Shaun KingVerified account

I have a feeling this isn't going away any time soon

Fight for your preferred progressive candidate until the bitter end. I will always do this, but when/if they lose, smart, tough choices have to be made.

Its been Bernie's strategy for a long, long time

Honestly, I'm following his lead on this man.

I agree on the root cause of this line of ideology. I wish we were multiparty and as plural as we claim to be. A two party system feels like an oppressive big box store or Apple brand lifestyle.

I understand what you're saying in this piece but at the same time isn't their value in demanding a lot from politicians to hold them accountable and keep them honest? If the left disarms when the establishment candidate wins how do we force the candidate to do what's right?

This thought supposes that having conservatives in office does not cause severe damage to very real people.

Only if I’m implying a different voting strategy, which I’m not necessarily. What if progs vote for the better candidate but continue to lambast the establishment candidate for their status quo politics? Giving up fighting strikes me as disarming, by definition.

I agree. Never stop fighting.

Again, if withholding your support plays a role in a close election in getting truly dangerous people elected, that cost is too high.

I understand that view. I just think you've got to acknowledge that there's a cost on the other side - as long as the Democrats can scare you with the Republican, they don't need to do much to actually help people to earn your support.

The upshot of that, in my view, is that Democrats almost always run on "look at how terrible the GOP candidate is" as the candidate gets worse & worse. Many of the folks making that argument did it with Bush, McCain, Romney, & Trump.

It makes more sense to me when someone says, for example, that they could see voting Green in 2012 but not in 2016. I'd still personally disagree, but I think that's a decent argument.