There’s an increasing number of people who are sprinting towards it at top speed, an increasing number of people willing to let it happen because they’re mad at Biden over Israel or upset that he’s not the embodiment of the perfect candidate, and then those of us who are blaring the warnings from our bullhorns, only to find that half the crowd is blaring right along with us and the other half has no interest in what we’re saying.
“Biden’s old and Israel is bad now, so clearly the obvious solution is to vote for a Trump dictatorship. Surely that’s the most common-sense solution and absolutely nothing can go wrong. The leopard certainly won’t eat my face, right? Right???” – an increasing number of independent and Democrat voters
I believe it was actually CBS that openly admitted to this because of how profitable it is. Like it or not, Trump is correct in his statement that a lot of these news networks are raking in record profits by hanging on every word he says as if it were a biblical proclamation. News comapnies across the board are going to see huge hits to their bottom lines once he’s out of the public spotlight.
The party is dogshit at messaging and has no intention of even trying to get the votes of the people you described.
The principal concern at the moment seems to be preemptively finding a group to blame if Biden loses. Imagine if that energy and focus were put into trying to win votes.
TBH I would understand if he was smart, scheming and charismatic. Instead, they are rooting for a buffoon, an idiot and a failed businessman. He was even in power before, and they still want him back.
The folks who say never Biden are right wing operatives. Perhaps unwittingly in some cases, but I suspect many of the loudest voices don’t want to see any Democrat win and running down Biden is their best shot at that.
The folks who say never Biden are right wing operatives.
I wouldn’t be so sure on that.
Disclaimer: Admittedly, this is my own anecdotal experience, which should be given as much weight as any other anecdotal evidence from some rando on the internet. But I have talked to people who are saying exactly that. I haven’t heard any of the “he’s too old” bit, but I do know of independent voters who intend to hold their nose and vote for Trump even if they don’t like him because they’re letting their opinions on the Israel situation cloud their judgement. Granted, I live in MA and they live in right-leaning areas of the state so their protest vote for Trump won’t change a thing since MA is one of the bluest states in the country.
It’s the independent voters in states like Michigan that I’m worried about, because it won’t take many of them to flip some of those states red.
You clipped that to imply I said all of them when I absolutely didn’t. I also am an independent in Michigan. I can’t make promises but I’m seeing vehement enthusiasm for voting blue among the swing voters I know. Admittedly it’s anecdotal.
Anecdotal I know a lot of lifelong Republicans in Michigan voting straight ticket Dem now because of what’s going on. It’s not everyone, but every little bit helps.
Ahh, yes. Just completely disregard any criticism of the Democratic Party as “right wing operatives.” It couldn’t possibly be that they abuse their position as the only other viable option in order to further their plutocratic goals, and the people who have been complaining about it for decades are simply tired of hearing “it’s not the right time” ad nauseum.
You know what will convince people who barely managed to vote for Hillary in 2016 and Biden in 2020 to vote against their conscience yet again? Knowing that they’ll be instantly blamed anyway when the majority doesn’t get their way? Insults and baseless accusations.
Criticize away. I’m no democrat and I have no love for them. I get into disagreements with those on the left about various things I disagree with. But at the end of the day I can work with democrats and I can’t with fascists. Defending freedom and the constitution against tyranny is something I swore an oath to do, and I will vote for nothing but democrats as long as fascism looms here.
If you’re advocating voting for anyone other than Biden, you are a de facto right wing operative. That may not be the intention, but that’s absolutely the result. It’s not an insult, it’s simply math.
There is no viable alternative to Biden for the 2024 election. Not a single one. Push Biden and the Democratic Party left, don’t campaign against them unless you want the GOP to gain more control. That’s unfortunately the reality of a FPTP system. Something like ranked choice voting would be a great way to change that. Guess which party is actively fighting against increasing representation and voting access? The very same people you’re electing when you sit out or vote 3rd party. If someone can explain to me how Biden losing the election is a net positive for the country I’m all ears.
See, the problem is that you and I disagree about the virtue of the Democratic Party. To me, they are an abusive bully who removes voices when it’s convenient (in their primaries), and then turns around and claims we must vote for them in order to preserve democracy. That rings hollow to those who have already had their voices muffled by the party itself. They’ve limited where I can express my voice to the very place that they have complete, unimpeachable control.
The only thing I have left is to express myself by refusing them a vote in the general. As you said, this is the unfortunate reality of the FPTP system. If they want my vote, they can implement a ranked choice system and I’ll happily put them on my list where they belong. Alternatively, they can run their primaries fairly and I’ll recognize the winner as legitimate.
I gave them my vote in 2016 literally only because of Trump and it nearly broke me. I gave them my vote in 2020 because of some specific promises the Biden campaign made that they then turned back on. In both cases the primaries were run in a specific way to engineer a win for their preferred candidate. Never explicitly against the rules because the party itself made the rules to allow it. And even then they were happy to break their charter’s promise to run primaries in a fair and even-handed way and argue in court they had no legal obligation to follow it.
In the case of Biden, I said in 2020 that that was my last free vote for the Democratic Party. They had 4 years to convince me they were willing to work with progressives, or else their vote from me would be contingent on them cleaning up their act. They have, on many occasions in the last 3 years, shown me that they have no intention of working in good faith with progressives.
I’m just done being abused. It’s time for them to actually follow their own empty words.
This is why the Democrats need to win, remove the Trump factor and try to either drag the Republican Party more to the center, or have the Democrats win in such a decisive way that it forces the Republicans to shift left. In the ideal world we don’t have FPTP, but all we can push for is a splitting of the Democrats so that folks like AOC and Biden aren’t considered part of the same party.
