“Vote blue no matter who” is a direct result of FPTP voting. Until that’s fixed, yeah keep voting blue…if there isn’t a more progressive candidate.
We need a viable third party and the time to start one was November 6, 2024. We’re past the point to make a dent in the midterms (assuming we have elections) but we have time to run progressive candidates.
You can always do something but its efficacy will vary. For example, spinning up a third party candidate a week before the election would be pointless.
If you look at my post history on Nov 5 has several posts on starting a third party. Right after the election would have been perfect. A lot of runway to find candidates, push them into the spotlight, have them lead the protests against Trump.
But we were understandably numb.
The second best time was after the inauguration. The third best time was after the first protest. The fourth best time was after the second protest.
We’re about 8 months before the first primary. We could start a third party after the Labor Day protests.
With me being out of work, I’ve given serious thought about starting one here locally.
Most Democrats don’t want to fix FPTP because it keeps people voting for them. If a Democrat doesn’t explicitly oppose FPTP, then their actions say they support where we are right now.
We spend so much time yelling at internet people for not understanding the obvious logic of FPTP, yet give legislators the benefit of the doubt election after election. Yes they fucking know, it slapped everyone in the face in 2000.
There have been third parties for decades but they won’t become viable until after they have been not viable. This scale of coordination takes more than 4 years. The first person you know who will vote against FPTP is you.
Idk how many times the democrats need to prove this, but the DNC exists to protect capital interests against socialist policies and candidates.
This isn’t a problem with FPTP systems, its a problem of class conflict, and our whole fucking system was built with it in mind. Democrats will sooner partner with fascists to arrest progressive opposition than allow them to pull the country to the left of them.
The one that they keep spending billions of dollars every year to influence, including spreading the myth that your vote doesn’t matter, to discourage voter participation.
The one that they keep spending billions of dollars every year to influence
Which is why voting cannot overcome capital. I’m not saying voting is pointless, only that voting has been made to be incapable of undoing the power that has accumulated under capital.
The master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house.
Why not? Have you tried? The internet is the greatest opportunity in American history - you no longer need to be a newspaper tycoon or a TV or radio station owner to reach people. Just the right message and the right personality.
China and Russia are tricking people on the internet right now into storming Area 51, eating tide pods, electing a fascist, and they did it all for PENNIES.
The one that they keep spending billions of dollars every year to influence, including spreading the myth that your vote doesn’t matter, to discourage voter participation.
If billions are being used to influence elections, and that isn’t all grassroots - there isn’t democracy.
The form of capitalism we enjoy currently and democracy are fundamentally opposed.
If billions are being used to influence elections, and that isn’t all grassroots - there isn’t democracy.
I’m not an absolutist. It is democracy, just not as democratic as it should be.
Take Russia, for example. They overcame the DNC’s billions with a few hundred thousand on internet bots to trick America into electing a fascist. The internet was a wide open propaganda hole that everyone overlooked, and you didn’t even need to be a billionaire to reach people on it.
Why aren’t you trying as hard as they are? Are you too comfortable in American decadency?
Exactly, it’s a voter problem. We have a ranked choice voting system in Australia with cumpolsory voting, same as everywhere, we mostly elect fools and asshats.
Juvenal originally used it to decry the “selfishness” of common people and their neglect of wider concerns. The phrase implies a population’s erosion or ignorance of civic duty as a priority.
80% simply don’t really give a shit.
Susan Sontag was asked what she had learned from the Holocaust, and she said that 10% of any population is cruel, no matter what, and that 10% is merciful, no matter what, and that the remaining 80% could be moved in either direction” —Kurt Vonnegut
It’s not a voter problem, it’s a capitalism problem.
In a capitalist democracy, it’s capital that sets the rules for governance, not the other way around. You can have a social democracy, but you can’t undo capital in a capitalist democracy by voting.
I agree that spending boatloads of money on propaganda is an effective way of dictating the terms of an election.
It’s possible that you just don’t agree that capital owners have more money and influence than the rest of the country by orders of magnitude, and that somehow if we just yell really really loudly that we can overcome that immense power differential.
Australia uses IRV, not STV, which is basically just FPTP with a fancier ballot. And nobody else on the planet uses this for multi-seat legislative assemblies. Only Australia.
But if you’re advocating for increased educational funding so that voters aren’t idiots, I’m all for that, too.
