lol we already have fascism. They’re crushing antiwar protests, the media is in lockstep, labor demonstrations have been broken and they’re pissing away the cost of healthcare, free college and any number of other benefits on supplying a genocide.
I’m never gonna vote for Biden again and if you don’t want to either, consider voting for the party for socialism and liberation.
Will you always pick the “better” of the two parties? If not, how bad does it need to get before you vote third party? I like to ask it this way: where’s your red line?
Personally it wasn’t the genocide that put me off ever voting Biden, but I wouldn’t describe a person for whom that’s a bridge too far as cheap.
It’s also not throwing your vote away to vote third party. If it were there wouldnt be an effect to it, and of course there clearly is. A third party vote means that party gets more funding, airtime and media exposure.
There are powerful examples of third parties in the us exerting significant pressure on policy while also not being spoilers.
So how much would be too much for you? our children dying in our streets by us weapons?
I'm a disabled single father. I have a daughter. We are an atheist household. I know game theory. I also know about the massive disinfo
campaign to try and stop as many democrat votes as possible. To republicans, I'm a satanic enemy of humanity.
I'm voting a straight blue ticket, I have convinced a dozen others to do the same. I am doing the thing I need to do to stop your little hypothetical. What would it take? Democrats would have to act as openly fascist, cruel, and hateful as the Republican party. They do not. They aren't fucking perfect because such a thing will never exist, but they are far from republican filth. A straight blue ticket is the best chance at an admin that will be open to change. Anything else helps republicans win and you know that pretty goddamn well. It's why you're here with that bullshit line of yours.
The democrats candidate is using his executive power to send arms to israel so they can perform war crimes. How much more openly fascist, cruel and hateful does he need to be? How much worse can a candidate get than the alternative when they’re literally doing something terrible that the alternative didn’t?
Voting for the administration that’s encouraging a crackdown on antiwar protests and supplying a genocide because you want to make sure it’ll be open to change.
I don’t have to want trump to win to see the absolute absurdity of that position.
I’m not saying all that to demean or belittle you, but instead to hopefully illustrate that we can’t build a just world by voting for Biden.
Third party candidates are not viable this election. Every poll that can be trusted to any degree is proof of this. Trumps base is going to vote for trump and the Republican party at large will very likely follow. Nearly the entire Republican party is openly fascist at this point and admitting that they plan to disassemble the government to suit their wants. They are open about allowing Israel to finish their genocide.
It is also well known at this point that disinformation campaigns really lean on trying to get any non Republican vote to either not vote at all, or vote third party. You have no logical arguments, no game theory, and no deeper understanding of everything on the table in this election. You mostly just use the appeal to emotion fallacy as if it's some magic gotcha. It is not, it is instead a signpost that you are not arguing in good faith.
Liars screamed "vote third party" last election too. Trump still lost, and we're working to ensure that stupid fuck loses again. Not only am I totally unswayed by your bs, I've ensured others will be voting straight blue as well. Youll maybe whine about it, but it won't change a thing.
Defend your pont using what was already said in this discussion. No appeal to emotion. Use current polling to help show that third parties stand any chance in hell. Essentially, prove you aren't one of the many many disinfo bots/agents.
I'll be carefully paying attention to any sources so sticking to generally trusted would be best
Okay: if the only vote acceptable to you is one that results in a win for that candidate or could feasibly result in a win for that candidate, you’re discounting a good portion of the outcomes of even the flawed American electoral system and how they effect the future.
Vote tallies are used to determine funding, ballot presence, debate opportunities, media representation and of course, public awareness.
It’s also important to recognize that we are not given the opportunity to vote against one or more candidates. There is no bubble on the scantron form that will indicate “I’m only doing this to keep the other guy out of office” or “I only support your platform on guns”.
We are given only the ability to voice support for candidates, their platforms and actions, with no room for nuance or debate.
Candidates and their teams and administrations aren’t shown weather or not you protested the arms shipments, spoke in defense of abortion or moved resolutions condemning the genocide forward in your local governments.
They will only see your vote.
Your vote for Biden is not a vote against trump, it is a vote of support for Biden and his fascist policy of genocide.
I am not making an appeal to emotion with that last sentence and hopefully the time and text spent to raise it to the level of logical and utilitarian shows that.
If you took all emotion out of your decision in November and purely cast your ballot based entirely upon utility, your analysis could very easily conclude that there is no acceptable option to support between the two major parties and that it’s better to be counted supporting a third party you would like to see more of in 2026, 2028 and beyond.
I’ve talked about red lines over and over in this thread and while I like the phrase because it’s something everyone can understand, I’m afraid it evokes the constantly shifting goalposts of our politicians own red lines and that limits its effectiveness. Instead of describing the hypothetical or real actions of candidates as red lines, I’ll use other phrases here to hopefully get the point across more clearly.
When giving support to either candidates platforms and actions is beyond the pale, a bridge too far, simply unacceptable to you using whatever methodology is appropriate to you, the only reasonable utilitarian, logical choice is to lend your counted and measured support to a party, candidate and platform you want to see next time.
If you can’t support the actions of the current regime or its opponent than this election is lost to you.
Now if we look beyond the actual votes themselves to the effect peoples discourse has on politicians platforms before the elections themselves it becomes even more difficult to defend saying “vote blue no matter who” or that you’ll be marking a straight ticket or whatever.
If we assume the pollsters and political parties are paying attention and using our discourse to modify their own platforms and actions in order to get support then it’s more utilitarian and logical to be posting about how you’ll never vote for the platform of genocide or that the democrats should dump Biden at the convention than it is to be speaking in opposition to those views because an administration that sees lots of people saying they need to change course or lose those votes come November is more likely to actually change course than one who sees lots of opposition to those voices in the form of “voting against trump”, “vote blue no matter who” or “harm reduction”.
You failed to mention that a good chunk of that discourse is fake. There are absolutely people not pleased with Bidens stance, and I'm glad to see him calling for a ceasefire and supporting protester rights; but the truth is no matter what, fake outrage will attack him relentlessly regardless of what he does. That's a simple truth of modern media and it must be factored into any discussion about political discourse.
You never actually let go of the appeal to emotion. You just tried to wrap it up nicer. You even went for a last sentence stinger which doesn't land as well as you think. The simple fact is that one party openly wants to go full fascist dictator. Openly wants to be more cruel, more vengeful, more lethal, and more pro genocide to an insane degree. It is extremely naive to think those people are at all playing fair. We must pull out all the stops to slam the door on them. It's the only logical choice because it leaves us with a government that can be shifted instead of a far right fascist kleptocracy.
