Ah yes, so the best option is to not vote and let them succeed unimpeded.
I’m all for voting for a better candidate, but we have a broken 2 party system, and it very much is if you don’t vote for one of the two main parties, you are pretty much just not voting at all.
I don’t vote for this person. I’m voting against that person.
In my country we stopped voting the socdem party, because they betrayed the workers. From one election to the next they lost like half the votes.
For 4 years the conservative party ruled. But after that the socdem change their politics we voted them again and had had a fairly leftist government for the last year.
They are slacking again so I plan not to vote next election, hoping thar more people get the memo, they sink again in votes and sit to think on why people felt betrayed, and change for the better.
4 years of conservative party were worthy giving that after the socdems turned left again we conquer a lot of things that we wouldn’t have gotten otherwise if we would have keep on voting their moderate centrist version.
In the US the ruling party fills lifetime judicial appointments, which means the 4 years of conservative rule can have decades of lasting impact that will thwart any progressive policies that the next leftish government tries to implement.
Then they better fucking learn quick, huh?
You can get around the courts. FDR did.
Ah yes, so the best option is to not vote and let them succeed unimpeded.
Your very first lines are a false dichotomy.
That’s exactly the voter attitude, that gets the broken 2 party system. Politicians know this kind of thinking and use it to their advantage.
Ah yes, so the best option is to not vote and let them succeed unimpeded.
The best option is to scream at anyone who isn’t fucking delighted that your side of the party has moved so far to the right that they’re supporting genocide.
No one can gripe about your shit wing of the party.
Dems have been nothing but a doormat for the last 30 years, the party of complicity. I’m absolutely positive they’ve been playing the dupe and moving the US further to the right all the while playing the victim.
Could have fixed the electoral college but didn’t. Could have codified abortion into the constitution but didn’t. Could have filled RBGs supreme court seat without Senate confirmation regardless of the pearl clutching, but didn’t. Could have put pressure on the justice department to get their investigation done with to get the trial for Trump for treason at least started…but fuck me, they didn’t… seriously- they couldn’t put a case together in 3 years???
Could have, should have, would have. Fucking useless.
I agree, but also stand by my point. In a horrible 2 party system, they’re simply “not conservative”, and so I’m forced to vote for them. That being said, Bernie should have won.
Bernie got railroaded.
They are conservative though.
also known as
Colombia be like rn…
Us commies weren’t always “far” left.
With no scale this is absolutely meaningless
lol, get this nerd. It’s not meant to be a scientific graph like a Moody diagram for calculating things from, it’s illustrating a concept which it does perfectly.
Ok. So apply this to 2016. The left choice was establishment neoliberal who if had won would have put left leaning judges on the Supreme Court ensuring the court for decades. Since she lost a far right extremist won who captured the judicial branch. I guess this doesn’t count because people didn’t vote for the lesser evil. Or does it?
So the following election again was establishment neoliberalism who won and basically had the most progressive policy’s of the last century. I guess that moved us right?
Next election, let’s see, establishment neoliberal again. Hard to pinpoint if she was more left or less left because she ran a campaign catering to “on the fence conservatives” but was part of a very progressive administration.
Maybe this what happens when you don’t vote for the lesser evil. That’s all I see.
“Joe Biden has the most progressive policies of the last decade” - incredible.
I can think of zero politicians with a further left policy platform than Joe Biden. Think of all his progressive moves, like allowing the overturn of roe vs wade, Joe Biden who railed against school racial integration policies, Joe Biden author of the 94 crime bill, Joe Biden who continued building the wall, pro union Joe Biden who compelled the train unions to accept the companies deal. Joe Biden who lends his support both materially and in influence to right wing governments in Ukraine and Israel, supporting genocide in the latter. Etc etc. A real hero of the people this guy, fly out the red flag.
like allowing the overturn of roe vs wade
Voters did this by not voting lesser evil
Joe Biden who railed against school racial integration policies, Joe Biden author of the 94 crime bill,
This was not part of his presidential administration and not my claim.
pro union Joe Biden who compelled the train unions to accept the companies deal
And went back and got sick days for the union after the deal was signed. Only president to march with the union.
Biden who lends his support both materially and in influence to right wing governments in Ukraine and Israel, supporting genocide in the latter. Etc etc. A real hero of the people this guy, fly out the red flag.
I never made the claim he wasn’t a neoliberal. I only cited the fact that he was the most progressive president we’ve seen in the country for as long as I’ve been alive.
Honestly I’m just at the point where I’m sitting back watching this country be torn apart. Everything anyone ever has done is wrong but also maybe it’s right and everyone acts like they know which is which. The country is entirely divided when the war within itself kicks off I’ll be just on my porch watching because I’m done trying to make heads or tails of this mess.
You know what they say, evil happens when good people stand back and let it happen.
I’m not privileged, they just won’t attack me or my family yet. /s
Quote from Eddy Burke, Edmund’s less fancy-worded relative.
