Also Democrats: Ve shall round up und eradicate ze undesirables from society!!! Ve shall put zem into ze camps and ve shall enslave them to benefit ze superior class!!!
https://fxtwitter.com/lastreetcare/status/1806869510483476829
Also Democrats: Ve shall round up und eradicate ze undesirables from society!!! Ve shall put zem into ze camps and ve shall enslave them to benefit ze superior class!!!
https://fxtwitter.com/lastreetcare/status/1806869510483476829
Oww. Just think of the paper cuts! If that’s your thing I’m certainly not going to kink shame, but it’s not for me. ;)
Seriously though, yes I know that in a lot of places you’re not going to achieve anything substantive by voting. What you do achieve though is keeping the numbers up. If the Dems get no votes in Republican leaning areas it doesn’t tell them they’re not left enough, it tells them they’re not right enough as that’s where the votes are. Does it make a big difference? Probably not, but it does make some difference, and that might be enough to start to swing things in future elections.
Oh no, the happiness wouldn’t be yours, it would be mine, because you would be in pain.
You literally do not get it. It’s literally confirmation bias for the Dems however you vote. If you give them votes they will think ‘hey moving right is clearly working!’ if you don’t vote for them they think ‘well dang we need to move more right!’. They’ve been doing this song and dance since the 60’s, you cannot affect them by voting or participating in their electoral sham.
That’s a fair point, which is why I keep saying that they actually need to hear people’s voices. Enough people to affect the election need to be making a clear statement that they need to see things change in a particular way for parties to get their vote to make anything change. That needs to happen early enough to give the parties time to change their tune without scaring off the rest of their voters though, and I do not think there is time before November for the either party to reinvent themselves.
I can understand, and share, the anger at the Dems for how Biden’s governed, though they currently control neither the legislative branch nor the judiciary. The question isn’t whether they’re good, it’s whether the only other possible option is worse, and that sucks, but probably not as much as living through that other option.
So what’s the window between presidential, state, and local elections, plus run-offs, school districts, sherriff, and all the others that ‘is the time’?
And how many do you need to convince?
Half the voters for an entire party in a matter of weeks, every four years? Does this seem realistic to you?
And why would the party actually respond to those demands if you could organise the magic number of people in the exact right window of time?
I’m genuinely curious…
The presidential elections, along with the other positions elected then, are the highest stakes, so it’s probably best not to try to upset them. That means starting in December and going for the next 3.5 years or so. This particular election seems more risky than most because of trump’s position on may things, including his stated desire to be a dictator and his intention to fully support the worst things the dems have done and push them even further. Were it almost anyone else with the republican nomination I’d be less concerned.
What’s the margin between the first and second place parties? You probably need to convince around that number of the leading parties voters. It’s a straight numbers matter. Figure out how many are needed to swing the election, and that’s how many you need to convince.
It’s probably a lot less than that. As I said, it only needs to be enough to swing the election away from them. As to time frame, it needs to be all the time, not just for a few weeks. The party/candidate needs enough time to react to your demands and change it’s position without scaring away the rest of it’s voters.
They’d have to respond if they wanted to win the next election. Ultimately politicians need to keep wining to stay in their job. Imperil that and they have to listen or lose their job.
This is very silly. It’s just another list of contradictions and wishful thinking without any demonstratable evidence.
Elsewhere you say that movements should be grassroots first. Elsewhere in the thread you then state that down-ticket races won’t have much effect. Elsewhere still you argue that presidents taking executive action and pressuring them to do so is largely worthless because they don’t control the other houses. All of these points seem strangely contradicatory, almost as if you’re full of shit
But that will affect down-ballot races! School boards! Run-offs! Blah blah blah…
Also, if you think a presidential election cycle as defined by the parties is only six months long then you haven’t been paying attention.
Dictators famously require being voted in and run on that ambition.
They also famously do that, succeed, and then insist four years later that in order to do it, they’ll need a second term.
If you think Trump is a unique threat then you haven’t read basically any American history whatsoever.
Nor do you understand how political power in the US works.
And if you believe he is a unique threat why don’t you support any and all options to ensure he never again occupies the presidency?
Without threatening to withold votes, within an incredibly narrow electoral only parameter, in a tiny time frame where anything less than total guarunteed success means its not worth doing. This is what you’ve asserted here and throughout this thread.
Also, as I’ve asked multiple times elsewhere (funny how you don’t respond to those) please provide some examples of the Democrats making an about face on policy within one election cycle, based purely on electoralism. Bonus points if you can provide some examples of that without even threatening to withhold votes.
Except during the build up to elections for that party, which, in America, is essentially all of the time. See below and keep in mind it doesn’t include any kind of local elections for councillers, governers, state positions etc:
And if you don’t achieve that magic number in that tiny window, then you have to vote for a party that will make it even harder to do next time and start again by your logic.
But you assert that if they refuse to change their position, you have to vote for them anyway. So there is no threat of them losing an election, because you advocating for voting for them no matter what, and having not using any leverage you might have. (This is another key point you never address whenever it’s put to you) So why would they change their position? Do you see your circular logic yet?
They don’t care about losing their job. They care about not going against the wants of donors who will provide them their next job. They’ll become lobbyists, or sit on boards, or even just be given cushy party positions that aren’t voted on in exchange for their loyalty to the donor class.
And the donor class and party sure as shit don’t care about candidates losing their positions. They can just drop another one in, usually at less cost than the previous one since they’re not established and have no leverage of their own.
In fact, the people who run the party machinary often stand to benefit from their candidates losing elections, as it increases donations which give them power, keep them employed, increase their salaries and comissions etc.
For your assertion to be true you’d have to believe that the only political apparatus is the candidate themselves, independent of the party structure or donors, and that each of them is a purely motivated being of pure civic duty with no other options or oppurtunities.