Want to get mad? Get fucking mad at the Republicans who consistently force this kind of choice. They're super pro genocide so I would assume you would want to do absolutely anything you could to stop them getting more power, right?
so if you can't trust that your discussion will be heard and believed it's even more important to withhold your vote! if they're not gonna be able to figure out who's a real american disgusted with the administration and who's an op, the only way you can communicate is by not supporting the party doing a genocide using your vote.
my last sentence isn't an appeal to emotion, it's something i added after proofreading to make sure my arguments were all logically sound. in all our comments, you and i never established that part and as silly and pedantic as it is, that's part of making a sound logical argument.
as i said before, neither you nor i can vote against trump. we're not afforded that ability. we can't express through the ballot box that we want anybody but him. we can't have a ballot counted "i'm only doing this to keep trump out". what the american political process does allow us to do is express support for parties and their platforms. if a person votes biden, they're not voting "not trump", they're voting "biden". biden is aiding a genocide. a vote for biden is only interpret-able by the democrats as support for biden's actions. a vote for biden is literally a vote for genocide in that case.
the democrats have not been shifted left in at least forty years. it would be illogical to expect that expressing support for their rightward shift during biden's administration and their fascist crackdown on antiwar protests and aiding of a genocide through your biden ballot would make that change.
I am not saying the following to support republicans, but to build towards a point: republicans didn't force this kind of choice. republicans didn't send billions of aid to israel, enough to implement lots of the social programs and reforms democrats can't ever seem to get done. republicans aren't running a president who literally said he wasn't going to seek a second term. republicans didn't break the rail strike.
at some point if you don't want to have all those failures, if you want to be able to push the democrats left, if you want to have a future that includes the reforms and social programs they promise and never deliver, they have to see that a constant rightward tack isn't gonna win elections.
if no one is able to tell what discourse is real and what discourse is fake, your only choice to push the democrats left is to withhold your vote from them and record it for a party you actually believe in the platform of. there will be a record of votes cast for that party and after the dust settles, democrat strategists can say "gosh, it looks like abandoning the left, arab americans and people of color was a mistake".
on the other hand, if you feel like there is a way to distinguish real flesh and blood americans who won't tolerate this abhorrent administration from the ostensible bots and foreign trolls, join me in yelling at the top of your lungs that biden has to stop the genocide, or that the democrats have to drop him at the convention, or really anything except "we have to oppose trump".
because there's more utility in that, more logic in joining a chorus calling for justice even when it includes people you might see as your enemy than the utility and logic in doubling down and supporting what you know to be wrong.
The entire point of third parties in US presidential elections, right now, is to syphon votes away from the main parties. They are otherwise entirely useless.
They need more office down ballot....way down ballot...to start making any sort of progress towards the possibility of ever winning a presidential election.
It's not about "sending a message". Nobody is listening there. You want to send a message, put it in a letter or a picket sign. Not a ballot box.
I use Perot 92 as a counter example, because if the significant influence that campaign had on the ultimate fate of nafta and how it turned out not to have acted as a spoiler.
Why would you say your feelings in a protest or a letter to your congressman but not in your ballot where it literally gets counted?
92 Perot had enough votes to allow Clinton to win Ohio, California, Pennsylvania, and likely several others, had the majority of his voters gone to the more closely aligned GHWB.
If you consider yourself conservative, Perot is likely the reason Clinton won the electoral college in a landslide, while he himself received exactly 0 EC votes.
Progressive people, especially those concerned about the environment, can say the same for Nader in 2000, and only have to look at Florida.
Back in ‘99 there was a paper that showed Perot had the most impact the opposite direction, reducing Clinton’s margin of victory. I remember it because back then it made the news that what everyone thought to be obviously true (the businessman from Texas’ campaign spoiled the republican vote) was wrong. It’s even cited in the Wikipedia article about Perot 92!
Florida literally went against bush jr in the recount and his brother who was the governor of Florida at the time had a significant impact on calling it before the recount came in.
Now once again: why would you make your feelings known in a protest, but not when they can actually be counted?
A third party would need to have a feasible chance of winning even a single fucking state, and the literal only chance of that would be if every single Democrat and Republican spontaenously and simulteanously dropped dead right before voting day.
The amount of harm caused by Biden would have to be equal to or greater than than the harm caused by Trump, which is demonstrably not the case.
So no amount of parallel awfulness would prompt you to reject both parties? As an example, if the atrocities being visited on Gaza took place in America would that be enough?
You won't get an answer, these people's script is they have enormous latitude in calling people names, moving goalposts, and generally as much punching left as they can muster, but under absolutely no circumstance can they say -in any way, shape or form- that they won't vote for the blue team.
The one you say reduces harm is detaining more people at the border than trump did and both aiding and denying a genocide.
When is it too far? What would be beyond the pale enough for you to turn your back on Biden?
I have to ask again: would you still vote for Biden instead of a third party if he were supplying weapons to and denying the bombing of American hospitals?
I know I sound like a broken record, but where’s the line?
If Joe Biden were blowing up American Hospitals than we're well past the point where voting would accomplish anything. But he's not doing that, he's just selling arms to a longtime ally of America and not paying close enough attention to the reasons people are telling him to stop. Still bad, but...
Oh he’s only supplying weapons to a country committing a genocide and then denying that it’s a genocide in public.
I’m gonna ask some questions that will probably sound like accusations but I’m asking them to feel out who you are and what matters to you, not to accuse or harm:
Still bad but what?
So you wouldn’t support Biden if the genocide were happening to Palestinians on American soil, what about if it was French people being invaded and bombed by Israelis wielding American weapons? What if it was Libyans?
What if instead of pissing away the cost of any number of domestic programs in weapons shipments to israel, Biden was sending arms to russia to use on ukranians?
It's a terible situation and I do not intend to imply otherwise, however at the end of the day. I am an American, and I need to think about what's best for America.
Palestine is still gonna be in the shit if Biden is re-elected, and if Trump is re-elected they'll be in more than just shit.
However, if Biden is re-elected, I don't have to worry about ending up in a concentration camp for being trans.
We are in a winner takes all system,
It has limitations, Its very stable with 1, primary party, its possible to have 2 primary parties, its while not impossible, very very hard to have more primary parties.
Sure its possible particularly in a state for a new party to replace an existing one.. However most cases of this the new party becomes part of or replaces an existing parties leadership. However if you really want more parties we need something like instant runoff elections, Im very disappointed in how much push back on that has happened where its been attempted. (or a parliamentary system.. but i dont see that fitting into the US system)
You don’t need fundamental change to the system to not vote for the president committing a genocide. You can just pick someone else. That’s the point of a vote.
If anyone actually wants to stop the genocide in Gaza please vote out your republican congressman, almost every Republican congressman supported the resolution to restart weapons shipments and almost every democrat voted against it.
Unfortunately that's not going to work. Biden's biggest donors were pissed he even paused the 2,000 pound bombs. Voting out the republicans isn't going to purge this rot. We've worshipped at the altar of money for too long and now we're going to pay the price. As the old question goes, "What happens when the lords have more power than the king?"
This isn't a republican issue only. Most of congress, both democrats and Republicans have been voting in favor of funding israel. The big problem is that most of our politicians are bought by AIPAC.
