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this post was submitted on 29 Mar 2024
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You already did that with Hillary, really worked out great for everyone, huh? I do not understand how anyone can consider a second Trump presidency preferable to Biden just not doing as much as they would like.
What exactly do you think Trump would be doing in any way better in this situation?
Being bitter about your choices so letting others make the choice for you is way more spineless.
Nope.
Progressives held their noses and voted for Clinton, and again for Biden, and some are finally realizing as long as they vote "blue no matter who" the people running the DNC will never give a shit about them.
And while "vote in the primary" used to be common advice, NH lost their delegates for something Dems in NH have zero control over after voting progressive over party favorite against Clinton and Biden.
And lots of us live in states that don't have primary votes before the party names their leader.
If your mad things changed, be mad at the DNC for taking away primaries.
Not voters who decided acting like Republicans the last 30 years hasn't helped anyone
Very much disagree. It seems you're suggesting that the fallout from another Trump presidency will lead to better long term results than a second Biden presidency?
What happens to Ukraine after you stick it to the man and support Trump? Nobody is learning the lesson you want them to. You're supporting a dictatorship through cynicism. You can be mad at more than one group. DNC could be doing more. Biden could be doing more. Normal voters acting like helping a literal traitor back into office is the better alternative could be doing better.
Like it or not (I don't), we are stuck with the two choices. Helping the guy who literally says he wants to be a dictator is illogical in every context. If you actually care, volunteer in local elections and donate to candidates that support your views, help create a strong next generation of progressive democrat candidates.
I'm saying:
as long as progressives vote "blue no matter who" party leaders won't stop moving right.
Primaries have continued to be less open ever since Obama beat Clinton in 08.
Obama flipped lots of red states that general.
We all saw how effective that was. But party leaders don't want that type of candidate. So they pulled him to the right, gave him a conservate friendly Dem as VP, and as of 2024, started cancelling Dem primaries if it's an earlier state that votes progressive.
I don't think they'll ever cancel my states primary tho, in fact even when Bernie refuses to drop early the DNC always says the primary is over before my state gets to vote.
The DNC doesn't give a single fuck about me. If they were legit trying to win and help when they get in office it would be different.
But they're just not doing enough.
So tell me.
What's your suggestion to make them listen to their base instead of chasing voters who have never voted D and just straight ticket vote R?
Split ticket voting. Local elections, local primaries, down ballot votes. We need a generational shift in party leadership. Party leaders generally start as smaller/more local candidates. If you have a strong roster of "up and coming" progressives winning primaries and elections those progressives get more power and sway in the party as they win bigger offices.
I think it would send largely the same message you want without the global harm to have Biden stuck with a Republican legislature. They are still bad, but Trump is the cult leader and the actual danger.
But the party acts against them in primaries and AIPAC will put ridiculous money against them that their constituents will never be able to match, and they don't take shady PAC money to make up for it.
And in the House, there's so many seats in rural areas where even 20k to a PAC can but the election.
We've been trying that, and it's still not working fast enough.
The water is still rising and our lifeboat is still sinking.
And supporting Trump is like lighting the rest of the ship on fire so people will start paying attention to the problem.
Whose supporting trump?
The people not voting against Trump.
So the only option is the one that doesn't work?
And this is America, thanks to the electoral college, most of our votes don't really matter
Biden isn't winning my state even if I vote super hard for him. Voting for him accomplishes nothing for me or even Biden. But, if I don't vote for him (and still vote down ballot). There's a chance the DNC recognizes they need good candidates.
I'm not saying it will work, I'm saying there's a chance
And before you say "vote in the primary in 2028!". My state hasn't even held the 2024 primary yet...
So how can I communicate to the DNC?
I tried to take a survey from the DSCC the other day, turned out to be a fake survey that just pressured me to do ate money.
The DNC literally doesn't care about what voters want, they dont even want people saying it out loud because it hurts their chosen pick
How is that democracy to you?
It's better than republicans, but still not good enough. And it'll never change if we keep blindly voting D no matter what.
Unless you have a better plan
There is no plan in a democracy that resulted in "people do what I want to do." You could try a coup.
