There’s no way to win political power in the United States without the Democratic Party or the Republican Party.
Socialists and progressives will always have an easier time infiltrating the neoliberal Democratic Party over the fascist Republican Party.
The longer the fascists are in power the harder it will be remove them from power because they will change the rules to maintain power.
The optimal strategy remains to vote for neoliberals when the alternative is fascists because that is how to create time for socialists and progressives to primary neoliberals in the Democratic Party and win general elections.
This meme is a continuation of the accelerationism we saw during the 2024 election. It supports the fascist cause by attempting to sabotage leftist’s best strategy and thus is pro-fascist. The user is prone to self-sabotage as they publicly admitted to not voting for Harris in 2024.
If a fascist drinks at your bar and you don’t throw them out it’s a fascist bar. If a fascist meme ends up in your community and you don’t throw it your a fascist community.
I am reporting this meme. And you all should too. I’m sick of self-described leftists backstabing me and every other minority group they pretend to care about because they’re mad about the 2016 election. I’m a trans, atheist, Jew. I’m close enough to the death camps for my liking thanks. You don’t have to like the Democrats, I don’t, but we do need to vote for them.
I refuse to go quietly. I refuse to tolerate memes that shrug at my right to exist and throw fuel to the fire in the hopes that the fascists kill everyone faster. That’s not a real political position. It’s black pilled bullshit and it can fuck off.
Hope that helps people stop tolerating this bullshit going forward.
Not true. It can be reformed the same way the republican party was deformed. By gutting it from the inside out and replacing all the dead weight.
Yes. It can be taken over like the rnc was by maga. The mentality of this post makes progressives lose before they try. That is what capitalism really wants. For you to not try and accept the bullshit.
the dead weight is… most of it though. A lot of people just joined because it was the only alternative to republicans. And now its pretty much dead.
While the new progressive “MAGA” forms, we have to get MAGA/GOP out. Look to the good Dem primaries and pick the more progressive Bernie Sanders types.
MAGA needs to go though, if most of the country turns on the GOP, could probably have enough seats to impeach and remove Trump. Then do the same to Vance, then a dem speaker of the house could take over.
This is a right-wing troll talking point. Don’t listen to it.
Go to the Democratic primaries and move the party left. And then, no matter who gets the nomination, vote Dem in the general election. This is exactly what the nazis did to move the GOP to the right and it worked great for them, and it’s something we can emulate.
no matter who gets the nomination, vote Dem in the general election
Its never worked before, but lets just try that again.
This is a right-wing troll talking point. Don’t listen to it. This is a far left anarchist talking point
Preach!
Yeah, not listening to this defeatist garbage. The Democratic party has been changed before. It will be changed again. The party is not defined by some monolithic ideology. We need massive electoral reform in the US to ensure elections are actually fair. First past the post is problematic. House and Senate functions are problematic. We need a solution to the two party problem, but until then, our vehicle is the Democratic party. Best to make it do what we want it to rather than just give up because “they’re corporatists”.
Yeah, not listening to this defeatist garbage.
Defeatism is thinking the only option you have is playing by the rules the bourgeoisie instated, not “stop believing in a corrupt party”
Okay, one still should vote for a Democrat president. Because why would you vote for a more hostile government? Unless of course you want everything go-to shit but you should lead with your intention.
You claim to be a socialist in your other posts but you sure sound like a DNC centrist all the time.
I see you’re the one that responded with a page of why Dems suck when I said the Dems wield power differently but not against Capitalism. Maybe you live in a part of the world where there is no material difference between the two parties but that is not the lived reality for myself or my neighbors. This is not a centrist saying “well actually the Dems don’t suck as much as you say”, it is a Marxist saying you cannot build a coalition while ignoring the material conditions people are experiencing.
Okay, one still should vote for a Democrat president.
LOL, the last Democratic nominee saw tens of millions of voters saying ‘hey, we’d like to be able to afford food and rent’, and their response was ‘just be joyful about how poor you are’.
If Dems want votes, they need to do more than make promises.
Dems don’t want votes though, they are a fundraising organization.
