For anyone who needs to hear it, that’s not an excuse to not criticize whatever your side is.
Pre-election?
So many people talking about how they don’t care about who is elected next resounds of the remarkable privelage of someone who doesn’t need to care about the result. Like calling against “”" Blue MAGA"“” and “Vote Blue No Matter Who.”
I’m a trans person, who exactly are you asking me to vote for? Have you ever seen a republican politician. Describe to me which republican politician doesn’t want to take away the rights of trans people?
To you they may mean nothing, to me it’s everything and you CANNOT convince me by insulting me. The democrats wish to use people like me as a token, it’s degrading, digusting, and I hate them every step of the way. The republicans want me dead.
These two sides are different and if you wish for me to vote someone different get someone on stage who gives a shit about people like me and I’ll vote for them under any banner. Until then the future is looking pretty blue.
I’ve heard so called “liberal” media discuss and condemn Hassan Piker more than I’ve seen them discuss and condemn Trump and all his lackeys combined.
They’re the definition of controlled opposition.
This comment section right here is all the proof that there will be no salvation in November.
Every pig-ignorant savior is so absolutely certain that their ideologically pure solution is the only acceptable way to fix anything that everyone is going to cancel each other out and it’s just going to continue sliding towards the cliff edge.
Under NO circumstances attempt to learn ANY lessons from parliamentary coalitions who banded together to stop the hijacking of their governments by radical fascists despite sweeping policy disagreements. Everyone keep nitpicking every minute detail, make no compromises whatsoever no matter the costs, and make stupid, pointless, self-destructive, aggrandizing gestures so you can talk down to strangers on the internet, and enjoy the ride to hell.
Well this comment section is a fucking dumpster fire. I guess MAGA trolls are back on the menu, bois.
Idk for US politics but at least in France change came much faster from outside of the pseudo left party Democat equivalent (PS) rather than inside. By fast I mean 10+ years but still the leftist party that is in best place to win présidentiel election broke all links with the establishment and that how they won popular vote.
Yes, I’ve noticed. The electoralists have started their screeching as they do very two years. They’re like cicadas.
Its almost as if these posts are put up to be divisive, and to keep any opposition to the current right wing neoliberal order divided. Huh.
Vote Democrats if there is no progressive alternative. But always primary progressives in Democratic primaries.
The time to argue and complain about candidates is during the primaries. When a candidate for a party has been chosen you vote with the party. Out system is the way it is and no amount of protest votes are going to fix it. Do not vote 3rd party in the general election.
Im going to write in Hillary
This is the way, at least until we get rid of First Past the Post and other Ordinal voting systems.
Score, STAR, or Approval would all make primaries unnecessary, and also reward people for honestly voting their preferences. Which is sort of why there’s so much pushback against them.
Ending FPTP probably won’t necessarily solve the problem, as the German example shows.
Germany still uses Ordinal voting.
But yes, you also have about 20% of any given population that will openly choose the greatest evil.
But since the people benefitting from the current setup are the ones who’ll have to agree to change it and create the new system, there is absolutely no hope of ever peacefully ending the current status quo.
Except for the fact that pretty much every single progressive in Congress or on the ballot is in favor of some form of electoral reform.
But like you said, obviously nothing at all can be done, you know, besides voting for them.
I think you need to put more weight on their qualifier word “peacefully”.
Do you have enough guns to fight the US military? No? Well neither do I.
Which is why there are steps that must be followed. And right now those are peaceful protest and voting. Making sure everyone votes.
The time for violence is likely coming, but it has to be after the election. After Trump blatantly ignores the will of the people.
The violence in the street is already happening. The violence in the courtrooms is already happening. The violence in universities is already happening. The violence in the legislative chambers is already happening. The violence at the homes of resistant politicians is already happening. Roll over, if you must.
You sweet summer child, you think you know what violence is. You most certainly do not.
