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From a non-US standpoint this is rather easy:
You have 2 geriatric options. Option 1 would lead to a dictatorship. Option 2 would lead to the - non-ideal - status quo.
How the fuck do you even have to think about which option would be better???
The Dems have ran non ideal status quo candidates for so long it becomes fatiguing so people stay home or write in Snoop Dogg.
While I totally understand the frustration - apathy cannot be a solution in this scenario!
You'd rather sit at home and watch your democracy go up in flames than just make an "x" on a piece of paper or a screen? Seriously, come on man...
Nothing in the comment to which you replied suggests that the commenter has given up. They merely describe what causes people to do so. At least as I read it.
Democracy is going up in flames either way, the question is whether we want it fast or slow. The only way to stop it is for the Dems to put up decent candidates who want to stop the slide, and thus far, they've declined to do so. So while yes, we should keep voting blue to slow the slide, we shouldn't be stupid enough to believe that doing so is enough to stop it.
But if you don't consider Trump the absolute threat that he is, you just stay home. When I thought there was no way he'd win (2016) I didn't vote for Hilary because I hate her. I voted for Biden because the threat had become real.
Dems are correctly assessing that there are still people who see Trump as a clown show rather than a future dictator.
non-ideal over violent civil war
this is not a tough decision, my friend
fuckin find a decent nominee then
In 2020 there were double digits dems in the primary...
In 2024 we're expected to believe the only choice is Biden or a Republican.
If you're pissed "there's no other nominee" be mad at the party leaders who aren't allowing a primary. And realize there's 100s of people qualified to run as a Dem
You mean like one that already beat Trump once?
I always viewed Biden as the lemon I suck on to cleanse my palette between courses, now they want the lemon to be the whole damn meal.
You can't run on having people vote for you just to avoid voting in the enemy. You must get people to vote for you because they want you. One day, a broadly populist Reagan-like Republican candidate will re-appear and he will utterly destroy your country.
Loyal democrat, I will happily vote for Joe Biden.
As someone who voted Barr-Romney-Johnson-Biden I’m gonna be in the booth pissed I’m voting for Biden again considering the libertarians fully lost the plot and Republicans went full fascist with trump
Then maybe get a better candidate? I'm pretty sure most sane Americans will vote for anyone not Trump. It's not that hard, just use another candidate.....
If they got a better candidate, they would have to represent their constituents. Democrats don't want that. They want to ride high on Republican tax policies.
Democrats have done a shit job at selling their victories as well as their vision for the country, as always.
Then come election time they are always wondering why aren't Democratic voters more excited to vote for them.
I am so sick of that same cycle repeating over and over again. Republicans voters are so adamant about getting their people in power that they will break the law and vote twice, and Dem voters aren't excited enough to even show up at the polls.
I also have to add that it's infuriating that the Dems are so splintered of a party that they consider black voters are their most loyal demographic. Nothing against them, but for fucks sakes guys at best black folks only represent 13% of the population. You can't win any elections even if you won every single black vote. They aren't even the largest minority group. Latinos represent just under 20% but many of them support the GOP. Dems need to stop turning their backs on some much larger demographic groups out there. Because they focus on just a few smaller groups, that's why they are always scrounging for votes even in elections that they should have in the bag. It is embarrassing how poorly run the Democratic party is, quite frankly.
God, they really think the problem is a lack of outreach and communication huh?
How about y'all fuckn listen?
It's pretty obvious who to vote for considering Republicans are actively attacking our country. Sorry, I don't vote for terrorists.
He was too old the first time, I'm surprised he made it this long. I was under the impression that their plan was to have biden die during his term so kamala became the first woman president.
"... Their plan was to have Biden die...."
Can you hear yourself? That's f'ng crazy.
Oh look - election season has officially kicked off with the DNC's first attempt at trying to guilt trip people into voting for their shitty candidate.
Expect many MANY more of these in the months to come.
It really takes a special kind of scumbag to decide that the proper strategy is to nominate a dismally corrupt and/or incompetent sack of shit then try to guilt trip people into voting for them and blame the voters if they lose, when they could just nominate a decent candidate and people would willingly and even eagerly vote for them and they'd win easily.
I sometimes wonder what it's like to be that entirely devoid of principles or integrity.
I imagine it involves a lot of alcohol.
Nobody needs to initiate any type of guilt trip. We've all been through 4 years of Trump. We currently are (finally) starting to see the indictments that wrought.
We have seen what DeSantis has done to Florida. Where, just today, they effectively outlawed AP Psychology for high school students. State-level brain drain, and trans genocide.
There's no option here and you're a piece of shit if you don't vote, or if you vote for the party that is literally an organized crime syndicate at this point, with a candidate who literally (and I mean like literally literally) should be in prison right now.
If you still need to be guilt tripped in order to make the right choice, then it sounds like you're kind of a piece of shit.
