Come mid-terms I’m going to proudly vote democrat everywhere I can so hopefully we can get some control of the country again.

even if said dem supports genocide and war crimes? vet carefully. vett? vette? whatever. boba vett your votes carefully. :)

If it’s a choice between republicans and democrats I will vote for democrats every time.

I will vet during primaries but mid-terms aren’t the time for that with what’s happening at home in the states and aboard with the current administration.

Democrats who support genocide can’t win, and candidates aren’t static.

If at any point you are supporting a Democratic candidate who holds unelectable policies, you are doing work to support the opposition. Your only option is to move the candidate when they hold a policy which will prevent them from winning the election.

When you say something like “Any Blue will do” in the face of a genocide, you are doing work to get the Republican in the race elected.

If you read my entire comment you’ll see I’m not advocating for ‘any blue will do.’

Not voting for the only other viable option is actually doing the work to vote in the republican.

Please, address the issue on its merits: If you advocate for a candidate who has a policy which will prevent them winning a race, you are doing work for their opposition.

This is what happened with Biden/ Harris. By supporting them (ABWD) instead of being critical, you set up the permission structure necessary for them to recognize they’ve got your vote without having to change policy positions. The permission structure you and I do me you because you are maybe the most clear and consistent Blue MAGA voter on lemmy, that permission structure allowed Harris to maintain a pro-genocide stance into November. Since holding that stance would prevent her from winning the election, shifting the responsibility from a candidate who is one person, of one mind, running one campaign to change their policy, you shifted that responsibility to the millions of unwashed masses, whom have no great track record for making good decisions when it comes to November, and for which there is no credible mechanism to move the minds of millions of people in the period of a few months or weeks. There is no tool a campaign can operate which changes millions of minds from “I will not support a genocide” to “I will support a genocide”, and I’m glad that this is the case.

Framing elections as if its a matter of individual choice shows an explicit and intentional illiteracy when it comes to how campaigns, electoral-ism, and electorates work. One voter is like a grain of sand. It acts and behaves like a solid, and has other properties we would liken to “its a tiny rock”. But when millions of grans of sand are moving together, their behavior is nothing like an individual grain. When we take individual votes and scale them to millions of voters, their properties and behaviors are different. What and how an individual voters should act is fundamentally irrelevant. We’re not talking nor are we ever talking about what individual voters do. That’s what oil companies in the 90’s did with recycling: they convinced you that your individual choice was what mattered, when they controlled the levers of power to determine what choices were available to you.

The candidates and campaigns have all the power to change their polcies or approaches in this system. Voters as individuals have practically 0 power in this system. There is no practical mechanism to get millions of voters to do whatever it is you would have them do (at least not over the course of months and weeks, like an election). There is an abundance of tools to operate on individual politicians to get them to change.

If you allow a politician who is competing for your vote to maintain an unelectable position, you are doing work to support their opposition.

So Trump 2.0 was a better option than Harris because she wouldn’t/didn’t say the words you wanted to hear?

So Trump 2.0 was a better option than Harris because she wouldn’t/didn’t say the words you wanted to hear?

For the 9000th time, we’re having a conversation about what voters do, not what any one individual does. And no matter how long you keep your head in the sand about the matter, voting isn’t a binary. Any one voter has a range of choices about what to do with their time available to them.

I don’t know if you are fully aware of this, but: SHE LOST THE FUCKING ELECTION!

I don’t really believe any of you blue maga fascists are actually operating in good faith at this point, but I’ll at least offer you the grace of addressing the following issue.

We’re going to run two experiments, @[email protected] , which will both start with the following premise:

It’s August 2024, the night before the convention, and you are Kamala Harris’s campaign manager. You are just coming off the big bump in polling you got from naming Tim Walz your vp. So far, your polling has been meteoric. You managed to got from the low forties/high thirties to high forties in a few weeks. Its one of the most dramatic and staggering increases in polling in history.

You’ve got 1.5 billion dollars to spend, and a week of captured media going into the convention. You have three months.

The experiment (0, 1) is conducted by you answering the following questions follows:

0 You are not allowed to change the candidates policy positions. Explain how you would use 1.5 billion dollars and 3 months to win an election.

1 You are allowed to change the candidates policy positions. Explain how you would use 1.5 billion dollars and 3 months to win an election.

If you can’t identify a coherent strategy that creates a path to victory under premise (0), we have to conclude that the only way Harris could win the election was to change their policies.

… voting isn’t a binary.

Yes it is. Will I vote in the next election? Binary choice. Will I vote Democrat or Republican? Also binary choice.

