don't let anyone talk you out of voting 3rd party, these candidates are both trash

You would think between Roe v Wade, all the court cases/convictions, and the recently published epstein documents with trump's name all over them, that he would be finished politically for good. Once upon a time, politicians actually resigned over much less.

That interview solved everything, Joey is back. Just keep all those World events before 8pm we'll be just fine.

A_Man_Who_Tries wrote: Fri Jul 05, 2024 12:25 pm

strontiumtom wrote: Fri Jul 05, 2024 11:40 am
If we look back in a year and my posts have aged like milk, I'll be delighted to be wrong. But some of their actions- the racism, the bullying, the purges it's not just that I find it unforgivable, it makes me fear how they will act with real power.
'When someone shows you who they are...' all that.

I don't begrudge you your optimism and I'm honestly not trying to piss on your chips, but I hope you can understand my pessimism!

Oh I'm not optimistic in the least, but I do think tailoring yourself to be electable and actually getting into power is a decent first step towards being able to do anything constructive, given that there isn't a cat in hell's chance of the UK left having enough spine or collective graft to chip away at it daily.

Why I ended up leaving tbh.

,
Indeed. A genuinely, openly Socialist party like the SWP would be unelectable here anyway - at least in England, and most likely Wales and Northern Ireland too (Scotland's a bit harder to gauge, given that their own left-wing party is currently in disarray), so I'm not even sure if it's a case of the UK left not having enough spine. The UK electorate was given the chance to vote for someone who was as close to a Socialist candidate as they were ever likely to get, and everyone saw what happened.

Gramsci wrote: Fri Jul 05, 2024 4:13 am

HeavenIsInYrBeard wrote: Thu Jul 04, 2024 8:54 pm Gramsci, I kind of agree with what both yourself and curry pervert are saying, despite the fact that you're arguing separate points. A Starmer-helmed Labour Party will be 5 % socialist, 60,% neo-liberalist and 35% Tory-Lite. But I'm trying to be at least cautiously hopeful that we've already hit rock bottom and that at least things can't possibly get any worse from here on.

Even Reform UK have served a useful purpose in splitting the Tory demographic, despite it not being the purpose they intended to serve (or was it?) although Starmer is going to have to work long and hard to convince floating voters to give him a second chance in five years' time.

Just out of interest, did either of you receive any literature from the Heritage Party? I did - and having never heard of them before, looked them up on Wiki. Christ on a bike, their policies make Nigel Farage look like Jeremy Corbyn.

I disagree about your breakdown of Labour. Of course I’d prefer a socialist Labour Party but the reality is it has always been a coalition of spectrums from the progressive right to socialist left. One of my principles is to not engage in leftist circular firing squads. I’m on the what a lot of people would regard as the “far left” but the libertarian socialist wing. But it’s always better to have a Labour Party in power, then to have the arguments, rather than doctrinal bickering on opposition. The reality is the media here are the Chomskyian definition of Consent Manufacturers.

Heritage Party, no. But bizarrely I got a Conservative leaflet… I live in Corbyn’s Islington North. An insane waste of money.

I don't think our views differ that much; I'd rather see Labour Party in power too rather than have an ideologically divided party - like the Conservatives currently are - squabbling amongst each other in long-term, unelectable opposition.

losthighway wrote: Fri Jul 05, 2024 10:13 am

zorg wrote: Fri Jul 05, 2024 9:31 am

jirbling rake wrote: Thu Jul 04, 2024 4:08 pm After 2016's election there were many things I thought the Democrats would need to do in order to overcome the rising tide of fascism. They have done practically none of those things, and each year things get worse.

Not interested in playing "I told you so", but there was a pretty strong contingent on this board of people who insisted that in order to stem the tide of Conservatism, one had to unapologetically and blindly endorse the Democratic ticket. This meant no negative comments concerning the more "liberal" candidate were allowed to be shared whatsoever, and any thought of abstaining or voting third party was unacceptable. Is this not the logical outcome of this blind adherence to the "greater of two evils" theory? Honestly not trying to shit on anyone, or breed further discontent, but perhaps this can be a teachable moment that the DNC is not anyone's friend except the highest bidder?

...So if the question isn't whether the DNC adequately represents the left wing, it is instead how a left wing voter should behave to have the greatest chance of making their vote meaningful, or effective in some way. [ snip ]

I still think that in our country the idea of a vote as a form of activism, or some king of statement is pretty bogus [snip]

I'd suggest that more people like us getting directly involved in the organization would be the best way to improve it, but the idea of spending time working with that crowd sounds absolutely terrible. Perhaps one thing holding the dems back from being a better organization is them appearing to be an awful hang.

Voting is just the ticket to entry, the basics: following the rules so your person has a higher tally and wins (ignoring the electoral college bullshit for a moment).

More people like us, voting straight blue, pushing them left: all things one should do.

What was hoped for by the loss in 2016 was that tier of folks making decisions within the Democratic Party would realize that there really was/is a threat that (history shows) their money will ultimately not be able to protect them from. The old rules couldn't apply anymore. New leadership was needed. Better outreach. Some folks did realize this, and at some key elections, have strongly mobilized to save things as best they could.

Crucially, they should have found at least one very good candidate to ingrain into the public consciousness as the future of the party for elections 2020, 2024, and getting staging set for things beyond that. Just an idea, though.

Current reality we face:
- "Biden is old" is sometimes/always racist code for "the vp is a black woman".

- The concerns about his age are an op - especially considering the outsize coverage compared to the garbled things Trump says, Trump sleeping through his trial, Trump being a convicted felon. He's not asked to drop out by major papers.

- Trump's cronies/Heritage Foundation-driven Project 2025 framework gets hardly any mention or attention from the press, even though it contains truly fascist thoughts, erosion of liberties, forced deportations, roundups of enemies and more. So where's the equivalent coverage of this to "Biden old"?

The candidate doesn't matter as much this year, as much as which party's vision one endorses for America's future. One where you can go to a protest and say "The president sucks" and go home, or the one where you go to a protest and say "The president sucks" and the president sends the military to kill the protestors, arrest the rest, have a live military tribunal on television and then execute anyone they call an enemy.

jfv wrote: Fri Jul 05, 2024 8:01 am

twelvepoint wrote: Fri Jun 28, 2024 11:28 am Would Harris be inherently unelectable? Considering, perhaps, that the Dems had been grooming her all along for her own presidential run and announced it officially a year or so ago?

Bumping b/c news outlets seem to be claiming that Harris replacing Biden as candidate is a plausible (if not the likely) scenario.

I suspect a lot of (particularly) younger folks will be very happy to see someone other than a geriatric white man available to vote for.

Who the hell knows what’s in store? I do remember thinking wayyyy back in 2020 that Biden was unquestionably slowing down and wondering if they would put Harris forward enough to test the waters for a 2024 run? I feel like she’s been a good communicator, more so than other VPs, but clearly there’s no fucking plan in place for anything.

Harris seems to be "disliked" for no reason that anyone can articulate apart from "is a black woman", but I don't think she's more "disliked" than Hillary, and she can be relied on to finish sentences, stand facing the right way at a podium and not start talking to a tree that she mistook for her spouse.

Anthony Flack wrote: Sat Jul 06, 2024 4:01 pm Harris seems to be "disliked" for no reason that anyone can articulate apart from "is a black woman", but I don't think she's more "disliked" than Hillary, and she can be relied on to finish sentences, stand facing the right way at a podium and not start talking to a tree that she mistook for her spouse.

She's a former prosecutor who put a lot of people in jail.