The Pennsylvania Democrat recalled his time serving as a Hillary Clinton surrogate in 2016, even after he supported Bernie Sanders in the primary.
I don’t like Joe Biden, but this isn’t a presidential approval poll, it’s an election, and he’s clearly better than any of the alternatives. And when it comes down to it, he’s been better than I expected. We could have just had an exclusively centrist presidency, and while there’s been plenty of centrism, he has been persuadable to progressive action.
And frankly even if you can’t bring yourself to express support Biden for some reason, it should be pretty easy to want anyone who willingly associates with Republicans to lose and lose badly, because they’re way beyond stealth-mode fascism now. Even the most jaded “they’re all neolibs” voter from earlier elections can’t possibly ignore that the Republicans are just fash now. There’s a real danger if they win that cities end up with federally tasked jackboots kidnapping protesters like Portland.
When the vote is between someone (and a party) who says “climate change is more worrying than nuclear war” and “climate change is a hoax” the choice should be clear for any reasonable person. All the treason stuff aside (though very important, everyone should already be decided on that), climate change is the biggest issue for everyone I know. Probably for any average person under 50 if I had to guess.
I’ve seen people saying Hexbear users have been brigading politics communities of other instances. Not sure if it’s true, but it would explain the massive influx of idiotic far right morons with a 6th grade writing level making bad faith arguments.
Hexbear is leftist and lemmy.world defederated from the instance so you’re speaking of phantoms
I think he’s suggesting hexbear users are making accounts on non-defederated instances to troll
So baseless conspiracy without a shred of evidence.
Hexbear is communist, that’s you guys. That’s modern day liberals in the US. You are so fucking confused it’s comical.
Don’t fucking tell me what I am or who “my guys” are. Tankies are almost just as bad as conservatives.
Oh you’re easy to peg but I’m sure that’s how you prefer it anyways.
Nope. Voting for Cornel West. I think Marianne Williamson is also a significantly better candidate.
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which I would guess is far from what you want.
Bold assumption that he’s not a right wing plant, like Marianne Williamson
By that logic, every other country with more than two political parties is doing voting wrong.
Every other country doesn’t have first-past-the-post voting for their legislative branch.
And that’s impossible to change
So you like Trump for 2024, then? Noted.
Depends on where they are. If they’re in a liberal stronghold like California, it’s probably fine. If they’re deep in the red like Florida, also fine.
But voting third party in a swing state is definitely not pragmatic.
which, if yall voting third party in some “safe state” and the candidate doesn’t even support some kind of electoral reform, what are yall doing. this whole “swing state” thing is 100% bullshit and virtually any of 10,000 plans to fix it will work, at least send a message.
Well, the problem with politics is that it basically renders a ton of wants into like 5 choices at most, and only 2 if you really want to win.
Perfect summary of how fucked the two party system and partisan identity in the US is. “Oh you don’t want to get behind a party that supports the Palestinian genocide? Trump lover!” You basically have a moderate rainbow capitalist center right party, and a fashy culture war right party, they have the same donors and corrupt capital directing their policies though. The vote is like picking the aesthetic you want to see things degrade under.
Biden taking the L for pulling out of Afghanistan was the best thing he’s done. Obama and Trump didn’t want it and he finally went though with it.
These two things can be true at the same time:
- The two-party system is structurally bad for the country. We really, really need ranked-choice or approval voting, and have needed them for a long time.
- If you are a voter in a contested (“purple”) state and don’t vote for Biden, you will be thereby supporting the election of a fascist candidate, which will make you a material supporter of fascism.
Feel free to vote for West if you live in, say, California. But in a contested state, a vote for West is a vote for Trump (or his replacement as Führer).
There is an actual, material difference between the center-right big-business party (the Democrats) and the fascist party. If you don’t believe me, go ask a gay schoolteacher from Florida.
You can’t blame 3rd party / nonvoters for the faults of republican voters. Mentality like that is why we are stuck with point number 1.
Sure I can. Every eligible voter who did not vote for Hillary Clinton in 2016 shares partial blame for Trump winning. Less than people who voted for Trump, but more then none at all.
Personally I would put more blame on the democrats for not fielding a better candidate that could have beaten trump not the people who didn’t vote for a shit candidate
Everyone who did not vote for Vermin Supreme is also responsible for letting Trump win.
Do you think before you type?
Do you want to Make America Florida?
Who you or I vote for is not going to stop a second January 6th, it isn’t going to change the plans in project 2025, the question is no longer about duely elected politicians, there is a high chance that Trump could be barred from running due to his actions on Jan 6th, but that doesn’t change angry confused people’s minds.
If you don’t want to make america Florida convince a Trumper he’s bad don’t attack people who already know it.
You basically have a moderate rainbow capitalist center right party, and a fashy culture war right party, they have the same donors and corrupt capital directing their policies though.
Holy fuck is this insane. While it was still dumb, complaining about lack of differentiation between neoliberalism with social conservative tendencies and neoliberalism with socially liberal tendencies could at least masquerade as a cogent argument, but “fashy culture war” isn’t just another stylistic draping on neoliberalism, it’s storming school boards, skinheads marching through cities, and federally directed jackboots kidnapping protesters.
That’s all happening now while Biden is in office though, and the police work for the state. Weapons are also being sold to fascists and extremists who repress moderates all over the world. The difference is under neoliberalism domestically, as long as people are equally represented, and the visible oppression is externalized, the structure is strengthened and remains. The Republican model says some deserve to be worse off based on their identity, which is in practice an opportunity for exploitation of all, it’s a way to blame systemic stresses on an internalized other. The stresses remain in either case and the system continues to degrade.
