Slightly OT, but this is also why we absolutely need ranked voting ASAP. How much better would a candidate like Sanders do if people knew that voting for him as first choice and Biden as second was possible?
Well he lost the primaries, which is when you vote for the candidate you really want. But he lost the primaries because the DNC aired a never ending stream of bullshit telling the people it was impossible for Sanders to win, and then pointing to the current super delegate polls as evidence. Idk why people are terrified of voting for a losing candidate in the primaries though. Who gives a fuck if your vote loses in the primaries? You should vote for the candidate you want, not the one you think is going to win. It’s not a casino bet.
The closed primary system is just so fucked in general, these are private organizations that can do whatever they want, the DNC and the RNC.
I still don’t like Debbie Wasserman Schultz. She was literally marched out of the DNC office because of the bias she showed towards Hillary Clinton in leaked emails. Then she gets hired by the Clinton campaign!
Shit was so crazy.
Decades ago I changed my voter registration just because I was tired of not being able to vote in the primaries. I think they’ve changed that since then, but I don’t know, since it doesn’t impact me anymore.
I think some states require that you be registered to the party for primaries and some have open primaries.
The thing is, because the final vote for president isn’t ranked choice, the spoiler effect is also spoiling the primary. People will vote for the candidate they think can will at the national level, else Trump might win.
If you had ranked choice voting at the actual election, only then would the spoiler effect be fixed.
Now no offence to the US political system but the primaries are a symptom of a two party system.
Without them and with ranked choice voting, y’all would have had Sanders (edit: in 2016) and we wouldn’t be having this discussion.
Much love. I mean it.
No offense taken. Even our first president and founding father, George Washington advised against a bicameral system.
Who knows what we’d have. We could grow vibrant third parties, too.
They should just pick a dictator for life, would save them a lot of money and the result would be the same.
The left-ish party did the exact same thing to Teddy Roosevelt in 1916. They chose to fall on their sword and get a slavery denier in office rather than let the somewhat progressive (for the time) Roosevelt be their candidate (at the time, Roosevelt was allowed to run for a 3rd term). Liberals do not care about making things better, they care about protecting the status quo. Roosevelt would have won if not for liberal interference via their backing of Taft, just like Bernie would have.
I remember learning from my college history professor that when Upton Sinclair ran for governor of California, the Democrats teamed up with the Republicans to ensure he did not win. They would rather lose than let a socialist run the state. Even with their meddling he very nearly won the election with 37% of the votes. That is a lesson the American people should really take to heart. The established parties have more in common with each other than they do with their constituency.
Liberals do not care about making things better, they care about protecting the status quo.
Thanks for the snort-laugh.
Nice complete non-refutation of my point.
Yes, but I remember numerous people being like “Well he could never win against Trump, so I’m voting for Biden.”
Ranked choice isn’t that much better. It is better, but very slightly. We need to implement STAR, which is vastly better even at its worst. Essentially, it’s just a 0-5 vote for candidates, and any empty is a 0. It allows you to rank some at the same and then some as “better than nothing” leading to a well rounded choice that most people approve of.
People love ranked choice voting but not whats involved with getting it instituted.
Can you elaborate?
Voting for candidates that support it.
Here’s an interesting anecdote. The people of Shelby County, TN elected to enact ranked choice voting in the county (it was a ballot option 2 elections ago). It hasn’t been signed into law yet.
So at least in this case, I’d say the problem isn’t people not voting, it’s nefarious agents succeeding in subverting the feeble democratic processes in this country to act against the people’s interest.
Could pls explain what OT stands for?
Situation sucks. But, with Cheeto chimp it’ll suck 1000X more.
Don’t be complacent. Don’t be apathetic.
How exactly os trump worse than the guy aiding in a genocide?
Biden is supporting a genocide, Trump wants to go full Foucault’s Boomerang and bring the genocide home.
This is posted in political humor, but unfortunately, it’s not a joke.
Nor do I find it humorous.
But one day I hope I can laugh about it.
Probability you will cry instead is 100%.
