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The Democratic partisan mindset in its current form was born as a reaction to Nader. The rejection of all criticism and the hatred of critics, the cries of “ traitor” and the claim that they are pragmatic and understand how to win and achieve progressive results— this all started then. But it just keeps getting worse. I actually found some of these arguments persuasive. In particular, the argument for lesser evil voting when you know only one of two candidates can win makes sense to me. I don’t think it is a moral imperative the way the partisans claim. It is a tactical argument. But it has some force. Where they go wrong is in their fanaticism. They claim to be pragmatic, but pragmatic people try to argue in such a way that you want to support them. A partisan Democrat has no interest in persuading a leftist to hold his or her nose and vote for the lesser evil. They don’t acknowledge any weakness or flaw in the Democrats and if you point to issues like Gaza or Yemen where many Democrats have been bad (Democrats have improved on Yemen since it can now be blamed on Trump) they simply ignore it. The fundamental basis of their morality is this— Thou shalt support the Democrats. The anger on open display is the opposite of pragmatic politics. They don’t try to persuade people to vote for the Democrat. They demand it. It is a moral litmus test, or rather, a judgement of one’s very soul. Good people know they have to vote for the Democrat. Bad people vote for Republicans and the very worst people of all claim to be left, but vote for Stein or maybe even voted for Clinton, but criticized her. Democratic partisans have no interest in what you say about an issue if they perceive it as in any way an attack or a criticism of a Democrat. If you are a third party advocate you can forget about being taken seriously on any issue because you have already self identified as a Satanist and you need to be exorcised from the body politic. Even if you say you support the Democrat as the lesser evil, you speak as one of the damned and deserve no mercy. Sanders played the game in 2016 exactly the way people said Nader should have played it and he and his supporters were still dismissed. https://mondoweiss.net/2018/07/russiagate-ghost-liberals/ _________________________________________________________ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
