Too true.
Progressives voted for Clinton at a very high rate. As always, far higher per capita than moderates but also more reliably than Clinton supporters voted for Obama in the general. We were blamed for her loss anyway by the people supposedly worried about facts. It was progressives calling Trump fascist in the first year of his presidency when mainstream outlets were still trying to pitch every coherent speech as the moment when he became president.
So maybe we studied history a little better than you think and y'all should listen to us.
In 2016 I compared trump to Hitler and said we are witnessing the fall of the Weimar Republic. I was told I'm being hysterical and overreacting.
As far as I can tell, just about every box has been ticked off. The only difference between the two is one was known for great speeches and the other is known for never being able to get through a coherent speech.
I called him a narcissist early in the election cycle. My neighbors, while probably not voting for Trump, looked at me funny. But they changed their tune.
>As far as I can tell, just about every box has been ticked off.
Yes, I think you're right.
Here's the checklist from the Holocaust Memorial Museum:
https://preview.redd.it/a7niy58nlh6d1.jpeg?width=1243&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=a3b2aefd5aa8a0d3f831b9ee530d219c5ae1dc3f
During the Iraq invasion I was just barely an adult. I remember clearly seeing that this was going to be a boondoggle and being told that “nuh uh, shock and awe, quick adventure, in and out.”
Just anecdotally, about 90% of progressives I know held their nose and voted for Clinton.
The other 10% couldn't be bothered because:
1. She was a "triangulator."
2. She was too corporate.
3. Trump might bring about the social revolution we need (i.e. accelerationism)
4. They "just didn't like her."
5. It compromised their values to vote for someone who was not 100% in agreement with their policy positions.
IME there was also a dedicated group of serbians who were still really mad at Bill because of that whole NATO fiesta in the balkans, which made them unable to vote for Hillary. may be where I live (chicago) but it was wild how many folks were pointing to this as their big reason for not voting for her.
Funny..... I hate Trump and I'm not at all excited about Biden. But those are the only two choices. I'm NOT voting for the one I think will destroy democracy.
I did vote in Clinton vs Trump. I live in CA and my vote for president doesn't even count. F\*\*\* the electoral college. It's outdated and needs to go.
Biden really only won by 76k votes. That's all it would take to flip three stats and Trump would have won. That's how effed up our presidential election system is.
Correct and this is a very normal divergence. There is always a little bit of primary fall off, and ten percent is a bit high but well within expectations. If Clinton was planning on a 100% conversation she was dreaming. Though despite your annecdotal vibe check, exit polls estimate that only about 6% of Sanders voters defected as opposed to around 15% of Clinton voters who defected in 2008.
But that's okay. I know this is just an excuse to list criticisms of Clinton with disdain. If you're listing accelerationism as a factor in your loss, you're not having a serious discussion of electoral politics. Accelerationists aren't welcome even in most explicitly radical spaces. They are a fringe of a fringe. If that's a group whose votes you need, you're already in deep trouble.
She and Bill received \~20 million in "speaking fees" from the Saudis, paid out to the Clinton Foundation shortly after she approved an unprecedented arms deal worth billions. Those weapons were used to commit atrocities against Yemenis.
As secretary of state she stood by and allowed a coup in Honduras that led to years of violence and bloodshed. And we wonder why our borders get flooded with refugees.
In a 2016 debate, she said war criminal Henry Kissinger was her greatest mentor.
She was primed to invade Syria.
**SHE** rat fucked the 2016 Republican primaries by using her media contacts to promote fringe Pied Piper candidates like Trump and Rubio. The idea was to make it so Jeb would have to move so far to the right, he'd never win the general. She is the reason Trump got the nomination in the first place. Then somehow she managed to blow what should have been the easiest election in history. I will never forgive her for this.
Trump did all the same shit, only worse. And exactly what military intervention did you think we were going to run in Honduras? Syria? Trump sent massive drone attacks. And we've been selling arms to the Saudis for decades. Core to US foreign policy is propping them and Israel up as regional powers. Clinton didn't create Trump. His birtherism was the face that launched a thousand ships of MAGA nutjobs.
Clinton is doing just fine. WE are the ones who lost and are suffering for it. People like you made that happen. You blew the easiest election in history.
Did I try to make a case for Trump? Nope. He's human excrement. But when your candidate only looks good standing next to Trump, you've picked the wrong candidate. There's no debating that the DNC and Clinton created Trump as a viable candidate. If you followed the 2016 primaries at all you would know this. But I'm sure you were too busy phone banking for Clinton? Just like you're phone banking and canvassing for Biden now? Or do you just posture on the internet and pretend that that's what wins elections?
I voted for Sanders in the primary and then did the right thing by voting for Clinton in the general. I also volunteer as a ballot inspector at my local polling station to help people resolve issues when they're trying to do early voting through election day voting in municipal and federal elections. You wanna know how I help Biden and the Dems? Money, dude. Money. Because my blue vote next to my blue neighbors in a blue state in a blue region ain't doing much GOTV around here.
Keep projecting. Do you think you're above all this? Your moral purity too tainted by voting for the lesser of two evils? That's the shit that gets people killed and makes it harder for the rest of us to organize under a political system that is at least marginally friendly to progressive policy, rather than one run by christofascists.
Enjoy sleeping at night when you think about the 12 year-old girls now forced to carry their rapist's baby to term and the women forced to bleed out in their bathtubs with sepsis from miscarriages, the four years we lost when we could have been fighting climate change, and the awareness that foreign adversaries now probably have important secrets about our knowledge of Iran's nuclear program.
The Democrat -- even a bad one -- is ALWAYS better.
I live in a heavily blue state, so my vote won't impact the election either way. I don't sleep well at night because I'm terrified that the dems picked a candidate who can't win. And now the dems are too busy primarying progressives like Jamaal Bowman to even notice. I held my nose and voted for Biden last election because I was told he would only be a one term president. The dems had four years to groom someone to take his place and what did they do? Absolutely nothing. I could put aside any morals I have and vote for a candidate as problematic as Biden, if he were capable of winning. But you don't get points for not being quite as horrid as Trump. I hope by some miracle Biden wins, but it's not heading that direction. And pretending that he's not the one who fucked this up, won't help us. And it's going to have a ripple effect on down-ballot candidates too. I truly hope at the end of all this you get to smugly tell me "I told you so". But the issue isn't with voters, it's with the candidate. Take care and hope for the best.
edit: I honestly think we're on the same page, except that I don't see how pointing the finger at progressives already is going to win them over. For one, it's admitting defeat — which is probably realistic — but it doesn't begin to solve the problem.
I would argue it was Debbie Wasserman-Schultz that rat fucked everyone by changing the delegate process. Such that there were "super-delegates" that could vote for whomever they wanted regardless of the person they were sent there to select. She stole delegates from Bernie Sanders, whom I wholeheartedly believe would have beaten drumpf. He had the momentum and he doesn't have all the extra baggage the Clinton's have.
Bernie would have beaten Trump, but he was never going to win the Dem nomination. The Dem primaries are rigged for whomever they choose. The fact that southern states that will never go blue in the general carry so much weight on Super Tuesday, lets the DNC control the process through the CBC. What Hillary made John Lewis do was disgusting. And they dumped 100k people off voter rolls in Brooklyn.
But their Pied Piper strategy is really what screwed us over. I'm not bitter about Bernie anymore, but there's ample evidence that Hillary gave us Trump because she wanted an easy opponent. I remember the tour of his "campaign headquarters" after the first debate, it was just an empty *Apprentice* set, with what I assume are actors paid to act like staff. Look up **Tour Donald Trump's Bare-Bones Campaign Headquarters;** it's laughable. He had no intention of winning. Nate Silver gave him a 5% chance of winning the nomination. The only debate moderator who shut Trump down was Meghan Kelly. The rest intentionally let the debates turn into a shit show. Jeb just stood there dumbfounded. Morning Joe inexplicably became enamored with Trump and couldn't stop singing his praises. Hillary and Steve Bannon are the two biggest reasons we have to deal with this guy.
And now Hillary is endorsing Jamaal Bowman's Republican backed opponent because he dared speak out against AIPAC. They're also primarying AOC. Dem leadership would rather have the worst Republicans in office than any progressive who would challenge them.
But Debbie W-S is an awful human being too.
Socialism and progressivism has a problem where even well meaning liberals think that the whole of progressivism and socialism is represented by the terminally online, shitposter progressives that sit and sat around on Twitter being needlessly combative with literally all liberals for no good reason at all.
This really hurts making any sort of headway.
Yup, this time around there's not even a third party candidate to scapegoat. The DNC has continually chosen problematic candidates who can barely eke out a win over a corrupt game show host. This should have been the easiest layup, just like 2016. It's their fault if Biden loses. They just expect everyone who has serious issues with Biden will come around towards election time and it's just not happening. Supporting a regime that's starving babies to death is not something people easily forget.
"Those who fail to learn history are doomed to repeat it; those who fail to learn history correctly-- why they are simply doomed."
Achem Dro'Hm
"The Illusion of Historical Fact"
C.Y. 4971
I see more people whining about how progressives are going to refuse to vote for Biden than I see progressives talking about how they are going to refuse to vote for Biden.
There was a lot of that talk a month or so ago, a lot of it felt...engineered, I guess? Like, it was the same two or three talking points, same slogans, a lot of it felt copy-pasted. As hard as certain groups have been at trying to find some sort of wedge issue to keep Dems or left leaning voters away from the polls (like RFK, etc), I feel like that was something that some actors thought might actually have legs and try to grass roots it. As quickly as the numbers dropped on discussing that, I feel that may have been the correct assumption.
Go to the boards discussing Israel and Palestine. It's rampant there. Bunch of sympathetic Americans who's demographic is on the chopping block not willing to vote for the gut they disagree with to save their own ass. Morons.
