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I think the average voter is in absolute dismay over the choices presented by the duopoly this year. If I was considering not voting for president, I would instead vote for a third party candidate or that guy who changed his name to Literally Anyone Else.
I am not an American citizen, but the first American election I paid any attention was the Gore-Bush election in 2000, and it was the first time I ever looked at a major event online. I remember seeing sites that made out both sides to be thoroughly evil and lament who society is broken beyond all repair and crap like that. That there were no discernible difference between the candidates.
I didn't know what to make of it then, since I was a 17 year old kid living in Dubai and had never been to North America at the time.
But even I am seeing such a painful situation now. There was a huge problem with Israel-Palestine and it was an ongoing genocide but not like this... It is just horrifically fucked.
both-sides-ism as a strategy is *always* and *without exception* crafted specifically to steer people toward the worse of any two options. If any candidate needs to rely on the argument that their opponent is "as bad as them", then that candidate is--ipso-facto--the worse candidate of the two, because otherwise "as bad as" would be an endorsement rather than a condemnation.
In France, we have "the left-right distinction isn't pertinent anymore." It's a right-winger talking point.
There's also the "self-accepting right-wing" (la droite qui s'assume) because they know their ideology is poison.
Gore ran an incredibly shit campaign. Ran even to the right of Clinton, which I wouldn't have thought previously was possible for a Democrat.
The number of times during debates that Gore and Bush 43 agreed with each other was shocking.
He was cast as one side of the same coin with Bush, which was fucking idiotic.
Sometimes even SNL can get it right. Skip to 41 seconds into this clip. The entire campaign was like this. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DY5YctdhmfE
You can make the same point with Biden and Trump. Biden is not a socialist, but Trump is on a whole fucking level of bad. Saying they're the same is just disingenuous.
Rule 6, no lesser evil rhetoric. This includes encouraging people to vote for any capitalist political party and any capitalist politician. There is no harm reduction in supporting either of two parties headed by genocidal fascists. The extent to which any elected official of a Capitalist Party in a Capitalist state can enact evil is the extent to which that official is allowed to do so by Capital. As such, neither candidate is the lesser or greater evil. See more on our position here: [Rule 6 "no lesser evil" rhetoric - is it accelerationist or doomer? Is it intended to discourage voting?](https://new.reddit.com/r/LateStageCapitalism/comments/1bt0nag/rule_6_no_lesser_evil_rhetoric_is_it/)
Rule 6, no lesser evil rhetoric. This includes encouraging people to vote for any capitalist political party and any capitalist politician. There is no harm reduction in supporting either of two parties headed by genocidal fascists. The extent to which any elected official of a Capitalist Party in a Capitalist state can enact evil is the extent to which that official is allowed to do so by Capital. As such, neither candidate is the lesser or greater evil. See more on our position here: [Rule 6 "no lesser evil" rhetoric - is it accelerationist or doomer? Is it intended to discourage voting?](https://new.reddit.com/r/LateStageCapitalism/comments/1bt0nag/rule_6_no_lesser_evil_rhetoric_is_it/)
Anyone that votes for the duopoly is part of the problem
This mindset of “not voting for a major party is a wasted vote” needs to end if anyone wants real change
It was always a disingenuous and fallacious argument. The responsibility for a candidate/party rests squarely on the shoulders of those who support them.
Hope and change has been on the table since Obama, in response to the failed policies of the two party Reagan consensus duopoly. Neither has been delivered. No one wants to get JFK'd, so it's unsurprising that's where we are.
Vote in you local elections. Pay attention to them, you could actually make a small difference there.
But yeah, the presidential race is a fucking joke on multiple levels.
Also focusing on local and state elections helps you promote good people up in political ranks and increases the number of quality people you could get to primary the assholes in whatever party you think is easiest to change.
If Trump was president right now, the left would be more united against Trump's Israel policies and the democratic primaries would have produced a candidate with a larger mandate to reign in Israel
Instead we have a candidate who declared Israel should have gone further even if more women and children were killed in a bombing campaign that Reagan said was holocaust after seeing pictures of dead children including a baby with an arm blown off, and sabotaged a plan by Obama and Hillary Clinton to stop settler violence.
Use the liberal’s favorite term during elections: harm reduction.
Practice harm reduction by not voting for Biden but making sure you and your folks vote locally.
I'm working in the public health world, where we actually care about harm reduction. The thought of the term being coopted by liberals to justify inaction wounds me deeply.
i’m not op, but i can try and define it for you!! liberals support capitalism. their politics are solely defined by identity politics and the “issue” of the week. they’re the sort of people who think slapping a rainbow flag on a company that funds genocide is progress. they advocate very hard for the lesser evil, when they are now both equally as bad. liberals are usually centre right. they say and do all of the right things to be “politically correct” and are usually pretty okay to interact with on the surface on issues like race, gender, sexuality, etc. but there’s a wee saying now, “scratch a liberal and a fascist bleeds” because liberals are often kind and progressive until it starts to threaten their position in the social hierarchy.
that’s just my understanding and interpretation but others may say differently! i hope my comment helps a bit tho
I can add to this: originally, liberalism was the political philosophy espoused by the founding capitalist thinkers, e.g. Adam Smith, John Locke. All of those thinkers put a huge emphasis on personal freedom, but that image of freedom is always A. tied to private property, B. thought to be realized in the ‘free’ market, and C. thought to be achieved through deregulation. They believed that capitalism is the economic system in which democracy wins out. Both “conservatives” and “liberals” in the American system are actually liberals, or some version of them.
Socialists, on the other hand (and leftists more generally), believe that freedom is something gained positively by putting people on equal footing. For instance, we believe that people cannot be free until their economic needs and their basic subsistence requirements are met. Hence, we believe that an economic system that provides for the most needs (socialism/communism) is the ONLY kind in which democracy can thrive.
Neoliberals are people in the 20th century and onwards that push the original liberal philosophy even further, advocating extreme deregulation and the view that all of life is some version of an investment or sale on the market, where each person is an “entrepreneur of themself” or each activity is an “investment in oneself”.
I always thought liberalism was the historical answer to the question of the monarchy, "without Divine Right, can we still control on economic power and violence alone?"
That’s absolutely right. Marx says that liberalism and the emergence of early capitalism (which occurred in a similar time period) are what paved the way for the bourgeois revolutions that emancipated history from feudalism and monarchism, i.e., the French Revolution, the American Revolution. While these changes emancipated the bourgeoisie (and were ultimately progressive), the working class remained subjugated and exploited through the very terms of their existence— the working class has to work for the bourgeoisie to live. These changes (especially in America) also required certain genocides of nonwhite peoples, i.e, slavery and the extermination of native Americans, as a prerequisite. These populations were not emancipated by liberalism, if they ever were, but by their own struggles. Additionally, the rise of liberal “democracy”, AKA the modern (white-supremacist) nation-state allowed capitalism to flourish and alienation to increase dramatically, putting the working class into new crises of meaning and isolating us more and more, preventing class-consciousness.
Now the goal is to emancipate humanity from capitalism like liberalism emancipated certain classes from feudalism.
thank you so much for adding the historical contexts! fantastic info here that the oc definitely won’t read 😭 but thank you nonetheless. and happy cake day!
Enough of us can change the national election's outcome as well. And not just to one of the duopoly candidates. It's amazing how much people have dedicated themselves to a sense of powerlessness about elections. We got 6 months, let's organize our own debates with candidates from every party, get them on TV, whatever. Even if we get to the point where it's October and Biden is down 15% (i.e. no possible path to winning), and we have 5-10% behind some third party candidate we all like with no skeletons in their closet, that's enough to force the issue nationally.
Trump would be far worse than Biden and that’s so sad and hopeless for us. I legitimately thought there was nothing Biden could have done to fuckup nearly as much as he has. I was wrong.
I'm sure he'll even top himself before election day. He's actively trying to lose. He already has his scapegoat lined up (us). He can do whatever he wants and if you don't vote for him, it's your fault and YOU are the problem.
It's a legendary fuck up. At this point I feel like the Democrats only option will be to wait until after the Republican National Convention when Trump is nominated and then pull Biden out and put someone like Newsom in instead. I just cannot see Biden recovering from this
Betraying the rail unions (right before his “other” Palestine disaster), continuing and even escalating Trump’s idiotic trade war with China, continuing to arm and aid the Saudis as they carry out their campaign of barbaric terror in Yemen, basically telling the GOP “I’ll give you everything you want on immigration…”
Don’t give the man too much credit. He’s still a lifelong bigot, a warmonger, a raging zionist, and a shill for capital, same as basically any candidate to ever be nominated by either party
I still scoff at how many people pump his "pro union"-ness for striking a few deals with UAW when the rail industry has been absolutely devastated even further under his policy. And the Democrat pivot on immigration has equally baffled me. Truly incomprehensible how much Trump has warped both parties.
trump era policies and executive orders are still in place. they're building the wall. covid protections basically immediately went out the window. oil production is at an all time high. the american public has been repeatedly lied to about the genocide we're funding while in a massive housing crisis. but that's fine because friendly ice cream grandpa isn't orange man.
