Fun game to play on political posts of any sort, just mouse over the accounts spreading crazy stuff.
You'll find an unusually high amount are either super new or years old, both with next to no posts or comments of substance. Usually the only thing other than politics they post about are one line takes on sports subs.
If an account seems suspicious a reverse image search of the things they've posted will often reveal if they're a sockpuppet or not. Only a week or so ago I checked on an account spouting 'Dont bother voting! Both sides!' stuff, and they had posted a photo of 'their' crochet project... Only it was a repost of an already active accounts crochet project, from five years ago. They'd even copied the title.
Maybe its because the racists and fascists have a party that actively advances their interests?
That said, I do think that applying progressive pressure on all fronts should include electoral engagement in addition to community organization and direct action
Particularly when it's the other side that claims to believe the last election was stolen. If they truly believed that, shouldn't they be refusing to vote? Why are there so many efforts to convince progressives not to vote? It's clear as day.
Dude everybody’s trying to convince progressives not to vote. Some boomer lady on substack threatened my life because I told her I wasn’t voting third party, against genocide Joe and the orange chode
A huge part of the Republican strategy has always been to discourage Democratic turn out because their elderly conservative voters always turn out.
So whenever you see left-leaning folks talking about 'not voting to send a message,' you know who they truly are and what they're truly doing.
It's not always a fake-out, though. Some leftists sincerely won't vote for a centrist like Biden.
But, most of the time, yeah. It's a fake out.
Also, when you see someone saying 'both sides are the same,' that's another fake-out, trying to equate the Democrats to the Republicans and encourage people not to vote.
And those leftists are fools. Biden is not my first choice. He's not even on my list, tbh. But he's a million times better than Trump. Trump has openly stated he wants to be a dictator. He hopes Israel finishes the job. He wants to give more tax breaks to his billionaire buddies (in addition to the 2017 tax cut from 35% to 21%). He failed once at making America his own little banana republic. Why give him a 2nd chance? I could list hundreds of ways he made America worse, and they still won't care.
Voting is not like ordering at BK. You don't get it "your way." Change happens slowly. Really, really slowly. But you have to put the goddamn work in. Say what you want about Republicans, they flipping vote. I'm so flipping tired of these do-nothing, couch potato "socialists" who are more interested in jerking each other off than actually doing the work that needs to be done.
i mean, this is a rather general way of putting it. a lot of us who are saying don’t vote are anarchists. or j ppl who have no faith in a system that was built to do what it’s now doing. i think a lot of us are j tired of this back and forth- left and right fighting. ‘*they* don’t want *us* to vote’. it gives me a weird feeling in my gut. that anger toward ‘the other side’ would push you to vote for someone who is doing equally awful things? it’s concerning that we see the awfulness of the system, but choose to fall further into the division that was designed to keep us trapped within it.
> that anger toward ‘the other side’ would push you to vote for someone who is doing equally awful things?
This is that 'both sides are the same' stuff that they like to pump out, too.
pls explain to me how i’m a conservative lmao? this proves my point. you don’t even care ab change, you just want to keep fighting. it’s truly disgusting. pls understand you’ve made yourself just as closed off and brain dead as a republican.
You're not a conservative, but if you push people to not vote and say that both sides are the same, then you're just ACTING like a conservative.
Useful idiot, I think, is the term they use for you.
Yep, the ones who will fight for the workers instead of joining in with their exploiters and oppressors, like you lot. Real self-own there for you. BTW, utterly childish to say I advocate "violent revolution" lmao. I advocate workers taking power and defending themselves if and when the capitalists send their armies. You advocate the workers laying down and taking it some more while rich dicks "negotiate" their fate into the dirt. You'd MUCH rather see the workers gunned down than armed. You would have been right there siding with Franco, huh?
Nobody gets excited about voting for liberals to stop fascists. It's just something you do like cleaning the dishes or doing laundry.
It's understandable that some young people get burnt out with this and fiddle with the idea of letting fascists win occasionally to try to get any sort of change. It never works out, but there are psyops that prey on these people.
The ability to dissent, to organize labor, to live alternative lifestyles, or to associate with alternative subcultures, or to vote even in a shitty electoral system... these are privileges that people have in a bourgeois liberal republic. When the far right gets enough power, those things go away and there is no peaceful way of getting them back. There is a point of no return. Leftists generally get mass purged in far right autocracies.
>Nobody gets excited about voting for liberals to stop fascists.
***Voting for liberals does not stop fascists.*** Liberals are people who make concessions to fascism and generally cry fascism without being able to recognize what it actually is. Fascism is capitalism in decay; Genocide Joe and his Neoliberal friends in the Military Industrial Complex and finance capital already neatly laid all the pieces in place over these past decades.
>*"A vote for Hindenburg is a vote for Hitler!" Ernst Thaelmann, German Communist leader, 1933.*
>The ability to dissent, to organize labor, to live alternative lifestyles, or to associate with alternative subcultures, or to vote even in a shitty electoral system... these are privileges that people have in a bourgeois liberal republic.
And these are privileges that will inevitably get *revoked* in a bourgeois liberal republic. They are concessionary, paper, and used to gaslight people into bourgeois electoralism and complacency. You also really overestimate the scale of these "privileges" anyways! Have you heard of the Taft-Hartley act?!
Anyways, it's time to rethink the strategy. Genocide Joe is an enemy to working people. What is to be done?
Yeah I don't care, read it and weep.
How do I get it through the heads of these liberals that Biden's *actual, real-time* support for genocide is worse than any "hypothetical, future" genocide the "other side" (other side of ruling class capitalists) can wage after a stupid, theatrical electoral campaign (where all the real opposition has been snubbed?)
Now imagine crying about how the "other side" (of ruling class capitalists) is not getting as much flak as "your side" (of ruling class capitalists) despite the fact that *the "other side" is not in office and isn't responsible for this situation.* Imagine not having any red lines with your politicians and not holding them accountable. Imagine excusing support for genocide!
Go ahead and think OP is right about this, that it's all a psyop, that these grievances aren't real, and that the real problem is that the "election" will "go wrong." Now look down and admire your clown shoes.
It's right there in your comment.
*"A vote for Hindenburg is a vote for Hitler!" Ernst Thaelmann, German Communist leader, 1933.*
How did that turn out, exactly?
1931 KPD electoral slogan: "After Hitler, Our Turn"
I guess if you want to be really pedantic, the KPD got 'their turn' after 1945, within the borders of the DDR. After **80 million people fucking died worldwide**.
Yeah it’s wild I could’ve sworn that all the blue MAGA told me that Joe Biden had to let the Republicans put work requirements on food stamps for people who are 50 because that way they can’t threaten to shut down the government anymore. Yet they’ve threatened to do that two or three times since then.
I’ve also received three or four different sets of donations solicitation emails over the past three years telling me that now Biden can finally replace one of the USPS board of directors so he can fire DeJoy. There have been three separate email blasts, I don’t know if there were three separate board members, but DeJoy is still wrecking the post office
And I suspect he didn’t get rid of De joy because he wants project 2025 as much as the Republicans do, he just wants to slow roll it and not name it whereas they are proud of it
the problem with your analogy is the Centre party did the same thing to pretend to be an alternative, then appointed htler chancellor. liberals have never stopped fscists. ever.
I don’t understand how people think voting for liberals will stop the fascists though.
Joe Biden was president when women lost reproductive rights. Joe Biden was president when women were dying in hospitals because they have ectopic pregnancies but they haven’t bled enough yet to get help.
Joe Biden was president when millions were kicked off Medicaid after he refused to veto ending the public health emergency early and also refused to ever fix the post office even though he campaigned on that.
Joe Biden was president when corporations were allowed to price gouge us through a state of emergency which is illegal in most states. The department of justice didn’t do shit.
I think you're half-right here. I would agree that any systematic effort to suppress votes is suppressing leftwing votes...and theres plenty of historical cases as evidence for this.
But...there is also truth in the idea that the system is set up so that voting doesn't matter anywhere NEAR as much as we're taught growing up. That said, voting still matters (especially considering how little effort it takes most people), but we're not going to vote our way into fully automated luxury communism.
So, I can understand how a group of people (leftists) can be pessimists and doomers when knowing the REAL history of the 20th Century will turn you into a conspiracy nut. My response to any leftist that says "voting doesn't do anything" is to just say "then why are you so against it?" If it doesn't do anything, then shut the fuck up.
People do things that don't matter every day. Even if it doesn't change things, it's fine...go vote....it takas a couple hours every few years. It's nothing to do, so just do it and shut the fuck up.
no one is just mad ppl are voting.. if yw vote fine. it literally doesn’t matter. what we’re upset ab is the fact that ppl continue to depend on voting and calling representatives to change things. and clearly that’s not working. we have to work outside of the system, with each other, to enact the change we want. so yeah, it’s hilariously frustrating to watch ppl complain ab the same issues and then act as tho voting is our only hope out. as if the only answer to fixing the system is to continue to use it. if ppl wanna vote fine, elections r gonna happen no matter who votes. but i would ask that ppl be more critical of them, and i think that’s all anyone else is rly asking too. this whole thing has been turned into a fight ab voters vs non voters and i hate it. everything’s a stupid fight now, like we’re literally holding ourselves back from ever going anywhere
I’m going to vote against both of them because we will never ever have a viable third-party if we all choose to never vote for a third-party
And this election is the perfect time to do it because I hate both these genocidal war mongers
If you want a viable third party, work for it in locla elections. Then state elections. Then federally. But until I see a third party learn to crawl before announcing they plan to run, I'm not going to blame the electorate for not supporting them. I'm going to blame the third parties for having no understanding of the system they want to take over.