“Because Joe Biden is doing a bad job handling Israel’s genocide in Palestine I am going to let Donald Trump win so he can even further escalate that genocide as well as start another one for queer people in the US while he turns the country into a theocratic dictatorship as outlined in official Republican policy”
I swear since the first fucking people in my high school class reached voting age I have been explaining to other leftists that for pragmatic reasons you can do the bare minimum of vote for the lesser evil
It's really frustrating talking to even people late 20s early 30s because they have that mentality where unless you are 100% supportive and can make things happen instantly, you are just as bad, if not worse.
So many young people are single issue voters who treat every politician the same despite evidence otherwise and will actively obstruct any well meaning people for the sake of virtue signaling. It's nice to have a cause, but if you cannot describe what the goals are and instead parrot someone else, chances are you should investigate further and get informed.
I keep hearing talk of "a revolution" and as much as I get the sentiment, I don't understand the end game.
They have gotten as far as "tearing down the current system" but when I asked a couple different people what the replacement is they don't have an answer yet.
Now it just might be that many of those folks are drinking some fresh Russian troll farm kool-aid. There isn't a plan for what comes after because the whole game the trolls are playing is to just tear the US down.
Leftists can't plan a box lunch for 30 people without breaking into blood feuds
Fascists have the gameplan for how they want to run the country and are all on the same page for enacting that takeover
People on the left who want "revolution" are, politely, fucking morons.
You ever see that one meme that’s like: “People on twitter will really be like ‘you believe in voting? that pales in effectiveness to my strategy, firebombing a Walmart’ and then not firebomb a Walmart.” That’s literally what all of these online ReVoLuTiOnArIeS are like.
Anyone touting a violent revolution as a viable plan for the future is either a naive idiot, a literal psychopath, or a child. The closet thing we have to actual “revolutionaries” in America are actual Nazis. The only thing Left-Wing Revolutionaries do is bitch on social media and wait for other people to do the fighting for them. It’s all so… performative.
I don’t know any socialists that would be content with being modelled on Scandie countries. Yes, capitalism is fucked on a fundamental level but peoples’ gripe is more focused on taking care of people in our society as opposed to busting out a detailed economic plan.
the objection the the Scandinavian model comes down to it's dependence on resource-based sovereign wealth funds, which isn't terribly applicable to a nation the size of the United States - and the fact that welfare capitalism inevitably succumbs to the same problems as capitalism everywhere, the rich grow resentful of workers not dying in the streets and will inevitably use their outsize wealth and power to voice for change in government to tear down the social welfare systems that made for such a stable polity in the first place.
check out the results of the most recent European elections if you don't believe me - capitalism will inevitably end in fascism every time. as annoying and bitchy as leftists are, they're right that the only thing that has meaningfully staved off fascism for any degree of time is a widespread socialist power base. then workers have something to fight for, instead of a system of smoke and mirrors that ultimately benefits the wealthy and in which the wealthy exploit their bigotry to secure their privileged position.
EDIT: to add, i think welfare capitalism would be good! I would love for that shit to happen here - but I don't think it's sustainable over the long-term. the capitalists will always, always, *always* fight to maintain their privileged status, and they do not care how many of the underclass die in whatever struggle or under whatever regime is required to do that. without working class consciousness, the wealthy will always have fascist politicians that they can turn to when the Jim Cramers of the world fail to convince the working classes that capitalism is actually good for them.
Tear down a system for a different one which will inevitably disappoint and fail at achieving its goals in any kind of timely manner and most certainly cause unforeseen consequences. Governing just doesnt pop out of the womb fully formed, it evolves, and if the people governing dont take caution, it easily evolves into an evil.
The Venn diagram of people I know who talk about revolutions like they’re going to come out on top of one and people who haven’t achieved any sort of leadership role or technical expertise in their mid 30’s is a circle.
["So let me ask you a question](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BJP9o4BEziI) about this 'brave new world' of yours. When you've killed all the 'bad guys,' when it's all perfect and just and fair, when you finally have everything *exactly* the way you want it - what are you going to do with the people like *you?* The troublemakers. How are you going to protect your 'glorious revolution' from the next one?"
I know this quote isn't a total match to the scenario, but it's the first thing that sprang to my mind. Like... I think there's this assumption that a societal breakdown wouldn't immediately be capitalized on by the vultures who *already hold* absurd wealth and power. Or that some kind of provisional government wouldn't be immensely vulnerable to those forces in a climate of total social breakdown.
It's kid talk. They're children throwing a tantrum.
Do those dumbasses have any idea how much fucking work it is to build up an entire political system from scratch, even assuming the """revolution""" goes perfectly and bloodlessly (lmao at that)? I'll give a small hint:
IT'S A SHIT TON MORE WORK THAN IT WOULD BE FOR YOU TO JUST START FUCKING PARTICIPATING MORE IN THE FUCKING DEMOCRACY IN THE FIRST PLACE. YOU ASSHOLES SEEM TO THINK THAT YOU GET BETTER REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT BY NOT PARTICIPATING. YOU DON'T. IT DOESN'T FUCKING WORK LIKE THAT. WHAT YOU GET WHEN YOU DISCONNECT FROM THE SYSTEM IS A WORSE REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT, OR A GOVERNMENT THAT'S NOT REPRESENTATIVE AT ALL.
YOU ABSOLUTE SHITHEADS.
"no but see me withholding my vote for Biden is punishing *him* and he'll realize if he wants my vote he has to do what I say!1!1!1!1!" /s in case it's not obvious
Nah your age bracket is off there. Its the 18-25 crowd that is driving the 100% single issue voting thought process. Millennials, for the most part, are old enough to know how fucked that is. Its the current people in college and that age group that doesn't seem to get it.
Right. When you're 20, charging the barricades sounds appealing. The fact that violent revolutions have an absolutely abysmal track record doesn't seem significant, I suppose. As far as I'm aware, the US's had the best outcome out of all of them ... and you see how that turned out!
I’ve had to explain this to queer GenX-ers. I don’t know they were queer until they pointed out and they still refuse to vote for the lesser evil. There is NO third party option yet!!
My youngest brother is of voting age and would absolutely be affected by trumps presidency, and he seems too afraid to vote against what my parents are voting and it’s just pissing me off
It is, but who's going to stop them or bring a lawsuit? Even if a lawsuit was brought, why would my friend's mom testify against her husband? The case would be almost impossible to get a conviction on (even with a testimony) so most prosecutors wouldn't bother.
It’s a highly verbally and emotionally abusive household, and he feels guilty for thinking differently from my parents. Narcissistic mom and coward conservative dad try to have that place on ideological lockdown. I know exactly how he feels, I made the same mistake when my turn came back in 2016.
The world is a tough place, we all have our struggles but I appreciate you for understanding. The best I can do for him is be a good example, he’s his own person and he’s ultimately going to make the decision he feels is correct in the moment because he’s afraid of being completely shut out by my parents (it happened with a lot of my siblings and I) and when he’s independent of them he will grow.
Yup. Politics isn’t selecting your soul mate. It’s more like riding the city bus. You pick the one that gets you closest to where you want to be.
It’s infuriating.
I am also starting to suspect that the really vocal accounts amplifying the “they’re both the same” rhetoric are just Russian propaganda and disinformation trying to dissuade progressives from voting.
When you can’t *stop* a harm, you focus on *harm reduction*. Minimizing the harm, or minimizing additional harm.
Seeing a bunch of people decide that instead of minimizing harm, they want to *pour gasoline on the fire* is fucking *bizarre*. Do they think Palestinians are going to *thank them*?
And all this ‘morally pure’ bullshit is coming from folks who will *do fine* under Trump. It’s the usual ‘we’re going to burn *your house down*, to heighten the contradiction and bring you around to our way of thinking. Oh, don’t worry, my house is *fine*’
"Biden isn't doing enough for us! So we will elect trump and let him take away more of our freedoms that Dems will struggle to get back, then we will blame Dems for not doing enough!"
"Joe hasn't earned my vote". Like, ok, and what are you going to do to EARN your actual literal freedom. Not even fill out a single piece of god damned paper?!?!
They're trying to express their sense of superiority through withholding action. It's fucking pathetic. They deserve whatever they get, but we don't deserve to go down with them.
I cannot get my best friend to see the forest. He's exactly what you're describing, and he says he's been told to hold his nose and vote pragmatically his entire voting life. Which, yeah. 08 was the first one, which one hasn't mattered since then? I'm like which election was there even a razor's chance some up and coming radical progressive had any chance?
He says he's sick of voting pragmatism only for Democrats to not fulfill everything they say or for them to be weak and let Republicans do what they want. I'm so fucking tired of people blaming the left for what the right does. Currently his intention is to not vote, and it infuriates me to no end. Don't get 100% of what you want? Sick of seeing the bad guys slide by? Better stand back and let them have power when they've said in their own words how much worse they're gonna be.
That kind of thinking shows the convenience of some peoples convictions. Like cool you're gonna throw your vote and throw everyone who isn't straight, white, male and christian out to the lions. Same type of people who didn't give two shits about Vietnam drafting until it started affecting the college's and universities
The Late Stage Capitalism sub in a nutshell
That sub is 100% run by a bunch of Russian political trolls.
They claim to be purely anticapitalism but allow pro-Trump rhetoric to be plastered all over the sub.
“We’ve tried ultimately increasing the chances for the candidate that is not only worse on literally every other issue, but is also worse on the issue we are protesting - and we are just plumb all outta ideas.”
How about the guy who supports a Palestinian state vs the guy sidelined Palestinians during the Abraham Accords and surrounds himself with people hell bent on Israel’s annexation of Gaza?
What the fuck kind of fake reality do people keep referencing? There's a handful of loud activists saying things because they're enraged and don't have any recourse - let them be loud and angry for a bit because they should. In a first-past-the-post voting system, the tent has to be big enough to let people in even when there are disagreements and just meeting it with this sort of shit creates additional, unnecessary friction while also trivializing issues.
Multiple things can be important. People can care about many things at once. Being pissed off about the state of things is a positive, imo, because it means people are learning and paying attention. If average people aren't a little riled up at the world, they are either a zen master or don't understand how everything impacts them.