Neoliberalism has already had its crisis and essentially died, in the sense that it’s not believed in anymore but still guides institutions.
Where are the DHS (or other federal agents) kidnapping protesters? They didn’t just randomly decide to show up in Portland and they weren’t just randomly chosen from among available federal forces. They were sent there by Trump because they were a young organization with the least inertia to resist the fascist turn.
As to the other two, I suppose it’s true it’s still happening, no one solved the problem of evil, but they aren’t being called “fine people” and sheltered by the head of the executive branch. Zero chance the Proud Boys go to prison under a fascist president and more than likely they will be pardoned (and given a green light) if that happens. The idea that a fascist president doesn’t make fascism markedly worse is insanity.
All the flowery words about international relations are just avoiding answering the question of actual fascism, while also basically ignoring that fascist leaders were rising at the same time and supporting each other. What bullshit fake leftism to just hand wave away the rise of fascism, both at home and abroad.
Feds are notorious for harassing and threatening effective protestors, and the police and military in the US are full of organized fascists already, that’s just getting worse in any partisan scenario. International relations is actual fascism, because it’s all about protecting the interests of private US companies who do business in countries with less regulations and labor standards, and forcing those countries to remain friendly to US interests in this manner. So the oppression resulting from this system is externalized and hidden from the American collective conscious which is more involved with a culture war that doesn’t really change the status quo system but gives it moral justification and context. Results are incidents like Coca Cola hiring death squads in Columbia to harass and murder labor organizers, or just exploiting entire workforces. The military industrial complex side of this is basically death for any political organizations left of center in any country the US has interests in, the story of the last half century. Pertinent example, Biden pulling out of Afghanistan ended decades of involvement that basically started with providing insane amounts of weapons to Mujahideen Islam extremists and warlords which culminated in 9/11. Iran is the exception but the US is materially very friendly to repressive Islamic states for these economic reasons, those states aren’t inclusive by any stretch of the imagination and actually murder so-called sexual deviants. As long as it’s not happening in the US neoliberal Democrat supporters can feel like their hands are clean of fascism the system they support inflicts. So I would flip around that last paragraph and say this is a material reality entirely avoided by US Democrat progressives.
It helps to think of it in pragmatic terms of what your vote does, versus whether or not you fully support X or Y. It is undeniable that given the stupid electoral system we were born into, that voting third party effectively supports whichever mainstream candidate you don’t want to win.
All the rest of the time, whether in primaries or public forums like this, you argue and vote for what/who you really want.
But once you hit the general election, it is essentially cast in stone that either the R or D candidate will win.
We need ranked choice voting so that candidates care about what the people really want, versus just getting more votes than one specific other person.
voting third party effectively supports whichever mainstream candidate you don’t want to win.
What if you don’t want either to win and see the trend of both parties turning more to the right since Reagan and locked in a death spiral. Corporate tax rates are as low as ever, both parties support the military industrial complex and police state, both support the Palestinian genocide, neither party wants to get rid of Citizens United and Super PACs (regulated less than charities) now control and appropriate political action for corporate interests, neither party supports public healthcare. Like yeah the degradation may happen slower under Democrat but they haven’t shown signs of turning their backs against the corporate interests ruining the country/world.
If you don’t want either one to win, there is no way for you to legally make that happen.
So if you accept that is true, and you have a preference among the two parties, that is where pragmatism suggests voting against the greater evil.
But if you honestly have little to no preference, then you won’t care about the so-called consequences of voting third party, and can do whatever.
I mean obviously you can always do whatever you want. This is just the game theory you’re thinking that means we need to change our voting system before the two-party lock-in would even start to loosen.
Pragmatism would suggest I spend my efforts being politically active in other ways rather than dedicate it to a bipartisan death spiral. I’m active on the labor, municipal, and environmental front, and none of it is online.
You like Trump for 2024. I’ve noted it. It’s in my notes! You’re in trouble now!
Marianne Williamson is a nutjob. Trump would destroy her in an election.
Why
He’s clearly not, first because he fell for the
People’sGrifter’s Party and second because he’s not even trying to win. Jumping into a presidential race as a third party is just an exercise in self-promotion and maybe a little political grifting along the way. He sure as shit isn’t trying to engage with the political system to induce positive political change because no outcome of his candidacy believably accomplishes that.You do understand that the parties we have today started as third parties 100+ years ago?
I would say, one of the most American things to do is to found another party when the original party loses their way.
We are already in the third presidential election where anyone to the left of corporate-neoliberalism are being pushed to ignore their own principles to keep the party at the status quo.
As bad as the Republican Party has been recently, slavery would still be around if people in the 1850’s kept voting Whig to keep the slave-loving Democrats in check. The main problem with voting has been voter suppression and how somebody who has to work multiple jobs or extended hours can even find a place to vote.
Make every state run the Colorado mail-in election process and you will find that we might be able to actually vote away a lot of garbage and have fair elections with large enough voting numbers to possibly spit both parties.
I always say that personally, voting for the lesser of two evils still has people voting for evil. I still vote, but propping up the two-party system shouldn’t be the only reason to keep the status quo.
I think Marianne Williamson is an excellent candidate. But voting is literally a rigged game and there’s only one answer where we don’t all lose our democracy.
If you believe that propaganda then you already lost
Nah voting against Dems has worked on a smaller scale. But in the presidency frankly you’re an ass to vote against Biden on this one. Your loser candidate loses, trump wins, bye bye to many of our rights and freedoms. Neato.
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“Support Joe Biden” - Yes.
“Support particular policies of Joe Biden” - No.
Democrats are not a cult of personality. We can disagree with particular things the president does without wanting to see him defeated.
