I'm cool with that, but folks should also remember this:
yeah I'm forever voting blue no matter who. The republican candidate will always be a fascist. It will never end with Trump. It's going to be fascist vs not fascist blue vote and I will eat whatever shit the blue vote shits out. More cops? I'm all for it, not a fascist dictator. Support Israel? Fine with me, not a fascist dictator. It sucks but that's just America now for the next thousand or so years, fascism or something else. Better hope the something else isn't closer to fascism than before or else you're fucked.
If the Dems keep winning the Republicans will have to slide left. It happened in the UK with Labour (unfortunately in the opposite direction).
When that happens, and Trump is not literally attempting to end democracy using project 2025, the plan of strong-arming the dem candidate into being more left is plenty feasible, and the risks are less dire.
It happened in the UK with Labour (unfortunately in the opposite direction)
This happened after Labour's entrenched power groups vigorously sabotaged Corbyn. Corbyn committed a somewhat serious blunder during Brexit, but he still had Labour well in the direction of defeating the Tories, and that might have happened earlier if his most spiteful opponents hadn't been inside his own party.
Thats not going to happen. The small handful of swing states will dictate a pattern of both parties steadily and we'll just keep going lower. Im sorry but there's zero chance the US doesn't elect enough republicans for them to be forced to change policy. They're making gains.
Maybe I'm just risk averse, but handing your country over to a fascist dictator sounds like the wrong solution.
I'm not saying to stop pressuring Biden in other ways, just not the borderline suicidal ones
Ah yes, that time several years ago when the dems won last election, the republicans responded by "sliding left". When the dems win 2024 the republicans will also be very civilized and non violent and slide even further left. Non-whites and LGBT people everywhere in America will be safer the night Joe Biden is elected than the night before, you heard it here from HauntedCupcake first!
You mostly don't see it because they win inconsistently by a narrow margin. It would totally happen if the republicans weren't so popular and the Dems kept winning. Hence the hypothetical.
The main issue is convincing the populace, but my point is more that the US has a way out of fascism, the public just need to recognise and want it
as long as you still vote for biden. hold your nose if you must. i know i will be...
That’s how I was voting for Hillary, and I almost actually vomited, for all the good that did me.
if more had also done that, we wouldn't be here now
If she had bothered to campaign in the Midwest and had just generally been a much better candidate, more people would have.
It's the job of a politician to earn votes and faithfully represent the priorities of the majority of the voters. People like Hillary, Biden, Schumer and the rest of the Dem leadership seldom do either.
It’s also the job of the electorate to educate themselves on the consequences of their vote (and non-vote). Don’t act like nobody knew who Trump was, what he had already done, or was listening to what he was saying.
Not job, DUTY. Otherwise I get your point. I'd like to add that it is also the duty of those more educated to try to educate others in a non-hostile, factual, and rhetorically effective way in order to bolster the numbers of people who can make informed/educated decisions on these things.
I honestly regret not voting for Hillary. I didn't vote for Trump either, I voted third-party because I thought Hillary was going to win, and even if she didn't win, what's the worst Trump could do, huh? So I figured it wouldn't hurt to vote for a third-party with the hope they'd get enough points to be on the debate stage during the next general election.
Granted, my vote probably wouldn't have made a difference. Tbh, considering I live in a state with winner-takes-all voting, I'm not even sure my vote actually matters now; but I'm still going to vote for Biden. It's better than assuming he'll win and risking another Trump victory.
Yes, I know I'm not the main character and I'm only one person. I know that changing my vote alone won't make a difference. However, whatmightmake a difference is if I talk about my reasoning in a public forum. Then, people might stop, read my post, and change their minds. Now, it's not one vote, it's two. They might spread their view as well, and two votes becomes four. Four votes becomes eight; and eight becomes sixteen. As small as that sounds, sixteen votes can make all the difference in an election. There are elections that have come down to one or two votes.
I did the same thing, in a solidly blue state, with the same thought processes; I voted for Jill Stein. Even after Trump won, I figured he couldn't fuck it up too badly. I even thought he might manage to get one thing right (I'm very solidly pro-2A), but nope, he couldn't even do that.
Biden isn't nearly far enough left for me. But I'll vote for him without even a hint of hesitation, because he's so much better than the only realistic possibility. And I live in a purple state now, so it might end up mattering.
*in certain states
She won the popular vote, she lost the electoral vote. Where you live MATTERS towards your vote in this country, by design, for situations like this
Not voting for Biden is the same thing as voting for Trump.
Voting for Biden doesn't mean supporting him. It means preventing Trump from becoming president.
The vote I cast in 2020 was against trump and not for Biden. I feel pretty good about that decision considering what happened afterwards. I'll vote against Trump again as many times as it takes.
I never liked Biden since the Obama years and I now hate him quite a bit. Sadly voting for him at this point is simply necessary, because if I am not in a good enough state to survive then I cannot support the Palestinians nor Ukrainians.
This precise sentiment has gotten me told off a few times now. Usually with someone yelling the word "Genocide" over and over so I can't get a word in. People are so fucking dumb it's actually unbelievable.
