The problem is that the democrats / social democrats around the world have really become corporatism and are now exploiting the far right - they don’t have to enact left wing policies and can move further to the right or just do nothing. And then you’re called to prevent “literal hitler”. Yeah you have to, but it’s a catch 22.
A “green new deal” or universal healthcare isn’t even talked about anymore. People are just so sick of this shitocracy. And it’s spreading everywhere.
Where is the 3rd button with “Become an actuall democracy”?
doesn’t exist, there is no “third button” you have to make it yourself, and until you achieve that it’s a good idea to keep literally Hitler out of power, because you can’t do that with LITERALLY HITLER
until you achieve that it’s a good idea to keep literally Hitler out of power
But Hitler gained power when the first-place party nominated him to the Chancellory as an effort to be bipartisan.
Why am I voting for Hindenberg if he’s just going to appoint Hitler to head up Homeland Security?
But Hitler gained power when the first-place party nominated him to the Chancellory as an effort to be bipartisan
What? The first-place party at that time was the Nazi party. Hindenburg had been ignoring the parliament for a long time by then, and he only wanted it to support him in order to prevent a potential civil war. From “The comming of the third reich” by Richard J. Evans:
The Reichstag had been pushed completely to the margins as a political factor. It was, in fact, no longer needed, not even to pass laws. Yet the problem remained that any government which tried to change the constitution in an authoritarian direction without the legitimacy afforded by the backing of a majority in the legislature would run a serious risk of starting a civil war.
Hitler was seen as a simple idiot they could place to play as a chancelor, while Hindenburg and co. would actually run the country. But it turned out that the chancelorship and the police were enough for him to take over the country completely.
The first-place party at that time was the Nazi party.
Hindenberg trumped Hitler by nearly 6M votes. The Nazi Parliament comprised roughly a 1/3rd of seats. Well short of a working majority, absent a host of like-minded Germans in the Friekorps and the liberal aristocracy.
Hindenburg had been ignoring the parliament for a long time by then, and he only wanted it to support him in order to prevent a potential civil war.
Thank goodness we didn’t end up with a Germany cleaved down the middle. He really dodged a bullet.
Hitler was seen as a simple idiot they could place to play as a chancelor
Yes, in the same way that Trump was seen as a bumbling chud whom Hillary could catapult over to victory in 2016. Or when Bush Jr or Reagan were dismissed as lightweights during their first runs. There’s always this general disregard for popular politics, right up until it bites the incumbent in the ass.
the chancelorship and the police were enough for him to take over the country completely
The chancellorship, the police, and streets full of brown-shirts imposing martial law after the burning of the Reichstag. Of course, the German state had made such a fetish of Communists as traitors and saboteurs and foreign agents that Hindenburg went right along with the coup for fear of being labeled one himself.
That was the real power of the Nazi movement. The ability to, at any moment, single a person or a neighborhood or an ethnicity out as a scapegoat and unleash a wave of violence against them.
In the modern moment, we have the same problem in the form of right wing religious and media organizations. And we’ve got a modern day Weimer Republic that simply goes along to get along, rather than putting up any kind of resistance or organized opposition.
Can you explain this line of thinking? I’ve heard this before but it doesn’t line up for me.
Democrats threw tens of millions of dollars to a “Pro-Trump” Dem Senate candidate in Tennessee. Mayor Adams, up in NYC, has echoed a host of the Trump “immigrant invasion” talking points, when confronted with bus-loads of women and children kidnapped and displaced by governors’ Abbot and DeSantis.
Our AG is once again refusing to close the torture camp in Gitmo, while Anthony Blinken runs around the Middle East peddling advanced weapons systems to extremist governments in Saudi Arabia and Nigeria and India.
Even if Biden wins in '24, its very likely he’ll have a GOP House and Senate to deal with. How many concessions will a guy who spent his entire career advocating Bipartisanship make to a Republican Party that’s packed to the brim with Trump wanna-bes?
There is a very real possibility that Biden will give us a new round of ranking bureaucrats and judges who are right in line with Donald Trump, simply because that’s what the GOP Congressional majority demands of him.
I think that argument is pretty defeatist.
You realistically have 3 choices when it comes to voting at this point. You can vote for a fascist, vote for a bipartisan incumbent, or basically don’t vote. Btw, the fascist is under a ton of stress from numerous ongoing civil and criminal lawsuits and presidency is pretty much their last stand.
