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Swap Biden for Starmer and Trump for Sunak 🙂↕️
Well, if the Tories get back in then deporting people to Rwanda and expansion of oil drilling in the north sea will be guaranteed.
Voting for lab, there is a chance that these will be cancelled.Tories have had decades in charge, and shit is fucked.
Labour are more progressive - not enough for my taste, but better than constant austerityI stand by what I said
Just because we dislike Starmer doesn’t mean we support Sunak.
Yup. Such is a 2-party system.
Vote for the less-evilWhat’s the chance Starmer does 80% of what the Tories would have done, then the Tories get a supermajority next election?
I’m just an American, so IDK, but I’ve seen two democratic majorities in my lifetime, both of which played out that way.
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Without backing it up, the critique is worthless.
“No Joeboy, i don’t like it that you killed all the brown kids on the playground. But since you are my favorite child we will still get ice cream for you now.”
Would you parent a child like this? It is doomed to fail. You are all setting yourself up to continuously get fucked by both the DNC and the Reps.
Fuck your analogy.
One of two people is going to be in charge of the country seven months from now. You can have the boring liberal with an awful allegiance to a questionable ally run by a power-hungry bastard… or you can have our very own power-hungry bastard, who is also going to give the aforementioned bastard everything he wants.
Don’t choose more evil.
Someone is getting that ice cream. Let’s make it the kid who is trying to murder the parents and take over the family and will kill even more brown kids while throwing tantrums.
Someone is getting that ice cream
And that is your failure as a people. You raised your politicians into knowing that they will get their ice cream regardless of what they do. And you are currently reinforcing it, instead of saying: You have 5 month to fix your shit. If you fix it, there will be a big bucket of ice cream, otherwise no.
No, that’s the system we inherited. And some of us are working to fix it. Later this year one of those two kids is getting that ice cream no matter what I say about it. To pretend otherwise makes you an idiot, a liar, or a jackass.
Your failures as a person are bad analogies, bad analysis, and ignoring the fact that anything else we do kills even more brown people. But I suspect that’s what you like. You’re mad he’s not killing enough of them.
So be mad. You’re a bad actor and this conversation is over. I’m not responding to you for you, but for anyone else reading that wants to know why you love killing brown people.
Edit: Downvotes from people who are trying to get extra genocide because there’s not enough currently are absolutely welcome. I’m glad you disagree with me.
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It’s an idiot trying to make a terrible point.
Critiques are necessary. We don’t owe electors loyalty. They owe us representation.
With that being said, when it comes to voting, inaction is action.
You owe it to the country to not hand our government over to fascism. Voting for the immediate alternative isn’t a blood pact.
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I’m sorry if my comment implied disagreement. It was meant to support and reinforce your point, not counter it.
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No worries. I wrote with conviction. I see how that can come across as argumentative.
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I’m cool with that, but folks should also remember this:
yeah I’m forever voting blue no matter who. The republican candidate will always be a fascist. It will never end with Trump. It’s going to be fascist vs not fascist blue vote and I will eat whatever shit the blue vote shits out. More cops? I’m all for it, not a fascist dictator. Support Israel? Fine with me, not a fascist dictator. It sucks but that’s just America now for the next thousand or so years, fascism or something else. Better hope the something else isn’t closer to fascism than before or else you’re fucked.
You acknowledge that you’re voting for a slightly slower descent into fascism but that you’ll continue to do so?
You’re just an accelerationist. Fatalism, nihilism, apathy, hopeless, etc aren’t anything new, most of us disagree with you. I wonder if your outlook would improve if you got therapy or if you had a little skin in the game and stood to lose something.
If they were an accelerationist, wouldn’t they be voting for Trump?
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Not necessarily.
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Who says they aren’t?
Not necessarily
Why not? You’re claiming they’re operating on a principle of trying to accelerate collapse, and that Trump is the candidate to do that. But this is completely inconsistent with what the person is saying they’ll do. It doesn’t explain their behavior.
Who says they aren’t?
So we’re just making things up whole cloth about people now?
It’s cute of you to step in to defend your alt account, but you can’t be serious.
They’re an accelerationist, for whatever reason, they want collapse. The quicker it happens the better, they admitted as much above.
You’re supposing that Trump is the candidate to do that, I think most of lemmy would agree with you so I’ll cede that point.
That point ceded, we can agree most of lemmy won’t vote for Trump right? So what would be the point of talking about voting Trump here? It’s far more effective for the accelerationist (who likely isn’t conservative anyway) to be a “leftist” who’s so disgusted with how corrupt and unfair the system is they simply just check out and encourage others to check out as well, “both sides are the same” of course.
So we’re just making things up whole cloth about people now?
We’re inferring things, it’s quite a bit different comrade.
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Yes the point of my comment was that I want fascism faster well done
The little bit you have actually said has indicated that and you have done absolutely nothing to refute it so my advice is that sarcasm only works when the targeted recipient of it has been shown you would only say it sarcastically.
