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If we get a next time, everyone had better show up in the primaries to vote for the Bernie-equivalent or further left. If I'm the only person under 60 at my primary polling place again, I'm gonna snap.
Centrists don't win primaries because of Centrist Magic(tm). They win from disengagement of the young and high participation by fucking dinosaurs who still think it's the 1980s.
They win because voting costs money. If you get fucking president’s day as s holiday but voting isn’t, voting costs money.
I’m with you. But our primary system fucking sucks and it disenfranchises people based on the staggered timings. I was so motivated for Warren and a ton of people I know were. But Biden had won by the time most people got a chance to vote, including me.
The timing thing I guess is interesting for giving people time to adjust but I would prefer a system where it was one day and one person one vote.
Every state I've lived in has had a late primary, and only once did I actually get to vote in it when it could have made a difference.
Centrists don’t win primaries because of Centrist Magic™. They win from disengagement of the young and high participation by fucking dinosaurs who still think it’s the 1980s.
And also by a pervasive campaign of suppression and character assassination of leftist candidates by corporate news media.
There was no primary. Biden won the farce of one that featured no competing candidates even appearing on a significant number of state primary ballots. And even that was thrown out the window. You're fucked again in 2028 if you put any amount of faith in that shitshow.
I meant the 2020 primary.
I've got an idea, and history would agree.
Violence.
I mean, that only works if you have a substantial base of supporters who are already willing to endure significant hardship for the cause.
Considering we lack a substantial number of people who are willing to turn out for one day just to vote, I'm thinking that's putting the cart before the horse.
I really don't like that you're right, but you're right. Let's just hope that it will be at some point.
That's a monkey's paw wish right there. Electoralism was our alternative to blood in the streets, I would really prefer no blood in the streets.
Me too, but the rich are using violence against us along with the worst political tactics. It'd be pretty hard to convince me it isn't necessary at this point.
I'm worried more that it won't be effective. Power is a numbers game, be it guns or dollars or people. Presumably, the strength of the left is that, properly communicated, it's the inevitable will of the majority of the people. That's the weapon.
The problem with the left isn't that the message is wrong, it's that it's not being communicated effectively to the people that empower it. If the people were unified, and organized, nothing could stand in their way.
I can't argue with that, I guess the next question is how we can get there.
What can we do?
Start using language that resonates with blue collar workers, instead of scary commie words. Organize. Organize, again because it's so important. Get elected; start small, don't shoot straight for president: city council, county commissioner, lieutenant governor, climb the ladder and flood government at all levels with hick-coded progressives. Organize, a third time because what's going to give the people the edge is direct open communication between them. This might be the age of the Vtuber senator, lean into it. Caucus with Dems until we have the numbers alone.
It's not impossible, we just have a lot of catching up to do. Lobbyists and PACs aren't intrinsically bad things, they are useful tools to navigate the political landscape. But at the end of the day it's gotta be people-first messaging. Embrace populism, embrace the circus, stop treating the average American as a rational actor. Grassroots propaganda.
I'd rather have an uninspiring centrist than a convicted felon and fascist tho.
But how did the great poet Mick Jagger put it? "You can't always get what you want."
I’d rather have an uninspiring centrist than a convicted felon
You get the uninspiring centrist only after the economy falls off a cliff again. Right now, we're in the Good Times so we get the Weak Men.
This is the good times??? F$@!
nothing says good times like a pedophile making decisions about women's bodies
can I please get off the no-merry-go-round? I'm starting to get dizzy!
Be a part of that change. Run for local office and or encourage other progressives around you to do the same
Change quite often starts locally and flows up. Those in the national party very usually come from state offices and work their way up. Make that pool of people as progressive as possible
Make no seat uncontested
Organize in every place you can. Beyond just elections, organize for unions, organize to protest, organize to stand with your community, do not given in to the complacency that the far right wants you to have
Power is not be given freely, you have to fight for it. That fight lives on and is worthwhile. Things will get worse before they can get better. But we can lay the groundwork for the future to be better
Too bad I don't have the temperament to be in local government. I'll start flipping tables.
honestly the left needs more table flipping candidates.
There is a large, young population that are progressive and angry. They want to see that reflected in the people they elect. They want to see passion in leaders that will end with positive changes. Yet instead we get milquetoast, bland middle of the road candidates that are not inspiring or interesting.
If Trump can bully his way to be president, I'm sure flipping tables as such is completely inconsequential
Only if it was for putting guns with bibles on them in school.
