By consenting to corruption and a path to WWIII. That is not protecting them, in fact it is ensuring them a terrible future. If you cared about them, you would vote, volunteer, donate, and support the PSL, CPUSA, or Green party instead.
None of those parties have a ghost of a chance of winning, and with as razor thin as the win margins were in 2016 and 2020, I’m not confident Biden will win if we don’t vote for him. I sincerely hope I do not have to explain why Trump would be worse on literally every issue (especially Gaza) than Biden is.
Bro’s protest voting when the Weimar American Republic has Nazis on the ballot and thinks building “grassroots support” for the twentieth year in a row justifies it when the world is about to run out of time anyways
You want Green candidates? Tell them to run as Democrats or make a fucking militia.
Dems are actually fascists, and you are as well for not only voting for them, but gathering support for them online when you could be doing that for a decent party.
The Democrat party is just as corrupt and bought out by corporations as the Republicans are, but at least they aren’t trying to get the country to circle the drain as quickly.
Did they? We got back in the Paris climate accords, gay marriage got codified into an actual law, student loan forgiveness started rolling out, clamping down on junk fees and overdraft fees…
Right now, no one knows your chosen third-party candidate exists. Let’s suppose you, personally, set out to change that. Let’s suppose you’re the best campaign manager ever, and that you and your friends lead the best grassroots campaign in history, so much so that come November you’ve convinced everyone who would have voted third party and two-thirds of the people who would have voted for Biden to vote for your candidate instead.
Let’s suppose that, had you done nothing, the vote breakdown will be the same in 2024 as it was in 2020. Biden got 51.3% of the popular vote, Trump got 46.8%, and that leaves just under 2% who voted third party. In 2024, thanks to your heroic efforts, the green party candidate gets 36.2% of the vote and Biden gets 17.1%, but oh no – Trump wins by a landslide because Trump supporters, who care not for your left-of-center politics, stuck by their guy and gave him 46% of the vote again, and in first-past-the-post voting, that’s all that matters! Your heroic efforts to get your message out about your better candidate only resulted in splitting the vote and ensuring Trump would win!
In 2024, thanks to your heroic efforts, the green party candidate gets 36.2% of the vote and Biden gets 17.1%, but oh no – Trump wins by a landslide because Trump supporters, who care not for your left-of-center politics, stuck by their guy and gave him 46% of the vote again, and in first-past-the-post voting, that’s all that matters! Your heroic efforts to get your message out about your better candidate only resulted in splitting the vote and ensuring Trump would win!
This would be the greatest accomplishment for the working class in American history if it happened. The Greens would then start to win congressional seats, and being the process of taking over the government like the Morena party just did in Mexico.
It’s also completely impossible. A campaign that could convince two thirds of Biden voters to switch would shatter every record for a grassroots campaign (heck, even a corporate backed campaign) that had ever been set, by orders of magnitude. You are not going to convince a statistically significant number of people to switch their vote, especially not between now and November.
I also feel like you’re missing the part where even if you DID accomplish that, Trump would still win the presidency! If you vote third party you might as well not vote!
Especially given how slim the win margins were in 2020 and 2016, I’m not convinced that Biden will win if we don’t all vote for him. I hate the DNC as much as anyone else does, but if you don’t want a person who openly plans to abuse his Presidential powers to punish his opponents for daring to prosecute him for a crime he committed, you only have one choice.
Yes, yes, we all know what happens when you scratch a liberal but it’s better than not having to scratch to find it. Even if all that’s holding the powers that be back is a skin-deep veneer of civility and deniability a vote to strip that veneer away makes you a fool, not a revolutionary.
Nobody likes voting for the lesser of two evils, but we all have to if we want to stop an even further decline into hell. Our system is broken, and we don’t have any way of fixing it immediately, so we have to work with what we can. Trump as president will have immediate and direct consequences for many people, and it will be the fault of people like you that it happened. At this point, not voting for Biden is the same thing as voting for Trump. You may continue virtue signaling after we get through the crisis right in front of us.
The system is set up in a way that the only viable options are between two evils, unfortunately. Under a FPTP system where the only good options are minority parties that won’t win a single seat in their districts, you’re left with the choice of voting for the lesser evil, or voting for your morals but increasing the risk of the greater evil winning.
Lmao the green party isn’t going to do jack shit. They’re completely unserious about politics. They aren’t even trying to build up an infrastructure in all 50 states that lets them get suffused into local and state politics. They aren’t even aiming for Congressional seats, which would be necessary for an actual Green president to get anything done.
They’re just anti science grifters who think wifi causes cancer, entertain vaccine skepticism, and demonize nuclear energy – the latter of which could be a major asset to stopping global warming. Newer designs are even able to consume nuclear waste, meaning an anti nuclear position results in more waste than we would otherwise.
I’m afraid all of us don’t have that much free time. But hey, if you can get them to stop being anti science and actually become a serious party, I’ll consider them.
Just don’t expect me to accept the Green Party’s many imperfections. If you don’t accept the Democrat’s imperfections, then you should perfectly understand.
Until Stein vehemently recants her remarks about WiFi causing cancer, vaccine skepticism, and nuclear fear mongering – or the Green party completely disavows her and those remarks – it would be a total waste of time.
It isn’t my job as an engineer to tell “the only voice in politics that supports the science of climate change” to stop endorsing completely anti science positions. Nor is it on me to try and correct a willfully anti science party. They need to show good faith, and they’ve done nothing whatsoever to suggest any of that to me.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j2suVx9cDKw She is the one with a medical degree, so you don’t have any authority over her opinion, sounds reasonable for her to make her stance out of concern, even if she is wrong.
I’m also an engineer, and that’s why I use my knowledge to try to influence the party.
I actually had my local Socialist Party USA chapter kick me out, ban me from their facebook, and publicly announce that I’m a rape apologist because I wouldn’t tell people to support an openly transphobic “Vaccines Cause Autism” Green Party candidate over Joe Biden.
You get it! We can’t fuck over vulnerable people. We can’t abandon minorities and LGBT people. Even if we let things get worse to the point of a societal collapse, a lot of people will die because of it – and societal collapse has not historically led to better societies down the road.
Last I tried my Socialist Party USA chapter belittled me, called me a rape apologist, and refused to do anything for the local community outside of shaming people for wanting to vote out Trump by any means possible.
Here’s a brutal truth for you then. Being a raging, unapologetic jerk won’t progress your political goals. It’ll only make them harder to achieve.
My goal isn’t to convince you, only show how you are wrong so people looking at this post will be influenced by it. Looking at your profile, you are too far gone.
I feel like this reply is for someone else? We’re both coming from a leftist position. Democrats only think they’re being overrun with bots and propaganda because they aren’t actually politically informed enough to know the valid reasons why people don’t like them.
Yes, yes. we all know republicans are worse. But democrats could’ve entirely prevented this, which they didn’t. They enabled it. Being better than republicans doesn’t mean the situation is better with democrats. In fact, it’s getting so much worse every single year.
And the situation we’re in will continue to get worse as long as long as we’re playing the hand that’s been dealt to us instead of taking an active roll in improving things around us.
My trans friends are what keeps me committed to voting Biden no matter how disappointed I am in him. Things are already really scary for them right now and I can’t be complicit in making them worse, even through inaction.
Consider me another one of your trans friends. If Trump gets elected I’m probably gonna die in a concentration camp. Don’t do that to me, don’t do that to them. I’m begging you for my life.
I’d suggest taking a flight overseas the day after the elections, booked prior to it. If Trump losses, you can use it to celebrate it. If he wins… well, you can ask for asylum on arrival.
I am trans and not voting for Biden. I refuse to sacrifice Palestinians for my own safety or the safety of my loved ones. All the stuff people say now about them being an acceptable sacrifice or there being nothing they can do about it, that’s what they’ll be saying about us tomorrow. Solidarity between marginalized groups is the only viable strategy for long term survival.
I hate being used as a rhetorical token to make people feel better about selling out another vulnerable group.
If our “democracy” has decayed to the point where I’m not able to vote on whether or not we do a genocide, then it is not a democracy and I should not legitimize the sham through participation.
There is no circumstance under which I will support genocide. If that means I die, then I will die. If any of you had a backbone you’d do the same. And if enough people drew that line, they’d have no choice but to listen to us.
Grow up. If you really want to fix our democracy it’s going to take time. Vote for every chance you get. We already have one state with ranked choice voting. If you want a real democracy that is our avenue
Oh, does Biden support ranked choice voting, then?
He doesn’t. I’m not going to support asshole after asshole in the vain hope that maybe out of the kindness of their hearts they’ll eventually give us freedom, which directly opposes their own interests. You’re the one that needs to grow up if you believe that fairy tale.
You know, I used to be a lot more extreme than I am now. When I was younger, I said I wouldn’t vote for anyone unless they were going to reform the system to where I wouldn’t have to vote for a lesser evil anymore, demanding that our rulers give up their power.
Now, all I’m asking is that they stop slaughtering people. They can rule over us in their sham democracy, if they would just stop killing all these people. They won’t even do that. So again, my answer is “Hell no, fuck off.” Biden is my enemy and I will oppose him just as I oppose Trump, regardless of what the odds are. Again, anyone with a spine and a conscience should be doing the same.
And you will lose and thePalestinians will die anyway. If you believe in your cause you would accept the fact that you might not live to see it come to fruition. That’s what dying for a cause is all about.
Want to stop a genocide? Vote for a guy fighting against it happening in Ukraine
Nope. There is no reasoning with me on this, my position is absolute and set in stone. You want my vote, get a better candidate. No other option, period.
They will flinch first. And if they don’t, then we’ll go to hell together. You’re wasting your time with me.
Well, if not voting for Trump counts as supporting him, then rest assured that Biden will have my “support.”
I’m not lifting a finger to help either of them. If Trump wins, it’ll be because the Democrats nominated that senile, genocidal corporate sycophant. It’s their job to win elections, not mine. I’ve heard you people try to shift all blame away from your shitty party and onto the left a thousand times before. You’re wasting your time. As I said, I don’t give a shit. Fix the party, win without me, or lose. Your choice, I’ve made mine.
