“If you don’t pick a better candidate then I’ll just let the one who wants concentration camps and to erase all of Palestine win”
Like, seriously, look at the big picture. Do you think Kamala who would have still supported Israel would have been worse for Gaza? It’s literally not possible. You guys fucked up the entire planet in your pride.
Now I’m not saying the DNC isn’t wrong, they’re fucking morons. But you guys just gave up on global warming, gay rights, trans rights, Gaza, any sembles of the environment, public health, the entire “justice” system, the courts, your immigrant neighbours, all people of colour in the US, and women’s rights.
I cannot express how much I fucking hate people like you right now.
Go ahead and downvote me. “But it’s not right”. Yeah? We’ll choosing to let this happen is leagues worse. You guaranteed the genecide in Gaza would be the worst it ever could be you fucking morons.
Go out and pressure the DNC to not be shit, but don’t fucking say there’s no difference between Kamala and Trump.
Yes. For sure with Harris things would be much better here and there. Not voting is only makes things worse and we know GOP is very unpopular now the only strategy is to infiltrate Dems and manipulate people to not vote again and elect them again.
Dems are so easily to manipulate this why things are bad. If you don’t vote it’s your fault how things are
This continues to be the stupidest, least productive way to think about elections. The lesser of two evils argument may be true, but it failed to motivate people to vote for Kamala in 2024 (or Hillary in 2016, for that matter). You can bitch about protest votes or an apathetic electorate all you want, but at the end of the day, you don’t win elections if you don’t get votes, and, “yEaH, bUt TrUmP iS wOrSe,” didn’t get votes. If the Democrats once again run a candidate who doesn’t reflect their base and once again lose the election, it will once again be their fault for repeating a losing strategy that produces losing candidates.
But you can bet when they lose they’ll blame everyone else in the room but themselves. I don’t think the neo-liberals of the party realize how much bad blood they’ve been generating.
It’s getting hard to tell if they even want to win. Even a year ago it might be plausible to argue that centrism is a smart strategy, but at this point, with victories like Mamdani and Mejia, it’s just demonstrably wrong. Hell, Platner is still leading Mills in Maine even after the whole, “having a Nazi tattoo,” thing. If the Democrats are still pursuing centrism going into 2028, then they have to admit they would prefer losing to fascists than adding progressives to their tent.
I did vote for her. I live in a comfortably Blue state, but I agreed to vote for her in solidarity with some of my swing-state friends that didn’t want to vote for her.
As for strategy, well, Kamala’s entire strategy was, “our base is already going to vote for us, so we’re going to instead pursue disaffected Republicans by campaigning with Lize Cheney and Barbara Bush.” That choice depressed the turnout of her own base and cost her the election. Motivating Democratic voters instead of chasing imaginary moderate Republicans would have been a better strategy, and it probably had a bigger impact than the Gaza protest votes.
Anyway, let’s just say you’re right, and the electorate is full of childish leftist dummies that won’t vote for Harris because they’re idiots that can’t see the big picture. Well, then what? You can piss and moan about these voters all you want, but you seem to think they were the deciding factor in 2024, so what are the Democrats gonna do to win them over? It seems unlikely that all of these people you think are idiots that can’t reason or forecast will be radically different in the next two years, so are the Democrats going to do something different in 2028, or have you just resigned to losing now?
i’m glad i’m not the only one shitting on 3rd party/abstainers every chance i get. high and mighty morality police, usually saying shit like “kamala was always going to lose” while simultaneously trying to push the 100% guaranteed fail action of 3rd party or sitting out.
whether they’re actually russian propaganda trolls or not hardly matters–they’re shit human beings either way
On the other hand, this is a fine time for this conversation. We do have roughly a year to find a candidate that’s not fucking Newsom just because he could meme for a minute.
I don’t mind a few memes in our politics, but I do want there to be some kind of substance under the memes. And not the substance Magats have found under theirs, 💩.
no. this shit is the reason we’re in this situation, innocent citizens getting rounded up, deported, murdered. because so many people wanted to moralize, “vote their conscience,” “wE dIdNt GeT a PrImArY”…whatthefuckever, while the rest of us were shouting that everyone’s top priority needs to be keeping trump out of the white house.
so again: if it ends up that newsom, or harris, or a fucking lobotomized muskrat ends up being the candidate–VOTE FOR THE FUCKING MUSKRAT instead of trump, or 3rd party, or, ffs sitting out
I mean, I generally agree with you, but like most things this isn’t black and white. It’s a nuanced thing that needs to be handled with care. I get it; Large movements are terrible at nuance.
While we’re two years out from the start of the campaign, we can certainly encourage the Dems to find an actual progressive.
Hillary was better than Newsom. It’s funny that California Dems are blasted as the most liberal, when they might be the most conservative Dems outside of West Virginia.
Yes, anything is better than fascism. That point was more important 18 months ago, and might be more important again 12 months from now.
It’s also important how you say what you have to say. Dems are absolutely not the ones to blame for all this shit. Not doing enough is not the same as directly causing the disaster.
remove fascism vs keep fascism seems pretty “black and white” to me. what the chicken fried fuck are you talking about “nuance” at this point? vote against trump, or do anything else; that’s the choices. ideal? no. reality? yes. you think we should bicker and argue about the “best” person to oppose trump while the fascists are 100% behind whoever the fuck chimpanzee is on the ballot that they’re going to vote for regardless, because they have ® by their name. THAT is how democrats lose
i’m not “blaming dems”, nor did i imply such at any point anywhere, so you can go ahead and eliminate that bullshit from your argument.
good luck with your “find an actual progressive” aka 3rd party with about zero chance of actually winning any election for any office anywhere. i will try to come to terms with the fact that we’re in fascism from now on, because not-fascists just can’t seem to grasp “vote against fascism no matter what”
thanks for your insight. i hope you don’t have kids
Agreed. But I’m not going to publicly endorse a dead-end DNC loser before it’s necessary. The DNC needs to act like people aren’t required to vote for them and field a candidate that can actually win votes.
