Every single person you berate for “not voting for imperfect candidates” already fucking does it. You’re bashing people on your own team for the purpose of punching left. But every time we try to push on the fucking PRIMARY for a candidate that isn’t complete dogshit, you fucks sabotage them at every turn, and then act surprised when you lose because you forced the bad unimpressive corporate candidate forth due to “electability” and red scare bullshit.
Progressives as a collective are not marxist-leninists. Stop treating us like we are. MLs spend 16 hours a day being loud in the internet, most of us actual progressives have actual lives and organize IRL instead of wanking over Marx and telling Ukranian children they’re Nazis on social media.
No, they don’t already do that, because turnout is dogshit, if everyone did that we wouldn’t have that problem.
Please criticize the fuck out of the candidates and policies, they fucking suck and they need to know we want progressives not the crap they are parading around, but this meme isn’t doing that, it’s just sending the message that it’s pointless to try, it feels like right wing created content to keep people from bothering to vote at all, and when you look at the numbers, that’s exactly what’s happening.
As a criticism of the DNC, the meme’s pretty close to the truth, even if it does inspire apathy – like Lucy yanking the football away every time, it’s the DNC who sabotage nominees who intend to implement effective change of the system.
But since there’s no other viable ball to kick, the electorate need to kick anyway – and spend the rest of the time organizing on a national level and engaging politically on a local level to shitcan Lucy. (This metaphor isn’t especially extensible!)
No, they don’t already do that, because turnout is dogshit, if everyone did that we wouldn’t have that problem.
This is a comforting lie educated liberals tell themselves. The truth is that today, the Democratic party represents voters who vote more reliably, while the Republicans represent more disengaged infrequent voters. This changed over the last decade or so, but people haven’t gotten the memo. It used to be that Republicans did better in low-turnout elections. But now the opposite is true. Republicans now thrive on low-information, low-engagement voters - the exact type of voters that would vote more in your scenario of everyone turning out. If everyone had voted in 2024, Trump would have won by an even larger margin.
This makes sense if you think about it. Today, Democrats’ real only message is, “vote strategically, we aren’t Republicans.” They offer very little of actual substance beyond not being Trump. Low-engagement voters aren’t going to care about your message of not being Trump. They don’t have the same loyalties regular voters do. And they’re not going to educate themselves on things like Project 2025.
Trump won low-engagement voters because he had simple direct messages that could reach them. Trump was going to put money in your pocket and clamp down on crime. That was his message. That was what he offered. Harris offered “I’m not Trump.” To a well-educated liberal, not being Trump is enough, as you pay attention to politics and know exactly what kind of evil shit Trump has gotten up to. But “I’m not Trump” doesn’t work for the low-engagement voters vital to win an election.
American reading comprehension being under a 6th grade level doing the heavy lifting here, huh? The context of the original comic is Lucy yanking the ball away before Charlie has the chance to kick it. The lesson is that Charlie shouldn’t stop trying to kick the ball, it’s that Lucy should stop being an asshole by taking it. This is not trying to lower turnout for the DNC, this is trying to sarcastically say this manipulative shit doesn’t work and doesn’t increase turnout. It’s doing the fucking opposite of what you’re saying.
Plenty of candidates have won despite a multitude of criticism towards them. If your candidate can’t beat anyone because of those criticisms, then they were a weak candidate anyways.
Did you see this post? Its not about voting in primaries. It’s about not participating because the ball is going to be pulled out in front of you. Yes, vote in primaries. Also, vote in the general for the best candidate.
You say everyone already votes in the general, but that’s blatantly not true. There’s an especially rampant trolling effort to get people not to vote who would vote against Republicans. It’s strategic apathy. It happened last time, and it’s happening now. If you don’t see this, you’re blind.
Really showing off that American education, “instead of voting for the less genocidal platform I’ll enable the much more genocidal platform because I don’t understand civics or harm reduction!”
