Can I get a smug lecture on how you’re choosing the third, disconnected track?
The truth of the matter, as it’s often the way, it’s there’s nuances
- If you’re in a blue safe seat - vote third
- If you’re in a swing state - vote blue no matter who
- If you’re in a red state - vote blue no matter who
This is the way. As a voter it often feels like your vote doesnt matter. But the thing is focus on local elections. Vote in every election your allowed. Especially those off season elections have low turnout, and your vote matters much more. This is how you get demsoc candidates into positions of influence who can work their way up.
The republican party is full on fasc. No matter where you are dont vote for them. Make the red states have to cheat so obviously that the courts have to get involved. Swing states vote blue, but if you were voting in the local elections, and primaries theres a good chance your blue candidate isnt a centrist. If your in a solid blue state vote for the third party to show the centrist dems that you dont want a centrist, and that their hold is precarious. If youre lucky to have a leftist candidate on the ballot in a blue state vote for them.
This is the best way to tell the party how to win. They will ignore you, and they will fight you. But if their base votes hard left consistently they have to listen, or they lose to leftists.
Oh my God we need ranked choice voting, it should be a top priority but I never hear it even mentioned. It fixes so many issues and obliterates the 2 party system. But we just can’t have nice things.
The current two parties in your amazing country don’t want it, therefore it will never happen
https://fairvote.org/our-reforms/ranked-choice-voting/endorsers/
What % of them do you think are Republicans? I think they put one the only ones right there at the top to make it seem more bipartisan than it is.
The reality is that one party is far more united and steadfast against ranked choice, and it’s the party that would lose power because of it.
Alaska has ranked choice voting. But the viable independent is in Nebraska and the dsa candidates are in new York, Colorado, and Michigan. Minnesota has had farmer-labor candidates since ever, but if you don’t live in Minnesotta, we just call them democrats.
We do need ranked choice voting. But it will not destroy the two party system.
STAR voting might, or an approval vote. I used to stan AV, but I think STAR is better.
Keep pushing on that, bub and we’ll just get rid of voting 😠
There is always the secret option!
DEJA VU
I did my duty, i held my nose and voted for the lesser of two evils.
But there’s no sensible reason to blame genocide opposing progressives instead of the genocide supporting DNC who stubbornly refused to advance policies their own base wanted.
The DNC decided to risk democracy in order to save a genocide - possibly the single most irresponsible decision in the 21st century. Blame them, they deserve it.
Multiple groups can be blamed. The DNC deserves more blame than anyone who refused to vote, but all the people saying “if you vote for Kamala, you love genocide” deserve some blame too, because anyone with a brain knew that a lot more people were going to get hurt under Trump.
Wonder who they’ll run in 2028. If there’s an election in 2028.
I wake up every day not supporting a genocide. I wonder what’s so hard about it for the DNC. Boy do they love killing.
It’s the Zionists and their money. Conspiracy theorists were right all along unfortunately, with Israel doing everything possible to validate them.
But in an election once the candidates are locked between
“We’ll give money to the Israelis and they’ll kill Palestinians”
and
“We’ll give money to the Israelis and they’ll kill Palestinians, but also we want to get rid of Latinos and LGBTQ people, also poor people should lose the little healthcare they do have and hey there’s probably more bullshit we’re gonna pull, but some of it’s so stupid we haven’t even thought of it yet”
I can’t see how anyone with a brain would not vote against #2.
Donald Trump won completely legitimately and in addition to the 77.3 million Trump voters, there are about 90 million other eligible voters to blame for the kidnapping of Maduro, the war in Iran, the stupid ass tariffs, and so many other things. That’s what they all were willing to accept.
I can’t see how anyone with a brain would not vote against #2.
I love reading all of the replies to your comment that illustrate this sentence so clearly.
I can’t see how anyone with a brain would not vote against #2.
Because you’ve been around long enough to have been in this situation before. Voting #1 is at best a stop-gap measure. Option #1 doesn’t do anything to fix the underlying problem, and in fact, the next time around, #2 is way worse. (As is #1.) And this pattern keeps repeating. It doesn’t matter which you choose, you’ll end up with #2, just a bit later. (We’ve reached the stage at which genocide support is the lesser evil, fer chrissakes.)