That’s valid! More than valid it’s necessary. Show resistance against weak DNC libs AS LONG AS POSSIBLE, but possible ends when it’s time to vote. Then always choose the option that is best or, if necessary least damaging.
If you don’t vote against the biggest fascist, you are helping fascism along.
The GOP once elected a dead pimp because they don’t care.
Copilot Search Branding
Dennis Hof, the Nevada brothel owner and reality TV personality, was posthumously elected to the Nevada State Assembly in November 2018 for the 36th district, even though he died just 21 days earlier on October 16, 2018 Wikipedia+1.
Hof, who had been a Republican since 2016, ran against Democratic challenger Lesia Romanov in a heavily Republican district that included parts of Nye County and surrounding rural areas BuzzFeed News. He was known for his flamboyant style, his HBO reality series Cathouse, and his self-proclaimed role as the “Trump of Pahrump”
How about you go out and draw the rest of the owl there? The main power we have is our right to vote, and you’re saying we shouldn’t use that to pressure the DNC to put forth a pro-worker anti-war candidate.
And how is not voting for them going to do that? They’re fine with you not voting for them, and even losing in the case of DNC leadership. Always have been.
You want to put pressure on them? Be the candidate to primary the party line candidate in Democratic primaries. Yes they will use every structural advantage they have against you. But if enough people do it constantly. The cracks will widen and show. Otherwise they’re happy to receive donations and funding from the wealthy, even if they don’t win.
To be clear, I think all national parties should be outlawed. Generally state wide ones as well. But unless you can change the political reality we are in. The only possibility is not just holding off the worst possible candidates such as trump. Though more should have shown solidarity against him. But being the candidates we want to vote for. And not letting some uninterested complacent national organization make those decision for us.
Not voting for them has done just that! We’ve seen real change at the DNC, and that is only because the neoliberals have been completely discredited. They can no longer claim the narrative of being the adult in the room, the logical choice for electability.
Party power structures only change after the party loses.
But you guys just gave up on global warming, gay rights, trans rights, Gaza, any sembles of the environment, public health, the entire “justice” system, the courts, your immigrant neighbours, all people of colour in the US, and women’s rights.
You forgot to include USAID.
Anyone who keeps clutching to Gaza and says Kamala would have been as bad as Trump can suck my dick.
I’m a leftist who absolutely voted Harris, because the other option was horrific. I was not in love with Kamala but I did feel that she was a faaaaaaaaaaaaaaaar better option. But I will not lie, I know several people who were basically exactly like the people you are talking about. It’s disheartening.
Not my girlfriend herself but a large portion of her family (who are all from Palestine!!!) wasted their votes on Jill Scott. I thought that was insane to do. Like, I definitely understood why but 2024 was NOT the time for that.
Wanna know how to pressure the DNC to pick a candidate you like? Go fucking vote for them in the primary!
Typically, the primaries get 1/10th the turnout of the general election. That means that a very small number of people can sway the primary. Go stump for your candidate. Make phone calls, talk to your family and friends and community, explain why your candidate is the better choice.
The lack of a primary in 2024 was fucking awful, but guess what? Chances are, there is a primary going on for your state right now, get to work!
Try telling that to someone who supported Bernie, but before you do that you might want to go back and refresh youself on what happened. The DNC is a diseased carcass, change isn’t possible.
In 2016. 2020 it was fair and he lost. I voted for him but supposedly all his other supporters didn’t. That’s democracy. You don’t count if you don’t show up.
No it’s more like “Why make an argument against the charges when the charges have no standing at all.” The case is dismissable, why would you waste your time and money fighting it in court?
Do you really think the vote results of a corrupt election somehow make that election not corrupt? How are we still having this stupid ass argument in 2026?
I guess Putin really does have 88% support in Russia. That’s what the vote says after all, so it must be true.
No, I’m saying the election itself was corrupted in order to feed the victory to Hillary. Superdelegates, DNC-run smear campaigns, election rigging by limiting debates to reduce the visibility of the outsider. Accusations of sexism simply for not supporting the candidate with a vagina.
Manipulating votes is not the only way to rig an election, you can do a lot just by manipulating the voters themselves. The DNC admitted to this, they didn’t have to run a fair election. So stop pretending the end result of a blatantly corrupt process justifies the process.
Alright, you pretty much posted the same argument I was expecting from the other two, but just taking a little detour through the possibility that you thought the votes were altered.
Before I consider this complaint, I need you to go back, and get the primary results from the 2016 DNC primary and post them here.
I need to know that you know before we can discuss further.
No, you infantilizing asshole. The fact that you’re still pushing this stupid game means you clearly don’t intend to argue in good faith. The fact that even after making me explain a very simple and straightforward statement you still think the vote results are relevant to a discussion about the corruption of the 2016 primaries means you’re just yet another liberal apologetic. If you’re unwilling to grapple with the fact that the DNC is a corrupt organization, we’re done here.
Go and primary every single DNC candidate that isn’t good enough, get better democratic candidates wherever you can. Put even more energy into primaries than into the election itself!
But when the decision comes down to Churchill or Hitler, you better vote for fucking Churchill.
Everything else is just throwing the minorities and the future under the bus as a cost of doing business.
Accelerationism is acceptable to people who think they have little to fear from a (hopefully) short spike in terrible things, because they might come out of the other side worse for wear, but they will make it through.
