My impression is that contrary to the headline, this isn’t a young vs old thing, but a follows-the-news vs doesn’t-follow-news thing

  • Zorque@lemmy.world
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    3 days ago

    Shockingly enough, there’s things called “primaries” where you can show the fuck up and get these fossils out for people who actually act in the best interest of their citizenry.

    The catch being the “showing the fuck up” part.

    • yunxiaoli@sh.itjust.works
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      2 days ago

      This assumes the party allows a primary challenger to any arbitrary seat. Usually they don’t for safe seats. Or at risk seats. Or any seats where the currently elected member is making them money.

      • Zorque@lemmy.world
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        2 days ago

        Yes, we can dither and make excuses all we like, but if we never try, nothing happens anyways.

        Might as well try, yeah? Unless of course we just want to complain about how the system is unfair and not actually do anything to change it.

        • yunxiaoli@sh.itjust.works
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          2 days ago

          And you think doing the exact same thing over and over is “trying”?

          We’ve been doing things to try to change the system, but mainstream Dems, white liberals, tend to call us radical criminals, terrorists, and damaging to progress. When we try we get shot in the back. When we try we get anonymously reported by someone ‘that agrees with our ideals but not our actions’.

          So hopefully now that you people will be suffering too, you might not stab us in the back this time when things get a little uncomfy for white liberals.

          • Zorque@lemmy.world
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            2 days ago

            I think coming at it from the angle of “doing the same thing over and over” is incredibly disingenuous.

            Voter participation is abysmally low. Local elections in my area have a turnout of 10%. And that’s a high. If people actually showed up, that’d be something different.

            Instead of pushing “do nothing and hope things change”, which is what we’ve been doing for decades, maybe we should have change and show the fuck up.

            • yunxiaoli@sh.itjust.works
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              2 days ago

              Voter participation is low because every time people do turn out, they’re reminded there are no politicians that will work for the workers.

              • Zorque@lemmy.world
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                2 days ago

                People haven’t turned out. Voter participation is abyssmal. Just because you personally have not seen universal and positive change from your own vote immediately does not mean it can never ever work.

                Voter participation is low because dipshits like you keep saying “See? Your life hasn’t irrevocably changed because of this one election! There’s no point in doing the absolute bare minimum! Better to sit at home and complain about how everything is broken and hope that someone else does something radical and meaningful about it!”

                Maybe stop treating everything like a winner-take-all competition and realize that we won’t see effective long term change except through repeated concerted effort where you keep showing up. Even if you see setbacks. We might actually achieve something.

                But I guess if you’d rather give up because you haven’t gotten what you want immediately, that’s entirely up to you.

                • yunxiaoli@sh.itjust.works
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                  2 days ago

                  You will never get more than the 65% turn out of 2020. You just won’t. Because when the Dems win, it’s never enough. You never get enough, you never have enough, but the Republicans always have enough to get their legislation through, even as a minority.

                  Stop making excuses for oligarchs. It’s pathetic.

    • AtariDump@lemmy.world
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      2 days ago

      Difficult in a state where you have to declare a party (and “none” doesn’t count; they only recognize R or D)

      • Zorque@lemmy.world
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        2 days ago

        Sounds like it’s as easy as declaring a party. Are there some strange initiation rituals you need to go through to declare? Sacrifice a goat or something?

          • Zorque@lemmy.world
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            2 days ago

            Then you can watch as things don’t change because of your stubborn pride.

            You can declare a party to vote in an election and remain philosophically independent, that’s always been allowed.

            • AtariDump@lemmy.world
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              2 days ago

              This right here is why people don’t vote in the primaries and instead of saying, “huh, you’re right, you shouldn’t have to register with a party” you’re doubling down on your horrid stance.

              • Zorque@lemmy.world
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                2 days ago

                You’re right! The system sucks!

                The problem is, if you don’t do anything but complain about it, at best it stays the same. More likely it gets worse.

                But sure, fine, you’re mildly inconvenienced. That’s totally an intelligent and rational reason to sit on your ass and complain rather than doing something about it.

          • lemonskate@lemmy.world
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            2 days ago

            Well I suppose you could always whine about it online instead?

            It costs you nothing to register as a Dem so you can vote against these fuckers in the primaries, except maybe some worthless sense of idealogical purity.

            • AtariDump@lemmy.world
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              2 days ago

              I have 0 desire to be mercilessly spammed by the Dems or Repubs because I registered with their party.

              Plus no one but me should know / needs to know my party affiliation. In today’s day and age of wanting more privacy, this is part of it. I don’t want to be on the wrong side of history because I was registered with a party.