• neuracnu@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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    15 days ago

    You can do what the tea party did: capture a small enough portion of your voting base that covers the margin of victory (aka: the short hairs) and demand the party do your bidding.

    • forrgott@lemmy.sdf.org
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      15 days ago

      If they cared about victory, you’d be right. But it’s becoming pretty clear they care far more about money. If they’re paid to lose anyway, this tactic is utterly useless.

      • PapaStevesy@lemmy.world
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        15 days ago

        Dumb doomer attitudes like this and the rest constantly plastered all over Lemmy (always by the same handful of users I’ve noticed) certainly isn’t helping. “American” Lemmy is a small community, it’s a lot smaller when you take out the bad faith “memelords” incessantly both-sides-ing and advocating for non-participation.

      • PugJesus@lemmy.world
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        15 days ago

        That’d require progressives to have something resembling spine

        It would require progressives to actually vote in the primaries, which 90% of people on here discourage at every opportunity.

        • WoodScientist@sh.itjust.works
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          15 days ago

          The only people I routinely read on here bringing up non-voting are centrists. All the progressives, aside from a few performative tankies, I read on here said, “I’ll hold my nose and vote for Kamala, but her choices are going to cost her the election.”

          The progressives showed up and voted for Kamala. And just like the progressives predicted, her shit policies meant that large numbers of low-engagement voters simply saw no reason to vote for her. Her democracy message fell flat because if you’re in the poorest 90% of the US, you do not live in a democracy.

            • WoodScientist@sh.itjust.works
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              15 days ago

              Not really. The Tear Party replaced a pro-business party with an even more pro-business party. Or they replaced the pro-business party with a more bigoted pro-business party. They made no fundamental challenge to the power of wealth and influence within the Republican party. And they were not a real grass roots organization.

            • NoneOfUrBusiness@fedia.io
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              15 days ago

              capture a small enough portion of your voting base that covers the margin of victory (aka: the short hairs) and demand the party do your bidding.

              Now I have no idea if that’s what the Tea Party did as I was way too young for politics at that time, but American progressives regard this particular strategy as nothing less than anathema to their very existence.

              • PugJesus@lemmy.world
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                15 days ago

                but American progressives regard this particular strategy as nothing less than anathema to their very existence.

                Yes, because it would require them to vote in the primaries to demonstrate the capture of the voting base?

                • NoneOfUrBusiness@fedia.io
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                  15 days ago

                  No, because most progressives would never make that threat, let alone follow up on it. I mean would you say “they didn’t do what we want, don’t vote Democrat”? Exactly.

                  • PugJesus@lemmy.world
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                    15 days ago

                    The fact is that the explicit threat doesn’t need to be made for there to be a threat - the Tea Party generally did not make explicit threats. The implicit threat by demonstrating a significant portion of the voting base as adhering to your ideas is, itself, a threat.

                    Meanwhile, progressives very often, as demonstrated on here, regularly say “The Dems haven’t done what we want, don’t vote Democrat!” and act surprised that their total lack of demonstration of support in elections for progressive candidates has failed to give them pull with the national party with this threat.