The "anti semitism" bill passed 320-91 in house.
The 14.3 billon in aid to israel was passed by the house by 366-58. Only 37 Democrats and 21 Republicans opposed the bill.
The 14.3 billon in aid to israel was passed by the house by 366-58. Only 37 Democrats and 21 Republicans opposed the bill.
These numbers don't paint the full picture of some Democrats voicing moral objections to human suffering, versus some Republicans who object to the existence of government and will vote against funding for anything.
I understand that if not even at least half of the population vote at all, the winner party can't represent the whole country. Am I correct? I.e: if only 30% of population vote it doesn't matter who win, because most of the population didn't participate.
Oh, the massive hypocrisy of Biden refusing to swallow his Zionist principles and stop their Genocide, whilst at the same time sending his tribe's peons around to try and convince millions of people to swallow their Humanist principles and vote for a guy who supports Genocide.
Biden could pretty much guarantee a win tomorrow by announcing that it has been determined that Israel is indeed committing war crimes, followed by cutting support for them as per the Law when the recipient of help is committing such crimes, ideally followed by sanctions.
Yet he doesn't and instead there's a clear propaganda op with repeated variations of the claim that "Not being for Biden is being for Trump" (which, curiously, is just the authoritarianist argument "those who are not with us are agains us").
Why does the supposedly elected representative of all Americans firmly refuse to follow Americans as they turned against the Zionist Genocide and instead acts like all dictators by doing what he himself wants disregarding the will of those he is supposed to represent?
The argument of this and other similar posts which have innundated Lemmy would be a lot stronger if Biden wasn't an example of doing the exact opposite of what these posts demand from others, both the part of doing whatever it takes to stop Trump (which, as I explained above. Biden is not) and swallowing one's principles to stop something worse (i.e. Biden stopping acting as a Zionist in order to secure the votes to guarantee that Trump is stopped).
Biden could pretty much guarantee a win tomorrow by announcing that it has been determined that Israel is indeed committing war crimes, followed by cutting support for them as per the Law when the recipient of help is committing such crimes, ideally followed by sanctions.
My favorite part is where no amount of evidence that the US electorate doesn't actually back this idea up doesn't stop Very Serious Leftists(tm) from parroting it over and over and over again.
Ah, an Ad Hominen: hadn't seen one of those in at least 5 minutes.
How about you address my point that Biden isn't willing to abdicate just one of his principles (support for Zionism, which is not even an especially moral one) to "Stop Trump" whilst sending peons of his tribe around demanding that millions abdicate their principles (and Humanist ones, which are about the most Moral principles one can have) and vote for him - somebody supporting an ongoing Genocide - to "Stop Trump".
Ah, an Ad Hominen: hadn’t seen one of those in at least 5 minutes.
An Ad Hominem, clearly, is when you claim that the evidence doesn't back a talking point up, and the more you claim the evidence doesn't back a talking point up, the more Ad Hominem it is.
doesn’t stop Very Serious Leftists™ from parroting it over and over and over again.
Mind you the cartoon is already heavilly Red Scare "anybody that disagrees is a Communist" so I'm not suprised with the whole implying that I'm a "commie" for disagreing with your political tribe.
By the way, you're still refusing to answer the question of why Biden won't do himself what he demands from others...
doesn’t stop Very Serious Leftists™ from parroting it over and over and over again.
Wait a minute - does 'ad hominem', to you, mean 'someone said something mean about me'?
Is that what you're saying?
By the way, you’re still refusing to address my point about why Biden won’t do what he demands from others…
About why he won't give up 'a principle' that is currently popular amongst the majority of Americans, including a majority of Democrats, to appeal to a minority of voters, who are not even particularly reliable voters at that?
Huh. I guess it's a mystery why a politician in a democratic system wouldn't do that.
All of them are similar to the general scheme of ad hominem argument, that is instead of dealing with the essence of someone's argument or trying to refute it, the interlocutor is attacking the character of the proponent of the argument and concluding that it is a sufficient reason to drop the initial argument.
Don't worry, sweetheart, I addressed your argument just fine; that you want to play tone police is on you. :)
Now you're ad-homineming me as if I was that other guy you were having a fight with. If your refutation is sound, why do you need to attack someone's character anyway?
Your point is wrong, Biden isn't a Zionist and if he pulled funding for Israel unilaterally, it would help him with youth vote but hurt him with other groups potentially, and GOP would pivot to claiming to be the only friend of Israel, blah blah blah.
May i remind you that according to pew surveys, 60% of Americans still feel like Israel's war is valid and legitimate, even if some of those people say Israel is being too harsh.
The truth is that your viewpoint is very outside of the mainstream, and if Biden did it, and it might lose him political support on the whole and might not even stick--GOP would try to overturn this and force spending support to Israel, even if at that point just as an attack on Biden, who dipshits like you would still blame if his order to stop Israeli military support was overturned.
There, your point has been addressed, it is shit and counterproductive.
If the majority of this country leans fascist and supports genocide (so long as they are sufficiently convinced the people we bomb or help bomb are evil enough), we will end up with fascism even if it isn’t trump. If genocide is the popular opinion and Biden risks losing the election if he reversed course, we have bigger issues in this country than president. A president might sign fascist laws, but local fascists enact them, and I know which one of them is more likely to kill me. Hell, local fascists might kill me even if biden wins. We have a fascism problem in this country and a huge group of voters being willing to overlook genocide is just a symptom.
I also love how they act like Biden is in charge of conflict in the middle east and wars being waged by other nations and is just choosing to be a comic book villain that likes genocide. Its such a fucking child's interpretation of international relations. Biden is in an incredibly hard spot that he didn't choose, and all these assholes act like he is in charge while also 50% of the time ignoring or making excuses for Hamas's role. Like, they literally have more scorn for Biden than Hamas.
Biden could pretty much guarantee a win tomorrow by announcing that it has been determined that Israel is indeed committing war crimes, followed by cutting support for them as per the Law when the recipient of help is committing such crimes, ideally followed by sanctions.
I wish this was true but it very much isn't. He'd immediately lose Pennsylvania, at a minimum.
There are more jews against the Israeli government at this point than for it. Yes he'd need to walk a line but that's true of any campaign. The line he's on right now sure as hell ain't working.
The line he’s walking right now definitely isn’t working but saying that cutting support to Israel and sanctioning them “would pretty much guarantee” him the election just is not true at all (unfortunately). It’s not even close to true.
That said, given the polls I saw mentioned here a few weeks ago, a majority of American is against what Israel is doing in Gaza, especially amongst Democrats.
Surelly a strategy of "ultimate neutrality" would do a lot more to hold Democrat and Democrat-leaning votes than a strategy of "Zionist all the way plus symbolic things like holding a single ammo shipment for a few days" (especially considering that every symbolic act that innevitably turns out to be bullshit slowly but surelly undermines trust in Biden, not just for this but for all messaging from him and his campaign, which whilst not affecting tribalists - who are true believers no matter what - most definitelly affects people for whom "I'm a Democrat" is not at the level of personal identity).
