It sounds like this might be a deeper part of disagreement: fundamentally the voters pick the politicians. Blaming voters isn’t punching down, that is the ground floor and the only place progress is made. Its the ONLY place to punch.
Politicians serve at the leisure of the people. It is our duty to vote them in or out. It’s not punching down to tell voters to do their jobs, voting is literally the only ask for the vast majority of people. Besides jury duty, it is the minimum form of governmental/political participation a citizen can do.
There is no excuse for doing nothing besides being lazy. I am going out of my way to respect your perspective and your right to have it, but at the end of the day I think doing nothing and being proud of it is a cop out, and saying “it’s all the same in the end” is not just a cop out but is also disingenuous.
No they don’t. The DNC is a private entity that can nominate on whatever basis it feels like. That’s especially true considering the nonsense of the 2024 primary. When there was something more of a semblance of a legitimate primary, in 2016, the voters soundly rejected Harris. That is, of course, before we get into Citizens United, dark money, the electoral college, etc. Bourgeois elections are not a legitimate representation of the people’s will. There’s even been studies that show no correlation between how popular a policy is and how likely it is to be enacted. Opinion polls likewise show strong, consistent disapproval of Congress.
Suppose the public is pro-Palestine - when did we ever get a chance to express that and have it represented in the political system? If we never got the chance, then how can you claim that Kamala’s Zionism is an expression of popular will? The only opportunity I ever saw was to vote third party, which I did, but apparently that’s not a legitimate method of making my voice heard on account of you’re currently criticizing me for it. So then there was no method at all.
It’s an objectively raw deal. For the presidential race there are functionally only two choices.
The down ballot races have choices and primaries have choices and local races have choices. Mamdani surging to the top of the mayoral race for NY is an expression of the voters. 3 years of 4 there’s time to demonstrate public opinion and express unhappiness in any of a variety of ways, but I don’t have a silver bullet to provide.
All I can do is say that, practically, if there are two candidates for the president race and both support arming Israel, I would rather get a half assed attempt at public infrastructure than a government burning gestapo grift. And I think most people agree. If you want to make the argument that I’m the long run trump is a cold shower that we deserve to shock the whole system… I might have agreed in 2020, but now I’m not so sure it will change anything past 2028.
It sounds like this might be a deeper part of disagreement: fundamentally the voters pick the politicians. Blaming voters isn’t punching down, that is the ground floor and the only place progress is made. Its the ONLY place to punch.
Politicians serve at the leisure of the people. It is our duty to vote them in or out. It’s not punching down to tell voters to do their jobs, voting is literally the only ask for the vast majority of people. Besides jury duty, it is the minimum form of governmental/political participation a citizen can do.
There is no excuse for doing nothing besides being lazy. I am going out of my way to respect your perspective and your right to have it, but at the end of the day I think doing nothing and being proud of it is a cop out, and saying “it’s all the same in the end” is not just a cop out but is also disingenuous.
No they don’t. The DNC is a private entity that can nominate on whatever basis it feels like. That’s especially true considering the nonsense of the 2024 primary. When there was something more of a semblance of a legitimate primary, in 2016, the voters soundly rejected Harris. That is, of course, before we get into Citizens United, dark money, the electoral college, etc. Bourgeois elections are not a legitimate representation of the people’s will. There’s even been studies that show no correlation between how popular a policy is and how likely it is to be enacted. Opinion polls likewise show strong, consistent disapproval of Congress.
Suppose the public is pro-Palestine - when did we ever get a chance to express that and have it represented in the political system? If we never got the chance, then how can you claim that Kamala’s Zionism is an expression of popular will? The only opportunity I ever saw was to vote third party, which I did, but apparently that’s not a legitimate method of making my voice heard on account of you’re currently criticizing me for it. So then there was no method at all.
It’s an objectively raw deal. For the presidential race there are functionally only two choices.
The down ballot races have choices and primaries have choices and local races have choices. Mamdani surging to the top of the mayoral race for NY is an expression of the voters. 3 years of 4 there’s time to demonstrate public opinion and express unhappiness in any of a variety of ways, but I don’t have a silver bullet to provide.
All I can do is say that, practically, if there are two candidates for the president race and both support arming Israel, I would rather get a half assed attempt at public infrastructure than a government burning gestapo grift. And I think most people agree. If you want to make the argument that I’m the long run trump is a cold shower that we deserve to shock the whole system… I might have agreed in 2020, but now I’m not so sure it will change anything past 2028.