Jordan Peterson

[Timsup2nothin]

If the left is chained to an essentially conservative institution like the Democratic Party, the prospect for meaningful social change through electoral politics is sharply limited. That seems to be a problem in its own right.

Some might say it's limited either way. I certainly sympathise with that perspective! But if we're making the case for electoral politics, we surely have to aim higher than "not actively malevolent".

It's not a case of supporting or rejecting the Democrats on principle, but of refusing to frame the question of electoral politics as one of how you get Democrats into office, whether or not they deserve to be there.

Thing is that I think you are operating in a different circumstance and applying it to ours. The actual "left" in the USA has no power, and can't have any power, because they are too small a minority. No system can change that. The left that Europeans think of, that more or less half of the people who are at least sympathetic to the idea of progress, in the US MIGHT amount to a quarter of the population in some parts of the country and is probably closer to a tenth in others. Giving them some voice in the Democratic party, which probably is from a world perspective centrist moderate at best, is the most that can currently be done.

 

[inthesomeday]

I vote for Democrats for the exact same reasons I’d prefer the Soviet Union to the US.

 

[Lexicus]

I vote for Democrats for the exact same reasons I’d prefer the Soviet Union to the US.

Anyone wanna bet how many real hours' experience of the Soviet Union it would take for these words to be eaten?

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Anyone wanna bet how many real hours' experience of the Soviet Union it would take for these words to be eaten?

I suspect that back in the time of the Soviet Union we lacked the technology to measure time with sufficient precision.

 

[Kyriakos]

This genius even managed to get confused in a dead-easy iq test question, and then wondered if the item on screen had flipped ^^

(2.30 for that part; and he sounds jerkish-dumb overall imo)

 

[aelf]

Yes. A hypothesis is falsifiable. You have an anticipated experience if it is true, and a different anticipated experience if it is not true.

"On average, 80 IQ people require more work than they presently offer back in productivity" is therefore clearly different than "lettuce is better than cast iron". You could actually set up an experiment for the former, though you'd want to be very careful with what you're using to measure work and productivity it's possible in principle.

A hypothesis is also an opinion. A hypothesis often (maybe always) starts as an opinion, which can then be formulated in a way that makes it testable. In that regard, you can convert any opinion into a testable hypothesis - all it takes is a sufficiently clear delineation of the terms in your statement.

For example, "lettuce is better than cast iron" is testable if you define "better" in sufficiently clear terms: Is it preferred by most people? Does it have more of a desirable property than cast iron? It's not an unproveable claim. Therefore, it's absurd to hold that a hypothesis occupies some morally neutral ground that an opinion doesn't. There is no categorical difference between a hypothesis and an opinion.

 

[Kyriakos]

Hypothesis (both in the math and the general sense) means "assumption". It is something to be tested, so that you either conclude it is true, or isn't. While some fields never allow for actual proof, some do (math being the one with full proof, due to math being confined in systems resting on axioms).
An opinion can be a hypothesis, but only if the scope of it doesn't include being bound to prove something. Opinions rest on parameters that usually aren't as clear, and may originate outside the logically expected ties to the object/issue they were an opinion about.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

A hypothesis is also an opinion. A hypothesis often (maybe always) starts as an opinion, which can then be formulated in a way that makes it testable. In that regard, you can convert any opinion into a testable hypothesis - all it takes is a sufficiently clear delineation of the terms in your statement.

All apples are fruits, but not all fruits are apples. Hypothesis and opinions are like this in your context.

 

[Traitorfish]

Thing is that I think you are operating in a different circumstance and applying it to ours. The actual "left" in the USA has no power, and can't have any power, because they are too small a minority. No system can change that. The left that Europeans think of, that more or less half of the people who are at least sympathetic to the idea of progress, in the US MIGHT amount to a quarter of the population in some parts of the country and is probably closer to a tenth in others. Giving them some voice in the Democratic party, which probably is from a world perspective centrist moderate at best, is the most that can currently be done.

I appreciate that it's not the same- and in fact, that's why I'm making this argument. If this was Europe, I'd be entirely comfortable holding my nose and voting for whatever social democracy can scrape together. I do it every couple of years, and not always with total cynicism. I don't hold a great deal of faith in Labour or the Greens or even an avowedly socialist formation like Die Linke, but I can appreciate that a reasonable person might see them as a vehicle for progressive change, and I can certainly appreciate that arguments for progressive social change and arguments for a centre-left vote are at least overlapping.

