this post was submitted on 21 Apr 2025
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I'm not American but there's so many socialists on here refusing to vote for the lesser evil because they don't offer the right candidates and advocating revolution.
why not take a page from the right's clearly successful playbook and vote more in local politics and primaries. Maga managed to turn the republicans into exactly what they wanted this way, but the American left just sits there waiting for someone to start a revolution.
well I understand it might be late now and elections might not do much going forward, but jesus it's like the only option you guys saw is voting for whoever the parties put toward or revolution.
This is a very naive take and calling someone as enthusiastic about genocide as Biden/Kamala "lesser evil" just shows you don't give a fuck about people in the global south. I voted for the only true harm reduction candidate and that was PSL. Please, respectfully, take one second to think of the people on the other end of the barrel of the gun that is US foreign policy. Or even think about trans people and migrants in the US whom both parties continue to persecute and subjugate. Comments like yours just scream "I'm super privileged and just don't like this one guy for being so vulgar while doing the same shit as every president before him".
I just think you should consider not only the ideal outcome of your vote but also the most likely one. what did voting third party actually do here other than make you feel good? Trump has in fact been doing worse than kamala would have on the middle east and is gunning for a war against Iran. in addition but obviously not nearly as bad as the genocide, his tariffs will negatively impact a lot of people in southeast asia.
but more than all that, and I'm not saying you personally do this, I'm tired of people not voting in any election but the presidential and then complaining about the choices they ended up with.
I'm in california lol my vote means fuck all, so why should I throw it away for Kamala? You liberals really don't think too hard about things do you?
Also I dislike the assumption that because I don't participate in the circus of electoral politics that I am not engaged with actual meaningful political projects year round. It shows an incredible lack of imagination or understanding of how real positive change is actually made and how political power is built. But yeah keep voting for people that hate you hoping that things will somehow get better.
I did not assume anything about you, I specifically said I wasn't saying you personally did this. but you can't deny there's a decent proportion of left-leaning voters who do this.
I'm also not a liberal, neither the US usage of the term nor the original usage. But do keep insulting everyone who disagrees with you, I'm sure it will be great for attracting people to your cause
I vote in primaries. I also see how, in local races, the party pulls out all the stops to stop progressive challengers to conservative incumbents, an advantage not afforded to progressive incumbents with conservative challengers.
Progressives have won many local seats in places, so no they are not being stopped. At higher level offices yes of course they struggle to knock out funded, well known incumbents. But it's the pitiful turnout at these primaries is the real problem. If progressives even marginally increased turnout they'd win a lot more seats.
Like I also don't get this complaint on some level: Yes they lose to incumbents working against them. The progressive candidates are running against them and trying to take their seat. 90% of the time their rhetoric is antagonistic to the democratic party. Why would they expect a friendly, helping hand from an org they often paint as their opposition?
centrists don't have to be 100% successful in their efforts to make sure that only republicans and centrists are allowed to run.
So how low is the cutoff here? Where's the line that deliniates "where progressives can win" and "where putting our thumb on the scale against progressives is acceptable"?
Cuellar beat Cisneros by like 500 votes after the party put its full weight behind him. Of course, he was a high enough level to be worth protecting. At the same level, we had Cori Bush and Jamaal Bowman, who the party didn't want to protect because they were progressive incumbents.
Because we've seen decades of the democratic party offering a friendly helping hand to republicans.
You completely ignored the thrust of my argument. Why should progressives running against democrats while railing against the Democratic Party expect a helping hand from their opponent/the democratic party?
I have worked successful progressive campaigns and let me tell you, that’s not an expectation of winning candidates.
Why should progressives get treated worse by democrats than republicans do? You're acting like progressives are instigating here.
Where on earth are you getting that idea? They aren’t treated worse because that makes no sense. They are in a primary, they are direct competitors. There are no Republicans in the democratic primaries.
The messaging to progressives is "You will shut up and vote as we order you. We will never listen to your concerns and we will blame you for every loss we earn."
The messaging to republicans is "Ok, who do we have to throw under the bus to get your support, Mr. Cheney, sir?"
Yes, progressives are treated worse. Your gaslighting is predicated on a ridiculous lie and I will not be interacting with someone who insults my intelligence as harshly as you just did.
Where are you getting this information? Where have you seen this? How many campaigns have you worked on? Are you involved in politics yourself?
You’re conflating how they handle general elections/treat progressives, which is piss poor, with how primaries go down. These are two very different discussions even though it may not seem that way.
Insulted your intelligence? I think you’re probably a very smart person. I never called that into question, but you’re welcome to show me where I did.
You’re making a lot of claims about how things are and I’m not seeing where you’re getting the information.
So, you've gone from telling ridiculous lies about how rejecting progressives and kissing republican ass is somehow treating progressives better than republicans. When you were called on it, you acted like you said nothing of the sort, and now you're sealioning.
I don't want to talk to such distilled dishonesty anymore. It's bad for the soul to be reminded you exist.
Dude, with all due respect, what the fuck are you talking about? Seriously. Quote me here, I legitimately have no clue what you are on about. I've gone back and squinted as hard as I can at this comment chain, I really do no understand where you think I said any of these things, because I sure as shit don't believe them.
So the party treats progressives worse than it does republicans, then?
No apparently we’re done interacting so it’s a bit late to actually ask me to clarify or explain. I have no reason to believe you have an open mind or will treat anything I say with anything less than the worst possible interpretation.
I said what I said. Feel free to reread it with a more generous lens if you’re actually serious.
As soon as I ask a question you know the answer to, but don't want to answer. At least you've finally accepted that I don't want to interact with you, now that it's convenient.
Too bad it won't last.
