Slightly OT, but this is also why we absolutely need ranked voting ASAP. How much better would a candidate like Sanders do if people knew that voting for him as first choice and Biden as second was possible?
Here’s an interesting anecdote. The people of Shelby County, TN elected to enact ranked choice voting in the county (it was a ballot option 2 elections ago). It hasn’t been signed into law yet.
So at least in this case, I’d say the problem isn’t people not voting, it’s nefarious agents succeeding in subverting the feeble democratic processes in this country to act against the people’s interest.
Well he lost the primaries, which is when you vote for the candidate you really want. But he lost the primaries because the DNC aired a never ending stream of bullshit telling the people it was impossible for Sanders to win, and then pointing to the current super delegate polls as evidence. Idk why people are terrified of voting for a losing candidate in the primaries though. Who gives a fuck if your vote loses in the primaries? You should vote for the candidate you want, not the one you think is going to win. It’s not a casino bet.
The closed primary system is just so fucked in general, these are private organizations that can do whatever they want, the DNC and the RNC.
I still don’t like Debbie Wasserman Schultz. She was literally marched out of the DNC office because of the bias she showed towards Hillary Clinton in leaked emails. Then she gets hired by the Clinton campaign!
Decades ago I changed my voter registration just because I was tired of not being able to vote in the primaries. I think they’ve changed that since then, but I don’t know, since it doesn’t impact me anymore.
The thing is, because the final vote for president isn’t ranked choice, the spoiler effect is also spoiling the primary. People will vote for the candidate they think can will at the national level, else Trump might win.
If you had ranked choice voting at the actual election, only then would the spoiler effect be fixed.
The left-ish party did the exact same thing to Teddy Roosevelt in 1916. They chose to fall on their sword and get a slavery denier in office rather than let the somewhat progressive (for the time) Roosevelt be their candidate (at the time, Roosevelt was allowed to run for a 3rd term). Liberals do not care about making things better, they care about protecting the status quo. Roosevelt would have won if not for liberal interference via their backing of Taft, just like Bernie would have.
I remember learning from my college history professor that when Upton Sinclair ran for governor of California, the Democrats teamed up with the Republicans to ensure he did not win. They would rather lose than let a socialist run the state. Even with their meddling he very nearly won the election with 37% of the votes. That is a lesson the American people should really take to heart. The established parties have more in common with each other than they do with their constituency.
Or, you could support candidates that support racked choice voting (who are mostly liberals). That sort of thing happens locally and at the state level.
Ranked choice isn’t that much better. It is better, but very slightly. We need to implement STAR, which is vastly better even at its worst. Essentially, it’s just a 0-5 vote for candidates, and any empty is a 0. It allows you to rank some at the same and then some as “better than nothing” leading to a well rounded choice that most people approve of.
“If you don’t give me something better, I’ll default to the objectively worse choice and fuck myself over out of spite.”
Conservative logic. Except it’s a lie, the only way you’d vote for anyone but a corporate fascist is if the other guy was an even bigger corporate fascist. You are 100% fine with the status quo, because you happen to profit from it. Or fear, could be straight up fear.
And they’re always going to offer you a slightly better, but immensely shitty choice. It’s not conservative logic on their end, it’s battered spouse syndrome on yours.
It’s conservative logic to vote for the obviously worse choice out of spite for fake reasons. I"M VOTING FOR TRUMP BECAUSE BIDEN IS 3 YEARS OLDER THAN HIM.
I would propose voting for a better choice, but an independent or third party. I vote for president to secure ballot access so third parties can run people easily in local elections.
The logic you’re using is really dumb coming from someone not in the ruling class.
Your one bit of power is to say, “I’ll vote for you if you put forth a candidate I can get behind.” The second you accept the terms of “you have to vote for X, because Y is worse” you lose all political power. They can do anything they want. They can lie about anything. They don’t have to do anything to fight for your vote.
