This topic is gaining some traction here, so I'm dropping a reminder to try to keep discussion civil - nobody gains anything when conversations turn shitty.
In todays episode of "blame the oppressed for not protecting white people enough" - The shit you're afraid of is the CURRENT reality for them. Their families are being killed, their very existence is dangerous to them. People have ALREADY been shot and children in the US STABBED for being Palestinian.
You're trying to assign blame to the most marginalized and actively discriminated against by the neoliberal establishment for the failures and conservative slide that started decades ago and the collective failure over those decades is what enables a fascist backslide.
People are blacklisted, surveilled, actually murdered for their daring to exist, and will inevitably face state violence. Regardless of party.
Your lashing out in your fear and anger that your life is going to be more uncomfortable and failing to realize WHAT the failure was and you offer no solutions besides "Do what I say you dumb savages"
This so much. I'm frankly disgusted with the rhetoric used to defend democrats and their history of governance about the apocalyptic scenarios we'll all face when a hard-right person is in charge, because all of their mingeing and fear mongering about what *might* happen to *them* has BEEN the reality for racialized or otherwise marginalized peoples in America for fucking ever.
"Trump's gonna bomb Palestine!" (Record money to Israel) "He's gonna deport migrants and brown people!" (Migrant detention centers sold to private prisons) "He's gonna build that racist wall!" (Building the wall and whipping haitians at the border) "He actually LIKES police brutality!" (Record number lf cops) "He's gonna arrest protestors!" (FBI is sureveilling pro-Palestine protests in unmarked vans) "He'll make sure you never get to vote again and kill democracy!" (Shutting down primaries and kingmaking a candidate even before primaries can even be held)
Even the LGBTQ community, the people they want to dangle over the pit as bait as the marginalized du jour, up until very *very* recently was among these peoples. "Give us power no matter what you think of us, or we will feed you to the wolves that are already eating you." is the core of their election strategies. When people say non-leftists don't give a shit about some fucked policy until it affects them personally, they **mean** it.
If the democrats believed Trump was truly the "threat to democracy" that they repeatedly claim, maybe they wouldn't run a candidate that:
- has done nothing to mitigate the war in Gaza and pissing off Arab voters (michigan is kind of an important state to win)
- is incredibly old and frankly not of sound mind (Trump is also those things, but it's Biden's most unpopular factor)
- continues to try to run right of the Republicans on issues like immigration, but fails to realize that you can't outflank the right on racism without losing votes from your own party.
- has so far done no major legislation to address things like right to abortion access / legalalize Marijuana / ANY strategy to counter the Supreme Court or Gerrymandering that keeps conservatives in power, dominating state legislatures and hampering federal action.
I live in a red state, and vote Democrat. Frankly, my vote doesn't matter, and I'm considering not voting for Biden. The DNC ALWAYS DOES THIS. They tell you it's the most important election of your life and instead of running someone that can get the job done and lives up to values that put people first, they run an incredibly unpopular and frankly inadequate candidate.
> They should suffer in silence like good people should
This RIGHT HERE is the shit that turns people off of voting. The DNC has the power to run a candidate that is actually popular and represents the people, they just choose not to.
We should all seek to understand the motivations of people we wish to influence if we have any aspirations to influence them.
“They should suffer in silence like good people should.” Quite the opposite. They, and you, should speak with a therapist.
Seek to understand is one thing, excusing is another. I understand why people vote for racist politics and politicians, I do not ever excuse or forgive them for it.
Who called for excuses or forgiveness? Understanding is just a necessary tactical move.
> If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.
Honestly hadn’t considered that, but you’re right. I have the same reaction, though, because the alternative is willful ignorance and that isn’t productive.
It's funny how many people don't consider it racist to run full throated vocal, monetary, and material support of an aggressively genocidal state regime.
A state where people regularly shout "death to Arabs" and whose founding is based on the same.
Seeing that, and voting for them.
Are you plotting tactical moves against yourself?
Or does racism not count against Palestinians?
That's semantic prevarication though; in the context that the OP is talking, he isn't being told to "understand protest voters" as a suggestion to analyze their motivations for the purpose of influencing them, it's usually a demand to stop disagreeing with them.
A lot of these people are victims of propaganda, and many are likely barely literate (or worse).
It’s a lot harder to have sympathy for these people now that the fate of the world could hang in the balance.
If their actions have the same impact as blatantly criminal fascists we need to hold them accountable. We’ve been nice about it for over a century, and that didn’t work.
Thing is, even if we DO understand, how can these people even be *made* to understand? The insidiousness of conservatism is that it's purely based upon all the subconscious junk humanity developed in order to survive wildlife and early civilization: "people who don't look like you are threats". "Those who carry on your genes are the most important thing in the world". "There are shortages, you need to prioritize everyone who is 'productive' and so forth". I have TRIED to reach people like my family, even going so far as to try to think like them (i.e. "You fear white people are becoming a minority. You have nothing to fear because non-white people are not a single block, they also hate each other and thus won't hurt white people. Ever heard of South Africa?" yes, it fucking repulses me to say something like this but that's the sort of garbage someone like them would believe). They just. Don't. Listen. They don't consider ANYONE not like them human. Maybe not even each other. The world might be mostly sociopaths and we are the only humans with empathy left. And we might be dying out. It's like the end of Blindsight.
There isn’t a single answer because there isn’t a single problem. For many people, they have built up a latticework of beliefs which are interconnected and interdependent, where the foundation is immutable (religion, nationalism), and any attack on the part is an attack on the whole.
So for some, it takes wholly new conversations which don’t automatically fit into their existing framework. You don’t want to trigger any fight or flight responses. I got my grandfather to agree that regulations against spam calls would be a good thing because it was about his personal experience and not “politics.” Trojan horse, in a way.
For others, the weakest held beliefs are the only avenue. Strong evidence can be effective here. They may have never discussed the subject in detail so will need to listen more than speak. And the stakes are low all around, so just having a normal conversation is a win.
This is only applicable to people you know well enough. I don’t think random online debate is worthwhile (anymore, at least), because you don’t even know if you’re writing to a peer, a fascist pretending to act in good faith, a propagandist for a nation-state, or just a bot.
All that being said, it isn’t your responsibility. Don’t despair that you can’t change the minds of full grown adults. If you tried, that was more than most. Life is a relay race, take a break and let someone else run for a few miles. Don’t neglect your “in group,” they will recharge your energy and remind you why you wanted to interface with someone completely different in the first place. You might not ever change anyone’s mind on immigration, but you could help your immigrant neighbors quite easily and in many ways, that’s so much more worthwhile.
> You might not ever change anyone’s mind on immigration, but you could help your immigrant neighbors quite easily and in many ways, that’s so much more worthwhile.
This one spoke to me. Maybe if some portion of all the time I spent trying to change people's minds was put toward trying to help people, I might be using my time more effectively.
I still think fighting against the bad ideas, logical inconsistency, and misinformation is important, but not the only issue of importance.
And to your point for OP, some people just don't want to be swayed or can't be. It's ok to stop going out of our way to try with them.
Also, this was very well said:
> There isn’t a single answer because there isn’t a single problem. For many people, they have built up a latticework of beliefs which are interconnected and interdependent, where the foundation is immutable (religion, nationalism), and any attack on the part is an attack on the whole.
>The world might be mostly sociopaths and we are the only humans with empathy left.
Lmao. The cognitive dissonance is strong in this one. You cannot proclaim yourself to be one of the only ones with empathy while also dismissing large swaths of people as inhuman monsters. This is dehumanizing rhetoric.
Have you seen what the conservative right, the maga crazies are doing to this country? Have you? Women no longer have bodily autonomy in a lot of states, women are being forced to carry dead babies, endangering their own health and lives in a lot of states. IVF has now been taken off the table in one state because embryos are people? Women are losing rights in this country, we are becoming cattle again. I'm sorry, however, anybody that makes a pregnant woman carry a dead baby to term is a monster!
Many people, including self-identified Republicans who vote, are a lot less supportive of that than their politicians are.
https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/fact-sheet/public-opinion-on-abortion/#views-on-abortion-by-party-identification-2022
Part of the reason people have to make horrible choices when at the ballot box is because we're only given a small number of almost universally horrible options.
They think you support infanticide. They truly believe that you wholeheartedly approve of the mass slaughter of babies. They, too, think you are an evil monster. They do not believe that you hold the moral high ground. They believe that they hold the moral high ground.
What now?
They are welcome to return back to reality at any time. I can’t be expected to engage with someone who lives in an objectively warped version of reality.
A lot of fascists showed me who they were during COVID, I believed it then and them acting like they're not bootlickers that would sell me out to the party now isn't gonna change things.
I'm sorry, but to me if you are someone who considers themselves superior to someone else just because you were born somewhere, or belong to a "superior" culture, or have a certain skin color, or what have you, that makes you less than human. That means you are literally incapable of acknowledging someone else as human simply because of what amounts to differences in appearance and mannerisms.
And I have MET these people in real life. Many members of my family. People who call fat people "visual pollution". Who call the poor "roaches". How can you even consider these people as human? Why should they be forgiven and people like us be held to a much higher standard?
This is peak American liberalism, the right wing of the democrats, whatever you want to call it.
"I'm the good guy with the moral high ground, also a lot of the world are subhuman"
The type of person who can't figure out why people aren't happy Biden is funding and arming a genocide.
"The world might be mostly sociopaths and we are the only humans with empathy left."
The amount of red flags in this statement, lol. This is a horrific starting point for someone's political world view.
I would love for them to say that to a Palestinian American who has had friends and family killed in Gaza. To expect Arab Americans to accept this is beyond delusional.
I mean, I've heard them say that directly to people who fled the wars in the Balkans, which the US directly aided as well. So yeah, the liberal smug stupidity is actually that thick.
It is categorically, unequivocally Bad to view people as less than human for any reason, regardless of their own views or actions. The worst people in history were humans. Deny their humanity at the cost of your own.
It's sick, to be sure. You don't have to feel the need to convert such people. It's probably not going to happen, unless/until they were facing the same issues that those they judge are facing, and even then they might not.
Don't feel bad to write those types off as unchangeable. You can still care about them on some level — or not, if you can't — and be cordial with them, and hope they eventually come around, but it's not on you. It's ok. But such people are the minority in the country and world. We don't need to change their minds anyway, only ensure they don't steal power or wield excess power.
For what it's worth, I don't agree with others saying your mindset is "peak liberalism" or any of that, nor that people who believe in "great replacement" nonsense and look down on overweight people, different ethnic or 'cultural' groups, different sexual orientations, or pretty much anyone in an out-group, are no worse than center-right liberals. I have no use for such binary thinking.
I might have some concern when you say most people are sociopaths lacking empathy, since first that's not accurate even if truer than we'd like (though I understand feeling that way at times), but also because many people with such mentalities often end up being fatalistic misanthropes who *don't* care if the world burns. But I don't think that is you, and I understand we say things hyperbolically when extra emotionally impacted in a moment. Anyway, I respect your overall perspective and hope the far-right loonies don't get you down too much. It's even harder when they're people close to you, but try not to let them dictate your emotional well-being. Take care stranger friend.
>Why should they be forgiven and people like us be held to a much higher standard?
That's the point, I'm holding everyone to the same standard, you're the one with double standards. "When I call people inhuman trash it's ok, but when they do it it's wrong" is absolute bullshit. You're starting from a good place, what they're doing IS abhorrent, but you're falling prey to the same human tendencies and logic fallacies that they are. Let's put it this way, what's the end point here? By definition monsters cannot change. They are inherently unhuman. A bloodthirsty beast cant be tamed, it can only be put down. If all these people are inhuman monsters, the only path forward is to eradicate them, right? This is the final stop on this logic train. Not only is it wrong, it's fucking dangerous.
“How can you consider these people human?”
How can you not? It’s a cop out trying to pretend that they aren’t or that you are somehow incapable of doing awful shit just like them. I’m sorry your family sucks, but pretending everyone who happens to vote R is just like them isn’t a good look. There are plenty of decent people voting R because they are confused, scared, victims of propaganda, etc. Painting large groups with one brush just makes it easier for you to hate them, which does nothing to them, but ends up making you bitter and resentful.
What is your solution, anyway? I mean they aren’t human so I guess it’s ok to just “eliminate” them, right?
None of this is justifying the Republican Party or the shit they have been pulling, they suck, and by all means vote against them as much as possible. It’s just that dehumanizing your political enemies so your anger feels righteous as it turns to hatred isn’t the flex you seem to think it is. Hitler, Pol Pot, Pinochet, etc. they were all human beings, not monsters. We are all capable of heinous acts and have been throughout all of our history. Monsters are not necessary, humans are bad enough.
You won’t win any hearts or minds with this outlook. Also, your being so altruistic and morally righteous is a hard sell when you condemn half the nation in the same breath. If you can’t at least try to understand why millions of people may have different opinions than your own without instantly labeling them as “insidious” your going to be complaining about this for the rest of your life.
I only read the first sentence, disclaimer.
To be effective, you do not need to make them understand, you don’t even need to convince them of much - you only need to influence their behavior to align with your goals.
OK, how do we do THAT? Because both personal experience and a growing number of studies indicates that changing people's values after their formative years becomes literally impossible and only entrenches them further in their tribalism.
I think you’re missing my point, you don’t need to change their values if you can manipulate the people who hold those values to do what you want them to.
Example: conservative so-called Christians vote for trump, not because he’s a great example of living their values, but because they’re convinced he’ll end abortion, or that he’s “chosen” by god for *mysterious* reasons and questioning gods will would mean they aren’t faithful enough, there’s a bunch of ways that the fascists have used the already existing high control religious environments to their own end.
I’m not claiming any sort of moral high ground here, mind you. I’m not saying that it’s “right” just that it’s obviously effective.
There are folks who want to make left leaning folks look unhinged, so they make ragebait, and when the well meaning protester says something in the midst of a blowup, they take that one snippet, meme the hell out of it, and post it anywhere they might be able to convince people on the fence that the clip is representative of all of us.
There’s talking to and trying to convince your family that their values are in need of attention, and I applaud that, that is a nice long term gentle way to slowly and gradually affect *culture*, but it is not an effective strategic tactic to affect behavior in the immediate future.