Whatever my frustration, I just want us all to work together even after we get Biden a second term. The only reason, ONLY REASON, the GOP have their power is honestly because we can't stop slap fighting long enough to plant a foot in their asses. This would also work for the Democrats. We do have two feet. Whatever our perspectives and opinions, there is a single neigh universal truth we can all accept:
Exactly. This is what I cannot understand from all these "true hyper-leftist" people. You do realize that the future of the USA is at stake here, and that our system is fundamentally rigged to not allow any real alternative as a choice, right? Your brain-dead "BIDEN BAD VOTE THIRD PARTY" is just going to enable Trump and then you'll never be able to vote for anyone ever again as you are forced to participate in alt-right Trump rallies every single day and post on the Trumpernet about how much you love Trump. This isn't much of an exaggeration -- this where they want to go if Trump wins.
You're not supporting Biden. This isn't how our vote works. You're voting for the person less likely to fundamentally fuck our country up. And in case you still don't quite understand who this is, that is Biden.
The largest current of leftists aren't saying you cannot vote for Biden, and that you should vote third party, but that ultimately change comes from outside the electoral system.
Unfortunately unless a revolution falls into our laps and magically solves all our problems, the modicum of control we have over the steering of this ship is limited to voting and advocating for others to vote
They’ll never accept that, because they fundamentally see nothing wrong with the system. They want to preserve the broken machine, even if it doesn’t work for them. They think changing the oil will repair it, when it was designed to break.
More like we don't want to crash our only car when we don't have another means of transportation, and oops, now we can't get to work.
It's great to say "the system is broken and must be replaced." I agree! But nobody who says that, me included, has ever had anything resembling an actual plan to replace the system or to prevent something even worse from taking over once the system is destroyed.
Everyone gave the GOP shit for screaming about how Obamacare needs to be "repealed and replaced" but never saying what it should be replaced with (though that was because the "replace" part was a lie and they just wanted to go back to the bad old days of people being trapped in a job or entirely unable to get insurance because of a preexisting condition). It's the same thing with people saying the entire system of government needs to be replaced.
But nobody who says that, me included, has ever had anything resembling an actual plan to replace the system
There are numerous other models of government being practiced all over the world. Choose one of them (I would recommend Swiss democracy).
It's all well and good to say "choose another system of governance" but how do we implement this change? What is the mechanism under which we can replace our current system of government with Swiss democracy, without the old government just saying "lolno" and bombing it to shit? The only method I can think of is a constitutional convention, and right now we're closer to the right wing being able to call one and rewrite it to take pur rights back 200 years than we are to leftists implementing Swiss democracy.
Like... I would be thrilled if that were within the realm of possibility, but as it stands any possible options for dramatically overhauling our system of governance is more likely to lurch us straight into permanent hard-right minority rule by a bunch of fascists. That's what I mean when I say I've never seen an actual plan by leftists to overhaul the system--it's all arguing about what the sexy end goal should be, without bothering to talk about the boring minutiae of how to actually get to it. So far as I can tell, the "plan" to make all these needed changes, so far as any thought is put into it at all, is just a silent assumption of either "we lobby our politicians and they do what we tell them and nobody opposes our ideas" or "we do a violent revolution and kill all the bad guys without harming the good guys and we definitely win and accomplish our goal without someone else taking advantage of the chaos to do a fascism instead," depending on how radical the change is.
how do we implement this change?
Constitutional amendments
without the old government just saying "lolno" and bombing it to shit?
Make sure the old government doesn't have enough votes.
options for dramatically overhauling our system of governance is more likely to lurch us straight into permanent hard-right minority rule by a bunch of fascists.
I'm not American dawg. I hate biden as much as I want. Let me hate.
Nah, everyone is free to hate. However, support from others on this planet against Trump is also important. To some degree we all affect one another and his rise into the seat again would directly impact a LOT of people, even outside the U.S.
BUT
I'm hoping that there is now enough anger and frustration for us to carry the momentum past the voting gates and straight into very strong pressure towards all politicians. This IS fixable. The message is there, even if it will result in violence from our militarized police force.
I'm not going to tell anybody what to do or who to vote for but one of two things are very likely to happen at the end of this election:
Biden is re-elected. We continue with the status quo. We have a chance to make small incremental steps toward a better future.
Trump is elected. Two Supreme Court justices retire and Trump appoints two more. At that point he will have appointed FIVE of NINE Supreme Court justices. We have already seen what they're willing to do. Imagine what they will do in the literal decades to come.
Choose what you want to do, but take responsibility for your choice. Vote in your local elections. Big changes can happen from the ground up.
It's the federal judge appointments that matter and almost nothing else. Most of what he does can be undone except for that.. It would cause a generation of damage.
You misunderstand me, you should be allowed not to vote but encouraging it as a form of protest is misguided.
There’s a contradiction. If you are allowed not to vote in a democracy, and you don’t like any of the candidates, then, how can it be misguided to withhold your vote?