I don't think that's true of the Democratic Party, and I don't think many other people do, either. That's why the argument for voting Democrat is not an argument for the left, but an argument against the right. If people took the Democratic Party seriously, they would be able to give a reason to vote Clinton over Trump that couldn't be directly translated into a reason to vote Kang over Kodos. The distinction between best-available and least-worst may sometimes feels slim, but it's the difference between somebody who represents your values imperfectly, and somebody who represents them not at all, and I don't think it's the statement of a deranged bomb-throwing anarchist to say that's a pretty crucial thing to have in a functioning democracy.

That's not to say people shouldn't be willing to vote Democrat. Vote cynically, let pragmatism reign! But if electoral politics are to be treat as a meaningful form of political action- stressing the "if"- then the conversation around electoral politics must surely has to amount to more than how we manoeuvre the Democratic Party into a victory which it is neither capable nor deserving of achieving on its own merits.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

I appreciate that it's not the same- and in fact, that's why I'm making this argument. If this was Europe, I'd be entirely comfortable holding my nose and voting for whatever social democracy can scrape together. I do it every couple of years, and not always with total cynicism. I don't hold a great deal of faith in Labour or the Greens or even an avowedly socialist formation like Die Linke, but I can appreciate that a reasonable person might see them as a vehicle for progressive change, and I can certainly appreciate that arguments for progressive social change and arguments for a centre-left vote are at least overlapping.

I don't think that's true of the Democratic Party, and I don't think many other people do, either. That's why the argument for voting Democrat is not an argument for the left, but an argument against the right. If people took the Democratic Party seriously, they would be able to give a reason to vote Clinton over Trump that couldn't be directly translated into a reason to vote Kang over Kodos. The distinction between best-available and least-worst may sometimes feels slim, but it's the difference between somebody who represents your values imperfectly, and somebody who represents them not at all, and I don't think it's the statement of a deranged bomb-throwing anarchist to say that's a pretty crucial thing to have in a functioning democracy.

That's not to say people shouldn't be willing to vote Democrat. Vote cynically, let pragmatism reign! But if electoral politics are to be treat as a meaningful form of political action- stressing the "if"- then the conversation around electoral politics must surely has to amount to more than how we manoeuvre the Democratic Party into a victory which it is neither capable nor deserving of achieving on its own merits.

A good thoughtful answer, but I think you skipped over the irksome reality that what really stops progressive change in the US is the fact that there are far fewer progressives collectively, taken as a percentage. No electoral system, unless it completely abandons basic principles of democracy, will give any significant power to progressives, because there are just too few of them.

 

[Traitorfish]

At a presidential level, for sure. Even at a federal level; part of the obstacle is that American congressional districts are jüge by European standards, and therefore more heterogenous. But, electoral politics doesn't operate exclusively at a federal level. State and local politics are often just as important so far as the day-to-day is concerned. A credibly progressive city councilor or state representative can easily do more good than a barely left-of-right-of center congressman.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

At a presidential level, for sure. Even at a federal level; part of the obstacle is that American congressional districts are jüge by European standards, and therefore more heterogenous. But, electoral politics doesn't operate exclusively at a federal level. State and local politics are often just as important so far as the day-to-day is concerned. A credibly progressive city councilor or state representative can easily do more good than a barely left-of-right-of center congressman.

Sure, but those more homogeneous smaller units also tend, in the US, to not be very supportive of progressives either. Because on any scale you look at the US is not in any way a hotbed of progressive views. That may change, at a generational pace, and I hope it does, but for right now we have to deal with what is.

 

[Traitorfish]

Sure, but those more homogeneous smaller units also tend, in the US, to not be very supportive of progressives either. Because on any scale you look at the US is not in any way a hotbed of progressive views.

It's not a hotbed of beigely technocratic centrism, but Democrats still win roughly half of elections. If the central argument in favour of voting Democrats is that it's making the best of the options available, then politics is a question of changing the options. The weight of the centre is institutional, not natural.

A progressive candidate doesn't have to convince people that you will perfectly represent them, only that you'll do so less imperfectly than the Democrats. Sanders was probably to the left of a lot of his primary voters, but they still saw in him a better representation of their values and aspirations than they did in Clinton. In this, the left has the peculiar advantage that nobody really expects them to carry out every point of their program, so long as the compromise they reach is workable. I'm sure that a lot of voters would rather have a socialist who can deliver half of what he promises to a centrist who offers nothing and means it.

