The Pennsylvania Democrat recalled his time serving as a Hillary Clinton surrogate in 2016, even after he supported Bernie Sanders in the primary.
Oh, because i support progressive people, not union busters
This president made an empty promise about continuing to work for paid sick leave after preventing a strike by railworkers at the end of 2022. Except, that it actually worked. Almost every union did get paid sick leave for its members within six months aided by continued pressure from the White House.
He’s a pretty lousy union buster.
I dont really blame you, theyve done quite the PR on this. There’s an electrical worker union, with a branch dealing with railroad electricians. They supported the pre-strike deal the railroad companies offered, they likely already had things like sick leave. If youve seen reports on reactions of rail workers to the post-strike-busting situation, you very likely only saw quotes from this union. Of electrical workers.
It’s a dick move to downplay their big win. Here’s another news release about a deal for sick days that affected eight unions: https://www.up.com/media/releases/paid-sick-leave-nr-230322.htm
This is literally the rail company whose workers were prevented from striking
Yes. Your point? Do you dispute that the listed unions got their sick days?
What they wanted? No i dont think they did.
You have a source that disputes that they got sick days?
Telling workers they can’t fight for their own rights, and have to wait for politicians to do it for them us not progressive, and its not pro-labor. It’s on a long list of swiftly festering bandages that only stave off death for a little while. If we don’t empower our workers, we stifle them. Even if we bribe them candy when they demand steak.
“You can’t strike, but I will try to talk to your boss to get you some of what you desire” is still union busting. The union doesn’t have the power anymore.
I don’t like Joe Biden, but this isn’t a presidential approval poll, it’s an election, and he’s clearly better than any of the alternatives. And when it comes down to it, he’s been better than I expected. We could have just had an exclusively centrist presidency, and while there’s been plenty of centrism, he has been persuadable to progressive action.
And frankly even if you can’t bring yourself to express support Biden for some reason, it should be pretty easy to want anyone who willingly associates with Republicans to lose and lose badly, because they’re way beyond stealth-mode fascism now. Even the most jaded “they’re all neolibs” voter from earlier elections can’t possibly ignore that the Republicans are just fash now. There’s a real danger if they win that cities end up with federally tasked jackboots kidnapping protesters like Portland.
When the vote is between someone (and a party) who says “climate change is more worrying than nuclear war” and “climate change is a hoax” the choice should be clear for any reasonable person. All the treason stuff aside (though very important, everyone should already be decided on that), climate change is the biggest issue for everyone I know. Probably for any average person under 50 if I had to guess.
I’ve seen people saying Hexbear users have been brigading politics communities of other instances. Not sure if it’s true, but it would explain the massive influx of idiotic far right morons with a 6th grade writing level making bad faith arguments.
Hexbear is leftist and lemmy.world defederated from the instance so you’re speaking of phantoms
Hexbear is communist, that’s you guys. That’s modern day liberals in the US. You are so fucking confused it’s comical.
Don’t fucking tell me what I am or who “my guys” are. Tankies are almost just as bad as conservatives.
Oh you’re easy to peg but I’m sure that’s how you prefer it anyways.
Nope. Voting for Cornel West. I think Marianne Williamson is also a significantly better candidate.
So you like Trump for 2024, then? Noted.
Depends on where they are. If they’re in a liberal stronghold like California, it’s probably fine. If they’re deep in the red like Florida, also fine.
But voting third party in a swing state is definitely not pragmatic.
which, if yall voting third party in some “safe state” and the candidate doesn’t even support some kind of electoral reform, what are yall doing. this whole “swing state” thing is 100% bullshit and virtually any of 10,000 plans to fix it will work, at least send a message.
Well, the problem with politics is that it basically renders a ton of wants into like 5 choices at most, and only 2 if you really want to win.
You like Trump for 2024. I’ve noted it. It’s in my notes! You’re in trouble now!
Perfect summary of how fucked the two party system and partisan identity in the US is. “Oh you don’t want to get behind a party that supports the Palestinian genocide? Trump lover!” You basically have a moderate rainbow capitalist center right party, and a fashy culture war right party, they have the same donors and corrupt capital directing their policies though. The vote is like picking the aesthetic you want to see things degrade under.
Biden taking the L for pulling out of Afghanistan was the best thing he’s done. Obama and Trump didn’t want it and he finally went though with it.
You basically have a moderate rainbow capitalist center right party, and a fashy culture war right party, they have the same donors and corrupt capital directing their policies though.
