Even Bernie didn't vote third party when it counted.
1y 7mon ago by lemmy.world/u/SatansMaggotyCumFart in politicalmemes
A third party has literally no chance to win in our system, and nobody gives a single fuck about the miniscule amount of votes they do get - you're not moving any metrics, or sending any messages, or taking any stands. All you're doing is helping the worse option win.
So, if you truly hate Palestinians, then by all means vote Stein. If you want to see Ukraine taken over, then please vote Stein. If you want to see our country start murdering every version of queer people, then you really should vote Stein. That's all you're going to get for it.
Whether you like to see the truth or not, a vote for a third party is still a vote for genocide.
And abstaining a vote is... still a vote for genocide. People need to get over this desire to make believe that voting makes them complicit in something and instead realize that it's a cold and rational duty. Vote for the best outcome possible. What you do the remaining 364 days of the year will decide your complicity.
So much of this dialogue appears to boil down to "America is a fascist country and everyone in it supports fascist policies no matter what they say or do".
Vote Republican: You're for genocide. Vote Dem: You're for genocide. Third Party: Genocide. Write-In: Genocide. Abstain: Genocide. Protest Outside Your Polling Booth: Genocide.
What you do the remaining 364 days of the year will decide your complicity.
Fateful last words of Thomas Matthew Crooks
"Wait, I can support genocide while pretending I'm not a Nazi??"
- Diet Racists
Who in your scenario is supporting genocide exactly?
Low-key Nazis who vote third party just so they can later claim they didn't vote for Trump? Idk, I hadn't really thought that far into it. I mean, the guy down the road from me took down his swastika when he put up his "I stand with Israel" sign, but now his yard is covered in 50000 Trump signs, so I'm guessing he's not voting third party...
That is exactly what a lot of people here are doing yes.
They can say they vote third party, while hoping Trump wins.
miniscule amount of votes they do get - you're not moving any metrics
If that's true then why do you care? It's a miniscule amount that's not moving anything.
Let's build some towers out of blocks and see whose is biggest!
The Dem tower is 48 blocks tall. The GOP Tower is 49 blocks tall. The 3rd party tower is 3 blocks tall. That 3 block tower isn't enough to win, but if they stacked onto the Dem tower, that's the difference between 4 years of status quo and 4 years of fascism.
Aren't there other blocks that could be stacked on the Dem tower?
Where?
At the undecided pile.
That's the 3 blocks
The Green votes are as much votes—i.e. are as decided—as the Democrat and Republican votes.
The undecided pile has 10s of blocks.
The undecided voters who keep finding reasons that the appeasement isn't good enough?
I suppose for some of them, yes.
Most of the ones I've interacted with.
You're funny if you think it will be 4 years of fascism. It will be the new status quo.
That was the intended implication. Fascism is not known for reservation.
There are only 9 blocks that matter and 6 of them are in the GOP Tower.
Seems to me that the 48 blocks could also be moved to the 3 blocks, and that might be less convenient but then it wouldn't just be 4 more years of the same deteriorating status quo that produced Trump in the first place.
that might be less convenient
Bit of an understatement there, don't you think? That convincing 80 million people to switch their vote to an inexperienced and unproven spoiler candidate with questionable motives and vague policy proposals, with 2 weeks before the election, might be less convenient than convincing a rounding error of voters to vote strategically according to their own stated goals? It would be fair then to say that planets might be a bit bigger than protons, and WWII may have been a bit of a kerfuffle.
Don't get me wrong, I've been known to indulge, recreationally, in impossibly improbable fantasies. I think we all do from time to time. I'm no lover of the status quo, I yearn unironically for fully automated luxury gay space communism. It's certainly titillating to imagine the people collectively gaining class consciousness and walking to the polls arm in arm to vote "The Proletariat" for President in a landslide. Buuut...
I've worked various customer service roles, I believe anyone who has can corroborate the surprising prevalence of, shall I say, simpletons in the general population. As valid as your policy positions may be, the average American has the attention span of a TV ad and the political depth of a celebrity tweet.
Do you have an actionable plan to spontaneously educate and persuade 80 million people in under 2 weeks? If so, why have you waited until now to suggest it? We could've had the revolution years ago.
As fun as the fantasies are, there are lives at stake. In serious circumstances, I prefer not to gamble on historically unsuccessful schemes. Identify the options available to you and their consequences. What levers of power do you hold, how long are they and where is their fulcrum?
It's not enough to just try stuff that sounds good and hope it works, well-intended actions have unintended consequences. What evidence suggests converting half the voting population in 2 weeks is remotely conceivable?
In two weeks, no, it's not conceivable. But in the long term, there are only three possibilities: the democrats move left to meet us, or, people move to a new party, or, the system decays into fascism. The democrats will never move to meet us if we support them unconditionally, so the way I see it, voting third party works towards both of those aims at once.
The country is in decline and has been for quite some time. The policies that I advocate for are necessary to stop that decline. As long as Democrats both paint themselves as defenders of the status quo and refuse to do what's necessary for the status quo to actually work for people, it's a losing proposition, and one that will only get worse over time. And that's a problem, because the biggest faction that positions itself as critical of the status quo, and is therefore posed to take advantage of deteriorating conditions, is a right-wing one. Therefore, to accept merely clinging to the status quo as the only option is the same as accepting defeat - it isn't a viable approach. Building a third party is unlikely to win this particular election, but at least it is part of a strategy that could theoretically work to stop fascism.
In any case, I will not be moved from my position by any amount of words. Either the Dems can give the concessions necessary to move me, or the 80 million can join me over here, or they can win or lose without me. Am I being obstinate? Yes. But I am being obstinate for a reason, because my positions have to happen, or we'll all be fucked regardless.
there are only three possibilities: the democrats move left to meet us, or, people move to a new party, or, the system decays into fascism.
Correct! Now let's consider these possibilities, from the perspective of a person who wants to accomplish a goal with their actions:
A new party is the best option, but it will take time to build. That's gonna look like several election cycles of local and state elections.
I'm the meantime, there is the immediate threat of the system decaying into fascism. If that happens, the new party is doomed anyway, so we need to delay the fascism as much as possible while we get members of the new party elected to lower offices so they can build the experience, skills, and connections necessary to implement their superior policies.
Naturally, we come again to the only rational strategy for a disgruntled leftist: vote Dem every election to buy time until the new party is viable. Jill Stein is not a serious candidate and very possibly an deliberate spoiler bankrolled by Russia. West is not a serious candidate. De la Cruz seems sincere, but she lacks the experience to be a serious candidate; try Governor or Congress first before applying for President.
The democrats will never move to meet us if we support them unconditionally, so the way I see it, voting third party works towards both of those aims at once.
I didn't see it the way you see it, in fact I think you might have something in your eye because there is no evidence that voting third party accomplished any stated goal, and in fact makes the problems worse.
The country is in decline and has been for quite some time. The policies that I advocate for are necessary to stop that decline.
I sympathize, but your strategy does not implement your policies faster, it in fact pushes them further away. You're right that we need a new party, but it's too late this cycle, and the fascists winning may mean it never happens. A vote for Harris is a vote for 4 more years of status quo while we do the real work locally.
In any case, I will not be moved from my position by any amount of words. Either the Dems can give the concessions necessary to move me, or the 80 million can join me over here, or they can win or lose without me. Am I being obstinate? Yes. But I am being obstinate for a reason
Yikes. I'm glad your life is stable enough to gamble with fascism to appease your own obstinance, but however noble your reasons, this strategy is counterproductive. People will suffer so you can say you were stubborn in the face of overwhelming evidence against your strategy.
Time is not on our side. In four years, no matter who wins, the rich will be richer, the poor will be poorer, the climate crisis will be worse, and more and more money will be funneled into the military. "Buying time" is not a valid goal, especially not when it comes at the expense of efforts to actually build an alternative. In four years, anyone looking to build an alternative is going to face the exact same criticisms you're using now, it will again be "the most important election of our lives" and there's a good chance that the republican candidate will be worse than Trump, and more people will have turned to the right out of dissatisfaction with deteriorating conditions. Why on earth should we put off building an alternative when future conditions will just make it worse and harder without removing any of the issues that make you say that right now is "an inconvenient time?" When will it be the right time to start building a third party?
I didn’t see it the way you see it, in fact I think you might have something in your eye because there is no evidence that voting third party accomplished any stated goal, and in fact makes the problems worse.
Of course not, because they haven't been built yet. That's like saying that there's no evidence that liberalism could ever work when monarchy was all people knew. What we do know is that the people in power are fundamentally unwilling or unable to address the problems that are leading to the rise of fascism, and therefore must be replaced.
Yikes. I’m glad your life is stable enough to gamble with fascism to appease your own obstinance
Stable enough to gamble with fascism? No, it's the opposite. It's precarious enough that I insist on taking a strategy that has a nonzero chance of actually stopping fascism rather than accepting it as an inevitability.
Time is not on our side. In four years, no matter who wins, the rich will be richer, the poor will be poorer, the climate crisis will be worse, and more and more money will be funneled into the military.
