this post was submitted on 13 Jul 2025
191 points (100.0% liked)
Progressive Politics
3008 readers
437 users here now
Welcome to Progressive Politics! A place for news updates and political discussion from a left perspective. Conservatives and centrists are welcome just try and keep it civil :)
(Sidebar still a work in progress post recommendations if you have them such as reading lists)
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Eyes on the ball, it's the policies that matter. If we start seeing watering down of the policies, shoot away, but this on its own means little.
Dude, it's already over.
And thus Republicans win again.
Thank you leftist purity culture, you truly are the best tool the fascists have.
In what way? He's better than any republican, but he's already playing into DNC's bullshit game by pivoting right.
Because "is already over" means he's not good enough for the left. So they'll stay home and stomp their feet like they did in November. And he'll lose.
I guess if that's what you want to read into what I said. There's just no reason to think he's gonna be any better than a bog standard Democrat anymore, is all.
That's what I understood it to mean. So then tell me, what does it mean?
That's my point, and also the mistake. I'm a first past the post system, you don't vote FOR anything. You vote AGAINST the worst candidate. Not voting is the same as voting for the worst because it moves the goal posts closer.
So until people understand that, there's no help in highlighting flaws in Democrat candidates. It only scares off the people who don't understand FPTP.
This message brought to you by the second worst party. By as thin a margin as they think they can get away with.
So you're saying both parties suck, and also agree with the fact that our current voting system holds us hostage?
I'm 100% with you. And until we get ranked choice voting, we hold our nose and vote Democrat to reduce how big of a shaft is rammed into our minority friends and family.
As they sprint to the right and throw our minority friends and family under the bus for the glorious privilege of gaining zero republican votes. And then they blame the left for the results of their complicity with fascists.
But I can't dare gripe about it, ostensibly because it HeLpS tHe RePuBliCanS, but in all cases it's really because centrists don't want any criticism as they move so far to the right that they're supporting genocide.
So you're saying it doesn't help the Republicans?
I'm saying that centrists already help the republicans.
But god fucking forbid someone to their left have any criticism whatsoever.
You don't care about a goddamned thing except securing the silence of the left.
I care about securing the success of the Democrats. Anything else is securing l ensuring success of Republicans. It's literally two choices. You don't get a good one. You hope to reject the worse one.
And moving to the right and throwing vulnerable minorities under the bus hasn't done that, but it's helping republicans to try to get the party to ever stop betraying anyone not named netanyahu or cheney.
Irrelevant. You only get two options. Bad or worse. And if you fail to vote, you get worse.
Youre a hostage. So am I. And until we get ranked choice voting, or run for office ourselves, we remain hostages. And in hostage situations, you just have to strive for the least bad option.
It's very not complicated. It's rigged. And not in our favor.
I do vote and I get worse anyway. And centrist shitheads interpret anything other than performative worship of their garbage party as not voting. You don't hjave to convince me to vote. You're just trying to convince me to shut up. You're getting what you want and you're gloating.
I think my point is, you're convincing other people to not vote. You may not intend that, but that's certainly what you're doing.
But how about we meet halfway. For every complaint you post online to the internet, where some random person will read it and feel bad and not vote, I also would love if you called your actual Democrat representative and tried influencing them for the changes you want.
That's surely not asking too much, right?
That's a convenient fiction you've concocted to silence valid criticism.
81,283,501 voted for Biden.
75,017,613 voted for Harris.
What is your explanation for why 6 million extra people stayed home? Because my explanation is that 6 million people were dissuaded by negative attitude towards Democrats in general. But I'm happy to change my opinion if there's some good reasoning behind another explanation.
The explanation is that Biden was a terrible president, who fucked over the people that voted for him. The Democrats dissolusioned voters by telling them to ignore their eyes, and continue supporting someone who was clearly in severe cognitive decline. Harris was an uncharasmatic shell of a human, who said that she was going to continue highly unpopular polices, and gave no criticism of a highly unpopular president.
Maybe the "...negative attitude towards Democrats in general", is justified. It's always amazing to me that Democrats think they have a Perception Problem, when they actually have a Reality Problem.
Clearly the only option is for all critics to shut up forever and pretend to love the genocide. Because that's what you're insisting on. AND NOTHING ELSE. The party will only get worse and that's the way you like it.
lol no you're not.
