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This kind of post isn’t helpful. It’s useless finger wagging at this point that isn’t actually going to substantively change things and it does nothing to challenge Democratic ineffectiveness.
Is the Democratic party better than the Republicans? Sure. But during the whole time Biden was in office that didn’t stop my rights from eroding in the state I live in and the current Democratic status quo is to claim that standing for some civil rights is a problem. I won’t say some things didn’t get better but an improving economy didn’t help with the cost of living for those of us who actually have to live in THIS economy.
The general argument though, is that if you vote for the lesser of two evils, therefore you’re picking the opponent that you feel you are most likely going to nudge on the issues. The DNC ran a postmortem, claimed that they were going to be open and honest about the results, then hid the results when it contradicted their pro-Israel stance.
Nevermind that our leaders are fighting corruption and fascism with strongly worded letters, while the establishment is engaged in actively trying to destroy any momentum from their left while they seek out this mythical centrist Republican that’ll vote for them. Am I supposed to feel okay with a party who’s establishment thinks my rights are optional? Are brown people supposed to feel safe when out government is engaged in active ethnic cleansing and the opposition is dog whistling about how much they love strong borders? Are people of middle eastern descent supposed to feel okay when the opposition party supports a genocide?
Are we supposed to be convinced that a political party is willing to pay attention to protests and act on them, when they can’t even be bothered to be transparent about and learn from a postmortem that told them actual fucking genocide is a line in the sand that enough people are unwilling to cross that it’d cost them one of the most consequential fucking elections of century?!
Voting blue is a tool, but how is doing it no matter who going to be meaningful when the Democrats won’t learn from their mistakes, will double down on their harms, will throw their own candidates under the bus for being too far left, and will continuously shift rightward?
I’m all for not letting the perfect get in the way of the good, and I have absolutely followed through on the “picking your opponent” mindset, but you actually have to have good on the board.
Based AF
EDIT: Perhaps I should clarify my view a bit. Any vote preventing the worst candidate from taking office is a good one. Especially in our First-Past-the-Post system.
Every vote is a concession.
Your ancestors fought through bloodshed, bones, and teeth to allow you the priviledge to post liberal concessions in the centralized internet.
Concessions is what tyrants abuse.Be like water, unstoppable, and unyielding. Never allow yourself to become a swamp.
Does “be like water” mean “miss the filing deadline for an election, then blame literally everyone else”?
I literally defined what I metaphored. Why do you refuse to help voters after elections?
Love all these calls for a revolution that none of those rallying for will ever participate in. Radical idea begin with small steps. It’s not that hard. Vote in primaries, vote against insane people in general elections. Eventually the flow of water reverses.
No one on this thread is ever gonna start a fucking revolution. Stop pretending like you are above everyone because your plan is some radical overtaking of the government. It’s a fantasy.
I am glad you choose to waste your time commenting on your choice to defeat your political inactions on a leftist network the Zionists have infiltrated.
Since you have acquiesced to your Führer‘s tyranny, can you simply return to licking your Nazis’ boots and leave us intersectionists alone?
Our “small steps” were crushed by electoralists. So my comment is for the ignorant, the uneducated, the unlearned.No one on this thread is ever gonna start a fucking revolution
Well… I’m working on the whole revolution thing by advocating a new political theory of anarchism, that I hope will lead to a new sort of revolution. It’s called anarcho-antirealism. We advocate for a revolution in which the workers take back control of the means of perception from the capitalist media, alongside a material revolution for the means of production. But it’ll be decades before we can do much rebelling, so right now I’m focused on protecting our community and growing our movement through direct aid and local electoral change.
Protecting the community, local elections, volunteering, and organizing/participating in protests is a great example of how to change institutions. You can make your neighborhood better, change the lives in big ways of those you can reach, and hopefully that impact spreads further than your local circle.
People should be less focused on unrealistic and radical world shaping events (unless somehow the opportunity arises) and more on the small changes a single, ordinary human without connections or influence can make.
