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If you don't have preferential voting, the only party worth voting for is the one pledging to introduce it. It would solve this bullshit overnight.
Instead, people are fighting over which neoliberal to elect; the slightly more progressive one or the significantly more fascist one. Both of them are going to put the profits of wealthy donors ahead of human lives and neither is a true solution to mounting problems.
Fuck, not only will this not stop the genocide (because Israel doesn't actually need the weapons in the first place), you won't even solve the bots and propaganda. Israel has an extremely sophisticated cyberware unit and they'll just join the Russians trying to get Trump elected.
I'm so weary of this.
You are not a beautiful and unique snowflake seeking a candidate to vote for who reflects your own hopes, dreams, and values and this worthy of your blessing. That's not how voting works.
You have a two party system. You need to vote for whichever is to the left of the other. That's it.
If everyone voted for them they would have a mandate to move further left.
The more you moan about neoliberalism the more you muddy the waters for others less well informed than your good self, who will simply not vote at all.
You're on the train headed over the edge of a chasm with only two throttle settings: fast and slow. You need to set the throttle to the slowest position. That's it. You are not a beautiful and unique snowflake, so don't even try to think about stopping the train.
Look, the democratic system of the United States (and some other countries now) is kind of a historical novelty, and its political and economic power is not an axiom. It can, and will, be lost someday. If blithely shrugging our shoulders and picking the least-worst option election after election isn't working, well, we can look forward to the plunge off the lip of the chasm, or we can try to change the system.
I understand that many people are satisfied with the "slow" option, or at least in denial, but please accept that many of us are not.
This metaphor is very broken.
It's more like a car. Vote left and turn away from the chasm.
You're not going to change the system by not voting- you'll just end up with the party least compatible with democracy.
Sadly your ideals won't be represented very well in a trump presidency.
When your car falls into the chasm you don't suddenly respawn with a new car headed in the right direction - you just end up in the chasm.
No, I think that the metaphor is very apt. I've heard the same argument that we must vote for the lesser evil to stop the greater evil for my entire adult life, yet here we are, on the brink of outright authoritarianism. That voting strategy has failed utterly.
How do I vote left? How do I support turning away from the chasm, when anything other than "fast" or "slow" is throwing my vote away?
I’ve heard the same argument that we must vote for the lesser evil to stop the greater evil for my entire adult life, yet here we are, on the brink of outright authoritarianism. That voting strategy has failed utterly.
This is quite reductive, there's no causation in this statement. You could just as well suggest that we've been led to the brink of outright authoritarianism because of the "I'm not going to vote because both sides are just as bad" paradigm.
As I've commented elsewhere, if everyone votes for the dems, the gop will have to move their policies to the left trying to win enough votes to be elected. The dems would have to move to the left to differentiate themselves. That's how a two party system works. Not surprisingly, if the country votes to the left politics moves to the left.
Another aspect you should consider is that your position is precisely that which the conservatives would have you adopt. You'll never vote conservative so it's better to convince you to simply not vote at all.
I understand that many people are satisfied with the "slow" option, or at least in denial, but please accept that many of us are not.
But you should still take a second to set the throttle to the slowest position, right? You don’t have to be satisfied with that as your final solution in order for it to make sense to choose “slow” instead of “off the cliff full speed” or “surprise me.”
I understand the feeling of “I’m fucked no matter what so I don’t care.” Plenty of people are going to take that route, and I’m not going to insult them for being in that position and/or mental state. But for all the debate and discussion on here, Election Day is just the single day where you are given access to that throttle lever on the train, and it only has a few distinct settings.
I personally am always going with the pragmatic choice, because I am stuck on that damn train with everybody else. And I do mean everybody else, not just my fellow Americans. The US potentially going rogue has got to be terrifying for people all around the world.
Yes, I'm not telling people how to vote. I just want to make clear that a vote for Biden is far, far from the ultimate solution.
If everyone voted for them they would have a mandate to move further left.
I don't understand this logic. If they get elected by doing the same thing as always, doesn't that just encourage them to continue on that trajectory?
No.
The more people vote left, the further left the republican policies need to be to stand any chance of being elected.
Dems will always be to the left of republicans in order to differentiate themselves.
The whole country moves left when everyone votes left. It's not very complicated.
I am, actually, a beautiful and unique snowflake seeking a candidate to vote for who reflects my own hopes, dreams, and values and is worthy of my blessing. Whether you think I'm being reasonable or not is irrelevant, this is what I believe, and if the democrats want the votes of me and people like me, then they better start acting in a way that convinces me they deserve my blessing.
If everyone voted for them they would have a mandate to move further left.
They have precisely zero interest in moving left regardless of how much power they're given.
You can believe cows milk comes from cartons if you like but that doesn't make it so.
Imagine electing a dictator because you believe you should be given a better alternative.
The dems have to lean so far to the right just to gather enough votes to have any chance of winning. You could fix that.
Imagine electing a dictator because you believe you should be given a better alternative.
Huh, yeah that is a weird thing to imagine. Has nothing to do with me though.
The dems have to lean so far to the right just to gather enough votes to have any chance of winning. You could fix that.
Lol. The dems lean as far right as they can get away with because that's how they actually want to govern. And they're able to get away with it because so many people who fancy themselves "progressive" refuse to hold them accountable or demand anything from them at all. You could fix that.
The dems lean as far right as they can get away with because that’s how they actually want to govern.
That's not how politics works though? I'm weary of saying the same thing ad-nauseum but basically, if everyone votes on the left then the gop will need to move their policies to the left to have any hope of winning an election, and democrats always need to position themselves to the left of the gop to differentiate themselves. Not surprisingly, if everyone votes on the left then politics will have to move to the left.
It doesn't matter how you perceive the dems "want to govern". The gop will push them to the left if everyone votes on the left.
Yes, I suppose that if everyone on the right spontaneously woke up tomorrow as leftists, then that's what would happen. I don't really see how a wild scenario like that is relevant to reality.
You don't need "everyone" to be a leftist, you just need more people to vote on the left than you currently have.
In the current political environment, the GOP does not push the Dems left and it would take a major change for that to start happening. It's not realistic to suggest.
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