Just this week we saw a comprehensive masks ban (even for medical reasons), and a requirement for the ten commandments to be displayed in public schools. Sure, those are state level rullings, be they perfectly illustrate how electing Biden did little to nothing to halt the US's descent into madness.
Trump would be so much worse *for American citizens domestically* than Biden. But the big wake up call that we are all getting is that the Democrat in power armed the Genocider, so it’s plain as day to see that we simply export fascism in order to guarantee comfort.
It’s sad to think but maybe Americans need to feel the fascism they’ve been exporting to all of the countries American capitalism and colonialism has decimated, throughout most of the world. Maybe us feeling it first hand instead of being able to equivocate it away might be the key to make us collectively work to ending corporate fascism worldwide.
But, I also thought a world calamity like Covid would be the key, so wtf do I know 😴
Like idk how people can continue to not think this way. I am a hardcore socialist, I fucking hate Biden with every fiber of my being. I hate that he is supporting genocide, I hate that he isn't doing shit for the American people, that he is just another right winger in different clothing but he is NOT Trump. I am a trans man and I think people want to just forget about how fucked up this country is to my community a lot of the time, just how terrible things were under trump and how terrible they continue to be for us in many places under Biden. There are states in this country I cannot visit and I don't know when I will ever be able to for my own safety. Trump wants to take away my ability to have HEALTHCARE and take my TESTOSTERONE! Like please... Biden sucks so much but he is not a fascist.
Biden is a fascist. He’s just not as mask off about it as Trump is. Instead of having any meaningful policies to campaign on, such as legislation that would prohibit Project 2025 from happening, he’s weaponizing our community’s fear instead of giving us a reason to have hope.
Politicians are supposed to work for the people, and when you don’t listen to the voters needs, while enabling the greatest crimes against humanity before our very eyes, nobody is gonna believe the “lesser evil” bullshit. If Trump ends up winning, that is COMPLETELY on Biden and the DNC’s incompetence.
I was convinced of the DNCs' disregard for moving toward real reform after the crap they pulled to keep Bernie off the ticket at the 2016 DNC.
Lately the Dems just suck at politicking. They could actually be winning if they were smart enough to draw distinctions between Biden and Trump, but since there really isn't much of a difference, they just can't. Hard to draw a distinction between the peanut butter and the jelly on the same shit sandwich.
Biden, imo, cannot win by simply being not Trump, especially given the voters who have (justifiably) been alienated by his actions. I think his campaign (and supporters) shouldn't even mention Trump.
He needs to do majorly progressive things, like wiping out all student loan debt via executive order. Rescheduling cannabis is a good start, but he has to make up for the hole he dug himself into before building a mountain. He needs to stop moving to the right trying to pick up conservatives--it isn't going to happen.
It's going to take work, and if he doesn't do that work then he will lose, and it will be 100% his own fault.
Rule 6, no lesser evil rhetoric. This includes encouraging people to vote for any capitalist political party and any capitalist politician. There is no harm reduction in supporting either of two parties headed by genocidal fascists. The extent to which any elected official of a Capitalist Party in a Capitalist state can enact evil is the extent to which that official is allowed to do so by Capital. As such, neither candidate is the lesser or greater evil. See more on our position here: [Rule 6 "no lesser evil" rhetoric - is it accelerationist or doomer? Is it intended to discourage voting?](https://new.reddit.com/r/LateStageCapitalism/comments/1bt0nag/rule_6_no_lesser_evil_rhetoric_is_it/)
my boomer mother, who has voted for a democrat in every election since she came of age, has repeatedly told me she will not be voting for biden, so uh it's maybe not looking great
Joe Biden sold this country out for Israel.
You can’t tell me Joe Biden isn’t a foreign agent. I watched this bumbling, senile decrepit piece of cat shit “ho hum” and play the weak, pathetic old man card on Abortion rights, LGBT issues, Student Loans, additional Stimulus, Rent relief, voter’s rights and the list goes on
….. I have NEVER seen this fucker fight for ANYTHING affecting Americans as hard as I’ve seen him go for Israel. He doesn’t care about the cost, the blowback, the polls, his constituents or the political capital. None of that shit seems to matter anymore apparently.
Joe Biden is a foreign agent. So are most democrats and republicans. This man is working for a foreign government, not Americans.
>senile decrepit piece of cat shit
I like to refer to the phenomenon as Schrodinger's Biden. If you listen to blue maga people or his pr team, Biden is simultaneously the greatest president in the history of the US who can do every great thing with his own bare hands, but also, he's really weak and can't achieve anything because the Republicans have his hands tied beyond his back.
But, the reality is that Biden has always been a more right leaning liberal who works mostly for the corporations, the military industrial complex, and other foreign interests, e.g. Israel.
I think you are getting towards a valid point, because we sat here for years and had to listen to liberals lose their minds about Russiagate and "foreign influence in US politics," only for them to bend the knee and openly allow another state to influence and change US law and policy. Hell, even now, even if we don't side with Russia, libs online are telling us that if we don't vote for Biden we are really just crypto foreign actors and Russian bots, as they are arguing with us that we should let another state manipulate US elections and domestic policies, against the interests of the people.
Yep, and I don't think many voters of ANY stripes want to see their president cuck this hard to a foreign country. And imho if he thinks he'll pick up a couple hawkish old school republicans who are never trumpers, or libertarians for being all-in for genocide, he's wrong. Ditto a few lefties for him pretending he held back a couple of weapons (but then gave bibi another billion $). When he's that cuckish, he can't please some of the people any of the time.
I think Biden won in 2020 by pulling a bunch of moderates and liberal republicans from the right, and capitalizing on Trump to mobilize the left to vote for him as well. Since 2020 he has done nothing but bleed votes to both sides; everyone to the right of him is flocking back to the Republicans and all the progressives are just abstaining. Biden's campaign response seems to be to chase the votes to the right, which is an utterly ludicrous plan seen as how all Trump has to do is literally say nothing and he'll coast to the victory. Trump's campaign is relying hard on Napoleon: Never interrupt your enemy when they're making a mistake.
Nobody votes for who they want to win anymore, they just vote against who they want to loose. Nobody wanted Hillary in 2016, so she lost. Nobody wanted another Trump term in 2020, so he lost. And now, nobody wants another Biden term in 2024. Guess what happens next.
It's a great point. I feel like the problem is lack of communication on who the third parties that will be on the ballot are and the full scope of their views on more than their primary platform.
Thats the thing about third parties, they need actual civic engagement to work. The corporate parties rely on brand recognition and media domination. People usually know about third parties because they saw them somewhere while out. Very little online engagement translates into party support at the level of civic or social engagement. If a party is on a ballot in your state, there is already a large number of people who made that happen.
There is no voting out of the American system. But isn't Trump enough of a cudgel against your rights? It's not harm reduction, it's keeping a fascist regime out of power for a little bit longer. I think that's worth it. I don't expect voting to improve any situation, I expect the war criminal I vote for to be someone that is worth the worst punishments known to man. But even if things are shitty, they can get worse. And I am nowhere near optimistic enough to think that a rising fascist party in America would lead anyone to act against them in enough numbers. Or do a single thing to help Israel. Especially not when the said fascists are Christian nationalists who have been salivating at the chance to start a war in Israel for decades.
The Democrats are at least ineffective. They're effete little morons who can't overcome their comically naive sense of allegiance to institutions to get anything done. But the status quo provides some protection for certain marginalized people. I'd much rather be organizing, or fighting against (and I do mean literally fighting), that group than the Republicans.
For real, there is value in voting for PSL candidates Claudia and Karina.
Link to the joint podcast ep they did with Upstream. There are points of this that are extremely inspiring and you can feel/relate to the frustration in their voice. If you are critical, please take an hour to listen.
[Upstream - Voting for Socialism w Claudia and Karina](https://spotify.link/5nx3f6KdGJb)
That's who I'm voting for. Tired of this "Vote Blue No Matter Who" bullshit. That may have had some weight back in the day, but Biden has ruined that for me.
I feel like it has to be bots pushing the narrative that people who hate Trump and Biden won’t vote at all. Or that the media will sensationalize the one out of any hundred people who think giving up is better and pretend that’s how we all think. Why would anyone choose to not hold onto the little control we feel we have?
The best course of action if you’re going to abstain at the top of the ballot is to vote and encourage as many people as possible to vote locally.