I don’t believe a Democratic win will push anyone left. The Republicans clearly have no interest in that, they’d rather get rid of democracy altogether. And the Democrats see any victory as a mandate for their centrism and any loss as a reason to move right.
If a Democratic win moves us left, why didn’t 2020 accomplish this? Why didn’t 2008 accomplish this? Why has every Democratic victory after FDR moved the party to the right?
And the solution is what? Vote Republican? Not vote (thereby essentially giving the Republicans a vote)? You can be damn sure that crazy racist uncle Bob isn’t going to skip voting for a wannabe-dictator
Voting third party, or if none are available that suit me, don’t vote for president. I’d still be filling out the rest of the ballot. I’d appear as an active voter who left the field blank, indicating my vote is up for grabs if someone actually earns it
That’s the only option available to me in the general that doesn’t implicitly endorse the current actions of the Democratic Party, actions that I believe are harmful to our country and will lead to our downfall just as surely as the explicit dismantling of the Republicans.
Can we stop this “a 3rd party vote is a vote for the opposition” nonsense? That completely ignores the entire reason for voting 3rd party and it’s mathematical bullshit. With Democratic votes on the left and Republican on the right, it is a 0/0 vote for each side. A Dem vote is a 1/0 vote and a Republican vote is a 0/1 vote. If you insist the two sides must add to one, then it’s a half vote for each side, 0.5/0.5.
The Dems have plenty of things they can do to earn my vote and they consistently choose not to do them. In response, I’m choosing not to give them my vote anymore. 2020 was the last time unless they can become a party that actually serves the people.
Results aren’t instant and we have moved left. Since 2016, Republicans have lost every single election. 2018, Dems gain the house removing the complete control R’s had in the house, senate and Executive. 2020, Trump loses his reelection (first time in like 20+ years that happens) D’s hold the house and gain a slime majority in the Senate. 2022, with a D president history shows D’s should lose seats in congress. D’s lose the house narrowly and gain seats in the senate, I think this the first time in 10ish years this happened.
When FDR was president, it was fine to be racist again minorities, be prejudiced against the LGBTQ+ community (as well as let them die of AIDS), and weed was bad. Those things have changed, and include the fact that every abortion restriction law has been denied by the voters of every state that has tried, including Kentucky.
The issue with the lack of a sharp turn left is that US politics doesn’t work that way. Actual movement is based on the mid point between both parties, and right now Republicans have been trying to move further and further right. In general shifts in politics are slow for the US, which is good for preventing bad things but not great for quickly encouraging the good. If R’s continue to screw up as they have, they will have to reevaluate their platform to stay relevant. Being homophobic, sexist and an ally of Nazis and white supremacists isn’t a winning ticket for a majority of voters.
Democrats winning seats doesn’t mean we’ve moved left. My point was the Democrats themselves have moved right. Pretty sharply around the Clinton administration, too.
Hi. So, your problem is that you didn’t get what you wanted, and now you’re going to throw a political temper tantrum and let the autocrat in. If gays and minorities are rounded up for concentration camps in the future, know that your letting ‘the perfect be the enemy of the good’ is why that happened. Hell, your posts on this very forum might be used to arrest and imprison you as a political subversive if Trump gets in, so you may well have skin in the game yourself. Something to think about.
No, my problem is that the Democratic party is corrupt, and continuing to prop it up will make the problem worse, not better.
I’m not letting perfect be the enemy of good. If the DNC can run fair primaries (which doesn’t mean my preferred candidate wins), I’ll recognize them as legitimate political contests. Until then, I’m simply tired of hearing “it’s not the right time” because it’s never the right time. If we keep waiting for the “right time,” then more people will die because we all refused to hold the Democratic Party responsible now.
And I do mean they are responsible. They gave us Trump very directly. They propped up his campaign to radicalize the right in order to shove an extraordinarily unpopular candidate through. That they now continue to use the same pied piper strategy only shows that they’ll continue to radicalize the right in order to coerce votes from people who don’t like them. Refusing to stand up to that makes you responsible for everything their pied pipers accomplish.
Because I believe that protecting democracy is a prerequisite to protecting citizens, especially marginalized groups. The Democratic Party, to me, is a threat to democracy. Different from the Republican party, yes. And much less severe. But a threat nonetheless.
This isn’t “both sides,” the Republicans have 0% chance of ever getting my vote, period. The Democrats can earn my vote but choose not to. In my opinion, they are an active participant in the erosion of democracy in this country. They just have the benefit of only having to do it within their own party.
The DNC has no interest in running an impartial and even-handed primary. It went so far as to argue in court that it was not bound by the language of its charter to run fair primaries. Since the Democratic primary is currently the only place that progressives can voice their political preferences, this practice effectively removes the right to political representation of anyone left of the party.
The Democratic Party engages in pied piper strategies, bolstering extremists within the Republican Party in order to increase their chances of winning the general (by promoting the “you have to vote D to avoid R” rhetoric that this thread started with). Specific to the current political climate, the DNC and the Hillary campaign promoted Trump in the 2016 Republican primary since they saw him as easier to beat than the rest of the field.
So they suppress voters to their left and intentionally radicalize the party and voters to their right.
You think those people will be better protected under a republican admin?
Do you think what those people will go through under republican leadership is worth it so that the DNC “learns its lesson” whatever the flying fuck that’s supposed to mean because people like you can’t even be bothered with the primaries you claim to be so incensed about when you turn your nose up at protecting other people’s rights.
Believe it or not democracy is actually not when the candidate with less votes gets forced into the nomination anyways because “trust me bro more people want him bro just ignore he got less votes bro!”
Believe it or not Vote Karen, us folks you’re threatening to send back to the Republicans to be rounded up and tormented if not killed for another 4 years are not able to bring you the party’s manager.
