Bernie is the political equivalent of Rambo: Alone, behind enemy lines, with no support.
He had to do guerrilla politics most of his career and has a lot to teach.
I never stopped talking about electoral reform. I refuse to stop talking about it no matter what day it is.
You know who will stop talking about the flaws of the voting system after the election? The democratic party and it’s members. Like clockwork each election. They show their hand and then throw away the cards and expect you to forget they pulled them out and slammed them on the table in the most public way possible.
If you’re complaining about third parties now, you have an obligation to work towards fixing this issue after the election. You may forget, but I won’t. I will beat this drum till the blissful end to my wage slavery existence on this dirty planet.
Then in the next election, there will be much concern over third parties yet again. This meme will be reposted without one ounce of self awareness or shame. Looking forward to that day my blue conservative “allies”.
in the first 3.5 years of the question cycle
We are literally always in an election cycle this country is so fucked up
That’s how cycles work, lol.
We’re always in every cycle.
It’s in the root of the word cycle. Greek word kuklos and the Latin word cyclus, both of which mean “circle”.
I love me a good piece of pedantry. Technically correct, the best kind of correct.
If you think that everyone is always in an election cycle then you haven’t heard of countries outside the US
You understand that a cycle can have dormant and active phases, right?
You mean a dictatorship?
A third party has literally no chance to win in our system, and nobody gives a single fuck about the miniscule amount of votes they do get - you’re not moving any metrics, or sending any messages, or taking any stands. All you’re doing is helping the worse option win.
So, if you truly hate Palestinians, then by all means vote Stein. If you want to see Ukraine taken over, then please vote Stein. If you want to see our country start murdering every version of queer people, then you really should vote Stein. That’s all you’re going to get for it.
Whether you like to see the truth or not, a vote for a third party is still a vote for genocide.
And abstaining a vote is… still a vote for genocide. People need to get over this desire to make believe that voting makes them complicit in something and instead realize that it’s a cold and rational duty. Vote for the best outcome possible. What you do the remaining 364 days of the year will decide your complicity.
So much of this dialogue appears to boil down to “America is a fascist country and everyone in it supports fascist policies no matter what they say or do”.
Vote Republican: You’re for genocide. Vote Dem: You’re for genocide. Third Party: Genocide. Write-In: Genocide. Abstain: Genocide. Protest Outside Your Polling Booth: Genocide.
What you do the remaining 364 days of the year will decide your complicity.
Fateful last words of Thomas Matthew Crooks
“Wait, I can support genocide while pretending I’m not a Nazi??”
- Diet RacistsThat is exactly what a lot of people here are doing yes.
They can say they vote third party, while hoping Trump wins.
Who in your scenario is supporting genocide exactly?
Low-key Nazis who vote third party just so they can later claim they didn’t vote for Trump? Idk, I hadn’t really thought that far into it. I mean, the guy down the road from me took down his swastika when he put up his “I stand with Israel” sign, but now his yard is covered in 50000 Trump signs, so I’m guessing he’s not voting third party…
miniscule amount of votes they do get - you’re not moving any metrics
If that’s true then why do you care? It’s a miniscule amount that’s not moving anything.
Let’s build some towers out of blocks and see whose is biggest!
The Dem tower is 48 blocks tall. The GOP Tower is 49 blocks tall. The 3rd party tower is 3 blocks tall. That 3 block tower isn’t enough to win, but if they stacked onto the Dem tower, that’s the difference between 4 years of status quo and 4 years of fascism.
You’re funny if you think it will be 4 years of fascism. It will be the new status quo.
That was the intended implication. Fascism is not known for reservation.
Seems to me that the 48 blocks could also be moved to the 3 blocks, and that might be less convenient but then it wouldn’t just be 4 more years of the same deteriorating status quo that produced Trump in the first place.
that might be less convenient
Bit of an understatement there, don’t you think? That convincing 80 million people to switch their vote to an inexperienced and unproven spoiler candidate with questionable motives and vague policy proposals, with 2 weeks before the election, might be less convenient than convincing a rounding error of voters to vote strategically according to their own stated goals? It would be fair then to say that planets might be a bit bigger than protons, and WWII may have been a bit of a kerfuffle.
Don’t get me wrong, I’ve been known to indulge, recreationally, in impossibly improbable fantasies. I think we all do from time to time. I’m no lover of the status quo, I yearn unironically for fully automated luxury gay space communism. It’s certainly titillating to imagine the people collectively gaining class consciousness and walking to the polls arm in arm to vote “The Proletariat” for President in a landslide. Buuut…
I’ve worked various customer service roles, I believe anyone who has can corroborate the surprising prevalence of, shall I say, simpletons in the general population. As valid as your policy positions may be, the average American has the attention span of a TV ad and the political depth of a celebrity tweet.
Do you have an actionable plan to spontaneously educate and persuade 80 million people in under 2 weeks? If so, why have you waited until now to suggest it? We could’ve had the revolution years ago.
