#“voting is useless“ one of the candidates is going to win and Trump is not better at the foreign policy thing

[seeinglittlestars]

Bruhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

[willowways]

Is it me or does it seem like no one has a plan

Like both the skip the vote and the vote blue no matter who people are thinking less about what will benefit people and more on moral superiority

Like … I would like some direction please

[abstractpenny]

Okay, so I've been thinking about it and I don't think we're actually all that cooked with Joe Biden dropping out.

If you don't know, Joe Biden dropped out of the 2024 presidential election. He is no longer running. BUT Kamala Harris, the current VP, is taking his place as the Democratic candidate for this election.

Looking at this, you may say something like "Oh no, we're done for. We're doomed." But if you think about it, this is actually an unbelievably intelligent and strategic move. In fact, this gives me a lot of hope that I didn't have before.

Obviously, this move is a last resort. They knew if they kept running with Biden they would lose. It means the Democratic party is pulling out a final weapon. But it's honestly a damn good one.

Before this happened, it seemed hopeless. Our two options were two old rich white men, one of which is an awful public speaker and the other is a literal criminal. And, because of that, you got people choosing not to vote or choosing to vote for Trump. Because which of the two evils is more appealing?

Donald Trump is a wonderful public speaker. He is charismatic and charming. He knows how to get people on his side. He's spent his whole life learning how to be a strong public speaker. That's what makes him scary. That's what made it so he won the 2016 election, so he almost won the 2020 election, and why he's still in the conversation today. He knows how to speak in an appealing way.

Joe Biden is honestly an awful public speaker. He struggles with gathering people to be on his side. Whether it's because he has a stutter/speech impediment or because he's dealing with dementia, he's still not good at public speaking. That makes him weak in things like debates and in politics. We saw that with our own eyes during the last debate.

Kamala Harris, while maybe not as strong of a speaker as Donald Trump, is very knowledgeable and self assured. She knows how to debate, she knows how to be a politician. She knows what she's doing. She's strong and confident. She may be our final hope.

A lot of why people aren't going in to vote is because it felt useless to do so, especially to people on the left. Donald Trump is out of the question for a lot of people, but Joe Biden isn't much better to many. They're both old as fuck, about 80 years old. They're both straight white cis men who have higher incomes. They're not aligned at all with what a lot of people on the left view.

Harris is significantly more relatable to a lot of people. She's a woman of colour. A good percentage of the United States population is one of those, either a person of colour or a woman. She's also younger than both Biden and Trump by almost 20 years. Yes, she's still 60 years old, but that's absolutely nothing compared to our other candidates.

Another thing that brings Biden out of favour with the left is how he handled and backed specific foreign wars (Ukraine and Palestine specifically). The Palestine Israel war is a very strong thing on the left, it's very talked about, and a lot of people view Biden as 'om the wrong side' of it. And, although Harris was the VP of the Biden administration, she's not very tied in to the wars from public view.

Harris is a great candidate other than a few minor minor minor things. She's leagues better than our dropped out ex candidate and our currently running candidate. One of the biggest hurdles for her, though, is going to be racism and sexism. It's always there. Oh, and the fact that her opponent had an assassination attempt on him, but that's a whole other can of worms.

Kamala Harris coming into this race may change things completely. We're not as screwed anymore. There's hope.

You. Whoever may read this. Go vote. It's crucial. Vote if you can. If you can't, get people to vote who can. This is the most important election in a long time.

We can win.

[qqueenofhades]

It's definitely a refusal to engage with or truly understand politics. I'm 24, I was in middle school during Obama's second term and 17 in 2016, and I feel like a lot of my peers just continue to be appalled at how bad things have gotten with the Republicans and why Democrats can't do anything to stop it. What's missing from their understanding is how long it took for the Republicans to get here. It didn't start in 2016. They worked for decades to do all the nightmarish shit they're doing now, and Democrats just haven't been able to do the same (because people refuse to vote consistently and give them the power to do those things). I feel like that's where the "both sides are the same" bullshit comes from - the idea that if the Dems wanted to stop the GOP, they would. It's a fundamental misunderstanding of how anything works, and often relies on downplaying how bad the Republicans actually are in order to support their 'Dems are just as bad' stance.

Things did get catastrophically worse when Trump was elected, and he broke things way more than they ever had been, but he doesn't exist in a vacuum and it took the Republicans a lot of fucking work for him to do what he did. The only way the Dems can counteract that is by having a party of people willing to put in a similar level of work, and that requires understanding our structures and how things work (executive orders are only temporary fixes and actual legislation takes time, compromise, and work), and a lot of these people just aren't willing to do it.

The thing is, yes, I absolutely do get the feeling that everything is terrible and we are doomed. I went through it when GWB was re-elected in 2004 and then again in 2008, worrying about whether Obama would get elected and end that particular run of Republican-induced misery (when John McCain looks like a fucking saint compared to the GOP candidates we are being offered now), and obviously plumbed the depths of despair in 2016 with Trump. But I don't remember ever thinking that I should just give up trying, stop voting, or any of that, and I don't think it was because I was some kind of special person who was just so tenacious. I obviously have not been a teenager in the present era and yes, that means I have different views on things from the next generation, but also: this has always happened. Moments of total political despair and feeling that everything is fucked are also not a new thing. We are going through it with Trumpism, the previous generation went through it with Reagan/Thatcher, the previous previous generation went through it with Nixon/Vietnam, the previous etc generation went through it with the Cold War, the previous etc. etc. generation went through it with World War II -- and so forth. There has never been any one point when everything was great and there was no work left to be done, because, y'know. That is not how either history or human nature works.

