The ones telling you that politics are about simple issues, or that our problems are easy to fix, are trying to use you
The ones telling you that politics are about simple issues, or that our problems are easy to fix, are trying to use you
Voting is not a medium for self-expression, or at least not a good one. It's a tool to affect outcomes. People get angry about voting for harm reduction, but choosing to not even do that much just makes everything worse.
Voting is not a medium for self-expression,
LOL
I am in favor of strategic voting but regardless of your opinion on this topic we need to be clear eyed that this election will not solve the US’s many very serious problems, regardless of its outcome.
That can only be achieved by on the ground organizing. So I hope that all of the people who spend so much energy arguing about this topic are out there building local political coalitions that can force our representatives to do what is needed. That’s the only way real change will happen.
I think that's the point of the chart. Your elected officials are not going to magically know what you want and bend over backwards to give it to you. If you are serious about a topic, it's on you to join the political process and have your points heard. That's what they mean by "we work to find a fair balance." The work part is a lot of political arguing back and forth. If you want to have influence, you have to make an informed argument for why what you want is better than what we have, and you have to square off with the group on the other side that thinks they have a better solution and will make their case too.
The Democrats don't guarantee you that the compromise will break your way. The guarantee is that you do get a voice if you choose to participate in the political process, which is not something that's on offer with the other party.
And to those that are annoyed by the Dems due to lack of progress or any other reason, we get it. Don't think I'm not annoyed too. The difference between you and me is not that I don't find the Dems disappointing, the difference is that I understand I would be disappointed with anyone because politics are about negotiation and compromise, not about having our whims fulfilled.
We have to take the wins we can get, and then work on pushing for the next thing. Objectively, Biden has been one of the most progressive and effective presidents in history, let alone my lifetime. One of the first things he did within days of taking Office was move the min wage of gov positions to $15/hr. https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/white-house/biden-sign-executive-order-raising-federal-contractors-minimum-wage-15-n1265427
People forget how much he has done and how progressive he's been compared to even Obama. People complain that Bernie got sidetracked, but Bernie's movement is still in the conversation and pushed the Dems further left on a ton of things. That's what discourse looks like, and if you want real change you have to get involved with the only party that is offering a path. That's why Bernie and AOC caucus with the Dems, because being sour about what you want solves nothing, but getting involved is a real path.
Vote for the only party that offers discourse and power to change things, and then get your voice in the mix as much as you'd like. Bernie is not sour, he is in the Senate getting things done, he is campaigning influencing the conversation, and he is constantly in the media making his points. A voice from within the system is way more powerful than one sitting on the sidelines pouting. Vote, and then tell your Officials what you want.
But one side will create many more problems, perscute many more people, and lead to many more unnecessary deaths. While the other would atleast keep the status quo, and try to marginally improve things.
I don’t disagree but the status quo is quite bad, and will remain bad with small incremental improvements. So yes, vote for harm reduction but that is the bare minimum. Find like-minded orgs in your area and get involved. I think one reason the US is in such a sorry state today is that most people think voting is the beginning and end of their involvement in democracy. I felt this way for most of my life but gradually I realized that no matter how good the intentions of the person you vote into office, the system will force them to stay within the bounds outlined by the powers that be and their interests. That’s why we need to build an equal or greater mass movement to demand leaders fight back. Obama spoke of this when he was in office but I didn’t quite understand what he meant at the time.
I want to add; while it is true political issues are complex, and the solutions are even more so, the actual rhetoric and political strategies are simple to deconstruct and understand.
Focusing in on this portion of the "info-meme."
- Over simplified "single issue"
Abortion is the obvious example. The rights strategy is to paint every who one isn't staunchly against abortion as, "murderers." This emotionally charged argument allows zealotry to infest all discussion around the topic and gives every member of the GOP a platform. If you can't decide your stance on abortion isn't it easier to just error on the side of caution and say there is truth to the anti-choice peoples argument? The problem here is you never actually formed an opinion and in siding with the right you've rubber stamped all their horrible policy agendas that fly directly in the face of being "pro-life."
- "The economy" misdirection
Arguments about the economy is another example of you giving up agency because you are being emotionally manipulated. Financial burden is something most, if not all Americans, people, struggle with. So when a politician invokes "the economy" it brings up emotions people are very sensitive about. Except, all this discussion about the economy, doesn't actually address the economic struggles the ordinary person goes through. Instead what happens is you link these bad emotions or good emotions to some period in time when you were told the economy was good or the economy was bad but never actually evaluate what about the economy was affecting your daily life.
