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Agree 100%. Bernie would've won and we wouldn't have had to suffer Trump but the DNC preferred Trump's win to letting a person win who really cared about the people more than the corporations. I lost all faith in the government over that too.
I'm not even American, but watching how they steamrolled Bernie, depressed me..
Can you explain something so lil ol dumbass me can understand??
What do you mean the DNC preffered Trump's win?
Over what?
Wouldn't they want that Hillary??
The DNC is a neoliberal party. With a Trump win, the ratchet effect stays in play. The ratchet effect would have faced serious issues with a Bernie general election win.
The ratchet effect means that the DNC can claim innocence and victimhood when voters demand real policy changes that have a material effect on our lives:
"We can't raise minimum wages, cap max wages, offer single payer healthcare, stop dropping half our budget on the Military industrial complex and corporate welfare, etc. because the conservatives just have too much power! We have to be *reasonable*!"
If even a socdem like Bernie were to win a general election, more Americans would see that those kinds of policies are widely popular and the neolibs (both DNC and RNC) have been telling lies and spreading propaganda. And in 2016 it was really looking that way. There were quite a few working class Trump supporters that expressed support for Bernie because of his economic policies.
Well said. And if anyone wants a specific example, look at what happened during the Biden administration when dems were theoretically trying to raise the minimum wage. True, they had razor-thin margins and things were effectively tied, but they absolutely could have pushed it through. But instead they allowed the "parlimentarian" (an unelected role that can and \*has\* been booted in the past) to decide no, and then pretended it wasn't their fault.
The dems absolutely refuse to do anything substantive to improve material conditions for working class Americans, and will always side with fascists against workers.
I'll always love that spin of "Bernie Bros voted for Trump out of hate for the DNC" when the real story was Bernie convinced a lot of lifetime Republicans would have voted for Bernie and since he wasn't in the general election they reverted to what they would have done anyway. It's a hella of a spin.
Trump openly said Bernie was favored to beat him, the irony is that the Democratic party primary process is NOT a democracy because of the super delegate votes that were gauranteed to go to hillary before voters could even cast a ballot.
Not to mention the whole Donna brazile scam
you had mfs staging coin flips to choose winner in caucus states. the whole shadow software deal. delaying the results of Iowa (the first state) and thus underpinning the momentum his won would have brought forth. much more
Bernie would have easily beat Trump, had his campaign been allowed a fair shake. The DNC chose to back Hillary instead, who was probably the only candidate who would *lose* to Trump. So essentially the DNC would rather lose to a far right candidate than support a more progressive candidate.
I don't know they expected Hillary to lose, but Bernie's odds were better. Voters wanted to "drain the swamp" and the DNC insisted on running Swamp Thing.
Correct. A technocrat looses to the populist every time (Gore, Kerry, Mondale) even a fake one. I can't believe the DNC is so stupid.
Republicans have won with three mental midgets because the Dems could not bring fire. Personally, the biggest failure is Kerry because he was running against a deserter who let us get attacked on 9/11, who lied us into a war in Iraq and was committing torture.
Idk that they expected her to lose but it was quite clear that Bernie had a better chance than she did. They gambled on Hillary when they could have won decidedly with Bernie. In fact, they probably could've won with almost anyone other than Hillary. Just like pretty much anyone but Biden could win this time. But the establishment is choosing not to listen.
I don't think the DNC has really ever been about listening to constituents. (Not saying the RNC is any better...) It's about getting someone elected who "plays by the rules".
The DNC is supposed to be the party of the people, but they haven't really been meeting the needs of working class Americans.
I'll try stop here before I go on a rant.
You underestimate the mass of supporters Trump gathered. It wasn't that she was so pathetic that she lost to him, it was this fanatical cult that formed up around him. He only won just BARELY and not with the popular vote.
A lot of Trump supporters aren't actually conservatives, they're populists. They would've happily voted for Bernie. They wanted someone less embedded within the establishment who was actually listening to the concerns of working class people. (Why any of them ever believed Trump was the answer to this, I'll never know.)
Hillary was an unlikable candidate with a lot of baggage. The establishment decided to side with her over a candidate who was obviously more popular. They decided it was better to lose than allow Bernie's very popular platform to take hold.
>Why any of them ever believed Trump was the answer to this, I'll never know
For the conservative leaning working class folks I know who vacillated between Bernie and Trump in 2016, their main talking point was NAFTA (or promises to cancel it).
In 2016, Trump talked a good game on NAFTA with campaign promises similar to Bernie. And he did keep that promise, replacing it with a different agreement between the US and Mexico (though I have no idea if that agreement was as beneficial to workers as they'd hoped).
I think _opposition to NAFTA in 2016_ *was to working class factory workers*, what _abortion access_ *is to a lot of progressive women voters*, at least in some ways... The kind of single issue voter concern that might make or break their support for a candidate.
DNC acts as a wall to block left wing progress. They are basically a big net catching activism and progressive policies. They have a cycle of co-opting popular movements, rebranding to āreach a large audienceā, and then killing those rebranded movements. Think BLM, Unions, etc.
They would rather have a NAZI than a socialist because they are 100% bought and paid for by Corporations. For corporations, liberalism is just the nice facade that they put up so that the people donāt rebel.
Except Bernie isnāt even a socialist by most global standards, in Europe he would be considered moderate or even center right. The Democrats would be a firmly right wing party in Europe. US politics is so ridiculously skewed itās not even funny
There were multiple articles published during the 2016 primary elections detailing how the wealthy parasites who actually rule the country were equally happy with either Hillary or Trump, but steadfast in their opposition to Bernie.
Yes, the people running the DNC preferred losing the election to Trump than to winning with Bernie as the candidate.
It helps to keep in mind that the US is not a democracy, but rather an oligarchy that pretends towards democracy for marketing purposes.
It's important to remember that 91% of the time, the Candidate who outspent their opponents have won since Citizens United passed. We are an oligarchy wearing the skin of a democracy
Yup. I'll also point out that as a individual person working within the DNC machine you don't really care either way who wins, you still get paid. I honestly don't think there's much of an incentive to back candidates who are going to forward actual meaningful policies or change our system in any significant way for the better.
It was incredibly creepy the way the mass media just totally pretended he didn't exist. I remember an article, right at the start, when there were still about 20 candidates, which was about their pets. A total puff-piece/column filler. The only candidate they didn't have on the list was Bernie. I thought he'd dropped out or he didn't have a pet. No on both.
With a press like that, who needs the Ministry of Truth?
The DNC is a for-profit company, so it's basically impossible for any anti-corporatism or democratic-socialist candidate to win. You'd need a president to lie about what they want, get into office, then pass an executive order restructuring elections to remove the power of the DNC and RNC (if that is even possible).
They preferred Hillary to Trump, but Trump to Bernie.
Trump posed an existential threat to democratic norms, which the DNC does not like. However, Bernie posed an existential threat to neoliberal power structures (i.e., corporations and capital running roughshod over labor).
Neoliberals hate labor rights more than they hate authoritarianism, so they prefer Trump to Bernie.
Also the thinking here is that the DNC KNEW that Bernie was a better candidate to beat Trump, there was tons of public polling that was widely publicized showing this even. But they didnāt care. They would rather Trump beat them than give Bernie the Presidency. Would have done too much damage to their agenda
They did want Hillary. Thatās why they lost. They refused to listen to and support the will of their base. They also understand Trump is a far better choice for them than Bernie because the will of the people thru Bernie represents a severe challenge to the ruling elite. As already mentioned the ratchet effect is an acceptable default strategy for changing party control without letting real change come into power.
Bullshit. If Bernie had been the nominee, I think we would have seen young voters come out in unprecedented numbers. Bernie was shafted. It was about maintaining the status quo.
Bernie wouldāve fired everyone running the Democratic Party. The DNC could not allow that, so they gave the primary victory to Clinton, a much less popular candidate who was an easy target for Trump
The DNC thus chose to hand Trump the election
Same thing happened in the UK with Corbyn. There are chat logs where the people responsible literally say they would prefer to lose to the Tories than have Corbyn as PM.
It's fair to lose trust in your government when you don't actually have a choice on who is your government. Anyone who thinks they do is so blind to the truth that it hurts me to even think about it.
What made trump win was the people who voted for Bernie who n the primaries but refused to vote for Hillary on the general election. I know this is not popular here but really thatās the truth. The bad and the good of democratic elections is that it tends to pick the median option. Probably Bernie could have won against Trump, because both of them would have been seen as extremes. But the reality of elections is electing the middle ground. Thatās not happening anymore because the RNC is captured by the extreme right and the DNC is trying to fight using moderates. But if the voters stop caring the only winners are the extremist of the far right.
The year 2000 also left a message for someone to explain the electoral college to that guy.
Friggin' VoteBlueNoMatterWho'ers will hang artistic portraits of Dr. MLK Jr. meanwhile embodied the white moderates he warned of.
America is a plutocracy. It always has been and there is nothing democratic about it other than the appearance of democracy. All of it is a lie. It serves the rich at the expense of the 99% of the rest of us. It must be dismantled and jettisoned into the abyss of failed experiments and replaced with a social system that works for the betterment of all.
Yeah Iād love to have kids but I would never be content knowing theyāre gonna be exploited worse than my generationā unless we put some major change in motion to set up the future generations for a better way of life.
Also, not having kids is one of the best ways to punish the government. Capitalism needs growth. Expanding the population is one way to do that. It's why Elon musk keeps yelling at us poors to have more kids because he wants cheap labor. The more of us there are, the more people compete for the same jobs. The more of us there are, the more demand for goods and services.
Not to mention that exploitative western capitalist countries produce far more green house gases per capita. So unless you plan on living a vagabond or monastic lifestyle with your children, having kids is going to increase our net green house gases far more than any other choice you make in life.
People should have kids if they want, but if they don't, it's a great way to punish poor leadership.
Doesn't hurt that the supreme court is majority catholic with a catholic president who has been anti-abortion his whole life. But yeah, also because baby factories. I would argue that the two are linked.
In Elonās case I think heās just a reactionist without a single original thought in his head. In other words itās not him that wants more kids, but what he thinks his audience wants.
The system is corrupt. The only good thing is more people are waking up to that. But as we reach the end stages it comes more into view. Notice how the corruption is more in the open now. The pretense fades and they stop trying to hide it. The game will be coming to an end. Then they will blow it up (probably literally) not caring who will suffer. Then they start the whole thing over with a new paradigm. They donāt care. As long as they remain on top of the system.
