this post was submitted on 21 Mar 2025
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Democratic lawmakers have faced eruptions of anger at town hall meetings across the country this week, as constituents have coupled their fury over President Donald Trump’s actions with deep frustration over what they see as a feckless Democratic response.

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[–] [email protected] 234 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (6 children)

Time for the neoliberal world order to end. Want Republicans to actually be scared of Democrats? Fill the party with socialists.

[–] [email protected] 124 points 1 day ago (9 children)

This is correct. Ultimately, the Democratic Party will only be changed through primaries. Not town halls or performative third party voting, but filling the party up with people who think differently.

[–] [email protected] 64 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Democratic Party will only be changed through primaries

And that means it's time for everyone to actually give a shit about voting in primary elections instead of just old people who keep choosing the worst candidates.

[–] [email protected] 41 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Not just voting, but running for election.

[–] [email protected] 23 points 1 day ago (2 children)

While I agree, I'm a "child of the internet" so pretty much any opposition research on me would have me murdered by probably everyone.

Maybe I should run. I could unite the left and right in their disgust of me lol

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 day ago

Judging by Trump, I bet your reputation matters a whole lot less than you think it does.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Maybe the real Modern Warfare was the blackmail material we created on ourselves along the way

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Oh! NOW I remember why I didn't give my real name and all my friends and activities and locations and menstrual cycles and everything to BlackmailBook when they demanded it of me to view the link my grandma sent me.

JFC Why won't this fucking thing burn to the ground.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 13 hours ago

Because you still need it. When you stop needing it it will end. Even if the bed is only one of delusion

[–] [email protected] 25 points 1 day ago (2 children)

But the corporations that donate to the party don’t want this.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

And as long as privately ran organization owned by those rich people (the DNC) controls the primaries then they can choose what ever candidates they want. Like how they chose Hillary despite Bernie having more support in 2016. This is why the DNC has stopped doing primaries.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

When did they stop? If you're talking about last time around, unfortunately Biden didn't drop out early enough for them to have one. We will definitely have primaries coming up. Will the DNC try to put their finger on the scale? Surely. But that just means we got to show up in bigger numbers than they think.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Bernie had provably more individual donors than any canidate in US history.

There's no amount pf voting that makes the DNCs chosen canidate lose the primary.

They are a private organization that doesn't have to even have a primary, the primary exists to hold up the illusion of choice.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 15 hours ago* (last edited 15 hours ago) (1 children)

Nah, these people are plenty beatable. And donations aren't votes.

And there absolutely will be primaries.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 hours ago

The DNC will not allow the party to leave Neoliberal ownership.

They will rig it in favor of their canidate just like in 2016, and then try to guilt us into supporting them.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

All you have to do is raise money without corporations.

How hard could it be?

Edit: /s ffs

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 day ago

It's one election, Micheal. How much can it cost? 10$?

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 day ago (2 children)

That will never happen regardless, as long as money influences politics, both parties will never represent the people.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 day ago

Then join the international boycotts and prevent Americans from having money. No money, no influence.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 day ago

Well, then, just duck your head down and try to survive then, because that's all that's left. The system is what it is and it's not going to change without violence, so it can either be co-opted from within as my suggestion, or we can all sharpen our knives and hope the next government is better rather than worse than this one.

[–] [email protected] 24 points 1 day ago (8 children)

Ultimately, the Democratic Party will only be changed through primaries.

Only so far as they continue to hold and respect them. We're now 0/3 on that front, so... yeah. It's not impossible, but they'll fight you every step of the way and then some. Creating/hijacking a third party and strategically contesting election will probably accomplish your goals faster. Remember that the only reason the GOP was taken over twice was because the party leadership approved of it.

[–] [email protected] 33 points 1 day ago

Yeah people forget that the Democrat party doesn't need to even hold primaries, let alone respect the outcome. The DNC admitted to pushing Hillary to the forefront and were the ones that dragged Biden out of retirement because it seemed like Bernie might win the second time. The good politicians seem like exceptions.

Need to start promoting working families type party.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 1 day ago (5 children)

I'm not talking about Presidential primaries. I'm talking about state and local. Make it so the Democratic Party is full of progressives, socialists, social democrats, whatever your favorite brand of left-wing politics is. I'd be dammed careful about communists because that word is a fucking non-starter with the American electorate. Hell socialism is as well but it's not as poisonous as communism. When the party is full of... I don't know the proper term because every word I think to use (leftist? Lefties, maybe?) has been co-opted to mean a specific ideology. But make it so the Democratic Party as a whole leans further left, and those people have to be tapped to fill key roles because their presence is so large.

