- cross-posted to:
- politicalmemes@lemmy.world
- cross-posted to:
- politicalmemes@lemmy.world
cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/16451158
Now the question is which is easier, convincing millions of people to vote for “anyone not a republican” or convincing a candidate to be more than “not republican”
Hey, primaries are around now. It’s a great time for that!
Participate in primaries. THIS is the election you want for that.
Depends on where you are. My state doesn’t have primaries till August and by then it’s basically already decided.
Same here, most primary candidate drop out before I even get my mail in ballot. Also there hasnt been a fair primary in 12 years so like so for over a decade party direction has been at the mercy of quid pro quo backroom deals, or straight up just appointing a candidate. Why would the next one suddenly be a fair representation of the will of voters?
What DNC did to Bernie caused Trump.
It depends. What it means to be “more than “not Republican”” is different for different people. Some will never be satisfied, and others are just plain wolves in sheep’s clothing trying to drive down Democratic turnout so the fascists can hold power.
While yes, those groups certainly exist, the majority of people just truly need help from someone who actually cares to help them, and not someone who says they do, but abandons the idea when it turns out to be difficult to supply that help because it never meant that much to them in the first place, if it was ever anything more than talk to begin with.
Pointing out the tiny problematic groups without even mentioning the much larger legitimate group reminds me of people who complain about welfare because of the tiny group of people that exploit it, completely ignoring the huge amount of people that just need help.
Every time the welfare thing comes up I respond, so what? Who fucking cares if some tiny minority of people abuse the system if it means the people who really need it have easier access, or access at all? No one abusing welfare is so rich you would argue they don’t need help anyway, unless there’s some sort of corruption going on. Big companies take way more in handouts from the government than people on welfare. Why can’t the big powerful successful corporations pull themselves up by their bootstraps?
You mean Republican, right?
;)
Same as Democrats are not democratic, Republicans are not republican. ;)
Hard work undoing the newspeek this deep into the Orwellian hole.
Perhaps we could focus on promoting the dangers that fascism is currently presenting to the United States.
Yeah, it appears that Americans aren’t getting the education they need regarding the horrors of fascism. Apparently the largest war in history happening less than a century ago due to fascism isn’t enough. A war that was very well documented, including photographic and video evidence.
Dude, we can’t even come to agreement on the real actual truth about our own civil war when it comes to education.
it doesn’t really matter - regardless of how difficult it is, we should be doing both
Why not both?
Because that is not the reality of what is currently going on.
No the real question is: which is easier, bitching online or running for office. I wish 1 in a million people who whinge about lack of candidates would actually go run for something. I’ll vote for you.
If you are form the US, you are having your primaries by now.
Those are the ones where good people appear and need your vote to stay on the race. Go participate there, instead of complaining about the main election.
Just checked ballotpedia and found out that my rep has competition this year. Looked the guy up (Kyle Gauck) and he some ok stuff on his campaign page including that he won’t be taking cash from aipac and expanding healthcare access.
Aug 11th is voting day :)
This is the correct answer.
The people who support the “both sides bad” argument and the “protest non-voters” are children who still need their parents to order their tendies for them at Chili’s.
- Get involved.
- Understand the actual candidates.
- Vote in the primaries.
The general election should be the last step in executing your civic duties and by that time you should be voting for your team.
the primaries are rigged, did you learn nothing from bernie in iowa?
Get enough people on your side to un-rig them then.
Bernie should have been the 2016 Democratic presidential nominee against the most easily beatable GOP nominee in recent history, but at the time I was a smug centrist and registered independent and could not vote in the primaries in my state.
I also voted third party in the 2016 general election because there was no way I was going to vote for Trump or Hillary. So 2016 was my fault. I did this.
Don’t be me.
are you a superdelegate or something? you sound like your individual vote is super important
“But they’ll steal the elections!!!”
Oh yeah? Just like all those state and special elections they’ve been losing by double-digit electorate shifts for the last 18 months? Including the one covering FUCKING MAR-A-LAGO???
Grow the fuck up. Get registered to vote, and when elections come round, VOTE, DAMN IT. Fascism only wins if you just give up and let it.
Exactly. I personally believe the election is going to be stolen, but nobody should fucking do the job FOR them. Voting MIGHT work, and you can still prepare for ridiculous, shortsighted guerilla fantasies after taking a day to go TRY the easy solution.
