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I’m cool with that, but folks should also remember this:
yeah I’m forever voting blue no matter who. The republican candidate will always be a fascist. It will never end with Trump. It’s going to be fascist vs not fascist blue vote and I will eat whatever shit the blue vote shits out. More cops? I’m all for it, not a fascist dictator. Support Israel? Fine with me, not a fascist dictator. It sucks but that’s just America now for the next thousand or so years, fascism or something else. Better hope the something else isn’t closer to fascism than before or else you’re fucked.
If the Dems keep winning the Republicans will have to slide left. It happened in the UK with Labour (unfortunately in the opposite direction).
When that happens, and Trump is not literally attempting to end democracy using project 2025, the plan of strong-arming the dem candidate into being more left is plenty feasible, and the risks are less dire.
It happened in the UK with Labour (unfortunately in the opposite direction)
This happened after Labour’s entrenched power groups vigorously sabotaged Corbyn. Corbyn committed a somewhat serious blunder during Brexit, but he still had Labour well in the direction of defeating the Tories, and that might have happened earlier if his most spiteful opponents hadn’t been inside his own party.
Thats not going to happen. The small handful of swing states will dictate a pattern of both parties steadily and we’ll just keep going lower. Im sorry but there’s zero chance the US doesn’t elect enough republicans for them to be forced to change policy. They’re making gains.
Maybe I’m just risk averse, but handing your country over to a fascist dictator sounds like the wrong solution.
I’m not saying to stop pressuring Biden in other ways, just not the borderline suicidal ones
Way too much sense. We’re gonna have to drown this out with a gallon of troll farm.
Ah yes, that time several years ago when the dems won last election, the republicans responded by “sliding left”. When the dems win 2024 the republicans will also be very civilized and non violent and slide even further left. Non-whites and LGBT people everywhere in America will be safer the night Joe Biden is elected than the night before, you heard it here from HauntedCupcake first!
You mostly don’t see it because they win inconsistently by a narrow margin. It would totally happen if the republicans weren’t so popular and the Dems kept winning. Hence the hypothetical.
The main issue is convincing the populace, but my point is more that the US has a way out of fascism, the public just need to recognise and want it
You acknowledge that you’re voting for a slightly slower descent into fascism but that you’ll continue to do so?
As opposed to a faster descent? Yes absolutely.
So your solution to avoiding fascism is to never lose an election?
My solution is to exercise my right to vote.
Yes, by all means, exercise your right to vote as you see fit. But if the only way we can avoid fascism is by never losing an election, shouldn’t we be seeking better ideas and stronger protections from fascism now before that plan fails?
If you don’t vote you’re not a part of the conversation. You obviously don’t have any grasp on how the election process works anyways, so why are you even keyboard warrioring this at all?
Go back to playing music, Jesse.
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You have a good point. Obviously we should vote for it to happen faster rather than try to use the slow descent to fix things.
Anyone that wants to accelerate things has never lived in the kind of world that they’re advocating for.
I had a teacher in school that was a Bosnian Muslim during the genocide of the Balkan wars. She, her older brother, and her mom made it out. I never heard her talk about her dad, so I don’t think that he did. She and her older brother would practice their drawing by the light of burning tires. The eventually escaped to England, and then got asylum in the US.
That’s what we’re trying to avoid.
I wonder how many accelerationists around here are fascists/explodingheads users. Fascists don’t fear the prospect of pretending to be something they aren’t if it means furthering their agenda.
They’re not afraid of posing as, say, a disenfranchised, discouraged and disillusioned left-winger who believes both sides are bad and there’s no future except revolution.
They’re not afraid to post about how “Genocide Joe” is funding genocide in Gaza while neglecting to point out how “Totalitarian Trump” would send B-52s to carpet bomb Gaza and the West Bank until nothing is left.
They’re not afraid to point out how red states are still succeeding in trampling over LGBT rights under Biden while also ignoring how Trump would almost certainly push for that nation-wide.
They’ll cry about our current supreme court justices while ignoring that Trump was the one who put those justices in power to begin with.
To be clear, I think the US is pretty far from saving and that it’ll take a miracle to save this country from ruin. However, I’d rather see the country collapse slowly and in a relatively controlled manner that gives people time to prepare for its demise; while also giving people time to attempt to patch and fix the holes.
Revolution is high risk, high reward; if the left-wing wins, then you might get the socialist utopia you’ve always dreamed of. However, what if the right-wing wins? Yanno, the people with the majority of privately owned guns in the US. What if they win?
A Trump presidency means your leftist revolution against a fascist government will almost certainly be opposed by both rednecks and the US military.
However, if the fascists revolt during a Biden presidency, then the military will likely be backing you.
In the event of armed revolution, the president, whether it’s Biden or Trump, will use the military to protect and reinforce their power. With Trump, opposition to his power will be coming from the left, so that’s who the military will target. With Biden, the opposition will come from the right, and so the military will target them instead.
Of course, that doesn’t mean you’ll get the leftist utopia you’ve always dreamed, but at least you’ll remove a lot of fascists from the equation. Removing those fascists means it’ll be easier for the country to swing to the left and stay there. It won’t happen overnight, but the result would likely be a government far more stable than if you tried to burn everything down and start over from scratch.
