I voted early in Wisconsin. There’s a ton of 3rd party candidates. I loved seeing it. Democracy is safe here.
Nah I’m boycotting this election as we skipped having any sort of primary. Democrats need to learn. I’m getting tired of thinking voting blue no matter who makes long term changes. It’s been a long time coming since Bernie was cheated
Also I wasn’t a fan with how Marianne was treated after Biden dropped out
Just wear the red hat 🤷
lol nah
This is how you end up with Trump again btw
Yep, and the DNC needs to realize it
So you’re just blatantly blaming other people for your own terrible choices
I think you underestimate how many on the left and how many independents are boycotting this election cycle. This isn’t the same election as 2020.
Lefties in particular are sick of the genocide we are seeing under Bidens leadership, and his mishandling of the economy.
Gaza continues to be extremely unimportant to most voters in this country. There’s a huge perception gap for the few people for whom it is a primary issue – they regularly think significantly more people care about it than actually do. It routinely ranks last or second to last among 12 issues in Harvard IOP polling even with the age group that cares the most about it (democratic leaning, college-educated 18-29 year-olds).
The Gaza issue isn’t moving the needle for Harris much one way or the other. If you can’t even get the people to care about the issue, don’t expect it from politicians.
Hi. Looking at your recent post history, I think you might be a right-winger pretending to be a socialist who is arguing for not engaging in this election in order to ensure Trump wins. If that is true, you’re unpleasant.
Like literally. “Oh the democrats will learn from this.”
Like wtf no, you never get a real primary with a sitting president. This won’t change anything, you’ll just help to elect Trump.
Kamala isn’t a sitting president
Bernie was cheated so you want to… punish poor and LGBT and minorities?
Main-character syndrome.
I’m just speaking on behalf of many lefties who are boycotting
Removed by mod
Not an American, but yikes does this have “Vote with us… Or else!” vibes.
That’s not to say I support Trump, but I personally don’t think this is the way to convince fence-sitters at all.
The really bad part is when you see how they react when people point out Kamala moving to the left would guarantee trump loses…
Moderates have been doing this since Bill Clinton 30+ years ago.
They always claim nothing else matters but beating Republicans, and use any excuse to move the party right. When voters complain the politician doesn’t match the party, we get the above.
They’d rather trump win then progressives, so they point a gun at everyone’s head and say it’s our fault if they have to pull the trigger.
Hell, in 08 with Obama they did pull the trigger. PUMA movement had them voting R instead of Obama. It’s just despite controlling the party, they are a statistically insignificant amount of voters.
A few months ago all these people called us trump supporters for making the (still true) statement that Kamala has a better chance than Biden, and they were all saying Kamala would be a terrible candidate and only Biden can win.
They’ll say anything in the moment with no regards to what just came out of their mouths.
How else would you propose that the Overton Window shift to the left?
The American neoliberal experiment started in 1992 when Bill Clinton was president…
The prior president was Jimmy Fuckin Carter…
How do you think the Overton Window has moved since Carter?
We can’t afford to keep going with a strategy that clearly hasn’t worked for 30+ years…
I’m pretty damn sure that Bush came both before and after Clinton
I thought it was obvious we’re just talking about Dems…
But I can edit that in explicitly
Entirely agree. The people responsible for trump getting votes are the people voting for Trump.
Tactical voting is bullshit of the highest order and the undeniable sign of a fucked up political and voting system, not some sort of political astuteness.
If your voting system can’t allow people to express their true choice, you should throw it away. Yes, that means the majority of voting systems around the world are bad and need to be changed. Getting people to recognise that this is even an issue in the first place is a huge battle.
Yes first past the post elections are fucked, but that’s still the system we have and the one you have to operate under. If you refuse to vote against hitler because you don’t like the voting system, you still refuse to vote against hitler.
Only one party has implemented ranked choice while the other has fought against it. That would be a great first start.
That’s not quite the case. Ranked choice voting is resisted by whichever party has a comfortable majority in any given state where it is on the ballot. That’s why it failed when it was on the ballot in Massachusetts during the previous presidential election, because it is a reliably blue state and ranked choice voting would only serve to disrupt that status quo.
I still voted in favor of it, but that’s how it went down.
The “or else” is you will be remembered as the Trump supporter that you are. That’s not a threat.
You’re not s Trump supporter if you don’t support Trump
This is the trolley problem. There are people on the track who will die if you don’t pull the lever. You stand and watch them die and declare, “I didn’t put the train on the track. It’s not my fault.”
