Meh, I didn’t vote for Trump. So don’t blame his election on me, friend. Thanks!

Thanks Pooper. I hope you enjoy your weekend.

Yeah but that’s kinda the point. Liberalism is also right-wing compared to leftists, and even on it’s own is pretty firmly center to slighly right of center. Left of center only really happens at social democracies, and they’re still not super far left. Obviously someone in the middle of the Democrats and Republicans will also be right-wing, since neither party is actually left of center and the Republicans are currently so far right.

It seems like the democratic party has become the illusion of choice. The last guy running the party was a corporate lobbyist who just recently left after the election. The new top runner just said not all billionaires are bad. Of course it requires a lot of money to run an election, so politicians are more worried about large donors than the majority of people. That means that Democrats that support corporate interests win primaries. The majority of people who vote for Democrats want free healthcare and free college and more regulations accountability for businesses and higher taxes for the wealthy. It’s not going to happen when some MBA is running the show.

So basically basically Republicans are super harmful to a ton of people and meeting in the the middle of democrats and republicans is still bad, and compromising on certain issues by doing that sort of meet in the middle approach still hurts people right? Don’t want to put words in your mouth or anything like that.

Anarchists or other very left-wing people have basically the same opinion on liberalism. It’s a very middle of the road ideology that’s favors incremental progress but doesn’t really make real change on its own, that normally has to be fought for outside the system. The Democrats are less immediately harmful to people, but neither party really does anything big enough to truly help people in a meaningful way and things have been slowly getting worse over time. And just like there are a bunch of policies you wouldn’t want to meet in the middle of, there are a bunch of things liberalism supports that are meeting in the middle of something very harmful.

I think the other big thing is the prevalence of the idea that voting for a representative is the most important thing you can do that also wears on people. Whether or not Trump or Harris won, over half the US states are unsafe for trans people, especially kids. Sure things are obviously worse with Trump, but either way for a lot of trans people things have been bad and getting worse for a long time. Same with food insecurity, housing costs, immigration, etc. All of these issues wouldn’t have meaningfully improved much with the tiny concessions that Democrats offered, and most would continue getting largely ignored until a Republican takes office and can be blamed.

I’m not saying the parties are the same, one moves us in this negative direction much faster which I why I’ve basically voted D every time I could, but voting is at most the minimum you should do. Building aid networks and horizontal power and networks to protect queer people or immigrants are all things that need to happen no matter who is in power because either way compromises and the slow advance of capitalism continues to hurt more and more people.

None of this is a person attack against you or anything either, but the way you don’t like Republicans for being too far right or centrists for being too middle of the road with fascism/the Republican party are the same basic reasons leftists dislike liberalism.

Well, I certainly didn’t sit out. I voted.

I just didn’t vote for the person .world wanted me to vote for. :)

I voted in 2016, 2018, 2020, 2022, 2024, every year I was legally able to vote, I even registered early when I was 17 in California. I can gladly give you proof I voted in every election I can because my state has ballot tracking.

And is it a better and more peaceful place when liberal status quo protects the companies that socially murder its citizens? Punishment of shoplifting is accepted more than trying to arrest Trump and the Jan 6 attackers? Cops can beat up protestors but not protect families from being evicted by greedy landlords?

“The law, in its majestic equality, forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal their bread.”

Liberals haven’t pushed for the rights of my kind. Liberals defend oppressing my kind because it was normal to hate queer people until recently. Liberal politicians didn’t push for legalization unless it was good for polling numbers. But they gladly sat with their ass on their hands while cops arrested and killed queer people for being happy with themselves.

And I would get into how liberals didn’t push for women’s rights, breaking segregation, ending wars, ending slavery, but I’m not someone who was targeted by them. Liberals don’t stand for what’s right, just what’s currently accepted.