About the us election

[Transcription]

tinymoves

to be honest it would make me a lot more comfortable if you guys would show a little concern about trump running for president again. Do not inbox me and say you don’t like joe biden omg i already know. but can we show a little concern. about donald trump. being the republican candidate for president. for the third election in a row.

parentheticalaside

Also maybe you can focus a little more on how Trump won't stop fucking running and a little less on the incumbent president running for reelection once, which is the natural path that is not at all weird. Like, the fact that it's these same two guys again is Trump's fault, not Biden's. What Biden

is doing is normal. What Trump is doing is very much not.

theroguefeminist

Going to come out here and say this: if you do not vote for Biden, you are voting for Trump. | literally do not care what horde of leftists with the memory span of a goldfish come for me for saying this. A third party vote is no vote. No vote is a vote for Trump. If you care at all about saving democracy in this country long enough to elect someone better than Biden, vote for Biden. Not voting for Biden is a vote for a dictator and a vote for the end of democracy. As bad as things are, we saw they can get so much worse. And | do not want to hear the same people saying not to vote for Biden crying when shit hits the fan if Trump wins.

If you care about trans people's rights. If you care about abortion rights. If you care about immigrants’ rights. If you care about global warming. Literally any issue under the sun, will be made worse by Trump in every conceivable way imaginable.

| have a hard time fathoming how people are

still saying Trump and Biden are the same after everything that has happened. A quick Google

on Biden's policies on every progressive issue vs Trump will tell you the opposite. Yeah, Biden is a shitty moderate liberal who supports Israel. So

is literally every single other US president that has ever fucking existed. Voting for a third party candidate will not help Palestine. It will literally only escalate things and make them even worse if Trump wins. In every conceivable way imaginable.

If you aren't going to vote, then at least have the decency to stop pretending like what you are doing has any remotely positive impact. It does not. There is nothing virtuous or admirable about abstaining (and a third party vote is abstaining). We went through this in 2016. | thought people would have learned by now. But here we are again in 2024. If Trump wins, blood is on your hands and you didn't do even the one easiest thing you could do to stop it from happening.

synnefa-kyria

The DNC was never going to nominate another primary candidate over the incumbent, the sitting president, who is in charge of the entire Democratic party.

| don't think the sun shines out of Biden's ass, guys, but please look at the bigger picture here.

Our presidential election is not ranked choice and is not won by a majority of over 50%. It is a two party system that is won by plurality; whoever gets the biggest slice of votes, even if it's under 50%, is the winner and they take all. First the district, then the state, then the Electoral College. This is why third parties have little influence. This is why voting for them or not at all benefits the opposition. This is why Trump won in 2016.

A 2024 Trump victory is an not something we as a nation can bear - it's bad for us, and it is unseeakabl bad for Palestine because Trump's a far-right lunatic lacking morals and human compassion.

Not voting for Biden, third party or abstaining, will split the vote and cause a spoiler in favor

of Trump. See the 2000 Georee W Bush vs Al Gore election for reference. Take a long look at those razor thin mareins. Al Gore lost Florida

by 0.009%. Hell, walk down memory lane to the 2016 election. States where Trump won
by a margin of 3% or less - Colorado, Florida, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin - would have won Hillary the Electoral College, 316 to 224,

We cannot fore et Russia's war on Ukraine either. Do you honestly think Trump will want to continue US aid to Ukraine? Really? The

guy who's all buddy-buddy with Putin and has Russia-supporting followers? He's been vocal about his lack of enthusiasm for supporting Ukraine, and has threatened to hamstring NATO - Ukraine's principal ally - should the situation escalate further.

Russia is angling towards a return of the Soviet Union's former territory - look at Ukraine, Belarus, Moldova, Georgia (the country). Appeasement is not an option - that's a proven failure. A possible return to the Cold War status quo is horrifying, and there's every reason to believe they won't stop there, setting off a multitude of geopolitical tinder boxes. God above forbid any one of the parties involved sets off a nuclear bomb, tactical or ICBM.

24,670 notes

pyre ,

yeah i hear you and all, but i still don't like that Biden isn't leftist so I'm willing to give straight up fascism another go

BaldManGoomba ,

The thing that is annoying is there is NO nuance to this. First primary isn't over. So I can vote something to pull Biden more left. Second I live in a state with no chance of Biden losing. Remember this isn't a one person one vote thing this is who wins the popular vote in each state for president gets all that states votes unless you are in Nebraska or Maine. So if I live in Delaware then voting 3rd party won't hurt Biden he will win but maybe a movement will realize he doesn't have as much support so maybe he will court progressive independents versus Republicans.