I’m just sick of this smug bullshit from people practicing “real politik”. You don’t live in a democracy, you’re openly admitting it, and you can’t even see it.
Okay but you’re living in a fantasy world. In reality, it’s a 2 party system and you vote for the guy who will fuck you over least. Project 2025 is the plan. Let’s not have Project 2025 come to fruition.
Fuck off with your astroturfing unproductive non-takes. Biden is perfectly viable. Beholden to the mic? You think that’s the biggest issue this election cycle?
Israel wasnt openly doing genocide then. Trump wasn’t giving weekly press conferences confirming his support for genocide. Trump wasn’t repeating blatantly obvious fake news about a genocide (he saved that for things he cared about). And what’s more, he got us OUT of the war that Biden and Obama perpetuated for their entire 8 years. Forget all the nonsense, none of that matters in the face of genocide. One guy is actively aiding in it, and the other most likely couldn’t give 2 shits about it, due to it not being a potential scam. I choose the guy who isn’t openly supporting genocide.
Banning gas cars and giving more funds for green energy. Meanwhile orange man wants to increase the usage of fossil fuels. Could be more but could also be less.
They’re already in charge. We’ve got two capitalist parties. Republicans back fascists domestically. Democrats back fascists internationally. The people who own the country won’t allow us to vote away their power, we need to start talking about effective activism. Every year we wait causes massive suffering across the world.
Nah, giving in and learning to love the bomb is my new answer. It’s gonna go off anyways in whatever form it will take. Entropy will claim us all, we haven’t done the effort to keep chaos back for decades now and the cracks are complete.
You realize Biden’s signature legislation added massive funding to the development of solar and wind power as well as funding a huge expansion of electric chargers across the country?
In 2028 a mummified version of Biden will be put forward as candidate until 2032, when a new act in place allow for digital avatars to be president and digital Obama comes back with Yes We Can, Again!
“You ever notice whenever the republicans do something terrible or prevent something good from happening, it’s always the democrats fault?” -Fucking idiots everywhere.
And it will happen again and again since the DNC and DGA fund fringe GOP candidates as an ongoing tactic. But that unhappy fact will take a few more election cycles before the non-political folk catch on to the grift.
The new existence of this fringe took everyone left of Lindsey Graham by surprise in 2016. It’s not conspiracies all the way down. These people exist and the sooner we realize the center is not where we imagined it was the sooner we can get on with governing and protecting the whole country and not just the little blue parts that like us.
Uh, no dude, i’m talking about an existing tactic in use by the Democratic party, which you can find editorials on in like Newsweek n’ shit. Dems are doing this in the open, as it is not illegal.
I’m not deep webbin’ dawg, you are simply lacking info. Read something first. Then you are allowed an opinion.
Didn’t read it? Stop being a waste of everyone’s time
Hell, a Democrat published a book a few years ago about how she did exactly that to win an election. And then she lost to that same nutjob in the very next election!
I don’t disagree with that, all I’m saying is almost 50% of America really is ready to risk tearing it all down and the truth is only a small number of them would be willing to vote Democrat under any circumstances. For both Democrats and center Republicans, divide and conquer seems the only available strategy. A true third party is the hope of many, but I don’t think they could be left of Biden, and the space on the right is a madhouse. They’d have to basically fall from space in a shower of glory to cut through the mud at this point
50% of America really is ready to risk tearing it all down
A true third party is the hope of many
I don’t often say this, (cuz what’s the point?) but i’m one of those who has given up on voting Dem. I voted for joe, knowing i hated him in '20. My vote was my parting gift to the party after being a donating member for ~20 years.
I don’t advocate for others to give up, but after many years of their tomfoolery and lies, the only path forward is to find that third party and start voting for it. Is it a great plan?
No. It’s not even an ok plan. but its the one I’m rolling with, cuz why would i vote for a party who would rather entreat and berate than earn? I cannot tell you how much rage i feel inside at their sounding the alarm when i watched them start the fire
Yeah but we don’t have to eat shit to survive do we? So why the fuck are we acting like Biden was our only choice. What kind of stupid analogy is this?