Hence, that is why I'm trying to figure out what in the fuck is going on right now, and whether it's just social media that have made things so bad (entirely possible). Critical thinking is a shambles, yes, but that's not necessarily something young people have chosen for themselves. The current world is a late-stage capitalist dystopia run by four or five trillionaire oligarch cartels and corporations, and obviously public education, basic civic responsibility, the teaching of any "controversial" history, and everything else that might threaten that setup has been systematically and methodically dismantled, politicized, or so infiltrated with false information that it's basically useless. That in itself is not young people's fault. They have genuinely been dealt a terrible hand in many ways, and I don't blame them for being angry about it. I too am angry about it! I do question, however, when the overwhelming sentiment became "well we should just give up and let the bad guys win, either because it's too much work to change it or because that will spark the Great Revolution and that's the only way to fix things ever, and doing anything else at all in the meantime is wrong."

Once again: I do not blame young people for being angry at the shitty situation they are currently facing. I do not blame young people for being disillusioned with the system and thinking that it can't solve everything at once. But yet again: there has never been any government, country, or organization in the history of ever anything everywhere that was able to do that, and the ones that tried, or insisted that they could do it, were infamously murderous bloodbaths, because breaking society (even with all its flaws) into a thousand pieces and thinking this will make My Preferred Ideological Utopia Now Appear is probably the deadliest belief in all of time and space. The world is flawed and has been for all time because humans are flawed and probably will be for all time. Being a grownup requires coming to an understanding of that fact and seeing what you can do in spite of that. People in every era have had gaps and biases and blind spots and other things that hobbled their understanding or made their efforts for change less perfect or complete than they would have wanted in an ideal world, and they have had to move past those anyway. The current generation is no different. Not to sound like a boomer, but even despite the mess they've been faced with, they need to figure out how to engage with it anyway and not just completely absolve responsibility because they can't fix it all at once. Which I don't think most young people do! There are plenty of them who really do get it and are engaged and idealistic and working for good change, and that's great! It's just the other part that worries me, and which is not as small as we would like to think.

And yes, part of this is just flat-out bad information and the stubborn lack of any desire to change it if it conflicts with pre-existing beliefs. (This is by no means exclusive to young people of this current generation, as it's another bad habit of humanity, but yes.) In the aforementioned "you're driving young leftists away :(" ask I got yesterday, there were also plenty of dubious and just-flat-wrong claims, such as that Democrats keep moving to the right "especially economically." That is just not true. In the last four years, the Democrats have moved the most economically leftward in all of American history and have finally and flatly rejected the Great Reagonomics Myth. Just because Clinton did Reagonomics-lite in the '90s (when most of the current generation of Online Leftists weren't even born), that is thirty years ago and in wildly different circumstances. These things are not difficult to look up. Do it. Try to educate yourself, even if the system doesn't want to do it. You can't just throw up your hands and insist that nobody taught you, so how could you know??? Put that "instant access to all of human history and knowledge" to use, even just a little. It'll be good for you!

Likewise, there was also the anon's befuddling insistence that I was "patronizing" or "shaming" anyone "further left than Biden," which reflects their apparent feeling that telling people to vote for Biden is a "personal attack" on their cherished beliefs, or whatever. I'm unsure how many times we have to keep repeating that voting for a candidate does not mean you are canonizing all their beliefs exactly as your own, and that it's just one tool to do the bare minimum to not live in a fucking fascist theocratic dictatorship, but yeah. I can guarantee you that I personally am well left of Biden. I can guarantee you that most people on Tumblr voting for Biden are probably well left of him as well. That does not negate the fact that Biden is the most progressive president America has ever had, regardless of how much Online Leftists shriek otherwise. It also does not negate the fact that this is by no means true of America as a whole (witness the large faction that still thinks Biden is a godless far-left evil socialist). It does not negate the many complex historical, political, social, cultural, religious, racial, etc reasons that have collided to produce the America where this is the case. Therefore, if I do not want to live in a society ruled by Trump and his orange Nazi minions, which is the case due to how badly the last 10 years have been fucked up, I will use the tool of voting for Biden! He can be successfully pressured to create positive change in the direction that I would like! Trump cannot and will not under any circumstances, regardless of the wild fantasies that suddenly he will transform into a perfect progressive on Gaza or whatever other issue! THIS IS NOT THAT FUCKING DIFFICULT!!!!!!!

Anyway. All of this is obviously complicated. Obviously things are bad and frightening and we want a solution that fixes all of it at once, instead of slowly, badly, and piecemeal. But as I said: that has never, not once, been the case in all of history, and we know what happens when people and/or governments with delusions of psychopathic grandeur try to do it. We do not want the "Final Solution" (which is infamous as what Hitler literally called the Holocaust). We do, in fact, want the careful step by step, we want things to get better and not just explode in a mountain of nihilistic doom, and that does take work, from everyone. So unfortunately, there is no real choice except to do it.

