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Democrats aren’t left. They are also party of wealth, not labour. Democrats are plain right, Rebublicans are fascist right.
Could be generalized for non-US-centric politics with liberals preventing movement to the left and fascists moving everything right
And the majority are owned or being blackmailed for sex crimes by the facist state of Israel https://www.trackaipac.com/congress
Eternally relevant:
That’s why the Mamdani victory is inspiring. More progressive blood in the DNC will one day remove the block, and hopefully help push that party further left.
Absolutely! I hope he doesn’t become another part of the system. He seems like a real person.
Lol
What’s funny?
“There is only one party in the United States, the Property Party … and it has two right wings: Republican and Democrat. Republicans are a bit stupider, more rigid, more doctrinaire in their laissez-faire capitalism than the Democrats, who are cuter, prettier, a bit more corrupt — until recently … and more willing than the Republicans to make small adjustments when the poor, the black, the anti-imperialists get out of hand. But, essentially, there is no difference between the two parties.”
Gore Vidal
Mamdani ain’t doing shit. And I think you’ll increasingly see the center-right Dems start to hamstring him. We’ve already seen Minnesota Dems distance themselves from Minnesota DSA. It’s happening now.
Who was the second most neoliberal president in history, behind only Ronald Reagan? Scoreboard says: CLINTON! (Who was the third? Scoreboard says CARTER! who also participated in anti left-wing action like the East Timor Genocide.)
In fact, the problem is only reflected by Mamdani’s victory. How long did it take establishment Dems to support him?
Here’s another exercise in Democrat corruption since we’re all aware of the right-wing/Third Way/neoliberal pivot. From a person who you haven’t heard from. Let’s make it as explicit as possible:
“Due to a coalition of the Democratic Party, Republican Party, General Motors Corporation and Charles S. Mott in the so-called Independent Citizen’s Party, Menton was decisively defeated in the 1912 election, never to serve again.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_A._C._Menton
The Democrats have been working with business and Republicans ✨for-fucking-ever✨, my friend. Even if you do shit like run the schools at night so auto workers can still get an education, clean up a dirty dairy, appoint a black man as chief of police (in 1911-1912!), and advocate for better conditions for workers, the Democrats will still snow you the fuck under.
I like this example because it’s the literal president of one of the most anti-worker companies ever (GM before the UAW), coming together to conspire against those very workers with the “legacy” parties (Menton was in the Socialist Party). The local paper even helped in the conspiracy if you need a cognate for what the media is currently doing.
(Speaking of Democrat media, I LOVE to watch this to remind myself of where they stand: https://youtu.be/gZ43aTu9Grg)
I hope you’re young. Because you seem naive.
Ah, but the thing you’re missing is that the more Mamdanis get elected, the more pressure there will be within the Democratic party to change.
I’m saying that that does not matter. You can elect all of the people you want to mayoralities etc, but the undergirding property relations will make 1/2 of the party align with the Republicans every single time.
Electoralism is a dead end. By all means, vote. I do. But it’s wholly insufficient and will actually work against us.
That’s the bigger lesson. It’s not minimizing harm. It’s minimizing the active damage done by the two right wing parties.
*I’m still learning about the fediverse, and this is probably a more liberal instance, so I just really want to hammer these points home:
As we get more towards the proper midterm election season we’ll inevitably start seeing more of this ‘both-sides/hopeless’ stuff that does little other than to help suppress the vote…
Vote for the lesser of the two evils, for sure. But at the same time we can also recognize that they are, indeed, two evils.
And try to primary out the evils! And we can make ground on local elections, it’s not just Congress or presidency
Both sides hopeless, nah.
But it’s important to recognize whose interests lie with corporations and whose do not.
Overall, the Democrats are the more left-wing party, and I’ve been loving a lot of the younger politicians coming from the Democratic Party.
Just be careful, ma’am. Their best strategy for preventing progress to the left is by losing on purpose. If your meme costs them votes, you’re actually helping them shirk responsibility. You could be spreading Democrat propaganda right now.
(It’s kind of the same as how Israel wants you to hate them so much you do an anti-jewish terrorist attack, except way more subtle and insidious)
Idk, years of winning office and then always breaking the stalemate when Republicans want to push something like ICE funding until 2029 through seems pretty effective at preventing progress too.
I think the solution is to stop electing people who lean on their party affiliation and nothing else, while understanding the contextual gravity of every election. I would say in 2024, for instance, Kamala Harris was the best shot at winning and stalling this current situation, so I voted for her. We need to reform the voting system.
How does it help suppress the vote? I have had things to complain about regarding Democrats that are valid complaints for 26 years, since I could legally vote. I haven’t just bowed out of voting due to those valid complaints.
