And this is the general attitude that really sets me off. I just think that when you combine the uncertainty that your plan works in the long term with the certain short term consequences of even trying the strategy, I just can’t sign off on the, “hey let’s just give it a try and see what happens” mentality.
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The alternatives, as I see them, are A) Primary everyone, for which I don’t see a realistic funding mechanism comparable to the Tea Party’s and B) Stay the course, which I think guarantees the current trend will continue.
The answer is that it wasn’t the left, it was the donor class. Emily’s List types, who presumably took a minute off funding shakily pro-choice centrists to shut out solidly pro-choice leftists and dropped ol’ Joe a line.
I remember people making these exact same Galaxy Brain arguments back in 2000. I don’t think they labeled it “accelerationism” or whatever, but it was the same idea: if we all sit this election out and let W become president, the Dems will be forced to tack left, and anyway, both sides are like the same, man. Boy that plan sure didn’t fucking work out.
I don’t know what to tell you guys; we just had the most accelerationist election imaginable in 2016 and now thousands of grandparents a day are dying and SPOILER ALERT nothing got better. The Dems didn’t decide to shift left to target the folks who stayed home in 2016, they decided to go after reliable voters in the center. Your plan sucks, come up with a better one.
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If the eDems prefer to lose with Biden rather than win with Bernie, you have no leverage whether you vote for Biden or not. You can’t force someone to make a concession with a threat if they prefer to suffer the threat rather than make the concession. The concession you want needs to be less onerous than what you can threaten. Which brings us back around to KLOBMENTUM.
‘Accelerationism’ as I understand the term refers to ‘heightening the contradictions’, that is, cajoling or provoking the ruling class into instituting ever-more repressive measures in the hopes of galvanising revolutionary sentiment among the proletariat (there appears to be some other technophilic sense of the term that I don’t understand or care to learn about). Certain terrorist campaigns, such as the assassination of Anwar Sadat or the Luxor massacre (IIRC) were conducted on accelerationist terms. Arguably Al-Qaeda’s entire mandate is accelerationist; forge radical Muslim unity by provoking military responses from the West.
‘Accelerationism’, in short, has exactly fuck-all to do with what’s being proposed ITT. Stop reading anachronistic’s posts, the man is utterly clueless.
A lot of the people who stayed home or voted Trump in 2016 were diner-thinkpiece people. Ex-coalminers and steelworkers and so on. All available information shows that fewer Sanders primary voters abstained or voted Trump than did Clinton primary voters abstain or vote McCain in 2008. Stop regurgitating long-debunked myths.
‘Losing with Biden’ there should be taken to assume the left shows up this year, as they did in 2016 when Clinton lost.
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Obama was well to the left of Bill Clinton. Bill Clinton wanted to privatize Social Security ffs.
Biden’s platform is to the left of Obama’s.
idk if I’m getting leveled here… you think Biden and Trump are indistinguishable but Obama was a huge departure from the New Democrats and their politics? Sorry, I don’t think the accelerationist playbook worked terribly well.
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I don’t care how far left Biden’s platform is. In fact I would like him better if he were just honest.
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The Democratic Party of 2020 is to the left of the Democratic Party of 2008. Politicians adjust to the times. I think what matters is who is more left relative to the center of the Democratic Party of their time.
Trump?
I don’t care who you like or what Biden’s inner thoughts are. I care about how he’s going to govern, and if he’s a soulless opportunistic politician who will just follow whatever the party tells him to, that doesn’t sound like a bad deal.
But this thread is arguing that voting LoTE has only served to move the party to the right?
A begrudging leftward tilt on social issues combined with a neoliberal swing rightward economically, broadly speaking. Reality is more complicated than two-axis graphs made in MSPaint by internet libertarians.
None of the examples here save for criminal justice maybe are social issues.
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How are you defining ‘social’ versus ‘economic’?
The only true political spectrum:
Guillotines - Progressive
Firing Squads - Conservative
Lethal injection - Neoliberal
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This is so correct. The biggest success story of the left is AOC and this was exactly her path.
Have you ever heard of breaking campaign promises?
IMO that was an exceptional case, a safe seat in a blue state that the party wasn’t paying attention to, with an exceptionally talented candidate. There probably aren’t enough AOCs in the country to make it viable. It’s not like it’s either/or, also. By all means primary the fuckers.