PaintedSnail

Yes, a better candidate would be ideal, and that should absolutely be pushed for in the primaries. What is your plan to help that?

But everyone's idea of an ideal candidate is different. If the Democrats don't field a candidate you like in the general, what will you do? Will you withhold your vote, and in so doing help the party that is actively damaging the country win? What is your plan?

We can sit here all day and complain about this side or that side and how the Democrats are failing, but in the end that means NOTHING without a plan to DO something about it.

What is it your are going to DO?

That was a lot of valid complaining about the Democrats, but not one word that can be converted into an actionable plan.

That depend entirely on what that "something else" is. So far, all I've heard is either "don't vote unless the candidate is 'left enough'," a vague and counter-productive inaction; or various calls to "tear down the system" with no indication of a plan how or what to replace it with.

I'm not saying the Democrats are faultless, but empowering the people that are proactively causing harm doesn't help.

Then you will need to be aware that by not voting for the more left candidate, we will have a far right government for a couple of cycles at least. This will cost lives and further entrench them into power. It is why we have what we have right now. It will also drive left leaning candidates further right because they are going to cater to the people who actually vote. A far left candidate winning is still possible eventually, but it would require a major turnout at the primaries and a lot more damage is going to be done to a lot of innocent people in the mean time. Is this a cost you are willing to pay?

No part of my statement said there were only two choices. It was in regard to all choices.

But in the context of this thread, the general election will only ever present two choices. (So vote in the primaries.)

Naivete at it's finest. Reality is that the choices available to you will never conform to all of your desires, so in that sense, a choice is always going to be for the lesser evil. If you think there's an action you can take to avoid making a choice at all, then reality will disabuse you of that notion as well.

That is a very embarrassed cat, and it looks like it just wants to slink away and hide.

This still depends on people behaving rationally. We need only look at the current state of things in the U. S. To know that people do not behave rationally on large groups.

Here we have a man who has declared he is in charge of things he was never given charge over, and doing things he has no authority to do. Rather than say "no," enough people have simply shrugged their shoulders and said "okay," or worse, are actively supporting his control.

You cannot depend on the majority to do the right thing at large scales. Small scales like a village, sure, but on a population level, most people are too apathetic. That makes it inevitable that those who desire power can take it, either by charisma or by force, and there will always be a group of people who will want that to happen and support them because they think they can get a piece of that pie. No amount of social stigma will help when someone controls the means for people to merely survive.

Unless you support vigilante justice, but we only need to look at lynch mobs in history to see how well THAT turns out. There is a reason we have due process, but due process requires a governing body.

I get the idea: if no one exclusively owns anything, then no one needs to hoard anything, and everyone gets what they need.

Unfortunately, we do not yet live in a post-scarcity society. There needs to be a way to both ensure that limited resources are distributed appropriately (by whatever metric) AND to ensure that someone doesn't take more even when they are not acting in their own best interest.

To continue the apples analogy, it's all fine and well to say that no one owns the apples so anyone can eat one whenever they want. In theory, no one would eat more than they can, so there would be enough to go around. But how do you handle someone who decides they want to control people by controlling the apples? If they take all the apples, then people will have to go to him if they want an apple, and they will have to pay some price for it (and I don't mean cash). What is the mechanism to ensure that doesn't happen? Or, what is the mechanism to prevent someone from burning down all the apple trees because they don't like apples or because they want someone else to not have apples?

The idea that no one owns anything does not stop someone with an irrational mindset or with a mindset to force their will on others.

That is a much more interesting response, thank you.

I know very well that a politician is not required to listen to their voters. That is the nature of a representative democracy, and it has its pluses and minuses; but that's another topic. A politician will do what they want once in office. Sometimes they do it for their own selfish reasons, sometimes they do it because they know something the American public doesn't, sometimes they do things because they are weighing opposing agendas differently. That is why it is important to push for candidates that have principles that are the most aligned with yours. Then even if they are driven by their own selfish reasons, at least their actions are more likely to align with your desires.

That's not to say that voters have no power at all. We got Trump because his principles (such as they are) aligned with a large enough portion of the American public that the Republic party thought he was their best chance of winning. Make no mistake that the Democrats DO want to win. Voters need to show them that a candidate whose principles are more left leaning is their best chance of winning. That is what the primaries are for. You will note that only two political parties even have primaries.

I believe you have a misunderstanding that anyone thinks that having to choose the lesser of two evils is a good thing. It's not. It's only better than choosing the greater of two evils. The main point that I have been trying to make is that NOT choosing the lesser evil is functionally equivalent to choosing the greater evil, even if the choice made is to not make a choice.

This is because there isn't a better choice; there is no "no evil" choice. Even not choosing is still a choice. Unless you know of one and would care to enlighten me on the specifics of that choice. So far, the only point I've seen you try to make is that not choosing is the best choice; something that I vehemently disagree with.

That doesn't disprove what I'm saying. That's just your feeling with no evidence to back it up.

I have history to backup my claims. Yes, we've shifted right due to incrementalism because people on the right are more likely to vote, so it demonstrably does work. There's no reason we can't shift back if people who want change actually vote for it, rather than withholding their votes for a "perfect" solution.

Then no one has fruit. There is a non-zero percent of the population who would pick the trees clean for that reason alone.

Anarchy, like capitalism, works best when all the actors are rational. People are not rational.