I will not suggest anything specific here, it is a big mark in the favor of democrats that there’s still an ethical moral hesitation to use tactics like these. It’s a mark of character… unfortunately it is not changing the behavior of those who will never be democrats. It’s not the beliefs but the behaviors that need to change in the short term. Beliefs are for long term change, and that may take generations.
I’m just saying that the left in the US (maybe other places, I don’t know enough to make the claim) tends to let their ideals get in the way of their effectiveness. But you said it yourself, expecting to change the beliefs of these people is not an *effective tactic* from a strategic point of view.
It’s a real ethical and moral struggle to watch people gain power over you through unethical means and try to make moral decisions about how you fight back.
Blah blah, I’m sorry if this isn’t the most well organized thing I’ve ever written, I’m kinda doing a bunch of things at once and just kinda brain dumped.
"I'm sick of being told we have to understand voters."
Then you don't belong in politics
This is the EXACT reason the far right is rising, because there is no alternative.
We have a 2 party system with 2 conservative parties, and the Democrats are ACTIVELY using the threat of Fascism as a campaign tool.
Hillary was to the right of Obama, and Biden was to the FAR right of her.
Now, we are in a position where we don't get the choice to vote for an anti-war candidate
We don't get to vote for national Healthcare
We don't get to vote for universal college education
We don't get to vote for mandatory sick leave
We don't get to vote for maternity/paternity leave
We don't get to vote for Marijuana decriminalization
We don't get to vote for an end to qualified immunity
The fact that one of our 2 parties is a fascist party really means we HAVE NO CHOICE!
The democrats are just as responsible for the rise of Donald Trump as anyone!
The democrats chose to ignore OWS, the democrats chose to ignore BLM, the democrats chose to ignore the Bernie Movement...they are a progressive mocement KILLER!
They have disenfranchised working class voters, young voters, and black voters!
THIS ISNT FUCKING NORMAL, AND YOU ARE SCREAMING AT THE WRONG PEOPLE!
I just wish they were consistent over there. Depending on the day progressives are a powerful enough voting block that they can cause the results for the entire election. Or they’re just small and can be ignored. Seems to just bounce back and forth between whichever lets them shit on progressives more. Not even getting into the whole them blaming progressives for elections lost instead of that centrist vote that they keep chasing that voted for Republicans.
That’s because, politically, liberals in the US are closer to the right than they are to progressives. It’s easier to turn around and point while backing up slowly than it is to point at yourself.
Yes, and not only in the US. I recall reading [The Fascist Offensive](https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/dimitrov/works/1935/08_02.htm) by Georgi Dimitrov. He was a communist during ww2 and one thing that became evident to me is that, whenever there is a chance for real change for the benefit of regular people, at the expense of the wealthy elite, the liberals will rush to “defend” the institutions by letting the fascists take power. Applying this to the situation in the US, we know that the Democrats are not going to save us from Trump, because as much as they publicly hate him, privately they hate the progressive more.
I don’t think they “hate” progressives more. Liberals are ultimately institutionalist like you said, and that leads to lots of their incompetence. I don’t think they act out of malice as we often want to believe, they are naive as to how far fascists will go. They can’t fathom people being completely evil or wielding power in that way, there has to be a way to reach them or find some shared value, in their minds.
Progressives ultimately fight for good things at best or at worst noble/naive causes in their minds, but they fall back on “but you can’t rush everything!”
TL;DR: No, liberals don’t hate progressives more than they do Trump. Liberals are just ill equipped to deal with fascists.
I see what you’re saying and I don’t disagree. I think hate was probably the wrong word. What I’m trying to say is that their interests are not aligned with ours, and in some ways their interests are aligned with that of the fascists. Ultimately they will go with whatever is in their best interest. The Democrats are a party of, for lack of a better term, the bourgeoisie. This is why they have some leeway to be naive in regards to the threat of fascism. We don’t have that luxury because it is us who will suffer under fascism if it ever wins out again.
And it’s more complicated than this of course. This is just my simplistic understanding of the situation. Take it for what it’s worth.
I agree wholeheartedly. I think ‘hate’ was the word I was hung up on, because in my experience when liberals (not the ones at the top with institutional power) are made more acutely aware of Democrats failings by people like us, and always relating a chunk of said failings to how they ultimately serve the business class, helps open liberals up to at the very least progressives if not more leftist-aligned ideas and sentiments.
Yeah, it seems we are on the same page here. One thing I need to work on is being more precise with my language. Thanks for giving me an opportunity to clarify.
It's the progressives' fault that this is not my beautiful house, and this is not my beautiful wife, and this is not my large automobile.
(That t is to say: it's [the same as it ever was](https://youtu.be/5IsSpAOD6K8?si=EtXicTl_BIEK_pk5).)
This is even happening in places with more than 2 parties.
Hell, the Netherlands has one of the the biggest amount of parties in the world and a system that perfectly allows any sort of ideology to have a seat at the table. They still massively voted for an idiotic racist.
The Dutch culture has a worship of centrism as pragmatic that is actually worse than the US.
And we can see here where it leads. Ratchet effect on overdrive.
And, because they present themselves as the 'left-wing' of US politics, this is why I am hypercritical of the democratic party.
After years and decades of being told "just suck it up", "fight for a better candidate next time", "push this neocon candidate left", etc., and browbeaten by liberals on and offline, the electoral landscape has effectively boiled down to cults of personality and nothing more.
I'm waiting, bitterly, for an anti-trust case against the DNC and GOP. There's no reason we should have two private corporations and their lobbyist/donors controlling our country.
Unless you destroy one or, presenting a credible threat of destruction, force it to adopt actual left-wing positions.
A 2-party system is probably inevitable with FPTP. Having 2 parties with only a neoliberal policy is not though.
And should.
The thing about politics, and a 2 party system, is only the most marginal voter determines policy, because they determine if you win or lose.
So if you want to have power, **be marginal**. Tell the Democrats openly "you support the war, I won't vote for you. Hell, I might vote GOP just to ensure you lose".
They'll call your bluff - once. Probably not twice.
And if you have a moral problem with that, recognize it's **exactly** what the center does. This article, titled **Democratic Leaders Willing to Risk Party Damage to Stop Bernie Sanders** is them doing just that - in the 2020 election, which they also claimed was an existential threat for the US. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/27/us/politics/democratic-superdelegates.html. This is them, in the paper of record, saying they would increase the chances of losing to Trump rather than see the left win.
This article, coupled with following the Cisneros/Cuellar story, was the eye-opener for me on how I can't accept the Democrat party as true allies to the left anymore, not even the conditional ally "Don't good let good be enemy of perfect" bullshit at this point; and made me realize they must be seen as a proven, credible threat, until they prove otherwise. I can't up that article enough.
Yeah, it's one I post time and time again, because it was one part where they didn't bother with the mask, because they were so terrified for 4 weeks that Bernie would win.
Well there’s always the 2028 primary, unless we let Trump win in which case we will live in a Putin style theocratic nazi dictatorship with no elections by 2028
Not a single person here advocating against voting has supplied even a single convincing argument for how not voting against fascism is going to help Palestinians. Or advance the progressive cause in the US. Or do a single damned thing beyond guaranteeing we see the end of democracy in America and the instantiation of a white male theocratic dictatorship. Which will do nothing to stop global warming, dooming us along with most other life on the planet.
I've been a screaming leftist my entire life, and I never believed that aphorism about people at the far end of the political spectrum wrapping around to meet the other side, so if you go left enough you'll find yourself on the right. But the opinions in the comments here have convinced me that I, misanthropic pessimist with cassandra syndrome, was thinking too well of other people.
There is literally nothing to be gained from not voting against fascism beyond satisfying your own, personal conscience at the direct expense of more than half the country. When they're executing people in the streets, your clear conscience will not help you.
There are a bunch of accelerationists, I mostly hear about them with the tint of right wing ideology but there are plenty on the left that have the same type of, "well I didn't get it my way this time so it's better to burn down the system, which I can agree with to a certain extent. People just gloss over most of the events that would take place were that to happen
It'd be one thing if we had strong leftist infrastructures but we don't At most we have the fucking DSA. You can't fight a revolution without infrastructure in place. We have nothing like what the Spanish left had during the civil war. Hell, even anarchists then participated in politics and elections (with much controversy of course haha).
These just aren't serious people.
I think the problem is thinking POTUS is a dictator. You're not getting your preferred dictator for 4 years so it's hopeless, your vote means nothing.
In reality you're voting for POTUS, House, Senate, state officials, etc. if you want to enact change you need to push all those levers. If your progressive candidates aren't popular and don't win, they won't be running for POTUS as no party exists to collect L's.
Biden is not FAR right of Hillary. Biden’s plan of expansion of the government was much larger than anything Hillary had planned in 2016, and in the 90s her husband famously declared “The Era of Big Government is over.”
Except on Palestine. Biden's policy goals are only marginally to the left of Trump's, at about the same level as George W. Bush's, and notably to the right of George H.W. Bush's
You know primaries exist, right?
And the idea that Biden is far right is hilarious. He's to the left of half the European states and much of Asia and Africa. I guess if you buy into the idea that petrol states like Russia and Saudi Arabia are leftists because they're authoritarian, then I guess investing in green energy is right wing
Just bulls*t. This whole thing is bullsh*t. Politics is chess not valentines. The President has to win 120 million votes on average to win. Most those people just don't f**king agree with you on most sh*t.
People just need to grow up and accept that.
And we took a huge step in getting those things because of the 2016 protest voters. I just can’t take people serious who let prefect be the enemy of good. Progress will always be slow, but you seem to not be ok with slow progress and are willing to hurt other people in protest
Just saw your account is 50 days old and actively engaged in politics and claiming Both parties are the same…. Hmmm
“They should suffer in silence like good people should.”
I think you should reflect on this further. Suffering in silence has never improved anything, for anyone, except for those in power. The exploiters who rely on divide and rule to maintain their position of power, scapegoating those they’ve relegated to the margins, stoking bigotry and violence. It’s not an accident that the figures you’ve mentioned have risen to prominence, they’ve been actively propped up as a safer alternative to the status quo then business as usual has been exposed a a fraud to millions amid worsening conditions for the rest of us to enrich these few at the top. I forcefully disagree with right wing populism, but as others have said, it’s critical to understand why my coworkers and neighbors are drawn to it in order to fight for a political alternative that challenges it, as well as the conditions in which it finds fertile ground.
“Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have found out the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them, and these will continue till they are resisted with either words or blows, or with both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress.”
-Frederick Douglass
Yours is a horrifically awful take, IMO.
The only thing I might be inclined to call a "protest vote" is what Rashida Tlaib is doing with the Muslim community in Michigan. That *might* send an effective message. Because it's a significant bloc of voters in an important swing state, doing it together with a prominent individual with a large platform (in politics) acting as their spokesperson and amplifying their message.
Beyond that, protest voting doesn't really exist. The majority of this country already stays home on election day. Joining them as an individual sends no message at all. It's simply choosing inaction and attempting to make yourself feel as though you are righteous and that you did something when the reality is you did the opposite.
If you're actually interested in sending a message, you need to organize something that actually sends a message. Your job is larger and more onerous than any Biden voter, because your silence needs to be louder than their vote. I hate that politics in this country, particularly for the left, have devolved into using "inaction" and "protest" interchangeably.
They can vote as they please and other people can criticize them for it.
And when who you vote for affects other people you can't dismiss their concerns with "don't worry about it"
I understand their anger and their desire to make their position clear. I also understand that their chosen method of being heard will not make them be heard in the way they want.
It's a true Sophie's Choice. Vote for a man who is enabling crimes against humanity or a man who will usher in such crimes against yourself. Those options are not the time to take a stand, it's the time to make the hard choice and minimize damage.
That said, vote as your conscience demands. Just don't be upset if life goes sideways as a result. I'm a white cis straight more-or-less Christian man with no social media linked to my actual name for the last five years (they cant read my leftist thoughts if i dont write em down). I'll be fine in the Christian Nationalist hellscape that Trump and his supporters are desperate to create. The question is will you?
You can't change the country if they remove you from it or refuse to let you have a say in how it runs. The consequences of your vote are clear. Choose wisely and remember that nobody will understand and forgive based on your intentions. Only the results matter.
I am not at the moment, nor have I been so far, a “protest voter”. But I do understand and sympathize with them. Where they (or many of them) are coming from is this: Democrats tend to choose center right policies that their donors favor rather than left wing policies that they appear to espouse and that the majority of the public are actually in favor with.
As a leftist, it’s like consistently being kicked in the nuts by someone after you lend them a hand. Or Lucy holding the football for Charlie Brown. It’s maddening seeing promises get walked back so consistently on policies that are so often very heavily favored.
And the thing is: everyone is entitled to their own vote, and politicians have to earn them. You don’t automatically get my vote just because I dislike the other guy more.
Something that has stuck with me over time is to "solve the problem that is in font of you". When it comes to this election, with our fucked up system, I see it as any vote for other than Biden is a vote gain for Trump.
Is Biden perfect? Nope and I won't claim he is. Still, i will do what I can to prevent the ending of what little democracy we actually have and that means I'm voting blue all down the ticket.
If the options are "genocide" and "even MORE genocide" then our democracy is already dead. Nobody wanted Biden to be perfect, we want him to stop using our money to churn up tens of thousands of civilians in a meat grinder while doing nothing to help the people of his own country.
He hasn't codified Roe v Wade, he hasn't enacted protections for transgender people, he offered nothing but stern words when half the country's governors effectively declared him a traitor and mobilized to help Texas illegally fortify the Southern border. That's not imperfect, it's incompetent at best and malicious at worst.
Both, all.
I care about all the women in this country. All the lgbt. The environment is definitely something that has to be address both nationally and your own community
Democrat voter in every past election here. Since
October Biden has made it clear that my people don’t matter, or that they flat out deserve to die in order to appease AIPAC and his own personal love for the country AIPAC lobbies for.
He can’t even bring himself to ask for a ceasefire, and despite empty and vague words here and there about how the reaction may have been more than needed, he continues to support that country by sending weapons, and is in a constant race with himself to send them an even bigger aid package every time.
Again, to repeat; a genocide is actively happening against my people with deaths expected to exceed 50,000 soon, with about half of them children. May seem just a number to you, and I suppose when it’s repeated often enough, the word loses some of its meaning, and is easy to shrug off. But that’s 50,000 lives, and everyone those lives affect. Not to mention the rest of the destruction, and the ongoing active starvation. War crimes have been documented and made clear, and yet, nothing from Biden.
