I want to draw attention to the elephant in the room.
Leading up to the election, and perhaps even more prominently now, we’ve been seeing droves of people on the internet displaying a series of traits in common.
- Claiming to be leftists
- Dedicating most of their posting to dismantling any power possessed by the left
- Encouraging leftists not to vote or to vote for third party candidates
- Highlighting issues with the Democratic party as being disqualifying while ignoring the objectively worse positions held by the Republican party
- Attacking anyone who promotes defending leftist political power by claiming they are centrists and that the attacker is “to the left of them”
- Using US foreign policy as a moral cudgel to disempower any attempt at legitimate engagement with the US political system
- Seemingly doing nothing to actually mount resistance against authoritarianism
When you look at an aerial view of these behaviors in conjunction with one another, what they’re accomplishing is pretty plain to see, in my opinion. It’s a way of utilizing the moral scrupulousness of the left to cut our teeth out politically. We get so caught up in giving these arguments the benefit of the doubt and of making sure people who claim to be leftists have a platform that we’re missing ideological parasites in our midst.
This is not a good-faith discourse. This is not friendly disagreement. This is, largely, not even internal disagreement. It is infiltration, and it’s extremely effective.
Before attacking this argument as lacking proof, just do a little thought experiment with me. If there is a vector that allows authoritarians to dismantle all progress made by the left, to demotivate us and to detract from our ability to form coalitions and build solidarity, do you really think they wouldn’t take advantage of it?
By refusing to ever question those who do nothing with their time in our spaces but try to drive a wedge between us, to take away our power and make us feel helpless and hopeless, we’re giving them exactly that vector. I am telling you, they are using it.
We need to stop letting them. We need to see it for what it is, get the word out, and remember, as the political left, how to use the tools that we have to change society. It starts with us between one another. It starts with what we do in the spaces that we inhabit. They know this, and it’s why they’re targeting us here.
Stop being an easy target. Stop feeding the cuckoo.
There are an awful lot of unsubstantiated claims being made in this thread, especially wrt what these supposed maga-bot/trolls all claim or do.
If the post contained any actual examples of comments that OP believes are either bots or trolls, it might be possible to actually analyze whether their assumptions and claims have validity.
As it stands, however, making broad insinuations about the ill intentions of anyone who disagrees with you is not very Nice, and is certainly not Assuming Good Faith.
The mods here are very active, and very capable. We don’t need people starting witch hunts here to “root out the fake Leftists”, and based on OP and some others’ reactions in this thread, that’s clearly what’s happening here.
I’m specifically talking about an exploitable vector that can be taken advantage by any number of people or organizations, so it’s not really about particular users. There are examples, to be sure, but pointing them out or accusing them of working for anyone in particular would be counter-productive. Not only would it distract from the subject at hand, but they can literally make an infinite number of sock-puppets so it doesn’t really matter unless you feel like playing an absolutely exhausting and fruitless game of whack-a-mole.
I’m seeking to illustrate the behavioral pattern, the weakness that it exploits, and the damage it can do, which I expect to have much more efficacious results.
If the post contained any actual examples of comments that OP believes are either bots or trolls, it might be possible to actually analyze whether their assumptions and claims have validity.
We don’t need people starting witch hunts here to “root out the fake Leftists”
These are contradictory statements.
I won’t identify anyone who is claimed to be an example, specifically because of the valid concern raised in the second quote. I will say that the two examples that come most clearly to mind for the proof requested in the first quote are two people who are in that category of “talks CONSTANTLY about how voting for Democrats would be a terrible thing that no self-respecting leftist would EVER do for any reason”, who also claimed to be American, who also made mistakes that no American would make. One of them used non-American characters to punctuate a number, and then when it was pointed out they got confused and didn’t understand what people were pointing out that was weird about their number. Another claimed that they employed a bunch of people and paid them all $250k per year (and, again, seemed not to understand that this was a wild thing to claim when people pointed it out ).
