First, mind the community. Can’t help that it ended up in /all. Second, would that point have gotten across to you without the post? So it wasn’t really pointless.
Maybe it’s the over-the-top defensiveness that is the problem, rather than a post in an anarchist community presenting a point of view that made some people react in that way.
I was being funny when I said they made a good point, I already knew that anarchist infighting over whether to vote is pointless and that certain anarchists claiming their political disengagement as representative of anarchism is toxic.
The United States has some of the longest election cycles, maybe in the world, but definitely among western liberal democracies.
So yes, the literal act itself takes a day. But everything surrounding that day is taken up by planning for the next election, enough robs people of other kinds of political engagement, by being such a massive time and energy sink.
Sorry that I’m angry that marginalized groups are going to die in the literal millions because you thought that spiritualist roleplay was more important than harm reduction.
I know, after all, that no anarchist has ever been in support of harm reduction through electoral participation. /s
Sorry that I’m angry that marginalized groups are going to die in the literal millions because you thought that spiritualist roleplay was more important than harm reduction.
Yes, it was me. I didn’t vote In the US elections and that’s why Trump is back in power.
I know, after all, that no anarchist has ever been in support of harm reduction through electoral participation.
I didn’t vote In the US elections and that’s why Trump is back in power.
It’s good you’re coming to grips with being a fraud who is part of a fraud movement that hurts people as a goal and hides behind the pretense that it helps people
Yes, it was me. I didn’t vote In the US elections and that’s why Trump is back in power.
“I was only one person” is the exact kind of stupid nonsense fascists and monarchists tell themselves to allow them to go along with the ruling caste without making the merest fuss about it.
A third of the fucking country didn’t vote. Trump won by just over a percentage point - that is to say, less than a percentage point of eligible voters.
Do you not see why shitting on electoral participation is a problem, in light of that? Do you not see how it helps fascism?
Voting won’t create an anarchist utopia. Voting alone won’t even create a non-fucked democracy. But not voting will absolutely lead to a immeasurably more fucked government in power.
Strawman much? I said electoralism.
Yet all your comments target electoral participation.
Can we stop pretending like voting for the Democrats as they exist now stops the Republicans from winning? It only makes them win more slowly. It is literally why everyone is so disillusioned and why the Democrats were unable to sell their message to enough people. And can we also take for granted that me saying this doesn’t mean that I didn’t vote for Kamala Harris?
Yes. That’s how electoralist politics work. The power as a voter lies in the ability to withhold their vote or to vote for someone else. The moment your vote is being forced into compliance, you have thus lost all your political power under that system.
It’s kinda one of the major flaws of an electoralist system.
I feel like you’re not quite getting the point. The only sway you have over politicians, is your vote. If you guarantee your vote to a party no matter what they do, you have entirely given up all of your political power.
That’s the whole point of democracy. You withhold your vote from the candidates you do not believe in, or who have shown that they do not push for policies that would benefit you or yours. If a candidate does not have beliefs and policies that you believe in, you do not vote for them. And the rough idea is that this incentivizes politicians to adopt policies that people want. If you vote for a politician regardless of whether you believe in what they do, this incentive goes away. The politician will have your vote regardless of what they do, and so they are open to be incentivized in other ways, for example, donations from billionaires.
If a politician adopts wildly unpopular positions, such as just doing genocide, and doing nothing in favor of worker’s rights, or doing nothing in favor of universal health care, and so on, and so forth, and they then lose a race, then it’s their fault for not adopting policies that more people can get behind, and not that of the people who didn’t vote for them. Because again, the whole point of democracy is to incentivize politicians to adopt popular positions, and the politician failed to do so.
That’s the whole point of democracy. You withhold your vote from the candidates you do not believe in
No, it isn’t. You vote for the outcome. The withholding bit is opinion and not universal. It’s a bad opinion.
Not to mention, this is not a democracy. Where to even start… ? How about the fact that it’s only a two-party system.
You all withheld your votes and democrats learned nothing, and never will. But you did indeed help trump claim victory. That is what always will happen. Whichever candidate you are less aligned is empowered when you do not vote. Always will be.
