Americans of Lemmy, what is your approach to next year's election?

2020 was… truly unique. It was so hard to stay away from doom scrolling, and I (and many others) were pretty disillusioned by the sad fact that so much of our country legitimately supported the Orange Man. I didn’t get a wink of sleep the night of the election because I genuinely considered it to be a make or break decision for America.

My point is that looking back on it, in the end the only real difference I made was at the ballet box. This year I’m going for the Head-in-the-Sand approach. I’m done with the political memes. Done with the Twitter screenshots. It just riles me up and this year I’m gonna do my best to fight that.

MedicPigBabySaver,

Unless he dies, I’m voting Biden. I don’t like him, but, best option.

Truly hoping Cheeto chimp gets thrown in jail and disqualified.

I’ve tried to avoid news well before anyway.

Joker,

If Trump is the Republican nominee I would vote for Biden even if he was dead.

popcap200,

Truueee

PeleSpirit,

Honestly, which one of the other candidates would you vote for in Trump’s stead? All of them suck and kiss trump’s ass.

Joker,

None of them this time around. Christie is a moderate, but he will be out pretty soon. I’m surprised he’s hung on this long, although I’m happy that he has because he and Hutchinson are the only ones with the guts to tell the truth about Trump. Hutchinson hasn’t been polling high enough to be in the debates, but at least he’s on the sidelines saying Trump is trash.

Out of the declared candidates, my preference would probably be Christie or Haley as the nominee. I still wouldn’t vote for them, but they would be better than the others if the Republicans somehow win.

Overall, it’s a pretty piss poor field on both sides. If Biden was 15 years younger I would consider it a pretty solid ticket.

I hope Antony Blinken eventually runs. For me, he’s the brightest star in a pretty solid administration. Best Secretary of State in decades.

PeleSpirit,

I realize you said this, but I still have to clarify what a dumpster fire that whole field is on that side.

I still wouldn’t vote for them, but they would be better than the others if the Republicans somehow win.

Christie is as petty as trump, he held up ambulances and shit to get back at someone. He also let his employees take the blame for him for that. He shut down a beach and decided it was a good idea to take himself and his family to his own private beach. The only reason he stands up to trump is because he wasn’t picked as trump’s vp. He’s a POS, imo.

Haley seems to still have ties to russia: abcnews.go.com/…/haley-us-forces-align-countries-… I knew she did, but she still does too. Plus, she’s a woman, there’s no way in hell she’ll get enough votes.

I don’t know anything about Blinken, I’ll look into it.

dingus,

He may be as petty as Trump, but at least he has never planned a coup to overthrow the freaking government. A Republican willing to call out Trump for his bullshit is better than those that continue to lick his asshole imo. Sure it’s a low bar to meet and Christie has a whole other bag of problems, but sadly most don’t seem to get to that bar.

Ashyr,

Christie only did that because there’s literally no other way to make himself stand out from other Republicans.

prole,

Christie is a piece of shit. Ask anyone alive in Jersey during his tenure. Fuck that guy, he should be in fucking prison. There are people literally serving time behind some shit he did.

Joker,

Just goes to show how bad the rest of the field is when he’s the voice of reason on the debate stage.

OceanSoap,

Haley is literally a war monger. She stated she wanted us to get into 3 active wars, with China, Russia and Iran.

You would vote for the candidate who is most likely to start WW3???

Joker,

No. I said I would not vote for her, although I view her as less problematic than Trump, Ramaswamy and DeSantis. It’s a terrible field. I mean, you’ve got a fascist, a racist and whatever the hell kind of nutcase Ramaswamy is. It’s hard to get on a stage with DeSantis and be the bigger asshole. Haley is none of those things so that’s a start. One of these people has to be the nominee.

atlasraven31,

Can I write in McCain?

PeleSpirit,

Sure, if you want to waste time and vote as if you didn’t vote at all.

atlasraven31,

That’s how it typically goes.

hellweaver666,
@hellweaver666@discuss.tchncs.de avatar

youtu.be/KGmXGkIr7w0?si=xKOceCuPEXa3Mvt2

scrubbles,
@scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.tech avatar

best take. Dems don’t follow Biden religiously. He’s just better than the godawful alternatives that are on the otherside.

I will stay informed on the issues, but unless the GOP does a 180 on about most of their platform I’m kinda forced to vote Dem (Stop denying climate change, stop trying to de-humanize LGBTQ, stop the culture war shit, come up with a real gun control plan, those would be a start). Hooray 2 party system.

I just turn off the news now, all sources are meant to keep us angry in an “us vs them” situation and never really talk about the real issues, so instead of it just flare up my anxiety and anger I’m just going to keep my headphones on and play games. Someone ping me if suddenly the GOP decides to be pro-humanity again and I need to reconsider my vote.

paddirn,

I hate that I’ve been forced into this same position, I always thought I was open-minded and didn’t follow parties, but when the choice is a literal fascist trying to tear American democracy apart with the worst takes on every position and a generic semi-left-leaning politician trying to maintain the status quo… I guess I’ll just stick with generic status quo, that’s pretty much the only rational choice for a sane individual. Even just sitting out the election isn’t an ethical choice, that’s surrendering to fascism.

Nollij,

If he were to die after the ballots are set but before the election, it effectively becomes a vote for his running mate. Still getting my vote over the dollar-store fuhrer.

FoundTheVegan,
@FoundTheVegan@kbin.social avatar

It's not a question of policy. Republicans literally killed people last election trying to overthrow democracy.

Not that I even like democrats, but anyone who votes red after Jan 6th is fundamentally an enemy of democracy.

PowerCrazy,

This sham democracy that you fervently support kills people everyday.

lukini,
@lukini@beehaw.org avatar

Ok, so what’s your solution? Vote third party? Don’t vote? Both of those help the republicans.

Protest or something similar? Sure, but the election is still happening.

