Modern Leftism: Standing off to the side and doing nothing while watching a trolley plow through a crowd of people and then laying down judgment on the people that are actually doing something to save as many people as possible.
Modern leftism is bound by the electoral college.
The electoral college indeed sucks. But it’s a moot point because leftists will never get off their high horses to actually vote not matter what the system is.
Also First Past The Post voting
You must be mistaking the blue conservatives for people that are left of center.
Or we’re just demanding the Democrats at the very least, the minimum really, don’t support a genocide. The bar is so low it’s in hell. If Biden can’t clear that it’s because he doesn’t want to.
Modern Leftism: I don’t want to have a senile, racist, rapist, right-wing, war criminal, genocidair as president that will continue building a border wall and arming and funding genocide.
Liberals: BUT HAVE YOU CONSIDERED HOW MUCH WORSE IT WOULD BE IF HE HAD AN ORANGE SPRAY TAN!!! TANKIE SCUM!!!
Can you tell me which pro-Palestinian advocacy groups informed your opinion? Clearly you follow many people who are doing the work, so I’d love to learn more.
The Palestinian movement is fundamentally compromised. After October 7, it was imperative that as many Palestinians as possible denounce Hamas to make it clear that Hamas doesn’t represent them.
Unfortunately this didn’t happen. Sure a few people here and there said a few words against what Hamas did. But it’s not the consensus among pro-Palestinian groups that what Hamas did was wrong.
This means that Hamas is currently inseparable from the Palestinian movement. Which means the Palestinian movement is not a non-violent resistance movement. At almost every protest you can see people cosplaying as Hamas. There are some even saying October 7 was justified. It is a violent movement which tolerates genocide, as long as it’s their side doing the genocide.
The Palestinian movement simply doesn’t have the moral high ground. It’s now mostly about rationalizing why the genocide that occurred on October 7 was justified by claiming Israel is committing genocide and using “both sides” style logic. If both sides were actually committing genocide then a rational person wouldn’t support either side. But we see pro Palestinian groups rationalizing the genocide Hamas committed which makes their false claims of Israel committing genocide a moot point. Even if Israel were committing genocide it doesn’t make the nature of the present day Palestinian movement any better because Hamas committed genocide and Palestinians are unwilling to abandon Hamas.
It’s largely a hate movement now. Hatred makes people feel strong, but in reality it just makes people stupid. It’s why these movements ultimately fail. Too blinded by hatred to to make rational decisions about what’s in the movement’s best interests. Do you think the movement becoming more antisemitic every day is going to make it successful? Do you think denying the antisemitism will convince anyone outside this group? Nope. Stupid things are being done in hatred by the Palestinian movement right now.
And that’s why the Palestinian movement will fail. Too much hatred making people act stupid. Even if there were a Palestinian state tomorrow it would be a failed state. Too much hatred and therefore too much stupidity to make things work.
I hope someday Palestinians can see what their hatred is doing to them. Then a Palestinian state could work. But I don’t have much hope that it will happen in this generation. It doesn’t matter if the hatred is justified or not. Hatred will always make people stupid and stupidity will always result in failure.
Please listen to the victims of the genocide.
Fun fact. You don’t get the bottom track without demanding it. You end up on the middle track if you negotiate on human rights.
Yup. You also get the middle track when you show up to the 2020 primaries and think to yourself “I’m gonna vote for a geriatric procorporate establishment white man. This is the best decision for me and everyone else will have to accept it because the alternative is Trump.”
Amusing to see commenters who think Biden primary voters are reading forums on Lemmy and are still venting their grudges 4 years later… 🤣
Where do you suppose all the people who voted for Biden in the 2020 primaries congregate?
Definitely not on one of the most marginal, leftleaning comment boards that is lemmy
Liberal yes, left leaning? Doubtful.
Lemmy was literally developed by communists and it feels like every other person here is a socialist.
I think I’ve only ever seen a few people on here call themselves liberals, and that was in the confused American version of the term, I’ve seen liberal used as an insult infinitely more.
Supporting Biden or Ukraine or Israel also does not immediately equal Liberalism, and I have no clue why yall have been treating it like it does.
Yes, liberals will not call themselves liberals. Much like NIMBYS would never call themselves NIMBYS. Especially ones trying to convince leftists to vote for a procorporate genocide supporting trash of a candidate.