The issue is that with ballot access laws, third parties have to have a ton of momentum. And Democrats systematically engage in lawfare to kick third parties and other individuals off the ballot - look it up, they fight anyone to the left of them with more cohesion than they fight Republicans or Trump.
That’s because their donors tell them who to fight, and it’s almost never the people to their right because Republicans don’t threaten the donors’ wealth.
I argue that the rich and powerful want another crash or collapse, otherwise why are the very rich, big corporations, and other institutions not doing anything to fight back against Trump’s policies?
The answer is obvious to me: fascism isn’t a threat to capitalism and there are historical parallels to support my assertion: https://youtu.be/7f_V9zZNzTY
Every single time there are economic problems, the rich get bailed out (or barely feel a hit) and are enabled to take more and more power, wealth, and influence while the 99% toil.
The rich’s game of capitalism only “collapses” if they want it to.
Seriously, people… throwing out your best option because you want better one down the road…
It’s a strategy… I used it to protest the DNC in 2016… BUT IT REQUIRES YOU STILL HAVE A DEMOCRACY AND NOT A FASCIST DICTATORSHIP RUN BY AN INSURRECTIONIST. YOU FUCKED IT.
There are 2 sides of this. Why is it always “vote for me or else…” and never “propose a good platform for us or else…”?
Dems are actively trying to demolish the leading candidate in NY. They’re about to do the same thing in this case. But “it’s us of fascists”. You think you’ll have a better chance later? You won’t, that’s part of the playbook!
In France, Macron propped the far-right before his second term, so that on 2nd round of presidential elections (direct election in 2 rounds: 1st many candidates, 2nd only the 2 highest scores from the first), he would face the far right candidate, and then “vote for me or else…”.
This has to stop. They’re not naive and stupid, they know very very well what they’re doing: coercing you to vote for them.
I know what they are doing too. I also know what their opponents are doing, and understand that you need a functioning democracy to have any hope of a better candidate down the road. Maybe Hitler’s opposition sucked too but can you imagine they would have made things any worse?
There is no perfect strategy, everything is case by case, everything involves weighing pros and cons, and you are under-estimating the cons of an eternal fascist dictatorship under these pedophile-protecting/genocidal/theocratic/insurrectionist/anti-LGBTQ thugs by a massive degree when you think this will all be worth it at some point. Keep convincing yourself this is all just dem propaganda if it makes you feel better but this is fucking reality and it’s time to wake the fuck up.
Democrats weren’t offering a functioning democracy. They were offering a hostage situation in which they were threatening everyone with fascism if they didn’t vote for the genocidal shit they appointed without a primary.
You’re going straight to that permanent fascism today. Trump won. The Dems are disgusting a growing part of their voters base. If you were redoing elections today, I’m not even sure the outcome would be different. It would come down to who repels their voters the fastest.
How soft the Dems are with Trump is a mirror of what we see in France: the “centrists” are totally compatible with fascism! They can “work with that”. If not the actual politicians, their big donors, who are really setting the direction, will have no issue adapting to a dictatorship. They will play the us vs them game, but you get closer and closer to total fascism.
Re-electing the Dems as they are will not move you away from it. It will just make the journey longer.
We are all responsible, nobody is more responsible than somebody else. Compromising on politicians that don’t even come close to representing the American people is not going to win 2026 or 2028 and get us anything different than MAGA.
Yes, just like me on 2016. Still waiting on my wonderful 3rd party progressive candidate to take back America. Maybe once they start rounding up and deporting non-Republican Party members we’ll finally see someone come along?
Yes, let us take comfort in our delusions of the future while the world crumbles around us.
“Vote blue no matter who” is a direct result of FPTP voting. Until that’s fixed, yeah keep voting blue…if there isn’t a more progressive candidate.
We need a viable third party and the time to start one was November 6, 2024. We’re past the point to make a dent in the midterms (assuming we have elections) but we have time to run progressive candidates.
The time to do something different always seems to be some other time than now.
Yep! Especially if the dogma is “3–4 years ahead of the next election” while having one every 2 years.
Building a party doesn’t mean aiming for victory right next election. It takes time. It will take a lot of time starting from now, or from next year.
The best time to start it was before xxx. The next best time is now.
You can always do something but its efficacy will vary. For example, spinning up a third party candidate a week before the election would be pointless.
