OK I'm depressed and anxious so let's talk about some game theory: under no circumstances should *ANYONE* in 2026 admit that they would vote for Gavin Newsom for president.
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@xgranade @aud @glyph yeah I hear you, which is why I'm on the fence. I voted for Obama twice, I got gitmo still open and more deportations than W did. I voted for Hillary. God help me, I voted for Genocide Joe. I voted for Kamala, knowing she was a loser.
I stand by my statement, a vote in the US is full-throated support of everything that candidate does. I'm getting tired of full-throated supporting fascism lite instead of giving the party I want to see change a swift kick in the ass.
@xgranade @aud @glyph the fence I'm sitting on is whether it's more harmful to do this faster/slower fascism slide, or to live with four years of godawful after showing team D they have *zero* support for their current trajectory.
Like, we got Trump a second time. I kinda wish Joe had gotten single-digit percent of the vote and the Democratic leadership had spent four years in stunned self-reflection. Instead we get fucking Gavin Newsom making a run.
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@aud @xgranade @dave I care a lot less about vindicating my personal feelings than I do about actually winning, but this is the argument the moderates make: you gotta moderate if you want to win. you have to split the difference. you can't argue too stridently for anything. don't have values.
it would be bad enough to follow this logic if it were correct, but it's *wrong*. we keep doing the experiment! "tacking to the center" gets you zero conservatives and loses you progressives.
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@aud @xgranade @dave I care a lot less about vindicating my personal feelings than I do about actually winning, but this is the argument the moderates make: you gotta moderate if you want to win. you have to split the difference. you can't argue too stridently for anything. don't have values.
it would be bad enough to follow this logic if it were correct, but it's *wrong*. we keep doing the experiment! "tacking to the center" gets you zero conservatives and loses you progressives.
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@xgranade @aud @glyph the fence I'm sitting on is whether it's more harmful to do this faster/slower fascism slide, or to live with four years of godawful after showing team D they have *zero* support for their current trajectory.
Like, we got Trump a second time. I kinda wish Joe had gotten single-digit percent of the vote and the Democratic leadership had spent four years in stunned self-reflection. Instead we get fucking Gavin Newsom making a run.
@dave @xgranade @aud on an emotional level I 100% get you. but on a decision-making level I feel like you are constructing (or rather, giving in to) the framing that "everything happens in the general election". and obviously, everything culminates there. but primaries are important, intragroup discourse (hey, we're doing discourse!) is important, legislative races are important… preparation and organizing and coalition-building is way more important than the "do I / don't I" at the last moment
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@xgranade @aud @glyph the fence I'm sitting on is whether it's more harmful to do this faster/slower fascism slide, or to live with four years of godawful after showing team D they have *zero* support for their current trajectory.
Like, we got Trump a second time. I kinda wish Joe had gotten single-digit percent of the vote and the Democratic leadership had spent four years in stunned self-reflection. Instead we get fucking Gavin Newsom making a run.
@dave @aud @glyph I am quite firmly opposed to accelerationism as a philosophy, if only on the basis that the collateral damage is nearly incalculable in scope.
It's the primary basis on which I concede any rhetorical ground to VBNMW. Quickly making things quickly is worse than slowly making things worse.
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@dave @aud @glyph I am quite firmly opposed to accelerationism as a philosophy, if only on the basis that the collateral damage is nearly incalculable in scope.
It's the primary basis on which I concede any rhetorical ground to VBNMW. Quickly making things quickly is worse than slowly making things worse.
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@dave @aud @xgranade in brief, accelerationism is also a sucker's game, so thinking that a big loss would be a catalyst that would make everyone wake up and finally do the right thing, also just doesn't work. so "winning" (i.e.: certain moderates winning certain positions in government at certain specific times) has probably prevented a lot of harm and death. If USAID had been canceled 4 years earlier a lot more people would be dead, and it probably wouldn't motivate any more blue votes
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@dave @xgranade @aud on an emotional level I 100% get you. but on a decision-making level I feel like you are constructing (or rather, giving in to) the framing that "everything happens in the general election". and obviously, everything culminates there. but primaries are important, intragroup discourse (hey, we're doing discourse!) is important, legislative races are important… preparation and organizing and coalition-building is way more important than the "do I / don't I" at the last moment
@glyph @xgranade @aud I 100% agree with the reasons why you think the primaries matter.
I 100% disagree that we actually get a say in them. Look at 2020--who besides the Democratic establishment wanted Biden? How did we get to the point that there was no other reasonably viable candidate? We were stuck looking for the next Obama at the end of years of the Democratic establishment making sure the bench was as shallow as possible so it would be somebody's "turn".
