I'm voting blue, and you should too
But if it's a competition for engagement, why did we have to go with the least engaging candidate possible?
Because the system isn't fixed yet.
Unfortunately, we have to engage in order to fix it. It won't just fix itself so that we can participate with a clean ~~ego~~ conscience.
So much this. This is a shitty game, but the only way to fix the game, is to play. Keep voting blue to beat the fascist reds, and in primaries, vote with your heart. A strong voter turnout for both will make the red party irrelevant until they move more to the center, while also pushing blue more left.
Okay... But let's walk it out... Say turn out is good enough to beat Trump this time... Biden gets in again... What's the next step? How do we then get him and the Dems to fix the system? Probably not even that hard... Ranked choice, end dark money, end gerrymandering... The rest will likely sort itself out... So what? Do we call our elected reps and say, okay, this time I really mean it, you fix this dumpster fire or else... Else what?
(Just to keep this from getting derailed... I'm voting for Biden and so should everyone, especially in the swing states.)
But I've heard this song before... Over and over... Just vote like you're told to this time, and then we'll fix the system later... And like clockwork we're right back here every 4 years... And god forbid anyone ever point out that we did this exact same dance last time, and we got them in, and shocker of all shockers, they didn't fucking fix anything about the system. Shit, they didn't even try.
So show me the Democrat's plan to fix the system. Or I guess it is already "fixed"... How are they going to unfuck it?
Step one is that people need to show up for more than just presidential elections. The only way to move left at a national level is to show the establishment that progressive candidates are winning in local and state races and it's more than just a couple of them here or there. Get more progressives in the kind of offices that can set them up to be governors and senators - those are the people who generally end up as president. There's no overnight solution, which is what a lot of people seem to expect.
Buuuut voter turnout in non-presidential election years sucks, and it's even worse outside of midterms. I don't know how to solve that part. I've voted in every single election I could since I turned 18, and I don't understand the complete lack of engagement. I know how to solve the things that prevent willing voters from doing it, but I don't know how we fix apathy.
show the establishment that progressive candidates are winning in local and state races
OK but when PACs go out of their way to support their opponents by shoveling millions into their campaigns... Jamal bowman, an actual progressive, lost to an ancient white establishment dem who was endorsed by Hillary "beat the market" Clinton.
What’s the next step?
The republicans come up with the next boogeyman and the democrats jam some new unpopular shill down our throat "or else we lose democracy" and so on until people stop putting up with it because nothing ever gets better and we do actually lose democracy.
If we're expecting democrats to fix our broken, two party system, we're going to be waiting a long time. The left is going to have to work hard and do it ourselves. Democrats are enslaved in a broken system they helped create.
My question still is why does it feel like the democratic party continues to try to mostly target 'undecided' voters. Which I'm still not convinced actually exist in any significant numbers. But I know tons and tons and tons of theoretically democrat voters that just don't bother to actually vote.
Feels like 80% of the messaging is aimed at somehow flipping a red voter blue instead of actually capitalizing on the blue voters they actually have.
Whereas all I see Republicans do is advertise to their own base. I basically never see them legitimately try to flip a blue voter. They seem to correctly recognize that's a lost cause, so they spend most of their effort on energizing their voter base.
It’s much easier to get 65% turnout when it’s a candidate we can get excited about.
You might notice there are a ton of candidates on your ballot who aren't running for president
Change starts from the bottom, not the top.
Young people aren't voting = political parties seeing no reason to appeal to them.
Older generations vote, so politicians who appeal to older generations get promoted over ones who might otherwise have broad appeal.
Don't complain about there being nothing but geriatric candidates if you're only engaging in National level races and not taking part in local, regional and state elections that are spring boards for the younger politicians to rise up the ranks to get onto the national level.
You want to see change? Vote. In every election you're eligible to vote in. And get all your friends and co-workers to do the same. Doesn't matter if it's for city council, school board or senate races. Just fucking vote.
when the dem party ran a candidate that young people liked, we went out and voted for him. so it's not the young people's fault that they don't vote, it's that the party doesn't care enough to put forward a candidate that young people actually can get behind.
Young people aren't voting = political parties seeing no reason to appeal to them.
Older generations vote, so politicians who appeal to older generations get promoted over ones who might otherwise have broad appeal.
And that works great until the old farts start dying and the young people the party spent so long alienating don't trust them for some fucking reason.
Those % are very much bullshit but I support the message. Vote out the fascist party.
Don’t let the bullshit percentages distract you from the fact that in 1998, the Undertaker threw Mankind off Hell In A Cell, and plummeted 16 ft through an announcer's table. Vote. 🗳️
If the Republicans win this one, you won't have to worry about voting ever again.
Biden: Who cares about turnout, I have to capture the moderates! All 5 of them!
i support the message, but if this is true why is the dem party hell bent on keeping the candidate who isn't actually engaging his base enough to make them want to go out and vote? If biden wins, I'll be surprised. Happy, of course, but surprised nonetheless.
The wealthy donate to both parties
If Dems ran a candidate voters want. They'd get majorities in both houses, not long till super majorities.
And then there's no excuse not to do what voters want.
Moderate Dems want to win, but only by so much they're not able to do anything in office.
Replacing First Past The Post voting with a more representative electoral system such as Ranked Choice voting would allow more then 2 political parties to be viable with no spoiler effect.
This would increase engagement as more people would be represented by the extra parties. This would increase voter turnout and... going off of your own post... would increase the number of voters for the democratic party.
More democracy, more representation in government, more democratic voters. A win win win for the people of the USA and the DNC.
