It's in part because Biden ran on opposing fascism, got elected, and then did nothing to oppose fascism. He sold himself as a dragonslayer, but once he got in, he didn't want to upset the pro-dragon crowd.
So, yeah, when his protege ran the exact same campaign, it didn't instill a lot of confidence.
He slow walked us to this, Trump should have been jailed, convicted, and in the dirt by now. But no, the neo-liberals didn't want to upset the MAGAts or something. His speech about needing both Democrats and Republicans made me SICK.
I can't help but feel like it's also in part because a good amount of folks are just... as delicately as I can put it... the kind of people that pick up a fork to eat a bowl of soup.
The rationale I have heard from tons and tons of voters just makes absolutely no god damn sense at all. There's of course mass manipulation and all that but goodness gracious, the complete lack of critical thinking skills is astounding.
Jesus fucking Christ, the man is himself a practicing Catholic!
Exactly. People are in here with rational arguments as if these people think rationally.
And this includes pro-Israel Democratic voters (and yes, there are a lot of them, and yes, a candidate would lose their vote if they made a strong stance on Israel).
Terminally online know-it-alls with no concept of how any of this shit actually works outside of the vacuum of their theory books, telling us we're wrong because we told them to vote.
Yeah, like I went down the conspiracy theory rabbit hole because of all the fuckery around 9/11 but then left the Alex Jones part of it when it became clear he didn't really gaf about changing anything, which meant he either didn't believe it or was working with them instead of against them (leaning more towards him just making shit up, though I did still believe that things weren't what they seemed with how society was run). The nail in the coffin for me was a very high production value video explaining what was going on that ended with a "but I have an answer, wait for the next video to find out!" And I'm thinking "wait, cliffhangers are engagement bait, not something you should say after talking about how the elites want to reduce the world population to like 100 million. He's just in it for the money, also how the fuck is he producing such high production quality videos?"
It wasn't aligned with either US politics "side" and subscribed to the "it's all an act, they are all buddy buddy behind closed doors" point of view, but I came out of it around the end of the Bush era, was happy to see Obama win but disappointed in how his actual presidency went (he seemed to have the resolve of a wet noodle when it came to actually fighting for the right things.
It was baffling as fuck when the conspiracy theory crowd was aligned behind fucking Donald Trump, of all people. Seemed like the poster boy for the elites rather than a saviour. I didn't watch a ton of the apprentice but none that I did see gave me any kind of positive impression of him. He just seemed like the asshole type of boss.
Pizzagate was also stupid as fuck (why the fuck would a pedophile ring for rich people operate out of the basement of a public building?). And gamergate was one of the lamest whiny things I've seen (though not sure how much of that came from the conspiracy side, it might have been going after a different audience).
Like I get how it feels going down that rabbit hole, things that were confusing can make more sense and there's truth at the core of it, but you need to continue using critical thought or you just end up becoming someone's tool. The enemy of your enemy is not necessarily your friend!
Maxim 29: The enemy of your enemy is your enemy's enemy. No more. No less.
They aren't stupid, they are selfish and ego driven, and they base success/goodness on the number in their bank account.
The fact the most Americans sell their morals is a part of the culture and something that needs to change before things get better.
The DNC is a bunch of completely corrupt people who were okay with Trump winning in 2016 and 2024 due to their own stupid antics fucking with elections and ignoring the will of the voters.
But again, the other side is literal Nazis. It's not completely weird to think that the DNC should have gotten away with their BS.
Scratch a neo-liberal a nazi bleeds. The fact ANY Dem has voted for any Trump nominee is a disgrace. They've lost the argument they're the paid opposition with me entirely. I don't subscribe to their BS talking about the actual left now because they marginalize us when we're winning or they're in charge, the whip us as the blame for losing.
That is a really stupid reason to let a fascist win though. Like, why should I respect or align myself with such a stupid group of people?
You don't have to align with someone you vote for in a FPTP system.
And no, your suggestion is based on a false dichotomy. I blame the DNC AND the non-voters. I can despise both and do.
What's stupider? Trying to kick Lucy's football again or walking away?
What would the Democrats be doing differently if they were actual fascist collaborators? I can't think of anything. The Democrats make up excuses for why they can't intervene, then they blame the voters. Voting D hasn't solved the fascist problem for 50+ years. Democrats have overseen some of the most brutal genocides and mass murder campaigns against non-Europeans. They have total continuity in funding and protecting the military-industrial-media-complex. They have total continuity in ensuring there are no consequences for the most egregious violations of human rights, civil rights, and human decency.
Mass incarceration is a bi-partisan consensus. Prison slavery is a bi-partisan consensus. Black ghettos are a bi-partisan consensus. Solitary confinement is a bi-partisan consensus. Solitary confinement for toddlers is a bi-partisan consensus. Starving children and elderly around the world is a bi-partisan consensus. Spying on all US citizens through warrantless surveillance dragnets of all communications is a bi-partisan consensus. Militarizing local police is a bi-partisan consensus. Undermining labor unions is a bi-partisan consensus. Maintaining legacy apartheid structures in funding elementary and secondary education is a bi-partisan consensus.
At what point do we conclude that the Democrats couldn't be worse if they were actively supporting fascism? At what point do we say that their limited and milquetoast rhetoric against a few bad things, and only some times, and only some of them, is not a sufficient reason to believe they are on our side?
If your only options are the fascist or the guy who promised to bring the fascist to justice but actually didn't even try, then your problem isn't getting solved by voting in that election.
Who said I thought voting would solve the problem? You aren't engaging with my core issue: non-voters were content to let Trump win. Are they worth my time and effort morally? Why?
I already know the DNC doesn't align with me perfectly, as a mutualist I'm against private property. But they're not fascists. I mostly just hate the DNC because of their weakness and ineptitude even more so than the liberal ideology.
That said, at least with the DNC, there is something I can get out of them politically with theoretically much less effort compared to the masses of non-voting 2024 morons who engaging with would be akin to trying to herd cats.
Hell, at this point: I don't even care anymore. I kind of hate the non-voters enough that I'm now fueled by spite for them. I don't care who wins elections anymore because I just can't fucking give a shit. Its obviously out of my hands and the non-voters are getting what they deserve.
I only feel sorry for the people who are faultless, like the millions starving to death because Trump's admin illegally shut down USAID, or the ICE round ups of innocent immigrants where they're probably being human trafficked, raped, and murdered.
As much as that’s true this was all necessary. Biden wouldn’t have gotten anything passed that would fix our current situation. The MAGAts controlled the house.
Look at all the progressive candidates that are already winning elections. After this if there isn’t a supermajority in both house and senate than the country was lost long ago.
And those people are still insisting that we don’t blame them for the consequences of their decisions.
But what if we can find a way to scream at people that agree with us on 80-90% of issues instead? That seems more productive than focusing on the actual Nazis!
Not lifting a finger against fascism is actively voting for fascism. Yes, the choices were all bad, but one was obviously much, much worse and they made a choice. Nobody gets a pass for gross negligence simply because irresponsible decisions were lower-effort than others.
"don't blame me, I voted for 90% Hitler!"
