While Education and Organizing is building the parts for a new engine the rest of the year.

  • It's Maddie!@sh.itjust.works
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    5 months ago

    Reminder that someone online arguing that you shouldn’t vote for Biden because of whatever pet grievance is either a Russian agent or an idiot playing into their hands

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      5 months ago

      If people think an “evangelical” is going to handle the conflict in Gaza on the side of the Palestinians better than Joe Brandon they are sorely mistaken and/or misguided. 45 wanted a straight up Muslim ban ffs.

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        5 months ago

        Yeah, I’d rather deal with someone who enables Israel’s bad behavior instead of someone who not only cheers it on but offers to help make it worse. There’s at least a snowball’s chance of convincing the enabler to stop enabling.

      • LillyPip@lemmy.ca
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        5 months ago

        Evangelicals want this conflict, because in order for Jesus to come back and rapture them, the mosque on the Temple Mount must be destroyed so the temple can be rebuilt, which is step one of their prophecy. That’s the real reason they pretend to care about the Jews.

        They truly believe this is their end times, and worse, a few years ago their perfect red cow they’ve been waiting for these thousands of years was certified; if that cow dies before they get the chance to sacrifice it to rebuild their temple, they may have to wait another thousand years.

        It’s a death cult and they’ll kill us all.

      • mrnotoriousman@kbin.social
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        5 months ago

        And how quick all these Hamas and Houthi cheerleaders forgot Ukraine too. A country that would not exist anymore if Trump had won 2020.

        • PugJesus@kbin.social
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          5 months ago

          “Forgot”?

          No, they think Ukraine is a fake Nazi state run by a Jewish drug addict puppeted by the globalhomo Western imperialists.

          In other words, insanity.

    • Serinus@lemmy.world
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      5 months ago

      And soon those ferns are going to be powered by ChatGPT. When you hear that Russian line it’s going to have ten replies all agreeing and giving supporting arguments.

      I wonder if we’ll be able to spot hallucinations in such a simple task.

    • marxistsynths19@lemmy.ml
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      5 months ago

      Reminder that not everyone who disagrees with your guilt tripping self righteous nonsense is a Russian bot. Some of us actually use critical thinking and can see a pattern that must be broken.

    • Dukeofdummies@kbin.social
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      5 months ago

      look, I can understand the argument that you must vote for the most effective way to contain an evil. It’s a good solid argument.

      However it starts taking damage almost immediately when:

      • The plan to fight the evil is using the most disliked president in recent history to win a popularity contest.

      • They pre-emptively destroy any and all opportunities to find a better candidate to win the popularity contest against the evil.

      • They refuse to debate anybody just like the evil they want to defeat. Making it impossible to verify they’re the one for the job.

      • They forcibly re-schedule the primary schedule to delay any signs that this plan might be a terrible idea.

      • Their age is seriously in question, their mental acuity is in question, and they also decide to dodge being in a completely unscripted environment for two hours while standing.

      Certainly with all this you can at least understand why someone would rather vote third party, because this Biden option is not making me feel any safer.

      At what point can we stop pointing the finger at the voters and start pointing at the guy they’re “supposed to vote for”? Is there a point we can ever point that finger at Biden? Or is it like Trump,where we need to vote for him “even if he were to shoot someone in the street”?

      • frezik@midwest.social
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        5 months ago

        It works better when you have an idea of what the President actually does and what direct action would mean.

        Almost everything we would want to do is at the local or regional level. Want higher density housing? Your mayor and city council control that with no say from the President. Better public transportation? Same, though the President can try convincing Congress to pass grant funding for it. More and better bike lanes? Same thing. Get rid of anti-homeless architecture? All city level stuff.

        School lunch programs? State government can stop it if the wrong people are there. Expand Medicare? Same. Better rail networks? Same. Ban gay conversion therapy? All state government.

        Foreign policy is the one thing where the President does have a lot of control. That’s actually the exception. I like Biden’s approach on Ukraine–getting most of Europe to go along with sanctions at all, especially after Trump destroyed our soft diplomatic power, was amazing. His approach on the Gaza conflict is far less amazing, to put it mildly. Other than foreign policy, the position is mostly advocacy and horse trading around funding priorities with Congress. Soft power for the most part.

        A bad President, especially combined with a bad Congress, sure as hell can stop the local agenda items, though. Pull the grants for cities to implement public transit. Pull Medicare expansion entirely. Don’t provide school lunch program funding at all. Put judges in power who rule arbitrarily in favor of conservatives with no care for precedent.

        What voting for Biden is for is to make sure the federal government doesn’t overrule things built locally and regionally. That’s it. The rest needs direct action on the part of all of us at different levels of government.

        • daltotron@lemmy.world
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          5 months ago

          A bad President, especially combined with a bad Congress, sure as hell can stop the local agenda items, though. Pull the grants for cities to implement public transit. Pull Medicare expansion entirely. Don’t provide school lunch program funding at all. Put judges in power who rule arbitrarily in favor of conservatives with no care for precedent.