You are absolutely wrong about creating/hacking third party. Ross Perot couldn't pull it off despite spending about 80% what the major parties spent and capturing nearly 19% of votes in a vastly more friendly media environment. In order to achieve just that lofty level of irrelevance, a third party candidate would have to spend about $350 million and buy Fox News or Facebook. Third party isn't going to happen. Presidential primary isn't the place to start.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 day ago (1 children)

This is way. Democrat voters want change, but they're not speaking to the system in a language it understands. The party changes not from the top down, but from the bottom up. That only happens when people with different views stand for, and win, lower level positions. Every voice changed lower down on the totem pole changes the presure on the people making decisions further up. Ultimately enough movement lower down means the top eschalons are pushed out and replaced too.

Whether it's possible to find enough candidates to start filling the party, I don't know, but just focusing on the primaries (or lack thereof) for the top job is missing the wood for the trees.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I volunteered this election with our state house district committee of the Democratic party. The grassroots is effectively neutered and you can believe that they are carefully managed to be sure nothing rises up that the national party cannot control.

The Democrats are managed opposition.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 day ago

Thank you for putting the effort in. The party apparatus isn't going to want to change, but I'm not sure that it's managed opposition as such, so much as those who are 'in' being happy with their lot and doing what they feel they need to to stop that being taken away.

There's two ways to use that to change the situation, either demonstrate that their comfortable position will be taken away if they don't change their politics, or take it away by finding a candidate you can rally enough support behind. Neither is easy, and both require getting people involved en-mass at the lowest levels of politics, which is going to be hard work with the party pulling against you. It's not impossible though, AOC and Sanders are both candidates of a different stripe and have, so far, held their places. Imagine how different things would be if they were replicated even a few times?

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[–] [email protected] 18 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Not just presidential matters. Local and state are much less fucked with. A 3rd party in first past the post just creates a split of neolib/socialists while the fascists remain united. Division in the American system is just a way to have the other party win. Republicans allowed the Tea party because that is what they wanted as well. Neolibs won't allow a split progressive/socialist with the exception of Bernie (because how do you fuck with Vermont).

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 day ago (1 children)

A 3rd party in first past the post just creates a split of neolib/socialists while the fascists remain united.

If you start local and strategically spread (or create a mass movement and go for the jugular) you can remove the neoliberals from the equation and make socialists and fascists the only two choices.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Or work to implement ranked choice voting. The more localities use it, the more comfortable people get with it (the primary anti-ranked choice argument is it's "too confusing for voters"), the more chance it has to be adopted by more states beyond the current Maine and Alaska beachhead.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 day ago

And. And work to implement ranked choice voting. The FPTP system is the root of all this. The reason you can't realistically consider voting for a third party, and why those who did (or sat home since they had nothing realistic to vote for) handed power to Trump.

But all that will take time and is not going to help in the next couple of elections. So there also needs to be a short to medium term plan.

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 day ago

If I stay home, that'll show those Democrats

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

you had something ti vote for that was radically different from trump

you didn't vote for it, you got trump

simple

Try actually voting

[–] [email protected] 3 points 21 hours ago (1 children)

A lesser of two evils is not radically different.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 21 hours ago

if people can't see the difference between harris and trump at this point i completely understand why trump accidentally got elected

oopsie

[–] [email protected] 29 points 1 day ago (2 children)

Time for the neoliberal world order to end

Monkey’s paw curls

We now have a fascist world order.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I mean the "neoliberal world order" was just facism abroad.

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[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 day ago (2 children)

...which is the true goal of these "hello there, fellow leftist" bastards who exclusively attack Democrats.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (2 children)

If they occupy the only space to defeat Trump and they do a bad job at it, of course they get "attacked."

If they don't want to be criticized, they shouldn't be public figures. If they don't want to have people have actual reasons to call them out, they shouldn't have and keep unpopular policies. If they don't want to represent their people, they shouldn't be in office.

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[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 day ago (2 children)

I think it's the true goal of these "actually Joe Biden is great and you're an idiot for thinking otherwise" bastards who exclusively attack leftists. Thinly veiled reverse psychology designed to piss people off into not voting or voting third party.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 day ago

I'll never get how they think critizing Democrats is a personal attack on them. I've never considered it despite being registered Dem for 99% of my time as a voter.

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[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Agreed.

The democrat dinosaurs will panic, telling us the large donations will dry up, without which a campaign cannot be won.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

Then we need to remind them that they're not doing a whole lot of winning at the moment.
If I want a paycheck I have to do my job, if I don't do my job I won't get paid.
If they want donations they're going to have to earn with with actions, not plans or promises.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I mean, they are doing their job. It's just that their job is to keep the left down, not to win.

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