I literally do blame the Democrats for Trump, and if you don’t, you weren’t paying attention.
Plenty of us were critiquing Clinton’s campaign on those merits and were consistently talked down to in shocker the same way we’re being talked down to now. Shocker, she lost. I remember saying a few weeks before the election “We’re about to get Brexited.” I put my vote down for Clinton, because Trump is fucking insane, and that was clear before he was President. It was clear in the fucking 1980’s.
Being able to critique our leaders is supposed to be what is the difference between us and conservative voters. They’re the cult who unquestioningly believes all the bullshit that comes out of Trump’s mouth and diapers. I find it weird that people think we should be more like them in regards to our leaders like that would be a good thing.
Ah, yes, the fallacy where the Republicans are the de facto winners and the election is only up to what the Democrats do.
I mean, yeah, they ran a mediocre campaign, but there is a difference between “critiquing our leaders” and literally campaigning against them, and leftist in general have a hard, hard, HARD time with that one. Critique is for when you’re in power. You analize, you apply your newfound political power to create pressure, you postmortem what went wrong. Campaigns are for winning.
And every year we’re told it’s “not the time to critique the Democrats” because its “too close to an election.”
Dude, I’m pushing fucking fifty and this has been every year of my fucking life with this “this is not the time for critique” shit. When is gonna be a good time to critique them? Because it sure fucking feels like the argument is never or this wouldn’t have been going on since fucking Bill Clinton left the Presidency.
Okay, let’s break it down.
How about first half of the Trump presidency, when the Democrats needed to regroup, take stock of just how badly they screwed up and plan how to never do that again? I’d say that was a good time.
How about the first half of the Biden presidency, when the Democrats could actually pass legislation and position themselves to brand the nature of their term? That was a good time. Happy to engage then.
I know it sucks to not have an alternative. I get it. But going after the only side that is even vaguely functional because you think you’re holding “your guys” to account is not one of the set of options you have at the moment. Spend those good times to debate lobbying for deep, profound reform that unlocks the political system for more varied options, as opposed to making every election an existential choice between actual, explicit fascism and literally anything else.
Until you do that, these are your choices. Not liking the choices doesn’t change that fact.
How about first half of the Trump presidency, when the Democrats needed to regroup, take stock of just how badly they screwed up and plan how to never do that again? I’d say that was a good time.
That’s funny, because I was berated by people online for critiquing them at the time, too. Especially critiquing Clinton, how badly she ran her campaign, and how they had destroyed goodwill of progressives by putting their finger on the scale for Clinton. Sanders is a class act, and that’s why he stood behind Clinton.
Sorry, but I was still being assaulted with “BERNIE BRO!!!” during this time period, so you can take this perspective and shove it.
It really would have been a great time for the party to consider what happened, but they were busy doubling down on it being the voters fault and doing anything they could to shift blame away from their own mistakes. They were literally arguing in court it was their right to go in back rooms to smoke cigars to choose the candidate… come on…
Literally I have been talked down to every year of my adult life about this, because every year its too close to a mid-term election or a Presidential election.
So you still didn’t really address the elephant in the room which is progressives are never actually allowed to critique the party.
??
This wasn’t even the political climate during the 2016 election. It wasn’t the political climate immediately after clinton
In fact I remember people being VERY harsh on democrats during the 2016 election.
THIS. I feel this. If I could super-upvote, I would. The same argument is deployed towards anyone voting 3rd party. The argument that ranked choice voting is the solution to a lot of problems, is valid. But we are never going to get that either so long as we keep diligently voting for the less evil between two parties. Seems like “never” is the answer to the question of when a lot of imperative, necessary, vital change is going to happen.
Given this dynamic, I can understand how anyone who has been paying attention, becomes disillusioned with our system and votes immorally just to encourage some change, even if it’s making things worse. I don’t condone it, but I see it happening and I can understand why
After an election seems like a good time to discuss what to do differently next time.
Post 2016 I was absolutely berated for thinking to critique what went wrong but sure I don’t remember what happened what is this gaslighting shit.
