Right because if you can’t have optimal, you should have FAR FUCKING WORSE.
UHOH!
Somebody forgot to write a 1,000,000 word essay on how Republicans are worse then democrats before submitring one morsel of criticism against the Democratic party. Thus you are a secret Republican Russian.
No you don’t get to ask for Ranked Choice voting to solve the spoiler effect. The spoiler effect must hover over your head every time you’re in the voting booth. THIS. IS. DEMOCRACY. MANIFEST!
I see you left the voting booth without a big enough smile, it will be 10000% entirely your fault if the democrats weak willed attempts don’t work out.
No you don’t get to have any input. Taxation without representation is how this country was founded silly. This is just how it works here. Maybe when you grow up, you will realize the real adults, the real americans are the only ones responsible enough to control the nation until their last gasp on this planet. Of course it is right to continue shifting the Overton window to the right! This is reality sweetheart, maybe you’re just a idealistic dreamer with to high of expectations.
Now smile really REALLY big and say “Joe Biden is the most pro-union president in American history” 20 times in the mirror before you go to work your 3 part time jobs.
/$
You know that people disagreeing with you is allowed, right?
You say what you think, they say what they think, people read both. It’s how it’s supposed to work.
Downvote this heresy
Now smile really REALLY big and say “Joe Biden is the most pro-union president in American history”
He’s the most pro-union President in my lifetime. Which is to say he’s not aggressively sabotaging and dismantling every union group his national police agencies can get their hooks into.
This is the gold standard for a modern Democratic President. A guy who won’t show up with a crowbar and knee-cap you as you’re trying to move 40 years of accumulated economic baggage.
He’s the most pro-union President in my lifetime.
…
I could believe you’re under 24 and missed Bill, but you weren’t born till 2016 and missed Obama too?
Ask the AFL-CIO how they feel about Clinton continuing NAFTA after explicitly campaigning against it.
Deindustrialization of the Midwest obliterated manufacturing. Telecom consolidation under the 1996 act also wrecked unionization in both the industrial and mass media sectors.
Why did you skip Obama and go straight to Bill?
How is Biden more pro-union than Obama?
Why did you skip Obama and go straight to Bill?
Tom Perez sucked ass and I shouldn’t need to spell that out.
But…
On June 12, 2023, President Biden named Perez to serve as senior advisor to the president and director of the White House Office of Intergovernmental Affairs.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Perez
Biden promoted him?
So how does that make Biden better if he’s why you didn’t like Obama?
Good point. Biden also very disappointing
You’re privileged because you won’t be murdered if we lose this election. You’ll only be murdered slowly over 30 years, along with everyone you love.
Everyone was already murdered in 2016 and the Republicans did Genocide + nuclear world war 3. How can they possibly do that again if we are already dead?
Democrats will send guns and bombs over there to do genocide somewhere else.
Republicans will bring those guns and bombs back home and use them on us.
So we have to support the Democrats.
- Note: This does not apply to Red States, such as South Dakota or Florida or Texas, where you will still be subject to Republican guns and bombs, no matter who is President.
Hell yeah other people should be murdered for our refusal to choose an actual left wing candidate!
Throw some more brown people on the pile! Imagine if white people were killed, the horror! Imagine of course because just like 2016 it probably won’t happen, so let’s make sure real brown people will actually get killed!
Throw some more brown people on the pile!
Literally go down to the Texas/Mexico border right the fuck now and say that again.
Given that OP constantly concern trolls how awful biden is, id say that criticism of them wouldnt be out of line. There is a rather large contingent on the internet, and here on lemmy in particular, out to spread FUD to demoralize the american populace in hopes of discouraging them from voting. With that in mind, and considering the same profiles spread the same nearly exclusively anti-biden propaganda, and the same exact ones jump in to the others defense… methinks the lady doth protest too much.
Somebody forgot to write a 1,000,000 word essay on how Republicans are worse then democrats
You mean like the blathering mindless nonsense you copypasta all over the place?
