LA told me
"You’ll be a pop star
All you have to change
Is everything you are."
Ok, and white must become black.
Al Jolsonmaxxing
They only need to allow equal and fair access to elections to 3rd parties in blue states. They can be blue conservatives much as they want so long as the people have options.
Let me guess, dems should also focus on courting those Gaza genocide voters too? Should we get the trans vote in there too? That’s what, like 15 votes?
That is the fastest way to turn a blue state red.
Split the vote so that the minority Republican vote can win. Because there are more registered Republicans in California than in Texas.
No, the actual answer is to change the voting system to a Cardinal system, so that there are no such things as Spoiler party’s or split votes.
Approval or STAR are the answer. Either would enable third parties to exist and thrive.
As a note RCV is not a Cardinal system, and still has the Spoiler Effect. People lie about it saying it’s the fix for all problems, but it’s actually worse than what we have (there are parts that are better, but more parts that are far worse)
Could you elaborate or provide a link to some further reading about how RCV is worse than first past the post? I haven’t heard this before and would like to learn more.
Correct, Biden just cozying up to Trump when he should be using emergency powers to arrest this madman who under the 14th Amendment isn’t even eligible to be President was absolutely sickening to me.
Right so… “let’s do the thing the fascist threatens to do because we’re right and it’s justified” is not the same thing as the fascist saying “we’ll do it because we’re right and it’s justified”.
Easy to justify the means when you believe in the ends… but of course every one thinks they are right and that everyone else will come to believe they are right, thusly conveniently avoiding any bad consequences.
Do you have any idea what would have happened if Biden just arrested Trump?
Do you have any idea what would have happened if Biden just arrested Trump?
If he would’ve done it early in his term, I suspect Trump would not have been elected president again. But instead he pushed the idea through some absurdly bureaucratic system that allowed Trump to run the clock out on everything.
Breaking the rules isn’t fascism though. Fascism is fascism.
What do you think is a more ethical choice:
a) uphold the law, knowing it will let fascist come to power and kill thousands
a) break the law and stop him
Breaking the rules isn’t fascism though. Fascism is fascism.
It is precisely fascism. It’s ignoring the rule of law to achieve authoritarian aims. Why is it ok when you agree with the outcome and not ok when you don’t? But way more importantly, once you do it you cannot go back. If Biden did this and Trump ended up winning - make no mistake Biden has no authority to remove candidates from ballots - then Trump would feel completely justified in jailing his opponents.
What do you think is a more ethical choice
A. Because the premise of your choice is flawed. You do not know that breaking the law would stop him. You do not know -with certainty- that not breaking the law would result in that outcome. But we do know that being authoritarian to achieve aims we believe in is no better than people we disagree with doing the exact same. What would happen if Biden was successful in stopping Trump but then, because we wouldn’t ever keep unfettered presidential power… right? RIGHT? We’re the “good” guys… what would happen if MAGA Republicans won in 2028? I doubt we’d ever have another election again.
Uh, Trump feels completely justified in jailing his enemies already. Will it happen? I’m not excited to wait and find out.
True. But the one thing we’ve got going for us is that it is demonstrably wrong and we didn’t fall into the trap of proving it was justified.
Edit: well at least two people think it’s ok to use authoritarian political power to counter authoritarian political power. Do you really think that ever works out? Note that this is very distinct from something like civil war or overthrowing the government. It’s doing the exact thing you don’t want your opponent to do.
Tis a risky game, doing what’s right.
“what’s right” is, sadly not an agreed-upon concept.
Are you really achieving authoritarian aims if the end goal is not authoritarian?
Ah, the benevolent dictator fallacy. Because no person or party would ever abuse power or fail to give it up once the “aim” is achieved. There certainly would be no expansion in what the “aim” is. And definitely the people we agree with are always good.
I doubt we’d ever have another election again.
With Trump in office, and Project 2025 in the pipeline, I doubt we’re ever going to have another election anyway.
I doubt we’re ever going to have another election anyway.
