In 2016, the blue team won by 3 million votes and still lost the election. The system is broken. I'll still vote blue, but I don't think it will matter, especially since I'm not in a swing state.
Matters for your more local elections. Those swing states still send a lot of republicans to Congress every election. And control of Congress is pretty damn important.
DNC and DNC shills expecting free votes because they're democratically funding a genocide instead of fascistly funding a genocide
You morons in November when Trump inevitably wins due to horrendous voter turnout in November from former Democrat voters and not because the 5 communists in the USA made the difference
It's like a copy paste of Trump v Clinton and clearly no one learned their lesson from literally 8 years ago.
If anyone actually wants to stop the genocide in Gaza please vote out your republican congressman, almost every Republican congressman supported the resolution to restart weapons shipments and almost every democrat voted against it.
Tankie: "I convinced 20 Democratic Party voters to stay at home (and did the same for 0 Republican Party voters). Wait until Democratic politicians see that more voters favored the far right party. Then they're going to move left and fall on their knees and beg me to forgive them."
(Cue scene: swastika-adorned tanks rolling past the window)
"Stupid liberals, unwilling to fight the fascists like us true leftists." (Watches tanks and twiddles thumbs.) (Fetches keyboard.) "Let's tell everyone online that it's their own fault and they deserve this." (Sudden sound of harsh knocking on front door.)
At best, their actions will "only" cause another grid-locked presidency where progressives can't get their reforms to pass (which will then be used as the reason to abandon the likely last line of non-violent defense against fascists).
Team blue is team bad. It's just that team red is even worse.
But if we always follow this logic, we may as well allow them both to enshittify eternally, because reps will be just a bit more evil, and dems won't have the incentive to improve, either.
The question is: at which point should Dems be taught a lesson and how? Is current voting a good avenue for that?
The best time to plant a tree was yesterday. The next best time is today. As you point out, this doesn't get better if we keep doing the same thing. So now is the time.
You're absolutely right, it IS ridiculous how many supposedly left-leaning people are willing and even eager to see a Trump presidency to 'get one over on the shitlibs'.
The convention could always select a different democrat. Or it could have if the democrats hadn't purposely put it after the ballot deadline in many states so Biden would already be on the ballot, before the convention that supposedly nominates him.
It's just not the either/or situation you're looking for. It's entirely possible to be so disgusted by the state of American politics that you just don't vote. Or you vote third party. Your memes are having a negative impact at this point. Nobody who was on the fence is going to say, "Oh gosh I don't want to be commie, I better vote Joe!"
There is a side that could be worth supporting. But you're making very hard to do so. Biden could win the election today by cutting off military aid to Israel. Instead he has goons out here threatening everyone. So far I'm not sure what I get for supporting him. You guys talk about plan 2025, but this kind of bullshit used to just be Republican stuff. So from where I'm sitting it looks like the DNC is giving up on Democracy too. It's certainly giving up on listening to it's voters.
That's a coherent paragraph. Each sentence is meant to support and provide context for the others. So taking it all out of context isn't helpful in decoding it's meaning.
They want Donald to win so that China gains ground. They claim to love leftist economies but are simping for countries that produce plenty of billionaires.
The trade war with China might be a way to assert US dominance and squash the competition, but in the grand scheme of things, protectionist policies are very bad for the global economy and global progress.
And leftists typically are internationalists, putting global efforts above national ones.
So it's not just love for China, even if Lemmygrad and Hexbear folks are really unhealthily obsessed with the country.
I'm so glad that I live outside the US. Not that we have good options but at least more than 2. I guess I would still vote for Biden but I wouldn't call it a democracy
An authoritarian self-proclaimed 'leftist' who loudly decries anything that's not 100% in-line with their desires as 'shitlib' policy that must be opposed even at the cost of ushering in actual fascism. This actual fascism is also often described by tankies as 'not that bad' or 'the exact same' as the 'shitlib' policies they oppose. Dissenters are inevitably reactionaries who must be (often literally) crushed, as they don't reflect the TRUE will of the people (ie whatever the opinion of the tankie is).
The issue here is that Dems also go to the fascist state, they just always do it a bit slower to still be selected because "at least they are not THAT bad".
The question is, at what point should they learn a lesson to revise their playbooks and stop the corruption and enshittification? What should that lesson be? Could voting them out push them to pursue a more fair policy that actually caters to the needs of the people?
loudly decries anything that's not 100% in-line with their desires as 'shitlib' policy that must be opposed even at the cost of ushering in actual fascism
Wrong. They love and support Russia, China and N-Korea for some weird reason
Oh, the massive hypocrisy of Biden refusing to swallow his Zionist principles and stop their Genocide, whilst at the same time sending his tribe's peons around to try and convince millions of people to swallow their Humanist principles and vote for a guy who supports Genocide.
Biden could pretty much guarantee a win tomorrow by announcing that it has been determined that Israel is indeed committing war crimes, followed by cutting support for them as per the Law when the recipient of help is committing such crimes, ideally followed by sanctions.
Yet he doesn't and instead there's a clear propaganda op with repeated variations of the claim that "Not being for Biden is being for Trump" (which, curiously, is just the authoritarianist argument "those who are not with us are agains us").
Why does the supposedly elected representative of all Americans firmly refuse to follow Americans as they turned against the Zionist Genocide and instead acts like all dictators by doing what he himself wants disregarding the will of those he is supposed to represent?
The argument of this and other similar posts which have innundated Lemmy would be a lot stronger if Biden wasn't an example of doing the exact opposite of what these posts demand from others, both the part of doing whatever it takes to stop Trump (which, as I explained above. Biden is not) and swallowing one's principles to stop something worse (i.e. Biden stopping acting as a Zionist in order to secure the votes to guarantee that Trump is stopped).
Try to think beyond your adorable little "protest vote" when your choices are between boring corporatists and 100% concentrated evil. Or you may never have to worry about voting ever again.
"I have been heard loud and clear. Now I sit and lay back like I always do anyway, and wait while fondling my purity then absent-mindedly yet lovingly sniffing my fingers, any moment now they will cater to me."
At this point you guys should just take all the time it takes to argue "tankies" for HOURS at end and make these low tier memes and just form your own political party.
lol we already have fascism. They’re crushing antiwar protests, the media is in lockstep, labor demonstrations have been broken and they’re pissing away the cost of healthcare, free college and any number of other benefits on supplying a genocide.
I’m never gonna vote for Biden again and if you don’t want to either, consider voting for the party for socialism and liberation.
The reason why the rachet turns further to the right each election cycle is because non-conservatives in the US have an abysmal voter turnout.
Neoliberalism is the product of leftists deciding not to vote because there's no "good" option, and leftists will perpetuate this cycle by refusing to acknowledge incremental progress as a good thing.
If only there was a way to increase voter turnout, like giving voters what they want... nah, that'd make too much sense. The democrats are too smart to give people what they want.
Or maybe the centrists turn out because they're the ones that democrats appeal to. Obama ran on a progressive campaign and won big in 2008, so it's clear that it works. The problem is that he then immediately turned around and instituted centrist policy as usual.
Same thing with Biden. Ran on $10,000 of student debt relief for everyone, improving the climate, and not being Trump. People figured they could push him left, that was the argument. Now he's been a lot better than I thought he would be admittedly. But still, the student debt relief has been extremely targeted, he made foreign electric cars more expensive, and he's materially supporting a genocide while yelling at the protests against it. If they can't push him left in 4 years, then the theory was proven wrong, candidates can't be pushed left, and it's right for leftists not to vote for them. Democrats don't feel they have to move left because leftists have no other choice about who to vote for, so I get the calculus on their parts, but it's becoming dangerous.
It also depends on how much supporting a current genocide is a red line for someone. That seems to be the biggest difference I see in these posts. Some people can't bring themselves to vote for someone who does that no matter what. Others seem to be more malleable and forgiving about it. I know which one I am, but honestly, no judgment on either. I waffle between them myself. I don't feel nearly as much pressure as others,though, because I don't live in a swing state, so my vote doesn't matter.
Which part am I wrong about? Obama ran on affordable healthcare, abortion rights, being anti-bailout for too-big-to-fail entities, and being anti-war. He won a supermajority. Then he scaled back his healthcare plan, said abortion rights "aren't a top priority", continued bush's bailouts and added more, and invaded/bombed more countries during his term.
Obama passed the best affordable healthcare plan he could.
On abortion rights, he was no more left than Hillary. On the bailouts, he was openly in support of the Bush bailout plan even before the election. On war, Obama was openly in favor of the continuation of the war in Afghanistan and harder military policy against several countries, some of which even McCain wasn't onboard on.
But hey, whatever helps fuel your delusional "If only candidates were more left, then they would DEFINITELY win in a landslide!" outlook.
Good god. You win elections from the center. A center vote that switches from R to D is worth double because the R loses one vote and D gains one. You literally win from the center.
If you want the center to move, then make the Dems win overwhelmingly and consistently in President, house of reps, and senators.
So do you think republicans are catering to centrists with their full dive into fascism or do you think only democrats need to appeal to "centrists" for some reason?
Trump won by appealing to the manufacturing jobs sector, and because of the protest Hillary vote. As much as I want to believe people were/are informed about his fascism, they really aren't.
And now, because Trump won one election, the whole Overton window moved right. You know, because he won an election. You want to move the Overton window? Vote.
Biden won an election more recently than him. Weird how the Overton window moves when Republicans win an election but not when Democrats do. Wonder if there's a reason for that.
Hell, Bernie (and Warren) moved the widow more by running in a primary than they did by winning.
The reason is because Dems have to actually do things like pass legislation. Which more often than not requires all 3 of house, senate, and president. All the GOP has to do is block things and yell immigrants. Progress takes, you know, actual work. Stagnation or regression takes next to nothing.
Neoliberalism exists for many reasons. But blaming leftists is strange. We would be a lot better off if voting was not so hard for black and brown people, for instance. We can at least agree on that.
Yeah, I'm on board with making voting easier for everyone. Voter turnout is ultimately the only way short of violent revolution to fix shit in this country.
Voting is difficult enough for people who don't vote conservative, which is why when leftists refuse to vote out of principle because their perfect candidates aren't a choice, they're figuratively stepping on the rake.
Totally agree about voting and its need for ease. But I can tell you more leftists vote than don't, I can promise you that. Systemically that's not the biggest problem. And I certainly plan to vote and I won't be helping Trump with it.
I hope you're right, but I'll say that I've definitely seen more people in this election cycle say there's no point in picking between two fascists than any other cycle I've been a part of. Especially here on lemmy
Even if we assume for the sake of the argument that your ridiculous assertion is true, "Let's do fascism faster" is exactly the kind of bootlicking take I would expect from a tankie.
Never said I was a tankie bruh. A party that bases itself on a slightly more gentle fascism isn't the cart we should be attaching ourselves to.
It will never ever be the right election for y'all liberal centrists who shit post on left folks. It is always the next one. Point is, if we want to be rid of this fucking fascist shit, we have to build solidarity with the left.
Not interested in the whole yelling at each other thing, so genuinely asking here. What exactly does not voting democrat get the left in the US? Is the OP's assumption that you want to accelerate fascism actually correct?
So far I haven't seen any reason other than either accelerationism or "because it makes me feel bad" and I refuse to believe that's all that's behind it.
I'm really having a hard time, and I genuinely think it's important to try to understand the points of view and beliefs of those we disagree with, rather than immediately turning to infighting.
Political parties exist in the free market just like corporations. If they can't earn votes a new party will form. It's happened before and it will happen again. That's why they message with fear. It's effective at turning off any critical thinking.
