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this post was submitted on 13 Nov 2023
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Politics
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Biden is still the best choice. People will vote for him until they can't.
Indeed. Need to vote all democrat down the ticket (hopefully with good choices in primaries) for the moment to preserve American democracy and freedom. Once the current fascist/authoritarian push is in the rear view mirror, then we can work on better choices.
This is Biden's last chance at a second term, he will not try again if he loses to Trump. Trump on the other hand will probably keep trying until he is dead, in prison, or his health in old age drags him down; Here's hoping Biden wins this one, and by 2028 Trump's health will be in decline/prevent him from running.
The problem is "for the moment to preserve American democracy and freedom" winds up being every election, unless a genuine leftward push is made at some point down the line.
If that leftward push never happens, every election is a choice between temporarily halting fascism, and allowing fascism to metastasize.
The "left" does not control enough of the government to make a serious leftward push. All they can currently manage is halting the advance.
Vote down the line.
Yes, mimic your enemy. Don't oppose your enemy.
Sadly, the way the game is set up, if you don't vote for one of the two parties then you are essentially splitting the vote and creating a void in which the party you never wanted to win will now certainly win. It's the only way to play with the rules we currently have.
Yes, it is a broken system.
Stop humoring the broken system.
Yeah, that simply gives the vote to who you oppose. In fact this is the same propaganda that Russia pushed leading up to the 2016 elections. It's how Trump won in the first place. Makes me very suspect of your motives.
Why do you people keep perpetuating that lie?
Show me how my unused vote magically adds to someone I didn't use it on.
No. My unused vote represents the disenfranchised.
Your cast vote will represent a genocidal maniac.
Stop playing make believe. Be a grown up. Live in reality.
Dude it's basic math.
If person a gets 20 votes and person b gets 19 votes and if you were going to vote for person b then didn't, person a wins instead of ties. Do that on a major scale to one party and you get a party that will never win again.
So I don't know where you get off on pretending I'm playing make believe. It makes me think you have to resort to these adhoc attacks because your stance is super weak and you know it.
You are making shit up. 1 plus 0 DOES NOT EQUAL 2.
Here is how the actual math works. Red Fascist gets 20 votes, Blue Fascist gets 19 votes if blue party has abandoned their liberal ideals in favor for "lesser evil" progressive fascism and I'm the only one who refuses to vote for genocide. That means the voting record is:
Model 1
Red Fascist: 20 votes
Blue Fascist: 19 votes
Disenfranchised voters: 1
If the people stop believing your made up bullshit, then they too could decide to stop voting for the death of America, stop voting for fascism, stop voting for genocide, etc.
Then the voting record is:
Model 2
Red Fascist: 10 votes
Blue Fascist: 10 votes
Disenfranchised voters: 20
Voter turnout is a massive factor in establishing the political ethos of the person in office. A person sitting on 98% turnout can say "I represent America" and has much better odds of pushing whatever genocide or tax break for billionaires they want.
A person sitting on a 50% turnout is going to have "you don't represent the people" hurled at them at every turn, and they will have a much harder time sending another funding package to the genocide.
Under Model 1, neither fascist has anything to worry about. They have the world by the balls, their overlords are happy, and regardless of which cover the overlords put on their actions (red or blue), they will get their payout. Nothing changes. The whole system continues to decay.
Under Model 2, the fascists have a big problem. The world can see that the people don't approve, the people see that the people don't approve. Now there is fire on the heels of the fascists, and they might need to consider actually not being evil sometimes to encourage more people to vote again.
Even under a third model:
Model 3
Red Fascist: 20 votes
Blue Fascist: 10 votes
Disenfranchised voters: 10
After a really shitty 4 years, the Blue Fascists now have a reason to stop being fucking fascists to get the 10 disenfranchised voters back. They have incentive to actually combat the Red Fascists by trying to be GOOD instead of lesser evil.
