• Impractical_Island@lemmy.world
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    30 minutes ago

    I am only commenting because 11.2 is the upper limit of an age range from Lolita and is the number that pedophiles use as a call sign in quite a number of ways, and now you will see it in unfortunate ways, too.

  • DarkFuture@lemmy.world
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    1 hour ago

    They probably let idiots/bots convince them not to vote over some culture war bullshit or wedge issue designed specifically to keep them away from the polls.

  • CapuccinoCoretto@lemmy.world
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    33 minutes ago

    Because no current system has offered a viable path. Sustainability, which includes climate and all the other factors, will require everyone to live with less to ensure everyone has enough of what matters.

    Our politics, our economics our sociology consider asking the rights questions as radical, precicely because it threatens the wealth, power and prestige of those who have it. The elite would rather the poor who can’t cope, die in order to bring consumption to sustainable levels. Case in point, Bill Gates will write a book on what other people should do about climate change, yet live the hipocrisy of owning a small private fleet of jets and helicopters amd a leasing company for his slightly less elite customers.

    Ecological economics calls this malinvestment. Not misallocation (suboptimal) but malallocation (actively hurts our goals) The resources of those jets could have built passivehouses, sustainable farms, sufficiency across countless domains. His communications could have been virtual. I think he is smart enough to know how to use Teams. But hypocrisy is not a mistake for these people.

    The democratic choices of bad and worse don’t reflect viable paths. Worse will build autocracy that means profligacy for the ingroup, then doom for the vile and faster doom for everyone else. Cutting the outgroups down as the definition of sustainable shrinks and then cutting potential in group rivals.

    The bad choice is to do the same thing, but instead of an in group and outgroups, we’ll have an in, an out and a middle class. The 2/3 will make the same decisions, but trim with a few select sacrifices across the three groups as the pie shrinks.

    Bad and worse is not a viable choice. Even the greens where they exist, haven’t communicated a viable return to sustainable for all. They only hint at a portion of the changes required.

  • Destide@feddit.uk
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    58 minutes ago

    Love the why should I vote crowd. Because if enough of you do it they’ll start doing the things you want. It’s because you don’t vote they don’t care. Or don’t and watch again as the boomers transistion your tax money into cruises

  • joeschmoe@lemmy.world
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    8 hours ago

    I mean, they don’t even care enough about their warmongering, lying, felonious child rapist of a president. French students are legit protesting harder than Muricans against their pedophile leader. Make it make sense.

  • darthelmet@lemmy.world
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    21 hours ago

    As we all know, if you just keep telling people to vote, eventually they’ll just be like “Yeah! I’m gonna take off work from the job that doesn’t give me time off, go find a polling place, which isn’t close and crowded because the state doesn’t run enough polling places, then try to go there in a town without public transportation! Why didn’t I think of this sooner?” Then they get there and find out that most of the local elections are uncontested and the federal ones have only a choice between no climate policy and climate policy which is insufficient but delays the necessary work until it’s too late. Then after begrudgingly voting, they realize that their districts are so gerrymandered their vote basically didn’t count anyway.

    Nope, no need to change anything, we just need to keep telling people to go vote. It hasn’t worked yet, but… uh…

    • BanMeFromPosting@lemmy.ml
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      6 hours ago

      climate policy which is insufficient but delays the necessary work until it’s too late

      Thats being very generous to the massive fracking bills and military operations (the worlds largest polluter) we see under Biden. Truth is they are both actively harmful. One might be slightly less harmful but they are both stepping heavy on the speeder accelerating us towards climate apocalypse

    • I_Has_A_Hat@lemmy.world
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      5 hours ago

      Oh fuck off. Look up early voting in your area. Nearly every state has it, they are available on weekends. Stumble into one and you’ll be in and out in less than 10 minutes.

      Or you can sit there as an uninformed dumbass and go “Oh woe is me! I haven’t spent 5 seconds looking up how to vote so I’m just gonna sit and complain that it’s all hopeless and pretend there are no alternatives to voting exactly on election day! Oh why must the world be so cruel!?”

      Learn where and when you can vote early. You have weeks to do it. You are a piece of shit if you can’t be bothered to do that.

  • itsjustachairmary@lemmy.world
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    23 hours ago

    I think things like voter suppression, access to information also weigh a lot heavier than some might think.

    I’m also kind of wondering how they came up with this number of 11 million, if people are not politically motivated and activated but are still politically conscious enough to have priorities, there are systemic issues keeping them from voting. And especially at these large numbers, simply saying ‘well they should vote’ and being angry about them supposedly not voting won’t change a damn thing.

    We don’t need to yell at people. We need to fucking strategize.

  • WraithGear@lemmy.world
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    22 hours ago

    because climate concerns are not a concern with either party? both sides may not be the same, but they hold the same views on 90% of all things. and more and more that last 10% seems to be things they want but are still ashamed about it.

