this post was submitted on 02 May 2024

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Just First Past the Post voting things (lemmy.world)

submitted 7 months ago by Ultragigagigantic to c/politicalmemes

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[–] [email protected] 73 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (4 children)

I love how with pure Goebbels-style repetition, the idea "Trump is so horrifying that we should put a stop to him even if you think the alternative isn't great" has become some kind of bogeyman. Bro, it is the reality. It is the unvarnished truth and I can't see how anyone can possibly say it's not.

If you don't like a local police force brutalizing your protest and Biden not doing anything to stop them or even say they shouldn't do that (which, I agree, is bad), you're really not gonna like Trump v2 ordering the National Guard to open fire on you or having federal agents drive around snatching people. And that was last time, before Project 2025 succeeded in its organized effort to remove a lot of the guard rails that prevented, for example, those orders to fire on protestors from actually being carried out.

And yes, working for ranked choice voting, or giving the Democrats a whole bunch of shit for being their corrupt neoliberal selves, both sound like great ideas. I don't see those as mutually exclusive with voting not to end the world in this specific election. Do you know for example how difficult it will be to work for ranked choice voting if Trump's expanded CBP has seized the voting machines and is going to announce who the winner of all the elections at all levels going forward is?

[–] [email protected] 29 points 7 months ago (1 children)

The last wave of "biden continued 70 yrs of US foreign policy in the mid east by authorizing open arms sales with Israel so hes clearly hitler and not voting for him is critical" has stopped being so effective on here, so its time to shake up the game. It will only get more insidious until the election.

All the while we ignore the most important point that putin has called Ukraine a stepping stone in the denzaification of eastern europe and that keeping twittler out of office qnd electing dems is the best chance the planet has at avoiding death and destruction on a level not seen since WWII. Also ignoring the fact that the death and destruction in Ukraine alone is still on a greater scale than the atrocities in Gaza or anywhere else on the planet at this time.

[–] [email protected] 28 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (3 children)

Yeah. If it wasn't Gaza, it would be something else. They're just gonna pick whatever is the best thing they can come up with and run with it with whatever consistent day after day flow of non stop memes and bad arguments. With Gaza they kind of have a point, there's plenty of legitimate criticism to be made, but it's not like the whole sub would be organic logical discussion about "hey how are we going to get Ranked Choice Voting actually implemented" and making progress if nothing had happened in Gaza. They'd be back on unions or claiming that he was bad on transgender issues or saying he tripped when he was walking up the stairs or forgot someone's name one day, OMG FUCK FUCK FUCK DON'T VOTE, HE'S TERRIBLE, DON'T VOTE WHATEVER YOU DO.

Honestly the thing that pisses me off the most about it is that the neverending back and forth of "Biden is bad" "Trump is worse" "but Biden is bad" "but Trump is worse" drowns out anything more pleasant and productive that could be happening instead, and turns people off, because the whole nature of the discussion is overall hostile and unreasonable. I mean that's sort of the nature of the beast as far as politics subs; it doesn't need any extra amplification from outside. I miss the /r/sandersforpresident days when people were organizing and trying to talk about real shit and get things done.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

Republicans were always going to go for the low hanging fruit. I do miss when that was "Obama wore a brown suit, REEEEEEE!!!1!11!" though. Depressing that genocide is low hanging fruit, desperately wish it was "democrat primary is demonstrably biased" instead (but they definitely don't want attention to that on themselves either).

[–] Wrench -2 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

Yep, I've said it before, chasing the "Progressive" (as the vocal lemmy base self identify) vote is a futile endeavor. It doesn't matter if Biden cut off support to Isreal today. They would just move the goalposts and harp on about how he's not perfect and therefore not worth their vote.

I have zero doubt that had Bernie, their messiah, been elected in 2016, they would have turned on him within a year because he necessarily would have had to make concessions to get anything passed, and the progressive base is uncompromising.

Which isn't to say we shouldn't vocalize our discontent with continued Isreal support during a genocide. Pressure gives them the excuse to slowly dial back the historically unconditional support of Isreal. But they have to tread very carefully, because despite the bubble on Lemmy, withdrawing support for Isreal is extremely politically risky.

And ultimately, the best chance to shift support to the Palestinians in Gaza is to vote blue across the board, while giving them the feedback that ending support for Isreal is popular. Because the alternative, voting Republican or independent, has zero chance of improving anything for Gazians, Ukrainians, or anyone besides christofacists.

