2020 was… truly unique. It was so hard to stay away from doom scrolling, and I (and many others) were pretty disillusioned by the sad fact that so much of our country legitimately supported the Orange Man. I didn’t get a wink of sleep the night of the election because I genuinely considered it to be a make or break decision for America.
My point is that looking back on it, in the end the only real difference I made was at the ballet box. This year I’m going for the Head-in-the-Sand approach. I’m done with the political memes. Done with the Twitter screenshots. It just riles me up and this year I’m gonna do my best to fight that.
Unless he dies, I’m voting Biden. I don’t like him, but, best option.
Truly hoping Cheeto chimp gets thrown in jail and disqualified.
I’ve tried to avoid news well before anyway.
If Trump is the Republican nominee I would vote for Biden even if he was dead.
Honestly, which one of the other candidates would you vote for in Trump’s stead? All of them suck and kiss trump’s ass.
None of them this time around. Christie is a moderate, but he will be out pretty soon. I’m surprised he’s hung on this long, although I’m happy that he has because he and Hutchinson are the only ones with the guts to tell the truth about Trump. Hutchinson hasn’t been polling high enough to be in the debates, but at least he’s on the sidelines saying Trump is trash.
Out of the declared candidates, my preference would probably be Christie or Haley as the nominee. I still wouldn’t vote for them, but they would be better than the others if the Republicans somehow win.
Overall, it’s a pretty piss poor field on both sides. If Biden was 15 years younger I would consider it a pretty solid ticket.
I hope Antony Blinken eventually runs. For me, he’s the brightest star in a pretty solid administration. Best Secretary of State in decades.
I realize you said this, but I still have to clarify what a dumpster fire that whole field is on that side.
I still wouldn’t vote for them, but they would be better than the others if the Republicans somehow win.
Christie is as petty as trump, he held up ambulances and shit to get back at someone. He also let his employees take the blame for him for that. He shut down a beach and decided it was a good idea to take himself and his family to his own private beach. The only reason he stands up to trump is because he wasn’t picked as trump’s vp. He’s a POS, imo.
Haley seems to still have ties to russia: https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory/haley-us-forces-align-countries-including-russia-campaign-99816163 I knew she did, but she still does too. Plus, she’s a woman, there’s no way in hell she’ll get enough votes.
I don’t know anything about Blinken, I’ll look into it.
He may be as petty as Trump, but at least he has never planned a coup to overthrow the freaking government. A Republican willing to call out Trump for his bullshit is better than those that continue to lick his asshole imo. Sure it’s a low bar to meet and Christie has a whole other bag of problems, but sadly most don’t seem to get to that bar.
Haley is literally a war monger. She stated she wanted us to get into 3 active wars, with China, Russia and Iran.
You would vote for the candidate who is most likely to start WW3???
No. I said I would not vote for her, although I view her as less problematic than Trump, Ramaswamy and DeSantis. It’s a terrible field. I mean, you’ve got a fascist, a racist and whatever the hell kind of nutcase Ramaswamy is. It’s hard to get on a stage with DeSantis and be the bigger asshole. Haley is none of those things so that’s a start. One of these people has to be the nominee.
Can I write in McCain?
Sure, if you want to waste time and vote as if you didn’t vote at all.
That’s how it typically goes.
Truueee
best take. Dems don’t follow Biden religiously. He’s just better than the godawful alternatives that are on the otherside.
I will stay informed on the issues, but unless the GOP does a 180 on about most of their platform I’m kinda forced to vote Dem (Stop denying climate change, stop trying to de-humanize LGBTQ, stop the culture war shit, come up with a real gun control plan, those would be a start). Hooray 2 party system.
I just turn off the news now, all sources are meant to keep us angry in an “us vs them” situation and never really talk about the real issues, so instead of it just flare up my anxiety and anger I’m just going to keep my headphones on and play games. Someone ping me if suddenly the GOP decides to be pro-humanity again and I need to reconsider my vote.