I think he’s talking about the people who would rather let Trump win than support anyone right of Bernie.
We need ranked choice voting.
We need a voting system that eliminates the spoiler effect and allows for showing intensity of preference.
RCV does neither but STAR voting does both
He specifically said “get behind the policies of Joe Biden”. If it’s just voting I’m with Fetterman, but you don’t need to recalibrate your policy supports because anything less than full agreement is treason.
We don’t vote on policies though, we vote on people (at the federal level)
Sure, and if it’s just voting and saying “voting for Biden is important”, then great, we’re good. Biden is obviously better than any Republican and Republicans not having power is important. But what that doesn’t mean is tabling advocacy for progressive stuff because it’s not what he’s doing or pretending bad policies just didn’t happen.
Sure, as long as it’s put in context. Too many young people are emphasizing the second part of what you said over the first part.
I like Fetterman, but I don’t think he’s the sharpest tool in the shed. Nuance is likely not his strong suit.
I feel like this is the new boogie man for the DNC. My close circle of friends all don’t like Joe Biden, all voted for Bernie in the primary against Hilary. Still showed up to vote for both her and Biden.
There’s plenty of people who didn’t show up for Biden and Hilary that have similar views and I don’t think it’s as much malicious as it is apathetic. They don’t do enough to give them a reason to show up. They don’t “energize the base” well enough. The Democrats need to get people excited for their policies somehow.
The Democrats need to get people excited for their policies somehow.
Wouldn’t a good way to do that be to have compelling policies? Off the top of my head I’d think putting abortion protections/rights into explicit law would be a start. Frankly anything that is currently only legal on the basis of supreme court decisions also seems ripe for putting into legislative policy pushes to make into explicit legal protections, rather than relying on some decision that may be overturned by an arguably compromised court.
In that vein, expanding protections to the LGBT+ community would be another good piece to their policies. Also, on a larger note, more explicit and enthusiastic support of active unionization efforts that have been happening across different business sectors.
However, even beyond these, some that would apply more broadly might be policies to address housing and rent costs, as these affect basically everyone and anyone. Policies seeking to address housing/rent, education, and healthcare costs would altogether, I think, speak to a wider swath of the public than strictly focusing on the aforementioned concerns, but would also include them, e.g. combating redlining, undermining of public education, denial of medical services to pregnant women & trans people, etc.
I’ll admit, maybe they have been pushing for some different parts of these (I’m aware of the Biden administration sort of trying to address college debt and getting screwed by the courts), but by and large I don’t think I’ve seen a clear set of policies by the Democratic party of the United States to be excited for. Far more of it has appeared rather watered down and more along the lines of, “Well, we’re not the Republicans at least!” instead of enthusiastically standing for something more constructive.
I’m not against any of those policy points you listed. But none of them would get me nearly as excited as them actually following through on raising taxes on the wealthy. They haven’t even really attempted that in decades. It’s been all cuts by the Republicans with no action from the Democrats. Making priority one rolling back the tax bill passed under Trump which lowered taxes on the wealthy and raised them on the middle class would of made me excited to vote for Biden again.
To me, this is supposed to be the main difference between the two parties and how they run the country. Social issues are important, but I’m sick of the media and politicians ignoring fiscal/tax policy. Biden throws out a soundbite about taxing the rich and being pro labor every once and a while, but makes zero action that way.
Social issues are important, but I’m sick of the media and politicians ignoring fiscal/tax policy. Biden throws out a soundbite about taxing the rich and being pro labor every once and a while, but makes zero action that way.
Fwiw that’s why I included the parts regarding policies addressing various costs (housing/rent, education, healthcare).
Ideally taxing the rich would lead to actions addressing those, but if we’re realistic, the odds are just as likely for those tax revenues to go to subsidizing some other businesses, and the military, with a depressingly low amount allocated towards public domestic concerns like helping provide shelter, education, and healthcare. At least, the odds are likely they’ll go that way if not coupled with policies of using the tax revenues towards domestic efforts.
It has nothing to do with energizing the base when we can see they lure voters to the polls then never deliver. The issues the poor and middle class are facing now are the same issues we’ve been facing for decades, and they never get addressed.
Like James Baldwin said, ‘I can’t believe what you say, because I see what you do.’
They could energize the base, by actually doing something they want pretty easily. Legalize pot, raise taxes on the wealthy, codify abortion/roe vs Wade into law… like anything people actually care about.
Yeah who cares about infrastructure spending or lowering the price of prescription drugs
Things the Republicans might also do and isn’t a good thing to run on for 1,000 Pat. Didn’t Bush pass some decent prescription drug bill…
Username checks out
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For the most part yes. However, I think the DNC has a real problem being disingenuous and acting like every single person to the left of trump owes them their vote. Give people a reason to vote for you. Not everyone who votes Democrat in one election identifies as a party member who is going to show up for you every election.
This whole talking to people like naughty school children if they don’t vote for you attitude isn’t helping anyone. Hilary ran her entire campaign on that message. It got us 4 years of orange man.
All the areas that went hard Blue after voting for Trump in 2016 seem to argue otherwise. Lots of people came out of the woodwork that either voted for Trump or didn’t vote at all.
What areas did Trump carry in 16 that then went “hard blue” (I guess that’s dependent upon your definition of hard, but let’s say, breaking for Biden by 10+ points) in 20?
No doubt there were places that flipped, but I doubt too many flipped “hard”.
2020 was decided by three groups:
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Moderate Republicans repulsed by what they’d seen through 4 years of trump.
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Democrats and moderates who were put off specifically by having Clinton on the ballot in 16 and didn’t vote.