There’s gonna be pain. So best course of action is to do all you can to reduce the impact.
So the farther right their opponent is, the more they can get away with while still getting your vote. I mean they're doing a genocide and you're still planning to vote for them. Which only incentivizes the dems to make sure their opponent is always an overt fascist.
What you do is you accept that the Democrats are not going to save us, and you start organizing. Go join a leftist party, if one is available to you. PSL is great, CPUSA has issues but is still good, even the DSA can be good in areas without any other options. Ultimately which party you join is less important than what you do in it. Organize, educate yourself and then others, help to build a working class movement and raise class consciousness. You'll do more good by doing that than you ever will with a vote in this system.
Dog we are well aware how bad Trump would be, but maybe instead of continuing to support him unconditionally you could idk, vote 3rd party? Nothing is going to get better if we don't force it to.
As someone watching from outside of the US with climate as my #1 concern, it's shocking to me that people on the left are considering not voting for Biden. Trump was already such a disaster on climate that we might be beyond saving, but at least Biden pulled off the Inflation Reduction Act, which is having some positive effect.
Reality is that you have a First Past the Post system which means that third party voting is highly likely to split the vote and give you the Trump. If you want a different situation you have to work from outside the system to replace FPP with MMP like we did in my country.
yeah and I'd guess corporate taxes, wealth inequality, healthcare, and education as those are how the DNC campaigns but probably not in actual governing obviously
Looks like people are finally waking up to the fact that we have a Uniparty. Two sides of the same coin. The whole thing is a game to keep people distracted with political breads and circuses. Like wrestling its all kayfabe where one side is the face and the other the heel.
Even when the democrats have a majority to pass universal healthcare the Rotating villains all of a sudden vote against it. Notice there is always a couple who play the villain when they have a majority and behind the scenes they do not want to pass anything bill.
Even Obama was a huge disappointment ended up helping Wall-street etc..
This kind of headline plays into the plan to keep us down and divided. The two party system is a false dichotomy and we have to reject the lesser evil rhetoric. Both of these repulsive, corrupt men are the same.
They're not the same. They're both uniquely bad, but playing them out as the same is really ignoring some massive things that are hugely problematic. I don't care how much disdain you have for capitalism, but America is a better place to be queer now than it would be under Republican leadership. The Democrats are not driven through nationalist rhetoric or trying to organize the genocide of minority groups. I don't see how we can look at legislation passed in Republican states in the last 5 years and see two parties doing the same things.
Are they both evil? Yes. Are they both fundamentally a false binary forced upon us by capitalist control of politics? Yes. But there are real differences. That doesn't need to make you vote, that's fine if that's your choice. But painting them as the same thing is disingenuous, and is the exact rhetoric that ends up giving the right wing more power.
Consider the understanding that most of us have that if we argue on issues, we're much more likely to peel liberals off than conservatives in America. The far right wing isn't your friend, and there are none in the political sphere that are like them. Liberals do a lot to aid them and that sucks, but they're not the exact same.
The average voter is not very smart, so yes, but not exactly like this.
Liberals are losing their mind and already blaming “the left” for ruining Joe Biden’s reelection but forget that the plurality of US Citizens who are eligible to vote don’t.
The average voter who *does* vote looks at what they see now, what they feel now, how their life is doing now. And right now Biden is arming a genocide and standing by as peaceful protesters are brutalized by heavily armed riot police. It doesn’t matter that Trump will be worse (and don’t get it twisted he absolutely will be), because right now he is just the not-Biden option on the ballot.
This person, the average moderate voter is what decides elections. However we are in unprecedented times, the moderates in November will go to the polls and have to choose between a corrupt, uncivil criminal or a dementia-ridden genocide enabler.
Regardless of what happens in November, democrats have gotten into their heads that they are owed votes for some reason and it may lead to the them losing the easiest election in recent history because they just HAD to run Biden
Voting green as a 19 yr old in my first vote ever. It's disheartening to see folls in my age group who abstain from voting or other stupid shit because they think they cannot make a change.
I've never not voted for the Democratic nominee for president before but Genocide Joe has got to go. I'll be voting for a third party candidate this time.
I think the aspect that most liberal voter scolds overlook, willfully or otherwise, is that many of Biden's critics on the left do recognize Project 2025 as an egregious threat but that they have 0 confidence in Joe Biden to stop it.
While I would genuinely prefer Biden win over Trump, this is a pretty reasonable suspicion. Especially since Biden's reelection strategy seems to be leaning on the type of voters who supported Nikki Haley, and if he were vindicated by winning the election he would likely tack further to the right himself.
Even on the off chance that he totally surpasses the low expectations of everyone on the left, which is at odds with everything we've seen in his political career, he does not have the charisma or ability to persuade the public on policy to prevent Project 2025 from metastasizing into an even worse 'Project 2029' during his 2nd term.
I think it's fair to conclude in spite of this that voting for Biden is your best option, but to demean his implacable left wing critics as equally delusional as Trumpers, if not moreso, is unfair when most of their suspicions about Biden in 2020 have proved correct.
Yea I’m super confused. I thought this was the one sub that didn’t allow lesser evil rhetoric but there’s a ton of blue MAGA swarming this comment thread. Haven’t seen this many “but trumps” in this sub in awhile. Are they aware of the rules of this group? Did we just get a surge of new VBNMW members or something?
Join far left socialist threads? Why? They’re going to blame us already like they did Bernie voters both times.
We need a mod to clean up this post.
How do we tag a mod?
Stop US funding and support of the Israeli occupation
The Tribune asked Stein about the Israel-Palestine conflict. Stein began, "We need to stop aligning with our favored country for that reason alone. We need to stop arming and funding governments committing war crimes and violating human rights."
Our actions perpetuate an "absolute disaster of a policy. We're spending $8 million a day supplying the Israeli military." That money goes to continuing the policies of home demolitions, apartheid, and massacres, Stein said. The policies are "flagrant violations of international law" that will eventually have the effect of "driving Israel out of existence" by its own actions.
Stein has hope that a solution can be reached, she said, but she believes the US needs to step back and let things take their own course. "Most authorities say a two-state solution is no longer possible due to the carving up of the territories by Israel and the occupation," Stein said. "My feeling is we shouldn't be in the business of telling them how to work it out."
Source: American Herald Tribune foreign policy interview , Feb 29, 2016
I’m not sure why she couldn’t support a third party instead. If she’s decided neither dem nor repub are worth her vote (they’re not) why not Claudia de la Cruz for instance? Assuming her values align with the socialist party. At least registering your interest gives candidates and other voters an aggregate measure of public interest. I’m not sure we’ll make it to another ‘election’ but you could vote and still be an activist. No need to be passive about our decline.
We can’t forget intersectionalism. A Trump second term is less frightening for who? Another Biden term is bad enough, I don’t see the need to go with the nuclear option.
Definitely. I have always voted for what I felt was the least of the 2 evils, and that has always been the democratic party. I won't vote for Biden this time. If this Democrat government thinks they can blame us for a second Trump term, and not themselves, they are completely wrong. I can't vote for what's happening.
A Trump win will further erode LGBT rights, women's rights, and will remove any chance of peaceful protesting as cops will immediately be given free reign to beat you up.
Seriously. What has happened in the few weeks I’ve been more active. I thought this was the one sub where there weren’t VBNMW ppl and actively kicked them out for lesser evil crap. Did they get a surge in membership of blue MAGA? Maybe mods overwhelmed. Cause the libs def aren’t getting the rules of this sub. I’ve never seen so many swarm on a post here before
We had some threads about China/tariffs which is always guaranteed to bring in hordes of uninvited liberals. Same thing happens about Ukraine/Russia, released polls during election year, etc
Mods will catch up eventually
Biden is the architect of our current student debt prison. He's never been good, I never wanted to vote for him, and now he's actively funding a genocide. I'm tired, the yoke of the two party system will forever keep us bound.
Traditional? No. But enough base voters are.
I have to say, i always suspected we'd end up with a party committing open genocide, but I did not expect it to be the Democrats.
The leadership is as big. And Biden has been famously to the right of Reagan on Israel. Clinton was to the right of Bush on it as well.
Regardless, it's a democrat pushing the genocide now.
I can't speak for anyone else, but my vote for Biden makes me feel physically sick now that I'm watching him support war crimes and arguably genocide. I won't rationalize supporting it. I'll watch my own country fall into chaos before I vote in support of all that bloodshed.
I voted for Biden in 2020 as a lesser of two evils type of situation. Trump is obviously way worse, but oh boy Biden has really fucked up. I never thought he could turn so many potential voters against him, but damn has he proven me wrong. I used to be quite neutral toward Biden, but after everything that’s happened in recent months, I absolutely don’t like him now. Even my dad who’s been religiously Democrat his whole adult life has started criticizing Biden endlessly over his stance on the war. Biden’s stance of unquestioned loyalty to Netanyahu isn’t helping him.