Democrats would clutch their pearls and call me unelectable.
Yeah, I suppose the Democratic Party wouldn't see the star in the table flipper
This sounds like a solid plan! It will for sure be a uphill battle where I live. (MT)
No, now eat your damn dirt soup and be happy about it.
You can get off the carousel when it shatters into a million deadly fragments of shrapnel.
Rollin til the wheels fall off!
Poland is still inaccurate, as it was when it was posted here the last time
Edit: I tried to search for my comment last time but I didn't find it. So short summary: In Poland, an authoritarian far-right party ruled for a long time that acted heavily against the rule of law and separation of powers (they replaced their Supreme Court and discharged judges on other courts that didn't rule as they wanted) and was very anti-democratic (they turned the national TV into a propaganda broadcast). Amid huge protests, the opposition won the election, and while it is not a very left coalition, they were pretty successful in reversing many of this horrible things, e.g. taking back control of the TV broadcast with a completely new team. They couldn't undo everything as the president with a veto power is still from the old party but with the president elections coming soon this could change soon. And it's generally very euphoric and awesome what happened because it was really terrible what the other party did to this country.
In truth, after the elections in Poland and the change of power, the style of politics has not changed and the election promises have not been implemented. Therefore, it is most likely that the old power will win again in future elections.
The absolute fucking best part of this story is that the right wing party is literally called pis I cannot fucking contain myself fuck my life / rip / lol
I appreciate that this diagram shows that many countries around the world are going through this now. Though I disagree that the centrists aren't tackling the social problems. They're also not tackling the economic problems.
The graph is optimistic. If Argentina is any indication, the final result is the country stuck in the mud, spinning its wheels on "the previous government failed us because it was not far right enough! I, your populist savior, will fix that by dismantling any institutions that are left!"
At best this is confusing cycling the fascist drain as a repeating pattern. At worst it is apathy masquerading as insight. Fascists kill people in death camps and don't hold democratic elections. We've held on this long because we've been paddling against the current. Millions of people stopped paddling this election. Now we're hoping fascist incompetence clogs the drain long enough for us to get away.
We're going to be lucky to get another election. If we still have a democracy the effects of this next Trump term will outlive the next four years.
Trump got three justices onto the Supreme Court in his first term. These aren't going to go in and out of power. They are going to sit there until they die. Trump could get another three Supreme Court nominations confirmed in this next term. Their influence is going to shape this country for thirty years or more.
He promised to jail his political opponents. The Democratic Party might not exist in four years and if does it will probably have shifted to the right. They won't be a moderate challenger in any sense.
An oligarchy of billionaires has rallied around Trump as dictator. Project 2025 is going to give Trump an actionable agenda and an army of loyalists in government positions to execute it for him. Republicans control the Senate and are on track to take the House. The Republicans want to shape this country for decades to come.
All of this turns the discourse around climate change on it's head. Our models of what could happen are typically based on climate admissions staying the same or with efforts to mitigate them. Now we have an incoming administration who are going to pollute as much as possible. That's not a repeating pattern. It's a self-destructive process that ends with billionaires living in their apocalypse bunkers and the rest of us dead.
Argentina was fucked before the current government made changes, which are actually starting to show improvement. Yes he cut tons of social programs, but they were also staring down Zimbabwe levels of inflation.
The selling of public assets does provide a temporary cash influx, in the same way that selling your tools of the trade might let you pay off your credit cards, only now you still have the same costs but no way to earn money.
But, look. Your former competition is hiring! I mean, sure, he's paying you less than you were making, but maybe one day you'll get a promotion in his company!
Only he actually charges you for tool use in the shop, so you're making even less than you thought. Enough to survive, sure. For now.
And, actually, some of those tools look kind of familiar...
Somebody should make a microsite with this graphic that updates every time there is an election.
This is true but boy it's the anti-headline.
The far right refused to tackle the underlying issues and vowed to make them all worse. This is overwhelmingly the biggest issue. It becomes a far bigger problem than the underlying issues.
But it's good to be aware of what the meme points out, too. Been going on too long.
Is this supposed to imply causation? That part doesn't make sense
Liberals: Post meme outlining why current system doesn't work
so anyways, I kept voting Dems....
Far leftists/socialists: post memes outlining why they’re going to pout and not vote knowing that the 100,000,000 votes in 2016 got trump elected…
so anyways, this is all everyone else’s fault!