That would mean the first part of what I suggested: "announcing that it has been determined that Israel is indeed committing war crimes, followed by cutting support for them as per the Law when the recipient of help is committing such crimes". I confess I tackled sanctions there out of wishful thinking (hence prefixing it with "ideally").
Please help me understand how "keep sending Netanyahu 2000lb bombs which he is using to kill children, doctors and journalists" is supposed to secure more votes than it loses. Which votes exactly does he expect to get from it that would otherwise not vote for him or vote Trump and how exactly are those such a huge fraction of votes that they can offset the votes he risks losing from people with even just some basic human empathy (they don't even need to be lefties)? Does the Biden Campaign team actually expects that Republicans will vote for him instead of Trump if he's pro-Genocide or that people's revulsion at seeing pictures of dead children will be easily forgotten at the pools and they'll vote for a guy helping it happen?
Rationally, is it really the strategy that maximizes the chances of "Stop Trump" (as everybody else is being told by Biden they have to do) to keep on sending Weapons & Ammo to Israel and providing them with Intel whilst they keep on murdering civilians shamelessly and the cabinet members over there utter some of the mosts vile ultra-racist Nazi-like stuff since, well, the actual Nazis, and relying on an astroturfing campaign to convince the people with more Humanist leanings to overcome outright disgust and revulsion to vote for the guy helping the murders murder more?
In my opinion, the safest strategy for a Democrat is then one I called above "ultimate neutrality". That being so, the possible reasons for Biden to do otherwise would be all kinds of shady (one can even say "sociopath" and maybe even "evil") and in direct confrontation with the stated objective of "Stop Trump", which is why I started my original post by pointing Biden and his peon's hypocrisy why demanding that others swallong their principles and vote for him to do just that.
Does Team Biden really expect that fear for LGBT people being treated like second class citizens in America will be a stronger emotion for most people than images of little corpses wrapped in sheets amongst the bigger corpses after Israel bombed a refugee camp lilke I saw yesterday on TV???!
Please help me understand how "keep sending Netanyahu 2000lb bombs which he is using to kill children, doctors and journalists" is supposed to secure more votes than it loses.
I definitely do not think it does, and I agree with the rest of your post that neutrality would be a better path forward
Nope it's purely an ideological conflict. If you're a libertarian then you don't support government, you believe the free market can work without regulation. Which leaves us with Anarcho-Capitalism. And at that point what amount of social justice or equality or anything are we achieving? It's going to be kind of hard to form a union when Shell Motor Corp troops execute anyone found with a vote card.
Oh sorry, you're the "authoritarianism is when self defense, ergo short tempered dictator with frivolous pet project is good" type of "leftist" (sic)!🤣
Exactly. They think being in a resistance is sexy, because they consume media that glorifies it. They dress it up and hide the realities while amplifying the parts that are heroic and good looking, and think that's what being in a resistance is like. Couple that with Main Character Syndrome and you've got a bunch of tankies who think they're going to kick ass at organizing a resistance and all be leaders when in fact most of them are going to do something stupid, get caught by the fascist regime, and die in a camp.
We've had discussions. But here I thought I'd just point out you rely on throwing as many things as you can at the wall. So many that you could win a bingo in your one comment!
Consistent application of the law hasn't stopped them with Roe v Wade. It's not going to stop them anywhere else. Their motivation to maintain power, control, and the status quo takes priority over all. They'll just find some bullshit reason to rule how they like, such that rules apply for others but not themselves.
They could rule per the compact clause that the compact wasn't allowed, but reading that clause its very clearly a military/defense clause and not a voting one. Fair amount of depth there.
Try to think beyond your adorable little "protest vote" when your choices are between boring corporatists and 100% concentrated evil. Or you may never have to worry about voting ever again.
Why is the the voters obligation to vote for shitty candidates rather than in the candidates to earn the vote? Biden is looking at a close race and the majority of voters want a cease fire.
Why is the the voters obligation to vote for shitty candidates rather than in the candidates to earn the vote?
It's our obligation as voters, as people entrusted with political power, to do what we can to steer our polity towards the least destructive and immoral path that we can.
"JOE BIBEN HASN'T EARNED MY VOTE" doesn't mean jack fucking shit. The point of a citizen's duty is not to suck off the right people - it's to protect one's fellow citizens, and ideally, members of other polities as well.
Voting isn't a fucking judgement of who's moral enough to go to democracy fucking heaven - voting is a judgement of who is least objectionable in steering the future of the polity - including considering the likelihood of success.
Sorry that using political power responsibly is such a foreign concept to you.
Biden is looking at a close race and the majority of voters want a cease fire.
The majority of voters want a cease-fire. You want to tell me what the majority of voters want the US to do to achieve a ceasefire?
Most US voters are not in favor of more stringent terms than what Biden has already proposed.
This idea that the US electorate is as left as the Fediverse is just... fucking bizarre.
You dont get those changes by just blindly voting against the Republicans. You have to actually pressure your candidates into supporting what you want. Companies and lobbiests are able to do this with giant sacks of cash. Normal people do it by protesting and making demands of their officials to force a response. Showing nothing but contempt for anti-war protests is always a bad look for a president running for reelection.
Biden has all the leverage on Israel to make them stop the killing. He can threaten to pull military aid, send in US forces to distribute humanitarian aid, or put sanctions on Israel. All of those would stop the killing, making people angry at the US response willing to vote for Biden, paving a path for his re-election. Why are you so against him forcing Israel to stop the genocide if it is his only path to victory?
Because it's not his only path to victory, and it's not even certain that it IS a path to victory. A majority of DEMOCRATS, much less the general public, still approve of the current level of support to Israel or support INCREASED support to Israel.
Do I want Biden to pull out of Israel? Yes. Do I understand why the strategic political reasons why it's not being done, other than Biden being an old dinosaur? Also yes. Do I think that welcoming Trump into the White House will improve the matter? Fuck no.
Those voters who approve of funding Israel's genocide should really suck it up and vote for Biden even if he slashes funding. After all they aren't crazy "tankies" who would dare withhold their vote because they don't approve of what he's doing.
Those voters who approve of funding Israel’s genocide should really suck it up and vote for Biden even if he slashes funding.
Absolutely they should. And absolutely I bitch out anyone who thinks that Biden 'not being pro-Israel enough' is a reason not to vote for him as a fascist enabler, at minimum.
After all they aren’t crazy “tankies” who would dare withhold their vote because they don’t approve of what he’s doing.
No, they tend to be fascists and theocrats instead who will gleefully withhold their vote, just as tankies do.
This is what democracy looks like. Fighting to keep a coalition of unlike people together because the alternative is getting something that's worse on every fucking level.
