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this post was submitted on 12 Oct 2024
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Abstaining or voting 3rd party to "make Dems listen" doesn't work. If anyone thinks they can play Mexican Standoff, you can't because the Dems have an out: the center voter. Every time they lose, they go to the center to find voters.
And remember they need all 3 of presidency, house of representatives, and senate to pass pretty much anything. If they don't have all 3 they will go to the center to find voters. Some people call this rachet effect, but really they're looking for voters. Want them to stop 'racheting'? Then give them consistent and overwhelming victories.
The odds of Democrats keeping the Senate seem dismal. So it sounds like we're giving the party license to do nothing for another two years
I like how you twist that to "party license". If the ~~people~~ voters vote that way, that is the will of the ~~people~~ voters. Don't like it? Vote. For Dems. (Though the GOP bear some responsibility being obstructionist pos.)
Sorry 50M Californians, but 40k West Virginians decided to go a different way. Guess this means no civil rights for another two years.
This is aimed at those people that think not voting or voting 3rd party is effective to "make Dems listen". It is not. Voters have a say.
Dems are a coalition. Centrists are not powerful enough within that coalition to act like utterly unaccountable god-kings. If that needs to be beaten into them then so be it.
Lol I assume you mean that you (the leftist) will beat some message into the Dems. Dude, you will not win this Mexican Standoff because the Dems have an out: The center voter. Who, wait for it, actually shows up.
Alll your "beating" is beating yourself when you hand the overton window over to the GOP. It's the biggest self own in history.
So give up? Yea, it fucking sucks and is unfair as hell but voting is too easy to claim a lack motivation. It’s not a sustained effort, it’s something happens incredibly rarely and you can definitely handle. You can even mail that shit in in most places.
If you vote then it will be hard for the democrats to win and start shifting your countries policies to leftward(even if it’s an inch at a time). If you don’t vote then it will be impossible to do it.
If your full effort begins and ends with election season, you've already given up.
Who said that? Oh right, nobody. Fuck, bro, get it together.
So vote for them regardless and then they will listen?
Dems need all 3 (presidency, house of reps, Senate) to do pretty much anything. They've had that for [drumroll please] 4 out of the last 24 years. Or 6 of the last 32 years. Or 6 of the last 44 fucking years.
It was significantly shorter than that when you consider Senate control to be 60, which is what's needed to bypass the fillibuster.
Supermajority was 4 months, out of the last 44 years. But whenever I mention that people think I'm fixated on that for some reason.
*Oh downvoted already. Some people really don't like hearing this.
They honored the fillibuster by choice. They didnt have to.
They never had 51 votes to repeal the fillibuster. Sinema and Manchin both refused to do so. Neither of which are Democrats anymore. We should elect more Democrats to the Senate that will.
"Biden says eliminating filibuster would "throw the entire Congress into chaos"" https://www.cbsnews.com/live-updates/joe-biden-town-hall-filibuster/
Thats not how politics works buddy. If what you said were true neither the dems or republicans would have passed any bills in the history of the "republic". Clearly theres also horse trading, and bribery/lobbying you are pretending dont exist in order to make this weak point.
This is an incorrect framing of the situation. You aren't being asked for a Yes/No vote on Democrats. You are being asked if you prefer Democrats or Republicans. Or for this election, if you prefer Democracy or Fascism. If you vote "no preference", that does not communicate "I prefer the Democrats, but want them to move further left", either logically or politically.
There are lots of ways to communicate desired policy changes: letter-writing, primaries (including campaigning/funding for candidates), protests, marches, press, social-media, etc. Voting against your interest is not one of them.
I understand why you'd say this. But you arent trying to understand why people are trying to pressure the dem leadership to be better.
I absolutely understand the anger at the Democratic party. I mention several useful activities to work toward fixing its many failings. The Republican party is strictly worse. Giving equal support to both is counterproductive.
The more elections the far right loses, the more the overton window shifts to the left.
Democrats move further right to get votes from the center but when they win it'll go left trust me bro
They go to the center when they lose. If they don't lose, they don't need to go to the center to find voters. You can see my other comment, they've only had all 3 houses for 4 out of the last 24 years.
It's the left's fault for not feeling motivated to vote for a center-right party, they'll become even more right if we don't vote for them. Progressive candidates are dumb and unpopular.
I honestly don't know what point you're trying to get at. In any case, if the left wants to be effective, they have to vote for Dems. Because, again, when they lose they go to the center to find voters.
seems like if the left wants to be effective at this point it has to go far beyond voting
The death grip the Evangelical, ethno-state, GOP has created for its self, proves that voting locally for change, and voting in the "lesser" evil, in the presidential election, works. This was their strategy, only the GOP for the presidency, then, on the local levels, they spent most of their time getting people to vote them into smaller positions of power, especially judicial ones. Over the past 40 years they have entrenched themselves into so many voting districts, so many courts, so many sheriff's offices, etc., that, even being the minority, they exercise power much greater than their numbers. During this time, they kept moving those local offerings further, and further right. So now we are seeing a significant amount of governors, and senators, that are full blown fascist/theocratic.
If we lock in the Dems federally, and vote progressives locally, we can accomplish the same. Especially if we focus on local voting reforms that are different styles of voting, that allow for more breathing room of third parties. The proof is that the far right theocrats did just this with the GOP.