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Independents who underestimated how bad Trump would be and voted for him to “shake things up” over Clinton who was the picture of Establishment Politics.
In 2020 I think you also had the effect of complacency among some of Trump’s far right base. Many of them hadn’t voted for years, if ever, until 2016 and likely didn’t realize the perfect storm that had to happen for him to win.
Meanwhile in 20, defeating Trump basically required two things: don’t be Trump, and don’t be someone lots of people hate.
Nobody likes Biden, but nobody really hates him either. That’s how he won the primaries and it’s how he won the general.
And if 2020 is a rematch, it’s how I think he’ll win again. Biden’s biggest strength is what he’s not.
I’m thinking of Wisconsin and Pennsylvania who flipped back Blue for Biden, but have also flipped other seats that have been long held by Republicans. The PA house flipped, as well as a seat in the Senate in the US Congress. Democrats held on to the governorship of PA for the first time since 1963. Wisconsin’s Supreme Court also flipped for the first time in nearly two decades. I don’t know how many point they won by, but there is a clear direction the states are both going that extends beyond just Trump.
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Not sure they comment was meant for me, but I agree. People that still say they are independent either aren’t paying close attention or just don’t want to label themselves. Some just love to complain and not take any responsibility for the consequences of their own voting.
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I would say “Then why would they be considered progressive?” but then I remember Tankies exist.
It’s not that I don’t support him, it’s that I do not support anyone over the age of 65 being in any position of any power anywhere.
Yeah, but you’re still going to vote for him, just like I’m going to have to…
We don’t really have a choice.
But it’s not enough for moderates to count on progressives voting for them in the general, that’s not “supporting” to them anymore.
They want our unwavering support and complete refusal to criticize them before, during, and after assuming office.
They’ve been slowly creeping right for so long chasing conservative votes that they’ve got the same expectations of their voters that Republicans get.
I think more than a few of the party leadership truly wish Dem voters were more like Republican voters.
We don’t really have a choice.
This is the real problem. Not Biden’s age or his actual policy goals and achievements. It’s that we know what we’re getting and we know we won’t be enthusiastic about it.
But ya gotta do what ya gotta do, and unlike last time I’m in a swing state and can’t cheekily write in my favorite candidate without ending the world.
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Enthusiasm for Obama died down once reality hit too.
There wasn’t ever enthusiasm for Biden, though.
Enthusiasm doesn’t lead to anything most of the time. Throughout history the greatest Presidents all had to make difficult decisions that either went against their ideals or were questionable if they had the right to do them. Anyone can run on grand ideas, but once you’re in the seat the unattended consequences are revealed to you, and unless your a monster who doesn’t care, they have to be dealt with.
An example that made me change my mind about some things under the Obama administration was watching documentary series on declassified CIA/FBI counterterrorism incidents. The number of plots they were stopping was overwhelming. And if those interviewed are to be believed those were only a small fraction of the situations they dealt with.
You have plenty of choices. First of all you can vote for someone that isn’t red or blue, second you can take action yourself and do politics on your own
First of all you can vote for someone that isn’t red or blue,
If I wanted to waste time I wouldn’t stand in line to vote…
In our political system any vote besides R or D means the same as not voting. Thats just reality, it sucks but it is.
You want to change it? Great, me too. But we do that by being more invested in the current system and electing people willing to improve it.
Its more likely to matter in downticket races, where the total amount of votes is less than the margin for victory in most federal elections.
Sure, we’re not going to see a third party president any time soon, but its more than feasible in state and local elections. People just tend to ignore them because they’re not as in your face as federal elections. Even though they’re often as important as federal elections.
Which has fuckall to do with the POTUS, which is what we’re discussing.
No third party in the US has a workable platform and they don’t even try to make one. They do literally nothing. We can argue back and forth about why they are at a disadvantage or why they have no chance blah blah blah, but it doesn’t take any of that.
Don’t feed on the propaganda. There’s a shitty movie out every month or so who millions go to watch because they get blasted with ads. It really doesn’t take much to teach people to vote for someone that isn’t red and blue. Drop that mindset and tell everyone to vote for someone else
It really doesn’t take much to teach people to vote for someone that isn’t red and blue.
How do you think that’s going right now?
I think it’s going good, i may have illuminated someone in this thread plus everyone downvoting will soon realize how stupid and brainwashed they are being and switch their mindset in the future
plus everyone downvoting will soon realize how stupid and brainwashed they are being and switch their mindset in the future
Kanye logic…
I knew it was coming, have fun with that
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What state do you live in, assuming it does not have FPTP voting?
Politics is almost by definition something you don’t do on your own.
He’s got dozens of aides and advisors. No one man’s got all that power.
Why do you support someone that is corrupted, a liar and has his hands drenched in blood?
Because it’s multiple choice, and he’s less corrupt, more honest, and less blood-drenched than the alternative.
So if Hitler and Osama bin laden gets resurrected and run for elections you would vote for one of the two according to who killed less people?
If those were the only two candidates, then Allahu Akbar my brothers, we’re going Nazi hunting.
Mate, yeah, I fucking have to, because we as Americans have a deeply imperfect electoral system at the federal level. Sorry, but one of those fuckers is gonna be the president and then I have to call my Senator and beg them to go for impeachment.
Yes, we all want someone with little experience work the most important job in the world.
Brother, that’s what the 35 cutoff is for… A lot of people start losing facultiee 65+, so it is you who ends up supporting rule by toddlers in reality.
Not to say Joe Biden would be worse than Trump by any means. Pointing out one flaw in a candidate is in no way an endorsement of their opponent.
That’s what the Vice President is for.
A lot of people, but not all people. There has been age differences in candidates before. In election terms, it doesn’t matter.
