This is how argument by meme weakens the mind. Was that O'Connor's campaign? No, it was not. But you saw a cool meme and posted it without regard for facts, truth, or objective reality. Are you Donald Trump in disguise?
It seems #buttheneoliberals argument didn't have a huge number of wins either but let's not focus on the losses just the wins. Though when you consider the size of states and the full numbers it is miniscule.
I’m talking about the 47% of America that can’t be bothered to even participate It’s not a meme jackass. Try to keep up
Where are you getting 47% from? In 2016, it was 42%. https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/voter-turnout-2016-elections In the OH-12 special, it was more like 65%.
Ok I may have mixed it up, however other publications don’t say 42% which is still 42 of every 100 not participating. Are you saying that’s ok as opposed to 47 of 100? It’s still an untapped resource probably more productive than vote shaming independent voters. You don’t get to shame people that participated and nobody is entitled to a vote. It’s kind of how democracy works.
What did that strawman ever do to you that you gotta beat hell out of it like that? https://www.usatoday.com/story/news...ominate-political-ads-senate-races/914978002/
How many of those 42% have had it made hard for them to vote thanks to things like baseless voter ID laws, moving their polling places to areas only accessible by car or simply hidden from them? How many of those 42% have to work two jobs and can't get out to vote on a single day, or have to work during voting hours, and are far away from their homes? How many of those 42% even know when election day is? There have been people who have been told that their election day was pushed back by a week. Before you go railing on the 42% for thinking that they're all a bunch of lazy morons who aren't voting out of spite, try to keep these things in mind. Actually, democracy is entitling everyone to a vote. Restricting the vote is not a democracy. It's a sham.
I don't need to add to what Kensington wrote. Bo, you are blaming the victims. Please stop blaming the victims.
But I’m not. I’m asserting that turning attention towards this demographic could be more successful. And yes I’m aware of purges....that doesn’t account for the many that chose to not participate. The ones I know, were repulsed by their choices. I like what I’m seeing now. More policy (even if I don’t agree with them all) and less personal attacks. They can’t allow themselves to get sucked I to that tactic again. Stick to policy.
So you're for less personal attacks while you personally attack people who couldn't/didn't vote. Got it.
KS - 4th is +15 Repug, if the socialist wing can pull a victory here it would be great news for Democrats and for the socialist movement. https://ballotpedia.org/Kansas'_4th_Congressional_District Well, I do think that the point is that people that do not vote for what ever reason is a much bigger share of people that vote and vote 3rd party. People around here love to bitch about 3rd party voters and how they cost them the election (like if the 3rd party vote belongs to the Democratic party), when people not voting is much more to blame. The segment that thought that H Clinton is just as bad as Trump so I won't bother to vote was probably much bigger than 3rd party voters. If I read @American Brummie stats right above, 65% of the electorate did not bother to vote in the Ohio election, that means turn out was 35%, Usually turn out for presidential elections are above 50%. So this is not people purged from roles, this is not people working on Tuesdays or what ever other excuse you came out for in your post. A shit lot of people that voted on November 2016 did not bother to vote last Tuesday. That is a much greater number than the 1,500 or so voters that voted green party. You want to blame someone, blame them. PS, BK was not blaming the voters, he was just bitching like usual on how he thinks that of the Democrats went crazy left, voters would turn out of the woodwork and vote overweeningly democrat. So he is blaming the Democratic Party, not the voters that did not show up. Me on the other hand, I do blame people for not voting.
Who’s attacking people that didn’t vote?! The only attacks I see are from some 80s b-list actress mostly known for a nip shot while signing autographs for the troops, attacking Green Party voters. I’m saying they are an unleveraged demographic. I think you all are missing my point. But they you see what you want to.
You should really look at the presidential debates. Garbage all the way around. Outside of us nobody remembers the state ones.
Thanks I think. This isn’t a matter of going crazy left I’m just talking about attracting people that don’t vote at all for whatever reason. For what it’s worth, I think both parties aren’t trying hard enough. The cynic in me thinks it’s by design because they are an unknown variable as far as how they would vote.
Saying that the group can't be bothered to vote sounds like an attack on those people. "I couldn't vote because they gerrymandered my district and moved my polling place to a place I couldn't get to using public transit." "I guess you just couldn't be bothered to participate." I don't know how many of the 42% that didn't vote in 2016 chose not to vote and how many simply couldn't, so I'm suggesting not lumping them together like you are. My polling place is a 5-minute bike ride from my house. It's on my way to and from work. I have that luxury. Not everyone can do that, though, especially in areas that are rural, black, and poor, and just because they can't, it doesn't mean they don't want to. If you really want more people to participate, fight for weekend voting, voting from home, and early balloting by mail.