The centrist voter is a myth. There is not a human who will vote for “means-tested subsidies for a state-run employer-funded health insurance marketplace where you have no idea what it will cover or cost.” But wouldn’t vote for “free healthcare” when you move to the center by compromising your bills, you lose voters who suspect the policy won’t help them, you dont gain a bunch of “moderate Republicans” who want only half of immigrants subjected to inhumane conditions.
I definitely don’t have it all figured out, but I wanna know do you ever think about stuff like what it took for the civil rights movement of the 1960s to succeed? Do you think it was a matter of pandering to the interests of centrist liberals or do you think that a big part of it was criticizing status quo liberalism and refusing to settle? I really think that you should read theletter from Birmingham jail by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. because the archetype that he addresses in that work is replayed out every single time somebody ever deigns to criticize the Democrats for their political strategy.
The civil rights movement required a lot of people to go out and protest and do a lot. And in the “end” (i personally don’t think it is even over) the elected representatives VOTED for the civil rights act. But right now, people don’t vote because they don’t have their perfect candidate.
NOBODY is saying “don’t protest”, “don’t resist”, “don’t get out there and make a difference.” Hell i’ll join you, but GO FUCKING VOTE. Because if you don’t then only the people who vote have a voice.
In 2000 Al Gore ran on a platform to stronger focus on environmental protection, healthcare reform, and that he would “fight for the people, not the powerful.” He lost. After Obama we Voted for fucking Trump.
For the past 30 years Democrats move left and people don’t show up to vote. They didn’t vote for Gore, Hilary or Kamala instead they voted for the right. That is what America voted for. So that’s what we’re getting.
The fuck are you talking about? They did show up for Gore. He won the popular vote. The only reason Bush won was due to the electoral college flipping the vote. Gore’s election was stolen from him.
Democrats have not been moving left. They have consistently been moving further and further right since post-WW2 and McCarthyism completely demolished any legitimate left wing politics in this country. Meanwhile the voting population became more and more disenfranchised by the fucked up system we live under.
Between Nader and voters who didn’t turn out, it should have been a no-doubt winner. The game is set up a certain way, and unless you win elections, you can’t change the rules. Rs keep winning and they keep rigging it towards them. With almost 50% of eligible voters sitting out, only those who are playing get to win. If you’re suggesting revolution, we may get there someday, but I don’t think we’re there yet.
Except the person they were responding to phrased the situation poorly by leaving out important context.
In reality, the Democrats lost because they kept expecting leftists to vote against their working class interests in favor of right wing, pro corporate policies that only serve to maintain the capitalist system. You know, the very thing we are fundamentally against?
Maybe if the Democrats actually made strides for legitimate left wing policies, they would encourage more left wing individuals to throw their hat in with them.
Yet, time and time again, they have shown to throw the working class under the bus if it serves the whims of the capitalist market. Now, no one trusts them to uphold our interests when push comes to shove.
Funny of you to assume leftists want the neoliberal, capitalist establishment to win.
Maybe if they actually began to support left wing policy and ideology, instead of routinely throwing us under the bus to save the skin of those who exploit us, leftist would be willing to vote for them.
Also, FYI, there are more than just Democrats and Republicans to vote for. Saying people shouldn’t vote for Democrats isn’t the same thing as advocating against voting at all.
You’re not exactly wrong, but it’s even more fundamental than that. If leftists were a more reliable voting bloc, then Democrats couldn’t exist as they do today. They would be primaried by more leftist candidates. And then, if hard left policies were more popular with the general electorate, they would win.
The nightmare we’re all living in right now is proof. I don’t believe for an instant that The Powers That Be wanted Donald Trump to be president. Even by fascist standards he’s kind of a disaster. They wanted fucking Jeb! But Trump’s implicit message of “I’m going to fuck shit up and the establishment doesn’t want me” resonated with a lot of people. It just got the extra boost from being tied with fucked up racism, sexism, and ignorance, all of which are tied to pretty solid groups of voters.
You’re confusing cause and effect; democrats need to promise policy that improves people’s material conditions if they want people to vote for them, and use every single power at their disposal to prevent further harm until then to prove they will do as they say if they win. Nobody is going to vote for a party that they dont believe will help them.
You cant win while telling your own base “eat shit, what are you gonna do, not vote?”