In what world would any person make that argument ?
Assuming you’re not voting…
Do you acknowledge that you’re voting for a coin toss between a slower descent or a faster descent into fascism? Averaging out to you being in favor of an even faster descent into fascism than the person you replied to?
That’s not what not voting is, no
Do you acknowledge that voting for a candidate enacting bad policies is voting for those bad policies
Yes but not voting for that candidate is effectively just like voting for the other even worse guy.
I mean we both know that Biden ain’t great, but Trump? Trump is far fuckXng worse! Don’t like the genocide ? Biden is wayyyyyy more likely to sign a ceasefire than Trump. Want Trans Rights? Biden doesn’t care, Trump wants to remove them. I’d rather have Biden’s apathy than Trump’s hate.
There is a Contrapoints video abt this : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3Vah8sUFgI
Contrapoints didn’t make that video in the context of a genocide.
You know what would force Biden to provide actually decent politics? If people demanded them and withhold their vote otherwise. And you know who would rather want Trump to win, than provide adequate protection of human rights, including Trans rights? Joe Biden, the guy you want to vote for. The DNC and him are laughing their asses off together with the Reps that no matter what, you will keep letting them get away with it.
So you’re willing to risk letting Trump win AGAIN just so you can own Biden? Like honey no… watch the video it explains it much better than I do.
So what if voting blue will end up with innocent people dying? Their sacrifice for my freedom will not go without honor. I will enshrine their lives with a statue commemorating their bravery in the fight for my freedom. The lives of innocent trans people, black people, and Palestinian children is a steep cost but it’s one I’m willing to spend for me to go to Starbucks and get a latte for $9. Who’s to say my life is worth more than theirs? Well Joe Biden made that determination for us, so I believe that’s right! I’m glad it’s a bunch of random black and brown people getting blown to bits for my right to vote, not me!
You have a good point. Obviously we should vote for it to happen faster rather than try to use the slow descent to fix things.
I would agree with you, but who’s working on fixing things? It’s looking close this time, and the historical pattern is that the Presidency flips parties when an incumbent can’t run. What’s the plan so we can ensure that a GQP authoritarian doesn’t win in 2028? This was the talking point in 2020, and very little happened; Biden’s AG even waited almost 3 years to appoint a special counsel, only after being buffaloed into it by the House January 6th committee, virtually ensuring that there trial will be delayed until after the election. And there’s still no action whatsoever to hold Bush administration officials accountable.
The plan is delay fascism while building networks for a communist revolution.
Or just GTFO of the country if you’re queer/nonwhite/disabled, and buy as much time as possible for the refugees to escape.
I’ve asked the question “what’s the plan to stop fascism in 2028?” several times now, with no other response, so I guess the answer is, “pull off a communist revolution in just 4 years.”
You know what is definitely not fixing it? Reassuring the Dems at every step that they will have your vote no matter what, as long as they are only slightly better than the Reps. Actually it is directly encouraging them to be at their possible worst.
Think of politicians as children and you as their parent. Do you think “reaffirm your child that no matter what it does, it will always get its favorite dessert” is a good parenting strategy? You raise egocentric psychopaths this way and this is exactly what you are getting as politicians.
That’s what the primary is for.
If you have a dem that no longer aligns with your interests, you vote them out during the primary.
But then you show up during the general, hold your nose, and vote Democrat.
Want to know why?
Because the Republicans will vote Republican no matter what and we’ve unfortunately pushed our democracy to the point where we either vote for the somewhat okay guy or the guy that will bite your face off.
Yes, the dnc money machine is definitely allowing that. /s
I wonder how many accelerationists around here are fascists/explodingheads users. Fascists don’t fear the prospect of pretending to be something they aren’t if it means furthering their agenda.
They’re not afraid of posing as, say, a disenfranchised, discouraged and disillusioned left-winger who believes both sides are bad and there’s no future except revolution.
They’re not afraid to post about how “Genocide Joe” is funding genocide in Gaza while neglecting to point out how “Totalitarian Trump” would send B-52s to carpet bomb Gaza and the West Bank until nothing is left.
They’re not afraid to point out how red states are still succeeding in trampling over LGBT rights under Biden while also ignoring how Trump would almost certainly push for that nation-wide.
They’ll cry about our current supreme court justices while ignoring that Trump was the one who put those justices in power to begin with.
To be clear, I think the US is pretty far from saving and that it’ll take a miracle to save this country from ruin. However, I’d rather see the country collapse slowly and in a relatively controlled manner that gives people time to prepare for its demise; while also giving people time to attempt to patch and fix the holes.
Revolution is high risk, high reward; if the left-wing wins, then you might get the socialist utopia you’ve always dreamed of. However, what if the right-wing wins? Yanno, the people with the majority of privately owned guns in the US. What if they win?
A Trump presidency means your leftist revolution against a fascist government will almost certainly be opposed by both rednecks and the US military.