THIS. IS. DEMOCRACY. MANIFEST!
If I vote for the correct candidate, do I get a succulent chinese meal?
To vote for the yellow line, use a brick as a ballot and [redacted] as the ballot box.
Although in practice a general strike would be most effective, it’s just very hard to organize and reach critical mass.
Deffering responsibility for this problem to the people in government is just scapegoating the problem. We the people need to act directly for and against issues we believe in. While we delegate the power of change to hands of the ruling class nothing will change.
You got downvoted because these folks aren’t even class conscious enough to understand just how much power they yield outside the ballot box with things like strikes. It doesn’t even enter into their brains that when you’re talking about a political revolution you need to take revolutionary action.
Yea, I was like that just a few short years ago. Really glad I woke up to my own power. I will take a few down votes to knock on a few doors… Even if nobody opens.
Most people reading this have little to no influence on how Exxon (for example) behaves. The ruling class has quite a bit. That’s why we need them to act.
We can all be environmentally conscious individuals. It won’t have enough impact without the cooperation of corporations and governments.
I’m taking fewer showers and smell like death, why are ConocoPhillips’ stock prices seemingly not taking a hit?
I agree with you that it’s a question of power. I disagree with you about how little power is in the hands of the people.
That is a completely fair statement.
The power is in the hands of the people by voting. Voting means you can then affect the big factors like regulation, taxes, promotion of alternatives, etc.
Not using plastic straws or eating meat or whatever may well lead to a happier life for you; I won’t say it’s a bad thing to do that.
It will do fuck-all about the coming apocalypse, because not much of the damage is being done by the end user consumer.
If you live in the US, you have a golden combination of opportunity. The US does a lot of polluting and has a lot of ability to influence other places in the world that do, and with enough effort it’s actually possible for an activist organization to get them to listen and do things differently. It’s not easy, but the return on investment for trying to get the US government to regulate Chevron (to pick a random example) beats by like 10:1 or 100:1 the return from directly lobbying the Chevron corporation or just driving a more fuel-efficient car yourself.
Do we have to talk about how we move the Overton Window?
The Democrats can’t do everything wanted when there’s still a very real chance of losing the election. It’s really that simple. If you want to move the Overton Window, you have to keep voting for the closest thing you want. When the Republicans know they can’t win on their views, they will be forced to change. And congrats you have moved the Overton Window.
(yes yes I know the quote they won’t abandon their views, they will abandon democracy, but as for now they still have a real chance of winning.)
If we need more convincing, why are we having stupid movements to disband the EPA? Because the republicans won elections. They moved the Overton window by winning elections.
this. how to vote yellow, but deluding yourself blue is unacceptable and not voting and getting red while you say “its not my fault, i wanted yellow” and live through the consequences.
“its not my fault, i wanted yellow”
AKA: Oldmanyellingatacloud.jpg
We’re just going to completely ignore Bill and Hillary’s third way new Democrat movement, which actively pushed Republicans into being more radical I take it? The movement that actually allowed the current crop of neo fascist echoes to flourish?
The entire problem is this lack of ideology that directly ensures electoral losses.
https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/third-way-dlc-bill-clinton-tony-blair-1990s-politics/
I think this is backwards.
Or rather I think you’re right about Bill and Hillary Clinton, but the cause and effect works the opposite of how you said.
In 1992 the democrats had won one presidential election in 24 years.
I think the violent betrayal of the antiwar left by the DNC in 1968 just turned too many politically active people away from the Democratic Party. Anyone who really cared probably had been gassed or beaten, or knew someone who had, in Chicago in 1968, and so decided - pretty understandably - fuck this game, I’m not playing.
And so what happened? Did we get the yellow line? Did the DNC suddenly realize, as OP swears he wants them to, that to attract votes they’d have to move to the left?
