Thank you. I really don’t get those people.
And I mean, the Democratic party doesn’t exist in a vacuum. If you don’t try to change anything, of course the awful “moderates” stay in charge. But it is possible to overtake them, just look at Mamdani. But some people won’t even try that because “it’s a lost case”…
You know how before the elections we say that it’s not the time to nitpick the Democratic Party because it’s more important to have it win so that the fascist won’t win?
Well, now we are not before elections, which means that now it is the time to nitpick the Democratic Party.
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This is such a tired narrative. You guys really want to focus on the leftists when half the country voted for an authoritarian?
Every movement has its radical fringe. Virtue signaling either your ideological purity or your solidarity with the only viable opposition are equally feeble attempts at clinging to a notion of victory in the face of total defeat.
EDIT: I wasn’t expecting this comment to generate discussion but since it did, let me elaborate on what I meant by “total defeat.” The defeat is not an electoral loss, it’s the fact that we have relinquished so much political power that all we have left is voting for one of a set of compromised politicians every few years. It’s a tired argument because it assumes that it’s possible to vote our way out of the mess we’re in, and it simply isn’t. We need to attack the point of production because it’s where the ruling class derives its power. And arguing about our sham elections is getting us nowhere.
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OP is a Democrat stooge. Look at comment history.
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Yeah I think I get it, betrayal is a strong emotion. But now instead of realizing who their real enemies are (their class antagonists), they’re doubling down on fighting about election results.
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I’m a Democrat stooge too because
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I’ve reviewed their voting history.
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I’ve reviewed their criminal conviction history compared to Republicans.
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I’ve been around long enough to know they occasionally get significant wins for middle/lower class Americans.
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I know the alternative is fascism.
3rd parties are not viable and won’t be anytime in the foreseeable future. This isn’t a hard decision if you’re in the middle/lower classes. So yeah, I’m going to simp for the party that is WAY better for me and everyone I know instead of pretending there’s some other magical option to hold out for.
Someday some country will vote to bomb your loved ones
You have to understand, the other guy was the worst.
Anyway here’s your daughter corpse lmao
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This is a bad metaphor. I agree harm reduction helps, but Democrats are not owed a vote and the obsession with blaming what is apparently a small minority of voters or the sole reason Democrats lost depending what is convenient, is truly damning of liberals.
If libs put half the effort into courting leftists they do in blaming leftists perhaps they’d win. Instead a group of people who would by and left never vote for a dem anyway, didn’t vote for them.
This is the bed they made and now they want to blame everyone else for shitting their pants.
but Democrats are not owed a vote
I’m so glad you decided that Blue Circus wasn’t OWED your vote, so letting minorities be genocided is an okay consequences you’re willing to live with.
This is such a tired narrative. You guys really want to focus on the leftists when half the country voted for an authoritarian?
Scratch a liberal, a fascist bleeds
see now this is doing the same room temp IQ shit as fugjesus
Not All Leftists: are anti-DNC purity non-voters
Not All Liberals: are the MLK “white moderate” type who will vote Republican if lefties are mean to them
Sure, that might be true of individuals but that phrase, or at least variants of it (ie. “The Social Democrats are The Left-Wing of Fascism”), have existed since the rise of the Nazis.
The idea being that liberal institutions will sooner do the work of fascism by punching left, rather than making common cause to fight fascism. And this meme isn’t helping that perception by punching left.
Phrases existing does not mean there is truth, just that there is an aspect that feels true, look at all the people that have adopted “hard men create good times” etc as a mantra.
I don’t think making hostile comments (saying all libs are fascists) is productive at all, and obviously individuals are not responsible for entire institutions, or even other people that share their principles but are also assholes.
The bottom line is the left has a problem with members who choose their own moral superiority over the wellbeing of the nation and themselves.
That’s a problem that needs to be talked about.
Someday some country will vote to bomb your loved ones
You have to understand, the other guy was worst.
