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Donald Trump says he'll revoke Joe Biden's protections for trans people 'on day one'
(www.advocate.com)
this post was submitted on 11 May 2024
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The more people vote for the left, the further left their position will become. It's a well established component of political theory called the Overton window.
It works better with more parties.
You can only get more parties by ditching first past the post voting, and pushing for something better like ranked choice voting.
And don't you know that voting third party for president solves that problem? /s
Ranked choice would actually let people pick both an independent as first choice together with the safe choice as second (and the bad choice dead last)
I agree. Voting third party for president does not solve this problem.
Yeah only it doesn't at all stop saying this in jrst Republicans are stupid
I can't make any sense of what you just typed out.
Yes, but if that's not possible...
Thank you for the reference! Learnt something new. As far as I've read, the Overton window is not just that, but describes a general window of acceptable ideas or propositions. Of course, influenced by possible (public) majorities.
It does describe a window, yes.
But the implication is that if you think of the political spectrum between left and right, then the largest 2 parties will always align themselves immediately to the left and the right of the median - the centre point of contemporary politics.
Move that point (through voting) and you move the policies.
This sounds like a fantasy.
I've voted Democrat my whole life, yet the dems keep moving to the right, and the overton window keeps moving to the right along with them.
Sure mate. You understand that your one vote doesn't mean much right ?
Yes of course, but that's not really relevant to the broader point here.
Democrats have won more elections than Republicans, yet they have moved to the right. So what will it take to move them left?
The person I replied to suggested that voting can move the Dems left, but I disagree. At a national level, the Dems have been captured by corporate money.
They understand the best way to get votes is through advertising dollars, and the best way to get dollars is corporate fundraising. Other countries call this corruption, but here we call it free speech.
They haven’t won enough. If people like Bernie are still losing primaries because “commies won’t win general elections” and Dems still have to go for the “middle-of-the-road” candidate while Republicans can prop up the literal antichrist, that means they still haven’t won enough to cause a shift.
Once they get enough wins (possibly in a row) that Republicans are the ones forced to go for a “middle-of-the-road” candidate, that’s when Dems will actually have to act as a left wing party to get votes.
EDIT: also, unless I miscounted, Dems actually have less wins than Republicans post-FDR.
So your idea is to keep voting for the corporate Democrats, and eventually the Republicans will moderate themselves in reponse?
Mate, either you haven't been paying attention to Republican politics, or you are insane.
This is a recipe for disaster. We can't afford to keep this status quo for another generation, we are destroying the planet.
And what’s the alternative? I mean, there’s a lot of stuff that can be done, but voting for Biden (or whoever is the leftmost candidate between the main two parties) doesn’t prevent you from doing any of that. You can do that and organize, go to protests and whatnot.
Yes we both agree that you can vote and also protest. My argument here was that voting for Dems does not move them left, so I'm not sure how protest is relevant.
But since you asked for the alternative, I think the american labor movement of a century ago is the last truly successful model. It required a large peaceful protest movement, various forms of violent direct action, and a broad base of support in the populace who would not be swayed by propaganda. Those who died in that fight earned us the weekend, workplace safety, and dignified retirement. They planted the seeds for the most progressive era in American history.
I think we have to reckon with the fact that recent protest movements all failed. George Floyd defunded 0 police departments. The Womens March was a punchline. After Occupy Wall Street, banks and hedge funds just got bigger. Anti-Iraq war protests may have curbed some brutality, but that war continued for 2 decades.
These protests are on the right side of history, and changing peoples minds is good, but to change peoples material condition you need to change policy too.
I know there’s alternatives, my point was just that voting Dem doesn’t preclude, or slow down, any of them.
It eventually has to. But they have to win a lot for that to happen. In the past 80 years, the US never had three consecutive Dem terms, which means the needle is very much in between of the two parties (if not leaning right since Republicans actually had them once). So both can continue with their current policies and hope to be elected.
