• IzzyScissor@lemmy.world
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    8 days ago

    Or maybe they should just leave the Democratic party and start a new progressive party? We have less than 4 years, but that’s also the most time we’ll ever have.

      • IzzyScissor@lemmy.world
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        8 days ago

        Oh, I’m all for ranked choice voting, but in order for it to have any meaning we also need a plurality of parties. They also need time to build and I’m sure these two would start a good one if allowed.

        Although the likelihood of political parties having any weight at all past January is anyone’s guess…

        • ToastedPlanet@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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          8 days ago

          Without rank choice voting any progressive party would act as a spoiler for the Democratic Party. Debilitating ourselves in this way isn’t particularly useful for leveraging power to create better outcomes for the environment and minorities.

          • IzzyScissor@lemmy.world
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            8 days ago

            A few weeks ago, I’d have agreed with you, but now? The Democratic party that just lost 10 million votes… We’ll spoil that party? The one that just lost a fair election to a convicted felon? You want to protect them from being spoiled?

            We have 4 years, which is, again, the most time we’ll ever get to try something like this because that’s how 4 year election cycles work. What is it exactly that they’re doing successfully you don’t want to spoil?

            • ToastedPlanet@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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              8 days ago

              We’ll spoil that party?

              Yes, running third party candidates in a FPTP voting system is how the spoiler effect works.

              You want to protect them from being spoiled?

              Because of the FPTP voting system our democracy will always trend towards a two-party system. Until we enact systemic change, we will be stuck with the Democrats and the Republicans. As long as the Democrats are further to the left of fascism we should vote for them and avoid limiting our power with third party candidates.

              We the people and our interests are what avoiding the spoiler effect protects.

              What is it exactly that they’re doing successfully you don’t want to spoil?

              The Democrats are neoliberals. They are easier to push on social issues and the environment. The Democratic Party is the party progressives and socialists are going to want to co-opt with a populist candidate. Like Bernie tried to do and Trump did to the Republicans. But more to the point, they do not want to kill minorities and destroy the environment.

              Rather than seeking a moral victory over Democrats we should look for ways to leverage power for the people Republicans want to hurt. Doing otherwise makes the harm done to minorities the cost of doing business.

              • Cataphract@lemmy.ml
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                8 days ago

                I mean yes, that’s been the playbook for 8 years. More like 16 if you count what people actually thought Obama was going to be (and had record turn out). Try, try again?

                • ToastedPlanet@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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                  8 days ago

                  The lives of millions of minorities and the Earth’s climate are at stake now. Minorities will notice the difference in the short term, but we will all notice the difference in the long term. Assuming we still have elections and a Democratic Party going forward, yes. We delay fascism and co-opt the Democratic Party. edit: typos

                  • Cataphract@lemmy.ml
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                    8 days ago

                    Look, I don’t know if you guys haven’t been paying attention but places have been getting ravaged for decades because of what we’ve been doing. Everyone around me was flabbergasted with what happened in the NC western mountains. They videos were exactly like those I’ve been seeing in the Philippines and other countries that we just completely ignore when there’s a natural disaster (maybe a 30 second blip in the media headline for 80% of it if they’re in a really poor region).

                    The Western mountains were devastated because of the infrastructure in natural valleys and huge amounts of sediment deposited by centuries of mining those mountains out (you can see the natural rock formations that returned, lots of people know the land they built on wasn’t there before it was developed). The hurricane wasn’t man made, but everything fucking else about that catastrophe was because of our activity.

                    I don’t know what the answer is, but I’ve been waiting for the democrat heroes to save the day since I started voting during Bush’s administration that I was thoroughly against and thought our invasion of Iraq was a war crime. Now we continue to this day with a never ending war machine and a corporation first politics that hasn’t ever changed. I’m all for us talking about some alternatives and pushing for everything and anything right now, not waiting to form something later to help “sway” the democrats policies (which it really didn’t in the long run did it?)

          • Rivalarrival@lemmy.today
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            8 days ago

            The Tea Party did not spoil a GOP election. The GOP caved and adopted their platform.

            The Democratic Party will do the same thing with the Guillotine Party.

      • Rivalarrival@lemmy.today
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        8 days ago

        We have already seen a third party take over a major party. The current problem with the GOP is because it absorbed the Tea Party.

        With the right symbol to rally behind, we can do the same thing to the Democratic party. We need to build the Guillotine Party.

        • ToastedPlanet@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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          8 days ago

          There already are two. We must co-opt one with a populist candidate. The Republican Party was already hijacked by Trump. That leaves the Democratic Party.

          • queermunist she/her@lemmy.ml
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            8 days ago

            Bernie tried twice, Democrats demonstrated their ability to stop that shit in its tracks. It will not work.

            The only solution is for progressives to abandon the Party and start their own to replace it. The US has replaced parties before, it can be done again.

            • MrMakabar@slrpnk.net
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              8 days ago

              The Democrat establishment wants power and for that they have to win elections. So having an anti establishment candidate is preferable to them over a Republicans victory. If anything good came out of the last election, it is that Trump as horrible as he is can still win elections against an establishment Democrat, so the Democrats have to change.

              Also changing the parties does not work. The problem is systematic and the US really needs to change its election system, to get better politics.