Preserving democracy was never going to be a single-step solution process. It takes consistent, persistent work to not only expand, but to just maintain our liberty for all. It’s a tower defense strategy game.
At the close of the Constitutional Convention of 1787, a lady asked Benjamin Franklin “Well Doctor what have we got, a republic or a monarchy.” Franklin replied, “A republic . . . if you can keep it.” This existential threat has always been there and it’s something to always be wary of. It’s exhausting, but it’s worth it. Freedom ain’t free.
That’s why I added the part about “when I was a kid”. I suppose I should have clarified that I’m talking about within my lifetime. There have definitely been other dark moments in our history.
That is all bad, but it’s not “we’re going to cancel voting and stay in power indefinitely” bad, which is what people fear from the Republican party now. It’s not “we led a group of fanatics to Capitol Hill in an attempt to overthrow democracy” bad.
It’s cyclical. There was an uncannily similar fascist movement in the US immediately prior to WW2. We had members of Congress on the Nazi payroll, for example. It’s happening again; fascism and authoritarianism are on the rise across the globe.
I am not familiar with the US system. Is it really realistic that a US president can abolish or fundamentally change the rules around the democratic process?
A lot of our best institutions are based on gentleman’s agreements. If our representatives must ignore the processes we’ve come to expect, because those processes were never actually written down or coded into law… Yeah, the president has an unbelievable amount of uncheckable power to make the government just not run as intended.
The basic hypothesis is that if the president did something treasonous, he could be arrested by the military, who are sworn to protect the Constitution.
He couldnt change the rules, because our legislators do that, and its all written in the Constitution. But he could fail to appoint people, appoint people to multiple cabinet positions, or some other weird ways to get around this.
No, what you’re reading here is over the top fear mongering to try and get people to vote for their side. That why everyone who doesn’t toe the line are now “facist.” Because if you can get people to become afraid they’ll vote against their own interests (and as much as they like to claim they do, the DNC in no way is working in our own interests)
Joe Biden has the authority to resign. Joe Biden can choose to not run in 2024. If he cared about preserving democracy, he would let someone more electible take his place.
If things go wrong, it’s the fault of the people in power.
Came here to say this. If the dems actually cared about winning and preserving any last inkling of democracy the states still has then they would replace Biden with literally any other candidate.
Random tangent aside, sure, yes she would have a better chance. Biden is 1000 years old and the Zooms are not about his buddy-buddy-MIC stance. Biden will not beat a Trump rematch.
Biden is all of 3 years older than Trump and more coherent than Trump was 20 years ago. It’s such a bizarre fixation.
And you think Harris has a better shot when she literally has the lowest rating of any VP in the history of NBC News polls? When she consistently polls lower than Biden? When Mike Pence who was literally threatened with hanging by his own supporters had a higher approval rating? Get real.
The people who plug their ears at the notion of going 3rd party are the same dorks who got “blindsided” when Trump won in 2016.
If the Dems run Biden, I genuinely think it will be Trump. I do not want it to be Trump.
Enough of the older lemmy crowd seem to ignore the fact that the zooms have like 8-9(?) years of eligible voters who are all decently pissed about the middle east. We keep seeing record turnouts amongst the youth each/every year. So like…I just hate to see that most of the responses were of the “who tf cares what they do? they won’t vote either way” is lame as shit.
If you genuinely all think this is gunna be a slam dunk for Biden, why not run a different/younger candidate? If anybody can beat Trump, why Biden specifically? I’m only 3rd party if it’s Biden again, not a threat. I just can’t reasonably vote for him or Trump. I won’t do it.
Tell Joe to pass on the torch to somebody w/ an active pulse and I’ll take the DNC a bit more seriously… Obviously pushing to the right isn’t fucking working because the other dorks are voting R regardless.
Give me a real candidate. Anybody under the age 59 (fuck you Kamala) and you’ve got my vote.