There is also the fact that democrats lost in 2024, and 2016, and the way the dems lost the house and senate in 2010 after bailing out the banks for stealing people’s houses and giving the health insurance companies subsidies instead of giving us healthcare. Turns out when you do the opposite of what your base wants, fewer people vote.
There is also the fact that all independents lost in [every year] and the way the inds lost the house and senate in [every year] while taking votes away from those who had any chance of not bailing out the banks for stealing people’s houses and giving the health insurance companies subsidies instead of giving us healthcare. Turns out when you withhold your vote from the only people remotely on your side who have a shred of a chance to win, fewer of your policy goals are ever implemented.
The only way the dems can win is if they implement overwhelmingly popular left policy such as free healthcare, and fight the republicans using every tool at their disposal.
The only time we have seen dems accede to popular demand is when Biden had a less than 5% chance at winning.
Do you see where I’m going with this? Voting blue no matter who lets the DNC delude themselves into thinking they can win while running on dogshit policy. If we tell the dems the only way we will vote for them is if they do the thing they need to do to win anyway, they might actually do the things they need to do to win.
This thought process relies on an assumption that Americans are progressive in general. Which time and again, everywhere we look, that is just plain not something we see.
Of course it did. Nothing was stopping you from voting to reduce harm. You were not destined by the stars to wield your privilege to hurt minorities while pretending that made you a hero.
i’m pretty sure they’ve already learned that leftists can’t for the life of them accept anything that’s short of perfect, and that’s why they are pandering to centrists and right-wingers.
With dems in power it would then be much easier to shift towards the left, but noooo we cant do that, let’s get Mr. Taco Donald Trump on the case, i’m sure he will do better.
Do you really think republicans all like trump?
there’s gonna be extermists that want every single black person out of the usa, and there’s bigots who only want trans people out of sports (note: i do not support nor agree with those sentiments, but they do exist.)
What they do have, unlike you all apparently, is common sense to see that if they don’t unite, they won’t win
and would you look at that, republican turnout was almost the same as 2020 but masses of left-leaning people decided to be whimps and give their vote to the popular decision (because remember, not voting does not exist, it’s a vote for the other side.)
“Please stop bombing children”, “How about we don’t back a genocide”, “Maybe illness shouldn’t put you into bankruptcy”, “Police shouldn’t be able to assault and murder innocent people”
I feel like these are reasonable requests, and quite different than “short of perfect”
Maybe if the Democrats fought for those values, instead of against them, then they would gain leftist support.
Are the choosing democrats in the room with us? Because last time I checked they can only watch as Republicans cut social security, medical, and education while raising taxes and setting up concentration camps.
I’m sure you’re okay with all of that so long as you can send a message.
Oh yea, i can see them only watching. Can’t have your members go against the
mandate of the people
I mean who can ask for more from them? that stern letter they sent only after trumps points fell to 40. I am sure that hit home to that one staffer he has that can read. Oh and at the same time democrats were sitting at a 27 so you know, too busy watching and censuring their own to ensure there is no impediments to republicans directed fee fall into tyranny, no time for self reflection!
When democrats won it was all the minority parties fault we can’t get anything done. But you see, decorum is far more important than fighting tyrants.
Ill vote in the primary, but 2020 showed us, if our guy doesn’t win, voting for a conservative in the general is still handing power to the Republicans
Voting for the conservative in 2020 gave us Trump in 2024.
The only way we could have avoided Trump in 2024 is if a conservative didn’t win the primary in 2020, and the only way that would have happened is if the DNC knew a conservative didn’t have a shot in hell.
If the DNC believes we will vote for whatever they give us, we will get no concessions. Our mistake in 2020 was compromising and voting for Biden in the hope we could get some concessions after the election.
You forgot a step. Short term vs long term planning.
The problem with voting with your method is you only get to vote once. Every vote you need to make the decision:
I should vote based on the optimal outcome of this election.
I should vote based on the optimal outcome over many elections.
It’s important that you first ask yourself this question. There’s no such thing as a free lunch. And often by voting for (1) you’re hurting (2).