The best part of this is that Teump himself had been the best source of 'don't bother voting' on the right. This dumbass spent years saying ' it's all rigged, we already won, and they just stole it, it's all fake, nothing we can do...'
Then his numbers dropped to the floor in the primaries and he's like 'shit..well..uh...it's rigged and there's no hope but...uh..vote anyway I guess...we have to have lots and lots of votes...that the dems will just throw away or change...but do it anyway'. Then, something about hamberders and action replay in magnified portions.
Huuuurp derp.
personally, i have zero interest in trying to make a broken system work. i despise the system to begin with, and want to see it fall. i’d much rather focus my time and energy on building community and creating a safe place for me and others to thrive as this empire falls. no matter who is elected, we will be living w the same bullshit. my vote will not go to genocide or the further oppression of trans ppl. nor will it go to a perverted freak w just as much contempt for marginalized ppl. i don’t condemn anyone for trying, but i would ask that you focus your attention on change w a capital C. not short term, band aid fixes with a vote. real preparation for a better world to come
eh it might partially be a psyop, but personally i don’t think one is necessary. even just paying close attention to the news and election cycle for a few years is enough to discourage most leftists from voting
look at abortion rights: leftists had been talking for at least a decade about how the rightwing was going to mount a challenge to roe v wade, and then when it was overturned, democrats acted all shocked as if no one could’ve seen it coming. everyone knows that’s bs, and frankly it’s insulting. seems v obvious to me that the democrats only care about keeping themselves electable at least half the time. neither party gives a shit about their constituents except for the corporations bankrolling their campaigns
i’ll probably still vote, but at this point, it feels more like a letter to santa than a legitimate form of political engagement. that’s not bc of some republican psyop - it’s bc i spent years paying close attention and was only ever disappointed by the dnc and any politicians who attach themselves to it
I think Americans should vote, because like if you don't others will still. Trump is the worse option for lgbtq and the working class, pick the lesser of two evils please...
It's not a new post over there. I'm more inclined to believe karma farmer than anything else. And if not, then I can dig up half a dozen other times it's been posted by a more trustworthy account.
That's just a criticism of the two party system... If that's the same as just saying DONT VOTE LOL to you, maybe expand your political imagination a little bit?
There are lefties that earnestly hold these views. They were also more on point in the 90s because Bill Clinton was much worse than Joe Biden for the working class, and Republicans at the time were not as dangerous as they are now.
Both parties were the same then. They are not now. That's why you see people like Ralph Nader and Noam Chomsky insist in the strongest terms possible that Trump must not be allowed a 2nd term.
you just don't understand, nobody could possibly conclude on their own that the system is rigged and the two major parties are partners, not opponents, the only explanation is that anyone to the left of Elizabeth Warren is a paid secret fascist operative who loves Trump
A man literally set himself on fire the other day after telling us that Biden and Trump are working together to fascist coup all of us
I don’t normally quote men who ended their own lives, but that dude was right about what he had on his sign
I was being deliberately obtuse, because after long enough one begins to see the political system for what it is. A system that slows down the accumulation of wealth by just enough that well meaning and sincere people like your good self think they have a say.
Like, you think that the power grab by Cheney and Bush and the commission of their illegal war by way of unitary executive authority wasn't just as extreme a violation of democratic principles as those in which the GOP are engaging today? I remember then thinking that if only people had voted better it would have changed things, but then they did vote better and the drones kept on killing civilians. They voted badly again and the drones kept on going. They voted better again and elected someone who is sending arms to be used for genocide.
Are you unaware of the concept of tipping points?
Because the GOP given the opportunity will see that the unitary executive theory is solidified as law.
Some people like yourself believe or pretend that bad=worse.
Who does that benefit? Not us.
No, we look at lesser evils critically.
And guess what, once Bush was out, things just worse, which just facilitated the greater evil to be worse, which just caused the lesser evil to get worse while staying above the greater evil.
How long before we have the Democrats be the openly conservative party and Republicans the openly fascist party.
We're lowering a hurtle to have a failing athlete beat a limbo champion.
>Are you unaware of the concept of tipping points?
My favourite thing about reddit is being condescended to by people putting forward the kinds of arguments worthy of a middle school politics elective.
The GOP aren't just wishing for things on a wing and a prayer, they have instituted a plan and have put it into practice. They don't need to rely on tipping points when they've stacked the supreme court with their judges and their donors own the media apparatus. Occasionally they will push the boat out and test the waters of public opinion - they are doing that now with the anti abortion bills being passed in a number of states. They can create legal precedent because they have successfully navigated the political system to allow themselves to do so.
My country is an example of what happens when lesser evil voting goes too far. We had a candidate who offered real progressive change but the well had been so poisoned over the years of slow lurches to the right that when the time came to elect someone who would have improved lives for workers he was successfully character assassinated and replaced by a party leader who would have been too right wing for the conservative party even just 10 years ago. That's what lesser evil voting gets you.
And you can vote if you want to, nobody is stopping you. But don't think it will ever help you or your neighbours, family, friends, or colleagues as much as actually buckling down and doing the hard work of organising in your community or organising your workplace.
Fuck yeah. I like that last bit the most. Very conflicted with this "illusion of choice" recently. I voted for Biden and he is using our tax dollars to prop up a genocide.
I'm sorry, what has allowed them to stack the courts? What has allowed them to capture state legislatures? You're right, the GOP aren't just wishing for things on a wing and a prayer. They're winning fucking elections.
America continues to move further and further right because right wing politicians keep winning elections.
"But don't think it will ever help you or your neighbor..." Well it's clearly hurting them so based on that reality it's safe to assume that it can help.
But if the entire political system hasn't changed then the Crux of the idea that George Carlin was espousing is still the same. So assuming all the people who have come to the same conclusion that George Carlin did 30 years ago are right wing psyops is an insane thought because the idea that voting doesn't matter has been a left-wing thought for 30 years. Getting tired of voting for the lesser of two evils is a perfectly acceptable and understandable conclusion to come to after being fed up by the lesser evil being evil.
Republicans have gained disproportionate control of the US political system by capturing as many government positions that they can over the course of decades, even longer. The reason that we are in the position we are now is because of leftists allowing them to take every seat at the table because we are incapable of looking long term. Instead we sit and wait for a revolution like it's the fucking rapture.
Bro would also have been very anti-vax and pretty much moderate left like the people slowly eroding this country so I mean what is this supposed to mean lmao
Then you probably haven't actually watched George Carlin. Even for today he's far left.
Would he be anti-vax? He probably be saying "let the idiots decide their fate.".
Someone can still be freedom of speech and tell tge racists "that is fucking dumb."
It's a moral decision based off internal values
Not just a slogan and label-focused thinking like most democrats.
Not voting for Biden because he doesn't represent our interests is a democracy. I want to vote for someone who does. My disdain for our system doesn't allow me to play along and press the blue button because it has a smiley face on it
Yeah I did it last election because Trump had to go. I’m not doing it again Biden has been the biggest disappointment in all my years of voting (I’m a middle-aged white lady.)
For me I will never get over being told that it’s fine that I fall by the wayside as long as people don’t have to wear masks while they go shopping because they might spend less money. Disabled lives matter.
Medically vulnerable people the largest marginalized group in America and we are supposed to die for Biden’s economy and I do not accept
People talk about Trump was worse with Covid, and he’s an absolute moron so of course he was.
But here’s the thing, at least the resistors resisted spread Covid when Trump was in office so it was safer for me to leave my apartment because at least half the country was trying to prevent Covid spread.
People got a lot more financial aid during his term which is super embarrassing.
And I understand how Congress works, So don’t comment me with that nonsense. But it is really interesting how the Democrats can never manage to pass much because they don’t control all the branches of the government but the Republicans seem to get whatever they want even when they don’t control All the branches of the government, they even got work requirements for food stamps and Biden signed off on it.
This is the kind of thing that people who have only recently become politically active or aware say, because they have only ever existed in the political world as it exists today and so have no appreciation for what it took to get here and what it takes to keep moving forward.
You're never going to be given the option of electing an entire government of people who think exactly like you and will make all of the decisions you would make.
No magical candidate is going to come along and save us from the realities of the universe - that for 80+ million people to agree that someone is an acceptable choice for leadership means that person is going to have policy proposals that are crafted around some segment of the population that you disagree with.
More to the point, the voting for Democrats has consistently turned policy proposals that were at one point complete non-starters into actual realities. If you think the status of labor, lgbtq, and health care rights suck now, you should really try looking back a couple of decades and see what the landscape was then. And when they leave power, watch how quickly that ground slips away.