Politicalhumor both on Reddit and here is for agendaposting. There is no funny to be had.
And before you down vote me, I’m not republican or conservative in any fashion.
Idk… what you just said made me laugh, so…
I am not familiar with the US system. Is it really realistic that a US president can abolish or fundamentally change the rules around the democratic process?
Not him specifically, but there are multiple plans and machinations in motion, by other Republicans, to stack every level of government with 10s of thousands of loyalists who will do whatever they want, so that if he tried 2020 again, they’ll just roll over and enact it.
They’re similar to the shit he’s tried before. If people do their jobs there’s no room for him to succeed.
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No, what you’re reading here is over the top fear mongering to try and get people to vote for their side. That why everyone who doesn’t toe the line are now “facist.” Because if you can get people to become afraid they’ll vote against their own interests (and as much as they like to claim they do, the DNC in no way is working in our own interests)
I don’t know much about US politics, but is Biden the only choice you have besides voting for Trump? There’s zero alternatives? I’ve seen in the comments that people prefer Biden to other democrat candidates, because he already beat Trump already, so it has better chances to beat him again. But realistically, it seems like everyone hates Trump with a burning passion, so any Democrat that is not batshit insane and totally incompetent would beat him, right? Seems like an easy win.
It’s a first past the post system with only two major political parties. That means the choice is either the selected Democrat or the selected Republican, who are elected via a complex primary process that differs from state to state.
Voting third party in the U.S. achieves absolutely nothing. Especially when there are almost never third party choices for lower office, aside from the libertarians and they’re nuts. If you are determined to not vote for any Democrats or Republicans, your vote has the same effect as staying home and not voting.
I would love this to change, but I don’t foresee that happening anytime soon.
Hey, chin up. If the batshit nuts right wing of the GOP keep going the way they are maybe we’ll get a brand spanking new fascist third party. Lol, third party achieved!
Tangent for a moment: I’m kind of curious, if we could somehow encourage more stupidity on the right. Perhaps, the GOP would fracture into two parties.
In the short term, it could give Dems a large say in everything. Bolstered by the fact that the hard right is very performative and not really interested in doing any real work. In the more medium term, maybe that would finally give some freedom to open the door for more Dems and voters to peel off into yet another party.
I guess at that point, the danger is the right would then realize the situation. Rally their fractured party and completely ice out Dems and whatever left party that came out of the above. Multipolar politics at the party level could get really freaking scary too.
I really doubt the GOP splits. As much as the Trump and anti-Trump factions of the party dislike each other, they’re stuck together by the evil of strategic voting. We would need a different voting system to allow the existence of a third party that doesn’t also act as a spoiler.
It does not achieve absolutely nothing. It sends a message of policy requirements to obtain a percentage of votes. Meaning, if dems lose enough elections by a margin that is seen voting elsewhere they will have to move their policy to secure those votes and start winning again. The problem now is with trump threatening our freedoms and democracy, we can’t afford to teach those stubborn centrists a lesson in true progressive policy.
I see, so Trump has to win in order to teach Democrats a lesson and you will teach them that by doing something they will never know you did.
That doesn’t seem especially rational to me.
If you actually fully read my comment, you would realize there was no point for yours.
I read it. If that’s not what you meant, what did you mean?
Go a reread the last sentence in my statement and explain how that implies trump has to win. Ive clearly stated the problem is with trump running, we can’t afford to lose to teach the dem establishment a lesson.
You know what is even less rational? Parroting the same shit that has been repeated ad nauseum by liberals for the past 40 years and then expecting an improved outcome.
What this actually does is tell the Democratic Party that you’re unreliable and shouldn’t be catered to. Have you ever noticed how the Democratic Party gives a disproportionately prominent place to Black women? That’s because they have a long history of getting themselves involved and working to get others to the polls. Effective activists work as part of something greater.
That’s not how this works. That’s not how any of this works.
Democrats losing your vote to a 3rd party doesn’t trigger some kind of response within the party that will push them to embrace the tactics of the 3rd party that siphoned off your vote. If anything, it demonstrates to them that they should maybe push further right in an attempt to court Trump voters. But it’s cute that you believe you’re making a difference.
