538 - status of Sanders voters

[(vikm)]

August West wrote:


Secondly, I bring up ideological purity in relation to your judgment of others who do not hold your ideological viewpoint, to wit, "...how many Sanders supporters are ideological twits...". Those sort of statements might seem inconsequential to you, but they are not. They are a characterization more akin to the hard right you seem to disdain. What is the difference between your marginalization of Sanders' supporters and Hair Furor's marginalization of the left as a whole?

Thank you.

[Ted King]

rjmacs wrote:

Feeling that the soft corruption of money in politics is a keystone issue that needs to be addressed is a chiefly practical matter, not an ideological one.

Yes, a person can disagree with another person about what is the "right" means to achieve the goal of greatly diminishing corruption of money in politics. There can be disagreement on whether or not an incremental approach to the problem is sufficient or that it is necessary to have radical change relatively quickly. It's a practical question but a very complex one for which a proposed answer necessarily involves invoking a lot of assumptions about human nature/social/political reality. The empirical components can be hard to identify and very tricky to measure.

The assessment of the "right" pace of change is not only an empirical one. Emotional predisposition probably plays an inevitable and important role in what seems to be the "right" pace for change. Hormones and emotions - it's probably not a coincidence that young people with the most tuned up hormonal systems are emotionally predisposed to want change now rather than later. You can argue that such emotional factors are misguided, but their assessments of the best means - including pace of change - are not necessarily ideologically driven assessments.

[Ted King]

Ted King wrote:
[quote=rjmacs]

Feeling that the soft corruption of money in politics is a keystone issue that needs to be addressed is a chiefly practical matter, not an ideological one.

Yes, a person can disagree with another person about what is the "right" means to achieve the goal of greatly diminishing corruption of money in politics. There can be disagreement on whether or not an incremental approach to the problem is sufficient or that it is necessary to have radical change relatively quickly. It's a practical question but a very complex one for which a proposed answer necessarily involves invoking a lot of assumptions about human nature/social/political reality. The empirical components can be hard to identify and very tricky to measure.

The assessment of the "right" pace of change is not only an empirical one. Emotional predisposition probably plays an inevitable and important role in what seems to be the "right" pace for change. Hormones and emotions - it's probably not a coincidence that young people with the most tuned up hormonal systems are emotionally predisposed to want change now rather than later. You can argue that such emotional factors are misguided, but their assessments of the best means - including pace of change - are not necessarily ideologically driven assessments.
On rereading what you said, I see that I misunderstood how you were taking the metaphor I used - "keystone". It totally makes sense that that would suggest an engineering perspective, and, hence, the "practical" question perspective. I should have realized that. I was thinking of "keystone" as a keystone value in a moral arc of their value system. A conceptual anchor point for a lot of moral assessments. That was sort of the backdrop for what I wrote in my previous post (above).

But I can see that the word "keystone" suggests that the political stress lines lead back to it. Whether or not they do would be an empirical question. That means the disagreement would be an empirical one, not an ideological one - which is one of the points I think I was trying to make, that some Sanders supporters not supporting Clinton could be on (what you think are mistaken) empirical grounds, not necessarily because they are ideological twits.

Edit: Oh, I wanted to add that the choice of the concept of "keystone" was not a good one for what I wanted to say. I was fishing around in my head for a good metaphor and for some reason "keystone" popped up. Since I grew up in Keystone, Iowa, I think I felt like I just couldn't pass it up. :-)

[davester]

Ted King wrote: There can be disagreement on whether or not an incremental approach to the problem is sufficient or that it is necessary to have radical change relatively quickly.

Perhaps, but we're not talking about incremental vs radical change in a desired direction. We're talking about the wishful thinking that assisting someone whose ideas you hate in becoming leader of the country in the hope that he is such a bad leader that a breakdown of the system will occur and out of the chaos will grow a wonderful worker's paradise, simply because it must be so. That is what I think many of the Bernie-or-Busters are pretending (to themselves) will happen. First off, that sort of thinking is complete nonsense and those who think that way need to get a grip. Second, and perhaps more importantly, allowing a Trump into office would hurt many people over a long period of time since he would appoint several lifetime supreme court justices who would no doubt eventually reverse Roe vs Wade, backtrack on gay marriage rights, and remove many other protections, and has already indicated that he plans to start wars. This is not to mention all of those immigrants and refugees. In addition, it is important to note that Hitler came into power in a democratic society in very much the same way as Trump is trying to...championing authoritarianism with him as the only person who can save society, vilifying races and religions as being to blame for our societal ills,

[Ted King]

davester wrote:
[quote=Ted King] There can be disagreement on whether or not an incremental approach to the problem is sufficient or that it is necessary to have radical change relatively quickly.