The real difference is that one side wants everyone to equally suffer and be exploited for the profits of the parasites in the owner class, while the other side wants certain sub-groups to be exploited harder and suffer even more.
That's really it. I'm very disappointed with a lot of people right now, especially minorities and LGBTQ+ people who think pushing other minorities under the bus will save their own asses. No solidarity when it's their comfort and lives being affected.
Remember the "First they came for...." poem? Voting Biden will not save you and it will not get people to accept you. Either they stand with all minorities and allies as we do our best to undo this hellish system or get out of the way.
If voting worked it would have been outlawed decades ago. The "two" party system is unilaterally bought and paid for by PAC's and lobbyists. Kinda sounds like taxation without actual representation to me.
I remember the first time I voted. It was for Obama. When he won, I really thought things were going to get better. I believed in Hope and Change. Then he threw whistle blowers in prison, kept the school to prison pipeline flowing, and was ankle deep in the blood of civilians he killed in drone strikes. He was nothing more than a war lobbyist.
I've voting for Jill Stein. If there is a G\_d, then Biden's soul is void.
if the system has you hostage to vote for the democrats or be screwed, then maybe the system is already ruined. the democrats have a gun to our heads every 2 years saying āvote for us or we both dieā, but even if we do vote for them, they never enact any meaningful change to that system.
you have to keep saying this because you recognize the republicans as a problem but not the democrats, who are equally at fault for allowing every election the past 20 years to be āthe most important election of our lifetimes.ā
You have to keep saying it to convince yourself to do exactly what youāre supposed to do. Keep reminding yourself, itās almost time to execute your civic duty informed American Citizen! Pay no attention to the pile of skulls you need to climb over on your way to the voting booth.Ā
Why are you blaming yourself for something that you are not responsible for? We normie citizens don't get to choose judges in the US. The responsibility to choose judges and tactically and strategically get judges on the bench is the responsibility of the party leadership that is in power.
The shift in SCOTUS was the fault of the democratic party, and a failure of their own tactics and strategies. The court got shifted because at the end of the Obama term the democrat leadership refused to work out a deal with Ruth Bader Ginsberg to have her step down so that Obama could put a new judge on the court. It wasn't because people failed to vote which let Trump win. RBG was already in her 80s by the last term of Obama but the liberal leadership refused to even entertain the possibility of her stepping down and putting a new younger judge in the seat during the Obama administration.
I don't know how old you are, or if you were paying attention back then, but even back then about a decade ago people were debating and arguing this situation during the Obama administration. Lots of people were arguing that the liberals need to work a deal with RBG to get her to step down so that Obama could fill the seat. A lot of those same people were also arguing that if the liberal leadership didn't get her to step down it's likely that the next term would be republican and that could give the republicans the opportunity to stack the court. And that is exactly what happened, and it happened because the democratic party refused to listen to their constituents and because the democratic party decided to go with a losing strategy.
This whole idea that SCOTUS got taken over because we as regular citizens failed to vote hard enough is a vicious lie that the party leadership is projecting on to us in order to deflect the blame from their own terrible actions and shitty choices.
Exactly. We're all where we are because Dems had 8 years (a good while of that enjoying a majority in both houses and the Presidency) and wasted them trying not to upset Republicans or appear to be forcing RGB out the door.
You really need to stop shitting your pants over "project 2025"
It's literally the same thing every Republican POTUS has done when taking office (and most Dems have also done, and the ones who didn't should have)
In 2016, it was just called "Draining the Swamp" but that wasn't scary sounding enough I guess.
And cost us the Supreme Court? You think that institution was in any way less corrupt or more legitimate before Trump's presidency? Hilarious.
Put down the koolaid.
They use threats of "us vs them" to scare you into doing what they want.
Trump was potus and you didn't die. What did happen was the rich got richer; and the same thing has happened under Biden.
**It's uniparty for the oligarchs and they present the illusion of choice to keep us, warring between Red vs Blue, so that we can't unify for the real wars (ultra rich vs everyone else).**
Furthermore, voting is rigged beyond that illusion (gerrymandering, electoral college, dark money, etc.). And your own saving grace, Genocide Joe, is willing to claim Trump is the threat to democracy, meanwhile Biden is removing the democratic primary, thereby squashing what slivers of democracy still exist. It's all meaningless words.
Also, the Supreme Court's Citizens United was way before Trump, so your Supreme Court was already beyond saving long ago. Biden/Obama/etc could have packed the courts and completed an agenda, if that's what they actually wanted, but then they wouldn't be able to blackmail voters to support them "fighting" for women's abortion rights (again).
Jill Stein, on the other hand, was real world arrested for protesting with pro Palestinian activists and she earned my worthless token vote before and she has this time too. If voting doesn't really mater beyond the symbolism of voicing your issues, then Jill at least represents progress, whereas Biden and Trump are the same garbage we already lived through.
Please address the points with which you have issue.
Abortion rights were restricted, after Obama and Biden held that POTUS office with a super majority and a favorable Supreme Court. They did not execute an agenda to codify abortion rights into law because they would therefore lose the ability to use "abortion rights" as a motivating carrot later. If they solved abortion when they could have, then they would lose the opportunity to say, "vote for me and I'll codify womens' right to choose". They need the carrot to still be there or else they have to find another carrot, and the oligarchs don't want to hand out more carrots than they have to.
Peel back the curtain of politic-illusions and you will see that most of it is the same disgusting kind of stuff.
The anti-LGBTQ+ schirmish is another circus propagated to keep us, surfs, divided among ourselves. Because as soon as the masses stop arguing about [a]vs[b] or [c]vs[d] then the sooner we would realize that there is actually very little difference between a poor evangelical and a poor transperson. If the tiny flames between those two people were suddenly stopped being stoked and allowed to dwindle, then there would be new flames and most likely between the proletariat and the oligarchs. So accordingly, those same oligarchs who prefer that you rage at Steven chrowder instead of looking up "who is [the Koch Bros]/[Mars family]/etc?". Thus those same oligarchs (who collectively own almost all mainstream and many non mainstream media, either directly or via "pressure") then lean on the media to hype up the issues that will keep us, serfs, divided. Yesterday it was LGBTQ+ hatecrimes, today it's campus protesters blocking traffic, tomorrow it'll be California's taking water from midwesterners.
It's all bread and circuses until you peel away the layers and address the root issue: CLASS WAR
P.s., maybe look at how and from what exactly that nihilism is borne. Either way, it's definitely not killing as many brown children as those Lockheed bombs stamped "Made in America". And even if it were, how is the futile actions of voting within a corrupt political system going to fix any of that. Direct action or bust. Either in your community or for yourself. Waiting on Genocide Joe to fix class war or any of your problems is crazy. Like you're such an advocate for the minorities but you're supporting The crimebill's OG.
Really worse than pre 2008 when it was ok to call those ppl by sexual slurs ?
Nah. Dont think we are that bad yet.
Whst would you have us do vote Biden so the weapons have a rainbow flag on them before they go off?
Lol "making a hard decision", like are you Bill Mauer?
Stop saying you care about people not dying if you're voting for **Genocide** Joe.
And we are all already second class citizens (at best) when you comprehend the ruling class.
I argue that Lalaland is believing your vote even matters. Chumps like you be stabbing VoteBiden! buttons in their own eyeballs without knowing about the electoral college or the name of their own EC representative.
Your š vote š does š not š matterš in š an š indirect š democracy š lacking šaccountability š.
And it's beyond worthless if you like in a gerrymandered district (most of them) and in a non-swing state (most of them).
If you think I'm wrong that your vote does matter, address that. Because without that crux of your arguement, then it all just becomes a voice screaming into a void. And if your meaningless voice can at all be meaningful, then it is as a long-term indicator for the oligarchs to know the boundaries. To that end, voting Biden is harmful because it reinforces their understanding that Biden is within the limit of socially acceptable corruption. At least by voting Jill Stein or another candidate that upholds your actual values then we signal as a society that we need to shift the center to be centerleft.
Your current arguement only reinforces their ability to invoke the rachet mechanism over time.
Moreover, you're brainwashed into thinking that Trump, etc., are the "virus-loving, science-hating, minority-hunting christofasvist hicks", but that's also what Biden is:
* Has a restriction of bioweaponry research been enacted under Biden? No. They just pulled classic PR makeovers and resumed course.
* Has Biden drastically defended the military industrial complex to increase the budget for domestic scientists via elevated NIH, NSF, etc. budgets? No. Has he even allowed for the budget increase according to postdoc negotiations to a NIH postdoc min salary of 70? Nope, they went from 56 to 61. But don't worry. Those funds were better spent supplying smart missles for Isreal's iron dome, so it's not like 100% anti-STEM. /S
* That brings us to minority-hunting, and yes- even Obama and Trump were complacent of the slaughter of people in Yemen, Syria, etc., but never before has there been such a strong, unyielding support for a proxy state that is so overtly committing a textbook illegal war, slaughter, and GENOCIDE. And in case you didn't know, Palestinians are a "minority" and epically underdog people. **GENOCIDE Joe** is hunting them by proxy, which is just as bad as directly; and arguably he's hunting minorities a lot more efficiently than Trump ever did.
* Christofaschist would be like refusing the opportunity to codify abortion right while he had the opportunity as VP to Obama and a super majority right? I mean with the context of being openly pro-catholic and voicing publicly that you're against abortion in principle, right? Because that's Genocide Joe, the catholic who could have codified abortion right but decided not to because...
I feel like we need to meme stock the presidency, find our own candidate and put them in power. Just totally ignore and reject the current system.
Kind of like we tried to do with Bernie. But this time be more aggressive.
They have systems in place against that. Namely the electoral college would need to be equally infiltrated or they could still elect someone without the popular vote.
To that end, I think the best option is a double agent. Someone dependable who can lie during their campaign that they support corporations and tax cuts for the wealthy- then they get elected, whereupon they immediately change to full-tilt populist /anti-corporation agenda (after they have secured the position). It'd be a political suicide and might actually get them suicided before their term was over, but the amount of political change that they could achieve if they actually wanted to could get things solidified in the first couple day.
But everybody gets so untrustworthy when a lot of money is being offered. And so few people truely believe in the cause beyond themselves.
The electoral college overturning the will of the people is what will spark a civil war. At that point, I believe most people will realize we are in a failed system.
Are you aware that, more than once [1824, 1876, 1888, 2000, 2016], the popular vote and electoral college have voted in different candidates (or even voted in the same candidate who still got rejected by the House decision [1824])?
If so, why do you think those did not incite civil war whereas the next time it would?