By growing a cause in number, “revolution” sparks. Not through talking shit on Lemmy.
Nice try, Kamala
Yeah, imagine if we had gotten Harris as President…
How… much… “worse”… things would be.
Or imagine smores. Hot, melted chocolate and marshmallow between two graham crackers.
When was the last time you had smores?
The White House would be intact.
fElon wouldn’t be approaching trillionaire status and gas would be about half the price
So would every for-profit prison
I today’s world, I will judge the capacity of anyone who think “both candidates are the same” in any elections. We have seen in real time how rights conquered through decades can be destroyed in a matter of months
And I judge people for failing to acknowledge a vote for Joe Biden in the 2020 primaries was a vote for fascism.
Ok, what was a vote for Trump in the 2020 election…?
Also a vote for fascism.
I am too tired at the moment to really talk, but here are the systems we need to no longer need defensive voting.
And
I refuse to continue the “lesser evil” BS that got us here. Either the Dems put up actual progressives (and not the crap like Biden that people like to praise as “the most progressive president”) or don’t whine when people like me look elsewhere at the ballot box. Third party candidates actually do the legwork in red states to get votes unlike Dem presidential candidates.
Congratulations on sticking to your purity test and voting third party. Look at all the third party members in Congress and the white house… Oh wait.
Considering, again, I live in a deep red state my vote for anyone outside conservatives matters about the same. So I might as well stick with who I actually want representing me and not just representing who I slightly less prefer murdering.
You know, in 2024 there was some talk about whether to dispute the results of the election. But people saw that you’d chosen to let Trump win the popular vote, so they figured you wanted Trump to win, and they didn’t bother to demand a recount.
Even if everyone who voted third party voted for Harris, she still wouldn’t have won the popular vote, and that’s assuming all of them would have voted Harris and not Trump if forced like beyond at gunpoint (somehow like they can’t even pick to just be shot) which is extremely unlikely.
If everyone who voted for Biden had voted for Harris, she would have won the popular vote. In 2024, there were more abstainers like you.
Who said I abstained? I literally said I voted third party and was discussing third party voters. Why are you now needing to include people who don’t vote at all? I voted third party in 2020 also so it’s not like the Dems lost my vote between those years.
In FPTP, voting for a third party – even when it’s some major figure like Ross Perot or Bull Moose Teddy Roosevelt – is doing the same as abstaining.
By voting defensively we can control the damage. But we’re obligated to do more than just vote.
Congratulations on continuing to vote for trash in the Democratic primaries.
I vote for progressive candidates in the primary. For example, I voted for Bernie in the primary both times.
Morons like you however appear to not vote in primaries. Most of you idiot “both sides” fucks don’t even know what they are. Very surprising to hear that from you. Then again, if you knew what they were then you wouldn’t have accused me of voting for the centrist, which I assume you did since that’s all you idiots parrot.
Who are you even talking to?
Keep blaming voters for the system’s problems. That always works.
Yes! It’s like voting to choose which boss battle you are going to have.
Lemmites:“but I might accidentally vote for a woman”
Is the misogyny on lemmy that prevalent? I spend most of my time in the hexbear and ml communities and misogyny isn’t much of an issue there but I hear it is endemic to lemmy. I haven’t seen much of it personally.
Libs believe everyone who was against Harris was only against her either cause of her race or her gender. Couldn’t possibly be for any other reason cause she was the perfect candidate that would bring about world peace and end everyone’s problems.
Having grown up in the 1970s and 1980s, when racial tolerance and women’s lib was hammered into me even via Sesame Street (it was just after the Civil Rights movement and all fresh on everyone’s minds) I am terrified of the possibility that our voting population is so obtuse that they’d be afraid of officials that are not all white Christian men.
Though part of Trump’s popularity in his 2015-2016 campaign was due to reactionary offense to Obama. So we Americans may just be that lowbrow.
