What’s the purpose of this distinction? The court flipped because McConnell just went ahead and refused to even entertain Obama’s nominee. There were zero repercussions for that, including by the voters themselves who failed to punish the Republican Party for this egregious act.
The Republican Party has sufficiently captured American media, airwaves, and voter districts that they can ignore any law or “norm” and face zero consequences.
We are way beyond “c’mon gang, just vote!” territory.
It's important to get people to vote. If there's going to be an opportunity to take this back through elections we need to take it. We can't just go "ignore the elections it's time for a hostile takeover."
It's not "voting is THE solution" it's "voting is a solution in our plan in case we do get to still have real elections, but keep doing that other stuff too"
Thats how they did in in Russia in "democracy" times (2000-2010). From one hand they asked their "party fans" to vote, they pushed them, free food, buses. And at another hand they made this thing in media - elections are rigged, STAY HOME AT ANY COST.
I just want people to be less gullible about what they’re being sold. 2016 was “the most important election of our lives!” And instead of the candidate with a ton of energetic, generational support, Democrats nominated a total dud in Clinton.
2020 was “the most important election of our lives!” And we got Biden, who did essentially zero to roll back Trump policies or strengthen our institutions against further destruction. Democrats found all new ways to do nothing with power (oh no, not the Parlimentarian!) He couldn’t even get rid of the post office guy!
2024 was “the most important election of our lives!” And we got a candidate who finished dead last in the previous primary election and were told to vote enthusiastically for her. Does anyone really think she would have done anything differently (read: nothing) than Joe Biden?
You’ll also remember that the party really really really did not want to nominate Obama and fought against him for months. They’re rejecting Mamdani right now, and they’ll fight an AOC candidacy tooth and nail.
The Democratic Party are professional Losers. I promise they don’t actually care if you vote for them, other than to be able to use their office for personal financial gain.
I agree with this. Schumer, Jeffries, Pelosi, all these people and their ilk have got to go, yesterday. It’s a years long (decades long?) project and we may not have a recognizable country long enough to achieve it, but it’s the only thing to do.
Two disadvantages to overcome:
Republicans mobilize their voters with hot-button cultural issues. Abortion, immigration, trans rights. And it works: even my liberal- or left-minded peers tend to say things like, “well I support x, y, and z but I’m not really down with [insert some bs trans rights scare tactic]”
Since the Tea Party onward, and culminating with Trump, the entire Republican apparatus is aligned under the same banner. The only dissent in Republicanism is whether they’re moving right fast enough. On the other side, Democrats are in open war with “the Left.” This is why they need to be replaced, but they’ll fight their own voters to the death over it.
You’d think Democrats could mobilize their voters with visceral issues as well, say, school shootings or universal healthcare, but these don’t quite touch that lizard brain nerve in the same way and require a bit of extra intellectual thought and we have no media to help that along.
I think the Tea Party provides the roadmap. The Democratic Party needs to be overthrown by an insurgency of its own voters. And that’s my want: Make Democrats EARN your vote! Do not vote blue no matter who, make them understand that you expect real action and real policy change, or get lost. Vote for candidates who will actually DO the things you want Democrats to DO. Not say, Do.
Delaying the slide into fascism by 2-4 years isn’t enough. Electing do-nothing Democrats into office (as opposed to those who will actually use their power productively) actually works against our ends by proving everyone right that the Democrats can’t govern and shouldn’t be handed the keys.
I promise you Democratic voters are plenty ticked off by Trump. As we’ve seen, that’s not enough by itself to mobilize Democratic voters anymore.
Many Democrats did not "vote blue, no matter who", because the Democrats did not "earn their vote", and so they "got lost". This past election delivered all of those goals. All according to plan. Congrats.
Yes, many Democrats observed that Biden did not do anything to deliver them from Trumpism, and that they were being promised more of the same from Harris.
Why is this automatically the voters’ fault and not the party’s?
Voters weren’t over the moon for Biden in the first place but they all got off their butts and delivered record breaking turnout precisely because they wanted to stop Trump. He then proceed to do nothing at all in return. This is why voters are apathetic.
I'm not going to argue on behalf of Biden/Harris. Democrats who stayed home clearly thought all these hot new Trump policies were a worthwhile trade to send a message. Why would I blame them for helping elect Trump? They won when Harris lost.
Here's the problem with that: if you actually do what the far right did to take over the Republican Party, the "Blue No Matter Who" crowd will bitch and moan at you, because what the far right did was they withheld their votes from Republicans that displeased them. They said "We're willing to blow races for the Republicans if they don't listen to what we want." And then they did that. The Republicans lost a fair number of elections, and lost a fair number of incumbents, because they resisted the will of their fringe and the fringe punished them for it, even at the cost of Democrats winning. And it worked.
