I could comment on this post, but it’s just too sad that they are still getting away with it. Power to the people.
Vast amounts of money from the network of pedophile billionaires means you can run hundred guys named Joe Hamburger on the platform of “Protect Adorable Babies” and “Money for People Who Deserve It”, then roll them up into the political caucus that shows bipartisan support for military cannibalism.
That’s what keeps guys like Henry Cuellar and Gavin Newsom firmly rooted in the party, even as they function no differently than “moderate” Republicans in the same role.
Liberals have no answers for the current political crisis. And instead of caving to that reality and showing some humility, they’ll try to rally the troops to “VoTe BlUe nO MaTtEr wHo” as if the Democratic party signifies all good with politics, while Republicans signify all bad.
A lot of these people don’t have the political science education or distrust in the current party to be able to see the Democratic party for what it is: controlled opposition.
Why do liberals think Bernie Sanders and AOC are leaders in the party that draw so much attention? It’s not because of some focus group. It’s because of the anti-rich world view both candidates hold.
Per usual, a Leftist means being right too soon.
VoTe BlUe nO MaTtEr wHo"
We should as a last resort.
The meme has a point. As leftist we haven’t done much to primary dems, nor to make a separate party. This leaves us having to pick for the lest bad option.
Its a big unforced error to ignore elections.
Never said to ignore elections. Stop with this strawman ultra Leftist bullshit
Never said to ignore elections.
Lot of our fellow lefties on lemmy do. Stick around and you will see the “you think you can vote your way out”.
I wouldn’t say elections will solve everything, but we keep neglecting it as a form of organization to our own detriment.
Definitely Russia.
The thing I love the most about this post is that I now know which users to block.
It’s great for that.
Leftists: you have two years to get a candidate that doesn’t support genocide through the primaries, and if you can’t, just vote for the one that supports genocide the least.
Radlibs: so you want Trump to win
What’s a RadLib?
Someone who takes on radical aesthetics but is hell bent on preserving the neoliberal status quo. Imagine someone with blue hear wearing a pussy hat celebrating that Meloni was elected.
🤮
thanks for the image
primaries
This is missing scare quotes.
and fascism is YOUR FAULT btw, because you didn’t vote hard enough.
Even if you did, because someone else who we see as undesirables we will never lift a finger for occasionally murdee for fun or because theyre getting uppity but broadly half tolerate most of the time because theyre fucking stupid enough to vote for us a lot of the time didn’t vote for them this time, because they were holding out for an option that does not endorse their family being murdered with their (and your) tax dollars .
fascists are not working with my “tax dollars”.
that’s on you.
I don’t pay taxes.
great, fuck taxes
No you’ll catch
somethingeverythingyou are not wrong, i hear money is dirty as fuck
That’s the definition of democracy, yes.
By this logic, 1920s German Jews were responsible for Hitler.
which your country is not, to be clear.
How can we vote with Russia amping up its Voter Interference Beam and Disinformation Ray?
you joke, but the us does this all over the planet and crickets.
YOU have two years to pick a candidate why are you letting the liberal establishment pick for you?? You guys never turn up till the federal elections and wonder why they don’t care about your input
The fuck I don’t. I toed the line, still lost, still get blamed when the diversity hire can’t beat Donald fucking Trump. Getting clapped by a shit stain should probably prompt a deeper introspection
The diversity hire did about 10% better than the old white guy.
Trump won because Americans are that dumb, it’s not the fault of the black lady.
Trump won because Americans are that dumb
This is poor analysis. This doesn’t explain why people become “dumb” or receptive to fascism. It has no notion of the material causes of fascism - lack of education, crumbling infrastructure, economic austerity, withheld wages, unaffordable healthcare, etc… Its a tautology that says things are bad because people are dumb and people are dumb becsuse things are bad.
If you truly latch on to this analysis, your only recourse is fact checking, appeals to reasons, and appeals to media literacy. How have those pushes been over thr last 10 years?
Fascism is capitalist crisis; it is not some nebulous “dumbing down” of an entire population through clandestine or otherwise paranormal means. Marxism teaches us to understand these issues from a “class” perspective as opposed to a “population” perspective.
With that much muscke behind you?
Nah. If i were harris i wouldve fucking killed myself; only way out of the shame.
Unless it was trying to lose. It is a pig, and they do tend to like trump quite a lot.
because it’s not a democracy. oligarchs are the ones doing the choosing.
Did you vote in the primaries, join the party and volunteer for your local candidate?
Interested in liberal takes on this video with a pre-MSNBC Lawrence O’Donnell. He says to be willing to withhold your vote in order to push the party left. The exact opposite of the shit libs say today.
