Country over Party
Wilker Nath
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dKnjxT5HRJQ
This has been a long time in the making. Though I left my party in-game today, and have been intending to for a while, I wasn’t planning to publish this first article for another few days. With recent events being as they are, I think the eUS could use this exact thing on this exact day. So here it is.
I will tell you people in the audience that things are not always as they seem. I’ve been planning this for longer than most of you know, and my plans stretch further into the future than any of you have been let in on. My plan is two-prong, and you’ll know the second prong is complete when I drop the V for Vendetta RP.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q18LM9Ndygw
It’s a steel guitar kind of day
Someone asked me recently why I’m still in WTP, and I couldn’t really provide a quality answer without giving it some thought. Forgive me for putting it in such glum terms, but I think the best way to sum up my answer can be found in Genesis 18:22-32 Abraham intercedes on behalf of Sodom. It’s the part where Abraham begs God not to destroy the entire city of sinners, if only he can find 10 good people among all of them. Yeah, that. That’s why I stayed.
I’m happy and proud to say that I stuck it out probably longer than most people would have. I did it because there are still many people I like within the party, and because I knew leaving at any time would mean burning some bridges. Even if I did it quietly, I knew that I would not be welcomed back once it was noticed.
I also knew my leaving would feed into the conspiracy theory that some in WTP have about me being a Fed plant. At times, that more than any other reason kept me in the party. I hope this illustrates the general feeling of what it’s like having diversity of thought in this party, and why I have struggled to fill an entire article with pro-WTP propaganda at any point in time.
I’m sorry to my friend Aersidius, who asked me to write some pro-WTP articles this month. It has been a challenge.
I told you my reasons for staying, now let me tell you my reasons for leaving.
Congressional Whips and Country > Party
It’s no secret that the string-pullers in WTP like to blame the Feds for anything and everything that goes wrong. This is reflected in the attitude that the party takes with regards to congress and the CP election, as well as just about anything that goes on in congress. It is natural for any party to get competitive when it comes to elections, because after all, elections are the purpose for political parties to exist. WTP, though, takes the partisan feelings to an unhealthy extreme.
The CBO director nominations came at a great time for the puzzle pieces of my leaving to fall into place. On the first day of the discussion, Aeriadne and Melissa Rose came up as choices, and both reached the threshold of 5 nominations. Great!
...and then the people who do the WTP whipping realized the Feds would be gaining a “victory”, so they got to work.
The hive mind had been activated in the most obvious way possible. In the same move they had gone for during IES director nominations, they nominated an SFP member with the idea of blocking the Feds by forming a coalition. The same person as during the IES discussion, in fact.
After some more progress in the discussion thread, the string-pullers realized that they could just go ahead and nominate a WTP member.
And if you look in the nomination thread, you can see the result…
https://eusaforums.com/forum/index.php?topic=48673.30
The problem with all of this is, they were planning their nominations purely based on the party of the nominee, and occasionally also based on personal dislike, rather than any other qualifying factor that the nominee possessed. As far as I can tell, they were the only party doing this, and they were the only party voting as a hive mind on this. In other votes as well, going back months, WTP has voted as a hive mind based on the good of the party, not the good of the nation. And maybe I’ve been spending too much time in the exec, hanging around in a group of people that just wants the best for the nation and doesn’t even consider the party of those they work with, but I’m old-fashioned enough to be disgusted by this.
Aeri and MR are both good choices. They both have a very good track record of helping the country by doing executive work. I know firsthand, I have been working with them for multiple terms. I’ve seen criticism of Aeri in that she’s known for being hard to keep around. That’s a fair criticism, and I respect it more than someone saying “We can’t let the Feds win this! We have to do something!” while suggesting candidates who, in my opinion, aren’t the logical choice, and were selected purely based on party.
As we’ve seen, both of them have been fine choices, pulling their weight in the position.
