this post was submitted on 21 Jul 2025
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I too like punching down at people with no power. It would be too much for democratic leadership to learn the lessons of 2016 and 2024. Just blame progressives and people who want better things!
No I take this back. Harris was right to push for a fascist border bill and Biden was right to flood cops with money. Oh and we can’t forget enthusiastically funding genocides!
The dems really need to try to out fasc the fascists. That way they can persuade the moderate fascists! After all, progressives have no where else to go! I’m so glad Dems have so many big brained think tankers leading these extremely good strategies that always seems to work out well for us.
People used their power to support literal Nazis, but I guess it's okay because Blue Circus was REALLY not entertaining enough for you this cycle.
I voted for Harris and the like. But the reason she lost is because she failed to inspire her base. It is bullshit that anyone would blame voters for their leader’s failures.
The power differential between a random non voter and the people to blame, establishment dems, is vast. The dems who made unpopular and stupid decisions are mostly to blame for this situation. Attacking voters is just scapegoating bullshit
Sorry that you think that we need to rely on our Aristocratic Overlords and that democracy has no meaning.
I’m sorry you think that leaders shouldn’t lead? Stand for something? Like say that the genocide in Palestine is bad? Actually try to reform the cops? Don’t pull a fascism at the border?
Harris was a dogshit candidate with a dogshit message. Everything is great! Let me tie myself to Biden, a historically unpopular incumbent that had to drop from the race late!
I'm sure you can quote where I said any of that.
Yes.
A dogshit candidate doesn't absolve people of their duty to vote against LITERAL FUCKING NAZIS
I’m not saying it does. My personal morality forced me to vote for the Dems even though my vote doesn’t matter and I fucking loath genocidiers.
I’m just saying the vast majority of the blame lies at the feet of the people who had power to stop this. Merrick Garland, Joe Biden, and Harris. We put them in office in 2020 to fucking do something and they say on their fucking hands and did nothing. They had power. They squandered it on bullshit.
Direct your anger somewhere productive. Being angry at voters is going to get you nowhere, whereas elected leaders might notice when big cities start electing people with actual decent non neoliberal policies?
"Sorry, the progressive wasn't pure enough. We're going to boycott him, and criticizing us isn't allowed (but you have to be nice to us, or else our feewings will be hurt 🥺)"
Normalizing purity politics will sink all left candidates, not just the ones who aren't radical enough for your tastes
And I’m sorry that you don’t want candidates to actually appeal to their base? The reason why republicans win is because they throw red meat to their fucking lunatic base. We don’t have abortion anymore because they actually delivered.
Using the boogie man of fascism obviously works on people like you and me, but that isnt enough. Promise something fucking inspiring for once and deliver this time instead of just giving hope.
Again, I want that from the DNC.
I just don't think that absolves people of their responsibility to use their vote to avoid creating and worsening literal fucking genocides.
On Lemmy, it's widely recognized that the Dem party is fucked up, but as seen in this very comment section, there are numerous people who still think outright not voting when literal fucking Nazis are running against the anti-fascist coalition candidate is not only fine, but commendable and even morally necessary.
One drum clearly needs beat here more than the other.
You beating this particular drum is not helping and will never change non-voters' minds. The message of "you have to vote for us to stop the fascists and that's the only thing that matters" didn't work on most people before the election and it isn't going to work now just because you're repeating it more angrily this time. Yes, it sucks, but that's the reality and you need to come to terms with it.
I understand the anger; I voted for harm reduction myself and am just as distraught that it didn't succeed, but instead of doom spiraling and angrily lashing out at non-voters I am focused on identifying and fixing the problem. People didn't vote for Democrats in large enough numbers to stop fascism, and the reason is that they are disappointed in and uninspired by Democratic leadership. The solution then is not to try and browbeat them into voting, it's to replace the leadership.
The solution is in the primaries, and this is where "purity politics" as you call it is necessary. Railing against "purity politics" in primaries only serves to perpetuate the status quo that led to this defeat in the first place.
No one is going to have a sudden epiphany that "Oh, I just realized! Supporting Nazis is BAD, actually!"
However, we humans are social animals, and we respond to the actions and prevailing opinions of our communities. When our communities oppose an idea, we are more likely to, piece by piece, shy away from that idea as appropriate. In the same way that arguing against racism will change few, if any, racists' minds, hostility against racism is still necessary to create a culture of anti-racism, to both prevent the uncertain from falling into racist thought and behaviors, and to ward away those on the fence from the same. When you're finding yourself as a leftist, finally, excitingly, free of the liberal idiocy of the mainstream Dem party, whether the community you're in gives you asspats for refusing to vote or tells you that's the shit that literally puts Nazis into power will influence your opinions and decisions from that point on.
It's not about 'convincing' people in one, big, overwhelming change of opinion. It's about changing or maintaining cultural norms - even in the 'culture' of a comm as small as this.
Man, I'm a fucking Bernie voter, twice over, and I would've voted for him a third time, even as hopeless as it would've been, had he ran in 2024. I'm not exactly opposed to picking the most radical candidate in the primaries. The issue is that purity politics becomes an issue when it divides the vote against a candidate that is objectively worse from the points of view of both the 'more' and 'less' pure candidate's supporters.
It's why I expect I will yelling at a non-zero amount of people to suck it the fuck up and support Mamdani come November as he gains steam. Mamdani (though I am a Mamdani supporter to the core, from the primary) won the primary, and now it's the duty of everyone who isn't a Nazi-supporting ghoul (like Adams) or a weird sexual harasser apologist (like Cuomo) to suck it the fuck up and express unity with everyone who will suffer even under the considerably more limited influence of a municipal authority.
Fight all you want in the primaries (with some exception granted for "Please unite behind the bigger progressive candidate if things are getting tight against the moderates", such as for WARREN NOT FUCKING DROPPING OUT IN 2020), but in the general, if there are Nazis running, it's a moral necessity to fight against the Nazis.
God, I feel so much better medicated.