It Will Be an Election Unlike Any We’ve Lived Through. Are the Democrats Prepared?

- I don't consider myself a Democrat, but in this two-horse race, I vote Democrat because, as my father was fond of saying and said as far back as at least the Reagan era, "the worst Democrat is better than the best Republican." Sad but true. I'd rather have a senate of Bob Menendezes and lose Susan Collins in the mix. Menendez is a corrupt bastard, but at least he votes as if he gives a shit about other people. Collins tries to sound reasonable and fair and then votes in lockstep with the rest of the Republicans most of the time anyway.
- Lol yeah I remember when I used to consider positions, evaluate the candidates, check historical records etc. GOP has made this very easy the last few years because "fuck women, gays, immigrants and the disabled. Science is fake, Jan 6 is fake, covid is fake, trump is a saint and the rich need more help".
  Wow what a winning platform. ☑️ D
  
  GOP has made this very easy
  I'm a Houstonian. I'll vote straight ticket, but I can already tell you how the election will shake out.
  Texas will go bright red. Houston will go bright blue. My vote at the state and national level won't matter, because its winner-take-all. And many of my neighbors will be subject to harassment, disenfranchisement, and voter caging because they've got African American / Pacific surnames, which flag them as easy targets for reducing D turnout. That's before you even get into how reliable a Jane Nelson / Ken Paxton administered election is expected to be, given how frequently we've had rules for mail-in ballots, voter id, and county-wide voting challenged by the current state administration.
  The GOP has made the decision to vote against them easy. They have made the process to vote against them increasingly difficult.
  Science is fake, Jan 6 is fake, covid is fake, trump is a saint and the rich need more help.
  The same folks who say this shit are the ones expected to tally the results of the election faithfully.
  As the saying goes, "Its not the votes that count but who counts the votes". Our dogged reliance on the machinery of elections in a state with a decades long history of shady election practices is naive af.
- I used to be an Independent voter. I'd consider reasonable Democrats and Republicans alike. No more. Dems down the ballot for me.
- Same but I primary whenever I can for candidates that even entertain being progressive. Anyone who want to stop the plutocracy, treat our planet like we need it, or will act with empathy.
- Too many people can't bear conscience for voting for someone actively abetting a genocide. A lot are boting 3rd party this year, so the vote's split
  
  Cool. Vote third party. We’ll get Trump (or one of the other authoritarian dominionist clowns in the car), who will end up pushing for a nuclear attack on Gaza while dismantling every institution we have here, meager as they are, but people still need them. Then in 2028, don’t vote at all because you will probably lose your right to do so. At least you voted with your _heart<3 though, so have a nice cup of tea and give yourself a hug.
  We do not have a system in place where your idealistic protest can do anything other than make things worse. Fix the goddamn system, put people in power on a local level who have a chance, and work up from there. Fuck outta here with any Jill Stein horseshit.
  
  With donnie in power, we may very well have genocide in our borders.
  
  Here is why you should never vote third party in a FPTP voting system. If you are not happy with your candidate choices, then we need to increase voter turnout in local elections, mid terms, and most importantly, primary elections. Primary elections are where you actually can change the spirit of the political parties, but hardly anyone votes in primaries despite them being arguably the most important.
  
  It's funny. It's already election year and you can't even name a 3rd Party candidate with any sort of shot. But yes, some perfect candidate will declare in late September, right?

I'm tired of every election being the most important election. I want politics to be boring again, less evil too if possible.
- If politics were ever boring or less evil, it's because you weren't paying attention or engaged. Every upcoming election will always be the most important. Simply because all the others have happened, and the remainder are too far off and nebulous.
  Ask all the people suppressed, attacked, and assassinated in the 50s and 60s fighting for civil rights. All the ones since then too. It didn't magically become perfect. Or all the people brutalized by robber barons before as they fought for unions, weekends, reasonable hours, and basic safety.
  Being disengaged from politics is a luxury and a privilege that most people can't afford. Which explains why we're in such a deficit. With so much of the American population chomping at the bit for fascism again. And much of the rest of the world close behind. Putin in Russia, Orban in Hungary, Milieu in Argentina, etc etc etc. We've been asleep at the wheel, enabling the worst people among us.
- You landed in the wrong timeline.
- Republicans are pushing for fascism, and Democrats like not having to do anything but be second worst to fascists.
- It might be a few elections before that happens. There’s political turmoil and fascists have a chance so they’re gonna keep going for it until republicans understand they cannot possibly win anything with fascism
- I... I just want to get back to the days when the internet kept our attention with porn and stupid browser games... is that so much to ask!? Is it so terrible to expect congress to be no more exciting and no less humane than any other day at any other workplace??
- Yeah the problem is that wide reaching policy changes is hard to sell on a country wide scale