          What voting for Biden is for is to make sure the federal government doesn’t overrule things built locally and regionally. That’s it. The rest needs direct action on the part of all of us at different levels of government.

          finally somebody gets it dude hoo lee I feel like I’ve been wearing the nightmare vision goggles and taking the crazy pills or something

      • lolcatnip@reddthat.com
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        5 months ago

        Is there a point we can ever point that finger at Biden?

        Point fingers all you want as long as you vote to keep the rapist, insurrectionist, self-admitted wannabe dictator out of power.

    • Ferrous@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      5 months ago

      “Pet grievance” is one of my new favorite euphemisms for genocide.

      Voting does nothing other than reform the capitalist regime. It doesn’t matter whether this cycle’s presidential figurehead is blue or red. Give it a few decades and you’ll see how the US will still be sowing death and destruction across the world, as it always has. The presidential race that liberals get so rabid about is nothing more than kabuki theater.

    • ChrisLicht@lemm.ee
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      5 months ago

      Yeah? Like our devotion to repeatedly voting in neolibs like Carter, Clinton, Obama, and Biden has had nothing to do with tilting the political spectrum to the far right?

      I’ll probably pull the lever for Biden, but I don’t blame anyone who doesn’t. Based on the results of recent decades of leftists holding their noses to vote for the neolib, even if Biden wins something much worse than Trump will arrive just in time for the 2028 cycle.

    • Semi-Hemi-Demigod@kbin.social
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      5 months ago

      What if I think people should still vote but they should be ready to be unhappy with the outcome either way and that it won’t actually provide meaningful change?

      • Shiggles@sh.itjust.works
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        5 months ago

        I will be very different levels of unhappy with a too moderate democrat than a wannabe dictator.

      • nova_ad_vitum@lemmy.ca
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        5 months ago

        Is abortion being nationally illegal “meaningful change”? Explain how that’s not meaningful for us stupid people.

          • nova_ad_vitum@lemmy.ca
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            5 months ago

            Ah i see, so positive change is worth pushing for, but avoiding calamity isn’t and you through throw away your vote instead. Insightful political philosophy.

      • PugJesus@kbin.social
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        5 months ago

        Then I’d understand and mourn your cynicism, but not think of you as a bad citizen.

          • PugJesus@kbin.social
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            5 months ago

            Citizenship is responsibility - participation in the civic life of a polity. That’s what being a citizen, and not simply a subject, means - to have the right to a share in the direction of the polity. Like it or not, if you’re active in exercising your influence to affect politics instead of abrogating that power to the elite, you’re a good citizen of wherever you live.

            There, there. It’ll be alright…

  • young_broccoli@kbin.social
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    5 months ago

    But people did vote for Hillary, IIRC, she won the popular vote by like 3 million votes.

    So it wasnt a lack of voting that gave trump the presidency and repealed abortion rights. It was the mecanisms and institutions that are part of your electoral process and that only seem to exist in order to dilute your democracy (e. voting districts, electoral college) that gave trump the win.

    Perhaps people would be more willing to vote if their voices were actually heard.

  • Hotchip@lemmy.world
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    5 months ago

    Didn’t she win the popular vote?

    This is just shit libs blaming the left instead of taking responsibility for running a shit candidate with so much baggage that she lost while “winning”

    If you want to be mad at anyone, blame the dnc.

      • Empricorn@feddit.nl
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        5 months ago

        Of course it’s a problem. But people point to this and say “the system’s broken [of course it is], so why vote!” Which is what the most fascist, anti-freedom politicians want. Functionality, it’s the same as voting for the ‘R’ in every election.

        • Hotchip@lemmy.world
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          5 months ago

          Systems fucked, but I always vote. Getting blamed while supporting a candidate I despise certainly is icing on the shit cake

      • TropicalDingdong@lemmy.world
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        5 months ago

        So we’re gonna act like winning the popular vote and losing isn’t a problem in and of itself?

        Right?

        Apoligists. Apologists all the way down.

    • yesman@lemmy.world
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      5 months ago

      Don’t you see the contradiction in “she won the popular vote” and “she was a shit candidate”?

      It’s kinda like the contradiction that Bernie could win the general election, but 12% of his voters defecting to Trump wasn’t enough to make a difference.

      Leftists are going to be shouting “the DNC is corrupt” on the gallows after Trump wins.

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sanders–Trump_voters

      • samus12345@lemmy.world
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        5 months ago

        Don’t you see the contradiction in “she won the popular vote” and “she was a shit candidate”?

        No, because the popular vote isn’t how US elections are won. She needed to appeal to the people in the 5 or so states that actually matter and failed to do so.

      • Asafum@feddit.nl
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        5 months ago

        “Leftists are going to be shouting “the DNC is corrupt” on the gallows after Trump wins.”

        This is the stupid shit is see all over lemmy that makes me so mad… Yes the DNC SUCKS but guess what? They’re the status quo right now, and the alternative is literally a fucking dictatorship that has vindictive actions as their highest priority.

        There aren’t even dog whistles anymore, he’s using the word dictator… But yeah BomberBiden… Mr.Genocide… I get it… So that means let Trump win? Seriously?

