Recent Forum Topics › Forums › The Public House › Dealing with the BNMW crowd
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zn.
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April 3, 2020 at 11:34 pm #113307
ZooeyModeratorHere’s rant on the VBNMW crown that I found interesting:
Durga Adriane to #RevolutionNOW!
4 hrsHOW TO DEAL WITH THE “VOTE BLUE NO MATTER WHO” CROWD:
First, you have to confront who these people really are and what they really represent. They will never admit to it, because it sounds bad out loud. But this is the truth about VBNMW Democrats:
These people don’t give a shit about you, or in fact, anyone but themselves. They don’t believe in the global climate crisis or environmental science, and they don’t feel there is a need for getting off fossil fuels to have a planet to live on. Worse, they don’t care- as long as they maintain their comfy status quo and leave the suffering to other people.
They don’t want you to have healthcare, or care about the tens of thousands of Americans that die each year simply b/c they can’t go to a doctor.
They don’t give a shit about the millions that die in the U.S. military’s never-ending crusade for mass genocide of black and brown people around the world to enrich oil barons and oligarchs.
They have zero interest in making the kind of fundamental systemic changes that are required to create racial, social, environmental justice and equality in our country. These things, above all else, require economic equality.
THEY DON’T WANT ECONOMIC EQUALITY. This means they might have to give up something. They don’t want to give up their stuff so that other people can have stuff too.
So when these voters ask you “But you’ll vote for whoever is the Democratic nominee though- right? Not voting for the nominee is a vote for Trump!! What about kids in cages? What about school shootings?” know they don’t actually care about any of those things.
These are just the things they say to sound like better humans. If they cared about these things, they’d vote for Bernie Sanders, the ONLY guy who is a proven activist and reformist. They’re not stupid, they’re just selfish.
All they want is to know their 401k is going to keep going up- and their other Wall St. investments are protected, and their cushy salaries and company-sponsored healthcare- even if it costs millions of people their lives and ability to have basic human dignity in this country.
So why are you trying to negotiate with these people?
Why are you being nice to them?
Hedging your responses to avoid conflict?Shitlib voters respond to ONE THING: self-interest.
Know what their self-interest is?
Trump makes them feel icky because he doesn’t follow the Democratic norms of civil discourse and whitewash over the American empire’s sociopathic goings-on the way the corporate Democrats do.
They want to believe they don’t participate in a sociopathic system to get their comfy benefits.
With Trump, they are exposed. Supporting the system that advantages them makes them look like they are supporting Trump. Unless they can get someone elected that hides all that stuff again under a veneer of politeness and social justice.
The way to bring these people to heel is by threatening them with losing what they want. That means we have to be unafraid to use our numbers against them. It’s our only leverage.
The Democratic party leadership doesn’t GAF about losing to Trump, which means we have to use the voters’ motivations to win against them. We tell them they can’t win without us- which is true- and that we will NOT be voting for anyone but Bernie Sanders- which also better be true, if you care about getting out from under this neoliberal disaster spiral.
SO HOW DO WE TELL THEM?
There are many ways, but I suggest you say it like this: “You don’t GAF about my life in the primary? Don’t expect me to GAF about yours in the general. Either we ALL win or we all go down together. You’re not getting your stuff at my expense.”
April 4, 2020 at 5:55 pm #113334
wvParticipantBiden has become downright unwatchable. I cringe everytime he opens his mouth.
Is it just me-as-a-leftist who feels that?
Biden better hope so.After three fucking years of Trump — THIS is what the Dem-Voters want. Okey-dokey.
==============April 5, 2020 at 1:45 pm #113354ZooeyModeratorI dunno. I don’t know anything anymore. I thought the Democrat incompetence was going to allow Bernie to get through, but in Democrats first act of competence since they passed the incompetent ACA, they rallied together to stop Sanders…and give the country…Joe Biden?
This is it. This is the product of 4 years of regrouping after Hillary’s stunning loss. Joe Biden. It’s unbelievable just how inept this makes the party look.