Correct!
"Buying time" is not a valid goal, especially not when it comes at the expense of efforts to actually build an alternative.
That logic does not follow. Buying time is an imperative intermediate goal.
In four years, anyone looking to build an alternative is going to face the exact same criticisms you're using now, it will again be "the most important election of our lives" and there's a good chance that the republican candidate will be worse than Trump, and more people will have turned to the right out of dissatisfaction with deteriorating conditions.
Yes, that's the meme. The time to be talking about third parties is not 2 weeks before the election, it's the day after the election, and consistently for the next 3 years. Anyone trying to build an alternative in 4 years deserves the criticism they get. Build the alternative the whole time.
Why on earth should we put off building an alternative when future conditions will just make it worse and harder without removing any of the issues that make you say that right now is "an inconvenient time?" When will it be the right time to start building a third party?
No one said to put off building alternatives. The current alternatives aren't viable, and voting for them not only doesn't help, it hurts. Again, as per the meme, the right time is any time except right before an election without any viable third parties. Buy time in 2024, build in 2025-2027, buy time in 2028, build in 2029-2031, repeat until we have a candidate with Governor/Senator experience and enough of Congress to get past gridlock.
It's precarious enough that I insist on taking a strategy that has a nonzero chance of actually stopping fascism rather than accepting it as an inevitability.
Incorrect unfortunately, your strategy's chance of stopping fascism is much closer to zero than mine. In fact, the strategy you insist on taking actually has a much higher chance of enabling fascism than stopping it.
Yes, that’s the meme. The time to be talking about third parties is not 2 weeks before the election, it’s the day after the election, and consistently for the next 3 years. Anyone trying to build an alternative in 4 years deserves the criticism they get. Build the alternative the whole time.
I didn't start supporting a third party candidate 2 weeks before the election. If you spend the next three years building a third party and then ditch them at the last minute, then what was the point? That makes absolutely zero sense, it's even less coherent than just unconditionally and uncritically supporting the democrats forever. Why would I tell other people to vote for a third party for three years and then suddenly change my messaging and vote for the democrats and then switch back to telling people to vote third party right after? If you actually think through that at all, what you're saying is incoherent.
Incorrect unfortunately, your strategy’s chance of stopping fascism is much closer to zero than mine. In fact, the strategy you insist on taking actually has a much higher chance of enabling fascism than stopping it.
Incorrect, my strategy has a low, but nonzero chance of stopping fascism, while yours is zero.
If you spend the next three years building a third party and then ditch them at the last minute, then what was the point?
To get a candidate 3 years closer to being viable, you know you don't have to start over every 4 years. It's going to take several election cycles before we have a qualified third party candidate.
Why would I tell other people to vote for a third party for three years and then suddenly change my messaging and vote for the democrats and then switch back to telling people to vote third party right after?
That's a silly thing to do, and not something I recommended. Don't do that. Do promote third parties in local races they can actually win, as well as state elections in solid states where they can actually win. Once you have enough of those to have presidential candidates with actual experience, then, with sufficiently positive polling data, start pushing for a popular third party candidate.
That's going to be at least 3 election cycles though, and if you fool around like this every 4 years it may well be a moot point. What good is a third party if the fascists end elections? Any other strategy is incoherent. Unless of course your goal is to split the vote for the benefit of the fascists, then promoting a spoiler candidate is exactly aligned with your goal.
Incorrect, my strategy has a low, but nonzero chance of stopping fascism, while yours is zero.
My strategy is to buy time while we build a functional and electable third party that has the means to change the status quo. Your strategy is to throw away votes on a non-functional candidate, and in the process accelerate the fascist takeover.
I'm not gonna nuh-uh-yuh-huh with someone who doesn't understand elections, or the trolley problem.
Voting isn't analogous to the trolley problem. That's a thought experiment with a huge number of unrealistic simplifying assumptions that makes it only rarely at all applicable to the real world. To make the trolley problem actually reflect the situation of voting, you'd have to add in so many variables that it wouldn't actually help explain anything.
First off, the comparison isn't valid because it treats the parties as unflinching machines that have no agency. In reality, the electoral process is a negotiation in which the parties attempt to build coalitions, and in a negotiation, accepting the other side's position as ironclad and unmovable is a choice and often a bad one. If the other party is committed to being reasonable, then you can offer them a terrible deal that is only slightly better than what they would get otherwise - it is a position of weakness.
You, as well as the democratic party, want to put people like me into that position of weakness where our decisions are the ones that are most scrutinized and up for critique, but it ought to be the opposite. Democracy is about the will of the voters being exercised on the political process, not the will of a party being pushed onto the voters. If you wanted the trolley problem to reflect this, then you'd have to put someone in the problem who is standing by the alternate track who put the person there on the tracks and is fully able to release them at any time, but chooses not to, while also trying to persuade you to switch tracks, which would also put them in a position of power. Negotiating with that person and demanding they release their victim is a reasonable thing to do which complicates the problem.
The hypothetical also isn't valid because it ignores any alternatives. The reality is that there's more than two tracks that the lever can switch to, and some of them don't have any people on them at all. However, there's not just your lever, but 300 million levers involved. And also, it's not just one trolley problem, but repeated ones over and over, and the results of one trolley problem are used to inform the next one. As I said, when you add in all the meaningful differences between the hypothetical and reality, it becomes just as complicated as reality and fails to be useful.
As for just focusing on local elections - the fact of the matter is that local elections don't get nearly the same level of attention as presidential elections. Promoting third parties in the presidential race is conducive to helping them win local elections because it helps publicize them, and it makes up the vast majority of what people actually talk about. Ignoring the presidential race would mean sitting on the sidelines and ignoring virtually every political conversation, which is not an effective means of advancing a political cause.
Tbh, I'm very skeptical that you actually want anything like the same things that I want. There's this pervasive trend among the democratic party and their surrogates to simply accept whatever values or goals a constituent wants, and to simply focus on how voting democrat will help accomplish that goal - to be everything to everyone, in other words. In this case, what I want is for the democratic party to be unseated and replaced, and you're going along with that while trying to argue that the most effective means of accomplishing that is to vote democrat. I find that pretty absurd. No, the most effective way of advancing the goal of a third party replacing them is to vote for that third party, and that should be extremely obvious to anyone.
After reading that, I still can't think of a more concise or accurate response:
I'm not gonna nuh-uh-yuh-huh with someone who doesn't understand elections, or the trolley problem.
You don't understand the purpose of the trolley problem, and you don't understand how elections functionally work. To add to that, you also don't seem to understand how communication works either.
the most effective way of advancing the goal of a third party replacing them is to vote for that third party, and that should be extremely obvious to anyone.
Just because something is obvious to a simpleton does not mean it is correct. Science is overflowing with examples of this, where the conclusion that's "obvious to anyone" for centuries was actually very wrong, often times so wrong that the solutions it generated actually made things worse. It's obvious to anyone that water puts out fire, until they throw water on a grease fire. "Voting third party in a FPTP post elections helps third parties win" is one of those conclusions. It's like water on the grease fire of encroaching fascism.
I can't possibly know what your political goals are. You could either be a sincere but woefully misguided leftist whose end goals are indeed roughly aligned with my own, or you could be a competent fascist sowing confusion among the leftists to help fascism win; your arguments are equally well explained by either.
I generally like to be charitable with my assumptions of the intelligence of others, but on the off chance that you really are just a bumbling leftist unwittingly holding the rest of us back, I'll leave you with one example:
Ralph Nader, 2000. I'm sure he meant well (can't say the same for Jill Stein) but polling shows, definitively, that had he sat out the race we would've had Gore instead of Bush. Instead of comprehensive responses to climate change, a balanced budget, and expanded funding for education and healthcare, we got another perpetual war in the middle east, the Patriot Act, tax cuts for the rich, Roberts and Alito, and the 2008 financial crisis. And oh yeah, support for the Green Party has gone down since Nader, so the inefficacy of building support for third parties this way is obvious.
I know when you're young, simple straightforward solutions seem obvious. But once you actually interact with people and situations in the world with some frequency, you'll learn that this is rarely the case outside of trivially simple problems. This is not a trivially simple problem, and the trivially simple solution has not been working at all for the past 40 years. The trivially simple solution helped give us GWB and Trump.
I have nothing but support for those Green candidates who have been elected Mayor, City Council, etc. The sooner we see those City Councilors become Mayors in big numbers, and see those Mayors become Governors and Senators and House Reps, the closer we'll be to a seasoned representative who can convince the voting population that they're capable of the job of President. Right now, you're trying to elect a candy striper as Head of Surgery.
what I want is for the democratic party to be unseated and replaced
You can technically get that, if the opposition party with a record and stated goals of obstructing, overturning, and straight up bypassing elections beats the Democratic party this year and follows their stated game plan. We'll have one glorious, unquestionable MAGA party, Democrats will be excised from office, and you may never have to worry about who to vote for again.