And a grade school understanding of civics should inform you that not voting is a vote for republicans, so you still made a choice and that choice was directly for everything that’s currently happening. Principles aren’t really relevant when the results are obvious.
If you vote for Democrats in general elections, they’re not talking about you. There are a lot of dumbasses on the left who don’t vote, or throw their votes away on hopeless third parties.
One of me? I’m pretty sure I’m the only one of me. And in response to your comment that I replied to you, you specifically said this wasn’t about those of us who do vote, so that comment has nothing to do with me at all.
So again, you said “if you vote, I’m not taking about you.” I said, “except when we criticize democrats you tell us we don’t want people to vote.” Then you lumped me in with people who don’t vote.
Is thinking really this hard for you? The “we” I’m referring to are the ones of us who vote and also are fed up with the way the DNC runs the party. This is just…not confusing. How are you this perplexed? Do you need a nap? You seem to be getting really emotional.
Tone policing is certainly one way to indicate that you cannot address what I said. Concession accepted. You’ve never criticized the genocide wing, so you’ve never encountered the behavior of the genocide wing toward its critics.
The genocide wing blames everyone to the left of netanyahu for his pet’s loss, regardless of how they voted.
Those people are not numerous enough to matter. They’re mostly internet MLs who spend 16 hours a day yapping on social media so they look like the common consensus.
Ahh yes blame the people who believe in democracy enough to vote their conscience, the smallest percentage of people. And not the cheaters.
Definitely not the bomb threats, the thrown out voter rolls, the mail-in ballots in ditches, the constant redistricting. It’s the tiniest percentage of people who have all the power.
Nevermind the Michigan Data, or the Pennsylvania Data. Or the 30%-40% that sit the fuck out every national election. No it’s that tiny percent.
For the record I voted Harris because I do believe in harm reduction over absolutism, but it’s fucking stupid to blame the third party voters that happen to actually believe in democracy and that you should vote for who you want, not who can win.
Frankly if we as a nation would had voted for a third party or independent candidate sooner, it’s quite possible the either Major Party would have died like the Whigs when the Republican Party came onto the scene.
Just think about it critically instead of continuing that stupid ass dogma that got us here in the first place.
You can see how refusing to distance herself from genocide left an opening that spoiler candidates could exploit, can’t you?
And since you and a bunch of other dopey centrists are gonna imagine that this is somehow an admission of a vote for stein if I don’t say this: I voted for harris.
The people shouting the loudest about Gaza historically don’t fucking vote, ever. So why would anyone assume catering to them would amount to anything when they already don’t vote? It’s not complicated and her position on Palestine likely didn’t have significant effect on the outcome because anyone that actually votes knew well the republicans would embolden netanyahu. And good that you voted for Harris, now please stop trying to convince people not to vote because that gets republicans elected and republicans are worse because they’re unified and they’re all as bad as the worst Dems. It’s not fucking complicated. Like this is literally the only option that isn’t full on violent revolution, societal collapse, or the christofascist technofeudalist dystopia the republicans are ushering in.
I don’t disagree which is why I’ve never voted Stein. The Green Party has never been a serious third party to me, but seems to get brought up as a strawman at every turn when a blueberry wants to avoid their cognitive dissonance.
National elections are so close these days, any of these things could be the but-for difference maker in any given election. Certainly the large number of non-voters you mention (I’m note sure if any of those election fraud claims are consequential).
But, in this thread, we are responding to one particular group that consistently helps Republicans win, because they’re the ones who posted it, and they’re here in the comments to be argued with!
Except it’s never been their fault. Even in the “best” years third party voters make up less than 5% of the electorate. It’s a lie of statistics to not mention the non-voters. You’re telling me that the third party voters are more at fault than politician whose job is to get elected being unable to steal that percentage from the non voters?
No what does happen instead? What did The Democratic Party do not long before the election? Did they appeal to the Non-Voters? Or did they appeal to “moderate” Republicans? Did they go for the larger percentage, or one that was no doubt slim and taken for?
