If we can't be bothered to vote in the primaries, wjy would anyone believe us that a progressive candidate would somehow lure millions more to vote?
As I know the comments will be, uhhh, fun, I've turned off reply notifications.
Progressive here. I vote in every primary and try to rally support for the most progressive in my coalition. Come November, I vote against fascists which means voting for Democrats because they're obviously better in every way.
If you don't vote or vote third party, congratulations, it means you were duped by right-wing propaganda or don't understand how our election system works and the inevitable binary outcome that comes with FPTP and whole you didn't give fascists +2, you gave them +1.
This.
Not voting or voting for a third party hands a win to people you don't want winning. The system is not fair, at all -- but that doesn't mean we should operate in a way we know will lead to a bad outcome. We have plenty of evidence that third parties in the US don't really make a dent, but they do sway elections (and generally not how you want). The rest is idealism.
It's also a good example of why single-issue voting means you'll almost always get more collateral damage, even if you get representation you want on that specific issue.
I've gotten more down votes saying exactly this.
In 2020 Biden won with 81.3 million votes. In 2024 Trump won with 77.3 million votes. All we had to do to avoid the mess we are in is turn out with the same "enthusiasm" we had for Biden in 2020.
It's the job of a politician to generate that enthusiasm.
I would argue that it is the civic duty of a citizen to vote. Enthusiasm is irrelevant.
We simply know that people are more likely to vote when they are enthusiastic. You can either keep telling people "do better" and keep losing, or you can accept human nature and use it to your advantage by running a candidate that people actually want.
I fucking loathe this mindset. I mean I hate it with such a passion. Cuz all you're saying is you don't care if you lose. You don't care if the worst happens to all of us you'd rather not change your ways. Cause guess what? You're wrong.
You can say that until the cows come home but people turn out to vote when they're spoken to and engaged. Thinking anything else means you're okay with losing. And I resent the fuck out of my life being put in jeopardy because some of you are okay with losing.
Stockholm syndrome at its finest.
Americans look at the most broken system ever, and you'd think they would come up with ways of fixing it, but instead, they double down on this logic of "lesser evil", and fool themselves into believing that's "good".
It is not.
Choosing the lesser evil means the end result is still evil, it just takes longer.
But sure, disregard all evidence waves arms around that shows the current system is beyond redemption, and line up for the national pastime of "Pick Your Pedo" as a good little boy.
Hit me with those downvotes, I'll ping you when the next presidential election comes around to ask you how your way's been working out.
And how does non-participation in any way fix the system?
You absolutely can participate in the broken system to prevent the greater evil AND at the same time do your utmost to change and fix it, in order to create better choices.
Not participating means you can try your utmost to change the system, in order to create better choices. But in the meantime you throw vulnerable people under the bus of the greater evil for your protest. Congratulations.
What else would you propose they do?
Because doing nothing only helps fascists. And voting third party is basically the same as doing nothing.
I think this American is well aware how broken the system is and doesn't support it. They're just trying their best to work with the situation they are given.
I agree with this strategy but I think you have to also concede that anti-electoralists have some good arguments too. Since voting is relatively low investment, my personal view is that it's best to pursue a variety of strategies. But for the vast majority of Americans for whom voting is their only political activity, I would challenge them to figure out what the next step is in becoming a more effective political actor. Frankly, there are a variety of actions a person can take that are way more impactful than voting. And this moment demands more from us than passive participation.
Careful, people who have never met you will now tell you that you're not actually a progressive, but a dirty liberal
Democrats haven't held an unbiased presidential primary since 2008, but go off. Superdelegates will save us.
We keep being told that we're not voting in the primaries.
I don't quite believe it. I'm starting to think the primaries are rigged. And this is their excuse -- they get to smugly tell us we're just not showing up to primaries in enough numbers to make a difference. Conveniently puts the blame on us, trying to make us blame ourselves.
The last 2 primaries were a disgrace. You can find a bunch of vocal progressives who didn't vote or voted 3rd part, but the bigger problem has been the establishment completely ignoring trying to get democrats to get off the couch and vote and instead try to court sycophantic far right voters with weird anti-trans rhetoric or pushing class warfare under the guise of deregulation and "small government".
Two?! This goes back to Kucinich not getting airtime when he would've been a viable opponent against Clinton!
Independents can't vote in primaries in my state and many others.
Independents are the majority, 40% of voters, with Rs and Ds at 30% each.
lol what primaries? As I recall last time we were simply handed Kamala, and everyone I know voted for her despite that. But If Biden had stepped away earlier as he originally claimed to intend to, we would have had time for a real primary. And I would have voted in it.
There's an upcoming midterm election. The Democratic primaries are just getting started for it, in fact the primaries for Texas, North Carolina and Arkansas are starting tomorrow.
Other important Democratic primaries, according to a quick Googling:
So maybe let's get to it. When the election itself comes around you'll have the usual two-party choice of D or R, which isn't really much of a choice. Hold your nose and vote D in that one regardless of anything else, it's the lesser evil. The primaries are where you can express your political desires more freely without handing a win to the Republicans by picking the less-than-optimal choice.
What fucking primaries? 🤦♀️
It's not just about voting. We need more people RUNNING!
