Deep dive on ultra close House losses has yielded a Working Class Party ratfuck in M-10

[Celerity]

The Working Class Party (not to be confused with the Working Families Party) are Trotskyites, and ran in only half of the many US House races in Michigan, with MI-10 being the ONLY close one they chose to run in.

Besides the NY clusterfuck, IF we lose the House by one seat, here is a candidate for the shadiest loss:




https://www.workingclassfight.com/elections/michigan-2020/andrea-l-kirby/

[Gaugamela]

1. So basically, you're complaining about democracy.

[brooklynite]

3. One can acknowledge their right to run and criticize their stupidity in WHERE.....

[Celerity]

4. No, I am pointing out a targeted hit job, as that race was known to be super close all along.

Sorry but I am not about to give a pass to Trotskyite communists who negatively affected a crucial election for us Dems. They did NOT run in half of the other races for the US House in Michigan. They should have stood down in this one as well.

[Gaugamela]

6. I don't care if she's a "Trotskyite communist", she sounds like someone I would

like to have a conversation with, if that’s really her position. Maybe she doesn’t agree with your politics, or that of Carl Malinga.

Why did 48.8% vote for the Republican? It seems like grasping at straws to blame it on a progressive Black woman who got 1.81% of the vote.

[Celerity]

7. My politics are very left for the US, but I'm also a ruthless pragmatist when it come to close races

in these insane white nationalist christofash Trumpian/MAGAt times.

She had ZERO chance to win, and a good chance to ratfuck the actual Dem, who was fairly progressive, which is exactly what ended up happening. Again, that race was the ONLY close US House race in MI that the Working Class Party chose to run in. It is a bad look.

[Silent3]

8. Until there is ranked choice voting or some other run-off system...

…spoiler candidates are often selfish fucks or deliberately tossed-in monkey wrenches in a democratic system.

If you know you’re not likely to win, just siphon more votes from a leading candidate closer to your own views, and end up helping someone further from your views win… bow out and get the fuck out of the way.

It’s because I prefer democracy that I hate side-effects of poorly-conceived voting systems that distort electoral outcomes.

[Dave says]

10. Basically we are a duopoly

…a winner-take-all 2 party system. The place to battle for how left a candidate to run against the dark side is in the primaries. After that decision is made, the losers should rally around the candidate most likely to push for some of their agenda, not help a Repub win where the progress that has been made is in jeopardy. No? It’s not like she hand a realistic chance of winning.

[Gaugamela]

12. I agree with all the objections here, except for the negative motives that are being

projected by some, but the enemy isn’t this leftist candidate, it’s the winner-take-all system, as you say. If we don’t stand for democracy then we’re no better than the Repubs. Why blame a Black woman who got 1.81% of the vote and not the libertarians, or the Democrats who stayed home, or the less than inspiring campaign of the Democratic candidate? I don’t know the details of this race, I live in Oregon, but this complaint feels defensive to me.

[Silent3]

14. "this leftist candidate" knew she was running in a winner-take-all system...

...and obviously didn't give a rat's ass whether she fucked up the end results or not. That doesn't mean there aren't other to blame, but those others that can be blamed as well don't clear this spoiler of her own responsibility.

[Gaugamela]

15. Maybe she has a different perspective on things. Maybe -- and I know this is

just a whacko out there idea — something in her background, something in her cultural history, causes her not to give a “rat’s ass” about your paternalistic concerns. I know, I’m going out on a limb here.

[Silent3]

16. My "paternalistic concerns" are basic arithmetic.

Oh, I don't deny that it's possible that, in her own mind, she is pursuing a noble cause. Her own possible self-delusion, however, doesn't make me like her anymore for her part in helping turn a very-precious-at-this-moment marginal House seat over to a Republican.

[Dave says]

17. All valid points

I also am not inclined (at all) to believe nefarious motivations were afoot, at least not for the candidate.

Yes, the ‘enemy’ is the 2-party system. Yet that is the political space available to us. Was it Gramsci that wrote that, for victory, we first have to learn to walk the long walk through the halls of power?

(meaning infiltrate from the bottom, up, until all that’s left is a quiet revolution amounting to easily agreed changes to law and policy. This is something Republicans have been doing for decades. Witness the slowness of the DOJ to find the evidence needed to indict Republican leaders for Jan 6, evidence there for all to easily see.)

[James48]

2. I'm sorry you feel that way-

In other races, the Working Class Party has tried to endorse progressive Dems. The fact that she took 5,000 votes says that there is a real need to appeal to and include those folks.

It’s also a good case for rank-choice voting in a future ballot proposal. In Michigan, the WCP will likely continue to be a force for progressives, and if we had rank choice voting, thrn, just like the Librrtarian party, it can be a peopke’s expression party, followed in rank choice voting to become a second vote for the dem side.

[UTUSN]

5. K&R

[David__77]

9. Ranked choice is way to go.

…

[roamer65]

13. +1000

[grantcart]

11. Well that's like an ice pick to the brain 🤣