• ArmchairAce1944@discuss.online
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    6 days ago

    No offense, but for the population at large, was there a meaningful choice?

    The side that really wanted this might have been a smaller minority than the ones that did not, but ultimately they were not only far for violent (in every meaning of the word and method) but also had control of the police and the courts, meaning murderers routinely got away with it while the opposing leadership and even rank and file got murdered, received very long prison sentences that removed them from society entirely, or even got framed for murders and executed or lynched for it.

    The average person does not now, or have they ever, dictated anything. Also as it stands there is no such thing as an ‘average’ person by any metric.

  • nanometer1625
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    7 days ago

    If you are advocating for proportional representation and ranked choice voting, perhaps you should say that, OP.

  • dohpaz42@lemmy.world
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    9 days ago

    So instead of blaming the system that gave us two parties, you blame the voters who had no choice but to vote for two parties?

    ~Sounds solid. 👍~

      • corsicanguppy@lemmy.ca
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        9 days ago

        Someone let me know when we’re getting off the internet and rioting.

        I heard they were just waiting for you, man.

      • WizardOfFrobozz@lemmy.ca
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        7 days ago

        You’re talking to Americans here. Fucking cowards aren’t even willing to block traffic or occupy buildings. The mere suggestion of a response that’s a step or two beyond that, approaching something halfway proprtionate? They’ll piss their pants in fear, clutch their pearls and start attacking YOU more forcefully than they’d ever come at MAGA.

        • jenings@lemmy.world
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          7 days ago

          A fun aspect of the American dream is if you fuck around too much you can lose your job. Which I’ll bet true everywhere but an added bonus is you also lose your health insurance and some people need health insurance to stay alive

        • forkDestroyer@infosec.pub
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          8 days ago

          You’re talking to Americans here. Fucking cowards aren’t even willing to block traffic or occupy buildings.

          What country are you from again?

        • brianary@piefed.zip
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          8 days ago

          Have you seen American police? They have machine guns, tanks, and air support. They’ve been trained to see citizens as the enemy for years (see Warrior Cop Training).

          • WizardOfFrobozz@lemmy.ca
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            8 days ago

            And your move is to… keep allowing this and keep your head down?

            Congratulations. You have agreed to a political morality where the government’s entitlement to your obedience increases in direct proportion to how willing it is to fucking kill you.

            • brianary@piefed.zip
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              8 days ago

              Look, I’m old and have serious health issues. Your comments are ableist and simplistic. I’m not going to unilaterally sacrifice myself.

              • WizardOfFrobozz@lemmy.ca
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                7 days ago

                Americans, forever unable to imagine collective action except as a series of unilateral individual decisions. Okay, great- clearly your best move, then, is to shit-talk direct action in spaces where people considering it are likely to gather.

                If you don’t want to put your comfort at risk, fine. Very least you could do is not actively contribute to the problem.

                • brianary@piefed.zip
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                  7 days ago

                  You don’t really understand American life. We work ourselves nearly to death because our unions have been broken and gutted and demonized, we have no decent healthcare and we still have to spend an unacceptable amount of time and money for it, most of us are enslaved by the cost of our enormous cars and by housing that is increasingly exploited by private equity, and we are constantly barraged by divisive propaganda and suspicion campaigns. This all results in a populace that is spent. You may experience some of that, but you cannot imagine the totally of it, which is why it seems so easy for you. Maybe your age is also a factor?

                  Either way, I’m not changing any minds here. There’s not enough upvotes to worry about, so your complaint seems like looking for a moral panic to pin on me, which is pretty funny.

              • Amnesigenic@lemmy.ml
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                7 days ago

                No they’re completely right, plenty of old people throughout history have managed not to be fucking cowards

        • athatet@lemmy.zip
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          8 days ago

          Not blocking traffic in a country where running over protestors is fine is not cowardice.

    • CrocodilloBombardino@piefed.social
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      9 days ago

      really it seems like it’s blaming people for just voting & hoping, instead of organizing and building a movement. voting for the lesser evil is not enough.

      • corsicanguppy@lemmy.ca
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        9 days ago

        voting for the lesser evil is not enough.

        Evolution can’t work if we back-slide.

        just voting & hoping, instead of organizing and building a movement.

        Let us know when your clip airs on the news.

        • BanMeFromPosting@lemmy.ml
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          8 days ago

          Evolution can’t work if we back-slide.

          “the lesser” evil is still evil, it is still a backslide in your line of argument

          Let us know when your clip airs on the news.

          Let me know when your strategy of voting for genociders stops the genocide

        • starman2112@sh.itjust.works
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          7 days ago

          Evolution can’t work if we back-slide

          Like, for example, if we let a cop run the country? I agree. Let’s force the DNC to back more progressive candidates instead of more conservative ones. Signalling that you’ll vote for literally anyone with a D next to their name only incentivizes them to appeal to the right.

