Dems Rebuild

[zoogs]

The part I've bolded is a strawman attack.

It's only a strawman if he's fabricating the image of GP and other wing voters using ideological purity or personal virtue as their motivations. In fact, that was frequently the exact thing such voters cited.

 

And you're still misconstruing this. He's saying, "Your voting strategy is flawed. Stop using your justification for it; it doesn't support the strategy." You've somehow ended up with "You can't criticize us that way! You do the same thing!" (???)

 

Again, this seems tantamount to "Anti-bigotry is bigotry itself." I can criticize ideological rigor and those who subscribe to it; that in itself is not ideological rigor so much as the exact opposite. The correct case to make, if you disagree, is that your far narrower standards of acceptability are the winning, or at least the "right" way to go.

 

If Savage doesn't want people to be driven, then maybe he should compromise or identify with them instead of attacking them.

You can turn it around in the way you did; it's just not as reflective of reality when you do. The Green Party doesn't own the "army of progressives", sorry.

 

If the "problem"* is that not enough people are united under one banner, then "the mass at the center won't move allllllll the way to the wing" is a far less pragmatic and effective reaction than "the few in that far wing won't join in at the center".

 

*Another part of this debate is how big the phenomenon actually is. I dunno. It doesn't seem like nothing, though.

 

@Enhance89, yeah -- it's only wasted if you actually felt differently. If you didn't, then you voted according to how you stand.

[RedDenver]

To clarify: you're allowed to vote however you like. For example, if you are indifferent to Trump vs Clinton, voting another way makes sense. But if you're not, then I'd ask you to consider whether your stated preferences match your actual ones. Isn't that how we should all inform our decisions?

 

Similarly, if other issues simply overrode, fine. For example, if federal funding for the GP was more important than healthcare direction or staying in the Paris treaty (Green Party, though?...), okay, vote for the GP.

 

For me, it's incomprehensible that there could be /anything/ important enough to level Trump vs Anybody in the race for U.S. President, but I respect that people can just have very different priorities. If in the final analysis of decisions vs. priorities we're still different, that's fine. We look at things differently and it's good, and healthy, for both sides of our debate on the relative "bad"-ness of the Trump presidency to engage each other.

We're in agreement. I think our country is heading in a terrible direction politically and that we need major changes. I think we need new parties, so it's going to take an awful lot for a Democrat or Republican to get me to vote for them. A lot more than that the other option is bad.

 

An overriding issue for me is campaign finance. I'd probably vote for a candidate from any party that I thought was serious about getting money out of politics.

 

By the way, I don't believe in "I live in X state, so my vote doesn't matter". Geography doesn't give any of us a pass on a decision we can't defend universally on its own. We are all part of the political conversation. We all contribute to the national barometer. How resolutely red or blue one state is, that shapes things. We influence each other through our conversations and the arguments we make, repeat, agree with, disagree with. It's a participatory democracy in so many more ways than one, and we own the positions we stake out -- regardless of the (probably unfortunate?) systemic limitations in place.

I mostly agree with you here, but this somewhat contradicts your stance of voting for the candidate most likely to win. If you believe the polls of who is likely to win, then that should also apply to whether you vote at all. For example, if you're a moderate Republican in a very red state, you might not vote because you're not going to vote Dem and you don't want to support a far right candidate.

[zoogs]

To take this over to another level. On healthcare, Bernie is not an ACA guy. But he came to the defense of the status quo, rather vigorously, in both rhetoric and in votes. Despite the ACA being nowhere near the single payer that he wants, he didn't abstain and leave it up to everyone else. He didn't even stay silent and let the fight hash out among everyone else.

 

If he and other single-payer guys had held out, the ACA /may/ have been blown up. They'd have been criticized for it by a lot of people. And they could have argued, persuasively even, that single payer was so important to them that the differences between all other healthcare systems was utterly immaterial.

 

I can respect people who feel that way; I just disagree with them. My goal in all this is to be very, very clear on exactly where we disagree and where we don't; that helps move the conversation forward. And it gives each side narrow grounds on which we may change our positions without requiring a total change in our worldviews.

[RedDenver]

 

The part I've bolded is a strawman attack.

It's only a strawman if he's fabricating the image of GP and other wing voters using ideological purity or personal virtue as their motivations. In fact, that was frequently the exact thing such voters cited.