Anyway here’s your daughter corpse lmao (well what’s left of it, white phosphorus is no joke)
Wonder where all those people are? Immediately after the election for several months lemmy was full of people blaming how shitty things turned out on anyone but themselves. “It’s the Democrats fault I didn’t vote even though I know trump is a fascist POS!”
NOBODY thinks the dems are great. They’re fucked up.
But they’re not Alligator Auschwitz fucked up. They’re not screw the country with tariffs fucked up. They’re not ICE Gestapo fucked up.
But that’s not the non-voters fault because this is better than some neo-lib winning.
I voted for Harris, am I allowed to be mad that the Democrats are still gung ho about Israeli genocide yet? Or do I need to shout blue no matter who for another few decades?
Not voting and voting for trump were both stupid choices. But attacking people who didn’t vote for trump instead of those who did is fucking bananas and I don’t get the point of this. Are we expecting a resounding vote in 2028 for Harris again is going to fix everything? Come the fuck on.
True but it’s a minor point. Even if every single lefty held the line it wouldn’t have made a difference. The people who didn’t vote were mostly disengaged normal people and the blame for that is squarely on the Democrats for sucking absolute shit on purpose because of big money in politics.
Have some perspective, pick better fights with worse people. I personally find it extremely unmoving when the left chastises people over politics so good job emulating one of their worst and least politically effective qualities.
Instead, I humbly suggest you try to inspire a shred of hope among the cynical and apathetic - but deep down actually very cool people of the Earth🌠
As a trans person, you can suck my girl dick. I am not a cudgel to be used by shitty libs to sheepdog votes for their nonexistent policy.
Trans rights keep being eroded, regardless of who is in power, because the Democratic Party isn’t doing anything to preserve them.
Trans rights keep being eroded, regardless of who is in power, because the Democratic Party isn’t doing anything to preserve them.
… would you like to outline where trans rights were in 2024 in comparison to where they were in 1990, and also inform me which parties were in power in the intervening years?
Dems being insufficient and Dems being backsliders are two entirely different concepts. Dems are absolutely insufficiently supportive of trans rights. Dem politicians are also the primary vehicle through which trans rights have been encoded into law.
CIA ass post
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The dems are literally rolling over for fascism. They are complicit.
Dems are at least as authoritarian as Repubs. It’s only not “fascism” because they’re suppodly left. I’m anti authoritarian and I’m dreading seeing how Dems build on Trump’s precedents. They’re just going to go even harder.
Tankies telling people to not vote is rolling over for fascism.
So everyone who tells people not to vote is a tankie? Real nuanced thinking you’re doing there. I’m happy you found a fun word to use as shorthand for “people I disagree with”, but maybe try to actually understand the people you’re throwing it at first, you tankie
You are miss-reading what I said. I am empathetic to socialists, but tankies are strategically abandoning elections and leaving us more vulnerable. This only helps the alt right; hence a rolling over for fascism.
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Holy blame shifting, Batman!
If the “online lefties” were so powerful a block perhaps Dem’s leadership should have courted their vote. If they were so minor a block that “online lefties” should be ignored then you’re targeting the wrong people.
But you know this already, I told you before the election that way to win the “no genocide” vote isn’t to try convince them to vote “yes genocide”. It’s to try convince the leaders to stop supporting genocide.
This post is the same punching down shit you were doing before the election.
Yep. And if both the moral abstainers and the third party protest voters all would have voted for Kamala, we would still have Trump as President because the numbers of those people are so small.
Y’all are blaming the people who care the most, when you should be blaming the billionaires.
Non voting has been the largest group for several cycles now.
That’s why I differentiated moral abstainers from apathetics who aren’t going to vote no matter what.
I’m becoming more apathetic. You’re choosing between two evils. The lesser evil lives in the realm of myth these days.
Become a socialist instead, and work to remove systemic evil entirely.
you say, in your couch, while people are being deported because of YOU.
you, and many of your buddies have done a full 360 and went full Nazi.