    • benjirenji@slrpnk.net
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      5 hours ago

      Dude, even with the new DSA Democrats I barely hear anything related to climate. Sometimes the green new deal is mentioned, but the only thing that is supposedly radically transforming the economy is AI, not the Democrats, the leftists or anyone with a voice in US politics. It’s really frustrating.

      • WraithGear@lemmy.world
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        4 hours ago

        right? like i said elsewhere what do establishment democrats actually stand for, because it is not the following:

        climate change, immigration, lgbtq+ protection, reigning in corporations, resisting genocide, universal healthcare, loosening racially motivated drug enforcement, breaking up the prison industrial complex, breaking up the military industrial complex, defunding the police, establishing ranked choice voting, repealing citizens united, making bribery illegal again, nor establishing term limits.

    • ∃∀λ@programming.dev
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      6 hours ago

      The median voter theorem suggests that the two candidates will both have policies which reflect the median voter, with one of the candidates slightly left of center, the other slightly right of center. This is a result of the candidates wanting the most votes. If the leftmost candidate were too far left, they would lose. It’s a derivable law of behavior as natural as objects falling in parabolic arcs under the effect of gravity. I mention this because there seems to be a prevailing attitude that politics is all corrupt and if there’s no candidate with radical policies to tackle climate change, then it must be because industry has their hands in politics, and nothing you do can change it, and voting merely endorses the system, etc. That’s true in some ways, but I think it’s also true that politicians reflect what the voters want, and it turns out most people are selfish and don’t give a hoot about the health of the planet or future generations. It’s not you versus the politicians. It’s you versus the people electing the wrong politicians. Participation counts. It moves the median closer to where you want it to be. Voting counts. Participating in other ways counts. Vote and talk to people.

      • WraithGear@lemmy.world
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        4 hours ago

        bullshit. there is no slightly left of center, that “center” line fucking slides forever and exclusively to the right. the only way to stop that is to not give establishment democrats ANY power. it’s more important to change the tempo of the democratic party then to pretend fight the republicans.

        The only way to actually win is to vote for a canidate that actually represents the closest to my actual wants. and the establishment democrats have exactly zero actual alignment on my wants. don’t give me their bullshit campaign promises, my memory is longer then three months.

        • ∃∀λ@programming.dev
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          3 hours ago

          Bold strategy. Let’s see if it works out. I rather think that if you don’t participate, then you’re effectively not included in the set of people whose interests are considered by politicians when they form their campaign promises. When you do this, the median is likely to shift right, not left as you think, if you take a moment to recall the definition of median. Sometimes we are placed in tough positions with few good options but still having to select one.

          I would propose that a lot of the cases of Dems appearing to renege on campaign promises are the result of closed door deals with the other factions where they’re forced to make compromises in order to get some of the things they (and you) desire. We’re not privy to those deals because it would reveal to the voters that the politicians abandoned one wish for another and a competitor would use it against them in a primary, and then there would be no deals and Congress would grind to a halting stalemate.

          • dubs@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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            2 hours ago

            Bold strategy. Let’s see if it works out.

            People have been voting Blue No Matter Who for a long time. How has that worked out? All that has done is let the Dems move to the right.

            …then you’re effectively not included in the set of people whose interests are considered by politicians when they form their campaign promises.

            Thats kinda true. Because the Dems never consider what Leftists think. They’re pretty open that they’d rather let the Republicans win, then let a Leftist have a shot.

            I would propose that a lot of the cases of Dems appearing to renege on campaign promises are the result of closed door deals with the other factions…

            LoL, they aren’t forced to, they choose to. They’ve had plenty of opportunities to freely move to the left, but keep chosing not to. Hell, they’ve given up elections rather than move to the left.

            We’re not privy to those deals because it would reveal to the voters that the politicians abandoned one wish for another and a competitor would use it against them in a primary, and then there would be no deals and Congress would grind to a halting stalemate.

            No, we’re not privy to them, because they opnely don’t care about what their voting base wants. They just pretend to during campaign season.

      • WraithGear@lemmy.world
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        18 hours ago

        sure that’s why i vote third party, or candidates i know push my interests. I will not vote for establishment democrat.

        • Psythik@lemmy.world
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          6 minutes ago

          That’s fine, so long as they won enough support to be the primary challenger against the GOP candidate. Otherwise you’re wasting your vote and helping the Republican win. Sometimes you have to swallow your pride and vote for a bad candidate so that the even worse one doesn’t win.

          Edit: A lot of people don’t like this comment but none of you are telling me what the alternative is besides not voting (which isn’t happening because I vote in every election and you should too).

          • Sharkticon@lemmy.zip
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            14 hours ago

            The problem with this argument is that while it might be objectively correct in the short term it’s also objectively self-destructive in the long term. Both for the voter and the candidate.

