Jews are an ethnic group, culture, and religion, but not a race. It’s a common enough misconception spread via the media. Also any given Jew is not necessarily all three.
The lesson from World War II is that war can only delay the spread of an idea, but not destroy it. Ideas have to be fought with other ideas. Killing Nazis only bought us time to think of better ideas, spread them, and deradicalize people. Thanks to conservative propaganda networks and social media, we’re on the verge of a fascist takeover. We are in an information race against fascists. The fascists are turning the US into a christofascist dictatorship, by controlling the narrative and driving the news cycle, not by killing anyone. We have to beat them in this race to stop them.
A person who identifies as androgyne has a gender that is either both masculine and feminine or between masculine and feminine.
Bigender
A person who identifies as bigender has two genders.
People who are bigender often display cultural masculine and feminine roles.
Polygender and pangender
People who identify as polygender or pangender experience and display parts of multiple genders.
But I think Genderfluid is still correct for the last panel in the context of the comic as a whole.
Genderfluid
A person who identifies as genderfluid has a gender identity and presentation that shifts between, or shifts outside of, society’s expectations of gender.
I think that is a separate circumstance all together. A person with multiple sex characteristics could have any possible gender identity like any other person. The whole point of gender identity is that there is no guaranteed link between a person’s sex and gender. A person with multiple sex characteristics could identify as nonbinary and that is completely valid.
How so? They are a shapeshifter, I don’t think intersex forms would be off limits if gender swapping and animals/non-humans are fine.
I was referring to human persons, not ice giant persons with shapeshifting powers. Which is what I assumed the question I was answering was referring to since they were responding to a comment I wrote that was answering a question that I assume refers to human persons.
That’s mildly weird, but mostly seems like a good time. It’s not hot like the spicy weird stuff I’m into. 😊
I’ll never be able to unsee all the mermaid transformation and djinnification stuff I’ve seen on the internet. Some of it’s really good, but even still it feels like I’ve managed to have some of the weirdest, most out there kinks. I think it has to do with me being a trans woman. I love mermaids. I’ve liked genies since I saw Eden in the Aladdin Disney cartoon as a kid. I am also weird regardless.
I’ve been seeing a lot of anti-voting sentiment going around. Can’t believe I have to say this, but you need to vote. Not only is there more to the election than just the president. (State policy, Senate, house), but not voting is not an act of protest. C’mon guys
The Republican Party is not the party of small government. They are a fascist death cult and they will bring their anti-trans bills from red states to the federal government. Trans people will be erased from public life. Trans people will be discriminated in the work force and undoubtedly find it difficult to pay rent as a result. Trans people are going to end up homeless on the streets if Republicans win in 2024.
The Supreme Court is hearing a case about homeless encampments. Homeless encampments may soon lose the current legal protection they have under the Eight Amendment. The current logic being that chasing away people who have no where left to go is cruel and unusual punishment.
Multiple prominent Democrats petitioned the Supreme Court to review Grants Pass, including California Gov. Gavin Newsom, San Francisco mayor London Breed, and Portland mayor Ted Wheeler.
It is not guaranteed that blue states will be safe havens for anyone. Here is an official statement from Governor Gavin Newsom.
“California has invested billions to address homelessness, but rulings from the bench have tied the hands of state and local governments to address this issue.
“The Supreme Court can now correct course and end the costly delays from lawsuits that have plagued our efforts to clear encampments and deliver services to those in need.”
If Trump wins in 2024, he wants to make homelessness illegal. Homeless people are going to end up in death camps.
Trump said his proposal calls for creating “tent cities” and relocating homeless people to “large parcels of inexpensive land” with access to doctors, psychiatrists, social workers and drug rehab specialists. He claims his plan will once again make cities “livable” and “beautiful.”
A trans homeless person is as least as likely to end up in a death camp as a cis homeless person. And trans people have a good chance of being homeless if they can’t get a job because Republicans allow corporations to discriminate against them in the work place. Trans people will be worse off no matter where they are in America.
If the Democrats are also pushing to make being homeless illegal why is that an incentive to vote for them?
My point is Democrats want to overturn the status quo. The blue states assume they are going to get to decide what happens to homeless people next, presumably for the better. Unfortunately for them, a second Trump term would undoubtedly render homelessness illegal at the federal level. Best-laid plans gone awry thanks to Trump.
If the Republicans win in 2024 they will have control of all three branches of the federal government. They will be able reshape America how they see fit, and states rights are not going to stop them. States rights were only ever a justification from Republicans to turn their states into authoritarian christofascist workshops. Now they going to take what they’ve learned and practiced to the federal level and won’t care about state rights whatsoever.
