Agree with the philosophy, but stupid that she’s running for president. Until/unless we change FPTP voting the only the Democrat and Republican running even matter and if you don’t explicitly vote for the one then your are implicitly voting for the other.
I don’t begrudge her campaign. Making noise on the national level is a good way to elevate the message and slowly undo the demonization of socialism. It’s her supporters acting like Harris is the same as Trump that chap my ass.
The problem with that is “the media” treats anyone other than D, R, and occasionally Jill Stein as non existent. She isn’t making noise on the national level because that requires the media to “amplify” you and all we hear from them about her right now is
I didn’t forget to finish the sentence.
Lenin argued that communists should take part in bourgeois elections because this will get them tribune to loudly proclaim their program, though this should be the least they do, not the most and the main effort should be outside of electorial politics and on organising working class.
Now thing is, when Lenin wrote this, he meant the tsarist duma, which was even fakier democracy than the current American one, with 3 tiers of electors, censuses, workers and peasants barely getting few % of representation and rest going to landowners and their pets, okhrana secret police arresting socialists and peasant activists and closing their newspapers (there was a case where huge participation of workers put iirc 15 worker representatives in duma, and tsar just fucking imprisoned them). But they were still heard.
Now, nearly 120 years later, bourgeosie don’t even have to be so heavy handed, they just drown the communist message in a media flood, and even cases like removing third party candidate from ballot and deplatforming them cause no big response from the so called “liberty” advocates.
@Asafum @themeatbridge I think they do that as they might as well be non-existant considering the current winner take all method of assigning Electoral College votes in over forty states. Frankly, you might as well not bother to vote if’n you’re going to vote third party. Frankly I won’t take any third party seriously until they start caring about down ballot elections where they can make a difference, show people why they should be elected, and change the laws that keep them from being elected.
Frankly, you might as well not bother to vote if’n you’re going to vote third party.
Advertising your party platform, signaling strength, and delegitimizing the electoral system are valid reasons to vote third party.
Frankly I won’t take any third party seriously until they start caring about down ballot elections where they can make a difference, show people why they should be elected, and change the laws that keep them from being elected.
This is ridiculous. Third parties are not allowed to work within the electoral system, the DNC and GOP collude against that. The electoral system isn’t some fantasy where a bunch of parties try to prove their worth, it’s dominated by Capitalist donors and establishment parties, hence the necessity for delegitimizing it.
Consider it from the point of view of the millions of under educated working poor.
they live in a state of precarity and they are being told trump is bad apparently because of ‘project 2025’ or some other nebulous concept.
Thats not gonna land with them. They don’t have the luxury of considering the dangers of “dismantling the administration “ under trump. They need to pay the rent and buy groceries and care for their sick, before they can weigh the relative morality of the candidates.
They wake up, they see rich people getting richer and their life getting harder 24/7/365 and they see no one doing anything about it .
This is why the Dems never get it .
Working people are too hard up to worry about a power struggle between the super rich and the ultra wealthy.
I mean aren’t these also the people who say free healthcare is communism and less taxes for corporations and lower minimal wage is better because then companies can employ more people
Hot take but no. I’ve seen no convincing polling on basically any topic that says that the average voter, or, under-educated working class schmuck, is some hardline neoliberal, or free market libertarian. The average tends to skew populist, for pretty obvious reasons.
There’s also a multibillion dollar propaganda apparatus spinning at all times which is created to convince people that climate change isn’t real, natural gas cookware is good, their lives are actually great, they can work themselves out of the hole and into the dwindling middle class, and government austerity measures are good because the meritocratic private sector will just altruistically innovate and make everything more economically efficient, and if anyone’s getting hurt, then it’s the real poor who aren’t like them at all, because those people are lazy and can’t be changed. So what little anti-populist sentiment we see in the population, I would argue that’s something that’s been pretty deliberately manufactured.
Respectfully, Trump didn’t just appear this year. There are endless CONCRETE examples of his garbage character and policy ideas. Plenty of people in precarious situations are not so stupid as to somehow believe that Trump is only a danger recently because of project 2025. You would literally have to have just regained consciousness from a 10 year coma to not have been exposed to his shittiness at this point. Anyone who supports him or is undecided about him is wholly ignorant of reality.
I recently saw someone in the comment section on another social media site (video of Jan 6th) legitimately have their mind blown that January 6th was not peaceful. They had multiple comments of them coming to the realization that it was anything other than peaceful. I think we often underestimate how uninformed (or willfully ignorant) the general public is.
It’s very difficult to view things from another perspective, although it’s phrase we throw around a lot .
I never imagined fast food delivery would take off, because restaurants have drive throughs. My bias is that of a car owner and I was wildly wrong.