What are these gorilla fantasies?
You know, living in the jungle with your favorite apes
Yaaaaay. Bonobo life. ;D
Harambe.
“But they’ll steal the elections!!!”
LOL. Yup. That’s the crux of the terror that knocks people out of their considerate, critical, creative forebrain, and pushes them into their reactive social-dominating survival-focused fearful limbic reflex where they’re easier to control.
This time, America… stop falling for it. :) We can still mend this.
Fascism only wins if you just give up and let it.
And so don’t fall for the false dichotomies. ;D
More than voting may be required. And that does not mean badgering your fellow Americans into deeper divisive groupthink. :)
They’ll try to shove you off the platform with constant negativity and trying to act like Trump is just a continuation of all the same. If you didn’t care before, why do you care now?
It’s not. It’s different.
Both parties have the identical end goal in mind. One is just slower at it.
So for fucks sake pick the one that’s slower at it so you have more time to do something about it. It’s not like voting locks you out of any other actions.
more time to do something about it
Do what about it exactly?
How the fuck does voting for slow burn help?
Whatever you think needs to be done; absolutely anything ranging from peaceful protest to violent uprising. What exactly are you arguing, that it’s best to sit back and take it? That it’s better to put you face in the mouth of the leopard eating you rather than your arm so that at least you have a chance of fighting back? Even if one is an accelerationist (a profoundly naive position in my opinion, but that’s another discussion) willfully not voting is the intellectually cowardly option, justifying inaction rather than sticking to your ideals and actively voting for the option you believe will accelerate the most. The point is that voting is not a mutually exclusive action to take like so many people on Lemmy seem to act like it is.
Its not about not voting. For a start, there’s dozens of things to vote on than just one. Its about being shamed into voting for a bad option and not giving into that pressure tactic, and changing the narrative to making better choices
But Americans aren’t doing anything about it except voting.
The ones who are going to do more are already doing more, and both-sidesing the ones who aren’t is just going to make them do even less. Just let them help with slowing the descent down a bit, that’s the most they’re going to do anyway. It buys time for the ones who are doing something to do something.
Or maybe the accelerationists are right, make the nail rusty enough, fast enough, get the frog realising it has to jump out or it’ll be boiled.
… if that’s not too much metaphor mixing.
Solution space may be elsewhere.
Maybe the accelerationists are right, but then maybe they aren’t and that’s a whole lot of suffering and collateral damage for nothing.
YUP!
I hate this take, because it ignores the reality that this isn’t Europe and that you can’t even get sick in this country without health insurance with risking homelessness, let alone any massive coordinated action.
Like around here they’re always posting pictures of protests and you look at the people at the protests and it’s all retirees and college kids. Why? Because everyone else is at fucking work because if they’re not at work they miss a mortgage/rent payment and end up living in their car. The majority of US states have at will employment laws meaning they can and will fire you with no notice or even need to provide justification beyond the performative “this termination not due to you being a member of a legally protected class”.
Wage slaves are still slaves, and telling people today that their inaction means they’re complicit is no different then going back in time 200 years and telling the slaves on the plantations that they’re just as responsible for their bondage as the people that put them in chains. Fuck that nonsense.
Or, vote for something other than going to the bad place?
Someone offers you two pills, you don’t have to take either. You can make your own, and seek other options.
Yeah, but if you say “I don’t care, I have absolutely no preference”, then when kids get blown up in Iran it becomes your fault.
If you think voting Democrat would have prevented kids being blown up in Iran, you’re the fucking idiot here.
I think voting Democrat would have prevented kids being blown up in Iran, and it would have prevented ICE from having as many employees throwing immigrants in concentration camps, and I think it would have prevented the genocide of trans people that’s going to start next year. And don’t call Me an idiot, please.
Then there is no hope for you because you are deluded
Yeah. Don’t say that. Who’s advocating for that? Did you think I was advocating for that??
Well, there’s this thing called voting literacy, and the thing is, if your voting literacy is poor, you can say things you don’t intend to say. So yes, you did say “I don’t care, I have absolutely no preference”. And it’s your responsibility to learn enough mathematics to be able to say what you mean. I’m not gonna treat you like a baby and find the intended meaning in what you say, you have to grow up and say what you mean.
Slanderous misrepresentation. Did not say that.