- "Keep us safe" revisionist history
This is straight fear mongering. Never have I felt particularly safe with a republican or democrat in charge. Corporations don't worry about it either because no matter what the police exist solely to protect property and the value associated with that property. So when a politicain wants to say anything about your physical well being it should always be taken as a threat, like some mafioso, extorting you for your tax dollars.
- Dismantling of worker protections
As of late, worker protections are the sacrificial lamb to the omnipotent "ecomnomy." Guarnteed, no sitting politician puts more effort into their daily labor then that of the lowest earners while being rewarded orders more in income and benefits. When a CEO can make more money then could ever be spent through conventional means in a thousand thousand life times you know the restrictions placed on businesses are not what's effecting their profit margins and workers take home pay.
- Defending social programs
One of the easiest ways to retain power is to split the electorate into factions and pit them against each other. With a military budget that exceeds all other nations military budgets combined you can assume social programs are not what's failing you. Greed is having the power of the American economy and coveting it as your own. The money we put into society is there to make society better. Your neighbors struggles are as real as your own and for you to pass judgement on them must mean you are willing to undergo undue suffering for the sake of holding someone else down.
- Tax breaks and bailouts for the rich
To big to fail, is an incomplete sentence. To big to fail for you to win re-election, maybe? To big to fail to prevent human suffering, possibly? It begs the question, who would really suffer? Say instead of bailing out the bank you took that money and bailed out the people who would lose their income due to bank going under? If these monolithe are always "too big to fail" there would be no way of knowing. We, as a country, took on a global pandemic. The government handed out money left and right. Is the human suffering we experienced then more impactful then any of the human suffering we've experienced over the last 30 years? I'd guess, not.
- Shrink the middle class, cap salaries
We are heading down a road. It's a well beaten path. It exists all over in different parts of the world. Caste systems, apartheid, authoritians, dictators, monarchys, etc. all are still there. Why, would any good person, who has experienced the watered down taste of real American freedom, ask for something more laced with actual shit?
Holy wall of text. Well explained :)
Pretty good. There is more nuance for some bits, but overall I agree with everything said.
“The economy” misdirection
This one is far, far more complex than people imagine. It's nearly impossible to overstate how complicated it is. Economy good/economy bad barely even touches on how it affects individual people. Like, sure, the economy is doing really well right now, employment is at near historic lows, real incomes are, on average, much higher than they were just a few years ago, but I'm still feeling economic stress.
To[o] big to fail, is an incomplete sentence.
It is, but mostly because people don't understand what that means. Let's take, for instance, General Motors. There are 167,000 people that work directly for GM. If GM hadn't been bailed out by Obama's administration, that would have been >150,000 out of jobs immediately. But that's not where it would have stopped; it would have been the first in a very large chain of dominoes. For instance, GM spun Delphi off about 20 years ago (and it's gone through numerous restructurings, etc. since); Delphi was one of GM's largest suppliers. No GM means no Delphi, and that's another 20,000 jobs. Look at all the companies the sell products and services to GM; when GM dies, large parts of those companies' business also goes, leading to more job losses. And what about all the businesses that those individual employees patronize? Like, say, the restaurant just outside of the GM plant in Bay City, MI? When GM closes, there goes 95% of their business, and now the 20 employees of that restaurant are out of work and can't make their mortgage payments.
When politicians say, "too big to fail", that's what they mean; failure of certain single companies and banks would have such a disastrous effect on the country as a whole that it's better for everyone if the gov't saves their ass. (And, BTW, I believe that all of the car companies ended up repaying the gov't after they were bailed out.)
If they are too big to fail there should be a plan to split them up. There is no reason thay a single entity should be allowed to exist with the power to plung the entire country into turmoil.
200,000 jobs sure does sound like a lot but you are completely discrediting Americans ability to rebound. Ffs for all we know the vacuum created by such a draw could fast track decades worth of innovation.
America has the ability to support this entire country getting its entire lights knocked out and we proved it with the pandemic.
