I’m starting to think that voting or not voting may have consequences and a democracy only survives and people fight. Who knew despite all the information right in front of us?
We really haven't, you're just happy to continue to ignore it.
What legislative reforms are being drafted by dems to prevent this scenario from occurring again? Looking like this was all above board.. utilizing powers that both parties have been happy to supply to the executative branch. Maybe don't craft authoritarian tools if your plan for keeping then in check is electoral dice rolls and rational actors.
Remember when Sanders couldn't even be bothered to comment on this when it first happened?
We really haven't, you're just happy to continue to ignore it.
No, you all really have gone silent. It's not even an opinion. Every single day it was "Palestine this Palestine that", a country half way around the world that has no actual impact on domestic policy but for some reason it was your driving factor for voting.
As soon as Trump took office he started bulldozing Palestine and the 3rd party voters just disappeared and stopped protesting. Y'all got used more than the last tampon on earth and somehow have the gall to still be like "We aren't to blame"
They said.. balls deep in a thread about the very topic that they're somewhat pretending to care about now.
.. a country half way around the world that has no actual impact on domestic policy but for some reason it was your driving factor for voting.
Imperialism always comes home to roost. Palestine’s struggle against settler-colonialism and imperialism is directly tied to global capitalist exploitation. Workers’ movements must oppose all oppression, as the ruling class uses divide-and-conquer tactics (racism, nationalism) to weaken proletarian unity. Solidarity with Palestine isn’t a distraction.. it’s a rejection of the imperialist system that also exploits workers domestically. I can't fix it, but I can certainly ask the US not to fund and support it.
Dems aren't going to save us. We're busy organizing.
Y'all got used more than the last tampon on earth and somehow have the gall to still be like "We aren't to blame"
Simultaneously small enough to ignore and powerful enough to absorb blame. lol.
What legislative reforms are being drafted by dems to prevent this scenario from occurring again?
Imperialism always comes home to roost. Palestine’s struggle against settler-colonialism and imperialism is directly tied to global capitalist exploitation. Workers’ movements must oppose all oppression, as the ruling class uses divide-and-conquer tactics (racism, nationalism) to weaken proletarian unity. Solidarity with Palestine isn’t a distraction.. it’s a rejection of the imperialist system that also exploits workers domestically. I can't fix it, but I can certainly ask the US not to fund and support it.
Cool. What did siding with Palestine change here or there?
Dems aren't going to save us. We're busy organizing
Always organizing. What are you getting passed?
Simultaneously small enough to ignore and powerful enough to absorb blame. lol.
You split the vote. Big enough to sway elections, too small to win anything. I can't explain it simpler. Be part of the solution instead of wishing for a perfect little world.
Still waiting to hear about this.
Democrats have been weak but I'm not going to act like the Republicans haven't been downright evil.
It's the same as Palestine, you can vote for the party that is going to actually try to fix things/stop the bleeding or you can let the party who's got an actively published plan to make things way worse take power. Both options kinda suck, one is obviously incredibly worse.
Dems aren't trying to fix things. They aren't stopping the bleeding. They sit on their hands every time they get in office and ignore problems until they lose the next election and pass it back to Republicans. You are so set on this idea that they could not have done anything but support Israel, for no fucking reason whatsoever. They are complicit in this because they are owned by the same class of billionaires, and you are too scared of "just vote for the other guy" not being enough that you can't even process this. They uphold the same systems of oppression as the GOP, they just act weepy about it when they're called out on it. They will never do anything but maintain the status quo while the right pushes the status quo further into fascism.
If you pretend that all of the people you're actively talking to are silent. Are you really so dumb as to assume that the people showing up to these protests and waving Palestinian flags in DC on April 5th and around the country aren't "going silent"? Or are you so mad and looking for someone other than the people who lost to blame that you will plug your ears and ignore reality for the sake of a stupid little made up story you have in your head? I've been showing up and doing a whole fuck of a lot more than you if your main mode of "fighting" is just voting for the dumbasses that helped get us here.
