Both parties are the same power structure.

Sure, but one side is currently on a zealous charge trying to extend it far harder than the other.

Organise in opposition

Would be a fine idea if the party who would have power in the interim were not basically religious zealots hell bent on destroying everything that previous movements have built up. By the time the Dems had reorganised and rebuilt there would be little left for them to govern.

all methods to produce results including but not limited to; protest, strike action, lawfare, self-governance, direct action, sabotage, and armed resistance.

These are all good methods for getting noticed, yes. The question is, do you want to get your way because you made more noise than the other side, or because enough people believe in the same thing as you? The former is precarious, as it can be rolled back in the same way. the latter is more enduring. Maybe you can do the first and then back it up with the second, I’m not sure. Protests of various sorts can be useful to gain recognition and get people to think about your cause, but only up to the point you inconvenience them too much. After that you start to see opinions hardening against the cause.

And you can have extra points if you can name some brought about purely by electoralism that did not include either withholding or threatening to withold votes, since that’s the hill you’ve decided to die on.

I think I’ve been unclear somewhere, as withholding votes is what I’ve been saying everywhere, but do it in a coordinated and widespread way, not ad-hoc as people seem to be suggesting here. A small number of votes withheld without a clear explanation to the candidates as to why, and enough time for them to incorporate that into their strategy, says nothing to them and risks handing power to a worse and less controllable option. Get enough people together that their votes are actually consequential and have everyone contact the candidates explaining what they need to do to win their votes, then you’ll have a reliable effect.

Yes, you are. And the elected president is the head of the party.

The elected president is typically the head of one of the parties, yes, although I haven’t seen anything saying they must be (please let me know if there is a rule about that). However, they are separate to the party, being the executive rather than legislative branch. The way I see it, this year’s election is uniquely evil, in that on the one hand you have Biden and on the other hand you have trump, who has stated his desire to be a dictator, and who wants to take all the worst positions the current administration have taken and make them even more extreme, whilst also stripping even more rights. Neither option is good, one is worse. Given that one of the two will be the next president of the United States of America, I would advocate for the less extreme one.

It has no effect without the threat of combined removal of votes

Yes, that’s what I am saying. Apologies if I wasn’t clear this time. Without that, no matter how big a movement is it’ll be ineffective. However unless it is large enough the removal of votes will either achieve nothing or be counter productive by letting a worse option in.

You assert this repeatedly but never offer what those requirements are or how to achieve them.

As I mentioned to someone else, look at the margin between the first and second place parties, and you probably need a movement of that order of magnitude to be able to swing the election. Then you need all of those people making contact with their representative or potential representative and laying out exactly what is needed to get their vote. It’s not complicated, just tough to get enough people to agree with you.

But I can’t vote for those candidates because I have to vote for the supposedly ‘lesser evil’ of the two parties that oppose it, right? That’s your original premise here.

As I said, initially we were talking about the presidential election, where I would say that ensuring trump doesn’t get in is vital. Swinging one or both houses to the Dems would also derisk trump being president. If you support an issue, say voting systems, you need enough people with you to ensure you are heard. Deciding to withhold your vote at a late stage, without explaining to the candidates exactly why will achieve nothing.

It’s not so much the only acceptable action as the one that minimises the damage over the next term. It certainly doesn’t make organising or growing numbers impossible, just difficult. As far as I can see though, the thing that makes it even more difficult is that no one is making a clear and compelling case for a different approach. So, as I’ve asked several of your fellow posters, given the current reality, what, in your personal opinion, should people do, and what do you expect the outcome of that to be?

OK, given the current reality of the upcoming election, what, in your personal opinion are the other options, and what do you think the outcomes of those would be?

If you’re talking about increasing the number on the supreme court, then you get into a crazy level of one-upsmanship. Each president adds more justices until it becomes entirely unmanageable, with dozens of them, all appointed for life, doing their own thing. Replacing justices who haven’t upheld the highest standards of behaviour, or have, for instance, blatantly taken bribes, should absolutely happen. Hopefully you put in people who don’t fall to those sorts of behaviours, so the opposite party can’t easily replace them.

heroic resistance of the Palestinian people and their allies

Absolutely.

If the blue nazis support for domestic minority rights were anything more than kayfabe they would recognize the supreme court for the fundamentaly illegitimate institution that it is and break its power with court packing, jurisdiction stripping and impeachments.

Maybe I’m insufficiently cynical, but I see that more as them just being woefully ineffectual, rather than a conspiracy. I recognise that the result is largely indistinguishable, but it means there is a chance to fix it given time and effort. Said effort would be strongly resisted unless it came from a large enough block of the electorate that doing so meant certainly losing your seat. Anything less than that is either ignorable, or if it does flip the seat, does so without presenting a lesson others can learn from.

I was more referring to the amount of damage an unchecked trump presidency could do. Biden is bad, but trumps been pretty clear he wants to be worse. As I said, I think your approach of not Biden for president and Dems for congress might be reasonable providing there are enough anti-trump numbers in both houses to prevent the worst that trump tries to do.

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’?

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.

And how many do you need to convince?

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.

Half the voters for an entire party in a matter of weeks, every four years? Does this seem realistic to you?

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.

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?

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.

The uncommitted campaign was in April.

Yes, which is ‘fairly recently’. The good news is it did have some effect, which rather illustrates what I’m saying. Enough voters speaking in one voice, in a way that doesn’t cause the republicans to have more power, works.

People have been protesting, organising, and in some cases taking legal action for ten months now since October 7th.