Shifts the policies of the Democratic party so that they appeal to leftists. Not going to get into an ongoing debate, but just so you can't say you haven't seen any other reasons (which sounds fake to me but okay).
I appreciate it. I'm not here to debate you and I have no reason to lie about not having seen anything else, though I'm honestly a bit hurt that you think that, but I guess you've been nothing but attacked so far so perhaps it's understandable.
Hey, remember when the Dems ran an unlikable centrist candidate as the lesser of two evils because anyone else wasn't "electable" enough in the DNC's view of centrist voters, and that translated into an electoral win via pinched noses in 2016? I'm really glad we got a dynastic compromise candidate that saved Democracy. That strategy worked out so well for Hillary, I can see why they'd go for it again.
Barely anyone protest voted lol. She got more votes from Bernie voters than Trump got from Gary Johnson voters. She lost because she didn't appeal to specific voters in specific states, and the US has a shit democracy that she didn't correctly strategize for.
I can't tell if you're mocking me, I don't know how much clearer I can be that I just want to know why, if I can't understand why people think it's a good idea then I can't be sure that my views/opinions are actually worth anything.
If you just don't want to talk to me then, that's okay too.
I was agreeing with not shitting on the left and the need for an attempt to understand them. Not a lot of good faith attempts at understanding happening here, just a lot of bullying.
What is ideal about 40 years of two-party neoliberal movement to the right bringing us to the brink of fascism?
What is privileged about not having healthcare security, job security, in endless war, the environment going to pot, rent exploding, deregulation, ballooning prison numbers, speculative housing markets? Honestly it feels like the privileged who cannot imagine anything different than the bipartisan system that pits us (those on the left and liberals) against each other.
Idealism is privileged when you use it to deny any reduction in harm as not being 'good enough' to permit.
It’s happens all the time when people argue against veganism saying that farming kills the animals in the field despite the fact that meat requires much more crop land to produce.
Oh? Where's the genocide? Point it out. You guys started this talking point a month ago and nobody has given even an attempt at rationalizing this talking point. You just sound like the guy on the street with a cardboard sign ranting at god. And even better there's a real one going on right now that Biden is supporting. This wouldn't be you trying your hand at some Good Old Projection would it?
Didn't realize that I wasn't allowed to point out tankie behavior like "Faster fascism Good, Actually" unless the poster self-identified, thank you for the information.
It's okay, when we're dragged off to the camps for being Democrats, minorities, and 'useless eaters', the tankies will assure us that Biden would have done the same, in 6-10 decades.
Don't worry, online brigading is definitely good praxis though, unlike so-called 'harm reduction' which only extends the period in which minorities can fight for a better future. Don't they know that that's useless, and what they REALLY should be doing is dying to inspire the privileged to finally Rise Up(tm) on their (belated) behalf?
Use normal words. You are trying intimidate people with confidence and you just end up not making any sort of point. If we vote the right people in and the right people do their job it isn't fascist. We aren't in a fascist regime. You are the only one being "reductive".
The meme oversimplifies what is happening. Our politics has been drifting further to the right with each election and the people in power are fine with that, regardless of whatever party they're a part of.
Those are normal words, I apologize for not being the right kind of articulate for you. we have been moving right for 40 plus years. Both parties have been complicit. We fight endless wars under both parties. We have lost access to inexpensive higher education under both parties. We have lost the battle to the healthcare industry under both parties. We have seen the rise of the military police state under both parties. We have become spied on in every facet of life under both parties. Our public infrastructure is falling apart and being deregulated under both parties. We have seen the militarization of our borders under both parties.
These are real material problems that we continue to ignore with the focus on these two parties. We've seen a modicum of progress in certain areas, but there has been a lot of loss of freedom and liberty.
I disagree. Neoliberalism and foments are not common at all. You can even look it up statistically if you would like. We are not a fascist regime just because you don't like every decision. That isn't how fascism works. You still have many freedoms others do not. Is it expensive? Absolutely. Is it fair? No. But there are plenty of Democrats fighting the dumbasses for those rights to become easier. So chill on your "we are in a fascist regime" jargon just because you can't get every single little thing you want.
I don't know if we can discuss how using more words attuned with the audience would help? I think I already said that and you didn't take kindly to it.
Foment as much as it could be a synonym for instigate or moving towards as you put it, could also be taken as inspires or motivates an already mobilized force. Maybe it was a poor choice for what you were trying to convey.
Please avoid the r-term, I understand as someone who grew up online in the 2000s that it's a habit that takes time to break, but not using it provides relief to many who are sensitive to its use due to its derogatory history.
They haven't been duped. At least not in the same way. Russia has no real influence over them. It's an enemy of my enemy thing. The United States has been trending heavily undemocratic for the last 50+ years minimum. And they don't want that to change. Their complaint is that they aren't the ones in charge. They DON'T want to make things better. They just want to be the ones hurting those that disagree. And the only way they can do that is to make things worse. To the point of collapse.
It's just goals aligning. Not some big conspiracy. Or brainwashing. Republicans, Russians, Chinese, and ML all see themselves benefiting from collapse.
The United States has been trending heavily undemocratic for the last 50+ years minimum.
See, I can't agree with this. Fifty years ago, our democracy was still in a MUCH worse position than today.
Our current democratic decline dates to the Citizens United decision. Not that we were perfect before that, or even necessarily 'good', but in general, the US has gotten more democratic since 1974, not less. Even despite Reagan.
See I think most on here are Republican Plants, Why simple they seem to not grasp Biden votes with the middle of his party. At the very core a politition thus his position changes with the party..
In many ways this makes him a good if not boring president.
Why, well if you elect people into Congress that generally vote with the Democrats that are alighned diffrently his votes will match.
People complain (including myself) about his non questioning support of Netanyahu, but look at how few members of Congress challenge that? yes Sanders did specifically on the isreal issue.. but who else even of the extream left?
Why is the the voters obligation to vote for shitty candidates rather than in the candidates to earn the vote? Biden is looking at a close race and the majority of voters want a cease fire.
Why is the the voters obligation to vote for shitty candidates rather than in the candidates to earn the vote?
It's our obligation as voters, as people entrusted with political power, to do what we can to steer our polity towards the least destructive and immoral path that we can.
"JOE BIBEN HASN'T EARNED MY VOTE" doesn't mean jack fucking shit. The point of a citizen's duty is not to suck off the right people - it's to protect one's fellow citizens, and ideally, members of other polities as well.
Voting isn't a fucking judgement of who's moral enough to go to democracy fucking heaven - voting is a judgement of who is least objectionable in steering the future of the polity - including considering the likelihood of success.
Sorry that using political power responsibly is such a foreign concept to you.
Biden is looking at a close race and the majority of voters want a cease fire.
The majority of voters want a cease-fire. You want to tell me what the majority of voters want the US to do to achieve a ceasefire?
Most US voters are not in favor of more stringent terms than what Biden has already proposed.
This idea that the US electorate is as left as the Fediverse is just... fucking bizarre.
You dont get those changes by just blindly voting against the Republicans. You have to actually pressure your candidates into supporting what you want. Companies and lobbiests are able to do this with giant sacks of cash. Normal people do it by protesting and making demands of their officials to force a response. Showing nothing but contempt for anti-war protests is always a bad look for a president running for reelection.
Biden has all the leverage on Israel to make them stop the killing. He can threaten to pull military aid, send in US forces to distribute humanitarian aid, or put sanctions on Israel. All of those would stop the killing, making people angry at the US response willing to vote for Biden, paving a path for his re-election. Why are you so against him forcing Israel to stop the genocide if it is his only path to victory?
Where have i said that I support doubling down? People thinkthat their vote doesn't matter as is. And asking someone who is already apathetic to voting to vote for someone who supports genocide isn't going to make them want to vote any more. It's a rigged game so they won't play. You should be mad at Biden for not trying to engage with those voters and instead locking them up and using police violence against them.
There are two choices in this coming election, effectively. Trump or Biden.
If one loses, the other wins.
You want to guess what contributing to Biden's loss will cause?
Go ahead. Take a few swings.
And asking someone who is already apathetic to voting to vote for someone who supports genocide isn’t going to make them want to vote any more
Someone who is already apathetic to voting is already not a very good target for voting outreach. You're not really making "Have the least reliable voting bloc since we started tracking such things be the lynchpin of the strategy to defeat fascism" sound any more reasonable than it was previously.
It’s a rigged game so they won’t play.
If they think it's a rigged game, what benefit will appealing to their desired policies have?
You should be mad at Biden for not trying to engage with those voters and instead locking them up and using police violence against them.
Oh God, not this line again. It doesn't matter that Biden at no point has advocated the use of police violence against peaceful protesters, he's definitely the one behind local police continuing the policy of being absolute shitheads, as they have for the past [checks notes] century and a half of US policing.
Because it's not his only path to victory, and it's not even certain that it IS a path to victory. A majority of DEMOCRATS, much less the general public, still approve of the current level of support to Israel or support INCREASED support to Israel.
Do I want Biden to pull out of Israel? Yes. Do I understand why the strategic political reasons why it's not being done, other than Biden being an old dinosaur? Also yes. Do I think that welcoming Trump into the White House will improve the matter? Fuck no.
Those voters who approve of funding Israel's genocide should really suck it up and vote for Biden even if he slashes funding. After all they aren't crazy "tankies" who would dare withhold their vote because they don't approve of what he's doing.
Those voters who approve of funding Israel’s genocide should really suck it up and vote for Biden even if he slashes funding.
Absolutely they should. And absolutely I bitch out anyone who thinks that Biden 'not being pro-Israel enough' is a reason not to vote for him as a fascist enabler, at minimum.
After all they aren’t crazy “tankies” who would dare withhold their vote because they don’t approve of what he’s doing.
No, they tend to be fascists and theocrats instead who will gleefully withhold their vote, just as tankies do.
This is what democracy looks like. Fighting to keep a coalition of unlike people together because the alternative is getting something that's worse on every fucking level.
I take it you'd have a problem with people calling the Democratic party fascist but you seem to think such a significant part of their base is fascist that they have to implement fascist policy to appease them. What is that if not fascism? If the DNC actually has morals they'd amputate that part of their base and appeal to new voters because they look less ghoulish. If the Democrats lose it isn't going to be because a few online leftist withheld their vote, it's going to be because they failed to get any fresh voter turnout. A third of Americans don't vote, and a larger portion of that third is young and PoC, more likely to be strongly against the genocide.
I take it you’d have a problem with people calling the Democratic party fascist but you seem to think such a significant part of their base is fascist that they have to implement fascist policy to appease them.
A significant part of the American electorate supports fascist policies, specifically, with regards to Israel. We can debate the causes all day long, but the fact remains.
What is that if not fascism?
Democracy. As it is necessarily compromise with the will of the majority.
If the DNC actually has morals they’d amputate that part of their base and appeal to new voters because they look less ghoulish.
If the DNC had morals, they'd lose, huh? Yeah, Trump rounding up people into concentration camps AND funding Israeli genocide looks much better. /s
A third of Americans don’t vote, and a larger portion of that third is young and PoC, more likely to be strongly against the genocide.
So, your plan is that, if the Dems take one of the least important issues to voters (yes, including young voters), radically change it to alienate their most reliable demographics to appeal to their least reliable demographics, that is the real path to victory?
Tell me you're white and know you're not gonna be the one who actually burns without telling me you're white and know you're not gonna be the one who actually burns.
