[Transcription]
tinymoves
to be honest it would make me a lot more comfortable if you guys would show a little concern about trump running for president again. Do not inbox me and say you don’t like joe biden omg i already know. but can we show a little concern. about donald trump. being the republican candidate for president. for the third election in a row.
parentheticalaside
Also maybe you can focus a little more on how Trump won’t stop fucking running and a little less on the incumbent president running for reelection once, which is the natural path that is not at all weird. Like, the fact that it’s these same two guys again is Trump’s fault, not Biden’s. What Biden
is doing is normal. What Trump is doing is very much not.
theroguefeminist
Going to come out here and say this: if you do not vote for Biden, you are voting for Trump. | literally do not care what horde of leftists with the memory span of a goldfish come for me for saying this. A third party vote is no vote. No vote is a vote for Trump. If you care at all about saving democracy in this country long enough to elect someone better than Biden, vote for Biden. Not voting for Biden is a vote for a dictator and a vote for the end of democracy. As bad as things are, we saw they can get so much worse. And | do not want to hear the same people saying not to vote for Biden crying when shit hits the fan if Trump wins.
If you care about trans people’s rights. If you care about abortion rights. If you care about immigrants’ rights. If you care about global warming. Literally any issue under the sun, will be made worse by Trump in every conceivable way imaginable.
| have a hard time fathoming how people are
still saying Trump and Biden are the same after everything that has happened. A quick Google
on Biden’s policies on every progressive issue vs Trump will tell you the opposite. Yeah, Biden is a shitty moderate liberal who supports Israel. So
is literally every single other US president that has ever fucking existed. Voting for a third party candidate will not help Palestine. It will literally only escalate things and make them even worse if Trump wins. In every conceivable way imaginable.
If you aren’t going to vote, then at least have the decency to stop pretending like what you are doing has any remotely positive impact. It does not. There is nothing virtuous or admirable about abstaining (and a third party vote is abstaining). We went through this in 2016. | thought people would have learned by now. But here we are again in 2024. If Trump wins, blood is on your hands and you didn’t do even the one easiest thing you could do to stop it from happening.
synnefa-kyria
The DNC was never going to nominate another primary candidate over the incumbent, the sitting president, who is in charge of the entire Democratic party.
| don’t think the sun shines out of Biden’s ass, guys, but please look at the bigger picture here.
Our presidential election is not ranked choice and is not won by a majority of over 50%. It is a two party system that is won by plurality; whoever gets the biggest slice of votes, even if it’s under 50%, is the winner and they take all. First the district, then the state, then the Electoral College. This is why third parties have little influence. This is why voting for them or not at all benefits the opposition. This is why Trump won in 2016.
A 2024 Trump victory is an not something we as a nation can bear - it’s bad for us, and it is unseeakabl bad for Palestine because Trump’s a far-right lunatic lacking morals and human compassion.
Not voting for Biden, third party or abstaining, will split the vote and cause a spoiler in favor
of Trump. See the 2000 Georee W Bush vs Al Gore election for reference. Take a long look at those razor thin mareins. Al Gore lost Florida
by 0.009%. Hell, walk down memory lane to the 2016 election. States where Trump won by a margin of 3% or less - Colorado, Florida, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin - would have won Hillary the Electoral College, 316 to 224,
We cannot fore et Russia’s war on Ukraine either. Do you honestly think Trump will want to continue US aid to Ukraine? Really? The
guy who’s all buddy-buddy with Putin and has Russia-supporting followers? He’s been vocal about his lack of enthusiasm for supporting Ukraine, and has threatened to hamstring NATO - Ukraine’s principal ally - should the situation escalate further.
Russia is angling towards a return of the Soviet Union’s former territory - look at Ukraine, Belarus, Moldova, Georgia (the country). Appeasement is not an option - that’s a proven failure. A possible return to the Cold War status quo is horrifying, and there’s every reason to believe they won’t stop there, setting off a multitude of geopolitical tinder boxes. God above forbid any one of the parties involved sets off a nuclear bomb, tactical or ICBM.
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Climate change is the single overriding issue for me. We are beyond out of time to avert damaging levels of warming, and even Biden’s climate policies – by far the most sweeping in the history of the country – are barely adequate to begin steering us away from the absolute worst. If Trump gets in, and eviscerates federal climate policy, and stacks the EPA with oil lobbyists (again), and fills federal courts with science-denying assholes, and sabotages state and local efforts to decarbonize, and destroys all chance of global cooperation on this issue, and (most importantly) dismantles democracy so that it is effectively impossible to vote for a progressive ever again absent a second civil war, then we will be consigning the entire planet to “nightmare hellscape” levels of climate change with no viable pathway out. A second Trump term would add four billion tons of carbon emissions over the next six years. It would “negate – twice over – all of the savings from deploying wind, solar and other clean technologies around the world over the past five years”. And that analysis doesn’t account for increased emissions from Trump policies, just a reversal of what Biden has accomplished. Allowing Trump to win again would not just be national, but global suicide.
