…or privilege blind white people who aren’t paying attention. Most of the voting age white people I encounter these days don’t pay that much attention to bathroom bills, the tearing down of VRA in the US, all the stuff SCOTUS has been destroying, etc. Their lives haven’t changed noticeably, they don’t read much news, and they still vote like it’s 1975. They still think the choice is between fiscal responsibility* and “other”.
*Of course, the “fiscal responsibility” of Republicanism has always been a lie, but those same “centrists” don’t know that either
Worse yet are the ones who have LGBTQ and/or BIPOC friends and relatives in their lives. You’d probably be able to hear the sound of eyes rolling and hearts sinking when they pontificate cluelessly at parties and dinners about how both duopoly parties are virtually the same.
As @mindysan33 said above, most people here are dissatisfied with the Third Way Dem establishment. I doubt many people are happy about the duopoly system either. But even I as a person of ridiculous privilege know where I stand when the GOP has demonstrably become the party of American fascism, all the more so because I know and care for people who are more vulnerable than I am.
I think it is safe to say this is a statement no ally of mine would make. We have an openly fascist party, bent on dehumanizing and othering anyone not staight, white, cis, wealthy men, and we have a center-right party which will actually defend the rights of people other than straight, white, cis, wealthy men. Opting out, in the face of no viable alternative, is consigning these folks, folks we cannot and should not (and i will not) to the whims of the fascist extreme right. What is to be gained by opting out? Preserving some sense of righteousness for not supporting the centrist Dems? Too high a cost by far. IMHO, the “lesser of two evils is still evil” argument holds no water outside of some fantasy, ldyllic world which we certainly do not have. It is truly a binary choice right now. We either support the fascists or we oppose them. And refusing to oppose them, because ithe other party is somehow impure, is supporting them. Don’t kid yourself, war is bloody, messy, dangerous and full of compromises. And we are at war. Not because we wanted to be, but because we must be. As i have said before, the alternative is unthinkable. To my brothers and sisters in this war, all i can say is
I would argue that most people anywhere are ‘centrists’ or ‘moderates’, just because it’s a Bell Curve.
The pivotal point is, what does one do in a society where the power is held more and more at the extreme fascist end? Being ‘moderate’ in that situation means voting against fascism even if the opposing (presumably mainstream Democratic) candidate isn’t one’s preferred choice.
I would argue that those who insisted on voting for Sanders in the general election instead of H. Clinton are a good example of the problem, not centrists/moderates.
You’re choosing to believe I’m saying things I’m not, and insisting I have to be your enemy. I manned a voting booth in the last school board election here; I’m active in the real world work. I put my money and my time into actively opposing fascism regardless of which party it comes from. And yes, on the increasingly rare occasion when it is necessary to vote Republican, I’ll hold my nose and do it - I voted for the Republican who championed marriage equality in my district and not for the Democrat who opposed it. It’s always a matter of strategy and tactics, never a matter of blindly following a party, for me. You seem to be saying I must support strip mining because Manchin is a Democrat and therefore not a fascist, or am I reading you incorrectly?
Fair cop. To be more clear, I believe that the use of the fasces accurately represents the way that our political leadership system works - and I will even quote Mussolini, “Fascism should more properly be called corporatism because it is the merger of state and corporate power” although I know that quote is almost certainly spurious, and even if it isn’t, Italian WWII era corporations are different than ours. Absolutely fair criticism on your part, unlike most of what’s being flung at me.
I’m talking about people who loudly self-identify as such. By most progressive accounts I’d come across as a moderate, and that’s fine. I’m also not a Dem party stalwart. I do identify as what Steve Gilliard called a “fighting liberal” and do tend to vote Dem (because I acknowledge the realities of the duopoly system), so I can’t call myself a “moderate” or “independent” or “centrist” even if others might view me that way.
I agree, but whether they’re brocialists or “moderate centrists” they’re both falsely claiming that voting Dem in elections is not a way to fight fascism.
I consider my party affiliation “Not Republican”. I don’t want to vote Democrat, but any third party I’ve seen an just about any election is either an obvious spoiler or dangerously naive or both, so I’ve been effectively a Democrat.
Imagine what would happen in that non-metaphorical situation to some smug white dude standing to the side and lecturing them about their efforts doing more harm than good.
Whether we’re talking about Libertarians or brocialists, it’s always Mr. Gotcha.
The difference was Florida, which Bush won by fewer than 600 votes to give him a 271-to-266 Electoral College edge. Had even a small percentage of the nearly 100,000 votes garnered by Nader in Florida shifted to Gore, the Democratic candidate would have won the election. In addition, the 22,000 votes won by Nader in New Hampshire were three times the size of Bush’s margin of victory in that state. If New Hampshire had flipped to Gore, that too would have given him the victory.
Yes, Nader cost Gore at least New Hampshire, but I still blame the SCOTUS for stealing the election for Gore. That’s a crime, or akin to one; running as a candidate who legitimately garners votes is instead what democracy is all about.
Not to dust off and rehash the whole bitter thing, but it’s long seemed to me that blaming him instead of the SCOTUS for that loss is misplaced.
A year later, in November 2001, the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago announced the results of an examination of all 170,000 undervotes and overvotes.
NORC found that with a full statewide hand recount, Gore would have won Florida under every possible vote standard. Depending on which standard was used, his margin of victory would have varied from 60 to 171 votes.
The recount was paid for by a consortium of news outlets — CNN, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Tribune Company, the Washington Post, the Associated Press, the St. Petersburg Times, and the Palm Beach Post. But this was just two months after the September 11 terrorist attacks. The outlets patriotically buried the blockbuster news that George W. Bush was not the legitimate president of the United States.
He was a write-in candidate in Idaho, Wyoming, Indiana, and Georgia. In South Dakota, Oklahoma, and North Carolina he was neither a write-in nor on the ballot. In all other states, including New Hampshire and Florida, he was on the ballot as a Green Party candidate.
He also campaigned harder in swing states, and it is generally understood that he drew voters who would probably have voted for Gore. So, he likely cost Gore New Hampshire and Florida.
Ugh, there it is again. What “cost him” Florida, and thus the entire election, was the scurrilous SCOTUS decision (not to mention, as the Intercept piece points out, Dem fecklessness in response).
The Rehnquist court certainly bears the lion’s share of the responsibility for 2000 (and what came after), but that still leaves plenty of blame to go around.* Nader played his part in de-legitimising Gore’s popular win and giving conservative pundits a talking point. He also set the Green Party decisively on the road to what it’s become: a party that exists to siphon off votes from the Dems to the benefit of the Republican Party.
As a result, it’s also become a haven for pseudo-progressive crunchy cranks and for the kind of virtue-signaling fool who insists that there’s no real difference between the Dems and the GOP. If the No Labels billionaires can’t woo him to be their spoiler candidate with lots of money in 2024, RFK Jr. will be a natural fit for the Greens.
[*the doormat Dem establishment you mentioned, Pat Buchanan, Florida election officials, crappy ballot design…]