Well, its not over yet. The left needs to police the far right wing elements within the dem party, and thats what its doing. gun proliferation does not belong on a dem platform and neither does enabling genocide. Thats the real problem here.
And asserting ourselves through voting hasnt 'not worked' yet. We'll see.
Coalitions dont work if the larger group demands unconditional loyalty or ignores their coalition partners non negotiables. Dems are a coalition of various groups that cant win alone.
actively enabling Genocide is a non negotiable for progressives. And progressives are the difference between dems winning and dems losing.
Centrist dems have been trying to hold the entire party hostage to trumps evil so they can take AIPACS dirty bribes. So now progressives will play the exact same hostage games. We'll all go over the cliff into the bloody abyss together, or a few simple policy changes can be made. So get those changes done and lets win this election together. Or dont and our country is over. You choose. We already made our choice, and it was really no choice to be made at all. We were never going to lift a finger to enable genocide, its not who we are.
Again, this is about being effective. If you want to be effective, if you want to move the overton window, that is done by giving Dems consistent and overwhelming victories.
Again, Dems go to the center when they lose.
Anyone else can see my comment https://lemmy.world/comment/12867004.
So stay home/throw away your vote, I'm sure they'll realize their mistake and go to the left any decade now to chase those reliable voters.
they don't have to, let the whole thing collapse. Fascism never lasts long
Yeah, I'm sure the people who suffer and die under the fascist regime will be comforted by the fact it probably won't last long.
Too bad you'll find Nazis right along with you cheering on the rise of fascism, so I think your opinion can be safely discarded.
Yeah it's too bad the average person isn't doing anything about it
And you throw away yours as well. We all lose. Finally a 'together' outcome where we are all on the same side and not just taking centrist far-right marching orders like slaves.
you totally ignore that the Dems could simply represent the will of their constituents and not lose, and not need to "look for votes" outside the boundaries of their party. Kamala would be coasting to vicotry if she wasnt supporting Bidens dirty far right war. She is trying hard to not represent the Dems and take a far right stand on this, and thats the root of this problem. Not Progressive voters or the youth.
Seriously? Every time they run a left platform or enact a left policy, they lose. Why do I bother, ciao.
I dont think thats true all the time. as we have seen with Biden, If a dem president is a centrist or far right for a dem, it shifts the entire party and the judiciary rightward. These things have monentum.
So I'd say its not simply the "D" that matters in overton shift. It also sets the topics in the political conversation, and either strengthens the party for the next election or leaves it in shattered and misaligned, like we are now about the unpopular far right wing genocide being pushed by a democratic US presidential administration.
I've thought about that recently.
In Germany, the 2 historically biggest parties were SPD (used to be liberal-democrat) and CDU (conservative) and they often were the ones tugging it out while the smaller parties were filling in as coalition partners for one or the other.
Over time, the SPD splintered into several semi-big offshoot parties (Linke, for example) while the CDU stayed as a whole. As a result, CDU is now commonly a favorite for getting most votes in an election.
Is that consistent with politics across the globe? And if, why do liberal or center parties tend to split up more than conservatives?
Counterexample: The European Parliament. IMHO, it looks like 4 right-wing groups, 2 left-wing ones and 2 centrist ones. While the exact positioning could be argued over, the right wing is quite certainly more fragmented than the left is.
I commonly hear the left is a loose coalition of factions (which can split apart), while the right fall in line. I think there are fewer factions on the right, or the factions are not as far apart, so coming together is easier. They also unite in absolute hatred of the left, so will fall in line to slay that beast.
100% agreed regarding coalitions, unfortunately centrists dont seem to know they are in a coalition, or that the party even has a platform. They are so spooked by trump that they will do or say anything to win. Anything.
Centrists on this thread today accuse Progressives of being members of the far right as a ploy to hide the fact that they are the ones pushing far right policies themselves. The centrists are much closer to being republicans anymore than they are to adhering to the traditional democratic party platform. Real Democrats wouldnt risk the drinking water of the whole continent to enable more fracking to big oil company donations. They wouldnt be ok with more school shootings to pander to the NRA donations (especially when the NRA is heavily infiltrated by Russia). And they wouldnt sponsor and enable a far rightwing genocidal war in the middle east -- pitting us against the entire rest of the world-- to draw foreign lobbying donations. But American progressives are somehow willing to swallow every bit of that traitorous behavior except one to get over the finish line together, whereas centrists are willing to change not a single damn thing to win, and proceed to whine and threaten.
I live in a red state, and the Democratic Party cannot even get enough warm bodies to ruin for every office here. The Libertarians do better with their candidates than the Democrats.
The obviously the tactical strategy is to vote libertarian
so you think if we vote for them no matter what they do, they will start representing our wishes out of the goodness of their hearts, instead of Aipac's who come to them with palletloads of cash? Thats... an interesting theory.
First, again, they go to the center when they lose. If they don’t lose, they don’t need to go to the center to find voters.
Second: They will do what ~~people~~ voters want. That is the whole point, voters. Right now the voters are voting for brutally slow progress. That's what they get when they give Dems control of all 3 for only 4 years every 24 years. Want faster progress? Then be the voters that vote for faster progress by giving Dems consistent and overwhelming victories.
In addition to that, I really think Dems want left policy. They do it when they can despite it costing them elections. According to your logic they would never have done the ACA, or green energy, or EVs, or union empowerment (inb4), or student debt forgiveness, or Chips act, or Pact act, etc, etc. But they did, and it cost them.