I sometimes feel that way. But I still have some faith in people, particularly Gen Z. I believe after the shit hits the fan and keeps hitting it for 4 years, that we’ll turn this around. And because we didn’t agree to make presidents kings we can actually do that.
Yeah, it might be just to arrest him, but America clearly doesn’t give a fuck. The fact of the matter is the people picked Trump this election, if nothing else arresting him will only galvanize his followers and legitimatize their own turn to fascism. There’s no good outcome in this scenario, we missed that opportunity on election night. It sucks but right now we’re the kid playing with fire; obviously we need to learn the hard way. We should’ve learned from the last trump presidency you say? Yeah, we really, really should’ve.
Biden doesn’t even know wtf is going on. If he does, the last thing he’s doing is trying to salvage his legacy. He’s got no fight in him.
He truly fucked us. Not saying Harris would’ve won necessarily, but having only 3 months to run a campaign against someone who’s been running for 8 years is tricky. You can see why given the number of people googling if Biden dropped out…
A legacy of “Used powers given to him by the Supreme Court to stop Hitler 2.0” would be better than “Sucked Trump’s dicker harder than Elon did.”
For real. Dudes got 15-20 years left on this Earth, at the maximum. Stopping Trump and actually making sure he is charged for his crimes would be quite the footnote in the history books. I can’t imagine being that old and passing an opportunity like that up, but then again I am a simple prole.
“The establishment party must become an anti-establishment party”
Have you all learned nothing from 2016? Democrats will rather let Trump win that let this happen.
The slide to the right is no accident nor is it ignorance. Fool me once…
Are you suggesting that Democrats want alt-right leadership in power?
Yes, it’s good for their fundraising
They want corporarions to stay in power. The 2 parties are just flavours of capital.
Neither are for the public.
They and their donors would prefer thst over a Bernie win.
alt-right
Stop pretending this is a thing. It’ll make it a lot easier to understand.
Nothing has convinced me of that more than Biden and Trump’s sudden bromance
Or there needs to be an anti-establishment party, since the Democrats can never be one.
The issue is that unless we get rid of our first-past-the-post voting system and then enact further systemic change we are going to be stuck with the Republicans and Democrats.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7tWHJfhiyo
Thankfully as Trump demonstrated, a political party can be hijacked to be whatever you want. But we need to do that to the Democratic Party, like Bernie tried to do. This will involve educating people out of their neoliberal positions and ideas but it can be done.
This will involve educating people out of their neoliberal positions and ideas but it can be done.
As I get older and meet more people, I find this goal harder and harder to reach. People are dumb.
I think it starts with a smart and leftist, populist candidate, who can convince the dumb ones amongst us to follow them blindly. Then they will be educated by seeing how better things are for them under leftist leadership.
Bernie, like you said, was basically trying to be this for the US.
We can help too by educating people online. =)
Or maybe just ban “parties” and this phony, slaver system
Going further right didn’t help, now we need to go as left as possible
Radical ideas like Universal healthcare, paid maternity leave, free child care, taxing the rich.
Radical ideas the rest of the 1st world had had for 50 years and successfully implemented.
We’re well aware, and it’s honestly getting old hearing “wElL tHe ReSt Of ThE wOrLd,” yeah, the UK voted to leave the EU and ousted a party to replace them with Labour who don’t want to hold another referendum on the vote.
India continues to elect the populist and nationalist Modi as their PM, because he gives them bags of rice with his name on them and tells them it’s ok to hate Muslims.
Germany is flirting with fascism again, and they’ve got all the stuff Americans are apparently too fucking stupid to get done, right?
Dutch police just rounded up a bunch of pro-Palestinian protesters, protesting peacefully, and then started beating them for not moving fast enough.
Oh, and the majority of European countries are freaking the fuck out about immigration and the floods of immigrants trying to come into their countries. And funnily enough, your politicians speak about immigrants the same way our Republicans do.
But you’re right, the people who weren’t alive 50 years ago when all of this should have been done, yeah, that’s our fucking fault too, right?