Congratulations. Instead of holding your nose and voting for the one guy who COULD beat trump and avoid sending the country into fascism, your principled stand allowed a fascist to rise to power AND sent Democrats the message that people prefer fascism.
What’s frustrating is that that logic works with preferential voting, but because the USA is using a shitty FPTP system, you’re right.
What it can do eventually is destory the democratic party, then since we are in a two party system a new more leftist party can finally move in. Afterall one of the most important parts of the Democratic party is to make sure people like Bernie, let alone anyone to left of him, have no chance to be elected. They are the biggest barrier to progress.
They are the biggest barrier to progress.
You sure about that?
Don’t let perfect be the enemy of not letting mask off fascists back to into a position of ultimate authority.
Yes I am sure. Everytime someone to the left of Bernie get’s anywhere close to power you will hear democrats like Pelosi or Schumer have “concerns” about reaching across the isle, the budget for things like universal healthcare. You’ll have them tout truisms like “we need to be a united not divided in the face of terrorism.” Just look at who fund the democrats on the local levels, parasites like land-lords, insurance companies, banks. All of these industries thrive under the status-quo. You think they want progressive taxation, universal healthcare, or non-profit banking?
There’s zero alternatives?
Well, no, but actually yes.
Legend tells that the primaries are where the vote for your candidate of choice actually counts, but as 2016 showed, they are allowed to and will happpily ignore it in favor of the party’s selected ghoul.
So, yeah, it’s a pick between the mostly bad and the completely utterly awful.
I’m an American and so far as I’m aware, 70% of the country would vote for a wet sock if over Biden if only one would run.
Weird, I was sold almost the exact same line in 2020.
Did something change since 2020?
And then they actually tried to do exactly what the meme predicts. We are just lucky that the magas were too stupid
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This was the same promise in 2020. And yet here we are. Democrats should have done better than beg to save democracy one more time.
Preserving democracy was never going to be a single-step solution process. It takes consistent, persistent work to not only expand, but to just maintain our liberty for all. It’s a tower defense strategy game.
At the close of the Constitutional Convention of 1787, a lady asked Benjamin Franklin “Well Doctor what have we got, a republic or a monarchy.” Franklin replied, “A republic . . . if you can keep it.” This existential threat has always been there and it’s something to always be wary of. It’s exhausting, but it’s worth it. Freedom ain’t free.
It wasn’t really a concern until recently. We didn’t have constant threats against democracy from within our own government when I was a kid.
Until recently? We had a little thing called the Civil War that was a bit of a speed bump, too.
That’s why I added the part about “when I was a kid”. I suppose I should have clarified that I’m talking about within my lifetime. There have definitely been other dark moments in our history.
To be fair “when I was a kid” is a rough estimation that typically can range about a 0-60 year timespan or more.
So, Nixon & Watergate wasn’t a threat?
Citizens United wasn’t a threat?
And don’t forget the constant attempts of voter ID laws in Republican states.
Gerrymandering by incumbent parties.
Poling booth closures and inaccessibility.
As five examples of an endless, constant stream from Republicans.
You just have no fucking idea what you’re talking about.
That is all bad, but it’s not “we’re going to cancel voting and stay in power indefinitely” bad, which is what people fear from the Republican party now. It’s not “we led a group of fanatics to Capitol Hill in an attempt to overthrow democracy” bad.
If it wasn’t clear, I wasn’t saying it was an unreasonable fear. They attempted a literal coup. It’s a legitimate fear.
I think I misread your post. Sorry.
You can just tell everyone you are an idiot instead of suggesting you know something they don’t.
“You ever notice whenever the republicans do something terrible or prevent something good from happening, it’s always the democrats fault?” -Fucking idiots everywhere.
Nina Turner said it years ago… our “choices” were a full bowl of sh!t or a half bowl of sh!t… https://youtu.be/X1ObX0iDRjo
can you really call this two party system a democracy
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Yeah but we don’t have to eat shit to survive do we? So why the fuck are we acting like Biden was our only choice. What kind of stupid analogy is this?
