Let’s see your tune in 4 years lmao all you fuckwits who stayed home did was force everyone to live under the authoritarians right now. You sacrificed marginalized groups because of a complete lack of perspective and selfish bullshit.

You have four years every year to push for candidates you like. Local and state offices. So many opportunities to volunteer and donate. Then you all show up having done NOTHING during that time, strolling up in the general election endlessly complaining and moaning. I’m so fucking sick of it.

Change takes work and time. Sitting around whining online doing nothing for 3.5 years then showing up in the general is not putting in the work. It’s being entitled brats.

[–] SinAdjetivos@beehaw.org 3 points 6 days ago (4 children)

We've been living in an authoritarian right wing country for 25-50 years. Historically the tactic of "we must sacrifice [insert marginalized group here] or it'll get worse for us all!!!" has been very effective.

I find it very hopeful that this was the year that people were finally very vocally opposed that tactic and think it's a good sign going forward that things might actually get better. However, that is reliant on people like you waking up to the fact that no amount of time and effort put into reinforcing the sacrificial machine will ever change its fundamental nature and that what you view as "being entitled brats" is often simply refusing to participate in the death, enslavement and marginalization of others.

Is active resistance better? Yes! But token resistance while actively reinforcing the authoritarian right is worse than nothing. The vast majority of those "opportunities to volunteer and donate" are doing just that; a $5 donation to "lesser evil INC." is still actively funding evil.

Your frustration and anxiety for the future is perfectly valid, and I appreciate that you are at least a little mad about the state of things. But I would ask that you step back, reevaluate, and redirect that rage and start punching up instead of looking for who to punch down at.

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[–] Andrzej3K@hexbear.net 1 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Out of interest, what do you do to push for progressive reform? Because if it's phone banking for right-wingers, I'm not sure that counts.

[–] LandedGentry@lemmy.zip 2 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (1 children)

I currently volunteer with and donate to the EFF and CSE, and I worked both of Bernie’s campaign. If your goal is to flip the script on me you’ll need to find another approach. Or you could try actually engaging the points.

Yes it was overly angry and ranty but I am tired of repeating it and this election was frustrating as fuck.

[–] Andrzej3K@hexbear.net 2 points 5 days ago (1 children)

It was genuine curiosity. There are people like you was my point. Perhaps not enough, but not everyone has the resources to be an activist. And it should hardly be surprising that people stayed home this time, considering what was on offer.

[–] LandedGentry@lemmy.zip 1 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (1 children)

Yes it’s a privilege to be able to do what I do. But I guarantee you almost every person who goes online writing comment after comments about how “there are simply no good candidates” could’ve donated a few dollars or phone banked at least once for someone. If you ask them who they would have wanted instead they can’t even answer that because they don’t know. They just get mad at the establishment during the final hours then disappear for a few years and never try to do anything about it.

[–] Andrzej3K@hexbear.net 1 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Again though, I really can't blame people for being disillusioned with the democratic system in general, right? We've just been through a generational moment where any viable left opposition in the West got shit-housed into oblivion, and AOC is giving us a great lesson in what succeeding through the proper channels means in practice. And what has been the response from the political class more generally? To move even further right!

It's a miserable situation ofc, and I don't blame you at all for venting. But neither do I blame people for venting despite doing nothing else. Sanders raised a lot of money, and a lot of volunteer hours, and what did it yield? And the fallout from Corbynism has been as bad if not worse. Many people got blacklisted over it, and several door knockers ended up in hospital — why would anyone want to put themselves on the line like that again, especially when the potential gains are so meager?

Dgmw, I too wish that people would channel their anger through effective organizing, but imho it's become a lot less clear in recent years what that would mean.

[–] LandedGentry@lemmy.zip 1 points 5 days ago

There are a myriad of fantastic organizations doing great work and if 5% of the disillusioned crowd got involved they’d make huge gains. They just want a single President to magic wand everything they want into existence, if they can even define what they want half the time.

I get what you’re saying I really do but we do this same song and dance every 4 years since 2012

[–] Floon@lemmy.ml 9 points 6 days ago

Too many commenters here do not understand anything about how any of it works, especially how first past the post voting works. Progressives do not seem to understand that the system has not rejected them, but the voters have.

It is mostly relentless propaganda for the oligarchs that has captured the country. That’s the problem, and it is not fixed by any of the suggestions here.

[–] banshee@lemmy.world 9 points 6 days ago

Not sure this makes sense. I think the window shifts right as people continue to vote right.

From the Wikipedia article about the Overton window:

The most common misconception is that lawmakers themselves are in the business of shifting the Overton window. That is absolutely false. Lawmakers are actually in the business of detecting where the window is, and then moving to be in accordance with it.

[–] LovableSidekick@lemmy.world 8 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) (2 children)

Or we can go directly to the bottom frame like we're gonna do - but go ahead and keep rationalizing why your moral pedestal was too lofty to vote for Kamala.

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[–] Dragon@lemmy.ml 7 points 6 days ago (1 children)

IMO the only way around this problem in the USA is to either (A) get a third party to the point of legitimacy where people will take them seriously be winning seats in the house and senate, and eventually running for the presidency, or (B) win a primary in one of the two major parties. By election day there is nothing to do but vote for the least worst option.

[–] Liz@midwest.social 2 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Gotta switch to Approval Voting for single-seat elections and the proportional variant for legislatures.

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[–] LifeOfChance@lemmy.world 6 points 6 days ago (4 children)

Honestly I'm just at the point where I'm sitting back watching this country be torn apart. Everything anyone ever has done is wrong but also maybe it's right and everyone acts like they know which is which. The country is entirely divided when the war within itself kicks off I'll be just on my porch watching because I'm done trying to make heads or tails of this mess.

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[–] Feathercrown@lemmy.world 3 points 6 days ago (1 children)

This is true, but it's also STILL WORSE to vote for the greater evil. You need to change the options available to you to fix this.

[–] LifeInMultipleChoice@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) (1 children)

It's also true that you get backlashes normally if the system doesn't get to far out of wack. FDR wasnt right of Hoover Coolridge and Harding. Sure one can argue overall we were shifting to the right... But we were NEVER going to be left of center so long as the U.S. existed, because the constitution is built on capitalism. Capitalism has a slow decay, can it be fixed? Maybe. Is it fixable now, maybe not. Could we have fixed it if we followed Carter with a closer to center President instead of Reagan, A LOT easier to have done it then... It took 60 years to get taxes on the rich to this point.

[–] Feathercrown@lemmy.world 2 points 5 days ago

I don't think the constitution is very capitalist tbh

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