I trust the people who used to work for the Democratic Party to know how they think. If they’re going to tell me to shut the fuck up because I have nowhere else to go, why would they listen to me at any point of the bullshit dog and pony shows we put on?
Look, if youre not willing to vote in such a way that tge tax money extraxted from you at threat of violence is used to literally murder people you personally love, youre just a fascist. I dont get how this is hard to understand.
My history shows that I “vote blue.” Not sure what you’re talking about. The only question is if it ultimately helps or hurts.
did you? did it work?
don’t blame the victims.
Yes. Plenty of states didn’t even hold primaries. You think it was just a nice coincidence they didn’t pull Biden until after the primary anointed Copmala?
What’s the anarchist party in 🇺🇲?
No of course not, he’s just bitching on the internet.
As a European, I have to say that the libs in this example are right, because the US voting system is completely fucked with the electoral college, winner-takes-all and all that gerrymandering (and soon more).
So they either have to vote dem (however bad their candidate is) and then unfuck it, so they can do a real election afterwards, or violently install a leftist government and proper democracy.
So, that’s been the tactic for a bunch of decades now. How’s that been going for the working class?
For a bunch of decades, they haven’t been executed on the streets in broad daylight. How is it going now?
The problem with your logic though is you think it just started one day. We’ve been on this road for a while. Trump doesn’t exist without Bill Clinton’s deregulation spree. Donald Trump wouldn’t nearly be this powerful without Obama’s expansion of the surveillance state. Neoliberals have contributed to what we’re seeing right now and it’s important not to forget that. During the Bush Administration all the neoliberals voted for the Patriot Act which basically created everything that’s killing people in the street right now.
Pretty fucking poorly, which is why I’m not crazy about the strategy we’ve been using for the past decades. You understand these events didn’t just happen out of nowhere, right? They’re a result of the things that happened before them.
The problem is the Democrats know this and have no intention to unfuck anything at all
Tried it voted Biden, who didn’t want to leave power even while he was losing it occasionally. Eventually when he did stop running, it was Kamala who thought it would be better to court right.
Yup. The Democratic party leadership is either so inept that they think a strong economy is a replacement for social welfare at home and abroad or they’re actively working to fill the same pockets as the right.
They (dem leadership) cave on these shutdowns because they got their PR and they’re fine being fascist as the alternative would impact their bank account.
I hope I’m wrong this time, i would be so happy to be wrong, but it seems insane to expect the pattern to change under the same leadership.
LOL ‘the leadership’
It’s the whole Dem party, which is one asscheek of the uniparty that is the problem.
You people wil never learn.
Trying to ‘fix’ that party, trying to ‘push it to the left’ or whatever futile thing you undertake while it’s working perfectly the way it’s intended.
This already for centuries and a consistent history of screwing the people and serving their olligarchs.
Yet americans are incapable of thinking outside their box, don’t know better and keep chasing rainbows.
Pathetic and sad.“Dem leadership” is just accessible language for the libs. Otherwise they assume you didn’t vote and scream at you for being the problem because the only solution is voting dem and anything else is helping the right.
It’s language deliberately chosen to make a distinction between the party and leadership.
With the purpose of sneakily and falsely implying the party can be fixed with different leadership.It is the same tactics used by Kibbuts Bernie the snake who invariably uses ‘the Netanyahoo government’ and not israel.
Falsely implying that when he’s gone that genocider country will be a normal democracy.
He knows very well they have been mass-murdering Palestinians since the beginning and will continue after him.
Same as the Dems have always screwed their gullible voters and will continue doing so for as long as they exist.
Hey thanks for delaying Trump’s second term those four years. I spent those four years helping My partner recover from its crippling disabilities and working on My career. I don’t know if we’re going to be in a financial place to get it out of the US before Trump sends ICE after trans disabled people and puts it in a concentration camp, but because of you we have a chance. Keep up the good work.
As a side note, do you think a GoFundMe to get it out of the country and to My country would get much traction?
You thought Copmala, with ther horrible record and from the same horrible party would be better?
What are you americans smoking?Your 2 party system has been ridiculed even by Marx, that’s how long you suckers have been falling for this shit.
Even now they can’t wait to go back to it.
You all deserve what you get.Your 2 party system has been ridiculed even by Marx,
Sauce please.
The Civil War in France - Karl Marx
Nowhere do “politicians” form a more separate, powerful section of the nation than in North America. There, each of the two great parties which alternately succeed each other in power is itself in turn controlled by people who make a business of politics,…
…and nevertheless we find here two great gangs of political speculators, who alternately take possession of the state power and exploit it by the most corrupt means and for the most corrupt ends – and the nation is powerless against these two great cartels of politicians, who are ostensibly its servants, but in reality exploit and plunder it.