Now, if your goal is to unseat both sides of the duopoly and replace them with representatives to the left of the current mainstream political spectrum, then voting for inexperienced third party candidates for not achieve that goal, and In fact jeopardizes that goal. The Dems won't be unseated by some inexperienced possible Russian asset. It might cost them the presidential election, but history shows they'll run to the center to find voters.
The duopoly will be unseated by a popular, multi-term third party Governor or Senator, and to actually accomplish anything they'll need a Congress full of third party Senators and Representatives. Without those conditions, voting for a third party President is pointless: they won't win, and even if they did they wouldn't get anything past Congress, and those failures will help discourage voters from choosing third parties in the future. These small minded goals do not change anything for the people in any meaningful way.
By far the best strategy for long term, lasting, effective change is to destroy the GOP first, making room for a leftist party. This is accomplished by 66+% victories by the neo-lib party. As long as the races are close, rational voters will vote strategically against the greater evil. Once the greater evil is insignificant, we can focus on splitting off from the lesser evil. Then, once the Green Party has overwhelming majority support, we can split off from them to form an even better party. So on and so forth.
I know it can be complicated to think about, but the world is complex. If you insist on simple solutions to complex problems, you're throwing water on a grease fire and endangering everyone. If you want change, you have to understand how change implementation works. It's not enough to want something and do the first most obvious thing you can think of to get it. You have to actually understand how the system in question actually operates, and how to use the operational mechanics of that system to accomplish your goals.
Or, you can keep throwing water on a grease for and hope things turn out differently this time, while the rest of us scream at you for setting the house on fire.
We’ll have one glorious, unquestionable MAGA party, Democrats will be excised from office, and you may never have to worry about who to vote for again.
This sort of alarmism is a lot harder to sell when Trump's already been president once. If Trump wins, lots of bad things will happen, but there will absolutely still be elections in 2028. In fact, the 2028 elections will be the most important election of our lives, until the 2032 elections which will also be the most important election of our lives and so on.
This is accomplished by 66+% victories by the neo-lib party.
That is completely and fundamentally impossible for reasons that I've already explained to you several times. Conditions are declining, the neo-lib party is tied to the status quo, so there is no future where they end up in this fantasy of sweeping every election with wide margins. This fantasy is a pure myth that you'll use to try to cajole people into completely unconditionally supporting for the Democrats until the end of time - there is absolutely zero practical difference between that and just being a true believer in neoliberalism.
You don’t understand the purpose of the trolley problem
Of course I understand the purpose of the trolley problem. And I also understand how the electoral system works, and how to communicate. You keep making these base assertions without backing them up in any way.
Liberals always see things in terms of "rational" or "irrational," such that anyone who disagrees with you must either be too stupid to understand, or they understand but are malevolent. The reality is that I understand everything you're talking about perfectly, but I disagree with it, not because I'm some kind of deep cover republican or secret agent sent to sow confusion, but for the reasons I've plainly spelled out.
This sort of alarmism is a lot harder to sell when Trump's already been president once.
It's easier to sell when he used that term to load the courts with sympathizers, including 3 SC justices who ruled that the president is above the law. Also he tried multiple times overturn the election. Also this time there's an organized game plan. Because incremental progress toward your goals is more effective than big performative gestures with no results. The GOP realizes this, even if you don't.
If Trump wins, lots of bad things will happen, but there will absolutely still be elections in 2028.
"Absolutely" is optimistic. There is, as you like to say, a non-zero chance of no elections in 2028.
That is completely and fundamentally impossible for reasons that I've already explained to you several times.
You've done nothing of the sort. You've shared your own immature fantasies.
you'll use to try to cajole people into completely unconditionally supporting for the Democrats until the end of time -
Except where I explicitly said it's nothing but a lesser evil strategy to buy time until there's a viable candidate. It's like you're deliberately straw manning my position to pretend your strategy isn't counterproductive. You have the 2000 and 2016 elections as minimum showing your strategy is doomed to failure. I have every party split in history to show my strategy works. You're using your fantasy to cajole leftists into a voting strategy that fundamentally harms them and their cause.
You’ve done nothing of the sort. You’ve shared your own immature fantasies.
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Democrats associate themselves with the status quo
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The status quo is a system in decline
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As the status quo declines, people will be less inclined to support a party that is associated with the status quo.
Which part of that, exactly, is an "immature fantasy?"
3 for sure. That's not supported by any historical or sociological evidence.
That's a pretty strange thing to disagree with. It's very straightforward logic so it would take quite a bit of evidence to put it in doubt.
And I have no idea what evidence you're looking at but I know what evidence you're not looking at, for example, the rise of Hitler in Germany. As the status quo became worse and worse, more people turned away from the establishment parties and to the far-right (and to the far-left, unfortunately to a lesser extent), which brought about the end of the republic. You can see similar cases in most every fascist state that has ever existed. I would very much like to know which historical examples you are looking at that don't support my third statement.
Oh, I thought you were talking about people abandoning the status quo for the left. I do not contest that frustrated people flock to fascism. Your strategy is excellent at driving people to fascism, I've been saying that from the start.
Do we not agree that flocking to fascism is bad? In that case yeah, our goals are definitely not aligned.
That's a deliberate mischaraterization of my position. There is not a single thing I've said anywhere that could possibly be construed into what you said.
Obviously, people flocking to fascism is bad. But that is what's going to happen so long as what passes for the left is aligned with the declining status quo. That's why the only two possibilities for stopping fascism are implementing policies that will actually stop the decline, or creating a leftist party that can criticize the establishment while offering a non-fascist explanation of the decline and how to fix it.
Since you retracted your disagreement with my third statement, I'll ask again - which of my three statements is wrong?
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Your strategy is for people to get fed up with the status quo (Dems) and unseat them for good.
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You cite examples of how this plays out in fascist states all the time.
Seems like a justified characterization.
My rejection is entirely contingent on your rejection of what I had mistakenly presumed was an implicit assumption: the goal is to disrupt the status quo with a leftist power, not a fascist one.
If you reject that assumption, then sure, you are doing exactly the right thing to help unseat the status quo with a fascist power.
If you want to adopt that assumption, then no I still disagree with your third statement.
All the examples you could think of were specifically fascist. The strategy doesn't work for leftists, it specifically breeds fascism. There's no evidence of this strategy replacing the status quo with leftists.
Your strategy is for people to get fed up with the status quo (Dems) and unseat them for good.
Liar. Where did I claim this?
What I've said, that you're deliberately mischaraterizing, is that people will inevitably get fed up with the status quo (Dems) and turn to fascism, unless something is done to stop it, either the Dems enacting the necessary policies or people moving to a new party, which are what I advocate for. In other words, the exact opposite of what you're characterizing my position as.
Is this all you have? You can't actually find fault with my reasoning, so finding yourself backed into a corner you just try to lie and slander your way out of it?
unless something is done to stop it, which is what I advocate for
Water on the grease fire
So you've given up even trying to argue now.
Like I said
I'm not gonna nuh-uh-yuh-huh with someone who doesn't understand elections
I made my point, it remains valid. You're throwing water on a grease fire because it's obvious to you that water puts out fire.
The only reason you're talking about "nuh-uh-yuh-huh" is because you can't make a coherent argument beyond that.
Your "point" is grounded in deliberate lies and mischaracterization.
Me: If I see something that's going to start a house fire, I should try to stop it or put it out, or, failing that, plan around the house fire occuring.
You: Your strategy is for the house to burn down.
In what way is that not a blatant and deliberate lie?
If I see something that's going to start a house fire, I should try to stop it or put it out, or, failing that, plan around the house fire occuring.
You see a grease fire on the stove (shortcomings of the duopolistic system), you know that water puts out fire (voting for a candidate is how they get elected), and you refuse to let any words sway you from throwing water on the grease fire (voting for a spoiler candidate in a FPTP election).
The only blatant and deliberate lie here was when you claimed to have supported this strategy with any logic or evidence. In fact you demonstrated yourself how, historically, it's led to fascism every time.
You are not a serious person. Clearly we've gotten far enough down the chain that there are no naive leftist passers by left to debunk your nonsense for. I'm not wasting any more time thrashing a position you've already said you can't be reasoned out of. I hope you're at least getting paid well to be such a freckles class traitor.
You're just spewing lies left and right without defending yourself at all. You know that every word you're saying is a blatant lie and you just don't care.
The only blatant and deliberate lie here
This is just you going "nuh uh" again. You can't defend what you said at all, so you just assert it wasn't a lie without backing it up at all.
In fact you demonstrated yourself how, historically, it’s led to fascism every time.
I haven't actually done this. Of course, what you lie and call a """strategy""" is actually just a recognition of trends beyond my ability to control. Those trends do not always lead to fascism, but when fascism emerges, it's generally because of a failure to stop that trend.
To be clear, your blatant, knowing lie is claiming that by recognizing a trend I'm somehow responsible for it.
Absolutely incredible for you to accuse me of being unreasonable, or a class traitor, or being paid off, when you're defending the powerful through lies and bad faith.
Sounds like projection from a class traitor to me.