If Trump doesn’t win this year, do you really think Republicans would be able to work together under a power vacuum that would create? I think that a good amount of Republicans are already sick of Trump and can’t leave the cult because they’re the minority, but if he’s not elected this year I think that might change.
You can vote for a fascist, vote for a bipartisan incumbent
If you’re being bipartisan with fascism…
the fascist is under a ton of stress from numerous ongoing civil and criminal lawsuits and presidency is pretty much their last stand
The problem with this theory is that Trump’s not a unique or singular point. If he drops dead of a heart attack tomorrow, Americans won’t magically wake up from a fascist slumber. They’ll just go hunting for the next banner waver. That guy isn’t going to have all the legal baggage or the decades of antipathy built up against him that Trump’s got.
The next American Fascist leader is going to be smoother and more polished than this bumbling horny coke head. He’s going to bill himself as Bipartisan, too. And I suspect quite a few liberals are going to gobble him up in no small part because democrats like Biden gave them nothing worth supporting.
I’ll take “a very real possibility” over an absolute certainty.
haha that’s not even an option. An oligarchy we are and an oligarchy we will stay.
Pfft, like either side would let you have that.
I’ll settle for an actual Democratic Republic with no landowner-fellating “Electoral College”
The reason we need to have this conversation every time is because we want to live in a democracy
In a democracy, you get two choices and one of the choices ends the democracy so you really only have one choice.
In a democracy, you get two choices
Why do so many people act like primaries don’t exist. Everyone online complains about Joe Biden but then 96% of south Carolina votes for him? Slactivism at it’s finest.
Why do so many people act like primaries don’t exist.
Because this year they didn’t. 95% of votes haven’t been cast yet and everyone except the front-runners have dropped out already.
The only way we don’t get a Biden v Trump rematch in 2024 is if a convention is outright hijacked or one/both of them drop dead of Old People Itis.
Nobody else is going to fix what you dont like about the primaries for you, bro. Throwing your hands up and playing the victim because the odds are 99.99% against you only changes those odds to 100%.
What does this have to do with the primaries?
>Throwing your hands up and playing the victim because the odds are 99.99% against you only changes those odds to 100%.
i love this. i’m going to use it every time someone tries to suppress voter turnout by telling me cornel west and jill stein can’t win.
Another thing that annoys me is how people just treat the primary process with such respect with regard to the 2 parties. This year the GOP primary is the only (potentially) competitive one, so what’s stopping everyone from voting in the GOP primary so there can be a more acceptable opponent to Biden? I know it feels icky to register as a Republican but I’m just kinda shocked how no one ever takes this opportunity with such an exploitable system that consistently gets us disastrous results. Instead we complain about the 2 party system all the time, but then abide by it when the two parties ask us to.
This conversation is the point. Without it, we would only have kings.
“want”. never have, probably won’t
Nononono you see life is easier if you just say BoTh SiDeS and move on. Sort of. You kind of have to repeat this mantra every time politics comes up for the rest of your life. But it sure beats thinking! That shit is hard!
And when you or your partner get sent to prison because you had a miscarriage, you can rest easy knowing that at least you didn’t vote for the guy that wouldn’t have sent you to prison for having a miscarriage
Just a friendly reminder…
The first thing I’ll do as President is sign the Freedom of Choice Act https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=BdrOrwmk78Y
Im pro choice https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=nmzdkAbu8dY
Not my highest priority https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=RxiDZejZFjg
parody… No https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=1z4uhxpOnN0
Man I guess this makes him worse than the guy that’ll throw gay people in prison or something
Don’t get me wrong, Fuck Joe Biden, but don’t act like he’s worse than the guys who promise to do awful things and then follow through on those promises
If you keep saying “in a socialist utopia this wouldn’t happen” and do nothing long enough, a revolution will just happen and solve all the problems!
That’s what I’m saying!! Communism is the only way bro
Any day now!
If I put a picture of Karl Marx in my profile, does that make communism happen? I’ll do anything to have an excuse for not voting!
Nah you also gotta make sure to tell everyone on the Internet that both sides are the same so third party is the only real way
“Thinking is hard” is 5/4 of the way to right wing ideology.
Also 7/6 of the way toward a [insert label] person who thinks the whole system is so corrupt that we all may as well give up on anything but spreading doom
I think the best course of action is to just not vote! That way, I can be blamed when the United States becomes a facist religious country!
