this post was submitted on 15 Aug 2023
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yeah, thats been going great so far
The right loves anti-electoralism on the left, it means that they have less of a fight from the left.
Can you imagine how bad things would be if people didn't vote if they felt like they were picking between the lesser of 2 evils?
This nation would look a whole hell of a lot like modern Florida with it's politics because Republicans in general turn out way more often than anyone else to vote.
Then why have things been getting so much worse over the past 50 years even with plenty of blue boys and gals getting put in office?
Because Republicans? We've not had plenty of blues elected. We've seen abysmal showings from the left and republicans being elected across the nation who are setting out to destroy people's rights.
What about the good that has happened?
Do you think gay marriage would have been protected?
Access to birth control secured?
Anti-sodomy laws getting struck down?
The Affordable Care Act passing?
Disability rights?
Do you think any of those things would have happened if Republicans been able to seize power and hold it unopposed over the last 50 years? No. None of those things would have happened. Those things happened because people further left than them got elected, the lesser of 2 evils won some elections.
Don't let perfect be the enemy of better.
disability rights were fought for by disabled people, not fucking democrats. Gay people rioted to get their rights.
and do you actually think contraceptives are secured?
Do you think any of those things would have passed in a country where people didn't vote?
And all those rights secured by supreme court rulings are sitting on shaky ground, why? Republicans stacking the courts.
They're sitting on shaky ground because Obama refused to seat a justice, RBG refused to retire when she could have been replaced, and because Biden et all refuse to stack the courts.
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Obama didn't refuse to seat a justice, he was blocked by Mitch McConnell. Who also blocked every single judge appointment that Obama should have been able to make in the last 2 years of his presidency. And Republicans were talking about leaving that seat open until a Republican won the presidency. This is why trump has the most judicial appointments of any president.
And RBG reduced to retire likely out of pride during the Obama years, but smartly didn't retire during the trump years.
Biden refusing to stack the courts is pretty shitty, but if he does so it's going to open the flood gates for that being a possibility. Do I think he should? Yes. But I also think that if he does so their should be a cap put in place, but to put a cap in place would require a constitutional amendment, and there's no way that will get through our current Senate.
It would have been on a state-by-state basis, which is what we're coming dangerously close to anyway.
We don't go around campaigning specifically to discourage people from voting. Our project is to get people to see beyond the seesaw spectacle.
When someone offers you two poor options, the right thing to do is to create a better option, even if you take the less bad option in the short run. Voting a Democrat into office and then congratulating ourselves on doing it is how progress slips and how we lose sight of what's needed.
Gay marriage isn't protected. Scotus can shoot it down on a whim
Lol Biden lost Roe
Court decision
Sucks
What rights? SSI tops out at 700$ a month, I can never have more than 2k in assets, and if I get married I lose it all. Just happened to a friend of mine, they're going to have to annul their marriage so they don't starve to death. "disability rights".
Ummm because nuance is a thing that exists. Global conditions, etc. I mean the guy in power during the pandemic saying we should inject bleach or nuke incoming hurricanes sure as shit helped things be worse.
The crux of the issue is, where you see a democracy that is keeping fascism at bay, we see through the illusion of choice that keeps allowing the slow steady march towards fascism.
It's a ratchet. Gop moves everything rightward (including the Dems) and the Dems refuse to push left in the name of "bipartisanship". Then conditions get worse (because the policy is further right than before), Dems eventually lose because they allow gridlock and the ratchet suddenly frees up and cranks to the right again.
And how much worse would it be right now if Dems never won elections due to people saying "this dem isn't far enough left therefore I won't vote"?
How far right would things have flown?
Voting for the lesser of 2 evils reduces harm now. And when the lesser of 2 evils isn't pushed that things are allowed to shift further to shit.
Let me be more blunt. We do not live in a democracy. Voting is fundamentallly unable to change that.
idk man there's a literal genocide going on right now I think we're past the point of quibbling over minor differences in the deree of evil.
A genocide being perpetrated by Republicans.
Who can forget these 16 states (blue states) introducing trans refugee bills. Does that look like something republicans would do?
The parties are not the same, there are differences between them.
Study: Testing Theories of American Politics: Elites, Interest Groups, and Average Citizens:
From the abstract:
further down:
What is it, like, 70% of Americans want single payer healthcare?
No the right actually hates that. Democrats have been shrieking at us to vote for years even though the entire left in the US is a tiny fraction of the registered electorate. But the right wing won't stop screaming at us about it.