If you really cared about progressive issues and values why would you let Trump be elected?

[Dem4Life1102]

This behavior really confuses me. We are down to 2 candidates in the Democratic primary either of which will be a better President than Trump. Yet I see some threatening to not vote for the nominee if it is not the candidate that they currently support. This really doesn't make any sense to me. Why would anyone who does care about moving the country in a more progressive direction want to see another 4 years of Trump and the GOP? Do they really want Trump appointing 2 more Supreme Court Justices?

Maybe it is just me but I see that attitude as not really caring about issues but just wanting to be on the winning team and getting your way. Am I wrong?

[sop]

1. No, you're not wrong. I always assumed being a progressive meant voting for the candidate

who would create progress.

[DenverJared]

2. All people with Democratic intentions would agree with you

The ones who won't have questionable motives.

[comradebillyboy]

6. Her wars? She wasn't the fucking president for any of

those wars. She didn't control the military. She's not even running this year. What on earth is your real problem?

[The Magistrate]

11. Worth Pointing Out, Sir

The authorization resolution was a quite clever political trap. Recall the Democrats had a mere tie in the Senate, secured by defection of a single Republican shortly after Bush was allowed to take office. Had the resolution been defeated, the looming campaign would have been fought on the line of 'Democrats are soft on Sadam! Democrats side with the enemy!" The result would have been great success for the Republicans, a decimation of our Senate cadre. The Republicans would not have gained two but perhaps a half-dozen seats. The first business of the new Senate would have been passing the authorization resolution, to great patriotic, support our President, fanfare, and all this done in plenty of time for the scheduled invasion to proceed as planned. A unanimous vote by Democrats against the resolution would not have slowed the thing by so much as one hour. It was correctly assumed by many Democrats, especially those with ambitions higher than the Senate, that a vote against the resolution would tar their prospects badly. It is only with a fairly small clique of left radicals a vote for the resolution is seen as evidence of perfidious thirst for war and blood, and a reason to saddle any who did not vote against it with full responsibility for the actions of the Bush administration.

Iraq is best invaded in early spring, if it is going to be done at all. I have some interest in Great War history, and am familiar with Townsend's campaign in 1915. He did not begin moving north till the end of May. He ran into flooding and terrible heat that greatly hampered his operations. Late March is a sort of 'sweet spot', and you may be sure anything I know is well known to our military staffs. Mounting an operation of this sort is not a whim of the moment. It takes months to get everything assembled and ready for action, half a year at least. There is no room whatever for doubt, given when the invasion did occur, that preparations for invading Iraq were underway before the authorization resolution was even presented to the Senate. The thing was going to happen, it had been decided on, and had been set in motion.

Most 'further left' comment on this matter is marked by naivite not only about politics but about military operations.





"From Bernie’s perspective, dropping out of a race once you have no chance of winning is peculiar behavior that can only be explained by the work of a hidden hand. For most politicians, though, it is actually standard operating procedure. Only Sanders seems to think the normal thing to do once voters have made clear they don’t want to nominate you is to continue campaigning anyway."





"When things are not called by their right names, what is said cannot make sense. When what is said does not make sense, what is planned cannot succeed. When plans do not succeed, people become uneasy. When people are uneasy, punishments do not fit crimes. When punishments do not fit crimes, people cannot know where to put hand or foot."

[tirebiter]

8. in What world is Bernie a pacifist?

I mean really. He voted for regime change in Iraq in the 90’s.
More important he voted for the AUMF which is what started the open ended war or on terrorism. Not saying it was wrong but what it wasn’t was pacifist.

[LongtimeAZDem]

10. And lets not forget the F-35s

[Dem4Life1102]

9. Sorry but just not buying your argument

There is a big difference between an imperfect friend and a bitter enemy. Clinton and Biden may not be perfect, but they are not Trump.

[sop]

13. From "The Cult of the Imperfect" by Watson-Watt:

"Give them the third best to go on with; the second best comes too late, and the best never comes."   

And Trump is not even the fourth best, he's the absolute worst of the worst.