Are the Democrats EVER prepared though?
"I am not a member of any organized political party. I am a Democrat." - Will Rogers, 1879-1935
"Democrats never agree on anything, that’s why they’re Democrats. If they agreed with each other, they’d be Republicans." - Will Rogers, 1879-1935
- 1879-1935
  TIL you guys have been stuck with the same two political parties since the 1850s. No wonder they've gone a bit corrupt.
  
  To be fair, the parties themselves have changed significantly since then.
  
  That's what happens with a first past the post voting system. A ranked choice would open things up quite a bit, but that would require the people elected by the first past the post voting system to change it or mass revolution.
  Someone call the French and let them know we actually do need them again.
- It's almost like individual people have different opinions and want different things.
  
  The Democrats are actually way more internally organized now. About 30 years ago during the 90s both parties reached almost unanimous internal ideological consensus' and essentially all vote as a single blocks. The state we're in now with this polarization is part of this, and an example of the increased factionalization of US politics.
  It's crazy to think how there were staunch segregationist Democrats in to the 70s even as the party as a whole had been (successfully) catering to younger urban demographics that came alongside industrialization. We can't really imagine something like that occurring now. Even Biden was opposed to bussing and a lot of his "across the aisle" examples even today involve working with segregationist Democrats, not "across the aisle" as we interpret it now.
- I actually like that about the Democrat Party. Shows how ideologically diverse it is because tolerance is a bedrock of the party ever since the two parties switched from being conservative and liberal. The GOP flipped within four years from being neocons to isolationists, and anyone who disagrees with the current identity is a RINO
- Democrats and Republicans swapped ideologies and beliefs around 1936
- "Ten degrees to the left of center in good times, ten degrees to the right when it affects them personally.' - Phil Ochs, 1966

This has been the Republican Party's M.O. for decades.
"Government is corrupt and ineffective, elect us and we'll prove it to you!"

I really wish Biden would step down. I'd love a better option from the Dems. That said, no way in hell am I voting for Trump.
- I really wish Biden would step down. I’d love a better option from the Dems.
  glances at Kamala Harris
  sighs
- Biden is safe, and honestly the best frontrunner we have.
  
  I disagree. An 80 year old is not the best option we have.

That's 11 months for heart disease to do the world a favor and get itself some good PR for once.

There is no saving America, there's only buying time. Democrats can't do what's needed to prevent fascism because actually doing something about the Republican party would risk creating actual democracy. Prepare to fight fascism now because at best you're buying yourself another 4 years. Vote, don't vote, vote for a third party out of protest, whatever you do organize with other people and prepare for the worst.
In the best case, I'm wrong and you've made new friends. But if you don't organize now it will be too late to organize in the worst case.
- Democrats can’t do what’s needed to prevent fascism because actually doing something about the Republican party would risk creating actual democracy.
  Hard fucking facts. When you look at places where liberals have carte blanche to do whatever they damned well please - your Californias and Washingtons and NYs and Minnesotas - they still can't bring themselves to do what needs doing. No public health care. Rampant homelessness thanks to commodified housing. Food deserts. Rich-people-only universities. No new mass transit. Police budgets skyrocketing. Everyone kowtowing to tech executives for no discernible benefit.
  Meanwhile, the fascists in Texas and Florida and the Dakotas and Carolinas are creating the future of the American political system while Schumer, Jeffries, and Biden just kinda sleep through it.
  Vote, don’t vote, vote for a third party out of protest, whatever you do organize with other people and prepare for the worst.
  Voting as a panacea for organizing has really fucked the country as a whole. While movement conservatives raid school boards and throw pipe bombs at abortion clinics and do Brooks Brothers Riots and Jan 6ths any time an election is in doubt, liberals have been totally pacified. They show up ever couple of years, pull a lever, do a thoughts and prayers, and go home.
  They spend far more time gambling on Robinhood or working overtime to earn their bosses a bigger paycheck than they do throwing events for their neighborhood or organizing their offices to bargain for a bigger share of company profits.
  The American future looks increasingly grim.
  
  When voting isnt enough learn how to grow crops like a farmer not a gardener and then practice shooting. If we're lucky those will stay hobbies.
- True, that. Building mutually supportive communities is really beneficial if shit goes bad. It's something most of us can do on a local level and it's something most humans are pretty good at.

