Vote for supporters of ranked choice voting
Our voter turnout is shameful. And oh man, the primary elections turnout… (Chefs kiss) Abysmal.
I agree wry everything you said, except please don’t say “chef’s kiss”.
Here’s the chef from the muppets to get rid of my shudder: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UerBCXHKJ5s
“I’m not going to vote because democrats aren’t communist which makes them basically republicans” - average Lemmy.ml user
Jk it’s actually something more like “I’m not going to vote because I’m European”
For me it’s the genocide.
So you’re gonna do nothing about it. Cool.
Both sides support Israel, one side has advocated and has vocal members who advocate against the genocide. The other side is for the genocide and thinks they should go further.
But you’re right, both sides, etc etc, Sit out.
Who says I’m doing nothing about it? All you know about it is that I refuse to vote in favor of genocidal regimes. Besides, refusing to vote for someone who’s actively committing a genocide is doing something. It’s exercising your right to vote in a meaningful way by showing that there are lines you do not cross. I wouldn’t vote for Hitler when that was an option, and I won’t vote for Harris (or Trump) now.
Make sure to pat yourself on the back for doing something when the christofascists take over, applaud Israels “tough” stance on “terrorism”, and kill or chase out every Palestinian that doesn’t lick IDF boots and ask for seconds.
And you are so sure thats not happening now? How exactly could trump accelerate any of that. Israel literally does what it wants. It doesnt give two shits.
At least bring up the right ally we would be screwing over which is Ukraine, but oh look the democrats are fucking them over too. Interesting that.
While it may be said that Trump is not necessarily the most Israel friendly president, he is undoubtedly the most Netanyahu friendly president (the leader of the Israeli regime perpetuating the genocide in Gaza and the West Bank).
Trump brags he gave Israel the Golan Heights, part of Syria that Israel has been occupying for decades, by formally recognizing Israeli sovereignty over it.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_recognition_of_the_Golan_Heights_as_part_of_Israel
Trump recognized Jerusalem as the capital is Israel and moved its embassy there from Tel Aviv. The status of Jerusalem is considered a key part of Israel-Palestine negotiations.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_recognition_of_Jerusalem_as_capital_of_Israel
Trump’s son in law, Jared Kushner, mentions that Israel should remove the civilian population in Gaza and clean it up, stating it would be valuable waterfront property.
Trump killed the “Iran Nuclear Deal”, which was vehemently opposed by Netanyahu. When Netanyahu spoke in front of congress opposing the deal in 2015 he was invited by a Republican and Democrats walked out of his speech in protest.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_withdrawal_from_the_Joint_Comprehensive_Plan_of_Action
Politicians that criticise Israel, or even want conditions on their “military aid”, risk being targeted by the pro-Israel groups. Jamal Bowman had his position more or less publically butchered to set an example and warn others not to oppose Israel. While some others survived massive spending against them by the pro-Israel lobby, AIPAC and other groups are effective in making sure most politicians avoid thr topic of Israel, at least publicly.
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/20/nyregion/aipac-bowman-latimer.html
Netanyahu was clearly displeased with his meeting with Harris. His repeated escalation of violence is increasing tensions in the Middle East and angering a large subset of the US Democratic base. More and more people are under the impression that he is trying to harm the Democratic ticket and/or lock the US in conflict so that, of Democrats still win the presidency, they will have no choice but to continue to back Israel and Netanyahu’s regime.
All of these things are happening or heading towards happening now, under Democrat leadership.
Explain to me how either the republicans would make it worse, or the democrats would make it better.
But you haven’t considered the fact that the people you’re talking to are arguing in bad faith
• Democrats are VERY reluctantly adhering to a trade agreement and trying to negotiate and end to their hostilities.
• Trump said they need to “finish the job.”
bOtH siDeS!
Eastern European specifically.
Even more specific?
As east as you can get in Europe :)
But I thought Russians were voting in us elections? 🤔
Do you not think genocide is a good reason to not vote for someone else? As far as red lines go, that’s a pretty good one.
it is more like genocide vs genocide + whole bunch of other human rights violations.
if you are not planning to overthrow the government by revolution then there is no way to go from these two options to an “ideologically perfect” (whatever that means) government in just one election cycle, needs to be done in smaller steps.
Withholding your vote until genocide is taken off the table pressures her to give in to their demands, though. There’s no universal constant saying we need to have a genocide. Either she loves genocide, or she’s supporting it because she’s worried she won’t get the votes without it. If it’s the second one, and I hope it is, then the Uncommitted movement is simply doing the same thing to establish their own power, and for a better reason: to save the lives of their friends, family, aid workers, doctors, and journalists.