        • Hotchip@lemmy.world
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          5 months ago

          Yeah, and I’ll still likely vote for Mr genocide all while being blamed for his loss. So why’s it matter?

      • BeautifulMind ♾️@lemmy.world
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        5 months ago

        Don’t you see the contradiction in “she won the popular vote” and “she was a shit candidate”?

        Both of these things can be true. If “did not vote” had been a candidate in 2016, it would have won in a landslide. Just 8 states + DC had enough voters turn out such that any candidate won more votes than there were eligible voters that didn’t bother. As a percentage of eligible voters, Clinton received 28.43% of eligible voters, with Trump trailing at 27.2% of eligible voters. While Trump outperformed Romney (2012) by 2M votes, Clinton underperformed Obama in 2012.

        As a percentage of the entire US population (including those too young or other ineligible to vote) Clinton got votes from 20.30% of the population and Trump got votes from 19.41% of people.

        They both sucked so badly that just over a quarter of eligible voters/less than a fifth of everybody was all it took to elect Trump

        (source https://brilliantmaps.com/did-not-vote/)

        • Hotchip@lemmy.world
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          5 months ago

          TF do you think our vote was? I can’t vote any harder or some shit.

          The hilarious bit was all the shit libs backing comey during russiagate. It’s literally his fault she lost.

          • goferking0@lemmy.sdf.org
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            5 months ago

            Yeah but in their eyes it couldn’t be anything wrong with her as it was her turn so couldn’t have been his handling of anything

    • Bonskreeskreeskree@lemmy.world
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      5 months ago

      Bernie would have whooped trump in 2016. Shame the dnc decided to change the rules the day of to avoid a split ticket or God forbid, supporting the actually viable candidate.

      • HowManyNimons@lemmy.world
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        5 months ago

        Sanders, God love him, was not going to be electable. Had they run him, Trump would have picked up the whole of the big fat moderate lump in the middle of the bell curve.

        Exactly like Boris Johnson did when he ran against Jeremy Corbyn. The capitalists simply won’t allow socialists to win in this environment.

        • pjwestin@lemmy.world
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          5 months ago

          Sanders, God love him, was not going to be electable.

          Literally every single poll says otherwise. We’ll never know for certain, but there’s much more evidence to support a Sanders victory than a Sanders loss, and claiming that Trump would have picked up enough moderates to win is baseless speculation.

      • Sludgehammer@lemmy.world
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        5 months ago

        Lol, no.

        Bernie is the Ron Paul of the left; he has a small group of very loud supporters online who by constantly shouting at each other on the internet have convinced themselves that he’s actually some sort of populist god. I mean seriously, he couldn’t even win the popular vote in the Democratic Primary in 2016, losing to Hillery by over three million votes, where were all the extra voters to “whoop” Trump supposed to come from?

          • Sludgehammer@lemmy.world
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            5 months ago

            “Pro-Trump Russian asset Wikileaks reveals that DNC said mean things about our Lord and Savior Bernie Sanders”

            Seriously, have you actually looked at the Wikileak emails rather than the hype? It’s the weakest shit imaginable.

            • Vailliant@lemmy.world
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              5 months ago

              You sound like someone who thinks Russiagate and rachel maddow were legit. WikiLeaks used to be trumpeted by liberals as a bastion of truth untill Assange came out with the corrupt dnc stuff. Which you can still all read, yes they conspired with Hillary. MSNBC and CNN gave her easy questions while grilling Bernie. “Weakest shit indeed”.

              If the establishment doesn’t like the candidate they won’t get airtime. Same shit with Dean Philips and Marianne Williamson. The Biden team places some phone calls and bam your campaign is dead and no airtime/coverage. Are they viable candidates, who knows?

              Should they at least get airtime and be heard in a democratic process?? Yes…

            • Tinidril@midwest.social
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              5 months ago

              The emails were never even denied, and they are damning as hell. That is precisely why the entire response, to this day, has been to ignore what was revealed and go after the people who revealed it. Yes, it was shit people revealing shit about other shit people.

    • DreamerofDays@kbin.social
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      5 months ago

      Or blame both.

      There’s more than one way to solve most problems, and more than one cause as well. Would a stronger candidate have succeeded? Perhaps. But that was a solution for earlier in the process. A solution for late in the process was voters turning up.

      • Hotchip@lemmy.world
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        5 months ago

        We literally had that candidate and he got fucked over by super deligates or some nonsense.

        I’m sick of being blamed when I voted for someone as vile as hrc. Dems lost the vote, not me.

        Maybe if hrc actually showed up to purple states and appealed to actual voters it would have went differently.

    • AquaTofana@lemmy.world
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      5 months ago

      I mean, I will always be mad at the DNC for not running Sanders.

      Doesn’t mean I’m not gonna vote Biden in Nov 2024 though.

    • Empricorn@feddit.nl
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      5 months ago

      I don’t want to be mad, I want to change things and improve people’s lives. So I vote for the lesser of 2 evils until we can abolish this “first past the post” nonsense.