I want someone in touch with the modern world, understands technology and climate change, and who will be around to feel the effects of the policies they’re enacting. Being old doesn’t rule out most of those qualifiers but a 70+ year old won’t be around to feel the effects of many policies enacted today, so they may be more willing to enact policies with short term benefits but long term detriments.
If a 70 yr old wants to work on climate change regulation and tech regulation, they need to understand at least the basics of both, and the majority of legislators cannot use technology and refuse to begin to understand how computers or the internet in general work, despite the internet existing for 30 years and being everywhere for 20. And computers have in workplaces as commonplace for 40 years
Al Gore was in his 60s when he won the Nobel for his work on environmental climate change. John Kerry, the current US Climate Envoy and the guy who got us back into the Paris Accords, is almost 80. They both know more than most on the issue.
Exceptions not the rule, the majority of baby boomers are actively working against climate change and technology
Perhaps in your imagination. We’ve passed the largest legislation for climate change ever, plus the CHIPS Act has brought high tech manufacturing and R&D back to the US.
That legislation is gonna accelerate climate change.
For sure…changing to a non carbon based society will accelerate climate change.,wait…
And there are/were younger, more energetic, and more knowledgeable options than both of them. The dinosaurs don’t have unique skills, they’re just names we’ve known for years. We have a country of 330M, there are plenty of talented and capable people to choose from.
They don’t give Nobels to your more knowledgeable people do they?
They give Nobels to people whose names are known. It wasn’t a recognition of brilliance, it was a recognition of impact. Put a younger, smarter, and more vibrant leader in place and they get it instead.
Correction. They don’t give Nobles to people who don’t do things. But, no skin off my nose. If you have a younger, smarter, and more vibrant leader put them up for election and quit screaming at the clouds about age.
His only redeeming quality is not being Donald Trump. He’s otherwise too fucking old and out of touch with the vast majority of the country like most of our government is.
It’s almost midnight. You just got out of your job, a restaurant in a somewhat seedy location in old downtown. You leave through the backdoor into an alley and suddenly notice you’re not alone. The metal door just closed shut behind you.
You look to your right. There’s a guy with a knife. He’s looking at you and smiling in a weird manner. He starts walking towards you menacingly.
You look to your left. There’s a well known old drunk there. He smells bad and likes to hug people who are passing by. If you go that way, you will be hugged by him.
What do you do?
If you go right, you’ll get stabbed and killed. If you do nothing and stay put, you’ll get stabbed and killed. If you go left, you will be hugged by the stinky guy. It’s disgusting and not ideal, but you’ll not be stabbed and survive.
What do you choose?
I see people all the time with the dumbest arguments to not vote. “He’s not progressive enough”, or “he’s part of the system”, or even “he didn’t do enough for X” (insert your favorite minority here).
It’s all true. But the universe is not a perfect or ideal place. Not voting for the imperfect guy gets us a true horrible alternative. It’s a choice between bad and awful.
Please vote bad and keep the awful away.
Gotta move the Overton Window from the far right back towards the center right before you can start moving it to the left.
Tell that to the Democrat PACs funding the most insane fascist Republican primary candidates, so they can point out how insane their opposition is, effectively shifting the Overton Window even further to the right.
There’s a well known old drunk there. He smells bad and likes to hug people who are passing by. If you go that way, you will be hugged by him.
Lol did you do this on purpose?
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I choose neither. Instead, I jump, grab the bars of the fire escape overhead and climb up. Stinky hugs stabby, gets stabbed and dies. Then I jump down from the fire escape onto Stabby, knock him down and stab him with his own knife.
Teenager moment
The rusted fire escape cuts your fingers as you latch onto the bottom rungs, sending you plummeting to Stabby Smile.
Well, I just rolled a D20 and got a 3, so fair enough…
and then everyone clapped
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There are many types of democracies, and we live in a representative democracy which is very much a democracy.
There is exactly 1 direct democracy on the planet. Costa Rica is close but not quite.
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That’s like saying your vote doesn’t matter if you have a minority opinion so democracy doesn’t exist at all. It’s a bullshit line of reasoning.
Also your vote is extremely important at the local level. Our housing crisis is entirely a local voting issue.
A billionaires vote counts for exactly the same as yours. Sorry to break your bubble.
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No your post is just nonsense people repeat as part of the general American zeitgeist of “can’t trust government.” It has no basis in reality.
I agree with your first two sentences and then the train just jumps the tracks and plummets down a ravine. There’s all kinds of ways who you vote for matters. Complete disengagement like what you’re suggesting puts us on the fast track to fascism and nihilism.
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Ah, the false dichotomy, neat.
Abstaining is always an option. You can always just ignore either shady individual - you aren’t required to pick one.
Libs could learn a thing or two about abstinence.
Your analogy does not work, as the situation presented requires you to either go to the left or to the right.
In real life, there are many options and gray areas. One of those options is to refuse support to anyone who works against the populace, regardless of their political affiliation.
The world would be much better off watching the US turn far-right and implode than it would be maintaining the status quo.
I would rather watch the US die as a Nazi state than support the lesser of two evils. Remove them as a global superpower. Move out of the way and allow other states to bring better systems of government forward. Maybe something salvageable can be found in the wreckage.
That’s the part Fetterman fails to realize as well: Right now is not okay. Continuing the status quo is not okay.
Your analogy also equates the death of the nation with the death of the self, which is not even remotely true either.
Everyone knows not to negotiate with terrorists, until election season.
Ok tankie
Yeah, I can think of a parallel. The Soviets and the West allied to defeat Hitler but neither wanted to live under the other’s rules.