But for everybody who’s part of a vulnerable group it’s throwing them to the wolves, because likely, they will not come out of the other side.
(I want to be clear that I’m not advocating for accelerationism, I’m just seeing holes in the argument)
Pushing people in a vulnerable position now to make change for the future is a great example of the needs of the many ethical arguments. Advocating against change because it hurts me in the short term is inherently selfish.
I know people that are accelerationists, and The ones I know don’t assume that they’ll come out ahead or even the same. They recognize that the system is inherently broken and they think they need more people uncomfortable to make meaningful change.
Except the Armageddon is real but no-one will rise up to save us when every major city is nothing but glowing embers under an ever gray nuclear sky while the remnants of humanity fight each other with sticks over the last grain silos.
So-called American “revolutionaries” make me sick with their reckless disregard for the unavoidable responsibility their country has with regards to their military. An “accelerated downfall” won’t just affect you bozos. Especially not if the means are “stoking the fire of imperialism”.
If I could press a button to accelerate the US downfall and magically contain the fighting to the lower 48 in a way that leaves whoever is left standing nuke-less, I would, but that’s not an option on the table, so barring that, please vote against the guy who really can’t be trusted with the nuclear briefcase, yeah???
To the people “wanting to teach the DNC a lesson”, in the nicest way possible, you’re fucking idiots.
They threw literally ever other minority group under the bus, and got absolutely nothing for it - if anything they actually got less than nothing, because Trump wasn’t just going soft on Israel, he was actively cheering them on!
I will never understand the mentality of choosing that hill to die on… Like couldn’t you guys have waited until Trump was at least off the board first.
Man was literally on his way to a lifetime in jail and bankruptcy, that he got out of scot-free because you guys decided 2024 was the time for a protest vote.
That might be, but it’s hard to believe many people would not see the result coming ahead of time. It’s just not a believable concept to me that these folks really believed that anything could happen besides trump being more likely to win. The most generous I can be with them is that they didn’t care what would happen.
Gaza would have been worse, because Netanyahu would have kept up the bombing.
However, Kamala would never have defunded USAID, so those million and a half people who are dying right now from starvation and disease would be alive.
So, honestly, not voting for Kamala was a bad idea.
But it’s still because of the DNC corporate donors that Trump is in office right now, because they refuse to allow the people a progressive alternative.
Blame is pointless. I am talking about what needs to change. Shouting at reluctant third party voters will do nothing but raise your blood pressure.
Campaigning for the downfall of Chuck Schumer, there’s a worthy cause.
That is something that people only understand at their own pace. Being shouted at, shamed by others, tends to reinforce the problem. It makes them defensive.
I get that venting can make the people who were right feel better, but that’s usually all it does.
For a good example, the left have been right about the problems in the DNC since 2015, and it has not helped whenever we point this out. Shouting at conservative Democrats has only made them more defensive, and alienated both sides from each other.
As usual, the solution is hard. Work towards building power and organisation from the bottom up, and don’t waste time hoping that the people who benefit from this mess will magically decide to do the right thing. I wish I hadn’t wasted so much time doing that.
Focus on what people need, pick three or four straightforward policies, and do everything you can to push those forward and promote your sincere effort to do so.
Don’t accept any funding from groups who want things you do not want, because that funding will be a chain holding you back.
Don’t lie.
Don’t. Lie.
People, the ones you want support from, aren’t fucking stupid. Don’t lie.
They would have been different, but Kamala wouldn’t have been different enough.
Biden won and Trump instigated a coup over it. Why is that treasonous rat not in prison? Would Kamala have put him in prison? Oh, she should have said so. I had no idea.
I think the argument is that voting for status quo candidates aren’t actually getting us those things, either. And any small incremental gains are quickly reverted the next time republicans are in power.
I think the argument is that voting for status quo candidates aren’t actually getting us those things, either. And any small incremental gains are quickly reverted the next time republicans are in power.
And you can only believe that if you ignore every bit of progress that has stuck around in the last thirty years.
Progress isn’t a straight line up. Like anything else it dips and wobbles. But it consistently moves upward.
Yeah there are always going to be things to make progress on. But to pretend that we are not in a better place on some of those issues now than we were thirty years ago is bafflingly silly.
As an example: In 1996, support for same-sex marriage was so low that congress passed and Clinton signed the Defense of Marriage Act, allowing states to ignore same-sex marriage licenses from other states in direct violation of the full faith and credit clause of the Constitution, and this was widely supported by the American people. In 2023, over 70% of Americans supported gay marriage while only 22% opposed. That number has dipped since, but not by much. In 2025, it was 68% support (88% of Democrats, 76% of Independents, and 41% of Republicans) while 29% opposed it.
That is an issue on which the American people have made significant progress. That progress hasn’t evaporated with alternating administrations. It ebbs and flows like literally everything, but over time it has improved.
Most are like this. Not all! Certainly some things consistently get worse, like wealth inequality. But to act like everything simply flip-flops between parties and that the Democrats are simply a ratchet that maintains the status quo and doesn’t let anything change just to let the next Republican make it worse is flat-out wrong.
Are Democrats largely spineless corporate shills? Yeah. But are they just as bad as Republicans? Fuck no. Go vote in primaries. Support candidates who will actually push for change. Giving up is pathetic.
Thank God the progress understander has logged on to explain why it was good, actually, that the Democrats banned gay marriage
You clearly need to work on your reading comprehension if that’s what you think I was saying.
No, it was fucking horrible that Democrats banned gay marriage. It was fucking horrible that our society was okay with that. The entire point I’m making is that thirty years later we are living in a completely different WORLD on that front.
Bill Clinton passed a law defining marriage between a man and a woman. And you are saying this is an example of progress made by a centrist candidate. Isn’t this the law doing the opposite, here?
