this post was submitted on 14 Jun 2024
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Political Memes

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[–] OpenStars@discuss.online 51 points 5 months ago (2 children)

Great, now set everything on fire to represent climate change? 🔥

Somehow those old movies where villains wanted to reduce the population of the planet are actually happening irl... 😞

[–] spujb@lemmy.cafe 39 points 5 months ago (2 children)

yes everything is on fire and track 1 has a few extinguishers but not enough.

track 3 has an indeterminate amount of fire hydrants because i think it depends on which party actually gets the seat.

track 2’s extinguishers have gasoline in them 😭

[–] Nougat@fedia.io 27 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (2 children)

track 2’s extinguishers have gasoline in them

Wouldn't that make them "tinguishers"?

[–] spujb@lemmy.cafe 30 points 5 months ago (2 children)

technically yes but the Republican party calls them extinguishers in order to fool voters that are concerned yet poorly educated about climate issues

[–] homesweethomeMrL@lemmy.world 12 points 5 months ago

Painfully accurate

[–] elliot_crane@lemmy.world 5 points 5 months ago

Don’t forget, they also then demand that their supporters ignore the very obvious fact that gasoline is coming out of the extinguishers. After all, those voters wouldn’t want everyone thinking they were a librul, now would they?

[–] dmention7@lemm.ee 9 points 5 months ago

Just wanted to let you know that got a legitimate snort out of me :)

[–] OpenStars@discuss.online 5 points 5 months ago

Also, 95-99% of the time your vote doesn't matter for... "reasons". Including other votes (e.g. a liberal President paired against a conservative Congress), older votes (especially Supreme Court appointments), and non-votes (corporations are in control regardless of who or which party "wins"), etc.

One lever pull event barely scratches the surface - we did not get ourselves into this mess in a day or even a decade, and it would take even more effort to get ourselves out.

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And somehow, even knowing that, the Democratic party went all-in on Hillary fucking Clinton, smh. Americans are basically responsible people, and we can count on everyone to eat their veggies, r-r-right!? Even without bothering to campaign, R-R-RIGHT!?

Trump did not even want to win - he was as much a symptom as he later fed that forward to become a cause himself.

Therefore I think that "we", the people who put effort into thinking things through, deeply, need to wake up and stop wishing and hoping that things will work out as we all hope and dream. Except that despite me saying "we", that's as far as I've gotten, so really truly it does not include me, who is merely a backseat onlooker hoping for my favorite team to win but offering little help along those lines to cause it:-). I don't know what the next step is regarding the latter, but I offer kudos for trying to get people to understand regardless:-).

[–] zbyte64@awful.systems 6 points 5 months ago

Not in picture: a burning freight train is hurling towards our trolley and will overtake us if we loose any momentum from running over the children.

[–] LibertyLizard@slrpnk.net 33 points 5 months ago (5 children)

Is your assumption that third parties solve all our problems if they win?

The problem is the system, not the Individual actors involved. Yes there are some differences, but not enough to fix our current disasters.

[–] spujb@lemmy.cafe 25 points 5 months ago

For the sake of the model and steel-manning my would-be opponents I make that assumption, yes.

But you are correct, I heartily recognize this assumption is quite silly in reality.

[–] lennybird@lemmy.world 16 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (1 children)

This. If we're bringing math into this, then it's mathematically impossible for not voting / 3rd party to change anything in the same way calculus may not be 0 but near-zero enough to be indistinguishable. Combine FPTP with Electoral colleges with the power of existing political parties and the only way you're going to make change is by either one or both of the following things:

  • Supporting one party so greatly you eradicate the other party, creating a vaccuum (eg, send GOP the way of the Whigs). In this situation, Democrats likely reconstitute themselves as the predominant center-right party while we get something of a social Democrat or true Green Party in their original place. A rubber-banding of the Overton window, if you will.

  • Utilize an existing party to change the system. This means evolving the party, which for anyone old enough, recognizes how much Democrats have changed in the last 2 decades relative to the Republicans who have actually somehow managed to only get worse.

These are the only two proven methods to work. Third parties, Independents do not work until the system changes. And in order to change the game you need to first play by the rules of the game.