If you look at my post history on Nov 5 has several posts on starting a third party. Right after the election would have been perfect. A lot of runway to find candidates, push them into the spotlight, have them lead the protests against Trump.
But we were understandably numb.
The second best time was after the inauguration. The third best time was after the first protest. The fourth best time was after the second protest.
We’re about 8 months before the first primary. We could start a third party after the Labor Day protests.
With me being out of work, I’ve given serious thought about starting one here locally.
Most Democrats don’t want to fix FPTP because it keeps people voting for them. If a Democrat doesn’t explicitly oppose FPTP, then their actions say they support where we are right now.
We spend so much time yelling at internet people for not understanding the obvious logic of FPTP, yet give legislators the benefit of the doubt election after election. Yes they fucking know, it slapped everyone in the face in 2000.
There have been third parties for decades but they won’t become viable until after they have been not viable. This scale of coordination takes more than 4 years. The first person you know who will vote against FPTP is you.
Except it goes out the window when the party isn’t able to keep progressives off the ballot.
We cannot vote our way out of this
Idk how many times the democrats need to prove this, but the DNC exists to protect capital interests against socialist policies and candidates.
This isn’t a problem with FPTP systems, its a problem of class conflict, and our whole fucking system was built with it in mind. Democrats will sooner partner with fascists to arrest progressive opposition than allow them to pull the country to the left of them.
It’s much less of a problem in PR systems.
There is no electoral system that can overcome a sufficiently organized and motivated capital class.
Are you suggesting we abolish democracy?
What democracy is there to abolish?
The one that they keep spending billions of dollars every year to influence, including spreading the myth that your vote doesn’t matter, to discourage voter participation.
Which is why voting cannot overcome capital. I’m not saying voting is pointless, only that voting has been made to be incapable of undoing the power that has accumulated under capital.
The master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house.
Why not? Have you tried? The internet is the greatest opportunity in American history - you no longer need to be a newspaper tycoon or a TV or radio station owner to reach people. Just the right message and the right personality.
China and Russia are tricking people on the internet right now into storming Area 51, eating tide pods, electing a fascist, and they did it all for PENNIES.
If billions are being used to influence elections, and that isn’t all grassroots - there isn’t democracy.
The form of capitalism we enjoy currently and democracy are fundamentally opposed.
I’m not an absolutist. It is democracy, just not as democratic as it should be.
Take Russia, for example. They overcame the DNC’s billions with a few hundred thousand on internet bots to trick America into electing a fascist. The internet was a wide open propaganda hole that everyone overlooked, and you didn’t even need to be a billionaire to reach people on it.
Why aren’t you trying as hard as they are? Are you too comfortable in American decadency?
I’m suggesting we abolish the capital class.
Alright that sounds awesome but is also super vague and leaves out all the important steps like the how and the when.
Step 1: Engender class consciousness in the american working class <— You are here
Step 2: Organize
Step 3: Demonstrate
Step 4: Continue escalating until the capital class is forced to negotiate
Notice that ‘vote’ does not appear on this list.
I’m not American.
If “vote” doe not appear on your list, then your list is flawed.
Exactly, it’s a voter problem. We have a ranked choice voting system in Australia with cumpolsory voting, same as everywhere, we mostly elect fools and asshats.
But then some some 2000 years ago
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bread_and_circuses
80% simply don’t really give a shit.
It’s not a voter problem, it’s a capitalism problem.
In a capitalist democracy, it’s capital that sets the rules for governance, not the other way around. You can have a social democracy, but you can’t undo capital in a capitalist democracy by voting.
You’re incredibly defeatist. You absolutely can, that’s why they keep spending so much money trying to influence our vote.
I agree that spending boatloads of money on propaganda is an effective way of dictating the terms of an election.
It’s possible that you just don’t agree that capital owners have more money and influence than the rest of the country by orders of magnitude, and that somehow if we just yell really really loudly that we can overcome that immense power differential.
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Australia uses IRV, not STV, which is basically just FPTP with a fancier ballot. And nobody else on the planet uses this for multi-seat legislative assemblies. Only Australia.
But if you’re advocating for increased educational funding so that voters aren’t idiots, I’m all for that, too.
The issue is that with ballot access laws, third parties have to have a ton of momentum. And Democrats systematically engage in lawfare to kick third parties and other individuals off the ballot - look it up, they fight anyone to the left of them with more cohesion than they fight Republicans or Trump.
