(Thread) Before the whole #ForceTheVote spectacle disappears in the usual ways that these things do in the Eternal Sunshine of the Very Online Left, something it might be worth taking a beat to think about:

So much of the discourse about this has treated it as a debate between insidery incrementalism and something more outsidery and confrontational--I've seen a few people describe it as a challenge to "electoralism"--but that stops making sense if you think about it for 5 seconds.

I know that some sort of spark to grassroots action was allegedly on the other end of the parliamentary Rube Goldberg machine:

"play hardball" in bargaining about the leadership vote --> get a floor vote that would have been defeated in a landslide making voters take M4A less seriously than ever as a real world possibility --> supposedly somehow get ammunition for this for primary challenges

...but about the most generous thing you can say about that is that it's *extremely* speculative.

I'd go further and say it would likely have the opposite result and make it harder to primary centrists since they could turn around and say,

"Hey, why is my opponent still trying to make this about M4A, which is never going to happen--look at that 3-to-1 defeat in a Dem house--instead of moving forward and talking about incremental health care reforms that might really happen like my [insert centrist bullshit here]?"

But whatever. That debate has happened and happened and happened. So let's just move on and notice this:

The suggested tactic itself was the most insidery kind of parliamentary wonkery.

So why did so many people code it as some sort of outsidery confrontational challenge to electoralism?

There's exactly one reason:

The guy leading the charge had a rhetorical affect--constantly screaming, calling everyone who disagreed a sellout and a corporate shill who was probably getting money from NATO--*felt* like it would go along with an outsidery confrontational challenge to electoralism.

If we're actually going to win M4A ever, never mind roll back the power of capital in any more fundamental ways, we all need to stop just rolling with gut-level impressions like that and actually get used to thinking about this stuff.