In 2028 a mummified version of Biden will be put forward as candidate until 2032, when a new act in place allow for digital avatars to be president and digital Obama comes back with Yes We Can, Again!
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The new existence of this fringe took everyone left of Lindsey Graham by surprise in 2016. It’s not conspiracies all the way down. These people exist and the sooner we realize the center is not where we imagined it was the sooner we can get on with governing and protecting the whole country and not just the little blue parts that like us.
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I don’t disagree with that, all I’m saying is almost 50% of America really is ready to risk tearing it all down and the truth is only a small number of them would be willing to vote Democrat under any circumstances. For both Democrats and center Republicans, divide and conquer seems the only available strategy. A true third party is the hope of many, but I don’t think they could be left of Biden, and the space on the right is a madhouse. They’d have to basically fall from space in a shower of glory to cut through the mud at this point
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I don’t blame you. I agree neither party really wants the things I think we desperately need.
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It’s not a democracy, and those are very much features.
Nah, it’s bugs. This shit is 234 years old. The failure of fptp nor primaries was part of the plan.
FPTP was used by England since the middle ages. I don’t believe anyone worked out the math until much later than 1776. It was just a fairly old tradition.
Exactly, fptp is fine in small groups and for single issues. How it fails at national scales was something unknown.
The fact that it was something unknown, directly implies that it wasn’t “part of the plan,” as you already directly stated. The founding fathers were working with the best tools they could, they still made mistakes, but that’s a totally different argument.
The plan was completely derailed between 1874 and 1929. The (completely unnamed in any documents) Secretary of The Congress illegally revised statute 1983 of the federal code in 1874, and no one noticed and alerted the general public until 5/15/23.
In 1929 The House of Representatives decided that they would stop actually legislating by fixing the number of Representatives to the 1930 census, and never bothering to expand The House ever again, despite The Constitution saying that no Representative shall represent more than 250,000-500,000 constituents.
These two actions by dubious actors in the latter case, and a traitor to the constitution in the former case, have caused almost 90% of the issues we currently have in The US, trying to hold anyone accountable, or trying to elect officials that will bother listening to us.
Democracy 0.0.1alpha1
DemoCrac-y 0.0.1alpha1*
I look at this fom a far and i wonder: Why do the democrats not just get a younger more capable person to vote for?
Because they’re part of the system run by the wealthy and powerful, and younger peeps not only have to claw their way into that microcosm, but are often then bought out / corrupted by that very system.
Democrats are a party of capital, which resist the young for two reasons:
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They do not hold capital in any capacity that can be compared to older generations
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As a result, they are overwhelmingly more anti-capital than previous generations.
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Because they’re internally struggling against them.
In practice the Democratic Party establishment simply does not want a younger or more capable person.
Old and/or ineffectual is the perfect candidate for the corporate donor class.
How would that help old fucks like Feinstein (rest in piss), Pelosi, Biden et al make more money or their corporate masters though?
Because they are as corrupt as the Republicans are. The democratic party will never fix America only a third party can.
The ‘viable’ third party candidates in my lifetime so far have been Ross Perot, Ralph Nader and RFK, Jr. None of them had a real chance and all of them were one flavor or another of crazy.
So maybe a third party can fix things, but none of the ones that have ever had a chance within the past 46 years.
Ron Paul was viable but ran as a republican and got the establishment treatment despite insane support from the younger generations. His party prevented him from being a 2nd name on the ballot for Republicans. Then many years later, the exact same thing happened to Bernie who was fucked over from a 2nd spot on the ballot by a last second rule change vote at the democratic convention when the nays clearly outweighed the yays. Both times those respective parties lost those elections. Both times they would have won should they have gone with the people that would have brought about change to our political systems. The establishment doesn’t care about losing. Only preserving itself.
The libertarian racist Ron Paul was not in any way viable. That’s nonsense. You show me a single poll where it showed like he would have made it into the Oval Office if he had done things differently.