And you are saying that Gavin Newsom, who has spoken out against trans rights, can do something similar? Like assuming he does the same thing, like pass a “Defense of gender” bill to allow other states to not recognize gender transitions.
What do you say to the people of WV who voted for Bernie in the 2016 Democrat primary, won him every single county, and 40k more votes than the runner up, but Clinton won the state? Should they give up, or comitt voter fraud and vote 110%?
I’m not American and we have the same issues here.
But the answer has to be putting in grassroots support and fighting the power where you can. By the time Biden and then Harris had secured the DNC nomination it was way too late.
I think right now the world at large needs big changes, and corporate power needs to be reigned in. But you have to engage with the possibilities in front of you, even though they suck. You can and should try to create new ones, but it’s a fight, and you have to treat it like one.
And any small incremental gains are quickly reverted the next time republicans are in power.
Because the next ‘status quo’ candidate is t good enough, so we piss away any progress because we didn’t get the perfect candidate and stay home from the election (again)
Elections are in some way a validation of the system. The elites point to the election any time someone complains about some policy. The entire system has been consistently getting worse regardless of who is in power for at least 30+ years. The only way we have to express our displeasure is to vote out the incumbent. I’m confident that even if Kamala had won, things would have gotten worse. Maybe they would be worse at a slower rate, but they would be worse. We need to see beyond electoral politics. Every time you vote, you are granting the rich permission to continue to fuck you regardless of who you voted for.
The majority of eligible voters already don’t vote. Low voter turnout does not embarrass the rich and powerful, it just makes the system easier to control. Fewer voters means fewer people to answer to, fewer people to influence, and fewer people to shuffle around through gerrymandering.
For fuck sake, they are consistently trying to make it harder for people to vote. They want lower turnout. They know their most loyal supporters will still vote. They’d much rather have their base be the only ones bothering to show up to the polls. They don’t care about legitimacy, they care about winning.
Every time you vote, you are granting the rich permission to continue to fuck you regardless of who you voted for.
And do you think that, by refraining from voting, you would somehow deny the rich that permission? That’s probably why all the openly corrupt, unapologetically authoritarian politicians go out of their way to ensure everyone is able to cast a ballot, right? Because they know that, the more people vote, the more permission the rich will have to fuck everyone. That makes a lot of sense. Thanks for your enlightened contribution here.
Sure. Start the revolution. We’re all waiting for you.
That is… Unless you’re full of shit and won’t be the first one to raise your fist right? Just waiting for everyone else to do the dirty work of the revolution right? Why aren’t you in the papers yet for your revolutionary work?
They aren’t. That’s an easy scapegoat. Influenced by Russian propaganda, sure, but we’re all influenced by propaganda. The vast majority are ordinary citizens, who are as convinced of the righteousness of their beliefs as anyone. Dismissing them, en masse, as bots and trolls isn’t helpful.
The fact is, many of them have very valid points. Where they need to be fought is, very specifically, when they encourage non-voting. There’s no good argument for non-voting, and it’s easy to defeat them there.
I don’t think they’re all trolls. I think there are a few right-wing trolls who got stupid people to buy into their astroturf campaign and then it took off from there. IIRC, one of the people in Mi openly admitted that he was a Republican and saw it was an easy wedge issue to get people not to vote.
Also you guys are fucking idiots.
“If you don’t pick a better candidate then I’ll just let the one who wants concentration camps and to erase all of Palestine win”
Like, seriously, look at the big picture. Do you think Kamala who would have still supported Israel would have been worse for Gaza? It’s literally not possible. You guys fucked up the entire planet in your pride.
Now I’m not saying the DNC isn’t wrong, they’re fucking morons. But you guys just gave up on global warming, gay rights, trans rights, Gaza, any sembles of the environment, public health, the entire “justice” system, the courts, your immigrant neighbours, all people of colour in the US, and women’s rights.
I cannot express how much I fucking hate people like you right now.
Go ahead and downvote me. “But it’s not right”. Yeah? We’ll choosing to let this happen is leagues worse. You guaranteed the genecide in Gaza would be the worst it ever could be you fucking morons.
Go out and pressure the DNC to not be shit, but don’t fucking say there’s no difference between Kamala and Trump.
Yes. For sure with Harris things would be much better here and there. Not voting is only makes things worse and we know GOP is very unpopular now the only strategy is to infiltrate Dems and manipulate people to not vote again and elect them again.
Dems are so easily to manipulate this why things are bad. If you don’t vote it’s your fault how things are
This continues to be the stupidest, least productive way to think about elections. The lesser of two evils argument may be true, but it failed to motivate people to vote for Kamala in 2024 (or Hillary in 2016, for that matter). You can bitch about protest votes or an apathetic electorate all you want, but at the end of the day, you don’t win elections if you don’t get votes, and, “yEaH, bUt TrUmP iS wOrSe,” didn’t get votes. If the Democrats once again run a candidate who doesn’t reflect their base and once again lose the election, it will once again be their fault for repeating a losing strategy that produces losing candidates.
But you can bet when they lose they’ll blame everyone else in the room but themselves. I don’t think the neo-liberals of the party realize how much bad blood they’ve been generating.
It’s getting hard to tell if they even want to win. Even a year ago it might be plausible to argue that centrism is a smart strategy, but at this point, with victories like Mamdani and Mejia, it’s just demonstrably wrong. Hell, Platner is still leading Mills in Maine even after the whole, “having a Nazi tattoo,” thing. If the Democrats are still pursuing centrism going into 2028, then they have to admit they would prefer losing to fascists than adding progressives to their tent.
They are idiots, because they can’t reason and forecast outcomes well. If YOU cast a protest vote, then I understand your comment.