So you’re saying that a vote for Trump is a vote to destroy Israel, because the entire middle east would become uninhabitable to human life.
First by war, then by water/lack of it.
Third party voting is as valid as any other vote.
There’s also tons of people constantly complaining quite loudly about Trump.
And I’ll be voting for Biden because he’s done a good job as president and I want to see expanded domestic policies like I’ve seen this term.
These screenshots make a lot of bad, innacurate and overtly divisive points without introducing any relevant or substantial ideas.
The real path forward to fixing voting in the US is going to be a long one. People need to find or form grassroots organizations to replace as many local and state positions as possible with actual candidates. Essentially a takeover of the Democrats starting at the lowest levels and moving up from there.
Some might be demoralized by how long this will take. Others realize that this actually isn’t that hard with teams of motivated people.
On the Republican side: look at Brandon Herrera and his battle with Tony Gonzales. A youtuber nearly beat the incumbent (lost by 407 votes). The man tapped into people’s anger and very nearly got it.
Where are lefties on this? Nothing out of the unions? People want change, help them get it.
The real path is fixing American democracy. There’s a lot to learn from the Democratic systems that came later: Remove the electoral college, remove FPTP, add more transparency into the political system, disable PACs, disable filibusters, replace the voter registration system…
dismantles democracy so that it is effectively impossible to vote for a progressive ever again absent a second civil war, then we will be consigning the entire planet to “nightmare hellscape” levels of climate change with no viable pathway out.
Silly friend, you just mentioned the viable pathway out.
(I agree with everything you said.)
2 Choices in 2024 #1 The man who is killing student debt, building infrastructure, going after medical debt, and so many more thing to help average Americans. #2 The man who advised us to consume bleach and shine a light inside our bodies to KILL covid, which he said was not not coming here because China shut it down. Also convicted for business fraud, and many other things.
There’s more than 2 choices: you can vote for anyone that isn’t red or blue or you can stop delegating your vote to a corrupted system entirely.
Both the red and blue party have blood on their hands and are in bed with evil corporations.
Did you even read the original post? A vote for a third party actually doesn’t matter.
Sure it does otherwise the government wouldn’t spend billions on propaganda to make you believe otherwise. The only vote that doesn’t matter is that for red and blue because nothing will ever change if you keep supporting them.
Pretty low effort bot tbh
Imagine the government spending billions on bots who go around saying not to vote for the government
Pretty low insight
Who said it was the US government? Additionally I’d wager that the people who vote both vote independent and browse these sorts of forums are people who would otherwise vote democrat. Note that there are currently many interested parties that would benefit from a republican win at this moment
Quit narwhaling. It’s been explained time and time again and third parties never try to win in local elections so they never have the support for national elections. Maybe stop lying to people about the system and start using it to put support in place for these third party candidates you so love. Until then, kindly fuck off with your intentional misunderstanding of the process.
In a system, where there is only one winner, everyone else are losers. Systems like that always tend to strongly favor a two party system like the us has and unless you can realistically bet on being able to mobilise more than half of the voters, your best bet will always be voting for one of the established parties, if you want your vote to count towards anything. For smaller party votes to count you need a system more akin to those of many European countries, where the government is split proportionally by the amount of votes per party. Then voting for smaller parties can actually have a significant impact.
Stop feeding on propaganda, you can vote for anyone you want and everyone has the same chances of winning. Stop supporting evil.
Realistically, no. Because it’s not a game of chance. Theoretically anyone could. Practically you live in a system where voting for small parties is punished by the lower of two evils losing votes and the greater of two evils not.
Following scenario: let’s imagine the Mildly Evil™ Party and the Very Evil™ Party had a votes split of 55:45. Mildly Evil™ would win. Now we introduce party C, that is neither. The party can either appeal primarily to Mildly Evil™ voters or Very Evil™ voters. Very Evil™ voters are currently, overall, not unhappy with their party/candidate, since they like how evil their party is, while Mildly Evil™ voters don’t like that their party is as evil as it currently is, so it’s safe to assume, it’s gonna be the Not Evil™ Party. Now, Very Evil™ voters are not significantly going to vote for the Not Evil™ Party. Maybe a little less than a tenth of them will. And maybe a little less than half of Mildly Evil™ voters might vote something else, thus the Not Evil™ Party. The result would be Not Evil™ with 30%, Mildly Evil™ with 30% and Very Evil™ with 40%. Very Evil™ wins, the rest lose. Only the one with the most votes can have power. Your votes for Not Evil™ made Very Evil™ gain that power. And that’s including the unrealistic notion, that you could get half of all Mildly Evil™ voters to vote for a new and unproven party at all.
