this post was submitted on 22 Jun 2023
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I really don't disagree with you, but if we want democrats to show up and vote, this is not the attitude that will make it happen. People largely believe their votes don't matter. If the candidate is bad anyway, why even bother? I'm not saying this negativity is the only (or biggest) problem, but it is very discouraging.
Let's get better candidates where we can, but we need to go full speed with the best we have. If democrat voter turnout was better, there would be no contest, and maybe we could start having a real dialogue about improvements instead of just fighting to avoid more far right extremism.
note: I'm not a Democrat. I'm more 'Democrat' than 'Republican', but it's the same way I'm more in favor of consuming brussels sprouts than dirty sink water. I don't like brussels sprouts, and would rather have something better, but the only other option is somehow light-years worse. And it will stay this way until we get rid of first-past-the-post voting. Of course, Dems and Repubs both know that the biggest thing keeping them in power is the fact that we have first-past-the-post voting, so there's no chance of it going away nationally.
But anyway, I disagree with your premise that the big thing keeping us from having to deal with far right extremism is quality candidates / better turnout. We had some pretty damn decent candidates in 2020, but the media (especially NPR and the like) are too busy going to small-town diners in order to hear local yokels repeat Fox News talking points to talk about why Fox News is so scared of the candidate. The right-wing media machine is going to target whichever Dem candidate will actually make progress, and the mainstream media just goes along with it. Mainstream media goes along with whatever ridiculous thing the right says about a Dem candidate because mainstream media wants right-wing viewers. Challenging right-wing viewpoints doesn't increase the right-wing audience share for CNN and NPR, going along with their talking points does (well, not really, but CNN and NPR seem to think it does, despite years of evidence to the contrary).
Also, Biden got the most votes out of any candidate ever in 2020, and we still have a rise in right-wing extremism. Just over 2/3rds of the voting-eligible public turned out to vote in 2020. And I think I can safely say that right-wing extremism is worse now than it was in 2019. My local library is getting flack because they had the audacity to acknowledge the existence of LGBTQ+ people this month. Like, protests and loud angry attendance at monthly board meetings. This has never happened before to my library.
Right-wing extremism is enabled and promoted despite how much the majority of this nation disagrees with it.