Voting for the lesser evil is still evil

Dems have been nothing but a doormat for the last 30 years, the party of complicity. I'm absolutely positive they've been playing the dupe and moving the US further to the right all the while playing the victim.

Could have fixed the electoral college but didn't. Could have codified abortion into the constitution but didn't. Could have filled RBGs supreme court seat without Senate confirmation regardless of the pearl clutching, but didn't. Could have put pressure on the justice department to get their investigation done with to get the trial for Trump for treason at least started....but fuck me, they didn't.... seriously- they couldn't put a case together in 3 years?????

Could have, should have, would have. Fucking useless.

In my country we stopped voting the socdem party, because they betrayed the workers. From one election to the next they lost like half the votes.

For 4 years the conservative party ruled. But after that the socdem change their politics we voted them again and had had a fairly leftist government for the last year.

They are slacking again so I plan not to vote next election, hoping thar more people get the memo, they sink again in votes and sit to think on why people felt betrayed, and change for the better.

4 years of conservative party were worthy giving that after the socdems turned left again we conquer a lot of things that we wouldn't have gotten otherwise if we would have keep on voting their moderate centrist version.

We also voted for third parties when they said that it was throwing your vote away, and the other party got almost the same votes as the socdems(too bad they were not that good once they sat on office). My point is that courage is needed to make a change.

Ah yes, so the best option is to not vote and let them succeed unimpeded.

The best option is to scream at anyone who isn't fucking delighted that your side of the party has moved so far to the right that they're supporting genocide.

No one can gripe about your shit wing of the party.

That's exactly the voter attitude, that gets the broken 2 party system. Politicians know this kind of thinking and use it to their advantage.

Or as Rush put it, “If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice.”

My friend, what you wrote totally ignores the passage of time. Everything you wrote is true if we only look at one election, and none of it is true if we consider the passage of time and how pressure operates. If the political party is not getting votes, if all of their candidates are losing, either they will disband or they will find different policies to push.

George Carlin did a great job blowing this nonsense apart

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9X4Z1lLUMfw

If 5% of the general election popular vote for POTUS, knowing that the candidate cannot win, still voted for the Green Party platform then what effect would that have upon the Democratic Party platform?

On a five point difficulty scale this is a two. The test gets way harder than this.

Make your 3rd party an arm of the dems. A coalition of sorts

You understand how things work! Ignore the apathy trolls. They are trying to silence your vote. Here's what actually happens if you vote for the lesser of two evils. You're rights are protected and next time use the primary process to pick someone even better.

Five states banned RCV this past election. You'll never guess which group made that happen. But hey, both parties are bad.

But that’s not the way to solve the issue

So...... revolution? It worked once before!

I mean, you're not the first one to say thing. People picket, people protest, people make noise. College students are arrested, protests either get Zero media attention (or worse, are regulated to an ineffective location because of regulations) or the protestors switch to disruptive tactics that actually get noticed and are demonized by everyone for it.

Like I keep hearing this "You have to go out and take action", EVERYONE IS! People are walking up and knocking on people's doors and getting punched in the face. People are outside houses getting cops called on them and arrested. Everyone is now more able to point out the bad actors and exactly how that's effecting the parties and policies.

You have Bernie Sanders and AOC out protesting and "making noise" in the spot light every damn day.

• third party doesn't work
• you can't solve the 2 party system
• The way to solve the issue happens between votes

our election cycle is every 2 years or less depending on the occasion. IT IS ALWAYS ELECTION CYCLE IN AMERICAN POLITICS. They have to plan early and extensively to knock off any candidate they don't want (pulling national resources to squash anyone they view "outside" their establishment).

At this point the "make noise" comments need to reiterate what the end goal is for that make noise. You're setting people up to just be angry and upset and protest the inequality or inefficiencies of our system when that's exactly what the politicians want (it's a feature, not a bug). No amount of protesting, a litany of policies at that, will be effective when the complete political spectrum is against change. Take a look at the Civil Rights Era and the voting that was concluded, it looks completely unlike anything we have now.