  • A_Random_Idiot@lemmy.world
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    5 months ago

    If Hilary hadn’t been a pile of shit doing private speaking engagements for billionaires that were so hush hush that they set up massive white noise generating speaker systems, people would have voted for her.

    if Hilary had set a fucking foot in some of the states she lost, people would have voted for her.

    if Hilary didnt make stupid fucking comments, people would have voted for her.

    Maybe if you stopped blaming voters, and blamed the shitty fucking candidates, someone less awful would have run, and won.

    • pachrist@lemmy.world
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      5 months ago

      Blame the DNC. They’re the one cramming shitty candidates down our throats. If OP is right, and voting for president is just changing the oil, it’s like getting charged $2000 for Dollar General oil.

      Stop blaming voters. Field actual, progressive, leftist candidates. I am fucking sick of voting for right wing, war hawk Democrats to “save democracy.” We aren’t saving anything, just watching stock market addicted octagenarians kill the country slower than the other team.

      • Queen HawlSera@lemm.ee
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        5 months ago

        Yes, I want octagenarians that kill the country slower than the other team. Why? Because I know the game is rigged against the trust busting hero we actually need… but I’m hoping they’ll drop dead of “Being absurdly old” while we still have a country, so a younger generation can fix it.

        Sorry, but there’s no easy hollywood solution where Sylvester Stallone blows up Capitalism, gets the girl, and throws UBI out of his “Just Married” sports car… Does that metaphor scan? I know that’s not really how movies work anymore… now it’s more like Tom Holland blows up Socialism because it ate a puppy in the third act to remind the audience it’s evil, doesn’t get the girl because getting the girl is “problematic” (which to be fair it kinda is), and then teases yet another god damn crossover event that we know and care nothing about…

        • stewie3128@lemmy.ml
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          5 months ago

          There will always be more Josh Hawleys, because the shareholders of the GOP will find them, and get them nominated and then elected to safe seats.

          You can’t wait out the GOP in the hopes that nature will take its course. It will never, ever stop.

          We need an actual trust-busting, corruption-prosecuting bastard who isn’t afraid of keeping friends across the aisle, or preserving relationships with the right law firms or lobbying firms.

          We need someone who will pack the court.

          We need DC and PR to become states.

          We need someone who will cut off federal dollars to parasitic red states for destroying representative democracy.

          We need someone who will discipline people like Joe Manchin when they corruptly protect extractive industry. Turn off as much federal money to West Virginia as you can, and plaster the TV with ads saying “Joe Manchin made this happen.”

          We need someone who isn’t afraid to be LBJ, or TR.

          Basically, when the metaphorical foxes are running the henhouse, you need a bastard fox hunter. Not a slightly-less-increaingly-worse fox.

      • OceanSoap@lemmy.ml
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        5 months ago

        Yup. The DNC is what’s trying to stay in power, which is why Biden and Kamala were forced in, because they obey.

        It’s also why Niki Hailey is being pushed on the news. They want her to win because she’ll also obey.

      • HelixDab2@lemm.ee
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        5 months ago

        Actual leftist candidates–or progressive candidates, because those are very much not the same thing–wouldn’t get even 10% of the primary votes, even if the DNC was entirely hands-off. They certainly wouldn’t get the kind of donations that they would need to run a successful national campaign. Genuine leftists simply aren’t popular in the US as a whole, even if Gen Z might trend more strongly towards certain aspects of socialism/communism/anarchism than people of my generation did.

          • HelixDab2@lemm.ee
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            5 months ago

            You’re changing my premise.

            OP is saying that you should vote for leftists or progressives. I’m saying that they don’t tend to have strong enough support in the American electorate to win primaries. You’re saying that leftist or progressive ideas win elections. That’s not the same thing at all.

            Certain progressive ideas have reached some kind of national consensus, like the idea that minimum wage needs to be a living wage. That’s still not popular in a lot of places, but okay, let’s roll with it. OTOH, major structural criminal justice reform–reduction in police, more addiction treatment programs (that aren’t based in religion), reform-minded prison, etc.—does not have popular support. Republicans are largely law-and-order/crime-and-punishment types, and a significant percentage of Dems are as well. Running on a ‘defund the police’ platform tends to cost people elections, which is why you see Biden increasing funding for cops. It doesn’t matter if data strongly suggests that the approach we’re using doesn’t work, and can’t work; people that see crime as a moral issue can’t accept anything other than punishment.

            If you want to change all of this, you have to start long before elections.

        • orrk@lemmy.world
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          5 months ago

          no, clearly we need to show our disapproval by letting the literal fascists win!

          • Queen HawlSera@lemm.ee
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            5 months ago

            This, I keep wondering what the hell the “Anarkiddies” expect, they act like we can just pull up to the CEO of Fascism’s house with a katana and be all “Nothing personnel kid!”

          • HelixDab2@lemm.ee
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            5 months ago

            Don’t be daft. You need to protest, demonstrate, educate, and engage in outreach and community building, and then when it’s time to vote, you need to vote strategically. Calling everyone a literal fascist that’s even a half-shuffle right of Bakunin isn’t going to help you.

            • orrk@lemmy.world
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              5 months ago

              I’m sorry, are the republicans not literally engaging in fascism? I mean, they check almost every box

              • HelixDab2@lemm.ee
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                5 months ago

                Your comment implied that you lumped Democratic politicians into that as well.

