Keep reading this thread. My point is not that we shouldn’t point these things out. We absolutely should, and often, and most of the time.
My point is that belongs in the primaries and the rest of the year, not when we have legally narrowed options. Doing this now can only help the fascists.
There’s a lot of time to argue these nuances, but within days of a general is not that time.
There’s a lot of time to argue these nuances, but within days of X is not that time.
This is my issue, because it always changes, hence the X I put there. When we had the presidential elections, it wasn’t the time, it was just too important and we needed to wait for the primaries. Primaries came here, and I was told it was a time for unity, and there were too many DSA-backed candidates (good), so it wasn’t the time for criticism, we needed to circle the wagons and make sure we get a nice, safe Democrat elected. Now it’s the mid-terms coming up, and it’s the same thing. There is never an appropriate time to criticize the Party where there won’t be some excuse.
Curiously, this courtesy seems only to be demanded from the left wings of the voter base towards the center, but not the other way around. During primaries and local elections, there was no call for other Democratic candidates to stop slandering Mamdani as anti-Semitic and accusing people supporting fascism by discouraging someone for voting for a Democrat, or when the rest of the party was dragging their feet on endorsing him when the actual elections were looming. As pointed out, Schumer is notably silent regarding Trump sending his goon squad to raid Ilhan Omar’s house.
The DNC and its base stifle criticism at every opportunity, but demand the unqualified right to sling mud whenever they feel like, even towards candidates who are nominally members of the same party. This is just one of their strategies to try and shut down a left-wing takeover analogous to the Tea Party taking over the GOP not too long ago, and make sure that the current elected Democrats people are unhappy with are shielded from the consequences of their votes. Trying to silence people who point out the bad things Democrats do, even if they qualify it by saying they will still vote Democrat for the lesser option of two evils come election day, is just an incredibly dishonest way to build your base. You’re just asking for people to become disillusioned when you tell them “Well, this time it will be different, we wrote Chuck a stern letter asking him to tone down his outspoken support for financing war crimes with your tax dollars,” and he gets back in and keeps doing the same exact thing.
How do you expect people will believe the party has any integrity at all when people are brow beat with accusations of supporting fascism or being a Russian shill for pointing out things like Chuck Schumer using his position to help maintain policies that are increasingly unpopular with the voting public, like Chuck viewing the point of his job as watching out for Israel and making sure the Democrats never stop supporting them? I mean, he’s not even up for election this time around! And when his term does come up, it will be a primary that is too important for criticism, we have to kowtow to Chuck, lest some “unelectable” candidate who says “I won’t give Israel carte blanche if elected” manages to win the primary and advance to the general elections.
I’m not talking about a nebulous amount of time, I mean like within one month. I’m happy to put a limit on it. I could even be talked down to 2 weeks. I usually don’t even mention this, because unless it’s within a few days of the window, I don’t care. But now we’re in that window.
I’m not demanding this of left wingers, nor of anyone. Right wingers surely won’t listen to me of all people, and they’re a lost cause regardless. I am talking to my own ‘side’, I guess. I’m saying we should stop attacking one another for a minute if we actually want progress.
I’m not trying to pin this all on your specifically, just saying that there is always someone, no matter the moment, asking for the same thing, and collectively, it shuts down dissent and helps ensure we’ll be in the same situation the election after this, and so on. When there’s always someone willing to shut down the discussion and make sure criticism cannot be expressed of our dear leaders, that’s part of how we wind up with ghouls like Schumer in office so long after they should have already been bounced to the curb. It’s the constituent version of how the Dems always have a Lieberman, Manchin or Fetterman in the Senate to make sure they can kneecap any broadly popular laws that might harm the financial interests of their patrons. It might not always be the same one, but they’re always present.
Besides, I kind of doubt the sort of politically uninformed voters who are still looking at this going “Gee, I don’t know. I don’t like any of the policies the Republicans have implemented, but I could see myself having a beer and a burger with their candidate to be Rep for my district, but the other guy is vegan, so no burgers. I guess I’ll go GOP this time,” are the ones coming 10 comments deep in a political community on a niche site like Lemmy to make up their minds. Like, fair enough if you said you were doing that on facebook or something, but you’re preaching to the choir here. Lemmy isn’t really known for its massive right-wing voter base, outside the trolls, and you’re about as likely to convince them to switch parties as you are to get the “Putin and Xi have never done anything wrong” crowd to suddenly decide they’ll start unreservedly stumping for the Dems.