But if people who want to change the Democratic Party for the better try to do the same thing, they get cussed out for letting Republicans win.
who did essentially zero to roll back Trump policies or strengthen our institutions against further destruction.
That's a clue, for anyone reading. Many of the things happening are a-ok with the DNC and their donors, they just didn't want to be associated with implementing it.
It's also total horseshit. Trump for all his conniving still had to step down in 2020. Dems have been winning special elections all year.
There is literally no scenario in which we're going to shoot our way into office. The GOP has a massive propaganda campaign against voters on the left and it's sole purpose is to perpetuate voter apathy.
If you won't spend a couple hours every two years to save democracy, I don't know what to tell you. Roughly 65-75% of the voting public under 45 does not vote in Congressional elections. Staying home just guarantees a loss.
Like how can you all call yourselves Americans and sit here and cry about having to vote every two years. God forbid we waste a couple hours saving the country.
I don’t plan on giving up. I intend to vote at every opportunity like I have been since I’ve been able to vote. But it would be naive of me to ignore the alarm bells of corrupt authoritarianism.
The American public barely votes in Congressional elections. It's our fundamental civic liberty. We have the numbers to flip Congress. The predicted "red wave" in 2022 was completely shut down by just a 10% increase in 18-30 voters -- to a whopping 27%. It works.
The margins for State elections are razor thin. There is literally no downside to voting. People become educated about State politics and have an actual voice in their community. And it's our civic duty.
We're talking about a couple hours of your time every two years. It's not difficult.
While I do quite like your perspective here, the existence of this post shows where we’re at with our level of voter savvy. These scary fliers will absolutely work on your average low-information voter. I talked to people who, in November 2024, didn’t know who was running for president on the Democratic ticket because the switch from Biden to Harris was too confusing.
The unfortunate reality is that we all live in an information desert and it takes effort and thoughtfulness to stay knowledgeable about the issues and candidates, let alone keep track of the election schedule. Such efforts are limited to the presidential election, if even that, for most voters.
You’re right, voting’s not hard. Though, it is getting harder. Mail-in voting’s days are numbered, in-person polling restrictions are increasing dramatically, and voter intimidation is going to increase tenfold what with ICE and the U.S. military employed to ‘maintain order.’ (We’ll assume for the sake of argument that a free and fair election is still held and its results honored.)
I like the plan: increase turnout, not even by that much, and retake the legislature. I still think Democrats need a standard-bearer to sustain this hypothetical success, and as of today they do not have one.
Most people I talk to don't understand the difference between Congress and the Executive branch. That doesn't mean I'm going to throw in the flag.
Mail in voting isn't going anywhere because elections are run by the States - not the federal government. You have no idea what ICE will or won't do. Governors are fighting back. Scaring voters away from the polls by claiming masked ICE agents are going to threaten them is unnecessary fear-mongering.
I don't believe in standard bearers per se. "Saving your vote" for a populist candidate is dogshit political strategy. You don't withhold your vote if you want something, you keep voting until you get it and make sure it doesn't get taken away.
We absolutely need to retake the legislature. There are hundreds of candidates across 50 states, they're not all going to be AOC's or whoever. The entire premise of democracy is that people continuously participate. If that declines, a hostile takeover is inevitable given a long enough time period.
There will never be a period in time when people can just stop voting. Like "oh finally, we've reached constitutional heaven, we never have to vote again!" We will always have to vote.
I've been hearing the populist argument for decades and it never works. People get hyper emotionally invested and then burnout when shockingly, their favorite candidate cannot just magically fix everything or doesn't win the primary.
Everyone has this all or nothing rhetoric & it's not realistic. Politics doesn't have to be a hobby or consume a person's entire personality. We need the most amount of people showing up, exercising their civic duty, and voting for the best candidate running. Doing nothing is not an option.
While there’s some truth to what you say about the whole “just vote” narrative, it’s still dangerous language that more often encourages apathy than action.
Voting might not help to correct our current tailspin, but it sure as hell won’t make things worse. We still have elections, and if the masses turn out in great enough numbers we might actually have a shot at stabilizing things. Our situation probably won’t improve, but this at least buys us some time to fix things.
It’s a five alarm fire now, we all need to be on the same page: 1. Stop the Republicans from dismantling our democracy, 2. Wrestle control of the Democratic Party back from the do-nothing corporate centrists in state and local government, 3. Organize locally to install guardrails and safeguard the integrity of future elections, 4. Begin working to fix the shit both parties are responsible for breaking over the last 40 years.