Is that proof positive that those people are working for the Russians? No, not really. Is it “beyond a reasonable doubt” that they are working for someone? Yes, to me. Certainly in conjunction with all the other circumstantial evidence about the way they behave. You use the standard straw man of “anyone who disagrees with you” being put in this category, but that is not at all what’s happening here. I disagree with people on Lemmy constantly and I very rarely think that this is what’s going on. However when I run into a very particular confluence of factors and ways of behaving, I start to think that the person might be a paid propaganda account.
But regardless of that, talking about the problem in general is surely okay. Your implicit threat to have the mods shut us all down is a waste of time. Talk to the mods (I am sure that some people have), tell them about the post, let them do what they’re doing to do. This is 100% an active and important problem on the Fediverse and talking about it is no kind of bad faith. I do actually, halfway, agree that singling out any particular user to accuse, could be a problem even if you’re extremely sure. But that’s not what this is.
But regardless of that, talking about the problem in general is surely okay.
This is you directly asserting that people in this post are part of OP’s supposed group. This is and clearly never was just talking about the problem in the abstract.
These are contradictory statements.
I was not calling for OP to call people out, I was pointing out that their choosing not to do so meant that there was no way to repudiate the assertions. If someone who fits your supposed ‘pattern’ proves they’re not in fact a bot/ troll/ AI/ etc, you can just claim they clearly weren’t who you were talking about. It’s a set up for a No True Scotsman argument.
You use the standard straw man of “anyone who disagrees with you” being put in this category, but that is not at all what’s happening here. I disagree with people on Lemmy constantly and I very rarely think that this is what’s going on. However when I run into a very particular confluence of factors and ways of behaving, I start to think that the person might be a paid propaganda account.
Which is all well and good to claim, except that both OP and you clearly think some of those people are in this thread, based on your own comments, and many of the people disagreeing with OP here, I haven’t seen around much on BH, and none of their comments in here are doing the behaviors OP describes. That doesn’t look to me like “a very particular confluence of factors and ways of behaving”, it looks like you’re absolutely just using this as a broad net to attack people who disagree with you.
This is and clearly never was just talking about the problem in the abstract.
Sure it is. “There are people in these comments who are in the grouping I’m talking about” is quite similar to “there are people on Lemmy who are in the grouping I’m talking about.” In both cases, we’re talking about the problem without starting an unproductive and maybe-totally-wrong accusation against any single specific person.
none of their comments in here are doing the behaviors OP describes
Again, I don’t really want to single out any specific person, since there’s no way to be completely sure and there’s so much overlap between someone who is doing propaganda and simply someone who is arguing in bad faith. And what’s the point of starting the big argument that will surely ensue. I will say, though, that there is someone in these comments who I replied to who is exhibiting some of the behaviors OP described pretty much to a T.
That doesn’t look to me like “a very particular confluence of factors and ways of behaving”, it looks like you’re absolutely just using this as a broad net to attack people who disagree with you.
Look through my history. How many times (for whatever timeframe you have time and inclination for) have I disagreed with someone, and how many of those times have I chosen to “attack” them in this way?
I actually agree with some of the people who I believe are these accounts, on some things. They tend to be stridently pro-Palestinian for example, which I think is a way to give themselves cover. Actually one of the tells of those accounts is that they will sometimes accuse others of not being pro-Palestinian, and being rabidly pro-Israel, which as far as I can tell no one on Lemmy is. There are specific useful reasons why I think they are making that accusation, but if I were just doing this as a way of disagreeing with people, why would I take some person who is making a pro-Palestinian point which I completely agree with, and decide that they are a propaganda account just so I can “attack” the viewpoint I agree with? That doesn’t make any sense. That’s an example of what I’m talking about with “ways of behaving” that are separate from the viewpoint, without needing to accuse any specific person to explain myself.
