Climate Change

If you’re referring to the recentish CBS news poll showing a 48/52 split on the topic of fracking bans in general, that poll has a margin of error of +/- 3.7 percentage points, meaning that PA is very literally split down the middle with no majority opinion. This is interpreting polls 101 - you need a clearer spread to actually interpret that polling opinion with confidence, and politicians with boots on the ground meeting people will tell you that opinions on fracking in PA are uncertain. Opinions are changing slowly, so it is wishful thinking at best and deliberately disingenuous at worst to claim “majority support” with confidence for fracking bans in PA.

Basic politics is that if the people are uncertain, you do not implement sweeping changes. By and large people rebel against large changes to the status quo when they feel uncertain, and that is absolutely the driving characteristic of states like PA and WI. When polls that distill a complex topic to a binary choice show a split, it means your voters are undecided and the topic is very nuanced, and that means until the winds show a clearer direction or until places like PA stop mattering, the smart move is to not come down hard on fracking.

I don’t like it either but this is what we have to work with. Vote third party if you want, but that will accomplish less of your agenda than voting for a Democrat. No, really, it will, because it will accomplish 0% at best and possibly a negative percentage at worst. We have two parties in this country and until we get ranked-choice or effectively parliamentary representation in enough places, it’s staying that way, and voting third party ain’t fixing it.

I find it honestly wild that a segment of leftists will on the one hand deride people for believing voting will change anything and then on the other hand insisting that voting for a third party will change anything. You can’t have it both ways.

If you want revolution, assemble your coalition and bring it the polls. That’s easier than picking up guns, and I am exceedingly confident that the vast majority of the “revolutionary left” in this country lacks the temerity to actually shoot their government into existence. That’s a compliment, because people who jump straight to the non-negotiable solution are terrorists and they will continue to terrorize whatever system is put in front of them.

And if it comes to pass that you are forced to take more direct action, you will have already assembled a coalition for polls, so you will have to do less work to respond to whatever situation arises in the aftermath of the election. You don’t want that to happen, but in either scenario the strategically optimal first step is forming a coalition of like-minded voters to take to the polls.

You want electoral solutions, and you want to vote strategically, because the alternative is not a world anyone who you want around actually wants to exist - and once again, if you actually do want that level of instability, then I don’t want you anywhere near any political movement, because you will sabotage it.

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Your words show support for good leftists views, but your actions actively support the furthest on the right. Voting for non-democrats, or not voting, helps the right. Posting on the Internet criticisms of democrats, however valid, help the right. If you are so left, you should start by spending all your efforts attacking those furthest to the right and work your way leftwards. You know who else spends all their time attacking Democrats, Republicans do! You talk as if you are a communist, but your actions are nearly identical to those furthest to the right. The way you act make it actually impossible to tell if you are acting in good faith or if you are actually on the far-right and are pretending to be on the left.

Imagine an underwear perfect comic book. There is a good hero and a evil villain. Then there’s a third less-good hero who is also 100% against the villain, but the super good hero doesn’t like their methods. Assuming you’re the hero, and you do have valid criticisms of the less-good hero, it still makes no sense why you would spend all your time attacking the less-good hero. That just helps the villain! Defeat the villain first, it’s common sense! What about this is so hard to understand? If you saw the hero punching the less-good hero all the time, and basically never punching the villain, you have to assume they are actually in league with the villain. Actions speak louder than words.

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You want electoral solutions, and you want to vote strategically, because the alternative is not a world anyone who you want around actually wants to exist - and once again, if you actually do want that level of instability, then I don’t want you anywhere near any political movement, because you will sabotage it.

This is it.

Voting for anyone but Joe Biden for president in the 2020 election puts you squarely on the wrong side of history. There literally aren’t other options if your actual goal is to achieve progressive movement of any kind.

There is no such thing as a non-strategic vote. There are exactly two power-seeking coalitions, and you get to pick which one controls our government.

One of them will literally murder people and ensure that climate change is not only ignored, but likely accelerated.

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Ya know, at some point I’d like to discuss this point. Now isn’t the time though, perhaps after the election. Until then, yes this is correct.

There’s a difference between voting for a party because you think they will win and voting for a party to help spread their message. I live in Illinois. Biden will win my state and my voting for him would have no impact. Obviously my voting for La Riva doesn’t accomplish much either, and I have little to no impact on politics at all no matter what I do, but that’s the comparison you need to make.

There’s a whole spectrum of activity between “bourgeois electoralism” and “violent revolution”.

I don’t typically attack Republicans as much here because there’s not much point. No one here needs to be convinced that Donald Trump is bad. No one here would vote for a Republican under any circumstances.

If I made a lot more criticisms of Republicans and the same criticisms of Democrats I’m making now, would you feel differently about it? I think I’d get exactly the same push-back I’m getting now.

We both agree that Democrats are better than Republicans, but you seeing them as a less-good hero rather than a less-bad villain is our fundamental difference in worldview.

Ah yes, Twitter 2016, the first time a leftist criticized the Democratic party.

You can help spread their message without voting for them - in other words, you can both advocate and also vote strategically, and make that part of your message. You can make that voting calculus - Illinois is probably safe - but your message is heard by people in less safe places, and if you are being responsible in your engagement of politics you will consider what actions your words will inspire in other places that are not your own.

You probably have a lot more pull with the folks to the left of Sanders than, say, I do, despite the fact that I guarantee we do not substantially disagree in matters of principle or vision. If you’re out in the wild advocating for voting to spread a message, aspiring people in less safe states will hear that and think it’s the thing to do, which can endanger those races.

I’m not going to tell you how to vote, but advocating for the validity of third-party voting writ large is highly unlikely to produce your desired outcome.

If your version of electoralism does not involve strategic voting and building a coalition to advance actionable causes, then you are invariably pushing towards the violence end. If you want to break the “bourgeois” end of things, great! We can talk about that! But in my experience, you don’t seem interested in discussing mechanisms of action that actually have a chance of bringing that about.

If we’re going to crush the influence of big business in our politics, we start at the local level, with local elections and state-level electoral reform. Third-party redistricting and alternatives to first-past-the-post voting are the starting points, but those are wildly unsexy talking points. The focus on the national level is part of why I view the leftest of the left in this country with some skepticism.

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I’m not sure where you get the idea that the “leftest of the left” are focused on the national level. But since AFAIK I’m the only active forumite who lives in Illinois I don’t think anyone cares which Chicago aldermen I’m donating to/voting for, or has much to say about it. My experiences with my mayor informed my views of Harris (“progressive” cops are still bastards). In the current moment it doesn’t seem like a great idea to document one’s protest activity without any anonymity so that’s a non-starter.

Guess we’ll have to nuke the moon.

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Also, I repeat. The number one killers are heart disease and cancer. How much of that would be reduced if we biked, walked, scooted everywhere with cleaner air? My guess: a lot.

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Could we not just compare the heart disease and cancer rates of the US and the Netherlands to get a ballpark on this one?

Ooh, good call!

They’re way better than the US, but it might not be just the lack of cars. South Korea loves cars and has awful smog problems, at least in Seoul. Other factors like the food and universal health care contribute a lot.

Of course, there’s other factors. Someone better at dealing with data than me could zero in and try applying some controls to really try and isolate the effects of more driving vs more biking on these particular health outcomes. This was never gonna be perfect.

Even so, I’m pleased to hear it’s a blowout, more research required but, I think this is a promising start.

Better late than never…

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