[read-marx-and-lenin]

Who r u voting for?

I've been pretty consistent in saying it doesn't matter who anyone votes for as an individual, the ballot box is not a place of revolutionary activity and we should focus our efforts elsewhere. That said, my state does mail-in ballots, so I still fill them out and send them in since it doesn't take much time or effort for me.

There will likely be four left-wing candidates on the ballot in my state: Jill Stein with the Greens, Cornel West as an independent, Claudia de la Cruz for the PSL, and Rachele Fruit for the SWP.

The SWP are Zionist Trotskyists, so I won't give them the time of day.

I voted PSL in 2016, but since then there's been a lot of shit going on with them and despite the fact that there's a lot of good people working with them and a lot of good local branches, I can't support them on a national level until they get their shit together. Their treatment of women, transgender people, and people of color needs to improve. There was a great article written in 2021 by a Maoist group on the issues within the PSL that I'll link here, and while I don't agree with their conclusion that the PSL is "fundamentally reactionary" and that collaboration with PSL groups is useless, their criticisms are still worth reading.

I voted for Howie Hawkins in 2020, but I've never been a fan of Jill Stein due to her pandering to anti-vaxxers and alt-med types. She's a doctor, she should know better. She's helped push a lot of anti-science misinformation on the left, and while her platform is far better than any of those from the Dems or Republicans, I still can't forgive that. Science-based medicine is one of my sticking points.

So that leaves Cornel West. He's not a communist, and I'm not a fan of his religiosity, but his platform is still solid and I like him the best out of these four candidates. Again, I'm not doing this because I think he can win. The only way he could possibly win is if Harris, Trump, RFK Jr., Jill Stein, and whoever the Libertarian guy is this year all die a week before the election, and even then, it'd probably be a toss-up between him and de la Cruz. My vote for West is purely to signify "hey, there's people here who want what Cornel West is offering". In that sense, I'm treating the presidential election more as an opinion poll than anything else.

[kuromi-hoemie]

here's my scattered, ranty, kind of shitty take on “vote blue no matter who”: i have been painfully aware of how fucked up our country is since Trayvon Martin was killed and the country just came together and said it was fine and deserved even.

We were the same age, he was a month older than me and they justified that boy's death through the media for doing mundane shit any of my friends would've been doing too.

And i have seen year after year, death after death, this country let's people get murdered by police or people who want to play police and they get away with it almost every time.

Most of white America doesn't give a single fuck about this issue because it doesn't affect them, they would prefer if we didn't have to see or talk about it at all because talking about race (or anything outside the “norm” for white people) at all is uncomfortable.

Now as shitty as he was, the silver lining I saw in Trump is that white people were no longer able to escape how evil this country can be. Like hey!! When the state sees YOU as undesirable TOO it really has a way of bringing people together - in resistance, solidarity, support etc. Trump was a trash ass president, but as A Country we were FINALLY having some real, honest open discussions about the way this shit works and what better options could look like - even tried implementing some changes so we're less reliant on cops in some places. Ironically, it's when leadership is at its worst that we choose to move forward collectively.

But then in the run-up to the presidential election all the vote blue no matter who liberals, the back to brunch liberals, all of them hounded anybody with even the slightest skepticism or dislike of our candidates and even now make it impossible to have any critical conversation without coming in like “do u want trump/ron/[whatever republican that applies] to win?? we HAVE to vote it's our ONLY choice the world is going to END”

THIS IS HOW IT IS LITERALLY EVERY ELECTION, IF THE STAKES ARE REGULARLY THIS HIGH SOMETHING IS FUNDAMENTALLY BROKEN HERE.

Vote blue no matter who and back to brunch liberals have fucking brain worms and are the most useless helpless political group. I remember them saying we HAVE to get Joe Biden in then pull him to the left, just this one time bro just this one vote bro I promise. All of the solidarity we've had and all the support we've shown won't instantly vanish the second we're safe we promise we won't leave you behind again just one more vote bro-

maybe go to hell?? maybe we should fucking LOSE and have fear and suffering inflicted on us to make that solidarity an actual, real persistent thing that transcends presidencies. My shitty take is sometimes it IS helpful to have horrific leadership so the privileged class can see how it feels to be ANYONE ELSE for a change. And you would hope they fucking learn something but all the back to brunch liberals are hijacking posts speaking frankly about israel's ongoing genocide and the US's complicity in it, and making the conversation about having to vote for Biden or whatever Democrat anyways.

We don't even have elections coming up right now!! Read the fucking room!! Biden is greenlighting genocide and so are a bunch of other politicians on both sides of the aisle, but back to brunch liberals can't be bothered with ANYTHING. Any sort of valid criticism at all is shut down with "well, choices suck but you HAVE to vote” actually in my heart I think you have to suffer until we get some better fucking choices and you actually help advocate for them, instead of being this useless recurring presence that only shows up to shut down conversation instead of wanting to actually fix anything.