I can’t make you agree with OP, and of course you are not required to. But you seem to be extremely persistent, here, in interpreting something OP is saying which has some widespread agreement as obviously that they are saying some other, different thing.
Encouraging leftists not to vote or to vote for third party candidates
Highlighting issues with the Democratic party as being disqualifying while ignoring the objectively worse positions held by the Republican party
These two things drive me fucking crazy, and you are absolutely spot on with all of this. Obviously, the Democrats aren’t perfect. But the argument that X makes them complicit in Y issue is a null point when the alternative is unbridled, unchecked fascism.
WHATEVER POINT YOU WERE TRYING TO MAKE, IT WILL NOT BE SOLVED BY ELECTING FASCISTS. It doesn’t matter if it’s corruption, wars, homophobia, trade, the economy, taxes, it could even be people shitting in litter boxes.
Whatever it is, having the entire country taken down to the studs is not going to help your issue, in fact, it’s probably going to make your problem significantly worse. The economy? Look up the tariff war that caused the great depression. Homophobia? Read up on the lavender scare and how it tanked our astronomy and weapons research, notably ICBM research. Wars? Need I say anything more? We’ve had insane wars due to Republican war hawks for decades. Whoever you were trying to protect, they are 100% B O N E D now. And now we are sending innocent people off to literal concentration camps, so don’t give me any of that “the Dems don’t respect human rights” crap. It’s beyond the pale now and all this was warned of in advance by those morons who published P2025 before the election. And yet, people still fell for it. It’s absolutely infuriating that we are gonna have to dig the country (and the economy) out of a massive pit once again, if it’s even possible at this point. We will be extremely lucky to prize it back out of the hands of dictators before they run it into the ground like they did with Venezuela.
This is just Lemmy and the whole “leftist” influencer sphere (read: people who watch Hasan Piker and take him seriously).
I completely agree with everything you mention here but you’re going to make a lot of Lemmies very mad.
They aren’t open to real discourse and will literally ally with Republicans if it means they can take down Democrats.
David Pacman?
Happy International Worker’s Day. Every single leader of emancipatory movements in the history of labor rights would disagree with you, having fought and been very vocal against the different flavors of oppression in order to get the liberal concessions that you seem to cherish today. Hopefully if you participate, you might find some leftists celebrating in the crowd. Please don’t get too angry at them for not defending genociders, I’m sure a lot of them ended up voting for Kamala anyway, but at least they got the confirmation that even opposing genocide is too great a hurdle for them.
I’m tired but I guess I’ll still address some of the traits you identified:
Claiming to be leftists
I’m a leftist
Dedicating most of their posting to dismantling any power possessed by the left
Okay that doesn’t sound like leftist behavior, you’re totally right. I just hope you don’t mean that “power possessed by the left” is the democratic party, but sure, that broadly sounds like liberals or feds.
Encouraging leftists not to vote or to vote for third party candidates
There’s a point to which you can push liberal concessions for damage control or for actually gaining some more concessions. I think criticizing voting is healthy since it’s still playing the capitalist’s game and a liberal “democracy” with almost no wiggle room anymore, but considering how little effort it takes to vote I’ll always advocate to both play their game and also assume that nothing will come out of it without actual pressure.
I’ve mostly seen people advocate for withholding their vote in the favor of some concession (please don’t do genocide), I’ve never seen someone say “don’t vote and also don’t do anything else”, but I’m sure they exist, you find all kinds of confused people online.
Highlighting issues with the Democratic party as being disqualifying while ignoring the objectively worse positions held by the Republican party
Is genocide disqualifying for a political party or not? I’m asking you, specifically, if you think that a party that commits (funds, arms, protects, justifies, excuses, does constant propaganda for) a genocide in the face of their own atrocities, while actively silencing the voices within their own ranks that speak out, is worth defending? Again, I think the idea was to hopefully change the democratic party to the radical position of “anti genocide”. That failure is on them, not the people who threatened not to vote for them.