Ok bud, time to take a nap.
that’s a stretch. Trump will deport people who disagree with him about fucking kids so you should be driving a stake through his heart by now instead of some random person you decided to hate because democrats are fascists too.
The margins are close and we need to be able to reach people. Local, state, and federal elections.
Because for a large number of people, they effectively do not live in a democracy. We’ve known for a long time that the opinions of the poorest 90% of the US population are completely irrelevant to national politics. Millions don’t vote because they rationally realize that their votes are meaningless.
You really think trans people are punching down at you for wanting to evade their own genocide?
You’ll find trans people in the post. What are THEY saying.
I don’t know how to get comment links, else I would do the work for you.
But to answer your question. I don’t think Pug is punching at me at all, I’m not American. I also don’t think trans people are punching at me much either, I’ve read their comments.
It appears you misunderstood my comment. Punching down was referring to people not in power to change the dem platform. Punchin up was referring to people in power to change the dem platform. Which way is Pug punching in this post?
Punchin up was referring to people in power to change the dem platform.
How do you think the Dem platform changes
PROTIP: It’s not by voters abstaining
I answered the question posed to me. In order to make this a DIscourse and not the morally superior MONOlogue it always seems to be please answer mine.
I couldn’t get through to you last time. Perhaps we can have a more productive discussion this time.
In the vain of good faith though: how is centrist democrat policy changed? A mega donor asks Kamala to support fracking and she does.
In the vain of good faith though: how is centrist democrat policy changed? A mega donor asks Kamala to support fracking and she does.
First, the Dem platform in 2024 was still the most left platform in my lifetime. Is that damnation by faint praise? … yeah. But we also work with what we’ve got, and acknowledging that the Dems have become more left since the Clinton years, and even since the Obama years, is an important note to make.
Second, Harris was, unfortunately, always an opportunist ghoul. A lot of fuckery led up to her nomination, most of it the fault of Joe Biden running despite decreasing medical fitness for office (while accusations of dementia were passed around, the simple, natural slowing of the mind with age is more likely - and not really less damning, considering a president must be at the top of their fucking game considering they’re the top official of an entire nation of hundreds of millions of people) and then dropping out (the correct choice, but again, only necessary because of the unwise decision to run again in the first place, while an incumbent).
Third, the way you change centrist Dem policy is by showing up to primaries, nominating progressive candidates and then getting them elected in the general. The DNC is made up of former and current party officials, not randos picked from the Country Club. They are there because they’ve demonstrated an ability to get elected and re-elected at some point in their careers - they are there because we, the voters, put them there. And while you can talk a lot about how moderates and conservative Dems shape the narrative, ultimately, the fault is on us, the voters, or at least the ones voting for centrist ghouls every fucking primary, for not kicking their wretched asses out.
You want Dem policy to change? So do fucking I. Elect, and convince others to elect, progressives in the primaries, and then back them to hilt in the general regardless of whether there’s a sudden change of heart regarding the ‘purity’ of the candidate by some of your radical circles. We need to move the country left, and “It’s not left enough!” may be a legitimate concern, but not when the alternative is “So let’s move it right”.
When Republicans are elected every fucking general election, the message overwhelmingly given to the Dems is either “Go right” or “Fuck, the country isn’t ready for more progressive policy”, depending on whether they’re (respectively) centrist ghouls or left-leaning.
Helping this matter would be ranked-choice voting. If there are any measures in your area, please, support them - there’s been limited success in this country for ranked-choice as interest in the idea has increased - including the Dem primary that saw Mamdani (MAY HIS ENEMIES BE DESTROYED) nominated. It will help many on the fence in primaries make a more progressive choice by reducing the fear of right-wing candidates eking out over moderate candidates.
Ok, again, I mostly agree. Except Dems did go right this election. They had Republicans advocating for them. They lost. The most damning thing an election campaign can experience is losing. Dems may learn from that courting republican votes lose them elections. Their bank accounts will suggest they do the same thing again.