You believe “protecting democracy” whatever the fuck you think that means, comes ahead of protecting people’s lives, and that’s a position you can only have if it isn’t your life in danger.
You objectively prefer us as dead bodies you can gesture to and shout “SEE!” as if it was some nebulous elite’s fault that you refused to save us. You prefer us that way because dead bodies don’t expect you to actually show your solidarity even when it’s such a herculean strain as waiting in line for a day at most and filling some boxes out.
Be an ally, or quit moaning when the people you claim you’re trying to help point out that you’re trying to extort a negotiation out of them for something they have no control over because that seems more “revolutionary” to you than just being there to have it go your way in the first fucking place at the primary stage if you’re willing to turn us over to the fucking gestapo over it.
Followed up by you conjuring up all sorts of things you claim I believe to argue against strawmen.
And by the way, I phrase things as “I believe” because that’s what humans base their decisions on. None of us know anything 100%. I can recognize that we can work towards the same goal and have different beliefs about the best way to get there. I don’t automatically assume that everyone who disagrees with my methods also disagree with my goals.
Hey, guess what? You aren’t right about everything. Neither am I. I believe the system continuing as it is will result in more death and suffering than efforts to drag the Democrats left.
You need to learn to argue without accusing your opponent of ill intentions.
@MagicShel I know this is hard to understand, but genocide affects our decision making, and some of us would even prefer our country to fall to complete ruin than be aparty to it. Never again isn’t “never again unless it would be politically expedient”
Do you understand what I mean? That there are lines that can never, ever be crossed?
Do you understand why I’d never be able to look in the mirror again after that?
@kool_newt I’m deontologically committed to not being personally aparty to genocide, and your commitment to a utilitarian calculus where genocide is a given, is exactly why I’ve made that choice.
If you think Trump is going to bring a halt to genocide you’re delusional. Vote Trump in and the genocide will continue or escalate. The GOP will escalate persecution of your countrymen and will further dismantle our democracy.
All the shit Trump did, locking kids in cages, rampant corruption, constant stream of lies, bungled foreign policy, stochastic terrorism. None of that crosses the line for you.
Or is it that you’re more about the symbolism of your vote than its real world effects?
Messy. Damnable. Pragmatism is hell, not cowardice. Trump is not a clay that can be worked on. He will go all in with what Israel is doing. With no alternative, if the lesser evil saves a life I’ll shake hands with it and kiss it on either cheek.
Good grief. Obviously acting in bad faith here rather than actually engaging and discussing. Hopefully few people in battleground states fall for all the people pushing this line on social media.
Fellow citizens, I don’t have to tell you genocide is disgusting. We need to be demanding of our reps and president to put a stop to the genocide here and Sudan both.
Hopefully nobody has to be told that the US has a long history of horrific foreign policy decisions (look up Kissinger or various coups we initiated or wars we started) that kill people by the millions either directly or indirectly. It’s up to us peons to fight this, fight the corruption that runs rampant, and fight to make our democracy work more for us than the Uber rich and powerful. Tale as old as time. It took decades to get us here and it will take decades to unfuck things.
But we are all fucked if if the GOP is allowed to implement Project 2025. It will be even more destructive to our institutions and democracy than the first Trump Presidency.
So, if we’re going to get all judgemental and shit on each other, your ‘conscience’ is a thinly veiled ‘burn it all down’ anarchy tendency that will create an actual genocide, rather than the imagined genocide in your own head.
First, let’s talk Israel vs. Hamas. Yeah. Israel is a bad guy here. But so is Hamas. They’d GLADLY mow each other down in a hail of gunfire and explosions if they thought they could get away with it. BOTH are looking for excuses to nuke each other. BOTH are looking for opportunities to create mass graves. There are no good guys here. Just villains and victims. And let’s get real. Both the Jews and the Palestinians are in the victim camp.
Biden is walking a tightrope over the abyss, trying to negotiate cease fires and freeing of both Israeli and Palestinian captives. He’s trying to minimise the war as much as he realistically can. Hamas is being backed by Iran with support from other Iranian proxies in the area, and of course we know Iran is part of the new Russo-Chinese axis that’s trying to form in opposition not only to the United States but also the basic notion that everyone has a right to exist, live their lives, and form their own governments according to their whims. So forcing Israel to let Hamas just waltz into their land, kill and abduct a fuckton of people, and strike a blow at Israel without consequence is playing into Iran and thus China and Russia’s hands.
Of course, your ‘conscience’ won’t bear examining these facts because that’d tell you that there’s an uncomfortable complexity in this world. So you’d rather let the Authoritarian here in the States win because the other guy isn’t hard enough on what you consider a bad guy. And when that shithead gets into office, every person he hurts is going to be on your shoulders, whether you acknowledge that or not. I just hope my wife is out of the US before it happens, given she’s a Black Bisexual Pagan Goth gal.
@jhymesba And here’s where you show you’re not just okay with genocide in some vague “Stop trump” capacity, but a full-on pro-genocide monster yourself.
Slaughtering 10 thousand children, after Hamas killed a bunch of concentration camp guards isn’t “self defense”.
We aren’t committing genocide. We oppose genocide in Ukraine, and we would allow it under Trump. The fact that you’d be fine letting this country burn doesn’t make a lot of sense to me. We can’t help anyone in that state. And a lot of us want to help.
@MagicShel We’re making it much much much much worse, providing direct financial and military aid to a country actively slaughtering tens of thousands and displacing millions to facilitate ethnic cleansing.
It’s not that trump wouldn’t be worse, just they supporting Biden is totally and completely unconscionable. And to do so sacrifices a piece of your soul.
Refusing to stand up to fascism is unconscionable to me.
