this post was submitted on 09 Oct 2024
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Could you walk me through steering them left when they're in power? Over the years the democrats seem to only get more right wing. The thing is, I always thought that you steer politicians through your vote, and if I guarantee my vote to you regardless of what you have done in the past or are currently doing, what incentive do you have to change course in a way that I like?
The actual incentive that they have should ideally be actual political activism that exercises some real and material form of leverage against their power. Seeing as these movements have all been totally deconstructed, mostly by the federal government, instead, you'll find that the way you're supposed to change the party is just by voting harder for them, and then just kind of hoping that they somehow naturally decide to swing left, after you've already handed them the keys to the kingdom. It's pure cope, basically.
To some extent, yes. However the amount of steering you can do this way is rather limited, since a vote only indicates a preference of one candidate over the other.
For example, if you decide to vote Republican out of protest, Democrats might conclude that you like republican policies, and to win your vote back, they need to move even further right. If you decide to stay home and not vote, you don't really give any information to democrats what they actually need to do. They may decide that you are an unlikely voter in any case, and focus towards those folks most likely to turn out (that's generally older white conservative folks).
One option is to vote for some leftist third party. This sends a pretty clear message about what policies you like. The problem is that, apart from the messaging, your vote is almost certainly wasted. You are in effect helping your enemy win in the short term.
The other option is to engage politically outside of just voting. Most people have been convinced by establishment politicians that your only influence is your vote. This is not true. Protests, activism, grassroots movements, local politics are all effective ways to steer your preferred party in your preferred direction. This does require substantially more effort.
Why are we so preoccupied with ensuring the party we hate most loses, rather than focusing on the party you want most winning.
I'd rather everyone vote closest to their actual morals and values, and give no consideration to who loses.
If we keep fighting over who's the biggest loser, how can we possibly expect things to improve?
What you're talking about is idealism. In a perfect world you would be correct. In a perfect world the US could have affordable and efficient mass transit within a few years. In a perfect world we could end climate change in just a few years. When your argument is based on a state of the world that doesn't exist the point of the argument is immediately useless.
This is the problem with the anti-work movement, the anti-car movement, and people who are anti-single family homes. The arguments they make are theoretically possible, but getting enough people to move in tandem to that is just never going to happen so belaboring the point over and over is just not helpful.
We live in a world where the US has 2 political parties, if one wins we get a beige moderate government, if the other wins we get Project 2025. If your idealism makes it so hard for you to determine which outcome you want then literally nothing can be done for you. If you have the idea that letting the republicans win so that then a true progressive party can exist then you need to look at history because right wing dictators historically kill the idealistic liberals and progressives right behind the Jews, POC, and homosexuals.
Well I disagree that my view isnt possible. It very much is, and is likely the only way to break the two party system to begin with.
Other than that we would have to convince politicians to give away power, which is very unlikely.
And I already voted for Kamala but she wasnt the best choice for me by much, and I'm not saying trump was second. But that has more to do with the state I'm in than anything. If I was a county over I would have voted for a third party.
Your disagreement has about as much weight and value as a flat earther disagreeing that the world is round.
Which is why your disagreement doesn't matter.
Hey that's totally fair, I'm not saying she should be everyone's preferred choice, but people are going around in circles saying that they won't vote for Kamala like they don't understand the ramifications of that. We have a two party system, those parties aren't vague ideas but private corporate entities with tax benefits and assets. After Bernie lost in 2016 there was a lawsuit that alleged that the DNC had committed fraud by making certain efforts to ensure Hillary won the primary. The result of the case was that they found the proof and the DNC chair persons admitted it in court. The result was that the case was dismissed, nothing illegal was done, donating to the party or voting in the primaries makes no promise that a candidate you pick will win the primary. The judge basically said that the parties private entities that are allowed to conduct their party business the way they want.
The system that exists is built to keep it two parties and benefits those two parties.
If you're in a county or state where your vote won't matter than do what you want. My state lets you vote in either primary so I voted in the Republican Primary because we will go Republican and I at least wanted to have a say on who would be getting state positions.
My view has as much weight as yours, neither of our positions has been proven to lead to long term change, but at least mine hasnt been tried over and over like yours has been.
I guess we will just have to keep waiting for the magical election where its not the end of the country if the republicans win.
This is literally what conspiracy theorists and nut jobs say as well. You are entitled to have your own opinion and to say what you want, but that doesn't make it equal. What is different between the current system and your view is that the current system has actually been in place and working for more than a hundred years. Until you can come up with a way to get from the inception of your idea to a completed system then your view has no weight. You want to wail against the system, but you want other people to figure out how to make your view work. As I said in my initial comment to you, that's just idealism.
What exactly gives your idea weight? What is your idea to change from the current system to a better one again? I'm sure you have a proven model for this right? Or do you know just as little as I do about how to reform the two party system into something better?
I don't have a novel idea, I'm not trying to change the two party system that exists. The fact that the current two party system has been in existence since 1932 and the overall structure has existed since 1854 is what gives it weight and value. It's continued existence is what proves the model. The burden of proof is on those who wish to change the system, not on those participating in the current one.
People have wanted to end the two party system basically from it's inception, yet despite that there has never been significant enough traction to make that happen. At best detractors have replaced one of the two parties, but the overall number of parties and their operation has remained the same.