/s
Bro you just changed my life with this revelation!
life is easier if you just say BoTh SiDeS and move on
When they’re both drawing money from the same basket of mega-donors, they’re both pushing the same draconian border policies, they’re both encouraging historic levels of new carbon emissions, they’re both bankrolling an endless series of nightmare wars abroad, they’re both advocating lower taxes and privatization of Medicare/SS, they’re both deep in bed with Wall Street, they’re both “pro-life”, they’re both religious sycophants, they even both call one another “communists” as a derogatory slur…
FFS, man. Where’s the line?
But it sure beats thinking!
The more you think about it, the worse the situation looks. Its lose-lose. The only real question is whether we get Trump terrorizing the LGBT community at home or Biden flinging bombs at brown people living abroad.
Half the shit you said is flat out wrong, the rest is oversimplified thought-sloth. You’re 100% in the camp of thought avoidance if you can write this comment.
Half the shit you said is flat out wrong
Biden had a full Congress to work with when he took office in '21 and he rolled back virtually nothing advanced by Trump.
Actually, strike that. He let a bunch of the COVID-era good stuff lapse. No more monthly allocated child tax credits. No more suspended student debt payments. No more free testing and expanded Medicaid.
His immigration policy is worse. His foreign policy is worse. His fucking MONETARY POLICY IS WORSE. How do you pick the same Fed Chairman as Trump and get a worse monetary policy?!
thought avoidance
literally pointing at Biden’s actual policies while actually in actual office
These suck. Avoid that at your own peril.
Why are you lying about literally all of this? Satire or Putin puppet?
Have we moved from “Thought Avoidance” to “Insidious hand of the evil foreigner” this quickly?
People who allow themselves to think wonder “why”. Try it sometime.
Gibberish
Biden had a full Congress to work with when he took office in '21 and he rolled back virtually nothing advanced by Trump.
Yeah you have literally no idea what the fuck you’re talking about, like at all. That’s okay, not everyone needs to know everything about everything.
Check out Biden’s first 100 days of executive orders.
Immigration policy is worse
Objectively false as long as the perspective you have isn’t that of a xenophobic bigot.
His foreign policy is worse
Explain. If you’re referring to the stuff in Afghanistan then you’re unfortunately misled as Trump ensured that would have to happen through actions he took at the end of 2020.
“Literally pointing at Biden’s actual policies” by making shit up lmfao get the fuck outta here. Also, yeah, Dems had 2021-2023 to make stuff better. Unfortunately, yes, Sinema/Manchin have had disastrous effects in passing bills. Can you please point out a better bill from the current Congress or any Congress since Obama than the Inflation Reduction Act? Because I can’t.
I hope that you’re simply ignorant, the only other explanation is blatant malice.
Objectively false as long as the perspective you have isn’t that of a xenophobic bigot.
This, combined with the Texas state practice of police forcing migrants onto private property and then arresting them for trespassing has created an impossible situation for anyone seeking legal refugee status.
If you’re referring to the stuff in Afghanistan then you’re unfortunately misled as Trump ensured that would have to happen through actions he took at the end of 2020.
I’m referring to the ethnic cleansing in Gaza and the neighboring territories in Egypt, Jordan, and Lebanon. I’m talking about our support for ethnic cleansing in Modi’s India and Zewde’s Ethiopia. I’m talking about our theft of $7B from the Afghani treasury on the departure of US troops, plunging the country into a famine. I’m talking about our continued military occupations in Haiti and Niger and Libya and Mali and Somalia. I’m talking about our tacit endorsement of the Polish blockade on Ukrainian harvest exports, because we’ve wedded ourselves to the US/EU agricultural deregulation efforts. And our support for Spainish, French, and German governments in the war on their own farmers who are in revolt over collapsing wholesale farm prices.
I’m talking about our $250B weapons export market in 2023, the highest in US history, which has contributed to escalating tensions from the Korean Peninsula to the Red Sea to the South Pacific.
Every year Biden has been in office has resulted in more war, more killing, more ethnic cleansing, in large part thanks to his international endorsement of some of the bloodiest wars since Vietnam.
“Literally pointing at Biden’s actual policies” by making shit up lmfao get the fuck outta here.
He has been a fucking disaster. In the midst of a labor shortage, he’s ratcheted up interest rates to depress wages. In the midst of record global temperatures, he’s overseen a new peak in US fossil fuel production and consumption. In the midst of record domestic energy consumption, his FTC and SEC have green-lit a new wave of bitcoin mining and energy hungry AI data harvesting.
