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[Doomblade187]

I'm not talking about the current candidates, I'm commenting on how a lot of people here seem to want the party to go. They seem to want things to swing left of AOC and expect that to be a winning strategy.

Well, that's what we want.

We are Willing to compromise with quality Left Wing policy.

We are extremely unhappy with Neoliberals and Corporatists. Because they're bad.

Look, you want us out of the Democratic party, get a >2 party system going, because that's what it's going to take.

[Reelya]

Nobody wants you out of the democratic party. that's a straw man. We want the Democratic party to win. Saying "don't sabotage other wings of the party" isn't the same as saying "we want you out of the party".

How do you go from "the party base needs to be broad" to "we want the leftists out".

Also, i never said you need to take on board neo-liberal or corporatist positions, I specifically said that you need to listen to what the undecideds want, then formulate policies that appeal to them. They can be in line with left-wing policies, but it's important to listen to the language used by middle America and tailor the message to get through to them.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Yeah, it's not like the single most powerful moment in the history of the party is when they were forced to choose between literal suicide and taking a single tepid step towards SocDem.

Socialist and even socdem programs are universally popular and shockingly hard to dislodge once established. "Left of AOC" would destroy the American right for at least a generation. The only reason it's not like that already is that the Dems have been paid to lose since the 80s.

[Doomblade187]

Nobody wants you out of the democratic party. that's a straw man. We want the Democratic party to win. Saying "don't sabotage other wings of the party" isn't the same as saying "we want you out of the party".

How do you go from "the party base needs to be broad" to "we want the leftists out".

I get that from the fact that people say a lot "oh, we shouldn't go too far left, these upstarts need to quiet down and shut up otherwise the mythical white moderate won't appear on the lunar eclipse.

Basically, it feels like the party establishment is against actual left wing policy taking place.

[Reelya]

It's nothing against left or even right politics. It's just the reality check that in every nation, it's largely the swing vote which determines if you win or lose. Win first, discuss policy details later. Common sense and realpolitik is that you need to win the swing. The faithful largely take care of themselves. Having an extended shitfight to ensure you have as idealogically "pure" a candidate as possible is the worst sort of thing to do. It's the proverbial "preaching to the choir". "firing up the base" is inward looking. You need to expand your base, and you can't expand jack shit without listening to what language other people use. If you just shout louder with the same language you've always used, how can you expect to win over anyone who's not already convinced? You need to tailor your message to appeal to more people, not just berate everyone else for not "getting it".

You can discuss details all you like if you are the losers but it won't help.

EDIT: If you "fire up the base" you're going to see results like getting 60% instead of 55% in places like California, which due to the current constitutional rules, doesn't count for anything. Maybe the system sucks, but that's the system you need to master in order to win. Maybe it should be by popular vote, sure, but right now, it isn't, so barring an upset that overturns the electoral college, this is the reality of how things work. get into state politics if you want a better chance of overturning the EC.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

This is a strawman. There's no such thing as a swing vote. This is a mythical, practically religious concept. There are people who vote and there are people who don't vote. They don't swing.

The reason they vote is because they feel it may serve their interests. A policy which serves the interests of the many is more likely to receive results in voting than a policy which serves the few, even in our world of propaganda this remains true because work must be done to change that perception. You literally cannot have a message that is more appealing than what the left offers. But you do have to, you know. Offer it.

There's no such thing as ideological purity either. That's a right-wing idea, and like all right-wing ideas, is a religious concept. Ideologies aren't pure or impure, they just exist. Only material conditions determine what is the correct course of action.

[smjjames]

That's my thing too. The "conservative" and "liberal" portions swap between various numbers based on the survey. But Trump is offering only a conservative agenda. Any propoganda against liberals only skews identity, not the policies offered.

He didn't win by pushing hardline party conservatism. The hardcore conservative base didn't really like the things he was saying. He pushed a populist position, but a populist position which was also palatable (if only barely) to the party faithful. That's the kind of strategy that wins. The doctrinaire conservatives all lost, that's why you are where you are at. Trump is a radical populist type. For the Democrats, you pick something that appeals strongly to the undecided voters, but which the party faithful will get on board with too, even if they grumble a bit. The party faithful will grumble, but still vote for you, if you don't offer something appealing to them. The undecideds will grumble then vote for the other guy if you don't offer something appealing to them.