Since the electoral system is managed at the state level, one must wonder why the democrats haven't implemented this easy win mode in the states they control. It's clear democrats understand the faults of First Past The Post voting. Just talk to any one of them about voting third party and they will go on and on about how its a wasted vote. Well if you understand the flaws of the voting system so well, why haven't you done anything to fix the problem? For longer then I've been alive...
How would the republicans prevent this reform if they don't control these blue states? Who is standing in the way of electoral reform in these democratic strong holds?
If you believe the Republicans are an existential threat, you should be on board with using every tool available to prevent that right? That means passing electoral reform in your state ASAP. We should be asking our representatives why they aren't using every tool at their disposal to defeat the republicans.
Since the electoral system is managed at the state level, one must wonder why the democrats haven't implemented this easy win mode in the states they control.
Because political parties are more concerned about donations and influence than democracy. Destroying the two party system would see their monopoly of influence slowly dwindle away
They don't see Republicans as an existential threat, they see the Republicans as a canary in a coal mine. The Republicans act as a gauge to see exactly how low their own constituents will allow them to sink before they get in trouble. So long as Democrats can look good by comparison, they will continue to serve their donors and themselves over the needs of the people.
This isn't really true in this election. Usual caveats, I'm voting blue and all that.
But likely voter polls favor Biden more than registered voters. There's straight up not a linear regression of people voting to democratic winners like this presents. It's bad statistics.
People who don't pay attention to politics at all are more likely to vote for Trump. I think that makes a lot of sense. People who pay attention aren't as likely to vote for him as people who don't really follow.
At this point I vote just to say that I did. I don't expect voting is the way that America is going to fix its problems. We're voting in a two-party system where both sides do everything in their power to maintain the status quo. We simply do not have a seat at the table.
Why is that? Do dems simply have less voter engagement or is this a split on age lines? Really interesting statistics though!
Gerrymandering, voter ID, challenging voter registrations, disenfranchising felons, opposing mail-in voting, anonymous mailers threatening to arrest voters, closing polling stations in Democratic-leaning areas, challenging voters at the polls to gridlock the polling places, making the handing out of water to people waiting to vote (in red states - where it’s hot) illegal.
All the well-known cheating tactics of republiQans. Others are less well known. That’s one of the problems.
Also democrats running shit candidates.
Democracy is a responsibility, not a romance. I want Bernie, but I'm voting, donating, and volunteering for Biden or (please) whoever the Democratic Nominee is. The point is to continually improve things...
All it takes is for the Democrat Party to move a bit to the Left or alternatively as this post requests *checks notes* 22 million voters to move to the Right and vote for people such as the current *checks notes* unwavering supporter of a ethno-Fascist regime and ideology currently committing a Genocide which according to a study publish in the Lancet is already estimated to have killed over 180 thousand people, a large fraction of which are children.
It's not as if the Democrat Party is getting much in the way of votes from their Right, so one has to wonder why exactly is the DNC doing all it can to stop the easy solution of the party having leaders who actually act the suppose Left-of-Center values of the party.
The voter turnout according to the VEP metric was 66.9% in 2020 and yet Dems don't have majority in senate so this meme is already wrong.
how about this, we get 80% of the country, the disenfranchised non-voters and vote for an actually decent third party and destroy them both
"There isn't a Republican party anymore" is a ludicrous thought. You really think all these conservatives are going to roll over and let Democrats actually win like that?
Conservative Christians are indoctrinated very deeply and reinforce that strongly in social settings. You can change perspectives over time, but they ain't gonna watch 70% of the population vote in a swarm of Democrats without screaming "fraud"
Bad news from the future. I live in a place with mandatory voting. It hasn't solved anything.
The current political crisis is a competition of ideas. Specifically who can spread their ideas the farthest and the fastest. Neo-liberalism is entrenched in our society and because of that fascism is on the rise. People reflexively reject socialism without understanding that the ideas work and would improve our lives.
We need to vote for Biden in 2024, because he is going to be the Democratic nominee. But defeating Trump will not be the end of this problem. Unless we successfully perform a political revolution we are going to be in this same situation with the threat of a fascist take-over every presidential election.
We need wealth redistribution and also systemic change to our political and economic institutions. To do that we do need high voter turnout. We need people to vote for socialists and progressives in 2026 and 2028. To get those votes we need to change minds.
I personally appreciate the sentiment of this meme, because we need to be encouraging voter turnout. But the fascist movement will only grow the longer we stick with neo-liberalism. The more wealth inequality grows the more people who will be susceptible to fascist ideas.
Do non-voter really lean left or is this just some unsubstantiated BS?
I used to work for the party and had access to the VAN database (Democratic party database). Also remember that specific information being passed around. IIRC, this had been true most of my life up to that point (2008). I suspect it is still true. If voter turnout was high, Republicans would lose so many races their impact on the country would be negligible. It shows you why turning away voters and discouraging voters is a cornerstone of their strategy.
The thing is if we actually showed up the whole country would shift left. This would force both parties to move left to compensate for the shift in their districts and the angry disaffected voters would actually get what they wanted. But for some reason how our system works is basically magic to most people. So instead some throw up their hands and say "my vote doesn't matter anyway".
"vote blue" is so cringe and culty. I mean ya, I am going to vote that way out of self defence... But that particular phrase is definitely not going to speak to someone who didn't already drink the party Kool aid.
Democrats are not your friend, they're just another powerful political establishment. Republicans are your enemy though.
Something tells me this isn't true
[citation needed]
Welcome to Progressive Politics! A place for news updates and political discussion from a left perspective. Conservatives and centrists are welcome just try and keep it civil :)
(Sidebar still a work in progress post recommendations if you have them such as reading lists)