Like doesn’t it seem silly to blame 5 when 30 is such a larger number? Isn’t it dumb to blame people treating democracy like democracy instead of the politicians that won’t meet the electorate where it matters?
Third party voters and non voters both get republicans elected so I don’t concern myself with a distinction. They’re both in the group of people that clearly don’t understand how the government works, or was supposed to before they let republicans ratfuck it.
Yeah, why bother with understanding when you can just place blame. Then you’ll bitch about how the Democratic Party lost again because they can’t meet the electorate where they’re at.
Revel in your ignorance and stupidity I guess. More worried about placing blame than fixing things like a good little blueberry.
All you’re saying is that you’re ignoring the will of voters you need because you accept trump over listening to people who don’t like genocide as much as you do.
No, what you showed was a lie of statistics. It’s not reality. It’s context less without the Non-voter numbers.
And even if they do, I wonder how many of those non-voters would be third party voters if they hadn’t been told their whole life their choices don’t matter unless they vote for the Evil Candidate or the Rolling Over Candidate?
Once again why isn’t a politicians fault for not meeting the electorate where they’re at? Like Non voters are the clear winner every election purely on the numbers. Have you ever asked yourself why? Ever asked them?
National elections are so close these days, any of these things could be the but-for difference maker in any given election.
The party should start behaving accordingly, then. Instead they alienate their base by sprinting to the right in an idiotic attempt to get republican votes. Republicans hate you. They are not going to vote for you.
I’ve made my point about you people supposedly not being numerous enough to matter. A few hundred thousand votes is easily enough to matter if the election is close enough. And you never know how close an election will be before it happens.
I’ve made my point about you people supposedly not being numerous enough to matter. A few hundred thousand votes is easily enough to matter if the election is close enough. And you never know how close an election will be before it happens.
So maybe the party should start treating us as though we’re people with agency whose votes they need.
I voted for harris. I wasn’t expecting second worst to be good enough to win, and I shouldn’t have expected the genocide wing to not blame everyone to the left of netanyahu, regardless of how they voted. It’s not the votes you have a problem with. You hate the idea of anyone ever being allowed to utter an unkind word about the perpetrators of genocide under any circumstances.
Yeah they’re exactly the same. That must be why you spend all your time shitting on the parties trying to stop the fascist but rarely say anything against the farther right parties. Makes sense
I wonder what you’ve imagined to keep yourself from confronting the reality that the time for centrists’ triangulation and capitulation has long since passed.
If progressives voted in the primaries in numbers then we’d have progressive candidates, but the average progressive seems to believe that the Dems are just as bad as the republicans because Americans are unfathomably stupid.
Every single person you berate for “not voting for imperfect candidates” already fucking does it. You’re bashing people on your own team for the purpose of punching left. But every time we try to push on the fucking PRIMARY for a candidate that isn’t complete dogshit, you fucks sabotage them at every turn, and then act surprised when you lose because you forced the bad unimpressive corporate candidate forth due to “electability” and red scare bullshit.
Progressives as a collective are not marxist-leninists. Stop treating us like we are. MLs spend 16 hours a day being loud in the internet, most of us actual progressives have actual lives and organize IRL instead of wanking over Marx and telling Ukranian children they’re Nazis on social media.
No, they don’t already do that, because turnout is dogshit, if everyone did that we wouldn’t have that problem.
Please criticize the fuck out of the candidates and policies, they fucking suck and they need to know we want progressives not the crap they are parading around, but this meme isn’t doing that, it’s just sending the message that it’s pointless to try, it feels like right wing created content to keep people from bothering to vote at all, and when you look at the numbers, that’s exactly what’s happening.
All criticism is welcome except any particular criticism.
No, the party sends that message. The meme just details the mechanism by which they send it.
As a criticism of the DNC, the meme’s pretty close to the truth, even if it does inspire apathy – like Lucy yanking the football away every time, it’s the DNC who sabotage nominees who intend to implement effective change of the system.
