“I have high standards, I’d rather have my clothes covered in dog shit than put on a non-Gucci article of clothing.”
How’s them standards going for you when you’re now covered in shit?
They revel in being covered in shit. Then they call you the real filth for not covering yourself in shit.
In other words, not unlike Republicans.
You joke but they legit just are republicans who insist they’re leftists because they’re wearing a coat of red paint over that shit.
Like 9/10 times they’re some bougie white kid who never experiences the difference between republican and democratic governance first hand because they’re privileged and insulated from it, and also they’re tied to people who do nothing but complain about how awful democrats are and they refuse to do any unlearning beyond just saying they aren’t bigots anymore.
You joke but they legit just are republicans who insist they’re leftists because they’re wearing a coat of red paint over that shit.
Oh, it’s no joke. I believe wholeheartedly that if the GOP kept all of its current stances, but was an anti-American party in, say, Europe, and put on the Communist aesthetic and rhetoric, tankies would be lining up to lick their boots and cry “Critical support for transgender genocide!”
Like 9/10 times they’re some bougie white kid who never experiences the difference between republican and democratic governance first hand because they’re privileged and insulated from it, and also they’re tied to people who do nothing but complain about how awful democrats are and they refuse to do any unlearning beyond just saying they aren’t bigots anymore.
God, even on the local scale it can be gruesome. Getting a Republican administration is like watching the municipality be gutted in slow motion. It’s difficult for me to sympathize with tankies, since they clearly don’t lack time to
mindlessly parrot talking points fed to them by their social circleread about politics, but they act completely fucking clueless about the difference between Dems and the GOP. Or, for that matter, the difference between any imperfect cause and pure fucking evil - except, of course, in judgement of their red-painted fascist states, whose actions are always either justified or justifiable, and criticizing blatant totalitarianism is just not appreciating AES and proof of being a shitlib™.
Politicians will always disappoint you. There will always be things left undone, done poorly, or done in a way you disagree with. Everybody needs to get used to this and learn we vote for the least bad, not the most good.
Politicians will always disappoint you. There will always be things left undone, done poorly, or done in a way you disagree with. Everybody needs to get used to this
Why?
Why does everyone have to get used to and just blindly accept that the system is shit and doesn’t serve them or make their lives any better?
Why are you so comfortable settling for so little?
Why don’t you want better for yourself, and worse, think you get to demand the same of others?
(I don’t need your answers, these are all for you and those who agree with you to ask yourselves)
-
This is an imperfect world.
-
Democracy is necessarily the function of creating coalitions of compromise between literal millions of people, all with different interests and concerns.
-
Politicians, as a career, self-select for ambition and ego, and that comes with certain implications in even the best of them.
-
Jesus fucking Christ, is it really so little to not want to die or see my friends and family horribly oppressed?
Plus getting upset about this shit is fucking exhausting.
Look, I will tick the Kamala box. I do indeed believe that Trump is a bad candidate and will oppress many people. But I don’t want people to feel like this shit is normal. Back in the late 1970’s to the 1990’s, nobody would have thought that both parties would end up supporting the same genocide, with one being a little less pumped. Or maybe even the 2000’s, when the War on Terror was thought to be conducted humanely. We have lived in an imperfect world before, along with millions of people, and politicians self-selecting for ambition and ego, and there was nobody calling to wipe an ethnicity off the face of the Earth. I’m not surprised at the Dem party, I’m surprised that there are fascists in the White House and I’m supposed to just accept it as a normal part of democracy. Well, I won’t! Both parties in the United States supporting a genocide requires voting to solve, but it’s purely abnormal! I’m not wanting a world any better than a world we used to have, one where the United States did not conduct ethnic cleansing!
We live in a nation with the Internet, fast food wherever you go, products that arrive at your door when ordered, touchscreens, full 3D videogames, V-Tubers, the Moon Landing, nuclear reactors, and the White House lighting up in rainbow colors to support LGBT+ rights–yet when asked to stop a genocide, it’s suddenly too much to ask. I would give up so much of these fleeting pleasures to protect human lives. Should I just become a lotus-eater, and neglect the outside world to “act humane”?