Nope, you cannot blame someone for something they didn’t do
I live in California, if I don’t vote it doesn’t support Trump at all, the electoral votes go onto the Democrats if I vote for them, vote for Trump, or write in SpongeBob, it doesn’t fucking matter
If you live in a swing state then your point stands better, but I’m so fucking sick of this authoritarian “idgaf where you are if you didn’t vote exactly how I want you to then I’ll be a real pissy bitch about it” shit because I don’t like to vote in line with authoritarians
There was no retribution in the meme. Only that the person would be remembered for their lack of action.
What would you think of me if I saw your house catch fire and instead of calling the fire department, I watched your pets burn to death?
There was no retribution in the meme
Cute that you want to pretend that “well remember this false thing about you” isn’t an implicit threat
What would you think of me if I saw your house catch fire and instead of calling the fire department, I watched your pets burn to death?
Not a very good hypothetical as you can actually do something there
Its cute how hard youll grasp for a reason to justify the authoritarianism though. Gross, but cute
It’s not false. Through inaction they allowed something bad to happen. You want to have it both ways.
Not a very good hypothetical as you can actually do something there
As if you can’t vote?
Even if you are in solid Blue State, an overwhelming majority against Trump will send a message to the next fascist attempt.
You forgot some parts. The bystander being asked to pull the lever will enable a genocide by pulling it, and those rich people stuck on the tracks could pull a policy lever and save themselves but they refused to because someone offered them a bribe not to.
The rich people stuck on the track just want to play the vicitm when they also set up the whole scenario in the fist place by doing crazy stuff. So they crybully about it, and pretend to be victims of the scenario that they themselves created. I’d suggest they save themselves and stop doing stupid stuff. If we save them, how will they learn?
The bystander being asked to pull the lever will enable a genocide by pulling it
That statement shows you are a Trump supporter just like the meme claimed. Trump has committed to the extermination of Palestinians and even said he would deny any refugees.
The Trolley problem has 1 person on one track and 5 on the other. There’s a huge difference between Trump and Harris’s statements on Palestine.
Harris can pull her own lever anytime she wants, and that lever is to stop the weapons shipments. She then earns enough progressive votes to win, saving everyone, instead of looking for all the Dem voters to save her while she supports a far right war thats costing her a lot of votes.
How you get that I am a trump supporter from what I said is hard to imagine. But I think you’re just making it up to have something … anything, to attack with.
You need to work on your metaphors, and your basic reasoning, and your rhetoric. If you are going to call people names at least make it interesting and consistent with reality. Otherwise you are just boring.
Harris can pull her own lever anytime she wants
Harris isn’t President!
Trump has called for the extermination of all of Palestine.
Mmm I’m sorry to tell you that you are wrong
🤡
It’s exactly the kind of thing that feels good to say, but doesn’t convince anyone at all. Which is why Republicans keep winning despite ideas that should be extremely unpopular. They tie themselves to emotions about masculinity and patriotism and paint the other side as a source of disgust and fear. While Democrats look at people who support or don’t seem eager to stop Trump and say angry things at them, which just makes them not want to help Demcorats.
The “I’m voting, are you?” argument featuring nutty alt-right Maga crazies is far better because it says “hey, you can help stop this nutjob.”
Yes, I understand the sentiment. But the tone is off. Sounding like fascists or Marxist Leninist should be the last thing anyone should be aiming for.
More people should be aiming to be Marxists, don’t know why you’re trying to draw an equivalence between Marxists and fascists that doesn’t exist. You should read Blackshirts and Reds, Communists and fascists have served entirely different classes, the fascists served the bourgeoisie while the Marxists served the proletariat, and funded anti-colonial and anti-Imperialist movements the world over (including funding the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine).
you are 100% correct, and I’m glad to see you speaking up here as well.
these kind of posts are disgusting pablum and should be discouraged.
Low afford manipulation. Any adult person within shred of constitution can see through it.
hahaha, sorry were those typos on purpose or did you do some lazy speech to text there?
It’s very funny.
With any*
But I am keeping as it is rather cheeky
nice, it’s a perfect statement.
i am a
I’m not speaking from a place of facts, but I think the sentiment is if you don’t purposefully vote for someone within the two-party system that isn’t Trump, your vote will mathematically be a negative towards votes against Trump.
