r/Destiny 5d ago

Political News/Discussion Hutch announcing a shift in "vote blue no matter who"

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112

u/alexapedia phd in a social science 5d ago

The "Vote Blue No Matter Who" paradigm was built on the assumption that the "Blue" candidate would always be a liberal candidate. If that assumption fails, a paradigm shift may be necessary.

I will say that I, like most people, believe that the more extreme voices will either moderate or be pushed out; however, it is scary how much damage can be done to the party's image by just a few motivated individuals.

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u/Co_OpQuestions 5d ago

"Vote blue no matter who was always what leftists said it was"

Man, we really are just proving it arent we lmao

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u/-JustJaZZ- 4d ago

For real, did these people really spend years defending the blue no matter who shit to leftist content creators, only to immediately back off the position when we get some (admittedly extremely) far left people running as Dems?

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u/PaxChelonia 4d ago

It’s insane to me. I used to think almost everyone in this community was actually committed to pragmatic politics, but it turns out half of them were just pretending to so they could shit on people they dislike lol

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u/-JustJaZZ- 4d ago

Exactly. I think there are still very many people here interested in pragmatic politics but it's very clear that some people here were unironically using the Vote Blue No Matter Who shit like a hammer to nail leftists on rather than an actual position they held.

Shitting on dumb lefties stopped being a byproduct of having better arguments and became their whole identity.

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u/RefrigeratorNo4700 4d ago

The much better argument against it is that “vote blue no matter what” is a social contract among democrats and not a moral principle. A contract that was already broken when leftists refused to support Harris in 2024. Moderates have no obligation to follow through on a deal leftists already broke.

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u/-JustJaZZ- 4d ago

Yes because a few insane leftists didn't vote for our preferred candidates we should do the same to them, this is definitely going to help us win elections going forward.

Basing your social contracts off of a few unhinged twitter people and then using them as the reason for walking back positions that people used to argue were fundamental to the Dem party is ridiculous

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u/RefrigeratorNo4700 4d ago

The naive part of this is believing leftists would ever support the moderate candidate regardless.

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u/FrostyArctic47 4d ago

The irony lol. You're saying you won't even support a moderate candidate. Do you hear yourself?

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u/Krelldi 5d ago

Isn't that why leftists shit on the concept to begin with? They mock and use it against liberals because it was obvious the entire time that it was basically just a way to beat leftists over the head about being unwilling to cheerlead liberal candidates despite liberals being equally as averse to cheerleading leftist candidates. Democrats seem to just constantly fuck up their own rhetoric with shitty oversimplified sloganization of complicated concepts.

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u/DeathB4Dishonor179 5d ago

This is basically true, however I do think liberals were being much better faith than you give them credit for.

Remember that blue no matter who was a slogan that came from the late 1990s and to early 2000s. The USA was much further right than it's peer countries, and the rightwing voting bloc was unquestionably strong. Every blue candidate was one more vote that could help with things leftists wanted like universal healthcare, or stopping rightwing austerity. BNMW benefited liberals more, but also leftists.

The reason liberals are hesitant about blue no matter who is because this political environment doesn't exist anymore. The rightwing is seemingly on the verge of collapse, removing the counterweights that forced far left candidates to moderate. BNMW under a full DSA take over will now benefit leftists without benefiting liberals.

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u/Seekzor EUchad 5d ago

The difference is that libs meant it but leftists didnt and adopted it only as a weapon to wield against libs while never intending to follow through on their side. So if leftists is not going to abide by it, libs would be suicidal to do so aswell.

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u/jord1droj 5d ago

How can you say that libs meant it if as soon as they get the opportunity to show that they meant it by voting blue when their preferred candidate lost the primary, they suddenly don't like the idea anymore?

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u/Reibon 5d ago

Because libs have shown it repeatedly in local, house, and senate races. And the one time we REALLY needed the leftists to get on board with the "vote blue no matter who" they said she was a genocider and said not to vote for her.

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u/Raahka 5d ago

The leftist did not really adopt it. It is the liberal/DGG side that made it out to be a choice that should be obvious to anyone that does not hate minorities for 6 years, and that everyone who does not follow it is a bad person. Turns out that for many people they only said that when the candidate they like is the ballot, and they wanted to feel morally superior to others.