[hugintheraven]

What seems to get missed in the "just vote anyways even if you hate Biden" discourse is that people don't want to. And sure, "Vote anyways", but this is not new. In 2012, people were pissed at Obama for being far more useless than expected, voted for him anyway. In 2016, people voted for Hillary*. In 2020, we voted for Biden. At what point do the dems nominate a candidate people want to win?

Yes, it's technically nominated by voters, but no one actually believes there were ever any choices other than the person who won the nom in those elections. Too much of the system was rigged in favor of the eventual winners.

And yes, Trump would be worse. "The other guy's worse" has been the only motivator for every election after 2008. How often do we have to hold our nose and vote for the least-shit option before the dems realize they'll win easily if they nominate someone people actually like? I'm not even talking policy positions here, just someone with a bit of charisma and ability to make the turd sandwich they're serving us seem appetizing.

THIS ELECTION SHOULD NOT BE CLOSE. Trump is a felon convicted of various financial crimes in order to fraud his way to election victory. He's a blatant racist and conman who can't string a sentence together and visibly hates his supporters. His first term was an unmitigated disaster on several axes. He should be getting 27% of the vote. The only reason we have to keep talking about "make sure to vote even if you hate Biden" is that so many people hate Biden that it's somehow a tossup. That's stupid, and a blatant own-goal on the part of the dems. Democratic ideas and policies are popular. The GOP platform is so evil that GOP supporters assume you're lying if you give them a copy of it. AND YET the Dems keep running useless old farts who couldn't sell an umbrella in a thunderstorm and wonder why the party can't hold an advantage to save it's life.

Like, I'm going to vote for Biden. I have to. But how is that the best we can do?

*Hillary lost due to being hated by moderates in purple states, and she still won the popular vote. You can't blame people for not showing up when we did but she lost anyways because the system sucks.

[dispadaferisce]

Reasons to coalesce and vote for the Democratic nominee in November (yes, we all want someone better than Biden, get out and vote in younger candidates at lower levels so they can start moving up. That means congressional AND local! Republicans keep winning because they turn out while our generations sit back, let them, then cry about it):

Trump taking a bullet and going through all that stress at his age only to ultimately lose would be funny

Trump taking a bullet and going through all that stress at his age only for it to ultimately benefit the Democrats, who everyone are pissed at, would be funny

Photoshopping that 'glorious' photo of Trump post-shooting attempt and plastering it everywhere to the point where even the original is a joke would be funny

Making t-shirts after the election that say "I Got Shot In The Ear And All I Got Was Shot In The Ear, As Previously Stated" would be historically accurate, and also funny

GETTING OUT AND VOTING IN ALL YOUR LOCAL ELECTIONS IN NOVEMBER 2024 CAN HELP YOUNGER AND BETTER CANDIDATES GET THEIR FOOT IN THE DOOR, PEOPLE LIKE AOC DON'T SPONTANEOUSLY APPEAR IN GOVERNMENT. AND A DEMOCRAT-HELD GOVERNMENT, WHILE USUALLY 90% FUCKING USELESS, IS STILL A BETTER PLACE FOR THOSE YOUNGER AND BETTER CANDIDATES TO FLOURISH AND GET THEIR FUCKING LEGISLATION MOVING THAN ANY POLITICAL ENVIRONMENT OLD ONE-EARED WILLY IS GOING TO CREATE. (Goonies never say die, go vote.)

Thank you for coming to my TED talk.

[strawbebehmod]

Hey guys? If you see a post that's thesis is telling you not to vote or that voting is pointless because both candidates are equally bad? Report it for election interference. I'm not fucking kidding.

It doesn't matter what the rest of the post is about, Palestine, social justice, anti nazism, etc. if it's main point is to convince you not to vote or that voting is pointless, report it. This is what happened in 2016. A bunch of fake ass social justice blogs turned out to be Russian agents convincing people not to vote and that's how we ended up with trump

"but Biden is as bad as tr-"

And who told you that? A blog that is saying that the situation in Israel is Biden's fault? As if most of the world isn't complicite in the genocide right now? As if trump isn't more pro Israel and didn't try to put a Muslim ban in place his literal first week in office? Or was it the blog that is saying that the trans bans being created by the legislatures of red states are some how the fault of the left leaning president who has very limited power over what laws are made on federal level, let alone a state level, and we don't see these problems in blue states at all? Yeah. Sounds stupid now, doesn't it? These were the kind of same logic trap tactics that were used in 2016.

The point is this: vote. Fucking vote. Encourage everyone to vote and report people who say not too. Don't like either candidate? Write in a name for all I care and just focus on local election stuff. Senators, legislatures, congressmen, local judges, mayoral officials, treasures...there is so much more to a ballot than the presidency and if you chose not to vote you are not only throwing away your vote for the presidency but also a vote towards every fucking other thing going on in your community that you have a say in. There's a reason women fought for over a hundred years for their right to vote. There's a reason why the KKK killed black people for voting. There's a reason why specific races kept getting excluded from suffrage in bills and such, because voting is FUCKING POWERFUL. It was and is something people fought and died to gain and fought and killed to keep away from people. People don't do that for no reason. You can make a difference and there is no reason for someone to tell someone not to vote, unless they want the worst possible outcome. Because they know exactly what they are doing. They saw it happen in 2016, and they are trying to do it again. Heck, they did it in Weimar Germany too during a period of sudden economic down turn.....ya know? What eventually lead to the Nazis taking over?