I know that you think I’m throwing a childish fit. That’s because, fundamentally, you don’t consider Palestinians to be human beings, just as your kind didn’t see Iraqis or Afghans as human when they were being slaughtered. To you, this is just some random pet issue I’ve taken up to feel good about myself. But it’s not. I have nothing but hatred for Biden and people like him, and I have incredibly good reason for that. “Genocide” isn’t just a word, it’s not something to be casually brushed aside. It must be opposed, everything else be damned. If you genuinely attempted to see the world from their perspective, you would understand.
Someday the democrats will decide that us trans people are too much of a liability and throw us under the bus too, and you’ll rationalize it by placing us in the exact same subhuman category you use whenever they murder a million people in the Middle East. Call me childish all you want, you’re just telling on yourself about how seriously you take their deaths.
Oh, yeah, you know what, I’ve already made the decision to accept considerable risk to myself and the people I care about because of my absolute commitment to opposing genocide, but if you just bring up some other random issue, that’s totally gonna change my mind. Wtf I love Biden now.
In any case the best thing to happen for the Ukrainian people is that they stop being drafted and forced into a meat grinder to reclaim territory for a state that doesn’t care about them. But regardless, it doesn’t matter. I’m not going to support a genocide to stop anything! I don’t know how I can possibly make that position more clear to you.
Stop wasting your time with me and go waste your time trying to get your party to be less shit.
The best thing to happen to Ukrainians is for Russia to be stopped. You say you are against genocide but are unwilling to prevent the one that can be stopped.
If trump wins anything that happens to you you deserve because you brought it on yourself. It’s a pity you are willing to let it happen to everyone else
I’m not going to support a genocide to stop anything!
Ironically, not even to stop a genocide. You’d rather two genocides happen than try to at least prevent one.
If the trolley is going to run over people regardless, and you have the option afterwards to prevent it from running over more people, the moral option is not abstaining.
Pro lifers who don’t believe in any exceptions believe abortions are genocide as well, and are willing to accept any and all consequence of total bans. There’s a similarity with your thinking, and it’s one you should seriously examine.
Your opinion is your own, as are your beliefs. Just be aware of their consequences and how others may perceive your morality.
Some of us don’t like seeking out stressful news about the government coming after us just to answer a non sequitur from an asshole. Doesn’t mean it’s not out there.
You: “Ha, I knew you couldn’t provide evidence, this proves I’m right.”
Me: “Ok here’s evidence.”
You: “That evidence is irrelevant”
Good talk.
Btw you’re literally proving my exact point. The Dems have decided to sacrifice us and you’re fine with it and are justifying it using the exact same logic you use to justify supporting the genocide of Palestinians. You’ve proven that my position is the correct one.
And here we go again. Once someone from a marginalized group exposes the lack of backbone and the insincerity of you, you attack him personally and suggest him to be part of “the enemy”. It is funny in a sad way because this reads exactly like /r/conservative over on reddit, when people challenged the current Trump narrative.
Or maybe if the average American stood with the marginalized instead of yelling at them to fall in line, we wouldn’t constantly have issues where the marginalized are systemically murdered and imprisoned. The blood isn’t on their hands for having morals and boundaries. It’s on the masses who refuse to give up even an ounce of comfort to lend a hand to the downtrodden. The path the democrats are on is the same path the current republicans have walked before.
Who are you willing to sacrifice for your own comfort? Why is that a valid position? Because the other guy points that same weapon at you instead and it’s scary? How many different groups are you willing to put on that sacrifice list until you just turn into a fascist republican? “Just following orders” is just as cowardly a response as “It was my only choice”.
Comfort? You’re idiot won’t wake up and realize the world is not that simple. You are already accepting yhe genocide of Ukrainians and lbgtq people because your ego won’t accept that change only happens with work and time. You are no different than they are.
Queer person here: we’ve had to violently fight for our rights and were successful in the past and we will do it again if we need to, so expecting a vote for anything will fix the issues of the marginalized is very out of touch. Doing nothing but voting is 99% political apathy, and it very much feels like all this browbeating is coming from someone who only votes and mayyyyybe donates to the ACLU or planned parenthood once every couple years. Do some real work and stop spending so much of your mental energy on inconsequential (assuming you don’t live in a handful of swing states) things. Build coalitions. Form or join unions. Stand up for what is right and protest what is wrong.
Tell that to the person I am talking to. I am not saying voting is all that matters. But it does matter and in 2024 we only have two options unless you want to throw away your vote on a third party that has zero chance winning.
So you know what state that person resides? You’ve confirmed they live in a swing state where their vote for president actually matters? (This is not me advocating against voting since local/state positions are important, but if you’re focused on president, only a handful of states really make a difference at all).
I am talking about all elections. My state is voting Trump with out a doubt, but it wont stop me from voting. And who knows? Maybe another epidemic will hit that republicans will ignore and my state might end up blue?
My state is ruby red and even the fairly large city I live in is red. Begging people to vote specifically for biden in situations like ours only makes people more apathetic since they know Biden has no shot. But if you tell people how to be more politically involved outside of voting, they’ll be more empowered to want to vote just so they can get people more aligned with them in their local and state elections. It’s the state government in red states like ours that will enact awful policies that we will actually feel. Pushing an unpopular president as the main reason to show up to the booth will only make them stay home instead.
Tangential: Covid is still killing a ton of people every month (though it gets better in warmer weather). This past January had over 10k covid deaths that were largely ignored by Biden and pretty much everyone else who are desperate to show how “good” things are now. But also, I’d caution against being hopeful for another pandemic that would wipe out conservatives since it’s tiptoeing on fascism, which you’re trying to be distinctly different to, eh? If a huge portion of Americans are fascist, America will be a fascist nation. I’ve heard conservatives wish that CA would sink into the ocean and that NYC would get swept away from a hurricane and I hope to god we haven’t ratcheted so far that now democrats are wishing and hoping for the deaths of their political enemy.
I didn’t say I want another epidemic to happen. I am pointing out there is still a slim chance we can win. Maybe they will be so sure of victory a bunch will stay home. Maybe one of the candidates will die.
If your chance of winning hinges on your opponent suddenly not being there anymore, that conclusion is kind of anti-democratic in nature. If (for example) someone says “Things will eventually start getting better once all the boomers are gone”, they’ve already decided who their enemy is and that there’s no use trying to have discussions with them about how to fix things. The world around them slowly becomes less about different people with different ideas and it metastasizes into a country where half of their neighbors want them dead and because of that, they’d see half their neighbors dead as well. This doesn’t go away if trump is defeated in November. Civil war will be right around the corner until people start talking to each other again. The militarism of both parties and the fascism of republicans will, over time, be seen as a less necessary weapon against “the enemy” and divisive politics will ease up. That being said, don’t waste your breath on literal armed Nazis/white supremacist groups. They’re an artifact of the fears and stresses of this current system and have decided the best course of action is the most harmful. They will be less of an issue once society at large isn’t gasping for air and don’t have to blame their woes on one particular group.
My point is, we don’t solve the issue of rising fascism within our borders by waiting it out and hoping it all blows away with time, only coming out from your shelter one day out of the whole year to do political action. Embrace democracy if you believe in it and talk to people who disagree with you(preferably in-person) about why you think the things you think and why it should be changed. Show up to town halls, get to know your local government, join local activism groups. If you want things to change for the better, you can’t just keep doing the same thing that got us into this mess.
Thoughtful, educated and informed voting decisions should be respected. Shame on this duopoly for forcing its electorate to choose between tacit support for a genocide, and outright fascism.
Thank you. I have to vote according to my conscience and what I believe is right, but if someone else’s conscience tells them differently, I can make my case but ultimately it is their decision to make. So many people on here expect everyone to think and see things the exact same way as them and can’t even seem to imagine someone having different values or a different perspective, and that can be very frustrating.
Trans people are not a monolith. There’s other trans people in this thread begging us to vote for Biden for their safety. Your feelings about being a rhetorical token are not invalid, but recognize that other people in your vulnerable group are legitimately crying out for help.
Either way, I’m glad I’m not one of your loved ones. Your own safety is one thing. Their safety is another.
I will do whatever I can to protect my loved ones and ensure they retain access to their meds. But I cannot go against the dictates of my conscience. And as I said, in the long term, solidarity between marginalized groups is the only viable path forward and I will not sacrifice that long term strategy for some fleeting, half-hearted protection. In fact I’ve already seen people applying the “lesser evil” argument to sacrificing trans rights since I posted this. Only by uniting and drawing a red line do we have a chance in the long run.
People think Trump will eventually make things so bad that the average man will salivate at the chance for Socialist rule…
What will actually happen if you get a nasty concoction made from a pinch of Handmaid’s Tale with a dash of Holocaust 2…
And the average man won’t care, as long as the trains run on time and they owned the libs… and if the trains don’t run on time, they probably have libs to blame.
Right? Imagine it’s a fucking Saw Trap, and there’s an easy way out without sacrificing anyone… and an equally easy way out sacrificing everyone. Make the less sociopathic choice.
Biden is literally arming a genocide. He was even adamant about his continued support for that. Meanwhile Dems led cities have brutally beaten up peaceful colelge protests and invited fascist MAGA mobs to attack minority students there.
The DNC and Biden do not protect minorities. They are white supremacists with just a bit more moderation to the means they employ, but they will absolutely resort to authoritarian crackdowns if they feel the minorities to step out of line by demanding justice and rights.
And I’d vote for a corpse before I vote for 34 time Convicted Felon Donald Trump. Eat the rich. Pack the courts. Seize the assets of felonious companies.
“Anyone who thinks themselves a tankie is too self aware to be one” sounds like one of those fallacies you’d learn about in highschool. (What is a tankie, btw? I’ve been too scared to ask…)*
I am by no means an expert, but the test that was explained to me is that if you look at the famous tianamen square picture of the guy holding grocery bags facing down a line of tanks, and then proceed to side with the line of tanks, then you’re a tankie.
When I say that I am not an expert, what I actually mean is that I’m a random idiot from the internet, so don’t take anything I say as gospel truth.