The blue states are joining the SCOTUS case because they will not build shelters.
Again, here is Governor Gavin Newsom’s official statement. He seems intent on providing services to homeless people. Presumably that would include shelter.
“California has invested billions to address homelessness, but rulings from the bench have tied the hands of state and local governments to address this issue.
“The Supreme Court can now correct course and end the costly delays from lawsuits that have plagued our efforts to clear encampments and deliver services to those in need.”
It’s fair to not trust what someone says. At least with Democrats when they outwardly claim to have homeless people’s interests at heart, since they are neoliberals as opposed to fascists I am inclined to believe them. However, I disagree with the need to remove homeless camps in order to provide services to people. If the services are good and this is effectively communicated to people, I think most people in need of those services will take them voluntarily.
This is opposed to the fascists in the Republican party who want to put homeless people in what will no doubt turn out to be death camps.
They don’t need the other two branches of government to do this. They’ve already got the only one that matters and are doing it now even with a Democrat in the Oval Office.
If Republicans want to make homelessness illegal at the federal level, they will need Congress to pass legislation and the presidency to sign the bill into law. All the Supreme Court can do is remove homeless encampments’ Eighth Amendment protection based on the current question they are trying to answer. They could also assign whether they think the federal or state governments have the authority to write legislation to address homeless encampments. As they did recently with Trump v. Anderson, where they decided not only that states don’t have authority to take Trump off the ballot but only Congress does. However the Supreme Court cannot write or sign into law any such legislation themselves.
No, here is the relevant line from Governor Gavin Newsom.
“The Supreme Court can now correct course and end the costly delays from lawsuits that have plagued our efforts to clear encampments and deliver services to those in need.”
They plan on giving services to homeless people. This would presumably include shelter.
You’re acting as though the Democrats are not willing participants in making homelessness illegal, but then linking to an amicus brief where they’re begging the Supreme Court to let them do just that.
This Supreme Court decision will most likely remove the Eighth Amendment protection that homeless encampments currently have. While that will remove their current legal standing, by which I mean how they are currently defended in courts, it will not impact the legality of homeless encampments one way or another. Laws will have to be passed and in some cases laws may already be on the books, that will determine the legality of homeless encampments. The Supreme Court cannot write, pass, or sign legislation to make homelessness illegal. As long as Biden is president, homelessness will at least be a state issue as apposed to a federal issue. If Trump becomes president homelessness will be a federal issue.
If they thought there was any threat from the legislature to actually ban Trump from running, the ruling would have been more expansive.
With the current Republican House of Representatives, there is little chance of Congress barring Trump from office. Under a Democrat controlled Congress they could bar Trump from holding office, but that would of course be too little too late. That is neither here or there though. The point of that example was to demonstrate that the Supreme Court can only determine who has authority in any given case, whether that be the federal government or individual state governments.
To be clear, the difference between Democrats and Republicans on this issue of homeless encampments, is that Democrats want their blue states to be able to help homeless people the way they see fit, which I agree is not the best way to do this, while Republicans want to make homelessness illegal at the federal level. If he is elected, Trump is going to decide what happens to homeless people in California, not Gavin Newsom. Trump is a fascist, so when he says “tent cities” on “large parcels of inexpensive land” he means death camps. So even though Democrats are approaching this with supposedly the best interests of homeless people in mind, it’s not going to matter because Trump, if elected, will pull the rug out from under them. edit: typos
By “plagued our efforts” he means “we can’t clear camps”. How do you think he wants to do good things after reading that?
Democrats should have recognized the protections granted by Martin v Boise and not joined in Grants Pass v Johnson in an attempt to get rid of them.
Don’t get me wrong, I think what the Democrats want to do is not great, just better than what Republicans want to do. Democrats think they need to clear camps first and then provide services to homeless people. I think they should provide services, advertise the services and people will leave the camps if the services are good. But regardless, the point is currently trans people are no worse off in blue states under Biden currently, but they will be much worse off under Trump.
The fact that they’re still supportive of sending things to SCOTUS shows how truly far to the right they are.
There is no denying that the Democrats have been neoliberals since the 90’s.
Constantly decrying the SC as a newly-biased institution but still submitting briefs to them. They’re either expecting this partisan institution to magically hand down liberal decisions, or they want the right wing response.
Which do you think it is?
I wouldn’t be surprised if some neoliberals among the Democrats have genuinely bought into the states’ rights bullshit. They are going to be disappointed if Trump wins. I think most people want the power to do things their way. Gavin Newsom seems too with it to have fallen for states’ rights so he probably thinks he’s going to do be able to do things his way. He is probably betting on a second Biden term and is going to be disappointed if Trump wins. edit: typos
alt text: a cropped low quality photo of what looks like a book cover, printed on it the title “Gay Garfield”, below which lounges Garfield the cat, a thought bubble reads “mmm… lasagna… and cock!”