The reason why I say all this is because I feel that we are closing in on a revolution. Something is about to snap, and it will happen either during the elections or soon after. As such, you really, really don’t want Trump, because Trump means you’ll be fighting against the biggest, most well-funded and technologically equipped military in the world.
The air is tense and electric, filled with gasoline fumes and heated by our exhaust. The masses are shuffling to and from their workplaces, burned-out and overworked. They are struggling to afford rent, afford food, afford sleep and water. Static electricity is building on their shuffling bodies, and soon a spark will leap from an outstretched finger, igniting the air and bathing the US in fire.
I hope I’m wrong.
I agree. Although I’m not as pessimistic as you are, I truly believe that the US can become a socialist country, I’m young though 😅
I hadn’t considered some right wing bigots would be on here and was arguing with ppl. Thx! :)
Yeah, I’ll admit that I’m pretty jaded and cynical when it comes to politics and the future of humanity. I’m not all that old either, but I’m old enough to remember how it seemed like life was getting better until Trump took office, and how much the US tumbled as a result.
I’m old enough to remember when being left or right wing was a debate and not a fight between competing “truths”; and how the US left and right wing were sometimes willing to compromise on issues instead of fighting a culture war where they try and see how badly they can fuck up the US and still successfully blame the other party.
I’m old enough to remember when people typically trusted the news and science; and conspiracy theorists were amusing nutjobs at best, harmless annoyances at worst.
I’m old enough to remember when the idea of a Christian theocracy in the US was considered insane by anyone except the most extreme conservatives; while militias were something only domestic terrorists and the most extreme political radicals supported.
And I’m honestly, not that old. I just… I’ve watched the downward spiral and it seems like no one in power actually wants to stop it, which is why I’ve become so jaded and cynical. It’s why I think revolution is coming, and I’m just hoping that the political ideology I’m aligned with won’t be forced into fighting a losing war against the US military.
That’s why I think people should support Biden. No, he’s not a good person, and I don’t think he honestly has the best interests of America and the rest of the world in mind. Sure, he’s tried to do some good things like (unsuccessfully) forgiving student loans multiple times and showing support for America’s unions, however he’s still enabling Israel’s genocide and he’s still beholden to the corporations that fund his party (which means he’ll avoid real changes whenever possible). Yet, if Biden gets elected and the American right-wing revolts (I’m convinced they’ll try), then the US military will be fighting them, not us. If Trump gets elected then there may not even be a chance for revolution before cops start kicking people’s doors down.
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I would agree with you, but who’s working on fixing things? It’s looking close this time, and the historical pattern is that the Presidency flips parties when an incumbent can’t run. What’s the plan so we can ensure that a GQP authoritarian doesn’t win in 2028? This was the talking point in 2020, and very little happened; Biden’s AG even waited almost 3 years to appoint a special counsel, only after being buffaloed into it by the House January 6th committee, virtually ensuring that there trial will be delayed until after the election. And there’s still no action whatsoever to hold Bush administration officials accountable.
The plan is delay fascism while building networks for a communist revolution.
Or just GTFO of the country if you’re queer/nonwhite/disabled, and buy as much time as possible for the refugees to escape.
I’ve asked the question “what’s the plan to stop fascism in 2028?” several times now, with no other response, so I guess the answer is, “pull off a communist revolution in just 4 years.”
You know what is definitely not fixing it? Reassuring the Dems at every step that they will have your vote no matter what, as long as they are only slightly better than the Reps. Actually it is directly encouraging them to be at their possible worst.
Think of politicians as children and you as their parent. Do you think “reaffirm your child that no matter what it does, it will always get its favorite dessert” is a good parenting strategy? You raise egocentric psychopaths this way and this is exactly what you are getting as politicians.
That’s what the primary is for.
If you have a dem that no longer aligns with your interests, you vote them out during the primary.
But then you show up during the general, hold your nose, and vote Democrat.
Want to know why?
Because the Republicans will vote Republican no matter what and we’ve unfortunately pushed our democracy to the point where we either vote for the somewhat okay guy or the guy that will bite your face off.
Yes, the dnc money machine is definitely allowing that. /s
I’m not noticing any part of “I’ll accept anything” that’s particularly conducive to fixing things
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Hear me out…
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Invent time machine
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?
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The candidate I want most gets elected.
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And 5 month ago it was double that time and people already screamed that pointing out that an alternative to two genocidal geriatrics is needed were screamed down as being Trump puppets.
We already wasted half of that time to find a solution with people being vigorously opposed to demanding a solution as they are afraid to lose the status quo.
Cmon dude, we can read your history.
People are not calling you a Trump puppet because you criticise Biden. People are arguing with you because you think not voting is a solution that Democrats are actually affected by.
By not voting, you just ensure the person you want the least to be in office wins (Trump). There’s plenty of shills trying to discourage people from voting with that rhetoric. Republicans only win when dems don’t show up.
The political cycle is not 10 months long. Or 24. Or 48.
If you want change, you need to be involved in pushing over a large number of heavy objects over a long period of time. No one candidate, no one election, is going to change anything.
