All of this… it could have been stopped. We don’t have to love (or even like) the Democrats, but it was such an important election, and everybody was screaming to vote against fascism. Well, a lot of people couldn’t be bothered, and it’s here now. Hope our country survives this administration…
It’s in part because Biden ran on opposing fascism, got elected, and then did nothing to oppose fascism. He sold himself as a dragonslayer, but once he got in, he didn’t want to upset the pro-dragon crowd.
So, yeah, when his protege ran the exact same campaign, it didn’t instill a lot of confidence.
He slow walked us to this, Trump should have been jailed, convicted, and in the dirt by now. But no, the neo-liberals didn’t want to upset the MAGAts or something. His speech about needing both Democrats and Republicans made me SICK.
I can’t help but feel like it’s also in part because a good amount of folks are just… as delicately as I can put it… the kind of people that pick up a fork to eat a bowl of soup.
The rationale I have heard from tons and tons of voters just makes absolutely no god damn sense at all. There’s of course mass manipulation and all that but goodness gracious, the complete lack of critical thinking skills is astounding.
I feel this. My in-laws voted for Trump because Biden was going to outlaw Catholicism in the United States. Absolute lunatics.
Jesus fucking Christ, the man is himself a practicing Catholic!
Propaganda works.
Exactly. People are in here with rational arguments as if these people think rationally.
And this includes pro-Israel Democratic voters (and yes, there are a lot of them, and yes, a candidate would lose their vote if they made a strong stance on Israel).
Terminally online know-it-alls with no concept of how any of this shit actually works outside of the vacuum of their theory books, telling us we’re wrong because we told them to vote.
Yeah, like I went down the conspiracy theory rabbit hole because of all the fuckery around 9/11 but then left the Alex Jones part of it when it became clear he didn’t really gaf about changing anything, which meant he either didn’t believe it or was working with them instead of against them (leaning more towards him just making shit up, though I did still believe that things weren’t what they seemed with how society was run). The nail in the coffin for me was a very high production value video explaining what was going on that ended with a “but I have an answer, wait for the next video to find out!” And I’m thinking “wait, cliffhangers are engagement bait, not something you should say after talking about how the elites want to reduce the world population to like 100 million. He’s just in it for the money, also how the fuck is he producing such high production quality videos?”
It wasn’t aligned with either US politics “side” and subscribed to the “it’s all an act, they are all buddy buddy behind closed doors” point of view, but I came out of it around the end of the Bush era, was happy to see Obama win but disappointed in how his actual presidency went (he seemed to have the resolve of a wet noodle when it came to actually fighting for the right things.
It was baffling as fuck when the conspiracy theory crowd was aligned behind fucking Donald Trump, of all people. Seemed like the poster boy for the elites rather than a saviour. I didn’t watch a ton of the apprentice but none that I did see gave me any kind of positive impression of him. He just seemed like the asshole type of boss.
Pizzagate was also stupid as fuck (why the fuck would a pedophile ring for rich people operate out of the basement of a public building?). And gamergate was one of the lamest whiny things I’ve seen (though not sure how much of that came from the conspiracy side, it might have been going after a different audience).
Like I get how it feels going down that rabbit hole, things that were confusing can make more sense and there’s truth at the core of it, but you need to continue using critical thought or you just end up becoming someone’s tool. The enemy of your enemy is not necessarily your friend!
Maxim 29: The enemy of your enemy is your enemy’s enemy. No more. No less.
They aren’t stupid, they are selfish and ego driven, and they base success/goodness on the number in their bank account.
The fact the most Americans sell their morals is a part of the culture and something that needs to change before things get better.
That is a really stupid reason to let a fascist win though. Like, why should I respect or align myself with such a stupid group of people?
Like, why should I respect or align myself with such a stupid group of people?
Which is exactly the question they were asking. You want someone to blame, it’s the DNC.
You don’t have to align with someone you vote for in a FPTP system.
And no, your suggestion is based on a false dichotomy. I blame the DNC AND the non-voters. I can despise both and do.
And no, your suggestion is based on a false dichotomy. I blame the DNC AND the non-voters. I can despise both and do.
Exactly. Fucking tired of this “blame the dnc, not the voters” bullshit. I blame both.
I’m starting to find it odd that these people seem to be unable to grasp this.
So you have no care of causal relationships whatsoever so long as you get to spew your hate at everyone.
On lemmy? No. I’m not here to make friends. I’m here to scream into the void.
IRL, I have to hold in my thoughts usually unless I want to endanger my well being in multiple ways because pissing almost everyone you know off is a fast way to end up a homeless pariah.