It was AI content, so it was correctly taken down. However, it can live on here. I threw the prompt “Garfield in the style of Tom of Finland” into Stable Diffusion with no style.
The Uncommitted Movement’s goal to get high uncommitted voter turnout in the primary so that Joe Biden changes his outdated views on Palestine and Israel is great.
However if people vote uncommitted in the primaries because they are convinced Biden is Genocide Joe then they aren’t going to want to vote for Biden in the general election.
someone who has the wherewithal to vote uncommitted to protest the genocide of the Palestinians by Israel in the Democratic-only primary
Telling people Biden is Genocide Joe isn’t a nuanced position. People who think Joe Biden equals genocide aren’t voting for him now and aren’t voting for him later. An argument that ignores the inherent cognitive dissidence it would take for someone, who believes Joe Biden is directly the cause of Israel’s genocide of Palestinians, to vote for Joe Biden is disingenuous.
I think the people in this thread aren’t Russian bots. That’s why I think it’s worth arguing with them. If we want Biden to win in November, then calling him Genocide Joe isn’t helping.
So this argument is just wrong. The crap some Dems wish for, that people shouldn’t protest Biden’s policies at all or else all will fall is inherently flawed - the US democracy is built on free speech and advocating for change. And when a people are being genocided by a US proxy, many think it is worth it to rock the boat in a safe way.
I fundamentally agree that we should rock the boat and get Biden to change his policies. What I don’t agree with is calling Biden, Genocide Joe.
it’s clear Biden could and can do much more to stop the genocide
I also fundamentally agree with this. This is the nuance. Biden has the ability to stop this conflict right now. So we need to pressure him to make that happen. As soon as possible, I should add. I have no doubt Israel’s current fascist government will make good on it’s threats to attack Rafah at the start of Ramadan. That’s the 11th of this month, next Monday afternoon. This is all completely lost with the Genocide Joe nickname.
And if they don’t vote for either because of support for the genocide on both sides, they are not people who care about the country and definitely don’t have well constructed opinions on anything else. (e.g., couldn’t rely on them for a Dem vote if no genocide occurring)
They might reasonably think they shouldn’t vote for either candidate, even when they need to be voting for the lesser evil. It’s considerably harder to make that distinction when one candidate is Donald Trump and the other is Genocide Joe. We should be making the distinction between the candidates as clear as possible. The last thing I want to here on and after election day this November is that people couldn’t tell the difference between Gush and Bore.
Politicians cater to the people who vote. If Democrats lose this November and there is an election 2028 they are going to look at the people who voted in 2024 and 2026 and try to get those people’s votes. If progressives don’t vote in the general election this year Democrats won’t waste time on them and will instead focus on conservative voters. Not voting will drive the Democratic party further to the right.
Withholding our votes doesn’t lead to better election outcomes. Voting should be a simple mechanical choice to pick the lesser evil. If people want better candidates then they need to do the work between elections. Refusing to vote and trying to lower voter turnout sets us back. Losing in 2024 will mean America becomes a fascist dictatorship. There is no value in letting the Republicans win.
I didn’t say withhold your vote, go vote for Jill Stein.
Jill Stein has no chance of winning. She is a spoiler for Joe Biden and so voting for her is, for the purpose of counting the difference in votes between Trump and Biden, the same as not voting. We have a two party, first-past-the-post, political system where Republicans benefit from low voter turnout. So Trump benefits from anyone not voting for Biden.
It’s sad that you have to resort to a strawman to make a coherent argument against me.
A strawman is an argument that argues against a different, usually weaker, position rather than the other argument’s actual position. However if the two positions are in fact equivalent, such as not voting and voting for third party spoiler candidates, then the argument is not a strawman.
If 8% of the vote goes to someone who has been openly anti-Israel and pro-Palestine, while crowds are chanting against genocide Joe, it’ll send a pretty clear signal to Democrats what they need to do.
100,000 people already voted uncommitted in the Michigan Democrat primary, with more in other Democrat primaries undoubtedly on the way. The point has been made and no new information will be gained from any third party voter turnout in November. There is no reason why the Democrats cannot change course on Palestine and Israel right now. This would be much more beneficial, to the Palestinians, than waiting through a Trump presidency to finally get help to them in 2028.
