this post was submitted on 18 Jan 2024
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[–] [email protected] 141 points 9 months ago (63 children)

Reminder that someone online arguing that you shouldn't vote for Biden because of whatever pet grievance is either a Russian agent or an idiot playing into their hands

[–] [email protected] 79 points 9 months ago (4 children)

If people think an "evangelical" is going to handle the conflict in Gaza on the side of the Palestinians better than Joe Brandon they are sorely mistaken and/or misguided. 45 wanted a straight up Muslim ban ffs.

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[–] Hotchip 125 points 9 months ago (19 children)

Didn't she win the popular vote?

This is just shit libs blaming the left instead of taking responsibility for running a shit candidate with so much baggage that she lost while "winning"

If you want to be mad at anyone, blame the dnc.

[–] Bonskreeskreeskree 68 points 9 months ago (14 children)

Bernie would have whooped trump in 2016. Shame the dnc decided to change the rules the day of to avoid a split ticket or God forbid, supporting the actually viable candidate.

[–] TropicalDingdong 28 points 9 months ago

Bernie would have whooped trump in 2016. Shame the dnc decided to change the rules the day of to avoid a split ticket or God forbid, supporting the actually viable candidate.

DNC/DCCC isn't exactly in the business of winning elections. If it comes between winning an election and BAU (they'd rather have a republican they can 'work' with), they pick BAU. They'll happily (and have) fund Republicans over Progressives.

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[–] AquaTofana 33 points 9 months ago (4 children)

I mean, I will always be mad at the DNC for not running Sanders.

Doesn't mean I'm not gonna vote Biden in Nov 2024 though.

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[–] [email protected] 24 points 9 months ago (3 children)

So we're gonna act like winning the popular vote and losing isn't a problem in and of itself?

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[–] [email protected] 103 points 9 months ago (6 children)

But people did vote for Hillary, IIRC, she won the popular vote by like 3 million votes.

So it wasnt a lack of voting that gave trump the presidency and repealed abortion rights. It was the mecanisms and institutions that are part of your electoral process and that only seem to exist in order to dilute your democracy (e. voting districts, electoral college) that gave trump the win.

Perhaps people would be more willing to vote if their voices were actually heard.

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[–] [email protected] 90 points 9 months ago (4 children)

Similarly, if the DNC hadn't absolutely SCREWED my boy Bernie, we also wouldn't be in this complete shit-hole.

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/11/14/16640082/donna-brazile-warren-bernie-sanders-democratic-primary-rigged

[–] doublejay1999 32 points 9 months ago (5 children)

A socialist will never be elected. When anyone gets close, the entire capitalist world immediately forget their differences and unite to make sure it doesn’t happen.

Happened to Sanders.

If you want read a more heinous example, it’s Jeremy Corbyn. A genuinely good man .

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/9/23/unprecedented-leak-exposes-inner-workings-of-uk-labour-party

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[–] A_Random_Idiot 86 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (22 children)

If Hilary hadn't been a pile of shit doing private speaking engagements for billionaires that were so hush hush that they set up massive white noise generating speaker systems, people would have voted for her.

if Hilary had set a fucking foot in some of the states she lost, people would have voted for her.

if Hilary didnt make stupid fucking comments, people would have voted for her.

Maybe if you stopped blaming voters, and blamed the shitty fucking candidates, someone less awful would have run, and won.

[–] pachrist 30 points 9 months ago (25 children)

Blame the DNC. They're the one cramming shitty candidates down our throats. If OP is right, and voting for president is just changing the oil, it's like getting charged $2000 for Dollar General oil.

Stop blaming voters. Field actual, progressive, leftist candidates. I am fucking sick of voting for right wing, war hawk Democrats to "save democracy." We aren't saving anything, just watching stock market addicted octagenarians kill the country slower than the other team.

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[–] BigBenis 81 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (11 children)

You've got to at least try to appeal your base. And no, "vote for me or you'll get the other guy" is not an inspiring rally cry. It didn't work in 2016 and the fact that the message seems to be similar in 2024 has me really worried.

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[–] [email protected] 73 points 9 months ago (9 children)

Well no. Hillary was a center-right candidate. If she wanted votes from progressives or left-wing voters, she knew exactly what to do. But she threw those votes away, relying on rhetoric like this post. We all saw it happening, and she did it anyway. What if she had pushed for universal health care, or unions, or campaign finance reform, or gun laws, or against wars? It would have been an exciting election.