Not highlighting that issue is frankly criminal.
Attacking anyone who promotes defending leftist political power by claiming they are centrists and that the attacker is “to the left of them”
Yeah that’s leftism, that’s always been leftism, but again I hope to god you don’t mean that “leftist political power” here represents the democratic party, so I’m gonna assume you mean more broadly what they call “purity politics” and constant division in the left. I think it’s fair to criticize people to the right of you, I’m to the right of anarchists and I welcome their criticism, even when I don’t agree with it. If I spent my time shitting on them I think they would be completely legitimate in calling me out for someone with ulterior motives, or a reactionary shithead.
Using US foreign policy as a moral cudgel to disempower any attempt at legitimate engagement with the US political system
I want you to examine your own sentence just for a second. To disempower an attempt at legitimate engagement with the political system. Opposing genocide isn’t used as a moral cudgel against whatever 10 steps removed version of power this is (and I’m not criticizing the way you put it, quite the opposite), it’s used AGAINST GENOCIDE.
People are out in the streets and criticizing liberal complicity because we talk about GENOCIDE not some vague questionable US foreign policy.
Seemingly doing nothing to actually mount resistance against authoritarianism
So that’s the democratic party, right? That’s why I’m confused because leftists are out in the street, even the most liberal ones with their “fight oligarchy” campaign, while the democrats are still out defending genocide, doing filibusters without a cause, and generally trailing so far behind the average population that it’s mind numbing. So I don’t know what you mean when you say “leftists”, because you seem to refer to two groups at the same time.
Anyway, voting goes both way, you can’t pretend to vote in a vacuum for the lesser evil without recognizing that you empower them and their genocidal endeavors.
And I’ll be a little more incisive: If you criticize a leftist of not caring about minorities (which I’ve seen a lot and is deeply ironic considering who did and didn’t vote for the dems) you open yourself to be criticized for having proudly voted and called on everyone else to vote for a party that does genocide, and having attacked the ones that tried to actually make a difference in shifting their position or using that moment to show what their true colors are.
Watch out for the following five fallacies, and the cuckoo is easy to spot:
- oversimplification: false dichotomy, ignoring relevant factors
- genetic fallacy: instead of focusing on what is being said, the cuckoo always focuses on who says it
- straw man: cuckoos are really eager to put words into your mouth, and try to force you to defend claims you never did in first place
- ignore refutation: if you prove without a shadow of doubt that the cuckoo’s claim is wrong, they’ll ignore your refutation and still use it to back up even dumber claims
- ad nauseam: same claim over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over.
Then as you spot the cuckoo, the rest is easier - for example, IMO a sensible approach is to point out what the cuckoo is doing, to whoever might be reading your comment, while disengaging so you aren’t giving the cuckoo further time to sing.
I think it’s a very common belief amongst forums like these to look to logical fallacies to root out dishonest behavior, in the hopes that it’ll provide a nice and easy way to deduce when someone’s a grifter. That you can tell if someone’s a liar – or for that matter, real – by applying them sufficiently.
The problem is, humans are fallible. They fuck up. Innocently. Constantly. It’s normal to make fallacious arguments, and doing so should not cause you to be automatically marked off as a robot, troll or spy. Some examples for your given fallacies:
- Oversimplification can also occur if someone is tired and does not want to go into rigorous academic detail for their argument. Alternatively, they may simply not know the detail to begin with.
- Genetic fallacy can occur due to simple human anger; if someone feels that their interlocutor has made bad-faith arguments frequently before, they’re inclined to ignore what that individual has to say outright, likely without even reading it. (This one has happened in this thread, several times)
- Strawmen happen all the time and extremely easily, because people will inevitably end up making assumptions about the position of others based on previous discussions they’ve had. If you spend enough time arguing a point and getting response
X, you’re going to start assuming that the person you’re talking to about that is implyingX, even if they haven’t said it and never intended to. - Ignoring refutation happens plenty simply when people get defensive. Admitting you’re wrong is hard, and it’s much preferable to instead change the topic or find some other way of pretending you were never disproven of anything. This is inherently a logical leap, and that’s why it leads to often dumber positions.