If you want to shift things more progressive, get involved in campaigning for lower elections. You don't just go straight to the top, you need to get a movement with real traction before you're going to turn any heads.

You're trying to skip the Montage, and fight the end boss before you can throw a punch.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 7 months ago

I wouldnt say that its the progressives shifting the goalposts....

[–] [email protected] -2 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Pretty much, but god youre eloquent! Im glad im not one of the ones trying to argue with u xD

I do remember r/sandersforpresident when it was good, and i do remember a lot of reddit leftist subs before they turned into "vooting bad!" and "heres the spoonfed opinions u must subscribe to if u want to be a Leftist TM."

And honestly, as for whats going on on lemmy, ur right that productive conversation gets drowned out, and the shills and their tankie followers tend to drag ppl down to the dregs whenever they try to debate them or are forced to call them out lest others take them seriously.

Its a brilliant tactic, too. Anyone remotely left leaning- shit, anyone morally sane, really- will look at the Gaza situation and feel for the downtrodden civilians being slaughtered and feel sympathy/take their side. The left is harder than the right to co-opt who will go for anything that tells them theyre better than the next guy so feel free to hate on XYZ, so theyre forced to co-opt the positions we already are bound to hold.

And ill end with ur daily reminder that actual leftists, like the Zapatistas in Spain who list it as a core tenet, will operate within the bounds of the system (not just outside of it) by voting for the option that most enables (or least obstructs) further mutual aid/direct action.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

😃

Thank you! That's excellent

And yeah, the whole mindset is very much alien to actual leftist struggle. I get it. It's pretty discouraging if the police come and bear-spray you and arrest you because you're advocating for simple sanity in the system. At the same time, I imagine someone who was involved in struggle for civil rights or someone who's been an undocumented immigrant or something, saying: Yeah. That's what we're up against. If you're all of a sudden gonna get all discouraged about it like WELL IF YOU'RE NOT GOING TO BE NICE THEN I REFUSE TO BE INVOLVED, I DON'T LIKE THIS... like bro what did you think was happening. The wrong people are in charge. That's what's up. Can we get busy on trying to change it? Inside or outside the system or both, or whatever seems like a good way to get rid of the crooks and get some better outcomes?

The whole "I refuse to engage with this broken system until something comes from above and makes the Democrats 'earn it' by being better all on their own, by magic" is a guaranteed win for all the worst outcomes and all the worst people, who will hurt a lot of people who don't have your luxury of deciding whether or not to involve with the system, and will make it exponentially more difficult to replace the Democrats with something better in the future.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 7 months ago

Exactly!!

This is why i preach leftist solidarity. I get that neolibs are (very much) to the right of me. The tomes we align, however, need to be embraced. Any leftward movement is preferable to none at all. Any leftward movement shifts the overton window in the direction we want. We can worry about arguing when its relevant, not when we need to keep the literal fascist out of office. In general, claiming someone like status quo joe to be a fascist is a hell of a privileged position to hold. Fascists want the outright eradication of some sort of undesirable group and an outright rejection of electoralism or democracy in all its forms, quite unlike status quo joe.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 7 months ago (1 children)

It's very clear a lot of people didn't pay attention to history or civics class. Party politics always ends up voting for a compromise candidate.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 7 months ago

Yeah but these people are so militant about refusing to vote that they didn't even show up for the guy who'd have advocated their side of the compromise in the primaries. Hence all the magical thinking about "well if they counted individual donations instead of votes...!"

Bernie would be rounding out his second term if these people took half the energy they spent on whining about voting and actually fucking voted.

[–] [email protected] -2 points 7 months ago

I hope you don’t really expect anyone here to understand that nuance exists in the world. Because they’re too busy trying to out-outrage each other.

I used to say the same shit you’re saying. They’ll just accuse you of supporting gEnOciDe and high fife their little friends.

[–] PopOfAfrica -4 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

If Democrats had actually done anything to make sure this man was jailed or otherwise barred from running for office, then we wouldn't even be in this position. I sadly think they prefer that Trump is the candidate that they run against because they think he's easier to beat.

This upcoming election should have been our last line of defense, not our first.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Prison is done by the judicial system, not Congress or executive or political parties. You know, separation of powers.

[–] PopOfAfrica -3 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

Right, and had Biden appointed a better attorney general, which is totally on his hands, then maybe this would be different.