Of course, and I don't fault them the impulse. No one likes being told they fucked up, which was why many of us were so vocal before the election. I don't even want to assign blame, instead to just help them to understand that (if our democracy can withstand this), we genuinely need them...
Like you, I was a consequentialist before the election. I'm struggling to stay that way and now I might be a virtue ethicist who hates all US citizens who were not consequentialist before November 5th 2024 because I think they're just shit fucking people not worth saving.
Part of me wants to be wrong. I want to be convinced. And yet I'm always going to be deeply fucking resentful if I find myself helping these people ever again. I shouldn't have to lift a fucking finger. Doing so literally psychologically hurts.
The roughly third who are completely on board with the fourth reich even when it decimates their family business or even entire town are lost. They'll have their epiphany about how bad a particular policy is, but somehow it's either OK in light of all the 'good' that Donvict is doing or the fault of some underling.
The non voting third will just keep doing nothing. So long as the bread* and circuses keep rolling in, they won't notice anything until full on collapse.
Even if some sort of magic happens and a sweep of the house and senate were to happen, replete with all of them executed as traitors or jailed for life... we've addressed none of the root problems of a completely bought and sold political system that none of us are a part of.
Absolutely correct.
Though people still need to take responsibility for their vote (or non-vote). It was not impossible or even difficult to keep up with that shit in 2024, and anyone talking about the price of eggs on Nov 5 was a fucking moron.
It’s important for perspective that we remember how thin the line is between winning and losing. A very minor shift in voter turnout is all it takes to flip the game. The good news for us in this is that we don’t need to take the last election as a sign that the entire world is lost - we have every opportunity to change things. You could say it shouldn’t be this close, and you wouldn’t be wrong, but that’s also a pretty pointless whinge. Nothing worth having has ever been won without a fight, so we shouldn’t gripe about having to face one ourselves.
Hope our country survives this administration…
I often do hope it survives but then realize I don't even really know why. Its still a country dominated by people willing to throw people under the bus for personal gain, nationalism/racism, and their hatred of LGBT. And among the non-voters, you have proudly ignorant morons, & people pearl clutching over their personal virtue, & people hoping for the slight chance of a violent revolution where their ideology comes out on top of all the corpses in their delusional imagination.
Like, why should I care? Why do I care? It makes no fucking sense.
I want the Nazis to lose because it should be apparent. But you're on the money, this country at its core and history has had issues long before this. The Dems were pretty radical anti-LGBT before they became a significant force in politics. They were content to just ignore them at best.
If it was so important to defeat the republicans, why didnt the democrats replace First-past-the-post votingg in the states they controlled? What would you give to have multiple tries to beat trump instead of one? Would you give up democratic safe states? Because democrats didnt.
'It's the dems fault for putting a brown woman as a candidate.'
“Of course I am not a misogynist! And definitely not racist, I have a black friend!”
Even if she was an old white guy, being a scumbag neoliberal who would not condemn genocide would have lost the election. Being brown and a woman made her an even harder sell. People are sick and tired of neoliberal dirtbags that do everything in their power to screw over regular people while gaslighting them about it. That’s not an excuse to refuse to vote against full-blown fascism, but there needs to be a reckoning against neoliberalism and capitalism in general before anything will change.
No more neolib candidates.
That’s not an excuse to refuse to vote against full-blown fascism, but there needs to be a reckoning against neoliberalism and capitalism in general before anything will change.
Why would they stop putting up neolib candidates if you'll vote for them regardless?
Low charisma brown woman from California fails to convince racist, mysogist country to vote for her.
"I only supported some Nazis" = "I supported Nazis."
She said she was going to keep doing what Biden was doing, which was full support of Isreal, I had no reason to doubt her.
You must be so glad now with Trump in office. Happy for you.
If you helped trump get elected, then you support nazis.
which was full support of Isreal
I'm not sure you grasp what the word "full" means.
What you're seeing NOW is full support. NOW we have a guy that's giving two big thumbs up and talking about turning Gaza into a resort after the Palestinians are all dead or removed.
What you saw with Biden was someone trying to broker a peace deal, openly stating on live TV that he didn't agree with Israel's methods, and floating arms shipment cancellations to try to bring Netanyahu to the table.
Comments like yours are dangerous misinformation.
Yes, both parties suck, and you are allowed to dislike both, but they don't suck equally and not (completely) in the same way and you are obliged to decide for yourself which party sucks harder, which you dislike more, and most importantly - which are you the most scared of getting into power.
Just because you don't want to be neither leftist nor rightist doesn't mean you need to aim for the dead center. That's as dogmatic as aiming for one of the extremes, and in fact dumber because it's not even motivated by any ideology.
Also people who chase the word “moderate” because they desperately cling to the idea that being nonchalant in politics is a good thing are so focused on it that they will be a conservative just to avoid the leftmost party even if the left-most party is actually centrist.
Close to what you said, just exposes even more of how dumb it is.
What socialist progressives in the Democratic Party need to do is what the Tea Party Republicans did over 15 years ago. The whole party needs to be reformed from the ground up at every available primary. They’ll actually get shit done if they get the centrists and corporate boot lickers out of the party.
Isn't it fascinating both sides are bad argument has been most effective in convincing those on the left to not vote?
Meanwhile that argument doesn't tend to work on the right and they brush it off and go out to vote consistently.
Could of fooled me. Guess orange didn't win. Guess we can also ignore tendency of populations to also be drawn to fascism during economic tough times. Didn't know voter suppression benefits leftists more than the right.
We pour out the rotten contents, refill it with new contents that hopefully don’t rot as fast.
Wish I could give you your next beverage so freaking bad.
I've noticed both sides arguments have been most effective in convincing leftists to not vote.
But the right doesn't seem to be affected by it and comes out to vote consistently no matter what.
Aye. Funny, that.
Here's the thing: When you don't vote, you COULD be saying that both candidates are bad, and you don't like either of them...
Or you could be saying that both candidates are great, and you love both of them. That you're sure either of them will do an equally good job of running the country, so it doesn't matter who wins.
And if you don't feel that way, then you need to VOTE
Here's the thing, when both of your parents beat you within an inch of your life, you COULD be saying that both are bad and you don't want either of them to have custody.
Or you could be saying both parents are great and you love both of them. That you're sure either of them will do an equally good job of raising you, so it doesn't matter who gets custody.
And if you don't feel that way, you have to pick one!
Here's the thing: When you don't vote, you COULD be saying that both candidates are cannibalistic racist pedophile human traffickers, and you don't like either of them...
Of you could be saying that both candidates are great, and you love both of them. That you're sure either of them will do an equally good job of running the country, so it doesn't matter who wins.
And if you don't feel that way, then you need to VOTE
Good thing that those who didn't want to vote for either party have mentioned their reasons over and over so we don't have to guess what they might or could potentially say.
We know what they said. And it's not the latter.
Acting like not voting at all would fix anything is a huge part of the problem. Yeah the Democrats not going to do anything, but you know what that means, the Democrats won't do anything. They won't embarass America on the world stage every day, they won't fund the Gestapo to assault minorities and they won't threaten allies with invasion.