Not voting/third-party vote = one less vote against Trump/more possible votes for Trump
And it’s crazy how normal Americans think this two party system is. It’s like no matter how bad you think your guy is, you have to vote for them because the other side is worse. They always talk about the Labour Party and the Tories as if they think they’re carbon copies of the Democrats and the Republicans and project all their issues into them. They don’t seem to realise there’s like five or six other parties that get a considerable number of votes and have representation in Parliament.
Americans have no concept of a coalition.
It is normal in FPTP voting systems. If you are going to vote in a national election in a FPTP system. Especially one with our electoral college system. But aren’t looking to explicitly throw your vote away. And you aren’t okay with open fascists winning. When things are this close. Yeah there really is no conscionable choice. Unless you happen to live in a state so safe your vote truly could never matter. Like california. Which even that would be unwise. And is especially at a place for anyone from there to tell people elsewhere how to vote. Since they don’t have the same privilege.
This is dishonest. You put all the onus of losing to trump on progressives and act powerless, when Kamala changing just one policy would guanatee progressive support in large numbers. We’re not buying it. She’s the one advocating a policy that has no place in a democratic party platform, and would be extreme and risky even for a far right republican platform.
Can confirm, these awful false-equivalences have only further convinced me that liberals will never lift a finger to help anyone.
I mean, yeah? Have you looked around? The or else is getting pretty bad.
Also I want to keep adding it’s not just Trump, he’s just a pawn. This is Republicans, not Trump. If row did anything hopefully it opened up some eyes to realize they have been on message for a long damn time. Dems should take note.
But it’s literally how it works in the USA with voting. It shouldn’t, but it DOES.
I dont see that it is “working”.
If I was on the fence this kind of menacing push would make me reaffirm myself into not voting Dems. For real.
What kind of shitty way of convince anyone is this?
Abstaining or voting 3rd party to “try to make Dems listen” doesn’t work. If anyone thinks they can play Mexican Standoff, know that the Dems have an out: the center voter. Every time they lose, they go to the center to find voters.
And remember they need all 3 of presidency, house of representatives, and senate to pass pretty much anything. If they don’t have all 3 they will go to the center to find voters. Some people call this rachet effect, but really they are looking for voters. Want them to stop ‘racheting’? Then give them consistent and overwhelming victories.
And in their trips to the centre they keep seeming to forget that they keep shifting further and further right
Centrists are a curse here
They. Are. Looking. For. Voters.
If the
peoplevoters want more right, then that’s the will of thepeoplevoters. Thus the message: If, as a leftist, you want them to go left then you have to vote for Dems.progressive votes are right there for the taking. All the centrists need to do is stop shipping those weapons. Im not even saying anything about Kamala supporting fracking and gun proliferation thats murdering our children. Progressives are bending over backwards to try to make this work and they are being offered exactly nothing except threats,condescenscion, and hostage taking talk by the centrists.
Wow another message from you. Dude, I have 6 messages all from you. You need something better to do than spam me.
Progressive votes never show up. Anyone else can see my comment https://lemmy.world/comment/12867004. You’d be an absolute fool to cater to or rely on the left showing up. Because. They. Never. Show. Up. The only time Dems win is when they go to the center.
Wow another message from you. Dude, I have 6 messages all from you.
Thats pretty rich coming from you. Almost every other comment on this thread is you. “Dude”.
“Only” 4 messages this time.
Why yes I made a top level comment to the post and I am responding to people that reply to me. That is not what you portray it as, so that tells me you’re here in horribly bad faith. That along with, you know, your spamming. Ciao.
See you have this backwards, they are supposed to change and then they are rewarded with votes.
If you vote them in before they change, they have no reason to change.
We can go through the whole history if you want. Every time the Dems go left, they lose. Every single time. So they go to the center to find voters. Then certain people whine “Why are they going center!!! We won’t vote for them!!! Rachet!!” That’s when I say playing Mexican Standoff won’t work. Because they have an out and you don’t. If you want them to stop going center, they have to win first. Because, again, when they lose they go to the center to find voters.
well this time they are going to lose by going right. Maybe they need to think about it and make a different plan then.
See my other comment. Oh you did and all you can say is “biased”. Think about it? They have 44 years of history beaten into them. They lose every single time they go left.
You don’t reward people when they do things that you don’t want.
Cause: Politicians do the correct thing.
Effect: voters reward them.
Very good choice NoIWontPickAName, we can go over the history of how the left doesn’t show up!
Ok let’s go through this chronologically.
Carter: Tried to do some left things and got fucking yeeted from office. Aka the left never shows up.
Bill Clinton: After successive Dem losses Bill figured out “it’s the economy stupid”, aka center policy, not leftist policy. Plus when you run against an incumbent (Bush senior) you generally run from the center. So that’s what he did. And he won.