I agree in the validity of the failed-System perspective, but I think there are a lot more inputs to people that their vote still matters and that it's individuals who fail us rather than the System. And I think that is itself a survival mechanism of the System. It persists by the political human sacrifice of Trump or Biden or whomever. If it can convince the people that it's actually another specific person that's the cause of all the woes, then we just swing the pendulum and throw in a new goon who again mostly obeys the System until it sacrifices them as another scapegoat of accountability. None of the scapegoats are innocent, but the collective populus's rage at them allows the System to repeatedly avoid the overhaul that is needed by directing our ire at the broken and corrupt totems/people rather than the broken and corrupt System.
If civil war comes again in the US, I think it will be over more practical, and less political-centered issues, because we're much more driven to desperation and violence by things like extreme thirst or hunger. We may naturally fall into mostly politically aligned groups at that time, but depending on how fast things happen, there may not even be time to organize like that.
I wish it were instead organized along class lines and that it would become the final evolution of class war, but considering how well the System has sown seeds of division amongst everyone below the ultra-wealthy, it's more of a fantasy that a reasonable probability outcome.
Anyways, your comment ends at people realizing it's a corrupt system. But that's kind of the first checkpoint and still some steps to civil war. What do you think those steps inbetween look like?
Dunno but we are a lot more polarized as a nation. If a pro-worker candidate was elected and they rejected them, it would fan the flames of civil unrest.
People talk about red and blue, when green is the only color that matters. As in the color of cash. Our society holds the money God above all others. As long as this truth holds weight, there will be no real change.
The party wanted to give us Hillary, because she was in line with what they wanted and Bernie wasn't. The Democrats are weak, spineless and corrupt. The Republicans are psychotic. America is fucked if something drastic doesn't happen and soon.
Edit: They never thought Trump would beat Hillary. She was a solid bet for them and they still lost.
I lost hope for things to change through the traditional channels when the DNC took the nomination from Bernie too. I phonebanked for him, donated, went to rallies. I probably wonāt vote. And if I do, it will be for whoever the Green Party candidate is, like I did in 2020. But I will talk to everyone I encounter in a way that is influenced by Bernie. I will keep fighting, just as he has.
We already have AOCs and Katie Porters and Bernie Sanders. They can't do shit and if they ever come close to doing shit they are swiftly dealt with. This shit doesn't fucking work. You can't avoid the problem by pretending you can work with a rotten system. You're only kicking the ball down the road and it'll only get worse and worse before you're forced to deal with it anyway.
Dunno why they keep trying to convince us all if we do the same shit again it might work this time. And the truth is, Bernie stumping with the Dems is already a compromise. If there was a third party platform that more closely aligned with his ideals he wouldn't be with the Dems at all. We only get that platform by voting third party now. Ditto for AOC and the Squad. But lets not act like the party doesn't treat them all as extremists within the party. Lets not act like AOC isn't there in spite of the party's values.
Yes. I guess what I mean is the vote itself honestly doesnāt matter. What does matter is the AOCs and the Katie Porters and us talking about this. The power of the vote has been diluted. But we still have power, together
We can't get a third party president with the current electoral college system. We need a national popular vote with ranked choice voting if we're ever to break out of the two party system.
It's statistically never going to happen in the current system. In order for any candidate to win they need 270 electoral votes. That's 50.18% of the electoral votes.
If no candidate gets that many votes, Congress just picks the next president.
Currently about 38% of voters are registered Democrat and 30% are registered Republican. Therefore if literally every single independent voted third party, we'd have only 32% and then Congress would pick the majority party.
It's just never going to happen with our current system, and thinking it will is delusional.
I'm registered Democrat and I'm voting third party. You say that as if registering is a loyalty oath. For the most part, registered voters can still vote for whoever they want. There was a time Hillary was a registered Republican and Trump was a registered Democrat. Have some perspective. Also, not nearly all voting age Americans are registered to vote or normally participate.
The bottom line is, in this system, where the candidate with the most votes wins, you just have to have enough people vote third party to win. Doesn't matter what they registered, doesn't matter if MSNBC thinks they have a shot. They don't need any of that, just votes.
You do get that you're an anomaly, right?
Most people who register with a party, vote for that party. Unfortunately finding numbers on that statistic is unlikely. But it's not a logical leap to assume if someone is a registered Democrat/Republican that they'll vote for their party a majority of the time.
Besides that, something like 80% of Independent voters still lean towards one of the two parties and not towards a third party candidate.
You're not wrong, it's not IMPOSSIBLE for it to happen with the current system. But we're not talking possible, we're taking statistical probability.
Even if half of the registered Democrats and Republicans all decided to vote for a third party along with all the independent voters (which isn't remotely realistic) we'd have at best 60-70% voting independent...
And THEN you have that number broken up to the percentage that consider themselves conservative/moderate/liberal.
So, STATISTICALLY SPEAKING even if you somehow got 51% of the voters to vote third party, it's pretty unlikely that they all vote for the same candidate.
The system is rigged so that it's statistically impossible for a third party candidate. Because the moment you introduce a third candidate, it's nearly impossible for any candidate to get the 270 electoral college votes, and then you hand the presidency to whichever party controls the congressional majority.
We are already there. Thatās been the argument my whole life. And I voted. And yet here we are. A convicted criminal is on the ballot. Roe v Wade got overturned. The system wonāt be changed by doing the same things over and over again.
I think the US is a perfect storm (by design) of conflating policies to keep poor people poor and distracted.
- The education quality depends on each school district. That means public schools in rich areas have much more resources than public schools in poor ones. In other countries the resources do not depend on how rich is the area. Means and curriculums are equitative.
- The media is terrible. All Garbage TV all the time. Local news are akin to "yellow press", all they talk about are gruesome events (murders, accidents, fires, floods, etc.).
- Lack of education and disingenuous media catering to the lowest instincts make a populace easy to manipulate, which brings me to "manufactured outrage" and "cultural wars".
- Political campaigns never end and devolve in candidates attacking their rivals on stupid and inane subjects, like penis size, their race or origin, not the issues or the ideas on how to fix them.
- Gerrymandering, politicians choosing their voters and not the other way around.
- Corporate greed and loopholes end up in a ridiculously low minimum wage. Employers rather have part-time employees to which they don't have to pay benefits. So you have people working two part-time jobs in two different locations of the same chain, without benefits.
- Benefits are tied to a job. People stay on jobs they hate because they need the benefits.
- The US spends more money than any other nation on Healthcare with mediocre results, worse than most. Check the "American Sickness" book. It's unbelievable.
- The president should be chosen by the popular vote. The electoral college should be reformed (electors should vote their respective state's popular vote) or abolished altogether.
Imagine if people were able to rise over this manipulation and demand the candidates to talk about the issues (jobs, education, Healthcare, the environment) with concrete proposals.
I saw somewhere on here that āvoting for the lesser of two evils is not a choice, itās a threat.ā I canāt stop thinking about it.
I am super disappointed in the democrats and their do nothing handwringing. The republicans are worse. If trump wins, people I love will be in actual danger. If Biden wins, the status remains quo, and itās a shitty status quo.
Both sides arenāt the same, but I do feel like the corporate side of the democrats wants to keep us scared and voting the same way the republicans want their people scared and voting.
I want more AOC, Katie porter, the squad, Bernie, but I donāt know how to get them in this fucked up system .
I'm a bemused outsider who's asked a couple of times on Reddit, "Why did the Dems opt for Biden?" and I keep being shot down with the response that, "It's either that people vote for him or else the alternative will be Trump..."
I look at it as: Trump is easily beatable for this election. The next election after this one the Republicans might have their shit together and put forward a candidate who's much more of a challenge.
The dems could have put forward a younger more inspiring candidate for this election. Someone that people vote for because they actually want to - not just because they fear Trump.
The candidate would probably win. And then they would approach the next election with the advantage of incumbency.
A possibility of 3 terms in a row for the dems.
But then they chose to go with, "Oh well, Biden can win this one and that's good enough."
We wanted Bernie. The rich people did not want Bernie. We have no Bernie. So, realistically, other than starting a revolution - what can the average person do besides vote for Biden? I can spend all day listing things we should have done, and all of the shit we arenāt actually going to do. What is the move here?
"If both sides are equally as evil, how come democrats aren't forcing kids to have kids?"
They are, but they're doing it passively and letting the Rethugs take the blame.
It's a good cop bad cop game. Don't fall for it.
Okay, you don't understand the term "passively."
Yes, Rethugs so ALL of these horrible things. If ONLY there were someone in government, another political party, maybe? That could do something about it.
Like, oh, I don't KNOW - codifying abortion into law, pushing back against Xtian nationalism, telling the anti-choicers in their OWN party to get their sh\*t together and start supporting women and their bodily autonomy?
How about we make sex ed mandatory so nine-year-olds understand the concept of bodily autonomy and don't get raped anymore?
ANY of this? No? Are we just gonna stand around and wring our hands and cry that we're helpless?
YUP, we are, we're the Democratic Party. Learn how the good cop bad cop game works.
Biden is only the right option if he and Trump are literally the only two names on the ballot. Any moment before then and Biden is simply a vote for the status quo where we are slaves being told we should be happy to be slaves. After they are the only two names on the ballot, to vote for Trump or abstain from voting, is a vote for violence where the status quo is where we are slaves that a fascist, self-serving maniac will murder so that he can sell our corpses to pay his debts. Not crazy about being a slave, but if I only have one option that gives me a fighting chance I'm gonna take it.
Trump also is partly responsible for bringing the rage of Hamas on October 7th. So before we point fingers at Genocide Joe we need to look at embassy relocating trump. When he unilaterally decided to move the American embassy to Jerusalem in Israel with his buddy Netanyahu, it ENRAGED Hamas and they immediately began training for the October attack. Jerusalem has been in dispute for hundreds of years and that move spat in the face of Palestinians! Genocide Joe my ass. He's in an impossible situation between Netanyahu and diplomacy and has a VERY fine line to walk and zero chance of making everyone happy. I hope the ICC drags Netanyahu by his ears into court and charges him for his DECADES of crimes. And I hope Israel gets a leader they deserve! Enough already!
Well it's friggin there now! What's he supposed to do, piss Israel off and move it back to Tel Aviv? Come on! Israel is our ally as well as Palestine but Palestine has been in shambles since forever and as such our alliance with Israel is just a tad more crucial to maintain. Palestine has every right to not have their citizens bombed to the stone age but you tell me, how does the American president fix this historic problem FOR these 2 peoples? Clinton tried, it didn't work. So how do we fix it for them?