“Not GOP” is the best choice, but I’d like to see a different “not GOP” than the current one. Or even better, a system that doesn’t boil it down to two choices and an all or nothing vote.
The difference there is that they knew eventually the war would be over and they didn’t have to be allies any more. Instead, the DNC pulls out this same rhetoric every election, and they’ll never stop.
Yeah, another difference was that the Soviets and the West both wanted to defeat the Nazis. I think the moderate Democrats know that if the right is properly defeated (with election reform that opens up the system), they’ll also lose their power since the “we’re not the GOP” votes will dry up. Though the game is getting more dangerous as the GOP’s base is calling for Democrat blood and they don’t need the Dems like the Dems in power need them.
You’re 100% right. I pretty much hate Joe Biden. But I voted for him and will again, because there’s no better way to move towards what I want unfortunately.
Stop downvoting the exact sentiment this article and thread are espousing.
Wtf? So what they hate Biden? Mf voted for him!!
Is it already the time of year to bash progressives in case democrats lose so that they can be blamed for it? The extent of support Joe Biden will get is a vote against the republican party. As a candidate himself, he sucks as does the “democratic” party in general.
In the primaries, I supported progressive candidates like Sanders and Warren because I think their policy prescriptions would make for a better America. In the general, I voted for Biden. That was a harm-reduction vote.
What I don’t like to hear, in the primary, is the ‘you have to vote for the candidate who can win’ line of argument, which begs the question it pretends to answer- if everyone who says “I’d vote for x but x can’t possibly win” just voted for x, x would actually win. This gives whoever tells you that “x can’t possibly win” the power to get you to give up on voting for what you want, which seems to wag the dog.
In the general, between dem and gop control, it’s not a close contest for me; it’s between a party afraid to do progressive things the voters want and a party that will do whatever the fuck it wants no matter that nobody wants that.
Yes, our electoral system of first-past-the-post demands that we hedge our bets and compromise in order to avoid the calamity of electing a fascist in this election cycle, but it’s hard to support with evidence the idea that what makes a progressive candidate “risky” isn’t just a self-fulfilling misperception that causes the party to spend (or not-spend) money to prevent progressives from becoming party nominees. After all, research consistently shows that politicians of both parties routinely overestimate the conservatism of the voters.
I’m glad to see the Biden admin embracing the progressive changes it has been able to get to, but I’m also sooo tired of being told ‘we can’t nominate a progressive, they’ll be called a communist’ when no matter who we nominate they’ll be called a communist and decades of voting a harm-reduction ticket has rolled back much of the New Deal
Fetterman is 100% right.
He’s basically calling out progressives for essentially not wanting power. Those progressives rather sit on the sidelines and complain about everything than ever gaining even a morsel of political power to where they could actually do something.
Falling in-line is what has led conservatives to gain enough control of the government to throw out what most considered a done deal. RvW is gone (as well as any hope for reasonable gun restrictions, as well as a host of other no nonsense laws) because Republicans know about playing the long game and know that collectively they can accomplish far more things.
It’s funny that progressives love to push the idea of collective bargaining when it comes to labor relations and yet they can’t figure out that collectively if they fell behind the leader of the Democrats, their voices would be much better heard.
After falling in line, we are always ignored when they get into power
When you bring with you almost no votes or support, then what do you expect?
So the groups that vote reliably for the Dems should get no attention, but the Left should get to dictate policy when it can’t bring up any support?
That’s the most liberal thinking I’ve ever heard… waaaaa, give me attention, even though I won’t lift a finger to support you!
All this is incorrect. Sanders votes converted to establishment votes 80-90%, both rounds. Despite a party that pulled dirty tricks both times to undermine the progressive candidates.
Also you don’t get your agenda based on “but I voted for you” that’s not how power works. You get your agenda based on “do it or I won’t vote for you”
In both, 2016 and 2020, the progressive vote was recieved, and the progressive voice was promptly discarded.
They’re right to be jaded AND they should still vote blue. Both of those things are true.
When you bring with you almost no votes or support, then what do you expect?
You need to make up your mind. Either progressives aren’t bringing enough votes to care about, or you need their votes to win. You can’t have it both ways.
If you need their votes to win, you better start addressing their issues. If you don’t, then stop blaming them for your losses.
Democrats have won plenty of elections with little support from the left already.
But when elections are decided by a few percentage points, every vote counts. And if the left can be bothered to put down the bong and get off the couch long enough to go vote, it can be enough to win again Republicans in tight races. But the Left never represwnts a majority of Democratic votes. But it sure seems like liberals want to hold their votes hostage until Democrats give them a disproportionate amount of attention. You know what that’s called? It’s called entitlement.
It’s called entitlement.
Expecting progressives to vote for you while at the same time insulting them? Entitlement indeed.
It is hilarious that you think that is insulting.
I’m confused, doesn’t what you’re saying apply just as much, if not more, to Democrats that some of the progressives reluctantly do end up supporting and voting for despite knowing from their explicit policies and if a career politician, voting record, that they’ll barely represent them? What do those longstanding Democrats expect when they continue to betray, or clumsily compromise away, those positions or policies that more progressive demographics voted them in to office hoping they might defend, or at a minimum compromise on in a way that is in fact progressive and beneficial to folks?
On that last point, you may argue they do that, but I’d argue that those cases are rare, and instead they more often compromise in such a way as to either hand more over to their opposition, or make moves that are more of a temporary provision that may be cast aside with the next majority and/or administration.
Shit that’s a good comparison that frankly I’m embarrassed I hadn’t thought of. 👍
Yup. Imperfect world requires imperfect allies.
I think that’s just what democracy is. Healthy democracies are pluralistic. And governing coalitions don’t have 100% alignment on all issues.
