Leftists Vs Centrists Vs Right Wingers
What am I even looking at lol and why does this feel terminally online and parasocial
someone is tracking where the online left stands on forcing a M4A vote, those on the right/center tend to be the ones with healthcare saying we can wait another ten years while those on the left believe it would expediate getting M4A by forcing a vote now and making Dems have to explain why they voted against healthcare for all during a pandemic when they claim "healthcare is a right"
but even voting for it is isn't much of a reliable indicator because they know it dies after it leaves the house, and there's no "we" to carry it forward, just a media spectacle
did you listen to the new Bad Faith? lays out a pretty good case for it, also you're assuming the Dems in the House would pass it
Chapo seemed less against it and more what's the point.
Ben Dixon is against it. He's actually being a petty asshole about it.
Dixon is such an insufferable lib can't believe I thought he was good
A lot of people being unmasked by this, for ages they've been discussing m4a endlessly, but when the opportunity arrives to do something its all "not right now, this isn't the right moment" gaslighting or just "voting wont do anything, it'll never pass" open defeatism.
He accused Dore of being a fed on the majority report last week.
I only support forcing the vote because it makes libs mad and because why not, what the fuck else are they doing
exactly, I'm actually in the "nothing matters" camp so we might as well go all out and see what happens, especially when it's a policy the majority of libs support
This 1000%.
They get off on leftist bending the knee to them and go fucking nuclear if you fight them.
So make em go nuclear, draw a fucking line in the sand. Goddamn, do anything but bow down and kiss the fucking ring
I only support forcing the vote because it makes libs mad and because why not, what the fuck else are they doing
it wil help kill the democratic party
CTH sounded like they didn't give enough of a shit to be against it, from what I remember they mostly said it was beside the point
not "pragmatic" and incremental enough for you, lib?
neither will doing nothing
It's not that avoiding elections altogether is necessarily the correct approach, but this is just one more example of AOC and her co-thinkers doing electoral politics wrong. We desperately need more independent socialist candidates with a sober, correct understanding of the fact that if they win seats they're fighting on the enemy's turf and shouldn't join any coalitions with libs or liquidate themselves under a liberal or popular-frontist banner. By operating within the same party, AOC and friends have repeatedly had to bend the knee to Pelosi and the neoliberal clique.
Who the fuck is we? We're not anybody. We are an undifferentiated mass of political consumers. We have no shape or political will and no ability to express that will even if it did exist. This chart might as well be a ranking list for people's fantasy football leagues, it doesn't mean anything for you and me and we have no way to impact it.
By "we", I mean the US working class, and the fledgling socialist movements and organizations that can grow and eventually be in a position to lead working-class struggle without sabotage or intervention from Democrats or other NGO/petty-bourgie/class-collaborationist element. The potential to building an independent workers' party, capable of running independent socialist candidates who fight exclusively for the working class and cannot be bought out by capitalists, exists. Everyone on this website reading this can and should be seeking ways to organize independent working-class coalitions, and to operate only on a united-front basis with misled succdem and entryist groups (e.g. Sunrise, DSA) rather than a popular-frontist one, including in our own communities.
Not only should we disregard whatever the hell AOC and other entryists are doing, but we also crucially stop acting like passive consumers of politics and actually learn to participate in politics and build a power base for the working class, starting from the local scale and working up from there. Even if you're stuck at home and mostly socially atomized, you can still spread Marxist agitprop through social media to plant seeds in the minds of liberal workers who might radicalize a few years from now. If you're in an org, make sure that org can publish editorials on a consistent basis. A century ago it was standard for Marxist groups to publish their own newspapers and pamphlets, and some still literally do this in addition to maintaining their own websites with archives of their public material. Putting up leaflets is also a good tactic for raising a Marxist banner, making passersby aware that your org exists in their community. Joining an org while also belonging to a trade union allows you to "sink roots" into the working class, linking up union rank-and-file with a potentially revolutionary movement and potential revolutionary party. Once we're organized enough at the local level and have community support from local workers, we can start running independent working-class candidates, using a strategy similar to that of Kshama Sawant in Seattle (minus the counterproductive cheerleading for Dem entryism, of course).
Imagining that shouting loud enough or writing enough letters to your congressman will get m4a passed or even voted on is pure liberalism. Organize a collective front and stage strikes/get militant if you want to effect actual political outcomes. Everything else is either jerking off or whining, or god forbid a mix of both
if you believe in direct action organizing I don't see why you would see forcing a vote as somehow a bad thing, you can organize and do electoral pressure to push from all fronts, saying this is a waste of time is just giving yourself an excuse not to do anything and reeks of "I'm smart because I think this is dumb but I'm also not doing anything to help"
no, it's eating up the spectacle and expecting it to deliver results. organize. forget the fucking democratic party.