Ignore the ivory towers atop which the officials sit. Cleanly above your protests, so that they might see the horizon beyond your squabbling. Had the people consumed the choices, and rebuked the officials, maybe they would not have to choose between marauders and raiders.
We do not yet know what it takes to organize the people to seize power from the ownership class. It’s a race we’re falling behind with every hour as the far-right propaganda engine that dominates social media and televised news is able to better draw people in and tell them what to think.
Eventually, there will enough of us dead, and enough of us discontent and set on revenge that we’re willing to fight just because we have nothing left to lose. But American history has shown that we can also have incremental revolutions, usually steps of reform in response to hardship driven by inequity.
It never happens this way.
Once group A “seizes the power from the ownership class” THEY BECOME THE OWNERSHIP CLASS.
This is history, this is how it works. It’s very foolish to believe what you see on TV or what you’re told when reality has never gone that way ever not once.
Voting has positively impacted the world, democracy has moved mountains.
Remember when people tried to say Hillary was just as corrupt? Now it’s Kamala sat atop her ivory tower and is a marauder and/or a raider. They’re just as bad as Trump. It’s equal.
Don’t vote, destroy your system from the outside. Let Trump win, let it burn.
That is this guys message. And as cute this idea is when you’re 16 or whatever, once reality hits it’s not what you’re describing.
Destroying, decaying and damaging a system hurts the lowest rung first and the highest rung, never.
Voting does make change. It doesn’t when every election bozos like you try to dissuade more people from voting.
It doesn’t when every election bozos like you try to dissuade more people from voting.
Not true. We always try to get you to vote for someone who isn’t trash in the Democratic primaries.
But then you go and vote for trash in the Democratic primaries.
Do you plan on voting for trash in future Democratic primaries?
Completely ignorant.
If not voting was a candidate it’d win every election. That’s the problem. That’s why they hand the candidacy to Clinton, that’s why they can assert Kamala and not worry
Not like people are gonna vote anyway, they’re penny pinching for votes. The decent politicians cannot afford to campaign on the same scale and the fact nobody comes out to vote means pound for pound, spending money on elections isn’t entirely worth it
Go vote. That’s the solution. Tell other people to vote. Believing a system that people aren’t buying into doesn’t work is a misunderstanding of the system.
I do tell people to vote. In the primaries.
But when the Democratic primaries produce a trash candidate I don’t bother to tell people to vote in the general election.
You enjoy your preaching? My message is the same as everyone else’s here. Voting isn’t enough. A choice between two corporate representatives, one rabid and the other cleanly presented, is not a fucken choice. You don’t have to like it but every system gets gamed and eventually the people oppressed by that system must destroy it in order to gain a better quality of life. The writing is on the wall, everything is going down but the stock market. Wake up.
Lol, accusing someone of preaching after you yourself basically posted a mini sermon as a comment
You’re literally preaching you bonehead.
Your message is not the same as everyone here.
Voting works. The problem is people like you.
If not voting was a candidate it’d win every election in a landslide. Dopes like you create an ouroboros of self confirmation, a self fulfilling prophecy. Voting doesn’t work, so why vote and now that people don’t vote, voting doesn’t work. So why vote?
It’s a crap message stemming from a misunderstanding of the problem of our system. People have to buy into it. It’s “cool” not to buy into it.
“If NoT VoTiNg WaS…” Bitch I voted. Every fucken time, and these monsters continued to tear the world apart, destroy anything I ever built, and say fuck you I got mine. I HAVE BEEN VOTING THIS ENTIRE TIME AND SHIT IS STILL BEINF CONSOLIDATED AT LIGHT SPEED. TRUMP STILL HAPPENED. THE NEXT TIME SOMEONE SAYS JUST VOTE HARDER IM GONNA THROW UP. Voting is the peaceful alternative, but ask the fucking miners at Blair Mountain how well voting worked for them compares to praxis. You sound ignorant as fuck. Every right we ever had came from the people getting fed up their blood was being spilled, their dead filling the cemeteries for the pockets of oligarchs. Fuck off with this “people like you” bullshit. I’ve been here and its not FUCKING working.