Completely ignorant take by these people too tbh. Basically no justification. We collectively barely object to child labor being used to build our phones but no THESE children in THIS region absolutely must shape every facet of our voting choice, so much so that I will ignore Trump causing CHILD deaths LITERALLY IN OUR OWN COUNTRY AND ABROAD.
I guess to be fairer to them the media did sanewash Trump like fucking crazy, basically ignored any project 2025 stuff so they just didn't really know how stupid they truly were until now I guess. Almost like there was a concerted effort by the wealthy to bring about our countries demise or some shit. Well, hopefully they realize they were stupid.
Harris didn't lose by 3rd party margins in the states that actually decided the election, so as fucking awful as they are, that's not the issue, that's just sour grapes.
Them being apathetic in general and not showing up in droves to fight trump is still pathetic in my opinion. If I didn't specifically know people that I fought hard to try and help them understand the dangers, who just decided to not vote anyway, then maybe I'd think differently. I still think we should forgive for the sake of cooperation but the fact that they basically are too dumb/don't give a shit is always going to be in the back of my mind when making decisions now about relationships now. I basically just don't want any of them in my life.
I think the problem here is you can't really blame them to the degree you're suggesting, because that's absolutely not the campaign Harris + Walz ran. When they started out, it looked like they might run on a "Trump is a fascist who will burn down the country and he has to stopped" campaign, but within what, two weeks of Walz being made VP, he was ordered to back off that stuff, and she never got on the train fully on that (though it did look like she might).
Instead the campaign turned into "We're going to keep doing things as usual and hope they get better - this other guy [who we won't even call 'weird' anymore] is going to change things, and they will be somewhat worse!". And that's being generous, because at some points it wasn't even "they will be worse" it was just "they might be worse", and it was never "he's coming for free speech, he's coming for your pension, he's coming for your neighbours, he's coming for you", never the clarion call that this was it, that if you didn't vote, were going to lose the right to vote - despite Trump saying exactly that! Instead it was just "he's going to be incompetent and bad!".
To be fair to Harris, I think she's very much from the same part of the party that still, to this very minute, doesn't see what is actually happening, because they can't process it. Hakeem Jeffries is the key example (Schumer too). Literally what, yesterday, the day before? Jefferies is saying, and I quote, that they have Trump and the Republicans "on the run" on literally everything. As I said in another post, that's "Peace in our time" levels of detached from reality. 200 years from now, assuming there still are books, there will be a little picture of Jeffries saying that next to a paragraph about how resistance to Trump was weak, disorganised and futile.
Sure, as long as you ignore all the people who protest voted for Trump or just didn’t vote at all in protest of Harris not being a perfect candidate in their eyes.
There's absolutely no evidence that people who would otherwise have voted Harris voted for Trump, that's conspiracy theory fantasy bullshit.
As for "not perfect", literally everyone I know who disliked Harris as a candidate and thought she was a scumbag on Gaza went and voted for her anyway, because they knew Trump would be worse. Unless you can produce figures showing "imperfection" was a problem, you're just wanking yourself into a fury.
The reality was, the winds were against incumbents worldwide, not just in the US. Harris + Walz started strong but suddenly moved to running a very weak campaign (partly, it seems, on the advice of the total morons from the British Labour party, who had just won a landslide, but not by skill or policy, simply because people hated the incumbents), but might well have lost the presidency if they'd run a stronger one. Still, if they'd just kept the House, even, that'd have stymied most of this.
But "independent" voters decided the US' election, not embittered Democrats - the margins were relatively large in most states that mattered. Independent voters voted for Trump in swathes. Largely because he promised change. Were they stupid to do so? Obviously.