I’ve only been on lemmy for a few months, and I’ve never heard the term tankie on any other platform. My understanding is that a tankie is a militant supporter of communism, who completely disregards (or is in support of) how every time it’s ever actually been done it turns into an authoritarian dictatorship (or something similarly unpleasant to live under).
My own biases exposed: I am an american, and most of what I know I learned in the absolutely fucked american public education system, which says communism = evil, because of the red scare a while back.
If you do some googling, there’s a wikipedia article on the subject. I’ve forgotten most of the content of that article shortly after I read it, I should look at it again and maybe it will stick this time.
I’m a tankie. What tankie is supposed to mean is someone who blindly supports anything anyone does so long as they claim to be communist and wave a red flag. There’s maybe a handful of edgy teens who actually fit that description, but the way it’s actually used is to punch left at anyone who supports anything a socialist country has ever done, or who is insufficiently patriotic/nationalistic and is willing to consider things from an internationalist perspective.
If you say for example that Cuba under Castro had a successful literacy program, then there are people who will accuse you of being a tankie just for that. Because it gets used this way, some people like myself chose to reclaim the insult and wear it proudly.
Generally, the actual term for most “tankies” would be Marxist-Leninist. But I actually prefer tankie because it’s a more general, big tent label. It’s used so broadly that even anarchists can be called tankies. It’s basically like “woke” where it doesn’t actually have any real meaning.
Well I think there are probably a half dozen interpretations that people on Lemmy use. One I have heard repeated is that they view the Tiananmen Square event as something that China rightfully did… hence “Tankie”
The idea that that’s the origin of the term is a common misconception. The actual origin was about the USSR under Kruschev sending in the military in response to a rebellion in Hungary. Some British communists supported the move, while other communists opposed it and labeled the supporters as tankies.
But regardless of the origin, it’s changed to where now it’s liberals using it to criticize socialists in general.
If you say for example that Cuba under Castro had a successful literacy program, then there are people who will accuse you of being a tankie just for that.
$COUNTRY had a successful literacy program under $LEFT_GOVERMENT.
A tankie is, broadly, someone who wants to effect left-wing ideology using authoritarian methods. It originally referred to those who defended the USSR using tanks to suppress the Hungarian Revolution, but it could be aptly used to describe those who defend China’s actions in Tiananmen Square. It’s rightfully used as a perjorative, since authoritarian enforcement is antithetical to leftism, particularly communism.
Tankies are hypocrites who didn’t understand their self-proclaimed ideologies. If someone’s idea of communist praxis is lining up dissenters for the firing squad, you’re dealing with a tankie.
Lots of people say lots of silly things, nonetheless Trump is worse for the proletariat than Biden, and turning your nose up at the lesser evil endangers real people when the greater evil wins. You don’t have to vote for the greater evil to help tip the scales in their favor. Accelerationism is authoritarianism with extra steps and no one in the driver’s seat.
Biden doesn’t accept blame for tipping the scales in their favor. Biden’s family doesn’t accept blame for tipping the scales in their favor. Biden’s campaign doesn’t accept blame for tipping the scales in their favor. The DNC leadership doesn’t accept blame for tipping the scales in their favor. People who voted for Biden in the 2020 primaries don’t accept blame for tipping the scale in their favor. Moderaters and political analysts don’t accept blame for tipping the scales in their favor. People like you letting those people get away with that and focusing on telling me to be quiet and vote for Biden don’t accept blame for tipping the scales in their favor.
IDGAF who does or doesn’t accept blame for whatever. I care about material results; my future, my family’s future, my neighbors’ futures, the future of the people who live in this country, and this world. IDGAF how ideologically pure a politician is, or who’s wrong or right, or who gets away with whatever. I care about the people who are going to suffer if the Federalists, Fascists, and Fundamentalists keep establishing their foothold judge by judge, bill by bill, ruling by ruling.
This isn’t grade school, this isn’t a game, this isn’t about fair. There are real stakes here. People will die. I’m not heartless enough to play the blame game with lives on the line. I’m voting harm reduction because I’m an adult and I play the hand I’m dealt. Righteously losing doesn’t help anything but ego-centric deontology.
I care about material results; my future, my family’s future, my neighbors’ futures, the future of the people who live in this country, and this world.
Same bud. And Biden was never the guy who was going to do that for me. Where were you during the 2020 primaries? Where have you been ever since?
He’s actually been surprisingly effective. Your distaste doesn’t negate his numerous policy accomplishments with tangible benefits.
Even disregarding that, even if he was ineffective, he’s not trying to concentrate power into the hands of Federalists, Fascists, and Fundamentalists, so he is by default the superior choice to those who are. The material results that I care about, that reasonable adults care about, revolve around stopping the Federalists, Fascists, and Fundamentalists. Or are you on their side?
The material results that I care about, that reasonable adults care about, revolve around stopping the Federalists, Fascists, and Fundamentalists. Or are you on their side?
So the answer to that question is “Yes”. Got it. I’m not surprised.
Tankies are hypocrites who didn’t understand their self-proclaimed ideologies.
Tankies are very frequently the only people in the room who’ve done the reading. If you believe that so called “authoritarian methods” are antithetical to leftism, then I recommend you read the following pamphlet by Engels.
Tankies have read Marx and Engels, yes, but there are many other forms of leftism and even other forms of communism that aren’t ML. You are right about ML communists, in particular, but many other leftist movements are anti-authoritarian by their nature, so the point still stands.
Also, it’s possible to do the reading and disagree with the methods of implementation. I agree with the economics and the stated goals of communism, but I don’t believe authoritarianism is the best way to go about it.
I hop off the train at the part where the top-down dictatorship comes into play. Probably a bit before the level of authoritarianism where the Joseph Stalin type starts killing people for having a dissenting opinion, and what not.
Using the state to enforce good wages and end the terribleness of the stock market/landlord culture does not need to involve a top down dictatorship and a lack of democracy.
I know about the “dictatorship of the proletariat” and all that, and in my opinion, it should involve all of the workers, not one person or a small group of people. A top down dictatorship just makes it all that easier for the party to be infiltrated and controlled by bourgeois interests. If said dictatorship is a true democracy, with each worker having an equal say, it makes it pretty hard to control the proles.
So you wouldn’t accept any system that’s not a direct democracy? Where every single person is involved in every single vote? It’s a coherent position I suppose, but IMO totally impractical and idealistic.
I don’t think it’s realistic or pragmatic to expect a perfect direct democracy system. Trying to get as close to one as feasibly possible can be a goal though, and once we’re at that point, try to continually and slowly improve that direct democracy system until it’s even closer and closer and closer, ad infinitum.
You completely disregard, that the soviet union did number 3 and crushed all unions not falling in line. Or that they ignore the will of the proletariat during the 1917 and 1918 elections numerous times.
The authoritarian way isnt being critized for coming down on Capitalists. Its critized for how it treated every deviation from the party line. And especially, how it turned into a political chess game at the top, which prioritized amassing personal power and wealth over the actual well being of the state.
If by “not falling in line” you mean “actively sabotaging the working class for selfish reasons” then I suppose you have a point, but I would argue that in class war those organizations which do not support the working class are fair targets.
the will of the proletariat during the 1917 and 1918 elections
By the time the Bolsheviks were disregarding the results of elections, the People’s Soviets were the state power in the former Russian Empire, and they were a hundred times more democratic than the Duma ever was.
amassing personal power and wealth
I’m sorry comrade but the Soviets simply never did this. The benefits enjoyed by even top Party officials paled in comparison to the lavish lifestyles of the former Russian Empire’s aristocracy or those of the ruling class of any of their contemporary capitalist rivals - even fucking Stalin lived in a shared apartment!
Objectively speaking the Soviet Union was one of the most democratic and equal societies on this Earth during the time of its existence, and you can very clearly see in the data how their system equalized wealth (not “perfectly”, just “better than everyone else has ever done it”), and how the destruction of their system undid all of their progress.
By your metric Stalin should have been shot for undermining soviet defensive capabilities by purging almost every capable military leader? What did Tukhachevsky, Bukharin, Blyukher or Yegorov do to get executed? What were their sabotages? Their names got dropped by tortured officers and in turn they got shot. Setting the red army back years in experience.
And lets not forget the ethnic targetting: Between 1936 and 1938 nearly all ethnic Baltic People were cleansed put of the upper echelon.
I never said mistakes weren’t made. Class war is war and war has collateral damage. The problem here is the total idealistic rejection of “authoritarianism”, where every single thing that has ever worked is classed as such and therefore made off-limits.
“war has collateral damage” mate, Stalins Purges killed 700.000 at least and cost many more people their lives during WW2. Hitler ciuld have been stopped much earloer if Stalin hadnt replaced almost every capable commander with some yes man.
And their purges werent even class war. It was war to uphold the power of a small clique and to satisfy their paranoia.
Just like any other imperialism, the USSR worked out for the imperial core, while the periferal states were fucked over.
I dont want to fucking replace the boot with another one. I want the boot gone.
And yet the Soviet economy uplifted hundreds of millions from poverty and built the war machine that was critical in stopping the Nazis. People went from working on tenant farms to living in modern cities with all of the amenities of the time in a single generation, and the first man in space was the son of a farmer! The achievements of the Soviet Union - yes, even the Soviet Union under Stalin - far outstrip its failures and mistakes. I’m partial to Mao’s overall critique of Stalin, that he was 70% good and 30% bad (which also applies to Mao as it turns out), and I feel that Mark Twain’s quote about the French Revolution equally applies to the Russian one.
THERE were two “Reigns of Terror,” if we would but remember it and consider it; the one wrought murder in hot passion, the other in heartless cold blood; the one lasted mere months, the other had lasted a thousand years; the one inflicted death upon ten thousand persons, the other upon a hundred millions; but our shudders are all for the “horrors” of the minor Terror, the momentary Terror, so to speak; whereas, what is the horror of swift death by the axe, compared with lifelong death from hunger, cold, insult, cruelty, and heart-break? What is swift death by lightning compared with death by slow fire at the stake? A city cemetery could contain the coffins filled by that brief Terror which we have all been so diligently taught to shiver at and mourn over; but all France could hardly contain the coffins filled by that older and real Terror—that unspeakably bitter and awful Terror which none of us has been taught to see in its vastness or pity as it deserves.
one last thing
I dont want to fucking replace the boot with another one. I want the boot gone.