This is a lie. People just spread this to trick you into not voting so the Republicans win.
or voting third party in a backwards outdated voting system like that of the US
Do you mean that democrats are not centrists?
In most other countries your 2 parties would be classified right wing and extreme right wing.
Thank you!
Every time someone says this they exaggerate the positions further and further to the right, and it becomes less and less true.
You think I did that?
I’m Danish and here your 2 parties would absolutely fit the categories I described. No exaggeration what so ever.
This is a lie spread by corporate elites that want to make sure both parties align with their interests instead of having Democrats create a popular platform and win on that basis.
Did you learn nothing from hanging on to Biden until even the billionaire donors got scared by his dementia?
How many people did you vote for that weren’t Republican or Democrat in your local elections? If you didn’t vote for them (3rd party, new party) there, don’t expect them to ever exist as a presidential candidate. You can’t even qualify to be on the ballot if you don’t have the party established. You have to petition on all 50 states to be shown there and you will likely be denied on many.
If you don’t like the Republican or Democrat party, a solution would be to get local candidates to run under a new party that fits your views better, still you would NEED to vote for whichever of the 2 parties fits your views best in the presidential vote to SLOW the movement right/left/up/down whatever… And establish that party in enough city’s/counties/states to take seats that matter there. Once known… Then and only then would it be viable to split the vote, and you likely lose 4 years to a hard push into the directions you don’t want… While the final negotiations and realizations of merging or replacing/allying with the lesser evil party.
Likely meaning a pledge that you would hold primaries that would endorse each other if the winner of a primary shows more people. But you cannot and will not win a presidential election if you split the vote and don’t endorse each other
The effect shown isn’t untrue, but the conclusion doesn’t follow from that.
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a system where you get served only two options to vote for but are held responsible for the outcome instead of those who limited the available options in the first place?
eh yes, you are right, this is stupid.
as a completely unrelated sidenote:
“winner takes it all” is the actual opposite of democracy, no matter how the voting was done, and this fact can already be read 1:1 within those 4 simple words 😉
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Care to explain?
The argument is when there are more than 2 options a majority of people would not have selected the “winner” over any of the other individual losers. Therefore majority rule is an illusion, democracy is self-contradictory!!!
However, by reducing the options to just 2 you no longer have the same result and “democracy” is more “self-consistent”. You can do this in a fair/Democratic way by “simulating” the pairwise interactions (IE ranked choice voting, pairwise majority rule, etc.) or by establishing a false dichotomy (2 party systems, left v right spectrum, etc.).
This is not ‘not a thing’ but it’s a really old idea and is largely solved (ie. Distributed networks like the social media platform we are currently on, or stuff like this).
However, the claim isn’t entirely misplaced as modern social institutions refuse to implement any of those methods because it would be against their best interests as those in power are deeply unpopular (yes, especially your favourites whoever that may be). So yes almost all “Democratic” systems you interact with on a daily basis are inherently self-contradictory on the most cursory of examinations, but they dont have to be.
I just wish those campaigning were required to provide policy ideas/plans for what they want to do, and where they want the money to come from. In an ideal world I would give the candidates 0 face time, possibly even no names to the public at first. (Would never work but would be interesting)
The options get a set of questions framed around current events, past events, and possible future events that they would give detailed responses to how they would have, would currently or would plan for those events. No party affiliations known. Eliminate contenders from the list by most accepted answers from the lists bringing it from say 50 candidates to 25, then 10, then 5, the 3 then 1. The election period is 6 months. No prior rallys, no posturing, no ads, and no names tied to the responses so no one cares about popularity.
The President is whomever wins 1st, Vice President 2nd, and 3rd place is placed on stand-by but works directly with both members to stay informed. If at any time a person makes decisions as president that the other 2 do not believe coorelate with the responses they gave to the people, they call an emergency vote to veto that directive, and recall a ranked choice vote where the population votes for all 3, where the 1st takes the presidency, 2nd VP, 3rd taking the back seat.
Would be fucking crazy, but at least itd be more fun than what we have now…
I don’t think it’s crazy in the slightest and see no reason why it “would never work”, it’s just not a conservative idea. Why did you feel the need to minimize it so?
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Democracy is mathematically impossible.
if democracy was not possible, how does it come that the greek did democracy and it is said they were once overrun in a war because of beeing democratic? if something was a cause for a turn of a war, i pretty much believe it to really exist, no matter what some kind of half baked formulars “predicted” once.
if democracy existed and your math says thats not possible, i’ld guess your math might simply be ‘slightly’ wrong about it or was created with (un-)intentional biases in mind ;-)
just to note:
in the history of human predictions based on thought through and wordly/mathmatically described rules, the most common thing afterwards was, that those rules and also their predictions were just fundamentally wrong and biased.
Oh my. You win the argument today!