There are things you can do outside the ballot box. Unionize your workplace. (Or your apartment building, or your student body) create or join mutual aid societies. Volunteer for local organizations. Create and support power centers outside the government.
The political parties won't listen to singular people. Even billionaires, for all their wealth and power, struggle to get what they want from government in a timely manner.
Creating power centers like unions outside of the government creates a lever of power that can move things in the future.
Electoral politics is a game of inches. Refusing to play just cedes a few more inches to the opposition.
My mad things haven't changed in four years. It can be very frustrating indeed, but under the circumstances, I'd call that a win.
And if you look at it on a longer time scale, what we're doing isn't working.
More damage is caused than we can fix. So we're still moving backwards.
Like, let's say you're on a lifeboat in the middle of the ocean, and it springs a leak.
The fastest way to start getting the water out is bailing it out with your hands. But what if the water comes in faster?
Keep using your hands because it's removing water? Eventually the boat sinks.
Maybe you find a bucket, but you still have to continually use it or you sink, you'll never sleep and eventually you can't keep up.
So, you think for a second while the boat fills with water. And you shove stuff into the hole to plug the leak. You're still not done, because you have to bail out the water. But no more is coming in, you can do it slowly if you want.
In this analogy republicans are the leak. And bailing water out with our hands is Joe Biden.
Four years ago it was Biden, 8 years ago it was Clinton.
It's not a viable long term strategy. And there is zero reason to think 2028 will be different if we keep continuing as normal.
So again,
I've thought about, for over a decade now. Ever since Obama turned out to be far less progressive than he campaigned as.
I legitimately see no long term plan with a better chance to take the party left.
Tell the class what your plan is. How do we stop the leak?
Not the other commenter BUT, It took the right wing 7 decades to drag the country as far right as they have. We're here now and I suspect the left won't be able to drag it back in any less honestly.
The other commenter already answered your question. There needs to be a generational shift in the party. The way that happens is by running strong, local candidates that can take control of the conversation and push their ideas, that's how you win in a democracy. The other option is to coup.
Look at what the right has done over decades, they've seized control of local and state legislatures across the country. They ran candidates in places that were easy to win and in seats nobody wanted. There are conspiracy theorists on school boards deciding what can be taught, it's wild.
My plan is simple and I repeat it as often as I can, especially to trans and BIPOC friends. Voting is the absolute minimum you can do to participate. Network with like-minded people around you. The police will not protect our communities. Get a gun or two (a long one and a short one) and learn how to use them. Learn some basic first aid, you just need to be able to stabilize someone.
What exactly do you think will change if you keep voting for the same guy regardless of anything he does?
It's not regardless of anything he does. There is a floor. It's Donald J Trump, and project 2025.
If he was doing, or likely to do, worse things than grifting the American people for his personal wealth, pardoning dozens of heinous criminals, stripping our rights away like reproductive healthcare, overturning the affordable care act, rigging the tax code in favor of small businesses, rolling back environmental regulations and any progress we have made towards decarbonizing our economy, backstabbing our allies and gutting the administrative state in favor of christofacists then trump would be the better choice.
I can't imagine what could be worse, but I couldn't imagine Trump before he took office either.
Withholding your vote for Biden is an endorcement of Trump and the Republicans. Democrats and leftists will never hear "Oh man I should be offering people some real left wing policies so they will finally turn out for me." They will 100% of the time hear "people really like this right winger, I need to be more like him if I want to be elected." And the Republicans will see it as a signal to move even farther to the right. The Overton window will shift until balance will be restored.
Denying this reality is a failure of imagination. Things can ALWAYS get worse. The Dems will ALWAYS be the better option. But they could be a better or worse depending on how many of the last few elections they won.
If you care for the Palestinian people, you will vote for Biden and the democrats instead of the party that are frothing at the Mouth to accelerate the genocide.
Apparently not, because you and yours still haven't learned you can't just cudgel votes for warhawk genociders out of people with international principles; that shit might work on western nihilists, but it doesn't work on us. If you haven't learned the lesson, then I guess it's time for remedial classes. My vote's going to Afroman until either the DNC stops being a genocide-endorsement party, or the country falls under the weight of its own hubris.