this post was submitted on 10 Oct 2024
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[–] [email protected] 10 points 2 months ago (1 children)

the DNC is choosing unpopular policy? Brother this is a representative democracy. If harris wins, it's because it was the popular policy/stances.

Uhh.... No. Fracking isn't even popular as a majority position in PA where she's pushing it. But she's gonna anyways cause for some reason the minority is the "better" place to scrape votes from?

And in a 2 party system if one side is "literally evil" the other basically knows they have a blank check to run on as long as it's not the same policy as the evil side or else why would voters swap sides when evil wasn't a disqualifier?

We have polls that literally tell us what the popular positions are. Harris is not listening to those so whatever the reason is its not popularity.

[–] [email protected] -4 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Uhh… No. Fracking isn’t even popular as a majority position in PA where she’s pushing it. But she’s gonna anyways cause for some reason the minority is the “better” place to scrape votes from?

oh im sorry i didn't realize kamala was running for the federal presidential role of PA specifically.

And in a 2 party system if one side is “literally evil” the other basically knows they have a blank check to run on as long as it’s not the same policy as the evil side or else why would voters swap sides when evil wasn’t a disqualifier?

this is sort of true, but a substantial chunk of US voters believe that kamala harris is the "evil" not donald trump. so this isn't exactly a bull in a china shop situation here. This is more like a bull vaguely around a china shop.

We have polls that literally tell us what the popular positions are. Harris is not listening to those so whatever the reason is its not popularity.

i mean that's a fair statement, but she wouldn't be running on fracking if she thought it was detrimental, so it's either not a huge concern for most voters, or there is something more than being let on in the rhetoric here.

At the very least we know kamala will more than likely support a real EPA, so maybe the idea is to push environmental concerns from fracking into the territory of the EPA and local areas, rather than doing a federal ban on fracking. Which i would be fully in support of. The EPA should absolutely have more power.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 months ago (2 children)

i mean that's a fair statement, but she wouldn't be running on fracking if she thought it was detrimental, so it's either not a huge concern for most voters, or there is something more than being let on in the rhetoric here.

You're begging the question here. If Democrats paid attention to their voters we wouldn't be having this conversation. Generally, critics of Dem strategy believe that they are too beholden to wealthy donors.

Democrats blame Jill Stein for Clinton's loss. But Dems can't force her not to run again, or people not to vote for her. If Kamala doesn't win, it will be because she didn't convince enough people to vote for her, not because Jill Stein is running.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 months ago

If Kamala doesn't win, it will be because she didn't convince enough people to vote for her, not because Jill Stein is running.

dems absolutely can't handle this

[–] [email protected] -5 points 2 months ago (1 children)

You’re begging the question here. If Democrats paid attention to their voters we wouldn’t be having this conversation. Generally, critics of Dem strategy believe that they are too beholden to wealthy donors.

are you proposing that a candidate should work to appeal to 100% of their voter base, rather than the most broad constituent beliefs of it? The wealthy donor thing is a problem, over party lines, that's an interesting one to solve so i'm not really surprised there.

But to be fair, if we did stop fracking, it might be detrimental to the oil market right now, considering the position that the global oil industry is in, is, less than ideal. So there is also a reason to push for fracking given the current global market at the moment.

Democrats blame Jill Stein for Clinton’s loss. But Dems can’t force her not to run again, or people not to vote for her. If Kamala doesn’t win, it will be because she didn’t convince enough people to vote for her, not because Jill Stein is running.

i consider this a voter skill issue, rather than a candidate issue, just vote for the better person lmao. Voting for stein is like voting for a brick wall, except one that wastes money.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 months ago (1 children)

a candidate should work to appeal to 100% of their voter base

Less a proposal and more of a fact: People won't vote for a candidate who does not support the issues that they support. You can't expect a voter who is against fracking to vote for a candidate who supports fracking.

