Mastodawn

@benroyce Hopefully the Democrats have learned a lesson from 2024 and stop running lite republicans. They're entitled morons if they expect people who don't like genocide to vote blue no matter who. #uspol

we show up in the primaries and get the left candidate in

this is the lesson of mamdani: the people just bucked the establishment, and made it happen

corporatist dems will not magically decide to become leftists, and anyone who thinks they will must be joking

*we* have to show up and replace them

anyone who doesn't show up in the primaries, then complains the dem candidates suck, needs to shut up: they are the reason why the candidates suck

@benroyce Ok so what if leftists do come out to vote in the primaries, but their vote gets split because whoops there happen to be one too many leftish candidates running and then the pro-genocide candidate gets the nomination?

i don't understand your complaint

"what if something bad happens"?

of course. there's numerous other scenarios where something can go wrong

or the centrist dem can straight up beat the leftist dem in the primary

and?

the simple point is:

if you vote, you may lose. if you don't vote, you *will* lose

nevermind that if leftists show the fuck up, their concerns will be addressed rather than ignored

no elected official cares about people who don't #vote

you *make them* care

@benroyce I'm just trying to get clarification on who you think is an entitled moron and under what circumstances. If leftists keep voting blue no matter who, the message that sends is that the Democrats can ignore leftists. We should not encourage that sort of entitlement on behalf of the party.

1. i'm talking about the primaries, where you outright choose a leftist

2. if you think "i'm not voting and i'm sending a message to centrist dems":

it doesn't send anyone any message

they just ignore you

and it means you don't care about trans rights, women's rights, voting rights, immigrants, what is going on in iran right now, etc

to pout and sit things out and risk all of that and more "to send a message" is entitled as fuck

nobody cares about people who don't vote

@benroyce Okay, so when a pro-genocide candidate gets nominated, it's best for leftists to vote third-party or write-in in the general. Got it.

if you vote 3rd party you are voting MAGA

in our stupid FPTP voting system you are dividing the left vote and helping MAGA win

and if you stand against harris, for example, due to gaza (ignoring trump?!), then not voting/ 3rd party voting: congratulations, you helped what trump is doing in iran happen

you're talking about feeling pure, for yourself

you don't care what happens in reality

that's entitled

your rationale only helps fascism

a vote is strategy, not a romance

@benroyce No, that is shill logic. Votes must be earned. No candidate, especially from a party that is barely a party, is entitled to anyone's vote.

There *is* something entitled to your vote:

Your society

You're not trans or an immigrant etc so Trump's malice doesn't threaten you

So you are privileged to play silly games like "teach dems a lesson" and allow your society to go to shit. Because it doesn't affect you (or you're too stupid to realize it affects you)

Centrist dems aren't listening to your "lesson." Not voting means you don't care

You have to show up and *replace* centrist dems in the primaries

#vote

@benroyce @fathermcgruder Agree completely with Ben. Leftists didn’t like Hubert Humphrey in 1968 because he was too connected to Johnson’s escalation of the Vietnam War, so we got 8 years of Nixon, more escalation, more body bags, Cointelpro, murdered Black Panthers etc. Leftists didn’t like Al Gore in 2000, so we got 8 years of GWB, two devastating wars, a broken economy, John Roberts and Sam Alito, inaction on climate change…1/

@benroyce @fathermcgruder Leftists didn’t like Hillary in 2016 or Kamala in 2024…see the pattern? These were all close elections. If we had won even 1 of them, everyone’s lives would have been better, and leftists would have had more space to push for change. Now we are fighting to survive. And millions of people all over the globe are dead who would still be alive.

Voting is harm reduction at worst, transformative at best. There’s nothing evil about reducing harm.2/

@benroyce @fathermcgruder After 50 years of activism and all of these disappointments, I have stopped looking to electoral politics as the main focus for transformative change. That comes from organizing in communities. Forcing elected officials to do the right thing. If you vote for the right people, they’re more likely to give in to the demands of communities, or do the least to block them. So I vote for the best possible available candidate and keep organizing. 3/

@benroyce @fathermcgruder One more comment: when the US was founded only white male property owners could vote. Women had to fight for the right to vote. Even though Black American men were guaranteed the right to vote by the 15th amendment and Black women by the 19th amendment, civil rights activists had to fight for the Voting Rights Act of 1965. People have died for the right to vote. Who are any of us to throw away that right? It’s disrespectful. 4/

ᴮᵉⁿ ᴿᵒʸᶜᵉVOTE IN THE PRIMARIES

@jbluespruce @fathermcgruder

And entitled

@benroyce @fathermcgruder Ben, thank you for consistently, persistently, and bluntly addressing this issue in your posts.

@jbluespruce @fathermcgruder

no, thank you

your whole comment chain was banger

we are on the same page

we'll just keep announcing the reality of the situation and get people to realize

@benroyce @fathermcgruder Thank you! I appreciate you - your posts give me heart to be loud about this. I made this argument many times in the run-up to 2024. 2024 reminded me so much of 1968. Which was a horrible year for many reasons. I could not get people to listen. And Trump is so much worse than Nixon was, a sentence I thought I would never have to say. But even when people make terrible mistakes re voting, we can’t give up on democracy. That’s the work.

@jbluespruce @fathermcgruder

💪 😤

we're back-to-back June. before us is a horde of toxic idealists and trollfarm

all we have to do is just keep announcing the reality