Yep, it’s not enough to be realistic instead of pessimistic.
Like, people need to be aware the current system is just a ruse, but it also needs to come with a plausible way out so people don’t just give up and disengage.
But if they do, you can’t shout them into re-engaging. That just drives them away further.
You convince them that it might be different this time. Not even the guarantee, just a semi plausible chance that things could improve if they re-engage.
As you pointed out all this is widely studied in sociology, it’s not some secret knowledge no one has. There’s just no money in it, so sociologists can’t influence the parties when both parties use donation amounts as the only metric when picking leadership.
There’s a couple good picks for the DNC election on 2/2/25, but there’s a very good chance the double down and vote based on who brought in the most donations. If they do that, we need to mobilize a third party asap for 2028.
In 2008, Obama pulled off a surprising victory against establishment favorite Hilary Clinton, mainly off the back of a swell of online, small dollar donations. In his first term, among other things like stabilizing the economy in the midst of what we called The Great Recession (dumb name, I know, though a lot of people did lose their houses and jobs), he gave everyone health insurance subsidized by the government via taxes on health insurance and pharma companies, as well as Medicaid expansion. While not ideal, this was both realistically doable with the degree of Congressional support at the time, and a massive improvement over the previous system.
For some reason people have forgotten this in their zeal to pressure the dem party. I do get that, though I think it’s important to retain a degree of memory of what actually happened and why. Anyway, are we really sure a third party is necessary, when it is possible to simply win this one?
Or even that great of an idea? Because unless you pulled all the dems with you, you’re just leaving a dominant repub party by helping them divide and conquer. This is very frustrating, no question, but so is life sometimes.
I think some have forgotten it. But I think more people either weren’t paying attention back then, or were so young that they didn’t even know what was happening. I’d hazard a guess the younger the voters, the more they think the democrats are always terrible and never get anything done and primaries don’t do anything.
Not to say there aren’t older people who think the same, just my guess about why we get so many people insisting the democrats are just as awful and not fixable so they stupidly think a third party would be better despite that just removing their power as people.
Yep, it’s not enough to be realistic instead of pessimistic.
Like, people need to be aware the current system is just a ruse, but it also needs to come with a plausible way out so people don’t just give up and disengage.
But if they do, you can’t shout them into re-engaging. That just drives them away further.
You convince them that it might be different this time. Not even the guarantee, just a semi plausible chance that things could improve if they re-engage.
As you pointed out all this is widely studied in sociology, it’s not some secret knowledge no one has. There’s just no money in it, so sociologists can’t influence the parties when both parties use donation amounts as the only metric when picking leadership.
There’s a couple good picks for the DNC election on 2/2/25, but there’s a very good chance the double down and vote based on who brought in the most donations. If they do that, we need to mobilize a third party asap for 2028.
I’m not giving the Dems another dime until I see a primary where they don’t rig it in favor of the old guard.
In 2008, Obama pulled off a surprising victory against establishment favorite Hilary Clinton, mainly off the back of a swell of online, small dollar donations. In his first term, among other things like stabilizing the economy in the midst of what we called The Great Recession (dumb name, I know, though a lot of people did lose their houses and jobs), he gave everyone health insurance subsidized by the government via taxes on health insurance and pharma companies, as well as Medicaid expansion. While not ideal, this was both realistically doable with the degree of Congressional support at the time, and a massive improvement over the previous system.
For some reason people have forgotten this in their zeal to pressure the dem party. I do get that, though I think it’s important to retain a degree of memory of what actually happened and why. Anyway, are we really sure a third party is necessary, when it is possible to simply win this one?
Or even that great of an idea? Because unless you pulled all the dems with you, you’re just leaving a dominant repub party by helping them divide and conquer. This is very frustrating, no question, but so is life sometimes.
I think some have forgotten it. But I think more people either weren’t paying attention back then, or were so young that they didn’t even know what was happening. I’d hazard a guess the younger the voters, the more they think the democrats are always terrible and never get anything done and primaries don’t do anything.
Not to say there aren’t older people who think the same, just my guess about why we get so many people insisting the democrats are just as awful and not fixable so they stupidly think a third party would be better despite that just removing their power as people.
Thank you for this informative comment. I appreciate it.