 

And you're still misconstruing this. He's saying, "Your voting strategy is flawed. Stop using your justification for it; it doesn't support the strategy." You've somehow ended up with "You can't criticize us that way! You do the same thing!" (???)

 

Again, this seems tantamount to "Anti-bigotry is bigotry itself." I can criticize ideological rigor and those who subscribe to it; that in itself is not ideological rigor so much as the exact opposite. The correct case to make, if you disagree, is that your far narrower standards of acceptability are the winning, or at least the "right" way to go.

 

If Savage doesn't want people to be driven, then maybe he should compromise or identify with them instead of attacking them.

You can turn it around in the way you did; it's just not as reflective of reality when you do. The Green Party doesn't own the "army of progressives", sorry.

 

If the "problem"* is that not enough people are united under one banner, then "the mass at the center won't move allllllll the way to the wing" is a far less pragmatic and effective reaction than "the few in that far wing won't join in at the center".

 

*Another part of this debate is how big the phenomenon actually is. I dunno. It doesn't seem like nothing, though.

 

@Enhance89, yeah -- it's only wasted if you actually felt differently. If you didn't, then you voted according to how you stand.

 

Let me say this another way. My criticism is the WAY Savage has framed the discussion. He's undermining his own argument by attacking the other side with strawmen.

 

And my earlier point about practicality is that if Savage is correct in claiming the progressives aren't practical but the center is. Then is it more likely to get non-practical "purists" to change their views or the practical "centerists"? It makes no sense to argue that a group is impractical but should change their views because that's the practical thing to do.

[zoogs]

"but this somewhat contradicts your stance of voting for the candidate most likely to win."

 

It's not voting for the most likely to win candidate like it's a betting market. It's about realizing there are two options, choosing the path you'd rather between them, and voting that way. Of course, if they really are the same path to you, then don't go for either...but, do be clear to yourself and others that they were the same.

 

"An overriding issue for me is campaign finance. I'd probably vote for a candidate from any party that I thought was serious about getting money out of politics."

 

I can respect that. All possible systems are flawed, and some of the ones in ours are quite unfortunate. I still don't see it as more important than the stark choice presented us, as unfortunate as that reality may be.

 

Then is it more likely to get non-practical "purists" to change their views or the practical "centerists"?

Yes, I see what you're saying. People so far to the side are maybe too far out to change their minds. Perhaps it's a quixotic quest

 

But, it's not more likely for the volume of people at the center to move. Because even if they did, they'd split in different directions. Or, they'd all move but then the Green Party would be the center, and by definition dominated by these mainstream groups, so...

 

I sort of still don't see it as strawmen. I get that Savage was pretty harsh in his language. But Hillary dissenters and continued Democratic holdouts on the left do see this as a principle thing, for right or wrong.

[Danny Bateman]

I think you guys both make fair points and Red your rationale for your Stein vote is 100% justified in my opinion.

 

However, I agree with zoogs' pragmatism argument. By default, a pragmatic vote is a vote towards a larger group of more like minded people reside that gives a higher probability of that side winning and affecting change you agree with. In America, there are no doubt more mainstream Dem/centrist/independent voters that swing left/no lean than there are Greens or other far-left voters. Thus it is pragmatic for a Green to move to the center to meet other leftists and those who vote with them than for the much larger group to move leftward.

 

Unless your goals are different in terms of what the goal of said pragmatism is. If it is to end the two-party duality here and open up the arena to other political parties, then I can see your argument. That's certainly not in the interests of actual Dems, and it remains to be seen how many Indies and centrists would define that as the goal.

[RedDenver]

I think you guys both make fair points and Red your rationale for your Stein vote is 100% justified in my opinion.

 

However, I agree with zoogs' pragmatism argument. By default, a pragmatic vote is a vote towards a larger group of more like minded people reside that gives a higher probability of that side winning and affecting change you agree with. In America, there are no doubt more mainstream Dem/centrist/independent voters that swing left/no lean than there are Greens or other far-left voters. Thus it is pragmatic for a Green to move to the center to meet other leftists and those who vote with them than for the much larger group to move leftward.

 

Unless your goals are different in terms of what the goal of said pragmatism is. If it is to end the two-party duality here and open up the arena to other political parties, then I can see your argument. That's certainly not in the interests of actual Dems, and it remains to be seen how many Indies and centrists would define that as the goal.

