In commemoration of the upcoming Transgender Day of Visibility (TDOV), President Joe Biden issued a statement praising trans people’s contributions to society and describing actions his administration has taken to counter transphobic bullying and extremism. Additionally, many members of Biden’s Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) also issued their own statements affirming that community health depends on supporting trans people too.
“Transgender Americans are part of the fabric of our Nation,” Biden wrote in his statement. “Whether serving their communities or in the military, raising families or running businesses, they help America thrive. They deserve, and are entitled to, the same rights and freedoms as every other American, including the most fundamental freedom to be their true selves.”
HOW was this downvoted.
every time I argue that we should vote third party to move the Democratic party left, people tell me that instead we should focus on electoral/voting reform. And then someone suggests it and gets downvotes.
it’s almost as if people don’t really care 🤔
Voting 3rd part has the opposite effect. Republicans voted 3rd part in 92 to shift policy and lost the presidency for 8 years, and the appointment of 2 lifetime supreme court justices.
But long term it worked … just look at where conservatives are now. The populist movement is stronger than ever.
That’s thanks to propaganda outlets. Fox news going absolutely bat shit insane over the last 15-20 years has done a lot of heavy lifting in that regard :(
That has nothing to do with elections and everything to do with the direction news media has taken. Outrage sells, reasonable politics not so much.
Elections are part of media. Tons of leftists vote for a left candidate would make the news.
I get why people are so freaked out about voting third party, especially when mass political actions like voting don’t seem to handle nuance well. So advocating a simple slogan like “vote third party” might be irresponsible, but people seem almost irrationally afraid of third party voting in contexts where it should be entirely rational to vote third party.
For example, in a swing state it’s clearly useful to vote for the Lesser Evil (in recent U.S. elections that would be the Democrats, of course). But in states where there is a supermajority and there is almost no chance the state will flip, for example California which will certainly go to the Democrats or Arkansas which will go Republican, voting third party becomes helpful because it might enable the third party to receive federal funding.
There are various objections I have considered to this strategy, the one I think that comes up immediately is that if you vote third party it takes a vote that might otherwise contribute to changing the status of a state as stronghold or swing state, basically those margins matter and you should always be pushing the margin even if not likely to make a difference (just on the slim chance it does make a difference).
In that instance I think it’s just a matter of weighing the good: does the good from voting for the third party justify the slight risk of not being part of an unexpected shift in votes? This is clearly contextual, see recent upsets in Georgia (who went to Biden in 2020) and Pennsylvania (who went to Trump in 2016). I think the responsibility is on the voter to research their state demographics and those probabilities and make a decision. If you want to do less work, sure, just vote for the Lesser Evil.
What I don’t understand is the kind of blind dogmatism that refuses to acknowledge that there even could be reasons to vote third party, and that doing so is wrong a priori.
This is astroturfing.
“anyone who disagrees with me is a bot/shill” okay
Because you’re supposed to follow the script of pretending that democrats are saving democracy and that you should vote blue even if poo. The reality is that democrats are only interested in saving the current power structure, we already don’t have a democracy, both parties do in fact serve the rich first and foremost, and guaranteeing your vote no matter what will not cause the democrats to change their policies. These should be obvious to anyone paying any attention. I wonder if these people lived through the Bush Jr years where democrats were screaming about how bad he was (correctly so), but after he was out of office they continued many of his policies (corporate bailouts, his wars, maintained tax cuts for the rich, etc) and worked to rehabilitate that war criminal’s image.
Yes, republicans are worse, but democrats use that to their advantage to never significantly improve things. It’s the classic good cop, bad cop routine. They’re still cops and they’re both on the same team working against you.
Most succinct description of the situation I’ve seen.