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Yeah, but it would sure be nice to have candidates to vote FOR rather than against.
Without question.
But...there are a lot of things that would be nice in this world. Often you have to make the pragmatic choice.
A system that is proving incapable of making a choice that doesn't ultimately do more good than the harm it causes, probably isn't worth saving to begin with. When offered the choice between facing a live-streamed firing squad, or getting stabbed in the back and left to bleed out in an alley, you're not really being offered different outcomes, just a different process, and maybe more time to find a way out. That's the real pragmatic choice. Not playing their sick game in the first place, and building an exit strategy.
I'm not sure what you are suggesting here. Not sure what you are talking about with firing squads and stabbings?
Voting Democratic will absolutely make things better. No one is claiming that it will be perfect.
Will it? Voting Democratic will stop things from accelerating toward worse, but it rarely seems to do anything to actually make anything better. I'm very open to the idea that when you find yourself in a hole, you should stop digging, but not digging by itself doesn't get you out of the hole.
Voting democrat in 2008 gave me and many other Americans healthcare that I would have struggled or been impoverished without. That's better than voting Republican or not voting would have gotten me.
Voting Democrat in 2020 removed Trump from the White House. I cannot imagine the hell we would be in right now if we were entering his 10th year as president instead of the 6th.
I'll continue to vote Democrat until there's a better viable option. I'm not going to leave my future up to the rest of America. I would like a say in what happens to me, even if it's not ever going to be exactly what I want.
It also led to hundreds or thousands of innocents being drone struck by Obama.
Well clearly voting Democrat never improved your reading comprehension. I never said don't vote for them. I said if that's all you're doing and you expect it to get better, you're not paying attention.
I never said you didn't vote for them. I never mentioned your vote at all. I mentioned mine.
What's that about reading comprehension?
That sentence doesn't even make sense in regards to the conversation. Who are you arguing with? Is this a bot?
You questioned if voting Democrat will make things better
I gave examples of how it already has
You pivoted and said "I never said don't vote for them". Which I never accused you of saying
Then I pointed that out and now you're confused and think I'm a bot.
If you agree voting for Democrats is better than voting for Republicans, what is the point of anything you're saying? It definitely isn't to convince more people that voting for Democrats is better than voting for Republicans.
Are you a bot?
Because you're throwing around non-sequiturs. I never said anything about how I thought anyone should vote. You, me or anyone else. I was pretty clear that voting dem would at least stop the mayhem from getting worse. What I said was they will likely not be able to make anything better. And they won't.
Even their signature accomplishment in the last 20 years, which you are pointing to was a fragment of what they set out to do. They watered down their own bill for zero reason, because it won no support from the Republicans and was almost immediately undermined and rapidly demolished. They have policy statements even their own caucus doesn't universally agree to, and likely can't pass a bill on even if they win both chambers in a landslide. While individuals within the party may stand for some things, the party as a whole doesn't stand for anything. Except "not this" which, is not nothing, but it's not going to fix anything.
If people want things to get better voting is not going to get you there. Organizing and activism are the only ways to even begin to rebuild, because trusting Congress to accomplish anything is an exercise in futility. Every incentive and system and procedure is working against the kind of action necessary to change course. If people don't do the work themselves to fix things, and expect voting to even begin to make things better, they are going to be deeply disappointed. At the end of the day, Congress exists to solicit funds from donors. Not to make life better for people.
Buddy no one has argued against activism or organizing here. You're acting like I don't understand that. This whole time I've just been confused why you felt to make the point at all, because no one said anything about only voting and calling it good. Some people do behave that way, but no one you're talking to in this thread is arguing against you on that point. You're being incessant about making a point no one is disagreeing with.
You deserve the representation you have.
So do all Americans.
Except the choice is that someone else is getting shot or stabbed.
Dems would have been better for the US and for the world. Ultimately though, I'm personally not going to be affected much either way.
*yet
They're coming for you and yours eventually. It's in their nature. You're just not the target yet.
Yes, like I said, the lesser evil would have been better for everyone.
But as a white guy with a yacht capable of sailing the oceans, they're coming for me last.
This is the kind of short term thinking that created this mess. Refusal to look at the big picture because it won't affect you directly is how your grandchildren end up in a mass grave. Wise men plant trees whose fruit they will never eat. Fools fiddle while Rome burns. I'd say you should be ashamed, but I don't know that your still capable of such a thing. Far too many in such a position aren't.