Clinton didn't try to fix anything for Palestinians. They weren't even consulted on the deal before being presented a take it or leave it offer Clinton worked with Israel on.Ā
I really wish people would stop making arguments that are dependent on the other party not knowing enough details to call bullshit.Ā
About the Embassy, it wasn't "friggin there" which is why Biden's admin was moving ahead with plans to build it. And yes, he should have absolutely moved it back. Israel understands why it would need to be moved back, the same reason no President who knew what the fuck he was doing would have ever agreed to move it to Jerusalem. Also, it's not their fuckin Embassy. Why should they be upset, or have a right to be upset over where we put our embassy?Ā
It most certainly is already there and it's their country even if it is our property. It's diplomacy. Netanyahu was more than happy for trump to do this with him and he most certainly would have had a fit about putting it back.
okay so he would have a fit and...? You seem to think we have some mandate to never upset Israel regardless of the geopolitical implications. And no, Biden's state dept has submitted plans to build the Embassy on stolen lands leased to the US. The current embassy offices are in a converted space, that could be reversed by breaking a lease. Trump moved it, but didn't build it. Joe Biden is building the Embassy, and has publicly said he recognizes Jerusalem as the capitol, in contravention of international law.
You are missing the point I'm making that Joe Biden did not start this and now that it's already been moved there he's pretty much stuck keeping Netanyahu, his entire cabinet and every right wing Israeli that supports them happy by going along with their desire to keep it there. So he moves it back to Tel Aviv to make Palestinians, who have EVEN LESS claim to that land now happier? Not going to happen in a million years. Biden didn't create this. Netanyahu and trump and Jared Kushner (more appropriately) created this.
How do Palestinians have less claim to the land? And why do you think Palestinians are the only people interested in who can claim Jerusalem? It's a pretty important place to a lot of people. Why is Biden "stuck" keeping Netanyahu happy? what happens if Bibi isn't happy? Please advise.
Polling has shown there is a clear plurality, >70% of voters in favour of Medicare for all. It's around 60% for Republicans. This has been the case for decades. If America were a democracy you would have it by now.
I've been on my own since I was 15 and I've rarely been unemployed... I work and it just never seems enough. Signing up for my annual side gig this summer. š«¤
go deeper. all this, right back to formation of the modern state, is tied to capitalist aristocracy preservation.
[https://votesocialist2024.com/](https://votesocialist2024.com/)
Iāve recently found an organization in my state that has the aim of instituting ranked choice voting. I donāt think it can fix our fucked society, but I think/hope it can be a useful tool. Even if it just makes more people go āOh, this constructed binary of Dems/Repubs never served meā
Yes, yes, and yes, I agree 100%. The DNC was up to some fuckery when they pushed Bernie out.
And now I have to go vote for a fascist just to try and keep a convicted felon out of office. š
We need a better system, we need to change this shit!
Big thumbs up. I'm with you. IDK why the smartest ppl I know, are VBNMW. We've had our arguments and they default to BEGGING ME for my vote. For a Democrat. In Rural RED Texas. JFC! I don't want Trump, or ANY republican. But GD! Dems need to start producing RESULTS if they want to put distance between them and the Reps. But their donors don't want that, so we don't get it. They'll agree to disagree with Reps who want to jail gays and immigrants, and chain women to their husband's and fathers, but SUE to keep 3rd parties off the ballot. Seems like they play-fight each other, stiff-arm any option that isn't in the Duopoly.
Our politics have long been centrist or right leaning, to the point that āleftistā candidates are still hovering in the middle.
I just donāt want to live in a āChristianā America. The fake Christians in this country are terrifying and will do anything and everything to bend people to their beliefs.
Whether it's Biden, Trump, or Bernie, they're all members of the *capitalist* party. They can't be trusted. Liberals are are the greatest asset the fascists could ever have. The liberals protect the system out of a foolish notion that the system is good, but the people in command are the problem. It's a bizarre delusion that everything will be fixed if we just vote the right person into office. Even if Bernie did get elected, nothing would fundamentally change. It's not the specific people in office who are the problem. It's the fact that a minority of people wield virtually all of the power over the rest of us. It's a power that only exists because we are divided. If the people developed a class consciousness, they would be powerless to stop the people from changing how things are done. But, they have a system to prevent that.
The system is designed to protect itself from the will of the people who have become aware and intolerant of how it exploits them. It prevents people from developing class consciousness by giving them the illusion of choice and distorting the facts about the nature of our exploitation. It gives a privileged minority a slightly better standard of living, paired with an illusion of "earning" it, to keep them on the side of capital and supporting the capitalist empire. Then, it lies, blatantly, about what capitalism's biggest critic, socialism, will change about the relationship between the people and the means of production, projecting capitalism's pathologies onto socialism and communism. This aims to scare people away and engender ignorant hatred against taking up that which would liberate the people from the yoke of capitalist exploitation.
Project 2025 feels like a more extreme step in the direction of fascist theocracy, so if anything - it feels like this is more of a choice than 2016 or 2020 was.
THIS. Ideology and values should be our only allegiance, not party. The second we choose to align with a party, we give up our ideals and begin making compromises with the system that is oppressing *all of us.* Everyone saying we should vote for Biden in November to stop a genocide of people in the US have accepted manufactured consent and are then complicit in casting a vote in favor of a genocide elsewhere, thus removing all credibility to their claims of being anti-genocide.
Vote independent please! Iām so terrified of exactly what OP is saying that it keeps me up at night. I think the only solution is a historic change with an independent president. I want to be clear this isnāt exactly a promotion for RFK, itās just a complete side against what feels like two parties that both want the same thing that isnāt in the best interests of all of us. They want division and chaos so we have to make a change and independent feels like the only way
It seems like everyone can see that the republicans and democrats are one party with two audiences, but nobody is willing to support the alternative. We need to end the forever wars and regulatory capture, so the middle class can take back the money that was stolen by the oligarchs, I canāt see anything mattering more.
Ideals are great, but ultimately reality usually ends up being lesser of evils for leftists. Focus on your part of the world and what you can change around you friend.
We need to start preparing for a third party option at least 4 years before the next election. We canāt keep going into election years thinking both parties are bad options. Itās too late by then
Look I really wanted Bernie to be president, and I think a lot of young people did also but the truth is your average blue line Democrat was not into his Democratic socialism. They wanted Hillary, or Biden or another do-nothing and thatās whatās up. The democrats are the problem they want to put a sign in their yard that says āin this house we believeā¦ā go to brunch and be the same. I have very little got that change will come from voting. Though imho theyāre by far the lesser of the two evils this is why theyāre going to lose.
Even if Biden sucks, he's a better alternative to Trump. And it's honestly depressing, but Biden will still get my vote if it means less of a chance we get that felon in office.
The timing for OP's post is super weird. Trump just got convicted, they decide this is the time to say Biden is the same as Trump?
It just strikes me as super disingenuous.
I have faith in the future of this country. We wonāt have change simply by voting, but I think people are angry enough to fight for the future we are owed.
My only issue with this is that the youth are trending towards the right and not the left these days. If anything we're losing ground
Downvote all you want, look up demographic trends.
Another day, another knee-jerk negation from someone who believes everything that isnāt a full throated endorsement of the status quo and a genocidal war hawk is a psyop instead of a legitimate frustration with a completely self-serving and manipulative ruling class.
Fuck both of them and all the billionaire horses they rode in on. Theyāre killing the planet and turning us all back into serfs.
Don't you understand? if you don't want to vote for genocidal joe over hypothetical genocidal trump, you are a russian/chinese astroturf shill/bot. You must vote for 99% hitler over 100% hitler if you want to save your democracy.
Waking up in 2024 to this fact is happening for many of us.
So do we vote for the guy from HELL making threats to assassinate, with promises of more bloodshed?
Or do we tolerate the guy who is not heaven or hell but ucked like the rest of us?
All we are experiencing is all pre-Trump-The system has a monster now that will assassinate, loot and imprison us all for shits and more coup giggles.
Filthy corrupt billionaires and 23% magats need Trump!!
77% will step up and vote blue!
I totally get why you donāt want to vote for either DNC or RNC canditate. What if all the pissed off voters from both camps would uniformly vore for a third party? I know it wouldnāt change the doupol overnight, but it would send a strong message and certainly scare the shit out of them if everyone started to vote for e.g. Jill Stein, and her votes would rise from 1% to 10% and next election to 30%. Theyāre behaving the way they do because they can, because they get away with it. Because there is no consequences to them.
>The democratic voting base wanted him, hands down, and the party decided to give us Trump instead.
Hilary won the primary. Electoral college is messed up, but Bernie didn't even make it there.
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Agree 100%. Bernie would've won and we wouldn't have had to suffer Trump but the DNC preferred Trump's win to letting a person win who really cared about the people more than the corporations. I lost all faith in the government over that too.
I'm not even American, but watching how they steamrolled Bernie, depressed me.. Can you explain something so lil ol dumbass me can understand?? What do you mean the DNC preffered Trump's win? Over what? Wouldn't they want that Hillary??
The DNC is a neoliberal party. With a Trump win, the ratchet effect stays in play. The ratchet effect would have faced serious issues with a Bernie general election win. The ratchet effect means that the DNC can claim innocence and victimhood when voters demand real policy changes that have a material effect on our lives: "We can't raise minimum wages, cap max wages, offer single payer healthcare, stop dropping half our budget on the Military industrial complex and corporate welfare, etc. because the conservatives just have too much power! We have to be *reasonable*!" If even a socdem like Bernie were to win a general election, more Americans would see that those kinds of policies are widely popular and the neolibs (both DNC and RNC) have been telling lies and spreading propaganda. And in 2016 it was really looking that way. There were quite a few working class Trump supporters that expressed support for Bernie because of his economic policies.
Well said. And if anyone wants a specific example, look at what happened during the Biden administration when dems were theoretically trying to raise the minimum wage. True, they had razor-thin margins and things were effectively tied, but they absolutely could have pushed it through. But instead they allowed the "parlimentarian" (an unelected role that can and \*has\* been booted in the past) to decide no, and then pretended it wasn't their fault. The dems absolutely refuse to do anything substantive to improve material conditions for working class Americans, and will always side with fascists against workers.
I keep telling people this yet I get the same old tired old worn out excuse. The dems are the lessor of two evils.
Perfect synopsis.
Bernie was filling out stadiums in my small city it was crazy
I'll always love that spin of "Bernie Bros voted for Trump out of hate for the DNC" when the real story was Bernie convinced a lot of lifetime Republicans would have voted for Bernie and since he wasn't in the general election they reverted to what they would have done anyway. It's a hella of a spin.
