What would it take for you to not support them? Say, for example, they were actively arming a genocide, would that do it?
If there was a party that didn’t want to arm that genocide poised to potentially get enough votes to win, I would vote for them. In reality, unfortunately there were only two parties poised to get enough votes to win, and both aimed to actively arm the same genocide. So, I voted for the one less likely to disappear critics of that genocide, or push to raze Gaza to put up a resort with their name on it. I wish that I had a better option, but we can only pay the hand we’re dealt, so I promoted lesser evil.
How long then, should we continue supporting them
Right up until the exact moment there’s a better alternative with enough support to win. I thought I made that clear.
You can play coy all you want but my assumptions are entirely reasonable based on what you’ve said.
Again, this is exactly what people are talking about. You misinterpreted exactly one political stance and now you’ve justified your prejudices to yourself, and I can be tossed into the “lib” bin to be discarded.
they completely reject that we hold our stated beliefs at all and assign us completely different beliefs based on whatever they make up
So you won’t put a single concrete condition on your support and you won’t give a time or plan of action that will ever lead to you not supporting them. “Until a third party (somehow) emerges as viable” you say while not giving them the support they would need to work towards that point and arguing against those who do. That is indefinite, unconditional support, objectively.
I see no reason to entertain your arbitrary distinction that if you had a magical genie at your disposal the things you would wish for would be different from the people you believe in supporting unconditionally and indefinitely. No more than I would entertain Richard Spencer’s arbitrary distinction about how he’s totally not a fascist.
The irony is palpable.
At no point have I accused you of not believing the things you say. So no, there is no “irony.” You think that just because you want different things from liberals, it makes you different from them; I think that because you act exactly like a liberal in practice, that makes you a liberal. It’s a difference on how we define the term, whether it is based on ideas or on actions.
So you won’t put a single condition on your support and you won’t give a time or plan of action that will ever lead to you not supporting them.
Did you not read what I wrote? I just did exactly that. As soon as there is a better viable alternative, I’m jumping ship immediately. The condition on my support is them being the least bad choice with enough support to win. When that condition is no longer satisfied, my support ends. The plan of action is promoting leftist candidates through local to state offices so they can generate the support to be a less bad choice that could actually win. I can’t personally make that happen by myself, so I can’t give you a timeframe.
while not giving them the support they would need to reach that point
You know nothing about me. I support them every single time their campaign is viable.
You again, have yet to respond to that example or acknowledge it’s obvious validity.
Because it’s pointless and inflammatory. You seem to keep bringing up the fact that you can identify one specific closeted fascist in an attempt to either 1) extrapolate that ability to identify ideologues to justify your ideological speculation of me or 2) equate me with a fascist because… what exactly? Some people disagree with other people’s interpretation of their beliefs, and one of those people is a fascist, so because I disagree with your interpretation of my beliefs I’m just like them? I didn’t respond because it’s rhetorically lazy and logically bankrupt.
This circular, dead end argumentation is, again, the reason the rest of us get annoyed with you all. You’re claiming not to do the exact prejudiced, echo chamber, stereotypical behavior that you go on to precisely exemplify. Why would anyone take this laziness seriously? The “Russian bot” thing is a charitable interpretation. Surely, our staunchest champions of pure leftism can’t possibly be this obtuse, this has to be some kind of psyop to plunge the West into authoritarianism by fracturing the left.
Just like Richard Spencer denies being a fascist, you may deny being an unwitting accessory to the deliberate disorganization of the left, but that is an arbitrary distinction. In practice, you are helping to undermine leftist unity with emotionally charged splintering. I’m not accusing you of not believing what you say, but what you believe fits the definition of “malicious psyop”.
The condition on my support is them being the least bad choice with enough support to win.
That’s not a condition. A condition is a definite, red line, that if they cross it you won’t support it. Saying, “As long as they’re the lesser evil” means that there is literally no limit on how evil the could be and still win your support.
You know nothing about me. I support them every single time their campaign is viable.
They don’t reach the point of being viable unless people support them even when they aren’t viable yet.
equate me with a fascist because… what exactly?
What the hell are you talking about? That is extremely not the point and nothing I said suggested that at all.
extrapolate that ability to identify ideologues to justify your ideological speculation of me
No, it has nothing to do with “my” ability to identify ideologues, it’s about the validity of assigning labels to people even if the person rejects the label. You’re acting as if that’s somehow “bad faith” but obviously, everyone does it and it can be good to do it, at the very least when it comes to an example like Spencer.
This circular, dead end argumentation
There’s no “circular, dead end argumentation” other than your ridiculous and completely ungrounded and unhinged interpretation of my argument.
Just like Richard Spencer denies being a fascist, you may deny being an unwitting accessory to the deliberate disorganization of the left, but that is an arbitrary distinction. In practice, you are helping to undermine leftist unity with emotionally charged splintering. I’m not accusing you of not believing what you say, but what you believe fits the definition of “malicious psyop”.