                And no, not all Republicans are fascists. However, there are currently very, very few principled Republicans that are currently serving at a national level, and more and more are getting forced out by the party. John McCain and Mittens Romney were both Republican based on their political principles, and, while I disagreed with their politics, I don’t believe that either of them could fairly be labelled as fascists. But one is dead, and the other is now out of politics, sooo…

                • orrk@lemmy.world
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                  5 months ago

                  Oh, I’m sorry, but in a two party system (something that anything not proportional voting will never be), people refusing to vote letting the fascists win does not in fact mean the other party is fascist as well.

                  Secondly, i rightfully don’t give two flying fucks if you feel like republican politician X Y or Z is fascist or not, they have been engaging in fascist rhetoric and ideology for over 50 years, just because they have gone more mask off about it under Trump doesn’t mean the party of “Mexicans are scary”, “blacks are all criminals”, “tough on crime”, “gay should be illegal”, “unquestioning patriotism”, “Judaeo Christian nation” etc… haven’t been fascist, they still very much fit any definition outside literally being part of the Italian Fascisti party.

    • Queen HawlSera@lemm.ee
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      5 months ago

      A part of me, a part I buried because I didn’t want to believe Trump would win, but… a part of me had basically accepted that she already lost when she brought out the “Bernie Bro.” narrative, and actually tried to paint Bernie Sanders as this misogynist and pretend that his supporters just “Hated women”

      Not only was it a desperate move that revealed a lot of negative things about her character. Honestly even if it was true (and it was!), the “Basket full of deplorables” line definitely scared off Centrists who weren’t fully lucid of just how dangerous Trump was… A close friend of mine who hated both candidates and planned to stay home actually voted Trump solely because a candidate was willing to say people who didn’t vote for her were straight up evil… (I begged him not to, but politics is the one thing he will never listen to me on) Between Deplorables and Bernie Bros. it gave off the impression that she was a spoiled brat who demonized anyone who didn’t faun over her. (Even though Trump demonized everyone who didn’t faun over him, but let’s be honest men and women are held to very different standards)

      The talk about how “It’s my turn!” didn’t help, and the fact that Hillary already tried the “Oh they support that guy because they’re too sexist to support me!” card, and failed miserably, when she brought out the “Obama Boys” line back in 2008.

      Hillary is a geniunely unpleasant person, Trump is also a genuinely unpleasant person, the problem is… and I hate to say it, Trump had more charisma. He didn’t have a way with words or anything like that (Hamberders, covfefe), but he had the persona of a no nonsense businessman ready to trim the fat and say “You’re Fired!” to anyone who stood in the way…

      Hillary…was just Hillary.

      I’m not saying Trump was this novel idea or this cult of personality (Pretty much everyone but his most extreme base hates him)

      I’m saying Hillary is so unworkable as a candidate and so horrifically distasteful, that she may have been the only one who could lose an election to the walking punchline that thanks to the failure of the electoral college, is also the most dangerous man in the West… Donald J. Trump

    • Facebones@reddthat.com
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      The DNC showed voters exactly what they think of leftists when they shafted Bernie for Hillary. They showed their voters exactly what they think of them when they went to court to have it ruled that their voters aren’t shit. At some point, you don’t get to ShockedPikachu anymore that people aren’t supporting you.

      Democrat voters are just as bad, look in any thread about elections, and they make two arguments in the same comment. 1- Leftists are stupid babies who will never be taken seriously and need to STFU already like the stupid babies they are, 2- Leftists who didn’t vote Dem because we call them stupid babies are single handedly behind every Republican win.

      I’ve had a number of Democrats in this thread reply to me who (supposedly) do dnc volunteer work. Who pay lip service to welcoming leftists for half a sentence to pretend they welcome leftists, but then have spent half the day raging and manifesto-ing. How they tell them all to fuck off for showing up during an election year. How they chastise and bully them into oblivion for coming in due to interest in an issue that isn’t the DNC talking point of the year.

      They’ve all thrown around the shtick that leftists don’t come out to help because they’re insert your favorite chronic internet user trope here, and not a one is open to the fact that it turns out people don’t want to work with you or help you if you just spend your days insulting them for not agreeing with you.

      In 2016, they went to court to tell their voters they don’t owe them shit. In 2024, we’re watching Biden sidestep Congress to fund genocide. DNC supporters are openly and actively hostile to anybody left of Biden (on a functional level, moreso than they are Republicans even.) Democrats are just the mid right to Trumps far right, autocrats who think that a pride pin in their cap makes them The Good Guys.

    • Trainguyrom@reddthat.com
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      5 months ago

      I love how the day after the election it was all “Russia pushed fake news on social media and confused the voters!” Which it turns out there was some of that, it was such an obvious scapegoat to avoid publicly admitting you botched the campaign that badly. 2016 was such a shit show

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        Additionally, the GOP had been putting in the effort to crush her for decades. She was the least-electable candidate the DNC ever put forward by a landslide.

        Trump didn’t have the same level of loyalty back then. He would have failed against any other candidate in 2016.

