A democratic that is average at democracy is better than a conservative who is great at authoritarianism.
“average at democracy” is when you aggressively expand the world’s largest police state while persuing a policy of genocide.
Most people wanted to stop sending money for wars, and Democrats kept sending money for wars. Most people wanted to defund the police and democrats tripled the police budget. That is not a democracy. That is the total opposite of a democracy.
Tripled the police budget?
Yes, Joe “We have to back the blue” Biden tripled the police budget during and after the BLM protests
What police budget?
Not seeing the word triple there at all, weird.
Also curious what police budget he doubled, I thought congress handled money
Thank you for the links! So grants and budget proposals, that makes sense. Those are the only 2 vehicles for the white house to add funding, right? The white house cant just “increase the police budget” right?
Umm… Even us on .world agree that Dems are controlled opposition and useless if we want any actual change.
Depends, is it an article about Trump? Democrats are saints who can’t fail, only be failed.
Is it an article about Democrats doing nothing that hasn’t been removed by the mods yet? You’ll probably not be downvoted for saying “Biden should have done more of his promises and getting Trump arrested should have been the priority.”
Not on the .world I’ve seen
Looook,
We are ALL going to Hell, FAST (choose your doom(CC,WWIII,etc).
We are all in the same car, here -like it, or not.
One party, …I’ll let you guess which 😉, has the accelerator pinned to the mat. “We’ll be there in 5 minutes, Boys!! HELL ON EARTH HERE WE COME!”
The other party, is simply driving at half that speed. Results are the same. They are flawed. But they CAN slow the car to give us a bit more time to “brace for impact”. But they too bought into Hell as a destination.
But ya, we’re ALL fucked no matter how much you pledge to one party or the other. One party just whispers in your ear and it’s a bit more gentle while they fuck your already ragged ass.
The other party just dry-humps you violently until your blood provides enough lube for them to finish while pounding their chest as you lie there, bleeding out of your ass on the nice, clean sheets.
That about sums it up from my perspective.
The problem with this is that it assumes both parties act independently.
You know how right now how Republicans are willing to use every loophole, cite ancient forgotten laws, and violate every norm? That’s always been possible. You can’t actually write a constitution to constrain bad-faith actors. You can always come up with a bogus interpretation to do what you want.
If this is possible, you have to ask, why did leaders ever try to follow the law in good faith? How was it ever possible to establish a norms-based stability when either side could knock over the board at any moment?
The answer is that good-faith interpretation of the law fails when people only do so out of principle. It succeeds when good-faith interpretation is a peace treaty. Both sides agree to follow the law in good faith, as the alternative is complete chaos as both sides try to twist every loophole.
Democrats are a bunch of liberal arts majors that have forgotten that Democracy and the rule of law does not exist because everyone worships them as high ideals. They exist because they are a compromise, a peace treaty.
Republicans break norms. In response, Dems latch on even tighter to the norms. Instead, they should be seeking to break them at every opportunity they can. They need to be as ruthless as the Republicans, and even more so.
Following the rule of law is hard. It means giving up power and results that you could otherwise achieve by violating the rule of law.
Right now, only Democrats are trying to obey every norm and precedent. As such, Republicans have nothing to lose by violating these. It’s all upside to them. Their bad behavior is the direct result of Democratic cowardice. If Democrats were willing to give as well as they get, we could actually have a rules-based order again. Paradoxically, a prerequisite for rules to be effective is that both sides need to be willing to violate them.
Well said!
In short, fire with fire. …can’t fight a war with one hand tied to your balls, etc.
Dems have forgotten this. They need a leader to remind them and lead the charge.
