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Eh, he was kinda stabbed in the back by young voters. I know several people who worked in Washington state's primaries. They wanted Bernie, but discovered that while his supporters could be counted on to show up for protests and rallies, they couldn't be counted on to actually register as Democrats so they could vote in the primaries.
Fortunately, young people seem to have learned their lesson in the last few years.
Being fair to young people in Washington, by the time the primary got to them the fix was in and it was already clear Biden was going to win imo
Please describe the "fix" and how it would have been effective if young people had showed up to vote in the primaries for Bernie.
The problem here is that most states don't allow people who aren't registered as a member of a party to vote in that party's primaries. And Bernie attracted a lot of attention from independent young people who didn't want to affiliate with the Democratic party.
Like it or not, that independence bit them in the ass, because they could rally and chant and protest and send money to his campaign, but they couldn't vote. Meanwhile, more pragmatically-minded people who knew they couldn't vote in primaries without being registered as Democrats all lined up behind Biden, registered, and voted.
It didn't thrill me. Biden was last on my list, and my preferred candidate was Elizabeth Warren. Bernie was #2 on my list. But when I talked to my pro-Bernie friends, I knew - and so did they - that Biden was going to win, because his supporters registered and turned out to vote.
Since then, young people have clearly smartened up and recognized the same problem. They're showing up to vote in every election, and it's causing Democrats to overperform and beat the polls. I absolutely love to see that.
Well first they sabotaged the Iowa caucus with the Shadow App, giving a victory to an absolute nobody.
Then Bernie kept winning the early contests. So, all the other centrist candidates dropped out to form Voltron behind Biden while Warren stayed in as a center-left spoiler candidate.
Bernie never stood a chance.
You're getting the 2016 and 2020 primaries confused. The "Shadow App" thing happened in 2016. And it didn't give Iowa to a "complete nobody," but to Pete Buttigieg. Biden didn't even run in 2016, and the app for reporting vote totals wasn't used in 2020.
Furthermore, you just described strategy, not a "fix." If the centrists coalescing behind Biden had the numbers to win, that means Bernie didn't. And he might have, if young people had registered as Democrats and voted. But they didn't.
lolwut
It definitely happened in 2020 - Pete didn't even run in 2016! And he is a nobody, he was a mayor with no other prior office and he never won another contest.
When the entire DNC covertly coordinates together in a strategy to stop a single candidate, it's a fix. That's not a strategy that any candidate could ever use, that's the whole Party working together to stop an outsider.
That, plus the Shadow App (which definitely happened in 2020 wtf I live in iowa I would know!) were what convinced Bernie supporters to stay home after Super Tuesday.
And it's why I'm voting for Cornell West. The Democratic Party is not the path to socialism, we can not ever change it from the inside... I mean the Green Party isn't a path to socialism either, but at least it pisses off Democrats 😘
Yeah, I'll take my lumps. I fucked up. Had both primaries open in different tabs, mixed them up, along with a news story about the app (it was developed in 2016, but you are right that it was used in 2020).
Still, gotta disagree with you on this:
That's not what happened. A bunch of candidates who had no chance dropped out when they were polling at negligible levels of support. It's not like they suddenly added huge percentages of support to Biden.
Ah. So you're a Trump supporter. Got it.
Right before Super Tuesday? While Warren stayed in to play center-left spoiler? Naw, there was pressure coming from inside the Party to coalesce around a single candidate to stop the socialist. I can't speak to the others, but we know that Obama told told Pete to drop out and endorse Biden, and then Pete was rewarded with a post. Pete, who if you recall, "won" the Iowa Shadow App caucus. Sus
Eat my ass.
The Democratic Party made it clear to me that my vote doesn't matter when they wrecked our caucus. They fucked Iowa Democrats out of having a say in the nomination process, and now they want my vote? Fuck off. I'm a revolutionary communist, it's been made very clear that I'm not welcome in your party, and I'm not going to play voteball with a team that stabs people like me in the back when we get in the way.
I don't even think my vote matters. I literally just want to make Democrats mad. Nyaa nyaa~
Nah.
Like I said: Trump supporter.
