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@luckytran@med-mastodon.comIn France, the left coalition comes in first, Macron second, the far-right third. The best way to defeat fascism is not centrism, it’s a strong left.
@luckytran do you mind if I screenshot this with your comment to share on other platforms?
@luckytran if so called “centrists” simply practiced solidarity with the most vulnerable and voted left, the right would never win. And yet
@seachanger @luckytran In France IIRC the centrist and left candidates looked at the results from the first round of elections and then made a deal where the candidate from the party who had the lowest total of votes in the first round would drop out so the remaining candidate could consolidate non-fascist votes.
So they *did* work together. The left also made compromises with the centrists to make this work.
@MisuseCase @seachanger @luckytran Well, most of the "left" (NFP) isn't and won't do any left policy... But still, it's better than a majority of fascistes.
@Faket This means the take about French elections that goes “French leftists beat the fash by campaigning on left policies that I like, no, moderates and centrists were not involved” is even more wrong than I thought it was.
@MisuseCase Yeah 
Maybe the good will rise from this, let's wait 2 days to see who will betray. (Spoiler, some already did, 5 days ago)
@Faket @MisuseCase @seachanger @luckytran that was one of the problems of the socialist party yes, but this is a coalition of people well determined to push the social side.
@f4grx @MisuseCase @seachanger @luckytran PP will not push the social side, and we can't expect anything anymore from PS. Maybe EELV won't be morons. And PCF, until they don't get rid of Roussel, they are lost.
@Faket
Roussel lost on his first round. That's a strong political fail, it will def have conséquences in the party
@MisuseCase @seachanger @luckytran let's hear it for two round elections. Do you think that the orange person would have won a second round of voting in the US in 2016?
@ArchaeoIain @seachanger @luckytran Nope! A lot of people voted third-party/write in or didn’t vote, assuming Hilary Clinton would win.
But one thing that people often forget about 2016 is that a lot of people in key swing states *could not vote* because Roberts and SCOTUS had already gutted part of the VRA by then.
@MisuseCase @ArchaeoIain @seachanger @luckytran I crunched a bunch of numbers back then, trying to figure out why things had changed so much from 2012. Turned out there was a big chunk of drop-off in all men, but particularly white ones, and particularly in the Upper Midwest. Michigan's drop off in white men was *12* points. Sexism or targeted propaganda or both? In any case, that was the nucleus of the EC problem.
@ArchaeoIain @MisuseCase @seachanger @luckytran he hasn’t won a first round of voting, if we’re going by the popular vote. The Electoral College and gerrymandering of districts caused him to win. The majority of the US doesn’t want him.
@MisuseCase @seachanger @luckytran
Well, democracy is a game of compromises.
Why, because the alternative is a dictatorship of a majority.
And how do you get to a majority?
Either by forcing it via the election system (the famous FPTP “a hammer makes everything a nail' system), or by, “surprise”, moving the coalition talks in front of the election and creating a broad church party.
So the obvious adult thing is to realize that then you vote for X, you will not get all of X's platform.
@seachanger @luckytran Centrists don’t want to win. They want to receive bribes by playing the ineffective good cop “I tried but the bad guys are so bad”
Frankly they are paid to lose every once in a while so we can go further right, by a pretend pendular movement.
Liberals are not allies of the left.
@nonlinear @seachanger @luckytran Allie’s don’t always agree on everything, so I’m always curious when someone says something like this in light of a positive win, who do you see as an ally? What for you constitutes an alliance?
Relationships are not perfect or lock step. But they do help one another achieve what neither can do alone.
@Magooish @seachanger @luckytran True. I meant liberals are not allies *of the left*.
They are certainly allies of corporatists. Fascists even. Anyone is an ally of some other at some point so I should have specified.
@Magooish @seachanger @luckytran Yes we need to forge alliances. Purity politics won't help us.
But we should also divest from false alliances.