Edit: The US presidential election is not based on popular vote so if you live outside of the ~5-6 swing states that decide the election you can go ahead and vote for a candidate that fits your beliefs even if it’s 3rd party (shoutout PSL), there’s no argument not to. Continuing to vote for the lesser evil when it’s not needed just means they can take your vote for granted.
Make sure to pay attention to local/state elections too, those who often affect your life even more. As always voting is only a small part in how we affect change, find local organizations and agitate for change that way.
Just be careful and look well at the data, states that non-election forcasting nerds would consider not be swing states still have a >10% chance of going the other way according to the best statistical models.
So if you live in: Texas, Ohio, South and North Carolina (R), or New Mexico, Colorado, Oregon, Virginia, Minnesota, New Hampshire (D)
You still live in a state that has a statistically significant chance of going either way >10%.
However, if you live in Washington DC, or Wyoming, by all means…
Indiana went for Obama in '08. Weird things happen!
For the record, if you want to change the fact that the US president is not elected by popular vote, depending on your state there's an initiative called the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Popular_Vote_Interstate_Compact), where a bunch of states are setting up trigger laws so that when enough states with enough electoral college votes have signed it into law, each of those states will vote for the candidate who won the popular vote.
It is BS even if you are in the "safe" states you should not do that.
This is not really a protest and you don't make any statement that anyone will care about.
What you should do that would actually have an impact is to push your local officials to switch to Ranked Choice Voting (like it was done in Alaska and Maine)
Also make sure your state passes this compact:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Popular_Vote_Interstate_Compact
The problem you have there is called a feedback loop. A vicious spiral. The whole thing moves right with each election.
Yeah, the Republicans have been successful in accomplishing their goals by not voting repeatedly for 20+ years! /s
ffs
Look, if you were using this extension of time to do something better, to build dual power, to corrode the foundation of the system, I'd agree with you. That's the point of extensions, no? To get time. The destination is the same in both scenarios, but you have time in the lesser one. Are you using that time on not-you activity?
Welp, better to tiptoe to the right than double-time goose step. A slow move to the right is better for leftists than a fast one.
Counterpoint, libs cared about kids in cages when it was trump doing it. Ive never seen so many people energetic and aware about government abuses. It was the same with war in the middleast when Obama took over from Bush. All the average antiwar blues stopped watching and couldnt car less about drone bombing funerals and ambulances.
The two party system does not promote engagement or representation. I get this is a bigger issue than the election but my biggest fear is that the slow walk to fascism under the "we're the good party" will be more enduring and successful than the attempts from Red to March forward.
The average lib "shut up and vote blue or you support fascism" crybully will fall asleep again for four years and sleepwalk their way to the same goal without any self reflection along the way.
Note this is not in favor of accelerationism, but a criticism of this idea that all we can do is slow the roll with a vote every now and then and throw our hands up.
In before the green party shill drops in to wax philosophical about how superior his conscience is voting for people who sit enjoying dinner with murders, war criminals, and a traitor.
In Canada we call our green party Conservatives on bikes.
Lemmy seems to be so small - I am almost certain I know which user you are referring to
It is certainly more refreshing than the constant brain-rot of liberals calling everything they don't like a "russian asset".
As to the op, both mainstream political parties are right wing, but it is right on the money
https://www.newsweek.com/jill-stein-ties-vladimir-putin-explained-1842620
They added: "The Senate Intelligence Committee later investigated the trip and found no wrongdoing whatsoever. Dr. Stein's commitment to diplomacy is more needed than ever and stands in stark contrast to the two warmongering ruling parties, which are driving us toward WWIII [World War III] and draining resources urgently needed here at home."
The event featuring Stein and Putin was a December 2015 gala in Moscow in celebration of the Russian state television channel RT's tenth anniversary. The channel has been banned in several countries for spreading Russian propaganda since the invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
The channel regularly featured Stein during her 2016 campaign. When asked about the dinner by NBC that year, Stein said it was a "shameful commentary" on U.S. media that she had received more air time on Russian news as a third party candidate.
Speaking to The Intercept in 2017, she said the notion that it was an "intimate roundtable" was "mythology," and that Putin and his associates "weren't at the table for very long." Stein said that "nobody introduced anybody to anybody" and that she "didn't hear any words exchanged between English speakers and Russians" due to the lack of a translator.