As I like to say, “The moral high road is filled with corpses”
if someone told you that, that’s what their sex life was like; you would assume that they’re a damaged person who needs psychiatric help and those psychiatrist would try to help steer them away from sex partners like that and towards healthier sex partners.
even our neighbors to the south have learned this fact and made their own sex lives better; but we americans are like battered spouses who keep bouncing back and forth between the same 2 abusive lovers because we both refuse to accept how damaged we truly are and because the more damaged among us keep re-inforcing the propaganda that voting democrat or republican is the only “grown up” choice to make as the “adults in the room”.
we’re only destined for hell if we keep rejecting a third party; places like mexico have already proved that things get A LOT better once you stop carrying the propaganda that third party is “throwing away” your vote.
(or atleast until you get the america’s attention and they send in their military and bankers to force you back into those abusive relationships… again).
Democrats suck and are ineffectual at accomplishing their (generally decent) goals.
Republicans are trying to turn the US into a dicatorship. I hope this was a hyperbolic statement, but it seems like this is where we are now.
Why can’t we be critical of democrats by being selective in the primaries? I think that a protest vote for an independent candidate, especially if you were in a swing state, has proven to have been a very poor choice.
Why can’t we be critical of democrats by being selective in the primaries?
Because half the time they don’t have primaries and the other half they call anyone making good arguments “unelectable radicals”
This is funny to me, because in many red states there aren’t even Democrat candidates to oppose Republicans.
There were four republicans running unopposed on my ballot in 2024.
Don’t just “call them”, they actively sabotage them in a way they never do with a reactionary. Labor did it to Corbyn as well, this is deeply ingrained in bourgeois “democracies”, if you can vote for somebody who will try to bring change, they’ve already fucked up a bunch of times.
We are critical of them in the primaries and their supporters vote for the same evil assholes we hate and then call us radicals when we won’t support them. I am so sick of having to explain this to people as if they haven’t rat fucked good candidates out of the primaries multiple times.
…when they bother with having primaries at all.
Exactly. Like fuck off with that bullshit. We tried it your way. Now we are here. Take accountability for the first time ever, lib.
Accountability for their actions and learning from mistakes is actually a Russian psyop paid for by Fox News /s
Nah they hold the “balanced and nuanced perspective” of shutting their eyes, plugging their ears, going “Lalala Free Market Lalala Free Market…” at the top of their lungs where their children can see them.
Why can’t we be critical of democrats by being selective in the primaries?
lol even when you try to do this Pelosi will push the thumb on the scale to get Cuellar, one of the shittiest Democrats (and that’s really saying something) reelected over challenger Jessica Cisneros. Or you can even win the primary and then the state party will allow you to languish because you’re a working class demsoc instead of a trusted middle-manager of capital. The Dems need people like Cuellar, Sinema, and Manchin so that whenever they have a majority they can still sit around and do fucking nothing until the Republicans come in and shift everything further rightward. Dems love this. Ratchet effect is real. Fuck the Democratic Party. At least the Republicans are honest about how much they hate us.
Their generally decent goals of bombing children in Afghanistan, bombing people in Palestine, starving children in Yemen, starving children in Cuba, starving children in Venezuela, caging children in the US, torturing people in Guantanamo, bombing children in Yugoslavia, and so on?
Are they only powerful enough to do monstrous shit or do they think you’re stupid and will buy their hand wringing? They could have forced through Medicare, deliberately chose not to. They could have codified reproduction rights, deliberately chose not to.
well I hope that if you come out of this you come out with a better electoral system I’ll say that
You are not wrong. My point is that dictator trump and his cronies will pave over the bones of Palestinians and turn Gaza into a Trump resort. Strip the rights of all non-christians, minorities, women, and lgbt in America(and this is just citizens!). Take away the only public service for healthcare, meager that it is. We will see nothing but negative progress and monstrous acts from this admin. Monstrous in a far more sinster and evil way than ever before.
My point is that dictator trump and his cronies will pave over the bones of Palestinians and turn Gaza into a Trump resort.