It won't hurt. That being said do vote blue down ballot and primary all the people who are fake Democrats or shitty ones. Maybe if you find a hole and find you have massive support get a green party in but you would know if that race is close if you are local.

These posts are annoying to tell people to fall in line and I agree the other posts of I hate Biden is trying to divide the line in closer races.

awesome_lowlander ,

I live in a state with no chance of <candidate> losing

A lot of people make that assumption up until their candidate actually loses.

BaldManGoomba ,

Well then the candidate should have done better if they lost that many people in a protest vote or an apathy no vote.

Remember they should earn people's vote not we should vote for someone because we have to.

fsxylo ,

The argument won't convince them, because their moral stance is simply a justification for laziness. They have no morals, they just don't want to do shit.

archomrade ,

Weird, I'm getting the same argument from those who think liberals are too lazy to push their candidate away from indefensible foreign policy

mindbleach ,

The one issue where Biden is an asshole would be identical under The Idiot, because Netanyahu has already demonstrated he can get anything he wants out of The Idiot.

Vote for less evil. The alternative is more evil. Why the fuck would you want more evil?

JasonDJ ,

What a great take on "the lesser of two evils" we are forced into always choosing between. I love it.

CabbageRelish ,

Just continue coping about your awful fucking candidate. I’ll be over here.

mindbleach ,

Ten years of chuckling at trolley problem jokes and y'all still don't get it.

LordGimp ,

I like it better when they tell me their politics with their chests. Chests that happen to have big sloppy wobbling milkers. One of my favorite ig follows is a woman with absolutely enormous honkers who talks about the right to contraception and I have decided this is how I prefer my politics

gabereal ,

'Enormous honkers', you say? What is this person's IG name?

...if my wife is reading, I want her IG name to make sure I don't accidentally view the account, of course.

LordGimp ,

It definitely wouldn't be thejuliettemichele.

You have absolutely no business whatsoever looking for this person.

Firefly7 ,
@Firefly7@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

I don’t understand this political strategy in the long-run. If the left always unflinchingly votes for the leftmost candidate then the optimal strategy for the DNC is always to choose someone just 1% to the left of whoever the Republicans are running.

The trumpers aren’t strong because they always vote. They’re strong because everyone knows that, if Trump isn’t on the ballot, they won’t turn out to vote nearly as strongly.

Combine this with the fact that basically every business interest wants right-wing politics and you get the perpetual rightwards slide of the Democratic Party.

Linkerbaan ,
@Linkerbaan@lemmy.world avatar

Jesus Democrats have deluded themselves that Republicans would not vote Republican if not for Trump.

awesome_lowlander ,

I don’t understand this political strategy

Because way too many voters have no concept of game theory

pachrist ,

I've had some luck explaining it by asking folks why multiple gas stations are at the same intersection, or asking why Lowes and Home Depot are always right next to each other.

awesome_lowlander ,

I'm afraid you've lost me

pachrist ,

It's traditionally explained with two lemonade stands on a long beach. If their product is generally indistinguishable and both want to maximize their number of customers, they will eventually settle on halfway mark of the beach. One gets all the foot traffic from the left, the other from the right, splitting it 50/50.

The same applies to businesses on a map, not just a one dimensional beach. Most consumers don't really care if it's a Home Depot or Lowes, or a BP or Exxon. If one of them discovers a gap in the market and places something there, someone else can come along and grab half the market. It's something Walmart has done in a lot of small towns. They'll come in and split market 50/50 with a small, local shop knowing that there's not enough money to turn a profit with splitting the market in half. But they know they the can run a loss for a year or two, the competition will close, and then they'll have 100% of the market.

It's a really topical thing in politics. There are more centrist voters than at either extreme end, so politicians tend to fall more in the middle. Politicians like Trump change the landscape though. While an extreme candidate, the Republican party had already been shifting more right for a while, so he only marginally pulled the voter base right, but pulled most Republican politicians right, or pushed them out. Democrats moved to match. It essentially means that far right Republicans have a short stroll to the nearest lemonade stand, but far left Democrats have to trudge a couple miles in the hot summer sun, and they're deciding it's not worth it.

