28% of Americans rate economic conditions as excellent or good, a 9 percentage point increase from last April. And the share who say economic conditions will be worse a year from now has fallen during this timespan, from 46% to 33%.
Democracy is when a leader is allowed to facilitate genocide and then threaten his voterbase by saying his opponent is worse and will do the same thing.
Unless you have a particular arrangement of reproductive organs. Or if you love someone who does.
Biden never passed a federal abortion law and let Roe V Wade get overturned with little to no worthwhile response.
Or if you have particular melanin expressing genes
The Biden admin consistently refuses to tackle problems with a focus on racial justice. Private prisons, migrant camps, oil pipelines on indigenous land all have flourished under Biden.
Or if you don't subscribe to a certain deity
Butcher Biden is supporting a genocide on Palestinians for the crime of not being the right type of Jewish. Genocide Joe also does nothing to squash the extremist evangelicial movement, many of whom are in congress or state positions.
Or if you think your fellow workers should organize to oppose certain practices of your employer.
US labor laws have always been heavily biased against the workers. Again it was Biden admin who broke the strike of railworkers recently and milquetoast concessions. It was only the hard work of independent unions that workers managed to get concessions.
Or if you have certain medical concerns.
Socialism was made an evil ideology by congress. There is no universal public healthcare program nor price regulation of pharamseuticals. Narcotraficking remains a constant threat to people's lives.
Or if you have certain precarious housing arrangements.
Biden has done virtually nothing for unhoused people and has instead pushed for bigger police budgets which are a greater threat to exacerbating homelessness than ending it.
Nice little poem which proves my point completely.
Unlike in functioning and prosperous nations like China with their superior socialist economic model and marxist foundations, the USA will continue to decline and terrorize its citizens as well as other nations abroad.
There was no democracy at any point in US history.
Not arguing against that, just pointing out that like it or not, for now that's the one choice that we have, so concede loss today to fight tomorrow versus surrendering in which tomorrow will never come
I have two alternatives. Cornel West and Jill Stein. I can't believe I can actually vote for Cornel fucking West this year. At least, if he gets on enough state ballots.
Voting third party is splitting the vote. Give me ranked choice voting and I'll never make a Neo-lib one of my top choices. But, until then, it's functionally a binary choice. And right-wingers toe the line, and their line is literal fascism. Easy choice. Shitty, but easy.
No, their platforms are vastly different. You could argue that Jill Stein and Cornel West are splitting each other's votes, because they are very similar, but they are both worlds apart from Genocide Joe and Orange Hitler.
The mathematics of First Past the Post elections drastically disincentivizes third parties, to the point of irrelevance. The winner will be one of the top two choices, so the only rational strategy (primarily in swing states, because of the fuckery that is the Electoral College) is voting against the worse of those two option.
Which is to say: when looking at third party options, would those voters be more likely to vote for the worst of the two main options, or the second worst of the two main options? Those are the only two candidates from which splitting votes is pragmatically relevant.
The evidence suggests to me that Orange Hitler is worse than Genocide Joe, since Orange Hitler would likely enable at least the same amount, if not more, Palestinian genocide; while also actively engaging in Ukrainian genocide; while also enabling Project 2025, which fundamentally threatens the thin veneer of democracy the US does have. I am not an accelerationist, I do not think that the probability of revolution it offers is high enough to counteract the probability of descending into fascism.
If you live in a deep red/blue state, then sure, vote third party so they get more visibility and funding, and encourage others in your state to do the same. But otherwise, vote for the second worst of the two main options, and don't encourage those in swing states to vote third party.
That's entirely beside the point. You think the fascists are more likely to give you ranked choice than the neo-libs? This line of thinking is nonsensical past superficial idealism. What's your alternative, the greater evil? You think that's going to magically make the ever-so-sightly-further-left corporate party turn progressive?
How'd that work after 2016? If the wake-up-call strategy was going to work, that would've been the time. And oh look, we got a geriatric neo-liberal. Fun.
I'm not going to wager a potential fascist dictatorship against the pipe dream that choosing not to vote is a cheat code that what, unlocks the secret actual Leftist candidate? What's the praxis here? This is like sovcit levels of batshit copium fantasy.
Edit: Downvotes, but no practical alternatives. Idealistic circle jerking.
You think the fascists are more likely to give you ranked choice than the neo-libs?
Do you really think that eh neo-libs are more likely than the fascists? Talk about "nonsensical past superficial idealism."
What’s your alternative, the greater evil? You think that’s going to magically make the ever-so-sightly-further-left corporate party turn progressive?
Better than your idea. Also, I don't care about 'decorum' and 'civility', so there's not much difference between the two parties in terms of evil; the harm hasn't exactly been reduced under Biden.
I’m not going to wager a potential fascist dictatorship
You really think submissively voting for the blue fascist every election is going to stave off dictatorship?
What’s the praxis here?
What's yours?
Anybody who votes for genocide Joe deserves Trump anyway.
Do you really think that eh neo-libs are more likely than the fascists?
Significantly? Hah, no. Mathematically? Yes, absolutely. Extremely unlikely vs. "Oh, you wanted to keep voting? Lol"
Better than your idea.