Then the Democratic Party should consider starting. Instead, they’ve unfailingly pretended that fascists are honorable people interested in serious governance that we should just compromise with in order to get concessions.
Biden isn’t a genocidal monster and those words make you sound pretty unhinged. The fact that one of our close allies has been committing genocide is certainly a problem that we need to address but letting Trump win isn’t going to do Palestinians any favors.
@MagicShel that’s the difference in our understanding there.
You are what you do. And what he has done is send billions of dollars and two carrier groups to back up, by far, the biggest crime against humanity in the 21st century, already beating Iraq and blowing anything else out of the water.
I’m not gonna vote for anyone because I’m way too left to agree with a lot of their politics, I’m just gonna vote against Trump. It doesn’t matter who is running against him, I’m not letting that dipshit win again. Or the republican party in general at this point, they’ve gotten too crazy.
I said before, and I’ll say again, Biden is this generation’s Jimmy Carter. If the GOP were to have put forth any competent candidate in 2020, I think Biden would’ve lost by a landslide. Same goes in 2024. Not that I agree with her policies, but given the current political climate, I think the advantage would go to Nikki Hailey if she were to get the nod. But if the choices are (A) Donald Trump, and (B)…it doesn’t matter what B is. Go with B.
The race seems to be narrowing on Her with her Koch dollars, Ramaswamy as the wild card candidate, and Trump because the man’s ego is too large to leave the race even if he ends up in jail.
I think Ramaswamy will be the one to fizzle out next. He’s been trying to play the Trump handbook of just slinging out wild statements just to see how people respond, but it seems to be the only trick he has, and people are becoming bored of it.
Well what do you imagine then? Different third wheel or is it Trump V Halley with the establishment trying really hard to just force Halley, especially if Trump starts losing his cases.
Oddly enough, that’s all we ask for. Vote with your heart in the Primary. Be as passionate for change as you can be. But in the General, vote with your brain and for the Democrat. Tell yourself it’s a vote for the lesser evil. Tell yourself that any vote besides the winner of the Democratic Primary, whether that be Biden or somebody else, is a vote for Trump, just like it was in 2016 and 2020. And no matter how much you have to hold your breath while voting, make sure that in November of next year, that vote goes to the Democrat, whoever he is. That’s all we’re asking.
The best thing about Biden and Israel, is he’s doing nothing different than any other president since 1948. Trump was the one who moved the American Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem ffs.
He’s actually kinda better on Israel than previous presidents, he’s been negotiating the release of palestinians being held hostage in Israel, and has secured Gaza the right to access their own natural resources, which Israel had been blockading.
Almost like he’s actually doing the thing the left accused him of disregarding and using the US’ good terms with israel and israel’s dependency on the US as a negotiating tool to keep things as clean as possible without Israel going completely off the handle and doing something like firing a nuke out of feeling completely isolated.
It’s one of the things I really don’t understand about the argument. I can understand why people are upset with Biden, but yet yadda yadda yadda over the fact that Trump is literally running on a platform of being exponentially worse to them. Tell them they’re cutting off their own nose to spite their face, and they respond by sharpening the blade.
I am throwing in the towel for now. I am hetro white uppermiddle class male of prot background and can quote the Bible better than most preachers. I am in zero danger. It is everyone else is who is fucked. The rest of this country can’t even bother to vote to save themselves from firing squads.
Difference is that on the good timeline, you die in your bed surrounded by your friends and family. In a bad timeline, you die at the rock mines as the Frog-Nazis whip your back. So I’m not sure I agree with you that this won’t affect you…
Hey I am an automation engineer I have you know I will die from being whipped by frog-nazis while making the machines that mine, not in the mine itself.
On the plus side at least I will live long enough to watch the 4chan Nazis/Catholics/Heritage foundation/evangelicals/Magas turn on each other. Murdering each other in the ashes of a civilization while they starve.
What is that supposed to mean? Who cares as long as you have your uppermiddle class life (which guess what, you won’t when they find something they don’t like about you). What a glib response.
This gets old given it really wasn’t that many Bernie supporters who ended up breaking for Trump. Imagine generalizing an entire group of people on 12% of their population. Not even abnormal compared to other primary vs general elections. Hell, 25% of Hillary primary voters ended up voting for McCain in 2008.
I used to crunch data around primary and general elections all the time in R back in college. Data is so fucking important for campaigns. Taking votes in a primary for granted regardless of party is a sure fire way to shoot yourself in the foot and cost you an election unless you are in a safe district. And boy howdy was it scary when the swing state data I saw leading into November 2016 started giving Trump higher and higher odds. Not nervous yet about 2024, but the Democratic Party needs to work its ass off to keep their vote margins as large as possible.
We’re not sleepwalking into anything.
There’s an increasing number of people who are sprinting towards it at top speed, an increasing number of people willing to let it happen because they’re mad at Biden over Israel or upset that he’s not the embodiment of the perfect candidate, and then those of us who are blaring the warnings from our bullhorns, only to find that half the crowd is blaring right along with us and the other half has no interest in what we’re saying.
“Biden’s old and Israel is bad now, so clearly the obvious solution is to vote for a Trump dictatorship. Surely that’s the most common-sense solution and absolutely nothing can go wrong. The leopard certainly won’t eat my face, right? Right???” – an increasing number of independent and Democrat voters
Also, a lot of the media wants a horse race and wants their clicks, no matter the risk. And they keep bothsidering Biden and Donnie.
I believe it was actually CBS that openly admitted to this because of how profitable it is. Like it or not, Trump is correct in his statement that a lot of these news networks are raking in record profits by hanging on every word he says as if it were a biblical proclamation. News comapnies across the board are going to see huge hits to their bottom lines once he’s out of the public spotlight.
The party is dogshit at messaging and has no intention of even trying to get the votes of the people you described.
