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From what I've heard and seen, there's a massive astroturfing effort to discredit Biden over the actions of an allied nation. It's as if a massive propaganda machine is at work that completely ignores the fact that Republicans would have an even worse stance than Biden on this issue.
Charles Manson would make a better US president than Hitler...
Doesn't mean people are going to get hype to go vote for Charles Manson.
And telling people those are the only options will depress turnout.
And when turnout is depressed, republicans win.
So how about we try running someone who actually cares about genocide and will at least stop trying to get the perpetrators even more money while telling their own citizens we're the only first world country that can't afford universal healthcare?
Like, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to understand that would get more votes.
But the people running the Dem party aren't going to just turn down those AIPAC kickbacks if they can get away with "at least we're not republicans, so shut up and vote for another genocide supporter".
They'll always aim for "barely better than a Republican". So let's fucking replace them with people willing to do more than the absolute bare minimum
This is an unpopular opinion and unpopular opinions lose you elections
The real world isn't lemmy.
There are absolutely very important reasons to still vote for Biden, but you can't rely on millions of people to all do the right thing just because it's logical. The person who's running for office ultimately has the responsibility to ensure people want to vote for them. It's just not really useful to blame millions of people when you know that there are statistically for sure going to be disaffected people out of those who need to be motivated. It doesn't even matter whether most voters who would vote for Biden turn out to vote for him - they almost certainly will - because this fight is at the margins, and to win, you have to capture the irresponsible and unreliable people too.
The "but it could be much worse" argument doesn't carry much weight for many people on this issue.
Has anyone tried explaining that if you allow in the people literally trying to take their rights away, they won't get another chance to vote in a politician against genocide?
Like the genocide is awful but it shouldn't make people forget they have very close to home issues currently happening right now.
I hear that excuse every single election and have always found it lacking.
If we always have to wait until after the next election to demand better of the Democrats then we'll never see any change. "Lesser evilism" will only allow the Democrats to continue sliding the overton window to the right.
Even if you're already planning to vote a straight Democrat ticket, don't tell them that. Make them think you're a swing voter they need to pander to.
How are you hearing it every single election? The main issues didn't start popping up (or at least blatantly enough to change voter turnout) until the 2016 election.
Like that's not nearly enough elections in between to hear the excuse every election.
He's only seen 2 that he remembers.
With my ears, of course. Trump isn't the only threat to the Democrat party, just the most recent one.
I don't particularly care about the democratic party threat, I care about the uptick in voting issues, the supreme court, and...you know...that the opposing party is trying to vote in someone who attempted to not give up the office
So you know, the recent ones that a lot of people started voting in about.
If you truly believe that's nothing new, i'll just consider you to be part of that astroturfing described above and ask you to stop wasting my time. Seriously.....
I'm not going to compromise my principles out of fear. I'd rather write in "none of the above" than hitch my wagon to a party that gets campaign donations from corporate bombmakers like Raytheon.
If the Democrats want my vote, they should start acting like it. They need to stop pretending they can coast to victory on "lesser evilism" before they end up repeating all their mistakes from 2016, and the threat of withholding my vote is the only leverage I have.
Stop bullshitting. You'll sit on your morals while a dictator takes over, just being happy you didn't "compromise your morals."
Which ultimately just means doing nothing while the dictator takes over.
Am I bullshitting, or am I applying the only leverage I have over the party?
We can't afford politicians, so the threat of withholding our votes is our only tool for influencing the party.
I advise you to stop being a "safe" voter that will always and forever vote blue no matter who. Even if you're going to vote for Dems anyway, make them think that they need to work for it.
You're bullshitting
I feel like you've had plenty of years to see how that "leverage" is going, and choosing now specifically to try to enforce it is really suspicious.
"Now specifically"? This has been my political messaging strategy since I reached voting age. Feel free to continue lambasting folks for wanting the party to suck less, that seems really effective too. XD
And it's working so well, huh. Just keep doing it! Doesn't matter how many rights your fellow Americans lose (but not you of course, you're not trans or a woman or anything like that)
I'm am trans, moved out of Texas and started hormone therapy last year.
People like me are right up there in "first they came for..", so don't imagine that I don't know what's at stake.
That's precisely why it's so important for the Democrats to reform and stop playing carrot to the Republican stick. They are complicit quislings who gladly work with fascists, even voting with them to censure the only Palestinian-American in congress for her objection to the arms deals that are enabling one of our proxy states to perpetuate genocide.
I'm still hopeful that it isn't too late for the party to seek redemption, but I'm not so naive as to think they'll do it on their own. Nothing short of an existential threat to the party would convince it to change, and the only threat we can offer as voters is to withhold support en masse.
Waste as much time as you want trying to shame me into voting, I live in a blue state now so your efforts would be almost meaningless even if they were successful. The people who actually need convincing are the party bosses, and good luck with that if they think they already have your vote.
These tired ass arguments will no longer work for the younger generation.
Thank god
Which is still an ignorant take, because we've only got two realistic options. Bad and worse.
Any complaints otherwise are ignorant at best, if not maliciously deceptive.
The solution isn't "shut up and be grateful we're not worse". It's actually running someone that's good.
We've tried the "shut up you don't have a choice" strategy and that just keeps ending up with republicans in office.
Why not just run good candidates that want to help America if they get in office?
You push the Democratic Party candidate to the left. Supporting Republicans (which is what you're doing if you don't vote for Joe Biden, full stop) isn't going to help anyone and won't get you better candidates in the future. It will literally have the opposite effect. There's a great batch of possible candidates for 2028 (Witmer, Shapiro, Newsome, etc). Sure I'd prefer them over Biden for 2024 but they're not running.
"Vote red no matter who, because Dems are worse" is how trump became the face of the Republican party...
If the Dem party's only standard is "there's a D next to their name" we'll gonna keep getting shitty candidates that lose half the elections to republicans. And even when they do win, nothing gets fixed.
Normally I'd push for primary participation and then begrudgingly voting for the winner of the primary.
But we don't even get a primary because a private organization controls that, and they decided we don't get one.
Will I still vote for Joe?
Sure, I've voted for every single shitty D candidate in the general since I turned 18. But telling people to just shut up and stop complaining about how fucked it is won't fix anything. Hasn't for decades.
And pretending that shitty milk toast candidates don't depress turnout and give Republicans a chance, is like asking why poor people don't just make more money. But you're not going to reach that 1/3 of eligible voters on a political sub on a fringe social media website
The absolute easiest way to get them to vote, is run a good candidate.
So how about you spend your effort communicating that to the Democratic party? That might actually accomplish something....
Although, they're probably just say "shut up and vote for me, at least I'm not a Republican".
Because that doesn't make nearly as much ~~money~~ donations as "Look at how awful the Republicans are."
If the D's ran a real candidate that actually cared about the country, they'd get blasted in fund raising...People like Booker would go broke overnight if we got universal healthcare. Pelosi would lose her ass if we outlawed congressional trading.
We're fucked...irrevocably completely and utterly fucked.
Not really, Bernie and even trump made enough off "small" donations to run effective campaigns.
The difference is small donations from voters don't come with all the perks and kickbacks as the same amount from a single PAC/billionaire/organization.
And as long as the bare minimum is having a D next to your name, grifters are going to run with the D, and get those huge donations because the people making them expect a return.
So yeah...
Those are two great examples of politicians that need to be replaced, and why our standards need to be more than a single letter.