PowerCrazy,

Voting is the least you can do, so I will choose to vote against Capitalists and not for genocide. If you can’t even do that bare minimum, you don’t deserve democracy.

TheFriar,

…what anti-capitalist do you think you’re voting into office?

PowerCrazy,

The PSL candidate.

DarkGamer,
@DarkGamer@kbin.social avatar

The Party for Socialism and Liberation (PSL) is a communist party in the United States. PSL was established in 2004 and claims to be active in a wide range of social movements. PSL describes its primary goal as the overthrow of capitalism and the institution of socialism.

Yeah, that sounds viable. 🙄

starbreaker,
@starbreaker@kbin.social avatar

PSL are a bunch of losers. They can't even win local elections, let alone put any of their people in state or Federal offices.

PowerCrazy,

I’d be happy to vote for someone better who isn’t pro-capitalist and pro-genocide, who do you suggest?

starbreaker,
@starbreaker@kbin.social avatar

How about you vote for yourself? Who else can you trust to represent you if not yourself?

PowerCrazy,

It’s a bit cliche and a little too individualistic for what is supposed to be literally rule by the people, so I’ll gladly embrace the democratic ideal of voting for the organization I think will not support genocide and is not capitalist. After all it is literally the least anyone can do.

starbreaker,
@starbreaker@kbin.social avatar

Meh. It's your vote. And it doesn't really matter anyway.

ilinamorato,

It also happens to be where I live. Doing nothing doesn’t help anything.

PowerCrazy,

Agreed. So don’t vote to make things slightly less worse, vote to make things better!

ilinamorato,

If we used just about anything but FPTP, absolutely. But as I see it, if I want to have any hope of being able to vote to make things better next time, I have to vote to just make things slightly less worse this time.

Perfect is the enemy of the good, and the GOP is the enemy of both.

But hey, if you see it differently, I don’t see any reason we can’t be friends. I just disagree.

TheImpressiveX,
@TheImpressiveX@lemmy.ml avatar

It can be easy to feel like a drop of water in a large ocean when it comes to national elections. But you should also vote in your county and state elections; you can probably make more of a difference there.

I’m not saying “don’t vote in the national election”, but just know that there are other elections to vote in, and thry are just as important as the nationals.

TheAlbatross,

Yah I can vote for the red mayor who wants more cops or the blue mayor who wants more cops. Freedom rings!

conditional_soup,

Unless you’re in a big big city, mayoral and council races can actually have a lot of diversity in terms of political outlooks. Never forget that a town elected a dog as mayor. Nobody that pure would ever make it to federal office.

TheAlbatross,

There certainly are places like that. I’d vote for a dog over any of our candidates in the last local election. Or anyone running on banning the damn roadside signs. Alternatively, the candidates themselves have to pluck them out from along the highway on ramps and whatever other places they’ve been planted the night of the election and before the morning light.

Our local election was bupkis. The red one won because the blue one won last time and nothing changed and people are still unhappy. The mayoral race prior went about the same way, but the blue one won because the red one in the office did nothing differently and no one was happy.

PowerCrazy,

You understand that “voting for a dog” for mayor is just Conservatism right? You know make the government small enough to drown in a bathtub, Reagan etc?

conditional_soup,

I was trying to use a funny example to illustrate the point that a lot more things are possible at the local level than the federal level, particularly in terms of electing a candidate with more diverse political alignment. Anyway, most of the time when an animal wins a mayorship, it’s in an unincorporated area where mayor is more of an honorary title than an actual political position. The point is that local races are still worth voting and participating in.

xmunk,

Vermont, my former residence, has a republican governor that’s been repeatedly reelected who the country at large considers a RINO. Non-federal level parties may differ significantly from their national stances.

It’s actually the same in BC, Canada where I emigrated… the BC Liberals were partially anti-choice and deeply religious (so closer to the CPC than LPC), as such they recently rebranded to “BC Unity Party”… did they check that their new name didn’t acronym to BCUP? No, they did not.

Hobart_the_GoKart,

There’s so many acronyms here my head is spinning

redballooon,

One of them also wants to ban books.

AOCapitulator,
@AOCapitulator@hexbear.net avatar

I-was-saying

argo_yamato,

Voting straight Democrat. The republican party is the biggest threat to the US right now.

BennyHill500,

maybe-later-kiddo

Captainvaqina,

deleted_by_author

    •
    PosadistPotatofish,

    That commenter is from Hexbear. There’s no way they support Trump.

    CarbonScored,

    This is the argument every single election. Every time, for decades, and yet things get continually worse.

    I’d argue the belief that voting for an establishment party is any kind of a long-term solution is the biggest threat. By all means do it if it’ll help a little in the short term, but the ship’s still sinking.

    Semi-Hemi-Demigod,
    @Semi-Hemi-Demigod@kbin.social avatar

    Short term is all anyone cares about, from government to corporations to individuals. Which is why I only give this country another 50 years, tops.

    furrious09,

    While I agree in my dislike for the current Republican Party, the attitude of blindly voting for your team because the other is evil is exactly what my (late) fox-addicted grandfather used to uphold. I loved the man, but I think we ought to do better and do the hard work of researching every candidate and choosing the best, be it democrat, republican, or independent.

    RecursiveParadox,
    @RecursiveParadox@lemmy.world avatar

    Gave you and upvote to get you back off zero and agree with your general sentiment.

    But - the elections since Trump took the ROC convention have all been different - we must get rid of all the R’s we can no matter what at the local, state and national level as soon as possible now that the have proven to be an existential threat to democracy itself.

    PowerCrazy,

    American Democracy is fucked. It needs to go away.

    arefx,

    Well I won’t be voting for the fascist party…

    PP_BOY_,
    @PP_BOY_@lemmy.world avatar

    Ah, a third party supporter I see

    gravitas_deficiency,

    Fuck off.

