Start a new political party, the 'American Progressive Majority'.
Time to break free of traditional political ideological labeling and divisions. Time to abandon old, divisive sociopolitical labels like "liberal" and "conservative".
A new political party based on a vastly, commonly held virtures lends itself to embrace over 66% of Americans, and it clearly embraces progressive principled thinking. In the most ideal American sense of unity, a political party should not be able to be defined or placed as "to the left" or "to the right" of where the Democratic or Republican parties currently are. Just let it exist organically based on present-day principled thinking. The American Progressive Majority.
Originally Posted By u/Atlanticbboy At 2025-03-23 04:38:18 AM | Source
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Two things.
One, I would get a gun and find a trustworthy community if I were a leftist or minority American.
As much as I despise guns, if shit gets Gilead bad, you'll probably be happy to have it.
As for community, if you don't have one yet, I would recommend joining either a socialist club or a progressive/traditional (i.e. not racist) Christian church. A black church (think MLK), or a pride flag flying liberal Church (think John Brown).
When Nazi's invaded my country, these were the two communities that actually resisted, by fighting back and helping people hide and escape. In times of slavery, socialism wasn't yet a thing, so the abolitionists and underground railroad people were progressive Christians. Jesus was the OG socialist and these communities live it.
Just going to drop this here
https://socialistra.org/
https://youtu.be/w0ndPOs8Q1c
Thanks for sharing.
I just want to say one thing though. With drones, guns are no longer the big equalizers that they used to be.
If you ever get in a standoff with government fascists, they will just use drones.
I saw the videos of how Azerbeidzjan just totally obliterated heavily armed Armenian positions using Bayraktar drones.
This shit is scary as fuck. I wouldn't be surprised if, within 25 years from now, 90% of the world is living under authoritarian regimes.
Which is why I think being part of a very large community with solidarity among all members will be key.
Any small group will just be labeled as terrorists and obliterated.
I'm literally out testing my first DIY drone right now
Diy?
I built it (Do-it-yourself). I'm not sure "DIY" is the conventional term amongst the drone community for a drone built by an individual.
For the actual drone itself you just need 4 motors, esc, flight controller and the receiver/transceiver or am I missing something?
And frame
Then Just goggles and remote right?
Yeah pretty much, but you can just buy them pre-made (aka "BNF" or bind-n-fly). So, relative to a pre-made drone mine is DIY I guess. Again, there's probably a more correct term than DIY. It's not like I built the frame or flight controller.
For sure, the future of war is drone directed artillery.
More so, they wouldn't even need to all that. Just surround them, turn of the water supply and wait for them the surrender when they get thirsty enough.
I'd say we already are under authoritarian regimes. It's just that we, collectively, don't resist it. So, they dont need to be that way. Fascism is just capitalism when you try to say no to capitalism.
Totally agree, and fucking thank you for the shout out about progressive Christians! Underground railroad, temperance movement, anti-war protests, civil rights, etc, progressive Christians have always been a driving force for good and that has totally gotten overshadowed by the evil of white evangelicals in recent years
These numbers are bullshit.
Who in their right mind actually believes Americans prefer gun control to: abortion care, legal weed, gay marriage, higher minimum wage, and home ownership.
Like regardless of what you or I want for America, that's an actual load of shit. Too many people love their guns, there's literally more guns than people here.
There are more guns than people because people that own guns own multiple. And people that own a lot of guns own a loooot of guns. 29% of gun owners own five or more guns. It takes like 2 seconds to confirm this shit...
Nearly half of all American households have a gun. 44% to be exact.
If even a third of everyone in those households didn't want gun control (33% of 44% is a little over 14.5% total), then that statistic is wrong.
Why should I believe any of these statistics when the percentage of gun owners is verifiably wrong.
I'm just not gonna trust any of the numbers in this post.
Honestly that's the one number that is the most difficult to confirm. The NRA lobbied congress to ban the ability to perform studies to gather any meaningful statistics on guns within the USA. No federal agency can perform the studies, nor can they fund those studies, nor can they acknowledge third party studies when making policy. So there's no good longitudinal studies on things like suicide rates because that would harm the fucking gun manufacturers.
Actually this isn't strictly true. The CDC is allowed to study gun related stuff, they're just not allowed to use it to advocate for gun control. The people at the CDC decided that was too scary and they'd rather not do it at all lest they be blamed for advocacy, when in reality they should just publish the data without "the opinion" and let readers conclude their own opinions, and argue that's within the bounds of the law in court later if need be. It isn't like anyone would go to jail over it, they'd probably just be fired at most, maybe fined, if they did go to jail it'd be one of the kushy Martha Stewart ones anyway.
I can't say I really blame them for playing it safe, but I still think it's better my way and if I ran the CDC that'd be my move, even if that meant I'd have to go to the Martha Stewart jail and be a lil' uncomfortable for a few months.
Verify it then? I don't know what specific study they're referencing because the citation is too broad, but that 2017 link is 69% don't currently own, 72 seems within that margin
Damn y'all are lazy AF. It took me 20 seconds to google this article from 2020:
So it seems like the graphic is slightly off 72% vs 68% for 2020.
But the article also has a chart with historic values betwen 27% and 34% from 2007 - 2020. So 73%-66% seems like a fairly accurate range.
I'm one of those people with 50+ guns. I love guns. I used to sell guns.
I still think we do need some new firearm legislation. Specifically, we need universal background checks because as long as a secondary market without background checks exists, straw purchases are effectively legal.
My personal policy on selling guns to someone privately is they have to have a concealed carry license, because that license means they've passed the background check that I can't perform.
It also will help people who accidentally commit felonies. How many people reading this thread knew that a dad giving his gun to his son is fine most of the time, but a federal felony if they live in different states and the gun is a pistol, even if the gun is legal in both states?
On the flip side, supressors should be legal with no restrictions. It's pants-on-head stupid that they aren't. They make guns less harmful.
This is a phony and misleading quote. The article says 44% of people live in a house with a gun but the number of people who own guns is lower. Here's the actual quote:
I think, when people overtly lie about this kind of stuff, it's not worth arguing anymore.
I literally said 44% of american households own a gun, which is exactly in line with the qoute.
At no time did I imply that meant 44% of all American adults own guns. It wouldn't even make sense to, considering the comment above links to information to the contrary.
If that's what you got from what I said, then you need to check your reading comprehension.
That being said, the 44% of those people, regardless of whether or not they own the guns, are less likely to want more gun control.
Not sure what more you want.
I've made an argument in favor of pretty much the most basic form of gun control, having a license that proves you know how to operate a firearm (kinda like you need a drivers license to prove you know how to drive a car). Even that gets push back. Whoever that mythical person is who is both loving guns and wanting better gun control laws, they're a minority of a minority.
I'm here to prove your point.
You really want a historically racist government with a history already of using concealed carry permits and pistol purchase permits to disproportionately deny black people and other POC their right to protect themselves to have the power to do it more, and right when we elect the guy everyone calls "Hitler 2: This time it's personal?" The similar laws that already exist are already abused and not in a way you'd agree with (mostly, there are some states who use those same impediments to just deny everyone their rights instead of targeting POC, except for the rich of course because they're better than us peons and deserve to protect themselves, if you die you just add to the stats, they don't care, but if a CEO dies they'll have to find a replacement, and that could effect donations! But uhh...is that "good?")
We all know that won't be the end of gun control if we had free training for new gun owners to get licensed. I took Hunter safety before I could hunt as a minor, it was immensely helpful to have such good fundamentals.
Also, should we make people get licensed to vote? Or to be able to say what they want? To practice their religion? How about a "EZ pass" license to avoid random searches in your home? We already normalized it in airports... why not your home to? Don't worry, it's for the greater good.
I’m sad that trans rights aren’t on the list there, not surprised with how awful things are but still sad
The only thing with majority support is a narrow majority thinking trans people should be allowed to be discriminated against overtly in jobs and public spaces (but those people also generally don't think forcing a women to use the men's restroom is discrimination). Few people will say they oppose protections against discrimination, but "neutrality" is just a polite way of supporting discrimination...
Yeah it’s really sad how the world has almost turned fully against my people. Give it a few more months (at most) and the Democrats will have almost fully turned on my people. This country is a shithole and I hate it
Ignore systemglitch, their comment history reveals clearly how pro-fascist they are. Which means they don't matter.
Edit: lol be mad fascist. Every time you comment on someone being trans, on immigration, sanctuary cities, etc, you show exactly the piece of shit you are. We can all tell.
I think you are thinking of bailing out the banks and auto industry.