No revolution has ever succeeded without the aid of the military. If the left kicks of the violent resistance too early, the military will not side with us, and in fact will join in the hunting us down part of things.
That’s why we have to follow specific steps. First is peaceful protest. Second is voting.
Third is violence. And if we get steps one and two right, we might not have our homes bombed as we sleep.
Gentlemen may cry, “Peace, peace” - but there is no peace. The war is actually begun! The next gale that sweeps from the north will bring to our ears the clash of resounding arms! Our brethren are already in the field! Why stand we here idle? What is it that gentlemen wish? What would they have? Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!
And the people who actually control the party, decide what legislation gets a vote, and punish members who go against leadership will never allow it to happen, nor will they allow any of those progressive politicians to succeed them in their positions of power. Progressives are allowed on the party bcs they help keep the left flank in line, but they will never be allowed to hold any real power. That might threaten the Wall St donation gravy train, and the Third Way Foundation assholes who have a death grip on the power structures of the party will kill everyone on Earth before they give up that money.
Ah, defeatism. And basically telling other people to not even try.
I’d expect nothing less from .ml
Lol, the people insisting that continuing to do the exact thing that got is here is the only viable way to change things accusing others of defeatism will never stop being hilarious.
Now do the one where you pretend Democrats have passed a bill that helped the working class more than it helped Wall St any time in the last forty fucking years, that’s always a riot!
Did you vote for progressives in the primaries?
No? you just want to feel superior by representing the very meme at the top of the page? Sure. Just shut the fuck up until after the election because the rest of us need to be the adult in the room. The simple reality is that thanks to First Past the Post you have exactly two choices.
Pro-fascism or anti-fascism. If you refuse to make a choice, well guess what, thanks to FPtP, you’ve chosen pro-fascism. That’s the hell we live in.
If you tell others to not vote, then you’ve again chosen the pro-fascism side and are a piece of shit on top of it.
Somehow not defeatism: We have to vote for the democrats, dont you dare think a better world is possible
Did you vote for progressives in the primaries? Actually I don’t care, the primaries are over, you fuck with the dick you’ve got, not the one you wish you had.
Tankies won’t but the effort into voting but want to be perceived as serious to actually be marching in the streets.
They have some real criticism of the dem establishment, but no real perspective that they are surrendering office to fascism.
i get called a tankie all the time and i vote in every election from the municipal up.
the democrats are not a serious opposition party, many democrats in blue states are essentially just republicans who learned how to not openly say slurs in college (think people like seth moulton)
they squat on power and are not credible opponents to fascism, only to thier left do they actually put up a fight.
why would they? they have unlimited money and legions of people willing to debase themselves defending any incompetence out of pure team loyalty.
You missed the “vote progressive in the primaries” part
Nope. I spent a decade working my ass off to do that and worked my way up to being a paid campaign staffer for progressive candidates.
I suggest you do the same so that you can learn what I did: the people who control the levers of power in the party will allow progressives to be elected, it helps keep the left flank in line, but they will never allow progressives to have enough power to change the fundamental nature of the party as a machine that turns bribes into Wall St friendly legislation.
Lemmy users in socialism.ml actually define Putin as progressive (I wish I was joking)
EDIT: look at them all brigading me below. PUTIN SUCKS and North Korea is an authoritarian shithole!
Can you post a screenshot of this? It sounds believable, but I’d rather have concrete evidence.
Where? I would love to see one case of this happening.
I would show you, but mods deleted all my comments! Just criticize Putin, Stalin or Kim Jogn Un in the socialism.ml or memes.ml instance and you’ll instantly have -10 downvotes and probably a ban
That doesn’t make sense. We’re not looking for your comments.
He said he would like to see one case of this happening… a comment would demonstrate that
No, he said he would like to see an example of an .ml user calling Putin progressive. Are you drunk?
Could we please not resort to ad hominem attacks and insults, “Nonconfrontational”? This isn’t Reddit.