- With regard to ad nauseam: If someone finds a particular point very convincing and easy to understand for themselves, they may find it confusing as to why you don’t agree on it. This can lead to them repeatedly trying to explain it more thoroughly and in different words under the assumption that the way they said it was why you didn’t get it. I’ve done this a lot in my past.
With those examples out of the way, I just want to emphasize the fact that you should never pretend the presence of logical fallacies is a guarantee of bad faith, much less use it to dehumanize others. If we let ourselves do that, we’ll all tear each other apart under the mistaken assumption that we’re rooting out an evil that has no promise of even being present at all. To err is human.
That’s quickly becoming my approach. Point it out and then immediately block them and stop engaging. Once you block them, they can’t keep following you around spamming the same noise.
As a leftist:
- True, It’s a piece of paper. If you think that will save us, you’re a dumbass.
- Mostly True, Look up the ratchet effect.
- Mostly False, we’ve had due process. It’s been unfair to minority communities, but in general it’s existed.
- Mostly False, He was mildly better. This is faint praise given he was a demented fossil facilitating a genocide.
Mildly better. Well, if this post accomplished one thing it was self-identification of the people it is about.
Neat how you ignored the rest of the sentence there. Probably because those aren’t contestable points huh?
“Mostly False, He was mildly better.”
Does that help?
This is faint praise given he was a demented fossil facilitating a genocide.
You know what I meant. Being obtuse doesn’t help your case, it just makes you look like a debate pervert.
And my point was that Biden was worlds better than Trump.
This post is beyond delusional. It’s like the meme about everything I don’t like is woke. The liberal version basically being everything I don’t like is a Russian/MAGA bot. Is it really that hard to believe that left leaning people don’t agree with the Democratic Party platform? You’re deeper in your bubble than you realize my friend.
Oh look, someone who’s generalizing op then tries to discredit them! Way to prove their point
They didn’t make any type of platform or political argument to even debate against. Basically saying that everyone who dislikes democrats is secretly a republican. That’s all I’m calling them on. Total nonsense.
Misdirection, nice! That’s cuz this is not about platforms or any political argument, dr Troll
You’re goofy man. I don’t even know what your point is. OP said something. I said I disagreed with it. Epic troll by me I guess.
Go to a politics or platforms community if you’re looking for a politic argument or stuff about platforms
Thank you for the suggestion.
I had more I wanted to say on this topic when I first read it, but at the time I also had more energy. Had I not had other obligations, I would’ve written out my more detailed thoughts then. As it is, however, I’ll have to settle for the (relative) shortform, as I find this thread exhausting from the outset and the sheer quantity of incredibly angry back-and-forth here has only made it worse.
To suffice the ideas of mine that I still remember, then:
- I have a feeling that while you may not consider me specifically to be a “cuckoo,” that this post was still partially aimed at people like myself, since I’ve spent a fair chunk of time arguing to the immense faults of the Democrat Party, some of which was in discussion with you.
- If the above is true, I feel dehumanized and find this topic incredibly depressing.
- Regardless of the above, I find jumping to assumptions of bad faith on the part of those with whom you disagree on this topic understandable, but needlessly conspiratorial.
But to end my comment, I’d like to point out an area on which you and I can find common ground: Your point of “Seemingly doing nothing to actually mount resistance against authoritarianism” suggests you feel that the people arguing against voting / the Democrat Party are doing a poor job of offering alternative solutions. On this, I agree. Solutions for that scenario are hard to come by and often complicated, and where people do have things to suggest a portion of them are very flawed; voting Green, not voting, and the occasional implicit suggestion for violence, etc. All of those have huge problems that I know I don’t need to explain to you.
