Something that I realized about the fediverse is that you seem to be able to criticize the USA as a whole, but if you criticize the Democrats you get downvoted. Democrats suck they are not sacred cows
Join us on hexbear and lemmygrad
Can you criticize Israel here or is it full of pro genecide bots trying to run a narrative?
This place is pretty far left dude lol. You wont find anyone pro israel here.
Well everybody already knows that. Like.. The power dynamics of "vote lesser evil, vote for minority candidate, vote for a compromising pseudo-progressive party because it's still something, abstain and stay pure, better face true fascists than traitors, etc." has been around since representative regimes emerged. Yet everyone has to find his/her political and moral stance in this shitshow. And answers will differ, sometimes for legitimate reasons, sometimes because of total bs. That's all there is to it and it's not exactly news.
Running a feckless campaign that refused to break with Biden's admin on genocide is why we got this living hell. And running the most unlikeable woman in the country in 2016 is what made 2024 even a possibility.
Dems have fucked up terribly.
You're absolutely right
That about sums it up.
I'll vote Democrat as long as the alternative is fascism.
But fuck me, I'd love to vote for something else. And I'll be honest, I have no idea how we get anything better.
I hear people saying to organize, but I can't even imagine what that takes. I wonder if most Americans feel as helpless as I do in the face of this absolute bullshit.
The hard fact is that what the population votes for is what the population gets. They have completely given up their agency and just accept this impotent logic of "we'll take whatever the most obvious/most apparently easy option is, that isn't a Republican". It's a cyclical problem, the voters don't care enough to force politicians to be good, and the politicians don't care enough to court voters.
The Democratic Party as a whole is like milk in your fridge that's a week past its "best by" date.
The Republican Party is milk that a dog vomited on a Texas in July sidewalk.
We're drinking one of them, because no alternative is possible in the near term.
It's possible to vote for Democrats in 2026 and '28 and '30 and '32 while we build an alternative that can have electoral success, or takeover the Democratic Party from within or heck turn the Republican Party into a party worth supporting...
80 million Dem voters (depicted as "crowd of NPCs" meme): "We are voting for Democrats in the near term because there is no other option"
I'll keep saying it, the DNC is a sunk cost. You will keep trying to get them to stand up for you; get them to care; get them to fight. They will keep taking your energy; taking your money; and taking your vote and do nothing with it.
Big donors have recognized it. It's time for the people to recognize it too. That means you.
The Democratic Party on the whole is captured by the donor class as a direct result of Citizens United. This has led to the hollowing out of the grassroots movements that are necessary for a large coalition of diverse interests to compete against the oligarchic cabal that makes up the GOP. This decimated the rank and file operatives that used networking within their communities to create political action and replaced it with endless fundraising emails, even as the primary process was corrupted (Hillary v Bernie, Biden v Bernie) to remove clout from the progressive wing of the party.
This led to the disillusionment of many Democratic voters that they have any say in the nomination process (the last time we had a real primary was Obama 2008 - almost 20 years ago), and the result is a slate of weak centrist candidates that for the most part play lip service to liberal cultural issues while blocking any real progressive economic progress.
The purpose of the Democratic Party apparatus as it exists in 2025 America is to capture and dilute revolutionary energy, so that people don't take to the streets and demand real change. Yes, there are some independents and good folks within the Democratic Party trying to make a change (AOC, Jasmine Crocket) but the power players (Pelosi, Schumer, Jeffries) are still refusing to stand up to the overt fascist takeover of our country.
The system as it exists will not change, and without change, we're barreling into a fascism induced depression and possible civil war that will likely ravage the planet.
You would think committing a genocide would’ve settled the whole “lesser evil” thing, but the Blue MAGA cult insists there’s a way to commit lesser evil genocide now.
Now this fucking guy is on .ml too?
lol
#bothSides
If you somehow managed to reduce all of American politics into two sides, neither democrats nor republicans would be on yours.