Me too, brother. But the bourgeoisie aren’t going to lift the boot from anyone’s neck willingly, and we have to be willing to stomp on their neck when we have the chance, otherwise a world without class is and will remain completely impossible.
Once again, i am willing to resort tp violence. but not for party elites. I am still getting the impression that you deem the great Terror to have been necessary. It wasnt. It didnt stomp out the “bourgeoisie”. It murdered old comrades fpr not bowing deep enough. It was the establishment of a cult of personality, in which noone was to critize the dear Leader. Which is eerily similar to Maos switch from “Please critize me and the party, for this is the only way of improving” to “Everyone who ever wrote something bad about the Party, the State or me is a despicable wrecker and needs to be dispatched” within one year.
I believe, that Millions of Non-Russian and Non-Georgians within the Sovietunion would have lived a better life, if the despotism within the Soviet Power Clique had been curbed. Stalins “30%” bad is more than just the Great Terror. Its the deportations and the ethnic cleansing of the new ruling class.
The Fall of the Soviet Union was a tragedy to the imperial russian core and its subsequent plundering remains one of the greatest failures of the 20th century, i grant you that.
Repression of the previous ruling class was absolutely necessary, the fact that it went overboard and also targeted comrades is the mistake. If it were possible to have a revolution that made absolutely no mistakes I would sign onto it no question, but I believe that such a thing is idealistic nonsense - and that forswearing all repression of the previous ruling class in order to not accidentally target comrades is far worse, because it takes an essential tool out of the revolutionary’s belt and replaces it with nothing.
There’s a difference between someone-needs-to-coordinate-and-manage-complex-undertakings “authoritarian” and line-the-dissidents-up-against-the-wall “authoritarian”. Tankies are the latter.
We have class war waged against us by the bourgeoisie, and thousands of people are casualties of that war every single day. Expecting to turn the tide against them without getting our hands dirty in turn is useless idealism.
On one hand I’d like it if the Democrats put up someone more certain to beat Trump. On the other Joe has shown he supports labor and things are moving in the right direction in that regard. I’d hate it if he we get a corpo Democrat that halts this progress.
I used to joke back in 2014 that if Milo Yian-whatever, Ben Shapiro and Gavin McInnes just had a biweekly meeting and decided on a hand sign, an image and a word to use heavily in social media for the following month that everything could be made into a dogwhistle within a year.
Its literally a copy of a 2016 trump meme except they replaced Trump with Biden. This meme was deployed whenever Trump would “shit the bed” by 2015 standards.
But it is. A symbol can mean different things in different context. For example, this hand gesture 👌 means okay in Western cultures but means something more insulting and offensive in Arab culture. Does that mean one is right and is the one and only representation of the gesture? Of course not. Same here. Swastikas have been around for thousands of years across many different cultures and has many different meanings. It’s just one variation of the symbol that ended up being used by the nazis and is offensive to most people. It’s silly and rather close minded to try to disregard all these disregard all these different context and meanings when many of them have been around for longer than the nazi variation. The principle applies here.
Please remember that this particular groyper meme is a literal copy of a Trump 2016 meme with the word “Trump” replaced with “Biden” and was deployed regularly by the alt-right. Please keep that in context while you give the argument that its in a totally different context. Its like responding to dog whistling accusations with more dog whistling.
Please remember that this particular groyper meme is a literal copy of a Trump 2016 meme with the word “Trump” replaced with “Biden” and was deployed regularly by the alt-right
So what? You have to stop doubling down on this idiotic argument because it is getting ridiculous. Guilt by association and purity are heavily frowned upon and criticized throughout history for a reason. Different things have different meanings in different contexts, and you can’t judge people without proper contexts and for things they’re not or didn’t do. This should be obvious, but for some reason it isn’t.
This meme and others like it all originate from 4chan and the other imageboards similar to it, and these boards are responsible for internet’s most famous memes. Just think about what has come out of 4chan for a second:
Wojak and its variations
Pepe and its variations
LOLcats
Pedobear
Anonymous
Rickrolling
The popularization of Chocolate Rain
Greentext
Rage comics
The ungodly origin of “Bronies”
The Shia Labeouf fiasco
The 4chan-Tumblr wars
Pool’s closed
They are quite literally the foundation of internet culture. Everybody who grew up on the internet was used or at least enjoyed any of these. These imageboards are built on the idea that the internet is the wild west, where everybody no matter how tame or extreme, no matter how good or evil, and no matter how pragmatic or delusional can get together and shitpost. And guess what? 4chan and these other imageboards were ALWAYS cesspools filled pedos, Marxists, neo nazis, anarchists, racial supremacists, misogynists/misandrists, and so on, but at the same time, they’re also filled with a lot of normal people. Regardless, if we follow your logic, which is that anybody who has ever used any of these memes is a neo nazi by proxy then anybody who took part in mainstream Internet culture over the past 20 years is a neo nazi… which is obviously ridiculous.
Keep in mind, you’re right the groyper meme did originate from neo nazis but so did many other famous memes. I mean the latest famous variation of wojak, the chud, originated from some Marxist imageboard. Marxists are just as vile as neo nazis, does that mean anybody who used the chudjak meme is a Marxist? No, that’s stupid. The meme was started by Marxists, but it was used by a lot of other people, including those making fun of Marxists.
The point that I’m trying to make here is that memes serve as templates. Templates without content don’t mean anything, they’re just a structured blank document. Just like how symbols have different meanings in different contexts, so do these memes. If OP posted this same meme saying something like “Putin is still a great leader” then OP would be a fascist… but he’s not. His meme is about Biden.
Like seriously, do you honestly believe that OP is some secret neo nazi because he used a cartoon frog meme to make a pro Biden post? Even worse, do you seriously think that I’m also a secret neo nazi by proxy for pointing out that symbols and templates mean different things in different contexts? This is where you start crossing the line from a valid critic into a paranoid schizo or McCarthyist virute signaler.
I mean the alternative is literally fascism. Not the silly internet “fascism” that’s just about someone that disagrees with you that you perceive is right of you on some silly made up political spectrum. Actual full blown fascism.
And a vote for Biden is a vote for the death or Palestinian children. If someone dies no matter what, the wind is taken out of your threat. Or is your life more important somehow?
A vote not for Biden is a vote for Trump and the death of thousands of Americans AND Palestinians AND Ukrainians. No matter what option we choose, Palestinians will die. One option just has significantly less death than the other.
Lol. No new wars broke out under Trump, at least. As soon ad Biden got in, we were sending tanks back into Syriah. We’ve got two major wars were now proxies for. Didn’t happen under trump.
Huh… yeah, actually, that’s a good point I just made. Maybe I will vote for him. I wonder how fast the current wars we’re involved in will stop.
So who does the capitolost vote for? The rich control the decisions. Like always. The ones who fund the parties. The ones who back the people in power.
If the people got who they backed we’d probably have Bernie or someone else who got grassroot funding.
So, speaking from a purely pragmatic perspective, voting for Biden is better than other US electoral choices for the purpose of trying to help Palestinians.
I understand your reticence and moral indignation, I largely feel the same.
But the biggest reason Trump won in 2016 is because voters were not particularly enthused with their choices, and a great many decided not voting at all (or voting for Trump as a protest against the establishment) was preferable to voting for HRC.
I have to imagine that we both believe that Trump is worse than Biden when it comes to the Israel-Palestine conflict.
Given that we’re already in election year, it’s down to Biden and Trump. One of them is going to be president come January next year.
Taking all that together, if we want things to get better for Palestine, we should vote for Biden because the alternatives are much worse.
Granted there is a lot you can do outside of elections to help, and I wouldn’t recommend ignoring those. But given that voting for the US president takes a few hours out of one day every four years, it’s not a good idea to ignore that either.
I hope this helps you understand those of us who don’t really like Biden but will vote for him regardless.
Do you understand why you are being demonized though? You’re making a choice that is purely symbolic just so you feel better, but real and vulnerable people across the country have to deal with the fallout.
You want to make a difference? Great! There’s a lot of ways to do that. Campaign and fundraise at the local and state level. Push for election reform, ranked choice voting, end to gerrymandering, term limits, electoral college reform, curtail lobbying… any number of things, and push for them more often than once every four years. Voting third party in a presidential election does NOT help.
If you want my respect, acknowledge the reality of the situation and vote for the best option (or the least bad option) among the viable candidates and then work for change within the system. It sucks that we are in this situation, but make a choice grounded in the real world, not a fake ideal world.
You’re making a choice that is purely symbolic just so you feel better
If voting third-party were purely symbolic, there wouldn’t be this many people on Lemmy trying to persuade us to not do it.
I think Biden does want our vote. And we’re telling him that if he wants our vote, he has to stop the genocide. That’s how we can use our vote to influence the government. That’s how democracy is supposed to work.
but real and vulnerable people across the country have to deal with the fallout
There are real and vulnerable people dying in Gaza right now because of what Biden is doing.
Is that supposed to persuade me to vote for Biden? “But Trump will do genocide too.”
Yeah, and that’s why I’m not supporting Trump either.
I am a single issue voter, and that issue is genocide. And frankly, I’m disappointed that more people aren’t single issue voters when it comes to genocide.
Here’s a puzzle for you. A group of three men go to a hotel, and they each pay $10 for a room, for a total of $30. Afterwards, the manager remembers that there’s a deal where you can get 3 rooms for $25, so he gives $5 to the bellboy and tells the bellboy to return it to the men. But the bellboy returns just $1 to each of the men, and pockets the remaining $2.
So the men each paid $9, for a total of $27. The bellboy pocketed $2. Where did the other dollar go?
And the answer is that “Where did the other dollar go?” is a nonsensical question when you understand the situation correctly. But a lot of people who first hear it don’t understand the situation correctly.
Likewise, “You’re helping Trump by voting third-party” is a nonsensical when you understand the situation correctly, but many people don’t at first understand the situation correctly.
