Yes, both parties suck, and you are allowed to dislike both, but they don’t suck equally and not (completely) in the same way and you are obliged to decide for yourself which party sucks, which you dislike more, and most importantly - which are you more scared of getting into power.
Just because you don’t want to be neither leftist nor rightist doesn’t mean you need to aim for the dead center. That’s as dogmatic as aiming for one of the extremes, and in fact dumber because it’s not even motivated by any ideology.
Also people who chase the word “moderate” because they desperately cling to the idea that being nonchalant in politics is a good thing are so focused on it that they will be a conservative just to avoid the leftmost party even if the left-most party is actually centrist.
Close to what you said, just exposes even more of how dumb it is.
Anyone ITT justifying their decision to not vote, or vote for a third party, can stay the fuck out of Canada
i feel like i’m gonna be reposting this image for eternity
The US political system is so, so very broken and honestly needs to be built up from scratch.
Voting should be compulsory.
Voting should be accessible.
The bar for entry to run should be much lower and more accessible to people who want to run and make a change.
Preferential voting should be considered.
The people should have veto power over government if there is a vote of no confidence to allow a dissolution of said government and snap elections held to redistribute power in favour of the people.
And so much more. Like getting rid of gerrymandering, electoral college etc. So that the votes actually reflect what the people want. If the country is mostly progressive, then it moves in a progressive direction.
Etc. Etc.
I can envision how to make voting accessible. I can’t envision how to make it compulsory. Any suggestions?
ONE party works towards those things and ONE party does not.
The third party never gets in the room.
Psa: when reading the comments remember that maga want you demotivated and to stay home and just take it. Because they will vote, and they will not split their vote.
as a DSA member i say “I’m helping the DSA” in the most snaky way possible.
Woof the comments here are…wow. Someone is going out of their way here.
Yeah they all hear the bugle call from the GRU and come a-runnin’.
It’s like talking to American leftists. It’s like they think they’re the only ones who have had to hold their nose while voting for a shitty liberal. We all do it. Cause we know not opposing the Nazis is unacceptable. Blaming the democrats in 2026 cause you didn’t vote Harris deserves a smack to the back of the head
Cool but what if we voted Harris and tried to convince all our friends and family to vote Harris and then she lost and a majority of the Democrats in power are going along with a facists government?
Can I complain about the Democrats now? Can I point out the various points of failure I’ve seen over the past decade that helped get us to this point?
The Republicans are bad actors, that’s a fucking given to anyone calling themselves a leftist, it’s a waste of time arguing about how absolutely horrible their side is. No fucking shit, what I care about is what the party I vote for does and is going to do.
No, liberals can never fail you. Only you can fail liberals. You have to pretend that Obamacare (née Romneycare, née Heritagecare) is the best we could have ever done. And pretend that Clinton’s NAFTA and bank deregulation were master strokes of socialism.
Plus you must ignore your lying eyes and truly believe that primaries are the only time to disagree even though corpo Dems did everything they could to sabotage Mamdami after he got the nomination.
Vote blue no matter who!
Unless they might actually be progressive.
Here’s the thing: When you don’t vote, you COULD be saying that both candidates are bad, and you don’t like either of them…
Or you could be saying that both candidates are great, and you love both of them. That you’re sure either of them will do an equally good job of running the country, so it doesn’t matter who wins.
And if you don’t feel that way, then you need to VOTE
Acting like voting D would fix anything is a huge part of the problem.
Acting like not voting at all would fix anything is a huge part of the problem. Yeah the Democrats not going to do anything, but you know what that means, the Democrats won’t do anything. They won’t embarass America on the world stage every day, they won’t fund the Gestapo to assault minorities and they won’t threaten allies with invasion.
Sure the Democrats suck, the whole damn system sucks but it’s a whole lot better for a whole lot of people when the Republicans are not in charge.
They won’t embarass America on the world stage every day, they won’t fund the Gestapo to assault minorities and they won’t threaten allies with invasion.
Yaaay we get decorum and stability at home so we can ignore the Palestinians / Yemenis / Somalis / etc being bombed overseas! Hopefully the bomb will even be dropped by a diverse team under the Dems!