Now, let’s take a better scenario based on different set of rules (aka the rules most other democratic countries live by, where parties need an absolute majority to govern): let’s take those three parties again and the same results, Not Evil™ with 30%, Mildly Evil™ with 30% and Very Evil™ with 40%. Now, Very Evil™ have the most votes but they don’t have the absolute majority, so they cannot rule alone. They’d have to find a partner. However both Mildly Evil™ and Not Evil™ would never work with them, because they are too evil for either. However, Mildly Evil™ is just about not evil enough, that Not Evil™ would consider working with them. Together they have 60% of votes and thus the absolute majority, forming the Almost Not Evil™ coalition for that term, building a foundation for Not Evil™ to grow until the next election.
This is the only way how voting for a small party can realistically work. Of course, usually there are more than three parties. Here in Germany, for example, there are more than a dozen, most of them too small to matter, thus there being a 5% hurdle for small parties, so the government is not so split it couldn’t function (that’s part of what killed the Weimar Republic and helped the Nazi Party to gain power in the 1930s). There are usually between 5-7 parties large enough enter the government and there are usually two to three parties in a governing coalition. It’s not a perfect solution but it gives smaller parties a fighting chance. In a system like the US, where a party just about needs to have a simple majority to win, not an absolute majority, smaller, independent parties almost never even have a chance.
Realistically, no. Because it’s not a game of chance. Theoretically anyone could. Practically you live in a system where voting for small parties is punished by the lower of two evils losing votes and the greater of two evils not.
It’s the same thing practically.
Here’s the current scenario: everyone is getting poor as fuck and a bunch of madmen are ruling the world and cycling in power. Nobody is happy with red or blue either
And unless you change the system that supports that you’ll be trapped with the same two flavors of madmen. And you obviously cannot change the system in the right direction if you cast your vote to either someone who would love to be dictator or to someone who is too small to even have a voice.
Since the civil war, there hasn’t been one president who wasn’t dem or rep. The only one coming somewhat close was Teddy Roosevelt who, in 1912, split the Republican Party into two, after not being nominated, founded the Progressive Party and subsequently lost the election for himself and the Republican Party. [Results: Woodrow Wilson (dem) 41%, Roosevelt (pro) 27%, William Howard Taft (rep) 23%]. Were the Republican party not split, they might have won. And Roosevelt was an established politician and ex president at the time. Like, you’d need someone like Obama to found a new party, be allowed to run for another term and not only beat the Democrats but also the Republicans in the actual election. That’s just not realistic, even if it were actually possible.
Did you read the post at all
“if you do not vote for biden, you are voting for trump”
This is illogical and false.
Look around what’s happening: this strategy is being used all over the world to keep a bunch of elites in power, see recent eu elections, see france.
It’s because it’s true. I’m sure MANY people have explained to you how it works so I won’t bother. But you need to listen to people when they tell you that this isn’t a fucking joke.
Resting on a single issue will allow much bigger issues to happen. And you’ll wish you could go back to when this was all you had to complain about.
Yes it’s not a joke it’s logic: not voting for A does not mean voting for B when there are more than 2 candidates. Stop trying to bend logic and stop feeding on propaganda
Again, I’m not going to explain it to you since you don’t seem to understand it any better from all the others that have explained it.
But you’re wrong.
But you’re wrong.
Sounds like you run out of arguments to defend your illogical facts
there’s more than two choices once you have access to ranked/preferential voting.
until then, it’s a joke.
on you.
Can any of those randos win?
No.
You have two choices for who will become president. It will not be anyone else.
Can any of those randos win?
Yes, inform yourself who these randos are and stop spreading red and blue propaganda
‘The people you’ve never heard of can totally take hundreds of Electoral College votes!’ said someone with no goddamn idea how this works.
You absolutely can vote for anyone you want, that is your right…but two of the options make you a complete utter moron and one shows you understand the game we are all playing, but you go vote 3rd party and if I hear you bitch about Trump turning the united states into a Christo fascist country I will pat you on the back saying you did this good job you dumbass
I think a lot of posts saying they are equal or call Biden Genocide Joe are Russian trolls aiming to influence the election. And if they’re not, they might as well be.
No one despises the Democrats more than those of us who saw Bernie get steamrolled by them when he stated drawing crowds and winning primaries. But many of us older millennials also see the writing on the wall: We can’t change a fucking thing about the current system voting GOP, green, or abstaining.
Being progressive, to me, means voting for the candidate that moves the needle toward the world I want to see. We cannot ever change the voting method and fundamental structure of our capitalistic hellscape by holding out for the perfect candidate. They do not exist.
They want us fighting like this, convincing others to not vote, or attacking a system that cannot and will not change by choice. We cannot effect change from a prison cell. Anything other than a vote for Biden will end all other hopeful prospects any progressive voter would have. The GOP literally has a manifesto, like a fucking school shooter would plan out, to turn the US into a Christian Iran.
The path to abolishing the electoral college and going to anything else will only happen when enough states push for the change at the local level. It’s why there’s such strong attacks at the state level to ban the use of ranked-choice voting. It’s why the GOP is ignoring successful, or outright restricting, ballot initiatives to prevent the people from pushing for their own change.