Are you sure we don’t understand it correctly? Trump won in 2016 in part due to the righteous indignation of people that refused to vote for Clinton. Third party spoiler candidates are not a new phenomenon.
Most probably wouldn’t have voted at all but that doesn’t change the math. In a US presidential election, voting third party and not voting at all are equivalent in every practical sense.
Right. So, part of the problem with “Voting third-party means supporting Trump” is that it presumes I would have otherwise voted for Biden.
And I wouldn’t have. Because he’s committing genocide.
Also, when third-party candidates start to get traction, they can pull votes away from Trump as well as Biden.
And if enough people vote third-party, we can start to defeat both Trump and Biden. Even small amounts of support for third-party candidates can lead to a third-party winning seats in congress if that support is concentrated in particular districts, like college towns. And in an evenly divided congress, a few seats can control the balance of power and have a big impact.
In our case, Biden and Trump are both Hitler because they’re both supporting a genocide. The crowd in that photo are a mix of Democrats and Republicans, and that guy is the people saying “I won’t support either of you”.
They aren’t both Hitler though. One is unquestionably worse than the other even if you only look at that single issue. One of them WILL be the next president whether you like it or not. You can have a say in who that will be, or you can go with righteous indignation and let the worse option win by default.
It absolutely is righteous indignation. You aren’t in the same situation as that guy and you aren’t being brave. Palestinians in Gaza will not be thanking you if Trump becomes president.
I’m not in the same situation as that guy. I am not claiming to be brave. I’m a little worried (like we all are), but my life is not in imminent danger.
But I am trying to do the right thing, and I hope that if things get worse and I do end up in a situation like that man that I will be brave and continue to do the right thing. That’s the lesson I’m taking from him.
If there were a “no genocide” candidate that could win, making that a single issue would matter. Biden supports Israel despite their actions in Gaza… which he has publicly stated he doesn’t agree with and has taken concrete, if underwhelming, steps to try and stop. Trump has shown us during his previous administration and told us recently that he will support Israel harder and will likely take steps to decrease the resistance to the Palestinian genocide if not outright accelerate it. He’ll also accelerate Russian aggression in Ukraine and likely would ignore our Article 5 responsibilities when Putin advances farther into Europe. I’ll assume you’re familiar with the policy differences on climate and how climate change impacts poor regions (like Gaza) more than it impacts affluent ones like the US (and even we’re getting our asses kicked by climate change this year). You can vote to take a moral stand, or you can vote for desired outcomes. The people trying to convince you not to vote 3rd party are trying to convince you to vote for a desired outcome. There is presently no likely outcome that gives us a non-Biden, non-Trump administration for the next 4 years. Based on that fact, we want to maximize the likelihood of the best availa le outcome. That’s what we’re asking…to think about what the world looks like for the people you care about under Biden and compare those outcomes to what it will look like under Trump and vote based on those outcomes. The time to find the ideal candidate is at the beginning of a presidential term, not the end of one.
You can bet your ass most of us are including the ongoing genocide in our voting decision, we’ve just thought about it enough to know our options aren’t between “stopping genocide” and “continuing genocide”, the choice is between “resisting” (aka, the status quo) or “accelerating”.
It’s about having your desires counted on the public record.
Get your desires on the public record in local and state elections and primaries where it might actually matter. For a US presidential election it’s an entirely empty gesture that makes you and only you feel better. No policies will change. No causes will be advanced. History will not remember you. It is very likely, however, that will make the lives of vulnerable people inside and outside of this country worse by giving trump a second term.
No policies will change. No causes will be advanced.
Or, maybe politicians will see that they’re losing votes to anti-genocide third-party candidates, and their policies will change.
And if not, then we don’t have a democracy anyway. If it’s not possible for the USA to cease its support for genocide, then this is not a liberal democracy, and this is certainly not the leader of the free world.
What happened to “never again”? Never again is now and all I’m hearing is “eh, what can you do?”.
You’re gonna need a better example, because people lighting themselves on fire played a tremendous role in ending popular support for America’s occupation of Vietnam during the Vietnam War.
It’s the last thing I would describe as “symbolic”.
Voting for the stunt double from weekend at Bernie’s does not grant you superiority.
Most of us have been voting in the primaries and are involved in local politics. It didn’t matter. The R/D machine drowns out all opposition to its duopoly.
Biden will not win this election. Democracy died while he confusedly stared into the camera for 6 seconds. Beyond that, he fumbled his closing statement which should disqualify from any public speaking position.
Trump is inevitable. We did all we could to get an alternative to Biden, but his hubris will destroy us.
So your solution is to give up and throw your vote away? I’m glad you didn’t want my respect because you didn’t get it.
A literal corpse being paraded around for four years like Weekend at Bernie’s would still be a better choice than Trump. He attempted a coup to invalidate the will of the people and maintain power, sent a mob to attack the Capitol building, and has been charged with 91 felony counts in four jurisdictions just for stuff he did while in office and as a candidate (convicted of 34 and counting).
But democracy died when an old man showed signs of being old? Not all that other stuff? Yeah, I’m voting for Biden. Easiest decision of my life. You should too.
You can argue until you’re blue in the face over there. Biden lost the election with that debate. He didn’t do anything he needed to do this term to protect democracy as we know it and the Supreme Court sealed the R’s final solution today.
It’s over man…game over. Congratulations…your support of the status quo ended Democracy.
In short, yea, I’m perfectly fine not having your respect.
In their moral justification, the argument of the lesser evil has played a prominent role. If you are confronted with two evils, the argument runs, it is your duty to opt for the lesser one, whereas it is irresponsible to refuse to choose altogether. Its weakness has always been that those who choose the lesser evil forget quickly that they chose evil.
-Hannah Arendt, German-American philosopher and political theorist, in fuckin 1964 lmao. some things never change!
It’s a frigging figure of speech. It doesn’t literally mean both options are “evil” anytime it is used. And you’re not “choosing evil” by voting for Biden — not for the people whose lives will be ruined if Trump wins. For many you are preventing evil.
If a few more people in a few states had chosen the “lesser evil” of Hillary over Trump, the Supreme Court wouldn’t be delivering supreme evil every few months for the foreseeable future.
(I don’t need to hear about how Hillary did a bad job in the election — it doesn’t change the fact that the consequences are what they are.)
Then Congress would appoint the President. If, somehow, a Congress was also not elected, then the states would likely send delegates to do the same thing, but not all of Congress is even up for election.
IMO the disconnect lies in the fact that many don’t see Biden as the “lesser evil.” They want to vote for Biden, because they’ve been influenced to think it is the only option.
Voters want a solution to that situation, so they make assumptions to come to a conclusion that fits the narrative they tell themselves.
Some, when faced with a no-win situation, choose to not play the game. Others, convince themselves that the lesser-evil is a desirable outcome. Many, myself included, want to “change the conditions of the test.”.
There is no viable solution. All choices are valid and should be respected.
I’m going to assume, from your replies, that you don’t think this election is a no-win situation?
But others do, which is illustrated in OP’s Arendt comment. Those concerns are material, whether true, or not. Dismissing vote abstainers, or third party voters, doesn’t address those concerns. Only Biden and the DNC can do that.
because you’re fucking moron that forgets things easily!"
It’s more that the worst thing you’re willing to accept becomes the new normal.
And then something that was previously unthinkable becomes thinkable. And then if you accept that because it’s the lesser evil, it becomes the new “new normal”. Continue in a downward spiral.
Look at the state we’re in now, with Trump and Biden. That’s the result of decades of picking “the lesser evil”.
I’m voting Brandon but let’s not pretend he didn’t shit the bed. It was fucking awful. Brandon should fuck off, but I’d vote for a corpse over any republican, and that will probably be true for the rest of my life.
It’s funny how the standard by which we judge Biden is so high, and the standard for Trump is so low. Like… “oh wow, orange man form complete sentence, he’s really killin it” vs “omg Biden stumbled over his words and had one bad night, his candidacy is over”.
Gaslight, deny, deflect. Anything to avoid facing how fucked we are.
I didn’t say were weren’t fucked to some degree of fucked. But I’m also not gonna blow it so out of proportion that I’m paralyzed and do nothing. Or worse, cry and moan and cause others to do nothing. Literally people are taking one fuck up and forgetting everything else. It’s completely buying into the false narrative pushed by the GOP and ignores all the good Biden has done and the fact that 99% of his other speeches and debates have been completely fine. Many people have been… well, played.
The only reasonable course of action at this point is to stop whining, vote for Biden, and then raise hell to demand accountability from the DNC. Make it 100% clear that we will accept nothing less than a stellar candidate in 2028. At that point the danger from Trump will have largely passed and we can move forward.
It’s not one mistake. It’s four years of obvious decline being put on stage where people have a harder time covering it up.
I don’t know if anybody wants you to worry to indecision, but it sure would’ve been nice if this had been acknowledged when it might’ve been repairable.
You’re not going to get any accountability my friend.
It’s not one mistake. It’s four years of obvious decline being put on stage where people have a harder time covering it up.
He’s an old man. Congrats on figuring that out.
As I can attest, older people in general are a little bumbly but that’s not a predictor of mental acuity or ability. It’s certainly not an indicator of dementia on it’s own.
I’ve watched many of his speeches, press conferences, etc. and I see little to no evidence of cognitive decline. What I do see is people buying into that narrative because, like all good propaganda, it taps right into their preexisting biases.
Can you help me understand what Biden meant when he shouted “We finally beat Medicare!” I found that confusing.
Have you never once in your life misspoken? Have you ever been in a super stressful situation where you knew you were being judged in every possible way by a large number of people? I confess, I have. And I have screwed up badly a number of times. Forgot what I was saying, said the wrong words… all kinds of things.
Thankfully, I was not judged on my stumbling over my words but by the substance of what I had to say and the totality of my contributions. I prefer to judge others similarly.
The issue here is that Biden has to compete for the morons in the middle who somehow can’t decide between an obvious traitor and a mediocre democrat. So he simply must perform better. The standard is truly higher for him because it takes a lot to sway the mentally defective undecideds.
That is not all where the discussion is right now. The discussion is whether Biden is the best person we have. We still can put someone else forth and now it’s the time to do it.