For that, all I can say is that I agree that leftists can do better and should. I’ve seen the good suggestions before. Things like mutual aid, education, organizing, joining events — all of these are very useful things that are significantly more important than one vote in a broken electoral system. Unfortunately, as you’ve noticed, frustrated and angry people tend to be bad at mentioning these things.
I only ask that you consider that these people are frustrated, angry, and restless, rather than actively fake.
If you read down to my comments down below, you’ll find some examples of people doing specific fuck-ups that strongly indicate that they are non-American fake accounts, and not someone who is frustrated, angry, or restless.
I do think that a lot of people on far-left-Lemmy are in fact genuine accounts who also do the things OP is saying, and that maybe calling them fake accounts isn’t productive. I actually think fake accounts on Lemmy is also a huge problem, but the tells that I consider are a little different than the ones OP talks about.
For that, all I can say is that I agree that leftists can do better and should. I’ve seen the good suggestions before. Things like mutual aid, education, organizing, joining events — all of these are very useful things that are significantly more important than one vote in a broken electoral system.
Yes. Whether or not someone is fake, talking about those things constantly would be a much better (and also less suspicious) thing to talk about, as opposed to incessantly talking specifically about how important it is not to vote and not so much about those other things.
A lot of the accounts I’m talking about are still talking about how important it is not to vote for Democrats, and haven’t bothered to say more or less anything about joining the protests that are going on right now. Actually, I’ve seen a little scattering of the current generation of fake commenters who are talking about how dangerous the protests are, how some might be “false flags,” how we need to be careful or they’re going to sit this upcoming one out. Things like that.
Many of these people legitimately hold these views. I have a friend who is absolutely a socialist who is still very much in favor of my country not aiding Ukraine as it would support “imperialism” in his eyes. My impression is that he and those like him are unwilling to ever compromise on any ideal they hold, even if it means not supporting any position whatsoever. Like you can debate him as much as you want about whether or not aiding Ukraine in any capacity is imperialism or not, but at the end of the day his main concern is not contributing to something he perceives as evil.
That said, I do agree that many of these people aren’t being genuine. I sometimes wonder if he’s secretly an accelerationist or something. Many people that use the same talking points as him online certainly are, rather than fascists trying to take us down from the inside.
I would argue that people who hold genuinely socialist views who laser focus on disempowering the left are nothing more than useful idiots for authoritarians and can safely be sorted into the same box as actual infiltrators and parasites. The intent of individuals isn’t nearly as important as combating the behavior that’s being exploited.
I think that leftists generally have a hard time calling out people who argue in bad faith
We should genuinely be banning all tankies and accelerationists on sight. Allowing them to poison the debate to the extent they do really is our greatest flaw and the only real “leftist infighting” I’ve ever really come across.
Pretty sure leftist infighting is just a tankie dogwhistle at this point.
the only real “leftist infighting” I’ve ever really come across.
gestures wildly at the thread we’re in
I don’t think it’s just tankies doing it!
No. They’re all tankies or okay with tankies, which is more or less being a tankie. I recognize some of these users and many of them literally don’t believe in democracy and do stuff like defend the USSR etc. No leftist infighting here as usual, just people trying to push us to support their shitty little military regimes.
Stupid thing is that it’s the humanity and empathy of the left that is both the draw and the weakness of the movement.
Conservatives can come into leftist discourse spaces and either pose as the extreme leftists you describe, or even just the more reasonable end of the conservatives (non facist/maga types, rare as they are any more) an they’ll be engaged with in good faith. Since they’re ultimately not there for a proper discussion though it results in nothing more than creating chaos and arguments
Liberal/leftists who walk into conservative spaces are greeted with scorn and derision, treated as lunatics from the start not worth listening to. Since the left would generally be coming in with honest intent though at best they waste their time shouting into an established echo chamber, or worse get convinced that there’s a good middle ground to work towards.
