this post was submitted on 13 Feb 2024
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I was born in 87.
I was really pretty oblivious to politics until 9/11 kicked my adolescent brain into political awareness overdrive.
I was a fervent liberal Democrat until about a year into Trump's term (and with hindsight I'm a little ashamed it lasted that long, the DNC shift from liberal culture to Hilary-Progressive culture and all).
Now I fervently hate Republicans, and I am completely fed up with Democrats.
I am 100% independent.
Both parties are trash, always have been, and a with each passing year it is harder for me to see an actual substantive difference between the 2.
We need a third party/independent person in the White House. This year.
One party wants to deny me access to healthcare: they want to make it illegal for me to continue taking the testosterone I have taken for almost a decade. They would force me to carry a pregnancy to term, even if it was deformed and could kill me. They are making it illegal for teachers to even refer to a kid by the name they prefer. They are attacking things like free school lunches and even the department of education itself. Their figurehead has repeatedly flouted the rule of law and has told us loud and clear that he would like to be a dictator.
Yeah, Dems fucking suck. The ACA was garbage, the Clinton’s crime bill was garbage. The Democratic Party fucks over actual leftists all the time.
But there is most certainly a substantive difference between the 2.
Yes, that diminishes with each passing year. Like I said.
If the common sentiment that we're more divided than ever is accurate, how could this possibly be true? Wouldn't the differences grow? Can you name policy positions that are identical between parties? If I look at healthcare, taxation, infrastructure, education, foreign policy, welfare, business regulation, environmental policy, social issues etc. it is pretty clear cut to me. How do you justify your both-side-ism?
Here's a possible example. While Bernie Sanders has proposed pegging minimum wage to inflation, neither the Republicans nor the Democrats support this. My belief is that it is more important to have something to fight about than to win. If minimum wage just quietly tracks inflation, then there is nothing for Democrats to claim victory over when it does go up.
This kind of apparent unending struggle without progress is shit, but it suits the status quo on both sides, even in the face of eternal media telling us how we are more divided.
Now, it is possible to fuck this up, as with abortion. The Republicans forgot that they weren't actually supposed to win, and they have been rightly punished. The Democrats share some blame for not doing much to ensure abortion rights, since they naively thought that the Republicans understood the game.
Thanks this is a good example! however I think the conspiracy about Democrats wanting a big win instead of what's good for the people is probably not true, especially absent of evidence.
The min wage is ticking up in more places (and it is not at the behest of republicans...), and the Biden admin increased wages in the places they could (fed workers) via executive order.
It totally makes sense to be annoyed at the glacial pace of progress in the United States, but we can't possibly pretend that there is an equivalence between the two choices that we are presented with.
I'm sorry, but there is absolutely no good reason whatsoever to believe that's possible at this point, and a Republican administration will be tangibly worse than a Democratic one, even under the present circumstances.
Also, it's worth noting that shitty neoliberal Democratic party members don't just disappear when Democratic candidates lose elections. Actually, it only makes them stronger and louder because they'll start their "Progressive voters never show up, this is why we need to appeal to wealthier and more conservative voters with even crappier policies" routine. It's a lot better for progressives in the party if Dem candidates are winning races, because then the campaign consultants who run things will start worrying about primary challenges and feel compelled to have slightly more progressive policies.
Lol they do that when progressive voters show up too.
Fuck em both to death.
lol you're late-30s and still falling for the 3rd party trap? I went through that phase during Ron Paul.
The only way alternative parties succeed is through campaign finance / election reform. And the only way that happens is by either a policy transformation of a party (eg, progressives slowly overtaking the Democrats), or a party going the way of the Whigs (ideally, the GOP).
Voting 3rd party or not voting just supports the worst poison every election and guarantees you're further from your goal.
No, I have reached my mid-30s and have stopped falling for the 2 party fallacy, like I did when I was a kid.
I'm sorry you supported... lol, Ron Paul (your only political focus was on marijuana legalization, wasn't it?), but that doesn't invalidate the dire need to ebb the 2 increasingly unhinged fascist movements in America and find a new way.
A choice between civil war and genocide domestically vs world war and genocide abroad demands a third choice.
But the third choice isn't real so pick one of those. I too hail from '87 and it's kinda you're damned if you do damned if you don't. My goals are to set up a commune and disappear from society and hopefully fall off the grid with people I care about. Until then, though, kinda stuck with what we got.
The third party is 100% a real choice. We just need someone to step up.
Never has. Never will. Until you get FPTP removed.
Alright. I'll bite.
Is FPTP dragon across my face?
I think the flaw in one's reasoning is revealed in your dichotomy. What do you mean by civil war and genocide domestically? What do you mean by world War? For all intents, Trump is guaranteed to be worse in universally every aspect, foreign and domestic.
And you've yet to elucidate exactly how that third choice occurs when it's mathematically a given that a 3rd choice simply promotes the greater of two evils.
And nah, I was young and naive. Never liked pot. While I've always been supportive of legalization for criminal justice reform, I fell for the bullshit Libertarian idea of fiscal conservatism / social liberalism. I'm ashamed to say I read Atlas Shrugged, too.
Then you're an idiot or a shill
It depends on perspective. There are certainly major differences, but at the end of the day, they both serve the elite class and capitalism.
Definitely an idiot.
Morons always drift to the right. They are incapable of blocking out right wing propaganda.
The major give away is how similar their arguments are and how angry they get when challenged on it.
Notice how we are stupid for not understanding what is obvious to them. That indicates they did not form a chain of logic to move to their political position. If they had used logic, they would lean on their logical process and share it with us. Instead it's raw negative emotion.
And your a brainwashed idiot who has nothing to offer but name-calling.
Also NEED to point out the extreme irony of you calling me a shill for NOT endorsing either of America's fascist movements.
You're parroting right wing propaganda, advocating reduced voter turnout. That benefits Republicans. So yes, you're a shill, either wittingly or unwittingly
they didn't say not to vote
We don't just need a third party in the White House, we need complete reform at the state and federal levels to allow a third party to be a realistic option
Yes, but as long as the Reds and the Blues maintain their stranglehold and keep the "there is no other choice muahahahaha" rhetoric in party member mouths, the only thing we can do is turn out and vote for someone who is not affiliated with a fascist movement.
Yes, that's also correct.