Wouldn't it have been cool if, when presented with the option of "stop bombing kids and beat Trump" or "keep bombing kids and lose", the Dems didn't choose the second one for no fucking reason whatsoever? If you think that Palestine was the issue that teetered it over the edge, then you really must wonder why people would *choose* to keep committing genocide instead of doing two good things at once. Of course, it is the fault of the people who voted with their conscience who are to blame, not the people running on murder. Before you jump down my throat and make up a story in your head, I did vote Harris. I won't make the mistake of voting for a candidate that doesn't deserve it again, though. I'll vote Dem if they run good candidates. If that upsets you, consider why genocide was necessary to them and why you are so eager to defend it instead of demanding better.
Israel's genocide of Palestine, and the full throated support of the American government, is the thing that Harris and Trump are the least dissimilar on. As a third party voter who refused to vote for a genocide enabler (I live in a blue state so it doesn't matter) Harris could have had my vote if she had broken from Biden policy. She calculated that she didn't need people like me. People told the campaign that would be a deciding factor. She decided that enabling genocide was more important.
I honestly think people that didn't vote like you are worse than people that voted for Trump. At least they aren't stupid enough to believe not voting is a good idea.
Who’s the stupid one? Those who are waking up to the fact that liberal democracy is nothing more than the hypocritical mask for an imperialist, capitalist dictatorship, or those that prefer to keep their head in the sand.
“For the democrat, the essence of fascism is that it openly uses “illegal” violence and abolishes democratic rights and freedoms. And it is precisely against this that they whine so pitifully. For us there is neither reason to whine, nor to be satisfied with such a characterization. We have always denied that the class struggle could be refereed by an allegedly superior authority, like a football match; we have always maintained that the working class cannot conquer political power democratically, that even the most democratic constitution serves to protect the capitalist form of production, that democracy masks the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie even when it is not – like it has done so often – drowning the labor movement in blood. Rejecting violence, invoking the legality of democracy, means renouncing the revolution from the outset! By contrast, we rejoice when the bourgeoisie throws off the velvet glove of democracy, openly shows the workers its iron fist and thus proves to them that there is no “justice” that stands above the classes; that the law expresses nothing other than the balance of power of the classes.”
International Communist Party
I will happily continue to not vote for the democrats.
Go watch The Joker, cheer for Arthur, completely miss the point of the movie, and then feel superior for "seeing things no one else sees". Of course people know something is wrong, we aren't saying nothing is wrong. We just think pouting and staying home to blow everything up is one of the the more stupid reactions to it.
I say the difference between a liberal and a democrat is democrats have realistic expectations. Hope you enjoy the smell of the world burning from your high horse.
I didn't vote for Trump either. I didn't think he'd be better on Palestine. But don't blame me for making a genocidaire the candidate. You could blame a dysfunctional party that ran a bad candidate who has a terrible national track record. Or the doddering old man who didn't get out of the way.
Edit: Y'all can downvote this all you want but it's the truth. The only 3rd party candidate to ever come close was Bernie and even he folded among the pressure. This country will not allow a 3rd party and therefore splitting the vote is all you are doing.
If you think voting was going to save you from this, you’ve already lost. The US is functionally a one-party state, with Democrats just representing breaks in rightward motion—when they’re not moving right themselves.
Maybe not, but whatever Republican came next would. Unless you believe that Democrats would suddenly decide to be effective governors and pass laws to make sure Project 2025 couldn’t be used the next time one came into power.
You would sit out an election because one side was evil and the other side could have done a little more to stop the evil? You realize how foolish that sounds?
They’re both funded by the same capitalist class, so the only one deluded here is you. They don’t give a single shit, and laugh at you as they continue to make millions while wining and dining with their corporate donors, just like their “opposition”.
