claim 1: “voting doesn’t change anything”
Never forget the recent case of Kris Mayes, who refuses to uphold the Arizona supreme court’s sweeping ban of abortion.
Kris Mayes only won her 2022 election by 280 votes. Voting changes things.
claim 2: “but genocide joe”
Yep. Hold that fucker’s feet to the fire. He has blood on his hands
But trump has promised to be indisputably worse. I won’t tell you how to vote. I just encourage you to vote. You’re not radical for ditching the only miniscule right the state has granted you to do some small aid for your neighbors.
The Democratic Party gets to choose, and they consistantly choose conservatives over progressives.
We, the voters, dont get to choose. We are forced to Vote Blue No Matter Who.
That's why it's equally as important as voting. To replace the candidates the current Democratic batch prefer and fun with ones that we prefer. If we do it and keep at it eventually enough of the establishment will be replaced that they will have to rely on the support of the candidates we like. Who will then move up in the party ranks till eventually they're in control of the party. Need to remind you that in the middle of the 20th century the Democratic Party was a fairly large League bigoted racist party. The Republican party was and still is. But the point is the Democrats changed. And they can be changed again. But we need to push candidates on them.
That's something that really hasn't been done in the last half century.
What do you mean it hasn't been done? There have been many progressive challengers to DNC-backed neoliberals. I can tell you about my experience volunteering for a few of these campaigns and all the structural hurdles the DNC uses to crush the progressive wing of the party.
But I think the bigger issue is urgency. We can't afford to wait a generation before taking serious action on climate change. Our current path leads directly to the end of human civilization.
And for the families in North Gaza eating grass to survive, they cannot wait until the next election cycle.
There are vasts swaths of offices here in red states where republicans run unopposed. Yeah if you primary democrats chosen candidates they will do everything they can to support them. To counter that. You need good name recognition, reputation and pedigree. From holding these lower often seen as less important offices democrats ignore and progressive candidates don't run for.
The problem is everyone tends to try to primary for higher level offices. Federal level etc. And that's the problem. Replace the base and the top will eventually follow. Go for the empty offices. I vote on almost every ballot that comes up here. I leave a bunch of it blank because my only options are open republican fascists or closeted right wing libertarian fascists. I would love to see DSA candidates, green Party Candidates etc. I'm happy you're primarying them for some of the few offices they decide to pursue. That is unfortunately largely a waste of resources and effort. But still important. But there are thousands of offices they don't run for actively. That instead of clashing with a chosen candidate and causing both parties to waste more resources. Could probably find you being amicably supported by the larger party for having the initiative.
From my experience the problem isn't reputation or pedigree, its DNC-created problems. Progressive challengers have a hard time doing basic things like printing flyers, because print shops know that if they work with a progressive challenger once theny they end up on the DNC blacklist. Its official DNC policy and it's super effective.
I too would love to see more DSA backed candidates running for lower offices, but from what I've seen it's not a question of tactics, it's a question of resources. Most modern politics is funded by corporate donors, and since the DSA does not accept this corruption, they simply dont have the money to run a candidate for dogcatcher in your flyover town.
Where I live in a populous blue state, there is no such thing as a republican running unopposed. If that's different where you live, then you should sign up to be the next DSA candidate running for one of those seats.
Maybe I'm an idealist, but I think democracy is when your views are represented and government is responsive to the needs of the people.
"Democracy is when you don't vote" just doesn't make sense to me.