Mastodawn

Dave Rahardja 2d ago

People minimizing Orbán’s defeat in #Hungary through voting, and claiming that the same can’t be done to Donald Trump: Remember that Orbán was in power for SIXTEEN YEARS, that is, 2.5× LONGER than Trump. He had more than twice the time Trump has had to intimidate, corrupt, and destroy Hungary’s systems of voting. And yet, voting unseated him.

PLEASE do not preemptively give up on voting. Voting still works in the US, and it is quite likely that our voting infrastructure will far outlive Trump and his destructive party.

Authoritarians rely on a perceived popular mandate to continue their abuse. Voting can decisively deny them that mandate. Do not give up prematurely.

VOTE. VOTE. VOTE.

𐁂𐀑𐀐𐁐

@drahardja I think most people's problem isn't that they think Trump won't leave office via an election, it's that the DNC doesn't have a democratic primary process and they are just going to run Gavin Newsom, who will win probably, and while better than Trump, we're looking at a marginally better rightwing president whether he or JD wins 2028, making it seem like voting doesn't matter -- the choice is oligarch-aligned rightwinger vs oligarch-aligned rightwinger at the end of the day as always.

Dave Rahardja 2d ago

@Emerson61 I will vote for Newsom if that’s the alternative I’m given.

Here’s my perspective: https://sfba.social/@drahardja/116377823558685082

Dave Rahardja (@[email protected])

People on the left have this bizarre trait of criticizing their candidates for not being left enough, when the current alternative is literally Hitler without a mustache. David Sedaris wrote this quip that stuck with me: “To put them in perspective, I think of being on an airplane. The flight attendant comes down the aisle with her food cart and, eventually, parks it beside my seat. "Can I interest you in the chicken?" she asks. "Or would you prefer the platter of shit with bits of broken glass in it? To be undecided in this election is to pause for a moment and then ask how the chicken is cooked.”” A center-left candidate can be ahead in the polls against a literal Fascist, and leftists will will be like “yeah but they don’t support bike lanes” and be sad about it. Perfection is truly the enemy of the good.

SFBA.social

obscurestar 2d ago

@drahardja @Emerson61 And Newsom is a fine example of why the primaries are so very important because we really do not want that used car salesman.

𐁂𐀑𐀐𐁐 1d ago

@obscurestar @drahardja the party will force him on us like Genocide Joe and Hillary before...

obscurestar 1d ago

@Emerson61 @drahardja If you sit around sniveling for the next two and a half years, probably. But you could get off your ass and be part of a grass roots movement to work towards getting someone decent in. That's what I'm going to do.

𐁂𐀑𐀐𐁐 1d ago

@obscurestar @drahardja my sweet summer child... hold onto that idealism for when the left finally decides to ditch the DNC as their party so we CAN win... The only way Gavin doesn't win is a 2008-style internal intrigue situation among the party elites. But they are all boomers, so Schumer can't be the "young" upstart Littlefingering Obama as the ordained party candidate in 2028. It's going to be Gavin and if we are spitting into the wind, a third party is the better long term effort.

obscurestar 1d ago

@Emerson61 @drahardja Sure and the establishment Republicans were desperately horny for Trump in 2016.

No wait, I know you're gonna tell me liberals aren't able to organize the same way. We're just not that good. Just accept defeat roll over and let the fascists win. it's what you want.

Let me guess, you're gonna be the Road Warrior when society falls and build a new world in your own image.

Nice you can punish minorities in the US until you get your way tho. Very privileged.

𐁂𐀑𐀐𐁐 1d ago

@obscurestar @drahardja wow. That's a lot...

obscurestar 20h ago

@Emerson61 @drahardja Truth often is for those who haven't heard it.

The system is busted. FPTP and corporate spending means its a 2-party system. A 3rd party would need just as much money and become just as corrupted by it.

Grassroots replacement is vastly more logical.

But what do you care if some trans people lose their civil rights and a few brown people get murdered as long as we learn our lesson for not having the power to provide YOUR no-compromises perfect candidate.

𐁂𐀑𐀐𐁐 1d ago

@drahardja I was done with being a slave to the duopoly in 2000, I'm sure as shit done voting for the "lesser" evil, which is still a rightwing dude doing genocide at this point

MacCruiskeen 2d ago

@Emerson61 @drahardja I would bet money (but not on Polymarkets) that Pritzker runs in 2028. But that doesn't really matter now. 2028 is far away. We should be focusing on the midterms and flipping as many R seats as possible.