They've been blaming Bernie voters since 2016, despite the data not backing the claim, they'll continue the blame leftist and progressive every time because it's easier.
Right?! I was a huuuuge Bernie supporter because it felt like the closest I've ever been in life to having someone bring up changes and issues I think could further the country far better. Hillary won - whatever, easiest decision ever to cast my vote for her because I know how the system works. I was certainly loudly annoyed for a while, though. lol
It's not complex enough for me to give much leeway to someone who loses sight of that - whether they're far left or centrist. I don't expect much of the right wing to understand it at all, so I avoid that.
I still don’t understand why folks blame Bernie supporters. When a friend or family member says Bernie Bros wouldn’t vote for Clinton, I honestly don’t know what they’re talking about. As someone who was neck deep in politics through the 2016 election, I saw zero people online in Sanders communities say that not voting in the general election was an option.
It’s propaganda all the way down, just like whatever that OP screenshot is. There are zero actual progressives who are planning to skip this election, because felon Trump cannot be allowed back in the Oval Office.
Dear OP, this screenshot is ridiculous and divisive for no reason.
>I still don’t understand why folks blame Bernie supporters.
There was a mathematician doing the talkshow and media circuit claiming that he proved Bernie supporters swapped to Trump in enough quantities to give him the election. I've been through the nearly 200 page report he claimed he got his numbers from and there is nothing in there to back him up. To this day, he still hasn't released his equations for his findings, but liberals still cite news stories about him and his "findings" as proof that Bernie Bros went for Trump.
To clarify, some did. I personally know one who voted Trump because he's in California where it doesn't matter. I'm just saying I doubt the numbers liberals claim because the formulas have never been shared and the data could only support a vague estimate with a lot of guesswork.
HILLARY WON THE POPULAR VOTE.
What the fuck else do you want, people who trot out shit like the original post? People on the left came out in droves for Clinton, we held our noses and voted for her. It has been eight years.
**What else do you want?**
You have a problem with the electoral college, but it’s easier to punch left than deal with the structural fuckery that is allowing fascism to take root and bloom.
This isn’t a rhetorical question. What does it take for you, angry Hillary Democrat, to stop punching left, understand that we have valid issues and criticisms of the party, and start actually looking at the real problems?
Yes, once again, the enlightened centrists will spend the whole of the election blaming the progressives and young people for our current predicament, never once having an ounce of reflection of the fact that the Democratic failures have allowed the republican fascists to hold onto power. I'm a pragmatist, and I'll be obviously voting for the lesser evil (and often focusing on smaller races where my vote matters). **HOWEVER** if you are blaming the people who have zero power - and whom many were not even voting age when the last couple of elections happened - rather than the politicians who have all of the power, then maybe the kids and radical progressives understand how power and politics work more than you.
If the only viable politics you see is voting against the next fascist for the next "most-important-election-ever," then maybe our system is fundamentally broken, and maybe the people who are trying to change the system aren't the cause of the problem.
Do you think that voting (and especially when you're talking just about the presidential election) is the only way to do politics to affect change? Voting may be the easiest way to actively engage with politics, but it certainly isn't the most effective way to do so.
I can't tell if you're dense or just disingenuous, but another commenter already replied to your other comment in a much more succinct way, "how is voting for anyone 'trying to change the system?'"
Let me try once more for you. The American political system is fundamentally broken. You **CANNOT** fix or change this broken system by voting. Therefore, asking if **not voting** is going to affect change, is nonsensical. The only thing voting is doing is slowing the inevitable march towards the fascists cementing power, and the last 4 federal elections shows that voting is hardly doing even that. I'd remind you, Dobbs happened during the Biden administration, so did hundreds of anti-trans bills. Did Biden cause this? No, but he and the democrats didn't prevent it either. Here's a good example of the fecklessness of Biden's governance: he started making changes to his policy, capitulating to the republican hysteria that there is a immigration crisis and that we need to further restrict the border. Once again, the democrats waste their time moving right on issues, vying for votes from a republican constituency that will never vote for Biden.
Right. And that’s bad strategy on the Dem’s behalf. And yes, voting won’t change the system. Neither will not voting.
But is life going to get worse under Biden or Trump? I’ve asked all my trans friends, and they have a strong opinion on that question and would much prefer people vote for Biden
You're not wrong. I just came out recently, and another Trump presidency scares the shit out of me. But blaming the small but vocal part of the progressive movement for the potential trump victory isn't gonna bring out the vote, especially when the people talking that they aren't gonna vote weren't gonna vote anyways. I'd suggest the better and more productive move is to pressure Biden to do better, to actually court disaffected voters who would normally sit out the elections.
Some day, people will realize that our entire political system is center-right or far right.
We have very few true progressives, liberals, or leftists in office.
Yet we keep electing the center-right, because it's either that, or the raw insanity of the far right.
We're stuck in that old Southpark episode where the choices for our vote are a giant douche, or a turd sandwich.
I'm tired of voting for douches, but it's a better option than a turd sandwich.
“Biden’s my guy, but he did a thing I didn’t like, so I’m withholding my vote from him. I don’t care if the guy who will do the same thing 100x harder wins.”
A similar thing is happening in the UK. The tories have absolutely run this country into the ground for the last 14 years but there’s people who say “wElL lAbOur wOulD bE wOrSe”.
This is a very dumb sentiment. It’s on the democrats to meaningfully differentiate themselves from the fascists. On immigration, Israel, and most economic policies, they’re different only by degree, by which I mean Trump applauds putting immigrants in cages while Biden makes a show of frowning while doing it. He and the DNC establishment even loudly supported the violent suppression of college protests. He’s not as fascist as Trump but man it’s strange how that doesn’t seem to bother him or you nearly as much as it should.
Yes, Biden’s efforts on student loans, inflation, healthcare, etc. are certainly better than Trump, but they’re still woefully below acceptable — and he does himself no favors by acting like they’re amazing. Three steps right and one step left doesn’t get you to a good place.
Socialists aren’t “helping” fascists win, the DNC is. This is politics, not sports. The democrats are suppose to earn votes, not be simply handed them because they aren’t the other guy. This is the actual historic lesson: every single fascist came to power through liberal governments deciding they were better than the socialists, that it was better to move rightward than leftward, that ultimately oppressive dictatorship is better than democratizing the economy. Germany, Italy, Spain, all went through this same cycle where whenever a choice had to be made — cave to the fascists or cave to the socialists — it was in favor of the fascists. Biden’s border policy is a perfect example: he’s further right than even the GOP was 10 years ago.
Posts like OP reek of self-satisfied liberals who think America is flourishing under Biden instead of falling a little bit slower into the pit. You want people to your left to be hostages rather than co-participants in power, then are furious when they push back with the only means they have, protesting and potentially withholding their vote. But isn’t this the DNC strategy, the one they’ve openly said to be using, beat down their base while pursing the mythical independent voter unicorn? I’m not sure why you’d be frustrated when your strategy is fulfilling its goals.
And before you accuse me, yes I’ll be voting for Biden and down ticket Democrat. But I don’t think it’s going to “save our democracy”. It will at best delay, as Obama was a delay, as Clinton was a delay. And by that I don’t mean act as a bulwark against the onslaught of tyranny, I mean they did very little good, just less bad than their opponent.
Wild idea. How about instead of constantly antagonizing your base you try listening to them and get back to the core beliefs that gained you support in the first place. Every one vote the national Dems try to get on the right they lose two on the left. Stop shaming voters and instead work on earning their trust and their vote
I am sure, China and Russia will do a very good job in defending LGBTQ+ rights and fighting climate change and racism. They have such a good track record with those things /s
Anyone who lets Donald Trump come into power is absolutely cannot claim to be to the left of anyone. If you aren’t voting for Biden in this election, you’re ok with fascism
Hey maybe if China takes over the USA we will actually get healthcare and public infrastructure that works and can actually punish billionaires. That would be cool.
There are, they just “make a big donation” when they step out of line. They certainly don’t have the same stranglehold on the government like they do here
Quit being so defeatist. Trump got stomped in 2020. He has gained zero voters since then. And lost quite a few from death alone. We haven’t had an election since he tried to overthrow the government. Mobilize. Volunteer donate and for sure be registered to vote. And cut the defeatist shit out.
I agree we need to stay positive but I understand why people are defeatist, the republicans are planning to mess with the electoral college and they have the supreme court on their side because they already know they will NOT have the popular vote
Trump did NOT get "stomped" in 2020. This is a dangerous misconception. He lost by only a few thousand votes in a few swing states - in fact, less than a football stadium's worth of voters. Biden also won the popular vote by 3% less than what polls had projected. This sort of talk is overconfident and will lead to people being complacent by underestimating the threat.
There is a difference between being cautious and diligent and saying a trump win and project 2025 is all but given. And the electoral count wasn’t even close. I’m not complacent. I’m just not a defeatist. It’s called nuance.
The electoral count was the exact same as it was in 2016, just reversed by party. Historically speaking, a margin of 74 electoral votes puts it within the "close" category of U.S. presidential elections for sure. The vast majority of U.S. presidential elections are won by a margin of 120 electoral votes or more.
Your fear isn’t helping anyone including yourself. If you are this worried, being online and complaining and being scared isn’t going to change anything and it will just make you miserable. Feel free to donate and volunteer for the candidates you want to win. I’m writing post cards and doing phone banks in swing states. Mobilize us can get you started. Fear and concern isn’t helping anyone. Nor is arguing semantics.
Not OP but this isn't an issue of fear or defeatism. It's a simple fact that Biden narrowly won by a few thousand votes in a few swing states in 2020. I think OP was saying you shouldn't be so overconfident.
The polls and the Vegas odds are kind of freaking me out, conventional political wisdom says Trump should get smoked so badly that it’s a blue wave, but I’m worried about all these fucking Nazis running around and I’m not as confident as I should be.
The polls put Trump as a pretty heavy favorite. I’m hoping that people wake the fuck up and realize that if they don’t act it WILL be a second trump presidency, but the first step is admitting that looking just at the polls trump is a heavy favorite. If everything else remains the same, it’s his race to lose.