The political parties have strengthened their stranglehold (I've argued in the past that they are "political parties" in name only, they are more incorporated or an oligarch representatives at this point and should be regulated as such). They listen to power only, the power was taken from the working and lower classes a long time ago. We get our shows we can put on, but it doesn't move the needle anymore. It used to at least force them to talk about moving the needle, even that's gone now.

The core issue is that you only have 2 real options in america, third parties may as well not exist.

There's false assumptions necessary to reach this conclusion. Typically the false assumption is that the role of a third party is to win. The root cause of making this assumption is often that the scope of evaluation has been limited to one term or cycle.

This. I'm in the US and was fully prepared to protest whether Harris or Trump won, I'm opposed to them both in different ways. Trump and team may get me off my ass very quickly though.

All you do by consistently voting the "lesser of two evils" is kicking the hangover down the road by keeping to drink more alcohol. You know every time that it will get worse and the sooner you get through the hangover, the sooner you could actually move on, but in fear of the hangover you grab the bottler another time.

With the measures you mentioned the problem is in particular that the current Democrats are not caring about them. They assume they will get the votes nonetheless and if they don't it is fine because the Republicans will cover most of the donors interests anyways. Making noise only works, if it is followed by consequences. Leaving political violence aside, the only consequence a normal person can realize is not giving the vote.

This video goes into why some radical leftists think that voting doesn't really matter, or could even be considered harmful.

I think you're missing several things. First, if the phenomenon is accurate, and it is, then the burden is on you to figure out how to stop getting played. Don't ask other people to solve your problems. Recognize your problems, and then work to solve them directly.

Second, the spoiler effect doesn't exist unless you're in a swing state. But how many Americans were told that they have to vote for Harris or they're supporting Trump, when in fact their state was nowhere close to 50/50 so realistically they could have voted for anyone?

Third, there is no single leftist community. There are many different leftist communities that overlap and agree on various points. Also, you're suggesting that leftists are idealist, but that's not the truth. We all recognize the current situation, and we're trying to make a better one, but you're not. In other words, your cynicism has caused you to throw in the towel, and to accept the current reality as permanent, unchangeable, it sucks but there's nothing you can do, and that's certainly true if you believe it.

OK, what else do you suggest?

I suggest that the party take the fucking hint and move to the left. But that's not an option you will consider.

OK, what else do you suggest?

Not many ask.

Because of idealism, they seem to ask for something that doesn't exist and not accept anything else.

This is my issue with almost everyone. They believe they already know what others think, that no one could possibly have an alternative that they've not already considered.

My suggestions are as follows: Consider that your scope of evaluation is only one cycle. As a consequence there may be nuance in system function that you'd not considered. Then ask the same question but in good faith.

This is a lie spread by corporate elites that want to make sure both parties align with their interests instead of having Democrats create a popular platform and win on that basis.

Did you learn nothing from hanging on to Biden until even the billionaire donors got scared by his dementia?

or voting third party in a backwards outdated voting system like that of the US

Do you mean that democrats are not centrists?

The effect shown isn't untrue, but the conclusion doesn't follow from that.

The time to vote for someone good is the primaries, which set what the dichotomy of the actual election is going to be like. In the November dichotomy, voting for the lesser evil is kinda the only option unless you want Big Evil to win.

Yes, it would be better to "merge" the main election and primaries into a ranked-choice vote but that's not happening anytime soon.

Which is just fine by the lesser evil wing of the party.

a system where you get served only two options to vote for but are held responsible for the outcome instead of those who limited the available options in the first place?

eh yes, you are right, this is stupid.

as a completely unrelated sidenote:

"winner takes it all" is the actual opposite of democracy, no matter how the voting was done, and this fact can already be read 1:1 within those 4 simple words 😉

Oh my. You win the argument today!

Thank you, thank you for taking the time to put together such a meaningful and well thought-out comment. We are all slightly better off because you paused your surely very important work and gave us your insights.

We've been living in an authoritarian right wing country for 25-50 years. Historically the tactic of "we must sacrifice [insert marginalized group here] or it'll get worse for us all!!!" has been very effective.

I find it very hopeful that this was the year that people were finally very vocally opposed that tactic and think it's a good sign going forward that things might actually get better. However, that is reliant on people like you waking up to the fact that no amount of time and effort put into reinforcing the sacrificial machine will ever change its fundamental nature and that what you view as "being entitled brats" is often simply refusing to participate in the death, enslavement and marginalization of others.