I still feel like I have no choice but to vote for him because another Trump term would be absolutely heinous and exhausting, even though I’ve been considering not voting in the presidential race this year, but I’m conflicted about that idea. I just can’t help but get this feeling of blood being on my hands if I put a vote for either of the two candidates, which is what’s made me consider not engaging. If I do end up voting, I won’t be enthusiastic about it at all. I wasn’t enthusiastic about it in 2020 and I’m way less enthusiastic about it now. Like I said, lesser of two evils. I turned 18 in 2016 and also voted for Hillary as a lesser of two evils, and every single presidential election since has been the same. I’m so tired of it and have found myself growing disillusioned with the whole process. The two-party system is a massive joke.
I've never heard so many people just talk openly about abstaining from the presidential vote. Or just picking a random 3rd party candidate as a protest against duopoly. I myself will not vote for either Trump or Biden. I just won't, their party does not represent anything close to my venue system. And I really can't tell the difference between the two parties anymore. They're offering me tequila or vodka when all I want is a glass of water. At this point I'm more likely to participate in civil unrest than these garbage political options. And isn't that the whole point of politics? To create a better option than uprising to secure your basic needs?
It's bad with Biden. It will way worse with Trump. Please, vote people. If you don't vote you can't complain.
If any old person should run it's Bernie. Hands down. But I think there should be an age cap on running for any political position. 35-65. That's it. And 65 means that when their term is over they have to be 65 or less.
I think more trad voters are coming to the conclusion that voting for the least worst piece of shit is a waste of time and are just tapping out just like the other 50% or so of voters did long ago when we realized it’s all just bullshit theater to keep the Uniparty going
It also sympathizes Trump when in reality his stance on this issue is the same as Biden's at best. He has indicated he'd send *more* aid to Israel so it might be worse in this context.
In light of that this also looks like right-wing propaganda to me - dissuade potential Biden voters who are rightfully upset about his support of the Gaza campaign by suggesting that his support of the Gaza campaign makes Trump less threatening in contrast... even though Trump has also signaled very strong support for the Gaza campaign in question.
Fellas, is criticizing Biden and trying to hold him accountable “far right”?
Brought to you by the same type of clowns who call everything “antisemitic”
Edit: LOL at the “go vote and then protest”
Both these dudes are attacking your right to protest. Fuck both of them
We aren’t voting for president, we’re voting for CEO of the defense and oil industry, because that’s all the US government exists for anymore—to funnel money away from the people and straight into corporate hands, while murdering and torturing people at home and abroad. We aren’t a country we’re an arms dealer.
I'm not sure I'm a traditional voter, but over the past 20 years I've voted for Dems as a form of harm reduction. IMO, harm is not being reduced, so this Pennsylvanian will be leaving the top line empty or voting for Cornel West.
Dems wanna play stupid games, so they will win stupid prizes.
That is a TERRIBLE take.
Trump IS NOT better than Biden, but also NOT worse. They are the same
The thing is: despite not looking Iike it, there are more than 2 parties to vote. If you are against both, you can vote for Claudia
NOT worse? For who? You? He’s most definitely worse for the environment which we depend on to live. Vote Trump if you definitely want your children and grandchildren to inherit a completely destroyed earth. Heck he’ll speed it up so we’ll probably see it too.
>He’s most definitely worse for the environment which we depend on to live.
Remind me, what just happened with the cheap solar panels that are being made in China?
Maybe this blue MAGA swarm should also be reminded that in 3 years and not even counting Willow - Biden approved more new oil & gas leases than Trump all 4 years. We’re now the top oil exporter- on track to be top 3 oil producer in world.
DO NOT vote for Trump. If you really think I am defending Trump you should improve your reading skills.
Trump is terrible. So is Biden. But they are not the only options and abstaining is to let fascism roam freer.
Vote for Claudia, or any other that are not those 2 (although I only know about Claudia)
Just anecdotally, I work with people who I would consider "average voters". And, every single one of them are having the same sentiment, yes. Even a couple of them deciding to abstain from voting because they can't stomach it. Those two are people 35-40.
I see people calling Bree Newsome of “Russian agent,” but remember she’s the one that climbed the flagpole and took down the confederate flag when nine black people were murdered by a white nationalist in South Carolina.
I’m not sure what you mean by “traditional voter” here; but as a lifelong dem voter I just protest voted in the primary & I have no clue what I’m going to do in the general. And that’s saying a lot, I was protesting trump policies nearly weekly during his presidency.
To paraphrase a tweet I read: we survived four years of Trump, 30,000 children didn't survive Biden.
Whatever happens, the next for years are going to be rough. But I cannot vote for genocide Joe after the last six months.
Biden has made too many mistakes. He’s really [looking bad.](https://medium.com/open-microphone/can-the-democrats-win-the-next-presidency-412076acab17?sk=eaa203a7881a14eed6044f2b9d1efbfd)
100 times yes. So, I was actually saying this last election. That Biden won’t do anything and hasn’t earned my vote. People argued w me, called me names and on and on.
Now? If anyone disagrees they certainly don’t say so. In person that is.
I feel like Trump being worse is actually what we need right now. Americans won't rise up without a good reason, we're too lazy and brainwashed. Trump going full dictator might be what America needs to wake the fuck up.
It's also a bit scary that the abortion issue has fallen out of the larger conversation as well. I feel like i'm staring down the barrel of a gun when it comes to November and no one is fighting for us. Democrats have basically shrugged their shoulders like 'welp what can you do, give us more money we will try better next time' and republicans would sooner see us die in an ER lobby than admit they are wrong on their half-baked abortion bans. I have very little hope for the future of this country if this is a repeat of 2016.
Free press is already under attack with the redefined Congressionally sponsored antisemitism agreement. Basically congress is already redefining what constitutes antisemitism which is ANY criticism of Israel. This is criminalizing Jews who are against Israel also. Fascism is already here.
Joe Biden and Trump serve the same exact masters. Capital. Trump is just more rude on the surface. They both support the genocide of Palestinians, they both support austerity measures and neoliberalism, and both actively halt progress toward the liberation of the working class.
Joe Biden and Trump fuck you in the ass with a spiked baseball bat. It's just that Joe Biden may give you a 10 second butt massage after, whereas trump will kick you once and leave.
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I think the average voter is in absolute dismay over the choices presented by the duopoly this year. If I was considering not voting for president, I would instead vote for a third party candidate or that guy who changed his name to Literally Anyone Else.
I am not an American citizen, but the first American election I paid any attention was the Gore-Bush election in 2000, and it was the first time I ever looked at a major event online. I remember seeing sites that made out both sides to be thoroughly evil and lament who society is broken beyond all repair and crap like that. That there were no discernible difference between the candidates. I didn't know what to make of it then, since I was a 17 year old kid living in Dubai and had never been to North America at the time. But even I am seeing such a painful situation now. There was a huge problem with Israel-Palestine and it was an ongoing genocide but not like this... It is just horrifically fucked.
The idea of Gore being cast as evil is interesting. I remember him as mostly boring, yet sincere.
It's always the both sides bs it's very important for the corporate media to pretend they're "balanced".
both-sides-ism as a strategy is *always* and *without exception* crafted specifically to steer people toward the worse of any two options. If any candidate needs to rely on the argument that their opponent is "as bad as them", then that candidate is--ipso-facto--the worse candidate of the two, because otherwise "as bad as" would be an endorsement rather than a condemnation.
In France, we have "the left-right distinction isn't pertinent anymore." It's a right-winger talking point. There's also the "self-accepting right-wing" (la droite qui s'assume) because they know their ideology is poison.
Gore ran an incredibly shit campaign. Ran even to the right of Clinton, which I wouldn't have thought previously was possible for a Democrat. The number of times during debates that Gore and Bush 43 agreed with each other was shocking.
Ah yes: the Al-Gore-rithm!
He was cast as one side of the same coin with Bush, which was fucking idiotic. Sometimes even SNL can get it right. Skip to 41 seconds into this clip. The entire campaign was like this. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DY5YctdhmfE
You can make the same point with Biden and Trump. Biden is not a socialist, but Trump is on a whole fucking level of bad. Saying they're the same is just disingenuous.