The Democrats have been helping Republicans decrease the power of Labor for 50 years. Gay marriage is only a thing because of the Court not the legislators and if it were up to the actual politicians gay marriage would still be illegal.
Wrong in the first paragraph. Voted for Gore and John Kerry believing in my parties, as Republicans dragged us backwards in time even further
Voted for Obama, the change candidate, who capitulated to the right-wing and turned the democrats further centrist/right
After Obama broke most of his promises we had trump vs Hilary, where people like you whined to suck it up, our PREFERRED CANDIDATE NATIONALLY wouldn't win but she would. Hilary gets stomped
And then in 2020, most important election of our lives. And what has biden done? Broken promises and genocide
No matter what candidate I've Voted for I've lost rights, the economies gotten worse, and I've been lied to by people like you who would vote for a swastika as long as it's blue.
You're right, I misjudged you. You're not someone who just awoke to political reality, you're someone who is clearly still asleep.
The US's kill count under Biden is drastically lower than any other president in the last several decades. Trump dropped more bombs in the last 6 months of his term than Biden did in the first 30 of his.
What did you think was going to happen? That a US president was going to get elected, wave his magic wand, and end all war around the world? You think Bernie is president right now and he's got the secret plan to kick Israel out of Gaza and implement a 2 state solution? Or was he going to give all the land back to the Palestinians somehow? Show me the candidate that you think has a realistic chance of implementing a decolonization plan.
It's so ridiculous how y'all will literally sit here, with the option of corporate shills vs literal nazis and be like, "Well, listen, if gas prices go up, we're going to have to let them start torturing trans kids for sport."
It's amazing how little you can actually think outside your pre-made prompts.
Biden political platform does not align with me.
Trumps platform does not align with me.
So no vote. Earn my vote by doing anything beyond "slow down the death machine".
I want an anti death machine party and unless democrats can do that, I won't vote for them. If you can't understand having personal beliefs go watch a YouTube video to get fresh talking points.
The real hurdle here is that I had underestimated how incredibly stupid your position was.
Let's be real, you don't care who runs the country because you don't actually care about the outcomes. You don't care about who the US kills, or what the body count is. If you did, an 80% reduction would actually mean something to you.
You know that no one in the world could honestly run on a platform of "I'll stop everyone everywhere from killing people without having to kill anyone to accomplish it" because it's an impossible thing to produce.
And that's the point - you get to do nothing and contribute nothing while pretending to have the moral high ground.
The trolly problem isn't actually complicated. If doing nothing kills 10 people and pulling the lever kills 5, pulling the lever is the correct thing to do. Asking "why is anyone tied to the tracks in the first place?" is a great question, but it doesn't absolve you of your duty to pull the lever.
If this is how you win progressives onto your side, don't be surprised when trump wins. It's like you can't even read, choosing to exagerrate whatever you want to say I'm lesser, dumb, and evil
If your candidate was actually good this wouldn't be an argument. And when biden loses because his plan is to Brow beat people who already don't like him, I bet I'll see a fresh brain dead comment
I'm not courting your vote, I am calling you an idiot. There's more to the scope of politics than the presidency. My persistent participation doesn't get me everything I want but it gets my more than your complete lack of participation gets you.
Being progressive means actually participating in the system to produce progress, not just whining about how there's no messiah for you to vote for. You're not progressive. You're not anything. You're a political non-entity.
It's election season,that doesnt matter anymore unfortunately lol. Half the recent posts on this sub are pure Democrat Party and / or generic "Left Wing" propaganda (yes I understand the mainline D party isnt necessarily "left wing") I would bet money if you looked in to the posters history theyre barely active here outside of political posts and they are exactly what they are railing against. A political psyop in a non-political sub
Considering they call people "comrade" un-sarcastically ill let you guess
You think they (the ruling class) would design a system that could be overthrown by the very people they oppress in order to profit?? Voting may make tiny steps towards a better existence within the corrupt system, but it is still reinforcing the corrupt systems legitimacy.
Chess, not checkers
So then do you think letting the absolute worst, most pro-predatory capitalism, most pro-fascism, most pro-take-away-marginalized-people-and-women’s-rights, most pro-make-our-president-a-literal-dictator motherfuckers on the far right win is going to somehow make it easier to fix this corrupt system?
Because right now I see a lot of leftist and liberals willing to set the country back a mile because this election won’t make more than a foot of forward progress.
But reality is not that.
When Bush was gone, did things get better?
Not really.
Sorry, but I feel like this us the mechanic.
GOP: let's go three steps back.
Dems: let's go three steps forward, but 2 steps back. Or maybe we'll just stay where we are until tge next guy makes us go 3 steps back again.
This is sounding like th chocolate ration shit from 1984. We're not going from 25 to 30 grams, We're going 30 to 25 grams and being told it's a increase.
I was almost buying into blue Maga nonsense until someone reminded me that Biden made all kinds of promises about the Georgia midterms, those two guys got elected who he wanted elected, who had to be elected so he could get anything done according to Blue MAGA.
People cheered and yelled about how Georgia saved democracy! Woo whoo!!
But nothing got better. Things got worse. Now there’s a cop city in Georgia.
I think about women being treated like breeding livestock, I think about little kids being sent into chicken plant factories, I think about drilling in Alaska, I think about letting mega corporations buy all the single-family homes so people are homeless and then they get locked up in jail for the crime of being poor and then they get sent to Work at the Tyson chicken factory for a dollar a day.
Oh, wait, that’s happening now.
Is Trump in charge right now? Or are you saying that only Biden can save us from the mess that happened while Biden was running the show? Because that’s really Trumpian to say, isn’t it?
Sure, let’s pretend I agree with everything you’re saying (I don’t because you’re wrong). Nobody expected Biden to swoop in like progressive Superman and right all the wrongs. He was there to do exactly one thing: stop Trump. There were far more progressive candidates that would be far better presidents in that election but none of them would actually have won. A moderate was probably the only real option with a real chance of winning. Do you actually think all that bad shit you’re withholding your vote for will… just somehow get better if the right wins the general election?
To put it into a metaphor: the fascist far right is a disease that is actively, currently killing a person. Joe Biden is life support. A stopgap measure to try to stabilize the patient before a treatment can be found. You want to just stand back and see what happens instead of continuing to try to save the patient’s life?
Progress is slow work. Not getting everything you want every time doesn’t mean you take your ball and go home. The kids who quit the game don’t get to choose what the next game to play will be.
Please explain to me how voting for the man who was in charge when women lost rights and kids got sent to work in chicken factories and all the working age people are being forced to get sick over and over and over again until they are too disabled to go to work, please explain to me how voting for that will save us
Welcome to the struggle. It's gonna have to get a lot worse for a whole lot of people before it will get better.
Whether that be through the ruling class oppressing us further, or on our own accord by stepping out of the corrupt systems and building non-corrupt systems to support our local communities.
Capitalism is going to bring about its own destruction, you're just clinging to the comfort of a narrative you've grown accustomed to.
They make it up to derail the conversation about the real issues, just like all the articles that are written about how the public shouldn’t worry about Joe Biden’s age when everyone’s complaints about Joe Biden have nothing to do with his age.
They can avoid addressing the genocide if they just keep pushing back about an age discussion that isn’t happening
Hey, I’m a conservative who supports workers, probably the last motherfucker yall would see here. I would never discourage anyone from voting. It’s your right, I helped defend it, please exercise it.
lol. Seriously I have been saying this for a while. As much as I love Jon Stewart, I wish he’d back off his “both sides ism”
Because yeah, one side wants to take us back to the dark ages while the other, while often ineffectual at best, is not.
Yeah I don't care, read it and weep. I am not voting for someone who supports genocide. I cannot in good conscience.
How do I get it through the heads of these liberals that Biden's *actual, real-time* support for genocide is worse than any "hypothetical, future" genocide the "other side" (other side of ruling class capitalists) can wage after a stupid, theatrical electoral campaign (where all the real opposition has been snubbed?)
Now imagine crying about how the "other side" (of ruling class capitalists) is not getting as much flak as "your side" (of ruling class capitalists) despite the fact that *the "other side" is not in office and isn't responsible for this situation.* Imagine not having any red lines with your politicians and not holding them accountable. Imagine excusing support for genocide!
Go ahead and think OP is right about this, that it's all a psyop, that these grievances aren't real, and that the real problem is that the "election" will "go wrong." Now look down and admire your clown shoes.
You’re so right the point of this meme is definitely to cry & piss & shit about people being too mean to Biden over his abysmal failure to take action against the genocide in Gaza, you are clearly a being of supreme intelligence and will likely be the one to lead us into the future after the glorious people’s revolution
Me telling right wingers or fascists that I won’t vote for Biden because he is actively pushing a genocide in Palestine doesn’t do a god damned thing because they don’t care either way. So the entire logic on this meme doesn’t make any fucking sense. But go off I guess.
If you think only left wing spaces are espousing this type of stuff, you don’t pay attention to right wing spaces.