Your first message was accusing me of preaching and now you type like you’re raging and being a little asshole.
You’re stupid, your opinion is dumb and ill informed. Bye
Go read your first message to me, sweetheart. You grandstanded saying I wanted Trump to win. Dont act like I responded to your posted comment. It was the other way around.
Because in reality that is what people like you are pushing even if you don’t realize it.
Who else is in the ivory tower besides Trump? Biden? Obama? Clinton? Kamala? Bernie? Who the fuck are you talking about? It’s nonsense, when reality collides with your ideals you realize how fuckin stupid it is. You literally accused all of those people of being in an ivory tower and acting as raiders. Those are your words.
You can do this as long as your are also working to build alternative (worker’s) political parties. If you are only voting defensively you are going to lose everything eventually. There is nothing wrong with defensive voting from a moral standpoint but it is a defeatist strategy. You must build something better in the meantime
I was thinking about those red states where they’re now eliminating the last remaining black districts. In so many red states the real election is the Republican primary, since whoever wins that will win the general no matter how abhorrent they are. So why don’t all the now effectively-disenfranchised voters start voting in the Republican primary for the least-awful Republican? I can’t imagine the reaction of Louisiana Republicans if busloads of elderly black people started showing up to “their” primary after church on Sunday.
I was thinking about those red states where they’re now eliminating the last remaining black districts.
The folks here should go tell these people that elections accomplish nothing.
That might actually make a difference between a true MAGA loyalist who will vote as Dear Leader directs him to do at all times, and, someone who in fact will not manifest 11,780 votes for Trump if they aren’t actually there to be found.
Even the current congressional Republicans have their factions who take offense to Trump portraying himself as Jesus, or conjuring a slush fund of $1.776 billion, or giving himself, his family and his businesses permanent amnesty from tax audits.
Best i can do is hand the election to the worst option by abstaining to vote because there is no perfect option.
Do you mean no good option?
For the purpose of my comment the distinction is irrelevant.
You got what you wanted as soon as there was no anti-genocide candidate.
blocked lol
Centrists can’t stand to hear people who don’t love genocide and nothing else.
I spose.
What if both the candidates wish to torture you where one will kill you while other will keep you barely alive while torturing you.
Then, yeah, you’re stuck between a proverbial rock and a hard place. But when we’re talking about general Republicans vs. general Democrats, there’s a significant difference between what we can expect of them. Jamelle Bouie makes a case for that difference (on Youtube)
What’s their opinions on genocide? It’s literally the worst possible thing you can do. Is there a significant difference between them or do they both support genocide?
Well, only one of them was reposting AI slop videos of casinos built on the corpses…
In a lot of cases, both of them take contributions from and are supported by AIPAC, but that’s why it’s a matter of voting against the one that wants to dismantle USAID, by doing so killing a fuckton of children.
People not voting based on principle factors significantly into how we’re now watching Trump implement Project 2025.
It’s a system that is willfully rigged to force you to choose between bad choices hence establish contrived consent. But we’re going to be subject to the consequences of the election whether or not we vote ethically or pragmatically.
I’m not voting for genocide supporters.
One of them is going to get the job whether you vote or not.
Congratulations on your victory.
Doesn’t genocide kill a fuckton of children? If the system only gives you options where a fuckton of children get killed then the system needs to change and you aren’t doing that by voting for the lesser evil that’s still evil.
Which is why voting is not the only thing we need to be doing.
Americans failing to vote is how we lost USAID, an action which also caused the death of a fuckton of children. If the US wasn’t afraid of black women in office, a lot of dead people would, in fact, be very much alive, and more reasonable minds would be trying to solve the crisis in Gaza.