You're saying that you are ok with Israel slaughtering Palestinians so long as you can continue your standard of living. "Never Again" doesn't have a secret clause saying we shouldn't stop genocide if it means people may be harmed in the process.
You don't want Trump to take over the US and institute his fascist policies? You should be leaning on the Democrats to actually try and stop him, rather than going after those who are trying to actually stop fascism as it pops up.
"We think any amount of genocide is unacceptable, that's why we think it is imperative to threaten the democrats with the possibility of letting more genocide happen here too if they don't stop supporting genocide, and shut up it's not supporting genocide when we do it because we're right!"
To all the people supporting genocidal actions, we do no give a fuck what you think.
When you decide that you are not ok with sending more bombs to continue killing children then we can talk.
Until then I hope you all experience exactly what you want other people to.
So when members of Hamas, the current representative government of Gaza, talk about the genocide of the Jews, you say...?
Me, personally, I say that wishing democide on a population is fucking horrendous regardless of what that population supports, but I understand you tankies adore bloodshed more than I do.
No. There is no moral responsibility to vote for someone who hasn't earned that vote. That's a construct meant to remove the politician's responsibility to their constituents. An Astroturf by the donor class to protect their influence. Stop doing their work for them. They don't care about you beyond how much money you can make them.
No. There is no moral responsibility to vote for someone who hasn’t earned that vote.
Oh, cool, there's no moral responsibility to protect your fellow citizens. Fuck those minorities, herd 'em into camps; Biden didn't earn MY vote, right?
You lot are indistinguishable from fascists in practical effects.
Hi, I'm part of a minority that Donald trump and his sycophants would love nothing more than to herd into camps or eliminate entirely.
Your argument sucks. Calling everyone fascists who doesn't want to vote for your guy isn't going to convince anyone to vote for your guy. Are you trying to convince people Democrats are bad?
Hi, I’m part of a minority that Donald trump and his sycophants would love nothing more than to herd into camps or eliminate entirely.
Playing asspat games with Very Serious People who want to see Donald Trump elected to 'get back at' the evil shitlibs isn't going to convince anyone to vote against fascism. If you're fine with letting people spew pro-fascist rhetoric, I mean, I guess I'll see you in the camps; but personally, I'd like to avoid that fucking fate.
"I wasn't rooting for Trump, I was just sitting by doing absolutely nothing, not even the bare minimum, because genocide doesn't matter to me!" doesn't really have a better ring to it than "I was rooting for Trump".
Where's his moral responsibility? Why am I the only one with a moral responsibility? Where's the moral responsibility of his base? Where's your moral responsibility? Is it okay with genocide as long as it's over there? It's okay over there but here crimes a magnitude lower suddenly become a moral imperative?
Why am I the only one with a moral responsibility?
You aren't. You're just the only one with control over your own actions.
Where’s your moral responsibility?
The same place as every other citizen's?
Is it okay with genocide as long as it’s over there?
It's not okay with genocide. Unlike your sense of morality, it regards "More genocide" as a BAD position to take.
It’s okay over there but here crimes a magnitude lower suddenly become a moral imperative?
lmao, what. Tell me more about how murdering minorities here in the USA is a crime "a magnitude lower" than murdering minorities in Israel. Real telling what you think about non-white Americans and GSMs.
You have no morals.
Coming from someone advocating for the deaths of both more Palestinians AND American minorities?
The point of a citizens duty is not to suck off the right people
spends multiple paragraphs over multiple comments explaining why their entire political ideology is that its a citizens duty to suck off the right people
Idk how we got here. Imo it’s mainly because for some reason, we no longer give agency to republicans.
If voting for a third party is immoral, then 1/3 of the US is being very immoral.
Voting used to be a private choice, hence why you go into a little booth. It was your moral obligation to vote to the best of your abilities, your choice was personal.
Donald will not do better for you on your wedge issue and he did an insurrection. You want the guy who tweeted nuclear threats to Iran to take over on this conflict? Misguided.
If you're still asking a candidate to earn your vote when the other guy is selling copies of the constitution with the 13th and 19th amendments omitted, you're just a fascist who doesn't want the social stigma that comes with being an open fascist.
If you're supporting a candidate giving bombs to a genocidal, ethnostate apartheid regime, while condemning protests against that at home what are you besides a blue fascist?
Someone who remembers the other guy handed that genocidal ethnostate apartheid regime the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and the Golan Heights?
"Any amount of genocide is bad, that's why I'm willing to support even more genocide happening if it means those nasty wasty establishment democrats finally l E a R n T h E i R l E s S o N ! ! !"
You're being a vote karen, you're threatening the actually vulnerable to fall in line with what you want and to bring you the party's manager. You're Anne Frank's neighbor if the reason they turned her in was because her parents weren't anti-nazi enough to their liking.
This meme is the classic them vs us, which by itself is how facism starts.
The world is not so black and white. If I was American and could vote, then I would vote some third party that actually represents my views, since that is the only choice that would make sense. Also tankies criticised both trump and biden as we'll, it's not bad to be against the mainstream, if both options are shit.
If everyone would think more critical this situation would not exist.
The main thing I draw issue with is the fact many states are not swing states. If I live in Alabama, what are the odds that biden wins that state?
Tell me, if I live in alabama, will my vote for biden influence the election at all? Or will it come down to voters in michigan or florida or some other swing state.
I do understand the meme, but I also understand that swing states decide the election. Your impact of your vote is determined by your location.
Before I respond, I just need to repeat back to you the argument you've made here. Upon reading it, if you really want to continue, let me know and I'll give you a full response:
"I take issue with the point communicated by this 4-panel comic strip, because some people live in Alabama"
I mean, that’s one way to read the argument, but it isn’t the one I was making. It seems like you are misrepresenting me intentionally.
As you should probably know, votes for the president are not done by people in their states. They are done by electors in the electoral college.
These electors, as per tradition, vote for the victor in their state’s election on the president.
If I live in a deep red state like Alabama, the majority is already voting for Trump. If I want to change that, I won’t be doing that by voting or shitposting on lemmy, I’d have to tireless campaign for a president I don’t like.
You brought up florida in a previous comment, specifically the election with bush. I’m sure you know that florida is a swing state, and therefore is going to be down to the wire on some elections, right?
Alabama is just an example. I don’t live in Alabama, but my state has barely swapped colors in the past, and certainly wont any time soon. Same with New York, or Montana, or Mississippi, or Texas, or many others.
So, to rephrase what I said in the 2nd paragraph more focused language, will my vote matter if I live in a deep red/blue state? Or will the election come down to swing states?
Edit: i’ve reread what you said and jesus fucking bad faith argument batman. You literally ignored half of what I said to smugly say not everyone lives in the one example state I used
Edit: I've pared down my original comment here because after reading it, it came off way too harsh. Hopefully nobody read it.
The meme is intended to convey that withholding a Biden vote could result in a trump victory, and that "teaching Biden a lesson" at the cost of "having a fascist state" is a bad trade.
Your issue is that, it is possible that some peoples votes don't matter at all based on their zip code.
I don't know how else to put this: you aren't refuting the central thesis. You're on a tangent that AT BEST concludes with "well, this doesn't apply to EVERYONE... But it still definitely applies to SOME"
It's not that people's votes possibly don't matter because of their zip code. It's that peoples votes don't matter because of their zip code. There's a lot of bullshit going on with voter suppression, shittily written constitutions, and how representatives are calculated, but the electoral college itself is what decides the election, not the popular vote. And with the electoral college, your location is determinate of how much your vote matters in the election.
The thing is, that does refute the thesis.
If the thesis is "You withheld the one vote that would have prevented fascism", was true, we would either be using a popular vote system for president, which we literally don't, or the person would have to be in a singular swing state that decides the election. This means that the thesis is only true for those who live in swing states, due to the presence of the electoral college.
I googled the current swing states, and I got Georgia, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Nevada, and New Mexico. The current population of the US is somewhere above 330 million, and the population of the swing states listed is, according to my napkin math, 55 million. I'm assuming the population of voters proportionally is roughly equivalent state to state.
That being said, this means there's roughly 1/6th of Americans whose votes would be representative of this meme.
To call the experience of 5/6ths of Americans tangential is a little silly.
The irony is palpable that you're describing voter suppression as a factor, while literally actively participating in it. Using social media to convince people that their votes aren't important is quite literally an act of voter suppression. Trying to convince people that withholding their vote could not impact outcome, is voter suppression.
You are literally no different than a robocall telling people that the polling stations have closed early. You are a bad faith actor. For anyone who didn't actually read the Muler report and were unsure about what "Russian interference" actually looked like, it's this. It's exactly this.
I don't think you understand, having a fascist shithead in charge of the US is precisely the goal of these fine folks on .ml and .hexbear.
They want the us to be as equally fucked and censured as china. It's their only hope for not being the internet's laughingstock for another couple decades.
At the risk of getting downvoted into oblivion, this is not a fair representation of their complaints or desires. Maybe a minority of them want what you described.
It's actually possible for our government to be more democratic if we could remove capitalist interference from our government structure.
The .ml users who are urging everyone to not vote don't agree.
It is obvious that it would be easier to reach better governance without having a wannabe dictator in the executive branch appointing theocratic clowns into judgeships. But they actually want Donald in there to destabilize the US so that China can gain ground.
They don't even deny it, I get reactions from them on a spectrum from "based based based based" to "any amount of collateral damage to minorities or surrounding countries is acceptable as long as colonialists are being genocided."
The problem is, yes government could and I would argue should be more democratic. But that isn't how Leninism/stalinism/Maoism works. We have problems with adequate representation with two parties. Those groups want only one. And traditionally that party doesn't take kindly to dissent. Rather than listening and adjusting policy to better address people. They simply exclude you from society if you're lucky. Lock you up, brutalize you. And if they don't think they've adequately broken you, kill you.
We need to remove authoritarian and private control of government. Capitalism would follow eventually. The problem is. That's impossible with capitalists and ML alike.
I'd be happy with a social democracy that emphasizes a mixed economy with strong social welfare programs funded by progressive taxation. Examples include the Nordic countries (Denmark, Finland, Norway, Sweden).
I don't know how to accomplish that though because the farther we slip into a class dictatorship, the harder it will be to enact progressive taxation. We'd all vote yes to tax the 1% richest more, but that will never be on any ballot for us to choose.
That would absolutely be a great start. But only that. A starting point.
Taxing the rich can be on the ballot. The problem is we often spend too much time fighting amongst ourselves letting the ownership class walk away with everything while we tussle over scraps. They've succeeded in putting a large portion of the population into a nihilistic Fugue state. Only trying to destroy things and hurt the group they've been told is the Boogeyman. Not improving things for themselves or others. As easy and as fun as it can be to ridicule conservatives importantly thought out plans and ideology. We need them. And they need us. If we want to make anything better that is. We need to break through the cynicism and nihilism and convince them that there is a way for things to be better.
It's not a good faith argument. They don't want to question their support for Biden. So instead of actually thinking critically they make shit up so they can dismiss any criticism that would force them to actually think.
I love that you lot complain that it's not REAL democracy because the DNC is so sneaky behind the scenes, and then in the same breath demand that the DNC undemocratically appoint someone as their candidate who appeals to you and your fellows, voters be damned.
And you wonder why everyone thinks of you as fascists.
It's the duty of the party to nominate an electable candidate is it not? They had a farce of a primary this year, so the only hope left is a hail mary out of the convention.
It’s the duty of the party to nominate an electable candidate is it not?