As fun as the fantasies are, there are lives at stake. In serious circumstances, I prefer not to gamble on historically unsuccessful schemes. Identify the options available to you and their consequences. What levers of power do you hold, how long are they and where is their fulcrum?
It’s not enough to just try stuff that sounds good and hope it works, well-intended actions have unintended consequences. What evidence suggests converting half the voting population in 2 weeks is remotely conceivable?
In two weeks, no, it’s not conceivable. But in the long term, there are only three possibilities: the democrats move left to meet us, or, people move to a new party, or, the system decays into fascism. The democrats will never move to meet us if we support them unconditionally, so the way I see it, voting third party works towards both of those aims at once.
The country is in decline and has been for quite some time. The policies that I advocate for are necessary to stop that decline. As long as Democrats both paint themselves as defenders of the status quo and refuse to do what’s necessary for the status quo to actually work for people, it’s a losing proposition, and one that will only get worse over time. And that’s a problem, because the biggest faction that positions itself as critical of the status quo, and is therefore posed to take advantage of deteriorating conditions, is a right-wing one. Therefore, to accept merely clinging to the status quo as the only option is the same as accepting defeat - it isn’t a viable approach. Building a third party is unlikely to win this particular election, but at least it is part of a strategy that could theoretically work to stop fascism.
In any case, I will not be moved from my position by any amount of words. Either the Dems can give the concessions necessary to move me, or the 80 million can join me over here, or they can win or lose without me. Am I being obstinate? Yes. But I am being obstinate for a reason, because my positions have to happen, or we’ll all be fucked regardless.
there are only three possibilities: the democrats move left to meet us, or, people move to a new party, or, the system decays into fascism.
Correct! Now let’s consider these possibilities, from the perspective of a person who wants to accomplish a goal with their actions:
A new party is the best option, but it will take time to build. That’s gonna look like several election cycles of local and state elections.
I’m the meantime, there is the immediate threat of the system decaying into fascism. If that happens, the new party is doomed anyway, so we need to delay the fascism as much as possible while we get members of the new party elected to lower offices so they can build the experience, skills, and connections necessary to implement their superior policies.
Naturally, we come again to the only rational strategy for a disgruntled leftist: vote Dem every election to buy time until the new party is viable. Jill Stein is not a serious candidate and very possibly an deliberate spoiler bankrolled by Russia. West is not a serious candidate. De la Cruz seems sincere, but she lacks the experience to be a serious candidate; try Governor or Congress first before applying for President.
The democrats will never move to meet us if we support them unconditionally, so the way I see it, voting third party works towards both of those aims at once.
I didn’t see it the way you see it, in fact I think you might have something in your eye because there is no evidence that voting third party accomplished any stated goal, and in fact makes the problems worse.
The country is in decline and has been for quite some time. The policies that I advocate for are necessary to stop that decline.
I sympathize, but your strategy does not implement your policies faster, it in fact pushes them further away. You’re right that we need a new party, but it’s too late this cycle, and the fascists winning may mean it never happens. A vote for Harris is a vote for 4 more years of status quo while we do the real work locally.
In any case, I will not be moved from my position by any amount of words. Either the Dems can give the concessions necessary to move me, or the 80 million can join me over here, or they can win or lose without me. Am I being obstinate? Yes. But I am being obstinate for a reason
Yikes. I’m glad your life is stable enough to gamble with fascism to appease your own obstinance, but however noble your reasons, this strategy is counterproductive. People will suffer so you can say you were stubborn in the face of overwhelming evidence against your strategy.
Time is not on our side. In four years, no matter who wins, the rich will be richer, the poor will be poorer, the climate crisis will be worse, and more and more money will be funneled into the military. “Buying time” is not a valid goal, especially not when it comes at the expense of efforts to actually build an alternative. In four years, anyone looking to build an alternative is going to face the exact same criticisms you’re using now, it will again be “the most important election of our lives” and there’s a good chance that the republican candidate will be worse than Trump, and more people will have turned to the right out of dissatisfaction with deteriorating conditions. Why on earth should we put off building an alternative when future conditions will just make it worse and harder without removing any of the issues that make you say that right now is “an inconvenient time?” When will it be the right time to start building a third party?
I didn’t see it the way you see it, in fact I think you might have something in your eye because there is no evidence that voting third party accomplished any stated goal, and in fact makes the problems worse.
Of course not, because they haven’t been built yet. That’s like saying that there’s no evidence that liberalism could ever work when monarchy was all people knew. What we do know is that the people in power are fundamentally unwilling or unable to address the problems that are leading to the rise of fascism, and therefore must be replaced.
Yikes. I’m glad your life is stable enough to gamble with fascism to appease your own obstinance
Stable enough to gamble with fascism? No, it’s the opposite. It’s precarious enough that I insist on taking a strategy that has a nonzero chance of actually stopping fascism rather than accepting it as an inevitability.