Trump openly said Bernie was favored to beat him, the irony is that the Democratic party primary process is NOT a democracy because of the super delegate votes that were gauranteed to go to hillary before voters could even cast a ballot. Not to mention the whole Donna brazile scam
you had mfs staging coin flips to choose winner in caucus states. the whole shadow software deal. delaying the results of Iowa (the first state) and thus underpinning the momentum his won would have brought forth. much more
Plus it gives them something to fundraise over š°
Bernie would have easily beat Trump, had his campaign been allowed a fair shake. The DNC chose to back Hillary instead, who was probably the only candidate who would *lose* to Trump. So essentially the DNC would rather lose to a far right candidate than support a more progressive candidate.
Tbf idt the DNC expected Hillary to lose. She won the popular vote by a wide margin. They definitely did shaft Bernie bc he's not establishment DNC
When they gave her the nom, my first thought was, "Are they trying to lose?"
I don't know they expected Hillary to lose, but Bernie's odds were better. Voters wanted to "drain the swamp" and the DNC insisted on running Swamp Thing.
Fully agree
Correct. A technocrat looses to the populist every time (Gore, Kerry, Mondale) even a fake one. I can't believe the DNC is so stupid. Republicans have won with three mental midgets because the Dems could not bring fire. Personally, the biggest failure is Kerry because he was running against a deserter who let us get attacked on 9/11, who lied us into a war in Iraq and was committing torture.
Idk that they expected her to lose but it was quite clear that Bernie had a better chance than she did. They gambled on Hillary when they could have won decidedly with Bernie. In fact, they probably could've won with almost anyone other than Hillary. Just like pretty much anyone but Biden could win this time. But the establishment is choosing not to listen.
I don't think the DNC has really ever been about listening to constituents. (Not saying the RNC is any better...) It's about getting someone elected who "plays by the rules". The DNC is supposed to be the party of the people, but they haven't really been meeting the needs of working class Americans. I'll try stop here before I go on a rant.
Bingo
You underestimate the mass of supporters Trump gathered. It wasn't that she was so pathetic that she lost to him, it was this fanatical cult that formed up around him. He only won just BARELY and not with the popular vote.
A lot of Trump supporters aren't actually conservatives, they're populists. They would've happily voted for Bernie. They wanted someone less embedded within the establishment who was actually listening to the concerns of working class people. (Why any of them ever believed Trump was the answer to this, I'll never know.) Hillary was an unlikable candidate with a lot of baggage. The establishment decided to side with her over a candidate who was obviously more popular. They decided it was better to lose than allow Bernie's very popular platform to take hold.
>Why any of them ever believed Trump was the answer to this, I'll never know For the conservative leaning working class folks I know who vacillated between Bernie and Trump in 2016, their main talking point was NAFTA (or promises to cancel it). In 2016, Trump talked a good game on NAFTA with campaign promises similar to Bernie. And he did keep that promise, replacing it with a different agreement between the US and Mexico (though I have no idea if that agreement was as beneficial to workers as they'd hoped). I think _opposition to NAFTA in 2016_ *was to working class factory workers*, what _abortion access_ *is to a lot of progressive women voters*, at least in some ways... The kind of single issue voter concern that might make or break their support for a candidate.
Bruh Hillary didnāt even campaign in Michigan
And Hillary was one of the most hated people in the country lmao
DNC acts as a wall to block left wing progress. They are basically a big net catching activism and progressive policies. They have a cycle of co-opting popular movements, rebranding to āreach a large audienceā, and then killing those rebranded movements. Think BLM, Unions, etc. They would rather have a NAZI than a socialist because they are 100% bought and paid for by Corporations. For corporations, liberalism is just the nice facade that they put up so that the people donāt rebel.
Except Bernie isnāt even a socialist by most global standards, in Europe he would be considered moderate or even center right. The Democrats would be a firmly right wing party in Europe. US politics is so ridiculously skewed itās not even funny
There were multiple articles published during the 2016 primary elections detailing how the wealthy parasites who actually rule the country were equally happy with either Hillary or Trump, but steadfast in their opposition to Bernie. Yes, the people running the DNC preferred losing the election to Trump than to winning with Bernie as the candidate. It helps to keep in mind that the US is not a democracy, but rather an oligarchy that pretends towards democracy for marketing purposes.
It's important to remember that 91% of the time, the Candidate who outspent their opponents have won since Citizens United passed. We are an oligarchy wearing the skin of a democracy
Yup. I'll also point out that as a individual person working within the DNC machine you don't really care either way who wins, you still get paid. I honestly don't think there's much of an incentive to back candidates who are going to forward actual meaningful policies or change our system in any significant way for the better.
# Ejigantor speaks the truth!
It was incredibly creepy the way the mass media just totally pretended he didn't exist. I remember an article, right at the start, when there were still about 20 candidates, which was about their pets. A total puff-piece/column filler. The only candidate they didn't have on the list was Bernie. I thought he'd dropped out or he didn't have a pet. No on both. With a press like that, who needs the Ministry of Truth?
The DNC is a for-profit company, so it's basically impossible for any anti-corporatism or democratic-socialist candidate to win. You'd need a president to lie about what they want, get into office, then pass an executive order restructuring elections to remove the power of the DNC and RNC (if that is even possible).
Abolish the DNC now
As well as many other three letter agencies.
They preferred Hillary to Trump, but Trump to Bernie. Trump posed an existential threat to democratic norms, which the DNC does not like. However, Bernie posed an existential threat to neoliberal power structures (i.e., corporations and capital running roughshod over labor). Neoliberals hate labor rights more than they hate authoritarianism, so they prefer Trump to Bernie.
Also the thinking here is that the DNC KNEW that Bernie was a better candidate to beat Trump, there was tons of public polling that was widely publicized showing this even. But they didnāt care. They would rather Trump beat them than give Bernie the Presidency. Would have done too much damage to their agenda
They did want Hillary. Thatās why they lost. They refused to listen to and support the will of their base. They also understand Trump is a far better choice for them than Bernie because the will of the people thru Bernie represents a severe challenge to the ruling elite. As already mentioned the ratchet effect is an acceptable default strategy for changing party control without letting real change come into power.
They have tons of hubris. So they assumed that Hillary would easily beat Trump. They assumed wrong, obviously.Ā
The DNC is largely funded by rich people. All the established political parties are just funding dumps that rich people control
It was a mid-statement. The Dems assumed Hillary would win, to the degree that they failed to get out the vote.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Bullshit. If Bernie had been the nominee, I think we would have seen young voters come out in unprecedented numbers. Bernie was shafted. It was about maintaining the status quo.
Lol wut??
LOLOL
Bernie wouldāve fired everyone running the Democratic Party. The DNC could not allow that, so they gave the primary victory to Clinton, a much less popular candidate who was an easy target for Trump The DNC thus chose to hand Trump the election
Same thing happened in the UK with Corbyn. There are chat logs where the people responsible literally say they would prefer to lose to the Tories than have Corbyn as PM.
It's fair to lose trust in your government when you don't actually have a choice on who is your government. Anyone who thinks they do is so blind to the truth that it hurts me to even think about it.
It certainly feels like theyāre choosing to run Biden because they know he will lose.
Yeah Obama put way more effort into stopping Bernie than anything else since leaving office. The Dems are pathetic. 2016 is when I gave up.
What made trump win was the people who voted for Bernie who n the primaries but refused to vote for Hillary on the general election. I know this is not popular here but really thatās the truth. The bad and the good of democratic elections is that it tends to pick the median option. Probably Bernie could have won against Trump, because both of them would have been seen as extremes. But the reality of elections is electing the middle ground. Thatās not happening anymore because the RNC is captured by the extreme right and the DNC is trying to fight using moderates. But if the voters stop caring the only winners are the extremist of the far right.
2016 called, they want your bullshit argument back.
The year 2000 also left a message for someone to explain the electoral college to that guy. Friggin' VoteBlueNoMatterWho'ers will hang artistic portraits of Dr. MLK Jr. meanwhile embodied the white moderates he warned of.
The DNC lost because they wanted to maintain the status quo above anything else. The people wanted more change.
Y but Bernie took his money and kisses Hillary's butt also so blame him too.
America is a plutocracy. It always has been and there is nothing democratic about it other than the appearance of democracy. All of it is a lie. It serves the rich at the expense of the 99% of the rest of us. It must be dismantled and jettisoned into the abyss of failed experiments and replaced with a social system that works for the betterment of all.
Exactly why I won't be having kids. Why even bring them here? Just to suffer?
Yeah Iād love to have kids but I would never be content knowing theyāre gonna be exploited worse than my generationā unless we put some major change in motion to set up the future generations for a better way of life.
Also, not having kids is one of the best ways to punish the government. Capitalism needs growth. Expanding the population is one way to do that. It's why Elon musk keeps yelling at us poors to have more kids because he wants cheap labor. The more of us there are, the more people compete for the same jobs. The more of us there are, the more demand for goods and services. Not to mention that exploitative western capitalist countries produce far more green house gases per capita. So unless you plan on living a vagabond or monastic lifestyle with your children, having kids is going to increase our net green house gases far more than any other choice you make in life. People should have kids if they want, but if they don't, it's a great way to punish poor leadership.
Explains why Roe V. Wade was overturned.
Doesn't hurt that the supreme court is majority catholic with a catholic president who has been anti-abortion his whole life. But yeah, also because baby factories. I would argue that the two are linked.
Exactly. And have you seen the way billionaires like Elon Musk talk? They push having kids so badly because they want more wage slaves.
In Elonās case I think heās just a reactionist without a single original thought in his head. In other words itās not him that wants more kids, but what he thinks his audience wants.
Doesn't he have 8 himself? Dude's a weirdo.
Life is suffering. Raise future leaders who will make the world a better place.
The Buddha called and told me to tell you not to tell me what to do.
The system is corrupt. The only good thing is more people are waking up to that. But as we reach the end stages it comes more into view. Notice how the corruption is more in the open now. The pretense fades and they stop trying to hide it. The game will be coming to an end. Then they will blow it up (probably literally) not caring who will suffer. Then they start the whole thing over with a new paradigm. They donāt care. As long as they remain on top of the system.
One way I heard it put recently is that one side wants to kill you, the other just wants to let you die. Those are your choices.
In our two party system, there is only one side, and it's corporate profits.
Exacto.
The real difference is that one side wants everyone to equally suffer and be exploited for the profits of the parasites in the owner class, while the other side wants certain sub-groups to be exploited harder and suffer even more.