@nonlinear @seachanger @luckytran not all alliances are easy, or comfortable and often are created for a singular purpose and then disbanded. I think for me I see them as needing prioritization. Some issues ( climate change, abortion, immigration) are higher on the list than others and therefore need as many pushing them forward as possible, even if I find their other issues untenable.
@Magooish @seachanger @luckytran Alliances should be questioned. Specially when said allies invest in genocide. It's time to divest.
I guess we're talking about leftist win in France. The fact that there's an appetite for leftism, and not just centre-right disguised as left. That left doesn't need to make alliances that dilute their ideals.
Alliances are not the goal and should *always* be rethought and renegotiated. At this point left allying with liberals *detracts* from their goals.
@Magooish @seachanger @luckytran Noone is entitled to alliances.
@nonlinear @Magooish @seachanger @luckytran
This whole conversation misunderstands what an Alliance is.
Alliance means working together in a (at least semi) coordinated fashion and not sabotaging your allies.
In France the moderates don't pretend to be allies of the Left or the Right. They are at times Cobelligerents of each.
Cobelligerence is not the same as Allyship which in turn is not the same as Unity.
To maximize a movement effectively you should be seeking allyship and cobelligerents whenever possible, but not confusing them.
@AeonCypher @Magooish @seachanger @luckytran Maybe that's what we need in America, the idea thatl iverwla are cobelligerent towards leftists.
The narrative here lacks nuance. It's all black or white, purity politics.
It's a puritan nation, after all.
@nonlinear @AeonCypher @seachanger @luckytran I’m not sure where black and white is implied here, I was in fact suggesting it’s all very nuanced, often complicated and fraught.
Relationships are complicated rather personal or political or corporate. Declaring liberals are not allies creates polarization and by nature is purity politics.
@Magooish @AeonCypher @seachanger @luckytran Liberals are not leftist allies. They are complicit with fascists.
Sorry, I didn't do it. They made it clear with their behavior. 
Don't "it's complicated" it. It's very simple.
You're free to disagree, but please spare me of your attempt at convincing me. Talk to the liberals I guess.
@Magooish @AeonCypher @seachanger @luckytran By protecting a hypothetical liberal you're alienating *me*, and that's not very forging-alliances of you.
Allyship should be questioned at every step. If they want to keep connections, *they *need to change, not me.
You think you're being mature, but you're just silencing criticism here.
@nonlinear @AeonCypher @seachanger @luckytran@med-mastodon.
Well then, best of luck to you as you try to find worthy Allies to move your issues forward.
@Magooish @AeonCypher @seachanger Making allies is not about making friends, but finding commonality in goals, so we can work together as comrades.
Your goal seems to be "don't cut ties with liberals, since it's complicated". Been there, done that, it's not a goal I find worth pursuing, so no allyship can be found here.
But good luck dismissing the experience and frustration of past allies into yet one more chance.
I guess you'll go alone on this one, this time.
@Magooish @AeonCypher @seachanger Now that I'm thinking about it, the whole shaming of my position, instead of arguing what should liberals *do* to earn back our trust, is all *very* liberal.
None of this conversation was about liberal behavior. Just mine.
Been there, done that. This conversation just depletes our (very limited) resources. And I guess that's the point.
@nonlinear @Magooish @seachanger @luckytran
This is absurd. You can't possibly make a broad coalition this way.
@AeonCypher @nonlinear @Magooish @seachanger @luckytran what good is a coalition if its full of liberals who are working against you?
@AeonCypher @Magooish @luckytran @nonlinear @seachanger like, the french leftist coalition that just won explicitly excludes the centrist liberals. because the centrist liberals are responsible for most of the things the leftists are trying to repeal. a coalition isn’t worth shit if it’s full of people who simply are not aligned with your goals
@dangerdyke @seachanger @AeonCypher @Magooish @luckytran Exactly. This is part of the conversation in Brazil too... Why is it always up to leftists to adapt to liberals, and not the other way around?
Where in this discourse the criticism of liberals was validated enough so liberals could promise some action to earn back our trust?