Mastodon Migration 2d ago

@maccruiskeen @Emerson61 @drahardja

He will certainly run. We will see if he is any good. The best candidate will prevail. That's the way the primaries work.

𐁂𐀑𐀐𐁐 1d ago

@mastodonmigration @maccruiskeen @drahardja Tell that to Joe Biden, who came in 5th in every race before the party rigged the election for him in 2020. Tell that to Howard Dean, who the party corruptly undermined by getting Clear Channel to run "the scream" bits on classic rock stations that were normally Dirty Deeds by AC/DC on a loop in 2004. The DNC puts its rightwing finger on the scale in EVERY federal race. A Summer Lee beating them is a vanishingly rare event.

Mastodon Migration 1d ago

@Emerson61 @maccruiskeen @drahardja

Loved Howard Dean, and worked for him, but he didn't really connect with voters. You are right about Biden, but he was a VP incumbent. The last real primary was Obama, and it pretty much worked as it should.

𐁂𐀑𐀐𐁐 1d ago

@mastodonmigration @maccruiskeen @drahardja regardless of candidate quality, it is CHEATING for a political party to bring to bear billions of "earned media" insofar as it wasn't paid, and corruption is a form of earning, against a primary candidate in that party. I have never voted in a fair DNC primary, and nobody who turned 18 after November 1992 has. They pick a winner EVERY federal race and cheat. Occasionally they are so arrogant an AOC slips through, but that is the exception.

Mastodon Migration 1d ago

@Emerson61 @maccruiskeen @drahardja

Indeed they will try to cheat. Politics is basically cheating. But, a real primary process creates the opportunity for the most skilled politician no matter if the DNC tries to put a finger on the scale. We are right now in this battle. Julianna Stratton is an example. Show up. Go. Fight. Win.

𐁂𐀑𐀐𐁐 1d ago

@mastodonmigration @maccruiskeen @drahardja I will believe it when I see it, and will note the GOP did NOT cheat to act against Trump in 2016, because their primaries are actually intended to be democratic. I view AOC's 2028 run as the DNC pulling a Lucy to her Charlie Brown and pretending she can win so she doesn't knowably end Chuck Schumer's career with a senate run, which would be the better move for her, the left, and the party.

Mastodon Migration 1d ago

@Emerson61 @maccruiskeen @drahardja

As you say, we will see. If you want a prediction, think that JB Pritzker, allied with the likes of Warren and Murphy in the Senate, and AOC in the House are going to mount a very well resourced campaign to overturn the influence of the DNC, and take over the party apparatus. Hope they are successful.

𐁂𐀑𐀐𐁐 1d ago

@mastodonmigration @maccruiskeen @drahardja There is no world in which a billionaire is gaining enough outsider traction to do Bernie 2016, much less 2020, much less win a DNC primary for president. That's just not in the cards. I am the male scumbag left you would theoretically defeat a DNC anointed one with as the voters and I can tell you right now, I know NOBODY who hates Newsom and would consider a billionaire.

Mastodon Migration 1d ago

@Emerson61 @maccruiskeen @drahardja

We will see. It's just a prediction. Could be wrong. Newsom has very high negatives in CA. He is awkward and slimey and will do poorly under closer examination.

Mastodon Migration 1d ago

@Emerson61 @maccruiskeen @drahardja

Plus, Pritzker is a Roosevelt sort of billionaire. You might warm up to him.

𐁂𐀑𐀐𐁐 1d ago

@mastodonmigration @maccruiskeen @drahardja this isn't about me, I always vote for the loser (I voted for Bill Bradley in the primary). If you want to make the governor a thing, you probably don't want me voting for him. I also deregistered as a dem after Genocide Joe 2020. If my primary vote doesn't count, why do I WANT to be part of your shitty party that hates people like me? Green Party, Nader voting young me was ACTUALLY right about everything and every inch I gave the right debased me.

Mastodon Migration 1d ago

@Emerson61 @maccruiskeen @drahardja

Maybe because the alternative is fascism and this purity holding you breath stuff just doesn't work. Feel like the lesson of Hungary is if you want to break the hold of the fascists on power you need to make a broad alliance with everyone except the fascists. That said, working during the primary process to nominate better Democrats and reform the DNC is worth fighting for.