More money than ever before for the FBI, the NSA, and the Pentagon. Some of the lowest salaries for educators, medical staff, and agricultural workers in 40 years. Biden’s “Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act” has flooded the investment markets with cash while doing nothing to improve quality of life for lay workers or retirees.
This is all real shit. Its why he’s fucked in the polls. America under Biden has gotten materially worse. You are not better of today than you were four years ago and that’s saying something given where we fucking started.
I hope that you’re simply ignorant
You’re cruising for the edge of a cliff screaming “Just stay the course”, and I’m sure you’ll be back here blaming the folks that called it once you crash land into November.
Figuratively Hitler. Literal Hitler is a skeleton by now.
ITT: the same right wing trolls pretending to be leftists. Don’t even bother.
Not necessarily. There’s also the accelerationists that want to burn the whole thing down and believe that they’ll be around to rebuild their utopia in the ashes, without any regard for those who suffer and are murdered to try to achieve their selfish vision of society. All while ignoring the facts that accelerationism has never been demonstrated to actually work and that there’s a pretty decent chance that they would be targeted for murder if an authoritarian government took over, prior to societal collapse.
accelerationists that want to burn the whole thing down and believe that they’ll be around to rebuild their utopia in the ashes
More that the system needs to be burned down because it is actively harming people. Whether Trump or Biden is in office, the DHS is responsible for the wrongful arrest and imprisonment of tens of thousands of people. The Pentagon and its affiliates are responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands more. Our Treasury and Energy Departments continue to subsidize historic levels of pollution which cannibalize vast swaths of arable land for fictitious profits.
Burning the political system that’s destroying your country isn’t about utopian idealism any more than sabotaging the bulldozer headed towards your house is about building your dream home.
accelerationism has never been demonstrated to actually work
I’d point you to the US Civil War as a very classic historical counterpoint. The country had to pass through four years of hell and quite literally immolate a large portion of its interior in order to purge the accumulated sins of a century of chattel slavery.
This isn’t something anyone wants to live through, but we’re far better as a country for going through it than subjecting another century’s worth of Americans to the inhuman conditions of plantation bondage.
I’d point you to the US Civil War as a very classic historical counterpoint. The country had to pass through four years of hell and quite literally immolate a large portion of its interior in order to purge the accumulated sins of a century of chattel slavery.
I’ll start by saying that Sherman stopped too soon. But, I am curious as to how that provides evidence for accelerationism. The US Civil War was started by slavers that were mad about not being allowed to expand chattle slavery into new territories. Lincoln and the others still allowed allied slave states to exist and tried to prevent it by offering compromises.
This isn’t something anyone wants to live through, but we’re far better as a country for going through it than subjecting another century’s worth of Americans to the inhuman conditions of plantation bondage.
Agreed. Though the result was a significant improvement, though Jackson reversed too much.
I’ll start by saying that Sherman stopped too soon.
Based.
But, I am curious as to how that provides evidence for accelerationism. The US Civil War was started by slavers that were mad about not being allowed to expand chattle slavery into new territories
It started much earlier than that. John Brown and the abolitionist insurrection in Kansas and then Harper’s Ferry West Virginia gave secessionists urgency in a way that prior activists had not. The Underground Railroad was seen as a tool of northern politicians to steal southern slaves. Lincoln’s nomination to the Republican ticket was received as a plan by the majority party to curb slavery’s expansion which - at the moment when they were racing for new territory to expand into - would have crippled their already underdeveloped economy even further.
Fort Sumter was where the war began, but this was a country that had staring into the abyss of civil strife for the last decade.
Lincoln and the others still allowed allied slave states to exist and tried to prevent it by offering compromises.
Lincoln needed to keep the border states around the capital loyal, so he deferred emancipation until after Gettysburg by which time the southern military had lost its steam. But he was right in line with Thaddeus Stevens in ideology, even if he was more strategic in his governance.
Though the result was a significant improvement, though Jackson reversed too much.
I assume you mean… Andrew Johnson?
Yeah. One of the big what-ifs of the period is a President Benjamin Butler.
Thanks for the well thought out response.
Fort Sumter was where the war began, but this was a country that had staring into the abyss of civil strife for the last decade.
Absolutely. There were abolitionists at the signing of the US Constitution even.
I assume you mean… Andrew Johnson?
You are correct. I mix the two names up.