    We don’t like that we are only allowed to have two choices.

    The problem is that a moderately small number of people and corporations who combined have more money than god have decided it’s a great idea to execute regulatory capture of the entire US government.

    I just hope guillotine season starts before the world catches on fire.

    thecrotch,

    We don’t like that we are only allowed to have two choices.

    You chose it and chastised someone for telling you to stop choosing it lmao

    gravitas_deficiency,

    Do you genuinely think that the population of the United States likes only having two neoliberal political parties that have been able to get laws enacted that make it effectively impossible for any 3rd political party to exist in an effective fashion?

    Pull your head out of your ass.

    thecrotch,

    I think they keep voting for it, so if they don’t like it they must be pretty fucking stupid.

    able to get laws enacted

    What laws have they passed that force you to vote A or B?

    mjhelto,

    Tell me you don’t know how FPtP voting systems work by not telling me you don’t know how FPtP voting works. Please read up on it and the “spoiler effect.”

    Any vote for a third party is a vote against your preferred candidate. It happens with any first-past-the-post voting and two parties is the eventual end result. Eventually multiple parties get eliminated by voters who don’t want their vote to go to waste.

    thecrotch,

    it’s FFtP that does that. It’s your attitude that does that. You’d rather throw your hands up and whine about the situation than make even a tiny effort to change it.

    mjhelto, (edited )

    Wtf are you talking about? Who said anything about not wanting or trying to change it? But voting third party will do nothing but fuck yourself and the party you’d rather have in power. No one with less than a 7-digit bank account wants to vote for one of two parties. We do what we must today for a chance to do what we want tomorrow. To do otherwise is either disingenuous, uninformed, selfish.

    The US almost dropped the electoral college in the last decade. Back at that time we had a moderately functioning govt, higher taxes on the rich, and less money in politics.

    That’s why I say it won’t change now. It’s even more impossible than the last time we failed to make it happen.

    thecrotch,

    No one with less than a 7-digit bank account wants to vote for one of two parties

    Then stop doing it dumbass and stop encouraging other people to do it

    mjhelto,

    It’s clear you’re trolling or your reading comprehension is subpar. Either way, I don’t have time for either.

    thecrotch,

    You literally have a choice, you make a choice that you don’t like and then whine that you had no choice. It’s clear you’re either trolling or have a pretty severe victimization fetish.

    emergencyfood,

    It happens with any first-past-the-post voting and two parties is the eventual end result.

    39 parties are represented in my country’s Parliament. The UK has 10, Canada and Russia 5 each. Electoral systems like FPTP that produce a single winner tend to favour a two-party system (Duverger’s law), but it is not inevitable.

    PosadistPotatofish,

    Which one? The Democratic Party has been supporting genocide. It’s well past time we recognized that the Democratic Party and the Republican Party are both fascist and reject them accordingly.

    TheFriar, (edited )

    I get the concept. I do. And I wrestle with the notion myself, as I’m an anarchist (you and I don’t agree on a few things, lemmygrad friend).

    But I don’t subscribe to the notion that not voting as a principled abstainer is a righteous act…I don’t think. Because I do agree, of course. The democrats are capitalist, war-mongering shitheels. They aren’t “good” or just or righteous by any stretch of the imagination. They destroy the environment and will kill us if we challenge the status quo of lte stage consumer capitalism. I have no illusions about this.

    But doing nothing in the face of a Republican Party that is hellbent on wiping trans people from the face of the earth, strapping us all to the whipping chair until they can establish a Christofascist nightmare in which we are all beaten into straight, white submission is…not a heroic act. Because, yeah, the democrats support Israel, they are neoliberal capitalist pigs. They boost police budgets whenever they can, they take obscene amounts of money from special interests and work for them, not for us. But the republicans do all the same shit PLUS hating trans and gay people and pass laws that make it so they can lock you away for protesting and they are clearly more “business friendly” because they can be open about it while the democrats have to do slightly less because their rhetoric and their base don’t approve like Republican voters do.

    My point is, there are two terrible options. Yes, we are in agreement. And yes, electoralism is bullshit, incrementalism will get us nowhere. But hierarchy is bullshit. Capitalism is bullshit. These things will exist until some insanely devastating event upturns the way the world has run for a long time.

    Not voting won’t change these realities. VOTING won’t change them. But all the people that are hurt by an emboldened xenophobe and vicious bigot WILL be hurt. Actual, measurable hurt. PLUS the Palestinian people you’re basing your position on will continue to be killed. Because the US supports Israel. Not the democrats or republicans, but the US.

    Not voting against a party that is openly using REAL LIFE fascist methods and speech so you can maintain your perceived purity isn’t noble.

    We can all hate capitalism. But we’re stuck with it right now. We can all hate electoralism. But we’re stuck with it right now. Capitalism kills way more people than the genocide currently happening in Palestine. But you’re way more involved with it than you would be in electoralism by casting one vote.

    These things are truths right now. You’d do a lot more good (or at least contribute A LOT less hurt) by abstaining from capitalism than you would abstaining from electoralism. We can all be principled. But all-or-nothing-ism that is rampant on “the left” (read: in modern people with principles and humanity and half a brain) isn’t noble because it helps. It’s perceived as noble because you can say, “pfft. I didn’t _____.” You’re not helping anymore but yourself.

    Engage in praxis. Fight for your beliefs. But when your abstinence will be weaponized by insanely powerful and horrible people, and leveraged against minority groups, your “purity” is nothing but self-aggrandizement.

    Not voting against anti-trans Christian fascist bigots is a huge show of privilege.

    frauddogg, (edited )
    @frauddogg@lemmygrad.ml avatar

    Amerika as an empire deserves to die. I will not pencil-whip your colonizers or genociders without them giving up said colonialism and genocide first, and verifiably, long-term at that. I will not stand alongside that and tarnish my community’s history misleading that way; and I don’t care how many people try to couch it in “but what about your (white) countrymen?!”