Sure the Democrats suck, the whole damn system sucks but it's a whole lot better for a whole lot of people when the Republicans are not in charge.
They won’t embarass America on the world stage every day, they won’t fund the Gestapo to assault minorities and they won’t threaten allies with invasion.
Yaaay we get decorum and stability at home so we can ignore the Palestinians / Yemenis / Somalis / etc being bombed overseas! Hopefully the bomb will even be dropped by a diverse team under the Dems!
That's a single issue. I agree it's shitty all around. But there are hundreds of issues that are more important. Namely allowing children to be molested, people dying from not having healthcare, and deporting parents and stranding children just to name a few.
It's shitty all around. It's even shittier when it turns into a pissing contest of shittiness.
voting third party would be my advice
Hope that advice only applies to local/state elections, cuz voting 3rd party for president is about as useful as an asshole on your elbow.
Democrats are guilty of aiding, and in some cases directly participating in, an internationally-recognized genocide. You are advocating for genocidaires. Democrats are guilty of aiding, and in some cases directly participating in, an internationally-recognized genocide. You are advocating for genocidaires. Democrats are guilty of aiding, and in some cases directly participating in, an internationally-recognized genocide. You are advocating for genocidaires.
Democrats are guilty of aiding, and in some cases directly participating in, an internationally-recognized genocide.
And Republicans eagerly participate in genocide as hard as they can... so when you only have 2 choices to compare, the one that does horrible things some times vs the one that only does horrible things and seeks to do the most horrible things all the time, you probably, maybe, want to go with the lesser evil
You are advocating for genocidaires.
The lesser genocidaires (sic)
x3
You are advocating for genocidaires.
And you're advocating for worse by allowing a worse party to win.
This isn't complicated.
When Biden was president he tried to broker a peace deal. He stated on live TV that he didn't condone Israel's methods. And he floated arms shipment cancellations to try to bring Netanyahu to the table.
Trump, on the other hand, is giving Netanyahu two big thumbs up and talking about turning Gaza into a resort destination once all the Palestinians are dead or forcibly removed.
Now, do I need to explain to you how those things are not the same?
I do not care about your feelings. I care about my own nation's wellbeing first, then after that, I care about helping the Palestinians as much as I can. And helping them as much as I can meant voting Dem, because, as I just made clear, Republicans are WAY WORSE for Palestinians.
You're like a gambling addict that keeps saying "but a 1 in a million shot still has a chance to win" as you go bankrupt.
Seek help.
Dems gave me affordable healthcare when I was young and poor.
Last Dem was progressive as fuck, but everyone focused on his age because the TV told them to.
Voting records show Dems regularly vote in favor of average Americans and have for a long, long time.
Sorry bud, reality disagrees with your feelings.
Just because a party isn't perfect doesn't mean they aren't beneficial.
Democratic voters might be decent people, they at least have good intentions for the most part. That does not mean that the solutions their politicians propose are effective or helpful. I'm glad you had cheap healthcare then, but if I starved you for a month and then gave you a meal you'd be thankful for that too.
You should probably go look at the voting history for the Democrat party before you continue this conversation.
I have.
And I don't let a single vote that didn't go the way I wanted to turn me off of a party, because then I'd be turned off from all parties, everywhere, forever.
So you are suggesting things would be the exact same if Trump hadn't been voted in and that you were completely content and fine with a Trump presidency and Republicans holding all branches of power.
You are as much a Trump support as MAGA taking the side of downplaying how bad he is. No different in fact than smart Trump supporters readjusting their message of downplaying criticisms and trying to convince the left to not vote because both sides are equally bad, so please don't vote.
Very smart right wing strategy of hiding their allegiance acting like they are a leftist, but doing what they can to discourage voting and trying to convince people both are bad since they know they can't win them over to the right. So next thing is don't vote.
OK, we fucking know, so? We should let the Nazi's win because the Democrats are spineless capitalists?
The point is that we can't count on neo-liberals to do the right thing, they're complicit in all this. So the Dems as a whole aren't a party we can rely on until we primary them out.
That's a shit fucking point. A better point: fascists won and they did not need to.
Neo-liberals are not fascists. They're greedy, nihilistic, empty husks. But they are not frothing at the mouth for killing gay's and gassing brown people. Neo-liberals can actually be relied upon to be capitalistic and not give a shit about nationalism or "traditional values" and are generally easier to fight because they don't operate a cult (or at least not like the fascists do).
Some non-voter's justification of "they're both the same" is pants on head regarded.
It's never not true.
Oh damn you right we should've voted for the magical third party that definitely would've won
"Oh damn, we should continue to just suffer in this system and not demand better about it because can't change it!" - That's what you sound like right now.
No third party candidate could have lost as bad as Kamala did. Presidency and both Houses.
I probably don't agree with @beardededsquidward@lemmy.blahaj.zone but he said primary them, not vote third party.
They could have won, people like you harassing others is part of the reason they didn't. Go ahead and keep acting like the smartest guy in the room, you just look like a petulant child trying to force others to agree with you.
Blaming the Democrats for what the Republicans are doing is like blaming the guy who opened the door for the serial killer to get into the house. Yeah, you shouldn't have done that, yeah, you fucked up, yeah, you knew what would happen, but that's not the same level of bad as the actual serial killer stabbing people. It's even shifting blame away from the serial killer and holding the killer less accountable.
So the Dems as a whole aren’t a party we can rely on until we primary them out.
Not happening before 26 or 28.
So your solution?
And please don't say 3rd party. It's obvious to anyone that pays attention that no 3rd party is viable and won't be for a long, long time, if ever. No 3rd party has made themselves a household name. No 3rd party even has a SINGLE member in Congress. In the 2024 election the most popular 3rd party candidate only got 0.5% of the total votes cast.
Not happening.
So..............
There's some primaries left for 2026 to vote in, work from there. The neo-liberal dems are bad but they're not worm brained at least. Just hope they don't put fucking Newsom up for 2028 otherwise it'll be same as it ever was with him.
ICE records show Biden admin plans could give Trump a head start on deportations
President Biden Signs Anti-Immigrant Spending Bill Reaching Trump-Era Highs
Biden’s Emergency Funding Proposal Seeks $14 Billion for Immigration System From Congress
Tom Homan - Border Czar was originally appointed by Obama
Keep in mind, these democrat moves to bolster ICE were happening while the right was blatantly telegraphing their moves to immediately weaponize ICE once they took power. Project 2025 came out and promised to use ICE to plunder and abuse Americans. Biden and team then spent the next 4 years not only failing to prepare for Trump, but preemptively strengthening the mechanisms Trump would eventually use to carry out project 2025. The democrats are controlled opposition.
Sure, maybe we wouldnt be seeing this intense of immigration enforcement if Kamala were in charge, but if she were, she'd be working behind the scenes to ensure the right had all the tools they needed when the time was right.
The democrats are controlled opposition and the American electoral system is kabuki theater. The fascist descent is the only logical conclusion to the American political experiment- which was predicated on the wholesale genocide of Native American Indians and quickly pivoted to enslaving an entire continent.