As you point out, there is a ton of hard evidence about people’s limited political understanding.
And yet he was elected to highest office in the land and went very close again 4 years later and will likely go close again.
So there are plenty of “stupid” people who are “ignorant of reality” and they have vote same as you.
Why do you think Trump became influential? Why did this happen, and how do we not repeat it?
Too many people left behind in hardship in a time of abundance and conspicuous wealth. Easy for Trump to gains support with populist sentiment. Republicans saw their chance, and held their nose a made him leader.
The answer is capitalist decay. Fascism isn’t going away even if Trump goes away.
That’s democracy. She’s allowed to run for POTUS.
Nobody ever said she couldn’t. Do you go outside and yell at the clouds?
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RCV is starting to get some traction in places. What we have to do is continue supporting that and not let the detractors shit on it.
Even if it passes, i wouldn’t be very hopeful. Look at Europe, all those countries have better and more democratic election system than USA, but there are fascists on the rise in each of them and shit like in France and Poland happen more and more. Also what’s the use of having more parties if they still all represent the same influence groups (for example in Poland we currently have 17 parties and 42 independents on 460 seats in sejm, but you won’t find anyone outside of neoliberal status quo).
FPTP Britain says Good Morning 👋
Yeah i’m pretty torn on how democratic is UK, not only they do have FPTP but it’s also A FUCKING MONARCHY.
Way out is realisation that they spent last centuries or at least decades on trying to stop being Europe in every sense. If they could they would probably do it even geographically, rowing their island to physically join USA.
Right!
You can’t just focus on the bad and ignore everything that’s good about these countries. Give us universal healthcare; give us socialized higher education; give us universal basic income; do away with for profit prisons and replace them with a system focused on rehabilitation.
So yeah, right wing idealism is on the rise but that’s a global trend. These countries, in general, are light years ahead of the US.
You can’t just pray that into existence. In Europe, social safety nets are eroding, because they originated as concessions to prevent revolution.
Give us universal healthcare; give us socialized higher education; give us universal basic income; do away with for profit prisons and replace them with a system focused on rehabilitation.
??? Universal healthcare in all European countries is in the process of being dismantled, UBI is existing only in your fantasies, for profit prisons are talked here and there and if you think current ones are rehabilitating anyone you need to look closer.
Also where did i even say they are exactly the same or worse as USA (maybe in the same place where you seen implemented UBI?), and why you derail topic from specifically electoral system into general “badness”?
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It’s also been outlawed in certain states. Many of those same states have outlawed voter led initiatives, meaning they have no recourse to change to rcv without changing the majority of their states legislators with people that support it and will pass it. You’re talking over a lifetime of change necessary to undo that damage. That still is hoping that dems will actually vote against their own best interests once in majority control…
Still more likely than a socialist being elected though :(
The socialist threat forces Democrats to support RCV.
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Like all meaningful change, you have to convince enough people to get involved and to do so more often and consistently than every four years at the Presidential general election. It’s this belief that the change is going to come from the parties that is the core problem. Everyone complains about having to vote for the lesser of two evils, but then they do it and go back to sleep for another four years. At best, they just gripe about the government never acknowledging that they are responsible.
Ah, one big prayer will get us RCV now? That’s a new one. If the parties don’t want it, you’re not getting it.
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It’s also not like local or even state level RCV would realistically be sufficient for these whole sets of overarching problems that the US struggles with. You’re not locally voting for RCV and then gaining the ability to vote for a party that will actually give you healthcare, will connect your city with others via rail to help rework infrastructure, will solve your housing problems and your homelessness, and they probably won’t be solving unemployment. You can maybe vaguely hope that the existence of such a party would put pressure on the federal government to ask “why can’t you do this”, but that would only happen at the state level with one of the states that actually matter, like california or new york or texas, and good luck getting any of those places to go in for RCV considering how strangleheld they are.
The most you could hope RCV to improve is maybe to make it so you can get someone that’s willing to make your ISP give you free shit, or establish a free ISP, and also maybe to give your town a bunch of roundabouts, and maybe approve some missing middle housing which will probably skyrocket housing prices in the surrounding areas since it won’t really be doing anything to solve the problem at a national level. Which isn’t nothing, right, but that’s kinda boof.
No one is saying rcv is a silver bullet. It’s malignant that you would suggest it even is. It’s the first step in a long list of reforms that need to happen, tool.
Then we vote them out
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Why?
Other countries with FPTP have fringe candidates that almost definitely won’t win elections, but influence politics considerably.
Arguably, Nigel Farage is the most influential politician in the last decade of the UK for his role in pushing Brexit, all while being in no less than three different political parties. He only recently won election as a MP on his seventh attempt, but media backing and taking disenfranchised votes from idiots basically allowed him to dictate internal policy for both main parties.
