this post was submitted on 10 May 2024
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[–] [email protected] 71 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Anyone who bases their entire identity around their political beliefs is pretty much always a disappointment no matter who they voted for

[–] [email protected] 17 points 3 months ago

Joke's on you! I'm an anarchist and am always disappointed with electoralism, even if I didn't vote at all.

[–] [email protected] 59 points 3 months ago (2 children)

Liberals will disappoint you.

Conservatives will arrest, surpress and kill you.

Clearly both are equally bad!!

[–] [email protected] 17 points 3 months ago (4 children)

Both parties in the US are liberal.

[–] [email protected] 24 points 3 months ago

They used to be, but the current Republican party explicitly rejects liberalism. They don't follow any liberal ideas, even on capitalism and free markets. They're willing to bend any principle for power. They're fascists.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Sure and the sky is green.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Look up "liberalism", before you ridicule yourself in front of everyone.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 3 months ago (1 children)

"Relating to or denoting a political and social philosophy that promotes individual rights, civil liberties, democracy, and free enterprise." How the fuck does that describe the GOP?? I mean yeah I get the argument relative to economics, but on the civil rights side of things no.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 3 months ago (1 children)

They do advocate for all of these things for white christians.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 3 months ago (4 children)
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[–] [email protected] 13 points 3 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 12 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Liberalism is a political and moral philosophy based on the rights of the individual, liberty, [consent of the governed, political equality, right to private property and equality before the law.

Wikipedia agrees with me

[–] [email protected] 15 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (2 children)

It's a United States thing. They use the term liberal to refer to social liberalism whereas you're referring to neoliberalism.

Edit: On second glance, your Wikipedia link is to straight liberalism, which includes things the Republican party doesn't support, like secularism. So who knows.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 3 months ago

Originally, america was secular. Then the 1950s happened.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 3 months ago

which includes things the Republican party doesn't support, like secularism.

Yeah, saw that, too. They are still liberals (as in: support neoliberal policies), but with christo-fascist tendencies. The article states that these points are contended right dow, though.

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[–] [email protected] 54 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Politics will always disappoint you. All you can do is work towards the things that matter

[–] [email protected] 13 points 3 months ago

Of course politics will always disappoint you. Politics is the means by which large groups of people aggregate their desires sufficiently to achieve collective goals. It's a massive process of millions of compromises. The goal is explicitly not to make everyone happy. The goal is to have enough people of good will and with enough information avaliable involved that the series of compromises move enough of us in the right direction.

[–] [email protected] 52 points 3 months ago

This is the Lemmy Sino-Russian propaganda farm version of a boomer meme. What a fucking joke, I literally laughed

[–] [email protected] 47 points 3 months ago (3 children)

When tankies disappoint you, however, complaining about it will get you a one way ticket to the gulag.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 3 months ago (2 children)

Liberals just bypass the gulag and incarcerate, kill, or deport you and your loved ones

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[–] [email protected] 11 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Here is another way in which liberals will disappoint you with their lack of political education. There's liberals, conservatives and tankies, and no other options I guess.

Tell me, can you provide me with your definition of the word "tankie"? Because they are a specific thing that represents a fringe pariah of the radical left.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 3 months ago (1 children)

fringe pariah of the radical left

Tankies aren't leftists, and literally all of Hexbear is full of them. .ml too at this point.

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[–] [email protected] 36 points 3 months ago (2 children)

The Democrats can't do as much as you want them to when there's a very real chance of losing the election to the Republicans. If you want change, then vote. If you want policy 475, you need to vote for policy 1 first.

[–] [email protected] 33 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

The American system of government is the blame game. For example, few people seem to remember that during Obama's 8 years in office he had the government for 10 months.

During the 86 other months Republicans exploited that by simultaneously stonewalling everything while going to the media and questioning why the democrats aren't doing more for the American people. It is a masterfully effective underhanded tactic.

I also agree that everyone should vote. When more people vote, regardless of political affiliation, democrats win bigger. I don't know why that is true, but it is. So yes, everyone vote!

[–] [email protected] 13 points 3 months ago (30 children)

It’s the other way around. They not gonna do what u want them to because they know you’ll have to vote for them because of their fear politics. Let them know they’re not getting your vote. They’re gonna lose their jobs. Then they’ll try harder.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (3 children)

Dude no. They need to win elections which means they can't lose to Republicans. That's it. When they know they can't lose, they will move on to better policies. They aren't going to magically move left when there's a very real chance of losing the election. Sorry to say, you're twisting yourself into knots trying to justify not voting.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Why on earth would they move left if there's no risk of losing? They want to enact right wing policies because that's what their donors pay them to do.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Your question is complete backwards. They can't move left because there is a real chance of losing. You win elections from the center. If you have a risk of losing that means you stay firmly in the center.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 3 months ago (5 children)

You win elections from the center.