However, if the fascists revolt during a Biden presidency, then the military will likely be backing you.
In the event of armed revolution, the president, whether it’s Biden or Trump, will use the military to protect and reinforce their power. With Trump, opposition to his power will be coming from the left, so that’s who the military will target. With Biden, the opposition will come from the right, and so the military will target them instead.
Of course, that doesn’t mean you’ll get the leftist utopia you’ve always dreamed, but at least you’ll remove a lot of fascists from the equation. Removing those fascists means it’ll be easier for the country to swing to the left and stay there. It won’t happen overnight, but the result would likely be a government far more stable than if you tried to burn everything down and start over from scratch.
The reason why I say all this is because I feel that we are closing in on a revolution. Something is about to snap, and it will happen either during the elections or soon after. As such, you really, really don’t want Trump, because Trump means you’ll be fighting against the biggest, most well-funded and technologically equipped military in the world.
The air is tense and electric, filled with gasoline fumes and heated by our exhaust. The masses are shuffling to and from their workplaces, burned-out and overworked. They are struggling to afford rent, afford food, afford sleep and water. Static electricity is building on their shuffling bodies, and soon a spark will leap from an outstretched finger, igniting the air and bathing the US in fire.
I hope I’m wrong.
I agree. Although I’m not as pessimistic as you are, I truly believe that the US can become a socialist country, I’m young though 😅
I hadn’t considered some right wing bigots would be on here and was arguing with ppl. Thx! :)
Yeah, I’ll admit that I’m pretty jaded and cynical when it comes to politics and the future of humanity. I’m not all that old either, but I’m old enough to remember how it seemed like life was getting better until Trump took office, and how much the US tumbled as a result.
I’m old enough to remember when being left or right wing was a debate and not a fight between competing “truths”; and how the US left and right wing were sometimes willing to compromise on issues instead of fighting a culture war where they try and see how badly they can fuck up the US and still successfully blame the other party.
I’m old enough to remember when people typically trusted the news and science; and conspiracy theorists were amusing nutjobs at best, harmless annoyances at worst.
I’m old enough to remember when the idea of a Christian theocracy in the US was considered insane by anyone except the most extreme conservatives; while militias were something only domestic terrorists and the most extreme political radicals supported.
And I’m honestly, not that old. I just… I’ve watched the downward spiral and it seems like no one in power actually wants to stop it, which is why I’ve become so jaded and cynical. It’s why I think revolution is coming, and I’m just hoping that the political ideology I’m aligned with won’t be forced into fighting a losing war against the US military.
That’s why I think people should support Biden. No, he’s not a good person, and I don’t think he honestly has the best interests of America and the rest of the world in mind. Sure, he’s tried to do some good things like (unsuccessfully) forgiving student loans multiple times and showing support for America’s unions, however he’s still enabling Israel’s genocide and he’s still beholden to the corporations that fund his party (which means he’ll avoid real changes whenever possible). Yet, if Biden gets elected and the American right-wing revolts (I’m convinced they’ll try), then the US military will be fighting them, not us. If Trump gets elected then there may not even be a chance for revolution before cops start kicking people’s doors down.
Anyone that wants to accelerate things has never lived in the kind of world that they’re advocating for.
I had a teacher in school that was a Bosnian Muslim during the genocide of the Balkan wars. She, her older brother, and her mom made it out. I never heard her talk about her dad, so I don’t think that he did. She and her older brother would practice their drawing by the light of burning tires. The eventually escaped to England, and then got asylum in the US.
That’s what we’re trying to avoid.
I’m not noticing any part of “I’ll accept anything” that’s particularly conducive to fixing things
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And 5 month ago it was double that time and people already screamed that pointing out that an alternative to two genocidal geriatrics is needed were screamed down as being Trump puppets.
We already wasted half of that time to find a solution with people being vigorously opposed to demanding a solution as they are afraid to lose the status quo.
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Cmon dude, we can read your history.
People are not calling you a Trump puppet because you criticise Biden. People are arguing with you because you think not voting is a solution that Democrats are actually affected by.
By not voting, you just ensure the person you want the least to be in office wins (Trump). There’s plenty of shills trying to discourage people from voting with that rhetoric. Republicans only win when dems don’t show up.
The political cycle is not 10 months long. Or 24. Or 48.
If you want change, you need to be involved in pushing over a large number of heavy objects over a long period of time. No one candidate, no one election, is going to change anything.
Because your damn country isn’t “descending into fascism”, it’s been bathing in it for centuries, and every time there’s someone trying to lift y’all kicking and screaming out of it just a little bit, the totalitarians crop up to try and self-destruct it all. Then, suddenly, a bunch of you come out of the woodwork to declare that it’s better to blow it all up, actually, than to do literally anything to stop it, because you believe there should be a quick and easy solution, and everyone else around you is just an idiot for not seeing it.
But you only believe that because you’re some kind of self-important, hubris-huffing sucker.
Hear me out…
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Invent time machine
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The candidate I want most gets elected.
