PRIMARIES TOO!!!
it isn’t enough to yell at non progressive candidates,
Comment on [deleted]
join@lemmy.ml 6 hours ago
Make clear to the democratic machine that the only way to win power, is by including the left in their coalition. This means not voting for them if they don’t, but organizing and voting in primaries to try to force them to do.
This is not an imaginary track, this has worked in the past. If you have to oligarchic parties, you solve nothing by (only) voting for the least bad one.
IAmNorRealTakeYourMeds@lemmy.world 6 hours ago
UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 5 hours ago
PRIMARIES TOO!!!
The big mistake Leftists made was not voting in the 2024 Democratic Presidential Primary. Dean Phillips was electable if you’d voted for him.
hobovision@mander.xyz 4 hours ago
You just cost yourself four years of a Golden Age under Andrew Cuomo, idiots.
This guy knows how to shitpost
DaMummy@hilariouschaos.com 5 hours ago
Explain that last part to me. Not trying to be a dick, just seriously wondering how you came to that conclusion. Unless you’re just being sarcastic, which I’m not getting. Cause I also disagree with you on Dean Phillips, though I wouldn’t even entertain listening to a reasoning on that one.
UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 4 hours ago
Unless you’re just being sarcastic
I’m being sarcastic.
Neoliberals lose and it’s because leftists didn’t show up and vote for the right person.
Progressives win and it’s because leftists did show up and voted for the wrong person.
Cause I also disagree with you on Dean Phillips
He was an awful nobody who ran a vanity campaign that flamed out before New Hampshire polls closed.
I’m more just flabbergasted that Biden insisted he could go all the way back in '23, closed out any serious discussion of a primary, and then dropped out after the first fucking debate. Had he put in for retirement after one term, he could at least have left the stage honorable. Instead, he queued up Harris - and the rest of the party - for crushing defeat.
PaintedSnail@lemmy.world 6 hours ago
Then you will need to be aware that by not voting for the more left candidate, we will have a far right government for a couple of cycles at least. This will cost lives and further entrench them into power. It is why we have what we have right now. It will also drive left leaning candidates further right because they are going to cater to the people who actually vote. A far left candidate winning is still possible eventually, but a lot more damage is going to be done to a lot of innocent people in the mean time. Is this a cost you are willing to pay?
FunkyStuff@lemmy.ml 2 hours ago
Then you will need to be aware that by not voting for the more left candidate, we will have a far right government for a couple of cycles at least. This will cost lives and further entrench them into power.
And yet when the moderate liberal candidate wins and nothing changes, the lesson most regular people learn is that liberals suck and the left gets lumped in with that because this strategy of always ceding ground to the liberals makes the left indistinguishable from libs. It also results in the genocide in Gaza and similar things in the future as climate collapse advances and the contradictions get sharper. So why is there a duty for the left to neuter itself, associate with liberals who actively oppose the socialist agenda, and be complicit in genocide with our tiny amount of power?
PaintedSnail@lemmy.world 16 minutes ago
That was a lot of valid complaining about the Democrats, but not one word that can be converted into an actionable plan.
FunkyStuff@lemmy.ml 10 minutes ago
www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/…/what-itd.pdf
www.marxists.org/…/state-and-revolution.pdf
tldr build parallel power structures under the purview of a revolutionary socialist organization outside of the current bourgeois democracy. Strengthen them and grow them out as long as the bourgeois state allows, then in a moment of crisis seize state power to oversee a transition from capitalism to socialism.
DaMummy@hilariouschaos.com 4 hours ago
So if we do something else, we would have what we have now? Have you considered that what we have now is because Democrats keep nominating terrible candidates? Why are you mad at paying the cost for what Democrats have been doing for decades?
PaintedSnail@lemmy.world 3 hours ago
That depend entirely on what that “something else” is. So far, all I’ve heard is either “don’t vote unless the candidate is ‘left enough’,” a vague and counter-productive inaction; or various calls to “tear down the system” with no indication of a plan how or what to replace it with.
I’m not saying the Democrats are faultless, but empowering the people that are proactively causing harm doesn’t help.
DaMummy@hilariouschaos.com 2 hours ago
Instead of Democrats that want to increase ICE funding, more regime change wars, more deportations, how about for once, the Democrats nominate a good candidate? Can we try that? People will settle for a Berniecrat, I’m sure. Bernie may be too old, but I do think people would settle for AOC. Not my first choice by a long shot…but I’d settle for her. People can’t keep falling for people like Obama/Biden, who promise people a loaf of bread, but won’t even bring up breadcrumbs after they’re elected.
nexguy@lemmy.world 3 hours ago
So how about doing exactly what your said, primary better candidates… but in the mean time also not have the nazi in office crippling the nation for a few generations. Why handicap yourself?
null@piefed.nullspace.lol 6 hours ago
the only way to win power is by including the left in their coalition
What percentage of eligible voters define themselves as “on the left” and did not vote Democrat in the general election?
FunkyStuff@lemmy.ml 3 hours ago
Not enough people, that’s why organizing on the ground is more important than electoral campaigns.
null@piefed.nullspace.lol 2 hours ago
Not enough people so therefore that’s why the Dems lost? Make that make sense.
FunkyStuff@lemmy.ml 2 hours ago
The Dems didn’t lose because leftists didn’t vote for them, there’s not a lot of leftists in the US anyway. They lost because Biden’s presidency failed to improve people’s material conditions since COVID and Kamala offered nothing better.
Ideally leftists could actually be organized enough that we could make concrete demands and withholding our votes would kill a candidate’s chances, but that’s not the reality except in some specific local contexts. In general this is a big reason why I think leftists in the US shouldn’t really bother with national elections (except as a way to advertise their orgs like PSL does) since they aren’t really achieving anything by putting energy somewhere that their enemies can outdo them with money.
Godric@lemmy.world 6 hours ago
If anyone reading this wants to make this reality, RIGHT NOW is the time to be running or supporting someone who is. Drag the establishment kicking and screaming to the left by winning primaries.