So are you mad that I support the democrats instead of the republicans?
Or are you just mad that I recognized what the world is and made sure that I and my people would be fine?
He's mad that you don't think the Dems are as bad or worse than the Republicans. Lemmy is full of these idiots that can't understand harm reduction or voting pragmatically. They deserve the republicans they're empowering.
I'm mad that you think merely supporting democrats is sufficient. Sure, circling the drain slowly buys time, but if you aren't using that time for something productive, what are you actually gaining? You're one of a handful of people with the resources to actually make a difference, and you're wasting them? At the very least stop trying to discourage people from seeing the systemic problems and start pointing them at organizations that will do what you apparently are too busy with your yacht to support.
Oh, you're one of those people that thinks once you vote you're no longer capable of doing anything else.
What part of my comment is suggesting that? I'm literally saying that's exactly what people shouldn't be doing.
"if you aren't using that time for something productive, what are you actually gaining? You're one of a handful of people with the resources to actually make a difference, and you're wasting them?"
Probably that part.
Does that sound like someone doing anything productive to you?
I don't think owning a yacht and being productive are inherently connected. Please explain your reasoning.
Do you think there are no yacht owners that fight against fascism? If there are any, I would think they'd be powerful allies to coordinate with, rather than attack, given their resources and influence.
Does infighting with and demotivating your own voting bloc sound productive to you?
I think if he's the kind of person who can sleep at night while his country eats itself around him and then boast about surviving on a yacht, I don't care who your enemies are, we are not on the same side, and we never will be. I don't want my family to die alone in a bunker, I want my family surrounded by a community they can love and trust, and who loves and trusts them, because that is the only way they will ever have any kind of measure of real safety. I think every petty idiot with feudal aspirations is a threat to that so yes, I do think it's productive to make it very clear his kind isn't welcome on my side of the floor. We may be forced by circumstance to vote for the same candidate pool, but do not believe for one second we were ever allies. I do believe that in a world where your fellow Americans are literally dying around you of entirely preventable causes, if all you can think of to use your resources for is to buy an oversized bathtub toy, then you aren't the kind of person who should be deciding what use to put that money to. Gods only knows they didn't earn it. If anyone ever tells me they got rich through hard work, my first question is "whose?" These twits waking up on third base and thinking they hit a home run, calling themselves "self-made" because of the 15% of their success attributable to the hard work of making good on opportunity 99% of the country will never get, do not "deserve" their decadence. They didn't earn that. No, I don't think we should be worried about "Capital Flight", let them leave. There are other ways to get the job done, and if they care so little about their neighbours, we'll all be better off without them.
If we all vote in the primaries we could have that, but leftists tend to not vote or throw away their vote on an unviable third party.
Even nicer if we have the chance to vote for them in a primary election first.
I voted in the primaries for a progressive, why didn't you? You want republicans to win?
My comment was in reference to Kamala being anointed, after Biden effectively canceled the presidential primaries in 2024.
While I do believe electoral politics have failed us in the American 2 party system, I do still maintain we should always vote when/where able. There are some good progressives running this year, I voted for those available to me in this year’s primaries as well although sadly the establishment figures won in my state.
Frankly I don’t care who wins in November so long as they immediately and vigorously pursue prosecutions of the criminal regime currently grifting the country for all it’s worth. I find it very unlikely any Republican will do that, although ‘28 may be a different story.
Kamala's name was on the ballot in the primary. I voted for her in the primary, that's how it works. But you're here in bad faith so I'm not gonna waste time explaining grade school civics to propagandists.
That’s simply not true, there was no primary election for Kamala on ‘24. She was anointed.
“Bad faith” huh?
Her name was on the ballot I cast, so I dunno what your deal is. You talk like you listen to Fox news. They kept saying anointed too. Funny coincidence I'm sure. I genuinely hope all you fox- I mean faux leftists live in deep red states, you deserve the representation you work for.
Do you mean because you wrote it in instead of voting for Biden? 🤔
Otherwise you're misremembering; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_Democratic_Party_presidential_primaries
Hello brand new ml account that's trying to dissuade democratic voters and totally isn't a ruspublican propaganda account!
there actually was one