I am becoming more and more aligned with this resigned view.
Welcome to Hell. Have you tried the Arbyās?
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The whole vote/donāt vote thing is interesting. USA may be a novel situation in the sense that the far right controls the main right wing party as opposed to many other countries so I can see there would be more of a concern with not voting. In Australia we have mandatory voting which I think is terrible. A great democratic right is to not vote when all the parties offer voters absolutely fucking zero effort on anything they care about. Mandatory voting hasnāt made people more politically involved/passionate/caring here. This is illustrated to me in my experience working elections (as an independent official) - 25%+ (maybe closer to 50%) of people have zero idea who any politicians are, wh at any issues are or how they even vote. Many openly resent having to vote and then just do donkey votes (we use preferential voting which Iām not even sure is a good thing as it seems to empower establishment parties).
You can do that. Youāre just required to show up. You can submit a blank ballot paper if you want to. Thatās what I did in 2004 when Labor put Mark Latham at the helm.
Iām a consequentialist when it comes to compulsory voting, I donāt really care about the ideological arguments, I just care if it gives better results. In Australia it compels the parties to fight for the undecided swing voter, which is good in that it limits polarization but bad in that the typical undecided swing voter is thick. Who knows if itās good overall. I think consensus is that politics here would be more right-wing if we had optional voting though.
Eh?
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Should have clarified this point applies to those thick undecideds. I had several phone voters (did covid phone voting this year - $110 aud/hour lol) who said they hated labor/liberal and then ended up voting this party they hated as 2nd preference because they didnāt know any of the other parties and so didnāt think to preference them. I never cease to be surprised how much low-info voters loathe preferential voting.
Even so, without preferential voting theyād just vote a major, which is more or less a second preference for the other major by default. I think things would have been harder for the teal independents without preferencing.
Yeah structurally that example isnāt problematic for what these voters wanted to do but I just mean it was illustrative of dumbing down the system and undermining the politicisation of society which I think makes people much more suceptible to right-wing brainwashing.
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I think the strategy is much simpler. Win open seats and build enough of a faction within the Democratic Party that the establishment canāt pass anything without your votes if Republicans vote party line. Encourage people to vote against Republicans, but when it comes to actual legislation, play hardball and be willing to vote against must-pass stuff like a debt ceiling raise and hold the line unless progressives get their way.
But you donāt insist on getting everything. Progressives are still out-numbered. So make a list of the ten most important priorities and agree that youāre going to take the L on a lot of those (where an L is getting the establishment position that is still probably way better than what Republicans want) so long as you get a clear win on a couple. Maybe you ask for one of the top three and one of the bottom five and meet halfway on one or two more. In exchange, you hold your nose and vote party line on the rest of the list.
Progressives donāt seem wired to prioritize like that and make pragmatic deals, but thatās what they should do.
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Hard to make a deal when the leaders of your party are lying scumbags that double cross you and then still blame you for their losses (see BBB). Progressives tried to do what you suggest, still got right fucked.
Beyond that, they werenāt willing to hold the line to protect Supreme Court clerks along with judges so Iām not optimistic about real must pass stuff.
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Progressives werenāt sufficiently hardball, not willing to use the American people as hostages the way I want them to. Part of our problem is that our progressives are too weak and too nice and not willing to be assholes.
Thereās plenty of ways to it besides your suggestion of holding abortion rights as a cudgel. I agree though, they should have killed the McConnell infrastructure bill.
Iād be ok with a straight no on the next farm bill too if Dems somehow retain power.
Everything you do on abortion rights is mostly cosmetic until you fix the Supreme Court. Sure, hold a vote that gets filibustered in the Senate, then spin it as Republicans blocking a fix. There are other things I would do a filibuster carve out for first before I would do federal protection of abortion.
The abortion clinics on federal land idea is dumb. Imagine a liberal Supreme Court that allows states to ban AR-15s and a Republican president allowing pop-up gun shops on federal land to sell them. That idea is going to work about as well as abortion clinics on federal land.
The issue I really want progressives to play brinksmanship on is the debt ceiling and to be willing to vote no and send the US into default.
The new Congress is going to do that anyways on the debt ceiling.
Thatās not my point though. The goal should be to restore abortion rights as fast as possible, not to maximize political gains.
Maximizing political gains makes the restoration of abortion rights more sustainable.
I was a big fan of that PM yāall had that found time to make hundreds of posts on 2p2. I believe his name was Kevin Rudd? Yeah, Kevin Rudd, the Labor guy. Big Kevin Rudd fan here. Itās just what youāre saying about zero effort. He wasnāt even trying to hide it and I respect that. I told myself, look, this guy gets it, he knows this whole thing is a laugh track and is chatting up a gambling forum on the stateās time to improve his 100NL game. Respek.
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Well, it depends on your timeline.
You want it now? At the national level? Probably not gonna happen.
You want it to grow organically and make it to the national level in 20 years or so? Thatās doable. Young, progressive people have to be convinced to start running for local, county, and state office. And they canāt be pissy if they donāt win the first time. 5% of first-time candidates win their races. Five. Percent. Then once they do win, they work their asses off in the offices they won, building not just name recognition, but respect. Also, stay in that office for full terms, maybe even two! Then they or someone they endorse runs for higher office, etc.
I keep saying, this is how the republicans did it, and it worked. But all I see is a bunch of Veruca Salts on our side.
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What percentage of first-time losers win their second race?
Not sure. I might be able to track down that info, though. Obviously, a lot fewer run again.
Iād also be curious about the difference between retreads who lost a general election vs those that lost in a primary.
25 years ago, I would have loved having access to a dataset that would let me answer questions like that. Is it out there?