Gore: After the population hopefully warmed up with Bill Clinton, he stuck his head out left with climate change. And bam he lost the election. Thanks 3rd party protest voters! Aka: The left never shows up.
Obama: So guess what Obama learned? Don’t stick your head out. He ran on vague “hope”, hoping the ambiguity would be enough considering Bush’s disastrous wars. And he won.
More on Obama: so he enacted the ACA. That’s great, right? The thanks Obama got for that was to lose the House of Representatives for year 3 and 4. And lose the House of reps again for years 5 and 6. And then lose both the House of reps and the Senate for years 7 and 8. He enacted left policy and: The left never shows up.
Hillary Clinton: So what did Hillary learn from the last 6 years of Obama? She learned that the left never shows up. So she ran a mostly center platform to get voters, BUT with a big position to left on the map room to climate change. She basically declared war on climate change. You know that big existential issue that all the leftists care about, right? The big important issue that the left says they will show up for, right? And guess what happened? Bam she lost. Thanks protest non-voters! Aka: The left never shows up.
Biden: Just like Obama learned from Gore, Biden learned from Hillary that you don’t stick your head out left on anything. Not one thing. And he was running against an incumbent, so once again when you do that you run center. And he won.
More on Biden: But did left things anyway. He Biden did green energy, EVs, drug price control, PACT act, etc. And what were the results? Lost the House of Representatives for years 3 and 4. Polls showed him losing the election to Trump. He enacted left policy and: The left didn’t show up for midterms, and was not going to show up for the next election.
Harris: So guess what Harris is doing? She’s adopting Obama’s tactic to run on vague “get ahead” and having energy. From what I know she’s not announced anything left, other than vague tax the billionaires. She has no reason to think the left will ever show up.
And people are amazed that they don’t run a big left platform? Every time they stick their head left they lose. Every Single Time. And the next guy learns to go to the center to win. Because the center voters actually show up.
With this history, you’d be an absolute fool to cater to and rely on the left. Because. They. Never. Show. Up.
So how do you get them to move left? By giving them victories first. Consistent and overwhelming victories. Show them it’s safe to take policy chances. Because when they lose, like they’ve lost 20 years out of the last 24 years, they will go to the center to find votes.
And some follow up thoughts:
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Ok. Then you don’t get to complain how the dems move to the center, or racheting, or anything else. You know, to the voters that actually show up.
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This is about the Overton Window. You want the overton window to move? Then you have to vote for Dems. Waiting for this magical left platform isn’t going to happen.
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You reallllllllyyyyy don’t want to take the point that this is not a game of Mexican Standoff that you can win. They have an out. You do not. And their out, the center voter, actually shows up.
By far the most astute take on the subject I’ve read in a while.
thats a crazily biased and simplsitic summary of what actually happened.
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And remember they need all 3 of presidency, house of representatives, and senate to pass pretty much anything
The odds of Democrats keeping the Senate seem dismal. So it sounds like we’re giving the party license to do nothing for another yet years
I like how you twist that to “party license”. If the
peoplevoters vote that way, that is the will of thepeoplevoters. Don’t like it? Vote. For Dems. (Though the GOP bear some responsibility being obstructionist pos.)If the
peoplevoters vote that way, that is the will of thepeoplevoters.Sorry 50M Californians, but 40k West Virginians decided to go a different way. Guess this means no civil rights for another two years.
This is aimed at those people that think not voting or voting 3rd party is effective to “make Dems listen”. It is not. Voters have a say.
Dems are a coalition. Centrists are not powerful enough within that coalition to act like utterly unaccountable god-kings. If that needs to be beaten into them then so be it.
Lol I assume you mean that you (the leftist) will beat some message into the Dems. Dude, you will not win this Mexican Standoff because the Dems have an out: The center voter. Who, wait for it, actually shows up.
Alll your “beating” is beating yourself when you hand the overton window over to the GOP. It’s the biggest self own in history.
We’ll see wont we. If progressives stay strong and dont vote early, I’d bet real money Harris caves on the weapons shipments.
So give up? Yea, it fucking sucks and is unfair as hell but voting is too easy to claim a lack motivation. It’s not a sustained effort, it’s something happens incredibly rarely and you can definitely handle. You can even mail that shit in in most places.
If you vote then it will be hard for the democrats to win and start shifting your countries policies to leftward(even if it’s an inch at a time). If you don’t vote then it will be impossible to do it.