BuckLandstander ,

I've said a lot of the same for years. You don't get a progressive president by voting for them first. You vote in television unsexy stuff, city council races, congressional primaries, county commissioners. Those people learn the system and move up. Bug surprise, like progressive ideas, you build up fom the bottom.

bloodfart ,

Wind dat same shit I always post in these threads back selecta!

If you’re reading this and you don’t want to vote for biden or trump, consider party for socialism and liberation. They’re running Claudia de la Cruz for president this year on a platform of Palestinian statehood and ending arms shipments to Israel.

It’s okay to not want to vote for Biden or trump.

mozz Admin , (edited )
mozz avatar

Hey let’s talk about how Biden shut down Trump’s insulin price cap

You already explained to me how that happened, I know, but explain it again for the rest of the class

bloodfart ,

How come you stopped replying to me in the thread where we were talking about that?

Why are you dragging that into this thread? Why did you drag it into that thread (I’m pretty sure it was off topic drama there too)?

mozz Admin ,
mozz avatar

Because you were talking nonsense… I’m not obligated to keep talking to you indefinitely about why water is wet and world is round

Go on, tell ‘em what you told me. I’ll let you figure out why it might be relevant to this conversation. Oh also how Trump’s a formidable stage presence and Biden should be worried about having to go head to head with him in a debate. But let’s start with Biden shutting down the insulin price cap. The people need to know! If they are thinking of voting Biden when he wants their insulin prices un-capped.

bloodfart ,

Please stop stalking me. Thanks.

mozz Admin , (edited )
mozz avatar

Stop stalking political threads and posting propaganda. I’m not going out of my way to find you, but since I saw a post of yours, I thought it was relevant to throw it in there that you have in the past posted explicit propaganda of a type so dishonest that anyone here will be able to see through it. Why would that not be relevant to what you’re saying now?

If you mean me tagging you when I used you as an example of a person posting propaganda, I can stay away from that in the future if you want. I was meaning to do it so you could defend yourself if you wanted to try, but I’m fine with not doing that if you prefer. If you’re just ordering me not to point out your propaganda when I happen to see it, then no, I think I will continue.

bloodfart ,

“I attacked you so you could have a chance to defend yourself” is a wild take.

Maybe consider how this might look to people reading it.

As I asked before, please stop stalking me.

Strawberry ,

this political thread is propaganda

mozz Admin ,
mozz avatar

Yeah, well, that's just, like, your opinion, man.

Strawberry ,

no it is a fact that the original post is propaganda

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda

mozz Admin ,
mozz avatar

No this is Patrick

Strawberry ,

k

match ,
@match@pawb.social avatar

It's okay to not want to vote for Biden or trump but the principled stance if you do that is accelerationism.

bloodfart ,

Idk, there’s a good argument that the only way to get to a future where the democrats are pushed left or a new party takes over their position in the two party dichotomy is by showing exactly what votes in what districts the two major parties are leaving on the table.

Of course voting isn’t the only thing needed to create either of those outcomes, but if a person were working towards one of them I think voting third party is the right choice.

JimSamtanko ,

Any attempt to use logic, reasoning, common sense, and nuance with people that think that by NOT doing something, you can bring about the change you want in the world…

Is a waste of fucking time.

TheKMAP ,

You don't believe in boycotts?

JimSamtanko ,

Oh, I believe in boycotts. Now let me ask you a question:

Do you know that someone will get elect with or without your vote? Not voting doesn’t cancel an election. You’re either getting a “genocide supporter” or a GENOCIDE SUPPORTER.

Because Trump has said that he intends to give Israel everthing they need to win the war:

“The approach of the United States would be that Israel needs to win this war, it was attacked brutally,” Trump’s ambassador to Israel, David Friedman, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, describing how Trump would act.”

If you’ve been paying attention, Biden has been trying to negotiate a cease-fire. Granted he’s not trying hard enough- he’s no genocide supporter like the bad actors among you accuse him of.

Your little grassroots movement to boycott an entirely election is going to cause more suffering in Palestine than you cold imagine.

This isn’t a joke.

TheKMAP ,

I always vote. But I vote for who I want to win. Biden's entire campaign, every single fucking email I get from him, mentions Trump. It's like he has no identity outside of him, which I know isn't true because he has done stuff.