April 5, 2020 at 2:26 pm #113357wvParticipantI dunno. I don’t know anything anymore. I thought the Democrat incompetence was going to allow Bernie to get through, but in Democrats first act of competence since they passed the incompetent ACA, they rallied together to stop Sanders…and give the country…Joe Biden?
This is it. This is the product of 4 years of regrouping after Hillary’s stunning loss. Joe Biden. It’s unbelievable just how inept this makes the party look.
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Well i dont know anything anymore, either.
All i can say is this all reflects one word to me — Rot.
Deep pervasive rot. Not in just the corporate-dem party obviously. Just rot in the American-corporate-System as a whole.The resistance to that rot is small. Its there. But its small. As soon as all the centrists-corporatists got all out of the race, and they stopped splitting the votes, the real measure of this country could be taken. Voters could have voted for change. They had a perfect chance. And yes, i know about the voter suppression tactics, and they are real, but still, they wouldnt have been enough to stop Bernie if most voters really wanted change. It was a basically fair fight. Basically. People knew what Bernie stood for. They chose the corporate-hack. They chose.
YaY for the small resistance. Thats all i got 🙂
w
vApril 5, 2020 at 4:51 pm #113361
CalParticipantI’ll vote green just like I did it 2016 because I like the perspective & sentiments from the Revolution Now post.
That said, all the criticism of Biden’s gaffes and old-age moments doesn’t impress me. I watched an hour or so of the debate between just Biden and Bernie and waited for Biden to fall apart.
He didn’t. He weaseled his way around Bernie’s attacks and had successful attacks of his own on Bernie’s votes against the Brady Bill. I was disappointed in Bernie. My wife, who doesn’t follow politics closely, just shook her head at the whole pathetic spectacle.
In one of the recent MSNBC interviews, where The Hill or TYT were left incredulous by Biden’s old-age moments, Biden was fine for 90% of the interview. He does look bad at times, but some of the lefty critics are focusing on his bad highlights.
Biden has many moments when he looks personable and charismatic. He’s no Mike Pence, Jeb Bush, or John Kerry. Biden’s more of a Case Keenum than a Russell Wilson, but he could win the big one with the right situation.
April 5, 2020 at 5:40 pm #113362ZooeyModeratorI’ll vote green just like I did it 2016 because I like the perspective & sentiments from the Revolution Now post.
That said, all the criticism of Biden’s gaffes and old-age moments doesn’t impress me. I watched an hour or so of the debate between just Biden and Bernie and waited for Biden to fall apart.
He didn’t. He weaseled his way around Bernie’s attacks and had successful attacks of his own on Bernie’s votes against the Brady Bill. I was disappointed in Bernie. My wife, who doesn’t follow politics closely, just shook her head at the whole pathetic spectacle.
In one of the recent MSNBC interviews, where The Hill or TYT were left incredulous by Biden’s old-age moments, Biden was fine for 90% of the interview. He does look bad at times, but some of the lefty critics are focusing on his bad highlights.
Biden has many moments when he looks personable and charismatic. He’s no Mike Pence, Jeb Bush, or John Kerry. Biden’s more of a Case Keenum than a Russell Wilson, but he could win the big one with the right situation.
I agree with that. IMO, Biden has “senior moments.” You can see him flame out mid-sentence. Seems to me that he does it when he is giving a stock answer, the kind of political pablum answers, and all the cliches are poring out of him like they have been in every interview since he was a boy, and then he just forgets what the point of his own bullshit was. So…he’s old, and he’s not as sharp. But he hasn’t lost it. He isn’t senile. He is perfectly capable of making the same kinds of political decisions he always has, and I don’t think his mental decline is an issue.
Trump will attack it ruthlessly, and effectively, however, and for many people it WILL be an issue because…you know…people are morons.