Stein said that Putin had appeared to make a speech and left immediately after. "Nobody cared to make introductions. This wasn't intended to be a discussion of any sort," she told the outlet.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jill_Stein
Russia probe and controversy On December 18, 2017, The Washington Post reported that the Senate Intelligence Committee was looking at Stein's presidential campaign for potential "collusion with the Russians."[90] The Stein campaign released a statement stating it would work with investigators.[91]
In December 2018, two reports commissioned by the US Senate found that the Internet Research Agency boosted Stein's candidacy through social media posts, targeting African-American voters in particular. After consulting the two reports, NBC News reporter Robert Windrem said that nothing suggested Stein knew about the operation, but added that "the Massachusetts physician ha[d] long been criticized for her support of international policies that mirror Russian foreign policy goals." Windrem reported that his publisher (NBC News) had found that in 2015 and 2016 there had been over 100 favorable stories about Stein on Russian state-owned media networks RT and Sputnik.[92] In 2015, Stein was photographed dining at the same table as Russian president Vladimir Putin at the RT 10th anniversary gala in Moscow, leading to controversy.[93][94] Stein contended that she had no contact with Putin at the dinner and described the situation as a "non-event".[95]
In an official statement, Stein called one of the reports, the one authored by New Knowledge, "dangerous new McCarthyism" and asked the Senate Committee to retract it, saying the firm was "sponsored by partisan Democratic funders" and had itself been shown to have been "directly involved in election interference" in the 2017 US Senate election in Alabama.[96]
By July 31, 2018, Stein had spent slightly under $100,000 of the recount money on legal representation linked to the Senate probe into election interference.[97] In March 2019, Stein's spokesman David Cobb said she had "fully cooperated with the Senate inquiry."[98]
In October 2019, Hillary Clinton said that Russia's ongoing efforts to influence U.S. elections included a plot to support a third-party candidate in 2020, which could either be Jill Stein, whom she described as a "Russian asset," or Tulsi Gabbard.[99] A few days later, Clinton's comments were clarified to indicate that she thought that it was, in fact, Republicans who were behind the plot.[100] Stein denounced Clinton's comments on both herself and Gabbard, describing them as "slanderous".[101]
This infographic is way too credulous about the centrists' claims. It's a "big tent," but you're not in it, only the owner class gets a say. It just happens that some of the owner class is smart enough to realize they can't fuck over the working class too much without it coming back to bite them.
It's what I've been saying for a while now: If you want to be happy with who you vote for, lower your expectations of what you're gonna get. It will be ugly sausage making and they will make stupid decisions that you will hate, things won't improve nearly as quickly as you want, and this is the best we can do as a species because coordinating the actions of tens or hundreds of millions of people is going to suck.
That and 40-50 year steady march of the Overton Window to the right won't be undone with a single election. It's going to take multiple ones to fix what's been broken by the Republicans.
Calling Harris/Walz “centrist” is selling them short. Centrism would have been the fantasy ticket proposed in the press where they tapped a moderate Republican like Romney to run alongside Harris on a “let’s go back to 2016” ticket, attempting to capture the less fashy conservatives, placate big business and let the left know in no uncertain terms that their ideas are not an option, only a status quo that’s not an inch left of centre or the abyss of fascism. They did not do that, and while nobody (at least, nobody unafflicted by FoxNews brainworms) will mistake them for Bolsheviks, they’re decidedly centre-left, with pro-worker policies, albeit in the language of “regular folks” rather than theorists. The Democratic congress itself ranges from the uncompromising left (AOC and Bernie) to the centre-right (Manchin/Sinema and their ilk), though its centre of gravity is left of the notional centreline of US politics.
They may not be centerists when seen through that Overton window of the USA in 2024, but in terms of the modern political spectrum they definitely are. There's barely a social policy they have that isn't already enacted for decades in more progressive countries and states.
As someone not from the USA: I guess I agree that, for the upcoming presidential election at least, voting centrist is the only viable option. But the generalized "vote centrist because it could he worse" is infuriating and makes me want to punch whomever made this. Just because they're not actively anti-working class doesn't mean they're in any real way champions of the working class. They're in the pocket of industrialists just like the right, and thus will never meaningfully challenge the status quo.
thank you for saying this. a lot of us in the USA are plenty pissed at it too. reminds me of this
If they can't bring in fascism, at least they can suppress progressivism.
I wonder if people realize posts like this only push away potential converts?
