I mean have you ever listened to a leftist member of a vulnerable group, or just someone in a vulnerable group at all. Cause as someone who is part of multiple vulnerable groups. I’m betting voting is not the first thing being brought up.
Yeah, we got it. You want us to vote for Biden. Are we gonna run the leftist shame campaign all the way to the election, then?
Maybe when the boomers are gone the Republican strategy will die with them…
Young people have not been as enthusiastic supporters of the Biden administration [even] before President Biden was elected. So what’s different about Gen Z generation in particular, who’s known to be politically active, also very diverse and caring about a variety of social issues, is that when they’re disappointed in what the government is doing or what the leaders are showing them, they’re willing to take the issue in their own hand and try to intervene, try to get involved sometimes by speaking up by their vote.
But by and large, they have voted more than other generations have as youth, regardless of how disappointed they say they are in the government. So if the past couple of elections’ trends hold, young people have been disappointed in the government and their elected leaders, but they voted.
[Bolding added]
Ah, nice, maybe we’re not entirely doomed.
Wait, we’re not supposed to be disappointed in our government? Could have fooled me.
The big thing is that movements start from local political offices and can grow from there.
It can start with representatives, the rare senator, or even taking over of a party at the state level:
Participate in local elections, back primary candidates. Once the numbers are there at the nationwide level, we can push for a more representative electoral system.
We can push system that uses ranked choice voting like Alaska did. We can also increase the size of the house of representatives to better match the idea of representation the founding fathers had for us. It’s nearly a 100 years that the house was capped at 435: https://history.house.gov/Historical-Highlights/1901-1950/The-Permanent-Apportionment-Act-of-1929/
The founding fathers had envisioned a house that grew with the size of the country:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congressional_Apportionment_Amendment
This laid the intent that we have 1 rep per 30,000 people and increase the ratio each time the house reached another 100 seats.
So at 400+ seats we should have 1 rep per 70,000. Really, with the wording of the amendment and understanding that the examples lay out a mathematical formula for expanding the house indefinitely (but with more people per rep as it goes up) we would have over a 1,000 reps!
There’s a current “Uncap the House” movement but I’m unsure of how much momentum they’ve been gaining.
To see how the number of constituents has grown per member over the years:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_congressional_apportionment#Number_of_members
Pretty hard to just hope that all these tankies are bullshitting about knowingly allowing Trump to fleece America while they sit at home blaming democrats for getting him elected.
I blame selfish uncompromising Boomers for electing Biden in the 2020 primaries.
Thanks for proving my point. Enjoy your video games While the rest of us try and keep democracy alive for you to have something to keep complaining about while doing nothing.
I’ve been voting for 20 years bud. I’ve phone banked, canvassed and donated. I voted for Biden in the 2020 general because I wanted to give the claim that we could “push Biden to the left” a chance. It was a lie.
I will be voting in the upcoming general election as well. Just not for Biden or Trump. And when Biden loses I’ll hear you asking “how could this happen??” instead of just acknowledging reality: you need to compromise with leftists if you want our votes. Otherwise you’re going to lose to fascists for a second time.
Both parties stand for the same values? Lol, what?
America has a right wing party, and a party of hyper right wing nutcases.
Unfortunately it’s a flaw in FPTP voting systems. The biggest thing that would help (in any country with FPTP) would be to move to almost any other sort of voting. Ranked choice would be the least disruptive, in the short term, but still allow for long term corrections to function.
Why not approval voting? Instead of ranked choice
There are a few variants. Any are a lot better than FPTP. Approval could get difficult to tally up. As well as educating people in it. It’s also better to ultimately have 1 person, 1 vote. If you could split your vote, the system collapsed back down to effectively FPTP.
Yeah, RCV or STV voting would immediately solve a lot of our social and political problems, by forcing politicians to be cooperative and constructive rather than destructive and adversarial.
It also allows you to vote for who you really want, rather than against the people you really DON’T want.
Bombing brown children, and pumping record amounts of oil.
You know, the values of keeping rich people rich and poor people poor.
Oh is that why Democrats keep promoting social welfare programs, social mobility, and public safety nets? That’s more of a republican thing.
You understand that Bill Clinton decimated welfare, right? Like, I don’t agree that the parties are the same, especially now that a large portion of Republicans are openly promoting facism, but if you think that Democrats protecting welfare programs and the social safety net you’re kidding yourself.
Obama also almost cut social security, and only didn’t because gop couldn’t govern then
He also chose to bail out the banks instead of homeowners, and reneged on his pledge to reform bankruptcy laws to allow judges to lower mortgage payments. Instead we got HAMP, a failed attempt to bribe mortgage brokers into modifying loans. And he pushed all this through with a Democratic super majority.