She campaigned on fairly substantial changes, such as $25k downpayment assistance, $10k tax credit to first-time home buyers, and a lot of other housing reforms and subsidies. Not that I particularly liked her, but she did campaign on that kind of stuff (which people/media mostly ignored, IIRC).
Not that I particularly liked her, but she did campaign on that kind of stuff (which people/media mostly ignored, IIRC).
That’ll happen when your record and that of your predecessors shows that your promises are worthless.
Also she probably shouldn’t have spent three months telling people to be joyful about how poor they were before dreaming up her policy positions.
Biden and Obama were also pretty good on these issues.
Biden heralded the American Rescue Plan which set aside billions for housing, and also oversaw housing assistance given to 8 Million renters and 500k homeowners.
Obama Stimulus was so much that Republicans have been screeching about the federal deficit to this day.
Great way to logic. Let me try…
You cannot reform the United States of America because at it’s core it is a capitalist and imperialist country that will always put corporate interests over human interests.
Oh shit, now the whole project is hopeless. Let me try again.
You cannot reform humanity because at it’s core it is selfish and self-serving.
I guess we are all fucked. Or maybe we grow the fuck up and deal with the reality of what’s in front of us and the work involved in making things better. If we can’t reform the Democrats, then we have no chance in hell of shepherding a new party from nothing to national powerhouse without losing it to the same corrupting forces that hold the Democrats. Never-mind the realities of what it would take to take over the country with a third party in a first past the post system.
You cannot reform the United States of America because at it’s core it is a capitalist and imperialist country that will always put corporate interests over human interests.
I mean, did you ever reform the USA to be anything but that?
Yes, the USA is a capitalist and imperialist country at its core. Half the planet wants it dead, the other half look at it with disdain. Nothing short of going back to the drawing board will save a country built on genocide, land theft and staging coups and waging wars worldwide
Let me borrow a quote (paraphrase) from Rumsfeld: You build a society with the people you have, not the people you wish you had or may have at some future time
(Feel free to credit that directly to Rumsfeld. It’d piss him off.)
All nations are peopled with selfish and self-serving apes. We’ve always depended on sociological tricks to get them to function within the social contract, but it does mean those with more power tend to try to hoard it, and the mechanisms we used to curb that were all captured and broken.
We can build a better society, but it will mean either violently seizing the property of those in power, or threatening them with an even greater violence that could ruin all they value. General strikes have been effective sometimes in Europe, but it’s think-outside-the-box time.
Since we don’t have a salted hydrogen bomb, I got nothing personally, but I haven’t stopped thinking about it.
I’ll go further: It wouldn’t be enough to simply reform one political party, anyway. The U.S. Constitution is a dead document, and its system of government is obsolete. The black hats have discovered the exploits, and everybody now knows how to game the system. We can’t repair the system from inside the system, since it at the bottom line it runs on trust, and that trust in the system is gone. Just like in any relationship, it takes some material change to get people to trust again.
So let me guess. The solution is to vote for a 3rd party that has absolutely no presence in our federal government at all, hoping that magically one of their reps can become president and save the country, despite having absolutely no support within the federal government, at all? And we’ll just all agree to pretend like they won’t become susceptible to corporate interests as well so they can actually accrue enough money to start winning elections.
Ok, so enough of that stupid bullshit. Let’s hop on back to reality.
In reality, we have to vote Democrat for the time being because WE JUST FOUND OUT WHAT FUCKING HAPPENS IF WE DON’T. Meanwhile, we hope that a 3rd party can get off its fucking ass and start winning local/state elections so they can start getting MORE THAN ZERO representatives in the House and Senate, so that someday they can actually have a real shot at running a candidate for president.
This meme is grade school level dogshit. It only serves to split the vote more on 3rd party candidates that can’t win and ensure Republican control of our government for even longer. We don’t live in fantasy land. 3rd parties can’t recite magical incantations and gain control of our federal government. There’s a really fucking long process for a road to the presidency for a 3rd party, and in the meantime, we fucking vote Democrat because HAVE WE FUCKING LEARNED NOTHING?
WE JUST FOUND OUT WHAT FUCKING HAPPENS IF WE DON’T.