So give up?
If your full effort begins and ends with election season, you’ve already given up.
Who said that? Oh right, nobody. Fuck, bro, get it together.
I’ve thought about that recently.
In Germany, the 2 historically biggest parties were SPD (used to be liberal-democrat) and CDU (conservative) and they often were the ones tugging it out while the smaller parties were filling in as coalition partners for one or the other.
Over time, the SPD splintered into several semi-big offshoot parties (Linke, for example) while the CDU stayed as a whole. As a result, CDU is now commonly a favorite for getting most votes in an election.
Is that consistent with politics across the globe? And if, why do liberal or center parties tend to split up more than conservatives?
Counterexample: The European Parliament. IMHO, it looks like 4 right-wing groups, 2 left-wing ones and 2 centrist ones. While the exact positioning could be argued over, the right wing is quite certainly more fragmented than the left is.
I commonly hear the left is a loose coalition of fractions (which can split apart), while the right fall in line. I think there are fewer fractions on the right, or the fractions are not as far apart, so coming together is easier. They also unite in absolute hatred of the left, so will fall in line to slay that beast.
100% agreed regarding coalitions, unfortunately centrists dont seem to know they are in a coalition, or that the party even has a platform. They are so spooked by trump that they will do or say anything to win. Anything.
Centrists on this thread today accuse Progressives of being members of the far right as a ploy to hide the fact that they are the ones pushing far right policies themselves. The centrists are much closer to being republicans anymore than they are to adhering to the traditional democratic party platform. Real Democrats wouldnt risk the drinking water of the whole continent to enable more fracking to big oil company donations. They wouldnt be ok with more school shootings to pander to the NRA donations (especially when the NRA is heavily infiltrated by Russia). And they wouldnt sponsor and enable a far rightwing genocidal war in the middle east – pitting us against the entire rest of the world-- to draw foreign lobbying donations. But American progressives are somehow willing to swallow every bit of that traitorous behavior except one to get over the finish line together, whereas centrists are willing to change not a single damn thing to win, and proceed to whine and threaten.
Because conservatives gravitate towards authority, and progressives are looking to break the status quo.
So conservatives value order, authority, and it causes them to fall in line.
Progressives are looking to break that order, believing that things can be better than they are right now. That causes them to infight more often.
So vote for them regardless and then they will listen?
This is an incorrect framing of the situation. You aren’t being asked for a Yes/No vote on Democrats. You are being asked if you prefer Democrats or Republicans. Or for this election, if you prefer Democracy or Fascism. If you vote “no preference”, that does not communicate “I prefer the Democrats, but want them to move further left”, either logically or politically.
There are lots of ways to communicate desired policy changes: letter-writing, primaries (including campaigning/funding for candidates), protests, marches, press, social-media, etc. Voting against your interest is not one of them.
You are being asked if you prefer Democrats or Republicans.
I understand why you’d say this. But you arent trying to understand why people are trying to pressure the dem leadership to be better.
I absolutely understand the anger at the Democratic party. I mention several useful activities to work toward fixing its many failings. The Republican party is strictly worse. Giving equal support to both is counterproductive.
Dems need all 3 (presidency, house of reps, Senate) to do pretty much anything. They’ve had that for [drumroll please] 4 out of the last 24 years. Or 6 of the last 32 years. Or 6 of the last 44 fucking years.
They’ve had that for [drumroll please] 4 out of the last 24 years
It was significantly shorter than that when you consider Senate control to be 60, which is what’s needed to bypass the fillibuster.
They honored the fillibuster by choice. They didnt have to.
They never had 51 votes to repeal the fillibuster. Sinema and Manchin both refused to do so. Neither of which are Democrats anymore. We should elect more Democrats to the Senate that will.
Supermajority was 4 months, out of the last 44 years. But whenever I mention that people think I’m fixated on that for some reason
You shouldn’t cry about fake internet points
I’m not crying, I’m laughing how certain people downvote because they don’t like hearing facts.
Somehow the terminally online tankies will still blame Democrats for that, too.
Dems need all 3 (presidency, house of reps, Senate) to do pretty much anything.
Thats not how politics works buddy. If what you said were true neither the dems or republicans would have passed any bills in the history of the “republic”. Clearly theres also horse trading, and bribery/lobbying you are pretending dont exist in order to make this weak point.
With the obstructionist MAGA caucus in your government that would rather vote no to bipartisan bills because it would give a Democrat a win, barely any bills get passed!
The more elections the far right loses, the more the overton window shifts to the left.