The principal concern at the moment seems to be preemptively finding a group to blame if Biden loses. Imagine if that energy and focus were put into trying to win votes.
TBH I would understand if he was smart, scheming and charismatic. Instead, they are rooting for a buffoon, an idiot and a failed businessman. He was even in power before, and they still want him back.
Give a person someone else to blame for everything wrong in their own lives, and he will follow you anywhere.
The folks who say never Biden are right wing operatives. Perhaps unwittingly in some cases, but I suspect many of the loudest voices don’t want to see any Democrat win and running down Biden is their best shot at that.
I wouldn’t be so sure on that.
Disclaimer: Admittedly, this is my own anecdotal experience, which should be given as much weight as any other anecdotal evidence from some rando on the internet. But I have talked to people who are saying exactly that. I haven’t heard any of the “he’s too old” bit, but I do know of independent voters who intend to hold their nose and vote for Trump even if they don’t like him because they’re letting their opinions on the Israel situation cloud their judgement. Granted, I live in MA and they live in right-leaning areas of the state so their protest vote for Trump won’t change a thing since MA is one of the bluest states in the country.
It’s the independent voters in states like Michigan that I’m worried about, because it won’t take many of them to flip some of those states red.
You clipped that to imply I said all of them when I absolutely didn’t. I also am an independent in Michigan. I can’t make promises but I’m seeing vehement enthusiasm for voting blue among the swing voters I know. Admittedly it’s anecdotal.
Anecdotal I know a lot of lifelong Republicans in Michigan voting straight ticket Dem now because of what’s going on. It’s not everyone, but every little bit helps.
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Ahh, yes. Just completely disregard any criticism of the Democratic Party as “right wing operatives.” It couldn’t possibly be that they abuse their position as the only other viable option in order to further their plutocratic goals, and the people who have been complaining about it for decades are simply tired of hearing “it’s not the right time” ad nauseum.
You know what will convince people who barely managed to vote for Hillary in 2016 and Biden in 2020 to vote against their conscience yet again? Knowing that they’ll be instantly blamed anyway when the majority doesn’t get their way? Insults and baseless accusations.
Criticize away. I’m no democrat and I have no love for them. I get into disagreements with those on the left about various things I disagree with. But at the end of the day I can work with democrats and I can’t with fascists. Defending freedom and the constitution against tyranny is something I swore an oath to do, and I will vote for nothing but democrats as long as fascism looms here.
If you’re advocating voting for anyone other than Biden, you are a de facto right wing operative. That may not be the intention, but that’s absolutely the result. It’s not an insult, it’s simply math.
There is no viable alternative to Biden for the 2024 election. Not a single one. Push Biden and the Democratic Party left, don’t campaign against them unless you want the GOP to gain more control. That’s unfortunately the reality of a FPTP system. Something like ranked choice voting would be a great way to change that. Guess which party is actively fighting against increasing representation and voting access? The very same people you’re electing when you sit out or vote 3rd party. If someone can explain to me how Biden losing the election is a net positive for the country I’m all ears.
See, the problem is that you and I disagree about the virtue of the Democratic Party. To me, they are an abusive bully who removes voices when it’s convenient (in their primaries), and then turns around and claims we must vote for them in order to preserve democracy. That rings hollow to those who have already had their voices muffled by the party itself. They’ve limited where I can express my voice to the very place that they have complete, unimpeachable control.
The only thing I have left is to express myself by refusing them a vote in the general. As you said, this is the unfortunate reality of the FPTP system. If they want my vote, they can implement a ranked choice system and I’ll happily put them on my list where they belong. Alternatively, they can run their primaries fairly and I’ll recognize the winner as legitimate.
I gave them my vote in 2016 literally only because of Trump and it nearly broke me. I gave them my vote in 2020 because of some specific promises the Biden campaign made that they then turned back on. In both cases the primaries were run in a specific way to engineer a win for their preferred candidate. Never explicitly against the rules because the party itself made the rules to allow it. And even then they were happy to break their charter’s promise to run primaries in a fair and even-handed way and argue in court they had no legal obligation to follow it.
In the case of Biden, I said in 2020 that that was my last free vote for the Democratic Party. They had 4 years to convince me they were willing to work with progressives, or else their vote from me would be contingent on them cleaning up their act. They have, on many occasions in the last 3 years, shown me that they have no intention of working in good faith with progressives.
I’m just done being abused. It’s time for them to actually follow their own empty words.
This is why the Democrats need to win, remove the Trump factor and try to either drag the Republican Party more to the center, or have the Democrats win in such a decisive way that it forces the Republicans to shift left. In the ideal world we don’t have FPTP, but all we can push for is a splitting of the Democrats so that folks like AOC and Biden aren’t considered part of the same party.
I don’t believe a Democratic win will push anyone left. The Republicans clearly have no interest in that, they’d rather get rid of democracy altogether. And the Democrats see any victory as a mandate for their centrism and any loss as a reason to move right.
If a Democratic win moves us left, why didn’t 2020 accomplish this? Why didn’t 2008 accomplish this? Why has every Democratic victory after FDR moved the party to the right?
To keep that ratchet spinning.
And the solution is what? Vote Republican? Not vote (thereby essentially giving the Republicans a vote)? You can be damn sure that crazy racist uncle Bob isn’t going to skip voting for a wannabe-dictator
Voting third party, or if none are available that suit me, don’t vote for president. I’d still be filling out the rest of the ballot. I’d appear as an active voter who left the field blank, indicating my vote is up for grabs if someone actually earns it
That’s the only option available to me in the general that doesn’t implicitly endorse the current actions of the Democratic Party, actions that I believe are harmful to our country and will lead to our downfall just as surely as the explicit dismantling of the Republicans.