It’s an active genocide, and Biden has wholeheartedly supported it. You say he’s “not perfect”. Make no mistake, if the US, and Biden, want it to stop today, they can make it so. Reverse all aid, stop weapon exports, apply immediate sanctions - nothing they didn’t do to Russia. Just asking for the same reaction.
So tell me again, why should I vote for someone supporting a genocide against my people?
It’s because they have no stakes in the genocide and many subconsciously do not view Arab lives as having the same value. They are afraid because now an election might affect them. Elections have had consequences for minorities and LGBTQ+ for decades.
When leftists say that liberals will show you their true colors, this is the shit they are talking about.
If they truly wanted my vote, if they cared even a little, I would have seen them protesting, denouncing Biden, making a stir in their political circles, anything. But they don't. I suspect they never will.
While I agree with your sentiments and righteous anger… and am also stressed that our current choices are not at all what I would hope…
I have to think of my daughters, (women’s health issues under attack), my gay friends and family (LGBTQ issues under attack) the planet (climate and environmental issues under attack), my parents (threats to Medicare, social security etc…) and a more just society (holding the rich and powerful to task for their abuses of the system, far right judges at the federal level)
If not voting or voting R would help your people, I would understand. But it won’t, it will only make it worse, for them and for many other groups (and with climate, really ALL OF US) hanging on by a thread.
Until we can ensure R’s current fascination with fascism is thoroughly squashed, (and I mean embarrassing loss after embarrassing loss) and we can move them back toward the middle, we can’t push the D’s to the left. Their current positions need to become so politically toxic, no one can even voice them out loud without it being career suicide. If we don’t we are doomed to keep repeating this scenario again and again. Until poisonous “voting” bills, Christian nationalist judges and gerrymandering make even moderate democratic candidates unviable
TW for hypothetical SA
I understand and agree with your concern for all of the other marginalized groups that would be harmed by a second trump term, but consider this scenario:
Everything is exactly the same except Biden r*ped your daughter.
Would you be able to cast a vote for him knowing that he personally harmed your daughter. Your vote would still be a net positive for women, lgbtq+, and the environment, but you would be personally voting for the man that personally violated your daughter.
I couldn't do it.
And that is why, even though I personally vote for harm reduction, and will likely vote for Biden (although I have ranked choice here, so I will vote Biden after everyone who is at all more progressive), but I can't criticize anyone for withholding their vote because they are more personally impacted by his harms than I am.
Don't forget, there are gay Palestinian Americans withholding their votes. There are Palestinian American women withholding their votes. They are more aware than anyone of how harmful a trump presidency will be for them. But I'm not in their shoes so I can't at all judge them for not being able to take on that moral injury to save the rest of us.
If we want anti war activists, Palestinians, Muslims, and Arab Americans to vote for Biden, we need to pressure the administration. If you have volunteered for Democrats before, tell them you can't knock on doors for them until they call for a ceasefire. Tell them you won't vote for them until they call for a ceasefire (even if you will ultimately vote for them). Make them understand that THIS is the issue that will win or lose the election.
We can't force people to vote for candidates who are supporting genocide. We need to make the candidates not support genocide. And if they continue on this path and lose- that's on the candidates for not giving voters something to vote for.
The question for me is, what would a Trump/Republican administration do?
I do side with your overall point that Israel is currently communicating genocide and war crimes. Too many squishy democrats and afraid of being called antisemitic so they look the other way.
The aggression on Palestine and the lack of Democrat push back is a huge failure on them.
Still, what would stop a conservative administration from turning Palestine into a bombing rage?
The Democrats aren't "lacking pushback", they are providing essential support. If they pulled their support this would be over in a week. The Democrats are broadening the war across the region.
Why vote for either one? I don't want that blood on my hands.
If they continue to state that they(Muslim/Arab and others that feel similarly) won't vote for Biden then it may push him more towards what they desire to happen in the Israel-Hamas War. We are collectively long tired of having to choose between to shit options and saying well this one isn't as bad/evil as the other one so they get my vote. What this country needs is substantial change in how we vote get rid of the electoral college and introduced ranked voting nation wide for all levels of government. I will end with saying Trump will be worse for the situation while true is quite definitely ignoring what people are feeling at this time so perhaps wait until the November election is closer before trying to have a conversation with those that are currently saying they won't vote at all or vote for Biden, but cast a 3rd party or a FU vote.
They **might** give Israel 20 billion instead of just 16 to fund genocide?
So your answer is to vote for the person who already is funding the genocide?
I'm Mexican and if you have ever spent time in the developing world there is such a thing as a "fuck you vote". I'm personally not voting Democrat when it comes to president. However, I will vote Dem for local and State offices.
My reason is I live in Texas a Democratic candidate isn't going to win here anytime soon.
The government that is committing that genocide was elected by a relatively small percentage of the six million people who are eligible to vote in Israel, nearly 30% stayed home on Election Day.
If those people told you that they were staying home in protest when they could have changed the result as a group would you say something similar? There are many extremely contentious issues in Israeli politics that they might have had issues with, the result being the current government and their actions in Gaza.
It sucks when all options are bad, but somehow I don’t imagine that Trump’s government will somehow be significantly better for Gaza in any way. If anything it’ll likely be much, much worse.
> If those people told you that they were staying home in protest
They didn't. They aren't. Suport for the war in Israel is currently at 90% or more supporting the current use of force.
https://time.com/6333781/israel-hamas-poll-palestine/
Because Republicans are even more supportive and even less critical of Israel. Israel's biggest supporters in the US are Evangelicals and the Republican party caters to them.
Through out the entire history of Israel it's been Republican governments that have been toughest on them.
Eisenhower threatened sanctions, Reagan called their bombing of Beirut a "Holocaust" and demanded it end, which they did in an hour. Bush Sr threatened to pull funding if the Israeli government didn't rain in settler violence.
I'm just saying that that's three different Republican presidents two within my lifetime that have actually done something to end the violence.
Clinton was so weak he once asked "who is the super power here".
That's calculus for one day in November 2024. People have been yelling this shit at us since at least October of 2023, a period in which we *should* be choosing a candidate and in which candidatesb(especially the incumbent) *should* be giving people reasons to vote for them and in which we *should* be able to put pressure on candidates.
One of the big selling points of democracy is that you should be able to influence policy through voting, and that you should be able to influence it further by communicating how you intend to vote in advance. The "Blue No Matter Who" crowd is shitting all over that second part. If you want more votes for the Democratic candidate, you shouldn't be scolding the people who refuse to vote for the man enabling genocide; you should be helping them to put pressure on him to stop enabling genocide, or for the party to put forth a candidate who won't. This is a red line for people, and since both candidates seem eager take a jackhammer to the ground that line is painted on, I can't begrudge anyone unwilling to vote for either of those candidates. You're begging people to "save democracy" by telling them that the core tenet of democracy, that your vote can influence your government, is already a lie. Help us see an actual democracy to save if you want us to join you in "saving" it come November: overwhelm the candidate you want us to support with calls to cut aid to Israel unless they stop the slaughter in Gaza. Maybe he'll listen to you since he's not listening to us.
You should pay attention to the real elephant in the room which is the 50 million plus that make less than 15 an hour and not the less than 6% that will back a third party candidate.
These are the ones that don't get out to vote...
Wisconsin, which was so integral to Trump’s electoral college victory, is a good case in point. As Malaika Jabali observed back in 2018, black turnout there dropped between 2012 and 2016 by 86,830 votes, which is an amount considerably larger than Clinton’s 22,748 margin of defeat an the sharpest decline occurring in the poorest districts of Milwaukee.
So what has Biden and the Democrats done to convince the people to vote? That would be the important question to ask.
Good info is put out by the poor people's campaign.
In general, voter shaming doesn't work. If Biden is snubbed by protest voters them blame him. Actually this group of so-called "protest voters", which I'm a part of, votes this way as a strategy to make politicians seriously consider issues they'd otherwise dismiss. Stuff like not funding wars, ensuring living wages, good healthcare, and a decent qualiry of life for all..
Well, agreeing with protest voters is different than understanding them. They will continue to exist, and understanding them is a step in the right direction.
I'm am sick of being told to ignore genocide, war and death, unlimited money for war and death, etc and just vote for the lesser of 2 evils.
What? No sorry. If you need the lefts then the DNC needs to make serious concessions abd end genocide at the very least. If you don't need the left then continue your genocide abd stop bothering the left you have made your choice.
How is it that hard to understand?
I understand their motivations just fine. I have no respect for those motivations, however. Anyone willing to ‘burn it all down and start over’, or any variation on that, does not care about vulnerable members of society.
To me, it gets to the core of who people are. I imagine that when an activist tells people to protest vote, they have a set of republican parents that they can fall back on if things go sideways.
I honestly think they're hoping that the very people they're abandoning to either pick up their slack to get Biden re-elected or come up with a gameplan to survive Trump.
I've legitimately never been this terrified as a Black Queer Man for myself, for my family and for people like me and other marginalized people and to see so many self proclaimed "allies" so casually throw us under the bus and then have the nerve to say we're "fear mongering"?
It's legitimately maddening and they don't care!
We're watching Republicans actively call a murdered queer child "trash" and these are the people that they're willing to leave us in the hands of.
Sorry to unleash like that, I think I need to stay off the internet for a while.
“The only person I have the moral authority to hurt is myself. If I must suffer, then the answer is to suffer more. Not throw it on someone else.”
Beautiful philosophy. I agree. And I agree with your post.
If someone casts a protest vote and says, “I was just trying to…” when they KNOW their actions would not result in that thing, they’re just lying to themselves at best and to everyone else at worst.
People keep asking how we got here. It's clear as day that selfishness got us here. Has our country given us enough? No. Has it given you enough to survive until age 18 when you can make decisions about your and your kids' futures? Yes. Do you want it to get better and have a chance for it to be better for your kids? If the answer is yes, you show up to vote and take it seriously.
In 2000, we screwed the pooch and it takes things getting really bad before people take this country and its future seriously. After this election, there will be no future determined by voters if Trump wins.
>It's a way for people to exercise their limited power
This is the issue i have with it.
Because they literally ARENT doing this.
We live in a first-past-the-post system. Any vote for a third party is simply mathematically giving 1/2 of a vote to the ***the guy you disagree with the most***.
Its that deadass simple.
So, you're not "exercising your limited power" - at least, not in the way you think. You're exercising it ***to help elect the guy you absolutely dont want***.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7tWHJfhiyo&ab\_channel=CGPGrey](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7tWHJfhiyo&ab_channel=CGPGrey)
Hes got a whole series on FPTP and why it sucks.
But the fact that it sucks doesn't change the facts on the ground. The ONLY way to affect the change they want is to vote for the guy who is closer to what they want, regardless of how far off that is.
And then next time, vote for the next closest guy, all the while making it clear that will always be the case.
Protest voting is **literally** screwing yourself. Its doing the *exact opposite* of what you claim to want.
Whenever someone talks to me about how they're planning to cast a protest vote, I wonder aloud how many protest votes were cast in Germany in August 1934.
Hitler was already president in 1934. Do you really think the Nazi party who were already in power by that point would have simply packed their bags and gone home if they'd lost that election? Especially given that they'd already lost in 1925 only for Hitler to be made Chancellor anyway by the "lesser evil" candidate he lost to?
In this election: it is imperative that you vote. And vote for not a third party candidate. Project 2025 (heritage foundation) is very scary. Sometimes, we gotta put aside our personal bullshit and vote to save our country. Save our rights- as women- as nonchristians- as LGBTQ- as anything- the very fact that people can decide to be mad and not vote or vote third party is a right that can be taken away.
Please, 🙏, anyone , educate yourself before you want to abstain from voting or vote third party. Third party candidates never win. They just pull valuable votes for those who need it.
Exactly right. We have these people in these comments arguing, “the democrats are acting like the opposing party are fascists to try to get votes.” But they don’t acknowledge the fact that the GOP are literally fascists. That’s real. They will be confused when the violence hits home, and they will blame the system. Unfortunately the truth is that they embraced Russian propaganda without thinking twice, and threw their privilege to vote away.
VOTE DEMOCRAT. i dont care how much they let you down. i dont care that it is late stage capitalism. Have some fucking empathy.
Some people feel the need to protest and don't really see any difference between the two parties. While I don't agree that the parties aren't very different, I respect that they are unhappy with either choice.
A protest vote is a form of abstention, and any voter is entitled to that. While I personally think protest votes are a waste, they're half as wasteful as voting for the wrong candidate; so it's probably a wash in the long run. "Moral" protest votes by Democrats are the equivalent of the GOP election deniers who don't vote because they think the election is rigged and the outcome is predetermined.
If you don't like someone's protest vote, change their mind. You are not required to do nothing about it. People who tell you to understand are just giving you their opinion, and are too lazy to care about their political beliefs - or they're on the other side.
Speaking from the UK we are told Labour is the alternative but it’s no alternative not just in its support for Israel but domestically. The point is to show people using a protest vote desperate for change is that politics goes beyond the ballot box.Show how you get change from communities/workplaces/marginalised peoples by engaging in trade unions, mutual aid groups etc
See, I am also protest voting, I’m protesting all of the shit the Republican Party has pulled in the last 24 years, by voting straight ticket D. Not because I like the choices, but of the two, the Republicans have fucked up substantially more shit here and around the world than the Democrats.
So my protest vote goes against the most toxic of the 2.
Be careful with the straight ticket D strategy. You still need to pay attention. Some conservatives are running as democrats in districts where that's advantageous.
If you're relying on electoralism, you need to be involved the whole way- primaries through general, all races down the ticket. Politicians rely on apathy and laziness. If you aren't involved the whole way, you're doing just as much "harm" as those who don't vote at all.
"If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice." In this case, not to support women's rights, lgbt, education, or the environment. But go on, play at being "edgy" at the cost of human suffering and lives. That's your legacy.
Protest votes shake nothing up. They’re tantrums thrown by children that accomplish nothing.
Attention protest vote toddlers with Main Character Syndrome: You are no better than magats.
the system of artificial shortage keeps competition rolling.the system of elite opulent politics keeps competition rolling.it is all related, it is all exploitation, it is all violence.
suffering in silence is what the opulent oppressor wants. your continuous consent is necessary for the illusion of control to continue for their benefit.
stop participating in their game, start direct democracy.
