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My point is that the Democrats seem to think they are winnable, or else they wouldn't be so afraid even just to stay the course on progressive policy, much less push it forward. We both agree that it's stupid, I'm saying it's not a winning strategy. Ignore the loyal soldiers part, that was hyperbole, they're still experiencing diminishing returns from courting the conservative vote.
They're running out of winnable votes in the middle, yet they seem to prefer to scrape the bottom of that barrel at all costs, including bleeding votes from the progressive side, which is what is happening when a third party spoils the vote. The democratic party knows this, they have billions of dollars to figure things like this out, and they know how to spin it as not to cast doubt on their own institutions.
People who point fingers at progressive voters (who they otherwise agree with) when a candidate loses, rather than demand for that candidate to win back those compatible but alienated voters, seem to think that the candidates are just innocent victims of circumstance. This is false. They are active players in a game of bets and wagers, running billion dollar campaigns with strategists and focus groups. They know what they need to do to get the winning number of votes, if they really want to.
Every time they ignore what's popular to voters or even tell a group of voters to pipe down, not even acting like they are hearing them out, is a wager that they can win without representing that view. The more voters that toe the party line and guilt each other into doing so, the more they can tell us to pipe down and choose not to represent us. At the most you could say that they have something to lose by inching left, but this is difficult to argue (other than a monetary incentive of course) because of how motivated non-republican voters are just to keep Trump out this cycle. They have plenty of room to motivate the wide open margins on the left
There's no silent majority of Leftists. This is one of the fundamental things you guys need to grasp. Just because all the people you interact with are like that, doesn't mean you're anywhere near a relevant fraction of voters.
Even if that negated anything that I said, you guys sure seem to think they're relevant when they vote third party or become disillusioned and don't vote at all. So they're only relevant when they're not doing what you want? Cause that seems to me like ignoring voters until it bites you in the ass.
There's clearly enough progressives, or voters who find Democrats' current platform objectionable, that you understand you can't win without them. The Democrats could offer them something material to vote for, and/or they can pressure them to vote against their better senses on threats that things will get worse if they lose. They are going exclusively with the latter.
For some reason you keep getting stuck on the semantics of single words that I've used. Missing the forest, so to say. Ignore the word progressive (which is not the same word as leftist but whatever). There are things that are popular to the majority of this country that will motivate people to turn out to vote other than keeping Trump out of office, and those things definitely aren't being tough on immigration or funding Israel's war on the middle east.
There's far fewer leftists in relevant battleground states than there are moderates who we would alienate by a hard turn to the left.
The problem with Leftist "don't vote" rhetoric is that these moderates in battleground states...well, let's be honest. They're idiots. They're easily swayed. They're low information voters. They "don't like politics".
We don't care if a million voters in California break off and vote 3rd party, as long as they do so fucking quietly. If they influence 30,000 voters in Pennsylvania, we're fucked. Not as a party, but as a nation. It's shit, but that's the calculus behind FPTP.
Likewise, earning 15 million votes in California instead of 11 million, by championing Leftist causes, does not help Democrats get elected at all. But alienating just a few thousand voters in Michigan matters a LOT. You don't win Michigan and Pennsylvania and Georgia by championing leftist causes.
So yeah. You guys are too small in number to help us win, but loud enough in voice to help us lose.
And no, I refuse to conflate progressives with leftists. I've seen a lot of leftists trying to co opt the progressive label lately. Fuck that. Y'all are leftists.
lol
Regardless
Ok troll