The only logical conclusion to this "pragmatic liberal utilitarianism" is a situation where liberals are chiding leftists for not voting for dem candidate Ted Cruz as he campaigns against republican candidate Mecha Hitler. Liberals will still see nothing wrong with that. They will sell out the victims of American Imperialism to buy themselves 4 more years of political waffling - just as they did with Palestinians.
I get the sentiment but what bugs me about posts like this (and I’m guilty of making them), is that they assume a single vote is all it will take.
I typically vote democrat, not because I support them, but because I try to maximize the effectiveness of my vote. A third party or protest vote accomplishes nothing but self satisfaction. A painful vote for someone you know sucks, but is a step in the right direction is the right strategy. The dems, who without a doubt are terrible, at least showed that they will eventually listen to their voters when they swapped out biden’s carcass. I was not in love with Kamala, but at least we had a viable candidate who wasn’t an obvious fascist.
The vote is where the work STARTS. Electing dems is not the destination, they are just a tool to help us get where we need to go. Use them, then discard them.
A painful vote for someone you know sucks, but is a step in the right direction is the right strategy.
Again, the only logical conclusion to this "pragmatic" utilitarianism is reaching a point where you're talking yourself into voting for dem candidate Ted Cruz as he runs against mecha Hitler. This philosophy is incompatible with being against genocide.
If Trump were a democrat, blueMAGA would be chiding leftists for not voting for him. If, in 20 years, the choice for president is between a democrat who wants to kill 6 million jews, and a republican who wants to kill 10 million jews, will you still be militantly democrat?
The dems, who without a doubt are terrible, at least showed that they will eventually listen to their voters when they swapped out biden’s carcass.
Is this really a point in your favor? How was that debacle anything other than a perfect illustration of how democrats will feign powerlessness, and then adjust course too late? If anything, the democrats can be characterized as too little, too late. They are dooming us to a fascist descent, and we have to make our own party.
I would vote dem while condemning their actions if it meant an extra 2 million jews weren't killed. The reality is your argument is literally just the trolley problem and instead of focusing on an issue where either decision is bad and instead focus on everything else
Here's the thing. You take enough steps in the right direction, and eventually you are on the right path. It sure as hell beats standing still and letting some jackass drag you in the wrong direction. If you let that happen once, then you have to get back on your feet and starting waking in the right direction just to get back to where you were before.
People say that Democrats are just controlled opposition, and that's not true. Non-voters are the controlled opposition. Not advocating for themselves, not advocating for basic decency and accountability allows us all to be governed in an indecent and unaccountable way. They've been tricked into this by troll accounts saying "both sides are the same".
It sure had hell beats standing still and letting some jackass drag you in the wrong direction. If you let that happen once, then you have to get back on your feet and starting waking in the right direction just to get back to where you were before.
Agreed! 100%! So then why do you put your all your poltical stock in the party that does this exact blunder every 4 years?
I get it, and I agree to a large part, I’m not sure what part of my post was “militantly democratic” though. It’s entirely situational, and without a doubt, the moment it’s viable to dump them, I will. I just don’t think our system nor electorate is capable of the large shift that necessary. Instead think it needs to die a death of a thousand cuts.
The problem is, everyone only seems to want the sea change, the one weird trick. It’s exactly that mentality, that we can fix it all at once, that is why we’re here. If people understand that real change takes time and effort, they might see the forest for the trees and we could all fight against this bullshit together.
But the mentality you have keeps us divided, and insists on a drastic, divisive and impossible strategy. Sorry to be a dick about it, but that’s how I see it.
If, in 20 years, the choice for president is between a democrat who is in openly interested in murdering 6 million jews, and a republican who is openly interested in murdering 7 million jews, will you still be an unwavering democrat?
Will you still be hemming and hawing about how doing things incrementally is the only path forward? Will you tell Jewish people that they have a duty to you, to vote for your preferred genocider? Will you continue to sacrifice marginalized people for this naive hope that a blue wave will come and quell fascism?
Or will you realize that your genocidal political system has lost legitimacy and must be dismantled?
Put another way, did Germans at the height of Hitler's power have a duty to vote for doomed social democrats, or did they have a duty to tear their government down?
Again, the only logical conclusion to this "pragmatic" utilitarianism is reaching a point where you're talking yourself into voting for dem candidate Ted Cruz as he runs against mecha Hitler
What an absurd and stupid slippery slope
In person, I don't really see a whole lot of people in the US admitting or claiming that they didn't or don't vote.
I do, however, see a lot of life-long Republicans and known Trump voters making claims like "I don't really use social media" and "other than the weather I don't keep up with the news", both of which I know are lies in many cases.
However, giving them benefit of the doubt on that, they're admitting something equally as bad: They aren't educating themselves, they aren't informed on important matters, and facts do not matter to them. They're shirking their responsibilities.
Personally, I've always, always, always operated under the principle that our rights come with responsibilities, so I find it shameful that so many people are so negligent in that respect.
The one I hear the most is, "I'm an independent voter." The fools do not want to admit they believe in a pedophile, rapist and felon.
In person, I don’t really see a whole lot of people in the US admitting or claiming that they didn’t or don’t vote
Political discourse in the USA is mired with douchebags who think that not giving the biggest widest smile possible while licking ketchup off of chuck Schumer's toes means youre a secret Russian republican bot. Doesn't matter you voted.
These people literally do not care you are disenfranchised. In fact, they relish throwing it in our faces every election.
The .ml’s are gonna .ml - it’s the others that make me wonder.
Just commenting to get it past 88 comments. Crisis averted.
Go vote, but it’s worth remembering that for the most part, the other party only does milquetoast critiques of the Nazis at best.
Coulda... Woulda... Shoulda had Bernie!
I voted for him in the primaries but I'm not stupid enough to stay home to allow Trump to be president out of spite.
Nobody's going to be smug when they start shipping people off to death camps.
At least they aren't openly nazis. When presented with two evils, pick the lesser. If you don't pick either, bigger evil benefits for you not voting rather than voting against it.
I know, it feels pointless when the opposition is only marginally better less evil. But I am reminded this one motivational speaker who told me you have to make it difficult as possible for them:
If enough people always vote for lesser evil, and demand justice and accountability, it accumulates. Sure, a political party may spend a minimal effort to brush the one protestor off, but many will be more difficult to ignore. Eventually they have commit political capital and resources to answer the dissatisfaction, even if it's to defend themselves. And those are resources they have to divert from the usual fuckupperies. At some point it will be easier to budge to the demand of a large demographic.
If a politician can ignore a demographic for free, they will. An act of small resistance is still resistance.
Have you ever read the essay entitled "Who Goes Nazi?"
In the end, when people are dying like they are now, they don't really care who are white supremacists and who are cheerleading the white supremacists. If you vote for a corporate Democrat who votes to fund ICE, I guessthat's better than voting for Donald Trump. But it's not going to help people who are in death camps or people who already died or families that have been torn apart.