Oh, so now you DON'T care about democracy in the party. How convenient, how your ideals change depending on which allows you to scream "BOTH SIDES" the loudest.
Right, trump vs another candidate. Biden is awful and is the reason why the election is in any kind of jeopardy. But when trump wins in november there'll be no self awareness to be found, that people were promoting an unviable candidate that no one likes.
Maybe the US system doesn't work that way because people keep screaming at everyone who doesn't vote for their one party vs the only other. It's really odd to claim that your vote matters and then yell at anyone who tries to do anything with their vote other than to guarantee their vote for one of two parties. If the argument is to preserve democracy, well, it already looks like we don't have democracy.
It’s because we have a winner-takes-all electoral college system. It encourages domination not cooperation and self-perpetuates because it stifles ideological competition. It’s not merely a social phenomenon.
How are we supposed to break out of such a system? Both parties benefit from this system and will never agree to change it. About a decade ago in Canada, the liberal party claimed they'd carry out election reform if they won. They ended up winning big time, but they refused to do what they promised because it would threaten the power structure.
Your democracy is at stake and you are yelling that we should do democracy harder instead of attempting to keep the democracy destroyer out of office. Carry on though and personally insult me like you did in your last comment.
I’m not American so I don’t have a dog in this fight.
You're not American and don't have a dog in the fight, but you want to explain the electoral system that I participate in to me. Not sure where I insulted you or yelled (no exclamation point or all-caps/bolded words in sight), so it seems like you've completely misinterpreted my post. I didn't say we should "democracy harder", I said we don't have a democracy and that it's just a facade where people get really passionate about voting for one of only two viable options. Kind of hard to save something that doesn't exist. Will things get worse under republicans? Absolutely. Will democrats do anything about that? Absolutely not. They'll keep the office warm until the next time republicans inevitably win back power in this crooked system.
Progressives are excessively difficult to win support from the Dems or Reps due to campaign interests and media spin. The only candidates that recieve enough backing are the ones that pose no danger to the wealthy Capitalists.
I agree that organizing is fantastic, but the sheer difference in quantity of Capital is why it is necessary for a leftist party to focus primarily on delivering needs externally to the system before attempting to win over local and state level elections. Grow from the bottom up.
You need to look up present income inequality statistics. Billionaires are insane and inflation is making normal working class people tighten their budgets a lot. It's a very uphill battle or outfund billionaires.
Loving the Black Panther Party for having a nice ten points and a horrible record of not actually accomplishing anything substantial and murdering members of their own organization for not being sufficiently pure is about what I expected of an ML.
That would require getting cozy with billionaires who are opposed to progressive causes. How is that supposed to work? What you're proposing is like starting a game of monopoly where the other players own 90% of the properties already and claiming that if you just play along and hopefully land on properties that aren't already owned then maybe you can trade your way up to establish yourself. How likely do you think this is to work?
The other options include: continuing to be a fringe platform, overthrowing a global system.
Materially, I think developing ever stronger unions (labor and otherwise) who can pool resources to compete in politics. Seconded by a strong push to win many more low level grassroots seats. Conservatives are winning these seats. By winning the lower seats, bureaucratic maneuvers are easier, and consensus is "cheaper".
We had a strong labor movement but it took decades of fighting, the largest economic crisis ever, and two world wars, among other things to establish a middle class as we used to know it. It took much less time for the rich to dismantle that. I agree we should keep working to push the power of labor, but reaching our goals while working within the system is going to be impossible. There's a reason why it took such catastrophic events to actually get anywhere.
Well then we can still pressure Biden to do the right thing. The election is still 6 months away, not next week. Blind support for Biden will not make anything better.
And that you only have the option (realistically) to vote for people that other voters want to be in politics. As a conversation with other voters will quickly show, is a depressing concept.
No one is even saying that. Criticism is valid when they're valid points. You motherfuckers pounce at every chance you get to shit on him even when he does something good. But keep equating him to the guy who tried to overthrow the government and is actively trying to do so again. They even have their agenda right in the open so you can read up on it, champ. Project 2025.
Edit: And to answer your question if anyone supports trump they're a fucking idiot.
Oh shit. Looks like you're saying it right now. I've never equated the two. And yet here you are swearing at me. Now I don't scare easily and I don't let people on the internet tell me how to vote. But this ain't how you get more votes. Fear mongering and threats have never worked for the democrats. So the only "fucking idiots" I see here are you guys, pushing voters away.
Trump supporters ARE idiots. They are not allies, nor do I give a shit about you holding your vote over me. Vote for who you want, but don't cry with what you end up getting.
You're still not getting it. I don't care about you. I'm not going to vote either way because of you. But being an ass doesn't attract voters. That's all I'm trying to tell you.
That's true but his messaging is heads and shoulders better. The longer Biden insists that the people are wrong and the economy is actually doing great, the worse it will get. People aren't dumb, but they aren't geniuses either. They can see their purchasing power is severely restricted from pre-covid times. Without training in economics, politics, and policy; they just aren't going to be able to realize that it was a coincidence more than anything Trump did for them.
Oh well if Cardi B said she won't vote for Biden, I guess that's that. If the average person thinks Biden is worse than Trump, then they're either willfully ignorant or just straight up dumb. The milk isn't gonna get any cheaper if Trump wins, bud.
I didn't realize accusations of being a cult WEREN'T ad hominems. Good to see there are rules for me, but none for thee. Very typical of fascist rhetoric. :)
Oh no, I mean that in a very real way. There's people available to help you if you want. This level of aggressiveness over someone else not supporting your group is not healthy.
This level of aggressiveness over someone else not supporting your group is not healthy.
I'm so sorry that I don't want to live under a fascist regime that will kill me. I understand that fascists like you think this desire isn't healthy, but I assure you, wanting to live is entirely normal, even for us filthy minorities.
Everyone is mad but you're mostly just sharing your experiences. This is why liberals suck, they never listen and assume they know best. Cardi B is honestly quite politically knowledgeable and articulate from what I have heard from her, but people are hating because she doesn't speak in an upper class educated way.
In 2016, the blue team won by 3 million votes and still lost the election. The system is broken. I'll still vote blue, but I don't think it will matter, especially since I'm not in a swing state.
The Electoral College Explained
Matters for your more local elections. Those swing states still send a lot of republicans to Congress every election. And control of Congress is pretty damn important.
More important than who's president.
Turning 35 this September. Only 1 Republican has won the popular vote since I was born.
Well yeah, that's why they love the EC (and idea of land >>> people)
They don't care.
Sure they will tell people that democracy will end if Trump is reelected but actually trying to fix the voting system is too hard.
Not that there has been any movement to do something about it. Just vote Democrat™.
The electoral college, first past the post and gerrymandering basically make the American electoral system a joke
It's like a copy paste of Trump v Clinton and clearly no one learned their lesson from literally 8 years ago.
"I would fight fascism to my last breath" "I would be part of the resistance movement if a fascist government took power"
proceeds to do none of the un-sexy things needed to prevent fascism from taking hold in the first place
And then they ask "wHy dO tHe dEms mOvE tO tHe CenTrE wHeN tHeY lOsE i dOn'T uNdErsTanD".
If anyone actually wants to stop the genocide in Gaza please vote out your republican congressman, almost every Republican congressman supported the resolution to restart weapons shipments and almost every democrat voted against it.
I wonder what their idea of the outcome is.
At best, their actions will "only" cause another grid-locked presidency where progressives can't get their reforms to pass (which will then be used as the reason to abandon the likely last line of non-violent defense against fascists).
I can't believe France wom that election
Oh wow now they're Trump supporters and Communists? LMAO
This is getting ridiculous.
They are not team blue so they are team bad. The rules of
footballpolitics are simpleTeam blue is team bad. It's just that team red is even worse.
But if we always follow this logic, we may as well allow them both to enshittify eternally, because reps will be just a bit more evil, and dems won't have the incentive to improve, either.
The question is: at which point should Dems be taught a lesson and how? Is current voting a good avenue for that?
The best time to plant a tree was yesterday. The next best time is today. As you point out, this doesn't get better if we keep doing the same thing. So now is the time.
You're absolutely right, it IS ridiculous how many supposedly left-leaning people are willing and even eager to see a Trump presidency to 'get one over on the shitlibs'.
The convention could always select a different democrat. Or it could have if the democrats hadn't purposely put it after the ballot deadline in many states so Biden would already be on the ballot, before the convention that supposedly nominates him.
It's just not the either/or situation you're looking for. It's entirely possible to be so disgusted by the state of American politics that you just don't vote. Or you vote third party. Your memes are having a negative impact at this point. Nobody who was on the fence is going to say, "Oh gosh I don't want to be commie, I better vote Joe!"
Ah, yes, the good old shift from "NOT DEMOCRATIC ENOUGH" to "Fuck the voters, the DNC should nominate someone else!"
Then you should have no problem with them, since you're convinced that neither side is worth supporting.
There is a side that could be worth supporting. But you're making very hard to do so. Biden could win the election today by cutting off military aid to Israel. Instead he has goons out here threatening everyone. So far I'm not sure what I get for supporting him. You guys talk about plan 2025, but this kind of bullshit used to just be Republican stuff. So from where I'm sitting it looks like the DNC is giving up on Democracy too. It's certainly giving up on listening to it's voters.
God, I love how detached from the reality of the American electorate this constantly repeated point is.
Threatening... everyone... by telling them exactly what the opposition is promising to do?
God. What a horrible threat.
Fucking what.
... because it... isn't having a meeting in a smoke-filled room to remove the current candidate without any input from the electorate?
Or because it's running against a fascist who has pledged to be a day-one dictator?
That's a coherent paragraph. Each sentence is meant to support and provide context for the others. So taking it all out of context isn't helpful in decoding it's meaning.
"It's out of context, I didn't say the things I said"
They want Donald to win so that China gains ground. They claim to love leftist economies but are simping for countries that produce plenty of billionaires.
The trade war with China might be a way to assert US dominance and squash the competition, but in the grand scheme of things, protectionist policies are very bad for the global economy and global progress.
And leftists typically are internationalists, putting global efforts above national ones.
So it's not just love for China, even if Lemmygrad and Hexbear folks are really unhealthily obsessed with the country.
It's not about the trade war, they specifically want the US to be destabilized with the corruption and unqualified nepotism/crony appointments.
Billionaires are just symptomatic of Socialism with Chinese Characteristics!
The biggest joke here is that US voters will ever be able to directly vote for the President
So how is the whole "blame-leftists-for-the-abysmal-failure-of-our-fake-democracy" gaslighting project going?
It seems a bit laggy.
I'm so glad that I live outside the US. Not that we have good options but at least more than 2. I guess I would still vote for Biden but I wouldn't call it a democracy
OP does not know what a tankie is.
An authoritarian self-proclaimed 'leftist' who loudly decries anything that's not 100% in-line with their desires as 'shitlib' policy that must be opposed even at the cost of ushering in actual fascism. This actual fascism is also often described by tankies as 'not that bad' or 'the exact same' as the 'shitlib' policies they oppose. Dissenters are inevitably reactionaries who must be (often literally) crushed, as they don't reflect the TRUE will of the people (ie whatever the opinion of the tankie is).
Wow… no notes
As opposed to the liberals who decry anything to their left as tanky?
Thanks for not disagreeing with the description, it's nice to know that others can see it too.
Oh look over there, a mile to your left! It's the point you missed.
Which is, today, anything remotely left or even centrist*
The issue here is that Dems also go to the fascist state, they just always do it a bit slower to still be selected because "at least they are not THAT bad".
