• archomrade [he/him]@midwest.social
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    4 months ago

    Maybe you’re not one of the people on here constantly complaining about negative Democrat coverage, but the overwhelming response to anything that might damage the reputation of democrats at the expense of losing to republicans is met with constant whining.

    Educating people why we need anything involves repeatedly raising the issue and presenting the evidence that’s most alarming, and making the case that we need to address it. When someone says “Democrats are materially supporting genocide”, liberals on .world get all up in arms, screaming that it’s ‘not the democrat’s fault’ and that blaming them for something they’re doing (but helpless to stop doing) is only going to allow someone worse do that thing.

    It’s the same with FPTP. Legislatures in a swing state aren’t going to propose switching to FPTP because neither party can afford to loose any votes to third party candidates. They’ll capitulate just enough to say they’re addressing it, but stop short of sacrificing their advantage and then rake activists over the coals and sic the riot police on them for pushing too hard for it.

    Reminds me of a quote from Frederick Douglass:

    Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have found out the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them, and these will continue till they are resisted with either words or blows, or with both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress.

    Liberals who use electoralism as an excuse to defer taking action will never be swayed into it, because they’ve already made the calculation that it isn’t worth sacrificing their privileged position. You have to make the cost of abdication so severe that they cannot excuse themselves from the responsibility.