Can we stop this “a 3rd party vote is a vote for the opposition” nonsense? That completely ignores the entire reason for voting 3rd party and it’s mathematical bullshit. With Democratic votes on the left and Republican on the right, it is a 0/0 vote for each side. A Dem vote is a 1/0 vote and a Republican vote is a 0/1 vote. If you insist the two sides must add to one, then it’s a half vote for each side, 0.5/0.5.
The Dems have plenty of things they can do to earn my vote and they consistently choose not to do them. In response, I’m choosing not to give them my vote anymore. 2020 was the last time unless they can become a party that actually serves the people.
Results aren’t instant and we have moved left. Since 2016, Republicans have lost every single election. 2018, Dems gain the house removing the complete control R’s had in the house, senate and Executive. 2020, Trump loses his reelection (first time in like 20+ years that happens) D’s hold the house and gain a slime majority in the Senate. 2022, with a D president history shows D’s should lose seats in congress. D’s lose the house narrowly and gain seats in the senate, I think this the first time in 10ish years this happened. When FDR was president, it was fine to be racist again minorities, be prejudiced against the LGBTQ+ community (as well as let them die of AIDS), and weed was bad. Those things have changed, and include the fact that every abortion restriction law has been denied by the voters of every state that has tried, including Kentucky. The issue with the lack of a sharp turn left is that US politics doesn’t work that way. Actual movement is based on the mid point between both parties, and right now Republicans have been trying to move further and further right. In general shifts in politics are slow for the US, which is good for preventing bad things but not great for quickly encouraging the good. If R’s continue to screw up as they have, they will have to reevaluate their platform to stay relevant. Being homophobic, sexist and an ally of Nazis and white supremacists isn’t a winning ticket for a majority of voters.
Democrats winning seats doesn’t mean we’ve moved left. My point was the Democrats themselves have moved right. Pretty sharply around the Clinton administration, too.
Hi. So, your problem is that you didn’t get what you wanted, and now you’re going to throw a political temper tantrum and let the autocrat in. If gays and minorities are rounded up for concentration camps in the future, know that your letting ‘the perfect be the enemy of the good’ is why that happened. Hell, your posts on this very forum might be used to arrest and imprison you as a political subversive if Trump gets in, so you may well have skin in the game yourself. Something to think about.
No, my problem is that the Democratic party is corrupt, and continuing to prop it up will make the problem worse, not better.
I’m not letting perfect be the enemy of good. If the DNC can run fair primaries (which doesn’t mean my preferred candidate wins), I’ll recognize them as legitimate political contests. Until then, I’m simply tired of hearing “it’s not the right time” because it’s never the right time. If we keep waiting for the “right time,” then more people will die because we all refused to hold the Democratic Party responsible now.
And I do mean they are responsible. They gave us Trump very directly. They propped up his campaign to radicalize the right in order to shove an extraordinarily unpopular candidate through. That they now continue to use the same pied piper strategy only shows that they’ll continue to radicalize the right in order to coerce votes from people who don’t like them. Refusing to stand up to that makes you responsible for everything their pied pipers accomplish.
How is protecting the queer community, women’s rights, and the civil rights of PoC, voting against your conscience exactly?
Because I believe that protecting democracy is a prerequisite to protecting citizens, especially marginalized groups. The Democratic Party, to me, is a threat to democracy. Different from the Republican party, yes. And much less severe. But a threat nonetheless.
This isn’t “both sides,” the Republicans have 0% chance of ever getting my vote, period. The Democrats can earn my vote but choose not to. In my opinion, they are an active participant in the erosion of democracy in this country. They just have the benefit of only having to do it within their own party.
Is this in the general sense or are there specific policies/actions you could point me to as examples?
Two in particular:
The DNC has no interest in running an impartial and even-handed primary. It went so far as to argue in court that it was not bound by the language of its charter to run fair primaries. Since the Democratic primary is currently the only place that progressives can voice their political preferences, this practice effectively removes the right to political representation of anyone left of the party.
The Democratic Party engages in pied piper strategies, bolstering extremists within the Republican Party in order to increase their chances of winning the general (by promoting the “you have to vote D to avoid R” rhetoric that this thread started with). Specific to the current political climate, the DNC and the Hillary campaign promoted Trump in the 2016 Republican primary since they saw him as easier to beat than the rest of the field.
So they suppress voters to their left and intentionally radicalize the party and voters to their right.
Hmm ok fair enough actually, thanks
You believe, because you don’t know for certain.
You think those people will be better protected under a republican admin?
Do you think what those people will go through under republican leadership is worth it so that the DNC “learns its lesson” whatever the flying fuck that’s supposed to mean because people like you can’t even be bothered with the primaries you claim to be so incensed about when you turn your nose up at protecting other people’s rights.
Believe it or not democracy is actually not when the candidate with less votes gets forced into the nomination anyways because “trust me bro more people want him bro just ignore he got less votes bro!”
Believe it or not Vote Karen, us folks you’re threatening to send back to the Republicans to be rounded up and tormented if not killed for another 4 years are not able to bring you the party’s manager.
You believe “protecting democracy” whatever the fuck you think that means, comes ahead of protecting people’s lives, and that’s a position you can only have if it isn’t your life in danger.
You objectively prefer us as dead bodies you can gesture to and shout “SEE!” as if it was some nebulous elite’s fault that you refused to save us. You prefer us that way because dead bodies don’t expect you to actually show your solidarity even when it’s such a herculean strain as waiting in line for a day at most and filling some boxes out.
Be an ally, or quit moaning when the people you claim you’re trying to help point out that you’re trying to extort a negotiation out of them for something they have no control over because that seems more “revolutionary” to you than just being there to have it go your way in the first fucking place at the primary stage if you’re willing to turn us over to the fucking gestapo over it.
