7d ago

Politicians Will Not Save Us.

Grassroots organization will save us.

210 comments

Absolutely vote for whatever your personal issue is in the primary. Make your voice heard and let the candidates know about it.
Come general election, you vote against the Nazi. I don't give a fuck if the Dem doesn't like your issue, I'll even donate to change their mind, but damn well show up and vote for them.
- Come general election, you vote against the Nazi. I don't give a fuck if the Dem doesn't like your issue, I'll even donate to change their mind, but damn well show up and vote for them.
  Unless he’s Zohran, then we clutch pearls and support the corrupt creepy predator guy.
  
  I've heard this brought up a lot. First of all, fuck Cuomo. Any rational person should be supporting Zohran over any of the other candidates.
  But also, is there an actual worry about the ticket getting split or non-votes and allowing the Republican to win? That's essentially what "vote Blue" is about.
  Also, progressives have one candidate that is obviously better than the alternative, even if they don't like both. Moderates aren't necessarily convinced. It's just a different argument.
  Although, if they are and they still just don't like them, I'm 100% telling them to get off their ass and vote to stop the nazis.
  
  Status Cuomo
- Sure, but Gavin Newsom might very well also be a Nazi. If you're from California, then you're probably aware that he's not exactly defending the the sanctuary state that he's been charged to lead. He's also kind of giving mayors carte blanche (and State-level support) to "clean up" homeless encampments, and he's publicly stated that he doesn't believe that "trans athletes should be allowed to compete against girls" in and interview with Charlie Kirk, and then recently doubled down on that.
  So what do you do when both Candidates want to fuck the world?
  Obviously the fascist party is accelerating things quickly, but the Democrats aren't doing anything to slow it down. Just as in every single case of a fascist takeover ever, the liberals enable the fascists. They keep trying to shift to the right to "capture voters" which literally has never worked, but they keep trying. Why?
  
  i can't believe after the dissolution of checks and balances and the ongoing kidnapping of hispanic people nationwide we're still having this conversation.
  obviously newsom is actively awful. but calling it "both candidates want to fuck the world" is so narrow-minded knowing everything that is happening to america every day right now.
  it's frustrating to be an american and be given two choices who both suck. one choice sucks so much more. not playing along in this fucked up democracy puts american people in danger.
  
  One person thinks trans people shouldn't be allowed to compete in sports.
  The other person thinks that trans people shouldn't be allowed to live.
  Please help I can't figure out how these two are different
  
  and then recently doubled down on that
  Wait seriously? I was really hoping he would do the opposite and call it a "lapse in judgement"
- And because there are way more fascist friendly neoliberals than there are progressives it will never be someone you actually want to vote for.
  This has been the pattern for my entire life and expecting this stupid country full of idiots to change is a recipe for disappointment.
  
  Except the left has policy that directly improves the material conditions of people. Free Healthcare polls overwhelmingly better than "means-tested subsidies for insurance through 50 different marketplaces where you have no idea what you will pay at any point".
  The people don't have coherent ideologies, but they know healthcare, rent, school are too expensive and wages are too low.
  
  Isn't that how democracy works? You try to convince the greatest number of people to agree with you, and if they don't, you lose? You can try to change the center of the curve, but if you're way over in "property is theft" land, and the greater number of people are in "healthcare should be cheap if not free," then that's going to be the policy that wins. You can be upset that more people don't agree with you, but that's what primaries are for.
- Your heuristic is easy to beat. A Nazi just needs to run as a Democrat, hide their true feelings until the general election, and they can trick you into voting for them every time.
  
  You must be working for Fetterman
  
  Well they can trick you into voting for them the first time, anyways
  
  This goes every possible way and is a weak argument.
  There's nothing stopping a Nazi from lying and pretending to be a progressive canidate either.
  You made an unwinable scenario
- Nah, we need to let the DNC know that conservatives are unelectable in the general so they don't ratfuck they way through the primary again. Saying it now, I will not vote for republican-lite
  
  The way you do that is by winning the primary. If progressive candidates can't win the primary, they can't win the general. That's what makes a candidate like Zohran in NY so important. At the end of the day though, if a progressive fails to take a seat, then a corporate dem is still better than any Nazi.
- And why is this even a conversation now? There is literally no reason for anyone to care about the 2028 election. I mean hell, in all likelihood you won't even get to have real elections in 2028 at this rate, so now in 2025 go do something about it.
  I'll even donate to change their mind,
  That... makes no sense.
  
