While Education and Organizing is building the parts for a new engine the rest of the year.
this post was submitted on 18 Jan 2024
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If Hilary hadn't been a pile of shit doing private speaking engagements for billionaires that were so hush hush that they set up massive white noise generating speaker systems, people would have voted for her.
if Hilary had set a fucking foot in some of the states she lost, people would have voted for her.
if Hilary didnt make stupid fucking comments, people would have voted for her.
Maybe if you stopped blaming voters, and blamed the shitty fucking candidates, someone less awful would have run, and won.
Blame the DNC. They're the one cramming shitty candidates down our throats. If OP is right, and voting for president is just changing the oil, it's like getting charged $2000 for Dollar General oil.
Stop blaming voters. Field actual, progressive, leftist candidates. I am fucking sick of voting for right wing, war hawk Democrats to "save democracy." We aren't saving anything, just watching stock market addicted octagenarians kill the country slower than the other team.
Yup. The DNC is what's trying to stay in power, which is why Biden and Kamala were forced in, because they obey.
It's also why Niki Hailey is being pushed on the news. They want her to win because she'll also obey.
Isn't Niki Hailey a republican?
Yes, but it doesn't matter.
Yes, I want octagenarians that kill the country slower than the other team. Why? Because I know the game is rigged against the trust busting hero we actually need... but I'm hoping they'll drop dead of "Being absurdly old" while we still have a country, so a younger generation can fix it.
Sorry, but there's no easy hollywood solution where Sylvester Stallone blows up Capitalism, gets the girl, and throws UBI out of his "Just Married" sports car... Does that metaphor scan? I know that's not really how movies work anymore... now it's more like Tom Holland blows up Socialism because it ate a puppy in the third act to remind the audience it's evil, doesn't get the girl because getting the girl is "problematic" (which to be fair it kinda is), and then teases yet another god damn crossover event that we know and care nothing about....
There will always be more Josh Hawleys, because the shareholders of the GOP will find them, and get them nominated and then elected to safe seats.
You can't wait out the GOP in the hopes that nature will take its course. It will never, ever stop.
We need an actual trust-busting, corruption-prosecuting bastard who isn't afraid of keeping friends across the aisle, or preserving relationships with the right law firms or lobbying firms.
We need someone who will pack the court.
We need DC and PR to become states.
We need someone who will cut off federal dollars to parasitic red states for destroying representative democracy.
We need someone who will discipline people like Joe Manchin when they corruptly protect extractive industry. Turn off as much federal money to West Virginia as you can, and plaster the TV with ads saying "Joe Manchin made this happen."
We need someone who isn't afraid to be LBJ, or TR.
Basically, when the metaphorical foxes are running the henhouse, you need a bastard fox hunter. Not a slightly-less-increaingly-worse fox.
And... you think this Fox Hunter is electable under the current system? Newsflash: Third Party Candidates will always lose
Ok, guess we're just screwed then
There is an easy solution.
Nearly every other democracy in the world uses it.
But the RNC and DNC have monopolized our political system and brainwashed the voting base against the real solution: voting for anyone else. Don't be a coward and keep eating shit. Vote third party.
I live in a place where my voice and vote have been taken from me by gerrymandering and the electoral college. Millions of Americans live like this. If you want to eat shit and vote Biden to avoid eating more shit with Trump, I absolutely understand. It's basic math.
But if you're a liberal living in rural Tennessee like I am, and your vote is literal trash, I'd encourage every one of those people who've had their vote and choice stolen from them, like I have, to vote third party every time.
Do not vote third party, I know it's tempting to believe in a hero who will swoop in and fix all this, but the last time we elected someone because they were an "Outsider", we got Trump, and it doesn't matter, the system is rigged against third parties.
The Republicans actively encourage Third Parties to be as Left as they can, solely because they know they're unelectable and will split the vote
God now I'm remembering Sean Haugh.....
By continously throwing away your vote, you are guranteeing Tenessee stays the way it is
Actual leftist candidates--or progressive candidates, because those are very much not the same thing--wouldn't get even 10% of the primary votes, even if the DNC was entirely hands-off. They certainly wouldn't get the kind of donations that they would need to run a successful national campaign. Genuine leftists simply aren't popular in the US as a whole, even if Gen Z might trend more strongly towards certain aspects of socialism/communism/anarchism than people of my generation did.
Actually it's been found Left Wing ideas win elections pretty easily
You're changing my premise.
OP is saying that you should vote for leftists or progressives. I'm saying that they don't tend to have strong enough support in the American electorate to win primaries. You're saying that leftist or progressive ideas win elections. That's not the same thing at all.
