It's not made up, it's math. And if your nation doesn't enact systemic change to its system, your democracy will inevitably trend towards two viable political parties as well. edit: typo

You admit you have spare money to spend and use as donations to politics.

Yeah, I had a job and disposable income before the company I worked for went out of business because of Trump's covid policies.

Me spending that $70 dollars isn't the win for your argument you think it is. Harris got to a billion dollars because millions of people donated to her campaign. People solved a collective problem by working together collectively, not by being rich.

Which is my point as most members of the Trans community does when they consider gender identity to be their biggest issue to deal with.

For me it was stopping fascism. $70 seemed like a small price to pay to stop fascism for four more years. I care about trans people but the Harris campaign barely talked about trans issues so that wasn't really a motivating factor. If they had talked about trans issues favorably I might have donated more. I gave $10 when Harris announced her run, I gave $20 when she picked Walz, I gave $20 when Harris debated Trump, and gave $20 when Walz debated Vance.

It’s not true for all trans people but the ones I hear from tend to have cash and I have known plenty of the LGBTQ community to be the most conservative because of their wealth.

I made $100k working at my job for a little over two years plus over $30k in my 401k after gas, tax, and rent. I'm not rich by any metric. Do you prefer if I can't afford to communicate over the internet so you won't be inconvenienced by my voice? You argument conveniently ignores I donated to Warren and Bernie. Are they not morally pure enough for you?

So are they willing to use themselves in their pursuit of moral victory?

I don't want a moral victory. You clearly do. Don't quit on the honesty while you were ahead.

It’s an identity. I literally said I don’t care and then you went and repeated your line about how you are more important. As if people are using you or spending you like currency for the election. It wasn’t about you.

People are more important than your moral victory.

Yeah start being part of the larger topic then and get your head out of your own fart box.

Please do that for everyone's sake. Thanks.

As if saying, ask the DNC party to care about more than the trans community and specific shades of minority to get behind large populace movements for support is some kind of deep moral victory at your expense.

Refusing to vote for the Democrats until they are perfect on every issue is the pursuit of moral victory. It makes minorities the cost of doing business and isn't a useful strategy for helping anyone. We didn't get the right to marry who we want because people refused to vote for Democrats. Minorities strategically voted for Democrats for decades to get them and the US Overton window to shift to the left on that issue.

Yeah, but also the outfit. =D

Or you are the wealthy but new hotness in oppressed to the DNC to hook into

? edit: I mean, I gave 70 dollars to Harris' campaign this year. I spent more on the Eldrazi Incursion commander deck at my LGS which was like 90 dollars. But I gave about $300 to Warren and $300 to Bernie in 2020 and none to Biden.

above their own well-being will not work because people are as selfish as everyone else.

People are self-interested in that they care about themselves and the people in their immediate social spheres. However it is in the interests of people to vote for Democrats and against fascists.

I’m sorry but I really don’t care what happens within 2% of the population as long as they aren’t being killed

Well it's good of you to be honest, but fascists do want to kill us. Trans people and lots of other people are going to die as a result of fascist policies.

So you won’t see me as a leftist using Trans as any kind of grandstanding cause I really don’t care or think you matter other than a funding source for pretend caring wealthy.

At least you're honest about using trans people in pursuit of your moral victory over the Democrats.

We can help too by educating people online. =)

The issue is that we have third parties, but because of our first-past-the-post system their candidates act as spoilers mathematically speaking.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7tWHJfhiyo

The issue is that unless we get rid of our first-past-the-post voting system and then enact further systemic change we are going to be stuck with the Republicans and Democrats.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7tWHJfhiyo

Thankfully as Trump demonstrated, a political party can be hijacked to be whatever you want. But we need to do that to the Democratic Party, like Bernie tried to do. This will involve educating people out of their neoliberal positions and ideas but it can be done.

No more “lesser evil” crap. I’m not voting for evil again, period.

The strategy you are describing makes minorities the cost of doing business. Instead of attempting to achieve moral victory over Democrats consider voting for Democrats in elections to leverage power for the people Republicans want to hurt and kill.

It's the other way around. People want a moral victory over Democrats. In this game of moral purity, minorities are the cost of doing business.

I’m really surprised of the responses to this comment, I find this to be a common sense

The closer a person and the people they care about get to the chopping block the less common sense it seems.

Can’t wait for Democrats to start campaigning on taking my hormones away to win over conservatives!

The issue now is that the Democrats might not have to. They can refuse to help give them back and instead advance things one step forward by funding more research, when it's a well understood concept. Or maybe give queer people a federal holiday.

We’re fucked 🙃

Yes. But we can get more fucked. =(

Are you supposing that any scrap of unscientific propaganda in a person’s opinions makes them functionally a fascist?

No, that's why I separated the two in my argument.

I posit that someone can doubt the science and believe in liberalism.

How in good faith does a neoliberal doubt the science? They definitely incorrectly doubt the magnitude of change to our society that is required to fix climate change, sure. But the science itself?

Hell, I think some of the people who voted for Trump still believe in liberalism (not that they would call it that) even as they enable fascism.

Neoliberalism is part of how those people got to fascism. It's much easier for a fascist to convince people to adopt fascists positions when they already have neoliberal ideas in their head. Neoliberalism only allows change to the people in charge of systems. It's a smaller jump to convince neoliberals to change the people in society than it is to convince them to change institutions they believe are infallible.

This descent into madness has been really hard to watch.

Yes, but in hindsight it is clear how we got here. Neoliberalism and the right-wing information sphere are two of the major culprits.