            Because elections are won by turnout. If you don’t turn out your base you don’t win elections. But your strategy eventually murders your own base. They get dejected, they get disillusioned, they get impatient, whatever you want to call it. And you can’t fucking change that. No amount of argument will ever change that. If you keep serving your voters a turd sandwich it doesn’t matter how many giant douches are on the other side. Eventually they stop coming to eat.

            And that’s how you lose really big. Which screws over everybody.

            • ∃∀λ@programming.dev
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              5 hours ago

              Are voters clustered in the center of the political spectrum like a bell curve or are voters clustered in two camps at the extremes? If it’s the latter, I could see the “don’t vote” strategy working. Otherwise, it’s bound to backfire because the leftmost candidate would need to move so far left to gain your vote that they would cede more voters to the candidate to their immediate right than they gained by moving left and lose the election as a result. They therefore don’t consider you in their choice of policies and move farther right as a result, which seems counterintuitive, but it’s true. This of course assumes a single political axis which isn’t necessarily accurate.

              • dubs@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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                2 hours ago

                This is literally the opposite of what has been happening. The Dems keep moving right, and giving up voters on the Left. Every election they scream about the Leftists voter base that is both:

                • A) To small to cater to
                • B) So large, as to be able to swing elections

                And their strategy isn’t because they can’t get Leftist voters, it’s because they’d rather let the Republicans win, then enact Leftist policy.

            • Honytawk@discuss.tchncs.de
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              6 hours ago

              You would be correct in an utopian world. There people would vote for who they want instead of who they don’t mind.

              But this is reality, and because of the semi-2-party system of the US, voting for any third party is just the same as not voting at all.

              If you want to change the system, hold rallies between the elections. But don’t use the elections for that. Or you can be sure you will get an other trump.

              And how can your long-term plan work if everything gets fucked up so much short-term, that you will never get to the long term plan in the first place?

              • Sharkticon@lemmy.zip
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                3 hours ago

                You’re the one who’s living in the utopian world. I just told you, you can’t fucking change it. Someone who relies on being the lesser of two evils will always eventually lose massively. That is inescapable. You will subdue your own base every single time. You cannot win without your own base. Trump won because of this. Maybe you’ll beat them this time but six or eight years later he’s going to win again, or whoever the new Trump is. And that’s going to be how it works forever. And every single time it’ll get worse and worse and worse. Your strategy is willfully choosing to lose.

          • FlyingCircus@lemmy.world
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            17 hours ago

            This argument is exactly what enables the establishment democrats to maintain their power. It’s a threat they hold over the American people, and the only winning move is to not give in and vote for them. The fascists didn’t come to power because of the last election, they came to power because of the 5 decades of concessions the American people gave to the oligarchs.

          • WraithGear@lemmy.world
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            18 hours ago

            you can argue some perverse version of the prisoners dilemma all you want, but when i said that i will not vote establishment democrat, i mean i. will. not. vote. establishment. democrat.

            • Psythik@lemmy.world
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              5 minutes ago

              Okay then what do you do? Not voting is a waste, and so is voting for the third party that lost the primary. So please, tell me: How should one vote, then? I got a lot of replies but nobody can seem to tell me what the alternative is beyond wasting your vote.

            • Honytawk@discuss.tchncs.de
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              6 hours ago

              Great, so you are okay with an other GOP then?

              Cause that is what you will definitely get with that mentality.

              And you can bet they will call your climate goals woke, and do even less than a democrat would.

              • WraithGear@lemmy.world
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                5 hours ago

                no, but like i said. there is nothing on this earth that will change my position. it’s up to the democrats to decide how painful they want the rest of the world to suffer before they are forced into the light kicking and screaming.

                you do not get forward momentum by voting the lesser of two evils.

                what position do the establishment democrat actually hold that would make the lesser of two evils at all a viable choice? because it sure as shit ain’t climate change, immigration, lgbtq+ protection, reigning in corporations, resisting genocide, universal healthcare, loosening racially motivated drug enforcement, breaking up the prison industrial complex, breaking up the military industrial complex, defunding the police, establishing ranked choice voting, repealing citizens united, making bribery illegal again, nor establishing term limits. so i ask you, what the fuck is left?

                “the democrats will hold trump accountable!” big fucking whoop. he will probably die before the end of his fucking term, and if not the only reason the democrats will drag him through a congressional panel (but never prison!) until the day he dies, is so they can do the exact same thing trump does to avoid answering for the epstien files, distract from doing their fucking jobs, and taking corporate bribe money.

                i am so fucking tired of this vote blue no matter who bullshit.

  • kreskin@lemmy.world
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    1 day ago

    Both candidates were pro war. War is the top polluting activity humans do. People chose not to vote last time because we had absolutely miserable candidate choices, an undemocratic primary, and formal war crimes support from our own party. Anyone who wags a finger after that shenanigans and talks about climate in isolation from the rest of it is missing the forest through the trees.

    • Pratai@piefed.ca
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      19 hours ago

      So, if anyone was wondering, this- is the bOtH siDEs psyop bullshit that you all hear about.