In the end that’s what matters to politicians, more than upholding any values they might champion: getting elected. Therefore the only way to shift the window in a FPTP system (barring violent protests, which are viable but a different matter), is to keep electing one party and send the message to the other that, unless they calm the fuck down, they’re not getting the seat ever again.
There’s no way that after three or four consecutive Dem terms Republicans will still keep campaigning on killing abortion and LGBT rights. They want that seat, and, like every political party in a similar system, they’ll compromise to get it. At that point, when their opponent isn’t a cartoon villain anymore, Dems will lose their main selling point and will be forced to prop up actual leftist policies to retain votes.
I still dont understand why, after 3 or 4 victories, the Dems would abandon neoliberalism and become a leftist party. Why would they change their winning strategy?
Is there any precedent for this in history?
Because they don’t win due to neoliberalism, they win due to their opponent being the literal antichrist. The point is to force Republicans to change their (supposedly) losing strategy, and have Dems react to that.
You can see how, for example, after the three consecutive Republican terms of ‘80-‘92, Democratic candidates have shifted more towards the right on average, in order to recapture more “average” voters.
I don’t have the competence to lay down accurately the process or know the best examples for it, but it’s pretty much basic game theory. If you keep losing consensus you have to adjust your strategy to be more similar to whoever is winning.
The problem is that there isn't a left to vote for, you either vote for right or far-right. That's why the ratchet effect exists, both parties are right wing, just separated in how extreme they are, with the Reps being overt fascists.
Actual leftist change is not going to come from voting for liberals. Absolutely vote for Biden if you wish, this isn't an argument against voting for him. However, if you think voting for a right winger will shift the overton window to the left, you don't understand the nuances of the overton window.
Actual leftist change comes from direct action and organizing. Strikes, mutual aid, canvassing, raising class awareness, spreading leftist theory, protesting, actual outside pressure is what changes the overton window.
In the current American political spectrum, there isn't really anything that most other countries would recognize as "left".
But given the current binary reality, whatever the Democrats are is viewed as left of the GOP rightwingnuts.
If there's a spectrum between left and right, then there's a point on that spectrum in the center of how the populace feels. If you have two major parties they will naturally arrange themselves immediately to the left and the right of that point. They have to in order to gather up as many undecideds as possible - they will naturally win everyone further left or further right who is not an idiot.
Voting moves this center point along the spectrum. The ratchet effect pulls to the right only because that's the trajectory over the last few decades. If the trajectory was to the left in recent decades the inverse would be true.
Direct action and organising might also move the center point along the spectrum, but not as much as voting, and only if voting reflects the results of direct action.
None of that is actual analysis, it's all vibes-based. The parties will serve those that fund them.
Actually it's well established and well understood political science, ironically you're just rejecting it as "vibes-based" because you don't like the vibe.
Yes political donations are a problem, but the inescapable fact is, the more people that vote for the dems, the more they will move to the left.
Sadly, your position is precisely that which conservative proponents would have you adopt. Well done.
No, the Dems will never become Socialist, as they would lose funding and thus power. It takes a lot to run a party, after all.
Leftist change has always happened thanks to outside pressure.
I'm not telling you not to vote, I'm telling you voting will never be enough.
Well... it's true that the dems "will never become socialist" due to voting but it's also true that America will never become socialist due to activism.
Socialism to any meaningful extent is not achievable in the foreseeable.
Voting is the most efficacious method by which to effect meaningful change.
America can only become Socialist due to activism and outside pressure, and likely will over time as Capitalism declines. Voting won't make it happen.
So your plan is to wait for Capitalism to decline? That really just confirms that Socialism is not achievable in the foreseeable future.
Just going to say it again... Voting is the most efficacious method by which to effect meaningful change.
No, that's not my plan, and it's remarkably dishonest of you to put words in my mouth.
I am simply stating that meaningful change has always happened with outside pressure, and not via voting. I am not arguing against voting or arguing for waiting, I am arguing for touching grass and organizing. Voting can be a part of that, but if you want actual change, it will never be enough.
Socialism in the US is absolutely achievable in the near future, but will happen eventually whether the Empire wants it or not.