Yes, actually. Both genocidal as a matter of fact.
A democratic that is average at democracy is better than a conservative who is great at authoritarianism.
"average at democracy" is when you aggressively expand the world's largest police state while persuing a policy of genocide.
Obama and Biden said they'd legalize weed. They didn't. They failed to put abortion rights into the constitution. I mean I can go on these are just off the top of my head.
They are not immune to legit criticism, however it seems like people get the idea that if you criticize democrats that means you are a die hard Trumper or something...
Didn’t close gitmo. Didn’t end the war on terror. Created the same border camps democrats cry at the gates of for political points. Bailed out the perpetrators of one of this countries most high profile and damaging financial crimes because they held rich peoples stock portfolios hostage. Made pointless concessions on the ACA to republicans who never once cross the isle for even the things they want to pass because they’d rather take the credit themselves.
Those are the ones I’m pulling off the top of my head.
I mean didn't Trump also promise that and not deliver
Nobody hates Democrats as much as Democrats do.
Probably because two political parties isn't enough to truly represent the population.
People shit talk non voters, but these are people who found no representation in the two party system. We can change this. We can have more then two political parties. To think otherwise is to think inside the world's smallest box.
Nobody gets betrayed by democrats as much as democrats do.
I'll do you one better, I can't stand either party
I just especially dislike Republicans right now because they're in power
The blue MAGA types are moooostly on .world, but they have the most users, so... .ml are mostly CCP with the same degree of dedication, and blahaj is that but with Likud. I just block .world and blahaj because they are right wingers beyond saving.
Democrats suck and are ineffectual at accomplishing their (generally decent) goals.
Republicans are trying to turn the US into a dicatorship. I hope this was a hyperbolic statement, but it seems like this is where we are now.
Why can't we be critical of democrats by being selective in the primaries? I think that a protest vote for an independent candidate, especially if you were in a swing state, has proven to have been a very poor choice.
Edit: To add to my initial point, I think that we are seeing a lot of post-hoc rationalization from non-voters and protest voters.
You would have to be crazy to prefer the outcome that we got over having Kamala, and if you contributed to our current situation, fuck you.
You would have to be lying or a complete idiot to not realize we haven't had a remotely fair primary in almost 20 years.
Democrats suck and are ineffectual at accomplishing their (generally decent) goals.
Genocide apologia
We are critical of them in the primaries and their supporters vote for the same evil assholes we hate and then call us radicals when we won’t support them. I am so sick of having to explain this to people as if they haven’t rat fucked good candidates out of the primaries multiple times.
Their generally decent goals of bombing children in Afghanistan, bombing people in Palestine, starving children in Yemen, starving children in Cuba, starving children in Venezuela, caging children in the US, torturing people in Guantanamo, bombing children in Yugoslavia, and so on? The bill that resulted in the mass enslavement of the US population (highest prison pop. in the world by far) was passed by the Clinton administration, written by Biden.
Are they only powerful enough to do monstrous shit or do they think you're stupid and will buy their hand wringing? They could have forced through Medicare, deliberately chose not to. They could have codified reproduction rights, deliberately chose not to. They're fucking telling you which issues they care about, it's the ones that they actually pass.
well I hope that if you come out of this you come out with a better electoral system I'll say that
You are not wrong. My point is that dictator trump and his cronies will pave over the bones of Palestinians and turn Gaza into a Trump resort. Strip the rights of all non-christians, minorities, women, and lgbt in America(and this is just citizens!). Take away the only public service for healthcare, meager that it is. We will see nothing but negative progress and monstrous acts from this admin. Monstrous in a far more sinster and evil way than ever before.
Why can't we be critical of democrats by being selective in the primaries?
Because half the time they don’t have primaries and the other half they call anyone making good arguments “unelectable radicals”
Don't just "call them", they actively sabotage them in a way they never do with a reactionary. Labor did it to Corbyn as well, this is deeply ingrained in bourgeois "democracies", if you can vote for somebody who will try to bring change, they've already fucked up a bunch of times.