The question is, at what point should they learn a lesson to revise their playbooks and stop the corruption and enshittification? What should that lesson be? Could voting them out push them to pursue a more fair policy that actually caters to the needs of the people?
Wrong. They love and support Russia, China and N-Korea for some weird reason
Those countries are 100% in-line with their desires, though.
Yeah but I think the other comment made it sound like tankies actually had desires apart from whatever Papa Putin tell him to do. They don't.
PJ just likes to start shit so they can argue with people.
Oh, the massive hypocrisy of Biden refusing to swallow his Zionist principles and stop their Genocide, whilst at the same time sending his tribe's peons around to try and convince millions of people to swallow their Humanist principles and vote for a guy who supports Genocide.
Biden could pretty much guarantee a win tomorrow by announcing that it has been determined that Israel is indeed committing war crimes, followed by cutting support for them as per the Law when the recipient of help is committing such crimes, ideally followed by sanctions.
Yet he doesn't and instead there's a clear propaganda op with repeated variations of the claim that "Not being for Biden is being for Trump" (which, curiously, is just the authoritarianist argument "those who are not with us are agains us").
Why does the supposedly elected representative of all Americans firmly refuse to follow Americans as they turned against the Zionist Genocide and instead acts like all dictators by doing what he himself wants disregarding the will of those he is supposed to represent?
The argument of this and other similar posts which have innundated Lemmy would be a lot stronger if Biden wasn't an example of doing the exact opposite of what these posts demand from others, both the part of doing whatever it takes to stop Trump (which, as I explained above. Biden is not) and swallowing one's principles to stop something worse (i.e. Biden stopping acting as a Zionist in order to secure the votes to guarantee that Trump is stopped).
Ah the daily fascism discourse multiplier thread. There's never any meaningful discourse that comes out of these: just divisive kafkaesque noise.
Try to think beyond your adorable little "protest vote" when your choices are between boring corporatists and 100% concentrated evil. Or you may never have to worry about voting ever again.
That's just the tip of the iceberg.
They often help fascists in the doxxing and smear campaign of more libertarian leftists, as an example.
oh yeah the notoriously huge and election-swinging group in the us: the communists.
don't delegate your problems.
Winner: Democrat - "still fascism but its blue so its OK"
"I have been heard loud and clear. Now I sit and lay back like I always do anyway, and wait while fondling my purity then absent-mindedly yet lovingly sniffing my fingers, any moment now they will cater to me."
At this point you guys should just take all the time it takes to argue "tankies" for HOURS at end and make these low tier memes and just form your own political party.
Not a communist, but I think I will vote for the person who most represents my values and policies this year.
Tankies when they finally create a dictatorship, only to work in the mines because the quota for poets was already met.
Wow if the folks on ml and hexbear could read, thry might be upset - not sure they'd understand the math in the 3rd panel.
lol we already have fascism. They’re crushing antiwar protests, the media is in lockstep, labor demonstrations have been broken and they’re pissing away the cost of healthcare, free college and any number of other benefits on supplying a genocide.
I’m never gonna vote for Biden again and if you don’t want to either, consider voting for the party for socialism and liberation.
You don’t have to support the genocide.
Reductive. Neoliberalism protects and foments fascism as we ratchet a little further to the right each election cycle.
The reason why the rachet turns further to the right each election cycle is because non-conservatives in the US have an abysmal voter turnout.
Neoliberalism is the product of leftists deciding not to vote because there's no "good" option, and leftists will perpetuate this cycle by refusing to acknowledge incremental progress as a good thing.
If only there was a way to increase voter turnout, like giving voters what they want... nah, that'd make too much sense. The democrats are too smart to give people what they want.
Democrats do that. They appeal to centrists because those are the people who turn out to vote.
Leftists don't get representation, the ratchet turns right. Funny how that works
Or maybe the centrists turn out because they're the ones that democrats appeal to. Obama ran on a progressive campaign and won big in 2008, so it's clear that it works. The problem is that he then immediately turned around and instituted centrist policy as usual.
Same thing with Biden. Ran on $10,000 of student debt relief for everyone, improving the climate, and not being Trump. People figured they could push him left, that was the argument. Now he's been a lot better than I thought he would be admittedly. But still, the student debt relief has been extremely targeted, he made foreign electric cars more expensive, and he's materially supporting a genocide while yelling at the protests against it. If they can't push him left in 4 years, then the theory was proven wrong, candidates can't be pushed left, and it's right for leftists not to vote for them. Democrats don't feel they have to move left because leftists have no other choice about who to vote for, so I get the calculus on their parts, but it's becoming dangerous.
It also depends on how much supporting a current genocide is a red line for someone. That seems to be the biggest difference I see in these posts. Some people can't bring themselves to vote for someone who does that no matter what. Others seem to be more malleable and forgiving about it. I know which one I am, but honestly, no judgment on either. I waffle between them myself. I don't feel nearly as much pressure as others,though, because I don't live in a swing state, so my vote doesn't matter.
God. It's fascinating how little self-proclaimed leftists remember 2008.
Which part am I wrong about? Obama ran on affordable healthcare, abortion rights, being anti-bailout for too-big-to-fail entities, and being anti-war. He won a supermajority. Then he scaled back his healthcare plan, said abortion rights "aren't a top priority", continued bush's bailouts and added more, and invaded/bombed more countries during his term.
Obama passed the best affordable healthcare plan he could.
On abortion rights, he was no more left than Hillary. On the bailouts, he was openly in support of the Bush bailout plan even before the election. On war, Obama was openly in favor of the continuation of the war in Afghanistan and harder military policy against several countries, some of which even McCain wasn't onboard on.
But hey, whatever helps fuel your delusional "If only candidates were more left, then they would DEFINITELY win in a landslide!" outlook.
Good god. You win elections from the center. A center vote that switches from R to D is worth double because the R loses one vote and D gains one. You literally win from the center.
If you want the center to move, then make the Dems win overwhelmingly and consistently in President, house of reps, and senators.
So do you think republicans are catering to centrists with their full dive into fascism or do you think only democrats need to appeal to "centrists" for some reason?
Trump won by appealing to the manufacturing jobs sector, and because of the protest Hillary vote. As much as I want to believe people were/are informed about his fascism, they really aren't.
And now, because Trump won one election, the whole Overton window moved right. You know, because he won an election. You want to move the Overton window? Vote.
Biden won an election more recently than him. Weird how the Overton window moves when Republicans win an election but not when Democrats do. Wonder if there's a reason for that.
Hell, Bernie (and Warren) moved the widow more by running in a primary than they did by winning.
The reason is because Dems have to actually do things like pass legislation. Which more often than not requires all 3 of house, senate, and president. All the GOP has to do is block things and yell immigrants. Progress takes, you know, actual work. Stagnation or regression takes next to nothing.
Funny enough, giving voters what they want is inevitably decried by Very Serious Online Leftists
Neoliberalism exists for many reasons. But blaming leftists is strange. We would be a lot better off if voting was not so hard for black and brown people, for instance. We can at least agree on that.
Yeah, I'm on board with making voting easier for everyone. Voter turnout is ultimately the only way short of violent revolution to fix shit in this country.
Voting is difficult enough for people who don't vote conservative, which is why when leftists refuse to vote out of principle because their perfect candidates aren't a choice, they're figuratively stepping on the rake.
Totally agree about voting and its need for ease. But I can tell you more leftists vote than don't, I can promise you that. Systemically that's not the biggest problem. And I certainly plan to vote and I won't be helping Trump with it.
I hope you're right, but I'll say that I've definitely seen more people in this election cycle say there's no point in picking between two fascists than any other cycle I've been a part of. Especially here on lemmy
Yeah totally. Social media is bashing and circlejerking, even in the open source spaces. Not the best lens into reality.
No one will vote for our shitty candidates.
Should we run better ones?
No blame the people for us not having a good candidate
Great, so you're going to overhaul the system and get us better candidates?
No?
Even if we assume for the sake of the argument that your ridiculous assertion is true, "Let's do fascism faster" is exactly the kind of bootlicking take I would expect from a tankie.
Never said I was a tankie bruh. A party that bases itself on a slightly more gentle fascism isn't the cart we should be attaching ourselves to.
It will never ever be the right election for y'all liberal centrists who shit post on left folks. It is always the next one. Point is, if we want to be rid of this fucking fascist shit, we have to build solidarity with the left.
Not interested in the whole yelling at each other thing, so genuinely asking here. What exactly does not voting democrat get the left in the US? Is the OP's assumption that you want to accelerate fascism actually correct?
So far I haven't seen any reason other than either accelerationism or "because it makes me feel bad" and I refuse to believe that's all that's behind it.
I'm really having a hard time, and I genuinely think it's important to try to understand the points of view and beliefs of those we disagree with, rather than immediately turning to infighting.
Political parties exist in the free market just like corporations. If they can't earn votes a new party will form. It's happened before and it will happen again. That's why they message with fear. It's effective at turning off any critical thinking.
Tell me more about the political free market under Project 2025.
In fact, tell me more about how quickly firms rise and fall in the free market. It's instantaneous, right?
Sometimes it is. Sometimes you have to push it off the cliff.
lmao
Shifts the policies of the Democratic party so that they appeal to leftists. Not going to get into an ongoing debate, but just so you can't say you haven't seen any other reasons (which sounds fake to me but okay).
I appreciate it. I'm not here to debate you and I have no reason to lie about not having seen anything else, though I'm honestly a bit hurt that you think that, but I guess you've been nothing but attacked so far so perhaps it's understandable.
Thanks for understanding. 🏳️⚧️💖
Yeah, it is dogpiling and bullying in here. The reasons are here in the comments and elsewhere.
Bullying is when people say something I don't like, and the more I don't like it, the more bullying it is.
This is bullying lol, very disingenuous to the actual situation. Come on.
Could you give exactly one example of that ever happening?
Hey, remember when we all protest voted in 2016 and drove the Dem party SO far left?
Hey, remember when the Dems ran an unlikable centrist candidate as the lesser of two evils because anyone else wasn't "electable" enough in the DNC's view of centrist voters, and that translated into an electoral win via pinched noses in 2016? I'm really glad we got a dynastic compromise candidate that saved Democracy. That strategy worked out so well for Hillary, I can see why they'd go for it again.
Barely anyone protest voted lol. She got more votes from Bernie voters than Trump got from Gary Johnson voters. She lost because she didn't appeal to specific voters in specific states, and the US has a shit democracy that she didn't correctly strategize for.
I wholeheartedly agree.
I can't tell if you're mocking me, I don't know how much clearer I can be that I just want to know why, if I can't understand why people think it's a good idea then I can't be sure that my views/opinions are actually worth anything.
If you just don't want to talk to me then, that's okay too.
People like this exist to argue. They have no ideology and no beliefs.
I think they were saying they agree with the idea that people should understand the political beliefs of those they disagree with.
I was not mocking you.
Then answer the questions...
Is this a bot? This reply doesn't make any sense.
What are you agreeing with? They asked you for more information.
I was agreeing with not shitting on the left and the need for an attempt to understand them. Not a lot of good faith attempts at understanding happening here, just a lot of bullying.
Idealism is fun, but it's so very extremely privileged.
What is ideal about 40 years of two-party neoliberal movement to the right bringing us to the brink of fascism?
What is privileged about not having healthcare security, job security, in endless war, the environment going to pot, rent exploding, deregulation, ballooning prison numbers, speculative housing markets? Honestly it feels like the privileged who cannot imagine anything different than the bipartisan system that pits us (those on the left and liberals) against each other.