Hoping you’ll apologize for the unnecessary strawman honestly,
My argument is that letting Trump win is not only unacceptable, but is counterproductive to the progressive causes your argument claims will benefit from such a scenario. The Democrats will respond to low voter turnout from progressives by shifting to the right to capture more conservative voters. This is a refutation of you argument’s central point.
it’s needlessly exhausting to have to deal with all the inane shit everyone is throwing my way
There were nothing but solid replies to your comment. I implore you to reconsider.
A comment I received with 9 upvotes: “You may actually have brain damage”.
In this thread? I’m searching on the words in the quote and I’m not seeing it. Maybe a Mod removed it. I’m not referring to any comment that resorts to ad hominem attacks.
The information gained would be we’re refusing to vote for genocide supporters.
The Uncommitted Movement is effectively doing this in the primaries, hopefully without the downside of Biden losing in November. Trump winning would still be catastrophic for the Palestinians, even if there is an election 2028. Trump will green light Israel’s genocide and millions of people will be killed or displaced in that region of the world alone. The Republican party will kill any hope of a Palestinian state happening, as they will undoubtedly support the settler movement. Biden has at least put sanctions on at least 30 Israeli settlers. There is at least of chance of Democrats working to stop the settlers and supporting a Palestinian state.
If everyone behaves that way, the democratic party doesn’t have to change. They can keep pushing moderate fiscal conservatives like Biden, over and over again, and Democrats will permanently retain power.
MAGA supporters are going to keep voting for Trump or an equivalent as long as that is an option. They are driving the Republican Party further right, by consistently voting that way. We could do the same with the Democratic Party to drive it to the left. We need to collectively do the work to support potential progressive candidates for future elections, but Biden is the most progressive option we have right now for this election who has any chance to win.
If they lose the general election by less than the third party vote, they know there are voters to the left that are voting that they could focus on capturing instead of catering to cultish fascists.
Exit polling data can break down the ideological differences between Democratic voters. The Democrats will be able to figure out what kind of voters voted for them, without needing progressives to vote third party.
There’s a very clear strategy for future Democrats to move left to win the election. It’s either purposeful ignorance or genuine stupidity to say the above is EXACTLY THE SAME as:
I’m saying it’s the same as:
Republican: 50%
Democrat: 48.91%
Other: 1.09%
Where progressives simply do not vote. Since in both cases Republicans win the presidency. The Democrats are only going to cater to people who vote for them in general elections. edit: capitalization
thinking that exit polling signals the same thing that voting far left does
Exit polling does signal the same thing. We have the technology to identify progressive voters who vote Democrat. This is a nonissue.
Constituents aren’t the only interest group politicians listen to, we actually have hard data that for the purposes of at least law making they entirely ignore us, and we have very little influence even beyond that.
This is not relevant to the discussion for the purposes of voting. We need to get corporate and billionaire money out of politics. We have a better chance of doing that with Democrats than Republicans.
The miniscule amount of influence we do have is the ability to remove one party from power. Exit polls come absolutely no where near this in terms of influence.
We also have the ability to put a party, the Republicans or Democrats, in power by voting for them. This has a much greater impact and influence than not voting.
If we actually funnel this clearly into a signal that we will essentially sacrifice our wellbeing (e.g put Trump in power) just to draw the line that genocide support is unacceptable, we might actually see an anti-genocide Democrat for once.
We are not simply sacrificing our well being by allowing Trump to win but our lives. Trump has already promised to ethnically cleanse immigrants starting on day 1. He wants to round them up in camps and deport them. It seems unlikely to me that there will be no causalities from such an endeavor. The Supreme Court is going to hear a case that could determine if homeless people can be fined and/or arrested for being homeless. They may also find themselves in camps.
Trans people are being erased from public life, which is a nice way of saying trans people will be homeless, which may soon be a nice way of saying trans people will be put in camps.
American fascists want the government to commit genocide here in the United States. They want to jail Democratic politicians. It’s going to be harder to run a progressive candidate in 2028 if Trump wins in 2024 because progressive voters will be dead and/or in camps. Republicans are going to do everything in their power to entrench themselves in power, even if they do hold an election in 2028. Republicans are already trying to remove Democrats from the voter rolls, with little success, in order to disenfranchise Democratic voters now. Republicans will be much more successful if they are in power.
But as Joe Biden said best, if Israel did not exist in the middle east, the U.S would have to invent an Israel to protect American interests abroad.
A two state solution is possible. There is no reason why a state of Palestine and a state of Israel cannot coexist. The current State of Israel will need to fundamentally change to no longer be an apartheid state. Also, Biden’s views on Palestine and Israel are severely outdated and do not represent the rest of the Democratic Party. Biden seems to be shifting his stance on Palestine and Israel. Trump is doubling down.