Why can't we be critical of democrats by being selective in the primaries?
Watch out guys, we got a Vooter over here!
Voting for genociders and pro-militarized police didn’t stop the genocide or police murdering black people, so I would count it as a very ineffective strategy as well. I rather vote for what I actually believe in than not voting because I will hell not vote for the garbage democrats.
Edit: “Protest vote” lmao, I don’t owe my vote to Democrats.
It’s the compromise for the vulnerable that most often gets brought up in this situation. A protest vote in a broken first-past-the-post election system generally helps the opposition to your vote. Republicans have demonstrated they hate the vulnerable (disabled, poor, debt-ridden) and Democrats are weak in their opposition, but if you want the help those that are vulnerable you would generally not want to subject them to Republicans, whom benefit from your protest vote.
Another argument is that if you fracture the opposition to bootlickers, the bootlickers will win.
It's a symptom of our two-party voting system. I lost faith in the Democratic party's ability to do anything effectual a long fuckin time ago, the game is rigged for the rich and it will be until we wipe them from the face of the earth.
What dem supporters need to understand is that support for Trump for many is people sticking two fingers up at the neoliberal order. All this talk of "woke" or whatever would all evaporate if people thought they were getting a fair shake. Of course it's a bloody stupid way of protesting this like so as it's basically asking the foxes to fix the hen house.
The key point is the neoliberal order hasn't been successful by capitalist standards. GDP growth in western countries from 1985-2015 was slower than the 1955-1984 period which preceded neoliberal policies taking hold.
So what you ended up with was a system which actually slowed growth, removed welfare in a lot of cases, made housing unaffordable and really only seems to have succeeded in funnelling money into the hands of the 0.1%.
People have been convinced all kinds of scapegoats and whatever are to blame, but it's pretty clear that they see mainstream politicians, as most embodied by the Dems, as the face of their issues.
The lack of self-reflection on the part of mainstream Dems is a huge, serious issue which has basically given Trump and Musk a blank cheque to implement fascism or at least very authoritarian capitalism.
As the industrial capacity of most nations was devastated in WWII or never existed until after 1945 we shouldn’t be surprised that we saw more growth during rebuilding than after everything was built so neoliberal policies aren’t the primary reason for slowed growth.
Neoliberal policies were introduced under Reagan and Thatcher before 1984 as both would have been in office for years before 1984 (Regan in 1980 and Thatcher in 1979) which should further complicate your claims.
Most of what has gone wrong is a failure to maintain the social contracts as we promoted a rather sociopathic understanding of growth at all costs in business schools starting in the 1970s.
It’s been 8 years of the lesser evil with Democrats and I’m sick of them. I cannot in good conscience support them any longer because they have time and again chosen to maintain the status quo.
The Biden administration did many things to help Americans, most notably the Inflation Reduction Act and the student debt forgiveness. But most of it is being dismantled by the current administration. And the Dems knew this would be the case. Yet they chose to go the executive order route or the highly diluted down IRA. It’s not the people’s problem that you cannot get your party members in line. Why would we vote for you if you cannot deliver?
Nancy Pelosi chose not to even allow the bill to prevent members of Congress from insider trading. Republicans are using it to line their pockets like never before. You want to have your cake and eat it too. Well the people are sick of your hypocrisy and it showed in the elections.
It’s been more than a month of rapid fire gutting of the US government. What has the party done as the main opposition besides “coming up with a strategy”? Because it’s impossible to do anything meaningful without revealing how much you have gained from the system.
The Democrats who truly care about change need to spin off their own party. That’s the only way enough people will be mobilized to make a meaningful difference in the next elections.
Nah. Both parties suck. Repubs damage, Dems half ass do damage control, then sit around making minor changes and act like they're saviors. The geriatric fucks that hold seats have no semblance of understanding the current world and so we fall behind the curve further every year. Easy things that are obvious never get passed because those get bribed. Sick of the whole system obviously.