Thank you, thank you for taking the time to put together such a meaningful and well thought-out comment. We are all slightly better off because you paused your surely very important work and gave us your insights.
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Too many commenters here do not understand anything about how any of it works, especially how first past the post voting works. Progressives do not seem to understand that the system has not rejected them, but the voters have.
It is mostly relentless propaganda for the oligarchs that has captured the country. That’s the problem, and it is not fixed by any of the suggestions here.
You perceive it going the opposite direction of whatever you are.
More like the Overton Window at work actually.
Biden will likely end up as one of the top 5 most progressive presidents ever. Society expects more from Democrats than they would’ve previously. There’s nothing wrong w/ that, but the argument being presented seems misguided and like both sides nihilism.
Biden will likely end up as one of the top 5 most progressive presidents ever.
He’s not even in the top 5 now.
Biden will likely end up as one of the top 5 most progressive presidents ever.
Biden will be remembered as the president with dementia who butchered Gaza.
exactly. i thought Biden was the shit until Gaza. now, I dont even care about him at all. he’s just another politician.
That’s unfair, he’ll also be remembered for supporting segregation
That’s unfair, he’ll also be remembered for supporting the electoral college
that’s unfair, he’ll also be remembered for keeping ICE camps from trump.
do you mean of not voting for them?
people don’t vote, democrats lose, they think it’s because they’re too far left and move further to the right. meanwhile republican victories embolden them to push even harder into fascism
people don’t vote, democrats lose, they think it’s because they’re too far left and move further to the right.
People vote, Democrats win, they think it’s because they moved to the right and so they move further to the right. The sun comes up in the morning and they move further to the right.
I’m not an American but I would argue that Biden’s resignation was in part due to people threatening to not vote. This wasn’t a move to the left but organized threats of not voting can make a difference.
Personally, I would vote for the lesser evil unless there was some kind of organized movement. Where I live, we have more than 2 evils to choose from and I choose the smallest of them.
Biden was incapable of clearly communicating verbally for 2 hours straight in a debate. I’d argue that Biden stayed in as long as he did to enable them to feel empowered to force another Kamala on us rather than having to deal with a Warren, Sanders or even a Buttigieg winning the Primary. Kamala was 6th in line in the Primary when she dropped out in 2020.
Good point
I vote for them, they move right. I don’t vote for them, and vote third party, they move right. I join their party and vote in their primary’s for progressive candidates, they move right.
It’s almost like a bunch of really old, well off, lifetime establishment government folks just actually want to be conservative authoritarians. At BEST they are stuck in a mindset of 1969’s ideas of what progressive politics are because that is when they became politicians.
They’ve obviously lost the thread and who could blame them? They’ve been locked up with conservatives for 50+ years. That would be enough to have me blow my brains out.
The point is the whole DNC is a rotten corpse. Maybe at one time the candidates had an ideology but now they’ve fought every fight they’re willing to fight and just want to be old and not bothered. Except they don’t want to give up their power. Which is frightening. From their perspective they’ve only made it this far by clenching tight to power for as long as they could and can’t imagine a world where they just live at harmony with people around them. They lose all their clout. No one needs them anymore and they rot to nothing. That’s the fear at least.
Everyday I’m more convinced the thing that got us where we are is American hyper competitive mentality. We have to work endlessly. We have to score the best grades. We have to make the most money.
Why can’t we just take pride in living peacefully. This is what all the Trumpers are upset about, honestly. They want to be able to live in their podunk town. Doing their unimportant job. Liking the same things their mommy and daddy liked and be unbothered. Culturally that’s fucked and we’ve seen why but idealistically it’s fine. We need unimportant people to do unimportant things and be more or less just like the ones who came before. So why not reward it?
I’m rambling.
Because yes, “the left” never changes anything, and only goes further right.
(hint: That’s not how this works)
Over the decades we’ve made massive strides in equal rights for various marginalized groups. But sometimes the dance takes a step backwards before moving forward again.
Homie, the Democraes right now are pretty much as much on the political right as the republicans were in the 90s.
Smugly claiming “that’s not how this works” isn’t as good a point as you think it is.
In an American vacuum I could see where you are coming from. In comparison with literally the entire rest of the world, it is clearly a flawed standpoint.
The American Democratic party is the oldest standing political party in the entire world. It last changed it’s political stances in the 1960’s and not because they wanted to, but because they needed to respond to the Republicans flipping the entire south in their favor.
Other countries have real leftist parties that actually get government members elected.
IMO the only way around this problem in the USA is to either (A) get a third party to the point of legitimacy where people will take them seriously be winning seats in the house and senate, and eventually running for the presidency, or (B) win a primary in one of the two major parties. By election day there is nothing to do but vote for the least worst option.
Gotta switch to Approval Voting for single-seat elections and the proportional variant for legislatures.
*Long term effects of a broken 2 party voting system…
FTFY