Preferences will be ignored without consequences for those in power, and if you think otherwise, again, you’re being naive.
If progressives vote for Democrats in 2024, Democrats will notice and move to the left to capture these voters in future elections. Biden may personally learn a lesson from a loss in 2024 but it is unlikely he will be able to act on it from a prison cell in 2028. The Democratic Party however will not learn the lesson. They will look at who voted in the election for the two parties that have a chance at winning and determine that the Overton window has again shifted to the right.
Exit polling does not signal the same thing, again you’re just repeating your incredibly naive point.
If progressives vote for another party, the additional message that the Democratic party hears is, we will never be able to win these people’s votes. This is the same message they hear when progressives do not vote at all.
As you admit, money is in politics, and you hand wave away that fact even though it’s a massive point.
It has no bearing on this discussion. How much impact we have relative to corporations does not change the fact we have impact. Not to mention corporations wouldn’t be trying to get rid of our impact if we didn’t have any.
I’m going to keep this comment short because you keep hand waving or ignoring 80% of my point with non sequiturs, so I’m going to take this way slower so you can hopefully keep up.
These are not substantive points nor, I would assume, a core part of your argument, so I did not spend significant time in my argument addressing them. However they were there, so I wrote a response in my argument.
With corporate interests in play, constituent preferences have had literally 0 impact on policy in Gaza. I’m not questioning the ability to gather the data, but you’re conflating the ability to gather data with the want to listen to preferences. Again, naive. This isn’t how the world works. Democrats don’t just listen to their constituents, they actually rarely do.
Cynicism isn’t an argument. Biden has delivered on numerous policies people want. The Build Back Better bill is one such achievement. However this sentiment in your argument flies in the face of the fact that policies are determined by what voters want. There is no doubt that corporations have an outside influence in our elections since Regan’s presidency. That trend is directly responsible for the rise of fascism today. However, pretending we have little to no impact when we do is exactly what corporations want and it would be inherently self defeating to disempower ourselves for no reason.
This gets us back to the topic at hand, whether or not progressives would be better off allowing Trump to win. This is what we are discussing and what your argument in your last comment attempts to distract from. We are decidedly worse off in 2028 if we choose to silence ourselves now out of fear that Biden is an inadequate candidate for delivering a progressive agenda. By making ourselves heard, in a meaningful and impactful way, by voting Democrat, we are acting in the most optimal way to advance progressive causes.
In order to have more progressive candidates in 2028 we must drive the Democrat Party to the left. To drive the Democrat Party to the left, we must demonstrate that a substantive voter block exists on that end of the political spectrum. By not voting, Democrats will determine Biden was too progressive. They will respond with a more conservative candidate. This feedback loop will continue until Democrats win an election and believe they have reached the American Overton window.
As an example, after two terms of Regan and a term of Bush Senior, Bill Clinton and the Democrats decided to stop fighting Republicans on economic issues. They decided to embrace neoliberalism because they believed it was within the American Overton window. If we want to counteract this, the Democratic Party needs to see that there is a path to victory by courting progressive voters. In other words, if we want a more progressive Democratic candidate in 2028, we must vote for the most progressive Democratic candidate we have now in 2024. edit: typo
The message Democrats hear from someone who voted Democrat in 2020 and Green in 2024 is that that person will never vote Democrat?
If progressives refuse to vote for the most progressive president we have ever had then the Democratic Party will conclude that they will not be able to win progressive votes in future elections. They will shift to the right in an attempt to capture more conservative voters.
Your position is becoming incoherent and exhausting. Stop arguing in bad faith. Your entire fucking comment is just endless shit like this, so I’m going to take it even slower and walk you through all this shit. Address the above paragraph, then we’ll move on to the next point, and hopefully after we’re through 3 or 4 of your nonsense points you’ll reconsider your position without me handholding you through it.
My argument has a consistent position. Trump winning in 2024 would be disastrous for progressive causes. My argument refuted your argument’s central point. Now all that is left in your argument is ad hominem attacks. edit: typo
The Green Party has no chance of winning. There is no difference between a vote for a third party and not voting for the purposes of counting votes between Biden and Trump. So, the Democrats will not see the difference between a progressive who voted for Biden in 2020 and then voted Green Party in 2024, and a progressive who voted for Biden in 2020 and then didn’t vote in 2024. As far as the Democrats are concerned, both voters threw their vote away, because the votes didn’t go to a candidate who had a chance at winning. As long a we have first-past-the-post voting, American elections will be a zero-sum game between Republicans and Democrats.