Aren’t there other blocks that could be stacked on the Dem tower?
Where?
At the undecided pile.
That’s the 3 blocks
The Green votes are as much votes—i.e. are as decided—as the Democrat and Republican votes.
The undecided pile has 10s of blocks.
I know a lot of hard lefties that would be very upset if they could math right now.
Huh sounds like the people who have 3 blocks have a lot of influence. Considering the stakes shouldn’t the ones with the big towers be trying to appease the ones with three blocks?
I mean this doesn’t sound insignificant at all. I thought they were “not moving any metrics”?
Huh sounds like the people who have 3 blocks have a lot of influence. Considering the stakes shouldn’t the ones with the big towers be trying to appease the ones with three blocks?
By appeasing the 3 blocks, you’ve now lost 10 blocks from your own tower. Congratulations!
so it’s, “our way or Hitler 2.0?”
doesn’t sound very progressive to me. kinda sounds like…
so it’s, “our way or Hitler 2.0?”
Isn’t “Our Way” the whole Green New Deal to save everyone on the planet from roasting alive due to climate change?
And when your analytics shows that adopting those policies will lose you more voters than you’d gain from the likely third party vote, what then?
Sounds more like the people with three blocks know the consequences of a Trump victory and are using their vote as ransom to make demands over a single issue that will get far worse if Trump wins.
So in essence. The people with three blocks are entitled and ignorant and quite possibly purposefully helping Trump win.
Yes, that’s correct. And that single issue is genocide, which is absolutely worth taking a stand against. But whether you agree with it or not, that’s the situation. We are holding our votes ransom and if they want them then they’ll have to give in to our demands. Their choice.
Sure, let’s go down this line of reasoning. You appease the 3 blockers, and lose 10 blocks in the process. Now the Dem tower is 41 and the GOP tower is 59. Objectively a bad trade. What incentive does that provide?
There are only 9 blocks that matter and 6 of them are in the GOP Tower.
It’s crazy that the average American voter doesn’t know what the electoral college is.
It’s crazy that you used a made up statistic to feel superior lmao.
Crazy how foreign election-meddlers don’t even know how obvious they are with their agitprop.
it’s crazy the average hard lib is a humorless husk of a human being with zero awareness of what a joke is.
Some states/districts have come down to a few hundred or a few thousand votes. I don’t agree with the above comment that it doesn’t matter. Third parties are spoilers
Third parties are spoilers
Its complicated. They only become spoilers after the election is counted. On the days leading up to the election people not pledging their votes to one candidate or another are sought after, and sometimes that seeking takes the form or candidates doing desperate policy changes to bring their poll numbers up. Like we saw with Harris spouting off trying to appeal to gun nuts the other day. If enough Dem voters had stood up and said, “Hey stop it with the weapon shipments and at least be neutral in this because whats going on is not adhering to Who Americans are” then Harris would have felt pressure to stop the shipments, out of a once every 4 year fear that the people might be pissed at her. For the rest of the time our opinions dont matter for shit to party leadership.
But to date she hasnt felt the pressure. The killing continues becasue we let it continue out of fear of trump winning. We dont trust that Harris is smart enough to get a message like, “hey cut that out”, from us, but I bet she and her staff are smart enough if we could just come together and send the message. The fault here is on the voters for allowing Harris and Biden to do some flatly evil far right wing shit. We didnt even get bribed-- we’re simply all terrified of trump so we let far right evil exist within a left leaning party.
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To the mods: how was my comment misinformation?
It’s just naive in my opinion. They say they care so much about Palestine, but refuse to sit down, grow up, and face our current political reality. I would love to have ranked voting, or even just a valid third party choice, but that is not going to happen in the next 3 weeks. And we are still reeling from the repercussions of the last Trump Term. They’ll continue to stack government and courts with the same backwards thinkers to make progress, if any, even harder. They’ll continue to make life harder and more dangerous for not even just minorities, but just anyone who’s not able to buy their way out of it.
But it doesn’t matter! They’re both the same! There is no way Trump could be worse. Because while Palestinians watch Israel’s interpretation of “just end it” with out a cease fire, they’ll die with the knowledge that, somewhere, in another country, a woman is bleeding out in the parking lot because some people wanted to make a point. Oh, boy, won’t that be great? /s
IMO anyone who argues to vote third party right now is a Russian troll.
Well I wouldn’t disagree with out of hand but I would want to see your research on that.
Not sure how to tell you this, but the right wing has, does, and will target ANY Democratic (or 3rd party) candidate that poses a realistic chance of beating them in the presidential election. The right wing doesn’t want or know how to govern, they just want to control, so they attack those that are qualified to govern.
Russia and China support and amplify unserious 3rd party candidates like Stein and RFK Jr with the support of the Republicans, because without splitting the left’s votes, the Republicans would be a powerless minority
The right wing doesn’t want or know how to govern, they just want to control
Thank goodness liberals don’t have this problem.