Jesus. At least work on your reading comprehension before responding.
Idealism is great when you use it to fight for a better world.
Idealism is privileged when you use it to deny any reduction in harm as not being 'good enough' to permit.
It’s happens all the time when people argue against veganism saying that farming kills the animals in the field despite the fact that meat requires much more crop land to produce.
He just calls anyone to the left of him a tankie. He has no clue what it actually means.
Sorry that I think fascists painted red calling for genocide in America are bad.
Oh? Where's the genocide? Point it out. You guys started this talking point a month ago and nobody has given even an attempt at rationalizing this talking point. You just sound like the guy on the street with a cardboard sign ranting at god. And even better there's a real one going on right now that Biden is supporting. This wouldn't be you trying your hand at some Good Old Projection would it?
Oh, let me get this straight, you're denying that Trump is genocidal now?
Please, I want this on record.
Show me then. I'm not going to make spurious accusations.
Didn't realize that I wasn't allowed to point out tankie behavior like "Faster fascism Good, Actually" unless the poster self-identified, thank you for the information.
Thank you for your inability to listen to reason.
"Reason" here being "Make fascism happen faster"
Forgive me for not finding that a terribly compelling argument.
Wow, so enlightened.
It's okay, when we're dragged off to the camps for being Democrats, minorities, and 'useless eaters', the tankies will assure us that Biden would have done the same, in 6-10 decades.
Oh, of course. Remember, it's evil to vote for democrats so the best thing to do is not vote at all! /s. Tankie logic.
Don't worry, online brigading is definitely good praxis though, unlike so-called 'harm reduction' which only extends the period in which minorities can fight for a better future. Don't they know that that's useless, and what they REALLY should be doing is dying to inspire the privileged to finally Rise Up(tm) on their (belated) behalf?
Conflating anyone on the left with being tankies is exactly the problem.
If you don't like being called a tankie, then don't push tankie talking points, champ.
Go and read some, the left is a spectrum. Fuck tankies.
Oh, okay, so accelerationism and anti-democratic sentiment is just normal leftism nowadays? We're all MLs and MLMs? Cool cool cool.
So is this accelerationism or does it not count when democrats do it?:
https://www.salon.com/2016/11/09/the-hillary-clinton-campaign-intentionally-created-donald-trump-with-its-pied-piper-strategy/
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/oct/03/the-democrats-are-purposely-boosting-far-right-republicans-this-will-backfire
https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2022/07/democrats-spend-millions-on-republican-primaries
biden pushing billions of dollars towards israel against the wishes of people who vote for him is pro-democratic?:
https://news.gallup.com/poll/642695/majority-disapprove-israeli-action-gaza.aspx
How about their rigged primaries keeping progressives out? Is that pro-democratic?:
https://observer.com/2017/08/court-admits-dnc-and-debbie-wasserman-schulz-rigged-primaries-against-sanders/
I suppose it's pro-democratic party, but the party's name is ironic.
Use normal words. You are trying intimidate people with confidence and you just end up not making any sort of point. If we vote the right people in and the right people do their job it isn't fascist. We aren't in a fascist regime. You are the only one being "reductive".
The meme oversimplifies what is happening. Our politics has been drifting further to the right with each election and the people in power are fine with that, regardless of whatever party they're a part of.
there you go
Those are normal words, I apologize for not being the right kind of articulate for you. we have been moving right for 40 plus years. Both parties have been complicit. We fight endless wars under both parties. We have lost access to inexpensive higher education under both parties. We have lost the battle to the healthcare industry under both parties. We have seen the rise of the military police state under both parties. We have become spied on in every facet of life under both parties. Our public infrastructure is falling apart and being deregulated under both parties. We have seen the militarization of our borders under both parties.
These are real material problems that we continue to ignore with the focus on these two parties. We've seen a modicum of progress in certain areas, but there has been a lot of loss of freedom and liberty.
I disagree. Neoliberalism and foments are not common at all. You can even look it up statistically if you would like. We are not a fascist regime just because you don't like every decision. That isn't how fascism works. You still have many freedoms others do not. Is it expensive? Absolutely. Is it fair? No. But there are plenty of Democrats fighting the dumbasses for those rights to become easier. So chill on your "we are in a fascist regime" jargon just because you can't get every single little thing you want.
I said we are moving towards fascism. I never said "we are in a fascist regime".
I don't know if we can discuss how using more words attuned with the audience would help? I think I already said that and you didn't take kindly to it.
Foment as much as it could be a synonym for instigate or moving towards as you put it, could also be taken as inspires or motivates an already mobilized force. Maybe it was a poor choice for what you were trying to convey.
A meme? REDUCTIVE?
Jesus. Fucking. Christ.
Well, I doubt even now citizens of any former Soviet Republic can vote for Biden.
Yup, we're just as susceptible to propaganda. Propaganda is a hell of a drug.
That said, I do feel there are more diverse voices on the left that call out the bullshit.
Please avoid the r-term, I understand as someone who grew up online in the 2000s that it's a habit that takes time to break, but not using it provides relief to many who are sensitive to its use due to its derogatory history.
They haven't been duped. At least not in the same way. Russia has no real influence over them. It's an enemy of my enemy thing. The United States has been trending heavily undemocratic for the last 50+ years minimum. And they don't want that to change. Their complaint is that they aren't the ones in charge. They DON'T want to make things better. They just want to be the ones hurting those that disagree. And the only way they can do that is to make things worse. To the point of collapse.
It's just goals aligning. Not some big conspiracy. Or brainwashing. Republicans, Russians, Chinese, and ML all see themselves benefiting from collapse.
See, I can't agree with this. Fifty years ago, our democracy was still in a MUCH worse position than today.
Our current democratic decline dates to the Citizens United decision. Not that we were perfect before that, or even necessarily 'good', but in general, the US has gotten more democratic since 1974, not less. Even despite Reagan.
I agree. I get serious "I'm 14, don't understand, but still very edgy" vibes.
See I think most on here are Republican Plants, Why simple they seem to not grasp Biden votes with the middle of his party. At the very core a politition thus his position changes with the party..
In many ways this makes him a good if not boring president.
Why, well if you elect people into Congress that generally vote with the Democrats that are alighned diffrently his votes will match.
People complain (including myself) about his non questioning support of Netanyahu, but look at how few members of Congress challenge that? yes Sanders did specifically on the isreal issue.. but who else even of the extream left?
Wow… that’s pretty much a spot-on depiction of them.
🥱
Why is the the voters obligation to vote for shitty candidates rather than in the candidates to earn the vote? Biden is looking at a close race and the majority of voters want a cease fire.
It's our obligation as voters, as people entrusted with political power, to do what we can to steer our polity towards the least destructive and immoral path that we can.
"JOE BIBEN HASN'T EARNED MY VOTE" doesn't mean jack fucking shit. The point of a citizen's duty is not to suck off the right people - it's to protect one's fellow citizens, and ideally, members of other polities as well.
Voting isn't a fucking judgement of who's moral enough to go to democracy fucking heaven - voting is a judgement of who is least objectionable in steering the future of the polity - including considering the likelihood of success.
Sorry that using political power responsibly is such a foreign concept to you.
The majority of voters want a cease-fire. You want to tell me what the majority of voters want the US to do to achieve a ceasefire?
Most US voters are not in favor of more stringent terms than what Biden has already proposed.
This idea that the US electorate is as left as the Fediverse is just... fucking bizarre.
You dont get those changes by just blindly voting against the Republicans. You have to actually pressure your candidates into supporting what you want. Companies and lobbiests are able to do this with giant sacks of cash. Normal people do it by protesting and making demands of their officials to force a response. Showing nothing but contempt for anti-war protests is always a bad look for a president running for reelection.
Biden has all the leverage on Israel to make them stop the killing. He can threaten to pull military aid, send in US forces to distribute humanitarian aid, or put sanctions on Israel. All of those would stop the killing, making people angry at the US response willing to vote for Biden, paving a path for his re-election. Why are you so against him forcing Israel to stop the genocide if it is his only path to victory?
Single-issue voters always seem to want to fuck shit up for even everyone election year.
And every year- you people never seem to even really grasp the nuance of the single issue you whine about.
Sorry you think genocide ia an acceptable policy for the leader of the free world to support
Sorry that you think doubling down on genocide and starting a few new ones is an acceptable policy for voters in the free world to support.
Where have i said that I support doubling down? People thinkthat their vote doesn't matter as is. And asking someone who is already apathetic to voting to vote for someone who supports genocide isn't going to make them want to vote any more. It's a rigged game so they won't play. You should be mad at Biden for not trying to engage with those voters and instead locking them up and using police violence against them.
There are two choices in this coming election, effectively. Trump or Biden.
If one loses, the other wins.
You want to guess what contributing to Biden's loss will cause?
Go ahead. Take a few swings.
Someone who is already apathetic to voting is already not a very good target for voting outreach. You're not really making "Have the least reliable voting bloc since we started tracking such things be the lynchpin of the strategy to defeat fascism" sound any more reasonable than it was previously.
If they think it's a rigged game, what benefit will appealing to their desired policies have?
Oh God, not this line again. It doesn't matter that Biden at no point has advocated the use of police violence against peaceful protesters, he's definitely the one behind local police continuing the policy of being absolute shitheads, as they have for the past [checks notes] century and a half of US policing.
Thanks, Biden.
Because it's not his only path to victory, and it's not even certain that it IS a path to victory. A majority of DEMOCRATS, much less the general public, still approve of the current level of support to Israel or support INCREASED support to Israel.
Do I want Biden to pull out of Israel? Yes. Do I understand why the strategic political reasons why it's not being done, other than Biden being an old dinosaur? Also yes. Do I think that welcoming Trump into the White House will improve the matter? Fuck no.
Those voters who approve of funding Israel's genocide should really suck it up and vote for Biden even if he slashes funding. After all they aren't crazy "tankies" who would dare withhold their vote because they don't approve of what he's doing.
Absolutely they should. And absolutely I bitch out anyone who thinks that Biden 'not being pro-Israel enough' is a reason not to vote for him as a fascist enabler, at minimum.
No, they tend to be fascists and theocrats instead who will gleefully withhold their vote, just as tankies do.
This is what democracy looks like. Fighting to keep a coalition of unlike people together because the alternative is getting something that's worse on every fucking level.
I take it you'd have a problem with people calling the Democratic party fascist but you seem to think such a significant part of their base is fascist that they have to implement fascist policy to appease them. What is that if not fascism? If the DNC actually has morals they'd amputate that part of their base and appeal to new voters because they look less ghoulish. If the Democrats lose it isn't going to be because a few online leftist withheld their vote, it's going to be because they failed to get any fresh voter turnout. A third of Americans don't vote, and a larger portion of that third is young and PoC, more likely to be strongly against the genocide.
A significant part of the American electorate supports fascist policies, specifically, with regards to Israel. We can debate the causes all day long, but the fact remains.
Democracy. As it is necessarily compromise with the will of the majority.
If the DNC had morals, they'd lose, huh? Yeah, Trump rounding up people into concentration camps AND funding Israeli genocide looks much better. /s
So, your plan is that, if the Dems take one of the least important issues to voters (yes, including young voters), radically change it to alienate their most reliable demographics to appeal to their least reliable demographics, that is the real path to victory?
Thise fascists and theocrats were mever going to vote for Biden anyway, so why do you want him to court their vote instead of progressives?
They literally are voting for him. They voted for him last time. A significant subset of the Democratic party is strongly pro-Israel.
I don't. I told you, I tell the fascists and theocrats and those leaning that way I absolutely condemn.