Ah yes, true “left” unity is when you accuse anyone who won’t fall in line behind liberalism (or attempts to impose a single condition on that support, including “don’t do genocide”) of being a malicious psyop. That’s cool and all, but wouldn’t “liberal unity” be more accurate, since that’s the defining aspect?
Saying, “As long as they’re the lesser evil” means that there is literally no limit on how evil the could be and still win your support.
With no alternative? Uh, yeah. Republicans are literal fascists now. Being less bad is better than nothing until a leftist is polling 70-80 million votes. This “red line” nonsense is strategically stupid and, in practice, identical to someone intentionally trying to fracture the left.
They don’t reach the point of being viable unless people support them even when they aren’t viable yet.
They reach the point of being viable by running for city council, using that experience to fuel a run for mayor, state senator, governor, congressperson, and then go for president. I vote the most progressive person on every ballot I get; until I get to close races between liberals and fascists, in which case I will ignore any third parties and vote lib over fasc
No, it has nothing to do with “my” ability to identify ideologues, it’s about the validity of assigning labels to people even if the person rejects the label.
If you and the person you’re assigning labels to disagree, and you determine your assignments to be more valid than theirs, that is definitively based on your ability to identify ideologues.
It’s strategically the only approach that makes any logical sense whatsoever. The ideology of lesser-evilism is completely incoherent and illogical, it sacrifices every ounce of bargaining power you might have yielded completely unnecessarily.
in practice, identical to someone intentionally trying to fracture the left.
Completely insane perspective. “Anyone who advocates actually effective tactics is intentionally trying to fracture the left.” No wonder the left is so powerless.
“Unity” around ineffective tactics, I really think you should consider calling that “liberal unity.”
If you and the person you’re assigning labels to disagree, and you determine your assignments to be more valid than theirs, that is definitively based on your ability to identify ideologues.
That’s not the point of the example. I didn’t bring up Richard Spencer for some dumbass nonsense like, “see how good I am at identifying ideologues, this proves how smart I am,” I presented the example because he is someone who anyone should obviously be able to, and more importantly, willing to assign the label fascist to regardless of the fact that he rejects it. Therefore, you cannot oppose the idea of assigning labels to people that they reject on principle, though you may argue that it’s only valid in certain situations.
It’s strategically the only approach that makes any logical sense whatsoever.
Yeah no, you’ve got that 100% exactly wrong. Red line makes zero strategic sense, it’s childish and simple minded. It’s statements like that which make you look like you’re trying to make leftists look bad and ensure that they lose. You’re living in a bizarro world echo chamber.
“Unity” around ineffective tactics, I really think you should consider calling that “liberal tankie unity.”
Ftfy
Therefore, you cannot oppose the idea of assigning labels to people that they reject on principle, though you may argue that it’s only valid in certain situations.
Correct. The fact that you can identify one fascist does not validate all your label assignments. Your conclusions are not valid.
Red line makes zero strategic sense, it’s childish and simple minded.
I explain the logic here. But like most things that are true, there are many different ways to demonstrate it’s true, so here’s another:
Notice how the Republicans don’t do that shit and keep winning? How decades of unconditional “lesser evilism” has resulted in more and more rightward shift, until we’ve arrived at the point where doing literally any good thing is “woke?”
Democratic voters are so fucking stupid in terms of strategy. It’s the only thing Republicans have figured out. It turns out, pushing for the things you actually want and throwing a fit whenever you don’t get your way makes them more likely to happen. Somehow, the libs have convinced themselves that the way to get what they want is to support things they don’t want and then have the people who don’t listen to them compromise away any semblance of progressivism in the name of cooperating with people who hate them. And the repeated, obvious failure of this strategy does absolutely nothing to persuade them, because they believe so strongly that it’s just an inherent absolute truth to them. No amount of failure, no amount of time, no matter how bad it gets, they just fundamentally refuse to learn any lesson - even when it reaches the point of supporting literal genocide!
The Republican party falls in line behind their voters because they know that they’re “unreasonable,” that if they get pissed off and don’t get their way, they’ll vote third party. But the left has virtually no power over the democratic party, because they’re all so fucking “reasonable” that they know that at the end of the day, they’ll just fall in line. It’s so idiotic it’s difficult to understand how anyone could genuinely think this unconditional, indefinite support of a shit party that isn’t in line with what we want is somehow an effective strategy - let alone such and effective strategy that nobody reasonable could ever question it and that anyone who does is “just trying to make the left lose.”
You are fully cooked, way too deep into the ruling class’s ideology to be reasoned with.
Correct. The fact that you can identify one fascist does not validate all your label assignments. Your conclusions are not valid.