Holy fuck is this insane. While it was still dumb, complaining about lack of differentiation between neoliberalism with social conservative tendencies and neoliberalism with socially liberal tendencies could at least masquerade as a cogent argument, but “fashy culture war” isn’t just another stylistic draping on neoliberalism, it’s storming school boards, skinheads marching through cities, and federally directed jackboots kidnapping protesters.
That’s all happening now while Biden is in office though, and the police work for the state. Weapons are also being sold to fascists and extremists who repress moderates all over the world. The difference is under neoliberalism domestically, as long as people are equally represented, and the visible oppression is externalized, the structure is strengthened and remains. The Republican model says some deserve to be worse off based on their identity, which is in practice an opportunity for exploitation of all, it’s a way to blame systemic stresses on an internalized other. The stresses remain in either case and the system continues to degrade.
Neoliberalism has already had its crisis and essentially died, in the sense that it’s not believed in anymore but still guides institutions.
Where are the DHS (or other federal agents) kidnapping protesters? They didn’t just randomly decide to show up in Portland and they weren’t just randomly chosen from among available federal forces. They were sent there by Trump because they were a young organization with the least inertia to resist the fascist turn.
As to the other two, I suppose it’s true it’s still happening, no one solved the problem of evil, but they aren’t being called “fine people” and sheltered by the head of the executive branch. Zero chance the Proud Boys go to prison under a fascist president and more than likely they will be pardoned (and given a green light) if that happens. The idea that a fascist president doesn’t make fascism markedly worse is insanity.
All the flowery words about international relations are just avoiding answering the question of actual fascism, while also basically ignoring that fascist leaders were rising at the same time and supporting each other. What bullshit fake leftism to just hand wave away the rise of fascism, both at home and abroad.
Feds are notorious for harassing and threatening effective protestors, and the police and military in the US are full of organized fascists already, that’s just getting worse in any partisan scenario. International relations is actual fascism, because it’s all about protecting the interests of private US companies who do business in countries with less regulations and labor standards, and forcing those countries to remain friendly to US interests in this manner. So the oppression resulting from this system is externalized and hidden from the American collective conscious which is more involved with a culture war that doesn’t really change the status quo system but gives it moral justification and context. Results are incidents like Coca Cola hiring death squads in Columbia to harass and murder labor organizers, or just exploiting entire workforces. The military industrial complex side of this is basically death for any political organizations left of center in any country the US has interests in, the story of the last half century. Pertinent example, Biden pulling out of Afghanistan ended decades of involvement that basically started with providing insane amounts of weapons to Mujahideen Islam extremists and warlords which culminated in 9/11. Iran is the exception but the US is materially very friendly to repressive Islamic states for these economic reasons, those states aren’t inclusive by any stretch of the imagination and actually murder so-called sexual deviants. As long as it’s not happening in the US neoliberal Democrat supporters can feel like their hands are clean of fascism the system they support inflicts. So I would flip around that last paragraph and say this is a material reality entirely avoided by US Democrat progressives.
It helps to think of it in pragmatic terms of what your vote does, versus whether or not you fully support X or Y. It is undeniable that given the stupid electoral system we were born into, that voting third party effectively supports whichever mainstream candidate you don’t want to win.
All the rest of the time, whether in primaries or public forums like this, you argue and vote for what/who you really want.
But once you hit the general election, it is essentially cast in stone that either the R or D candidate will win.
We need ranked choice voting so that candidates care about what the people really want, versus just getting more votes than one specific other person.
voting third party effectively supports whichever mainstream candidate you don’t want to win.
What if you don’t want either to win and see the trend of both parties turning more to the right since Reagan and locked in a death spiral. Corporate tax rates are as low as ever, both parties support the military industrial complex and police state, both support the Palestinian genocide, neither party wants to get rid of Citizens United and Super PACs (regulated less than charities) now control and appropriate political action for corporate interests, neither party supports public healthcare. Like yeah the degradation may happen slower under Democrat but they haven’t shown signs of turning their backs against the corporate interests ruining the country/world.
If you don’t want either one to win, there is no way for you to legally make that happen.
So if you accept that is true, and you have a preference among the two parties, that is where pragmatism suggests voting against the greater evil.
But if you honestly have little to no preference, then you won’t care about the so-called consequences of voting third party, and can do whatever.
I mean obviously you can always do whatever you want. This is just the game theory you’re thinking that means we need to change our voting system before the two-party lock-in would even start to loosen.