Because your damn country isn’t “descending into fascism”, it’s been bathing in it for centuries, and every time there’s someone trying to lift y’all kicking and screaming out of it just a little bit, the totalitarians crop up to try and self-destruct it all. Then, suddenly, a bunch of you come out of the woodwork to declare that it’s better to blow it all up, actually, than to do literally anything to stop it, because you believe there should be a quick and easy solution, and everyone else around you is just an idiot for not seeing it.
But you only believe that because you’re some kind of self-important, hubris-huffing sucker.
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It’s more than yes/no to fascism.
In a democratic political party you can influence the politics democratically. In a fascist party: Not possible.
The country does not need to hit rock bottom before it can improve. It can be changed democratically from within if you allow it to by voting for anything but the party that will take away that possibility.
Why would the democratic party listen to anything you have to say if they know you’ll vote for them regardless?
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Clinton lost 2016 in part because people were unhappy with her over Sanders
Because of primaries
You need to go take a civics class and stop trying to suppress the leftwing vote. Do you expect anyone to sit down and explain to you how campaigning for issues works? Do you expect us to list every decent win “the left” has gotten the last 5-10 years?
What have you gotten accomplished? What have you even participated in?
Just because you sit in a basement unplugged from reality, doomscrolling, doesn’t mean the rest of should sit here and take advice from you. You admit you just want fascism faster.
Bad-faith, accelerationist, useful idiot. If it weren’t so cliche I’d call you Vlad.
That was a lot of words to not even attempt to answer a very simple question
Bad-faith, accelerationist
I like the self awareness displayed by calling me bad faith and then immediately reiterating the thing you just made up about me and decided was true based on what seems to be a deliberately bad interpretation of my original comment.
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How do you think a political party comes up with ideas in the first place?
You’re just an accelerationist. Fatalism, nihilism, apathy, hopeless, etc aren’t anything new, most of us disagree with you. I wonder if your outlook would improve if you got therapy or if you had a little skin in the game and stood to lose something.
If they were an accelerationist, wouldn’t they be voting for Trump?
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Not necessarily.
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Who says they aren’t?
Not necessarily
Why not? You’re claiming they’re operating on a principle of trying to accelerate collapse, and that Trump is the candidate to do that. But this is completely inconsistent with what the person is saying they’ll do. It doesn’t explain their behavior.
Who says they aren’t?
So we’re just making things up whole cloth about people now?
It’s cute of you to step in to defend your alt account, but you can’t be serious.
They’re an accelerationist, for whatever reason, they want collapse. The quicker it happens the better, they admitted as much above.
You’re supposing that Trump is the candidate to do that, I think most of lemmy would agree with you so I’ll cede that point.
That point ceded, we can agree most of lemmy won’t vote for Trump right? So what would be the point of talking about voting Trump here? It’s far more effective for the accelerationist (who likely isn’t conservative anyway) to be a “leftist” who’s so disgusted with how corrupt and unfair the system is they simply just check out and encourage others to check out as well, “both sides are the same” of course.
So we’re just making things up whole cloth about people now?
We’re inferring things, it’s quite a bit different comrade.
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Yes the point of my comment was that I want fascism faster well done
The little bit you have actually said has indicated that and you have done absolutely nothing to refute it so my advice is that sarcasm only works when the targeted recipient of it has been shown you would only say it sarcastically.
In what world would any person make that argument ?
Assuming you’re not voting…
Do you acknowledge that you’re voting for a coin toss between a slower descent or a faster descent into fascism? Averaging out to you being in favor of an even faster descent into fascism than the person you replied to?
That’s not what not voting is, no
Do you acknowledge that voting for a candidate enacting bad policies is voting for those bad policies
Yes but not voting for that candidate is effectively just like voting for the other even worse guy.
I mean we both know that Biden ain’t great, but Trump? Trump is far fuckXng worse! Don’t like the genocide ? Biden is wayyyyyy more likely to sign a ceasefire than Trump. Want Trans Rights? Biden doesn’t care, Trump wants to remove them. I’d rather have Biden’s apathy than Trump’s hate.
There is a Contrapoints video abt this : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3Vah8sUFgI
Contrapoints didn’t make that video in the context of a genocide.
You know what would force Biden to provide actually decent politics? If people demanded them and withhold their vote otherwise. And you know who would rather want Trump to win, than provide adequate protection of human rights, including Trans rights? Joe Biden, the guy you want to vote for. The DNC and him are laughing their asses off together with the Reps that no matter what, you will keep letting them get away with it.
So you’re willing to risk letting Trump win AGAIN just so you can own Biden? Like honey no… watch the video it explains it much better than I do.
So what do you suppose we do? Start a revolution against the biggest military on earth? I believe America needs to stop having a two party system, this way there is more chance someone like Bernie gets elected. But alas who will vote for them…
Tell Biden to either stop the bullshit or not get your vote and mean it, for instance by backing it up with demonstrations.
And then?
