Statement made on 23rd July 2024 (~20 days ago)
While BLM is certainly within their right to ask for this, I think it’d be pointless to do it. It’s done. Kamala Harris is the nominee.
To me, this is once again, the left fighting the left. And yes, the Democratic Party in this country, is considered part of the left, even if it’s not as left as some of you you’d like. Maybe BLM and other groups who feel the same, should focus that energy on fighting MAGA and Trump. Only one of the two major parties has at least some interest in racial justice and equality. And it sure as hell ain’t the Republicans. Especially not these days.
I’m not saying Democrats are perfect. I’m not saying Kamala Harris is perfect. But I’d much, much, much, much rather have her and Walz and Democrats across the land in control. And trying to fight fights within the big tent that have already been settled isn’t the way to do it.
Is there a method where BLM could publicly raise concerns about the Democrats’ process that you wouldn’t characterize as ‘the left fighting the left’?
Wait until the fascists don’t win the election? Right now that makes the most difference, and then later we can hold Harris and the Democrats to be better.
How would we hold them to be better, once they are in office? I have the feeling you would probably not support impeaching them over not being far enough to the Left, so I am interested in what routes you think are available?
To be clear, I don’t want a snap primary, I am just interested in if you actually have an answer to this, because otherwise it would have been more honest to just say, “shut up I don’t care” than pretend that pre-election is not the time to affect the party platform (which it has always been).
This statement was from 23 July and has been overcome by events. Harris is the nominee. The only reasons to share this 3 weeks after it was published is to either pretend that there is dissent on the left about who should be the nominee, or it was a simple mistake and you didn’t see the date. Which is it?
Which is it?
Both. I didn’t see the date, and also I like to pretend that the left is diverse and is capable of criticizing the Democratic party.
You could have just admitted it was a mistake without the grandstanding. All Democrats criticize the Democratic Party - it’s like a requirement, and it doesn’t make you special.
Criticism is our strength, though it’s often viewed as a weakness by others. But that criticism needs to be grounded in facts and reality, or else it undercuts the actual germane and real criticisms that need to be discussed and acted on.
If your post was in error, as you said, delete it and post something constructive. Maybe even link to the same thing, note the age of the link, but ask what needs to be done to make sure this doesn’t happen again. That might actually be a useful discussion. Otherwise you’re just throwing metaphorical molotovs and doing unintended damage.
The only error is that someone else didn’t post it in a more timely manner. I admire Black Lives Matter, and I enjoy signal boosting their voices. I think they have good ideas, the kind that deserve to be discussed in forums full of thinking people. The message from this statement is timeless, and I think you might benefit from reading it.
You can prevent this from happening in the future by following BLM’s media accounts and posting their relevant statements before I do.
A third option: I think it’s still important to be cognizant of their very correct call-out of the lack of democratic choice in this process. As you said, it’s too late to change that now, and certainly Beehaw is essentially all aboard the Harris/Walz train, but we did bypass an important phase of our democratic system to get here.
As it says in the article:
So we will do the hard thing: we will celebrate, and honor the joy many in our community are feeling about Kamala’s historic candidacy and path to the nomination—while calling out the undemocratic process and engaging in a vigorous discussion on the issues our community cares about.
They’re the nominees. They’re going to be on the ballots. But while I personally don’t think there was a better pair of candidates readily available at this point, I can still acknowledge that it was sad that it played out this way. Biden should have withdrew from the race back at the start, and we could have had a true primary (apart from the usual DNC shenanigans that they always pull), but Biden robbed that from us in his arrogance.
3 weeks ago, I barely had heard the name Walz, and now from what I’ve seen I love the guy. How many better candidates could we have had if we weren’t 100 days out from the election and being rushed to find good ones?
I get the potential gripe, but realistically it’s hard to call it undemocratic even as it stands. People voted for an incumbent (essentially unopposed) ticket of Biden/Harris. Had Biden simply dropped dead this would have been the very same result. We just skipped the whole death part and moved on to the natural line of succession. Besides, how many times have we had a VP become pres or at least the candidate in the past few decades? Better than half since the 70s if I count correctly.
I’m not particularly disappointed with the outcome, but it was undemocratic. Just because there is a precedent of the party bullying other candidates out of running against an incumbent doesn’t make it democratic. The party bullying it’s way to its preferred candidate is what lost us 2016.
You’re on Beehaw right now. Let’s not sling around any accusations. Let’s just assume good faith. Even I didn’t catch that when I responded.
To be fair, Beehaw has been clearly inundated with bad faith arguments about the election for weeks. Let’s not pretend it hasn’t. This may not be that, but it’s not appropriate to scold users for calling out dead obvious political manipulation.
This may not be that, but it’s not appropriate to scold users for calling out dead obvious political manipulation.
you can find it cringe–and i certainly don’t agree with most of the people here proposing third-party voting (which i think is total dead-enderism and morally pointless)–but people disagreeing with you is not political manipulation and it devalues the term to use it in such a cavalier manner