I know you Ron Paul fans think he’s awesome, but he’s a paeloconservative shitbag that would rather people die in the streets than tax the rich.
Once you’re so far gone that you will only choose between “genocide guy” and “a little more genocide guy” it’s Joever.
Okay. Name the candidate aside from Trump or Biden that has a good chance of winning in 2024. Go ahead. Because otherwise, as I keep suggesting, it looks to me like a vote for someone else is no better than no vote at all.
I keep asking what it achieves and I’m not getting an answer.
If all you care about achieving is “I feel good about myself,” fine. But that doesn’t seem like a reason to make the effort to vote.
What is your obsession with only voting for who you personally think can win?
My “obsession” is stopping Trump and Project 2025 so that I’ll be able to vote again ever.
Well you better stop voting for the parties of Capital then. Your vote is already almost meaningless, so use it to make a better world before its too late!
Whichever you want.
The Liberatian party seems like a decent alternative to the Dems so you could go for Jo Jorgensen. But anything that isn’t Republican or Democrats is a requirement for a moral vote.
The Liberatian party seems like a decent alternative to the Dems so you could go for Jo Jorgensen.
In what way are Libertarians an alternative to Democrats? Democrats want a strong social safety net and Libertarians want a government so small you could drown it in a bathtub.
You either know nothing about Libertarians or nothing about Democrats.
If you care about the cultural freedoms they’re the same. Also the non intervention policies are a lot better than throwning all your money into the military industrial complex which you seem to call “Healthcare”.
Else you got the Greens.
Unless of course you want everything the Democrats do including the genocide part. Then I can’t help ya.
ROFL!
As we all know, politics only happens when you vote for president every 4 years.
Joe Biden has the authority to resign. Joe Biden can choose to not run in 2024. If he cared about preserving democracy, he would let someone more electible take his place.
If things go wrong, it’s the fault of the people in power.
Joe Biden has already beat Donald Trump in an election. More electable makes no sense in this context.
The only way Biden could lose is if some of the people who voted for him last time, after everything that’s happened since Trump lost the election, decide ‘ehh, that Trump guy wasn’t so bad, let’s give him another shot’ and decide not to vote against Trump.
Biden won an election during Covid lockdown where he wasn’t expected to actually campaign. I don’t think he can win again. It’s sad, but he’s an awful candidate.
Literally anyone can beat Trump, but they are gonna push Biden who might not, because reasons? Source: https://archive.ph/2023.11.07-084936/https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/11/06/an-ominous-poll-democrats-what-it-says-about-biden-alternative/
The incumbent president has only lost 10 times in US history (and one of those was Trump). Biden already beat Trump once. Who has a better resume than that?
Seriously. Tell us a name.
Not to mention Biden actually had a great run and got a shitload done, but this is what you get when you have 24/7 banana republic propaganda blaring in people’s homes.
Came here to say this. If the dems actually cared about winning and preserving any last inkling of democracy the states still has then they would replace Biden with literally any other candidate.
I’m all ears, who would be the better candidate? Because I want that person running for Senate in all the states that might be up for grabs.
The president won’t matter if we lose control of the Senate AND the house. Well either be fucked or stuck in a deadlock like we are now
We literally do not live in a democracy according to a bunch of empirical studies, and also according to basic material analysis.
The opinion of the masses is never reflected in our government.
Does your politics begin and end at participating in sham elections? Why aren’t you encouraging people to take meaningful political action?
Imagine being Russian and the extent of your political activism is encouraging people to vote Putin out.
That’s how ridiculous you are.
What meaningful political action do you propose?
We live in a republic democracy which, yes, differs from an outright democracy.
We do not live in a republic democracy, we live in a republic dictatorship of capital.
What is your definition of “meaningful political action”? Picking up guns? Got news for you, the government has more of them.
Voting starts at the local level. You vote people into local city government who reflect your views and values. Those people often enough have greater aspirations and want to move up in the political machine. It’s extremely rare for someone to be vaulted from average Joe to major political player in one leap. Trump was able to do it by being a populist piece of shit who could pay his way into office.