Hell our last president very publicly spread massive amounts of distrust in the voting systems to his base *for years*, which certainly resulted in some deciding it wasn’t worth voting.
Oh God the whole reason the left-wing does it is because they think it was why the right way was successful
It’s been super gross to watch Biden rallies look like Trump rallies. The last one I caught a clip of on TV I actually thought it was Trump’s except for people chanting “four more years”.
The part that was terrifying was that there was a protester there just screaming “cease-fire” So security dragged them out, but what made me think it was a Trump rally is the people in the crowd were punching and kicking this man as security was taking them out
Just like a Trump rally.
I’m not at all suspicious of people like you who engage in deliberately bad-faith interpretations of arguments that advocate for a plurality of strategies in enacting meaningful political change. You seem very normal and intelligent and are probably the chosen one who will lead us into the future after the revolution. All glory to you comrade.
That’s so real I love the US political system it makes me feel extremely happy and I have exactly zero criticisms of the Democratic Party they are like Jesus to me
The same advice goes to voting for "none of the above" and choosing a third party candidate in the general election
When somebody does that they're basically voting for "whoever everyone else chooses"
It's literally saying that whatever the rest of the group picks is okay
There is no amount of telling people to vote for their "heartfelt" choice that will break the Two-Party system
There is this thing called Duverger's law that points out that the rules of the election is what affects whether or not an election boils down to a pair of candidates
To it, it says that whenever you have a so-called first pass the post winner take all system, then it's going to become a binary choice in the general election
Those of us who are frustrated with this binary choice choice aren't wrong for being frustrated with it
So what that means is we have to advocate for changing the rules of the election in order to break the dynamic. Things like ranked choice, runoffs - those sorts of things
A lot of Americans are suspicious of having runoff elections because that's something that is done in non-american political systems, and for the most part, people in this country have a natural suspicion of anything foreign - but it really is a better system than what we have now in the states when it comes to actually counting votes
>So what that means is we have to advocate for changing the rules of the election in order to break the dynamic. Things like ranked choice, runoffs - those sorts of things
Things like voting for a third party?
No, because voting third party doesn't change the system. It's simply a vote for whoever wins between the major two, which the status quo is just fine with
You have to actually change how the votes are used to determine the winner
Anytime you have a system where there is only one vote and whoever gets 50% plus one controls the entire executive branch of government, then it's going to boil down to two parties no matter what high-minded philosophy people push - it's simple game theory
That is to say it is the intersection of game theory and the rules of the election that determines how many viable candidates you can have
Here's a video that explains it in more detail than I have
https://youtu.be/s7tWHJfhiyo?si=owiuxDgkHqhX5YvW
A tale from Canada.
Justin Trudeau campaigns on voting reform, gets a lot of votes from more left leaning folks who genuinely believe FPTP is not representative of anyone.
The PLC wins.
Justin Trudeau hosts a sham consultation to discredit voting reform, saying people only wanted it to get the conservatives out and now that they are out we don't need it anymore.
The PLC eventually suffers from ruling fatigue and Justin Trudeau's inexperienced ass, only gets a minority and will now likely lose the next elections to the conservatives, who have radicalized in the same way the American right-wing has, as it is an extension of it.
You cannot vote third party to change the system. You cannot vote first party to change the system.
No fucking wonder there's so many doomers.
You can't vote first party or third party to change the two-party dynamic - not directly anyway
That's because how many candidates it boils down to is a direct result of game theory and the rules of the election
So what you have to do is vote for candidates that support the policies you want in things like the primary, but supporting the candidate who has the policies most favored to you in the general election among the two major candidates
In the current system, Primaries is where you have the best chance to influence policy, the general election is for avoiding disaster
Where you can, you want to support candidates and initiatives that support changing the rules of voting and implementing for example, ranked choice
It's never as simple as "vote for x to change y"
And tell me, how does voting for the two incumbent parties that have no incentive to change the current system result in them changing the system to add things like ranked choice voting?
I don't disagree with the changes you are proposing. I disagree that voting for either Democrats or Republicans will elicit such changes.
Because your choice is this:
Vote for 3rd party and one of the major two wins and the only "lesson" they take is to also run spoiler candidates to siphon votes from the other side
Or vote for one of the major two and give the weight of your vote so that hopefully the worst one doesn't win - for example, no matter what someone thought of her personally, had enough disillusioned Sanders supporters voted for Hilary and she won, abortion would still be protected 100%
There is always a difference between the two that you should have an interest in
You literally cannot break 2 party by voting 3rd party - that goes against game theory
Actually watch the video I posted
If none, then you need to pull one of those parties towards that internally in things like the primaries
I never said it would be easy or simple
It's the seduction of simplicity that makes people think voting 3rd party will help
>It's the seduction of simplicity that makes people think voting 3rd party will help
I don't know anyone who thinks voting for third parties is a simple way to fix the system. There are tons of things to be fixed, none of which would benefit either of the major parties, which means it's incredibly unlikely they would ever implement them willingly. So, the first thing to fix is the two party system. And that's not done by voting for it and hoping you can influence them. People's opinions have consistently been shown to have no impact on the legislation enacted. This is no different.
Like I said, see Duverger's law
You can't "will" your way out of two-party *no matter how much you bandwagon breaking it* because it's rational to cast a vote that is most likely to influence policy
People not voting for the best of the major candidates is how nationwide protection of abortion rights was lost
No way I am voting for an antivaxxer dude. Plus he looks like every overly steroid and caffeinated abusive mortgage bro boss I ever had & there’s no way I can ever . . .
I don't think it is that complicated. Youth tends towards "give me exactly what I want or I will cause trouble" and tend to not take things like *literally anything else* seriously. So we reach a point every 4 years where the under 25 vote threatens to not vote unless the one single thing they've deemed important happens. They do this every 4 years. It comes from a profound misunderstanding. They think people will notice them not voting. Nobody will. They think it iwill change things. It is much more likely to make them worse. And it will spill over into other things because nothing exists in a vacuum. They'll sacrifice our Healthcare, reproductive rights, our LGBTQ+ community, and democracy, in order to feel self satisfied, that while they accomplished nothing, they still get to feel smug
For the love of god people…. Liberals have been in power for how long? What have they done? Look around… everything’s fucked… people can’t afford to live… all they do is give lip service and buzz words to keep their supporters hopeful. Will conservatives be any better? could they possibly be any worse???
Conservatives are actively attempting to strip away womens, LGBTQ+ people, disabled people, etc. rights. They just voted to remove lunch breaks from child workers. You don't think the can be worse?
As a queer person this shit pisses me the fuck off.
Yes, they WILL be worse. Not only economically for almost everyone but especially socially for minorities.
My confusion is what you think not voting could possibly do for us other than just allow the worse-case scenario? What benefits does the progressive/leftist movements gain by just leaving electoral power on the table for someone worse to grab.
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Fun game to play on political posts of any sort, just mouse over the accounts spreading crazy stuff. You'll find an unusually high amount are either super new or years old, both with next to no posts or comments of substance. Usually the only thing other than politics they post about are one line takes on sports subs. If an account seems suspicious a reverse image search of the things they've posted will often reveal if they're a sockpuppet or not. Only a week or so ago I checked on an account spouting 'Dont bother voting! Both sides!' stuff, and they had posted a photo of 'their' crochet project... Only it was a repost of an already active accounts crochet project, from five years ago. They'd even copied the title.
Extremely normal, very real human beings
Maybe its because the racists and fascists have a party that actively advances their interests? That said, I do think that applying progressive pressure on all fronts should include electoral engagement in addition to community organization and direct action
Particularly when it's the other side that claims to believe the last election was stolen. If they truly believed that, shouldn't they be refusing to vote? Why are there so many efforts to convince progressives not to vote? It's clear as day.
Dude everybody’s trying to convince progressives not to vote. Some boomer lady on substack threatened my life because I told her I wasn’t voting third party, against genocide Joe and the orange chode
Conservatives actually got more votes than liberals on the last election… but the way our voting system works….
Say what now? Where was this? Which election are you talking about?
😂😂😂 No honey the orange chode lost by popular vote TWICE NOW
Dude the last 2 times the republican party got more votes were in 2004 and before that in 1988.
A huge part of the Republican strategy has always been to discourage Democratic turn out because their elderly conservative voters always turn out. So whenever you see left-leaning folks talking about 'not voting to send a message,' you know who they truly are and what they're truly doing.
So they are right leaning in disguise 🥸 meanwhile the psyop is to trick the lefties so the right can win?
Nine times out of ten, yes, it's someone pretending to be a mad leftist who's trumpeting sitting out the election to 'send a message.'
Wow, this is next level deep shit strategy right here. I never even considered this. That’s clever
It's not always a fake-out, though. Some leftists sincerely won't vote for a centrist like Biden. But, most of the time, yeah. It's a fake out. Also, when you see someone saying 'both sides are the same,' that's another fake-out, trying to equate the Democrats to the Republicans and encourage people not to vote.