Big broom sweeping Eric Adams, Lori Lightfoot, Kristen Sinema, and Henry Cuellar under the rug
Russia and China
American politicians would rather fight two more world wars than go to therapy.
Here goes:
PSL is running Claudia de la Cruz on a platform of Palestinian statehood and an end to arms shipments to israel.
Here’s your chance to not be like the ops meme.
Under no circumstances should anyone with a functioning brain consider this as a good idea. It’s a sacrificed vote. A worthless ceremonial attempt to “protest” by casting a vote for someone that has a barely above zero chance to win.
It’s nothing more that pageantry and it’s irresponsible.
And there is probably no one that would in good faith, ask you vote for this person that isn’t trying to siphon votes from Harris.
DO NOT LISTEN TO THESE PEOPLE.
Votes aren’t sacrificed, they’re cast and counted. The count is public so you know they aren’t tossed into a pit after their hearts are carved out with an obsidian knife or burned on a stake or whatever.
I think the description of pageantry probably isn’t one to invoke when we’re staring down the barrel of three weeks of constant detailed media coverage focused on every detail.
I also think it’s pretty vile to describe voting for a party opposed to genocide as irresponsible. Irresponsible to whomst exactly?
A vote isn’t ceremonial or protest (and if it were protest it would be a lot cooler!).
I just want to take a minute to examine the protest vote rhetoric for a second. People only deploy it to imply that a vote they name protest is not valuable, not effective, immature and other pejoratives.
Why would anyone listen to the input of a person who looked at the history of the last twenty years or even the last century and not just thought “yeah, that’s immature, ineffective and worthless” but then tried to convince the people who are voting third party, overwhelmingly young people, of it?
I am literally asking anyone who would vote for either of the two major parties or a third party to consider the party for socialism and liberation in good faith. I don’t care who it siphons votes from. If a party thinks they need third party voters then they can adopt third party platforms.
I don’t care who it siphons votes from.
This obvious admission of entitlement says everything about how you have nothing to lose in this election, and therefore have no one’s best interest in mind aside from your own.
That is of course if we are to even assume that you aren’t here to support a spoiler and disrupt an election.
You’re creating a strawman of me to argue against.
It’s pretty clearly in bad faith. Why not actually respond to anything else I said instead of quoting one short sentence outside of any context and building a bunch of assumptions around it?
It’s laughable to suggest that my vote against genocide has no one’s best interest in mind but my own.
Your claim that I’m speaking from a place of privilege and entitlement also falls pretty flat when it’s the high and privileged place of entitlement that’s defined by rejecting genocide.
Why not try a different line of reasoning.
Because there is no reasoning with you. There never was, and there never will be. You all make sure of that when you refuse to argue in good faith. So to counter- I’m not here to reason with you, I’m here to ensure people reading along can see the foolishness in your ideology.
And based on the ratios- it seems to me that they do.
From your perspective what would constitute a good faith argument for me to make?
I’ve tried to be civil and respectful even when I’m being treated with veiled insults and direct baseless accusations even when you finally end up appealing to your viewpoints popularity.
Doesn’t this seem a little beyond parody to you?
Again, I’m not here to reason with you, I’m here to ensure people reading along can see the foolishness in your ideology.
Save the false civility. I’m not buying it.
It’s bold of you to assume everyone who would vote 3rd party would otherwise “vote blue no matter who”. Also, not everyone lives in a swing state.
No ones vote should be wasted, regardless of who you’re voting for. Vote for the person with the highest likelihood to win, with the closest platform that you could potentially get on with.
If its hard, write a pro/con of the two possible winners, and then choose who has the least cons for you personally.
Congrats, you now have part of a voting plan, and you’ll have a affectual vote .
No ones vote should be wasted
Glad to hear of your new found efforts to pass state level electoral reform and do away with the First-past-the-post voting system that is source of what you call “vote wasting”.
Id love for that to be the way it happens. Sadly that’s down to local elections, but I can promise you Trump won’t give you that
Just say you want Trump to win. No need to hide it.
Why would I say that? I’m literally advocating people support a party running against trump.
It’s pretty safe to say everyone is aware of what you’re advocating for here.
I’ve made it abundantly clear, I want people to vote for the party for socialism and liberation no matter what political party they might have been planning on voting for.
Greens? They’re empty triangulators, vote psl instead.
Republicans? They’re the vile servants of capital who have no intent to disentangle America from foreign wars. Vote psl instead.
Democrats? Also the disgusting servants of capital who have no intent to stop the genocide, vote psl instead.
I’m sure lemmy.ml will be able to do what nobody has been able to do in the 200+ year history of the US and make third parties relevant! Great job! /s
The meme is that you’re supposed to try to improve the system in between elections, not just throw away your vote every 4 years and call it a day
Why aren’t you trying to improve the system between elections? It’s clear you understand the flaws of First past the post voting. Why haven’t you been doing something about the spoiler effect you are so very concerned with?