I will say it again and again until it sinks in. The options are Biden or Trump. There is no third option. Anyone who says otherwise hasn’t been paying attention.
Zoomers don’t matter. Young people don’t vote. Elections are decided by adults, and the average age of high political activity in America is from the 50 And over crowd.
Joe Biden has already beat Donald Trump in an election. More electable makes no sense in this context.
The only way Biden could lose is if some of the people who voted for him last time, after everything that’s happened since Trump lost the election, decide ‘ehh, that Trump guy wasn’t so bad, let’s give him another shot’ and decide not to vote against Trump.
Biden won an election during Covid lockdown where he wasn’t expected to actually campaign. I don’t think he can win again. It’s sad, but he’s an awful candidate.
The people who plug their ears at the notion of going 3rd party are the same dorks who got “blindsided” when Trump won in 2016.
If the Dems run Biden, I genuinely think it will be Trump. I do not want it to be Trump.
Enough of the older lemmy crowd seem to ignore the fact that the zooms have like 8-9(?) years of eligible voters who are all decently pissed about the middle east. We keep seeing record turnouts amongst the youth each/every year. So like…I just hate to see that most of the responses were of the “who tf cares what they do? they won’t vote either way” is lame as shit.
If you genuinely all think this is gunna be a slam dunk for Biden, why not run a different/younger candidate? If anybody can beat Trump, why Biden specifically? I’m only 3rd party if it’s Biden again, not a threat. I just can’t reasonably vote for him or Trump. I won’t do it.
Tell Joe to pass on the torch to somebody w/ an active pulse and I’ll take the DNC a bit more seriously… Obviously pushing to the right isn’t fucking working because the other dorks are voting R regardless.
Give me a real candidate. Anybody under the age 59 (fuck you Kamala) and you’ve got my vote.
The incumbent president has only lost 10 times in US history (and one of those was Trump). Biden already beat Trump once. Who has a better resume than that?
Not to mention Biden actually had a great run and got a shitload done, but this is what you get when you have 24/7 banana republic propaganda blaring in people’s homes.
Also Lemmy itself. This place is a cesspool of mis and disinformation. I come here to waste a little time mindlessly doom-scrolling and shouting into the void, not because I actually think that I’ll find informed, intelligent and insightful comments.
Why isn’t he electable? He was already elected. Are you saying he’s old? Trump is 3 years younger. Before Biden, Trump was the oldest president of all time.
This is so dumb. He didn’t try to not let people vote. Every loser every year claims recounts are needed, they just usually don’t use the system to try and prove it. He’s using the system to try and prove it. The system is there for a reason
Stop trying to claim he’s stopping people from voting.
He claimed 3 million illegal votes during an election he won. 3 million… then what did he do once becoming president after an accusation of the largest voter fraud claim for a democracy in history? Nothing. Barely mentioned it. No enormous investigation to arrest the thousands of people that would have needed to be involved to coordinate 3 million illegal votes. Nothing. Why? Because it was just something for him to say off the cuff. He took a page from his hero Roy Cohn to just declare victory even when defeated. Lose a case? Just claim victory. Lose a popular vote count? Just claim victory. He has done it all his life and doesn’t care how easily it is for some people to believe his off-the-cuff lies even when they can threaten democracy itself. He will never concede a loss and doesn’t care who it hurts. He will also never have the evidence for his claims because he doesn’t need any.
You mustn’t have paid any attention to his barrage of executive orders and insanely corrupt appointments. The Supreme Court nominations alone are more than eyebrow raising.
As a Canadian looking from the outside in, it really does seem to be trending in that direction… any further Republican wins will mean the end of democracy, with America sliding into a ChristoFascist Autocracy.
I fear for my American neighbours, but we have similar problems up here; we just happen to be a decade or so behind you folk.
Also Canadian. We are certainly on the same path. It feels like everyone around our part of the country is a “fuck Trudeau” type that just clearly wants the 1950’s to return and women where they should be. As a very liberal but not so political person it’s kinda scary.
