If Josh Shapiro wins the nomination I will not vote for him, I cannot stand this nonsense, this is absolute insanity. How the hell are modern Democrats less progressive than FDR (and he was a massive racist), we are a century ahead yet we are centuries behind. Now we’re fighting over which fascist is more palatable so when can whitewash them and call them progressive. I voted for Kamala in 2024 but NOT AGAIN, I will NOT vote for another mild flavor of fascism lite.
Isn’t there enough bad things happening right now to complain about? This is a totally imaginary scenario that is years away and you’re all ruining your day a little bit more by engaging with it.
WHY?
It is totally wasted energy. Total waste of time. Counter productive to your political goals. Encouraging a culture of fixating on problems you have no idea how to solve. Bonding over helplessness and apathy.
You know a lot of canvasers are thinking about ditching the dems and going independant? You could encourage them, you could become one of them, you could help give them arguments and counter narratives, make memes, shitpost for a good cause, post in mixed comment sections where half the people hate you and fish for an even mix of upvotes to downvotes - that’s how you know you’re reaching people! Take a little pleasure in becoming unbotherable.
Also, counter narratives are great because you don’t have to substantiate anything. ’ ICE is deporting random innocent people to fill quotas ’ - your move, rightoids, I spent five seconds writing that and one braincell. Zero effort and they might end up spending 100x the effort countering it. God knows I’ve been on the other side of that. It’s a brilliant rhetorical tactic.
You don’t even have to keep arguing, you can just post ‘sounds dumb’ or ‘bad argument’ or nothing at all and just leave!
Bots wouldn’t exist if posting comments on the internet didn’t do anything. And even doing nothing is better than perpetuating misery-posting culture in the online left.
Tony Benn said that the job of the left is to 1) anger people and 2) inspire hope. We need to get a lot better at the second one.
:edit:
Just to clarify, I also hate the Dems lmao
Our local lemmy tankie brigade are strangely indifferent to the doings of Trump and his fascist oligarch regime, but they are positively obsessed with the Democrats, even as the Trump regime is doing its best to ensure that elections and thus the Democrats will not be a thing in the future.
They will also claim to care about genocides, but they are not only strangely indifferent to the genocide occurring against the Ukrainians, they will happily regurgitate the Putin talking points used as an excuse for it.
These people are not really “the left”, they are authoritarians. They do care about any left wing issues, they do not care about the rights of the exploited and the weak, and they do not fear fascism, they are just mad that it isn’t themselves who are sitting in power right now.
This whole discussion has been a fascinating read in the comments.
But does anyone really think we’re going to have another election? Much less a non-rigged election?
Yes, well have a next election. Not because our democracy is that strong, but because trump and Co are that weak
They will try to rig our next election, no doubt. I’m just confident theyll lose so bad there’s no rigging it
You have a lot more faith in the American people than i do at this point
AOC is a clear choice, I’d say Bernie but I’m already tired of old people in power.
AOC is young, in touch with actual issues, in touch with the generations that are moving the economy, knows the struggle since she used to be a waitress and so far I haven’t seen her go crazy on anyone else’s agenda or buying stocks and enriching herself beyond measure like damn old hag Pelosi.
Which is exactly why she wont be a presidential candidate ever.
AOC《》Jon stewart
Bernie as whip
The dream team 😍
Democrats would rather lose their power “temporarily” than lose their influence permanently with a progressive.
We need a third party like four months ago. We are running out of time to challenge the standing democrats.
We need a third party like four months ago.
Then tell one to do the back-breaking work over decades to start having members in Congress so they have a shot at winning a presidential election.
There isn’t some cheat code for a 3rd party candidate to become president.
This is so often overlooked. A 3rd party could win EVERY SINGLE AVAILABLE SEAT in a presidential election year and they would still only control the executive - Congress and the judiciary would still have a supermajority of not-thems, and you couldn’t change that in one term, or even two. Not to mention every governor, state legislature, county board…
You’re missing the magical thinking of people thinking Rachele Fruit can get another eighty million votes next election cycle and the democrats and republicans will hug and start voting her laws in.
Of course they will. Liberalism is a center-right ideology, they’re closer to fascists than leftists.
so you’ll campaign against them for one reason or another and help trump to a historic third term?
Yes, let’s get preemptively angry at those not currently in power for something we assume they’ll do!
It’s truly the “progressive” way. That and never actually voting in a primary.
Did you listen to the latest tiff between David Hogg and James Carville?
Carville really wants to push progressives out of the Democratic party while keeping their heads in the sand. I think his last rant was because Hogg wants to replace existing Dems (Carville says he should be replacing Republicans). However, I think Hogg wants to do this because these Dems aren’t really doing anything and waiting to pick up the pieces from this Trump administration. I think agree more with Hogg that it’s more important to show the people that you represent them rather than be like: “we’re not the Republicans”.
I’m not an entire fan of Hogg though, he seems a bit inconsistent but I agree with him here.