RT also has a great track record with exec work, but as mentioned in the discussion thread, giving him too many jobs would make him a burnout risk. That, and “I accept for the fun of it” doesn’t inspire as much confidence as Aeri’s multi-paragraph post in the discussion thread about her reasons for wanting this position.
I don’t think it’s a secret that I dislike the way Groot operates. I consider him to be impulsive and a hothead, quick to flip his lid, quick to pick fights, quick to hurl insults, and slow to take them back. In addition, I’ve seen him considerably less often in the exec than other CBOD candidates. All that aside, provided he could assure me that he would’ve played nice in the sandbox with the other kids (a very big if given his track record), I could’ve been convinced to vote yes to his appointment. I don’t question his loyalty to the country, and if he wanted to give the role a try, sure, why not.
In the context of the position that needed to be filled, I do not care about the party of any of these people, or even about whether or not I like them. All I need in order to vote is an idea of what kind of job I expect they will do. For a while, I thought Aeri was still USWP, and I just never bothered checking when she moved to Feds. It didn’t matter. I know her as an individual, and I have complete confidence in her ability to do a good job in this position, as well as her desire for the country as a whole (every citizen, all parties) to prosper.
Similarly with the recent CP race: Krapis is someone I’ve worked with multiple months in the Exec, I know he wants the best for the country as a whole, and (at time of writing) I can’t even tell you with 100% certainty what his party is without double checking his profile. Dom, by contrast, openly in the party feed and in party group mails, said that he was running just so WTP would have a candidate in the CP race. (Dom, I’m sorry, I believe you have good intentions, but you are not putting country over party.)
WTP is a party that continually shows eagerness to sacrifice the wellbeing of fellow Americans in order to meet their partisan goals. That’s just the long and short of it.
(side note, anyone who wants to be involved in the exec, feel free to message any of us. We will be happy to get you something to do, and help you get acquainted with the way things are done. If WTP wants a CP so badly, I think they should go about it by getting more of their members to do exec work. Grooming candidates in the exec will boost name recognition, inter-party friendship and support, and familiarity with the functions of the roles. CPs who have experience in the exec will be better for the nation. Anyone who offers help for the good of the country and doesn’t aim to start drama is likely to be accepted into an exec role. I doubt any of us already here will even care which party you’re with.)
Update
Since drafting this, there’s been even more partisan Party > Country focus from the people whipping WTP’s congressional votes.
And you can see below how far you’ll go if you have a unique opinion in WTP. That, and the same person who told WTP congress to nominate groot talking about Aeri’s temperament is hilarious to me.
If you go against the hive mind, they will tell you to leave.
They do this because their only goal is power, and every dissenting in-party vote in congress is a threat to their power. Their dream is a political stranglehold, where nobody can tell them no, and they will work towards this goal for as long as we let them.
Trust me, I know these people, and for out-of-party observers wanting to get an idea of who they are, the above paragraph is the most important part of this article.
They will continue in their goal of a >50% margin in each congress election, by any means necessary. If multis were easier to pull off, I have no doubt they'd be doing it. If circumventing IES was easier to pull off, I have no doubt Dom's big IES scandal would still be going on.
Congress elections will be the most important election for anyone who values freedom and a multi-party system.
The Gentlemen’s Club
A lot of my political career has been centered around helping noobs. My first big break in the executive involved a revival of the DoE, and my first month after returning involved an attempt to revive party-level welcome mails to noobs in every top 5 party. So it’s fair to say I care about new blood, and their ability to get well established.
I’ve heard people call WTP a “Gentleman’s Club” before, meaning that a few elites control every aspect of the party, and there is little room for anyone new to truly come into their own. After several months in the party, I can confidently say this is correct. I can count on one hand the people who I’ve seen whip a vote from WTP congress, and our recent PP Aersidius is not even one of them.
When KingTaco ran for PP at the beginning of the summer, after being a loyal party member for months and donating millions of cc to party programs and raffles, he was told he didn’t have enough experience for the role, and he should wait longer before running. When I ran the following month, even with my track record of having been PP for multiple parties in multiple countries, CP of a country, and a history of success as a party recruiter, I was also told I didn’t have enough experience. In both those elections, we lost with margins of around 33%.