Let me destroy your argument with one fact. We've already had 50% voter turnout. It's how we got Bush Sr. No one is going to care if you don't vote. In fact no one said to Bush Sr he didn't represent the people. So you should look into some of the things you're saying first. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voter_turnout_in_United_States_presidential_elections
Yes, and that was because the people wanted Gary Hart, but the DNC decided to install Dukakis instead.
Exactly like Hilary/Bernie, except at least for Gary Hart, there was some drama in the news to pin the decision on. For Hilary/Bernie, it was simply that Hilary is one of the overlords in the DNC.
So you are just highlighting a great point where the DNC didn't listen to their constituents and paid the price. Good conscientious liberals refused to vote for the "lesser evil". They wanted their solid candidate to vote for.
It motivated the Democrats to get strong on climate, social service, and fighting AGAINST genocide, and that's how we got the Clinton/Gore years (some of the best years in moderate history).
It worked. We saw actual improvement. Then we got complacent again and Democrats are now funding genocide.
Time to do it again.
Argument perfectly in-tact if not stronger.
First, Clinton and Gore weren't abnormally strong in climate change or genocide.
Second, That's not a good strategy when the Republican candidate is quoting Hitler and saying he's going to install concentration camps.
What's your alternative? Unless there's a successful January 6th equivalent the options are humoring the system and making progress as best you can or reject the system and maybe engage in resultless protests while letting fascists take over the system. At that point your options become be a fascist or die.
You can't prevent fascism through Democracy, because fascism does not rely on Democracy to come into power.
Fascism happens through violent seizure of power, and it can only be prevented or defeated through violence.
The fact that rhetoric has turned to, "if Republicans ever win again, they'll actualize a fascist takeover" just shows that we recognize that however many laws or constitutional protections we put in place do not matter; if they did, it wouldn't matter if Republicans got back in power, because the guardrails would constrain them.
But we all know that they'll disregard those guardrails in order to seize power. Sadly, no one wants to accept the answer about what path that leaves us, and people will keep desperately voting as SCOTUS and the GOP Congress lay the groundwork for a full-scale right-wing takeover. Because in a 2-party system, it's simply a matter of time before control flips.
You sound like a child.
Hi @lolcatnip, we have one rule on Beehaw: Be(e) Nice. If you disagree with another user feel free to express why, but low effort, drive-by insults aren't really in the spirit of this instance.
You sound like a boomer.
Thanks for saying it so clearly.
People would rather vote for the slow death of America than the fast death of America.
People. You don't need to vote for the death of America. You have that choice.
They conditioned you to think you must support evil.
We can still show that we don't support evil.
Are you talking about protesting by not voting or wasting a vote on a 3rd party? Without ranked choice voting, the only good spot for that is primaries and small local elections. The lesser of two evils is still the lesser of two evils. Life will be a hell of a lot worse for tons of people if the former guy wins again.
The problem is that eventually the GOP is going to win a presidential election. In a 2-party system, it's an eventuality, no ifs, ands, or buts.
Unless we radically reshape our government, that GOP fascist takeover being planned for now IS going to happen, but Democrats aren't even talking about that, they're just trying to cling to the broken status quo for as long as they can.
There is no way a third-party candidate wins in our system. It's simply not possible and to vote for one is to split the party vote. Look what happened with the Bull-Moose party. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1912_United_States_presidential_election The rules haven't changed since so this is all you could expect from trying to get people to switch. You'd hand it over to Trump.
Right, and that is why I'm not saying to vote for a third party.
I am saying don't vote.
Stop humoring a broken system.
That's not a solution and the same result as voting for a third party. No one in America is going to care that you didn't vote.
Biden is plunging America into fascism? I was pretty sure this article was about Trump and the GOP but perhaps I misread it.
Ya, and the article is a propaganda post to scare you into accepting and being complicit in genocide.
Biden and Trump are both fascists.
We kept voting lesser evil and now both parties are fascist.
The Democrats aren't fascist though.
Acting in defiance of the votes and voice of the constituents. Funding genocide and working to do so unilaterally behind closed doors.
Yup. Sounds pretty fascist to me.
The majority of Americans support Israel, so they are not acting against the interests or voice of their constituents.