I see . . . so Bernie was going to do what about that again?
Use the bully pulpit to expose the system as it is and remind people that government can actually do things that help people and make their lives better. They’ve managed to remove such dialog from the range of dialogue allowed in the national discourse by our giant media conglomerates. The presidency has quite a large ability to impact the temperament and attitudes of the country - we saw this for the worse under Trump. We could’ve had a shift like that, except in the right direction, and that will shift politics in its wake.
The one thing both parties agree on is that progressive policies and discussion cannot be allowed to enter the American political overton window.
So we don’t live in a managed democracy…
We do. Obviously Bernie and any other progressive candidates were never going to get a serious chance to ever enact policy. The media - 96% of which is controlled by 6 giant conglomerates - made sure to push the narrative that Bernie was far too extreme maximum socialist marxist communist to be any a real candidate, and actively campaigned against him. The democratic party made 3 or 4 candidates to drop out so they could consolidate the vote behind a terrible candidate. Bernie was a weird fluke and they successfully stamped that out because we are indeed in a managed democracy.
Managed democracies work, in part, because of the compliant people who play within the bounds they set for you, like how all of you are talking about how our moral obligation is to continue to support the democratic party for our entire lives even though they never actually fucking do anything useful; because their opponents are even worse and you are just as evil as them if you want anything outside the bounds of what has been allowed to us. You are the wardens in your own prison.
So, the Democrats suck because they never do anything but we should have elected Bernie because he’d never get a chance to enact policy, ya know do anything, but he’d talk a lot and that would change . . . EVERYTHING!
You’re not very good at reading, thinking, or writing.
I dunno, though. While I definitely agree that the mainstream alternatives of “really right wing” and “sorta centrist” have profoundly deprioritized and disadvantaged the interests of ordinary people, at the same time mainstream Democrats have done quite a bit of stuff to make ordinary people’s lives better. Too slowly and too incompletely, true, but not negligibly. The Affordable Care Act, the rescue and infrastructure bills, support for unions, civil rights, abortion rights, and so on, are things that Republicans would never have done, even if they’re not enough to hold the line against Republican destructiveness.
But it is our job. Not the part about crafting policy directly, but the part about electing Congresspeople who will craft the policies we want.
Just as mainstream and centrist Democrats shouldn’t just assume it’s the duty of progressives to deliver their votes to the chosen Democratic candidate, progressives shouldn’t just assume it’s the duty of mainstream and centrist Democrats to deliver the candidate that the progressives prefer. If we want the party to move to the left, we’re the only ones who can move it.
A better known example for most Americans is the run-up to the Nazi takeover in Germany, when the Communists and the Social Democrats did the same thing.
Without a doubt, looked at historically. But in recent decades, this country’s lurch to the right has taken all mainstream politics with it.
We really do need to exterminate the Republican Party before we can get anything accomplished. And “anything” includes letting the Democratic Party fission into two parties, one progressive and one . . . less so. I have no idea how to eliminate the troglodyte right from the political landscape, but it must be done.
I fear it’s like Sam Gamgee observed: the way home goes past Mount Doom.
What I have learned from this thread is that children who have parents who give in to their temper tantrums never grow out of it, and enter adult life with the belief that if they want something, they just have to yell and scream louder and louder until they get it.
You aren’t normally a smug asshole, but here you sure do seem to be trying hard to come across as one, because you have no fucking clue what it takes for some people to have their vote counted. Allow me to illustrate, and I will do so by way of the 2020 election.
I cast a protest vote in 2020. That’s right. In 2020, with Trump an out and out fascist in the White House, I cast a protest vote, and nothing more. My protest vote was for Joe Biden. Joe Biden. The guy who won the general election. Except he didn’t get into office with the help of my vote, because the popular vote doesn’t count for shit when it comes to who makes it into the White House (as our good friend HC can attest). My state went for Trump. Just like it did in 2016, and just like it might well again in 2024. Just like it went for Romney in 2012, for McCain in 2008, for Bush in 2004 and 2000, Dole in 1996, Bush the Elder in 1992 and 1988, and of course with a track record like that you can bet it sure as shit didn’t go for Mondale in '84.
That’s my whole life. My whole life, I can say for certain that someone with my political alignment, voting in a presidential election in my state, was throwing their vote away, except to the extent that a protest vote was worth it. And while I suppose it might be worth it to vote in protest against the likes of Nixon et. seq., some of us don’t have the luxury of easy access to the polls. It’s not a simple matter of walking down to a polling station at a convenient time and casting a ballot. So when it comes right down to it, there is a very real cost to voting, and not much gained in voting, because my vote will never matter in a presidential election. Not ever. Not just that it will be but one of millions, counting as decimal dust in the balance, but that it will count for nil, the same as if it had not been cast.