There are 650 MPs in the UK, and unlike ind the US it isn’t winner-takes-all; if you win one of the 650 seats you get to be an MP
In the US presidential election, there are 50 states for a bigger population and even then winning one while losing the others achieves nothing
In the senate and house elections, which are more analogous to the UK, independent candidates are viable, right? There’s at least a few. But it’s not comparable to the Presidential elections
FPTP is fucked, but it’s only one element of why the USA is deadlocked into the two major parties being the only contenders. The electoral college, the winner-takes-all nature… all sorts
That’s all well and good, but it doesn’t answer the primary point. An unelected politician was able to drive change without even being elected as an MP because he had public and media support. Tell me why that isn’t possible in the United States, even if it means as a fringe candidate in a primary party?
I see your point but again I’d say it’s because of the US’s winner-take-all system, as well as 50 states vs 650 seats
Farage posed enough of a perceived risk to the Tories that they moved in his direction to avoid losing votes to UKIP. UKIP never would have won more than a handful of seats, let alone a majority, but by splitting the right vote Labour could have beat the Tories in swing seats
And yes, that could be broadly true of a ‘spoiler’ candidate in the US presidential election, except that:
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Only 50 states, and therefore a tiny amount of swing seats compared to the UK
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more population per state than per British seat. By a whole huge margin. So its not enough to potentially appeal to 8,000 people to ‘spoil’ a seat
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The above leads to funding issues. Not only is there more money generally in the US elections, but because you have to flip a big state not a small constituency, you have to spend way way more to make an impact. You can’t focus a small budget on one tiny area and win a seat
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Winner-takes-all means that as long as a campaign thinks it will win a state, and then a presidency, who cares if some counties went to a spoiler candidate?
I’d love to be wrong, and I do think that there’s probably also a cultural/historical element to the US’s two party dominance. But that said, its just a different system, different processes, different outcomes, different challenges than in the UK
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Unless, and hear me out here, it is possible to change.
I’m certain the dems and Republicans will vote to end their strangle hold on us politics in just 1 more election cycle!!! Our maybe the next… or maybe the next…
End of the day we are the dems. We are the repubs. Get out these and vote.
When, I think of “socialism,” I think of modern day Scandinavian health care, not Soviet-era Russia. Who do these pants -wetting idiots think they’re scaring?
Some more about why the Nordic model isn’t socialism:
Scandinavian healthcare isn’t socialism though, that’s part of the problem.
When, I think of “socialism,” I think of modern day Scandinavian health care, not Soviet-era Russia.
One of the upshots of the Great Patriotic War producing so many invalids and disabled veterans was a Soviet state dedicated to providing top quality public services for its veterans. An entire municipality - Rusinovo - was built to cater to the blind, in order to accommodate the number of Soviets who had lost their sight to chemical weapons and other injuries. It became a model for a host of disability-friendly improvements to cities the world over, and you can still find them if you know where to look. The Tokyo subway adopted the Rusinovo model for raised, guided pathways, for instance. And audible signals at crosswalks and in city metros are common mass transit features globally.
After the fall of the USSR, much of the country was privatized and subsequently looted by the Yeltsin-friendly oligarchs who endorsed the coup against Gorbachev. Rusinovo was one such target for looting. The school for the blind was defunded. Factories specifically geared to allow blind workers to participate in the manufacturing center were shuttered and stripped for parts. The transit network was gutted.
Who do these pants -wetting idiots think they’re scaring?
Post-Soviet Eastern Europe is regularly held up as the consequence of Soviet Economics taken to their logical conclusion. So you’ll routinely see Western politicians point to states like Estonia or Solvakia or the shattered remnants of the Yugoslavian Republic as proof of the Failed Socialist Experiment.
What you don’t typically hear is the rapid deterioration that occurred after the USSR was dismantled and partitioned off under Yeltsin. Or how much of the Soviet Era wealth was stolen by mafiosos and corrupt agents operating on behalf of western business interests and rival espionage agencies nce the Iron Curtain was torn down.
In some sense, its a lie. “Look at how awful it is now! That’s because of the socialism they did back then.”
In some sense, its a threat. “Try socialism again, and you’re next.”
Well, considering the election results in Europe and the US, they are scaring a whole lot of people.
Who do these pants -wetting idiots think they’re scaring?
The boomers who grew up during the Cold War and who continue to have better voter turnout rates than Millennials, even as the latter generation sneaks up on their 40s.
Like…I don’t agree with their policies, but their tactics are objectively effective.
This isn’t an endorsement of conservative fear mongering but rather calling out my fellow Millennials, who’ve recently surpassed boomers as the most populous generation in the US.