So far, Trump has been slightly better than the Democrats on Gaza, but because democrat supporters refused to acknowledge how bad it was when it was Democrats doing it, they don’t realise.
the key thing is do they suck more than trump
if you’d like a safe space to create the new democratic socialism then fine
but don’t come here pissing on my leg and telling me it’s raining. i’m going to send you packing back to daddy putin
Voting for genociders and pro-militarized police didn’t stop the genocide or police murdering black people, so I would count it as a very ineffective strategy as well. I rather vote for what I actually believe in than not voting because I will hell not vote for the garbage democrats.
Edit: “Protest vote” lmao, I don’t owe my vote to Democrats.
It’s the compromise for the vulnerable that most often gets brought up in this situation. A protest vote in a broken first-past-the-post election system generally helps the opposition to your vote. Republicans have demonstrated they hate the vulnerable (disabled, poor, debt-ridden) and Democrats are weak in their opposition, but if you want the help those that are vulnerable you would generally not want to subject them to Republicans, whom benefit from your protest vote.
Another argument is that if you fracture the opposition to bootlickers, the bootlickers will win.
I am sorry, but as a black man, I am supposed to be your sacrificial lamb and your fucking compromise for you for what? So you feel safe in your fucking neighborhood? I am sure that all black people will agree when I say: “Fuck you from the bottom of my heart”
You clearly didn’t understand the point, and I’m 98% sure you aren’t what you claim you are, so continue raging into the void like a dipshit and see how far that furthers your goals
Lol, never takes much to make blueMAGA fascists take the mask off
No, no, fuck you. I mentioned how democrats use militarized police against black people and you say that is supposed to be a fucking compromise. Fuck you, you racist asshole. Fucking white liberals are the fucking worse. No wonder why both MLK and Malcolm X hated your ass.
Don’t be silly dude everyone knows only white liberals are smart enough to operate a computer. Everyone else is a bot or a troll.
Democrats still believe police unions when they threaten “stability” strikes, because they also benefit from system as is.
Anyone who tells me “as a black man” immediately gets out into white-dipshit-in-an-anonymous-forum-spreading-propaganda, where you will remain because rather than address the broken voting system and argue in-good-faith about mitigation of harm to the vulnerable-at-large, you responded with unrelated vitriol and really want us all to know, on an anonymous forum, that you are X thing.
I’m Donald fucking Trump and you can’t disprove that.
Funny you call me liberal when I’ve said no such thing, almost like you’re trying to steer the narrative.
Keep whining like a dipshit and attacking people who are less harmful to your community than those in power, who you helped get there with your “protest” vote, rather than work to address the systemic issues that plague all of us.
Bro, Biden tripled the budget of cops and you say that they are less harmful?! What is wrong with you?! “Good faith argument” with someone who automatically says that I am lying and who say that people dying should be a compromise, gotcha. My elders MLK, Malcolm X and the Black Panthers have all said that Democrat sucks and the only way forward is socialism. I am going to listen to them instead of you trying to whitesplain to me why Democrats are the best my community got.
Edit: They all died fighting for socialism, not for milquetoast liberties granted in fascism like the ones we get under democrats.
the better argument is that our system is both intentionally keeping these groups vulnerable and in large part to use them as bait to get you to vote the way they want you to; effectely entrapping you into this system so that you remain ignorant of the fact these same vulnerable groups are empowered and the driving force for change outside this country.
Until they realize that empowerment, there will be suffering, and it seems to be accelerationists who want that suffering to drive change. The whole point is that the system is broken in a first-past-the-post democracy.
I can tell you right now those same vulnerable people are not ready to rise up, though I wish that weren’t the case. There are people who still believe in decorum lmao.
We can talk all we want about people recognizing empowerment, but you’re also fighting entrenched propaganda campaigns that keep those same people fearful and against solidarity. Talk to any working class Fox News watching disphit.
Really until I see one of you propose, or enact, ways to counter that propaganda and lead people to understand their empowerment, ima keep doing me and trying to reduce the harm to the vulnerable people as best I can.