No it isn't. You have the right not to vote but participation should be encouraged as it's what gives everyone a say. Seems pretty simple to me. I'm not even saying they don't have the right to discourage people but if you have lived through the last 8 years and do it, you're a REALLY slow learner.
I voted for Gary Johnson because Hillary sounded awful in 2016 and I 1000x regret it. Fuck this system for making me choose between bad and worse, but yes obviously I have to choose bad over worse.
Fuck this system for making me choose between bad and worse
Don't make me defend the US voting system but that is not how it works. Primaries exist and that's where voters make the case for a specific person. The large, general, national elections are for forming coalitions and compromising. This is what we do to decide who gets power instead of physically fighting. There will never, ever be a time when a single candidate is the ideal choice for a majority of Americans. Compromise is a core tenant of democracy and by definition it means nobody gets everything they want.
And while we're on the topic, 99% of leftists understand this. Anyone telling you "voting doesn't matter" or that "both candidates are the same" is just trying to reverse the progress that's already been made.
Most of what you said is spot on but you originally quoted about choosing between bad and worse.
I get what you're saying about the primary system, but even that is broken. Incumbents are almost never primaried. Typically the party will not allow it. There also needs to be consideration of what primarying an incumbent could mean. It's unlikely any of the challengers would win and in the process they would burn through campaign money and highlight weaknesses in the winner's record and character that could be used by the opposing party.
We do have a primary, but it may not always give the best candidate. If argue only a portion of people who vote in a general even vote in the primary.
Obligatory: "Ranked Choice" is a specific use of ranked ballots. It's subpar. It beats what we're doing now, but anything beats what we're doing now.
What you want is a Condorcet method like Ranked Pairs, where the winner is whoever beats everyone else. RCV just picks whoever can scrounge together 50% first. RCV would not elect a candidate who is literally everyone's second choice. Ranked Pairs would.
The simple alternative is Approval Voting, where you let people check all the names they like. It matches Condorcet results... somehow. There is no good reason we're not using it everywhere.
Unfortunately, the US political system does not have a feature to "dislike" all the candidates. Not without a major, probably bloody, revolution, anyway. Your choice is to support and pick one candidate, or let everyone else pick the candidate for you.
Ok but what no leftie has yet explained is who has asked them to like Biden?
Probably nobody who votes for Biden last time or this time around thinks he’s “teh awesome”, we’re simply grown ups who are able to tell which is the least bad option.
Honestly lefties (if they aren’t just groipers posing as lefties) who think it’s a hot take to say Biden isn’t the optimal person to be President are all suffering from Captain Obvious syndrome while thinking they’re the cleverest people ever.
It’s cringe.
Yeah, but.... Oftentimes criticizing Biden helps trump. I'd rather not even risk it at this point.
Can we spend more energy celebrating that trump is NOT the president and how bad it would be if he comes back?
Criticizing Biden is totally fine. It's the pressure from these posters to not vote for Biden out of principle that's the problem.
Biden is flubbing the Gaza situation hard but he's still (unfortunately) our only chance to keep Trump out of office.
This post should really say "Just because we dislike Biden doesn't mean we shouldn't vote for him"
Telling the DNC that you and most people will vote for him unconditionally is sabotaging his chances; the dems need to understand they cannot win if they continue the path they're on, and telling them otherwise is counterproductive.
Silencing criticism of millions isn't gonna win an election. Doing the things the people whose votes you need are telling you to do will.
Well, the problem is, the way the US sees it, keeping Israel as an ally is more important than Joe Biden. Yes, even if that means fascism comes humping an American flag. You can still be at the top of the postwar order with a fascist in charge!
The DNC are not on Lemmy.
Yeah, but they're listening to public sentiment.
If public sentiment is "everyone's gonna vote for Biden no matter what", they're not gonna change the course, and then be shocked when they get blown out worse than they did in 2016.
A group holds a vote to either cross a bridge to side A or stay on side B. Staying on side A means you won't have much food. Going to side B means you still won't have much food, but also most of the food is poisonous.
Part of the group says "I don't want to starve, I refuse to vote in a way that accepts malnourishment as a solution!" Group C also opposes eating poisonous food. This partial group votes to try and find a better source of food (option C).
48% of people vote A. 49% of people vote B. 3% of people vote C.
Surprise, surprise, Group C had 0 impact on the starving situation AND helped facilitate the eating of poisonous food.
Fuck Biden, and FUCK Trump. But if you think voting for a leftist party or abstaining from voting will change anything in a system entirely designed around having only two candidates, you are just as okay with Trump as you are with Biden. At the very least, you are saying that they are equally as bad, showing that you clearly don't understand the dynamic.
Then there are those of us in Group D, who said 30 years ago that this exact thing would happen if we didn't do the hard work of developing an agricultural system. Now Group A blames us instead of Group B, and it's really too late anyway, the food will run out on either side of the bridge.
I wasn't able to speak 30 years ago. 10 years ago, I was warning people about how AI was going to pose a problem unless we restructured society so automation benefited everyone. Almost 20 years ago I realized private insurance was a scam. Guess what? None of that shit matters. Playing the blame game won't help anyone fix it, but voting can buy us time.