Secondly, I don’t see the “no genocide” vote being a left Vs right issue. There’s plenty of genocides to go around lefties like myself can “no true Scotsman” but history is riddled with genocides.
I don’t know how much I can tell you this, or how I can get it through to you. Blame the Leaders. We don’t blame Steve from the factory floor for Boeing’s doors falling off.
We know how people actually play the “ultimatum game” and it isn’t how game theory says they should. You have to give them enough for them to accept your offer. Offering a penny out of £100 makes them reject your offer even though you’d both be the better for it. That’s the world we live in.
Except Dems did go right this election. They had Republicans advocating for them.
Other than on trans issues, which they became suddenly very quiet about, and much more muted language on police brutality, which polls, unfortunately, turned largely against even from African-Americans after 2020 (copaganda runs strong in this fucking country), Dems largely did not move right from 2020 - the 2024 party platform includes stronger positions on climate change, environmental issues, and wealth redistribution.
Now, courting the right by trying to go for the whole “Country over party” aesthetic was absolutely idiotic and alienating - but it was largely not coupled with major policy changes.
Secondly, I don’t see the “no genocide” vote being a left Vs right issue. There’s plenty of genocides to go around lefties like myself can “no true Scotsman” but history is riddled with genocides.
In the US, the right-wing is overwhelmingly pro-Palestinian genocide, and centrists are overwhelmingly neutral on the matter of Palestinian genocide due to the massive and effective propaganda campaigns run by Israel and Israeli proxies to portray it as some, deep, complex issue and the IDF as “The most moral army in the world” (blech).
The no-Gaza-genocide vote was overwhelmingly left-wing. Or, rather, liberal and left. The point is that it was not evenly distributed across the political spectrum on the justification that genocide is generally viewed as bad; it was overwhelmingly concentrated on the more left leaning end of the spectrum on the justification that right-wing and centrist types tend to be sympathetic to Israel or hostile to Palestine.
I don’t know how much I can tell you this, or how I can get it through to you. Blame the Leaders. We don’t blame Steve from the factory floor for Boeing’s doors falling off.
Steve isn’t voting for safety and QA reductions in this scenario, though. We live (or lived) in a democracy, however flawed it may have been. We, the voters, were voting for safety and QA reductions.
The leaders are absolutely to blame. Every individual member of the DNC bears significantly more blame than any individual voter.
But that still doesn’t absolve voters of responsibility.
When the Nazis invaded Poland, the chief culprits were the ones giving the orders and making the plans - but the rank-and-file soldiers were also still guilty - and so were those who had quietly went along with the Nazi regime because opposing the Nazis was too much trouble.
That there are different levels of guilt does not absolve the least guilty of still being guilty.
We know how people actually play the “ultimatum game” and it isn’t how game theory says they should. You have to give them enough for them to accept your offer. Offering a penny out of £100 makes them reject your offer even though you’d both be the better for it. That’s the world we live in.
“Dems need to give more than an ultimatum” and “When push comes to shove, you have to make the less-bad choice” are not mutually exclusive options. At the infinite encouragement of purity politics, only an exact match with the voter’s desires would be ‘earning’ their vote - all else would be, legitimately, an ‘ultimatum’ forcing the voter to choose between compromise or giving up entirely. While “They disagree with one issue of mine, I can’t vote!” is a extreme example (though, unfortunately, one that does crop up), the principle that disagreement with the less-bad option should be grounds for rejection when the opposition is something as serious as literal fucking Nazis should be emphasized to be insufficient in scale of offense to be a moral reaction.