As an analogy, the situation we have with the two parties is like a choice faced by person with Type 2 diabetes: Fall into a hypoglycemic coma right now and maybe die, or consume sugar by the spoonful. The second option is the correct choice, obviously. But next time around, it’s the same choice, and again after that. This person can choose the lesser evil every time, but it still leads to death.
So, painful and unlikely at it may be, some voters are thinking beyond the immediate moment and want to at least try to avoid the death of democracy.
So, no matter what, we are just inevitably fucked regardless of what we do, so let’s just hammer on the gas harder to let fascism win and destroy everything and get it over with? Do you not see how that is just authoritarian absolutism?
What kind of rollover defeatist cuck shit is this? Your stance is theologically conservative accelerationism, point blank.
That’s a bad faith interpretation.
Parties are coalitions that change over time. The neoliberal wing of the Democratic party has been ascendant since the Clinton years. But they are declining now. And the sole reason is that their brand is proving incapable of actually winning elections. If a party keeps winning, the people running the party maintain credibility and business as usual just keeps trucking along. Parties can only undergo fundamental change after losing a few cycles. It took the 3 losses of the Reagan and Bush Sr. years before something like Clinton’s triangulation strategy had any hope of winning support among the Democratic party.
I’m still struggling to not read that as accelerationism. How is that not accelerationism?
at this point i’d take stop-gap
this all gas no brakes into collapse is so much worse than milquetoast corpo democrat
Indeed, but there’s never a good time for collapse. It wouldn’t be any more enjoyable in 2030, if it were happening then instead.
You’re literally just vomiting accelerationist rhetoric.
i mean it can happen in 2080
You still supported the extermination of a whole population that are currently getting exterminated. Despite the oppression of the groups you are mentioning none are facing eminent extermination with mass murder and starvation and the destruction of the majority . No wonder the rest of the non western world hate you american scums
the war in Iran
Anyone with a brain knew the Dems were gonna lose supporting genocide. Even Trump met with the Palestinian imams the Harris campaign snubbed. Even Trump said there had to be a ceasefire. Sure, he was lying, but Biden & Harris wouldn’t even do that?
It would have been a lot cooler if she hadn’t thrown the election in a highly predictable manner.
So, you’re mad the dems had a level of transparency on their politics and didn’t lie straight to iur faces saying they wouldn’t do something they were obviously going to do?
That’s fucking stupid, you see that, right? If you’re going to dight that fight, at least do it better, is all I’m asking, because you’re being a dumbass about it. You’re hitting yourself.
No, you’re missing the fucking point. You JUST SAID that the Dems couldn’t take those positions because they would lose BUT THE REPUBS TOOK THOSE POSITIONS AND FUCKING WON SO YOU’RE FUCKING WRONG
Getting emotional is usually a good seen you feel confident in what you’re saying. I believe you. You’re so right.
Ad hominem + wowww youre so cool not getting emotional about genocide, really cool guy, wowwww, I’m going to vote for democrats and buy a Tesla now.
The elections are not a one time event. Yes, more people may suffer for 4 years, but if it builds momentum for an actually good 3rd party or at least reforming the DNC, it could have been worth it. But stupidly painting anyone who wants something better then just a Democrat win as an enemy that supports Trump ensures it can’t happen. It’s not that there are no rails to the third track. It’s that people like the author of the meme actively rips them out with the “voting 3rd party is a waste of vote” bullshit. If you ask me, voting for more politically correct genocide is a waste of vote. If you are choosing for the lesser of two genocides, you are alredy fucked either way.
No excuse for people who don’t vote at all tho.
if it builds momentum for an actually good 3rd party or at least reforming the DNC, it could have been worth it.
Tell that to all the families of kids that died because of the DOGE cuts.
We’re going to hear people saying “it was a good strategy though - shame it didn’t work out” while they’re on voter lines being patrolled by armed guard, just like in Russia. Even if elections are for show, “both sides” people will not admit they were wrong.
