Personally, I would be ok with J.B. Pritzker. Don’t love that he’s a billionaire. On the other hand, he’s the best governor Illinois has had in ages and seems to be trying to do right by his constituents.
I would not be happy about Pritzker as the dem nominee…
…Because then he wouldn’t be my governor anymore :(
Pritzker’s the man. It pains me to praise a billionaire but he’s been an AWESOME governor. Wish we could get a Pritzker-type for Chicago mayor instead of these chucklefucks we keep electing.
deleted by creator
Democrats are going to push even harder to appeal to Republicans in 2028 by nominating David Duke.
Ah, the classic “Dems would have won if they ran to the left” + “Left-wingers couldn’t have ushered in the fascist; we’re too small to make a difference!”
What sorts of left-wingers are you talking about here?
The performative kind who insisted that they couldn’t vote for Harris even in the spirit of harm reduction in the face of an obvious, outright, blatant fascist with a very clear shot at winning.
Okay, so you don’t think there is anyone that would have been motivated to vote for Harris if she had adopted positions like universal healthcare that isn’t a ‘performative’ left-winger that would never be happy with her?
I think that choosing to let an open, clearly identified fascist win because one of the most progressive platforms in the past 40 years isn’t progressive enough is either a sign of being purely performative in your leftism, wherein what matters is a pseudoreligious devotion to marking up virtue points for the afterlife (rather than actually forestalling harm or establishing conditions for change in the real world), or a sign of being an utter moron.
Those who chose not to vote Harris can pick which they identify as, I won’t dispute whichever of the two labels they choose.
Okay, but it seemed like the point of the comment I initially replied to was that it was contradictory to assume that Harris could have had a better shot at winning by moving to the left, and that the number of people that decidedly don’t vote based on Harris not being progressive enough is insignificant. Do you really think that’s true?
The point of the comment was that it was contradictory to say that Harris lost because she didn’t move left, while simultaneously denying that certain groups of leftists choosing to let the fascist win are at fault for, well, choosing to let the fascist win.
Either the aforementioned leftists aren’t enough to matter, and moving left wouldn’t have saved us; or the aforementioned leftists are enough to matter, and thus are directly responsible, by their inaction, for letting fascism win.
It seems pretty wild to me to assume that there is a trivial number of people that would be motivated to vote based on something like universal healthcare, that isn’t a pseudo religious devotee of performative leftism.
A lot more people than the DNC are blaming people for not voting Democrat & sticking us with this shithole administration. It was a huge no-brainer.
The democrats are objectively better for the majority of the population. Science has a liberal bias and all that.
What many of the dem leaders and commentors are missing is that’s not enough. Blaming and shaming people online, even if you’re right which as I covered you objectively are, isn’t going to win the election. A lot of people voted for Trump because they feel left out and unheard. Maybe they should be, after all some of them hold dangerous ideas like climate change denial or think giving underrepresented people’s a chance is unfair.
But that’s just not enough. Being right isn’t enough. Pointing out their idiocy only serves to entrench them and scare away moderates. You might say, not voting means they’re dumb, right or wrong that comment doesn’t help your cause. Being objectively correct didn’t win the last election. Until the democrats acknowledge that optics are more import than correctness they’re going to fight an uphill battle. A very steep one.
Really, how do we get viable third parties? How do we change the voting system to not have " spoiler candidates "? The binary is rotting us.
How? Probably not via voting in 2028 or holding a sign. As in, not within the pre-existing failing/failed system. This one isn’t gonna recover.
After the people are in charge of the smouldering ashes, you can start from scratch! The one upside. Assuming USA doesn’t just submit passively and end up like Russia with a broken people for centuries, which is what I’m expecting.
Copy Canadians. Including the limits on campaign length, so your news cycle isn’t so endlessly exhausting. No wonder 1/3rd have totally tuned out. IMO scrap FPTP like we didn’t have the balls to do.
I guess that’s the crux of the question: does it really require smoldering ashes to get this done? Entrenched power is obviously tough times, but within the system we currently have what are the possibilities?
Not sure anyone really knows yet. I’m a pessimist by nature, so there’s blind spots and I freely admit them.