A moderate, useless government is always better than a broken one, and our government will break if we don't participate in democracy. And there's no way we are gonna fix it if we let it collapse.

Sometimes voting isn't about winning or making giant strides. Sometimes it's about keeping the boot firmly down on a Nazis throat.

And remember if Trump wins he can pardon every single Nazi in this nation that follows him.

[spurgie-cousin]

So I won't be voting for biden in November. I'm trans and live in a red state. I very familiar with the harm a trump presidency will do both to the country and me personally. I think most people refusing to vote for biden are aware of what trump will do.

But the democrats have presented this same choice in every election I've ever had the opportunity to vote in. And every time I gritted my teeth and voted for them because of supposed harm reduction they failed to protect my rights. And then only moved the party further to the right in the next election.

The genocide in gaza is just a breaking point for many of us after years of failure and broken promises by the democratic party. The harm against my community has continued under bidens presidency and he has made his priorities funding genocide and dragging us into another pointless war. Why would I continue to support him? The hopelessness you see voting 3rd party is how we see voting for biden.

I don't necessarily think a 3rd party candidate will win in 2024. But the democrats have destroyed any hope I once had in them. I have to try something different. And withdrawing support from the democrats is the only thing I can think to do.

Yea I don't think you're wrong at all, I'm exhausted with the Democrats and really, really don't want to vote for Joe Biden. I also live in a red state, in a super rural area that I know for a fact will go Trump during the election.

It's not that I see voting for a third party candidate as useless, I just wish there was a candidate we could all rally behind that would even have somewhat of a fair shot against the two party system. I feel like there's enough anger that we could get there but it doesn't seem like anyone can agree (or maybe they do and I'm just uninformed) even just to take enough of the votes away from the Dems that it would scare them into changing. but as we've seen in past elections, that would need to be a massive chunk and for this election it feels like the left is so unorganized that they're not going to get the message through.

Which is not me telling anyone they should vote, obviously it's a losing game all around. Reading Trump's plan just really, really scared me if I'm being honest, it seems that attacking the rights of everyone except white male gun owners is the main goal of his entire campaign. And I honestly am worried that he'll double down on supporting Israel, which is not to say Biden isn't towing that line, but the conservatives I live around are SO pro-Israel and Trump will do anything to get approval from his base. And after Roe v Wade I totally believe Trump has enough support in government to come through on some of these promises he's talking about.

Idk the right thing to do if there is one, I'm mostly just scared.

[tomorrowusa]

The conviction of Hunter Biden has ironically undercut one of Donald Trump's main (and false) narratives. It's now more difficult for Trump to claim that Joe Biden controls the entire justice system in the US and somehow masterminded the conviction of Trump on all 34 felony counts in the Stormy Daniels hush money trial.

The survival of the rule of law in America and untainted justice may depend on the choice voters make in November. The country’s divergent possible paths under President Joe Biden or presumptive GOP nominee Donald Trump were highlighted in the way both men, their families and their political operations reacted to the twin trials and verdicts. Biden made no effort to interfere in the prosecution of his son Hunter with either his executive authority or with the media megaphone of his office. He allowed his own Justice Department to secure a guilty verdict Tuesday that could result in jail time for the recovering addict and hurt his own 2024 campaign. “I will accept the outcome of this case and will continue to respect the judicial process as Hunter considers an appeal,” the president said after the jury found his son guilty oflying on a federal background check form and possessing a gun while addicted to, or using, illegal drugs. He has already said he won’t pardon his son. In his first reaction to the verdict, Hunter Biden didn’t attack the judge or prosecutors, simply saying he was grateful for the love and support of his family and blessed to be clean again. The Bidens’ comportment contrasted with Trump’s reaction to his own trial and conviction nearly two weeks ago in his hush money case. The ex-president lashed out at witnesses, prosecutors, jurors and the judge. He claimed that “this was done by (the) Biden administration in order to wound or hurt a political opponent.” He blasted “a rigged decision,” despite the fact the Justice Department was not involved in the case brought by the Manhattan district attorney. Since then, Trump has been warning he’d use presidential powers to punish his political opponents and bend the legal system to his will. “Sometimes revenge can be justified,” Trump told TV psychologist Phil McGraw last week. “I have to be honest. You know, sometimes it can.” The former president told Fox News last week, “I would have every right to go after them,” referring to the Bidens. Throughout his trial in Manhattan, his former hometown, Trump, insisted he couldn’t get a fair verdict in a city that votes mostly Democratic. But Delaware is a blue state — and a jury there just convicted the president’s son. One juror told CNN Tuesday that politics never came up in the deliberations. Jurors in Trump’s trial have yet to speak, perhaps because of fears they could be identified following the ex-president’s intimidation tactics.

If you want the justice system to still exist in the United States after the election, vote for Biden. If you prefer an incoherent dictator using the courts to get "revenge" and "retribution" from perceived opponents, then vote for Trump or some useless turd party candidate with no chance of winning (same thing).