    If they cosign the Democrat Party’s genocides, if they back the colonizing invaders, then fuck them. They are emphatically not my ‘countrymen’, especially not my allies, and can only be seen as weak links that deserve to go with the nation in the same fire.

    We may as well be two entirely different nations at this point with how much enmity I see in your party of colonizers.

    TheFriar,

    Lol you really didn’t read what I said, huh?

    frauddogg, (edited )
    @frauddogg@lemmygrad.ml avatar

    On Stoke, as soon as you wanted to play the “not voting for the blue genociders is an act of privilege” horseshit like every other aggrieved liberal cracker I’ve had the misfortune of knowing, I stopped caring what you had to say. You’re just another opp to me seein that-- because not a single peckerwood that’s ever run the play you’re running right now, where you try to act like you’re ragging on the Democrat party while still stumping for them, not one has ever been able to sell that shit. That’s disingenuous to me, just as disingenuous as the Republicans who go token-fishing to find minorities to weaponize.

    TheFriar,

    Nah, man. I’m just an adult. I have my principles. And casting a single vote, I’m still sure what my principles are. And they don’t align with the Democratic Party.

    But while there are two harmful options, one is significantly more harmful to populations of people whose very existence is apparently up for debate, friends of mine who I see struggle every day—also anarchist, but transgender (…who have also decided to give up a little of their pride in their stringent ideals in order to not be made illegal or to keep younger trans kids from suffering the way they did growing up in the 90s/early 2000s), opened my eyes to the urgency of the situation for them.

    I didn’t vote for Hillary Clinton. Obama didn’t get my vote either time. But I did vote for joe Biden. I didn’t love it. But I did it. It didn’t take too long, and I continued living my principles. I didn’t burst into flames.

    I’ve voted third party most of my life. And I’ve wavered on this as I’ve gone through my life. I make a judgement call when I can. But I started reading anarchist literature young. Like I said, I came of age under late Clinton/bush II. So my radicalization happened early. And my proactivity in my beliefs has come and gone. But my principles have stayed the same. I dunno how old you are, but honestly, I’m assuming you’re kinda young based on the way you speak. I was cooking for FNB and burning American flags and spray painting banks and paint bombing Lockheed Martin longer than you seem to have been alive.

    I think of my taking a few minutes to cast a ballot against a genuine fascist movement like harm reduction in drug addiction. I don’t support drug addiction, but I do want to help those at the mercy of the worst of it. Drug addiction is horrible. Our electoralism is horrible. I don’t want to support either. But there is a little I can do to reduce the harm to most vulnerable victims of both.

    I’m secure enough in my beliefs and can still be a full-fledged anarchist doing my praxis and casting a vote. My beliefs aren’t so flimsy that I need to PROVE TO EVERYONE IM ABOVE IT. I’ve been there. I can still see the problems inherent in our system while casting a vote. I can still hate capitalism while working and spending money. It’s not the system we want. My beliefs are lived through my praxis and my sense of what I believe. Not by what I DONT do. Electoralism will still exist if you vote or not. Not participating in the vote doesn’t do shit to electoralism. You not voting won’t help the Palestinians. My voting won’t help them either, as we both agree. But there are people in my direct vicinity and in my life and in this country that I MIGHT have the off-chance of keeping from harm by sacrificing my own sense of “purity as an anarchist.” The electoral system doesn’t live nor die by my vote. To think that way is beyond self-centered.

    gravitas_deficiency,

    I’m voting for the most progressive candidate possible in the primary, and then whoever’s not the Republican in the general, and I fully intend to do that for the rest of my life.

    The Republican Party has some plans they’re putting together, and between that and the rhetoric that most major Republican politicians and candidates spout these days (very specifically including Trump), it’s abundantly clear they’ve more or less completely given up on democracy, and are planning on dismantling a significant proportion of the core institutions of our country and government, which will effectively usher in the American Empire (as in: a possibly theocratic, but definitely authoritarian and likely outright fascist dictatorship). To be clear: that would be a Very Bad Thing. You think Russia is troublesome now? Wait until Trump or someone similar starts treating them like an ally, emulating as much of Putin’s power structure as possible just because they think it’s cool and would make them look powerful, and potentially teaming up to do shitty things to the rest of the world because we have something like 95% of the nuclear weapons ever produced, and while Russian ones are in a questionable state, ours definitely work.

    If Republicans win this next election - and especially if they are able to secure the presidency and both houses of Congress - I genuinely don’t think things will recover without significant domestic political violence, which may ultimately result in a civil war. I’m doing my best to prepare for some “GTFO” contingencies that could be executed in the next few years, but it’s not an easy thing to do, and there’s still a huge number of unknowns in a ton of dimensions.

    If you think I’m being hyperbolic, you’re not paying attention.

    agamemnonymous,

    Oh hey look, it’s the only rational voting strategy in a FPTP elective structure! Anyone who thinks different is just more evidence we need Civics back in our schools.

    TauZero,

    more evidence we need Civics back in our schools

    Maybe we need more math as well - have you heard of the Ultimatum Game? Sometimes the rational strategy is to reject unfair split offers, even if that makes it a guarantee that you both get nothing.

    SatanicNotMessianic,

    I’ve taught game theory. Voting isn’t the Ultimatum game, because the most a third party is going to do is shave off a few percentage points, resulting in the main party losing, resulting in the main party generally becoming more conservative. Look who ran after Reagan - the entire Democratic Party shifted right with the third way. Look who we ran after Trump.

    In voting the way it’s currently configured, there are two elements from game theory that apply. The first is minimax strategy - minimize the maximum damage your enemy can do. Above all that means keeping republicans out of office if you care about minimizing harm to women, minorities and immigrants, the poor, and the LGBT community.

