Removed by mod
No but see if I’m a big brain I don’t vote and then the fascist is elected and I can tell everyone how smart I am for not voting for the guy that wasn’t a fascist while we are on the train to the death camps.
Damn why didn’t I think of that
This is the correct take, unfortunately. I think we should all strive for harm reduction and voting Republican is voting in a fascist and they clearly will commit a genocide. But this doesn’t mean we can make things better if we vote blue.
The power we have to change the state of affairs is to vote down ballot. Vote in progressive individuals (if not actual socialists) in lower elections. I was able to do that two years ago for my city, ane I assisted in canvassing and more, and we now all feel an immediate impact. Another example of voting blue is Michigan (or Minnesota?) who has a blue gov, house, and senate and they enshrined so many rights. There is benefit in voting blue. I digress a bit though.
After voting down ballot and creating the infrastructure for more progressive and socialist ideas, then we move towards the democratic primaries. I know we didn’t hold any this time, and it’s a huge fucking problem, but if we set the foundation we will be able to set the stage for more progressive candidates, plus the primaries is where Dems go further left. Look at what happened when Bernie entered the race. His positions were so popular and people so fervent about them that even Biden supports them (to an extent). It moves the party over to the left.
So yeah, “Vote Blue No Matter Who” sucks ass. I wish we had more options. I wish our system didn’t suck. But we need to make sure we have future elections. I am a bit on the older end, and I see a lot of pessimism and cynism in the younger generation. Well don’t worry. I will do the work now and pave a path for y’all who are hopeless. We will become more progress and socialistic. We stand on the burdens and bittersweet victories of our working class predecessors. They died for worker rights. They died for women’s rights and suffrage. We are actually moving forward but slowly.
Remember, democracy is the exception and not then norm. A majority of countries are fascistic. And we are an actual beacon and great example and I do believe we will make it out of this mess in a decent position.
The problem is when the other side is also being told the other guy is destroying democracy.
Yes but the mere fact that two opposing statements exist does not mean those statements are of equal veracity.
And since they aren’t, we can fight against the false messaging.
Does it suck? Is it a bunch of bullshit work we shouldn’t have to do? Yes, definitely. But truth can conquer lie in ways lie can never conquer truth.
Now? This has been the way for many decades.
Welcome to the bipartitisan system.
Suggesting that bourgeois “democracy” is democratic in the first place lmao. The only ones who have a say in how this poorly veiled oligarchy is run are the ruling class of capitalists. That’s what this system was designed to do in the first place after all.
The people just get to take part in an electoral circus every few years to pretend like they have a choice. Also keeps the working class divided among two parties and decreases the chances of a revolution for a better system; thus protecting the capitalist ruling class.
Not voting and/or encouraging others not to vote is licking those very boots. Maybe you don’t have much influence, but that doesn’t mean it’s a mature take to completely abdicate whatever influence you have.
Nothing like the good ole “vote for my guy or else” messaging every 4 years to really drive up voter turnout for first time voters and disenfranchised/marginalized communities.
This is exactly how they want you to think. It’s disempowering. It’s a kind of fatalistic politics of inevitability that keeps the masses docile and resigned.
What keeps the working class docile and resigned is making them think their bourgeois “democracy” isn’t rigged against them in the first place.
Once someone understands that, they can develop class consciousness and organize to eventually to forcibly change the system to a better one; that has always been the most successful way people have changed their nations for the better.
Do you have an example of that forcibly changing society to the better stuff? Preferable one that was later than French revolution.
Bengali liberation war/revolution in 1972 against the prior oppressive US-backed west-Pakistani government.
Cuban revolution in 1959 to overthrow the prior US-backed military dictatorship.
Russian October revolution in 1917 to overthrow the prior tsarist system.
Vietnamese wars/revolutions against the Japanese, French, and the US.
Iranian Islamic revolution in 1979 to overthrow the prior US-backed monarchy.
Yemeni revolution in 2014 to overthrow the prior US and Saudi-backed puppet government.
Etc. etc
Revolutions to overthrow the prior system entirely have always been more successful than trying to change the system from within, cuz they’re usually designed to prevent that from being possible to begin with. And all these revolutions have indeed successfully drastically improved people’s lives in their respective nations, though alot of them are currently heavily sanctioned or outright attacked by the countries that ruled them.
Also interesting how most of these oppressive system were US-backed; no wonder then that US media tries to portray their current governments as negatively as possible lol.
