this post was submitted on 18 Jan 2024
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If you want leftists to vote for dems, despite dems pissing on leftists at every possible chance and yelling at leftists to fall in line, I'll show you how.
Point out that voting will never, ever, ever move the democrat party to the left. You cannot vote the party harder to the left.
Point out that Republicans are going to remain fascists.
Point out that voting third party is a spoiler vote and will result in fascists winning.
Point out that the actual way to move to the left is to unionize and organize at the grassroots level, to apply bottom-up pressure on the top.
The answer is not to pretend that Biden is anything other than a Neoliberal Capitalist. Leftists will correctly point out that Biden is still a lukewarm neoliberal maintaining the status quo, and feel further alienated by being told they should love him anyways. That just encourages voter apathy.
My local democratic party texted me to ask me to consider running for office (I live in a very deep red state). I laugh at the idea, because I'm pretty sure that they don't want a pro-2A anarchist and Satanist running under their name. My wife nixed the idea because she doesn't want us to get firebombed.
You should run dude. I'm dead ass serious. You can win rural districts where dickless corporate bootlicking democrats can't.
Here's the secret code: Don't run as a Democrat. Run as an independent.
Grass roots too. All you need is name recognition and no one, I mean no one, will know what you are actually like.
We need people like you to run though, it's hard to vote for it if nobody is running to represent the platform. Especially at the local level where it can make a big difference.
Lmmfao, they already made it clear why they couldn't run (dems wouldn't want them anywhere near their name), never mind that even if they did they'd never get anywhere near power. Just look at the treatment lukewarm Sanders gets for merely suggesting to tax the rich, just imagine what the propaganda machine would do with a self declared anarchist...
You people still don't get it, do you - the system is running as it was designed to, you never were and never will be who it works for.
word, the USA cares more about protecting it's corporations than it's citizens
and every USA citizen believes they will be rich one day, let that sink in person reading this. lmao 😂🫵
It worked for Diddlin' Donnie.
To quote myself,
I'm sure you think that's a joke. I assure you, it's not.
Im not American but thinking about getting my citizenship before 2032ish (so out of this voting cycle and maybe the next) actually, the more I hear about voting for a third party is a waste, the more tempting it is. Not saying that because I'm trying to be an edge lord, or a trump supporter, or whatever else I'm sure someone will accuse me of - but because if your policy dept is so out of ideas that all you have is "vote for us or else... ...you... will have voted for someone else. And they might be bad. Neener neener" then surely anything except the Biden/Trump dichotomy has got to be worth a try?
Then to top it all that my vote won't make a difference, to either party, it's just pro forma so we can flip between blue Reagan and red Reagan every 8 years like normal... like - how is that not an invitation to want to fuck the system and look at third parties?
If there was no point in voting for a third party because the I didn't have to hold my nose because Democrats smelled good then you'd have no argument from me.
Voting for third party presently is voting for a spearhead with no spear. There's no mass movement for it, thus no pressure to actually stand up to the massive DNC or GOP. That's why leftists need to touch grass and organize, so that third party can be viable.
Getting the order wrong means more GOP fascism in office, getting the order right means an actual third party becomes viable.
The only way to move the party to the left is to get more involved. Whining that they aren't reaching out won't achieve anything. A party is made up of people. Want the party to move more left and reach out further left? Be one of those people in the party and do it yourself, don't expect others to do it for you.
No, a party is an interest group. Both major US parties act in the interest of the bourgeoisie and the US voting system is designed to make it hard to contend that. Until you guys discover representational voting on a national level, the democracy will falter.
Yep. And work outside of it.
But mostly be involved and become a leader in your community. Find ways to engage with people, identify their needs, and address them.
People love making this argument until you actually show up and get bullied for not showing up sooner then bullied for having different priorities than the herd then bullied for not supporting the milquetoast candidate at the moment.
Dems are just as faschie, even at the local level. You can't move people left who are just as religious about their mid right position as christofascists are theirs.
So sad to see Lemmy is downvoting something like this. Really shows how clueless even the most politically opinionated are.
For such a politically active platform, people here don't seem to really understand how people work in politics. It's not as simple as "come up with the right policy and people will vote for it". The vast majority of voters are not paying that much attention and are easily misled. A good example is California. One of the most liberal states, and they have a direct democracy system for amending the state constitution. Should be a slam dunk for leftist right? Nope, couldn't be farther from the truth. Corporations pull every dirty trick in the book and spend billions of dollars spreading misinformation and pulling every legal trick in the book to get their will through, and as a result voters, not representatives, but voters, vote for props that go directly against their interests because they've been lied to and fell for it. Every election year there's a bunch of horrible things on the ballot and it's a nail biter seeing if the voters fell for it. Getting the right things passed, and also getting voters to actually go for it is nowhere as simple as people here act like it is, and people here don't even provide any solutions, they just want to meme and complain while sitting on their asses instead of getting engaged and getting others engaged.
Voting will move the party left, if people vote for that. But they don't because leftists are a tiny, fringe political minority. That's why Biden is in office and not Bernie.
Can't wait to prove you wrong at the democratic primary oh wait shit we're not really doing one of those for some reason
Voting will not move the party left. The only reason the dems are in power at all, is because the vast amounts of wealth of Capitalists support them. There's no bottom-up pressure. Even if Bernie was in office, he'd have to fight tooth and nail with the democrats to get things done, not just the Republicans.
I have been to every size of town and city all over the US and it doesn't appear leftists a fringe minority. The people that accurately labels themselves as a leftist is probably a minority, but many many people are adherents of left wing views, but with no accessible way to push or vote for their ideals. People will support socialist policies without realizing as well, like guaranteeing healthcare or housing for all. People's ideas of politics are all over the place in the US.
Part of the issue that drives us to point out what Biden has done is that we often get a response of "BOTH sides are fascists and exactly the same, so why should I care?", which then must be refuted.
Otherwise I agree entirely.
The answer to that kind of framing isn't to show how good the dems are, but how bad the Republicans are. Again, the dems are not interested in appealing to leftists in any way, so again, this kind of posturing is what encourages leftist voter apathy.
If a leftist says both sides are the same, show how much worse Republicans treat anyone that isn't a cishet white male over the age of 35, and how legitimately dangerous they can be for our loved ones that aren't in that category, even if they are.