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Right now I can see two futures.
One where the 2026 election gives the Dems control of both Houses.
The other where the 2026 elections are cancelled for national security reasons.
Or the Republicans push through "election security" laws that gerrymander the whole country to the point that Democrats can never gain a majority in either house ever again.
This is 100% how every single dictatorship in existence today works. Almost all countries in the world hold elections. But some are more democratic than others. Every single tyrant in power today has been or claim to have been democratically elected.
"Authoritarians get voted in. They never get voted out."
There is absolutely a third future where the Democrats refuse to change their platform and fuck this up again. Don’t be naive.
The Dems have flubbed it many times.
The people who are sitting around doing nothing haven't won anything yet.
Name me one time that the Left letting the Right win has helped anything.
But yes, keep telling people not not voting D will help. [/s]
But yes, keep telling people not not voting D will help.
Never said this.
One where the 2026 election gives the Dems control of both Houses.
We've got lib media trying to argue that the 2024 election indicated a rightward shift of the electorate.
It remains to be seen if the dems are just going to keep doubling down on trying to be republicans from the previous election.
Here's the thing. If the Left doesn't vote, they look at the people who do vote.
I was educated by some old school Communists; folks who actually were in Spain fighting Franco and who got blacklisted in the 1950s.
One story they always told was that in 1968 a lot of young radicals were saying that Humphrey was as bad as Nixon and they would never vote for him
The folks who had been around told the non-voters that Nixon was truly terrible and that they should do what they could to defeat him.
I've yet to see an election where the Left sat by idly and got anything good.
Here’s the thing. If the Left doesn’t vote, they look at the people who do vote.
That's just gaslighting. Black people are the single most reliable dem voting bloc, and get fuckall from the dems, but are still blamed when they lose.
Meanwhile, republicans vote for republicans. 5% of dem votes in 2024 came from registered republicans, down from 6% in 2020.
I’ve yet to see an election where the Left sat by idly and got anything good.
That's the main point. But please, prove me wrong. Show me a time the Right won big and the Left benefitted.
My argument isn't a prescription of "the left shouldn't vote", it's observations that "the left has absolutely nothing to do with the dems moving to the right" and "when the dems move to the right, they perform worse"
The dems go to the right because left policies hurt their corporate benefactors. Everything else is a post-hoc justification.
Look up Jerry Falwell and the Moral Majority.
They had a simple program to purge the GOP of anyone they didn't like. They would show up at every local GOP event with enough people to get their way on any issue. If twenty people had gone to the clubhouse the last time they'd had to pick the new county clerk, the MMs would show up with fifty.
Pretty soon those county clerks and sheriffs were Congress members. All it took was some on the ground organizing.
AOC and Omar did it.
Aren't you proving his point by pointing at AOC and Omar? AOC and Omar are proof leftist policies are popular and when you compare their stance on the economy, immigration and Isreal, they're on opposite ends. A and O are pro-worker, Harris ran pro-business. A O don't want strong border control, Harris ran on stronger border control. A O wanted to stop the support for Israel, Harris toed the party line of doing nothing.
AOC and Omar are proof that there is a left demographic to appeal to. Harris's campaign is proof the DNC would rather appeal to the right. The election is proof appealing to the right doesn't work.
Please re-read what I wrote.
I said that if you want people like AOC you have to go out and work inside the Democratic Party exactly like she did.
The electorate has clearly shifted right. That’s why this time the right side won, whereas last time the left side won. I hope (but am by no means certain ) that a high quality left-wing candidate can help to shift the electorate back to the left.
Is that why quite a few progressive ballot initiatives and referendums also passed?
Trump got the same number of votes, the dem's base just didn't turn out because they abandoned them to chase after "moderate republicans", again.
The electorate didn't move right, the democrats did.
I'm hoping for the first. But I fear it will take many blatantly awful things happening to counter all the indifference, ignorance, and complacency around us.
Because the hate is insurmountable otherwise.
I admire your optimism, but what do you think will turn people away from Trump in 2026 that didn't turn them away this year? It's not like we haven't already seen a Trump presidency.
Trump got the same number of votes this year he got in 2016.
Dopes who thought Harris wasn't worth voting for is what screwed us.