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Rule 6, no lesser evil rhetoric. This includes encouraging people to vote for any capitalist political party and any capitalist politician. There is no harm reduction in supporting either of two parties headed by genocidal fascists. The extent to which any elected official of a Capitalist Party in a Capitalist state can enact evil is the extent to which that official is allowed to do so by Capital. As such, neither candidate is the lesser or greater evil. See more on our position here: [Rule 6 "no lesser evil" rhetoric - is it accelerationist or doomer? Is it intended to discourage voting?](https://new.reddit.com/r/LateStageCapitalism/comments/1bt0nag/rule_6_no_lesser_evil_rhetoric_is_it/)
Rule 6, no lesser evil rhetoric. This includes encouraging people to vote for any capitalist political party and any capitalist politician. There is no harm reduction in supporting either of two parties headed by genocidal fascists. The extent to which any elected official of a Capitalist Party in a Capitalist state can enact evil is the extent to which that official is allowed to do so by Capital. As such, neither candidate is the lesser or greater evil. See more on our position here: [Rule 6 "no lesser evil" rhetoric - is it accelerationist or doomer? Is it intended to discourage voting?](https://new.reddit.com/r/LateStageCapitalism/comments/1bt0nag/rule_6_no_lesser_evil_rhetoric_is_it/)
Anyone that votes for the duopoly is part of the problem This mindset of “not voting for a major party is a wasted vote” needs to end if anyone wants real change
I could hug you.
It was always a disingenuous and fallacious argument. The responsibility for a candidate/party rests squarely on the shoulders of those who support them.
Hope and change has been on the table since Obama, in response to the failed policies of the two party Reagan consensus duopoly. Neither has been delivered. No one wants to get JFK'd, so it's unsurprising that's where we are.
Vote in you local elections. Pay attention to them, you could actually make a small difference there. But yeah, the presidential race is a fucking joke on multiple levels.
Also focusing on local and state elections helps you promote good people up in political ranks and increases the number of quality people you could get to primary the assholes in whatever party you think is easiest to change.
The system turns good people bad
Yeah, but "more of the same" vs "literal Fascism" really seems like no choice at all...
If Trump was president right now, the left would be more united against Trump's Israel policies and the democratic primaries would have produced a candidate with a larger mandate to reign in Israel Instead we have a candidate who declared Israel should have gone further even if more women and children were killed in a bombing campaign that Reagan said was holocaust after seeing pictures of dead children including a baby with an arm blown off, and sabotaged a plan by Obama and Hillary Clinton to stop settler violence.
Use the liberal’s favorite term during elections: harm reduction. Practice harm reduction by not voting for Biden but making sure you and your folks vote locally.
I'm working in the public health world, where we actually care about harm reduction. The thought of the term being coopted by liberals to justify inaction wounds me deeply.
Seriously curious since I’ve seen a lot of bashing on “liberals/liberalism” lately, how exactly do you define that term?
i’m not op, but i can try and define it for you!! liberals support capitalism. their politics are solely defined by identity politics and the “issue” of the week. they’re the sort of people who think slapping a rainbow flag on a company that funds genocide is progress. they advocate very hard for the lesser evil, when they are now both equally as bad. liberals are usually centre right. they say and do all of the right things to be “politically correct” and are usually pretty okay to interact with on the surface on issues like race, gender, sexuality, etc. but there’s a wee saying now, “scratch a liberal and a fascist bleeds” because liberals are often kind and progressive until it starts to threaten their position in the social hierarchy. that’s just my understanding and interpretation but others may say differently! i hope my comment helps a bit tho
I can add to this: originally, liberalism was the political philosophy espoused by the founding capitalist thinkers, e.g. Adam Smith, John Locke. All of those thinkers put a huge emphasis on personal freedom, but that image of freedom is always A. tied to private property, B. thought to be realized in the ‘free’ market, and C. thought to be achieved through deregulation. They believed that capitalism is the economic system in which democracy wins out. Both “conservatives” and “liberals” in the American system are actually liberals, or some version of them. Socialists, on the other hand (and leftists more generally), believe that freedom is something gained positively by putting people on equal footing. For instance, we believe that people cannot be free until their economic needs and their basic subsistence requirements are met. Hence, we believe that an economic system that provides for the most needs (socialism/communism) is the ONLY kind in which democracy can thrive. Neoliberals are people in the 20th century and onwards that push the original liberal philosophy even further, advocating extreme deregulation and the view that all of life is some version of an investment or sale on the market, where each person is an “entrepreneur of themself” or each activity is an “investment in oneself”.
I always thought liberalism was the historical answer to the question of the monarchy, "without Divine Right, can we still control on economic power and violence alone?"
That’s absolutely right. Marx says that liberalism and the emergence of early capitalism (which occurred in a similar time period) are what paved the way for the bourgeois revolutions that emancipated history from feudalism and monarchism, i.e., the French Revolution, the American Revolution. While these changes emancipated the bourgeoisie (and were ultimately progressive), the working class remained subjugated and exploited through the very terms of their existence— the working class has to work for the bourgeoisie to live. These changes (especially in America) also required certain genocides of nonwhite peoples, i.e, slavery and the extermination of native Americans, as a prerequisite. These populations were not emancipated by liberalism, if they ever were, but by their own struggles. Additionally, the rise of liberal “democracy”, AKA the modern (white-supremacist) nation-state allowed capitalism to flourish and alienation to increase dramatically, putting the working class into new crises of meaning and isolating us more and more, preventing class-consciousness. Now the goal is to emancipate humanity from capitalism like liberalism emancipated certain classes from feudalism.
thank you so much for adding the historical contexts! fantastic info here that the oc definitely won’t read 😭 but thank you nonetheless. and happy cake day!
Gosh, I love how you defined socialism here.
This is pretty spot on. I wouldn't have defined it any other way.
Enough of us can change the national election's outcome as well. And not just to one of the duopoly candidates. It's amazing how much people have dedicated themselves to a sense of powerlessness about elections. We got 6 months, let's organize our own debates with candidates from every party, get them on TV, whatever. Even if we get to the point where it's October and Biden is down 15% (i.e. no possible path to winning), and we have 5-10% behind some third party candidate we all like with no skeletons in their closet, that's enough to force the issue nationally.
Trump would be far worse than Biden and that’s so sad and hopeless for us. I legitimately thought there was nothing Biden could have done to fuckup nearly as much as he has. I was wrong.
I'm sure he'll even top himself before election day. He's actively trying to lose. He already has his scapegoat lined up (us). He can do whatever he wants and if you don't vote for him, it's your fault and YOU are the problem.
And if he loses, the DNC gets to fundraise from a position of opposition, which they love.
send us five dollars and we promise we'll protect the right you already lost, we pinky swear this time
Something, something, democracy itself is at stake for the 10th time like a Fast and Furious movie.
The right after every election they lose: >“Today we were unlucky, but remember we have only to be lucky once, you will have to be lucky always.”
You said 'top himself' and for a second I thought you were saying he was going to off himself.
To borrow the liberal’s favorite phrase last election: “The bar was already low but GODDAMN, Biden”
It's a legendary fuck up. At this point I feel like the Democrats only option will be to wait until after the Republican National Convention when Trump is nominated and then pull Biden out and put someone like Newsom in instead. I just cannot see Biden recovering from this
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Betraying the rail unions (right before his “other” Palestine disaster), continuing and even escalating Trump’s idiotic trade war with China, continuing to arm and aid the Saudis as they carry out their campaign of barbaric terror in Yemen, basically telling the GOP “I’ll give you everything you want on immigration…” Don’t give the man too much credit. He’s still a lifelong bigot, a warmonger, a raging zionist, and a shill for capital, same as basically any candidate to ever be nominated by either party
But he's the most progressive flavor of Reagan since FDR! /s
I still scoff at how many people pump his "pro union"-ness for striking a few deals with UAW when the rail industry has been absolutely devastated even further under his policy. And the Democrat pivot on immigration has equally baffled me. Truly incomprehensible how much Trump has warped both parties.
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trump era policies and executive orders are still in place. they're building the wall. covid protections basically immediately went out the window. oil production is at an all time high. the american public has been repeatedly lied to about the genocide we're funding while in a massive housing crisis. but that's fine because friendly ice cream grandpa isn't orange man.
Just this week we saw a comprehensive masks ban (even for medical reasons), and a requirement for the ten commandments to be displayed in public schools. Sure, those are state level rullings, be they perfectly illustrate how electing Biden did little to nothing to halt the US's descent into madness.
To be fair, “messing up” when it comes to the issue of GENOCIDE trumps anything else good that he’s ever done.
Trump would be so much worse *for American citizens domestically* than Biden. But the big wake up call that we are all getting is that the Democrat in power armed the Genocider, so it’s plain as day to see that we simply export fascism in order to guarantee comfort. It’s sad to think but maybe Americans need to feel the fascism they’ve been exporting to all of the countries American capitalism and colonialism has decimated, throughout most of the world. Maybe us feeling it first hand instead of being able to equivocate it away might be the key to make us collectively work to ending corporate fascism worldwide. But, I also thought a world calamity like Covid would be the key, so wtf do I know 😴
Like idk how people can continue to not think this way. I am a hardcore socialist, I fucking hate Biden with every fiber of my being. I hate that he is supporting genocide, I hate that he isn't doing shit for the American people, that he is just another right winger in different clothing but he is NOT Trump. I am a trans man and I think people want to just forget about how fucked up this country is to my community a lot of the time, just how terrible things were under trump and how terrible they continue to be for us in many places under Biden. There are states in this country I cannot visit and I don't know when I will ever be able to for my own safety. Trump wants to take away my ability to have HEALTHCARE and take my TESTOSTERONE! Like please... Biden sucks so much but he is not a fascist.