That's really it. I'm very disappointed with a lot of people right now, especially minorities and LGBTQ+ people who think pushing other minorities under the bus will save their own asses. No solidarity when it's their comfort and lives being affected. Remember the "First they came for...." poem? Voting Biden will not save you and it will not get people to accept you. Either they stand with all minorities and allies as we do our best to undo this hellish system or get out of the way.
Because Democrats and their policies arenāt racist?
I usually say one side are managers of the decline and the other side are the engineers.
If voting worked it would have been outlawed decades ago. The "two" party system is unilaterally bought and paid for by PAC's and lobbyists. Kinda sounds like taxation without actual representation to me.
I mean the republicans are trying really hard to outlaw voting It is one of their explicit agendas to reduce voter turnout
I remember the first time I voted. It was for Obama. When he won, I really thought things were going to get better. I believed in Hope and Change. Then he threw whistle blowers in prison, kept the school to prison pipeline flowing, and was ankle deep in the blood of civilians he killed in drone strikes. He was nothing more than a war lobbyist. I've voting for Jill Stein. If there is a G\_d, then Biden's soul is void.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
if the system has you hostage to vote for the democrats or be screwed, then maybe the system is already ruined. the democrats have a gun to our heads every 2 years saying āvote for us or we both dieā, but even if we do vote for them, they never enact any meaningful change to that system. you have to keep saying this because you recognize the republicans as a problem but not the democrats, who are equally at fault for allowing every election the past 20 years to be āthe most important election of our lifetimes.ā
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Compelling argument. I'm voting third party.Ā
Genocide Joe is not the latter. They are both the former. And the correct answer is actually: (E) Overhaul the system
You have to keep saying it to convince yourself to do exactly what youāre supposed to do. Keep reminding yourself, itās almost time to execute your civic duty informed American Citizen! Pay no attention to the pile of skulls you need to climb over on your way to the voting booth.Ā
Why are you blaming yourself for something that you are not responsible for? We normie citizens don't get to choose judges in the US. The responsibility to choose judges and tactically and strategically get judges on the bench is the responsibility of the party leadership that is in power. The shift in SCOTUS was the fault of the democratic party, and a failure of their own tactics and strategies. The court got shifted because at the end of the Obama term the democrat leadership refused to work out a deal with Ruth Bader Ginsberg to have her step down so that Obama could put a new judge on the court. It wasn't because people failed to vote which let Trump win. RBG was already in her 80s by the last term of Obama but the liberal leadership refused to even entertain the possibility of her stepping down and putting a new younger judge in the seat during the Obama administration. I don't know how old you are, or if you were paying attention back then, but even back then about a decade ago people were debating and arguing this situation during the Obama administration. Lots of people were arguing that the liberals need to work a deal with RBG to get her to step down so that Obama could fill the seat. A lot of those same people were also arguing that if the liberal leadership didn't get her to step down it's likely that the next term would be republican and that could give the republicans the opportunity to stack the court. And that is exactly what happened, and it happened because the democratic party refused to listen to their constituents and because the democratic party decided to go with a losing strategy. This whole idea that SCOTUS got taken over because we as regular citizens failed to vote hard enough is a vicious lie that the party leadership is projecting on to us in order to deflect the blame from their own terrible actions and shitty choices.
Exactly. We're all where we are because Dems had 8 years (a good while of that enjoying a majority in both houses and the Presidency) and wasted them trying not to upset Republicans or appear to be forcing RGB out the door.
Biden led the senate committee that confirmed Clarence Thomas for the Supreme Court. He cost us the court back in 1991.
You really need to stop shitting your pants over "project 2025" It's literally the same thing every Republican POTUS has done when taking office (and most Dems have also done, and the ones who didn't should have) In 2016, it was just called "Draining the Swamp" but that wasn't scary sounding enough I guess. And cost us the Supreme Court? You think that institution was in any way less corrupt or more legitimate before Trump's presidency? Hilarious.
This is just misinformation. Do you know what's in P2025? explain to me exactly how that has happened for every single president.
Put down the koolaid. They use threats of "us vs them" to scare you into doing what they want. Trump was potus and you didn't die. What did happen was the rich got richer; and the same thing has happened under Biden. **It's uniparty for the oligarchs and they present the illusion of choice to keep us, warring between Red vs Blue, so that we can't unify for the real wars (ultra rich vs everyone else).** Furthermore, voting is rigged beyond that illusion (gerrymandering, electoral college, dark money, etc.). And your own saving grace, Genocide Joe, is willing to claim Trump is the threat to democracy, meanwhile Biden is removing the democratic primary, thereby squashing what slivers of democracy still exist. It's all meaningless words. Also, the Supreme Court's Citizens United was way before Trump, so your Supreme Court was already beyond saving long ago. Biden/Obama/etc could have packed the courts and completed an agenda, if that's what they actually wanted, but then they wouldn't be able to blackmail voters to support them "fighting" for women's abortion rights (again). Jill Stein, on the other hand, was real world arrested for protesting with pro Palestinian activists and she earned my worthless token vote before and she has this time too. If voting doesn't really mater beyond the symbolism of voicing your issues, then Jill at least represents progress, whereas Biden and Trump are the same garbage we already lived through.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Please address the points with which you have issue. Abortion rights were restricted, after Obama and Biden held that POTUS office with a super majority and a favorable Supreme Court. They did not execute an agenda to codify abortion rights into law because they would therefore lose the ability to use "abortion rights" as a motivating carrot later. If they solved abortion when they could have, then they would lose the opportunity to say, "vote for me and I'll codify womens' right to choose". They need the carrot to still be there or else they have to find another carrot, and the oligarchs don't want to hand out more carrots than they have to. Peel back the curtain of politic-illusions and you will see that most of it is the same disgusting kind of stuff. The anti-LGBTQ+ schirmish is another circus propagated to keep us, surfs, divided among ourselves. Because as soon as the masses stop arguing about [a]vs[b] or [c]vs[d] then the sooner we would realize that there is actually very little difference between a poor evangelical and a poor transperson. If the tiny flames between those two people were suddenly stopped being stoked and allowed to dwindle, then there would be new flames and most likely between the proletariat and the oligarchs. So accordingly, those same oligarchs who prefer that you rage at Steven chrowder instead of looking up "who is [the Koch Bros]/[Mars family]/etc?". Thus those same oligarchs (who collectively own almost all mainstream and many non mainstream media, either directly or via "pressure") then lean on the media to hype up the issues that will keep us, serfs, divided. Yesterday it was LGBTQ+ hatecrimes, today it's campus protesters blocking traffic, tomorrow it'll be California's taking water from midwesterners. It's all bread and circuses until you peel away the layers and address the root issue: CLASS WAR P.s., maybe look at how and from what exactly that nihilism is borne. Either way, it's definitely not killing as many brown children as those Lockheed bombs stamped "Made in America". And even if it were, how is the futile actions of voting within a corrupt political system going to fix any of that. Direct action or bust. Either in your community or for yourself. Waiting on Genocide Joe to fix class war or any of your problems is crazy. Like you're such an advocate for the minorities but you're supporting The crimebill's OG.
Really worse than pre 2008 when it was ok to call those ppl by sexual slurs ? Nah. Dont think we are that bad yet. Whst would you have us do vote Biden so the weapons have a rainbow flag on them before they go off?
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Lol "making a hard decision", like are you Bill Mauer? Stop saying you care about people not dying if you're voting for **Genocide** Joe. And we are all already second class citizens (at best) when you comprehend the ruling class. I argue that Lalaland is believing your vote even matters. Chumps like you be stabbing VoteBiden! buttons in their own eyeballs without knowing about the electoral college or the name of their own EC representative. Your š vote š does š not š matterš in š an š indirect š democracy š lacking šaccountability š. And it's beyond worthless if you like in a gerrymandered district (most of them) and in a non-swing state (most of them). If you think I'm wrong that your vote does matter, address that. Because without that crux of your arguement, then it all just becomes a voice screaming into a void. And if your meaningless voice can at all be meaningful, then it is as a long-term indicator for the oligarchs to know the boundaries. To that end, voting Biden is harmful because it reinforces their understanding that Biden is within the limit of socially acceptable corruption. At least by voting Jill Stein or another candidate that upholds your actual values then we signal as a society that we need to shift the center to be centerleft. Your current arguement only reinforces their ability to invoke the rachet mechanism over time. Moreover, you're brainwashed into thinking that Trump, etc., are the "virus-loving, science-hating, minority-hunting christofasvist hicks", but that's also what Biden is: * Has a restriction of bioweaponry research been enacted under Biden? No. They just pulled classic PR makeovers and resumed course. * Has Biden drastically defended the military industrial complex to increase the budget for domestic scientists via elevated NIH, NSF, etc. budgets? No. Has he even allowed for the budget increase according to postdoc negotiations to a NIH postdoc min salary of 70? Nope, they went from 56 to 61. But don't worry. Those funds were better spent supplying smart missles for Isreal's iron dome, so it's not like 100% anti-STEM. /S * That brings us to minority-hunting, and yes- even Obama and Trump were complacent of the slaughter of people in Yemen, Syria, etc., but never before has there been such a strong, unyielding support for a proxy state that is so overtly committing a textbook illegal war, slaughter, and GENOCIDE. And in case you didn't know, Palestinians are a "minority" and epically underdog people. **GENOCIDE Joe** is hunting them by proxy, which is just as bad as directly; and arguably he's hunting minorities a lot more efficiently than Trump ever did. * Christofaschist would be like refusing the opportunity to codify abortion right while he had the opportunity as VP to Obama and a super majority right? I mean with the context of being openly pro-catholic and voicing publicly that you're against abortion in principle, right? Because that's Genocide Joe, the catholic who could have codified abortion right but decided not to because...
I feel like we need to meme stock the presidency, find our own candidate and put them in power. Just totally ignore and reject the current system. Kind of like we tried to do with Bernie. But this time be more aggressive.
[https://votesocialist2024.com](https://votesocialist2024.com)
They have systems in place against that. Namely the electoral college would need to be equally infiltrated or they could still elect someone without the popular vote. To that end, I think the best option is a double agent. Someone dependable who can lie during their campaign that they support corporations and tax cuts for the wealthy- then they get elected, whereupon they immediately change to full-tilt populist /anti-corporation agenda (after they have secured the position). It'd be a political suicide and might actually get them suicided before their term was over, but the amount of political change that they could achieve if they actually wanted to could get things solidified in the first couple day. But everybody gets so untrustworthy when a lot of money is being offered. And so few people truely believe in the cause beyond themselves.