In Australia, you can vote for whoever you want first, and then you just have to make sure to put the better big party before the worst big party.
In America, your voting system is fucked, so you only get three options: Democrat, Republican, no preference. Abstaining is no preference. Abstaining and saying you want to burn down the system, is still no preference. You gotta make a good choice with your vote, so you can move on to making change on the ground with your hands and your feet and your voice. If you spend all day at your keyboard talking about how abstinence actually means whatever you want it to mean, then you’re not making change, you’re just getting mad.
I agree.
Sometimes there is a Green option on the ballot, and in those cases, you should vote Green! The US Green Party has had a solid leftist platform for decades, including ending support for Israel, universal healthcare, free college, and more.
Unfortunately, doing so provokes the spoiler effect, and harms your own interests.
Abstaining is actually voting Republican, because of the voter demographics wherein Republicans have a dedicated chunk of zealots who will vote 100% of the time, and the Democrats having no such thing
If you’re a republican, abstaining is voting democrat.
Yes, OP’s point is also that generally speaking Republicans are less likely to abstain.
Not in the same way that the inverse is true, no
Mathematically it’s the exact same situation but flipped.
This isn’t pure math, it’s electoral politics.
Because the third parties in question this time (and most times) were spoiler candidates for the Democrats, a Republican abstaining does not necessarily mean +1 for Dems
It’s not though. The fewer people vote, the more likely it is for Republicans to win
Also voting 3rd party is voting Republican because it’s akin to abstaining. All those Jill Stein voters are basically Maga.
i always found it weird when people say voting 3rd party is like not voting.
is there no second round for the 2 most voted when the most voted doesn’t reach 50%?
Not in America. If you vote third party, your vote doesn’t get counted in the big race.
Those votes do get counted. For example, we know that in 2024 Stein got 862,049 votes.
I mean it doesn’t have any bearing on electing the president
It’s funny how well liberals like yourself understand the electoral college in this context. But then if I say a non-voter in a deep blue state didn’t have any bearing on Trump getting elected and suddenly the principle matters.
It has just as much bearing as voting for any other candidate.
It’s important to note that both Bush and Trump won their initial election by the electoral college and lost the popular vote. So not only do you not have to get >50%, you don’t even have to get a plurality of votes to win.
Also, Roger Stone just happened to participate in both elections, and both had fuckery involved.
Not in a first-past-the-post system; you’re thinking of a two-round system.
There is not. Bill Clinton won the presidency with something like 42% of the vote in 1992.
Neither Trump Nor Bush won more than 50% of the vote to secure their first term in office.
is there no second round for the 2 most voted when the most voted doesn’t reach 50%?
No, that’s literally the fucking problem
Libertarianism is societal cancer and those Stein voters would have supported Trump over Harris anyway since the MAGA GOP is basically a Libertarian system (the fuck you got mine Government) at its core.
You’re not wrong, however, Stein was Green Party not libertarian.
You’re thinking of Gary “what is Aleppo” Johnson
Both were spoiler candidates
Thanks for the correction.
And god the fucking Green Party. Inswear those jokers exist only to make Socialists looklike wackjobs.
Who’s both siding now?
and the Democrats having no such thing
And instead of asking yourself why Democratic politicians are failing to inspire loyalty you blame the voters of a democracy?
Hot take bud.
Republicans, are by nature, essentially a mono culture. Conservativism demmands conformity. Hate taxes, Hate foreigners, hate “the gays”, hate science and edumacashun.
Democrats, while not Progressive, pick up everyone else, which includes progressives. Progressives, tend to be open and accepting of what is different.
Except increasingly, they are not. Just with the last election, because every Democrat didn’t 100% say “Fuck Israel, Free Palestine”, then now all Democrats are evil and should never be supported.
Ya’ll are single issue voting just as bad as the shitty Republicans will single issue vote on say, No Abortion.
