That doesn’t disprove what I’m saying. That’s just your feeling with no evidence to back it up.
I have history to backup my claims. Yes, we’ve shifted right due to incrementalism because people on the right are more likely to vote, so it demonstrably does work. There’s no reason we can’t shift back if people who want change actually vote for it, rather than withholding their votes for a “perfect” solution.
That is reductionist to the point of obsursity.
Republicans are demonstrably by more fascist.
Not voting against Republicans keeps more fascism in place.
Therefore, not voting only increases fascism. Voting for someone that can’t win against the Republicans increases fascism.
And before you say voting for Democrats also increases fascism, they are already less fascist than what is currently in place. Having anyone else, even a Democrat, in office will be less fascism.
Vote to decrease fascism. Move in that direction. Not voting only pushes us toward more fascism.
There is not choice available right now to remove fascism entirely. We must show politicians that they stand to gain by moving away from it. Not voting doesn’t do that.
If we want to push things back to the left, we absolutely have to show support for more left candidates in the primaries.
But if we don’t show them that we’re willing to vote, we’re just going to get candidates that chase the votes of the people who DO vote.
The primaries are the key. Support the people who will oppose these issues.
But as we saw with Bernie, the support has to be undeniable and actionable, or they’ll just put in who they want anyway. This means that there is a non-zero chance that we’ll end up with the usual kind of choices. Should we then support the candidate that isn’t at least actively disparaging the law, or should we not vote and increase the chance of the party that is actively destroying things winning?
That doesn’t answer my question. Who should we vote for that doesn’t result in the fascists staying in office?
Who should we vote for otherwise? Every other option leads to Republicans staying in power, and they are the ones actually doing it.
Don’t vote? That’s fewer votes the Republicans need to win, so they stay in power.
Vote third party? That splits the opposition vote, and Republicans stay in power.
And no, neither of those choices “teach the Democrats a lesson.” It just drives them to go to the people who do vote, who are more right wing, so it drives everything further right.
You want a more left wing party? Show them that the left votes and our votes have value.
But still the opposition party. Gotta work with the tools you have.
That is a much more interesting response, thank you.
I know very well that a politician is not required to listen to their voters. That is the nature of a representative democracy, and it has its pluses and minuses; but that’s another topic. A politician will do what they want once in office. Sometimes they do it for their own selfish reasons, sometimes they do it because they know something the American public doesn’t, sometimes they do things because they are weighing opposing agendas differently. That is why it is important to push for candidates that have principles that are the most aligned with yours. Then even if they are driven by their own selfish reasons, at least their actions are more likely to align with your desires.
That’s not to say that voters have no power at all. We got Trump because his principles (such as they are) aligned with a large enough portion of the American public that the Republic party thought he was their best chance of winning. Make no mistake that the Democrats DO want to win. Voters need to show them that a candidate whose principles are more left leaning is their best chance of winning. That is what the primaries are for. You will note that only two political parties even have primaries.
I believe you have a misunderstanding that anyone thinks that having to choose the lesser of two evils is a good thing. It’s not. It’s only better than choosing the greater of two evils. The main point that I have been trying to make is that NOT choosing the lesser evil is functionally equivalent to choosing the greater evil, even if the choice made is to not make a choice.
This is because there isn’t a better choice; there is no “no evil” choice. Even not choosing is still a choice. Unless you know of one and would care to enlighten me on the specifics of that choice. So far, the only point I’ve seen you try to make is that not choosing is the best choice; something that I vehemently disagree with.