If you remember when Trudeau was first elected, they called him the Selfie King or some idiotic shit like that. Like, the fact that he took photos with young people is somehow a reason to hate him. The propaganda and astroturfing has been ongoing for 8 years. It’s called “foreign interference”.
It actually potentially does. I’d suggest looking into Project 2025. If you’re not familiar with it, it’s a political battle plan being put forward by a bunch of hard-right think tanks with substantial connections which would effectively establish a theocracy in the US. My understanding is that part of the plan hinges on the president basically removing anyone who can stop him and replace them with sycophants (which they’re currently populating a list of). The idea is that if they’re able to remove enough people, they can do whatever they want. They don’t need a majority in the supreme court or house of representatives because they can just ignore them; the sycophants will follow whatever orders they’re given regardless of what the house or court says.
To put it another way, they’ve realized the house and scotus only have power if that power is respected; if they remove anyone in-between the president and the other branches who’d say “no” and replace them with yes-men, then there’s no one to stop the president from doing whatever he wants. That said, I’d be willing to bet the moment the president says “no” to the scotus is the moment they’ll make a show of how much power they truly have, but it’ll get really bloody if that happens.
You know Lincoln told the supreme court to fuck off right? Was he “dictator” was it the end of democracy? Were people like you reading bathroom scrawling and screeching about project 1862?
There was also a civil war under Lincoln. Additionally, last time I checked Lincoln also wasn’t trying to overthrow the entire government and replace it with a theocracy. He was trying to abolish slavery. Reducing the country’s authoritarianism is kinda the opposite of what Trump & Co. are trying to achieve.
That is such a poor comparison that I’m seriously wondering if you’re trolling. If so, 4/10, you got me respond but your comparison is so poor that it left me questioning whether or not it was genuine.
Just like it didn’t last time because we managed to avert the attempt? You’re right, let’s give the same people another go, I’m sure they’ve given up on that idea by now.
Avert it how, by voting him out? Which he followed by stepping down?
People say his fighting the results in courts are proof of him trying to overthrow, but it’s not, it’s proof that he used the system correctly, in the legal ways he could. He may still claim to have won, but his actions are not that of a dictator attempting to overthrow democracy.
That being said, it’s still not clear who the republican nominee will end up being.
No. Did you know they wanted to send international observers for the last election because of worries that the US no longer adheres to democratic process? They were turned away, of course.
You know, like in third world nations and dictatorships.
It doesn’t work perfectly and humanity pushes back over time. The issue is the pace of technology is too fast for our ability to push back. I’m hopeful our good side will win but I’m afraid it will take deaths by the millions again for people to wake up and fight back against the real enemies among us.
Once upon a time that would have been a simple answer, given the concentrated ownership of news that could reach any one person. But now with the Internet, there is less and less control by any one group. Certainly the age of the rich effectively controlling the media is over.
But now with the Internet, there is less and less control by any one group. Certainly the age of the rich effectively controlling the media is over.
Pr teams have successfully learned how to use social media, and social media giants promote views that are beneficial to them like fascism while suppressing left wing content.
I dont think the internet existing makes us a democracy, the parasocial nature of a lot of internet content actually makes it so people are more able to sell their propaganda.
There is plenty of media that exists outside of media giants. Case in point, there is a local blogger here in Portland, OR that runs bikeportland.org to cover bikes and related subjects. His blog posts and discussions on them are a major part of the local discourse around infrastructure in Portland. He’s not rich, but he exercises influence.
If independent media, as a whole, got too influential to the point that it was threatening the system, it would be targeted. We’ve seen this play out over and over again under capitalism. You literally just have to look to history to see this.
Targeted with what? At least in the US, there has been a build up of case law over the past century and a half or so that provides vigorous protections of freedom of speech. The Red Scare is remembered as a scar on the US’s past, not to be repeated. Yes, there are still people with a vigorous taste for censorship, but there’s vigorous pushback against them.