That's absolute nonsense. The number of people who are politically engaged swing voters is very marginal. Meanwhile, a full third of the country doesn't vote. You win elections through turnout, and you get turnout by supporting popular policies that actually benefit people.

Alternatively, you can win elections through money, if you can convince the rich that you'll govern in their interests, against the interests of the poor.

The democrats, broadly speaking, prefer to win through the latter method because they get more money that way, but that doesn't make it the most effective method. They just have a loud enough signal to convince people it's the only method.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (1 children)

You literally win from the middle. One switched vote is worth double from the fringes, because you take away from the other party and get one yourself.

And if you run against incumbents, you have to be even more in the middle - think Clinton and Biden. Biden had to run center, although he's acting further left than what he ran on.

Sorry but you're just trying to justify not voting, by pretending that not voting will magically make the party move left. It won't. It's fantasy. Not voting means they will meet in the middle even harder.

You want change? Make the Dems win resoundingly and successively.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (4 children)

Why on earth would you bring up Clinton to support your argument? She did exactly what you described and somehow managed to lose what should've been an extremely easy election. Biden managed to win by a very narrow margin in another extremely easy matchup. Not included in your data set are any candidates who ran more to the left, such as Obama (though he governed far to the right of how he ran).

There's so many more disengaged voters than swing voters that it doesn't matter if swing voters are worth more. Besides, swing voters don't just vote according to a rational policy calculus of centrism. A lot of it is vibes or superficial nonsense.

The dems are not going to magically move left, against their donors interests and the interests they've repeatedly demonstrated they hold, just because they win. Especially if that win comes through unconditional support from the left. They are not your friends, and they don't share your interests. They're careerists pursuing their own advancement.

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[–] [email protected] 12 points 3 months ago (1 children)

You are assuming that leftward momentum is what the democrats want. I am sure a couple do, but the establishment democrats showed their hands when the super delegates prevented actual progress, and shut down referendums that won to establish ranked voting on state’s levels. Without motivation to change they will not because they got theirs.

And no i don’t want fucking trump being president, using his presidency to quash his lawsuits, damn Ukraine, damn Palestine, sell off what little progress our civilization made to fighting climate change, remove further rights from the vulnerable groups, establishing Christianity as the national religion, kill off all our agent for money, establish the president breaking the law as a with qualified immunity, rewriting the history books, burn and silence dissenting thought, further pollute the judicial system with cronies, and pardon neo nazi criminals.

It just sucks knowing that no matter what i do the US is directly responsible for yet another genocide, and in 4 years it will be de santis or who knows trump running yet again, and it will again be “now is not the time to rock the boat, vote blue no matter who, or else “”democracy”” will end…again” now and forever more as justification to block actual change and then force conservative democrats to win the primaries.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (3 children)

It's the Overton window. If the right ideas keep losing, then the left ideas have more say. If the right wing ideas don't win you elections, they slowly fade away. If left wing ideas win you elections, the the whole Overton window goes to which left wing ideas will win.

Like dude you just listed off the entire Overton window that they're appealing to because it won them an election and might win them another election. Like you just did it! Why do those talking points even exist? Because it won and could win again. Shut those out by voting. Tell them resoundingly that there's no chance of winning on those ideas, and then the Overton window can move left.

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 3 months ago (1 children)

It’s naive to think that voters have more influence on policies than donors/lobbyists. If democrats win every election then capitalists will just donate more to make sure their needs are met. All politicians are corrupted by huge sums of money.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 months ago (4 children)

While there's some legitimacy in money winning elections, you know what it comes down to? Fucking votes.

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[–] [email protected] 13 points 3 months ago (3 children)

When did lemmy redefine conservatism as liberalism? Am I in some reverse world?

[–] [email protected] 20 points 3 months ago

Everything done by the United States government before Trump was done under the liberal ideology. They've justified slavery and social security, the United Nations and support for military dictatorships, ethnic cleansing and the right to vote, all from valid use of that contradictory ideology. It's filled with amazing ideas and terrible ideas that are all at war with one another.

The major problem with it for lemmy users is how much liberals support capitalism and imperialism. Both of these things are the source of most of our biggest problems, and liberals consistently fail to restrain themselves.

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[–] [email protected] 11 points 3 months ago (3 children)
[–] [email protected] 13 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Hope is masturbation.

Act.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 3 months ago

Hope is key to acting

Using hope as a driving factor for acting to bring the change you want to see

For example: I hope to see better pedestrian focused infrastructure in my community therefore I act in a way to make that happen. I call my reps, I talk with people I meet about it, etc.

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 3 months ago

I disappoint them by fighting back

[–] [email protected] 6 points 3 months ago

Progressives also disappoint me. The public not being Social Democrats is my main issue.

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