Do that and the Republican Party will lose access to the levers of power it needs to get into power and keep it, and it will die. But only if pressure is kept up.
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When I say this I keep hearing "But the Democrats keep resurrecting the Republican Party." How? By not being progressive enough, so progressives stay home. You could keep the Democrats in office while you chip away at them and Republicans slowly asphyxiate.
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"But how is a centrist Democratic government different from or better than a Republican one?" If you can ask that now, at this point in history, then I do not believe you are asking in good faith.
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Well, presumably, they'll continue being centrist Democrats, which means they already get more or less what they want more often than progressives so long as nothing changes. So I'm proposing a change.https://twitter.com/Mc_Heckin_Duff/status/1240709797885829120 …
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A lot of those centrists have some amount of good intentions and some amount of natural windsockiness. If the party-in-office starts moving left, which again, requires sustained and safe majorities to really happen, some of them will shift leftward while others fall behind.
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If you learn nothing by looking at the dynamics of this primary, the Democratic electorate wants progressive policies but craves a feeling of security and certainty in their candidate's odds. You can think they've judged that poorly, but that's the calculus.
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Progressives becoming reliable Democratic voters without attaching loyalty to the party as an organization or the candidates they support in general elections as a fandom (see also: Team Stop Joining Team) would make the Democratic electoral advantage overwhelming.
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As more districts and states become Safe Blue, you could follow Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's model and contest the incumbents in those safe seats. But the whole thing falls apart if you can't bring yourself to vote for the primary winner in the general election. Safety required.
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The Freedom Caucus has never represented a majority of the Republican elected officials or voters but they are a bloc big enough to turn narrow margins and toss-up districts into seas of red, so while the GOP held the house they were a power no one could ignore.
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It's the Tea Party strategy. Primary the moderates to bring in radicals, but it only works if you follow through regardless in the general.
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This is not some Trojan horse thing where I'm trying to trick you into supporting a permanent neoliberal warhawk austerity regime. I'm telling you how to Trojan horse those people. You can take over the party.
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The Republican Party literally does not have the numbers to regain power if they're out of it long enough for things like their voter suppression and gerrymandering to be undone. They don't have the popular appeal. They don't have demographic support.
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If they die, the Democratic Party can safely splinter into a centrist Democratic Party and a leftist Progressive Party. "But wouldn't some of those Democrats join the Republicans?" Sure. Or vice-versa. Either way, the new right-wing party is closer to the center/further left.
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The key thing to recognize here is that political parties do not, in any real actual sense, exist. AOC did not ask anyone's permission to run as a Democrat. She did not have to sign a loyalty pledge to do so. You don't have to sign a pledge to vote for a Democrat, either.
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The party is the people who show up to do the work. It is the people who show up to vote. You can't change a party from the outside, and you'll never kill it that way, either. Two party system is too strong, mathematically.
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This thread is brought to you by people thinking that Elizabeth Warren's $10k emergency student loan cancellation proposal doesn't go far enough and saying they can't vote for Democrats because of it. She wants to cancel all of it! But Dems don't have a majority.
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And if Dems did have a majority, it would be hard to get majority support for full forgiveness, especially when they are worried about the Republican Party clawing back into power by attacking them from the right. But we'd be able to get that $10k much easier. Maybe more!
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And then primary the Democrats who wouldn't vote for the whole kit 'n' caboodle so the next round goes better. But to make sure there is a next round, vote for the incumbents who defeat their primary challengers. This is how you win.
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And every time I point this out I get "We hear this all the time and it never works, when's it our turn?" No. This has not been tried. Not by the left. The right did it and it worked! I'm not saying "hold your nose and vote for Democrats because lesser of two evils".
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I'm saying, making a sustained, coordinated campaign to simultaneously 1) increase and sustain the number of Democrats in office and 2) move that body of elected Democrats to the left by replacing them as fast as you're able.
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Call it the Herbal Tea Party (because proper tea is theft) if you want. The Tea Party's impact was ultimately limited because the appeal of their ideas was limited, they could only work within the confines of the Republican Party's tilted playing field.
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But progressive ideas are popular! They are popular with Democratic voters and they are popular beyond the Democratic electorate (though the further from the left you get, the easier it is for GOP propaganda to scare people from voting for them).
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The main thing that stops progressive ideas from winning is that most Democratic voters fear Republicans being in power more than they fear centrist Democrats being in power. An expanded solid, safe blue map answers that.
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Your mild moderate middle party voter who will vote against a progressive in the primary because they fear the progressive ideas can't win in the general but they'll vote for them in the general if the progressive wins the primary.
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The voters aren't ideologically centrist. They share progressive values and value progressive policies. That's clear in the polling.
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People want safety and they want progress. They see a blue map as safer than a red map. Give them a blue map and alternate primarying hard with supporting whoever wins in the general hard and we will see a progressive wave that endures.
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End of conversation
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