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Vote for the change you want to see.
The Republican party got remade because trumpists showed up and outvoted the party elites. No reason it can't happen for the Left except for laziness and apathy.
If all the progressives furious about the state of affairs now had shown up for Sanders in 2016, I doubt we'd be in this hellish timeline. Sadly, he needed the young progressive vote to show up.
Bernie was doing well in 2016 until the DNC kneecapped him.
Get money out elections if you want change, but neither party is willing to. The oligarchy works for itself
remind me, what Primary did I get to vote in to pick against Harris?
That super cool one with Dean Philips and Marianne Williamson. But frankly there wasn't really a ready pool of willing candidates, and there still isn't.
The very public V.P. courtship process was sort of the de facto primary we got. Or the closest thing to it.
Not the best argument in 2024 given the circumstance but yes, in 2020, the "we need someone to beat Trump" crowd scoffed on the idea of Warren (my pick) or Bernie. But with the current system it kind of makes less sense too since Biden mostly won support in states he had no shot winning, so by the time it was even CAs turn there was no hope.
At least in 2008 I felt like it worked. Obama was a thousand times better than Clinton.
What Democratic primaries?
In case you're unaware, there were tons of them around the nation. There wasn't one for the president this time, but there were still plenty of primaries that were very influential. Your local officials have more impact on you than the president does.
Promote NPVIC and RCV in your state.
You underestimate the power of whining online.
MAGA is the result of decades of talk radio and pseudo-journalism aimed at curating a very specific way of seeing the world.
They refined a narrative that was persuasive, easy to upload into people, consistent in how it framed emergent issues, and instilled a sense of urgency that encouraged its adherents to spread the gospel and get politically active.
Obviously, we need to vote. But if you think victory is getting a Bernie 2.0 to 51% in a primary, you’re gonna be sorely disappointed by the general. It needs to be a slam dunk. We need a cultural win before we can have an electoral win.
That cultural win gets won from the bottom up, the people need to vote politicians like AOC and Bernie into every seat that comes up for election in every layer of government and push every neoliberal incumbent out. From local school board elections to the senate. That means that people need to show up and vote in every primary and election and not wait for the big one once every four years. The left wing of the party needs to put more focus and money in these smaller elections and put actual leftists or progressives candidates on those local ballots. That’s how the Tea Party and Maga republicans gained power inside the GOP.
I bet many of the Bernie voters have never voted in a local election in the years prior to that primary.
Yeah, it's boring and hard. That's just life. Now get out and vote or get used to living in a christofascist hell.
But... but... but that would mean... making an actual effort! Playing the long game! BO-RING!!!
bOtH pArTiEs ArE tHe SaMe LoL aMiRiTe
America would be a better place if people realised politics happens 24/7 and not once every 4 years.
Because in people's mind, politic is purely about backstabbing and rich people party, and not about governing and policy making.
You would vote in the Republic primaries...
Don't try to stretch the Overton window. You need to move the right side of the window left.
This is how black people in the south managed the Democratic party; by voting for the least racist Democrats in the primaries, no matter who won the general election they were better off.
It's basically ad hoc ranked choice and it prevents extremist candidates from winning.
This is how black people in the south managed the Democratic party; by voting for the least racist Democrats in the primaries
The black voter enjoyed a heavy Republican bias for nearly a century, and suffered much of the same treatment (GOP treated them as a captured constituency, Dixiecrats suppressed their turnout with fraud, incarceration, and terrorism).
By Kennedy, the northern Dems were embracing civil rights not as an electoral strategy but a labor organizing strategy. The vote was largely split, with black voters biasing by party in individual regions rather than as a national block.
It wasn't into Clinton - when Southern Strategy Repubs had fully purged their party of black voters - that the trend was fully reversed. That wasn't a decision by the NAACP or the median black voter. It was a Nixonian gambit. Black voters were viewed as a handicap. Appealing to fascism was how you obtained a majority in American politics.
Reagan, the Bushs, and then Trump seemed to further this theory. You'll get two white voters for every black voter you lose, by being the most racist candidate in the ticket.
Electoral politics won't work in favour of leftist goals. The system is rigged from the start.
Best you can do is vote for a lesser evil.
I don't think anyone is mad about this idea
I kinda wish I could, but I can't vote in primaries unless I'm registered with the party and the way the ~~nazis~~ MAGAs have been acting I don't exactly want to put myself on a registered enemies list... I've been registered independent since 2016 :(
My state has one of the very last primaries, after the outcome is already decided. I did vote for Bernie in 2016 and 2020, but it meant nothing because he had already dropped out of the race by then.
I agree with the comic, just a kinda funny election year to post it.
Biden ran virtually unopposed in the primaries this year, despite his low approval numbers. And while you'd have to go back to the 19th century to find an incumbent denied the nomination, there have been serious challengers like Ted Kennedy to Jimmy Carter in more recent history. Seems the problem is also with lack of serious challengers, as well as lack of participation in the process from those looking for more significant change.
You know the GOP elites weren't really outvoted. A lot of them are comfortably still in office. A bunch of others just retired and handed them the keys. The biggest gift Trump gave the GOP is his ability to be a lightning rod of controversy and dominate the news cycle.
He is the best cover and distraction from their dogshit policies they could ever have dreamed of.