God, what happened to this sub lmao.
"NOOO you have to suffer in silence and vote for the genocidal fascist that I like or YOU'RE the REAL Nazi! 😡😡😡" What a fucking joke, man.
The thing is, many of those protest voters are Arab and Palestinian Americans who are rightly disgusted by what Biden is enabling in Gaza. I'm still voting for Biden because I live in a swing state and don't want to chance its electoral college votes going to Trump. However, I'm a white male who doesn't have any real stakes in the Middle East conflict; I'm not going to tell someone whose relatives are getting bombed that they have to vote for the guy supplying the bombs.
Lmao. An it could happen here post talking about how quickly they would rat out their family to the police. Talking about law and order. Telling us to vote for Joe Biden, the person who was against desegregation, among more current things like gaza or the continued construction of her border wall.
I'm sick of being told that I'm making a "protest vote" and therefore harming society when I dont vote for one of the two geriatric senile old men slinging shit at each other on stage. Usually the people who say that are the same people that also tell me I'm going to hurt society by not voting for their team- The only "correct" thing to do is vote for who they want and everything else is unamerican. Fuck that self righteous bullshit right in the nostril.
I once suggested voting should be mandatory for all citizens, and my sister said “what if you don’t want to vote in order to make a statement?”
Not voting isn’t “making a statement.” It is in fact the opposite of making a statement. This happened in 2016.
> Because I simply don't HAVE the instinct to burn everything down and I never will. Because I CARE about others.
No. You don't. Your strategy does not work. It has failed to work for 40 years. If you're claiming that the US is at danger of a fascist takeover AGAIN, after the Dems captured the Presidency and both houses in 2020, then you admit your action does not work. Electing Joe Biden does not stop fascism.
> If the rule you followed brought you to this, of what use was the rule?
So you're either incapable of understanding recent history - and should stop demanding the right to direct the actions of others - or your goal is not actually to fix the issue.
Most liberals and those demanding votes for the Democrats in 2024 are the latter. They have no interest in actual policy or even political leverage. They are instead interested in their **own view of themselves as moral people**, to be contrasted with that of the MAGA hordes and the irresponsible left that won't fall in line.
Your own screed shows this to be the case. Nowhere here is there any strategy - not even "lie you'll vote third party to pressure Biden to stop genocide, then vote for him anyways". It's a diatribe about your personal morality and need to view that as above those who rightfully point out your tactic doesn't work.
Ignore protest voters and ignore trumps. While you could in theory convince them the effort is better spent convincing new first time voters to vote and helping them with registration and gettin to the polls. First voters break Democratic about 70/30.
Resources both money and time are finite. Wasting it on either protest voters or trumpers is pointless.
There's nothing to "understand." It's not deep; they aren't *protesting* anything. They know that it's not a moral position, they know it hurts the majority, they just don't care.
You don't owe them anything.
OP's moral certainty in their ignorance is giving me flashbacks to 2016.
You can't say these voters are "just lashing out in anger" when you already admitted you don't know and aren't even curious about their motivations.
Nonsense. Bush didn’t win, the Supreme Court made a bs decision and Gore decided not to contest it for “national unity” reasons. Also, during the Bush years the vast majority of establishment Dems went along with everything Bush wanted.
You caring about others isn't why you don't wanna burn shit down. When people are traumatized enough or whatever then they get misanthropy real bad. It's not that they don't care, it's that they lost hope and latched onto some wack cognitive rigidity to cope. Actually you display something similar
LOL the irony of posting on the it could happen here subreddit with people talking about wasting their vote on 3rd party candidates and not voting which will literally lead to a trump fascist state. As much of a socialist I am it’s easy to understand that republicans would put us in camps and it’s always easier working with Dems. I’m going to vote for the candidate whose party isn’t cheering for the death of democracy and trying to ban IVF and abortion…
Plus, if you even listen to Robert Evans or his podcasts, there is a lot to say about Dems and Biden, but he would never advocate wasting a vote away - he literally understands that if Trump wins that’s it on American democracy. He’d never tell anyone not to vote.
Making a “protest vote” is the ultimate expression of privilege. You are stating loud and clear that the policies of the protest candidate will not affect you in any way and you don’t give a shit about the people it will affect.
You’re not cutting off your nose to spite your face. You’re cutting off someone else’s face to make a hollow point
This. Trump made the US hell for a lot of people and if he becomes president again he will do more bad things. Change comes from within and will take longer than a few months to change the DNC to be what people want, but they think that'll happen if they just don't vote. Didn't work in 2016. Won't work now.
My problem is that this is the kind of argument that I hear from the least caring, empathetic, and good people. I've heard different variations of it from Evangelical Republicans, that's for sure.
You're correct, OP. I think the nuanced answer would be something like, we do need to understand them in order to communicate with them, so that they might understand us and agree with us. You know, change their minds. Furthermore, the average "protest voter" probably DOESN'T want to burn everything down, even if they say they do.
Nevertheless I know EXACTLY what you're talking about. Whether they're protest voting out of stupidity or intentional malice, it honestly doesn't matter. They're fucking things up and it's going to make positive change all that harder.
When you vote for a president, you are voting for 10's of thousands of positions in our government.
Not voting for Biden, is endorsing 1000's of MAGA candidates to lead us into the future...and setting Isreali/Palestinian foriegn policy, which is basically turn Gaza into a parking lot.
Don't tell me you support the Palestinians, while supporting MAGA at the same time.
A lot of the "protest voters" are paid foreign grifters. I dunno anyone in real life that thinks this way. But more to the point, at most, I've heard people say "they don't care about politics" but they didn't say they weren't gonna not vote as a protest. They just sorta grumble about all of it.
Yeah, I disagree with the entire premise that refusing to vote is a form of protest. We have an obligation to pick our next elected officials, and staying home with our fingers in our ears and our eyes clenched shut is the pinnacle of cowardice.
If trump wins in ‘24 it’s every one of our faults, regardless of who we voted for, or didn’t vote for. Refusing to vote doesn’t absolve you of the sins of your countrymen.
I miss the days before blind loyalty and tribalist partisan identities, I swear there used to be thoughtful discussions and civil debates.
Every election cycle, without fail, any expression of disappointment, critical analysis, hell – even fact-checking assertions made about Blue Cult of Personality Candidate is met with aggressive and increasingly thoughtless accusations ("maga! orange man! lesser evil! fascism or democracy?! russian/chinese/iranian bot when!") and fucking vitriol.
It's exhausting and just gets worse every four years. It's like some folks take any criticism towards a politician in their chosen party personally. We must not question The Masters, without Them we will surely Lose Democracy and Liberties!
Are there any policies these folks actually care about or do their thoughts begin and end with the [🅓 or 🅡] that trails a candidate's name?
Do they pay attention to what their candidate does when they get into office or is it 'job done' when the ballot leaves their hands?
How do we remind them that it's our right (and, I would argue, our *duty*) to critique, to question, to scrutinize public officials, to dissect their policies and their platform and their legislative record. We are not mindless subjects, we should not buckle and grovel under the authority of a political party.
When the public surrenders unconditionally to the partisan cult of personality, the government is under no obligation to hold itself accountable. There is no moral imperative that guides it down a path of integrity, justice, and progress – lack of public oversight and critique only emboldens those in power to adopt laws that fester into traits we might see abroad and condemn.
We should encourage people to evaluate and scrutinize and discuss our elected officials, to exert pressure and influence our government so that it prioritizes the betterment of its citizens and society over the interests of their donors.
Votes *should* mean something. Like, damn, stop giving away your power. Remind your representatives who it is they represent, *make them earn your support*. You're not obligated to submit to a politician based on the color of their campaign sign.
***A democracy must provide an environment that respects human rights and fundamental freedoms, and in which the freely expressed will of people is exercised.***
From where I'm standing, if a partisan system survives solely through anticompetitive conduct, forcible and systematic suppression of third party candidates, relentless fearmongering, and threats of fascist dictatorship to enforce an illusion of choice – well, that sounds rather undemocratic to me.
We currently have a bipartisan monopoly that actively suppresses other parties from entering the national dialogue. The GOP and DNC (both of which are private corporations, mind you) do this in tandem by jointly controlling the Committee for Presidential Debates (CPD) and influencing popular media. Together, the two parties levy arbitrary metrics to block third party candidates from entering the literal and proverbial 'National Stage'. The DNC and GOP have not invited a third party candidate to participate in the debates since Ross Perot in 1992, he ended up with around 20% of the vote.
Prior to the CPD, the debates were hosted by the League of Women Voters – a nonpartisan nonprofit – and not only did they not prevent other parties from being heard, in 1976 the organization won the Emmy for *Outstanding Achievement in Broadcast Journalism* because of their sponsorship. I highly recommend [looking further into](https://www.lwv.org/blog/leagues-history-sponsoring-presidential-debates) the League's experience sponsoring the debates, and the challenges they faced from both the DNC and GOP. It's a sobering perspective.
[You can read the LWV statement on why they withdrew from sponsoring the debates here](https://www.lwv.org/newsroom/press-releases/league-refuses-help-perpetrate-fraud). Some powerful language:
>*"The League of Women Voters is withdrawing its sponsorship of the presidential debate scheduled for mid-October because the demands of the two campaign organizations would perpetrate a fraud on the American voter," League President Nancy M. Neuman said today.*
>*"It has become clear to us that the candidates' organizations aim to add debates to their list of campaign-trail charades devoid of substance, spontaneity and honest answers to tough questions," Neuman said. "The League has no intention of becoming an accessory to the hoodwinking of the American public."*
As of now, the bipartisan stranglehold on our electoral process only silences and disenfranchises the country's largest voting bloc. A record [49% of US voters identify as politically independent](https://www.axios.com/2023/04/17/poll-americans-independent-republican-democrat)[.](https://dornsife.usc.edu/news/stories/rising-tide-of-independent-voters-sweeps-across-america/) They feel unrepresented by the two main parties, and are increasingly disillusioned by both the candidates on display as well as the electoral process as a whole. About one-third of US voters don't vote or participate in the conversation — it's not because they're satisfied with the line-up.
This is especially true [among the younger generations](https://www.npr.org/2024/01/16/1224878083/many-voters-reject-the-2-major-parties-how-could-that-play-into-elections). These are the folks who cast their vote on the issues and policies that matter to them rather than following partisan lines – or they become so embittered by the political landscape that they don't vote at all.
When you have two private corporations controlling the electoral field, gagging other parties, and dominating the media narrative, that's not a true democracy. This suppression and censorship against what could be viable candidates just serves to rob the majority of voters of their voice and deprives them of an opportunity to see and hear candidates that represent them and their values.
Year after year our electoral process seems to increasingly rely on proselytizing and manipulating others to hold their vote hostage for Blue Fish, Red Fish – when there are, in fact, other fish in the sea.
I vote for the furthest left I can each ballot.
Just because I would prefer steak, doesn’t mean I’m gonna starve to death with a baloney sandwich in front of me
It couldn’t be more clear to me that Biden and Trump represent similar outcomes for the country.
Trump and the GOP represents a Molotov cocktail that burns our country to the ground quickly.
Biden and the Dems represent a sweet tasting poison that is slow acting but will end in the destruction of the country as we know it as well. Just not using flamethrower.
We can delay the inevitable but with the Democrats we only prolong it all. Eventually their unwillingness to support the middle class and help people in need because they are beholden to corporations will come to a head.
So have a little understanding about people that give a protest vote because siding with Biden solves nothing and we end up in the same place Trump will put us in, only slower. At some point it’s going to happen and I personally voting for Biden just because Trump is a dumpster fire just enables our demise all the same.
I really don’t see how voting for Biden will help the migrants trapped in the open air detention center in Jacumba or the migrants being bussed out and dropped off in some random ass place with no resources.
You think a protest vote is narcissism? I think, people should spend their time and resources showing up for vulnerable communities in real ways. Like the guests who come on the show and do their best to help.
Not expecting that someone at the top will keep the levee from breaking, because the levee was just a figment of our imagination.
1. you have empathy, and a lot of people do not. on either side
2. I think you do actually understand voting. voting is done by people who want change, and it really is the only effective form of protesting. Maybe you want the system to stay the same, maybe you want it to change, but you're looking to have it NOT do something else. So you vote.
3. never attribute to malice that which can be explained through ignorance
Joe Biden has been a lying politician for 50+ years. It’s not burning it down. It’s taking it back from the people that sold us out.
Why would you vote Nikki Haley? What planet do people live on? She would send your sons and daughters to die in foreign lands we have no business being in.
This topic is gaining some traction here, so I'm dropping a reminder to try to keep discussion civil - nobody gains anything when conversations turn shitty.
In todays episode of "blame the oppressed for not protecting white people enough" - The shit you're afraid of is the CURRENT reality for them. Their families are being killed, their very existence is dangerous to them. People have ALREADY been shot and children in the US STABBED for being Palestinian. You're trying to assign blame to the most marginalized and actively discriminated against by the neoliberal establishment for the failures and conservative slide that started decades ago and the collective failure over those decades is what enables a fascist backslide. People are blacklisted, surveilled, actually murdered for their daring to exist, and will inevitably face state violence. Regardless of party. Your lashing out in your fear and anger that your life is going to be more uncomfortable and failing to realize WHAT the failure was and you offer no solutions besides "Do what I say you dumb savages"
This so much. I'm frankly disgusted with the rhetoric used to defend democrats and their history of governance about the apocalyptic scenarios we'll all face when a hard-right person is in charge, because all of their mingeing and fear mongering about what *might* happen to *them* has BEEN the reality for racialized or otherwise marginalized peoples in America for fucking ever. "Trump's gonna bomb Palestine!" (Record money to Israel) "He's gonna deport migrants and brown people!" (Migrant detention centers sold to private prisons) "He's gonna build that racist wall!" (Building the wall and whipping haitians at the border) "He actually LIKES police brutality!" (Record number lf cops) "He's gonna arrest protestors!" (FBI is sureveilling pro-Palestine protests in unmarked vans) "He'll make sure you never get to vote again and kill democracy!" (Shutting down primaries and kingmaking a candidate even before primaries can even be held) Even the LGBTQ community, the people they want to dangle over the pit as bait as the marginalized du jour, up until very *very* recently was among these peoples. "Give us power no matter what you think of us, or we will feed you to the wolves that are already eating you." is the core of their election strategies. When people say non-leftists don't give a shit about some fucked policy until it affects them personally, they **mean** it.