That bottom track should a circle or cliff to demonstrate it goes nowhere.
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There is a third fucking option and it’s not doing a genocide.
That’s only an option if you have a viable strategy for accomplishing it.
Step one: Stop rewarding genocide with votes. 🤷
I agree, now how do we go about making everyone else see it too?
Apparently we can’t in 2024. They didn’t hear us in 2016. They won’t hear us now in 2024. Maybe two Democrat juggernauts losing the presidential election to Trump of all people will convince them.
They’ll just blame the leftists they cant stop attacking then use it as an excuse to move further right yet again.
Which, of course, they don’t. It’s a vanity vote. They want to pretend they have actually done something without actually having to do anything of consequence.
It’s an expression of privilege.
If we’re interpreting their “third option” as a voting strategy and not convincing Biden to step in and stop the genocide, we can at least implement Approval Voting so that they can vote for all the “no genocide” candidates without having to worry that doing so could somehow backfire. Then, if they want or need to, they can cast a strategic vote to differentiate between different magnitudes of genocide.
Yes, we need to change the way we vote before voting for POTUS can really move away from a binary choice.
we can at least implement Approval Voting
No, you can’t. You do not have the power to implement Approval Voting, and nobody who does have the power wants to do it. So it’s not gonna happen, at least not in the short term. Right now, anybody who wins has to win in an environment of First Past the Post. Nobody capable of doing that currently supports Approval Voting, so right now it is effectively not on the ballot.
This is what I mean about “hav[ing] a viable strategy.” Magically wishing Approval Voting into existence ain’t it.
Well the strategy is to work your way up from the local level because:
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It’s easier for people to make change at the local level, Fargo and St. Louis have already done it.
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Politicians tend to work their way up the ladder, and will be more open to using the system at higher levels if they already proved they can win under that system.
You have to remember that any real social change takes years, even decades of organized to realize. We didn’t go from Jim Crowe to the civil rights act in a fortnight, it took big organizations applying decades of pressure in multiple different ways.
If you want to be a part of the solution, join an organization dedicated to improving things. It doesn’t have to be the one I linked, but Election Science is the one working on approval voting. Local elections are such that one highly motivated person can build and run the organization to flip their local election laws, it could be you, but it won’t happen overnight.
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Great. That is a state issue, so pay attention to your state government, vote for state representatives that support better voting methods, and contact your state representatives to push for reform.
That doesn’t change this trolley problem.
As someone else pointed out, those in power are unlikely to change the voting system to reduce their own power. However, you really start at the local level with referendums, and work your way up. First, it’s easier to force change at the local level and second, politicians working their way up will be less hostile to changing to approval if they’ve already shown they can win under that system.
Because of a shitty situation set up by countless past people and events completely out of your control you have to make a choice here. And in my mind, it’s not even a difficult choice. Yes, either option will support Israel, that’s a given, but there is no third option so it might as well not even be a factor in choosing a candidate.
If you want more parties and to remove first past the post then you need to elect the party who supports those stances. That is one of your two options. Real fucking simple.
No. I do not vote for strike blocking genocide supporting candidates. Real fucking simple.
You will elect a much worse one by not supporting a much better one.
That’s their goal.
The problem is that we have two choices
The problem is that we don’t. If you’re not in a “swing” state, all the votes in the world for Joe Biden are meaningless. Win California by another million votes. Win it by another 10M. Have every single eligible voter in California turn up and vote for Joe Biden. He still loses the EC when the SCOTUS tells Arizona to stop counting ballots the minute Trump is in the lead.
Also like what the fuck…I guess we have to kill Palestinians no matter what.
We have to keep sending money to Israel because its the means by which we control the Suez Canal.
Except… the Houthis have control over the back end of the canal so long as they’re able to scare off shipping in the Gulf of Adan. So now we’re endorsing a genocide just for shits and giggles.
It’s almost like two organizations have totally monopolized US politics. It’s a billion dollar industry, and they’d both rather alternate losing to each other and keep their seat at the table than let anyone else play the game.
Its an enormously lucrative game, so who can blame them?
you blame us for going along with it and blame those who shame anyone who points out that we don’t have to go along with it.
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In my state, ballot initiatives to change to ranked choice or approval voting, ideally with expanded multiple winner districts.
How do you get electoral reform when no one you vote for gets elected, and everyone who does get elected has no reason to pay any attention to your opinion?