If progressives vote Green Party in November they will still be out numbered by moderates. The Democratic party is going to look at the larger group of moderate voters and the smaller group of progressive voters. They will decide it’s not worth risking the larger group for a smaller group who may never vote for them no matter how progressive they are.
Not voting for the Democratic Party because they weren’t progressive enough isn’t a feedback loop the Democrats are going to want to engage with. The Democrats could be more progressive in 2028, but they still weren’t progressive enough, so progressives still won’t vote for them. Progressives didn’t vote for the Democrats in 2024 and then the Democrats became more progressive in 2028, so why should progressives ever vote for Democrats? It’s an optimal stopping problem of when to stop not voting for Democrats. The loop has no optimal stopping point because progressives keep getting rewarded by not voting for the Democratic Party so the optimal strategy for progressives would be to never vote Democrat forever.
The Democratic Party doesn’t want to be a progressive party or a conservative party, it wants to be the party that wins by representing the largest group of voters possible. If progressives want the Democratic party to be a progressive party, then progressives have to vote for them in the general election. That will prove there is a block of progressive voters that the Democrats can cater to if they move to the left.
Conservatives and moderates still tied as largest ideological groups
Liberals remain the smallest group at 25%
Republicans’ and Democrats’ ideological identification unchanged
Interestingly, the Democratic Party specifically has about a fifty-fifty split between moderates and liberals. It’s not clear what percentage of liberals would consider themselves progressives. But based on how the word liberal is throw around here on Lemmy among progressives it would seem to indicate that being a progressive and identifying as a liberal is not a 1:1 match.
Only about 18 percent of the American public (and 38 percent of all Republicans) identify as MAGAites.
This number could definitely have gone up a bit, since last year. I would assume it has yet to reach a majority of conservatives identifying as MAGAites.
People throwing their votes away to third parties isn’t how political parties judge where to move on the political spectrum. The Republican Party looks at the MAGA voting block, that do no make up a majority of conservatives but keeps voting for Trump, and they move further into fascism in response. This is true whether Trumps wins or loses, by the way. Trump lost in 2020, but Mitch McConnell endorsed Trump this year because Mitch is a coward and the MAGA voters keeping voting for Trump.
This should be true for Biden as well. Even if Biden loses, but their is a high voter turnout among progressives for Biden, Democrats should see that a core part of their voter base is progressives. The Democrats should want to cater to progressives in that case, where progressive voter turnout is high for Democrats. Are the Democrats bad at communicating this? They sure are, because back in 2016 and now in 2024 people are accusing the Democrats of thinking their entitled to votes. If MAGA voters can drag the Republican party to the right despite being not being a majority of the Republican voter base, then progressive voters can drag Democrats to the left despite not being a majority of the Democratic voter base.
they are willing to vote Democrat in some circumstances
It tells the Democratic Party that the voter voted for Democrats in the past. They get the same information from someone who voted for Democrats in 2020 and then did not vote in 2024.
they prefer far left policies
It’s not just far left policies, it’s further left than the Democrats are currently offering. And more to the point, it’s different policies than what the Democrats are currently offering. That’s true of any vote for any third party or nonvoting. It’s not useful information to the Democrats, because the Democrats want to chase mainstream voters and people who vote for them. They have no interest in being a fringe party for fringe voters who they have to chase by surrendering a larger block of voters that they need to win. If progressives want to be catered to by the Democratic Party, a typical mainstream political party, they need to vote for them. That’s what typical mainstream political party’s do. They choose policies based on their constituents views.
no matter how many words you write to overcomplicate the issue
There is a lot more to write on this issue than a few words. However, comments are deceptive in their length on the screen. My last comment takes a little over three minutes to read out loud, based on what I timed with my computer. Given this topic, I think that’s a fair length to read. But, I don’t exactly cover a lot of ground, although I do attempt to tie my argument in my last comment to my central point. I take the time to elaborate on my position, not to over complicate the issue, but to provide clarity on what I mean. I’ve attempted to address what I think are natural counter arguments based on our discussion.
For example, the implication that your argument keeps trying to raise is that, by progressives voting green, Democrats would see there are progressive voters, who are move progressive than the Democratic Party is currently. The idea being that Democrats could then choose to move to the left to capture those votes. This reasoning is flawed and this becomes apparent when we continue to look ahead at future elections. My argument in my previous comment covers this so I’m going to repost it here.
Not voting for the Democratic Party because they weren’t progressive enough isn’t a feedback loop the Democrats are going to want to engage with. The Democrats could be more progressive in 2028, but they still weren’t progressive enough, so progressives still won’t vote for them. Progressives didn’t vote for the Democrats in 2024 and then the Democrats became more progressive in 2028, so why should progressives ever vote for Democrats? It’s an optimal stopping problem of when to stop not voting for Democrats. The loop has no optimal stopping point because progressives keep getting rewarded by not voting for the Democratic Party so the optimal strategy for progressives would be to never vote Democrat forever.
