There's two sides to this argument, and one is wrong and the other is right.
One says "Both sides do it, so it's okay that my side does it."
The other says "Your side does it. A few on my side do it, too. But it doesn't matter, we should stop both sides from doing it."
"It happens on both sides! you don't condemn it on your side, isnt that hypocritical?!"
"I... Actually condemn everyone doing it and I think me and you should look for and support people who don't support this heinous thing."
"..."
"So, do you condemn the people on your side doing it as wel-"
"But look at this person who has done it on your side!"
Nah, delete this
Both sides'd themselves into proto-fascism. And taking us along for the ride.
Fucking morons.
Why are you blaming leftists for Trumps win? We make up like 1% of the population, tops. You should instead point the finger at Republicans for voting for him. Or the Dems for running a totally weak and ineffectual campaign. (Or how about the oligarchs who only want to divide us so that they can rob us blind?)
Absolutely. Trump only goes more insane. At least with Kamala we would have had a chance to push left policies, and they wouldn't be going directly to fucking fascism, unlike t-Rump.
I always just post this article.
Literally the first fucking sentence.
Vice President and Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris said Washington will continue to pressure Israel and other players in the Middle East to reach a ceasefire deal in Gaza
Difficult to vote between genocide and genocide. At least with one you punished the other candidate for it.
"both sides"= a disengenious comment by conservative mainly also uses the same thing to say thier not as bad.
"Both sides" also used by liberals to tell you it doesn't matter they voted for genocide because trump will do the same
Funny words coming from the fake "progressive" that claimed boths sides and sat at home or threw away a vote.
both sides is primarly used by conservatives, 100% of the time, lol. its pretty obvious even on reddit. thier talking points often are right wing in nature and pretty disengeniously disguised. i have never seen a "liberal" if there is anything left of center right in america, say that at all.
Maybe there would be more than Side A and Side B if we had voting reform and Democrats didn't systematically sue third-parties off the ballot.
People (not just authoritarians) criticize Side A because they have way more tallies than most have been led to believe. Everybody who pays any amount of attention knows that Side B has a lot of tallies. What good comes out of specifically pointing out the tallies of Side B when literally everybody on non-conservative social media is blasted with the knowledge of those tallies? If you want somebody to preach to the choir or inform you about Side B's tallies, just ask. If you think people paying attention to or being informed about Side A's tallies is dangerous and harmful, just say so.
Side A tolerates third-world exploitation (labor, resources, goods) that the US economy still relies on, they tolerate the US economy still relying on slavery and child slavery, they tolerate or support US imperialism and regime change, they refuse to address or come up with solutions for the fresh water crisis (by 2030, demand will exceed supply by 40%), they refuse to properly address many issues that the US people face (the economy, the housing crisis, the health care crisis, etc.), they support harmful policies like fracking, they have allowed corporations/et. al to go out of control under their power, and they generally have not advocated for strong regulation and protections for the American people. Yes, Side B is undesirable, but Side A is insufficient.
If Side A's hands are always tied in a two-party system, then they should impeach the bad actor, push voting/election reform and term limits, and hold fair and democratic primaries and elections. Side A not propping up extreme right-wing candidates (like Trump) and telling the media to take them seriously would be nice, too.
1/3 of Americans don't vote and plenty of people only voted Kamala because they didn't want Trump (and there are other factors than Gaza, misogyny, and Jill Stein voters at play to explain why people didn't come out to vote for her). Plenty of people probably don't want Trump (or anybody like him) if they've been paying any attention and didn't fall for the propaganda.
Side A would get bonus points for not alienating progressives, for supporting the loosening of requirements for ballot access (and stop engaging in lawfare to restrict ballot access), and for supporting fair and inclusive debates on public property where they would have to address perspectives and topics that are potentially uncomfortable or inconvenient for them.
I realize there are plenty of unserious actors who run for president (like Kayne West) who would try their best to poison open debates and abuse expanded ballot access, but there has to be some fair mechanism to filter (openly racist and insane) people like him out. Perhaps a competency test of sorts with independent observation would be appropriate.
And I realize a lot of people find Jill Stein to be harmful (and individuals like her), but maybe we shouldn't arrest her (or any other presidential candidate) and put her in a black site, shackling her to a chair for 8 hours, because she wanted to be present at the presidential debate?
This is an unprecedented time for the American people, with human rights and due process in jeopardy. We are facing multiple serious crises with no solutions or progress in sight - voting and election reform, in addition to term limits, are all urgent and necessary.
I don't care if you want to vote for Side A no matter what — we can only suppress criticism and stay in denial of major issues for so long before (e.g.) the fresh water crisis hits us and humanity is completely and utterly unprepared.
I appreciate the depth of your response. You're right, critiquing Side A doesn't mean endorsing Side B. It means demanding better from those who claim to represent us. The meme calls out false equivalency, but that shouldn't silence legitimate concerns about the system itself.
It’s like this: if the house is on fire, I’ll vote to put out the biggest flame, but I’m also going to ask why the fire keeps spreading, and who’s refusing to fix the wiring. Reform isn’t a distraction; it’s how we stop the next blaze before it starts.
Thanks for adding a more nuanced layer to the conversation.
Republicans also use 3rd party as a spoiler and to siphon off D voters too.
There were a bunch of stories of Republicans helping Cornel West's campaign last year to act as a spoiler.
Whether they use them intentionally or not, we need voting reform. In the 2024 election, third-parties barely made a dent — they weren't a spoiler.
FPTP is exactly why third-parties can be a "spoiler". There are plenty of valid alternative voting systems to explore that are way more fair and democratic.
And it doesn't sound very democratic of the Democratic Party to repeatedly and systematically restrict ballot access through lawsuits. Ballot access is hard enough for third-parties to achieve in most states.
its well known Republicans have funded 3rd parties to do this, not all of them but enough that its suspicious. its not all of them.
There’s also the fact that both sides support capitalism, which is an evil ideology that has killed more people than communism ever did. Like for real, capitalism kills 10 million people every year just through starvation and withholding lifesaving medication. That means that every decade capitalism kills more than even the highest estimates of communism’s total headcount over the last 100 years (which, btw, those estimates include Nazis killed in WW2).
Hey cockhead, look up the fucking holodomor, and don't just read the denialist BS.
Or the Katyn Massacre.
Or the Blagoveshchensk Massacre.
Or the Kyiv Massacre.
Or the Amur River Massacre.
I can go on, if you'd like?
Ok great, you can name a bunch of the events that make up the alleged 100 million deaths caused by communists. That doesn't take away from the fact that capitalist governments have FAR more blood on their hands.
And we can debate back and forth on the historicity of the events you named, but you should at least know that the Holodomor was literally coined by a self-proclaimed fascist to try and conflate Nazi crimes with Soviet errors.
Does third party count then? One bar is a bar
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