Bottom line, Congress will never change the voting method in this country because those with the power to change it stand to lose the most by doing so. It’s only by voting in the best candidates available at the time, within the confines of the system as it stands, that we can hope to enact any meaningful change.
Normally, I’d never tell someone how to vote, but after 4 years of both men, we know how they govern. Now, moreso than in 2016, is not the time to protest vote or refuse to vote on a single issue. We cannot afford, as a country or world, to let the orange menace have another term.
Bernie got steamrolled because he had no support within the DNC. Of course they would band together to stop an outsider from winning.
Fortunately Bernie figured that out, he started focusing on getting progressives elected as Democrats to start changing the party from within
What?
He’s been building the movement longer than either of us have probably been alive.
He never expected to do as well as he did in the presidential run, let alone think he could win
It was to draw attention on national level to the progressive movement and to pull the party left in an attempt to save it.
What, you mean like strategy and consistent work to effect the change he wanted to see in the world?
Crazy. It’ll never work. Let’s do weird grandstanding gestures that’ll play right into the hands of his enemies, instead.
Someday I’d like to hear a rational explanation about why the worse the Republican is, the more conservative and uncharismatic the Dem has to be.
Like, if all that matters is stopping Republicans…
Why aren’t we running someone that people like?
A Bill Clinton or Barack Obama type that actively went after the youth vote, opened a dialog with voters, and took feedback to make their campaigns more appealing?
Historically speaking, that’s a slam dunk.
We can keep trying to berate the youth into voting, but the thing about 18 year olds is, there’s always 18 year olds. Convince this batch to hold their nose, and we got to convince the next one again. Plus re-convirnce the old batch again. Someone that’s 30 right now has spent almost half their life being told that they have no say in who they vote for, they just have to vote against trump.
How are people surprised they feel disenfranchised?
Why can’t we try listening to the youth, and trust that as the future party moves further to the left, they stay with the party?
If only there was a post that explained pretty passionately and coherently how Trump wanting to end Democracy and kill a bunch of Palestinians and Ukrainians and Americans, and God knows who else, is objectively more important than all of that
I’m not trying to be an asshole or dismissive or anything, but you are commenting directly under a pretty clear explanation of why not electing Trump is literal life and death, by saying literally the exact type of “but I don’t feeeeeeeelllll like it, isn’t that important, too” that this person is pretty pointedly discrediting
Maybe be mad at the party who keeps putting forward shitty candidates rather than the people who are fed up with the shitty candidates? You can’t have it both ways, saying every vote matters, and then also say but you have to vote for our old ghoul or you get someone worse. That’s the establishment propaganda that thankfully some people have grown out of. I’m not even American but by God reading all this fucking biden apologist discourse has me feeling so fucking sorry for your country. Yeah trump is bad bit at least he owns who he is. Voting biden at this point would feel like a fucking moral failing. I’d probably still do it bit I’d never stop complaining about it and fuck all of you who expect people not to complain. Your system is blatantly screwing you over and you’re just like “thank you more please. Please not the trump again”
Voting biden at this point would feel like a fucking moral failing
Not voting or voting for trump is an objectively worse moral failing. No good options, choose the one that results in the possibility for positive change. A dictatorship does not have that possibility without a war.
I read up until “both ways”. Honestly, I’ve read enough of these comments before to know what you’re getting at.
To recap whatever comes to mind quick: 40% reduction in emissions by 2030, proper labor people at the NLRB leading to all these union gains, domestic manufacturing and infrastructure, massive increases in corporate tax to pay for all that stuff, gains in wages at the low end, reductions in wealth inequality. Biden’s doing good.
You might not agree. But, as the nice lady pointed out, it doesn’t really matter. He’s who we got. Biden’s who we got. It’s either this guy or death. You wanna pick a better guy next time? Fuckin fantasic, if you wanna get involved with the Democrats or any other party and try to put up someone better, that sounds like a pretty good idea to me.
But the fuckin house is on fire and the kids are still inside and you’re out there fistfighting with the firefighters, trying to stop them getting in, and while the whole thing is spreading you’re saying I TOLD YOU WE NEEDED THE DIFFERENT INSURANCE COMPANY YOU GUYS ARE ALL FUCKIN UP YOU SHOULD HAVE DONE BETTER
Trump is the end of any of these better candidates and better than Biden progress that you say are your goal. He is the end of Palestine and Ukraine. He is the end of Hispanics in the United States; he already put some of them in concentration camps. Some of them died in there, some of their kids died in there, some had their kids taken away somewhere and still don’t have them back. He has a detailed plan for how to take over next time, and do much more. He wants to put his political opponents in prison. He wants to make it illegal for the press to criticize him. He wants the military to seize the voting machines. He wants to shoot protestors. He talks about how he shouldn’t have term limits. And, if he dies in office, that whole machinery is available for someone else who’s maybe not the world’s stupidest and most incompetent man to take over, and run it all for real. Like, for real for real.