Can you please explain a strategy (other than lying) that would have appeased the dummies?
She should have lied to overcome their childish minds.
I did vote for her. I live in a comfortably Blue state, but I agreed to vote for her in solidarity with some of my swing-state friends that didn’t want to vote for her.
As for strategy, well, Kamala’s entire strategy was, “our base is already going to vote for us, so we’re going to instead pursue disaffected Republicans by campaigning with Lize Cheney and Barbara Bush.” That choice depressed the turnout of her own base and cost her the election. Motivating Democratic voters instead of chasing imaginary moderate Republicans would have been a better strategy, and it probably had a bigger impact than the Gaza protest votes.
Anyway, let’s just say you’re right, and the electorate is full of childish leftist dummies that won’t vote for Harris because they’re idiots that can’t see the big picture. Well, then what? You can piss and moan about these voters all you want, but you seem to think they were the deciding factor in 2024, so what are the Democrats gonna do to win them over? It seems unlikely that all of these people you think are idiots that can’t reason or forecast will be radically different in the next two years, so are the Democrats going to do something different in 2028, or have you just resigned to losing now?
I completely agree. That was disheartening to experience.
I’m sorry for the frustrated name calling. It’s probably not helpful. I’m just so so frustrated.
For the immediate term, they should be lied to.
In the long term, we need to force their hand, and then abolish the Democratic party.
No.
The current trend has me worried.
I will likely die for this.
i’m glad i’m not the only one shitting on 3rd party/abstainers every chance i get. high and mighty morality police, usually saying shit like “kamala was always going to lose” while simultaneously trying to push the 100% guaranteed fail action of 3rd party or sitting out.
whether they’re actually russian propaganda trolls or not hardly matters–they’re shit human beings either way
On the other hand, this is a fine time for this conversation. We do have roughly a year to find a candidate that’s not fucking Newsom just because he could meme for a minute.
I don’t mind a few memes in our politics, but I do want there to be some kind of substance under the memes. And not the substance Magats have found under theirs, 💩.
no. this shit is the reason we’re in this situation, innocent citizens getting rounded up, deported, murdered. because so many people wanted to moralize, “vote their conscience,” “wE dIdNt GeT a PrImArY”…whatthefuckever, while the rest of us were shouting that everyone’s top priority needs to be keeping trump out of the white house.
so again: if it ends up that newsom, or harris, or a fucking lobotomized muskrat ends up being the candidate–VOTE FOR THE FUCKING MUSKRAT instead of trump, or 3rd party, or, ffs sitting out
i will die on this hill. you might too
I mean, I generally agree with you, but like most things this isn’t black and white. It’s a nuanced thing that needs to be handled with care. I get it; Large movements are terrible at nuance.
While we’re two years out from the start of the campaign, we can certainly encourage the Dems to find an actual progressive.
Hillary was better than Newsom. It’s funny that California Dems are blasted as the most liberal, when they might be the most conservative Dems outside of West Virginia.
Yes, anything is better than fascism. That point was more important 18 months ago, and might be more important again 12 months from now.
It’s also important how you say what you have to say. Dems are absolutely not the ones to blame for all this shit. Not doing enough is not the same as directly causing the disaster.
please.
remove fascism vs keep fascism seems pretty “black and white” to me. what the chicken fried fuck are you talking about “nuance” at this point? vote against trump, or do anything else; that’s the choices. ideal? no. reality? yes. you think we should bicker and argue about the “best” person to oppose trump while the fascists are 100% behind whoever the fuck chimpanzee is on the ballot that they’re going to vote for regardless, because they have ® by their name. THAT is how democrats lose
i’m not “blaming dems”, nor did i imply such at any point anywhere, so you can go ahead and eliminate that bullshit from your argument.
good luck with your “find an actual progressive” aka 3rd party with about zero chance of actually winning any election for any office anywhere. i will try to come to terms with the fact that we’re in fascism from now on, because not-fascists just can’t seem to grasp “vote against fascism no matter what”
thanks for your insight. i hope you don’t have kids
lol no. You don’t get to strawman and then be a rude piece of shit about it.
people are getting murdered by ice.
and a rando on lemmy is what’s making you mad
nuance
Agreed. But I’m not going to publicly endorse a dead-end DNC loser before it’s necessary. The DNC needs to act like people aren’t required to vote for them and field a candidate that can actually win votes.
That’s valid! More than valid it’s necessary. Show resistance against weak DNC libs AS LONG AS POSSIBLE, but possible ends when it’s time to vote. Then always choose the option that is best or, if necessary least damaging.
If you don’t vote against the biggest fascist, you are helping fascism along.
WRONG!
You hype the Dems in public every chance you get.
The GOP once elected a dead pimp because they don’t care.
Copilot Search Branding
Dennis Hof, the Nevada brothel owner and reality TV personality, was posthumously elected to the Nevada State Assembly in November 2018 for the 36th district, even though he died just 21 days earlier on October 16, 2018 Wikipedia+1.
Hof, who had been a Republican since 2016, ran against Democratic challenger Lesia Romanov in a heavily Republican district that included parts of Nye County and surrounding rural areas BuzzFeed News. He was known for his flamboyant style, his HBO reality series Cathouse, and his self-proclaimed role as the “Trump of Pahrump”
Lol this is so fucking funny. My vote wasn’t a fail.
If you didn’t vote for Kamala, then you’re part of the problem
How about you go out and draw the rest of the owl there? The main power we have is our right to vote, and you’re saying we shouldn’t use that to pressure the DNC to put forth a pro-worker anti-war candidate.
And how is not voting for them going to do that? They’re fine with you not voting for them, and even losing in the case of DNC leadership. Always have been.
