Doesn’t fucking matter, I’m voting D because it’s a fucking binary system and the other choice is a dystopian totalitarian shithole and abstaining from voting is voting for said shithole.
That can change but it requires people to get involved at ground level politics like school boards, city councils, county supervisors and township offices. It takes about ten years for these officials to reach congressional levels. The teabaggers did this successfully but they had a lot of financial support from wealthy conservatives.
This is something that people constantly miss. It’s why you can write off third parties. Plenty of people want to see change, but they think just winning the presidency is enough. It isn’t. You need Congress too. And getting Congress means winning individual races on the state level. And winning those often means you need to win elections for state and local positions. You can sometimes skip local and go straight to state, but very rarely can you skip state and go federal.
If we want a better system, it needs to start local with a well organized ground game across every state. You need to build up a reputation and strongholds. Greens and libertarians aren’t interested in doing this, which is I write them off as opportunistic grifters.
The Greens are absurdly good at the grift. You had Jill Stein wine and dine with Russian oligarchs and have a few pseudoscience beliefs, including vaccine hesitancy, and people still thought she’d be better for the working class and handling COVID.
Yep. Also, they don’t do anything serious at the grassroots level. Vote for them at the national level, but no candidates making their way up through the ranks by serving locally first? Get serious - that’s supposed to be my viable option as a progressive? A compromised cutout kook like Stein hanging with the likes of Putin and pushing complete nonsense as a supposed option to vote for at the national level and…nothing at the local.
Who do they think they are kidding? It might be a great way to siphon off votes to help the fascist party get into office - like 2016 - but other than making a handful of useful idiots feel that they really Showed The Man ™ by not backing Democrats, what have they done?
The Tea Party, at least in this one regard, has been inspirational. Imagine if a hard left wing group managed to get support and glomp onto the Democrats and force their will on the larger party like the Tea Party turned MAGA Party has. We could see some serious progress instead of having token voices to ignore come voting time, because they have no choice but to stick with the main Party line.
“We won’t vote for a budget that doesn’t include Universal Healthcare. Good luck getting support from the Republicans, they hate you.”
I agree, it would be great to see. But the success of the Tea Party was predicated on the support of conservative billionaires. The left doesn’t have any of those. Moreover, there’s no room for it in the current political situation.
In the absolute best-case Scooby-Doo ending for 2024, Trump is defeated and convicted. I think there’s at least a slim chance that this could break the GOP enough that it splinters into the Double-Down Crazy Party and the Let’s Get Back to Fleecing the Poors in a More Socially Acceptable Way Party. In this scenario, a real left-wing party could gain some traction.
So I don’t think the Republican Party can splinter and survive. The only reason they’re still holding power is because they use the power they already have to perpetuate more (e.g. voting restrictions, gerrymandering, reducing powers of parts of government that do get voted Dem). I don’t think they can lose a lot of those areas for even one election cycle without potentially losing them forever. The Dems would have to just… stop those things (apply reasonable distracting, remove excessive voter restrictions, etc) and they’ll have the controls in perpetuity (especially with the more liberal younger generations growing older).
I think the Republicans will accept any level of crazy to keep in the race.
Both parties openly backing and arming the genocide in Palestine, the most well-documented genocide in world history, despite overwhelming public opposition, is not a binary system, it’s a one-party system. We are living in dystopia already, the Democrats shave 3% off of whatever the fascist Republican platform is and say “we’re the best option.” Stop being a fool and see the system for what it is.
We see the system for what it is, so I’ll vote for the slightly less terrible party in the short term and also do the things necessary to change it in the long term.
Good luck with your attempts at incremental change, that’ve been going on for a century while our society has completely devolved into fascism, a bipartisan police state and a genocidal global empire. You are clearly the brilliant visionary we need to guide us into the uncharted future.
You are so insightful, offering how what little incremental changes we’re doing aren’t enough. Your powers of observation are impressive and really contributing every time you bring it up.