Again, you know that’s not the case so your arguement is either disingenuous bullshit or you don’t have literally any understand of the electoral process that you profess to be so confident in your opinions of how its the only option.
I mean no disrespect by this, but I’m going to pick only a few points from your reply, I believe you and I have hashed over the others already in many threads.
Each of those is in a specific context. Yes any meaningful movement is going to have to be grassroots first, without that it has do driving force to overcome entrenched interests. Down ticket races wont have as much of an effect if biden is president and, preferably, the dems end up controlling at least one house. If trump wins the presidency then I would want to see both houses controlled by the dems, and certainly at least one. So whether the down ticket races are critical, or have less effect rather depends on who gets the presidency. Assuming the worst and voting accordingly there would seem like prudent course of action.
As I said elsewhere, each of those is on it’s own cycle. The major election of president, and the down ticket votes at that point are probably the most consequential, so deciding to demand changes in policy for them is probably best done early in the cycle, rather that in the last few months, to give he candidates time to incorporate that into their plans. I appreciate that many people probably are shouting about this, but it’s clear that it’s not loud enough, or coordinated enough to affect the candidates or other voters.
I know their positioning isn’t defined that soon before the election, but if you want to see it change they need time to do so. We’ve seen that can be moderately swift (the unaffiliated protests for example got some small results in a shorter space of time) but changing messaging in the run up to the election is seen as damaging, so parties try not to do it.
I refer you to the rather well known case of a certain wannabe artist in Germany. He’d made it clear that he would act like a dictator and was voted in to an amount of power, from which he seized total control. The way I see it, if trump is willing to say he wants to be a dictator, it’s one if the few things he’s said that I should believe.
I am not aware of him saying he wanted to be a dictator before his first term, but could easily have missed that. Not winning a second term is what seems to have pushed him over the edge into saying that. The rest of his hateful rhetoric, yes that was going from before term one.
Short of violence, as far as I can see making sure he doesn’t win this election will do that as he’ll be far to gone to demenia by the next election to be a threat. Who’ll take his place is a separate question, but there is time to deal with that before then. That’s what’s confusing me about so many people’s responses here. The reality is that there are only two people who can be the next president, bad and worse. It’s an atrocious choice to have to make, but it seems clear to me that one one course of action makes sense. I know that to others a different course makes sense. That’s why I keep asking: given the electoral reality in front of us right now, what course of action would you, personally, have people take, and what what would you anticipate the outcome of that being?
I’ve tried to explain this is a previous post, but again, withholding votes makes sense, if, and only if, the candidate knows why and can respond to that without losing more of their other voters. If you’ve made your case to biden’s campaign then I apologise for underestimating you. The same goes for the down ticket candidates, they can only respond if they know your position and it makes sense from a voter count to do so.
I don’t think I’ve said anything about the democrats making an about face in one election cycle and certainly not without voters threatening to withhold their votes. I have tried to explain that I’m not saying people shouldn’t threaten to withhold their votes, but should do so in a way that gets that information to the parties early enough that they can incorporate it into their plan. Ultimately, if a party thinks it can win an election if it can win over those voters and not lose more voters it already has, it has to do that to win. The uncommitted protest showed that a large enough group of voters making it clear their vote was contingent on certain changes can and will have an effect. It wasn’t a huge effect on biden’s Gaza policy, but it was noticeable. Critically it was done in a way that didn’t risk letting a worse option take over the White House again.
I’ve addressed this multiple times. I’m not advocating voting for them no matter what. I am advocating voting for biden in this election because the alternative is worse and the odds are so close to 50/50 that the risk of trump getting in is too high. Down ticket I would be more comfortable seeing more dems get in, primarily as insurance against a trump presidency, but also because so many of the republicans are cleaving so hard to trump that they’re the worst choice in their races too.
Ok, but by that logic there is no point withholding your vote at all, as it isn’t an incentive, but seems to be what you’re advocating. I agree that most politicians are going to walk out into a comfortable second job for the people who bankrolled them, but in order to do that they need to be of value to them first. In order to do that they need to stay in power for long enough to get some of what the donor wants done. That is why they do care about being re-elected at least a few times. Without that they don’t get their fairytale ending. Withholding votes is therefore a useful tactic. I haven’t argued against that at all, all I have stated is that as the election nears, unless you can honestly say you’ve made the candidates for each position, from president down, aware of your position and what they need to do to win your vote, withholding it isn’t useful. In the case of the presidential election in particular I would say vote to minimise harm, in the other elections give thought to what your vote, or non-vote, will actually cause. If you’re in a solidly non-swing State your individual action probably doesn’t change anything but the margin one candidate wins by, so it might be reasonable to make a point. In a swing State it might be more of a case of aiming to minimise harm again. It sucks. All of it sucks, but that’s the state of things right now.
This is just an endless repetition of the same tired arguements you’ve posted multiple times in this reply alone, never mind the myriad replies to me and others. So I’ll try to strip this down to the simplest core points possible.
I don’t care who you vote for. Vote whatever and move on. If you’re concerned about the state of the world, pull the lever and then focus your attention on something more productive. Anything more productive.
We’ve gotten away from it with this distraction, but this original post is about the wholesale criminalisation and incarceration of unhoused people in order to use them for defacto slave labour.
You’re spending all this time and energy and intellectual effort on gaming out elaborate electoral fantasies like; if only we could get the politicians to hear us, in the right way, at the right time, then they’d change. They won’t. They don’t ‘hear you’ not because of timing or messaging, but because their material interests are entirely in supporting policies like this.
You’re spending all this effort building an elaborate and doomed philosophy and strategy out of magical thinking and then more trying to get others on board.
You’d be better off going and handing out toiletries to the homeless, doing mutual aid, literally anything else.