No, you just found out what happens when your only choices are either nazis or capitalistic corrupt “let’s debate nazis” centrists
No, at the moment, we have to vote defensively. But we had to vote defensively in 2000 and couldn’t and it got us here.
And to be fair there’s a trillion-dollar far-right propaganda machine that sucks up the majority of viewership. So yes, in fact, a lot of influence is assuring we’ve learned nothing and will continue to do so until our own necks are in the mire.
It may be too late now. But it may have been too late in 2016. It may have been too late in 2000.
Fascist autocratic dissolution of the society is not the only great filter we are facing. An overwhelming amount of work must me done to reverse the FUBAR, and the people are not yet ready for it. Nor are they ready for the horrors of war, famine and pestilence (transmissible diseases like measles), all whose hounds have vaulted their slips.
somebody said it nicely yesterday in a lemmy comment:
we need to capture the dems and turn them into a socialist party,
just like the fascists captured the reps and turned them into a nazi partyBingo.
I think it can be ship of theseus’d, just replace all the key people in the party and keep the name.
FDR was a democrat, if it could go from that to what it is now, it can be turned back into a socialist party.
I think it can be ship of theseus’d, just replace all the key people in the party and keep the name.
At this point it’s easier to just nuke it
Lets drop the nukes on humanity, start over.
Parties can absolutely change with enough pressure.
I’ve been alive long enough to watch the Republican party almost completely change. Yeah, they were always stupid assholes. But they were not even close to THIS crazy and traitorous. Their base changed them. The liberal base can change the Democrat party.
The Democrat party is ESTABLISHED. No 3rd party is even remotely close to being established. It is not the time yet to vote for a 3rd party and won’t be until a 3rd party actually gets serious and starts winning smaller elections.
This is GOP propaganda
Absolutely.
What the fuck are you talking about I’ve heard it a million fucking times already. Its all anti-Harris lefties talk about.
Having fun with the fascism we’ve got instead? Thanks for that BTW. Real good. Really makes me motivated to fight for my rights when my follow lefties keep empowering fascists through inaction in the most simplistic and basic fucking democratic function of going to a polling place and voting once every 4 years for the lib that’ll beat the fascist.
I really wanna go fight ICE in hand to hand combat and get shot in the fucking face knowing this probably could have been prevented.
Also if you are going to complain that I’m not bagging on the centrist/liberal dems for losing because they refused to budge left: I fucking hate them too, you can both suck shit directly out of my asshole.
Progressives do vote for centrists. Centrists do not return the favor and vote for progressives. Harris didn’t lose because the left staying home; the left held their nose and voted for her, even though that loyalty is a one-way street. She lost because she was such a dog shit candidate that she couldn’t drive enough people who aren’t highly politically engaged to the polls. The only reason she lost the election was because of her own poor decisions. Stop blaming the left for the failures of centrist democrats.
This is the same frustrating conversation we had to have when people blamed Clinton’s loss on Bernie bros staying home.
Even when we had concrete data that showed that a higher percentage of bernie voters voted for Clinton in 2016 than Clinton voters voted for Obama when he won the primaries.
The data tells us over and over that progressive and demsoc voters show up in higher numbers for candidates they prefer less than centrists will when presented with someone ideologically further left.
Are there people that wouldn’t vote for the centrist candidate, sure. But Mamdani is currently seeing how many centrists are happy to say “fuck strategy, I’m supporting cuomo!”
I get why those that still have faith in the Democratic Party are upset about the defeat. But I also understand why leftists are tired of being told “vote for this compromise candidate” in every election and even when we do turn out getting scape goated for them running garbage candidates that fail to capture the further left elements AND tons of non-left voters who sat at home and didn’t bother to vote.
Any American that isn’t braindead stupid knew what was on the line this election.
And any American that knew what was on the line voted for Harris.
You can blame Democrats all day, and they do shoulder some blame, but the majority of the blame falls on stupid fucking Americans that couldn’t rub some brain cells together, not a party that isn’t great at messaging.
And what do you hope to accomplish by blaming the electorate? They’re not going anywhere. You can bitch about the voters all you want. But ultimately, if you fail to appeal to them, that just means you’re a bad politician. Complaining about voters is like complaining about the weather.