I take it you'd have a problem with people calling the Democratic party fascist but you seem to think such a significant part of their base is fascist that they have to implement fascist policy to appease them. What is that if not fascism? If the DNC actually has morals they'd amputate that part of their base and appeal to new voters because they look less ghoulish. If the Democrats lose it isn't going to be because a few online leftist withheld their vote, it's going to be because they failed to get any fresh voter turnout. A third of Americans don't vote, and a larger portion of that third is young and PoC, more likely to be strongly against the genocide.
I take it you’d have a problem with people calling the Democratic party fascist but you seem to think such a significant part of their base is fascist that they have to implement fascist policy to appease them.
A significant part of the American electorate supports fascist policies, specifically, with regards to Israel. We can debate the causes all day long, but the fact remains.
What is that if not fascism?
Democracy. As it is necessarily compromise with the will of the majority.
If the DNC actually has morals they’d amputate that part of their base and appeal to new voters because they look less ghoulish.
If the DNC had morals, they'd lose, huh? Yeah, Trump rounding up people into concentration camps AND funding Israeli genocide looks much better. /s
A third of Americans don’t vote, and a larger portion of that third is young and PoC, more likely to be strongly against the genocide.
So, your plan is that, if the Dems take one of the least important issues to voters (yes, including young voters), radically change it to alienate their most reliable demographics to appeal to their least reliable demographics, that is the real path to victory?
You guys spend so much of your time trying to convince peaceful people to support genocidal actions instead of supporting the warhawks changing to peace.
You are choosing to spend your time supporting genocidal actions instead of supporting rejecting them.
We do, however, need to minimize the cheap talking points you parrot, like Republicans chanting "RAISE THE TERROR ALERT" in 2004 like it fucking meant something, in order to avoid low-information voters being swayed into voting in favor of fascism like you lot want.
Tankies like to use military force to support their actions.
So calling someone who is doing their level best to stop using military force to enforce others wants, is patently false and shows that you don’t actually know what a tankie is.
How do you ever expect to get new voters if you only pay attention to what your base wants? And why do you think most of the Democrats who support Israel are bloodthirsty fascists who will switch their vote to Trump if Biden changes course on the matter? These political parties have had major shifts in the past and it can happen again. That's why I think one of the most important things we can do is shift people's ideology through protest and conversation. If America is so conservative we will never get anywhere by just showing up to vote and doing nothing else.
You are emphasizing the need to win the election as if it is a political goal that takes precedence over everything else. But under that view we shouldn't even politically engage with people who are already planning to vote blue because we might make them change their minds. It's important to instill voters and non voters alike with more progressive values, even if it threatens to make them vote in a way we don't want. I don't even believe the DNC believes in winning elections over all else, if something would win them votes but upset their benefactors in another way for example it might be off the table. The DNC doesn't believe in things like harm reduction, they are playing a completely different strategy game than voters are. Trust me, they are not funding Israel because they believe it is what they must do in order to stop concentration camps.
How do you ever expect to get new voters if you only pay attention to what your base wants?
Man, liberals are the Democratic base.
And why do you think most of the Democrats who support Israel are bloodthirsty fascists who will switch their vote to Trump if Biden changes course on the matter?
I don't. I simply think they're of a demographic that votes more often, and thus, there is a strategic consideration which is not unreasonable to mull over, that a change in Biden's position will not necessarily be a net gain in voters.
That’s why I think one of the most important things we can do is shift people’s ideology through protest and conversation. If America is so conservative we will never get anywhere by just showing up to vote and doing nothing else.
Man, I absolutely agree with that. I say time and time again that the positions of absolutism so many progressives want to take are only going to be viable with a LOT of fucking groundwork.
30 years ago, supporting gay marriage was a death sentence for a national political career. But if progressives got together in the 90s and said "We aren't going to support anyone EXCEPT candidates who support gay marriage", LGBT rights would not be as firmly placed as they are today.
You can't win every battle immediately, and that's what I'm arguing against. If you don't win the battle to change US policy on Palestine before the election, the alternative is not, should not, and must not be "Well, it's okay if Trump wins, then", because that will do everything BUT move us in the right direction.
You are emphasizing the need to win the election as if it is a political goal that takes precedence over everything else.
Considering the consequences of this election, it absolutely is. Have you not been following the whole MAGA movement and the GOP these past few years? We had to fend off an autocoup in 2021, and its only gotten worse. This election is a political goal that takes precedence over everything else, unless you're fine with never have a say again in a fascist-controlled regime.
The DNC doesn’t believe in things like harm reduction, they are playing a completely different strategy game than voters are. Trust me, they are not funding Israel because they believe it is what they must do in order to stop concentration camps.
The DNC isn't planning on destroying the last pieces of democracy in America, though, so regardless of their reasons for funding Israel, they're the superior choice to the RNC, which is in favor of funding Israel and dismantling US democracy.
To all the people supporting genocidal actions, we do no give a fuck what you think.
When you decide that you are not ok with sending more bombs to continue killing children then we can talk.
Until then I hope you all experience exactly what you want other people to.
So when members of Hamas, the current representative government of Gaza, talk about the genocide of the Jews, you say...?
Me, personally, I say that wishing democide on a population is fucking horrendous regardless of what that population supports, but I understand you tankies adore bloodshed more than I do.
No, you're 'just' saying that the murder of millions of Americans is okay because most have opinions on foreign policy that aren't aligned with your's. Much better!
Also, in this comment thread, I haven't called you a tankie. Apparently I did when you called for America to burn for the sin of wrongthink.
I have very clearly said multiple times in the past that hummus are a bunch of tunnel rats whose extinction won’t bother me in the slightest, same for the IDF, maybe one day we will be able to respect Israel again, but they have managed to turn my default view of Israelis from neutral to negative.
I have very clearly said multiple times in the past that hummus are a bunch of tunnel rats whose extinction won’t bother me in the slightest, same for the IDF, maybe one day we will be able to respect Israel again, but they have managed to turn my default view of Israelis from neutral to negative.
Does that justify calling for Israel to burn?
Me, personally, I am a supporter of military force in select circumstances. I would love it if there was the political will to impose a no-fly zone over Gaza, IDF casualties be damned.
But I still wouldn't call for Israel to burn, no, not even knowing that Gazan genocide is still widely popular in the country. Not just as a matter of ignorant and indirect support, as in the US, but as a matter of direct and intimately understood support.
Likewise, calling for America to burn because a majority of the people here understand international politics about as well as they understand domestic politics (ie not at all) is fucking unconsciable, and what I called you out for in the beginning.
I don’t support killing anyone, I don’t support military action, and almost every problem we have in the Middle East right now can be directly assigned as a consequence of us action.
I think we just need to walk away from the Middle East altogether.
At one time Israel might have been deserving of our help, but they have repeatedly tried to drag more countries into this to try to force us military action.
That said if one of said bad policies is killing people, then yeah I don’t care what happens to them.