The system is not broken, it is working as intended. Telling you it’s broken is so they can dangle “fixing it” in front of your face like a carrot on a stick, but it will never ever happen for as long as capitalists are allowed to run our world and make decisions for us.
You want “ways to counter that propaganda and lead people to understand their empowerment”, the answer is and always has been class consciousness and historical materialism. It starts with you. Pick up a fucking book and seek it out. Cause I’m not seeing any ideas from you either and whether we like it or not, we are all in this together.
Mexico proved that it’s possible w/o removing the propaganda; queers, trans, students, leftists, women and indigenous people joined to together to kick out both of the liberal and conservative parties to bring in amlo & sheinbaum’s third party for the first time in over a century. Now the pri and the pan are just as irrelevant as a Republican in California or a Democrat in Texas
You’re not helping; you’re only perpetuating the harm to vulnerable people when you cooperate they way they want you to.
whom benefit from your protest vote.
Who*
You would have to be lying or a complete idiot to not realize we haven’t had a remotely fair primary in almost 20 years.
Why can’t we be critical of democrats by being selective in the primaries?
Watch out guys, we got a Vooter over here!
Democrats suck and are ineffectual at accomplishing their (generally decent) goals.
Genocide apologia
Nah. Both parties suck. Repubs damage, Dems half ass do damage control, then sit around making minor changes and act like they’re saviors. The geriatric fucks that hold seats have no semblance of understanding the current world and so we fall behind the curve further every year. Easy things that are obvious never get passed because those get bribed. Sick of the whole system obviously.
Democrats don’t do damage control, they actively build the machinery for the next republican to be even more brutal.
They got so heated about pro Palestinian stuff on TikTok that they handed Donald Trump authority to ban any website he feels like by executive fiat. Then TikTok didn’t get banned and Trump got for credit for saving it.
I will never forget kente clothes.
Republicans are the problem. Democrats are pretending to be the solution but are also the problem.
The reason Democrats deserve more hate is because they divert people from organising a solution to the problem. At least Republicans are honest about how much they suck.
I think of it like this, democrats are rectal cancer, but rebublicans are gushing arterial spray. Not all, of course. Generalizations are lazy. But the choice is clear, and that choice is rectal cancer.
I legitimately haven’t seen anyone defend democrats. They’re like the IRS: necessary, but no one likes them.
What I have seen is “democrats suck!” as a general deflection anytime someone mentions how bad this current administration is, how it could have been prevented, or what we need to do in the future…
What I hear is a lot of complaints and very few ideas of what to do about it. The Democrats can be forced to suck less.
The Democrats can be forced to suck less.
Then you probably should have done that before the genocide
I have seen plenty and Democrats are not like the IRS. They are not necessary at all. They are just one right wing party that should disappear and be taken by an actual left wing party. The fact that you think that they are necessary shows how deep the ingraining of the necessary of a bipartisan oligopoly has run in the populous.
`The fact that you think that they are necessary shows how deep the ingraining of the necessity of a bipartisan oligopoly has run in the populous.
This is the crux and can not be overstated.`
Let me guess, a left wing party that sucks it up to putin?
What’s your take on putins brutal invasion of Ukraine for example?
Is this leap because of the .ml on their name? I’m not trying to agitate you but it took me too long to understand how Putin was a part of this conversation. I could also just be dumb or missed something.
They aren’t wrong that the Dems are a right wing party and we deserve better, especially when compared to European politics.
If you told a lib they can’t drive because they’re too drunk they’d tell you only a paid Putin troll would say it and drive off yelling about democracy
I’m european BTW.
What do you think about putins brutal invasion of Ukraine?
I’m european
That’s even worse. At least your politicians have shares in US companies and get bribes, what’s your excuse for white knighting a corporate party from a country you can’t even vote in?
Is this leap because of the .ml on their name?
No, it’s just what centrists say about anyone to the left of Netanyahu.
It’s exactly this racism as a first recourse to defend your oligarchy that has your settler country in the shitter. America can’t die fast enough i stg.
