Electibility, pragmatism vs electibility
Aug. 14th, 2015 05:30 pmIn any election, but especially one that's quite first-past-the-post-y, there's a trade-off between being idealistic and not persuading anyone, and pragmatically trying to get elected even by people you don't quite agree with.
This is often a short-term vs long-term trade off, a trade-off between "get elected now and make what small changes you think you can get away with" and "spend 50 years being a pariah, but slowly dragging the overton window of acceptable political discourse closer to you, even if it never reaches you". As with lots of political strategies, it's often useful to have people doing both, although within a two-ish-party-system, it's hard to do both from within parliament.
However, I'm not sure it's clear which of those is better. There's a cut-off somewhere for HOW idealistic you are before it's better not to compete in elections about it and risk splitting the vote from centrist-leaning-your-way colleagues. But people disagree where that is, on both moral grounds and practical grounds.
I generally say "vote with your conscience and don't villify people who make the opposite trade-off". Although only up to a point -- there's SOME point where "cooperate with the status quo" is just so awful you can't do it even to make things slightly better, and SOME point where it doesn't matter how right you are, "stand on idealism" is pointless because no-one is going to agree with you ever.
Labour Leadership
People have recently been arguing passionately about Corbyn as a candidate for labour leader. But it seems people disagree whether he's electable. Some people make an argument, "assuming it's obvious he would be an electoral disaster, is it good to vote for him anyway? I say not". But people who disagree, tend to think even if he's unelectable, he's not completely beyond the pale, that his policies are things like renationalising the railway which lots of people like and were the norm 20 years ago, and that surely that can't be that verboten in modern politics?
And it's really hard to argue about underlying assumptions like that. Partly because it's often more accurate to assume that people hold positions for reasons somewhere between "what they say" and "what their prejudices are". And partly because you might have to face an answer you don't like. But it seems like it would be more useful to argue about WHETHER he's unelectable, rather than trade back and forth "Surely he is, so voting for him is stupid" and "Surely he isn't, so not voting for him is cowardly."
I tend towards "omg yes please can labour be a bit more left again". Partly because I want it to be true and maybe haven't examined the reasons against. Partly because I'm suspicious of a media narrative "someone is too left, they can't be elected" because it seems like they ALWAYS say that, whether it's true or not, and try to make it true. And partly because it feels like people are more likely to vote for someone who stands for any principles than no principles. But obviously, I'm missing the other side of the argument.
This is often a short-term vs long-term trade off, a trade-off between "get elected now and make what small changes you think you can get away with" and "spend 50 years being a pariah, but slowly dragging the overton window of acceptable political discourse closer to you, even if it never reaches you". As with lots of political strategies, it's often useful to have people doing both, although within a two-ish-party-system, it's hard to do both from within parliament.
However, I'm not sure it's clear which of those is better. There's a cut-off somewhere for HOW idealistic you are before it's better not to compete in elections about it and risk splitting the vote from centrist-leaning-your-way colleagues. But people disagree where that is, on both moral grounds and practical grounds.
I generally say "vote with your conscience and don't villify people who make the opposite trade-off". Although only up to a point -- there's SOME point where "cooperate with the status quo" is just so awful you can't do it even to make things slightly better, and SOME point where it doesn't matter how right you are, "stand on idealism" is pointless because no-one is going to agree with you ever.
Labour Leadership
People have recently been arguing passionately about Corbyn as a candidate for labour leader. But it seems people disagree whether he's electable. Some people make an argument, "assuming it's obvious he would be an electoral disaster, is it good to vote for him anyway? I say not". But people who disagree, tend to think even if he's unelectable, he's not completely beyond the pale, that his policies are things like renationalising the railway which lots of people like and were the norm 20 years ago, and that surely that can't be that verboten in modern politics?
And it's really hard to argue about underlying assumptions like that. Partly because it's often more accurate to assume that people hold positions for reasons somewhere between "what they say" and "what their prejudices are". And partly because you might have to face an answer you don't like. But it seems like it would be more useful to argue about WHETHER he's unelectable, rather than trade back and forth "Surely he is, so voting for him is stupid" and "Surely he isn't, so not voting for him is cowardly."
I tend towards "omg yes please can labour be a bit more left again". Partly because I want it to be true and maybe haven't examined the reasons against. Partly because I'm suspicious of a media narrative "someone is too left, they can't be elected" because it seems like they ALWAYS say that, whether it's true or not, and try to make it true. And partly because it feels like people are more likely to vote for someone who stands for any principles than no principles. But obviously, I'm missing the other side of the argument.