These two things can be true at the same time:
- The two-party system is structurally bad for the country. We really, really need ranked-choice or approval voting, and have needed them for a long time.
- If you are a voter in a contested (“purple”) state and don’t vote for Biden, you will be thereby supporting the election of a fascist candidate, which will make you a material supporter of fascism.
Feel free to vote for West if you live in, say, California. But in a contested state, a vote for West is a vote for Trump (or his replacement as Führer).
There is an actual, material difference between the center-right big-business party (the Democrats) and the fascist party. If you don’t believe me, go ask a gay schoolteacher from Florida.
You can’t blame 3rd party / nonvoters for the faults of republican voters. Mentality like that is why we are stuck with point number 1.
Do you want to Make America Florida?
Who you or I vote for is not going to stop a second January 6th, it isn’t going to change the plans in project 2025, the question is no longer about duely elected politicians, there is a high chance that Trump could be barred from running due to his actions on Jan 6th, but that doesn’t change angry confused people’s minds.
If you don’t want to make america Florida convince a Trumper he’s bad don’t attack people who already know it.
Sure I can. Every eligible voter who did not vote for Hillary Clinton in 2016 shares partial blame for Trump winning. Less than people who voted for Trump, but more then none at all.
Personally I would put more blame on the democrats for not fielding a better candidate that could have beaten trump not the people who didn’t vote for a shit candidate
Marianne Williamson is a nutjob. Trump would destroy her in an election.
Why
I think Marianne Williamson is an excellent candidate. But voting is literally a rigged game and there’s only one answer where we don’t all lose our democracy.
If you believe that propaganda then you already lost
Nah voting against Dems has worked on a smaller scale. But in the presidency frankly you’re an ass to vote against Biden on this one. Your loser candidate loses, trump wins, bye bye to many of our rights and freedoms. Neato.
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Splitting the vote between Democrats and more progressive candidates is only viable as a protest if the Republicans get equally split with a libertarian candidate or a Trump/DeSantis split. Otherwise that split vote pushes us from a ho-hum boring centerist to a Republican which I would guess is far from what you want.
which I would guess is far from what you want.
Bold assumption that he’s not a right wing plant, like Marianne Williamson
He’s clearly not, first because he fell for the
People’sGrifter’s Party and second because he’s not even trying to win. Jumping into a presidential race as a third party is just an exercise in self-promotion and maybe a little political grifting along the way. He sure as shit isn’t trying to engage with the political system to induce positive political change because no outcome of his candidacy believably accomplishes that.You do understand that the parties we have today started as third parties 100+ years ago?
I would say, one of the most American things to do is to found another party when the original party loses their way.
We are already in the third presidential election where anyone to the left of corporate-neoliberalism are being pushed to ignore their own principles to keep the party at the status quo.
As bad as the Republican Party has been recently, slavery would still be around if people in the 1850’s kept voting Whig to keep the slave-loving Democrats in check. The main problem with voting has been voter suppression and how somebody who has to work multiple jobs or extended hours can even find a place to vote.
Make every state run the Colorado mail-in election process and you will find that we might be able to actually vote away a lot of garbage and have fair elections with large enough voting numbers to possibly spit both parties.
I always say that personally, voting for the lesser of two evils still has people voting for evil. I still vote, but propping up the two-party system shouldn’t be the only reason to keep the status quo.
Because Biden could have way better positions on healthcare, remote work and student loan forgiveness.
They’re easy to understand: they are privileged and insulated enough from potential Republican fuckery that if Democrats lose elections, they are mostly going to be ok. They’re mostly middle class or higher with secure employment or other economic support (parents, spouse), straight (or closeted), their religious status isn’t contentious, mostly they’re male.
The other group I’d expect would be extremely low information voters who believe all politicians are the same and it’s a Coke or Pepsi kind of thing. That’s not going to be super common with anyone identifying as “progressive” due to the very politicized nature of that term, though.
Im in rural mississippi
I already lost Roe v Wade cause “progressives” cutting off their nose in spite.
Even if Hilary lost, that was no excuse to let Republicans take over the senate or elsewhere. Which they did.
Even back in my more “libertarian” days I still voted for Hilary cause what I knew could happen. And it did happen.
Edit: Turns out Bernie/Progressive voters really did come out a lot for Hilary, which lead to the popular vote wins. I was wrong. Sorry.