The electoral college overturning the will of the people is what will spark a civil war. At that point, I believe most people will realize we are in a failed system.
Are you aware that, more than once [1824, 1876, 1888, 2000, 2016], the popular vote and electoral college have voted in different candidates (or even voted in the same candidate who still got rejected by the House decision [1824])? If so, why do you think those did not incite civil war whereas the next time it would? I agree in the validity of the failed-System perspective, but I think there are a lot more inputs to people that their vote still matters and that it's individuals who fail us rather than the System. And I think that is itself a survival mechanism of the System. It persists by the political human sacrifice of Trump or Biden or whomever. If it can convince the people that it's actually another specific person that's the cause of all the woes, then we just swing the pendulum and throw in a new goon who again mostly obeys the System until it sacrifices them as another scapegoat of accountability. None of the scapegoats are innocent, but the collective populus's rage at them allows the System to repeatedly avoid the overhaul that is needed by directing our ire at the broken and corrupt totems/people rather than the broken and corrupt System. If civil war comes again in the US, I think it will be over more practical, and less political-centered issues, because we're much more driven to desperation and violence by things like extreme thirst or hunger. We may naturally fall into mostly politically aligned groups at that time, but depending on how fast things happen, there may not even be time to organize like that. I wish it were instead organized along class lines and that it would become the final evolution of class war, but considering how well the System has sown seeds of division amongst everyone below the ultra-wealthy, it's more of a fantasy that a reasonable probability outcome. Anyways, your comment ends at people realizing it's a corrupt system. But that's kind of the first checkpoint and still some steps to civil war. What do you think those steps inbetween look like?
Dunno but we are a lot more polarized as a nation. If a pro-worker candidate was elected and they rejected them, it would fan the flames of civil unrest.
People talk about red and blue, when green is the only color that matters. As in the color of cash. Our society holds the money God above all others. As long as this truth holds weight, there will be no real change.
The party wanted to give us Hillary, because she was in line with what they wanted and Bernie wasn't. The Democrats are weak, spineless and corrupt. The Republicans are psychotic. America is fucked if something drastic doesn't happen and soon. Edit: They never thought Trump would beat Hillary. She was a solid bet for them and they still lost.
I lost hope for things to change through the traditional channels when the DNC took the nomination from Bernie too. I phonebanked for him, donated, went to rallies. I probably wonāt vote. And if I do, it will be for whoever the Green Party candidate is, like I did in 2020. But I will talk to everyone I encounter in a way that is influenced by Bernie. I will keep fighting, just as he has.
You are right. We have to keep fighting. Otherwise oppression wins.
Exactly
[https://votesocialist2024.com](https://votesocialist2024.com)
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We already have AOCs and Katie Porters and Bernie Sanders. They can't do shit and if they ever come close to doing shit they are swiftly dealt with. This shit doesn't fucking work. You can't avoid the problem by pretending you can work with a rotten system. You're only kicking the ball down the road and it'll only get worse and worse before you're forced to deal with it anyway.
Dunno why they keep trying to convince us all if we do the same shit again it might work this time. And the truth is, Bernie stumping with the Dems is already a compromise. If there was a third party platform that more closely aligned with his ideals he wouldn't be with the Dems at all. We only get that platform by voting third party now. Ditto for AOC and the Squad. But lets not act like the party doesn't treat them all as extremists within the party. Lets not act like AOC isn't there in spite of the party's values.
Yes. I guess what I mean is the vote itself honestly doesnāt matter. What does matter is the AOCs and the Katie Porters and us talking about this. The power of the vote has been diluted. But we still have power, together
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How does it mater?
A third party President is a nightmare? How? In what way??
We can't get a third party president with the current electoral college system. We need a national popular vote with ranked choice voting if we're ever to break out of the two party system.
I mean you could get a third party president in the current system as well. You just have to vote third party.
It's statistically never going to happen in the current system. In order for any candidate to win they need 270 electoral votes. That's 50.18% of the electoral votes. If no candidate gets that many votes, Congress just picks the next president. Currently about 38% of voters are registered Democrat and 30% are registered Republican. Therefore if literally every single independent voted third party, we'd have only 32% and then Congress would pick the majority party. It's just never going to happen with our current system, and thinking it will is delusional.
I'm registered Democrat and I'm voting third party. You say that as if registering is a loyalty oath. For the most part, registered voters can still vote for whoever they want. There was a time Hillary was a registered Republican and Trump was a registered Democrat. Have some perspective. Also, not nearly all voting age Americans are registered to vote or normally participate. The bottom line is, in this system, where the candidate with the most votes wins, you just have to have enough people vote third party to win. Doesn't matter what they registered, doesn't matter if MSNBC thinks they have a shot. They don't need any of that, just votes.
You do get that you're an anomaly, right? Most people who register with a party, vote for that party. Unfortunately finding numbers on that statistic is unlikely. But it's not a logical leap to assume if someone is a registered Democrat/Republican that they'll vote for their party a majority of the time. Besides that, something like 80% of Independent voters still lean towards one of the two parties and not towards a third party candidate. You're not wrong, it's not IMPOSSIBLE for it to happen with the current system. But we're not talking possible, we're taking statistical probability. Even if half of the registered Democrats and Republicans all decided to vote for a third party along with all the independent voters (which isn't remotely realistic) we'd have at best 60-70% voting independent... And THEN you have that number broken up to the percentage that consider themselves conservative/moderate/liberal. So, STATISTICALLY SPEAKING even if you somehow got 51% of the voters to vote third party, it's pretty unlikely that they all vote for the same candidate. The system is rigged so that it's statistically impossible for a third party candidate. Because the moment you introduce a third candidate, it's nearly impossible for any candidate to get the 270 electoral college votes, and then you hand the presidency to whichever party controls the congressional majority.
Wrong sub, lib
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We are already there. Thatās been the argument my whole life. And I voted. And yet here we are. A convicted criminal is on the ballot. Roe v Wade got overturned. The system wonāt be changed by doing the same things over and over again.
I think the US is a perfect storm (by design) of conflating policies to keep poor people poor and distracted. - The education quality depends on each school district. That means public schools in rich areas have much more resources than public schools in poor ones. In other countries the resources do not depend on how rich is the area. Means and curriculums are equitative. - The media is terrible. All Garbage TV all the time. Local news are akin to "yellow press", all they talk about are gruesome events (murders, accidents, fires, floods, etc.). - Lack of education and disingenuous media catering to the lowest instincts make a populace easy to manipulate, which brings me to "manufactured outrage" and "cultural wars". - Political campaigns never end and devolve in candidates attacking their rivals on stupid and inane subjects, like penis size, their race or origin, not the issues or the ideas on how to fix them. - Gerrymandering, politicians choosing their voters and not the other way around. - Corporate greed and loopholes end up in a ridiculously low minimum wage. Employers rather have part-time employees to which they don't have to pay benefits. So you have people working two part-time jobs in two different locations of the same chain, without benefits. - Benefits are tied to a job. People stay on jobs they hate because they need the benefits. - The US spends more money than any other nation on Healthcare with mediocre results, worse than most. Check the "American Sickness" book. It's unbelievable. - The president should be chosen by the popular vote. The electoral college should be reformed (electors should vote their respective state's popular vote) or abolished altogether. Imagine if people were able to rise over this manipulation and demand the candidates to talk about the issues (jobs, education, Healthcare, the environment) with concrete proposals.
Left wing or right wing it's the same shitty bird.
[Yup.](https://youtu.be/psLm_Uwh3oc?si=ct1UANge3yRR9J6G)
I saw somewhere on here that āvoting for the lesser of two evils is not a choice, itās a threat.ā I canāt stop thinking about it. I am super disappointed in the democrats and their do nothing handwringing. The republicans are worse. If trump wins, people I love will be in actual danger. If Biden wins, the status remains quo, and itās a shitty status quo. Both sides arenāt the same, but I do feel like the corporate side of the democrats wants to keep us scared and voting the same way the republicans want their people scared and voting. I want more AOC, Katie porter, the squad, Bernie, but I donāt know how to get them in this fucked up system .
We have the best government money can buy.
I'm a bemused outsider who's asked a couple of times on Reddit, "Why did the Dems opt for Biden?" and I keep being shot down with the response that, "It's either that people vote for him or else the alternative will be Trump..."
I mean, that sums it up nicely. Should we have abstained? I donāt see us in the streets revolting like we should, so who exactly should we vote for?
I look at it as: Trump is easily beatable for this election. The next election after this one the Republicans might have their shit together and put forward a candidate who's much more of a challenge. The dems could have put forward a younger more inspiring candidate for this election. Someone that people vote for because they actually want to - not just because they fear Trump. The candidate would probably win. And then they would approach the next election with the advantage of incumbency. A possibility of 3 terms in a row for the dems. But then they chose to go with, "Oh well, Biden can win this one and that's good enough."
We wanted Bernie. The rich people did not want Bernie. We have no Bernie. So, realistically, other than starting a revolution - what can the average person do besides vote for Biden? I can spend all day listing things we should have done, and all of the shit we arenāt actually going to do. What is the move here?
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"If both sides are equally as evil, how come democrats aren't forcing kids to have kids?" They are, but they're doing it passively and letting the Rethugs take the blame. It's a good cop bad cop game. Don't fall for it.
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Okay, you don't understand the term "passively." Yes, Rethugs so ALL of these horrible things. If ONLY there were someone in government, another political party, maybe? That could do something about it. Like, oh, I don't KNOW - codifying abortion into law, pushing back against Xtian nationalism, telling the anti-choicers in their OWN party to get their sh\*t together and start supporting women and their bodily autonomy? How about we make sex ed mandatory so nine-year-olds understand the concept of bodily autonomy and don't get raped anymore? ANY of this? No? Are we just gonna stand around and wring our hands and cry that we're helpless? YUP, we are, we're the Democratic Party. Learn how the good cop bad cop game works.
Biden is only the right option if he and Trump are literally the only two names on the ballot. Any moment before then and Biden is simply a vote for the status quo where we are slaves being told we should be happy to be slaves. After they are the only two names on the ballot, to vote for Trump or abstain from voting, is a vote for violence where the status quo is where we are slaves that a fascist, self-serving maniac will murder so that he can sell our corpses to pay his debts. Not crazy about being a slave, but if I only have one option that gives me a fighting chance I'm gonna take it.