That’s a single issue. I agree it’s shitty all around. But there are hundreds of issues that are more important. Namely allowing children to be molested, people dying from not having healthcare, and deporting parents and stranding children just to name a few.
It’s shitty all around. It’s even shittier when it turns into a pissing contest of shittiness.
constant international war mongering and bombing innocents is a single issue? and not even a major one for you?
jfc death to amerikkka
Oh. So you are just a troll?
Kindly fuck off.
and Russia, and China, and every 1st world country of similar size. Wake up sheeple!
We are living through a time of international tug of war on political influence, resources, and land.
Palestinians / Yemenis / Somalis / etc
I’m confused how supporting and engaging in genocide and bombing humans in multiple countries with unique circumstances is both a single issue separate to and less important than doing the same (without bombs) nearer to home.
I guess everyone has a different tolerance for blood on their hands…
Imagine you have a house that is managed by landlords. The landlords have changed ownership and management many times and allowed the plumbing and heating and electricity to become inoperable. Now there are termites.
At some point management put in an HOA and made it so the HOA kicks your neighbors out without any consideration.
We have bigger internal issues. It ain’t my blood. All Americans are fully aware we should not be financing anything like that.
I wouldn’t advocate for not voting, voting third party would be my advice if you don’t want to personally get involved in politics.
voting third party would be my advice
Hope that advice only applies to local/state elections, cuz voting 3rd party for president is about as useful as an asshole on your elbow.
The only reason its as ineffective as it is now is because of people like you spend a ridiculous amount of time and effort shaming those who might consider it.
Saying a third party couldn’t win is factually incorrect, yet its a common phrase on here isn’t it.
Only once has a third party candidate made much progress, and Perot was right-wing/libertarian. You can’t skip right to a third party presidential candidate without making progress with that party locally first, then in Congress. That just how this system works. You can pretend that enough people will spontaneously vote for your same third party candidate, but that’s a demonstrably a fantasy. You can claim that a vote reflects on your own morality rather than something strategic and practical, but that’s a view pushed by people hoping to take advantage of youth vanity and split the vote.
You can’t skip right to a third party presidential candidate without making progress with that party locally first
I swear to God. It’s like trying to tell a child you can’t have ice cream because you’re stranded on a desert island and they KEEP INSISTING that they want ice cream.
It’s infuriating.
Like, it isn’t complicated. You can’t start at the beginning of a board game, roll a 6, and move your piece 57 spaces to the end and win. That’s impossible.
It’s wild how many Americans exist outside reality.
Factually incorrect but improbable none-the-less.
Sort of, probability isn’t a set thing, and everyone analyzes it differently. Part of the reason it seems so improbable is because people keep saying it is.
The reality is though that the majority want either a republican or democrat, because a majority think America is a good country that just needs a little bit better leadership. I disagree with that assessment, and I won’t vote D or R again.
Saying a third party couldn’t win is factually incorrect
Oh, you like facts?
Here’s one.
In the 2024 election the 3rd party presidential candidate with the most votes only got 0.5% of the total votes cast.
So it is FACTUALLY CORRECT to state a 3rd party can’t win the presidency.
Like, what do you not grasp here? No 3rd party has done the work to become nationally viable. No 3rd party even has a SINGLE member in Congress. It is ACTUALLY IMPOSSIBLE for a 3rd party candidate to win the presidency anytime in the remotely near future. It would take YEARS and YEARS for a 3rd party to become a household name and get members in Congress and actually have a shot at the presidency.
Therefore, voting for a 3rd party candidate for president is akin to wiping your ass with your ballot, smelling it and thinking it smells nice, then flushing it down the toilet.
Well, if we can’t even agree what a fact is, what’s the point of debating this?
Voting D is not the cure for cancer but it seems to be a viable chemo treatment… voting R is like feeding the cancer with yellow #5 and plutonium
Funny how there isn’t only two choices though.
You’re like a gambling addict that keeps saying “but a 1 in a million shot still has a chance to win” as you go bankrupt.
Seek help.
Thats why I’m here!