          One sec, I’m getting a premonition… You’re going to tell me to ”vOtE iN pRiMaRiEs" as if the DNC doesn’t have a monumental sway in which candidates end up on ballots. I do vote in primaries, for the record

    • Amnesigenic@lemmy.ml
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      7 days ago

      There are always other choices, but those might possibly require actual work and personal risk so they’re too scary for the voter brain to handle

      • dohpaz42@lemmy.world
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        7 days ago

        It doesn’t help that the two big parties made it so that only the two big parties get coverage at debates and other nationally televised stuff.

        There is also the problem that for presidential elections, the electoral college are the ones who actually choose the president. And, while the college usually chooses based on the will of the people, they are by no means obligated to do so.

        There are, of course, other issues too. But it is worth reiterating that it is not my, nor your, fault that things are the way they are.

        ~I do lay a lot of blame these days on Alito and Citizens United.~

        • BeardededSquidward@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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          9 days ago

          So instead of complaining and bringing attention to a subject we’re supposed to shut up and comply? How good of an authoritarian view you have there.

          • dohpaz42@lemmy.world
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            9 days ago

            Bringing attention to a problem is fine (even though I’d wager we’re all painfully aware of this one already). But blaming the victims is not. So there’s that.

              • dohpaz42@lemmy.world
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                8 days ago

                How so?

                We the people are the victims of a two party system that suppresses our will due to corporate interests. The dems are not innocent in this problem. They are the lesser of two evils, but they are still considered evil (e.g., Kyrsten Sinema, John Fetterman, Chuck Schumer, et all). Meaningful change by us normal people is intentionally difficult; not impossible, I admit, and people Like Mamdani are helping, but the bar is set very high and very expensive.

                “…[my] choosing…” is blaming me (and every American) for things I fundamentally have no control over. I do what I can locally, but AOC, Mamdani, and Bernie I am not.

                It also really sucks when a member of congress from some other state/district pushes and enacts some imposing change that affects people in other states/districts, and the people in the other states/districts can only write letters/make calls to their reps and if they’re lucky they may receive back some canned form letter written by a staffer. I’m projecting on that one, but I suspect my state and district aren’t unique in that problem.

                So yeah, I ask again, how so?

                • BanMeFromPosting@lemmy.ml
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                  8 days ago

                  I am not wasting my time reading all that. Joe Biden is a rapist who killed the MeToo movement, the democrats are enacting a genocide and people can vote third party. Pretending like you’re a “victim” when you vote for genociders is insane. And its fucked up to appropriate language used to describe what happens to women who come forward about sexual assault, to shield yourself from critique for voting for rapist genociders.

  • Madrigal@lemmy.world
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    9 days ago

    Nope, it’s also a consequence of often choosing the greater evil.

    And for favouring short term over long term planning.

    And zero-sum thinking.

    And us vs them mentality.

    And a lack of critical thinking in general.

        • FlashMobOfOne@lemmy.world
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          9 days ago

          Was he?

          Seems to me that, if at the end of your presidency homelessness is up 18% and people can’t afford basic food staples, and you’re still sending billions in free WMD’s to a genocider mid-genocide anyway, maybe you don’t get to claim you’re a ‘lesser evil’.

          Americans don’t want to admit it, but what you’re usually getting is two greater evils in different packages.

              • PapaStevesy@lemmy.world
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                8 days ago

                See I think electing the traitorous, racist, malignantly narcissistic, pedophilic rapist who hates the American people just as much as he hates people of every other nation on Earth would have been far less reasonable. And the first two years of Trump’s second administration have proved me right, no speculation necessary. I’d thank you back, but since your opinions are fucking fecal, instead I’ll ask you kindly to stop sharing, thanks.

                • FlashMobOfOne@lemmy.world
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                  8 days ago

                  I understand.

                  You think that the blue guy doing genocide, poverty, war, and the like is okay because they package themselves as a nice guy. I concern myself more with actions than words personally.

                  You’re welcome to your opinion. Have a pleasant day.

          • Kacarott@aussie.zone
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            8 days ago

            Just to be clear about language, “lesser evil” and “greater evil” aren’t like, classifications of evil like a tier list or something, they are directly comparative. If comparing two evils and one is greater, then the other is lesser, definitionally.

            • FlyingCircus@lemmy.world
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              8 days ago

              That’s some good framing if your goal is to give power to great evil. Like, you know that doesn’t let you off the hook for voting for great evil, right? That there is no moral high ground there?