For example, everyone to the left of Republicans would have been better off if Trump had won in 2020. The primary process was rigged to keep progressive Democrats divided while forcing Biden through as the centrist compromise. People on the left tried to vote for progressive candidates, but the DNC rigged it so that all the centrists EXCEPT Biden dropped out early, while the progressive candidates had their vote divided. The DNC organized for Biden to win the primary. And then, in the general, everyone on the left held their nose and voted for him. They followed your advice to the letter, and everyone to the left of Republicans was massive harmed as the result of following your exact advice.
Those on the left followed your instructions exactly, but they ended up with an inferior option than if they had voted third party.
Biden winning in 2020 guaranteed a MAGA win in 2024. Biden was never going to make the changes needed to prevent MAGA from returning to power. This was predicted by many on the left before he was even sworn in.
Trump in 2020 would have been far less dangerous than a Trump in 2024. He wouldn’t have had 4 years to regroup and plan out his whole Project 2025. He would have been a lame duck from day one, and he wouldn’t have had the political capital he came in with in 2024.
Centrists, liberals, leftists, all of them did themselves a disservice by voting for Biden in 2020. Objectively, everyone EXCEPT Republicans would have had a better long-term outcome if Trump had won in 2020. But in your strategy, we’re not allowed to consider the long term effects of our decisions. We’re just supposed to myopically focus on this and only this election.
That’s the kind of moron speak we get from these people though. They pretend to care about stopping fascism but would gladly usher it in to tEaCh DeMoCrAtS a LeSsOn
Trump winning in 2020 being better is a BIG assumption that fails to consider just how bad things could have gone.
Off the top of my head, would things be better right now if we’d had Turkey’s levels of inflation? How bad would poverty have gotten? How many people would’ve died from suicides and extra Covid deaths? Would he immediately have gone into revenge for BLM mode?
There is a level of death and destruction that you are failing to consider.
Also, really consider how this conspiracy to stop Bernie in 2020 is just the centrists making a strategic decision not to split the vote. In the French parliamentary elections, like 200 left-wing and centrist candidates withdrew from the second-round run-off races to avoid splitting the anti-far-right vote —Do you consider what they did to be unethical and a subversion of democracy?
Right, we’ve seen the train coming for decades as 2 right wing parties exploit a country and drain its people of wellbeing and as expected it enabled the rise of fascism.
Pretty stupid to stay on the track instead of hopping off and not supporting them.
A bunch of you self destructive lunatics/frauds didn’t vote. I want to change that. Stop pretending you can hide behind bullshit. Your actions => elect republicans, full stop.
Not voting means Republicans win.
Focusing on nothing but voting enables neoliberalism in promoting fascism.
Well I’m right behind you bud. I’ll vote AND you let me know what you wanna do.
Vote if you want. But don’t waste too much time doing so and join a political org.
Good news for you, voting only takes one day.
But that’s not counting this time we’re spending on it right now.
Wow, good point. Maybe posts like this that pointlessly create drama by attacking people who vote are part of the problem.
First, mind the community. Can’t help that it ended up in /all. Second, would that point have gotten across to you without the post? So it wasn’t really pointless.
Maybe it’s the over-the-top defensiveness that is the problem, rather than a post in an anarchist community presenting a point of view that made some people react in that way.
I was being funny when I said they made a good point, I already knew that anarchist infighting over whether to vote is pointless and that certain anarchists claiming their political disengagement as representative of anarchism is toxic.
The United States has some of the longest election cycles, maybe in the world, but definitely among western liberal democracies.
So yes, the literal act itself takes a day. But everything surrounding that day is taken up by planning for the next election, enough robs people of other kinds of political engagement, by being such a massive time and energy sink.
It’s your choice whether you want to campaign for a candidate.
They want to kill anybody who disagrees with installing an autocrat who promises to redistribute wealth via execution.
Veryeanarchist stance /s
We can only ever have one message. Classic and so true /s
Electoralism doesn’t change shit and binds resources.
The amount of simping for electoralist politics in an anarchist sub is truly depressing.
The amount of people fine with trump in the world takes the depression cake by landslides. You wouldn’t know because you’re fine with that too.
Voting changes things. See: every election that wasn’t rigged. Maybe some that were.
Ok, my bad: it doesn’t change shit in your favour.