The proposition that voters will be spooked by a candidate two degrees to the left of them but will obligingly kowtow to candidates thirty degrees to the right of them is true only so long as voters assume that other voters are thirty degrees to the right of them, too, and there's no better way to perpetuate that than by loyally returning left-of-right-of-centre candidates in every election.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

It's not a hotbed of beigely technocratic centrism, but Democrats still win roughly half of elections. If the central argument in favour of voting Democrats is that it's making the best of the options available, then politics is a question of changing the options. The weight of the centre is institutional, not natural.

Well, yeah, actually it is. It might not sound sexy enough to succeed, but there's not much question that if the US shifted to the 'wide spectrum numerous parties' system the 'Beige Technocratic Centrist' party would be honestly representative of the plurality, and maybe even the outright majority.

 

[Traitorfish]

The Beige Technocratic Centrist Party ran its best candidate in 2016, and it lost to the human equivalent of a genital wart. So what gives?

 

[Timsup2nothin]

The Beige Technocratic Centrist Party ran its best candidate in 2016, and it lost to the human equivalent of a genital wart. So what gives?

Wasn't their best candidate, or if it was it was only because they didn't have any good ones.

 

[Traitorfish]

Wasn't their best candidate, or if it was it was only because they didn't have any good ones.

Well, that's what I've been saying, isn't it?

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Well, that's what I've been saying, isn't it?

I thought you were saying that the problem is that the (non-existent) vast horde of genuine leftists in the US don't have a party that represents them, not that the centrist and maybe even right-by-European-standards Democratic party lacked a good candidate to represent their right-centrist (and thus actually very popular in the US) position. The leadership of the Democratic party can, did, and will cry bitter tears that the decades long Republican effort to demonize Hillary Clinton was unfair and full of lies, but the fact remains that it worked. Putting her on the ballot galvanized every Republican in America to turn out and vote, even for a genital wart. In light of that, nothing she or anyone else could do would make her a good candidate.

 

[inthesomeday]

That's not to say people shouldn't be willing to vote Democrat. Vote cynically, let pragmatism reign! But if electoral politics are to be treat as a meaningful form of political action- stressing the "if"- then the conversation around electoral politics must surely has to amount to more than how we manoeuvre the Democratic Party into a victory which it is neither capable nor deserving of achieving on its own merits.

I mean this is really the important part of this conversation, no? There is absolutely zero possibility of affecting meaningful change to electoral politics in the United States. So in the mean time we vote democratic very cynically.

 

[Traitorfish]

I mean this is really the important part of this conversation, no? There is absolutely zero possibility of affecting meaningful change to electoral politics in the United States. So in the mean time we vote democratic very cynically.

There's a difference between cynicism and resignation, though. The difference between making an unpleasant choice, and accepting that you have no choice. The difference between not expecting much, and expecting nothing. The argument for the social democratic left may be the former, but the argument for the Democratic Party appears to me the latter.

I thought you were saying that the problem is that the (non-existent) vast horde of genuine leftists in the US don't have a party that represents them, not that the centrist and maybe even right-by-European-standards Democratic party lacked a good candidate to represent their right-centrist (and thus actually very popular in the US) position.

Not as such. My root objection, as below, is that:

And that's exactly the problem, that all the progressive energy in American gets funneled into advancing the careers of whatever lich is best able to manipulate the party machine, because, hey, you should see the other guy! That's not a democracy.

It's not a case of the progressive credentials of the Democratic Party not being up to snuff, it's that the Democratic Party is barely an effective vehicle for the policies of the Democratic Party, let alone for anything actually substantial. It's not that boosting the Democrat is insufficiently idealistic, it's that it's insufficiently pragmatic. At a federal level, and I imagine at most state and many local levels, the war of Republicans against Democrats is fundamentally just a process of factional maneuver within an entrenched elite, and one made cartoonish by the fact that neither side are even good at it. The energy required to make the Democrats good, to make them competitive, is enormous while the available supply is evidently limited, and the Party itself acts as a vampire which drains away the possibility for meaningful political action because everything is drawn back round to the impossible and thankless task of trying to make an incompetent party competent. It's the polite equivalent of working class shmucks throwing themselves at machine guns because the Tsar fancies a Mediterranean beachfront.

Capitulating to the Democrats as the last best electoral hope is to abandon electoral politics as an avenue for meaningful change. And, I mean, maybe it is. That's a perspective I have no small sympathy for. But it should be said explicitly, recognised for what it is. We shouldn't perpetuate the myth that things which somehow improve despite the evident absence of any mechanism for improving them. If not, then there must be an alternative. Not necessarily a new federal party, American third parties are mostly vanity projects, but something besides falling in line behind people who represent nothing, and can't even represent it well.

There's simply no framework in which enthusiastic support for the Democratic Party helps anyone except the Democratic Party.