I already said this somewhere else but please vote, not voting for Biden is essentially like voting for Trump. And once Biden is in you can be as mad as you want against him, protest and shit, because Biden might actually listen, Trump would never.
because Biden might actually listen,
Why would he listen if he knows he can have your vote regardless
No, it’s not “essentially like voting for Trump”. It’s voting for the person you voted for. What is the fundamental difference between voting for Biden and voting for a different candidate in the event of a Trump victory? There is none. Do not shame the voters. Shame the politicians into acting in a way deserving of leadership.
So what if voting blue will end up with innocent people dying? Their sacrifice for my freedom will not go without honor. I will enshrine their lives with a statue commemorating their bravery in the fight for my freedom. The lives of innocent trans people, black people, and Palestinian children is a steep cost but it’s one I’m willing to spend for me to go to Starbucks and get a latte for $9. Who’s to say my life is worth more than theirs? Well Joe Biden made that determination for us, so I believe that’s right! I’m glad it’s a bunch of random black and brown people getting blown to bits for my right to vote, not me!
Consider that endorsing an awful candidate in Biden will help get Trump elected.
How the hell did you come to that idiotic conclusion?
- You dont even like your candidate, why should i come to your side instead of you come to mine?
Because one stands a chance of winning, the other does not.
whichever side we support stands a chance of winning. They aint gonna compete in a game of skill in November, they’re gonna ask us who wins and we decide.
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as long as you still vote for biden. hold your nose if you must. i know i will be…
That’s how I was voting for Hillary, and I almost actually vomited, for all the good that did me.
if more had also done that, we wouldn’t be here now
If she had bothered to campaign in the Midwest and had just generally been a much better candidate, more people would have.
It’s the job of a politician to earn votes and faithfully represent the priorities of the majority of the voters. People like Hillary, Biden, Schumer and the rest of the Dem leadership seldom do either.
It’s also the job of the electorate to educate themselves on the consequences of their vote (and non-vote). Don’t act like nobody knew who Trump was, what he had already done, or was listening to what he was saying.
Not job, DUTY. Otherwise I get your point. I’d like to add that it is also the duty of those more educated to try to educate others in a non-hostile, factual, and rhetorically effective way in order to bolster the numbers of people who can make informed/educated decisions on these things.
Again you are completely taking Biden out of his responsibility. Why do you want to vote for a guy that rather wants to lose to Trump, than provide decent policies around basic human rights, like the right not to get genocided?
Biden and the DNC rulers are a group of psychopaths. They will not care as long as they get the money form their rich donors, who don’t care if Biden or Trump is doing their bidding.
“I don’t like Biden’s support for Israel’s genocide so I’m going to make it more likely that the guy who would support Israel’s genocide even more gets into office.”
Incredibly dumb take.
“I am telling my politicians that they dont need to listen to me, they will get my vote no matter what. Oh why do they never listen to me?”
Incredible big brain take.
Again you are completely taking Biden out of his responsibility.
Ve done nothing of the sort. If you think anything I’ve said even comes close to that, you’re hallucinating. Or lying.
Why do you want to vote for a guy that rather wants to lose to Trump, than provide decent policies around basic human rights, like the right not to get genocided?
That’s such a loaded question and so absurdly fallacious on its face, I’m not going to even dignify it by answering it, but I will say that you clearly don’t care what I want, just to push an agenda.
But, since you didn’t ask, what I want is for Trump to lose, and that math is simple: any vote not for Biden helps Trump, and no matter how much you dislike Biden, Trump will be 1000x worse. We know, because Trump has promised that.
Biden and the DNC rulers are a group of psychopaths.
Compared to Trump, they’re saints, and if you can’t see that, you’re clearly incapable of rational discourse on the matter. Or you’re clearly here to feebly undermine confidence in Biden in support of Trump.
Either way, your argument is transparent, fact-free, and little more than Fox News fodder.
By voting Biden you declare your support of his policies. That is the fundamental way of how democracies work. You vote your representative because you think he is representing you.
By attacking anyone who says you shouldn’t approve of genocide as your representation you abolish your representative from his responsibility of not supporting genocide and instead blame it on the people who think that genocide is never an acceptable representation for them.
For you individually as a citizen there is only one legal way to hold a politician responsible. And that is by denying them further support in the next election. Now if it comes to group action through demonstrations, unions, lobbying etc. that is great and even better to do. But if it is down to you and the ballot the only direct thing is to declare before what your political demands are and vote accordingly. If your demand is “genocide is okay” then you will have to make that up with your consciousness, the victims and survivors and eventually towards future generations.
It’s also the job of the electorate to educate themselves on the consequences of their vote (and non-vote).
It actually isn’t, no. Nobody is paying them to do that and, in the case of millions if not tens of people who are amongst the working poor because of the kind of economic policy the Dems have been putting out ever since she and her husband remade the party in their own image in 1992, they aren’t realistically able to with neither candidates nor mainstream media helping them sort the wheat from the chaff.
When you’re already working 60 hours a week trying (and often failing) to make ends meet on top on whatever family commitments you may have, you can’t be expected to have energy left to fact check candidates and media outlets for free. It’s simply not that voter’s responsibility to keep powerful and well-paid people honest.
Don’t act like nobody knew who Trump was, what he had already done, or was listening to what he was saying.
Then maybe Hillary and the media shouldn’t shouldn’t have done all they could to make sure he became the candidate!