So implausible, it seems you’re just trolling. Or maybe have crossed wires, replying to the wrong thing? … Or maybe have some psyop programs running that you truly believe what you say, with your perception perverted by some kind of groupthink and the false dichotomy fallacies the programming produces? Or maybe narcissistic deflecting and blame shifting and trying to save face rather than entertain an idea and concede the logic and learn from it? Or… maybe you’re on to something sound that you’ve just yet to effectively convey? But then, even if that’s so, we’re back to projecting, with the peculiarly expressed accusation of failing to communicate effectively (~ with mathematics?). And the condescending gaslighting hypocrisy doesn’t help your case much either.
If you can quote the relevant parts, I’m happy to hear out your explanation that refutes my claim I did not say that. Especially if you can do it without the inflamed ego toxicity. LOL.
It’s no use asking these people to do any kind of direct action. They think abstaining once every four years will bring an end to capitalism. They’ll never attend a protest or vote in a primary, much less pick up a gun for the revolution.

“Keep doing the same thing over and over again, and each time, expect a different outcome. It is the smart intelligent sane thing to do.” – Einstein, probably
You mean like rolling dice?
I’ve long been wary of anyone peddling an “only way”. Yet to find a claim of “only way” that’s not fallacious. Quite scary in this parroted psyop. “Be very afraid! Stay in your reactionary social-dominance totalitarian-psyche groupthink mass formation!” XD Gonna a be a beautiful beautiful thing, when people stop falling for it.
Y’know there are more than two sides right? And that they’re not even sides? … Beautiful beautiful thing when people snap out of the “lies so big that not even their inverse are true”.
Wrong
The left and the right.
Of the Overton Window.
So absolute reactionary and slightly less reactionary
Yup. In this case, the Overton Window’s Auth-Right on the political compass. Those on the left half of it call themselves “The Left”.

As a non US citizen I’ll say it again: you factually only have right.
The day most realize this will be the start of change.
Lol.
More “bOtH sIdEz” idiocy.
I’m just sad that more than zero people have upvoted that idiocy. Guess I’ll just take solace in the fact that more than twice as many people have downvoted it.
“I don’t have anything of substance to add so I’ll just call you an idiot”
See, you’re already acting like a MAGA. Whee.
I remember 2004, a friend had come back to our home town for new years, and in our fave local pub, he regaled us with stories of what it was like working with Trump. He told us about what a joke of a played narcissist he is, being primed by his psychopathic handlers for a puppet presidency. … It seemed absurd, implausible even, for about a decade.
I heard recently they were planning on having Charlie Kirk become president in the distant future too… until he grew sense and conscience. Imagine if each of their puppets attain consciousness and conscientiousness… and they have no puppets left to deceive us with… :D
Imagine if USA had democracy. Cleared up all the election rigging, the fixed proprietary voting machines, the lobbying, the gerrymandering, the electoral college, the voter suppression, the bought corporate media, etc, etc, etc. Imagine if the people in USA got to vote for what they want, not merely under duress to vote against who they don’t want.
Imagine if it were real…
I want to preface this by saying that I do vote in every election, and I think everyone should exercise their right to vote.
That being said, both parties are bad. We’re in a class war, and the Democrats are just as beholden/part of the oligarchy as the Republicans are.
The Republicans are definitely worse than the Democrats. There’s no question there, but what we really need is a fucking revolution.
both sides are pretty bad, but you still gotta get on the bus

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, you dumb fuck Americans should have voted for Vermin Supreme.

I’ll say it again, you dumb fuck Americans should have voted
Ftfy lol
Lol yeah, also that.
Seriously, though, he’s as qualified as almost any US President during my lifetime, and more intelligent than most of them. Vote Vermin.
People deserve to vote for someone they actually support, not the least terrible option.
Stop blaming the voters.
You’re not wrong, but the time to fix that is at the primary and not the general.
And yes, I’m aware the DNC has their thumb on the scale when it comes to the Democratic primary. So that means vote in your local elections too, so that there are actually progressive candidates to choose from instead of corporate-owned do-nothings.
Sure, people deserve better options. But the fucking point is that WHEN those options do NOT exist, voting for the WORSE option is fucking STUPID and supports fascism. When anyone convinces someone who wouldn’t vote for the less bad option not to vote, FASCISM WINS.