Progressives screamed at him to pick somebody else for fear of this exact outcome, but he didn't listen.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

Biden and the Democrat party have no direct control over the Attorney General. It's independent. And you want it to be independent. You don't want Biden or political parties locking up people. You want an independent judicial system to do whatever that independent system will do, like I said.

Oh I recognize your username, well thank you for confirming you're being obtuse.

[–] PopOfAfrica -1 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

The preisdent literally picks the AG, yes. Dont be a moron here.

[–] themeatbridge 22 points 7 months ago

Accurate, but fixing this means getting more involved in local politics. State and local governments are where decisions are made, and progress is the slow boring of hard boards.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 7 months ago (5 children)

Oh shut up. Vote locally and fix this shit together the whole focus on federal is the problem. Reinforce state rights over federal and within a generation we could be back on track.

This whole demonizing of Biden and the Democrats is so stupid. They're held by corporations because we've failed to use our votes properly and put shit heads in power.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

Ding ding ding

I actually don't agree that Biden is more of the same bullshit; at least domestically he's done some fuckin massive things, empowered unions, taken big action on climate change for the first time I think anyone in power in the US has taken it seriously. But even if you don't believe that (or regardless of it, if you're angry as hell that he abetted a genocide, which, I get) -- what's the logic on saying "I am so unhappy with politics in the US that I will decide not to get involved with it anymore and just let things take their course no matter how much worse they might get"?

The right answer if you're pissed off about Biden and the DNC, is to try to figure out how to get what you want (which, if you think for 5-10 seconds, you will realize Trump not being in office is absolutely critical to) and work for it. The American government is not going away any time soon (at least, not without getting replaced with something 10 times worse). It will be there, whether you're involved or not. There is absolutely nothing to be gained by taking this bullshit "Well if you will not take me to Disneyworld I will leave the stove on and if the house burns down, oh well" petulant attitude. We tried that approach after 1968, and it kind of felt-like-it-made-sense at the time for more or less the same reasons, and look where it got us. From JFK and the civil rights act, to "welfare to work" and death squads all over Central America and everyone's favorite chart.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 7 months ago

No kidding huh.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 7 months ago (1 children)

“oh no someone expressed deep and genuine discomfort with the future of their state, better tell them to shut up about it”

[–] [email protected] 2 points 7 months ago

Because it is poorly framed and this is why voter turnout was so bad for so long. This mentality is part of the problem

[–] [email protected] 2 points 7 months ago

I'm with you except the states rights over federal, it's pretty obvious that the states rights argument has been taken over by the forces that wish to divide and conquer on working class and disenfranchised folks' interests. We gotta adopt something like German Federalism to begin shaking this all out.

Felony Law is the exclusive domain of the Federal Government

Criminal Law is the domain of both with Federal Law taking primacy

Civil Law is the domain of the states with the exception of a law passed with a qualified super majority of the house and senate, (2/3rds of the voting representatives and senators representing a total of at least 2/3rds of the population)

[–] Fedizen 11 points 7 months ago

I love that most of lemmy has learned the electoral lesson from polsci 101 that FPTP is garbage and needs to be destroyed.

[–] antidote101 9 points 7 months ago

Yes, proportional voting would be better.

[–] PugJesus 3 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

Sorry you don't like living in a democracy. I understand it's not to everyone's taste.

Like, fuck, why do you think we have two fucking geriatrics running against each other? Do you think it's because young folk turned out for Bernie in the Dem primary? Do you think it's because Trump was deeply unpopular in the GOP primary?

These are the cretins that have been voted in by the plurality, and no amount of accusations of backroom boogeymen and the Deep State changes the fucking vote counts backed up by innumerable contemporary polls and exit polls. You think I want to live in a fucking world where Bernie didn't get the nomination because my generation didn't fucking turn out? Fuck no.

Difference starts with the citizenry, but it seems like the only difference many on here attempt to sow is more apathy.

[–] GeneralVincent 2 points 7 months ago

I think you missed the point of the meme.

People vote for whoever wins their parties primary. That's bad, we agree.

First past the post voting would allow more than two parties, giving us more options. We also don't truly live in a democracy due to the electoral college.

Our system is messed up, and we're allowed to criticize the Democrat party for its lack of action to improve things. That's not an attack on democracy itself in any way.

[–] Theprogressivist -1 points 7 months ago

And the propaganda continues. It's weak and pathetic.