You realize you're blaming the minority groups fascists target, for the actions of fascists, right?
Please take a moment and think about how absolutely fucked that is.
You're replying to someone who supports the fascists, FYI.
Oh yeah you're right. Lets put trans rights away for now so we don't make the right winger cry. /s
Why do we always have to deal with right wingers with the utmost care and patience? Drag their crying asses into the future. Let them kick and scream and don't give them a finger.
That's not how you cite a source - the point of a citation is to allow the reader to trace, and evaluate, the source of a claim, and the methodology used to arrive there. I get that it's impractical to do a full bibliography, but the way this poster just 'cites' a bunch of organizations without tracing specific claims to specific publications detracts from the argument. We should be better than the enemy who make claims and respond with "do your own research" when challenged. Part of the reason why we're in this mess is because we stopped supporting, or trusting, the process behind evidence-based science. If we make these claims, can't we link to a site that lists the actual papers behind the claims? Otherwise this whole stuff is vulnerable to the argument that "this is a radical left delusion and fake news". Fascist propaganda shouldn't be resisted in kind, that just drags us down to their level.
Agreed. As much as I want to believe this post, it would be great to site the source below each claim.
Ok but now is not a good time to disarm
The working class must never disarm. Post jan 6th and George floydd and people still have yet to learn that no one will protect us but ourselves. How delusional of me to think anything will ever drive this point home in people's frightened minds.
It would be nice to have some reforms, but that's not what anti gun people want. They want everything. We could pass reforms and somebody will shoot up some gun free zone and people will be back to take more. It's a never ending circle that only stops at fully stripping the right to own a firearm completely. Some aren't even ashamed to admit it.
My body, my choice in how to protect it. Prisons are gun free, prisoners have very few rights. Yet rape / violence in prisons are a running joke everyone enjoys repeating. I will not be a prisoner.
Good luck to OP with their party but I want no part of it. Plus they aren't in favor of legalizing all drugs so you support the police state's right to continue to ruin lives and shoot people for fun with no repercussions. Not to mention the lives lost from tainted unregulated drugs of a unknown potency. Oh and nothing on replacing First-past-the-post voting so we can have more then two parties? Super hard pass. We'd only be 3-4 generations before the capitalist class captures this political party as well. If not less.
If only we could join a commune that best reflects each of our values. OP could be completely unarmed in their commune and mine would have nukes cause humans are psychotic hairless apes that only respect one thing. Overwhelming violence.
SocialistRA.org
So much this. I support nearly everything on this proposed new party's list except the gun control items. I seriously doubt only 27% of Americans own a gun. I know more than a few Democrats who own not just one, but multiple firearms. Including aSsAuLt rifles. And the 90% support for tougher gun laws? There has to be a very serious conversation about what that looks like.
As for a ceasefire for the war in Gaza... It's terrible so many innocent civilians are being killed, but Hamas started this most recent war. They are also well known to use civilians as human shields. Finally, they will never stop their attacks until Israel no longer exists. Even during the most recent ceasefire, Hamas was focused on building more weapons so they could continue their attacks: https://english.aawsat.com/features/5123487-what-are-hamas-military-options-gaza-war-resumes
The only way to truly "free Palestine" is to rid them of Hamas, or at least shift their focus to supporting their own people and governing Gaza instead of waging jihad.
I think I misunderstood your comment. I was thinking it wasn't time to figuratively disarm the Democratic party....
If not now when? When is a revolution ever at a good time. The Democrats have been "waiting" for 20 plus years ...
When we can guarantee that never again will Nazis rule over us. When their ideas are universally reviled by every living soul. When every last Nazis is dead dead dead.
Then get rid of the guns.
A revolution without guns?
it's wild that only 55% of you guys want a fairer health care system
It’s because the phrase “Medicare for all” has been propagandized. If you instead asked if people wanted “affordable medical treatment and preventative care for themselves and others”, I’m sure that number would be much higher.
The idea is Medicare for all as baseline, and private market on top of that. Every country with single payer health care also has private market clinics. The idea that private markets would be outlawed is a misunderstanding, and when pushed by those who would make less money under a single baseline payer system, is misinformation.
When basic healthcare is universally covered, premiums or out of pocket just for anything considered an extra service aren't directly comparable to premiums for insurance for all Healthcare. They will be much less, because they cover less, because anything the government designates a core service is provided at no cost.
Private insurance or just out of pocket costs (they are lower costs, cut out the middleman of insurance) on top of universal health care systems can be upgrades to included services - like getting a private hospital room rather than having a roommate - or could be going to clinics that only have private patients and offer services outside what the government plan covers. For insurance plans (as opposed to out of pocket), the specifically private network would be smaller because the general care government plan would cover almost every provider, and the private plan is just adding on a few on top.
I believe Medicaid (for certain low income people) unfortunately has much higher barriers to coverage than Medicare (for over 65s), but any insurance is going to have a denial rate. No system has infinite money to cover every service, and setting expectations for coverage like what Medicare provides today is realistic.
Sadly, I don't believe it is true that Americans broadly want universal healthcare coverage. The idea that people less healthy and poorer than citizen X deserve nothing from the society they live in is really widespread. Even if the efficiencies of having a one payer system are brought up (so much money is currently spent navigating the multi-labyrinth of our multitude of different insurance companies), there is some feeling that less healthy people who can't afford care deserve to suffer. I encounter this occasionally even in liberal spaces like lemmy, and it is pervasive if I lurk in more conservative platforms.
There are a lot of special-interest items on the list, and for those things people aren't going to feel any risk to themselves by saying sure let's fix this or that. But for healthcare, which directly affects them, they could be more like, "I'm surviving the way it is, don't monkey with it."
About 70% of Americans are overweight or obese, why should healthy people be penalized more because of them?
You already are.
That's how insurance works.
That’s not how it always works though, people who smoke have higher premiums for example.
People who choose to skydive are not eligible for life insurance.
People who crash their cars yearly pay more than safe drivers.
People who don't claim absolutely do subsidise people who do. Where do you think the money goes?
People who smoke pay more in taxes, because cigarettes are heavily taxed. Similar story for people who drink a lot of alcohol and the like.
And why apply this mentality to healthcare and not other things? Assuming you're a high earner, you'll pay for roads that other don't, for education, for the military, police, fire brigade, etc. Should all of this stuff only be accessible to people if they pay for it directly? How would that even work?
You completely disregarded my point where most insurances price premiums depending on risk; which Medicare does not, besides maybe cigarets.
Education, police and firefighters should be accessible for all; and obviously abusers should be punished, as in people who burn their house on purpose.
There’s a strain on healthcare resources that is avoidable if people would just eat a bit healthier and exercise a bit more.
No I didn't.
Risk is already somewhat baked into tax-funded healthcare by way of harmful things being taxed more. Like I said.
Maybe I'm just too NHS-brained, but I think it's insane that you don't think the same should be true for healthcare. Like I genuinely cannot get my head around believing healthcare should not be a right, and that some people should suffer. I'm not trying to be a dick when I say that, it's just truly mind-breaking to me. It does not compute.
They are. As stated, the "punishment" for people who do things like smoke or drink themselves into poor health is paying more into the system via taxes, just like with insurance premiums being higher in the US.
Obviously. But there's a strain on that regardless of being private or public healthcare.
Again, if you are young and healthy, your insurance contributions pay for others. That money doesn't go to you, it goes disproportionately to people with unhealthy lifestyles and the elderly. You are already paying for people that make poor health choices.
I don’t think unhealthy food is taxed more than healthy food in the US.
With a universal publicly funded healthcare system, it’s only fair to reward people who are healthy and entice people who are not to make healthier choices.
Maybe if you don't need to spend so much in healthcare you can spend a little more in better food.
Subsidizing healthier food options and encouraging people to exercise can be a start.
Because of something called the social contract.
But I guess you think you are so young and healthy that you will never grow old or becoming unhealthy.
What an egoistic shit take BTW.
Of course I will grow old, age is not the point here. It’s about unhealthy life choices.
If you think drug users chose it, then you are quite unknowing about how things work. Most people with bad habits would love to not having them, but everyone can't be some sort of superman and just do everything right.
We were talking about obesity and unhealthy food habits. Most drug users chose to start doing drugs, and some drugs are fine in small doses with moderation.
You are right though it can be difficult to break bad habits, the book atomic habits may help with that.
Penalized... how? Do you think overweight people getting healthcare harms you somehow?
How is Medicare funded? Healthcare costs are a lot higher for obese and overweight people.
Health insurance costs mostly come from profiteering. The cost savings of not having middlemen more than makes up for needing to pay for people with special needs.