While I agree with everything and see it’s factuality, I still have some trouble connecting it to accelerationism. From my perspective it seems rather more in line with reform. Wouldn’t accelerationism in that scenario have been more along the lines of Lincoln pushing for more slavery to try to trigger a slave revolt?
I still have some trouble connecting it to accelerationism
The straightest line I can draw is to simply point at the passage of the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments. This would have simply not been possible had the southern states not rebelled and - as a consequence - temporarily lost their statehood and representation. Without the Civil War you simply could not have had the majorities necessary nor the moral imperative of 600k dead Americans, to legally exorcise the ghost of slavery from the soul of the nation.
Absent things getting significantly worse, they could not have so rapidly improved.
Wouldn’t accelerationism in that scenario have been more along the lines of Lincoln pushing for more slavery to try to trigger a slave revolt?
Not Lincoln, but Polk and Tyler and Pierce and Buchanan (with Filmore being a Biden-esque dude who failed to stop the train from careening off the tracks). Lincoln was the consequence of half a dozen new slave states rapidly joining the union and spreading the curse of slavery like wildfire. The huge expansion in arable land available to slavers combined with a steady rise in the domestic slave population, resulted in slavery becoming this enormous economic engine that sucked in all the neighboring states and necessitating court decisions like Dredd Scott and new legislation like the Fugitive Slave Act.
Slave auctions right outside the halls of Congress, slave gangs kidnapping freemen as far north as Rhode Island and Wisconsin, and slaves being put on display in northern states by visiting southern plutocrats had a serious impact on northern perceptions of slavery. It wasn’t just a peculiar institution in a far away land, but a barbarism committed right out your own front door.
And it did culminate in a number of failed slave revolts, high profile slave murders, and various consequential conspiracy theories psychically destabilizing a lot of the southern population. John Brown’s raid was the fulfillment of a long-held fear in southern households - that one day all these slaves would rise up and murder their masters. And Lincoln’s election was seen as giving a guy like John Brown the Presidency.
That’s why the Civil War was already in full swing before Lincoln even took office. He didn’t need to do anything. The powder keg had already exploded before he even reached DC.
Thank you. I’ll have to read this when I’m in a better headspace to do so. I really appreciate your taking the time to write it and engage in good faith.
It has been a few months since you wrote this and I’ve finally been able to take since time to read it. I can certainly see the connections that you were making now. However, I’m not sure that I agree entirely with your conclusions.
The actions of the slavers were not intended to bring about positive change. Nor do I find evidence to suggest that making the world a worse place will inevitably push the pendulum in the other direction. It seems much more of a correlation/causation fallacy coupled with “ends justify the means” philosophy, intentionally inflicting suffering in the hope that it ultimately results in good, without concrete data to show that it would or even could.
However, again, I would like to thank you for taking the time to clarify. Both here and in other comment threads.
The thing is though, you might feel strongly about this and that’s absolutely fine, but most people just haven’t been pushed to breaking point yet. Like do I really want to engage in civil unrest and face state instigated violence against myself and probably my family, or do I just want to shuffle through the next 20 years with my head down hoping to have a few years peace before the grave.
Some people are already the head down, wondering what will kill them between a cop, homelessness or starvation.
Yep. This is what happens when you make terminator movies: Everyone thinks they’re gonna be a hero freedom fighter against the cold, faceless oppressors.
Nobody ever considers the most likely scenario: you’re probably one of the skulls that the robot steps on as the camera pans up.
Jokes on you, I’m into that shit
That, or genuine leftist which are essentially the same thing
Found one
… said the right wing troll.
…screamed the stableboy.
The US is kinda primed to really like their hitlers.
My family fought in both world wars. My grampa was part of the North African campaign, a cousin went down on the HMS Hood after being sunk by the Bismarck during the Battle of the Denmark Strait…
Living in Canada and watching our neighbours to the south gleefully embrace the fascism we ALL fought against is both disgusting and terrifying.
How the hell did this happen?
Disclaimer: not a historian. I only know enough to be dangerous.
I had a longer reply typed up, but then I blundered into this:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fascism_in_North_America#United_States
In the 1920s, American intellectuals paid a considerable amount of attention to Mussolini’s early Fascist movement in Italy, but few of them became his supporters. …
According to Noam Chomsky, the rise of fascism raised concerns during the interwar period, but it was largely viewed positively by the U.S. and British governments, the corporate community, and a significant portion of the elite. This was because the fascist interpretation of extreme nationalism allowed for significant economic influence in the West while also destroying the left and the hated labor groups. Hitler, like Saddam Hussein, enjoyed strong British and U.S. support until his direct action, which severely damaged British and U.S. interests.[21]
My unqualified opinion is that there’s still remnants of this that track with old money. If this was possible, culturally, 100 years ago, there’s no reason why it can’t be true today.
