Primaries are for voting with your heart, the general is for voting strategically
Primaries are for pretending we’re a functioning democracy. The general is for acceptance.
I’m sorry, it’s probably considered some sort of a smug European truism by now, but I have to say it. There is no left in the US two-party system. It’s right or center-right, that’s the choices you have, a giant douche or a turd sandwich.
There is but you have to think of each party as having sub-parties within them. There aren’t external coalitions between parties but internal coalitions within the parties.
So a guy like Bernie Sanders is left, though not technically a Democrat, he caucuses with the Democrats effectively creating a coalition. There are many members within the Democratic Party that are also left wing, and others that are center, and others that could be considered right wing.
The Republicans are similar, but have an internal coalition with the far right MAGA faction. Which causes them a lot of problems.
The primary system is effectively a run off system which is used to determine a final two candidates to vote for in the final election. This system is old and has some bizarre traditions and has vulnerabilities to there being a third party spoiling everything.
Obviously it’s a crusty system that developed without planning, but the the Presidential election it’s not that dissimilar to France’s run-off system, just takes more time. And the legislatures having coalitions between people with different politics happens everywhere, it’s just happening within the parties and requires people to vote in primaries to get more representatives that have similar views to their own to make up a greater percentage of the coalition (which also happens everywhere).
In fact having coalitions within a party gives people more information when voting. If I’m voting for one of a dozen parties I don’t have a say over how a coalition is formed after an election. Someone declaring which coalition they intend to be a part of before the electorate votes gives the electorate both a say as to which individual they want (via primaries) and which coalition they want (in the general election).
This isn’t true in a global sense, nor is it true in a practical sense. There is a left in America, but it is tiny and rarely successful. Most liberal democracies are to the right of American Democrats at the global level on most issues. Every country has drifted rightward over the past half century, so the US isn’t unique.
It can be both true that there is no true Left with any political power in the US - individual congressional delegates, maybe, but no coalition or party - and still recognize that there remain differences in the parties and differing outcomes from their governance.
It’s not anything like the Southpark situation; leftists forget so easily what could - and has - been lost under conservative leadership, that would not have been lost if the person who won the popular vote in the past 6 elections. Women would still have protected body autonomy in all states - that loss was a direct consequence of the Trump administration.
If Biden wanted my vote he could simply stop supporting genocide. Really quite a low bar for him to clear.
There’s “holding your nose” and there’s voting for someone actively aiding a genocide.
Stop acting like Biden is just being lied to by Israel and is some helpless victim. He is absolutely responsible for his continued allowance of the genocide of Palestinians. Hold your politicians to a higher standard.
So the CIA, NSA, … are just a bunch of idiots that can’t have info on their own? Then why spend so much money on them?
Do you really believe not voting for Biden deceases the likelihood of genocide in Gaza? Because the alternative seems so much worse in every way, both for Gaza and so many other massively important issues
You are on a different and better level. You are a Chad consequentialist. Managing probabilities, shooting for the best outcomes, minimizing losses. Setting up the group of ideologically aligned leaders for future success. Fighting off fascism for four more years against all odds.
They are a weak feelings voter. Hopes Biden senpai will notice them and throwing a temper tantrum when he doesn’t. Talks about genocide, but doesn’t actually care if Trump will handle the genocide any differently than Biden. Wants everyone else to suffer because they are suffering. Hoping if Trump gets elected that someone else will do the hard work and fighting to fix everything. Is burned out on politics, but instead of not voting quietly, makes big posts about how not voting is actually a good and very smart idea because they can’t handle the fact that they need to rest.
Note: I despise Trump.
Maybe it does… But not in the way many think.
Imagine Trump wins, starts doing the shit he is saying he will do and the outcome is a civil war. I think Israel would stop being something the US would think about. And then the genocide stops… At least in one direction. But given the bad blood there is now there…
And I’m sure letting trump have an easier time getting elected will make things so much better.
I would recommend talking to your local representatives about the current situation and how important it is to you and expressing how you may support other people running against them if they don’t support a ceasefire.
Local elections are really important.
And letting the greater evil in at the local level!!!1?!! Just admit you love Putin smdh smhmh
This is the stance I really don’t understand. You do know that if Trump wins, even the limp-wristed calls for constraint go away? That Trump will actively encourage and endorse the genocide? That things will get measurably worse for the Palestinians?
I really do want to understand how people who hold this particular position think not voting for Biden will improve the lot of the Palestinians. Please, enlighten me.
I won’t vote for someone who’s pro genocide. It’s pretty simple.
People who aid and abet genocide don’t get my vote.
Biden’s not changing course, so he clearly thinks he can win just with the votes of people who are okay voting for a pro-genocide candidate. That’s his call to make.