When people keep voting for the LESS BAD option when those better options do NOT exist, better options WON’T appear as voting LESS BAD removes the INCENTIVE for it. Therefore voting for the LESS BAD option ensures the options will always remain FASCISM and something slightly LESS BAD - no better options. If one wants better options, keep voting LESS BAD is fucking STUPID.
Hope you feel proud of your principles when they disappear you into the camps too.
the democrats or the republicans?
I don’t know, fucking genius, you tell me who fucking set ICE out murdering US citizens and throwing them into fucking camps? Are you a fucking fascist and trying to play around here and confuse people, or are you willfully this fucking goddamn fucking stupid? Either way, fascists certainly adore your contribution to the conversation.
I don’t know, fucking genius, you tell me
Are you a fucking fascist and trying to play around here and confuse people, or are you willfully this fucking goddamn fucking stupid? Either way, fascists certainly adore your contribution to the conversation.
lol, good on yer trying to throw it back like that, but you have to put a unique spin on it or something. I lost my temper at you, but I stand by the spirit of it, even though I wish I’d been able to keep my temper better.
ICE, started in 2003… remember when the Democrat party was in power, both times, all three terms since then, when they got rid of ICE and… ohhhh wait.
Solution space lays elsewhere.
Ignorance must be fucking bliss.
🫠
Your logic only applies to local/state elections. It does not apply to presidential elections.
If you vote 3rd party in a presidential election, you’re a fool acknowleging you’re incapable of doing basic math and fine with the worst case scenario.
Explain how does it not work? People not voting for the shitty D candidate, causing them to lose to R doesn’t create an incentive for D to change course? Do I need to presrnt to you the last two years of intense D soul searching after Kamala lost?
fine with the worst case scenario.
Obvioisly that’s part of the calculus. Most who question the lesser evil approach understand this. However you might not understand that no matter how hard you call people fools, that doesn’t change the picture for people who’ve given up on voting for Turd Sandwich. Might even be achieving the opposite. A lot of people are done with the Turd Sandwich status quo and are either staying home or voting Giant Douche. Sounds like you have to give them something better to vote for if you don’t want more Giant Douche.
People not voting for the shitty D candidate, causing them to lose to R
Congrats, you just elected fascists.
I guess you’ll have to do something about it then.
I am. I’m trying to teach people how not to support fascists.
When the general election hits, you will have two options (yea three or more). You can vote for the Republican, fascist candidate. Or you can vote for the Democratic candidate.
Anything other than - at that point - voting for the Dem is throwing your support behind fascists.
That is simple fact.
And that includes third parties.
Anything you want to try and do to change the system - because it fucking needs it - should be done before/outside of that process.
It’s really not fucking complicated.
I guess people would have to elect at least one more fascist gov’t then. Cause people don’t give a shit what the process is and won’t vote for turd sandwich in sufficient numbers no matter how much you insist they do. And I’m not doing that. I’m merely trying to present the view of the person who doesn’t buy this shit, didn’t vote Kamala and won’t vote Newsom no matter how hard you scold them.
And that’s part of the reason we have fascists in charge.
Can you spoil your ballot in protest?
The hour is later than you think, since both [sides of the purple party] are bought by the same interests.
There are even more less bad options, than the 2nd worst most likely to win. Baa-aa-aa-aad is still bad.
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Well said.
Or as I take it a little further (s/someone/what/ hinting at more direct democracy too):
Imagine getting to vote for what you want, not against who you don’t want.
But I really like how you put it too.
People deserve to vote for someone they actually support, not the least terrible option.
Not if you live in reality.
Stop blaming the voters.
I’ll keep blaming voters who keep voting 3rd party in presidential elections thinking a third party can win when the last most popular 3rd party candidate in the 2024 election only got 0.5% of the total votes cast.
I’ll keep blaming voters that can’t do simple math and make the most intelligent decision based on the reality they live in.
I’m not going to stop you, I’m not your dad.
They DO have the right to not vote, but they also DO have a civic duty to cast their votes. Voters are the ones who decide elections, and if the results are bad, it is up to voters to do better next time. I think this is less blaming, and more just people trying to hold the electorate accountable for their choices.
Voters are the ones who decide elections,
Are you sure about that?