Yeah, except Bernie’s supporters voted for Hillary at higher rates than Hillary folks voted for Obama, so maybe Hillary, her dumb fucking insecure email server, her lack of personality, and the DNC who helped her cheat her way through primary debates are the real ones to blame, not the progressives. She was a terrible candidate who the right hated and independents didn’t like much better and she proved she was a terrible candidate by losing to the worst Republican candidate in the last hundred years. She had all the help she should’ve needed from progressives.
Looking into it more, it appears you are likely right. Was probably the echo chamber I was in while I was younger telling me otherwise. Seeing a lot of “Bernie Bros” and the like saying they wouldn’t.
I apologize.
End of Blame Game: Sanders (and His Supporters) Helped Hillary Win Popular Vote in 2016
I’m a trans woman in Iowa.
I’m voting for Cornel West.
😘
Then you’re either an idiot or extremely shortsighted.
I just have a perspective beyond myself, rather than your liberal myopia.
Socialism or barbarism. Either the American empire is stopped or civilization will come to an end, either by climate change or world war. The point of Cornell West’s campaign isn’t to take the presidency, Sanders already proved that is impossible (never forget what they did to the Iowa caucus). It would be amazing if he won, but the real goal of my support is to build support for socialism more broadly within America so we can stop this empire from killing everyone everywhere forever.
the real goal of my support is to build support for socialism more broadly within America
And you plan to accomplish this by enabling fascists? Not a fan of accelerationism myself but you do you. Have fun in the camps I guess.
cornel west isn’t a fascist.
Progressives don’t like anyone who is older than 26.
The type of terminally online children you see on Lemmy, sure
Look, I get the Dems are our only vehicle for Progressive policies becoming reality because I know we’re never going to move away from FPTP voting any time soon. I just don’t like having to go along with the same corporate greed. It feels very two steps forward, one step back.
It feels very two steps forward, one step back.
And it is. But that still equates to a step forward. Voting red is a legit step (or three) backwards.
Voting red is getting your legs broken so you can never step again. The fact that they tried a fucking coup thst every one of those motherfuckers would have gone with if successful should not be forgotten.
“Support Joe Biden” - Yes.
“Support particular policies of Joe Biden” - No.
Democrats are not a cult of personality. We can disagree with particular things the president does without wanting to see him defeated.
I think he’s talking about the people who would rather let Trump win than support anyone right of Bernie.
He specifically said “get behind the policies of Joe Biden”. If it’s just voting I’m with Fetterman, but you don’t need to recalibrate your policy supports because anything less than full agreement is treason.
I like Fetterman, but I don’t think he’s the sharpest tool in the shed. Nuance is likely not his strong suit.
We don’t vote on policies though, we vote on people (at the federal level)
Sure, and if it’s just voting and saying “voting for Biden is important”, then great, we’re good. Biden is obviously better than any Republican and Republicans not having power is important. But what that doesn’t mean is tabling advocacy for progressive stuff because it’s not what he’s doing or pretending bad policies just didn’t happen.
Sure, as long as it’s put in context. Too many young people are emphasizing the second part of what you said over the first part.
I feel like this is the new boogie man for the DNC. My close circle of friends all don’t like Joe Biden, all voted for Bernie in the primary against Hilary. Still showed up to vote for both her and Biden.
There’s plenty of people who didn’t show up for Biden and Hilary that have similar views and I don’t think it’s as much malicious as it is apathetic. They don’t do enough to give them a reason to show up. They don’t “energize the base” well enough. The Democrats need to get people excited for their policies somehow.
It has nothing to do with energizing the base when we can see they lure voters to the polls then never deliver. The issues the poor and middle class are facing now are the same issues we’ve been facing for decades, and they never get addressed.
Like James Baldwin said, ‘I can’t believe what you say, because I see what you do.’
They could energize the base, by actually doing something they want pretty easily. Legalize pot, raise taxes on the wealthy, codify abortion/roe vs Wade into law… like anything people actually care about.
Yeah who cares about infrastructure spending or lowering the price of prescription drugs
Things the Republicans might also do and isn’t a good thing to run on for 1,000 Pat. Didn’t Bush pass some decent prescription drug bill…
Username checks out
The Democrats need to get people excited for their policies somehow.
Wouldn’t a good way to do that be to have compelling policies? Off the top of my head I’d think putting abortion protections/rights into explicit law would be a start. Frankly anything that is currently only legal on the basis of supreme court decisions also seems ripe for putting into legislative policy pushes to make into explicit legal protections, rather than relying on some decision that may be overturned by an arguably compromised court.