Democrats move further right to get votes from the center but when they win it’ll go left trust me bro
They go to the center when they lose. If they don’t lose, they don’t need to go to the center to find voters. You can see my other comment, they’ve only had all 3 houses for 4 out of the last 24 years.
you totally ignore that the Dems could simply represent the will of their constituents and not lose, and not need to “look for votes” outside the boundaries of their party. Kamala would be coasting to vicotry if she wasnt supporting Bidens dirty far right war. She is trying hard to not represent the Dems and take a far right stand on this, and thats the root of this problem. Not Progressive voters or the youth.
Seriously? Every time they run a left platform or enact a left policy, they lose. Why do I bother, ciao.
It’s the left’s fault for not feeling motivated to vote for a center-right party, they’ll become even more right if we don’t vote for them. Progressive candidates are dumb and unpopular.
I honestly don’t know what point you’re trying to get at. In any case, if the left wants to be effective, they have to vote for Dems. Because, again, when they lose they go to the center to find voters.
seems like if the left wants to be effective at this point it has to go far beyond voting
Coalitions dont work if the larger group demands unconditional loyalty or ignores their coalition partners non negotiables. Dems are a coalition of various groups that cant win alone.
actively enabling Genocide is a non negotiable for progressives. And progressives are the difference between dems winning and dems losing.
Centrist dems have been trying to hold the entire party hostage to trumps evil so they can take AIPACS dirty bribes. So now progressives will play the exact same hostage games. We’ll all go over the cliff into the bloody abyss together, or a few simple policy changes can be made. So get those changes done and lets win this election together. Or dont and our country is over. You choose. We already made our choice, and it was really no choice to be made at all. We were never going to enable genocide, its not who we are.
So stay home/throw away your vote, I’m sure they’ll realize their mistake and go to the left any decade now to chase those reliable voters.
And you throw away yours as well. We all lose. Finally a ‘together’ outcome where we are all on the same side and not just taking centrist far-right marching orders like slaves.
they don’t have to, let the whole thing collapse. Fascism never lasts long
This, but unironically.
I dont think thats true all the time. as we have seen with Biden, If a dem president is a centrist or far right for a dem, it shifts the entire party and the judiciary rightward. These things have monentum.
So I’d say its not simply the “D” that matters in overton shift. It also sets the topics in the political conversation, and either strengthens the party for the next election or leaves it in shattered and misaligned, like we are now about the unpopular far right wing genocide being pushed by a democratic US presidential administration.
so you think if we vote for them no matter what they do, they will start representing our wishes out of the goodness of their hearts, instead of Aipac’s who come to them with palletloads of cash? Thats… an interesting theory.
And finally your 6th message. Try not to spam people mkay?
First, again, they go to the center when they lose. If they don’t lose, they don’t need to go to the center to find voters.
Second: They will do what
peoplevoters want. That is the whole point, voters. Right now the voters are voting for brutally slow progress. That’s what they get when they give Dems control of all 1 for only 4 years every 24 years. Want faster progress? Then be the voters that vote for faster progress by giving Dems consistent and overwhelming victories.In addition to that, I really think Dems want left policy. They do it when they can despite it costing them elections. According to your logic they would never have done the ACA, or green energy, or EVs, or union empowerment (inb4), or student debt forgiveness, or Chips act, or Pact act, etc, etc. But they did, and it cost them.
I live in a red state, and the Democratic Party cannot even get enough warm bodies to ruin for every office here. The Libertarians do better with their candidates than the Democrats.
The obviously the tactical strategy is to vote libertarian
Genuinely, why is everyone on lemmy a democrat? I’m actually tired of seeing these things come across my feed
If you’re a Leftist, Lemmy.world defederated from the major Marxist instances, which is why it looks like that for you, and I’d suggest making an account elsewhere.
If you’re a conservative, Lemmy is maintained and developed by Communists and FOSS in general appeals to Leftists, the furthest right is typically liberalism.
… @lemmy.world
Found your problem
Many of the communists are on other instances not federated with lemmy world
Not voting Trump != democrat
voting for a third party is fine.
I personally think it’s impractical since the democrats have advanced progressive policies these past 4 years that probably dovetail with any third party candidate a voter likes, but any vote an American voter casts is a valid vote.
Third party vote is a protest vote to deny the regime legitimacy.
Voting for either party is a vote of confidence in the regime. It only makes sense to participate within this framework if you feel like you benefiting from the current arrangements.
This is a perspective than can only be held in a political system that has devolved to a two-party system.
