you’re missing the main criticism of this guy, which is: better candidates only win primaries for seats when the seat is already D+30… therefore making a seat D+30 increases the chances of a decent candidate… meaning withholding your vote from the Ds to encourage decent candidates is actual sabotage
meaning withholding your vote from the Ds to encourage decent candidates is actual sabotage
That is only true if you vote. Particularly in primaries. The MLs are apathetic to actually doing so; as such they are disregarded. They need to show up and vote a suitable third party. Or spoil their ballot so that they show up as a countable protest vote that would sway such districts.
Simple abstinence is not only getting out of the way for fascism; it is indistinguishable from apathy and the apolitical. I am not missing the point from Grammar or the MLs.
Part of my criticism of the MLs is also that they are just unwilling to put at least a minimum level of work here. It can help us get some policies that we may want. It also helps build credibility for higher level protests and strikes. If you can get people to show up to vote you can also get some of them to realistically show up for other civil disobedience. That is a credible movement. Voting in the west is rather easy and carries little personal risk; compared to protests and strikes. If you cannot get your organization to do that then its safe to assume they won’t do much in other aspects of resistance; particularly those that carry personal harm.
Which is why we need to go to primaries, or even better make our own third party in places were we don’t have a green or similar.
you’re missing the main criticism of this guy, which is: better candidates only win primaries for seats when the seat is already D+30… therefore making a seat D+30 increases the chances of a decent candidate… meaning withholding your vote from the Ds to encourage decent candidates is actual sabotage
That is only true if you vote. Particularly in primaries. The MLs are apathetic to actually doing so; as such they are disregarded. They need to show up and vote a suitable third party. Or spoil their ballot so that they show up as a countable protest vote that would sway such districts.
Simple abstinence is not only getting out of the way for fascism; it is indistinguishable from apathy and the apolitical. I am not missing the point from Grammar or the MLs.
Part of my criticism of the MLs is also that they are just unwilling to put at least a minimum level of work here. It can help us get some policies that we may want. It also helps build credibility for higher level protests and strikes. If you can get people to show up to vote you can also get some of them to realistically show up for other civil disobedience. That is a credible movement. Voting in the west is rather easy and carries little personal risk; compared to protests and strikes. If you cannot get your organization to do that then its safe to assume they won’t do much in other aspects of resistance; particularly those that carry personal harm.