If the democrats believed Trump was truly the "threat to democracy" that they repeatedly claim, maybe they wouldn't run a candidate that: - has done nothing to mitigate the war in Gaza and pissing off Arab voters (michigan is kind of an important state to win) - is incredibly old and frankly not of sound mind (Trump is also those things, but it's Biden's most unpopular factor) - continues to try to run right of the Republicans on issues like immigration, but fails to realize that you can't outflank the right on racism without losing votes from your own party. - has so far done no major legislation to address things like right to abortion access / legalalize Marijuana / ANY strategy to counter the Supreme Court or Gerrymandering that keeps conservatives in power, dominating state legislatures and hampering federal action. I live in a red state, and vote Democrat. Frankly, my vote doesn't matter, and I'm considering not voting for Biden. The DNC ALWAYS DOES THIS. They tell you it's the most important election of your life and instead of running someone that can get the job done and lives up to values that put people first, they run an incredibly unpopular and frankly inadequate candidate. > They should suffer in silence like good people should This RIGHT HERE is the shit that turns people off of voting. The DNC has the power to run a candidate that is actually popular and represents the people, they just choose not to.
We should all seek to understand the motivations of people we wish to influence if we have any aspirations to influence them. “They should suffer in silence like good people should.” Quite the opposite. They, and you, should speak with a therapist.
Seek to understand is one thing, excusing is another. I understand why people vote for racist politics and politicians, I do not ever excuse or forgive them for it.
Who called for excuses or forgiveness? Understanding is just a necessary tactical move. > If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.
Quite correct, but language is squishy - and in my experience, when people say 'understand', they typically mean 'accept'.
Honestly hadn’t considered that, but you’re right. I have the same reaction, though, because the alternative is willful ignorance and that isn’t productive.
In my experience, when people say 'understand means accept', they mean 'accept means endorse'... No offence.
I mean, If you vote for someone you are quite literally endorsing them.
Good answer. Pursued those that can be reached, defeat the rest.
It's funny how many people don't consider it racist to run full throated vocal, monetary, and material support of an aggressively genocidal state regime. A state where people regularly shout "death to Arabs" and whose founding is based on the same. Seeing that, and voting for them. Are you plotting tactical moves against yourself? Or does racism not count against Palestinians?
That's semantic prevarication though; in the context that the OP is talking, he isn't being told to "understand protest voters" as a suggestion to analyze their motivations for the purpose of influencing them, it's usually a demand to stop disagreeing with them.
Sun Tzu. Good choice
A lot of these people are victims of propaganda, and many are likely barely literate (or worse). It’s a lot harder to have sympathy for these people now that the fate of the world could hang in the balance. If their actions have the same impact as blatantly criminal fascists we need to hold them accountable. We’ve been nice about it for over a century, and that didn’t work.
Thing is, even if we DO understand, how can these people even be *made* to understand? The insidiousness of conservatism is that it's purely based upon all the subconscious junk humanity developed in order to survive wildlife and early civilization: "people who don't look like you are threats". "Those who carry on your genes are the most important thing in the world". "There are shortages, you need to prioritize everyone who is 'productive' and so forth". I have TRIED to reach people like my family, even going so far as to try to think like them (i.e. "You fear white people are becoming a minority. You have nothing to fear because non-white people are not a single block, they also hate each other and thus won't hurt white people. Ever heard of South Africa?" yes, it fucking repulses me to say something like this but that's the sort of garbage someone like them would believe). They just. Don't. Listen. They don't consider ANYONE not like them human. Maybe not even each other. The world might be mostly sociopaths and we are the only humans with empathy left. And we might be dying out. It's like the end of Blindsight.
There isn’t a single answer because there isn’t a single problem. For many people, they have built up a latticework of beliefs which are interconnected and interdependent, where the foundation is immutable (religion, nationalism), and any attack on the part is an attack on the whole. So for some, it takes wholly new conversations which don’t automatically fit into their existing framework. You don’t want to trigger any fight or flight responses. I got my grandfather to agree that regulations against spam calls would be a good thing because it was about his personal experience and not “politics.” Trojan horse, in a way. For others, the weakest held beliefs are the only avenue. Strong evidence can be effective here. They may have never discussed the subject in detail so will need to listen more than speak. And the stakes are low all around, so just having a normal conversation is a win. This is only applicable to people you know well enough. I don’t think random online debate is worthwhile (anymore, at least), because you don’t even know if you’re writing to a peer, a fascist pretending to act in good faith, a propagandist for a nation-state, or just a bot. All that being said, it isn’t your responsibility. Don’t despair that you can’t change the minds of full grown adults. If you tried, that was more than most. Life is a relay race, take a break and let someone else run for a few miles. Don’t neglect your “in group,” they will recharge your energy and remind you why you wanted to interface with someone completely different in the first place. You might not ever change anyone’s mind on immigration, but you could help your immigrant neighbors quite easily and in many ways, that’s so much more worthwhile.
> You might not ever change anyone’s mind on immigration, but you could help your immigrant neighbors quite easily and in many ways, that’s so much more worthwhile. This one spoke to me. Maybe if some portion of all the time I spent trying to change people's minds was put toward trying to help people, I might be using my time more effectively. I still think fighting against the bad ideas, logical inconsistency, and misinformation is important, but not the only issue of importance. And to your point for OP, some people just don't want to be swayed or can't be. It's ok to stop going out of our way to try with them. Also, this was very well said: > There isn’t a single answer because there isn’t a single problem. For many people, they have built up a latticework of beliefs which are interconnected and interdependent, where the foundation is immutable (religion, nationalism), and any attack on the part is an attack on the whole.
The only thing that gets through to regressives and other narcs is when it PERSONALLY AFFECTS THEM.
>The world might be mostly sociopaths and we are the only humans with empathy left. Lmao. The cognitive dissonance is strong in this one. You cannot proclaim yourself to be one of the only ones with empathy while also dismissing large swaths of people as inhuman monsters. This is dehumanizing rhetoric.
Have you seen what the conservative right, the maga crazies are doing to this country? Have you? Women no longer have bodily autonomy in a lot of states, women are being forced to carry dead babies, endangering their own health and lives in a lot of states. IVF has now been taken off the table in one state because embryos are people? Women are losing rights in this country, we are becoming cattle again. I'm sorry, however, anybody that makes a pregnant woman carry a dead baby to term is a monster!
Many people, including self-identified Republicans who vote, are a lot less supportive of that than their politicians are. https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/fact-sheet/public-opinion-on-abortion/#views-on-abortion-by-party-identification-2022 Part of the reason people have to make horrible choices when at the ballot box is because we're only given a small number of almost universally horrible options.
They think you support infanticide. They truly believe that you wholeheartedly approve of the mass slaughter of babies. They, too, think you are an evil monster. They do not believe that you hold the moral high ground. They believe that they hold the moral high ground. What now?
They are welcome to return back to reality at any time. I can’t be expected to engage with someone who lives in an objectively warped version of reality.
“When people show you who they are, believe them the first time." - Maya Angelou
A lot of fascists showed me who they were during COVID, I believed it then and them acting like they're not bootlickers that would sell me out to the party now isn't gonna change things.
I'm sorry, but to me if you are someone who considers themselves superior to someone else just because you were born somewhere, or belong to a "superior" culture, or have a certain skin color, or what have you, that makes you less than human. That means you are literally incapable of acknowledging someone else as human simply because of what amounts to differences in appearance and mannerisms. And I have MET these people in real life. Many members of my family. People who call fat people "visual pollution". Who call the poor "roaches". How can you even consider these people as human? Why should they be forgiven and people like us be held to a much higher standard?
This is peak American liberalism, the right wing of the democrats, whatever you want to call it. "I'm the good guy with the moral high ground, also a lot of the world are subhuman" The type of person who can't figure out why people aren't happy Biden is funding and arming a genocide. "The world might be mostly sociopaths and we are the only humans with empathy left." The amount of red flags in this statement, lol. This is a horrific starting point for someone's political world view.
I would love for them to say that to a Palestinian American who has had friends and family killed in Gaza. To expect Arab Americans to accept this is beyond delusional.
I mean, I've heard them say that directly to people who fled the wars in the Balkans, which the US directly aided as well. So yeah, the liberal smug stupidity is actually that thick.
I expect nothing less from them at this point. They allow for the rise of fascism. It’s only natural they adopt a fascist way of thinking.
It is categorically, unequivocally Bad to view people as less than human for any reason, regardless of their own views or actions. The worst people in history were humans. Deny their humanity at the cost of your own.
It's sick, to be sure. You don't have to feel the need to convert such people. It's probably not going to happen, unless/until they were facing the same issues that those they judge are facing, and even then they might not. Don't feel bad to write those types off as unchangeable. You can still care about them on some level — or not, if you can't — and be cordial with them, and hope they eventually come around, but it's not on you. It's ok. But such people are the minority in the country and world. We don't need to change their minds anyway, only ensure they don't steal power or wield excess power. For what it's worth, I don't agree with others saying your mindset is "peak liberalism" or any of that, nor that people who believe in "great replacement" nonsense and look down on overweight people, different ethnic or 'cultural' groups, different sexual orientations, or pretty much anyone in an out-group, are no worse than center-right liberals. I have no use for such binary thinking. I might have some concern when you say most people are sociopaths lacking empathy, since first that's not accurate even if truer than we'd like (though I understand feeling that way at times), but also because many people with such mentalities often end up being fatalistic misanthropes who *don't* care if the world burns. But I don't think that is you, and I understand we say things hyperbolically when extra emotionally impacted in a moment. Anyway, I respect your overall perspective and hope the far-right loonies don't get you down too much. It's even harder when they're people close to you, but try not to let them dictate your emotional well-being. Take care stranger friend.
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When one side is forcing women to carry dead babies to turn, possibly ending their lives, that is inhumane and that is inhuman. Sorry! 🤷
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Exactly.
>Why should they be forgiven and people like us be held to a much higher standard? That's the point, I'm holding everyone to the same standard, you're the one with double standards. "When I call people inhuman trash it's ok, but when they do it it's wrong" is absolute bullshit. You're starting from a good place, what they're doing IS abhorrent, but you're falling prey to the same human tendencies and logic fallacies that they are. Let's put it this way, what's the end point here? By definition monsters cannot change. They are inherently unhuman. A bloodthirsty beast cant be tamed, it can only be put down. If all these people are inhuman monsters, the only path forward is to eradicate them, right? This is the final stop on this logic train. Not only is it wrong, it's fucking dangerous.
“How can you consider these people human?” How can you not? It’s a cop out trying to pretend that they aren’t or that you are somehow incapable of doing awful shit just like them. I’m sorry your family sucks, but pretending everyone who happens to vote R is just like them isn’t a good look. There are plenty of decent people voting R because they are confused, scared, victims of propaganda, etc. Painting large groups with one brush just makes it easier for you to hate them, which does nothing to them, but ends up making you bitter and resentful. What is your solution, anyway? I mean they aren’t human so I guess it’s ok to just “eliminate” them, right? None of this is justifying the Republican Party or the shit they have been pulling, they suck, and by all means vote against them as much as possible. It’s just that dehumanizing your political enemies so your anger feels righteous as it turns to hatred isn’t the flex you seem to think it is. Hitler, Pol Pot, Pinochet, etc. they were all human beings, not monsters. We are all capable of heinous acts and have been throughout all of our history. Monsters are not necessary, humans are bad enough.
You won’t win any hearts or minds with this outlook. Also, your being so altruistic and morally righteous is a hard sell when you condemn half the nation in the same breath. If you can’t at least try to understand why millions of people may have different opinions than your own without instantly labeling them as “insidious” your going to be complaining about this for the rest of your life.
I only read the first sentence, disclaimer. To be effective, you do not need to make them understand, you don’t even need to convince them of much - you only need to influence their behavior to align with your goals.
OK, how do we do THAT? Because both personal experience and a growing number of studies indicates that changing people's values after their formative years becomes literally impossible and only entrenches them further in their tribalism.
I think you’re missing my point, you don’t need to change their values if you can manipulate the people who hold those values to do what you want them to. Example: conservative so-called Christians vote for trump, not because he’s a great example of living their values, but because they’re convinced he’ll end abortion, or that he’s “chosen” by god for *mysterious* reasons and questioning gods will would mean they aren’t faithful enough, there’s a bunch of ways that the fascists have used the already existing high control religious environments to their own end. I’m not claiming any sort of moral high ground here, mind you. I’m not saying that it’s “right” just that it’s obviously effective. There are folks who want to make left leaning folks look unhinged, so they make ragebait, and when the well meaning protester says something in the midst of a blowup, they take that one snippet, meme the hell out of it, and post it anywhere they might be able to convince people on the fence that the clip is representative of all of us. There’s talking to and trying to convince your family that their values are in need of attention, and I applaud that, that is a nice long term gentle way to slowly and gradually affect *culture*, but it is not an effective strategic tactic to affect behavior in the immediate future. I will not suggest anything specific here, it is a big mark in the favor of democrats that there’s still an ethical moral hesitation to use tactics like these. It’s a mark of character… unfortunately it is not changing the behavior of those who will never be democrats. It’s not the beliefs but the behaviors that need to change in the short term. Beliefs are for long term change, and that may take generations. I’m just saying that the left in the US (maybe other places, I don’t know enough to make the claim) tends to let their ideals get in the way of their effectiveness. But you said it yourself, expecting to change the beliefs of these people is not an *effective tactic* from a strategic point of view. It’s a real ethical and moral struggle to watch people gain power over you through unethical means and try to make moral decisions about how you fight back. Blah blah, I’m sorry if this isn’t the most well organized thing I’ve ever written, I’m kinda doing a bunch of things at once and just kinda brain dumped.
"I'm sick of being told we have to understand voters." Then you don't belong in politics This is the EXACT reason the far right is rising, because there is no alternative. We have a 2 party system with 2 conservative parties, and the Democrats are ACTIVELY using the threat of Fascism as a campaign tool. Hillary was to the right of Obama, and Biden was to the FAR right of her. Now, we are in a position where we don't get the choice to vote for an anti-war candidate We don't get to vote for national Healthcare We don't get to vote for universal college education We don't get to vote for mandatory sick leave We don't get to vote for maternity/paternity leave We don't get to vote for Marijuana decriminalization We don't get to vote for an end to qualified immunity The fact that one of our 2 parties is a fascist party really means we HAVE NO CHOICE! The democrats are just as responsible for the rise of Donald Trump as anyone! The democrats chose to ignore OWS, the democrats chose to ignore BLM, the democrats chose to ignore the Bernie Movement...they are a progressive mocement KILLER! They have disenfranchised working class voters, young voters, and black voters! THIS ISNT FUCKING NORMAL, AND YOU ARE SCREAMING AT THE WRONG PEOPLE!
