We don’t need theoretical examples, most of us are old enough to remember Gore v. Bush. Al Gore was a thoroughly uninspiring centrist Democrat on everything except climate change and W was a legacy folksy religious Republican/conservative. Then there was the Green Party candidate Ralph Nader, who, while not quite at Bernie’s level, ran on a pretty progressive platform:
Good stuff, certainly better than whatever Gore was running on. So Nader got about 100,000 votes in Florida, and Gore lost the state to Bush by 500 votes, and the election. I’ll cut paste the “Spoiler controversy” section of the wiki in full:
Spoiler controversy
In the 2000 presidential election in Florida, George W. Bush defeated Al Gore by 537 votes. Nader received 97,421 votes, which led to claims that he was responsible for Gore’s defeat. Nader disputes that he helped Bush to win.[54][55][56] A 2003 study found that Nader’s candidacy was a critical factor in Bush’s victory.[57] A 2004 study found that Nader voters had the profile of likely voters with a preference for Democratic candidates.[58] They were therefore likely to vote and to do so for Gore over Bush in the absence of Nader’s candidacy.[58]
A study by Harvard Professor B.C. Burden in 2005 showed Nader did “play a pivotal role in determining who would become president following the 2000 election”, but that:
Contrary to Democrats’ complaints, Nader was not intentionally trying to throw the election. A spoiler strategy would have caused him to focus disproportionately on the most competitive states and markets with the hopes of being a key player in the outcome. There is no evidence that his appearances responded to closeness. He did, apparently, pursue voter support, however, in a quest to receive 5% of the popular vote.[59]
However, Jonathan Chait of The American Prospect and The New Republic notes that Nader did indeed focus on swing states disproportionately during the waning days of the campaign, and by doing so jeopardized his own chances of achieving the 5% of the vote he was aiming for.
Then there was the debate within the Nader campaign over where to travel in the waning days of the campaign. Some Nader advisers urged him to spend his time in uncontested states such as New York and California. These states – where liberals and leftists could entertain the thought of voting Nader without fear of aiding Bush – offered the richest harvest of potential votes. But, Martin writes, Nader – who emerges from this account as the house radical of his own campaign – insisted on spending the final days of the campaign on a whirlwind tour of battleground states such as Pennsylvania and Florida. In other words, he chose to go where the votes were scarcest, jeopardizing his own chances of winning 5 percent of the vote, which he needed to gain federal funds in 2004.[60]
When Nader, in a letter to environmentalists, attacked Gore for “his role as broker of environmental voters for corporate cash,” and “the prototype for the bankable, Green corporate politician,” and what he called a string of broken promises to the environmental movement, Sierra Club president Carl Pope sent an open letter to Nader, dated 27 October 2000, defending Al Gore’s environmental record and calling Nader’s strategy “irresponsible.”[61] He wrote:
You have also broken your word to your followers who signed the petitions that got you on the ballot in many states. You pledged you would not campaign as a spoiler and would avoid the swing states. Your recent campaign rhetoric and campaign schedule make it clear that you have broken this pledge … Please accept that I, and the overwhelming majority of the environmental movement in this country, genuinely believe that your strategy is flawed, dangerous and reckless.
Honestly I think this super extreme identity politics hurts the progressive movement more than anything. This shit frustrates the hell out of normal people and it undermines legit and serious sexism/racism.
My take is that the decision for some people to turn on Warren wasn’t motivated by sexism, but once they decided she was the enemy, their methods of attacking her sometimes fell into easily accessible sexist pathways. Or, if it wasn’t sexism, then they were at least informed by male privilege.
It’s similar to how there were white people who turned on Obama for non-racist reasons (or, at least, non-racist in their minds), but once they decided they were against Obama, they adopted racist arguments because those were the easiest ones to grasp. (see: the availability heuristic). And their easy to grasp because racism and sexism permeate our society.
Feels like a lot of people get lumped together. Like Victor is a rageaholic about everything. Why would this be different? And, you know, I’m like as perfectly fair and reasonable just like always.
I feel your pain, Atleast you can ignore his posts.
I wouldn’t give him that satisfaction and I would start a thread to get him removed as we as community should be able to speak our reasons for Stay/Ban and would in essence uphold the result.
I think that’s the best way, maybe another Mod or valued member can chime in too.
I’m don’t think I’d choose to stop posting just because vaya doesn’t like it, I don’t think, but I also wouldn’t like to see another contentious thread splitting this community for no reason, so if you’re planning to start one on my account I’ll just bow out and stop posting.
Again. Im struggling that I have to explain this on a progressive forum.
Supporting a woman at one point does not mean that how you treat her later is not sexist.
The man who beats his wife was probably nice to her when they started out.
The behaviour is either sexist on its merits. Or its not. Whether you like another female candidate, whether you once like warren, whether you are non sexist in other ways… All of that has nothing to do with anything.
You have female posters in here, plus articles by female writers that say “ugh. This feels really fucking gendered. This matches my experience of life in a ton of ways”
And your response isnt to listen or reflect. Its to fucking gaslight them.
So now we are at the stage where calling out sexism hurts the movement. Time for the women to shut up and behave while the white men fix things. Cool cool cool cool cool.
lol no. trying to frame every single criticism of a woman as sexist hurts the movement because it’s ridiculous and unhinged and makes any reasonable person tune you out.
Give some examples of people on this forum being sexist against warren and attacking her in a sexist way. literally every single criticism of her was based on her policy or her political tactics.