Sounds like someone caught in a lie to me.
The projection continues.
Why do you love "nuh uh"-ing so much and then you complain about it? If you don't like it then you shouldn't do it. Maybe you were lying about not liking that just like you lied about everything else. Idk why people in your camp always lie so much.
Liberals.
I haven't told a single lie. Name one. If fascists lie as easily as they breathe, then I have to wonder if you're a fascist, since you lie so much and just move on without defending or addressing it. Can you even speak without lying?
I thought I was clear
I don't respect fascists or their useful idiots, so I'm not wasting any more time repeating the many points you ignored. You've explicitly said you cannot be swayed by reason, so I'm not going to pretend you're a person worth engaging anymore.
Try not to install any fascists on your way out.
When you get caught in a lie and lose an argument, simply baselessly accuse your opponent of being a fascist. One weird trick to win every argument with anyone.
And you continue to project, again, your own behavior. You're embarrassing yourself. Here's a weird trick: don't wanna be called a fascist enabler, stop enabling fascists.
"I know you are but what am I" goes great with your, "nuh-uh"-ing and baselessly calling me a fascist, we've truly reached the height of liberal discourse.
Funny how you concluded I was a fascist the very moment you were caught in a lie.
I'm not enabling fascists, the only argument you've made to that effect was the one based on a blatant, deliberate lie that you cannot defend.
God I hate liberals. Why can't you just be honest?
Can you not read?
I don't respect fascists or their useful idiots, so I'm not wasting any more time repeating the many points you ignored. You've explicitly said you cannot be swayed by reason, so I'm not going to pretend you're a person worth engaging anymore.
Huh sounds like the people who have 3 blocks have a lot of influence. Considering the stakes shouldn't the ones with the big towers be trying to appease the ones with three blocks?
I mean this doesn't sound insignificant at all. I thought they were "not moving any metrics"?
Huh sounds like the people who have 3 blocks have a lot of influence. Considering the stakes shouldn’t the ones with the big towers be trying to appease the ones with three blocks?
By appeasing the 3 blocks, you've now lost 10 blocks from your own tower. Congratulations!
Sounds more like the people with three blocks know the consequences of a Trump victory and are using their vote as ransom to make demands over a single issue that will get far worse if Trump wins.
So in essence. The people with three blocks are entitled and ignorant and quite possibly purposefully helping Trump win.
Yes, that's correct. And that single issue is genocide, which is absolutely worth taking a stand against. But whether you agree with it or not, that's the situation. We are holding our votes ransom and if they want them then they'll have to give in to our demands. Their choice.
Sure, let's go down this line of reasoning. You appease the 3 blockers, and lose 10 blocks in the process. Now the Dem tower is 41 and the GOP tower is 59. Objectively a bad trade. What incentive does that provide?
so it’s, “our way or Hitler 2.0?”
Isn't "Our Way" the whole Green New Deal to save everyone on the planet from roasting alive due to climate change?
And when your analytics shows that adopting those policies will lose you more voters than you’d gain from the likely third party vote, what then?
Then it sounds like you're just whining about the inevitable.
If there is genuinely no way for the Democrats to win then stop arguing about it and start getting ready to do something to help your neighbors survive a Republican administration.
Some states/districts have come down to a few hundred or a few thousand votes. I don't agree with the above comment that it doesn't matter. Third parties are spoilers
Third parties are spoilers
Its complicated. They only become spoilers after the election is counted. On the days leading up to the election people not pledging their votes to one candidate or another are sought after, and sometimes that seeking takes the form or candidates doing desperate policy changes to bring their poll numbers up. Like we saw with Harris spouting off trying to appeal to gun nuts the other day. If enough Dem voters had stood up and said, "Hey stop it with the weapon shipments and at least be neutral in this because whats going on is not adhering to Who Americans are" then Harris would have felt pressure to stop the shipments, out of a once every 4 year fear that the people might be pissed at her. For the rest of the time our opinions dont matter for shit to party leadership.
But to date she hasnt felt the pressure. The killing continues becasue we let it continue out of fear of trump winning. We dont trust that Harris is smart enough to get a message like, "hey cut that out", from us, but I bet she and her staff are smart enough if we could just come together and send the message. The fault here is on the voters for allowing Harris and Biden to do some flatly evil far right wing shit. We didnt even get bribed-- we're simply all terrified of trump so we let far right evil exist within a left leaning party.
It's crazy that the average American voter doesn't know what the electoral college is.
It's crazy that you used a made up statistic to feel superior lmao.
Crazy how foreign election-meddlers don't even know how obvious they are with their agitprop.
It's just naive in my opinion. They say they care so much about Palestine, but refuse to sit down, grow up, and face our current political reality. I would love to have ranked voting, or even just a valid third party choice, but that is not going to happen in the next 3 weeks. And we are still reeling from the repercussions of the last Trump Term. They'll continue to stack government and courts with the same backwards thinkers to make progress, if any, even harder. They'll continue to make life harder and more dangerous for not even just minorities, but just anyone who's not able to buy their way out of it.
But it doesn't matter! They're both the same! There is no way Trump could be worse. Because while Palestinians watch Israel's interpretation of "just end it" with out a cease fire, they'll die with the knowledge that, somewhere, in another country, a woman is bleeding out in the parking lot because some people wanted to make a point. Oh, boy, won't that be great? /s
Well I wouldn't disagree with out of hand but I would want to see your research on that.
in the first 3.5 years of the question cycle
We are literally always in an election cycle this country is so fucked up
That's how cycles work, lol.
We're always in every cycle.
It's in the root of the word cycle. Greek word kuklos and the Latin word cyclus, both of which mean "circle".
I love me a good piece of pedantry. Technically correct, the best kind of correct.
If you think that everyone is always in an election cycle then you haven't heard of countries outside the US
You understand that a cycle can have dormant and active phases, right?
You mean a dictatorship?
The right wing doesn’t want or know how to govern, they just want to control
Thank goodness liberals don't have this problem.
Big broom sweeping Eric Adams, Lori Lightfoot, Kristen Sinema, and Henry Cuellar under the rug
Russia and China
American politicians would rather fight two more world wars than go to therapy.
I'll keep saying it: This is not a Mexican standoff you can win because the Dems have an out: the center voter. If you want the Dems to stop going center, they have to win all 3 houses consistently. They've had all 3 for only 4 of the last 24 years.
Also that one time, if I recall correctly, had a bunch of Dems who were "pro-life" and vaguely Dem to get votes but not really progressive at all.
"Blue Dogs". 2010 and 2012 erased a lot of them.
I'll never forgive Joe Lieberman.
No, it’s because you can’t get anything done in the American federal government without clear majority support from at least both houses of congress, just by the nature of how the government works and the current partisan climate. Democrats cannot pass progressive legislation without that support. Republicans are consistently successful in their goals because their goals do not require passing legislation; they require blocking it.
This is naive. Democrats have been stringing you along, decade after decade saying one thing and doing another, using whatever excuse they have available, and you seriously think they're just waiting for the perfect time to unleash all this progressive legislation? Theyll just keep moving the goalposts as long as they have a willing voter base who never questions them because theyre better (undeniably true but still not good enough) than the evil republicans. They set up the opposition as the ultimate boogeyman so you'll never question their half-measures. You should demand more when you have the power and leverage.
Right, yeah, they’re evil and they’ve had unfettered power to enact popular policy that would work in their favor for decades but haven’t done any of it yet because we’re dumb sheeple who actually understand how the U.S. political system works
as they move further and further center.
Why do they move further and further center? Because they lose. They lose almost all the time. They need all 3 (house of reps, Senate, presidency) to do much of anything. And they've had that for, drumroll please, 4 of the last 24 years. Or 6 of the last 32 years. Or 6 of the last 44 years. When they lose they go to the center to find voters. You're talking as if they had control, but they didn't.
Going to the center is why they are losing. Jimmy Carter was a centrist who tried to distance the party from the New Deal. He was wildly unpopular, which is why Ted Kennedy primaried him from the left. Kennedy lost the primary but Carter lost the presidency. Mondale and Dukakis were both moving to the center as well, and they both failed to beat Regan and Bush, respectively.
Clinton was the only centrist to win, and that probably had more to do with the fact that Ross Perot took a huge portion of the electorate (19%) than anything else. Gore and Kerry were another set of centrist losers, followed by Obama, who was a centrist President but a progressive candidate who won the primary by going to Hillary's left. Hillary was a historic loss, and while Biden is a considered a centrist, he's also very pro-labor, and ran a progressive platform against an incredibly unpopular president.
You're absolutely right about what's happening; the Democrats are going to the center to find voters. But when they go further from the left, it costs them voters, so they go even further towards the right to try to get new votes, which costs them more voters, over and over again in a feedback loop that, frankly, you could only get stuck in by either being completely incompetent or deliberately obtuse. You need to start blaming the party for losing voters, not the voters for being abandoned by the party.
Ah excellent you can be today's explanation:
Ok let's go through this chronologically.
