• anarchiddy@lemmy.dbzer0.com
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    2
    ·
    2 days ago

    No offense, but what is even the point of your politics if it can be boiled down to, “sure, this guy has terrible policies and I hate the guy personally, but he can win so I’ll support him anyway”?

    Democrats will never win if all they campaign on is ‘we just want the most charismatic person’. People already don’t have any faith in our democratic system, and now we’re just flat out telling them ‘the only thing we care about is aesthetics’.

    Big yikes.

    • Zannsolo@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      1
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      2 days ago

      It’s called pragmatism. Democrats might not be great as a whole but at least their policies generally trend in the right direction and things slowly get better with Democrats like him vs a rapid decline when Republicans get control. I’m not willing to burn it all down, if the other choice is slow improvement. I think he’s a true politician, which I find a distasteful trait, but mostly he’s been a decent governor and it’s really been his rhetoric lately, trying to appeal to the right, I really don’t like about him. I have young children. I can’t torch my life being radical, even if I generally lean to the far left of the spectrum.

      • anarchiddy@lemmy.dbzer0.com
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        1 day ago

        It’s called pragmatism.

        I’ve always found this word/idea funny because there’s a famous American psychologist by the name of William James that coined a branch of philosophy by that name, that was basically intended as a way of rationalizing religious belief by observing how it effected someone’s behavior.

        People (including James) think that using that word evokes a type of self-evident common sense, when in reality it has always been a word that rationalizes commonly held but indeterminate and often irrational beliefs.

        Idk man. You do what’s best for your kids, but I think it’s irrational to abandon your convictions because you have greater faith in the superficiality of american voters than you do in your own political ideals. Maybe it’s true, but it’s just as likely that you are making that the case by undercutting your own values in favor of vanity.

        I think it’s far more likely that democrats are mistaking a lack of charisma for a lack of popular policy. Maybe it isn’t because they lack charisma, but because they are in denial about there being something they’re leaving unaddressed with their middling technocratic ideas.

        • Zannsolo@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          1
          ·
          20 hours ago

          I’m not abandoning my convictions, I’ll vote for the Democrat I think most aligns with my beliefs in the primary which I’m hoping is AOC. If my candidate doesn’t win I will vote for the person I think is better to run the country(just a wild guess but it won’t be the Republican candidate). The green party/Jil Stein doesn’t interest me at all.

          If Gavin Newsome is the Democratic candidate, he will be the only viable voting choice. I’d only be abandoning my convictions if I didn’t vote, or voted for an option that has zero chance of winning.

          Voting for a candidate that won’t possibly win is not a viable choice. It improves the odds of the person who is counter to all my convictions winning instead of 1/2 of them.

          I’m not saying that the DNC isn’t wrong about their approach to getting voters, but the worst option is for them to back a candidate like Newsome without the charisma aka Kamala Harris.

          If Kamala was running with Bernie’s platform she probably wins a close race. If Newsome ran on Bernie’s platform it’s probably a landslide. Him running kamala’s platform it’s probably a narrow victory. I think AOC would win by less than Newsome if they were both running her platform, because misogyny, but still wins pretty big overall in the general.

          • anarchiddy@lemmy.dbzer0.com
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            1
            ·
            18 hours ago

            If Newsome ran on Bernie’s platform it’s probably a landslide.

            If Newsom had Sanders’ platform, not only would he not be Newsom, he wouldn’t be the democratic darling.

            AOC is supremely charismatic, and so is Sanders. Democrats keep them on short leashes because they’re popular, and because they’d completely ruin the democratic fundraising platform. That’s it. That’s the whole thing.

            • Zannsolo@lemmy.world
              link
              fedilink
              arrow-up
              1
              ·
              16 hours ago

              Yeah no shit but I’d rather vote for slow progress than deal with the rapid decline of social and economic freedom under Republican rule. Railing against Democrats like Newsome especially after primaries happen is fucking foolish.