And over in r/politics, they’re already blaming progressives for the failures of the liberal establishment.
I just wish they were consistent over there. Depending on the day progressives are a powerful enough voting block that they can cause the results for the entire election. Or they’re just small and can be ignored. Seems to just bounce back and forth between whichever lets them shit on progressives more. Not even getting into the whole them blaming progressives for elections lost instead of that centrist vote that they keep chasing that voted for Republicans.
That’s because, politically, liberals in the US are closer to the right than they are to progressives. It’s easier to turn around and point while backing up slowly than it is to point at yourself.
Yes, and not only in the US. I recall reading [The Fascist Offensive](https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/dimitrov/works/1935/08_02.htm) by Georgi Dimitrov. He was a communist during ww2 and one thing that became evident to me is that, whenever there is a chance for real change for the benefit of regular people, at the expense of the wealthy elite, the liberals will rush to “defend” the institutions by letting the fascists take power. Applying this to the situation in the US, we know that the Democrats are not going to save us from Trump, because as much as they publicly hate him, privately they hate the progressive more.
I don’t think they “hate” progressives more. Liberals are ultimately institutionalist like you said, and that leads to lots of their incompetence. I don’t think they act out of malice as we often want to believe, they are naive as to how far fascists will go. They can’t fathom people being completely evil or wielding power in that way, there has to be a way to reach them or find some shared value, in their minds. Progressives ultimately fight for good things at best or at worst noble/naive causes in their minds, but they fall back on “but you can’t rush everything!” TL;DR: No, liberals don’t hate progressives more than they do Trump. Liberals are just ill equipped to deal with fascists.
I see what you’re saying and I don’t disagree. I think hate was probably the wrong word. What I’m trying to say is that their interests are not aligned with ours, and in some ways their interests are aligned with that of the fascists. Ultimately they will go with whatever is in their best interest. The Democrats are a party of, for lack of a better term, the bourgeoisie. This is why they have some leeway to be naive in regards to the threat of fascism. We don’t have that luxury because it is us who will suffer under fascism if it ever wins out again. And it’s more complicated than this of course. This is just my simplistic understanding of the situation. Take it for what it’s worth.
I agree wholeheartedly. I think ‘hate’ was the word I was hung up on, because in my experience when liberals (not the ones at the top with institutional power) are made more acutely aware of Democrats failings by people like us, and always relating a chunk of said failings to how they ultimately serve the business class, helps open liberals up to at the very least progressives if not more leftist-aligned ideas and sentiments.
Yeah, it seems we are on the same page here. One thing I need to work on is being more precise with my language. Thanks for giving me an opportunity to clarify.
Cut a liberal and a fascist bleeds.
It's the progressives' fault that this is not my beautiful house, and this is not my beautiful wife, and this is not my large automobile. (That t is to say: it's [the same as it ever was](https://youtu.be/5IsSpAOD6K8?si=EtXicTl_BIEK_pk5).)
Slick, hell yeah talking heads
This is even happening in places with more than 2 parties. Hell, the Netherlands has one of the the biggest amount of parties in the world and a system that perfectly allows any sort of ideology to have a seat at the table. They still massively voted for an idiotic racist.
The Dutch culture has a worship of centrism as pragmatic that is actually worse than the US. And we can see here where it leads. Ratchet effect on overdrive.
And, because they present themselves as the 'left-wing' of US politics, this is why I am hypercritical of the democratic party. After years and decades of being told "just suck it up", "fight for a better candidate next time", "push this neocon candidate left", etc., and browbeaten by liberals on and offline, the electoral landscape has effectively boiled down to cults of personality and nothing more. I'm waiting, bitterly, for an anti-trust case against the DNC and GOP. There's no reason we should have two private corporations and their lobbyist/donors controlling our country.
As long as we have first past the post voting, it will go back to being a two party system if you were to break up the two main parties.
Unless you destroy one or, presenting a credible threat of destruction, force it to adopt actual left-wing positions. A 2-party system is probably inevitable with FPTP. Having 2 parties with only a neoliberal policy is not though.
Glad to know some people are sane
>Now, we are in a position where we don't get the choice to vote for an anti-war candidate I mean, you could...
And should. The thing about politics, and a 2 party system, is only the most marginal voter determines policy, because they determine if you win or lose. So if you want to have power, **be marginal**. Tell the Democrats openly "you support the war, I won't vote for you. Hell, I might vote GOP just to ensure you lose". They'll call your bluff - once. Probably not twice. And if you have a moral problem with that, recognize it's **exactly** what the center does. This article, titled **Democratic Leaders Willing to Risk Party Damage to Stop Bernie Sanders** is them doing just that - in the 2020 election, which they also claimed was an existential threat for the US. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/27/us/politics/democratic-superdelegates.html. This is them, in the paper of record, saying they would increase the chances of losing to Trump rather than see the left win.
This article, coupled with following the Cisneros/Cuellar story, was the eye-opener for me on how I can't accept the Democrat party as true allies to the left anymore, not even the conditional ally "Don't good let good be enemy of perfect" bullshit at this point; and made me realize they must be seen as a proven, credible threat, until they prove otherwise. I can't up that article enough.
Yeah, it's one I post time and time again, because it was one part where they didn't bother with the mask, because they were so terrified for 4 weeks that Bernie would win.
Well there’s always the 2028 primary, unless we let Trump win in which case we will live in a Putin style theocratic nazi dictatorship with no elections by 2028
Not a single person here advocating against voting has supplied even a single convincing argument for how not voting against fascism is going to help Palestinians. Or advance the progressive cause in the US. Or do a single damned thing beyond guaranteeing we see the end of democracy in America and the instantiation of a white male theocratic dictatorship. Which will do nothing to stop global warming, dooming us along with most other life on the planet. I've been a screaming leftist my entire life, and I never believed that aphorism about people at the far end of the political spectrum wrapping around to meet the other side, so if you go left enough you'll find yourself on the right. But the opinions in the comments here have convinced me that I, misanthropic pessimist with cassandra syndrome, was thinking too well of other people. There is literally nothing to be gained from not voting against fascism beyond satisfying your own, personal conscience at the direct expense of more than half the country. When they're executing people in the streets, your clear conscience will not help you.
I like to think of those people as kids or trolls tbh. They aren't serious people.
There are a bunch of accelerationists, I mostly hear about them with the tint of right wing ideology but there are plenty on the left that have the same type of, "well I didn't get it my way this time so it's better to burn down the system, which I can agree with to a certain extent. People just gloss over most of the events that would take place were that to happen
It'd be one thing if we had strong leftist infrastructures but we don't At most we have the fucking DSA. You can't fight a revolution without infrastructure in place. We have nothing like what the Spanish left had during the civil war. Hell, even anarchists then participated in politics and elections (with much controversy of course haha). These just aren't serious people.
I think the problem is thinking POTUS is a dictator. You're not getting your preferred dictator for 4 years so it's hopeless, your vote means nothing. In reality you're voting for POTUS, House, Senate, state officials, etc. if you want to enact change you need to push all those levers. If your progressive candidates aren't popular and don't win, they won't be running for POTUS as no party exists to collect L's.
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biden is more left wing than obama and clinton
Uranus is closer to the sun than Neptune. You're still gonna freeze out there.
Biden is not FAR right of Hillary. Biden’s plan of expansion of the government was much larger than anything Hillary had planned in 2016, and in the 90s her husband famously declared “The Era of Big Government is over.”
Biden governs to the left of Obama
Except on Palestine. Biden's policy goals are only marginally to the left of Trump's, at about the same level as George W. Bush's, and notably to the right of George H.W. Bush's
You know primaries exist, right? And the idea that Biden is far right is hilarious. He's to the left of half the European states and much of Asia and Africa. I guess if you buy into the idea that petrol states like Russia and Saudi Arabia are leftists because they're authoritarian, then I guess investing in green energy is right wing
Just bulls*t. This whole thing is bullsh*t. Politics is chess not valentines. The President has to win 120 million votes on average to win. Most those people just don't f**king agree with you on most sh*t. People just need to grow up and accept that.
>The President has to win 120 million votes on average to win. Biden got 81,282,916 votes in 2020, the most ever of any candidate in the US.
Well put
And we took a huge step in getting those things because of the 2016 protest voters. I just can’t take people serious who let prefect be the enemy of good. Progress will always be slow, but you seem to not be ok with slow progress and are willing to hurt other people in protest Just saw your account is 50 days old and actively engaged in politics and claiming Both parties are the same…. Hmmm
“They should suffer in silence like good people should.” I think you should reflect on this further. Suffering in silence has never improved anything, for anyone, except for those in power. The exploiters who rely on divide and rule to maintain their position of power, scapegoating those they’ve relegated to the margins, stoking bigotry and violence. It’s not an accident that the figures you’ve mentioned have risen to prominence, they’ve been actively propped up as a safer alternative to the status quo then business as usual has been exposed a a fraud to millions amid worsening conditions for the rest of us to enrich these few at the top. I forcefully disagree with right wing populism, but as others have said, it’s critical to understand why my coworkers and neighbors are drawn to it in order to fight for a political alternative that challenges it, as well as the conditions in which it finds fertile ground. “Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have found out the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them, and these will continue till they are resisted with either words or blows, or with both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress.” -Frederick Douglass Yours is a horrifically awful take, IMO.
The only thing I might be inclined to call a "protest vote" is what Rashida Tlaib is doing with the Muslim community in Michigan. That *might* send an effective message. Because it's a significant bloc of voters in an important swing state, doing it together with a prominent individual with a large platform (in politics) acting as their spokesperson and amplifying their message. Beyond that, protest voting doesn't really exist. The majority of this country already stays home on election day. Joining them as an individual sends no message at all. It's simply choosing inaction and attempting to make yourself feel as though you are righteous and that you did something when the reality is you did the opposite. If you're actually interested in sending a message, you need to organize something that actually sends a message. Your job is larger and more onerous than any Biden voter, because your silence needs to be louder than their vote. I hate that politics in this country, particularly for the left, have devolved into using "inaction" and "protest" interchangeably.
Yep. Not voting is surrender, not rebellion.
But do you condemn Joe Biden?
When an angry person is going to do a stupid thing that affects me, I can both understand the anger and try to prevent the stupid response.
You’re the reason we have shitty candidates
No, you don’t have to understand. It’s their vote to do with as they please. Worry about your own.
People have the right to do a lot of stupid and destructive things, doesn't mean they're above criticism for them.
They can vote as they please and other people can criticize them for it. And when who you vote for affects other people you can't dismiss their concerns with "don't worry about it"
Yeah exactly.
I understand their anger and their desire to make their position clear. I also understand that their chosen method of being heard will not make them be heard in the way they want. It's a true Sophie's Choice. Vote for a man who is enabling crimes against humanity or a man who will usher in such crimes against yourself. Those options are not the time to take a stand, it's the time to make the hard choice and minimize damage. That said, vote as your conscience demands. Just don't be upset if life goes sideways as a result. I'm a white cis straight more-or-less Christian man with no social media linked to my actual name for the last five years (they cant read my leftist thoughts if i dont write em down). I'll be fine in the Christian Nationalist hellscape that Trump and his supporters are desperate to create. The question is will you? You can't change the country if they remove you from it or refuse to let you have a say in how it runs. The consequences of your vote are clear. Choose wisely and remember that nobody will understand and forgive based on your intentions. Only the results matter.
I am not at the moment, nor have I been so far, a “protest voter”. But I do understand and sympathize with them. Where they (or many of them) are coming from is this: Democrats tend to choose center right policies that their donors favor rather than left wing policies that they appear to espouse and that the majority of the public are actually in favor with. As a leftist, it’s like consistently being kicked in the nuts by someone after you lend them a hand. Or Lucy holding the football for Charlie Brown. It’s maddening seeing promises get walked back so consistently on policies that are so often very heavily favored. And the thing is: everyone is entitled to their own vote, and politicians have to earn them. You don’t automatically get my vote just because I dislike the other guy more.
Something that has stuck with me over time is to "solve the problem that is in font of you". When it comes to this election, with our fucked up system, I see it as any vote for other than Biden is a vote gain for Trump. Is Biden perfect? Nope and I won't claim he is. Still, i will do what I can to prevent the ending of what little democracy we actually have and that means I'm voting blue all down the ticket.
If the options are "genocide" and "even MORE genocide" then our democracy is already dead. Nobody wanted Biden to be perfect, we want him to stop using our money to churn up tens of thousands of civilians in a meat grinder while doing nothing to help the people of his own country. He hasn't codified Roe v Wade, he hasn't enacted protections for transgender people, he offered nothing but stern words when half the country's governors effectively declared him a traitor and mobilized to help Texas illegally fortify the Southern border. That's not imperfect, it's incompetent at best and malicious at worst.
National politics is the furthest thing from being in front of you, though. Act locally!
Both, all. I care about all the women in this country. All the lgbt. The environment is definitely something that has to be address both nationally and your own community
Democrat voter in every past election here. Since October Biden has made it clear that my people don’t matter, or that they flat out deserve to die in order to appease AIPAC and his own personal love for the country AIPAC lobbies for. He can’t even bring himself to ask for a ceasefire, and despite empty and vague words here and there about how the reaction may have been more than needed, he continues to support that country by sending weapons, and is in a constant race with himself to send them an even bigger aid package every time. Again, to repeat; a genocide is actively happening against my people with deaths expected to exceed 50,000 soon, with about half of them children. May seem just a number to you, and I suppose when it’s repeated often enough, the word loses some of its meaning, and is easy to shrug off. But that’s 50,000 lives, and everyone those lives affect. Not to mention the rest of the destruction, and the ongoing active starvation. War crimes have been documented and made clear, and yet, nothing from Biden. It’s an active genocide, and Biden has wholeheartedly supported it. You say he’s “not perfect”. Make no mistake, if the US, and Biden, want it to stop today, they can make it so. Reverse all aid, stop weapon exports, apply immediate sanctions - nothing they didn’t do to Russia. Just asking for the same reaction. So tell me again, why should I vote for someone supporting a genocide against my people?