That the fascist ever got anywhere near the nomination, let alone the presidency itself, is hundreds of times more the fault of the rich and powerful people paid to prevent it than the people they failed to convince to vote for an evil, however lesser it would have been.
It actually isn’t, no. Nobody is paying them to do that
That is the worst and most entitled excuse for the abandonment for any and all personal responsibility since I heard my 3-year-old niece try to convince my brother she should never have to wipe her own butt because he will always be there to do it for her.
Wow. Shame on you.
People don’t take their citizenship seriously, it seems.
Clearly, you didn’t understand what I was trying to explain any better than your niece would have.
If anyone’s abandoning personal responsibility, it’s the awful candidates who don’t do their job and then blame people who suffer for it much more than the candidates ever will.
I’m not saying that it’s a good or even neutral thing to not vote for the lesser evil when only evils are available. Of course that’s had.
I’m saying that it’s the responsibility of the candidates to not be evil and to convince enough voters of it that the greater evil doesn’t win.
I honestly regret not voting for Hillary. I didn’t vote for Trump either, I voted third-party because I thought Hillary was going to win, and even if she didn’t win, what’s the worst Trump could do, huh? So I figured it wouldn’t hurt to vote for a third-party with the hope they’d get enough points to be on the debate stage during the next general election.
Granted, my vote probably wouldn’t have made a difference. Tbh, considering I live in a state with winner-takes-all voting, I’m not even sure my vote actually matters now; but I’m still going to vote for Biden. It’s better than assuming he’ll win and risking another Trump victory.
Yes, I know I’m not the main character and I’m only one person. I know that changing my vote alone won’t make a difference. However, what might make a difference is if I talk about my reasoning in a public forum. Then, people might stop, read my post, and change their minds. Now, it’s not one vote, it’s two. They might spread their view as well, and two votes becomes four. Four votes becomes eight; and eight becomes sixteen. As small as that sounds, sixteen votes can make all the difference in an election. There are elections that have come down to one or two votes.
I did the same thing, in a solidly blue state, with the same thought processes; I voted for Jill Stein. Even after Trump won, I figured he couldn’t fuck it up too badly. I even thought he might manage to get one thing right (I’m very solidly pro-2A), but nope, he couldn’t even do that.
Biden isn’t nearly far enough left for me. But I’ll vote for him without even a hint of hesitation, because he’s so much better than the only realistic possibility. And I live in a purple state now, so it might end up mattering.
*in certain states
She won the popular vote, she lost the electoral vote. Where you live MATTERS towards your vote in this country, by design, for situations like this
It sucks but yeah. I’ll be holding my nose this election even though Biden has no chance in my state.
Nother reminder: not voting for biden isvoting for trump regardless if you support either of them
Not voting for Biden is the same thing as voting for Trump.
Voting for Biden doesn’t mean supporting him. It means preventing Trump from becoming president.
Sure, but if you can and don’t vote for Biden it means you’re at least ok with Trump.
I’m not going to tell anybody what to do or who to vote for but one of two things are very likely to happen at the end of this election:
- Biden is re-elected. We continue with the status quo. We have a chance to make small incremental steps toward a better future.
- Trump is elected. Two Supreme Court justices retire and Trump appoints two more. At that point he will have appointed FIVE of NINE Supreme Court justices. We have already seen what they’re willing to do. Imagine what they will do in the literal decades to come.
Choose what you want to do, but take responsibility for your choice. Vote in your local elections. Big changes can happen from the ground up.
It’s the federal judge appointments that matter and almost nothing else. Most of what he does can be undone except for that… It would cause a generation of damage.
"But take responsibility for your choices"strikes me as hilarious. Voting is not public. In a democracy with private polling,hardly anybody takes responsibility for their choices. Actually, zero percent. That is why the elected president is never popular for like the first year in office. Wouldn’t it be lovely if people assumed their responsibility for making choices, though? I would be on speaking terms with so many people from my past if they actually learned from their own stupidity.
You won’t get big changes voting for Biden or Trump. Just more of the same.
I’d say the changes from voting for Trump are pretty big.
Pretty big changes have resulted from the previous Trump presidency. Any reason why you think this one will be ineffectual?
Sorry, you will get big changes voting for Trump. becasue too much is already in place to make those types of changes happen. I dont agree with these changes, but to say they are the “same” is a dangerous opinion.
The person at the top is needed to green light policy… those lower down present such policy… While this can seem boring it is important, since while by definition the president will be at the center of their party. If the party you vote for is most interested in vetoing everything of the other party… even if they agree with the law in general, there is no progress.
Of course you must do more than just vote for the least bad president to make the change happen… However if you can’t at least do that you own the results os the OP said.
Are you familiar with Project 2025?
Roe v Wade being overturned was not “more of the same”
The system protects itself. There is no path for a third party straight to the top. Split the vote sufficiently and the House decides.
Criticizing our leaders is one of the core principals of democracy.
Voting is also a core principal. So please stop encouraging non-participation.
I voted for Gary Johnson because Hillary sounded awful in 2016 and I 1000x regret it. Fuck this system for making me choose between bad and worse, but yes obviously I have to choose bad over worse.