That's why it's always always cheaper in countries with public insurance.
Sure but we are very far from being able to have a nationwide public insurance system.
Okay, but we're talking about having a nationwide public insurance system.
The fact is, even if you don't do anything to encourage healthier lifestyles, public insurance is cheaper. You're being penalized right now by your private insurance carrier who is profiteering off of you. Abolish those middlemen and you save money, regardless of public obesity.
If you follow U.S. politics, you know that's not happening anytime soon.
You've heard of an ouroboros?
What about it?
AOC and Bernie are tearing up things! Support them everywhere! Especially on social media.
Given how the American political system works, I think their impact would be even more limited if they did not work within the Democratic Party. I think the only hope for a real national progressive/leftist party is to takeover and co-opt the Democratic Party, much like Trump did with the Republican Party.
What 3rd party did they create? The last significant (and I use that word very loosely here) new US 3rd party was the Green Party formed in the 90s.
That's just my point. It wasn't a party like OP here is calling for. It was a movement within the Republican Party.
What OP is calling for here is kinda the exact opposite. The Tea Party movement successfully got a bunch of people who typically don't engage in politics to join and vote for Republicans. The never had a problem of ballot access or competing with an ideologically similar opponent in general elections because they weren't a different party. OP here is calling for people to vote for a new third party. That's a completely different thing.
Yeah they suddenly found some principles now that the other team is in power. Seems legit. \s
I agree with almost all of these but some of these numbers were definitely pulled out of someone’s ass
It certainly doesn't seem to be reflected by the results of the election.
It doesn't show what issues people prioritize. MAGA focused on getting people angry about migrants and threw gas on the flames with false information to the point where their fear/hate for migrants mattered to them more than any of these issues listed above.
They voted for not getting raises, getting taxed more, prices going up, and damaging the earth itself while hurting our alliances around the world all to address the "issue of migrants."
So what really happened is the number of people that the U.S. "repatriated" (deported) looked like it skyrocketed during the final months of Trump's 1st presidency, but in reality both Biden and Obama's administrations were deporting people around the same rates, Biden actually doing the most by far. The spike came from returning people do to COVID. Which is why it looks like Biden was deporting a lot in the beginning as well.
ICE says in the first 7 weeks of Trump's presidency, they have deported 27,000 migrants. Which would be 16,000/month.
So that would be 30% of the 55,000/monthly average we saw previously. So not only are we wrecking out relations with other countries, they were removing people at an extremely inefficient way.
Especially the one about same sex marriage!
70% couldn't ve bothered voting knowing it meant democracy's end
Good intentions are important Americans, but you cannot make the world a better place just by having good intentions and navel gazing
I don't believe e any of these numbers.
You're free to look them up if you care.
You’re free to look them up if you care.
90% of the US don't want more gun control laws. As a percentage that would be saying that every state in the US except Texas wants more gun laws ... it's not right.
I consider myself liberal, but would never support taking away someone's rights. Own all the guns and even a fucking tank if you want ... but you will go to jail if you harm someone with them.
We were given the right to have firearms for the exact situation that is happening now.
I think most people, including "moderate" Republicans, have polled in favor of regulations that make it easier to catch criminals and prevent people convicted of violent crimes from buying guns.
The firearms lobbyists have prevented this, and politicians conflate normal regulations with the "Obama is coming to take your guns" threat for easy political support.
If we could get people to believe reasonable regulations are possible and not get distracted by the fear mongering we would actually have better laws.
But as it stands, conservatives believe the Republicans and Trump are protecting them from liberals stealing their guns. And this is despite Trump saying ‘Take the guns first, go through due process second’
Le-sigh
Democrats do make this rather easy with bullshit like 'assault weapon' bans
Exactly. Check out what Democrats are pushing through in Colorado right now for an example. Even many registered Democrats in the state aren't in favor of it.
"Hell yes we're going to take your AR-15"
-- Beto O'Rourke
Nah. My state has no gun regulations once purchased. There is a background check to look for felonies, but then that is it. No license, no concealed carry permit.
If you don't want someone to carry a firearm in my area then you put up a metal detector, because a sign can't stop people from carrying. It is really kind of "Wild West".
Passing a background check before you can purchase a gun is gun control. It is possibly the least gun control you can have and still have any, but it is gun control.
And nearly everyone is in favor of preventing convicted violent criminals from having guns for at least some sort of period of time.
Libertarians need not reply to this comment. Go enjoy your fantasy somewhere else.
A criminal that has served their time is supposedly rehabilitated and should reenter society as a full citizen with all the rights afforded to them. Not as a 2nd class citizen. That's bullshit.
I get that the justice system is broken and prison doesn't rehabilitate people. That's a problem with the justice system, not former criminals.
Yes, this is my opinion as well. If they served their time then all restrictions should be removed. If they think they may commit more crimes then probation should have been added to the sentence.
I said for at least some period of time. That's part of most parole conditions. Seems pretty fair to me.
The fact that we have an opposite quote for everything that comes out of the Orange's mouth is pretty hilarious to me.
The whole gun control should be formulated as „sane regulation of gun ownership and sales“. Focusing on illegal guns instead of law abiding gun owners might be a good choice as well. Assault weapons ban and similar are ineffective window dressing policies.
Yes, exactly! Now is not the time to be pushing gun control laws. Now is the time to remind people what the Second Ammendment was meant for.
If ICE comes to your door and you are a legal citizen then you just tell them they are trespassing and need to leave. If they won't leave then they have magically been converted to armed criminals on your property.
“Gun control” comes in many forms: the tracking another user mentioned; requiring continuing education or training courses every so often; ensuring that people with histories of violent or suicidal behavior and/or people who have been identified by a certain number of community members as poor candidates for gun ownership (no idea if this is a popular notion, but I would not have wanted 4/5 of the people I knew who later committed violent crimes with guns to have been allowed to own them, and mutual acquaintances have agreed with me that they were not stable/safe people, and it’s always seemed like a good idea, as long as there are safeguards in place to prevent bullying and other abuse) aren’t allowed to own guns; and in some parts of the country, requiring a gun license for using long guns are all forms of gun control. It’s not hard to imagine that 90% of Americans support one of those at least.
So after the suicidal maniac goes on a killing spree at the local elementary school and wipes out a chunk of the next generation, then you send them to jail (and take their guns away? You didn't clarify that part)
Guns are a hobby. They should be a privilege you earn, and one you have to work to keep (don't get in trouble with the law, keep your registration up to date, etc).
The solution to our current situation isn't to go out and kill people, it's to fight legal battles and go out and vote when the time comes. A civil war doesn't guarantee we'll end up with the country you want even if the MAGA army is crushed. It's going to cause immense death and destruction, and it will open us up to attack from our adversaries. It will almost certainly ruin your life, mine, and everyone you know and love.
But even IF a real civil war is inevitable, getting guns and fighting won't be a challenge. Trump has very few allies in the rest of the world, but democracy does. NATO would not just sit and watch while a nuclear power goes through such a destabilizing event, especially when Trump's ties to Putin are so well known.
Your statement is false. Guns are NOT a privilege in the US. They are a constitutional right. Full stop. I didn't even read the rest of your post
lmao, I think you should go make an appointment with an ophthalmologist before you try to finish reading my post.
Democracy seems to be broken in the US if this is true
USA is not considered a “full democracy” outside of the USA itself. It does not rank particularly highly on indexes of democracies either.
This is by design, the US election system was built to prevent "tyranny of the majority". Which makes sense in theory, but it would make more sense if it was also backed by a government structure like a parliamentary republic with proportional representation instead of a presidential republic.
Can you elaborate? Tyrany of the majority is as such democracy, if you have an opposing opinion
The US is a federation. Each state is like a separate country in many regards. And small states don't want to end up submitting to things a majority of their population doesn't agree with because bigger states end up skewing the overall majority. So states' voting power is not directly proportional to their population, which supposedly evens the playing field.
Think of the US as something like the EU, not like a single European country. You could say 60% of Europeans agree on some subject, so it should be the law in Europe, but that 60% overall could be 90% in France, Germany and Italy, but 10% in Lithuania and Cyprus. So why would those latter countries accept such a law?
Democracy is not "majority rules". Democracy is "Government by consent of the governed". You're describing "populism", not "democracy".
"Populism" is two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for dinner. "Democracy" is every measure the sheep has to keep themselves of the ballot.
The wolves will take their populist position and complain about "minority rule", but the principles of Democracy dictate that the sheep must not be subjected to their popular whim.