You assume everyone is like you and wanted trump to win, apparently
Jesus fucking Christ.
Look, it’s PugJesus being angry at the anarchists in the anarchist com! Go figure. /s
Sorry that I’m angry that marginalized groups are going to die in the literal millions because you thought that spiritualist roleplay was more important than harm reduction.
I know, after all, that no anarchist has ever been in support of harm reduction through electoral participation. /s
Yes, it was me. I didn’t vote In the US elections and that’s why Trump is back in power.
Strawman much? I said electoralism.
It’s good you’re coming to grips with being a fraud who is part of a fraud movement that hurts people as a goal and hides behind the pretense that it helps people
“I was only one person” is the exact kind of stupid nonsense fascists and monarchists tell themselves to allow them to go along with the ruling caste without making the merest fuss about it.
A third of the fucking country didn’t vote. Trump won by just over a percentage point - that is to say, less than a percentage point of eligible voters.
Do you not see why shitting on electoral participation is a problem, in light of that? Do you not see how it helps fascism?
Voting won’t create an anarchist utopia. Voting alone won’t even create a non-fucked democracy. But not voting will absolutely lead to a immeasurably more fucked government in power.
Yet all your comments target electoral participation.
voting is not harm reduction
Can we stop pretending like voting for the Democrats as they exist now stops the Republicans from winning? It only makes them win more slowly. It is literally why everyone is so disillusioned and why the Democrats were unable to sell their message to enough people. And can we also take for granted that me saying this doesn’t mean that I didn’t vote for Kamala Harris?
Maybe we could stop pretending that the shitty Democrats that have never learned their lesson suddenly will if Republicans win one more time
“Dems never learn! That’s why we need to withhold our vote to teach them a lesson!”
Yes. That’s how electoralist politics work. The power as a voter lies in the ability to withhold their vote or to vote for someone else. The moment your vote is being forced into compliance, you have thus lost all your political power under that system.
It’s kinda one of the major flaws of an electoralist system.
Congratulations for reaching the point.
Yes it is our fault we’re in this mess. You know, the people who used their vote to stop it. Those who didn’t? Well, they are blameless.
I feel like you’re not quite getting the point. The only sway you have over politicians, is your vote. If you guarantee your vote to a party no matter what they do, you have entirely given up all of your political power.
That’s the whole point of democracy. You withhold your vote from the candidates you do not believe in, or who have shown that they do not push for policies that would benefit you or yours. If a candidate does not have beliefs and policies that you believe in, you do not vote for them. And the rough idea is that this incentivizes politicians to adopt policies that people want. If you vote for a politician regardless of whether you believe in what they do, this incentive goes away. The politician will have your vote regardless of what they do, and so they are open to be incentivized in other ways, for example, donations from billionaires.
If a politician adopts wildly unpopular positions, such as just doing genocide, and doing nothing in favor of worker’s rights, or doing nothing in favor of universal health care, and so on, and so forth, and they then lose a race, then it’s their fault for not adopting policies that more people can get behind, and not that of the people who didn’t vote for them. Because again, the whole point of democracy is to incentivize politicians to adopt popular positions, and the politician failed to do so.
No, it isn’t. You vote for the outcome. The withholding bit is opinion and not universal. It’s a bad opinion.
Not to mention, this is not a democracy. Where to even start… ? How about the fact that it’s only a two-party system.
You all withheld your votes and democrats learned nothing, and never will. But you did indeed help trump claim victory. That is what always will happen. Whichever candidate you are less aligned is empowered when you do not vote. Always will be.
“some of my colleagues lost. I shall now begin the transformation to a totally new human”
The Democrats exist as they do now because they can’t rely on the left to vote. So they have to pander to the center.
The centrist voter is a myth. There is not a human who will vote for “means-tested subsidies for a state-run employer-funded health insurance marketplace where you have no idea what it will cover or cost.” But wouldn’t vote for “free healthcare” when you move to the center by compromising your bills, you lose voters who suspect the policy won’t help them, you dont gain a bunch of “moderate Republicans” who want only half of immigrants subjected to inhumane conditions.
Take a marketing class. If you think that politics is about pandering and not about convincing people, then you’ve lost the game already
Ah I understand now. You took Marketing 101 and have it all figured out.