What a shit parable.
Well you are in a shitty situation.
Thank you, I wanted to say this earlier but I was busy. It's a shitty parable to fit a shitty and broken system. If it were any nicer of a parable, I would have less to complain about concerning the electoral system.
Like a real president should, Biden does a lot of things I agree with and some I don’t. I thought Obama was one of the greatest presidents in my lifetime but even he did things I didn’t completely agree with. Would I’d rather have someone like Bernie or AOC in the Oval Office? Absolutely (well except he’s to old and she’s to young). Could we do better than Biden? Also absolutely. What I’d love to see is national ranked choice voting and more like 5-6 candidates. I think this would be better for everyone. But Trump is an existential crisis waiting to happen. I’m not sure this country can withstand another Trump presidency. Frankly I’m not sure my health can either. I literally noticed a significant drop in my BP when Trump left.
So yeah, you can be critical of Biden and not a Trump supporter. Frankly if you’re not a little critical of any president regardless of party, you’re not in a party, you’re in a cult.
Speaking of a different BP, I don't think that humanity could survive another Trump presidency. That BP being British Petroleum.
Shitty segway I know.
But part of Project 2025 is to roll back climate regulations, invest solely into fossil fuels, and hamstring the EPA. So, you know, as much as we complain that not enough is being done...that's the alternative.
Not voting for Biden is supporting Trump. Not voting is supporting Trump.
This is the simple reality of the situation. Memes don't make a difference in vote totals even if they make you feel special about being the hero you think you are.
Well, if the Tories get back in then deporting people to Rwanda and expansion of oil drilling in the north sea will be guaranteed.
Voting for lab, there is a chance that these will be cancelled.
Tories have had decades in charge, and shit is fucked.
Labour are more progressive - not enough for my taste, but better than constant austerity
I stand by what I said
Just because we
dislike
Starmer doesn't mean
we
support Sunak.
Yup. Such is a 2-party system.
Vote for the less-evil
What's the chance Starmer does 80% of what the Tories would have done, then the Tories get a supermajority next election?
I'm just an American, so IDK, but I've seen two democratic majorities in my lifetime, both of which played out that way.
Wait, I thought the "point of a system is what it does"..
If your choices lead to a trump presidency I don't see how your intent matters at all 🤷
The timing maybe? I've been saying Biden is the worst example of a democrat since the Obama days, and got downvoted about pointing out his bullshit. His contribution to the drug war alone is atrocious. But I kept getting down voted for saying it. Suddenly now it's election time, second go round, and here comes everyone jumping on Biden. Seems sus.
We have lived under presidencies of both Biden and Trump.
It isn't sus to realize one is better than the other, dude
Huh? That's what I'm saying, Biden is a saint compared to Trump. It's just sus that right now, at election time 2024 is when it's suddenly a big deal. It only benefits Trump
Your wording was probably a little confusing, I read "jumping on Biden" initially as in "voting / rooting for him", but you likely meant it in the context of them "questioning everything he does". Depending which one is used changes your phrasing from criticizing Biden to supporting him.
Thing is, the absolutely worst things that he's done throughout his career have been pretty mainstream at the time. Like that omnibus crime bill? That was overwhelmingly supported, with only very, very limited Democratic opposition in very limited areas. (And a lot of black communities still support 'tough on crime' approaches because they look at the short term rather than the long.)
Even the support of Israel is pretty middle-of-the-road. Most Dems still support Israel, even while being appalled at the indiscriminate nature of Israel's violence in Gaza
Good luck explaining that nuance to the average shit-lib.
Not voting for either is a statement that they are equal. That you wouldn’t prefer one over the other.
Could just also mean you live in a non swing state and want to give a 3rd party a shot at getting over 5% of the vote so they can get federal funding and be a more serious option in the next election. 🙂
I feel like a lot of the comments are kind of proving the point. If we say we don't like Biden, then suddenly everyone assumes we aren't voting and therfore are helping Trump. In reality, the meme literally says nothing about voting. That's everyone else jumping to that conclusion.
"I'm just reminding everyone!"
Don't worry. We all know how elections work.
"I don't care if you don't like him! I care about votes!"
The glory of a two parties system. The liberals even call this democracy.
Encourage your conservative family members to vote for Kennedy. Split the insanity vote.
To everyone in this thread, whoever you are or are not voting for: what is your plan if Trump wins? I think everyone agrees that it is pretty much 50/50 on him winning. What do you plan to do about the coming total fascist hellscape? Do you have plans and means to emigrate? Are you buying guns and ammo? Are you just gonna go along to get along?
I'm cool with that, but folks should also remember this:
yeah I'm forever voting blue no matter who. The republican candidate will always be a fascist. It will never end with Trump. It's going to be fascist vs not fascist blue vote and I will eat whatever shit the blue vote shits out. More cops? I'm all for it, not a fascist dictator. Support Israel? Fine with me, not a fascist dictator. It sucks but that's just America now for the next thousand or so years, fascism or something else. Better hope the something else isn't closer to fascism than before or else you're fucked.