Show up and vote, god dammit.
who continue to have better voter turnout rates than Millennials
One of the biggest determining factors of enfranchisement is home ownership. Boomers got to plunder the real estate that prior generations had extracted from the First Nations. That land was commoditized and collateralized such that subsequent generations had to pay an enormous premium to get access to it.
Subsequently, home ownership rates after the Boomer generation plunged. More and more property is monopolized by business conglomerates and simply rented out rather than sold. People move more often, chasing lower housing costs and higher wages. So they never develop a local identity, join a local political party, or invest in the long term interest of the community where they reside.
They don’t know who their politicians are or why they should vote for any of them. So they don’t participate. And then they leave an area rather than fight to defend it if the political leadership starts fucking the place up, because they don’t own any of that land anyway.
Show up and vote, god dammit.
The Boomers vote with their ballots.
The Zoomers vote with their feet.
Ah yes scandinavian healthcare where I can’t get my doctor to give a fuck about my back pain because people under 30 don’t have back pain obviously
I’m in the US where my doctor doesn’t give a fuck about my autoimmune condition nor answers any questions I ask except for just renewing my prescription and I have to pay $300 every visit for it
There will always be some incompetent people in every profession. I’m sorry your doctor is one of them
It’s an systemic problem in Denmark. I don’t know anyone in my area whos happy with their doctor
Hopefully the system can be changed. It’s evident that it needs to be addressed after the discovery and public rage against the monetary practices.
It’s just American corporate FUD. Either you’re a complete balls-out capitalist, or you’re an ultra-commie. Nothing inbetween. Mention the EU and they stick their fingers in their ears and yell
The EU is still balls-out Capitalist, lol.
Not as bad as the Yanks. We have a number of socialist policies here which are all very useful.
Social programs are not socialism.
Rec…? Recre…?? Recreation? Is that like fun or something
Probably when you’re supposed to be “hustling” or “grinding,” or whatever the nomenclature is now for trying to make survival sound cool.
if you aren’t actively making other people’s lives worse you are failing
And internet. Basic internet connection should be a human right at this point. It’s infinite free education at your fingertips.
Admit it, you just want infinite memes
Bruh you know me too well
It’s infinite free education at your fingertips.
And that is 1 of the top 2 reasons they won’t let that happen.
Not under Capitalism, at least, hence the importance of PSL.
That’s why gen Z is so smart.
tell that to m’uricah, oh wait cant because two party system
C’mon man! Joe tried to forgive your student loans! He just couldn’t.
Right now Joe is trying to hook me up with the most beautiful woman in the world. She’s smart as fuck. She’s got tiddies and bobbies and is very shapely and athletic. She’s got a job. And she’s totally into me. Anyway Joe is doing a great job. The only issue is that it’s been hard for her to contact me for the past 4 years. But Joe will be trying his darndest! I already told my wife and she’s voting Democrat too.
On the other hand Trump really wants to get rid of us. I think he’s voting for my wife. But neither of us are voting for him.
That’s how it works. I don’t have time to think about others and their socialism… with their needs to be filled like student loans and child care and food when they’re in their 90s. Nah na no. Wait hold on, I gotta get the hatchet 🪓 again, the long arm of the law is trying to grab my wife by the pussy again. I think they want to ban wet wipes now.
C’mon man! Joe tried to forgive your student loans! He just couldn’t.
Right now Joe is trying to hook me up with the most beautiful woman in the world. She’s smart as fuck. She’s got tiddies and bobbies and is very shapely and athletic. She’s got a job. And she’s totally into me. Anyway Joe is doing a great job. The only issue is that it’s been hard for her to contact me for the past 4 years. But Joe will be trying his darndest! I already told my wife and she’s voting Democrat too.
On the other hand Trump really wants to get rid of us. I think he’s voting for my wife. But neither of us are voting for him.
That’s how it works. I don’t have time to think about others and their socialism… with their needs to be filled like student loans and child care and food when they’re in their 90s. Nah na no. Wait hold on, I gotta get the hatchet 🪓 again, the long arm of the law is trying to grab my wife by the pussy again. I think they want to ban wet wipes now.
Yay a spoiler candidate
How is she a spoiler? She’s the only major leftist candidate, who is she pulling from?
In America you either one of the 2 main or a spoiler. Y’all really need ranked voting.
Alternative voting systems haven’t proven to be even the slightest obstacle to capitalist rule. Japan and Australia have alternative voting systems, and they’re still on the same far right path, still evict indigenous peoples, and still act as US military bases.
It’s not supposed to counter capitalism or any one political ideology. It’s supposed to create more proportional representation. If everyone in a city is a conservative, then ranked voting will still skew conservative.