Yes, and it is deeply flawed logic because it rests on an analogy which is fundamentally unrelated to electoral strategy. There is no “refuse and both parties get nothing” mechanism in elections. You have a choice between a 99-1 split and a 100-0 split, and rejecting the 99-1 split guarantees you the 100-0. They don’t start the election over with new candidates and policies because you didn’t like the options. One party wins despite your efforts. The election is the worst possible time to try to negotiate, when greater evil has so much support.
Notice how the Republicans don’t do that shit and keep winning?
Are you high? They absolutely constantly do exactly that which is exactly why they win. I can’t even count the number of people I know personally who hated Trump, but voted for him anyway because they viewed the Democrats as the greater evil. Republicans don’t fool around with red lines, they dutifully act in lockstep to secure wins. Your claims to the contrary betray a terminally online isolation from reality.
The left has been shouting about red lines for decades, and I don’t see a single positive outcome. You should definitely align with Democrats, you share an obsession with avoiding hard choices so strong that it prevents you from actually accomplishing anything you claim to want to do.
If there was a party that didn’t want to arm that genocide poised to potentially get enough votes to win, I would vote for them. In reality, unfortunately there were only two parties poised to get enough votes to win, and both aimed to actively arm the same genocide. So, I voted for the one less likely to disappear critics of that genocide, or push to raze Gaza to put up a resort with their name on it. I wish that I had a better option, but we can only pay the hand we’re dealt, so I promoted lesser evil.
Right up until the exact moment there’s a better alternative with enough support to win. I thought I made that clear.
Again, this is exactly what people are talking about. You misinterpreted exactly one political stance and now you’ve justified your prejudices to yourself, and I can be tossed into the “lib” bin to be discarded.
The irony is palpable.
So you won’t put a single concrete condition on your support and you won’t give a time or plan of action that will ever lead to you not supporting them. “Until a third party (somehow) emerges as viable” you say while not giving them the support they would need to work towards that point and arguing against those who do. That is indefinite, unconditional support, objectively.
I see no reason to entertain your arbitrary distinction that if you had a magical genie at your disposal the things you would wish for would be different from the people you believe in supporting unconditionally and indefinitely. No more than I would entertain Richard Spencer’s arbitrary distinction about how he’s totally not a fascist.
At no point have I accused you of not believing the things you say. So no, there is no “irony.” You think that just because you want different things from liberals, it makes you different from them; I think that because you act exactly like a liberal in practice, that makes you a liberal. It’s a difference on how we define the term, whether it is based on ideas or on actions.
Did you not read what I wrote? I just did exactly that. As soon as there is a better viable alternative, I’m jumping ship immediately. The condition on my support is them being the least bad choice with enough support to win. When that condition is no longer satisfied, my support ends. The plan of action is promoting leftist candidates through local to state offices so they can generate the support to be a less bad choice that could actually win. I can’t personally make that happen by myself, so I can’t give you a timeframe.
You know nothing about me. I support them every single time their campaign is viable.
Because it’s pointless and inflammatory. You seem to keep bringing up the fact that you can identify one specific closeted fascist in an attempt to either 1) extrapolate that ability to identify ideologues to justify your ideological speculation of me or 2) equate me with a fascist because… what exactly? Some people disagree with other people’s interpretation of their beliefs, and one of those people is a fascist, so because I disagree with your interpretation of my beliefs I’m just like them? I didn’t respond because it’s rhetorically lazy and logically bankrupt.
This circular, dead end argumentation is, again, the reason the rest of us get annoyed with you all. You’re claiming not to do the exact prejudiced, echo chamber, stereotypical behavior that you go on to precisely exemplify. Why would anyone take this laziness seriously? The “Russian bot” thing is a charitable interpretation. Surely, our staunchest champions of pure leftism can’t possibly be this obtuse, this has to be some kind of psyop to plunge the West into authoritarianism by fracturing the left.
Just like Richard Spencer denies being a fascist, you may deny being an unwitting accessory to the deliberate disorganization of the left, but that is an arbitrary distinction. In practice, you are helping to undermine leftist unity with emotionally charged splintering. I’m not accusing you of not believing what you say, but what you believe fits the definition of “malicious psyop”.
That’s not a condition. A condition is a definite, red line, that if they cross it you won’t support it. Saying, “As long as they’re the lesser evil” means that there is literally no limit on how evil the could be and still win your support.
They don’t reach the point of being viable unless people support them even when they aren’t viable yet.
What the hell are you talking about? That is extremely not the point and nothing I said suggested that at all.
No, it has nothing to do with “my” ability to identify ideologues, it’s about the validity of assigning labels to people even if the person rejects the label. You’re acting as if that’s somehow “bad faith” but obviously, everyone does it and it can be good to do it, at the very least when it comes to an example like Spencer.