    The second concept that applies is the BATNA - the best alternative to a negotiated agreement. If the negotiated agreement fails (we get a left democrat on the ballot) our next best alternative is to get a Democrat elected.

    We came within a hair’s breadth of not having another election, and at the very least we will be looking at a roll back of LGBT rights, a nationwide abortion ban, and a massive crackdown that will make sure they don’t lose any more elections.

    PowerCrazy,

    Not having another sham election sounds like a great outcome to me.

    agamemnonymous,

    Sounds great, but then the genie grants it and you don’t get any more elections, sham or otherwise. I’ll take the illusion of democracy over blatant mask-off fascism, personally.

    PowerCrazy,

    If you live in the “illusion of democracy” then the elections don’t matter in the first place, so we may as well forego the mask so taht even blind people like you can see it. And polite fascism is actually worse because then liberals like you will support it and chastise others for pointing out the emperor has no clothes.

    For example, do you know who started using drones to bomb civilians? Do you know who first started putting kids in cages? Because liberals like you think he was the greatest president to ever president, and you gleefully supported him since he was polite with his fascism.

    agamemnonymous,

    Lotta unsubstantiated assumptions about me there. Maybe reassess your own biases before offering analysis.

    PowerCrazy,

    I’m just making assumptions based on your own words.

    I’ll take the illusion of democracy over blatant mask-off fascism, personally.

    This is what liberals believe.

    agamemnonymous,

    It is what pragmatists believe. Some pragmatists are liberals, other pragmatists have other ideals. The coincidence of pragmatic results is not indicative of a coincidence of pre-pragmatic ideals. Your framework is too simplistic to be interesting or useful.

    PowerCrazy,

    Lol I’m sure pragmatcists(?) have a cohesive framework they all draw from, and I’m sure it is definitely different from the current Neo-liberal zeitgeist.

    agamemnonymous,

    Some people believe that stringent adherence to idealism is paramount, despite the material suffering of others implementation of that ideal causes. Other people have empathy, and are willing to analyze the actual consequences of political action independent of idealism, prioritizing actions which do tangible good over performative platitudes. Pragmatists fall in to the second camp, you certainly appear to fall into the first. The first are boring and impotent everywhere but their own minds.

    PowerCrazy,

    If you would rather support the illusion of democracy despite the material suffering it is currently causing, you just value the status-quo over all other concerns. People who value the status-quo over all other considerations have innately conservative and reactionary outlooks. Those people could also be described as polite fascists, i.e. liberals.

    agamemnonymous,

    And if you would rather support the dissolution of the democratic process despite the material suffering it will certainly cause, you just value your ideals over all other concerns. People who value ideals over all other considerations have innately Ineffective outlooks. They are useful tools that allow fascists to accumulate power.

    PowerCrazy,

    You said it yourself, you want the illusion of democracy, you don’t actually care that we do not live in a democracy. The Liberal must maintain the illusions or the cognitive dissonance makes them go mask off. Keep Calm and Carry on, and all that.

    And that is why events like this happen. truthout.org/…/schumer-slammed-for-speaking-at-pr…

    You aren’t upset that Schumer and Jeffries are supporting genocide, you are upset that they aren’t hiding it better, they aren’t maintaining the illusion. Well your comfort is leading to fascism while you criticize anyone who dares point it out.

    agamemnonymous,

    Sure, but your alternative is blatant support of genocide. It’s well and fine to say who ought to be in charge, but mathematically it’s one of two people. I agree that the options suck, but I will use the powers that I have in their proper places. Vote for the lesser evil, and advocate against evil entirely elsewhere. You act like liberal is worse than fascist.

    PowerCrazy,

    In a way it is. If someone is an out and out fascist, it’s easy to point at them and get people to stop supporting them, i.e. Trump. If someone is a polite fascist, i.e. liberal, then you will have thousands of people hand-wringing about lesser evils, and strategic voting, being a pragmatist, etc etc, meanwhile kids are still in cages. Guantanamo is still open, and torturing people. Unlimited funding for additional death and destruction around the world occurs, and all the polite liberal does is shrugs their shoulders. Because that stuff isn’t happening to them.

    The liberal is comfortable enough to attempt to stop that shit from happening to anyone, but they’d rather defend the status quo and criticize those who speak out.

    Stop voting for genocide, it’s literally the least you can do and it cost you nothing.

    agamemnonymous,

    Agree to disagree. I’m not content to let the bodies pile up to revolution levels, those lives are more than just metrics to spur on dissidence. People are still voting for Trump, obviously that strategy doesn’t even work even if it weren’t ghoulish. The logistics of keeping the evil hush-hush results in fewer bodies than out and out ethnic cleaning. I’m on the side of fewer bodies.

    TauZero,

    the most a third party is going to do is shave off a few percentage points, resulting in the main party losing

    If the third party can force the main party to lose, then it holds ultimatum power and game theory rules apply. The main party irrationally keeps rejecting the ultimatum and as a result keeps losing. To execute the threat of the ultimatum even after the unfair split has already been offered is the paradox of game theory. You have to appear credible enough to carry out such a threat, but the only reliable way to appear credible is to actually follow through on such threats every time.

    The Democratic party keeps losing and shifting right because it acts irrationally and fails to execute optimal game theory strategy. It could have offered the left a fair split and we could have all had guaranteed single-payer medical care, food, and housing, but instead none of us will have women’s rights, and the immigrants and gays among us will be herded into cages.

    SatanicNotMessianic,

    That is literally not how it works. That’s how people think it should work, but when you see that it doesn’t, you have to turn back and review your premises and your model. I know the way you think it should work and how you want it to work, but when it doesn’t work you need to revise.

    The problem is this - the feedback loop is insufficient and the correlation is unclear. If you are directly negotiating with someone, then you can play Ultimatum. If you are one of a hundred million people casting a vote for one person or another, you cannot. Perot cost Bush I the election, and Nader cost Kerry the election. Neither party decided that they needed to move in the direction of the spoiler candidate. They’re especially not going to do so for 3p candidates who pull in the low single digits, even if they lose by low single digits, because they’ll think they can get more by moving towards the center.