Nah, holding your vote appears to be you just being another unmotivated democratic voter without regard to why. No one gets polled on why they didn’t vote 4 years prior. At best Harris barely wins and at worst Trump takes office and you get 4 years of genocide + Ukrainian subjugation + subjugation of women, minorities, and immigrants at home.
Kind of a no-brainer that you should vote for Harris here.
No, if it was a no-brainer, the no-brained idiot you’re responding to would already understand this.
Not if it’s withheld as part of a wider movement or given to a third party. That’s why it’s being paired with protests and other campaigns letting them know what they have to do to get their vote back.
Harris barely winning but losing something like Michigan to spook her into actually doing something material to stop supporting Israel is probably my preferred scenario right now, but she already said no arms embargo is on the table and after an election she’s not really beholden to voters anymore, so doubt that will help, either.
“barely winning” is a dangerous game to play when the consequences of losing is getting much much much further away from your stated goals. if anything it is impossible to push Trump to an anti weapon sale stance (since his core supporters don’t care and Trump is where money and strongest lobbies will be) than Kamala whose core supporters actually care but are turning the other way for now due to the fear of losing to Trump.
Supporting a genocide is a dangerous game as well, not only politically but physically, to at this point hundreds of thousands of people. Millions have been displaced from their homes. Not everyone can just ignore it so easily.
I’m voting Democrat like I always do. I remember being the only non-right wing senior citizen looking person at my polling place for Hilary Clinton when no one showed up. Not with any hope, just so I can say I voted against gleeful hatred.
I’m just pissed that I will never, ever get a vote against market capitalism, as it controls both parties on economic policy and we only get a vote on how to manage the social issue symptoms it causes.
If you keep the left in power your can steer them left, if the right gets in power you reset your progress to 0
0 what? 0 A.D.?
Could you walk me through steering them left when they’re in power? Over the years the democrats seem to only get more right wing. The thing is, I always thought that you steer politicians through your vote, and if I guarantee my vote to you regardless of what you have done in the past or are currently doing, what incentive do you have to change course in a way that I like?
The Dems need all 3 of presidency, house of reps, and Senate to do anything. And they’ve only had that for 4 of the last 24 years. Or 6 of the last 32 years. Or 6 of the last 44 years. That’s why they keep going to the center to find voters, because they need all 3 and basically never get it. So how do you get them to go left? By giving them consistent and overwhelming victories.
You realize this all happened with Gore and Bush, and then Obama and Hilary and so on. The story has been the same every time. End of a democracy, republicans will destroy the country, blah blah blah.
You know what else happens? The democrats talk a huge game before the election, and do fuck all with it while in office. Even if you take something like obamacare, it wouldnt have gotten passed if there wasnt money in it for the wealthy.
And just the non stop war crimes and global terrorism. You know its literally been my whole life that this country has done this and its never mattered who was in office. Military expansion in this day and age is absurd, and its harder and harder to hide the truth that most of our wealth is stolen.
Its like a mafia family that can’t hide that their protection racket is actually what’s causing the danger in the first place. Apparently we don’t need a godfather sequel because its here in real life on a national scale.
It works the same way the Republicans have been steered further right while not in power. When Democrats have to worry about moderates, they move to the right. If they only have to worry about liberals, they can support and back more progressive positions. If they don’t, they are more likely to be primaried.
See also: the Tea Party takeover of the GOP which pushed them further down the path to the current fascism.
The criticism of the democrats is that they think they are on the left but they aren’t. They do represent a lot of Americans, but they don’t represent the true left very well at all.
You’re absolutely right about the current Democratic Party, but that party’s been pulled to the right by moderates and former moderate republicans. If the country really is more liberal than our representation would indicate, as put forth by the meme, then a more progressive voting populace will eventually result in more progressive liberal party. Right now everything is skewed to the right because of the oversized influence of moderates and moderate conservatives who don’t want to vote for fascism.
I think its the social shaming from democrats and republicans to third party voters. It reminds me of some of the stuff church cults do to prevent people leaving the group. Let people vote how they want to, or at the very least attempt to win them over with discussions and policy rather than throwing them under a bus.
There’s a lot of this assumption that democrats get more votes by going for moderates. Meanwhile they’ve alienated the entire left, and (I know, not a representative sample) but my Lemmy feed is jam packed with arguments about “you have to vote blue to stop fascism” vs “I really don’t don’t want to vote in favor of genocide”. No one seems to actually like the democrats, they’re whole appeal is basically “not fascist”.
Bernie Sanders got people excited, and while not exactly a leftist, he did represent a move toward the left. But they couldn’t let Bernie happen, he was too radical, apparently. You’ve heard the term “Bernie bro”, but where are the Biden bros? They aren’t, because Joe is boring.