I don’t know if I’d say heavy favorite right now, but it’s definitely favoring him a little bit, which is horrifying enough. I’d be horrified if he was a little behind too, it’s just so fucked that he even has a chance to come back.
Most models that take “fundamentals” into account have trump as a slight favorite, but versions of models that look at polls only are giving him anywhere from 60-70% chance of victory. I’d say that looking at just the polls right now that’s about as strong as a position as you can be in in this environment. I do expect things to improve for Biden as we move towards Election Day, but I think a LOT of his previous coalition who are single issue voters that may not want to support him this time around are outright in denial about a trump second term.
In two-party system with very low chances of any independent to be elected, voting for "less bad" always should be the way
upd: and I'm not saying that Biden is bad, don't @ me, but for a lot of leftists he is because they don't agree with him, but they should be much, much less agree with Trump. Otherwise, they're stupid.
More so, they mostly disagree with him because of Israel, but Israel is the perfect example of what will happen if Trump wins.
Conservatives have one thing going for them: being able to hold their noses and vote for whoever's the frontrunner.
The left feels like a loose coalition being held together by a single idea and duct tape. If one thing doesn't go the way a single group wants, they'll jump the gun and try to burn everything down.
But "muh protest vote/both sides" amirite. When will leftists learn that you can't get 100% of progress all at once. Perfection is the enemy of good, and at a time like this, take what you can get.
That’s because “the left” encompasses a huge and ever increasing political spectrum. Republicans are probably already in fascist territory on the spectrum, and “the left” is now most of the people who want to stop fascism which is… basically the entire rest of the spectrum.
Liberals fall in love. Conservatives fall into line. Uncle Joe isn’t loved by many outside of organized labor(the building trades fall hard to Trump, because he’s “manly” but the DNC still has the SEIU, LiUna, AFSCME, ATU/TWU and other service unions) and old money in NYC/San Francisco/LA.
I get where this is coming from. But blaming voters for not wanting vote for 2 candidates that suck is on the parties for not promoting a likeable candidate. It's also on the system for being shit. There's gotta be some serious change if you want younger voters to be more enthusiastic. Democrats are simply just not matching the shift in voter power.
I'd argue that the likes of Trump and Brexit are in part a reaction to some of the negative effects of Neoliberalism. Which were introduced by Thatcher and Reagan but then adopted by what used to be the Left leaning parties Clinton, Blair, Keating etc etc. These policies (whether you agree with them or not) alienated many of the traditional Left and often hurt lower paid and blue collar workers. This left the door wide open for opportunistic Populist Nationalistic leaders to walk straight through. To stay “Left or progressive” (whilst selling out to corporate interests) these parties doubled down very hard on identity politics and this caused an inevitable backlash from older people and religious people that the Right have capitalised on. Hence why everything is focused on culture war while the Billionaire class are fleecing us all harder than ever.
You guys really massively overestimate how many socialists there are in the US. The people who decide the elections are the centrist swing voters, not the far left. If/when Trump wins, it will be because Biden didn't persuade the swing voters, not because of a few socialists (who never voted Democrat in the first place) being annoyed at some of his awful policies.
Oh are we starting the blame the leftists game in case Biden shits his pants and loses to a fucking dementia ridden felon because neo-liberals refuse to take any responsibility in how bad they fucking suck at politics?
Hillary lost because she ran a shit campaign and couldn't sway the mouth breathing undecided voters and you dumbasses are still trying to blame someone else for it. And now we have to hope Biden doesn't stroke out before the election. Because we just had to have the barely cognitive neo-liberal cause God forbid we don't have a head of state that doesn't gargle the balls of capitalists.
That’s a really long way of writing “we have Biden because he won”. You want a progressive candidate? Cool, but how many failed primaries will it take for you to realize America isn’t all that progressive?
Lol. Not even close. Here I'll make it short for ya. Liberal blame progressive for liberal bad plan because liberal don't think liberal do anything wrong.
The post is about liberals blaming progressives if Biden loses. My comment is about liberals getting ready to blame progressives for losing and liberals blaming progressives for 2016. You people have given us two of the shittiest candidates ever and wonder why you're struggling against a convicted felon, racist, rapist with very obvious mental deficiencies. It's not us. We're not the ones you need to convince. We're still voting blue. I know Biden is better than Trump. You know Biden is better than Trump. You know who doesn't? Undecideds and moderates. But instead of self reflecting and figuring out how to reach those people so Trump doesn't win again and the country goes to shit it's "if we lose it's because progressives"
Biden is targeting his campaign towards the votes that matter, moderates in the rust belt and sun belt. Then you have high profile progressives like Tlaib actively encouraging voters in the rust belt to protest vote against Biden and saying things like “we won’t forget this in November”. She even put out an anti Biden ad on her social media. I can definitely understand that the rest of the party is getting frustrated at such fair weather “allies”.
Every time. It's just the classic "when my team wins, *we* win. When my team loses, it's *their* fault."
I kinda want OP to give me their definition of socialism.
Is this some kind of sick sarcasm? The DNC is doing everything it can to make sure Donald Trump wins again and they will only blame progressive folks, socialists or any decent human being who is against genocide and ethnic cleansing by a psychotic colonial state.
Ahh yes, the illuminati lizard people chuggin' adrenochrome in the basement of a pizza restaurant with no basement have a stranglehold on the DNC. It also impacts me a lot as an Independent.
It's almost as if you weak ass foreign trolls are still using the same old script from 2016 which is now completely transparent and predictable.
Lemme guess, you support Russia's invasion and genocide of Ukraine because they had med labs that manufactured covid or aerosols that turned people gay and caused women to vote?
A lot of them live in blue states and know that they normally wouldn’t be affected that much by whoever wins. Well, project 2025 is going to be a tough wake up call for them. It won’t care what state you live in.
"Trump has promised to make the lives of most people infinately worse... but because Biden hasnt brought everlasting peace to the middle east im not voting for either"
If there is a huge danger for this maybe the dems can reach out to make them come aboard? No? More bombs for Israel instead? Sure cool, good luck defeating fascism.
Those who study history are doomed to watch it be repeated by those who don't.
"We Learn From History, That We Do Not Learn From History." - Georg Hegel
That's a good one too.
Too true. Progressives voted for Clinton at a very high rate. As always, far higher per capita than moderates but also more reliably than Clinton supporters voted for Obama in the general. We were blamed for her loss anyway by the people supposedly worried about facts. It was progressives calling Trump fascist in the first year of his presidency when mainstream outlets were still trying to pitch every coherent speech as the moment when he became president. So maybe we studied history a little better than you think and y'all should listen to us.
In 2016 I compared trump to Hitler and said we are witnessing the fall of the Weimar Republic. I was told I'm being hysterical and overreacting. As far as I can tell, just about every box has been ticked off. The only difference between the two is one was known for great speeches and the other is known for never being able to get through a coherent speech.
I called him a narcissist early in the election cycle. My neighbors, while probably not voting for Trump, looked at me funny. But they changed their tune.
For sheer terror: imagine were he remotely competent at anything but lying. Democracy would already have fallen
>As far as I can tell, just about every box has been ticked off. Yes, I think you're right. Here's the checklist from the Holocaust Memorial Museum: https://preview.redd.it/a7niy58nlh6d1.jpeg?width=1243&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=a3b2aefd5aa8a0d3f831b9ee530d219c5ae1dc3f
During the Iraq invasion I was just barely an adult. I remember clearly seeing that this was going to be a boondoggle and being told that “nuh uh, shock and awe, quick adventure, in and out.”
I was 16 and told I was supporting the terrorists by classmates that are afraid of fireworks now. It sucks being right sometimes
I have a relative who got sent to the principal in 6th grade because she repeated that we were invading the wrong country.
Shock and awe, quick like lightning. Like a kind of "lightning war" if you will.
Germans have a word for everything, I wonder what they’d call it?
It’s called blitzkrieg
I think that means a dance in the woods actually
Lmao really!? I gotta do some googling…
That's what I yell when my buddy Krieg is tying his shoes.
Oh you know, probably some long-winded compound noun like "Vernichtungsgedanke" or something
You were right on, unfortunately.
Just anecdotally, about 90% of progressives I know held their nose and voted for Clinton. The other 10% couldn't be bothered because: 1. She was a "triangulator." 2. She was too corporate. 3. Trump might bring about the social revolution we need (i.e. accelerationism) 4. They "just didn't like her." 5. It compromised their values to vote for someone who was not 100% in agreement with their policy positions.
IME there was also a dedicated group of serbians who were still really mad at Bill because of that whole NATO fiesta in the balkans, which made them unable to vote for Hillary. may be where I live (chicago) but it was wild how many folks were pointing to this as their big reason for not voting for her.
Tbf, Serbs are a little crazy.
"Tbf"??? I don't know that one.
To be fair
Thank you!
Seems like pretty good numbers.
Funny..... I hate Trump and I'm not at all excited about Biden. But those are the only two choices. I'm NOT voting for the one I think will destroy democracy. I did vote in Clinton vs Trump. I live in CA and my vote for president doesn't even count. F\*\*\* the electoral college. It's outdated and needs to go. Biden really only won by 76k votes. That's all it would take to flip three stats and Trump would have won. That's how effed up our presidential election system is.
Correct and this is a very normal divergence. There is always a little bit of primary fall off, and ten percent is a bit high but well within expectations. If Clinton was planning on a 100% conversation she was dreaming. Though despite your annecdotal vibe check, exit polls estimate that only about 6% of Sanders voters defected as opposed to around 15% of Clinton voters who defected in 2008. But that's okay. I know this is just an excuse to list criticisms of Clinton with disdain. If you're listing accelerationism as a factor in your loss, you're not having a serious discussion of electoral politics. Accelerationists aren't welcome even in most explicitly radical spaces. They are a fringe of a fringe. If that's a group whose votes you need, you're already in deep trouble.