Just because I’m not sure you understood, causal was not a typo. I did not mean casual.
If your only options are the fascist or the guy who promised to bring the fascist to justice but actually didn’t even try, then your problem isn’t getting solved by voting in that election.
Who said I thought voting would solve the problem? You aren’t engaging with my core issue: non-voters were content to let Trump win. Are they worth my time and effort morally? Why?
I already know the DNC doesn’t align with me perfectly, as a mutualist I’m against private property. But they’re not fascists. I mostly just hate the DNC because of their weakness and ineptitude even more so than the liberal ideology.
That said, at least with the DNC, there is something I can get out of them politically with theoretically much less effort compared to the masses of non-voting 2024 morons who engaging with would be akin to trying to herd cats.
Hell, at this point: I don’t even care anymore. I kind of hate the non-voters enough that I’m now fueled by spite for them. I don’t care who wins elections anymore because I just can’t fucking give a shit. Its obviously out of my hands and the non-voters are getting what they deserve.
I only feel sorry for the people who are faultless, like the millions starving to death because Trump’s admin illegally shut down USAID, or the ICE round ups of innocent immigrants where they’re probably being human trafficked, raped, and murdered.
Maybe if you stopped viewing every single election as “this one has to solve everything”
It’s not “this one has to solve everything” so much as “this one needs to even demonstrate an attempt at the promises given.”
In 2008 Obama ran on codifying Roe v. Wade, but once he was in office? “It’s not the time.” The DNC has been lying to progressives since before I could vote.
The DNC is a bunch of completely corrupt people who were okay with Trump winning in 2016 and 2024 due to their own stupid antics fucking with elections and ignoring the will of the voters.
But again, the other side is literal Nazis. It’s not completely weird to think that the DNC should have gotten away with their BS.
Scratch a neo-liberal a nazi bleeds. The fact ANY Dem has voted for any Trump nominee is a disgrace. They’ve lost the argument they’re the paid opposition with me entirely. I don’t subscribe to their BS talking about the actual left now because they marginalize us when we’re winning or they’re in charge, the whip us as the blame for losing.
As much as that’s true this was all necessary. Biden wouldn’t have gotten anything passed that would fix our current situation. The MAGAts controlled the house.
Look at all the progressive candidates that are already winning elections. After this if there isn’t a supermajority in both house and senate than the country was lost long ago.
And those people are still insisting that we don’t blame them for the consequences of their decisions.
Of course, and I don’t fault them the impulse. No one likes being told they fucked up, which was why many of us were so vocal before the election. I don’t even want to assign blame, instead to just help them to understand that (if our democracy can withstand this), we genuinely need them…
Like you, I was a consequentialist before the election. I’m struggling to stay that way and now I might be a virtue ethicist who hates all US citizens who were not consequentialist before November 5th 2024 because I think they’re just shit fucking people not worth saving.
Part of me wants to be wrong. I want to be convinced. And yet I’m always going to be deeply fucking resentful if I find myself helping these people ever again. I shouldn’t have to lift a fucking finger. Doing so literally psychologically hurts.
The roughly third who are completely on board with the fourth reich even when it decimates their family business or even entire town are lost. They’ll have their epiphany about how bad a particular policy is, but somehow it’s either OK in light of all the ‘good’ that Donvict is doing or the fault of some underling.
The non voting third will just keep doing nothing. So long as the bread* and circuses keep rolling in, they won’t notice anything until full on collapse.
Even if some sort of magic happens and a sweep of the house and senate were to happen, replete with all of them executed as traitors or jailed for life… we’ve addressed none of the root problems of a completely bought and sold political system that none of us are a part of.
I just think that the blame should be squarely on the people who actively voted for the fascism.
There were more non-voters than there were voters for Orangina
I’m going to keep holding them accountable too!
But what if we can find a way to scream at people that agree with us on 80-90% of issues instead? That seems more productive than focusing on the actual Nazis!
Not lifting a finger against fascism is actively voting for fascism. Yes, the choices were all bad, but one was obviously much, much worse and they made a choice. Nobody gets a pass for gross negligence simply because irresponsible decisions were lower-effort than others.
“don’t blame me, I voted for 90% Hitler!”
So is Harris the “90% Hitler” in this case? Because, yeah no.
Because, yes.
We can jump into Gaza, or just start with . . . https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-election/kamala-harris-tough-migration-pitch-border-points-shifting-national-mo-rcna172850
Though it doesn’t really matter, since your centrist neoliberal ate shit and lost anyways. Is there a German word maybe for when you sell your soul and still wind up broke?
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Absolutely correct.