In short, if progressives are rewarded with a more progressive Democratic Party later by not voting for Democrats now, progressives should never vote for Democrats in order to keep driving the Democratic Party to the left. The Democrats are not incentivized to engage with this feedback loop because they never get any votes from progressives. So, if progressives want the Democratic Party to be more progressive, they need to vote for Democrats. The Democrats will see progressives voted for them and adjust their policies accordingly. This will undoubtedly attract more progressive voters, which is a feedback loop that both progressive voters and the Democratic Party benefits from. Since this feedback loop creates the proper incentives it is what the Democratic Party will engage with.
The feedback loop spoiler idea only works if there are literally no material goals, only an idealist goal to move towards progressivism. This isn’t how reality works.
A shift to the left for the Democratic Party means adopting progressive policies, ie material goals. It is not about an idealist movement to progressivism.
hat happened as a direct result of the endorsement of Israel by the Biden administration.
Moving away from supporting Israel is a policy which would go against seventy years of US policy for either Republicans or Democrats. Biden’s initial response was inline with standing US policy. So for starters, the fact Biden has moved as far to the left on this issue as he has in response to the Uncommitted Movement is phenomenal. I think we still have further to go, but it’s a good sign so far.
You claim that leftists have some idealist goal to just move Democrats to the left, so a refusal to engage with these leftists is the only option Democrats have
No, like any voting block progressives want Democrats to enact progressive policies, which would be a shift to the left. Opposing Israel’s genocide would be one such policy. My point is that Democrats will respond to progressives voting for them by shifting to the left. They will not shift to the left or in any direction on the political spectrum because of third party voter turn out, as they are not incentivized to do so.
socialists are materialists and fascists are idealists.
Socialism and fascism are not constrained by concepts like materialism and idealism. Both socialism and fascism hold ideals about what they envision for society. These ideals vary wildly between those two groups and I would argue that a fascist’s idea of an ideal is nightmarish to say the least. A socialist ideal would be equality. In the workplace sure, but in general as well. A fascist ideal would be harkening to an imagined past or believing in a pretend purity of a bloodline or a system of nonsensical skull measurements. Both socialism and fascism have materialistic goals as well. Socialists would like to see corporations owned collectively by workers as opposed to share holders or a single individual. Fascists want to see workers of minority groups discriminated against and ousted from the workforce by employers, forced to live on the street by landlords, and then sent to die in death camps for homeless people by the federal government.
Either way, it’s worth getting more educated, the extreme left does not function the same way the extreme right does, and you seem to think it does.
Recommendations aside, I would say in terms of how typical mainstream political parties work, the strategy for all voting blocks is the same. If a voting block wants to drive a typical mainstream political party in their direction on the political spectrum all they need to do is vote for that party. The political party will see that the voting block is voting for them and enact policies that reflect the voting block’s political ideology.
A shift to the left means adopting progressive policies. There is more than one progressive policy. As Democrats shift to the left they will adopt some progressive policies. It would take multiple elections for the Democratic Party, currently a center right party, to move to even center left on the political spectrum, let alone left on the political spectrum. Although there are a finite number of progressive policies, it would still take multiple elections for the Democrats to adopt them all.
Democrats will not respond to a feedback loop that involves progressives not voting for them now, to get a more progressive Democratic Party later. Especially when this loop would take multiple elections to adopt all progressive policies. Democrats want to win elections. The Democratic Party is not going to spend even one election cycle, let alone multiple elections cycles, chasing progressive voters who didn’t vote blue because those progressive voters didn’t get everything they wanted.
The Democratic Party caters to mainstream voters and people who vote for them. Since progressives aren’t the former they are going to want to be the latter. Progressives repeatedly turning out for the Democratic Party will cause them to shift to the left, ie adopt progressive policies.
The Democratic party caters to power. They want to stay in power. If enough people vote green who previously voted Democrat, they know there’s something that moved them that way, and they’ll know that some of those voters can be recaptured.
Republicans’ right-leaning stance held firm last year, with 74% identifying as conservative, 22% as moderate and just 4% as liberal.
If progressives won’t vote for Democrats, then Democrats will find new voters. The Democrats can move further to the right, stop fighting Republicans on some social issues and capture the moderate voters that make up 22% of the Republican party. This would be much easier than trying to please progressives. The Democratic Party did this before with Clinton in 1992 with economic issues and they will happily do it again in 2028 with social issues.
