Comment by notabot@lemm.ee on Democrats: You have to vote for democrats to stop Trump from round up people and shipping them to concentration camps for slave labor.

Also Democrats: Ve shall round up und eradicate ze undesirables from society!!! Ve shall put zem into ze camps and ve shall enslave them to benefit ze superior class!!!

https://fxtwitter.com/lastreetcare/status/1806869510483476829

I did say a fighting chance. The thing is, that chance improves if politicians see their voters want it to change and will abandon them if it doesn’t. That realization takes time and effort though, and isn’t going to happen in a substantive way by November.

Persuade more voters to think like you, organize enough chances for your local representative (regardless of party) to see that change and things might start to change, otherwise you’re just screaming into the void.

The thing is, that chance improves if politicians see their voters want it to change and will abandon them if it doesn’t

Imagine still believing this

It’s the one saving grace of an electoral system. Politicians have to chase votes. If they don’t, they don’t get elected. Changing voters minds is the hard part, politicians follow along.

this is why the democrats non-stop browbeat and punch left instead of delivering on policy their constituents want

Where and when are enough people coming together to say they want something different? Bear in mind it’ll have to be enough people to alter the balance of the next election, making themselves heard regularly.

The whole punching left thing is because they perceive that lots of voters don’t want to go further left. If we want that to stop we need them to see that it’s actually harming their chances of being elected. As I said, that’s going to take a lot of people all saying it and making sure their representatives or hopefuls hear it, loud and clear.

If we want that to stop we need them to see that it’s actually harming their chances of being elected.

So you agree, we need to threaten to withhold our vote for Biden, and follow through on the threat if he doesn’t change course?

As I said before, that sort of change is going to take longer than the few months we have left before the election. Right now the choice is Biden or Trump for the next term. It sucks, but that is what it is. Don’t forget the down-ticket elections too.

you need to practice silence, do not speak from ignorance. “Where and when are enough people coming together to say they want” through polls and protests it’s very clear what people want, and elementary to demonstrate a lack of democrats’ fulfillment. democrat voters want abortion legalized federally, they wanted it fucking decades ago, what have the democrats done besides let roe die during their control?

You’re rather illustrating my point. Abortion should absolutely be legal, and the majority do seem to want it (though I fear that might be eroded as the hard-right brain rot spreads), but not enough people were making a fuss about it loudly enough until it was too late. By that I mean there needed to be massive protests about it from the moment people started caring about it to the moment the relevant legislation was passed. Continuous vigilance is also needed to avoid that being later eroded. Unfortunately none of that happened in sufficient numbers.

The difficulty is, of course, that most people don’t care about this sort of thing until it affects them directly, and those who do care get exhausted trying to make it happen without the numbers needed.

Given the current reality though, what would you, personally suggest people should do, and what do you anticipate the result would be?

Where and when are enough people coming together to say they want something different?

Well we’ve tried expressing our disapproval of the genocide on Palestine but the entire country basically called the cops on us. Apparently we have yet to reach a critical mass of people who are against mass murder and ethnic cleaning because the Democrats have made it clear they want a strong Israel, much like how they want there to be a strong Republican party.

Apparently we have yet to reach a critical mass of people who are against mass murder and ethnic cleaning

This is the rather bleak and depressing crux of the matter. Nothing substantial will change until that, or at the very least, that appearance of that indifference changes.

First of all, almost every single poll in history, across most of the planet, has had a majority favouring at least some policy that the bourgeois parties can not and will not accept.

Honest question… how do you possibly rationalise this circular logic to yourself that you absolutely have to vote for a particular party no matter what, whilst also saying that political parties have to chase votes and you can make them change their policies by ‘showing them’ you want something different (but not withdrawing you vote)? You do realise how totally contradictory and incompatible those two things are right?

The president is a bit of a special case, in that there’s one of them, and of the two candidates one has said he wants to be a dictator, whilst also enthusiastically supporting all the worst positions the Dems have taken and wanting to make them more extreme. So, judged between those two one is clearly a less bad option. I’m certainly not saying either is a good option, but that’s the current situation, and anything that increases the risk of trump getting in, especially with a republican majority in one or both houses, is surely a bad idea.