Absolutely. Conservatives have, unfortunately, sailed straight past us on political effectiveness in recent years. We’re spending our time wringing our hands about doing the right thing and cajoling one another into doing the same. Unfortunately in a lot of cases modern leftism favors atomizing based on who a particular segment sees as having sufficient moral purity over solidarity. Meanwhile, conservatives don’t really care about much of anything other than maintaining a socially conservative status quo. They’ll even let people they hate pretend to be part of the club if they debase themselves enough to be politically useful. At the same time, they’ll viciously attack anyone who isn’t politically useful to them.
I’m not saying we ought to abandon our principles or start viciously attacking anyone who doesn’t toe the line of being politically useful, but we need to remember how to build coalitions and think strategically.
Since the left would generally be coming in with honest intent though at best they waste their time shouting into an established echo chamber, or worse get convinced that there’s a good middle ground to work towards.
I tried going to conservative spaces on Lemmy. The liberals wouldn’t allow any dialogue. Not the conservatives, the liberals.
liberals are conservatives. What we call conservatives are regressives.
Ah, yet another long post by a white democrat who thinks they’re a leftist and shouldn’t be questioned.
EDIT: come join us while we make fun of you: https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/post/43337677
Ah, yet another comment by a doomer wannabe Marxist that thinks giving up and letting the fascists kill everybody is preferable to working with people who only share 90% of your ideals
Maybe we want politicians who will actively work for us, economically as well as socially.
Sounds great. Vote them in.
I would love to see a push to the left in US politics and in the Democratic party. I voted for Sanders, and I think the kind of arguments he’s been making consistently for decades would be a great perspective to see gain traction. The rallies he’s been putting together with AOC and the responses he’s gotten at town halls even in very red districts have been encouraging.
I fully support primarying Democrat politicians who fail to offer real solutions. 100% get them the hell out of office and replace them with people who will reconnect the party with the people and fight for affordable housing, medicare for all, and living wages. Let’s chuck Schumer out on his ass.
But our approach needs to be viable. It won’t happen by splitting the vote. That’s just math. I don’t like first past the post, and I’d love to get rid of it at the first available opportunity, but it’s the system we’re working with right now.
You can’t play chess using only your knights because you like the way the horsey looks. You have to know what the pieces do and use them to their fullest extent. By all means, make your pawns into queens, but to do that you have to think about which moves you’re actually capable of making on the board.
So here’s the thing, on my state ballot last November, I had TVs corporate Democrat who votes with the Republicans half the time (the time it matters), and a new Dem who could or would not articulate a platform for or against anything. Bet I voted third.
So run for office or find a candidate who might and help them get to that position.
Voting for a third party, unless it’s in a small local election where they might actually have a shot, will do literally nothing but get us a Republican.
If you’re still sitting here in April of 2025 and saying that the Democrats are the same as the Republicans, though? Get the hell out of our nest.
So run for office or find a candidate who might and help them get to that position.
This is literally 100% the answer. It could be within the Democratic party, it could be outside it, the details are details.
The point is that someone who comes up to you saying “I’m not voting for a DEMOCRAT, how could that ever help?” and also “I’m not voting! That will help, that’s the answer, you should too.” is definitely either lying or badly confused.
Like, yes, our system is corrupt and a lot of Democrats are a huge part of the problem. That won’t go away if you refuse to engage with it. It will get worse.
I suppose it must make the world a lot simpler if you assume the US Democratic and Republican parties represent the full range of beliefs that exist in the world, and anyone who doesn’t neatly fit into those categories is simply lying.
Take that, you strawman! And that!
“I disagree with both the Republicans and the Democrats.”
“Impossible! You must be a secret Republican here to turn people against the Democrats”
“It kinda seems like you’re assuming has to be either a Democrat or a Republican”
“Strawman! I never said those exact words!”
I have to say it’s pretty ironic to accuse someone else of strawmanning while simultaneously rejecting every single thing they say about their own position and arbitrarily assigning them a completely different position that contradicts everything they say in a way that makes it easier to dismiss what they say.