[longwindedbore]

Dobbs, sure.

But what about 41 million GenZs of voting age ALL of whom went through active shooter drills?

Not from any external threats. Not from any shooter crossing our Southern border.

The threat was from the crazy-eyed born-in-Gun-lusting-USA students.

Students in their very schools…studying what the other students/potential victims were doing.

In 413 mass murders in schools since Columbine always another student at their school.

GOP response: Always “too soon after to make it political”. Always useless “thoughts and prayers” from those actively blocking ANY legislation.

413 mass murders by underaged shooters who armed themselves with the households guns and ammo which in no instance was locked in a gun safe.

All shooters from the narrow part of the political spectrum that considers the 2nd Amendment sancrosact and claims they “have all the guns”

FINAL EXAM: What did Uvalde and 130 armed cops doing nothing while elementary school children were murdered teach the 41 Million GenX about the efficacy of their active shooter drills they did that were so beloved of the GOP?

For that matter would the GOP idiocy of a teacher with a Glock being more effective defending a classroom against a modified-full-auto AR-15 with a hundred round drum magazine if 130 cops didn’t think they could go in without massive blue casualties?

Theses 41 million GenZ are spread across the country in Red States and in Blue. No one is including them in the polls which contact 2020 voters Many/most Gen/Z didn’t vote for the geriatric candidates in the primaries.

Consider also that - since GenZ has had to listen to the vomit inducing hypocritical-and-we-don’t-care-the NRA-pays-us-GOP response to school shootings - what do you imagine they think about the GOP’s positions on environmental safety and the Climate Catastrophe?

The GOP can make up any weird lies they want about Harris. We’ve stopped listening.

2024 will judge the GOP on 25 years of no responses to school shootings; the dystopian nightmares in Red States post-Dobbs; their indifference to environmental and catastrophic climate issues.

20 million Seniors have passed on since 2016. Trumps’s and the GOP’s base demographics slews to the over 50 crowd.

Trump’s primary numbers have dropped from 18M of 19M in 2020 to 17M of 22M in 2024. MAGA has lost every open of-year and special election since Dobbs.

It doesn’t help the GOP that so many of their talking heads are so creepy seem to be auditioning for Norman Bates in a remake of ‘Psycho’ or Kathy Bates character in “Misery”. Except Speaker Johnson; he wants the part of the ventriloquist’s dummy that comes to life in a remake of the ‘Twilight Zone.’

We’re sending the ReTrumplican Party/Cult our “thoughts and prayers”.

[jetblkhotelmirror]

what the fuck are we supposed to do??

i just feel so defeated and so useless and so, so confused

like

OBVIOUSLY im not voting for trump next year. thats a given. but after everything, i cannot in good conscience vote for biden either.

but im not an idiot

i know that biden is probably gonna be on the democrat ticket, and i also know that a third part win is almost impossible.

and i know that politicians are people too and none of them are going to be absolutely perfect. but it feels like NO ONE is doing enough right that i can feel good about voting for them, especially no one that has a shot.

the best candidates are the small, unheard of ones, but i cant vote for them either unless they get really popular in the next six months because i dont wanna throw my vote away even if its for a good cause.

i am 18 years old, this will be my first ever presidential election. a few years ago, i was so excited for this. i was so excited hat i would finally be able to help make a difference, and now its here and im crying over decisions that are so big and so scary and that are going to kill people, pretty much no matter what happens. this isnt supposed to be this hard. its not supposed to be a choice between which groups are going to be murdered. its not supposed to be a life or death decision. its supposed to be about who will make this country better, not who is gonna kill the least people while theyre in office

i just.. i dont know what to do.

if anyone is willing to share a 2024 candidate that i should look into, im basically desperate for a not horrible person to research so i dont feel like every single option is a mass murderer.

oh and please, please, do not say marianne williamson, i will not be voting for a right wing in disguise "spiritual guru" whose gonna go full republican or worse the second shes in office

[arpov-blog-blog]

...."The chief risk of the MAGA enhancement strategy was obvious all along: Win, and you prevent a radicalized GOP from taking over Congress and key governors’ seats, sandbagging the remainder of Joe Biden’s first term, and carrying out a more disciplined and successful version of Trump’s 2020 post-election coup. Lose, and you’re looking at genuinely dangerous people like Wisconsin’s Tim Michels and Arizona’s Kari Lake sitting in charge of swing state election machinery, spending the next two years scheming with their gerrymandered-forever state legislatures to figure out how to prevent a Democrat from ever again winning a presidential election.

Democrats took months of flak for this relatively tame maneuver from the kind of sober, centrist pundits who have spent the past four years inadvertently boosting the far-right’s transgender panic and cancel culture fixations. Josh Barro argued that spending money to elevate people like Illinois Republican Darren Bailey means that despite Democrats’ rhetoric about democracy in peril, they believe that “the risk of those candidates winning is an acceptable one, part of the ordinary course of two-party democracy, rather than an existential threat to the institutions we hold most dear.”