Down-ticket, individuals withholding their votes will have minimal effect teaching them anything. It has to be a large enough groundswell that it can’t be ignored as it’ll effect the outcome. Changes start with the electorate, not with politicians. Get enough people of one mind and then things will change. That is neither easy nor quick to do though, and I don’t see it happening before November.

It’s the one saving grace of an electoral system. Politicians have to chase votes. If they don’t, they don’t get elected. Changing voters minds is the hard part, politicians follow along.

Imagine still believing this

Lol no they don’t. Rhetoric chases people’s votes, the material outcomes are predetermined by the systems of capital ownership, because the solicitation of donations is still the largest determinate of election outcome (outside of incumbency). Regardless if you win or lose, you have to enact policies that benefit your donors, or potential future donors, and given that we are living in the largest historical wealth gap, the material interests of politicians is to rhetorically chase the populace, but actually enact policies that only benefit the wealthy.

As you have so aptly demonstrated, the absolutely piss-poor political education that people in the U.S. receive insures that we will continue to be taken on the ride again and again.

Also, we don’t need to use any thought to reply to you, when you demonstrate so little insight.

solicitation of donations is still the largest determinate of election outcome

Those ‘donations’ are then used to influence voters to vote for the candidate. Votes are the single largest determinate of the outcome of an election because that’s what’s counted. Voters opinions are swayed in a lot of different ways, but I doubt, for instance, a far-right thug, no matter how well funded, could earn your vote. If enough voters to affect the outcome of the election have firm enough convictions that a certain thing is wrong and will not vote for a candidate that supports it, then the candidates in that election will not support it. The difficult part is getting enough people to actually make their position known in a way that can’t be overlooked.

Again, rhetoric is cheap. But access to spread rhetoric from the media requires money, Money requires you to do things that people with money like, which is at odds with your rhetoric. Rinse and fucking repeat. This isn’t hard.

Correct, I will never vote for a far right ‘thug’ which is why I won’t vote for Joe Biden.

You are right, money is required to spread rhetoric in the media, but the dominance of traditional large scale media seems to be waning somewhat as people consume more and more online the avenues to do so multiply, and the cost drops. Considering some of the weird advertising I see around the 'net the cost can’t be all that high now, which hopefully opens up space in people’s focus of attention to receive more diverse messages. This is what I mean by saying voters opinions are swayed in a lot of different ways. Voters, in general, may not entirely agree with you, but present a compelling enough case as to why one side is worth voting for, or the other side isn’t, you do see a swing in voting. Populists exploit this very effectively because it’s what they’re good at. The rest of the political spectrum needs to wake up to it and make their case in ways that actually resonate with voters.

they literally don’t when all they have to say is “we are better than the other guys” and you morons lap it up and go “next election we will really pressure them for sure”

If there aren’t enough people making a noise about what’s happening, why would they change? Getting that critical mass is the hard part. Ultimately this system claims to be democratic, so outcomes only changes under sufficient electoral presure.

spoiler: it’s not democratic and never has been

I did say ‘claims’. The point is that unless a significant proportion of the electorate are demanding a specific change it’s less likely to be made. If enough people demand it in exchange for votes a politician can’t ignore the issue without losing their next election and being replaced.

Politicians have to chase votes

No they fucking don’t? You already admited that they will let the republicans do what ever they want and not fight back. Why the hell would they chase votes if you already “have” to vote for them “because there no other choice.” What are you going to do? Vote for the republicans? You have no leverage and they own you.

The time to be making them start chasing is at the beginning of their term, not at the end, and there need to be enough people doing it to make a difference to the outcome for it to matter. A few people trying to change the direction of the main political parties is like someone in a kayak trying to redirect an oil tanker. First you need to change the captain’s mind, or in this case the electorate’s mind. Then you have the numbers to make it infeasible for politicians to ignore you.

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Democrats: You have to vote for democrats to stop Trump from round up people and shipping them to concentration camps for slave labor.(hexbear.net)

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