Yup. I wanted to vote for the socialist candidate last election, and democrats sued her off the ballot.
That did not result in me voting for Harris, but it did convince me to refuse to vote for any down ballot democrats.
My party also had no candidate on the ballot because they were sued by the Dems. Not sure who they think they’re winning over with that.
That’s because their donors tell them who to fight, and it’s almost never the people to their right because Republicans don’t threaten the donors’ wealth.
They do now. Attempting to influence the federal reserve board isn’t good for the rich (or anyone else).
He’s trying to overheat the economy to get a gold star before it collapses.
I argue that the rich and powerful want another crash or collapse, otherwise why are the very rich, big corporations, and other institutions not doing anything to fight back against Trump’s policies?
The answer is obvious to me: fascism isn’t a threat to capitalism and there are historical parallels to support my assertion: https://youtu.be/7f_V9zZNzTY
Every single time there are economic problems, the rich get bailed out (or barely feel a hit) and are enabled to take more and more power, wealth, and influence while the 99% toil.
The rich’s game of capitalism only “collapses” if they want it to.
Seriously, people… throwing out your best option because you want better one down the road…
It’s a strategy… I used it to protest the DNC in 2016… BUT IT REQUIRES YOU STILL HAVE A DEMOCRACY AND NOT A FASCIST DICTATORSHIP RUN BY AN INSURRECTIONIST. YOU FUCKED IT.
Who fucked it?
There are 2 sides of this. Why is it always “vote for me or else…” and never “propose a good platform for us or else…”?
Dems are actively trying to demolish the leading candidate in NY. They’re about to do the same thing in this case. But “it’s us of fascists”. You think you’ll have a better chance later? You won’t, that’s part of the playbook!
In France, Macron propped the far-right before his second term, so that on 2nd round of presidential elections (direct election in 2 rounds: 1st many candidates, 2nd only the 2 highest scores from the first), he would face the far right candidate, and then “vote for me or else…”.
This has to stop. They’re not naive and stupid, they know very very well what they’re doing: coercing you to vote for them.
I know what they are doing too. I also know what their opponents are doing, and understand that you need a functioning democracy to have any hope of a better candidate down the road. Maybe Hitler’s opposition sucked too but can you imagine they would have made things any worse?
There is no perfect strategy, everything is case by case, everything involves weighing pros and cons, and you are under-estimating the cons of an eternal fascist dictatorship under these pedophile-protecting/genocidal/theocratic/insurrectionist/anti-LGBTQ thugs by a massive degree when you think this will all be worth it at some point. Keep convincing yourself this is all just dem propaganda if it makes you feel better but this is fucking reality and it’s time to wake the fuck up.
Democrats weren’t offering a functioning democracy. They were offering a hostage situation in which they were threatening everyone with fascism if they didn’t vote for the genocidal shit they appointed without a primary.
They literally appointed Hitler
You’re going straight to that permanent fascism today. Trump won. The Dems are disgusting a growing part of their voters base. If you were redoing elections today, I’m not even sure the outcome would be different. It would come down to who repels their voters the fastest.
How soft the Dems are with Trump is a mirror of what we see in France: the “centrists” are totally compatible with fascism! They can “work with that”. If not the actual politicians, their big donors, who are really setting the direction, will have no issue adapting to a dictatorship. They will play the us vs them game, but you get closer and closer to total fascism.
Re-electing the Dems as they are will not move you away from it. It will just make the journey longer.
We are all responsible, nobody is more responsible than somebody else. Compromising on politicians that don’t even come close to representing the American people is not going to win 2026 or 2028 and get us anything different than MAGA.
Yes, just like me on 2016. Still waiting on my wonderful 3rd party progressive candidate to take back America. Maybe once they start rounding up and deporting non-Republican Party members we’ll finally see someone come along?
Yes, let us take comfort in our delusions of the future while the world crumbles around us.
It’ll get me a world where I’m not actively hunted down for my sexuality or skin color, so that would be nice.
Yeah, so long as you win every election forever, while running increasingly unappealing candidates. Which is the strategy you tried, and it failed.
That’s not the strategy I tried.
Then what is?
The right strategy is fighting fire with fire - bombarding the internet with propaganda. It doesn’t take billions of dollars to do it.
You’re contradicting yourself from earlier.
Will they win though? Kamala cemented it in my head that Democrats appealing to centrists and old-school Republicans isn’t effective strategy.
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