There zero chance democrats dont show up if trumps on the ballot nobody is better at energizing the democrats base than trump
I don't cross picket lines, why would I vote for a union buster? Balk all you want but that's my hard line. Already listed out the local reps I can't vote for because of the same reason. Y'all can bend your beliefs however you want to justify feedin into the same old cycle but I told them this was my hard line and they crossed it. Fuck them.
If Trump is elected do you think that his administration would be more friendly to unions than the Biden administration?
If you're mad about Biden forcibly ending the rail strike (which was honestly infuriating) you should know that his administration continued to work with the labor union afterward to negotiate a deal while also avoiding a disastrous economic shutdown that would have resulted from the strike. Could Biden have done more to get a deal without forcing an end to the strike? Maybe. Should he have let the economy collapse in order to support labor rights? Maybe, but I understand why he didn't.
Biden was basically my last choice of the field of democrats running in 2020 but I don't know what anyone else would have done to achieve better results.
Honestly given the way elections work I'm the us this is a pretty shit line of reasoning
Trump is a union buster and more
Not voting democrat is a direct vote for fascism. Just because it's not ideal and not fair doesn't make it any less true.
First of all, I don't even understand the mindset of someone who doesn't vote. So you don't really like any of the candidates, so what? Vote for the least worst option or the actual worst option could win (see: 2016).
Second, to be fair, any party could try running someone who's less than a million years old. American politics are so bizarre this way. Canada's current PM was 43 when he was elected and still more than 30 years younger than America's current president. Parliament is populated largely by middle agers and a few younger members, whereas congress is a sea of bald and gray, pockmarked by a small handful of 40 somethings? Shit is ridiculous.
Privilege.
Not them tho, you. Your privilege is why you can't understand it.
Some people have to wait 8 hours in line while taking a day off work without pay. All for someone whose not going to actually help them. Their choice is "things get obviously worse for me" and "things get worse for me, but slower and no one talks about it".
We could try actually following thru with campaign promises and helping them, but for some reason we dont. Once elected all the Dem presidents in the last 3-4 decades immediately start telling us their campaign promises are obviously impossible so they're just not going to really try.
Even Obamacare was just Mitt Romney's plan by the time it happened.
Personally tho, it takes less than an hour for me to vote and I get a paid half day from work to do so. So I always vote.
That doesn't mean I assume it's as easy for everyone else
In a lot of areas voting isn't easy. It's something you have to work to do. Why stand in the freezing November air worried you're gonna be late for work and lose your job if you're not excited? Why do it in the morning? Because maybe you're me in your 20s and don't have a car and you can actually make it to when the polls open in the morning but not the evening with how the schedules run.
Why go up to the election office and force them to take your mail in ballet after it was rejected twice because your signature "didn't match" if you're not excited?
Why finagle a time in your day when you can stand in the cold for an hour without your baby if you're not excited?
Why stand until you want to literally because the line was way longer than you thought it was and you didn't bring a chair this time if you're not excited?
All this happened to me over the course of me voting in my adult life. This doesn't count how voting locations constantly move on me for reasons unknown. It's not that the voting location moved. For some reason I was just assigned a different location. The times where I've been given the run around about where I should vote. The times where I tried to vote, but whoops all the machines are broken and I decided that I didn't want to wait for a repair which could take hours.
Voting is hard. It can be a breezy affair, but I've never experienced that in presidential elections or midterms, only really in special state elections or pure local elections. The system is definitely rigged against you and you have to ask yourself if it's worth fighting. Is denying my kid's time with me worth this? Is enduring this strain on my body worth this? Is the mental energy when I'm tired from work worth this? I get what you'd say no even if I always say yes
Maybe... Maaaaaayyyyyyybeeeee the Democrats need to nominate someone who is actually worth getting excited about instead of just being not-Trump.
I've experienced a infinitesimal fraction of the bullshit, and empathize with the disillusionment. The system is dying. Trump did his damage already. That and worse are inevitable. Money in politics. Money in all of it, i mean you have people being locked up in the name of corporate, and ecobomic interest ffs. I vote in all the elections especially local because that can help shift police behavior for the better of day to day people. I didn't always vote. When trump first won I was listening on a broken wireless am radio in a shitty apt with no power or food in absolute wonder at the depravity of man and the meaning of it all for me... I didn't vote that year. Fuck me right? I didn't even know where the polls were. The people not voting are the ones pushing boundaries IMHO. What we are opposed to is the ruling class. The dnc bootlickers and fascists alike can get fucked.
Wed need the second coming of Jesus to save this version of "democracy" ffs.
Funny given I'm only a democratic voter because socialist isn't a viable option where I live, yet I absolutely vote Democrat 99% of the time when it's an option.
For those unaware, most smaller offices the opposition party won't even bother with a candidate. By and large, Republicans have no chance in sense cities (like Chicago or NYC) and Democrats have no chance in just about anywhere rural.