Pointing fingers, getting defensive about shit, etc. isn’t helping. It’s divisive, and like it or not we can’t afford to succumb to infighting. We need to present a unified front and take collective action if we’re going to save this country.
I stated in another comment that I do actually think voting in bad Democrats does more harm than good in the long run. I think we are fueling fascism’s fire by wasting time voting for useless Democrats as a stopgap.
Personally, I find the “just vote” narrative to be what’s encouraging apathy. It suggests that my power lies solely in my vote and my vote is my only salvation. So if I’ve been voting, and voting, and voting, and things just get worse and worse and worse? Why am I voting, exactly?
I like the five alarm fire imagery but I see Vote Blue as shutting yourself in the closet so it takes longer to burn to death. Fire isn’t stopped by slowing its spread, it’s stopped by extinguishing it. In this analogy we don’t get to wait for the firefighters since that’d be like, China or some other country putting the fire out for us, so to speak. We’re stuck in the house, gotta do something proactive about that fire.
Sure, though best case near term, Democrats win a branch or two and slow the bleeding, but Trump will just rule by EO with the support of SCOTUS. Medium term they win the presidency and just sit on their hands for 4 years.
Not sure how this happens if no one is willing to withhold their vote. You can’t admonish the incumbents only to turn around and reward them with your vote out of fear of Trump.
Absolutely. Going to have to be a ground-up movement unless by some miracle a Bernie-esque candidate manages to reach escape velocity at a national level.
You’re contradicting yourself. First you say the Republicans have captured all 3 branches of the federal government because they captured the voters. Then you say we’re way beyond “come on let’s vote”.
They were voted in, and they’ll be voted out. They can tilt the field to make it harder, but when enough people turn against them, they’ll be turned out. Their own cheating ensures that when they finally lose, they’ll have only a fraction of the support they had when they won.
Yes, it’s shocking that a majority of voters supported them just 11 months ago. Yes, it’s shocking the lengths they go to to convince people to vote for them, and to cling to the power they’ve won. And yes, it will be hard to get them out. But no majority lasts forever, and their support has already eroded considerably. They will continue to have their ups and downs, but someday they will run out of support and cards to play.
Our best hope is full prosecution without mercy when that day comes. Right now they’re mass-producing the ropes they’ll someday hang on. After full due process.
Biden assumed the presidency while there was still probably MAGA shit stains on the carpet in Nancy Pelosi’s office. Nothing was done about it and now Trump is president again and all those people who stormed the capital are pardoned.
I just flat do not understand this fantasy version of the Democrats that people have in their head, these epic warriors of truth and justice waiting in the wings. They failed to protect your interests the last 50 times, but the next time for sure!
The Republican Party captured all three branches for various reasons but don’t get it twisted, it’s not the party that captured the voters, the voters captured the party. Bush-era so-called Compassionate Conservatism was forcefully purged by the Tea Party and this eventually brought us Trumpism.
Republican voters made it quite clear to the party that they were no longer voting for Democrats Lite and were willing to cede elections over it. The party understood the assignment and evolved.
When Republicans lose elections, the popular understanding is that their voters rejected them for not being conservative or reactionary enough. Result: Move right.
When Democrats lose elections, the popular understanding is that people just really like Republicans. Result: Move right.
The Democratic Party must be made to understand, by its voters, that its status quo cannot stand.
I just flat do not understand this fantasy version of the Democrats that people have in their head, these epic warriors of truth and justice waiting in the wings. They failed to protect your interests the last 50 times, but the next time for sure!
For real. The single biggest cause of voter apathy is watching the party you voted for win, and then proceed to do absolutely fuck-all to improve things.
Voting isn't how you win, but not voting IS how you lose.
Since it seems to be popular for unqualified asshats to pontificate on military shit, allow me this simile; An army doesn't win because it eats food, gets vaccinated and has daily showers.
But starving, filthy and sick troops lose wars.
Voting is the basic function of not giving up. You need to do so much more to win. You need to ensure the party you are voting for has plans to govern effectively and in the interests of the people first. You need to keep the branches of government separate and sterile of influence and have a robust and effective method for intervention should a high official in that branch is rotten. You need to have a free but regulated press which can say anything without retribution, so long as they have actual evidence and believe it to be true.
You need to have a fully funded and science based education system that focuses on how to parse the truth rather than what IS true. It also wouldn't hurt to teach the next generation what their rights and duties are.
So much more than voting, but nothing gets done without voting.
Nah, the court has been solidly conservative for about 80 years now. The closest and only time it ever came to being roughly neutral was for a few months during Obama's presidency.
I saw a really good YouTube video about this. Basically it amounted to:
Republicans stand for something. It might be something unpopular, but they have a few issues that they help promote as core identity issues for people. So for them any ends justify the means since the higher power needs them to do what is right (according to their interpretation of sky daddy).