I don’t disagree at all that Biden should fuck off. But the point remains that the standard is higher for him than for the traitor. I was pointing out what is plain to see for the other commentator.
The talking heads said the Democratic Party rules only allow it if he steps down. Not sure if that’s correct. But either way someone needs to do something fast to right this ship.
There’s not really any swing voters who are undecided. There is a massive group that is voting for Trump, and a lot of people who would rather stay home on election day. And all year it has been “Biden needs to win” but now even the DNC is horrified that he is totally unappealing. He belongs in a hospice unit, not the White House. Biden has been like this since the 2020 primaries, just now everyone has to see how old Biden really is.
Biden had more than “a bad night” the dude looks like he’s aging out of the ability to stay awake for 90 minutes at a time.
You have completely bought into the long GOP build up of a fundamental lie. Congrats I guess.
Edit: The thing that makes the false GOP narrative of Biden being senile and incapable SO effective is that it taps into your own prejudices. None of us really want a senior citizen as president and many younger folks believe older people to be incapable of anything more than watching TV and playing bingo. This is easily disproven but the prejudice remains. So when his horrible debate performance confirms your bias, well… of course you run with it and ignore all other evidence. Never mind that the very next day he did a great and highly energetic campaign rally… never mind that 99% of the time Biden has been on point, articulate and rarely fucked up more than could be explained by a life-long speech impediment. Nope, you all want to believe so much that old people have no business as president (a point with which I agree) that the standard by which you judge them is not a standard you would ever apply to yourself.
Worldwide website. The world leans farther left than Biden (except for the oppressive “bad” countries, most of which censor internet use, or block open communication sites like these). American conservatives are the lunatic fringe Right comparatively. I dont think bashing anti-Biden is too productive, because it doesnt allow for legitimate discourse. Given the current state of affairs, I can understand it strategically…but it leads down a bad road.
Criticize Biden all you want. But he’s not stepping down and there isn’t a good alternative this late in the game. The DNC fucked up by allowing him to run the first time and then again by not demanding he not seek re-election. Just like they fucked up by fucking over Sanders.
And yet… these are the cards we have and we’re not getting another hand. It sucks.
Newsom is an extremely savvy political operator and will not run for several reasons, but mainly he knows he’s likely up next and needs to play nice with the DNC establishment. He doesn’t need to take chances on a run against a toxic candidate when he can run in 2028 and have a much much easier time. Likely he sees the consequences of a Trump 2nd term and knows the tide will swing dramatically toward a more progressive candidate.
IMO: Harris will never in a million years run against Biden but more importantly, as fucked up as it is, a huge segment of stupid 'Mericans will never vote for a woman. So neither Harris nor Whitmer are viable options at this five-alarm fire stage.
Did you watch the debate? Can you explain to me what Biden meant by “We finally beat Medicare!” What was he trying to say? Was he trying to say “We finally beat Medicare for all!”? Because that would make sense to me.
He fucked up. And the DNC fucked up by allowing him to run a second time (or a first, in my book). But people are human, shockingly. They do fuck up and they do say incoherent things (you’ll understand when you get older, lol) and I’d rather have someone who spews gobblygook once in a while than someone who lies incessantly and spews gobblygook all the time.
Show me an alternative. Show me a viable path forward that ensures a second Trump presidency doesn’t happen. If you haven’t got that then there’s really nothing more to discuss. We’ll all hold our noses and vote for Biden and then raise hell to get a more reasonable candidate in 2028. Because at least then there will be a 2028 election.
Did you watch it? I’m 100% for the Democrats but Biden is incoherent, he is not up for the job. From what I saw he isn’t up to doing the job through November. He needs to step down immediately. If he doesn’t Trump is going to win.
Look, this is a terrible situation and the DNC is 100% responsible for fucking this up. Biden should never have sought a second term. But this is our awful reality right now and we have to deal with it in any way -that is available to us - that prevents a Trump 2nd term.
Yeah dumbass, an avowed socialist for years now, been watching the GOP propaganda machine since it was cool to be on Fark for fucks sake and NOW they finally turned my frog gay. Makes perfect sense!
Wake the fuck up you white moderate, your cope will eat us all.
There’s so much Democratic gaslighting going on now it’s ridiculous. They need to stop fucking around, put the hammer down and just run Newsom. What do the egotists like RBG and Biden think their legacy is going to be? Step out gracefully and let someone else take the reins jfc. Otherwise the legacy you leave is that you have fucked us all.
That’s fine. He surrounds himself with capable people (The other guy’s are all heading to prison and were always the most incompetent for their positions). His party is just as corpo as the other, but they will not enact Project 2025 and still have a chance at change for the better (the other party does not). One party might maintain the crappy status quo, the other will absolutely entrench and yank the country further in the wrong direction irreversibly against the will of the majority.
I’ve been flip flopping on this over the last 48 hours.
I can’t dispute that Joe doesn’t seem fit for another presidency.
That said, it sounds like it’s really up to Biden and the First Lady to decide to withdraw before anything will happen.
In the mean time, this discussion isn’t helping progressive voters. Trump will preside over an irreversible lurch to the right. Progressives need to unite behind a candidate - anyone the faintest pulse will do.
I assume you are referring to supplying weapons to Israel, in which case, do you think Trump (who called Biden a ‘Palestinian’ as an insult during the debate) will be the better choice and stop supplying weapons to Israel?
It’s just kinda dumbass, since the other guy is going to do so much worse. Like, if you value human life, you should draw the line at the putz who’s going to kill the fewest people. You can piss and moan all you want, but before you lies a binary choice. There’s nothing you can do to change that.
Hypothethical imaginary situations that are supposed to scare Leftists or other sensible individuals into toeing the dem party lines are false and useless
i keep seeing this analogy and conclusions pop up everywhere on here over the last three months and I’m think a neo-liberal developer has unleashed a host of bot accounts that parrot their party’s propaganda on Lemmy
So you actually believe that after the elections are over when one of the two candidates will inevitably win that your 3rd party vote will have done anything other than the obvious 2 things? (Either nothing or just raise trump’s chance to win). If you actually care, the sensible thing to do is make everything possible to make sure trump doesn’t win then start protesting asap and doing everything in your power for the next 4 years to make sure you get more and better options.
When did they say they were throwing their vote away or voting for trunp? You can always expect false analogies from genocidal democrats.
Political/Voting Apathy is a thing, if an individual’s interest and values don’t align with yours, you can’t expect them to support or follow your party. The Biden-led government committed a genocide, deal with the consequences
And do you really think the literal fascist will be a better option?
No? Then vote Biden.
We only have two options. There is no way around that.
Throwing your vote away is disgustingly irresponsible, and those who do are culpable for everything that follows if Trump wins.
It’s not apathy, it’s pure selfishness from those either too privileged to be seriously effected if Trump wins, or too stupid to realize the effect it will have
When Trump wins it will be your fault for not forcing Biden to drop out. Ride-or-die Biden cultists are following the leader off a cliff when they should be calling for Biden to resign now (holy SHIT he needs to resign now, this man is not able to perform his job didn’t you see?!) and for someone else to replace him at the Convention.
Do whatever you want, but don’t try to blame me for trying to force America to vote for a nursing home patient.
This is the option we have. I don’t like it either, but unless some miracle happens and the DNC gets their head out of their ass, it’s either Biden or Trump.
Refusing to vote because you’d rather stick it to Biden is not only stupid, but it’s exactly what republicans want you to do. You are inherently aiding them and Trump by doing so.
No, our option is to voice our displeasure and force the Party to capitulate to our demands.
Stop just laying down and letting them have their way with you. It’s embarrassing.
EDIT I don’t mean this to be an attack, but I just can’t get over how peasant-like your mindset is. “All we can do is support m’lord and 'ave faith in his Court, ours is not to question.” Why won’t you even try to change anything? When did you give up entirely on the concept of politics? We need to rise up and resist, not meekly obey!
I’m not “giving up”, I simply recognize the situation for what it is. I’m a realist, not a delusionist. Our situation is fucked either way, and the only choice we have is laid out plainly in front of us. We have the option of bad, or worse. I know what I’m choosing.
By all means, voice your displeasure. Attack the party, attack those that got us to this point, attack the fuckers that continually neuter any attempt at having an even somewhat decent person running this country.
We are largely on the same page. Fuck Democrats, fuck the DNC, and fuck the spineless bastards that support them.
But at the end of the day, facts are facts. We can wish the situation were different, and we can fight for a better one going forward, but this is what we’ve got right now.
So are you going to do your part in mitigating the shitshow, or will you sit in selfish apathy, willing to let the bad be worse?
I’m not “giving up”, I simply recognize the situation for what it is. I’m a realist, not a delusionist. Our situation is fucked either way, and the only choice we have is laid out plainly in front of us. We have the option of bad, or worse. I know what I’m choosing.
You are giving up, regardless of your reasoning. You think good things are impossible and we should just settle for less bad things.
This only guarantees that the worst outcome becomes inevitable. You create a shield for Democrats to hide behind that allows them to ignore calls from their base, which in turn obliterates voter enthusiasm and participation. When no one shows up to vote for your cynical candidates you have no one but yourself to blame.
You need to join us in forrcing the Democratic Party to listen to constituents or Republicans are going to win.
If you actually cared about genocide you’d get your thumb out of your ass and vote to reduce harm.
Yet you’re sitting here shitting yourself over people voting for the lesser of two evils to feel morally superior, as if that’s going to help Palestinians. Good job.
I live in Canada, 15 km from the US border. When shit kicks off down there millions of them could come north expecting that Canada will welcome them with open arms. We will be unable to feed or house them. Many will die of exposure in the first winter. They should go south and hope that Mexico will take them in.
As someone living around the Timmins area, we’ve imported some hot climate individuals and still have room, send them up! The Northlander should be running by then /fingers crossed/
I’m not sure if you completely missed my point or if hating Canada is so big a part of your identity now that you just can’t miss any opportunity to spread that Rusian and Chinese anti-Canadian propaganda.
“everything I don’t like is propaganda” - Typical Lemmy user
No, what I said is true. You’re Canadian, how do you not know this?
