• ToastedPlanet@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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    7 hours ago

    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.

    • Tollana1234567@lemmy.today
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      2 hours ago

      people also ignore local elections, which is where the gop gets thier base of power from. once they take over things like school boards, and such they can work thier way into higher positions.

    • Zink@programming.dev
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      4 hours ago

      Thank you for putting that out there. I still cannot see making any other choice when it came time to vote. The too-close death camps you refer to were a very predictable consequence of this administration. I’m just a straight white guy but I really prefer to not add death camps to the world, or to disappear peaceful productive people from their communities, or to significantly harm the lives of millions of young, old, poor, or disabled people. That includes the ones starving overseas because of recent changes.

      “But genocide!” we expect to hear in response. And if any dear readers are already thinking that, I want you to take this one fact away from my comment:

      The deeply flawed US voting system — the one which forces the two party system on us — is damned near impossible to change via normal legislation and votes.

      It’s THE thing. It is that mechanism that lets the red/blue capitalist american machine continue to vacuum up the vast majority of american votes. Go look up just how much agreement there has to be to amend the constitution. And we’re going to ask the people already in charge to get together and agree to kneecap their future political power. You see the issue.

      Sure, the media is complicit and most voters are ignorant of the fact that there are better systems in place around the world. It’s true that a lot can be done outside of elected positions. But when it comes to the actual voting ballot, since the system self-corrects (in a bad way) for significant third parties, the expected consequences of each choice were something like:

      1. Status quo, including any US resources being used for genocide and other shit.
      2. Genocide Max plan, with 4 free years of Death Camp Prime
      3. Flip a coin between 1 & 2 above (stay home or vote for a third party hoping it will get them recognition and funding)
      4. Revolution and replace the system, like right now!

      And I want to add a caveat that I’m not trying to blame the people who chose #3 above. Before the election I would disagree with that choice, but now in retrospect we know those people weren’t the reason Trump and Republicans won. I guess it remains to be seen how much of it was the genuine love for Trump the maniacs in this place have, and how much of it was election rigging and cheating BS.

      • ToastedPlanet@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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        3 hours ago

        Harris wanted to end the war. So option 1 is better than your argument has advertised. Harris was a huge improvement over Biden in that regard. But I digress.

        Every vote counts. The tighter the margins the better. We need the Democrats to do better, as in run better candidates, in order to win, but if they ever do that, there better be a leftist voting block who helped them get into office. Otherwise the Democrats will not feel safe enough to shift left.

        Leftists need to be voting in record numbers to shift the Democratic Party to the left. Part of the way we do that is to vote for Democrats consistently. This should be a mechanical choice of who to vote for in the general. It’s hard to do that when posts disparaging fixing the Democratic Party as impossible or so hard it’s not worth trying are going unchallenged on the internet, including Lemmy.

        Fixing the Democratic Party and this country will take time and a lot of work. Part of that work involves voting for Democrats.

        • Zink@programming.dev
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          3 hours ago

          This should be a mechanical choice of who to vote for in the general.

          This is a very easy point for others to attack, but I want to reiterate its importance and how it relates to what I already said.

          GIVEN all the stuff I explained about how the nigh-impossible-to-change voting system enforces the two-party system especially at the federal level, the reasonable pragmatic conclusion is that you always vote blue in the general because it is the only way to vote against the actual far right nazi party, and you work to get progressives elected to local offices and in national Democratic primaries.

    • SwingingTheLamp@midwest.social
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      4 hours ago

      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.

      With all due respect, that strategy got us fascism. The terminology has changed, but I could tell close to 30 years ago that this would be the result. Is three decades not enough time for socialists and progressives to “primary” neoliberals? Apparently not, because socialsts/progressives/leftists are lazy, good-for-nothings who are simultaneously powerful enough to swing elections, but too inconsequential to talk about their issues or court their votes.

      In other words, maybe these vaunted “centrists”/liberals should’ve stepped up to stop fascism. (And, it’s not leftists who say that Harris “went too woke” and now want to throw trans people under the bus.)

      • ToastedPlanet@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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        4 hours ago

        With all due respect, that strategy got us fascism.

        That argument is obviously false. We, people to the left of Republican voters, have been losing elections and Democrats since Clinton have been moving right as a result.

        Apparently not, because socialsts/progressives/leftists are lazy, good-for-nothings who are simultaneously powerful enough to swing elections, but too inconsequential to talk about their issues or court their votes.

        Of course we need more than just leftists to vote. We need to demonstrate a leftist voter block was part of what got Democratic candidates into office. So the Democrats feel they have voters to cover the ones on the right they think they could lose by shifting left.

