circuitfarmer

I am saying that you (and people like you) can’t keep doing the same thing and expect shit to change, and then put down people who are actually trying something different for once.

Not voting or voting third party is not new. It’s not “for once”. It has been tried again and again in the US, and again and again, the outcomes were as expected: whichever candidate between the two main parties loses more votes to the tactic, loses the election.

Stop pretending it’s novel. It isn’t, and it always fails. There is nothing virtuous about being shown evidence and denying it. That’s called stupidity.

You literally had a whole thread about AI slop that wasn’t there and now you’re trying to save face by changing your own goalposts.

Good chat.

What slop? You think a nearly 3-year old account is AI generated?

Just because you’ve never seen an em-dash before AI doesn’t mean that em-dash = AI. And btw, I never even used one.

Keep showing Democrats that no matter how disconnected they are from the American public, you will keep voting for them.

The US has a two-party system. Period. That will not change anytime soon, if ever. And that presents unique challenges that countries with different systems do not have.

I’m not entirely sure from your rebuttal that you actually understand this fact.

I don’t disagree that things are fucked up, and I don’t disagree that the Dems are a bad party which by and large do not support their constituents. But let me be clear: there is no path outside of voting Democrat that has any chance of success of changing anything in the US. The only path forward is voting for the single opposition party.

What you’re saying is: it won’t matter anyway. Maybe you’re right. I’m also not disagreeing there. But we know from evidence that there is no other option which has any chance. And if the whole house of cards falls – as it is likely to do – I’d certainly rather tell my children that I did what I could based on an evidential position, regardless of how futile it may have ended up being.

What I won’t do is pretend that a third party vote will help. I won’t pretend that not voting will help. Those are the farcical ideas of a naïve idealist.

There are literal fascists in office, in part because Dunning-Kruger told you not voting or voting for a no-chance candidate was a good idea.

Or maybe you think posting online is “action” or “protest”. In case you haven’t noticed, it does jack shit.

I am not prepared

Don’t worry. We know.

You’re welcome to respond to the “slop comment” if you can actually come up with something substantive. Otherwise, it’s not a good look.

This.

Not voting or voting for a third party hands a win to people you don’t want winning. The system is not fair, at all – but that doesn’t mean we should operate in a way we know will lead to a bad outcome. We have plenty of evidence that third parties in the US don’t really make a dent, but they do sway elections (and generally not how you want). The rest is idealism.

It’s also a good example of why single-issue voting means you’ll almost always get more collateral damage, even if you get representation you want on that specific issue.

Surely all the MAGAs who are so worried about election fraud will be all over this!

Surely…

Crickets.

Never forget: Hitler was the only person to ever kill Hitler.

And as always, nothing will come of it.

Because Bernie Sanders is a progressive, and Gavin Newsom is a mainline Democrat. Mainline Democrats are not progressive, and they’ll continue to lose because of it.

“Land of the rising sun”

Looks at flag

No land

You mean Trump going down that escalator and noticing that there were people stupid enough to vote for him changed things? All of a sudden, Trump’s skeletons in the closet meant more. He had no way forward if Epstein started talking.

It should have corrected itself with the file release, but Donnie already had too much power to force redactions.

Keep licking those boots, Jake! You always need a stupid to see the smart. A yin to the yang.

This is a great point. I think overt polarization is a major issue, because it means other bad actors get really far with something as simple as “trump bad”.

Sticking with my original statement of “OK”:

You were an OK governor. You’ll never be president. Real change will never come from a career politician.

I’m literally not suggesting that anyone vote for him.

Yeah. My bar for “OK” is pretty low.

Actively standing against Trump probably gets him more credit than it should, but given the landscape, I’m sticking with it.

Perfection cannot be the enemy of progress.

Papers, Please

It’s a fantastic single-player game if you need a distraction while the world is destroyed around you and your friends and family are murdered.