Sorry, I forgot you weren't American. The point still stands. Vote and get involved in your country's government. Ally with the relative center in electoral politics; that's how it fundamentally works for leftists. Until the left is a majority, you will need to ally with liberals. The executive leader will always be a compromise with the center, even if they're from the left. That's why voting is only the starting point. Visible dissension alone is powerful, so make yourself hard to ignore.

I provided an in depth essay, but "vote Biden or else we're doomed" is still the bottom line. The jabs helped me determine how valuable the essay would be. If you were a full on troll, you'd have crashed the conversation when I showed disrespect. More importantly, it's fun to be sassy :)

[–] bouh 1 points 8 months ago (1 children)

In France there are two turns for the president election. The first turn usually has many parties, but because there are only two in the second turn, the first vote is often tactical. You vote for the one you prefer that you think has a chance at the second turn. This means there are a lot of negociations before the election between the parties, alliances and formation of large parties. The left is often divided, and thus often lose.

But there is a second election for the parliament. Unfortunately it's still a vote for one person over two turns, but it's regionalized, so depending on the demographics it can change.

So the situation is not as dire in France I'd say. The right is still liberal in France and not yet fully fascist. And even if we had a far right president, there would be another round for the parliament where the far right showed it's complete incompetency.

The problem today is that the liberals think they can play with the fire and get away with it. And that they are slowly turning fascist themselves. They must come back to talking with the left rather than with the far right.

So indeed we must talk to the liberals at some point, but in my opinion they must lose the power first to get back to reason, and they must do it before our democracy is too weak for it to be dangerous in the hands of the far right.

If what you're telling me is right, the fight to save the US was lost like 20 years ago. Now you're left scooping the flood. The real problem is that the republican party is rotten to the core, that money matters, and media are used for propaganda. Will any of this be worked on in the next term? I doubt it. So in 4 years will it be back to square 1?

[–] TotallynotJessica 2 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

Honestly, your system sounds very similar to many US states, including mine. We call them open primaries, and infuriating shit can happen. For our recent US Senate primary, this guy boosted a fascist nut who has no chance in this blue state, just so he didn't have to compete against another Democrat. Him and the other Democrat honestly aren't too different on policy, but him increasing fascist turnout in a statewide race probably impacted local races in a negative way.

One thing to remember about US states is that many are the size of countries. Our biggest state has nearly 2/3rds the population of France, beating out Poland and Canada in size. You can drive for 10 hours in one direction at highway speeds without leaving certain states. Our least populous state has a higher population than the smallest EU member. Alaska, the largest state by land area, is not only bigger than any EU member, it's 40% the size of the entire EU. States in America are comparable to counties in Europe, and the US itself is comparable to the entire EU.

California's governor, Gavin Newsom, is a closer comparison to Macron than Biden. Newsom is a slimy liberal that a ton of Democrats dislike, with Biden probably being more trustworthy than him.

When people complain about Biden, not only do they ignore that the president is the most dangerous person on earth, but they don't understand that he's been the most left wing president since Jimmy Carter from the late 70s. This isn't a good thing, as Carter himself was right wing compared to his party, especially on economic issues. We've had only neoliberal or fascist presidents for half a century, with Biden moving away from neoliberalism in many respects.

Biden was only preferable to the actual billionaires in the 2020 Democratic primary, yet he's been better than I expected. The left didn't turn out in that primary, and don't seem to understand that they missed their chance to pick a better president. Being against Biden this year is even worse than in 2020, as Trump is more dangerous now than back then, while Biden has been better in office than the left should have expected. It's a repeat of that election only the choice is more obvious, which is why it frustrates me that this is a conversation. I get why it is, but it's still ridiculous.