Logically, I don’t follow where that was specifically asked, but here’s a comment calling Putin’s Russia progressive: https://lemmy.ml/comment/27815508
lmao pointing out that the US has more people imprisoned than the USSR is not a mossad psyop
I am glad that people like you get banned
Its awesome how these people can just make up bullshit and never get punished on their instance.
I suppose thats a universal issue, but its still egregious.literally every time someone is like ‘woe is me the tankies got me, all i did was speak truth to power’ i look at the modlog and it’s them insulting people or being a reactionary
The only insult is your support of Putin and Stalin.
I’ve been banned for stating North Korea is an authoritarian shithole. Is that bullshit, in your opinion?
Considering what shows up in the modlog about you, and how you presented the same situation, I’m quite certain you werent just some uwu smol bean who merely said a country was authoritarian. You might have more succes talking about how unreasonable moderation is on specific instances, if you actually tell the truth about what happened.
That was not the comment I was banned for, and you know it.
80% of that figure weren’t imprisoned, they were on probation! Clearly misinformation when you look at the facts… that upsets Stalinists.
Have a sense of humor!
You got banned for repeatedly calling things you disagreed with a “mossad psyop” while completely failing to engage with any argument presented to you. You did not get banned for a specific comment, but for you behavior throughout the thread.
Well, to be fair, they’re a bunch of idiots. So… no need to take them any more serious than you would MAGA.
I love how you can just make shit up and libs eat it like slop, as long as its about someone they’re preconditioned to hate.
It really weakens your position too. Because people who aren’t familiar with the issue will see one side blatantly strawmanning and when they see the other side not mentioning that at all, they’ll just awesome the first side is full of shit. Even if their positions are corrects.
I find that .ml can sometimes be questionable, but yeah that sounds like a claim that needs evidence.
If they ever source their claims they always either point towards
- a singular incident by a new account
- someone saying something other than what they claim is being said
- someone who got banned for their reactionary tendencies
- a comment that got removed for its reactionary tendencies
Yeah, if its common there should be plenty of highly upvoted comments like that, and not just a meme/shitpost either.
Vote Blue No Matter Who 💙
I’m definitely not in a cult 😊
How’s that revolution coming along?
Yes, you are right, the alternative to not voting for a genocidal fascist is immediate revolution. Good little lib.
You’ve had over 100 years, so it’s just around the corner right?
I support voting jackass, just not for genocidal neoliberals and DSA entryists. I know this will be shocking to you, but we have leftist parties in my country.
Maybe you can form one as well? Is that too much to ask of Americans?
But you would support Russian and Chinese genocide of Ukrainians and Uyghurs, respectively.
Russia is doing war, not genocide. Ukraine was doing genocide in Donbass before Russia invaded. (And in the vein of “Jesus Fucking Christ I can’t believe it’s actually necessary to say this, but ShitLibs are so utterly illiterate as to make it necessary”: no, I don’t believe that’s the actual reason Russia invaded. Stopping that genocide was more of a happy accident.)
The only source for “Chinese Genocide of Uyghurs” is one right wing theocrat in Austria with a self-professed “mission from God to fight against Communism”. He does have CIA contacts, but he doesn’t read or speak a lick of Mandarin. Oh, and a few actual terrorists that the US found convenient to help destabilize China.
You can look up for yourself the video of Col Lawrence Wilkerson (US intelligence) addressing the Ron Paul Institute and laying out the entire playbook a few years before the accusations started.
Looks like tankies and bots are working overtime.
What an erudite rebuttal. You sure disproved what I said with the absolutely no information you provided.
I assume the fact that you didn’t actually address either point is due to the fact that you know what instead dnwas correct and you’re salty your cable news talking heads haven’t given you the right talking points to get around that?
Sure tankie. Here’s another 50c. Now go away and add that 50c to buy a plane ticket out of Russia before it becomes a Chinese vassal.