Just First-past-the-post voting things
Clearly people aren't voting the same way they're answering surveys. I don't see how forming a new party will make that happen.
Yeah, I observe the same thing here in The Netherlands. In theory, democracy should work best for the working class majority. In practice, people somehow tend to vote for something not in their own self interest.
Wonderful example is the area where I live, our town shares a border with a Belgian town. Most people do groceries on one side of the border, go to the bar on the other side. In essence, we operate as one town that happens to be in two countries. Ask anyone in the street if they are open to a "Nexit" from the EU, most will say a hard: "No".
Then look at the election results, the party in favor of a Nexit became the largest party, also in the town I live. It's wild that people vote different to what they believe in. If you then ask them: why did you vote for this party, because it contrasts your earlier answer. People will say: "Yeah, but it won't come to that". Then I look at Brexit and it's exactly how that cluster fuck happened.
My brain simply cannot process this idiocracy.
I think the key is the term "informed electorate". As Trump said, "I love the uneducated!"
Yeah, that’s a very succinct way to put it.
Only a little more than half support Medicare for all? Is this a terminology issue, or are 45% of Americans that terrible?
Sadly there's this idea that Americans are being taxed to death, when in reality not so much.
People don't understand that while we'd pay maybe hundreds more in taxes to fund Single Payer, we'd pay THOUSANDS less in healthcare costs, so we still come out ahead
They also don't understand the "they" part. People who don't support, or at least those I've met, don't understand that "they" doesn't mean the government per se. It means you. The individual. You pay more in health care because of defaults on payments. Because of so many other things. The cost of that gets passed on to you. The individual.
People get stuck in the "I got mine" mentality. They don't see the bigger picture. "Why should I pay for someone else's health care!" is what I commonly hear. My dude, you already do. When you point this out. When you give the stats. They usually shut down and it's"
10 "Why should I pay for someone else's health care!"
20 goto 10
People just can't seem to grasp the wider picture. I'm not sure they want to. Any issue that requires a wider picture sees the same response. Default to previous operation. Repeat operation.
"Oh no! She's stuck in an infinite loop and he's too stupid to realize it." - Professor F
"Why should I pay for someone else's healthcare."
WEll someone hasn't heard to "Ask not what their country can do for you..." Stupidity breeds selfishness which breeds stupidity
But I'm not sick or injured right now, so it won't benefit me at this exact second in time, so why would I want this?
Plus my unstable career, where I'm treated as a number rather than a human, is currently paying for my health insurance. So I don't need any government handouts thankyou very much.
Yeah, checkmate commie.
Not to mention which taxpayers the funding would come from, if someone who would actually implement M4A got into power. We likely wouldn't be paying any more at all.
TL;DR people are not good with money. There is no point is arguing finances with people that do not know basic math.
So what the conversation devolves to is "stable" vs "experimental" and very few people will choose to be experimental with their health.
The best way to shift favor would be for it to be required to show the cost of insurance on every check (it is currently a hidden fee). This way, when "hooman see big number" removed from gross pay they may reconsider.
I look forward to being taxed less when we kill off private insurance.
This is a better platform than the Dems provided in 2024. Upvoted and cross-posted.
The 2 biggest demographics of growing gun owners are women of color and trans people.
The idea that we should disarm the working class to further concentrate weapons in the hands of militarized forces who are known for abusing their power with impunity is just moronic.
I think the 50501 movement is more tepid centrist neo liberalism and thats the last thing we need here. We need real leftism. You dint fight the far rught with the right leaning center you fight it with leftism. And karl marx one of the fathers of modern leftist thinking said it best/“ any attempt to disarm the workers should be frustrated by force if necessary” the government acting like a nanny state and prohibiting things deemed dangerous by those at the top is never effective. Drugs and alcohol prohibition onky made things worse except for those profiting from exploiting prohibition
Yes, Dems need to give up on gun control. My wife and I are lifeling Dems and just bought each other handguns and range time for valentines day. We feel we will be needing guns
As an American the idea of living somewhere where gun violence isn't part of the background noise of society sounds idyllic. But the cops have guns and are all too gleeful to use them. And the neonazis and right wing militias are armed to the teeth. And so I should have a gun too so there's a chance that some of them face consequences.
But we need to remember what our aim is when it's all done because guns did help us get here
Agreed. I was never into gun ownership until MAGA. I just realized how stupid and evil people in the US are. My state happens to have very VERY loose gun laws, nearly wild west level actually, so I will just take advantage of those laws as a deterrent.
Gun control doesn't mean no access to guns. Things like violent offenders or people who have been medically determined to be unfit not being able to buy guns counts as gun control. If you think it should be illegal for domestic abusers to own firearms, you are for gun control. Now, you may not think there is an effective way to have proper gun control and not affect your freedoms, but that's a different thing.
The way it works in the UK - very well by the way - is that simply being caught with a gun is enough to get you thrown in the slammer. Consequently crims don't go around armed, and for the most part the police don't need to be armed either. It was a real shock to me the day I walked through Heathrow and there was a pair of armed officers walking around; I think that's the first and only time (off-screen) I've ever seen a gun. If the police need armed backup then they have to call for a specially trained squad.
The only other armed units are the Services. We don't have any "militarised forces that abuse their power", afaik.
Guns for sports are allowed but there are extremely strict regulations around them.
Shootings here are extremely rare. Of course they still happen, no solution is 100%, but it's close, and a hell of a lot closer than the bizarre American fetish that the ultimate solution to gun violence is more guns and more guns and more guns, absolutely flying in the face of all the facts.
That Onion article entitled "No way to solve this, says the only country with this problem" is spectacularly on point.
Extremely strict regulations means the rich can have them freely and poors have to jump through multiple hurdles.
The working class should never be disarmed.
works great in australia too! so now you have 2 examples in real life that prove that argument invalid
I would rather bring back the days of the wild west where everyone had a revolver on their hip than go to a point where only the wealthy the police and other state sponsored actors sre permited to have weapons. “Any attempt to disarm the workers should be frustrated by force if necessary”
Whatever you want to believe meanwhile you all across the pond and down under still bow to monarchs and are taken to a court if you protest during coronation so keep believing that youll be just as free without the means to defend yourselves from tyrants when you’re already living in a full on class dictatorship and lacking any sense of true freedom to begin with.
America is a class dictatorship, too, just with more shootings. How many people who aren't millionaires are making decisions in the White House? Why is the president, a felon, allowed to run, let alone be elected? How many times have charges or convictions been wildly different for the rich versus the poor and middle class?
Your desperate clutching of guns without restriction, no matter how obvious those restrictions should be there, is utterly absurd and has yet to be used for the purpose the second amendment is purported to exist in spite of the numerous times it would make sense. (Are you okay with domestic abusers being allowed firearms? That's gun control.)
Did drug prohibition work? No it didn't the black market will always exist and prohibition serves to increase demand and further the disparity between the wealthy and the poor.
rich people will always have guns. But sure take them away from poor people so you can sleep better in your delusional sense of security so when someone gets their hand on a gun youll be defenseless and even if the gun fell out of their hand in a struggle for your life you would still be defenseless because you're clueless and definitely have no idea how guns work.
Its funny people make this out to be a political policy issue that conservatives support when conservatives were the first ones to pass a bill restricting gun ownership. And then the people who want to take away guns consider themselves leftists what a joke, youre not leftists you’re neo liberals who have been deluded into believing the left would ever stand for the disarming of working class people.
Right now they are trying to ban “assault weapons” or anything with a magazine that holds more than 10 rounds in my state and luckily that it is so very unpopular even though my state is a blue no matter who very progressive state. Ever since the united healthcare ceo was shot i think many people with true leftist leaning sentiments see that taking away guns from the laborers is a stupid short sighted thing to do.
Cars kill more people than guns, are you going to support the banning of personal transportation too? Guns will always exist, you cant nerf the fucking world and advocating to do so id so childishly asinine it’s ridiculous beyond compare. I’m sure thst making it so that police and rich corporatists are the only ones with guns will make you feel a whole lot safer if you just stick your head in the sand in regards to extrajudicial murders of civilians by police. Lets just make them even more powerful!!!
Your defense for why people should have guns is happening right now, and yet all those guns aren't being used to solve the problem. So clearly guns aren't the whole solution. But keep clinging to that hope that guns will solve all those problems you list, while ignoring all the problems unfettered access to guns cause.
