***Official Political Discussion Thread***

[DripNick]

Must be the rIgHt tO dEfĒnD tH€msElvE$, I guess

 

[Methodical Management]

This game of Liberals and Leftists playing chicken with the prospect of Donald Trump's second term, it has to stop.

We need to defeat Trump and Netanyahu this year.

Leftists need to grow a brain and be willing to vote strategically. Liberals need to get some damn heart and courage and pressure Biden into changing course on Palestine.

We all want a better and a more just world. Our interests are conjoined and doing anything that helps the monsters in Mar-a-Lago or Tel Aviv win, is detrimental to that effect.

I think it should be obvious by now that the Left's inability to win where/when it matters is linked to their rejection of pragmatism. I don't know how you fix it. There are enough disgusted Republicans/independents out there to give Biden a road to victory, but winning with the support of the political center/center-right will not make Democrats move "further left" on foreign policy.

I'm done with leftist online. I'm convinced most of them aren't going to do a thing but make post about guillotines and have a circle jerk over who's read more Marx.

Of course the Dems and liberals are going to go center right to get votes. Those people actually vote.

Much has been said about how algorithmic social media has contributed to divisiveness - but not enough attention has been paid to the ways in which it's generating a convergence towards nihilism.

In previous cycles, I've written at great length about my frustrations with non-intersectional forms of "leftism", like "White Socialism."

All those opposed to American Apartheid have, ipso facto, opted into a diverse coalition. Good faith participation thus requires us to, at minimum, 1) fight for one another and 2) tolerate some degree of compromise for the sake of progress rather than pulling apart at the seams, acceding to "divide and conquer" strategies so often stoked by Astroturfed agitprop.

I don't think there's adequate respect for the toll it takes on the most vulnerable members of a coalition to mollify the least vulnerable, to keep them sufficiently motivated.

That the least vulnerable members of a coalition can, at any point, take their ball and go home the instant they don't get their way is, itself, a compound accretion of privilege - an ever-present implicit threat that is perpetually weaponized to center their desires as the linchpin to democracy itself, a la Joe Manchin.

A refusal to compromise isn't inherently radical - nor is compromise inherently reasonable.

One's ability to refuse compromise and engage in brinksmanship, however, is heavily influenced by privilege.

While socioeconomically insulated slacktivists and cause-hopping oppression tourists who self-identify as leftists routinely threaten to abandon the world to autocracy unless their primary issues are centered, I reject the false equivalence and "both sides" framing of this as if leftists and centrists engage in this in equal measure or to equal effect.

Outside of MAGA, no group has been more radical and uncompromising than centrists/moderates. How often have you seen a leftist say, in effect, "okay Boomers: give us what we want or your Social Security gets it"? It doesn't happen.
Pick an issue that people with empathy care about: healthcare, climate change, education, criminal justice reform, whatever. Centrists' position on most of these subjects is essentially, "either nothing fundamentally changes or good luck with White Christian Nationalism." Meanwhile, leftists have consistently pared down their ambitions to achieve incremental progress or simply protect vulnerable groups from further harm.


In that sense, it's not strictly a "both sides" issue - that leftists and centrists both need to stop screwing around and agree that "some genocide" is the mature, responsible path forward. It isn't. It's unconscionable.
But if we're to oppose it "by any means necessary," that includes voting.

The prospect of minimizing harm and working towards a future in which the desired reforms are possible requires it.

Voting and direct action are not mutually exclusive - but they are linked. Voting for the best available candidate - even if that candidate is in many ways disappointing - neither prohibits you from nor absolves you of responsibility to engage in direct action.
Even if you feel that working through government is a dead end, allowing a Republican to take power, however, can - and in this case almost certainly will - limit your ability to otherwise make a meaningful difference.

A conservative Supreme Court - particularly one so brazenly partisan - would be highly unlikely to invalidate Anti-BDS laws. In 2021, Republicans passed a spate of anti-protest laws in reaction to BLM and police reform activism. Given the chance, they will do the same to inhibit campus protests: https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/republicans-campus-protest-law-order.html

A Republican-controlled Senate and Justice Department would likely result in the passage and enforcement of a bill similar to H.R. 6090, which would classify criticism of Zionism as a violation of the 1964 Civil Rights Act.

Trump even went so far as to promise that, if elected, he'd deport pro-Palestinian protesters.

You can rest assured that Netanyahu supporters will continue voting to implement such measures, and they would love it if the rest of us didn't.


Sitting out an election does not "teach the Democrats a lesson," because it is voters who choose each party's candidates in primary elections - not non-voters. The people who will suffer most from a Biden loss will be the most vulnerable - not the most responsible for the administration's failures and certainly not the most privileged.