The best possible 100% losing position would be to take the attitude that you push "radical socialist renewal" then attack middle America when they somehow don't see the benefits and jump on board. It might be ideologically pure, but it's electoral suicide and you might as well paint the swastikas on the walls yourself since you've basically sold the country to the right wing if you push the Democrats that way, since you've made your side so unappealing by pushing hard-left that the Republicans can swing even further right without fear of losing the middle vote, since you've gone full communist.

The thing though is that it seems like the Republicans call every single Democrat idea socialist these days, even the most un-socialist ideas. They're already saying that the Democrats are going 'radical socialist renewal' and calling things communist/socialust that aren't. Socialism has absolutely no meaning at all here, blame the Republicans for misusing it to meaninglessness.

Too bad there isn't some right wing word that the liberals can use to trigger people and dumb into meaninglessness and use on the same absurd scale as the way socialism is used. Fascism maybe? (I'm being tongue in cheek here...)

Uh, the Democratic party is at *most left* currently, European Socialist levels of leftism.

No commies running for president. Also, most "Radical Socialist Renewal" or whatever the fuck name you came up with targets the Rich.

Except that to Republicans, socialist=commie. Also, I thought the Democrat party is barely centrist on the European political spectrum? As you said, we don't have any outright commies (in the ACTUAL definition of the word 'communism') running for President.

This is a strawman. There's no such thing as a swing vote. This is a mythical, practically religious concept. There are people who vote and there are people who don't vote. They don't swing.

The reason they vote is because they feel it may serve their interests. A policy which serves the interests of the many is more likely to receive results in voting than a policy which serves the few, even in our world of propaganda this remains true because work must be done to change that perception. You literally cannot have a message that is more appealing than what the left offers. But you do have to, you know. Offer it.

There's no such thing as ideological purity either. That's a right-wing idea, and like all right-wing ideas, is a religious concept. Ideologies aren't pure or impure, they just exist. Only material conditions determine what is the correct course of action.

Still have to give a label to the group that isn't hardcore one way or another.

[Reelya]

They're not exactly mythical:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obama-Trump_voters

In the United States, Obama-Trump voters (also known as Trump Democrats or Obama Republicans) voted for Democratic Party nominee Barack Obama in the 2008 and/or 2012 presidential elections, but later voted for Republican Party nominee Donald Trump in the 2016 presidential election. These voters comprise perhaps 9% of Obama voters and 13% of Trump voters.

Making up around 10% of the people who turned up to vote for the winning candidate is not nothing.

[Doomblade187]

They're not exactly mythical:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obama-Trump_voters

In the United States, Obama-Trump voters (also known as Trump Democrats or Obama Republicans) voted for Democratic Party nominee Barack Obama in the 2008 and/or 2012 presidential elections, but later voted for Republican Party nominee Donald Trump in the 2016 presidential election. These voters comprise perhaps 9% of Obama voters and 13% of Trump voters.

Making up around 10% of the people who turned up to vote for the winning candidate is not nothing.

There are several reasons that happened, yes. However, populism is a hell of a drug. And in that election, the Democratic party said no to a populist fervor, and lost. If I recall correctly, many of those votes were rust belt voters, who Trump hasn't done a whole lot for, but still is going after.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

The idea that these people are swing voters is mythical. Obama and Trump are not perfectly divided - there are certainly people who would like both better than they'd like HRC, R-Money, and John "Bomb Bomb Bomb Iran" McCain. And then there are the people who don't vote based on their ideology and are more willy-nilly about the whole thing, who vote like a person decides what number combo meal to get. And then there are people who do vote on their ideology but have a massively malformed ideology like Q-Anon, or "the US government did 9/11 but that's a good thing because they're trying to protect us", or whatever the fuck LaRouche supporters are on, or mainstream Christianity. All manner of judgement calls that you cannot even imagine yourself exist out there. I know, I've met them.

All of this totals up to far more than 10%. If I was to guess I'd say it's more like 30% of people who vote. And then there are the ones who don't vote because you're uselessly trying to gamify politics to find the swing voter, Bigfoot of electoralism.

