• prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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    15 hours ago

    I don’t understand what is so difficult to grasp… In a first past the post system, a candidate that panders to leftists will never win. Not in the current political climate at least.

    Conservatives line up behind their chosen candidate, but the left can never agree on fucking anything. And conservatives vote.

    So we have a situation where only two parties can emerge, and the person representing the left-leaning party (relatively speaking, I know Democrats are not really “left” in general) has a to walk a tightrope in order to get elected. It is impossible for them to please every faction or individual leftist opinion, and trying to do so would end in certain failure.

    Harris could very much be privately supportive of Palestine, but if she were to openly condemn Israel prior to the election, she will 100% lose. Yes, that is shitty, but that is reality right now. That’s what needs to be changed, and it doesn’t happen one month before the most important election this country has ever had.

    So if you want a Democratic candidate to pander to progressives, then progressives need to make themselves impossible to ignore when there is not an election of this importance going on. That’s how you move the party to the left. Vote down ballot, vote in local elections, organize for progressives candidates, etc.

    But until we get rid of this bullshit first past the post system, voting for anybody besides a Democrat or a Republican is an objective waste.

      • Stovetop@lemmy.world
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        1 hour ago

        Couldn’t even win the primary. I voted for him, but we ended up with Clinton instead. So I voted Jill Stein in the general out of spite in 2016, and it’s still one of my life’s greatest regrets.

        • TokenBoomer@lemmy.world
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          1 hour ago

          You shouldn’t regret your vote. You voted your conscience. That is all that is required. You didn’t fail the electoral process, it failed you.

          • Stovetop@lemmy.world
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            53 minutes ago

            If the political system worked the way I want it to, I wouldn’t have to regret it. But I threw away my vote on a spoiler candidate, knowing it was never going to amount to anything, but I was spiteful then over Bernie’s loss and thought I was making some sort of a point. The result was that I ended up contributing to Trump’s win in 2016 and I’ll never live that down.

            • TokenBoomer@lemmy.world
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              40 minutes ago

              If Hillary had been a better candidate, and adopted more of Bernie’s policies, she would have earned your vote. You didn’t fail her, she failed you. It’s literally her job as a candidate to sway your vote. She failed. It’s not the electorate’s fault when the candidate doesn’t court them. We need to stop blaming individuals for candidates deficiencies.