They are the establishment. Why would they ever change? They would rather Trump win, than their easy paychecks be disrupted. You are never going to get a democrat to care about people.
It would be easier for progressives to take over the DNC and state Dems than to form an entirely new party and make it viable.
If that’s the case, then it’s never going to happen, because the democrats are never going to let it happen, so you’re basically saying stop voting or caring about anything and just lay down and die.
There is no future for the democratic party. This election convinced me that they are never going to care about anyone but their donors, and next election I won’t be voting for them. I’ve voted for the candidate they shoved down our throats to defeat Trump three times now, and most of the time they’ve fucked it up. No more “lesser evil” crap. I’m not voting for evil again, period.
No more “lesser evil” crap. I’m not voting for evil again, period.
The strategy you are describing makes minorities the cost of doing business. Instead of attempting to achieve moral victory over Democrats consider voting for Democrats in elections to leverage power for the people Republicans want to hurt and kill.
Robert Reich, the same idiot who told me to vote for Kamala’s right wing platform.
Go back to doing your stupid little dances, Robert
All of these can be true simultaneously:
- Voting for Kamala was 100% the right thing to do, and
- The Democrats, including Kamala Harris, have a fucking horrible right-wing platform
- The Democrat party needs to be thoroughly dismantled in favor of an actual leftist party
Get out of here with your “nuance” and “critical thinking skills”!
/s, great job, keep up the good work
As opposed to what?
It is, as you know, physically impossible to vote for a liberal one day and be a leftist for the other 364 days of a year.
I do wonder how much this has changed:
https://www.npr.org/2021/11/09/1053929419/feel-like-you-dont-fit-in-either-political-party-heres-why
But I’m tired of those on here thinking the Democrats need to become the “progressive left” when that is not who the Democratic party represents… Or let’s be clear it’s only a small but loud fraction of it, that keeps threatening on leaving.
That said I’m not sold trying to go after the “populist right” was the right Move, stick to centrist working class.
Of course if the far left didn’t vote… The party is stuck moving even more to the right … So… We will see.
What would interest me more is a “party” of leftist that:
- provides people to local town/county elections (and further up as it gains success)
- promotes democrats that fit their views (AOC for example) note this is not running as a third party, just promoting those that exist
- dosnt run against other stron democrats in the larger races, president in particular this is a central roll elect someone that will help get your policies in place.
More important promote, explain, and teach the pogressive policies and how it will help people, and be willing to debate pros/cons of other ideas. This exists I feel, but not on this echo chamber…
Wow, if only there had been an anti establishment candidate running for president as a democrat in 2016… too bad…
Yeah if only he hadn’t lost the popular vote TWICE in the primaries.
If only the popular vote in the Democratic primaries meant anything at all.
The delegates too. But are you just gonna ignore MORE people voted Hillary and Biden over him to fit your narative?
It’s kinda hard to count the votes afterwards since candidates are forced to drop out before the primaries actually finish. Heck we usually don’t even make it past 6 states primaries out of 50 before a winner is announced.
“Party” goons =/= people.
Or what? What are you doing to do about it if they don’t change at all; if they’d rather lose with a lesser fascist than win with a progressive?
Lol “lesser fascist.” tHeY’Re bOtH ThE SaMe!!1
You’re failing to grasp the nuance between reluctantly supporting genocide and fully supporting genocide.
There are a whole lot of folk that plain demand full support of genocide as the cost of doing business/having rights. Reluctance to support genocide is viewed as eroding the foundation to their very way of life.
It’s the other way around. People want a moral victory over Democrats. In this game of moral purity, minorities are the cost of doing business.
Just like GOP refugees created the Tea Party, we need to rally around the greatest symbol of the French Revolution, and build a Guillotine Party.
I’ve always thought “the guillotine society” had a nice ring to it… Not party isn’t bad either
Let’s call it the Rule of Law Party. One law for all of us. An end to elite impunity.
What?
They are the establishment.
Thus the call to become something else; become being the operative word, meaning to change from what they currently are.
You guys really need a third party already.