AFAICT all of what’s happening now can be traced back to Reagan and Murdoch.
Patriotism is a hell of a drug. None of our countries were fighting fascism, exactly. That generations governments were trying to maintain their power, and it was a close fought battle both times. It was stopping the squareheads, krauts, bohunks and nips taking over then. It’s not like our governments don’t do fascist shit anytime they feel like, and can get away with it, but it is more that you think the governments over there, then, weren’t also riding that same line of how far they can push it.
Our election favourite (Canada) got the leadership by photo-opting with white supremacist groups and the notion one of his party rivals was a communist
Classic bullshit. He’s been spotted with right leaning groups a woman that actually hangs out with Nazis calls white supremacists. Unfortunately that woman is the finance minister.
Where does the finance minister come into play?
And it was his own followers calling Chong a communist during the race
She’s a bad habit of being photographed with ukraine immigrants waving blood n soil flags.
So not at all
It’s not my fault you can’t understand what you see.
So what is the connection between that and PP, are you saying they work together?
Fundamentally: Boomers keep fucking over every generation after them. Literally every problem we’re discussing is a result of that fact.
Choosing between missing the point and ignoring the problem sucks.
This is a disfunctioning democracy.
The problem is that the true left is excluded from the game. The center (democrat) talk like they will do something, but they rarely do so, even when they have full power to do it. Then when elections come, they put the responsibility on the leftists to stop the fascists.
It is hypocrite and toxic. It fuels fascism. It is not a solution. It’s building a dig to protect from a hurricane. It’s at best buying some time for the center to keep the status quo and let the problems rot.
Jesus christ this has gotta be one of the most annoying conversations people have every four years. uhhh we gotta vote because the other candidate is literally hitler guys he’s literally hitler. uhhhh noooo I don’t wanna vote at all because I’m cranky and my candidate has dementia and sucks waaaaah.
I feel like I’m stuck in a fucking time loop. I would much rather see people being like, oh you hate our options, like a sane person, but will probably vote anyways because it takes like an afternoon at most, if you really feel like it and hopefully don’t have anything more important to do? Instead of this meme, I’d rather see like, oh, here’s some shit you can do, here’s some organization you can join, here’s some place you can donate money, something like that. Here’s what building you should throw a brick through the window of, you know? I’d rather see that, than these dumb ragebait memes.
I don’t remember anyone saying previous Republican candidates were literally Hitler. I also don’t recall any of them saying shit that’s taken almost verbatim from Hitler’s speeches. No promises to be a dictator. No talk of political purges. No “blood and soil” rhetoric.
If you think every election is the same, you have really not been paying attention.
But Democrats threw tens of millions of dollars to a “Pro-Trump” Dem Senate candidate in Tennessee. Mayor Adams, up in NYC, has echoed a host of the Trump “immigrant invasion” talking points, when confronted with bus-loads of women and children kidnapped and displaced by governors’ Abbot and DeSantis.
Then you’ve got Sinema in Arizona and Manchin in West Virginia and even John Ossoff of Georgia demanding hundred of millions for bigger and more heavily armed police forces to clamp down on any kind of public dissent in their historically red states. Our AG is once again refusing to close the torture camp in Gitmo, while Anthony Blinken runs around the Middle East peddling advanced weapons systems to extremist governments in Saudi Arabia and Nigeria and India.
You can “Trump would be worse” all you like, but this shit is truly awful on a scale its hard to overstate.
This is why George Washington didn’t want a 2 party system.
Nobody does but you’re not a democracy so it’s tough luck
democratic republic is still a democracy, please don’t be like those conservatives who spout “it’s a republic not a democracy”, the electoral system is outdated, but it’s still a democracy
Yeah, sure, just like the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (aka North Korea) is also a Democracy because it says so in the name.
Sorry but that power duopoly with a Mathematically rigged voting system you have over there is barelly more democratic than Russia, the vote being little more than a theatrical performance were you get to choose between two pre-selected options who are so shit they can’t really sell their own personal qualities so both mainly campaign on “vote me 'cause the other guy is worse”.