𐁂𐀑𐀐𐁐 20h ago

@mastodonmigration @maccruiskeen @drahardja I was more amenable to that argument before Genocide Joe. The DNC forced a genocidal madman on their own voters without a real primary. Twice. Once genocide is involved, you're multiplying infinities, the math stops mathing to be the "lesser evil" and I'm just unwilling to degrade myself by voting for that. It's a red line I am simply unwilling to let slide because fascism. Until the DNC stops supporting genocide, no vote from me no matter what.

Mastodon Migration 20h ago

@Emerson61 @maccruiskeen @drahardja@chihuahua.

And you realize that many more of the Gazan people you profess to care about were killed because of this principled stance.

𐁂𐀑𐀐𐁐 19h ago

@mastodonmigration @maccruiskeen I have no reason to believe Kamala wouldn't have been completely controlled by Israel like Biden and Trump, so I would argue there is no basis by which to assume it would have been any better. She literally campaigned with Liz Cheney to show that she is a war monger.

Mastodon Migration 19h ago

@Emerson61 @maccruiskeen

You can say this if that helps you sleep at night, but you know it isn't true.

𐁂𐀑𐀐𐁐 18h ago

@mastodonmigration @maccruiskeen I honestly don't, and I sleep very well. It is a political party's job to appeal to voters, especially those who have voted for them and donated and volunteered for decades, not the job of voters to drag an offputting rightwinger they hate, picked by party bosses, across the finish line on the premise they might be better than the rightwinger the other rightwing party is running.

Mastodon Migration 18h ago

@Emerson61 @maccruiskeen

Understand your point, just saying you and a lot of folks like you got a lot of the people you profess to support killed. If you feel like this is a reasonable sacrifice for your principles, so be it.

𐁂𐀑𐀐𐁐 15h ago

@mastodonmigration @maccruiskeen I just think the moral burden is on the unpopular party, not on those who (perhaps incorrectly) realize that they were right in 2000 when they voted for Nader, and rather than being kowtowed back into the DNC fold, they should have spent the last 25 years building a Green party that can beat the GOP, rather than be Jill Stein's vanity party, because the DNC is allergic to victory, by corrupt design of the Jen O'Malley Dillon set.

𐁂𐀑𐀐𐁐 1d ago

@mastodonmigration @maccruiskeen @drahardja Kamala had such bad negatives in CA she had to drop out before the primary to avoid embarrassment. She was still VP in 2020 and top of the DNC ticket (sans process) in 2024. High negatives in America generally doesn't phase the DNC. They exist to spend money on ads so that Jen O'Malley Dillon's yacht can have a yacht, not win elections. Kamala had shit CA numbers and the PR consultants made a cut on a BILLION, maybe a more unpopular figure would be mo!

Mastodon Migration 2d ago

@Emerson61 @drahardja

Absurd. There will be a Democratic Primary. It will be riveting and get the entire nation fired up. The best candidate will win the nomination and crush the Republican candidate.

@Emerson61 @drahardja

Do you think TISZA has a democratic primary process??
TISZA gave party members the choice between three predetermined candidates in each district. (Just check their wikipedia site). The Democratic party in the USA is more democratic and open than that.

Also Newsom is to the left of Magyar (and I hate Newsom, he's awful).

And several leftist parties decided to not run at all in order to unify opposition votes in Hungary.

But some leftist US Americans would rather endlessly complain about Democrats' primary process without realizing how lucky you are because you actually do get to choose your candidates in primaries. That's not the standard everywhere!

Hungarian leftists were pragmatic instead of choosing perfection, that's how they got rid of Orbán.

#Hungary #USpol #Magyar #Newsom

𐁂𐀑𐀐𐁐 1d ago

@Mab_813 @drahardja the DNC had a similar process before 1972. We had "pageant primaries" to see how popular various options for the party to pick were. In 2020, the DNC ordained Genocide Joe as their candidate after he came in 5th in every state before they came in HARD for him. Is that more democratic than a pageant primary? I would argue it is less, as if Humphrey had come in 5th in four states, the party wouldn't have run him. Unlike Genocide Joe.