As for your spurious prohibition comments, both drugs and cars are regulated. So are you saying gun control is a good idea or not? Pick a fucking lane please!
okay i’m pretty happy over here without guns and i hope to never ever ever be close to one in my life
people are crazy and i don’t want people around me to have access to that ever
that’s correct - i’m 100% certain the police will not shoot and kill me
the power imbalance is kinda the point… there’s no good reason for the cops to pull their gun, so it’s a big deal when it happens… a few years ago the cops drew their service weapons and fired a taser in the middle of the melbourne CBD and it made national news
drawing a gun, let alone firing 1 is just so incredibly unnecessary that it’s a huge deal if it ever happens, whether it’s warranted or not… there’s literally no excuse - it’s just so unlikely that it’s “self defence” that “i thought they had a weapon” is never valid… there’s paperwork involved any time a gun is drawn, and way more any time 1 is fired
it’s not an implicit trust, it’s removing excuses as an option and trust that the country takes anything gun related extremely seriously… most aussies i know have a similar feeling toward guns as i do - what the fuck, this scares the shit out of me, because guns should be scary, and we don’t want them anywhere around us - police included
big “‘No Way To Prevent This,’ Says Only Nation Where This Regularly Happens” vibes there
Your police need guns because everyone has guns. Remove guns from the population and the police won't need them either. Our police would need guns too if the population were armed.
Take the guns off the population then you can disarm the cops too, because they won't need them.
I'm not being shortsighted, I'm trying to show you a different way that is proven to work.
No part of my post is arrogantly telling you how to run your own country.
Be all that as it may, but sweet fuck all percent of you actually vote, so what difference will it make?
I have been having arguments with idiots telling me "not voting isn't inaction" or "the lesser of two evils" is how we got to where we are now
No. Not voting is literally doing nothing. You are helping their voter suppression efforts. And we got here not because of "the lesser evil" getting worse over time but because historically we only have 40-50% voter turnout for the last few decades.
Democrats have shifted more conservative because progressives hardly vote. I say that as a progressive. If it wasn't true then Bernie would have won the primary, but he had a ton of support from young voters and then younger voters only had like 10-15% turnout.
Democrats did work together to beat Bernie, but he had overwhelming support and then very few people came to vote for him. All because the same people that mostly supported him are also the same people that think voting is pointless.
Again, I say that as someone who voted for him in the primary in 2016 and 2020. I still have my coffee mugs and fridge magnets from donating.
Also please reread what I said. I'm not saying the "lesser evil" is how we got here, I'm saying idiots think that. And voting is not the bare minimum. I'd argue it's better to vote and not donate or help than it is to donate and help then not vote. Voting is quite literally the opposite of bare minimum.
The problem is that people think they can outwit the fundamentals.
You need to vote EVERYTIME - even if it's pointless - because you need to complete the tit-for-tat exchange. If you do not complete the exchange, then you have lost all of your leverage. This is negotiation 101.
Even if you don't vote Democrat, you need to vote for someone - you cannot abstain, this is always the worst option. Voter suppression is obviously a different story, but if you're choosing not to vote, you are not suppressed.
Look at the last 35 years of awful voter turnout because those who actively choose not to vote think they can't change the system because the system is broken, therefore they do nothing to change the system. It's self defeating.
Countries that have a much higher voter turnout, proportional representation, and/or multiple choice voting didn't happen overnight. It happened because the people worked towards it when breaking away from monarchs.
By choosing not to vote because you, or others, think it's a flawed system, you are actively helping the GOP suppress your vote. You're just too naive and idealistic to realize it.
I'm not the one arguing in bad faith. You said voting for Democrats does nothing. That leaves you with voting Republican, which I know you aren't, or not voting.
You can donate to campaigns and volunteer thousands of hours. But at the end of the day when you, and millions of people that think like you do, don't vote, it doesn't matter. 90 million registered voters didn't even vote in the last election. We don't even know the number of people who could register but aren't. Plus the millions of people that don't down ballot vote.
If you want change, start pushing for it in your local elections. Vote progressive in county, city, and district elections. Build a movement and support with real evidence to show for it to potential voters.
Or just don't vote because the system is broken and it will never get fixed because I won't vote in a broken system.
Democrats aren't inspiring people to vote for them, because even when they are inspired, they don't vote. For evidence, see Bernie Sanders.
None of this was an option in the voting booth. Genocide Joe didn’t do shit about any of this and kamalacaust promised the exact same thing.
People here talk about republicans being delusional but the dems are just as bad.
How do broke people have the time or resources to organize at the national level?
Which will never happen unless at least 1 of the 2 major parties is co-opted and taken over by people who specifically want to eliminate Citizen's United, put a strong, enforceable cap on private political donations, and block corporations from donating to campaigns.
A 3rd party is never going to be successful enough to accomplish any, let alone all of that. Republicans will never get money out of politics because it benefits them too much. It hurts the Democratic Party overall, but it directly benefits the Vichy wing of collaborationists leading the party, so they won't back campaign finance reform unless the Democratic Party is wholly overtaken.
Our entire US system is set up to make it so that it is essentially (literally) impossible for a third party to win. This article gives a decent basic overview of why: https://thehill.com/opinion/campaign/4947662-why-a-third-party-presidential-candidate-can-never-win/
I am glad my state somewhat backs is claim of being independent by keeping RCV. Still voted for trump though, but at least that's something besides laying down for the party that tells us we are to stupid for ranked choice
How we vote is controlled at the state level. We don't need federal reform to change how we count votes to make 3rd parties able to participate without a spoiler effect.
Alaska has passed these reforms, so can your state. Unless of course your state representatives don't support democracy.
::: spoiler Electoral Reform Videos
First Past The Post voting (What most states use now)
Videos on alternative electoral systems
STAR voting
Alternative vote
Ranked Choice voting
Range Voting
Single Transferable Vote
Mixed Member Proportional representation :::
as long as you don't start passing anti FPTP voting laws in democratic states first, you'll be fine, you do it in democratic states and you lose votes, overwhelmingly.
Alaska is better than the rest of the country in that regard for sure. Not sure it is good enough to fix the problem entirely but definitely definitely better than how the rest of the country does it and certainly worth watching to see how it impacts things. Article did not mention more 3rd party representation but even just the racial/ gender balancing is a big improvement
It's set up so that three parties can't be viable simultaneously, but which two are viable does change periodically.
Not really. Looking at the presidential races, we have:
There has been a couple of strong showings by third parties since then, but for the most part, US politics has been Democrats vs Republicans since 1856.
Congress followed a very simmilar tragectory.
In short, of today's current 2 political parties, one of them goes all the way back to Washington stepping down, and the other one showed up in the first 70 years. Both parties survived the Civil War.
During the time since 1856, there has been several massive political realignments, but the two parties remain dominant.
I mean, last time there was a a President or control of a house of Congress from a different party was in the 1850's so I wouldn't say periodically. It has happened but it is very rare and hasn't happened in a very very long time. At this point those people saying that primaries of the current two parties are the only real way to invoke change are correct. It is far far far more effective to try to take over a primary and get a Republican or Democrat that are RINO or DINO than it is to get enough support for a third party candidate. For that to work you basically have to find someone that is more appealing to conservatives than a Republican, more appealing to Democrats than a democrat AND you have to overcome the massive funding/ name recognition/ trust (this part is getting way easier lately) in the old two.
Yeah fair points, it's possible but unlikely. Totally agree that primarying the corpos is the more realistic thing to think might actually work.
Only 69% support same sex marriage? That seems low.
It's not. 67% of the US identify as Christian. 44% of the population is Protestant and 22% Catholic.
It's honestly a miracle these numbers aren't lower. The bible says a marriage is between a man and a woman, but also to give to the poor, disabled, and orphaned. Ironically, both liberal and conservative Christians have to reject a lot of the bible to be consistent with their political beliefs. Being 'Christian' these days seems to have more to do with what parts of the bible you don't believe in than what parts you do.
The bible doesn't say marriage is between a man and a woman. In fact, the bible doesn't even say much about male homosexuality, and it says nothing about lesbian relationships. And it doesn't even say a lot about marriage at all.
You can take away from the bible that male homosexuality is sinful. It says enough to draw that conclusion. So for those Christians who try to read the Bible as an instruction manual - fair enough.
But it also says slavery is OK, which is why the very religious confederates fought a war to keep slavery.
For actual Christians who profess to follow the teachings of Jesus and the Apostles, accepting homosexuals is quite similar to rejecting slavery.
In both cases, the appeal is to the higher morality of the primary commandments (love God and love your neighbor) instead of trying to justify wickedness against the weak with an appeal to scripture - which is what the Pharisees did and what Jesus condemned.
Never saw someone explain it better than this. Kudos to you!