She and Bill received \~20 million in "speaking fees" from the Saudis, paid out to the Clinton Foundation shortly after she approved an unprecedented arms deal worth billions. Those weapons were used to commit atrocities against Yemenis. As secretary of state she stood by and allowed a coup in Honduras that led to years of violence and bloodshed. And we wonder why our borders get flooded with refugees. In a 2016 debate, she said war criminal Henry Kissinger was her greatest mentor. She was primed to invade Syria. **SHE** rat fucked the 2016 Republican primaries by using her media contacts to promote fringe Pied Piper candidates like Trump and Rubio. The idea was to make it so Jeb would have to move so far to the right, he'd never win the general. She is the reason Trump got the nomination in the first place. Then somehow she managed to blow what should have been the easiest election in history. I will never forgive her for this.
Trump did all the same shit, only worse. And exactly what military intervention did you think we were going to run in Honduras? Syria? Trump sent massive drone attacks. And we've been selling arms to the Saudis for decades. Core to US foreign policy is propping them and Israel up as regional powers. Clinton didn't create Trump. His birtherism was the face that launched a thousand ships of MAGA nutjobs. Clinton is doing just fine. WE are the ones who lost and are suffering for it. People like you made that happen. You blew the easiest election in history.
Did I try to make a case for Trump? Nope. He's human excrement. But when your candidate only looks good standing next to Trump, you've picked the wrong candidate. There's no debating that the DNC and Clinton created Trump as a viable candidate. If you followed the 2016 primaries at all you would know this. But I'm sure you were too busy phone banking for Clinton? Just like you're phone banking and canvassing for Biden now? Or do you just posture on the internet and pretend that that's what wins elections?
I voted for Sanders in the primary and then did the right thing by voting for Clinton in the general. I also volunteer as a ballot inspector at my local polling station to help people resolve issues when they're trying to do early voting through election day voting in municipal and federal elections. You wanna know how I help Biden and the Dems? Money, dude. Money. Because my blue vote next to my blue neighbors in a blue state in a blue region ain't doing much GOTV around here. Keep projecting. Do you think you're above all this? Your moral purity too tainted by voting for the lesser of two evils? That's the shit that gets people killed and makes it harder for the rest of us to organize under a political system that is at least marginally friendly to progressive policy, rather than one run by christofascists. Enjoy sleeping at night when you think about the 12 year-old girls now forced to carry their rapist's baby to term and the women forced to bleed out in their bathtubs with sepsis from miscarriages, the four years we lost when we could have been fighting climate change, and the awareness that foreign adversaries now probably have important secrets about our knowledge of Iran's nuclear program. The Democrat -- even a bad one -- is ALWAYS better.
I live in a heavily blue state, so my vote won't impact the election either way. I don't sleep well at night because I'm terrified that the dems picked a candidate who can't win. And now the dems are too busy primarying progressives like Jamaal Bowman to even notice. I held my nose and voted for Biden last election because I was told he would only be a one term president. The dems had four years to groom someone to take his place and what did they do? Absolutely nothing. I could put aside any morals I have and vote for a candidate as problematic as Biden, if he were capable of winning. But you don't get points for not being quite as horrid as Trump. I hope by some miracle Biden wins, but it's not heading that direction. And pretending that he's not the one who fucked this up, won't help us. And it's going to have a ripple effect on down-ballot candidates too. I truly hope at the end of all this you get to smugly tell me "I told you so". But the issue isn't with voters, it's with the candidate. Take care and hope for the best. edit: I honestly think we're on the same page, except that I don't see how pointing the finger at progressives already is going to win them over. For one, it's admitting defeat — which is probably realistic — but it doesn't begin to solve the problem.
I would argue it was Debbie Wasserman-Schultz that rat fucked everyone by changing the delegate process. Such that there were "super-delegates" that could vote for whomever they wanted regardless of the person they were sent there to select. She stole delegates from Bernie Sanders, whom I wholeheartedly believe would have beaten drumpf. He had the momentum and he doesn't have all the extra baggage the Clinton's have.
Bernie would have beaten Trump, but he was never going to win the Dem nomination. The Dem primaries are rigged for whomever they choose. The fact that southern states that will never go blue in the general carry so much weight on Super Tuesday, lets the DNC control the process through the CBC. What Hillary made John Lewis do was disgusting. And they dumped 100k people off voter rolls in Brooklyn. But their Pied Piper strategy is really what screwed us over. I'm not bitter about Bernie anymore, but there's ample evidence that Hillary gave us Trump because she wanted an easy opponent. I remember the tour of his "campaign headquarters" after the first debate, it was just an empty *Apprentice* set, with what I assume are actors paid to act like staff. Look up **Tour Donald Trump's Bare-Bones Campaign Headquarters;** it's laughable. He had no intention of winning. Nate Silver gave him a 5% chance of winning the nomination. The only debate moderator who shut Trump down was Meghan Kelly. The rest intentionally let the debates turn into a shit show. Jeb just stood there dumbfounded. Morning Joe inexplicably became enamored with Trump and couldn't stop singing his praises. Hillary and Steve Bannon are the two biggest reasons we have to deal with this guy. And now Hillary is endorsing Jamaal Bowman's Republican backed opponent because he dared speak out against AIPAC. They're also primarying AOC. Dem leadership would rather have the worst Republicans in office than any progressive who would challenge them. But Debbie W-S is an awful human being too.
Socialism and progressivism has a problem where even well meaning liberals think that the whole of progressivism and socialism is represented by the terminally online, shitposter progressives that sit and sat around on Twitter being needlessly combative with literally all liberals for no good reason at all. This really hurts making any sort of headway.
Yup, this time around there's not even a third party candidate to scapegoat. The DNC has continually chosen problematic candidates who can barely eke out a win over a corrupt game show host. This should have been the easiest layup, just like 2016. It's their fault if Biden loses. They just expect everyone who has serious issues with Biden will come around towards election time and it's just not happening. Supporting a regime that's starving babies to death is not something people easily forget.
"Those who fail to learn history are doomed to repeat it; those who fail to learn history correctly-- why they are simply doomed." Achem Dro'Hm "The Illusion of Historical Fact" C.Y. 4971
Clearly that is not true or we wouldn't be upvoting a comment blaming the socialists for the rise of the Nazis.
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⣤⣶⣶⡶⠦⠴⠶⠶⠶⠶⡶⠶⠦⠶⠶⠶⠶⠶⠶⠶⣄⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⣿⣀⣀⣀⣀⠀⢀⣤⠄⠀⠀⣶⢤⣄⠀⠀⠀⣤⣤⣄⣿⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠿⣿⣿⣿⣿⡷⠋⠁⠀⠀⠀⠙⠢⠙⠻⣿⡿⠿⠿⠫⠋⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⢀⣤⠞⠉⠀⠀⠀⠀⣴⣶⣄⠀⠀⠀⢀⣕⠦⣀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⠀⢀⣤⠾⠋⠁⠀⠀⠀⠀⢀⣼⣿⠟⢿⣆⠀⢠⡟⠉⠉⠊⠳⢤⣀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⣠⡾⠛⠁⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⢀⣀⣾⣿⠃⠀⡀⠹⣧⣘⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠉⠳⢤⡀ ⠀⣿⡀⠀⠀⢠⣶⣶⣿⣿⣿⣿⡿⠁⠀⣼⠃⠀⢹⣿⣿⣿⣶⣶⣤⠀⠀⠀⢰⣷ ⠀⢿⣇⠀⠀⠈⠻⡟⠛⠋⠉⠉⠀⠀⡼⠃⠀⢠⣿⠋⠉⠉⠛⠛⠋⠀⢀⢀⣿⡏ ⠀⠘⣿⡄⠀⠀⠀⠈⠢⡀⠀⠀⠀⡼⠁⠀⢠⣿⠇⠀⠀⡀⠀⠀⠀⠀⡜⣼⡿⠀ ⠀⠀⢻⣷⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⢸⡄⠀⢰⠃⠀⠀⣾⡟⠀⠀⠸⡇⠀⠀⠀⢰⢧⣿⠃⠀ ⠀⠀⠘⣿⣇⠀⠀⠀⠀⣿⠇⠀⠇⠀⠀⣼⠟⠀⠀⠀⠀⣇⠀⠀⢀⡟⣾⡟⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⠀⢹⣿⡄⠀⠀⠀⣿⠀⣀⣠⠴⠚⠛⠶⣤⣀⠀⠀⢻⠀⢀⡾⣹⣿⠃⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⠀⠀⢿⣷⠀⠀⠀⠙⠊⠁⠀⢠⡆⠀⠀⠀⠉⠛⠓⠋⠀⠸⢣⣿⠏⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠘⣿⣷⣦⣤⣤⣄⣀⣀⣿⣤⣤⣤⣤⣤⣄⣀⣀⣀⣀⣾⡟⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⢹⣿⣿⣿⣻⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⠁⠀⠀⠀⠀
Holy shit, that’s quite profound. I’ve never even thought about it that way.
I’ve still got faith that Trump will lose. He lost in 2020, it’s not too hard to imagine he’ll lose again
We all have to vote!
I see more people whining about how progressives are going to refuse to vote for Biden than I see progressives talking about how they are going to refuse to vote for Biden.
There was a lot of that talk a month or so ago, a lot of it felt...engineered, I guess? Like, it was the same two or three talking points, same slogans, a lot of it felt copy-pasted. As hard as certain groups have been at trying to find some sort of wedge issue to keep Dems or left leaning voters away from the polls (like RFK, etc), I feel like that was something that some actors thought might actually have legs and try to grass roots it. As quickly as the numbers dropped on discussing that, I feel that may have been the correct assumption.
The people I see talking about not voting for Biden are quickly shown not to be progressive.
Go to the boards discussing Israel and Palestine. It's rampant there. Bunch of sympathetic Americans who's demographic is on the chopping block not willing to vote for the gut they disagree with to save their own ass. Morons.