    • 5in1k@lemm.ee
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      5 months ago

      cough Michigan cough. Bitch took us for granted. The DNC shit the whole bed that election.

        • Queen HawlSera@lemm.ee
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          Ya know, getting on each other’s throats because our words aren’t nice enough is a part of how this mess started.

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            I see what you’re saying but if my comment would be considered getting on someone’s throat than I think it may be time to take a step back and take a deep breath.

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          Ok then her dipshit ass campaign took my state for granted, barely campaigned here, and lost Michigan and the election. The dumb fucking DNC gave up on any election that wasn’t federal after Obama and that didn’t help the fucking idiots either.

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            Haha, no, I don’t think so, but I’ve definitely been wrong before :) I guess it’s been something I’ve been trying to ask myself and felt like a valid thing to ask here.

    • Xanis@lemmy.world
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      I do agree. However, we tend to talk a lot and point fingers even more. So rather than us not unifying and speaking up on issues, us not stepping up in the districts and States we live in, and us chirping away and generating white noise on the internet, how about we reverse course?

      Run in your local elections. Organize unions. Start working to bring your and our communities together. Bernie proved it was possible. One of the biggest, if not the biggest, grassroots movements in memory. Could you imagine if we took that unification and built on those foundations after that election cycle so many years ago? We would, in this moment, have a powerful, nationwide voice and platform powered by the very same people who now speak loudly almost daily and take no real action.

      Voting is just the end result of thousands or tens of thousands of hours of effort across the nation. We could literally be doing so much more. Together we are strong and despite the incredible malicious and absolute idiocy that is MAGA, you gotta give them this: They work together. Even if moving in this case is more defined by a herd of drunk cows stumblpeding across a field.

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        5 months ago

        Demsocs (really, socdems) still believe in capitalism. They’re not quite Debs levels of socialist.

        • honey_im_meat_grinding@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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          It’s probably more accurate to state that they believe capitalism and markets to be two separate things, for example a market economy where every business is a multi-stakeholder worker-consumer coop and workers and “consumers” alike can consent to what happens at work, would be at odds with private ownership given that everyone is an owner with decision making power (collective/socialized ownership). This is pretty much what Corbyn and the Labour party a few years back were aiming for - they were going to experiment with cooperatives by having the government encourage and fund them.

      • BeautifulMind ♾️@lemmy.world
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        A socialist will never be elected.

        Christ, they’ve been calling every democrat a socialist for 20 years now and it’s chased half of the democrats rightward so far that it’s a problem for a lot of democrats to keep voting for that

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      No, Bernie is one of the reasons that we’re in this shit hole.

      He ran against a Democrat and pulled votes from Clinton/Biden.

      He ran as an independent but changed his registration to run on the democratic ticket.

      The article you linked even says so.

      The irony is that Sanders was a prime beneficiary of this bias, not a victim of it. The losers were potential candidates like Vice President Joe Biden, Sen. Warren, or Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper — and, thus, Democratic primary voters, who ended up with few choices in 2016

      • NatakuNox@lemmy.world
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        Uhhhh no. He didn’t pull any votes because he wasn’t even on the ticket during the general election and he endorsed Hillary. Also, considering how unpopular Hillary was she should have picked Bernie as her VP. Picking anti union, milked toste Tim Kain was a joke.

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    You’ve got to at least try to appeal your base. And no, “vote for me or you’ll get the other guy” is not an inspiring rally cry. It didn’t work in 2016 and the fact that the message seems to be similar in 2024 has me really worried.

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    Well no. Hillary was a center-right candidate. If she wanted votes from progressives or left-wing voters, she knew exactly what to do. But she threw those votes away, relying on rhetoric like this post. We all saw it happening, and she did it anyway. What if she had pushed for universal health care, or unions, or campaign finance reform, or gun laws, or against wars? It would have been an exciting election.

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      Because America isnt voting for change. They’re just moving towards fascism, either slow or fast.

      If you tell anyone to change course and vote third party they get really mad at you here on Lemmy.

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      Hence educating and organizing the other 364 days of the year.

      • EightBitBlood@lemmy.world
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        I think a better strategy is to run for office rather than vote. Because voting doesn’t do much if the available candidates are turncoats or shills. It should be educate, organize, and run. Otherwise we get more Scinemas running for raising minimum wage and not at all voting for it when it counts most.

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          I’d say the people who voted third party are the ones who fucked around in 2016, and ALL of us found out because of it.

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          Dictatorship it is then. 3rd parties don’t stand a snowballs chance in hell right now.

          Canvassing and outreach happen first, then you can vote for that party. Right now you’re literally handing Republicans the win if you vote 3rd party this election.

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            3rd parties don’t stand a snowballs chance in hell right now.

            Which is a problem that needs to be addressed.

            This voting the lesser of two evils won’t stop the republicans from getting further to the right, and the democrats to do the same to try and capture more moderate right wing votes.

            How many elections will be “don’t vote 3rd party vote us or else the other guys will win”? How many problems will be addressed that way? How bad are you going to let these systemic issues plague the US before realizing that “hey maybe this is damaging our democracy and leading down a path towards autocracy”?