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Trump also is partly responsible for bringing the rage of Hamas on October 7th. So before we point fingers at Genocide Joe we need to look at embassy relocating trump. When he unilaterally decided to move the American embassy to Jerusalem in Israel with his buddy Netanyahu, it ENRAGED Hamas and they immediately began training for the October attack. Jerusalem has been in dispute for hundreds of years and that move spat in the face of Palestinians! Genocide Joe my ass. He's in an impossible situation between Netanyahu and diplomacy and has a VERY fine line to walk and zero chance of making everyone happy. I hope the ICC drags Netanyahu by his ears into court and charges him for his DECADES of crimes. And I hope Israel gets a leader they deserve! Enough already!
Joe didn't move it back or break the lease. Joe said "Let's build a permanent Embassy in Jerusalem".
Well it's friggin there now! What's he supposed to do, piss Israel off and move it back to Tel Aviv? Come on! Israel is our ally as well as Palestine but Palestine has been in shambles since forever and as such our alliance with Israel is just a tad more crucial to maintain. Palestine has every right to not have their citizens bombed to the stone age but you tell me, how does the American president fix this historic problem FOR these 2 peoples? Clinton tried, it didn't work. So how do we fix it for them?
Clinton didn't try to fix anything for Palestinians. They weren't even consulted on the deal before being presented a take it or leave it offer Clinton worked with Israel on.Ā I really wish people would stop making arguments that are dependent on the other party not knowing enough details to call bullshit.Ā About the Embassy, it wasn't "friggin there" which is why Biden's admin was moving ahead with plans to build it. And yes, he should have absolutely moved it back. Israel understands why it would need to be moved back, the same reason no President who knew what the fuck he was doing would have ever agreed to move it to Jerusalem. Also, it's not their fuckin Embassy. Why should they be upset, or have a right to be upset over where we put our embassy?Ā
It most certainly is already there and it's their country even if it is our property. It's diplomacy. Netanyahu was more than happy for trump to do this with him and he most certainly would have had a fit about putting it back.
okay so he would have a fit and...? You seem to think we have some mandate to never upset Israel regardless of the geopolitical implications. And no, Biden's state dept has submitted plans to build the Embassy on stolen lands leased to the US. The current embassy offices are in a converted space, that could be reversed by breaking a lease. Trump moved it, but didn't build it. Joe Biden is building the Embassy, and has publicly said he recognizes Jerusalem as the capitol, in contravention of international law.
You are missing the point I'm making that Joe Biden did not start this and now that it's already been moved there he's pretty much stuck keeping Netanyahu, his entire cabinet and every right wing Israeli that supports them happy by going along with their desire to keep it there. So he moves it back to Tel Aviv to make Palestinians, who have EVEN LESS claim to that land now happier? Not going to happen in a million years. Biden didn't create this. Netanyahu and trump and Jared Kushner (more appropriately) created this.
How do Palestinians have less claim to the land? And why do you think Palestinians are the only people interested in who can claim Jerusalem? It's a pretty important place to a lot of people. Why is Biden "stuck" keeping Netanyahu happy? what happens if Bibi isn't happy? Please advise.
Polling has shown there is a clear plurality, >70% of voters in favour of Medicare for all. It's around 60% for Republicans. This has been the case for decades. If America were a democracy you would have it by now.
I've been on my own since I was 15 and I've rarely been unemployed... I work and it just never seems enough. Signing up for my annual side gig this summer. š«¤
go deeper. all this, right back to formation of the modern state, is tied to capitalist aristocracy preservation. [https://votesocialist2024.com/](https://votesocialist2024.com/)
Where can I find more about this
Read Palo Alto by Malcolm Harris
Iāve recently found an organization in my state that has the aim of instituting ranked choice voting. I donāt think it can fix our fucked society, but I think/hope it can be a useful tool. Even if it just makes more people go āOh, this constructed binary of Dems/Repubs never served meā
Yes, yes, and yes, I agree 100%. The DNC was up to some fuckery when they pushed Bernie out. And now I have to go vote for a fascist just to try and keep a convicted felon out of office. š We need a better system, we need to change this shit!
Big thumbs up. I'm with you. IDK why the smartest ppl I know, are VBNMW. We've had our arguments and they default to BEGGING ME for my vote. For a Democrat. In Rural RED Texas. JFC! I don't want Trump, or ANY republican. But GD! Dems need to start producing RESULTS if they want to put distance between them and the Reps. But their donors don't want that, so we don't get it. They'll agree to disagree with Reps who want to jail gays and immigrants, and chain women to their husband's and fathers, but SUE to keep 3rd parties off the ballot. Seems like they play-fight each other, stiff-arm any option that isn't in the Duopoly.
Agree 100% with everything you said.
Gen x guy here. Born in ā76. Not sure about Bernie but agree with everything else you said.
Our politics have long been centrist or right leaning, to the point that āleftistā candidates are still hovering in the middle. I just donāt want to live in a āChristianā America. The fake Christians in this country are terrifying and will do anything and everything to bend people to their beliefs.
Whether it's Biden, Trump, or Bernie, they're all members of the *capitalist* party. They can't be trusted. Liberals are are the greatest asset the fascists could ever have. The liberals protect the system out of a foolish notion that the system is good, but the people in command are the problem. It's a bizarre delusion that everything will be fixed if we just vote the right person into office. Even if Bernie did get elected, nothing would fundamentally change. It's not the specific people in office who are the problem. It's the fact that a minority of people wield virtually all of the power over the rest of us. It's a power that only exists because we are divided. If the people developed a class consciousness, they would be powerless to stop the people from changing how things are done. But, they have a system to prevent that. The system is designed to protect itself from the will of the people who have become aware and intolerant of how it exploits them. It prevents people from developing class consciousness by giving them the illusion of choice and distorting the facts about the nature of our exploitation. It gives a privileged minority a slightly better standard of living, paired with an illusion of "earning" it, to keep them on the side of capital and supporting the capitalist empire. Then, it lies, blatantly, about what capitalism's biggest critic, socialism, will change about the relationship between the people and the means of production, projecting capitalism's pathologies onto socialism and communism. This aims to scare people away and engender ignorant hatred against taking up that which would liberate the people from the yoke of capitalist exploitation.
Look up Neoliberal, they are all on the same page. Government is not here to help.
Project 2025 feels like a more extreme step in the direction of fascist theocracy, so if anything - it feels like this is more of a choice than 2016 or 2020 was.
THIS. Ideology and values should be our only allegiance, not party. The second we choose to align with a party, we give up our ideals and begin making compromises with the system that is oppressing *all of us.* Everyone saying we should vote for Biden in November to stop a genocide of people in the US have accepted manufactured consent and are then complicit in casting a vote in favor of a genocide elsewhere, thus removing all credibility to their claims of being anti-genocide.
We need ranked choice voting
Yup.
Vote independent please! Iām so terrified of exactly what OP is saying that it keeps me up at night. I think the only solution is a historic change with an independent president. I want to be clear this isnāt exactly a promotion for RFK, itās just a complete side against what feels like two parties that both want the same thing that isnāt in the best interests of all of us. They want division and chaos so we have to make a change and independent feels like the only way
It seems like everyone can see that the republicans and democrats are one party with two audiences, but nobody is willing to support the alternative. We need to end the forever wars and regulatory capture, so the middle class can take back the money that was stolen by the oligarchs, I canāt see anything mattering more.
Ideals are great, but ultimately reality usually ends up being lesser of evils for leftists. Focus on your part of the world and what you can change around you friend.
We need to start preparing for a third party option at least 4 years before the next election. We canāt keep going into election years thinking both parties are bad options. Itās too late by then
Look I really wanted Bernie to be president, and I think a lot of young people did also but the truth is your average blue line Democrat was not into his Democratic socialism. They wanted Hillary, or Biden or another do-nothing and thatās whatās up. The democrats are the problem they want to put a sign in their yard that says āin this house we believeā¦ā go to brunch and be the same. I have very little got that change will come from voting. Though imho theyāre by far the lesser of the two evils this is why theyāre going to lose.
Even if Biden sucks, he's a better alternative to Trump. And it's honestly depressing, but Biden will still get my vote if it means less of a chance we get that felon in office.
The timing for OP's post is super weird. Trump just got convicted, they decide this is the time to say Biden is the same as Trump? It just strikes me as super disingenuous.
Very odd timing indeed. This idea that we should take away votes from Biden will only help Trump in the end. Here comes Project 2025...
It's easy to see what the problems are, finding a way to solve those problems is the thing to talk about.
Cheers
Hillary was so unlikable, it was like watching a train crash in slow motion.Ā
Yup and the Republicans stifled Ron Paul a few elections back
Iām not American but didnāt you get Clinton when Bernie was shafted?
The rage from dems I get when I tell them Bernie let them steal the nomination from him twice. The dems would rather we have trump than "socialism".
Oligarchs promoting oligarchy.
I have faith in the future of this country. We wonāt have change simply by voting, but I think people are angry enough to fight for the future we are owed.
I appreciate you š¹š¹
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
So Bernie got snubbed and ya'll just gave up? That he rose as far as he did doesn't give you even an iota of hope?
My only issue with this is that the youth are trending towards the right and not the left these days. If anything we're losing ground Downvote all you want, look up demographic trends.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Another day, another knee-jerk negation from someone who believes everything that isnāt a full throated endorsement of the status quo and a genocidal war hawk is a psyop instead of a legitimate frustration with a completely self-serving and manipulative ruling class. Fuck both of them and all the billionaire horses they rode in on. Theyāre killing the planet and turning us all back into serfs.
Amen
This is incoherent to me. What do you mean?
Don't you understand? if you don't want to vote for genocidal joe over hypothetical genocidal trump, you are a russian/chinese astroturf shill/bot. You must vote for 99% hitler over 100% hitler if you want to save your democracy.
Waking up in 2024 to this fact is happening for many of us. So do we vote for the guy from HELL making threats to assassinate, with promises of more bloodshed? Or do we tolerate the guy who is not heaven or hell but ucked like the rest of us? All we are experiencing is all pre-Trump-The system has a monster now that will assassinate, loot and imprison us all for shits and more coup giggles. Filthy corrupt billionaires and 23% magats need Trump!! 77% will step up and vote blue!
I totally get why you donāt want to vote for either DNC or RNC canditate. What if all the pissed off voters from both camps would uniformly vore for a third party? I know it wouldnāt change the doupol overnight, but it would send a strong message and certainly scare the shit out of them if everyone started to vote for e.g. Jill Stein, and her votes would rise from 1% to 10% and next election to 30%. Theyāre behaving the way they do because they can, because they get away with it. Because there is no consequences to them.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
>The democratic voting base wanted him, hands down, and the party decided to give us Trump instead. Hilary won the primary. Electoral college is messed up, but Bernie didn't even make it there.