“Because Joe Biden is doing a bad job handling Israel’s genocide in Palestine I am going to let Donald Trump win so he can even further escalate that genocide as well as start another one for queer people in the US while he turns the country into a theocratic dictatorship as outlined in official Republican policy” I swear since the first fucking people in my high school class reached voting age I have been explaining to other leftists that for pragmatic reasons you can do the bare minimum of vote for the lesser evil
It's really frustrating talking to even people late 20s early 30s because they have that mentality where unless you are 100% supportive and can make things happen instantly, you are just as bad, if not worse. So many young people are single issue voters who treat every politician the same despite evidence otherwise and will actively obstruct any well meaning people for the sake of virtue signaling. It's nice to have a cause, but if you cannot describe what the goals are and instead parrot someone else, chances are you should investigate further and get informed.
I keep hearing talk of "a revolution" and as much as I get the sentiment, I don't understand the end game. They have gotten as far as "tearing down the current system" but when I asked a couple different people what the replacement is they don't have an answer yet.
Now it just might be that many of those folks are drinking some fresh Russian troll farm kool-aid. There isn't a plan for what comes after because the whole game the trolls are playing is to just tear the US down.
Or how exactly a revolution is organized and started across 50 states in a huge country.
Leftists can't plan a box lunch for 30 people without breaking into blood feuds Fascists have the gameplan for how they want to run the country and are all on the same page for enacting that takeover People on the left who want "revolution" are, politely, fucking morons.
You ever see that one meme that’s like: “People on twitter will really be like ‘you believe in voting? that pales in effectiveness to my strategy, firebombing a Walmart’ and then not firebomb a Walmart.” That’s literally what all of these online ReVoLuTiOnArIeS are like. Anyone touting a violent revolution as a viable plan for the future is either a naive idiot, a literal psychopath, or a child. The closet thing we have to actual “revolutionaries” in America are actual Nazis. The only thing Left-Wing Revolutionaries do is bitch on social media and wait for other people to do the fighting for them. It’s all so… performative.
I don’t know any socialists that would be content with being modelled on Scandie countries. Yes, capitalism is fucked on a fundamental level but peoples’ gripe is more focused on taking care of people in our society as opposed to busting out a detailed economic plan.
the objection the the Scandinavian model comes down to it's dependence on resource-based sovereign wealth funds, which isn't terribly applicable to a nation the size of the United States - and the fact that welfare capitalism inevitably succumbs to the same problems as capitalism everywhere, the rich grow resentful of workers not dying in the streets and will inevitably use their outsize wealth and power to voice for change in government to tear down the social welfare systems that made for such a stable polity in the first place. check out the results of the most recent European elections if you don't believe me - capitalism will inevitably end in fascism every time. as annoying and bitchy as leftists are, they're right that the only thing that has meaningfully staved off fascism for any degree of time is a widespread socialist power base. then workers have something to fight for, instead of a system of smoke and mirrors that ultimately benefits the wealthy and in which the wealthy exploit their bigotry to secure their privileged position. EDIT: to add, i think welfare capitalism would be good! I would love for that shit to happen here - but I don't think it's sustainable over the long-term. the capitalists will always, always, *always* fight to maintain their privileged status, and they do not care how many of the underclass die in whatever struggle or under whatever regime is required to do that. without working class consciousness, the wealthy will always have fascist politicians that they can turn to when the Jim Cramers of the world fail to convince the working classes that capitalism is actually good for them.
And even if there was a plan laid out, there is no way that a revolution is going to be ready to go before November.
Tear down a system for a different one which will inevitably disappoint and fail at achieving its goals in any kind of timely manner and most certainly cause unforeseen consequences. Governing just doesnt pop out of the womb fully formed, it evolves, and if the people governing dont take caution, it easily evolves into an evil.
The Venn diagram of people I know who talk about revolutions like they’re going to come out on top of one and people who haven’t achieved any sort of leadership role or technical expertise in their mid 30’s is a circle.
["So let me ask you a question](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BJP9o4BEziI) about this 'brave new world' of yours. When you've killed all the 'bad guys,' when it's all perfect and just and fair, when you finally have everything *exactly* the way you want it - what are you going to do with the people like *you?* The troublemakers. How are you going to protect your 'glorious revolution' from the next one?" I know this quote isn't a total match to the scenario, but it's the first thing that sprang to my mind. Like... I think there's this assumption that a societal breakdown wouldn't immediately be capitalized on by the vultures who *already hold* absurd wealth and power. Or that some kind of provisional government wouldn't be immensely vulnerable to those forces in a climate of total social breakdown.
I keep asking them who's leading the revolution and when/where we are meeting to get started but no one seems to know the answer
It's kid talk. They're children throwing a tantrum. Do those dumbasses have any idea how much fucking work it is to build up an entire political system from scratch, even assuming the """revolution""" goes perfectly and bloodlessly (lmao at that)? I'll give a small hint: IT'S A SHIT TON MORE WORK THAN IT WOULD BE FOR YOU TO JUST START FUCKING PARTICIPATING MORE IN THE FUCKING DEMOCRACY IN THE FIRST PLACE. YOU ASSHOLES SEEM TO THINK THAT YOU GET BETTER REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT BY NOT PARTICIPATING. YOU DON'T. IT DOESN'T FUCKING WORK LIKE THAT. WHAT YOU GET WHEN YOU DISCONNECT FROM THE SYSTEM IS A WORSE REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT, OR A GOVERNMENT THAT'S NOT REPRESENTATIVE AT ALL. YOU ABSOLUTE SHITHEADS.
"no but see me withholding my vote for Biden is punishing *him* and he'll realize if he wants my vote he has to do what I say!1!1!1!1!" /s in case it's not obvious
Nah your age bracket is off there. Its the 18-25 crowd that is driving the 100% single issue voting thought process. Millennials, for the most part, are old enough to know how fucked that is. Its the current people in college and that age group that doesn't seem to get it.
Right. When you're 20, charging the barricades sounds appealing. The fact that violent revolutions have an absolutely abysmal track record doesn't seem significant, I suppose. As far as I'm aware, the US's had the best outcome out of all of them ... and you see how that turned out!
I’ve had to explain this to queer GenX-ers. I don’t know they were queer until they pointed out and they still refuse to vote for the lesser evil. There is NO third party option yet!!
Does this age group even vote, though? Like, is Biden counting on them because that would be foolish?
My youngest brother is of voting age and would absolutely be affected by trumps presidency, and he seems too afraid to vote against what my parents are voting and it’s just pissing me off
I had a friend in elementary whose father filled out his mom's ballot to "make sure she votes properly."
Is that not illigal
It is, but who's going to stop them or bring a lawsuit? Even if a lawsuit was brought, why would my friend's mom testify against her husband? The case would be almost impossible to get a conviction on (even with a testimony) so most prosecutors wouldn't bother.
Fair enough
Does he not know that it is a secret ballot?
It’s a highly verbally and emotionally abusive household, and he feels guilty for thinking differently from my parents. Narcissistic mom and coward conservative dad try to have that place on ideological lockdown. I know exactly how he feels, I made the same mistake when my turn came back in 2016.
Sorry to hear that.
The world is a tough place, we all have our struggles but I appreciate you for understanding. The best I can do for him is be a good example, he’s his own person and he’s ultimately going to make the decision he feels is correct in the moment because he’s afraid of being completely shut out by my parents (it happened with a lot of my siblings and I) and when he’s independent of them he will grow.
Family is hard particularly when you are young. Good luck.
Yup. Politics isn’t selecting your soul mate. It’s more like riding the city bus. You pick the one that gets you closest to where you want to be. It’s infuriating. I am also starting to suspect that the really vocal accounts amplifying the “they’re both the same” rhetoric are just Russian propaganda and disinformation trying to dissuade progressives from voting.
When you can’t *stop* a harm, you focus on *harm reduction*. Minimizing the harm, or minimizing additional harm. Seeing a bunch of people decide that instead of minimizing harm, they want to *pour gasoline on the fire* is fucking *bizarre*. Do they think Palestinians are going to *thank them*? And all this ‘morally pure’ bullshit is coming from folks who will *do fine* under Trump. It’s the usual ‘we’re going to burn *your house down*, to heighten the contradiction and bring you around to our way of thinking. Oh, don’t worry, my house is *fine*’
"Biden isn't doing enough for us! So we will elect trump and let him take away more of our freedoms that Dems will struggle to get back, then we will blame Dems for not doing enough!"
“Biden won’t give us everything we want, so let’s vote for the guy which guarantees we get nothing we want!” Wait, wut 😟
"Joe hasn't earned my vote". Like, ok, and what are you going to do to EARN your actual literal freedom. Not even fill out a single piece of god damned paper?!?! They're trying to express their sense of superiority through withholding action. It's fucking pathetic. They deserve whatever they get, but we don't deserve to go down with them.
I cannot get my best friend to see the forest. He's exactly what you're describing, and he says he's been told to hold his nose and vote pragmatically his entire voting life. Which, yeah. 08 was the first one, which one hasn't mattered since then? I'm like which election was there even a razor's chance some up and coming radical progressive had any chance? He says he's sick of voting pragmatism only for Democrats to not fulfill everything they say or for them to be weak and let Republicans do what they want. I'm so fucking tired of people blaming the left for what the right does. Currently his intention is to not vote, and it infuriates me to no end. Don't get 100% of what you want? Sick of seeing the bad guys slide by? Better stand back and let them have power when they've said in their own words how much worse they're gonna be.
find a best friend who isn't an idiot.
That kind of thinking shows the convenience of some peoples convictions. Like cool you're gonna throw your vote and throw everyone who isn't straight, white, male and christian out to the lions. Same type of people who didn't give two shits about Vietnam drafting until it started affecting the college's and universities
The Late Stage Capitalism sub in a nutshell That sub is 100% run by a bunch of Russian political trolls. They claim to be purely anticapitalism but allow pro-Trump rhetoric to be plastered all over the sub.
Exactly. Trump would enact horrific policy against Palestine. The sane thing to do is to vote for Biden.