The abstainers were offered 10$ out of a million - a legitimate travesty and ghoulish behavior from the Dem party - and the abstainers chose to murder minorities instead - a much worse travesty. It’s not even something as ‘mild’ as “We both fail to gain” - my life may very well be forfeit these coming years - and the issue that many of these voters abstained on - Gaza - is set to become, and the opposition openly campaigned on making, significant worse and more murderous. And that’s an… already gruesome scenario. That’s not even getting into all the other factors that we will be suffering from under a Nazi regime.
voting for Democrats doesn’t prevent fascism
I’m a trans person. Do not use my people’s name to justify genocide. All the trans people I know were extremely wary of supporting Harris. Palestinians are an unpopular minority group, just like trans people are. If corporate Democrats are willing to throw Palestinians onto the pyre, they would be willing to do so for trans people as well. This was obvious to every trans person I know who was politically active. And now, as anyone with two brain cells to rub together could have predicted, corporate Dems like Newsom are throwing trans people onto the pyre right on schedule.
Again, those willing to let one minority group burn are extremely likely to do so to another group. That’s the whole fucking point of the “first they came for…” poem.
If the “online lefties” were so powerful a block perhaps Dem’s leadership should have courted their vote. If they were so minor a block that “online lefties” should be ignored then you’re targeting the wrong people.
God, if I hear this mathematically illiterate argument one more fucking time, I’m going to fucking blow.
Elections in the US are won and lost on 1 or 2 percentage points.
Tell me this - if leftists make up, say, 3% of the Dem vote, and anti-leftists make up 10% of the Dem vote, is it viable to court leftists at the expense of losing anti-leftists?
If leftists are willing to let literal fucking Nazis win because they haven’t been courted, instead of putting the groundwork in to change the demographic leanings of the Dem party, they can go fuck themselves, because that makes them fucking Nazi enablers, and not much better than the Nazis themselves.
Dems were willing to let Nazis in. Dems wern’t willing to deal with the Nazis when they had the chance. Now Dems are willing to vote with the nazis. Punch UP not DOWN. We blame leadership in all things except politics it seems.
The leadership of the Dem party is absolutely guilty, and most people here, on Lemmy, recognize that.
The problem is that voters (and, especially, non voters) are also guilty, and many on Lemmy refuse to recognize that.
Man, in a just world, probably almost every high-ranking member of the DNC would deserve a noose. But we also fight with the tools we have, and we elected the tools (ha) in the DNC. Have a problem with those tools? I do too. Let’s get rid of them next primary (please, for fuck’s sake, please). But when it’s them or the literal Nazis, you gotta go with the tools.
Idiotic tools who do the bare minimum are preferable to literal Nazi genocide, man.
I mostly agree. Fight with the tools you have but this now, as I told you back then, isn’t the tool you’re looking for. Sowing devision keeps us divided.
On this occasion the ‘no genocide’ people happen to be right. Imagine an animal rights group that constantly and perpetually hate-posted about vegans.
Punching DOWN isn’t the correct tool. Punching UP might be.
But is it sowing division to point out that dividing the vote is, itself, divisive, and has very real and serious consequences?
Is it not divisive to encourage and normalize non-voting even when faced with literal Nazis running because of insufficient policy on the part of the only serious opposition candidate?
Imagine an animal rights group who campaigned against a ballot initiative to stop puppy farms - because it didn’t also stop factory farms, ultimately failing by a measly 1% of the vote? Would it not be realistic and reasonable for people in that animal rights group to be pissed that puppy farms were perpetuated, at no gain to any animals, because a section of the animal rights group wanted a more radical option - a legitimate desire, but one which led to actions which worsened the situation instead of helping it?
Not really. In this analogy I know this group exists and plan for, with, or around them. If vegans found an activist group that better aligned with their goals why would I be surprised or upset they went to that one?
None of this is surprising, or at least it shouldn’t be. We know how people actually behave.
Furthermore in this analogy the animal rights group isn’t campaigning to stop puppy farms, they’re campaigning for puppy farms. Of course people that care about animal rights didn’t support them.
Not really. In this analogy I know this group exists and plan for, with, or around them. If vegans found an activist group that better aligned with their goals why would I be surprised or upset they went to that one?