Not funny at all actually… but that is what you get when Muricans literally do fuck all to protect their own democracy
Democrats are guilty of aiding, and in some cases directly participating in, an internationally-recognized genocide. You are advocating for genocidaires. Democrats are guilty of aiding, and in some cases directly participating in, an internationally-recognized genocide. You are advocating for genocidaires. Democrats are guilty of aiding, and in some cases directly participating in, an internationally-recognized genocide. You are advocating for genocidaires.
You are advocating for genocidaires.
And you’re advocating for worse by allowing a worse party to win.
This isn’t complicated.
When Biden was president he tried to broker a peace deal. He stated on live TV that he didn’t condone Israel’s methods. And he floated arms shipment cancellations to try to bring Netanyahu to the table.
Trump, on the other hand, is giving Netanyahu two big thumbs up and talking about turning Gaza into a resort destination once all the Palestinians are dead or forcibly removed.
Now, do I need to explain to you how those things are not the same?
I do not care about your feelings. I care about my own nation’s wellbeing first, then after that, I care about helping the Palestinians as much as I can. And helping them as much as I can meant voting Dem, because, as I just made clear, Republicans are WAY WORSE for Palestinians.
When Biden was president he tried to broker a peace deal. He stated on live TV that he didn’t condone Israel’s methods. And he floated arms shipment cancellations to try to bring Netanyahu to the table.
Now, do I need to explain to you how those things are not the same?
“Although the end result was the exact same, one side feigned civility and decorum! How can you not see the difference?”
Yall need to drop this obsession with vibes, messaging, and optics.
Democrats are guilty of aiding, and in some cases directly participating in, an internationally-recognized genocide.
And Republicans eagerly participate in genocide as hard as they can… so when you only have 2 choices to compare, the one that does horrible things some times vs the one that only does horrible things and seeks to do the most horrible things all the time, you probably, maybe, want to go with the lesser evil
You are advocating for genocidaires.
The lesser genocidaires (sic)
x3
so when you only have 2 choices to compare […], you probably, maybe, want to go with the lesser evil
Suppose, in 10 years, your choice for president is between a democrat who openly expresses interest in murdering six million Jewish people, and a Republican who openly expresses interest in murdering seven million Jewish people.
Will you still be an unwavering Democrat?
get liberals to admit they would vote for a literal holocaust so long as the color is blue - with this one simple trick!
Would you vote for 1 extra million Jewish people to die and pat yourself in the back?
What is it going to take to bring you back to reality?
Unless you, yes you personally, go on a quest and succeed in making a 3rd party viable in the U.S. (not going to happen), then you have exactly two choices.
If you don’t go for the least evil option when presented with two options, I have to just assume you’re evil.
And an evil person going around calling others supporters of genocidaires is just kind of comical.
So who would you vote for in my scenario?
Dems gave me affordable healthcare when I was young and poor.
Last Dem was progressive as fuck, but everyone focused on his age because the TV told them to.
Voting records show Dems regularly vote in favor of average Americans and have for a long, long time.
Sorry bud, reality disagrees with your feelings.
Just because a party isn’t perfect doesn’t mean they aren’t beneficial.
Democratic voters might be decent people, they at least have good intentions for the most part. That does not mean that the solutions their politicians propose are effective or helpful. I’m glad you had cheap healthcare then, but if I starved you for a month and then gave you a meal you’d be thankful for that too.
You should probably go look at the voting history for the Democrat party before you continue this conversation.
I have.
And I don’t let a single vote that didn’t go the way I wanted to turn me off of a party, because then I’d be turned off from all parties, everywhere, forever.
My lefties in here like there isn’t any history of progressive change.
Sure, let me just go check every vote every member of the democratic party has made.
Ok. Do it. You’ll be more educated.
I didn’t review EVERY VOTE EVER.
I went back in time, randomly selecting votes and seeing how Dems voted in comparison to Repubs.
I discovered a pattern of Dems consistently voting in favor of average Americans when Repubs almost never did so.
I’ve also been alive for enough decades to have actually witnessed this trend in real time.
Coulda… Woulda… Shoulda had Bernie!