To be clear, people should have voted for the Democrats. We’re all in the position we’re in because not enough people did. Would you get what you want? No. But we still wouldn’t be in the mess otherwise. I mean, assuming the election wasn’t stolen.
That being said, all these older people that don’t seem interested in fighting for their people need to be purged from the Democrats. I don’t know if it’s because they’re really old or out of touch or what. There’s a thirst for people to want representation for them to fight (as seen by the AOC and Bernie rallies). I think their inactivity isn’t helping for the most part. Also, they need to get some more names out there.
It’s because the democrats simply cannot fund-raise on the kind of populist progressive policy Americans actually want.
Democrats are up schitt’s creek without a paddle - they can’t fund-raise without the support of the large donor-class, and their increasingly populist progressive base are simply not satisfied by the kind of economic policies those donors are desperate to preserve.
If democrats stay this course they will never hold more than 45% of congress again and only win the white house maybe once every 3 or 4 terms.
I’ve brought it up on other Lemmy comments, but one thing I really want to work on with messaging is “Eat the rich”.
Case in point: Elon Musk is evil. He’s a toe-sucking narcissist who can’t stand that South Africa ended apartheid. He’s a loser that can’t beat the first Path of Exile boss. He’s…make up your own insult, and I’ll likely echo it. But what I can’t stand is commenters saying that anyone and everyone possessing as much money as him is equally evil. Basically the equivalent of so many school “Zero tolerance” policies.
Musk is evil for his actions, not just for personality. Yes, a large number of rich people are also evil - there’s logic behind that venn intersection. But capitalism is our system, even if we decide we want to start changing it. Past the big names of horrible people that have lobbied the system for their own interests, many rich people are just…quiet outside of their main successful ventures. One very ready playbook of the far right is to point out how many Democrats - even honest ones that have made excellent changes - are evil simply for having net worth in the millions. As long as “Eat the rich” is a popular slogan, it tends to work, and convince donors that progressives are out to hunt them down with axes.
My take on a better message would be: We all want a better world. Have you ever wandered the streets of venice, wishing you could have that nice communal feel back in America - unburdened by homeless people, dirty streets, or traffic? This is our goal. House the homeless. Clean the streets, and encourage recycling. Put people on public transit. Progressives will tax you more to make that work, but will make a better world for it; one where people don’t need to hire private security to protect from betrayed employees, or shelter in an SUV to go two blocks. If you’re a businessman, vote Republican. If you’re an honest businessman, vote Democrat.
The message could use some work, but perhaps you get the idea.
But what I can’t stand is commenters saying that anyone and everyone possessing as much money as him is equally evil. Basically the equivalent of so many school “Zero tolerance” policies.
The existence of billionaires while millions of people are starving and homeless is the evil those commenters are pointing to.
Almost as if those people are upset about a system that valorizes and encourages immense wealth inequality, and not, like, which people get to be billionaires.
This is why the primary will be so important, and why Biden basically handed the win to Trump by pushing Harris instead of having a primary.
Maybe, but the only way I can believe that is if we believe Biden was a far better candidate that Harris. Biden mopped the floor in the Democrats primaries everywhere they were held. Florida and Delaware were the only states that didn’t hold them if I remember, and Biden had something like 87% of the votes for Democrats. We say they meaningless, but the last time the Democrats were in the same position was 2012 voting in an incumbent. Obama got 2/3rds the votes that Biden did. 8 million, vs the 12 million votes for Biden.
The delegates could have flipped when Biden left but didn’t. Its a much higher likelyhood that there the issue was more people were not willing to vote for her for being a woman or being black. If people think that 1-2% of the voters aren’t racist or sexist in Georgia, Michigan etc they are off their rocker. A 1-2% moved from Democrat to Republican vote was enough to lose states like that.
So if Biden had not run at all, and sent it to Primaries, would that percentage have been enough to get her not to win the primary? I kind of doubt it.
Can we do ranked choice primaries?
I’m a progressive, but also a pragmatist and a realist, and I find these kind of complaints unhelpful and naive. Politics is a blood sport and it always has been. No one is going to hand AOC the reins of power. She has to win them, and her opponents aren’t going to play fair. This is, sadly, how the game is played. Don’t mourn. Organize!
This debate is so silly because the real cause has to do with economic conditions and not the small policy differences between Kamala and Bernie or whoever the left wanted.
TIL genocide is a small policy difference for libs.
Okay but the point is they should’ve been able to run a wet paper bag against Trump and win.
Dems chose someone worse than a wet paper bag.
There’s always working for a campaign to help them win.
So who’s the progressive darling?
. . .
Anyone?
Cornel West.
But realistically the dems/libs are enemies of anybody who’s actually “progressive”. They’re still attacking people who voted for progress in 2024.
Gavin Newsom may sound smart, but he’s got his hands in your pockets stealing your money to feed the rich, kinda like the current emperor in chief.
Newsom is a slaveholder