You want to put pressure on them? Be the candidate to primary the party line candidate in Democratic primaries. Yes they will use every structural advantage they have against you. But if enough people do it constantly. The cracks will widen and show. Otherwise they’re happy to receive donations and funding from the wealthy, even if they don’t win.
To be clear, I think all national parties should be outlawed. Generally state wide ones as well. But unless you can change the political reality we are in. The only possibility is not just holding off the worst possible candidates such as trump. Though more should have shown solidarity against him. But being the candidates we want to vote for. And not letting some uninterested complacent national organization make those decision for us.
Not voting for them has done just that! We’ve seen real change at the DNC, and that is only because the neoliberals have been completely discredited. They can no longer claim the narrative of being the adult in the room, the logical choice for electability.
Party power structures only change after the party loses.
You forgot to include USAID.
Anyone who keeps clutching to Gaza and says Kamala would have been as bad as Trump can suck my dick.
I forgot a ton of things.
AI, your data privacy, your parents retirement, NATO, electric cars, green energy, antitrust, the chip shortage.
There’s a huge list.
Yup
It’s fucking mind numbing
I’m a leftist who absolutely voted Harris, because the other option was horrific. I was not in love with Kamala but I did feel that she was a faaaaaaaaaaaaaaaar better option. But I will not lie, I know several people who were basically exactly like the people you are talking about. It’s disheartening.
I think the main issue is that some people don’t have any sense of prioritization.
They’re the people who complain when they’re in the ER for a cold and a person with a gunshot wound gets to go ahead of them.
Not my girlfriend herself but a large portion of her family (who are all from Palestine!!!) wasted their votes on Jill Scott. I thought that was insane to do. Like, I definitely understood why but 2024 was NOT the time for that.
They’ll do it again.
Please shut the fuck up.
Youre spreading the propaganda that helped them justify their actions.
Oh ok my bad. I’ll stfu now.
I CaNT bElIevE PeOpLE wOuLD dO ThiS!!!
Meanwhile, you’re pulling provably false both sides bullshit. What a tool you must be.
I’m drunk, but wtf are you talking about “both sides” propaganda?
Wanna know how to pressure the DNC to pick a candidate you like? Go fucking vote for them in the primary!
Typically, the primaries get 1/10th the turnout of the general election. That means that a very small number of people can sway the primary. Go stump for your candidate. Make phone calls, talk to your family and friends and community, explain why your candidate is the better choice.
The lack of a primary in 2024 was fucking awful, but guess what? Chances are, there is a primary going on for your state right now, get to work!
Try telling that to someone who supported Bernie, but before you do that you might want to go back and refresh youself on what happened. The DNC is a diseased carcass, change isn’t possible.
In 2016. 2020 it was fair and he lost. I voted for him but supposedly all his other supporters didn’t. That’s democracy. You don’t count if you don’t show up.
Before I consider this complaint, I need you to go back, and get the primary results from the 2016 DNC primary and post them here.
I know what the results are, but I need to know that you know before we discuss further.
The DNC even said that they don’t have to run fair primaries, because they technically don’t. God damn it wakup!
No it’s more like “Why make an argument against the charges when the charges have no standing at all.” The case is dismissable, why would you waste your time and money fighting it in court?
Maybe; I didn’t look into it past probably biased summaries. My cynical sense was on fire
Do you really think the vote results of a corrupt election somehow make that election not corrupt? How are we still having this stupid ass argument in 2026?
I guess Putin really does have 88% support in Russia. That’s what the vote says after all, so it must be true.
Are you saying that Bernie got more votes in the primary than Hillary, and the DNC manipulated the votes to make Hillary win?
No, I’m saying the election itself was corrupted in order to feed the victory to Hillary. Superdelegates, DNC-run smear campaigns, election rigging by limiting debates to reduce the visibility of the outsider. Accusations of sexism simply for not supporting the candidate with a vagina.
Manipulating votes is not the only way to rig an election, you can do a lot just by manipulating the voters themselves. The DNC admitted to this, they didn’t have to run a fair election. So stop pretending the end result of a blatantly corrupt process justifies the process.
Alright, you pretty much posted the same argument I was expecting from the other two, but just taking a little detour through the possibility that you thought the votes were altered.
I need to know that you know before we can discuss further.
No, you infantilizing asshole. The fact that you’re still pushing this stupid game means you clearly don’t intend to argue in good faith. The fact that even after making me explain a very simple and straightforward statement you still think the vote results are relevant to a discussion about the corruption of the 2016 primaries means you’re just yet another liberal apologetic. If you’re unwilling to grapple with the fact that the DNC is a corrupt organization, we’re done here.
He lost? Yeah, fuck primaries forever!
did bernie lose because people didn’t vote for him? or did he lose because the democrats establishment push him out?
for what you said to be true, the democrats need to abolish the superdelegates, which they won’t do.
Same thing applies to you.
Yes! Primaries primaries primaries.
Go and primary every single DNC candidate that isn’t good enough, get better democratic candidates wherever you can. Put even more energy into primaries than into the election itself! But when the decision comes down to Churchill or Hitler, you better vote for fucking Churchill.
Everything else is just throwing the minorities and the future under the bus as a cost of doing business.
https://sourcenews.scot/analysis-5-of-the-worst-crimes-of-winston-churchill/
Churchill is probably viewed as worse than Hitler in parts of the world for good reason.
I think a lot of the argument against voting for lesser evil is the acceleration aspect. It’s advocating for a quicker fall of the American empire
Accelerationism is acceptable to people who think they have little to fear from a (hopefully) short spike in terrible things, because they might come out of the other side worse for wear, but they will make it through.
But for everybody who’s part of a vulnerable group it’s throwing them to the wolves, because likely, they will not come out of the other side.