[smjjames]

Well, in political electioneering terms, swing voters are the so called 'fence sitters' which are more persuadeable to vote for candidate x over y than the core partisan voters who will vote the party no matter what. True, it's a vastly more amorphous thing than it sounds like and the number of 'swing' voters can change from year to year, but you're always going to have to pull some from the other party and those who label themselves independent (which in reality nearly all lean one way or the other. True independents are like True Neutrals in DnD, barely exist.*).

*Well, okay, probably not actually true as one could probably put in a whole lot of True Neutral NPCs.

[Kagus]

That, and druid chars used to be alignment-restricted to TN.

[Dunamisdeos]

Ok but... All of those people you described are swing voters, though, Metal. A swing voter is any person who is not a firm supporter of any particular political party who votes based on other issues. Their vote can go to any candidate based on their own views and needs, which can be difficult to quantify.
 
It's not any specific group of people, just the ones whose votes do not directly correlate with political membership/affiliation. That is what a swing voter is.

[SalmonGod]

Reelya, everything you're saying is the same stuff I've been hearing my entire adult life, beginning with the 2000 election where Bush and Gore engaged in bloody combat to prove to the nation which one of them was the most pure... umm... most pure... unassuming totally average moderate joe that you could imagine having a drink with at the bar.  This appealling to moderates and elections, unreciprocated compromise, navigating legislation based on "realism", etc has been the prevailing logic for 20 years.  What it's gotten us is a fucking dystopian nightmare, and literal imminent global civilization-threatening apocalypse.  I'm done with it.  It's bullshit.  If it were truly winning strategy, we would have gotten somewhere by now.  But everything is shit.  Abandon your typical statistics-based approach for a moment and look at recent history.  Why should anyone who looks back at the last 20 years believe in this shit anymore?  Why should anyone who looks ahead at the next 20 years believe in this shit anymore?  If what you say is true - that trying to actually accomplish anything meaningful will lose us all elections forever.  Then why even care?  We don't have time for this anymore.  We don't have even a few more years to play these games.  It's radical change now or environmental apocalypse.  What you're telling me is that my only hope at a future is literal violent insurgency.  And maybe that's true.  But think for a moment about whether that's really what you're trying to say.  And if it is, then just say it.

The reason they vote is because they feel it may serve their interests. A policy which serves the interests of the many is more likely to receive results in voting than a policy which serves the few, even in our world of propaganda this remains true because work must be done to change that perception. You literally cannot have a message that is more appealing than what the left offers. But you do have to, you know. Offer it.

There was an example in this thread just a couple pages ago.  Trolldefender spouted a whole bunch of far-right gospel about the evil and danger of socialism/communism, along the lines of everything the slightest bit socialist in any form is literally Stalin rising from the grave to bring death to your nation.  But at the same time said he was planning to vote for the guy who straight up promised to give him a free $1000, because "lol cool free money whatevs".

There's the closest thing you'll ever find to a real fence-sitting swing voter, for exactly the reasons MSH described here.

[Lord Shonus]

If what you say is true - that doing other than appealing to the minority while screeching that "ANYONE WHO DOESN'T AGREE WITH ME IN ALL WAYS IS FAR-RIGHT" will lose us all elections forever.  Then why even care?  If you're willing to decide that giving any consideration at all to the interests of 68% of the population is unthinkable, why are you even pretending that you believe in democracy instead of demanding Imperial rule by whoever you think is The God-Savior of Humanity?


"Compromise" is not a dirty word. If a policy that does 80%, or even 60% of what you want it to do can get passed, it is better than a 90% or 100% policy that has no chance. It is even worse when you're in a situation where you'd be able to get 70% or 80% if you hadn't been screaming "GIVE ME 100% OR GO TO HELL!", which is far from an uncommon situation. Deciding that "well, Candidate A isn't everything I want a candidate to be, but Candidate B who I like better will probably lose, so I'll support A" is basic logic - you won't get anywhere if you don't make the best effort to make some forward progress.




EDIT: Not going to change this because I don't want to act like I didn't post it, but this came off MUCH nastier on reread than I intended it to, and I apologize for that.