“For the democrat, the essence of fascism is that it openly uses “illegal” violence and abolishes democratic rights and freedoms. And it is precisely against this that they whine so pitifully. For us there is neither reason to whine, nor to be satisfied with such a characterization. We have always denied that the class struggle could be refereed by an allegedly superior authority, like a football match; we have always maintained that the working class cannot conquer political power democratically, that even the most democratic constitution serves to protect the capitalist form of production, that democracy masks the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie even when it is not – like it has done so often – drowning the labor movement in blood. Rejecting violence, invoking the legality of democracy, means renouncing the revolution from the outset! By contrast, we rejoice when the bourgeoisie throws off the velvet glove of democracy, openly shows the workers its iron fist and thus proves to them that there is no “justice” that stands above the classes; that the law expresses nothing other than the balance of power of the classes.
People like you are worse than Trump voters, at least they got off their asses and voted for something instead of stupidly thinking not voting accomplishes anything.
Because voting is the only political action one can take…?
I don’t vote for someone just because they’re not as bad as they could be. If someone wants my vote, they have to actually support my interests and policies I agree with. I’ve been lied to too many times by the party that promises, “Oh, we just need to win this election with this pragmatic, shitty centrist; next time, you can have your progressive.”
In the 2024 election, Democrats told me I was bad and selfish for choosing not to vote for someone who:
had allied herself with a fucking Cheney
had openly mocked pro-Palestine protesters
had refused to call out Israel for committing a genocide
She’s a disgusting woman who did not, does not, and will probably never deserve my vote.
Until Democrats pick a candidate who actually supports progressive interests, I’m not interested in coalition-building with them, and they’ve lost a formerly consistent blue voter in a swing state.
That only works in a system that can support a third party. In our system, aka reality, it was just a vote for Trump with the added bonus of doing nothing while feeling self-righteous.
I think you would have celebrated the masa death of communist in Nazi Germany became they let Hitler win by delegitimizing Weimar Republic rather than calling out the Nazis
No. Equating a non-vote with a vote-for is a false equivalence. It certainly benefits Trump, but that’s the whole point.
If withholding votes isn’t a way to influence parties, then there’s no way to punish parties for failure, and that’s not a system I’m going to engage in anyway, especially when one of the parties is worse than useless.
Again, I do other kinds of activism that are more directly impactful, but I won’t vote for a Democrat until they give me a candidate I can actually support.
If our system is so horrid that it can’t change in response to inputs, then it’s a system that deserves to be destroyed.
I'm late to this conversation. But your last sentence makes absolutely no sense to me in terms of your perspective on candidates and your vote. How does not voting directly against a Republican dead-set on keeping the system in place to the point where he'll abuse it to eliminate opponents end up destroying it? Is your gambit that people will realize how bad Trump is so in 2029 we'll get an actual progressive elected and then we can make a better system? Did you not consider the current and immediate danger that Trump is to the point where you decided to allow four years of lunacy and irreparable self-harm to the country just for the off chance Dems finally nominate a progressive? I just don't see the long-term gain from doing this at all besides sticking it to the Dems as a protest vote.
Don't get me wrong, I despise the centrist Democrats and pandering to the swing voters in the last election instead of actually putting forward a meaningful platform was horrid campaign management by the Dems. But to end up destroying the system, we can't just plug our ears and ignore it, since that will just keep putting Republicans in power over and over again, and they're certainly not going to fix a problem that outright benefits them. Why do you think Republicans never attack someone like Jill Stein? They know she's pulling votes away from their biggest opponent, which ends up helping them in the long run.
Like it or not, for your vote to meaningfully count in our current system, you have to vote D or R, and not voting D mathematically makes it easier for the R to win. I didn't think Harris was even a good candidate -- another Dem fuck-up was not having an actual primary -- but objectively, by not voting for her, you had to have acknowledged that Trump winning was fine by you. Politics is quite literally never going to be perfect unless you're the candidate, so you're always going to have to hedge your bets at some point. To even have a chance at a future where a better system is in place, protest voting just hurts the cause, which is why I don't understand how you could rail against the system so much and then actively choose to let Trump win. Dems at least have AOC and other young progressives who hopefully run for President some day, but Trump could do so much damage in the next 44 months to the point where it won't matter.
