I thought Uncommitted was a smart use of the primaries.

More generally, obviously much more critical than in the election itself. But getting the right candidates in the primary, and pushing all candidates to be better in all the usual ways. They’re never going to chase us to the left like they chase to the right, so we have to do the work and set the boundaries.

Choosing to treat anyone who thinks otherwise as too stupid to realise this is exactly why Trump might win. Please stop.

The Democrats do not have a realistic chance of winning against Trump because the Democrats are entirely incapable of challenging power. It’s the fundamental contradiction of liberalism. They won’t do anything for the people they need to vote for them because if they do the people who fund them will stop funding them.

Obama and Sanders both excelled at small-dollar donations, of course. Sadly, Obama was a silver-tongued coward and the Clinton Democrats made sure she didn’t repeat the mistakes of 2008 in 2016 by not bothering to sign up voters in case they killed her in the primaries again.

They dig their own grave and they do so willingly because it makes them exceedingly rich.

You know the article has words in it that aren’t in the headline?

And that if you actually care about Biden winning, you need to engage with these arguments or at least have the good sense to STFU for fear of alienating people even further?

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Learn to read, comprehend what you read, think about what you read, and then avoid saying stuff that gets you the exact opposite of what you want. FFS

Demanding that people vote for the least worst option without any content other than sneering at them for apparently not realising that one of the options is worse, is doing exactly that.

It’s straw-manning the arguments of people who want (and desperately need) the Democrats to be better and are putting serious thought, time and energy into how that is possible in a world controlled by billionaires who unleash fascism the moment their power is threatened.

And they’re doing it with a lazy, cynical, Bill Maher-wannabe take because apparently they think this is a good look?

They’ll be the death of us all.

Yeah, if you’re going to comment you would, ideally:

1. read the article

2. comprehend what it is saying

3. respond to it

Knee-jerk hand-waving is not useful. It’s worse than just a waste of your time and ours, you are actively alienating everyone you desperately need to hold their nose and vote for Biden.

What are you trying to achieve here?

Obediently voting for the least worst option means you eventually run out of good options. <- we are here

The conundrum is working out how you force those options to get better without accelerationists getting to test out their theories for real (again).

I would respectifully suggest that “shut the fuck up and vote” does not cut it.

Indeed. Fascism is power protecting itself. And, even if the specifics vary worldwide, power has needed a great deal of protection since it fucked up and crashed the global economy. Again.

I was thinking of Miliband, really. Got the same treatment as Corbyn but it never reached a crescendo because he caved.

And Labour in general, of course. Since Thatcher, at least, they always end up defaulting to this please-Murdoch-at-any-cost nonsense. Not that they were great before Thatcher (1945-51 excepted) but the media was much less extreme back then.

Not just children. The Tories need a kind of generalised hate to keep them in power. “Look! Over there! The poor people have all your money!”. Not because a plurality of the electorate actually fall for it but because the billionaires who own the media keep the noise deafening to make sure no one pays any attention to their grift. Which means that the Labour party is too spineless to oppose it, keeping turnout nice and low while the Tories chase the fash to the right.

That does rather beg the question of whether boys or girls are encouraged to be loud.

But maybe they’re just picking up on teachers’ biases? Teachers Give Lower Math Scores to Girls

They get away with it if the people they attack are less powerful than they are, yeah. Power is a thing.

No it doesn’t. The dean who made this decision, as with most people in stable positions of power, does not need telling what to do because he will do it anyway.

Rutledge clerked for Clarence Thomas, and is featured in a painting included in ProPublica’s reporting on Republican donor Harlan Crow’s gifts to the Supreme Court Justice.

You think there’s going to be civil war and also, you want to maximise the numbers fighting for the fascists. Cool, cool.

Because handing election victories to fascists is a really, really bad idea.

Because there is no mirror image.

@[email protected] has given you a good description of fascist methods. They’re not available to the opponents of fascism because they are not fascists.

Fascism appeals to the worst parts of our nature. It gives permission to those feeling fear, humiliation or shame to lash out in anger and destroy the people that make them feel that way.

You can’t deploy the same tactics to make those people want to be on your side instead. If you try to shame them, they will just hate harder.

You should, of course, expose and ridicule the grifters who lead fascist movements and punching fascists is encouraged. But you need to distinguish between authoritarian leaders and the people they seek to lead.

You should not pander to the billionaire-funded leaderships (take note NYT), but you must not sneer at the people they are trying to lead (take note centrist Dems).

The article is not arguing that it should have been any different. The sub-editor had a bad day and that’s OK.

You can learn to swim in water that is shallow enough to stand in. And if being safe in the event of a pychopathic ‘prank’ is the primary concern, focus on learning how to tread water. Everything will seem easier once you know for sure that you can keep your head above water. Most people who are enjoying a pool or the sea are not actually swimming anywhere anyway.