From 1870!, wake TF up and educate yourself americans!
Read more Marx!from 1870
Hate to be that guy, but those were two entirely different parties.
But we still have a two party system and the critique is still accurate.
the asshole is wrong
You hate to be that petty guy scavenging through my comments and following me around for a chance to put in a negative comment?
Right, fuck offI guess I should tag you so I notice, but I literally didn’t even read your user name.
I just reply to what I feel like replying to. I guess this is a small site. I have never once looked at your comment history.
I don’t even think about you bro. I promise you.
They literally didn’t say that. They said Kamala is worse because she tried to “court the right.” What is happening here? Are you all huffing lead paint? Where am I?
Oh wow, you voted TWICE and it didn’t fix everything???
Logic would say that’s the thing to do. But our lib party won’t do anything with a win though. In fact the worse a GOP candidate is, the more permission our DNC feels they have to run a dumbass.
Imagine the world we’d live in if those corpo fucks didn’t screw over Bernie
Or if harris had literally a single electoral group she didnt actively spray shit on
Or if clinton hadnt helped trump win
Or…
Or persecuted Nixon, or Reagan, or Bush Sr, or didn’t give up when gore “lost” to bush jr
*prosecuted
No see taking office when elected by hoth popular AND electoral vote is divisive and bad politics. You dumbfuck commies understand nothing about politics. Now drink my slushy poop without making any faces and be my slave forever OR YOU ARE LITERALLY A FASCIST AND IM CALLING ICE ON YOU
You dumbfuck commies understand nothing about politics. Now drink my slushy poop without making any faces and be my slave forever OR YOU ARE LITERALLY A FASCIST AND IM CALLING ICE ON YOU
Ah yes totally goes with saying we should punish/investigate criminals instead of going we must only look forward not back so the country can heal. We can’t do anything about past crimes
Doing anything about past crimes is impossible, sorry. Also currently ongoing crimes.
Hey, it was her TURN
That is true. Have to be fair.
We’d have an additional 4 years before Trump fascism.
Cool.
At least you’re admitting Bernie would have won in 2016.
But yeah, I’m similarly pessimistic about the 2016 Bernie alt-history. Too many conservative democrats would have stood against his agenda.
The electability argument has been proven to be false —Kamala lost, Zorhan won—, conservative dems don’t offer to improve people’s lives materially. What is the positive case for conservative democrats at this point? (Other than “They aren’t as bad as Trump”.)
Those millions of corpo fucks voting in primaries, how evil of them.
I got this shit from him after Oct. 7 so don’t be so sure
He has moved away from being this outright shit since then, I will concede.
He would have been absolutely hamstrung by the the bullshit factory that is the legislature, and nothing good would have happened that wasn’t undone immediately by the next administration.
He didn’t need congress to sell weapons for genocide.
He just needed congress when it was shit he didn’t want to do.
Haven’t you been reading the news? Apparently you don’t need congress.
People are OK with auth right. But auth left? Oh no, that’s not gonna happen. The military would coup the shit out of that real quick.
Auth Left is still inherently abusive.
No matter how much you pretend that it’s for the greater good, authoritarianism will always be detrimental to the relatively powerless masses.
Oh I’m not pretending anything. Just saying that auth left would never get as far as Trump is getting.
auth left would never get as far as Trump is getting.
History would very much disagree with you.
Not talking about history. Talking about what would happen today.
Using authority against billionaires is good actually
Yeah, but it’s not like auth left stops there.
You can have egalitarian taxation and common sense regulations without being generally authoritarian, and you should.
So we’re to show no authority against billionaires and their enforcers (police) and validators (law workers/politicians) because it might go too far? Slippery slope claims tend to just reinforce the status quo since it stops people from doing anything functional. The status quo is definitively authoritarian.
Not saying that it has to, but is there an example of “without being generally authoritarian” out there in the wild somewhere? Because imo every country on earth uses authority to uphold some class structure and my country, even if we had all the things we wanted to make us happier (affordable housing, free medical care and education, public transit, etc) it would still show authority over the global south to maintain itself.
“People” or Russian bots?
The problem with the Democrats is that they still have respect for the constitution and institutions. Otherwise they’d get a lot done.
I don’t agree. They waited until they lost a supermajority in congress to push healthcare reform (what became Obamacare). And dang, wouldn’t you know it, mean old republicans wouldn’t let us have single payer.