I agree with every single one of those except for the taking away my guns part. The second amendment is vitally important for the exact reason of what we are going through right now: the overtaking of the US government by oppressive fascists.
It doesn't say anything about taking away guns. It says gun control laws. These often include things like a waiting period to purchase a gun if you don't have your concealed weapons license. Or bans on people owning guns if they have previous convictions for assault/battery.
The first they try to do to prevent crimes of passion. Basically if someone finds out their spouse is cheating on them and they find out, they don't walk into a pawn shop, walk out immediately with a gun go shoot the person they cheated with, their spouse and then themselves. Instead the hope is that they walk into the pawn store, buy the gun, they tell them they can come back in 5 days and pick it up. And hopefully in 5 days they will have calmed down enough they have found a better way to deal with the situation. States like Florida had these rules for handguns because they are easier to conceal while shotguns and rifles you could walk out with same day. Desantis I believe changed the gun laws recently though, so idk what they are anymore. I've bought guns in Florida and Tennessee, and I always thought laws like that were reasonable.
Waiting periods are ineffective, especially against their other supposed use, suicide prevention. The likelihood of suicide (in the applicable suicidal people) is highest the day the sale completes and remains elevated for months. Besides, everyone has a bottle of [redacted] at home and a [redacted] within 5min of their house they can go to, and that second method is more effective than guns actually. (Redacted because suicide ain't cool kids, seek professional help if you're considering.) Also they don't significantly impact crimes of passion, if the guy can't get a gun he can still go OJ on them as well, and then there's the whole "he probably still wants to kill them next week if he wants to today" thing. It can help those instances, but often it doesn't. And though you mentioned it (which is rare), afaik all states that have them do so on all applicable gun purchases not just first time which is clearly ridiculous, if someone already has one the waiting period is useless. Furthermore it can also actively cause harm, think for instance a woman escaping her abusive husband and taking the kids to her mom's. If he has guns or even just a bat, and she has nothing but police 11+ min away (natl avg response time to emergencies), she may need a gun to stop her soon to be ex from family annihilating like Chris Benoit, and artificial waiting periods (artificial because it's not that they do additional background checking, the NICs clears and then your 3-10d wait begins) could prevent her from doing so and allow the husband to murder them.
Previous convictions already do come into play, but only felonies or misdemeanor domestic violence convictions. Frankly that's sorta fair (except I don't think non-violent felons should be barred, actually). I want to agree because assault and battery sounds bad even at the misdemeanor level, but in reality that could be anything from "beats Asian people up for fun" (looking at you Mark Wahlberg, he prob shouldn't have one) to "spit on a cop one time while blacked out." Like, yeah, spitting on cops is bad and stuff, but I don't think it's bad enough to warrant loss of rights for life, and I say that as a (not cop) that has been spit on, fuck that guy forever but he should still keep his rights, we were kids, we fought it out, it's fine. Both of those count as assault, for instance.
You say waiting periods are ineffective but there isn't evidence of such. You say a bottle of pills is not effective but evidence shows otherwise. Sites I see say you are 45x more likely to die from attempting suicide with a gun than with pills.
I never said a bottle of pills is not effective, just that it isn't statistically as effective as guns (though more easily/widely available), and I'm right, and your pic actually says some of that itself. (And do I need a source for my claim that OTC medicine is more commonly owned than guns? I think it's fairly self evident.)
It's the second method that is actually more effective statistically than guns (actually it may be the only more effective method widely available lol. And again, nobody out there kill yourselves, it's bad and uncool).
As to waiting periods not being effective in curbing suicides, research into california's (then 15-day) waiting period showed the potential is highest the day the sale completes, and remains high for a couple months after when they already have it. As in "suicidal man goes to buy gun, gets told to wait 15 days, waits 15 days, gets the gun, and goes home and does it, or doesn't, buuuut then next time he feels suicidal he already has one and then he does it." 15 days isn't really long enough to get people out of suicidal ideation, it likely isn't even enough time to get them to their first therapist apointment.
Nah, I read your words as saying it doesn't matter if you have a gun because everyone has pills at home. And I was saying pills aren't nearly as effective. (Must have been a miscommunication) In your next example you saved a person from committing suicide, and gave them more time to think/work out a better solution. 15 days later will he commit suicide? Maybe. But he didn't commit suicide 15 days prior. You walked him back off that cliff by taking away the cliff for 15 days. It's about hope I guess. You hope they get better in time.
Yet according to California often they don't find a solution within 15 days, they sit stewing on it until they're able to get the gun. Most suicidal people aren't just having a bad afternoon (or a bad 15 afternoons), y'know? It's usually months/years.
Sure it can slow them down and they may suddenly see the error of their ways within that 15 days, and I'm sure that has happened, but it can also stop someone who needs to protect themselves from a stalker/abuser and I'm sure that has happened as well.
Honestly the only way I can see it helping is if they let their plot to harm themselves or others slip and someone does something about it like an adjudicated IVC within those 3-10 (it's no longer 15) days, which is unlikely, but I'm sure that has happened as well.
I mean realistically what is you owning a gun gonna do against a drone strike or whatever other tech the military has? The only way a revolution happens in the modern day is if the military lets it. I can definitely see the value in guns for protection against paramilitary groups trying to go after people but beyond that guns aren't gonna stop the US government from doing fascist stuff if the military is on their side.
Edit: Also at a certain point if you're actively fighting and resisting against the government getting access to guns even if they are illegal isn't gonna be the biggest problem you have.
All of that tech is reliant on logistics. People in trucks, moving stuff from where it is, to where it will be used.
With guns, that logistics network is vulnerable.
The Russians spent 10 years fighting Afghan resistance, and lost. The US spent 20 years fighting Afghan resistance, and lost. The American civilian populace is much better equipped than Afghani fighters ever were. Any forceful defeat of the American populace will require civil disarmament.
guerilla warfare is still helped by having weapons and is probably still somewhat effective against a military that doesn't want indiscriminate slaughter of civilians.
I mean I would make an argument that it's a lot easier to convince soldiers to shoot down civilians if they're armed versus unarmed. So while it might help with guerilla resistance it most likely wouldnt really help towards the ultimate goal of overthrowing a fascist regime.
Americans would not be fighting alone in such a case.
Untrained unequipped combatants in the Middle East have killed over 20,000 US soldiers in the last 25 years so not sure your point stands
And yet at least in Afghanistan the US propped up government wasn't overthrown until the US military left. Like I said in another comment you can do damage but you're not gonna successfully overthrow the government unless you get the military to defect or let you do it. Combine this with the other points I made that even if guns are illegal you can definitely still acquire them and that gun control is the only way we can combat mass shootings and gun violence and I don't see the positives from being able to own guns outweighing the negatives.
Could I get the right to bear nukes?
If you become powerful enough to have them, and get them, you have given yourself the right to have them.
Yes the ukranians should just give up their guns too, since they're useless against FPVs and GRADS right? I mean, c'mon, Russia has BMPs, what're you gonna do with your AK?
/that one cool S.
I mean resisting an invading force is much different than attempting to overthrow your own government. Sure you can cause some damage but at the end of the day the only way you're actually overthrowing your government is if the military defects in large enough numbers or lets you do it. Also if you're at the point of violently resisting your government then you're already breaking the law so acquiring guns illegally isn't gonna be the biggest hurdle you have to face. I can't imagine it was legal for the IRA to have guns but they still got them anyways. And at a certain point you need gun control otherwise we're going to continue to have the problem of mass shootings and gun violence in general.
Are there differences? Yes.
Are rifles effective in both cases? Yes.
The efficacy of rifles isn't dependant on the nationality of your adversary.
I'm not saying it's different because of nationality, I'm saying one of those conflicts is a defensive war against a stronger force. Where as what was being talked about is more of a resistance or revolution against an already established government. They are different kinds of conflicts and at least in modern times we haven't really seen revolutions succeed in large countries with sophisticated militaries without the support of the military or that military eventually deciding to leave in the case or the US in the Middle East. And since this would be happening in the US the military isn't just going to give up so you need them to actually switch sides or let you win to actually win and stop the fascists. And at least my personal opinion is having guns and using them tends to make it easier to justify to the military to kill you compared to if you're an unarmed protestor.
Pacifism is a noble cause, sure. Have fun with that. I for one think having rifles is better than having no rifles, and history shows that to be true. Sure, the larger force often wins against rifles, but it always wins against nothing.
How did Afghanistan turn out?
And yet, from outside USA looking in, I can clearly see that the moment has come and passed without a single gun owner doing anything. Keep polishing I guess.