Then they deserve what they get!
If the majority would rather side with supporting genocidal actions, rather than peace, than America deserves to burn
Tell me you're white and know you're not gonna be the one who actually burns without telling me you're white and know you're not gonna be the one who actually burns.
You're saying that you are ok with Israel slaughtering Palestinians so long as you can continue your standard of living. "Never Again" doesn't have a secret clause saying we shouldn't stop genocide if it means people may be harmed in the process.
You don't want Trump to take over the US and institute his fascist policies? You should be leaning on the Democrats to actually try and stop him, rather than going after those who are trying to actually stop fascism as it pops up.
"We think any amount of genocide is unacceptable, that's why we think it is imperative to threaten the democrats with the possibility of letting more genocide happen here too if they don't stop supporting genocide, and shut up it's not supporting genocide when we do it because we're right!"
Thanks for going mask off.
Yeah mask off.
To all the people supporting genocidal actions, we do no give a fuck what you think.
When you decide that you are not ok with sending more bombs to continue killing children then we can talk.
Until then I hope you all experience exactly what you want other people to.
So when members of Hamas, the current representative government of Gaza, talk about the genocide of the Jews, you say...?
Me, personally, I say that wishing democide on a population is fucking horrendous regardless of what that population supports, but I understand you tankies adore bloodshed more than I do.
No. There is no moral responsibility to vote for someone who hasn't earned that vote. That's a construct meant to remove the politician's responsibility to their constituents. An Astroturf by the donor class to protect their influence. Stop doing their work for them. They don't care about you beyond how much money you can make them.
Oh, cool, there's no moral responsibility to protect your fellow citizens. Fuck those minorities, herd 'em into camps; Biden didn't earn MY vote, right?
You lot are indistinguishable from fascists in practical effects.
Hi, I'm part of a minority that Donald trump and his sycophants would love nothing more than to herd into camps or eliminate entirely.
Your argument sucks. Calling everyone fascists who doesn't want to vote for your guy isn't going to convince anyone to vote for your guy. Are you trying to convince people Democrats are bad?
Hi, I’m part of a minority that Donald trump and his sycophants would love nothing more than to herd into camps or eliminate entirely.
Playing asspat games with Very Serious People who want to see Donald Trump elected to 'get back at' the evil shitlibs isn't going to convince anyone to vote against fascism. If you're fine with letting people spew pro-fascist rhetoric, I mean, I guess I'll see you in the camps; but personally, I'd like to avoid that fucking fate.
Oh my goodness, you truly think every person who doesn't vote for Biden is actively rooting for Trump, don't you? Okay, have a nice day.
"I wasn't rooting for Trump, I was just sitting by doing absolutely nothing, not even the bare minimum, because genocide doesn't matter to me!" doesn't really have a better ring to it than "I was rooting for Trump".
Where's his moral responsibility? Why am I the only one with a moral responsibility? Where's the moral responsibility of his base? Where's your moral responsibility? Is it okay with genocide as long as it's over there? It's okay over there but here crimes a magnitude lower suddenly become a moral imperative?
You have no morals.
You aren't. You're just the only one with control over your own actions.
The same place as every other citizen's?
It's not okay with genocide. Unlike your sense of morality, it regards "More genocide" as a BAD position to take.
lmao, what. Tell me more about how murdering minorities here in the USA is a crime "a magnitude lower" than murdering minorities in Israel. Real telling what you think about non-white Americans and GSMs.
Coming from someone advocating for the deaths of both more Palestinians AND American minorities?
lmao
Yup the occasional murder by racist is 100 percent comparable to a man made famine and campaign of ethnic cleansing by military units.
So that's what you think the next Trump term is going to be? Just the "occasional murder by racist"?
I can't believe you crave genocide this badly.
spends multiple paragraphs over multiple comments explaining why their entire political ideology is that its a citizens duty to suck off the right people
Right-fucking-ON man. This is absolutely everthing anyone would need to understand how it goes down.
Well said.
Based
Idk how we got here. Imo it’s mainly because for some reason, we no longer give agency to republicans.
If voting for a third party is immoral, then 1/3 of the US is being very immoral.
Voting used to be a private choice, hence why you go into a little booth. It was your moral obligation to vote to the best of your abilities, your choice was personal.
Donald will not do better for you on your wedge issue and he did an insurrection. You want the guy who tweeted nuclear threats to Iran to take over on this conflict? Misguided.
If you're still asking a candidate to earn your vote when the other guy is selling copies of the constitution with the 13th and 19th amendments omitted, you're just a fascist who doesn't want the social stigma that comes with being an open fascist.
If you're supporting a candidate giving bombs to a genocidal, ethnostate apartheid regime, while condemning protests against that at home what are you besides a blue fascist?
Someone who remembers the other guy handed that genocidal ethnostate apartheid regime the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and the Golan Heights?
"Any amount of genocide is bad, that's why I'm willing to support even more genocide happening if it means those nasty wasty establishment democrats finally l E a R n T h E i R l E s S o N ! ! !"
You're being a vote karen, you're threatening the actually vulnerable to fall in line with what you want and to bring you the party's manager. You're Anne Frank's neighbor if the reason they turned her in was because her parents weren't anti-nazi enough to their liking.
Ya, they're both bad. No one denies that. But if you're voting for Mussolini because Hitler is on the ballot, you're still a fascist.
The Democrats and Republicans are all friends after hours. They meet up for dinner, have drinks, laugh, and then go back to their jobs in the morning.
300k to 200k in my state. It will be fine that being said other states it may make more of a difference
That's a horrible waste of a vote. Please vote third party instead of not voting 🙂
But this is the whole point of the
red fasciststankiesThis meme is the classic them vs us, which by itself is how facism starts. The world is not so black and white. If I was American and could vote, then I would vote some third party that actually represents my views, since that is the only choice that would make sense. Also tankies criticised both trump and biden as we'll, it's not bad to be against the mainstream, if both options are shit. If everyone would think more critical this situation would not exist.
This message condones 80,000 votes for explicit fascism before accepting a single communist abstention.
Wtf is this messaging.
Ah yes, a system that is nothing like the American one, one without the electoral college.
Is this strawman clueless, or do you have no idea whats going on.
Would it help you to pretend it's a state tally after the third recount of a Florida district? Are you familiar with President George W Bush?
Like, come on. You understand the meme, and you're just being pedantic.
The main thing I draw issue with is the fact many states are not swing states. If I live in Alabama, what are the odds that biden wins that state?
Tell me, if I live in alabama, will my vote for biden influence the election at all? Or will it come down to voters in michigan or florida or some other swing state.
I do understand the meme, but I also understand that swing states decide the election. Your impact of your vote is determined by your location.
Before I respond, I just need to repeat back to you the argument you've made here. Upon reading it, if you really want to continue, let me know and I'll give you a full response:
"I take issue with the point communicated by this 4-panel comic strip, because some people live in Alabama"
I mean, that’s one way to read the argument, but it isn’t the one I was making. It seems like you are misrepresenting me intentionally.
As you should probably know, votes for the president are not done by people in their states. They are done by electors in the electoral college.
These electors, as per tradition, vote for the victor in their state’s election on the president.
If I live in a deep red state like Alabama, the majority is already voting for Trump. If I want to change that, I won’t be doing that by voting or shitposting on lemmy, I’d have to tireless campaign for a president I don’t like.
You brought up florida in a previous comment, specifically the election with bush. I’m sure you know that florida is a swing state, and therefore is going to be down to the wire on some elections, right?
Alabama is just an example. I don’t live in Alabama, but my state has barely swapped colors in the past, and certainly wont any time soon. Same with New York, or Montana, or Mississippi, or Texas, or many others.
So, to rephrase what I said in the 2nd paragraph more focused language, will my vote matter if I live in a deep red/blue state? Or will the election come down to swing states?
Edit: i’ve reread what you said and jesus fucking bad faith argument batman. You literally ignored half of what I said to smugly say not everyone lives in the one example state I used
Edit: I've pared down my original comment here because after reading it, it came off way too harsh. Hopefully nobody read it.
The meme is intended to convey that withholding a Biden vote could result in a trump victory, and that "teaching Biden a lesson" at the cost of "having a fascist state" is a bad trade.
Your issue is that, it is possible that some peoples votes don't matter at all based on their zip code.
I don't know how else to put this: you aren't refuting the central thesis. You're on a tangent that AT BEST concludes with "well, this doesn't apply to EVERYONE... But it still definitely applies to SOME"
It's not that people's votes possibly don't matter because of their zip code. It's that peoples votes don't matter because of their zip code. There's a lot of bullshit going on with voter suppression, shittily written constitutions, and how representatives are calculated, but the electoral college itself is what decides the election, not the popular vote. And with the electoral college, your location is determinate of how much your vote matters in the election.
The thing is, that does refute the thesis.
If the thesis is "You withheld the one vote that would have prevented fascism", was true, we would either be using a popular vote system for president, which we literally don't, or the person would have to be in a singular swing state that decides the election. This means that the thesis is only true for those who live in swing states, due to the presence of the electoral college.
I googled the current swing states, and I got Georgia, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Nevada, and New Mexico. The current population of the US is somewhere above 330 million, and the population of the swing states listed is, according to my napkin math, 55 million. I'm assuming the population of voters proportionally is roughly equivalent state to state.
That being said, this means there's roughly 1/6th of Americans whose votes would be representative of this meme.
To call the experience of 5/6ths of Americans tangential is a little silly.
The irony is palpable that you're describing voter suppression as a factor, while literally actively participating in it. Using social media to convince people that their votes aren't important is quite literally an act of voter suppression. Trying to convince people that withholding their vote could not impact outcome, is voter suppression.
You are literally no different than a robocall telling people that the polling stations have closed early. You are a bad faith actor. For anyone who didn't actually read the Muler report and were unsure about what "Russian interference" actually looked like, it's this. It's exactly this.
They're being disingenuous, which is worse.
It's just more threats and insults for progressives that refuse to just toe the line. Don't you know a proper leftist/progressive/liberal is obedient?
I don't think you understand, having a fascist shithead in charge of the US is precisely the goal of these fine folks on .ml and .hexbear.
They want the us to be as equally fucked and censured as china. It's their only hope for not being the internet's laughingstock for another couple decades.
At the risk of getting downvoted into oblivion, this is not a fair representation of their complaints or desires. Maybe a minority of them want what you described.
It's actually possible for our government to be more democratic if we could remove capitalist interference from our government structure.
Your democracy is a sham and here's why.
The .ml users who are urging everyone to not vote don't agree.
It is obvious that it would be easier to reach better governance without having a wannabe dictator in the executive branch appointing theocratic clowns into judgeships. But they actually want Donald in there to destabilize the US so that China can gain ground.
They don't even deny it, I get reactions from them on a spectrum from "based based based based" to "any amount of collateral damage to minorities or surrounding countries is acceptable as long as colonialists are being genocided."
True, it's not black or white, there's a spectrum of beliefs within those communities.
The problem is, yes government could and I would argue should be more democratic. But that isn't how Leninism/stalinism/Maoism works. We have problems with adequate representation with two parties. Those groups want only one. And traditionally that party doesn't take kindly to dissent. Rather than listening and adjusting policy to better address people. They simply exclude you from society if you're lucky. Lock you up, brutalize you. And if they don't think they've adequately broken you, kill you.
We need to remove authoritarian and private control of government. Capitalism would follow eventually. The problem is. That's impossible with capitalists and ML alike.