Followed up by you conjuring up all sorts of things you claim I believe to argue against strawmen.
And by the way, I phrase things as “I believe” because that’s what humans base their decisions on. None of us know anything 100%. I can recognize that we can work towards the same goal and have different beliefs about the best way to get there. I don’t automatically assume that everyone who disagrees with my methods also disagree with my goals.
Yeah because you have the privilege to not be condemned to possible state sanctioned violence by that “difference in methods” fuckin’ priv.
Hey, guess what? You aren’t right about everything. Neither am I. I believe the system continuing as it is will result in more death and suffering than efforts to drag the Democrats left.
You need to learn to argue without accusing your opponent of ill intentions.
@MagicShel I know this is hard to understand, but genocide affects our decision making, and some of us would even prefer our country to fall to complete ruin than be aparty to it. Never again isn’t “never again unless it would be politically expedient”
Do you understand what I mean? That there are lines that can never, ever be crossed?
Do you understand why I’d never be able to look in the mirror again after that?
So you think that the default is no genocide? No genocide is not an option here. Our realistic options are:
A) genocide
B) genocide + fascism at home
Not choosing defaults to B
@kool_newt I’m deontologically committed to not being personally aparty to genocide, and your commitment to a utilitarian calculus where genocide is a given, is exactly why I’ve made that choice.
Ok, and I’m saying by not participating you’re effectively choosing not only genocide but fascism. As Rush says
“If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice”
https://www.rush.com/songs/freewill/
@kool_newt oh I made my choice. I hope some day you will realize that you have too and what it means got you.
I’m secure in my knowledge that my ideology isn’t so radical I shoot myself in the foot.
@kool_newt I really wanted to let this go, but what the fuck is wrong with you that you think “I will not support genocide” is radical?
You toothless amoral cretin. Go back to your servile obsequence to whatever politicians your betters decide for you and leave me alone.
If you think Trump is going to bring a halt to genocide you’re delusional. Vote Trump in and the genocide will continue or escalate. The GOP will escalate persecution of your countrymen and will further dismantle our democracy.
All the shit Trump did, locking kids in cages, rampant corruption, constant stream of lies, bungled foreign policy, stochastic terrorism. None of that crosses the line for you.
Or is it that you’re more about the symbolism of your vote than its real world effects?
@agent_flounder I’m not going to choose between two different far right genocidal monsters.
There’s no rhetorical game here. What you’re asking me to do is an evil my conscience won’t bear, and yours will because of your moral cowardice.
Messy. Damnable. Pragmatism is hell, not cowardice. Trump is not a clay that can be worked on. He will go all in with what Israel is doing. With no alternative, if the lesser evil saves a life I’ll shake hands with it and kiss it on either cheek.
Good grief. Obviously acting in bad faith here rather than actually engaging and discussing. Hopefully few people in battleground states fall for all the people pushing this line on social media.
Fellow citizens, I don’t have to tell you genocide is disgusting. We need to be demanding of our reps and president to put a stop to the genocide here and Sudan both.
Hopefully nobody has to be told that the US has a long history of horrific foreign policy decisions (look up Kissinger or various coups we initiated or wars we started) that kill people by the millions either directly or indirectly. It’s up to us peons to fight this, fight the corruption that runs rampant, and fight to make our democracy work more for us than the Uber rich and powerful. Tale as old as time. It took decades to get us here and it will take decades to unfuck things.
But we are all fucked if if the GOP is allowed to implement Project 2025. It will be even more destructive to our institutions and democracy than the first Trump Presidency.
So, if we’re going to get all judgemental and shit on each other, your ‘conscience’ is a thinly veiled ‘burn it all down’ anarchy tendency that will create an actual genocide, rather than the imagined genocide in your own head.
First, let’s talk Israel vs. Hamas. Yeah. Israel is a bad guy here. But so is Hamas. They’d GLADLY mow each other down in a hail of gunfire and explosions if they thought they could get away with it. BOTH are looking for excuses to nuke each other. BOTH are looking for opportunities to create mass graves. There are no good guys here. Just villains and victims. And let’s get real. Both the Jews and the Palestinians are in the victim camp.
Biden is walking a tightrope over the abyss, trying to negotiate cease fires and freeing of both Israeli and Palestinian captives. He’s trying to minimise the war as much as he realistically can. Hamas is being backed by Iran with support from other Iranian proxies in the area, and of course we know Iran is part of the new Russo-Chinese axis that’s trying to form in opposition not only to the United States but also the basic notion that everyone has a right to exist, live their lives, and form their own governments according to their whims. So forcing Israel to let Hamas just waltz into their land, kill and abduct a fuckton of people, and strike a blow at Israel without consequence is playing into Iran and thus China and Russia’s hands.
Of course, your ‘conscience’ won’t bear examining these facts because that’d tell you that there’s an uncomfortable complexity in this world. So you’d rather let the Authoritarian here in the States win because the other guy isn’t hard enough on what you consider a bad guy. And when that shithead gets into office, every person he hurts is going to be on your shoulders, whether you acknowledge that or not. I just hope my wife is out of the US before it happens, given she’s a Black Bisexual Pagan Goth gal.
@jhymesba And here’s where you show you’re not just okay with genocide in some vague “Stop trump” capacity, but a full-on pro-genocide monster yourself.
Slaughtering 10 thousand children, after Hamas killed a bunch of concentration camp guards isn’t “self defense”.
You’re just evil.
We aren’t committing genocide. We oppose genocide in Ukraine, and we would allow it under Trump. The fact that you’d be fine letting this country burn doesn’t make a lot of sense to me. We can’t help anyone in that state. And a lot of us want to help.