  Giving politicians money to change their mind is straight up how Dems operate. They're barely even shy about it.
- Nah i'm done playing this no sensical game. If I vote, it's for PSL and any other third party option. Not like voting for a Dem in my state of Missouri will do anything so might as well vote for who I actually want to support and stop doing the "hold your nose and vote for the slightly less bigoted fascist".
  
  I used to think the same until Georgia flipped blue for Biden.
  It's possible and better then the alternative. Hell if your vote even just helps flip a house seat it is a drastic improvement
  
  Politics are either practical or vanity.
  
  This attitude is why Missouri will always be red.
  I hate when people cannot see they are part of the very problem they're trying to solve.
  
  So you're actively going to help the worst fascist, even using your own opinion of the democratic politicians. That makes you an enemy.

Yeah. Newsom trolling Trump is funny as hell. He is still a piece of shit, though.
- I'm laughing. But I haven't forgotten hes a transphobe
- Grade A shitposter
- Not a Fascist piece of shit though
  
  Gavin is a continuation of the same type of Neoliberalism that made people apathetic enough to let Trump win.
  Neoliberal control of the left leads to fascism

Guys...he might hate trans and homeless people, but check out those dank memes his staffer is posting.
- He has faught against ranked choice voting everytime he has had the chance.
  https://www.sfchronicle.com/politics/article/Gavin-Newsom-vetoes-bill-to-allow-ranked-choice-14535193.php
  
  There are lots of reasons to dislike Newsom. His office's mockery of Trump isn't one of them. It's possible to cheer him for that and dump on him for the other things.
- This is the answer, Gavin Newsom sees a role to play and is cynically doing it, he is a risky distraction that gives me "I will absolutely throw you under the bus for power" vibes exactly like mayo Pete.
- Damn he did two things I don't agree with? Guess I'll passively support the guy who does everything I disagree with then.
  
  Yes. Those are the only two options.

To be clear, I was and am one of the ones saying the people who didn't vote out of protest or not bothering contributed to the current regime.
But yes, right now is exactly the time to start going after the Dems. Now is the time to support progressives. Now is the time for shitting on the Chuck Schumers and try to push them out of office. There is little those on the left can do to persuade the current regime, but on the off-chance there are legitimate-ish elections next year or in three years, either shifting the Dems left or replacing them with a viable Left Party is the thing we should do right now.
In other words, now is not the time for the lesser evil.
- But later when there’s another shit-neolib candidate is?
  
  Yes. When you end up with only two choices, not choosing means "both are equally bad." So do everything you can to get better candidates before that point. Or uproot the entire system. Or whatever. Beforehand.

Here we go again. I guess this is just classic neoliberal psy-op at this point, trying to guilt people into voting against their own best interest just one more time bro.
Yes, it’s good Newsom is doing anything at all to fight back against Trump’s fascist takeover. No, he will not represent you if he gets elected, he will represent his corporate donors.
Corporations are already crushing us and taking us for all we have left. Don’t help their cause, find someone to support who isn’t beholden to monied interests instead.
- find someone to support who isn’t beholden to monied interests instead.
  FIND SOMEONE GUYS. WE JUST GOTTA FIND SOMEONE.
  
  They’re out there, many of them inspired to newly join politics in the face of democratic leadership’s utter weakness in this moment. You won’t find them on CNN or MSNBC though.

Yes go after the dems for being complicit with thr Trump regime and also being shitty people themsevles who are intentionallh suroessing the left wing candidates.
But im also enjoying the petty trolling of Trump and dont mind giving Newsom a little bit of approval for it.

Not once have I ever had anyone giving me shit about bringing up Newsom’s transphobia respond to the fact that LGBTQ political leaders and rights organizations within California, some of which have been fighting for LGBTQ rights for decades, immediately condemned his statements. Those people and organizations are all just too stupid and idealistic to understand how politics works, I guess. 🙄
You’d think a ‘liberal/leftist’ screaming at a trans person to shut the fuck up about transphobia would cause some cognitive dissonance, but nope, not even a little.
It would be great if they spent even 1/10th the energy putting pressure on Newsom to stop being a fucking transphobe.