But since there’s no other viable ball to kick, the electorate need to kick anyway – and spend the rest of the time organizing on a national level and engaging politically on a local level to shitcan Lucy. (This metaphor isn’t especially extensible!)
The meme doesn’t inspire apathy. The party’s behavior does.
This is a comforting lie educated liberals tell themselves. The truth is that today, the Democratic party represents voters who vote more reliably, while the Republicans represent more disengaged infrequent voters. This changed over the last decade or so, but people haven’t gotten the memo. It used to be that Republicans did better in low-turnout elections. But now the opposite is true. Republicans now thrive on low-information, low-engagement voters - the exact type of voters that would vote more in your scenario of everyone turning out. If everyone had voted in 2024, Trump would have won by an even larger margin.
This makes sense if you think about it. Today, Democrats’ real only message is, “vote strategically, we aren’t Republicans.” They offer very little of actual substance beyond not being Trump. Low-engagement voters aren’t going to care about your message of not being Trump. They don’t have the same loyalties regular voters do. And they’re not going to educate themselves on things like Project 2025.
Trump won low-engagement voters because he had simple direct messages that could reach them. Trump was going to put money in your pocket and clamp down on crime. That was his message. That was what he offered. Harris offered “I’m not Trump.” To a well-educated liberal, not being Trump is enough, as you pay attention to politics and know exactly what kind of evil shit Trump has gotten up to. But “I’m not Trump” doesn’t work for the low-engagement voters vital to win an election.
American reading comprehension being under a 6th grade level doing the heavy lifting here, huh? The context of the original comic is Lucy yanking the ball away before Charlie has the chance to kick it. The lesson is that Charlie shouldn’t stop trying to kick the ball, it’s that Lucy should stop being an asshole by taking it. This is not trying to lower turnout for the DNC, this is trying to sarcastically say this manipulative shit doesn’t work and doesn’t increase turnout. It’s doing the fucking opposite of what you’re saying.
Plenty of candidates have won despite a multitude of criticism towards them. If your candidate can’t beat anyone because of those criticisms, then they were a weak candidate anyways.
Also it’s important to realize that Charlie Brown is a good-natured sucker being taken advantage of by a manipulative person.
Eventually even the most gullible suckers give up.
You’re spot on and these downvotes are EXACTLY why things are the way they are.
Did you see this post? Its not about voting in primaries. It’s about not participating because the ball is going to be pulled out in front of you. Yes, vote in primaries. Also, vote in the general for the best candidate.
You say everyone already votes in the general, but that’s blatantly not true. There’s an especially rampant trolling effort to get people not to vote who would vote against Republicans. It’s strategic apathy. It happened last time, and it’s happening now. If you don’t see this, you’re blind.
@Cethin @SalamenceFury
The Democratic party’s support for genocide makes it really hard to tell where the legitimate criticism ends and the trolling begins.
And that’s nobody’s fault but theirs.
Really showing off that American education, “instead of voting for the less genocidal platform I’ll enable the much more genocidal platform because I don’t understand civics or harm reduction!”
@edible_funk
Just saying, when you support genocide, some people will take a stand, and you won’t always like how they do it.
. . . not to mention lying about it, calling opponents of genocide antisemites . . .
I’m sorry if you still can’t see how some people would look at all of that and realize that both sides want them dead.
And a grade school understanding of civics should inform you that not voting is a vote for republicans, so you still made a choice and that choice was directly for everything that’s currently happening. Principles aren’t really relevant when the results are obvious.
@edible_funk
Republicans weren’t committing genocide in 2024 -Democrats were.
Imagine having this poor of an understanding of anything.
If you vote for Democrats in general elections, they’re not talking about you. There are a lot of dumbasses on the left who don’t vote, or throw their votes away on hopeless third parties.
If ya’ll run Gavin Newsom, I’m out.
No joke, Newsom is a BAD candidate, he’s not even pretending to be progressive, he’s your typical neo-liberal corporatist.
What, why, do you hate sick memes!? /s
Except when we criticize the shit the DNC pulls you all show up and say, “oh, you just don’t want people to vote?!?!”
