No. You're the one who is confused/not following... it's all the same discussion. My discussion of the O'Donnell segment/thesis...
the same thing I am discussing now, in this thread...began in the
2024 Election Thread where I linked the video. You and I were discussing it in that thread, and that is where you were accusing me of doing "gotcha".
I see how you see it that way, but I clearly stopped discussing the point that started on the 8th of March (I really can't be bothered seeing how many days it dragged on for), and started something else, a new argument, when replying r.e. my belief that you're browbeating voters who don't vote hard enough for Biden.
I'm saying they're separate, I'm not interested in defending whatever association you think I'm mentally dragged from a previous discussion. It was a clean break, I don't know what to tell you. You don't get to decide how I post
I tried debating O'Donnell first - when you tagged me - and that went nowhere (much as this one did). It only came up in this newer tangent because Gori kept referring back to it. I was more happy to focus on your specific post where you blame progressive voters for not voting correctly and therefore ushering in Republican evils (tired editor's note: not the same thing as saying you're trying to change they're vote. We both agree you're not).
So let's try a clean break. Starting here:
@Gorbles - Going back to the beginning of the discussion helped me clarify what my point/goal was, through the murk of our most recent back-and-forth. The overturning of Roe seemed to me like an example of what O'Donnell is arguing. It seems that you disagree, but not on the basis of the result, ie Roe getting overturned, but in terms of the cause. Is that what you mean when you say "consequences don't matter"?
You invoked Roe in the post where you said despite understanding progressive / leftist / whatever we're calling them voters, that this voting phenomenon (that started originally with the O'Donnell thesis)
gave us all the nasty Republican things you listed (including Roe).
So there were two discussion tracks here:
- My opinion on O'Donnell's argument (which I thought I'd stopped discussing). I think it's bunk. I think it's too heavily reliant on a stereotype (dissatisfaction with the Democrats crosses several "single issues" and a lot of progressives care a lot about several "single issues" at once), and that it's a convenient answer for liberals and centrists in that it helps them avoid thinking about issues the Party itself has, which may or may not be difficult to address or fix.
- My opinion with your blaming of Republican policy on progressive voters who "abandoned Biden". I focused on your post specifically to avoid rehashing the O'Donnell topic, because I thought we'd covered it in as much depth as we were likely ever to and I felt like I wasn't going to be able to bring anything new or constructive to it.
"consequences don't matter" came out of the latter. The consequences matter insofar as they're "bad", but the specifics of the consequences don't matter for my disagreement (with your blame of progressive / "single issue" voters). It could be that the Republicans blew up the moon (sounds silly, but would genuinely have catastrophic consequences for life on Earth. My kid watched a science show about it). The specifics of the consequence don't matter, my read of your post as blaming progressives
for those consequences was the argument. Does that follow?
I think that means "yes, in terms of the cause", but I'm not sure. We could be talking about different "causes" here.
Are you saying that you're more concerned with the cause than the results? It seems like you are saying that Roe was overturned, because Democratic politicians failed to properly motivate Democratically inclined voters and/or failed to use whatever tools/levers/dirty tricks, etc., at their disposal (Obama failing to test the viability of a recess SCOTUS appointment when Scalia died, for example)... rather than Democratically inclined voters failing to vote in sufficient numbers to keep Republicans out of the White House and/or sufficient numbers in Congress?
I'm concerned about anything the Republicans achieve in the US, me being a Brit or not. It's more than concerning. But in that case yes, it looks like we're talking about the same "cause", which is good (for us both
).
Because Democratic politicians failed to sufficiently (I wouldn't say "properly") motivate inclined voters, yes. I don't think dirty tricks are necessary. I think the problem with any form of trick, or bait and switch, or promises to codify Roe vs. Wade (going back two arguments with you, sorry, I know I said this was a clean break) is that we're in US election year, for the third time in eight years, where Trump and an increasingly fanatical GOP are the other option (and I use "option" only in its strictly most technical sense, here).
The two-party system is fundamentally broken, right? And again, as a Brit, I have firsthand experience of this ever since our viable third option committed political suicide over a decade ago. We're stuck with two parties as well, and they're increasingly showing the same problems that the Democrats vs. the Republicans do in the States. The pattern is:
- "vote for us, we're better than them"
- "to make sure as many people vote for us as possible, we'll take bits from their platform, or make explicit compromises to widen our appeal"
- "progressives must still vote for us because we're still the better option even if we keep taking things from the other side, because progressives have no real option"
And that's the bind. Progressives have to vote for policies, for a platform they don't agree with, just because the alternative is worse. And most of the time - we do! Time and time and
time again. On both sides of the pond! We don't ever see centrists getting dragged left to secure a vital vote. It's always progressives getting dragged right. And the second anyone points out how dumb this is, they get accused of enabling a victory for the bad guys.
Every year the Democratic Party tries this, the less people they'll get on board. Even if it's factually true that the Republicans are willing to open up the Earth's core with a megalaser if it got them a border wall with Mexico. Because these are still
tricks. These are
levers. Widening your platform by making it less progressive is a lever to gain votes to the right of the centre. If that's what the Democrats want to do, then that's their
choice. They can
do it. But they shouldn't complain when they then lose votes from the left. That's democracy, yeah? Voting for the slightly less worse party every four years as someone's life doesn't improve at all is not
logical. What's logical is for that voter to stop caring. And a party that loses the trust of any voter doesn't then get to blame that voter for losing elections. Nuh-uh.
So yes, the Democrats have to try harder. Recycling the same message over and over again, particularly as they fail their progressive voters on progressive issues, ain't going to cut it.
And let's be honest. If progressives
aren't a large or important enough voting bloc to make this kind of move for? Then sure, the Democrats don't have to oblige. But if progressives are that small or that unimportant in terms of voter demographics, then likewise they shouldn't be blamed for any Republican wins. It can't be had both ways. Either progressives are important enough to give a damn about their interests, and therefore their vote is relevant, or they're not, and it isn't.
But this is just you not understanding, and the more you go on about these things, the more you try and drag my personal motivations into it, the more I believe you're grasping at straws.
. In fact, going back to the origin of the discussion, I see that I specifically tagged you and requested your thoughts/opinion/analysis on the O'Donnell segment... and your first response was a sentence in line with what you're currently arguing. So one, you knew from the beginning that my goal was getting folks take on the O'Donnell segment, and two, you know good and well that this is all the same discussion, because you've been part of it from the beginning.