Quit fuckin twisting it around. I don’t care. This tumblr person is right. As pertains to this election, this whole thing of “oo nice try but this candidate’s not good enough for me, you should have done better” is a pile of shit, and always has been.
Either say, yes we should vote against the end of the world, or admit that you’re pushing for the option that’s the end of the world. Quit twisting it around into something else, because that’s the choice.
See you in four years when the next fascist is in the Republican Party and the democrats nominate a former KKK member and we’re told by libs to vote for the KKK member or else people will die, and in 8 years when you tell us to vote for the little fascist over the big fascist. “Don’t you understand a lot of fascism now is better than more fascism in the future?” Is what we’ll hear all the libs crying if they get what they want
You musta missed the first paragraph
And, tbh, the rest of it too
But sure, go on, tell me how Clinton was a champion of progressivism and the party’s been betraying his legacy by moving to the right. Make it lyrical; make it convincing
here’s what I’m saying: I’m for killing Hitler before he’s genocides the Jews and everyone should be saying “assassinate Hitler before he kills all the Jews” not “vote for not-Hitler to save the Jews”
If you truly believe Trump is a genocidal tyrant, he should be dealt with like a genocidal tyrant, not given any quarter
Those aren’t mutually incompatible. I don’t think people should kill him, but the lackluster way the justice department has dealt with him like “oh ho him we have other things going on, we can get to the trial after the election” is a criminal dereliction of duty.
Yes, he should be in prison for being a proven-criminal tyrant. Instead we’re taking Lex Luthor on tours of the city and talking about hey he shouldn’t have killed all those people with that stunt last month, and also should we make him mayor, or this other guy, here’s a report on the pros and cons.
You could have gotten it from the username, emerald dawn 45.
That could be a description of one of their stupid, ridiculous shirts.
Lmao I’m Canadian and trump is an asshole, but you guys are jokers with your ‘everyone who doesn’t like Biden is a Russian troll’ nonsense.
deleted by creator
“Bro there’s a guy in the house WHO IS TRYING TO KILL US”
“First off: WHY are you bein so rude right now. I was in the middle of something.”
Where do you think ‘the party’ comes from, the people who make these bad decisions? Are you active in local politics? Do you educate yourself and vote in local elections? Most people act like the only election there is, is the presidential election, and wonder why they feel disconnected from the choices. Well there are a million small choices going into who that pool of bad choices is winnowed from, and who is making backroom decisions playing into it, and most people are clueless how any of it works, uninterested to learn, and completely checked out. Well that’s how we end up here.
Where do you think ‘the party’ comes from, the people who make these bad decisions?
Well, the current leader of the DNC was appointed by Joe Biden in 2021…
The selection of Mr. Harrison, on the heels of Mr. Biden’s victories in Arizona and Georgia in November, reflects the president-elect’s longstanding determination for Democrats to compete in once-red states, a recognition that the party will never sustain an enduring congressional majority without making inroads across the Sun Belt.
Mr. Biden’s top advisers are also planning to appoint a small group of elected Democrats as vice chairs to reward their support in the campaign and offer them the opportunity to be high-profile surrogates. Gov. Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan, Senator Tammy Duckworth of Illinois, Representative Filemon Vela of Texas and Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms of Atlanta will serve in the roles.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/14/us/politics/jaime-harrison-dnc-chairman.html
Technically the DNC could vote against the president, but they didn’t even do that to Obama. For details in who the ~477 people are and how it happens:
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2016/11/23/13703720/dnc-chair-election-rules-members
From the rest of you comment, I think that link would be beneficial.
Especially this part:
Up to 75 slots are appointed by the DNC chair
You seem to think it’s a lot more democratic than it really is.
Not at all, nor am I saying it’s a good system. But the realities of how individuals shape the system and determine who is making discisions starts at the local level, and happens over time, and it does come to reflect the interests of those who choose to participate, and not those who don’t. This is just the reality of how power operates.
So why did you ask
Where do you think ‘the party’ comes from, the people who make these bad decisions?
Like you disagreed with me, but now you’re saying basically “of course it’s like what you first said”?
The DNC is “the party” and the DNC is not governed by democracy.
That’s the key issue. It’s unelected nepotism and the people being placed in power have no idea how to win elections.
The president appoints people to the DNC, and the DNC is not shy about saying they have full control over who the next presidential candidate is.
This isn’t a new problem, and because the only people who can change it benefit from it, they’re not kicking themselves out of power.even if it means trump wins.
The solution to this is either reform from within, or by regulation. The former requires that involvement that I talked about, starting at the local level. That is how grassroots works. Reform has happened before. We did not use to even have democratic primaries.
We could argue about which of those two approaches is more feasible, but I would argue that any regulation from above is going to be incomplete and imperfect, and the people involved are going to game the new system just as they have before to their advantage and to hold onto power. The only long term solution is more involvement from below. Democracy cannot work with the minimal level of involvement that we have come expect.