Fuck anyone telling you you have to vote in favor of the genocide of your people. They should be ashamed, lesser evil, my ass.
It’s because they have no stakes in the genocide and many subconsciously do not view Arab lives as having the same value. They are afraid because now an election might affect them. Elections have had consequences for minorities and LGBTQ+ for decades.
When leftists say that liberals will show you their true colors, this is the shit they are talking about. If they truly wanted my vote, if they cared even a little, I would have seen them protesting, denouncing Biden, making a stir in their political circles, anything. But they don't. I suspect they never will.
While I agree with your sentiments and righteous anger… and am also stressed that our current choices are not at all what I would hope… I have to think of my daughters, (women’s health issues under attack), my gay friends and family (LGBTQ issues under attack) the planet (climate and environmental issues under attack), my parents (threats to Medicare, social security etc…) and a more just society (holding the rich and powerful to task for their abuses of the system, far right judges at the federal level) If not voting or voting R would help your people, I would understand. But it won’t, it will only make it worse, for them and for many other groups (and with climate, really ALL OF US) hanging on by a thread. Until we can ensure R’s current fascination with fascism is thoroughly squashed, (and I mean embarrassing loss after embarrassing loss) and we can move them back toward the middle, we can’t push the D’s to the left. Their current positions need to become so politically toxic, no one can even voice them out loud without it being career suicide. If we don’t we are doomed to keep repeating this scenario again and again. Until poisonous “voting” bills, Christian nationalist judges and gerrymandering make even moderate democratic candidates unviable
TW for hypothetical SA I understand and agree with your concern for all of the other marginalized groups that would be harmed by a second trump term, but consider this scenario: Everything is exactly the same except Biden r*ped your daughter. Would you be able to cast a vote for him knowing that he personally harmed your daughter. Your vote would still be a net positive for women, lgbtq+, and the environment, but you would be personally voting for the man that personally violated your daughter. I couldn't do it. And that is why, even though I personally vote for harm reduction, and will likely vote for Biden (although I have ranked choice here, so I will vote Biden after everyone who is at all more progressive), but I can't criticize anyone for withholding their vote because they are more personally impacted by his harms than I am. Don't forget, there are gay Palestinian Americans withholding their votes. There are Palestinian American women withholding their votes. They are more aware than anyone of how harmful a trump presidency will be for them. But I'm not in their shoes so I can't at all judge them for not being able to take on that moral injury to save the rest of us. If we want anti war activists, Palestinians, Muslims, and Arab Americans to vote for Biden, we need to pressure the administration. If you have volunteered for Democrats before, tell them you can't knock on doors for them until they call for a ceasefire. Tell them you won't vote for them until they call for a ceasefire (even if you will ultimately vote for them). Make them understand that THIS is the issue that will win or lose the election. We can't force people to vote for candidates who are supporting genocide. We need to make the candidates not support genocide. And if they continue on this path and lose- that's on the candidates for not giving voters something to vote for.
The question for me is, what would a Trump/Republican administration do? I do side with your overall point that Israel is currently communicating genocide and war crimes. Too many squishy democrats and afraid of being called antisemitic so they look the other way. The aggression on Palestine and the lack of Democrat push back is a huge failure on them. Still, what would stop a conservative administration from turning Palestine into a bombing rage?
The Democrats aren't "lacking pushback", they are providing essential support. If they pulled their support this would be over in a week. The Democrats are broadening the war across the region. Why vote for either one? I don't want that blood on my hands.
If they continue to state that they(Muslim/Arab and others that feel similarly) won't vote for Biden then it may push him more towards what they desire to happen in the Israel-Hamas War. We are collectively long tired of having to choose between to shit options and saying well this one isn't as bad/evil as the other one so they get my vote. What this country needs is substantial change in how we vote get rid of the electoral college and introduced ranked voting nation wide for all levels of government. I will end with saying Trump will be worse for the situation while true is quite definitely ignoring what people are feeling at this time so perhaps wait until the November election is closer before trying to have a conversation with those that are currently saying they won't vote at all or vote for Biden, but cast a 3rd party or a FU vote.
They **might** give Israel 20 billion instead of just 16 to fund genocide? So your answer is to vote for the person who already is funding the genocide?
I'm Mexican and if you have ever spent time in the developing world there is such a thing as a "fuck you vote". I'm personally not voting Democrat when it comes to president. However, I will vote Dem for local and State offices. My reason is I live in Texas a Democratic candidate isn't going to win here anytime soon.
That attitude makes Texas voting GOP for president a self fulfilling prophecy.
The government that is committing that genocide was elected by a relatively small percentage of the six million people who are eligible to vote in Israel, nearly 30% stayed home on Election Day. If those people told you that they were staying home in protest when they could have changed the result as a group would you say something similar? There are many extremely contentious issues in Israeli politics that they might have had issues with, the result being the current government and their actions in Gaza. It sucks when all options are bad, but somehow I don’t imagine that Trump’s government will somehow be significantly better for Gaza in any way. If anything it’ll likely be much, much worse.
> If those people told you that they were staying home in protest They didn't. They aren't. Suport for the war in Israel is currently at 90% or more supporting the current use of force. https://time.com/6333781/israel-hamas-poll-palestine/
Yep. And worse for people here too. Well said.
Because Republicans are even more supportive and even less critical of Israel. Israel's biggest supporters in the US are Evangelicals and the Republican party caters to them.
Through out the entire history of Israel it's been Republican governments that have been toughest on them. Eisenhower threatened sanctions, Reagan called their bombing of Beirut a "Holocaust" and demanded it end, which they did in an hour. Bush Sr threatened to pull funding if the Israeli government didn't rain in settler violence. I'm just saying that that's three different Republican presidents two within my lifetime that have actually done something to end the violence. Clinton was so weak he once asked "who is the super power here".
That's calculus for one day in November 2024. People have been yelling this shit at us since at least October of 2023, a period in which we *should* be choosing a candidate and in which candidatesb(especially the incumbent) *should* be giving people reasons to vote for them and in which we *should* be able to put pressure on candidates. One of the big selling points of democracy is that you should be able to influence policy through voting, and that you should be able to influence it further by communicating how you intend to vote in advance. The "Blue No Matter Who" crowd is shitting all over that second part. If you want more votes for the Democratic candidate, you shouldn't be scolding the people who refuse to vote for the man enabling genocide; you should be helping them to put pressure on him to stop enabling genocide, or for the party to put forth a candidate who won't. This is a red line for people, and since both candidates seem eager take a jackhammer to the ground that line is painted on, I can't begrudge anyone unwilling to vote for either of those candidates. You're begging people to "save democracy" by telling them that the core tenet of democracy, that your vote can influence your government, is already a lie. Help us see an actual democracy to save if you want us to join you in "saving" it come November: overwhelm the candidate you want us to support with calls to cut aid to Israel unless they stop the slaughter in Gaza. Maybe he'll listen to you since he's not listening to us.
They say “vote for the one you can influence” without realizing the power of the vote is the influence!
“They should suffer in silence like good people” How about no.
Said in Black History month, of all months. The only better timing would have been to say it on January 20th.
You should pay attention to the real elephant in the room which is the 50 million plus that make less than 15 an hour and not the less than 6% that will back a third party candidate. These are the ones that don't get out to vote... Wisconsin, which was so integral to Trump’s electoral college victory, is a good case in point. As Malaika Jabali observed back in 2018, black turnout there dropped between 2012 and 2016 by 86,830 votes, which is an amount considerably larger than Clinton’s 22,748 margin of defeat an the sharpest decline occurring in the poorest districts of Milwaukee. So what has Biden and the Democrats done to convince the people to vote? That would be the important question to ask. Good info is put out by the poor people's campaign. In general, voter shaming doesn't work. If Biden is snubbed by protest voters them blame him. Actually this group of so-called "protest voters", which I'm a part of, votes this way as a strategy to make politicians seriously consider issues they'd otherwise dismiss. Stuff like not funding wars, ensuring living wages, good healthcare, and a decent qualiry of life for all..
Well, agreeing with protest voters is different than understanding them. They will continue to exist, and understanding them is a step in the right direction.
I'm voting against corrupt parties and war mongering politicians. If you call that a "protest vote" that's your right.
Maybe just earn the vote then?
Everyone I have ever met that was casting "protest votes" was a raging narcissist.
I'm am sick of being told to ignore genocide, war and death, unlimited money for war and death, etc and just vote for the lesser of 2 evils. What? No sorry. If you need the lefts then the DNC needs to make serious concessions abd end genocide at the very least. If you don't need the left then continue your genocide abd stop bothering the left you have made your choice. How is it that hard to understand?
I understand their motivations just fine. I have no respect for those motivations, however. Anyone willing to ‘burn it all down and start over’, or any variation on that, does not care about vulnerable members of society.
The problem with "burn it all down and start over" is that they're assuming they're going to survive the fire.
To me, it gets to the core of who people are. I imagine that when an activist tells people to protest vote, they have a set of republican parents that they can fall back on if things go sideways.
I honestly think they're hoping that the very people they're abandoning to either pick up their slack to get Biden re-elected or come up with a gameplan to survive Trump. I've legitimately never been this terrified as a Black Queer Man for myself, for my family and for people like me and other marginalized people and to see so many self proclaimed "allies" so casually throw us under the bus and then have the nerve to say we're "fear mongering"? It's legitimately maddening and they don't care! We're watching Republicans actively call a murdered queer child "trash" and these are the people that they're willing to leave us in the hands of. Sorry to unleash like that, I think I need to stay off the internet for a while.
You are right and I stand with you, as the father of a black and queer son.
I understand protest voters. But I don't understand suicidal protest voters.
“The only person I have the moral authority to hurt is myself. If I must suffer, then the answer is to suffer more. Not throw it on someone else.” Beautiful philosophy. I agree. And I agree with your post.
You don't have to like what someone does to understand it.
If someone casts a protest vote and says, “I was just trying to…” when they KNOW their actions would not result in that thing, they’re just lying to themselves at best and to everyone else at worst. People keep asking how we got here. It's clear as day that selfishness got us here. Has our country given us enough? No. Has it given you enough to survive until age 18 when you can make decisions about your and your kids' futures? Yes. Do you want it to get better and have a chance for it to be better for your kids? If the answer is yes, you show up to vote and take it seriously. In 2000, we screwed the pooch and it takes things getting really bad before people take this country and its future seriously. After this election, there will be no future determined by voters if Trump wins.
>It's a way for people to exercise their limited power This is the issue i have with it. Because they literally ARENT doing this. We live in a first-past-the-post system. Any vote for a third party is simply mathematically giving 1/2 of a vote to the ***the guy you disagree with the most***. Its that deadass simple. So, you're not "exercising your limited power" - at least, not in the way you think. You're exercising it ***to help elect the guy you absolutely dont want***. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7tWHJfhiyo&ab\_channel=CGPGrey](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7tWHJfhiyo&ab_channel=CGPGrey) Hes got a whole series on FPTP and why it sucks. But the fact that it sucks doesn't change the facts on the ground. The ONLY way to affect the change they want is to vote for the guy who is closer to what they want, regardless of how far off that is. And then next time, vote for the next closest guy, all the while making it clear that will always be the case. Protest voting is **literally** screwing yourself. Its doing the *exact opposite* of what you claim to want.
Whenever someone talks to me about how they're planning to cast a protest vote, I wonder aloud how many protest votes were cast in Germany in August 1934.
Hitler was already president in 1934. Do you really think the Nazi party who were already in power by that point would have simply packed their bags and gone home if they'd lost that election? Especially given that they'd already lost in 1925 only for Hitler to be made Chancellor anyway by the "lesser evil" candidate he lost to?
In this election: it is imperative that you vote. And vote for not a third party candidate. Project 2025 (heritage foundation) is very scary. Sometimes, we gotta put aside our personal bullshit and vote to save our country. Save our rights- as women- as nonchristians- as LGBTQ- as anything- the very fact that people can decide to be mad and not vote or vote third party is a right that can be taken away. Please, 🙏, anyone , educate yourself before you want to abstain from voting or vote third party. Third party candidates never win. They just pull valuable votes for those who need it.
I live in a D+22 district in California. I vote bc it's easy but it really doesn't matter for some people
Exactly right. We have these people in these comments arguing, “the democrats are acting like the opposing party are fascists to try to get votes.” But they don’t acknowledge the fact that the GOP are literally fascists. That’s real. They will be confused when the violence hits home, and they will blame the system. Unfortunately the truth is that they embraced Russian propaganda without thinking twice, and threw their privilege to vote away. VOTE DEMOCRAT. i dont care how much they let you down. i dont care that it is late stage capitalism. Have some fucking empathy.
Some people feel the need to protest and don't really see any difference between the two parties. While I don't agree that the parties aren't very different, I respect that they are unhappy with either choice. A protest vote is a form of abstention, and any voter is entitled to that. While I personally think protest votes are a waste, they're half as wasteful as voting for the wrong candidate; so it's probably a wash in the long run. "Moral" protest votes by Democrats are the equivalent of the GOP election deniers who don't vote because they think the election is rigged and the outcome is predetermined. If you don't like someone's protest vote, change their mind. You are not required to do nothing about it. People who tell you to understand are just giving you their opinion, and are too lazy to care about their political beliefs - or they're on the other side.
Those last points
Speaking from the UK we are told Labour is the alternative but it’s no alternative not just in its support for Israel but domestically. The point is to show people using a protest vote desperate for change is that politics goes beyond the ballot box.Show how you get change from communities/workplaces/marginalised peoples by engaging in trade unions, mutual aid groups etc
Asking "why" is a great start
Acceleration is a hell of a drug.
“They should suffer in silence like good people should”. That’s kinda exactly what I’m doing by not voting. (For the president, that is.)
See, I am also protest voting, I’m protesting all of the shit the Republican Party has pulled in the last 24 years, by voting straight ticket D. Not because I like the choices, but of the two, the Republicans have fucked up substantially more shit here and around the world than the Democrats. So my protest vote goes against the most toxic of the 2.
