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You were probably taught in school that democracy is a wondrous ideal thing.
When you become an adult you realize democracy isn't about voting for who you like the most. It's about preventing bad people from getting power. You will never get to vote for some ideal perfect person, and even if you did the general muddiness of politics would prevent that person from being able to make the change they want.
Yes, it's "the line" now. But to be more accurate, it's always been the line.
This is your idea of something worth saving?
The bad people are already in power. Always have been, at least in my lifetime. Am I supposed to find comfort in voting for bad people because other people are worse? It's as hollow of an argument as "other people have worse lives than you do so you're not allowed to care that your life sucks."
It's what US democracy is. In a lot of countries, you get to vote for people who represent you, and the system works out stopping people who are widely disliked by parties forming coalitions after the vote.
Look at the NL, and how it deals with a Trump-like candidate. He got a plurality of the vote, yet is unable to form a government because none of the other parties cooperate.
Great. We're not in the NL. That's not how it works here.
That's my point, this is how the US works, this is not how democracy in general works. OP was saying that these faults are a natural consequence and inseparable from democracy. I'm bringing up a counterexample. It can be done better.
I think we agree on that the US system is incapable of stopping such a wildly unpopular candidate if they reach a plurality of the votes.
Right, I'm just trying to head off the ridiculous idea that some people have that in the US we can vote for our ideal candidate.
There's a difference between voting for an ideal candidate and not being able to vote for one materially supporting a genocide. "not funding genocide" isn't an ideal, it's a bare minimum. If not funding genocide is 'idealistic' to you, then I want no part of anything you're trying to sell and normalize.
Doesn't matter, that option is not one of the two choices.
It's "try to restrain the genocide" or "make genocide worse". Pick one. And if you say they're equally bad, you're an idiot.
Who's trying to restrain the genocide? Last I checked Biden says nice things then does nothing but send more weapons?
This is the cause of voter apathy btw, when you tell people there's no way to stop genocide, they're not going to feel like they can effect change. And when voter apathy sets in democrats lose. Democrats know this, yet pursue political avenues that foster voter apathy. I live in a blue state, nothing I can do will save the Democrats from themselves.
You want Democrats to singlehandedly change the First Past the Post voting system?
Uhh…
If you support Biden or hope that he’s elected this article should deeply disturb you.
Polls are looking bad recently and instead of having a party line of “we’re gonna change, we recognize that no one wants to suffer under rising inflation while their government supports a genocide.” They’re saying “it’s fine that the polls are bad, our supporters will come out and vote for us no matter what”.
I'm Canadian, and judging from history things tend to go badly for countries that neighbour fascist countries with a powerful military. So yeah I want Old Joe to continue to be President.
But I'm not too worried about polling, they were off in 2016 because they people considered unlikely voters actually did vote, and they voted for Trump. So the statisticians compensated for this and they were much closer to the mark in 2020, but still somewhat under-counted Trump support. So they have to compensate some more. But my gut feeling is that a siginificant of the unlikely voters that turned out for Trump in the past two elections probably won't turn out for him again. But statistics is a scientific thing, they can't just mark Trump supporters as unlikely voters again because of a gut feeling. They have to follow the process and do the math without any gut feelings about it.
So... the polls about support for Trump aren't reliable at all. So no point in worrying about them one way or another.
The real concern right now is how young people are pushed into some strange politics by social media. The Olds are going to vote the way they always do, and there's less of them with each passing day. The kids are getting sucked into accelerationist doomerism so who knows what will happen there. Constant emotional manipulation on social media can send people down some dark paths. I used to think the kids are alright, but I'm not so sure anymore.
That’s not what I’m talking about.
Media saying that it’s fine democrats are pursuing wildly unpopular policies because they have a durable support base is bad.
It doesn’t matter if it’s true (it’s not) or if that kind of thinking has been the norm in Washington forever (it has).
You never want to treat voters like they don’t have a choice, even if you believe it.
This is how they turn a huge swath of potential electorate into “Biden, hell no” people, just like me.
You're not wrong, but also, when one of the parties purposely manipulates your vote by using the premise that you described, because they have a bad candidate, then they're no better than the other party that are the "bad guys".
There are more than just two candidates available in the whole United States of America that could run for president.
Yeah and they either decided not to run or were eliminated in the primaries. Ideally I think a ranked choice system would be better than a primary system, but the primaries are a somewhat reasonable approximation, albeit an antiquated one.
The thing about democracy is the winner is the person that gets the most votes, not decided by solely your vote. And you can't force people to run. Bernie Sanders ran in the 2020 primary and lost to Joe Biden. He decided not to run in this primary. You can be bitter about this, maybe come up with some conspiracy theories about the DNC somehow putting Bernie in duress to keep out of the race. Or do the same for anyone else you prefer.
But the fact is the imperfect run off system of the US electoral system determined it's Biden vs. Trump again. You can be emotional about how you wanted something different, but it's not going to change anything. You can be angry at other voters for not choosing different candidates. Still not going to change anything.
And Joe Biden is legit the best President of my lifetime. Not something you'll hear from content decided by social media algorithms. He's done a lot despite some bad actors in congress, and he could do more if there were just a few more Dem Senators and a majority in the House. Only criticism I really hear is from either republicans and kids that are ageist and/or learned about foreign policy from TikTok.
You can call someone out for their misdeeds without being emotional about it.
And things should be called out, and not just accepted, because you're embarrassed someone might want to call you out as being emotional, as a way of 'killing the messenger'.
You must be young. Or an astroturfer.
Gaslight
Obstruct
Project <--- you are here
Whatever lets you sleep at night.