What you need is a Bernie Sanders funding his own political party, then recruit the AOC and likes. Then they constantly for 20 years present on themselves and refuse to compromise with Democrats and call them on their bullshit whatsoever.
But idk why they didn’t do it sad for you
how do we get viable third parties?
By having a third party that’s willing to put in the work and do things the right way.
So, instead of having a do-nothing candidate like Jill Stein who shows up right before every election, then disappears again after only obtaining a half of a single percent of the total votes, we’d have to have a third party that started focusing on winning local/state elections. That would allow them to start having more than ZERO members in the houses of Congress, which is currently the case. And once they have members in Congress, from various districts around the country, then they’d have a real chance at running a presidential candidate who can win.
Make no mistake. Anyone that currently votes for a 3rd party candidate for president is an utter fool. And there are A LOT of them on Lemmy. A 3rd party cannot win. They are nowhere near winning. Because they haven’t put in the work to create a coalition to actually start having a presence in our government.
Don’t neglect that Stein was a Russian plant to spoil the election. Follow the money and Stein’s activities pre and post election.
Yeah, it was pretty obvious.
But whether she was or not, a 3rd party candidate for president can only serve to split votes and increase the possibility of the worst candidate winning. And that will be the case until a 3rd party starts getting serious and getting representatives in Congress.
It’s a literal joke to vote for a 3rd party candidate when they don’t even have reps in either house of Congress. Do the people who vote 3rd party not think about what would happen if one magically won when they have no one from their party in Congress to help achieve their agenda?
Not by going directly for a moonshot at the presidency. You spend years getting people involved in local politics, then work your way up. State and local governments have power, even if it’s “boring”.
That or a coup or other violent, abrupt, wildcards.
Local government isn’t boring. It’s infuriating. It’s like if you gave the worst HOAs a police force.
Whatever it is, most people don’t engage with it.
I tried to and then realized that they can’t actually help with the main things I want changed, and that they’re just sad little kings of sad little hills.
You go out and work in the primaries.
Look at AOC. The guy she ousted was a mainstay of the NY Democratic Party for decades.
If you wait until the general election you get no input.
No, that’s not the end of it. Our voting system is either/or. How do we get rid of “first past the post”? Otherwise we will continue having spoiler candidates.
Edit: sorry, I’m rushing by responding at work. I should have waited till later… I agree this needs to be from the ground up, and that waiting until the general is not possible. First, how do we actually get third parties on the ballot? Second, how do we get rid of the fptp system so that we can actually vote for candidates we like, rather than the lesser of two evils?
I’m no fan of FPTP, but let’s not put the cart before the horse.
You aren’t going to change the rules for the 2026 primaries.
Concentrate on what is doable.
1000% this. Half our problem is people bitching that their perfect candidate is not an option, and that they don’t want to vote ‘against’ someone.
The time to be active is NOW, not complaining about your choices in October 2028. Left media isn’t helping here, since they want to complain about how the election is still years away and yet we’re talking about potential candidates… YES, we are. If you’re not talking now, then you’re not in the conversation. Is it great to have a 24x365x4 political cycle? hell no. But is it what we have? yes.
Join your local democratic organization and get familiar with how things work. Help choose a ‘not fascist’ candidate for now and push for better down the line.
If you’re here, reading this, and you want things to be better, then you have two choices: vote blue no matter who (ceding your choice to others who are involved), or get involved and be part of the decision of ‘who’ is blue.
1.) Federally and statewide, you’ve got to vote for the party that isn’t making Ranked Choice or Star voting illegal, for starters.
2.) Locally, third parties have to actually run local candidates. They are a vanity party otherwise.
If you can’t manage those two things, math & chaos theory guarantees that you’ll never have a 3rd party.
I want Approval Votingand Sequential Proportional Approval Voting, but will support any electoral reform referendum or bill.
And when those get enough name recognition with the electorate, the GOP will start passing bills to make them illegal in red states.
Have you considered just having like a local group organized around something like pro-labor or just the community in general.