Voting for a 3rd party is a waste of a vote until that 3rd party has representatives in lower forms of government. The only bipartisan support we’ll see during a 3rd party term is when both parties work together to undermine the 3rd party President. It’s magical thinking to believe a 3rd party President will get anything accomplished without lower representation.
Take your strawman argument somewhere else. I never said or implied I was talking only about the presidential elections. You can vote for 3rd party president, sentaor, and congressman in the same election. Also for state and local 3rd party candidates.
And of course the DOGE fearmongering. Oh no, we can’t vote for change because of DOGE cuts! Sure, countless poeple are dying because of lack of healthcare, pollution, homlessness, … But we can’t try to do anything about that, because we will die of DOGE cuts! /s
Be upset that I’m reminding you of the failures brought on by protest and 3rd party voters. The vast majority do nothing between elections except post online about it.
DOGE and Iran wouldn’t have happened if Kamala was elected. Think of that every time you’re at the pump looking at those higher prices, if you’re old enough to drive.
Be upset that I’m reminding you of the failures brought on by protest and 3rd party voters.
The democrats lost because they ran a dogshit candidate and refused to change course from any of their many unpopular fantasies, yet you freaks insist they’re absolved of all guilt. The party cannot fail, it can only be failed.
People have been electing democrats on and off for over a century. Yet it changed nothing. But sure, 3rd party voting is the thing that can’t succeed. Doing the same thing again and again hoping for a different outcome is clearly the smarter thing to do.
But sure, if we just accept genocide and vote for it, at least the gas will be cheaper. Sure. Why not.
People have been electing democrats on and off for over a century. Yet it changed nothing.
Wrong, and there’s literally decades of legislation that you can review to see for yourself.
Go vote for 3rd party local government officials. If you want a 3rd party to be viable, this is the way.
Under the Biden/Harris leadership, Israel bombed every single school and hospital in Gaza and put in action the most brutal phase of the genocide, while whitewashing it all at the same time with their help. Tell us about it dipshit, how would less people get hurt under Harris? I would love to hear it.
how would less people get hurt under Harris?
A lot of people in Iran wouldn’t get hurt.
And fewer people would be brutalized by ICE
You’re actually wrong about that. Obama deported way more than trump. 3 million over 8 years, where trump deported 1.2 million over 4. Thomas Homan at ICE created the policy to separate children from their parents at the border. He was an Obama appointee and Obama gave him an award for distinguished service. He gave that award after Homan proposed family separations.
Biden deported 4.5 million. Trump has deported 675k in his first year. He’ll have a hard time catching up to Obama or Biden.
I’m not defending republicans here, they are awful. But pretending things would be better under this cabal of democratic party leadership is just complete BS that you like to pretend its true. Its not true. Thats part of why Dem voters are mad at the dem leaders.
While we’re on the subject, Dems killed more Palestinians than Republicans did.
You’re making an extremely dishonest comparison by lumping all deportation together.
Border deportations are mostly a function of arrivals. Someone comes in, and gets denied. When they’re walking back across the border, that’s a deportation. You can make a LOT of laws, but you’re not likely to influence that much.
Interior deportation is what people are bothered by. Obama shifted to deporting illegals with criminal records. Trump is just grabbing people off the street, regardless of what they did, and often regardless of status.
Then there’s the fact that Trump has made it intentionally hard to track data. Under Obama and Biden the data was clear and available, and for trump’s 2nd run, everything is being covered up and no data is available anymore. So it’s mostly guesswork.
This is cope. The current dem leadership is totally on board with the war in Iran, and if the current administration hadn’t started it, Israel would almost certainly have dragged a hypothetical Harris administration into one anyway.
Maybe, maybe not. We can never know whether she would have done that.
I highly doubt Harris would have got involved in a prolonged war. Maybe a strike to satisfy Israel, but honestly I find that hard to believe too.