Progressives have a crucial opportunity in this election to forward a progressive agenda and shift the Democratic Party further to the left. Missing this opportunity and allowing the Democratic party to shift further to the right would set us back decades. The only way for anything to be done to help the Palestinians and enact socialist policies at home is to change the Democratic Party through voting. Progressives engaging in the democratic process is the tried and true method of improving things in this country.
Progressives have to be willing to fight for what they believe in if they want to see change. That means doing the bare minimum of voting blue at the very least. Performative gestures of voting for a third party wont be registered on the Democrats’ radar. The Democratic Party is going to see who voted for mainstream political parties in 2024 and plan accordingly for 2026 and 2028. Progressives need to be among those who voted blue in 2024 to see a more progressive Democratic Party in 2028.
No one besides Sally and her father knows there is a nuclear device planted somewhere because Sally’s father only told Sally and Sally hasn’t told anyone. So no one would have any reason to tell Mother Teresa or Mohandas Gandhi to convince the Hitlerites to torture Sally for the information. Not to mention the button that saves Europe and Africa is not even applicable in this circumstance since Sally would have pressed it herself if the city that was in danger was located in Europe and/or Africa. The scenario inherently prevents us from taking action due to our ignorance derived from the premise and thus lacks an ethical question, normative or otherwise, for us to consider. /s edit: typo
I put /s. My comment was a joke in its entirety. I assume the section about the button that saves Europe and Africa is a different, unrelated section as well. It seemed more fun to respond to the post as if it was one continuous thought experiment. =P
This is the third time I’ve seen a meme like this and I’ve been really tempted to slap a link to my facebook profile here and link to my lemmy profile on my facebook page. To feel cool for spiting random people on the internet. Most of my recent facebooks posts don’t get seen by anyone as far as I can tell, even though I put everything to public. So I think it wouldn’t even get noticed.
But I don’t feel like having to explain being a trans woman to my friends and family even though they probably wouldn’t see the post or read anything in my profile. I think they would even be supportive. I’ve told two people and it’s been fine. I haven’t come out to my D&D groups either even though there is an openly trans man in one of them and both are queer friendly spaces. It feels weird to out myself, or even bring up the topic naturally in conversation. And it’s not like anyone in the D&D groups asked me about my pronouns.
I guess self preservation is another reason I’m not being openly trans. It seems like a bad idea given the fascists in the Republican party. It feels like I might end up in a death camp. =(
The problem is less something inherently wrong with the anime style and more a conscious choice that is made in the anime industry. I think the issue gets illustrated by two quick googles and some scrolling.
Excluding the elderly women, your partner’s age group would probably be better represented by the middle aged women depicted in the second search. Anime isn’t inherently about hypersexualizing women and young girls, but a lot of anime studios have made that decision in their animes as part of catering to a male audience.
Like do a poll? Or just assume I know what other people think? We should hold the anime studios to account since they create the content rather than blaming it on Japanese culture. Any culture can hypersexualize people.
Israeli missile has struck Iran, US officials say - BBC News (www.bbc.com)
An Israeli missile has hit Iran, two US officials have told the BBC’s US partner CBS News....
Ancestors rule (slrpnk.net)
Celebrate Christ by being a total hypocrite (slrpnk.net)
Rule of mischief (lemmy.blahaj.zone)
conservarule (lemmy.blahaj.zone)
screenshot of a tumblr post....
I don' think Diablo 4 is as good as my friends say and I refuse to purchase it rule (lemmy.ca)
Grim Dawn gang rise up
196 Stands with Palestine, but those of you in the US should still vote in the general election.
I’ve been seeing a lot of anti-voting sentiment going around. Can’t believe I have to say this, but you need to vote. Not only is there more to the election than just the president. (State policy, Senate, house), but not voting is not an act of protest. C’mon guys
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lasagna and cock rule (lemmy.blahaj.zone)
alt text: a cropped low quality photo of what looks like a book cover, printed on it the title “Gay Garfield”, below which lounges Garfield the cat, a thought bubble reads “mmm… lasagna… and cock!”
Genocide Joe Rule (midwest.social)
Today's rule: Please don't try me. (lemmy.world)
Trump Backs Israel Bombarding Gaza: 'Gotta Finish the Problem' (www.rollingstone.com)
stop doing rule (lemmy.blahaj.zone)
so anyways my ethics classes are going great im having a fun great awesome cool fun great poggers time
Future Tech rule (lemmy.ca)
Don't use your rule name (lemmy.blahaj.zone)
Relationship Goals! (midwest.social)
strong aurule (lemmy.dbzer0.com)
Games rule (lemmy.world)
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We're sorry (lemmy.world)