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As opposed to a faster descent? Yes absolutely.
So your solution to avoiding fascism is to never lose an election?
My solution is to exercise my right to vote.
Yes, by all means, exercise your right to vote as you see fit. But if the only way we can avoid fascism is by never losing an election, shouldn’t we be seeking better ideas and stronger protections from fascism now before that plan fails?
If you don’t vote you’re not a part of the conversation. You obviously don’t have any grasp on how the election process works anyways, so why are you even keyboard warrioring this at all?
Go back to playing music, Jesse.
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So what do you suppose we do? Start a revolution against the biggest military on earth? I believe America needs to stop having a two party system, this way there is more chance someone like Bernie gets elected. But alas who will vote for them…
Tell Biden to either stop the bullshit or not get your vote and mean it, for instance by backing it up with demonstrations.
And then?
I already said this somewhere else but please vote, not voting for Biden is essentially like voting for Trump. And once Biden is in you can be as mad as you want against him, protest and shit, because Biden might actually listen, Trump would never.
No, it’s not “essentially like voting for Trump”. It’s voting for the person you voted for. What is the fundamental difference between voting for Biden and voting for a different candidate in the event of a Trump victory? There is none. Do not shame the voters. Shame the politicians into acting in a way deserving of leadership.
because Biden might actually listen,
Why would he listen if he knows he can have your vote regardless
It’s more than yes/no to fascism.
In a democratic political party you can influence the politics democratically. In a fascist party: Not possible.
The country does not need to hit rock bottom before it can improve. It can be changed democratically from within if you allow it to by voting for anything but the party that will take away that possibility.
Why would the democratic party listen to anything you have to say if they know you’ll vote for them regardless?
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Clinton lost 2016 in part because people were unhappy with her over Sanders
How do you think a political party comes up with ideas in the first place?
You need to go take a civics class and stop trying to suppress the leftwing vote. Do you expect anyone to sit down and explain to you how campaigning for issues works? Do you expect us to list every decent win “the left” has gotten the last 5-10 years?
What have you gotten accomplished? What have you even participated in?
Just because you sit in a basement unplugged from reality, doomscrolling, doesn’t mean the rest of should sit here and take advice from you. You admit you just want fascism faster.
Bad-faith, accelerationist, useful idiot. If it weren’t so cliche I’d call you Vlad.
That was a lot of words to not even attempt to answer a very simple question
Bad-faith, accelerationist
I like the self awareness displayed by calling me bad faith and then immediately reiterating the thing you just made up about me and decided was true based on what seems to be a deliberately bad interpretation of my original comment.
🤡
Because of primaries
If the Dems keep winning the Republicans will have to slide left. It happened in the UK with Labour (unfortunately in the opposite direction).
When that happens, and Trump is not literally attempting to end democracy using project 2025, the plan of strong-arming the dem candidate into being more left is plenty feasible, and the risks are less dire.
Thats not going to happen. The small handful of swing states will dictate a pattern of both parties steadily and we’ll just keep going lower. Im sorry but there’s zero chance the US doesn’t elect enough republicans for them to be forced to change policy. They’re making gains.
Maybe I’m just risk averse, but handing your country over to a fascist dictator sounds like the wrong solution.
I’m not saying to stop pressuring Biden in other ways, just not the borderline suicidal ones
Way too much sense. We’re gonna have to drown this out with a gallon of troll farm.
Ah yes, that time several years ago when the dems won last election, the republicans responded by “sliding left”. When the dems win 2024 the republicans will also be very civilized and non violent and slide even further left. Non-whites and LGBT people everywhere in America will be safer the night Joe Biden is elected than the night before, you heard it here from HauntedCupcake first!
You mostly don’t see it because they win inconsistently by a narrow margin. It would totally happen if the republicans weren’t so popular and the Dems kept winning. Hence the hypothetical.
The main issue is convincing the populace, but my point is more that the US has a way out of fascism, the public just need to recognise and want it
It happened in the UK with Labour (unfortunately in the opposite direction)
This happened after Labour’s entrenched power groups vigorously sabotaged Corbyn. Corbyn committed a somewhat serious blunder during Brexit, but he still had Labour well in the direction of defeating the Tories, and that might have happened earlier if his most spiteful opponents hadn’t been inside his own party.
Consider that endorsing an awful candidate in Biden will help get Trump elected.
How the hell did you come to that idiotic conclusion?
- You dont even like your candidate, why should i come to your side instead of you come to mine?
Because one stands a chance of winning, the other does not.
whichever side we support stands a chance of winning. They aint gonna compete in a game of skill in November, they’re gonna ask us who wins and we decide.
