You beating this particular drum is not helping and will never change non-voters’ minds. The message of “you have to vote for us to stop the fascists and that’s the only thing that matters” didn’t work on most people before the election and it isn’t going to work now just because you’re repeating it more angrily this time. Yes, it sucks, but that’s the reality and you need to come to terms with it.
No one is going to have a sudden epiphany that “Oh, I just realized! Supporting Nazis is BAD, actually!”
However, we humans are social animals, and we respond to the actions and prevailing opinions of our communities. When our communities oppose an idea, we are more likely to, piece by piece, shy away from that idea as appropriate. In the same way that arguing against racism will change few, if any, racists’ minds, hostility against racism is still necessary to create a culture of anti-racism, to both prevent the uncertain from falling into racist thought and behaviors, and to ward away those on the fence from the same. When you’re finding yourself as a leftist, finally, excitingly, free of the liberal idiocy of the mainstream Dem party, whether the community you’re in gives you asspats for refusing to vote or tells you that’s the shit that literally puts Nazis into power will influence your opinions and decisions from that point on.
It’s not about ‘convincing’ people in one, big, overwhelming change of opinion. It’s about changing or maintaining cultural norms - even in the ‘culture’ of a comm as small as this.
The solution is in the primaries, and this is where “purity politics” as you call it is necessary. Railing against “purity politics” in primaries only serves to perpetuate the status quo that led to this defeat in the first place.
Man, I’m a fucking Bernie voter, twice over, and I would’ve voted for him a third time, even as hopeless as it would’ve been, had he ran in 2024. I’m not exactly opposed to picking the most radical candidate in the primaries. The issue is that purity politics becomes an issue when it divides the vote against a candidate that is objectively worse from the points of view of both the ‘more’ and ‘less’ pure candidate’s supporters.
It’s why I expect I will yelling at a non-zero amount of people to suck it the fuck up and support Mamdani come November as he gains steam. Mamdani (though I am a Mamdani supporter to the core, from the primary) won the primary, and now it’s the duty of everyone who isn’t a Nazi-supporting ghoul (like Adams) or a weird sexual harasser apologist (like Cuomo) to suck it the fuck up and express unity with everyone who will suffer even under the considerably more limited influence of a municipal authority.
Fight all you want in the primaries (with some exception granted for “Please unite behind the bigger progressive candidate if things are getting tight against the moderates”, such as for WARREN NOT FUCKING DROPPING OUT IN 2020), but in the general, if there are Nazis running, it’s a moral necessity to fight against the Nazis.
No one is going to have a sudden epiphany that “Oh, I just realized! Supporting Nazis is BAD, actually!”
However, we humans are social animals, and we respond to the actions and prevailing opinions of our communities. When our communities oppose an idea, we are more likely to, piece by piece, shy away from that idea as appropriate. In the same way that arguing against racism will change few, if any, racists’ minds, hostility against racism is still necessary to create a culture of anti-racism, to both prevent the uncertain from falling into racist thought and behaviors, and to ward away those on the fence from the same. When you’re finding yourself as a leftist, finally, excitingly, free of the liberal idiocy of the mainstream Dem party, whether the community you’re in gives you asspats for refusing to vote or tells you that’s the shit that literally puts Nazis into power will influence your opinions and decisions from that point on.
It’s not about ‘convincing’ people in one, big, overwhelming change of opinion. It’s about changing or maintaining cultural norms - even in the ‘culture’ of a comm as small as this.
Man, I’m a fucking Bernie voter, twice over, and I would’ve voted for him a third time, even as hopeless as it would’ve been, had he ran in 2024. I’m not exactly opposed to picking the most radical candidate in the primaries. The issue is that purity politics becomes an issue when it divides the vote against a candidate that is objectively worse from the points of view of both the ‘more’ and ‘less’ pure candidate’s supporters.
It’s why I expect I will yelling at a non-zero amount of people to suck it the fuck up and support Mamdani come November as he gains steam. Mamdani (though I am a Mamdani supporter to the core, from the primary) won the primary, and now it’s the duty of everyone who isn’t a Nazi-supporting ghoul (like Adams) or a weird sexual harasser apologist (like Cuomo) to suck it the fuck up and express unity with everyone who will suffer even under the considerably more limited influence of a municipal authority.
Fight all you want in the primaries (with some exception granted for “Please unite behind the bigger progressive candidate if things are getting tight against the moderates”, such as for WARREN NOT FUCKING DROPPING OUT IN 2020), but in the general, if there are Nazis running, it’s a moral necessity to fight against the Nazis.
God, I feel so much better medicated.