If the Dems keep winning the Republicans will have to slide left. It happened in the UK with Labour (unfortunately in the opposite direction).
When that happens, and Trump is not literally attempting to end democracy using project 2025, the plan of strong-arming the dem candidate into being more left is plenty feasible, and the risks are less dire.
This happened after Labour's entrenched power groups vigorously sabotaged Corbyn. Corbyn committed a somewhat serious blunder during Brexit, but he still had Labour well in the direction of defeating the Tories, and that might have happened earlier if his most spiteful opponents hadn't been inside his own party.
Thats not going to happen. The small handful of swing states will dictate a pattern of both parties steadily and we'll just keep going lower. Im sorry but there's zero chance the US doesn't elect enough republicans for them to be forced to change policy. They're making gains.
Maybe I'm just risk averse, but handing your country over to a fascist dictator sounds like the wrong solution.
I'm not saying to stop pressuring Biden in other ways, just not the borderline suicidal ones
Ah yes, that time several years ago when the dems won last election, the republicans responded by "sliding left". When the dems win 2024 the republicans will also be very civilized and non violent and slide even further left. Non-whites and LGBT people everywhere in America will be safer the night Joe Biden is elected than the night before, you heard it here from HauntedCupcake first!
You mostly don't see it because they win inconsistently by a narrow margin. It would totally happen if the republicans weren't so popular and the Dems kept winning. Hence the hypothetical.
The main issue is convincing the populace, but my point is more that the US has a way out of fascism, the public just need to recognise and want it
As long as we understand a vote for Biden is the only vote NOT for Trump, it's all good.
as long as you still vote for biden. hold your nose if you must. i know i will be...
That’s how I was voting for Hillary, and I almost actually vomited, for all the good that did me.
if more had also done that, we wouldn't be here now
If she had bothered to campaign in the Midwest and had just generally been a much better candidate, more people would have.
It's the job of a politician to earn votes and faithfully represent the priorities of the majority of the voters. People like Hillary, Biden, Schumer and the rest of the Dem leadership seldom do either.
It’s also the job of the electorate to educate themselves on the consequences of their vote (and non-vote). Don’t act like nobody knew who Trump was, what he had already done, or was listening to what he was saying.
Not job, DUTY. Otherwise I get your point. I'd like to add that it is also the duty of those more educated to try to educate others in a non-hostile, factual, and rhetorically effective way in order to bolster the numbers of people who can make informed/educated decisions on these things.
I honestly regret not voting for Hillary. I didn't vote for Trump either, I voted third-party because I thought Hillary was going to win, and even if she didn't win, what's the worst Trump could do, huh? So I figured it wouldn't hurt to vote for a third-party with the hope they'd get enough points to be on the debate stage during the next general election.
Granted, my vote probably wouldn't have made a difference. Tbh, considering I live in a state with winner-takes-all voting, I'm not even sure my vote actually matters now; but I'm still going to vote for Biden. It's better than assuming he'll win and risking another Trump victory.
Yes, I know I'm not the main character and I'm only one person. I know that changing my vote alone won't make a difference. However, what might make a difference is if I talk about my reasoning in a public forum. Then, people might stop, read my post, and change their minds. Now, it's not one vote, it's two. They might spread their view as well, and two votes becomes four. Four votes becomes eight; and eight becomes sixteen. As small as that sounds, sixteen votes can make all the difference in an election. There are elections that have come down to one or two votes.
I did the same thing, in a solidly blue state, with the same thought processes; I voted for Jill Stein. Even after Trump won, I figured he couldn't fuck it up too badly. I even thought he might manage to get one thing right (I'm very solidly pro-2A), but nope, he couldn't even do that.
Biden isn't nearly far enough left for me. But I'll vote for him without even a hint of hesitation, because he's so much better than the only realistic possibility. And I live in a purple state now, so it might end up mattering.
*in certain states
She won the popular vote, she lost the electoral vote. Where you live MATTERS towards your vote in this country, by design, for situations like this
It sucks but yeah. I'll be holding my nose this election even though Biden has no chance in my state.
Nother reminder: not voting for biden isvoting for trump regardless if you support either of them
Sure, but if you can and don’t vote for Biden it means you’re at least ok with Trump.
Not voting for Biden is the same thing as voting for Trump.
Voting for Biden doesn't mean supporting him. It means preventing Trump from becoming president.
The vote I cast in 2020 was against trump and not for Biden. I feel pretty good about that decision considering what happened afterwards. I'll vote against Trump again as many times as it takes.
I never liked Biden since the Obama years and I now hate him quite a bit. Sadly voting for him at this point is simply necessary, because if I am not in a good enough state to survive then I cannot support the Palestinians nor Ukrainians.
This precise sentiment has gotten me told off a few times now. Usually with someone yelling the word "Genocide" over and over so I can't get a word in. People are so fucking dumb it's actually unbelievable.
