First off, I want to thank you for putting aside your dislike for Destiny in order to hear what had to be said. I don't post his content out of spite, I post it because of the value found in the conversations/debates, and his wealth of knowledge and rhetorical skill when fighting against bad ideas. Facts don't change based on who's saying them.
Back on topic: I don't know that I can disagree with them, because so much of reality was inconsequential to the election. The fake elector scheme? No one knows about it. And the few that do, don't care. January 6th? Practically half the country still thinks it wasn't an insurrection and that it was justified. The vibe-cession? The idea that we're going through a horrible recession when there are tons of other economic factors that prove America is on an upswing into Trump's presidency? Claims that Kamala wants to trans everyone in the prison system? And the fact that everyone's gonna assume any positives economically are equated to Trump's actions and not Biden's.
I admit the Black Friday argument is weak, but usually when he makes this statement it's cumulative. He has other examples: like the lower unemployment rate, the increased jobs, and the inflation rate dropping closer to regular numbers.
And it's not bullshit that people are having to tighten their purse straps and spend more frugally. The economy isn't very good right now, and normal people are suffering for it. But that shouldn't invalidate Biden's accomplishments, or elevate Trump's bad ideas like emphasis on tarrifs.
I apologize for the long post, but i wanted to lay out my line of thinking in detail here:
I think maybe I can explain myself best this way: I think the fundamental divide between my way of thinking and destiny's way of thinking is that he thinks that a generally well-run government is good enough and I don't. In his view, as long as a government generally moves into the right (or rather left) direction, whether it is Sanders or Biden or even maybe worse candidates, a person who agrees with social policies should support them. A leftist should push for leftist ideas in a demcratic debate, and if he wins he wins, but if he loses he should support the second best option.
If would be living in a different time (or even if I was myself from ten years ago), i would agree with that 100%. But right now, I have to disagree witht hat 100% and even think that line of thinking is fatal for our world.
I come from a country that had a very good government for 16 years. Of course, a leftist would disagree, but the Merkel government is a centrist-democrat's wet dream. It did:
- Coalign (most of the time) with its biggest rival (the middle-left social democrats) and push through some popular social reforms like a federal minimum wage. While bickering, the parties maintained good relations until the end and Merkel even let her successor (and own vice chancellor) Scholz accompany her to all important meetings after her tenure entered it last few months. It was as bipartisan it gets. She also upheld amicable relations to opposition parties like the Greens (unlike the right block of her party).
- Merkel always upheld the institutions, never accused entities like the supreme court, the EU or the media for unpopular policies. She also never accused citizens. When the first terror attack in germany happened, she said "Islam is part of Germany". When right extremist groups started getting stronger, her line was always "we must protect democracy, which is why we must listen to those people who deny it and adress their problems". You can question whether she did that perfectly, but the point is: She always protected both the institutions and also social groups from mob mentality. She never attacked them on her own.
- In her tenure, Germany was able to diminish its debt. When she left office, the economy was running fine even after covid. She always maintained good relations with big companies even tho she was left-leaning for a conservative.
- She had to handle a staggering amount of both demostic and foreign crisis and was able to solve most of them. Especially when it came to the refugee crisis, she decided to take in millions of refugees, knowing that her own party would not like the idea, but that it was the right thing to do. She never blamed anyone else for her decision and took the cricism that came after. In the last eleciton she won, right extremists had 12%. When she didnt run and left office, they had 10%. That is insanely low for basically all western nations (and right now, they are over 20%). So while being centrist, being an example of good government and big statesmenship, she was able to keep extremist powers in check.
This is democrat endgame. When Destiny talks to the DNC and they talk about how to win, I think that is their big goal at which they would say "we won, that's it". But I strongly disagree, because, well, we had that. And while it prolonged the inevitable (rightextremist soaring, divided country, decline of public institutions and death of trust into the state), it wasn't able to stop it. And not just in germany, but in every other country that was run decently well. Just 4 years after Merkel we are looking into an abyss with right extremist being the second strongest party, bought media doomtalking about parasitic wellfare-receivers and the first time since 20 years that a government breaks apart before the standard four years. The answer to that is not that we need another Merkel government, as the outcome would be largely the same (and maintaining such a government, as Joe Biden can tell you, is far harder than just some years ago).
The whole world is decline since decades. It is often framed differently (because of more social freedoms), but fact is that you can look at every western country after WW2 and the statement "my grandfather could support his whole family+House with one job" will be true for many people, while "I can support my whole family+house" will be mostly wrong. It is more obscure in America due to first-generation immigrants, but for white people, it is mostly true. And their parents had more than them, too.
I do ask: If we had this absurd productivity boost due to PCs, if we had mostly-decent governments that at least maintained statesmenship and thedemocratic process, if our GDP is so much higher than it used to be: How can that be true if standard "good gevernance" is enough? The right blames immigrants and social decline, but lets get real: It is very hard to explain this universial phenomenon (at least in all big western nations, no matter the governments, even if degrees vary) by just some wellfare abuse.
The reason I am a leftist is not because I cannot accept to not get my way, or even accept some injustice for the greater good. If was believing that having some absurdly rich people is helpful as we can still tackle world hunger and have everyone live a modest but safe life, then I would be singing "the end of history" from the rooftops. The reason I am a leftist is because I believe that our world faces very fundamental, ingrained macro-problems that will only escalate further if we do not adress them now (and leftist reform is the most humane and likely way to adress them). Good governance without adressing these issues, as the Merkel Era and Joe Biden did, is prolonging the time in which we still think that we can handle things without solving these issues. And that makes them even more dangerous, as the crash is coming.
Destiny focuses, in all of the videos i saw him in, on tactics. How to win? Which policy is better than the other? But my disagreement is that I think every win he might be able to help getting will be hollow and short-lived, as any candidate who does not do the bare minimum (and the bare minimum is framed as left-extremist) will make it worse.
So when he asks me (or any other leftist) support blue no matter who just because their policy proposals go a little into the direction i should like more, he is asking me support something that I know is doomed to fail and that is likely to make the chances of actual change smaller (because the eventual failure will be blamed on leftists).
If the ideal of democrats is still a government like Obama, who in effect paved the way for Trump, or like Biden who wasn't able to stop him, then why should I support that if we keep the thoughts from above in mind if they even blame leftists for losing anyway?