How do you know I’m not?
If third parties aren’t relevant then who cares if people vote for them?
I agree that people shouldn’t just throw in the towel and vote for one of the two major parties when they’ve been working so hard in the non election years to build a workers state.
Might wanna change your tactics then, bud. Your work doesn’t seem to be paying off. The US has never been further from a worker state.
Gloria La Riva, PSL’s 2020 presidential candidate, got a total of 85,623 nationally.
Do you think Claudia de la Cruz will beat that?
Does she have a path to presidency?
Harris or Trump will win and to think anyone else has a chance at this stage of the game is delusional.
She can win if you vote for her.
Really, I think you’d have a really good point if winning were all that mattered.
Election turnout is used to determine all kinds of stuff like funding, ballot presence, event eligibility, media coverage and it does a lot for public awareness.
Plenty of consultants, analysts and workers from the two major parties themselves examine third party turnout when triangulating their platforms and policies.
I don’t think the idea that only candidates who are already in a position to win the presidency should be considered is a very good tack. It’s really hard to defend, relies on some easily disproven misconceptions about the electoral system and if you succeed it just drives people who would vote away from voting at all.
Maybe try a different line of reasoning?
The time to show support for third parties was months ago. Not less than a month from an election
No one in good faith remains to support any third party. It’s mathematically and empirically known there no third party has a remote chance to ever win at this point.
You appear to me- to be here in bad faith and only in bad faith to disrupt an election.
“Support 3rd parties all you want except when it’s time to vote”
“Democracy is voting for my guy”
Oh the time to work towards the change I want to see in my country is months ago? Back then people were saying it was years ago. Years ago people were telling me the same as you, I should have been at it months ago.
I’ve been doing the same thing that whole time.
The best time to support party for socialism and liberation was months ago, the second best time is now.
I explained in my comment that you replied to how there’s so much more than winning to take into account. Surely you aren’t just gonna accuse me of bad faith actions after you ignore my ideas? That would almost be like arguing in img_megamind.jpg bad faith.
Wouldn’t it make more sense to vote for the better of the two presidential nominees then vote all PSL down ballot where they can make real change?
Why wouldn’t that work?
If I cared more about supporting the democrat or republican policies than about building an alternative, yes.
Of course, I came to the conclusion that I didn’t want to support republican or democrat policies and don’t trust the democrats to do what they campaign on almost a decade and a half ago, so personally I would never do that.
And I’m here voicing support for a third party which has a platform wildly different than the republicans and democrats so it’s pretty clear I don’t want to support republican and democrat policies at all.
then vote all PSL down ballot where they can make real change? Why wouldn’t that work?
You kind of clumsily skipped over the main question here.
I promise you I didn’t.
I don’t want to support republican or democrat policies.
Voting for a candidate who is running at the head of either of those parties tickets would be supporting their policies and platforms.
So no, that wouldn’t work.
Don’t worry, I’m gonna vote party for socialism and liberation wherever I can on the ballot too and my distaste for the two major parties softens the more localized the race is, both because the outcomes at stake are unique and the candidates are less doctrinaire.
But no, I’m not gonna vote for a democrat or republican for president but then put the party for socialism and liberation in downticket.
E: wait a minute, if you really thought the down ballot races were what mattered wouldn’t you be positing that I vote democrat at the local level?
What gives? Which one matters, president or everything underneath it?
To address your edit, both the republican and democrat parties are already built.
Have been for a couple years.
But that isn’t building a party.
That’s like building a skyscraper by putting together the top floor first.
I’ll keep saying it: This is not a Mexican standoff you can win because the Dems have an out: the center voter. If you want the Dems to stop going center, they have to win all 3 houses consistently. They’ve had all 3 for only 4 of the last 24 years.
Also that one time, if I recall correctly, had a bunch of Dems who were “pro-life” and vaguely Dem to get votes but not really progressive at all.
I’ll never forgive Joe Lieberman.
“Blue Dogs”. 2010 and 2012 erased a lot of them.
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as they move further and further center.
Why do they move further and further center? Because they lose. They lose almost all the time. They need all 3 (house of reps, Senate, presidency) to do much of anything. And they’ve had that for, drumroll please, 4 of the last 24 years. Or 6 of the last 32 years. Or 6 of the last 44 years. When they lose they go to the center to find voters. You’re talking as if they had control, but they didn’t.
Going to the center is why they are losing. Jimmy Carter was a centrist who tried to distance the party from the New Deal. He was wildly unpopular, which is why Ted Kennedy primaried him from the left. Kennedy lost the primary but Carter lost the presidency. Mondale and Dukakis were both moving to the center as well, and they both failed to beat Regan and Bush, respectively.