If Kamala supports fracking and the majority of voters do not, it is up to her to change, not the voters.

i consider this a voter skill issue

Yeah... Democrats want to blame the voters so they can continue to court wealthy donors. If everyone in Michigan promises to "Vote Blue No Matter Who" then they can continue arming Israel without losing any Muslim votes. Unfortunately that's not how things work.

[–] [email protected] -4 points 2 months ago

Less a proposal and more of a fact: People won’t vote for a candidate who does not support the issues that they support. You can’t expect a voter who is against fracking to vote for a candidate who supports fracking.

it's not a fact, it's a statement, arguably a fallacy. The whole point of running as a candidate is to appeal to the most voters, you're going to lose some here and there, but the general idea is to appeal most broadly to as many as you can. This is why we have a two party system, if this wasn't the case, we wouldn't have one. We wouldn't have a multi party system either, we would have a single party system based purely on only pushing legislation that everyone agrees with.

Idk where the misunderstanding is happening here, but if you don't want to vote for kamala that's fine, you're legally allowed to do so, and morally encouraged to vote for whoever you want. However that doesn't make you decision sound or logical, nor does it make you entitled to any particular representation.

You can’t expect a voter who is against fracking to vote for a candidate who supports fracking.

i don't believe i have ever said this, i just said that MI might not vote for kamala, who cares, it's an arguably stupid choice to do, but that's a choice they can make. Like i said it's most effective to focus on the moderates in literally every other state.

If Kamala supports fracking and the majority of voters do not, it is up to her to change, not the voters.

ok so, no, technically not, it's only to the extent that support is required, and that people require direct representation on that issue. Things like kamala not being 80 years old, and being a woman, are gong to be more impactful than things like "actually i think we should continue with current energy policy"

Also to be clear, you're arguing for an absolutist democracy here, a state where the people opt to elect a fascist, thus a fascist gets in power, and the end of democracy happens. I think most people would agree that this shouldn't be possible. Sometimes popular sentiment is just wrong this is why the founding fathers constructed the government the way it is, with the electoral college, and the three branches. It's intended to operate in a mostly isolated fashion from the public. Even the directly representative people within it, are not directly representative. They're not meant to be. That's why we still have a government.

And just so we're on the same page here, if this does dock her enough public support that she is going to lose, she should dock this point, and move forward. However i don't see that happening because i don't think people care at all. And even if they did, it's secondary, either locally, state level, or not at any government level.

Yeah… Democrats want to blame the voters so they can continue to court wealthy donors. If everyone in Michigan promises to “Vote Blue No Matter Who” then they can continue arming Israel without losing any Muslim votes. Unfortunately that’s not how things work.

it's just basic game theory. We have the option between losing 100000 dollars, or losing 1000 dollars, you're going to choose 1000 dollars every time. You could choose 100000 dollars in protest, but that would be stupid. Granted this isn't a direct analogy here. You still see the same forces operating here, trump if elected, at the loss of MI in this weird hypothetical. Would lead to a scenario in which muslim MI voters literally caused more death and destruction to palestine, lebanon or whatever.

This is kind of like if every farmer held a national strike. It would fuck everything up. Generally essential industries are immune from organized strikes for this particular reason.

It can go both ways here, democratic voters can vote for things against their ideals, and also be responsible for voting for things against their ideals. If you're a muslim living in MI and you don't vote or vote someone other than kamala, there is a non insignificant chance that you will directly influence the potential for a trump victory. While to be clear you are allowed to do this, it would be very silly. This just doesn't make sense. It might make sense if like, primaries were running, and kamala didn't have the popular support she currently does, but that's not what's happening.

idk maybe you just consider going against basic game theory and self preservation to be "courting the wealthy donors" but you've provided no evidence of the sort other than "kamala harris like oil as evidenced by the fracking" which is maybe evident. Regardless, this would still be a separate issue, something to do with campaign finance laws and legality of donating money to super pacs and what not, this is irrelevant in any of these cases, and arguably another fallacy.