There is no advocacy for the party ever stopping getting worse that you won't immediately shout down as helping republicans. You like what the party is doing.
So no idea then?
Its actually borne out by the statistics. Generally few people get what they want in FPTP but the public can often avoid what it doesnt want as long as there's not a 3rd party. The major problem is donors pick the party candidates in both parties unless more people start voting in primaries.
If you watched the dem primary in NY you saw the difference in tone for a ranked choice election. Politicians can win in platforms there because RCV can actually deliver popular candidates.
I do think it works better if people retaliate against senators and house reps for specific votes rather than party vibes. You want the politicians afraid to vote against the public not riding poll numbers on seats.
Have fun voting for second worst every time as they keep chasing fascists to the right, then.
Actually I just sit around jacking off about how equally terrible all the candidates are while I poo poo in my diaper.
Really though, do you not understand what primaries are for?
I mean, you clearly like how awful all the candidates are because awful candidates represent your interests, so it doesn't surprise me that you derive pleasure from a situation advantageous to you.
Democrats successfully argued in court that they don't have to run honest primaries, and they didn't have presidential primaries at all last year. Primaries are kabuki. Though the Standard Establishment Gaslighting when someone isn't as happy with it as you are isn't surprising in the least.
I think you're misunderstanding what the democrats and especially the DNC are in our political system in the current moment. They are people actively working to put giant targets on their own backs. If you want to end the democratic party the easiest thing you can do is elect them. The republican party is actively encouraging assassinating and jailing them.
They don't understand the media, they don't understand politics, they barely understand money and are constantly outmaneuvered by shit for brains republicans like trump.
At this point its not even about lesser evils. Democrats could go further right on every single issue than republicans and they would still be reviled by the right because they absolutely will never understand how entrenched the media is against them.
I think you can't make a single comment without gaslighting.
The only response to any of that is the one part where I politely poked your ego?
If you want further engagement, try not gaslighting. I'm not going to continue to reward your abuse with participation on your terms.
You're saying that moving to the right will lose elections.
Is he playing their game or they playing his after the DNC got all those polls that said democrat voters want all the DNC leadership gone?
Yall gotta stop shooting yourselves in the dick every time a braindead DNC goon shows up like its the end of the world. These DNC guys are so dumb they were outsmarted (TWICE!) by Donald Trump who absolutely does not understand how most of his major policies work (tariffs, immigration, etc)
If yall had half the amount of shamelessness that republicans have we'd see people would deliver this media narrative to AIPAC as the DNC "caving to anti Israel" and attempt to cut their funding for the DNC.
Whether or not its true these kinds of things are double edged swords for the DNC and can be used to wedge out AIPAC if you can convince enough of its genocidal supporters to withdraw donations to AIPAC unless the DNC is removed from its payroll.
If AIPAC cuts funding to the DNC that would be a major win even if mamdani loses. This defeatist loser baby shit is why the fascists keep winning. The fascists are dumb and the DNC is even dumber. You don't need to be a brain genius to beat these idiots.
Is he doing that? Or is he just playing politics and trying to maximize his chances of winning the general election? Who are you to say he won't pivot back to the left the instant he gets into office?
The standard Democratic playbook when they do get elected. They practically never actually stay left, and he just enlisted Lerner, Cuomo's guy, who's big into corporate and gig-economy shit.
And? He's not a standard Democrat. This fickle purity testing is why the right keeps winning.
What the fuck is "purity testing"?
I'm complaining about him hiring Lerner. He's playing by standard DNC rules, at best now.
It's what centrists say when people to their left have standards.
He's run a phenomenally lowercase-d democratic and candid campaign. Hiring one experienced DNC Communications chair does not compromise his platform. It might lead to that, but it might not. To judge based purely on that appointment, before anything has actually happened, is 100% purity testing.
So losing faith that a candidate is going to stick by his word is now something called "purity testing"?
Your faith is your business. Barking the failings of the lesser evil, in the wave of greater evil, with no good strong enough to replace them. Yeah, that's purity testing.
The lesser evil keeps getting more evil.
Nothing is ever really over. There is always change and we don't know what's gonna happen just what is happening.