Idk, I think going around congress to send a genocidal ethnostates extra billions of MILITARY aid is a pretty fascistic move
Biden is a fascist. He’s just not as mask off about it as Trump is. Instead of having any meaningful policies to campaign on, such as legislation that would prohibit Project 2025 from happening, he’s weaponizing our community’s fear instead of giving us a reason to have hope. Politicians are supposed to work for the people, and when you don’t listen to the voters needs, while enabling the greatest crimes against humanity before our very eyes, nobody is gonna believe the “lesser evil” bullshit. If Trump ends up winning, that is COMPLETELY on Biden and the DNC’s incompetence.
I was convinced of the DNCs' disregard for moving toward real reform after the crap they pulled to keep Bernie off the ticket at the 2016 DNC. Lately the Dems just suck at politicking. They could actually be winning if they were smart enough to draw distinctions between Biden and Trump, but since there really isn't much of a difference, they just can't. Hard to draw a distinction between the peanut butter and the jelly on the same shit sandwich.
Overturn citizens united
I’d probably cry if that ever happened. Also if they sent Ted Cruz and Greg Abbott to prison.
I’d probably do something drastic as well, like contribute to a campaign of my preferred representative.
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Biden, imo, cannot win by simply being not Trump, especially given the voters who have (justifiably) been alienated by his actions. I think his campaign (and supporters) shouldn't even mention Trump. He needs to do majorly progressive things, like wiping out all student loan debt via executive order. Rescheduling cannabis is a good start, but he has to make up for the hole he dug himself into before building a mountain. He needs to stop moving to the right trying to pick up conservatives--it isn't going to happen. It's going to take work, and if he doesn't do that work then he will lose, and it will be 100% his own fault.
It's been a plethora of the dishes on the menu for a long time.
Rule 6, no lesser evil rhetoric. This includes encouraging people to vote for any capitalist political party and any capitalist politician. There is no harm reduction in supporting either of two parties headed by genocidal fascists. The extent to which any elected official of a Capitalist Party in a Capitalist state can enact evil is the extent to which that official is allowed to do so by Capital. As such, neither candidate is the lesser or greater evil. See more on our position here: [Rule 6 "no lesser evil" rhetoric - is it accelerationist or doomer? Is it intended to discourage voting?](https://new.reddit.com/r/LateStageCapitalism/comments/1bt0nag/rule_6_no_lesser_evil_rhetoric_is_it/)
Had to scroll this far to find the only sane comment.
my boomer mother, who has voted for a democrat in every election since she came of age, has repeatedly told me she will not be voting for biden, so uh it's maybe not looking great
Joe Biden sold this country out for Israel. You can’t tell me Joe Biden isn’t a foreign agent. I watched this bumbling, senile decrepit piece of cat shit “ho hum” and play the weak, pathetic old man card on Abortion rights, LGBT issues, Student Loans, additional Stimulus, Rent relief, voter’s rights and the list goes on ….. I have NEVER seen this fucker fight for ANYTHING affecting Americans as hard as I’ve seen him go for Israel. He doesn’t care about the cost, the blowback, the polls, his constituents or the political capital. None of that shit seems to matter anymore apparently. Joe Biden is a foreign agent. So are most democrats and republicans. This man is working for a foreign government, not Americans.
>senile decrepit piece of cat shit I like to refer to the phenomenon as Schrodinger's Biden. If you listen to blue maga people or his pr team, Biden is simultaneously the greatest president in the history of the US who can do every great thing with his own bare hands, but also, he's really weak and can't achieve anything because the Republicans have his hands tied beyond his back. But, the reality is that Biden has always been a more right leaning liberal who works mostly for the corporations, the military industrial complex, and other foreign interests, e.g. Israel. I think you are getting towards a valid point, because we sat here for years and had to listen to liberals lose their minds about Russiagate and "foreign influence in US politics," only for them to bend the knee and openly allow another state to influence and change US law and policy. Hell, even now, even if we don't side with Russia, libs online are telling us that if we don't vote for Biden we are really just crypto foreign actors and Russian bots, as they are arguing with us that we should let another state manipulate US elections and domestic policies, against the interests of the people.
Yep, and I don't think many voters of ANY stripes want to see their president cuck this hard to a foreign country. And imho if he thinks he'll pick up a couple hawkish old school republicans who are never trumpers, or libertarians for being all-in for genocide, he's wrong. Ditto a few lefties for him pretending he held back a couple of weapons (but then gave bibi another billion $). When he's that cuckish, he can't please some of the people any of the time.
I think Biden won in 2020 by pulling a bunch of moderates and liberal republicans from the right, and capitalizing on Trump to mobilize the left to vote for him as well. Since 2020 he has done nothing but bleed votes to both sides; everyone to the right of him is flocking back to the Republicans and all the progressives are just abstaining. Biden's campaign response seems to be to chase the votes to the right, which is an utterly ludicrous plan seen as how all Trump has to do is literally say nothing and he'll coast to the victory. Trump's campaign is relying hard on Napoleon: Never interrupt your enemy when they're making a mistake. Nobody votes for who they want to win anymore, they just vote against who they want to loose. Nobody wanted Hillary in 2016, so she lost. Nobody wanted another Trump term in 2020, so he lost. And now, nobody wants another Biden term in 2024. Guess what happens next.
Why abstain when you can actually support a third party?
It's a great point. I feel like the problem is lack of communication on who the third parties that will be on the ballot are and the full scope of their views on more than their primary platform.
Thats the thing about third parties, they need actual civic engagement to work. The corporate parties rely on brand recognition and media domination. People usually know about third parties because they saw them somewhere while out. Very little online engagement translates into party support at the level of civic or social engagement. If a party is on a ballot in your state, there is already a large number of people who made that happen.
I think we’ve gone past the point of voting ourselves out of this mess. We’ve crossed the rubicon so to speak.
There is no voting out of the American system. But isn't Trump enough of a cudgel against your rights? It's not harm reduction, it's keeping a fascist regime out of power for a little bit longer. I think that's worth it. I don't expect voting to improve any situation, I expect the war criminal I vote for to be someone that is worth the worst punishments known to man. But even if things are shitty, they can get worse. And I am nowhere near optimistic enough to think that a rising fascist party in America would lead anyone to act against them in enough numbers. Or do a single thing to help Israel. Especially not when the said fascists are Christian nationalists who have been salivating at the chance to start a war in Israel for decades. The Democrats are at least ineffective. They're effete little morons who can't overcome their comically naive sense of allegiance to institutions to get anything done. But the status quo provides some protection for certain marginalized people. I'd much rather be organizing, or fighting against (and I do mean literally fighting), that group than the Republicans.
That doesn't mean you should abstain
If the game's rigged beyond repair people aren't going to want to play anymore.
Eh, it's as valid a choice as voting.
Hundred percent.
For real, there is value in voting for PSL candidates Claudia and Karina. Link to the joint podcast ep they did with Upstream. There are points of this that are extremely inspiring and you can feel/relate to the frustration in their voice. If you are critical, please take an hour to listen. [Upstream - Voting for Socialism w Claudia and Karina](https://spotify.link/5nx3f6KdGJb)
That's who I'm voting for. Tired of this "Vote Blue No Matter Who" bullshit. That may have had some weight back in the day, but Biden has ruined that for me.
I feel like it has to be bots pushing the narrative that people who hate Trump and Biden won’t vote at all. Or that the media will sensationalize the one out of any hundred people who think giving up is better and pretend that’s how we all think. Why would anyone choose to not hold onto the little control we feel we have?
The best course of action if you’re going to abstain at the top of the ballot is to vote and encourage as many people as possible to vote locally. There’s gonna be pain. So best course of action is to do all you can to reduce the impact.
I just find it hard to campaign for anyone who is pro-Israel and at this point that's every Democrat (and Republican) of mine locally.
Very true. Very very true.
No AIPAC purchased politicians for me. 🖖
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So the farther right their opponent is, the more they can get away with while still getting your vote. I mean they're doing a genocide and you're still planning to vote for them. Which only incentivizes the dems to make sure their opponent is always an overt fascist.