[The Magistrate]

4. That Is Not Their Objective, Sir

The 'further left' traditionally take as their chief enemy parties and political figures of the center left, rather than parties and figures of the right. This is because a strong center-left party balks any possibility of revolution. It will have the allegiance of most working people, because it will bring them real benefits in their lives, and by doing so, will shut off influence of the 'further left' by making it clear measures well short of the desperate expedients the 'further left' prescribes for improving the lot of working people are not necessary.

Because center-left parties do uphold the present order of society, the 'further left' sees them as obstacles to its desires quite as much as any reactionary party on the right. Thus you have the 'not a dime's worth of difference' line that views our two major parties as interchangeable. Since the 'further left' cannot comprehend how working people could possibly form an honest attachment to rightist parties, their view comes to be that center-left parties are their chief obstacle to mass support from working people, and they imagine that if center-left parties are broken, they will inherit the mass support of working people, and thus become predominant. Then it will be the time to deal with the reactionary right, but until it is the 'further left' which has undisputed leadership of working people, the reactionary right cannot be dealt with properly.

Properly, here, indicating a policy guided by the slogan quite popular in the radical salad days of Sanders: 'What's the solution? Revolution!' Few nowadays on the 'further left' dream of an actual, barricades and snipers and car-bombs sort of armed revolution, but they do envision a complete overthrow of existing economic and social arrangements. One of the things they fail to understand about working people, and people on the lower rungs of the economic scale generally, is that people who have not much but do have a little are extremely reluctant to put the little they have at risk, and they know that in turmoil and tumult that little will be at risk. There are strains of the 'further left' which do have some understanding of this, and their view is that working people must be made to lose that little they have now, and lose it to the unmitigated predation of the reactionary right. Only then, when they have nothing to lose, will working people be ready for revolution under the banner of the 'further left'. This provides such people still another reason to oppose and demolish center left parties, as these do mitigate the suffering the right would impose on working people, and so are the chief force in balking revolution. These elements view an initial triumph of the reactionary right as an essential step in their own program to achieve revolution, and so are actually quite pleased by the reactionary right achieving political success at the expense of center-left parties.





"From Bernie’s perspective, dropping out of a race once you have no chance of winning is peculiar behavior that can only be explained by the work of a hidden hand. For most politicians, though, it is actually standard operating procedure. Only Sanders seems to think the normal thing to do once voters have made clear they don’t want to nominate you is to continue campaigning anyway."





"When things are not called by their right names, what is said cannot make sense. When what is said does not make sense, what is planned cannot succeed. When plans do not succeed, people become uneasy. When people are uneasy, punishments do not fit crimes. When punishments do not fit crimes, people cannot know where to put hand or foot."

[thesquanderer]

5. re: "threatening to not vote for the nominee if it is not the candidate that they support"

I think there are few such people who will not vote for the nominee (especially on DU). But it is an interesting question, even about those few, as to what their motivation is.

"not really caring about issues but just wanting to be on the winning team and getting your way" - the "spoiled brat" category? Maybe some. I think there are also some people who strictly are principled (and not pragmatic) in their decision making, who will not stray from their ideals, period. There are people who feel their one vote won't count anyway, and they would rather make a statement (or conversely, don't care strongly about voting to begin with). There are the extremists of various types, the anarchists, the survivalists, etc. who in some respects can be far left as easily as far right. (Libertarian and Progressive are not always at odds.) Less extreme, you still have the anti-establishment people, for who Sanders and Trump both had some appeal in 2016 whereas "mainstream" candidates have none.

Basically, there are probably a bunch of different answers. But it is a minority, regardless.

[Dem4Life1102]

7. But how does Trump appointing 2 more Supreme Court Justices

further their ideals?

[thesquanderer]

12. Not all voters think that far ahead. Or, as I said, are necessarily pragmatic. n/t

[mikelgb]

14. I have but only one vote to give, in CA no less, my impact will be meaningful but minimal

in no way will my actions "let" the piece of human waste be elected