You might (or might not) like parts of this NYT editorial. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/09/...ight-region&WT.nav=opinion-c-col-right-region I mean, I know you agree with this part ... . . . it was strange to see headlines in the following days arguing that the left wing of the Democratic Party had hit a wall. “Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s movement failed to deliver any stunners Tuesday night,” said CNN. “Down Goes Socialism,” announced Politico Magazine, despite the fact that Tlaib’s victory doubles the D.S.A.’s likely representation in Congress. “Socialist torchbearers flame out in key races, despite blitz by Bernie Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez,” said a Fox News headline. Michele Goldberg's take In part, this spin might just be the inevitable backlash to Ocasio-Cortez’s sudden celebrity. Her primary victory was thrilling and hard-earned, and she’s a charismatic and rousing spokeswoman for her values. But her overnight anointment as the new face of the Democratic Party has created absurdly outsize expectations of her power as kingmaker. In truth, there’s nothing surprising about left-wing candidates losing their primaries. The happy surprise is how many are winning. Unsexy as it sounds, the real story of progressive politics right now is the steady accumulation of victories — some small, some major — thanks to a welcome and unaccustomed outbreak of left-wing pragmatism. This makes sense to me. As does the next part, but I'm not as sure you'll dig it..., though its critique of the Green Party is pretty accurate Until quite recently, the most visible embodiment of left-wing electoral activism was the terminally flaky Green Party. It made a showing on Tuesday when Joe Manchik, who claims to be descended from space aliens, won 1,129 votes in the special election in Ohio’s 12th Congressional District. Democrat Danny O’Connor trails the Republican by 1,564 votes in that race, with almost 3,500 provisional ballots still to be counted. We can argue endlessly over whether an appreciable number of Manchik’s voters would have gone Democrat if there hadn’t been a Green Party alternative. But I have yet to see any evidence that the Green Party’s habit of running doomed third-party campaigns has ever done anything to further its ostensible values. Greens will sometimes justify these runs as movement-building tools, but they never seem to actually build a movement. “They don’t know how to multiply themselves,” Ralph Nader once told me, explaining the dissipation of the party after his 2000 presidential run. “It’s a peculiar characteristic: Green Party people, they don’t like to raise money, they allow themselves to live in neighborhoods and communities where they become minorities of one.” But, here is something you might be surprised to see in the NYT The new generation of left-wing activists, by contrast, is good at self-multiplication. The Democratic Socialists of America alone has done more to build left political power since the 2016 election than the Green Party did in the 18 years after Nader helped elect George W. Bush. Just as the Christian Right did in the 1990s, the new electoral left — which also includes groups like Justice Democrats and the Working Families Party — is trying to take over the Democratic Party from the ground up. These activists have, significantly, focused on races for prosecutor, which is a way to create immediate local criminal justice reform. (In Philadelphia, left-wing organizers last year helped elect civil rights lawyer Larry Krasner as district attorney. Among his reforms is the end of cash bail for many misdemeanors and nonviolent felonies.) She concludes that, "'Democrats in disarray' is a take that writes itself, but not every disagreement is a war."
I meant in 2017 and 2018. Could you name a candidate in the Democratic Party who has attacked on personal grounds and not policy grounds their primary or general election opponents?
I wrote this elsewhere but I want to post this here, especially the last paragraph is for you @Boandlkramer There is a problem with this view of party leaders out of touch. I listened to AOC on a podcast and she mentioned how to her, a large number of the Dems in congress are older and came of age in the 90s when straddling the middle was key to survival and they haven't moved passed it. This maybe true but look at the results from Tuesday, the Progressives got a brushback https://www.politico.com/story/2018/08/ ... ons-767403 They did have some wins in there, 11 and the defeat of the Right to (Freeload) Work bill but that bill was hated by all wings of the party. So with this it proves that the party can go young but Conor Lamb is the way forward and not necessarily AOC. Furthermore, one unresolved is between the supposed out of touch leaders and the new wave is 2010. Obama was elected in 2008 and he went to left for the ACA. It wasn't all the way but he went as far as he though he could, all things considered. And the Dems got slaughtered. 30 million people that voted in 2008 didn't show up to defend the president and support a move left. Now people can complain about candidates and not exciting the base if they want, but that does seem to absolve them of the responsibility of backing a move left because the party took a chance and instead of being rewarded for it and being encouraged to move farther left, they were hung out to dry. So the survives of 3 consistent red waves can be forgiven for believing in being in the middle is the way to go. I want them to push left on certain issues but I also do understand, they are hesistent with good cause.
Also the pressure on 3Rd party voters is that they can make it to the polls. They got past the obstacles and in a race that is tight and voting D to reign in an out of control GOP, they decide on a protest vote!!!