I hate that I’ve been forced into this same position, I always thought I was open-minded and didn’t follow parties, but when the choice is a literal fascist trying to tear American democracy apart with the worst takes on every position and a generic semi-left-leaning politician trying to maintain the status quo… I guess I’ll just stick with generic status quo, that’s pretty much the only rational choice for a sane individual. Even just sitting out the election isn’t an ethical choice, that’s surrendering to fascism.
If he were to die after the ballots are set but before the election, it effectively becomes a vote for his running mate. Still getting my vote over the dollar-store fuhrer.
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It’s not a question of policy. Republicans literally killed people last election trying to overthrow democracy.
Not that I even like democrats, but anyone who votes red after Jan 6th is fundamentally an enemy of democracy.
This sham democracy that you fervently support kills people everyday.
Ok, so what’s your solution? Vote third party? Don’t vote? Both of those help the republicans.
Protest or something similar? Sure, but the election is still happening.
Voting is the least you can do, so I will choose to vote against Capitalists and not for genocide. If you can’t even do that bare minimum, you don’t deserve democracy.
…what anti-capitalist do you think you’re voting into office?
The PSL candidate.
The Party for Socialism and Liberation (PSL) is a communist party in the United States. PSL was established in 2004 and claims to be active in a wide range of social movements. PSL describes its primary goal as the overthrow of capitalism and the institution of socialism.
Yeah, that sounds viable. 🙄
PSL are a bunch of losers. They can’t even win local elections, let alone put any of their people in state or Federal offices.
I’d be happy to vote for someone better who isn’t pro-capitalist and pro-genocide, who do you suggest?
It also happens to be where I live. Doing nothing doesn’t help anything.
Agreed. So don’t vote to make things slightly less worse, vote to make things better!
If we used just about anything but FPTP, absolutely. But as I see it, if I want to have any hope of being able to vote to make things better next time, I have to vote to just make things slightly less worse this time.
Perfect is the enemy of the good, and the GOP is the enemy of both.
But hey, if you see it differently, I don’t see any reason we can’t be friends. I just disagree.
It can be easy to feel like a drop of water in a large ocean when it comes to national elections. But you should also vote in your county and state elections; you can probably make more of a difference there.
I’m not saying “don’t vote in the national election”, but just know that there are other elections to vote in, and thry are just as important as the nationals.
Yah I can vote for the red mayor who wants more cops or the blue mayor who wants more cops. Freedom rings!
Unless you’re in a big big city, mayoral and council races can actually have a lot of diversity in terms of political outlooks. Never forget that a town elected a dog as mayor. Nobody that pure would ever make it to federal office.
There certainly are places like that. I’d vote for a dog over any of our candidates in the last local election. Or anyone running on banning the damn roadside signs. Alternatively, the candidates themselves have to pluck them out from along the highway on ramps and whatever other places they’ve been planted the night of the election and before the morning light.
Our local election was bupkis. The red one won because the blue one won last time and nothing changed and people are still unhappy. The mayoral race prior went about the same way, but the blue one won because the red one in the office did nothing differently and no one was happy.
You understand that “voting for a dog” for mayor is just Conservatism right? You know make the government small enough to drown in a bathtub, Reagan etc?
I was trying to use a funny example to illustrate the point that a lot more things are possible at the local level than the federal level, particularly in terms of electing a candidate with more diverse political alignment. Anyway, most of the time when an animal wins a mayorship, it’s in an unincorporated area where mayor is more of an honorary title than an actual political position. The point is that local races are still worth voting and participating in.
One of them also wants to ban books.
Voting straight Democrat. The republican party is the biggest threat to the US right now.
This is the argument every single election. Every time, for decades, and yet things get continually worse.
I’d argue the belief that voting for an establishment party is any kind of a long-term solution is the biggest threat. By all means do it if it’ll help a little in the short term, but the ship’s still sinking.
Short term is all anyone cares about, from government to corporations to individuals. Which is why I only give this country another 50 years, tops.
While I agree in my dislike for the current Republican Party, the attitude of blindly voting for your team because the other is evil is exactly what my (late) fox-addicted grandfather used to uphold. I loved the man, but I think we ought to do better and do the hard work of researching every candidate and choosing the best, be it democrat, republican, or independent.
