Yeah, we got it. You want us to vote for Biden. Are we gonna run the leftist shame campaign all the way to the election, then?
Maybe when the boomers are gone the Republican strategy will die with them…
If voting prevents literal murder then both parties obviously don’t stand for the same values.
… or one party is more efficient at facilitating murder
Yeah one party is so bad they repeal things like DoMA while the other literally persecutes LGBT groups
And, who was it that signed DoMA into law? Ah, yes, Bill Clinton.
LGBT became good business so the Democrats jumped on the bandwagon. I’m glad they are on the right side, but they are followers, not leaders. They support the disenfranchised when it benefits their larger cause of shoveling wealth to the top.
Was DoMA not a massive improvement compared to the situation before?
Improvement how? The whole point of DoMA was to kill gay marriage, and it worked until the court killed it.
The Democrats were being given credit for killing it but 1) the court killed it and 2) A Democrat signed it into law.
Sorry, I got DOMA and DADT mixed up
Ah, that makes a lot more sense.
Or you know, actually try to pressure the Dems into running a different candidate when Biden will be a guaranteed loss.
guaranteed loss
How much money did you bet on Biden’s “guaranteed loss?”
If you didn’t, why do you shun free money?
Democrats not supporting democracy, love to see it.
They use the excuse that only Biden can win and we have to suspend our usual beliefs and right to vote for another democrat just this one last time to end the “threat to our democracy”.
“They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.”
Don’t worry folks, just give up your right to vote for who you want and follow the hivemind.
Ja, uber Trump, uns!
It’s deeply ironic the use of an Icelandic singer in a meme to justify participating in the performance of the Theatre Of The Vote in the, unlike in Iceland, far from Democratic American Duopoly system.
Unironic would be to use Putin or some well known Russian figure.
Also, she’s an anarchist so I’m not entirely sure this is even the kind of advice she would give.
Now you’ve made me curious. The depths of the interwebs reveal that she says she casts an empty ballot, no reasoning given. Iceland doesn’t have compulsory voting.
Staying in Iceland: Jón Gnarr is also an anarchist and ran for office. Then, I’m an anarchist and the opposite of anti-electoral, if nothing else it’s necessary to combat depoliticisation and protect liberal democracy as the stopgap measure it is. Fascists won’t stop voting to try and capture the state least you can do is cancel your vote by voting non-fascist.
I’m not even sure there’s many anti-electoral anarchists around, actually arguing against voting instead of simply personally not voting (which lots of people do for various reasons), practically all the arguments you hear from that side is egg-headed theoretical moralising without reference to praxis.
I love björk so much she’s so awesome
I mean have you ever listened to a leftist member of a vulnerable group, or just someone in a vulnerable group at all. Cause as someone who is part of multiple vulnerable groups. I’m betting voting is not the first thing being brought up.
I would like to remind all EU citizens we are voting for the parlament in June. Make sure you are properly registered to vote !
Republicans want to stop young pe4ople from voting.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/republicans-want-raise-voting-age-184406390.html
Why did you censor “people”? 🤔
lol! I’m going to have to think long and hard about what it says about the world in general because I don’t know why you’d think I was censoring ‘people’ instead of assuming it was a typo.
I’ve noticed it’s a bit of a thing on lemmy to censure words or names of things you’re talking about. I’ve seen discord, blizzard, Twitter, and a couple other named of both companies and people censured either with an asterisk or leet speek. It’s so weird. Maybe they don’t want people from those companies to be able to Google their comment? Who knows.
I was just going to fix the typo, but decided to go full drama instead.
Leftists are going 3rd party, the implication that they don’t vote is stupid.
Perhaps, but pissing away your vote on a third party in a FPTP system is functionally no different to not voting.
Gonna have to switch to Approval Voting and proportional representation (also using Approval Voting) if you want to get rid of the two party system.
Not sure about approval voting - I’m familiar with preferential, but nuance aside, I broadly agree with you.
Yeah pretty much anything is better than first-past-the-post.
I wonder if Trump hating conservatives are being told the exact same rhetoric. “Trump sucks but if you vote 3rd party you’re just giving Biden the election!”
More important than the president or Congress, remember that you’re also voting for a ticket to the supreme Court, and that vote really really fucking matters.
Darn you american liberals are getting desperate. This is a fellow kids-level “please vote for the lesser evil” type of meme. But I am not american and have trouble seeing if your argument is a pipedream worthy of a genocide to pursue.
Thing is. It was under Biden the US decided we where lucky enough to get american bases on our soil. I really don’t see much difference for people in the rest of the world.