I’d generally agree, but the problem is that this particular instance is much higher stakes than most elections.
Generally speaking, the worst case scenario would be someone like John McCain taking the reins instead of Obama. I didn’t agree with McCain about a lot of things but he was a generally honorable guy who wanted to do the best for American democracy.
Now we have a group who is polling to win and outright saying “America needs a dictatorship”. If they get their way, it could be the last election we ever have.
That’s how bad the situation is: McCain is an example of someone who wanted to do the best for American democracy.
McCain was a conservative and I don’t agree with his policies but compared to today’s Republican Party, he was a knight in shining armor. He spoke and acted in good faith, at least.
As one party loses power it changes strategy to regain it, as one party gains power it is able to differentiate more amongst different ideologies within the party. If this goes far enough it can cause one party to fade to obscurity and a new party to emerge. There is no perfect candidate who represents everyone perfectly, you pick the candidate that is closer to the place you’d like to be. Also, third party votes work much better bottom-up vs top-down. Statistically no amount of crazy upset will cause a third party to actually win the top position despite no groundwork being done. Support third party candidates in small races where small grassroots efforts not funded by major political action groups are actually likely to make a difference. Then when you get a good candidate, organize and vote to see them advance to higher positions. It is batshit lunacy to expect third party candidate votes to matter in a presidential election when we don’t even have a single third party state governor, zero third party national representatives and only 4 independent senators, none of whom even represent a third party, and none of whom are presidential candidates this election (let alone viable ones). Campaign for and support third party mayors, city councillors, comptrollers, sheriffs, union representatives. You have a very real shot with them and if enough people do that and enough of them move up to higher positions, then that party can start to swing some weight around at a higher and higher level.
I’ve been trying to explain this in all these threads ad-nauseum but no one seems to get it.
Basically, if more people vote for the left-most party everyone’s policies move to the left.
That’s like saying you can get to zero by choosing the line climbing away from zero the slowest.
Relative Left is not the same as Absolute Left and it will never be actually move to the Left if the thing it’s relative to keeps going even more to the Right.
This is why one of the most worrisome thing in the current Democrats is that their electoral strategy is almost purely one of relativism - they almost entirely stopped selling themselves on the good of the things they do and pretty much only sell themselves relatively to Trump.
A “not as bad as the other guys” strategy is not the same as wanting to be the “good guys”.
That’s like saying you can get to zero by choosing the line climbing away from zero the slowest.
It’s not like saying that at all. You’ve completely misunderstood my meaning.
The dems are “climbing away from zero slowly” because they’re trying to woo voters from the republicans as the will of the voting public moves to the right. If everyone votes for the dems the republicans will need to shift their policies to the left to pursue the voters. The dems in turn will need to move further to the left to differentiate from the republicans.
That sounds like whishful thinking.
I mean, beautiful, lovelly and well meaning, but totally ignoring that both Democrat and Republican politicians (who, after all, are but humans in an environment telling them “greed is good” and who for the most part seem to believe it) are motivated by primarily by money and for them votes are but a means to an end (4 more years with their hands in the kind of power that can be used to make very wealthy, very thankful friends).
I think you are projecting yourself (IMHO a person driven by principle and with a political ideology) into the kind of people who are experts at the dirty business of playing politics and getting fat checks from donors and concluding that they would do what you would do in their position, even when the last 3 decades of politics in the US indicate the very opposite.
Some politicians in American might indeed be principled (Sanders almost certainly is), but most seem to be just highly skilled manipulators driven by personal upside maximization.
Highly skilled manipulators driven by personal upside maximization aren’t going to start working for the common good instead of making choices with the power they are entrust which will make them very wealthy and very thankful friends, if they think the Left are suckers and the leftwing vote is guaranteed if they use the usual lies.
It’s not wishful thinking. It’s just obvious.
You’re dead right in that politicians are greedy assholes.
They want to win elections and to do that they need votes.
What would the republican party do if they’d lost miserably in every election in the last decade? Obviously they would shift their policies to the left in order to be more popular.
What would the democrats do if the republicans moved to the left? Obviously they would have to move further to the left to minimise the votes lost to the republican party.
As the population votes on the left, political policy moves to the left. This seems so plainly obvious to me.