There are things that I have to give him some credit on. For example, the concessions he got the auto-workers to take screwed them longer term, but they were necessary at the time and the bailout did saved a lot of jobs. The UAW considered the deal a win. But I don’t think the mortgage crisis would have been any different for home owners if Bush had still been in office.
Are they promoting them or actually implementing them? All they do is talk about what they’re gonna do to get the votes.
Don’t get me wrong, anyone voting for republicans is a moron, but anyone who thinks democrats are good guys, is a moron too.
Actually implementing them. Yes, there are policies that they pass that are counter-productive but that doesn’t mean all the policies they pass are.
Don’t fall for the same basic rhetoric that “Democrats are bad too”.
The difference is that Democrats can be judged as individuals (and should be). Whereas Republicans are all regurgitating the same falsehoods and refuse to denounce other Republicans when they prove to be utterly despicable, then also fall in line to do the same despicable acts (e.g. pretend the election was rigged)
That’s ridiculous - the group you’re part of should be judged as individuals, the group you’re not part of should be judged as a whole? That’s some double standard.
You’re not wrong. It’s a standard that Republicans and conservatives have set for themselves through their own actions, not just from wanting to treat them differently.
Republicans as a party, campaign on things like ending social safety nets.
So even if you can cherry pick a single republican that didn’t try to stop something like free school lunches, it doesn’t redeem the whole party because they didn’t all work together towards it.
Democrats as a party, campaign to improve safety nets so even if you can cherry pick an example where individual democrats didn’t then that doesn’t apply to the group because it wasn’t the party working together towards it.
I hope that helps you understand.
Democrats make plenty of policies that hurt poor and marginalized communities.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Violent_Crime_Control_and_Law_Enforcement_Act
Right? These wannabe marxists don’t have a clue how things work. They’re just doing what’s trendy right now.
Well if you don’t like our “trends” like don’t block strikes and don’t support genocide find the votes you need elsewhere.
Both are political liberals (as in: fogus on policies that benefit the wealthy) deal with it.
Neither party wants to usurp capitalism, yet they are still wildly different and have wildly different values.
Historical data from the past 50 years in the US disagrees.
Not sure what you’re referring to. Citation?
Oh, ok. So you’re a troll. Got it.
For any ody that happens by in the future…
https://www.wolterskluwer.com/en/expert-insights/whole-ball-of-tax-historical-income-tax-rates
Thanks for the citation, marginal income tax rates going down for the highest percentage is an interesting data point, but It hardly refutes my point as there is no analysis there regarding which party those changes came from. I think there was a northwestern study that showed that politicians in general care about issues that wealthy people care about that would better illustrate your point, but I think both of these are more examples of regulatory capture and a system that requires donors to elect candidates, than it is evidence that the left and right share values.
My statements that the left is far more likely to tax the wealthy, and that they have wildly different values still stand.
I’m a troll because I asked you for more information to understand your ambiguous claim? Yeah okay pal. 🙄
You’re a troll because you’re still pretending not to know documented history. You know each of those tax rates had years net to them. Guess what you could do if you had an iota of curiosity in you…
The US democratic party is just as happy to cut taxes for the rich as the republican party. They’re also just as happy to cut spending on social welfare programs.
I mean the supposed “good guy” president is currently giving tons of weapons to help people kill a bunch of innocent babies, so you can miss me with that shit
Are we supposed to go Yay, the economy is doing great so we will forgive all the fucking innocent, people you’re killing?
I shouldn’t have to say this, but you don’t support anyone at all who wants to commit genocide.
At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter how any fucking thing else goes, if they are supporting, killing, innocent babies
This tired argument again. So what’s your proposal? Throw away your vote on a 3rd party candidate this election cycle? Not vote?
So if Trump wins, do you honestly believe things would be better? Nothing will change in Israel, except we’d have all sorts of new humanitarian problems across the globe.
If Biden loses, it will be because not enough people were convinced to vote for him. So if dems want to prevent a Trump presidency, the smart move probably would be (or would have been, maybe, since y’all think it’s too late) for Biden to step down and endorse a Dem who has not openly supported Israel’s current campaign. That is, if they think that those voters are necessary to win. If they think those voters can be written off and they’ll still win, let 'em try. No politician is owed a vote simply because they are the incumbent, though. Nor are they owed the votes of people who are displeased with their work. They hoping that everyone will just fall in line on election day. What if that doesn’t happen? Do you think the future of our country is something that octogenarians should be gambling with?
The Dems aren’t left.
The largest donors to the dems (and cons) are massively wealthy people.