And the other one is the “We won’t do anything to stop the Nazis party” ;)
Hey look they’re proposing body cams
Damn this is getting serious now after the strongly worded letters.
I’m assuming by “one side” you mean the Republican-Democrat Uniparty which waged an internationally-recognized genocide in occupied Palestine. Seems like a pretty “Nazi” thing to do.
The people I voted for, the Green Party, are indeed Nazi-free!
Yeah let’s see that photo of Stein between Flynn and Putin again!
Congratulations, you played yourself.
Jill Stein is supported by Putin, so maybe just a different kind of fascism at best
The lady on the left is correct. Establishment Democrats are just shrugging and letting the right goosestep wherever they please. Just because they don’t directly cause the harm, doesn’t change the fact that the establishment leaders are alright with that harm.
I am voting for AOC and likeminded people. The Donorcrats and Turdpublicans should go the way of the Whigs: rejected, and into the dustbin of history.
Not voting is an approval of both options. No one cares about the opinions of people who stay home.
Notice that the lady said that both options are bad, so she doesn’t feel like voting. How about giving her a good option, instead of a ratchet effect?
All of this… it could have been stopped. We don’t have to love (or even like) the Democrats, but it was such an important election, and everybody was screaming to vote against fascism. Well, a lot of people couldn’t be bothered, and it’s here now. Hope our country survives this administration…
It’s important for perspective that we remember how thin the line is between winning and losing. A very minor shift in voter turnout is all it takes to flip the game. The good news for us in this is that we don’t need to take the last election as a sign that the entire world is lost - we have every opportunity to change things. You could say it shouldn’t be this close, and you wouldn’t be wrong, but that’s also a pretty pointless whinge. Nothing worth having has ever been won without a fight, so we shouldn’t gripe about having to face one ourselves.
It’s in part because Biden ran on opposing fascism, got elected, and then did nothing to oppose fascism. He sold himself as a dragonslayer, but once he got in, he didn’t want to upset the pro-dragon crowd.
So, yeah, when his protege ran the exact same campaign, it didn’t instill a lot of confidence.
He slow walked us to this, Trump should have been jailed, convicted, and in the dirt by now. But no, the neo-liberals didn’t want to upset the MAGAts or something. His speech about needing both Democrats and Republicans made me SICK.
I can’t help but feel like it’s also in part because a good amount of folks are just… as delicately as I can put it… the kind of people that pick up a fork to eat a bowl of soup.
The rationale I have heard from tons and tons of voters just makes absolutely no god damn sense at all. There’s of course mass manipulation and all that but goodness gracious, the complete lack of critical thinking skills is astounding.
I feel this. My in-laws voted for Trump because Biden was going to outlaw Catholicism in the United States. Absolute lunatics.
Jesus fucking Christ, the man is himself a practicing Catholic!
Propaganda works.
Yeah, like I went down the conspiracy theory rabbit hole because of all the fuckery around 9/11 but then left the Alex Jones part of it when it became clear he didn’t really gaf about changing anything, which meant he either didn’t believe it or was working with them instead of against them (leaning more towards him just making shit up, though I did still believe that things weren’t what they seemed with how society was run). The nail in the coffin for me was a very high production value video explaining what was going on that ended with a “but I have an answer, wait for the next video to find out!” And I’m thinking “wait, cliffhangers are engagement bait, not something you should say after talking about how the elites want to reduce the world population to like 100 million. He’s just in it for the money, also how the fuck is he producing such high production quality videos?”
It wasn’t aligned with either US politics “side” and subscribed to the “it’s all an act, they are all buddy buddy behind closed doors” point of view, but I came out of it around the end of the Bush era, was happy to see Obama win but disappointed in how his actual presidency went (he seemed to have the resolve of a wet noodle when it came to actually fighting for the right things.
It was baffling as fuck when the conspiracy theory crowd was aligned behind fucking Donald Trump, of all people. Seemed like the poster boy for the elites rather than a saviour. I didn’t watch a ton of the apprentice but none that I did see gave me any kind of positive impression of him. He just seemed like the asshole type of boss.