Back in the late 1970’s to the 1990’s, nobody would have thought that both parties would end up supporting the same genocide, with one being a little less pumped.
Man, I can absolutely cite examples of both parties supporting genocides in that time period.
Well, I won’t! Both parties in the United States supporting a genocide requires voting to solve, but it’s purely abnormal! I’m not wanting a world any better than a world we used to have, one where the United States did not conduct ethnic cleansing!
I… would count myself as an American patriot, but I’m pretty sure the US not committing ethnic cleansing is an extremely recent phenomenon.
We live in a nation with the Internet, fast food wherever you go, products that arrive at your door when ordered, touchscreens, full 3D videogames, V-Tubers, the Moon Landing, nuclear reactors, and the White House lighting up in rainbow colors to support LGBT+ rights–yet when asked to stop a genocide, it’s suddenly too much to ask. I would give up so much of these fleeting pleasures to protect human lives. Should I just become a lotus-eater, and neglect the outside world to “act humane”?
Man, if you want to pour all your time and energy into this cause, unironically, go for it. But part of understanding just how vast and fucked the world is also requires one to accept and understand that we can’t fight every battle simultaneously. Hell, most battles aren’t even our’s to fight. And no amount of martyrdom from an individual can change either of those things. I’ve been calling the Israeli genocide for what it is for years now. I’m not exactly sitting here telling you to shut up about it. But we have to be realistic both about what we can achieve and about what we will sacrifice to achieve it.
You could sacrifice every waking moment of your life, every meal above the level of gruel, every social connection and personal property unrelated to the cause, all for the sake of a .0001% contribution to ending another country’s genocide, but the onus shouldn’t be on you to kill yourself to correct every sin in the world. At some point, it’s not on you or me as individuals.
-
In what world will a politician never disappoint you?
I’m generally in full control of myself and even I disappoint myself - fringe third party candidates are not the political messiah some people think they are.
I don’t understand how this is the argument against third party. Why does the candidate need to be the Messiah to be better than Kamala?
The question was why do we need to accept that politicians will disappoint you, implying that they had something they believed would not disappoint them.
I thought it was a third party candidate.
Apparently it was anarchism.
Rookie Lemmy mistake.
In a world where “politician” isn’t a career, or even a thing that exists, and instead people make decisions communally and horizontally. It’s called anarchism.
You not knowing or being able to imagine alternatives, doesn’t mean none exist.
Being able to imagine alternatives doesn’t mean they’re realistic.
How realistic do you think this is?
Yes exactly. The only politician who will believe as you do 100% is yourself. You must run for office if this is your goal. Anything else is actually kinda fascist/controlling. In a better world, we’d have a direct democracy and everyone would get a voice.
Amen
Cuz it’s democracy. If you wanted someone to be in office who would get everything done with no obstacles no roadblocks and no delays then you wouldn’t be looking at democracy you’d want a dictator. You can want that if you want but just be honest about it.
Lmfao, except you don’t have democracy. You have oligarchy and kleptocracy and plutocracy. You also don’t have a government that is “getting everything done without obstacles”, but pretty much the literal fucking opposite. The fact that the only alternative you can imagine to the current (non democratic, slipping in to fascism) state of affairs is a dictatorship is a problem with your lack of imagination and narrow view of the world (though granted, you were heavily indoctrinated that way), not a reflection of reality, nor the array of other ways that society can not only exist, but thrive.
There was good reason I told you people to ask yourselves these questions - you are the ones standing in your own way with your insistence of living according to a full blown fallacy because you’re just comfortable enough with the way things are, and are too scared of change, specifically no longer holding the privileges the current system grants you in exchange for your compliance, and the idea that you might not have anyone to feel superior to.
Until you’re willing and able to face that within yourself, I can’t help you, nor am Interested in hearing the mental gymnastics you do to justify your actively maintaining the status quo. ¯\(ツ)/¯
Because people in office are individuals and morality is relatively subjective. The only politician who will do everything you want and believe everything you believe is yourself. Run for office.
