Voting is at it’s base a means of information transfer, but it’s also a way to transfer power.

Legislators presidents are not all powerful, but there can be real consequences to who gets to make the rules.

We do not disagree about what is most important. But voting is a gateway to civic involvement. I don’t think people who don’t vote are more likely to organize labor, volunteer, or engage in activism. I think it’s the opposite. Voters are more likely to be engaged and engaged active people are more likely to be voters.

That’s the thing. There was no sacrifice. There was no pro Palestine candidate. There was a quiet genocide supporter and a loud genocide supporter. You can’t punish the quiet candidate by abstaining or voting for the loud genocide supporter.

The message they take from that is voters don’t give a shit about Palestine or genocide except that some voters want it to happen faster with more death and suffering.

You are correct that we cannot vote our way to peace, prosperity, justice, or any other desireable goal. Voting is not the end, it’s the first step on a long road to building those things. Do unionize your workplace. Volunteer for your local aid agency. Build dual power. It’s just so easy (nearly always) that there is no excuse to not vote.

Honestly, I think the same of you. If you are American, You can’t see the forest for the trees and you voted or allowed the election of someone that was even worse for the palestinians, Americans, and the world.

I’m sure the people being tortured in Cecot in Elsalvador take comfort that at least the Democrats got punished at the polls for their support of Israel.

The Ukrainian families that lost their loved ones when the US cut off intelligence sharing for 48 hours and let the Russians get the jump on exposed troops.

The thousands of US government workers that lost their jobs to DOGE can rest easy knowing that at least Harris didn’t get elected after supporting genocide.

Nobodies life was saved, the isrealies continue their ethnic cleansing, with the full throated support of the US president, but you get to sleep soundly knowing All the death, torture, and suffering is worth it.

Shame.

Lose an election to who

Voters.

Democratic leadership can schedule events or platform people or even change the rules but voters get to vote at the end of the day. There are more voters than leadership. And if voters didn’t vote for centrists in primaries there wouldn’t be any centrists in office.

Agreed, sometimes, basically all the time, you have to choose between the bad and worse options.

You just said the concessions were to head off the growth of revolutionary fire. What is that but responding to the will of voters?

Electoral politics sucks that way. If all you care about is a single issue, there might be no good option.

I don’t think the applies to Gaza and Palestinians but plenty of people do.

But presidential elections are not about a single issue, unless you are short sighted or it’s your life on the line. The rest of us have to make a judgement about a whole lot of lives and some of us are too self rightious to think clearly.

Moving the democratic and Republican parties left has happened more recently than a third party winning national prominence.

Both Democrats and Republicans moved left during the progressive era, 1890’s to 1916. The Democrats stayed there for decades while the Republicans moved right over the course of the new deal. A third party hasn’t gained prominence since the Republican party came on the scene in the 1850’s.

I never said voting is the most important thing to do. Voting is the bare ass minimum. It’s (usually) easy and zero risk.

Actual progress nearly always requires direct action. Women’s suffrage involved firebombs. Abolition took a whole ass war in the US and the new deal happened after strikes and outright war all over the continent.

Voting is not sufficient it’s just the easiest possible way to give leadership information.

Moving the Democratic party would be easier than electing a third party. It just doesn’t happen in a year or decade.

If you can’t see the difference then I guess all flags are swastikas to you.

Yep, no difference whatsoever. /S

If you really believe that then I guess you think nothing was lost.

Voting for trump or not voting isn’t taking a stand, it’s watching the flames rise and refusing to fight the flames.

Are you really going to lecture me about how I was just as unsafe under Biden?

Harris swung to the left as a senator and was vice president to the most progressive administration in history.

I live in a red state and a year ago I had the consolation that at least the white house had my back.

Yes the Democratic party is oriented towards resisting change. You act like the people have no power, no say. If you think the votes are rigged please explain how.

Voters do have a say. Republican voters wanted someone more extreme than milqtoast mitt Romney, and they got it in Trump. They wanted republican congresspeople that would support Trump instead of obstruct him like McCain. They got them.

Democratic leadership can make it hard for leftists to win, but they aren’t changing vote totals. If Americans voted for leftists in primaries for mayor and city council there would eventually only be leftists running for Congress and eventually a leftist would win the nominee for president.

Money is a tool, it’s not mind control.

If you can’t vote against fascism you will get genocide every time.

Democracy has never done anything, not the creation of the Republican party, the abolition of slavery, the 19th amendment, the new deal, or the civil rights act.

Those were all conspiracies of the elites leadering the population kicking and screaming into modernity.

Edit/s

Dems could become a left wing party if that’s where voters wanted them. They would lose their donors, yes, so the reps would become the much better funded party.

But if voters voted for left wing candidates there is nothing the donors or centrist politicians could do about it. It would be a generational project, winning primaries and general elections, but it could be done.

Trans people: am I a joke to you?

Seriously. Harris would have been a lot better for me personally. My life is not a performance.

Barter was very rare in pre market economies. People weren’t trading potatoes for furniture.

You would barter with people you never expected to see again. People you lived with you would owe them one.