      • Yuccagnocchiyaki@lemmy.world
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        9 hours ago

        Yes. “Anyone who doesn’t vote for my party is a Russian psyop”

        SOUNDS REASONABLE

        All of the comments above your stupid one actually list reasons and justifications for people’s decisions.

        Care to elaborate? Or are you a Schumer bot? Blue maga? You here to scare people away from the scary working class reps?

        • Pratai@piefed.ca
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          4 hours ago

          Reeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

          Nah, I don’t debate with dumbasses that say shit like “bLuEmAgA”. It’s beneath me.

        • TheObviousSolution@lemmy.ca
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          8 hours ago

          is a Russian psyop

          Your words, not his. Plenty of troll factories and gullible groups around the world, but the money pours down from where it pours down.

          Both sides are not the same, one has been way worse for the environment than the other, the majority of this thread is rife with ignorance, plenty of it wilful. This thread might as well be called a theater.

          You are both-siding this and appealing to perfection as a solution, both common appeals used in manipulation, just like the majority of this theater is doing.

          • Yuccagnocchiyaki@lemmy.world
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            7 hours ago

            No, and you are ignoring all history and past elections as are all of the other DNC shills.

            There has ONLY BEEN PROGRESION TO THE RIGHT. The overtone window has shifted so far to the RIGHT because ymof you centrist fucks and your capitulating to fascists, that yes, both parties are fascist.

            Your stupid argument that both parties are not the same is not something people make. If you go to a party and you want a drink, and you can only have coke or a bottle of dasani water, you are drinking a coke product. You do not get a choice eve. Though they are different.

            We are at a point where we are literally running against cyberpedophile Nazis that are doing warcrimes, and establishing concentration camps and your “opposition party” is running on “restoring ACA tax credits”

            Since Im just a dumb American who doesn’t understand anything, can you please explain to me why the democratic party STRUGGLES to beat what I mentioned above?

            Why is their current platform not to “hold immediate trials for treason and warcrimes”, “dismantling concentration camps and locations missing migrants” " delivering free healthcare and education like 85% of Americans want" “taxing billionaires and corporations into submission”, “stopping support for the most hated country and leader in the world, Israel and Netanyahu”

            Please explain

            • TheObviousSolution@lemmy.ca
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              6 hours ago

              What a garbage spew of accusations. This thread is about climate change, and it’s clearly you want to derail with a lot of baggage, which ironically enough, one side is still considerably worse than the other for each and every issue you try to shotgun with. I doubt you are American, and I doubt the why of each needs to be explained in anything other than an theathered echo-chamber.

              You are both-siding this and appealing to perfection as a solution, both common appeals used in manipulation, just like the majority of this theater is doing.

              Again, and again, and again, and again, and again …

              • Pratai@piefed.ca
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                4 hours ago

                This is exactly why I don’t argue with these kids. It’s a massive waste of time. you’ve far more patience than I have.

                • TheObviousSolution@lemmy.ca
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                  6 hours ago

                  The last rebuttal with hard facts and links just made you spew a word salad of gaslighting while ignoring anything you were offered. I don’t have any hope for you, I’m just annotating for other readers caught up in the theater.

    • stickly@lemmy.world
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      22 hours ago

      War kills people and nobody pollutes less than a dead man 🤷

      But do you actually have a source for that? Because agriculture is the largest driver of ecological collapse and I’d be shocked if a handful of aircraft carrier emissions outweighs tons and tons of foods and goods being shipped.

      If anyone considers climate to be their highest priority, the choices weren’t even close to comparable. One was milquetoast green half measures that would kick the can a little further and one was nosedive everything off the cliff and irreversibly accelerate the climate catastrophe. If you stayed at home and were fine with the second choice you were flat out lying about your priorities.

      • Pratai@piefed.ca
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        19 hours ago

        The person you are responding to has a history of not knowing shit about what they take about.

    • 🌞 Alexander Daychilde 🌞@lemmy.world
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      1 day ago

      Yeah, it’s a good thing both candidates were the same on every single issue, too, so there was literally no difference in picking between the fascist and the non-fascist. Fantastic job recognizing your duty to stick to one single issue where you feel they were the same!

      • freagle@lemmy.ml
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        1 day ago

        One thing you’ll eventually have to come to terms with is that it’s the government of the USA that is and has always been fascist and that the two parties aren’t going to stop the fascism that they both manage and benefit from. Biden had the Epstein files and did nothing. You think the voters are gonna stop fascism when the candidates are all fascists and fascist defenders?

