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The Lesser Evil
(lemmy.zip)
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this post was submitted on 08 Feb 2026
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Get ready for a lot of left-splitting posts like this as the midterms get nearer.
Uhh isn't this exactly what we need before the primaries?
Everytime someone would point out how shitty some of these Dem candidates are we are told "save it for the primaries". Well here we are.
I'm always taking the side of harm reduction, but that's pretty much reserved for when you're in the voting booth and there's nothing else to be done. I'm some rando from overseas, but this applies everywhere in the world where you can still vote.
Before elections is the time to take action so you don't end up having to choose between evils
Absolutely primary these guys, but remember that most incumbents will win their primaries.
Well, centrist incumbents will, since the party protects them.
Progressive incumbents like Cori Bush and Jamaal Bowman didn't get the favoritism that centrist incumbents like Henry Cuellar do.
Because big tent politics and capitulating to centrist/right-wing Democrats has worked out so well for us.
In a two party system, a small tent is no tent. We can move the Democrats left. It’s happening now, in a big way, on the Israel issue.
You know how you move them left? By picking horrific policies like this, criticizing them heavily, and then getting rid of the politicians who support them. That's how you move left. It's not a magical thing you do. It's this right here.
That’s fine for the primaries
You're not going to believe this, but guess what's happening right now?
Though I'm going to push back on that a little bit actually. It's important you keep doing it the rest of the time too. Pressure has to be constant if you want to move a party. You don't do it by sitting on your ass for all but two months of the year. The only way you can consistently steer a political party is by consistent pressure. So we need to never stop. Cuz guess who doesn't stop, guess who doesn't follow your advice, the neoliberals and their billionaire backers.
You say, already complaining about people criticising the democrats before the primaries have even started.
To the Democratic party, big tent politics means right-wing politics, and if you don't know that by now, I'm not sure what to tell you.
Yeah we probably disagree on what right wing means. I hope you’re not throwing your vote away every year, because that is not helpful and we need help right now!
Vote blue no matter who?
I'm old enough to have seen that tried many times now, and look where we're at.
I think it's time for something different, and we can start by not championing centrists, or attacking/shaming people on the left who do criticize them.
similarly, when it comes down to general elections i hope we can recognize value of harm reduction versus purity contests
We didn’t try it in 2024. How do you rate the results of that one?
What are you talking about?
The Democrats ran the centrist (again), and vote blue no matter who was the mantra everywhere I looked.
The voters that didn't fail Kamala.
The voters didn't fail the Democratic party.
Kamla and the Democratic party failed the voters.
We should have had a primary. I’ll never forgive Biden for that.
I also don’t forgive people who knew better and still didn’t vote for the only viable alternative to Trump.
We have to put together a winning coalition to get these monsters out of power, but that coalition isn’t going to line perfectly with your or my politics. If it did, it would alienate a lot of people to our right, which is probably at least 90% of the country in both our cases. Somebody has to hold their nose and vote for the lesser of two evils.
I don't care if your genocidal psychopathic ass doesn't forgive me; you're pure evil. You being mad at us means we're doing something right. Make note how you don't have any antipathy for the people to your right (as if it's possible to be to the right of active genocide).
You helped elect Trump
You said you wanted a bigger tent, correct? Then you need to win the vote of somebody you blame for Trump.
We already know who you're going to pick.
No, we all have to come cram into your small tent, right?
if it's small then we can't blame them for Trump
Too small to win, too big to not matter
Since it matters so much they really should dominate the platform, like the far right does for Republicans.
You've been shrieking this for a decade now, it's not compelling. If you need my vote, stop being a genocidal monster.
Stop supporting genocide
Best I can do is offer you a choice between a candidate who's a devout Zionist, but a Democrat, and a candidate who's actually anti-semitic, but is being blackmailed by Israel, so their policies are even more Zionist.
Are you seriously bringing back this bullshit slogan from half a decade ago? I swear to god, BlueMAGA dems have literally convinced themselves that it's 2020 and the Biden administration didn't happen. What else can you do, I suppose? It categorically demonstrated that the "we can move them left!" Was bullshit.
Oh, it's happening now is it? Not during the year and a half of open genocide that the Democratic party oversaw? Just now, when they're out of power? And in a "big way" huh? And yet not a single person within the party who participated in Isreals genocide has faced any consequence. Not even a slap on the wrist, let alone the trial and execution these monsters deserve.
This a farce at this point. Charlie Brown could tell you to stop trying to kick that football.
Do you even pay attention to the podcasts you brainwash yourself with? Chapo Trap House has said multiple times recently that Democrats are finally getting the message that their base has shifted massively against Israel.
Yeah they are getting the fact that their base has shifted so they are just trying harder to get more right wing voters and be the "other" choice.
Just cause they see it doesnt mean they care to change in the way you want. This is the Epstein class after all.
Republicans and those who think pod saves America should be listen too?
"The Democrats have changed! A podcast I don't like said so!"
Not while continuing to capitulate to the right.
Criticism, it’s called criticism.
How does it feel to have learned absolutely nothing for over a decade?
That’s the idea. That or convince fence sitters to not vote.
"Do not criticize the Party!"
It's certainly convenient for the genocide-and-nothing-else wing that any criticism of them is "splitting the party"