Are we now to the point where we’re deifying Clinton? He had sex with a subordinate (likely more than one). His policies resulted in incarceration of minorities, and a decline in life standards for people at the bottom of the income distribution. You are NOT the first person who had to hold his nose while voting for the lesser evil, and frankly in his day the GOP candidate looked much better than it does now.
Are we now to the point where we’re deifying Clinton?
Absolutely not
All we’re talking about is campaigns, and how likely they are to result in a Dem president.
Because, as Biden loves to say:
All that matters is beating trump.
His policies resulted in incarceration of minorities,
The crime bill?
That was literally Biden’s baby… Pretty sure he’s still bragging about it and saying it was a great idea…
You are NOT the first person who had to hold his nose while voting for the lesser evil,
Mate, I’ve been doing it for almost 20 years.
08 Obama is the only time I actually wanted the person I voted for to win.
Some of the younglings have never even seen let alone participated in an election where we even thought we had a progressive option.
There is a persistent mythology among a certain type of Lemmy user (the type who also doesn’t want to vote for Biden) that Clinton was a super-great progressive president and the Democrats moved to the right since then.
I had one just recently who was telling me about how they and all their progressive friends were super happy about how he balanced the budget
It’s funny because even leaving Biden out of it, I remember the Carter -> Clinton -> Obama arc, and what progressive and activist people in the mid to late 90s were feeling about it, a little bit differently than that
Bloody nailed it.
Cold war with a guy who can’t control his emotions and goes online to let the world know about it no matter the time of the day…
Do you know how many times I’ve heard about your president tweeting this or that, in the last four years? Never. Not a single time. What a blessing that was.
Minor correction - Trump didn’t win CO in 2016. Not overly important in the grand scheme of things, I’m just from there and I’d have been ashamed if he had.
The rest of it still stands. I’m involved in local politics and I consistently vote for more progressive candidates, and we’ve had some victories. In a recent example, a homophobic asshat of a city council member gave up his seat to run for mayor. Not only did he lose that race, the woman who won his former seat is a progressive lesbian.
But you know who I almost never see at council meetings or at events for state level positions? The kind of terminally online leftists who constantly complain about the Democrats being too conservative. Apparently it’s more important to put other people’s rights and lives at risk to make some kind of stand than it is to try to make any real difference in the ways we can. Maybe someday we’ll have an electoral system that allows for more than 2 parties, but we sure as shit won’t if people can’t be bothered to pay attention to anything but the presidential race.
I’m also from CO, and I also felt compelled to point out that Trump never won here. I remember thinking on election night back in 2016, “Well, whatever happens, at least it won’t be our fault.”
But you know who I almost never see at council meetings or at events for state level positions? The kind of terminally online leftists who constantly complain about the Democrats being too conservative.
Oh, I’m there, but it’s nice to know I’m masking well
If you’re there but no one can tell, you may as well not go. The point is to speak up.
I don’t understand this political strategy in the long-run. If the left always unflinchingly votes for the leftmost candidate then the optimal strategy for the DNC is always to choose someone just 1% to the left of whoever the Republicans are running.
The trumpers aren’t strong because they always vote. They’re strong because everyone knows that, if Trump isn’t on the ballot, they won’t turn out to vote nearly as strongly.
Combine this with the fact that basically every business interest wants right-wing politics and you get the perpetual rightwards slide of the Democratic Party.
I don’t understand this political strategy
Because way too many voters have no concept of game theory
I’ve had some luck explaining it by asking folks why multiple gas stations are at the same intersection, or asking why Lowes and Home Depot are always right next to each other.
I’m afraid you’ve lost me
It’s traditionally explained with two lemonade stands on a long beach. If their product is generally indistinguishable and both want to maximize their number of customers, they will eventually settle on halfway mark of the beach. One gets all the foot traffic from the left, the other from the right, splitting it 50/50.
The same applies to businesses on a map, not just a one dimensional beach. Most consumers don’t really care if it’s a Home Depot or Lowes, or a BP or Exxon. If one of them discovers a gap in the market and places something there, someone else can come along and grab half the market. It’s something Walmart has done in a lot of small towns. They’ll come in and split market 50/50 with a small, local shop knowing that there’s not enough money to turn a profit with splitting the market in half. But they know they the can run a loss for a year or two, the competition will close, and then they’ll have 100% of the market.
It’s a really topical thing in politics. There are more centrist voters than at either extreme end, so politicians tend to fall more in the middle. Politicians like Trump change the landscape though. While an extreme candidate, the Republican party had already been shifting more right for a while, so he only marginally pulled the voter base right, but pulled most Republican politicians right, or pushed them out. Democrats moved to match. It essentially means that far right Republicans have a short stroll to the nearest lemonade stand, but far left Democrats have to trudge a couple miles in the hot summer sun, and they’re deciding it’s not worth it.
Jesus Democrats have deluded themselves that Republicans would not vote Republican if not for Trump.