Oh well in a few months we all will be hurting from the oil shortages regardless
Well, that’s exactly what you did when you stated it as fact that she wouldn’t’ve hurt as many people in Iran 🤷♀️
The several decade of American sanctions are killing more then the bombs during this war. Iran is going to get stronger once the evil american empire surrender
So … you’re saying going to war against Iran is a good thing?
There was a third option do not go to war with Iran and lift all sanctions on them
12 day old .ml account rooting for Republicans to win. So unoriginal
Still waiting for a response… 😔
Ad hominem, so unoriginal
Their job was to defend the white empire’s intrests. Democracy was never a value of theirs
Thus the trolly
I’d say it’s the party in power is actually doing it.
Well then you don’t understand how American politics works. It’s the entirety of the US government. It’s laws put in place by Democrats that Trump is using. And it’s not like the Ds aren’t crossing the aisle every other week to vote with Rs on some heinous shit. And it’s not like the Ds ever pulled back on military expansion, or expansion of ICE and DHS, or domestic surveillance.
Add some realpolitik:
The GOP largely controls the messaging, due to owning the majority of media, as well as being more likely to have degrees in communications and sales, while Democratic candidates tend to have degrees in hard sciences.
The very moment the DNC did anything to hinder the genocide, every news stations would have a picture of local and national Democratic candidates with photoshopped Hitler mustaches.
Growing up on the Mexican side of the border, that Mexican flag should be the other way. The “friendly democrats” would often say things to me like: “If we don’t let Mexicans in, who’s going to pick the fruit / clean the house / make good breakfast burritos” gee thanks
My general experience has been that the average centrist Democrat sees immigrants as “good cheap labor”, not people.
While it is true that centrist democrats don’t really see other ethnicites as people speaking broadly, they’ll still view an individual immigrant as a person.
When I go over to a democrats home they can be ignorant about what’s happening with migrants, but there no doubt in mind I’ll get to leave safely.
I celebrated thanksgiving with one of my friend’s family that is conservative, and there was a part of me that wondered if I would get to leave alive. It’s as if they were trying to rage bait me by saying the most heinous shit while brandishing guns and holding their holster when I turned to speak. Another time, I was with my partner’s family and her brother who’s a manager of a grocery store was complaining that he wished he could ban all non English speakers from coming into the store.
Both are not the best, but I can speak freely with democrats whereas a conservative may blow my head off if I say something they disagree with.
Oh yeah, there’s a huge gulf between the two. Both are pretty shitty, but one is cartoon villain shitty.
It frustrates me that the US doesn’t have an off ramp out of this. They really need that third option (or fourth or fifth), but there’s no realistic way to get to it electorally in a timeframe that matters.
Maybe something like “the top one only ties one arm across the tracks”? Like, you’re getting fucked, but not quite as badly?
It frustrates me that the US doesn’t have an off ramp out of this. They really need that third option (or fourth or fifth)
They really need an electoral system that makes a third or fourth or fifth option viable, like proportional representation or ranked choice of some kind. But…
there’s no realistic way to get to it electorally in a timeframe that matters.
I suspect that timeframe may be decades. You’d have to educate enough people who aren’t yet dug into " this is how we’ve always done it" about the problems of the system, convince them of a better alternative and, macabre as it may sound, wait for the old and stubborn “I don’t want to learn anything new” to die off.
Oh, so you guys are just gonna start acting like the Democratic party isn’t bigoted and evil? Is that really necessary to make the argument that the Republican party can’t be in power? You’re talking about the only real federal parties in the United States, the most destructive imperialist entity in human history.
When I see narratives like, “the Democratic party isn’t going to kill queer people,” I wonder if any of you even think of victims of US imperialism as people. Even within the metropole’s borders, how many women have died because the Democratic Party used abortion as a vote hostage? How many disabled people have died because they refused to guarantee healthcare (social programs aren’t the same, and do not establish the requirement of their own existence)?
These people are all imperialists, they’re evil, and the system they benefit from has to end for any of us to be safe. You can just say “the Republican Party is too successful with overt bigotry go be legitimized,” or, “we don’t need voting to be moral for it to be an exercise of our power.” You don’t have to fucking say that a genocidal, capitalist, imperialist institution is somehow only bad to one group of people (which makes it evil anyway).
seems to me that actively sabotaging any effort into making a connection to the third track so that no one has to die is a REAL ass hole move.