I think the pragmatic argument is fine, but I don't think it's going to actually convince many people since I don't think people really vote based on impersonal reasons like pragmatism.

 

I haven't seen any data to say that there are more centrists than leftists or vice versa. But there is polling that shows that left policies are popular. If we really want a united left, then I'd suggest starting with policies that we can all mostly agree on and build from there. I don't think saying one side isn't pure enough or one side isn't pragmatic enough is going to build unity but rather the opposite.

[zoogs]

I think that's still a pitch worth trying. If we can't take the emotion and the visceral reacts out of voting, then fearmongering tribalism is the way of the future.

 

Regarding sides being "enough" of something, I see it this way: a larger tent, by definition, involves a lot of people compromising on their strictest ideals in hock to group goals. I fully respect that this can be a bad thing, and I've made the argument in different areas that enforcing the median can be a brutal exercise of suppression.

 

But, the only other way to assemble a large, unified tent is if the people actually all agree. And certainly, it's possible to be argue for more and more things to be considered completely unacceptable. But there's a degree to which, if the litmus test battery expands there, it pushes our politics as a country to a bad place. IMO, we've seen this too much on the right to hope for its mirror on the left.

[zoogs]

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/8/7/16069112/bernie-sanders-obamacare-trumpcare

 

And, perhaps most importantly, he marshaled his resources and newfound star power in defense of Democrats’ top priority: showing what it might look like for his movement to be incorporated into the party apparatus, rather than having it try to knock down its gates. (...)

“Sanders knew he had a unique megaphone in American politics, and he used it to shout it at the top of his lungs at a time when few were paying attention to the health care fight,” said Ben Wikler, Washington director of MoveOn.org. (...)

Activists say that proved a crucial step in showing Democratic lawmakers that the public would join them in fighting for the ACA.

 

Kudos to Bernie on this one.

[Lil' Red]

 

 

Additionally, even if all the Stein voters had voted for Clinton (or vice versa), Trump still would have won. Neither of our votes ended up mattering in the end.

 

Actually, that's not true. Stein had more votes than Trump's margin of victory in Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania.

 

Unless there's more up-to-date numbers I'm not seeing, Stein's votes to Clinton would have only swung Wisconsin and Michigan but not Pennsylvania, which would have been a 52 electoral vote swing, but Trump won by 74.

 

I believe these are the official results from the Pennsylvania Department of State and they show that she would have won Pennsylvania with Stein's votes. The NY times results match those results and were more recently updated than Politico's results.

[RedDenver]

 

 

 

Additionally, even if all the Stein voters had voted for Clinton (or vice versa), Trump still would have won. Neither of our votes ended up mattering in the end.

 

Actually, that's not true. Stein had more votes than Trump's margin of victory in Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania.

 

Unless there's more up-to-date numbers I'm not seeing, Stein's votes to Clinton would have only swung Wisconsin and Michigan but not Pennsylvania, which would have been a 52 electoral vote swing, but Trump won by 74.

 

I believe these are the official results from the Pennsylvania Department of State and they show that she would have won Pennsylvania with Stein's votes. The NY times results match those results and were more recently updated than Politico's results.

 

First time I've seen numbers that back that argument. Thanks.

 

Even so, I don't think you'd be able to convince all the Stein voters to vote Clinton. For myself, I'd have voted Gary Johnson if I wasn't allowed to vote Stein.

 

At the end of the day, the Dems (or whichever party) need to go out and get those votes. Make a case for voting for you, not against the other team.

[zoogs]

You, a single-payer and Green Party supporter, would have voted for Gary Johnson before Hillary Clinton?

[Landlord]

Personally, I'll vote for the human before I'll ever vote for the platform or party.

 

 

I get accused of being a liberal a lot, and I guess I'm pretty "liberal" or progressive in a decent handful of areas. I would have voted for Rand Paul in a heartbeat, and likely would have gladly voted for Rubio as well.

[Danny Bateman]

[zoogs]

Personally, I'll vote for the human before I'll ever vote for the platform or party.

 

 

I get accused of being a liberal a lot, and I guess I'm pretty "liberal" or progressive in a decent handful of areas. I would have voted for Rand Paul in a heartbeat, and likely would have gladly voted for Rubio as well.

I guess I have the same questions about your views or indifference to the ACA, single payer, Paris and so on.

 

I vote for policy directions more than I vote for people, who are better or worse at constructing their brand appeal.