Yes, “we”, consisting of statistically significant factions of the voting population. Campaigns take time and money, neither of which any candidates besides the two front-runners have enough of to be competitive. They’re not gonna ask you who wins, you don’t decide. I don’t see 70 million Americans shifting to anyone else at this stage.
you’ve got a paradox going where me supporting a better candidate is pointless because my vote is worth nothing and I cant change anything.
but also that I have to support your candidate because my vote matters if its for them.
my vote matters and I’m giving it to a better candidate.
as long as you still vote for biden. hold your nose if you must. i know i will be…
It sucks but yeah. I’ll be holding my nose this election even though Biden has no chance in my state.
That’s how I was voting for Hillary, and I almost actually vomited, for all the good that did me.
if more had also done that, we wouldn’t be here now
If she had bothered to campaign in the Midwest and had just generally been a much better candidate, more people would have.
It’s the job of a politician to earn votes and faithfully represent the priorities of the majority of the voters. People like Hillary, Biden, Schumer and the rest of the Dem leadership seldom do either.
It’s also the job of the electorate to educate themselves on the consequences of their vote (and non-vote). Don’t act like nobody knew who Trump was, what he had already done, or was listening to what he was saying.
Again you are completely taking Biden out of his responsibility. Why do you want to vote for a guy that rather wants to lose to Trump, than provide decent policies around basic human rights, like the right not to get genocided?
Biden and the DNC rulers are a group of psychopaths. They will not care as long as they get the money form their rich donors, who don’t care if Biden or Trump is doing their bidding.
Again you are completely taking Biden out of his responsibility.
Ve done nothing of the sort. If you think anything I’ve said even comes close to that, you’re hallucinating. Or lying.
Why do you want to vote for a guy that rather wants to lose to Trump, than provide decent policies around basic human rights, like the right not to get genocided?
That’s such a loaded question and so absurdly fallacious on its face, I’m not going to even dignify it by answering it, but I will say that you clearly don’t care what I want, just to push an agenda.
But, since you didn’t ask, what I want is for Trump to lose, and that math is simple: any vote not for Biden helps Trump, and no matter how much you dislike Biden, Trump will be 1000x worse. We know, because Trump has promised that.
Biden and the DNC rulers are a group of psychopaths.
Compared to Trump, they’re saints, and if you can’t see that, you’re clearly incapable of rational discourse on the matter. Or you’re clearly here to feebly undermine confidence in Biden in support of Trump.
Either way, your argument is transparent, fact-free, and little more than Fox News fodder.
By voting Biden you declare your support of his policies. That is the fundamental way of how democracies work. You vote your representative because you think he is representing you.
By attacking anyone who says you shouldn’t approve of genocide as your representation you abolish your representative from his responsibility of not supporting genocide and instead blame it on the people who think that genocide is never an acceptable representation for them.
For you individually as a citizen there is only one legal way to hold a politician responsible. And that is by denying them further support in the next election. Now if it comes to group action through demonstrations, unions, lobbying etc. that is great and even better to do. But if it is down to you and the ballot the only direct thing is to declare before what your political demands are and vote accordingly. If your demand is “genocide is okay” then you will have to make that up with your consciousness, the victims and survivors and eventually towards future generations.
“I don’t like Biden’s support for Israel’s genocide so I’m going to make it more likely that the guy who would support Israel’s genocide even more gets into office.”
Incredibly dumb take.
“I am telling my politicians that they dont need to listen to me, they will get my vote no matter what. Oh why do they never listen to me?”
Incredible big brain take.
Not job, DUTY. Otherwise I get your point. I’d like to add that it is also the duty of those more educated to try to educate others in a non-hostile, factual, and rhetorically effective way in order to bolster the numbers of people who can make informed/educated decisions on these things.
It’s also the job of the electorate to educate themselves on the consequences of their vote (and non-vote).
It actually isn’t, no. Nobody is paying them to do that and, in the case of millions if not tens of people who are amongst the working poor because of the kind of economic policy the Dems have been putting out ever since she and her husband remade the party in their own image in 1992, they aren’t realistically able to with neither candidates nor mainstream media helping them sort the wheat from the chaff.
When you’re already working 60 hours a week trying (and often failing) to make ends meet on top on whatever family commitments you may have, you can’t be expected to have energy left to fact check candidates and media outlets for free. It’s simply not that voter’s responsibility to keep powerful and well-paid people honest.
Don’t act like nobody knew who Trump was, what he had already done, or was listening to what he was saying.
Then maybe Hillary and the media shouldn’t shouldn’t have done all they could to make sure he became the candidate!
That the fascist ever got anywhere near the nomination, let alone the presidency itself, is hundreds of times more the fault of the rich and powerful people paid to prevent it than the people they failed to convince to vote for an evil, however lesser it would have been.
It actually isn’t, no. Nobody is paying them to do that
That is the worst and most entitled excuse for the abandonment for any and all personal responsibility since I heard my 3-year-old niece try to convince my brother she should never have to wipe her own butt because he will always be there to do it for her.
Wow. Shame on you.
Clearly, you didn’t understand what I was trying to explain any better than your niece would have.
If anyone’s abandoning personal responsibility, it’s the awful candidates who don’t do their job and then blame people who suffer for it much more than the candidates ever will.