Gave you and upvote to get you back off zero and agree with your general sentiment.
But - the elections since Trump took the ROC convention have all been different - we must get rid of all the R’s we can no matter what at the local, state and national level as soon as possible now that the have proven to be an existential threat to democracy itself.
American Democracy is fucked. It needs to go away.
Well I won’t be voting for the fascist party…
Ah, a third party supporter I see
Fuck off.
We don’t like that we are only allowed to have two choices.
The problem is that a moderately small number of people and corporations who combined have more money than god have decided it’s a great idea to execute regulatory capture of the entire US government.
I just hope guillotine season starts before the world catches on fire.
We don’t like that we are only allowed to have two choices.
You chose it and chastised someone for telling you to stop choosing it lmao
Do you genuinely think that the population of the United States likes only having two neoliberal political parties that have been able to get laws enacted that make it effectively impossible for any 3rd political party to exist in an effective fashion?
Pull your head out of your ass.
I think they keep voting for it, so if they don’t like it they must be pretty fucking stupid.
able to get laws enacted
What laws have they passed that force you to vote A or B?
I’m going to complain about not having a primary option for president, vote for the left-most person I can in the primary, and then vote down-ballot (D) in November. There’s nothing I need to research with respect to these modern conservatives. Most democrats aren’t really much better in most ways, but at least I can look my marginalized friends and colleagues in the eye after the election.
Yeah pretty much this. Not much point to me following the political discourse and all that, all it’ll do is just make me angry and depressed.
I like the Green Party’s eco-socialism, but their anti-vaccine lunacy and inability to do anything electorally beyond run a presidential candidate every four years doesn’t give me the warm fuzzies.
I like Cornel West, and I appreciate his long-standing commitment to left-wing and anti-racist values.
That said, I live in the real world, where Donald Trump is running as an open fascist promising to make America a dictatorship if elected, and Joe Biden is the only candidate running with a realistic chance of beating him.
So I’ll be voting for every Democrat I possibly can, while wishing they were better than they are, as always.
Joe Biden is also an open fascist who is proudly facitating a genocide and ethnic cleansing
You won’t find an American president that doesn’t support Israel, you were close with bernie.
Because if there’s nothing else you can count on an American president for, it’s them being a standard-bearer for ethics.
I see a lot of people here frustrated with our two party system. I too am frustrated. Donate to FairVote to get ranked choice on the ballot in more states. Ranked choice voting allows voters to express actual preferences between more than two parties and it is a win no matter who you normally vote for. Many states have a ballot measure system that can be used to pass legislation without requiring the agreement of the state legislature. Several US states have implemented ranked choice voting already. http://fairvote.org
Preferential voting is a far superior system.
For those unfamiliar, here’s an example:
If you like a minor party, say, the Green party, hate another minor party, say, Libertarian, more than you hate the Republicans and would settle for Democrats if you had to, then your vote would look like:
- Green
- Democrat
- Republican
- Libertarian
And if your (1) Green candidate didn’t have enough votes to win outright, and no-one else did either, then your vote would go to the (2) democrat, who has all the (1) democrat and (2) democrat votes added together. If the democrat didn’t have enough votes to win, then it would go to the Republican.
This is simplified, but should be enough to give the idea of how your vote always matters, and allows a better variety of ideas to flourish.
ALSO: post-election, say the democrats won, but only did because they got a lot of second round preferential votes from the Greens voters, that would help convince them that if they want to stay in power, they need to adopt more Green policies.
If parties get elected with no help and just because the other option is orange meltdown, it does little to encourage improvement. All they have to be is better than the other side (who lies all the time anyway, making “better” appear more subjective than objective).
How to help fix voting in the USA:
- Preferential voting
- Nonpartisan government body to create voting districts (remove Gerrymandering completely)
- Fix the money: Caps on political donations. Full transparencies on all political donations and spending. Corporations aren’t people.
- Standardised ballots
- Disband the electoral college
- Change the size of the house/senate
Even some of the best countries’ voting methods are being constantly tweaked and improved. Nothing is perfect, but it’s an embarrassment how far behind the USA is.
