Read on Twitter
I& #39;ve been reading political twitter and this fascinating & chilling trend of seeing pro-Biden ppl in good faith asking "okay so if we win this we& #39;ve demoralized young and minority and LGBT and poor voters, how do we fix this" and getting told "shut the fuck up" by their fellows.
The general response has generally been a politer "well they don& #39;t vote in large numbers anyways so fuck & #39;em," which is fascinating because these are also the same ppl the hardline establishment types are gonna blame if Biden loses in November.
Which they can& #39;t have both ways, we know that, even if they won& #39;t admit it. But the instant double-think and willingness to lay into each other for daring to ask how to build a coalition that isn& #39;t "okay now you do what we say & stay quiet" is enough to make your blood run cold.
I mean I do think it is a self-defense mechanism. If the guy who isn& #39;t talking about climate change, student debt, forever wars, etc beats all the ones who did, then clearly those issues aren& #39;t that bad. Hell, maybe they& #39;re not real and my kids/grandkids are making shit up!
And so seeing someone who aligns with your views say that we need to reach out, make concessions, even adopt policies that address those concerns threatens that bubble of it not being that bad, and if it is, we can fix it, the way we always have. No one wants to be the villain.
I admit this is me being idealistic, I& #39;m certain many of these people are getting a schadenfreude rager off giving those mean leftists what for. That one Regular Car Reviews PT Cruiser rant about looking down on the poors, but it& #39;s "I& #39;m not out of touch! You& #39;re out of touch!"
And of course this is to say nothing about the people playing another round of Politics as Football and are confusing "vote blue no matter who" for the to them similar phrase of "good game," ass pat and/or high-five optional.
To be more charitable again: there& #39;s also the people who are scared shitless of 4 more years of Trump to the point that they don& #39;t care about policies, they& #39;ll vote for whoever feels safe to win & cable news is all-in on Joe. Which is I& #39;m not going to say fair but understandable?
And any modulation in polices means he was wrong and it& #39;ll go public which might make him unelectable which might mean Trump wins and oh god the room& #39;s spinning again.
I guess we can call that your heart being in the right place. I can understand the sentiment driving it.
I guess we can call that your heart being in the right place. I can understand the sentiment driving it.
I mean what is this twitter thread, other than me trying to read the tweet leaves in my cup in regards to why everyone 15-20 years my senior has been so adamant about backing what feels like a doomed candidate from the jump?
That anxiety must cut both ways, surely?
That anxiety must cut both ways, surely?
It might even simply be on some level a misunderstanding of how this works; the candidates challenging the establishment by default must make huge demands of said establishment, or else they& #39;re not really making a challenge -- seems self-evident enough when you say it like that.
But if you& #39;re boiling down political platforms to talking heads & you& #39;re backing the guy who wants things as they& #39;ve always been, then clearly part of that is "our guy wins so no changes," and the granularity of what platforms may or may not really be feels like special pleading.
I won& #39;t pretend I have an answer. The fact that I& #39;m having to describe politics of ostensibly the same party in these unknowable terms is honestly pretty fucking demoralizing in of itself; how can Democrats expect victories when they can& #39;t recognize one another even?
(Not that I would really call myself a Democrat in any serious sense beyond the nightmare politics of the US where 3rd parties have had the life crushed out of them and your only hope is to pick which big one vaguely matches your beliefs and hope to find enough likeminded folks.)