I see this trotted out a lot, but I’m curious who you’re actually referring to. Harris wasn’t my cup of tea, I was especially upset that we didn’t even get an actual primary because of Biden’s idiocy and backtracking on his promise of being a one-term President, but I still fucking voted for her.
I see this sentiment around a lot, and it seems like it does little other than prevent Democratic voters from ever being allowed to voice their valid complaints about their own party and instead are supposed to suck it up and play pretend that everything is perfect like Republicans do with their party.
Part of why I think the Democratic Party is failing is that they think just because the opponent is crazy, they don’t need to offer anything.
If all you’re offering is the status quo that people are clearly unhappy about, they’re going to go with the wildcard.
Well you’re smart, but you’d be amazed how many people aren’t. A lot of muslims and Palestine allies in 2024 voted for Jill Stein’s Greens because they were mad about Israel. And I really hope they’ve learned their lesson, but I fear they haven’t, and that they’re going to make a bad decision for the Gazans in the midterms because of their anger.
You need to be careful about how you talk in front of the people who aren’t as strategic.
and that they’re going to make a bad decision for the Gazans in the midterms because of their anger.
There is no good decision to be made for Palestinians in most American elections. No, not even comparatively. Even Trump did no more or less than Biden already was. That aside, though, Trump would’ve won even if every single Jill Stein vote went to Harris.
See, @snotflickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone? Here’s one of those people I was telling you about
Historically, GOP candidates have benefited from lower voter turnout (Trump ‘24 being the only notable exception in 40+ years).
By disincentivising Dems and Independents from voting because “both sides bad” and “nothing gets better” it’s increasing the chances of a Republican victory, and accelerating your nations decline.
Your primaries are the period you’re meant to vote for your preferred candidate, whereas in the general election you vote against the candidate you hate more.
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The primaries for 2026 don’t start until March, with some happening as late as September, so we’re well within the time period to be critiquing various candidates before the finalized candidates are chosen. It’s not like this is being said in October 2026 when all the primaries are already over, no, none of them have even begun.
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As I may remind you, in 2024, we didn’t actually have a primary for the Democratic candidate for President. So no voters really had a choice in the matter at all. Quite a large number of Democratic voters felt strongly that the national party heavily put their finger on the scale for the primaries in 2016 and 2020 as well, so there’s a history of feeling like the primaries may have less real voter input than people would hope. (DNC lawyers never argued in court that they didn’t put their finger on the scale for Hillary Clinton, they argued that it was legal for them to do so, and that since it was the lawsuit should be thrown out, which it was. We never got to find out if that was true or not, but they certainly hammered it in court that whether it was or not, it was legal for them to do so.)
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I still have seen very little evidence that statements like this “disincentivize” voters as much as I see people claiming it does. Are there polls to back up this idea, that people choose not to vote because they have been convinced it doesn’t matter due to Democratic inaction and people discussing that inaction?
I mean we’re literally talking about a party that shut down the government over healthcare, one of the longest in history, and then rolled over for literally nothing at all. We’re talking about a party that has members pushing to give ICE more funding while they’re killing people and who fold and accept Tom Homan taking over as though he will somehow be better than Greg Bovino instead of kicking ICE the fuck out of their cities. We’re talking about a party that gave police nationwide more funding after the George Floyd police riots where police nationwide brutalized peaceful protestors. We’re talking about a party that codified, legalized, and normalized some of the worst crimes of the Bush administration, and literally set the stage for the surveillance state and police state that is now turned against us because they didn’t want to appear “soft on terrorism.” People like myself were screaming bloody murder during the Bush administration that these kind of tools could eventually be taken by a despot and turned against us, and those of us still paying attention kept saying so when the Obama administration didn’t shut any of it down and instead kept it around for convenience because they were so sure such a despot would never be elected.
How is that the fault of voters who have the audacity to talk about those very real issues?
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Last election cycle I would be driving around town, and of course you see the rabid maga cultists plastering dear leader on everything.
You would find a few tepid supporters of Biden/Harris, nothing extravagant but Dems don’t tend to go into a frenzy over their candidates. More anti-trump than anything when he’s been a factor.
Then you have the ‘genocide joe’ crowd, who largely treat it as a given that people know the maga clan is bad so they don’t say anything about them, but are real vocal about how bad the Dems are and make it their business to shout it at everyone.
Now anyone that can math knows our system only works for two parties and with the two electoral votes auto granted to every state as a base it favors small more rural ones that tend to vote red. When people go around constantly going on about how bad the only viable party to the r’s is then people end up with a ‘fuck it, why bother’ mindset.
I’m no fan of the weak spine ‘we wrote a nasty letter’ D’s who won’t lay a real smackdown on the idiots across the aisle, but I can see why it happens. The right and far right will fervently vote for whomever is the most vicious option they think they can get away with. The far left though, they tend to protest and stay home if someone doesn’t pass their purity test, so their support and votes are unreliable.
