The time to have a meaningful vote is in primaries and usually in elections outside the president. Senators and House Reps can advocate for and potentially enact a better voting system. Your state congress might also be a good place to focus if your state isn’t yet in the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact - that wouldn’t get us all the way to prop rep or ranked choice but it’d at least get us past the idiocy that is the electoral college.
This looks like you’re setting a criterion you know won’t be met. In the unlikely event that it is met before the two party hegemony yields fascism or societal collapse, I have little faith that there won’t be a shiny new criterion to prevent voting against the duopoly.
I don’t think you’re wrong per se, but maybe, maybe, a political party should have to serve its voters’ interests to get them to vote it, instead of relying on the other guy being a ghoul to gather fear-votes and blackmail-votes from those it ignores.
Not an American, but given similar experiences in my country (Greece), I absolutely do not blame them.
Our right wing politician just got the most popular re-election and standalone election statistics, and the only reelection-higher-than-first-election numbers, in our country’s political history.
And everyone hates him.
I’m going to over-over-simplify, but the reason for those numbers, is that our left has failed at serving the rights and interests of the people, and then has been cannibalising itself, getting corrupted, and losing members for at least 15 years.
If a system is so corrupt that it doesn’t take care of its citizens, they’re naturally going to stop caring and supporting it. The ghouls will take over, because ghouls thrive in corruption better. 100%-Hitler will win, when his only opponent is 75%-Hitler, because 100%-Hitler is actually liked by some part of the populace.
This kind of fattening-of-the-ruling-class has been the way almost every single empire has weakened itself into collapsing over time, in human history.
I’m going to over-over-simplify, but the reason for those numbers, is that our left has failed at serving the rights and interests of the people, and then has been cannibalising itself, getting corrupted, and losing members for at least 15 years.
Yet another country where this sort of thing happened: A feckless, corrupt, out-of-touch left loses to a douchebag on the right that everyone hates. It happened in the US, it happened in Argentina, and it keeps on happening in Britain, and I’m sure there’s a bunch of other countries I’m forgetting.
That’s how we end up with Trump in the first place…… A lot of people didn’t like Killary Clinton and the Dems fucked Bernie in the contested convention
Trump can only be president for another 4 year term, and changing the term limit requires an Act of Congress. Implying that he somehow intends to subvert a very established part of the system is pretty alarmist, and also gives him far more power than what he actually has.
My dude, the Constitution is literally just a piece of paper. It can do nothing without the will of the population to enforce it. You think Trump cares what it says? Or the party that backs him? Or the millions of voters who are begging for an excuse to commit violence?
Conversely, the government has whatever power the population gives it. If Trump decides he wants to be a dictator and stay in office, and the GOP don’t resist, the Constitution won’t magically force him out.
You know we have footage from when he already tried that, right?
and if nobody resists
I didn’t say “nobody” I said “the GOP”. No one who has been paying attention the last eight years could reasonably say that the GOP as a whole would oppose Trump in his efforts to remain in office.
It’s not up to the GOP. A lot of people would need to be on board with that before it can happen, including a base who is ideologically supportive of the constitution and term limits in general. I won’t get into Jan 6 because that’s a quagmire of misinformation and nobody actually knows the truth yet. In my opinion, if that was an attempt to overthrow the government (as opposed to a rally or a protest), it was so weak as to be laughable. What were they going to do with a few thousand people and no guns? Anyway even if he did have delusions of being a dictator, a lot would have to change to make that possible.
You know, once, I agreed with you that calls that one political party or the other would overthrow the will of the people and cling to power after being voted out were alarmist and full of bullshit. When Bush supporters said the Dems wouldn’t respect the results of the election in 2004, I pointed out that Clinton left the White House in 2000 without complaint. When Obama supporters said that they were worried Bush would pull off a coup, I pointed out that Bush 41 and Ford both left the office at the end of their terms when they lost the election. When McCain supporters said Obama wouldn’t leave the White House in '12, I reminded them of Clinton and Carter. And when Trumpers said in '16 that Obama would pull off a coup, I reminded them that their counterparts on the Left said the same thing in '08.
I said the same thing after November 2020 to Biden supporters, thinking that Trump was more likely to leave the country in late December or early January to go to a place where America’s court system couldn’t get at him. I was pretty damn sure he was going to buddy-buddy up to Putin and other Dictators from a country without extradition to the US, like Saudi Arabia, North Korea, or even Russia, leaving the USA to do some ‘MAGA diplomacy only I can do,’ with him setting up some Right-Wing Shit-Agitation site on the web, collecting cash from gullible Americans thinking their problems are everyone else’s fault but their own.