We thought it wouldn't get worse after Bush, but it did. They're always gonna toss up a shittier and shittier candidate and setting a low bar for the Left. We should primary the incumbent every fucking term no matter how well they performed in their first term.

mjhelto ,

No one despises the Democrats more than those of us who saw Bernie get steamrolled by them when he stated drawing crowds and winning primaries. But many of us older millennials also see the writing on the wall: We can't change a fucking thing about the current system voting GOP, green, or abstaining.

Being progressive, to me, means voting for the candidate that moves the needle toward the world I want to see. We cannot ever change the voting method and fundamental structure of our capitalistic hellscape by holding out for the perfect candidate. They do not exist.

They want us fighting like this, convincing others to not vote, or attacking a system that cannot and will not change by choice. We cannot effect change from a prison cell. Anything other than a vote for Biden will end all other hopeful prospects any progressive voter would have. The GOP literally has a manifesto, like a fucking school shooter would plan out, to turn the US into a Christian Iran.

The path to abolishing the electoral college and going to anything else will only happen when enough states push for the change at the local level. It's why there's such strong attacks at the state level to ban the use of ranked-choice voting. It's why the GOP is ignoring successful, or outright restricting, ballot initiatives to prevent the people from pushing for their own change.

Bottom line, Congress will never change the voting method in this country because those with the power to change it stand to lose the most by doing so. It's only by voting in the best candidates available at the time, within the confines of the system as it stands, that we can hope to enact any meaningful change.

Normally, I'd never tell someone how to vote, but after 4 years of both men, we know how they govern. Now, moreso than in 2016, is not the time to protest vote or refuse to vote on a single issue. We cannot afford, as a country or world, to let the orange menace have another term.

Zoboomafoo ,
@Zoboomafoo@slrpnk.net avatar

Bernie got steamrolled because he had no support within the DNC. Of course they would band together to stop an outsider from winning.

Fortunately Bernie figured that out, he started focusing on getting progressives elected as Democrats to start changing the party from within

mozz Admin ,
mozz avatar

What, you mean like strategy and consistent work to effect the change he wanted to see in the world?

Crazy. It’ll never work. Let’s do weird grandstanding gestures that’ll play right into the hands of his enemies, instead.

givesomefucks ,

What?

He's been building the movement longer than either of us have probably been alive.

He never expected to do as well as he did in the presidential run, let alone think he could win

It was to draw attention on national level to the progressive movement and to pull the party left in an attempt to save it.

fibojoly ,

Cold war with a guy who can't control his emotions and goes online to let the world know about it no matter the time of the day...

Do you know how many times I've heard about your president tweeting this or that, in the last four years? Never. Not a single time. What a blessing that was.

index ,

Watch out for the propaganda. The red and blue party will always try to stay in power and push the narrative that not voting for them is a wasted vote. If you actually want anything to change at all stop supporting them.

anton ,

The system isn't fair but the only way yo change that is through the system. If you want to have a say go vote in a primary.
If you want to support Palestine and fight the establishment (aipac, Hillary, ...) support Jamaal Bowman.

index ,

The system isn’t fair but the only way yo change that is through the system.

Point one time in history where a change through the system actually worked. But yea, you can try to vote red and blue out that will do something for sure.

JimSamtanko ,

Pout out one time in history where NOT voting brought change.

index ,

Your freedom wasn't voted for. Not voting is a mean to cease your direct support to the system

JimSamtanko ,

I’ll bet you think you have a swell little “gotcha” moment there. It’s too bad that freedom wasn’t a thing that was ever put to vote… so it can’t be used as an example.

Name a time- WHERE A VOTE PROCESS WAS ENACTED- where choosing not to vote made change.

Good god I didn't think it needed to be spelled out twice.

index ,

Not supporting a corrupted government makes a change every time. Pretty much in every election unsupporting rigged parties does directly damage them as they live up to consensus and majority. There are countries not as much brainwashed as usa where third parties win all the time

anton ,

There are countries not as much brainwashed as usa where third parties win all the time

And they tend to have better voting systems, like proportional representation or ranked choice voting, none of which will be instituted by a third party getting 3%.

index ,

Stop supporting red and blue or pushing their propaganda and the 3% has more chances to raise

boywar3 ,

...until the big party that wants to end democracy makes that entire point moot.

No chance of a third party getting more votes if the entire system it was created for is destroyed lol

JimSamtanko ,

No, it doesn’t.

JimSamtanko ,

What’s propaganda, is people suggesting that other not vote out of protest.