Gods know I’m not ready for another American election.

If the democrats were prepared Biden wouldn't be on the ballot
- He’s the incumbent. The last incumbents to not be reelected were Trump and HW Bush. Tell me again why Biden is unelectable.
  
  Because Biden is a lot closer to HW Bush than he is to Obama. One of the reasons he got the nod in the first place was his promise not to run for re-election. And where we are now is why.
  
  How about we get a president that isn't over 70 and doesn't require uppers to function, like biden, or literal adult diapers, like trump.
  Both options are garbage and both men need to retire.
  
  People don't think he does enough. And "his son". Basically it's to just be edgy. Dude has taken a shit show and make it resemble an office again.

The world will be looking at you. Don't fuck this up USA
- Too late. We've already normalized fascism.
  
  Fascism makes people turn on the tv, so every national news network actively did that for the profit of it.
- Too late.

Democrats still don't know who they will be running against - since the polling needed to determine that are not "likely Iowa caucus goers" but "likely Trump jurors". We don't want to be like the Republicans in 2008 who were completely prepared to take on and tear down a Hilary Clinton nominee, only to find themselves fighting Obama.
- If the Republican nominee is anyone but Trump, we'll see Trump run as an independent and split the vote.
  
  🤞🏻
  
  deleted by creator
  
  Call me a pessimist, not not likely. Trump's narcissism is only dwarfed by his laziness. If he doesn't win the nomination, he may still run to try to stay out of jail. But he will absolutely not run if he's going to be pardoned and protected by a fascist leader of his choosing, and can relax into a kingmaker role with all of the prestige and none of the responsibilities.
  
  Him running from jail while competing against a candidate that isn't popular with the MAGA nuts, would be the ideal outcome.

A lot of wackos around the world have been winning elections, so we shall see.

I wouldn't be surprised if more vicious rhetoric has been used in past elections, at least one candidate in pre-Civil War America was called a "hermaphrodite", but the inevitable use of AI is going to make the election an absolute circus. L

Please, for the love of God; if it's a state where Biden is guaranteed, then vote third party or whatever alternative dumbass you want. If it's a swing state, it's your god damned duty to vote for Biden. I don't like the AID he's providing Israel but he's not dropping the fucking bombs.
We don't need to spit in the face of our constitution to prove a point. We don't need to tank the work he's done getting the country back on track so you can feel morally superior. We don't need another bad year of COVID just because your friends are saying "Biden bad". Your friends are removed and so are you.
Normally I don't give a shit what you liberal idiots do but this is seriously going to affect us in the real world. It's not your reddit and lemmy echo chambers out here so please tighten the fuck up.
Or tell us of a viable, alternative candidate with over a 90% chance of winning. Oh you don't have one? Then please shut the fuck up and vote Biden.
- Agree basically but why use slur?
- It's BIDENS BOMBS being dropped from BIDENS AIRPLANES. The fact that the pilot is israeli would only matter if Biden STOPPED SENDING THEM MORE BOMBS AND AIRPLANES.
  Genocide Joe has got to go!
  
  Since you seem to love concern trolling, please explain why you'd prefer a literal xenophobic dictator who gets off to torturing minorities

Meet the new year, same as the old year.

Checks news.
Biden sends Israel more bombs
No. No they are not.

How common are faithless electors?
- Not very. The real problem is straight up fake electors. With the State Secretary office sending a legitimate group and the legislature sending another.
  All they need to do is stall that process long enough to either toss the election into Congress or have SCOTUS illegally intervene again
  
  The real problem is no one votes. It's the bare minimum level of effort. It's the participation trophy. They can do all that because we put them there with embarrassingly bad voter turnout. We spend more time complaining than actually voting.
  All of those problems are the symptoms of an unrepresentative government, and a government tends to represent the people who vote for them. If no one votes, they'll listen to the highest bidder.
- How willing is the system to punish them? And if not the system, how willing are the people?
  
  My question is a statistical inquiry. Your question is a bit more complex, I'm not even sure what that data would look like.
  I was able to find this at least.

The illusion of choice: vote for a senile old man or a senile old man that would consider turning minorities into Big Macs because he is hungry
- The while calling Biden senile thing is pretty worn out. It's not true and it only helps Trump. Yeah, he's old, but Biden is sharper now than Trump was 30 years ago.
  