Though people still need to take responsibility for their vote (or non-vote). It was not impossible or even difficult to keep up with that shit in 2024, and anyone talking about the price of eggs on Nov 5 was a fucking moron.
We had some of the highest voter turnout in US history in the last several federal elections.
Turn out rates or total turnout?
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It’s important for perspective that we remember how thin the line is between winning and losing. A very minor shift in voter turnout is all it takes to flip the game. The good news for us in this is that we don’t need to take the last election as a sign that the entire world is lost - we have every opportunity to change things. You could say it shouldn’t be this close, and you wouldn’t be wrong, but that’s also a pretty pointless whinge. Nothing worth having has ever been won without a fight, so we shouldn’t gripe about having to face one ourselves.
Hope our country survives this administration…
I often do hope it survives but then realize I don’t even really know why. Its still a country dominated by people willing to throw people under the bus for personal gain, nationalism/racism, and their hatred of LGBT. And among the non-voters, you have proudly ignorant morons, & people pearl clutching over their personal virtue, & people hoping for the slight chance of a violent revolution where their ideology comes out on top of all the corpses in their delusional imagination.
Like, why should I care? Why do I care? It makes no fucking sense.
I want the Nazis to lose because it should be apparent. But you’re on the money, this country at its core and history has had issues long before this. The Dems were pretty radical anti-LGBT before they became a significant force in politics. They were content to just ignore them at best.
Why does America deserve to survive, as a nation built on stolen land and slavery and maintained through imperialism and colonialism?
‘It’s the dems fault for putting a brown woman as a candidate.’
“Of course I am not a misogynist! And definitely not racist, I have a black friend!”
Even if she was an old white guy, being a scumbag neoliberal who would not condemn genocide would have lost the election. Being brown and a woman made her an even harder sell. People are sick and tired of neoliberal dirtbags that do everything in their power to screw over regular people while gaslighting them about it. That’s not an excuse to refuse to vote against full-blown fascism, but there needs to be a reckoning against neoliberalism and capitalism in general before anything will change.
No more neolib candidates.
Low charisma brown woman from California fails to convince racist, mysogist country to vote for her.
Yes, both parties suck, and you are allowed to dislike both, but they don’t suck equally and not (completely) in the same way and you are obliged to decide for yourself which party sucks harder, which you dislike more, and most importantly - which are you the most scared of getting into power.
Just because you don’t want to be neither leftist nor rightist doesn’t mean you need to aim for the dead center. That’s as dogmatic as aiming for one of the extremes, and in fact dumber because it’s not even motivated by any ideology.
Also people who chase the word “moderate” because they desperately cling to the idea that being nonchalant in politics is a good thing are so focused on it that they will be a conservative just to avoid the leftmost party even if the left-most party is actually centrist.
Close to what you said, just exposes even more of how dumb it is.
Isn’t it fascinating both sides are bad argument has been most effective in convincing those on the left to not vote?
Meanwhile that argument doesn’t tend to work on the right and they brush it off and go out to vote consistently.
The data disagrees with you, though.
Could of fooled me. Guess orange didn’t win. Guess we can also ignore tendency of populations to also be drawn to fascism during economic tough times. Didn’t know voter suppression benefits leftists more than the right.
What socialist progressives in the Democratic Party need to do is what the Tea Party Republicans did over 15 years ago. The whole party needs to be reformed from the ground up at every available primary. They’ll actually get shit done if they get the centrists and corporate boot lickers out of the party.
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i feel like i’m gonna be reposting this image for eternity
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Yeah except it’s bullshit. Plenty (maybe most) people I’ve seen on here are capable of doing both.
This is just some strawman bullshit. These people are not your enemy, stop misrepresenting them.
Essentially everyone on the Left considers Liberals fair-weather friends at best and certainly not anyone who’d stick their neck out for voters.
And they consider anyone who doesn’t subscribe to their very specific form of leftism to be a “liberal.”
Psa: when reading the comments remember that maga want you demotivated and to stay home and just take it. Because they will vote, and they will not split their vote.
I’ve noticed both sides arguments have been most effective in convincing leftists to not vote.
But the right doesn’t seem to be affected by it and comes out to vote consistently no matter what.
Aye. Funny, that.
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Here’s the thing: When you don’t vote, you COULD be saying that both candidates are bad, and you don’t like either of them…
Or you could be saying that both candidates are great, and you love both of them. That you’re sure either of them will do an equally good job of running the country, so it doesn’t matter who wins.
And if you don’t feel that way, then you need to VOTE
Here’s the thing, when both of your parents beat you within an inch of your life, you COULD be saying that both are bad and you don’t want either of them to have custody.