Look, I’m sure you’re a perfectly nice guy. Let me be the first year to bury the hatchet and say sorry, I let this spiral out of control and got Internet tough guy about it. I do not feel you’re being very fair to what I am saying and I am feeling rather misinterpreted in a hostile way, but I’m going to assume that was not your intention and that you have some equally valid feeling about the way I have been interacting. Let’s just shake hands and move on.
If you seriously expect me to believe, despite the past dozen years, that democrats treat republicans worse than they treat progressives, you have been interpreted correctly.
Well that was disappointing but fair enough. Have a good one dude.
In my city, we have a barely-there progressive, third party with a presence in the city and county government. It's all that remains of an attempt to in the 1990's to launch a Midwestern political party based on an electoral reform called "fusion voting," which would allow a candidate to get the endorsement of multiple parties, and appear on the ballot multiple times as a candidate under each of those party banners. That way, the candidate would know where their support came from, without the "spoiler effect." I learned from the Wikipedia page that it was an important tactic in the movement to abolish slavery.
But, in this case, the Democratic Party (technically, the Democratic Farm Labor Party) went to court to shoot down that idea, arguing that it was too confusing to voters. The American left isn't just sitting here waiting for someone to start a revolution, it has two major political parties actively suppressing it.
Amusingly, one tidbit of information that I just now learned from that Wikipedia article, presented without further comment:
Because it doesn't work. It will never work. There is no amount of voting in America will change the fact that it is and always has been ruled by the rich elites who maintain an socioeconomic system that prevents change.
Your apathy and disillusionment is affecting the rest of the world now.
Is your system broken? Yes. Could it be fixed through slow progress if people cared enough to vote, it likely could have. Bernie would have tried at least. You’re probably too far gone now for this path, but you can still prevent human rights atrocities by voting, that is still within your power.
Your belief in lies and propaganda and participation in a system that keeps you doing nothing while you are raped by the wealthy is affecting the rest of the world. Also the bombs you pay for to drop on my family. Maybe you should stand up and do something besides nothing for once in your life, voting this far has gotten the US a fascist country run by the wealthy which is exactly how it was started. I feel bad for you how deeply you fell for lies and stories for children.
Naw it's valid anger in response to "surface civility" i see "pretend intellectuals" use when they speak.
Just... repeating what talking heads say, just deadass parroting some pundit on tv like it's gospel? Quite rage inducing.
Combined with lil comments assuming superiority? Haha of course OP got pissed. Arrogant + ignorant is a powerful combination
Enough about that.
Let's talk about you.
You need to tend your own garden. Fascism is on the rise worldwide, including wherever you are from. Stop wagging your finger and pick up a hoe.
Using ablesist terms makes you look like a douchebag.
Cringe take
Democracy has never done anything, not the creation of the Republican party, the abolition of slavery, the 19th amendment, the new deal, or the civil rights act.
Those were all conspiracies of the elites leadering the population kicking and screaming into modernity.
Edit/s
what
The American left tried very hard to get representation within the Democratic party, and the Democratic party pulled out all the stops to prevent it, in a way they would never do to oppose the Republicans, and that the Republicans would never do to oppose MAGA.
From what I remember, they repeatedly voted against anything left of what they considered centre in the primaries because they followed the theory that only centrists (or those as close to the other party as possible) win elections, by swaying swing voters in the middle. The other party had long abandoned the idea by this point however, because chasing what they considered centre often meant upsetting those finding themselves outside of that centre.
If the people voting in the primaries were more representative of those outside views, perhaps there could have been another outcome. However, not many of those people vote in primaries.
Hard to win primaries when the party itself stacks the deck against you. Or just doesn't bother to have them at all
True, although I believe things only got so bad after the party elite had became isolated from their base, and the above is how they initially became isolated from them in the first place.
Maybe, but it happened decades ago, before most of the modern left were old enough to intervene.
I suppose you're right. They'd been shifting for a long time.
Yup, and now they're at the point of full on fascist genocide, and their base will engage in the most disgusting dishonesty to defend it.
Liberals, every accusation a confession. It is objectively and demonstrably the coward "lesser evil" voters who are lazy and refuse to do anything of value, patting themselves on the back and thinking they've done their "civic duty" by penciling in the bubble endorsing genocide so they can call it a day. Socialists are the ones who realize that actual work has to be done for any material difference to ever be made and you have to constantly fight systemic injustice and materially help marginalized people rather than do a little masturbatory performative nod to the status quo once every couple (or every 4) years. The people you're calling lazy are the ones who are out there volunteering their labor to provide food and other essentials for unhoused people or people otherwise impoverished by the system of exploitation that both republican and democrat fascists force upon the world. It's the socialists who are out in the street doing what they can to build parallel power structures that will continue to help actual people while cloistered, privileged, treat-obsessed liberals sit content in their bubble, pretending they spoke truth to power by voting for that same power.
What's immediately hilarious about your lie is that most socialists did vote (despite knowing how insufficient it is to accomplish literally anything worthwhile) they just didn't vote for the blue donkey version of the fascists that liberals like you worship, they voted for De La Cruz (or La Riva before her). So saying that it's socialists who are lazy for not voting is an immediate tell that you're either painfully ignorant or cynically lying (likely both) since most socialists did do that ineffectual bare minimum thing you foolishly think is so important, they just aren't stupid cowards like the liberals who pretend they did such hard work by filling out a ballot for fascists. Thanks for outing yourself as being the one guilty of everything you just accused socialists of.
Have you ever experienced a stun grenade? Tear gas? Have you been grabbed by a MAGAt as he screamed “RACE TRAITOR” in your face? Have you had your camera grabbed by a Qultist as he screamed “FUCK YOU FAKE NEWS” in your face? Don’t fucking presume to know me.