        • starelfsc2@sh.itjust.works
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          22 hours ago

          Well one party didn’t try to overthrow the election, stop our votes from being counted, call for violence against their dissenters, pardon the people who tried to take control of the government by force, remove anyone who tried to prosecute them, remove anyone who didn’t fall behind them. But I mean the dems didn’t make life changing bills, only generally positive ones while having a majority of checks notes 1 seat. Republicans are an ocean of fascism and dems are a bucket, but I guess it’s better to lose all our rights, help Russia invade Ukraine, and destroy the planet instead of voting for those fascist dems :3

          • freagle@lemmy.ml
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            21 hours ago

            And then Biden took office and he and his DOJ had the full Epstein files AND Project 2025 was openly published and explained and promoted AND Biden said “we have to stop these people” and then did what? That’s correct. He did nothing. He had literal documentation that DJT committed wanton infanticide and rape and human trafficking but did nothing. Nothing. Biden did nothing with the Epstein files while Harris told immigrants not to come to the US because we were absolutely going to continue torturing them at the border and nothing was gonna stop them, just like nothing was going to stop the Israeli genocide and the American participation in it.

            No, sorry. The Democrats are not “less fascist” just like the Good Cop is still a cop.

            The Ds aren’t going to save Ukraine either. The parties don’t make military decisions, the military does and the parties ratify it. That’s why Obama continued Bush 2’s projects, including invading Libya, which was on Bush’s list but he never got to it. Don’t forget Obama refused to give Ukraine any weapons and declared Venezuela a national security threat after Bush 2 tried to coup Chavez. Trump was the first president to approve arms transfers to Ukraine. I know it’s confusing because you think the parties are “evil” and “almost good” but they aren’t, they are both fascist imperialists and it’s why this all happens this way.

            It’s also why the Obama administration expanded ICE and DHS and then deported 3M people with Tom Homan at the helm, just like Trump used all the Obama-era policies and even appointed Tom Homan himself to run deportations (though Trump hasn’t yet caught up to Obama’s numbers).

            You’re falling for the manipulation. You somehow believe that the con artist saying “that guy has a knife, I’ll protect you, just give me your wallet” even after that con artist walked away and did NOTHING about the guy with the knife.

            The evidence is clear. Both parties are maintainers of the world fascist empire, and one party appeals to the voters with fear of “the other” and the other party appears to the voters with the fear of “being bad people”.

            • darthelmet@lemmy.world
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              21 hours ago

              The way I see it, it’s more like they’re ok with it as long as the knife is pointed at someone else. Fascism is imperialism brought home. All that imperialism has been happening non-stop and even at home, marginalized groups have been subject to all sorts of terrible things.

              They’ll call that less bad because it doesn’t affect them yet. And in the narrowest sense I guess they are technically correct exactly in the short term. But 1) It’s not better for those other people. 2) They don’t see how one inevitably leads to the other. The same tools they built to stop “our enemies abroad” can and are used to suppress dissent at home.

              If a Dem ran that as a fucking bare minimum promised to reign in the military, police, and surveillance states and curb executive power, I’d be more sympathetic to the argument for harm reduction even if they didn’t agree with me on other things. But if they’re just going to keep enabling all of this, at best the only “harm reduction” happening is some people getting to ignore the suffering until next election.

              • freagle@lemmy.ml
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                20 hours ago

                at best the only “harm reduction” happening is some people getting to ignore the suffering until next election

                This exactly.

                if they’re just going to keep enabling all of this

                It’s beyond enabling. They are architecting it, expanding it, normalizing it, and selling it.

              • starelfsc2@sh.itjust.works
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                16 hours ago

                Well if you’re not one of the people dead from ice, healthcare cuts, environmental impacts from all the solar/wind cuts, dead from cancer from the research we stopped, dead from food illness, dead in the war in Iran, dead in the invasion of ukraine, dead from measles, dead from USAID being gutted, or completely destitute from the cost of living, then yeah here’s not much “harm reduction” to be had really.

                Maybe this argument works if Trump hadn’t completely ruined the world and directly caused hundreds of thousands of deaths, and probably much more when diseases start spreading because of government sponsored vaccine denial and USAID cuts.

                • freagle@lemmy.ml
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                  5 hours ago

                  Yeah, I mean, you basically get it, you just think Trump is somehow special. Biden authored the Crime Bill, Clinton put it into law, they ruined millions of lives, mostly of black Americans. Obama/Biden and HRC created an absolutely massive crisis in Libya by funding, arming, training, and coordinating a terroristic “resistance” and then used NATO to bomb the most prosperous country in Africa into devastation where they now openly sell human slaves. The Ukraine situation requires you to imagine history started a few years ago - Bill Clinton openly and public wanted to include Russia in NATO, even after Putin took office. Hell, Clinton was instrumental in legitimizing Putin. The invasion of Ukraine is not something Trump caused and it’s not something he can end. If you have ever studied proxy conflicts like this one, the way you end the bloodshed is by surrendering and signing a treaty. The way you kill more people is by funneling more guns and mercenaries into the proxy. We’ve known this for decades. The US military literally justified some of its proxy wars with Youth Bulge Theory, stating that when there’s too many MAMs (military-aged males) that they could pose a threat to stability so it’s important to get ahead of youth bulges, create the conflicts before they become something we can’t control, and let the conflict kill off the youth bulge. The US is fucking sick.

