• ctkatz@lemmy.ml
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    9 months ago

    I’m not a fan of state sponsored genocide either. but I can only blame progressives for this situation. for the progressive base, if a candidate doesn’t hit every. single. one. of their pet issues, they won’t vote. and if they do vote but their candidate loses they get all upset and tune out and snipe at what the actual elected democrats are (or are not) doing.

    instead of tuning out, they should have been getting involved either running for elected office or running for local party positions themselves. look at the republican party. they didn’t all of a sudden go fringe batshit crazy overnight. they built up a bench of insane by running for stuff on the local levels and taking over the party from the inside.

    if you want change, y’all are going to have to put in the sweat equity and work for it. just voting is not going to be sufficient anymore. and this is something that I have never seen the progressive base do when they have the numbers to do it. I can definitely tell you that withholding your vote is a 100% guarantee that none of your issues get addressed because the thinking in the party will be, “this bloc of voters are not reliable. putting in the resources and doing what a group of flakey voters wants is a waste of time and money. best to focus on people who are reliable and reliably voting for us already.” and if the people who actually vote say our foreign policy is fine, that’s what the party is going to do.

    • SquirtleHermit@lemmy.world
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      9 months ago

      That’s weird, I blame the people committing and/or supporting the Genocide. But I guess making a strawman out of Progressives behavior is another option.

    • BertramDitore@lemmy.world
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      9 months ago

      I am part of the progressive base, far left of it on most days, and I vote in every single election for the candidates who reflect my values, but I also think a lot about who I think has the best chance of winning. That means more than I’d like I end up voting with the mainstream neoliberals because I’m pragmatic and understand that progress is incremental and hard. But I always vote.

      I think a lot of progressives are realists, and understand that you campaign on what you want, but you govern with what you have. That means always pushing back against and criticizing actual elected democrats, even if they’re my preferred candidate. That’s how a healthy democracy is supposed to work. Of course we’re critical of the other side, but since we actually have the slightest influence over elected officials in our party, it make sense that we’d always try to keep them honest and pull them as far to our side as we can while they’re in office, wielding the power our vote gave them.

      I think to some extent we’re saying the same thing, I don’t think people should withhold their vote. Except maybe in primaries, depending on the situation that’s probably fine. But as a part of the base you’re describing, I think most people are pretty smart with how they vote, and at least the progressives I know are all pretty pragmatic.