Democrats only put forward a slightly more leftie candidate either after they lost an election or after they came very close to losing one. Republicans haven’t put forward a more leftie candidade ever, even when they lost elections.
Sure, in a theoretical America were 80% of Americans were unshakeable convict lefties, it would make sense that both parties turn Left if they lost too many votes because that would be were 80% was that those people, being unshakeable in their political convictions, would not buldge from them.
However the Left in America is but a small minority and both parties have decades of actual proof that it’s perfectly possible to keep the Left small with the right kind of propaganda because that’s what they’ve done, again and again and again - the American political “center” isn’t way to the Right of that in most of Europe by chance and wouldn’t be moving even more to the Right not just in America but everywhere because people’s political convictions are unshakeable and unchangeable.
Further, if there is one thing Trump has proven is that it’s absolutelly feasible to move a huge fraction of voters even more to the Right when they were already very much into the Right (i.e. from Reaganism to pretty much Fascism).
Your entire theory is anchored on the idea that the electorate doesn’t move, it’s the politicians who move, when everything in History and even Present day, not just in Politics but even Marketing, not just in Democracy but in Authocracy, shows that the vast majority of people are incredibly easy for those who have control over a suficient fraction of the Press to push in the direction they want them to go.
(FOX News would not have the influence it has in American politics if people’s political convictions were unshakeable).
Add that factor to your thinking and it makes a lot more sense that the crooked politicians looking for a payout from doing politics for very rich people would favour using propaganda to convince people that doing what’s best for the rich is the right thing to do or that the fault of the problems in America is entirelly of immigrants so all the real solutions are around immigration (“and ignore all the tax cuts for the rich and deregulation I’m doing over here”) rather than moving to were people were politically and doing what people wanted instead of what’s best for the rich - the propaganda option works and guarantees that the mainstream politicians who chose to shift the electorate with propaganda instead of moving to were the electorate is, keep leaving politics far more wealthy than they came in.
Look around at Politics in American since at least Reagan and what I described in the paragraph above is exactly what has been happenning and is still happenning.
Holy shit someone with a brain.
On lemmy? Probably just swamp gas.
I hope this post gets a lot of tankie comments. They’ll be flockin’ to a blockin’
Heh. See, cause. It rhymes. So.
The one yesterday had that commenter who was all “what’s this? Oh it took me a second cause I blocked all the tankies” and that’s when I realized I forgot to block lemmy.ml. Now that that’s done, it’s just onsie-twosies. It’s a bright, bright sunshiney day.
They’ll be flockin’ to a blockin’
yoink!
At least on the default website, blocking instances doesn’t mass block the users, fwiw. Mileage may vary on alternate apps.
So far so good on voyager
Good to know!
I like that, as a nation, we are admitting that we’ll enable the killing of innocent children. It’s important to be honest with ourselves about who we are as a country.
Yes, the US government’s policy is and always has been to support genocidal Israel. That’s why Palestine is on both tracks. There is absolutely nothing voters can do to change this any time soon. You should be focusing on who you can save, rather than who you can’t.
Yes this meme is made of meme
Which is weird because I didn’t mention voting. America’s been doing this shit since before I was born, let alone since before I could vote. It’s in our bones.
You don’t get to vote to not kill children here. Just how many children we kill and how bad we pretend to feel about it.
post was about voting dawg, lame and boring goalpost moving come on now
I didn’t mention voting in my post. At all.
And I actually agree with the link: Vote for the person you want to be your enemy. If it’s gonna be a frail old man I’ll take the one who’s not a fascist. But I’ve given up on ever being happy about the choice, or ashamed of my country.
good lol i didn’t expect you to disagree, i was just providing additional information but you got weird about it
Yeah but only when it’s politically convenient.
And with your support we can make sure we never have to admit it again
I’m not gonna hold my breath
I’m just excited for Trump to win and “Those stupid leftists who didn’t vote for Trump” to be the cause, when all the conservative/centrist voters Biden picked up in 2020 abandon him in 2024 over the economy or Hunter Biden’s dick or his emails.
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It’s interesting how much the vote DOES resemble a trolley problem. Generally, the only real point in favor of not pulling the lever is “You’re killing someone, it’s immoral to get involved. Life shouldn’t be in your hands.”
Which is still setting aside all the conscious choice by other human beings that IS happening come election season. Probably the biggest way it diverges is that a trolley is moving under its own “natural” momentum. In reality, it’s as though some Nazis are pulling the trolley along the track to the 5 people.
