When Bill Clinton was in office in the 90’s, after the Democrats lost three presidential elections in a row to Republicans, he did not adopt socialist policies. Bill Clinton and Democratic party declared they would no longer fight Republicans on economic issues. The Democratic party shifted to the right, not the left, in response to losing elections. They opted to grab moderate voters from Republicans rather than try to win over more progressive voters.
If Democrats see moderates voting in the next election, but not progressives they will move to the right to grab those voters. They aren’t interested in chasing nonvoters or third party voters. So, the choice is not between averting fascism and driving the Democratic Party to the left. Those options are one in the same for progressives. The choice is between driving the Democratic Party to the left and averting fascism or allowing fascism to take hold in the US and allowing the Democratic Party to drift to the right. Of course if we lose our democracy, which way the Democrats shift isn’t going to matter, but I think it’s important to make this clear. There is nothing to be gained for progressives by not participating in elections, only things to lose.
This is a clear cut decision, but unfortunately people on the left are not framing it that way. We need to choose the option that delays fascism for another four years. We need time to give ourselves the opportunity to convince people that socialism is the answer to fixing our problems not blaming out groups. Considering the consequences of a fascist dictatorship in the US, voting is the thing everyone should want to do.
We need to choose the option that delays fascism for another four years.
And then in four years we need to choose that same option.
And four years after that.
And four years after that.
And four years after that.
Just like every presidential election I’ve voted in.
This is why they don’t need to worry about progressives. First, because the country isn’t progressive at all. And second because they can always just tell them that if they don’t vote they’re enabling fascism.
Since Bill Clinton until Trump the choices were between neoliberals and neoconservatives. Neoliberalism leads to fascism, so if we stick with neoliberalism it’s going to become harder and harder to delay fascism. We need socialist candidates like Bernie Sanders to win the presidency and Congress. But we’re stuck with the incumbent president for this election, which is typical of American politics. If our democracy lasts that long, we will have another shot at a progressive president in 2028.
Give the polling on progressive policies, it would seem the country’s population is more progressive overall than our elected representatives. Republicans are definitely overrepresented. That means it is essential that as many progressives vote as possible to give Democrats room to move the left. All the Democrats are interested is being where the Overton window is in order to gain the most votes. Progressives have to shift the Overton window to the left by voting Blue if we want to see change. edit: typos
I disagree that the country is progressive, because we have a government that represents us and there aren’t that many progressives at any level of government.
Accepting that Americans are shitty and dumb makes it easier to understand why our government sucks ass.
And this makes sense. Because the election has shown that the nation is happy to vote the right wing Republicans into the government, not the lesser evil Democrats, so naturally the Democrats would have to shift towards the popular opinion a bit more, instead of radicalizing to the left.
You guys need ranked choice voting.
We need it so bad, but neither the Democrats nor the Republicans want it, so we’re fucked unless we revolt.
We aren’t Russia (for now). Some states have already succeeded in their efforts to do away with First Past The Post voting. It’s not impossible!
Don’t give up working towards peace, but yes prepare for the inevitable purge Republicans salivate over daily. They are armed and organized, are you?
Some of us aren’t privileged to be on the bottom of the Republican hit list.
