• Maggoty@lemmy.world
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    5 hours ago

    There just isn’t a large leftist movement in the US. They aren’t going to win more than a few seats. And blaming them while running further to the right is exactly what’s happened every election in my lifetime. People have to exert effort to vote in most places, they need to get time off, they need to stand in line for hours, they need to deal with partisan poll workers, and for what? To watch the Democrats do corporate welfare too?

    And don’t start with the whole they were warned bit either. Every single cycle the Democrats have said the Republicans would end democracy. So nobody was listening to that anymore. The word fascist has entirely lost it’s meaning in the US.

    • nickwitha_k (he/him)@lemmy.sdf.org
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      2 hours ago

      There just isn’t a large leftist movement in the US. They aren’t going to win more than a few seats.

      There isn’t a visible leftist movement in the US for two primary reasons: targeted suppression by elites and intelligence agencies, and anti-electoralism/apathy. I’m not convinced that anti-electoralism isn’t, at least in part, indirect suppression. The number of eligible non-voters is vastly greater than the participating electorate.

      And blaming them while running further to the right is exactly what’s happened every election in my lifetime.

      This is the same thing that I have seen. However, looking at the data, they’re not actually incorrect. Leftists, largely, have been refusing to participate in electoral politics, which removes their voice from the party’s effective constituency.

      Protest voting/non-voting literally has the effect of removing one’s voice from those that the party represents, it doesn’t force them to reshape their politics in any way but that which gives them them reliable voters to campaign to. In a two party FPTP system, not voting for the viable candidate closest to one’s politics doesn’t send them the message to change, it sends them the message that you are not a reliable voter whose they need to represent or listen to. Anyone saying otherwise is delusional, lying, or potentially a state actor.

      It’s literally basic statistics.

      Do I think that they should knock off their running to center and pushing to the right? Absolutely. It would benefit the populace greatly and we could try fixing some of this shit. But, being a leftist, I am the party’s minority constituency. Most people who vote reliability in the primaries and generals are centrists at best and that is the biggest problem.

      People have to exert effort to vote in most places, they need to get time off, they need to stand in line for hours, they need to deal with partisan poll workers, and for what?

      That’s not universally the case. Because of leftists sitting out this election in California, the centrists and far-right were able to:

      • vote down an initiative that would have banned forced prison labor
      • vote down an initiative improving the ability of municipalities to set local rent controls that was backed by an HIV/AIDS advocacy nonprofit
      • vote for a landlord corpo-backed revenge initiative that prevents medical advocacy nonprofits from engaging in political advocacy
      • vote for an initiative increasing mandatory minimum sentencing

      California is one of the easiest states to vote in. Gerrymandering and suppression are minimal outside deep red counties. And these were initiatives, not candidates - the data clearly shows that it was a problem of voluntary non-participation. My fellow leftist need to extract their heads from their lower GI tract and take responsibility for their choices.