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Rule of political satire in 1945
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this post was submitted on 10 Dec 2023
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This but unironically, as a european I can't imagine having only two choices on such an enormously important choice for a democracy
I hope when the fascists rise in your country you recognize that liberals are indescribably better than the least evil fascist. If Trump wins, I'm dead, voting is dead, and leftists will be the first against the wall. If Biden wins, the presidency remains only a small part of the equation.
Elections for representatives are often more consequential than having a more progressive president. State races are more obviously important thanks to issues like abortion, but they've always mattered. Some states even have a certain degree of direct democracy. Whether one should vote against a fascist dictator shouldn't even be a conversation. We really should discuss the rest of the ballot and how we can get active in our community, but noooo. We have to talk about what should be the easiest fucking choice in our lives.
Sanest US policy wonk.
I don't know even know of a well informed, good faith position, left or right, where one would deny that Republicans are fascists. Some foolish leftists might say that all capitalists are fascists, but they still recognize Republicans as basically Nazis. Some fascists might argue they aren't fascists, but if you actually fall for that, you're dumber than dirt. A brain smoother than a mirror and smaller than a pea.
Sanest US policy wonk.
If I'm reading between the lines right, I think their issue is that they're objecting to the notion of there being two parties to choose from. In their eyes there's only one choice, as the other is undesirable. Which if anything supports your point (possibly unintentionally).
That said responding to a comment on electoral diversity with talk about getting shot next to a wall is unhinged.
Their issue is that US politics gives you brainworms. "I voted for Kodos" was already a joke in 1996, and as the argument gets less and less convincing the advocacy will get more and more unhinged.
I'm vaguely reminded about a comment I read about the poorest Americans voting for tax cuts and against welfare: The argument is that they were so immiserated that they're grasping for any straw offered; And if you try and get them to stop and think about what they're doing, they start ranting at you, because they don't have time for debate and game theory, they're barely threading water as is, they need help now.
It's absurdly ironic that you liken my "rant about fascism" to poor Americans refusing to question their vote "for tax cuts and against welfare." In the situation that your enlightened ass vaguely remembers, those poor Americans didn't vote directly for those policies that go against their self interest; they voted for the worse candidate out of the two options they had.
If the you view both parties as equally bad and voting for the better candidate as foolish, then those poor Americans couldn't have actually voted in their best interests in the other situation. You argue that some Americans simultaneously vote for the worse choice, and that they don't have a worse or better choice. Which is it? Are Democrats and Republicans equally evil aliens that will enslave humanity, or is one worse than the other?
You act like I'm unhinged and have brain worms for talking about fascism in the US, yet you cherry pick what sounds right from incompatible arguments to inform your worldview. You start from your existing opinion and Frankenstein facts together to argue for it. If I had to guess, you're tired of hearing about American politics and think it's simpler than it actually is. Maybe you're cynical and think it's all just a waste of time, but remain willfully ignorant about the serious consequences of our elections because it might make you feel guilty for promoting apathy.
I'm not talking in general hypotheticals, The comment was made under a vox populi segment, where a woman wanted to "end welfare" so the government would have more money for "her food stamps". And when the interviewer told her those are the same thing, she went into a rant about how she's not letting welfare queens get her money when she can't afford to feed her kids. In other words, she was so panicked and desperate she was unable to see the bigger picture, and reacted with hostility. The parallel is kinda stark. The start of this thread was "honestly, both choices are bad, Americans should have a better option" and your response was to rant about people against the wall.
I am not arguing both parties are equally bad. I am not saying voting is foolish. I made no argument about voting. I am not the having that conversation with you, your brainworms are. You are now on comment 3, and you still think I'm talking about the 2024 election. I'm not. I, and hopefully the rest of non-Americans in this thread, are making a broader point about the overall trajectory of US politics, which is that it's not looking good.
Consider, for example: Why do the evil aliens have to be the same? Why can't one of the evil aliens be worse than the other? Maybe Kang instituted a 4-day workweek. Maybe Kang offered free healthcare. Maybe Kang is vegan, and Kodos eats kids. In this case, it would be entirely justified to vote for Kang, since he is by far the better option compared to Kodos. But the joke would still work, unchanged, because the setup for the punchline is "why are we building a death ray?". I act like you're unhinged because you answer "Why the death ray?" with "Kodos is a fascist!".
If the death ray is the two party system, then some members from one party support plans to dismantle the death ray, while the other party wants to build something even worse than the death ray. If the death ray is shitty things both parties agree on in general, they usually have a solid majority of the population in support of the death ray. However, even explaining this to you is more of a response than you deserve.
You called me a wonk with brainworms for calling fascists what they are, ignoring everything I said after that about shifting the narrative to more important topics. I even explained how identifying fascists isn't unhinged, yet you doubled down because you never actually cared about good faith discussion. It's too late to walk back to a reasonable position when you made it obvious that you think taking politics seriously is stupid.
"There's no shark in the water. Open the beaches so you don't ruin the 4th of July weekend Brody. Quit being alarmist. It's not like that many people will die anyways."
Few things are more pathetic than lazy slimeballs like you, smug in their apathy.
I don't want to take away your food stamps. That's the worms talking again.
Anyway, enjoy the death ray.
The worms didn't write your insulting and useless comments, but have fun lying to grieving mothers that lost their kids to sharks about how you totally argued for closing the beach.
No one will remember you didn't anyways.
Sanest US policy wonk.
Uses metaphors about alien death rays, yet can't understand an obvious Jaws reference.
Unparalleled genius
Most literate US policy wonk.
The US parties are weird.
Because there's no PR, anyone who wants to be effective has to join one of the parties. Because of that, diversity in each party is way higher than you see in places that use party list PR.
For example, the Democrats have both Alrxandria Ocasio Cortez, who describes herself as a democratic socialist, and Joe Manchin, a fairly conservative former coal exec from West Virginia.
The real interesting bit of American elections tends to be the primaries, where all the voters registered with a party vote on who their candidate should be. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez got elected because she defeated the incumbent Democrat in the primary.
In 2020, everyone from Bernie Sanders to billionaire Michael Bloomberg ran in the Democratic primary. There was some real choice there until Biden won and it became just Trump vs Biden.