Its impossible to have a government that represents the people, if capital stands above the political system.
You fix that by seizing the means of production, generally with unions.
You protect union rights by both voting for candidates that will protect unions, and also fighting to unionize your own workplace.
While your proposition is still better than the neoliberal merry-go-round, unions can only serve as a base for vanguard worker’s party. Unions by themselves never once seized the means of production and ultimately most of them turned into tools of class collaboration.
Actually, it’s very possible. Capital, despite being a tool of oppression, is also a tool that pays for roads, schools, hospitals, and everything else that the government funds. Capitalism is definitely not the best system, but it’s the one that’s currently available, and despite the common narrative here on lemmy, there are people that work at the Federal level that aren’t being actively lobbied that do indeed pass good legislation. The way to improve the system is by implementing ranked voting, which increases the equity of representation in DC. Voters in Wyoming shouldn’t have the same say in politics as voters in New York or other more densely populated congressional districts.
The way to improve the system is by implementing ranked voting
Then do it. Try to test your ideas against reality. You’ll find that RCV
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Will only be allowed in small amounts as a show of feasibility, without affecting major change
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Will be gutted if it ever does get implemented and stands chance of changing anything.
The path forward is revolution, not a giant prayer for RCV to be implemented magically.
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Capitalism is not a tool that pays for social services. Its a system that allows private individuals to own the means of production (and along with those, the political systems, laws, and media of their domiciled countries) with the goal of extracting a profit from the sale of commodities produced by wage workers they employ.
Capitalists only apportion some of the surplus value stolen from workers to public services, when forced to by political agitation from below.
These proposals for ranked choice voting are a dead-end, because they already exist in many capitalist countries, and it doesn’t fix anything. They just stack any number of candidates they like, and have their media push the most friendly ones.
If you allow capitalists to own production, then the political system will always be subservient to them, and be nothing but puppets to serve their interests. Anyways here’s some more resources:
In Poland we currently have 17 political parties and 42 independents on 460 seats in sejm. Yes, that’s potentially 59 different political stances… but every single one is still neoliberal.
Supposed to but doesn’t really. I’m Australian and our governments at both state and federal levels have been slowly eroding the ability for smaller parties and independents to even join the race by restricting funding and labelling it a win for electoral fairness.
The voting system doesn’t matter when fascists get control, they won’t let it go not matter what.
Why yes, let perfect be the enemy of good.
While yes, Australia’s voting system still is not great (single member electorates), and inequality is still bad, and we’re capitalist like the US, it’s sure as hell no where near as bad here, and I would argue, partially due to our better elections (it’s not even close).
We have pretty good worker protections, healthcare that’s not ridiculously expensive (though, we’re working on it…), and overall much better social programs.
I would be surprised if our voting system had nothing to do with that.
FPTP is trash, it’s basically only gets bette for any other system (hyperbole, but not by much).
That’s because Australia is using the seat system, which is like a supercharged electoral college. Australia needs proportional representation.
But then you would be more likely to have counties voting for other parties. The electoral college would actually make more sense with ranked voting.
The electoral college doesn’t need to exist period. It’s just bureaucratic nonsense. People vote, those votes are counted, then whomever got the most votes in that district is the winner. It doesn’t need to go to another un-elected party who doesn’t have to vote for the party of the person who actually won the district.
Can’t get ranked choice voting with either establishment party, and I don’t consider the only major leftist candidate to be a spoiler for 2 right parties.
Hilarious. Let me think about who I’d vote for if I was US-American. The Fascist or the at least slightly socially progressive neoliberals? It’s anyone’s guess really. NO. Of course the Dems, fucking obviously.
So if I was US-American and also hit in the head enough to consider voting for third party in a country with a first-past-the-post voting system, I’d not vote for the Dems as a result.
This is called the spoiler effect. This makes her a spoiler candidate, no matter her intention.
I fucking hate this rhetoric.
Voting for a third party is not “taking a vote away” from anyone.
You’re arguing with someone who would in all likelihood JUST NOT VOTE if not for an alternative option. If you want assurances that fascism doesn’t get voted in, how about you direct that passion towards getting people to vote for someone, anyone, instead of staying at home? That is the only certain way of getting not-the-GOP-candidate elected time and time again. Republicans always come out to vote in about the same numbers every election. Just get more people voting, and not only do the Dem numbers go up, but the viability of a third party goes up astronomically as well.
Just VOTE. For anyone!
Hate it all you want, it’s objective reality.
You can hate it all you want. It isn’t rhetoric. It’s basically math. Every registered vote that votes 3rd party is a wasted vote. There isn’t enough support in the US for any 3rd party thanks to the First Past The Post electoral system.
