Harris-Walz / Dems

Rhinox

too old for this
Citizen
The problem is when private ownership of media decided they would put their thumb on the scales. Now they know how easy it is to manipulate the public discourse. This is a problem that will only grow. There are no easy solutions or answers.
Truly independent media is, at this point, a pipe dream. NPR and the like are the closest we have and we see how easy it is for a deranged lunatic to yank the funding and put the entire system in jeopardy.
 

Rhinox

too old for this
Citizen
A lot of the ones you, specifically, have promoted tend to leave me thinking you'd be okay with active violence, although you've routinely denied it, so I'm not sure I can answer that question in a way that will be helpful. It's not that I don't believe you (that you don't actually support violence) so much as I don't think we use terms the same way, as we clearly don't understand each other.
Please, I'm asking for your view, your definition. Take your time, I'm genuinely curious.
 

G.B.Blackrock

Well-known member
Citizen
Please, I'm asking for your view, your definition. Take your time, I'm genuinely curious.
Responding now just so you don't think I'm ignoring you. I'm going to take your advice to take my time. I'm trying to look up specific policies that, in my opinion, cannot generate sufficient popular support to win elections, while simultaneously being real positions advocated by real candidates we might actually be talking about. This won't necessarily mean that I, personally, am opposed to them (sometimes it might, but that shouldn't be assumed). It will simply serve to illustrate things that I think are too extreme for the electorate.

(Comments elsewhere in the thread pointing out that what constitutes "extreme" here in the US might not be extreme at all, especially not in other countries, while certainly true, would miss the point I'm shooting for, which is electability. When this is all said and done, I'm interested in what works, and what actively helps us to get out of the horrible situation we find ourselves in, while not violating my own core principles. Some things, like assassination... just to use an obvious example... are decidedly off the table... not that I'm accusing anyone of advocating for that here... at least not seriously.)
 

NovaSaber

Well-known member
Citizen
(Comments elsewhere in the thread pointing out that what constitutes "extreme" here in the US might not be extreme at all, especially not in other countries, while certainly true, would miss the point I'm shooting for, which is electability. When this is all said and done, I'm interested in what works, and what actively helps us to get out of the horrible situation we find ourselves in, while not violating my own core principles. Some things, like assassination... just to use an obvious example... are decidedly off the table... not that I'm accusing anyone of advocating for that here... at least not seriously.)
Being perceived as caring more about getting elected than about what to do once elected is itself a thing that can make someone actually disliked by voters.

And it's literally what is making establishment Democrats unpopular in recent years.
 

MrBlud

Well-known member
Citizen
A lot of the ones you, specifically, have promoted tend to leave me thinking you'd be okay with active violence, although you've routinely denied it, so I'm not sure I can answer that question in a way that will be helpful. It's not that I don't believe you (that you don't actually support violence) so much as I don't think we use terms the same way, as we clearly don't understand each other.

I don’t think anyone (here, and on the left more broadly) thinks violence is a preferable state of affairs; but we have the right *literally* building concentration camps and selling ******* MERCHANDISE for them.

That’s just so ghoulish and inhumane that even those words do not capture the depth of atrocity.

Schumer being “very concerned” for the millionth time hardly seems to be what the moment calls for.
 

G.B.Blackrock

Well-known member
Citizen
Being perceived as caring more about getting elected than about what to do once elected is itself a thing that can make someone actually disliked by voters.

And it's literally what is making establishment Democrats unpopular in recent years.
I think I hear what you're saying, but to use that as a criticism of my position strikes me as singularly unhelpful.

Suffice it to say, *I'm* not the politician, and policies DO matter.
 

G.B.Blackrock

Well-known member
Citizen
I don’t think anyone (here, and on the left more broadly) thinks violence is a preferable state of affairs; but we have the right *literally* building concentration camps and selling ******* MERCHANDISE for them.

That’s just so ghoulish and inhumane that even those words do not capture the depth of atrocity.

Schumer being “very concerned” for the millionth time hardly seems to be what the moment calls for.
But what, then, would you argue the moment calls for? It's clearly an important, if unanswered, question.

Point blank, if there's violence involved, I'm going to be against it. This is non-negotiable.
 

NovaSaber

Well-known member
Citizen
I don't think Mamdani has called for violence.
This whole discussion started because you said you didn't want "left wing extremism" to be the takeaway from that election.

If Mamdani, specifically, is not an "extremist" by your definition, then why did you even say that?
 

MrBlud

Well-known member
Citizen
*Which* violence though?

People have already died in ICE custody and it’s not like things are getting *better* over there. They have no regard for *anything* that isn’t basking in their own power and using violence against anyone who isn’t white.

You’ve so far, in this very thread, went out of your way to decry “left wing extremism” and “if there’s violence involved, I’m gonna be against it” yet the violence is already here. It may not be aimed directly at *you* currently but it’s happening RIGHT NOW for a lot of other people.
 

