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cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/16451158
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They’ll try to shove you off the platform with constant negativity and trying to act like Trump is just a continuation of all the same. If you didn’t care before, why do you care now?
It’s not. It’s different.
I remember 2004, a friend had come back to our home town for new years, and in our fave local pub, he regaled us with stories of what it was like working with Trump. He told us about what a joke of a played narcissist he is, being primed by his psychopathic handlers for a puppet presidency. … It seemed absurd, implausible even, for about a decade.
I heard recently they were planning on having Charlie Kirk become president in the distant future too… until he grew sense and conscience. Imagine if each of their puppets attain consciousness and conscientiousness… and they have no puppets left to deceive us with… :D
Imagine if USA had democracy. Cleared up all the election rigging, the fixed proprietary voting machines, the lobbying, the gerrymandering, the electoral college, the voter suppression, the bought corporate media, etc, etc, etc. Imagine if the people in USA got to vote for what they want, not merely under duress to vote against who they don’t want.
Imagine if it were real…
Both parties have the identical end goal in mind. One is just slower at it.
So for fucks sake pick the one that’s slower at it so you have more time to do something about it. It’s not like voting locks you out of any other actions.
It’s no use asking these people to do any kind of direct action. They think abstaining once every four years will bring an end to capitalism. They’ll never attend a protest or vote in a primary, much less pick up a gun for the revolution.
But Americans aren’t doing anything about it except voting.
The ones who are going to do more are already doing more, and both-sidesing the ones who aren’t is just going to make them do even less. Just let them help with slowing the descent down a bit, that’s the most they’re going to do anyway. It buys time for the ones who are doing something to do something.
“But they’ll steal the elections!!!”
Oh yeah? Just like all those state and special elections they’ve been losing by double-digit electorate shifts for the last 18 months? Including the one covering FUCKING MAR-A-LAGO???
Grow the fuck up. Get registered to vote, and when elections come round, VOTE, DAMN IT. Fascism only wins if you just give up and let it.
Exactly. I personally believe the election is going to be stolen, but nobody should fucking do the job FOR them. Voting MIGHT work, and you can still prepare for ridiculous, shortsighted guerilla fantasies after taking a day to go TRY the easy solution.
What are these gorilla fantasies?
You know, living in the jungle with your favorite apes
“But they’ll steal the elections!!!”
LOL. Yup. That’s the crux of the terror that knocks people out of their considerate, critical, creative forebrain, and pushes them into their reactive social-dominating survival-focused fearful limbic reflex where they’re easier to control.
This time, America… stop falling for it. :) We can still mend this.
Fascism only wins if you just give up and let it.
And so don’t fall for the false dichotomies. ;D
More than voting may be required. And that does not mean badgering your fellow Americans into deeper divisive groupthink. :)
A lack of good options in the general is a sign of poor turnout in primaries.
That’s why ranked choice voting is needed
There haven’t been fair primaries in three presidential cycles. The DNC is a business and the primaries are entirely up to them and they have sucessfully argued in courts they have no duty to not medel in them any way they see fit. If primary turnout is low, the DNC owns a big share of why too.
Ah america. The ‘do nothing and hope for the best’ system of election.
Exactly. And a two party system basically ensures that.
One should vote, it simply shouldn’t be the end of it.
If you voted Democrat and thought you made your part, wrong. You barely made one shift towards one slightly less terrible group. This is not victory. A part of what you should do, yes. All you should do - not.
Republicans also really love when you vote third party.
Republicans also really love when you vote third party.
(Or Democrat party too, depending on where the votes are being taken from)
Until enough people do, and sufficient votes are taken from the purple party, that they lose.
… But then, may also need to mend all the lobbying, gerymandering, voter suppression, rigged voting machines, electoral college, etc first/simultaneously.
Imagine if the people in USA got a system that helped them vote for what they want, not against who they don’t want. Imagine… :)
Until enough people do, and sufficient votes are taken from the purple party, that they lose.
Nope, you utterly miss the point. First past the post means that Republicans win when the anti-fascist vote is split.
If you don’t like the current candidates of the Democrat party, then go vote in the Democrat primary.
Imagine if the people in USA got a system that helped them vote for what they want, not against who they don’t want. Imagine… :)
There is this little thing called “objective reality”. First past the post sucks, but it is objective reality. You should try taking it into account, some time.