Then January 6th happened. And for the first time, we did NOT have a peaceful transfer of power.
There’s still room to say ‘hey, he hasn’t overthrown the duly elected President yet…because if he had, he’d be President right now’. BUT…I don’t think it’s a far jump to say that Trump is very likely to pull a Putin on America’s Presidency to become President for Life if we give him a chance to.
I haven’t heard anything about subverting democracy, coup, or anything like that except from alarmists who have something to gain from peddling that brand of fear. Any time someone tries to convince you of something by using fear as a motivator, you should wonder what they have to gain by it.
I don’t watch Fox News or any other populist news channels. All they do is peddle fear of one brand or another. I’m basing my comments mostly on having watched the same type of drama and rhetoric every election cycle. That and seeing/hearing what people actually say and not immediately accepting what news outlets or other political demagogues say they said.
Ok well if you are right then I will track you down to apologize, but if I’m right, then you need to admit that you were being alarmist and partisan. Deal?
Alarmist, yes. Partisan no—But you have a deal. I’ll bookmark your comment. Hopefully Trump doesn’t win and neither of us have to apologize for anything!
All it takes is enough people choosing not to participate in a clearly two-party system , and we have Trump for 20 more years.
Go ahead, do your protest vote. Vote your conscience. Whatever you call it.
Yeah, we need a better voting system… but we don’t have one at the moment.
Ranked choice voting FIRST, then you can do your protest vote.
Exactly. Get rid of this ridiculous electoral college and make every vote count.
So never?
Like there is literally zero reason for them to ever put forward a candidate who tries to bring about this change if they can never lose your vote.
The time to have a meaningful vote is in primaries and usually in elections outside the president. Senators and House Reps can advocate for and potentially enact a better voting system. Your state congress might also be a good place to focus if your state isn’t yet in the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact - that wouldn’t get us all the way to prop rep or ranked choice but it’d at least get us past the idiocy that is the electoral college.
People keep saying this but nobody I’ve voted for in the primaries has won going all the way back to Kucinich.
I’m beginning to think it doesn’t actually work.
It’s fucking hard to overcome centrist corporate democrats but the number of progressives in office has been creeping up.
This would carry more weight if Democrats had a presidential primary where the nominee wasn’t preordained since 2012.
The only time neoliberals even pretend to want rcv is when they’re using it to set limits on how people to their left should vote.
This looks like you’re setting a criterion you know won’t be met. In the unlikely event that it is met before the two party hegemony yields fascism or societal collapse, I have little faith that there won’t be a shiny new criterion to prevent voting against the duopoly.
Hey, if ALASKA can do it…
Alaska also has UBI, which is a pipe dream for the rest of the nation as well.
Well, that’s the shared oil revenue, and it’s not exactly something you can live on.
$1,312 a year. So a little over $100 a month…
https://pfd.alaska.gov/payments/tax-information
Alaska, a deeply conservative state, did it - it isn’t a pipe dream.
I don’t think you’re wrong per se, but maybe, maybe, a political party should have to serve its voters’ interests to get them to vote it, instead of relying on the other guy being a ghoul to gather fear-votes and blackmail-votes from those it ignores.
Not an American, but given similar experiences in my country (Greece), I absolutely do not blame them.
Our right wing politician just got the most popular re-election and standalone election statistics, and the only reelection-higher-than-first-election numbers, in our country’s political history.
And everyone hates him.
I’m going to over-over-simplify, but the reason for those numbers, is that our left has failed at serving the rights and interests of the people, and then has been cannibalising itself, getting corrupted, and losing members for at least 15 years.
If a system is so corrupt that it doesn’t take care of its citizens, they’re naturally going to stop caring and supporting it. The ghouls will take over, because ghouls thrive in corruption better. 100%-Hitler will win, when his only opponent is 75%-Hitler, because 100%-Hitler is actually liked by some part of the populace.
This kind of fattening-of-the-ruling-class has been the way almost every single empire has weakened itself into collapsing over time, in human history.
We need to trim the fat, so to speak. But that takes revolution, and—Americans—can’t agree on where the fat is.