Or you could be saying both parents are great and you love both of them. That you’re sure either of them will do an equally good job of raising you, so it doesn’t matter who gets custody.
And if you don’t feel that way, you have to pick one!
Here’s the thing: When you don’t vote, you COULD be saying that both candidates are cannibalistic racist pedophile human traffickers, and you don’t like either of them…
Of you could be saying that both candidates are great, and you love both of them. That you’re sure either of them will do an equally good job of running the country, so it doesn’t matter who wins.
And if you don’t feel that way, then you need to VOTE
Good thing that those who didn’t want to vote for either party have mentioned their reasons over and over so we don’t have to guess what they might or could potentially say.
We know what they said. And it’s not the latter.
I mean yeah, this is a correct analogy. Pick one.
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Acting like voting D would fix anything is a huge part of the problem.
Acting like not voting at all would fix anything is a huge part of the problem. Yeah the Democrats not going to do anything, but you know what that means, the Democrats won’t do anything. They won’t embarass America on the world stage every day, they won’t fund the Gestapo to assault minorities and they won’t threaten allies with invasion.
Sure the Democrats suck, the whole damn system sucks but it’s a whole lot better for a whole lot of people when the Republicans are not in charge.
They won’t embarass America on the world stage every day, they won’t fund the Gestapo to assault minorities and they won’t threaten allies with invasion.
Yaaay we get decorum and stability at home so we can ignore the Palestinians / Yemenis / Somalis / etc being bombed overseas! Hopefully the bomb will even be dropped by a diverse team under the Dems!
That’s a single issue. I agree it’s shitty all around. But there are hundreds of issues that are more important. Namely allowing children to be molested, people dying from not having healthcare, and deporting parents and stranding children just to name a few.
It’s shitty all around. It’s even shittier when it turns into a pissing contest of shittiness.
Palestinians / Yemenis / Somalis / etc
I’m confused how supporting and engaging in genocide and bombing humans in multiple countries with unique circumstances is both a single issue separate to and less important than doing the same (without bombs) nearer to home.
I guess everyone has a different tolerance for blood on their hands…
Imagine you have a house that is managed by landlords. The landlords have changed ownership and management many times and allowed the plumbing and heating and electricity to become inoperable. Now there are termites.
At some point management put in an HOA and made it so the HOA kicks your neighbors out without any consideration.
We have bigger internal issues. It ain’t my blood. All Americans are fully aware we should not be financing anything like that.
The landlords are burning down houses on the other side of town with the renters trapped inside. Then they start doing the same in another neighborhood, then another in the city. When do you start thinking they’ll do the same to you regardless of the termites and rot?
Internal issues aren’t bigger. They’re more personally dangerous. You’re simply saying human life near you is more important than human life elsewhere. If absolutely nothing else, paying taxes makes it blood on Americans hands.
Given that the US is engaging in the wars it’s clear that not all Americans are fully aware. I mean there are still a ton of conservatives who are pro-Zionism.
That said i know the left is growing and stronger every day. I know there’s people trying to fix things. The people I’ve known who are most effective never considered the border when valuing the state’s actions.
- Joe Biden had the files and did not release them, so miss me with the “only dems will save the kids” shit
- I don’t know why you’re implying we need to pick one or the other, but claiming that (at most) 100 - 200 western children being molested takes precedence over thousands of Palestinian children being murdered displays your white supremacist mindset.
- Parents being deported and stranding children is terrible. It is not more terrible than parents being murdered and children being murdered. What the fuck are you talking about?
Jesus Christ dude. You are insufferable. Read all the rest of your comments.
Being insufferable to Blue MAGA means I’m doing something right.
constant international war mongering and bombing innocents is a single issue? and not even a major one for you?
jfc death to amerikkka
Oh. So you are just a troll?
Kindly fuck off.
and Russia, and China, and every 1st world country of similar size. Wake up sheeple!
We are living through a time of international tug of war on political influence, resources, and land.
I wouldn’t advocate for not voting, voting third party would be my advice if you don’t want to personally get involved in politics.
voting third party would be my advice
Hope that advice only applies to local/state elections, cuz voting 3rd party for president is about as useful as an asshole on your elbow.
The only reason its as ineffective as it is now is because of people like you spend a ridiculous amount of time and effort shaming those who might consider it.
Saying a third party couldn’t win is factually incorrect, yet its a common phrase on here isn’t it.