Nope. Did not miss your point at all. You seemed to miss mine, and doubled down.
one week old account shilling for a political party
I remember when Gore lost Florida, and therefore the country, because less than one tenth of one percent of voters thought a protest vote for Nader was a good idea. In primaries and in smaller elections, sure, give third party votes a try. But the bigger the election, the more it converges on a choice between the two major parties, and one of them is worse than the other.
gore won that election. the supreme Court stole it.
To only have two sides is the problem.
Sure, but as far as what we can control right now, let’s elect some fucking Democrats please
Yeah, we need more John Fettermans and Joe Manchins and Krysten Cinemenmas.
How much longer will this be a cookie cutter answer?
Until there are enough grassroots progressive candidates to take over the democratic party the same way the tea party movement took over the republican party, and finally some progressive initiatives can pass into law, such as eliminating FPTP.
Please don’t take the “just vote democrats into office” answer to mean “sit tight and do nothing but vote” when voting is really the bare minimum activism you should be doing to preserve a democratic system.
I just wonder how patient US voters are, for the changes you project.
Does it matter? Most voters have no attention span. They aren’t revolutionaries. They aren’t going to take to the streets no matter how bad things get. Stop trying to change people who aren’t going to change when you lack the influence to change them in the first place, and focus on trying to leverage what you’ve got as productively as you can.
Build your cadres, make the change you can, and make lemonade from the lemons you’ve got.
Let’s get Democrats controlling all three branches of government for more than 30 seconds to start.
And by “controlling” we mean “supermajority” thanks to the veto and filibuster.
And will things magically be better? Well, better, yes, good, no. First, it takes a lot of time to undo the harm fascists have done. And second, our oligarchs would still be in control, pushing for their needs above ours.
So we need to… solve… our oligarch problem AND win a supermajority AND then We the People need to push that Overton window back to the left, forcing our politicians to serve our needs.
…which is why I say we’re pretty fucked. But that’s what needs to happen, anyway.
“Both sides are bad” is correct, but perpetuate the notion that you only can vote on the two different parties. There are other parties you can vote on.
“Literally the only way to stay in power”, do I need to remind OP that they WON the elections? Democracy goes both ways, your “side” doesn’t always win.
Republicans also really love when you vote third party.
Only if you were going to vote Democrat.
Republicans hate republican voters going 3rd party.
Which is why the Republicans are directly helping the Green Party. Because every vote for the Green Party is one less vote for Democrats. Should give you a hint about who voting third party helps.
Because every vote for the Green Party is one less vote for Democrats
that’s not true. many people would vote for a green candidate but would never vote for a war party candidat.
I usually see it as calling out the political capture of the two-party system which has rendered the United States an oligarchy with increasingly dysfunctional democratic functions. Quite often it is a call out of the partisanship that reinforces the rigidity of the two party system and preventing any positive or lasting reform. At the very least those are the valid contexts I know of for bringing up any both-sideism of the two American political parties.
But yes, the Republicans do win when there is less voting.
Now the question is which is easier, convincing millions of people to vote for “anyone not a republican” or convincing a candidate to be more than “not republican”
Hey, primaries are around now. It’s a great time for that!
Participate in primaries. THIS is the election you want for that.
You mean Republican, right?
;)
Same as Democrats are not democratic, Republicans are not republican. ;)
Hard work undoing the newspeek this deep into the Orwellian hole.
Past, you should probably read that book you’re quoting.
Newspeak was the idea that removing words from people’s vocabulary would remove the thoughts from their head, therefore becoming an avenue for control. Despite the Sapir-Worf hypothesis being bunked, I don’t think it was at the time.
What words were they removing from your vocabulary, how do you believe it is controling you? Modern examples would be something like ‘Unalive’ I guess, but not really. Sponsors trying to get you stop using the word dead, and talking about death. But, unalive is a work around, not enforced, so not really newspeak.
I want to preface this by saying that I do vote in every election, and I think everyone should exercise their right to vote.
That being said, both parties are bad. We’re in a class war, and the Democrats are just as beholden/part of the oligarchy as the Republicans are.
The Republicans are definitely worse than the Democrats. There’s no question there, but what we really need is a fucking revolution.
Also, it’s ridiculous for someone to think that every “Both sides suck” posts are bought and paid for propaganda. Some may be. I’d be surprised if it didn’t happen sometimes. But, the majority are probably just understandably frustrated people.