Bill Clinton: After successive Dem losses Bill figured out "it's the economy stupid", aka center policy, not leftist policy. Plus when you run against an incumbent (Bush senior) you generally run from the center. So that's what he did. And he won.
Gore: You think Gore was centrist? Lol that's a first for me. So: After the population hopefully warmed up with Bill Clinton, he stuck his head out left with climate change. And bam he lost the election. Thanks 3rd party protest voters! Aka: The left never shows up.
Obama: So guess what Obama learned? Don't stick your head out. He ran on broad "hope" and "yes we can" and having energy, hoping the ambiguity would be enough considering Bush's disastrous wars. And he won.
More on Obama: So he enacted the ACA. That's great, right? The thanks Obama got for that was to lose the House of Representatives for year 3 and 4. And lose the House of reps again for years 5 and 6. And then lose both the House of reps and the Senate for years 7 and 8 (maybe that's the time you think he was centrist, when he lost control of Congress). He enacted left policy and: The left never shows up.
Hillary Clinton: So what did Hillary learn from the last 6 years of Obama? She learned that the left never shows up. So she only stuck her head out with a big position to left on the map room to climate change. She basically declared war on climate change. You know that big existential issue that all the leftists care about, right? The big important issue that the left says they want so badly, right? And guess what happened? Bam she lost. Thanks protest non-voters! Aka: The left never shows up.
Biden: Just like Obama learned from Gore, Biden learned from Hillary that you don't stick your head out left on anything. Not one thing. And he was running against an incumbent, so once again when you do that you run center. And he won.
More on Biden: But did left things anyway. He Biden did green energy, EVs, drug price control, PACT act, etc. And what were the results? Lost the House of Representatives for years 3 and 4. Polls showed him losing the election to Trump. He enacted left policy and: The left didn't show up for midterms, and was not going to show up for the next election.
Harris: So guess what Harris is doing? She's adopting Obama's tactic to run on broad "get ahead" and having energy. From what I know she's not announced anything left, other than broad tax the billionaires. She has no reason to think the left will ever show up.
And people are amazed that they don't run a big left platform? Every time they stick their head left they lose. Every Single Time. And the next guy learns to go to the center to win. Because the center voters actually show up.
You have this completely backwards. They lose every time they even look toward the left (the only time you can say this was maybe not the case was Obama, though I say he knew he couldn't say a thing, so he relied on being broadly hopeful). The Dems only win when they go center.
With this history, you’d be an absolute fool to cater to and rely on the left. Because. They. Never. Show. Up.
So how do you get them to move left? By giving them victories first. Consistent and overwhelming victories. Show them it's safe to take policy chances. Because when they lose, like they've lost 20 years out of the last 24 years, they will go to the center to find votes.
And don't forget, a centrist vote is worth double. Because it's both a vote taken away from the other party and a vote for you. And unlike the left as seen above, the center actually shows up. You can rely on them showing up, unlike the left.
Bill Clinton: After successive Dem losses Bill figured out "it's the economy stupid", aka center policy, not leftist policy.
Perfect example of being willfully obtuse; 19% of the popular vote went to a third-party millionaire that year, but you're pretending it didn't happen.
Gore: You think Gore was centrist? Lol that's a first for me
I'm sure it is new to you, but yes, he was considered a centrist since his 1988 run. He picked Joe Lieberman as his running mate, did you think that was progressive?
He ran on broad "hope" and "yes we can" and having energy, hoping the ambiguity would be enough considering Bush's disastrous wars.
First off, "Yes we can," was his campaign slogan, but, "Hope," came from artist Shepard Fairey. Second, he actually had very detailed progressive policy proposals and campaign promises, including Universal Healthcare, homeowner bailouts, Wallstreet regulation, codifying Roe, and abolishing warrentless wire taps, and that's just off the top of my head. If you thought his platform was vague, you weren't paying attention.
So what did Hillary learn from the last 6 years of Obama? She learned that the left never shows up.
And then she traveled to 1965 to tell herself to become a college Republican? And then 1992 to tell herself to support her husband's gutting of Welfare? And then to 1996 to call black children, "Super Predators?" She didn't learn anything from Obama. She was always a centrist, and you're just making stuff up to try to craft a narrative.
Biden learned from Hillary that you don't stick your head out left on anything. Not one thing. And he was running against an incumbent, so once again when you do that you run center. And he won.
Biden has been in politics 20 years longer than Clinton, I don't think he was looking for notes from her. And, again, despite being pretty centrist (hawkish, tough on crime, strong labor support, mixed record in segregation because he's 400 years old), he did stick his neck out for the left. The BBB was a huge progressive wishlist, and he's still trying to get some student debt relief.
And what were the results? Lost the House of Representatives for years 3 and 4.
President's usually take a loss in their first midterm after the, "honeymoon," wears off, and in 2022, polling was predicting a huge, "Red Wave," that never happened. The Democrats narrowly lost the House, but the results were generally considered a disappointment for the Republicans.
Anyway, I skimmed the rest of this, and it's not worth going over. It basically seemed like a retread of everything you've already said, and that's mostly ahistorical nonsense tied together into a loose narrative with the confidence and understanding of a freshman that just finished POLI SCI 101. Instead, I'll just leave you with this study from the Pew Research Center that indicates people on either ends of the political spectrum are more likely to vote and donate to campaigns than people moderate views. So, looks like it's the center, not the left, that doesn't show up. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Perfect example of being willfully obtuse
And:
Anyway, I skimmed the rest of this, and it's not worth going over
Fucking lol, hypocritical much? Glad I read to the end first so that I know anything that I say will also be “Skimmed over” and deemed “not worth going over”. So I’ll just hit a few points.
he was considered a centrist [since his 1988 run
Oh yeah, once someone runs one platform they can never, never, never change anything 12 years later. Nope. /s
Gore ran a campaign on climate change. That’s pretty left.
First off, "Yes we can," was his campaign slogan, but, "Hope," came from artist Shepard Fairey.
I remember that one, what I remember was broad hope (yes), “yes we can” energy. It was all about getting past Bush's horrible administration and moving on. Homeowner bailout? After the subprime mortgage collapse? Shocked pikachu face. Wallstreet after the great recession? Shocked. Warrantless taps as the war path was starting to fad? These are not far left ideas after that crash and war on terror. Codifying Roe? Didn't get voters out because voters saw it as secure anyway. That was the car the GOP dog was never supposed to catch. BBB? The infrastructure talk is, frankly, normal. Both sides talk about it.
And then she traveled to 1965
Lol yeah you seem to rely on this trick of people can never, never, ever change anything about their platform, or policies, or adjust to information on the ground. Everyone and everything is set in stone for you huh.
Biden has been in politics 20 years longer than Clinton, I don't think he was looking for notes from her.
WOW you really do rely super heavy on this huh, 3rd times the charm. Yes you look at how the most recent election panned out and why lol.
President's usually take a loss in their first midterm
Doesn’t matter, he lost it. And when they lose, they go to the center to find voters. Because they need all 3 to do pretty much anything and they know it.
Anyway, I skimmed the rest of this, and it's not worth going over.
Instead, I'll just leave you with [this
You refuse to read what other people say, attack them, and then want them to read your link. Fucking lol. I think it's because you have no response, especially to how a center voter is worth double.
*Skimmed (lol) the article. More active posting? Doesn't matter. More active voting? Voting for who? Voting for 3rd party is the whole problem. Nothing the Dems do will ever be enough for them, they will vote 3rd party like they did to Gore, or do the protest non-vote like they did to Hillary (and 2020 was only to get Trump out of office). You're going to go after those people who are never satisfied and never show up for Dems, while sacrificing the center worth double? Path to certain loss. No wonder you "skimmed" my reply, you have no response that you'd be an absolute fool to cater to or rely on the left.
Your ignorance is stunning. Your entire knowledge of Al Gore is that he was pro-environment, and, "environment = left-wing," but you have no understanding of his role within the Clinton administration, like promoting NAFTA or Welfare reform. I don't even know why this is a debate, as you're just factually wrong; here's the NY Times calling him fiscally conservative in 2000. Here's the LA times reflecting on his centrist platform in 2004. The idea that he ran as a progressive is nonsense.
I have no idea what your point is about the Obama administration. You seem to be saying, yes, all of his policies were progressive, but they don't count because Bush was unpopular. Not sure what the logic is there, but at least you're tacitly admitting you were wrong when you claimed he his campaign was vague, so that's something.
You also seem to think that bringing up people's past policy positions is some kind of dirty trick I'm playing (which would explain why you have such a poor understanding of history), but for the record, yes, Hillary Clinton's 25 year record as a centrist was relevant to her 2016 campaign. I don't know what to tell you, if you have a decades long record as a centrist, then run as a centrist with a centrist running mate, people will think you're a centrist (true of Gore and HRC).
I went back and read the bits I skimmed, and yeah, I was right, you just repeated yourself. Maybe edit yourself a bit, especially when you don't know what you're talking about. But, for the record, your premise is obviously faulty; if you vote for them when they move to the center, the takeaway isn't going to be that it's safe to go to the left, it will be that it's safe to go to the center. But either way, it doesn't matter, because the geriatrics that run the party are so haunted by Regan's legacy that they will never go left, no matter how often they lose trying to gain the center.