Pizzagate was also stupid as fuck (why the fuck would a pedophile ring for rich people operate out of the basement of a public building?). And gamergate was one of the lamest whiny things I’ve seen (though not sure how much of that came from the conspiracy side, it might have been going after a different audience).
Like I get how it feels going down that rabbit hole, things that were confusing can make more sense and there’s truth at the core of it, but you need to continue using critical thought or you just end up becoming someone’s tool. The enemy of your enemy is not necessarily your friend!
They aren’t stupid, they are selfish and ego driven, and they base success/goodness on the number in their bank account.
The fact the most Americans sell their morals is a part of the culture and something that needs to change before things get better.
That is a really stupid reason to let a fascist win though. Like, why should I respect or align myself with such a stupid group of people?
Like, why should I respect or align myself with such a stupid group of people?
Which is exactly the question they were asking. You want someone to blame, it’s the DNC.
You don’t have to align with someone you vote for in a FPTP system.
And no, your suggestion is based on a false dichotomy. I blame the DNC AND the non-voters. I can despise both and do.
So you have no care of causal relationships whatsoever so long as you get to spew your hate at everyone.
What’s stupider? Trying to kick Lucy’s football again or walking away?
What would the Democrats be doing differently if they were actual fascist collaborators? I can’t think of anything. The Democrats make up excuses for why they can’t intervene, then they blame the voters. Voting D hasn’t solved the fascist problem for 50+ years. Democrats have overseen some of the most brutal genocides and mass murder campaigns against non-Europeans. They have total continuity in funding and protecting the military-industrial-media-complex. They have total continuity in ensuring there are no consequences for the most egregious violations of human rights, civil rights, and human decency.
Mass incarceration is a bi-partisan consensus. Prison slavery is a bi-partisan consensus. Black ghettos are a bi-partisan consensus. Solitary confinement is a bi-partisan consensus. Solitary confinement for toddlers is a bi-partisan consensus. Starving children and elderly around the world is a bi-partisan consensus. Spying on all US citizens through warrantless surveillance dragnets of all communications is a bi-partisan consensus. Militarizing local police is a bi-partisan consensus. Undermining labor unions is a bi-partisan consensus. Maintaining legacy apartheid structures in funding elementary and secondary education is a bi-partisan consensus.
At what point do we conclude that the Democrats couldn’t be worse if they were actively supporting fascism? At what point do we say that their limited and milquetoast rhetoric against a few bad things, and only some times, and only some of them, is not a sufficient reason to believe they are on our side?
If your only options are the fascist or the guy who promised to bring the fascist to justice but actually didn’t even try, then your problem isn’t getting solved by voting in that election.
Who said I thought voting would solve the problem? You aren’t engaging with my core issue: non-voters were content to let Trump win. Are they worth my time and effort morally? Why?
I already know the DNC doesn’t align with me perfectly, as a mutualist I’m against private property. But they’re not fascists. I mostly just hate the DNC because of their weakness and ineptitude even more so than the liberal ideology.
That said, at least with the DNC, there is something I can get out of them politically with theoretically much less effort compared to the masses of non-voting 2024 morons who engaging with would be akin to trying to herd cats.
Hell, at this point: I don’t even care anymore. I kind of hate the non-voters enough that I’m now fueled by spite for them. I don’t care who wins elections anymore because I just can’t fucking give a shit. Its obviously out of my hands and the non-voters are getting what they deserve.
I only feel sorry for the people who are faultless, like the millions starving to death because Trump’s admin illegally shut down USAID, or the ICE round ups of innocent immigrants where they’re probably being human trafficked, raped, and murdered.
The DNC is a bunch of completely corrupt people who were okay with Trump winning in 2016 and 2024 due to their own stupid antics fucking with elections and ignoring the will of the voters.
But again, the other side is literal Nazis. It’s not completely weird to think that the DNC should have gotten away with their BS.
Scratch a neo-liberal a nazi bleeds. The fact ANY Dem has voted for any Trump nominee is a disgrace. They’ve lost the argument they’re the paid opposition with me entirely. I don’t subscribe to their BS talking about the actual left now because they marginalize us when we’re winning or they’re in charge, the whip us as the blame for losing.