Yet another country where this sort of thing happened: A feckless, corrupt, out-of-touch left loses to a douchebag on the right that everyone hates. It happened in the US, it happened in Argentina, and it keeps on happening in Britain, and I’m sure there’s a bunch of other countries I’m forgetting.
Every time I see this, I think of the cable employees from south park.
That’s how we end up with Trump in the first place…… A lot of people didn’t like Killary Clinton and the Dems fucked Bernie in the contested convention
We ended up with trump because enough idiots kept repeating shit like “Killary”.
Trump can only be president for another 4 year term, and changing the term limit requires an Act of Congress. Implying that he somehow intends to subvert a very established part of the system is pretty alarmist, and also gives him far more power than what he actually has.
My dude, the Constitution is literally just a piece of paper. It can do nothing without the will of the population to enforce it. You think Trump cares what it says? Or the party that backs him? Or the millions of voters who are begging for an excuse to commit violence?
Conversely, the government has whatever power the population gives it. If Trump decides he wants to be a dictator and stay in office, and the GOP don’t resist, the Constitution won’t magically force him out.
If Trump decides to stay in office and if nobody resists are giant, giant ifs.
You know we have footage from when he already tried that, right?
I didn’t say “nobody” I said “the GOP”. No one who has been paying attention the last eight years could reasonably say that the GOP as a whole would oppose Trump in his efforts to remain in office.
It’s not up to the GOP. A lot of people would need to be on board with that before it can happen, including a base who is ideologically supportive of the constitution and term limits in general. I won’t get into Jan 6 because that’s a quagmire of misinformation and nobody actually knows the truth yet. In my opinion, if that was an attempt to overthrow the government (as opposed to a rally or a protest), it was so weak as to be laughable. What were they going to do with a few thousand people and no guns? Anyway even if he did have delusions of being a dictator, a lot would have to change to make that possible.
You know, once, I agreed with you that calls that one political party or the other would overthrow the will of the people and cling to power after being voted out were alarmist and full of bullshit. When Bush supporters said the Dems wouldn’t respect the results of the election in 2004, I pointed out that Clinton left the White House in 2000 without complaint. When Obama supporters said that they were worried Bush would pull off a coup, I pointed out that Bush 41 and Ford both left the office at the end of their terms when they lost the election. When McCain supporters said Obama wouldn’t leave the White House in '12, I reminded them of Clinton and Carter. And when Trumpers said in '16 that Obama would pull off a coup, I reminded them that their counterparts on the Left said the same thing in '08.
I said the same thing after November 2020 to Biden supporters, thinking that Trump was more likely to leave the country in late December or early January to go to a place where America’s court system couldn’t get at him. I was pretty damn sure he was going to buddy-buddy up to Putin and other Dictators from a country without extradition to the US, like Saudi Arabia, North Korea, or even Russia, leaving the USA to do some ‘MAGA diplomacy only I can do,’ with him setting up some Right-Wing Shit-Agitation site on the web, collecting cash from gullible Americans thinking their problems are everyone else’s fault but their own.
Then January 6th happened. And for the first time, we did NOT have a peaceful transfer of power.
There’s still room to say ‘hey, he hasn’t overthrown the duly elected President yet…because if he had, he’d be President right now’. BUT…I don’t think it’s a far jump to say that Trump is very likely to pull a Putin on America’s Presidency to become President for Life if we give him a chance to.
I think being alarmed is pretty rational at this point. I feel you may not be paying attention to recent events.
The GOP intends to coup. They’re not actually being quiet about it. If they get Congress, The Supreme Court, and the Presidency, they get the country.
I haven’t heard anything about subverting democracy, coup, or anything like that except from alarmists who have something to gain from peddling that brand of fear. Any time someone tries to convince you of something by using fear as a motivator, you should wonder what they have to gain by it.
They don’t usually cover those topics on Fox News.
I don’t watch Fox News or any other populist news channels. All they do is peddle fear of one brand or another. I’m basing my comments mostly on having watched the same type of drama and rhetoric every election cycle. That and seeing/hearing what people actually say and not immediately accepting what news outlets or other political demagogues say they said.
Things change regardless of you acknowledging those changes.
Ok well if you are right then I will track you down to apologize, but if I’m right, then you need to admit that you were being alarmist and partisan. Deal?
Alarmist, yes. Partisan no—But you have a deal. I’ll bookmark your comment. Hopefully Trump doesn’t win and neither of us have to apologize for anything!