this post was submitted on 27 Aug 2024
110 points (93.7% liked)

politics

19089 readers
3770 users here now

Welcome to the discussion of US Politics!

Rules:

  1. Post only links to articles, Title must fairly describe link contents. If your title differs from the site’s, it should only be to add context or be more descriptive. Do not post entire articles in the body or in the comments.

Links must be to the original source, not an aggregator like Google Amp, MSN, or Yahoo.

Example:

  1. Articles must be relevant to politics. Links must be to quality and original content. Articles should be worth reading. Clickbait, stub articles, and rehosted or stolen content are not allowed. Check your source for Reliability and Bias here.
  2. Be civil, No violations of TOS. It’s OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It’s NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.
  3. No memes, trolling, or low-effort comments. Reposts, misinformation, off-topic, trolling, or offensive. Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.
  4. Vote based on comment quality, not agreement. This community aims to foster discussion; please reward people for putting effort into articulating their viewpoint, even if you disagree with it.
  5. No hate speech, slurs, celebrating death, advocating violence, or abusive language. This will result in a ban. Usernames containing racist, or inappropriate slurs will be banned without warning

We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.

All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.

That's all the rules!

Civic Links

Register To Vote

Citizenship Resource Center

Congressional Awards Program

Federal Government Agencies

Library of Congress Legislative Resources

The White House

U.S. House of Representatives

U.S. Senate

Partnered Communities:

News

World News

Business News

Political Discussion

Ask Politics

Military News

Global Politics

Moderate Politics

Progressive Politics

UK Politics

Canadian Politics

Australian Politics

New Zealand Politics

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] MegaUltraChicken@lemmy.world 23 points 2 months ago (2 children)

That's why I'm incredibly skeptical of some of the "leftist" accounts that constantly go out of their way to exclusively demonize the Democratic Party.

[–] SnotFlickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone 15 points 2 months ago (1 children)

As one of those leftists, it's sad but understandable for people to be skeptical at this point.

I have a lot of issues with the Democratic party, but its because I don't have another party to vote for. I could waste my time critiquing Republicans, but they're so far off the map of rationality that it feels silly and pointless. Democrats are still at least offering positions that can be critiqued outside "that was an outright lie" which is all you can say about Republican "policies."

I try to frontload those comments to make clear nothing could ever convince me to vote Republican or withhold my vote when they're trying to fucking roll over democracy into autocracy.

[–] adespoton@lemmy.ca 3 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I do find it interesting that the Overton window in the US has now shifted so far to the right that there’s a clear space for moderate leftists with no overlap with the Democrats. But until the Republicans aren’t any sort of a threat, actually trying to build a leftist party will go nowhere due to the risk that Republicans can still get more of the vote than any single party to their left.

[–] SnotFlickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

That could be coming if the Republicans get hammered enough this election. I can only hope.

They are "dying," demographically, and to stay relevant it requires the party to start casting a wider net and getting more people on their side, which naturally means becoming less extremist and way less racist. They've hitched their destiny to white supremacism, and we're on the verge of them mostly becoming so marginal than it might actually be time for the growth of a real left party. They're unwilling (and probably unable) to change the trajectory of their own party, so that's why they are going for broke with as much cheating as possible, because it may genuinely be one of the last elections where they matter at all, electorally.

Further, we also have Democrats who think we need a "strong Republican party," like Nancy Pelosi, are finally retiring and are being replaced by people like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who are a lot less sure we need a Republican party... because in their eyes the Democrats are already right-wing as it is.

This doesn't mean the Republicans will disappear, but there might be enough room electorally for a real leftist party to grow in the space left behind.

Personal opinion, but it stands as part of why I'm willing to put myself down for the "lesser evil" here. Long-term, we might have a less evil lesser evil to choose from if we can successfully kill the Republicans demographically so that no amount of gerrymandering can save them as a party.

[–] adespoton@lemmy.ca 3 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I wish I could share your optimism. They’ve hitched their cart to a number of horses; white nationalism, conservative US Christian fundamentalism (which isn’t conservative, Christian or fundamentalist except in name), and the conspiracy camp. There’s overlap between those three, but they each have separate non-negotiable items they’ll always vote for.

And the problem with chasing those groups is that if Republicans attempt to court more moderate conservatives, those groups will do whatever they can to burn everything down.

So the party won’t just fade out as people leave; it is stuck where it is and won’t die until all its supporters (current and future) have died.

[–] nilloc@discuss.tchncs.de 2 points 2 months ago

Yeah combined with the disproportionate representation that the small population/empty states get, and the electoral college, they’re likely to remain a threat unless and until we can get rank choice voting and interstate popular vote compact working.