So I don’t think they “have to worry about moderates”. The post here claims that if they could motivate people to go vote, they’d win. So offer something fresh. Present a real alternative to the inexorable right wing decline of all of US politics. Do you not think that would work? Why are they 0% willing to consider it?
Adding that both things need to happen for the country to reverse the rightward shift. More liberals need to vote, AND the party needs to recognize, or be shown in primary elections, that they can publicly embrace more liberal stances. On or the other and we wind up with the status quo.
the party needs to recognize, or be shown in primary elections, that they can publicly embrace more liberal stances
Not “can”. Need. Or else we, the voters, are at the whims of their donors. They “can” move left now. There is policy on the left that polls very well with the general populace, much better even than what they’re running with now. It’s just a matter of framing and defending good policy instead of limply letting the republicans run the show. Biden did it just a couple days ago “I never heard of getting lead out of the drinking water being a bad thing” (paraphrasing). That is what needs to happen, more broadly.
The only election that matters as to whether they as a party get to hold power or not is the general, thus it is the only election that can show them they need to do any particular thing to get a base of support large enough to get them elected.
They don’t want a majority, or they would have it. Easily. They’re playing the same game as Republicans, 50 + 1 to win. No less. No more.
The liberals will vote, and the left will too. If you motivate them with policy that actually stands up to criticism and makes voters more optimistic than cynical about a Democrat win.
The thing is, I always thought that you steer politicians through your vote
To some extent, yes. However the amount of steering you can do this way is rather limited, since a vote only indicates a preference of one candidate over the other.
For example, if you decide to vote Republican out of protest, Democrats might conclude that you like republican policies, and to win your vote back, they need to move even further right. If you decide to stay home and not vote, you don’t really give any information to democrats what they actually need to do. They may decide that you are an unlikely voter in any case, and focus towards those folks most likely to turn out (that’s generally older white conservative folks).
One option is to vote for some leftist third party. This sends a pretty clear message about what policies you like. The problem is that, apart from the messaging, your vote is almost certainly wasted. You are in effect helping your enemy win in the short term.
The other option is to engage politically outside of just voting. Most people have been convinced by establishment politicians that your only influence is your vote. This is not true. Protests, activism, grassroots movements, local politics are all effective ways to steer your preferred party in your preferred direction. This does require substantially more effort.
When the Republicans win, the Democrats hear “move right”. It’s as simple as that.
And also when the democrats win, if you look at the way policy has evolved during the clinton years, during the obama years, and also now during the biden years.
Why are we so preoccupied with ensuring the party we hate most loses, rather than focusing on the party you want most winning.
I’d rather everyone vote closest to their actual morals and values, and give no consideration to who loses.
If we keep fighting over who’s the biggest loser, how can we possibly expect things to improve?
The Dems seek out the people who actually vote.
If the Left stays home every election, the Dems have no reason to listen to them.
Clearly they’ll just voter shame and we’ll end up exactly where we are. I’d argue the reason we are where we are is exactly that reason.
I think all the third party voter shaming is actually for the democrat population. Its a warning of how you will be treated if you defect. Churches and cults do stuff like this in some cases, also to preempt members leaving.
I was never his biggest fan, but New York Mayor Ed Koch did say something I liked.
“If you agree with me 51% then you should vote for me. If you agree with me 100% you should see a psychiatrist.”
The actual incentive that they have should ideally be actual political activism that exercises some real and material form of leverage against their power. Seeing as these movements have all been totally deconstructed, mostly by the federal government, instead, you’ll find that the way you’re supposed to change the party is just by voting harder for them, and then just kind of hoping that they somehow naturally decide to swing left, after you’ve already handed them the keys to the kingdom. It’s pure cope, basically.
Resetting to 0 is a best case scenario for Republicans regaining control
*assuming you live where your vote matters
Me voting or not voting for the Democrats here in California doesn’t effect the election one bit
I still did it because they ditched the shitty old guy who said he wasn’t going to run again, but I’m not pretending I’ve actually done anything in doing so
No. There are plenty of down ticket races even if your vote for the presidential candidate doesn’t matter, it might very well make the difference between a good School Board candidate in your school district or a right wing book banning bible pushing nut job
It might be the difference between a normal city council or a far-right Nazi take over of your city council.
Just. Fucking. Vote.
There are plenty of down ticket races
No shit Sherlock? Post says “if you want to avoid trump” so I’m commenting on that race
But thanks for the condescension, it’s always cute
Actual analyses done on this topic by Pew, Breugel, and National Affairs suggest this effect is largely not true. When considering the entire electorate, a significant number of non-voters lean Republican or are politically unaffiliated and would not support the democratic party.
