I have always found it bonkers that people hold it against politicians who change their opinions. Isn’t that supposed to be a good thing, and considered personal growth?
The problem is trust. They can say whatever the hell they want if they think it’s gonna get them elected but then not follow through. I’m not gonna trust someone who up until now thought killing children was totally cool. I’m also not going to trust someone who’s been taking corporate money, especially if they still are.
Would it be nice if they changed their position? Sure. But why does it need to be them in power? There are over 300 million people in this country. There are plenty of them that never thought killing children was cool. Plenty who have never taken corporate political donations. Plenty who better represent the majority class. Teachers, union organizers, former baristas, etc. A lot of them could do a better job than these opportunistic ghouls. Why do we need the same rotating cast of legacy politicians constantly getting into power when they’re the people who got us here in the first place?
Besides, we shouldn’t need to reward them for eventually coming around to the right position if it’s a genuine belief and not just trying to catch the shifting political winds. If it’s genuine, good for them! Even setting aside the effect these beliefs have on other people, it must be truly toxic to the soul to believe in such callous things. May they go on to live a happier life way the fuck away from all of us. Actually, if they want to go back some actual socialists, I’d be cool with that too.
She had ample opportunities to do good and to stand by higher moral standard. There is a difference between messing up on political technicalities (I thought this was a good idea, I don’t anymore) and failing on core principles.
Also I think it’s fair to avoid people who have failed a lot, sure they might have learnt from it, but maybe they are just not very smart and competent at that job ?
The problem is that, due to the structure of our political institutions, you cannot trust that they have truly changed their opinions. It is far more likely that they are providing lip service in order to obtain a position of power and authority.
If you think that’s what’s happening, you are very naive.
Isn’t this what conservatives do all the time to defend pedophile in charge, well knowing he’s is a racists, misogynist, fraud and pedophile?
But if Trump says he isn’t, he must be telling the truth and that’s supposed to be a good thing, and considered personal growth, right? right?
Please don’t be this gullible. It’s bonkers, it even has to be said. Actions speak louder than words.
Saying what people want to hear is what they’re fucking trained to do.
Of that doesn’t ring a bell, then oh well.
Kamala
- Being 2nd: 100%
- Minority: 75%
- Opportunism: 100%
- Turncoat: 100%
- Apologies: 0%
- Success: -100%
And 100% to remember the name?
squints I can’t tell if this is Photoshop or AI
You know, it’s odd. Whenever anyone suggests that AOC run for president, the refrain from centrists is “A woman of color can’t win!”
Wonder where they went in this thread.
People also say a woman in general can’t win but I say we have never had the opportunity to find out in the US. Not with an actual good candidate anyway.
It comes up like clockwork when people mention AOC running. It doesn’t come up for Harris, and there is exactly one reason.
I hope the DSA stays strong. Their message is clear, popular and the american people deserve change. Real change!
No need for these crusty, old, corrupt republicans with a guilty conscience.
The American people deserve 75 years of misery, which is exactly what they’ve been inflicting on the global South since WWII.
An eye for eye only ends up making the whole world blind. If you value revenge above progress, that’s on you.
I don’t, the other guy brought up what Americans deserve, I was just correcting them.
She won’t flip. She knows why the USA formed Israel, and that the USA supports what Israel is doing for its long term strategic goals.
Why do you think we provide Israel with billions of dollars every year? It’s not charity
Just like Biden virtually ignored his platform of minimum wage increase once he took office (not even one standalone bill), Harris may use Israel to gain office, but she won’t actually do anything against Israel should she win.
That’s pretty typical of Democrats.
If Dems would all get together to actually push for national health care, they’d win EVERYTHING! But nobody is willing to say it, no less support it.
The biden administration showed that if your name isn’t netanyahu, you should never trust a centrist democrat.
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If some people in the Democratic party change their minds and stop supporting Israeli crimes, I welcome them.
I don’t think it is Harris case.
Saying you stopped isn’t the same thing as stopping, and I will never again trust the word of a centrist democrat.
While I agree, she’s pressured into it because she wants power and the trend is clear. She’s a plastic bag blowing in the wind.
And She’ll flip on us as soon as she’s voted in! She’s willing to be a shill towards the progressives to get their votes.
Just like Biden, yes.
No argument here, but I still prefer this to the alternative
Yeah, I know what you mean. I am kind of like Yay! Fuck Israel but cautious because Kamala.
She doesn’t have any tangible political power and probably never will again, so there’s that
it’s worth remembering the was one of the first to withdraw her presidential bid in 2020 because it was abundantly obvious no one was interested. she was selected as Joe Biden’s running mate to make him look more progressive than he was and to groom her for the national stage. it is abundantly clear now that the nation at large is not interested for a variety of reasons. the left sees in her the conservatism of the democratic party over the last 40 years. the right sees a variety of things depending on how their brains are broken:
- “forced diversity”
- a communist
- an impulsive woman
Oh I think you left one word off that list at the end, but its not one I’m willing yo repeat.