From the inside looking out I’d say everyone is still in disbelief and denial that things are as bad as they truly are and that is the reason for the lack of action. And I don’t think it’s too late.
I’m rooting for you.
You're going to hand over your guns without making a fuss the microsecond that the gestapo knock on your door, and you know it.
Absolutely officer, that's all the guns.
The liberal gestapo or the conservative one?
Yes
Then why didn't they fucking vote for it?
Because people don't vote on policy, they vote on personality and vibes. It's how it's always been. This list of policies is (mostly) just a copypasta of the Democratic platform. But people have never voted that way. The Democrats put forth the crypt keeper, then replaced him with one of the most boring public speakers to come out of the Democratic Party in a generation. And they were running against someone who is a horrific fascist, yes, but also has stage presences and charisma and knows how to play to an audience. As much as he's one of the worst people on the planet, Trump knows how to make himself entertaining to watch.
That's what drives votes for politically disengaged people who don't pay attention to politics until the middle of October every 4 years. They listen to who is more entertaining and pretend like that candidate is telling them what they want to hear, regardless of whether or not he is.
Not in this universe
Either this poll is wrong or people just didn't vote hard enough. I hope it's the latter
The data in the poll is correct, but people don't vote on policy. The problem is that OP is framing voters as hyper rational people who sit down to form a long list of their policy preferences, then examine each candidate and select the one that best aligns with themself.
Nobody, and I mean NOBODY, votes like that, and they never have. They look at the candidates and pick the one that's more entertaining/has better vibes, then justify their support by either changing or disregarding their personal policy preferences, or (more often) convincing themself that the candidate supports whatever they support, regardless of the candidate's stated positions.
Lol I do. Every time I vote I look up each candidate to see what they're about.
You think you do... And it probably contributes heavily to your decision making, but you're still human, and your subconscious does influence you on the other factors.
How do you vote for judges? They don't have any political affiliations so you kinda have to go based off of their rulings and whatever it is you see online.
Imma press 'x' to doubt....
Because none of this was an option. Genocide Joe didn't do shit about any of this and kamalacaust promised the exact same thing.
So instead the better choice was to vote for or tacitly support by not voting against, the enthusiastic genocide proponent?
If you live in a first past the post system it makes sense to vote for harm reduction.
If you are fortunate enough to live in a proportional representation system there is no reason to compromise.
But they didn't vote for either of the enthusiastic genocide proponents
Imagine genuinely thinking like this and not being able to see the difference here.
It’s like being an edgy 14 year old. Either too young to feel the difference between such policies or too privileged to notice the difference.
Drop the anti-gun arguments; they aren't based on reality.
It's a lot easier to unite people if we have a cohesive plan for what happens after we win.
Agreed.
With all the pushback against those anti-gun arguments, it should be obvious that including them is an impediment to "cohesion".
Such a party should have rejecting corporate/foreign/etc money as part of its platform. Also candidates should be barred from owning stock.
Too many people have 401k for no stock ownership to make sense.
They could roll it over into commodities or bonds.
There are still the sellout parties for those people.
Yup. Vote for a turd taco or a shit sandwich. That's all we get the choice for anymore.
I appreciate and agree with the sentiment, but I think a call to form an entirely new political party demonstrates a naivety with regards to how the American political system works. It's just not going to happen. A third party will NEVER displace one of the two major parties without massive changes to the electoral system that would likely require a Constitutional Amendment.
Our system and political culture is just not structured to allow for 3rd parties. What's more, the 2 major parties have ingrained themselves into the system so much that they have MASSIVE institutional advantages over a 3rd party.
This will never be a successful effort. I think a better goal would be to co-opt and take over the Democratic Party, booting out all the Vichy collaborationists like Schumer, Jefferies, Newsom, Adams, Pelosi, etc, and remaking the party.
With a new 3rd party, best case scenario is it has 0 impact. If it does get any votes, it'll just divide the anti-fascist vote with the Democrats (and any other 3rd parties) making it even more difficult to win.
"Democracy will just never work, the king won't allow it"
That's not what I'm saying at all. I'm saying play the game to win. Don't start with a losing strategy.
What I'm saying is that you shouldn't lose sight of the big things that need to change in order to work with compromises. Take gerrymandering for example, or better yet the whole Electoral College concept. That is one of those things that will require massive changes including to the constitution. So what? Everyone know it's an obsolete oppressive fucked up system, and that it has no reason to exist today except for the fact that it benefits those who have the power to change it. Isn't proper representation in government a big part of American identity? Are you going to fight for it, and be the beacon of freedom for the rest of the world you always want to be?
The voting for any third party is bad because it "steals" votes from the "real" parties argument just ensures that this two-party system never changes. As long as every American keeps repeating this, it will be true.
Time has passed since 1789. The world is slightly different from then. The Constitution has already changed to keep up with it - and there's no reason it shouldn't again.
Again, you're missing the point. I'm not debating the overall end goal. I'm talking about the strategy to achieve it.
Just saying "the Electoral College is bad, so let's get rid of it" is fine, but it's not a strategy to make it happen. That's a goal. What is the strategy to make it happen?
Likewise, just listing off a set of popular policies and saying "let's make a new party" isn't a strategy to actually achieving those goals. I'm not saying that voting for a 3rd party is bad because it "steals" votes from a major party. I'm saying it's bad because it's an effectual strategy to achieving the goal of enacting the policies in OP's post.
You're absolutely right that the 2 party system sucks and that the Democrats are awful. But, again, that's not a strategy to achieve your goals. Like it or not, but none of us will ever break the 2-party system by forming a new party or complaining about how bad it is.
If you compare, say, the Democratic Party of the 1920s to the Democratic Party of the 1960s, they're drastically different, almost diametrically opposed to each other on nearly every policy. Likewise if you compare the GOP of the 1950s to the GOP of the 1980s. Or the Democratic Party of the 1970s to the Democratic Party of the 200s. Or the GOP of the 2000s to the GOP today. How did those changes happen?
In every single instance it happened not by a new 3rd party forming or outside agitators pushing the parties. It happened because a fringe element of the party enacted an organized push in the primaries to co-opt the party, won a convincing general election victory, then strongarmed the rest of the party into ideological compliance. That's how parties change in the US, not by being supplanted by a new party. You want a real, left-wing progressive party? Get behind a massive push to primary key Democratic leadership (I call them the Vichy caucus), win a general election, then strongarm the party into compliance.
I'm not missing your point, we just have different perspectives. I'm just an outsider, I'm not talking about strategies to get there - which I guess is my fault for not noticing what community this was posted in :)
Call me an idealist if you want, but to me the sentence "none of us will ever break the 2-party system by forming a new party" just honestly doesn't make any sense. How else are you going to do it? It might be "none of you" in the sense of regular Joes, but "fringe elements" have been transforming history since forever. I'm just saying, don't stop dreaming, start from the future you want, then be realistic and make compromises on the way there. Don't be fooled into thinking systems are immutable and eternal :)
The system isn't immutable, it just has protected itself very well from any third party breaking the system as it is. We will get a third party, or more, and end things like first past the post and Citizens United much faster by taking over the Dems than by trying to get a third party to have plurality support. It's simply unrealistic to keep bashing our heads on a wall that is more likely to continue to cement the system against us, instead of changing the system in an achievable way.
AOC, Bernie, and a great number of the young Dems are ready to take over the party. There is broad support to kick out the appeasement supporters and change the party to start making changes. The harder we try to gain third party support right now, the more entrenched the current establishment gets. We've seen this happen for decades. The support for ending the two party system and things like Citizens United is bipartisan, but mostly Democrat voters, meaning Republicans will change more and more rules and make the system more and more unfair. We don't have the generations it will take to bring third party support to where it would need to be. That's generations of Republican power subverting the system. We need to change it now.
I don't think systems are immutable. That's exactly my point. They are, but you have to have a strategy that can actually accomplish it. Systems aren't changed by people just dreaming of a better one. They're changed by motivated people executing a successful strategy.
I think we have the opposite going on here - the conservatives are breaking the system in such a way, that it must change. This is the big chance for a 3rd party to destroy the old guard, simply because the old guard is being incredibly dumb and greedy with their own overhaul.
It is simply a question of who can offer the better future. The wealthy dudes who are going to kill grandma by taking away her medicine and money, or the nice lady who wants granny to live a long and decent life?
I would argue it isn't a losing strategy at all though.
If people start campaigning and supporting a third-party right now, there's actually a shot to win some house seats and local elections next year. That would also be the best time to try, since Repubs have majority of every branch anyways.