At least in the US, there has been a build up of case law over the past century and a half or so that provides vigorous protections of freedom of speech. The Red Scare is remembered as a scar on the US’s past, not to be repeated.
This is funny because we are currently going through a red scare.
You just can’t reconcile the fact people don’t vote how you want, therefore the system must be broken. And spreading voting apathy by telling people it’s all bullshit is one of the most damaging things you could do to your democracy. You’re better for Trump than most Republicans.
What is your definition of “meaningful political action”? Picking up guns? Got news for you, the government has more of them.
Voting starts at the local level. You vote people into local city government who reflect your views and values. Those people often enough have greater aspirations and want to move up in the political machine. It’s extremely rare for someone to be vaulted from average Joe to major political player in one leap. Trump was able to do it by being a populist piece of shit who could pay his way into office.
You have to start small. Get your city council to look like you, then move on to the county, the state, etc.
What is your definition of “meaningful political action”? Picking up guns? Got news for you, the government has more of them.
Do you really think the two options for politics are voting in sham elections and WACO?
Voting starts at the local level. You vote people into local city government who reflect your views and values. Those people often enough have greater aspirations and want to move up in the political machine. It’s extremely rare for someone to be vaulted from average Joe to major political player in one leap. Trump was able to do it by being a populist piece of shit who could pay his way into office.
You have to start small. Get your city council to look like you, then move on to the county, the state, etc.
Local elections are also pretty much a “which landlord can pay the most money and be the least repulsive”
You have to build parallel power structures before you can meaningfully influence any electoral structure, including local ones.
I don’t know much about US politics, but is Biden the only choice you have besides voting for Trump? There’s zero alternatives? I’ve seen in the comments that people prefer Biden to other democrat candidates, because he already beat Trump already, so it has better chances to beat him again. But realistically, it seems like everyone hates Trump with a burning passion, so any Democrat that is not batshit insane and totally incompetent would beat him, right? Seems like an easy win.
It’s a first past the post system with only two major political parties. That means the choice is either the selected Democrat or the selected Republican, who are elected via a complex primary process that differs from state to state.
Voting third party in the U.S. achieves absolutely nothing. Especially when there are almost never third party choices for lower office, aside from the libertarians and they’re nuts. If you are determined to not vote for any Democrats or Republicans, your vote has the same effect as staying home and not voting.
I would love this to change, but I don’t foresee that happening anytime soon.
It does not achieve absolutely nothing. It sends a message of policy requirements to obtain a percentage of votes. Meaning, if dems lose enough elections by a margin that is seen voting elsewhere they will have to move their policy to secure those votes and start winning again. The problem now is with trump threatening our freedoms and democracy, we can’t afford to teach those stubborn centrists a lesson in true progressive policy.
Go a reread the last sentence in my statement and explain how that implies trump has to win. Ive clearly stated the problem is with trump running, we can’t afford to lose to teach the dem establishment a lesson.
You know what is even less rational? Parroting the same shit that has been repeated ad nauseum by liberals for the past 40 years and then expecting an improved outcome.
That’s not how this works. That’s not how any of this works.
Democrats losing your vote to a 3rd party doesn’t trigger some kind of response within the party that will push them to embrace the tactics of the 3rd party that siphoned off your vote. If anything, it demonstrates to them that they should maybe push further right in an attempt to court Trump voters. But it’s cute that you believe you’re making a difference.
Congratulations. Instead of holding your nose and voting for the one guy who COULD beat trump and avoid sending the country into fascism, your principled stand allowed a fascist to rise to power AND sent Democrats the message that people prefer fascism.
What it can do eventually is destory the democratic party, then since we are in a two party system a new more leftist party can finally move in. Afterall one of the most important parts of the Democratic party is to make sure people like Bernie, let alone anyone to left of him, have no chance to be elected. They are the biggest barrier to progress.
