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this post was submitted on 02 May 2024
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Yeah even to expand on that - they don't understand that everything they don't like about Biden, they'll like about Trump less. I mean I have real serious gripes about Biden but it is insultingly stupid to pretend that Trump would be any kind of a solution to those problems.
It seems that many of them know that Trump is worse, but think that sticking to ideals and voting for a non-viable candidate (or not voting at all) is somehow the best course of action. Republicans count on people like that to win. Fascists don't give a fuck how they get into power, as long as they do.
They don't just count on it. They actively invade spaces and spread that idea. I'm almost certain the first people saying that about Biden/Israel were right wing trolls, and people on the left actually took the bait and started spreading it themselves.
I get the sentiment, because I hate our two choices, too, but until first past the post system is changed, the lesser of two evils will always be the most practical choice.
They also seem to fervently believe:
Any time you ask for details on step 2, you get an unhinged rant with zero plausibility.
My best guess, if they actually believe there's a path to a ranked choice system and aren't just being doomers, is that they think a bloody rebellion will do the trick.
Yeah, there's a lot of tankies that pretend they are progressives so they don't get laughed at outright. They'll take their masks off 10-20 comments down the thread where few people actually see.
I tend to find that the people who believe in participating in the 2 party system also do these same steps. Why would either party do away with FPTP? Neither one has any incentive to do it. At least third parties often have it listed as part of their platform and have incentive to do it because they can't easily get elected within the current system.
The way it will happen is grassroots local compaigns. Those don't have as much need for FPTP and are more likely to be politicians who care. Eventually you build up enough to change things locally, then change state laws. That might be enough there, but it can potentially be pushed further and go for a national campaign once you have enough momentum.
It won't change by the president or congress right off the bat. That's not how this sort of thing happens. I wish it were. It'd be a lot faster and simpler, but it just won't work.
Your part 3 and part 1 are the same.
This is the ??? part you left out:
You don't just stop voting because FPTP is rigged and wildly corrupt. You fight with every weapon at your disposal, even the ones rigged against you.
This is how Maine, Alaska, and Hawaii did it. This is how everyone else needs to do it.
What exactly is your plan for changing first past the post?
You could make the case that if the democrats actually supported that, it's worth holding your nose and voting for them in order to open up other options in the future. But they don't support it, because they benefit from it. So basically you're asking the left to keep voting for the democrats unconditionally forever while they don't address any of our concerns and refuse to make any sort of reforms that might allow us to have a voice in the future. How is that a viable path to accomplishing anything?
The plan is to keep voting in every primary for the most progressive candidates and then voting for the least bad people in elections while pushing for reform. However hard it is to enact change while Democrats are in power, it will be impossible while Republicans are.
I'll pose the same question to you: how is not voting for the least bad viable candidates, thus guaranteeing the worst candidates get into power, a viable path to accomplishing anything?
Did you not notice what the DNC did to Sanders in the last Democrat primary???!
It's not just a case of "a few bad apples".
I noticed that voters didn't turn out to vote for him. The DNC doesn't get all the blame.
But what I'm being told over and over is if Biden cuts off support for Israel he'll lose the election. Which means moderates and liberals won't vote for a progressive candidate who makes it through the primaries leading to whatever nutjob is running on the other side.
So our reward for being pragmatic and holding our nose will be the same as voting 3rd party today.
It's just as impossible to enact reform through the Democratic party. Especially when you adopt the approach of "vote blue no matter who." The Democratic parties interests in terms of voting reform are directly contrary to the interests of voters, and will never allow it happen unless they have no other choice. If they know they can count on your support no matter, then you have forfeited whatever negotiating power you've managed to accrue.
To the extent that electoralism is worth engaging with, strategic voting as part of a bloc is the only way to make it worthwhile. The goal should be to build an organization or movement that can say, if you refuse to give into our demands, we will not vote for you and you will lose. In the short term, it might mean losing an election, but if you can demonstrate that power, then in the future you'll be able to make a credible threat of withholding votes to get what you want, and if they cooperate you won't have to follow through. If that organization is able to coordinate other actions like strikes, then all the better.
It's like this: two countries are facing a powerful invader, and the only way to fend them off is through an alliance. But country A says, "I know you need us to survive, so we demand 99% of your territory in exchange for an alliance." If country B follows the ideology of "lesser evilism," they'll agree to that, because 1% is better than 0%. But how did that happen, when country A needs the alliance just as much? Because lesser evilism is stupid and irrational. At some point you have to set a red line and say, this is the absolute minimum that I'll accept, and I'll reject anything less even if it means the deal falling through and me facing a worse outcome. And "no genocide" is decidedly inside of that line.
There are a few ways of going about it. One is third parties. If you vote for the Green Party for example, you get voting reform, anti genocide policies and a much better enviromental policy. At the same time Biden is still much better then Trump and being realistic about what you can get should also be part of voting strategy. Also it is incredibly important to say, that citizenship does not end at the ballot box. You got to and can do more to influence politics. So I would probably vote Biden in a swing state and Green Party in an state, which is not a swing state. This matters in two ways. Firstly the more people vote third party, the more likely they can get into some actual power, but also the Democrats see that they can gain potential votes, by improving policies.