Given the voter suppression & gerrymandering, the lobbying & corporate media consolidation, the electoral college & candidate selection process, the rigged proprietary voting machines & counting frauds, etc. etc. etc… [atop the First-Past-The-Post terror scam that coerces people to vote against who they most don’t want between the perceived most likely to win].
More to mend than just getting people to “vote correctly”.
If votes didn’t matter, then none of the efforts you mentioned to suppress and manipulate the voters would be necessary. Yet they’re happening anyway because people do ultimately hold the power, and that terrifies the rich and powerful who seek to control it.
I refuse to stop shit talking democrats, if they weren’t absolutely complicit warmongers we wouldn’t be in this mess in the first place.
Nobody is saying not to shit talking them, people are saying that nuance is needed. We need to push for better representatives. BUT. When the general election happens, we need to vote Democrat because REPUBLICANS ARE FUCKING FASCISTS. Because while both sides suck, both sides do not suck equally. So shit talk your Democrats, as long as you shit talk your Republicans even more. Or do they get a pass because you write them off as evil?
Does your shit talking drive people away from voting for Democrats when the vote is Dem vs Repub? If so, you support fascism. Plain and simple.
Put your energy into change where it matters: Primaries, other offices, pushing society back to the left away from fascism. Make sure you’re not helping the fascists win.
The OP meme is not calling for nuance, it’s saying that if you’re shittalking democrats you’re helping Republicans win.
My democrat state rep sucks and is in practice a thinly-veiled Republican coasting on incumbency and people not investigating beyond the ‘D’
My federal rep (D) has been actively complicit in perpetuating the genocide in Palestine and allowing Trump to walk all over Venezuela. I actually put in a lot of effort with antiwar groups to try to sway them in the past. What I learned is that when it comes to war and empire if they want to climb the ranks in DC they’re going to tow the line.
Open Republicans are obviously worse, but theyre also a non factor in my state, they just run for ‘nonpartisan’ seats or pose as democrats. This is also why i chaff at vote-bluers, they will act like challenging an incumbent ‘democrat’ who sucks is somehow helping Republicans
How so?
What do you mean how so?
The democrats are prolific warmongers, they just think they’re smarter about it than Republicans.
Oh I’m not arguing that, I’m just asking how that would have kept us out of this mess.
If they weren’t prolific warmongers and instead did things that were actually popular at home then they would probably be seen as more trustworthy and not lost to Trump repeatedly, idk how more to spell it out for you
Maybe, but then they would’ve been buried by AIPAC money, as we’ve repeatedly seen. They’ve done plenty of positive things at home, or at least tried to, but all that gets ignored. Sure, I’d love to see a positive change, but we have to acknowledge the reality of the political landscape, and opposing Israel is political suicide with current campaign finance influences.
They didn’t oppose Israel at all and they ate complete shit anyways.
they may have ‘tried’ to do positive things at home, but they also spent billions arming a genocide which triggered a blockade of the red sea and disrupted supply chains. Failing to negotiate a settlement with russia didn’t do energy markets any favors, the blowback from sanctions and energy prices absolutely contributed to inflation that people felt, and then blamed on democrats. ‘brandonflation’
Like you can make excuses about AIPAC or whatever, but the people who felt the consequences of these wars voted accordingly. It sucks that there was no left candidate to vote for and that resulted in republicans winning. However that’s also the democrats fault for not running a real primary and ignoring all the people voting uncommitted.
There were plenty of warnings, they were just ignored.
Sure, but Democratic voters are not democratic leadership. If you have a problem with Democratic leadership, tell it to them. Voters don’t benefit from Democrats losing to Republicans.
Beyond the more general point, a concrete example - if the Biden admin didn’t supply unlimited bombs to Israel, they would not have lost to Trump. There’s enough numbers to support this claim.
I mean, both sides DO suck. But the decision being made boils down to which side you think has the best chance of leading to an eventual outcome that doesn’t suck. I’m not voting for a party I like, because frankly that doesn’t exist as a viable option, but I’m not going to not vote just because neither side is better than a 3/10. I’d rather the 3/10 than the 1/10.
I think there’s real value in being honest about your feelings. The people who represent us need to know we think they suck. The people around us need to feel like others have the same struggles we do. The space for nuance does exist.
Your frequent reminder from the local queer, leftist furry that if “voting didn’t work,” Republicans and billionaires wouldn’t spend billions of dollars on voter suppression and propaganda telling you that your vote doesn’t matter.