Fuck this system for making me choose between bad and worse
Don’t make me defend the US voting system but that is not how it works. Primaries exist and that’s where voters make the case for a specific person. The large, general, national elections are for forming coalitions and compromising. This is what we do to decide who gets power instead of physically fighting. There will never, ever be a time when a single candidate is the ideal choice for a majority of Americans. Compromise is a core tenant of democracy and by definition it means nobody gets everything they want.
And while we’re on the topic, 99% of leftists understand this. Anyone telling you “voting doesn’t matter” or that “both candidates are the same” is just trying to reverse the progress that’s already been made.
Most of what you said is spot on but you originally quoted about choosing between bad and worse.
I get what you’re saying about the primary system, but even that is broken. Incumbents are almost never primaried. Typically the party will not allow it. There also needs to be consideration of what primarying an incumbent could mean. It’s unlikely any of the challengers would win and in the process they would burn through campaign money and highlight weaknesses in the winner’s record and character that could be used by the opposing party.
We do have a primary, but it may not always give the best candidate. If argue only a portion of people who vote in a general even vote in the primary.
Primaries exist
Unless your state votes for a progressive in the previous presidential primary, like New Hampshire did.
so you said hmmm these two candidates are terrible who can i find that is even worse?
Kenneth Copeland
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It doesn’t lead us to the same place but slower, at least not everywhere. One party has rolled back abortion protections, equal rights protections, bans books, and a host of other regressive policies. Democrats didn’t do that. Democrats might keep status quo, but the Republican agenda is literally to move us backwards to a worse place (though if they wanna move us back to when the highest marginal tax rate was 90% I could be onboard with that part at least).
Once Republicans move us backwards, where we wind up is the new status quo that Democrats keep.
That’s not true at all. Biden specifically has protected more public spaces and land, while Trump specifically attempted to lease / sell / make available more of it to corporate interests. Net neutrality is being restored after it was rolled back under Ajit Pai. We can be frustrated democrats don’t do enough, or aren’t further left, but to say they keep the status quo at the regressive place republicans want to take us is demonstrably wrong. So while maybe they won’t expand affordable care beyond where it currently is, they’ll at least keep it where it is and restore it if possible. If they won’t add new parks, they at least protect the ones we have and cancel corporate interest on existing ones. If they won’t raise the taxes heavily on the rich (which is where I think they’re most guilty of “status quo”), they at least won’t give them trillions in tax breaks like Trump did.
That’s not true at all. Biden specifically has protected more public spaces and land, while Trump specifically attempted to lease / sell / make available more of it to corporate interests.
Net neutrality is being restored after it was rolled back under Ajit Pai.
I’ll consider it an accomplishment when you can speak of it in the past tense.
We can be frustrated democrats don’t do enough, or aren’t further left, but to say they keep the status quo at the regressive place republicans want to take us is demonstrably wrong.
I live near the Texas/Mexico border. Democrats just recently adopted what is essentially Republican policy regarding border security. Republicans did the predictable thing and moved to the right, and now Republicans’ previous position is Democrats’ reasonable moderate stance.
When Trump said that he wasn’t going to support a nationwide abortion ban and instead let the states decide, Democrats said he was just pretending to be moderate on the issue. And suddenly the patchwork of abortion bans is the moderate position.
I can post articles as well.
https://apnews.com/article/biden-public-lands-conservation-leases-40b5f47203bbe92a1186a1a4e9e0ea5d
Note that repeals of policies means someone had to have passed it originally. Guess who passed net neutrality originally? Guess who passed the clean water rule? Guess who passed affordable care act? Oh, it seems democrats actually do move us left.
I also live in Texas, a state controlled by Republican interests for the past 20 years. Let’s look instead at locations where a state flipped blue. Just by one example, Michigan then passed a statewide constitutional amendment protecting abortion. You may be upset that we have to get statewide protections passed, but we only have to do that because Republican judges went against some 50 odd years of precedent to force it. So democrats are actually enshrining the very thing that Republicans took away.
Look, you can troll all day and pretend that Democrats are just as bad as republicans, but that’s absolutely wrong on so many issues, and frankly I’m going to exercise my right to vote for the party that will protect the things I want protected and move us further left.
Like logically, you should vote for the furthest left candidate that can actually win the election at every level. Anything less than that and you’re contributing to moving the country to the right. Reap what you sow and what not…
I love how the immediate assumption in response to criticism is that the critic must be voting third party, not voting, or voting for Trump.
And the Democrats are just watching that happen. Doing nothing to stop it. Now the Democrats are cheering the police on while they brutalize Pro Palestine protestors. The second they think they can jettison minority support they will. They’ve shown they’re willing to support morally reprehensible actions. It’s just circumstances that place them closer to minorities for now.
What would you like the Democrats to do?
They are not in control of the House (which is in control of the purse strings) and “have” a razor thin “majority” in Senate (minus DINOs and plus veep).
And they don’t have SCOTUS. And Trump had a record number of lower court appointments (because McConnel slowed a huge chunk down in Obama’s final year, not just Garland).
So, are you suggesting that Biden act unilaterally? Because that is fascism. That’s what we’re trying to avoid here.
