She was never polling to win, by every matrices Bernie was projected to win, but the oligarchy couldn’t have a populist candidate win and preserve the status quo so they kneecapped him to shove Biden into the spotlight

How do you know?

Believe it or not, I share your anger toward the Democratic Party. I’m not registered Dem for that reason. I just don’t care to limit my blame to one individual and say “oh well, that’s the problem”. Because the problem is way way bigger than that.

Sanders was never going to win against the establishment candidate. No progressive candidate will, possibly not in our lifetimes and so saying things like “the democrats don’t give a fuck about fighting fascism. It’s all theatre to them” is, quite honestly, pointless and not constructive. For one, we know that’s not universally true. For another, what are you going to do about it, in practical terms?

Let’s say that everything you state is true. What practical steps can you or I take to dislodge the DNC and put forth truly progressive candidates?

The answer to this question is precisely why, while I understand and share the anger, I don’t feel shouting into the void and laying blame is a good use of time. Because ultimately there is no revolution. There is no wholesale transformation of the system that happens in a short period of time, no matter how much we want to shake our fists and protest.

The only way to loosen the grip of the establishment parties is frustratingly slow, very incremental change. And that means blaming the DNC or anyone in the DNC and saying “well fuck them, I’m never voting for a Dem again” is counter-productive.

I’m claiming that people employ binary thinking and lay blame where the answer is just a wee bit more complex. Saying “Her selfishness is a direct cause of Biden being elected.” is flat-out ludicrous for all kinds of reasons, mainly that no one knows what would have happened if Bernie had been the candidate. Nobody’s even putting numbers on what “split the vote” even means. FFS.

And look, I voted for Bernie. I even wrote him in in 2020 (I’m in CA).

But the main reason I’m saying all this is that she had the right to run. It just comes across as incredibly shitty - AND exactly the same thinking that made HRC the candidate - to say “oh no, you there, you can’t run because it might split the vote”.

“Do what I want or else…”

Edit: It’s a joke.

Cool. I’m actually in the same boat. My House rep is a Republican fuckwit who’s been in office for a billion years, give or take. We agree on exactly nothing. I still call and email for the simple reason that even though he will always go with the majority opinion if I don’t do it then there will never be a chance for it to not be the majority opinion. I know it seems futile but it still important to represent our views and make sure those we disagree with aren’t the only thing they hear.

I think the lack of correlation between public opinion and government policy is more than satisfactory to demonstrate how much our federal legislators care about your phone calls, yes.

I hear you and acknowledge it is frustrating. But your assumption seems to be that your view is shared by all and thus “public opinion” aligns perfectly with what you believe or at least that a majority agrees with you. We all do this because we imagine our opinions to be sensible and hey, why wouldn’t other people share them? But they don’t.

“We should call our representatives”

“na na why should I bother? This requires effort and I have to figure out what to say. And anyway my cynicism dictates that it doesn’t matter. na na blah blah”

“How do you know, you’ve never tried”

“I just know blah blah they don’t care blah blah”

“Well, you’ve definitely proved that not calling produces no results”

How do you know? Have you ever actually tried?

You can pretty much lay blame on anyone or anything because there’s absolutely no way to prove it one way or another. You might as well be saying Biden got elected because of the phase of the moon.

You need to work on your writing skills. Nanner nanner or something

"Form your own party. "

Good luck with getting ballot access.

But no need to start from scratch - here’s a list of political parties in the US: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_political_parties_in_the_United_States

I’m sorry but this is how I read your comment:

“How dare she run for President instead of letting the man take it.”

I’m really sympathetic to all you say. I get the frustration and anger - I’ve had it for years.

Alas…

They exist as the last wall between more serious leftists and actual change.

It’s not a wall. More of a roadblock that can be moved or even removed. We’ve seen progress, which I get is easy to forget.

The issue is this: pointing all this out and being vocal about the issues is important but does not itself solve the problem. We can protest and complain all we want and it does not result in actual change. And this is kind of the central problem - folks such as yourself (and me, at one time) harp on how bad things are under both parties and even refuse to participate. We don’t get politically involved, don’t vote, and just complain.

That does not move the needle and never will.