Name recognition is everything if you want to be PP of WTP. You’re either a party elite, or you’re not. That status is not likely to change for anyone.
And even if you achieve that PP goal, you’ll still have to deal with the party elites whipping your congressmen for their own goals in the party group mails (the person whose name I blanked out in the above images, if you hadn’t guessed, was not the PP).
Given this being one of the unspoken facts of this party, one of my regrets in this game is not fully articulating these things months ago when Krapis asked my advice about whether to join WTP. I told him the party feed was active, he briefly joined, saw for himself what a toxic environment this place is, and then he left for greener pastures. I don’t blame him.
The Multi Problem
This one isn’t a condemnation of WTP, but a word of advice on something that I wish I could stay around longer to see the conclusion of.
Over the past months, there have been many many dozens of accounts that have been banned for being multis by the work of Dom and a few others in WTP. A majority of these accounts have attempted to influence votes and primaries in our party before their banning. I don’t have the full list on me, but I can assure you the amount is daunting. Please PM Dom if you’d like the full list going back as far as May. I’m sure he’d be able to compile it.
I as well as many others believe that there is only a single person responsible for all of these multis. I have encouraged my fellow party members not to point fingers at other parties, but many in my party believe the culprit is a member of SFP because of this election.
I’d like to encourage my party (mainly Dom) to publish articles, perhaps weekly or every other week, with reports on how the multi hunting is going, and lists of banned accounts. The narrative among other parties is that we are the ones using multis to influence elections when, in fact, the truth is the exact opposite. I think WTP and the nation would benefit from being much more public with this.
And of course, if the person responsible is reading this, please stop.
Conclusion
There are far more than 10 good people in WTP. In fact, I’d even say that a lot of the people who contribute to the partisan toxicity of the party are good people, just misguided. I have met a great many whom I will be sad to no longer see in my party feed.
But, as the story goes, Abraham and Lot left the toxic environment, and Lot’s wife was turned into a pillar of salt when she tried to look back. So I think I’ll take a lesson from the Good Book and not look back.
Where to Next?
Over the past few months, multiple friends of mine have reached out and told me the arms of the Federalist party would be wide open to embrace me. This in contrast to a party whose leaders have literally and in no uncertain terms been trying to push me out. I think it’s past time I finally took both groups up on that, and joined a party where I expect to fit in better socially and politically.
I don’t normally write congress endorsement articles, but if you’ve read through all of the above, you can probably tell that this is a special occasion.
For the first time in a long time, I will boast pride in the party I represent, and tell you all to vote Feds for congress. Every Fed I’ve worked with in the executive has put country over party, no Fed I’ve seen in congress has sacrificed the wellbeing of the country for partisan games, and a lot of my friends I’ve made so far in erep happen to be Feds.
It was a good party back when UIP was still around, and it’s a good party now. So, with all the enthusiasm I can convey via words on screen:
Proud & Horny
Vote Fed
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OJKe2j9Wjh4
Oh and as an added bonus, if there’s any other former WTPers reading, here’s a little something you can add to your forum signature!
Comments
Hey! Welcome to the Feds, glad to have you
p/h
o>
Wow...
Anyhoo, my party doesn't look like this at all. Granted, Canada is a little more laid back than the U.S., we try to give everybody a turn at Congress. Somehow I occasionally make it in when enough don't sign up or we do good in the election. We also back the chosen one for CP. General consensus usually finds a sucker... umm, I mean, distinguished individual to lead the country. Doesn't really matter, same bunch of monkeys running things behind the scenes. Us monkeys are a nonpartisan hodgepodge of folks that do our best to make everyone happy. You guys seem to have forgotten happy. 🥴
I remember WN when he was a bright eyed idealist. He'd run around wanting to blow sunshine up various people's butts. Do anything UIP asked. Sometimes I even had to ask him to cool it. 😁 Seems a shame he's turned into a, (what's a good word?), political expert.