                  As for everything else you listed, there’s an equally deadly Democrat equivalent. The embargo on Cuba means that the Cuban vaccine that prevents lung cancer is completely unavailable in the US. Democrats have deported/repatriated more people than Republicans have over the last 25 years. And the reason those immigrants are coming to us in the first place is because of bi-partisan destruction of South American and African countries.

                • darthelmet@lemmy.world
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                  6 hours ago

                  I’d ask you to consider how we got here. Trump didn’t just fall from the sky and started wrecking things on his own.

                  I could go into the whole history of the last quarter century and beyond, but to keep things simple, let’s go with a personal example:

                  I live in an area I would describe as blue MAGA. They regularly vote (corporate) Dem at the federal level, although local politics is very Rep dominated. My rep is a multiple term incumbent Democrat who we have tried and failed to primary multiple times, including one election where I was directly involved in the progressive opposition campaign.

                  As far as issues that enable fascism goes, they:

                  • Voted for more ICE funding and increased border security.

                  • Voted for increases to military spending.

                  • Voted to support Israel’s genocide.

                  • Participates in the war mongering around countries like Iran. To the extent that they had any issue with Trump’s recent war, it was a matter of poor execution rather than any principled stance against US imperialism. This matters beyond some lefty purity test. Stances like these and the policies they lead to help manufacture consent for these wars.

                  • Failed to press for congress to act on it’s constitutional responsibility to stop presidents from illegally starting wars.

                  • Voted on a Republican resolution to condemn the horrors of socialism at a time when right wing fascism is the dominant, pressing crisis in our country.

                  I could go on, but you get the gist. They’re exactly the kind of Democrat we’re talking about who enables the fascists to do what they do.

                  So… setting aside the fact that he’s probably in a safe seat anyway, what should I do come election day? Is voting for this person a vote against Trump and fascism? Is this harm reduction? Can I expect them to do ANYTHING to reign in this administration when they have not even tried to do so before? IF they’re not going to, what exactly is the benefit? And there are costs beyond what they will do in office. Incumbency comes with a pretty big electoral advantage. Continuing to support them makes it harder to unseat them later.

            • starelfsc2@sh.itjust.works
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              16 hours ago

              His prosecution was underway and he was about to be convicted and then sent to jail wtf are you talking about? And then the public elected him president, so the investigations stopped. Do you want Biden to just put him in prison with no trial? Just push the send him to jail button that even with trumps fascist army of yesmen he can’t do? Insane how these rewrites of history always come right before an election, I would’ve hoped the Ukraine strikes on the datacenters would’ve slowed it down.

              Waiting for 1 dem president that murdered American citizens and sent 200b worth of armed thugs, and the national guard. I guess Obama mishandled the border, which is basically the same thing as telling people immigrants are rapists and murderers, removing as many protections for people of color, and being intentionally evil and murdering people with hired thugs.

              It’s just rewriting history, Biden was unbelievably outspoken in his support for Ukraine, was sending them aid, had terrible views of Russia. With Republicans we get a war with Iran and we suck Russia off and tell Ukraine get bent. We can see what the two parties did during this war, we don’t have to guess. Democrats have been with Ukraine since day 1, Republicans against. Trump cut off all Ukraine aid as fast as he could, Biden sent it as fast as he could, there is no mystery there.

              • Yuccagnocchiyaki@lemmy.world
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                9 hours ago

                Yes. You don’t need a trial for

                -a live broadcasted coup attempt and attack at the capitol that was clearly organized and called for by an already established criminal and cult leader,

                a PowerPoint presentation of a coup,

                a big ass binder of a coup called project 2025 with names and plans of a government conspiracy to throw a “revolution” for the rich “that will be bloodless if the LEFT allows it”.

                Over a years worth of committee investigations and hearings

                And all of Jack Smith’s work.

                YES HE SHOULD HAVE BEEN PUNISHED SEVERELY IMMEDIATELY

                What would Biden have done if Ilhan Omar organized a group of leftists to storm the capital, after a year of perpetuating a rigged voting system, and angering a crowd on tv, and publishing a binder called "Bernie’s roadmap to taxing billionaires and removing AIPAC, IT WILL BE BLOODLESS IF THE RIGHT ALLOWS IT?

                What do you think would happen to us?

      • Pratai@piefed.ca
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        19 hours ago

        Here’s the rub:

        Most of these idiot kids are too young to vote anyway, and the rest are too stupid to recognize their own name on their mailer.

  • Chloé 🥕@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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    1 day ago

    if clearly motivated people don’t want to vote for you, it’s not an indication that they should lower their standards, it’s an indication that you should have standards to begin with

    it’s cute how liberals here are so resilient to reality. people don’t care for slow, steady, painfully incremental progress (if even that) when every summer is so much hotter than the last one.