I’m blaming anyone who choose not to vote for her who were center or left of center. Anyone. As stated: if you are to my right or to my left and you explicitly choose not to vote for Harris and could have, you can suck shit.
If you discouraged people from voting for her: you can suck shit. If you constantly criticized her and barely talked about how fucking dangerous Trump is in general political discourse: you can suck shit.
She lost because Dems stayed home, low turnout in key Democratic areas. No matter how bad you think she was as a candidate you’re not going to convince me that she was worse than the dog shit candidate that won, and that’s on the people that stayed home.
She was objectively worse. Trump represented his base. Kamala didn’t. Trump is objectively the better politician. He gave his base exactly what they wanted. She refused to, preferring to pander to wealthy conservatives instead. You can argue she had better policies, but you cannot argue that she wasn’t an absolute dogshit candidate. She was simply bad at being a politician and had no business being at the top of the ticket.
You need to separate quality of policies from quality of candidate. You’ll never make any progress as long as you keep conflating the two.
She was objectively worse.
Today I learned a prosecutor with a doctorate in law who has committed no crimes and ran a campaign primarily focused on unity and inclusion is objectively worse than a convicted felon and adjudicated rapist who illegally attempted to overturn an election after inciting an insurrection and ran a campaign based on hate and fear.
She refused to, preferring to pander to wealthy conservatives instead.
She refused to lie through her fucking teeth to her base or make enemies of our fellow Americans to win an election. And she gave a podium to a prominent conservative that spoke out against Trump. Maybe not a great move, but not some betrayal.
She also ran with virtually no preparation out of necessity.
We can keep blaming Harris or we can start blaming stupid fucking Americans that jeopardized our democracy because she wasn’t the best candidate ever. Like, what kind of broken fucking brain thinks “well, she’s not that great, so let me gamble with a felon rapist traitor instead”?
Reading comprehension. You’re confusing policies for candidate quality. Trump was a good politician with shitty policies. Kamala was a dog shit politician with ok policies.
It’s pointless to blame the electorate because they’re not going anywhere. Or are you more of a Zionist type, who would prefer just killing the electorate if they don’t vote your way?
She was in-arguably the worst candidate because she lost. She wouldn’t have been the worst president.
The bullshit is centrists blaming it on the left. We told them how to win, and they went a different way. We showed up for her anyways, but the shitty candidate lost.
Yeah, there are a lot of stupid fucking idiots out there, including on Lemmy, that are going to do the same stupid fucking thing they did last time and either not vote or vote for a 3rd party candidate that cannot, under any circumstance, win. And we’ll descend even further into fascism.
Lot of stupids. But as I scroll down these comments, the majority are calling this meme out for the stupid fucking bullshit that it is. So I still have a little hope. I’m sure that’ll get destroyed in the near future.
What the fuck are you talking about I’ve heard it a million fucking times already. Its all anti-Harris lefties talk about.
Uh, no. This anti-Harris lefty, like the vast majority of anti-Harris lefties, knows an outside strategy is insane and mostly right wing propaganda.
Having fun with the fascism we’ve got instead?
Maybe if there had been more anti-Harris lefties in the party, we would have had a viable candidate. The hardline centrists did this.
makes me motivated to fight for my rights when my follow lefties keep empowering fascists through inaction
Nope. The following is from a Pew Research study.
The typology groups at either end of the political spectrum, Faith and Flag Conservatives and Progressive Left, are also the most politically engaged – that is, they voted at the highest rates in the 2020 presidential election, and they are most likely to say they post about politics on social media and that they donated to campaigns. The groups in the middle of the ideological spectrum have much lower levels of political engagement.
So quit uncritically accepting the mainstream establishment excuses. Harris lost because she was a shitty candidate, not because the left doesn’t vote.
you can both suck shit directly out of my asshole.
Gosh, were you out campaigning for Harris? I just can’t understand how she didn’t attract more voters. Scolding voters seems like such a solid strategy. /s
Uh, no. This anti-Harris lefty, like the vast majority of anti-Harris lefties, knows an outside strategy is insane and mostly right wing propaganda.