I’m not saying that it’s a good or even neutral thing to not vote for the lesser evil when only evils are available. Of course that’s had.
I’m saying that it’s the responsibility of the candidates to not be evil and to convince enough voters of it that the greater evil doesn’t win.
People don’t take their citizenship seriously, it seems.
*in certain states
She won the popular vote, she lost the electoral vote. Where you live MATTERS towards your vote in this country, by design, for situations like this
I honestly regret not voting for Hillary. I didn’t vote for Trump either, I voted third-party because I thought Hillary was going to win, and even if she didn’t win, what’s the worst Trump could do, huh? So I figured it wouldn’t hurt to vote for a third-party with the hope they’d get enough points to be on the debate stage during the next general election.
Granted, my vote probably wouldn’t have made a difference. Tbh, considering I live in a state with winner-takes-all voting, I’m not even sure my vote actually matters now; but I’m still going to vote for Biden. It’s better than assuming he’ll win and risking another Trump victory.
Yes, I know I’m not the main character and I’m only one person. I know that changing my vote alone won’t make a difference. However, what might make a difference is if I talk about my reasoning in a public forum. Then, people might stop, read my post, and change their minds. Now, it’s not one vote, it’s two. They might spread their view as well, and two votes becomes four. Four votes becomes eight; and eight becomes sixteen. As small as that sounds, sixteen votes can make all the difference in an election. There are elections that have come down to one or two votes.
I did the same thing, in a solidly blue state, with the same thought processes; I voted for Jill Stein. Even after Trump won, I figured he couldn’t fuck it up too badly. I even thought he might manage to get one thing right (I’m very solidly pro-2A), but nope, he couldn’t even do that.
Biden isn’t nearly far enough left for me. But I’ll vote for him without even a hint of hesitation, because he’s so much better than the only realistic possibility. And I live in a purple state now, so it might end up mattering.
A group holds a vote to either cross a bridge to side A or stay on side B. Staying on side A means you won’t have much food. Going to side B means you still won’t have much food, but also most of the food is poisonous.
Part of the group says “I don’t want to starve, I refuse to vote in a way that accepts malnourishment as a solution!” Group C also opposes eating poisonous food. This partial group votes to try and find a better source of food (option C).
48% of people vote A. 49% of people vote B. 3% of people vote C.
Surprise, surprise, Group C had 0 impact on the starving situation AND helped facilitate the eating of poisonous food.
Fuck Biden, and FUCK Trump. But if you think voting for a leftist party or abstaining from voting will change anything in a system entirely designed around having only two candidates, you are just as okay with Trump as you are with Biden. At the very least, you are saying that they are equally as bad, showing that you clearly don’t understand the dynamic.
same strawman argument constantly repeated by people who neglect to criticize trump or russia….
nobody on lemmy like biden… stop pretending like you’re trying to educate people
Sadly there are people on lemmy who like Biden and think he can do no wrong
not really… there was just a huge wave of “genocide joe” people who somehow were completely incapable of saying anything bad about trump….
stuff like “libs = genocide, gop doesn’t”… but without ever directly saying gop….
There are definitely people who think he can do no wrong, check out worlds politics sub.
Funny how you still managed to being up those pointing out his flaws while saying no one is saying he can do no wrong
that sentence doesn’t even make sense….
Most are referring to the way our current electoral system works. Voting 3rd party helps the Republicans even if its not intentional.
This is absurd. Take a look at the polls. There is only one 3rd-party candidate with double digit percentages. Do you really think JFK is taking more votes from Biden than Trump?
Taking the risk because you think you know something you can’t know is what’s absurd
I never made any indication on how I’m voting. I’m just tired of this baseless claim that voting 3rd party only helps Trump. Polls excluding 3rd-parties show Trump significantly further ahead than those with 3rd-parties. Therefore, Biden’s only chance of winning is due to JFK capturing conservative votes.
TIL “how America works” = “baseless claim”
What is “how America works” in this context? You seem to be trying to make the point that 3rd-party voting only hurts Biden. I’m pointing to recent polling that shows that, when 3rd-party options are included, Biden’s margins get closer to victory. You should be thanking 3rd-parties if you are hoping for a Biden victory.
So polling, that thing that told us trump couldn’t have won in 2016, makes another prediction, eh?
Yet Robert Reich has said the same thing.
A different way to think about it - most of the intended audience on Lemmy, and especially in this community, would’ve voted democrat instead of republican. So from the frame of reference of this post, most folks here claiming to vote third party did in fact have their vote “taken” from Biden.
Maybe. A lot of folks only know him for his good environmental stance and see him as the rightful Democrat candidate.
They don’t see his antivax bullshit and leaky brain from WiFi.
Yup, and the only way out of that is Ranked Choice Voting.
Go volunteer for your local RCV group, California’s is here: https://www.calrcv.org/
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In other words, It’s necessary but not sufficient for reforming the two party system.