  • Bytemeister@lemmy.world
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    9 days ago

    Hmmm. Really seems like the government today is directly the result of not choosing the lesser evil 2 years ago.

    • isleepinahammock@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      8 days ago

      The 2024 election was the result of choosing the lesser evil in 2020. You can’t analyze these problems by looking at only one election at a time. In the grand scheme of things, Biden winning in 2020 was a net-negative for the country. It gave us four more years of milquetoast centrism that did nothing to reduce the appeal of MAGA. If Trump had won again in 2020, he wouldn’t have had four years to prepare for a second term. There wouldn’t have been a Project 2025.

      Electoral myopia is a mortal sin of Democrats. Every election they pretend that no other election has ever happened before, and no other election will ever happen again.

      • Bytemeister@lemmy.world
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        8 days ago

        The 2024 election was the result of choosing the lesser evil in 2020.

        Only in that he wouldn’t be able to run again in 2024 if we had let the greater evil win.

      • The_Decryptor@aussie.zone
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        8 days ago

        If Trump had won again in 2020, he wouldn’t have had four years to prepare for a second term.

        So your solution to Trump having a second term, would be to give him a second term?

    • BanMeFromPosting@lemmy.ml
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      8 days ago

      And that election came as a result of decades of “lesser evil” “strategic” voting, where each election managed to be a worse more decrepit choice than the previous. Looking at these things through the lens of just this specific election is part of what has got us here. The ahistoric approach to politics is why you end up running defense for a genocider who can’t even win an election against Trump.

      • Bytemeister@lemmy.world
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        8 days ago

        Apparently not allowed to have an opinion here due to a one-way application of rule 4 “lessor evil” rhetoric. So enjoy your uninformed circle-jerk in a joke sub that can’t stand up to the simplest of criticisms. You win, congratulations on posting an opinon that is explicitly protected by your mods.

        • BanMeFromPosting@lemmy.ml
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          8 days ago

          “waaah waaaah you have to hear my clichés about why you have to vote for genociders waaah waaaah”

          You could also just formulate what youre saying in a civil manner and not have the issue. Civility is not just about tone, but content and action as well.
          If you can’t actually engage with the actual critique and facts of the matter, then why would one want to hear what you have to say?

          Finally mods applying rules unevenly is something that happens everywhere, stop being pissy because you felt like it happened to you now. When I interact with something on lemmy world and people behave like shit, its me who gets moderated for responding in kind. It sucks, but Im not gonna pretend its something unique to your group.
          Now I will say in this instance the rules havent been applied unevenly, youre just a pissbaby.

          • Bytemeister@lemmy.world
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            8 days ago

            If you can’t actually engage with the actual critique and facts of the matter, then why would one want to hear what you have to say?

            I did engage, with facts. My comment was removed because harm reduction is a contraversial topic in this community.

            Per the interpretation of rule 4 by the mods, this is a manufactured echo chamber for 2024 non-voters to jack off about how great they are for not voting for a “genocider”. Fine. You all can have your safe space, and I won’t bring in basic facts like “if trump didn’t win the election because we all voted for someone else then we wouldn’t be dealing with 99% of the bullshit we’ve got today”. I get that you all want a fantasy space where people are free to post their protected opinion with uniform agreement enforced by the moderators, you have a right to that. However, you should consider how weak those positions are when people are banned from examining them and poking at the (fairly large and obvious) holes. You know what I’d call a set of unsupported fantasies enforced by authoritarians and banned from basic examination that is detached from the actual results it produces? Religion.

            • BanMeFromPosting@lemmy.ml
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              8 days ago

              I did engage, with facts. My comment was removed.

              As far as I can see you did not do that to my comment. Did you respond to the wrong comment?

              Per the interpretation of rule 4 by the mods, this is a manufactured echo chamber for 2024 non-voters to jack off about how great they are for not voting for a “genocider”.

              Call it what you want, but just be aware your favorite comm is as much of an echo chamber. The difference is that the people here exist within the same cultural hegemony you do, so they hear plenty of what you say every day. They, unlike you, are not in an echo chamber, since they hear your bs all the time. You have to seek it out.

              I won’t bring in basic facts like “if trump didn’t win the election because we all voted for someone else then we wouldn’t be dealing with 99% of the bullshit we’ve got today”

              I think I see the confusion. What youre presenting here is an opinion, not a fact. And it is an unfalsifiable opinion. Looking at policies and the history of the party and the candidate, I cannot agree.

              However, you should consider how weak those positions are when people are banned from examining them and poking at the (fairly large and obvious) holes.