Yeah, you clearly don’t have any actual rebuttal. I’d guess that you know I’m right and it pisses you off, so you’re lashing out. But I really don’t care very much. If your next response doesn’t actually address anything I’ve said, then you can fuck off to the block list and everyone who reads this later can know for absolutely certain that you agree I’m right, you just hate that fact.
Lmao, do you actually think that “Uyghur genocide” means that China is carpet bombing Xinjiang 🤣
“Genocide” in China’s case means cultural genocide. It stands in for forced assimilation. China isn’t bombing every single school and hospital in Xinjiang and massacring hundreds of thousands of Uyghur people dumbass. And I don’t support the treatment of Uyghurs in China, nor do I support Ukraine’s invasion.
And this comment was really eye-opening. You American libs have made the word ‘genocide’ so fucking meaningless that you just throw it around for every single thing, including regular invasions. You didn’t watch the video I sent you of an actual genocide, did you?
The entirety of the Muslim world agrees that what China is doing is absolutely not genocide. Cultural or otherwise.
Okay I misunderstood your initial comment. I thought you were being one of those tankies.
Fix your brain man
Issue with that tactic is that it’s actively being used to justify Chuck Schumer’s “for every big city liberal we alienate, we will gain 3 to 4 hillbillies from the rural area” schtick, which is costing democrats elections and us (the world) the real progressive movement.
Just tell Schumer his shtick cost everyone two presidential elections.
He doesn’t care.
The Democratic leadership would rather lose to the right than win with the left. Because the leadership is far to the right of the base.
No, do NOT do this. This just gives a boundary to the left and none to the right of the Democratic Party.
Always vote for “progressives” (or ideally socialists) in the primary. If you’re in a red state, consider even voting and running in the GOP primary instead.
If your candidate loses the primary, VOTE AGAINST THE PARTY IN THE GENERAL. Make it apparent that they either move to the left, or they lose.
And - crucially - join and form organizations that publicly state they will do exactly this.
Learn from the past challenge
Difficulty: impossible
But why be partisan? Why not vote independently, after an earnest scrutiny of the candidates and issues, for the welfare of the people as a whole? It sounds good and it would be very nice if it would work. It would also be nice if pi were exactly 3.000 instead of a bothersome 3.14159 plus.
There are two reasons, one moral and one practical. The practical reason is this: You simply cannot be effective in politics unless you join in the process of compromise and conciliation whereby free men merge little groups into big groups until they accomplish a government. If you are not partisan you are on your own, everybody is out of step but Johnny, and the chances that you can have any effect on how this country is run are 140,000,000 to one against you.
–Robert A. Heinlein, Take Back Your Government
VOTE AGAINST THE PARTY IN THE GENERAL
No, no, and no. Shit like that is how we got Trump. Stupid protest votes are not what’s needed right now.
Does it suck? Yes. Do you just have to hold your nose and do it? Yes. But voting against things or not voting is what put us in this situation.
The primaries are the time to push things left.
Not just no but hellfuck no.
If you’re a safe vote for the party, there is no reason they should ever even consider what you want when deciding on policy.
The primaries are the time to push things left.
The General is the time to punish sliding right.
Protest votes are exactly what’s needed right now.
Shit like that is how we got Trump
This statement tells me that you still don’t understand why Trump was a viable candidate (remember, wannabe fascist strongmen have run in the Republican primary since forever. They didn’t used to get the time of day from GOP primary voters).
Shit like voting Blue No Matter Who even after the Clintons sold the party body and soul to Wall St is how we got Trump. Ending Welfare as we know it is how we got Trump. Running on codifying Roe and abandoning the idea before the inauguration party hangovers have cleared is how we got Trump. Refusing to prosecute torture under Bush II and extending the Bush Tax Cuts is how we got Trump. Passing “insurance reform” that didn’t create a public option and did give private health insurance corps 5 consecutive quarters of record profits is how we got Trump. Using Ukraine as a pawn to fight a proxy war with Russia is how we got Trump.
I could go on, but if you refuse to see it with all that then there’s no hope for you anyway.
