More like Jimmy BORE
(argue in the comments, but like, the WWE equivalent of arguing)
Being an asshole for the possibility of Medicare4all? I dunno, probably not
And there we have it guys gals and nonbinary pals! @threshold is out of the starting gates, rearing to go he opens with a rejection of the claim! This passionate newcomer to professional internet arguing is full of surprises, just what will he do next!
We’re doing populism brother, oh yes, populism is a coming. It’s coming to your town. And this summer at Riot in the Streets you better believe right wing populism will be there. Oh yes. The only thing standing in it’s way brother, is left wing populism. Don’t you forget it brother. And when right wing populism enters the ring, left wing populism needs to be there to jump off the top rope and directly onto their candy asses. But with populism you need to popular brother. And to be popular you need people to get angry. Yes sir. Get mad. You need to reach out and tap into the people’s anger brother and nobody can do that like a angry shouting person on the radio. Believe it brother. The right has had their angry shouting people for a long time but this summer at Riot in the Streets you better believe the left will bring their own angry shouting commentators to stoke the fires of the working class. Oh yes brother. The fire rises.
Dore is an asshole but he can be our asshole for the time being. And we can elevate better voices to the front of a movement he can help stoke. Jimmy doesn’t have to be face of left populism but he can be the one with a steel chair ready to steeep in and bash reformers over their heeeads. BE THERE THIS SUMMER RIOT IN THE STREETS 2021.
(I don’t watch wrasslin but I tried).
That’s irrelevant. #forcethevote is a good idea. If the squad were to withold their votes for Nancy Pelosi unless she would allow a floor vote on medicare for all, it would be impossible for her to become speaker again unless she concedes. The rules of the house are that you need a majority of the votes to become speaker (not just a plurality), so it’s impossible for a republican to become speaker as a result of this strategy (like some dishonest opponents are saying).
If they don’t follow this strategy, it shows they’re inneffective politicians at best, or people who betrayed the promises they made when they were running for office.
There is no better time for this vote than during a pandemic when millions of people lost their employer-based health insurance. Even if the vote would fail (the chance of which is less likely now than on any other moment when there isn’t a pandemic), it would be a mask off-moment for a lot of normie-democrats who’re not following politics as intesely as you and I are doing.
I don’t care about the personality of Jimmy Dore and neither should you. So what if we don’t like his rants? He has a platform and he’s using it to agitate for one of the most important issues for the left right now, and that’s all we can ask of him.
Edit: please call or e-mail the progressive members of the house and calmly ask them to withold their votes for Pelosi as speaker, unless she comits to a floor vote on medicare for all. Contact info and a scenario can be found here: https://forcethevote.org/
t would be a mask off-moment for a lot of normie-democrats who’re not following politics as intesely as you and I are doing.
Would it be though? In November each member of the House was campaigning, and many were actively against M4A
But because everybody was focussed on the “orange Mussolini in the white house”, nobody was really paying attention to those down-ballot races.
On top of that, polls consistently showed that during the presidential primary, democratic voters were most concerned with “electability”. Having a floor vote on medicare for all during a pandemic when millions lost their employer-based health insurance will bring the focus back to the issues, and on the issues, the people are with the left.
In a more general way: the political arena during the last couple of months, was centered around the fight between the radical right and the centre. If we force a vote on medicare for all, we make it a fight between the left and the rest. That would be a fight on our terms, which is exactly where you’d want to be in the political arena: you want to set the terms of the debate.
In a more general way: the political arena during the last couple of months, was centered around the fight between the radical right and the centre. If we force a vote on medicare for all, we make it a fight between the left and the rest. That would be a fight on our terms, which is exactly where you’d want to be in the political arena: you want to set the terms of the debate.
How are we sure it’s going to end up as a big fight? If the vote actually happens couldn’t it just look like the co-sponsor list? The best case I see if it gets more votes than the co-sponsor list but does not pass the House as the Dems have a slim majority. You still don’t know if those votes are sincere or those are just votes to avoid a primary challenger when they know M4A isn’t actually passing
It’s funny that people will mock performative woke bullshit and then claim this is a good idea lol. The one dude in the dem primary who definitively said he isn’t for Medicare for all of any kind got the nomination and the dem voters came out and voted for him anyway.
Anyone who’s paying attention knows all the establishment dems are full of shit, and their base votes for them anyway. “Exposing them” is an empty gesture. They do that themselves daily, their every action and political manoeuvre shows their true colours.
Anyone who’s paying attention knows all the establishment dems are full of shit
Almost no one is paying attention. 40% of the country doesn’t even vote. And a lot of Democratic voters don’t know that Democrats don’t actually support M4A. The people who recognize what you’re saying are a tiny percentage of the population way way overrepresented in online political discourse.
Don’t forget a large segment of Biden voters think he’s for Medicare for all. In the height of the election when he explicitly said otherwise.
There is nothing you can do to reach those people.
There is nothing you can do to reach those people.
That’s not true. Marx says the working class needs to move from being a “class in itself”, to a “class for itself”, which means that there are objective interests of the working class, but only when it is organised as class, that it will be able to reach those objective interests. Our job as socialists is to escalate the class struggle to make sure that happens. We won’t reach all people at once, but eventually we’ll reach enough people.
Biden’s nomination wasn’t a people’s referendum on M4A it was capital defending itself from M4A. And the rest of the primaries weren’t even about M4A it was about Trump. Trumps done. That’s not on the table anymore. Biden being elected isn’t even a referendum on centrism, it’s just a rejection of Trump.