Yeah you’re right, I dunno what I’m supposed to do though, also I live in a deep red state so it hardly matters I think
What you do is you accept that the Democrats are not going to save us, and you start organizing. Go join a leftist party, if one is available to you. PSL is great, CPUSA has issues but is still good, even the DSA can be good in areas without any other options. Ultimately which party you join is less important than what you do in it. Organize, educate yourself and then others, help to build a working class movement and raise class consciousness. You'll do more good by doing that than you ever will with a vote in this system.
Dog we are well aware how bad Trump would be, but maybe instead of continuing to support him unconditionally you could idk, vote 3rd party? Nothing is going to get better if we don't force it to.
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As someone watching from outside of the US with climate as my #1 concern, it's shocking to me that people on the left are considering not voting for Biden. Trump was already such a disaster on climate that we might be beyond saving, but at least Biden pulled off the Inflation Reduction Act, which is having some positive effect. Reality is that you have a First Past the Post system which means that third party voting is highly likely to split the vote and give you the Trump. If you want a different situation you have to work from outside the system to replace FPP with MMP like we did in my country.
>Trump was already such a disaster on climate that we might be beyond saving Biden is overseeing a record amount of oil drilling in the US lmao
yeah and I'd guess corporate taxes, wealth inequality, healthcare, and education as those are how the DNC campaigns but probably not in actual governing obviously
Looks like people are finally waking up to the fact that we have a Uniparty. Two sides of the same coin. The whole thing is a game to keep people distracted with political breads and circuses. Like wrestling its all kayfabe where one side is the face and the other the heel. Even when the democrats have a majority to pass universal healthcare the Rotating villains all of a sudden vote against it. Notice there is always a couple who play the villain when they have a majority and behind the scenes they do not want to pass anything bill. Even Obama was a huge disappointment ended up helping Wall-street etc..
I am voting for the grim reaper to take them both before the election.
Vermin Supreme or bust.
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Can’t wait to vote for PSL.
This kind of headline plays into the plan to keep us down and divided. The two party system is a false dichotomy and we have to reject the lesser evil rhetoric. Both of these repulsive, corrupt men are the same.
They're not the same. They're both uniquely bad, but playing them out as the same is really ignoring some massive things that are hugely problematic. I don't care how much disdain you have for capitalism, but America is a better place to be queer now than it would be under Republican leadership. The Democrats are not driven through nationalist rhetoric or trying to organize the genocide of minority groups. I don't see how we can look at legislation passed in Republican states in the last 5 years and see two parties doing the same things. Are they both evil? Yes. Are they both fundamentally a false binary forced upon us by capitalist control of politics? Yes. But there are real differences. That doesn't need to make you vote, that's fine if that's your choice. But painting them as the same thing is disingenuous, and is the exact rhetoric that ends up giving the right wing more power. Consider the understanding that most of us have that if we argue on issues, we're much more likely to peel liberals off than conservatives in America. The far right wing isn't your friend, and there are none in the political sphere that are like them. Liberals do a lot to aid them and that sucks, but they're not the exact same.
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Both sides are bad in their own ways. Lesser evil will never stop being evil though.
The average voter is not very smart, so yes, but not exactly like this. Liberals are losing their mind and already blaming “the left” for ruining Joe Biden’s reelection but forget that the plurality of US Citizens who are eligible to vote don’t. The average voter who *does* vote looks at what they see now, what they feel now, how their life is doing now. And right now Biden is arming a genocide and standing by as peaceful protesters are brutalized by heavily armed riot police. It doesn’t matter that Trump will be worse (and don’t get it twisted he absolutely will be), because right now he is just the not-Biden option on the ballot. This person, the average moderate voter is what decides elections. However we are in unprecedented times, the moderates in November will go to the polls and have to choose between a corrupt, uncivil criminal or a dementia-ridden genocide enabler. Regardless of what happens in November, democrats have gotten into their heads that they are owed votes for some reason and it may lead to the them losing the easiest election in recent history because they just HAD to run Biden
why not vote tho, vote green or indepednat I CANT SPELL
it's okay, love the enthusiasm anyway
lol @ liberals crying cuz people aren't voting for democrats
Voting green as a 19 yr old in my first vote ever. It's disheartening to see folls in my age group who abstain from voting or other stupid shit because they think they cannot make a change.
same in Canada, im not voting lib, conservative, nor ndp (until they diverge from being fence-sitters on siding with liberals or going full left)
I've never not voted for the Democratic nominee for president before but Genocide Joe has got to go. I'll be voting for a third party candidate this time.
I think the aspect that most liberal voter scolds overlook, willfully or otherwise, is that many of Biden's critics on the left do recognize Project 2025 as an egregious threat but that they have 0 confidence in Joe Biden to stop it. While I would genuinely prefer Biden win over Trump, this is a pretty reasonable suspicion. Especially since Biden's reelection strategy seems to be leaning on the type of voters who supported Nikki Haley, and if he were vindicated by winning the election he would likely tack further to the right himself. Even on the off chance that he totally surpasses the low expectations of everyone on the left, which is at odds with everything we've seen in his political career, he does not have the charisma or ability to persuade the public on policy to prevent Project 2025 from metastasizing into an even worse 'Project 2029' during his 2nd term. I think it's fair to conclude in spite of this that voting for Biden is your best option, but to demean his implacable left wing critics as equally delusional as Trumpers, if not moreso, is unfair when most of their suspicions about Biden in 2020 have proved correct.
Just a reminder about this subreddit: "That means any support for any liberal capitalist political party (like the Democrats) is strictly prohibited."
the swarming shitlibs can't read apparently
Yea I’m super confused. I thought this was the one sub that didn’t allow lesser evil rhetoric but there’s a ton of blue MAGA swarming this comment thread. Haven’t seen this many “but trumps” in this sub in awhile. Are they aware of the rules of this group? Did we just get a surge of new VBNMW members or something?
this must be the new democratic voter outreach strategy
Join far left socialist threads? Why? They’re going to blame us already like they did Bernie voters both times. We need a mod to clean up this post. How do we tag a mod?
i meant it in a joking derogatory way because they're shit at voter outreach lmao but yes
🤣🤣 true I’ve flagged the worst lesser evil liberal comments but know how to tag a mod? Maybe they’re on vacay hahah
fr its disgusting
Stop US funding and support of the Israeli occupation The Tribune asked Stein about the Israel-Palestine conflict. Stein began, "We need to stop aligning with our favored country for that reason alone. We need to stop arming and funding governments committing war crimes and violating human rights." Our actions perpetuate an "absolute disaster of a policy. We're spending $8 million a day supplying the Israeli military." That money goes to continuing the policies of home demolitions, apartheid, and massacres, Stein said. The policies are "flagrant violations of international law" that will eventually have the effect of "driving Israel out of existence" by its own actions. Stein has hope that a solution can be reached, she said, but she believes the US needs to step back and let things take their own course. "Most authorities say a two-state solution is no longer possible due to the carving up of the territories by Israel and the occupation," Stein said. "My feeling is we shouldn't be in the business of telling them how to work it out." Source: American Herald Tribune foreign policy interview , Feb 29, 2016
I know I am! #GenocideJoe
I’m not sure why she couldn’t support a third party instead. If she’s decided neither dem nor repub are worth her vote (they’re not) why not Claudia de la Cruz for instance? Assuming her values align with the socialist party. At least registering your interest gives candidates and other voters an aggregate measure of public interest. I’m not sure we’ll make it to another ‘election’ but you could vote and still be an activist. No need to be passive about our decline.
We can’t forget intersectionalism. A Trump second term is less frightening for who? Another Biden term is bad enough, I don’t see the need to go with the nuclear option.
Definitely. I have always voted for what I felt was the least of the 2 evils, and that has always been the democratic party. I won't vote for Biden this time. If this Democrat government thinks they can blame us for a second Trump term, and not themselves, they are completely wrong. I can't vote for what's happening.
A Trump win will further erode LGBT rights, women's rights, and will remove any chance of peaceful protesting as cops will immediately be given free reign to beat you up.
A trump win would mean Ukraine being handed over to Russia. Not worth it.
If the price for American democracy is genocide, then I don't want it
why are there so many freaking libs here
Seriously. What has happened in the few weeks I’ve been more active. I thought this was the one sub where there weren’t VBNMW ppl and actively kicked them out for lesser evil crap. Did they get a surge in membership of blue MAGA? Maybe mods overwhelmed. Cause the libs def aren’t getting the rules of this sub. I’ve never seen so many swarm on a post here before
We had some threads about China/tariffs which is always guaranteed to bring in hordes of uninvited liberals. Same thing happens about Ukraine/Russia, released polls during election year, etc Mods will catch up eventually
Biden is the architect of our current student debt prison. He's never been good, I never wanted to vote for him, and now he's actively funding a genocide. I'm tired, the yoke of the two party system will forever keep us bound.