Fuck no. Instead we got Wall Street, the resurgence of wealth inequality as a defining characteristic of the American economy, death squads in Central America, Star Wars. Finally, a generation of continuous losing later, Clinton decided he could safely abandon the actual left since they weren’t interested in voting anyway, and just appeal to conservative-but-not-Nazi rich white people, and the new face of the Democratic Party was born. And, it worked.
And for one instant partway through that whole thing, an actually liberal Democratic candidate won, did some affirmatively great things, got a whole bunch of resistance from the right and not much support from the left, and then got beat out of a 2nd term because of lukewarm support from an American left wing that was too jaded to really realize that he wasn’t the same people who had cheated them out of actual progress in a recent primary they were still salty about. And so, when he lost, an idiot with fascist tendencies and no real government experience won, and ruined the fuckin world.
So no I don’t think the lesson of Clinton is “this lack of ideology.” I think the lesson of Clinton is, if you want the government to represent you, you need to work (in whatever way) to make sure it does, otherwise the most powerful military and economic power in the world will just be up for grabs for whoever feels like fighting hard enough to grab the wheel. And when that happens it’ll fuck up your day and many other people’s way way worse than what you were saying wasn’t worth voting for.
It’d help if young voters could be assed to show up even at their own share of the national population during primaries, nevermind at the dominating share they could easily capture if they spent any of the effort they dedicate to feel good marches and poster distributing to spending a couple hours at most to cast a primary ballot.
Especially in states that have gone in the direction of expanding ease of voting in the last few years, changing the party means changing the leadership of the party bit by bit, and that’s done by voting for new leaders!
HRC needs to STFU.
Not voting for Biden ever. You don’t have to either.
It’s no wonder she lost to Trump.
No self-awareness whatsoever.
According to the graph, certainly not the matter of hitting that target. Are there any candidates that have a plan for “target”?
The really bad part is that carbonbriefs analysis is that the Biden line is only the laws Biden has passed or is about to pass, before the election not being revoked by Trump. So if Biden actually gets elected he can and probably will do more, bringing the actual results much closer to the Target line. However being able to create a graph, seems to hard for a modern PR team.
Remember when they tried to put Jill Stein in prison just for showing up to speak about her campaign in 2016? Oh, what was she wanting to discuss? Ah, mostly the environment and how we need to make some changes to protect it.
The woman who got cucked by Monica Lewinsky and lost to Trump continues to make an idiot of herself.
Dems will vote for Biden because he’ll only drink the blood of one baby while Trump drinks the blood of two.
I get the harm reduction argument but jesus fuck we have 300 million+ people in this country are those two really the best we have to offer?
Target
I didn’t realize that corporations could run for office, or that Target was running. Or that Target was so environmentally conscious.
“Vote Target 2024 and hit the Bullseye.”
Step 1: Vote for Biden now. Step 2: Vote for every Democrat. Do this until the Republican party is a smoking crater. Step 3:Then primary the fuck out of the AIPAC and oil-backed Democrats once you get past Step 2.
It’s important to let the Democratic Party think they’ve got the levers of power, then shift the sands beneath them.
And of it doesn’t work, at least you didn’t get Trump, because no matter how bad the Democrats are, Trump and the Republican Party are so much worse.
Finally someone gets it!
This is how you move the Overton window.
It’s certainly taking a page from the conservatives who moved it their way
They’ve been at it for the last 70 years and have been very successful, completely catching the left (the actual left) in the U.S. off guard. I don’t expect the left to be able to drag the conversation back to the left in any less time.
Step 1: Vote for Biden now. Step 2: Vote for every Democrat. Do this until the Republican party is a smoking crater.
I remember this strategy when it started with “Vote for Gore now.” I’ve got the Kucinich for President bumper sticker to prove it. I do not believe this strategy will ever work, mostly because America isn’t nearly as progressive as you think it is.
Us weirdos need to get used to being unhappy about the government because it will never be what we want because it’s a giant group project and those always suck ass.
I remember this strategy when it started with “Vote for Gore now.”