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Nobody thinks its a magic bullet, we’re all looking for the next rung that leads us closer to a happy democracy. None of us are looking for instant easy solutions, we’re trying to iterate and be better.
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Obligatory: “Ranked Choice” is a specific use of ranked ballots. It’s subpar. It beats what we’re doing now, but anything beats what we’re doing now.
What you want is a Condorcet method like Ranked Pairs, where the winner is whoever beats everyone else. RCV just picks whoever can scrounge together 50% first. RCV would not elect a candidate who is literally everyone’s second choice. Ranked Pairs would.
The simple alternative is Approval Voting, where you let people check all the names they like. It matches Condorcet results… somehow. There is no good reason we’re not using it everywhere.
Approval Voting seems to just dilute your vote the more candidates you vote for. Candidates will tell people people to only place one vote. What a silly system.
Your worst-case scenario is how things currently work.
Realistically, people will just ignore that shite advice, and vote for as many people as they feel like. It works out on average.
But ranked choice is easy to implement and in practice if everyone would put a candidate second they aren’t likely to be knocked out in the first round. There are very limited practical examples where it doesn’t provide the optimal outcome.
It also seems to have some level of support and momentum in the US and it seems to me like it’d be better not to get caught in the weeds fighting over which new voting system should be implemented there.
Approval is trivial.
Ranked Pairs has the same ballots as Ranked Choice and it works the way people think ranked ballots work.
RCV has momentum primarily because people keep using the name to mean “ranked ballots.”
Not voting for Biden is the same thing as voting for Trump.
Voting for Biden doesn’t mean supporting him. It means preventing Trump from becoming president.
Theres bullets for both of them
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That’s what the 2nd amendment is for my boy.
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I wouldn’t feel bad about it. If that scenario ever happened honestly I’d have a celebratory drink.
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Not a problem for everyone else but US. US has been using that same tactic for a lot of other countries. We’d probably consider it karma catching up at this point.
And as always, you can always blame someone else that got you to this point. But we’re so used to that now.
Second amendment is when murder. Got it.
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
This is easy stuff. Middle school social studies. Don’t be a boot licker.
They’re not talking about a well regulated militia, they said a bullet for the current sitting president of the United States and a former president of the United States.Im not saying anything against the second. I’m saying that what they have implied is actually just murder.
And I’m saying you’re a pussy and god help you if society breaks down.
Ok big tough guy
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Please don’t fedpost, they actually have people who investigate this shit.
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Like a real president should, Biden does a lot of things I agree with and some I don’t. I thought Obama was one of the greatest presidents in my lifetime but even he did things I didn’t completely agree with. Would I’d rather have someone like Bernie or AOC in the Oval Office? Absolutely (well except he’s to old and she’s to young). Could we do better than Biden? Also absolutely. What I’d love to see is national ranked choice voting and more like 5-6 candidates. I think this would be better for everyone. But Trump is an existential crisis waiting to happen. I’m not sure this country can withstand another Trump presidency. Frankly I’m not sure my health can either. I literally noticed a significant drop in my BP when Trump left.
So yeah, you can be critical of Biden and not a Trump supporter. Frankly if you’re not a little critical of any president regardless of party, you’re not in a party, you’re in a cult.
Leftists 🤝 Tankies
Hating BidenTankies 🤝 Centrists
Doing nothing to oppose TrumpHow hard is this to understand?
Sure, but if you can and don’t vote for Biden it means you’re at least ok with Trump.
No, it means I’m not ok with genocide but you are.
If you’re not ok with genocide you should vote against Donald “just nuke them” Trump.
You have two options:
- Ok with genocide. Otherwise relatively progressive. Has passed major important legislation.
- Ok with genocide. Wants to be a dictator. Appointed half of the Supreme Court majority that took away women’s right to abortion. Will probably strip more rights if elected. Cut taxes on the wealthy and will probably do it again.
You can throw away your vote, but come inauguration, you will have a president who is ok with genocide.
But I will not have voted for one of them. But you will have and the blood will be on your hands.
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Cool, I’ll give you a pass on the genocide, but you will still be as responsible as anyone who voted for Trump for all the other terrible things he said he will do that you are doing nothing to prevent.
But then if Trump wins because you didn’t vote for either, then you’re ok with Genocide+ rather than Genocide light. Meaning you have to vote for the lesser of the two evils if no matter what you do the majority are voting for the only two who are likely to win.
You’re either incredibly stupid, a troll, or are being obstinate on purpose.
Not voting is a vote for Trump.
So… What do you think are the odds that your third party vote improves the situation in Palestine?
If your third party vote makes it more likely that Trump wins and results in more bloodshed, that is a choice you contributed to, and blood is still on your hands.
If you don’t vote against fascism, you allowed fascism.
You have an abysmally stupid sense of morality.
I think some of these people have to be trolls. We’re basically in the trolley problem where the trolley is headed for 100,000 people, and if you pull the lever it will only kill 1. You can’t abstain from pulling the lever and act like you’re completely innocent of the deaths of the masses.