Any one voter has a range of choices about what to do with their time available to them.

Only if you include options that are not related to voting does it become a non-binary choice. Since we are talking about voting, which is a binary choice, the other options are either irrelevant or still boil down to yes I will vote or no I will not vote.

I don’t know if you are fully aware of this, but: SHE LOST THE FUCKING ELECTION!

As a news service your timeliness is horrible.

I don’t really believe any of you blue maga fascists are actually operating in good faith at this point, but I’ll at least offer you the grace of addressing the following issue.

People who don’t agree with your opinions are fascists. Got it!

Now, allow me to reword my previous point:

Stop making excuses for the people who didn’t vote in 2024 and therefore allowed Trump to win the election. Every Dem KNOWS Harris and the DNC screwed the pooch and blame them for their loss. But, and this really important, we also blame those Dems who didn’t vote. What percentage of blame is assigned to Harris, DNC, and non-voters gets probably differs greatly between individuals. Personally, 40-40-20.

Yes it is. Will I vote in the next election? Binary choice. Will I vote Democrat or Republican? Also binary choice.

Then how did the millions of vote difference between Harris 24 and Biden 20 not end up in the Republican column. Voters always have another choice and its the one they are making by default because its where all voters begin: to stay on the couch.

Only if you include options that are not related to voting does

So not voting isn’t related to voting? The whole point here is that the game theoretical strategy of “strategic voting” or “voting for the lessor of two evils” falls apart when it meets reality. It doesn’t work, as in, it doesn’t give you the strategic outcomes you want it to because you didn’t represent the game correctly. Voting isn’t a binary, no matter how much so you insist that it is. A voter can simply not vote, or not even register. Or vote third party, or write in the name of their cat. You approving of or not approving of those things doesn’t mean they aren’t available as options to a voter.

If you want to blame voters, then you need to offer a mechanism to move them. I know how we can move individual politicians and campaigns because we’ve done it before. I don’t think we disagree about that. But there is no credible mechanism for changing the inarticulate mass which is the “electorate” to adopt your perspective that they should have just voted to support genocide. There is no tool which performs that operation. You can’t move voters in this manner. A single voter is a grain of sand. It behaves like a solid, like a tiny rock. A mass of voters is a river of sand. They have fundamentally different properties.

You are demonstrating a fundamental misunderstanding how elections work, how they function. Effectively, you are subject in the same kind of propaganda that the petroleum industry used to convince consumers that individual actions, specifically recycling plastics, was going to save the world. This is a bad faith approach because it shifts the responsibility for the outcomes or consequences of elections from those who actually have power in the system, like parties, political campaigns, and candidates, to those who effectively have the least power in the system: voters. That perspective you hold, is the result of a long effort on the parties to dismiss the responsibility they hold for actually appealing to voters and their demands.

There is one path to winning elections: understand the electorate, and then move candidates into adopting those positions. You can’t shame, badger, or otherwise abuse voters into voting how you want them to. It doesn’t work. It doesn’t matter if you don’t like that. Trying to do so is counterproductive.

Blame percentage (Harris, DNC, and non-voters): 100, 0, 0

All Harris had to do was change her policy on Gaza and she wins the election. One person could have made a different choice and we would have a different outcome.

Stop making excuses for the people who didn’t vote in 2024 and therefore allowed Trump to win the election.

Putting the responsibility of a failed campaign on the backs of voters just shows more electoral illiteracy on your part. If you can’t offer a credible mechanism for how you get 6 million people to do what you want them to do, its fucking irrelevant.

Then how did the millions of vote difference between Harris 24 and Biden 20 not end up in the Republican column. Voters always have another choice and its the one they are making by default because its where all voters begin: to stay on the couch.

So not voting isn’t related to voting?

You created a second “No” option for choosing whether or not to vote just to be right.

And as an aside, even within your 2x2 matrix you acnwledge voting isn’t a binary. There are 4 outcomes possible in what you outlined. Likely Democrat, Vote; Likely Democrat, Don’t vote; Likely Republican, Vote; Likely Republican, Don’t vote. 4 possibilities.

Not voting is not voting is not voting. If you want to add in other qualifiers to whether or not someone votes so you can be right okay.

The whole point here is that the game theoretical strategy of “strategic voting” or “voting for the lessor of two evils” falls apart when it meets reality. It doesn’t work, as in, it doesn’t give you the strategic outcomes you want it to because you didn’t represent the game correctly.

It does but I’ll address this as we go on.

Voting isn’t a binary, no matter how much so you insist that it is.