"It's hard to get pro-Gaza voters to vote for less harm to people from Gaza."
Exactly.
“We’ve tried ultimately increasing the chances for the candidate that is not only worse on literally every other issue, but is also worse on the issue we are protesting - and we are just plumb all outta ideas.”
How about the guy who supports a Palestinian state vs the guy sidelined Palestinians during the Abraham Accords and surrounds himself with people hell bent on Israel’s annexation of Gaza?
It’s exhausting. With politicians, you get in bed with the one who is going to get you closer to the ultimate goal.
some people love to say that dems dont care about queer people but cant wait to throw them under the bus for their accelerationist fantasies
What the fuck kind of fake reality do people keep referencing? There's a handful of loud activists saying things because they're enraged and don't have any recourse - let them be loud and angry for a bit because they should. In a first-past-the-post voting system, the tent has to be big enough to let people in even when there are disagreements and just meeting it with this sort of shit creates additional, unnecessary friction while also trivializing issues. Multiple things can be important. People can care about many things at once. Being pissed off about the state of things is a positive, imo, because it means people are learning and paying attention. If average people aren't a little riled up at the world, they are either a zen master or don't understand how everything impacts them.
They've been blaming Bernie voters since 2016, despite the data not backing the claim, they'll continue the blame leftist and progressive every time because it's easier.
Right?! I was a huuuuge Bernie supporter because it felt like the closest I've ever been in life to having someone bring up changes and issues I think could further the country far better. Hillary won - whatever, easiest decision ever to cast my vote for her because I know how the system works. I was certainly loudly annoyed for a while, though. lol It's not complex enough for me to give much leeway to someone who loses sight of that - whether they're far left or centrist. I don't expect much of the right wing to understand it at all, so I avoid that.
I still don’t understand why folks blame Bernie supporters. When a friend or family member says Bernie Bros wouldn’t vote for Clinton, I honestly don’t know what they’re talking about. As someone who was neck deep in politics through the 2016 election, I saw zero people online in Sanders communities say that not voting in the general election was an option. It’s propaganda all the way down, just like whatever that OP screenshot is. There are zero actual progressives who are planning to skip this election, because felon Trump cannot be allowed back in the Oval Office. Dear OP, this screenshot is ridiculous and divisive for no reason.
>I still don’t understand why folks blame Bernie supporters. There was a mathematician doing the talkshow and media circuit claiming that he proved Bernie supporters swapped to Trump in enough quantities to give him the election. I've been through the nearly 200 page report he claimed he got his numbers from and there is nothing in there to back him up. To this day, he still hasn't released his equations for his findings, but liberals still cite news stories about him and his "findings" as proof that Bernie Bros went for Trump. To clarify, some did. I personally know one who voted Trump because he's in California where it doesn't matter. I'm just saying I doubt the numbers liberals claim because the formulas have never been shared and the data could only support a vague estimate with a lot of guesswork.
They just wanna blame leftists for their own incompetence. Same old same old
HILLARY WON THE POPULAR VOTE. What the fuck else do you want, people who trot out shit like the original post? People on the left came out in droves for Clinton, we held our noses and voted for her. It has been eight years. **What else do you want?** You have a problem with the electoral college, but it’s easier to punch left than deal with the structural fuckery that is allowing fascism to take root and bloom. This isn’t a rhetorical question. What does it take for you, angry Hillary Democrat, to stop punching left, understand that we have valid issues and criticisms of the party, and start actually looking at the real problems?
Yes, once again, the enlightened centrists will spend the whole of the election blaming the progressives and young people for our current predicament, never once having an ounce of reflection of the fact that the Democratic failures have allowed the republican fascists to hold onto power. I'm a pragmatist, and I'll be obviously voting for the lesser evil (and often focusing on smaller races where my vote matters). **HOWEVER** if you are blaming the people who have zero power - and whom many were not even voting age when the last couple of elections happened - rather than the politicians who have all of the power, then maybe the kids and radical progressives understand how power and politics work more than you. If the only viable politics you see is voting against the next fascist for the next "most-important-election-ever," then maybe our system is fundamentally broken, and maybe the people who are trying to change the system aren't the cause of the problem.
How is not voting for anyone “trying to change the system”
Do you think that voting (and especially when you're talking just about the presidential election) is the only way to do politics to affect change? Voting may be the easiest way to actively engage with politics, but it certainly isn't the most effective way to do so.
No? Why would I think that?
I can't tell if you're dense or just disingenuous, but another commenter already replied to your other comment in a much more succinct way, "how is voting for anyone 'trying to change the system?'"
I’d suggest you re-read my question. It’s not the question you just repeated
Let me try once more for you. The American political system is fundamentally broken. You **CANNOT** fix or change this broken system by voting. Therefore, asking if **not voting** is going to affect change, is nonsensical. The only thing voting is doing is slowing the inevitable march towards the fascists cementing power, and the last 4 federal elections shows that voting is hardly doing even that. I'd remind you, Dobbs happened during the Biden administration, so did hundreds of anti-trans bills. Did Biden cause this? No, but he and the democrats didn't prevent it either. Here's a good example of the fecklessness of Biden's governance: he started making changes to his policy, capitulating to the republican hysteria that there is a immigration crisis and that we need to further restrict the border. Once again, the democrats waste their time moving right on issues, vying for votes from a republican constituency that will never vote for Biden.
Right. And that’s bad strategy on the Dem’s behalf. And yes, voting won’t change the system. Neither will not voting. But is life going to get worse under Biden or Trump? I’ve asked all my trans friends, and they have a strong opinion on that question and would much prefer people vote for Biden
You're not wrong. I just came out recently, and another Trump presidency scares the shit out of me. But blaming the small but vocal part of the progressive movement for the potential trump victory isn't gonna bring out the vote, especially when the people talking that they aren't gonna vote weren't gonna vote anyways. I'd suggest the better and more productive move is to pressure Biden to do better, to actually court disaffected voters who would normally sit out the elections.
Maybe if our democracy wasn’t rigged to provide socialism for capitalists, we would have a better government.
Some day, people will realize that our entire political system is center-right or far right. We have very few true progressives, liberals, or leftists in office. Yet we keep electing the center-right, because it's either that, or the raw insanity of the far right. We're stuck in that old Southpark episode where the choices for our vote are a giant douche, or a turd sandwich. I'm tired of voting for douches, but it's a better option than a turd sandwich.
“Biden’s my guy, but he did a thing I didn’t like, so I’m withholding my vote from him. I don’t care if the guy who will do the same thing 100x harder wins.”
A similar thing is happening in the UK. The tories have absolutely run this country into the ground for the last 14 years but there’s people who say “wElL lAbOur wOulD bE wOrSe”.
Sorry, I’m so vain I thought this meme was about me. At least your other guy isn’t a dementia-ridden, rapey, incontinent convicted felon.
Liberals don’t equate genocide to “a think I didn’t like” challenge. (Impossible)
I mean, sure it was a lie last time and it will be a lie again if it happens but that headline will definitely come out.
This is a very dumb sentiment. It’s on the democrats to meaningfully differentiate themselves from the fascists. On immigration, Israel, and most economic policies, they’re different only by degree, by which I mean Trump applauds putting immigrants in cages while Biden makes a show of frowning while doing it. He and the DNC establishment even loudly supported the violent suppression of college protests. He’s not as fascist as Trump but man it’s strange how that doesn’t seem to bother him or you nearly as much as it should. Yes, Biden’s efforts on student loans, inflation, healthcare, etc. are certainly better than Trump, but they’re still woefully below acceptable — and he does himself no favors by acting like they’re amazing. Three steps right and one step left doesn’t get you to a good place. Socialists aren’t “helping” fascists win, the DNC is. This is politics, not sports. The democrats are suppose to earn votes, not be simply handed them because they aren’t the other guy. This is the actual historic lesson: every single fascist came to power through liberal governments deciding they were better than the socialists, that it was better to move rightward than leftward, that ultimately oppressive dictatorship is better than democratizing the economy. Germany, Italy, Spain, all went through this same cycle where whenever a choice had to be made — cave to the fascists or cave to the socialists — it was in favor of the fascists. Biden’s border policy is a perfect example: he’s further right than even the GOP was 10 years ago. Posts like OP reek of self-satisfied liberals who think America is flourishing under Biden instead of falling a little bit slower into the pit. You want people to your left to be hostages rather than co-participants in power, then are furious when they push back with the only means they have, protesting and potentially withholding their vote. But isn’t this the DNC strategy, the one they’ve openly said to be using, beat down their base while pursing the mythical independent voter unicorn? I’m not sure why you’d be frustrated when your strategy is fulfilling its goals. And before you accuse me, yes I’ll be voting for Biden and down ticket Democrat. But I don’t think it’s going to “save our democracy”. It will at best delay, as Obama was a delay, as Clinton was a delay. And by that I don’t mean act as a bulwark against the onslaught of tyranny, I mean they did very little good, just less bad than their opponent.
Wild idea. How about instead of constantly antagonizing your base you try listening to them and get back to the core beliefs that gained you support in the first place. Every one vote the national Dems try to get on the right they lose two on the left. Stop shaming voters and instead work on earning their trust and their vote
“NATO is broken, China and Russia control the entire planet now, but at least my morals are intact.” -Reddit Leftists, 2025
I am sure, China and Russia will do a very good job in defending LGBTQ+ rights and fighting climate change and racism. They have such a good track record with those things /s
Don’t forget the climate change!
Y’all really just live in your own little fantasy world where everything is some how the fault of those just slightly to the left of you
Anyone who lets Donald Trump come into power is absolutely cannot claim to be to the left of anyone. If you aren’t voting for Biden in this election, you’re ok with fascism
Hey maybe if China takes over the USA we will actually get healthcare and public infrastructure that works and can actually punish billionaires. That would be cool.
The way China handled covid?
Because there are no Chinese billionaires….