Sometimes "taking the high road" is more "your stance inconveniences me". And this choice for comfort over valid disagreement is *very* liberal.
@AeonCypher I wish more people would make this distinction.
@darcher @AeonCypher @Magooish @seachanger @luckytran Thank you.
In retrospect this whole pep talk of "it's complicated" and zero accountability for what liberals did (or not) to curb a global christofascist movement, is all *very *liberal.
"We should be friends" well how about making an effort by not... (check notes)... investing on a genocidal apartheid fascist state.
Because we have standards and don't want to partner with you anymore.
@Magooish Deciding you need to build a coalition is the easy part. The actual coalition-building is a bit trickier.
Lemme ask a non-rhetorical question: how do you think people should distinguish alliances which are productive (or valuable or whatever) from those which are not?
Surely some alliances turn out to be mistakes, right? How do you decide whether a particular alliance is working out for you? And how do you suggest other people make that decision?
@darcher @Magooish @seachanger @luckytran Exactly. Noone is entitled to alliances. Or votes. Or a seat at the table.
The entire liberal argument was "we keep the kookoo christofascists at bay" and guess what, they failed at that. Big time.
But liberals are incapable of *mea culpa*. It's always everyone's fault but themselves.
@darcher @Magooish @nonlinear @seachanger @luckytran consistent cooperation at smaller instances of the iterated prisoners’ dilemma? Or is that too abstract
@kevinriggle works for me. Not sure it'd catch on as a political slogan, but great starting point for strategizing. 
@luckytran Hello from France 
@luckytran Far better than my post-chapeau!
@luckytran let's turn washington dc into washington aoc
@luckytran it's great to see you getting more and more political.
@luckytran alt4you: diagramme représentant le nombre de sièges par parti (the diagram representing the number of seats per political party)
@luckytran Correct, the "center moderates" only represent our worst by courting the intolerant purely in the pursuit of personal profits. It is exactly how neoliberalism has led the entire West (and world since this is essentially unregulated capitalism) to the precipice of embracing fascism yet again.
@luckytran the results are a very good surprise, but to be clear, NFP is very moderate as compared to pre-2010 left. The PS kept the overt goal to abolish capitalism until Mitterand's presidency, and kept some level of strategic ambiguity until Hollande's. On the other hand, NFP doesn't have much of a common goal besides rolling back on the latest reform and owning Macron / the RN
@luckytran not quite a "strong" left yet, but working on it 
@luckytran if the French Left can organise in 4 weeks, surely Democrats can organise a post Biden campaign in 4 months…
@luckytran Just goes to show that the majority still support social and environmental causes. Fascist support is actually a minority everywhere. They are just loud!
Vive La France!
@luckytran please add error bars. final results are still unknown
I bet pension reform protests and all the violence against police and other state perpetrators during this time is the cause of this win.
More action in the streets wins elections.
@luckytran you make my point. Third party votes might have returned to Hillary as being a less evil option than the alternative.
But I agree with you about the awful behaviour of the little cabal of bigots who are destroying any opportunity for justice in the US
@luckytran Quite right, but only if the left is not phobic and implements the right policies without listening to the markets.
What is centrist about a neoliberal agenda?
Neoliberal agenda is proto-fascist. Those guys in my mind are essentially fascists but get squeamish when they see real blood.
Whereas true fascists are sadists. They want to see real blood and the "ideology" is only a front, an alibi for dominating and tormenting people they perceive as weak per any definition that's currently en vogue – poor, outlandish, black, yellow, whathaveyou.
Macron and his party are proto-fascists.
Not centrists.
96 tot losses, 113 total gains. Either 17 seats were added, or I'm low on sugar and can't count
@luckytran The best way to defeat fascism is, in fact, a united front against the fascist party established by non-fascist parties, left and centrist alike. THAT'S what happened here today.
@Remittancegirl
@Eetschrijver @luckytran @Remittancegirl It wasn’t just a “the left” thing. It was unity. Dividing center and left (center is a majority in the US) is a mistake.