We read Graham Platner’s whole Reddit archive. The vilification of the Maine candidate for Senate doesn’t square with what he actually wrote in his posts.
He’s being smeared, sure, there’s a lot of cherry picked gotcha quotes flying around that probably genuinely don’t represent his opinions today or even 5+ years ago. But he’s also a dogshit war criminal candidate who the left fucking obviously shouldn’t mobilize to support, he’s an unreformed imperial soldier and mercenary, we don’t need to hold this guy up and in fact he deserves to have his feet held to the fire about his past as an absolute bare minimum or better yet be tried for his crimes and given an opportunity to actually reform
This is why electoralism is dogshit, more than it not working, it encourages a PR mindset where positions and actions don’t matter, all that matters is that he’s better than the alternative so people feel they must wholeheartedly support him and deny any criticisms of him.
The USA does not have a democracy, but to the extent which there is public input and to the extent that we do participate in the electoral sphere, IMO socialists and communists should engage openly and forcefully with those running (the point being less about getting them elected or not, and more about demonstrating our own politics to the broader public and highlighting similarities and differences between our positions and those of liberals who seek left wing support).
He’s being smeared, sure, there’s a lot of cherry picked gotcha quotes flying around that probably genuinely don’t represent his opinions today or even 5+ years ago. But he’s also a dogshit war criminal candidate who the left fucking obviously shouldn’t mobilize to support, he’s an unreformed imperial soldier and mercenary, we don’t need to hold this guy up and in fact he deserves to have his feet held to the fire about his past as an absolute bare minimum or better yet be tried for his crimes and given an opportunity to actually reform
This is why electoralism is dogshit, more than it not working, it encourages a PR mindset where positions and actions don’t matter, all that matters is that he’s better than the alternative so people feel they must wholeheartedly support him and deny any criticisms of him.
The USA does not have a democracy, but to the extent which there is public input and to the extent that we do participate in the electoral sphere, IMO socialists and communists should engage openly and forcefully with those running (the point being less about getting them elected or not, and more about demonstrating our own politics to the broader public and highlighting similarities and differences between our positions and those of liberals who seek left wing support).