I do however believe in democracy. Indirect democracy, where you vote for rulers, must have meaningful choices in order to be democratic.
I guess what I really am trying to say is. The rest of the world don’t have a say in who decides if we get trade deals or tanks in the streets.
And if USA was my country I would have a difficult time voting for someone so cruel. Even if he was the lesser evil. Because democracy is built on the notion that you have to believe in free choices.
You get one of the evils - vote for the lesser one on election day, then spend the rest of the election cycle pushing for better.
The problem with that is that if all votes are guaranteed for the lesser evil, then there is no incentive to put up a better option ever.
How many elections must we have where the options are bad and apocalyptic?
You don’t get better if the fascists win, dismantle democracy and commit a series of genocides. Do the bare fucking minimum - vote - then spend the rest of the election cycle pushing for better.
You don’t get better by pissing away your vote on a meaningless virtue signal - you get fascism.
Sure, that is fine and dandy.
But I dont think its entitled to ask for a good option.
There is, right now, an enthusiasm gap, and to overcome it, whether you like it or not, Biden is simply going to have to do better.
Thats the utilitarian reality. Now is exactly the time for progressives to make demands, and its exactly the time for him to meet them
For some reason. Your type doesn’t see better as an option from Biden.
What do you think happens when you vote third party (or don’t vote)?
Maybe (and I strongly doubt this) the Dems get the message, and get a little better as you empower those that have clearly and repeatedly signalled that they don’t care about democracy - you get an election cycle with the fascists, and all that costs us, then you may never get another election in which you’d elect the improved Democrats.
Congratulations - you fucked the country because you refused to do the bare minimum.
The election booth isn’t the place for activism - it’s a place to pick the lesser evil, because you don’t get a third option. Fight for better options the other 1,458 days of the election cycle, then vote for the best available.
Im not saying withholding the vote it the right or wrong answer, Im saying its up to politicians to earn their votes.
I think the reason the options are so poor right now is because we’ve created a system where we arent allowed to ask for more.
So again, the reality is the reality. There is an enthusiasm gap. How is Biden going to fix it? Because trying to shame or scare would be voters is not the answer. Try again.
Biden isn’t going to push for the change I’m looking for. You’re fix it by keeping the fascists out of power on election day while doing everything you can to push them to do better or be replaced by someone who will outside election day.
As for scaring voters? The GOP is evidence that’s an incredibly effective strategy.
Young people have not been as enthusiastic supporters of the Biden administration [even] before President Biden was elected. So what’s different about Gen Z generation in particular, who’s known to be politically active, also very diverse and caring about a variety of social issues, is that when they’re disappointed in what the government is doing or what the leaders are showing them, they’re willing to take the issue in their own hand and try to intervene, try to get involved sometimes by speaking up by their vote.
But by and large, they have voted more than other generations have as youth, regardless of how disappointed they say they are in the government. So if the past couple of elections’ trends hold, young people have been disappointed in the government and their elected leaders, but they voted.
[Bolding added]
Wait, we’re not supposed to be disappointed in our government? Could have fooled me.
Pretty hard to just hope that all these tankies are bullshitting about knowingly allowing Trump to fleece America while they sit at home blaming democrats for getting him elected.
I blame selfish uncompromising Boomers for electing Biden in the 2020 primaries.
Thanks for proving my point. Enjoy your video games Willie the rest of us get and keep democracy alive for you to have something to keep complaining about while doing nothing.
I’ve been voting for 20 years bud. I’ve phone banked, canvassed and donated. I voted for Biden in the 2020 general because I wanted to give the claim that we could “push Biden to the left” a chance. It was a lie.
I will be voting in the upcoming general election as well. Just not for Biden or Trump. And when Biden loses I’ll hear you asking “how could this happen??” instead of just acknowledging reality: you need to compromise with leftists if you want our votes. Otherwise you’re going to lose to fascists for a second time.
The big thing is that movements start from local political offices and can grow from there.
It can start with representatives, the rare senator, or even taking over of a party at the state level:
Participate in local elections, back primary candidates. Once the numbers are there at the nationwide level, we can push for a more representative electoral system.
We can push system that uses ranked choice voting like Alaska did. We can also increase the size of the house of representatives to better match the idea of representation the founding fathers had for us. It’s nearly a 100 years that the house was capped at 435: https://history.house.gov/Historical-Highlights/1901-1950/The-Permanent-Apportionment-Act-of-1929/
The founding fathers had envisioned a house that grew with the size of the country:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congressional_Apportionment_Amendment
This laid the intent that we have 1 rep per 30,000 people and increase the ratio each time the house reached another 100 seats.