Don’t worry, apparently not a single liberal has either!
Lmao that’s adorable that you think that. You think I was excited about fuckin John Kerry? Get real. My candidate that year famously… yelled loudly… and it ended his entire political career.
You have no idea the amount of settling I was willing to accept to see Bush not get re-elected.
You SHOULD have been excited about John Kerry. And Hillary. And Biden.
Those are the candidates that actually have a shot at winning. I was happy to vote for Howard Dean, and Sander and yet I know enough to fall behind the candidate that actually has a shot at winning if the one I vote for doesn’t get the nomination. Dean made the exact same mistake that Sanders did - he had the naivete to count on the Left and the youth vote to get him elected. And like we’ve seen countless times before, those people don’t vote. All the comments and posts and messages and tweets by liberals online about how this person or that person should win, when it comes to election day they don’t show up.
So with that losing strategy proven time and time again, why the fuck should Democrats go to the Left, when voters are clearly showing them that they want more centrist candidates?
The news media ripped Dean apart for having the gall to be emotional after his primary win, but nothing stopped his Base from following up his victory with supporting him in subsequent primaries. And yet they didn’t. Because liberals don’t WANT to win. They want to complain.
I was very excited about Hillary and Biden. I volunteered for their campaigns. I’m a liberal. I love liberal candidates, in general
John Kerry is the political equivalent of plain vanilla ice cream. Sure it’s ice cream. But it isn’t anything to get worked up about.
My post is about how I will generally vote for people I don’t necessarily like to be President if it means a liberal gets in. I’m not blindly loyal, but I’m sure as shit not allowing a Trump or Ramaswamy in over like, Sanders, if he’d won.
I hope our President in 28 is Buttigieg. Dude lights a fire in me. If he loses the primary, I will still almost certainly be voting for the Democrat, because insane felons dont win the Democrat primary, so I’m unlikely to have an ethical crisis over it. I’ll take a full on Sanders progressive over any Republican these days.
Hillary is a fantastic government worker, policy nerd, etc. I wish the Presidency wasn’t such a popularity contest because she’s the kind of person that can get things done. Same really goes for Kerry. Both fantastic Secretary of States.
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Remember when fuck off?
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Putin? Don’t you usually get your poorly paid troll army to do this, or have you sent them all to die in Ukraine?
the idea of collective bargaining when it comes to labor relations and yet they can’t figure out that collectively if they fell behind the leader of the Democrats, their voices would be much better heard.
Laughs in railroad workers
The railroad workers that got what they were demanding in the end?
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As a Californian and with regards to Pelosi that blame is on us–the voters. Incumbents with mediocre records can still win reelection on name recognition alone. Getting progressive challengers in California isn’t hard. But getting progressives that can build their brand and base to a competitive size to match incumbents, while surviving the mudslide of bad press from establishment outlets? That’s hard.
Hell, my home town despised the previous mayor. Still won his reelection in 2016 by nearly 2/3rds despite a progressive challenger who has been active in city politics and community outreach for over a decade. Had to wait until he termed out in 2020 before we could get the current progressive mayor in office.
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Or… Maybe your perception of political candidates’ popularity is only what you want to believe.
Unfathomable that others support who you do not?
Not really, we’re dealing with a city that slides between 15~23% voter turn out with a bias towards older voters who previously leaned center/center right. So even if 4 in 10 of the total population dislikes the incumbent, the odds were still in their favor due to self selection and name recognition. For the challenger to get over 30% on the first try shows our previous mayor was already experiencing dissatisfaction from swing voters.
At least that’s how it was in 2016, as of 2022 we now have a progressive super majority on city council plus the mayor.
Pelosi has been phenomenal for Democrats and Progressives both. You just hate her because she’s old and you’re probably in the “it’s not a phase, mom!” age range.
Ah yes everything is progressives fault and not establishment dinosaurs pandering to their corporate donors .
I don’t get it, either. Unless and until we have something like ranked choice voting, purity ponies that lodge “protest votes” only help the fascists. And these purity ponies seem to revel in creating more division within the left (and create more Republicans in the process), wanting to excommunicate each other over ivory tower orthodoxy, with the Oppression Olympics being one of the more egregious versions of that…
The key to getting progression policies passed is voting for Congress. Having a democratic President, whether it’s Biden or someone else, doesn’t matter if we only have a razor-thin majority. We just get held hostage by people like Manchin. We need solid majorities in both House and Senate to achieve anything.
Not even needed to be honest. Blue states need to swing their dick around and demand shit, but blue state politicians aren’t doing anything. I know this isn’t the most palatable comparison, but slave states, leading up to the Civil War, swung their dick around and got concession after concession from free state politicians even if they didn’t have nearly enough votes to get legislation they wanted and could have been shut out by simple majorities. Blue states and blue state politicians really need to get some fucking cojones or the US is heading down a path it’s never going to come back from.
I know this isn’t the most palatable comparison, but slave states, leading up to the Civil War, swung their dick around and got concession after concession from free state politicians even if they didn’t have nearly enough votes to get legislation they wanted and could have been shut out by simple majorities
This is literally what MAGA politicians are doing right now. I’ve said it before, but it’s humiliating watching the Democratic Party losing “the game” by insisting on playing by the rules when the opposing team is openly bragging about cheating.
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Only when you have a razor thin majority, which is the exclusive type of majority we’ve given Democrats in Congress for the past few decades.
Except for a few months during Obama’s term.
Which got us the greatest expansion of Medicare in our history and has saved thousands of lives and millions of dollars.
The ONE example we have of voting in a true Democratic supermajority was a massive success.