We shouldn’t be policing people’s expression of frustration with the system. If someone can’t express frustration without being told they’re a shill or a propagandist, they’re not suddenly going to become an engaged happy partisan. Instead, they’re probably just going to get even more disillusioned with the process and will stop talking about it and maybe stop voting altogether.
The democratic party sucks. It bends over backwards to help out corporate interests. It’s more interested in winning the next election cycle than it is in making important changes. It often goes wherever the wind blows without having any conviction.
OTOH, the republicans are much worse. They’re hell bent on enacting racist and sexist policies that will ensure straight, white, christian men remain in power. They’re currently led by an absolute moron who’s by far the most corrupt person I’ve ever seen in my life.
So, the options are currently between a status quo party that might not make your life better, vs a party led by a chaos gremlin which will systematically destroy everything within its reach. Voting for the lesser of two evils may be annoying, but it’s often important.
Another problem with the Democrats, even if the next election cycle boots these fascist fucks, it doesn’t automatically roll back all the damage the Nazis have done. Sure, the Democrats will repair some of the damage, but realistically, the needle never gets moved all the way back by the Dems.
They also have a history of not rolling back some of the damage, intentionally leaving some stuff broken. It sucks. But, when the two options for voting are the guys who don’t always repair all of the damage vs. the guys intentionally breaking things, it’s an easy choice.
But, while it may be obvious who any sane person should vote for, it’s also clear that voting should not be the only thing people do. Otherwise you really do get stuck with those 2 terrible options.
For me, Elizabeth Warren is one of the few really outstanding democrats. But, her political career wouldn’t exist without the protests after the 2007/08 financial collapse that led to the creation of the CFPB. The only reason that Massachusetts residents have the ability to vote for her as a senator is that they first protested against the bank bailouts and the evictions and forced the government to do something about that.
I refuse to stop shit talking democrats, if they weren’t absolutely complicit warmongers we wouldn’t be in this mess in the first place.
Nobody is saying not to shit talking them, people are saying that nuance is needed. We need to push for better representatives. BUT. When the general election happens, we need to vote Democrat because REPUBLICANS ARE FUCKING FASCISTS. Because while both sides suck, both sides do not suck equally. So shit talk your Democrats, as long as you shit talk your Republicans even more. Or do they get a pass because you write them off as evil?
Does your shit talking drive people away from voting for Democrats when the vote is Dem vs Repub? If so, you support fascism. Plain and simple.
Put your energy into change where it matters: Primaries, other offices, pushing society back to the left away from fascism. Make sure you’re not helping the fascists win.
The OP meme is not calling for nuance, it’s saying that if you’re shittalking democrats you’re helping Republicans win.
My democrat state rep sucks and is in practice a thinly-veiled Republican coasting on incumbency and people not investigating beyond the ‘D’
My federal rep (D) has been actively complicit in perpetuating the genocide in Palestine and allowing Trump to walk all over Venezuela. I actually put in a lot of effort with antiwar groups to try to sway them in the past. What I learned is that when it comes to war and empire if they want to climb the ranks in DC they’re going to tow the line.
Open Republicans are obviously worse, but theyre also a non factor in my state, they just run for ‘nonpartisan’ seats or pose as democrats. This is also why i chaff at vote-bluers, they will act like challenging an incumbent ‘democrat’ who sucks is somehow helping Republicans
How so?
What do you mean how so?
The democrats are prolific warmongers, they just think they’re smarter about it than Republicans.
Oh I’m not arguing that, I’m just asking how that would have kept us out of this mess.
If they weren’t prolific warmongers and instead did things that were actually popular at home then they would probably be seen as more trustworthy and not lost to Trump repeatedly, idk how more to spell it out for you
If you are form the US, you are having your primaries by now.
Those are the ones where good people appear and need your vote to stay on the race. Go participate there, instead of complaining about the main election.
This is the correct answer.
The people who support the “both sides bad” argument and the “protest non-voters” are children who still need their parents to order their tendies for them at Chili’s.
- Get involved.
- Understand the actual candidates.
- Vote in the primaries.
The general election should be the last step in executing your civic duties and by that time you should be voting for your team.
You gotta keep voting the lesser of two evils for the main elections, while voting for the best alternatives you can find locally.
If you guarantee your vote to someone, they will lose any incentive to act for your benefit. It’s really that simple. And if genocide is not a bridge too far for you, God help you, because obviously there’s no limit to what you’ll put up with.