            Cause the main way for autocrats to rule is for people to stop engaging in politics as they don’t feel represented, and that’s something you’re seeing happening in the US due, also, to a lack of 3rd parties. This creates apathy which autocrats thrive on. And you’ll be whining about people not voting your lesser evil all the way to fascism because you were too shortsighted in winning X election to see the issue at large.

          • thecrotch@sh.itjust.works
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            3rd parties don’t stand a snowballs chance in hell

            Because of you and other useful idiots spreading RNC/DNC propaganda.

            • Zuberi 👀@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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              BINGO. Don’t ever question it. Hand-waving away our democracy for DECADES as the lesser of 2 evils.

              Fuck this shit. Fuck the MIC. Fuck the 1%.

              If you act like a dragon (hoard enough wealth to solve all of humanity’s problems), you deserve to be cut up and fed to the local town of the Hero who ended your life. There just aren’t that many of you fuckers. Best of luck.

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            On today’s episode of “leftists are simultaneously both stupid babies who exist solely for us to mock AND single handedly responsible for every Republican win.”

            If democrats ran Bernie who won the primary, instead of telling him to eat a dick then going to court to tell their voters to eat a dick - THEN all those things in op.

            2016 we watched that, in 2024 we’re watching Biden sidestep congress to fund genocide. Democrats aren’t any less fascist, they just put a little rainbow pin on their cap and you call them the good guys.

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          Dems deciding to fuck around and find out…

          Yeah! Sending minorities to concentration camps will really show those Dems!

          • Fedegenerate@lemmynsfw.com
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            Punch up not down. Democrat leadership decides on policy, Democrat leadership decides on election strategy.

            “I won’t vote for leader that heinous thing x” is a reasonable position to have. “I will vote for leader that doesn’t heinous thing y” is also a reasonable position to have.

            The compromise isn’t to get people to vote for x, it’s for the leader to stop x. Particularly, if the opponent would do x but worse. That only shows, to the Democrat leader, y is a resonable cost for x.

            • PugJesus@kbin.social
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              “I won’t vote for leader that does heinous long-standing thing that most of the electorate agrees with even though the only other viable candidate wants to pursue an even worse policy on the issue!” is just “I support heinous long-standing thing getting worse!” with extra steps.

              • Fedegenerate@lemmynsfw.com
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                Except those that don’t vote to support the thing can’t be said to support the thing at all. “Those that didn’t support the thing are the same as those that wanted it more” is self-serving at best and intellectually dishonest at worst. By the same token I wouldn’t suggest anyone that votes Democrat supports anything the Democrats do because that would also be self serving at best and intellectually dishonest at worst.

                I get you’ve had these arguments before, I’ve certainly read them, and I’m not trying to rehash them.

                The point that I’m tying, and failing I suppose, to make is the frustration/anger is misplaced.

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    I voted for the greater good in 2016 - in the Democratic primaries.

    I voted for the lesser evil in the general election, then took a long hot shower.

    Things would have certainly worked out better with a Hillary victory instead of the Trumpster fire we got.

    This does not excuse the horseshit shenanigans that were going on within the DNC.

      • gun@lemmy.ml
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        5 months ago

        So 88% of Bernie supporters did.

        Leftists did vote for Hillary in 2016.

        • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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          Its funny to see folks lose their shit at Bernie Voters, when the far larger block of votes Hillary lost came from Obama voters.

          Specifically, 4.4M Obama voters slept through 2016, primarily in the Midwest, in response to Hillary’s failure to campaign or advocate for their interests during her time as Sec State and on the trail.

          A campaign that absolutely obsessed over winning the Deep South, dumping millions into state coffers from South Carolina to Arizona, virtually ignored the pivotal swing Great Lakes states and ceded that territory to Trump.

          Combine this with the Dem Party’s chronic inability to advance any meaningful election reform (no DC statehood, no national motor-voter or mail-in ballot protection laws, no effort to beef up the DOJ’s civil rights department or overturn felony disenfranchisement, no constitutional ballot initiatives to repeal the electoral college, nothin’, nothin’, nothin’) with a SIXTY VOTE SENATE SUPERMAJORITY, and she was lead straight to the slaughter in November.

          Like, if you really want to say who stabbed Hillary in the back in 2016, it was the same guy who kicked her legs out in 2008. Obama failed to secure a national majority of Democrats through the end of his second term. And his successor paid the price (along with everyone else who hate to eat Trump’s bullshit for four years).

          • mojofrododojo@lemmy.world
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            5 months ago

            it really illustrates the enormous amount of entitlement the clinton wing had to expect a win out of that campaign where they alienated every one they could at damn near every turn.

          • Trainguyrom@reddthat.com
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            Combine this with the Dem Party’s chronic inability to advance any meaningful election reform

            Ftfy. Biden almost passed universal 3-k (effectively state-funded daycare) which was far more than I ever expected and would have been a boon for my family. He nearly got student loan forgiveness passed which also would’ve been a boon for my family. Honestly most of his campaign promises which he was unable to deliver on would have directly put me in a brilliant financial position right now and instead I’m on a far slower path to get to where I want to be financially thanks to BS political infighting.