    You can vote however you want, but don’t base it on a theoretical foundation that has less than zero application to the scenario you’re modeling. It really, honestly is a minimax choice, and if you are truly an ally for those of us in marginalized communities, you have to recognize it.

    I’m not being a right winger here - I’m a member of the DSA and this is in line with what they (and people like Chomsky) advise. But I’m not talking about even that angle. I’m just talking minimax and BATNA. If negotiations fail (ie we didn’t get Bernie), the best alternative is Hillary. At least Roe wouldn’t have been overturned and we wouldn’t have states suing to make ten year olds give birth to their rapist’s babies.

    TauZero,

    So I am proposing that the Democratic party is acting irrationally and suboptimally, but you claim that the Democrats are acting most optimally, and it is the fringe left that is acting irrationally instead by refusing to accept a unfair split against all game theory guidance, causing all of us to eat shit (despite them making up only low single digits). Yet if the Democrats are so rational, how come they keep losing? Shouldn’t they have found an optimal strategy to get around the irrational ultimatum of the left? Yet here we are.

    SatanicNotMessianic,

    I do not mean this to come off as blunt as it sounds, but I’m trying to be both clear and concise.

    What you’re talking about is not how game theory works. What you’re doing is taking the most basic, highly abstracted representation of a generic idea and expecting it to correlate with reality. It’s the same thing people do when they ascribe some kind of wish fulfillment to the free market or to evolutionary dynamics. It’s not even a platonic ideal - it’s drawing a supply/demand curve and thinking you understand how prices work in a market economy. Here’s the main issues you’re running into when you try to play Ultimatum with something the size of the Democratic Party:

    1. Noise. There is a permanent base of 3-5% of the electorate that’s going to vote Green, or whatever. The protest voters almost never rise above that noise floor. Focus on a single (potentially complex) issue would help. Green rallies (and others) often have everything from antivax to prison reform to the environment to voting rights to BDS and BLM. All of those things (except the antivax) might be important, but there needs to be a central focus. IMO it’s voting rights - I’d love DSA to drop everything to just start suing states and protesting for voting rights, because everything else is lost without that. We can even both/and, as long as there’s a vision and a focus on a main first objective. Right now we’re coming off like a bunch of verses from We Didn’t Start the Fire. Ultimatum with multiplayer and a noise function is a completely different game.
    2. Feedback loop. The consequences for actions needs to be tightened up, and they need a wide base. There needs to be visible and constant representation out in front of both cameras and politicians. This can be people like the Squad or figures like Robert Reich, but there needs to be a uniform voice that doesn’t wait for the election cycle. Groups like Moms for Liberty have this kind of thing on lock. They have a brand and spokespersons and will host and endorse, or else attack on Fox News within hours of a political decision. They’re shit in every way, but they can work the machine. Ultimatum with a delayed feedback loop is a completely different game because the failure of the deal is less attributable.
    3. Solidarity and messaging. The majority of Americans want universal health care. The majority of Americans want green energy. The majority of Americans want a cease fire in Gaza. By spreading opinions across multiple realizations of this top level policy objectives, we dilute the message. Ultimatum requires identifiable players with identifiable agendas.

    We as voters aren’t playing Ultimatum. Instead, we are playing minimax as an emergent strategy to defend the rights of marginalized populations.

    TauZero,

    Thank you for your detailed input!

    It’s not even a platonic ideal - it’s drawing a supply/demand curve and thinking you understand how prices work in a market economy.

    You got me 😁. I love drawing supply-and-demand curves. Seems pretty hopeless then if to even begin to understand how to vote “correctly” you need 5 years of game theory PhD. Hearing someone say “just trust me bro, the optimal strategy is that one” is not good enough. Voting was supposed to be for the masses…

    drop everything to just start suing states and protesting for voting rights

    I could get onboard with ranked-choice voting. My city used IRV for our latest mayoral primary election, and even though none of my ranked candidates won, I felt extremely satisfied that at least my voice was finally being heard. When a literal police-mayor got elected (winning primary by only 7000 votes), I had the comfort of full knowledge that this was not due to any spoiler effect on my part, but solely simply due to more people voting for him. If we’d campaign for ranked-choice voting in federal elections - presidential primaries and general - we can eliminate all the above hand-wringing. The Democratic party should be totally on board with this since they could finally get the Green protest vote.

    frauddogg,
    @frauddogg@lemmygrad.ml avatar

    Sometimes the rational strategy is to reject unfair split offers, even if that makes it a guarantee that you both get nothing.

    Yup. Mutually assured destruction: either the malfeasant and murderous can get right and start fixing what they’ve ruined, or I don’t have a single issue becoming a lead weight around the country’s neck. Ain’t like this country hasn’t tried to kill me by cop more than once anyway, I have no reason to want to see this awful joke of an empire perpetuate.

    6daemonbag,

    Is there a neutral review of project 2025 that you can point to? That site is ass and either points to a book you can buy or a thousand links to PDFs.

    gravitas_deficiency,

    Please define “neutral review” in this context.

    The whole thing is unrepentantly and deeply biased, and it’s intentional.

    I don’t know if this matches your definition of “neutral”, but it must be said that “neutral” is not synonymous with “unbiased”.

    6daemonbag,

    Yes I meant unbiased, but I was unsure if even using that word would be taken the wrong way. I don’t want to be taken as a centrist or anything like that, because I’m not even close.

    I just want a flat clinical review of what it says versus what it actually means without clickbait sensationalism. It is plainly bad, that much is obvious. But what are the real-life, bureaucratic implications of its potential execution?

    Thanks for the link, I’ll definitely check it out.