Yes I am sure. Everytime someone to the left of Bernie get’s anywhere close to power you will hear democrats like Pelosi or Schumer have “concerns” about reaching across the isle, the budget for things like universal healthcare. You’ll have them tout truisms like “we need to be a united not divided in the face of terrorism.” Just look at who fund the democrats on the local levels, parasites like land-lords, insurance companies, banks. All of these industries thrive under the status-quo. You think they want progressive taxation, universal healthcare, or non-profit banking?
What this actually does is tell the Democratic Party that you’re unreliable and shouldn’t be catered to. Have you ever noticed how the Democratic Party gives a disproportionately prominent place to Black women? That’s because they have a long history of getting themselves involved and working to get others to the polls. Effective activists work as part of something greater.
Hey, chin up. If the batshit nuts right wing of the GOP keep going the way they are maybe we’ll get a brand spanking new fascist third party. Lol, third party achieved!
Tangent for a moment: I’m kind of curious, if we could somehow encourage more stupidity on the right. Perhaps, the GOP would fracture into two parties.
In the short term, it could give Dems a large say in everything. Bolstered by the fact that the hard right is very performative and not really interested in doing any real work. In the more medium term, maybe that would finally give some freedom to open the door for more Dems and voters to peel off into yet another party.
I guess at that point, the danger is the right would then realize the situation. Rally their fractured party and completely ice out Dems and whatever left party that came out of the above. Multipolar politics at the party level could get really freaking scary too.
I really doubt the GOP splits. As much as the Trump and anti-Trump factions of the party dislike each other, they’re stuck together by the evil of strategic voting. We would need a different voting system to allow the existence of a third party that doesn’t also act as a spoiler.
So what you’re talking about is a primary contender from the democratic party, but generally the incumbent party doesn’t have a primary for the president. Your only real options are the Democrat (Biden, unless he dies), or the Republican (looking like Trump, but they will have a primary). You can vote for other people, but it doesn’t do anything. You might as well try to get the better option than choosing not to vote out of spite, and getting whatever happens regardless.
Yeah, totally an option, or he is found guilty of treason or some other disqualifying thing. I was just pointing out that Republicans do have a primary this election for president, so there are more options for them.
Legend tells that the primaries are where the vote for your candidate of choice actually counts, but as 2016 showed, they are allowed to and will happpily ignore it in favor of the party’s selected ghoul.
So, yeah, it’s a pick between the mostly bad and the completely utterly awful.
That most political action happens outside of voting for president. Ofc having a friendly presidency helps a lot for all the other political action, and rn its a choice between an Establishment Dem and a fascist, but having a friendly presidency alone does little for real change.
Because they’re part of the system run by the wealthy and powerful, and younger peeps not only have to claw their way into that microcosm, but are often then bought out / corrupted by that very system.
The ‘viable’ third party candidates in my lifetime so far have been Ross Perot, Ralph Nader and RFK, Jr. None of them had a real chance and all of them were one flavor or another of crazy.
So maybe a third party can fix things, but none of the ones that have ever had a chance within the past 46 years.
Okay. Name the candidate aside from Trump or Biden that has a good chance of winning in 2024. Go ahead. Because otherwise, as I keep suggesting, it looks to me like a vote for someone else is no better than no vote at all.
I keep asking what it achieves and I’m not getting an answer.
If all you care about achieving is “I feel good about myself,” fine. But that doesn’t seem like a reason to make the effort to vote.
The Liberatian party seems like a decent alternative to the Dems so you could go for Jo Jorgensen. But anything that isn’t Republican or Democrats is a requirement for a moral vote.
The Liberatian party seems like a decent alternative to the Dems so you could go for Jo Jorgensen.
In what way are Libertarians an alternative to Democrats? Democrats want a strong social safety net and Libertarians want a government so small you could drown it in a bathtub.
You either know nothing about Libertarians or nothing about Democrats.
If you care about the cultural freedoms they’re the same. Also the non intervention policies are a lot better than throwning all your money into the military industrial complex which you seem to call “Healthcare”.