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We have different definitions of “wildly rejected” lol
the key to getting progressive policies passed is direct pressure. widespread strikes and organizing.
California has a bullet proof super majority and they can’t provide a livable wage, affordable housing, universal healthcare which includes dental and mental healthcare, or address homelessness other than hiding them from view. If a state like that can’t provide, why should be trust it to happen at the federal level? Dems could hold everything but 1% of Congress and they would blame that 1% for everything they didn’t do
I live in CA. Our homeless people have Medi-Cal, which includes dental, vision, and mental care. We have a zoning issue that the NIMBYs aren’t budging on, though I think I have found a workaround involving right of first refusal. Once we fix the zoning issue, our housing costs will come down dramatically.
Also, remember we only “own” about 1/3 of the land out here. Most of the state is Federal land operated by the BLM
K I’ll go tell the tent cities that everything is actually going really well for them lol.
Private healthcare loves the ACA + Medi-Cal cause it keeps their costs high and guarantees tax dollars can pay it. These companies often sell off their debt for fractions of it’s value cause they know they’re not going to get it all back, and they only need a small percentage to turn a ridiculous profit. This is the system these tax scheme substitutes for public healthcare help maintain.
Dude, compare California to a non Democratic majority state, not to the perfect utopia you want.
Of course California has problems. If they solved those problems, there would be other problems.
But California has massively fewer problems due to the untouchable Democratic supermajority in the state.
Parts of California even have ranked choice voting.
The major difference between the federal government and state governments is the fact that the federal government is the source of all money. They can spend it into existence. California cannot.
None of the things that would improve the quality of peoples lives better would cost the state a dime. Requiring businesses to pay a livable wage will increase state revenues and a stronger economy. Requiring universal healthcare would increase productivity and provide preventative care which lowers costs to the state, employers, and employees.
It seemed that your original comment boiled down to, if a state can’t do something, how can the federal government possibly do it, and I gave a major reason why. Also, healthcare isn’t free unfortunately, and since it cannot be tied to employment, it would have to come from the government.
it would have to come from the government
The government can regulate coverage and medicine. The core infrastructure is already in place through Medicare and Medicaid in every state.
Yes, the money for those programs come from the government. Thank you for agreeing with me.
Proof positive of failed democratic policy. Do you need more examples in other states?
Texas, Kentucky, Alabama, and all other red states are shit too.
dems had a majority when obama was elected and did nothing with it
They only had a majority in both houses for 2 years and still managed to get the ACA passed which was pretty significant. Even Trump couldn’t undo it. Also in fairness to Obama he was focused on staving off financial collapse for a good part of his first term.
The ACA was a Heritage Foundation health care plan that acts as a de facto subsidy for private health insurance. The best we ever get is still conservative.
They only had a filibuster proof majority for a few months actually.
im not impressed with them passing a conservative healthcare plan from the 90s that is basically just free money for healthcare companies and still leaves millions of americans without healthcare. the dems didnt even stave off financial collapse they bailed out huge banks and other corporations while doing absolutely nothing for the american people
Look, I get the Dems are our only vehicle for Progressive policies becoming reality because I know we’re never going to move away from FPTP voting any time soon. I just don’t like having to go along with the same corporate greed. It feels very two steps forward, one step back.
It feels very two steps forward, one step back.
And it is. But that still equates to a step forward. Voting red is a legit step (or three) backwards.
Voting red is getting your legs broken so you can never step again. The fact that they tried a fucking coup thst every one of those motherfuckers would have gone with if successful should not be forgotten.
Cause he’s a fuckin mummy John. We are tired of electing boomers that don’t understand fuckin computers.
Selling us a tube TV in the year of flat screens.
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Primaries are for ideas and ideals. General elections are for harm reduction.
Oh, because i support progressive people, not union busters
This president made an empty promise about continuing to work for paid sick leave after preventing a strike by railworkers at the end of 2022. Except, that it actually worked. Almost every union did get paid sick leave for its members within six months aided by continued pressure from the White House.
He’s a pretty lousy union buster.
Those paid sick days still count against the attendance records of the railroad employees via the actually insane “points” system, a system that the rail unions were fighting against. It’s strange how all of the neoliberal papers that are sucking Biden off over this “win” neglect to mention that.
The rail unions seemed pretty happy: https://www.ibew.org/media-center/Articles/23Daily/2306/230620_IBEWandPaid
Or you could see how the actual workers feel about it:
If you get investigated and disciplined for using your paid sick days, then you don’t actually have paid sick days.
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TIL that a union is not “the actual workers”. Amazing.
Its always fuckin ibew
Controlled opposition.
“You can’t strike, but I will try to talk to your boss to get you some of what you desire” is still union busting. The union doesn’t have the power anymore.
Telling workers they can’t fight for their own rights, and have to wait for politicians to do it for them us not progressive, and its not pro-labor. It’s on a long list of swiftly festering bandages that only stave off death for a little while. If we don’t empower our workers, we stifle them. Even if we bribe them candy when they demand steak.
I dont really blame you, theyve done quite the PR on this. There’s an electrical worker union, with a branch dealing with railroad electricians. They supported the pre-strike deal the railroad companies offered, they likely already had things like sick leave. If youve seen reports on reactions of rail workers to the post-strike-busting situation, you very likely only saw quotes from this union. Of electrical workers.
It’s a dick move to downplay their big win. Here’s another news release about a deal for sick days that affected eight unions: https://www.up.com/media/releases/paid-sick-leave-nr-230322.htm
This is literally the rail company whose workers were prevented from striking
Yes. Your point? Do you dispute that the listed unions got their sick days?
What they wanted? No i dont think they did.
You have a source that disputes that they got sick days?