    PowerCrazy,

    The Constitution needs to be rewritten anyway and we are overdue, preserving the status quo is enabling American fascism.

    snoopfrog,

    I’m going to complain about not having a primary option for president, vote for the left-most person I can in the primary, and then vote down-ballot (D) in November. There’s nothing I need to research with respect to these modern conservatives. Most democrats aren’t really much better in most ways, but at least I can look my marginalized friends and colleagues in the eye after the election.

    ReplicantBatty,

    Yeah pretty much this. Not much point to me following the political discourse and all that, all it’ll do is just make me angry and depressed.

    SandbagTiara2816,

    I like the Green Party’s eco-socialism, but their anti-vaccine lunacy and inability to do anything electorally beyond run a presidential candidate every four years doesn’t give me the warm fuzzies.

    I like Cornel West, and I appreciate his long-standing commitment to left-wing and anti-racist values.

    That said, I live in the real world, where Donald Trump is running as an open fascist promising to make America a dictatorship if elected, and Joe Biden is the only candidate running with a realistic chance of beating him.

    So I’ll be voting for every Democrat I possibly can, while wishing they were better than they are, as always.

    glingorfel,

    Joe Biden is also an open fascist who is proudly facitating a genocide and ethnic cleansing

    Rawdogg,

    You won’t find an American president that doesn’t support Israel, you were close with bernie.

    OprahsedCreature,

    Because if there’s nothing else you can count on an American president for, it’s them being a standard-bearer for ethics.

    GiddyGap,

    In 2016, I was an Independent. Straight down the middle. Would consider reasonable Democrats, Republicans, and 3rd party candidates.

    In 2020, I was an Independent leaning Democratic. Would not consider Trump. Biden was locked in. Would hesitantly consider reasonable Republicans or Independents on a split ticket.

    In 2024, I’m a Democrat. Will only consider Democrats up and down the ballot. No 3rd parties.

    xkforce,

    I dont think republicans have been reasonable on the whole at any point in my lifetime. Even Mccain was questionable and he was the best the republicans had.

    GiddyGap,

    Imo, there used to be a few reasonable individual Republican candidates here and there. But now they litmus test into these insane issues and they don’t adapt when things change in society. They just dig in their heels and start mud-slinging. I’m not even bothering with them anymore.

    axont,

    Do you live somewhere where voting for Democrats even matters?

    LENINSGHOSTFACEKILLA,

    Its the US so…no.

    criitz,

    Blue no matter who. Nothing has changed about that.

    davefischer,
    @davefischer@beehaw.org avatar

    I think leftists ranting about not voting for Biden in the general election at the moment are just blowing off steam, and when election day comes, everyone on the left will remember 2016 and vote blue.

    DharmaCurious,
    @DharmaCurious@startrek.website avatar

    I absolutely will not. Vote blue no matter who is why we have the situation we have. 2016 did not give us trump. Generations of shitty corporate politicians on both sides of the aisle gave us Donald Trump. Populists win because they’re popular, and trump got popular by pointing out the factual information that the house, the Senate, and the oval office are filled with corporate skills and corrupt puppets. Sadly, it was the fascist who got popular pointing it out, but it doesn’t make that part of what he says untrue.

    I live in a red state where my vote for federal office does not count. So I will cast my pointless protest vote for the green party in the hopes that one day they’ll get their 5%, and maybe something can change. Down ballot I’ll hold my nose and vote for the Democrat in most offices, and if I ever move to a competitive state, I’ll do the same for federal, because I’m being held hostage by the corporate shills, and I’d rather my family not die in concentration camps that are inevitably coming if/when the fascists fully take power.

    But no. Fuck blue no matter who. Who. Fucking. Matters. If it didn’t, we wouldn’t be in this mess. Have some standards.

    criitz,

    But what are we supposed to do? We can vote for Trump instead or no-one instead. How does that make anything better? We agree there needs to be change, but we still have no real option here.

    Hexadecimalkink,

    Hilary Clinton in the 2016 election had supported Trump in the primaries because she thought noone would vote for that idiot. The Democrat Party apparatus will support worse than Trump in the future if they think it will help their chances of winning. You don’t want to wait another 4 years for change 🤷‍♂️

    phillaholic,

    Don’t care. I don’t want to hear their BS. Apathy is the enemy. Re-elect Biden, then go out and yell at him for whatever the hell you want. The alternative is never being able to vote again. Not hyperbole. Republicans are actively trying to change the rules to disregard your votes.

    mjhelto,

    Yeah I’m so tired of seeing this, “both sides,” bullshit. One party is openly flirting with fascism, the other is a turd sandwich. It really is a shame, and quite frankly alarming, so many don’t understand what is happening and what is at stake. Even if you hate them, vote for the party that will at least give you the opportunity to vote in future elections.

    First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a socialist.

    Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a trade unionist.

    Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a Jew.

    Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.

    There are so many that don’t know the horrors of that war and the brutality of the Nazis. We are doomed if they continue this ignorant rhetoric.

    phillaholic,

    Yes I don’t know how many are bad faith actors posing as liberals or what. You’d think losing Row would have been the wake up call, and looking at the last couple years of elections it has, so I’m hoping it just that. Otherwise the constitutional originalists are going to turn back the clock to only rich white land owners having the real right to vote before all is said and done.

    PowerCrazy,

    I remember what the “blue team” did in 2016 by forcing an unelectable shit candidate upon us. So I will never vote for them again.

    LemmyIsFantastic,

    Vote DNC and hate it.

    taiyang,

    Oh, who told you the 2024 campaign slogan?

    Joker,

    I’ve voted for both Democrats and Republicans in the past. Frankly, neither one of them deserves too much power.

    If Trump is the nominee I’m voting for the other candidate no matter who that is. There is no circumstance in which I would vote for Trump. The devil himself could be running against Trump and I would either vote for the devil or abstain. If he is the nominee then the election is essentially a fight for democracy.