Democrats don't do damage control, they actively build the machinery for the next republican to be even more brutal.
They got so heated about pro Palestinian stuff on TikTok that they handed Donald Trump authority to ban any website he feels like by executive fiat. Then TikTok didn’t get banned and Trump got for credit for saving it.
Republicans are the problem. Democrats are pretending to be the solution but are also the problem.
The reason Democrats deserve more hate is because they divert people from organising a solution to the problem. At least Republicans are honest about how much they suck.
I will never forget kente clothes.
The United States of America is more important then the Democratic Party.
With state level electoral reform, we could give 3rd parties the freedom to participate in the electoral process without a spoiler effect.
No more hostage situation, more options, elections could be a competition to defeat the republicans/make things better, more democracy.
Who could say no to more democracy?
Republicans? Why of course they would say no. They are passing legislation in red states to protect First-past-the-post voting. In Alaska they held a referendum last election to go back to FPTP voting because Sarah Palin was kept out of office by their Ranked Choice voting system. It didn't pass, the people dont want FPTP anymore in Alaska.
How about the blue states and the democrats that are elected there. Do they support democracy? I guess that would depend on if they are still using FPTP when the mid term elections are hopefully held.
It's not to late, we can have more choices in the voting booth. We can have more then one chance to defeat the republicans.
Liberals think Democrats aren't half to blame for this shitty country being the way it is.
Who you calling a liberal?
The ones who get their undies twisted when we criticize Democrats.
It's an unfortunate trait of the reddit migrations. That place was crawling with die-hard liberals, not entirely dissimilar to scabies. It stands to reason a few of the uninitiated would find their way here.
In spite of how I started this comment, we must remember that they are of the working class, and further division is a benefit exclusive to the capitalist.
I feel that the further we sink into full-blown fascism, the more of them will become aware, and may be counted among allies one day soon.
I plan to speak to those who are willing to listen and learn. But beware the contentious fool, ever seeking a debate but never trying for understanding.
.world got the liberals that were too delusional for reddit.
I agree, but the fact that they even came here gives me hope that they are open to change. It's the ones who stayed on reddit are the lost causes, I think.
Looook,
We are ALL going to Hell, FAST (choose your doom(CC,WWIII,etc).
We are all in the same car, here -like it, or not.
One party, …I’ll let you guess which 😉, has the accelerator pinned to the mat. “We’ll be there in 5 minutes, Boys!! HELL ON EARTH HERE WE COME!”
The other party, is simply driving at half that speed. Results are the same. They are flawed. But they CAN slow the car to give us a bit more time to “brace for impact”. But they too bought into Hell as a destination.
But ya, we’re ALL fucked no matter how much you pledge to one party or the other. One party just whispers in your ear and it’s a bit more gentle while they fuck your already ragged ass.
The other party just dry-humps you violently until your blood provides enough lube for them to finish while pounding their chest as you lie there, bleeding out of your ass on the nice, clean sheets.
That about sums it up from my perspective.
The problem with this is that it assumes both parties act independently.
You know how right now how Republicans are willing to use every loophole, cite ancient forgotten laws, and violate every norm? That's always been possible. You can't actually write a constitution to constrain bad-faith actors. You can always come up with a bogus interpretation to do what you want.
If this is possible, you have to ask, why did leaders ever try to follow the law in good faith? How was it ever possible to establish a norms-based stability when either side could knock over the board at any moment?
The answer is that good-faith interpretation of the law fails when people only do so out of principle. It succeeds when good-faith interpretation is a peace treaty. Both sides agree to follow the law in good faith, as the alternative is complete chaos as both sides try to twist every loophole.
Democrats are a bunch of liberal arts majors that have forgotten that Democracy and the rule of law does not exist because everyone worships them as high ideals. They exist because they are a compromise, a peace treaty.