Only once has a third party candidate made much progress, and Perot was right-wing/libertarian. You can’t skip right to a third party presidential candidate without making progress with that party locally first, then in Congress. That just how this system works. You can pretend that enough people will spontaneously vote for your same third party candidate, but that’s a demonstrably a fantasy. You can claim that a vote reflects on your own morality rather than something strategic and practical, but that’s a view pushed by people hoping to take advantage of youth vanity and split the vote.
You can’t skip right to a third party presidential candidate without making progress with that party locally first
I swear to God. It’s like trying to tell a child you can’t have ice cream because you’re stranded on a desert island and they KEEP INSISTING that they want ice cream.
It’s infuriating.
Like, it isn’t complicated. You can’t start at the beginning of a board game, roll a 6, and move your piece 57 spaces to the end and win. That’s impossible.
It’s wild how many Americans exist outside reality.
Factually correct but improbable none-the-less.
Sort of, probability isn’t a set thing, and everyone analyzes it differently. Part of the reason it seems so improbable is because people keep saying it is.
The reality is though that the majority want either a republican or democrat, because a majority think America is a good country that just needs a little bit better leadership. I disagree with that assessment, and I won’t vote D or R again.
Saying a third party couldn’t win is factually incorrect
Oh, you like facts?
Here’s one.
In the 2024 election the 3rd party presidential candidate with the most votes only got 0.5% of the total votes cast.
So it is FACTUALLY CORRECT to state a 3rd party can’t win the presidency.
Like, what do you not grasp here? No 3rd party has done the work to become nationally viable. No 3rd party even has a SINGLE member in Congress. It is ACTUALLY IMPOSSIBLE for a 3rd party candidate to win the presidency anytime in the remotely near future. It would take YEARS and YEARS for a 3rd party to become a household name and get members in Congress and actually have a shot at the presidency.
Therefore, voting for a 3rd party candidate for president is akin to wiping your ass with your ballot, smelling it and thinking it smells nice, then flushing it down the toilet.
Well, if we can’t even agree what a fact is, what’s the point of debating this?
Voting D is not the cure for cancer but it seems to be a viable chemo treatment… voting R is like feeding the cancer with yellow #5 and plutonium
Funny how there isn’t only two choices though.
You’re like a gambling addict that keeps saying “but a 1 in a million shot still has a chance to win” as you go bankrupt.
Seek help.
Thats why I’m here!
Not funny at all actually… but that is what you get when Muricans literally do fuck all to protect their own democracy
Democrats are guilty of aiding, and in some cases directly participating in, an internationally-recognized genocide. You are advocating for genocidaires. Democrats are guilty of aiding, and in some cases directly participating in, an internationally-recognized genocide. You are advocating for genocidaires. Democrats are guilty of aiding, and in some cases directly participating in, an internationally-recognized genocide. You are advocating for genocidaires.
Democrats are guilty of aiding, and in some cases directly participating in, an internationally-recognized genocide.
And Republicans eagerly participate in genocide as hard as they can… so when you only have 2 choices to compare, the one that does horrible things some times vs the one that only does horrible things and seeks to do the most horrible things all the time, you probably, maybe, want to go with the lesser evil
You are advocating for genocidaires.
The lesser genocidaires (sic)
x3
“Neither” is a choice
The lesser genocidaires (sic)
lmao at least you’re honest with yourself, that’s more than most Dems. I don’t vote for genocidaires, period.
so you vote for the worst type of genocidaires or knowingly allow them to win by default… you surely are a bastion of morality
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You are advocating for genocidaires.
And you’re advocating for worse by allowing a worse party to win.
This isn’t complicated.
When Biden was president he tried to broker a peace deal. He stated on live TV that he didn’t condone Israel’s methods. And he floated arms shipment cancellations to try to bring Netanyahu to the table.
Trump, on the other hand, is giving Netanyahu two big thumbs up and talking about turning Gaza into a resort destination once all the Palestinians are dead or forcibly removed.
Now, do I need to explain to you how those things are not the same?
I do not care about your feelings. I care about my own nation’s wellbeing first, then after that, I care about helping the Palestinians as much as I can. And helping them as much as I can meant voting Dem, because, as I just made clear, Republicans are WAY WORSE for Palestinians.
Its a common strategy of pretending to be a leftist but playing up the both sides are bad, so don’t vote. Which is the go to strategy if they know the demographic they are targeting won’t vote right, so next best thing is apathy towards voting and taking them out of the equation.
Dems gave me affordable healthcare when I was young and poor.
Last Dem was progressive as fuck, but everyone focused on his age because the TV told them to.
Voting records show Dems regularly vote in favor of average Americans and have for a long, long time.
Sorry bud, reality disagrees with your feelings.