The issue is that we have third parties, but because of our first-past-the-post system their candidates act as spoilers mathematically speaking.
I live in a nation with more then two party’s and first past the post (it sucks). You guys need to stop making up reasons to not have viable 3rd parties.
It’s not made up, it’s math. And if your nation doesn’t enact systemic change to its system, your democracy will inevitably trend towards two viable political parties as well. edit: typo
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I fear it’s too late. Unless the party can be taken by force it won’t be enough and we only have 4 years. If dems didn’t snub Bernie this all probably wouldn’t have happened. Our choices used to be two flavors of corporate fascism, now it’s far right vs corporate. Dems are better on social issues, but it’s not enough.
Dems are clearly better on economic issues as well. Not nearly good enough, but better. The problem is that they will only go so far, and they won’t talk about it, out of fear of angering their wealthy patrons.
Well, why don’t you tell your Republican friends and families that the GOP dosent do shit for them?
Not sure why this applies to what I said, but my few Republican friends and family are uncomfortably aware of what I think about their politics.
You stated Dems are better at economics. Have you told your conservative colleagues that?
Or maybe they should just leave the Democratic party and start a new progressive party? We have less than 4 years, but that’s also the most time we’ll ever have.
The problem with that strategy is that our democracy uses a first-past-the-post voting system which trends towards a two-party system.
Then become one of the two parties.
There already are two. We must co-opt one with a populist candidate. The Republican Party was already hijacked by Trump. That leaves the Democratic Party.
Bernie tried twice, Democrats demonstrated their ability to stop that shit in its tracks. It will not work.
The only solution is for progressives to abandon the Party and start their own to replace it. The US has replaced parties before, it can be done again.
The Democrat establishment wants power and for that they have to win elections. So having an anti establishment candidate is preferable to them over a Republicans victory. If anything good came out of the last election, it is that Trump as horrible as he is can still win elections against an establishment Democrat, so the Democrats have to change.
Also changing the parties does not work. The problem is systematic and the US really needs to change its election system, to get better politics.
They sure didn’t look like they wanted to win this election.
They switch candidates in the middle of the campaign, because Biden’s polling was that bad.
Third party doesn’t work. You have to do what trump did, 1 man coup from the inside.
Apparently Republican voters are gonna set the mark at R regardless of who it is, so how about having someone like Bernie run in the Republican primary.
It didn’t work with Bernie for more reasons than the parties resistance. A lot of people on the left that dislike the party don’t seem to understand that you still have to join the party and get involved with it if you want the party to move left. Party members and active involved people shape where the party goes. We absolutely can shift the Dems left, but it means holding our noses and becoming the party. The Dems have always been an open door, big tent, party. Walk into the tent and change minds…
I tried to run for a small local position with the DNC using one of their arms that is for “funding and supporting small progressives” well that first bit is a lie. First question they asked me was how much money I had and if I had rich family to fund my campaign.
I told them not really but I would rather talk policy and maybe alternatives to spending money and they told me to pretend to be religious to find a good church to get donations from cause there are some rich churches.
I told them I was a Buddhist and happy for it, and they suggested I either find some other wealthy Buddhists cause they were sure I should be able to find some or maybe I should consider not running at all and just donating to this group or volunteering for free to them.
This will take acceptance and support from the people that run the party and all the wealthy party owners that view themselves better than working class because of their connections and wealth.
The Dems didn’t let a single Palestinian-American speak at the DNC this year. The tent is big enough for Cheney, not us.
Trump tried once and it worked. Neoliberal ideas are entrenched in the minds of Americans. Neoliberalism only allows change to the people in charge of systems as it asserts, incorrectly, that our institutions are flawless. Since neoliberals only consider changing people, it is much easier for a fascist to convince a neoliberal to change the people in society. Where as it is much harder for a progressive or a socialist to convince a neoliberal to enact systemic change or redistribute wealth respectively.
In short, people with neoliberal ideas in their head need to fully internalize neoliberalism as a scam.