I live in a red state so it doesn’t make any difference who I vote for. I’m not voting for Biden because I don’t want to support the Democrats and my vote doesn’t matter anyway. If I lived in a state where it mattered then I would probably vote for Biden because he’s not Trump.
Please still vote though! At least rest of the way down the ballot. The more local the office the more weight your vote has. Plus there is legislation to vote on. Sorry if you were already planning to, this was also more for anyone who agreed with the sentiment and will stay home.
Agreed. Local candidates and referendum votes are often more directly impactful to local communities.
Things like legalization of weed, protection of abortion rights, and ranked choice voting usually show up as referendum votes. And when it comes to how homelessness, police, financial aid, schools, etc. in your area are managed, that’s all local politics.
Accelerationism is literally foreign propaganda, and has its roots in a few European leftists that had their views hijacked as a way of pushing radicalisation to status quo liberals.
It’s literally nonsense, and the equivalent of Christian Zionism / eschatology in that it’s a set of incredibly harmful, baseless beliefs that advocate for mass misery in the name of vague hope of an accelerated magical delivery of human kind to a new era of happiness and joy.
I used to know a poli-sci researcher who was trying to take a big-data look at the success and failure of revolutions, taking in variables like “how many demonstrators rallied against the government?” “How many dissidents were disappeared by internal security forces?” and even things like “how many bullet holes are there on the buildings around the main protest venue in the capital?”
I asked him once if he’d discovered the secret to a successful revolution, and he just grimaced at me.
I love how people take the Soviet revolution as some sort of example of success, when what actually happened was that the original government collapsed because it was getting the shit kicked out of it by Germany, then a new government took over and got the shit kicked out it of by Germany before also collapsing, then the Bolsheviks strolled into literally empty government buildings and took over - against the judgement of most of the Bolsheviks who still thought the time wasn’t right to take over. Hardly a replicable or generalizable sequence of events.
American here, asking genuinely: how was the American revolution unsuccessful? My understanding is that the goal was to make the British go away, and that they did accomplish that in the end. What am I missing?
The goal wasn’t to make the British go away, the goal was to have representation and more than half of the people in the colonies weren’t even for the revolution. This is why they dressed up as natives for the Boston tea party so they could blame that shit on the natives.
The support of independence wasn’t much till Paul Revere demonized the Boston massacre into being much more villainous than it was.
The colonies kinda got what they want in revolution with the articles of confederation but with the rise of the federalists the US was created as a V2 of the British empire.
What’s a little Third Reich here or Reign of Terror there between friends, eh? Besides , it’s not like a little bit of anti-intellectual purging or nationwide famine isn’t worth enduring to get to a better world for the people left afterwards!
re the reign of terror. Extremely bad yes but I think this quote by mark Twain highlights flaws in how we think about this stuff.
THERE were two “Reigns of Terror,” if we would but remember it and consider it; the one wrought murder in hot passion, the other in heartless cold blood; the one lasted mere months, the other had lasted a thousand years; the one inflicted death upon ten thousand persons, the other upon a hundred millions; but our shudders are all for the “horrors” of the minor Terror, the momentary Terror, so to speak; whereas, what is the horror of swift death by the axe, compared with lifelong death from hunger, cold, insult, cruelty, and heart-break? What is swift death by lightning compared with death by slow fire at the stake? A city cemetery could contain the coffins filled by that brief Terror which we have all been so diligently taught to shiver at and mourn over; but all France could hardly contain the coffins filled by that older and real Terror—that unspeakably bitter and awful Terror which none of us has been taught to see in its vastness or pity as it deserves.
Mark Twain, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court
They were trying to throw off a horrifically oppressive system that had been going on centuries. Defs killed too many innocents, defs had problems with paranoia. Also the lesser violence in the struggle between nobles and everyone else.
The book is awesome btw
North Korea 2024
People don’t seem to realize, as it becomes easier to automate and maintain oppressive systems, the more scarce that democracy will be. Ask Russians.
Trying to switch the term Troglodyte with Luddite makes your comment even more ironic. The British government ultimately dispatched 12,000 troops to suppress Luddite activity, and as Lord Byron denounced “I have been in some of the most oppressed provinces of Turkey; but never, under the most despotic of infidel governments, did I behold such squalid wretchedness as I have seen since my return, in the very heart of a Christian country”.
It isn’t the technology, it’s how it’s used, and authoritarians are being much quicker on the uptake because of the iffiness of democratic infighting that has also been unable to topple, suppress, or even stop the power of authoritarian states from growing.
Authoritarianism is extremely vulnerable to natural disasters, ask Syria. Climate change will ultimately being about the collapse of all authoritarianism because there simply won’t be enough excess to support hierarchy. The question is if we will be smart enough to being about that change before material conditions force it to happen.
You’re trying to read too much into this.
When the state doesn’t work for enough people anymore, it collapses into fascism. It always does. Unless it collapses to foreign forces of course.