In that vein, expanding protections to the LGBT+ community would be another good piece to their policies. Also, on a larger note, more explicit and enthusiastic support of active unionization efforts that have been happening across different business sectors.
However, even beyond these, some that would apply more broadly might be policies to address housing and rent costs, as these affect basically everyone and anyone. Policies seeking to address housing/rent, education, and healthcare costs would altogether, I think, speak to a wider swath of the public than strictly focusing on the aforementioned concerns, but would also include them, e.g. combating redlining, undermining of public education, denial of medical services to pregnant women & trans people, etc.
I’ll admit, maybe they have been pushing for some different parts of these (I’m aware of the Biden administration sort of trying to address college debt and getting screwed by the courts), but by and large I don’t think I’ve seen a clear set of policies by the Democratic party of the United States to be excited for. Far more of it has appeared rather watered down and more along the lines of, “Well, we’re not the Republicans at least!” instead of enthusiastically standing for something more constructive.
I’m not against any of those policy points you listed. But none of them would get me nearly as excited as them actually following through on raising taxes on the wealthy. They haven’t even really attempted that in decades. It’s been all cuts by the Republicans with no action from the Democrats. Making priority one rolling back the tax bill passed under Trump which lowered taxes on the wealthy and raised them on the middle class would of made me excited to vote for Biden again.
To me, this is supposed to be the main difference between the two parties and how they run the country. Social issues are important, but I’m sick of the media and politicians ignoring fiscal/tax policy. Biden throws out a soundbite about taxing the rich and being pro labor every once and a while, but makes zero action that way.
Social issues are important, but I’m sick of the media and politicians ignoring fiscal/tax policy. Biden throws out a soundbite about taxing the rich and being pro labor every once and a while, but makes zero action that way.
Fwiw that’s why I included the parts regarding policies addressing various costs (housing/rent, education, healthcare).
Ideally taxing the rich would lead to actions addressing those, but if we’re realistic, the odds are just as likely for those tax revenues to go to subsidizing some other businesses, and the military, with a depressingly low amount allocated towards public domestic concerns like helping provide shelter, education, and healthcare. At least, the odds are likely they’ll go that way if not coupled with policies of using the tax revenues towards domestic efforts.
Those people don’t exist or are so fringe as to be irrelevant.
For the most part yes. However, I think the DNC has a real problem being disingenuous and acting like every single person to the left of trump owes them their vote. Give people a reason to vote for you. Not everyone who votes Democrat in one election identifies as a party member who is going to show up for you every election.
This whole talking to people like naughty school children if they don’t vote for you attitude isn’t helping anyone. Hilary ran her entire campaign on that message. It got us 4 years of orange man.
All the areas that went hard Blue after voting for Trump in 2016 seem to argue otherwise. Lots of people came out of the woodwork that either voted for Trump or didn’t vote at all.
What areas did Trump carry in 16 that then went “hard blue” (I guess that’s dependent upon your definition of hard, but let’s say, breaking for Biden by 10+ points) in 20?
No doubt there were places that flipped, but I doubt too many flipped “hard”.
2020 was decided by three groups:
-
Moderate Republicans repulsed by what they’d seen through 4 years of trump.
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Democrats and moderates who were put off specifically by having Clinton on the ballot in 16 and didn’t vote.
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Independents who underestimated how bad Trump would be and voted for him to “shake things up” over Clinton who was the picture of Establishment Politics.
In 2020 I think you also had the effect of complacency among some of Trump’s far right base. Many of them hadn’t voted for years, if ever, until 2016 and likely didn’t realize the perfect storm that had to happen for him to win.
Meanwhile in 20, defeating Trump basically required two things: don’t be Trump, and don’t be someone lots of people hate.
Nobody likes Biden, but nobody really hates him either. That’s how he won the primaries and it’s how he won the general.
And if 2020 is a rematch, it’s how I think he’ll win again. Biden’s biggest strength is what he’s not.
I’m thinking of Wisconsin and Pennsylvania who flipped back Blue for Biden, but have also flipped other seats that have been long held by Republicans. The PA house flipped, as well as a seat in the Senate in the US Congress. Democrats held on to the governorship of PA for the first time since 1963. Wisconsin’s Supreme Court also flipped for the first time in nearly two decades. I don’t know how many point they won by, but there is a clear direction the states are both going that extends beyond just Trump.