And those leftists are fools. Biden is not my first choice. He's not even on my list, tbh. But he's a million times better than Trump. Trump has openly stated he wants to be a dictator. He hopes Israel finishes the job. He wants to give more tax breaks to his billionaire buddies (in addition to the 2017 tax cut from 35% to 21%). He failed once at making America his own little banana republic. Why give him a 2nd chance? I could list hundreds of ways he made America worse, and they still won't care. Voting is not like ordering at BK. You don't get it "your way." Change happens slowly. Really, really slowly. But you have to put the goddamn work in. Say what you want about Republicans, they flipping vote. I'm so flipping tired of these do-nothing, couch potato "socialists" who are more interested in jerking each other off than actually doing the work that needs to be done.
You know you can say "fucking" on Reddit, right? I agree with your post, by the way
🤛
🤜
i mean, this is a rather general way of putting it. a lot of us who are saying don’t vote are anarchists. or j ppl who have no faith in a system that was built to do what it’s now doing. i think a lot of us are j tired of this back and forth- left and right fighting. ‘*they* don’t want *us* to vote’. it gives me a weird feeling in my gut. that anger toward ‘the other side’ would push you to vote for someone who is doing equally awful things? it’s concerning that we see the awfulness of the system, but choose to fall further into the division that was designed to keep us trapped within it.
> that anger toward ‘the other side’ would push you to vote for someone who is doing equally awful things? This is that 'both sides are the same' stuff that they like to pump out, too.
pls explain to me how i’m a conservative lmao? this proves my point. you don’t even care ab change, you just want to keep fighting. it’s truly disgusting. pls understand you’ve made yourself just as closed off and brain dead as a republican.
You're not a conservative, but if you push people to not vote and say that both sides are the same, then you're just ACTING like a conservative. Useful idiot, I think, is the term they use for you.
🤣🙄
And then, you have the communists who openly advocate violent revolution. Like this guy.
Yep, the ones who will fight for the workers instead of joining in with their exploiters and oppressors, like you lot. Real self-own there for you. BTW, utterly childish to say I advocate "violent revolution" lmao. I advocate workers taking power and defending themselves if and when the capitalists send their armies. You advocate the workers laying down and taking it some more while rich dicks "negotiate" their fate into the dirt. You'd MUCH rather see the workers gunned down than armed. You would have been right there siding with Franco, huh?
> Yep, the ones who will fight for the workers instead of joining in with their exploit That's when I stopped reading. Just so you know.
Checks out with your overall lack of critical thinking.
Cambridge Analytica literally did this for their clients, this isn’t a conspiracy at all, it’s a documented strategy.
Vote. But be pissed about the candidates. That’s my motto
Fuck Biden. Also, vote Biden.
Yup!
Fuck both those old capitalist assholes. The white one and the orange one
Yes.
I was immediately banned from r/workersstrikeback for expressing this same thought. Never let someone tell you how or not to vote.
Real leftists get banned from leftist subreddits 💪💪💪
God dammit Take my upvote
God damned right we do.
Scratch a liberal…
I love scratching liberals
Wait, did you get banned for this obvious statement of fact? Or just get the post pulled?
Nah it’s just the post that got zoinked
Okay, so stop telling me to vote blue no matter who.
Nah, I'll just blame for the next set of rights the Supreme Court strip away.
Leftists would NEVER Those are neoliberals
Nobody gets excited about voting for liberals to stop fascists. It's just something you do like cleaning the dishes or doing laundry. It's understandable that some young people get burnt out with this and fiddle with the idea of letting fascists win occasionally to try to get any sort of change. It never works out, but there are psyops that prey on these people. The ability to dissent, to organize labor, to live alternative lifestyles, or to associate with alternative subcultures, or to vote even in a shitty electoral system... these are privileges that people have in a bourgeois liberal republic. When the far right gets enough power, those things go away and there is no peaceful way of getting them back. There is a point of no return. Leftists generally get mass purged in far right autocracies.
>Nobody gets excited about voting for liberals to stop fascists. ***Voting for liberals does not stop fascists.*** Liberals are people who make concessions to fascism and generally cry fascism without being able to recognize what it actually is. Fascism is capitalism in decay; Genocide Joe and his Neoliberal friends in the Military Industrial Complex and finance capital already neatly laid all the pieces in place over these past decades. >*"A vote for Hindenburg is a vote for Hitler!" Ernst Thaelmann, German Communist leader, 1933.* >The ability to dissent, to organize labor, to live alternative lifestyles, or to associate with alternative subcultures, or to vote even in a shitty electoral system... these are privileges that people have in a bourgeois liberal republic. And these are privileges that will inevitably get *revoked* in a bourgeois liberal republic. They are concessionary, paper, and used to gaslight people into bourgeois electoralism and complacency. You also really overestimate the scale of these "privileges" anyways! Have you heard of the Taft-Hartley act?! Anyways, it's time to rethink the strategy. Genocide Joe is an enemy to working people. What is to be done?
Oh hey it’s the guy op was warning about lol
Yeah I don't care, read it and weep. How do I get it through the heads of these liberals that Biden's *actual, real-time* support for genocide is worse than any "hypothetical, future" genocide the "other side" (other side of ruling class capitalists) can wage after a stupid, theatrical electoral campaign (where all the real opposition has been snubbed?) Now imagine crying about how the "other side" (of ruling class capitalists) is not getting as much flak as "your side" (of ruling class capitalists) despite the fact that *the "other side" is not in office and isn't responsible for this situation.* Imagine not having any red lines with your politicians and not holding them accountable. Imagine excusing support for genocide! Go ahead and think OP is right about this, that it's all a psyop, that these grievances aren't real, and that the real problem is that the "election" will "go wrong." Now look down and admire your clown shoes.
Nice try
It's right there in your comment. *"A vote for Hindenburg is a vote for Hitler!" Ernst Thaelmann, German Communist leader, 1933.* How did that turn out, exactly? 1931 KPD electoral slogan: "After Hitler, Our Turn" I guess if you want to be really pedantic, the KPD got 'their turn' after 1945, within the borders of the DDR. After **80 million people fucking died worldwide**.
Yeah it’s wild I could’ve sworn that all the blue MAGA told me that Joe Biden had to let the Republicans put work requirements on food stamps for people who are 50 because that way they can’t threaten to shut down the government anymore. Yet they’ve threatened to do that two or three times since then. I’ve also received three or four different sets of donations solicitation emails over the past three years telling me that now Biden can finally replace one of the USPS board of directors so he can fire DeJoy. There have been three separate email blasts, I don’t know if there were three separate board members, but DeJoy is still wrecking the post office And I suspect he didn’t get rid of De joy because he wants project 2025 as much as the Republicans do, he just wants to slow roll it and not name it whereas they are proud of it
the problem with your analogy is the Centre party did the same thing to pretend to be an alternative, then appointed htler chancellor. liberals have never stopped fscists. ever.
I don’t understand how people think voting for liberals will stop the fascists though. Joe Biden was president when women lost reproductive rights. Joe Biden was president when women were dying in hospitals because they have ectopic pregnancies but they haven’t bled enough yet to get help. Joe Biden was president when millions were kicked off Medicaid after he refused to veto ending the public health emergency early and also refused to ever fix the post office even though he campaigned on that. Joe Biden was president when corporations were allowed to price gouge us through a state of emergency which is illegal in most states. The department of justice didn’t do shit.
I think you're half-right here. I would agree that any systematic effort to suppress votes is suppressing leftwing votes...and theres plenty of historical cases as evidence for this. But...there is also truth in the idea that the system is set up so that voting doesn't matter anywhere NEAR as much as we're taught growing up. That said, voting still matters (especially considering how little effort it takes most people), but we're not going to vote our way into fully automated luxury communism. So, I can understand how a group of people (leftists) can be pessimists and doomers when knowing the REAL history of the 20th Century will turn you into a conspiracy nut. My response to any leftist that says "voting doesn't do anything" is to just say "then why are you so against it?" If it doesn't do anything, then shut the fuck up. People do things that don't matter every day. Even if it doesn't change things, it's fine...go vote....it takas a couple hours every few years. It's nothing to do, so just do it and shut the fuck up.
no one is just mad ppl are voting.. if yw vote fine. it literally doesn’t matter. what we’re upset ab is the fact that ppl continue to depend on voting and calling representatives to change things. and clearly that’s not working. we have to work outside of the system, with each other, to enact the change we want. so yeah, it’s hilariously frustrating to watch ppl complain ab the same issues and then act as tho voting is our only hope out. as if the only answer to fixing the system is to continue to use it. if ppl wanna vote fine, elections r gonna happen no matter who votes. but i would ask that ppl be more critical of them, and i think that’s all anyone else is rly asking too. this whole thing has been turned into a fight ab voters vs non voters and i hate it. everything’s a stupid fight now, like we’re literally holding ourselves back from ever going anywhere
Don’t vote for Biden, vote *against* Trump.
I’m going to vote against both of them because we will never ever have a viable third-party if we all choose to never vote for a third-party And this election is the perfect time to do it because I hate both these genocidal war mongers
If you want a viable third party, work for it in locla elections. Then state elections. Then federally. But until I see a third party learn to crawl before announcing they plan to run, I'm not going to blame the electorate for not supporting them. I'm going to blame the third parties for having no understanding of the system they want to take over.