(I want to be clear that I’m not advocating for accelerationism, I’m just seeing holes in the argument) Pushing people in a vulnerable position now to make change for the future is a great example of the needs of the many ethical arguments. Advocating against change because it hurts me in the short term is inherently selfish. I know people that are accelerationists, and The ones I know don’t assume that they’ll come out ahead or even the same. They recognize that the system is inherently broken and they think they need more people uncomfortable to make meaningful change.
Accelerationism is a great idea.
I don’t care how many people die now, because it will bring a glorious time in the future.
Accelerationism is Christianity with Lenin replacing Jesus
Except the Armageddon is real but no-one will rise up to save us when every major city is nothing but glowing embers under an ever gray nuclear sky while the remnants of humanity fight each other with sticks over the last grain silos.
So-called American “revolutionaries” make me sick with their reckless disregard for the unavoidable responsibility their country has with regards to their military. An “accelerated downfall” won’t just affect you bozos. Especially not if the means are “stoking the fire of imperialism”.
If I could press a button to accelerate the US downfall and magically contain the fighting to the lower 48 in a way that leaves whoever is left standing nuke-less, I would, but that’s not an option on the table, so barring that, please vote against the guy who really can’t be trusted with the nuclear briefcase, yeah???
Yeah…
To the people “wanting to teach the DNC a lesson”, in the nicest way possible, you’re fucking idiots.
They threw literally ever other minority group under the bus, and got absolutely nothing for it - if anything they actually got less than nothing, because Trump wasn’t just going soft on Israel, he was actively cheering them on!
I will never understand the mentality of choosing that hill to die on… Like couldn’t you guys have waited until Trump was at least off the board first.
Man was literally on his way to a lifetime in jail and bankruptcy, that he got out of scot-free because you guys decided 2024 was the time for a protest vote.
We had the chance to get rid of Trump forever and the tankies blew it
I think it only makes sense if they’re lying about their beliefs and wanted trump to win.
I think for some of them it’s an unwillingness to admit/accept the consequences for their actions.
Theyre not unlike maga voters in that regard and they don’t want to hear it.
When you wrap up your political decisions in your identity it is CRUSHING to admit you’ve been wrong.
I imagine they feel so pure not voting or voting third party or whatever and then the reality of that comes crashing in about February 1 or so.
I could forgive that if they at least don’t make the same mistake twice.
That might be, but it’s hard to believe many people would not see the result coming ahead of time. It’s just not a believable concept to me that these folks really believed that anything could happen besides trump being more likely to win. The most generous I can be with them is that they didn’t care what would happen.
They literally do think everything that’s happened under Trump would have been the same under Kamala.
They are deeply unserious people who have no ambitions for politics and care only about purity-testing.
Gaza would have been worse, because Netanyahu would have kept up the bombing.
However, Kamala would never have defunded USAID, so those million and a half people who are dying right now from starvation and disease would be alive.
So, honestly, not voting for Kamala was a bad idea.
But it’s still because of the DNC corporate donors that Trump is in office right now, because they refuse to allow the people a progressive alternative.
Blame is pointless. I am talking about what needs to change. Shouting at reluctant third party voters will do nothing but raise your blood pressure.
Campaigning for the downfall of Chuck Schumer, there’s a worthy cause.
Blame isn’t pointless. If you don’t blame people they’ll never feel responsibility. Not unlike a spoiled child who is never told they’ve fucked up.
Assigning responsibility is how people grow. It’s vitally important and blame for abdicating it is part of that.
That is something that people only understand at their own pace. Being shouted at, shamed by others, tends to reinforce the problem. It makes them defensive.
I get that venting can make the people who were right feel better, but that’s usually all it does.
For a good example, the left have been right about the problems in the DNC since 2015, and it has not helped whenever we point this out. Shouting at conservative Democrats has only made them more defensive, and alienated both sides from each other.
As usual, the solution is hard. Work towards building power and organisation from the bottom up, and don’t waste time hoping that the people who benefit from this mess will magically decide to do the right thing. I wish I hadn’t wasted so much time doing that.
Focus on what people need, pick three or four straightforward policies, and do everything you can to push those forward and promote your sincere effort to do so.
Don’t accept any funding from groups who want things you do not want, because that funding will be a chain holding you back.
Don’t lie.
Don’t. Lie.
People, the ones you want support from, aren’t fucking stupid. Don’t lie.
They would have been different, but Kamala wouldn’t have been different enough.
Biden won and Trump instigated a coup over it. Why is that treasonous rat not in prison? Would Kamala have put him in prison? Oh, she should have said so. I had no idea.
What an unbelievable load of bullshit.
We’re going to be trapped inside this pit for as long as you can’t realize what good leadership looks like, man.
Yup, it’s up to me!
The royal ‘you’.
Just a few more braindead platitudes and your preferred candidate will shoot to the top of the polls!
Who would that be?
People don’t like being insulted and taken advantage of. Why is that so hard to understand?
So your feelings are more important than the oppression of all the minoritzed groups?
You have piss poor reading comprehension. I suggest you enroll in an adult learning class at your local community college.
I’m just pissed off we let America have so much power over the world as it is. They’re one country, for fuck sake, not the World Police.
Silver lining: Trump just killed that role like a newborn baby in lake Michigan.
holy based
I think the argument is that voting for status quo candidates aren’t actually getting us those things, either. And any small incremental gains are quickly reverted the next time republicans are in power.
And you can only believe that if you ignore every bit of progress that has stuck around in the last thirty years.
Progress isn’t a straight line up. Like anything else it dips and wobbles. But it consistently moves upward.
Yeah there are always going to be things to make progress on. But to pretend that we are not in a better place on some of those issues now than we were thirty years ago is bafflingly silly.