Unsurprising both “sides” when in power always govern for the benefit of the same group (and it’s not those who voted for them) but they sure make a big show of their differences in the moral plane to compensate for being pretty much the same in when it comes to the actually governing of the country for the good of those who live there.
Looks at the democratic index
The politicians in charge want it. So pretty much every republican and a sizeable amount of democrats. Without actual representative voting, both parties would loose a lot of members to new founded parties who now suddenly do have a realistic chance of actual political power. None of the established people in the parties want that. After all it’s working out just fine for them.
Bingo
We are a democracy, it’s just that a lot of us fucking suck
If by “us” you mean Boomers yeah I agree.
Us as in Americans, of which Boomers are unfortunately a part
The median age of the senate is 65 years old.
It’s the fucking Boomers.
Are you American? Are boomers Americans? If you say the word “us” in reference to Americans, of which you are a part, then boomers are also part of that group, and are included in “us.”
You can use “us” to refer to any group or subgroup you’re part of, and you can say that a lot of people in a group you’re in are awful without taking any responsibility for that awfulness. A lot of us humans suck, but I like to think I’m not too bad
99% Hitler vs 100% Hitler I can’t believe I’m having to make this choice
This is the conversation created by the system. There were many other candidates than biden in 2020, but the party colluded to make biden the presidential nominee. Nothing stopped democrats from running a different candidate this year either except some superstition about the “incumbent advantage”. Remember when that incumbent advantage worked in trump’s favor in 2020…? Oh wait, it’s all bullshit when your favorability rating is so damn low like it is for biden right now. It’s okay, if we close our eyes and ears and scream “BUT THE OTHER GUY” loud enough, I’m sure it’ll all work out. We should be asking why the machine only has two buttons, starting from a low bar and only going lower.
… some superstition about the “incumbent advantage.”
We probably agree overall but I gotta point out: in political science, it’s definitely not considered superstition. If it were just throwing salt over the shoulder, we wouldn’t be able to consistently verify the hypothesis. It remains one of the stronger electoral advantages for outcome prediction.
That tangarine palpatine lost in spite of this advantage is more a testament to his lack of popularity among the general electorate. And btw one of the strongest known DISadvantages is having lost an election previously. The quants will have a field day with this one either way.
TL;DR Incumbency advantage is real.
We should be asking why the machine only has two buttons, starting from a low bar and only going lower.
A result of FPTP-voting and the way campaigns are financed. What you get is exactly what the old roman aristocrats intended, when they designed this system over 2 millenia ago to maintain influence: keeping money where the power is and vice versa.
By “the party” you mean millions of voters? Or do you also just deny their agency?
Billions upon billions of dollars are spent on advertising and media and you think that this has no influence in a party-controlled process where the party can decide to tell others to drop and support a single candidate.
Sounds like a great moment to remember this:
Biden signals to aides that he would serve only a single term
The Democratic party should act in accordance to what its members want to believe is most appropriate, not what its elites impose on them.
Ok great, we worked out what to do on election day. Now, what are we going to do the rest of the time? We must organize and build political structures outside the two parties, must force action to change the way the fundamental government of the United States operates so that it is a democratic body void of money, gerrymandering, the senate, and the nature of the Supreme Court. Congresspeople must represent a realistic and small number of people.
This is the idea behind /c/inperson@slrpnk.net. The idea is, instead of using this platform to gripe at each other about “yes it is” “no it isn’t” “yes it is”, we can start to organize and make things better.
I propose that any time one of those awful “no one vote it definitely won’t matter trust me” posts comes up, we make a thread underneath it with some links to productive positive things we’re doing in addition to, obviously, voting for the guy who’s not going to blow up the country and piss on the ashes. Turn the shilling into a reminder to get out and do something concrete.
Right after I get done typing this I’m going to go back to trying to figure out a way I can volunteer some time to the Biden campaign. I’m going to be honest, I feel a little corny even typing that out, but I think trying to make sure Trump doesn’t win is for real the most effective thing that’ll set us up for more positive change and less end-of-the-world disaster in the near future.
No, volunteering for Joe Biden certainly is not the way to reform.
Post your recommended way to reform then. 100% unironically serious about that. All my previous posts were about “outside the establishment” venues, today’s was the first that was within the establishment.
Vote third party. Biden will lose this election anyways. It’s the perfect opportunity to jump ship.
I’ve never seen it put so succinctly before.