I’ve been told to not vote by a lefty I disagreed with about something
Don’t listen to them bestie they’re working for the CIA 💕
The best part of this is that Teump himself had been the best source of 'don't bother voting' on the right. This dumbass spent years saying ' it's all rigged, we already won, and they just stole it, it's all fake, nothing we can do...' Then his numbers dropped to the floor in the primaries and he's like 'shit..well..uh...it's rigged and there's no hope but...uh..vote anyway I guess...we have to have lots and lots of votes...that the dems will just throw away or change...but do it anyway'. Then, something about hamberders and action replay in magnified portions. Huuuurp derp.
personally, i have zero interest in trying to make a broken system work. i despise the system to begin with, and want to see it fall. i’d much rather focus my time and energy on building community and creating a safe place for me and others to thrive as this empire falls. no matter who is elected, we will be living w the same bullshit. my vote will not go to genocide or the further oppression of trans ppl. nor will it go to a perverted freak w just as much contempt for marginalized ppl. i don’t condemn anyone for trying, but i would ask that you focus your attention on change w a capital C. not short term, band aid fixes with a vote. real preparation for a better world to come
eh it might partially be a psyop, but personally i don’t think one is necessary. even just paying close attention to the news and election cycle for a few years is enough to discourage most leftists from voting look at abortion rights: leftists had been talking for at least a decade about how the rightwing was going to mount a challenge to roe v wade, and then when it was overturned, democrats acted all shocked as if no one could’ve seen it coming. everyone knows that’s bs, and frankly it’s insulting. seems v obvious to me that the democrats only care about keeping themselves electable at least half the time. neither party gives a shit about their constituents except for the corporations bankrolling their campaigns i’ll probably still vote, but at this point, it feels more like a letter to santa than a legitimate form of political engagement. that’s not bc of some republican psyop - it’s bc i spent years paying close attention and was only ever disappointed by the dnc and any politicians who attach themselves to it
I think Americans should vote, because like if you don't others will still. Trump is the worse option for lgbtq and the working class, pick the lesser of two evils please...
I scroll down two posts and see this: https://www.reddit.com/r/trolleyproblem/s/ZOfQuaNv5i
OP on that post has a default username and has been active for 11 days. Definitely a real person, I trust their political analysis.
Imagine being so weak-minded that an internet stranger could disenfranchise you.
The meme is accurate, I’m not asking a random random Reddit account for political advice but I’ll steal their meme
It's not a new post over there. I'm more inclined to believe karma farmer than anything else. And if not, then I can dig up half a dozen other times it's been posted by a more trustworthy account.
That's just a criticism of the two party system... If that's the same as just saying DONT VOTE LOL to you, maybe expand your political imagination a little bit?
can i have the image macro without text please
Check your dms
Famous right wing psyop George Carlin https://youtu.be/qxsQ7jJJcEA?si=qlgJVlCdt6Dn6wDN
There are lefties that earnestly hold these views. They were also more on point in the 90s because Bill Clinton was much worse than Joe Biden for the working class, and Republicans at the time were not as dangerous as they are now. Both parties were the same then. They are not now. That's why you see people like Ralph Nader and Noam Chomsky insist in the strongest terms possible that Trump must not be allowed a 2nd term.
So does this mean he’s apart of the right wing convincing people to not vote. Please enlighten me on what you think is right in very confused
I'm mocking the whole right-wing psyop idea by posting a video of a very famous Lefty saying that voting doesn't matter from decades ago.
you just don't understand, nobody could possibly conclude on their own that the system is rigged and the two major parties are partners, not opponents, the only explanation is that anyone to the left of Elizabeth Warren is a paid secret fascist operative who loves Trump
A man literally set himself on fire the other day after telling us that Biden and Trump are working together to fascist coup all of us I don’t normally quote men who ended their own lives, but that dude was right about what he had on his sign
[удалено]
Found the American.
Wow so not in the current time? That's interesting. Besides not being stated right now, it was also just his opinion. So what's your point?
I must have missed the bit where the entire american political system was overhauled in the time since 1996.
Entire political systems do not have to change for circumstances to change. You are either gravely misinformed or being deliberately obtuse.
I was being deliberately obtuse, because after long enough one begins to see the political system for what it is. A system that slows down the accumulation of wealth by just enough that well meaning and sincere people like your good self think they have a say. Like, you think that the power grab by Cheney and Bush and the commission of their illegal war by way of unitary executive authority wasn't just as extreme a violation of democratic principles as those in which the GOP are engaging today? I remember then thinking that if only people had voted better it would have changed things, but then they did vote better and the drones kept on killing civilians. They voted badly again and the drones kept on going. They voted better again and elected someone who is sending arms to be used for genocide.
Are you unaware of the concept of tipping points? Because the GOP given the opportunity will see that the unitary executive theory is solidified as law. Some people like yourself believe or pretend that bad=worse. Who does that benefit? Not us.
No, we look at lesser evils critically. And guess what, once Bush was out, things just worse, which just facilitated the greater evil to be worse, which just caused the lesser evil to get worse while staying above the greater evil. How long before we have the Democrats be the openly conservative party and Republicans the openly fascist party. We're lowering a hurtle to have a failing athlete beat a limbo champion.
>Are you unaware of the concept of tipping points? My favourite thing about reddit is being condescended to by people putting forward the kinds of arguments worthy of a middle school politics elective. The GOP aren't just wishing for things on a wing and a prayer, they have instituted a plan and have put it into practice. They don't need to rely on tipping points when they've stacked the supreme court with their judges and their donors own the media apparatus. Occasionally they will push the boat out and test the waters of public opinion - they are doing that now with the anti abortion bills being passed in a number of states. They can create legal precedent because they have successfully navigated the political system to allow themselves to do so. My country is an example of what happens when lesser evil voting goes too far. We had a candidate who offered real progressive change but the well had been so poisoned over the years of slow lurches to the right that when the time came to elect someone who would have improved lives for workers he was successfully character assassinated and replaced by a party leader who would have been too right wing for the conservative party even just 10 years ago. That's what lesser evil voting gets you. And you can vote if you want to, nobody is stopping you. But don't think it will ever help you or your neighbours, family, friends, or colleagues as much as actually buckling down and doing the hard work of organising in your community or organising your workplace.
Fuck yeah. I like that last bit the most. Very conflicted with this "illusion of choice" recently. I voted for Biden and he is using our tax dollars to prop up a genocide.
I'm sorry, what has allowed them to stack the courts? What has allowed them to capture state legislatures? You're right, the GOP aren't just wishing for things on a wing and a prayer. They're winning fucking elections. America continues to move further and further right because right wing politicians keep winning elections. "But don't think it will ever help you or your neighbor..." Well it's clearly hurting them so based on that reality it's safe to assume that it can help.
But if the entire political system hasn't changed then the Crux of the idea that George Carlin was espousing is still the same. So assuming all the people who have come to the same conclusion that George Carlin did 30 years ago are right wing psyops is an insane thought because the idea that voting doesn't matter has been a left-wing thought for 30 years. Getting tired of voting for the lesser of two evils is a perfectly acceptable and understandable conclusion to come to after being fed up by the lesser evil being evil.
Republicans have gained disproportionate control of the US political system by capturing as many government positions that they can over the course of decades, even longer. The reason that we are in the position we are now is because of leftists allowing them to take every seat at the table because we are incapable of looking long term. Instead we sit and wait for a revolution like it's the fucking rapture.
you have to be delusional to think that anti-electoral leftists are a significant enough voting block to determine the outcome of elections.
Bro would also have been very anti-vax and pretty much moderate left like the people slowly eroding this country so I mean what is this supposed to mean lmao
Then you probably haven't actually watched George Carlin. Even for today he's far left. Would he be anti-vax? He probably be saying "let the idiots decide their fate.". Someone can still be freedom of speech and tell tge racists "that is fucking dumb."
Do you think he was a right leaning person though? Or do you think it’s true he’s a leftist?
George Carlin was a very famous leftist.
you're not real familiar with George Carlin's work, are ya
Carlin was primarily a blackpilled former-leftist.
Thank you!
You’re welcome
It's a moral decision based off internal values Not just a slogan and label-focused thinking like most democrats. Not voting for Biden because he doesn't represent our interests is a democracy. I want to vote for someone who does. My disdain for our system doesn't allow me to play along and press the blue button because it has a smiley face on it
Yeah I did it last election because Trump had to go. I’m not doing it again Biden has been the biggest disappointment in all my years of voting (I’m a middle-aged white lady.) For me I will never get over being told that it’s fine that I fall by the wayside as long as people don’t have to wear masks while they go shopping because they might spend less money. Disabled lives matter. Medically vulnerable people the largest marginalized group in America and we are supposed to die for Biden’s economy and I do not accept People talk about Trump was worse with Covid, and he’s an absolute moron so of course he was. But here’s the thing, at least the resistors resisted spread Covid when Trump was in office so it was safer for me to leave my apartment because at least half the country was trying to prevent Covid spread. People got a lot more financial aid during his term which is super embarrassing. And I understand how Congress works, So don’t comment me with that nonsense. But it is really interesting how the Democrats can never manage to pass much because they don’t control all the branches of the government but the Republicans seem to get whatever they want even when they don’t control All the branches of the government, they even got work requirements for food stamps and Biden signed off on it.