I meant anti-Harris lefties who actively wanted her to lose to Trump. (Which TBH, if they were vocally anti-Harris when it was clear it was her or Trump, they did)
Maybe if there had been more anti-Harris lefties in the party, we would have had a viable candidate.
How? How would you propose that could have realistically happened?
Nope. The following is from a Pew Research study.
So quit uncritically accepting the mainstream establishment excuses. Harris lost because she was a shitty candidate, not because the left doesn’t vote.
Did I say it was specifically because “the left doesn’t vote”? No.
Its partially because more of them don’t vote compared to the last election.
https://www.commondreams.org/news/harris-gaza
https://www.teenvogue.com/story/kamala-harris-moved-right-did-it-cost-her-the-election
https://www.newsweek.com/kamala-harris-underperformed-three-demographics-1981222
The ratios of progressives vs centrists who normally vote anyway is irrelevant. What is crucial is the percentage shift in voting behavior within groups election to election. Clearly this election centrist Democrats, Progressive Democrats, and left leaning indies failed to get out and vote compared to previous elections.
Its not hard to figure out why but its not a singular reason.
Now does some of the blame go to the Democratic establishment? ABSO-FUCKING-LUTELY. But not all of it.
Fuck everyone even remotely responsible. Just fuck them. I legitimately hate them. (Including Harris and Biden themselves)
Gosh, were you out campaigning for Harris? I just can’t understand how she didn’t attract more voters. Scolding voters seems like such a solid strategy. /s
I did actually, I traveled 5 hours out of state to canvass for her in a swing state. I was a different person then.
I can tell you, I’m done now. Political action is dead for me. I don’t want to swim up a fucking waterfall anymore. I’m done spending my own time and money on this shit. Not enough people give a flying fuck. If it takes things getting critically apocalyptic-level bad for average people to move their dumb-fuck-asses and be politically conscious about what is going to happen to them when fascists win I can’t bring myself to care about them anymore.
So you can go ahead and choose to not vote next election. I don’t care enough to argue with you on that now. Because now it wont be arguments convincing people, it’ll be catastrophic damage done to the country and their ability to put 2 and 2 together.
The time of bickering for positive change is over. Now we get to see some mass death and material suffering. I already tried. I not putting more of myself in for a ride I very much did not sign up for and in fact tried very hard to avoid.
At this point I’m just screaming into brick wall for a sliver of catharsis.
I meant anti-Harris lefties who actively wanted her to lose to Trump
If you think that’s a large enough group that it had any impact whatsoever on the election, then you are insane.
How? How would you propose that could have realistically happened?
Well, for one we wouldn’t have nominated Biden and never would have been in that position with Harris. We might have also held Biden’s feet to the fire more, thus discovering his mental state long before election time.
Its partially because more of them don’t vote compared to the last election.
None of that says that “lefties” in particular didn’t vote for Harris. Left policy sells, so a further left Harris would have done better, but that’s the establishment’s fault, not leftists. It also doesn’t take a leftist to be against genocide.
Now does some of the blame go to the Democratic establishment? ABSO-FUCKING-LUTELY. But not all of it.
That’s funny, because nothing you said before gave them any fault at all, and you definitely seemed in the mood to throw fault around.
So you can go ahead and choose to not vote next election. I don’t care enough to argue with you on that now.
WHO THE FUCK ARE YOU TALKING TO?
You also cannot replace it with a third party. So I guess we’re just fucked?
It’s almost like the original assertion is bullshit!
If you think that’s a large enough group that it had any impact whatsoever on the election, then you are insane.
Or it’s almost like the original assertion would push you to think that playing a game that was rigged from the start isn’t the smartest choice and that you shouldn’t stop at “voting for the less evil billionaire” as your only political option
We just witnessed an internal party takeover in the Republican party. What dumbass thinks the same couldn’t possibly happen in the Democratic party?
David Hogg won a legitimate party election to become vice chair because he was popular and then was removed by tje DNC for having the wrong ideology.
They have shown us many times they will not allow themselves to change
Right. And trump didn’t take over the rnc in one go. It takes constant pressure. Keep fighting.
Because we haven’t put enough pressure on them yet.
Did you think this would end with David Hogg winning a vice chair position?