We can try to do 2 things at once, but you can’t deny that all those people that chose not to vote “in protest” during the last presidential election didn’t seem to do a THING towards supporting a 3rd party or setting up ranked choice voting.
They protested by staying in, we got the worse option of the 2, more people are hurt than would have been under “the other guy”, and we have nothing good to show for it.
People who don’t want to vote didn’t even show up to the polls to write in a common name. Disappointing.
if that’s so then representing this as the troley problem is EXTRA poiniant.
the troley problem is a problem, because it’s answer is debated. with the whole argument being either utilitarian, or deontology.
you just validated everyone who didn’t vote, good jorb there.
and as a utilitarian myself, i have to give you guys props on that self own. because you altered the trolly problem, the only valid options are deontology, or building the track away from the D. amazing jorb
Maybe if you used you political system as intended instead of just telling people they’ve got to vote they’d engage more.
Cool, but we live in reality, I love your ideas, but this is the real world
the REAL world has the election far enough out that preemptive adoption of a genocide is an unnecessary evil.
the REAL world has the D also with the same heads on the rail as R.
the REAL world has idiots posting this as a trolley problem, thus validating everyone who didn’t vote.
the REAL world has people using propaganda like this, who’s REAL goal is the continuation of genocide.
Sounds like you’re a conspiracy nutter to me
What do you call a Nazi collaborator?
Quisling is the typical term, i would argue for “democrat” but they’re Nazis too, so not so much collaborator about them.
The ones wanting a different track better vote in the primaries then, instead of just complaining about the party as a whole after the ticket is settled.
Way too many people in the fediverse don’t even know what the primaries are.
It’s red, yellow, and blue. We all learned it at school.
Most people saying “just vote in the primaries!” don’t know what primaries are.
Lots of states won’t let you vote in primaries unless you declare a party. We should start the messaging there. Declare a party, if only temporary, to vote for who you think is best during the first go around. Treat it as first past the post.
LOL. Lucy already pulled that football TWICE. The first time they rat fucked Bernie. The second time they didn’t even have primaries. You have got to be fucking insane to be saying “voting in primaries is our chance for change”. Are you fucking daft?
Almost like the presidential primary isn’t the only primary. The rise of the DSA is showing what primaries can do. And listen I’m not saying they’re perfect and will fix everything, but their a whole hell of a lot better than the options we’ve had.
Also don’t misunderstand you are right about Bernie and well the whole not having a presidential primary, but there’s no reason you can’t try to use the tools available within the system to marginally improve the circumstances of the working class AND pursue more radical action. You can do both
Yeah, you can. But you can also just focus on the thing that has always worked and will always work which is interest convergence. We must make politicians suffer for going the wrong way and benefit from going the right way. Civil Rights was passed by a bi-partisan coalition because they knew if they didn’t things would get much much worse for them, not at the ballot box, on the street. Women got suffrage without voting. Labor had to fight literal paramilitary combat to get us weekends. That’s how it works. Sure, vote. But don’t waste so much time on it and certainly don’t waste time trying to convince people to vote or convince people that “blue no matter who” is moral or that “sign up to be a Democrat, add your name to their roster and then vote in their convoluted and rat fucked primary system”. Let people vote their conscience and focus on raising their consciousness.
Voting takes like an hour every 2 years, it’s really not that hard. And yes on election day some areas have very long lines, but everywhere has some form of mail ballot and/or early voting.
It’s so easy there’s no reason not to go do it. I’ve spent more time switching a license at the DMV than voting has ever taken.
Also not a single one of those movements existed in a political vacuum. The threat of violence did exist, but so did the threat of politicians losing their positions. Honestly outside of the labor movements/skirmishes everything else you listed existed well within election politics. The movements were absolutely necessary to effect change, but not an either/or situation by any measure. Both was necessary
There weren’t even enough third party votes in total that could have swayed the election for Kamala.
Why are you wasting energy punching left?