G.B.Blackrock

Well-known member
Citizen
I don't think Mamdani has called for violence.
This whole discussion started because you said you didn't want "left wing extremism" to be the takeaway from that election.

If Mamdani, specifically, is not an "extremist" by your definition, then why did you even say that?
The question of definitions is more for the discussion I'm still putting together with Rhinox, but please note that I have NOT called Mamdani a left wing extremist. I have expressed concern that his opponent's harrassment issues seem not to be considered as part of the discussion about why Mamdani won, such discussions seeming entirely based on Cuomo's status as "the establishment's choice" and Mamdani's being (apparently) more willing to take the fight to the GOP than Cuomo (interesting aside, as I've started doing research for my discussion with Rhinox, I'm finding very little policy difference of note between Mamdani and Cuomo. Rather, discussions about them have tended to suggest Mamdani's comparative ideological superiority). My contention was simply that sexual harrassment probably made a difference that the pundits weren't acknowledging, and I'm disturbed that they haven't been.

"Extremism" is nothing more than shorthand for "anti-establishment" insofar as it relates to that election, specifically, and the issues that it raises in my mind.

But I'm not really trying to answer "why does Mamdani seem extreme?" I honestly don't know that he is. I'd never even heard of him before I was seeing all of the news articles touting his victory over Cuomo, despite the establishment's attempts to promote Cuomo.

I am, now, trying to articulate what "extremism" might mean, and I've started to compile a list of items, but I'm not ready to engage that just yet. At that point, Mamdani is likely to be little more than a footnote, given the surprising similarities I've found thus far regarding actual policy.
 

G.B.Blackrock

Well-known member
Citizen
Being consistently, absolutely against all violence is actually more "extreme left wing" than any actual American politician, since it would require wanting to disarm the police and completely abolish ICE.
I'll admit to a bit of inconsistency in myself at that point, but it actually is one of the items on the list I'm working through....
 

G.B.Blackrock

Well-known member
Citizen
*Which* violence though?

People have already died in ICE custody and it’s not like things are getting *better* over there. They have no regard for *anything* that isn’t basking in their own power and using violence against anyone who isn’t white.

You’ve so far, in this very thread, went out of your way to decry “left wing extremism” and “if there’s violence involved, I’m gonna be against it” yet the violence is already here. It may not be aimed directly at *you* currently but it’s happening RIGHT NOW for a lot of other people.
I won't deny that. But their violence can't justify my own.
 

Corvus

Active member
Citizen
Would you call yourself a pacifist?
 

NovaSaber

Well-known member
Citizen
(whenever it's true of a specific candidate)
I initially misread that as saying "whether" instead of "whenever"...and I don't think the version with "whether" is particularly less accurate.

If Republican propaganda says it, Republican voters believe it, regardless of whether it is true or not.

The far-right calls any opponent "far-left" consistently enough and successfully enough that they have inadvertently decreased any alleged disadvantage of actually being far left.
 

G.B.Blackrock

Well-known member
Citizen
The more I'm trying to explain every little thing, the less I'm able to work on the post I've already said I'd be creating to engage, here.

Going ahead and being as "bad" as the opposition says you are doesn't sound wise to me. It sounds like insanity. I'm really not even trying to appeal to nor appease Republican voters, anyway. Rather, I contend that there are still a lot of moderates out there (I know others here disagree) that the Democrats can still get if they don't alienate them, themselves.
 

G.B.Blackrock

Well-known member
Citizen
One thing I'm struggling with, that I'll admit creates an inconsistency in any definition I might seek to create, yet seems to be true insofar as political viability goes....

Pacifism, per se, seems to be a problem for political candidates. Democrats and Republicans both seem to need to be seen as supporting the military, for example, while "defund the police" was used to great affect against liberals who promoted it a few years ago (I quickly note here that the phrase was often misunderstood and misapplied).

On the other hand, right-wingers simply love to point to "riots" and violence purported to be committed by the left so as to say "See? They're the really violent ones!"

Somehow, only the left seems to suffer politically for their efforts to find another way.
 

G.B.Blackrock

Well-known member
Citizen
I'm very much interested in your definition of left wing extremism. What positions do you think are so extreme that they deserve that title?
OK, as I get into this, I find that I'm engaging the discussion from a rather different place than I originally set out to. I apologize in advance for any contradictions from my own previous statements that this creates, but I guess that's the nature of political discourse....

As I said in my previous response to Rhinox, I was attempting to pull together a set of policies that would qualify as "extremeism," but after starting on that enterprise, I find that I think I'm asking the wrong question. Not only do candidates within the same party tend to have fewer policy differences than one might hope for, but as NovaSaber rightly pointed out, the right wing will often accuse those who oppose them (not always even "leftists," properly speaking) of being "extreme" as a matter of course.