In the words of Audre Lorde, “There is no thing as a single-issue struggle because we do not live single-issue lives.”

Republicans efforts to roll back civil rights will not end with abortion, and those most harmed by their anti-abortion measures are decidedly not rich White women.



Anyone who genuinely cares about displacement should stand aghast at Republican policies on immigration, housing, and climate change.

Even segregation could be back on the menu:

Clarence Thomas Muses on Revisiting School Segregation

The justice criticized Brown v. Board, a 70-year-old legal precedent, in a ruling that gave the green light to South Carolina's gerrymandered congressional map.

www.vanityfair.com

While I believe that voting Uncommitted in this year's Democratic Primary sent a necessary message to the Biden administration and will hopefully influence future policy, I will not allow my righteous anger to curdle into a destructive, self-defeating nihilism - especially when there is so much else at stake here.

If we genuinely want better candidates then we have to vote for them.

In this case, that includes voting to prevent minority rule by White Christian Nationalists.


Those who would sit by comfortably on the sidelines as innocents are made to suffer are demonstrating privilege, not purity.


I deeply resent the idea that it will be leftists - not Biden himself, not centrists, not conservative bigots or tax-dodgers - who would bear the blame of condemning this country and its most vulnerable residents to ruin.

Genuine leftists will vote to minimize suffering - and then go back to organizing and engaging in direct action.

 

[Nike Jordan]

 

[Nike Jordan]

 

[moonman818]

All the Italians in Long Island are pissed right now

 

[dacomeup]

Wild how far the Senate candidates are polling ahead of Biden is key states

 

[RustyShackleford]

Senate candidates are polling ahead of Biden

But I Nevada the gap isn't really that big

Rosen is a known incumbent, she is facing a challenger with little name recognition right now. That is what is driving that gap

The Senate race will be close

I do not think a world exist where a Nevada Senate candidate runs 17 points ahead of Biden in Nevada and wins

 

[Belgium]

I think the most ironic part of people who choose to abstain from voting is that the current Republican candidate tried to stage a coup and eliminate the power of voting entirely.
Have fun saving your vote for a non-existant 'ideal' candidate against a former president and party that tried to establish permanent authoriarian rule. With a little more nutjobs in Congress and on the Supreme Court, who's to say it couldn't have succeeded? Sure they used violence but they also came up with a legal theory that would have granted them permanent dictatorship if they could get the Supreme Court to sign off on it.

 

[05fordgt]

Do you think Presidents should serve more than two terms? I really feel like the two term maximum should be reconsidered.

Absolutely not!

 

[MakeNTGreatAgain]

I think the most ironic part of people who choose to abstain from voting is that the current Republican candidate tried to stage a coup and eliminate the power of voting entirely.
Have fun saving your vote for a non-existant 'ideal' candidate against a former president and party that tried to establish permanent authoriarian rule. With a little more nutjobs in Congress and on the Supreme Court, who's to say it couldn't have succeeded? Sure they used violence but they also came up with a legal theory that would have granted them permanent dictatorship if they could get the Supreme Court to sign off on it.

its propoganda
people think not voting is a good way of voicing their opinon

like okay weirdo don't vote and see what happens
and we live in such a follower generation, ppl will just follow what they see their lame friends on social media post

 

[jpzx]

In plain sight

 

[Nike Jordan]

No malarkey!

 

[Nike Jordan]

 

[aepps20]

I guess I won’t renew my toast license

 

[Public Enemy]

 

[elpablo21]

Comments got me crying.

This is also the first time I've heard about the book Black Like Me

 

[smedroc]

What a c**t.

 

[dmbrhs]

Comments got me crying.

This is also the first time I've heard about the book Black Like Me

Uh, pretty sure Black Like Me was more important than this book, considering it was written before the Civil Rights movement really took off.

 

[dmbrhs]

What a c**t.

It's been done before. Multiple times.

 

[Nike Jordan]

Oh, they big mad at De Niro over at Fox News.

 

[biggie62]

Remember guys both sides are the same. And y’all want to elect this side by abstaining from voting this next cycle.

I hope y’all enjoy even worst.

 

[dmbrhs]

This is borderline Fools Wildin' content...

 

[Belgium]

So he went on a blackface tour...? I've been called the n word on Xbox Live at some point, guess I should write a book on the dynamics of systemic racism now.

 

[stuntman mike]

i guess it was final arguments in the court case today. does anyone have insight as to how it went and/predictions on the verdict? i haven’t been following closely.

 

[smedroc]

It's been done before. Multiple times.

I'm aware.