Sometimes voting for the second worst candidate isn't good enough. Sometimes you need to do a lot more if you want to live your life with dignity and decency. Unfortunately, posts like this are designed to oversimplify life and convince people to give up. But I think that's a load of bullshit. I think we can do better, and it all starts from recognizing that the Democrats are not going to save us unless we force them to.
It's easy to blame the people who stayed home and it's hard to take responsibility for your own potential.
But always voting for the lesser evil means that, as long as there's a greater evil, the lesser one gets a free pass and does not really need to change nor fight anything the greater evil does. In fact, it's in the lesser evils best interest to enable and nudge the greater evil into even greater evil, because it will let him do whatever and still be the lesser evil.
No corporation is ever on your side. There’s a reason why authors for over a century have been writing dystopian books about them going back to the gilded age.
Better than Nazis
The US political system is so, so very broken and honestly needs to be built up from scratch.
Voting should be compulsory.
Voting should be accessible.
The bar for entry to run should be much lower and more accessible to people who want to run and make a change.
Preferential voting should be considered.
The people should have veto power over government if there is a vote of no confidence to allow a dissolution of said government and snap elections held to redistribute power in favour of the people.
And so much more. Like getting rid of gerrymandering, electoral college etc. So that the votes actually reflect what the people want. If the country is mostly progressive, then it moves in a progressive direction.
Etc. Etc.
ONE party works towards those things and ONE party does not.
The third party never gets in the room.
And it shouldn't be like that at all. The government should be a reflection of all the different voices and perspectives of a nation. That way, not one party of whatever colour holds power and everyone can be more easily held accountable.
There's room for conservation, to keep things like nature parks the way they are and there's room for progression such as adapting laws to be emerging tech etc.
Absolutely. Progress, as intended.
We get a fine of $50. The purpose is not to punish those who don't vote but to make the act of voting more palatable.
In Australia, we still get donkey votes and non voters but they're in the minority, and definitely not in the millions.
Yep. Or at least that's how much it was 10 years ago when someone I knew didn't vote and purposefully stayed home. Could be a bit more than that now. I think the money goes to the electoral commission and is redistributed as election funds to parties on the next election. Happy to be corrected on that point, though.
We also have preferential voting, which means there's more than 100 people to vote for. You can pick your top 12 or number every single one in order of preference. This means that your vote counts for something in the end, so there's no feeling of having your vote wasted if "your side" isn't elected.
Technically it's just that you must show up to a polling location and get your name ticked off, if you really can't handle voting nobody will know if you drop in blank slips.
If you don't show up and haven't done a postal vote you get a letter later on asking whether you had a valid reason to not vote, if you don't have one then pay the fine.
Armed thugs go around and force you to vote at gunpoint.
Make not voting a misdemeanor, fine any registered, eligible voters who don't cast a ballot whenever there's an election.
The democratic system gave up on serving the disenfranchised long before the disenfranchised gave up on the democratic system.
If you want to be angry, be angry at those protecting the system from change, not the people who have given up hope that it can be changed.
Be kind to people, be ruthless to systems.
Yes but the other side is a woman.
You can't get out of one of Jigsaw's games by refusing to play :(
You can’t get out of one of Jigsaw’s games by refusing to play :(
Yeah you can. You can die.
What I like about this is how it shows communication breaking down, not just disagreement. That feels very real.
I'm assuming by "one side" you mean the Republican-Democrat Uniparty which waged an internationally-recognized genocide in occupied Palestine. Seems like a pretty "Nazi" thing to do.
The people I voted for, the Green Party, are indeed Nazi-free!
Yeah let’s see that photo of Stein between Flynn and Putin again!
Congratulations, you played yourself.
I'd vote for someone who sits (probably in assigned seating, as most high-end events are) with Putin over someone that shakes hands with Netanyahu any day. Both are evil no doubt, but only one committed an internationally-recognized genocide, and that's who you're advocating for.
Yeah people got “assigned” to Putin’s table. He loves to shake things up, never knowing who’ll be there.
It was an event hosted by Putin? Or he was just invited?
Anyway she was, at the time, running for president of the United States of America, a country just as aggressive and just as evil as Russia. It makes sense that she wouldn't engage in moral grandstanding and rather favor diplomacy if possible.
I don't think sitting at a table together (which, most likely, both were assigned to sit at) qualifies as an endorsement. Especially after she called him a war criminal.
Woof the comments here are....wow. Someone is going out of their way here.
Yeah they all hear the bugle call from the GRU and come a-runnin’.
Thank god we have Pizzacake to state the blindingly obvious.
Hey look they're proposing body cams
I got banned from "lemmy.ml" memes community for saying exactly this.
Nnnnno?
I read on the interwebs somewhere that in some US states or counties you can vote for proportional representation. If you don't want to vote for the 2 big parties, at least go vote for that. It's how the democracy in European countries works. First-past-the-post like what the US has is an awful democratic 'solution'.
“That hurt my feelings. Now we're both in the wrong.” — Carl
Or you could vote 3rd party and let everyone know you don't have the slightest clue about American politics and are completely unaware that a 3rd party candidate literally can't win because no 3rd party has done the work to become a household name or even have a single member in Congress.
Fact: The most popular 3rd party candidate in the 2024 election had a whopping 0.5% of the total votes cast.
When you vote for a 3rd party candidate for president you get NOTHING, instead of possibly getting something you want by "utterly betraying yourself and your morals" by voting for someone that can actually win.
third party voting is a signal that maybe things should change fundamentally, and since voting is the only way to express things, maybe you should listen instead of convict
I voted Kamala, mind you
So . . . you don;t think things should change?
Because you didn’t vote third party?
Anyone who wants to interpret it. Obviously a number of people are not choosing between democrat or republican. That should mean something changeable to anyone who cares about the implications of it. What does that mean to you? Does it mean anything to you?
third party voting is a signal that maybe things should change
That's great.
Voting 3rd party for president when the party behind that candidate holds absolutely no power or influence is still a stupid thing to do. Voting for a candidate that only gets 0.5% of the votes is not intelligent. And the other 3rd party candidates some people voted for got less than that.
Now, normally, I'd be advocating for people to vote 3rd party for local/state elections so that maybe one day a vote for a 3rd party presidential candidate wasn't a stupid thing to do. But in case you haven't noticed, things are getting pretty fucking sketchy. So this time around I think it would be pretty dumb to vote 3rd party in the midterms because we need to do EVERYTHING IN OUR POWER TO STOP THE FASCISTS IN CONTROL.
Then, when/if we get things back to a somewhat normal situation, I'd be more than happy to see people voting 3rd party in local/state elections to try to build a 3rd party's influence and I'd probably join them in doing so.
voting third party means you vote,
if a third party gets a couple percentage in the polls, major parties will bend over backwards and adopt their policies.
meanwhile, feeding the Republican-Democrat ratchet has definitely worked out well.
Nope!
look how Brexit, it was a fringe idea that no major party wanted, but a third party started polling near single digits and the major parties immediately took its ideas. and even though UKIP lost the election, it was the biggest winner.
Cambridge Analytica.
Local elections are not relevant. Not really.
NYC is enormous and their election politics are bugfuck crazy but still - not that relevant to national.
Why
Attention everyone: I am replying to Tegara.