Perhaps, but we're not talking about incremental vs radical change in a desired direction. We're talking about the wishful thinking that assisting someone whose ideas you hate in becoming leader of the country in the hope that he is such a bad leader that a breakdown of the system will occur and out of the chaos will grow a wonderful worker's paradise, simply because it must be so. That is what I think many of the Bernie-or-Busters are pretending (to themselves) will happen. First off, that sort of thinking is complete nonsense and those who think that way need to get a grip. Second, and perhaps more importantly, allowing a Trump into office would hurt many people over a long period of time since he would appoint several lifetime supreme court justices who would no doubt eventually reverse Roe vs Wade, backtrack on gay marriage rights, and remove many other protections, and has already indicated that he plans to start wars. This is not to mention all of those immigrants and refugees. In addition, it is important to note that Hitler came into power in a democratic society in very much the same way as Trump is trying to...championing authoritarianism with him as the only person who can save society, vilifying races and religions as being to blame for our societal ills,
The context for the part of what I said that you quoted was that I was talking about all the Sanders supporters who will not vote for Clinton, not just the "busters" who want Trump to win to screw up the system. Some Sanders supporters who won't vote for Clinton may not vote at all. Some may vote for the Green Party. I was trying to argue that just because someone isn't voting for Clinton doesn't necessarily imply that they are ideological twits.

[rjmacs]

August West wrote:
First, please try to keep your quoting straight, you have attributed statements to me which I have not authored.

Secondly, I bring up ideological purity in relation to your judgment of others who do not hold your ideological viewpoint, to wit, "...how many Sanders supporters are ideological twits...". Those sort of statements might seem inconsequential to you, but they are not. They are a characterization more akin to the hard right you seem to disdain. What is the difference between your marginalization of Sanders' supporters and Hair Furor's marginalization of the left as a whole?

So very sorry. Apologies to Filliam H. Muffman as well.

My point isn't ideological, it's pragmatic. It's based on an empirical evaluation of election results and their consequences. If someone cares to offer a practical reason that voting for a third party candidate is a good idea - based in real-world experience, not ideals or symbolism, then i'm happy to listen and have my viewpoint changed.

Having a harsh judgment of foolish behavior isn't, nor should it be, the prerogative of the right. I think it's just as stupid to vote for Gary Johnson instead of Drumpf if you can't bear the idea of Clinton being president but dislike her chief opponent. It's just a dumb move with no real tangible benefit. All it does is preserve the pristine white conscience of the person pulling the lever, who often has enough privilege that the outcome won't really affect their lives. Or at least, they think it won't.

[$tevie]

If you follow Bernie Sanders on FB, like I do, and read the comments you will learn that many of the people chastising him for "selling out" cannot spell, don't know grammar, call HRC "Killary", and/or talk about her life as a career criminal. I have come to believe that this vocal minority, the ones making all the noise, are mostly comprised of people who wanted to stop Hillary and are no more progressive than your average Dittohead. Unfortunately they are overshadowing the honest, intelligent, and sensible people who have either resigned themselves to Clinton, joined Clinton with enthusiasm, or will be voting for someone else because of personal beliefs not because they are twits. I wish an investigative reporter would look into how many of the loud and obnoxious extremists on the Bernie train were really just Stop Hillary voters who temporarily registered as Democrats for that single purpose and who would have ended up voting for Trump or Cruz or anyone but Clinton anyhow. I am beginning to think it was a fairly large number of these so-called Bernie Bros.

[bfd]

If at first you don't succeed…

[DeusxMac]

Harold Stassen

"Stassen was later best known for being a perennial candidate for the Republican Party nomination for President of the United States, seeking it nine times between 1944 and 1992 (1944, 1948, 1952, 1964, 1968, 1980, 1984, 1988, and 1992). He never won the Republican nomination, much less the presidency; in fact, after 1952, he never even came close, but continued to campaign actively and seriously for President until just a year before his death."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harold_Sta..._candidate

[$tevie]

Stassen and Nader were both entered onto my "for god's sake give it up already" list.