Do your part, waste billionaire money by voting anyway, by any means necessary~
Imagine the hammer is the polling box and all your solutions look like voting when see all your problems as nails.
Everyone should vote. Absolutely. Go out, do it, cast that ballot.
Voting won’t solve all of our problems. We need to go beyond just voting.
Amen.
Best comment.
Voting won’t solve all of our problems.
Absolutely, but not voting will make solving all of those problems more difficult, not easier.
I think everyone on Lemmy knows that?
The bigger problem is people who think withholding their vote is a form of direct action, and means they don’t have to go out and protest against the oligarchs.
No, the point is to agitate you against an establishment that wants to prevent you from having a better choice.
Liberals who are passionately defending lesser evil electoralism before primaries have even started are either idiots in denial or moderates who don’t want to talk about why their party is nearly as unpopular as Trump.
One should vote, it simply shouldn’t be the end of it.
If you voted Democrat and thought you made your part, wrong. You barely made one shift towards one slightly less terrible group. This is not victory. A part of what you should do, yes. All you should do - not.
The psyop’d to defeatism think the lesser of two evils is the best they can do. Remind them, it’s not. It’s still evil.
Awareness of the totalitarian tacking tip-toe con may help dispel the groupthink affirmation of succumbing to that. One “side” loudly promises one personal freedom cared about while quietly taking two economic freedoms that “side”'s herd don’t care about, then the other “side” loudly restores one economic freedom their “side”'s herd care about while quietly taking two personal freedoms that “side”'s herd don’t care about, back and forth, stripping you of freedom, keeping you blinded in fear of what the other is going to take from you, divided and conquered. … But try explaining that in a tweet/tictok sized explanation to those who’ve had their attention spans crippled.
Some say it’s futile. It’s not. Defy that dire prognosis.
Carry on mendwards. :)
the lesser of two evils is the best they can do. Remind them, it’s not. It’s still evil.
Yes! Harm-reduction is the last effort! The point is to do everything you can before the elections, so you don’t have to choose between the evils! You vote for the lesser one if all else fails
Republicans also really love when you vote third party.
Republicans also really love when you vote third party.
(Or Democrat party too, depending on where the votes are being taken from)
Until enough people do, and sufficient votes are taken from the purple party, that they lose.
… But then, may also need to mend all the lobbying, gerymandering, voter suppression, rigged voting machines, electoral college, etc first/simultaneously.
Imagine if the people in USA got a system that helped them vote for what they want, not against who they don’t want. Imagine… :)
Until enough people do, and sufficient votes are taken from the purple party, that they lose.
Nope, you utterly miss the point. First past the post means that Republicans win when the anti-fascist vote is split.
If you don’t like the current candidates of the Democrat party, then go vote in the Democrat primary.
Imagine if the people in USA got a system that helped them vote for what they want, not against who they don’t want. Imagine… :)
There is this little thing called “objective reality”. First past the post sucks, but it is objective reality. You should try taking it into account, some time.
Nope. Did not miss your point at all. You seemed to miss mine, and doubled down.
one week old account shilling for a political party
I remember when Gore lost Florida, and therefore the country, because less than one tenth of one percent of voters thought a protest vote for Nader was a good idea. In primaries and in smaller elections, sure, give third party votes a try. But the bigger the election, the more it converges on a choice between the two major parties, and one of them is worse than the other.
gore won that election. the supreme Court stole it.
The Republicans would never have been able to steal it, if third party votes had not made it close.
If everybody who voted Nader had voted for Gore instead, there would have been no wiggle room for the Supreme Court to butt in. And every Nader voter who was not an idiot know from the polls that Nader would not win.
With Gore instead of Bush, there would have been no Iraq War, for one thing. And the US would have taken climate change seriously.
Using “Democrat” as an adjective is usually an indicator of someone who mostly consumes right wing media.
This thread is full of commenters trying to convince people not to vote (for good lefty reasons, of course!)
Well rest assured, I advocate voting, and warn against doing a “no-vote” as that’s equivalent to a vote for “any tyrant will do”.
And I doubt I consume much “right wing media” at all. … Not sure I used the term as an adjective either… and so that whole line kinda threw me. Multiple ways invalid and unsound.