Since it’s so basic, then surely we can stop giving candidates the benefit of the doubt when they refuse to support its reform.
You’re arguing with someone who would in all likelihood JUST NOT VOTE if not for an alternative option
Just because the big silly in this conversation is a big silly, doesn’t mean all the sillies are. There’s lots of sillies who are silly enough to vote third party but not silly enough to abstain.
The Fascist or the at least slightly socially progressive neoliberals
Neither are acceptable, both are genocidal regimes that are working towards WW3, Climate Collapse, and genocide. The only peaceful solution is voting third party, otherwise revolution is necessary. Taking the miniscule chance of a peaceful solution is morally correct, especially if we believe revolution to be necessary.
Meanwhile you “peacefully” increase the probability that the guy who destroyed women’s reproductive rights gets voted in again.
I say you should help punish the Republicans for MAGA and once they try a moderate candidate again you can vote third party. But don’t ignore the consequences of your actions.
Meanwhile you “peacefully” increase the probability that the guy who destroyed women’s reproductive rights gets voted in again.
Meanwhile you “peacefully” increase the probability that genocide continues, climate change continues to be ignored, and World War 3 kills us all.
I say you should help punish the Republicans for MAGA and once they try a moderate candidate again you can vote third party. But don’t ignore the consequences of your actions.
What do you think fascism is? Why do you think MAGA is just a random event and not a systemic problem? Fascism is Capitalism in decline, there will be no “moderate” candidates because Capitalism is still in decline. The conditions for fascism persist, so fascism persists, and the Dems get closer to fascism.
So I don’t have a hat in this race because I can not vote. I think you have a fundamental misunderstanding about how a government is formed in the United States. The odds of stopping a Democrat or Republican from not winning the 2024 presidential election are futile. If I could vote, but I can’t, if I voted third party I would be putting my effort into what I know is a futile effort. That seems morally the same as ignoring it because I know the results would be identical. The only moral option I would then have is to choose the least bad option. The most moral option would be off the table for me.
Actually the president used to be less important than they seemed. The United States Supreme Court decision that president’s are practically kings changes a lot.
The other side of this is that the president doesn’t really matter. The president really only executes the will of Congress.It seems to me that if you really wanted to do the moral thing, it would be changing the roots of the problem. Not a single branch. It’s the hearts and minds of grass roots organizationa you want to change long before anyone walks up to a polling booth.Just saying, as someone who can’t vote.
First off, I understand how the electoral system works. The odds are incredibly slim that a third party will win. I disagree that a Democrat victory is acceptable, because the Democrats will only push for more genocide, failed climate action, and world war 3. It isn’t a matter of being “better or worse,” both result in the doom of humanity. Either we push to end that electorally, or via revolution.
Organizing is also good, Claudia De La Crúz represents PSL, a party that does that more than try to win the presidency. They serve to highlight the sham of the election and gain recognition.
Drag is happy that you get to feel like you’re being peaceful, but sad that you’ve convinced yourself the way to do so is through apathy and inaction. Drag wonders if you’d feel the same way if you understood that choosing not to do a good thing is still choosing to do a bad thing.
Drag should not assume I am saying electoralism is the end all, be all of political action. I am advocating for organizing outside the electoral system as the primary role of leftists, and refusing to give the electoral system legitimacy. Voting Dem is not a “good thing,” because the Dems are unacceptable and will lead to genocide, world war 3, and failed climate action.
Explodicle wonders if talking like this is going to catch on.
least slightly socially progressive neoliberals? It’s anyone’s guess really. NO. Of course the Dems, fucking obviously.
What are they actually socially progressive on though? They’re still supporting ICE and police state expansion, still doing tough on immigration bullshit, still presiding over migrant concentration camps, still funding and arming Israeli genocide, still rattling the saber at China, still blockading Cuba, not doing anything to protect trans people from genocide, doing exterminationist shit to homeless people in blue cities in blue states,
I could go on but you get the point.
Putting a HRC sticker on doesn’t mean you’re a little bit socially progressive, it means you have a PR team.
The fact that you are not american, and apparently do not understand our political system, means that you probably shouldn’t be talking about our elections. There’s only around 10 states at any given time that actually decide the outcome of a presidential election, by design, and the rest of the states are pretty well locked in, most especially the majority population centers like new york, california, texas, many southern states, cascadia. It’s only realistically medium density states, flooded with suburbs, that are really up for grabs in the EC, which doesn’t necessarily directly correlate with who becomes president. Every state, bubbling from local city districts, to state level districts, are also gerrymandered to shit, which further decreases the power of your vote directly.
