Organizing a first past the post democracy. If you don’t organize with a primary then you risk having multiple originally similar candidates in a general election and losing to the more unified bloc. The control on who can run under the party’s banner is done by the primary voters. Someone who doesn’t act like a Democrat could try to run, but they’d just lose.
But how does blue no matter who work? Like most of the time you hear that it’s when the candidate is too right wing and people are asked to look past that because they can win. But what if someone wins the primary but then is like sike actually I am going to eat a puppy every day for lunch. Who decides they went to far for “blue no matter who”?
VBNMW is just a social campaign to try to keep the party cohesive. The voters individually decide if they follow it. Even in the case of something egregious, it’s probably still better than the alternative though. Senate terms are 6 years and every member is valuable, even if they’re unreliable on some things. We know how Susan Collins will vote and that’s worse than Platner being a bad person.
In the House of Representatives the terms are only 2 years and each vote is less important, so giving up a seat to the opposition might be worth it to not get saddled with a particularly bad Democrat as an incumbent (incumbents tend to have a big advantage on reelection). My very blue house seat has been stuck with a very conservative Democrat for like 6-8 years now and we’d have been better off if he just lost his first election.
VBNMW is just a social campaign to try to keep the party cohesive. The voters individually decide if they follow it.
I understand no one is like, checking who people vote for but I keep seeing people blaming Trump and his policies on those who didn’t vote, or who decided to vote for a 3rd party.
Even in the case of something egregious, it’s probably still better than the alternative though.
I feel like I need an analogy here so we don’t get caught up on specifics. Let’s say one party wants to serve mushrooms for dinner and the other one promises no mushrooms, but there will be instant rice. Person A hates mushrooms but doesn’t mind instant rice. They might think people who hate instant rice are over reacting. Person B hates both mushrooms and instant rice. They wonder why person A thinks they should just shut up and eat it instead of having spaghetti, which everyone loves. And someone decided you are only allowed to have two choices. How on earth can that be representative?
Does the severity of what people are asked to accept just keep increasing over time?
This is in a similar vein as Bill Clinton who had sex with an intern in the presidential office (“consensual” gets pretty fuzzy when one party is an intern and the other is her boss, the president of the United States). The party line then was that we voted for policies not personal morality. And he left office as one of the most popular presidents in modern history.
But recently Republicans have just stopped expressing shame (as opposed to apologizing or making excuses) and the media just moves on, so I do think the bar has been dropped and it’s why I don’t think this is necessarily fatal.
You had me in the first half: I absolutely do not trust anyone who views Clinton’s behavior as anything but horrific abuse of power and total loss of moral authority to be making important decisions with the interests of others in mind. [1]
But the second half sounds like “yeah but the Republicans are doing it too now so it’s okay”.
Like, what?
[1] I think people are more than their worst day but it takes accountability to regain trust.
Why have parties if you can’t control who can say they belong to it?
Organizing a first past the post democracy. If you don’t organize with a primary then you risk having multiple originally similar candidates in a general election and losing to the more unified bloc. The control on who can run under the party’s banner is done by the primary voters. Someone who doesn’t act like a Democrat could try to run, but they’d just lose.
But how does blue no matter who work? Like most of the time you hear that it’s when the candidate is too right wing and people are asked to look past that because they can win. But what if someone wins the primary but then is like sike actually I am going to eat a puppy every day for lunch. Who decides they went to far for “blue no matter who”?
VBNMW is just a social campaign to try to keep the party cohesive. The voters individually decide if they follow it. Even in the case of something egregious, it’s probably still better than the alternative though. Senate terms are 6 years and every member is valuable, even if they’re unreliable on some things. We know how Susan Collins will vote and that’s worse than Platner being a bad person.
In the House of Representatives the terms are only 2 years and each vote is less important, so giving up a seat to the opposition might be worth it to not get saddled with a particularly bad Democrat as an incumbent (incumbents tend to have a big advantage on reelection). My very blue house seat has been stuck with a very conservative Democrat for like 6-8 years now and we’d have been better off if he just lost his first election.
I understand no one is like, checking who people vote for but I keep seeing people blaming Trump and his policies on those who didn’t vote, or who decided to vote for a 3rd party.
I feel like I need an analogy here so we don’t get caught up on specifics. Let’s say one party wants to serve mushrooms for dinner and the other one promises no mushrooms, but there will be instant rice. Person A hates mushrooms but doesn’t mind instant rice. They might think people who hate instant rice are over reacting. Person B hates both mushrooms and instant rice. They wonder why person A thinks they should just shut up and eat it instead of having spaghetti, which everyone loves. And someone decided you are only allowed to have two choices. How on earth can that be representative?
Does the severity of what people are asked to accept just keep increasing over time?
This is in a similar vein as Bill Clinton who had sex with an intern in the presidential office (“consensual” gets pretty fuzzy when one party is an intern and the other is her boss, the president of the United States). The party line then was that we voted for policies not personal morality. And he left office as one of the most popular presidents in modern history.
But recently Republicans have just stopped expressing shame (as opposed to apologizing or making excuses) and the media just moves on, so I do think the bar has been dropped and it’s why I don’t think this is necessarily fatal.
You had me in the first half: I absolutely do not trust anyone who views Clinton’s behavior as anything but horrific abuse of power and total loss of moral authority to be making important decisions with the interests of others in mind. [1]
But the second half sounds like “yeah but the Republicans are doing it too now so it’s okay”.
Like, what?
[1] I think people are more than their worst day but it takes accountability to regain trust.