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We need a "neither" option. If that one wins neither candiate gets to be president and the parties have to pick someone else. Not voting counts as neither.
Every time I see people complaining about 3rd party voters all I can picture is the "Am I so out of touch?" meme. Like, y'all already shot yourselves in the face 3 times in a row and it surprisingly didn't fail 1/3 times, but you'll blame literally anyone but yourselves. Run a candidate people want, run policies people want, and support that candidate and those policies instead of throwing everything you can against them because you like money, and we would not be anywhere near where we are now. People vote for trump because they don't want another fucking "nothing will fundamentally change" politician. The country is already shit. It needs to change. But dems are happy with it how it is. They don't care about immigrants, or poor people, or social security, or women's rights, or whatever. They just hold onto those as carrots on a stick. They just want to keep making millions, and would rather trump win so they don't have to actually embrace populist policy. That's why people don't vote. The choice isn't ice cream or drive off a cliff. Its do we drive into a wall and die now, or drive off a cliff so it takes slightly longer to die, the drive off a cliff people shot the 2 people who asked if they could vote for ice cream and that's why the others didn't vote.
Honestly, seriously. Would harm reduction have happened if Kamala was elected. Yes. Did I personally core for her? Yes.
Did this get them elected? No? Shut the fuck up and stop blaming voters because the Democrats don't know how to do politics on purpose so they don't lose their bribes.
Want a better analogy? There's a bus driving for a cliff and one group votes to minimize the impact of driving off the cliff while another group says please please drive faster off the cliff and do a backflip. A third group says guys, can we perhaps maybe not drive off the cliffd? And the rest call them insane and drive off the cliff
Honestly, seriously. Would harm reduction have happened if Kamala was elected. Yes. Did I personally core for her? Yes.
Did this get them elected? No?
What's the relevance of this inane statement, again?
The Democrats aren't the ice cream party. They are the "drive off the cliff slowly party" and spent most of their efforts on attacking people who didn't want to drive off the cliff at all. Driving off the cliff is what both the Republicans and Democrats stand for and it is only "harm reduction" in the framework that people have to accept that the oligarchy will harm them and gives them the illusion of choice how they want to be harmed, rather than a democratic choice between being harmed and not being harmed.
If you don’t have ranked choice voting you do not live in a democracy
Til that only Australians and the Irish live in democracy. It's used in other places, ofc, but on smaller scales.
Not to say I'm against it or anything, I'm all for it, but your statement is a bit exaggerated.
Many countries claim to be democracies but if the available choices are only x, y or z. The people are not truly expressing their will, 30% could like x, 30% could like y, they could all hate z but z gets elected because 40% like z.
That’s not democracy.
It's not bad to have high standards, as long as they don't get in the way of making things better
One one hand harm reduction is nice, but on the other I have seen exactly nothing from Western politics these past few years to convince me that any harm is being reduced. The principle of harm reduction requires serious, productive action (so not canvassing and voter drives, for the love of God stop doing voter drives) to be taken during the period when the harm is reduced to push democracy off its collision course with fascism. When progressives don't take that serious action—or worse, actively shut down said action—they're simply kicking the can down the road, turning harm "reduction" from a credible strategy to a farce. I don't disagree with the principle, but where's the action necessary for any of this to make sense? Because as far as I can see, harm reduction in America was the farce version.
One one hand harm reduction is nice, but on the other I have seen exactly nothing from Western politics these past few years to convince me that any harm is being reduced.
For fuck's sake, have you not looked around to see what's happened these past six fucking months?
The principle of harm reduction requires serious, productive action (so not canvassing and voter drives, for the love of God stop doing voter drives)
"Stop performing one of the core functions of harm reduction that attempts to reduce harm!"
...
to be taken during the period when the harm is reduced to push democracy off its collision course with fascism.
Pointed out below. But I guess it's not fast enough for your tastes, so let's do nothing and usher in the fascists to power instead. After all, politics are like a magical pendulum, where one side winning means the other side must get an equivalent win eventually!
When progressives don’t take that serious action—or worse, actively shut down said action—
When the fuck are progressives shutting down serious action?
they’re simply kicking the can down the road, turning harm “reduction” from a credible strategy to a farce.
You're absolutely right. In the wise words of a political party canvassing for seemingly everything a good fucking third of the 'left' commenters here have come to adore, we're all going to die someday. So why not as soon as possible?
Critical support for harm acceleration! Fuck those minorities anyway.
I don’t disagree with the principle, but where’s the action necessary for any of this to make sense? Because as far as I can see, harm reduction in America was the farce version.
"We've managed to make 'socialism' into an acceptable word in politics and almost got a democratic socialist into a major party's nomination twice in the past ten years, in a country which has been immensely hostile to any socialist ideas for at least 70 years, and in an intensified period of anti-government right-wing insanity since 1980."