It’s “Democratic party.” Democratic is the adjective modifying the noun party.
Oh, thanks. Still sounds wrong. Mislead either way.
Did I ever mention voting for third party?
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I’m not voting for liberal zionists under any circumstances. Your candidates and party suck and deserve to eat shit
…And that is how Trump became President.
Really is that so
That’s true, but I think neutral voters need to be told to do direct action a lot more than left voters. Everyone I know who does direct action voted Democrat. But I know lots of people who didn’t vote and don’t do direct action.
To only have two sides is the problem.
Sure, but as far as what we can control right now, let’s elect some fucking Democrats please
How much longer will this be a cookie cutter answer?
Until there are enough grassroots progressive candidates to take over the democratic party the same way the tea party movement took over the republican party, and finally some progressive initiatives can pass into law, such as eliminating FPTP.
Please don’t take the “just vote democrats into office” answer to mean “sit tight and do nothing but vote” when voting is really the bare minimum activism you should be doing to preserve a democratic system.
I just wonder how patient US voters are, for the changes you project.
Does it matter? Most voters have no attention span. They aren’t revolutionaries. They aren’t going to take to the streets no matter how bad things get. Stop trying to change people who aren’t going to change when you lack the influence to change them in the first place, and focus on trying to leverage what you’ve got as productively as you can.
Build your cadres, make the change you can, and make lemonade from the lemons you’ve got.
Yeah, if waiting for something before contributing to mends, the crooks will prevent that something to keep you passively complicit.
Mendwards now!
Let’s get Democrats controlling all three branches of government for more than 30 seconds to start.
And by “controlling” we mean “supermajority” thanks to the veto and filibuster.
And will things magically be better? Well, better, yes, good, no. First, it takes a lot of time to undo the harm fascists have done. And second, our oligarchs would still be in control, pushing for their needs above ours.
So we need to… solve… our oligarch problem AND win a supermajority AND then We the People need to push that Overton window back to the left, forcing our politicians to serve our needs.
…which is why I say we’re pretty fucked. But that’s what needs to happen, anyway.
Defy the dire prognosis, and head mendwards anyway.
Until Americans learn how to vote for 3rd parties in local/state elections and get more than ZERO 3rd party representatives in Congress.
Yeah, we need more John Fettermans and Joe Manchins and Krysten Cinemenmas.
Right. So the alternative to those is more Marco Rubios, Mike Johnsons, MTG, etc etc etc etc. All of whom are much worse.
We need better people running for office that get financial support from the people, but when it comes down to the general election, whatever addhats made it that far, the Democrat is going to be BY FAR the better pick 99.9% of the time. And if the Republican is truly better, sure, vote for them, but remember that at the party level, Republicans are the ones bringing us fascism.
The point - the entire fucking point - is people saying “Don’t vote for the Fetterman/Manchin/etc in the general election” help the fascists win. Of course it’s shitty options, but you want to pick the LESS. FUCKING. SHITTY. OPTIONS.
Or… any of many other options, than just more corruptible agents and assets.
I often imagine what it may be like with, not just adjustments to re-presentative democracy (like ranked choice voting, proportionate representation, etc), but even beyond direct democracy, even beyond liquid democracy, all the way to (what I call) config-democracy…
“Config-Democracy”, where we each are free to input our say as elaborate (or as terse) as we want, updated when we want, as direct or deferring as we want. Where our “vote” is like a config file, not merely a single mark on a corrupted multiple choice. … unless you want to vote like that still in config-democracy. You’re free to. But I imagine everybody wants more say than that.
All kinds of facilitators can be developed for such. Heck, we even already have the likes of the political compass test, and the world’s shortest political quiz, that for decades have already offered us better means to present our political philosophies. … Funny how the crooks have not sought to implement that eh? Given how the spray of popular results show they’d be voted out of office the first day any such were implemented. … Imagine that, huh? Real democracy, real organisation by the people, for the people.
:)
We can still mend this.
It’s going to be an even bigger problem when it drops down to only having one side.
The Red Army is not coming to the rescue.
Especially when they’re not even different sides.
Only two sides stand a chance of winning a presidential election. No amount of whining about the 2-party system changes that.
Stop whining everybody. Act like you are able to change something. I know you can do it!
It’s one of many parts of the problem.


