Announcing what you do on lemmy is fun
Why are we acting like a 3rd party isn't viable? If you want to point to the green party and libertarians, are you also going to point out how awful they are as options?
ITT:
The lady on the left is correct. Establishment Democrats are just shrugging and letting the right goosestep wherever they please. Just because they don't directly cause the harm, doesn't change the fact that the establishment leaders are alright with that harm.
I am voting for AOC and likeminded people. The Donorcrats and Turdpublicans should go the way of the Whigs: rejected, and into the dustbin of history.
Not according to this comment section.
Notice that the lady said that both options are bad, so she doesn't feel like voting. How about giving her a good option, instead of a ratchet effect?
If being straight to the point of what is wrong with the party is childish, then the child is smarter than those who believe themselves to be adult. Fact of the matter is that much of the Democratic leadership don't care about the voters, just the people who are rich enough to matter.
Are you claiming democrats dont take campaign contributions from special interest groups?
Less both sides are bad and more the democrats are so fucking convinced that being just to the left of republicans and so fucking unwilling to do anything to fight against them that legitimately it would have just been better to just have Trump win in 2020 so that he would still have no plan for what to do with the power.
If Gavin Newsome is the democratic candidate in 2028 I will not vote for him. All that him winning would do is let the republicans win in 2032 and actually just end democracy. If they can't cancel the 2028 elections then there is no way they would be able to build up the support needed to cancel them by the next election, and at least that would give us one more chance to get someone who might do something.
First, I vote. But here is a take... I have heard countless people say that if you support the nazi's in anyway, you are a nazi. Ok, so the entire US government serves the purpose of enriching the wealthy, empowering other governments to commit genocide, countless war crimes (well before trump), keeping people poor, ensuring healthcare is always expensive, and enabling car rental companies to not have the car you reserved and be penalty free, while if you don't show, you pay them. So by voting you are participating in that government, which means you are responsible for all that.
Seems like a neat trick they came up with when they started having votes. You think you have a say, but really it's just an illusion.
That's not a take so much as it is a bunch of disjointed, almost-sensical thoughts thrown into a paragraph together.
It's called a list. We are talking about an organization with a trillion $ budget. They do lots of disjointed things. And I threw a little humor in. I am such a terrible person, I know.
Nazis liked making lists, too.
It's called a list.
A list of words does not a coherent thought make.
I guess whoosh. You just couldn't get past the list to see the point.
You think you have a say, but really it’s just an illusion.
So you're saying that regardless of which party I vote for the results are identical?
Cuz that's really fucking stupid and untrue.
Pretty sure I didn't say that. Both parties ensure you work for the rich. They just do it differently. So not identical. Think of it like a choice of two roads. One southwest, and one southeast. They go to different places, but they both go south. So overall, it's going to get warmer.
Oh, and asking a question that poses your incorrect interpretation, then calling it stupid... is really saying your interpretation is stupid. What's the problem with just asking a clarifying question and skipping the insult? This isn't reddit.
I mean what do you call the democrats for enabling the genocide in Gaza?
I think it was more like a choice of just being nazis abroad or being both a nazi abroad and back home.
Pretending otherwise just comes off as selfish and privileged tbh.
Hey champ.
What's your solution?
Voting 3rd party isn't a solution because no 3rd party has done the work to become a nationally viable party. Not even remotely close.
So. Your solution, champ?
Ooh I know this one: workers seize the means of production and smash the state! And then . . uh, like, some cool dudes fix it way better than it was? Or something. I dunno tbh.
I do know these people will never have an actual plan or an actual leader.
Oh wow. You want a leader?
Can't get there from here.
No plan, sounds good to me.
How about more people in the system realise that they too, even their bosses, and everybody, are better off with the technologies that can emancipate everybody get released, rather than suppressed as they are now. End this lost century or two.
More than just whistleblowers.
Once the genie's out of the bottle, they cannot put it back in.
...
I recall patent office whistle blower Tom Valone, at energy conferences sometime between 2000 and 2005 iirc, stating something like, that, "by the year 2000 there have already been over 3000 free energy device patents secreted". How much headroom do we have without the crooks holding us down, without us being hog-tied to their polluting and inferior technology metered for rents? ... Y'know they can print gold, right?
Word of the day: Agnotology.
It's a big industry. One so few know anything about. By recursive design.
PS, Bucky was right:
“We should do away with the absolutely specious notion that everybody has to earn a living. It is a fact today that one in ten thousand of us can make a technological breakthrough capable of supporting all the rest. The youth of today are absolutely right in recognizing this nonsense of earning a living. We keep inventing jobs because of this false idea that everybody has to be employed at some kind of drudgery because, according to Malthusian Darwinian theory he must justify his right to exist. So we have inspectors of inspectors and people making instruments for inspectors to inspect inspectors. The true business of people should be to go back to school and think about whatever it was they were thinking about before somebody came along and told them they had to earn a living.” -- Buckminster Fuller
Can't get there from here.
Well that’s a shame
Maybe a
Step 2:
‘Proportional representation’ could reduce polarization in Congress and help more people feel like their voices are being heard
https://theconversation.com/...
(And of course, can break this step up into many other parts, many other different approaches to have it be accomplished. And of course, this is only a suggestion (which works reasonably well here where I am ~ still could be better)), one among many ways to improve that whole area... )
The people who cost the Democrats in 2016, 2022, and 2024 and have greatly hindered their success in 2018 and 2020 are the hard left who infest lemmy.
Apolitical people are a non factor since they never vote and independents aren't either because the margins of those who don't lean one way or the other is very slim. The sabotage in the left is internal. The center left is corrupt, the moderate left is incompetent, and the far left is a tumor that gives MAGA a run for its money.
Things won't change unless the moderate left rejects the far left from their ranks, actually organizes and mobilizes to go after corrupt center left politicians, and try to come up with messaging that appeals to the general public and not just themselves. There's potential for real change, but it requires a lot of effort.
Interesting, you ignore the fact that the presidential run in 2024 literally paraded around with Dick Cheney and Liz Cheney. By all accounts the "moderate left" rejected the "far left". They quite literally played for the moderate position and lost.
It’s like talking to American leftists. It’s like they think they’re the only ones who have had to hold their nose while voting for a shitty liberal. We all do it. Cause we know not opposing the Nazis is unacceptable. Blaming the democrats in 2026 cause you didn’t vote Harris deserves a smack to the back of the head
Cool but what if we voted Harris and tried to convince all our friends and family to vote Harris and then she lost and a majority of the Democrats in power are going along with a facists government?
Can I complain about the Democrats now? Can I point out the various points of failure I've seen over the past decade that helped get us to this point?
The Republicans are bad actors, that's a fucking given to anyone calling themselves a leftist, it's a waste of time arguing about how absolutely horrible their side is. No fucking shit, what I care about is what the party I vote for does and is going to do.
No, liberals can never fail you. Only you can fail liberals. You have to pretend that Obamacare (née Romneycare, née Heritagecare) is the best we could have ever done. And pretend that Clinton’s NAFTA and bank deregulation were master strokes of socialism.