So tell me, what is your feasible solution that will help in the short and/or long term? Or are you taking the position that the ship is unsalvageable, and we just have to go down with it? Because your vocal contributions aren’t helping with those making an effort to bale water out.
What is my feasible solution? General strike and/or total shift to third party to implement direct democracy. 100 million people can go out and waste their vote on a petty tyrant like Biden or Trump, or 100 million people can actually start making real changes. You’re all in a prison of your own making.
That’s not feasible. You start that up, the Republicans win and you lose anything you’ve gained plus more. You keep going and the Republicans keep winning, and the more they’re able to solidify their power until we’re living in a literal Christo-fascist nation.
That’s a great plan if, and only if, that is your ultimate goal.
Prohibition? We still have drug prohibition. Woman’s suffrage? It’s something, but women’s votes still are as useless as everyone else’s, especially if you refuse to vote for anything to actually change (and they still have a wage gap). 75-day school year - what? Jim Crow? Improvements but black communities institutionalized, ghettoized, gunned down by cops, and still a wage gap. See prohibition.
Plus, now our government is totalitarian, eating a third of GDP, massive surveillance state, largest military on earth, quarter of the prisoner’s on Earth, constantly trying to censor the internet, economy is insanely unequal and getting worse, inflation over the long term getting worse and wages not keeping up with them, housing prices skyrocketing, and currently openly engaged in a genocide despite nation-wide protests. Need me to keep going?
Thanks for your best wishes! I’m lucky enough that the hour it takes a year to vote doesn’t get in the way of the direct action I participate in the rest of the year.
Doesn’t fucking matter, I’m voting D because it’s a fucking binary system and the other choice is a dystopian totalitarian shithole and abstaining from voting is voting for said shithole.
That can change but it requires people to get involved at ground level politics like school boards, city councils, county supervisors and township offices. It takes about ten years for these officials to reach congressional levels. The teabaggers did this successfully but they had a lot of financial support from wealthy conservatives.
It takes corporations to get involved. Currently it only benefits them to have Republicans. Until the money gets involved it will never sway.
This is something that people constantly miss. It’s why you can write off third parties. Plenty of people want to see change, but they think just winning the presidency is enough. It isn’t. You need Congress too. And getting Congress means winning individual races on the state level. And winning those often means you need to win elections for state and local positions. You can sometimes skip local and go straight to state, but very rarely can you skip state and go federal.
If we want a better system, it needs to start local with a well organized ground game across every state. You need to build up a reputation and strongholds. Greens and libertarians aren’t interested in doing this, which is I write them off as opportunistic grifters.
Yeah, the greens are especially a joke. The LP is essentially an outlet for Republicans to pretend to be “independent” every once in a while.
The Greens are absurdly good at the grift. You had Jill Stein wine and dine with Russian oligarchs and have a few pseudoscience beliefs, including vaccine hesitancy, and people still thought she’d be better for the working class and handling COVID.
Yep. Also, they don’t do anything serious at the grassroots level. Vote for them at the national level, but no candidates making their way up through the ranks by serving locally first? Get serious - that’s supposed to be my viable option as a progressive? A compromised cutout kook like Stein hanging with the likes of Putin and pushing complete nonsense as a supposed option to vote for at the national level and…nothing at the local.
Who do they think they are kidding? It might be a great way to siphon off votes to help the fascist party get into office - like 2016 - but other than making a handful of useful idiots feel that they really Showed The Man ™ by not backing Democrats, what have they done?
The Tea Party, at least in this one regard, has been inspirational. Imagine if a hard left wing group managed to get support and glomp onto the Democrats and force their will on the larger party like the Tea Party turned MAGA Party has. We could see some serious progress instead of having token voices to ignore come voting time, because they have no choice but to stick with the main Party line.
“We won’t vote for a budget that doesn’t include Universal Healthcare. Good luck getting support from the Republicans, they hate you.”
