Biden thread III: Still Robinette after all these years

Politics & News
2739

Yes, though I will caveat my yes that it is assuming truly-held morals and not pretend morals espoused for election purposes. (There’s probably a no true scotsman thing here where one could say “compromising on that policy proves that you did not actually hold that moral position” but that’s not what I’m trying to do here in this post–though I was alluding to it with my “supposed” in the previous post)

Using abortion as an example, if someone who claimed to be morally pro abortion rights then voted to support some sort of antiabortion bill because religious voters or something, I would view that as compromising on their morals.

2740

Next question:

Do you believe not commenting = compromising on morals?

(I promise I’m not trying to lead anywhere here, I’m trying to solidify an idea)

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2741

To put a finer point on my other post that you should read before this one, I’ve been following politics extremely closely since voting age and it’s always been an irritant that the Congress was so conservative. There are literally only two ways to change that:

  1. Win a lot of elections by a surprising shift in the country’s beliefs (happening)
  2. Infiltrate into the Democratic Party as a bog standard Democrat that people like and know and begin pushing left once you’re in office. In other words, you gotta fake it until you make it.

I can’t remember if it was you but it probably was who said that the GOP wouldn’t let the extreme wing take over or something. The problem is that they did! In 2010, roughly 20 or 30 freshman Republicans completely changed GOP policy by being insane because regular GOPs were afraid of them. Now it’s nothing but insanity and that could have been crushed like a bug in its infancy because of how stupid every single one of them was.

I don’t really like Pelosi at all, but she was a savvy politician and never ever ever would have let a small portion of progressives dictate policy because not enough of the country wanted that (you’re told the temperature by elections). It set the Democrats apart from the GOP regardless of whether we like the policies. She’s also savvy enough to know that when the caucus has more liberal/progressive members than conservative members that she will let that coalition lead Congress. She already passed the baton on to the next conservative guy in Jeffries, but I guarantee he has the same strategy on power she did that you have to earn it before you can take it.

Everyone here wants things but they never want to put in the work to get those things. Stomping your feet and not voting will not ever get you anything…period. You’re just depending on others to get the stuff you want for you. So, if you’re talking about Federal elections, no.

If you’re talking about local elections, you can do a lot. It’s absurd that you’d bring up Mayor, which from my understanding, is not a very powerful local job at all. It just has a lot of clout. Skydiver’s joke is school board isn’t sexy, but if you actually deeply care this much about people’s lives there’s no better way to show it than run for an office that handles stuff for your community you live in if you’re not willing to get out and be an activist in that community.

If you want to burn it down, that’s fine, but come up with a solution that doesn’t mean everyone burns with you and that it’s brought back up by people who will make it a whole lot worse.

A bad outcome in 2020 or 2024 would be those moments. We’re not there yet because we haven’t gotten there.

This is the closest we’ve ever been to moving the country dramatically further left through elections and you’re willing to throw away over 30 years of work from when there were maybe 10 people strongly left in Congress 35 years ago. Last I checked it was nearing 120. It would take about 130 to get a shift like you’re looking for. That’s probably somewhere between 2 and never elections away depending on how 2024 goes.

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2742

Of course, you have to realize that when Pelosi was rising through the ranks…she was the AOC of her time. She was so much further left than the party was, which is why I laugh when people call her conservative. She is a Democrat from San Fran-fucking-cisco! She was the furthest left there was, and she did it by building coalitions at home and doing the work.

2743

As in not speaking publicly on a topic you have expressed a moral commitment to? Yea probably. It’d be pretty weird for someone who expressed a moral pro-Palestine position to refuse to talk on the current genocide (or “genocide-like situation” for those who object to calling it a genocide)

2744

Hmm, no, let me rephrase.

how about, in a vacuum, with no other information, if a candidate chooses to make no public comment on an issue, do you believe that is a moral failing or compromise?

2745

The immediate-term pragmatic way to save lives is to vote Trump, if you assume your vote has nonzero utility (it doesn’t) and if you reject all Sabo-favored good arguments about voting being harmful.

Of course, anyone who is only willing to Do An Electoralism must assume that voting (and/or campaigning/donating to a candidate) is the biggest impact one can make, because otherwise they wouldn’t be able to call people immoral fascists for voting differently or not at all.

People are so lazy that they’ll just use Who You Vote For as shorthand for if you’re In The Moral Tribe or you’re deplorable. Even though obviously the ratio of everything else a person can do, to voting, is dividing by zero.

What I’m saying here is there’s a lot of lazy, selfish, stupid people taking very funny high grounds.