I'd be happy with a social democracy that emphasizes a mixed economy with strong social welfare programs funded by progressive taxation. Examples include the Nordic countries (Denmark, Finland, Norway, Sweden).
I don't know how to accomplish that though because the farther we slip into a class dictatorship, the harder it will be to enact progressive taxation. We'd all vote yes to tax the 1% richest more, but that will never be on any ballot for us to choose.
That would absolutely be a great start. But only that. A starting point.
Taxing the rich can be on the ballot. The problem is we often spend too much time fighting amongst ourselves letting the ownership class walk away with everything while we tussle over scraps. They've succeeded in putting a large portion of the population into a nihilistic Fugue state. Only trying to destroy things and hurt the group they've been told is the Boogeyman. Not improving things for themselves or others. As easy and as fun as it can be to ridicule conservatives importantly thought out plans and ideology. We need them. And they need us. If we want to make anything better that is. We need to break through the cynicism and nihilism and convince them that there is a way for things to be better.
It's not a small task by any means.
It's not a good faith argument. They don't want to question their support for Biden. So instead of actually thinking critically they make shit up so they can dismiss any criticism that would force them to actually think.
stop giving us shitty choices
these guys want fascist shit heads
"I'm unhappy with the shitty choices, so I'm going with the fascist shithead" is a rather fascist thing to say.
Reading compression isn't a strength if that's how you read it
PugJesus doing God's work
Hmmm, today i will attack any attempts to run a better candidate against trump
The US system doesn’t work that way. You have a choice between two people. A vote for a third party is a vote not counted.
You're so engrossed in talking over the other person that you failed to read what they said.
They said "Run a better candidate against" Trump which IS possible to do by the DNC.
Not in this election, it's far too late
The convention absolutely can select a different candidate.
I love that you lot complain that it's not REAL democracy because the DNC is so sneaky behind the scenes, and then in the same breath demand that the DNC undemocratically appoint someone as their candidate who appeals to you and your fellows, voters be damned.
And you wonder why everyone thinks of you as fascists.
It's the duty of the party to nominate an electable candidate is it not? They had a farce of a primary this year, so the only hope left is a hail mary out of the convention.
Oh, so now you DON'T care about democracy in the party. How convenient, how your ideals change depending on which allows you to scream "BOTH SIDES" the loudest.
It's so frustrating to talk to democrat supporters. You guys should remember how that cost the DNC 2016.
No like, I'm ready to vote for a competitive progressive candidate, but building that candidate will take time. Years.
The next best thing is not-republican.
You guys had Bernie Sanders.
Yeah, and a majority of voters didn't turn out for him. You think I was fucking chuffed to go through that twice in a row?
With this level of support and rhetoric:
https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/chris-matthews-bernie-sanders-public-executions-949802/
Lmao did you mean 'reality observers'?
The primary is over, Jack.
The "reality observers" that gave trump the election in 2016? Brilliant strategy, "reality observer".
What fucking primary, the dnc did their level best to not allow a real one
What primary? There was some bullshit formality thing. But there wasn't any actual primary.
Right, trump vs another candidate. Biden is awful and is the reason why the election is in any kind of jeopardy. But when trump wins in november there'll be no self awareness to be found, that people were promoting an unviable candidate that no one likes.
Maybe the US system doesn't work that way because people keep screaming at everyone who doesn't vote for their one party vs the only other. It's really odd to claim that your vote matters and then yell at anyone who tries to do anything with their vote other than to guarantee their vote for one of two parties. If the argument is to preserve democracy, well, it already looks like we don't have democracy.
It’s because we have a winner-takes-all electoral college system. It encourages domination not cooperation and self-perpetuates because it stifles ideological competition. It’s not merely a social phenomenon.
How are we supposed to break out of such a system? Both parties benefit from this system and will never agree to change it. About a decade ago in Canada, the liberal party claimed they'd carry out election reform if they won. They ended up winning big time, but they refused to do what they promised because it would threaten the power structure.
Your democracy is at stake and you are yelling that we should do democracy harder instead of attempting to keep the democracy destroyer out of office. Carry on though and personally insult me like you did in your last comment.
I’m not American so I don’t have a dog in this fight.
You're not American and don't have a dog in the fight, but you want to explain the electoral system that I participate in to me. Not sure where I insulted you or yelled (no exclamation point or all-caps/bolded words in sight), so it seems like you've completely misinterpreted my post. I didn't say we should "democracy harder", I said we don't have a democracy and that it's just a facade where people get really passionate about voting for one of only two viable options. Kind of hard to save something that doesn't exist. Will things get worse under republicans? Absolutely. Will democrats do anything about that? Absolutely not. They'll keep the office warm until the next time republicans inevitably win back power in this crooked system.
This election is already full.
I hope progressives are building a candidate for the next election. It takes years
I still remember 2020, progressives were bartering "just elect Biden this time, then next election we can elect AOC or Bernie".
And yet they didn't build those candidates.
I'm not bartering anything. I'm looking at the options directly ahead, and commenting about what I wish could be in the next rounds
any attempts have been immediately quashed by folks like you.
Miss.
miss what? Im watching you do it in real time.
"miss what?" Yup
Progressives are excessively difficult to win support from the Dems or Reps due to campaign interests and media spin. The only candidates that recieve enough backing are the ones that pose no danger to the wealthy Capitalists.
Progressives should take that backing as their chief objective, and start building systems to win. That means media and financial backing.
How do you get media and financial backing if you fundamentally go against that which maintains their funding?
I agree that leftists should organize, but more along the lines of the Black Panther Party or other groups actively making a difference first.
You develop funding from sources you find more ethical: macro union agreements.
I agree that organizing is fantastic, but the sheer difference in quantity of Capital is why it is necessary for a leftist party to focus primarily on delivering needs externally to the system before attempting to win over local and state level elections. Grow from the bottom up.
You need to look up present income inequality statistics. Billionaires are insane and inflation is making normal working class people tighten their budgets a lot. It's a very uphill battle or outfund billionaires.
The Black Panther Party is your standard for making a difference.
Yeah, that's about what I expected.
Not understanding the importance of the black panther party is about what I expected from you.
The group that came in at the tail end of the civil rights movement, murdered its own members, and then was effectively shuttered by the FBI?
THAT'S your standard for success?
Yes, directly supporting and feeding children, supported gay rights, and promoted leftist theory and community building is good.
Hating on the Black Panther Party is about what I expected of you, funny enough.
Loving the Black Panther Party for having a nice ten points and a horrible record of not actually accomplishing anything substantial and murdering members of their own organization for not being sufficiently pure is about what I expected of an ML.
That would require getting cozy with billionaires who are opposed to progressive causes. How is that supposed to work? What you're proposing is like starting a game of monopoly where the other players own 90% of the properties already and claiming that if you just play along and hopefully land on properties that aren't already owned then maybe you can trade your way up to establish yourself. How likely do you think this is to work?
The other options include: continuing to be a fringe platform, overthrowing a global system.
Materially, I think developing ever stronger unions (labor and otherwise) who can pool resources to compete in politics. Seconded by a strong push to win many more low level grassroots seats. Conservatives are winning these seats. By winning the lower seats, bureaucratic maneuvers are easier, and consensus is "cheaper".
We had a strong labor movement but it took decades of fighting, the largest economic crisis ever, and two world wars, among other things to establish a middle class as we used to know it. It took much less time for the rich to dismantle that. I agree we should keep working to push the power of labor, but reaching our goals while working within the system is going to be impossible. There's a reason why it took such catastrophic events to actually get anywhere.
Well then we can still pressure Biden to do the right thing. The election is still 6 months away, not next week. Blind support for Biden will not make anything better.
Never said that. I'm only discussing election day in my comment, that's pretty obvious
Have you been voting in all of your local elections and primarys?
If not, then you haven't done anything at all to get a better candidate against anyone.
I've been voting in local and state elections for the last 24 years. When will that produce a better candidate?
Not during this election.
I can't wait until I'm like 90 and I actually get to vote for someone I like.
That soon? You're being too optimistic.
The inherent problem at the core of it all is you'll only have the option to vote for people that want to be in politics.
And that you only have the option (realistically) to vote for people that other voters want to be in politics. As a conversation with other voters will quickly show, is a depressing concept.
Fan fact: if all democrats witheld the vote the republicans couldn't govern either. That way we could get rid of both rotten parties.
Turns out your experiences don't equate to everyone else's, champ.
And you claim not to be a trump supporter, but towards the end, you deep throated the shit of him. So nice way of exposing yourself there.
If that's deep throating a candidate then what's someone who actually likes Trump?
Maybe if you guys stopped pushing away anyone who doesn't "deep throat" Biden you'd have more support?
No one is even saying that. Criticism is valid when they're valid points. You motherfuckers pounce at every chance you get to shit on him even when he does something good. But keep equating him to the guy who tried to overthrow the government and is actively trying to do so again. They even have their agenda right in the open so you can read up on it, champ. Project 2025.
Edit: And to answer your question if anyone supports trump they're a fucking idiot.
Oh shit. Looks like you're saying it right now. I've never equated the two. And yet here you are swearing at me. Now I don't scare easily and I don't let people on the internet tell me how to vote. But this ain't how you get more votes. Fear mongering and threats have never worked for the democrats. So the only "fucking idiots" I see here are you guys, pushing voters away.
Trump supporters ARE idiots. They are not allies, nor do I give a shit about you holding your vote over me. Vote for who you want, but don't cry with what you end up getting.
You're still not getting it. I don't care about you. I'm not going to vote either way because of you. But being an ass doesn't attract voters. That's all I'm trying to tell you.
You didn't have to tell me because I didn't give a fuck to begin with. I never asked for your opinion.
That's true but his messaging is heads and shoulders better. The longer Biden insists that the people are wrong and the economy is actually doing great, the worse it will get. People aren't dumb, but they aren't geniuses either. They can see their purchasing power is severely restricted from pre-covid times. Without training in economics, politics, and policy; they just aren't going to be able to realize that it was a coincidence more than anything Trump did for them.
Oh well if Cardi B said she won't vote for Biden, I guess that's that. If the average person thinks Biden is worse than Trump, then they're either willfully ignorant or just straight up dumb. The milk isn't gonna get any cheaper if Trump wins, bud.
[x] Doubt
Maybe because Biden voters aren’t in a FUCKING CULT?
Disagree
Did you see the meme at the top? I'm not so sure that's true anymore.
"Did you see the meme pointing out what happens when there are two leading candidates??? How cultlike!"
Reality is so scawwy.
And responding to every comment with ad hominems is the mark of a rational organization known for critical thinking.
I didn't realize accusations of being a cult WEREN'T ad hominems. Good to see there are rules for me, but none for thee. Very typical of fascist rhetoric. :)
Oh no, I mean that in a very real way. There's people available to help you if you want. This level of aggressiveness over someone else not supporting your group is not healthy.
I'm so sorry that I don't want to live under a fascist regime that will kill me. I understand that fascists like you think this desire isn't healthy, but I assure you, wanting to live is entirely normal, even for us filthy minorities.
You big wrong.
Why was this comment removed by a moderator?
Bro its Lemmy, I didn’t Stan for Biden and got removed. These are the same tone deaf people who are gonna be surprised by a Biden loss.
Yeah, I know that's the real reason but I wonder if they can possibly provide any justification.
Everyone is mad but you're mostly just sharing your experiences. This is why liberals suck, they never listen and assume they know best. Cardi B is honestly quite politically knowledgeable and articulate from what I have heard from her, but people are hating because she doesn't speak in an upper class educated way.