That would have more weight except people voting for Nader gave us 8 years of Bush by not understanding how a FPTP system works, so I don’t know that Gore is really an argument against this so much as for it.
It’s not an argument for or against voting blue no matter who. It’s an argument against our shitty system that gives us such shitty choices.
This is what I’ve been saying for years, but far less succinctly.
We need to become a one party state.
Edit: you want to give representation to people who would deny you representation if given the opportunity. How can you not see how stupid that is?
Oh yeah, this shit like this comment here is why the working class must never disarm.
I checked this person’s comments to see if there was any interpretation that wasn’t an extremely creepy and authoritarian.
The most recent few are not promising.
Why? I commented something you didn’t like for some reason so I must be a “creepy authoritarian?” What is the person I responded to advocating for if not a one party state. There are two major political parties in the US, that person wants the Republican party to be reduced to a “smoking crater.” Two parties minus one party equals one party. That’s about as simple as arithmetic gets.
Yeah, that’s a fundamental misunderstanding of how things function. Did we end up with one party when the Whigs party went away? No. We had the Republican party become the other major player.
We need more than two parties, not fewer. We just need those parties to ideally be further left, where the majority of Americans are. One party systems you end up without any dissenting voice to speak up when something wrong is being done, so they are allowed to do whatever they want and end up dominating the people. A better system of voting allows voting based on what people actually want, not strategy, so there are a larger variety of voices more closely representing the people.
I think you fundamentally misunderstand how things function. If the Republican party is destroyed, Republican voters will fracture into multiple parties, dividing conservative voters and making it impossible for any one of the new parties to compete with the Democrats in our winner-take-all, first-past-the-post electoral system. The federal government would become a defacto single party system, with the Democrats being that party. Conservatives likely would coalesce around a new single party and join efforts to try and take on the Democrats, but that party would exist to do nothing but obstruct, like the Republican party today. So we would once again be in a situation where there is one party trying to represent a plurality of Americans and an opposition party trying to obstruct everything that party wants to do.
If we want a system of plurality and proportional representation, it would require changing not only the US constitution, but 50 state constitutions as well. How do you propose accomplishing that with two parties competing for control, when one of those parties wants only to obstruct?
become a defacto single party system
Sure, over a short enough time frame, that’s true. However, the power vaccum would quickly be filled by another party, and thus most people wouldn’t consider the US to have a single-party system. It’s the same way how you don’t breathe in the time between every exhale and inhale, but people don’t consider you to have “stopped breathing” because that’s not a very useful conceptualization.
Sure, over a short enough time frame, that’s true. However, the power vaccum would quickly be filled by another party
Which I acknowledged. Or did you stop reading after “defacto single party system?”
Here’s an example for you: in my country, we don’t have a republican party. We barely have a pure conservative party any more. But what we do have are 3 or more (depending on your riding) parties that you can vote for and not feel like you’re wasting your ballot.
And there are sometimes even some good choices in there, because politicians are actually competing over sane policy rather than existential issues like whether we should or should not eradicate trans people. Which is just trying to legalize hate; it’s not how a functioning democracy should be operating.
There’s something simple here all right, but it’s not the math.
By all means, enlighten me. What am I missing?
Getting rid of one party in a First Past The Post system would result in another party taking its place. Barring any mention of reforming how elections are held in America, it is not reasonable to assume someone advocating for dissolving one party wants the remaining party to be the only party.
Getting rid of one party in a First Past The Post system would result in another party taking its place.
Exactly. Get rid of the Republicans and another obstructionist party would eventually take their place, putting us right back where we are right now. You want to replace the first-past-the-post electoral system with one of proportional representation and political plurality? Fine, but how do you plan on accomplishing that with the Republicans, or some other obstructionist fighting you at every turn?
Keep pushing it left until it’s Democrats vs Democratic Socialists in the general election.
I’m so happy to see someone saying these words. Please say more, I hope you’re heard!
In summary, destroy your enemies then start destroying the least pure of your allies. Continue until you’ve made a better world.
