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cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/16451158
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“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. :)
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.
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.
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.
Nope. Did not miss your point at all. You seemed to miss mine, and doubled down.
A lack of good options in the general is a sign of poor turnout in primaries.
Ah america. The ‘do nothing and hope for the best’ system of election.
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.
Exactly. And a two party system basically ensures that.
I mean, both sides DO suck. But the decision being made boils down to which side you think has the best chance of leading to an eventual outcome that doesn’t suck. I’m not voting for a party I like, because frankly that doesn’t exist as a viable option, but I’m not going to not vote just because neither side is better than a 3/10. I’d rather the 3/10 than the 1/10.
I think there’s real value in being honest about your feelings. The people who represent us need to know we think they suck. The people around us need to feel like others have the same struggles we do. The space for nuance does exist.
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.
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
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
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.
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.
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.
both sides are pretty bad, but you still gotta get on the bus
That doeant mean you have to get on one of the two major busses. It’s completely fine to pick a third smaller bus. It might take longer to arrive, but it doesn’t smell like someone pissed on the seat.
ranked choice voting would open up so many more bus routes
This post is designed to keep people voting for the purple party.
Look around the world. Most places [have systems that] do not succumb to this corrupt harmful stupidity.
Vote and organise harder around independents and “3rd party” candidates. Especially any seeking to implement proportional representation, ranked choice voting, direct democracy, etc. Double especially for any seeking to eliminate the various layers of corruption in the democratic system, such as proprietary voting machines, voter suppression, the electoral college, lobbying, gerrymandering, etc.
And most of all… stop falling for it.
Your suggestion works for local/state elections. It does not work for presidential elections and won’t anytime in the foreseeable future.
When it comes to the presidential election, you are voting Republican, Democrat, or acknowledging you are fine with the worse case scenario.
“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.
People who won’t vote for the Democrats don’t necessarily see the world the same way as people who do vote D. Really go have a look at https://www.politicalcompass.org/uselection2020
There are ethical lines some people actually won’t cross, e.g. voting for the Ds who make anthropogenic climate change worse and so are causing a mass extinction, sell weapons to people actively committing a genocide, further an economic system that rewards narcissistic sociopaths and punishes ethical people, …
Go look at the linked graph above again. You may not agree, but understand that there are people who do, and to get these people to vote for the Ds, you need to convince them why voting for omnicidal, genocidal, greedy sociopaths is the right thing to do. The “lesser evil” argument doesn’t work on them, because if you look at the linked graph above and compare the distances between the parties, and understand there are ethical lines between the Ds and leftists/socialists/Greens/etc. they won’t cross; then it means vastly better arguments need to be put forth. Yes the Rs are psychopaths and openly racist, but compared to the slightly less (compare the distances on the graph) sociopathic Ds, then
“It is infinitely better to vote for freedom and fail than to vote for slavery and succeed.” - Eugene V. Debs, Appeal to Reason, 1900-10-13.
“Wage-labor is but a name; wage-slavery is the fact.” - Eugene V. Debs, The Socialist Party and the Working Class 1904-09-01
If there are no ethical options, then activity making the world more evil isn’t something these people will do.
Yeah but not voting just shifts everything further right.
voting establishment dems… also shifts everything further right
You gotta keep voting the lesser of two evils for the main elections, while voting for the best alternatives you can find locally.