The funny thing is, Republicans would. They have no respect for the law and order that they claim to hold near and dear.
And that’s what the election is, really. Fascism, or status quo.
Biden isn’t the only hope. He’s just a part of the only hope. Dems must not only hold the executive but also gain seats in both house and Senate.
Because here’s the other thing (that nobody is talking about), and that’s the Biden v Trump is only a very small part. One third of Senate, and all of the house, are up for vote this year. It’s quite possible for either party to end up with a significant majority in either or both houses.
I would much, much prefer the current democratic party to be in control of two branches, than the current Republican party being in charge of two. All three? Fuck.
Ahhh the paradox of liberalism. We can’t do anything for fear they’ll do something in return!
I want them to grow some balls. I want them to withhold funding for federal programs being misused. I want them to arrest police officers and school officials on civil rights charges that are already on the books. I don’t care if SCOTUS walks in and undoes it all. Every time they do that they add more weight to the reform SCOTUS position. I want them to look at bad police departments and tell them they can’t get free military equipment. I want to see the modern equivalent of the 101st escorting a black student to school.
This idea that we can’t engage until we have everything lined up perfectly is just an excuse to do nothing and watch trans kids get killed. But it’s okay, we voted for the blue guy!
There is action happening, and there is hope
And there are some pretty cool things happening under the surface
I see it as damage control while these grassroots attempts at major system changes take hold. We’re holding off the assault while we wait for the calvary to come, but they are coming. We just have to not blow their chance.
Yeah but I’m mad Max and even though I make no effort to better anything now, if everything falls apart I’m going to all of a sudden have motivation and rise to the top, because this is my story and I’m the main character!
Or what you can do is what you’re supposed to do: work from the ground up. Presidential vote is not the place to drastically change things. As long as we have fptp, the vote for president is always going to have to be a strategic “vote for the candidate that sucks less.”
Face the facts, if everything falls apart you’re not going to end up on top of you’re on the bottom now. It’s just going to be even more shitty for you, and you’ll then end up in another shitty system.
The idea is to implement the change locally and work up. That takes time and effort tho. If you want the system to work better, vote strategically federally and then work locally to get the people you want elected.
Hillary won the popular vote in 2016 by a nearly 3 million vote margin, I don’t think you need to feel any regret over your one vote going to someone else you actually wanted to vote for.
Also, even if she’d lost the popular vote too, it ain’t the voters fault that the DNC keeps deliberately sabotaging the good candidates in their primaries to give us turds.
I appreciate the sentiment but I think my regret is more tied to the fact that I very much fell for the white supremacist men’s rights activism and homophobic rhetoric of the time, and me voting for Gary Johnson over Hillary feels like a symptom of that fact as well, and I deeply regret falling for that bullshit.
Like it or not, Clinton destroyed sanders. The DNC definitely showed a bias for her, but by no stretch of the imagination was he sabotaged. This narrative is the same BS that trump supporters spew that the media was unfair to trump which is part of the reason he lost.
The reality is that sanders just doesn’t (unfortunately) represent the average Democrat. People like Clinton and Biden do.
That’s kind of a circular logic though; the DNC alienates voters who don’t like their blessed candidates. If they didn’t do that, and more leftist candidates like Sanders were welcomed, then the “average Democrat” might look a bit different.
You know there are other offices than president right?
You want a further left president, you’re going to need to show that a lot of people want a further left president, by having a lot of further left politicians in state and local offices.
You don’t just jump right to the Whitehouse. The presidents politics are a reflection of the politics of the whole party, not the other way around. IDK if you watched the GOP primary debates in 2016, but it was very much an “everybody sucks here” kind of event. Each candidate might have been a little more reasonable on one of two smaller issues, but all in all they were much the same. The only thing different Trump had was charisma and campaign stamina.
No reason you can’t vote for more progressive candidates for presidential primaries, but there’s no sense in holding such a grudge when the party outlier loses. It’s kinda obvious from the get-go that that’s going to happen. And that’s fine. There’s nothing wrong with voting for a loser, and a popular loser can easily land a cabinet position where they could still have a very significant voice.
You know there are other offices than president right?
You want a further left president, you’re going to need to show that a lot of people want a further left president, by having a lot of further left politicians in state and local offices.
I’ve seen the Democratic Party put its thumb on the scale for centrists at the congressional level: Henry Cuellar. I’ve seen them pull the rug out from under progressives who manage to win the primary, also at the congressional level: Michelle Vallejo.
Progressives cannot do as you describe when the party shuts them out at the lower levels as well.
There’s actual evidence of sabotage tho, such as Hillary getting early access to debate questions, Shadow company (not even kidding they actually fucking named themselves that, look it up) being run by DNC members being in charge of tabulating voting in some states, and more.
They were even taken to court for it and admitted to some wrong doing, but nothing could be done since apparently the DNC is a private entity and no laws are broken. Legally they can screw over any candidate they want.
Most are referring to the way our current electoral system works. Voting 3rd party helps the Republicans even if its not intentional.
Yup, and the only way out of that is Ranked Choice Voting.