Certain progressive ideas have reached some kind of national consensus, like the idea that minimum wage needs to be a living wage. That's still not popular in a lot of places, but okay, let's roll with it. OTOH, major structural criminal justice reform--reduction in police, more addiction treatment programs (that aren't based in religion), reform-minded prison, etc.---does not have popular support. Republicans are largely law-and-order/crime-and-punishment types, and a significant percentage of Dems are as well. Running on a 'defund the police' platform tends to cost people elections, which is why you see Biden increasing funding for cops. It doesn't matter if data strongly suggests that the approach we're using doesn't work, and can't work; people that see crime as a moral issue can't accept anything other than punishment.
If you want to change all of this, you have to start long before elections.
no, clearly we need to show our disapproval by letting the literal fascists win!
Don't be daft. You need to protest, demonstrate, educate, and engage in outreach and community building, and then when it's time to vote, you need to vote strategically. Calling everyone a literal fascist that's even a half-shuffle right of Bakunin isn't going to help you.
I'm sorry, are the republicans not literally engaging in fascism? I mean, they check almost every box
Your comment implied that you lumped Democratic politicians into that as well.
And no, not all Republicans are fascists. However, there are currently very, very few principled Republicans that are currently serving at a national level, and more and more are getting forced out by the party. John McCain and Mittens Romney were both Republican based on their political principles, and, while I disagreed with their politics, I don't believe that either of them could fairly be labelled as fascists. But one is dead, and the other is now out of politics, sooo...
Oh, I'm sorry, but in a two party system (something that anything not proportional voting will never be), people refusing to vote letting the fascists win does not in fact mean the other party is fascist as well.
Secondly, i rightfully don't give two flying fucks if you feel like republican politician X Y or Z is fascist or not, they have been engaging in fascist rhetoric and ideology for over 50 years, just because they have gone more mask off about it under Trump doesn't mean the party of "Mexicans are scary", "blacks are all criminals", "tough on crime", "gay should be illegal", "unquestioning patriotism", "Judaeo Christian nation" etc... haven't been fascist, they still very much fit any definition outside literally being part of the Italian Fascisti party.
This only works when you redefine fascism to mean, "support for any single policy to the right of Mikhail Bakunin". Creating an overly and inappropriately broad definition for fascism that doesn't align with any common definition, and then labeling everything you don't like as fascist harms your cause more than it helps. Saying--for instance--that people who don't want homeless encampments near their business are fascists makes other people see you as unreasonable and not worth engaging with. If you want to turn people off, then that's a fantastic way to do it.
I can't even parse your meaning here. MAGA Republicans are 100% supporting fascist policies. Establishment Dems support some aspects of fascism, but are not fascist. Likewise, traditional/principled Republicans (now called RINOs) support some fascist policies, but are not fascist.
I just love how people will try and make excuses to pretend like republicans since Regan weren't fascist, no rhinos are fascist, just like the NeoCons are, yes fascist, not just some small amount of fascist overlap, but straight up cover most of all qualifications of ur-fascism
As I said, this only works when you redefine fascism to mean anything to the right of Mikhail Bakunin.
And fascism is, itself, a very slippery term. There's not a single definition or checklist that has universal or even near-universal support among academics. It's like defining a cult; Dr. Steven Hassan has a long checklist of items, but not all of those are present in every cult, and some of those behaviours only become dangerous signs when taken to an extreme.
fascism its self is not a very slippery term, there are maybe 3 academic definitions of fascism, these are incredibly similar to each other, and are in some cases literally only semantically different, these are almost universally supported by academics (as long as you ignore the people literally calling for eugenics and ethnostates)
and yes, just because someone or a group may match one point on these definitions doesn't make them fascist, but when they routinely fall under the vast majority of fascist traits, they just might be... fascist
Cite your sources.
Umberto Eco
Ian Kershaw
Robert Paxton
but you won't be satisfied by this, will you? no, nothing can satisfy you, because I indirectly called you fascist, and instead of maybe doing some self reflection, that maybe just maybe, the actions and rhetoric of the republicans has been fascist, you need to double down, because at some point in time, you were a republican and can't imagine yourself supporting something evil. Well, surprise, many Germans didn't know what kind of evil they supported until it got total power.
First: that's a list of names, rather than a listing of specific sources. So, cool.
Second, all of them have differing definitions of fascism, and what specific elements are required for something to be fascist, and to what degree those elements need to be present. Some scholars have ended up with definitions that are too broad and can interpreted to mean that all political ideology that includes any hint of authoritarian control is fascist. Others have been too narrow, excluding political movements that are more widely seen as fascist.