If they do tax the rich, there will be holes
Neither party wants to usurp capitalism
You’ve found the crux of their argument
Well most Americans don’t want to usurp capitalism either, most of us on the left just want public health care and a viable social safety net, and a more equitable economy for everyone, not just those at the top. Something like the Nordic model which is still quite capitalist.
And look how the nordic countries also fall victim to far right parties. Just like the rest of Europe.
idk whats worse, having an uncropped reddit watermark or an uncropped ifunny watermark
Give it time. I can do both.
Can you US people make a party that isn’t a bunch of ghouls already so we can stop having this argument every day
German here. He had parties that weren’t a bunch of ghouls. Some don’t exist anymore or have never been in power, others either replaced the good guys with ghouls or the good guys were corrupted by power and became ghouls themselves over time. Face it, electoral politics aren’t enough.
It’s a systemic issue, so: no, not really.
Yeah, if everyone voted. I don’t understand why people are confused by this. Just vote. Get your friends to vote. We know that most Americans aren’t evil. Otherwise this entire country would be like Florida. But only like a third of Americans able to vote do so.
You know who votes like, all the fucking time? The ghouls. They love to vote. And we don’t show up. Defeating Trump one more time should end the MAGA movement and then we can focus on propping up a candidate in 2028 who will actually capture the change that we want to see. Midterms too!. But this process only starts if we ensure Biden remains in the White House. You may not like his foreign policy, but he believes in climate change and won’t suppress democracy. Trump will effectively end it via Project 2025, courtesy of the fascist Heritage Foundation.
Isn’t it also “evil” to know all you have to do is spend a couple hours once a year and not do it?
Why are people who vote Republican evil in your eyes, but those who are too lazy to vote against it not evil?
I don’t think it’s malicious. I think that most people are just wildly misinformed or uninformed.
Like, I saw a pro-Trump account on youtube share a Family Guy clip about 9/11 and Iraq. Peter kept asking what Iraq had to do with 9/11 and they said they kept saying “there’s no connection”. So then all the Trumpers were celebrating Family Guy.
If they were informed, they would know that the GOP in 2003 and 2004 would CONSTANTLY say Democrats were “aiding and abetting terrorists” by questioning why the Bush administration was so fixated on Iraq. It’s all Republicans. It’s the same party. They’re celebrating Family Guy without realizing Family Guy is shitting on their favorite political party.
Sean Hannity and Glenn Beck and Tucker Carlson and every other slimy piece of shit who defends Trump today were the same ones defending Bush back then. If they were informed, they would likely be more inclined to vote but again, the GOP has successfully waged war on education and critical thinking.
So we’re sort of at this deadline where democracy could realistically cease in the U.S. and the alarms are going off but no one is panicking. I want to think it’s evil to not show up and vote, but it’s not evil. It’s just evidence of how the Republicans have victimized so many people abroad and domestically.
Thanks for the thought out response! Can you apply this same logic to the people voting right then? Aren’t many right wingers just misinformed or outright manipulated by the political and media machine?
Why is it evil to do what they truly think is good? They can’t grasp the full impact of their vote in your opinion nor remember history.
I think we need to stop demonizing everyone we disagree with.
I think you’re mostly right about that. I’ve been having this conversation with my wife too. If most people understood how dangerous it is to ban abortion because abortion is absolutely healthcare, then maybe we wouldn’t see so much widespread support for national bans and strict limitations.
At the same time, we have to come to grips with reality and accept that a significant portion of Americans are aware, and simply don’t care or think it’s better for the woman to die. In their minds, at least the woman can go to heaven? I don’t really get their points, but it’s something like that?
There’s also the border. People are dying every day making that crossing. Not all deaths occur at the border, but many occur along the long, perilous journey they’re making in search of a better life. The U.S. is a massive country and can support them. It could use the additional labor. We can assimilate them if we accepted them. And yet, they don’t want that. They clutch their pearls and grip their bibles while simultaneously advocating for a stance that cannot be further from the teachings of Christ
When a foreigner resides among you in your land, do not mistreat them. The foreigner residing among you must be treated as your native-born. Love them as yourself, for you were foreigners in Egypt. I am the LORD your God.
And then we have the case of trans rights and same-sex marriage. This is more of a Constitutional crisis than a biblical one, but both make the same case that the Republicans disagree with. The Constitution ensures a separation of church and state. They don’t care, and use Judeo-Christian values to influence public policy. The Bible goes on and on about tolerance and acceptance, and withholding judgement for the creator. And yet, here’s Ken Paxton, trying to kick off the second round of the Salem Witch Trials.