So, if you live in one of those majority population cities or states, your vote basically might as well just be going straight into the paper shredder. You might as well vote for a third party, which, given 5% of the popular vote, could qualify them for federal funding, you might as well vote for a third party to signal to the big two parties in which direction they should lean, you might as well vote for a third party so said third party can understand what their actual activist base is.
Doubly so when we have further evidence that the marketing of either party doesn’t matter so much when they agree on every other issue regarding their actual political orientation. On economics, they’re both neoliberals. On immigration, they’re both hitting the same line because the only institutional response to the exploitation of latin america and the climate crisis has been to shore up the border militarily. On foreign policy, they are both completely aligned. On social issues, they might seem a little bit different, but I think you’ll find that nobody in the democratic party really takes what is mostly used as an aesthetic ideological divergence seriously, or else they would actually be pulling any number of the levers available to substantially change things. Gay marriage might be legal at the federal level, sure, but see what kamala’s record is as the DA of san francisco, and it’s pretty fucking horrifying, and is obviously something that we know impacts marginalized communities to a greater degree.
Also don’t hit me with the “oh she was secretly good as the DA”. She was incredibly mid as the DA compared to every other “progressive” DA that san francisco has had, which is an incredibly low bar to still somehow not clear. One side will hit you with “kamala had 2,000 people locked up for marijuana charges”, which is true because when you are arrested you go to jail for sometimes months or even years until trial, most especially when prisons are crowded with marijuana charges or graffiti charges, and then the opposition claps back with “well she only sent 45 people to state prison, which is less than the last guy for state prisons”, despite the fact we have no information for county jails because they refuse to give us those statistics. That’s on top of her deciding to prosecute parents for truancy, which I’m sure can be spun as actually being a good thing rather than a ghoulish curb-stomping of the working class which just needs to buck up and bootstrap themselves under the gentle threat of getting sent to jail, which I’m sure will help kids. I have a lot more then just that, too, and I can hit you with the citations if you actually want to read them. That’s just her, also, a lot of this shit will float around about basically every other “progressive” democratic politician except for maybe bernie, AOC and other members of the squad, and maybe some midwestern politicians that happen to get a simple democratic majority.
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Democrats have instituted ranked choice voting in some states.
Republicans have also made moves on ranked choice voting. They banned it in Florida.
It’s a carrot that will never be implemented in any meaningful capacity, it’s kabuki theatre. Even if it got implemented nationally, the moment it risked changing the status quo it would either be defanged or gone entirely.
There is no implemented nationally. States run their own voting systems. You do this state by state or you don’t.
Exactly, hence why it doesn’t stand a chance of impacting anything.
You haven’t heard of Jill Stein?
Stein is more of a centrist, just anti-genocide.
The Democrats. In a 2 party system, voting for a 3rd party makes it more likely that the guy you REALLY don’t want to be elected, gets elected.
Leftists REALLY don’t want Democrats either. If you are in a room where the water is rising to 10 feet above you, and the Republicans build a 2 foot platform from the bottom and the Dems build a 3 foot platform, you still die either way.
You gotta love the old “why vote for better oppression” argument, used despite their admission that one is in fact, considerably better. In this instance, we can literally quantify it as being 33% better.
Bad faith framing of the issue. Donald Trump literally wants to turn America into Gilead and Harris wants to enrich herself while also marginally improving living conditions for working class Americans. If you want to have the revolution today, all the power to you, but until then, voting for the lesser of two evils is the only ethical choice.
It isn’t “bad-faith,” I am entirely serious when I say that the lesser evil is to delegitimize the electoral system and push for leftists to abandon the Democrats, who have proven their unshakeable interests. Revolution may be 99.9% more likely than reform, but that .1% chance is worth taking. Even if that .1% chance fails, it aids in deligitimizing the electoral system and prevents Democrats from being able to get away with literal genocide.
So, your plan for fixing everything is for the left to stop voting so that the right can win and make voting illegal.
Because that’s how it works.
This election in particular has democracy itself on the ballot.
It may be a flawed democracy, but the only other option is a fascist dictatorship.
There are no other options because of First Past the Post voting. Literally. The math does not lie.
If we just pay our taxes to King George he’ll eventually listen to us!
So, your plan for fixing everything is for the left to stop voting so that the right can win and make voting illegal.
No, my plan for fixing everything is to stop thinking voting fixes anything. Organize outside the electoral system and build dual power.
This election in particular has democracy itself on the ballot.
Ah, the endless lie. The US will always remain a bourgeois democracy, ie a democracy largely in name only.
It may be a flawed democracy, but the only other option is a fascist dictatorship.
Fascism is Capitalism in decay, can’t get rid of fascism by voting it out. You will repeat this lie until the US pushes us into World War 3 or we die of Climate Change, unless Leftists succeed in saving the world.