But he might win. These days, I roll my eyes at all the bold announcements that Trump will destroy Biden. Who the fuck knows. Seriously. Coronavirus is going to completely destroy “normal” in this country in terms of sheer fear. And how the economic fallout of this will unravel depends a great deal on what the government does to keep people and business going. If Republicans keep shoveling money into Wall Street while giving people minimum wage, Trump will get punished. If the government actually enables people to keep their housing, and picks up the medical tab, Trump will be rewarded. This is a complete game changer. If someone came to me from the future and told me that Trump won by 20 points, or lost by 20 points, I wouldn’t have any problem believing them.
April 5, 2020 at 6:24 pm #113363wvParticipantI’ll vote green just like I did it 2016 because I like the perspective & sentiments from the Revolution Now post…
…
In one of the recent MSNBC interviews, where The Hill or TYT were left incredulous by Biden’s old-age moments, Biden was fine for 90% of the interview. He does look bad at times, but some of the lefty critics are focusing on his bad highlights.
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Yeah, I think thats true.
I’ll vote Green too, but I totally understand any decision to vote for Biden, just because he wont be quite as bad as Trump. Critical-Thinkers can make a case for either position, imho.
I’m reading an auto-bio by an American Communist named Dorothy Healey. She talked about this same dynamic back in the 30s all through the 60’s and after. The problem on the Left — to vote for the ‘lesser evil’ or the candidate who actually is closer to your position. Its an age-old problem. Its torn many-a-leftist–organization apart over the years.
Back to Biden — I think his senility may actually gain him votes. As ive said before, older folks may find it downright endearing.
I dont think all that many voters vote on POLICY anymore. But what do i know.
w
vApril 5, 2020 at 8:30 pm #113367
MackeyserModeratorWell, as someone who went from at times being the “smartest person in the room” to now being someone with severe enough short term memory loss that my family all knows that I’ll completely lose a conversation mid-sentence (usually as an aside occurs to me and I can’t juggle both convos in my head)…
Lemme just say that Biden isn’t endearing… he scares the shit out of me.
I KNOW that I couldn’t do that job, never mind the migraines. Joe Biden has all sorts of “political muscle memory” that he glides on, but there’s just no way on God’s Green Earth that he can be the President. He and his team can’t set up a fucking Zoom call, how are they going to manage the first Nexus of Disruptions where AI and Automation BOTH disrupt industries both independently and in concert?
What’s Biden gonna say to Silicon Valley? “Listen, Fat. I don’t wanna hear any of your malarkey! We gotta put people to work…ya know…makin’ record players…er…radios…so the kids can go to school online and be bullied…well, ya know, I probably shouldn’t say anymore…”
We’ve gone from inspirational aspirations for President to “he’s a guy I could have a beer with” to “he reminds me of my granddad in the home that we visit once a month. He’s nice when he isn’t sniffing my little sister’s hair…eww”
I keep wondering what’s gonna have to happen for people to demand change. Sandy Hook wasn’t it. 9/11 wasn’t it. We either learned nothing or all the wrong lessons. COVID-19 hasn’t been it with respect to cleanliness or social distancing or understanding our NEED for a better healthcare system.
Sports is the crucible of human virtue. The distillate remains are human vice.
April 6, 2020 at 2:46 am #113375
znModeratorNathan J Robinson@NathanJRobinson
Joe Rogan saying he’d vote for Trump over Biden shows the exact point we on the left have been making for years: Bernie has a unique appeal to voters who would otherwise vote for Trump and the whole “centrists are more electable” theory is nonsenseApril 6, 2020 at 9:21 am #113378
Billy_TParticipantSome singing to the choir here, but, oh well.
If we measure the two parties against independent principles, expectations, metrics of decency, democratic representation — humane, ethical, moral, environmental, etc. etc. . . . they both fail utterly. Epically. Dangerously. It seems beyond self-evident that neither party should hold any power, given their histories. Certain individuals within those parties? Yeah. But not the parties themselves.
That said, they do. It’s pretty much just them. The duopoly. We have two choices, when we should have countless.