If that activist group then campaigns against the “imperfect” initiative, sinking it by 1% point, why wouldn’t you be upset at them? “It’s just politics, it’s just their point of view” isn’t a particularly left outlook, it’s… well, very ‘moderate suburban liberal’. Politics are often a matter of life and death - in the most literal sense. Being upset is pretty low on the totem poll for intensity-of-reaction with that in mind.
None of this is surprising, or at least it shouldn’t be. We know how people actually behave.
Not being surprised that some people are self-defeating and being upset that people are self-defeating and that other, ostensible allies are defending them for being self-defeating and encouraging them to continue being so are two different things.
I’m not surprised, for example, that bootlickers vote for Trump, or that there are millions of bootlickers in this fucking country. But I am upset about it. I’m not surprised that there are a significant minority of leftists who prefer purity politics to averting and reducing genocide. But I am upset - and I don’t think that normalizing it in the communities I frequent is something that I should stand by and be quiet about.
Further more in this analogy the animal rights group isn’t campaigning to stop puppy farms, they’re campaigning for puppy farms. Of course people that care about animal rights didn’t support them.
Campaigning for regulation of puppy farms, let’s say, since the Dems were quite clearly not anti-Israel, but had clearly shifted to a less pro-Israel position, especially after Biden dropped out.
In that view - when faced between making puppy farms less horrific or letting them continue as usual - or even making them worse - why should I not be upset that an ostensibly anti animal suffering group opted to let suffering continue or intensify instead of stopping it out of some bizarre sense of purity.
Man you keep just making a variation on the same “fuck the leftists” line over and over again.
I feel like takes like this come from people with no long term memory. Do you remember the pro-palestinian crowd begging Kamala Harris to even pretend like she’d do something to help? And she basically told them to vote for Trump? Blame the Democratic party for choosing to be fascism-light instead of actual resistance.
Multiple people are at fault
- Republicans for being literal Nazis
- Democrats for selling their souls to AIPAC and ignoring their constituents
- Protest voters for not seeing Trump as enough of a threat
- The two party system for allowing this to happen in the first place
- Billionaires for funding a literal Nazi
- The Israeli government for waves hands
As someone who had to leave behind everything and flee the US for safety (2025 was lining up to be a damn good year dammit), I am furious at all of the above
That’s mostly fair, but “protest voters” still didn’t throw the election. If you added all third party votes to Democrats instead, you’d still have a trump presidency. This is after Harris ran a very right-wing campaign. They bet hard on Zionism, “border security” and military strength and they lost, partly because Trump can do all those things “better”(worse).
We might not have lost the House and Senate though, in addition to other smaller local races. Stop trying to absolve them.
Feel free to do the math yourself then. But I don’t mind absolving them. They didn’t vote for Trump, and they exist in a terrible two party system that makes them choose between fascists. They literally did not cause this. So shut the fuck up. I don’t want to hear criticism of third party voters from anyone who hasn’t given 10x that criticism of everyone else on your list.
Firstly, you assume I don’t criticize others when my original post straight up does. That is a very false assumption. Secondly, you are only absolving them because you are in a position of privilege to do so. Until you’ve also had to uproot your life, tell your loved ones goodbye, and flee your home because of an existential threat, you have absolutely ZERO right to police my voice on this. With all due respect, fuck off.
I will not be responding further
Ya again, I need 10x the smoke for Republicans and Democrat politicians. Not just a mention. People voting for a better candidate are not the issue. I’m glad you won’t be responding cause this level of stupidity is draining.
And you still haven’t backed up your claim that third party voters had a significant sway on the election.
I feel like takes like this come from people with no long term memory.
Christ. How ironic.
Christ. How pointless as usual.
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I spent about a minute trying to figure out whatever the fuck you’re talking about and it was a big waste of time
Fascism is not a break from the previous administration, but a continuation.
Libs are still crying about their loss of power, still doing nothing to resist.
Fascism is not a break from the previous administration, but a continuation.
Average privileged ‘leftist’ Nazi supporter.
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