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Not sure they comment was meant for me, but I agree. People that still say they are independent either aren’t paying close attention or just don’t want to label themselves. Some just love to complain and not take any responsibility for the consequences of their own voting.
-
We need ranked choice voting.
We need a voting system that eliminates the spoiler effect and allows for showing intensity of preference.
RCV does neither but STAR voting does both
I would say “Then why would they be considered progressive?” but then I remember Tankies exist.
His only redeeming quality is not being Donald Trump. He’s otherwise too fucking old and out of touch with the vast majority of the country like most of our government is.
It’s almost midnight. You just got out of your job, a restaurant in a somewhat seedy location in old downtown. You leave through the backdoor into an alley and suddenly notice you’re not alone. The metal door just closed shut behind you.
You look to your right. There’s a guy with a knife. He’s looking at you and smiling in a weird manner. He starts walking towards you menacingly.
You look to your left. There’s a well known old drunk there. He smells bad and likes to hug people who are passing by. If you go that way, you will be hugged by him.
What do you do?
If you go right, you’ll get stabbed and killed. If you do nothing and stay put, you’ll get stabbed and killed. If you go left, you will be hugged by the stinky guy. It’s disgusting and not ideal, but you’ll not be stabbed and survive.
What do you choose?
I see people all the time with the dumbest arguments to not vote. “He’s not progressive enough”, or “he’s part of the system”, or even “he didn’t do enough for X” (insert your favorite minority here).
It’s all true. But the universe is not a perfect or ideal place. Not voting for the imperfect guy gets us a true horrible alternative. It’s a choice between bad and awful.
Please vote bad and keep the awful away.
People say perfect is the enemy of good, not good is the enemy of perfect. So, for bad and awful, it would be awful is the enemy of bad. I think that is not what you’re trying to say.
I hope that drunk isn’t hugging me to make it easier for the other guy to stab me.
Ah, the false dichotomy, neat.
Abstaining is always an option. You can always just ignore either shady individual - you aren’t required to pick one.
Libs could learn a thing or two about abstinence.
Your analogy does not work, as the situation presented requires you to either go to the left or to the right.
In real life, there are many options and gray areas. One of those options is to refuse support to anyone who works against the populace, regardless of their political affiliation.
The world would be much better off watching the US turn far-right and implode than it would be maintaining the status quo.
I would rather watch the US die as a Nazi state than support the lesser of two evils. Remove them as a global superpower. Move out of the way and allow other states to bring better systems of government forward. Maybe something salvageable can be found in the wreckage.
That’s the part Fetterman fails to realize as well: Right now is not okay. Continuing the status quo is not okay.
Your analogy also equates the death of the nation with the death of the self, which is not even remotely true either.
Everyone knows not to negotiate with terrorists, until election season.
Ok tankie
There’s a well known old drunk there. He smells bad and likes to hug people who are passing by. If you go that way, you will be hugged by him.
Lol did you do this on purpose?
The United States is not a democracy. In 2016, a man who lost the general election was illegitimately installed as president under the guise of some imaginary lines having more meaning than the actual, objectively factual will of the people as measured through a democratic vote. Unless you’re in a swing state, who you vote for doesn’t matter at all.
I agree with your first two sentences and then the train just jumps the tracks and plummets down a ravine. There’s all kinds of ways who you vote for matters. Complete disengagement like what you’re suggesting puts us on the fast track to fascism and nihilism.
Sorry, who you vote for as president* doesn’t matter. Local elections can still have a big impact on your life and you can influence them directly.
There are many types of democracies, and we live in a representative democracy which is very much a democracy.
There is exactly 1 direct democracy on the planet. Costa Rica is close but not quite.
Even ignoring how your vote doesn’t matter if it’s not a swing state, your vote is also worth many times more or less both for legislators and the president depending on which state you live in. That’s not a democracy. In order for weighted votes to count as a democracy, you would also have to count much more strongly weighted votes, like if for example, billionaires’ votes were worth a million times that of the average Joe.
That’s like saying your vote doesn’t matter if you have a minority opinion so democracy doesn’t exist at all. It’s a bullshit line of reasoning.
Also your vote is extremely important at the local level. Our housing crisis is entirely a local voting issue.
A billionaires vote counts for exactly the same as yours. Sorry to break your bubble.
I feel like you skimmed my message instead of actually reading it, so I’ll give you a chance to reread it.
No your post is just nonsense people repeat as part of the general American zeitgeist of “can’t trust government.” It has no basis in reality.