In this post, one of you replied to me:
So the concern isn’t unfounded.
One of me? I’m pretty sure I’m the only one of me. And in response to your comment that I replied to you, you specifically said this wasn’t about those of us who do vote, so that comment has nothing to do with me at all.
Try again, maybe put on your thinking cap.
Did I lump you in with a group to which you do not belong? Heaven forfend!
Who is the “we” you are referring to here?
And who are the “you all”? iM pReTTy ShUr Im ThE OnLy OnE of MEEE!
So again, you said “if you vote, I’m not taking about you.” I said, “except when we criticize democrats you tell us we don’t want people to vote.” Then you lumped me in with people who don’t vote.
Is thinking really this hard for you? The “we” I’m referring to are the ones of us who vote and also are fed up with the way the DNC runs the party. This is just…not confusing. How are you this perplexed? Do you need a nap? You seem to be getting really emotional.
Tell me you’ve never criticized the centrist wing of the party without saying you’ve never criticized the centrist wing of the party.
You need to consciously work on eliminating these Reddit speech patterns from your vocabulary. It’s like nails on a chalkboard.
Tone policing is certainly one way to indicate that you cannot address what I said. Concession accepted. You’ve never criticized the genocide wing, so you’ve never encountered the behavior of the genocide wing toward its critics.
The genocide wing blames everyone to the left of netanyahu for his pet’s loss, regardless of how they voted.
Those people are not numerous enough to matter. They’re mostly internet MLs who spend 16 hours a day yapping on social media so they look like the common consensus.
2016 Election: Stein Votes vs. Trump Margin
Ahh yes blame the people who believe in democracy enough to vote their conscience, the smallest percentage of people. And not the cheaters.
Definitely not the bomb threats, the thrown out voter rolls, the mail-in ballots in ditches, the constant redistricting. It’s the tiniest percentage of people who have all the power.
Nevermind the Michigan Data, or the Pennsylvania Data. Or the 30%-40% that sit the fuck out every national election. No it’s that tiny percent.
For the record I voted Harris because I do believe in harm reduction over absolutism, but it’s fucking stupid to blame the third party voters that happen to actually believe in democracy and that you should vote for who you want, not who can win.
Frankly if we as a nation would had voted for a third party or independent candidate sooner, it’s quite possible the either Major Party would have died like the Whigs when the Republican Party came onto the scene.
Just think about it critically instead of continuing that stupid ass dogma that got us here in the first place.
Stein was a spoiler and a Russian asset, if voting your conscious meant voting for her your conscious is fuckin stupid.
You can see how refusing to distance herself from genocide left an opening that spoiler candidates could exploit, can’t you?
And since you and a bunch of other dopey centrists are gonna imagine that this is somehow an admission of a vote for stein if I don’t say this: I voted for harris.
The people shouting the loudest about Gaza historically don’t fucking vote, ever. So why would anyone assume catering to them would amount to anything when they already don’t vote? It’s not complicated and her position on Palestine likely didn’t have significant effect on the outcome because anyone that actually votes knew well the republicans would embolden netanyahu. And good that you voted for Harris, now please stop trying to convince people not to vote because that gets republicans elected and republicans are worse because they’re unified and they’re all as bad as the worst Dems. It’s not fucking complicated. Like this is literally the only option that isn’t full on violent revolution, societal collapse, or the christofascist technofeudalist dystopia the republicans are ushering in.
I shout pretty loud about the genocide wing’s greatest accomplishment, and I vote.
I don’t disagree which is why I’ve never voted Stein. The Green Party has never been a serious third party to me, but seems to get brought up as a strawman at every turn when a blueberry wants to avoid their cognitive dissonance.
National elections are so close these days, any of these things could be the but-for difference maker in any given election. Certainly the large number of non-voters you mention (I’m note sure if any of those election fraud claims are consequential).
But, in this thread, we are responding to one particular group that consistently helps Republicans win, because they’re the ones who posted it, and they’re here in the comments to be argued with!