I definitely don’t have it all figured out, but I wanna know do you ever think about stuff like what it took for the civil rights movement of the 1960s to succeed? Do you think it was a matter of pandering to the interests of centrist liberals or do you think that a big part of it was criticizing status quo liberalism and refusing to settle? I really think that you should read theletter from Birmingham jail by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. because the archetype that he addresses in that work is replayed out every single time somebody ever deigns to criticize the Democrats for their political strategy.
The civil rights movement required a lot of people to go out and protest and do a lot. And in the “end” (i personally don’t think it is even over) the elected representatives VOTED for the civil rights act. But right now, people don’t vote because they don’t have their perfect candidate.
NOBODY is saying “don’t protest”, “don’t resist”, “don’t get out there and make a difference.” Hell i’ll join you, but GO FUCKING VOTE. Because if you don’t then only the people who vote have a voice.
In 2000 Al Gore ran on a platform to stronger focus on environmental protection, healthcare reform, and that he would “fight for the people, not the powerful.” He lost. After Obama we Voted for fucking Trump.
For the past 30 years Democrats move left and people don’t show up to vote. They didn’t vote for Gore, Hilary or Kamala instead they voted for the right. That is what America voted for. So that’s what we’re getting.
The fuck are you talking about? They did show up for Gore. He won the popular vote. The only reason Bush won was due to the electoral college flipping the vote. Gore’s election was stolen from him.
Democrats have not been moving left. They have consistently been moving further and further right since post-WW2 and McCarthyism completely demolished any legitimate left wing politics in this country. Meanwhile the voting population became more and more disenfranchised by the fucked up system we live under.
Between Nader and voters who didn’t turn out, it should have been a no-doubt winner. The game is set up a certain way, and unless you win elections, you can’t change the rules. Rs keep winning and they keep rigging it towards them. With almost 50% of eligible voters sitting out, only those who are playing get to win. If you’re suggesting revolution, we may get there someday, but I don’t think we’re there yet.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2000_United_States_presidential_election
Yes, we already lost last election because of the exact reasons stated by the person you’re responding to
Except the person they were responding to phrased the situation poorly by leaving out important context.
In reality, the Democrats lost because they kept expecting leftists to vote against their working class interests in favor of right wing, pro corporate policies that only serve to maintain the capitalist system. You know, the very thing we are fundamentally against?
Maybe if the Democrats actually made strides for legitimate left wing policies, they would encourage more left wing individuals to throw their hat in with them.
Yet, time and time again, they have shown to throw the working class under the bus if it serves the whims of the capitalist market. Now, no one trusts them to uphold our interests when push comes to shove.
Maybe if people like you stopped encouraging non voting we could win a fucking election
Funny of you to assume leftists want the neoliberal, capitalist establishment to win.
Maybe if they actually began to support left wing policy and ideology, instead of routinely throwing us under the bus to save the skin of those who exploit us, leftist would be willing to vote for them.
Also, FYI, there are more than just Democrats and Republicans to vote for. Saying people shouldn’t vote for Democrats isn’t the same thing as advocating against voting at all.
I assume you want Republicans to win, since it’s obvious to anyone your actions would lead to that.
You’re not exactly wrong, but it’s even more fundamental than that. If leftists were a more reliable voting bloc, then Democrats couldn’t exist as they do today. They would be primaried by more leftist candidates. And then, if hard left policies were more popular with the general electorate, they would win.
The nightmare we’re all living in right now is proof. I don’t believe for an instant that The Powers That Be wanted Donald Trump to be president. Even by fascist standards he’s kind of a disaster. They wanted fucking Jeb! But Trump’s implicit message of “I’m going to fuck shit up and the establishment doesn’t want me” resonated with a lot of people. It just got the extra boost from being tied with fucked up racism, sexism, and ignorance, all of which are tied to pretty solid groups of voters.
Can we stop pretending that withholding a Democratic vote will make any positive difference?
Can we stop pretending that Democrats win any way besides getting votes?
Can we stop pretending history shows anything besides you being wrong here?