I voted in the 2020 election out of pure outrage. I drove 2600 fucking miles in a weekend to cast my ballot in person out of pure outrage. It was an expression of outrage. That is the one thing that was at issue for me in the 2020 election, and it is the one thing that will compel me to vote in 2022: outrage.
The problem with the moderate/centrist clique of the Democratic Party, with Hillary Clinton as its figurehead in 2016, is it doesn’t understand the power of outrage.
Anyway, fuck you again Stoid, for starting this thread. Hell, you ought to do the party a favor and run for office as a Republican: I’d drive the width of this country and back again to vote against you too if it came down to it.
Okay, maybe that’s not fair. Stoid, I’m sorry I accused you of being the sort of person who would run for office as a Republican. Too far.
As I always say, go to the polls to vote locally. Vote for your mayor, trustee, councilman, schoolboard, or dog catcher.
Those are what are important to you, the ones that will have the greatest impact on your day to day life, and those are also the ones where your vote matters the most. That’s why you should vote. Do you remember who you voted for in those offices?
While you are there, may as well vote for the state and national candidates as well.
But sure, I completely understand that for some people, voting is a huge obstacle. Republicans have specifically tried their damndest to make it that way. I don’t know if I would go out and vote if I had to wait 7 hours, as many who voted for Clinton and Biden did. I don’t know if I would go to vote if I had to worry about being turned away because of lack of “proper” ID, as many who voted for Clinton and Biden did. I don’t know if I would drive 2600 miles in a weekend in order to vote, as you apparently did.
But if you are able to make it to the polls, then you should vote, and it would be in one’s best interest to vote for the party that wants to make it easier to vote, if nothing else.
@SmartAleq did not say here that they didn’t vote for Clinton because access to the polls was difficult, they said they didn’t vote for them because they weren’t good enough for them. If @SmartAleq’s point was that they weren’t going to drive 2600 miles over a weekend, stand in line for 7 hours, and potentially be turned away due to lack of “proper” ID, I’d understand, but that was not their point.
And if someone has easy access to polls, and I believe that @SmartAleq said they lived in Oregon, a mail in voting state, the easiest way to vote, then they are insulting those who did drive 2600 miles or wait in line for 7 hours or get turned away because of “improper” ID, by sitting on their ass and demanding that someone fix all their problems before they are willing to lift a single finger of their own.
That’s being a smug asshole.
Seems to me y’all who live in the stupid states ought to fix your ways of voting. Oregon and Washington have shown that mail in voting WORKS, and you have to go out of your way to NOT be eligible to vote here. I didn’t vote for Clinton because she’s a shit candidate, a shit person, and wholly owned and operated by the corporate oligarchy. She’s not only not good enough for me, she’s actively toxic and horrendous. So is Biden, so is Harris and I will NOT vote for any of them, just as I didn’t vote for any of them the last two times around the bullshit “election” process.
I live in Oregon because it’s one of the very few sane places to live in this shit country and I will fight like a fucking pit bull to keep it that way. The rest of you are on your own, SCOTUS has been very clear that turning us into the Balkan states is what they’re after–divide and conquer. Get your shit together or you’ll be first to go down the pipes with every flush. And you’ll deserve it because YOU live in these states and YOU allowed them to do what they’ve done and YOU have sat smugly and watched systematic and systemic voter disenfranchisement and you did nothing about it. Don’t fucking blame me for what your states have done, I live HERE and this is where I fight.
And no, I won’t be voting for another far right Democratic Party apparatchik. EVER. Get used to it.
Putin and his Republicans thank you for your tantrums.
Is Putin in the room with you right now? Idiot.
Either you don’t understand a pretty common turn of phrase, or you actually think that you actually had a useful comeback there.
In any case, you can scream your little heart out, you can kick your little legs, you can hold your breath until your face turns blue, but you’re not getting a pony.
And there we go. Fuck the women seeking abortions in red states. Fuck all those other rights that will get rolled back. Fuck the climate (oh wait, that one doesn’t stop at state boundaries).
Thankfully, you live in a state where your vote doesn’t matter, so your vote for Trump was like dust in the wind.
Yep. That’s how I see it too.
By the way, @Stoid never mentioned liberals or progressives in her OP. She said democrats. Exit polls in rust belt states that usually go blue showed that while there was a slight dip in black voters, Trump won by taking white, no-college voters. I wonder how many of those voters give a fuck about abortion rights? I doubt they give a fuck about climate change.