Whatever my frustration, I just want us all to work together even after we get Biden a second term. The only reason, ONLY REASON, the GOP have their power is honestly because we can't stop slap fighting long enough to plant a foot in their asses. This would also work for the Democrats. We do have two feet. Whatever our perspectives and opinions, there is a single neigh universal truth we can all accept:
This life sure could be a lot better.
Exactly. This is what I cannot understand from all these "true hyper-leftist" people. You do realize that the future of the USA is at stake here, and that our system is fundamentally rigged to not allow any real alternative as a choice, right? Your brain-dead "BIDEN BAD VOTE THIRD PARTY" is just going to enable Trump and then you'll never be able to vote for anyone ever again as you are forced to participate in alt-right Trump rallies every single day and post on the Trumpernet about how much you love Trump. This isn't much of an exaggeration -- this where they want to go if Trump wins.
You're not supporting Biden. This isn't how our vote works. You're voting for the person less likely to fundamentally fuck our country up. And in case you still don't quite understand who this is, that is Biden.
The largest current of leftists aren't saying you cannot vote for Biden, and that you should vote third party, but that ultimately change comes from outside the electoral system.
Unfortunately unless a revolution falls into our laps and magically solves all our problems, the modicum of control we have over the steering of this ship is limited to voting and advocating for others to vote
Can we safely encourage Republicans to vote 3rd party?
They’ll never accept that, because they fundamentally see nothing wrong with the system. They want to preserve the broken machine, even if it doesn’t work for them. They think changing the oil will repair it, when it was designed to break.
More like we don't want to crash our only car when we don't have another means of transportation, and oops, now we can't get to work.
It's great to say "the system is broken and must be replaced." I agree! But nobody who says that, me included, has ever had anything resembling an actual plan to replace the system or to prevent something even worse from taking over once the system is destroyed.
Everyone gave the GOP shit for screaming about how Obamacare needs to be "repealed and replaced" but never saying what it should be replaced with (though that was because the "replace" part was a lie and they just wanted to go back to the bad old days of people being trapped in a job or entirely unable to get insurance because of a preexisting condition). It's the same thing with people saying the entire system of government needs to be replaced.
There are numerous other models of government being practiced all over the world. Choose one of them (I would recommend Swiss democracy).
It's all well and good to say "choose another system of governance" but how do we implement this change? What is the mechanism under which we can replace our current system of government with Swiss democracy, without the old government just saying "lolno" and bombing it to shit? The only method I can think of is a constitutional convention, and right now we're closer to the right wing being able to call one and rewrite it to take pur rights back 200 years than we are to leftists implementing Swiss democracy.
Like... I would be thrilled if that were within the realm of possibility, but as it stands any possible options for dramatically overhauling our system of governance is more likely to lurch us straight into permanent hard-right minority rule by a bunch of fascists. That's what I mean when I say I've never seen an actual plan by leftists to overhaul the system--it's all arguing about what the sexy end goal should be, without bothering to talk about the boring minutiae of how to actually get to it. So far as I can tell, the "plan" to make all these needed changes, so far as any thought is put into it at all, is just a silent assumption of either "we lobby our politicians and they do what we tell them and nobody opposes our ideas" or "we do a violent revolution and kill all the bad guys without harming the good guys and we definitely win and accomplish our goal without someone else taking advantage of the chaos to do a fascism instead," depending on how radical the change is.
Constitutional amendments
Make sure the old government doesn't have enough votes.
Agreed, but it doesn't have to be like that.
I'm not American dawg. I hate biden as much as I want. Let me hate.
Nah, everyone is free to hate. However, support from others on this planet against Trump is also important. To some degree we all affect one another and his rise into the seat again would directly impact a LOT of people, even outside the U.S.
BUT
I'm hoping that there is now enough anger and frustration for us to carry the momentum past the voting gates and straight into very strong pressure towards all politicians. This IS fixable. The message is there, even if it will result in violence from our militarized police force.
By that logic, not voting for Trump is the same as voting for Biden.
Your point? If you have conservative values, then not supporting Trump does indeed help Biden to win.
I'm not going to tell anybody what to do or who to vote for but one of two things are very likely to happen at the end of this election:
Choose what you want to do, but take responsibility for your choice. Vote in your local elections. Big changes can happen from the ground up.
It's the federal judge appointments that matter and almost nothing else. Most of what he does can be undone except for that.. It would cause a generation of damage.
Criticizing our leaders is one of the core principals of democracy.
Voting is also a core principal. So please stop encouraging non-participation.
How is the post encouraging anything
You clearly haven't seen any of the replies from OP in the comments.
A large part of Lemmy including op encourage political protest of the Democrats shortcomings by not voting.
Then, why isn’t voting compulsory?
You misunderstand me, you should be allowed not to vote but encouraging it as a form of protest is misguided.
There’s a contradiction. If you are allowed not to vote in a democracy, and you don’t like any of the candidates, then, how can it be misguided to withhold your vote?
No it isn't. You have the right not to vote but participation should be encouraged as it's what gives everyone a say. Seems pretty simple to me. I'm not even saying they don't have the right to discourage people but if you have lived through the last 8 years and do it, you're a REALLY slow learner.