As many have pointed out, with Democrats you can move the needle. You can elect and re-elect progressive candidates and push elected officials to enact progressive legislation. It does actually happen but too often this fact get’s forgotten or ignored in all the doom and gloom. Meanwhile, because we didn’t get 100% of what we wanted and kept complaining about how nothing changes (when in fact it does) we end up with a neo-fascist authoritarian regime with which there will be NO negotiation, NO active or meaningful protests and during which we will take many many steps backward. Seriously, we are looking at a Christian Nationalist takeover of government and all that entails. This is REALLY bad.

A cynical and less tolerant person would say “stop complaining and do something about it”. I would say “ok, I hear your complaints and agree. What are we going to do about it?”

Did you not notice i was talking about palestine?

Since you didn’t actually mention it, no, I wasn’t able to read your mind to determine that.

But ok, you are a single issue voter who thinks the treatment of the Palestinians is the same for both parties and this outweighs EVERY AND ALL domestic issue such as reproductive freedom, LGBTQIA+ rights, the environment, worker’s rights etc etc.

You are about to find out that’s far from the case. We could negotiate with Democrats and we know that worked because, among other things, Harris was very clear that she “would not be silent” about the humanitarian crisis in Gaza. She pledged to bring the war to an end so the “Palestinian people can realize their right to dignity, security, freedom and self determination.” That doesn’t mean you get 100% of what you want, which is presumably… well, do you even know? But it is a step in the right direction.

What did Trump say in response? What has Trump done (remember the embassy move) ? It’s a long list but most recently appoint Mike Huckabee as US ambassador. I assume you know what appointing a Christian Nationalist to that position means. Notably, Huckabee is pro-settlement. He has outright denied the right of Palestinian’s to Gaza and the West Bank. He literally said “there really [is] no such thing as a Palestinian”.

Add it all up and you can understand why Israel’s finance minister Smotrich recently said that Trump’s win was an opportunity to annex parts of the West Bank. “I intend, with God’s help, to lead a government decision that says that the government of Israel will work with the new administration of President Trump and the international community to apply Israeli sovereignty over Judea and Samaria

So contrast the two:

1. Dems = pressure on Israel to reign it in, humanitarian aid to Palestine and at least moderately responsive to pressure from progressives
2. Trump = annexation of more territory and permission given to Israelis to take the gloves off + explicitly putting in a person who believes Palestinians do not or should not exist, much less have any kind of sovereignty. And I wonder what you think will happen to pro-Palestine protests during a Trump administration?

In all honesty, if you believe “both sides” are the same on this issue you are grossly ignorant of the facts and simply too lazy to educate yourself. You and people like you are directly responsible for what happens now. You fucked around and now we all get find out.

I guess on the plus side when China invades Taiwan we won’t have to honor our long-standing commitments and get our hands dirty defending our allies I mean economic partners

Stop pretending the dems are materially different

You are lucky. For you there is no material difference. For many, there very much is. Contrary to popular opinion, you do not have to always and exclusively vote for your own selfish interests.

Interesting.

I 100% put the communication issue on the leadership.

The difference is that when you lead a team your team does not elect you. You are in a position of power and accountable for their failures.

Our representatives are not our leaders, they are elected by us to represent our interests. Very different power dynamic and the distinction, at least ot me, is critical. We have to make informed choices about who they are and if they will adequately act on our behalf. In order to do that we need to put effort into understanding them, their background, and their choices. It’s a bit like when you choose to purchase something or even, say, commit to living in a particular city. It’s not up to the city to adequately communicate to you why you should live there, although that certainly doesn’t hurt. It’s mainly up to you to establish whether that place is right for you.

The My Life Outdoors dude has a relevant video “Your Gear is Poisoning You”:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ht7nOaIkpI

This was the last time i vote for a dem candidate.

I’m sure that’ll fix things right up!

All I can see is that this is why Democrats are going to keep losing because instead of coming down to talk to the people and not over them and dismissing with reports and numbers and can’t accept the fact that they have a lot of blame along with these low info voters who also have a lot to be desired.

I agree with the sentiment, at least in principle. Democrats need to reject neo-liberal (or is it really neo-con?) policies and start meeting regular working people where they are at. To my mind both AOC and Sanders have articulated this extremely well.

But… this is a two-way street. A lot of voters are low-information because they simply don’t prioritize voting and elections. There may be decent reasons for this but not voting or just voting for whoever says things that make you feel good in the moment is not taking responsibility as a citizen and it certainly isn’t voting for your own interests. Things don’t get better that way. We need to fight.

I know I know… chicken meet egg.