There are no other options because of First Past the Post voting. Literally. The math does not lie.
Math doesn’t lie, but you do.
The math does not lie.
Show your work. Which equations prove this?
that’s my president(ial candidate) :)
Mine too.
Every time someone says the phrase ‘spoiler candidate’ I sabatoge another mail ballot. Eat shit lesser evilists, your voting pattern is why the current election has gone from a lesser of two evils to the lesser of two genocides. Whats the next election going to be, the lesser of two nuclear wars? Y’all hate democracy but you lack the balls to say it, so you attack anyone who uses their democracy in ways other than you. You’re the reason for this electoral situation and yet you insist only your way will get us out? Spare me the jokes, it’s like trying to dig upward.
No, it’s just a fundamental, inescapable fact of your voting system that voting for a candidate that won’t win, instead of voting for the candidate who might win and you’d prefer over the other most likely candidate, is a vote for the candidate you’d prefer less.
Please look up the spoiler effect earnestly (cgpgrey has a passable video on the topic). It’s not the voters fault they’re forced into voting for candidates that aren’t their favourite, it’s the voting system’s fault.
Edit for your convenience: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=3Y3jE3B8HsE
As a citizen of one of the US’s vassal states, I can’t vote, but this shit affects us all, as the US is the world overlord. A trump presidency would be devastating, in my point of view.
Please fucking vote for the Dems if you’d prefer them over the Republicans. Please learn how your terrible system actually works. This vassal begs you.
Oh and campaign to improve the voting system so you can actually vote for the candidates you like best.
No, it’s just a fundamental, inescapable fact of your voting system that voting for a candidate that won’t win, instead of voting for the candidate who might win and you’d prefer over the other most likely candidate, is a vote for the candidate you’d prefer less.
Neither the Democrats nor Republicans are acceptable.
Please look up the spoiler effect earnestly (cgpgrey has a passable video on the topic). It’s not the voters fault they’re forced into voting for candidates that aren’t their favourite, it’s the voting system’s fault.
Correct, the system will never change without revolution.
As a citizen of one of the US’s vassal states, I can’t vote, but this shit affects us all, as the US is the world overlord. A trump presidency would be devastating, in my point of view
So would a Harris presidency.
Please fucking vote for the Dems if you’d prefer them over the Republicans. Please learn how your terrible system actually works. This vassal begs you.
Neither major party is acceptable. You don’t fix a bleeding wound by adding another.
Oh and campaign to improve the voting system so you can actually vote for the candidates you like best.
Will never work, because the Capitalist system maintains itself and will not allow its power to be wrested electorally.
Your revolution ain’t coming bro get your head out of your ass.
As Capitalism continues to decline, and decline it must, revolution comes closer.
In response to both comments in the tree. This logic makes no sense. Having your finger cut off or your hand cut off are both unacceptable, but one sure is preferable. You can say “I don’t like it! I don’t agree to either”, but it’s just putting your head in the sand.
“Both sides” being equally bad is complete nonsense. The Democrats sure are a right wing party by international standards, and pertetuators of inequality and the status quo of capitalism, and US imperialism. However, you are blind if you think the Republicans aren’t worse.
Stop having a hard-on for revolution, because it almost always ends up producing undesired results.
Revolution in the USA pretty much means civil war, and if you’re being honest with yourself, you know it.
In response to both comments in the tree. This logic makes no sense. Having your finger cut off or your hand cut off are both unacceptable, but one sure is preferable. You can say “I don’t like it! I don’t agree to either”, but it’s just putting your head in the sand.
If you think dying from the climate crisis and dying from the climate crisis aren’t equivalent, I don’t know what to tell you. Same with World War 3 and World War 3.
“Both sides” being equally bad is complete nonsense. The Democrats sure are a right wing party by international standards, and pertetuators of inequality and the status quo of capitalism, and US imperialism. However, you are blind if you think the Republicans aren’t worse.
Republicans are worse in some areas, yes, but both are unacceptable and need to be thrown aside, because there is no future under either party.
Stop having a hard-on for revolution, because it almost always ends up producing undesired results.
Entirely wrong, unless you are so legitimately detached from history that you’d support the Tsarist Regime, the fascist slaver Batista, or the feudal nationalist Kuomintang, etc. Proletarian revolution has come with skyrocketing metrics like life expectancy, home ownership, access to healthcare and education, literacy rates, and more.
Revolution in the USA pretty much means civil war, and if you’re being honest with yourself, you know it.
When revolution becomes possible it will be because Leftists have organized sufficiently and in great enough numbers that it won’t be, except for some fascist holdouts. Looking at the history of revolutions, this has always been the case.
