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.
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@dave@alvarado.social @xgranade@wandering.shop @glyph@mastodon.social AGREED. And I think they need to realize that isn't such an ironclad strategy for voters, honestly. It's gotten us here: a bunch of "winter palette fascist" candidates (THAT'S SUCH A GOOD TERM) because they were consistently the lesser of two evils... and a TON of lost elections with massive consequences while we get the full fat no skim fascists in charge.
Their "safe" candidates are increasingly right wing shitheads and they feel safe to run them because they assume the base is solid. The "base" is not solid: we keep giving them votes and money and they piss it away on increasingly regressive candidates (just less regressive than the other side).
They can see how wildly popular people like Mamdani are; they know it's a winning strategy for the people and the party... just not a winning strategy for them, I suspect.@aud @xgranade @dave most popular elected democrat in the country and AFAIK his numbers just keep going up https://www.newsweek.com/zohran-mamdanis-popularity-hits-new-highpoll-11461031
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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.
@dave@alvarado.social @glyph@mastodon.social @xgranade@wandering.shop I could have written this exact post and have thought all these things so many times. I am still so pissed about Gitmo.
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@dave@alvarado.social @glyph@mastodon.social @xgranade@wandering.shop I could have written this exact post and have thought all these things so many times. I am still so pissed about Gitmo.
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@dave@alvarado.social @glyph@mastodon.social @xgranade@wandering.shop I could have written this exact post and have thought all these things so many times. I am still so pissed about Gitmo.
@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 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.
