I was pointing out the ideological difference at the root of our disagreement.

Not “capitalism bad”, but “economic systems are unimportant”

IMO economic systems don’t really matter nearly as much as the rules and regulations above those systems

Whoomp, there it is

Maybe we just don’t share the same political goals, then.

This is why nobody should ever disclose who they are voting for in public.

I’m not engaging with this anymore, you’ve obviously not understood my perspectives here (intentionally or not).

I’m speaking to a very specific set of material conditions that a particular subset of the electorate is experiencing and liberal policies fail to address, and you’ve dismissed them yet again. It’s extremely calloused to ignore the economic hardships experienced by these workers when the industry that supports them and their community is broken into pieces and replaced by another, and I don’t think you’re in the right place to see or acknowledge those. Maybe that’s just a function of where we are in the election cycle. A part of the way capitalism works is by holding the means of survival hostage to coerce labor to protect it, and when democrats turn a blind eye to the trap those people are stuck in it solidifies reactionary political perspectives.

I don’t give a shit what O’Brian’s personal politics are or what Teamsters endorsement or platforming at the RNC means to the democratic campaign. He represents a segment of the population that is experiencing conditions not addressed by current or proposed democratic policies, and he’s using his platform to put pressure on both parties to address them by dangling Teamster’s influence, and I think that’s a fine (good, even) strategy.

And I couldn’t care less if this artist endorses Harris.

Well there ya go! Agreement!

Funny, you have now moved the goal posts from “forced” to “she feels pressured” without a single admission that you used the wrong word.

“I didn’t force you to eat dog shit, you chose to do it of your own volition while I stood next to you with my gun to your head” 🤷

Lmao jesus christ. Is ‘compelled’ a better word, then? Her entire statement is about how she is explicitly not endorsing because of how shit kamala is, but if you’d like count that as an endorsement for your team then all the power to you, bud

Well I do attack democrats an awful lot, but not because they’re any kind of model of leftist governance

Those are the metrics any leftist would be interested in with any highly developed state or economy. How distributed is the wealth? Are low-earners able to afford a comparative standard of living? Do they have economic and employment mobility? ect. They look to answer the question, “to what degree is the working class subject to coercive capitalist conditions?”

Other economic metrics are weighted toward assessing the performance of capital, and are far less relevant to the questions leftists care about answering.

Yes, she was pressured into both of those decisions. Pretending as if it were not only a ‘free choice’ but an actual endorsement is cringe-levels of desperate, honestly.

I reject your analogue. There have been no “public statements about private negotiations” with the GOP. We don’t know the GOP to’ve made ANY negotiations.

That was the hypothetical side of the analogue. Them announcing that they won’t be endorsing is similar to a union announcing negotiations have failed and they going on strike - an action that materially damages their company’s income and is (in some ways) a violent means to escalating the issue. The union is definitionally an appendage of its parent company; them ‘leaving to work for a different company’ just doesn’t make sense, it’d be like an arm cutting itself off at the shoulder.

I never said “unions shouldn’t target democrats at all with direct action”, I’m saying actions that directly aid another party, where that other party is the modern GOP, are fucking stupid.

“Nonviolent direct action seeks to create such a crisis and foster such a tension that a community which has constantly refused to negotiate is forced to confront the issue. It seeks so to dramatize the issue that it can no longer be ignored.”

If any action that hurts a democratic campaign is outside the bounds of acceptable direct action to you, then this is precisely where our disagreement is. Electing not to endorse the democratic ticket is the lightest possible criticism one could possibly make.

You went on about issues that rust belt union members are having. But the Democrats don’t control the rust belt…the GOP does. And they are fucking over their own union constituents.

Look, I already told you I had no interest in having this debate with you. We are clearly not seeing eye to eye.

Rust belt unions are less concerned with expanding union protections than they are concerned with their industry going bankrupt. A coal mining union isn’t concerned with having better legal protection for going on strike, they’re concerned that the entire coal industry is getting replaced elsewhere by renewables and wont have anyone to negotiate with.

I already said that the PRO act is an excellent bill, and that dems should be campaigning on it, but that’s simply not why they’re losing union support in the rust belt. Millions of americans are afraid that they’re going to loose their livelihoods to changing economic priorities, and democrats are allergic to taking any action that addresses that fundamental apprehension because they’re terrified of being called socialist.

Why aren’t the teamsters…openly mad at the GOP? The party of people who, in your own words, would “accuse [democrats] of being radical socialists” for proposing action that helps working class people?

Because the democrats haven’t proposed anything that actually addresses their concerns, and they’re frustrated that the things democrats have proposed are targeted in other places of the economy and callously ignores their material interests. They’re convinced that democrats will never solve their problems - but the GOP is promising to preserve their industries by passing tarrifs, removing environmental protections, stopping the growth of renewables and tech that threaten to put them out of business… And those are simple, believable solutions to their problems. You and I understand that those are problematic in a million different ways, but from their perspective everyone else seems to be fucking over everyone else to get their bag, so why not them? Democrats simply don’t have a response to that, especially when they’re insistent on stopping short of breaking with neoliberal economic policy.

I’m exhausted by having this same conversion over-and-over again. Moderate democrats have this way of middling their way out of grasping the underlying issues voters are experiencing and instead try to bandaid over huge gaping wounds, then cry bloody murder when voters don’t act as grateful as they think they should. Liberals are never going to understand why they’re losing support if they aren’t able to even conceptualize the concerns of the working class in small-town economies.

Lmao

Lol, those are bellwether economic statistics for any state, it’s not ‘cherry picking’.

Capital D democrats love California because it’s a democratic stronghold and a testing ground for all kinds of liberal policy, but it’s also dominated by capital interests. In terms of GDP it represents 1/6th of the entire US economy.

It’s one of the clearest examples of liberalism’s relationship with capital. Most socialists would not look fondly on California governance.

Erm, i guess ill take your word for it

Unemployment

Gini coefficient

Home price to median income

You really don’t see the distinction? Being forced into making a choice you don’t like, and voicing a public approval of someone’s candidacy?

I mean think what you want i guess

I kinda hope it has changed since then, but probably not as much as I’d like.

Lmao, idk maybe go watch her videos, she is definitely not voicing support and certainly not approval

Just so I’m clear: you’re saying that if I had a gun to my head and was forced to choose between getting shot or eating dogshit, and I chose dogshit, that would be considered an endorsement?

I have a Samsung smart TV that is not connected to any networks, and every few days it will display a ‘detecting device’ loading screen when switching to my input that fails after 30 seconds or until I cancel it (canceling does not seem to impact its functioning)

I have no evidence but I strongly suspect this to be related to attempting to record and send device data to a remote server.

I realize this is very sensitive issue and things have likely changed since april, but the last time I saw this polled Jewish Americans support Israel’s response to Oct.7 about 62%, 33% oppose

Granted, since april and just off the top of my head, Israel has bombed a number of Gaza refugee camps, killed the Hamas negotiator, conducted two terror attacks against Lebanon, and now is talking about sending ground troops in across the border,… so… yea maybe things have changed

But im glad to have Sanders pushing for this though, I think it carries more weight coming from him.

I mean it guess they’re not banning books or switching to school vouchers but I’m pretty sure low income households are doing just as bad if not worse over there

Aren’t they, like, tearing down homeless encampments on a monthly basis?

edit: spelling

declare one’s public approval or support of.

Err, you working from a different dictionary?

This is why she resisted saying who she was voting for initially, and why she is explicitly saying she is not endorsing