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To those in countries where democracy might last another election - harm reduction is not optional
(lemmy.world)
this post was submitted on 05 Jul 2025
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Allowing the Democratic Party to keep fielding right-of-center neoliberals who've consistently and repeatedly made concessions to the far right over the last four decades without ever demanding anything back, and allowed them to shift the Overton Window way over to Nazi territory, is NOT harm reduction. If you hadn't been such cowards the last three elections, there could have been a credible opposition party by now, but no, you're just going to keep chickening out every single "most important election in history" (aka every election ever).
You change the party in the primaries. You choose which party wins in the general.
When your choice is between a shit sandwich and fascism, you eat the fucking sandwich.
The Democratic Party has literally gone to court and won rulings arguing that they don't have to follow their own rules or primary processes. They're a private club, and they are free to put their thumb on the scale whenever and however they please. Those doing the most to change the Democratic Party are completely bypassing the party and organizing through external organizations. The Democratic Party will demand that you spend decades canvassing and working in the trenches before making any meaningful contribution. And they will only allow the most craven and corrupt to have any real seat at the table. You only get to climb the Democratic party structure if you tow the party line.
Honestly I've come around more and more to bypassing the Democrat party.
Every time after we get ice cream hasn't changed the fact that our choice will always be between ice cream and driving off cliff until we eventually drive off the cliff. Either we drive off the cliff now or later, so maybe we should probably try to stop getting ice cream.
You don’t change the party in the primaries.
I’ve been trying to do that for decades and it doesn’t work.
That or this is what most of the party actually wants.
Either way we’re screwed.
Yes and now we're driving off a fucking cliff and there won't be any chances to elect a progressive candidate
Not really. Historically, whenever there is an authoritarian takeover like this, it is never the centrist left party that actually stands up to them and kicks them out of power. You have to let that corrupt party burn completely. Only then is there free space in the landscape to allow the formation of a party that actually has any desire to stand up to authoritarianism. Democrats don't fight fascism; they build moats and walls around fascism to protect it.
I could use some history learning to give me hope for a more progressive future. Do you have some examples of corrupt parties burning out I could research?
For the closest example, just look to the US's south. Claudia Sheinbaum in Mexico. Morena, her party, was a new left wing coalition that formed by bypassing the old Mexican centrist leftist parties. To get real change in Mexico required bypassing the old parties entirely. They had their own useless centrists that needed to be ignored and left by the side of the road.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morena_(political_party)
This is what liberals miss when they shout like drunken parrots "vote blue no matter who!" What they miss is that this game does not end after this election. There is always somewhere lower to fall. As bad as things are now, they can always get worse. The choice is never "vote this way or we all die." These are words used by manipulative centrists to guilt people into voting against real progress. Notice, vote blue no matter who only goes one way. Leftists are expected to circle the wagons and support the centrist stooge, but no centrist will ever be thrown out of the party for refusing to endorse a leftist candidate. "Vote blue no matter who" is a scam.
By voting for the useless centrist for president today, you guarantee that no candidate who will actually improve things will have the Democratic nomination for at least the next 8 years. By voting for the useless centrist today, you prevent a purge of useless centrists from the party as whole, thus ensuring its continual decay. Votes that are wasted on the useless centrist could instead be used to build up a viable third party, and that process takes several election cycles. "Vote blue no matter who" is a myopic, short-term policy only meant to make real change impossible. It's terroristic hostage-taking.
There never was a chance to elect a progressive candidate.
Actually progressive candidates dont have the funds to compete on the scale necessary to fight back against a corrupt 2 party system that has had decades to secure its stranglehold.