If you took a deep dive into my history, you'd see that I'm pretty unapologetic about having been pretty far right in the past; I was raised in what I would qualify as a far-right cult--according to the checklist used by Dr. Steven Hassan--with lovely christian political values like homophobia, racism, extreme misogyny, and fuck dem poors. Your refusal to try to see anything outside of your own views and to other people that don't already share your own values isn't going to do you any favors.
This, I keep wondering what the hell the "Anarkiddies" expect, they act like we can just pull up to the CEO of Fascism's house with a katana and be all "Nothing personnel kid!"
A part of me, a part I buried because I didn't want to believe Trump would win, but.... a part of me had basically accepted that she already lost when she brought out the "Bernie Bro." narrative, and actually tried to paint Bernie Sanders as this misogynist and pretend that his supporters just "Hated women"
Not only was it a desperate move that revealed a lot of negative things about her character. Honestly even if it was true (and it was!), the "Basket full of deplorables" line definitely scared off Centrists who weren't fully lucid of just how dangerous Trump was... A close friend of mine who hated both candidates and planned to stay home actually voted Trump solely because a candidate was willing to say people who didn't vote for her were straight up evil... (I begged him not to, but politics is the one thing he will never listen to me on) Between Deplorables and Bernie Bros. it gave off the impression that she was a spoiled brat who demonized anyone who didn't faun over her. (Even though Trump demonized everyone who didn't faun over him, but let's be honest men and women are held to very different standards)
The talk about how "It's my turn!" didn't help, and the fact that Hillary already tried the "Oh they support that guy because they're too sexist to support me!" card, and failed miserably, when she brought out the "Obama Boys" line back in 2008.
Hillary is a geniunely unpleasant person, Trump is also a genuinely unpleasant person, the problem is... and I hate to say it, Trump had more charisma. He didn't have a way with words or anything like that (Hamberders, covfefe), but he had the persona of a no nonsense businessman ready to trim the fat and say "You're Fired!" to anyone who stood in the way...
Hillary....was just Hillary.
I'm not saying Trump was this novel idea or this cult of personality (Pretty much everyone but his most extreme base hates him)
I'm saying Hillary is so unworkable as a candidate and so horrifically distasteful, that she may have been the only one who could lose an election to the walking punchline that thanks to the failure of the electoral college, is also the most dangerous man in the West... Donald J. Trump
she ran a centrist elitist corporate campaign against a fucking cult of personality just lol
no question her policies would be better than Trump but fuck did her campaign suck
The DNC showed voters exactly what they think of leftists when they shafted Bernie for Hillary. They showed their voters exactly what they think of them when they went to court to have it ruled that their voters aren't shit. At some point, you don't get to ShockedPikachu anymore that people aren't supporting you.
Democrat voters are just as bad, look in any thread about elections, and they make two arguments in the same comment. 1- Leftists are stupid babies who will never be taken seriously and need to STFU already like the stupid babies they are, 2- Leftists who didn't vote Dem because we call them stupid babies are single handedly behind every Republican win.
I've had a number of Democrats in this thread reply to me who (supposedly) do dnc volunteer work. Who pay lip service to welcoming leftists for half a sentence to pretend they welcome leftists, but then have spent half the day raging and manifesto-ing. How they tell them all to fuck off for showing up during an election year. How they chastise and bully them into oblivion for coming in due to interest in an issue that isn't the DNC talking point of the year.
They've all thrown around the shtick that leftists don't come out to help because they're insert your favorite chronic internet user trope here, and not a one is open to the fact that it turns out people don't want to work with you or help you if you just spend your days insulting them for not agreeing with you.
In 2016, they went to court to tell their voters they don't owe them shit. In 2024, we're watching Biden sidestep Congress to fund genocide. DNC supporters are openly and actively hostile to anybody left of Biden (on a functional level, moreso than they are Republicans even.) Democrats are just the mid right to Trumps far right, autocrats who think that a pride pin in their cap makes them The Good Guys.
Honestly I'm really tired of "woke shit"
I don't mean I'm tired of "women and minorities in my vidya games", I mean at this point I think I prefer outright bigots to a passive aggressive neolib who thinks that I need to sniff his farts with a smile on my face simply because he wore a rainbow on his t-shirt that one time in June.
I just don't understand why I, as a transwoman, live in a world where I hear that something is "Pro-LGBT", only to find that it's the most forced, tone deaf, and ironically extremely homophobic/transphobic god damn thing I've ever seen in my life. That's not new, I tend to avoid movies tagged as being "LGBT", because I know it's going to be some overdramatic tryhard bullshit likely written by a cis white guy looking for an easy payday.
