General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: The manufactured outrage that purports to be legitimate criticism of Hillary is pathetic [View all]DanTex
(20,709 posts)If the far left wants to build up a grassroots campaign and start winning primaries and getting people elected, that would be great. But they don't do that. At least not much. What they mainly do is complain and threaten and draw false equivalences. I don't know about you, but people who constantly complain about me and threaten me aren't the people who I am most anxious to jump into bed with.
What makes Clinton good? Let's see.
Supports Obamacare, and medicaid expansion.
Wants to raise minimum wage.
Supports gay rights.
Strongly pro-choice.
Rated 85% by AFL-CIO.
Wants to protect social security.
Wants higher taxes on the wealthy -- 80% rating by citizens for tax justice.
And so on.
http://www.ontheissues.org/senate/hillary_clinton.htm
So the issues are not your friend on this. Also, the "don't mention the Republicans" game is plain dumb. I would hope that the Bush years taught the Naderites that the Republicans actually exist and do bad things.
When weighing two options, this whole idea of ignoring one of them completely and refusing to compare them is one of the dumbest things I can imagine. Do Naderites make life decisions based on the same principle? Like, when crossing the street, either I could wait for a green light, but that would take time, so forget it, I'm just gonna cross right now, no more time wasting for me!
There's plenty of blame to go around. Gore ran a bad campaign, Nader sabotaged him, with help from the "there's no difference" morons.
In the end, you care more about sending a message to party leadership than what actually happens the country. The Iraq War and the economic collapse were just "a few turds" and you have no problem with a few more of them falling. This is what makes Naderite leftism so bourgeois. People whose lives are actually affected by things like the minimum wage don't have the luxury of saying, well, who cares about a few turds, sending a message is the really important thing.
And the other thing is, the Naderite strategy was and continues to be a colossal failure. Has the Democratic party moved left thanks to all the complaints, threats, and false equivalences? No. What happened was, Bush got elected, Nader's reputation destroyed, the Green party almost disappeared.
If the far left wants to be a political force, the thing to do is win elections not sabotage them. If sabotaging is the only move, it's no wonder they get treated like the enemy.