Plus you must ignore your lying eyes and truly believe that primaries are the only time to disagree even though corpo Dems did everything they could to sabotage Mamdami after he got the nomination.
Vote blue no matter who!
Unless they might actually be progressive.
As an outside, being totally serious, im not American and im just watching this shit show from outside. Democrats always fight with one arm tied and following laws and decorum while republicans use bazookas, Thats always been the case. The democrats are apathetic. I agree, so somehow that makes them worse than the Nazis?
When any Democrat stands up to Trump recently, the American left starts shitting on them, calling them fake leftists (cause nobody is left enough for anyone on the American left, everyone is an enemy) As a Democrat politician I don’t see why they wouldn’t just lay low and let Americans enjoy what Americans voted for (or refused to vote against)
But again your post is exactly what my original comment was pointing at. It’s 2026 and children are being rounded up, the republicans have a pedo president and are Nazis. But you STILL have to come up with excuses why it’s the fault of democrats, and not your diseased culture
Lmfao, I never said they were worse then the nazis, and I have not seen the "American Left" shitting on Democrats who stand up to Donald Trump.
What I did aay was the republcians are bad actors and going around in a circle about how bad they are does not get us anywhere, they were never going to do the things we want either way. The Democrats are supposed to, and when they don't we can actually make a difference by spreading the information about it so that we can make our voice heard and vote for other, hopefully better, democrats.
I do not see "American leftists" constantly shitting on Democrats who stand up to Trump, I do however see half measures (if that) offered up rightly being shit on, whereas actual action (as infrequently as that seems to occur) is praised.
Your comment is the embodiment of bad faith blame anyone but the Democrats. They're the ones who are supposed to represent me, I vote for them. What do you not understand about that?
And the other side has collaborators who are partnered up with the Nazis to keep you permanently in debt.
It's why so many fewer people voted in 2024.
But sure. I guess it's preferable to be a collaborator even if the end result isn't exactly the same in practice. (/s)
Gotta love it. Seeing all the tankies and garbled lefties stretching before the summer sprint into the Midterms battles.
What will it be this time? Can we still call them genocide lovers? (clearly) Will one of the candidates stand out for us to paint the rest with so that we can ensure the continued boot of republicanism in the US? No worries if not - we'll make one! Once more into the derp, comrades!
both side has nazis , they are just polite about it
Republicans: Throw brown people into unmarked vans.
Democrats: Mark. 👏 Those.👏Vans. 👏
I mean yeah this is the arguement. Democrats don't oppose deportation they just want it done according to the law. No deportation without hearing/due proccess, access to medical care for detaines, no alligator auschwitz, no deportation to random countries, no sending detainees to El Salvadorian prison, no stealing citizens passports, and the list keeps going.
When immigration enforcement is done via legal channels it is at least controlled and there is due proccess. I don't like that we handle immigration this way at all, but it doesn't take a genius to see things were way better before.
And yes the way things were before was bad too, and inherently inhumane, but this has been way worse
Democrats have been entirely complicit in the Republican-lead fascism in this country.
While most of their constituents (who they claim to represent) want to ABOLISH ICE, Democrats are arguing for soft reforms and increased ICE funding. While most of their constituents are appalled by the genocide happening in Gaza, Democrats just voted to continue sending billions of our tax dollars to Israel. The "law and order" policy that both sides pushed in order to appear tough on crime is exactly why men with guns are running into our homes and shooting us in the street.
Democrats may appear like champions of a sensible middle ground, but that is exactly what got us here. Do not fall for their calls for a more polite police state.
Then get off your lazy ass and make a 3rd party viable.
What gave you that idea?
Your statement makes no sense unless you're stretching definitions to a comical degree.
The fact that 23 people, so far, have upvoted this absolute garbage opinion is just really, really sad. I mean, I'm glad it's more downvoted than upvoted, but man, there are a lot of dumb assholes out there.
Pizzacake, try to make one funny comic [challenge: impossible]
Yeah, her entire platform is preaching to the choir without adding anything interesting. It's easy to make a comic saying Trump is a fascist, and Elon Musk is an idiot. But we already know that, so...
On the other hand, you can't blame her because people seem to enjoy dunking on the opposition so much that they don't notice. It's probably easy to crank these comics out and make a living.
Not a very good ad, I didn't even know she does porn lol
Yes and the other side enables them. It’s fascists vs oligarchs that benefit from fascists. We’re not living in a democracy. People need to realize you can’t just vote fascism away. The entire system should be thrown into the dustbin of history.
You do realize that you can both vote and work to destroy the system at the same time, right?
It's like when you were in school and you could do math and then play with crayons and then have a nap, all in one day.
You're missing my point entirely. I'm not gonna say don't vote but also let's not pretend that's how we'll get rid of fascism because that's simply not how it works. The neoliberal system actively benefits from it, just look at how many companies are in bed with the Trump regime. Not to mention Palentir, Flock and others.
Even without trump, ICE is designed to be abused like this legally speaking, it needs to be abolished.
This isn't the point that was made prior though. This is an okay take It's just stapled to a bunch of bad ones prior.
Respectfully, I do not think you understand what was meant by that comment. Voting does not work if both parties work have eachother's back (even though it does not seem like it on the outside)
If voting doesn't work, why does the Right work so hard to stop people from voting?
Nah, just putting words together doesn't make them true, and they aren't. The parties consistently vote differently & non-cooperatively on legislation as roll call votes & their analyses show.
See graphs of probability distributions of cross- & same-party pair agreements increasingly diverge over congressional sessions. See networks of pairwise agreements between members for each congressional session increasingly split by party over time. From historical heights of cross-party cooperation around the 1970s, cross-party agreement has declined significantly at an exponential rate as same-party agreement has grown.partisanship or non-cooperation in the U.S. Congress has been increasing exponentially for over 60 years with no sign of abating or reversing
The harder ideologues who claim their parties aren't partisan enough instead of recognizing the partisanship is peaking may paradoxically be contributing to their own dissatisfaction with congressional productivity.Cooperator prevalence has decreased by two orders of magnitude from the 1970s to 2000s. From 1967 to 1979, Congress often had over 10,000 cooperators (max: 12,921) and was comprised of at least 10% cooperators (max: 13.4%), i.e. at least 10% of CP pairs agreed on more issues than SP pairs. In comparison, 2001–2010 held fewer than 1,500 cooperators (min: 181) with fewer than 1.5% (min: 0.2%) of CP pairs acting as cooperators (Table 1). Longitudinally, partisanship/non-cooperation has been increasing at an annual rate of about 5% over the last 60 years. The average number of disagreements on roll call votes between CP pairs is increasing exponentially (Fig 3A), as illustrated by an exponential growth model in the form of y = c₀e^γt^ which exhibits a fit (F₃₁ = 236.22, α = 0.05, R² = 0.88, p < 0.0001).
Our analysis shows that Congressional partisanship has been increasing exponentially for over 60 years, and has had negative effects on Congressional productivity. This is particularly apparent in the steady reduction of the number of bills introduced onto the floor, suggesting that the primary negative effect of increasing partisanship is a loss of Congressional innovation.