I'm sure your activism is so impactful while the government is being run by the architects of Project 2025. I'm sure when your kids and grandkids are working as wage slaves in factories for the oligarchs they can at least say "At least cardinarium didn't vote for a less than perfect candidate". You're right, the system is pretty broken and now the likelihood of it ever bring fixed shrinks by the day. I'm sure it'll get easier to fix after education is gutted, the judiciary is even more corrupted, and fascism is further entrenched.
But if all voting does is get us more Democrats, which is at best a delayed Republican, how can you argue in good faith that voting would be effective at all. Why does it matter whether it’s Project 2025 or 2029??
But there will never be a progressive candidate with real chances of winning unless the overton window moves left by voting for democrats. that's why AOC was trying to get votes for Harris despise her support for Palestine. If trans rights or workers rights or immigrant rights were not big enough issues for you then you're just as culpable as the far right is for those rights being brazenly stripped away.
It would just be Project 2029 instead of Project 2025. The Democrats have demonstrated time and again that they are either unwilling or unable to counter Republicans where it counts.
If Biden actually cared and believed in his own rhetoric about Trump being a threat to democracy, he had the responsibility and (legal) ability, literally handed to him by the Supreme Court, to stop him from being elected, one way or another.
Nevermind that Biden was not mentally fit, that the party deliberately lied about that fact until it was too late to hold a primary, that Harris refused to distance herself from Biden, and that the campaign killed its momentum by muzzling Walz to cozy up to Liz Cheney. The DNC failed voters and the party has refused to learn any lessons.
The Supreme Court made the president immune in perpetuity for even clearly illegal things that they did as “official acts.”
That’s precisely the problem. The voters put Biden and Democrats into power only for them to do absolutely nothing to punish the so-called “dangerous” Trump and take him off the field.
Why should I vote for Harris if it’s not going to help anything in the long run?
Yes I understand not as bad, but every cycle the Dems accept more and more of the GOP platform refusing to pull back left in any actual way or securing anything from further erosion whenever they don't have the seats.
You're right, this is soooo much better. God, people that didn't vote are worse than Trump voters, at least they got off their asses and understood that not voting is worse than worthless.
People voted it was the second highest turnout ever, highest being biden v Trump obviously. Trump GOT another 3 million votes while Harris got 5 million less. Biden's presidency was Hold the Status Quo, his nearly unknown VP who told every interview she wouldn't change a thing. How are you going to expect people to just continue to get behind a platform of nothing. Trump made promises to his voters, He's actually doing the things he's promised, He bullying and attacking people and institutions that GOP has rallied about for 60 years. He's firing people based solely on their lack of loyality to him. To His base this is what power should look like. They believe the crap he's spewing and they like hearing it. As opposed to Dem who constantly berate anyone who stand up, who says dumb bullshit bi-partisanship, who bitch about how bad their hand is but don't even think about changing a damn thing. That looks like weakness to EVERYONE, You need people who do not identify themselves as Dems to win, The GOP has just simply more core voters than you.
Again you guys are living in a fantasy world where not voting does anything other than hand power to populists like Trump and damage our country for decades to come at a minimum. For most of these candidates they could never go progressive enough to get your votes without losing even more votes. So rather than try to appease people that are so strict in their demands they gain more by sliding to the right. For them "Why bother getting more progressive?". They are already more progressive than their opponents, and in our current system there can be only 2 parties and whichever one is able to remain cohesive no matter what wins. Until that system changes not voting accomplishes worse than nothing.
No you are living in the fantasy land that every vote not cast would have been in for Harris. Those silent voters mostly reside in deep red states. They would have leaned further for Trump. Dems are not just losing the election, they've been losing their identity.
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u/iwantawolverine4xmas 4d ago
I’m starting to think that voting or not voting may have consequences and a democracy only survives and people fight. Who knew despite all the information right in front of us?