After winning local, then they can think senate. Remember that capitalism was only controlled in the 1950s because it feared communism. If you do not pose any threat (even if it is an empty one), they simply will not listen.
No, there isn't. We're heading into a midterm where a lot of the typically disengaged public will be afraid and in strong opposition to the incumbent party. That's going to draw a lot of people towards the Democrats, and there will be a strong "Blue no matter who" push to convince people to vote strategically. The Democratic establishment will be fighting even harder against any third parties they might see as spoilers than they will be against the GOP.
You're right that the upcoming midterms present a great opportunity, but it's not in a third party. It's in a primary push. Rather than talking about a 3rd party that has almost no chance at materializing and even less chance at winning, all our effort should be put towards convincing people they need to show up in the primaries and vote for the most anti-establishment, most left-wing Democratic primary candidates they can.
That's where the real opportunity lies. Primaries get such an incredibly small voter turnout that a relative handful of voters can swing primaries. Then, once a real leftist progressive wins the primary, the whole force of anti-fascist electoral politics will be behind them in the general. It'll be easy to paint any Republican as a fascist, which will make it easy to frame any Democrat as a rational choice, regardless how far left they may be. When that progressive is the ONLY alternative to GOP fascists on the ballot, they'll have a much easier time of winning.
Get people who don't normally vote and who hate Democratic leadership/establishment to vote in the primaries. Run progressives in the primaries. Take over the party. That's the only way this could work.
I think this is a "walk and chew gum" situation. We can do both.
For the sake of transparency, I am not a Dem. But I do find it beyond criminal that Dems (even if it's grassroots) has not whipped up an organization to both threaten a third-party AND primary Dems.
This also gives Dems diversification in strategy. The opposition will now have to counter two potential threats while protecting home-court. It really makes too much sense.
But unfortunately Dems are allergic to winning. This is not even to shit on you (you are probably not a Dem whip), but just an observation I've had. It's always 0 or 100, and highly telegraphed strategy. No precision, no timing, no urgency - just losers.
I think trying to both primary Vichy Democrats and run a 3rd party bid at the same time would be enormously counter-productive.
i love it. last year we were told to go get so-called "third party" candidates into office. now we're being told it's unrealistic in an off-year. it's never the right time to get rid of the democratic party.
I never told anyone to get third party candidates elected. Whoever told you that was either maliciously giving you bad advice or is clueless as to how the American electoral political system works.
maybe you personally didn't, but every time that somebody mentioned Jill Stein or Cornel West or de La Cruz, they were told that they weren't viable because they didn't have any support in Congress or other elected positions, so you have to vote for other people for president.
like I said, it's never the right time to get rid of the Democratic party.
I mean, this but unironically. What happens when your elected representatives are stripped of their political authority? What point is there in going through the motions of a vote when an appointee or a lifetime judge can overrule it? How much power do democracies have in a society that's been privatized and commodities to the Nth degree?
Yep. If you try to play by the rules, you'll end up finding out you can do nothing at all.
It's difficult, not impossible.
I actually did an in-depth analysis of this over here in lemmy.world/c/progressivepolitics.
TL;DR version:
It would take roughly 1.1 million signatures to get on the ballot in every single state. That's just .05% of registered voters.
It would require building a local infrastructure to support state ballot access, but it's doable. There's a void in state and local politics that progressive candidates can fill, and if there's a unified party organization backing them, there's a real opportunity to take the ground the the democrats have surrendered.
Is it naïveté, anymore, if we keep having to reiterate this fundamental facet of our political structure going on 3 decades, now?
Naïveté or willful ignorance. Either way, a new 3rd party won't accomplish anything useful.
Entirely agreed.
https://xkcd.com/927/
Lol. This was exactly what I was going to post.
Me% would love it if everyone were able to attend higher education. History gets sugarcoated in grade school. Once you make it to college, you get to learn all the good stuff.
Also, c'mon! Everyone in my community pays at least $10,000.00 a year in taxes but somehow that's not enough to patch up all the holes on the road.
I'll be real with you, in depth WWII history should be taught in high school, as well as political spectrums like dictatorships. Where I'm from, I saw images of concentration camp victims when I was 15, in class. I saw how starved they were in pictures and in videos. Saw the piles of clothes, shoes, tooth fillings, etc. Saw the camps themselves and Hitler speeches that we studied. We were presented the US anti-propaganda film, "Don't Be A Sucker" as well to home in how dangerous dictator cult speeches are.
It did affect me a lot to learn about these things and the harsh reality of human cruelty, but it was also a good lesson to ingrain in us kids. Repeating this is a worse nightmare than being educated about it. I'm always shocked when I meet Americans that got the bare minimum education on WWII with 0 understanding of the how it happened. It's actually shocking.
Yes, exactly. We should do this. All I'm adding is that anyone that goes to higher education...people who can become leaders with a lot of intellectual power....engineers, scientists, etc.... That they should known not to allow their knowledge to be misused for war purposes, for cruelty or for giving a single person the keys to everything.
Maybe the actual solution is not lying to and brainwashing children.
But my brainwashing is the right way! /$
If that's true why did the majority let the minority lead the way, are they dumb?
Yes. Americans are fucking stupid.
The RNC and GOP claim to hold every position on every stance and talk about outcomes which will never come from the policies they actually write. The American Public doesn't know jack shit about policies or vote history.
So the GOP consistently outnumber the DNC every year for over 10 years. Even when DNC pick majority leader it has been because of caucusing Independents.
You can just keep winning if you just keep lying.
If you just vote for the individual policies we say we want in this poll, then you're throwing your vote away!
Because none of this was an option. Genocide Joe didn’t do shit about any of this and kamalacaust promised the exact same thing.
I voted for Cornell West in a state where my vote doesn't matter for shit. So yeah people can vote for this stuff but they're just "throwing their vote away".
Meh, I'm guessing there already is some small party that ticks all those boxes. I'm guessing independents, or some random party could win certain local races if the Dem and Rep are both very unpopular, and the media gives them air time (that may be hard). Unfortunately, I don't think the next presidential election will be valid election, and I don't think the state-level elections in red states will be valid either. Having other parties can be useful for getting messaging out (again, if the media gives them air-time), but the country looks like it's going full fascist, which will probably need mass direct action, or war, to unseat.
Any party that tries to be created with populism but ignores the materialist analyist of how we got to this point and how to combat reactionary thinking and regressivism (which is conservatism, which is why its a universal flaw) will only fall to the same tactics and pitfalls that have led us to this division in the first place. We need a true worker's parry that understands that division of power and group interests lay on class lines (capitalists vs workers) and not on any of the manufacturered scapegoat ones. Progressive ideas are popular yes, but they need to come with actual systematic analysis or they will just morph into right-wing populism through lack of critical thinking and bad actors.
I believe this will achieve exactly nothing. The whole system is rigged against the people, neither the republicans nor the democrats (aside from a few sore thumbs) work for the interest of the people. And you can bet you're bottom dollar if there ever was a new political party the democrats and republicans will work hand-in-hand to prevent this new party from taking power.
I'm not sure if people too lazy to vote in a primary to get progressive candidates on the ballot are going to put in the immense amount of effort to create a new political party.
Too bad the dems have co-opted and derailed all of these issues.
If only we had a progressive Senator and Congresswoman to lead this new party.
Can working families be that?
Wfp
Aside from everything else, only 55% want universal healthcare and only 76% want higher minimum wages? That seems surprisingly low. I would think that everyone would want higher wages - starting from the lowest paid...
I'm not sold on this 3rd party idea. I think that's what it's going to take, but I dunno.
I just want a universal basic income, medicare for all, an end to trickle down economics, and everyone gets a free puppy or kitten. I don't think any 3rd party that supports of that would get traction because everyone who lacks empathy will make sure that doesn't happen.
I think we should be making the dems fear us too.
Shooting ceos and burning tesla seems to be the only way to get heard now. I don't want to advocate for violence, but when I see dems being friendly with Republicans it fills me with dispare and hopelessness, they are the most well equipped people to do something and they treat it like another day in the office. I was so mad when Harris shook trump's hand like 'to bad about the peasants, but good game!'
I am not stupid enough to think both sides are the same, but they are not really different either.
Edit: and so people don't think I am signaling out Harris, I was pissed off when Walz said he could friends with Vance. Of course that fat cancerous blob of shit could be friends with the neo monarchist.
Not fixing it. She doesn't deserve the effort.
If there are so many people thinking this way, then where are they? Where are the mass protests about rights being trampled, services being taken away and converted into money for the rich?
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Most didn't. Only ~23% of the population voted for him.
And yet you all vote for two right wing parties if you even go.