Elect officers or organize how you think best. Call meeting invite guess to speak to issues you all like. When elections come around try to solicit questions to all the campaigns. Have the organization vote as a group on who to endorse or not at all.
If it’s worth the effort, work the campaigns for the folks you all endorse.
More people did that stuff then starting a third party in state would be easy. From there you go forward. If you do well or brand then you may have others in their region wanting to do the same. National two parties are federations of these groups with more binding Charters.
Many States have these hurdles for recognized political parties but they can’t stop folks from just organizing how they want.
We’re nowhere near to it. It has to be a grassroots effort from convincing all of our population it is necessary. Because neither the DNC or the RNC really want it. More parties means they lose power. The DNC pretends to not be opposed, but they undermine third parties all the time. We have to fix first past the post, and neither party is going to help with that.
It isn’t about change.
I love the hate the DNC gets now. I’m also confused how the DNC’s mandate isnt to be entirely apolticial.
The great thing about the orange turd- gurgler, is that he’s so bad, even the bad democrats might be popular enough to elect in enough numbers to have the majority to get things done - if our republic survives.
My thinking is that we need the dems that we can get into office, then work on replacing them with better ones, as we go. The moderates definitely need to go away… enough with the “meeting in the center,” when the center is always moving to the right.
The voters need to have realistic expectations as well - we’ve been in decline since the '70s - it won’t be fixed in 4 or 8 years, but nothing is going to be fixed at all, so long as corporations and billionaires are in charge.
If it is not Bernie, AOC I ain’t going to vote. Also ain’t voting for anyone funded by AIPAC.
This is orchestrated. The DNC knows that these Republicans dressed as democrats can’t win, because even democratic voters hate them.
Then how do they win the primary?
Because they don’t run against Republicans in a primary.
If the last election with a female prosecutor and VP on one side and a male felon rapist traitor on the other didn’t convince you that women cannot win the presidency in America, I’m not sure what will.
Cold. Hard. Truth. We just aren’t there as a society yet.
If we want to win, probably gonna need to go with a person who has a dick between their legs.
Hillary won the popular vote. While yes, America has a sexism problem, the reason the Democrats keep losing when they run women, is that they pick shitty candidates who happen to be women. Maybe they should try running a good candidate who is a woman.
Sadly, you are correct. Neither Kamala nor Gavin can win. But I’d prefer Kamala to Gavin, which is how bad Gavin is.
Back in the day, Abraham Lincoln did not vow to end slavery if elected.
Frederick Douglas worked for Lincoln, because Lincoln was the best candidate.
We tried working with the lesser evil and it doesn’t work anymore.
And the lesson is that Lincolns willingness to placate the slavers got him killed and prolonged the suffering of the Amerikas black population. You can support a lesser of two evils, but they will not support you.
Gavin Newsom may sound smart, but he’s got his hands in your pockets stealing your money to feed the rich, kinda like the current emperor in chief.
I still feel like the dnc is going to lean heavy into Buttigieg. He’s young, an eloquent speaker, a sharp debater. He clearly is down to play ball with the dnc establishment as they want him to (stepped aside for Biden to get a cabinet position) , and they hope that he’s baggage free enough (Kamala and her Marijuana prosecutions) that progressives will vote for him. Yes, he’s gay, and the hardcore magats won’t like that, but I think older suburban voters would rather have someone sane that’s gay than insane and straight.
Then it will be 2016 all over again
Leftist leadership or the status quo are the options
And only the rich want the status quo anymore
older suburban voters would rather have someone sane that’s gay than insane and straight.
Based on some older people in my family that disowned their own child: doubt.
I think you vastly underestimate the hate conservative voters have for gay candidates.
if they have any hope for a candidate it’s someone like Tim Walz. old, white, trustworthy, and a “too old for this shit” attitude.
He’s young, an eloquent speaker, a sharp debater.
Those things only matter to nerds.
Everyone else will see “Butt” in his name and giggle
Y’all know there’s still house and some Senate elections coming up next year right?
You know what would show America and the Democrats (and Republicans for that matter) that Americans are finally serious about a 3rd party candidate? Supporting and electing 3rd party candidates in the House and Senate.