If you step out of that, it stops making sense. A democracy allows for people to express their actual opinion. Anything less than that is not a proper democracy. I’d argue there are no “third parties” in a proper democracy.
You might be saying that the American regime is illegitimate, it’s unclear.
You might be saying that the American regime is illegitimate, it’s unclear.
Regime manufacturers legitimacy via captured political process and peasants accept this arrangement despite not being represented within the government broadly speaking is my thesis.
When I vote for a third party, I am voting for the candidate I most strongly identify with.
you know, like in a democracy.
“Voting for either party is a vote of confidence in the regime.”
this is incredibly naive.
voting third party as a “protest” is like holding your hand under a blowtorch.
yeah, you’ll get some attention, but it’s not really going to help you out and you probably didn’t have a good reason for doing it in the first place.
It will only work if enough people do it to rattle the current arrangement.
I am doing my part. Some day others will join. This a generation long battle and the only valiable option to influence the system.
Voting for either party is saying you are fine with the way the regime rules us. You are not going to get result by playing by their rules.
I think it would be more effective to start an election reform faction inside the Dems rather than abstain the vote for democracy against dictatorship.
“It will only work if enough people do it to rattle the current arrangement.”
maybe. No evidence for that, though.
“I am doing my part.”
maybe. No evidence for that, though.
“Some day others will join.”
I’m not even sure what you’re talking about. Bullying voters? Someday people will join you bullying voters? All your MAGA peers are in lockstep with you, you have millions of fascists willing to hold your hand.
“Voting for either party is saying you are fine with the way the regime rules us”
Incorrect, you have a naive, narrow, flawed understanding of electoral freedom.
I don’t like the way the US government conducts itself.
That has nothing to do with choosing the better Presidential candidate according to my values.
This year, Harris will make a better President according to my values.
If Stein would, I’d vote for her. But she wouldn’t.
Voting is valid, freedom of choice is valid.
Your bullying won’t work here.
Bullying? You got a citation?
Yes, read above.
or try a dictionary.
I don’t think you know what that term means
the democrats have advanced progressive policies these past 4 years
Did you mean decades?
The Democrats are the only party in the US creating good jobs for workers, supporting unions and rising salaries, increasing the minimum wage, investing in the middle class, trying to reign in corporations, stopping the wars started by the GOP, and managing the economy like adults trying to close down the deficit gaps created by GOP policies.
The third party candidates are unfiltered BS candidates that are neither experienced nor prepared to lead, and don’t even care or try to govern since their campaigns are not designed to win any seats but only to gather attention and draw votes away from Dems.
And there’s no point in speaking of the GOP since it should be obvious to anyone serious what the GOP does to education, middle class, salaries, unions, deficit, and now with their Project 2025 plan for minorities and anyone that doesn’t identify as rural white Christian.
voting for a third party is fine
Try again.
no, i didn’t.
I specifically meant the last 4 years.
“The third party candidates are unfiltered BS candidates that are neither experienced nor prepared to lead”
source?
it sounds like you’re just making this up, since lots of third-party candidates are good candidates who can’t get ahead because of the corrupt us electoral system.
“stopping the wars started by the GOP”.
uhhhh hahahaha! get out of here, it’s amazing you can type that right now, I see you hit it between a bunch of other bad points, but boy is this the wrongest of them all.
“only to gather attention and draw votes away from Dems.”
so you’re 12 or you’ve never paid attention to US politics before.
third party candidates are historically more devoted to all of the things you have listed above, job creation, union support, minimum wage, corporate taxes, they are good candidates with good policies who get screwed because of the US electoral system.
they are not political distractions, your narrow-minded ignorance is.
If you have a problem with this line of reasoning then your actual problem is first past the post voting.
Abolish first past the post voting and you can finally actually vote for things you like, rather than against things you hate, but we’re stuck in first past the post voting, so, you must vote strategically.
I love how in the US getting Hitler elected would just be a matter of having a total of one worse person run for president. Then the Dems would be selling him as the saviour of the working class and minorities.
“What? Third party? You might as well be voting for Hitl… Wait”
Yeah. But that’s not them doing anything wrong lol.
It’s the system. You have a electoral college majority vote system that only allows two parties because a third party would split the vote. As long as you have that one, it’s literally impossible for any third candidate to win, so it will just remove votes for the better option of the real possible one.
Of course this is horrible and of course no-one likes it. But you have to change the underlying system in order to really get a viable alternative.