Shit like that is how we got Trump. Stupid protest votes are not what’s needed right now.
It literally is not. Go do the math yourself - there is literally not ONE state where protest votes, even counting right wing ones, made up the difference Kamala lost by.
The problem is that people, RIGHTFULLY SO, see that there’s no effect to their vote, and don’t bother voting for Democrats.
You want to fix that, you clean out the Democratic Party. And the way you do that is exactly how I describe above. You want to not have to fight the leadership, you’re going to continue to get the same failure you have for over 2 decades now. And that is how you got Trump.
I think you underestimate the number of people who protest voted by refusing to vote at all, which is neither an actual protest vote nor the same type of problem. Not that I think it would have been a guaranteed tipping point, but it sure would have made things a bit closer. Compound that with one of the (designed) effects of the electoral college (devaluing voter turnout in high-population states), and you widen that gap much more.
“America will have the most lethal military” and other signalings in favor of status quo imperialism sure did kill any interest for many left wingers to vote, and anecdotally I know many of my left-proclaiming peers took that as reason to forego the polls altogether.
I think you underestimate the number of people who protest voted by refusing to vote at all
So what you’re actually trying to say is that people not voting is how we got Trump? Because calling not votes protest votes is just beyond confusing.
You’re not incorrect - but honestly, blaming the voters rather than the candidate seems insane. Especially since 7 million more voters HAD come out in 2020, and the Democrats avoided even the appearance of a primary in 2024.
but it sure would have made things a bit closer
horseshoes and grenades
BlueMAGA, now as into conspiracy theories as their red bretheren, and for the same reasons.
I’m sorry you’re worried that the Democrats strategy of doing nothing might not pay off, and that endorsing genocide still is such a loser issue. But that doesn’t mean the people refusing to share your party loyalty over any common sense are part of a conspiracy, foreign or domestic.
Jokes on you, I’m not eating the shit sandwich, I’m eating the vomit sandwich!
Until there’s someone that accurately represents GenX and lower, people are just gambling by voting for the next geriatric senior that’s gonna go fucking senile, shitting themselves and having agendas that don’t benefit anyone of the current age of the actual workforce. We’ll keep getting someone who’s focused on social security and wars rather than the housing crisis and the AI workforce replacements that are pushing out people who dedicated time and effort and went into crippling debt becoming proficient at a six figure or top five figure earning positions, only to consider switching trades.
How about we get a president for the people, under 50 and doesn’t fucking hate us.
This is such an annoying discussion at this point. The “let’s keep doing what we’ve always done because obviously that’s working” folks never really engage with any arguments. They just ignore what people say and keep attacking the same strawmen over and over.
“Both metallica and the strokes have a guitar player”
“Oh so you’re saying that metallica and the strokes are the same? That’s so ridiculous, they don’t even have the same number of members, you idiot.”
It’s so tiresome and pointless. And quite upsetting as well, because in attacking some of the strawmen, the “stay the course, this is going well” folks sometimes say some really heinous thing, bordering on full on genocide denial, or even worse, acknowledging the genocide but essentially saying “not my problem”. It’s really upsetting to read such things.
I guess that’s at the core of it actually. It’s one group of people that look at the millions of people that American imperialism has killed, and the way both parties have toed the exact same line on imperialism specifically, and consider this absolutely unacceptable. And on the other side you have people looking at this and thinking “yeah but what about my problems, the parties are different there”. It’s a fundamental difference in values, and there’s no amount of convincing that either side can do to bridge that gap.
Anyway, here’s my favorite Hannah Arendt quote, because I refuse to accept that we cannot somehow learn, eventually, from the holocaust:
In their moral justification, the argument of the lesser evil has played a prominent role. If you are confronted with two evils, the argument runs, it is your duty to opt for the lesser one, whereas it is irresponsible to refuse to choose altogether. Its weakness has always been that those who choose the lesser evil forget quickly that they chose evil.