“I disagree with both the Republicans and the Democrats.”
And if the people OP is criticizing were saying that, then what you were saying wouldn’t be a strawman.
But, they aren’t, and he is drawing a very explicit picture of the behavior they’re displaying which is very distinct (although I guess you could say that people who disagree with both R and D are part of a superset of which OP’s described people are a tiny little specific subset with specific behaviors… although in practice they very rarely say anything about “both the Republicans”. It’s mostly heaping scorn on the Democrats exclusively and sometimes taking time out to say that the Republicans are better or equivalent on some issue on which they objectively are not).
And that’s what makes what you are saying a strawman.
Weird that you’re taking all this time to call out people who focus their criticism on the Democrats, yet your post is completely silent on Ghenghis Khan. I can only conclude that you support rampant killing and pillaging since you don’t spend as much time calling them out as you do calling us out, since apparently that’s how you think logic works.
Alternatively, we can acknowledge the simple fact that it’s not necessary to make arguments about why Ghenghis Khan was bad if nobody is defending him around here, and by the same logic it isn’t necessary to argue about why the Republicans are bad when nobody is defending them around here.
The few times that I’ve seen a Trump supporter wander into Lemmy (and inevitably gotten ratio’d hard), I have attacked and criticized them. I can show my receipts if you like.
It’s mostly heaping scorn on the Democrats exclusively and sometimes taking time out to say that the Republicans are better or equivalent on some issue on which they objectively are not).
You can’t present receipts of me doing that. Maybe somebody at some point has made such a claim, but it’s generally a bullshit strawman.
yet your post is completely silent on Ghenghis Khan
If Ghengis Khan had been running for president of the United States last year, and I had been running around Lemmy yammering and biting my nails about what a problem Kamala Harris was, then fuck yes that would be weird. I think people should have called me out for it. Yes. That’s my point.
That is, in fact, exactly the reason why I think it’s stupid that these people were biting their nails so hard. Especially since the sum total of what they accomplished is to help put Ghengis in charge.
Sorry for interrupting your circlejerk, I guess. Apparently we’re supposed to spend a bunch of time talking about things that already have near-universal agreement here. I don’t find that particularly interesting or worthwhile.
I’m not saying that everyone should have spent all their time on Lemmy agreeing with each other that Ghengis was bad. I’m saying that spending all our time leading up to that election talking about what a problem Kamala Harris was, and how we shouldn’t vote for her, would be weird and suspicious in precisely 100% the exact same fashion as what people were actually doing. Thank you for making my point for me, in fact, that’s a really good analogy to explain it.
Let’s just get a few facts out of the way:
- Genocide is the worst crime humanity is capable of
- The US has a direct hand in multiple genocides
- Record levels of homelessness in the richest nation on earth is unacceptable
- Death from preventable illnesses in the richest nation on earth is unacceptable
- Highest infant mortality in the western world in the richest nation on earth is unacceptable
- Democrats are not interested in changing the status quo
- Republicans want a return to chattel slavery
- Neither party is willing to help us, nor will they ever allow us to vote third party by adding ranked choice or anything like that
- Therefore, our best bet to break the cycle is to collectively vote for, say, the green party
You think leftists are unrealistic for being disgusted with Democrats? The genocide was live streamed to the world. Did you not see any of it? Did it not move you?
By the way, the Democratic party is not left-wing. It is right-wing. Please educate yourself.
Also, are we hopeless? Fuck no. Boycotts have been making progress. Noncompliance has accomplished a lot. Unionizing, if you can swing it, can accomplish a lot. Meshtastic can offer resiliant communications if Trump declares a national emergency. Democrats want you to panic. Leftists want you to organize.
I was with you but then you said vote green?
If you’re going to vote, vote against the Republican party. If you want change from status quo, the ballot box isn’t where it will happen