Lazy.
I’m a socialist. Fuck Putin, free Ukraine.
It’s that easy.
Thank you! Yes, IMO it is that easy
Now SausageCat avoided the question …
Yes, deflecting is, THAT easy! Now you can turn any criticism into your own minute of hate and avoid engaging in self criticism.
Hey, it’s worked out so well for your country!
Oh no .ml is leaking again
Be easier to just post the entire bag of thought terminating cliches you have instead of doing it one by one so everyone can save some time.
We can even pretend we haven’t seen all the same ones with the same wording from every other milquetoast lib.
Democrats are only necessary if your goal is to maintain the illusion that America is a democracy which serves the people while maintaining the status quo.
Democrats are a net negative. What is necessary is something we don’t have and haven’t had, a true leftist party. The lack of that necessary party is what has led us to this current situation.
The Republicans being bad doesn’t make the Democrats good. Especially when they are complicit.
See, this is people defending the Dems lmao. Not a single falsehood, but it’s downvoted all the same.
See here’s my issue with All of this I 100% agree with you. What is this actually saying besides allowing people to be more aware?
The power I have right now to vote which is the only guaranteed power I have and by that I mean the only one I could be sure turns out in some fashion.
And yes we need things like reform and multi-party systems and rating-based voting and an overall reform kicking out most of these people but all this stuff takes time what I know I could do the second at least could have done is vote DC and at the very least guarantee the lives of my trans friends now that RB is in-house their lives are in danger.
I do try to do things I do protest I do other things but none of these things guarantee a change it’s all wish making until something eventually happens there’s no guarantee it ever will and I understand what you mean by saying they’re complicit they definitely are terrible and they genocide and do a lot of horrible things but at least for the couple of people I know I can make lives better by voting for them why shouldn’t I do that if I don’t I might as well be condemning them to the firing line myself even pulling the trigger.
so well there definitely not my preferred choice and I’ve made attempts to get other people in office or at least get people talking about them that doesn’t make them suddenly appear there and/or change the psyche of tens of millions of other democratic voters but I wish it would.
Also for the record I am fully open to being told in a way I don’t understand I want to learn I want to know why I’m not always knowledgeable about everything.
It’s an unfortunate trait of the reddit migrations. That place was crawling with die-hard liberals, not entirely dissimilar to scabies. It stands to reason a few of the uninitiated would find their way here.
In spite of how I started this comment, we must remember that they are of the working class, and further division is a benefit exclusive to the capitalist.
I feel that the further we sink into full-blown fascism, the more of them will become aware, and may be counted among allies one day soon.
I plan to speak to those who are willing to listen and learn. But beware the contentious fool, ever seeking a debate but never trying for understanding.
.world got the liberals that were too delusional for reddit.
I do believe the requirement is that you just need to be specific. Republicans generally suck all around right now so that’s a valid statement.
However, if you’re going to complain about Democrats you need to say something like, “the leadership sucks” or, “there’s too many rich people influencing the party!”
That’s been my experience so far 🤷
Democrats can not and should not be shielded from blame for their inactions, however, with all the low hanging fruit we got right now THIS is what you post?
The low hanging fruit like Biden reversing Trump’s decision to pull out of Somalia? The low hanging fruit like trying to ban any app they disagree with? The low hanging fruit like continuing to fund the Azov Battalion?
Yeah Democrats sucks, but to in any way imply that Republicans are the solution is just bootlicking at this point. One is a political party and one is dismantling the country for profit.
No one is implying that Republicans are any way the solution.
I hate to break it to you but I’ve definitely heard that on Lemmy a few times
No you haven’t
The Republicans are
Centrists assume literally all criticism of their wing of the party comes from their right.
Paradoxically, it might actually be. Progressives might actually have an easier time getting elected as Republicans than Democrats.
Remember, Republicans don’t actually have platforms anymore. Their base just views it as a football game; they don’t actually believe in anything; they just want to win. They nominate celebrities and whoever can simply channel enough raw energy and emotion.