Right, as if the system isn’t very deliberately designed to withstand reform and will not hesitate to weaponize every tool it has at its disposal (from the courts to the media to the police and the other alphabet agencies) to assure no leftist ever actually makes it in to a position of real power (not that we would want to, since we believe the state should be abolished, not joined, for precisely the reason stated above).
For the however many’th time, you die hard liberals can tell yourselves as many fairy tales you want to make yourself feel better, it won’t change the reality - the system is not designed to serve you, but to keep you placated with nothing but an illusion of choice. Those with power and money wrote the rules, what on earth, and at this point in time with history unfolding right in front of our eyes as it is, again, makes you think that following those rules will ever work in your favour?
First, I’m not a liberal by any definition. A democratic socialist isn’t a liberal and if you think so, you’re uneducated or just ad hominem attacking. Either way, null.
There are options, it’s just difficult to implement them. The Black Panthers were doing it. The first step is having community as its base.
I live in a place with a lot of “undesirable” folks. I don’t want to see my community here get hurt because I didn’t do anything. And ofc I don’t want to be hurt either.
Voting does grant power. If it did nothing, then they’d allow felons to vote. They wouldn’t engage in voter suppression. If leftist organizing didn’t work, they wouldn’t have imprisoned people like The Black Panthers. We actually know it indeed does and will work BECAUSE the state responds violently. Even in Russia, where the votes don’t matter, someone like Navalny is a threat.
Don’t be a coward. Vote. You can still organize for other stuff too while voting.
The only politician who won’t disappoint you on every issue is yourself. Run for office. No joke. Use your rights. Vote. Speak. Run for office.
Not using those rights is functionally the same as not having them.
I doubt that. My dad got elected to a town council and was pretty disappointed about what the system let him accomplish.
Can you explain more?
One really good example is the stroad that’s preventing good bike infrastructure. The roads that are managed by the township have bike lanes - even if they’re not separated - but the stroad is a state route, so we have no bike lanes on the main connection between these lanes, and limited pedestrian infrastructure.
This is why we have kids getting bussed to the school that’s across the road from their house.
So how is that situation an argument against people running for office? Like jobs are meant to be challenging and work, it’s not like being elected then grants you a magic wand to seamlessly solve issues.
Because it sounds even more frustrating than just voting for someone.
It’s not about frustrating or trolling people though. It’s about seizing power granted to you by law
Voters will always disappoint you. There will always be things left undone, done poorly, or done in a way you disagree with. Everybody needs to get used to this and learn we vote for the least bad, not the most good.
Yeah, that too.
“To summarize the summary of the summary: People are a problem.”
Haha. That’s pretty good. The point I was trying to make is that it doesn’t make sense to me to hold voters to a higher standard of conduct than the politicians that they vote for.
No, politicians should also vote.
I c wut u did there
The difference is campaigns spend over a billion dollars these days and don’t even try to convince voters.
They do anything for donations to spend on fundraisers for more donations, and they just go round and round. Every revolution everyone involved skims a little.
If it costs over a billion dollars to beat trump in an election, maybe we should worry less about donations and more about votes.
In a perfect world, we should be voting for the person with the most solutions that would improve the world as well as country.
We shouldn’t be voting on those who’s likely going to be half-assed.
We don’t live in a perfect world. Someone is going to be president for the next 4 years, and at this stage of the game we have 2 distinct choices.
Also, what you called half-assed someone else might call the democracy process. Just because YOU want something doesn’t mean I want the same thing. Your vision for how to solve Palestine or Ukraine or improve wealth equality might be vastly different from mine. Just because you don’t get exactly what you want doesn’t mean the system is useless or not worth participating in. If you were to get exactly what you want, then I’d be getting walked over. If I get exactly what I want, then you’d say you are not being heard.
The only fair system is to elect a big-tent party and then work through dialog on trying to reach either consensus or fair compromise on the various topics. But we won’t have that option if we let the fascists get control and do their Project 2025 thing while ignoring us.