Same as I don’t care what happens to hummus or most of the IDF.
It sucks for the people like me who don’t want to support genocide, but if the majority votes it in, we can’t say that it wasn’t legitimate
Okay, but that's not what you said. You didn't say "If America decides to nuke itself, it deserves it." You said that America deserves to burn if it continues supporting Israel's genocide, even lukewarmly.
Until then I hope you all experience exactly what you want other people to.
Tell me you're white and know you're not gonna be the one who actually burns without telling me you're white and know you're not gonna be the one who actually burns.
You're saying that you are ok with Israel slaughtering Palestinians so long as you can continue your standard of living. "Never Again" doesn't have a secret clause saying we shouldn't stop genocide if it means people may be harmed in the process.
You don't want Trump to take over the US and institute his fascist policies? You should be leaning on the Democrats to actually try and stop him, rather than going after those who are trying to actually stop fascism as it pops up.
"We think any amount of genocide is unacceptable, that's why we think it is imperative to threaten the democrats with the possibility of letting more genocide happen here too if they don't stop supporting genocide, and shut up it's not supporting genocide when we do it because we're right!"
The Israeli government has said they want to remove every Palestinian from Gaza and the West Bank. There is literally no more genocide that is able to happen right now
Where have i said that I support doubling down? People thinkthat their vote doesn't matter as is. And asking someone who is already apathetic to voting to vote for someone who supports genocide isn't going to make them want to vote any more. It's a rigged game so they won't play. You should be mad at Biden for not trying to engage with those voters and instead locking them up and using police violence against them.
There are two choices in this coming election, effectively. Trump or Biden.
If one loses, the other wins.
You want to guess what contributing to Biden's loss will cause?
Go ahead. Take a few swings.
And asking someone who is already apathetic to voting to vote for someone who supports genocide isn’t going to make them want to vote any more
Someone who is already apathetic to voting is already not a very good target for voting outreach. You're not really making "Have the least reliable voting bloc since we started tracking such things be the lynchpin of the strategy to defeat fascism" sound any more reasonable than it was previously.
It’s a rigged game so they won’t play.
If they think it's a rigged game, what benefit will appealing to their desired policies have?
You should be mad at Biden for not trying to engage with those voters and instead locking them up and using police violence against them.
Oh God, not this line again. It doesn't matter that Biden at no point has advocated the use of police violence against peaceful protesters, he's definitely the one behind local police continuing the policy of being absolute shitheads, as they have for the past [checks notes] century and a half of US policing.
Yes, there are two choices. So i support people who are trying to make the less terrible one better. Meanwhile you want people to just shit up and support genocide.
Meanwhile you want people to just shit up and support genocide.
Oh, is that what I want? I guess calling the Israeli genocide a genocide and advocating for the total removal of US aid from Israel is support of genocide.
Or is it because I don't regard Trump as winning as a reasonable alternative to Biden that makes me a genocide supporter?
I can find you people saying exactly that while claiming to be left-wing.
They are saying it is inevitable if Biden continues down this path.
Their proposal for course-correction is "If Biden takes up a position that is currently unpopular with the vast majority of Americans, including a majority of Democrats, his numbers will improve"
You have never trumpers, that’s you, your vote is locked and Biden could dick down a toddler on live tv and you wouldn’t care. We can safely disregard these people, they are the Biden equivalent of magats.
So you can either try to get the people who support genocide on your side, or the people trying to stop it.
Either way, we get what we deserve because of the votes.
And apparently, your argument is that you should and must support never having a say in your government again because Biden is evil. Not that it will prevent an evil man from getting into the presidency; no, but you HAVE to punish Biden, no matter what rights you lose everyone else in the process!
I'm asking you to support not being under a fascist regime. I'm asking you to support being able to fight for the next four years without having to take up arms. I didn't realize "Please do this so we DON'T have to deal with the prospect of waging war in our own country if we want any sort of change away from a fascist regime" was going to be such a hard-fucking-sell to someone who opposes war.
You are asking me to support someone I disagree with on a fundamental level.
Yeah, welcome to not being part of the majority in a democratic polity. It sucks.
You guys can fight over which genocidal maniac runs the country.
Okay, by not taking a side, you take the side of the victor. If the victor is the genocidal maniac who, instead of expressing hesitance about Israel's genocide, has expressed an eagerness for Israel's genocide to intensify, and to start NUMEROUS genocides here at home, against both racial minorities and GSM, you can rejoice in knowing that you contributed in your own way to his expanded genocide, both in Israel/Palestine and in the US. Not to mention all the other countries he'll 'inspire'. I'm sure Ukraine will be thrilled to have even more of their children kidnapped and tortured, or a suffering a few hundred more Buchas.
I will keep working on supporting people from the bottom up who disagree with sending bombs to kill toddlers.
Great, and the guy who's going to make it harder for you to support people 'from the bottom up' instead of the 'guy who doesn't care what happens as long as things keep chugging'? It's cool if he's in place? You don't mind a stint in the pen for being a filthy lib, or getting sent to the camps with the rest of us?
My payment is me and people I care about not being rounded up, tortured, expelled, or executed at some point during a second Trump administration. It's very valuable to me.
I don't give a fuck that the DNC is filled with listless, lazy, complacent, corrupt shitheads, because 'punishing' them for that by putting a metaphorical gun to my head and blowing my brains out just doesn't seem like a good calculus, especially since fascist regimes always have a place for listless, lazy, complacent, corrupt shitheads anyway, so it wouldn't be much of a punishment for the worst amongst them.
No. There is no moral responsibility to vote for someone who hasn't earned that vote. That's a construct meant to remove the politician's responsibility to their constituents. An Astroturf by the donor class to protect their influence. Stop doing their work for them. They don't care about you beyond how much money you can make them.
No. There is no moral responsibility to vote for someone who hasn’t earned that vote.
Oh, cool, there's no moral responsibility to protect your fellow citizens. Fuck those minorities, herd 'em into camps; Biden didn't earn MY vote, right?
You lot are indistinguishable from fascists in practical effects.
Where's his moral responsibility? Why am I the only one with a moral responsibility? Where's the moral responsibility of his base? Where's your moral responsibility? Is it okay with genocide as long as it's over there? It's okay over there but here crimes a magnitude lower suddenly become a moral imperative?
Why am I the only one with a moral responsibility?
You aren't. You're just the only one with control over your own actions.
Where’s your moral responsibility?
The same place as every other citizen's?
Is it okay with genocide as long as it’s over there?
It's not okay with genocide. Unlike your sense of morality, it regards "More genocide" as a BAD position to take.
It’s okay over there but here crimes a magnitude lower suddenly become a moral imperative?
lmao, what. Tell me more about how murdering minorities here in the USA is a crime "a magnitude lower" than murdering minorities in Israel. Real telling what you think about non-white Americans and GSMs.
You have no morals.
Coming from someone advocating for the deaths of both more Palestinians AND American minorities?