Anyone with an ounce of common sense knows how anti-democrat this act is. And there are only a handful of types of people America knows to be anti-democracy….

mozz Admin ,
mozz avatar

Watch out for the propaganda

Found some

frickineh ,

Minor correction - Trump didn't win CO in 2016. Not overly important in the grand scheme of things, I'm just from there and I'd have been ashamed if he had.

The rest of it still stands. I'm involved in local politics and I consistently vote for more progressive candidates, and we've had some victories. In a recent example, a homophobic asshat of a city council member gave up his seat to run for mayor. Not only did he lose that race, the woman who won his former seat is a progressive lesbian.

But you know who I almost never see at council meetings or at events for state level positions? The kind of terminally online leftists who constantly complain about the Democrats being too conservative. Apparently it's more important to put other people's rights and lives at risk to make some kind of stand than it is to try to make any real difference in the ways we can. Maybe someday we'll have an electoral system that allows for more than 2 parties, but we sure as shit won't if people can't be bothered to pay attention to anything but the presidential race.

Mostly_Gristle ,

I'm also from CO, and I also felt compelled to point out that Trump never won here. I remember thinking on election night back in 2016, "Well, whatever happens, at least it won't be our fault."

match ,
@match@pawb.social avatar

But you know who I almost never see at council meetings or at events for state level positions? The kind of terminally online leftists who constantly complain about the Democrats being too conservative.

Oh, I'm there, but it's nice to know I'm masking well

frickineh ,

If you're there but no one can tell, you may as well not go. The point is to speak up.

brown567 ,

My state has voted Republican every election since 1968, with a true majority all but twice. So I can actually vote for whoever I like and it won't make a lick of difference.

Isn't the electoral college great?

Jordan117 ,

Climate change is the single overriding issue for me. We are beyond out of time to avert damaging levels of warming, and even Biden's climate policies -- by far the most sweeping in the history of the country -- are barely adequate to begin steering us away from the absolute worst. If Trump gets in, and eviscerates federal climate policy, and stacks the EPA with oil lobbyists (again), and fills federal courts with science-denying assholes, and sabotages state and local efforts to decarbonize, and destroys all chance of global cooperation on this issue, and (most importantly) dismantles democracy so that it is effectively impossible to vote for a progressive ever again absent a second civil war, then we will be consigning the entire planet to "nightmare hellscape" levels of climate change with no viable pathway out. A second Trump term would add four billion tons of carbon emissions over the next six years. It would "negate – twice over – all of the savings from deploying wind, solar and other clean technologies around the world over the past five years". And that analysis doesn't account for increased emissions from Trump policies, just a reversal of what Biden has accomplished. Allowing Trump to win again would not just be national, but global suicide.

MindTraveller ,

So you're saying that a vote for Trump is a vote to destroy Israel, because the entire middle east would become uninhabitable to human life.

https://i.kym-cdn.com/entries/icons/facebook/000/024/193/qtd2avR.jpg

cows_are_underrated ,

First by war, then by water/lack of it.

Varyk , (edited )

Third party voting is as valid as any other vote.

There's also tons of people constantly complaining quite loudly about Trump.

And I'll be voting for Biden because he's done a good job as president and I want to see expanded domestic policies like I've seen this term.

These screenshots make a lot of bad, innacurate and overtly divisive points without introducing any relevant or substantial ideas.

CancerMancer ,

The real path forward to fixing voting in the US is going to be a long one. People need to find or form grassroots organizations to replace as many local and state positions as possible with actual candidates. Essentially a takeover of the Democrats starting at the lowest levels and moving up from there.

Some might be demoralized by how long this will take. Others realize that this actually isn't that hard with teams of motivated people.

On the Republican side: look at Brandon Herrera and his battle with Tony Gonzales. A youtuber nearly beat the incumbent (lost by 407 votes). The man tapped into people's anger and very nearly got it.

Where are lefties on this? Nothing out of the unions? People want change, help them get it.

federalreverse ,

The real path is fixing American democracy. There's a lot to learn from the Democratic systems that came later: Remove the electoral college, remove FPTP, add more transparency into the political system, disable PACs, disable filibusters, replace the voter registration system...

match ,
@match@pawb.social avatar

dismantles democracy so that it is effectively impossible to vote for a progressive ever again absent a second civil war, then we will be consigning the entire planet to "nightmare hellscape" levels of climate change with no viable pathway out.

Silly friend, you just mentioned the viable pathway out.

(I agree with everything you said.)

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