You’re confusing cause and effect; democrats need to promise policy that improves people’s material conditions if they want people to vote for them, and use every single power at their disposal to prevent further harm until then to prove they will do as they say if they win. Nobody is going to vote for a party that they dont believe will help them.
You cant win while telling your own base “eat shit, what are you gonna do, not vote?”
The only thing that tells you that is a common sense analysis of the situation
There is also the fact that democrats lost in 2024, and 2016, and the way the dems lost the house and senate in 2010 after bailing out the banks for stealing people’s houses and giving the health insurance companies subsidies instead of giving us healthcare. Turns out when you do the opposite of what your base wants, fewer people vote.
There is also the fact that all independents lost in [every year] and the way the inds lost the house and senate in [every year] while taking votes away from those who had any chance of not bailing out the banks for stealing people’s houses and giving the health insurance companies subsidies instead of giving us healthcare. Turns out when you withhold your vote from the only people remotely on your side who have a shred of a chance to win, fewer of your policy goals are ever implemented.
The only way the dems can win is if they implement overwhelmingly popular left policy such as free healthcare, and fight the republicans using every tool at their disposal.
The only time we have seen dems accede to popular demand is when Biden had a less than 5% chance at winning.
Do you see where I’m going with this? Voting blue no matter who lets the DNC delude themselves into thinking they can win while running on dogshit policy. If we tell the dems the only way we will vote for them is if they do the thing they need to do to win anyway, they might actually do the things they need to do to win.
This thought process relies on an assumption that Americans are progressive in general. Which time and again, everywhere we look, that is just plain not something we see.
that didn’t happen.
Of course it did. Nothing was stopping you from voting to reduce harm. You were not destined by the stars to wield your privilege to hurt minorities while pretending that made you a hero.
So you know they won’t learn, but want people to vote for them anyway? Fucking idiot you are
i’m pretty sure they’ve already learned that leftists can’t for the life of them accept anything that’s short of perfect, and that’s why they are pandering to centrists and right-wingers. With dems in power it would then be much easier to shift towards the left, but noooo we cant do that, let’s get Mr. Taco Donald Trump on the case, i’m sure he will do better.
Do you really think republicans all like trump?
there’s gonna be extermists that want every single black person out of the usa, and there’s bigots who only want trans people out of sports (note: i do not support nor agree with those sentiments, but they do exist.) What they do have, unlike you all apparently, is common sense to see that if they don’t unite, they won’t win
and would you look at that, republican turnout was almost the same as 2020 but masses of left-leaning people decided to be whimps and give their vote to the popular decision (because remember, not voting does not exist, it’s a vote for the other side.)
and now we are stuck with trump.
“Please stop bombing children”, “How about we don’t back a genocide”, “Maybe illness shouldn’t put you into bankruptcy”, “Police shouldn’t be able to assault and murder innocent people”
I feel like these are reasonable requests, and quite different than “short of perfect”
Maybe if the Democrats fought for those values, instead of against them, then they would gain leftist support.
your response is a perfect example of why they are focusing on centrists and right wingers
Because I want them to stop bombing children? Yeah, I know. They’d rather keep doing that, than try to appeal to me as a voter.
Yes it is, but not in the way you think.
this is a lie
That’s for the democrats to choose
Are the choosing democrats in the room with us? Because last time I checked they can only watch as Republicans cut social security, medical, and education while raising taxes and setting up concentration camps.
I’m sure you’re okay with all of that so long as you can send a message.
Oh yea, i can see them only watching. Can’t have your members go against the
I mean who can ask for more from them? that stern letter they sent only after trumps points fell to 40. I am sure that hit home to that one staffer he has that can read. Oh and at the same time democrats were sitting at a 27 so you know, too busy watching and censuring their own to ensure there is no impediments to republicans directed fee fall into tyranny, no time for self reflection!
When democrats won it was all the minority parties fault we can’t get anything done. But you see, decorum is far more important than fighting tyrants.
Embarrassing
There haven’t been more DNC than GOP senators in over 10 years. You want them to do stuff? Volunteer for them in the midterms.
Uh riiight
In hindsight, everyone on the left side of the spectrum would have been better off not voting in the 2020 presidential presidential election.
… Uh ok
Blindly voting means the Right win.