As much as that’s true this was all necessary. Biden wouldn’t have gotten anything passed that would fix our current situation. The MAGAts controlled the house.
Look at all the progressive candidates that are already winning elections. After this if there isn’t a supermajority in both house and senate than the country was lost long ago.
Well, a lot of people couldn’t be bothered
Thing is, the reality is even more depressing.
We had some of the highest voter turnout in US history in the last several federal elections. The problem was not turnout as much as tune out.
The exit polling made it very clear what our problem in the US is, and that’s the same tactics that destabilized Crimea and many other places that have fallen to authoritarianism, and that’s social sabotage of our issues. People paid or incentivized to amplify and radicalize the messaging on both sides of every debate and social issue, so that it turns every conversation into a screaming match about utter nonsense disconnected from reality, and the average voter tunes out and defaults to whatever memes are popping up on their twitter or the liberal network news on TV.
I am saying that the polling showed people who voted for Obama and supported Bernie Sanders voted for Trump. People who said they wished AOC would run, voted for Trump. Black and Hispanic voters voted for Trump. Not in one-offs or flukes, but by a large margin. The rest didn’t even know what the candidates represented, they say they just associated Biden/Harris with the cost of eggs at the time, and only Trump seemed to be screaming for any change, so they shrugged and voted for him because they had no idea what else to do.
If this sounds absurd, good that means you still have a functional brain, but this needs to be understood if we are to make changes. The situation out there is much, much worse than we know.
All ya’ll reflexively downvoting this because it makes you more uncomfortable than just “They cheated!” that’s the feeling you need to face and chew on, and direct that frustration towards the old liches who are running our world like circus ringmasters. Dumb fucking circus-ringmasters, people who have all the money and think they earned it and think they deserve more.
And those people are still insisting that we don’t blame them for the consequences of their decisions.
I just think that the blame should be squarely on the people who actively voted for the fascism.
But what if we can find a way to scream at people that agree with us on 80-90% of issues instead? That seems more productive than focusing on the actual Nazis!
There were more non-voters than there were voters for Orangina
I’m going to keep holding them accountable too!
Not lifting a finger against fascism is actively voting for fascism. Yes, the choices were all bad, but one was obviously much, much worse and they made a choice. Nobody gets a pass for gross negligence simply because irresponsible decisions were lower-effort than others.
“don’t blame me, I voted for 90% Hitler!”
Of course, and I don’t fault them the impulse. No one likes being told they fucked up, which was why so many of us were so vocal before the election. I don’t even want to assign blame, instead to just help them to understand that (if our democracy can withstand this), we genuinely need them…
Like you, I was a consequentialist before the election. I’m struggling to stay that way and now I might be a virtue ethicist who hates all US citizens who were not consequentialist before November 5th 2024 because I think they’re just shit fucking people not worth saving.
Part of me wants to be wrong. I want to be convinced. And yet I’m always going to be deeply fucking resentful if I find myself helping these people ever again. I shouldn’t have to lift a fucking finger. Doing so literally psychologically hurts.
Why does America deserve to survive, as a nation built on stolen land and slavery and maintained through imperialism and colonialism?
Hope our country survives this administration…
I often do hope it survives but then realize I don’t even really know why. Its still a country dominated by people willing to throw people under the bus for personal gain, nationalism/racism, and their hatred of LGBT. And among the non-voters, you have proudly ignorant morons, & people pearl clutching over their personal virtue, & people hoping for the slight chance of a violent revolution where their ideology comes out on top of all the corpses in their delusional imagination.
Like, why should I care? Why do I care? It makes no fucking sense.
I want the Nazis to lose because it should be apparent. But you’re on the money, this country at its core and history has had issues long before this. The Dems were pretty radical anti-LGBT before they became a significant force in politics. They were content to just ignore them at best.
I read on the interwebs somewhere that in some US states or counties you can vote for proportional representation. If you don’t want to vote for the 2 big parties, at least go vote for that. It’s how the democracy in European countries works. First-past-the-post like what the US has is an awful democratic ‘solution’.