Regardless of your opinion on AOC, this documentary about how she got elected lays out the steps. IMO it's how AOC got elected that is the key to fixing America. Americans need to make that happen every single election. Systematic problems need more than 1 presidential term to reverse after all.
Independent local grassroots electoral movement. Dedicated to getting/organizing volunteers, signature gathering, door knocking, everything from getting candidates on the ballot to winning in the election.
Candidate nominations. AOC didn't sign up, her BIL or someone nominated her and the Grassroots Movement approached her to run.
PRIMARIES. PRIMARIES. PRIMARIES. Target establishment DNCs who clearly have more in common with corporate lobbyists than their own constituents.
Run the numbers game. Only 1/4 of their candidates won. Democrats should face a primary EVERY SINGLE ELECTION.
DNC primaries are nothing more than a livestock auction for donors. Libs will cry a big game about FPTP election systems and our need to overturn CU, but will ignore any of those major systemic contradictions when it happens to affirm their worldview
Damn right I didn't vote in the last primary!
... because I was fucking homeless!
Can't vote without a permanent mail receiving residence!
My sources say you can in all 50 states by listing a park, shelter, or other place where you spend time as your residence and shelter, church, etc as your mailing address. You should be able to go to a polling location and get a ballot even if you don't receive one in the mail.
Just saying that I think there are options for you next time if you find yourself in the same situation. You are not without some power.
Your sources are broadly wrong.
Before I became homeless... I worked at a nonprofit, assisting the homeless.
Irony aside, no, a park wouldn't work at all, and most shelters actually don't let their 'residents' use it as an address, support or recieve mail for them.
Of those that do, they all nearly all have the barest of minimum effort put in to making sure residents receive their mail in a timely fashion, and its fairly common for them to lose your mail, bar you from obtaining it for arbitrary and petty reasons, if not just outright stealing it.
And spare me your 'you have options' speech.
I did the math, I ran the data, that was my job, I did it better than the government does it.
The PIT is bullshit, multiply that number by about 4, at least, to get an accurate count.
I distinctly remember my horror upon realizing that covid had utterly broken our seasonal trends, entirely. Just straight up needs being unmet.
Which leads into: The shelters were all completely full back in '22.
When cops go and clear a settlement and say they offered access to resources?
What that means is they gave people a phone number, to people who often don't have phones, a number that may or may not still be in service, where if you go through a 30 to 60 minute phone interview, you'll discover that "oh well we can't offer you any help at this time, have you tried this other number?"
... and that was all before Trump slashed roughly 80% of SNAP, Section 8, and grant funding to non-profits serving the homeless, before the Grants Pass decision functionally made being homeless a crime, before the tariffs, before CECOT, ICE invasions, and before ICE/FEMA began building 23 concentration camps, in line with Trump's stated policy, from before he got elected to round 2, to round of the homeless into concentration camps.
In summary, fuck off.
I have PTSD now, thaks for triggering it with yet more useless and wrong advice, you have bo idea how bad things are.
... and I couldn't get to ballot place if I wanted to, because I was crippled, couldn't get a ballot if I managed to get to a polling place, because my ids were all stolen, along with everything but the clothes on my back.
I had to bullshit my way from seedy motel to shelter to seedy motel for 2.5 years before I managed to get an actual, current, proper drivers liscense.
... and I'm the guy who used to design the data systems used to manage helping people do things like that, at scale.
What (presidential) primaries? I haven't had a presidential primary with more than one option since Obama 1, and I was slightly too young to vote. So maybe actually have fucking primaries?
EDIT: yes I vote in all the other primaries I can.
Did you not vote for Bernie against Hillary?
Since the primaries are held at different times in different states, lots of people don't have an option by the time the presidential primary gets to their state since it's essentially over and all the other candidates have dropped out.
There may be a ring of truth in that, but I'm registered "no party" in my state and therefore CANNOT vote in the primaries. I've considered changing my affiliation to Republican, so I can vote I'm their primaries.
I mean you say that, but in the state I live in a progressive candidate is running and getting huge engagement with the largest primary turnout ever I think but certainly in decades. All while the establishment Democrats are fighting hard against him.
Because the DNC will sue to keep them off the ballot and win, and when constituents sue the DNC for not keeping their promises and the DNC will argue they are are a private entity or something (I forgot the exact argument), and under no obligation to keep their promises, and win. 🤷♀️
If they put up Gavin Newsom I'm staying home. Additionally I will encourage anyone I know to do the same. I haven't stayed home for a primary since I've been able the vote.
I refuse to vote for another centrist Democrat and I'm tired of acting like the only option is to choose the lesser of two evils.
I vote in primaries, I vote for the more progressive candidate. I've also held my nose for too long voting for the candidate with more money and especially when they are just MAGA lite.
One does not simply walk into a DNC lair to vote and expect a warm welcome with open arms. Everyone knows that the DNC is corrupt. Progressives need to organise grassroots first, lobby and then work their into the political machinery. This is how the civil rights activists in the 1960s did and modern progressives should learn from them; kinda like how the fascists also learned.
The civil rights movement didnt just organize grass-roots, they essentially held a gun to the head of the democratic party
They actively worked against the DNC in most cases, since they were famously reluctant to embrace it
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