Gonna take more than that to change a party. But it’s better than everyone splitting the vote for various 3rd parties that have absolutely no presence at all, whatsoever.
Let’s see what happens with this NYC election. That’s a bigger deal than David Hogg.
If people start voting in primaries that can change.
Am I optimistic that it will? No. But the problem is that people who want to see change aren’t voting in primaries and then they complain that their choices suck.
I don’t think voting in a DNC primary will result in the most popular candidate being the chosen candidate to run as president. I beleive the DNC will choose the winner before the primary starts like they have for decades.
I don’t beleive a canidate hand picked by the DNC will create positive change
Obama was an upset candidate. Hillary was the DNC choice in 08.
Right…the primaries. Like when Jessica Cisneros ran in Texas, and Pelosi backed Henry Cuellar instead (voted with Trump >80% of the time) and poured tens of millions of DNC money into that race to ensure the progressive Cisneros lost.
Or perhaps more recently, when the DNC anointed candidates for the presidential nomination TWICE without holding a primary election in good faith. Then lost in spectacular fashion.
Establishment dems don’t play fair when they get challenged from the left, hell they completely throw democracy out the window when that happens. The party is lost and the real “Republican agents” are the ones saying “no no, keep voting blue you can change the party from within!” It’s a fool’s errand.
Yeah, the establishment has their thumb on the scale, and that sucks. It means that it will take more primary voters to overwhelm their influence. Like I said, I’m not optimistic.
But it is still the most viable path to change at this time. Unless you have a better suggestion? (Or do you just want to complain?)
New party, simple as.
Pigs can fly, simple as.
Enjoy descending further into fascism then, because that’s clearly the direction we’re ratcheting towards.
FPTP. Simple as.
Yeah, we’ve got to get rid of it. Could have been done easily with voting rights act on Biden’s day 1, but golly gee just couldn’t find the votes for any of that “supporting democracy” initiative now could we. Now look at what’s become of American democracy just a few short years later. Pathetic.
Ok.
So we’ve established that you like complaining.
Now let’s move on to the part where you have some suggestions.
Because if your suggestion is voting 3rd party you need to understand some things.
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Which 3rd party? Cuz Americans splitting their votes among multiple 3rd parties guarantees a further decline into Republican fascism.
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No 3rd party, at all, is ready to start winning national elections. They aren’t even really winning any local or state elections. It’s going to take a long time before a 3rd party is viable IF one decides to start putting in the hard work. So what would you suggest doing in the meantime when it comes to national elections?
You don’t need to keep telling us everything is shitty. We get it. Start telling us what you think should be done about it that actually makes sense.
- Anything left of center. Honestly I don’t care so long as it meets that requirement. Anything is better than the corporate uniparty ruling over us today.
- Seems like you may not be familiar with PSL, check them out and then you can come back to tell me what you’ve learned.
In the meantime, here are some things you can do to help move us in the right direction:
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organize locally against the fascist regime which is presently stealing everything from working class voters and is imminently coming to place many of us into slave labor camps. Whatever you do - don’t give money to democrats unless they’re part of the squad or endorsed by rebellion pac.
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work towards getting money out of politics. If we don’t outlaw the presently legalized bribery, we simply have to take politicians at their word when they say they won’t take corporate pac money to control their votes. See Kirsten Sinema or John Fettterman for how well that tends to work out. Wolf PAC is non partisan and has been working towards this goal for years.
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if you absolutely refuse to look outside democrats for representation, at least support ones who are intent on changing the system to end corruption and help the working class. Rebellion PAC is endorsing these type of candidates, very selectively. David Hogg’s leaders we deserve is doing something similar, but with more of a focus on ousting crusty establishment Republicrats from their too-long-held seats.
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Didn’t Bernie Sanders lead in 2019 and dems decided to go with Biden for safety?
If you mean that democratic primary voters in subsequent states voted for Biden after Sanders had the early lead, yes.
Yeah, I think you’re right. So it’s the people that suck, not just the parties.
So it’s the people that suck, not just the parties.
Bingo.
Exactly. We need to fix the entrenchment, and we can fix this stupid two party system.
this instigates infighting
Yes. It is a stupid meme that currently has 527 upvotes. We’re fucked.