I’ve voted for both Democrats and Republicans in the past. Frankly, neither one of them deserves too much power.
If Trump is the nominee I’m voting for the other candidate no matter who that is. There is no circumstance in which I would vote for Trump. The devil himself could be running against Trump and I would either vote for the devil or abstain. If he is the nominee then the election is essentially a fight for democracy.
Although I generally like Biden’s administration, I am concerned about him and his age. If there was a normal candidate running against him I would consider voting for them, but it’s mostly a bunch of wackadoos on the Republican side.
Chris Christie and Nikki Haley were the only ones in the last Republican debate who had any common sense. Christie’s campaign isn’t going anywhere because he’s anti-Trump. Haley is too conservative for my liking. Ramaswamy and DeSantis are garbage humans. The Republicans need a reboot because they really suck.
In other words, I’m team blue - not because I’m thrilled with them but because I’m afraid of the alternative.
The Republicans need a reboot
That sums it up. I’m conservative, but the GOP is such a train wreck now I just can’t support them.
I’m on the same page. The republicans need some feedback that what they’re doing isn’t going to win elections. Unfortunately I think it will take losing several more elections to sink in.
Spot on friend. Trumpers look at us and think we like Biden as much as they like Trump. Noooope. There were way better candidates. If anything the Dems are the party of the status quo and republicans are the party of “Fuck anyone who isn’t rich, white, and male”. I’d love an actual progressive party - I don’t see anything that the democrats have done in the last 8 years that has actually been progressive.
Vote DNC and hate it.
Oh, who told you the 2024 campaign slogan?
Right now, the choices are between boring corporatists and 100% concentrated evil. It’s not that hard a choice.
the boring corporatists are fully backing a genocide rn
not really seeing how that doesn’t qualify as 100% concentrated evil
I think they’re saying that the not-hard-choice is to abstain
Every single US president has backed Israel. Trump was the one that actually moved the embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.
Backing genocide and not telling Israel to stop bombing, as even Republican presidents like Reagan have done, takes Biden from ‘the lesser of two evils’ to just evil. I won’t support genocide.
I won’t be shamed for not supporting genocide either. That’s on the Democratic party and Biden.
“Every president has backed this genocidal state. Why try to stop the trend now?”
Frankly I don’t think there much boring about the genocide the corporatist is enabling.
If you avoid everyone who supports Israel in this fight you won’t have anyone to vote for. I swear Israel is part of the national narrative on both sides and I don’t understand why.
Volunteer and try to primary those old bastards out of office. The Squad is getting bigger every election.
If you avoid everyone who supports Israel in this fight you won’t have anyone to vote for
If you avoid everyone who supports Israel in this fight you won’t have anyone to vote for.
Yea I’m aware that’s why I’m writing in hunter Biden.
After voting for people who explicitly said they dont care about my support only to be blamed for their failures I’m putting my foot down and not voting for anybody enabling a genocide.
Don’t worry I live in upstate new york so unless I literally wad up my ballot and throw it at Biden so hard he dies my vote will have literally zero effect on the presidential race and I’m aware this is a very privellaged position to have.
I’m also voting straight working families party in local elections which usually get about 80 votes and the working families party candidate is the same as the dems.
Third Reich 100% glitchless speedrun (NO WARPS) vs a plate of room-temperature ketchup.
In 2016, I was an Independent. Straight down the middle. Would consider reasonable Democrats, Republicans, and 3rd party candidates.
In 2020, I was an Independent leaning Democratic. Would not consider Trump. Biden was locked in. Would hesitantly consider reasonable Republicans or Independents on a split ticket.
In 2024, I’m a Democrat. Will only consider Democrats up and down the ballot. No 3rd parties.
I dont think republicans have been reasonable on the whole at any point in my lifetime. Even Mccain was questionable and he was the best the republicans had.
Imo, there used to be a few reasonable individual Republican candidates here and there. But now they litmus test into these insane issues and they don’t adapt when things change in society. They just dig in their heels and start mud-slinging. I’m not even bothering with them anymore.