Abandoning the Democrats will not result in them being replaced. They will continue to exist by moving further to the right, as Democrats like Chris Murphy have already proposed.
Starting a successful third party is mathematically impossible under a FPTP system. Third party candidates can only be spoiler candidates.
Where’s the Whig Party?
Why must one of those parties be the Democrats? I don’t see no fucking Whigs around, do you?
Because unlike the Wigs, the Democrats are not divided over slavery. They can just move to the right on contemporary issues as Chris Murphy details here.
I think you mean popular, not populist, but yes.
No, I mean populist. Populism is what is popular right now.
https://www.wordnik.com/words/populism
A political philosophy supporting the rights and power of the people in their struggle against the privileged elite.
Trump didn’t run on any economic populism this year and won. Kamala did, and lost. It’s the electorate stupid!
She scrubbed all economic populism from her campaign in the last couple months and pivoted to campaigning with neoconservatives.
Trump ran on a populist platform that wasn’t limited to economic populism. Harris didn’t have any compelling narrative whatsoever.
It’s the electorate stupid!
It’s worth while for the electorate to learn the right lessons. Otherwise there wouldn’t be people in this comment section trying to get everyone to learn the wrong lessons.
We have already seen a third party take over a major party. The current problem with the GOP is because it absorbed the Tea Party.
With the right symbol to rally behind, we can do the same thing to the Democratic party. We need to build the Guillotine Party.
I am so down for it as long we get to use the symbol at least once for real.
Oh, I’m all for ranked choice voting, but in order for it to have any meaning we also need a plurality of parties. They also need time to build and I’m sure these two would start a good one if allowed.
Although the likelihood of political parties having any weight at all past January is anyone’s guess…
Without rank choice voting any progressive party would act as a spoiler for the Democratic Party. Debilitating ourselves in this way isn’t particularly useful for leveraging power to create better outcomes for the environment and minorities.
Then the Democratic Party had best make sure that progressives have no reason to split off and form their own party, huh?
Why does it always fall to progressives to get behind Democrats and never the other way around?
Debilitating ourselves in this way isn’t particularly useful for leveraging power to create better outcomes for the environment and minorities.
Oh thank god Democrats don’t throw vulnerable populations under the bus every chance they get.
Then the Democratic Party had best make sure that progressives have no reason to split off and form their own party, huh?
The FPTP voting system ensures that they do not have a reason.
Why does it always fall to progressives to get behind Democrats and never the other way around?
The FPTP voting system and entrenchment of neoliberalism in the minds of the American public for over 40 years from both mainstream political parties starting with Reagan. This is may be the case for western countries and democracies more broadly as well. Currently, neoliberal ideas cause a contradiction when a person encounters progressive or socialist ideas. Along the lines of:
Why would we fix our institutions if they are flawless? What’s the hurry to solve our problems if we are at the end of history?
Some useful and correct resolutions of these contradictions are:
Our institutions are flawed because they were made by us, flawed humans. The time to advert climate change, fix systemic inequalities, the reduce the wealth gap is now. Incremental changes will run out the clock, as they don’t address the root causes. There will be hundreds of millions if not billions of causalities unless these issues are addressed sooner rather than later.
Neoliberal ideas must be pulled from the minds of Americans like a weed. Or like one of those radishes in Super Mario Bros 2. Then people will be able to embrace ideas like systemic change to institutions and wealth redistribution from the rich to everyone else.
When asked about socialism, if a person responds with ‘socialism doesn’t work’ or ‘the Soviet Union collapsed’ those are the tells that a person needs to full internalize neoliberalism as a scam.
And maybe a history lesson about how the Soviet Union was actually an authoritarian communist dictatorship and not a socialist country. The government owned the means of the production, not the people, and the government wasn’t representative of the people.
Oh thank god Democrats don’t throw vulnerable populations under the bus every chance they get.
It’s better than the Democrats intentionally murdering people in camps. Neoliberals in office aren’t going to solve our problems, but it gives us time to do the work to solve them. Like educating people and co-opting the Democratic Party in one of their primaries. Like Trump did to the Republicans and Bernie tried to do to the Democrats. edit: typo
It’s better than the Democrats intentionally murdering people in camps.