— Hitler
— Stalin
— Mao
— This guy ⬆️There’s a bit of a difference between wanting representatives who aren’t in the pockets of Big Oil and voting that way, and a Night of the Long Knives.
To play devil’s advocate, this has been the strategy for decades and yet America has been moving to the right economically. Why would this time be any different? Would it not make sense that people with money would still be the ones the prevailing parties curtail to, not the public?
To play devil’s advocate,
Funny, because everywhere else I see you, you aren’t playing devil’s advocate, but being sincere in peddling this.
But surely someone who craves fascism would NEVER be disingenuous!
I absolutely do not crave fascism, that’s completely unfounded and highly offensive. I have openly admitted my intention to vote for Biden, who I also harshly criticize. Unless, of course, you think voting for Biden makes you a fascist.
Rather, is it truly impossible to believe that a Leftist is tired of playing the same electoral game, and instead believes grassroots pressure is required from outside the electoral sector to enact change?
Entirely fuck off with that bullshit libel, that’s extremely offensive and just a way for you to slander, rather than actually address the concerns I raised.
I’ve been doing this strategy for 24 years and I’m still waiting for it to start working.
IMHO it’s because Step 2 (Blue No Matter Who) tolerates corruption, which loses moderates. There’s a stable equilibrium between steps 2 and 3.
Nope it’s because step 2. Vote in non presidential elections as well. Isn’t being followed. As well as not following step 3. Stop whining about the Democrats we have, run as one of the Democrats we need. There are a ton of state and local offices Republicans win unopposed. I bet if we started consistently running and funding solid left candidates to run against the Republicans as Democrats. Take advantage of the Democrat parties resources. We could accidentally start winning. Even primarying neoliberals. The DSA is doing it in some places.
Wow! What a false, disingenuous argument. So standard operating procedure.
To start with. The slogan “Blue no matter who” isn’t 1 decade old. Let alone decades old. You wouldn’t make that argument if you’d payed attention to what’s actually been going on. Or more importantly were being genuine.
Solidarity has been a major issue for Democrats for decades. And the actual left for a century. And this sort of shit is why.
Vote blue no matter who is absolutely part of the answer. And it’s far overdue. But it’s only a part. The other is voting in every election. Every single one. Not just presidential. Voting for president is honesty one of the least important votes a person can cast. Still important. But so many things are more impactful. No presidents agenda will be implemented good or bad without support in Congress. They make the laws, sign the bills, allocate the funds.
And the last part. Get off your whiny ass and run for office. I vote in every election. And I leave a ton of offices blank. Because it’s a Republican running unopposed. I’d jump at the chance to vote for a DSA running as a democrat against a Republican. Or just about any other actual leftist for that matter. And I’m not alone. Hell I would even vote for an ml if you all could help yourselves. You know stop acting like capitalist. Trying to centralize power and jailing / killing everyone that disagrees with you.
Some people have a hard time believing that the Democratic Party is not one whole monolith that always votes on party lines even when they disagree (that’s the other one)
It’s crazy the people think like that when there are people like Ocasio Cortez Sanders Sinema and Manchin all in the same party. The Democratic party has been for at minimum the last 50 years a coalition party of everyone who was not an abject bigot or racist.
That terrorist Reagan had such a massive win with the aid of a foreign government back in the eighties. That it terrified everyone else. The Democratic party struggled for that whole decade trying to find a new formula to winning against that fascistic terrorist. And in their flailing the neoliberals were the first ones to regain control. And shortly solidified it leading to a lot of the dysfunction we’re still facing to this day. But the party has never been a neoliberal monolith.
We don’t need to erase Republicans to change how we vote. That is controlled at the state level. Should be really easy to do in blue states where Republicans have less influence.
Perhaps to late to change this coming elections voting system, but we can right now start making the organizations we need to push for it ASAP.
Imagine feeling free to vote for who best represents you, sure in the knowledge that if your preference didn’t win, your vote would still count against the Republicans.