    • Yuccagnocchiyaki@lemmy.world
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      8 hours ago

      There hasn’t even been slow progress for anything but shifting right. We have been losing everything from the new deal.

      It’s literally their equivalent of trickle down economics. SOMEDAY IT WILL HAPPEN DESPITE ALL EVIDENCE SHOWING OTHERWISE

    • Pratai@piefed.ca
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      19 hours ago

      What’s not cute, is how there are people fucking stupid enough to not understand the simple concept that when your opponent is a anti-environmental fascist-

      YOU VOTE AGAINST THE ANTI-ENVIRONMENTAL FASCIST.

      It can’t get any easier, yet you people STILL don’t seem to understand it. Let me put it another way:

      When you have cancer- YOU TAKE THE CHEMO. You live to fight anther day. You don’t say,

      “Yeah, no. Chemo sucks. I don’t want to get sick, so, let the cancer take me.” This is PURE ignorance.

      • dubs@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        1 hour ago

        Well, if the supposed opposition is anti-environmental fascist-supporters, then they aren’t going to get people out to vote.

        Your analogy is severly flawed. The Democrats are less like chemo, and more like alcohol. It makes you feel like the pain is going away, but in the end, it’s only helping the cancer.

      • girsaysdoom@sh.itjust.works
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        16 hours ago

        Exactly. If they aren’t a Fetterman, then vote for them no matter what.

        The only way voting will be ever be effective again is if we shift the Overton window back. The only way to do that (in regards to voting) is to vote for leftists at the local and state level. The ones that actually win are running under the Democrat banner.

        That’s pretty much the only way we get out of this mess democratically speaking. That said, we do need to be doing more than just voting to have any actual chance.

    • edible_funk@lemmy.world
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      21 hours ago

      Non voters aren’t motivated to vote, they’re non voters, why would anyone cater to a group that intentionally throws away any influence they could have?

      • Uruanna@lemmy.world
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        11 hours ago

        Thanks, I’ll go on and implement a policy to destroy the ability to vote for as many people as possible in as many ways as I can come up with, that way they become non-voters and I don’t have to listen to them. Oh wait, that policy is already what’s happening.

        • edible_funk@lemmy.world
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          8 hours ago

          Because progressives don’t fucking vote and give power to Republicans by doing so. If you refuse to participate in the system then you don’t get to be upset when the system disregards you.

          • Uruanna@lemmy.world
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            7 hours ago

            Over several decades, progressives are told to vote for the lesser evil, they do, and then the lesser evil helps the greater evil silence progressive voices, so that progressives eventually find out they can’t vote anymore.

            You don’t know what you’re talking about.

            • Honytawk@discuss.tchncs.de
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              6 hours ago

              Yeah, and not voting will make everything much worse a lot faster.

              So please, throw away your vote. The republicans will thank you.

            • edible_funk@lemmy.world
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              6 hours ago

              If progressives voted in every election over the last several decades we’d have a progressive democratic party, but progressives mostly don’t vote. You sound like a republican.

              • Uruanna@lemmy.world
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                6 hours ago

                I sound like a Republican when saying that the Republican have destroyed voting rights? sure buddy.

      • Chloé 🥕@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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        1 day ago

        i think you misunderstand

        i’m not saying people shouldn’t vote (truthfully, i don’t care). i’m saying parties who want votes should have policies worth voting for.

        y’all keep talking about how the “let’s not vote for the lesser evil because it’s still evil” voter strategy has lead to terrible results. why not talk about how the “let’s be the lesser evil instead of doing anything good that people would want to support” party strategy has lead to the same terrible results?

        • 🌞 Alexander Daychilde 🌞@lemmy.world
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          24 hours ago

          The time to make that change is before the general election.

          Anytime you’re presented with two choices, take the less bad option. But if that’s the only time you bother to act, or even worse, if you don’t even act THEN to pick the lesser bad option, then you are one less vote against the worse, and therefore by your actions support it. But you already supported it if you weren’t fighting for better options.

          “Well, I didn’t pick which restaurant to visit very well, and this restaurant only has moldy fruit or sandwiches made literally from shit. I don’t like either option, so I’m just gonna eat whatever they bring me”. Sure, it’s not a great analogy in the sense that picking a different restaurant is not so easy in the context of politics, but I think it makes the point - always choose the lesser bad option. I’d rather eat the moldy fruit (we’re assuming that we must eat something in this metaphor) than the literal shit. And then work harder to try and prevent us from going to this restaurant next time. But if you are presented with the two bad options and one is worse, not picking an option is fucking stupid.

          • Pratai@piefed.ca
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            19 hours ago

            It blows my mind that these people just won’t even try to understand such a simple concept. Their entitlement, alongside their little purity test cost us not only our democracy, but is RAPIDLY forwarding the environmental damage they pretend to stand against.

            It’s mind-numbing dumbassery.