You have to start small. Get your city council to look like you, then move on to the county, the state, etc.
Meaningful political action includes raising class consciousness, it includes materially supporting strikes and protests, if you wanna pick up guns, cool, but there’s a spectrum of things you can do that are more helpful than voting for whoever isn’t Trump, and safer than openly picking fights with the pigs.
What is your definition of “meaningful political action”? Picking up guns? Got news for you, the government has more of them.
Do you really think the two options for politics are voting in sham elections and WACO?
Voting starts at the local level. You vote people into local city government who reflect your views and values. Those people often enough have greater aspirations and want to move up in the political machine. It’s extremely rare for someone to be vaulted from average Joe to major political player in one leap. Trump was able to do it by being a populist piece of shit who could pay his way into office.
You have to start small. Get your city council to look like you, then move on to the county, the state, etc.
Local elections are also pretty much a “which landlord can pay the most money and be the least repulsive”
You have to build parallel power structures before you can meaningfully influence any electoral structure, including local ones.
We literally do not live in a democracy according to a bunch of empirical studies, and also according to basic material analysis.
As far as I know, there is one study, and even that is under dispute on secondary analysis of the underlying data.
Okay, now analyze how public opinion is formed and who owns the mechanisms that form it
Once upon a time that would have been a simple answer, given the concentrated ownership of news that could reach any one person. But now with the Internet, there is less and less control by any one group. Certainly the age of the rich effectively controlling the media is over.
But now with the Internet, there is less and less control by any one group. Certainly the age of the rich effectively controlling the media is over.
Pr teams have successfully learned how to use social media, and social media giants promote views that are beneficial to them like fascism while suppressing left wing content.
I dont think the internet existing makes us a democracy, the parasocial nature of a lot of internet content actually makes it so people are more able to sell their propaganda.
There is plenty of media that exists outside of media giants. Case in point, there is a local blogger here in Portland, OR that runs bikeportland.org to cover bikes and related subjects. His blog posts and discussions on them are a major part of the local discourse around infrastructure in Portland. He’s not rich, but he exercises influence.
Okay, but you do see how thats pretty boutique compared to the local news channels, let alone the giants, right?
Small things are allowed to exist that oppose the dominant ideology until they meaningfully threaten it.
Any grassroots media is going to be “boutique”. That doesn’t make it not influential, especially when considered as a whole.
Still a democracy though.
A Sham democracy.
If the bourgeoisie decide elections through lobbying and media it isnt a democracy in a meaningful sense.
They don’t exactly decide, they influence the decision. Why don’t you votee that for their goals?
They don’t exactly decide, they influence the decision.
“The didn’t do that, they just did something that will predictably result in that”
It doesn’t work perfectly and humanity pushes back over time. The issue is the pace of technology is too fast for our ability to push back. I’m hopeful our good side will win but I’m afraid it will take deaths by the millions again for people to wake up and fight back against the real enemies among us.
This is just untrue though.
This is just untrue though
You just can’t reconcile the fact people don’t vote how you want, therefore the system must be broken. And spreading voting apathy by telling people it’s all bullshit is one of the most damaging things you could do to your democracy. You’re better for Trump than most Republicans.
You just can’t reconcile the fact people don’t vote how you want, therefore the system must be broken.
You just can’t reconcile that your high school civics textbook lied about how the US operates.
Maybe the democrats should pull their heads up from their asses and realize that “vote for us or else” doesn’t have the rallying power they think it does, especially when they’re repeating it every election cycle.
Just some thoughts from someone outside the US.
It’s like they don’t actually care and are actively courting fascism to use it as a boogy man rather than helping change things for the better.
Fuck em both I’m voting for Brandon.
Most lib shit ever. “Every election is the most important one”. When are people going to realize you are always voting for rich fuckers who don’t care about you
Lots of lib copium in the comments too.
it’s just a matter of whether you’re voting for the rich psychopath or the rich geriatric.
seems an easy choice to me
It’s sad how the US spends trillions on defense, when all it takes to seize control over the nation is some bottom tier Dollar Store propaganda that any third world nation could afford.