Further research indicates that, despite popular belief, higher voter turnout does not consistently benefit either party across the board. Over the past 70 years, there has been no strong correlation between increases in turnout and the Democratic vote share in presidential or midterm elections. This suggests that while higher turnout could marginally favor Democrats, it might not drastically alter outcomes.
Democrats could gain some advantage from 100% turnout due to the inclusion of historically underrepresented groups, but the overall impact would likely be less substantial than expected, as the partisan balance among non-voters is more evenly distributed than commonly thought.
The notion that 100% voter turnout would deliver sweeping political control for Democrats is just a comforting illusion—one that feeds into the fantasy that everyone secretly agrees with you. Both parties indulge in this kind of wishful thinking, convinced that non-voters would tip the scales in their favor if only they showed up.
The truth is that America is fiercely divided, and non-voters are just as politically varied as regular voters. Believing otherwise is just a way to avoid confronting how split the country really is.
Sources please
The government keeps fucking everyone but the democrats blame the republicans for it, and the republicans the democrats for it, not realizing they are talking about the exact same group of people.
I’m shocked either party can maintain the illusion at this point but thats just my perspective.
If you don’t see a difference between the current political parties, that seems like a you problem.
Where meme?
80% of Americans don’t support gun control. American Political parties are coalitions among themselves. Even if Ds won by 20 points they won’t have the support to do things like implement nationalized healthcare or overturning the 2nd Amendment.
Most Americans are stupid and think gun control means Guntakeaway
“80% of Americans don’t support gun control” is pretty laughably wrong, considering the numbers actually paint a much different picture. According to Pew and APMRL, 58% of Americans want stricter gun laws, and nearly everyone—86%—supports universal background checks. 86%. Not exactly a fringe opinion, is it?
Also, the idea that no one’s on board with any gun control measures conveniently ignores the fact that a majority of Republicans even support some restrictions like keeping guns out of the hands of people with mental illnesses. It’s almost like you made this number up.
Sure, not every gun control proposal gets broad support—take things like an assault weapons ban, which has more partisan splits—but even there, almost three-quarters of Americans are on board with requiring licensing and testing, just like with cars. So, trying to paint gun control as some sort of massively unpopular idea just falls flat.
According to Pew and APMRL, 58% of Americans want stricter gun laws, and nearly everyone—86%—supports universal background checks. 86%. Not exactly a fringe opinion, is it?
They hyper majority of gun sales have background checks involved in them. Universal background checks would either ban the private sale of guns (which SCOTUS would likely overturn) or open up the background check system to private citizens (which will almost certainly be abused from a computer security perspective & will lead to people realizing just how poor the system is).
The point isn’t that 80% don’t support gun control, it’s that each thing on the wishlist isn’t widely popular. And even if the actions would lead to a landslide, Americans wouldn’t be happy about it.
So, you’re concerned about universal background checks affecting private sales? The whole point is to prevent dangerous individuals from using these loopholes to buy guns. Your argument is basically defending a system that lets people bypass regulations using airy justifications even though it’s exactly why universal checks are necessary.
Your claim about potential abuse from a “computer security perspective” is just weak. There’s no concrete evidence that this would be a serious, unsolvable issue. We handle sensitive data in far more complex systems, so throwing out vague concerns isn’t a valid argument. It’s just a way to avoid real engagement.
And your SCOTUS speculation? It’s a distraction. Sure, legal challenges might come up, but that doesn’t erase the fact that 86% of Americans want universal background checks. Hiding behind hypothetical court rulings doesn’t change the overwhelming public support.
Your entire response relies on hypothetical fears, speculative legal scenarios, and flimsy concerns about private sales. It’s laughable that you can be so incredibly far off the mark about actual opinions of Americans on these topics while simultaneously claiming to speak for them. But none of it holds up against the simple fact that most Americans—across party lines—support stronger background checks and more gun control. You’re flailing to avoid engaging with the data, and it’s not working.
The whole point is to prevent dangerous individuals from using these loopholes to buy guns.
Dangerous individuals largely aren’t using this loophole to buy guns. That’s part of the problem.
The only gun control that might have a chance at stopping gun crime is a total civilian ban and that requires an Amendment.
80% of Americans don’t support gun control
Lol, seriously? Did your NRA rep tell you that blatant lie? Source please.
You would have to define “gun control”. As I’m sure that more than 20% of Americans would be in favor of incarcerated prisoners not being allowed to carry guns, which is a form of “gun control”.
These new Star Wars films are wild.