Again, it does but I’ll address this as we go on.

A voter can simply not vote, or not even register.

Not voting. Option one.

Or vote third party, or write in the name of their cat.

Voting. Option two.

You approving of or not approving of those things doesn’t mean they aren’t available as options to a voter.

Yes, there are two options,: vote or do not vote. Glad we cleared that up, again.

But there is no credible mechanism for changing the inarticulate mass which is the “electorate” to adopt your perspective that they should have just voted to support genocide.

No idea if there are studies to support this but I would bet my bottom teeth that something close to a majority of those who did vote for Harris were not supporting genocide or even the DNC. We, they, were voting against Trump 2.0 and Project 2025. The fact that some voters decided to cut off their nose to spite their face and not vote at all because, again, Harris wouldn’t say the words to make them happy? Yeah, I am going to assign blame to them for where we are now.

You are demonstrating a fundamental misunderstanding how elections work, how they function. Effectively, you are subject in the same kind of propaganda that the petroleum industry used to convince consumers that individual actions, specifically recycling plastics, was going to save the world. This is a bad faith approach because it shifts the responsibility for the outcomes or consequences of elections from those who actually have power in the system, like parties, political campaigns, and candidates, to those who effectively have the least power in the system: voters. That perspective you hold, is the result of a long effort on the parties to dismiss the responsibility they hold for actually appealing to voters and their demands.

Can’t tell what exactly you are talking about here. Third party candidates? Or just insulting me because I don’t agree with your apologism.

There is one path to winning elections: understand the electorate, and then move candidates into adopting those positions.

Good idea! Got a few billion dollars I can borrow?

You can’t shame, badger, or otherwise abuse voters into voting how you want them to. It doesn’t work. It doesn’t matter if you don’t like that. Trying to do so is counterproductive.

If America survives the remainder of Trump’s term hopefully those who didn’t vote and helped Trump get back in the White House and realize how stupid they were then the shame, badgering etc will have been worth it.

Putting the responsibility of a failed campaign on the backs of voters just shows more electoral illiteracy on your part.

The failed campaign that is on Harris and the DNC. Trump winning the election I already gave my breakdown.

Gonna try to address this one claim at a time. First and most consistently you make the claim that:

voting is a binary

This is an easy one to dismiss, because, just… its obviously not. Like its not even point worth engaging with beyond the performative aspect of making you look like an idiot. If its a binary, how did Kennedy get any votes in the general? Or De la Cruz. Or Stein. If voting is a binary and there is no secret third option, then how did the vote totals change between 2020, 2024? How is it the Democratic vote total went down from 2020 to 2024 if there isn’t some “other choice” voters have between Republicans or Democrats?

A voter has many options when it comes to voting. You can approve of or disapprove of the options, but pretending that voters only have two options is just… not true.

Can’t tell what exactly you are talking about here. Third party candidates? Or just insulting me because I don’t agree with your apologism.

EG, you don’t understand how elections work. You already demonstrate that with your insistence that voting is a binary. You’ve drunk decades of propaganda which shifts the responsibility for electoral outcomes from candidates and campaigns, and shifts that blame to voters. A corollary is how petroleum used the exact same approach to convince people that they individually were responsible for the outcomes of climate change, specifically around recycling. You’re engaging in the same bait and switch that petroleum company used to shed responsibility for climate change.

Good idea! Got a few billion dollars I can borrow?

Yes. 1.5 billion. That’s how much in donations the Harris campaign got.

Here lets run the experiment

It’s August 2024, the night before the convention, and I’m appointing you Kamala Harris’s campaign manager. You are just coming off the big bump in polling you got from naming Tim Walz your vp. So far, your polling has been meteoric. You managed to got from the low forties high thirties to high forties in weeks.

You’ve got 1.5 billion dollars to spend, and a week of captured media going into the convention. You have three months.

The experiment (0, 1) is conducted by you answering the following questions follows:

0 You are not allowed to change the candidates policy positions. Explain how you would use 1.5 billion dollars and 3 months to win an election.

1 You are allowed to change the candidates policy positions. Explain how you would use 1.5 billion dollars and 3 months to win an election.

If there is no credible approach where you can accomplish a Democratic victory, the you have to cede that the only way Democrats could have won the election without Harris changing their policy on Gaza.

And it would have cost 0 dollars for Harris to change her position on Gaza. The only people to blame for Trump being in office are Harris and the Harris campaign. They were the only ones in a position to convert an L to a W. No other individuals held that power.

Are you advocating third party voting? Is that what you’ve been dancing around?