  What about the 40 beheaded babies that Biden saw photographic evidence of?
  Biden is the dullest tool in the shed.
  
  the he’s better than Trump thing is worn out. Don’t worry I’ll vote for grandpa Joe, I mean, what choice do I have?
- Hey man, just look at China, the much darker truth is that in many parts of the world, senile old men run things, your freedom, dreams and purpose is largely meaningless to them unless they're very close to you or you've shown that you also care about their freedom and the well-being of their future offspring.
  For a lot of older people, a certain cynicism comes with wisdom, and you're just like everyone else, a cog in the wheels of a big system. For America and China, where in many parts it's essentially still a mafia state, this is even more pronounced for people that come into positions of power at an older age as they're even more experienced at the real life equivalent to GTA politics.
  The only real upside is that it's not as bad as the middle east still but hey that's a low bar for most that consider war and civil society to be two separate states of existence
- Don't forget, both those old men want Genocide in Palestine. I'm hoping more people vote 3rd party this year
  
  ...which will only help the fascists and put donnie into power.
  
  I’m hoping more people vote 3rd party this year
  Why would that accomplish something in 2024 when it didn't accomplish anything with Nader in 2000 or Perot in 1992? The Democrats and Republicans will really definitely for sure learn their lesson this time for realsies?
  
  I don't think either of them cares much about the middle east or Israel much. If anything they both look at Benjamin the same way Xi looks at the DPRK guy.
  Just old upstarts with bones to pick over

Short Answer: No
Long Answer: I'm prepared for the Republicans to do the most blatantly illegal and immoral thing to steal the election, for Democrats to wave their finger if they feel an "aww shucks" isn't good enough, and for Democracy to die so Decorum may live... and for the Media to pretend it's not happening while they parrot "BoTh SiDeS", Comedians will call it as it is, but that'll be the extent of it.

I don't know who newrepublic.com is, and I'm no fan of Israel and its homicidal reactionism right now, but if you think that there's any chance at all that this is going to make me vote for a goddamn insurrectionist sociopath over the guy I occasionally have policy disagreements with, you are an absolute waste of oxygen.

I love how it's the dem's responsibility to keep conservatives from destroying the country - oh wait, no, it's been that way since bush ran the economy into the shitter, er, no, not that bush, the other bush & reagan. Somehow conservatives always present some kind of existential threat to the democracy that's the left's job to fix again and again.
- did Clinton drive the economy into the shitter? Or Obama?
  Pray tell how the country's been left in crisis by dems. Did Carter wreck the economy just before Reagan took office?
  explain.

The electoral system in the US has been going increasingly downhill. It's sad that it also affects the rest of the world as well.

No they won't. I'm still not hearing of any credible candidates the Democrats are putting forth.
3 Candidates. Just, 3 candidates.
Help us all.
- "We live in a Democracy!"
  "I need to wait to see who they put forward for me to vote for..."
  
  True only in theory
  The DNC (and RNC) both operate as businesses in practice and will put forth oppositions in specific races that are more advantageous for specific donors. These backed members are heavily funded the up winning most the time, despite often being worse candidates.
  Recently Tim Burchet was threatened by the RNC to heavily fund an opposition in his next race and he upset the military industrial complex donors attempting to pursue the UAP investigation SCIF.
  Also pretty visible in 2016 when Bernie was leading the Democratic primary race until the DNC backed Hilary which massively turned the entire race. You can argue that she would've won anyways, which is a fair argument. But the reason it wasn't close was the DNC backing.

Of course they're prepared. They've already selected a group to blame if they lose.

They are incompetent by design and by ignoring that means nothing will ever change for the better

vote biden because trump is a fascist
biden and obama chained a presidential candidate to chair for eight hours so she could not debate with the democrats and republicans
https://www.dailydot.com/debug/jill-stein-2012-debate-arrest-hofstra-university/
and now who you get to vote for will be decided by your state
During the campaign, Stein repeatedly said that there were no significant differences between Mitt Romney and Barack Obama. She said, "Romney is a wolf in a wolf's clothing, Obama is a wolf in a sheep's clothing, but they both essentially have the same agenda." She called both of them "Wall Street candidates" asking for "a mandate for four more years of corporate rule".
how was she wrong

If Genocide Joe doesn't step down I hope you all have the slightest morals left and vote third party instead of this Nazi enabler.

It will be just like any other election. People will vote for either red or blue because they get brainwashed that they only can do that.
- I've seen a number growing that're actually angry enough to vote 3rd party lately
  
  lol the downvotes, people are so dumb that the idea alone of something that isn't red or blue make them mad