental” and that the US will always be a “center-right country.”

That is a horrific change from the New Deal, the Great Society and the rest.

Starting with the “New Democrats” the Dems always moved right on every single economic and tax issue. They started off by fucking over Labor and giving everything to the multinationals intentionally continuing Reagan’s work. Obama doubled down with horrible deals like KORUS. When Indiana effectively destroyed organized Labor Obama didn’t “put on his comfortable shoes” and stand on the picket line like he promised. He said nothing.

They knelt down and sucked the bankers’ and brokers’ dicks gutting the New Deal protections and opening up new avenues for looting - Republican policies from a few years earlier. They passed anti-gay laws that Republicans didn’t even consider passing. They passed laws tailor-made to incarcerate huge numbers of Black and Native people. Their foreign policy has consistently been hawkish and followed the Republicans almost slavishly. Biden was personally responsible for destroying bankruptcy protections when the Republicans were short on votes. The Clintons and Obama (who told Progressives “I’m not your guy”) waged unprecedented war on whistleblowers. The Dems wanted exactly what the Republicans did when they tried to abolish digital privacy and only stopped because the financial industry squawked. It’s been a constant move to the Right.

Human rights? Remember those? Obama and H. Clinton screeched about “moving forward not backward” and ignored war crimes and crimes against humanity refusing to obey the law that required criminal investigation. Dubya just stood by while it happened. The DLC Democrats actively protected it just like the followed the Republicans’ lead and protected the home-stealers and mortgage fraudsters. Obama even gave a speech praising the derivative traders who destroyed the economy and brought about the Great Recession. All of this represents a constant rightward move by the Party.

Our new automatic austerity? That’s a Democratic policy that follows Republican leads. Obamacare was Dolecare with a few extras like taxing insurance policies if they were too good and didn’t force the holders to pay enough out of pocket. The Stimulus started off bad and rushed from there into Republian arms abandoning saving Main Street and turning into about 45% tax cuts at the same time the Democrats abandoned Bill Clinton’s modest attempts at returning some sanity to our tax structure and made Bush’s giveaway to the rich permanent.

So on. So forth. The Democrats have moved to the Right for almost half a century while threatening “the assholes of the professional Left” and “Labor’s raw muscle tactics” and pretty much anything other than making things shittier for most of us just a little bit slower than the Greedy Old Pedos.

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Meanwhile fast forward to 2020 and Dems are all “thank you sir, may I have another” and give away our future because they’ve been frightened by “Sanders won’t beat trump!”, or “but Sanders heart attack!” So instead of a candidate that actually pledged to work for US, we’ll just go with another old centrist who won’t threaten the status quo…

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The DNC didn’t force Biden on anybody. More people voted for Biden than voted for Sanders. They had many reasons for doing so. There are probably some people who voted for Biden despite potentially benefiting more from Sanders’s plans. There are probably some people who voted for Sanders despite potentially benefiting more from Biden’s plans. I assume, for instance, that millionaire Bernie Sanders likely voted for democratic socialist Bernie Sanders despite the fact that democratic socialist Bernie Sanders’s plans seem likely to have a negative impact on millionaire Bernie Sanders’s wealth.

None of that means that Democrats are trying to screw over their voters.

Super easily, because there is a world of difference between “Democrats should support universal healthcare” and “Bernie was right on how to implement universal healthcare.”

“I am making no ‘attack’ on @lava. I am characterizing his statements as evidence that he is not arguing in good faith.”

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I wouldn’t say all of these developments were an intrinsic strategy of the party. As you pointed out, some are due to political parties (and leadership groups) being used and directed by their corporate overlords. The two main causes are corporate interests who paid for promotion or protection of their interests over everything else, and public apathy. Even when the majority of the public pays attention*, those elected officials who are supposed to represent them have been bankrolled and controlled by industries from the beginning. You get what you pay for, and they’ve bought both sides of the aisle.

The idea that either side is pure and hasn’t promoted bad candidates is really naive. Political parties are always engaged in a war to win against the other side - with battles in elections, policy, and legislation. Now those two sides are uncomfortably close in their positions. We know the DNC has been outmaneuvered and infiltrated on a lot of levels. To me, the real question is what will the people do to take it back?

After so many decades of this, attempts to wrest control away from big business will take a lot of time, effort, and money. Spending reforms, regulatory controls, and oversight are just a few areas that need focus. Given what we’ve learned recently about the ability of the public to pull together and sacrifice for the common good, maybe we really need a way to convince the corporate overlords that what is good for the voters will be good for them.

For example, when promoting UBI, I make a point of saying that the ability of consumers to buy products and services will vanish if most workers’ jobs are replaced or eliminated. That’s my version of, “Won’t somebody think of the small business owners and big corporations?” Then I suggest UBI as the solution that helps corporations. The key is to convince TPTB to pursue a better option than the current strategy to write off unemployed, unhoused, unbanked, and/or marginalized people.

*Mostly during election cycles, publicized power struggles or scandals that cause a power vacuum, and when high-profile legislation makes the news.

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I am paraphrasing - by orchestrating the retirement of other centrist candidates and their endorsement of Biden the DNC forced Biden upon me, and likely many other voters.

They were certainly screwing me, and many other voters, by supporting the candidate that promised “Nothing would change” over a candate that pledged to work for US.

Except that Biden has done neither.

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You keep saying that this was “orchestrated by DNC”, but you have presented no evidence that it’s true.

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… thereby ruining your efforts to force Bernie upon me, and likely many other voters, despite the fact that more Democrats didn’t want him to be the nominee than did want him to be the nominee? That is not a winning argument

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This is my issue with the entire thread here. It is clear to me it is a bad faith argument in which one individual wants to keep thumping the same premise over and over until every agrees they are right. There are some truths in the premise, but it is not 100% fact; and it is absolutely a false equivalency.

DEM voters are as a whole far better informed than GOP voters. DEM candidates are as a whole far more genuine in their push for legislation that serves the best interests of their constituency than their GOP counter parts.

This general point is not debatable.

Now, if someone wants to argue that candidate X is more focused on helping people than candidate Y…sure there are specific examples that can be examined to determine this.

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No evidence, just observations. I’m not an investigator, just a voter reaching my own conclusions.

  • I am claiming the DNC orchestrated and pressured the other centrist candidates to retire. I have no evidence of these conversations, but of course this did happen.

  • Rumors that Sanders could not beat trump started circulating weeks and days before the centrist consolidation around Biden. This was prevalent enough that Sanders felt he had to address it in statements. This rumor was contrary to polling that proceeded it. I am claiming that these rumors were started by people tied to the DNC.

  • A stream of articles questioning Sanders heart health began appearing 1-2 weeks before the centrist consolidation around Biden, and 4 months after Sanders heart attack. At the time all signs were that Sanders was stronger and healthier than before. I am claiming that this was a calculated misinformation attack started by people tied to the DNC.

You don’t have to believe me, or even agree with me a little bit. But this is not tin foil hat conspiracy theories. In fact you could consider it “normal politics”. I’m just saying tactics like this to promote a favored candidate that is more desired by big money donors is the kind of thing that Republicans do.

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I don’t disagree with you. Its just that I find it objectionable for the Democrats to be using tactics that even slight resemble the Republicans, and I am upset with fellow democrat that just accept it or make excuses for it.