The idea is that you vote for the most pragmatic option at every election. No vote should be guaranteed, but at the same time it’s still your civic duty to make a choice as a voter.
I understand the idea. I’m pointing out the big flaw in that idea. And I disagree that it’s your civic duty to “just vote”.
Good thing Trump ended the genocide!
Anything to not have to grapple with the idea that just voting blue is not enough, huh? And are we going to pretend that Biden didn’t gleeflully pour billions into the genocide?
Yes, don’t vote at all. Better to have more genocide but having the moral high ground of not having voted for less.
Right, but that’s also no excuse for running lesser monsters on the other side. We have every right to refuse all monsters no matter their severity.
As a lifelong Independent, this post can F all the way off.
Yes, this is my civil, indoor voice.
Don’t you MFing tell me not to have opinions and free will, and that I should change who I am so I don’t make a bunch of establishment Dems that genuinely don’t care if I’m alive or dead have bad feels. Maybe the Dems should Fing field people that don’t gobble billionaire scroat like they invented it.
And Democrats can maybe, just once in a while, not happily fundraise and capitulate and do the policy strategy version of pump and dump schemes around the central point of “hey, we’re not the Nazis, we’re the mildly annoying guys that whimper when Nazis do Nazi shit, but do eventually give them everything they want. So it’s Nazi shit FAST or Nazi shit less fast with some of us around :D”
“Both sides suck” posts should encourage anyone with guts to see how much of the country wants a god damned set of independent candidates or even, (shudder) another MFing option between Shibag A and XXXL Shitbag B. People need to shed the chains of both parties and run at the local level. Give both sides a fucking scare.
Vote who you want. More power to you. But if you vote independent in a presidential election, you’re a goddamn idiot. Full stop. Because you are voting for someone who literally cannot win.
If you’re not even willing to vote against the fascists your laziness is hampering your ability to contribute to a real revolution.
If you can’t tell the difference between the greater evil and the lesser evil then your lack of nuance is hampering your ability to contribute to a real revolution.
If you don’t understand that our voting system is designed to ensure that there are only two viable parties then your lack of education is hampering your ability to contribute to a real revolution.
If you vote, and do nothing else to contribute to positive change, then your laziness and cowardice is hampering your ability to contribute to a real revolution.
Fortunately, these are all fixable issues. You can grow into a more capable person. If enough of us do that we CAN make positive changes to the country, and the world at large.
We CAN oust the fascists. We CAN build a voting system that actually allows for a reasonable bredth of choice. We CAN fix this country. I’m not asking you to give up your opinions or your free will. I’m not asking you to worship the Democrats, or even like them. I’m not asking you to turn a blind eye to all the harmful things democrats have done.
I’m asking you to use your brain and actually steer your actions towards actually making a difference. Part of that is using the resources at your disposal strategically. Closing your eyes to reality and refusing to vote against the fascist isn’t going to change the democrats, nor will it replace them with something better. All it does is pointlessly give up ground to the fascists.
Gurl…what you’re not understanding is: liberals and the Democratic Party are the fascists, too. Notice how Dems in office are still voting to fund ICE and fund the Israeli genocide and how they’re still voting in Trump’s nominees and still giving Trump standing ovations at his State of the Union (yeah Elizabeth Warren and John Ossoff did that). The reason: all of these Dem politicians are funded by the same billionaires and foreign lobbies that fund Republican politicians. Who funds you controls you.
If you’re not even willing to vote against the fascists
Saying I want more options than fascists and fascist-enablers isn’t not being willing to vote. Tell me which party our old friend Bernie Sanders is part of and maybe you’ll see what’s possible.
However, it’s insulting to dictate my actions and force me to accept the Democratic party as anything remotely resembling scavengers who enable Republicans to do whatever they want in hopes they fuck up so they can pick up seats as the “other guys.” Which is what they do when they’re not fucking up and just whiffing reasonable opportunities because they are driven by money and billionaires just as much as the Republicans.
I’m asking you to use your brain
My friend, look at how brainwashed you are to lick Dem boots because you think they’re tastier than some oversized Florsheim shoes. I’m asking you to get off your knees and get everyone’s boots out of your mouth.
Goes to Vegas.
“I don’t care how dumb you think I am, I’m not playing the game your way. If I don’t get four of a kind on the first deal, then I fold. Take my money, see if I give a fuck, I can always make more. I want fucking four of a kind, goddammit, and I want it on a fresh deal.”
That’s how you sound.