Accelerationism at this point is merely an argument for liberals to convince people who are not fascists to support their liberalism as a lesser danger.
It won’t work. Liberalism will have to do something, not the people who don’t believe the bullshit anymore. And interestingly, throughout history, liberals always choose fascism over anything else that would remove them some power.
So don’t pretend it’s up to the leftists to choose. You, the liberals, did this to the world. Time to open your eyes.
Liberalism is responsible for this fascist doom, not the left. That’s not only true for the US. That’s also true for all of Europe. Liberals vanquished the left. Now is the time to fight fascism. That’s what you earned. The left will fight. Will the liberals do it?
Accelerationism at this point is merely an argument for liberals to convince people who are not fascists to support their liberalism as a lesser danger.
You make me mad. You make me mad because you’ve deluded yourself into believing fatalistic death cult BS, willing to drag other people down with you. Liberals might be deluded and wrong, but you’re honestly worse. Liberals are more open minded than you, more hopeful than you, and believe in building a popular coalition. I don’t care if you recognize capitalism is bad, you’re not helping anyone do anything about it.
“Eat shit and die” is what I’m hearing from your empty justifications for inaction. I’ve barely started living my life, and you’re saying “it just needs to end. Sorry. Nothing to be done.” I like my life, unlike you apparently, so I’m going to reject your ideas emphatically.
Fuck your opinion. Just like fascist dribble, it deserves no respect.
Another thing : my view is not doomerism. I merely stop to fight for the liberals. Chaos bring opportunities. Liberals are doing everything to keep a status that’s rottening. They are actively supporting fascism to keep the status quo. I’m not sure if they’re blinding themselves into believing that they can keep the fascism away, or if they are actively pushing for it willingly. But it’s happening.
I’m not saying that all is lost and there’s no hope. I’m saying that helping the liberals today is only helping the fascists tomorrow. Things will get worse. That’s not doomerism, that’s a hard fact. Something must be done now.
Sorry, but there aren’t opportunities in chaos. That’s some cringe edgelord larping. There are no opportunities gained in chaos, only death and suffering.
Honestly, your goofy accelerationism seems more like the cope of someone that’s given up what they see as “the first game.” You think you can come back in the second game and win a best of 3. Again, I’m sorry to disappoint, but there probably won’t be a 2nd game for you unless you’re incredibly lucky.
I’m not betting on a second chance. There’s no benefit to not trying my hardest on game 1 if won’t do much to improve my chances of making it to game 2. If your strategy is to hide, you’re a privileged coward. Most people won’t have that chance, and betting that you aren’t most people is wistful thinking.
You don’t understand. I did not deluded myself to anything. I abandoned a system that’s working against so many people.
The question is not for the left whether to support liberals or fascists. The question is for liberals whether to support socialism or fascism. It’s the people in power who get to choose. And liberals are in power for so many decades that they have no excuse for the shit we’re in now.
The system is broken, fucked, dysfunction, shitty, and unacceptable. That doesn’t change the fact that it’s better than openly genocidal fascism. I might die under Democrats; I will die under Republicans.
We inherently lack freedom of choice on most things. You don’t choose the class of your parents. You don’t choose your gender, sex, attraction, neurotypicality, ethnicity, race, culture, or access to learning as a child. You have to play the cards you’re given.
In a purely descriptive sense, Republican control will result in every bad thing that would happen under Democrats, plus all the promises they’re making about LGBTQ genocide, absurd deregulation, removal of every social program, invading Mexico, targeted prosecution of political threats, and mandatory fascist propaganda in schools. Those are just some of consequences id Republicans win.
The cost of the 2nd amendment is thousands of deaths from guns every year that wouldn’t have happened without it. 2nd amendment advocates constantly ignore that consequence. If you try to show it to them, they mentally cannot perceive it. They ignore the costs and live in the delusion that they get a free lunch. A lot of conservative logic hinges on ignoring “externalities,” that they don’t personally have to deal with. They love talking about basic economics, but their supposed worldview cannot accept it.
Even the cynical conservatives are often living a delusion. They recognize the direct pain they cause to poor people, but they fail to recognize the long term cost of their behavior. Encouraging global fascism has the adorable effect of increasing the risk of global conflict. Just as most liberals ignored the fascism that capitalism leads to, fascists ignore the serious war that nationalism leads to.
Modern war between nations cannot be won by the participants. Liberals aren’t much better on this front, nor are many socialists for that matter. The reality is that we need deescalation or everyone might lose. We don’t just need to not accelerate, we need to slam on the breaks. The odds are stacked against success, but fueling the fire is joining the global death cult that fascists and liberals are unwittingly leading.
In short, you’re thinking small like humans are designed to do. Humans are dangerous, so not trying to exploit them isn’t just morally right, but prudent.