It boils down to good politics is boring and full of compromise.
Lot’s of talking and compromise doesn’t make for good headlines or
scaremotivate voters to the polls. There is room to add the large media companies to the blame of ‘perfection’ since they are always looking for the imperfect to talk about. And then they bash that imperfect-ness into the ground.
This has been kind of a half ass last four years hasn’t it?
A more nuanced version of this is, if you live in a state that has 0% chance of swinging, feel free to do a protest vote. Voting for Jill Stein or write in Bernie Sanders in California or Wyoming will not change anything, on the other hand if you do funny votes in Pennsylvania or Georgia you are worse than MAGA people.
Even if you are in a Blue State, the US needs to overwhelmingly reject Trump both in electoral and popular vote.
Otherwise a Trump replacement will pop up in 4 years.
Trump replacements will pop up every 4 years until the end of the USA.
Yes, with electoral college that strategy is acceptable… buuuuuut…
DON’T sleep for a second on the downballot races, for House Rep., Senator, Governor, state positions, ballot measures (including on a woman’s right to an abortion), and everything else applicable to you on Election Day. DON’T stay home even if you don’t like your choice of President/VP or that your state won’t affect who will reside in the Oval Office.
Any of these other races can be close. Each has a piece of a government that has big effects on many of the issues you care about.
I’m still going to tick the Kamala box, but I’m ashamed of how little she’s trying to be a good candidate. After Nov4, I’ll get going with direct action.
Exactly, her winning is not the end. We need to apply a massive amount of pressure since she is a neoliberal.
Who the fuck is disliking? This is it. We need to apply the pressure after Drumpf is taken care of.
What specifically do you think she should do better on?
Main issue for most people is the fact that she’s not trying harder to stop Israel from killing Palestinians.
Well, there’s not much she can do atm as vice-president. It’s very well-known that Biden is very pro-Israeli.
Her rhetoric on the topic as a candidate has been very mixed. She’s been improving since she had that meeting with Uncommitted leaders. Hopefully she can have a better plan than “ask nicely for a ceasefire” to present to voters before the election.
Harris said that as president, she would maintain the US alliance with Israel and “ensure Israel has the ability to defend itself.”
To most people that sounds like she’ll keep sending weapons which will then be used to murder Palestinians.
people need to get over the israel/palestine thing. they’re going to kill each other. there’s nothing you can do about it. your precious conscience is not the most important thing in the world. if you get bogged down on one issue, you will miss the bigger issue.
Well, Israel offers the US a lot strategically, which is why we financially support them. Those finances could go to M4All. But we might be in a worse economic position if Israel loses, so we can’t fund stuff then either. That’s why Israel is hotly debated, outside of the humanity aspect (which no one cares about anyway or we’d be in other wars too).
Man you must really be angry at the rest of world too right? I mean at least her team is working for a cease fire, that’s more than the rest of the world is doing. Or are you pushing some form of narrative?
Oh and I’m sure your response will have something to say about dems not doing anything, need to cut funding, ect. I’ll say there’s a 10 year weapons contract that was signed in 2016. Then you’ll bring up the Leahy Law, then I’ll bring up without Israel Iran will run roughshot over the middle east killing loads of people.
Then we can go back and forth, I’ll ask two questions, you’ll answer one of them with some bullshit.
So, you can save it, I’ll leave it as it is and I’ll continue to be disgusted with Israel and the world by not stepping up and stopping the genocide. You can keep posting bullshit about it being the dems fault.
I was just answering a question with information I have gathered reading comments around here. Even the way I phrased it didn’t really include myself. Not sure why you inferred that I was so angry. If anything, your response is angry.
You’re ok dude. It sounds like this guy/gal has had similar conversations and was frustrated by them. Understandable on both sides.
That is true, there’s a lot of bad actors here that you can’t mention what they really are or you’ll catch a ban. He/she looked liked one. If you ask these actors more than one question they consistently will use quotes and only answer one question, then spew their bullshit, It’s the “tell”. My frustration is with the mods that see this shit, see the reports, and do nothing.