Sidenote: Does anyone else feel like people are coping hard trying to pretend the country and system is as normal as ever? Like keeping their heads in their work or schooling. Or something else they can dive into. Instead of facing the broken-ness? Or is that just me?
- Head in the sand. They've had it there since the election. If they just weather the next 3 and a half years, everyone will join together and just vote to fix it and our benovalent left will step in to selflessly serve us, unwind all this mess and make sure it can never happen again.
  They don't realize that this will be the point in history they look back at hundreds of years from now and try to figure out what happened. UK is going nuts, EU is going nuts. Privacy is under attack, speech is under attack. We're all sliding into China's model of control, but we're not even getting the socialist advantages.
- The U.S. has been taken over by fascists who are not so slowly dismantling everything that was good about the government and strengthening everything bad. We likely already don't have anything close to a democracy anymore.
  Yeah but theres a centrist neoliberal in Cali who has jokes!
  yay

If Newsone wants your vote he has 2 years to come up with better policies. Lol but he's not going to do that. If he wanted your vote he'd rep your positions but he wants to rep other interests.

If you don't want it to be Newsom, you have 2 years to organize and make it someone else.
- Wait, wouldn't it just be way easier to spend that entire time insufferably removed about everything and criticizing everyone's faults and then just voting for him in the end anyway?
  
  don't you mean, not voting at all?
- Putting the onus on me to find someone is all well and good, but are you really OK with settling for Newsom?
  Why don't we look together for someone more palatable?
  
  Why don't we look together for someone more palatable?
  And we should. I often talk about this on Lemmy. But many of my fellow lemms and lefties here would rather just skip out on the work it takes yo build a movement. Then they wonder why they aren't seriously represented.
- Right back at you self righteous punk, stop preaching and get to work

if Burnie succeeded in anything, it's getting the party to at least pretend to be leftist on paper occasionally. accepting the top candidate before the primary is a mistake. make them earn your vote.
- Libs are too chicken shit to do that. They'd rather just harass anyone with the mindset of "earn my vote or you don't get it".

Dems suffer greatly in finding the greatest shitbags possible who aren't officially republican.
- Vote Blue No Matter Who means they don't need to find a good candidate, and are free to ratfuck as much as they'd like during primaries. After all, the alternative is a republican, what are you going to do, convince 70 million other people to all vote for the same third party?
  
  VBNMW is Blue MAGA. Treat them as such.
  
  I prefer the more tactful, progressive in blue states (even third party vote if they don't get the primary), but blue in red states to slow them down there.
  I wouldn't say anyone should be loyal to newsom,but we should be pragmatic during elections. And remember there are more races than just president.
  We should support our progressive candidates to go independent if they have to.
- I'm still livid about the fact that last primary, I literally skipped over Gavin Newsom, researched every single person running in the primary, and crossed off every single name that was worse than him.
  He was one of three names not crossed off. Out of two dozen.

Hillary Clinton was up 17 points two years out, there's plenty of time to fuck this up

2 years is plenty of time for democrats to get the message ‘i will not vote for anything but a progressive proven to run on progressive policies.’
- I hope so. The problem is the Democratic Party would rather lose again than fight for universal healthcare, federally mandated maternity leave, national carbon tax, childcare programs, ending genocide, etc. ; and the democratic voters would rather "vote blue no matter who" than lose to the Republican Party again. So we end up with these establishment corporation oligarchy-asskissing candidates.
  
  if that’s the case then nobody should vote for any democrat. because at that point they are not controlled opposition, they are just controlled. and the facade will have run its course and actual action would hopefully follow

I won't enthusiastically pledge allegiance to that homeless eating ghoul on Nov 3 2027.
I might, MIGHT, begrudgingly vote for the bastard. (If he promises Universal Healthcare) And if he wins I'll shit on him as much as is warranted. We already know he sucks. He is going to suck immensely. This is known. But we'll just have to see how it shakes.

It's funny because Kyle Kulinski called it a couple years ago that the dem party would probably coalesce behind Gavin Newsom even though he's still just a corrupt neolib.
- Because.
  Because he is a corrupt neolib.