They have, yes, and I take my hat off to them for spending that energy doing it, but there aren’t enough of them. Until there are enough that their numbers make an electoral difference, all the protesting achieves is ‘awareness’ amongst the electorate. Given enough time and dedication that might be enough to swell the numbers to the point they have an effect, but until that point politicians are going to carry on. As I mentioned to someone else, the opinion polls I’ve found regarding American’s view of the conflict suggest about the same number of people see it as genocide as those who don’t, which is utterly horrifying, but explains why politicians are sticking to their path. When those numbers change, so will the political response.

How do you force a party to do something it’s diametrically opposed to while insisting you and everyone will always support them

You don’t. You, as a large enough group, make that support contingent on conditions being met. The issue is that if your group is too small, it has no effect, but if it’s bigger than that, is ignored, and withholds its votes, it hands victory to the opposing party, which is likely to be detrimental to that group, so the group needs to be large enough that it can’t be ignored. Gathering that size of group, coordinating them and getting the message across is a large undertaking, but without it you’ve got little chance of having an effect.

Ideally not strengthening the power structures (that would be what giving the republicans power would do), but not deliberately giving power to the more tyrannical and despotic presidential candidate and his party would seem like a sane approach. Given the reality we face, that either Biden or trump will be the next president and that each legislative houses will be controlled either by the Dems or republicans, what would you personally suggest people do, and what do you think the short and long term outcomes of that approach would be?

OK, I agree with almost everything you’ve said there, but the last bit ‘I hope they crash and burn so they can learn their lesson. Serve the people or get out of the way of people who will!’ fails to consider the damage that will occur while they’re learning said lesson. You talk about things like LGBT rights being under attack, and abortion being gone, but that is all from the (far)right party, racism also seems to be worst amongst that portion too. Giving the Dems a kicking, though richly deserved, just gives free reign to those who would go further, faster and strip even more rights long before a reformed and recovered Dem party could do anything about it. I think the changes will need to be made ‘live’, as it were, which will entail them having enough power to curtail the republicans whilst also listening to a large enough group of voters telling them how to change.

I’m not saying you must vote for the party, we were originially just talking about the presidential election. However, individuals choosing not to vote for the party does tend to give the benefit to the opponent, which may not be a good choice in the current political climate. To be effective it has to be a large enough movement, making it’s requirements known clearly, for there to be a measurable effect. Without that there is no impetus for the system to change. Get enough people demanding better than FPTP voting and you’ll find a candidate that supports it. Find enough candidates across the nation who support it and it can be made to happen. Fix that and other changes become easier to achieve.

That fair, although I do think that the president marching into the supreme court, armed with his choice of automatic weapon, and just gunning them down might be a little too extreme even for the USA. The Dems like to, at least be seen to, play fair.

Pretty much, a complete lack of killer instinct.

At a guess, impeachment. Only, rather than the half baked previous attempt, it’ll be carried by representatives from both sides as a blatant breach of the rules. From the republicans because he’s a dem and from the dems because they keep trying to play fair.

I don’t see how this is responsive to the point that Democrats should have sat down with Ginsburg and tried to convince her to retire. There’s no excuse for them not only not doing that, but doing the exact opposite.

I think there were enough factions that it’s hard to say Democrats as a whole did anything. I’m pretty sure some did sit down and try to convince her to retire, but then I suspect others told her she was too special and should hold on, which speaks to your next point.

Sure, and the answer starts with coming to terms with the fact that the Democratic Party needs to be replaced, or at least changed so radically that it’s unrecognizable.

That sounds like a good goal. In your opinion, how do we go about achieving it without leaving the country to the mercy of the republicans in the mean time?

genocide is not lesser evil

Whilst I do understand your point, I would say that magnitude plays a part too. The fact we even have to consider that is appalling.

Maybe my position isn’t quite as cynical as yours. I don’t think they exists just to do as you say above, rather they are just rather ineffective and bicker publicly far more than their opponents, leading to much the same outcome. Yes, they need to sort themselves out and start acting in the best interests of the country. The only way they’ll do that is if they have a clear and consistent message from a large enough proportion of the electorate to make it worth their while. Were it pretty much anyone except trump, I’d say making an example of Biden would make sense, but considering reality I don’t think that’s wise.

I suspect that civil war lies that way. Winning the election would probably be a better approach. Neither Biden nor trump have many years left, and I suspect neither will contest the next election. Once trump is no longer running the republican show I think/hope there is a chance that the cult of personality around him will fall apart and they’ll be able to drift back towards a sane position over time, which should make things a little safer.

OK, let’s take that as a really simple analogy. You have only two choices in front of you: one city gets destroyed, or two cities get destroyed. Yes, it’s the trolley problem all over again. You can obviously choose not to take part, but that increases the risk of both cites being destroyed, you can vote for both to be destroyed, or you can vote to destroy just one. It’s a grim choice, with no good outcomes, but one is noticeably less bad than the other.

In reality the second bomb is aimed at things like minority rights, LGBTQ+ communities and even workers in general.

The president is a bit of a special case, in that there’s one of them, and of the two candidates one has said he wants to be a dictator, whilst also enthusiastically supporting all the worst positions the Dems have taken and wanting to make them more extreme. So, judged between those two one is clearly a less bad option. I’m certainly not saying either is a good option, but that’s the current situation, and anything that increases the risk of trump getting in, especially with a republican majority in one or both houses, is surely a bad idea.

Down-ticket, individuals withholding their votes will have minimal effect teaching them anything. It has to be a large enough groundswell that it can’t be ignored as it’ll effect the outcome. Changes start with the electorate, not with politicians. Get enough people of one mind and then things will change. That is neither easy nor quick to do though, and I don’t see it happening before November.