There’s no “circular, dead end argumentation” other than your ridiculous and completely ungrounded and unhinged interpretation of my argument.
Ah yes, true “left” unity is when you accuse anyone who won’t fall in line behind liberalism (or attempts to impose a single condition on that support, including “don’t do genocide”) of being a malicious psyop. That’s cool and all, but wouldn’t “liberal unity” be more accurate, since that’s the defining aspect?
With no alternative? Uh, yeah. Republicans are literal fascists now. Being less bad is better than nothing until a leftist is polling 70-80 million votes. This “red line” nonsense is strategically stupid and, in practice, identical to someone intentionally trying to fracture the left.
They reach the point of being viable by running for city council, using that experience to fuel a run for mayor, state senator, governor, congressperson, and then go for president. I vote the most progressive person on every ballot I get; until I get to close races between liberals and fascists, in which case I will ignore any third parties and vote lib over fasc
If you and the person you’re assigning labels to disagree, and you determine your assignments to be more valid than theirs, that is definitively based on your ability to identify ideologues.
It’s strategically the only approach that makes any logical sense whatsoever. The ideology of lesser-evilism is completely incoherent and illogical, it sacrifices every ounce of bargaining power you might have yielded completely unnecessarily.
Completely insane perspective. “Anyone who advocates actually effective tactics is intentionally trying to fracture the left.” No wonder the left is so powerless.
“Unity” around ineffective tactics, I really think you should consider calling that “liberal unity.”
That’s not the point of the example. I didn’t bring up Richard Spencer for some dumbass nonsense like, “see how good I am at identifying ideologues, this proves how smart I am,” I presented the example because he is someone who anyone should obviously be able to, and more importantly, willing to assign the label fascist to regardless of the fact that he rejects it. Therefore, you cannot oppose the idea of assigning labels to people that they reject on principle, though you may argue that it’s only valid in certain situations.
Yeah no, you’ve got that 100% exactly wrong. Red line makes zero strategic sense, it’s childish and simple minded. It’s statements like that which make you look like you’re trying to make leftists look bad and ensure that they lose. You’re living in a bizarro world echo chamber.
Ftfy
Correct. The fact that you can identify one fascist does not validate all your label assignments. Your conclusions are not valid.
I explain the logic here. But like most things that are true, there are many different ways to demonstrate it’s true, so here’s another:
Notice how the Republicans don’t do that shit and keep winning? How decades of unconditional “lesser evilism” has resulted in more and more rightward shift, until we’ve arrived at the point where doing literally any good thing is “woke?”
Democratic voters are so fucking stupid in terms of strategy. It’s the only thing Republicans have figured out. It turns out, pushing for the things you actually want and throwing a fit whenever you don’t get your way makes them more likely to happen. Somehow, the libs have convinced themselves that the way to get what they want is to support things they don’t want and then have the people who don’t listen to them compromise away any semblance of progressivism in the name of cooperating with people who hate them. And the repeated, obvious failure of this strategy does absolutely nothing to persuade them, because they believe so strongly that it’s just an inherent absolute truth to them. No amount of failure, no amount of time, no matter how bad it gets, they just fundamentally refuse to learn any lesson - even when it reaches the point of supporting literal genocide!
The Republican party falls in line behind their voters because they know that they’re “unreasonable,” that if they get pissed off and don’t get their way, they’ll vote third party. But the left has virtually no power over the democratic party, because they’re all so fucking “reasonable” that they know that at the end of the day, they’ll just fall in line. It’s so idiotic it’s difficult to understand how anyone could genuinely think this unconditional, indefinite support of a shit party that isn’t in line with what we want is somehow an effective strategy - let alone such and effective strategy that nobody reasonable could ever question it and that anyone who does is “just trying to make the left lose.”
You are fully cooked, way too deep into the ruling class’s ideology to be reasoned with.
As I said repeatedly, not the point.
Yes, and it is deeply flawed logic because it rests on an analogy which is fundamentally unrelated to electoral strategy. There is no “refuse and both parties get nothing” mechanism in elections. You have a choice between a 99-1 split and a 100-0 split, and rejecting the 99-1 split guarantees you the 100-0. They don’t start the election over with new candidates and policies because you didn’t like the options. One party wins despite your efforts. The election is the worst possible time to try to negotiate, when greater evil has so much support.
Are you high? They absolutely constantly do exactly that which is exactly why they win. I can’t even count the number of people I know personally who hated Trump, but voted for him anyway because they viewed the Democrats as the greater evil. Republicans don’t fool around with red lines, they dutifully act in lockstep to secure wins. Your claims to the contrary betray a terminally online isolation from reality.
The left has been shouting about red lines for decades, and I don’t see a single positive outcome. You should definitely align with Democrats, you share an obsession with avoiding hard choices so strong that it prevents you from actually accomplishing anything you claim to want to do.