I voted for Gary Johnson because Hillary sounded awful in 2016 and I 1000x regret it. Fuck this system for making me choose between bad and worse, but yes obviously I have to choose bad over worse.
Don't make me defend the US voting system but that is not how it works. Primaries exist and that's where voters make the case for a specific person. The large, general, national elections are for forming coalitions and compromising. This is what we do to decide who gets power instead of physically fighting. There will never, ever be a time when a single candidate is the ideal choice for a majority of Americans. Compromise is a core tenant of democracy and by definition it means nobody gets everything they want.
And while we're on the topic, 99% of leftists understand this. Anyone telling you "voting doesn't matter" or that "both candidates are the same" is just trying to reverse the progress that's already been made.
Most of what you said is spot on but you originally quoted about choosing between bad and worse.
I get what you're saying about the primary system, but even that is broken. Incumbents are almost never primaried. Typically the party will not allow it. There also needs to be consideration of what primarying an incumbent could mean. It's unlikely any of the challengers would win and in the process they would burn through campaign money and highlight weaknesses in the winner's record and character that could be used by the opposing party.
We do have a primary, but it may not always give the best candidate. If argue only a portion of people who vote in a general even vote in the primary.
Most are referring to the way our current electoral system works. Voting 3rd party helps the Republicans even if its not intentional.
Yup, and the only way out of that is Ranked Choice Voting.
Go volunteer for your local RCV group, California's is here: https://www.calrcv.org/
Obligatory: "Ranked Choice" is a specific use of ranked ballots. It's subpar. It beats what we're doing now, but anything beats what we're doing now.
What you want is a Condorcet method like Ranked Pairs, where the winner is whoever beats everyone else. RCV just picks whoever can scrounge together 50% first. RCV would not elect a candidate who is literally everyone's second choice. Ranked Pairs would.
The simple alternative is Approval Voting, where you let people check all the names they like. It matches Condorcet results... somehow. There is no good reason we're not using it everywhere.
Unfortunately, the US political system does not have a feature to "dislike" all the candidates. Not without a major, probably bloody, revolution, anyway. Your choice is to support and pick one candidate, or let everyone else pick the candidate for you.
Liberal democracy has to win every election, fascism only has to win one. Good job if you win in 2024, now do it again every 4 years
Evil will always triumph, because good is dumb.
Good gets lazy. It has too much hope in others also being good.
Ok but what no leftie has yet explained is who has asked them to like Biden? Probably nobody who votes for Biden last time or this time around thinks he’s “teh awesome”, we’re simply grown ups who are able to tell which is the least bad option. Honestly lefties (if they aren’t just groipers posing as lefties) who think it’s a hot take to say Biden isn’t the optimal person to be President are all suffering from Captain Obvious syndrome while thinking they’re the cleverest people ever. It’s cringe.
Yeah, but.... Oftentimes criticizing Biden helps trump. I'd rather not even risk it at this point.
Can we spend more energy celebrating that trump is NOT the president and how bad it would be if he comes back?
Criticizing Biden is totally fine. It's the pressure from these posters to not vote for Biden out of principle that's the problem.
Biden is flubbing the Gaza situation hard but he's still (unfortunately) our only chance to keep Trump out of office.
This post should really say "Just because we dislike Biden doesn't mean we shouldn't vote for him"
Telling the DNC that you and most people will vote for him unconditionally is sabotaging his chances; the dems need to understand they cannot win if they continue the path they're on, and telling them otherwise is counterproductive.
Silencing criticism of millions isn't gonna win an election. Doing the things the people whose votes you need are telling you to do will.
Well, the problem is, the way the US sees it, keeping Israel as an ally is more important than Joe Biden. Yes, even if that means fascism comes humping an American flag. You can still be at the top of the postwar order with a fascist in charge!
The DNC are not on Lemmy.
Yeah, but they're listening to public sentiment.
If public sentiment is "everyone's gonna vote for Biden no matter what", they're not gonna change the course, and then be shocked when they get blown out worse than they did in 2016.
A group holds a vote to either cross a bridge to side A or stay on side B. Staying on side A means you won't have much food. Going to side B means you still won't have much food, but also most of the food is poisonous.
Part of the group says "I don't want to starve, I refuse to vote in a way that accepts malnourishment as a solution!" Group C also opposes eating poisonous food. This partial group votes to try and find a better source of food (option C).
48% of people vote A. 49% of people vote B. 3% of people vote C.
Surprise, surprise, Group C had 0 impact on the starving situation AND helped facilitate the eating of poisonous food.
Fuck Biden, and FUCK Trump. But if you think voting for a leftist party or abstaining from voting will change anything in a system entirely designed around having only two candidates, you are just as okay with Trump as you are with Biden. At the very least, you are saying that they are equally as bad, showing that you clearly don't understand the dynamic.
Then there are those of us in Group D, who said 30 years ago that this exact thing would happen if we didn't do the hard work of developing an agricultural system. Now Group A blames us instead of Group B, and it's really too late anyway, the food will run out on either side of the bridge.