"Clearly you haven't been making any progress, shitlib! Time to abandon all levers of power to the fascists."
For fuck's sake, have you not looked around to see what's happened these past six fucking months?
I have, and I know that without the serious action I was talking about it was a question of whether Alligator Alcatraz would've been opened in 2025 or 2029, with maybe a small chance of 2033. There was nothing unique about 2025 that made it the ideal timing for a fascist takeover.
"Stop performing one of the core functions of harm reduction that attempts to reduce harm!"
Well as long as all or most of your energy is going to harm reduction you'll only ever end up with fascism.
Pointed out below. But I guess it's not fast enough for your tastes, so let's do nothing and usher in the fascists to power instead. After all, politics are like a magical pendulum, where one side winning means the other side must get an equivalent win eventually!
Oh I'm under no illusion that fascists winning would (or, well, will given that they've pretty much already won) bring about a socialist revolution or any of that stuff.
When the fuck are progressives shutting down serious action?
Remember Uncommited? Palestine protests? Calls for Biden to step down? I have seen all three get called Russian psy-ops by supposedly left-leaning people on Lemmy. You probably know better than me whether that's a representative sample of American politics, but holy hell for a time you couldn't say anything bad about Biden without getting showered with downvotes around here. This sort of cannibalism was one of the many forms of complicity that allowed the march to fascism to proceed unimpeded.
You're absolutely right. In the wise words of a political party canvassing for seemingly everything a good fucking third of the 'left' commenters here have come to adore, we're all going to die someday. So why not as soon as possible?
I mean, in this case we're more talking about whether it's worth it to pay through the nose for life support when you already know what you have is terminal.
"We've managed to make 'socialism' into an acceptable word in politics and almost got a democratic socialist into a major party's nomination twice in the past ten years, in a country which has been immensely hostile to any socialist ideas for at least 70 years, and in an intensified period of anti-government right-wing insanity since 1980."
That would be nice-ish progress in saner times, and a few decades of it and you might've had a shot at sane government (if the establishment didn't manage to tank the whole affair, anyway), but like what makes you think you ever had that kind of time? The clock was already ticking with Bush, really got going with Obama and Trump 1 pretty much sealed the deal. When I say fascism was inevitable I don't mean it was coming within decades; I mean America was going to be fascist by 2033. Much more direct action was needed to prevent fascism within that timeframe. So with that in mind,
But I guess it's not fast enough for your tastes
No, it's not fast enough for the reality on the ground.
This one's much simpler than that; one party will throw people I love into a concentration camp in the next four years, one party will not. I will vote for those who will not. The rest is just bullshit.
The delusion that democrats don't also put many people in cages is a huge part of how we got here.
You sound like one of those dangerous shitlibs, not wanting people to be thrown into concentration camps. Don't you know that the lives of the likes of you and me are acceptable sacrifices so that the wannabe revolutionaries can (checks notes) do nothing but feel really smug about how superior they are to The Establishment?
There's a part of me that thinks these people fell for very well crafted propaganda that kept them away from the voting booth and, like Magats, they keep doubling down instead of admitting they got duped and moving on.
In a binary system where my choices are Nazis or not Nazis, anyone who comes along and tells me not voting is the best option is my fucking enemy.
Remember, no matter how beautiful, morally righteous, or gratifying your strategy is, you should really look at the results
You're right. And the results show that the idea that the election was lost because progressives stayed home is a complete historical myth.
https://www.politico.com/news/2025/06/26/2024-election-turnout-trum-00426544
I don't see how your link supports your assertion.
Well then you need to work on your critical thinking skills, it's pretty obvious. The election wasn't lost because people stayed home. If more people had voted, Trump would have one even more. Kamala didn't lose because progressives stayed home. She lost because she abandoned enough policies that support the working and middle class that many of these voters voted for Trump instead. The online progressives that centrists love to blame thing on held their nose and voted for Kamala anyway, as unlike liberals, progressives will actually vote blue no matter who.
Again, the article does not support your assertion. It seems you have been led on by the suggestion presented in the article. If you consider the statistics the author presented without that suggestion, you'll realize they're fairly unrelated data points that add up to... several interesting, but unrelated data points.
Furthermore, it's a nation wide data set, right? So how does that break down along state lines? For example, did enough people stay home in Michigan to affect the outcome of Michigan? We don't know based on the data presented in the article.
Now, would you like to discuss my critical thinking skills? If you have more data I'd be happy to consider it.
The ice cream no longer exists. It hasn’t existed for a long time, and no amount of wishing will bring it back.
I want ice cream, too. But before we can have ice cream again, we need to not die.