• krolden@lemmy.mlOP
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    1 year ago

    If you always vote for the lesser of two evils, you end up with the worst evil imaginable.

    • Asafum@feddit.nl
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      1 year ago

      But we only ever have 2 evils. There is no “other” to choose. The old folks make sure of that during primaries, they vote and they choose people who look like them and are their age, so we always end up with the 2 worst choices.

        • Gormadt@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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          1 year ago

          The right loves anti-electoralism on the left, it means that they have less of a fight from the left.

          Can you imagine how bad things would be if people didn’t vote if they felt like they were picking between the lesser of 2 evils?

          This nation would look a whole hell of a lot like modern Florida with it’s politics because Republicans in general turn out way more often than anyone else to vote.

          • krolden@lemmy.mlOP
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            1 year ago

            Then why have things been getting so much worse over the past 50 years even with plenty of blue boys and gals getting put in office?

            • Gormadt@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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              1 year ago

              What about the good that has happened?

              Do you think gay marriage would have been protected?

              Access to birth control secured?

              Anti-sodomy laws getting struck down?

              The Affordable Care Act passing?

              Disability rights?

              Do you think any of those things would have happened if Republicans been able to seize power and hold it unopposed over the last 50 years? No. None of those things would have happened. Those things happened because people further left than them got elected, the lesser of 2 evils won some elections.

              Don’t let perfect be the enemy of better.

              • GreenTeaRedFlag [any]@hexbear.net
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                1 year ago

                disability rights were fought for by disabled people, not fucking democrats. Gay people rioted to get their rights.

                and do you actually think contraceptives are secured?

                • Gormadt@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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                  1 year ago

                  Do you think any of those things would have passed in a country where people didn’t vote?

                  And all those rights secured by supreme court rulings are sitting on shaky ground, why? Republicans stacking the courts.

                  • Frank [he/him, he/him]@hexbear.net
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                    1 year ago

                    They’re sitting on shaky ground because Obama refused to seat a justice, RBG refused to retire when she could have been replaced, and because Biden et all refuse to stack the courts.

                    : |

              • infuziSporg [e/em/eir]@hexbear.net
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                1 year ago

                It would have been on a state-by-state basis, which is what we’re coming dangerously close to anyway.

                We don’t go around campaigning specifically to discourage people from voting. Our project is to get people to see beyond the seesaw spectacle.

                When someone offers you two poor options, the right thing to do is to create a better option, even if you take the less bad option in the short run. Voting a Democrat into office and then congratulating ourselves on doing it is how progress slips and how we lose sight of what’s needed.

              • Frank [he/him, he/him]@hexbear.net
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                1 year ago

                Gay marriage isn’t protected. Scotus can shoot it down on a whim

                Lol Biden lost Roe

                Court decision

                Sucks

                What rights? SSI tops out at 700$ a month, I can never have more than 2k in assets, and if I get married I lose it all. Just happened to a friend of mine, they’re going to have to annul their marriage so they don’t starve to death. “disability rights”.

            • Lightor@lemmy.world
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              1 year ago

              Ummm because nuance is a thing that exists. Global conditions, etc. I mean the guy in power during the pandemic saying we should inject bleach or nuke incoming hurricanes sure as shit helped things be worse.

            • AnarchoYeasty@beehaw.org
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              1 year ago

              Because Republicans? We’ve not had plenty of blues elected. We’ve seen abysmal showings from the left and republicans being elected across the nation who are setting out to destroy people’s rights.

          • SmokinStalin [comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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            1 year ago

            The crux of the issue is, where you see a democracy that is keeping fascism at bay, we see through the illusion of choice that keeps allowing the slow steady march towards fascism.

            It’s a ratchet. Gop moves everything rightward (including the Dems) and the Dems refuse to push left in the name of “bipartisanship”. Then conditions get worse (because the policy is further right than before), Dems eventually lose because they allow gridlock and the ratchet suddenly frees up and cranks to the right again.

            • Gormadt@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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              1 year ago

              And how much worse would it be right now if Dems never won elections due to people saying “this dem isn’t far enough left therefore I won’t vote”?

              How far right would things have flown?

              Voting for the lesser of 2 evils reduces harm now. And when the lesser of 2 evils isn’t pushed that things are allowed to shift further to shit.

              • Frank [he/him, he/him]@hexbear.net
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                1 year ago

                idk man there’s a literal genocide going on right now I think we’re past the point of quibbling over minor differences in the deree of evil.

              • iie [they/them, he/him]@hexbear.net
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                1 year ago

                Study: Testing Theories of American Politics: Elites, Interest Groups, and Average Citizens:

                From the abstract:

                Multivariate analysis indicates that economic elites and organized groups representing business interests have substantial independent impacts on U.S. government policy, while average citizens and mass-based interest groups have little or no independent influence.

                further down:

                In the United States, our findings indicate, the majority does not rule — at least not in the causal sense of actually determining policy outcomes. When a majority of citizens disagrees with economic elites and/or with organized interests, they generally lose. Moreover, because of the strong status quo bias built into the U.S. political system, even when fairly large majorities of Americans favor policy change, they generally do not get it.

                What is it, like, 70% of Americans want single payer healthcare?

          • Frank [he/him, he/him]@hexbear.net
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            1 year ago

            No the right actually hates that. Democrats have been shrieking at us to vote for years even though the entire left in the US is a tiny fraction of the registered electorate. But the right wing won’t stop screaming at us about it.

            • Gormadt@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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              1 year ago

              And the right is currently openly talking about raising the voting age because younger people tend to vote more progressive.

              Sure sounds like voting works and has republicans scared.