So we got a healthcare bill that mandated we buy (generally) private market insurance. A bill written by Penny Pritzker, an insurance industry lobbyist.
It’s kabuki. There’s only one party — the billionaire party.
Then why don’t they take office when elected?
They dont have respect. They just would rather see the other guys win than the the window move one nanometer left
No, the problem with the leading Dems is that they ONLY respect the institutions. And their owner donors, of course.
They’d rather let a million people die from lack of political action than subvert the Holy System or inconvenience the rich people legally (and sometimes illegally) bribing them.
Also true.
Not that there’s really any “winning” here but it’s nice to dream of the imaginary reprieve we never got.
Life is pain, highness. Anyone who says different is selling you something.
Here’s a fun idea: how about no more presidents?
Yes, a prime minister is certainly better.
Very fun idea, I’d like that. Counterpoint: how do we accomplish that?
Wish I knew honestly. Vote for radical change makers and/or build dual power. But it’s not going to be easy.
No more presidents requires either 1) enough representation to call a Constitutional convention to change Art. II 2) enough grassroots support to circumvent the Constitution entirely. My aversion to power vacuums and general assessment of the populace pushes me towards 1, but in either case you’re right that it won’t be easy. And in either case it will be slooow. Part of that is going to have to be supporting Dems as the lesser evil when their support dwarfs that of the radical change makers, to practically minimize opposition to radical change.
2 years is, unfortunately, a small period of time on the scale we’re talking about. There may be methods to sway a plurality of voters, but until we reliably secure those methods, voting for someone who stomachs a little genocide might be the best choice against an alternative that yearns for a lot of genocide. I didn’t vote for Biden or Harris because I liked them. I did it because the alternative which was poised to win was much more enthusiastic on that front. When you’re in the minority, you don’t vote for who you wish would represent you, you vote for the easier enemy to fight.
It won’t be easy, but the easiest path has the shortest obstacles.
Don’t you know you cant criticize any politician because they may be the appointed “lesser evil” possibly in several years.
You can criticize, protest, fundraise against them. But if despite all your efforts the boring democrat wins the primary, don’t let the child fucker win. That’s all.
The single aim of this post if to sow division among those who could unite to defeat the right.
yup. it’s so tiring. and so many purity testing ‘leftists’ in here
its_all_so_tiresome.jpg
Liberals already sent Palestinians down the river. History shows they’re not going to unite with shit.
LOL let’s not upset the beautiful marriage of fascists and fascist-lites.
Oh I’m on an anarchist post, now I get it.
If you don’t like the candidates, you RIGHT NOW need to be running or organizing a movement for someone who is! Are you using your power to get progressives to win primaries or just complaining about the result you let be decided for you?
Don’t content yourself with another election cycle of “we tried nothing and we’re all out of ideas” followed by a couple more years of snide whining. Be the change, for the love god please, because we need one.
Dont do real activism, just vote!
Don’t make political change IRL, just post about it online!
And vote! Which are functionally two different things! Yeah!
Biden 2024
You mean like effective messaging targeting people outside our cause, (not purely performative) political action towards achievable goals, and compromise / coalition building?
Anarchists: famously hostile to local civil infrastructure
Hey so its actually that we have 2 years to uplift leftwing ideals until the general election, at which point we vote for the candidate who wants to bring the Torment Nexus levels down a little so that the Candidate who wants to double the Torment Nexus loses and we have a few years of lower torment while we uplift leftwing ideals again.
To clarify: not lower than now, both candidates want a torment nexus, but one wanrs to build it faster and not worry aboyt whether the orphan bones are fair trade.
Hang on there, because with some issues, they do want to reduce the torment below current levels, and i think that should matter
reduce it below
Citation needed.
Most libs want to provide free healthcare and fight climate change. Both items would reduce harm and suffering and genocide* domestically and abroad. *inequities health outcomes are tantamount to genocide; climate change also has genocidal effects
want to
No, they say they do. If they wanted to, they’ve had plenty of chances.
Lol. Lmao. 2 years with the bare minimum to be a majority with 96% of the caucus being for it and 4% (2 people) being the reason it didnt happen, is plenty of chances?
Abdolutely, yes, only there.
Still less than double the Torment Nexus and that’s what’s important. I don’t think it’s worth quibbling over the precise amounts even if it was 2 vs 1.99990
Absplutely! Now grab a hamner comrade, i bet if we put our full communist organizing mechanism towards this, our torment nexus won’t be as big as theirs, but it will be ready sooner, more durable, and more than three times as efficient!
As a non-American I have to admit that I don’t understand how primaries work in that country. Why are the liberals who choose the candidate and not the leftists?