Republicans break norms. In response, Dems latch on even tighter to the norms. Instead, they should be seeking to break them at every opportunity they can. They need to be as ruthless as the Republicans, and even more so.
Following the rule of law is hard. It means giving up power and results that you could otherwise achieve by violating the rule of law.
Right now, only Democrats are trying to obey every norm and precedent. As such, Republicans have nothing to lose by violating these. It's all upside to them. Their bad behavior is the direct result of Democratic cowardice. If Democrats were willing to give as well as they get, we could actually have a rules-based order again. Paradoxically, a prerequisite for rules to be effective is that both sides need to be willing to violate them.
Well said!
In short, fire with fire. …can’t fight a war with one hand tied to your balls, etc.
Dems have forgotten this. They need a leader to remind them and lead the charge.
As I like to say, "The moral high road is filled with corpses"
if someone told you that, that's what their sex life was like; you would assume that they're a damaged person who needs psychiatric help and those psychiatrist would try to help steer them away from sex partners like that and towards healthier sex partners.
even our neighbors to the south have learned this fact and made their own sex lives better; but we americans are like battered spouses who keep bouncing back and forth between the same 2 abusive lovers because we both refuse to accept how damaged we truly are and because the more damaged among us keep re-inforcing the propaganda that voting democrat or republican is the only "grown up" choice to make as the "adults in the room".
we're only destined for hell if we keep rejecting a third party; places like mexico have already proved that things get A LOT better once you stop carrying the propaganda that third party is "throwing away" your vote.
(or atleast until you get the america's attention and they send in their military and bankers to force you back into those abusive relationships... again).
I think that's something related to people only being used to a system with two parties. It is either one or the other, no other alternatives. And the fact that they do believe the democratic party is left-wing because it has some progressive views.
Edit: replaced "no in between" for "no other alternatives" because in this case, being in between is just being a centrist and it isn't what I meant
Lemmy.ml; sigh.
Wake me up when you provide a feasible plan that doesn't involve ritual self-mutiliation.
Grassroots campaigns for small local government positions building gradual power for progressives to replace them. Do your part.
I'm sure this will fix the frustration of people who already live in deeply progressive states.
For sure, about %90 of them voted No to Sander's stop weapon sale to Israel resolution. They are worthless pieces of shits which would switch to the republican party at the blink of an eye had they thought their position in the Democrat party was insecure.
If I thought that the democrat party was the only viable option to defeat Trump would I vote for democrats instead of say, voting a third party? Without a second of doubt, yes. We don't even need to debate whether the Democrat party is marginally better than the Republican party or not. The main important difference is that if Trump wins (which he did) half of the country is going to cheer for every vile shit he does (which they do) and this will enable them to carry this vile shit into their personal lives (which they also do).
On the other hand if Kamala were to do such vile shit (granted there is imo %0 chance she could be this worse on almost all matters) at least she would get booed by the people who voted for her. There is a very big difference between how much these reactions enable a president to do even more extreme shit or not and whether if people are encouraged to replicate such behaviour on a local level or not.
So instead of waiting until the last 90 days and then suddenly going "DON'T VOTE FOR DEMOCRATS OR REPUBLICANS LETS CHANGE THE COURSE OF HISTORY WOHOO", start working from now to make the third options more viable. Then it will be more sincere and useful.
well said. you can pretty much extrapolate this line of thought to every soc-dem, left-of-center, liberal party in the world. they make a wiener water government, blame people when they lose elections and are left wondering why people didn't called their wiener water government a bouillabasse or an onion soup.
With the Democrats Netanyahu was on a leash
Good lord, Democrats are delusional
We had Hitler under control! Everything was going according to plan!
I do believe the requirement is that you just need to be specific. Republicans generally suck all around right now so that's a valid statement.
However, if you're going to complain about Democrats you need to say something like, "the leadership sucks" or, "there's too many rich people influencing the party!"