Which is? I'm waiting.
What’s the praxis here?
What's yours?
Use every tool I have in the way it can be used. Voting for the lesser of two evils does not preclude literally any other action you could want to do.
Anybody who votes for genocide Joe deserves Trump anyway.
You think Trump would do less Palestinian genocide? He was pretty open about being very pro-Israel and very anti-Palestine. Genocide Trump would be substantially worse for Gaza, and also Ukraine too. That's what "lesser of two evils" means: yes, Biden is awful, but the alternative is worse.
Until you can show me an actionable alternative, I assume you support increased genocide of Palestinians and genocide of Ukrainians. Because it's a binary choice, and refusal to choose against any option is tacit approval of every option.
Genocide Trump would be substantially worse for Gaza
Don't believe you.
and also Ukraine too
Don't believe you
Okay? So you're uniformed or just illiterate? Your beliefs mean nothing to me, the evidence already suggests you're a Russian State propagandist, or you've fallen for one.
Because it’s a binary choice
Actually it's not, and I know much it makes you fascists seethe that you can't force me to vote for you.
It's very simple math. If you can't grasp it, maybe you should change your username to just "box".
So long as you continue to antagonize every leftist who disagrees with you, all you'll ever have is impotent idealism. What exactly is your plan of action? Where is your grassroots, your revolution, if every mathematically and politically literate leftist is a fascist to you?
I'm substantially left of center. Who do you think the proletariat are? How do you expect to mobilize them? How do you get three hundred million people to march in unison, when you call them all genocidal fascists? If they are all fascists, how do you ever hope to win?
Except you're compromised by propaganda, specifically designed to weaken the left (and the US) in order to empower Russian oligarchs. I don't expect you to propose any actual action. I expect you to continue to insist that letting Putin's puppet win will somehow rid the world of billionaire oligarchs.
Voting for anything but one of the top two parties is pointless, voting for the lesser evil is marginally better than voting for the greater evil, not voting is tacit approval of the greater evil. Please tell me, exactly, how does "not voting for the status quo" improve anything? Not rhetorical. I'm asking.
I need to tell you something: perfect is the mortal enemy of better. Both options are bad. One is objectively worse, if you don't recognize that I assume you're just part of Putin's Geopolitik poisoning of the left, whether you know it or not.
Smugly refusing to participate doesn't make the options better, it just makes it easier for the worse one to win.
Jerrod Kushner had a "peace plan" to kick the Palestinians out of what little they had left in the West Bank and move them to the middle of a barren desert. They dressed it up with "high tech industrial" and other buzz words to make it not look like a naked land grab. Obviously it didn't get agreed to, but these are the type of people who were empowered under the Trump administration. They would get power again and they are better organized this time to carry out their agenda.
The alternative to harm reduction is... harm increase? Democrats being terrible and Republicans being substantially worse are not mutually exclusive facts. The election is FPTP, lesser evil is always the only rational choice.
Absolutely do everything in your power to facilitate tasteful alternatives between elections, but on election day anything other than voting for the lesser evil is tacit approval of the greater evil. Yeah, it's a shitty hostage situation, but the alternative is "Fuck the hostages".
The faster USA collapses, the quicker the possibilities of people overthrowing their 2 party clown dictatorship, and revamping the country from the ground up. Trump will help revitalise USA faster than Biden. Blue MAGA Democrats will ensure USA is stuck in a rut for as long as they can hold power.
Shortsighted, idealistic, accelerationist nonsense. You fell for KGB propaganda. How many members of the working class need to suffer and die to bring about that collapse? Accelerationists never think about the cost, or assume they won't be one of the ones to suffer.
You liberals are now indistinguishable from the looniest right wing fascist conspiracy theorist. There is zero distance between you and the guy blaming everything on the "Judaeo-Bulshervik conspiracy".
Right because 1. ex-KGB Putin totally isn't keeping the dream alive and well 2. acknowledging the very real and proven influence of Russian state-sponsored troll farms has anything to do with the CIA 3. that's definitely how logic works. You don't have to be a US propaganda shill to recognize a Russian propaganda shill. Cosplay Leftists decomposing everything into a fictitious ideological dichotomy is exactly what the capitalist oligarchs want.
You have to be a US propaganda shill to believe China/Russia/communism are evil things, which you are. The parroting script is too common a pattern. Do not cosplay as a rational person.
I don't think communism is evil, I am a Communist. China is not Russia is not Communist. They couldn't possibly be Communist, since communism is by definition moneyless and stateless, and both China and Russia are states that have money. China and Russia are both capitalist countries with varying degrees of state involvement and oligarchy. Suggesting that either country is Communist is a bad script.
communism is by definition moneyless and stateless, and both China and Russia are states that have money. China and Russia are both capitalist countries
You have demonstrated your level of understanding of communism. Have a nice day. CIA needs to pay you more.
Communism is defined as a stateless, classless, moneyless society; broadly speaking, a society in which private property is abolished. Neither China nor Russia has abolished private property, and in fact both countries are home to many billionaires.
What definition were you using, and how is it in any way applicable to modern China or Russia?