Today I opened the fridge and two options presented to me was a piece of moldy bread and leftovers that I didn’t particularly fancy. I decided that the only logical option would be to punch myself in the nuts as hard as I can. I will not do anything esle and tomorrow I will open the fridge again hoping something will miraculously change.
Your logical option would’ve been to prepare to go out and buy something else. i.e join a leftist org with the goal of increasing the movement to eventually overthrow the current fucked up system like many nations have done (see below) and try to convince your friends and family to do the same.
And if you’re comparing funding an ongoing genocide with leftovers… Idk what to tell you tbh
This is what we were told in 2020. If this remains the only option then democracy is already lost since you can only vote for two genocidal maniacs instead one.
The problem is you chuds don’t start caring until election year. If you don’t want to be stuck with the “better of two bad options” as your choices, get involved earlier in the process at the stages where picking the candidates and positions actually happens. If you’re bitching about choices in the general election and yet you weren’t part of the primary season, then you’re complicit with the problem. Change takes effort, on our part. If we give a shit, we have to be willing to do a little bit of work, and that work starts long before you walk into a polling booth in November.
OMG THIS. So much this! Well said!
Yeah but watch the new gen still come along and whine ‘why are all the candidates old? Why cant you pick anyone else??’ while they slept through the nominations and complain how everything happens TO them.
Lmao. Ask 2016 Bernie how that went when he got sabotaged by the DNC
Yeah, I know, I was actively involved and watched it happen live.
So your take-away from that is that when your opponent cheats and wins a battle, you should just give up and forfeit in protest?
Look man, the reality is that things are fucked, so they aren’t going to get unfucked simply. It’s not going to be a “okay everyone show up this Friday and we’ll clean the lake” situation, it’s going to be a hard-fought and difficult war with many setbacks along the way. And yes, that fucking sucks. And yes, I want to be able to magically make it all better all at once or object to the process entirely and get to live outside it in protest, but the fact is that neither of those things are legitimate real world options. So if we want things to get better, we have to put in the work, and not just once, and understand that yes, the cards are stacked against us, but nobody is going to save us but ourselves. So you can either be a defeatist and effectively bend over to take what they give you disrespectfully or you can wake up to the reality of the situation and stop being a naive child waiting for non-existent referee to come in and admonish them for cheating.
The take away is that you’re never ever going to bring about positive change by voting Democrat nor republican. A third party is quite literally the only way to fix this if the Democrats keep putting corporate puppets forward.
So the only option is getting ranked choice voting and that can be done at the state level. We absofuckinglutley need that change to happen!
Then we can all vote for Purity McPurepure as #1 and strategic votes can be your #2, 3 etc… I really think this is the only way out were we can actually make it happen.
Even in ranked they’d have primaries. You’d still have to make some effort in that system as well over who’s voted in at the candidate stage.
There are multiple candidates in each party during primaries. Even in your beloved third parties. They are saying get involved earlier to vote during primaries to quell this whole ‘l don’t like who the candidate is’ bullshit. Cuz that’s also on you: the voter. You can’t just show up to the end poll and bicker about who ended up in the primaries way back when you sat on your ass. Cuz they are right, that’s not an excuse when you had the pick of the litter and just allowed whomever else pick it and then wait to whine about it on election day
Fine, then put in the equivalent work into a third party.
But I’ll bet damn near anything you aren’t putting that work in there either.
The point is bitching about the situation is fine but doesn’t solve anything. No matter what it will take work, nobody else will save us, and objecting to the process is the same as bending over and accepting it.
No the second you say the word third party a Democrat shows up and screams that you are a Russian troll.
Accepting the process is bending over. Objecting to it is not.
Unfortunately that’s not the game we’re playing in this country. By voting for a 3d party candidate you’re defacto voting for the party that gets more representation for less votes which in this case is the Republicans.
Grow up. If you don’t like the rules, work to change them, but you won’t accomplish anything by simply ignoring them. You have to change the system first, and only then can we have real multi party elections.
So you just realized now it’s bipartisan? You just started learning about American politics today?
The other poster is right. It’s not like there’s not a lot of candidates within the two parties early on to start voting on. Waiting to kick open your car door on election day is too late. And that’s on you.
Bernie was the only shot. That ship has sailed. DNC have shown to be in full control and will never release their iron grip on the two party system.
I’m not quite sure how you all have any hope left after Bernie put his entire life into trying to do it the way you’re suggesting.
Did you vote for him in the primaries? Did you canvas for him?
into trying to do it the way you’re suggesting.
You are clearly lost on tracking what conversations you’re posting to.