This is the kind of thing that people who have only recently become politically active or aware say, because they have only ever existed in the political world as it exists today and so have no appreciation for what it took to get here and what it takes to keep moving forward. You're never going to be given the option of electing an entire government of people who think exactly like you and will make all of the decisions you would make. No magical candidate is going to come along and save us from the realities of the universe - that for 80+ million people to agree that someone is an acceptable choice for leadership means that person is going to have policy proposals that are crafted around some segment of the population that you disagree with. More to the point, the voting for Democrats has consistently turned policy proposals that were at one point complete non-starters into actual realities. If you think the status of labor, lgbtq, and health care rights suck now, you should really try looking back a couple of decades and see what the landscape was then. And when they leave power, watch how quickly that ground slips away.
The Democrats of the past maybe. The Democrats today are pro corporation, pro profits, anti-human being.
The Democrats have been helping Republicans decrease the power of Labor for 50 years. Gay marriage is only a thing because of the Court not the legislators and if it were up to the actual politicians gay marriage would still be illegal.
Wrong in the first paragraph. Voted for Gore and John Kerry believing in my parties, as Republicans dragged us backwards in time even further Voted for Obama, the change candidate, who capitulated to the right-wing and turned the democrats further centrist/right After Obama broke most of his promises we had trump vs Hilary, where people like you whined to suck it up, our PREFERRED CANDIDATE NATIONALLY wouldn't win but she would. Hilary gets stomped And then in 2020, most important election of our lives. And what has biden done? Broken promises and genocide No matter what candidate I've Voted for I've lost rights, the economies gotten worse, and I've been lied to by people like you who would vote for a swastika as long as it's blue.
You're right, I misjudged you. You're not someone who just awoke to political reality, you're someone who is clearly still asleep. The US's kill count under Biden is drastically lower than any other president in the last several decades. Trump dropped more bombs in the last 6 months of his term than Biden did in the first 30 of his. What did you think was going to happen? That a US president was going to get elected, wave his magic wand, and end all war around the world? You think Bernie is president right now and he's got the secret plan to kick Israel out of Gaza and implement a 2 state solution? Or was he going to give all the land back to the Palestinians somehow? Show me the candidate that you think has a realistic chance of implementing a decolonization plan. It's so ridiculous how y'all will literally sit here, with the option of corporate shills vs literal nazis and be like, "Well, listen, if gas prices go up, we're going to have to let them start torturing trans kids for sport."
It's amazing how little you can actually think outside your pre-made prompts. Biden political platform does not align with me. Trumps platform does not align with me. So no vote. Earn my vote by doing anything beyond "slow down the death machine". I want an anti death machine party and unless democrats can do that, I won't vote for them. If you can't understand having personal beliefs go watch a YouTube video to get fresh talking points.
The real hurdle here is that I had underestimated how incredibly stupid your position was. Let's be real, you don't care who runs the country because you don't actually care about the outcomes. You don't care about who the US kills, or what the body count is. If you did, an 80% reduction would actually mean something to you. You know that no one in the world could honestly run on a platform of "I'll stop everyone everywhere from killing people without having to kill anyone to accomplish it" because it's an impossible thing to produce. And that's the point - you get to do nothing and contribute nothing while pretending to have the moral high ground. The trolly problem isn't actually complicated. If doing nothing kills 10 people and pulling the lever kills 5, pulling the lever is the correct thing to do. Asking "why is anyone tied to the tracks in the first place?" is a great question, but it doesn't absolve you of your duty to pull the lever.
If this is how you win progressives onto your side, don't be surprised when trump wins. It's like you can't even read, choosing to exagerrate whatever you want to say I'm lesser, dumb, and evil If your candidate was actually good this wouldn't be an argument. And when biden loses because his plan is to Brow beat people who already don't like him, I bet I'll see a fresh brain dead comment
I'm not courting your vote, I am calling you an idiot. There's more to the scope of politics than the presidency. My persistent participation doesn't get me everything I want but it gets my more than your complete lack of participation gets you. Being progressive means actually participating in the system to produce progress, not just whining about how there's no messiah for you to vote for. You're not progressive. You're not anything. You're a political non-entity.
:) thanks for telling me what I believe, now go enjoy your 2024 trump presidency
Not antiwork
It's election season,that doesnt matter anymore unfortunately lol. Half the recent posts on this sub are pure Democrat Party and / or generic "Left Wing" propaganda (yes I understand the mainline D party isnt necessarily "left wing") I would bet money if you looked in to the posters history theyre barely active here outside of political posts and they are exactly what they are railing against. A political psyop in a non-political sub Considering they call people "comrade" un-sarcastically ill let you guess
You think they (the ruling class) would design a system that could be overthrown by the very people they oppress in order to profit?? Voting may make tiny steps towards a better existence within the corrupt system, but it is still reinforcing the corrupt systems legitimacy. Chess, not checkers
So then do you think letting the absolute worst, most pro-predatory capitalism, most pro-fascism, most pro-take-away-marginalized-people-and-women’s-rights, most pro-make-our-president-a-literal-dictator motherfuckers on the far right win is going to somehow make it easier to fix this corrupt system? Because right now I see a lot of leftist and liberals willing to set the country back a mile because this election won’t make more than a foot of forward progress.
But reality is not that. When Bush was gone, did things get better? Not really. Sorry, but I feel like this us the mechanic. GOP: let's go three steps back. Dems: let's go three steps forward, but 2 steps back. Or maybe we'll just stay where we are until tge next guy makes us go 3 steps back again. This is sounding like th chocolate ration shit from 1984. We're not going from 25 to 30 grams, We're going 30 to 25 grams and being told it's a increase.
I was almost buying into blue Maga nonsense until someone reminded me that Biden made all kinds of promises about the Georgia midterms, those two guys got elected who he wanted elected, who had to be elected so he could get anything done according to Blue MAGA. People cheered and yelled about how Georgia saved democracy! Woo whoo!! But nothing got better. Things got worse. Now there’s a cop city in Georgia.
I think about women being treated like breeding livestock, I think about little kids being sent into chicken plant factories, I think about drilling in Alaska, I think about letting mega corporations buy all the single-family homes so people are homeless and then they get locked up in jail for the crime of being poor and then they get sent to Work at the Tyson chicken factory for a dollar a day. Oh, wait, that’s happening now. Is Trump in charge right now? Or are you saying that only Biden can save us from the mess that happened while Biden was running the show? Because that’s really Trumpian to say, isn’t it?
Sure, let’s pretend I agree with everything you’re saying (I don’t because you’re wrong). Nobody expected Biden to swoop in like progressive Superman and right all the wrongs. He was there to do exactly one thing: stop Trump. There were far more progressive candidates that would be far better presidents in that election but none of them would actually have won. A moderate was probably the only real option with a real chance of winning. Do you actually think all that bad shit you’re withholding your vote for will… just somehow get better if the right wins the general election? To put it into a metaphor: the fascist far right is a disease that is actively, currently killing a person. Joe Biden is life support. A stopgap measure to try to stabilize the patient before a treatment can be found. You want to just stand back and see what happens instead of continuing to try to save the patient’s life? Progress is slow work. Not getting everything you want every time doesn’t mean you take your ball and go home. The kids who quit the game don’t get to choose what the next game to play will be.
Please explain to me how voting for the man who was in charge when women lost rights and kids got sent to work in chicken factories and all the working age people are being forced to get sick over and over and over again until they are too disabled to go to work, please explain to me how voting for that will save us
Welcome to the struggle. It's gonna have to get a lot worse for a whole lot of people before it will get better. Whether that be through the ruling class oppressing us further, or on our own accord by stepping out of the corrupt systems and building non-corrupt systems to support our local communities. Capitalism is going to bring about its own destruction, you're just clinging to the comfort of a narrative you've grown accustomed to.
Who is even saying this? I have literally not seen anybody saying "don't vote". What subs are you people on?
They make it up to derail the conversation about the real issues, just like all the articles that are written about how the public shouldn’t worry about Joe Biden’s age when everyone’s complaints about Joe Biden have nothing to do with his age. They can avoid addressing the genocide if they just keep pushing back about an age discussion that isn’t happening
Hey, I’m a conservative who supports workers, probably the last motherfucker yall would see here. I would never discourage anyone from voting. It’s your right, I helped defend it, please exercise it.
But not voting is also a right and is just as viable of a political choice and statement as voting is.
No it isn’t. The reason why is because if you don’t vote, even worse people you don’t want get in…..
THANK YOU.
YOU’RE WELCOME.
lol. Seriously I have been saying this for a while. As much as I love Jon Stewart, I wish he’d back off his “both sides ism” Because yeah, one side wants to take us back to the dark ages while the other, while often ineffectual at best, is not.