Now webcomics and indie animations tagged as being LGBT are fucking awesome, mostly because they were made by actual queer individuals who know that I wanna see big daddy werebears who love each other more than I wanna see another "Feel good teenage drama" where every line is predictable, right up to the ending where the lead comes out as gay, and all of his friends "Come out" as... whatever the movie wants me to think is weird and embarrassing.... or another "We've got gays in our trailer! But in the actual movie it's Cishet shit outside of that one scene with the blink and you miss it lesbian kiss that we're cutting out of the international film"... or another where the gay character is actually present throughout the movie but EVERY LINE serves only to remind us of how totally gay they are...
This is the kind of "woke shit" I'm mad at, people screaming about how Pro-LGBT/Pro-Black/Pro-Woman they are to the point, where it starts to come off as the exact opposite. I don't care that you "support me" or that have a "I met God, she's black" bumpersticker on your car, I just want the GOP to stop gleefully pushing America to Far Right Extremism until they reach the point where they can throw me into a concentration camp and the local news is legally required to talk about how I deserved it, because they'll be "fined by the Supreme Court" if they don't. The Neo Liberal's empty platitudes mean nothing to me.
pandering and tokenism
forcing an interesting LGBT character vs. creating and interesting character who happens to also be gay
cough Michigan cough. Bitch took us for granted. The DNC shit the whole bed that election.
Did a gendered insult help make your point?
Edit: this is perhaps the most “controversial” thing I’ve posted online and just wanted to say it is an odd thrill to have random internet strangers having a negative reaction to something you said. Brains are strange.
Ya know, getting on each other's throats because our words aren't nice enough is a part of how this mess started.
I see what you’re saying but if my comment would be considered getting on someone’s throat than I think it may be time to take a step back and take a deep breath.
Don't take it personally. You did the right thing.
Ok then her dipshit ass campaign took my state for granted, barely campaigned here, and lost Michigan and the election. The dumb fucking DNC gave up on any election that wasn’t federal after Obama and that didn’t help the fucking idiots either.
I wasn’t saying your point was invalid, so I’m not sure why you repeated it here.
Does language policing make you feel good about yourself?
Haha, no, I don’t think so, but I’ve definitely been wrong before :) I guess it’s been something I’ve been trying to ask myself and felt like a valid thing to ask here.
And this is how Democrats lose elections. Thanks for the illustration.
I love how the day after the election it was all "Russia pushed fake news on social media and confused the voters!" Which it turns out there was some of that, it was such an obvious scapegoat to avoid publicly admitting you botched the campaign that badly. 2016 was such a shit show
Additionally, the GOP had been putting in the effort to crush her for decades. She was the least-electable candidate the DNC ever put forward by a landslide.
Trump didn't have the same level of loyalty back then. He would have failed against any other candidate in 2016.
I keep telling people that, Hillary was literally the one person Trump could win against.
It's why I knew he wouldn't be re-elected unless he pulled something. His base thinks that Trump is unbeatable because the "White House is trying to prosecute him for crimes they made up, the more obvious the Witch Hunt the more invulnerable he is!", but it's clearly echo chamber bullshit, guy's been a walking punchline since day one... he's just one that's no longer funny because he's threatening our lives.
I mean... wasn't there an investigation that found that they totally did?
The way there was zero talk about it until about a day and a half after the election (just long enough to hold some emergency meetings and get some approvals then align on the strategy) I have a suspicion it was a known secret and they decided out some known agents as a scapegoat for the abysmal failure of the DNC. Y'know keep your enemies closer and all.
I do agree. However, we tend to talk a lot and point fingers even more. So rather than us not unifying and speaking up on issues, us not stepping up in the districts and States we live in, and us chirping away and generating white noise on the internet, how about we reverse course?
Run in your local elections. Organize unions. Start working to bring your and our communities together. Bernie proved it was possible. One of the biggest, if not the biggest, grassroots movements in memory. Could you imagine if we took that unification and built on those foundations after that election cycle so many years ago? We would, in this moment, have a powerful, nationwide voice and platform powered by the very same people who now speak loudly almost daily and take no real action.
Voting is just the end result of thousands or tens of thousands of hours of effort across the nation. We could literally be doing so much more. Together we are strong and despite the incredible malicious and absolute idiocy that is MAGA, you gotta give them this: They work together. Even if moving in this case is more defined by a herd of drunk cows stumblpeding across a field.