Just because a party isn’t perfect doesn’t mean they aren’t beneficial.
Democratic voters might be decent people, they at least have good intentions for the most part. That does not mean that the solutions their politicians propose are effective or helpful. I’m glad you had cheap healthcare then, but if I starved you for a month and then gave you a meal you’d be thankful for that too.
You should probably go look at the voting history for the Democrat party before you continue this conversation.
I have.
And I don’t let a single vote that didn’t go the way I wanted to turn me off of a party, because then I’d be turned off from all parties, everywhere, forever.
My lefties in here like there isn’t any history of progressive change.
Sure, let me just go check every vote every member of the democratic party has made.
Ok. Do it. You’ll be more educated.
I didn’t review EVERY VOTE EVER.
I went back in time, randomly selecting votes and seeing how Dems voted in comparison to Repubs.
I discovered a pattern of Dems consistently voting in favor of average Americans when Repubs almost never did so.
I’ve also been alive for enough decades to have actually witnessed this trend in real time.
Willful ignorance is certainly a take.
So you are suggesting things would be the exact same if Trump hadn’t been voted in and that you were completely content and fine with a Trump presidency and Republicans holding all branches of power.
You are as much a Trump support as MAGA taking the side of downplaying how bad he is. No different in fact than smart Trump supporters readjusting their message of downplaying criticisms and trying to convince the left to not vote because both sides are equally bad, so please don’t vote.
Very smart right wing strategy of hiding their allegiance acting like they are a leftist, but doing what they can to discourage voting and trying to convince people both are bad since they know they can’t win them over to the right. So next thing is don’t vote.
Seeing the responses here … and it’s no wonder why Trump’s in power.
The .ml’s are gonna .ml - it’s the others that make me wonder.
In person, I don’t really see a whole lot of people in the US admitting or claiming that they didn’t or don’t vote.
I do, however, see a lot of life-long Republicans and known Trump voters making claims like “I don’t really use social media” and “other than the weather I don’t keep up with the news”, both of which I know are lies in many cases.
However, giving them benefit of the doubt on that, they’re admitting something equally as bad: They aren’t educating themselves, they aren’t informed on important matters, and facts do not matter to them. They’re shirking their responsibilities.
Personally, I’ve always, always, always operated under the principle that our rights come with responsibilities, so I find it shameful that so many people are so negligent in that respect.
The one I hear the most is, “I’m an independent voter.” The fools do not want to admit they believe in a pedophile, rapist and felon.
This is why I don’t try to flake on jury duty. Yeah it sucks. I have 3 kids. Money is tight but god damn its so important to show up to shit like that.
Which one do I press to stop Palestinian kids from getting murked?
The US political system is so, so very broken and honestly needs to be built up from scratch.
Voting should be compulsory.
Voting should be accessible.
The bar for entry to run should be much lower and more accessible to people who want to run and make a change.
Preferential voting should be considered.
The people should have veto power over government if there is a vote of no confidence to allow a dissolution of said government and snap elections held to redistribute power in favour of the people.
And so much more. Like getting rid of gerrymandering, electoral college etc. So that the votes actually reflect what the people want. If the country is mostly progressive, then it moves in a progressive direction.
Etc. Etc.
ONE party works towards those things and ONE party does not.
The third party never gets in the room.
And it shouldn’t be like that at all. The government should be a reflection of all the different voices and perspectives of a nation. That way, not one party of whatever colour holds power and everyone can be more easily held accountable.
There’s room for conservation, to keep things like nature parks the way they are and there’s room for progression such as adapting laws to be emerging tech etc.
Absolutely. Progress, as intended.
I can envision how to make voting accessible. I can’t envision how to make it compulsory. Any suggestions?
We get a fine of $50. The purpose is not to punish those who don’t vote but to make the act of voting more palatable.
In Australia, we still get donkey votes and non voters but they’re in the minority, and definitely not in the millions.
So in AU you must vote or it’s a $50 fine?
Yep. Or at least that’s how much it was 10 years ago when someone I knew didn’t vote and purposefully stayed home. Could be a bit more than that now. I think the money goes to the electoral commission and is redistributed as election funds to parties on the next election. Happy to be corrected on that point, though.
We also have preferential voting, which means there’s more than 100 people to vote for. You can pick your top 12 or number every single one in order of preference. This means that your vote counts for something in the end, so there’s no feeling of having your vote wasted if “your side” isn’t elected.
Technically it’s just that you must show up to a polling location and get your name ticked off, if you really can’t handle voting nobody will know if you drop in blank slips.