So at 400+ seats we should have 1 rep per 70,000. Really, with the wording of the amendment and understanding that the examples lay out a mathematical formula for expanding the house indefinitely (but with more people per rep as it goes up) we would have over a 1,000 reps!
There’s a current “Uncap the House” movement but I’m unsure of how much momentum they’ve been gaining.
To see how the number of constituents has grown per member over the years:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_congressional_apportionment#Number_of_members
Ah, nice, maybe we’re not entirely doomed.
Voting takes like 10 minutes
100% false. In the 2020 election in Mississippi, I had to wait in line for 2 hours. My wife had to call into the vet clinic she worked at to make sure she could to take a 3 hour lunch to vote even though it was 2 miles from where she worked. It was so disorganized and so slow.
I’m so glad I vote via mail now in Washington.
That’s not the worst of it, people were waiting for over 10 hours in Georgia. All because the GOP rigged it so there’d be a shortage of voting locations. And they have the nerve to turn around and lie about the dems stealing the election. Absolute scum.
I voted by mail in 2016 and my ballot never got counted even though it was sent weeks before the deadline. I now vote in person unless I have no other choice.
The great thing about Washington is that it’s opt out mail in voting. When you get your license, you register to vote at the same time, and they just send your ballot via mail. It’s nice!
It was so
disorganizedsabotaged and so slow.FTFY
Both parties stand for the same values? Lol, what?
America has a right wing party, and a party of hyper right wing nutcases.
Unfortunately it’s a flaw in FPTP voting systems. The biggest thing that would help (in any country with FPTP) would be to move to almost any other sort of voting. Ranked choice would be the least disruptive, in the short term, but still allow for long term corrections to function.
Yeah, RCV or STV voting would immediately solve a lot of our social and political problems, by forcing politicians to be cooperative and constructive rather than destructive and adversarial.
It also allows you to vote for who you really want, rather than against the people you really DON’T want.
Why not approval voting? Instead of ranked choice
There are a few variants. Any are a lot better than FPTP. Approval could get difficult to tally up. As well as educating people in it. It’s also better to ultimately have 1 person, 1 vote. If you could split your vote, the system collapsed back down to effectively FPTP.
You know, the values of keeping rich people rich and poor people poor.
Oh is that why Democrats keep promoting social welfare programs, social mobility, and public safety nets? That’s more of a republican thing.
Are they promoting them or actually implementing them? All they do is talk about what they’re gonna do to get the votes.
Don’t get me wrong, anyone voting for republicans is a moron, but anyone who thinks democrats are good guys, is a moron too.
Actually implementing them. Yes, there are policies that they pass that are counter-productive but that doesn’t mean all the policies they pass are.
Don’t fall for the same basic rhetoric that “Democrats are bad too”.
The difference is that Democrats can be judged as individuals (and should be). Whereas Republicans are all regurgitating the same falsehoods and refuse to denounce other Republicans when they prove to be utterly despicable, then also fall in line to do the same despicable acts (e.g. pretend the election was rigged)
That’s ridiculous - the group you’re part of should be judged as individuals, the group you’re not part of should be judged as a whole? That’s some double standard.
You’re not wrong. It’s a standard that Republicans and conservatives have set for themselves through their own actions, not just from wanting to treat them differently.
Republicans as a party, campaign on things like ending social safety nets.
So even if you can cherry pick a single republican that didn’t try to stop something like free school lunches, it doesn’t redeem the whole party because they didn’t all work together towards it.
Democrats as a party, campaign to improve safety nets so even if you can cherry pick an example where individual democrats didn’t then that doesn’t apply to the group because it wasn’t the party working together towards it.
I hope that helps you understand.
Democrats make plenty of policies that hurt poor and marginalized communities.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Violent_Crime_Control_and_Law_Enforcement_Act
You understand that Bill Clinton decimated welfare, right? Like, I don’t agree that the parties are the same, especially now that a large portion of Republicans are openly promoting facism, but if you think that Democrats protecting welfare programs and the social safety net you’re kidding yourself.
Obama also almost cut social security, and only didn’t because gop couldn’t govern then
He also chose to bail out the banks instead of homeowners, and reneged on his pledge to reform bankruptcy laws to allow judges to lower mortgage payments. Instead we got HAMP, a failed attempt to bribe mortgage brokers into modifying loans. And he pushed all this through with a Democratic super majority.
There are things that I have to give him some credit on. For example, the concessions he got the auto-workers to take screwed them longer term, but they were necessary at the time and the bailout did saved a lot of jobs. The UAW considered the deal a win. But I don’t think the mortgage crisis would have been any different for home owners if Bush had still been in office.