Anyway, still very telling that you won't address the fact that Ross Perot played a huge part in the 1992 election, but I'm sure you'd have to Google, "Who is Ross Perot?" first. But thanks for, "today's explanation," really funny stuff!
Your ignorance is stunning.
Ah you open with an attack, always a good way to start a nice productive conversation huh! Skimming first you are rife with attacks (just like your last message) so this will be my last reply. There's little productive discussion when I see someone acting like that.
Yeah environmentalism is pretty left wing. And it wasn't just environmental like anti smog that pretty much everyone agreed on. It was climate change. You know CO2, the new thing.
Your first article is paywalled. But to address your text: Fiscally conservative? You can be relatively fiscally conservative and still implement left policy. It's a common mistake to think left policy is wildly expense. But the first articles actual title: "Top goals is steady reduction of nation's debt". Debt reduction? That's what you're saying defines him as not left? Yeah you can reduce the debt while doing left things. Especially not so difficult to do when Clinton left a surplus.
Second article: "What has gone mostly unnoticed, however, is a change in the man’s voice. It is often now that of an unapologetic populist." Tone of voice? That's what you're linking? This isn't a deep analysis, this is a feeling story time piece. "Then he lit into almost every aspect of the Bush administration. “I think this is the worst foreign policy that any president has ever made in the history of the United States,” Gore said." Yeah after the wars you might speak a little bit louder. I'm only skimming this because of the next point:
I see you're still demanding people read your links (long ones at that) when you openly said you "skim" people's replies and don't reply to what's said. Hypocritical much? Shows how you operate. You demand people do things that you take great glee in not doing, while attacking that they even wrote anything at all.
I have no idea what your point is about the Obama administration.
Obama? I already explained. He ran center and won. Your list of things bailing out homeowners? Not exactly far left lol, that's just reactionary to oh I don't know the subprime mortgage crisis that tanked people. I already explained each point.
So Obama. He ran center. And he won. Aka he learned from Gore to not rely on the left that doesn't show up.
all of his policies were progressive,
I already explained this. When in office, he acted left. He ran center relying on hope and yes we can. But when he got in after the election, he acted left. And the thanks for acting left was to lose Congress. Aka: the left never shows up.
You also seem to think that bringing up people’s past policy positions is some kind of dirty trick
It's not a "dirty" trick that works like you're trying to suggest. Well I already explained it, you're trying to suggest that no one ever changes their platform, changes their thinking, to adjust to information on the ground. Your argument is that if Gore did a center thing 12 years ago, or for Hillary 2016-1965 = 51 years prior that that person is now set in stone forever. It's a ludicrous "trick" that might sound good on the surface. But when you think about it, it makes no sense - unless you think that people are set in stone and can never, never, never change anything they ever think.
, I was right, you just repeated yourself.
You mean I went through each candidate, and then summarized? But you have to attack lol. The summary was a little long because I both summarized and responded to you.
especially when you don’t know what you’re talking about. But, for the record, your premise is obviously faulty; if you vote for them when they move to the center, the takeaway isn’t going to be that it’s safe to go to the left, it will be that it’s safe to go to the center. .... Anyway, still very telling that you won’t address the fact that Ross Perot played a huge part in the 1992 election, but I’m sure you’d have to Google, “Who is Ross Perot?” first. But thanks for, “today’s explanation,” really funny stuff!
Ah I've seen this trick before too! A common strategy. You sandwich your brief statement in attacks. You attack to throw the person off, then you quickly follow up with the actual point, hoping the person is too distracted by the attack. In this case followed up by some not so relevant stuff, before quickly going to the next attack to continue to throw them off!
Do I address the attacks? So I wear myself out with that? Do I address the point, and let the attacks go? Which makes you feel like I can't address the attacks. Do I address it all, at which is very long and becomes more me just "defending" myself, which makes me look weak. I see your strategy all the time.
I think calling out your attack strategy addresses that, so I'll continue to the actual point:
Which the Dems lose, they go to the center to find voters. You're not rewarding them (to use your parlance). It's that every time they go left they lose. Every single time, the left does not show up. So the next guy learns to go center to get votes. And they win when they go center. But even then someone will run a left thing, or enact a left thing, and then they lose again. So back to the center to win. You want them to move left? The left needs to reward them when they run left or do left things, but that's never done. See the history in my previous reply. I'm just repeating myself.
but I’m sure you’d have to Google
And like I said, quickly followed by more attacks! Boy I recognize your structure.
Which I already addressed too! Like before I'm just repeating myself. You openly said you are only skimming what I write, because it's not worthy of your attention. So I said "So I'll just hit a few [key] points". You openly said you didn't read , but you want people to drill down on every little bit that you grace other people a response to. Fucking lol at the hypocrisy.
So do I respond to Perot, when I've already had to repeat myself time and time again. I'm tempted to and actually started writing. but I see no point given what I see. And this is long enough.
So now do I list alllll the things you didn't respond to? Look how long this is already.
So like I said that's my last response because you're gleefully ignoring what's said (skimming technically) while demanding I go through your links, I'm just repeating myself, and most of all: Your rife reliance on attacks. Have at your next round of attacks. Ciao
I read about half of that. Up until the Obama point. I just don't care anymore, dude. You're replying to facts with your opinion. Al Gore was considered a political centrist. I don't care if you don't like the article, or you couldn't get past the pay wall, or you think being environmental made him far-left, it doesn't change reality. I don't care if you've already explained that, "When in office, [Obama] acted left. He ran center relying on hope and yes we can." It's just not true; his platform and his campaign promises were much more progressive than his administration. It's not debatable. You're just wrong.
I don't really care if you read the sources or not. The facts don't change just because you choose to remain ignorant of them, and I'm not reading 18 paragraphs of your unsubstantiated opinions just so you'll click a link. Learn to admit when you're wrong or don't. I can't make this my problem anymore.
The affordable care act is rebranded RomneyCare. And it protects the insurance middleman position. It is conservative legislation.
If you want more, then vote in more Dem senators so Lieberman types can't water it down.
Bernie is the political equivalent of Rambo: Alone, behind enemy lines, with no support.
He had to do guerrilla politics most of his career and has a lot to teach.
Most of far leftists you see here with their accusations of “dOiNg a gEnOciDe” were absent from any discussions about Palestine prior to October. And I’d wager that a large portion of them couldn’t have pointed to Palestine on a map until around then either. I’d even guess that many of them still couldn’t.
I’ll digress.
At this point- you should probably know by now that there is no changing their minds. They know what they’re doing- we know what they’re doing. And there’s no point in debating with them because they’re just going to drag things out and repeatedly accuse you of shit that isn’t true in order to not have to answer anyone asking them to make sense of the rhetoric they repeatedly post here..
Call out their nonsense for what it is and move on. Save yourselves the time.
Most of far leftists you see here with their accusations of “dOiNg a gEnOciDe” were absent from any discussions about Palestine prior to October
This is one of the funnier things I've seen a Democrat make up to smear anyone to their left.
The whole meme is bullshit. Libdems screamed at leftists to shut up throughout 2016. First it was to forget about Bernie and vote for the historically unpopular warmonger whose “turn” it was. After she lost to a nearly equally unpopular opponent, they screamed that it was time to resist, not actually consider the mistakes they made.
Just like there is no actually acceptable method to protest under neoliberalism, there is no actually acceptable time to push for third parties and alternate voting systems.
If Hillary made it in 2016 we’d have a much better supreme court and Roe v Wade would still be a thing but you sure showed all the libdems.
If you mean she didn't have anything left*, she saw what happened to Obama. Obama passed the ACA and his thanks was to lose the house of reps for years 3-8. And the Senate for years 7-8. Aka the left never showed up, even after left policy was enacted.
*Except that she fucking declared war on climate change, that big existential issue that the left says they care about and will totally show up for, right?
The whole meme is bullshit.
I VOTED FOR HILLARY
So did Bernie.
Yikes, maybe time for a break
This is one of the funnier things I've seen a Democrat make up to smear anyone to their left.
And this is one of the funnier rebuttals to being called out if only because there’s no denial of it.
Yeah… they’re not though.
Tell me more of the leftist people you know so intimately. What else do they believe?
I never stopped talking about electoral reform. I refuse to stop talking about it no matter what day it is.
You know who will stop talking about the flaws of the voting system after the election? The democratic party and it's members. Like clockwork each election. They show their hand and then throw away the cards and expect you to forget they pulled them out and slammed them on the table in the most public way possible.
If you're complaining about third parties now, you have an obligation to work towards fixing this issue after the election. You may forget, but I won't. I will beat this drum till the blissful end to my wage slavery existence on this dirty planet.
Then in the next election, there will be much concern over third parties yet again. This meme will be reposted without one ounce of self awareness or shame. Looking forward to that day my blue conservative "allies".