This increase in non-cooperation leads to an interesting electoral paradox. While U.S. voters have been selecting increasingly partisan representatives for 40 years, public opinion of the U.S. Congress has been steadily declining.
Current affairs do not explain this height in party division.Voters might believe that highly partisan candidates will ‘tip the scale’ in one party’s favor. However, based on correlations shown here, a partisan candidate may lack cooperation needed to pass legislation.
Certainly current affairs do not seem to divide potential cooperators, as cross-party relationships peaked in arguably the most tumultuous period in recent U.S. history, marked with numerous political assassinations and Vietnam War and the resignation of President Nixon, as illustrated by others, such as [23–25]. :::
In the House and the Senate, the average party conformity score was higher for Democrats than Republicans over the nearly 18,000 total votes taken. Democrats in the House voted with their party 90.4 percent of the time; Republicans in the House, 89.3 percent of the time. In the Senate, the gulf was wider: Democrats lined up 89.8 percent of the time while Republicans did so only 86.6 percent of the time.
Over the past 20 years, Democrats have, in fact, been more likely to stick together on votes than have Republicans.
Not voting as hardline ideologues would want doesn't imply they aren't the representatives people voted for or the parties are cooperating. More than ever, the parties largely aren't cooperating, because they're as partisan people voted (particularly on the right).
Crayons are yummy, don't you think?
I actually never ate the crayons when I was a kid. But if you want to go out and buy them and eat them, then I respect your right to choose
Enjoy your crayons. Never had them myself.
"I don't particularly like the other guys, so in practice I'm fine with Nazi's in power"
-- smartest .ml user.
Unfortunate you felt the need to change their words and ridicule them instead of engaging with their actual point.
They didn't say they were "fine with Nazis in power." They argued the system itself is broken; when the choice is between fascists and those who enable them, you're not living in a functioning democracy. Voting can't fix a game that's already rigged.
Mocking them just avoids the harder conversation but you do you boo.
Because they had no point and deserve to be ridiculed. That thought process is precisely what got us here, and they decide to continue to double down.
Of course Gaza would still be a humanitarian nightmare, but none of the other things happening right now would have been happening if Harris won, and if you can't see that then you just should never vote again period.
humanitarian nightmare
Genocide. The word is genocide. A genocide that doesn't just spring up out of nowhere and kind of "happens", but is actively being committed by Israel and the United States since October 8th 2023.
You've perfectly illustrated the original point. You’re essentially arguing: ‘This side is objectively less bad, so you must support them, and if you don’t, you’re the problem.’But that's the very enablement they were talking about.
The argument isn't that "Harris vs. Trump is the same." It's that a system which only offers a 'lesser evil' every four years, while tolerating the growth of fascism and protecting oligarchic interests the rest of the time, is fundamentally broken. Demanding endless, un-critical support for the 'lesser evil' is what allows the whole cycle to continue. You're proving their despair correct by saying the only permissible choice is to play a rigged game.
"the brown people would still be dying, but who cares"
-- the regular Dem
The choice isn't between voting and doing nothing. It's between trusting a corrupted system and building power outside of it. Critiquing the system isn't inaction, it's the necessary first step toward meaningful action.
You're getting downvoted, but I wish people could understand how multiple things can be simultaneously true.
It's not "both sides." It's "one side is nazis, and the other side is robber barons wearing the skin of leftist ideals, preventing legislation for the people, and trying to profit off of the nazi stuff."
Like, with the fascist takover going on you have chuck going "I hear the will of the people, who want us to focus on funding Israel. Don't worry, I hear you, the sick, hungry, and educators can absolutely tough it out for Israel. "
Democrats have shown direct complicity with the republican actions, largely through people incentivized to actively kneecap any effort to help regular people instead of the wealthy. Look at and review on legislation vs public preference vs corporate preferences.
But no, the only way to cooperate in changing the system is investing more deeply into the inevitable pendulum of the two party system pushing the overton window towards oppression with each swing. One slower but more discreet. The other is Nazis being nachos Nazis.
Neither is the solution to the problem, but systemic and socialized changes in how we act and react to the systems we are in, as bottom up networks.
People have to interact with the political reality and put energy into it, but we've already socialized that shame and laziness is a failure to participate in the socio-economic hierarchy, rather than a lack of spending energy on basic ethics and epistemic hygiene.
We need new tools and behaviours to interact with new problems. This takes energy, which makes it socially unpopular. But we all die if we don't find basic cooperation to fix a feedback loop that lost the plot.
People shat on "don't look up" for being too "on the nose and snobbish." yet here we are, with people living in socialized framing bubbles that are just as aggressively ignorant.
But bringing that up is cringe.
Yes vote against the nazis, but don't let people believe that means we are not still in existential danger.
but don’t let people believe that means we are currently in existential danger.
are you claiming you are not?
my least favourite type of typo, appreciate the note!
The entire system should be thrown into the dustbin of history.
Gotta love the geniuses that chime in with this infinite wisdom then fuck back off to do anything other than provide real solutions.
Keep what to comics? Is this not a political meme?
Not trying to reopen a can of worms but care to fill me in on what happened?
PizzaCake, the artist behind this comic, made another comic a few years back, satirising a bunch of things men say to women to handwave away bad behaviour (think "not all men" kind of stuff). What she didn't notice was that with her satirisation, she also dismissed genuine issues that society also tends to dismiss relating to mens mental health.
The mods of r/comics went a bit overboard with the moderation (to be fair, an overwhelming amount of moderated comments have been just pure toxic masculinity, but a bunch of people who said that both toxic masculinity AND the intentional downplay of men's issues are a problem, got caught in the crossfire).
PizzaCake herself had some... less than savoury reactions, all in all it turned into a shitshow that the chuds blew out of proportion, the mods who stepped in were overbearing and obviously prejudiced, and the overall reactions just... weren't nice. this should've been something that triggers respectful discussion, and both sides were unable to do exactly that.
Later on, the manosphere launched what was essentially a mini gamergate against PizzaCake and bam, now we have a bunch of videos and Reddit posts calling her "pathetic" and other select names, while the people posting said content aren't better by any measure...
It's actually not about her thing with men, it's the low hanging fruit that the content is made from. Art and drawing on the back of cereal boxes have more depth.
None of its interesting, none of its original, it's stating the obvious in drawing format.
@lemmy.world
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@lemmy.world
Welcome to politcal memes!
These are our rules:
Jokes are okay, but don’t intentionally harass or disturb any member of our community. Sexism, racism and bigotry are not allowed. Good faith argumentation only. No posts discouraging people to vote or shaming people for voting.
Don’t post any intentional misinformation. When asked by mods, provide sources for any claims you make.
Random pictures do not qualify as memes. Relevance to politics is required.
Follow instance rules, ask for your bot to be allowed on this community.
Content posted must not be created by AI with the intent to mimic the style of existing images
go to feed...
All of this... it could have been stopped. We don't have to love (or even like) the Democrats, but it was such an important election, and everybody was screaming to vote against fascism. Well, a lot of people couldn't be bothered, and it's here now. Hope our country survives this administration...
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