Right? These wannabe marxists don’t have a clue how things work. They’re just doing what’s trendy right now.
Well if you don’t like our “trends” like don’t block strikes and don’t support genocide find the votes you need elsewhere.
Both are political liberals (as in: fogus on policies that benefit the wealthy) deal with it.
Neither party wants to usurp capitalism, yet they are still wildly different and have wildly different values.
The Dems aren’t left.
The largest donors to the dems (and cons) are massively wealthy people.
If they do tax the rich, there will be holes
Historical data from the past 50 years in the US disagrees.
Not sure what you’re referring to. Citation?
I mean the supposed “good guy” president is currently giving tons of weapons to help people kill a bunch of innocent babies, so you can miss me with that shit
Are we supposed to go Yay, the economy is doing great so we will forgive all the fucking innocent, people you’re killing?
I shouldn’t have to say this, but you don’t support anyone at all who wants to commit genocide.
At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter how any fucking thing else goes, if they are supporting, killing, innocent babies
This tired argument again. So what’s your proposal? Throw away your vote on a 3rd party candidate this election cycle? Not vote?
So if Trump wins, do you honestly believe things would be better? Nothing will change in Israel, except we’d have all sorts of new humanitarian problems across the globe.
If Biden loses, it will be because not enough people were convinced to vote for him. So if dems want to prevent a Trump presidency, the smart move probably would be (or would have been, maybe, since y’all think it’s too late) for Biden to step down and endorse a Dem who has not openly supported Israel’s current campaign. That is, if they think that those voters are necessary to win. If they think those voters can be written off and they’ll still win, let 'em try. No politician is owed a vote simply because they are the incumbent, though. Nor are they owed the votes of people who are displeased with their work. They hoping that everyone will just fall in line on election day. What if that doesn’t happen? Do you think the future of our country is something that octogenarians should be gambling with?
Oh, ok. So you’re a troll. Got it.
For any ody that happens by in the future…
https://www.wolterskluwer.com/en/expert-insights/whole-ball-of-tax-historical-income-tax-rates
Thanks for the citation, marginal income tax rates going down for the highest percentage is an interesting data point, but It hardly refutes my point as there is no analysis there regarding which party those changes came from. I think there was a northwestern study that showed that politicians in general care about issues that wealthy people care about that would better illustrate your point, but I think both of these are more examples of regulatory capture and a system that requires donors to elect candidates, than it is evidence that the left and right share values.
My statements that the left is far more likely to tax the wealthy, and that they have wildly different values still stand.
I’m a troll because I asked you for more information to understand your ambiguous claim? Yeah okay pal. 🙄
You’re a troll because you’re still pretending not to know documented history. You know each of those tax rates had years net to them. Guess what you could do if you had an iota of curiosity in you…
The US democratic party is just as happy to cut taxes for the rich as the republican party. They’re also just as happy to cut spending on social welfare programs.
Neither party wants to usurp capitalism
You’ve found the crux of their argument
Well most Americans don’t want to usurp capitalism either, most of us on the left just want public health care and a viable social safety net, and a more equitable economy for everyone, not just those at the top. Something like the Nordic model which is still quite capitalist.
And look how the nordic countries also fall victim to far right parties. Just like the rest of Europe.
Bombing brown children, and pumping record amounts of oil.
This is basically everything I’ve tried explaining to Anarkiddies through walls of text, summed into one meme. Thank you!
This is the issie with the voting system that the US uses. This makes it almost impossible for new parties to emerge because if they dont get the majority anywhere, they will not be in parliament (as opposed to, lets say 5% of the whole population voting them and them therefore getting 5% of the parliament seats).
Where I live, you have like 6 different parties in parliament and every decade or so, a new one emerges.
I really think people should vote the parties directly themselves, why would you need middle men?
Might be completely impossible, in 2016 the Libertarian Party managed to get enough votes to be legally allowed to participate in presidential debates in all future elections… then they just… didn’t…
Almost like dishonest people do not play by the same rules they impose on everyone else.
The time to vote for third parties is not when there is someone like Trump around. It’s too high stakes right now.
Oh wow, it keeps never being the time
Maybe but now, really? You honesty think both are as bad??
Did you understand my point?
Trump isn’t like past Republican leaders. He is an insurrectionist for starters. If he gets in, he’ll be trying to stay in the rest of his life. Changing the constitution and corrupting elections utterly. Sorry Biden isn’t ideal, but he’s far better than Trump.
That in no way addresses the point of it will never be the right time.