            • MonkRome@lemmy.world
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              8 days ago

              It didn’t work with Bernie for more reasons than the parties resistance. A lot of people on the left that dislike the party don’t seem to understand that you still have to join the party and get involved with it if you want the party to move left. Party members and active involved people shape where the party goes. We absolutely can shift the Dems left, but it means holding our noses and becoming the party. The Dems have always been an open door, big tent, party. Walk into the tent and change minds…

                • MonkRome@lemmy.world
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                  8 days ago

                  Yeah, the Dems are made up of scared moderates, because the left has completely abandoned politics and conceded all their power. If you want the party to move left, become the party. It really isn’t mystical or complicated, power goes to those that take it. The left would rather stand on the outside looking in be cause at least they can complain and blame everyone else but themselves.

                  • queermunist she/her@lemmy.ml
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                    7 days ago

                    What the hell are you talking about?

                    They rat fucked Bernie out of the race in 2020 because they would rather lose than let a socialist become the nominee, and though they managed to win in 2020 because of COVID they failed to sustain that support and lost the popular vote. This was the direct result of the DNC rejecting their left portion of their base, because they’re the ones would rather critique power than take it.

                    And now that Trump is in he’s going to make sure Democrats never win again. Are you going to join the Republicans and try to move them to the Left? 🙄

                    The only means of obtaining power now is mass struggle. Your vote won’t count for shit ever again, if you’re even allowed to vote. Get with the program.

              • Krauerking@lemy.lol
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                8 days ago

                I tried to run for a small local position with the DNC using one of their arms that is for “funding and supporting small progressives” well that first bit is a lie. First question they asked me was how much money I had and if I had rich family to fund my campaign.

                I told them not really but I would rather talk policy and maybe alternatives to spending money and they told me to pretend to be religious to find a good church to get donations from cause there are some rich churches.

                I told them I was a Buddhist and happy for it, and they suggested I either find some other wealthy Buddhists cause they were sure I should be able to find some or maybe I should consider not running at all and just donating to this group or volunteering for free to them.

                This will take acceptance and support from the people that run the party and all the wealthy party owners that view themselves better than working class because of their connections and wealth.

                • MonkRome@lemmy.world
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                  8 days ago

                  I’ve worked for the party and even helped recruit candidates. Some of what you’re writing here seems very inconsistent with how we did things at least in Minnesota and Wisconsin. No one would ever address religion or social class at all here. And funding your own campaign is usually a fools errand, because raising money helps people become invested in your campaign.

                  But candidates are still expected to fundraise in some way shape or form. You can’t be a viable candidate in today’s world without money. Until elections are publicly funded and banned from raising their own money, money will always be necessary. The ability to fundraise also proves viability, people that raise money show people are quite literally invested in your campaign, making them statistically likely to vote and more likely to volunteer for ‘get out the vote’ efforts.

                  • Krauerking@lemy.lol
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                    8 days ago

                    I understand all that but instead of starting with ways to start naturally and get your name out there it was directly to money. No, conversation on anything else. Just a dollar threshold for us to hit or get out of their hair.

                    This was with the “run for something” group while in Florida. But there was definitely people from other states and they were all equally disturbed at the immediate grilling for us to fund ourselves and to be in a major religion.

                    I do get that it seems ass backwards and incompatible with how a person would actually run for a local position and it’s why a lot of people have become disenfranchised by the whole system and party.

            • zephorah@lemm.ee
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              8 days ago

              Third party doesn’t work. You have to do what trump did, 1 man coup from the inside.

              • bstix@feddit.dk
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                8 days ago

                Apparently Republican voters are gonna set the mark at R regardless of who it is, so how about having someone like Bernie run in the Republican primary.

            • ToastedPlanet@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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              8 days ago

              Trump tried once and it worked. Neoliberal ideas are entrenched in the minds of Americans. Neoliberalism only allows change to the people in charge of systems as it asserts, incorrectly, that our institutions are flawless. Since neoliberals only consider changing people, it is much easier for a fascist to convince a neoliberal to change the people in society. Where as it is much harder for a progressive or a socialist to convince a neoliberal to enact systemic change or redistribute wealth respectively.

              In short, people with neoliberal ideas in their head need to fully internalize neoliberalism as a scam.

              Abandoning the Democrats will not result in them being replaced. They will continue to exist by moving further to the right, as Democrats like Chris Murphy have already proposed.

              Starting a successful third party is mathematically impossible under a FPTP system. Third party candidates can only be spoiler candidates.

        • ToastedPlanet@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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          8 days ago

          No, it’s a problem for the people empowering the right by refusing to vote for the leaning right of center, neoliberal Democrats. People are attempting to get a moral victory over the Democrats by refusing to vote for them. This strategy makes minorities the cost of doing business.

            • ToastedPlanet@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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              8 days ago

              No, the far-right exists because of late-stage capitalism and over 40 years of neoliberalism pushed by both mainstream parties since Reagan. The Democrats lost in large part because of their refusal to adopt a populist narrative. They didn’t go left enough. But refusing to vote for them or espousing accelerationist rhetoric because of that is self-defeating, harms minorities, and opens to the door to devastating climate change scenarios. edit: typo