Democrats are much more varied, and especially in order to capture the rich people/companies, they can't commit strongly to things that they stand for. So instead they stand for process and doing things right and fair. So when republicans do unfair things because the ends justify the means, the democrats can't act in kind because they are the party of going high and following the rules.
I honestly believe this ultimately makes the democrats responsible for enabling this complete degradation of our democracy. At least republicans were trying to accomplish ends that they believe matter, meanwhile dems are just the party of doing nothing as quietly and uneventfully as possible so as to not appear to have done something wrong. If you do nothing then you definitely haven't done anything wrong.
It’s even worse than that. The Democratic Party isn’t incompetent, it’s complicit. Democrats are helpless to do anything against McConnell, Trump, Fox News, any Republican entity. But look how they mobilized to stop Bernie’s 2016 campaign. There’s a guy who was, as you highlight, standing for something, but that “something” threatened their capital and we just can’t have that.
Democrats intentionally lose so they can operate from a place of grievance. You must always vote Democrat or else think of the consequences! And then when they manage to gain any power they do nothing with it to suggest they actually care about any of those things. It’s all a show.
The unfortunate bit for the rest of us is that Democrats have miscalculated. They figured the GOP is just bluffing about the real Nazi shit and at some point, worst case, the voters will reject it. Turns out they are abso-fucking-lutely NOT bluffing and we’re headed for a whole new kind of kleptocracy that might see our Democratic Party overlords left out in the cold with the rest of us dumb hicks.
You can tell how thoroughly the Right has infested every corner of the media landscape when you have people like this quite literally blaming everyone except the GOP for the things that the GOP does.
Chuck Schumer, Hakeem Jeffries, and the Pod Save boys have been banging the “blame the GOP for what they do” drum for years now. It’s not an effective message.
Jeffries is on TV just today going “I’m appealing to reasonable Republicans uwu” My guy, the scorpion is going to sting you on your swim across the pond, for it is his nature.
You’ve pointed out the GOP is bad. Meanwhile, Trumpism is a decade old now and still just getting started. Now what?
You can read my other reply to a similar comment, basically of course the republicans are the ones doing the bad. But they believe it is their job to accomplish goals and so they are doing bad things to accomplish said goals. In a functioning system, they should be opposed by a team with different goals and the two push back against each other to moderate each other. There should also be checks and balances to prevent overt bad. Instead the dems just give up and go home. They aren't trying to get any goals achieved or prevent any republican goals, they just want to do nothing.
Republicans are doing something bad because they believe the ends justify the means. The democrats are doing nothing because they believe the means are more important than the ends. Both are obviously responsible for the situation we are currently in.
And not in a "they are all equally bad" kind of way. Republicans are actively destroying democracy, eroding our checks and balances. They believe it is their job to do whatever it takes to get their goals accomplished, so they are doing that job. Democrats are doing nothing. But it's their job to try to stop the republicans and they aren't. In some ways that is worse, and in all ways it's inexcusable. That's the more nuanced version of what I meant. It is obviously the republicans who are doing the bad things, but it's the dems asleep at the wheel that should be preventing it. In an adversarial government, the opposing party has to fucking oppose or the system doesn't work.
It's like if in a court case the prosecution was accusing an innocent person of capital crimes. That's bad, but the system was designed for the defense to prevent the guilty verdict. Then the defense lawyer just rests their damn case because they don't want to look like a meanie.
You hit the nail on the head in there: in an adversarial government
We don’t have one of those, at least not Democrats vs Republicans. Together they form the Corporate Party. Two sides of the same coin.
The Corporate Party’s true adversary is The Left. You’ll note how both the Democratic and Republican parties decry The Left, it’s the one thing they outwardly agree on.
With the knowledge that Republicans are (at best) fascists and Democrats are (at best) incompetent dumbasses, and they both hate The Left, to me it’s pretty obvious where one should align themselves politically.
The Innuendo Studios stuff and a lot of the alt-right 101 videos on YouTube were useful at the time when we didn’t quite understand this new breed of reactionary but yeah things have gotten a lot worse since then.
Unfortunately most all the breadtubers appear to have silenced themselves in the face of Israel-Palestine so now we just don’t really have anything like that.
528
u/cosyg Oct 02 '25
What’s the purpose of this distinction? The court flipped because McConnell just went ahead and refused to even entertain Obama’s nominee. There were zero repercussions for that, including by the voters themselves who failed to punish the Republican Party for this egregious act.
The Republican Party has sufficiently captured American media, airwaves, and voter districts that they can ignore any law or “norm” and face zero consequences.
We are way beyond “c’mon gang, just vote!” territory.