            Your point was well said, but it will sadly fall on deaf ears. They don’t want to be told the right way to do things, they want to be told the conveinient way to do things. The way that makes them look good. The way that doesn’t require an effort-

            ….the way that doesn’t involve sacrifice.

            • Chloé 🥕@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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              18 hours ago

              Their entitlement, alongside their little purity test cost us not only our democracy

              so, people who aren’t content with atrocious (when, don’t they know that it could be cataclysmic???) are a sizeable enough population that they can sway elections… yet, seemingly, it’s not worth it for democrats to cater to them by not being atrocious? which is it?

              you talk of effort and sacrifice. for what? voting? calling people dumbasses on the internet because they checks notes express empathy for those who refuse to settle for eternal mediocrity?

              “is it so hard to understand that trump is worse” is it so hard to understand that people who see other people being bombed, forests burning, rights taken away, and their lives getting steadily worse, under liberals and conservatives alike, are not gonna fucking bother at some point? people are not game theory machines, “your life gets worse” vs “your life gets worser”, despite having an obviously correct answer, is not a motivating choice, what a surprise

              if you believe in saving democracy so much, demand more out of your elected officials instead of demanding less of people who are tired of suffocating under the boot. but, maybe that requires too much effort, and involves too much sacrifice, idk

              • edible_funk@lemmy.world
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                7 hours ago

                You know how you demand more from your elected officials? BY FUCKING VOTING IN THE FUCKING PRIMARIES YOU FUCKING DONKEYS.

              • Pratai@piefed.ca
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                17 hours ago

                Yeah, as a rule, I don’t read the propaganda you people believe in. Your job is to spread your bullshit and move on, my job is to calm it out.

                • Yuccagnocchiyaki@lemmy.world
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                  8 hours ago

                  “my job is to calm it out”

                  Is that your bot programming? That’s your job?

                  Progressives or others that are critical of the establishment democrats have given you ESSAYS of evidence all throughout here and you just say, “nope, you’re all dumb if you don’t vote for my party”

                  But I guess that could be indictive a being a bot OR just being an actual establishment democrat

      • Steve@communick.news
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        1 day ago

        It seems like you actually believe anyone who thought Harris was a bad candidate voted for Rump?
        That’s so simple

        • Funkt4st1c@lemmy.world
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          1 day ago

          Or they just didnt vote, yes.

          2024 was a colossal failure for months before the election. They gave trump legitimacy by backing down “Sleepy Joe” biden, but didnt do it quick enough to hold a primary.

          Democrats are fighting on being “the other guy” but thats not an identity. Theres a reason people love mamdani so much, and its because he has values.

        • Pratai@piefed.ca
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          19 hours ago

          Your inability to make the bare minimum effort necessary to stand in front of fascism seems to have also allowed you to not know or care what the outcome was-

          Since you seem to like simplicity so much,…

          How about you stop pretending any of this matters to you since you have proven via your conscience choice you made to not bother yourself with it.

          Simple as……

            • Honytawk@discuss.tchncs.de
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              6 hours ago

              Voting for the candidate that does less harm to the environment.

              Maybe not you, but plenty others did. And that is why we got trump.

              • Steve@communick.news
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                5 hours ago

                I think you answered my second question? I’m going to assume you did.

                Of course that’s why we got Rump. He got more votes. Harris ran against a convicted felon, fraudster, and rapist. It should have been a cake walk to beat him. It was the Dems campaign to loose. She lost anyway, because she was a bad cantate, and the Dems fucked up massively. You can’t blame the reff (the voters) when one team played so obviously badly.

        • GeneralEmergency@lemmy.world
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          1 day ago

          It’s a two party system and you have three choices.

          Vote A

          Vote B

          Don’t vote.

          Not voting is still an action. It means either option is fine, otherwise you would have voted for a specific candidate

          • Steve@communick.news
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            1 day ago

            But what if they voted for Harris, while thinking she was a terrible candidate? Did that possibly not occur to you?

            • GeneralEmergency@lemmy.world
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              15 hours ago

              Then they liked her more than the other options.

              I know we’re talking about Americans, but this is a simple enough concept. Even for them.

              • Steve@communick.news
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                14 hours ago

                Yah I kind of thought that was simple enough that nobody would think it was what I was asking about.

                The whole idea I apparently need to directly explain is, someone can believe that she was and is a bad candidate, while also voting for her. That we can call out her terrible campaign, and how bad the Democrats are at this game; Wanting and hoping for them to be better. You can support your team, while complaining about how much they suck. Too many here seem to think any criticism of any Democrat is support for Republicans. But that kind of simplistic black and white thinking is what Republicans do. I’d want more for us.

                • Yuccagnocchiyaki@lemmy.world
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                  8 hours ago

                  This has been the case since the 1990s, when does it deliver, can you show us?

                  What have working class people GAINED while settling for the “lesser of two evils”?

                  Where are the incremental steps to the left that you proclaim exist?