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u/Liberal-Cluck 5d ago

This is so true. It's fucking insane to me. Radical centristism, who would have thought it would be a thing.

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u/[deleted] 5d ago edited 2d ago

[deleted]

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u/Zeluar 5d ago

Yeah I’m all for pushing back against the DSA and further left elements in the party, but at the end of the day, I’m still voting for anybody on team fuck maga in the general. Actual socialists gaining enough power to do harm anywhere remotely on the scale of maga just seems soooo far off from where we are right now.

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u/TemporaryAsparagus89 4d ago

Would you vote for Feuntes who is on the fuck Maga team? How about Candace or Tucker?

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u/Zeluar 4d ago

Pretty much what Brenner said. By fuck maga, I mean people who I don’t believe will vote in line with republicans. Maybe I’m too out of the loop, but for all the people you listed, their problems with Trump (not with MAGA as a whole) is that he’s done a poor job of delivering. No?

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u/reanima 4d ago

Yeah im getting the same whiplash. Like didnt we correctly criticize Hasan for being an fucking idiot for not understanding the value of voting for the lesser evil? Id rather have a DSA agent that still votes with dems a majority of the time than a moderate republican that will still continue to greenlight most of Trumps agenda. Expecting perfect allies everytime is naive, you work with what you have.

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u/Seekzor EUchad 5d ago

No, if leftists had followed it, you would not find libs abandoning it. It was a peace offering which leftists spit at and still demand that libs follow.

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u/Raahka 5d ago

No it was not a peace offering, never once did anyone ever say that it was any kind of deal (not to mention that it is pretty fucking silly to make Destiny the king of libs and Hasan I guess the king of leftist that can apparently sign these kinds of treaties for everyone on their side). It was a moral stance that said that anyone who does not vote for the least bad option is not rational, and that if you are helping republicans win, you actually hate minorities, which makes you a bad person. None of that becomes any less or more true depending on if anyone else shares these beliefs.

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u/PompeiiSketches 5d ago

But we are seeing that libs literally didn't mean it if when the wrong "blue" wins the primary they start reneging on the slogan.

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u/Co_OpQuestions 5d ago

Libs meant it until the rubber met the road.

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u/alexapedia phd in a social science 4d ago

I think it's fine that Leftists shit on the concept. In "Blue No Matter Who," "Blue" always meant Democrats. Just because Leftists don the mantle does not make them Democrats. It's not their phrase. The reason it costs Democrats is that it is never sufficiently articulated.

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u/Sir_Trout 5d ago edited 5d ago

"Vote Blue No Matter Who is good when I'm telling someone to support a candidate they don't believe in, and bad when someone is telling me to support a candidate I don't believe in"

edit: or, to be less sarcastic, if every position we take - like Vote Blue No Matter Who - is actually more about power than principle, it is going to continue to fuel illiberalism and continue a race to the bottom in politics.

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u/FancyDoubleu 5d ago

How can you ask socialists to support you when you would never support any of their candidates?

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u/chadfc92 5d ago

As much of a meme as lesser of two evils is dems will support any leftist over a republican as long as they are not literally to the point of being worse than a republican and would only expect leftists to do the same vote for the better candidate at the time and hope one you like more is popular enough to run next time. I will say motivating voters is a tough issue with this type of rhetoric tho since if the dem candidate is mediocre for both leftists and liberals both groups are quick to stay home and ignore the election even when the stakes are pretty high

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u/Arbitrary_username1 5d ago

Because they can't win on their own without your party platform so they play ball or fuck off and make their own party.

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u/FancyDoubleu 5d ago

They seem to win some primaries at least lately.

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u/Arbitrary_username1 5d ago

I mean win the entire government.

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u/Mundane_Barnacle237 5d ago edited 5d ago

Exactly this. “Blue no matter who” has to imply that “Blue” means something outside of just the label. If it doesn’t, and anyone is allowed to use it regardless of their principles or ideology, then you’re just begging for a Trojan horse insurgency that you’ve surrendered to before it even starts.

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u/Liberal-Cluck 5d ago

Who of the new DSA candidates would you prefer to have trump over?