Go volunteer for your local RCV group, California’s is here: https://www.calrcv.org/
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Nobody thinks its a magic bullet, we’re all looking for the next rung that leads us closer to a happy democracy. None of us are looking for instant easy solutions, we’re trying to iterate and be better.
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In other words, It’s necessary but not sufficient for reforming the two party system.
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Obligatory: “Ranked Choice” is a specific use of ranked ballots. It’s subpar. It beats what we’re doing now, but anything beats what we’re doing now.
What you want is a Condorcet method like Ranked Pairs, where the winner is whoever beats everyone else. RCV just picks whoever can scrounge together 50% first. RCV would not elect a candidate who is literally everyone’s second choice. Ranked Pairs would.
The simple alternative is Approval Voting, where you let people check all the names they like. It matches Condorcet results… somehow. There is no good reason we’re not using it everywhere.
Approval Voting seems to just dilute your vote the more candidates you vote for. Candidates will tell people people to only place one vote. What a silly system.
Your worst-case scenario is how things currently work.
Realistically, people will just ignore that shite advice, and vote for as many people as they feel like. It works out on average.
But ranked choice is easy to implement and in practice if everyone would put a candidate second they aren’t likely to be knocked out in the first round. There are very limited practical examples where it doesn’t provide the optimal outcome.
It also seems to have some level of support and momentum in the US and it seems to me like it’d be better not to get caught in the weeds fighting over which new voting system should be implemented there.
Approval is trivial.
Ranked Pairs has the same ballots as Ranked Choice and it works the way people think ranked ballots work.
RCV has momentum primarily because people keep using the name to mean “ranked ballots.”
This is absurd. Take a look at the polls. There is only one 3rd-party candidate with double digit percentages. Do you really think JFK is taking more votes from Biden than Trump?
Taking the risk because you think you know something you can’t know is what’s absurd
I never made any indication on how I’m voting. I’m just tired of this baseless claim that voting 3rd party only helps Trump. Polls excluding 3rd-parties show Trump significantly further ahead than those with 3rd-parties. Therefore, Biden’s only chance of winning is due to JFK capturing conservative votes.
TIL “how America works” = “baseless claim”
What is “how America works” in this context? You seem to be trying to make the point that 3rd-party voting only hurts Biden. I’m pointing to recent polling that shows that, when 3rd-party options are included, Biden’s margins get closer to victory. You should be thanking 3rd-parties if you are hoping for a Biden victory.
So polling, that thing that told us trump couldn’t have won in 2016, makes another prediction, eh?
Yet Robert Reich has said the same thing.
Maybe. A lot of folks only know him for his good environmental stance and see him as the rightful Democrat candidate.
They don’t see his antivax bullshit and leaky brain from WiFi.
A different way to think about it - most of the intended audience on Lemmy, and especially in this community, would’ve voted democrat instead of republican. So from the frame of reference of this post, most folks here claiming to vote third party did in fact have their vote “taken” from Biden.
Unfortunately, the US political system does not have a feature to “dislike” all the candidates. Not without a major, probably bloody, revolution, anyway. Your choice is to support and pick one candidate, or let everyone else pick the candidate for you.
Liberal democracy has to win every election, fascism only has to win one. Good job if you win in 2024, now do it again every 4 years
Ok but what no leftie has yet explained is who has asked them to like Biden? Probably nobody who votes for Biden last time or this time around thinks he’s “teh awesome”, we’re simply grown ups who are able to tell which is the least bad option. Honestly lefties (if they aren’t just groipers posing as lefties) who think it’s a hot take to say Biden isn’t the optimal person to be President are all suffering from Captain Obvious syndrome while thinking they’re the cleverest people ever. It’s cringe.
Ok but what no leftie has yet explained is who has asked them to like Biden?
Criticism of Biden on this platform is reliably interpreted as support for Trump.
That’s how it is in a highly polarised country where every vote is needed to avoid the end of democracy and possibly domestic genocide on POC and immigrants.
Is there ever going to be a time when it is acceptable to criticize Biden? Because I very much expect that there will always be some criterion that must first be met before criticism is permissable.
You’re like the right wing chuds who loudly say “you’re not allowed to say things anymore” while saying those things. Actually you’re no different at all from them, it’s true that if you go far left enough you’ll end up on the far right.
Yes, everyone to your left is all the way to your right.
No just you
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Critiques are necessary. We don’t owe electors loyalty. They owe us representation.
With that being said, when it comes to voting, inaction is action.
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I’m sorry if my comment implied disagreement. It was meant to support and reinforce your point, not counter it.
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No worries. I wrote with conviction. I see how that can come across as argumentative.
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You owe it to the country to not hand our government over to fascism. Voting for the immediate alternative isn’t a blood pact.
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It’s an idiot trying to make a terrible point.
Fuck your analogy.
One of two people is going to be in charge of the country seven months from now. You can have the boring liberal with an awful allegiance to a questionable ally run by a power-hungry bastard… or you can have our very own power-hungry bastard, who is also going to give the aforementioned bastard everything he wants.
Don’t choose more evil.
Yeah, but… Oftentimes criticizing Biden helps trump. I’d rather not even risk it at this point.
Can we spend more energy celebrating that trump is NOT the president and how bad it would be if he comes back?