EDIT: Just to be clear. I know what primaries are, we have them regularly in my country. What I don’t understand is how these work specifically so that the bases cannot choose freely. Or is it that the Democratic base would be happier with a candidate like Hilary? If that’s the case, the complaints I frequently read here and on other sites would not be very legitimate.
The US doesn’t have leftists.
They’re around. They just rarely receive media coverage and what little they do get is infantilization or being called a socialist 😱 or a criminal🚨.
Few get into office then it’s the same story.
It’s worse now under this admin.
Great, then their lack of action just makes them leftist cowards, which makes them about as useful as liberals.
You either have solidarity or you’re part of the problem. It’s not a lack of action. You’re working from a garbage media filter.
Maybe try Coolzone Media or Unicorn Riot or It’s Going Down to name a few decent ones.
I don’t see any articles about Nazis being shot in the head.
I DO see a bunch of articles about Nazis racking up a body count by shooting innocent people on US streets and murdering democratic lawmakers in their homes, though. Huh. Must be my garbage media filter.
OK then where’s the article about YOU shooting a nazi in the head?
Your country is the one with the most urgent Nazi problem at the moment. I’m sure your inaction will make it our problem eventually, though, so I guess I’ll have to let you know.
Exactly this.
And yet the handful that do exist never fucking stop whining when the Democrats don’t pander to this non-existent bloc.
Correct.
The vast majority of people don’t vote in primaries for some reason so the demographics are different from the general, but also the DNC has plenty of tricks at its disposal to get the results they want. Now part of the reason those tricks work is that American leftist politicians tend to be pussies who are unwilling to take shots at liberals, but yeah the whole process is captured by DNC liberals.
In the 80’s liberals got control of our progressive party, the DNC. Back then it was possible to pull voters from the right by appealing to wealth and so Clintons won by doing it.
But every election our candidates are supposed to be elected by popular vote within each party. Recently they just kind of stopped though because it turns out that was apparently just a tradition and not like an enforceable law or anything. And the Clintons wanted to have the White House again.
We got layers of elections. The states administer them so you have a different system for each state. Primaries are different in every state, too. Then you have Federal elections that are still run by the individual states, just for federal offices, but then the President is elected through an entirely different system altogether that the states also individually have to administer.
As an American, I can assure they don’t work. It’s a fucking party. Guess why that wasn’t a misnomer and what they mean by “Jerry Rigged” and “Glass” house.
Or did you think Propane was just a coincidence in naming?
what?
Dope
Because most people don’t know the difference. it’s mostly just name recognition so you have to be known and at least somewhat popular.
Well, if you get them to even tell you what a “liberal” is, you are lucky.
Their primaries are a real election they have inside each party to pick the candidates. If you have only 2 parties, it’s a hard requirement. The people enlisted to each party vote on them (it seems that if you only have 2 real parties and primaries are your real elections, lots of people enlist in a party).
Primaries are generally much more extreme, because everyone voting is part of the party. So the candidates will be closely toeing the party line to pick up the passionate voters.
To be clear, the individual parties aren’t actual government-funded organizations. They’re private entities, who choose to hold primaries and then put the party’s support behind whoever wins. This is an important distinction because this means the individual primaries can be run however the party wants, even if that means not having a primary and simply running a sitting president (like what happened to Biden, then later Kamala after Biden dropped out). And registering to vote with a party is typically exclusive, meaning you can only vote in one pre-chosen primary election per cycle. Like if I were to register as a republican to vote in the republican primary, the democrat party wouldn’t allow me to cast a vote in their primary.
Then whoever wins the primaries goes on to the general election. While winning the primary is only a soft requirement for the general election, (anyone can run as an independent candidate), the US’ first-past-the-post voting system means it’s virtually impossible to win the general election without the support of one of the two big parties. And if you want to get that support, you need to win the primary. Independent candidates are generally thought of as wasted votes, meme votes, protest votes, etc…
Notably, in the general election, democrats’ campaigns tend to take a strategy of “move farther right to grab the center/center-right swing voters.” Since any registered voter can vote in the general, swing voters often determine who wins and loses the general. Which means candidates tend to disproportionately focus on appeasing those swing voters. And this tends to piss off the democrats/leftists/etc who prefer the farther left policies. Especially when those same candidates have spent the past month parroting the official democratic party platform to win the primary, then suddenly about-face and cozy up to the centrists in the general.
So even if leftists were able to get enough votes for a far-left candidate in the primaries, (they can’t, because America has no notable far-left/leftist voting blocks), that same candidate would then immediately shift to the center to grab the swing votes in the general.