If you don’t show up and haven’t done a postal vote you get a letter later on asking whether you had a valid reason to not vote, if you don’t have one then pay the fine.
Armed thugs go around and force you to vote at gunpoint.
Make not voting a misdemeanor, fine any registered, eligible voters who don’t cast a ballot whenever there’s an election.
Yes but the other side is a woman.
One side has real Nazis
And the other side seeks to compromise with them.
OK, we fucking know, so? We should let the Nazi’s win because the Democrats are spineless capitalists?
The point is that we can’t count on neo-liberals to do the right thing, they’re complicit in all this. So the Dems as a whole aren’t a party we can rely on until we primary them out.
That’s a shit fucking point. A better point: fascists won and they did not need to.
Neo-liberals are not fascists. They’re greedy, nihilistic, empty husks. But they are not frothing at the mouth for killing gay’s and gassing brown people. Neo-liberals can actually be relied upon to be capitalistic and not give a shit about nationalism or “traditional values” and are generally easier to fight because they don’t operate a cult (or at least not like the fascists do).
Some non-voter’s justification of “they’re both the same” is pants on head regarded.
It’s never not true.
Are you wearily representing yourself in Bart or mocking people like Bart?
The first one.
See, I need to know then how serious that perspective is because for me, blurring the lines between ideologies (even bad ones) is largely just an emotional manipulation tactic.
You call a neo-liberal a fascist and they’ll get really upset. You call a fascist a liberal of any kind… they’ll also get really upset. So if that’s the goal that makes sense. But then leftists will say it to other leftists like its actually true, particularly campists, auth-left, and marxist-leninists will do this and this just seems dumb to me. They are different threats and should be treated differently.
This is the single dumbest meme I’ve ever seen in my life and you should be ashamed because I cannot be ashamed enough for the both of us that you posted this.
Dial 911 and ask the operator to help you get back in school.
Must be your first day on the Internet.
Oh damn you right we should’ve voted for the magical third party that definitely would’ve won
“Oh damn, we should continue to just suffer in this system and not demand better about it because can’t change it!” - That’s what you sound like right now.
I’m in favor of changing the system but I’m not going to let the idea of a better system delude me into thinking that we’re in that improved system already. We absolutely should change the system, but when you look at the system we had at the time of the election, who else were people going to vote for if they didn’t want trump to win? We didn’t have ranked choice, we didn’t even get a primary for the Democrats.
Blaming the Democrats for not winning is taking away the blame and attention away from the people everyone should be mad at, the Republicans. Dems fucked up, but that’s not holding Republicans accountable for what they are doing right now.
We should demand that it be better, but shooting ourselves in the foot while doing it is only going to give us a shot foot
We’re already shooting ourselves in the foot. The Dems, even when they had a trifecta in 2008, were still dropping the ball. They don’t elect effective people, just people who keep ensuring payments go up and not down.
Bullshit.
Very shortsighted indeed.
I probably don’t agree with @beardededsquidward@lemmy.blahaj.zone but he said primary them, not vote third party.
If by common logic voting is power, we need to organize and vote people into office that better represent us. Not just resign ourselves to this fate. I just don’t understand this desire to not put up any fight at all. It seems counter intuitive to survival.
I just don’t understand this desire to not put up any fight at all. It seems counter intuitive to survival.
Bitter and deep spite and resentment. Disgust. Self destructive stubborn catharsis in ruining people who you hate even if it destroys you as well.
Just as the campists who actively live in “amerikkka” as I do for US citizen non-voters now.
I’ve voted in primaries for better candidates for the Dems since I could vote, for more progressive people so we have good representation. As much as I hate establishment Dems I’m not going to stop trying if for it. I’m disenfranchised by them more often than not and that makes me angry to want to do something, not be spiteful.
Yeah, but you can’t primary the Dems thoroughly enough before 26 or 28.
So the only VIABLE option in the near term to STOP FASCISM is voting Dem.
But I’m sure a bunch of fools will still do the 3rd party thing come 28.
Normally I’d be fine with them voting 3rd party in midterms, but in case anyone hasn’t noticed, things are getting pretty dark here. This is not the time to fuck around with a 3rd party, even for midterms.
Vote 3rd party in local/state elections AFTER Americans stop getting executed in the street by masked federal goons. And don’t vote 3rd party for president until a 3rd party can actually win the presidency.
Normally I’d be fine with them voting 3rd party
Wake up babe, it’s the most important election f our lifetime again.
Democratic apologists have literally been saying this for 26 years. Your strategy of Vote Blue No Matter Who is what brought you to this point.
You want to just have the problems go away without any struggle. And it’s not gonna happen.