That’s an awful lot of trolls.
the trolley problem tests you ethical framework, it does not have a prescribed solution. your answer to it helps you understand your own approach. deontologists never pull the lever.
If you truly oppose genocide. You should be plotting a coup against the US executive branch.
We don’t know they aren’t.
How is being against a genocide immoral?
If your morality prioritizes staunch adherence to standards over harm reduction, you have a stupid sense of morality.
It’s the kind of morality where someone would rather let a child die than push them out of the way of a speeding car, simply because pushing them would harm them.
Your morality should lead you to making decisions that result in the least harm. Look at it this way: if all of the people who voted third party instead of Hillary because Hillary wasn’t [insert moral standard here] enough had sucked it up and voted for Hillary, access to abortion would still be legal nationwide. (This assumes enough people to get her elected voted third party over moral objections.)
Trump is the worst president in my life time, by a huge margin, and he’s even more in favor of genocide than Biden, demonstrably. So if your sense of morality causes you to help put him in charge of our country again, in my mind, you’re a fucking moron.
Rebellion? I don’t like hearing such a word from you," Ivan said with feeling. “One cannot live by rebellion, and I want to live. Tell me straight out, I call on you–answer me: imagine that you yourself are building the edifice of human destiny with the object of making people happy in the finale, of giving them peace and rest at last, but for that you must inevitably and unavoidably torture just one tiny creature, that same child who was beating her chest with her little fist, and raise your edifice on the foundation of her unrequited tears–would you agree to be the architect on such conditions? Tell me the truth.”
“No, I would not agree,” Alyosha said softly.
“And can you admit the idea that the people for whom you are building would agree to accept their happiness on the unjustified blood of a tortured child, and having accepted it, to remain forever happy?”
"No, I cannot admit it.Fyodor Dostoyevsky — The Brothers Karamazov
I’ve asked folks who aren’t voting for Biden what they think the odds of their vote reducing genocide in the real world is, and all I’ve gotten is crickets.
Given that there doesn’t seem to be much confidence there, the real world results are likely trump or biden.
Trump has folks in his party alluding to nukes when saying Palestine has to be ended quickly, even trump himself has stated that Israel has to end the war quickly. Therefore I suggest that Trump will result in far more lives lost than Biden.
Folks on Lemmy are typically left-leaning.
This means that a Lemmy user voting third party could’ve been a vote for Biden, which in a binary choice results in less lives lost. Yes, I know, Biden centrist, etc etc, but he’s to the left of the absolute insanity that is the republican party.
However instead some folks value a clean conscience over real world results, and vote third party/abstain. If these votes would’ve otherwise gone to Biden, then they have made a trump presidency more likely, which has the real world effect of resulting in more lives lost.
I’m fine with people voting with their conscience, but I just want folks to acknowledge whether or not their vote makes a trump presidency (therefore more genocide) more likely. Most people just seem to think “I’m not voting for genocide so my hands are clean and I’m good!” and stick their head in the sand.
a Lemmy user voting third party could’ve been a vote for Biden,
if he wanted to earn it
Voting third party right now also just perpetuates both parties. There are enough people in this country to elect anyone from the major parties, so a third party can’t win unless one of those parties collapses. The only way a party collapses is when it consistently loses elections.
The republicans won’t consistently lose elections as long as progressives don’t vote for democrats, so both parties will continue on. The majority of the people in this country are left of center, so the only way republicans win is by suppressing votes, and one of the ways they do that is by propping up progressive third party candidates.
If we truly want a progressive party, making sure republicans never win elections is the way to do it. Then either the Democratic Party will shift left and republicans will regroup under a new less extreme conservative party, or the Democratic Party will shift right as it absorbs all the republicans and a new progressive left party will rise. Both ways result in a more progressive set of major parties.
So, you’re okay with not having a clean conscience? Or, other voters should be okay with not having a clear conscience? If Biden winning is more important to you than having a clean conscience. Vote for him. But don’t pressure people that choose to have a clear conscience.
Unless thought police is on your bucket list.
To everyone in this thread, whoever you are or are not voting for: what is your plan if Trump wins? I think everyone agrees that it is pretty much 50/50 on him winning. What do you plan to do about the coming total fascist hellscape? Do you have plans and means to emigrate? Are you buying guns and ammo? Are you just gonna go along to get along?
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Even though I’m a Libertarian in the strictest sense I find this both true and quite funny. DJT is just as bad or worse than Biden. DJT himself has stated that he went to St. James island [aka orgy island] TWICE. It’s just like in sinning against GOD…the first look isn’t sinning, but when you look the 2nd time then it’s a sin. DJT is similar to a DON in a mafia, but he is just the DON of the deep state. The only way to stop Trump is to declare the 2020 election in his favor, HOWEVER since he voluntarily left the oath of office for the Biden admin DJT cannot be legally elected a 3rd term. He would be disqualified.
