"Your Support for [Leftist Candidate] Will Push Me Further to the Right!"
Okay, and?
Story time!
During the NYC mayoral election, a dude claimed Mamdani winning the primary would make him move further to the right. I asked him why should we care. What were the consequences of some random dude becoming more conservative? What were people supposed to do instead? Not support their favorite candidate because doing so might push him further to the right? If he wasn't going to support Mamdani anyway, why should anyone care if people's support/votes for Mamdani pushed this guy further right? If he supported a s3xpest like Cuomo, did we even want him in the party?
I'm sharing this for four reasons:
1. As elections draw closer, you're going to see people making these kinds of statements. The point is to scare you out of voicing your support for a candidate. The person making this argument has already made up their mind and your opinion or silence about a given candidate is not going to change it.
2. The threat is incredibly vague. What does "move further to the right" really mean? Is he just going to be mad and whine about progressive candidates more, or is he going to go all in for [Pedophonald or whoever is running in his place in 2028]? Because that matters. Not too much (see #3), but it does.
3. Even if he did decide to go all in for Republicans in 2026 and 2028, so what? He's just one person. The chances of him swaying an election are next to nothing, and it's even less if he's not in a swing state and/or close election.
4. Last but not least, he could be lying. He could either already be a Republican or just claiming he's going to turn more right-wing for money/attention.
As you may have already guessed, I never received an answer to any of the questions I asked that dude. I did, however, receive a block.
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