Is active resistance better? Yes! But token resistance while actively reinforcing the authoritarian right is worse than nothing. The vast majority of those "opportunities to volunteer and donate" are doing just that; a $5 donation to "lesser evil INC." is still actively funding evil.

Your frustration and anxiety for the future is perfectly valid, and I appreciate that you are at least a little mad about the state of things. But I would ask that you step back, reevaluate, and redirect that rage and start punching up instead of looking for who to punch down at.

Out of interest, what do you do to push for progressive reform? Because if it's phone banking for right-wingers, I'm not sure that counts.

So if you don't vote for the lesser evil it gets salty and joins the evil? Yeah i am not voting for that psycho manipulating abusive shit.

Accelerationism is more ethical than neoliberal denial. By voting for the bigger evil you've made yourself the lesser evil.

It's incredible that libs still haven't figured out that vote shaming doesn't work. Instead of doing some reflection on why Trump won, there's just more of the same moralizing happening.

Voting for non evil is the way to go. By keeping to vote for the lesser evil, you get it to become more evil while keeping non evil out of power. This is how the system games you.

You are 100% correct.

Look at OPs meme and ask the obvious question: "Why is this moving to the right, and not to the left? Aren't both options equally possible?"

The answer is that it moves to the side that wins elections.

"Why is the right winning elections" is the much much better question to ask. In the meantime, do everything you can to move the center in the other direction one step at a time, and that doesn't come about by losing elections while standing on principle.

Biden will likely end up as one of the top 5 most progressive presidents ever.

Biden will be remembered as the president with dementia who butchered Gaza.

Biden will likely end up as one of the top 5 most progressive presidents ever.

He's not even in the top 5 now.

Only fascists can be accurately represented by Kamala Harris.

Gotta switch to Approval Voting for single-seat elections and the proportional variant for legislatures.

Homie, the Democraes right now are pretty much as much on the political right as the republicans were in the 90s.

Smugly claiming "that's not how this works" isn't as good a point as you think it is.

In an American vacuum I could see where you are coming from. In comparison with literally the entire rest of the world, it is clearly a flawed standpoint.

The American Democratic party is the oldest standing political party in the entire world. It last changed it's political stances in the 1960's and not because they wanted to, but because they needed to respond to the Republicans flipping the entire south in their favor.

Other countries have real leftist parties that actually get government members elected.

You know what they say, evil happens when good people stand back and let it happen.

It's also true that you get backlashes normally if the system doesn't get to far out of wack. FDR wasnt right of Hoover Coolridge and Harding. Sure one can argue overall we were shifting to the right... But we were NEVER going to be left of center so long as the U.S. existed, because the constitution is built on capitalism. Capitalism has a slow decay, can it be fixed? Maybe. Is it fixable now, maybe not. Could we have fixed it if we followed Carter with a closer to center President instead of Reagan, A LOT easier to have done it then... It took 60 years to get taxes on the rich to this point.

You're wasting your vote if you don't choose to kill half the honkeys!!

Is this dialectics

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3uGHXMjImcc

I vote for them, they move right. I don't vote for them, and vote third party, they move right. I join their party and vote in their primary's for progressive candidates, they move right.

It's almost like a bunch of really old, well off, lifetime establishment government folks just actually want to be conservative authoritarians. At BEST they are stuck in a mindset of 1969's ideas of what progressive politics are because that is when they became politicians.

I'm not an American but I would argue that Biden's resignation was in part due to people threatening to not vote. This wasn't a move to the left but organized threats of not voting can make a difference.

Personally, I would vote for the lesser evil unless there was some kind of organized movement. Where I live, we have more than 2 evils to choose from and I choose the smallest of them.

people don’t vote, democrats lose, they think it’s because they’re too far left and move further to the right.

People vote, Democrats win, they think it's because they moved to the right and so they move further to the right. The sun comes up in the morning and they move further to the right.

lol, get this nerd. It’s not meant to be a scientific graph like a Moody diagram for calculating things from, it’s illustrating a concept which it does perfectly.