Thanks <3
…without Israel Iran will run roughshot over the middle east killing loads of people.
Israel is, as of 2024, running roughshot over the middle east, killing 40,000 people.
Then we can go back and forth, I’ll ask two questions, you’ll answer one of them with some bullshit.
This sounds oddly like the debate surrounding Vietnam during the war, and comprises a lot of debate on the United States of America being the “world police”. As for me, the United States has failed to be any sort of world police. There is incredible polarization in its political parties, several territories that are governed yet cannot vote, the last two presidents both lying and suffering from old age, and a well-known problem of candidates being paid off. If the U.S. cannot be run well internally, it has no business meddling with foreign affairs, which includes giving weapons and troops to Israel. Despite the cruelty of Israel, there remains a bigger problem to solve–that being an incompetent nation having an excessively high military and an interventionist outlook.
So, you can save it, I’ll leave it as it is and I’ll continue to be disgusted with Israel and the world by not stepping up and stopping the genocide. You can keep posting bullshit about it being the dems fault.
Bullshit?
Harris has not indicated that she would waver in weapons sales to Israel and has not shown breaks with Biden’s handling of the war, aside from slight changes in rhetoric when addressing the human suffering in Gaza.
https://thehill.com/policy/international/4862241-harris-palestinian-activists-israel-gaza/
Also:
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/23/briefing/kamala-harris-convention-speech.html
https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/4852729-harris-issues-center-shifted/
I’m voting for her because she’s not Trump, with the full knowledge and expectation that she’s not going to do shit on Gaza, Police Reform, UBI, M4A, Gun Violence, or anything else that might ruffle the feathers of the “center.”
Is it OK with you for me to be vocally upset about it, in exchange for giving her my vote?
Medicare for All. The insurance pyramid scheme is getting more and more insane
She was a big champion of Medicare for all in 2020. It is indeed a shame she isn’t talking about it now like she did last election. Judging from her 2020 rhetoric though, it is definitely something she would be open to doing if given a cooperative government, I think.
“open to” it is good, sure, but I want her to champion it. Bully pulpit and all that
Pretty typical of left leaning voters. Lots of issues, lots of arguing, very little in the way of coming together. Give the Right one thing: They will come together to fuck you over.
The left wing circular firing squad
NO ONE is a perfect candidate
Don’t let perfect be the enemy of good
No American here. I ask myself, does a third candidate have any real chance of getting enough votes to gain visibility in the media and elsewhere? Even if it is for future elections?
I don’t know the answer, but if it’s no and you know it and still decide to vote for a third candidate, you’re an idiot. Work to make this a reality within four years, for the next four years, if you don’t do it and just complain you’re an asshole.
The trouble with never voting for a 3rd party is that you enable the 2 party system, which fundamentally promotes tribalism, division, and corruption.
Whats worse is that it snowballs and is completely out of control. There was a time when I would say that it’s worth voting for a candidate that will never get elected to sway future policy, but although it’s always felt like the other guy I’d going to ruin everything, it’s truer now than it has ever been. And it won’t stop at Trump. Trump could be dead, some equally craven ghoul would take his place. That ship will never turn, it will only pull away from the Democrats. Nothing can ever progress. There is only the fight.
America is a cautionary tale.
If your country is lucky enough to have 3 or more major political forces, keep that alive.
There is an option if you really care enough about this. It works to promote a third party during the four years between presidential elections. local, state and federal elections in the middle of the electoral cycle are much more influential than is often believed and if enough people work on it, it would not be so unimaginable for a third candidate to have the proper impact. Watch the tea party and follow their example in the opposite direction.
If you don’t care enough to work on it for four years, well, maybe you don’t care enough
I don’t understand how you can get this so easily but people in our own damn country are literally not capable
Many of them are perfectly capable, but simply don’t care if Trump wins, despite their claims. They’re fine with fascism, as long as they don’t have to feel bad.