Remember, when in Canada, vote POO!
(Party of Opprobium)
Our moose mascot poops candies!
lol yeah it's been big drama in congress the past few weeks. Hopefully it will cool down soon
good to see you around 🙂
In case you'd like to look...
https://www.erepublik.com/en/party/party-of-opprobium-2624/1
dill loves the drama
It's like boxing,
https://youtu.be/HuaFIRD7_5Y
or a train wreck...
You can't help but watch,
then you go home and sleep in your nice comfortable bed.
there are worse things than joining the feds 😛
Yes!
You can move to Canada, be elected to office (even CP) several times, be a top tank, rank #10, AND get bag milk from the market! Life sure stinks since I moved here.
haha happy you're still around
You were always one of the good ones bud, I'm surprised you didnt leave sooner
Have you compiled evidence against said member of SFP?
Dom would be the one to ask. We have lists of dozens of accounts that were banned for multis after he reported them, but I don't think anyone has a solid idea who it is
If you do not have a solid idea of who it is, as you say, then how are you able to determine in fact that it is a member of the SFP and not some misdirection coming from elsewhere?
I prefer to wait for more evidence, but others in wtp believe it is an sfp member
The SFP has long had a clear policy opposing the use of multi's, so one can understand why this accusation itself sounds suspicious. But if there is proof, please show it.
I too would like to see the proof. Sounds to me like a bunch of slander and hypocrisy coming from known multi users of other parties
I went against the WTP hive mind and was never asked to leave. On another note I can offer some personal insight as to why others would be against Melissa Rose. While she is capable of doing the job all my interactions with her have been unpleasant. She recently wrote an article critizing a legitimate comment/opinion I gave on Krapis saying it was offensive when had said he didn't meet my personal standards. The hive mind exists in all parties, maybe even more so in the others.
He will realise it quick enough after several months of applying for congress in Feds and never be elected 😉
lmao ^___^
nah they will elect him but the minute he has the same conflict of interest issue they will do the same thing. I have had nothing but issues interacting with a lot of the Fed leadership. Maybe things will get better though?
To clarify: we do not punish members for voting against the party line and never have
I've had pleasant interactions with both of you, I hope you 2 can come to be friendly on the future. Talking to someone about politics is different from talking to them about other things, so it's easy to get off on the wrong foot with someone in this game.
You are someone I will miss seeing around
Interesting stuff that was! Welcome to the Feds man!
Proud & Horny!
you're a fed multi i knew that from the start. they just play your account from a different IP that's why you weren't banned. quite big understanding of the game from a guy who joined 4 months ago KEKW
btw posting party congress chats will get you 3 months of censure on the forums , but those chats were not Feds' ones so I can only tell you to f off wherever u want. WTP has survived before you and we don't need Feds' satellites
😛
calling aeriadne a "political operative" isn't just hyperbole. It's an outright lie.
I don't know who wrote that, nor do I care.
I just want to speak out on behalf of Aeriadne who is the furthest thing from a "political operative" you could find. She does have a history of being flakey and unpredictable. Her goal was to shed herself of that reputation. But political operative? Slander.
We would liked to have you in AMP !
Sigh. Big misunderstanding of how the party operates. We are suspicious when it feels like people are trying to force their way in to something. And there are some issues where it is critical to stay united on votes.
I'll be putting an article out in the near future that will make you think twice about some of the points you made in this article.
I look forward to it
Hope we can stay friendly despite the circumstances
Will said article also include an explanation on how your father was able to die twice?
Probably like PiZ's whole family is gay.
He didn’t say his whole family was gay. When people engage in hyperbole and don’t know how to read properly, it causes problems
I know he didn't say his whole family was gay. But about half of it. Which is also strange enough.
So many BS in this article that my eyes hurt after reading it. But I can't waste my time to reply all of it.