The would in a heartbeat if they thought they could get one Republican vote for doing so.
Neoliberals in office aren’t going to solve our problems, but it gives us time to do the work to solve them.
Neoliberals ARE our problem. We’ve had half a century of incrementalists demanding that we just wait a little more for them to get around to moving the needle to the left, and instead they move so far to the right that they’re buddy-buddy with Netanyahu and the Cheneys. Incrementalism says “too soon” until it’s too late.
The would in a heartbeat if they thought they could get one Republican vote for doing so.
Again, don’t lie. The Democratic Party can of course move that far, but they have yet to do so.
Neoliberals ARE our problem.
Neoliberalism is the problem. Neoliberals can be tomorrow’s socialists. But we have to put in the work and educate people. My argument already refuted this point, I recommend reading it.
A few weeks ago, I’d have agreed with you, but now? The Democratic party that just lost 10 million votes… We’ll spoil that party? The one that just lost a fair election to a convicted felon? You want to protect them from being spoiled?
We have 4 years, which is, again, the most time we’ll ever get to try something like this because that’s how 4 year election cycles work. What is it exactly that they’re doing successfully you don’t want to spoil?
We’ll spoil that party?
Yes, running third party candidates in a FPTP voting system is how the spoiler effect works.
You want to protect them from being spoiled?
Because of the FPTP voting system our democracy will always trend towards a two-party system. Until we enact systemic change, we will be stuck with the Democrats and the Republicans. As long as the Democrats are further to the left of fascism we should vote for them and avoid limiting our power with third party candidates.
We the people and our interests are what avoiding the spoiler effect protects.
What is it exactly that they’re doing successfully you don’t want to spoil?
The Democrats are neoliberals. They are easier to push on social issues and the environment. The Democratic Party is the party progressives and socialists are going to want to co-opt with a populist candidate. Like Bernie tried to do and Trump did to the Republicans. But more to the point, they do not want to kill minorities and destroy the environment.
Rather than seeking a moral victory over Democrats we should look for ways to leverage power for the people Republicans want to hurt. Doing otherwise makes the harm done to minorities the cost of doing business.
I mean yes, that’s been the playbook for 8 years. More like 16 if you count what people actually thought Obama was going to be (and had record turn out). Try, try again?
The lives of millions of minorities and the Earth’s climate are at stake now. Minorities will notice the difference in the short term, but we will all notice the difference in the long term. Assuming we still have elections and a Democratic Party going forward, yes. We delay fascism and co-opt the Democratic Party. edit: typos
It’s adorable that you expect anyone to buy that the Democratic Party is movable after they just spent a whole ass year refusing to budge on fucking genocide.
The Democratic Party is the party progressives and socialists are going to want to co-opt with a populist candidate. Like Bernie tried to do and Trump did to the Republicans.
This is the key part I recommend you read.
Also, this is off topic, but Harris did pledge to end the war. It was in the news. She called for a ceasefire at least three times. If you care about the Palestinians, then voting for the party that wants to end the war is more useful than allowing the party that wants Israel to finish the job to take power.
The Tea Party did not spoil a GOP election. The GOP caved and adopted their platform.
The Democratic Party will do the same thing with the Guillotine Party.
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No, it’s a problem for the people empowering the right by refusing to vote for the leaning right of center, neoliberal Democrats. People are attempting to get a moral victory over the Democrats by refusing to vote for them. This strategy makes minorities the cost of doing business.
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No, the far-right exists because of late-stage capitalism and over 40 years of neoliberalism pushed by both mainstream parties since Reagan. The Democrats lost in large part because of their refusal to adopt a populist narrative. They didn’t go left enough. But refusing to vote for them or espousing accelerationist rhetoric because of that is self-defeating, harms minorities, and opens to the door to devastating climate change scenarios. edit: typo
ReAgan
Fixed. Thanks.