The point would be to at least get something out of Biden. Not just to give up without any demands. Bluffs and all that.
These posts are basically calling on leftists to support a genocide. I’ll vote for Biden, but I’d also punch him square in his rich white Zionist jaw if I was given the opportunity. That’s how American democracy works. The U.S. doesn’t deserve a pass for supporting genocide, even if it’s an election year.
Nah, they’re half slacktivists convincing themselves they’re making a difference, half mental preparations of who to blame if Biden ends up losing.
half mental preparations of who to blame if Biden ends up losing.
Lol you’re projecting. You all plan on blaming us despite failing to respect our seat at the negotiation table. We made it very clear: we don’t vote for strike blocking genocide supporting candidates. You all thought you could fuck around and ignore our boundaries. You’re watching us stand up and walk away from the table talking like you still aren’t about to find out.
I swear, the best part about threads like these is that you’re all so used to not even reading the opposing arguments that at this point you can’t even tell eachother apart.
Yes, we’re not interested in arguing. We won’t vote for strike blocking genocide supporting candidates. Nothing is going to change our minds.
This is why I, as an autistic person, think internally using a sort of infinite mechanical analog diagram sheet thing.
Physical analogies are beautiful for how quickly they can convey a concept. Those disconnected tracks are a great representation of the third party voting situation we face, the “throwaway vote” problem.
And I thought this was perfect for demonstrating why people avoiding the donkey track for a single issue, no matter how bad, really need to look at the rest of the video picture, the state of the other choices
I like the disconnected track because I didn’t even notice it for like 20 seconds of looking at the image.
I support voting Democrat in this situation but after the election, people should support fair vote us to get ranked voting.
Thats crazy how every government only has two parties
damn and every government got that?
The American system of elections is old and it is apparent the Founding Fathers had no Idea as to how the game theory of elections would play out. Worse, they even picked a system of government that was more prone to a two party system than the United Kingdom due to the direct election of the Executive and the inbuilt separation of the Executive and Legislative branches.
Israel, as genocidal as it is, has a system which encourages minor parties to get elected. There are 16 parties elected to the Knesset out of 120 total seats. However, Israel has a unicameral legislature, there are no individual districts or constituencies, and the legislature selects the head of government.
Mainly UK and its derivatives… (USA, Canada, Australia 😄)
Every government that this meme is relevant to, yeah
oh but not every government. meaning its possible to have a government without first past the post.
…yes? Duh?
Thats what im sayin but everyone here will tell me its impossible
it’s possible, hope this helps
Yes and there’s many places where it exists
Some states here in the USA. Electoral reform is possible at the state level!
Its crazy how both parties are heavily invested in killing Palestinians.
Also crazy how Democrats take no credit for persecuting BLM, despite the fact that Obama’s FBI was neck deep in that shit for two years before he left office.
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👏
If your point is that the American system is fucked, we all know. We’ve known for decades. We’re trying to fix it, but progress is basically nonexistent, because every politician who is currently elected benefits from our fucked system. Trying to get to a parliamentary system, like most developed real democracies, is almost entirely out of reach. Just getting ranked choice voting is like pulling teeth, and we’ll have to create a brand new party to have politicians free from corporate interests.
I will have to fight all my life to enact positive change in this country, all because a bunch of rich white assholes who came to power long before I was born have stolen my future from me. Don’t belittle us, mourn for us and never, ever repeat our mistakes.
We’re trying to fix it
every politician who is currently elected benefits from our fucked system.
Wild how electing politicians that benefit from the system hasnt fixed the system yet.
Please refrain from speaking on topics that you have no understsnding of
Mean-spirited comment. Downvoted… 🙄
It’s also a legitimate request to be fair. I don’t really have time to explain the entire political situation of the US and why it’s not viable to change it through individual voting to this person, but they clearly don’t understand enough about it if they’re making silly remarks like this.
Hey look, Americans handwaving their genocide
Oh look, a fascist who likes to pretend they aren’t.
Which pro-Palestinian groups do you listen to? What are the Palestinians saying that really strikes a chord with you?
You’ve posted like 30 comments here.
31
Just wondering why you’re so invested in telling people not to vote for biden.
I’m invested in telling Americans to listen to Palestinians.