They love this shit. They love it when Trump says horrible shit about minorities and women. Whether it’s Nikki Haley, Mitch McConnell’s wife, or Liz Cheney (all three of which served under him or alongside him when he was President). They love it when he says he’ll kick out foreigners because they’re poisoning the blood of America, which is Neo-Nazi as fuck. They eat it up when he stokes anti-Asian sentiment and praises Putin and Netanyahu for killing thousands of people. They can’t get enough of his endless appetite for revenge against people who simply disagree with him.
I don’t see how anyone who isn’t evil can support him today, but I can agree with not labeling people evil who aren’t aware of just how demented he is and will inevitably vote for him this year because “gas was cheaper under Trump” even though the U.S. has had the greatest recovery from COVID among all developed nations and is producing the most domestic energy in the history of any country on the planet.
You know who votes like, all the fucking time? The ghouls.
This is actually the greatest evidence for why voting works. The ghouls maintain a hold on government because the ghouls consistently vote.
Ghouls as in age? While there’s quite a lot of septuagenarians in Congress, there’s also quite a few junior congresspeople who are younger.
If you mean ghouls as in those not chomping at the bit to hurt people: Democrats have quite a few progressive congresspeople. Not the majority, but that follows the US’s population: the US isn’t super progressive yet. It’s getting there and quickly but centrist candidates still get more votes (as they do nearly everywhere) so the center needs to keep sliding.
Besides, exactly what countries are doing that much better right now? Which democracies aren’t sliding into far-right? We’ve got Brexit in the UK, Italy has an actual fascist. Far-right Marine Le Pen got 41% in France. Germany’s far-right party gained 13% since last election; and while they are doing well to protest that and aren’t approaching majority, it’s still quite a concerning trend.
This is nearly a world-wide trend which is quite concerning.
You going what about doesn’t help anything.
It doesn’t matter if everyone else in the world is feeding the homeless caviar, or shoving them in the orphan crushing machine.
Their actions do not affect yours, you can make up your own mind.
No one is saying that the US doesn’t have problems, especially Americans. Most of the political commentary is about America on Lemmy and the US’s problems. But you are complaining about a specific country’s actions from the outside when your own house is on fire. Outsiders looking in and complaining when they are barely any better is pretty hypocritical.
You can complain about America’s problems without phrasing it as “Can you US people” which implies a state of superiority and lack of commiseration on shared problems.
Once again, your actions are unaffected by anyone else’s. Those are your choices.
You see how I didn’t even mention a country anywhere in there?
It is generic advice that applies to literally everyone regardless of country
We don’t have fascism in the US yet. We have a party trying to get into fascist control. Voting can still stymie their attempts to do so and exposing their plans can cause them to lose supporters. Using the legal system to remove those breaking the laws and impeaching justices not upholding the constitution are how you prevent this.
These things are hard. If it was easy to prevent fascists from seizing power, we wouldn’t have ever had fascist takeovers. Stopping fascism from taking root requires eternal vigilance as fascist sympathies ebb and flow.
I heartily disagree with the last panels initial premise: both parties don’t stand for the same values. They both share values among some of their most prominent members. Namely neoliberal economic policy. But they are clearly not in sync with all policies: hence only one party attempting a fascist takeover. Ignoring the other things Democrats have accomplished that absolutely help people because they aren’t the huge sweeping reforms we hoped for is doing the fascists’ jobs for them.
These memes also press for Revolution, which is definitely the dumbest thing to propose at this point. Revolution definitely has its place: namely if fascists actually disband democracy. But a revolution is a HUGE risk no matter who does it. Look at revolutions in the rest past, especially those started by popular sentiment: many ended in a totalitarian government, often backed by the military, who took power the moment the leaders faltered. In many of these instances the people didn’t win; they just traded one dictator for another. In order for a revolution to succeed, those revolting need to have both coordinated force of arms and a method of government ready to step in and take control to prevent societal collapse.
But revolution also devalues what HAS been achieved by those still working within the system. The most obvious of these in the US are the great strides unions have made in recent years. Unions went from something only a handful of industries had and were largely despised by the general population, to exploding in numerous industries.
I heartily disagree with the last panels initial premise: both parties don’t stand for the same values. They both share values among some of their most prominent members. Namely neoliberal economic policy. But they are clearly not in sync with all policies: hence only one party attempting a fascist takeover. Ignoring the other things Democrats have accomplished
While I agree with your stance, I don’t think that conflicts with the panel’s stance or the way many of the memes are posing.