    Although I generally like Biden’s administration, I am concerned about him and his age. If there was a normal candidate running against him I would consider voting for them, but it’s mostly a bunch of wackadoos on the Republican side.

    Chris Christie and Nikki Haley were the only ones in the last Republican debate who had any common sense. Christie’s campaign isn’t going anywhere because he’s anti-Trump. Haley is too conservative for my liking. Ramaswamy and DeSantis are garbage humans. The Republicans need a reboot because they really suck.

    In other words, I’m team blue - not because I’m thrilled with them but because I’m afraid of the alternative.

    scrubbles,
    @scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.tech avatar

    Spot on friend. Trumpers look at us and think we like Biden as much as they like Trump. Noooope. There were way better candidates. If anything the Dems are the party of the status quo and republicans are the party of “Fuck anyone who isn’t rich, white, and male”. I’d love an actual progressive party - I don’t see anything that the democrats have done in the last 8 years that has actually been progressive.

    Name-Not-Applicable,
    @Name-Not-Applicable@kbin.social avatar

    The Republicans need a reboot

    That sums it up. I’m conservative, but the GOP is such a train wreck now I just can’t support them.

    furrious09,

    I’m on the same page. The republicans need some feedback that what they’re doing isn’t going to win elections. Unfortunately I think it will take losing several more elections to sink in.

    NutWrench,
    @NutWrench@lemmy.ml avatar

    Right now, the choices are between boring corporatists and 100% concentrated evil. It’s not that hard a choice.

    Kuori,
    @Kuori@hexbear.net avatar

    the boring corporatists are fully backing a genocide rn

    not really seeing how that doesn’t qualify as 100% concentrated evil

    dangblingus,

    Every single US president has backed Israel. Trump was the one that actually moved the embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

    OprahsedCreature,

    “Every president has backed this genocidal state. Why try to stop the trend now?”

    Count042,

    Backing genocide and not telling Israel to stop bombing, as even Republican presidents like Reagan have done, takes Biden from ‘the lesser of two evils’ to just evil. I won’t support genocide.

    I won’t be shamed for not supporting genocide either. That’s on the Democratic party and Biden.

    TheBroodian,

    I think they’re saying that the not-hard-choice is to abstain

    Kuori,
    @Kuori@hexbear.net avatar

    think-about-it

    Adkml,

    Frankly I don’t think there much boring about the genocide the corporatist is enabling.

    Pulptastic,

    If you avoid everyone who supports Israel in this fight you won’t have anyone to vote for. I swear Israel is part of the national narrative on both sides and I don’t understand why.

    Volunteer and try to primary those old bastards out of office. The Squad is getting bigger every election.

    Adkml,

    If you avoid everyone who supports Israel in this fight you won’t have anyone to vote for.

    Yea I’m aware that’s why I’m writing in hunter Biden.

    After voting for people who explicitly said they dont care about my support only to be blamed for their failures I’m putting my foot down and not voting for anybody enabling a genocide.

    Don’t worry I live in upstate new york so unless I literally wad up my ballot and throw it at Biden so hard he dies my vote will have literally zero effect on the presidential race and I’m aware this is a very privellaged position to have.

    I’m also voting straight working families party in local elections which usually get about 80 votes and the working families party candidate is the same as the dems.

    LENINSGHOSTFACEKILLA,

    If you avoid everyone who supports Israel in this fight you won’t have anyone to vote for

    yes-chad

    frauddogg,
    @frauddogg@lemmygrad.ml avatar

    If you avoid everyone who supports Israel in this fight you won’t have anyone to vote for.

    Then I guess I’m not voting huh? I don’t support colonizers, genociders, or the intersection of the two.

    ilinamorato,

    Third Reich 100% glitchless speedrun (NO WARPS) vs a plate of room-temperature ketchup.

    makeasnek,
    @makeasnek@lemmy.ml avatar

    I see a lot of people here frustrated with our two party system. I too am frustrated. Donate to FairVote to get ranked choice on the ballot in more states. Ranked choice voting allows voters to express actual preferences between more than two parties and it is a win no matter who you normally vote for. Many states have a ballot measure system that can be used to pass legislation without requiring the agreement of the state legislature. Several US states have implemented ranked choice voting already. fairvote.org

    ASeriesOfPoorChoices,

    Preferential voting is a far superior system.

    For those unfamiliar, here’s an example:

    If you like a minor party, say, the Green party, hate another minor party, say, Libertarian, more than you hate the Republicans and would settle for Democrats if you had to, then your vote would look like:

    1. Green
    2. Democrat
    3. Republican
    4. Libertarian

    And if your (1) Green candidate didn’t have enough votes to win outright, and no-one else did either, then your vote would go to the (2) democrat, who has all the (1) democrat and (2) democrat votes added together. If the democrat didn’t have enough votes to win, then it would go to the Republican.

    This is simplified, but should be enough to give the idea of how your vote always matters, and allows a better variety of ideas to flourish.

    ALSO: post-election, say the democrats won, but only did because they got a lot of second round preferential votes from the Greens voters, that would help convince them that if they want to stay in power, they need to adopt more Green policies.

    If parties get elected with no help and just because the other option is orange meltdown, it does little to encourage improvement. All they have to be is better than the other side (who lies all the time anyway, making “better” appear more subjective than objective).

    How to help fix voting in the USA:

    • Preferential voting
    • Nonpartisan government body to create voting districts (remove Gerrymandering completely)
    • Fix the money: Caps on political donations. Full transparencies on all political donations and spending. Corporations aren’t people.
    • Standardised ballots
    • Disband the electoral college
    • Change the size of the house/senate

    Even some of the best countries’ voting methods are being constantly tweaked and improved. Nothing is perfect, but it’s an embarrassment how far behind the USA is.

    robocall,

    Vote against Republicans.

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