I was mostly responding to the first part but yeah, definitely primary the fuckers out.
No third party candidate could have lost as bad as Kamala did. Presidency and both Houses.
ALL third party candidates in the last 50 years have always lost everything. Also, Kamala wasn’t running for house or senate.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_party_(U.S._politics)#Electoral_results
She was running for Presidency. And lost. Badly. As her party lost both houses.
Pick any third party, they won just as much as Kamala did - and didn’t spend a billion and a half to do so.
What, so you and I are as successful at federal elections as any third party?
I mean - okay. But some idiots gave them $200 Million for that. We did it for free, apparently.
I’m saying they’re an unworkable idea at almost any price.
Objectively wrong because there were third party candidates already on the ballot! How could you say they would’ve won when they already were running and lost?! “Oh they would’ve won if they were there” They were there! [These are they!](Third-party and independent candidates for the 2024 United States presidential election - Wikipedia https://share.google/xcOuOQvNZvwLprps9)
I didn’t say they would’ve won, stop moving goal posts.
I said they couldn’t have lost more than Kamala did. Because it was a binary thing on three counts?
Did she win the Presidency? No.
Did she keep the Senate? No.
Did she win the House? No.
No matter what you think of Claudia De La Cruz or Jill Stein, it’s just a simple fact neither one of them could have given a worse outcome than that one. And given the resources Kamala had, that’s particularly pathetic.
So are you saying that the third party candidates would’ve won given her resources and backing?
Blaming the Democrats for what the Republicans are doing is like blaming the guy who opened the door for the serial killer to get into the house. Yeah, you shouldn’t have done that, yeah, you fucked up, yeah, you knew what would happen, but that’s not the same level of bad as the actual serial killer stabbing people. It’s even shifting blame away from the serial killer and holding the killer less accountable.
They could have won, people like you harassing others is part of the reason they didn’t. Go ahead and keep acting like the smartest guy in the room, you just look like a petulant child trying to force others to agree with you.
Nope
So the Dems as a whole aren’t a party we can rely on until we primary them out.
Not happening before 26 or 28.
So your solution?
And please don’t say 3rd party. It’s obvious to anyone that pays attention that no 3rd party is viable and won’t be for a long, long time, if ever. No 3rd party has made themselves a household name. No 3rd party even has a SINGLE member in Congress. In the 2024 election the most popular 3rd party candidate only got 0.5% of the total votes cast.
Not happening.
So…
There’s some primaries left for 2026 to vote in, work from there. The neo-liberal dems are bad but they’re not worm brained at least. Just hope they don’t put fucking Newsom up for 2028 otherwise it’ll be same as it ever was with him.
Its going to happen. So, get your 3rd party together, or climb the DNC because y’all now have . . . . Less than three years to become political leaders.
If only the corporate Dems were actually on the good side… Sigh.
At least they aren’t openly nazis. When presented with two evils, pick the lesser. If you don’t pick either, bigger evil benefits for you not voting rather than voting against it.
I know, it feels pointless when the opposition is only marginally
betterless evil. But I am reminded this one motivational speaker who told me you have to make it difficult as possible for them:If enough people always vote for lesser evil, and demand justice and accountability, it accumulates. Sure, a political party may spend a minimal effort to brush the one protestor off, but many will be more difficult to ignore. Eventually they have commit political capital and resources to answer the dissatisfaction, even if it’s to defend themselves. And those are resources they have to divert from the usual fuckupperies. At some point it will be easier to budge to the demand of a large demographic.
If a politician can ignore a demographic for free, they will. An act of small resistance is still resistance.
Have you ever read the essay entitled “Who Goes Nazi?”
In the end, when people are dying like they are now, they don’t really care who are white supremacists and who are cheerleading the white supremacists. If you vote for a corporate Democrat who votes to fund ICE, I guessthat’s better than voting for Donald Trump. But it’s not going to help people who are in death camps or people who already died or families that have been torn apart.
Sometimes voting for the second worst candidate isn’t good enough. Sometimes you need to do a lot more if you want to live your life with dignity and decency. Unfortunately, posts like this are designed to oversimplify life and convince people to give up. But I think that’s a load of bullshit. I think we can do better, and it all starts from recognizing that the Democrats are not going to save us unless we force them to.
It’s easy to blame the people who stayed home and it’s hard to take responsibility for your own potential.
No corporation is ever on your side. There’s a reason why authors for over a century have been writing dystopian books about them going back to the gilded age.
Better than Nazis
Coulda… Woulda… Shoulda had Bernie!
Just commenting to get it past 88 comments. Crisis averted.