Keep reading this thread. My point is not that we shouldn’t point these things out. We absolutely should, and often, and most of the time.
My point is that belongs in the primaries and the rest of the year, not when we have legally narrowed options. Doing this now can only help the fascists.
There’s a lot of time to argue these nuances, but within days of a general is not that time.
This is my issue, because it always changes, hence the X I put there. When we had the presidential elections, it wasn’t the time, it was just too important and we needed to wait for the primaries. Primaries came here, and I was told it was a time for unity, and there were too many DSA-backed candidates (good), so it wasn’t the time for criticism, we needed to circle the wagons and make sure we get a nice, safe Democrat elected. Now it’s the mid-terms coming up, and it’s the same thing. There is never an appropriate time to criticize the Party where there won’t be some excuse.
Curiously, this courtesy seems only to be demanded from the left wings of the voter base towards the center, but not the other way around. During primaries and local elections, there was no call for other Democratic candidates to stop slandering Mamdani as anti-Semitic and accusing people supporting fascism by discouraging someone for voting for a Democrat, or when the rest of the party was dragging their feet on endorsing him when the actual elections were looming. As pointed out, Schumer is notably silent regarding Trump sending his goon squad to raid Ilhan Omar’s house.
The DNC and its base stifle criticism at every opportunity, but demand the unqualified right to sling mud whenever they feel like, even towards candidates who are nominally members of the same party. This is just one of their strategies to try and shut down a left-wing takeover analogous to the Tea Party taking over the GOP not too long ago, and make sure that the current elected Democrats people are unhappy with are shielded from the consequences of their votes. Trying to silence people who point out the bad things Democrats do, even if they qualify it by saying they will still vote Democrat for the lesser option of two evils come election day, is just an incredibly dishonest way to build your base. You’re just asking for people to become disillusioned when you tell them “Well, this time it will be different, we wrote Chuck a stern letter asking him to tone down his outspoken support for financing war crimes with your tax dollars,” and he gets back in and keeps doing the same exact thing.
How do you expect people will believe the party has any integrity at all when people are brow beat with accusations of supporting fascism or being a Russian shill for pointing out things like Chuck Schumer using his position to help maintain policies that are increasingly unpopular with the voting public, like Chuck viewing the point of his job as watching out for Israel and making sure the Democrats never stop supporting them? I mean, he’s not even up for election this time around! And when his term does come up, it will be a primary that is too important for criticism, we have to kowtow to Chuck, lest some “unelectable” candidate who says “I won’t give Israel carte blanche if elected” manages to win the primary and advance to the general elections.
I’m not talking about a nebulous amount of time, I mean like within one month. I’m happy to put a limit on it. I could even be talked down to 2 weeks. I usually don’t even mention this, because unless it’s within a few days of the window, I don’t care. But now we’re in that window.
I’m not demanding this of left wingers, nor of anyone. Right wingers surely won’t listen to me of all people, and they’re a lost cause regardless. I am talking to my own ‘side’, I guess. I’m saying we should stop attacking one another for a minute if we actually want progress.
But by all means, continue.
I’m not trying to pin this all on your specifically, just saying that there is always someone, no matter the moment, asking for the same thing, and collectively, it shuts down dissent and helps ensure we’ll be in the same situation the election after this, and so on. When there’s always someone willing to shut down the discussion and make sure criticism cannot be expressed of our dear leaders, that’s part of how we wind up with ghouls like Schumer in office so long after they should have already been bounced to the curb. It’s the constituent version of how the Dems always have a Lieberman, Manchin or Fetterman in the Senate to make sure they can kneecap any broadly popular laws that might harm the financial interests of their patrons. It might not always be the same one, but they’re always present.
Besides, I kind of doubt the sort of politically uninformed voters who are still looking at this going “Gee, I don’t know. I don’t like any of the policies the Republicans have implemented, but I could see myself having a beer and a burger with their candidate to be Rep for my district, but the other guy is vegan, so no burgers. I guess I’ll go GOP this time,” are the ones coming 10 comments deep in a political community on a niche site like Lemmy to make up their minds. Like, fair enough if you said you were doing that on facebook or something, but you’re preaching to the choir here. Lemmy isn’t really known for its massive right-wing voter base, outside the trolls, and you’re about as likely to convince them to switch parties as you are to get the “Putin and Xi have never done anything wrong” crowd to suddenly decide they’ll start unreservedly stumping for the Dems.