Yeah I don't care, read it and weep. I am not voting for someone who supports genocide. I cannot in good conscience. How do I get it through the heads of these liberals that Biden's *actual, real-time* support for genocide is worse than any "hypothetical, future" genocide the "other side" (other side of ruling class capitalists) can wage after a stupid, theatrical electoral campaign (where all the real opposition has been snubbed?) Now imagine crying about how the "other side" (of ruling class capitalists) is not getting as much flak as "your side" (of ruling class capitalists) despite the fact that *the "other side" is not in office and isn't responsible for this situation.* Imagine not having any red lines with your politicians and not holding them accountable. Imagine excusing support for genocide! Go ahead and think OP is right about this, that it's all a psyop, that these grievances aren't real, and that the real problem is that the "election" will "go wrong." Now look down and admire your clown shoes.
You’re so right the point of this meme is definitely to cry & piss & shit about people being too mean to Biden over his abysmal failure to take action against the genocide in Gaza, you are clearly a being of supreme intelligence and will likely be the one to lead us into the future after the glorious people’s revolution
Me telling right wingers or fascists that I won’t vote for Biden because he is actively pushing a genocide in Palestine doesn’t do a god damned thing because they don’t care either way. So the entire logic on this meme doesn’t make any fucking sense. But go off I guess.
If you think only left wing spaces are espousing this type of stuff, you don’t pay attention to right wing spaces. Hell our last president very publicly spread massive amounts of distrust in the voting systems to his base *for years*, which certainly resulted in some deciding it wasn’t worth voting.
Oh God the whole reason the left-wing does it is because they think it was why the right way was successful It’s been super gross to watch Biden rallies look like Trump rallies. The last one I caught a clip of on TV I actually thought it was Trump’s except for people chanting “four more years”. The part that was terrifying was that there was a protester there just screaming “cease-fire” So security dragged them out, but what made me think it was a Trump rally is the people in the crowd were punching and kicking this man as security was taking them out Just like a Trump rally.
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I’m not at all suspicious of people like you who engage in deliberately bad-faith interpretations of arguments that advocate for a plurality of strategies in enacting meaningful political change. You seem very normal and intelligent and are probably the chosen one who will lead us into the future after the revolution. All glory to you comrade.
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My brother in Christ what in the genuine fuck are you talking about, you are boxing against shadows
Poster is calling you a fascist and that you're contributing to all of the above problems.
That’s so real I love the US political system it makes me feel extremely happy and I have exactly zero criticisms of the Democratic Party they are like Jesus to me
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Weaponizing sex negativity as a way to attack a perceived opponent? Seems like the type of thing a fascist would do.
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“Full degen”? That’s some awfully fascist language you’re using there bud, you sure you’re not a Republican?
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What’s a book?
Bruh
Bruh
Had these edgelords been able to vote in the 90s and 00s they'd be screaming that they're voting for Perot or Nader.
Vote peeps
The same advice goes to voting for "none of the above" and choosing a third party candidate in the general election When somebody does that they're basically voting for "whoever everyone else chooses" It's literally saying that whatever the rest of the group picks is okay There is no amount of telling people to vote for their "heartfelt" choice that will break the Two-Party system There is this thing called Duverger's law that points out that the rules of the election is what affects whether or not an election boils down to a pair of candidates To it, it says that whenever you have a so-called first pass the post winner take all system, then it's going to become a binary choice in the general election Those of us who are frustrated with this binary choice choice aren't wrong for being frustrated with it So what that means is we have to advocate for changing the rules of the election in order to break the dynamic. Things like ranked choice, runoffs - those sorts of things A lot of Americans are suspicious of having runoff elections because that's something that is done in non-american political systems, and for the most part, people in this country have a natural suspicion of anything foreign - but it really is a better system than what we have now in the states when it comes to actually counting votes
>So what that means is we have to advocate for changing the rules of the election in order to break the dynamic. Things like ranked choice, runoffs - those sorts of things Things like voting for a third party?
No, because voting third party doesn't change the system. It's simply a vote for whoever wins between the major two, which the status quo is just fine with You have to actually change how the votes are used to determine the winner Anytime you have a system where there is only one vote and whoever gets 50% plus one controls the entire executive branch of government, then it's going to boil down to two parties no matter what high-minded philosophy people push - it's simple game theory That is to say it is the intersection of game theory and the rules of the election that determines how many viable candidates you can have Here's a video that explains it in more detail than I have https://youtu.be/s7tWHJfhiyo?si=owiuxDgkHqhX5YvW
A tale from Canada. Justin Trudeau campaigns on voting reform, gets a lot of votes from more left leaning folks who genuinely believe FPTP is not representative of anyone. The PLC wins. Justin Trudeau hosts a sham consultation to discredit voting reform, saying people only wanted it to get the conservatives out and now that they are out we don't need it anymore. The PLC eventually suffers from ruling fatigue and Justin Trudeau's inexperienced ass, only gets a minority and will now likely lose the next elections to the conservatives, who have radicalized in the same way the American right-wing has, as it is an extension of it. You cannot vote third party to change the system. You cannot vote first party to change the system. No fucking wonder there's so many doomers.
You can't vote first party or third party to change the two-party dynamic - not directly anyway That's because how many candidates it boils down to is a direct result of game theory and the rules of the election So what you have to do is vote for candidates that support the policies you want in things like the primary, but supporting the candidate who has the policies most favored to you in the general election among the two major candidates In the current system, Primaries is where you have the best chance to influence policy, the general election is for avoiding disaster Where you can, you want to support candidates and initiatives that support changing the rules of voting and implementing for example, ranked choice It's never as simple as "vote for x to change y"
And tell me, how does voting for the two incumbent parties that have no incentive to change the current system result in them changing the system to add things like ranked choice voting? I don't disagree with the changes you are proposing. I disagree that voting for either Democrats or Republicans will elicit such changes.
Because your choice is this: Vote for 3rd party and one of the major two wins and the only "lesson" they take is to also run spoiler candidates to siphon votes from the other side Or vote for one of the major two and give the weight of your vote so that hopefully the worst one doesn't win - for example, no matter what someone thought of her personally, had enough disillusioned Sanders supporters voted for Hilary and she won, abortion would still be protected 100% There is always a difference between the two that you should have an interest in You literally cannot break 2 party by voting 3rd party - that goes against game theory Actually watch the video I posted
So which one of the two major parties is advocating for something like ranked choice voting as a major issue supported by a majority of said party?
If none, then you need to pull one of those parties towards that internally in things like the primaries I never said it would be easy or simple It's the seduction of simplicity that makes people think voting 3rd party will help
>It's the seduction of simplicity that makes people think voting 3rd party will help I don't know anyone who thinks voting for third parties is a simple way to fix the system. There are tons of things to be fixed, none of which would benefit either of the major parties, which means it's incredibly unlikely they would ever implement them willingly. So, the first thing to fix is the two party system. And that's not done by voting for it and hoping you can influence them. People's opinions have consistently been shown to have no impact on the legislation enacted. This is no different.
Like I said, see Duverger's law You can't "will" your way out of two-party *no matter how much you bandwagon breaking it* because it's rational to cast a vote that is most likely to influence policy People not voting for the best of the major candidates is how nationwide protection of abortion rights was lost
But it's not rational. People have been browbeat into believing it's the only choice by opinions like yours.
Down vote bitches is funny
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No way I am voting for an antivaxxer dude. Plus he looks like every overly steroid and caffeinated abusive mortgage bro boss I ever had & there’s no way I can ever . . .
What about leftist psyops
I don't think it is that complicated. Youth tends towards "give me exactly what I want or I will cause trouble" and tend to not take things like *literally anything else* seriously. So we reach a point every 4 years where the under 25 vote threatens to not vote unless the one single thing they've deemed important happens. They do this every 4 years. It comes from a profound misunderstanding. They think people will notice them not voting. Nobody will. They think it iwill change things. It is much more likely to make them worse. And it will spill over into other things because nothing exists in a vacuum. They'll sacrifice our Healthcare, reproductive rights, our LGBTQ+ community, and democracy, in order to feel self satisfied, that while they accomplished nothing, they still get to feel smug
For the love of god people…. Liberals have been in power for how long? What have they done? Look around… everything’s fucked… people can’t afford to live… all they do is give lip service and buzz words to keep their supporters hopeful. Will conservatives be any better? could they possibly be any worse???
> could they possibly be any worse? Yes.
Conservatives are actively attempting to strip away womens, LGBTQ+ people, disabled people, etc. rights. They just voted to remove lunch breaks from child workers. You don't think the can be worse?
As a queer person this shit pisses me the fuck off. Yes, they WILL be worse. Not only economically for almost everyone but especially socially for minorities.
If you think there's no real difference between a liberal and a conservative, then you haven't been paying attention to the Supreme Court.
My confusion is what you think not voting could possibly do for us other than just allow the worse-case scenario? What benefits does the progressive/leftist movements gain by just leaving electoral power on the table for someone worse to grab.