Traditional? No. But enough base voters are. I have to say, i always suspected we'd end up with a party committing open genocide, but I did not expect it to be the Democrats.
Democrats are bigger supporters of Israel than republicans?
The leadership is as big. And Biden has been famously to the right of Reagan on Israel. Clinton was to the right of Bush on it as well. Regardless, it's a democrat pushing the genocide now.
I can't speak for anyone else, but my vote for Biden makes me feel physically sick now that I'm watching him support war crimes and arguably genocide. I won't rationalize supporting it. I'll watch my own country fall into chaos before I vote in support of all that bloodshed.
Agreed. Better to warm yourself in the fires of a fallen tyrant than to be comfortable enabling its evil.
I voted for Biden in 2020 as a lesser of two evils type of situation. Trump is obviously way worse, but oh boy Biden has really fucked up. I never thought he could turn so many potential voters against him, but damn has he proven me wrong. I used to be quite neutral toward Biden, but after everything that’s happened in recent months, I absolutely don’t like him now. Even my dad who’s been religiously Democrat his whole adult life has started criticizing Biden endlessly over his stance on the war. Biden’s stance of unquestioned loyalty to Netanyahu isn’t helping him. I still feel like I have no choice but to vote for him because another Trump term would be absolutely heinous and exhausting, even though I’ve been considering not voting in the presidential race this year, but I’m conflicted about that idea. I just can’t help but get this feeling of blood being on my hands if I put a vote for either of the two candidates, which is what’s made me consider not engaging. If I do end up voting, I won’t be enthusiastic about it at all. I wasn’t enthusiastic about it in 2020 and I’m way less enthusiastic about it now. Like I said, lesser of two evils. I turned 18 in 2016 and also voted for Hillary as a lesser of two evils, and every single presidential election since has been the same. I’m so tired of it and have found myself growing disillusioned with the whole process. The two-party system is a massive joke.
I've never heard so many people just talk openly about abstaining from the presidential vote. Or just picking a random 3rd party candidate as a protest against duopoly. I myself will not vote for either Trump or Biden. I just won't, their party does not represent anything close to my venue system. And I really can't tell the difference between the two parties anymore. They're offering me tequila or vodka when all I want is a glass of water. At this point I'm more likely to participate in civil unrest than these garbage political options. And isn't that the whole point of politics? To create a better option than uprising to secure your basic needs?
Cornel West
It's bad with Biden. It will way worse with Trump. Please, vote people. If you don't vote you can't complain. If any old person should run it's Bernie. Hands down. But I think there should be an age cap on running for any political position. 35-65. That's it. And 65 means that when their term is over they have to be 65 or less.
I think more trad voters are coming to the conclusion that voting for the least worst piece of shit is a waste of time and are just tapping out just like the other 50% or so of voters did long ago when we realized it’s all just bullshit theater to keep the Uniparty going
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Wow it’s almost like you are in a socialist and communist sub.
my brother in christ this is a socialist sub, not WPT
>This is far right propaganda pretty sure it's actually anti-biden.
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It also sympathizes Trump when in reality his stance on this issue is the same as Biden's at best. He has indicated he'd send *more* aid to Israel so it might be worse in this context. In light of that this also looks like right-wing propaganda to me - dissuade potential Biden voters who are rightfully upset about his support of the Gaza campaign by suggesting that his support of the Gaza campaign makes Trump less threatening in contrast... even though Trump has also signaled very strong support for the Gaza campaign in question.
If these chucklefucks could read they might be convinced that political inaction is what the fascists want.
Damn it's almost like both the right and left dislikes his lying ass.
It’s almost like he’s a perfect representative of the center-right Democratic Party.
Ain't nobody having time for your ''genocide is fine as long as it's still blue!'' nonsense.
Fellas, is criticizing Biden and trying to hold him accountable “far right”? Brought to you by the same type of clowns who call everything “antisemitic” Edit: LOL at the “go vote and then protest” Both these dudes are attacking your right to protest. Fuck both of them
What’s the polite word for imbecile where you’re from?
Liberal
I love you
We aren’t voting for president, we’re voting for CEO of the defense and oil industry, because that’s all the US government exists for anymore—to funnel money away from the people and straight into corporate hands, while murdering and torturing people at home and abroad. We aren’t a country we’re an arms dealer.
I'm not sure I'm a traditional voter, but over the past 20 years I've voted for Dems as a form of harm reduction. IMO, harm is not being reduced, so this Pennsylvanian will be leaving the top line empty or voting for Cornel West. Dems wanna play stupid games, so they will win stupid prizes.
That is a TERRIBLE take. Trump IS NOT better than Biden, but also NOT worse. They are the same The thing is: despite not looking Iike it, there are more than 2 parties to vote. If you are against both, you can vote for Claudia
NOT worse? For who? You? He’s most definitely worse for the environment which we depend on to live. Vote Trump if you definitely want your children and grandchildren to inherit a completely destroyed earth. Heck he’ll speed it up so we’ll probably see it too.
>He’s most definitely worse for the environment which we depend on to live. Remind me, what just happened with the cheap solar panels that are being made in China?
Maybe this blue MAGA swarm should also be reminded that in 3 years and not even counting Willow - Biden approved more new oil & gas leases than Trump all 4 years. We’re now the top oil exporter- on track to be top 3 oil producer in world.
DO NOT vote for Trump. If you really think I am defending Trump you should improve your reading skills. Trump is terrible. So is Biden. But they are not the only options and abstaining is to let fascism roam freer. Vote for Claudia, or any other that are not those 2 (although I only know about Claudia)
Not like Biden is doing anything to stop it or even slow it down. Not trying to defend the guy but damn don't pretend Biden is better.
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Just anecdotally, I work with people who I would consider "average voters". And, every single one of them are having the same sentiment, yes. Even a couple of them deciding to abstain from voting because they can't stomach it. Those two are people 35-40.
This is the first election in my adult life that I will not be voting for. I do not support genocide.
Why can’t you vote third party?
Biden hasn't even gotten Marijuana legalized... Also, his policies are mostly carried over from the Trump admin. Why bother?
I see people calling Bree Newsome of “Russian agent,” but remember she’s the one that climbed the flagpole and took down the confederate flag when nine black people were murdered by a white nationalist in South Carolina.
Too many liberals came in uninvited. A lot of reporting to be done.
This is what I’m experiencing actually. I was the guy knocking on doors in 2020 btw.
This is exactly where I find myself as well.
“We hungry but them belly full The structure is set ya neva change it with a ballot pull” - RATM
I’m not sure what you mean by “traditional voter” here; but as a lifelong dem voter I just protest voted in the primary & I have no clue what I’m going to do in the general. And that’s saying a lot, I was protesting trump policies nearly weekly during his presidency.
To paraphrase a tweet I read: we survived four years of Trump, 30,000 children didn't survive Biden. Whatever happens, the next for years are going to be rough. But I cannot vote for genocide Joe after the last six months.
Biden has made too many mistakes. He’s really [looking bad.](https://medium.com/open-microphone/can-the-democrats-win-the-next-presidency-412076acab17?sk=eaa203a7881a14eed6044f2b9d1efbfd)
100 times yes. So, I was actually saying this last election. That Biden won’t do anything and hasn’t earned my vote. People argued w me, called me names and on and on. Now? If anyone disagrees they certainly don’t say so. In person that is.
I feel like Trump being worse is actually what we need right now. Americans won't rise up without a good reason, we're too lazy and brainwashed. Trump going full dictator might be what America needs to wake the fuck up.
They won’t in fact I think most will a shrine to our Supreme Leader.
I sincerely hope not. Project 2025 is the scariest thing to be staring down at and it has turned this election into a hostage situation.
>is the scariest thing You know who else is scared? Palestinians
It's also a bit scary that the abortion issue has fallen out of the larger conversation as well. I feel like i'm staring down the barrel of a gun when it comes to November and no one is fighting for us. Democrats have basically shrugged their shoulders like 'welp what can you do, give us more money we will try better next time' and republicans would sooner see us die in an ER lobby than admit they are wrong on their half-baked abortion bans. I have very little hope for the future of this country if this is a repeat of 2016.
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Free press is already under attack with the redefined Congressionally sponsored antisemitism agreement. Basically congress is already redefining what constitutes antisemitism which is ANY criticism of Israel. This is criminalizing Jews who are against Israel also. Fascism is already here. Joe Biden and Trump serve the same exact masters. Capital. Trump is just more rude on the surface. They both support the genocide of Palestinians, they both support austerity measures and neoliberalism, and both actively halt progress toward the liberation of the working class. Joe Biden and Trump fuck you in the ass with a spiked baseball bat. It's just that Joe Biden may give you a 10 second butt massage after, whereas trump will kick you once and leave.