Hi, I'm part of a minority that Donald trump and his sycophants would love nothing more than to herd into camps or eliminate entirely.
Your argument sucks. Calling everyone fascists who doesn't want to vote for your guy isn't going to convince anyone to vote for your guy. Are you trying to convince people Democrats are bad?
Hi, I’m part of a minority that Donald trump and his sycophants would love nothing more than to herd into camps or eliminate entirely.
Playing asspat games with Very Serious People who want to see Donald Trump elected to 'get back at' the evil shitlibs isn't going to convince anyone to vote against fascism. If you're fine with letting people spew pro-fascist rhetoric, I mean, I guess I'll see you in the camps; but personally, I'd like to avoid that fucking fate.
"I wasn't rooting for Trump, I was just sitting by doing absolutely nothing, not even the bare minimum, because genocide doesn't matter to me!" doesn't really have a better ring to it than "I was rooting for Trump".
The point of a citizens duty is not to suck off the right people
spends multiple paragraphs over multiple comments explaining why their entire political ideology is that its a citizens duty to suck off the right people
Idk how we got here. Imo it’s mainly because for some reason, we no longer give agency to republicans.
If voting for a third party is immoral, then 1/3 of the US is being very immoral.
Voting used to be a private choice, hence why you go into a little booth. It was your moral obligation to vote to the best of your abilities, your choice was personal.
If you're still asking a candidate to earn your vote when the other guy is selling copies of the constitution with the 13th and 19th amendments omitted, you're just a fascist who doesn't want the social stigma that comes with being an open fascist.
If you're supporting a candidate giving bombs to a genocidal, ethnostate apartheid regime, while condemning protests against that at home what are you besides a blue fascist?
Someone who remembers the other guy handed that genocidal ethnostate apartheid regime the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and the Golan Heights?
"Any amount of genocide is bad, that's why I'm willing to support even more genocide happening if it means those nasty wasty establishment democrats finally l E a R n T h E i R l E s S o N ! ! !"
You're being a vote karen, you're threatening the actually vulnerable to fall in line with what you want and to bring you the party's manager. You're Anne Frank's neighbor if the reason they turned her in was because her parents weren't anti-nazi enough to their liking.
Donald will not do better for you on your wedge issue and he did an insurrection. You want the guy who tweeted nuclear threats to Iran to take over on this conflict? Misguided.
Yeah a lot of sheltered but edgy teens take this stance. To be bothsidesing, one has to be privileged enough to not notice SCOTUS eroding their neighbors' human rights. Something like mommy and daddy have a fat chunk of capital, living on a college campus, that sort of thing.
Oh, yeah, only the most serious lefties want more fascism in the judiciary. Don't you know after the country collapses into full-on racist fascism, socialism will rise from the ashes? So everyone losing their rights under a dictatorship is fine, we're thinking long term. Climate? What climate?
Bidens pushing legislation that removes all the red tape from stripping leftist orgs of non profit status, and legislation to make ANY CRITICISM AT ALL of Israel legally antisemitic so the Dept of education can strip any school that allows pro Palestinian protests of finding and accreditation.
TLDR Dems love fascism as long as its wearing a blue cape instead of red.
yeah pretty sure communists haven't decided/altered the result of any state or federal election in the past 20 years at minimum. probably more like the past 60-80 years
The main thing I draw issue with is the fact many states are not swing states. If I live in Alabama, what are the odds that biden wins that state?
Tell me, if I live in alabama, will my vote for biden influence the election at all? Or will it come down to voters in michigan or florida or some other swing state.
I do understand the meme, but I also understand that swing states decide the election. Your impact of your vote is determined by your location.
Before I respond, I just need to repeat back to you the argument you've made here. Upon reading it, if you really want to continue, let me know and I'll give you a full response:
"I take issue with the point communicated by this 4-panel comic strip, because some people live in Alabama"
I mean, that’s one way to read the argument, but it isn’t the one I was making. It seems like you are misrepresenting me intentionally.
As you should probably know, votes for the president are not done by people in their states. They are done by electors in the electoral college.
These electors, as per tradition, vote for the victor in their state’s election on the president.
If I live in a deep red state like Alabama, the majority is already voting for Trump. If I want to change that, I won’t be doing that by voting or shitposting on lemmy, I’d have to tireless campaign for a president I don’t like.
You brought up florida in a previous comment, specifically the election with bush. I’m sure you know that florida is a swing state, and therefore is going to be down to the wire on some elections, right?
Alabama is just an example. I don’t live in Alabama, but my state has barely swapped colors in the past, and certainly wont any time soon. Same with New York, or Montana, or Mississippi, or Texas, or many others.
So, to rephrase what I said in the 2nd paragraph more focused language, will my vote matter if I live in a deep red/blue state? Or will the election come down to swing states?
Edit: i’ve reread what you said and jesus fucking bad faith argument batman. You literally ignored half of what I said to smugly say not everyone lives in the one example state I used
Edit: I've pared down my original comment here because after reading it, it came off way too harsh. Hopefully nobody read it.
The meme is intended to convey that withholding a Biden vote could result in a trump victory, and that "teaching Biden a lesson" at the cost of "having a fascist state" is a bad trade.
Your issue is that, it is possible that some peoples votes don't matter at all based on their zip code.
I don't know how else to put this: you aren't refuting the central thesis. You're on a tangent that AT BEST concludes with "well, this doesn't apply to EVERYONE... But it still definitely applies to SOME"
It's not that people's votes possibly don't matter because of their zip code. It's that peoples votes don't matter because of their zip code. There's a lot of bullshit going on with voter suppression, shittily written constitutions, and how representatives are calculated, but the electoral college itself is what decides the election, not the popular vote. And with the electoral college, your location is determinate of how much your vote matters in the election.
The thing is, that does refute the thesis.
If the thesis is "You withheld the one vote that would have prevented fascism", was true, we would either be using a popular vote system for president, which we literally don't, or the person would have to be in a singular swing state that decides the election. This means that the thesis is only true for those who live in swing states, due to the presence of the electoral college.
I googled the current swing states, and I got Georgia, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Nevada, and New Mexico. The current population of the US is somewhere above 330 million, and the population of the swing states listed is, according to my napkin math, 55 million. I'm assuming the population of voters proportionally is roughly equivalent state to state.
That being said, this means there's roughly 1/6th of Americans whose votes would be representative of this meme.
To call the experience of 5/6ths of Americans tangential is a little silly.
The irony is palpable that you're describing voter suppression as a factor, while literally actively participating in it. Using social media to convince people that their votes aren't important is quite literally an act of voter suppression. Trying to convince people that withholding their vote could not impact outcome, is voter suppression.
You are literally no different than a robocall telling people that the polling stations have closed early. You are a bad faith actor. For anyone who didn't actually read the Muler report and were unsure about what "Russian interference" actually looked like, it's this. It's exactly this.