Clinton was the only centrist to win, and that probably had more to do with the fact that Ross Perot took a huge portion of the electorate (19%) than anything else. Gore and Kerry were another set of centrist losers, followed by Obama, who was a centrist President but a progressive candidate who won the primary by going to Hillary’s left. Hillary was a historic loss, and while Biden is a considered a centrist, he’s also very pro-labor, and ran a progressive platform against an incredibly unpopular president.
You’re absolutely right about what’s happening; the Democrats are going to the center to find voters. But when they go further from the left, it costs them voters, so they go even further towards the right to try to get new votes, which costs them more voters, over and over again in a feedback loop that, frankly, you could only get stuck in by either being completely incompetent or deliberately obtuse. You need to start blaming the party for losing voters, not the voters for being abandoned by the party.
Ah excellent you can be today’s explanation:
Ok let’s go through this chronologically.
Bill Clinton: After successive Dem losses Bill figured out “it’s the economy stupid”, aka center policy, not leftist policy. Plus when you run against an incumbent (Bush senior) you generally run from the center. So that’s what he did. And he won.
Gore: You think Gore was centrist? Lol that’s a first for me. So: After the population hopefully warmed up with Bill Clinton, he stuck his head out left with climate change. And bam he lost the election. Thanks 3rd party protest voters! Aka: The left never shows up.
Obama: So guess what Obama learned? Don’t stick your head out. He ran on broad “hope” and “yes we can” and having energy, hoping the ambiguity would be enough considering Bush’s disastrous wars. And he won.
More on Obama: So he enacted the ACA. That’s great, right? The thanks Obama got for that was to lose the House of Representatives for year 3 and 4. And lose the House of reps again for years 5 and 6. And then lose both the House of reps and the Senate for years 7 and 8 (maybe that’s the time you think he was centrist, when he lost control of Congress). He enacted left policy and: The left never shows up.
Hillary Clinton: So what did Hillary learn from the last 6 years of Obama? She learned that the left never shows up. So she only stuck her head out with a big position to left on the map room to climate change. She basically declared war on climate change. You know that big existential issue that all the leftists care about, right? The big important issue that the left says they want so badly, right? And guess what happened? Bam she lost. Thanks protest non-voters! Aka: The left never shows up.
Biden: Just like Obama learned from Gore, Biden learned from Hillary that you don’t stick your head out left on anything. Not one thing. And he was running against an incumbent, so once again when you do that you run center. And he won.
More on Biden: But did left things anyway. He Biden did green energy, EVs, drug price control, PACT act, etc. And what were the results? Lost the House of Representatives for years 3 and 4. Polls showed him losing the election to Trump. He enacted left policy and: The left didn’t show up for midterms, and was not going to show up for the next election.
Harris: So guess what Harris is doing? She’s adopting Obama’s tactic to run on broad “get ahead” and having energy. From what I know she’s not announced anything left, other than broad tax the billionaires. She has no reason to think the left will ever show up.
And people are amazed that they don’t run a big left platform? Every time they stick their head left they lose. Every Single Time. And the next guy learns to go to the center to win. Because the center voters actually show up.
You have this completely backwards. They lose every time they even look toward the left (the only time you can say this was maybe not the case was Obama, though I say he knew he couldn’t say a thing, so he relied on being broadly hopeful). The Dems only win when they go center.
With this history, you’d be an absolute fool to cater to and rely on the left. Because. They. Never. Show. Up.
So how do you get them to move left? By giving them victories first. Consistent and overwhelming victories. Show them it’s safe to take policy chances. Because when they lose, like they’ve lost 20 years out of the last 24 years, they will go to the center to find votes.
And don’t forget, a centrist vote is worth double. Because it’s both a vote taken away from the other party and a vote for you. And unlike the left as seen above, the center actually shows up. You can rely on them showing up, unlike the left.
The affordable care act is rebranded RomneyCare. And it protects the insurance middleman position. It is conservative legislation.
If you want more, then vote in more Dem senators so Lieberman types can’t water it down.
Bill Clinton: After successive Dem losses Bill figured out “it’s the economy stupid”, aka center policy, not leftist policy.
Perfect example of being willfully obtuse; 19% of the popular vote went to a third-party millionaire that year, but you’re pretending it didn’t happen.
Gore: You think Gore was centrist? Lol that’s a first for me
I’m sure it is new to you, but yes, he was considered a centrist since his 1988 run. He picked Joe Lieberman as his running mate, did you think that was progressive?
He ran on broad “hope” and “yes we can” and having energy, hoping the ambiguity would be enough considering Bush’s disastrous wars.
First off, “Yes we can,” was his campaign slogan, but, “Hope,” came from artist Shepard Fairey. Second, he actually had very detailed progressive policy proposals and campaign promises, including Universal Healthcare, homeowner bailouts, Wallstreet regulation, codifying Roe, and abolishing warrentless wire taps, and that’s just off the top of my head. If you thought his platform was vague, you weren’t paying attention.
So what did Hillary learn from the last 6 years of Obama? She learned that the left never shows up.