Do you live somewhere where voting for Democrats even matters?
Its the US so…no.
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Blue no matter who. Nothing has changed about that.
I think leftists ranting about not voting for Biden in the general election at the moment are just blowing off steam, and when election day comes, everyone on the left will remember 2016 and vote blue.
I absolutely will not. Vote blue no matter who is why we have the situation we have. 2016 did not give us trump. Generations of shitty corporate politicians on both sides of the aisle gave us Donald Trump. Populists win because they’re popular, and trump got popular by pointing out the factual information that the house, the Senate, and the oval office are filled with corporate skills and corrupt puppets. Sadly, it was the fascist who got popular pointing it out, but it doesn’t make that part of what he says untrue.
I live in a red state where my vote for federal office does not count. So I will cast my pointless protest vote for the green party in the hopes that one day they’ll get their 5%, and maybe something can change. Down ballot I’ll hold my nose and vote for the Democrat in most offices, and if I ever move to a competitive state, I’ll do the same for federal, because I’m being held hostage by the corporate shills, and I’d rather my family not die in concentration camps that are inevitably coming if/when the fascists fully take power.
But no. Fuck blue no matter who. Who. Fucking. Matters. If it didn’t, we wouldn’t be in this mess. Have some standards.
But what are we supposed to do? We can vote for Trump instead or no-one instead. How does that make anything better? We agree there needs to be change, but we still have no real option here.
Hilary Clinton in the 2016 election had supported Trump in the primaries because she thought noone would vote for that idiot. The Democrat Party apparatus will support worse than Trump in the future if they think it will help their chances of winning. You don’t want to wait another 4 years for change 🤷♂️
Don’t care. I don’t want to hear their BS. Apathy is the enemy. Re-elect Biden, then go out and yell at him for whatever the hell you want. The alternative is never being able to vote again. Not hyperbole. Republicans are actively trying to change the rules to disregard your votes.
Yeah I’m so tired of seeing this, “both sides,” bullshit. One party is openly flirting with fascism, the other is a turd sandwich. It really is a shame, and quite frankly alarming, so many don’t understand what is happening and what is at stake. Even if you hate them, vote for the party that will at least give you the opportunity to vote in future elections.
First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a socialist.
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.
There are so many that don’t know the horrors of that war and the brutality of the Nazis. We are doomed if they continue this ignorant rhetoric.
Yes I don’t know how many are bad faith actors posing as liberals or what. You’d think losing Row would have been the wake up call, and looking at the last couple years of elections it has, so I’m hoping it just that. Otherwise the constitutional originalists are going to turn back the clock to only rich white land owners having the real right to vote before all is said and done.
I remember what the “blue team” did in 2016 by forcing an unelectable shit candidate upon us. So I will never vote for them again.
Vote against Republicans.
Democrats. I’d rather vote green party but I’m not an idiot. Even if the green party won they would be able to get far less done than Biden has. Biden isn’t amazing or good but he’s not the actively trying to harm LGBTQIA and he’s not trying to destroy democracy. Anyone who can equate Trump to Biden is completely bonkers.
Looks like napovointerco might pass before the election. If it does we might see a civil war.
Yeah I feel you, the green party has some good positions. But then they go ahead and nominate people like Jill Stein, who has some good but many horrible foreign policy ideas like ending NATO and allowing Russia to do whatever it wants to eastern European countries. In climate areas has relatively good positions, but then despite claiming to follow science she will constantly reject it when it comes to her own bizarre theories about vaccines, banning wifi from areas with children, or trying to ban gmos that have extensive evidence for safety until they meet some arbitrary threshold in her own head and scientists prove a negative, which is impossible. Not to mention what that would do to food prices and create widespread shortages and hunger and cause actual harm around the world if she got her way.
I’d love viable third parties, but they’ve been picking terrible candidates lately, so I don’t really see the appeal atm. I think the path forward there is being active in primaries and pushing candidates forward in the main parties forward who support alternative voting systems like rank choice. Otherwise while we still have first past the post voting, any but the main two parties is never really going to be viable and will probably just end up being counterproductive to their own stated goals.