Just saying “the system is bad (it is!!) so I won’t follow its rules and waste my vote” won’t help anybody. It will just allow the even worse option to flourish.
How did Ross Perot run then? Clearly the System will allow for a third party it’s the people who have decided that they can’t.
I’ll take “People arguing with comments they didn’t understand” for $500, Alex.
Between 99% Hitler and 100% Hitler you want to vote for 99% Hitler. Because 100% Hitler would be 1% more Hitler than 99% Hitler. The goal is to minimize the Hitler.
Between 99% Hitler and 100% Hitler it’s time to overthrow the Nazis.
Yup! Until that gets organized, best to keep the damage to a minimum.
It’s funny that the Nazi Party was literally the National Socialist Party Of The German Worker.
Of course they were neither Socialist (quite the opposite) nor stood for workers (quite the opposite).
I describe it as “funny” because in the US, the Democrats, whose President has literary said he is a Zionist (I.e. a supporter of the latest variant of the Nazi ideology) operate almost entirely based on the very same principle of claiming to be one thing whilst acting as the opposite.
The very field that allowed Trump to rise with his hypocrite populist speech has long been plowed and fertilized by Democrats relying on sleazy lies and half-truths and turning the Press into their Propaganda Spokesperson to get away with representing their voters less and less: people stopped trusting a certain kind of slick stories and a certain Press promoting misleading statements and deceitful portrayals in a serious tone, which openned the door for the actors politicians doing populist strongmen acts and spewing outright but short and simple lies.
Today’s American Political Landscape is a field plowed and sowed by Democrats and harvested by Republicans.
I sure wish more of these people that are all hung up on an issue would vote in the primaries. You know, where you have at least a slim chance of changing things.
If you vote for Republicans or Democrats, you’re supporting the same duopoly that got us to this point. If you’re terrified of Project 2025, keep in mind the Republicans will eventually win again, even if not this election. The easiest longterm solution is to vote 3rd party, and if you’re in a completely red/blue state, this is the tactical decision since your vote won’t affect the election anyways
Smug liberals will be condescending regardless of who wins any election.
You wanna change the Democratic Party? Maybe vote more than once every four years. State and local elections have garbage turnouts and this is where right wingers shore up their power (because they ALWATS vote). You need to vote every election, always. You want left leaning Democrats in office? Their careers start small, at the local and state level. Vote for them there and support them as they gain experience and reputation.
But this griping about the electoral process and lack of choices in a national election is just lazy bullsh*t. Yes, a vote for anyone other than Harris is a vote for Trump at this point.
So is a vote for anyone other than trump a vote for Harris?
No. There are less Republican voters. That’s why a non/3rd party vote benefits Trump more than Harris.
When do you think the last fair Dem presidential primary happened?
Every progressive I know votes in every election from dog catcher to president, but with how deregulated campaign finance laws are, how is a candidate going to compete in a non presidential year when corporations and foreign governments donate millions in the primary to the neoliberal?
Then if they do win the primary, they have to be at the Republican getting the same money, and the DNC and state parties don’t support them because they also take the same money?
Like, I get what you tried to say and I wish it was that fucking easy.
But it’s not as long as money is free speech. We can’t change that until we demand the party stops taking that money in primaries against other Dems, and backs progressive candidates that make it to the general like they back moderates.
If you’re feeling disturbed by this rhetoric but you don’t want to vote for the greens, consider party for socialism and liberation. They’re running de la Cruz on a platform of Palestinian statehood and an end to arms shipments to Israel.
This is false
Every county in my state always votes red. Due to the way elections are held in this country, it does not matter how I vote. I could vote for Harris, on the tiny chance that enough others will as well, or I could vote 3rd party, and at least increase the percentage of voters doing that so that it doesnt seem as useless next time. Hell, I could vote for trump and there would still be no difference.
Don’t alienate your allies if you want them to stay allies
Vote local elections as well. It’s the only place you can have real impact.
Not every “red state” has enough blue people in it to flip, but voter turnout is absolutely the issue in most states. You wanna vote third party and feel connected to some little clique, fine. But don’t expect the Democrats, or the country, to ever change for you. Make your vote valuable.
You wanna vote third party and feel connected to some little clique, fine.
🤡
The people that dont even understand the electoral college always yell the most about just shutting up and voting straight party.
It’s what Republicans do, and it is a lot easier to live life like that, basic tribalism is what we evolved for:
Us good, them bad
They’re 100% right on the “them bad” in this case…
But half of that basic tribalism is never criticizing “us good”, which is incredibly fucking dangerous.