Some people disgust me ngl
deleted by creator
I’d just like to clarify that presidential elections are not the only time to vote if you want to see any actual change. There are elections every year. Keep up to date on what’s going on in your state, in your county, in your city or town, and actually put the work in.
Most of the people in power got there by being elected to other positions years ago.
No, she isn’t. What needs to be said is that she presents far less danger for our country than Trump does. It really sucks having two candidates you don’t like, but for the sake of integrity, you have to always choose what you believe is the lesser of two evils.
Douche and Turd Sandwich, every last time. Does get a little old.
Hoping to be pleasantly surprised by Harris once she doesn’t have to pander to the “center” - and I say “center” because anyone considering voting for Trump in the first place is not in the “center” and if they are, we’re worse off than I realized.
Hoping to be pleasantly surprised by Harris once she doesn’t have to pander to the “center”
Nothing I’ve seen while she’s been in office suggests she’s going to be anything but a Mitt Romney tier corporate hack.
She’s got a rich and eager pool of progressive voters to court - voters she was happy to pander to back in 2020 - who she has spurned since she became VP. She’s taken an outright reactionary stance on immigration. She’s abandoned any support of a public health insurance option. She’s all in on genocide in Gaza. She’s taking enormous amounts of money from Crypto banks and gig economy CEOs. She got an endorsement from Dick fucking Cheney, so you can guess where she stands on fossil fuels.
But she’s not Trump, so…
💯
Still hoping to be wrong though.
She doesnt have to be perfect, just better than the fat shithead her opponent is.
I once heard politics likened to public transit. No, it’s not a door to door service that gets you exactly where you want to go. However, it can get you in the general direction you’re headed, and it’s obviously better to get closer to your destination than going opposite damn direction.
We’re moving a bunch of people around, not everyone can have a perfect route.
Until she is elected, I will be a solid supporter. As soon as she’s elected, I’ll go back to being a critic. But lordy, I’d vote for a literal clown before a Trump.
trump is back to leading in the polls, folks. pull your heads out of your asses.
deleted by creator
We can change the Dems and push them towards actually being good by just uncritically voting for them every election I see no flaw in this plan.
Not to mention showing up for the primaries too.
It fucking mystifies me that people will condemn the dems for never voting for progressives in primaries, and then just never turn out to the primaries themselves.
Primary turnout is consistently pathetic and an abject condemnation of the wannabe revolutionaries who speak with fire then act with all the likewise energy of cosmic background radiation.
“I don’t understand what a primary is”, the voter.
Let me check who I could’ve voted for Dem presidential candidate this year in the primaries. Here’s the list:
Oh I should’ve voted in 2020? I could’ve chose between:
- Biden (no)
- Bernie “Israel has every right to defend itself” Sanders
- Bloomberg (lmao)
“Bernie Sanders isn’t pure enough for me” Jesus fucking Christ.
Like, how left do you think the electorate in this country is, exactly?
If it makes you feel any better I did vote for him in the primaries.
He’s one of the leftmost politicians in the entire country. And the electorate itself is not exactly ready to sing the Internationale. So you’re here removed for what?
“Voting for the more left of the two parties won’t move them left!”
“Okay, vote for the leftmost candidate in the primaries.”
“None of them were pure enough for me.”
“Bernie is one of the leftmost figures in the entire country.”
“Well, I did vote for him.”
???
Did you vote for him expecting a Sanders victory wouldn’t move the party left? Were you just having fun filling out your ballot?
Fuck’s sake.
I don’t think electoralism is enough to overturn the system no. I’ll participate in it insofar as filling out a bubble takes almost no effort. Don’t expect me to be enthusiastic about it.
Moving the system left is not the same as overturning it. A leaning structure is easier to topple in a direction than an upright one.
Moving the system left and accepting that the system isn’t going to be simply voted into oblivion are not mutually exclusive.
Best to wait until the opposition isn’t someone who will straight up take away your ability to vote in the first place.
I’ll be waiting here on this bench
sOCiaL mEdiA kEePs Me iNfOrMed!
bOtH pArTiEs ArE tHe SaMe! wHy BoThEr VoTiNg LoL!
