B...b...but the Democrats are genociders so I didn't vote or voted 3rd party to help the Palestinians.
Did I help? Did I help them? Does this help them?
While I don’t disagree, I feel like we need to talk more about how disconnected the Democratic Party is from what their base actually wants. Them being diet republicans ain’t cutting it
True. But at the same time you're not going to get any of that by not voting and letting Republicans get elected. I mean get you butts out there and primary these centrist lead weights.
primary these centrist lead weights.
This. Right. Here.
No they'd rather sit on the couch and complain that the dinosaurs are dinosauring and won't switch to communist revolution like they believe everyone wants, even though they've never left the couch.
If they actually went out and tried to become local politicians to effect change they would probably see that their ideals are far less popular in real life among normal people outside of the terminally online crowd.
Ah yes, the "pull yourself up by the bootstraps" argument for electoralism. It doesn't matter who we vote for when they get laundered through the lobbying machine on the highest setting after or even before they get into office. Tell me, who is at the top of this list? https://www.opensecrets.org/industries/summary?code=Q05&cycle=All&ind=Q05&recipdetail=M
I'm saying this as someone who has voted democrats straight down the ballot in every election I could. It doesn't work when money is more powerful than any vote.
Money is only this powerful because people didn't vote when it mattered to keep money out of politics.
Both democrats and republicans are in line with neoliberal thought about letting corporations get bigger and bigger and giving more freedom to capital than to people. A simple vote isn't going to change this. Let's pretend that democrats are opposed to money in politics, you'd have to vote them in every single time because there aren't singular times when it'd matter since the assault on democracy is ever-present. This is impossible under the two-party system. Things will go wrong and people will blame whoever is in power. Things are constantly getting worse which is why we're seeing this more frequent swapping of parties in power.
Both democrats and republicans are in line with neoliberal thought about letting corporations get bigger and bigger and giving more freedom to capital than to people. A simple vote isn't going to change this.
Per usual, another lie spread by leftists. https://www.vox.com/2019/3/8/18253609/hr-1-pelosi-house-democrats-anti-corruption-mcconnell
As to the rest of it, our current democracy needs many changes to protect it from becoming an autocracy/oligarchy. The ones ones who are committed to those changes are Democrats.
But seizing power as Trump is doing to dictatorially implement changes to prevent dictators would be highly hypocritical. And if the basis of such reforms were based on such a shakeable foundation it would just waiting for the next dictator to come in and do what they want. In that case, then yes, what you'd say is correct, every new elected official will just be a dictator pushing their new whims on the populace. This is why I don't fault Democrats for trying to do things the proper way democratically through our voting process even if it seems slow or inefficient.
Sadly half of Americans have decided having a dictator isn't a deal breaker or something to exercise their vote for so that's left us here.
Gee, would have been nice to have democracy a few more years to maybe try and fix it.
Fix what exactly? It isn't that the democrats are a new party that suddenly popped into existence for the last election. They've been doing this shit forever.
... mmhmmm. I guess no democracy is better then. I'm convinced.
No, it isn't. But acting as if democrats were / are willing to change and listen to the people is extremely naive. That's the reason Bernie Sanders was never allowed to be a candidate despite being one of the most popular dems out there. There needs to be a third way / party that does better and claws out the democrats from ever being able to win.
They do hold primaries, ya know.
They let non-party-favored candidates run in the primaries just like how this kid is allowed to mow the law
So, we can't change that?
Not through the party-controlled process.
We are are walking on the same side of the street now. Please, flesh out your position because it's not clear what you intend.
What does he need to "flesh out"? The dems won't let anyone in outside of the "establishment". It needs to be entirely torn down to actually listen to people voting for em
There are new democrats all the time. The old guard can't live forever.
Where's all the idiots who wouldn't vote "for genocide" at?
Why was it more important for Kamala to continue the genocide than to win over those non-voters?
I'm sorry people of Gaza, this is really evil and as a US person who has paid taxes, I'm a part of it. I wish I could stop it but am poor, I'm not sure protesting would work. I feel helpless and also responsible. This is no different than when everyone looked the other way and refused to take Jewish people during WWII. I am sorry for not realizing what this was sooner and disbelieving the severity and evilness of it at first. :-( There's really no way for me to opt out of this unless I leave the US, become like Henry David Thoreau and just don't participate in society, which may mean death for me, or actually just choose to die so I no longer have to be part of a disgusting and evil society. The regular people of Gaza aren't part of this war and war crimes are being committed. It probably means nothing but I'm so so sorry.
axis of evil and has been. you vote democrat, you vote republican, you vote for genocide. simple as.
Sometimes you have to choose the lesser evil, and you did good in the difference.
and sometimes you have a conscience that doesn't allow you to rationalize away complicity in genocide
If your choice increases the magnitude of the genocide, how could it reduce your complicity?
'if if if' nevermind what is and has been happening... a party should lose support for genocide, especially when that side is ostensibly for social justice.
At this point, some people have become walking textbook trolley problems, where to make a choice that makes you moral in one dimension you become a monster in all the others and make everyone worse in the process. But your conscience is safe, thank you for that.
it is safe because i didn't allow myself to reduce supporting genocide to a trolley problem.
Reduce? You people spent months reducing all other issues that affect billions of people well into the future like fighting climate change or keeping civil rights or access to healthcare or labour rights or all 900 pages of project 2025 to the one issue where you have ~~no~~ negative leverage either way by voting for president.
You're the one dumbing down political debate to a single issue, I just framed it in a way that captures the pattern of hundreds of sterile debates I've seen online: you can choose to soil your conscience by collectively choosing to avert disaster or let disaster happen and get nothing in return (probably even worse) for your one cause.
And the worst part is your vote should not even have been decisive, it should have been easier to get 10% of undecided normies to compensate your reluctant 1%, but they are depoliticized and don't care if they live in fascism or not anymore.
and that's my prerogative as a voter. are you here to shame me some more? about the genocide i won't overlook to vote for kamala harris? the same kamala harris who reversed her position on fracking? who wanted to fund nato even harder? you're gonna tell me she represented a positive position on climate change?? and bath-tub of collard green kamala harris is not doing a damn thing for civil rights, so where are you coming from with this?
Eh, I'm venting at this point, as I wrote before, it's not your even your fault, y'all were probably ~~venting~~ grieving too over months of war crimes, it's the uninformed normies who don't care and don't understand that decided this.
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