Even if Centrists were as good as this post makes them out to be (which sadly they're not), smugly asserting that everyone else is worse than you is a terrible method of persuasion.
Though I suppose the point is to feel morally and intellectually superior to people who would vote differently. Rather than to actually try to woo the most voters.
Edit: Fwiw, I believe the best option we have currently is to vote for the Democrats. I simply don't see an alternative option that is as likely to keep Trump out of the Whitehouse again. Though damage mitigation is not my favorite strategy to employ, in this case I believe it is the "strongest" play available.
fellas, is it ok to ask for accountability from a politician and point out issues with them while still voting for them? I really hate this rhetoric of "life is messy and no one's perfect." true, but no one expects a perfect candidate, they want a candidate who actually listens to the people. rhetoric like this just shields politicians from actual, constructive criticism.
The theory that Republicans are the Corporate Party and Democrats are not relies upon you ignoring where Democrats get the lion's share of their fundraising and PAC money from.
I don't feel centrist is the right word here. Or at least centrist has been co-opted by a group of right wingers wanting to platform fascists.
I'd go with big tent, labor coalition, or I dunno.
I often wonder who these are for. It makes no attempt to engage in an honest way with criticisms and hesitations that non-Democrat voters have so it doesn't have any ability to persuade them. It also infantalizes the view points of both the republican opposition and anyone outside the two party system so it's not helpful for self-critique for "centrists". So as far as I can tell it's just red meat aimed at Democrat supports to keep them all hopped up and believing that they are "the party of responsible governance" (in comparison to the Republicans) and therefore all criticism is invalid and everyone else is childish. Like, if this is supposed to be something else you really need a new way of engaging, because this "there is no alternative" shit is what turned me away from Democrats back in the Obama years.
Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos.
If one side wants Fascism, and the other side wants Democracy, what kind of moron calls themselves a Centrist? What middle ground are you fucking standing on?
The middle ground that thinks genocide is bad.
Since my votes for the presidential race are insulated from the vote count via electors in both the primary and national elections, I choose not to cast a vote for any loudmouth figurehead. Instead, I concentrate my energy on elections that affect my daily life; i.e. local and State races, including Senate and House of Representative races.
Take your "throwing away your vote" and stuff it in the nearest biological ballot box.
Loving the parade of the usual suspects in here to tell us that politics ARE about simple issues, ARE easy to fix, and anyway bothsides.
this is not accurate
centrists trying to build a big tent for everyone are the pro rich and corporations that are voting against our interests
the "big tent" is just there to fool people with bread and circuses and it has nothing of sustenance that will sustain the people
the throwing your vote away and getting to pretend you hold some high ground (you don't) is propaganda spread by both parties to keep the power structure intact and to help control the masses by tamping their expectations of leaders
yes life is compromise and nobody gets exactly what they want, but everyone does not get a say in how we work to find a fair balance
some people are hidden away in concrete zoos without adequate ac/heat usually in unsanitary conditions or they just have their votes taken away all together or some other way of quashing votes
centrists are the right wing with sheep's clothing on designed to give the illusion of choice
the right wing billionaire class always wins and have succeeded at confusing most of the US public into a false dilemma and gets everything they want
voting Democrat or Republican means we give away the opportunity of a third party and the ability to listen to outside voices that may contain a forest of solutions that were unseeable due to the two trees
Politics are about simple issues. Do we want to solve homelessness? Give people homes. Do we want to solve poverty? Give people money. Should we or shouldn't we support an ongoing genocide? Geez, I'm not a fucking brain genius, someone find an ethics professor.
The only complicated thing is getting people to understand this and act on it.
I still want to someday vote for better third parties, but that gets a lot less scary when we have FULLY AND UTTERLY ANNIHILATED the COMPLETELY USELESS Republican Party.
The sooner everyone realizes they never have their own useful ideas, the more we can choose between progressive policies without worrying about a wasted vote.
Simple issues like saving American democracy?
Okay, but what I don't get is:
Why would you not want to vote for the centrists?
If you're (rightfully) getting mad at the republicans for being egocentric and only looking out for themselves, you can't at the same time not be centrist and want to be egocentric and only look out for yourself
You'd just be a republican representing a different interest group
This is obviously oversimplified, but I agree with the message.
Neolib nonsense. People need to realize that voting for the lesser evil gets us evil every single time. There is only one solution, intifada revolution.