Source: CBC
Tens of thousands of Canadians are emigrating from Canada to the United States and the number of people packing up and moving south has hit a level not seen in 10 years or more, according to data compiled by CBC News.
There’s nothing new about Canadians moving south of the 49th parallel for love, work or warmer weather, but the latest figures from the American Community Survey (ACS) suggest it’s now happening at a much higher rate than the historical average.
Actual reasons cited in the article: Lower taxes, higher wages, affordable housing, dislike of Trudeau’s politics, cheaper groceries, increasing crime rates, increasingly disappointing healthcare system, and warm weather
Whether you agree or disagree with these reasons is irrelevant. The point is that trend is there and it’s accelerating. So to your tongue in cheek point about Americans mass migrating north, that likely won’t happen because the opposite trend is occurring as we speak.
I’m not arguing for or against, I’m just pointing out the fact that emigration trend from Canada to the US is happening and it is at a 10 year high. I merely pointed out the reasons cited in the article as I clearly stated.
I live in Canada but have worked for US companies and worked internationally for 15 years. I would never, ever move to the US. Ever.
My belief is that the people moving to the US are moving there for, “freedumb” (no realizing that Canadians enjoy more actual freedom and have better protection of their rights than Americans do) I’m more than ok with that.
I don’t care, my point still stands. Your hatred of America or love for Canada is irrelevant, and so are your assumptions as to why people are moving (even they literally give you the reasons in the article). The fact remains that emigration from Canada to the US is at a 10 year high, is far above the historical average, and is increasing.
In the same year (2022), only 10k Americans immigrated to Canada. This is only 8% of the number of Canadians who emigrated to the US (126k), despite the US having 8.5x as many people.
I don’t hate the US. I love Canada. I understand that Canada is one of the best places in the world to live. Those who think they will be better in a country with less freedom, less rights, less safety, and a higher cost of living because they bought in to the right wing bullshit may very well be better off moving to the US. I know Canada will be better for it.
I’ve never understood putting an “lol” or an “lmao” or an “rofl” in a message. Are you trying to suggest that you’re smarter than I am or that what I said wrong or stupid? Are you trying to intimidate me? That is definitely not what I take away from it.
I react very much the same way Russians do to people smiling in photos.
Still voting Biden, but this feels an awful lot like many past elections where people are holding their nose and voting for a candidate they don’t necessarily like just because they really don’t like the other candidate: Bush v Gore, Bush v Kerry, Clinton v Trump. Those elections never seem to turn out good.
Give me a viable other option, please! Biden is soggy, cold oatmeal from 4 days ago that’s probably still fine. Trump is medical waste mixed with gasoline and uranium powder.
Fear seems like the go-to strategy when you have the weaker candidate. During the Obama elections, the only thing Republicans could do was try to scare people into voting for them, since they knew they couldn’t beat him. The strategy turns from focusing on the strength of your own candidate to focusing on the flaws of the opposing candidate. Democrats entire strategy at this point is maximizing fear of Trump. Not sure why it’s so hard for them to get rid of Biden and put up a real candidate, but it looks like a flaw in the nomination process.
They should have been preparing a replacement for Biden since he was sworn into office.
Now… Who really knows. There’s so much at stake for more than the presidency. If the choices are between a 78 year old felon under multiple indictments who is only out for himself, and an 81 year old who wants to better the country but is, well, 81… I’ll take the 81 year old
I’m normally critical of Biden but this is one of the few times I’ll say it. Biden staying in the race is the best thing he can do.
It doesn’t matter when he drops out at this point, the time to do that was 8 months ago. If he drops out now and there’s an open convention, democrats lose in November. If he drops out after the convention, and the DNC chooses a different candidate to replace him, Democrats lose in November.
The last time anything similar happened, there were riots outside the DNC in Chicago and Hubert Humphrey safely handed the office to Richard Nixon.
The DNC replied that you are just a secret Trump fan. The party knows what is best and you should not expect primaries and having a say. Also we have always been at war with East-Asia.
Surely there’s one better young person in the USA ?
None of them ran. Biden’s admin and his fund raising base held enormous sway over the party at-large. As soon as he corralled the support of this tiny monied elite, everyone else had to either get in line or get marked as party pariahs and ousted for their disloyalty.
The pastiche of democracy is predicated on a primary system that can produce and sustain rival candidates. But when leadership in the party are terrified of “Russian bots” and “Leftist Antifa Agitators” undermining the general election, they circle the wagons around their incumbents and bow down to their mega-donors out of cowardice.
No rival candidates means no real primary means no one actually challenges Biden on his merits.
The primary system is obviously corrupted. The incumbent managed to shut out everyone else. This happened on both sides of this inept stupid system. Two candidates who it is painfully obvious are unfit for the job. Geriatrics clogging up the political machine stopping even retirees from having a go.
The youth backlash will eventually upend everything, since not only they are denied a voice, but they will also be made the servants of the boomers for much of the next 20 years.
I’m not sure you realize just how big of a single issue this is.
Trump is a psychopathic cult leader running a campaign of lies, defamation, and retribution. He aspires to be the US’s first authoritarian leader, and wants to turn the nation into a nuclear armed Switzerland. He wants to keep inflation high so that corporate America can continue to enrich the few at the expense of the many. He is literally telling business prices will continue to rise, while simultaneously promising the public that he will bring “Biden’s” high prices down. It’s utter madness.
Because he is “not Trump” could not be a deeper reason to vote for Biden. Especially when not voting or voting for a third party candidate effectively empowers Trump’s campaign and the many more on the right who will always vote for their team no matter what.
For who? The American people are struggling. Meanwhile the wealth gap is wider than it’s literally ever been and Biden is too busy bombing brown children to give a shit
The perception is not quite the same as the reality.
Nevertheless, Trump is doing a better job of fueling this view and promising change, even if it’s all lip service - he doesn’t care because his followers believe everything he says.
The reality is things are better now than in 2020 for most Americans. Unemployment is very low, and wages are up. Relative to the richest of course things are only getting more distant but again, you want Trump to bring equality? Good luck with that, lol.
No I want both of them to unalive, preferably as violently as possible. Unemployment is a vastly flawed metric that doesn’t account for underemployment or discouraged workers, and real wages would be significantly down if the government was accurately measuring inflation, which they’re intentionally not doing so they can continue to pretend that everything’s fine.
Nobody is saying things are fine. They’re just not as bad as they could be, or as bad as might feel to a lot of middle class folks. It’s still very shit for baby though don’t get me wrong.
Not going to wish violence on Biden - he’s only improved things relative to where they were at the end of Trump’s term. But I do want him to walk off into the sunset away from the presidency.
Trump on the other hand I agree is living excrement so I’d be quite happy for him to be flushed. I don’t care about revenge though. I just want his stink gone from the world.
You only say things are fine bc it doesn’t affect you personally that much. Also please stop claiming that Biden has improved anything other than AIPAC’s grip on our tax dollars.
I’m sorry if you’re having a hard time, but the statistics and the Bills Biden has passed are improvements for many, even if they don’t help you personally.
Anyway, hopefully we agree we both want Trump gone, and Biden too. Given how terrible Biden was at the debate there’s a good chance now, and that will mean a better chance the democrats defeat Trump.
Then, the work begins to achieve something even better than what the Democrats have to offer. But it isn’t coming from the right-wing, that’s for sure.
Well, in the current economy, the statistical indicators that economists rely on are booming. GDP, etc. What folks on the left like us are saying is that those indicators are easily measurable but do not paint an accurate picture of what most Americans are experiencing. It doesn’t feel like a boom out here because, well, it ain’t.
It’s not like we’re sipping champagne, kicking it at the beach, and complaining that the guy next door has a nicer beach. We work just as hard as other generations and get a lot less to show for it.
Acknowledging that is important, but corporate politicians in either party seem like they just don’t want to anything about it.
Still voting for Biden, but yeah, not enthusiastically.
Okay, yeah nah I’m with you. I like to think that’s what I was getting at, but you said it better.
If I could vote for Biden I too, would do so without enthusiasm. Let’s hope he steps down though. I swear anyone else has a better chance at this point.
The only outcome that might suck even more is if Biden did step down, Kamala steps up, and she still loses. Cuz then it’s like… oh so we’re just gonna be misogynistic as a voter base now, great, thanks fellow Americans. Like, we were ready to vote for a shambling shell of an old man but not a lady with Hillary Clinton energy, okay. 🤦
Really, if the Dems brought in someone who was like… 50 (and probably not Newsom owing to prolonged hateboner for Cali) they’d gain 10 points in the polls immediately. Whether true or not, the narrative that Biden is old and doddering is there and that debate performance did nothing to dissuade it.
“I just don’t get why people would like ‘not’ being set on fire. Like, it’s just a little fire, what are you, combustible fats wrapped in flammable organic fabrics? I guess it’s simply that it’s not being set on fire that they like. It’s so weird and frustrating.”
What I’ve seen so many people not understand with the situation we are in right now, is that we can’t fix our current situation in one election. Everything is far to tucked up for that, so the best that can be done is vote for the least fucked up option and work to improve things. People refusing to participate or vote for the candidate who is unfortunately our best option currently (biden) are doing more damage than the people voting for the fascist party. The perfect candidate/option does not exist and never will (obviously not saying everything biden has done has been good).
People refusing to participate or vote for the candidate who is unfortunately our best option currently (biden) are doing more damage than the people voting for the fascist party.
Incredible take. “Say what you will about fascists, at least they support the two party system.”
so the best that can be done is vote for the least fucked up option and work to improve things.
Democrats were good at the first part, but not the second. I remember lots of Dems saying “Vote for Biden, and then we’ll hold his feet to the fire!” Well, there was no “holding his feet to the fire”, because that’s seen as enabling Trump.
The perfect candidate/option does not exist and never will
Yes, but there are candidates who are better, such as Jill Stein and Cornel West. You can’t vote for a perfect candidate, but you can vote for the best candidate.
You need to also vote for someone who actually has a chance to win. Voting for a better candidate who realistically can’t win in elections like this were someone like Trump could win is basically handing Trump the win. His base doesn’t think for themselves, and would vote for him if he killed their family in front of them. I wish to God we had Bernie instead of Biden, but Bernie wouldn’t have won.