The Democrats aren’t great, but they exist as the compromise based system our Government SHOULD BE.
And maybe they would run more Progressive types and shift back Left but why should they bother right now? They could run some hyper progressive trans candidate who hatees Israel, but that candidate says one “wrong” thing on one issue and the mob turns on them and says “SeE, aLl DeMoCrAts aRe bAd.”
That said, I am still not entirely convinced that a lot of the “All Dems Suck” rhetoric isn’t the Left side version of bad foreign actors that have turned the GOP into the MAGA Nazi party.
And maybe they would run more Progressive types and shift back Left but why should they bother right now?
Because they’re losing without us.
Because you will never be happy anyway. May as well shift right and try to push towards the perfect Nqzi candidates like MAGA.
Because you will never be happy anyway.
How do you know?
Having read their comment, probably “because every Democrat didn’t 100% say “Fuck Israel, Free Palestine”, then now all Democrats are evil and should never be supported.”
That’s them observing progressives disagree with a party stance then refuse to vote for the party over that single issue. The extrapolation is that progressives are more likely to become single issue voters, therefore more difficult to cater to, therefore maybe not worth the effort from the party’s perspective.
“Loyalty” to a party is not a good thing, for one.
“Loyalty” to a party is not a good thing, for one.
That’s pretty rich coming from someone arguing we are morally obligated to vote for Democratic politicians. You can’t get any more loyal than that.
Did I mention morality? First Past the Post is an enormously flawed voting system. But until we get rid of it, that’s the system we have.
Democracy means you have the freedom to elect a fascist government if you want to, and that’s exactly what the American people have done. They exercised their freedom to choose Trump over Harris.
American people don’t get very many freedoms. They don’t get the freedom to vote third party. They don’t get the freedom to vote “neither of the above”. They don’t get the freedom to use the popular vote. But they do get the freedom to choose between the two big candidates, and that’s the freedom they exercised.
You very much can vote for an alternative party in the United States. I have voted Green in several elections.
Democracy means you have the freedom to elect a fascist government if you want to,
If that’s all democracy is then it’s benefits have been vastly overstated and I see no reason to protect it.
Where did they say that’s all it was?
Then tell me what benefits I’m supposed to enjoy. Because representation apparently isn’t on the table.
That’s because you have to show up and show up in numbers. Too many on the left cry about not having a perfect candidate, don’t show up, and then wonder why the Dems keep going right when the left doesn’t show up. Then, surprise, they have no representation and throw away 20 years of progress.
I don’t care for Biden or trump, but I wasn’t dumb enough not to see where we are right now before the vote was cast, so I showed up. So many stayed home that trump got elected with the popular vote despite not getting many more votes than he did last time.
But hey, we didn’t vote in the woman who had some bad policies and could be worked with because one bad policy was worth throwing everything away. So we got the country we collectively voted (or sat out) for
Okay, sure. You can let the fascists turn America into a monarchy and find out if a communist revolution is easier in a monarchy than a neoliberal capitalist democracy. That’s clearly what you want to happen.
find out if a communist revolution is easier in a monarchy than a neoliberal capitalist democracy
I don’t think it is but people like you set yourself in opposition to any radical change so long as you live in the comfort of a neoliberal capitalist democracy. See the problem?
For example, I was in full favor of the rail strike back in 2022. Sure it’s no revolution, but shutting down railways certainly would have been radical and led to some powerful concessions being made by oligarchs to American workers. And let me guess, you opposed the strike and supported Joe Biden, 44 Democratic senators and 36 Republican senators who decided to block it right?
So it’s not me who’s choosing revolution under monarchy instead of neoliberal capitalist democracy.
It’s you.
Why is that relevant? To the concentration camps and death squads we are dealing with today?
Nah, you’re way off. I was actually pretty furious with AOC for voting to force an end to the strike.
Your problem is, you see everyone else as an enemy, and assume all kinds of nonsense about them out of fear.