[–] [email protected] 27 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (2 children)

Except that the left actually did show up and vote for her. Anyone who cares enough about politics to call themselves "left" is not likely to sit out an election, and third party votes didn't make the difference. Bernie supporters overwhelmingly showed up for Hillary. That shouldn't have been surprising since Bernie campaigned harder for her than she did for herself.

It's every day apolitical Americans who stay home and cost the Democrats elections, and the reasons why are clear. Democratic political strategies are intended to be vacuous and put the electorate to sleep. The establishment doesn't want to win an election then have the voters actually expect them to do something with the office.

The left has been telling the establishment what's going wrong for decades. Campaigns that actually speak to the people win elections. The Democrats would rather just shoot the messenger.

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[–] Got_Bent 72 points 9 months ago (6 children)

I voted for the greater good in 2016 - in the Democratic primaries.

I voted for the lesser evil in the general election, then took a long hot shower.

Things would have certainly worked out better with a Hillary victory instead of the Trumpster fire we got.

This does not excuse the horseshit shenanigans that were going on within the DNC.

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[–] RizzRustbolt 68 points 9 months ago (25 children)

Our "lesser evil" option keeps moving further and further to the right each cycle.

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[–] xantoxis 60 points 9 months ago (16 children)

Leftists did vote for Hillary in 2016.

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[–] [email protected] 56 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

What a bad take. If regular normie DEMOCRATS had voted for her, she'd have won. She failed on so many levels.

Edit: or if she hadn't rigged the primary, we would have had Bernie, and abortion would also have been legal. Reforming the DNC is harm reduction.

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[–] [email protected] 53 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (16 children)

Copying and pasting my own comment from another thread:

If you want leftists to vote for dems, despite dems pissing on leftists at every possible chance and yelling at leftists to fall in line, I'll show you how.

  1. Point out that voting will never, ever, ever move the democrat party to the left. You cannot vote the party harder to the left.

  2. Point out that Republicans are going to remain fascists.

  3. Point out that voting third party is a spoiler vote and will result in fascists winning.

  4. Point out that the actual way to move to the left is to unionize and organize at the grassroots level, to apply bottom-up pressure on the top.

The answer is not to pretend that Biden is anything other than a Neoliberal Capitalist. Leftists will correctly point out that Biden is still a lukewarm neoliberal maintaining the status quo, and feel further alienated by being told they should love him anyways. That just encourages voter apathy.

Additionally, this meme is wrong. Leftists voted, it was the centrists and moderates that didn't. Hillary wasn't appealing in any way, so only the people who really cared voted. Hillary still won the popular vote, she just lost the electoral college, and Trump succeeded in riling up the fascist base. Do not blame Leftists for not falling in line for an extremely unlikable candidate, they did regardless. Blame Hillary for doing jack-shit to energize the base.

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[–] licherally 48 points 9 months ago (10 children)

More like of rbg hadn't been so stubborn and had actually stepped down when Obama was in office, we wouldn't have a republican majority on the supreme Court.

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[–] rivermonster 46 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (6 children)

If Obama had fought for his seat, Roe would still be the law. Dems never ever fight. They cry about how they can't do anything. Even when they have the house, senate, and white house, they couldn't do anything. Watch the excuses that follow this comment.

Neither capitalist party will ever help because they're both avowed capitalists.

Vote dem, move right slowly. Vote GOP move right fast AF, with added racism, hatred, and Christo-fascist oppression as well.

But ultimately, NO capitalist party will ever fix anything in this shit two party system. Both parties get all their campaign donations from the same billionaires., and companies.

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[–] doingthestuff 40 points 9 months ago (6 children)

This is just another version of vote blue no matter who. It's just as dumb as people who only vote Republican. Trump didn't win that election, Hillary lost it.

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[–] pjwestin 40 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (8 children)

if Leftists had voted for Hillary in 2016 abortion would still be legal.

So, this really isn't true in any meaningful way. People like to make a big deal out of the 12% of Bernie voters who went for Trump, but the majority of them identified as conservatives or centrists, while only 18% identified as liberal or left-leaning. Likewise, a lack of turnout doesn't seem to be the issue; black voter turnout dropped, but not by an unexpected margin, and young voters (who tend to be more left-leaning) had very strong turnout. Finally, you could try to blame leftists who voted third-party, but analysis shows that even if every single Jill Stien voter had gone to Clinton, she still would have needed to win over 50% of Gary Johnson's voters (who were obviously unlikely to consider themselves leftists).