I’d bet real money that the kids chanting “genocide Joe” are entirely unaware that their little grassroots movement was created by conservatives to boost Trump’s election chances.
And it’s totally working.
Yeah Trump made Genocide Joe bypass Congress to bomb refugee camps in Gaza. Everything is Trumps fault vote for Biden everyone nothing to see here. Both sides schmoth sides amirite.
no, it wasn’t
You’re wrong, but you’re entitled to be.
I’m out of the know on this one, can you elaborate?
a claim made without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.
I have presented exactly as much evidence as you
Not going to argue with you because I don’t want my account banned.
I don’t moderate anything. I can’t ban you.
In fairness… I’ve had accounts banned for arguing with socialists here. I can’t blame anyone for standing down in debate vs anyone that supports the ideology of the whole genocide Joe.
I think you were banned for incivility.
I don’t want you to argue. I want you to stop spreading lies.
It was. It’s also being pushed very hard by the Russians and other foreign actors who have a huge interest in seeing Trump reelected. Why wouldn’t they? It’s way too easy and it’s working exactly as intended.
Of course the right is going to disingenuously use this as a wedge issue. But, what exactly is your ask here? If a Democratic president is complicit in genocide, are fellow Democrats obliged to keep their traps shut? Furthermore, do you really think that the left needs the right to tell them that genocide is bad?
I personally think the situation is far more complicated than many on the left are acknowledging, and there are some real defenses for most of Biden’s actions and his general approach to a terrible situation. But you aren’t availing yourself of those arguments. Instead, you just want to argue that the president’s critics should sit down and shut up because Republicans like it when we disagree. This is exactly the attitude that hardens ideological disagreement into cultural division.
>It was.
i have seen no evidence this is true
That is exactly what republicans took to the extreme since the advent of limbaugh and murdoch.
Democrats are for environmental protection? I will oppose all environmental protection.
Democrats are for universal healthcare? I will oppose all universal healthcare.
Democrats are for gun control? I will oppose all gun control.
Democrats are for common sense? We’ll only have psychopaths in office!
Ironically, it’s why Americans voted for Biden.
That’s awfully reductive
yes this is a
4-panel3-panel comic not a thorough political essayIt’s less than “not a thorough political essay”, because there’s only 3 panels.
It’s really reductive for a 3-panel comic
So is the two-party system.
And entirely accurate.
Found the Democrat.
It’s a joke, not a dick. Don’t take it so hard.
These jokes are getting less and less funny
Dick jokes?
Don’t threaten me with a good time
You Seen to take it hard (the dick i mean)
Aren’t you supposed to say that when a gay person is offended? It doesn’t make sense here.
Things are so extraordinarily fucked right now that THIS should be enough of a reason to get out there and vote to keep the orange-utan out of office.
This is due to the voting system.
We need voter reform STV please. But at this point I’ll take that system in ancient Greece where they pull a name out of a bag and its your civic duty to lead for a year no questions asked.
Yep, you’ve successfully identified the problem.
Now what’s your suggestion for what we do about it?
Not what my opponent would have done.
Great question!
-
Proportional Representation, which can be anything from party list to multi-winner districts using Sequential Proportional Approval Voting
I have a headache so please do me the favor of reading through the links before asking questions, though by the time I check back in I’ll probably be in a better mood to chat.
Those are great concepts, but I’ll ask again, what’s your suggestion for what we do about it?
Listing ideas isn’t anything at all the same as implementing actionable change.
And hey, I’m not trying to argue, I fucking hate the system the way it is and desperately want to see us make some progress in our fight to change it or tear it down so a better one can be built in its place… But I never actually see that. I see a lot of theory, a lot of smart concepts, a whole fuck ton of unproductive disparaging… but I keep waiting for somebody to talk about real world actionable plans. I’m not being insincere, I hope you or anyone does have a viable actionable plan. God that would be incredible.
But until then, I can’t help but feel like these defeatist memes do nothing but further enable the system by disenfranchising and disinteresting noticeably specific demographics that might be likely to vote comparative left, serving mostly only to stifle what little incremental progress we could accomplish in the big races and ensuring these same people don’t get interested or involved enough to be active in the early stages of the process where the choices of actual consequence can be made.
Imo, apathy and enlightened centrism aren’t neutral positions, they’re right-enabling positions, as is the “leftist purity” bullshit position that prioritizes personal uncompromising “integrity” of position at the expense of real world harm reduction.
Join up with the Center for Election Science and volunteer to switch your local elections to approval! Typically this is done through a referendum, like was done in Fargo and St. Louis.
