I’d argue that the biggest threat is how much the DNC’s actions continue to turn off young people. The GOP can’t win an election… but the DNC can sure as hell lose one.
Oh no, the people who never show up to vote are going to not show up to vote?
Every young group ever has had this idealized view that they’re the first group of people who invented the protest vote. Then they see the consequences of their lack of engagement and realize throwing their vote away is dumb. This time, it’ll be that nothing changes for the better in Palestine, but their lack of engagement has very real costs to their own access to birth control, air and water quality, and their LGBTQ+ friends all of the sudden have to go back into hiding when the Supreme Court overturns protections for gay marriage (they’ve already signaled they will) and there’s nothing they can do about it for 4 years.
Yup, it fucking sucks… though, I would mention, when I was that age my big election was Bernie vs. Hillary and we did show up before the DNC just discarded our opinions and went with her anyways. I’m not bitter, no sireee.
Anyways, yea, it’d be great if young people didn’t protest vote, but it’d also be great if old people weren’t fucking assholes - the boomers have held onto their political majority for far too long due to the population dip of Gen X and, to a lesser extent, Millenials. Young people wouldn’t have to show up if we got our shit together.
Make no mistake: their numbers are more than sufficient to destroy the country. Fascists don’t need a majority in order to seize power, and MAGAs are a bigger percentage of the US population than the NAZIs ever were of Germany’s.
Seems when both parties in a 2 party-dominated system have unpopular candidates, the horse race ends up being purely about who turns off their base the least. Not who they impress or win over, but just how many votes one doesn’t lose and the other does.
As a European I always felt the US doesn’t have enough choices on their ballots. However, now is not the time to change it. First, the US democracy must be defended. Only after that it can be optimized.
Honestly, stfu. “Nows not the time to change it” has been an excuse for far too many elections now. If we don’t start changing it now we never will. Pacifism and apathy is just as bad. It will never be a great time for change because by it’s very nature, change is hard. If it were easy, we’d be doing it already.
The best time to plant a tree was 10 years ago. The next best time is today.
However, now is not the time to change it. First, the US democracy must be defended.
You’re not wrong, but that’s only become more and more true in every election since I started voting. Of course it’s the Republicans’ fault for going off the fascist deep end, but I’m also starting to think the neoliberal Democrats like it that way because it gives them an excuse to demand fealty from progressives while giving fuck-all concessions in return. When does it end?
This is the issue. I really don’t think that politics “accidentally” got to the point that it has. Politicians love power, and some of the best ways to stay in power are to rile your supporters up to near-fanatical levels, as the republicans did, or to have people in a situation where they feel forced to support you, as the democrats are currently enjoying. Regardless of who orchestrated it, I’m sure both parties are ecstatic about the state of the US political climate.
This is why we need to get past First Past the Post election systems.
It only supports two main parties because votes for other parties are spoiler votes that actually take away from the big party they are most aligned with. The two parties become big tent parties that don’t need to align that closely with the people in it.
I’m gonna be that guy in the thread this time, but my only thought is “is anyone at all surprised by this?” It has been a presupposition that it would be Biden vs Trump in '24 since the rule of law broke down Jan 6 and never made peep of its return.
We can talk about the steps we took to get here, but everyone, Everyone knew it was coming, in their guts. We just hoped we were wrong. We were not
Not surprised. What I saw that I haven’t seen mentioned in the handful of news articles I’ve seen about this is that pretty consistently Biden was winning the Dem primaries with 80-90% of the vote with the remainder scattered among a few other options, maybe protest votes of a kind, while Haley was taking 30+% of the Republican votes. I don’t honestly know how this compares to previous primaries. Could this be an indicator of some red reluctance for Trump? Will there be a similar follow through in the presidential election to tear Republican votes away from him?
Here in deep red farm country I can share my own personal observation.
30% seems about right. You’ve got your hardcore Trumpers that would back him if he were caught on video raping a 12 year old. They’d search, “Trump rape video real?” and comb through 400 or so top results all saying he did it, it’s irrefutable, and then they’d find a site that links to something like truepatriotredwhiteandbluebaldeaglefreedomforever1776foundingfathersconstitution.com and they’d take whatever it says as the holy and sacred truth. You know, because the deep state and all that.
Then you’ve got those people (like my uncle) who happen to be very religious and feel totally threatened by the satanic trans cult of gayness and black power. They don’t want Trump, they’re scared of his foreign policy, but they believe most of what he says is being said just to upset people. They’d rather get Haley, but it isn’t gonna happen. They’re going to vote for Trump because Jesus don’t like gay people and shit like that.
I would say (anecdotally in a place that voted more than 80% for Trump last time around) that around 5% of those people will sit the election out. The other 25% (probably less here honestly) who want a sane candidate still don’t want a democrat. If it means sacrificing our country to fascism, so be it. Most of them don’t believe that will happen though. They’ve been fed alternative facts and they’re convinced Jan 6 was ain tee fuh and the election was stolen.
Gods help us. Jesus, Buddha, Allah, Krishna, and anybody else that wanna look out for us.
Donald Trump is coasting to victory in Super Tuesday primaries across the country—a decisive, if not unexpected, showing that follows his overwhelming wins in GOP nominating contests in states like Iowa, New Hampshire, and Michigan earlier this year.
The former president—who tried to overturn the 2020 election and illegally hold on to power—is facing four indictments covering a whopping 91 criminal counts, and he owes half a billion dollars following multiple civil judgements handed down this year alone. But on Monday, the US Supreme Court gave him a key legal victory, ruling that he could remain on state presidential ballots despite his involvement in inciting the January 6 insurrection. And on Tuesday, he was once again dominating the GOP primaries, leading former UN ambassador Nikki Haley in nine of the 10 states reporting results as of 8:45 pm ET—in most cases by huge margins. (Haley held a narrow lead in deep-blue Vermont.) Prior to Tuesday, Trump has won every GOP contest with the exception of Washington, DC, where Haley received the support of roughly two-thirds of the 2,000 voters who participated.
Tuesday night’s results reaffirm what poll after poll had already shown: Trump wields a seemingly ironclad grip on the party, even as his first criminal trial is slated to begin later this month.
Haley has, up until now, nonetheless stubbornly refused to drop out, claiming that she has “no fear of Trump’s retribution.” But it remains to be seen if or how her crushing losses in Tuesday’s primaries will affect her campaign; she told reporters last week she was only “thinking about Super Tuesday.”
Tuesday’s results, if they hold throughout the evening, will all but guarantee that Trump will be the GOP nominee—though he won’t formally receive the party’s nomination until the national convention in July. Regardless, polls suggest it’s (basically) official: November’s election will present voters with a 2020 rematch—between Biden and Trump, and between democracy and authoritarianism.
Add comment