Gotta move the Overton Window from the far right back towards the center right before you can start moving it to the left.
Tell that to the Democrat PACs funding the most insane fascist Republican primary candidates, so they can point out how insane their opposition is, effectively shifting the Overton Window even further to the right.
I choose neither. Instead, I jump, grab the bars of the fire escape overhead and climb up. Stinky hugs stabby, gets stabbed and dies. Then I jump down from the fire escape onto Stabby, knock him down and stab him with his own knife.
The rusted fire escape cuts your fingers as you latch onto the bottom rungs, sending you plummeting to Stabby Smile.
Well, I just rolled a D20 and got a 3, so fair enough…
and then everyone clapped
Teenager moment
Yeah, I can think of a parallel. The Soviets and the West allied to defeat Hitler but neither wanted to live under the other’s rules.
“Not GOP” is the best choice, but I’d like to see a different “not GOP” than the current one. Or even better, a system that doesn’t boil it down to two choices and an all or nothing vote.
The difference there is that they knew eventually the war would be over and they didn’t have to be allies any more. Instead, the DNC pulls out this same rhetoric every election, and they’ll never stop.
Yeah, another difference was that the Soviets and the West both wanted to defeat the Nazis. I think the moderate Democrats know that if the right is properly defeated (with election reform that opens up the system), they’ll also lose their power since the “we’re not the GOP” votes will dry up. Though the game is getting more dangerous as the GOP’s base is calling for Democrat blood and they don’t need the Dems like the Dems in power need them.
You’re 100% right. I pretty much hate Joe Biden. But I voted for him and will again, because there’s no better way to move towards what I want unfortunately.
Stop downvoting the exact sentiment this article and thread are espousing.
Wtf? So what they hate Biden? Mf voted for him!!
Because the Democrstic Party did just about everything it could to try and have it be Senator Conor Lamb. Or by effect, a Senator Oz.
For me Biden represents much of that faction of the Democratic Party. Hence I have trouble assuring Biden my vote even before the primary.
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What’s True
The 2008 photograph shows Biden with Robert Byrd, a West Virginia senator who was during the 1940s a member and organizer for the Ku Klux Klan.
What’s False
However, Byrd was never “Grand Wizard” of the Ku Klux Klan, and he later renounced his past white supremacist views and said his membership of the KKK was the “biggest mistake” he had ever made, years before he was photographed campaigning with Biden.
I make this comment not for you, because if you don’t fact check the things you post then you’re prob not going to react positively to any fact checking, but for others curious about the context of this pic
We all make mistakes like joining the KKK and the Nazi Party. It’s unfair to cancel people!
Out of interest, what’s your thoughts on Daryl Davis? He’s a black man who made it a goal to befriend KKK members in order to lead them out of their racist ideology, back to normality.
Those people made objectively shitty, horrible decisions and were living bad lives. Yet, they were able to find a path to redemption. I’m not making excuses for this Byrd dude, I’m not American so I’ll never be faced with votiing for a KKK member (closest we’ve got here is Britain First, though not an exact match as they have ethnic minority members). But something I think about often is (and I hope you’ll do me the service of actually reading what I’ve written and think about it)…
Imagine you are born into a racist family in some majority-white racist town in American (can’t remember the name of it but there’s definitely at least one of those). You are surrounded by hard-right rhetoric from birth, your parents are racist, your friends at school are racist, your teachers are homophobic, you go to a church with anti-woke sermons, your media consumption is hard-right radio, hard-right TV, hard-right newspapers; you’d have to be an exceptionally-gifted logical thinker to escape the pull of that way of thinking. I sometimes wonder, how much agency does a person like that have in the views they acquire?
My opinion is that I’m glad they grew into better people, but also they should never be in charge of anything ever. They were supported and uplifted in their ignorance. If they’re truly changed people, they would devote their lives to returning their undeserved blessings.
Fair response.
Did you save all the old Trump stuff?
Not sure what you mean by this, I wasn’t the one who posted the picture so maybe you meant to reply to someone else
Then he’s not listening
I’ll vote for whatever candidate aligns with my views, I’m not playing the numbers game, that’s not for me to play. I can and will vote for whoever I want and no one is going to convince me that I’m “throwing my vote away” by voting third party.
That’s not going to be good for earning their vote, is it? I think he and the WH ought to try real hard to figure it out.
