this post was submitted on 05 Aug 2026
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[–] Floon@lemmy.ml 24 points 17 hours ago (4 children)
  1. There is a material difference between the Democrats and Republicans that's worth observing. Dems are merely corrupt politicians: the Republicans are Xtian extremist white-nationalist fascists.
  2. It is vanishingly unlikely that a 3rd party candidate can win in 99% of the elections. Most successful independent politicians became independent after they were first elected, and win as incumbents.
  3. Not voting for the viable candidate running against the fascist GOP, because that candidate is not as $SOMETHING as you want them to be, is simply demonstrating privilege, that you are insulated enough from the effects of the fascist regime that you're not personally harmed by the fascists winning. Vote like defeating the fascists is the only objective.
[–] Nonconfrontational@lemmy.ml 1 points 2 hours ago

Yeah let's go back to the blue genocide. Red genocide is fascist!!

[–] Wakmrow@lemmy.world 2 points 5 hours ago

Wow you've finally convinced me

Yeah, well said. We need to kick out the corpocrat democrats, the corpo democrats and help the progressives and democratic socialists take over the Democratic Party

[–] UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world -2 points 16 hours ago* (last edited 16 hours ago) (1 children)

Dems are merely corrupt politicians: the Republicans are Xtian extremist white-nationalist fascists.

Glances at the Gaza Genocide

Glances at the Epstein Files

How the Hillary Clinton campaign deliberately “elevated” Donald Trump with its “pied piper” strategy

One's just a harmless little mosquito and the other is malaria. Why are you putting up mosquito netting when we have a much bigger problem at hand?

It is vanishingly unlikely that a 3rd party candidate can win in 99% of the elections.

It is vanishingly unlikely that a 2nd party candidate can win in north of 80% of elections, even in a wave year. Incumbency is a bitch. I would not use this as an excuse to blindly support the incumbent, without even asking who they are or what they're running on.

Not voting for the viable candidate running against the fascist GOP, because that candidate is not as $SOMETHING as you want them to be

Helping to entrench a fascist in blue will do nothing to deter the fascists in red. If anything, giving Republicans another Cuellar or Fetterman or Jim Justice will only embolden them.

If you believe your vote matters, you should reserve your vote for people you actually support. If you don't believe it matters, idk why anyone thinks calling you names and blaming you for their party's failures will win your vote.

Vote you conscience. Or don't vote if there's nobody conscionable to support. It's your choice.

Don't let anyone bully you or blame you for the fascist policies of folks five states away.

Unless, of course, you're an actual fascist. In that case, please kill yourself.

[–] Floon@lemmy.ml 1 points 10 hours ago (1 children)

Again, this is just justifying your moral blindness when you can't distinguish between kind of evil and really evil. It is not morally good or even neutral to stand back and pretend you have no responsibility for the society you're in as a result of your participation. Take your sanctimony and have a wank over yourself, but all it does is ensure the worst party is helped.

A proper take, if you're interested in actually improving the moral state of society, is to, say, celebrate the victories of guys like El-Sayed and Mamdani, who are Democrats, and to do your most to have the party succeed, so that next time around, you can vote for more far left Democrats, so that eventually the party looks a lot more like Mamdani than it does Schumer or Clinton. That doesn't happen when privileged puritans sabotage elections because they're pouty they haven't already won yet.

The GOP has been building their full-on fascism machine since Reagan. To beat them, the Dems have to do engage in that same long game, and that's actually happening now. It's actually happening, but performative moralists like you act as obstacles to any incremental improvement.

[–] UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 3 points 10 hours ago (1 children)

this is just justifying your moral blindness

If you can't see past the party label to the individual policy, that's definitely an example of blindness

[–] Floon@lemmy.ml 2 points 8 hours ago (1 children)

I can weigh the platforms of each party, see that one (GOP) is significantly worse than the other, and have reasonable expectation of shaping the platform of the superior party (Democratic) for the better. Calling that blindness is to make yourself morally irrelevant.

[–] UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 2 points 8 hours ago (2 children)

I can weigh the platforms of each party

What good is weighing the party platform when individual Congressmen aren't bound to it?

[–] Floon@lemmy.ml 1 points 4 hours ago

A good leader can whip the votes. Hakeem Jeffries is... not... a good leader.

[–] stickly@lemmy.world 2 points 6 hours ago* (last edited 6 hours ago)

What good comes from abandoning reform of a decadent party so weak it can't even bind it's members? The campaign war chest, brand name, and entrenched two-party benefits are there for the taking.

People point to Bernie and complain about his voting or the debacle of his nomination as evidence that the establishment has a stranglehold on the party. The truth is that he's done more to dismantle their stranglehold than anyone in modern history (yes, more than Trump, the Clintons, Obama or Biden): exposing that the boat can be rocked through the sheer populism of good economic policy.

We've now seen that simply running decent candidates in a similar manner (some farther left) doesn't just threaten but overpowers them. The concerted effort against Mamdani, El-Sayed, Donavan McKinney and others has had middling-to-miserable results.

Simply continuing to vote blue when necessary and engage in primary insurgency drains their resources and weakens their grip. Voting with your conscience (read: no strategy) marks you as an "independent", essentially a non-voter who can be safely ignored. Why bother listening to you when courting even a single red vote is double the value? You have no impact on their internal policies and can't threaten them in a primary.