America’s electoral system needs some serious reform, Like compulsory voting for all citizens with a preferential (ranked choice) voting system. This would give a chance for independents and minor parties to enter government and allow for more options and choices.
But America will NEVER do that, because both parties would lose power and be forced to address all the issues they’ve been sweeping under the rug for decades. Good luck out there, Americans… You’re going to need it.
Thanks, we’re really going to need it.
preferential (ranked choice) voting system
A proportional one like STV, ideally
We need to shame establishment democrats out of office the same way the alt right shamed “cuckservatives” out…
Shaming establishment dems won’t work. You just have to primary them out with a better, actually progressive candidate. As more and more progressives get voted in, the establishment dems will be forced to lean further left just to get elected so that they can collect their corporate bribes like the republicans. Eventually establishment dems will either 1. Give up 2. Switch to being (outright) republicans or 3. Move only as far left as they have to be to get elected
Look out for the trap! Now that election season is coming up, the billionaire class will be trying to trick the Democrats into fucking up and losing votes so that Trump can stay president. Don’t fall for the propaganda!
A single drop of dimethyl mercury is enough to take care of a politician and it’s easily absorbed though the skin.
If the left can’t beat Democrats, how the hell do you think they will beat Republicans?
Centrists dems lost 2 out of 3 times to an orange clown.
If the centrist dems can’t beat republicans, how far will they let us slide into fascism before they give someone else a shot?
Why can’t we rebuild the new deal coalition?
Nobody is going to “give” you a shot. The left has to take it. If they can’t figure out how to do that, they don’t have what it takes to lead the country.
The DNC puts its thumb on the scale for the centrist all the to give them a better shot. Despite a proven track record for failing to beat Trump.
And you don’t think the Republicans put their thumb on the scale every chance they get? The fight is not going to be fair. You have to be able to win in spite of that.
I’m sure the republicans do put their thumb on the scale… that doesn’t mean the direction centrist dems put their thumb on the scale for is correct direction. Centrist dems still lost despite massive institutional backing in their direction.
Candidates like Zorhan Mamdani have managed overcome massive institutional push back.
You’re making an assumption that privately run DNC primaries are perfect competitions for determining which candidate is best. This is an incorrect assumption. The DNC itself has literally said you are wrong in a court of law.
Do you believe the DNC should continue to push back against candidates like Zorhan Mamdani?
Zohran Mamdani is a great example. He beat the Dems on their own grounds. I have faith he can be a leader against the Republican administration precisely because he proved he has a plan and the ability to execute it in spite of resistance.
We need to get rid of “first past the post” election systems. That will allow candidates like Mamdani to be competitive in a larger variety. The way I see it, this will NEVER happen through Republicans and as the system exists now there are only two viable choices. I’m not saying it won’t be an uphill battle, but at least there has been some progress in making elections more representative of a variety of political views under Democrats.
That’s a non-sequitur.
How so?
Getting leftists on Dem ballots and winning an election against Republicans are completely different affairs, not the least because most people don’t vote in primaries (not to mention all the manipulation). If anything why do you think beating centrists in primaries is a prerequisite for being able to beat Republicans in elections? You need to justify that assumption.
You don’t think being able to win against an entrenched power structure in spite of legislative obstruction is at all relevant to defeating Republicans?
Not really, no. The US is heavily gerrymandered and there’s plenty of disenfranchisement to go around, but fundamentally Republicans don’t control general elections the same way Democrats control their primaries, and centrist Democrats have many tools (rhetorical and otherwise) to get primary votes that Republicans don’t in general elections. And, as I said, people don’t vote in primaries. Besides, this theory has already been tested in practice; according to election polling Bernie would’ve absolutely trounced Trump in 2016, even though he lost the primary.
Look, Bernie was the only political race ever where I donated money, so when I say this know where I am coming from. We have no idea if Bernie would have been any more effective than Biden if elected. Maybe the right would have reacted so hard that he would have been obstructed every step of the way, accomplished nothing, and we would have gotten Trump anyway. Maybe they would have just killed him in the first year and we would have ended up in the Civil War 2.
I won’t respond to that, because now you’re moving the goalposts. That is not what we’re talking about here.
Somebody post gif plz.
MyPornViewingAccount
Just gonna go out on a limb and say jorking it to the animated ratchet effect is something worth kinkshaming.
Will this work?
Change the caption on the gears, and instead of pointing fingers at political parties, make it “We may or may not vote” on the left, then “Definitely not voting” on the right.
If you neglect elections and there’s a seesaw every two years, sure, that’s exactly what happens. But god forbid, to generate the requires electoral/political inertia for long-term change would require you people to… gasp!.. make a tiny amount of effort one day a year. And we can’t have that, now can we?