Also no lesser evil has to be distinguised from compromise and deals. If you get an actual improvement out of doing something, it can be worth doing even at a price. So if two countries face a powerfull invader, it can be worth making a deal that country A gets 40% of the invaders land and country B also 60%, if country B is already stronger for example. In that case both get something out of it. However without the alliance both would probably fail. In this case the question is, if Biden would actually net improve the US compared to today.
The point of the hypothetical is to demonstrate why the principle of lesser evilism is incorrect. Not every deal has to be exactly equal, the question is what to do when offered a terrible deal when the other party needs you just as much as you need them, and the answer is to bargain even if it means a risk of the deal falling through.
Lemmy is absolutely infested with right wing trolls pretending to be leftists. And the worst part is that .ml protects them because they are completely blinded to this subversion by their pathological instinct to relitigate the cold war.
It's incredibly obvious to everyone who understands why assuming the moniker of a Haitian slave turned actual freedom fighter is actually incredibly offensive to those dealing with real oppression, both modern and historical.
Everybody who disagrees with you is a right wing troll?
It is pathetic how you are falling into the same line of thinking like the Trumpists. Building the Dems into a cult is not going to solve any of the problems. Threatening their power basis by voting based on principles does. Because then they have to actually listen to their potential voters. The majority of Americans is against continuing to support the Genocide committed by Israel. Biden would gain politically by turning the tides. But he would rather help Trump into power, than to stop a fucking Genocide.
Stop blaming the people who are voting and start holding the people in power accountable for their actions. That is the entire point of threatening not to vote fore the Dems.
Republicans have lost more than one Senate seat because they ran zealous nutbag losers in safe elections and pissed off moderates.
I'm not sure why Democrats get to run pro-war Zionists and Blue Lives fascists, free from the fear that they'll suffer the same fate.
Because even though they would prefer the fascists don't get into power, the wealthy Democrat politicians know they won't be too adversely affected by it.
Well that just begs the same question about the moderates and liberals who keep them in power. Do they think this is a winning strategy?
Because unfortunately the pro-Israel, pro- cop Democratic candidates are much closer to the average voter than the nutbag religious extremists are.
The majority of Americans are against the continued support for the Genocide. Sanders speaks about that in the speech.
If that's true, why do more Republicans hold office at the national, state, and local levels?
Gerrymandering, structural advantages, etc. the same as it's always been.
This sounds like the strategy Republicans are banking on to win.
This is an uncomfortable truth that people don't want to face
You will understand this when you understand why most people who have more than 20s of geopolitical memory associate people who unironically rant about evil Zionists with neo-nazis.
You realize this critique cuts both ways right? Fox news and CNN are completely aligned in their criticisms of the protestors.
Yeah but the problem is we live in at least a pro-fascist state if not a fascist state already. So convincing people who realize this to vote for the guy who has been voting for fascist policies for decades (as well as some progressive ones, for those who will say I'm ignoring the "good" he's done) and is actively supporting genocide not just in policy but in his statements and apparently beliefs is going to be pretty tough. It's not just about voting "not Trump" anymore, people also want to vote "not Biden".
If you're going to call Biden a fascist, the word really does mean "anything I don't like".
Where did I call Biden a fascist?
If someone is being accused of voting for fascist policies, it's reasonable to assume they are being accused of being a fascist.
While I would call Biden a fascist (and I do), your logic doesn't follow. Would I call every Biden voter a fascist? No. Fascist apologist or enabler, maybe.
Show a little fucking courage when you call someone a name, own it coward.
Okay, he's a fascist. As if that needed to be pointed out.
Apparently it did because you tried to say you didn't call him that 40 minutes ago. Glad we could clear it up, it wasn't that hard.
And with that, the world has reached a new record for equivocation
Taking the “moral high” ground even though it would have a bad result. Sounds like what the DEMs do all the time.
“I learned it from you” -young people probably.
And the Dems get criticized for taking the moral high ground at the expense of being practical, too.
Or they understand that all this apolgetics for the Dems being the lesser of two evils just results in them being the same evil, just four years later. The Dems are still running internment camps at the border. They are still building Trumps wall.
By never threatening them with actual consequences to their power, you give them a blanket check to fuck everyone over for their rich donors. And that is exactly what they did and continue to do.
No they are not the same evil, and it insults the intelligence to pretend otherwise. And threatening the Dems with consequences by giving power to people who are even worse on those issues than them? That does the opposite of what you're hoping - it encourages that kind of behaviour.
We got to where we are because the right has pulled the window further and further, step by step, for years - and we have to do the same. The system doesn't just change overnight.
You have to understand that a win for Trump this year is a total win for the far right and a total loss for the left. Anyone pretending otherwise is hopelessly misguided or intentionally stumping for the fascists.
Because the Dems were happy to shift the window with them instead of pulling on the other side. Telling them "Either you pull it back now, or there is no reason to vote for you." Is the only way they will be motivated to not help the Reps pushing further to the right.
Sure just like in 2016 after we withheld our votes from HIllary and let the far right get all their wishes. The Dems realized how wrong they were and came pandering to leftists.
But surely it'll work this time, at least we don't have that many liberal justices left to lose on SCOTUS.
Because you accepted Hillary 2.0 with Biden. The DNC is laughing their asses off, as they keep shoving a "establishment" aka far right imperialist neo-liberal economics candidate down your throat. And now they are gas lighting you, to blame you for them only giving your candidates that are against your interests and against human rights and international law.