That’s right reader. YOU are responsible for this nightmare. If only you
recycled your plastics more,used a non plastic straw, shouted at your peers to vote, you could have prevented this hell hole. So hold yourself personally responsible and then push that anxiety and stress onto others without any nuance. Cause if you can prove your moral goodness maybe the world might be heaven without any work other than checking a box.This is not really at all accurate math and it won’t change the people happily voting the other way. Or the Electoral College. Or the ridiculous amount of bribes, corruption and party politics.
I hate this photo for so many reasons and I also think voting should be a mandatory holiday. I just refuse to pretend that this idea that it would fix everything because you yelled at enough people to
pray harder, vote more.Fuck your gun control. If you’d stop trying to disarm the proletariat you’d have all the other things.
This might surprise you, but we don’t want gun control.
We want to send our kids to school with out worrying that some whackjob is gonna loose 200 round of military grade firepower into their classroom.
We want to to be able to stand in line for pizza without it being a life threatening event.
We want fast food workers to be able to run out of French fries without getting fired upon.
We want to be able to sleep in our own beds, in our own homes without worrying that our neighbors will mix up houses, come in, and shoot us thinking we are an intruder.
Thats what we fucking want, and if you can find a way to get all that without enacting very slight inconveniences to the sale and ownership of firearms in the US, then you need to speak up. Otherwise you need to fucking shut up.
This is assuming that the dems are anything but Captialist lapdogs, and willing to do any of this. They will not I am sorry to tell you that
Your opinion is not welcome on Lemmy!
Get out of here! Downvoted.
#VoteKamala
1 what lemmy lemmy.ml lemmy.world lemm.ee lemmygrad please specify [email protected] I need you to be more specific
Second Oh no your down vote hurt me so much how will I ever recover that someone on the internet disagreed with me.
This is assuming that the dems are anything but Captialist lapdogs
It assumes Dems are in the majority at a uniform distribution. As though an extra 10M Californians voting for Harris will bend the needle on a race in Ohio or North Carolina or Texas.
Nevermind the “You get a supermajority and can pass anything you want!” is a scenario we already had in 2009. And what happened? Big bank bailouts. Lukewarm regulations. A bloated Pentagon churning out failed project after failed project to the tune of trillions. No DC statehood. No SCOTUS majority. No gun control. No immigration reform. No Single Payer. No Abortion enshrinement.
Republicans only hold power because you let them hold power
True! But only for the leadership of the party. When grassroot Dems turnout in droves, the senior leadership takes office on a platform of Bipartisanship and Cooperation. When grassroot Dems collapse in exhaustion and despair, suddenly you’ve got a Unitary Executive and a Simple Majority in the House and Senate and a SCOTUS that can tear up the Social Contract at its leisure all stacked in the favor of Republicans.
What does happen if Harris wins big in November? Do Democrats get anything they were promised over the last 30 years? Or do we get a Democratic President more fixated on going to war with Iran and “balancing the budget” on the backs of SS/Medicare than offering an improved quality of life for American residents?
no matter what time it is going to be the second, agian the Democrats are not beholden to the people, they know who’s intrests they serve and they lerch farther to the right each election
They only held a supermajority in the Senate for 72 days. The Minnesota seat was disputed and another democrat died of a tumor. Plus, enshrinement was not important back then as RvW wasn’t considered to be in danger.
Don’t believe the naysayers. No matter which state you are in, your vote is important. Extreme Conservatives have been taking over school boards and imposing their agenda on kids.
Offices like Sheriff, Coroner, Secretary of State, Lt Governor, State Representatives, City and County Councils etc. are all important.
Every Vote Counts!!!
Edit: Many important local races will be decided by less votes than updoots I received for this comment.
The shittiest part though is how many of those crazies are running unopposed.
Offices like Sheriff, Coroner, Secretary of State, Lt Governor, State Representatives, City and County Councils etc. are all important.
Not only are they important, it’s exactly how the freaks running the GOP took control of the party. They’ve been grinding 2 things consistently for decades: down ballot races and the judiciary. It’s been wildly successful for them. We are going to have to match if not duplicate that effort.
I did:
I will give people the benefit of the doubt and assume that voting simply isn’t convenient or accessible to them.
Offer voting by phone, website, or app, and then see what the numbers look like.
I’m Canadian, and the last time I voted it was at a place that you basically needed to drive to. And take time off work to get to. Super inconvenient, despite my motivating to vote being high.
If it were an option by phone or website, I’m sure far more people would, because they don’t have to disrupt their lives for something that takes 5 seconds to do.
I should be able to vote by texting a phone number. Remember how they used to do American idol voting by texting a number. It should be something like that.