You might be able to get the numbers to work if you say that if every leftist who stayed home OR voted third-party OR went to Trump voted for Clinton she'd have won, but that's incredibly hard to prove and probably relies on some specious assumptions (for example, that every Green Party voter was a disgruntled Democrat). At that point, you're pulling so many different groups together under a single banner that it's basically meaningless. You might as well say if women had voted for Hillary abortion would be legal.

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[–] bababooey 37 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Isn’t the entire job of campaigning politicians to convince people to vote for them?

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[–] ramsgrl909 36 points 9 months ago (4 children)

So there is no winning, there's just lesser losing

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[–] hark 32 points 9 months ago (17 children)

If democrats didn't shove through hillary as the nominee, we wouldn't have had trump. Democrats don't actually care about harm reduction, they'd rather let fascists win than let progress through.

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[–] [email protected] 30 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (6 children)

US: "Vote for the lesser evil."

Europe: "Vote for the party you want and have them still be represented either as a coalition majority or during crucial votes where every party matters."

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[–] [email protected] 30 points 9 months ago (1 children)
[–] Sami_Uso 24 points 9 months ago

I stand by it. Bernie is the ONLY left leaning politician I've heard working class Republican voters even kind of agree with on a base humanistic level. "Ya know I don't like the whole socialist thing, but I like what he has to say". I really think Bernie's candidness or his genuiness really appeals to voters, and Hilary had absolutely none of that.

Trump in 2016 isn't the albatross and figurehead of the GOP like he is today. That race was there for the taking, and the Dems put up the most unlikeable, weak retread candidate they could have picked, as usual, the safest status quo choice.

People were excited to vote for Bernie. People were indifferent about Hillary and it cost them the election and still today.

[–] problematicPanther 30 points 9 months ago (2 children)

If the democratic party had put forth the best candidate, more people would have come out and voted. Maybe instead of pushing for voting for the less bad candidate, you put advocate voting for someone you actually like? The problem isn't left leaning people not voting for hillary. The problem is the systemic issues in the US voting system which only really allows a 2 party system and which can completely disregard the will of the populace by instead going through the electoral college system.

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[–] crypticthree 29 points 9 months ago

Hillary Clinton is better at motivating conservatives to vote against her than she is at motivating anyone else to vote for her.

[–] AllonzeeLV 28 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (11 children)

I voted for her despite my distaste for her, after primarying for and making calls for Sanders against her. I cast my ballot like I was attending a funeral. But I did it. Out of least worst, water pumps on the Titanic time buying harm reduction. Polling place was a ghost town.

What was your excuse?

Better yet, you hate her so much, where were you during the primary? There was a significantly better option.

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[–] [email protected] 27 points 9 months ago (7 children)

If the Dems are serious about beating Trump, they still have time to pick a different candidate in their primaries. Joe Biden is clearly very unpopular - the last election was way too close, and this one is at real risk of Trump winning.

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[–] [email protected] 27 points 9 months ago

Leftists were absolutely not the problem unless Hilary lost most states. Independents, people in the middle, are usually the ones that are the important voters to win over. The rest of the info is correct. Don't shoot yourself in the foot that 1 important day, because the candidate isn't perfect.

[–] mydude 26 points 9 months ago (3 children)

Does this mean that your two party system is actually just a one party system?

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[–] Sami_Uso 26 points 9 months ago (2 children)

Sure, blame us for Trump and not the Dems for propping up an absolute turd of a candidate. Give people a reason to vote and they will.

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[–] [email protected] 25 points 9 months ago (3 children)

OP, you HAD to know that wasn’t going to go over well here.

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[–] [email protected] 23 points 9 months ago (19 children)

Your vote matters.

If 100% of voters voted liberal in the upcoming election, the one after that would have way more left leaning candidates.

Your vote directly matters.

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[–] inb4_FoundTheVegan 22 points 9 months ago (1 children)

🙄

This is SUCH a pointless thing to harp on. Take it up with the Republicans instead of the miniscule fraction of a percentage of leftist who didn't vote. Finger pointing at people who agree with you produces nothing.

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[–] [email protected] 22 points 9 months ago (2 children)
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[–] [email protected] 21 points 9 months ago (3 children)

"If Poliece voted for Hillary in 2016..."

Hillary Clinton is/was not obliged to anyones vote and should have run a better campaign to attract leftest by doing bare minimun actions like supporting trans people or election/education reform. She also could have chosen a different candidate for running mate rather then the complete personality void that she ended up with as a sop to some imaginary "moderate conservitive" that was simpathetic to humanity over their net worth.

But she didnt. I wish she ran a better campaign as well, we may have been better off with her in office in 2016, but the issues that trump brought into focus in our society were not caused by him. They have been here the whole time.

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