Normies aren’t us. They don’t spend all day listening to podcasters and tweeters shit on Dems. They think the dems are the good guys. Dore’s audience reaches people who are not us and that’s okay. There are people who think the Dems want to do M4A but Mitch won’t let them. If the idea is that those people are lost and we should never waste time convincing them, then fine. But Dore isn’t pandering to lanyards and Marin County. Forcing the vote won’t turn Matty Yglesias into a Bernie bro but it might reach some frustrated blue collar worker who doesn’t even know what PMC is.
The real problem is that Dore doesn’t have the aesthetics we like. He’s an older white guy with a problematic past. We don’t like those. And he does the boomer AM talk radio thing which we also don’t like. We don’t like Hannity and Limbaugh and Carlson so we feel we don’t need/want that kind of thing as an aspect of left discourse. If Dore was about 30 years younger and went on Chapo the tone around this would be very different. We’d still be having the same discussion about effectiveness but people wouldn’t be getting hung up on Dore as a character.
People I trust and respect have dedicated some of their time to this cause so I will defer to that and assume it’s not totally baseless or just a publicity stunt. I trust people who have been doing this a lot longer than I have or have had more successes than I have to put their energy in a good place.
There’s not going to be any one-off event that’s going to cause socialism. We’re never going to know the correct string of events that will lead to it either. This has potential to win over some people and I think that’s worth something. It’s not going to bring M4A, which is a half-measure anyways. It’s not going to cause all centrist Dems to resign or get them voted out. But it will provide some people who are not online leftists or people familiar with organizing something to cut their teeth on. Not everyone is going to join the DSA or the SRA or IWW or what have you. It doesn’t matter how good your sales pitch is. So waiting until the moment where a significant portion of people do is a bad strategy. We can’t just go “these people need to join a socialist org if they’re really serious.” They’re not going to. We don’t need them to. If this gets some trucker from middle America to listen more to people like Brie Joy, Cornell West, Nina Turner, Sirota, etc then good.
I don’t think the problem is that Dore is an old white man. The problem is that he’s kinda a misogynist and he doesn’t know what he’s talking about half the time. That would still be true if he were 20 years younger.
Edit: also, forcing an m4a vote has been given way too much attention for the very minimal gains it offers, which is completely separate from whether Dore is involved or not.
The one dude in the dem primary who definitively said he isn’t for Medicare for all of any kind got the nomination and the dem voters came out and voted for him anyway.
Because the dems chose their nomination based on “getting the orange mussolini” out, they didn’t pick their candidate based on the issues. On the issues, they’re with the left.
Anyone who’s paying attention knows all the establishment dems are full of shit, and their base votes for them anyway.
Yeah, but not enough people are paying attention. The task of socialists is to organse the working class in to a political actor. If we’re in the business of complaining that people aren’t paying enough attention, we’ll never achieve anything.
On top of that: people don’t only need to know that the dems are full of shit, they need to know that the left isn’t and is fighting on their behalf. The extreme-right tries to show that every day, it’s our duty to not let them win so easily.
The working class won’t come to us out of itself, it’s trust needs to be earned. We can’t be assume everyone is already where we are, we need to build class struggle by keeping on fighting, and growing in the process.
Seriously it’s a completely performative gesture that will allow cynical actors to pretend like they give shit about M4A while demonizing any Marxist that isn’t sufficiently enthusiastic about it. FFS Kamala Harris was a cosponsor of the Senate M4A bill. The idea that a House floor vote will actually move the needle on anything is idealistic claptrap, pushed by media freaks who are gonna be the only ones to actually benefit from the discourse.
that will allow cynical actors to pretend like they give shit about M4A
Exactly, it’s a free way to avoid a primary in an environment where it’s not going to pass so you can tell the donors you’re not serious about it. Public/private positions.
I agree with your take, but it would be good to start making a counter narrative about Democrats. That being said, Dems could just pass the house bill and blame Mitch for blocking it.
That being said, Dems could just pass the house bill and blame Mitch for blocking it.
If that happens, the democrats win Georgia, and suddenly a democratic senate would be in the position to either approve it, or stand in the way.
If that happens, AOC and the rest should immediatly announce they’ll endorse primary challengers against everyone in the senate who votes against it.
It’s funny that people will mock performative woke bullshit and then claim this is a good idea lol. The one dude in the dem primary who definitively said he isn’t for Medicare for all of any kind got the nomination and the dem voters came out and voted for him anyway.
I keep seeing these takes and they are just revisionism bs that leftist are more more saying.
Iowa was stolen
Iowa gave Pete a 10% bump in NH which led to Sanders barely winning. Stealing a homerun from Sanders
Sanders slaughters neveda.
Biden says don’t worry its all about sc
Clyburn comes out endorses biden during a time when a huge swath of the black electorate where waiting to be told who to vote for. The minute he endorsed the polls changed. Sc right before bsuper Tuesday 🤔🤔🤔
People didn’t vote for biden cuz they don’t believe in M4a. People barely pay attention and are looking to be told who to vote for. They where fed the lie that biden is the safe one and ate it up.
The nomination was stolen and yes Sanders didn’t do any thing to stop that steal.
It has nothing to do with m4a.
Like it’s been mentioned in other comments people think biden supports, they just got funneled into him by rigged elections and a msm that ignored Sanders.
People barely pay attention and are looking to be told who to vote for. They where fed the lie that biden is the safe one and ate it up.
Fair enough, but why will some obscure vote on the floor of the house change any of that. The same media and Democratic Party operatives that lied to them about Biden will lie to them about this, and life will go on.
I’m not even saying I feel particularly strongly either way, I just think it’s literally pointless.
I’m gonna getcha, Hulk Hogan! Ooooh yeah!