Else you got the Greens.
Unless of course you want everything the Democrats do including the genocide part. Then I can’t help ya.
They’re not even close to the same. I have never heard a libertarian say that taxes should be raised on the rich to pay for social services. Every libertarian I have ever talked to or read about is against all taxation and thinks everything should be privatized. They’re as far apart politically as you can get.
As for healthcare, please do show me the libertarian that wants universal healthcare paid for by taxes.
I was looking through their comments to see if they were worth replying to, and this exchange here confirms it’s absolutely not worth it. It’s laughable how arrogant they are with how little they actually know about US politics.
Well you better stop voting for the parties of Capital then. Your vote is already almost meaningless, so use it to make a better world before its too late!
Trump isn’t going to be president so no need to “stop” him. But if I assume you aren’t as myopic as your question suggests, then stopping the collusion of Capital via the false choice of the parties of Capital is the long term goal. Limiting our actions to voting, you have very little power, but power that none-the-less should be exercised.
In a first past the post system, only 2 parties at a time can be front-runners. Those parties do not have to be the same for ever and ever. In the history of the US many parties have risen and fallen, and there is no reason the same can’t occur for the Capitalist parties. In fact it is inevitable. The material interests of you (assuming you aren’t a billionaire, or rent-seeking class) are currently not being addressed by either party. So it is your duty to vote for a party who DOES represent your material interests. If you vote either blue or red you are voting against your material interests and mine and 90% of the citizens of the US.
Because Biden’s flaw isn’t his age. That’s the propaganda. Biden’s flaw is that most of America are mouth-breathing retards that don’t understand what political ideology is and vote for the guy who says “it’s not your fault, it’s that guy’s fault!”
Man the Democratic Party this election cycle has just been working overtime to invite the conversational wedge between ‘saving american democracy from fascism’ and ‘voting against Trump.’
I guess that’s what the donor class wants this time: “Do nothing but vote.”
At first. He campaigned as a progressive the first time, but they soon taught him how to govern like a Clintonesque neoliberal 90%+ of the time while constantly promoting the (at the very most) 10% of what he did as president that benefitted regular people more than the already rich and powerful, their corporations and their hedge funds.
Most lib shit ever. “Every election is the most important one”. When are people going to realize you are always voting for rich fuckers who don’t care about you
FPTP was used by England since the middle ages. I don’t believe anyone worked out the math until much later than 1776. It was just a fairly old tradition.
The fact that it was something unknown, directly implies that it wasn’t “part of the plan,” as you already directly stated. The founding fathers were working with the best tools they could, they still made mistakes, but that’s a totally different argument.
The plan was completely derailed between 1874 and 1929. The (completely unnamed in any documents) Secretary of The Congress illegally revised statute 1983 of the federal code in 1874, and no one noticed and alerted the general public until 5/15/23.
In 1929 The House of Representatives decided that they would stop actually legislating by fixing the number of Representatives to the 1930 census, and never bothering to expand The House ever again, despite The Constitution saying that no Representative shall represent more than 250,000-500,000 constituents.
These two actions by dubious actors in the latter case, and a traitor to the constitution in the former case, have caused almost 90% of the issues we currently have in The US, trying to hold anyone accountable, or trying to elect officials that will bother listening to us.
It’s kind of true. Anyone who can see the bigger picture realize that voting in America is little more than a false dichotomy. Both parties have the exact same interests, with the republicans being more open about what they want and the democrats playing more social justice lip service.
They propose different legislation. Thus different interests. Wow. Such challenge to prove this wrong.
Exact same, in case you’re not that fast, means indistinguishable in all regards. The fact that they propose different legislation that have different effects means that statement is false. Congrats! Logic!
If you didn’t want to sound dumb you should try a more nuanced position.
I don’t like him, but that’s clearly not true because Gavin Newsom has been running for 2028 for months now. Why do you think he just debated DeSantis and praised Biden?
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