Whether you like it or not - and I'm sure you don't - any vote for a third party in a state that doesn't have Ranked Choice (RC) voting is a vote for the guy you hate the most. And if that irks you, take it up with MATH, because that's what you're fighting against.
Let's say you've got two major parties, the Kissing Puppies party and the Kicking Puppies party. Along comes a third party, Snuggling Puppies. Now let's say in an election, the Kickers get 33.4% of the vote, the Kissers get 33.39% of the vote, and the Snugglers get 33.21% of the vote. Well, guess what? If you live in a state with First Past the Post (FPTP) voting, the Kickers just won.
So yeah. Trump supporter. Because that's what you'll get if enough people switch from voting Dem to voting Green (or whatever) in FPTP elections, a Trump second term. You are the Republican party's favorite "queermunist," because they understand math.
Maybe you can afford to be that. I can't. I have two kids, both LGBTQ+, and I have to look out for them, which means doing everything I possibly can to ensure Donald Trump never sees the inside of the Oval Office again.
Yeah yeah I've heard it all before - but by this logic, every dollar you don't donate to Biden is a dollar donated to Trump. Every hour you don't spend volunteering for Biden is an hour you volunteer for Trump. There's no difference. Either you do everything you can to help Biden beat Trump or you are the reason Trump gets elected. This "if you're not with us you're with the enemy" cult shit is logically inconsistent and isn't going to work on me anymore.
Fuck that. The only people who should be blamed for Trump getting elected are the people who vote for him.
I'm a trans woman and an open communist, they'll probably try to fucking kill me in a "conversion therapy" death camp.
But you know what? If Democrats win I just get to die slower; do I get to die in nuclear Armageddon because of brinkmanship with China and Russia, or do I die when climate change destroys our habitat, or do I just work for the rest of my life until I die at work? No matter which party wins, as a working class woman my life has no value and no hope. Nothing will fundamentally change.
I can no longer be bullied or terrified into voting for my oppressors, just because they happen to be the lesser of two evils.
Bullshit. What the actual fuck is that response? There's a ton of difference. We don't have FPTP lives, where your only options are "do something that helps Biden" and "do something that helps Trump." FPTP only applies to voting itself. It's fucking bizarre to make the analogies you're making. They don't work at all.
Ideally? Sure. But shit in one hand, put your ideals in the other, see which one fills up faster. Unfortunately - and I really do mean that - our election system is a bunch of antiquated bullshit that guarantees whoever gets a plurality of votes wins, and if you don't want fascists winning, you vote for the non-fascist who can get that plurality. To fix that, push for RC voting at the state level.
And yet you're voting in a way that helps the ones who want to kill people like you - and people like my trans son. Very little in life is a zero-sum game, but FPTP elections are. In those, anything that isn't a vote for the person who can win empowers the asshole who wants you dead because of who you are.
What Democrats are you looking at?!? Russia's nuclear threats are empty, China doesn't want nuclear war either, and Democrats recently pushed through the largest environmental package ever. They're not perfect, by any stretch of the imagination, but you're behaving like they're Republican-lite, when they're demonstrably not.
I'm not trying to bully or terrify you. I just want you to think about my kids, and what kind of world they'll grow up in if guys like Donald fucking Trump cement their grips on power.
Yeah, which means donating to election campaigns and volunteering for election campaigns, because those things effect how people vote! You just want to find reasons to feel pride and self satisfaction over doing literally nothing at all.
You have done nothing to protect your children from fascism, but you don't want to think about that. Instead you act like playing voteball matters. Under Biden, my State has been targeting trans children and has legalized child labor. What the fuck did my vote for Biden in 2020 do to stop Republicans? Jack shit!
I'm sorry to be the one to tell you this, but under the two party system your children are going to die no matter what. How the fuck can you look at the direction things have been going, regardless of which party is in power, and conclude "everything will be fine if that dang Cheeto doesn't take the Whitehouse!"
We live in a spiraling shithole and we're all going to fucking die if things don't radically change - and that will never happe through elections.
Whatever. Your mind's made up.
For your kid's sake, arm yourself. No matter who wins, things are going to get much worse.