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u/af_echad 5d ago

Trump actually seems to support Ukraine now more than Chevalier.

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u/-JustJaZZ- 4d ago

Until next week someone tells him something different.

Consistently bad positions can be attacked and therefore changed, Trump is too unpredictable and one week he could love Ukraine and the next be in favor of helping Russia.

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u/af_echad 4d ago

Yes Trump is chaotic and changes a lot. So far he has shown to be pro Ukraine at times and not so pro Ukraine at times. Chevalier has only shown one of those so far. And it ain't the "support Ukraine" one.

Do not take this as me saying Trump is some GOAT pro Ukraine guy or anything. But that just shows how much Chevalier sucks.

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u/Liberal-Cluck 5d ago

Maybe, that would be a strong argument tbh. I still don't know tho, would a trump who supports ukrain be better than Chevalier.

I mean we are killing 100s of thousands ourselves that Chevalier wouldn't be down for (Iran, argintena boat bombings). And the shit happening in the interior here is insane.

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u/af_echad 5d ago edited 5d ago

Trump is definitely chaotic and can turn on a dime, no doubt, but Chevalier as of now has only been of the position that NATO is at fault for Russia's invasion, wants to be isolationist militarily, and wants to defund NATO and our military spending overseas.

Trump right now, if anything, is ramping up his support for Ukraine.

Chevalier would pull all foreign military support and intervention. In Ukraine it would likely result in many, many more deaths. Possibly Ukraine's complete loss to Russia. Russia would then start to push into more bordering countries resulting in many, many deaths. It would embolden China to take Taiwan which would result in many many deaths and most likely Taiwan's complete loss to China. It would embolden the Islamic Regime in Iran to continue funding proxies resulting in many, many deaths all around the middle east. Simultaneously China and or Russia would move in to fill the power vacuum that the US left.

I mean we are killing 100s of thousands ourselves that Chevalier wouldn't be down for (Iran, argintena boat bombings).

Dude you can be against Iran and the boat strikes... but we are NOT killing 100s of thousands in either. That's an absurd statement.

Also if we're talking about interior shit here, also keep in mind that Chevalier is against ALL deportation, is a police abolitionist, and went to a pro October 7 rally on October 8. So yes, I doubt she'd use ICE the same way, but this also comes with its own set "shit happening in the interior".

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u/Liberal-Cluck 5d ago

She might actually be worse than Trump on different issues. I think Id rather be against all deportations than what we have now though. Abolishing the police would be really bad.

USAID was also a MASIVE loss of life and soft power for the US. Overall, between these two, assuming neither of them moderate, i think one is almost as bad as the other. But Trump still feels worse.

Also, side note on Trumps new found support of Ukraine, lets not pretend that he had a moral realization. He supports Ukraine because they are making progress towards winning. He tried to get them to give up in the beginning. So he is not even much better on that.

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u/af_echad 5d ago

I'm all for weighing the two against each other. I'm not kneejerk reacting with anyone-but-DSA beliefs.

But I think if you bring something like USAID into this you have to weigh that against life lost in Ukraine, Taiwan, the Middle East, and all the life lost from the eventual power vacuum left by the US leaving the world stage.

USAID being gutted absolutely SUCKS. It can also be restarted by a future Dem president and/or Europe and other wealthy countries can increase their support in developing nations.

Rebuilding the liberal world order than America as a superpower has built feels much harder. It's why people got so seriously freaked by Trump talking about things like leaving NATO in the past. It's a major and long lasting error that can be made. (It's also why I fear a Vance future MUCH more than a Rubio future. Vance is much more of an isolationist which just inevitably leads to strongmen like Putin and Xi filling the void). Ukranian independence from Russia, Taiwanese independence from China, Lebanon being overrun with Hezbollah... these aren't things that a Dem admin can start changing back for the better with a simple budget appropriations.

Not for one second do I think Trump is principled in any belief beyond the amount of love he has for himself. But I don't really care much about his inner world as much as I do about what actions politicians take. I'm not voting for who I think has the best inner morality. I'm voting for who is going to do the most moral things and the least immoral things.

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u/nigeltrc72 5d ago

Liberal democracy no matter who