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@dave @aud @xgranade in brief, accelerationism is also a sucker's game, so thinking that a big loss would be a catalyst that would make everyone wake up and finally do the right thing, also just doesn't work. so "winning" (i.e.: certain moderates winning certain positions in government at certain specific times) has probably prevented a lot of harm and death. If USAID had been canceled 4 years earlier a lot more people would be dead, and it probably wouldn't motivate any more blue votes
@glyph @dave @aud Much better put than how I said it, yeah. If I sincerely believed that causing harm to others could prevent even greater harm elsewhere, some real-world trolley problem shit, then I'd be talking more about consent, and who am I to make that decision, how much of that harm I'm willing to be accountable for, and so forth.
But we're not there at all, it's not clear that that causing that harm will convince anyone, as you say.
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@dave @xgranade @aud The best response to that I can think of is this brief speech, given in the wake of Roe getting overturned: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MFjiq4Incm8
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@glyph @dave @aud Much better put than how I said it, yeah. If I sincerely believed that causing harm to others could prevent even greater harm elsewhere, some real-world trolley problem shit, then I'd be talking more about consent, and who am I to make that decision, how much of that harm I'm willing to be accountable for, and so forth.
But we're not there at all, it's not clear that that causing that harm will convince anyone, as you say.
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@glyph @dave @aud Much better put than how I said it, yeah. If I sincerely believed that causing harm to others could prevent even greater harm elsewhere, some real-world trolley problem shit, then I'd be talking more about consent, and who am I to make that decision, how much of that harm I'm willing to be accountable for, and so forth.
But we're not there at all, it's not clear that that causing that harm will convince anyone, as you say.
@xgranade @dave @aud we also already did that experiment too, and we may benefit from history https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ère_des_attentats
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@glyph The unique twist is that the players get to talk freely for thirty seconds before committing to Split or Steal. In the recording, one of the players starts off by loudly declaring that he will pick Steal no matter what, and that he'll mail the other player a check for half the prize afterwards. He's absolutely immobile on that, despite the other player pleading.
At the end, both players choose Split.
@xgranade @glyph there's a Radiolab segment on that episode. They mention that the actual argument between the contestants went on beyond 30 seconds, for 45 minutes, which is amazing, I wish the whole thing were available somewhere.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vsgjBg0HqWQ -
Type A people, even if they *will eventually* vote for Newsom in that very unfortunate circumstance in 2028, should *say* they won't vote for Newsom in 2028, because the more people that stand up and say this, the *less likely* it is that he will be on the ballot in the general. If this strategy works it won't even have been a lie! No way to prove a negative!
To wit:
sport of sacred spherical cows (@beadsland@beige.party)
The problem isn't Schumer or any other kayfabe panto player in elected office. The problem is a population that cede their power to election cycles, only to then cede their power in the voting booth. Folk like Schumer get re-elected because folk who vote for him and his ilk are not prepared to do much other than line up to re-elect him. Not on the day of the election, and certainly not any of the so many hundreds of days between elections. All in deference to the secular religion that is the first estate. #lumpentheory
beige.party (beige.party)
relatedly:
sport of sacred spherical cows (@beadsland@beige.party)
Ever the outlier, myself am what one might call Type B*: https://mastodon.social/@glyph/116138976469689167 Which is to say, am one of "those who absoloutely [sic] hate Newsom for his quisling collaboration with fascists in the press and just cannot vote for him on the basis of his openly" demonstrated harm to homeless people. As someone who has been homeless, repeatedly in my life, who remains of disaccommodation classposture, who thus fully expects to be homeless again in my lifetime, Newsom could be trans themself and myself still would never cede him my vote. None of this ought detract from Glyph's point: https://mastodon.social/@glyph/116139021260248707 To wit: https://beige.party/@beadsland/116117434991758267 #lumpentheory
beige.party (beige.party)
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Type A people, even if they *will eventually* vote for Newsom in that very unfortunate circumstance in 2028, should *say* they won't vote for Newsom in 2028, because the more people that stand up and say this, the *less likely* it is that he will be on the ballot in the general. If this strategy works it won't even have been a lie! No way to prove a negative!
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@glyph The unique twist is that the players get to talk freely for thirty seconds before committing to Split or Steal. In the recording, one of the players starts off by loudly declaring that he will pick Steal no matter what, and that he'll mail the other player a check for half the prize afterwards. He's absolutely immobile on that, despite the other player pleading.
At the end, both players choose Split.
@xgranade @glyph I feel like this works the first time only (and hey, Split/Split saves you the cost of the postage), but after that the metagame has changed.
The first time, the calculus is different. It includes “do I trust this obviously clever person who has really put thought into it to follow through on their super clever metagame-breaking play, or not?”