Except it’s never been their fault. Even in the “best” years third party voters make up less than 5% of the electorate. It’s a lie of statistics to not mention the non-voters. You’re telling me that the third party voters are more at fault than politician whose job is to get elected being unable to steal that percentage from the non voters?
No what does happen instead? What did The Democratic Party do not long before the election? Did they appeal to the Non-Voters? Or did they appeal to “moderate” Republicans? Did they go for the larger percentage, or one that was no doubt slim and taken for?
Like doesn’t it seem silly to blame 5 when 30 is such a larger number? Isn’t it dumb to blame people treating democracy like democracy instead of the politicians that won’t meet the electorate where it matters?
Third party voters and non voters both get republicans elected so I don’t concern myself with a distinction. They’re both in the group of people that clearly don’t understand how the government works, or was supposed to before they let republicans ratfuck it.
Yeah, why bother with understanding when you can just place blame. Then you’ll bitch about how the Democratic Party lost again because they can’t meet the electorate where they’re at.
Revel in your ignorance and stupidity I guess. More worried about placing blame than fixing things like a good little blueberry.
Blame them all, since they’re all to blame. I’ve already shown how less than 5% is more than enough to give us a decade of Trumpism.
A lot of these “both sides” leftists fall into the 30% non-voter category, rather than the third party voter category, by the way.
All you’re saying is that you’re ignoring the will of voters you need because you accept trump over listening to people who don’t like genocide as much as you do.
No, what you showed was a lie of statistics. It’s not reality. It’s context less without the Non-voter numbers.
And even if they do, I wonder how many of those non-voters would be third party voters if they hadn’t been told their whole life their choices don’t matter unless they vote for the Evil Candidate or the Rolling Over Candidate?
Once again why isn’t a politicians fault for not meeting the electorate where they’re at? Like Non voters are the clear winner every election purely on the numbers. Have you ever asked yourself why? Ever asked them?
The party should start behaving accordingly, then. Instead they alienate their base by sprinting to the right in an idiotic attempt to get republican votes. Republicans hate you. They are not going to vote for you.
You’re assuming all of those people are progressives. Quite the opposite, actually.
They don’t all have to be. Look closely again at the numbers and you’ll notice some are larger than others. Think of the implications of that.
Now do Claudia De La Cruz.
You do it, lazy.
I’ve made my point about you people supposedly not being numerous enough to matter. A few hundred thousand votes is easily enough to matter if the election is close enough. And you never know how close an election will be before it happens.
So maybe the party should start treating us as though we’re people with agency whose votes they need.
Maybe you should be informed and invested enough in your own well being not to shoot us all collectively in the foot over misplaced principles.
I voted for harris. I wasn’t expecting second worst to be good enough to win, and I shouldn’t have expected the genocide wing to not blame everyone to the left of netanyahu, regardless of how they voted. It’s not the votes you have a problem with. You hate the idea of anyone ever being allowed to utter an unkind word about the perpetrators of genocide under any circumstances.
Yes, my 12 made me very lazy.
Bullshit. Absolute drivel. More voting is what solves this not less
Betrayal discourages voting, but the party keeps doing it anyway.
I thought the only party that Ensign_Crab cared about was the United Russia party
I don’t trust them to run honest primaries either.
Yeah they’re exactly the same. That must be why you spend all your time shitting on the parties trying to stop the fascist but rarely say anything against the farther right parties. Makes sense
Democrats try to appease fascists. They try to stop progressives. Haven’t you noticed?
I don’t have much occasion to reply to pushback from the farther right parties on lemmy. I’m ok with that. Please don’t invite them.
Your objectives are quite clear.
I wonder what you’ve imagined to keep yourself from confronting the reality that the time for centrists’ triangulation and capitulation has long since passed.
If progressives voted in the primaries in numbers then we’d have progressive candidates, but the average progressive seems to believe that the Dems are just as bad as the republicans because Americans are unfathomably stupid.