scarabine

“Your desire to push out the thugs grinding our government’s ability to grow and change to a halt is an extremest view” sure is a weirdo take, isn’t it?

Honestly, as I’ve grown older I’ve come to realize most voting is risk mitigation. I was brought up to think it was about making positive change but votes that do that are less common than the risk mitigation votes.

Oh! I think we agree, my apologies for misunderstanding you and talking past what you were saying.

It’s a convenient wedge issue because although no one disagrees, and Harris is the clear choice, people are very upset about it. That allows the topic to steer people away from reason and into raw emotion. That in turn allows the conversation to become a way to subvert the topic into a general negative sentiment that plants itself association with Harris.

It’s a good manipulation tactic, and you can observe that any dissent turns into a pithy back and forth quickly. That’s going to leave it in the conversation for good. Because we’ll get upset every time it comes up.

It’s a very cynical, awful thing to do. To take the genocide of a helpless people and only serve it when convenient as a wedge issue. But it works, so here we are, talking about them but only when people want to take pot shots at specific politicians.

Indexable content is a good idea objectively, but Lemmy will never “be Reddit”. Sometimes something is just lost.

If you’re implying that they were deliberately sown doubts, I very much agree. I’m not saying a bunch of folks didn’t get duped. I think it was very much to blame on agents provocateur.

What I’m saying is that the acrimony can’t be waved away, not then and not now. It has to be taken seriously even if it was the result of manipulation. Saying “nah you got suckered” gets exactly the kind of lukewarm response it deserves.

I have heard stuff like this so often, and I feel like it’s as silly and callous to say now as it was 8 years ago. The part of the Democrat base that chose time and time again to keep denigrating “Bernie Bros” absolutely own the consequences of their behavior at the time.

In a moment where part of the coalition has doubts, historic precedent isn’t relevant. What is relevant is the work to answer those doubts and that did not happen. Instead the infighting continued and the doubts were ignored. Smug headline after smug headline told potential Hillary voters to shut up and fall in line. But Democrats don’t really fall in line like that.

It doesn’t really matter if other primaries went the same way, because other primaries have also produced failed coalitions. Some are examples of success, some failure. You learn from both. In 2016 we saw infighting and discord dissolve enthusiasm, a crucial part of what gets Democrats to the polls. It’s my feeling that ignoring that is a bad idea.

Yeah I’m reaching with the mail thing. Only because I’ve seen decent results with it. But, not great - Oregon is still just 62% turnout or so and I don’t think they’re sporting better than average young vote numbers.

Republicans definitely don’t realize the only thing holding Democrats together right now is just how totally awful they’re being. A “third way” style move from Republicans where they move to the left would devastate the political landscape. But it would cost them the maniacs and they might not survive the breakup

I agree that it’s a stupid reason not to even try, yeah. But unfortunately it bears out, like it’s one of the reasons why Bernie didn’t do well in the 2016 primaries. His support in younger demographics was striking, but their primary vote attendance was not.

I think the problem is voter suppression, though, and not the voters fault. Making it harder to vote hits younger people directly. Making it easier to do via mail would probably change that dynamic completely.

For anyone seeking broader context, this article was written and published about Wisconsin before a rally which, by all accounts, had a ridiculous showing of young voters.

It also sits buried somewhere far past the election front page, which, a day later, is full of similar stories about record upping voter attendance. Here’s a link https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-presidential-election

Young voters are a notoriously hard demographic, and they don’t pay off to court, not usually. They almost never seem to actually turn up to vote. That’s always going to be a tough problem to solve.

But this article is digging, it really is. And it’s in bad faith.

Maybe, but if so, why not keep talking about it and make them keep answering for it? If you want someone on their back foot then you have to keep them there.