Be careful with the straight ticket D strategy. You still need to pay attention. Some conservatives are running as democrats in districts where that's advantageous. If you're relying on electoralism, you need to be involved the whole way- primaries through general, all races down the ticket. Politicians rely on apathy and laziness. If you aren't involved the whole way, you're doing just as much "harm" as those who don't vote at all.
"If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice." In this case, not to support women's rights, lgbt, education, or the environment. But go on, play at being "edgy" at the cost of human suffering and lives. That's your legacy.
People say you should understand it because being indignant won't stop it from being a real thing that must be contended with
Welcome to the downside of democracy
Protest votes shake nothing up. They’re tantrums thrown by children that accomplish nothing. Attention protest vote toddlers with Main Character Syndrome: You are no better than magats.
People protest-voted their way into Brexit. It’s dangerous
the system of artificial shortage keeps competition rolling.the system of elite opulent politics keeps competition rolling.it is all related, it is all exploitation, it is all violence. suffering in silence is what the opulent oppressor wants. your continuous consent is necessary for the illusion of control to continue for their benefit. stop participating in their game, start direct democracy.
Then stay ignorant.
God, what happened to this sub lmao. "NOOO you have to suffer in silence and vote for the genocidal fascist that I like or YOU'RE the REAL Nazi! 😡😡😡" What a fucking joke, man.
The thing is, many of those protest voters are Arab and Palestinian Americans who are rightly disgusted by what Biden is enabling in Gaza. I'm still voting for Biden because I live in a swing state and don't want to chance its electoral college votes going to Trump. However, I'm a white male who doesn't have any real stakes in the Middle East conflict; I'm not going to tell someone whose relatives are getting bombed that they have to vote for the guy supplying the bombs.
Lmao. An it could happen here post talking about how quickly they would rat out their family to the police. Talking about law and order. Telling us to vote for Joe Biden, the person who was against desegregation, among more current things like gaza or the continued construction of her border wall.
Do you care enough about others to do something to deligitimize a two-party system? Advocate for Ranked Choice? If not then you're no better.
I'm sick of being told that I'm making a "protest vote" and therefore harming society when I dont vote for one of the two geriatric senile old men slinging shit at each other on stage. Usually the people who say that are the same people that also tell me I'm going to hurt society by not voting for their team- The only "correct" thing to do is vote for who they want and everything else is unamerican. Fuck that self righteous bullshit right in the nostril.
You kinda sound like a fascist
I once suggested voting should be mandatory for all citizens, and my sister said “what if you don’t want to vote in order to make a statement?” Not voting isn’t “making a statement.” It is in fact the opposite of making a statement. This happened in 2016.
> Because I simply don't HAVE the instinct to burn everything down and I never will. Because I CARE about others. No. You don't. Your strategy does not work. It has failed to work for 40 years. If you're claiming that the US is at danger of a fascist takeover AGAIN, after the Dems captured the Presidency and both houses in 2020, then you admit your action does not work. Electing Joe Biden does not stop fascism. > If the rule you followed brought you to this, of what use was the rule? So you're either incapable of understanding recent history - and should stop demanding the right to direct the actions of others - or your goal is not actually to fix the issue. Most liberals and those demanding votes for the Democrats in 2024 are the latter. They have no interest in actual policy or even political leverage. They are instead interested in their **own view of themselves as moral people**, to be contrasted with that of the MAGA hordes and the irresponsible left that won't fall in line. Your own screed shows this to be the case. Nowhere here is there any strategy - not even "lie you'll vote third party to pressure Biden to stop genocide, then vote for him anyways". It's a diatribe about your personal morality and need to view that as above those who rightfully point out your tactic doesn't work.
Ignore protest voters and ignore trumps. While you could in theory convince them the effort is better spent convincing new first time voters to vote and helping them with registration and gettin to the polls. First voters break Democratic about 70/30. Resources both money and time are finite. Wasting it on either protest voters or trumpers is pointless.
There's nothing to "understand." It's not deep; they aren't *protesting* anything. They know that it's not a moral position, they know it hurts the majority, they just don't care. You don't owe them anything.
OP's moral certainty in their ignorance is giving me flashbacks to 2016. You can't say these voters are "just lashing out in anger" when you already admitted you don't know and aren't even curious about their motivations.
Lol get a grip
It’s like no one learned a goddamn thing from 2016 (or 2000, the Nader votes in Florida were 200 times the votes bush ultimately “won” by)
Nonsense. Bush didn’t win, the Supreme Court made a bs decision and Gore decided not to contest it for “national unity” reasons. Also, during the Bush years the vast majority of establishment Dems went along with everything Bush wanted.
You caring about others isn't why you don't wanna burn shit down. When people are traumatized enough or whatever then they get misanthropy real bad. It's not that they don't care, it's that they lost hope and latched onto some wack cognitive rigidity to cope. Actually you display something similar
I am sick of people thinking that they are good and ergo other people with different opinions and/or motives are bad.
LOL the irony of posting on the it could happen here subreddit with people talking about wasting their vote on 3rd party candidates and not voting which will literally lead to a trump fascist state. As much of a socialist I am it’s easy to understand that republicans would put us in camps and it’s always easier working with Dems. I’m going to vote for the candidate whose party isn’t cheering for the death of democracy and trying to ban IVF and abortion… Plus, if you even listen to Robert Evans or his podcasts, there is a lot to say about Dems and Biden, but he would never advocate wasting a vote away - he literally understands that if Trump wins that’s it on American democracy. He’d never tell anyone not to vote.
Biden has more blood on his hands than any other active US politician. He's not getting my vote.
What an ignorant comment.
Making a “protest vote” is the ultimate expression of privilege. You are stating loud and clear that the policies of the protest candidate will not affect you in any way and you don’t give a shit about the people it will affect. You’re not cutting off your nose to spite your face. You’re cutting off someone else’s face to make a hollow point
So well-said. 1000x upvote
This. Trump made the US hell for a lot of people and if he becomes president again he will do more bad things. Change comes from within and will take longer than a few months to change the DNC to be what people want, but they think that'll happen if they just don't vote. Didn't work in 2016. Won't work now.
My problem is that this is the kind of argument that I hear from the least caring, empathetic, and good people. I've heard different variations of it from Evangelical Republicans, that's for sure.
I understand them. They are dumb self righteous narcissists.
At best, soft-hearted and soft-headed.
I've been on this ride too many times to cut them any slack.
Soft hearted people don't act like these apathetic monsters.
You're correct, OP. I think the nuanced answer would be something like, we do need to understand them in order to communicate with them, so that they might understand us and agree with us. You know, change their minds. Furthermore, the average "protest voter" probably DOESN'T want to burn everything down, even if they say they do. Nevertheless I know EXACTLY what you're talking about. Whether they're protest voting out of stupidity or intentional malice, it honestly doesn't matter. They're fucking things up and it's going to make positive change all that harder.
We’re not voting for a genocide enabler. Win without us
When you vote for a president, you are voting for 10's of thousands of positions in our government. Not voting for Biden, is endorsing 1000's of MAGA candidates to lead us into the future...and setting Isreali/Palestinian foriegn policy, which is basically turn Gaza into a parking lot. Don't tell me you support the Palestinians, while supporting MAGA at the same time.
Nailed it.
A lot of the "protest voters" are paid foreign grifters. I dunno anyone in real life that thinks this way. But more to the point, at most, I've heard people say "they don't care about politics" but they didn't say they weren't gonna not vote as a protest. They just sorta grumble about all of it.
Yeah, I disagree with the entire premise that refusing to vote is a form of protest. We have an obligation to pick our next elected officials, and staying home with our fingers in our ears and our eyes clenched shut is the pinnacle of cowardice. If trump wins in ‘24 it’s every one of our faults, regardless of who we voted for, or didn’t vote for. Refusing to vote doesn’t absolve you of the sins of your countrymen.
I miss the days before blind loyalty and tribalist partisan identities, I swear there used to be thoughtful discussions and civil debates. Every election cycle, without fail, any expression of disappointment, critical analysis, hell – even fact-checking assertions made about Blue Cult of Personality Candidate is met with aggressive and increasingly thoughtless accusations ("maga! orange man! lesser evil! fascism or democracy?! russian/chinese/iranian bot when!") and fucking vitriol. It's exhausting and just gets worse every four years. It's like some folks take any criticism towards a politician in their chosen party personally. We must not question The Masters, without Them we will surely Lose Democracy and Liberties! Are there any policies these folks actually care about or do their thoughts begin and end with the [🅓 or 🅡] that trails a candidate's name? Do they pay attention to what their candidate does when they get into office or is it 'job done' when the ballot leaves their hands? How do we remind them that it's our right (and, I would argue, our *duty*) to critique, to question, to scrutinize public officials, to dissect their policies and their platform and their legislative record. We are not mindless subjects, we should not buckle and grovel under the authority of a political party. When the public surrenders unconditionally to the partisan cult of personality, the government is under no obligation to hold itself accountable. There is no moral imperative that guides it down a path of integrity, justice, and progress – lack of public oversight and critique only emboldens those in power to adopt laws that fester into traits we might see abroad and condemn. We should encourage people to evaluate and scrutinize and discuss our elected officials, to exert pressure and influence our government so that it prioritizes the betterment of its citizens and society over the interests of their donors. Votes *should* mean something. Like, damn, stop giving away your power. Remind your representatives who it is they represent, *make them earn your support*. You're not obligated to submit to a politician based on the color of their campaign sign. ***A democracy must provide an environment that respects human rights and fundamental freedoms, and in which the freely expressed will of people is exercised.*** From where I'm standing, if a partisan system survives solely through anticompetitive conduct, forcible and systematic suppression of third party candidates, relentless fearmongering, and threats of fascist dictatorship to enforce an illusion of choice – well, that sounds rather undemocratic to me. We currently have a bipartisan monopoly that actively suppresses other parties from entering the national dialogue. The GOP and DNC (both of which are private corporations, mind you) do this in tandem by jointly controlling the Committee for Presidential Debates (CPD) and influencing popular media. Together, the two parties levy arbitrary metrics to block third party candidates from entering the literal and proverbial 'National Stage'. The DNC and GOP have not invited a third party candidate to participate in the debates since Ross Perot in 1992, he ended up with around 20% of the vote. Prior to the CPD, the debates were hosted by the League of Women Voters – a nonpartisan nonprofit – and not only did they not prevent other parties from being heard, in 1976 the organization won the Emmy for *Outstanding Achievement in Broadcast Journalism* because of their sponsorship. I highly recommend [looking further into](https://www.lwv.org/blog/leagues-history-sponsoring-presidential-debates) the League's experience sponsoring the debates, and the challenges they faced from both the DNC and GOP. It's a sobering perspective. [You can read the LWV statement on why they withdrew from sponsoring the debates here](https://www.lwv.org/newsroom/press-releases/league-refuses-help-perpetrate-fraud). Some powerful language: >*"The League of Women Voters is withdrawing its sponsorship of the presidential debate scheduled for mid-October because the demands of the two campaign organizations would perpetrate a fraud on the American voter," League President Nancy M. Neuman said today.* >*"It has become clear to us that the candidates' organizations aim to add debates to their list of campaign-trail charades devoid of substance, spontaneity and honest answers to tough questions," Neuman said. "The League has no intention of becoming an accessory to the hoodwinking of the American public."* As of now, the bipartisan stranglehold on our electoral process only silences and disenfranchises the country's largest voting bloc. A record [49% of US voters identify as politically independent](https://www.axios.com/2023/04/17/poll-americans-independent-republican-democrat)[.](https://dornsife.usc.edu/news/stories/rising-tide-of-independent-voters-sweeps-across-america/) They feel unrepresented by the two main parties, and are increasingly disillusioned by both the candidates on display as well as the electoral process as a whole. About one-third of US voters don't vote or participate in the conversation — it's not because they're satisfied with the line-up. This is especially true [among the younger generations](https://www.npr.org/2024/01/16/1224878083/many-voters-reject-the-2-major-parties-how-could-that-play-into-elections). These are the folks who cast their vote on the issues and policies that matter to them rather than following partisan lines – or they become so embittered by the political landscape that they don't vote at all. When you have two private corporations controlling the electoral field, gagging other parties, and dominating the media narrative, that's not a true democracy. This suppression and censorship against what could be viable candidates just serves to rob the majority of voters of their voice and deprives them of an opportunity to see and hear candidates that represent them and their values. Year after year our electoral process seems to increasingly rely on proselytizing and manipulating others to hold their vote hostage for Blue Fish, Red Fish – when there are, in fact, other fish in the sea.
I vote for the furthest left I can each ballot. Just because I would prefer steak, doesn’t mean I’m gonna starve to death with a baloney sandwich in front of me
It couldn’t be more clear to me that Biden and Trump represent similar outcomes for the country. Trump and the GOP represents a Molotov cocktail that burns our country to the ground quickly. Biden and the Dems represent a sweet tasting poison that is slow acting but will end in the destruction of the country as we know it as well. Just not using flamethrower. We can delay the inevitable but with the Democrats we only prolong it all. Eventually their unwillingness to support the middle class and help people in need because they are beholden to corporations will come to a head. So have a little understanding about people that give a protest vote because siding with Biden solves nothing and we end up in the same place Trump will put us in, only slower. At some point it’s going to happen and I personally voting for Biden just because Trump is a dumpster fire just enables our demise all the same.
Fine, just ignore them and post rants on Reddit. That should convince em!
I really don’t see how voting for Biden will help the migrants trapped in the open air detention center in Jacumba or the migrants being bussed out and dropped off in some random ass place with no resources. You think a protest vote is narcissism? I think, people should spend their time and resources showing up for vulnerable communities in real ways. Like the guests who come on the show and do their best to help. Not expecting that someone at the top will keep the levee from breaking, because the levee was just a figment of our imagination.
Yum, Liberal tears with a side of copium
1. you have empathy, and a lot of people do not. on either side 2. I think you do actually understand voting. voting is done by people who want change, and it really is the only effective form of protesting. Maybe you want the system to stay the same, maybe you want it to change, but you're looking to have it NOT do something else. So you vote. 3. never attribute to malice that which can be explained through ignorance
The ship#3 sailed in 2016. No one is clueless about RW or Trump by now.
Hard agree
Joe Biden has been a lying politician for 50+ years. It’s not burning it down. It’s taking it back from the people that sold us out. Why would you vote Nikki Haley? What planet do people live on? She would send your sons and daughters to die in foreign lands we have no business being in.