              So I would again point you towards the previous thing I wrote about people hearing your clichés all the time. Id then add to that with a reassurance nobody is missing on anything if your “poking holes” is just more of you aggressively spewing text about how you think Kamala would be better. I think you would get further in these spaces if you:

              1. Engaged with the critique people give your position
              2. Differentiate facts from feelings
              3. Substantiate your feelings with facts
              4. Present your arguments civilly and engage others with an open mind

              You know what I’d call a set of unsupported fantasies enforced by authoritarians and banned from basic examination that is detached from the actual results it produces? Religion.

              Seems like an odd definition of religion that excluded quite a few spiritualistic practices.

              I would again point you towards the thing I said before: Its like that everywhere, you just dont notice it elsewhere because you rarely spout heterodox opinions. You are now in one of the few online spaces where the western cultural hegemony isn’t the absolute baseline, and so you find yourself as part of the outgroup. Most users here will have similar stories to tell you of whatever comm you think does it well.
              I think you also need to get a better understanding of authoritarian, because calling a modaction “authoritarian” is very funny.

              • Bytemeister@lemmy.world
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                8 days ago

                As far as I can see you did not do that to my comment. Did you respond to the wrong comment?

                No. I had a comment removed earlier that would have been basically what I would have sent back to you, but it was removed per a biased application of rule 4, no “Lessor Evil” rhetoric. I’m not going to type it all up again just have it removed. You’re welcome to find some repository of old comments and read it if it is available.

                Edit: also the irony of complaining about my civility (without citation) and calling me a whiny pissbaby in the same comment is rich.

                • BanMeFromPosting@lemmy.ml
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                  8 days ago

                  You can just find comments in the modlog. I just found yours. It had a bunch “facts” (opinions), some unsubstantiated claims, some statements that were straight up untrue, and finally it was just a disingenuous reductive statement that failed to engage with the other.
                  It was also a statement that diminished Democrats involvement in many of the things you take issue with. I assume that was the reasoning for having it removed. That or just it being regular trite unsubstantiated text with the regular trite rhetorical tricks that everyone sees through.

        • Bytemeister@lemmy.world
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          8 days ago

          Rule 4 “lessor evil rhetoric”

          Post is explicitly about “lessor evil” (can’t even spell it right in the side bar)

          Lessor is a participant of the lease who takes possession of the property and provides it as a leasing subject to the lessee for temporary possession

          Mods, restore my comment, or remove the whole post or admit this is a joke sub that is about idealistic anarchist masturbatory fantasies and just ban my ass so I don’t have to keep reading the smooth-brained drivel that got the orange fascist elected in the first place, whilst being unable to interject with basic logic and facts.

    • BeardededSquidward@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      9 days ago

      Someone doesn’t understand that the Democrats have been running that platform for a while now and been using it as a whipping rallying call to kowtow the actual left into compliance with them without any real consideration given to their ideology. The Democrats are not actually left, they’re at best middle of the road conservatism and people need to realize that.

      • Blue_Morpho@lemmy.world
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        9 days ago

        they’re at best middle of the road conservatism and people need to realize that.

        “The lesser of 2 evils.”

        America voted for the greater evil and is now experiencing face eating leopard.

        • isleepinahammock@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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          8 days ago

          Hillary Clinton was the lesser evil against Barack in 2008. Her whole campaign platform was that she was more electable and that voting for Obama was throwing your vote away.

          • PapaStevesy@lemmy.world
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            8 days ago

            The lesser evil thing doesn’t apply to primaries, you always vote as progressive as possible in the primaries. And anyway, Clinton and Obama were both establishment candidates, they were the same level of evil.

  • thevoidzero@lemmy.world
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    8 days ago

    Not really, because if people consistently choose the lesser evil. Like if 90% voted for lesser evils, then the other party would have to change things up, or there could be a new party that would have a chance of winning because they’re competing for that 90% of people and no way would the evil party win.

    But no, problems isn’t choosing lesser evil, it’s that significant people still choose evil

    • BanMeFromPosting@lemmy.ml
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      8 days ago

      Seeing as how that has never been the plan of the majority, its a plan that has never been tried. As opposed to the plan of voting for democrats even though they’re (at best) republicans with a 2 year delay. We’ve tried that plan a bunch and all it has gotten us is genocide, mass deportations, a police state and an ever-worsening climate.

        • BanMeFromPosting@lemmy.ml
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          8 days ago

          Voter participation has not been below 50% for any presidential election in modern history - Las time was in the 1920’s and before that it was in the 1880’s.
          I was, however, thinking of registered Democrats and organised movements like the Uncommitted movement.

        • BanMeFromPosting@lemmy.ml
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          8 days ago

          Yeah, just as blue-MAGA won’t. Good thing there’s a large group of non-voters and a large group of people who vote against the incumbent because they can tell things are shit, they just dont know why.