[–] PeggyLouBaldwin@lemmy.world 4 points 5 months ago (2 children)

These are the only two proven methods to work. Third parties, Independents do not work until the system changes

the prohibition party got a constitutional amendment passed.

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The world would literally be a paradise by next tuesday if Vermin Supreme was president

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[–] deegeese@sopuli.xyz 19 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Sure, except the third party track loops back to the R track because we live in a 2-party system.

[–] spujb@lemmy.cafe 26 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Correct, I have this expressed with the line:

Track 3 promises no death at all, but if collaborative action fails, track 2 wins due to a more cohesive bloc and everyone has to watch their children die.

[–] Aqarius@lemmy.world 8 points 5 months ago (4 children)

...This, honestly, sounds like less of a trolley problem and more of a prisoners dilemma. As in, if ~~everyone~~ enough people defect, you get track 2, if enough people don't defect, you get track 3, and track 1 is if it's in between.

Of course, the problem, then, is that it would imply the people aiming for track 2 will defect, people aiming for track 3 won't, and people aiming for track 1 would try to convince people not to defect, while defecting themselves.

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[–] PhlubbaDubba@lemm.ee 17 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Wanna pull your hair out?

Republicans are technically the third party in terms of registration numbers.

It's just that registered independents don't mobilize as a political unit, so the fact that they jostle with the dems for first and second place in registrations doesn't matter because the Republicans have the organization and systemic rigging to negate being in a position in America in terms of actual popularity more comparable to Canada's NDP or Bloc Québécois.

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[–] Signtist@lemm.ee 16 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Now this is my kind of meme; it actually gets into the details and complexity of the scenario it's discussing - while still making fun of it and keeping the meme feel - rather than just simplifying it to the point where it looks straightforward, killing most of the important discussion.

[–] spujb@lemmy.cafe 5 points 5 months ago (1 children)

i disagree this meme sucks i hate having to think when i look at memes much less read 🙄

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[–] Leate_Wonceslace@lemmy.dbzer0.com 12 points 5 months ago (1 children)

No lies detected.

Unfortunately, this setup is not in practice different from the simplified model we usually work with, which is why we work with it.

[–] spujb@lemmy.cafe 8 points 5 months ago (1 children)

yeah i find nuanceposting is valuable 90% because it makes the petty pedants shut up by not giving them a shred of ambiguity to fang on to

i consider it a personal victory that no one has accused me of being a genocide supporter in this thread yet, for example. unfortunately not the story for those who’ve posted more simplified models

[–] Leate_Wonceslace@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 points 5 months ago (2 children)

I've given it some thought, and noticed a flaw: most if not all third parties have people on the track regardless. The "Party for Socialism and Liberation" (the most ML psy-op party I've looked into this season) has Ukraine on the tracks, for instance.

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[–] toxicbubble@lemmy.world 11 points 5 months ago (1 children)

this is possibly the best summary for US politics

[–] spujb@lemmy.cafe 7 points 5 months ago

i know and i want to scream, thank you for the feedback

[–] Semi_Hemi_Demigod@lemmy.world 10 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (6 children)

You don't need 46% to defeat 48%. If you strategically target specific cities you can win the presidency with just ~~20,000 votes~~ 22% of votes.

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[–] SattaRIP@lemmy.world 7 points 5 months ago (1 children)

BRUH the children are ALREADY dying!

[–] spujb@lemmy.cafe 6 points 5 months ago

bruh i agree you are correct no need to shout

[–] jj4211@lemmy.world 5 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Portrays the other parties as all rainbows and kittens. Particularly that libertarians would be about fighting climate change, which they would not be in any vaguely effective way.

However, I'll grant that ranked choice voting would be an excellent way for people to feel better about their vote, be pragmatic, and one day lead to more viable "parties" (though not immediately, the third parties are a self fulfilling prophecy of unlikely candidates to most voters)

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[–] umbrella@lemmy.ml 4 points 5 months ago

alright i like this one better

[–] joyjoy@lemm.ee 4 points 5 months ago

This is much better than the earlier version that just called everyone stupid.

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