And then she traveled to 1965 to tell herself to become a college Republican? And then 1992 to tell herself to support her husband’s gutting of Welfare? And then to 1996 to call black children, “Super Predators?” She didn’t learn anything from Obama. She was always a centrist, and you’re just making stuff up to try to craft a narrative.
Biden learned from Hillary that you don’t stick your head out left on anything. Not one thing. And he was running against an incumbent, so once again when you do that you run center. And he won.
Biden has been in politics 20 years longer than Clinton, I don’t think he was looking for notes from her. And, again, despite being pretty centrist (hawkish, tough on crime, strong labor support, mixed record in segregation because he’s 400 years old), he did stick his neck out for the left. The BBB was a huge progressive wishlist, and he’s still trying to get some student debt relief.
And what were the results? Lost the House of Representatives for years 3 and 4.
President’s usually take a loss in their first midterm after the, “honeymoon,” wears off, and in 2022, polling was predicting a huge, “Red Wave,” that never happened. The Democrats narrowly lost the House, but the results were generally considered a disappointment for the Republicans.
Anyway, I skimmed the rest of this, and it’s not worth going over. It basically seemed like a retread of everything you’ve already said, and that’s mostly ahistorical nonsense tied together into a loose narrative with the confidence and understanding of a freshman that just finished POLI SCI 101. Instead, I’ll just leave you with this study from the Pew Research Center that indicates people on either ends of the political spectrum are more likely to vote and donate to campaigns than people moderate views. So, looks like it’s the center, not the left, that doesn’t show up. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Perfect example of being willfully obtuse
And:
Anyway, I skimmed the rest of this, and it’s not worth going over
Fucking lol, hypocritical much? Glad I read to the end first so that I know anything that I say will also be “Skimmed over” and deemed “not worth going over”. So I’ll just hit a few points.
he was considered a centrist [since his 1988 run
Oh yeah, once someone runs one platform they can never, never, never change anything 12 years later. Nope. /s
Gore ran a campaign on climate change. That’s pretty left.
First off, “Yes we can,” was his campaign slogan, but, “Hope,” came from artist Shepard Fairey.
I remember that one, what I remember was broad hope (yes), “yes we can” energy. It was all about getting past Bush’s horrible administration and moving on. Homeowner bailout? After the subprime mortgage collapse? Shocked pikachu face. Wallstreet after the great recession? Shocked. Warrantless taps as the war path was starting to fad? These are not far left ideas after that crash and war on terror. Codifying Roe? Didn’t get voters out because voters saw it as secure anyway. That was the car the GOP dog was never supposed to catch. BBB? The infrastructure talk is, frankly, normal. Both sides talk about it.
And then she traveled to 1965
Lol yeah you seem to rely on this trick of people can never, never, ever change anything about their platform, or policies, or adjust to information on the ground. Everyone and everything is set in stone for you huh.
Biden has been in politics 20 years longer than Clinton, I don’t think he was looking for notes from her.
WOW you really do rely super heavy on this huh, 3rd times the charm. Yes you look at how the most recent election panned out and why lol.
President’s usually take a loss in their first midterm
Doesn’t matter, he lost it. And when they lose, they go to the center to find voters. Because they need all 3 to do pretty much anything and they know it.
Anyway, I skimmed the rest of this, and it’s not worth going over.
Instead, I’ll just leave you with [this
You refuse to read what other people say, attack them, and then want them to read your link. Fucking lol. I think it’s because you have no response, especially to how a center voter is worth double.
*Skimmed (lol) the article. More active posting? Doesn’t matter. More active voting? Voting for who? Voting for 3rd party is the whole problem. Nothing the Dems do will ever be enough for them, they will vote 3rd party like they did to Gore, or do the protest non-vote like they did to Hillary (and 2020 was only to get Trump out of office). You’re going to go after those people who are never satisfied and never show up for Dems, while sacrificing the center worth double? Path to certain loss. No wonder you “skimmed” my reply, you have no response that you’d be an absolute fool to cater to or rely on the left.
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Your ignorance is stunning. Your entire knowledge of Al Gore is that he was pro-environment, and, “environment = left-wing,” but you have no understanding of his role within the Clinton administration, like promoting NAFTA or Welfare reform. I don’t even know why this is a debate, as you’re just factually wrong; here’s the NY Times calling him fiscally conservative in 2000. Here’s the LA times reflecting on his centrist platform in 2004. The idea that he ran as a progressive is nonsense.
I have no idea what your point is about the Obama administration. You seem to be saying, yes, all of his policies were progressive, but they don’t count because Bush was unpopular. Not sure what the logic is there, but at least you’re tacitly admitting you were wrong when you claimed he his campaign was vague, so that’s something.
You also seem to think that bringing up people’s past policy positions is some kind of dirty trick I’m playing (which would explain why you have such a poor understanding of history), but for the record, yes, Hillary Clinton’s 25 year record as a centrist was relevant to her 2016 campaign. I don’t know what to tell you, if you have a decades long record as a centrist, then run as a centrist with a centrist running mate, people will think you’re a centrist (true of Gore and HRC).