If any of them were to renounce Trump, I’d welcome them eagerly.

We don't get this for free though or by comprising all of our positions. Democrats have been trying to reach across the aisle for a while. They failed in this election in large part because of that continued attempt to reach moderate Republicans. What Democrats need is a populist narrative. This will rally people around our side of the issues.

I think you risk not being able to solve anything because you’re so picky about allies. I think improving climate policy remains possible with a minority of climate deniers in the tent.

Not if we have to comprise our positions to get them in the tent. We need full speed ahead on climate change action. If we have to go the speed we are now, slower, or backwards like we will be in a few months, then that isn't a useful alliance.

I don’t know, do you really want to compare comprehensive political positions?

I think you're referring to harm to other living, breathing people. You want to be a part of the big tent? Time to spill the beans on your positions. Whether they're considered political or otherwise. A bulleted list is fine. edit: typos

But like maybe you should have read the article you posted.

I did. Biden should have done more. But he didn't do nothing.

You’re just interested in anyone who is even remotely dissatisfied with Democrats shutting up or being shut up, regardless of what Democrats do.

I want people to be vocal. You're doing that. I disagree with what is being said.

Dude, I fucking tried to warn about what was going to happen and I wasn’t the only one. At least here on lemmy, it meant being called a trumper and a Russian every last time.

And I tried to warn you people. You played right into the hands of MAGA and the Kremlin. We knew who Harris and the Democrats were. The goal was to prevent fascism anyway. There was no other viable strategy, but people still tried to sink Harris' campaign anyway.

I have no remaining faith in the party. Not after this election.

The Democratic Party is a tool, not a friend you need to have faith in.

As did Harris, vague meaningless non-policy promises notwithstanding.

I showed receipts. Reiterate the same lie as many times as you want. It will still be a lie.

Ooh. Were they strongly worded?

What matter's is that it was Biden's decision. People in his administration disagreed with him.

This thread is about Democrats. Of course Trump is worse. That doesn’t excuse selling weapons for an ongoing genocide.

No, I mean you wouldn't still be in this thread shitting on Democrats if you cared. You would want to spend your time going after Trump, since he's going to president, but that's not where you are directing your energy.

I’m telling you not to be a damned fool. The party will sell you out. It’s what they do. It’s a pattern of behavior that you’ve been making excuses for.

That's what I'm telling you. We need to co-opt the Democrats. I'm not making excuses for their behavior, I'm arguing for a strategy to advance our goals. Voting for Democrats until the party is co-opted by a progressive and socialist populist movement buys us time to make that happen. If you read my comments you would know my argument's position by now.

Who is screaming at whom to be silent?

You at me. Be vocal. But do it in a way that is useful.

They’re using you. Not the other way around.

People are definitely using you. They got you arguing against your own interests and you don't even know. Or maybe you don't care. That moral victory is too important to you. edit: typo

We're not dead yet. So we're still fighting.

“I want to do something” isn’t a policy.

When running for office, that's what a policy is.

The Democratic Party does not agree with this.

Neither do you.

Lieberman didn’t do it alone.

With only a max of 60 votes at any given time and the filibuster, he only needed one. Democrats had to get rid of the filibuster. But as institutionalists they were never planning on doing that.

I guess they thought it wouldn't be fair to do it without Republicans.

With the leverage you keep pretending we have. How do we exercise this phantom leverage? Democrats’ unwillingness to listen is how we got here.

Vote in elections for Democrats. Like we did in 2020.

Democrats don’t work around the interests of their owners. They work for them. Wealth redistribution won’t happen as long as the Democratic Party is run by corporate shit.

We need to co-opt the Democratic Party to get socialist and even progressive policies through. But even currently Democrats would have gotten more done if not for Manchin and Sinema.

And vague references to leverage that we can only somehow exercise by unquestioningly getting behind corporate shit only serves corporate shit.

Refusing to leverage power is playing right into the hands of corporate shit. The worse part is you're doing it for free. Might as well work Musk's Doge department for no pay while you're at it. He's looking for people like you.

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2024/nov/14/elon-musk-trump

I’ve spent the past few decades wanting that party to move to the left and voting for them. They did what you wanted instead and moved to the right.

I don't want Democrats to move to the right. I want people to stop hunting for a moral victory over the Democrats. Progressives voting for them is how we get them to move to the left.

Your argument is fully a straw man now.

It will definitely lose them progressive votes. And it probably won't gain them many conservative votes. But the Democrats are still going to try anyway. They look at who voted and chase those people's votes. edit: typo

Most of the country wants a new party, but our FPTP system mathematically guarantees they will never get it.

lol

=/

Trump's populism is christian nationalism. Specifically white christian nationalism. So it's not going to look Bernie's populism. And those do whistles are, or at least were before they became so overt, dog whistles.

It’s fatalism.

My point here is, “The system that only allows for getting worse will never get better.”

Years of US history demonstrate that is not the case. People have demonstrated it is possible to make things better with our democracy. Women's suffrage and the civil rights movement happened in the US in the 20th century.

Things have been getting worse since Reagan brought neoliberalism to the mainstream. The US wasn't perfect. And on some social issues like gay marriage things have gotten better. But we are where we are now thanks to over forty years of neoliberism allowing the rich to extract wealth from everyone else. We have entered the billionaires forming an oligarchy around a dictator stage of late-stage capitalism.

Without industrializing the North could have lost the war to the South as they would have been more evenly matched. The North needed to win the political battle, the war, and then after the war, the culture war. They won the first two, but we are still fighting the culture war.