This argument cannot withstand scrutiny. The difference between Doug Mastriano and the runner–up in Pennsylvania’s gubernatorial primary, Lou Barletta, is negligible. Both embraced the Big Lie, and both would almost certainly do Trump’s bidding in a potential coup scenario. The real difference is that Mastriano is crazy in other ways that turned off the electorate. If you can keep both of them out of power by juicing one of them, it’s a no-brainer. There’s no law that says you can’t do it.

In my 2018 book It’s Time to Fight Dirty, I urged Democrats to use the power that they have the next time they win unified control in Washington to level the electoral playing field. Whether that is adding new Senate states to rectify the chamber’s structural bias, expanding the Supreme Court to reflect the voting public’s long-running preference for Democratic presidents and Democratic-controlled Senates, or passing a sweeping voting rights act to safeguard democracy and make it easier for all citizens to make their voices heard, the proposed reforms shared two features: One, they don’t require going through the onerous and mostly impossible constitutional amendment process, and two, they are actually the right thing to do.

None of these things happened in the 117th Congress. D.C. statehood and voting rights legislation passed the House but died in the Senate at the hands of Democratic Sens. Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema. Supreme Court expansion never made it further than some chatter during the Democratic presidential primaries and Biden’s useless Supreme Court reform commission. Ranked choice voting is gaining steam at the state level, but unless it is paired with multi-member districts for the U.S. House, it is going to achieve little other than sparing us panic over fringe third-party candidates acting as spoilers.

The total inaction on these big-picture reforms highlights the problem with Democrats emerging from their civility cocoon every two years to play momentary electoral hardball: Win or lose, it leaves most of the important work undone. So we likely have a 50–50 or 51–49 Democratic Senate. While Democrats appear to still have an outside chance at the House, they could have won handily had they outlawed partisan gerrymandering. If they fall short in the House, Democrats won’t be able to pursue their policy agenda, and will be incapable of any further action to shore up democracy. And that means that Barro and his friends are right about one thing: There are still a number of influential elected Democrats who think there exists some meaningful difference between Trump and his acolytes and the rest of the Republican Party, and that the latter cohort is “normal.”

[honeysucklepink]

MISSISSIPPI VOTERS:

Look, I know. “It’s a red state, doesn’t matter if I vote, all our electors will go to Turnip anyway, blah blah blah.” I know it feels hopeless, depending on other states because we know we can’t depend on ours. But...look, I just have a feeling, okay? And besides, there are other things on the ballot!

First off, unless you have been living under a rock or completely avoiding all local television, Democrat Mike Espy is running to unseat completely useless Republican Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith. Seriously, this is the Confederacy-loving, “public hanging” lady from two years back (aren’t Senate terms six years? Yes, but that was to fill the last two years of the late Senator Thad Cochran’s term...this is for the whole six). Aside from being a lapdog for Trump, Cindy hasn’t done jack-shit...hasn’t written or sponsored a bill, doesn’t meet with constituents, votes against her state’s interests. Mike is running to bring better healthcare to us (we are dead last, pun intended, on many health markers). He has the experience, the goods, and he would be the first black senator from the state since Reconstruction.

Then, all our congressional representatives are up for re-election, as they are every two years. Look up your district here (first one listed is the incumbent):

First: Trent Kelly (Rep) vs. Antonia Eliason (Dem)

Second: Bennie Thompson (Dem) vs. Brian Flowers (Rep)

Third: Michael Guest (Rep) vs. Dorothy “Dot” Benford (Dem)

Fourth: Steven Palazzo (Rep) vs. no one, I’m so sorry Coasters...

There are also races for justices on the Mississippi Supreme Court; again, these races will depend on if you are in the North, Central, or Southern District, and these are “nonpartisan”:

Central District Place 1: Kenny Griffis vs. Latrice Westbrooks

Central District Place 2: Leslie D. King (unopposed)

Southern District Place 3: Michael Randolph (unopposed)

Northern District Place 3: Josiah Coleman vs. Percy Lynchard

In addition to all of that, there are three ballot initiatives. The first two are pretty easy; the third is a bit more complicated (and is in two parts!):

Sorry for the big flag, couldn’t get it between the bullet points.

Removing the House Electoral Provision: this gets rid of a Jim Crow rule that a candidate for statewide office has to win the majority of the popular vote AND the majority of state house districts (and in the case of a tie on both, the House votes). Instead, the top two vote getters (in the case neither get 50% + 1) go to a runoff. Vote “yes” on this one.

The State Flag. Look, I don’t like that it says “In God We Trust” anymore than you do but it sure as hell beats a FUCKING CONFEDERATE FLAG (and who says it has to be GOD-God? If you want that “God” to be Thor or Wonder Woman or the inventor of Toaster Strudels, go ahead). I like it...who doesn’t like magnolias, and the diamond star in honor of the First Nations is a nice touch. Definitely better than the 2001 option (which was ugly but still would have been better than what we just got rid of). Vote “yes” on this!

Finally, the medical marijuana question. This would have been cut and dry but the legislature just HAD to go and put a “poison pill” in there. Here’s the lowdown,,,there are TWO questions:

Do you want medical marijuana in Mississippi, yes or no? Vote yes.