The hardest part is building the organization to collect signatures and run the referendum campaign. But, success breeds success, so you running a successful local campaign (like Fargo and St. Louis) will make it easier to turn around and get neighboring areas to switch, which will make it easier to run a state-level campaign to switch.
As for proportional representation, I don’t know of any US organizations working on it at the moment, and I’m like you, I want actionable change. If you’re willing to spin up a whole political machine on your own, go for it, but I suggest working on furthering the established approval momentum and worrying about proportional representation later.
Stop voting. Burn shit instead.
The electoral college was put in place as a tool of the bourgeois founding fathers who thought they knew better than regular citizens. I’m done playing along, seems like more and more of us are every election cycle.
To stop voting is to throw your hands up and accept your oppression. Voting barely requires even minimal effort on one, maybe two or three days in a year; not realizing it for the harm reduction opportunity it is makes you an idiot.
The problem you’re circling around but missing isn’t voting itself, it’s assuming voting alone will solve things.
The solution isn’t “Stop voting. Burn shit instead.”
The solution is to vote and burn shit until conditions improve.
Anyone trying to convince you not to vote is either an idiot or a charlatan.
Yeah, that’s like the child throwing a temper tantrum because they don’t want to clean the room. That doesn’t actually solve anything. Unless you’re going to start rolling heads and starting an actual violent revolution, you’re not doing anything. And instead you’re just making it more difficult for the rest of us to keep shit together.
The lawyers of one of the options are literally arguing in court that presidential immunity means he could carry out an assignation of their political opponent and be immune as long as his party has enough power to avoid an impeachment conviction.
Stop voting
Statements like this makes me wish ignorance came at an easier to learn price.
I mean, that’s what January 6th was about right? Who needs to vote if you can pull off a successful coup.
Trump is literally trying to prove in court that the president of the United States has full dictator status for life.
And if he gets in he isn’t going to give two shitd that you’re burning your neighbor’s house down or burning down businesses. He’ll have no accountability.
We’re not going to get out of this by fire bombing things. We’ll get out of this by stronger anti-corruption stronger anti gerrymandering and an actual bilateral draining of the swamp.
If voting doesn’t matter, why are the fascist so invested in keeping you from doing it?
Burning shit is less productive than even voting for the same two corrupted political parties.
Just vote third party already.
Choosing not to vote in a situation where one party is threatening to never allow free and fair elections ever again and do everything they can to keep and horde their power, is tacitly allowing for such a threat to take hold.
Voting on a third party is just as effective as not voting.
They asked UK voters what Kier Starmer stands for and the resulting word cloud was absolutely brutal…
Why are the “left” parties so fucking terrible at being leftists?
Starmer isn’t leftist, he’s a Blairite. You know, the guy who got the UK into two illegal wars. For god’s sake the guy is anti union. I’m afraid of what Labour will become ever since the anti Corbyn coup.
Also I stand firmly with Israel for no reason
?
Genocide Joe is banking on ‘not being Trump’ while he also actively supports a genocide in Gaza and brutal repression, land theft, ecocide and killings in the occupied West bank. He is sending billions of dollars in arms and supplies there, even sidelining congress to do so.
It’s not entirely without reason though, he intends to use Israel as a shield against Iran to protect oil interests in the region, but still. Those interests are paid for with Palestinian blood.
He’s still not Trump though, who’d let the genie continue and speed up the one in Ukraine, and likely allow a new one in at least Taiwan (but probably other Chinese and Russian desired countries too).
And also Joe Biden is aiding and abetting a genocide
Edit; Trump is ostensibly worse.
But Joe Biden is aiding and abetting a genocide. Never forget that this scumbag is doing this. Y’all deserve better. Like putting Joe Biden before the ICC and having him down a bottle of poison like Slobodan Praljak or something.
We deserve better but the GOP wants to serve Trump. What a pickle.
“gEnOciDe jOe” said Trump’s puppet!
Bruh I’m a leftist lmao. Fuck m both.
But don’t ever forget Biden is aiding and abetting genocide.
🍉
What do you expect when there’s only two real options. The other guy is worse.
The only way to make a third option real is to vote for the third option.
Booh, if your opponent is the literal incarnation of evil this is still a very valid political plan
My standard stump speech is: "Vote for me because I’m a Nice Guy!TM "
I think it makes me totally qualified and the perfect candidate.
deleted by creator
“By policies are slightly less extreme right than my openly fascist opponent’s!”
And often that’s the most important factor.