To the mods: how was my comment misinformation?
We have been arguing this [if both sides are bad] for 18 months now since most of us joined this site last June. How are these memes not spam or misinformation?
Edit: I meant June of 2023.
Remember, Ho Chi Minh knew all about America's history of genocide when he helped American soldiers fight the Japanese in WW2.
Sometimes, it's expedient to ally with those who aren't nice,
Voting þird party under fpðp is like voting for mexican food while dining out in ð UK.
Even if you some ð fuck how managed to bully everyone else into doing it, you're still eating mexican food made in ð UK.
Ðat shit makes Taco Bell look like ð mom and pop shop that just labels ðeir sauces by ð color and ðat consider hundred k scoville ingredients ð dietary accomodation food for midwestern white people.
Dude likes using the ancient letters "thorn" and "eth" which sound like th and the. So fp(eth)p is short for "first past the post" which is how our voting system works. Sorry for quick series of ninja edits!
Strðke?
Here goes:
PSL is running Claudia de la Cruz on a platform of Palestinian statehood and an end to arms shipments to israel.
Here’s your chance to not be like the ops meme.
Under no circumstances should anyone with a functioning brain consider this as a good idea. It’s a sacrificed vote. A worthless ceremonial attempt to “protest” by casting a vote for someone that has a barely above zero chance to win.
It’s nothing more that pageantry and it’s irresponsible.
And there is probably no one that would in good faith, ask you vote for this person that isn’t trying to siphon votes from Harris.
DO NOT LISTEN TO THESE PEOPLE.
It's bold of you to assume everyone who would vote 3rd party would otherwise "vote blue no matter who". Also, not everyone lives in a swing state.
No ones vote should be wasted, regardless of who you're voting for. Vote for the person with the highest likelihood to win, with the closest platform that you could potentially get on with.
If its hard, write a pro/con of the two possible winners, and then choose who has the least cons for you personally.
Congrats, you now have part of a voting plan, and you'll have a affectual vote .
No ones vote should be wasted
Glad to hear of your new found efforts to pass state level electoral reform and do away with the First-past-the-post voting system that is source of what you call "vote wasting".
Id love for that to be the way it happens. Sadly that's down to local elections, but I can promise you Trump won't give you that
Votes aren’t sacrificed, they’re cast and counted. The count is public so you know they aren’t tossed into a pit after their hearts are carved out with an obsidian knife or burned on a stake or whatever.
I think the description of pageantry probably isn’t one to invoke when we’re staring down the barrel of three weeks of constant detailed media coverage focused on every detail.
I also think it’s pretty vile to describe voting for a party opposed to genocide as irresponsible. Irresponsible to whomst exactly?
A vote isn’t ceremonial or protest (and if it were protest it would be a lot cooler!).
I just want to take a minute to examine the protest vote rhetoric for a second. People only deploy it to imply that a vote they name protest is not valuable, not effective, immature and other pejoratives.
Why would anyone listen to the input of a person who looked at the history of the last twenty years or even the last century and not just thought “yeah, that’s immature, ineffective and worthless” but then tried to convince the people who are voting third party, overwhelmingly young people, of it?
I am literally asking anyone who would vote for either of the two major parties or a third party to consider the party for socialism and liberation in good faith. I don’t care who it siphons votes from. If a party thinks they need third party voters then they can adopt third party platforms.
I don’t care who it siphons votes from.
This obvious admission of entitlement says everything about how you have nothing to lose in this election, and therefore have no one’s best interest in mind aside from your own.
That is of course if we are to even assume that you aren’t here to support a spoiler and disrupt an election.
You’re creating a strawman of me to argue against.
It’s pretty clearly in bad faith. Why not actually respond to anything else I said instead of quoting one short sentence outside of any context and building a bunch of assumptions around it?
It’s laughable to suggest that my vote against genocide has no one’s best interest in mind but my own.
Your claim that I’m speaking from a place of privilege and entitlement also falls pretty flat when it’s the high and privileged place of entitlement that’s defined by rejecting genocide.
Why not try a different line of reasoning.
Because there is no reasoning with you. There never was, and there never will be. You all make sure of that when you refuse to argue in good faith. So to counter- I’m not here to reason with you, I’m here to ensure people reading along can see the foolishness in your ideology.
And based on the ratios- it seems to me that they do.
From your perspective what would constitute a good faith argument for me to make?
I’ve tried to be civil and respectful even when I’m being treated with veiled insults and direct baseless accusations even when you finally end up appealing to your viewpoints popularity.
Doesn’t this seem a little beyond parody to you?
Again, I’m not here to reason with you, I’m here to ensure people reading along can see the foolishness in your ideology.
Save the false civility. I’m not buying it.
So my civility is false, nothing I say is in good faith and you’re just here for the laughs.
what is my ideology?
Gloria La Riva, PSL’s 2020 presidential candidate, got a total of 85,623 nationally.
Do you think Claudia de la Cruz will beat that?
Does she have a path to presidency?
Harris or Trump will win and to think anyone else has a chance at this stage of the game is delusional.
She can win if you vote for her.
Really, I think you’d have a really good point if winning were all that mattered.
Election turnout is used to determine all kinds of stuff like funding, ballot presence, event eligibility, media coverage and it does a lot for public awareness.
Plenty of consultants, analysts and workers from the two major parties themselves examine third party turnout when triangulating their platforms and policies.
I don’t think the idea that only candidates who are already in a position to win the presidency should be considered is a very good tack. It’s really hard to defend, relies on some easily disproven misconceptions about the electoral system and if you succeed it just drives people who would vote away from voting at all.
Maybe try a different line of reasoning?
The time to show support for third parties was months ago. Not less than a month from an election
No one in good faith remains to support any third party. It’s mathematically and empirically known there no third party has a remote chance to ever win at this point.
You appear to me- to be here in bad faith and only in bad faith to disrupt an election.
"Support 3rd parties all you want except when it's time to vote"
"Democracy is voting for my guy"
Oh the time to work towards the change I want to see in my country is months ago? Back then people were saying it was years ago. Years ago people were telling me the same as you, I should have been at it months ago.
I’ve been doing the same thing that whole time.
The best time to support party for socialism and liberation was months ago, the second best time is now.
I explained in my comment that you replied to how there’s so much more than winning to take into account. Surely you aren’t just gonna accuse me of bad faith actions after you ignore my ideas? That would almost be like arguing in img_megamind.jpg bad faith.
Wouldn’t it make more sense to vote for the better of the two presidential nominees then vote all PSL down ballot where they can make real change?
Why wouldn’t that work?
If I cared more about supporting the democrat or republican policies than about building an alternative, yes.
Of course, I came to the conclusion that I didn’t want to support republican or democrat policies and don’t trust the democrats to do what they campaign on almost a decade and a half ago, so personally I would never do that.
And I’m here voicing support for a third party which has a platform wildly different than the republicans and democrats so it’s pretty clear I don’t want to support republican and democrat policies at all.
then vote all PSL down ballot where they can make real change? Why wouldn’t that work?
You kind of clumsily skipped over the main question here.
I promise you I didn’t.
I don’t want to support republican or democrat policies.
Voting for a candidate who is running at the head of either of those parties tickets would be supporting their policies and platforms.
So no, that wouldn’t work.
Don’t worry, I’m gonna vote party for socialism and liberation wherever I can on the ballot too and my distaste for the two major parties softens the more localized the race is, both because the outcomes at stake are unique and the candidates are less doctrinaire.
But no, I’m not gonna vote for a democrat or republican for president but then put the party for socialism and liberation in downticket.
E: wait a minute, if you really thought the down ballot races were what mattered wouldn’t you be positing that I vote democrat at the local level?
What gives? Which one matters, president or everything underneath it?
But that isn’t building a party.
That’s like building a skyscraper by putting together the top floor first.
I just told you explicitly that I’m going to vote for party for socialism and liberation in every race they’re running a candidate in.
Wouldn’t wouldn’t not voting for their presidential candidate be like not putting a roof on your skyscraper?
And I don’t fault you for not catching my edit, but what’s the deal with claiming that the non presidential stuff is what really matters? If that’s true then why do you care who I cast a ballot for in the presidential race?
I already responded to that, you edited your comment after I replied.
I just saw, no harm meant by it :)
To address your edit, both the republican and democrat parties are already built.
Have been for a couple years.
As I said above, I have no interest in supporting republican or democrat policies. The existence and age of genocidal options doesn’t change my aversion to them.
Again, you’re skipping the question and throwing out meaningless catchphrases.
Why would I want to build parties that are already built when my goal is to topple the existing ones and replace them with ones that are younger and hungrier for change?
Farting in the wind by voting a third party presidential candidate isn’t going to do that.
I’m not quite sure what you’re trying to say here but i directly answered why I wouldn’t vote for a democrat at the top of the ticket. Because I don’t support their policy positions.
What are the meaningless catchphrases?
What did you mean by your sentence in the middle there about building parties? I read it a few different times but couldn’t tell what you were trying to say.
