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'Bloodbath': Social Security Administration Begins Mass Firings | Common Dreams
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this post was submitted on 03 Mar 2025
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politics
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There just isn't a large leftist movement in the US. They aren't going to win more than a few seats. And blaming them while running further to the right is exactly what's happened every election in my lifetime. People have to exert effort to vote in most places, they need to get time off, they need to stand in line for hours, they need to deal with partisan poll workers, and for what? To watch the Democrats do corporate welfare too?
And don't start with the whole they were warned bit either. Every single cycle the Democrats have said the Republicans would end democracy. So nobody was listening to that anymore. The word fascist has entirely lost it's meaning in the US.
There isn't a visible leftist movement in the US for two primary reasons: targeted suppression by elites and intelligence agencies, and anti-electoralism/apathy. I'm not convinced that anti-electoralism isn't, at least in part, indirect suppression. The number of eligible non-voters is vastly greater than the participating electorate.
This is the same thing that I have seen. However, looking at the data, they're not actually incorrect. Leftists, largely, have been refusing to participate in electoral politics, which removes their voice from the party's effective constituency.
Protest voting/non-voting literally has the effect of removing one's voice from those that the party represents, it doesn't force them to reshape their politics in any way but that which gives them them reliable voters to campaign to. In a two party FPTP system, not voting for the viable candidate closest to one's politics doesn't send them the message to change, it sends them the message that you are not a reliable voter whose they need to represent or listen to. Anyone saying otherwise is delusional, lying, or potentially a state actor.
It's literally basic statistics.
Do I think that they should knock off their running to center and pushing to the right? Absolutely. It would benefit the populace greatly and we could try fixing some of this shit. But, being a leftist, I am the party's minority constituency. Most people who vote reliability in the primaries and generals are centrists at best and that is the biggest problem.
That's not universally the case. Because of leftists sitting out this election in California, the centrists and far-right were able to:
California is one of the easiest states to vote in. Gerrymandering and suppression are minimal outside deep red counties. And these were initiatives, not candidates - the data clearly shows that it was a problem of voluntary non-participation. My fellow leftist need to extract their heads from their lower GI tract and take responsibility for their choices.
The problem is progressives have been dutifully voting. And they get shit on every cycle. There may not be a leftist movement but there's definitely a center left movement and the democrats have been running away from them even while they keep voting and being vocal. They do not care. You want to talk about statistics? Lets talk about the studies that have shown all parties in the US are far more likely to suggest to suggest pro-corporate legislation than legislation that helps the people? It's literally over 90% of the time that the corporate interests get chosen. The people who say voting doesn't matter have been right for 20 years. It's only now that we have this MAGA movement there's actually been a difference to the average American.
And no, California voted it's ass off because of the senate race. The same people who vote blue there though would happily vote homeless people into concentration and death camps, literal quotes from around town are like, "I just want them to go away, I don't care what the government does with them". And every one of those ballot questions was framed in light of the homeless issue in ads. Homeless people steal, we need to bring back tougher sentences, Homeless people are lazy so once they're in prison we need to teach them to work, rent controls mean the area goes to shit and homeless people move in, medical nonprofits aren't giving the money to homeless people so we need to force them to use the money. All of it was bullshit, but the very same people who voted for Schiff ate that shit up.
And this is only possible because of a lack of political engagement. If progressives, leftists, and center-left consistently showed up in the primaries, we'd be able to shift the party. Instead, they don't and thus communicate to the party that they accept the chosen course.
Sadly, not entirely correct. About 1.7M fewer Californians voted than in 2020. That would have been enough to change the results in all but the rent control and mandatory sentencing initiatives. And, I'd suspect that if any amount of the energy that went into trying to convince people not to vote or that the guy who promised more genocide would magically do less went into outreach and education on the initiatives, we would have overcome the corpo influence.
All of that was indeed bullshit and anyone that didn't vote Schiff in the general was either not voting for viable opposition to fascists or actively supported fascists. Dedicating a fraction of the energy spent hating on Dems and repeating foreign influence campaign propaganda would have likely been able to at least educate enough people to make a difference. Instead, the state that is seen as the must progressive state in the country passed measures supporting slumlords and preserving the institution of slavery.
I'm sorry but you think the center left doesn't vote? That's not true at all. And California didn't have a problem voting for Harris or Schiff. The fact that those ballot measures passed on the same ballots that overwhelmingly voted for Harris and Schiff is an indictment of the Democrats.