Vote for the furthest left-wing candidate in the primary.
Vote the for furthest left-wong candidate in the general.
It’s not difficult.
Ill vote in the primary, but 2020 showed us, if our guy doesn’t win, voting for a conservative in the general is still handing power to the Republicans
I would say not voting for the “conservative” in 2024 more directly handed power to the Republicans, no?
Voting for the conservative in 2020 gave us Trump in 2024.
The only way we could have avoided Trump in 2024 is if a conservative didn’t win the primary in 2020, and the only way that would have happened is if the DNC knew a conservative didn’t have a shot in hell.
If the DNC believes we will vote for whatever they give us, we will get no concessions. Our mistake in 2020 was compromising and voting for Biden in the hope we could get some concessions after the election.
You forgot a step. Short term vs long term planning.
The problem with voting with your method is you only get to vote once. Every vote you need to make the decision:
I should vote based on the optimal outcome of this election.
I should vote based on the optimal outcome over many elections.
It’s important that you first ask yourself this question. There’s no such thing as a free lunch. And often by voting for (1) you’re hurting (2).
For example, everyone to the left of Republicans would have been better off if Trump had won in 2020. The primary process was rigged to keep progressive Democrats divided while forcing Biden through as the centrist compromise. People on the left tried to vote for progressive candidates, but the DNC rigged it so that all the centrists EXCEPT Biden dropped out early, while the progressive candidates had their vote divided. The DNC organized for Biden to win the primary. And then, in the general, everyone on the left held their nose and voted for him. They followed your advice to the letter, and everyone to the left of Republicans was massive harmed as the result of following your exact advice.
Those on the left followed your instructions exactly, but they ended up with an inferior option than if they had voted third party.
Biden winning in 2020 guaranteed a MAGA win in 2024. Biden was never going to make the changes needed to prevent MAGA from returning to power. This was predicted by many on the left before he was even sworn in.
Trump in 2020 would have been far less dangerous than a Trump in 2024. He wouldn’t have had 4 years to regroup and plan out his whole Project 2025. He would have been a lame duck from day one, and he wouldn’t have had the political capital he came in with in 2024.
Centrists, liberals, leftists, all of them did themselves a disservice by voting for Biden in 2020. Objectively, everyone EXCEPT Republicans would have had a better long-term outcome if Trump had won in 2020. But in your strategy, we’re not allowed to consider the long term effects of our decisions. We’re just supposed to myopically focus on this and only this election.
You claim to worry about long term planning when you don’t even have the hindsight of all the horrible shit happening we could have avoided.
That’s the kind of moron speak we get from these people though. They pretend to care about stopping fascism but would gladly usher it in to tEaCh DeMoCrAtS a LeSsOn
Trump winning in 2020 being better is a BIG assumption that fails to consider just how bad things could have gone.
Off the top of my head, would things be better right now if we’d had Turkey’s levels of inflation? How bad would poverty have gotten? How many people would’ve died from suicides and extra Covid deaths? Would he immediately have gone into revenge for BLM mode?
There is a level of death and destruction that you are failing to consider.
Also, really consider how this conspiracy to stop Bernie in 2020 is just the centrists making a strategic decision not to split the vote. In the French parliamentary elections, like 200 left-wing and centrist candidates withdrew from the second-round run-off races to avoid splitting the anti-far-right vote —Do you consider what they did to be unethical and a subversion of democracy?
So vote for no one?
no one cares
no one will work for your interests
no one will overthrow the oppressive systems
no one has never taken a bribe
Blindly? I think it’s pretty fucking blind personally to see clearly that a train is coming but to stay the fuck on the tracks
Right, we’ve seen the train coming for decades as 2 right wing parties exploit a country and drain its people of wellbeing and as expected it enabled the rise of fascism.
Pretty stupid to stay on the track instead of hopping off and not supporting them.
You love that fucking track so goddamned much
You’re the one not wanting to change?
A bunch of you self destructive lunatics/frauds didn’t vote. I want to change that. Stop pretending you can hide behind bullshit. Your actions => elect republicans, full stop.
A bunch of you libshits voted for fascists and proto-fascists. I want you to stop that.
A bunch of morons out of touch with reality say lIbShIt