As I said before, way up at the top of our replies, there are real effects that come from voting for a third party candidate, although I appreciate the phrasing given out usernames.
Voting third party down ballot builds third parties.
Democrats and Republicans have already built their parties so why would you need to help build them?
Voting for a presidential candidate is a choice, Trump or Harris directly or indirectly.
Voting down ballot is voting for change.
Please limit the amount of questions per comment, it’s hard to keep it all straight and feels like gish galloping.
I don’t know what Gish galloping is. Would you prefer I hit you with three comments to something you write in order to ask three questions?
Voting for a third party for president also builds that third party and is voting for change as well. I find that pretty hard to refute considering it’s literally measurable.
I will not vote for trump or Harris.
I dont intend to help build democrat or republican parties.
Just say you want Trump to win. No need to hide it.
Why would I say that? I’m literally advocating people support a party running against trump.
It’s pretty safe to say everyone is aware of what you’re advocating for here.
I’ve made it abundantly clear, I want people to vote for the party for socialism and liberation no matter what political party they might have been planning on voting for.
Greens? They’re empty triangulators, vote psl instead.
Republicans? They’re the vile servants of capital who have no intent to disentangle America from foreign wars. Vote psl instead.
Democrats? Also the disgusting servants of capital who have no intent to stop the genocide, vote psl instead.
I'm sure lemmy.ml will be able to do what nobody has been able to do in the 200+ year history of the US and make third parties relevant! Great job! /s
The meme is that you're supposed to try to improve the system in between elections, not just throw away your vote every 4 years and call it a day
If third parties aren’t relevant then who cares if people vote for them?
I agree that people shouldn’t just throw in the towel and vote for one of the two major parties when they’ve been working so hard in the non election years to build a workers state.
Might wanna change your tactics then, bud. Your work doesn't seem to be paying off. The US has never been further from a worker state.
Psl does represent a change in tactics I think. Their focus on organizing normal people instead of grabbing at the reins of power held by liberals or hyper focusing on campuses is different from the communist organizations of olde.
The PSL is a joke. Everyone knows this. They’re not even on the ballot in many states and need to be write-ins. Suggesting anyone vote for their dumb shit within mere weeks of an election is absolutely as bat-shit bad faith as it gets.
You know damn well they cannot win. It’s mathematically impossible. Yet you’re still pushing that garbage. Oh, wait. You actually want them to gain traction? Let’s say for a second that I even believe you. So let’s say you truly want them to win. Here’s what you do:
You vote for who has the chance to win, them you do the hard work over next three and a half years of helping your chosen candidates gain the attention they need to be viable- Cavas, town halls, all that shit. And if they happen to lose again- which they will…
do it again. And again, and again.
But to expect and ask people to vote for two complete nobodies that just show up at the eleventh hour with little to no effective roadmap to any legitimate policy- and fleece votes away from the one person that actually has a chance to defeat a man who has said he intends to turn the military against his own people?
Seriously … what the ever-loving fuck, man?
I don’t think the thing about the ballots has been true for a while. I didn’t pay attention to it because I’m not “in it to win it” as you might condense the position, but there’s only eight states in which they’re not either on the ballot or have the official write in seal of approval.
So, they actually could win! It’s not mathematically impossible I don’t think. Barring faithless electors, but that might cut a little too close to the bone of actually recognizing that our votes are largely meaningless under a system which is designed to keep the majority from power…
I have been doing the work. Not always for psl, both because I’ve been doing it longer than they existed as a party on my own radar and because I’ve developed from a disillusioned liberal into a communist over that time, but for at least sixteen years I’ve been politically active outside of elections and concurrent with them at a level so local it blurs the line between political praxis and just helping your neighbors.
I am not expecting people to vote psl. Psl isn’t expecting people to vote psl! The party itself treats the electoral campaign as a base building operation rather than a way to take power and a way to heighten the contradictions.
I also think an end to genocide is a legitimate policy. This tea though…
It might not be best to bring up turning the military against Americans as an indictment and motivator against trump. People might remember the military cracking anti-genocide protester heads under Biden and say “hey, wait just a minute!”
There’s two things I’m noticing this election season, and I’m not trying to hang the first thing around your head although you can wear the second one with pride:
There’s a strong undercurrent of fascist collaboration a-la niemollers famous poem. It doesn’t matter if the military are out there fighting anti genocide protesters, liberals would never be at the anti-genocide protest.
Everyone except for my people and my supporters are a foreign op, a plant, a secret member of the other major party, a spoiler or just acting in bad faith! This is a real bummer because it means that not just is it harder to talk to people because you gotta build trust for two days before they’ll entertain the possibility that you might have a real commitment to the ideas you’re talking about but also that the person to person connections that a communist society is predicated upon are breaking down even more.
If we can’t trust, respect and understand each other, how can we ever live in a society free of borders and hierarchy?
If the party itself doesn't expect people to vote, then why vote for them?
They want you to join their mailing list, , understand the platform, and hopefully a decent percentage of people will work to bolster them in local elections over the next four years.
You really have a lot of faith in your fellow Americans, don't you?
Understand the spoiler effect. A vote for a third party is guaranteed to support the first-party that you likely oppose the most. It does not help anybody, except for whoever is furthest from your goals.
You think we will get any traction on voting reform with a first-party in charge? No. The game is massively stacked in the established parties favor, and changing that will damage their power, unless they form strong allegiances with third parties who caucus along side them.
They need to work from the ground up. You need a reality check. This country will go to hell in a hand basket if everyone who leans even a little bit left doesn't step up and vote for the establishment candidate on the left.
We're already halfway there. Look around. Look at how expensive homes and food are. The middle class no longer exists. The majority of them are drowning in revolving credit debt trying to keep their families heads above water. Anybody who is deeply indebted is, obviously, beyond broke.
And worse than that, my family pays more in health insurance premiums than we do in food. That is fucked. Staying healthy shouldn't be more expensive than staying alive.
Neither I nor psl seriously think enough people will vote psl for them to win. I should have been clearer :)
Parties that vie with liberals to share the reins of power are the precursors to parties like psl, the dsa is a great example, psl recognizes how that strategy failed and are not trying to caucus with liberals except for in strategic circumstances.
The spoiler effect is exaggerated. Take me for example, I haven’t voted for an establishment party for fourteen years (at the state and national level). If there wasn’t a psl id vote some other third party that is as close to my ideals as possible. If there were no third parties id write in.
People aren’t saying “gosh, I just want someone a little better than the democrats” or “these republicans are too woke!” They’re recognizing that those two parties don’t and can’t represent them, maybe less so on the republican side, and choosing to vote third party instead of not voting for that seat.
I’m sure there’s lots of research showing that the spoiler effect is real, but personally speaking, and speaking for people I know who vote third party, and speaking from the experience of door knocking and then working the polls, third party voters aren’t going to be shamed or lectured into voting along mainstream party lines.
But let’s say you’d rather trust the science than some weirdo on the internet, and you believe that third party voters are just democrat voters who aren’t there yet.
Shouldn’t the democrats adopt the policies that entice them?
If third party voters are required to win this election, and they oppose the genocide, shouldn’t the democrats take real tangible steps while in power to stop the genocide and get those votes?
Psl has been working from the ground up. I don’t know what else to say. If you have a chapter near you they’re probably out there.
Things are fucked, I agree with you. There are material reasons why and psl is closer than any party I’ve ever interacted with in terms of recognizing the problem and working towards a solution.
Under no circumstances should anyone even consider voting for the psl at this time. It’s a throwaway vote and hurtful to the chance we have to keep Trump the fuck out of our politics.
The time to have considered them is LONG past. They didn’t do any of the work to make themselves viable. And as the far leftists/socialists like to say-
“The onus isn’t on the voter to do the work. It’s on the candidate to be electable.” Right?
De la Cruz is not electable, because there has been zero work towards any viability.
Harris IS electable. She’s campaigning. She’s interviewing. She’s debating. She has a good chance to win. Her policy is sound and believably possible in a real world. She has a track record of being politically astute and educated.
De la Cruz is nobody.
Don’t listen to this shit that the bullshit psl is here for anything other than to disrupt an election.
If the dems need psl votes to beat trump they should adopt psl policies.
Psl has done so much work towards viability that they actually have enough electoral votes available to win.
Which, of course, makes de la Cruz electable!
I believe Harris will do what she says she will do: continue to arm israel. I don’t want that so I didn’t vote Harris!
And Trump or Harris will get in anyways.
So you just 100% contributed to whatever you didn’t want to.
They know exactly what they’re up to. And it’s plain for anyone else to see as well. We’re just not allowed to say it out loud here.
I don’t see how I contributed, I didn’t vote for Harris or trump.
I’m not just gonna roll over because the party I support can’t win this election cycle (it can actually win though!).
Everybody says you gotta start small but when I’m out here supporting and building a new party suddenly out comes “no, not like that!”
Why aren't you trying to improve the system between elections? It's clear you understand the flaws of First past the post voting. Why haven't you been doing something about the spoiler effect you are so very concerned with?
How do you know I'm not?