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@mark
> People just didn't show up to vote for Harris. Period. I thought lefties had learned their lesson in 2016, but apparently I gave them too much credit and they needed to be told twice

Funny, I was thinking exactly the same thing about the Democrat leadership and their candidates choices. The left didn't turn up, because they didn't have a candidate on the ballot. Period.

@roknrol @otownKim @benroyce @jm101 @xs4me2

@strypey @roknrol @otownKim @benroyce @jm101 @xs4me2 It'd be cool if the left lived in a country that reflected what they wanted.

Since they don't, there's a harm-reduction choice and a harm choice, and I thought that after living the harm-choice from 2016 to 2020 the left got that when they voted for Biden and then we had four relatively-peaceful years.

But I guess not.

@mark @strypey @roknrol @otownKim @jm101 @xs4me2

it's a reason v emotion thing

you would hope people would understand cold strategy: you vote for better and you iterate

that works

but unfortunately people are an emotional mob

we can't depend upon their brains, there's not enough brains out there

we need to feed their hearts

so what we need is a real leftist candidate

more milquetoast centrist dems is the path to more maga

lazy assholes better fucking show up to the #primaries2026

@benroyce
> so what we need is a real leftist candidate. more milquetoast centrist dems is the path to more maga

This!

@mark @roknrol @otownKim @jm101 @xs4me2

@strypey @mark @roknrol @otownKim @jm101 @xs4me2

yes

so people need to show up in the primaries in 2026

AND VOTE

hello???

@benroyce
> so people need to show up in the primaries in 2026

... and the Dem leadership need to be restrained from interfering in the primary process if it doesn't look to be producing the results they want. The Democratic party needs constitutional reform, just as much as the country and the GoP do.

@mark @roknrol @otownKim @jm101 @xs4me2

@benroyce
> then you argue against what you most do to get that power: vote!

Is this really the limit of your political imagination. When I lived in China I observed the elections they hold there every year. Would you tell dissidents there that the way to achieve democracy begins and ends with voting? In order for voting to make any difference whatsoever, there needs to be a policy platform worth voting for.

@mark @roknrol @otownKim @jm101 @xs4me2

@strypey @roknrol @otownKim @jm101 @xs4me2

Ben has already dropped you from this conversation for wasting people's time.

If you're going to make serious comparisons between the US and Chinese party or electoral process, then I think I'm done too.

Read the room and the thread, friend.

@mark
> If you're going to make serious comparisons between the US and Chinese party or electoral process

My point is that voting is only significant when there are candidates you want to support. As I said to Ben, before he threw his toys out of the cot and blocked me, I argued for a strategic vote for Harris. You can literally go back to my late 2024 timeline and see for yourself. But she wasn't a candidate the US left wanted to support

@roknrol @otownKim @jm101 @xs4me2

@strypey @roknrol @otownKim @jm101 @xs4me2

My point is that voting is only significant when there are candidates you want to support

Yes, it is. And my point is that's not how it works in a two-party system, never has been, and if American leftists keep pretending it is in spite of all evidence to the contrary, they will lose their rights in their own country.

Do you think fundamentalist Christians actually love billionaire hedonists? They don't. Somehow, they found enough common cause to build consensus in a party. But the Left is so good at finding reasons not to work together that they are, right now, likely to lose everything they want to hold dear.

It's a shame, really.

@mark
@strypey @roknrol @otownKim @jm101 @xs4me2

What I find so depressing about discussions like this is mainly two things:

1. Putting the blame on political parties while avoiding to "get inside" and get one's own hands dirty for changing them. Parties are no super powers from Mars and totally unreachable for human beings.

2. Knowing 1. still

insisting to get exactly what you want ( you did not 'pay' !) instead of being at least smart enough to make a choice that means least trouble.

Why?
What I see these days where the world has more opinions than pairs of shoes there is the tendency demand to get 100% what one wants. There is only one who can lobby for that: you, speaking in a party or movement!
How many people do that? < 0.1% I guess.

I HAD to vote just a couple of weeks ago @mark @strypey @roknrol @otownKim @jm101 @xs4me2

and it cost me a LOT of EFFORT to come to a conclusion. And no: I am not a member of any party. I reached out, got answers that did not satisfy me.

I am not happy with my vote, but THIS I KNOW: it would be WORSE if I had not voted at all or given my vote to some folks who want to sell me to Russia or China or both and finally have a situation where I would curse myself each day for electing some hatefilled assholes.
I'd rather vote for an @mark @strypey @roknrol @otownKim @jm101 @xs4me2

incompetent fool than for someone who is on a mission to destroy democracy and eventually jail or kill me. For the fool I may still educate, while the other one won't even listen.

So let it sink:
Democracy is the worst form of government ( Churchill )
In democracy you don't elect the best of the best, but the least bad from the worst - unless you stand up yourself @mark @strypey @roknrol @otownKim @jm101 @xs4me2

@mark
@strypey @roknrol @otownKim @jm101 @xs4me2
@benroyce

P.P.S. : Instead of discussing forever about why or why not the #Dems are bad in this dark, distant room, you might consider to #flood and #disrupt them, to scream, shake, shout, set them on fire like #jasminecrockett does?