Not in November, she didn’t

Are you twelve years old?

The nominee is picked in a primary. Hillary won. Quit acting like your democracy is forced on you. It’s not.

I’m down for that, too. But please also vote strategically.

Right well let me know when you’re preparing the revolt and I’ll zero my optic and meet you in DC. Until then, please vote strategically.

You’re delusional.

We don’t live In a fucking democracy!!

Sure, bud.

Yes. It is the fault of the electorate. The rich cunts are owed plenty of blame for buying up our media ecosystem and using it to propagandize the public, but ultimately, the public has the education system because they voted for it, and the public elected their leaders because they are assholes.

I sense your US-centrism. You don’t want to be blamed, do you? Well how about Israel? Are Israelis not responsible for Bibi having power since 1996? Are Israelis great, blameless people as they vociferously support a genocide?

Think, dude.

I don’t think voting for democrats and expecting real change is a good tactic.

That would be a bad tactic, which is why I’m not espousing it.

The tactic is thus:

1. Primary status quo Democrats anywhere and everywhere we can with better candidates.

2. Whether or not that succeeds, vote for the person running on the Democratic ticket. (Hopefully it’s a progressive.)

If we don’t do #2, we’ll get fascists. If we don’t do #1, we’ll get status quo assholes, but at least they are preferable to fascists.

No one has suggested a better alternative to me. I’d love to hear it, because #2 isn’t fun most of the time. It doesn’t give me or anyone else the warm fuzzies, but it’s important.

That person who lied thousands of times before, and had a clear track record? The people that elected him should and could have known better.

It’s difficult to say.

I really don’t think it is. Can you really look around at our current reality: an executive branch shamelessly enriching themselves, a Congress that has ceded all power, a SCOTUS that has enshrined corruption and abuse of power, military and paramilitary in the streets, etc., and think, “well who knows if Harris would have been worse?” Come on, dude. Don’t let your urge to win interwebs arguments override your intellectual honesty. This shit is objectively worse than the alternative, and we don’t have to speculate about it.

I’m reminded of a quote,

“Democracy is the worst system… after all the other ones.”

We live in a democracy. What masters are you referring to? You never answered my very, very simple question. Every time I have this discussion with you guys, I’m disappointed further. You have no plan, but you want to criticize mine.

The democrats aren’t much better either though.

Your definition of “much better” seems lacking.

Supporting imperialist wars, being pro Zionism, receiving the majority of their funding from extremely rich people.

The GOP not only supports all of those, they are the origin.

I haven’t seen them implement some extremely obvious and beneficial policies like a proper universal income, decent minimum wages, free healthcare, etc.

But you have seen them implement things like negotiating drug costs, building infrastructure to poor people, providing disability benefits to people affected by toxic chemicals. Is this nothing to you? Is this literally nothing? Is this not preferable to the alternative?

Does a simple preference exist? Y/N?

On one hand, I totally, wholeheartedly agree.

On the other, it is the duty of the people to maintain their democracy, irrespective of the attempts of the wealthy to subvert it.

Show me the better alternative to voting strategically. I never claimed the US system is great and perfect and directly produces wonderful results. Nobody over age 12 believes that bullshit, especially not lately.

In our deeply, deeply flawed system, consistently voting strategically is one of the most effective things we can do to effect change for good. Not perfect, but good. I urge all my fellow citizens to master the art of holding their noses and voting for the candidate more likely to improve their lives, or less likely to fuck them over. The alternative is accelerationism towards collapse, and the people on the left who say they want that are all woefully unprepared for the consequences. (The accelerationists on the right are also unprepared, but at least they have a lot of guns.)

As for doing more: I agree. AFTER we charitably elect the lesser evil, we should be calling their offices every day. We should be demonstrating. We should be engaging in civil disobedience. Our jobs do not end on election day, but we should never, ever allow the GOP to seize power electorally when it’s so easy to keep them out. That is tying both hands behind our backs and making sure the people in power not only disregard us, but despise us.

That’s the thing: we did vote for this. Look who won the last election.

Forgive my oversight. Running for office yourself is certainly one of the best things you can do.

There are a bunch of other actions you can take, of course. Phonebanking, doorknocking, etc. And once whoever wins assumes office, call them every day.

What is your strategy and can you point to it having worked recently? Electing Obama was preferable to electing McCain, was it not? Electing Clinton was preferable to reelecting Bush Sr., was it not? Electing Hillary would have been preferable to Trump. Y/N? Electing Biden was preferable to reelecting Trump. Y/N? Electing Harris would have been preferable to Trump. Y/N?

This isn’t complicated. The system is dead simple, and certain people keep making the wrong choices. We are a democracy. We have the government we have not because choices are being forced on us, but because our citizens keep making shitty choices. Can we not? Please?

The solution to this is electing politicians who promise not to compromise during primary season, NOT allowing your political enemies to win general elections. Even in a worst case scenario where your candidate is prancing around saying, “I love compromise!”, it’s still preferable to have a candidate who supports 50% of what you want than one who wants nothing you want and everything you don’t.

Voting strategically for the least bad candidate presented by the two major parties is the only thing that has been shown to work. It’s how we have the DSA candidates in government that we actually have. None of them have ever won by running as a third party. Not a single one.

Which is why it’s so important to turn out during the primaries. Make sure Gavin isn’t the candidate by voting for candidates you actually like during the primaries. If he wins the nomination, and I sure hope he doesn’t, I’d still vote for him over JD Vance or whatever sick fascist wins the GOP nomination. That’s how it works.