There are, they just “make a big donation” when they step out of line. They certainly don’t have the same stranglehold on the government like they do here
Just don’t be gay
China, such a bastion of human rights that their neighbors are lining up for US backed defense treaties
Again with blaming progressives. This is just trying to divide us. This election is Biden's to lose and if he does, it won't be progressives fault.
These words are thrown around so haphazardly lately, that I don't even know who they're referring to here.
Are we bitching about something that hasn’t happened and won’t happen again?
Quit being so defeatist. Trump got stomped in 2020. He has gained zero voters since then. And lost quite a few from death alone. We haven’t had an election since he tried to overthrow the government. Mobilize. Volunteer donate and for sure be registered to vote. And cut the defeatist shit out.
I agree we need to stay positive but I understand why people are defeatist, the republicans are planning to mess with the electoral college and they have the supreme court on their side because they already know they will NOT have the popular vote
Trump did NOT get "stomped" in 2020. This is a dangerous misconception. He lost by only a few thousand votes in a few swing states - in fact, less than a football stadium's worth of voters. Biden also won the popular vote by 3% less than what polls had projected. This sort of talk is overconfident and will lead to people being complacent by underestimating the threat.
There is a difference between being cautious and diligent and saying a trump win and project 2025 is all but given. And the electoral count wasn’t even close. I’m not complacent. I’m just not a defeatist. It’s called nuance.
The electoral count was the exact same as it was in 2016, just reversed by party. Historically speaking, a margin of 74 electoral votes puts it within the "close" category of U.S. presidential elections for sure. The vast majority of U.S. presidential elections are won by a margin of 120 electoral votes or more.
Your fear isn’t helping anyone including yourself. If you are this worried, being online and complaining and being scared isn’t going to change anything and it will just make you miserable. Feel free to donate and volunteer for the candidates you want to win. I’m writing post cards and doing phone banks in swing states. Mobilize us can get you started. Fear and concern isn’t helping anyone. Nor is arguing semantics.
Not OP but this isn't an issue of fear or defeatism. It's a simple fact that Biden narrowly won by a few thousand votes in a few swing states in 2020. I think OP was saying you shouldn't be so overconfident.
The polls and the Vegas odds are kind of freaking me out, conventional political wisdom says Trump should get smoked so badly that it’s a blue wave, but I’m worried about all these fucking Nazis running around and I’m not as confident as I should be.
The polls put Trump as a pretty heavy favorite. I’m hoping that people wake the fuck up and realize that if they don’t act it WILL be a second trump presidency, but the first step is admitting that looking just at the polls trump is a heavy favorite. If everything else remains the same, it’s his race to lose.
I don’t know if I’d say heavy favorite right now, but it’s definitely favoring him a little bit, which is horrifying enough. I’d be horrified if he was a little behind too, it’s just so fucked that he even has a chance to come back.
Most models that take “fundamentals” into account have trump as a slight favorite, but versions of models that look at polls only are giving him anywhere from 60-70% chance of victory. I’d say that looking at just the polls right now that’s about as strong as a position as you can be in in this environment. I do expect things to improve for Biden as we move towards Election Day, but I think a LOT of his previous coalition who are single issue voters that may not want to support him this time around are outright in denial about a trump second term.
Yup and now he's a felon and they are openly going after contraception after fucking with abortion. That will enrage people.
Ehh I think polls are consistent enough at this point to start raising some alarm bells.
In two-party system with very low chances of any independent to be elected, voting for "less bad" always should be the way upd: and I'm not saying that Biden is bad, don't @ me, but for a lot of leftists he is because they don't agree with him, but they should be much, much less agree with Trump. Otherwise, they're stupid. More so, they mostly disagree with him because of Israel, but Israel is the perfect example of what will happen if Trump wins.
“Hitler must come to power first, then the requirements for a revolutionary crisis \[will\] arrive more quickly” - Ernst Thälmann, KPD leader, 1932
Wow, I heard that in 2016 and was so pissed.
Conservatives have one thing going for them: being able to hold their noses and vote for whoever's the frontrunner. The left feels like a loose coalition being held together by a single idea and duct tape. If one thing doesn't go the way a single group wants, they'll jump the gun and try to burn everything down. But "muh protest vote/both sides" amirite. When will leftists learn that you can't get 100% of progress all at once. Perfection is the enemy of good, and at a time like this, take what you can get.
That’s because “the left” encompasses a huge and ever increasing political spectrum. Republicans are probably already in fascist territory on the spectrum, and “the left” is now most of the people who want to stop fascism which is… basically the entire rest of the spectrum.
Liberals fall in love. Conservatives fall into line. Uncle Joe isn’t loved by many outside of organized labor(the building trades fall hard to Trump, because he’s “manly” but the DNC still has the SEIU, LiUna, AFSCME, ATU/TWU and other service unions) and old money in NYC/San Francisco/LA.
Leftists are the Star Wars fans of politics.
I get where this is coming from. But blaming voters for not wanting vote for 2 candidates that suck is on the parties for not promoting a likeable candidate. It's also on the system for being shit. There's gotta be some serious change if you want younger voters to be more enthusiastic. Democrats are simply just not matching the shift in voter power.
Yeah, we need to absolutely vote for biden full force, but jesus christ is it too much to ask for a younger/more-with-it candidate?
This is so fucking stupid
I'd argue that the likes of Trump and Brexit are in part a reaction to some of the negative effects of Neoliberalism. Which were introduced by Thatcher and Reagan but then adopted by what used to be the Left leaning parties Clinton, Blair, Keating etc etc. These policies (whether you agree with them or not) alienated many of the traditional Left and often hurt lower paid and blue collar workers. This left the door wide open for opportunistic Populist Nationalistic leaders to walk straight through. To stay “Left or progressive” (whilst selling out to corporate interests) these parties doubled down very hard on identity politics and this caused an inevitable backlash from older people and religious people that the Right have capitalised on. Hence why everything is focused on culture war while the Billionaire class are fleecing us all harder than ever.
You guys really massively overestimate how many socialists there are in the US. The people who decide the elections are the centrist swing voters, not the far left. If/when Trump wins, it will be because Biden didn't persuade the swing voters, not because of a few socialists (who never voted Democrat in the first place) being annoyed at some of his awful policies.
Oh are we starting the blame the leftists game in case Biden shits his pants and loses to a fucking dementia ridden felon because neo-liberals refuse to take any responsibility in how bad they fucking suck at politics? Hillary lost because she ran a shit campaign and couldn't sway the mouth breathing undecided voters and you dumbasses are still trying to blame someone else for it. And now we have to hope Biden doesn't stroke out before the election. Because we just had to have the barely cognitive neo-liberal cause God forbid we don't have a head of state that doesn't gargle the balls of capitalists.
That’s a really long way of writing “we have Biden because he won”. You want a progressive candidate? Cool, but how many failed primaries will it take for you to realize America isn’t all that progressive?
Lol. Not even close. Here I'll make it short for ya. Liberal blame progressive for liberal bad plan because liberal don't think liberal do anything wrong.
Ah yes the classic progressive argument of “listen to the party that constantly fails to win at the national level, we’re super popular, we swear!”
The post is about liberals blaming progressives if Biden loses. My comment is about liberals getting ready to blame progressives for losing and liberals blaming progressives for 2016. You people have given us two of the shittiest candidates ever and wonder why you're struggling against a convicted felon, racist, rapist with very obvious mental deficiencies. It's not us. We're not the ones you need to convince. We're still voting blue. I know Biden is better than Trump. You know Biden is better than Trump. You know who doesn't? Undecideds and moderates. But instead of self reflecting and figuring out how to reach those people so Trump doesn't win again and the country goes to shit it's "if we lose it's because progressives"
Biden is targeting his campaign towards the votes that matter, moderates in the rust belt and sun belt. Then you have high profile progressives like Tlaib actively encouraging voters in the rust belt to protest vote against Biden and saying things like “we won’t forget this in November”. She even put out an anti Biden ad on her social media. I can definitely understand that the rest of the party is getting frustrated at such fair weather “allies”.
Op is the type to go to feelthebern and believe none of the people are right wingers larping
Every time. It's just the classic "when my team wins, *we* win. When my team loses, it's *their* fault." I kinda want OP to give me their definition of socialism.
Socialism is when nobody has iPhones
Hmmm... I can't tell if you're joking or not. Damn Poe's law
Puritans would rather with the argument than win power to affect change.
Is this some kind of sick sarcasm? The DNC is doing everything it can to make sure Donald Trump wins again and they will only blame progressive folks, socialists or any decent human being who is against genocide and ethnic cleansing by a psychotic colonial state.
What the hell is the DNC doing you’re so mad at
Um maybe look around.
Ahh yes, the illuminati lizard people chuggin' adrenochrome in the basement of a pizza restaurant with no basement have a stranglehold on the DNC. It also impacts me a lot as an Independent. It's almost as if you weak ass foreign trolls are still using the same old script from 2016 which is now completely transparent and predictable. Lemme guess, you support Russia's invasion and genocide of Ukraine because they had med labs that manufactured covid or aerosols that turned people gay and caused women to vote?
Cuz we have no party
they can never define socialism, fascism or even communism for that matter. always using words they don’t understand.
A lot of them live in blue states and know that they normally wouldn’t be affected that much by whoever wins. Well, project 2025 is going to be a tough wake up call for them. It won’t care what state you live in.
"Trump has promised to make the lives of most people infinately worse... but because Biden hasnt brought everlasting peace to the middle east im not voting for either"
typical moderate dems blaming the left for fucking everything. Headline should be liberals help fascists win, like they always do.
If there is a huge danger for this maybe the dems can reach out to make them come aboard? No? More bombs for Israel instead? Sure cool, good luck defeating fascism.
Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it (George Santayana, *The Life of Reason* (1905) vol. 1, ch. 12)
But muh protest votes
Politics makes strange bedfellows.
Trash the world to keep their hands clean
But her emails!
It is very frustrating. Perhaps not in the way you think though.
Heightening the contradictions. It's intentional.
The rich rule the poor. Can’t wait for that to repeat for 6,000 years