I wasn't able to speak 30 years ago. 10 years ago, I was warning people about how AI was going to pose a problem unless we restructured society so automation benefited everyone. Almost 20 years ago I realized private insurance was a scam. Guess what? None of that shit matters. Playing the blame game won't help anyone fix it, but voting can buy us time.
What a shit parable.
Well you are in a shitty situation.
Thank you, I wanted to say this earlier but I was busy. It's a shitty parable to fit a shitty and broken system. If it were any nicer of a parable, I would have less to complain about concerning the electoral system.
Leftists 🤝 Tankies
Hating Biden
Tankies 🤝 Centrists
Doing nothing to oppose Trump
How hard is this to understand?
Like a real president should, Biden does a lot of things I agree with and some I don’t. I thought Obama was one of the greatest presidents in my lifetime but even he did things I didn’t completely agree with. Would I’d rather have someone like Bernie or AOC in the Oval Office? Absolutely (well except he’s to old and she’s to young). Could we do better than Biden? Also absolutely. What I’d love to see is national ranked choice voting and more like 5-6 candidates. I think this would be better for everyone. But Trump is an existential crisis waiting to happen. I’m not sure this country can withstand another Trump presidency. Frankly I’m not sure my health can either. I literally noticed a significant drop in my BP when Trump left.
So yeah, you can be critical of Biden and not a Trump supporter. Frankly if you’re not a little critical of any president regardless of party, you’re not in a party, you’re in a cult.
Speaking of a different BP, I don't think that humanity could survive another Trump presidency. That BP being British Petroleum.
Shitty segway I know.
But part of Project 2025 is to roll back climate regulations, invest solely into fossil fuels, and hamstring the EPA. So, you know, as much as we complain that not enough is being done...that's the alternative.
Biden should maybe, talk about that.
Not voting for Biden is supporting Trump. Not voting is supporting Trump.
This is the simple reality of the situation. Memes don't make a difference in vote totals even if they make you feel special about being the hero you think you are.
Swap Biden for Starmer and Trump for Sunak 🙂↕️
Well, if the Tories get back in then deporting people to Rwanda and expansion of oil drilling in the north sea will be guaranteed.
Voting for lab, there is a chance that these will be cancelled.
Tories have had decades in charge, and shit is fucked.
Labour are more progressive - not enough for my taste, but better than constant austerity
I stand by what I said
Yup. Such is a 2-party system.
Vote for the less-evil
What's the chance Starmer does 80% of what the Tories would have done, then the Tories get a supermajority next election?
I'm just an American, so IDK, but I've seen two democratic majorities in my lifetime, both of which played out that way.
Wait, I thought the "point of a system is what it does"..
If your choices lead to a trump presidency I don't see how your intent matters at all 🤷
The timing maybe? I've been saying Biden is the worst example of a democrat since the Obama days, and got downvoted about pointing out his bullshit. His contribution to the drug war alone is atrocious. But I kept getting down voted for saying it. Suddenly now it's election time, second go round, and here comes everyone jumping on Biden. Seems sus.
We have lived under presidencies of both Biden and Trump.
It isn't sus to realize one is better than the other, dude
Huh? That's what I'm saying, Biden is a saint compared to Trump. It's just sus that right now, at election time 2024 is when it's suddenly a big deal. It only benefits Trump
Your wording was probably a little confusing, I read "jumping on Biden" initially as in "voting / rooting for him", but you likely meant it in the context of them "questioning everything he does". Depending which one is used changes your phrasing from criticizing Biden to supporting him.
Thing is, the absolutely worst things that he's done throughout his career have been pretty mainstream at the time. Like that omnibus crime bill? That was overwhelmingly supported, with only very, very limited Democratic opposition in very limited areas. (And a lot of black communities still support 'tough on crime' approaches because they look at the short term rather than the long.)
Even the support of Israel is pretty middle-of-the-road. Most Dems still support Israel, even while being appalled at the indiscriminate nature of Israel's violence in Gaza
Good luck explaining that nuance to the average shit-lib.
Not voting for either is a statement that they are equal. That you wouldn’t prefer one over the other.
Could just also mean you live in a non swing state and want to give a 3rd party a shot at getting over 5% of the vote so they can get federal funding and be a more serious option in the next election. 🙂
what a crazy era to live in.
This post is kinda fucking depressing.
I feel like a lot of the comments are kind of proving the point. If we say we don't like Biden, then suddenly everyone assumes we aren't voting and therfore are helping Trump. In reality, the meme literally says nothing about voting. That's everyone else jumping to that conclusion.
"I'm just reminding everyone!"
Don't worry. We all know how elections work.
"I don't care if you don't like him! I care about votes!"
Cool. Then let me not like him.
The glory of a two parties system. The liberals even call this democracy.
Encourage your conservative family members to vote for Kennedy. Split the insanity vote.
To everyone in this thread, whoever you are or are not voting for: what is your plan if Trump wins? I think everyone agrees that it is pretty much 50/50 on him winning. What do you plan to do about the coming total fascist hellscape? Do you have plans and means to emigrate? Are you buying guns and ammo? Are you just gonna go along to get along?