I’ve said a lot of the same for years. You don’t get a progressive president by voting for them first. You vote in television unsexy stuff, city council races, congressional primaries, county commissioners. Those people learn the system and move up. Bug surprise, like progressive ideas, you build up fom the bottom.
My state has voted Republican every election since 1968, with a true majority all but twice. So I can actually vote for whoever I like and it won’t make a lick of difference.
Isn’t the electoral college great?
Any attempt to use logic, reasoning, common sense, and nuance with people that think that by NOT doing something, you can bring about the change you want in the world…
Is a waste of fucking time.
You don’t believe in boycotts?
Oh, I believe in boycotts. Now let me ask you a question:
Do you know that someone will get elect with or without your vote? Not voting doesn’t cancel an election. You’re either getting a “genocide supporter” or a GENOCIDE SUPPORTER.
Because Trump has said that he intends to give Israel everthing they need to win the war:
“The approach of the United States would be that Israel needs to win this war, it was attacked brutally,” Trump’s ambassador to Israel, David Friedman, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, describing how Trump would act.”
If you’ve been paying attention, Biden has been trying to negotiate a cease-fire. Granted he’s not trying hard enough- he’s no genocide supporter like the bad actors among you accuse him of.
Your little grassroots movement to boycott an entirely election is going to cause more suffering in Palestine than you cold imagine.
This isn’t a joke.
I always vote. But I vote for who I want to win. Biden’s entire campaign, every single fucking email I get from him, mentions Trump. It’s like he has no identity outside of him, which I know isn’t true because he has done stuff.
We thought it wouldn’t get worse after Bush, but it did. They’re always gonna toss up a shittier and shittier candidate and setting a low bar for the Left. We should primary the incumbent every fucking term no matter how well they performed in their first term.
Wow this screenshot of four people with the same opinion talking to each other in an echo chamber has really changed my mind. Thanks, internet!
When I was a teen protesting the Iraq war (which Biden supported, btw) we couldn’t imagine anyone worse than Dubya. Now we have Trump. Still probably not responsible for as many dead as Bush, but one could argue he’s worse on the domestic front. Now Bush hangs out with Ellen and we all laugh at his paintings like he’s a harmless old man.
So, join me in a thought experiment. Ten years from now someone comes along who’s worse than Trump. Are you going to be telling me I have to vote for Trump because this other person is so much worse? Democrats scream about how great the economy is, but for whom? Not for me or anyone I know. Biden enacts these limp-dick half-measures that satisfy neither the right nor the left. He’s a bad politician. Period. His one job is to convince constituents to re-elect him. He can’t even accomplish that. But since his opponent is awful I have to vote for him. Fuck that.
Who was president when abortion was stripped of federal protection. Who was president when we started funding not one but two proxy wars overseas? Inflation. Shrinkflation. Student loans. You can bandy about all the google searches you want, the proof is in Americans’ day-to-day lives. Page one of the Dems playbook is to say, “Oh dear we wish we could help, but those pesky Republicans…!” And yet when they had control of the Exec and the Legislative branches in Obama’s first term, what leftist utopia did they create?
Read the transcript of Biden’s most recent Time interview. The whole thing. The man doesn’t complete a single thought. And we on the left love to shit on Trump (rightfully so) for talking like an incoherent hospice patient.
Palestine is merely the latest in a long long litany of disappointments, blunders, and outright betrayals (see the railworkers union-busting). If Biden was my employee I’d fire him. If he was my boss I’d quit. But he’s just my president so I’m not voting for him.
I’m gonna make up a little bingo card for all the different shill tactics, this one message hits like a third of them all at once
IDK, maybe it’s cheating to make up the card specifically with this message in front of me
Who was president when abortion was stripped of federal protection?
You mean a decision that was made by supreme court justices appointed by the previous administration? The president does not control every policy decision that gets made in America, believe it or not. Almost like there are three branches of government or something.
Who was president when we started funding not one but two proxy wars overseas?
Ukraine is only getting ancient military surplus that we couldn’t use anywhere else anyway. I agree that his support for Israel sucks but unlike Trump we can (and are) talking him out of it. Also will you quit bitching and moaning about the strain on our tax dollars. You sound like a Republican.
Inflation. Shrinkflation.
I think this is more due to corporate greed than fiscal policy at any level, judging by how many mega corporations turned record profits this year.
All they have is an altered reality to argue against. Just ask them who they’d put in Biden’s place that’s currently running.
Guarantee they’ll have no answer.
All you fuckers are like “of course I’d pull the lever in a trolley problem, less people dying is more important than my active involvement”
But when it actually comes to it it’s suddenly “fuck that”
You forgot to mention that gas was very cheap, that the world economy was booming, and that Russia was too scared to invade Ukraine during trump’s presidency.
