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this post was submitted on 23 Jun 2024
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No Stupid Questions
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No such thing. Ask away!
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I don't think you really have a lot of choices to be honest.
You'd first need to get new candidates to win a primary and then a general and the required majorities are lacking almost everywhere.
A more fruitful approach is to actually change public opinion.
It's a long uphill battle, but it's happening.
Therein lies the problem. We don't have a lot of choices. Voting for new, progressive candidates feels great and it's nice to pat ourselves on the back and think we're making a difference, but the fact of the matter is that voting for a candidate who has no realistic path to winning is only even a realistic option when the candidate with the 'D' next to their name is all but guaranteed to win. And yeah, I'd really love to be able to make a statement by splitting the leftist vote between the democratic candidate and a progressive one; I'd really love to tell the democrats to get fucked and vote for a progressive third-party for every seat, but right now is far from the time for that, especially in states where those races are actually close. The last thing we need is to pack the House and Senate with republicans who win something like 40/30/30 because we couldn't unify behind someone who actually had a chance of winning.
Not to mention, we only get to vote in 1 state's elections, and often times there aren't even any progressive down-ballot candidates on the ballot to vote for.
I know a lot of people don't like the American First Past the Post system, but to be honest, even in a proportional system like here in the Netherlands, you end up with very similar dynamics.
Truth is, progressives are always a small minority, in every country. Because they are always ahead of the curve on change.
In the US, this means that you only get a handful of progressives in the most progressive districts and never a really progressive national government.
In the Netherlands, this means progressives are always represented, but need to compromise to form a government. And often, they even get skipped and the centrist and conservative parties form a coalition.
Truth be told, Biden is as progressive as you could hope to get in the USA.
And, while I do think it is important to criticize him - and even threaten to not vote for him - to enable him to move more towards the left, it is also important to vote for him.
Progressives always win, not through getting majorities, but because they have the right ideas and eventually the other parties catch up to them.
For recent examples, gay marriage in the USA or marihuana legalization are now law in the USA.
I am 100% confident that American policy on Israel will also shift thanks to progressive voices. And it will not require a progressive majority.
I'd love to be proven wrong, but I don't believe this will happen while Biden is president. Not to say I'm not going to vote for him - I'm not that stupid, but he's made it pretty clear that he will stand with Israel more or less no matter what they do.
I do worry that he's upsetting a lot of people to the point that they won't vote for him, though, and that's scary to me. He comes across as very weak when he capitulates to Israel this hard. He's repeatedly said, "This is the line, don't cross it!", then when they do, he moves the line. If he loses to Trump in November, I'll have a hard time not blaming Israel and his policies in dealing with them for that loss.