The hostages are excited to choose their brand of chains.

Is the bathwater clean enough yet?
Nope, gotta throw this one away too.
Meanwhile the right controls the country.
- Gavin should absolutely keep trolling trump.
  He should not be nominated for president.
- OOH OOH I KNOW! We should all argue about if the efforts by [PERSON] to push back on the literal tyrants mobilizing the military against political opponents is actually a good thing or not, and fold our arms performatively if [PERSON] didn't hit EVERY FUCKING CHECKBOX ON THE MASSIVE SCROLL OF INCLUSION AND PERFECT POLITICS.
  Because every time we do that... well, we lose miserable and lose more rights and protections, BUT AT LEAST WE CAN BE SMUG THAT WE DIDN'T SETTLE FOR LESS THAN PERFECT.
  
  Vetos a bill to cap insulin prices.
  Vetos bills to build social and LGBTQ+ teen housing
  Vetos a bill to provide hearing-aids to kids
  Vetos a bill to make the rich pay taxes
  Ran on a single-payer healthcare system, then immediately backes down
  Vetos a bill to let striking workers keep their insurance
  Vetos a bill that banned employers from retalliating against picketers
  Proudly does a photo-op while destroying peoples homes
  BUT AT LEAST WE CAN BE SMUG THAT WE DIDN'T SETTLE FOR LESS THAN PERFECT.
  I'm not sure you understand what the word "Perfect" means. We're not asking for an angel, we're only asking for a candidate that isn't a monster. But the Democrats refuse to let us have that as an option.
  
  Right now is the only time to look for perfect, so why settle with fascism-lite instead of fighting for social democracy?
  
  We did settle for less than perfect with Biden. How's that working out? Quit calling dog meat "less than perfect steak". How about pushing for an actually decent candidate before trying to sell us on getting a shit one.
- This.. we are looking at the very real possibility of Trump 2028 unless we support Gavin. I hate it.. but that's what it looks like.
  
  If trump is allowed to run again, then the constitution does not matter and, likely, the elections would not matter.
  
  Oh my fucking God, I'm having 2020 flashbacks. "Vote for Biden so we can get Trump out!". We would have been miles better off if Trump won. No more loser centrist Democrats. All it does is kick the can down the road and makes things worse.

Didn't like finding out that wealth inequality induce stress is fundamentally changing our species

I just can't wait for the protest vote to fuck us again and give us two more years of destruction and erosion of rights.
- Then why doesn't the Democratic Party listen to the protest vote? Are these people too insignificant to care about or so powerful they cost the election, which is it?
  
  Just note it's best to take our idealism to the primaries- it's the most effective it will ever be in a race to convince the electorate and the party that internal change needs to happen. It's hard to make those arguments in the general election because many, many people will move from idealism to pragmatism and are more willing to swallow bitter pills.
  Also protest and burn things so take note of that.

I think it’s more like the people who say things like “I’ll never vote for a transphobe like Gavin Newsom” when that makes you a Republican.
- That obviously does not make you a Republican

I'm starting to come around on Gavin, his Blue MAGA routine signals to me that the Democrats have finally given up on "When they go low, we go high."
That said he needs to walk back his transphobia if I'm going to actually support him.
Ideally I'd want someone closer to AOC, not AOC herself sadly because America has made it clear they will not vote for a woman.
- "America has made it clear they will not vote for a woman."
  So far America has made it clear they won't vote for an establishment robot who refuses to acknowledge the pain that most of the country is in when there's a funny clown dancing on the other side of the ballot, and they've done so twice. The gender of the robot is irrelevant here.
- They tried a warcriminal and "how would your administration be different from a Biden administration" "Well I would have a republican in my cabinet".
  That isn't America saying they won't vote for a woman, its the dem base saying they won't vote for a republican.
  
  America had the chance to get Trump out of the news cycle forever and didn't take it. That's how much they hate women.
- not AOC herself sadly because America has made it clear they will not vote for a woman.
  Let's support the most qualified person regardless of the demographics. If we are only willing to nominate straight white men, then we can't complain when marginalized groups don't vote for the Democratic party. The fact that Obama was elected twice shows that it is possible.

The meme seems to directly contradict the post title there

210 comments