It’s honestly easy to forgot how bad things were when Biden took office. A big fraction of the country was still living on Covid assistance; unemployment had’t come back anywhere near non emergency levels. The US is the only country that managed to recover as if all that shit hadn’t happened. And, the news is so good at twisting things that most people say they trust Trump more on the economy although Biden has whatever good intentions that they like instead etc etc.
It’s good Biden helped to undo a lot of the crap the convicted felon set in motion.
Those magats can trust trump to stuff his pockets and screw over as many as he can.
The reason I think this misses the mark is because it presumes these people don’t know damn well what they’re doing at this point.
They’re already trying to pivot to accelerationist discourse. IE the discourse of white kids who are betting hard that they’re far enough up the kill list to wait out the collapse into fascism and following revolution, said revolution not being guaranteed by anything.
They are cynically broadcasting that they refuse to not be the glorious party chairmen of the anti-fascism efforts, and that they will knowingly let everyone else burn until they “learn their lesson” and stop trying to achieve their own agenda instead of just shutting up and falling in line with what the white leftist college fund kids want.
“It says M4A or it gets the Republicans again!”
I mean, a lot of them will openly say they’re for America’s destruction so any points about saving american democracy or whatever are moot. Same thing with Ukraine
It always amuses me how many of the people who espouse this viewpoint freely admit to not living in the US. And then continue to act like their opinion matters even though they will not be meaningfully affected regardless of who wins come November.
I don’t live in the US neither. But with how much sway it has with international politics, it electing a fascist as president will affect more than just americans
PRE-SUBMISSION EDIT: This is a long-winded reply and goes increasingly off-topic as it progresses, sorry. TLDR I agree
Anecdotally, I’ve also noticed a rapid change in the last decade or so as politicians become emboldened by Trump’s success. For example, the premier of a major Canadian province has done the following:
- Took on some of Trump’s advisors who claimed the COVID vaccines were a bioweapon
- Denied aspects of the well-documented cultural genocide occuring in Canada’s residential schools
- Claimed that people who took a COVID vaccine would have been Nazi sympathizers
- Stated that the first three stages of cancer are “completely within your control”, advocating for neuropathy
- Claimed in 2003 that smoking can reduce the risk of disease
She was previously head of the (now defunct) Wildrose party before defecting and indirectly leading to the historic 2015 election, which marked the first time a left-wing party formed a majority government in almost 80 years.
But even then the most controversial thing she said (publicly) was that ‘the science on climate change “wasn’t settled”’, still inane but a far cry from what was to come after her return to power in 2022
The propaganda trolls are, with rare exceptions, the only accounts I have ever seen who will say “I’m from X location and this is what I think.” I honestly have not the slightest idea why that is part of it, but unless some reason comes up for them to say where they’re from, most people will just do the “This is what I think” part.
That’s exactly why I can’t take authoritarians seriously. The way they talk about violent revolution makes it clear they don’t care about the people that get hurt, because it has never been and will never be themselves in danger.
Watch out for the propaganda. The red and blue party will always try to stay in power and push the narrative that not voting for them is a wasted vote. If you actually want anything to change at all stop supporting them.
What’s propaganda, is people suggesting that other not vote out of protest.
Anyone with an ounce of common sense knows how anti-democrat this act is. And there are only a handful of types of people America knows to be anti-democracy….
The system isn’t fair but the only way yo change that is through the system. If you want to have a say go vote in a primary.
If you want to support Palestine and fight the establishment (aipac, Hillary, …) support Jamaal Bowman.The system isn’t fair but the only way yo change that is through the system.
Point one time in history where a change through the system actually worked. But yea, you can try to vote red and blue out that will do something for sure.
Pout out one time in history where NOT voting brought change.
Your freedom wasn’t voted for. Not voting is a mean to cease your direct support to the system
I’ll bet you think you have a swell little “gotcha” moment there. It’s too bad that freedom wasn’t a thing that was ever put to vote… so it can’t be used as an example.
Name a time- WHERE A VOTE PROCESS WAS ENACTED- where choosing not to vote made change.
Good god I didn’t think it needed to be spelled out twice.
Not supporting a corrupted government makes a change every time. Pretty much in every election unsupporting rigged parties does directly damage them as they live up to consensus and majority. There are countries not as much brainwashed as usa where third parties win all the time
No, it doesn’t.
There are countries not as much brainwashed as usa where third parties win all the time
And they tend to have better voting systems, like proportional representation or ranked choice voting, none of which will be instituted by a third party getting 3%.
Watch out for the propaganda
Found some
The argument won’t convince them, because their moral stance is simply a justification for laziness. They have no morals, they just don’t want to do shit.
Weird, I’m getting the same argument from those who think liberals are too lazy to push their candidate away from indefensible foreign policy
The one issue where Biden is an asshole would be identical under The Idiot, because Netanyahu has already demonstrated he can get anything he wants out of The Idiot.
Vote for less evil. The alternative is more evil. Why the fuck would you want more evil?
What a great take on “the lesser of two evils” we are forced into always choosing between. I love it.