So you see the problem here right? You think its impossible to change the system, and I think its very possible. Maybe with more years I'll slide closer to your position though.
When the Republicans win, the Democrats hear "move right". It's as simple as that.
And also when the democrats win, if you look at the way policy has evolved during the clinton years, during the obama years, and also now during the biden years.
It works the same way the Republicans have been steered further right while not in power. When Democrats have to worry about moderates, they move to the right. If they only have to worry about liberals, they can support and back more progressive positions. If they don't, they are more likely to be primaried.
See also: the Tea Party takeover of the GOP which pushed them further down the path to the current fascism.
The criticism of the democrats is that they think they are on the left but they aren't. They do represent a lot of Americans, but they don't represent the true left very well at all.
You’re absolutely right about the current Democratic Party, but that party’s been pulled to the right by moderates and former moderate republicans. If the country really is more liberal than our representation would indicate, as put forth by the meme, then a more progressive voting populace will eventually result in more progressive liberal party. Right now everything is skewed to the right because of the oversized influence of moderates and moderate conservatives who don’t want to vote for fascism.
I think its the social shaming from democrats and republicans to third party voters. It reminds me of some of the stuff church cults do to prevent people leaving the group. Let people vote how they want to, or at the very least attempt to win them over with discussions and policy rather than throwing them under a bus.
There's a lot of this assumption that democrats get more votes by going for moderates. Meanwhile they've alienated the entire left, and (I know, not a representative sample) but my Lemmy feed is jam packed with arguments about "you have to vote blue to stop fascism" vs "I really don't don't want to vote in favor of genocide". No one seems to actually like the democrats, they're whole appeal is basically "not fascist".
Bernie Sanders got people excited, and while not exactly a leftist, he did represent a move toward the left. But they couldn't let Bernie happen, he was too radical, apparently. You've heard the term "Bernie bro", but where are the Biden bros? They aren't, because Joe is boring.
So I don't think they "have to worry about moderates". The post here claims that if they could motivate people to go vote, they'd win. So offer something fresh. Present a real alternative to the inexorable right wing decline of all of US politics. Do you not think that would work? Why are they 0% willing to consider it?
You’re not at all wrong, except democrats absolutely do have to worry about moderates at the moment. A large portion of the GOP base is retired people who definitely will vote. After that are Trump diehards who also definitely will vote. Look at the last election. Biden is about as centrist as they come, and Trump still racked up record breaking support at the polls!
You’re right that Bernie whipped up a lot of excitement, but he also lost that primary. And others who have tried to do something similar (like Beto) have also come up short.
I think someone else said this, or maybe it was a comment on another post, but republicans took over 40-years to shift the country right and overturn Roe. Countering that won’t happen overnight, and probably has the best chance at succeeding if it’s done within the current political landscape.
Adding that both things need to happen for the country to reverse the rightward shift. More liberals need to vote, AND the party needs to recognize, or be shown in primary elections, that they can publicly embrace more liberal stances. On or the other and we wind up with the status quo.
Not "can". Need. Or else we, the voters, are at the whims of their donors. They "can" move left now. There is policy on the left that polls very well with the general populace, much better even than what they're running with now. It's just a matter of framing and defending good policy instead of limply letting the republicans run the show. Biden did it just a couple days ago "I never heard of getting lead out of the drinking water being a bad thing" (paraphrasing). That is what needs to happen, more broadly.
The only election that matters as to whether they as a party get to hold power or not is the general, thus it is the only election that can show them they need to do any particular thing to get a base of support large enough to get them elected.
They don't want a majority, or they would have it. Easily. They're playing the same game as Republicans, 50 + 1 to win. No less. No more.
The liberals will vote, and the left will too. If you motivate them with policy that actually stands up to criticism and makes voters more optimistic than cynical about a Democrat win.
The Dems need all 3 of presidency, house of reps, and Senate to do anything. And they've only had that for 4 of the last 24 years. Or 6 of the last 32 years. Or 6 of the last 44 years. That's why they keep going to the center to find voters, because they need all 3 and basically never get it. So how do you get them to go left? By giving them consistent and overwhelming victories.
You realize this all happened with Gore and Bush, and then Obama and Hilary and so on. The story has been the same every time. End of a democracy, republicans will destroy the country, blah blah blah.
You know what else happens? The democrats talk a huge game before the election, and do fuck all with it while in office. Even if you take something like obamacare, it wouldnt have gotten passed if there wasnt money in it for the wealthy.
And just the non stop war crimes and global terrorism. You know its literally been my whole life that this country has done this and its never mattered who was in office. Military expansion in this day and age is absurd, and its harder and harder to hide the truth that most of our wealth is stolen.
Its like a mafia family that can't hide that their protection racket is actually what's causing the danger in the first place. Apparently we don't need a godfather sequel because its here in real life on a national scale.
The Dems seek out the people who actually vote.
If the Left stays home every election, the Dems have no reason to listen to them.
Clearly they'll just voter shame and we'll end up exactly where we are. I'd argue the reason we are where we are is exactly that reason.
I think all the third party voter shaming is actually for the democrat population. Its a warning of how you will be treated if you defect. Churches and cults do stuff like this in some cases, also to preempt members leaving.
I was never his biggest fan, but New York Mayor Ed Koch did say something I liked.
"If you agree with me 51% then you should vote for me. If you agree with me 100% you should see a psychiatrist."