“forced diversity”
Wanting to start again
Wouldn’t a plastic bag float in the wind?
The American left needs to fall out of love with cannibalism.
I don’t care why Harris wants to do the right thing now.
Allow people to save face and change their positions - attacking them for “flip flops” is to say “No reasonable adult should ever change their mind about anything” which is not only bananas, but discourages people from doing critical thinking because they’d face humiliation for reversing course.
I don’t care why Harris wants to do the right thing now.
I don’t believe she actually does want to do the right thing, now or ever.
in politics, words are cheap. I’ll believe her when she DOES something significant to demonstrate her new found beliefs. Until then, doubt.
Honestly I have no idea what this meme’s context is.
I believe her just as much as I believe anyone else’s word: Little to none.
But clowning on her because she apparently announced her intent to back Democratic Socialists is… dumb for reasons I stated.
This is just a classic incidence of Purity Testing and I reject it on principle, not because I think Harris is especially virtuous or deserving of defense. As I said, cannibalism is counter-productive and it loses elections. I hope all the people who smugly sat home refusing to vote for Harris are happy that Trump won.
Purity test is a lazy dumb concept used to shut down discussion when you have no real arguments to present
She’s not Saul on the road to Damascus here.
She’s Faust swearing to burn his books long after he damned himself.
Can’t shake the devil’s hand and say you’re only kidding.
…and Jalad at Tanagra.
This isn’t purity testing, this is predicting that she isn’t going to advance any of our interests based on her history of being more willing to lose to Donald fucking Trump than advance any of our interests.
She knew supporting genocide would decrease the number of people who would vote for her, she knew supporting war would decrease the number of people who would vote for her, she knew supporting ICE would decrease the number of people who would vote for her. She chose to embrace these policies anyway.
Al we know is thst she reached out to them. Nothing about her supporting palestinians in anyway, nothing about cutting all aids and weapons to israel
Any forward progress at all is progress
Empty words aren’t progress.
Liberal counter-insurgency is most definitely not progress.
Cool, lmk when some happens.
Just saying a vague buzz word without committing to specific policy position is not progress.
I’m assuming Gavin Newsom is plotting his opportunity to use Zorhan for his benefit as well.
Not even zohran can help Newsom
If she somehow gets the Hillary treatment and is shoehorned into being the Democrat nomination, I fucking quit.
Not last time, though. What they did last time was fine.
Biden should have quit 6 months sooner and gave Harris a sliver of a chance at proving she could do the job. They set themselves up for failure.
Biden never should have run in 2024. Or in 2020. Or for anything. Ever.
Hillary shouldn’t have ran either, but the DNC isnt too far behind the repubs in the cesspool department.
No primary though. That would have been communist.
They set themselves up for failure by being Zionazi neoliberal monsters
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If your priority is defeating Trump then join us and make damn sure a candidate we’ll show up for in the general makes it through the primaries. Phone bank, canvas, donate and vote for social Democratic politicians. Are you willing to do that?
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If your priority is defeating Zionism, fascism, and the flouting of the rule of law, at least going to the ballot box to vote for the candidate who normalizes them slightly less seems like it might kind of be helpful to that end.
If you’ll notice, that wasn’t a compelling enough argument for the genocidal garbage centrists preferred to beat the genocidal garbage they were willing lose to as long as no one got the chance to vote against genocide.
Do better or lose. Pretty sure I know which course of action you prefer.
No, because my involvement with politics is a bit higher level.
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Moreso than trump?
Oh wait, everything is black and white to you.
seems like you’re the one who only sees red and blue
in a general election in the US? oh please tell me which candidates you voted for, it’d take me about fifteen minutes tops to figure out which non-US country was funding them.
so the problem isn’t black and white thinking.
Kamala Harris is a very good example of what Democrats in America have become which is just a “say whatever gets the people goin’ so I can win elections” party
They can’t even win elections though
And they don’t say what gets the people goin’.
And that’s exactly why they’re a dying breed! They’re completely out of touch on what people actually care about
And when centrist dems finally start addressing things people actually care about, they discover that they’ve burned all their credibility.
Why should anyone trust people who break their promises and then turn around and support genocide instead?
Unless I missed something, she never claimed to be a democratic socialist. In fact, she explicitly said she wasn’t during her campaign.
She’s starting a new campaign tho is the point.