I went back and read the bits I skimmed, and yeah, I was right, you just repeated yourself. Maybe edit yourself a bit, especially when you don’t know what you’re talking about. But, for the record, your premise is obviously faulty; if you vote for them when they move to the center, the takeaway isn’t going to be that it’s safe to go to the left, it will be that it’s safe to go to the center. But either way, it doesn’t matter, because the geriatrics that run the party are so haunted by Regan’s legacy that they will never go left, no matter how often they lose trying to gain the center.
Anyway, still very telling that you won’t address the fact that Ross Perot played a huge part in the 1992 election, but I’m sure you’d have to Google, “Who is Ross Perot?” first. But thanks for, “today’s explanation,” really funny stuff!
No, it’s because you can’t get anything done in the American federal government without clear majority support from at least both houses of congress, just by the nature of how the government works and the current partisan climate. Democrats cannot pass progressive legislation without that support. Republicans are consistently successful in their goals because their goals do not require passing legislation; they require blocking it.
This is naive. Democrats have been stringing you along, decade after decade saying one thing and doing another, using whatever excuse they have available, and you seriously think they’re just waiting for the perfect time to unleash all this progressive legislation? Theyll just keep moving the goalposts as long as they have a willing voter base who never questions them because theyre better (undeniably true but still not good enough) than the evil republicans. They set up the opposition as the ultimate boogeyman so you’ll never question their half-measures. You should demand more when you have the power and leverage.
Right, yeah, they’re evil and they’ve had unfettered power to enact popular policy that would work in their favor for decades but haven’t done any of it yet because we’re dumb sheeple who actually understand how the U.S. political system works
Most of far leftists you see here with their accusations of “dOiNg a gEnOciDe” were absent from any discussions about Palestine prior to October. And I’d wager that a large portion of them couldn’t have pointed to Palestine on a map until around then either. I’d even guess that many of them still couldn’t.
I’ll digress.
At this point- you should probably know by now that there is no changing their minds. They know what they’re doing- we know what they’re doing. And there’s no point in debating with them because they’re just going to drag things out and repeatedly accuse you of shit that isn’t true in order to not have to answer anyone asking them to make sense of the rhetoric they repeatedly post here…
Call out their nonsense for what it is and move on. Save yourselves the time.
Most of far leftists you see here with their accusations of “dOiNg a gEnOciDe” were absent from any discussions about Palestine prior to October
This is one of the funnier things I’ve seen a Democrat make up to smear anyone to their left.
The whole meme is bullshit. Libdems screamed at leftists to shut up throughout 2016. First it was to forget about Bernie and vote for the historically unpopular warmonger whose “turn” it was. After she lost to a nearly equally unpopular opponent, they screamed that it was time to resist, not actually consider the mistakes they made.
Just like there is no actually acceptable method to protest under neoliberalism, there is no actually acceptable time to push for third parties and alternate voting systems.
If Hillary made it in 2016 we’d have a much better supreme court and Roe v Wade would still be a thing but you sure showed all the libdems.
Hillary Clinton would have almost certainly won if her entire platform wasn’t based around the idea that she didn’t have to do anything good because, hey, what do you want to do, vote for Trump?
Blame her, because she is the one who fucked it up.
If you mean she didn’t have anything left*, she saw what happened to Obama. Obama passed the ACA and his thanks was to lose the house of reps for years 3-8. And the Senate for years 7-8. Aka the left never showed up, even after left policy was enacted.
*Except that she fucking declared war on climate change, that big existential issue that the left says they care about and will totally show up for, right?
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The whole meme is bullshit.
I VOTED FOR HILLARY
So did Bernie.
Yikes, maybe time for a break
This is one of the funnier things I’ve seen a Democrat make up to smear anyone to their left.
And this is one of the funnier rebuttals to being called out if only because there’s no denial of it.
Leftists are some of the only people who paid attention or cared about Palestine before last year.
Yeah… they’re not though.
Tell me more of the leftist people you know so intimately. What else do they believe?
If you’re third party, it’s currently a 2 party system but your end game is ranked choice voting, so throw your vote at the non-Republican who has the highest chance. After all, they use third party candidates such as RFK to siphon votes so you can only guess how strongly they’d oppose any system that disallows them from using that to their advantage. A vote for Republicans is a vote to never ever have third party candidates have any chance in any presidential election, just a strategic tool to help Republicans win
We have been arguing this [if both sides are bad] for 18 months now since most of us joined this site last June. How are these memes not spam or misinformation?
Edit: I meant June of 2023.
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Remember, Ho Chi Minh knew all about America’s history of genocide when he helped American soldiers fight the Japanese in WW2.
Sometimes, it’s expedient to ally with those who aren’t nice,