        In other words, maybe these vaunted “centrists”/liberals should’ve stepped up to stop fascism.

        Yes. There can be more than one lesson to learn from an election. Democrats fucking up more than us doesn’t mean we don’t have a lesson to learn too. Obviously Democrats have to do better. But if they win without leftists when they do run a better candidate, they aren’t going to shift left. They’ll think they’ve hit the sweet spot and stay put on the political spectrum.

        • SwingingTheLamp@midwest.social
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          4 hours ago

          False? We employed that strategy, i.e. voted for Democrats multiple times over decades without demanding that they do better, and now we have fascism. That’s not to say that the strategy caused fascism, but self-evidently didn’t stop it.

          • ToastedPlanet@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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            3 hours ago

            The user who made this post made a point of proudly declaring they did not vote for president when the election rolled around last year. Because ‘voters in California don’t matter’. Except we do, because we contribute to the popular vote which Republicans love to use rhetorically to claim everyone else needs to shut up because they have the mandate.

            Which they don’t have because Trump didn’t even get a majority of the voters, just the most out of any candidate. But it’s still a free win to them anyway.

            Democrats lost elections and leftists weren’t the base consistently voting. Neoliberals and neocons and now fascists are the groups that vote regularly. Accelerationism is self-evidently getting us to fascism faster.

    • AppleTea@lemmy.zip
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      4 hours ago

      In the 70s, people were making this argument about voting for the lesser of two evils, but it was between two Keynesians rather than two neoliberals. That was 50 years ago. Nixon was to the left of every president in my lifetime. 50 years from now, just how right wing will the Democrat we have to vote for be?

      • ToastedPlanet@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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        4 hours ago

        With Gavin Newsom, a Charlie Kirk podcast guest, the choice in 2028 might be two fascists.

        We lost to Nixon and it got worse. We lost to Regan and it got worse. We lost to two different Bushes and it got worse. Now we’ve lost to Trump twice and it got worse.

        The throughline is that we keep losing to the greater evil and suffering the consequences of things getting worse as a result. That includes worse choices next time as the Democrats move to the right to chase the people who vote for the greater evil. As opposed to going for people who don’t vote or throw away their vote to a third party.

        The Democratic Party is going to be rightwing until people learn we have to vote in addition to everything else to get Democrats to move to the left. They will only think about moving left if they win elections. And they only move left when they think they have enough voters to win when they do move.

        If we, leftists, want better choices in 50 years we have got to vote in records numbers, so if Democrats get their act together and get someone half-way decent they win. And when they do, they see a leftist voter block got them there.

        • SinAdjetivos@lemmy.world
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          3 hours ago

          We elected Carter and it got worse, we elected Clinton and it got worse, we elected Obama and it got worse, we elected Biden and it got worse.

          The throughline is that we keep beating the greater evil and suffering the consequences of things getting worse as a result.

          • ToastedPlanet@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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            2 hours ago

            Those wins are we how we got gay marriage. After decades of activism queer people won rights. It took time and effort and consistently turning out for elections. And a ton of shifting the culture through the media people consumed. But the voting is a mechanical necessity to bring that result about. There’s no way around it. We need to vote for the furthest left Democrats we can.

          • Genius@lemmy.zip
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            2 hours ago

            I put out half of the fires that started in my kitchen, but my house still burned down! Putting out fires is a sucker’s game.

            • reddit_sux@lemmy.world
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              2 hours ago

              If even after putting out fire the house burns down you do have to cut your loses and let the house burn down.

              • Genius@lemmy.zip
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                2 hours ago

                That’s what I’m saying, man! I must have turned off the oven when I was done cooking a hundred times. And the very first time I don’t turn the oven off, it starts a fire. So what good did turning the oven off do?

                • SinAdjetivos@lemmy.world
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                  6 minutes ago

                  If you turn off the oven and it still catches on fire, that’s not a you problem, that’s a problem with the oven. No amount of turning the knob will make it safe.

                  • Genius@lemmy.zip
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                    4 minutes ago

                    Yeah, it’s a manufacturer defect. Yesterday I made lasagna and turned it off when I was done. But today I made brownies and didn’t turn off the oven, and now my house is charred rubble! I’m suing the oven manufacturer

        • Genius@lemmy.zip
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          2 hours ago

          So you’re saying even if we lose again and again, we have to keep trying and hold onto hope? No way, man! Giving up and leaving our friends for dead is the leftist choice. Actually trying is neoliberalism