Duhh
The key to getting progression policies passed is voting for Congress. Having a democratic President, whether it’s Biden or someone else, doesn’t matter if we only have a razor-thin majority. We just get held hostage by people like Manchin. We need solid majorities in both House and Senate to achieve anything.
the key to getting progressive policies passed is direct pressure. widespread strikes and organizing.
Not even needed to be honest. Blue states need to swing their dick around and demand shit, but blue state politicians aren’t doing anything. I know this isn’t the most palatable comparison, but slave states, leading up to the Civil War, swung their dick around and got concession after concession from free state politicians even if they didn’t have nearly enough votes to get legislation they wanted and could have been shut out by simple majorities. Blue states and blue state politicians really need to get some fucking cojones or the US is heading down a path it’s never going to come back from.
I know this isn’t the most palatable comparison, but slave states, leading up to the Civil War, swung their dick around and got concession after concession from free state politicians even if they didn’t have nearly enough votes to get legislation they wanted and could have been shut out by simple majorities
This is literally what MAGA politicians are doing right now. I’ve said it before, but it’s humiliating watching the Democratic Party losing “the game” by insisting on playing by the rules when the opposing team is openly bragging about cheating.
dems had a majority when obama was elected and did nothing with it
They only had a majority in both houses for 2 years and still managed to get the ACA passed which was pretty significant. Even Trump couldn’t undo it. Also in fairness to Obama he was focused on staving off financial collapse for a good part of his first term.
im not impressed with them passing a conservative healthcare plan from the 90s that is basically just free money for healthcare companies and still leaves millions of americans without healthcare. the dems didnt even stave off financial collapse they bailed out huge banks and other corporations while doing absolutely nothing for the american people
The ACA was a Heritage Foundation health care plan that acts as a de facto subsidy for private health insurance. The best we ever get is still conservative.
There is ALWAYS a holdout that stops anti-corporatist legislation from happening. ALWAYS.
Only when you have a razor thin majority, which is the exclusive type of majority we’ve given Democrats in Congress for the past few decades.
Except for a few months during Obama’s term.
Which got us the greatest expansion of Medicare in our history and has saved thousands of lives and millions of dollars.
The ONE example we have of voting in a true Democratic supermajority was a massive success.
And yet they were wildly rejected only two years later. Hmmm
There seems to be something missing here
We have different definitions of “wildly rejected” lol
California has a bullet proof super majority and they can’t provide a livable wage, affordable housing, universal healthcare which includes dental and mental healthcare, or address homelessness other than hiding them from view. If a state like that can’t provide, why should be trust it to happen at the federal level? Dems could hold everything but 1% of Congress and they would blame that 1% for everything they didn’t do
Proof positive of failed democratic policy. Do you need more examples in other states?
Texas, Kentucky, Alabama, and all other red states are shit too.
I live in CA. Our homeless people have Medi-Cal, which includes dental, vision, and mental care. We have a zoning issue that the NIMBYs aren’t budging on, though I think I have found a workaround involving right of first refusal. Once we fix the zoning issue, our housing costs will come down dramatically.
Also, remember we only “own” about 1/3 of the land out here. Most of the state is Federal land operated by the BLM
K I’ll go tell the tent cities that everything is actually going really well for them lol.
Private healthcare loves the ACA + Medi-Cal cause it keeps their costs high and guarantees tax dollars can pay it. These companies often sell off their debt for fractions of it’s value cause they know they’re not going to get it all back, and they only need a small percentage to turn a ridiculous profit. This is the system these tax scheme substitutes for public healthcare help maintain.
Dude, compare California to a non Democratic majority state, not to the perfect utopia you want.
Of course California has problems. If they solved those problems, there would be other problems.
But California has massively fewer problems due to the untouchable Democratic supermajority in the state.
Parts of California even have ranked choice voting.
The major difference between the federal government and state governments is the fact that the federal government is the source of all money. They can spend it into existence. California cannot.
None of the things that would improve the quality of peoples lives better would cost the state a dime. Requiring businesses to pay a livable wage will increase state revenues and a stronger economy. Requiring universal healthcare would increase productivity and provide preventative care which lowers costs to the state, employers, and employees.
It seemed that your original comment boiled down to, if a state can’t do something, how can the federal government possibly do it, and I gave a major reason why. Also, healthcare isn’t free unfortunately, and since it cannot be tied to employment, it would have to come from the government.
it would have to come from the government
The government can regulate coverage and medicine. The core infrastructure is already in place through Medicare and Medicaid in every state.
Yes, the money for those programs come from the government. Thank you for agreeing with me.