If we measure them against each other, however, the dynamic changes radically, at least for me. The Republicans are simply far, far worse. It’s just not close. And Trump is far worse than the typical Republican. Again, it’s just not close. So if we measure them against each other, IMO, and not independent standards of decency, morality, ethics, democratic representation, etc. . . . leftists shouldn’t have a major quandary in 2020. As lousy as Biden is, he’s head and shoulders better than Trump and the Republicans. He and his party are head and shoulders better than Trump and his.
Some recent examples regarding important differences. Trump has suspended our already all too weak protections for immigrants/migrants, via executive fiat. He’s taking advantage of this national emergency to grab more power and enact his fascist agenda. Biden and the Dems wouldn’t have done that. He’s also rolled back even more environmental protections. The Dems wouldn’t have done that. He’s stepping up hard-line “law and order” efforts regarding drugs and sanctions in the middle of a pandemic. Again, the Dems wouldn’t have done that. And he and the GOP are ramping up even more nation-wide voter suppression efforts. Again, the Dems, etc. etc.
And Trump’s grotesque response to Covid-19 will literally mean tens of thousands of Americans die/died needlessly. The Dems would have handled this a thousand times better.
In my view, our own vote matters very close to nada. I don’t fetishize it the way a lot of the Vote Blue No Matter Who crowd seems to. But collectively? Yeah, it matters. Obviously. Individual votes for Greens, which I’ve cast too? Basically meaningless, especially in states where the Dem is a lock. But I would hate to think a collective leftist response would help Trump win reelection.
It’s wrong to blame us for 2016. It infuriates me when Dem diehards trot out that bogus card. But it is possible we could have that impact in 2020. That would be tragic.
April 6, 2020 at 9:31 am #113379Billy_TParticipantI also wonder sometimes at what strikes me as greater leftist anger toward the Dems than the GOP. I understand a good bit of this, but not all. It’s likely the sense that the Dems should be championing at least some of the thing we leftists want, but most often don’t. We know the GOP won’t, so, subconsciously, perhaps, we let them off the hook. We feel betrayed by the Dems. We just take it for granted that the GOP does what it does. So leftist anger is often more focused on the Dems, etc.
Kinda sorta almost like this:
The Rams draft DE Smith in Round One. He never plays up to his draft-spot or his hype, but he’s a decent starter, and relatively productive overall.
The Rams draft DE Jones in Round Six. He outplays his draft-spot but he’s not as productive as Smith — in any phase of the game. All too many fans bash Smith endlessly, and call for him to be cut and replaced by Jones. They aren’t critical of Jones at all, really, even though Smith has outplayed him consistently. Smith just hasn’t lived up to his spot or hype.
April 6, 2020 at 9:43 am #113380Billy_TParticipantAnother one of my pet peeves.
We should all be highly skeptical of media, all media. Not just the MSM. We should all do our best to corroborate, fact-check, etc. That includes what we see from niche sources. Reading widely and deeply is probably our best response to media noise/lies. Diversity, etc. No bubbles. No silos.
IMO, it’s a mistake to ignore the MSM, even though it’s biased on behalf of the establishment, and frustratingly so. It’s a mistake, IMO, to rely solely on those niche sources. It shouldn’t be an either/or. Both/and is better.
I actually think niche-reliance can give us a false sense of the two-party system. My own take is that those niche sources can oftentimes blur the differences via a “a pox on both houses” POV, and a failure to report the daily tic/toc events. The sentiment is understandable, and it floods my own thoughts all too often. But it can bring on its own fog as well.
/End of rant.
April 6, 2020 at 11:21 am #113384znModeratorI actually think niche-reliance can give us a false sense of the two-party system. My own take is that those niche sources can oftentimes blur the differences via a “a pox on both houses” POV, and a failure to report the daily tic/toc events. The sentiment is understandable, and it floods my own thoughts all too often. But it can bring on its own fog as well.
Yeah I entirely agree. The trick to being informed, I think, is to read (and watch) a lot of different kinds of sources on an issue or event, so that you are accustomed at the level of habit to constantly seeing how the same details can be framed differently. This puts you in a position to reasonably think through what you’re hearing and reading. I know everyone here knows that–just putting it down in black n white.
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