Thank you, the meme makes more sense now
she’s spent so long distancing herself from the “Communist Kamala” moniker she would never
Let them join. Just demand that they give several full throated endorsements
I can’t wait for the day the DNC is comfortable consistently full throating Progressive endorsees, ^wait…
North America and South America were promised to the natives! Oh, it only works for white people?
Is being antizionist and for people and supportive infrastructure supposed to be a burn or what?
The joke is that she’s very obviously neither and expecting people to believe otherwise.
The joke is that she’s a two-faced and insincere person. She’ll take whatever position she thinks will let her win without believing in it for a second. Essentially, a poseur.
Yeah. I believe all hierarchical systems filter for such people. Ideally they are more convincing and delude even themselves, while still always choosing what is most beneficial for their own advancement. So it’s important to reject self serving people like Harris.
It’s interesting how there’s no one socialist, left, or democrat enough. Like no matter who’s there someone will argue they are a fake and a phony.
Harris demonstrated nothing but contempt for those from whom she’s now seeking approval.
Are you… are you trying to imply Harris is left enough?
I’m implying that no matter who the person is some will say they aren’t left enough. You see the same on the right, no matter how extremely right or authoritarian someone is there’s some on the right who say they’re not right or authoritarian enough.
Ok, but you move left enough so those who say you’re not left enough is a tiny fringe minority.
Yeah to a degree. The democratic or left vote isn’t the only one that matters in elections. There’s also the independent and people on the fence on the right vote which can be substantial in an election. In short you can make some people happy some of the time but no candidate can be the ideal candidate for everyone and generally speaking a candidate who wins elections is more useful than a candidate who doesn’t win elections. It’s a balancing act. Someone can swing really far left and not even have a united camp on that side and lose out on the more moderate left vote and right vote as well as the independent, libertarian and green vote.
I think it’s quite possible your point is true, but making it in response to this image is implying something very reductive about how a lot of the left feel about her and why.
Opposing genocide isn’t a purity test or a shibboleth. It is table stakes.
Best wishes to Kamala, but all that’s happening is she is seeing all the voters who probably would have turned out for her if she’d actually represented their views - and they sure ain’t all of them socialist.
So in a vacuum, your comment is quite fair and I think I agree. In the context of this thread, however, it just seems like you’re afraid of nuance.
I hear this complaint no matter the individual in question. One can similarly see the same behavior on the right as well. No matter how right or authoritarian an individual is there’s some portion who think they aren’t right or authoritarian enough. I think it’s more so a human behavior than anything about political philosophy.
Sure but what is your point?
His point is that no one is so far to the right that he won’t pretend that the left is being unreasonable to reject them.
My point is pretty much what I’ve said. That is no matter the circumstance there will be a portion of the population who will say not enough has been done, that a candidate isn’t X or Y enough. I feel like I’m now just repeating my statements.
You are.
You have essentially repeated the same basic observation regardless of what I have said to you. It isn’t a point, it’s an observation whose implied point you almost seem to not want to own up to because you are beginning to realize how shallow it is:
Opposing genocide = far left
You repeated the same observation instead of engaging with what my first comment was saying, so the above is still all I really have from you, because of the context in which you made your otherwise completely unrelated observation.
I’ve disagreed with your view. Honestly the post reminded me of this general behavior humans seem to have and it’s a worthwhile discussion to ask what actually is sufficient. If something is insufficient then what is, what is the goal such that one is content? To know what direction to move one must first know the intended goal. What does a left candidate look like such that no one or at least the vast majority feel they are left enough.
You haven’t disagreed with my view, you’ve evaded it and repeated yours.
Maybe you should address the genocide because your use of ‘left’ in your incisive critique otherwise persistently nonsensical. I’ve done my best to assume earnest intent from you, but I have hit the limits of my tolerance for non-response responses.
Enjoy your day.
I already said it in another reply but I’ll say it here too, all you’re really saying in all your comments is “Can’t please everyone” which is just a truism, and really falls flat when you’re talking about Kamala Harris of all people, her dissenters are not a small group.
Mamdani, next grievance.
There are literally people on this website who say he’s a fake socialist
Being the mayor of a city in a capitalist hellscape kinda has its ball and chain, and that’s all the doubt I’ll give him until he really fucks up.
E.g. me
, because he’s a social democratOr, he’s a real socialist working within the confines of social democracy.
“Vote for me!” throws a molotov
Well until he shows us otherwise, i.e. by working against the system to destroy it, he’s a social democrat in practice.
Should he just destroy it in NY or run this fade as high as he can go and destroy it there?
Moot point because he’s not making progress towards either 😮💨
Just promise me you bring that same heat against anyone to his right (99.99% of US politicians) because otherwise you risk doing their work for them.
Oh yeah, I promise, EZ. Like my venom for fascist and Third Way neoliberal politicians is infinite compared to Mamdani tbh.
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Just insulting them because they know the meaning of words?