I live in a blue state, so using that logic, I shouldn’t vote at all. Voting for Trump or Biden is a waste of time, because the state will go blue regardless.
His base doesn’t think for themselves, and would vote for him if he killed their family in front of them.
If Biden killed your family in front of you, would you still vote for him?
I wish to God we had Bernie instead of Biden, but Bernie wouldn’t have won.
wait, that is both of them! So, the felon adulterer serial liar narcissist one or the one that is older by two years and doesn’t know where he is or what he is saying sometimes?
Right? Everything you can say negative about Biden can be said about Trump and Trump will be the worse offender of the two. Biden does have positive qualities, which I honestly cannot think can be said about Trump. He is a sushi roll consisting entirely of turd.
And you are happily imprisoning yourself into believing that the system is right to only offer you these two as candidates. If everyone that was progressive and unhappy with Biden would vote for Stein, then she could win. It is the mere talk about her having no chance of winning and the vote being wasted that keeps people in line to take the system as is.
I see the same arguments made against voting for smaller parties in my country where there is a minimum % they need to achieve before getting parliament seats. It is a system designed to preserve the current political elites with their network to the economic and cultural elites against ideas and movements taking a foothold.
Everyone sees what Biden is and what he stands for. If everyone who disagrees with that would take to the streets and demand the DNC to hold a real primary, or better yet demand fundamental changes to the political system, you would be surprised what is possible.
are doing more damage than the people voting for the fascist party.
Hooooooly fuck this gets 27 upvotes? There it is folks. Leftists are doing more damage by refusing to vote than the people who stormed the capitol. This hot take brought to you by lemmy.
The Republican party wouldn’t exist if everybody voted. That is a straight up fact. As fucked as our election system is, they are far enough the minority that if everyone got out, the EC wouldn’t matter.
You want a “left light” and a “true left”, you aren’t going to get it by abstaining, or by voting for nonviable moonshot third-party candidates. You are going to get it by abolishing the far right party and making that tiny sliver of the whole population realize that their antiquated views aren’t welcome here.
They need to be crushed.
They only exist because people don’t want to vote for the lesser of two evils, so instead they just don’t vote. And what do you know, a -1 for the less evil is just as effective as a +1 for the more evil.
All of their success is brought on by feeding apathy in their opposition, making it more difficult to vote, destroying any faith in the system, and gerrymandering.
So yes, in my opinion, the far left refusing to hold their nose for a few minutes may as well be voting for the insurrectionist.
Then the way to do that is find a candidate in the primaries who appeals to everyone you need to make that happen. It was never a secret Biden was not that person.
It’s a free country though. Feel free to go with whatever pitiful strategy you want. But you won’t get the pro-corporate genocide supporting brain dead geriatric with my help. Let me know when you’re ready to negotiate.
And if the Republicans get power this time around with a plan to remove all of our rights to hold even fair elections (project 2025) there won’t be any negotiating. I’m a white cis male and it seems like you are too. We’ll be fine either way. It’s minorities and vulnerable classes that will get hit the most, like always. Women lost rights this last time around, it worries me how much more worse it will get.
Do I want Joe? Hell no, but I’ll vote D for the rest of my days and walk through glass to do it. Once there’s no more Rs then we can argue between Joe Biden and AOC. Still ain’t perfect but a lot better than what we have.
It’s a free country for now, feel free to sit this one out.
And if the Republicans get power this time around with a plan to remove all of our rights to hold even fair elections (project 2025) there won’t be any negotiating.
Sounds like the 2020 primaries were pretty important.
In a two party system the only way to “crush” the extreme right is by establishing another party to take the spot in the two party system. And you know what will happen then? The Dems will move from being the far right party with gay rights to being the extreme right party. Because they already are far right by any sensible measure.
So this happened under Obama. People voted blue no matter who, gave Dems a super majority and they used it to pass a GOP-crafted bill that forced people to pay for useless private insurance.
The party itself needs to change and the types of candidates that the establishment supports needs to change. That doesn’t happen when they can do their pied piper thing and keep winning. And no “just one last hit” won’t let them overcome the addiction to corporate conservativism.
we can’t fix our current situation in one election.
We can never fix the current situation in one election. Fixing the American system, within the parameters set forth by that system, requires a dedicated voting bloc that lasts multiple elections refusing to vote for the Dems until they shift far enough left to appease that bloc. As long as you are focused on the next election, your prescription for fixing American politics is just as unrealistic as a random Twitter tankie declaring a general strike.
If Project 2025 is successful, we won’t ever have another democratic election. Our election is going to work like Russia’s does after that point, and we will have a dictator of some kind that pretends to hold elections.
You are very right, and I feel your pain. I’m not judging you for feeling that way, at all.
I just don’t think that abstaining from voting is going to work in favor of fixing this issue. If anything we need to keep voting to keep the country as left as it can be for now, until we can shift the two parties we are forced to pick from farther to the left.
As I said in another comment, this mode of thought is completely defeatist. If you rule out the possibility of a violent uprising and look at how to change our system from within the system itself, the ONLY way to push the country left is for a dedicated bloc of people to refuse to vote for centrist Democrats for multiple elections in a row until the party center aligns with that bloc. That’s the reason why every one of the last few elections has been “the most important election in history” and all the other crap.
To push the Dems left you can either a) reward them for moving left or b) punish them for moving right. Continuing to vote for them year after year as they continually move to the right accomplishes neither of these things.
you can either a) reward them for moving left or b) punish them for moving right
You’re talking about the political will of a nation as you would training a puppy. It’s incredibly reductive and simply not how the overton window works.
If the republicans win the next several elections the democrats will move further to the right to try to steal votes off them. The republicans will have to move further to the right to differentiate themselves from the democrats.
Not surprisingly, the more republicans win elections the further right everything moves.
Your position is exactly where the conservatives would have you. They can’t win your vote so their best outcome is to convince you not to vote.
If every single incentive structure rewards the Democrats for shifting to the right, please tell me how on earth they are under any pressure at all to shift back to the left. The answer is that they’re not, and the people who believe that they’re engaging in the system and pushing it in the right direction are simply fooling themselves as they take part in the system’s unstoppable rightward movement.
I mean all the concerned people could take to the streets right now.
The DNC wants you to believe that all you can do is cast your vote for something every other year and just take the options presented. In that sense they are worse than the Reps who encourage their base to be active for more than just the ballots and it is working.
Especially now the Dems give me huge 1984 vibes in how the individual should handle politics relative to the party.
People do understand that concept, but it’s literally what Democrats have been doing for the past 40 years and it has put us right here where we are right now. The “lesser of two evils” thing just has no propellant left, no one is buying that line anymore. Neoliberalism needs to go before Democrats can start winning again.
You need to understand that people have been saying “just put the neolibs in power again and we’ll work to improve things” every election cycle, and now we are closer to fascism than we’ve literally ever been. You at least understand why people see that strategy as a failure, right? Like, you understand why no one believes it anymore?
A vote for neoliberals is a vote to not have fascism for four more years. America’s voting system doesn’t allow the never-have-fascism votes to be pooled with the delay-fascism votes, so unless there’s a decent chance for a mass swing of voters from delay-fascism to never-have-fascism, trying to encourage a small-scale swing only makes immediate fascism more likely by weakening the only thing with a chance to delay it.
If the plan is to try and encourage the Democrats to have primaries that actually have the power to move the party left, now is not the time to withhold a vote in protest as there’s a good chance that even if it did convince them, there’d never be another election that wasn’t rigged so they’d lose it no matter how popular they were.
A vote for neoliberals is a vote to not have fascism for four more years.
That’s an extremely hard case to make at this point though when the “not” fascist guy is funding a genocide and refusing to entertain the measures we’d need to take to actually take the fight to the fascists (ex. Championing an effort to pack the supreme court). Neoliberals are not truly acting like democracy is on the line, they say it a lot but it’s not what their actions communicate, which makes it difficult to believe they’d ever stop obstructing progress.
Neoliberals don’t stop or stall fascists by getting into power – they just soft sell it and give the general public time to acclimate to the slipping of the Overton window. They do this in service of corporate interests rather than theocracy the way the far-right does but it ends us up in the same place.
If the plan is to try and encourage the Democrats to have primaries that actually have the power to move the party left, now is not the time to withhold a vote in protest as there’s a good chance that even if it did convince them, there’d never be another election that wasn’t rigged so they’d lose it no matter how popular they were.
Now is the time that the Democratic establishment chooses to try to strong arm the left into voting for them, they do this every election; claim the sky is falling and that we must vote for them or else. So I guess my view is, if they have assessed that they can risk playing a game of chicken, so can voters.
I understand Project 2025 and its seriousness, but that problem is going to be there every election from here until such a time that the GOP dissolves. I’m skeptical that 4 years will allow them to achieve everything they want to without sweeping the house and senate too. The president cannot legally be crowned king, and if they try to do that perhaps that is what it will take to actually radicalize the self-sedated upper middle-class liberals and political fence-sitters.
I’m sick of defensive leadership, and any offensive needs to start with attacking the Democratic structure that’s making the party so ineffectual and complicit. More time is not enough in my opinion, people were talking about GOP plans to capture the supreme court as far back as Bush Jr. and giving Democrats wins achieved nothing. They need to be forced to take it seriously and I just don’t see that happening without some pain (for them and, unfortunately, us).
Not having enough time and voting for the least fucked candidate is old and tired. How long do we vote for the Turd over the Douche instead of voting for someone that we actually believe in?
Are you talking about the time communists ran the only candidate who wasn’t either Hitler or the guy who appointed Hitler chancellor and the social democrats voted for the Hitler supporter to stop the communists, whose victory directly led to Hitler’s rise to power?
Yeah I’d say there’s some similarities between that and today.
Kind of like a fascist would since they don’t actually believe in a political ideology. They can be kind of hard to spot until it’s too late. The core issue I have with Communists is that you’re all so desperate for numbers you’ll let anyone in, including fascists, and when the revolution comes through, all the real Communists mysteriously disappear and we’re left with something that isn’t Communism.
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