So, while I do still hold my fear that the "message" taken away from the NYC mayoral primary could be that attitude (not the best term, but as we've already established, "extremism" may be a rabbit trail from what we actually intend, anyway) matters more than known records of bad behavior, it was always less out of anything wrong that Mamdani has done or said, and more the lack of proper attention paid in the media (IMHO, of course) to Cuomo's past crimes.

With that preamble, here's what I would propose: to define "extremism," I first need to define what I would actually want out of any given politician.

We seek to elect representatives who advocate for policies that do as much good as possible, for as many people as possible.​

Thus, when the "wrong" party wins an election, there's still a not-unreasonable expectation that they should seek to benefit all of their constituents as much as possible,and not merely those who elected them. We can and will disagree on policies and specifics, but regardless of party, to the extent we see policies harming people, we should be calling it out, and especially (certainly not exclusively) when we see the harm as disproportionate to the number of people who might benefit.

Thus, an "extremist" would be someone who seeks to benefit only a few (possibly only one's self), and who has apparent disregard for the well-being of others.

Now, on to actual policies... under my new framework, I do not propose these as ways to define an "extremist," especially not taken in a vacuum. At best, they might help set a barometer. But as I suggested before, just because I see a particular policy as less viable to win elections, it doesn't necessarily mean that I myself oppose the policy (indeed, on at least some matters, I've determined that I may well be an extremist myself... and would certainly be accused of such by folks strongly opposed to me).
  • “Defund the police” - As I've suggested in a previous post, the intention behind this movement has often been misunderstood, and it has certainly been misconstrued (often on purpose) by many. As I myself understand the movement, the intention seems to be “reduce funding, with those moneys to be routed elsewhere” rather than pulling funding entirely. Put another way, we should concentrate less on punishing wrongdoers (although this is still necessary), and more on helping people, with the hope that fewer people would commit crimes in the first place if given better resources. I'm very much in support of such actions. That said, in general, populations still see the police as a public good that deserves more support, rather than less, and taking a position that the police are "the enemy" (definitely held by at least some, one must acknowledge) is typically not an election-winning strategy.
  • Support for gender-affirming medical procedures – While I'm generally in favor of this, myself, I'm forced to acknowledge that this one still scares even a lot Democrats, at present. It’s one thing to support a person’s right to choose one’s own gender identity, but it’s another to promote potentially permanent surgical alterations. Support for this plummets even further when the concept is applied to minors, and sadly, the best arguments (reductions in suicides, for example) are apprently not yet unambiguously supported by data (even when non-binary gender, itself, often is). At best, we on the left have done a poor job of supporting the case rather than simply making assertions.
  • Overt condemnation of Israel/promotion of Palestinians. In large part due to America's history within Christendom, even many who do not hold the Christian faith sometimes find themselves conflating criticism of the nation of Israel with condemnation of Jews, in general. The sheer effort many of us on the left take to try to convince people that these things should not be conflated demonstrates this difficulty. Speaking only for myself (specifically, as a left-leaning Christian), I very much wish that those on the right would consider the harm Israel's policies are doing to Palestian Christians (of which there's a subtantial, if minority, number). Not that one should have to share one's faith in order for us to care about their well-being, but if we're not even doing that, it's pretty easy to see why so many are treated as something other than human.
  • Promotion of violence - This one should, I would have hoped, be a no-brainer. Assassination is off the table, as far as I'm concerned. I know that not all agree. Even left-leaning Christians will often point to the fact that Dietrich Bonhoeffer ultimately supported the assassination of Hitler (those who aren't Christian are less likely to know who Bonhoeffer is). That said, I don't think I'm out of line suggesting that this is a strong potential marker of an "extremist." However, as I suggested in a previous post, this one seems to disproportionately hurt the left on BOTH sides. Being too much of a pacifist means that we're seen as not caring about innocents. Support for both the police and the military is all-but required in today's politics. But being a pacifist is too often conflated with "passivity." Pacifists actively work toward the well-being of all life. Pacifists are allowed to defend themselves and others, but actions that are intended to cause harm (especially death) to others is contrary to the principle of supporting life. Generally, folks like to suggest "gotcha" questions like "what if someone is about to shoot you, and the only way to stop him is to shoot him first?" Generally speaking, this is a red herring. The pacifist would argue that there is always an alternative, and this very much includes proactive actions to prevent the situation from arising in the first place. To repeat myself, I'm not quite sure I qualify as a pacifist under these definitions, but I do think that this is a position we as a society should be striving for.
I had a couple of other items that ultimately didn't make the list, as having even more potential holes and unanswered questions than the ones no doubt already posed by these, but hopefully these can yield productive discussion (and, specifically, no "gotcha" accusations and questions). I fully admit that I myself may not always be consistent. These are more ideals to strive for rather than hard and fast rules, most of the time.
 


Top Bottom