@MagicShel We’re making it much much much much worse, providing direct financial and military aid to a country actively slaughtering tens of thousands and displacing millions to facilitate ethnic cleansing.
It’s not that trump wouldn’t be worse, just they supporting Biden is totally and completely unconscionable. And to do so sacrifices a piece of your soul.
Refusing to stand up to fascism is unconscionable to me. My grandfather fought a war against it overseas and I’m not about to fail him here.
Then the Democratic Party should consider starting. Instead, they’ve unfailingly pretended that fascists are honorable people interested in serious governance that we should just compromise with in order to get concessions.
No disagreement.
@MagicShel voting for a genocidal monster isn’t standing up to fascism. There is a rot deep in your soul if you’ll let yourself fall that far.
Biden isn’t a genocidal monster and those words make you sound pretty unhinged. The fact that one of our close allies has been committing genocide is certainly a problem that we need to address but letting Trump win isn’t going to do Palestinians any favors.
@MagicShel that’s the difference in our understanding there.
You are what you do. And what he has done is send billions of dollars and two carrier groups to back up, by far, the biggest crime against humanity in the 21st century, already beating Iraq and blowing anything else out of the water.
There’s no excuse I’ll accept for that
Look, I will hold my nose and vote for Biden in the general, just like last time. But don’t pretend that he had any business running again.
I’m not gonna vote for anyone because I’m way too left to agree with a lot of their politics, I’m just gonna vote against Trump. It doesn’t matter who is running against him, I’m not letting that dipshit win again. Or the republican party in general at this point, they’ve gotten too crazy.
Centrist City here I plod
I said before, and I’ll say again, Biden is this generation’s Jimmy Carter. If the GOP were to have put forth any competent candidate in 2020, I think Biden would’ve lost by a landslide. Same goes in 2024. Not that I agree with her policies, but given the current political climate, I think the advantage would go to Nikki Hailey if she were to get the nod. But if the choices are (A) Donald Trump, and (B)…it doesn’t matter what B is. Go with B.
The race seems to be narrowing on Her with her Koch dollars, Ramaswamy as the wild card candidate, and Trump because the man’s ego is too large to leave the race even if he ends up in jail.
I think Ramaswamy will be the one to fizzle out next. He’s been trying to play the Trump handbook of just slinging out wild statements just to see how people respond, but it seems to be the only trick he has, and people are becoming bored of it.
Well what do you imagine then? Different third wheel or is it Trump V Halley with the establishment trying really hard to just force Halley, especially if Trump starts losing his cases.
Oddly enough, that’s all we ask for. Vote with your heart in the Primary. Be as passionate for change as you can be. But in the General, vote with your brain and for the Democrat. Tell yourself it’s a vote for the lesser evil. Tell yourself that any vote besides the winner of the Democratic Primary, whether that be Biden or somebody else, is a vote for Trump, just like it was in 2016 and 2020. And no matter how much you have to hold your breath while voting, make sure that in November of next year, that vote goes to the Democrat, whoever he is. That’s all we’re asking.
The best thing about Biden and Israel, is he’s doing nothing different than any other president since 1948. Trump was the one who moved the American Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem ffs.
He’s actually kinda better on Israel than previous presidents, he’s been negotiating the release of palestinians being held hostage in Israel, and has secured Gaza the right to access their own natural resources, which Israel had been blockading.
Almost like he’s actually doing the thing the left accused him of disregarding and using the US’ good terms with israel and israel’s dependency on the US as a negotiating tool to keep things as clean as possible without Israel going completely off the handle and doing something like firing a nuke out of feeling completely isolated.
It’s one of the things I really don’t understand about the argument. I can understand why people are upset with Biden, but yet yadda yadda yadda over the fact that Trump is literally running on a platform of being exponentially worse to them. Tell them they’re cutting off their own nose to spite their face, and they respond by sharpening the blade.
Citation needed
I am throwing in the towel for now. I am hetro white uppermiddle class male of prot background and can quote the Bible better than most preachers. I am in zero danger. It is everyone else is who is fucked. The rest of this country can’t even bother to vote to save themselves from firing squads.
The funny thing with an outgroup is that it keeps growing. They’ll find something they don’t like about you.
On a long enough timeline we are all dead.
Difference is that on the good timeline, you die in your bed surrounded by your friends and family. In a bad timeline, you die at the rock mines as the Frog-Nazis whip your back. So I’m not sure I agree with you that this won’t affect you…
Hey I am an automation engineer I have you know I will die from being whipped by frog-nazis while making the machines that mine, not in the mine itself.
On the plus side at least I will live long enough to watch the 4chan Nazis/Catholics/Heritage foundation/evangelicals/Magas turn on each other. Murdering each other in the ashes of a civilization while they starve.
Turns out you can’t eat memes.
What is that supposed to mean? Who cares as long as you have your uppermiddle class life (which guess what, you won’t when they find something they don’t like about you). What a glib response.
It’s full Bernie Bro logic too. Bernie didn’t get the nomination, so we’re voting for Trump.
These people don’t care about policies, only personalities.
This gets old given it really wasn’t that many Bernie supporters who ended up breaking for Trump. Imagine generalizing an entire group of people on 12% of their population. Not even abnormal compared to other primary vs general elections. Hell, 25% of Hillary primary voters ended up voting for McCain in 2008.
I used to crunch data around primary and general elections all the time in R back in college. Data is so fucking important for campaigns. Taking votes in a primary for granted regardless of party is a sure fire way to shoot yourself in the foot and cost you an election unless you are in a safe district. And boy howdy was it scary when the swing state data I saw leading into November 2016 started giving Trump higher and higher odds. Not nervous yet about 2024, but the Democratic Party needs to work its ass off to keep their vote margins as large as possible.