2746

Hard to answer without knowing the issue or the candidate’s history with the issue. In some cases yes, including if it’s super obvious or is something the candidate should have an opinion on given the position they’re running for. In other cases, no, if it’s something obscure that they shouldn’t be expected to be aware of.

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2747

The left could get a better compromise if they didn’t suck at electoral politics. The Dem establishment will seek accommodation if the left actually wins more elections.

2748

The problem happened a long time ago when the Democratic coalition was constructed so that they needed Roe v Wade being overturned to have a chance.

2749

As a neutral observer,

Skydiver is crushing this thread.

People have their feels, about ways they think politics ought to work,

And skydiver drops in with actual, practical experience from the ground, about how local politics leads to national priorities.

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2750

It can be moral to compromise on morals.

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2751

I haven’t found the arguments that simply voting at all is bad to be persuasive. To the contrary, it seems that voting for the right candidate is good, even if you’re not in a swing state. (Not voting is not a universalizable maxim.) Plus, for many of us voting is essentially costless, so it’s a good thing that we can do that doesn’t prevent us from doing other good things.

2752

OK,

I think I’ve got it now. The challenge becomes how to bridge the gap here.

Basically, this is a philosophical debate that we (the collective we, meaning everyone in the proverbial Democratic big tent) need to address. I’m not sure if it will ever be solved, but a little understanding might help.

From your answers to my questions, it seems that you believe that policy and morality are the same, or at least carry the same weight on some kind of moral hierarchy. I’m not going further than that because my real purpose here is to state my position from the same starting point.

As for me, I do not believe that compromising on policy is equal to moral compromise, but I think that comes down to my understanding of what policy actually is.

Policy is a tool to achieve morality, it is not morality itself. Thus, I do not believe that a politician’s morals are necessarily compromised if they vote on a policy that compromises on their stated position. Someone can still believe that health care is a human right (arguably a moral position) and then vote yes on the ACA (arguably a compromise on policy) and not have compromised their morals. Also, different policies may produce similar outcomes, and I believe that advocates for one or the other aren’t necessarily compromising on morals should they support one of those policies over the other.

As an (very simple) analogy, If my goal is to join two pieces of wood together, I am not compromising on that position by choosing to use three nails, even if my coworker chooses to use two screws.

In the second question, I also believe that not commenting doesn’t mean you’re compromising your morals. I made this question slightly more specific than the first for a reason, though. Plainly stated, I do not believe that a candidate for school board (for example) declining to state their position on a national or international issue means that they are morally compromised.

So where do we go from here? Do you think this makes me a terrible person? I honestly just want to take a step toward a more just future for all, but if you think I’m a monster for choosing a guaranteed step forward over a 1-in-100 chance leap, then I don’t know how to reconcile that.

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2753

Well, the thing is getting a bit old. Might be time for a new one.

2754

This upcoming presidential election exemplifies everything wrong with American politics. A choice between cancer and a shit sandwich and at the end of the day the only winners are the donor class regardless of result.

2755

By far the biggest FEELS in this thread revolve around your vote having a nonzero impact on who gets elected President. After all, that must be true if we can assert a person is causing harm with their vote (or non-vote!)

Secondarily, the thread FEELS that under Biden, fewer kids will be in cages than under Trump. Or at least, hey maybe the cages are less uncomfortable? Of course neither is true, but the thread FEELS that doing anything other than voting for Biden puts more kids in more uncomfortable cages.

On the contrary, local and state politicians, the ACLU, the media, grassroots orgs, et al, resist things like walls and cages and cops in schools and arrests of grade schoolers when a garish person is in the White House. Organizations begin their multi-years efforts to put broadly supported items up for popular vote, such as drug decriminalization, franchise restoration, and tenant protections. The Dems have less time and money to oppose these ballot measures, to boot!

It’s hard for people to believe the cuddly man is as evil as the impolite man. But he’s more efficiently evil and he attracts basically zero resistance by comparison.

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2756

If you really think that immigrant kids would be no worse off under a second Trump term (lol forever), then please go tell that to Republicans. Maybe they’ll stop voting for him.

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2757

At the end of the day, I believe that the outcomes created by Biden administration are collectively something that can be the result of having a decent human being in the White House. I believe A good man can be president despite there being kids in cages.

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2758

Ok so I can buy someone not being bidens biggest fan as someone on the left, but calling him “cancer” or a “shit sandwich” that winning would only be the donor class is absurd. Roe v wade is very much on the ballot this year for starters, not to mention how Trump is threatening to try to deport 10 million people… or how Biden actually has done things for the middle and lower classes that Trump would immediately undo. It’s an absurd position.

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