            Now that Biden is pissing off everyone by ignoring the fact that most Americans seem to hate seeing orphaned children pulled from rubble in Gaza he’s pretty damn likely to lose the election he was a shoe in to win just 6 months ago.

            Ultimately we have broken promises more thousands of dead children than I can think about in Gaza due to Biden’s unwavering support of Israel, and while there is actual good one can point to (Biden’s IRA and infrastructure bills both have wildly turbocharged both passenger rail and renewable energy projects to a degree that is hard to believe, and the new Income Driven Repayment plan for student loans is extremely lenient) for the average American there is nothing they can point to that Biden did for them in the short term.

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            Diminishing returns.

            Complaining that 12% of a sub-group of a sub-group of a population didn’t vote the way you wanted is worrying about open portholes on the Titanic.

            You are never going to get 100% agreement on… basically anything. 88% of group X voting the way you want is literally more people agreeing with you than Dentists agreeing toothpaste is important. (4 out of 5 dentists recommend = 80%)

          • Cowbee@lemmy.ml
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            Over 80% of the 12% of Bernie voters that went to Trump were conservatives or centrists, not leftists. The leftists voted for Hillary, Bernie was just more likeable across the board.

            • Tinidril@midwest.social
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              What’s even more hypocritical is that they will turn right around and say that we need centrist candidates to get right wing voters. If that were actually true, wouldn’t that mean that even more Hillary supporters wouldn’t have voted for Bernie if he won the nomination? They want to have it both ways.

              Bernie was the better candidate for the general. The 2016 election was bungled in the primary, not the general, and the argument they are making tacitly admits it.

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                Yep, it’s just massaging of words because for liberals, they get to vote for exactly what they want.

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            You’re getting down voted for maybe not being the most tactful but I appreciate you calling it out. I sat out in 2016. I haven’t missed a vote since. I hope others recognize their mistake and pull their weight.

            • Grayox@lemmy.mlOP
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              It is what it is, its not a mistake if you learn from it. Just made this meme as a response to that dumb ass barney meme someone posted earlier.

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        It’s normal for some amount of primary supporters in a contested primary to not vote for the eventual candidate. 88% of us did vote for Hillary - which, ironically, is more than Hillary supporters in '08 voted for Obama.

        The issue here isn’t leftists, or what passes for them in the US, not holding our noses, by and large.

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    What a bad take. If regular normie DEMOCRATS had voted for her, she’d have won. She failed on so many levels.

    Edit: or if she hadn’t rigged the primary, we would have had Bernie, and abortion would also have been legal. Reforming the DNC is harm reduction.

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    Copying and pasting my own comment from another thread:

    If you want leftists to vote for dems, despite dems pissing on leftists at every possible chance and yelling at leftists to fall in line, I’ll show you how.

    1. Point out that voting will never, ever, ever move the democrat party to the left. You cannot vote the party harder to the left.

    2. Point out that Republicans are going to remain fascists.

    3. Point out that voting third party is a spoiler vote and will result in fascists winning.

    4. Point out that the actual way to move to the left is to unionize and organize at the grassroots level, to apply bottom-up pressure on the top.

    The answer is not to pretend that Biden is anything other than a Neoliberal Capitalist. Leftists will correctly point out that Biden is still a lukewarm neoliberal maintaining the status quo, and feel further alienated by being told they should love him anyways. That just encourages voter apathy.

    Additionally, this meme is wrong. Leftists voted, it was the centrists and moderates that didn’t. Hillary wasn’t appealing in any way, so only the people who really cared voted. Hillary still won the popular vote, she just lost the electoral college, and Trump succeeded in riling up the fascist base. Do not blame Leftists for not falling in line for an extremely unlikable candidate, they did regardless. Blame Hillary for doing jack-shit to energize the base.

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    This is just another version of vote blue no matter who. It’s just as dumb as people who only vote Republican. Trump didn’t win that election, Hillary lost it.

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    Isn’t the entire job of campaigning politicians to convince people to vote for them?

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    if Leftists had voted for Hillary in 2016 abortion would still be legal.

    So, this really isn’t true in any meaningful way. People like to make a big deal out of the 12% of Bernie voters who went for Trump, but the majority of them identified as conservatives or centrists, while only 18% identified as liberal or left-leaning. Likewise, a lack of turnout doesn’t seem to be the issue; black voter turnout dropped, but not by an unexpected margin, and young voters (who tend to be more left leaning) had very strong turnout. Finally, you could try to blame leftists who voted third-party, but analysis shows that even if every single Jill Stien voter had gone to Clinton, she still would have needed to win over 50% of Gary Johnson’s voters (who were obviously unlikely to consider themselves leftists).

    You might be able to get the numbers to work if you say that if every leftist who stayed home OR voted third-party OR went to Trump voted for Clinton she’d have won, but that’s incredibly hard to prove and probably relies on some specious assumptions (for example, that every Green Party voter was a disgruntled Democrat). At that point, you’re pulling so many different groups together under a single banner that it’s basically meaningless. You might as well say if women had voted for Hillary abortion would be legal.