Accusations of ultraleftist abstention I get, but how the fuck do you read the decision to stay out of this fight as opportunist? CTH, for example, is clearly taking an """ultraleft""" anti-entryist position here, not an opportunist one. Probably significantly different from whatever V****'s motivations are. Pressuring Pelosi externally to win M4A is something I can get behind, but why tie this campaign to the doomed struggle to control the uncontrollable (from the inside) Democratic Party? Why trust AOC to lead this sort of fight when this is her strategy to win leverage? She's still playing the fucking shell game without understanding that it's a shell game and encouraging the left more broadly to do the same.
My use of sarcastic scare quotes was to emphasize the false conflation with an actual ultraleft position (complete abstention from elections) and the "ultraleft" position of breaking completely away from entryism into capitalist parties. You're correct that if we're gonna do electoral politics, we should do so putting forth our own program/platform with a list of carefully-formulated demands we want to fight and organize for, and putting forth our own working-class candidates to represent us, ones subject to instant recall by party membership and committed to only taking pay equivalent to that of an average/typical working-class person from the community they represent to ensure they still have skin in the game.
this isn't even an external pressure campaign... "call your reps" is the fucking opportunist line. AOC, I get. she's hitched her wagon to this eternally-doomed strategy. I'm honestly more skeptical of the rest of the people pushing this. this whole thing seems to me like socdems arguing with each other about the best way to flail ineffectually and there are more opportunists than not involved.
My point was more that this campaign isn't external when I said I could get behind externally pressuring Pelosi. Calling your rep just for the sake of clogging their answering machine is a funny way to piss them off but if they're a Dem and you're a Marxist you can't gain leverage by threatening not to vote for them unless they do XYZ because you weren't gonna vote for them as a matter of principle.
it is organizing to get a M4A vote on the board and having people call their reps/protest for them to vote Yes
The country just voted into the presidency the one democratic candidate who was against m4a. Reps have zero reason to pay attention to any amount of calls
no, that's mobilization. organizing results in an actual structure after the immediate fight. moreover, it's strategically bad. the democratic party has absolutely no reason to vote for this, no matter who calls their phones. they don't answer to their constituents. they answer to capital. this whole strategy is magical thinking.
Lmao calling a m4a vote that does nothing direct action.
To be clear, it is not in any way direct action. It could be if there was a force on the ground to occupy Pelosi's office or something, but there isn't. This is an entirely online conversation about whether a few elected officials should force a non binding vote with dubious propaganda value. I can see the benefits and risks either way, but in every scenario this is not direct action.
Asking Nancy Pelosi to have a bourgeois parliament to vote on a health care bill, or as I like to call it, direct action.
If you compiled this list, please destroy your electronic devices. Read a book, go for a walk. Call someone on the phone. Forget about podcasts. That shit doesn't matter. Read Lenin.
Some of the succdems are actually trying to do the right thing but don't know how yet.
Fuck it, I want this vote to happen now so I can see what all of the the idiots who support #ForceTheVote say when Nancy Pelosi has the cover to vote for it because it only takes 11 of the 18 Blue Dog Caucus memebers to kill the bill. Look guys, Nancy is a progressive, she voted for the bill but the Joe Liberman Caucus killed it, just like in 2009.
The baseline should be that they don't vote for Pelosi. If their votes have any leverage and a deal can be made, use it for something with actual power behind it like a bill that could actually pass or powerful committee assignments, not a symbolic M4A floor vote that is doomed to fail.
Not to mention that if the last election cycle was any indication, being unequivocally against m4a isn't a deal breaker or even a problem for the majority of the democratic voter base
I can't think of anything more inspiring to the base than two defeats of M4A, once in the primary and again in Congress, in 12 month period. Surely no one will become dejected and check out of politics after that.
At the same time surely never fighting for anything because everything is unpragmatic and electoralism is engineered to make you lose all the time wont ever make people dejected and check out of politics.
My argument isn't "never fight for anything". This is another bad faith argument I have seen from supporters of #ForceTheVote who don't want to acknowledge legitmate criticism of trading what power AOC and company may actually hold for a meaningless vote that everyone has admitted will fail. What I am saying is that getting something like powerful committee positions out of it is actually a good deal, unlike an M4A floor vote, and unless such a deal can be struck, they just shouldn't vote for Nancy Pelosi. You don't trade in your power for an empty gesture. We aren't going to get a M4A by doing a floor vote, we are going to get it by organized action outside of electoral politics that forces the hands of Congress. This campaign isn't going to do that. The left needs to look powerful and get people to believe in it, and losing on M4A again this year isn't going to do that. We need to build the organization, then have the fight, not have the fight then build the organization. We keep jumping to the end, it reminds me of seeing people tweet about an general strike on Twitter. It honestly gives me cargo cult vibes.