Do you prefer Amendment 65, or 65A? 

Amendment 65 is the citizen’s initiative that all the petition signatures got on the ballot. IT IS A GOOD PLAN, with a strict list of conditions, size and potency regulations, administered by the Department of Health, 

Amendment 65A was added by the legislature to muddy the waters. It only allows it for “terminally ill” patients, and otherwise...it just says “the legislature will make the plan.” It’s not a plan, it’s a roadblock. 

VOTE AMENDMENT 65.

This page has a full voter guide with more details on the candidates and ballot measures. Do your homework, and vote blue no matter who (I mean, you 4th district folks, um... there is a campaign apparently to write in the former Dem Gene Taylor?).  

Finally, as you may know, Governor Tater Tot let the mask mandate expire last month. So it’s a crap shoot as to whether your polling place will be safe or not. A lot will depend on where you live; if your county is one of those few under a governor-mandate (he is doing them county-by-county based on case rates), or you are in a town that still has their own, like Oxford or Starkville or Jackson. My county isn’t under a rule, BUT the old ladies that are poll workers at our polling place insisted on a) still working and b) being protected, so we have the whole enchilada. BUT YOU MAY NOT. Call your clerk’s office, check your polling place, and come prepared...photo ID, masks, sanitizer, shield if you want, comfy shoes. 

Oh, one other thing! Q-TIPS WORK ON THE TOUCH SCREENS! Some polling places have them, but just in case, bring some so you can vote touch-free!

Stay safe, protect your health AND our democracy!

[theorangedead]

PSA About Third Parties in the US

The US doesn’t have third parties with any political power. This is not because of lack of support or interest in third parties and it’s not about media coverage of third parties. It is because of the structural institutions of the US. It doesn’t not matter if third parties have support, because the way the US legislature is set up means that third parties cannot have any real power. It doesn’t have to be this way, it’s not like this in other countries, but this is because other countries are *structurally different* and this cannot change in the US without *institutional reform.* I’m saying this because a lot of people seen to think that if only people would get excited for and vote for third parties in the US we wouldn’t have only two options, but that’s not true. That wouldn’t work, because of how legislative districts in the US are set up. 

Explanations below the cut. 

The US as single member, winner take all legislative districts. This means that US legislative districts have only one representative who is determined by the getting plurality of the votes. I said plurality and not majority, because it doesn’t matter if they get the majority of votes or not. As long as they get the *most votes* out of *all the candidates running* they get *all of the power as representative*. There is one seat and it is taken by the person who gets the most votes. This means that if there are 25% Green Party votes, 35% Democratic votes, and 40% Republican vote the Republican candidate wins and gets all the power. It doesn’t matter that 60% of people had more progressive beliefs that they voted on, the most conservative candidate won and will now get all of the power. In a different system with 5 seats that are proportionally represented the Green Party might get 1 seat and the Democratic and republican parties two seats and then the Green and Democratic parties both have more influence. That does not happen in the US. It is not how our system functions on a structural level. 

That is why voting Green is useless. If voting third party is what gets you out and voting in local elections that’s good, but yeah, your third party vote for president means nothing. That’s why Democrats don’t like the green party. In any close race, if the Green Party takes voters who would otherwise be voting democratic, but think they have a third option, then it enables a Republican more conservative than the Democrat to win. this is why Republicans who sometimes work to enabled the Green Party, because they know that (aside from on a local level) all they can do is hurt democrats. The idea that you have a third option in the presidency is *an illusion* that is just structurally untrue. 

I’ve seen some people saying vote blue on the presidency, but support and organize for the Green Party on a local level if that’s what you believe in. This is a much better idea because on a local level there’s more flexibility and the Green Party can get more support. However, the idea that you’ll work up the green Party on a local level to be powerful enough to be a major party is probably not true in the current system. If you really want more than two options you need to advocate for structural reform. That’s the actual third option. Currently there aren’t any large-scale movements for this that I know of, but that’s the movement you want to build up that could actually get somewhere in allowing for third parties. Choosing a third party and supporting it will not change the US legislative institutions. 

This system is also why the republican and Democratic parties end up so similar in rhetoric. When you just have to get the plurality and there are only two real options it makes the most sense to go to the center. Imagine two points on a sliding scale from left to right. The point to the left gets everything to the left of it and the point to the right gets everything to the right of it. In order to get the most possible that on that scale both points benefit from going to the center. It’s more complicated in real life with who actually votes and who has protected voting rights, the difference between rhetoric and policy, the influence of lobbying, etc. but that’s how it basically works. 

Now, I don’t hold that the two parties are the same because the differences that some people wave away as insignificant is actually incredibly important to my life. the Trump administration has tried to legalize healthcare discrimination against transgender patients and the Biden administration will probably not make huge headway on trans legal rights, so some people consider that the same. I, a transgender person living in a red state during a pandemic, consider it the difference between life or death for me. I voted Blue early and think you should, too, to be completely honest with you, because I enjoy living. But I will say that there are two similar parities in America and many different parties in other countries and often the two parties don’t give the option of voting your full values. This is true and it sucks. But it’s true because of institutional, structural reasons that need to change, not because the media or other voters have decided it should be.