Grow up
Persuading people to vote 3rd party is just one piece of the puzzle. Some will vote 3rd, others stay home and some morons can be convinced to vote for the pedophile party. It adds up.
3rd parties are also convenient in sewing doubt in the D candidate. If you show people there’s an obscure party that will offer world peace and free healthcare, D voters will be disappointed in their candidate, but the R voters don’t even hear the message.
The US election system is complete garbage, but you have to play with the D or R rules.
The US election system is complete garbage, but you have to play with the D or R rules.
You don’t have to at all. And the line of reasoning that makes someone vote for democrats despite their many many many issues, is a line of reasoning that logically concludes at voting third party.
All right, a third Trump term it is!
It would be functionally similar to a democrat, so yes, in essence your line of reasoning leads to a third trump term no matter what.
Truly the fashos are the same as the entire establishment. Feel free to keep enabling the nazis while patting yourself on the back. The political system in the US practically does not allow for third parties, and even if you manage to replace one party with something better that doesn’t solve the fundamental long term issue. Pushing for electoral reform one way or another does not mean you can’t at least put in a meaningful vote against the fashos.
Feel free to keep enabling the nazis while patting yourself on the back.
Sorry, I just said I won’t vote for democrats
So you’ll get either your 3rd party candidate (you won’t), or Trump’s third. Hard to see why you’d want that, but I guess we all have our reasons.
The Progressive Except Palestine line.
And deportations, police state, climate, womens’ rights, queer rights, militarism, warmongering, and so on…
I love how Americans live in this world where not supporting the ongoing Israeli genocide against the Palestinian civilian population is somehow a radical fantasy.
Reminder, the D guy has that guy tied to the tracks because apparently that’s where he thinks he should be. There has been plenty of time to get him out of the way, but the party is like “nah, leave him there. It’s better that way”.
Its a logic test. Not a creative problem solving tool.
The trolley problem is, emphatically, not a logic test.
Its a thought experiment meant to elucidate or test an argument or theory
No, it’s a philosophical dilemma used to talk about ethics. It’s completely terrible as a tool for what you’re proposing, since all it does is create a strawman like the one OP has made.
… its defined as a thought experiment and I was the one saying it wasnt a tool.
W/e youre protesting too much.
You were the one saying it was a logic test. You then went on to call it
a thought experiment meant to elucidate or test an argument or theory
Which would make it a rhetorical tool, wether you want to call it that or not.
Which is why I pointed out you’re wrong.W/e youre protesting too much.
I think I’m gonna have to use this one whenever someone disagrees with me. What a copout.
schrodinger’s cat, thats a rhetorical tool?
Youre not even disagreeing with me youre just protesting.
Regardless of strategic validity, I think “accept genocide X to postpone genocide Y” is just not a very hopeful message, and thus is not likely to encourage voter turnout or any political action
More importantly, when someone proves that they’re willing to trade human lives for the sake of power, why wouldn’t you assume they will make the same trade for yours? When someone tells you they’re a snake, believe them.
Every politician does this because every cycle uses utilitarian choice. They try to support the greater good, and that will disenfranchise people/entire groups of people.
We’re inching towards climate wars because of how we treat our planet. It’ll only get worse unless we stop this.
Can I get a smug lecture on how you’re choosing the third, disconnected track?
Can I get a smug lecture on how I have to vote for genocidal geriatrics in favor of a police state, fracking, migrant deportations, throwing queer people under the bus and siccing cops on peaceful protesters?
Don’t worry im also not voting for republicans, and I’m not voting for republicans 10 times while I’m only not voting for democrats 5 times, so really im giving Democrats 5 whole votes! Youre welcome.
Holy shit, the number of people ITT where the message went right over their fucking head. Yes, OP, you got your smug lecture, as you prophesied. It’s insane how it doesn’t fit into people’s heads that you can work on getting better candidates/better positions/more sense into the DNC without indirectly supporting a full on fascist in the meantime.
What? Are you telling me it’s not just us vs. them? There’s nuance? Maybe even spectrums instead of binary choices? Get out of here with that nonsense. /s