I never said anything about not voting. I'll be up front that I'm not electoralist (I'm an anarchist) but I also don't care about whether or not people vote or not (I'm an anarchist) because I'd rather be focusing on creating systems that will protect people from fascism (because I'm an anarchist). Fuck, I even vote in my town elections and elections for state representatives because there are genuine fascists running where I live, and in that case it's popular vote. Diversity of tactics and all. But if you think that voting is sufficient to stop fascism though, I have a history book and a bridge to sell ya. And that's why instead of advocating for non-voting, I advocate for activism, direct action, and just fucking fighting fascism where you see it.
The thing is, you are misconstruing what I'm saying. If calling out the fact that someone is saying that voting alone will prevent fascism using a shitty inaccurate meme is convincing people to not vote, then it is impossible to discuss the fact that the electoral college is antidemocratic. If calling out flaws in the system that makes voting unequal is voter suppression, then I don't know how anyone can address the problems in the system.
It's like you think I'm some lemmy.ml tankie or something, a strawman whose views you despise. Instead of engaging with what I said, you swapped over to insults and name calling.
Maybe the US system doesn't work that way because people keep screaming at everyone who doesn't vote for their one party vs the only other. It's really odd to claim that your vote matters and then yell at anyone who tries to do anything with their vote other than to guarantee their vote for one of two parties. If the argument is to preserve democracy, well, it already looks like we don't have democracy.
It’s because we have a winner-takes-all electoral college system. It encourages domination not cooperation and self-perpetuates because it stifles ideological competition. It’s not merely a social phenomenon.
How are we supposed to break out of such a system? Both parties benefit from this system and will never agree to change it. About a decade ago in Canada, the liberal party claimed they'd carry out election reform if they won. They ended up winning big time, but they refused to do what they promised because it would threaten the power structure.
Your democracy is at stake and you are yelling that we should do democracy harder instead of attempting to keep the democracy destroyer out of office. Carry on though and personally insult me like you did in your last comment.
I’m not American so I don’t have a dog in this fight.
You're not American and don't have a dog in the fight, but you want to explain the electoral system that I participate in to me. Not sure where I insulted you or yelled (no exclamation point or all-caps/bolded words in sight), so it seems like you've completely misinterpreted my post. I didn't say we should "democracy harder", I said we don't have a democracy and that it's just a facade where people get really passionate about voting for one of only two viable options. Kind of hard to save something that doesn't exist. Will things get worse under republicans? Absolutely. Will democrats do anything about that? Absolutely not. They'll keep the office warm until the next time republicans inevitably win back power in this crooked system.
Right, trump vs another candidate. Biden is awful and is the reason why the election is in any kind of jeopardy. But when trump wins in november there'll be no self awareness to be found, that people were promoting an unviable candidate that no one likes.
I love that you lot complain that it's not REAL democracy because the DNC is so sneaky behind the scenes, and then in the same breath demand that the DNC undemocratically appoint someone as their candidate who appeals to you and your fellows, voters be damned.
And you wonder why everyone thinks of you as fascists.
It's the duty of the party to nominate an electable candidate is it not? They had a farce of a primary this year, so the only hope left is a hail mary out of the convention.
It’s the duty of the party to nominate an electable candidate is it not?
Oh, so now you DON'T care about democracy in the party. How convenient, how your ideals change depending on which allows you to scream "BOTH SIDES" the loudest.
Democracy in the party flew the coop when we didn't have a real primary this year. Having a single candidate is not democracy. It's a rubber stamp oligarchy.
Why wasn't democracy destroyed then? C'mon, show a little consistency! Go ahead, it's not like anyone is falling for the "Very Concerned And Democratic Voter" at this point. It's quite clear that you don't give a single good goddamn about democracy except insofar as it allows you to undermine anyone who isn't a fascist. Like how you decried the DNC for not being democratic enough and then immediately pivoted to claiming the DNC should disregard the voters entirely.
I never said democracy as a whole was destroyed. I said the party is looking for people to rubber stamp it's oligarchs. If you want to be dismissive that's fine but at least keep up.
And that you only have the option (realistically) to vote for people that other voters want to be in politics. As a conversation with other voters will quickly show, is a depressing concept.
Progressives are excessively difficult to win support from the Dems or Reps due to campaign interests and media spin. The only candidates that recieve enough backing are the ones that pose no danger to the wealthy Capitalists.
That would require getting cozy with billionaires who are opposed to progressive causes. How is that supposed to work? What you're proposing is like starting a game of monopoly where the other players own 90% of the properties already and claiming that if you just play along and hopefully land on properties that aren't already owned then maybe you can trade your way up to establish yourself. How likely do you think this is to work?
The other options include: continuing to be a fringe platform, overthrowing a global system.
Materially, I think developing ever stronger unions (labor and otherwise) who can pool resources to compete in politics. Seconded by a strong push to win many more low level grassroots seats. Conservatives are winning these seats. By winning the lower seats, bureaucratic maneuvers are easier, and consensus is "cheaper".
We had a strong labor movement but it took decades of fighting, the largest economic crisis ever, and two world wars, among other things to establish a middle class as we used to know it. It took much less time for the rich to dismantle that. I agree we should keep working to push the power of labor, but reaching our goals while working within the system is going to be impossible. There's a reason why it took such catastrophic events to actually get anywhere.
I agree that organizing is fantastic, but the sheer difference in quantity of Capital is why it is necessary for a leftist party to focus primarily on delivering needs externally to the system before attempting to win over local and state level elections. Grow from the bottom up.
You need to look up present income inequality statistics. Billionaires are insane and inflation is making normal working class people tighten their budgets a lot. It's a very uphill battle or outfund billionaires.
A movement that helped secure the ADA with their support, and had the full weight of the state security apparatus turned against them. An organization that was so unimpactful the FBI assassinated their leaders.
They also started a lunch program that spread to multiple cities and was successful enough that the government stepped in to start one of their own so that they could not look as bad in comparison.
A movement that helped secure the ADA with their support
Almost a decade after the height of their power, you associate the Black Panther Party's support in giving meals to a disability rights protest as being important to the ADA, which itself would not be passed for another decade and a half after that.
That's... that's really what we're reaching for?
An organization that was so unimpactful the FBI assassinated their leaders.
Yeah, I'm not sure that "The FBI under Hoover, which was terrified that homosexuals were secret Communist infiltrators, was scared of them" is exactly a great rational assessment of their threat.
Loving the Black Panther Party for having a nice ten points and a horrible record of not actually accomplishing anything substantial and murdering members of their own organization for not being sufficiently pure is about what I expected of an ML.
Helping children not starve isn't anything substantial, got it. They had a lasting impact, and the US murdered Fred Hampton because the organization was effective.
Never said I was an ML, but you sure do love lying about others when you get scratched.
Well then we can still pressure Biden to do the right thing. The election is still 6 months away, not next week. Blind support for Biden will not make anything better.