As an example: In 1996, support for same-sex marriage was so low that congress passed and Clinton signed the Defense of Marriage Act, allowing states to ignore same-sex marriage licenses from other states in direct violation of the full faith and credit clause of the Constitution, and this was widely supported by the American people. In 2023, over 70% of Americans supported gay marriage while only 22% opposed. That number has dipped since, but not by much. In 2025, it was 68% support (88% of Democrats, 76% of Independents, and 41% of Republicans) while 29% opposed it.
That is an issue on which the American people have made significant progress. That progress hasn’t evaporated with alternating administrations. It ebbs and flows like literally everything, but over time it has improved.
Most are like this. Not all! Certainly some things consistently get worse, like wealth inequality. But to act like everything simply flip-flops between parties and that the Democrats are simply a ratchet that maintains the status quo and doesn’t let anything change just to let the next Republican make it worse is flat-out wrong.
Are Democrats largely spineless corporate shills? Yeah. But are they just as bad as Republicans? Fuck no. Go vote in primaries. Support candidates who will actually push for change. Giving up is pathetic.
Thank God the progress understander has logged on to explain why it was good, actually, that the Democrats banned gay marriage
You clearly need to work on your reading comprehension if that’s what you think I was saying.
No, it was fucking horrible that Democrats banned gay marriage. It was fucking horrible that our society was okay with that. The entire point I’m making is that thirty years later we are living in a completely different WORLD on that front.
I’m not sure if I completely follow.
Bill Clinton passed a law defining marriage between a man and a woman. And you are saying this is an example of progress made by a centrist candidate. Isn’t this the law doing the opposite, here?
And you are saying that Gavin Newsom, who has spoken out against trans rights, can do something similar? Like assuming he does the same thing, like pass a “Defense of gender” bill to allow other states to not recognize gender transitions.
Are you saying he will bring progress this way?
He’s saying that we’ve made progress in the 30 years since then, using that as an example of past public opinion.
And Newsom is an example of things ebbing, but the line of progress for trans rights has absolutely gone up overall.
Really cause we can’t have passports anymore
What do you say to the people of WV who voted for Bernie in the 2016 Democrat primary, won him every single county, and 40k more votes than the runner up, but Clinton won the state? Should they give up, or comitt voter fraud and vote 110%?
And I do agree with that.
I’m not American and we have the same issues here.
But the answer has to be putting in grassroots support and fighting the power where you can. By the time Biden and then Harris had secured the DNC nomination it was way too late.
I think right now the world at large needs big changes, and corporate power needs to be reigned in. But you have to engage with the possibilities in front of you, even though they suck. You can and should try to create new ones, but it’s a fight, and you have to treat it like one.
Almost as if you have to actually work to have nice things.
Who could imagine??
Because the next ‘status quo’ candidate is t good enough, so we piss away any progress because we didn’t get the perfect candidate and stay home from the election (again)
Yes because this is about your emotions and needing a satisfying story to direct your anger at, not reality.
Elections are in some way a validation of the system. The elites point to the election any time someone complains about some policy. The entire system has been consistently getting worse regardless of who is in power for at least 30+ years. The only way we have to express our displeasure is to vote out the incumbent. I’m confident that even if Kamala had won, things would have gotten worse. Maybe they would be worse at a slower rate, but they would be worse. We need to see beyond electoral politics. Every time you vote, you are granting the rich permission to continue to fuck you regardless of who you voted for.
The majority of eligible voters already don’t vote. Low voter turnout does not embarrass the rich and powerful, it just makes the system easier to control. Fewer voters means fewer people to answer to, fewer people to influence, and fewer people to shuffle around through gerrymandering.
For fuck sake, they are consistently trying to make it harder for people to vote. They want lower turnout. They know their most loyal supporters will still vote. They’d much rather have their base be the only ones bothering to show up to the polls. They don’t care about legitimacy, they care about winning.
And do you think that, by refraining from voting, you would somehow deny the rich that permission? That’s probably why all the openly corrupt, unapologetically authoritarian politicians go out of their way to ensure everyone is able to cast a ballot, right? Because they know that, the more people vote, the more permission the rich will have to fuck everyone. That makes a lot of sense. Thanks for your enlightened contribution here.
Hey man there’s other ways to get their dick out of your ass. Lenin, Fidel and Mao figured it out.
Sure. Start the revolution. We’re all waiting for you.
That is… Unless you’re full of shit and won’t be the first one to raise your fist right? Just waiting for everyone else to do the dirty work of the revolution right? Why aren’t you in the papers yet for your revolutionary work?
Give it time bro, we’re all working on something together. Just don’t act like staying the course is the only choice
All they can do is harp on this strawman because deep down they’re ashamed.
You’re right. Liberals do love their straw men.
I assume all those “vote third party both side same” people were bots or Russian trolls. Obviously trump was always gonna be way worse
They aren’t. That’s an easy scapegoat. Influenced by Russian propaganda, sure, but we’re all influenced by propaganda. The vast majority are ordinary citizens, who are as convinced of the righteousness of their beliefs as anyone. Dismissing them, en masse, as bots and trolls isn’t helpful.
The fact is, many of them have very valid points. Where they need to be fought is, very specifically, when they encourage non-voting. There’s no good argument for non-voting, and it’s easy to defeat them there.
I don’t think they’re all trolls. I think there are a few right-wing trolls who got stupid people to buy into their astroturf campaign and then it took off from there. IIRC, one of the people in Mi openly admitted that he was a Republican and saw it was an easy wedge issue to get people not to vote.
Are you saying the entire dbzer0 instance is administered by a bot?
Well, he did leave you another option.
True. And with the way dbzer0 embraces red-fash because they both hate libs so much…