You keep posting about this - why do you give a fuck? Even if it's a pointless effort, how is it any sweat off your back? If you're anti-electoralism - that's fine, go do target-practice.
Nancy Pelosi has the cover to vote for it because it only takes 11 of the 18 Blue Dog Caucus memebers to kill the bill
Nobody expects it to go through - we want to see them kill it. We want them to show who they are. "Voted against healthcare in the middle of a pandemic, against what 85% of Democrats want" - content for the ads for leftist primary challenges.
The baseline should be that they don’t vote for Pelosi.
Yeah, you're SOOOO far left, that you're against a leftist action, because you're for an even more impossible action. Makes sense.
You keep posting about this
Because I can't fucking escape it because you libs won't shut the fuck up about it.
why do you give a fuck? Even if it’s a pointless effort, how is it any sweat off your back? If you’re anti-electoralism - that’s fine, go do target-practice
Because I'm sick of you fucking libs giving up any power we have for ineffective spectacle nonsense and revelling in romantic defeatism like you are goddamn Imperial Japanese military officers.
Nobody expects it to go through - we want to see them kill it. We want them to show who they are.
We know who they are, dumbass. You aren't exposing anyone. The Democrats have a 10 vote margin in the House and there are 18 Blue Dog Democrats, not even counting the New Democratic Caucus. It takes 11 Blue Dogs to kill the bill. All it's going to o do is give cover to Nancy Pelosi and other reps masquerading as "progressives" to say "No, I'm progressive, see, I voted for the bill" in 2022.
Yeah, you’re SOOOO far left, that you’re against a leftist action, because you’re for an even more impossible action. Makes sense.
Thanks for admitting that voting against Pelosi is actually not possible, lib. Glad we have cleared up you don't think that's possible to do.
You're questioning people's motives. Why can't there be sincere disagreement about strategy? You can calmly explain why you disagree without attacking everyone.
I’m sick of you fucking libs giving up any power we have
I think you're the one asking us to give up power. Jimmy's call looked quixotic at first, but there's genuine support for this among the left, including from relatively mainstream figures.
We know who they are
We mostly do - the public doesn't. Also, it's still useful to see who'll be willing to stand in the way when push comes to shove.
The Democrats have a 10 vote margin in the House and there are 18 Blue Dog Democrats, not even counting the New Democratic Caucus. It takes 11 Blue Dogs to kill the bill. All it’s going to o do is give cover to Nancy Pelosi and other reps masquerading as “progressives” to say “No, I’m progressive, see, I voted for the bill” in 2022.
Say they do that. Fine, primary challenges will have to be based on different issues. But that'll put them on the record - it'll shift the Overton Window: "90% of House Democrats support M4A, only a few conservative assholes don't". They'll have a tougher time raising money from anti-M4A donors. They'll be forced to pick a fight with Biden and the Republicans - Pelosi will have to tell MSNBC that Medicare For All is good and the talking points against it are Republican nonsense.
Like I said - if you're sharpening bamboo sticks or organizing workers - good for you, all the power to you. But then leave discussions of electoral strategies to people who give a shit about them. Because you're making the lib arguments in favor of Pelosi.
You’re questioning people’s motives. Why can’t there be sincere disagreement about strategy?
You are out here unironically stanning fucking Jimmy Dore, who is saying anyone who doesn't support this garbage idea of trading any leverage the left may have for a useless symbolic vote is garbage and captured and should be thrown out. Shut the fuck up.
We mostly do - the public doesn’t.
Oh really, the public doesn't know the conservative Democrats are against M4A?
Also, it’s still useful to see who’ll be willing to stand in the way when push comes to shove.
You already admitted this is going to fail, meaning it's not "when push comes to shove".
it’ll shift the Overton Window:
:LIB:
They’ll have a tougher time raising money from anti-M4A donors.
No, they won't. They will just go back to their donors and say "I had to vote for it to protect against a primary from the right, but that bill was never going to pass." Do you honestly think the capitalist class doesn't understand this shit?
They’ll be forced to pick a fight with Biden and the Republicans - Pelosi will have to tell MSNBC that Medicare For All is good and the talking points against it are Republican nonsense.
We already did this exact fucking scenario in 2009! "Oh, we tried to the Public Option, but that fucking bastard Joe Lieberman blocked it. Oh well, we'll get em next time!" How do you people keep falling for the fucking okey doke?
But then leave discussions of electoral strategies to people who give a shit about them
No, because you are a moron and you represent the left.
Because you’re making the lib arguments in favor of Pelosi
Once again proving that you are lib operating in bad faith looking to divide the left. I have said multiple times now that the baseline is to not vote for Pelosi unless there is an actual deal with power to be had for the left behind it, and that an M4A floor vote gives the left nothing in the way of power.
You are out here unironically stanning fucking Jimmy Dore,
lol what? this is just bullshit lol