That's been my experience so far 🤷
Yeah Democrats sucks, but to in any way imply that Republicans are the solution is just bootlicking at this point. One is a political party and one is dismantling the country for profit.
I think Green Party politician Peter Camejo said it most succinctly: "Democrats are not the answer."
And they aren't. The Democrats have so successfully neutered the left that nobody has any idea what leftist talking points even are. People are so desperate that they voted for Donald fucking Trump. Twice.
Libs think they're the party it's so sad lmao
The Democratic Party got wallopped in the last election because they stood up for marginalized. They got trounced in 2010 because they fought to provide access to healthcare to those who couldn't get it. Biden tried to forgive student loans and young people couldn't bother to show up to the pols in 2022. Lazy edge lord potheads don't show up to vote
Good lord, blueMAGA faithful really have taken leave from reality entirely
Genocide deniers suck, including the uyghur and tibetan genocide deniers, including the american native and middle eastern genocide deniers... They all suck...
uyghur and tibetan genocide deniers
You mean like the ethnically and religiously diverse muslim delegations from around the world that investigated the claims of uyghur genocide and declared them unfounded?
Here is an article trying to spin it from voice of america, a state funded US media outlet:
I think the claims of genocide in Tibet are kinda goofy, given the US is trying to prop up some child-tongue-sucking theocratic feudalists to install as their regime.
If you REALLY want to receive some righteous hate, criticize the people who boycotted voting because none of the choices measured up to their standards. People will defend the moral correctness of refusing to vote more than they'll defend their right to vote.
Most states were really spoiled for choices that election, too. I think that there were a dozen candidates on my ballot!
If you don't like either R or D, then don't vote for them. Vote for somebody else. If everybody who didn't vote had voted for an alternative or independent candidate instead, that would've been HUGE.
What I constantly hear is deflections about how voting doesn't matter, but it fucking does, yes the Democrats suck but they are better, it's not even close.
Fight back and do everything you can to change what's going on and blame Democrats but don't sell out an entire election cycle to literal Satan to make that point
all that does is irreversible damage
Vote Green when you can, and push on your representatives in between elections.
if a third party was possible under current electoral governance the green party would absolutely not be better
I legitimately haven't seen anyone defend democrats. They're like the IRS: necessary, but no one likes them.
What I have seen is "democrats suck!" as a general deflection anytime someone mentions how bad this current administration is, how it could have been prevented, or what we need to do in the future...
Democrats are only necessary if your goal is to maintain the illusion that America is a democracy which serves the people while maintaining the status quo.
Democrats are a net negative. What is necessary is something we don't have and haven't had, a true leftist party. The lack of that necessary party is what has led us to this current situation.
The Republicans being bad doesn't make the Democrats good. Especially when they are complicit.
See, this is people defending the Dems lmao. Not a single falsehood, but it's downvoted all the same.
I have seen plenty and Democrats are not like the IRS. They are not necessary at all. They are just one right wing party that should disappear and be taken by an actual left wing party. The fact that you think that they are necessary shows how deep the ingraining of the necessity of a bipartisan oligopoly has run in the populous.
`The fact that you think that they are necessary shows how deep the ingraining of the necessity of a bipartisan oligopoly has run in the populous.
This is the crux and can not be overstated.`
What I hear is a lot of complaints and very few ideas of what to do about it. The Democrats can be forced to suck less.
Democrats can not and should not be shielded from blame for their inactions, however, with all the low hanging fruit we got right now THIS is what you post?
The low hanging fruit like Biden reversing Trump’s decision to pull out of Somalia? The low hanging fruit like trying to ban any app they disagree with? The low hanging fruit like continuing to fund the Azov Battalion?
I think of it like this, democrats are rectal cancer, but rebublicans are gushing arterial spray. Not all, of course. Generalizations are lazy. But the choice is clear, and that choice is rectal cancer.