I think the point here is more “they’re slightly different shades of the same color, but we need something very different.” In the grand scheme of politics and views, US Democrats and Republicans are extremely similar, especially right now. I wouldn’t discount democrats refusal to step into fascism, nor some of the progressive policies they push for, but these are minor differences in the grand scheme of things. Many of the things many people want in this country are vastly different than either party’s stance, and that’s what’s being pointed to.
These memes also press for Revolution, which is definitely the dumbest thing to propose at this point. Revolution definitely has its place: namely if fascists actually disband democracy. But a revolution is a HUGE risk no matter who does it. Look at revolutions in the rest past, especially those started by popular sentiment: many ended in a totalitarian government, often backed by the military, who took power the moment the leaders faltered.
I think you’re blowing this out of proportion. They’re pressing for drastic change. Is that revolution? Sure, but it’s not necessarily violent. The majority of these memes don’t seem to push that. Maybe some do, but those are definitely not the majority here.
I’d summarize by this comment lower in this thread - I think it summarizes the same stance as these memes from an outsiders perspective:
Can you US people make a party that isn’t a bunch of ghouls already so we can stop having this argument every day
Counterpoint to yours on revolution: democratic systems are revolutionary. Elections can result in the overthrow of current governments in favor of new ones with the peaceful transition being a key factor.
Not to vote is not an option.
Edit: wouldn’t mind to see more Björk memes 😅
Vote for the person who’s helping commit genocide compared to vote for the person who says they want to commit genocide.
Voting is totally not an option.
Although I hope Haley ends up on the fucking ballot because she’s the only not clearly advocating for or actively supporting genocide Motherfucker I see so far that might stand a chance
It’s like we’re living in bizarro world right now. Democrats are begging Republicans to help them pass a bill to let Biden immediately shutdown the border and fund Israel with millions of dollars to commit genocide. All the people who used to vigorously oppose such things are perfectly fine with it now that it’s the other political party supporting it. They don’t have any principles other than voting blue. They’ve clearly realized the problems with nationalism, but they don’t realize that they’ve just replaced it with their own blue nationalism.
Fucking Preach
Don’t worry, Haley is more than happy to help Israel commit genocide as well. There’s very, very few American politicians who have any backbone to condemn Israel’s actions against the Palestinian people. We all just get to watch helplessly as the American government sends more bombs to be used on hospitals and schools.
I mean, we have three choices
The one that is doing it,
The one that says they want to do it,
And the one that doesn’t say they want to do it.
Win two out of three of them have already admitted to what they are going to do, you at least have to give the one who hasn’t a chance.
It’s the only unknown that has the potential to be good
I would like to remind all EU citizens we are voting for the parlament in June. Make sure you are properly registered to vote !
Republicans want to stop young pe4ople from voting.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/republicans-want-raise-voting-age-184406390.html
Why did you censor “people”? 🤔
lol! I’m going to have to think long and hard about what it says about the world in general because I don’t know why you’d think I was censoring ‘people’ instead of assuming it was a typo.
I’ve noticed it’s a bit of a thing on lemmy to censure words or names of things you’re talking about. I’ve seen discord, blizzard, Twitter, and a couple other named of both companies and people censured either with an asterisk or leet speek. It’s so weird. Maybe they don’t want people from those companies to be able to Google their comment? Who knows.
I was just going to fix the typo, but decided to go full drama instead.
Or you know, actually try to pressure the Dems into running a different candidate when Biden will be a guaranteed loss.
guaranteed loss
How much money did you bet on Biden’s “guaranteed loss?”
If you didn’t, why do you shun free money?
Democrats not supporting democracy, love to see it.
They use the excuse that only Biden can win and we have to suspend our usual beliefs and right to vote for another democrat just this one last time to end the “threat to our democracy”.
“They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.”
Don’t worry folks, just give up your right to vote for who you want and follow the hivemind.
Ja, uber Trump, uns!
Ah the ol’ revolution larp. Classic.
literall–
downvote.
My man, right wingers are literally murdering people.
Reminder that voting for Biden or Trump means you endorse genocide 😎
Commenting on an American hosted website also means you endorse genocide, by that logic, so you should go repent.
Reminder that you are clueless.
Thanks person that defends the IDF all over Lemmy.
I just point out stupidity. There happens to be a lot coming from Palestinian supporters. Not that they shouldn’t support Palestine, just that they shouldn’t be so damn stupid.
And you just happen to defend IDF war crimes every step of the way.
Prove my point, why don’t you …
I wish they’d defend it in a smart way lol all the day is say 3-6 words per sentence, call it an argument, call themselves smart, and finally they fuck off when you actually begin a discussion with them.
They’re not interested in learning anything but it is necessary to debunk them as to stop others from believing their propaganda.
Stupid in unison is just stupid in stereo.
Indeed, agreed.