I was being facetious, but apparently everyone here takes themselves too seriously.
I called the person a “chode.” Lighten up, people.
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Because they don’t
Like one or two users
Which is kinda my point. Although I’m sure I’ll now be downvoted for saying it.
“Can’t please everyone” is a truism. The difference with Kamala is that most people consider her fake and phony. Like enough so that if you want to argue against that opinion then you’re the dissent.
Weird defense of genocide, this comment.
I didn’t say anything about genocide. What is happening in Gaza, Darfur, Burma, DRC, Xinjiang is horrific and should be stopped.
I didn’t say anything about genocide
Just a genocidal candidate.
Your “no one is ever good enough for the left” bullshit was in direct defense of people not wanting to support someone who told them no in response to their desire for her to change the US stance on DIRECTLY SUPPORTING AN ACTIVE GENOCIDE.
You didn’t have to say it. It was implied via the context.
Firstly I would appreciate less offensive language, we can discuss like civil adults. Secondly I disagree with your opinion. I do not support any genocide much less the active genocides. What I said isn’t in the defense of anyone. It’s more so a general statement about human behavior. If you want to make it into something more than I intended then you are free but I won’t agree to it personally.
An adult can handle the word “bullshit” being used.
Wasn’t even directed at you. Grow up.
When someone, like yourself, steps into argue against someone making a point insulting a genocide enabler, in the way that you did: implying that the exact person being talked about is a great choice and people who don’t support that genocide enabler are somehow unable to be pleased…it very much aligns you with the thing your disagreement is countering the critique of. This is how communication works.
If you want to make generic comments not aligned with defending a genocide enabler, there were more appropriate avenues to do that. This was not it.
Context is important.
I mean, there definitely are, but this is America and they have no serious power because the capitalist class supresses them. I don’t typically see much hate for the Working Families Party, for instance, but I’m pretty sure the highest level of office anyone in that party holds is at a local level.
Currently, yes. Though there have previously been two WFP reps in the Connecticut state house (WFP only has statewide ballot access in NY, OR, and CT).
Because a rotten reactionary system in service of capital will only produce rotten reactionaries or rather only rotten reactionaries or at least opportunists are willing to enter it or genuine leftists have to compromise until they only help prolong the system further by reforming it…
So there’s no means of there being a worthwhile candidate by your standards?
(unless capital can only be owned by the state (it can’t ( the state is just people too)))
The way things are going the state may be non-human sometime soon.
It’s interesting how no matter how badly a politician fucks up, people are always ready to give them more and more chances. Absolutely zero accountability.
Which politician did I speak of and who did I say to give a chance to exactly?
So was it just a coincidence that you left your OP under a Kamala Harris post?
The post did remind me of this behavior. I haven’t seen a candidate (left or right) where there isn’t a vocal group displeased with them, generally stating they are a fake, phony, or haven’t gone far enough. If something or someone is insufficient then it’s natural to ask what or who is sufficient.
The post did remind me of this behavior.
Anyone to your left who has any standards at all reminds you of this behavior.
Kamala Harris, obviously.
Context is a thing that exists. If you want to play that game, technically I said “people” and not “you.”
Honestly the post reminded me of this general behavior humans seem to have and it’s a worthwhile discussion to ask what actually is sufficient. If something is insufficient then what is, what is the goal such that one is content?
Well, let’s start by establishing the most basic and generous standard possible: that materially supporting the mass killing of an ethnic group is disqualifying for the highest office in government. If you can’t agree with that, then you simply disagree with the idea of holding politicians to any standard whatsoever.
I think I’ve personally already done so not just for one genocide but all the current genocides as well as any other. Now I have a sneaking suspicion that alone is still insufficient. What else do you dream of in a left representing candidate? What do you believe would be sufficient such that one doesn’t really hear the argument they’re a fake or phony? What is the goal exactly.
What do you believe would be sufficient such that one doesn’t really hear the argument they’re a fake or phony?
Nothing would be, and that’s a good thing. You’re saying you don’t want to hear the argument that they’re a fake or phony. In other words, everyone would have to be convinced of their authenticity. That’s an impossible standard, and probably wouldn’t even be a good thing. People should be skeptical of politicians, even when they’re saying good things.
Put left and right aside for a second. Let’s assume that everyone is just evaluating a politician’s character. Obviously, different people are going to have all kinds of different assessments of any person’s character. Now, if we bring left and right back, then should we not evaluate people’s character just because they’re saying things we want to hear?
In the US, we are so starved for anyone saying anything remotely good that there’s this expectation that everyone should immediately rally around anybody who says anything good. But the goal isn’t just to have people say good things, but to do them, and that means critically evaluating them. Not doing that is how you get Sinemas and Fettermans.
