Seriously. I have no clue why these takes have been cropping up lately, and I don't know what kind of galaxy brain first came up with this brilliant strategy, but it is the most horrible idea I've ever encountered here in a long, long time. Probably ever.
It seems like the source of this is the appraisal that the democrats have become the party of elites and republicans are working class or some shit now. This is moronic and simply not factual. Not because the Democrats aren't the party of the elites. Just because the republicans are even more so. Why don't you look up who minorities overwhelmingly vote for? Why don't you look up the average income of republican voters compared to the dems?
What is true is that the republicans are doing well at rural areas. For this the blame seems to be solely on libs being annoying on twitter, or the dems ignoring rural areas. Both have some truth, especially the second, and it should be avoided at all costs. But no, this is not the only reason, there is also the fact that rural areas pretty much everywhere in the world and especially the developed world are conservative. Again, not just the US, this is EVERYWHERE and it's been like that for ages. The same thing was the case even when Marx was writing. There are reasons for that, and I'm not gonna go into them right now, but it is stupid to ignore that this always happens and to pretend like this is something unique and only because the dems aren't helping them much (and the republicans ostensibly are lol).
All this is to say that it is a good idea to not talk down to people there and to work to get them on our side, but it WILL be harder than it is in the cities, and most of the people there that vote red don't do so because they are secretly progressive but they just don't like dems looking down on them, but because they really are more conservative compared to people in cities, which - again- is true in most countries for rural areas, and these people would never, ever, EVER vote for some "socialist" trying to be elected as a republican. Even worse, everyone who is progressive would never, ever, EVER vote for you either because they wouldn't vote republican either, and the party itself would never, ever, ever, EVER let any kind of socialist run for office with them.
Like, there is also this silly idea that it would somehow be easier to get into the republicans than it is to get into the democrats. Yeah, lol, the party that is fervently and extremely vocally (and in a way that is integral to its function) anti-literally everything the left advocates for, is gonna give you an easy time "infiltrating". Um, no. Just no. It seems to hinge on a childish perception of politics that republicans are just really dumb and super clueless. They are not. When someone in politics does something bad, it's usually not because they are dumb.
The only result this could ever have is stain the left and alienate the only people who remotely care. At least 80% of the people who would ever care about the goals of the left are people who vote democrats. It is super important to reach out to the other 20%, but the worst possible way to do that is to go with the republicans, because not only will you lose 80% of the people who already might care, you will also have to pretend to be something that is much, much different to what you really are and you will end up just making a mockery of the left.
Please please please purge these ideas from your mind, they are so genuinely terrible that even considering them is destructive. It's like people on this sub (who according to the last survey were like, what, 90% liberal before they were radicalised?) are so pissed at their former liberal selves, at Biden and at the democrats that their political instincts are completely blinded and they end up having some genuinely shitty ideas that only lead to embarrassment. The republicans are not turning working class, they can't be pushed to the left. They're doing nothing that almost every conservative party ever hasn't done a million times before. The dems dropping the ball big time with Biden thus making a tiny percentage of minorities and working class people turn to republicans does not fucking mean anything, it just means Biden is even worse than Clinton at convincing these communities, a "shift" won't happen in the foreseeable future. The only way it ever could in the coming few years is if there was a world historic, unprecedented event that is just not foreseeable. Please reconsider your opinions if you are persuaded by these ideas, think why you are being persuaded by that.
enter isn't the right word, more like infiltrate
have a bunch of leftists work undercover as conservatives for years
then when the primaries are guaranteed everyone goes mask off at the same time
or you could just.. you know.. build a real workers party at that point? It would straight up be easier
In the US system where ballot lines and elections are private property of private corporations, maybe that isn't actually the case.
Perfect reason why the worker's party would not engage in bourgeois elections with the intention of actually winning, but rather as a means of propaganda and agitation. Victory is gained by organising the working class to the point where they can seize a crisis to stage a revolution and overthrow the bourgeoisie and for that you need a worker's party (i.e. a communist party)
And the reason for not doing that as a Dem is...?
to capture the Rs
leftists who pay attention to policy would also vote because policy, and Rs would vote because R good
I think it'd only work if you manage to sneak in to an uncontested race nobody cares about, or AOC-style do the legwork of letting liberal voters know what you're up to directly without alerting conservatives.
And then it'd only work locally, and probably once, before the party machine crushes you and voters realize they've been had.
Much much more effective would be to campaign as whichever party seems most likely to get you in power and then just quietly do whatever you know to be moral and right, while talking out your ass when the press comes knocking. You know, like every other politician.
the logistics of it are such that it would never work in practice yes. maybe one singular race like you said
Lol a leftist won't vote republican just because they said "oh hey, good policies".
:LIB:
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I don't think you can call something a failed idea when it's barely been tried. Parties shift all the time.
Not all the time, but the cartel does trade its constituencies (the technical term is a party system) back and forth when the contradictions become too much to handle.
Yes, worse. Much worse. For all the reasons I tried to outline. There are real examples of leftists who entered the dems and won seats. I don't even think it is the best idea to do that right now but it's been proven to work to some extent, while doing it with the republicans is just gonna fail and even if it won't, it's gonna stain your name.
I am 8 and what is tokenism
?
This won't capture the R's, it will either turn whomever is doing that into a conservative, or it will drive the republican voters into full cold war communist infiltration panic mode.