Progressives could run as Republicans, billing themselves as “Radical Republicans,” promising to rekindle the fire of the post-Civil War party. They could say they support strong borders, but flip the table on Republicans by running on a strong social safety net.
Remember, the policies progressives champion are actually quite popular among the working white working class Republican base. They just hate that it’s Democrats championing the policies. So if progressives simply run as Republicans instead, well that barrier drops away.
If Republicans don’t actually believe in anything anymore, and they only run on grievance and vibes, why not just run progressives as Republicans? Run as a Republican and condemn Democrats as being servants of the wealthy. Do it with an R next to your name, and the Republican base will eat it up. Remember, they don’t actually believe in anything. If you can offer them the rage and “winning” that they so desperately want, your actual policies are irrelevant. It’s entirely possible for progressives to win running as Republicans. In fact, it’s probably easier for progressives to win as Republicans than as Democrats now.
I don’t think progressives would have much success, because I think the Republican political machine would rally to outspend them in the primary, just as the Democratic political machine does.
I think Green Party politician Peter Camejo said it most succinctly: “Democrats are not the answer.”
And they aren’t. The Democrats have so successfully neutered the left that nobody has any idea what leftist talking points even are. People are so desperate that they voted for Donald fucking Trump. Twice.
It’s a symptom of our two-party voting system. I lost faith in the Democratic party’s ability to do anything effectual a long fuckin time ago, the game is rigged for the rich and it will be until we wipe them from the face of the earth.
Libs think they’re the party it’s so sad lmao
Obama and Biden said they’d legalize weed. They didn’t. They failed to put abortion rights into the constitution. I mean I can go on these are just off the top of my head.
They are not immune to legit criticism, however it seems like people get the idea that if you criticize democrats that means you are a die hard Trumper or something…
Nobody hates Democrats as much as Democrats do.
Probably because two political parties isn’t enough to truly represent the population.
People shit talk non voters, but these are people who found no representation in the two party system. We can change this. We can have more then two political parties. To think otherwise is to think inside the world’s smallest box.
Countries with more parties such as those in Western Europe are also electing fascists. The answer doesn’t lie in more parties. China has a majority party and it doesn’t get people doing the Sieg Heil
Duverger’s Law says that as long as we have this system of voting, we’re going to have two, and only two, major parties. It has changed once in history: when the Republicans replaced the Whigs. So, that’s what you’re looking at: either change the system of voting or replace one of the two parties.
The major political parties may have only changed names once, but the most common stance in modern political science is that we are in the 6th political party alignment in US history.
- Centralization 1796-1824
- Jacksonians 1828-1852
- Republicans 1856-1892
- Progressives 1898-1928
- New Dealers 1932-1972
- Neoliberalism 1980-Present
Nobody gets betrayed by democrats as much as democrats do.
Pelosi and the DNC have hated the left more than they hate the right for a good long time, yeah.
Back up. Put abortion rights in the constitution? I cant take you seriously.
I mean didn’t Trump also promise that and not deliver
Didn’t close gitmo. Didn’t end the war on terror. Created the same border camps democrats cry at the gates of for political points. Bailed out the perpetrators of one of this countries most high profile and damaging financial crimes because they held rich peoples stock portfolios hostage. Made pointless concessions on the ACA to republicans who never once cross the isle for even the things they want to pass because they’d rather take the credit themselves.
Those are the ones I’m pulling off the top of my head.
Few things are good or bad in absolute terms—it depends on what you’re comparing them to.
Some people object to criticism of the Democrats because they have an unrealistically optimistic view of them, and reject any criticism out of hand. Others object because they think the critics have an unrealistically negative view and that their criticisms are therefore insincere. And others object when they think criticism from one context is being applied in others where a different standard of comparison should hold.
(For my part, I struggle to see the current Democratic party as a single cohesive institution for which such comparisons are even meaningful.)