I agree, it would be great to see. But the success of the Tea Party was predicated on the support of conservative billionaires. The left doesn’t have any of those. Moreover, there’s no room for it in the current political situation.
In the absolute best-case Scooby-Doo ending for 2024, Trump is defeated and convicted. I think there’s at least a slim chance that this could break the GOP enough that it splinters into the Double-Down Crazy Party and the Let’s Get Back to Fleecing the Poors in a More Socially Acceptable Way Party. In this scenario, a real left-wing party could gain some traction.
So I don’t think the Republican Party can splinter and survive. The only reason they’re still holding power is because they use the power they already have to perpetuate more (e.g. voting restrictions, gerrymandering, reducing powers of parts of government that do get voted Dem). I don’t think they can lose a lot of those areas for even one election cycle without potentially losing them forever. The Dems would have to just… stop those things (apply reasonable distracting, remove excessive voter restrictions, etc) and they’ll have the controls in perpetuity (especially with the more liberal younger generations growing older).
I think the Republicans will accept any level of crazy to keep in the race.
Both parties openly backing and arming the genocide in Palestine, the most well-documented genocide in world history, despite overwhelming public opposition, is not a binary system, it’s a one-party system. We are living in dystopia already, the Democrats shave 3% off of whatever the fascist Republican platform is and say “we’re the best option.” Stop being a fool and see the system for what it is.
We see the system for what it is, so I’ll vote for the slightly less terrible party in the short term and also do the things necessary to change it in the long term.
Good luck with your attempts at incremental change, that’ve been going on for a century while our society has completely devolved into fascism, a bipartisan police state and a genocidal global empire. You are clearly the brilliant visionary we need to guide us into the uncharted future.
You are so insightful, offering how what little incremental changes we’re doing aren’t enough. Your powers of observation are impressive and really contributing every time you bring it up.
So tell me, what is your feasible solution that will help in the short and/or long term? Or are you taking the position that the ship is unsalvageable, and we just have to go down with it? Because your vocal contributions aren’t helping with those making an effort to bale water out.
Wow, sorry, didn’t realize this was still going.
What is my feasible solution? General strike and/or total shift to third party to implement direct democracy. 100 million people can go out and waste their vote on a petty tyrant like Biden or Trump, or 100 million people can actually start making real changes. You’re all in a prison of your own making.
That’s not feasible. You start that up, the Republicans win and you lose anything you’ve gained plus more. You keep going and the Republicans keep winning, and the more they’re able to solidify their power until we’re living in a literal Christo-fascist nation.
That’s a great plan if, and only if, that is your ultimate goal.
Of course it’s feasible. Biden literally cannot win, it’s in fact the only option if you don’t want to see GOP in power again.
Yeah… things haven’t changed much in the last 100 years…what with Prohibition, women’s sufferage, a 75-day school year and Jim Crow.
Prohibition? We still have drug prohibition. Woman’s suffrage? It’s something, but women’s votes still are as useless as everyone else’s, especially if you refuse to vote for anything to actually change (and they still have a wage gap). 75-day school year - what? Jim Crow? Improvements but black communities institutionalized, ghettoized, gunned down by cops, and still a wage gap. See prohibition.
Plus, now our government is totalitarian, eating a third of GDP, massive surveillance state, largest military on earth, quarter of the prisoner’s on Earth, constantly trying to censor the internet, economy is insanely unequal and getting worse, inflation over the long term getting worse and wages not keeping up with them, housing prices skyrocketing, and currently openly engaged in a genocide despite nation-wide protests. Need me to keep going?
Thanks for your best wishes! I’m lucky enough that the hour it takes a year to vote doesn’t get in the way of the direct action I participate in the rest of the year.
Mutual aid isn’t mutually exclusive with voting.
So what do you do to improve it?
Points gun at own dick
“STOP BEING A FOOL!!!11!”