It’s hard to buck the establishment. ~16,000 people were the difference in a state of 10 million.
If every eligible voter participated it wouldn’t even be close. Always blows my mind seeing comments on voting doesn’t matter when I’m on average voting for 3-4 other citizens in primaries.
I’m not convinced by that whole theory that “if everyone voted, the elections would turn out different!”. If we follow the Law of Large Numbers, the results would be pretty much the same.
I’m not convinced by that whole theory that “if everyone voted, the elections would turn out different!”.
There’s a strong correlation between election turnout and results trending conservative or progressive. It’s not the numbers but the percentage of turnout – and when turnout percentage is higher, the results skew progressive.
And this is consistent with how Bernie has voted over the years. If his vote doesn’t matter on a bill that will move things towards his goals but not enough, he votes no. However, if his vote is needed, he’ll vote yes because some progress is better than no progress.
And it is always amazing how people will claim to like Bernie but really don’t like it when this is pointed out.
Perfection is the enemy of the good. I understand that. I am also empathetic to the choice of those who sit out elections when they feel ignored. I don’t agree with it, but i understand.
My experience with the Obama/Bernie/Trump voter isn’t that they have some nuanced understanding of politics that must be studied. They’re just extremely responsive to a charismatic performance.
Well I was leaning GOP but if Bernie is urging me I guess I’ll switch
Remember why the Republicans lost the Spanish Civil War. They couldn’t get over their internal squabbling and purity tests.
Fortunately I have rank choice voting, so I can vote for the progressive candidates first and also the center-right Democratic candidates after
rank choice voting
So jealous. The people here want to sell Prop Rep, and it’s baffling for regular folks.
He could have been president of the US if it wasn’t for the Dems stabbing him in the back (while simultaneously shooting themselves in the foot). Amazing.
My voting flow chart is socialists, then democrats, then nobody.
Imo, we can fight over what shade of blue after the pedos are out of office.
This right here. And it goes for centrist dems too. If a progressive is the candidate on the ticket, vote for them. Don’t let the pedophiles win this one
Yes. The centrist ass dem I voted for veto’d a pro union bill. I would still vote for her over the alternative.
My primary votes are all left though.
Seems notable that we don’t have a headline with Joe Biden or whoever urging moderates to vote Democratic
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Turning in a ballot with an empty selection is exactly the way to send the “voting for nobody” message that non-voters convince themselves they are sending, rather than the “you don’t need to care about my opinion on the issues because I don’t vote” message that it actually sends.
There’s always a worse choice of the choices for who to vote for.
Vote for the other one.
The only perfect candidate for you is you yourself. If you’re not running, and you don’t have some form of ranked choice, not voting against the worse candidate is one fewer vote they need to overcome in order to win. And for your 1 vote against them, they need two for them to get ahead.
I cannot tell you how many sanctimonious jackasses I’ve met in my life that think their non-action is “sending a message”.
Staying home or doing performative nonsense like not selecting a candidate or voting third party is basically non-action, and virtually no one sees the message or cares.
I thought it rather silly when I was still in university and hearing it from peers. These days, when someone my age tells me they have been doing this for decades I usually ask him them who has gotten their “message” and what was done about it?
We’ve tried nothing and we’re out of ideas!
On a practical matter the message is still “both are equally acceptable to me”, with a small shade of a slightly louder “I wish there was someone better”.
But it indicates you actively participate and are therefore a winnable vote. That means campaigns are more likely to reach out to you in some way.
Since votes are secret, it really just indicates “I voted is this election and are 50/49/1 percent likely to have voted winner/runner-up/either”
I think not voting at all is a stronger message of “I wasn’t encouraged to actually vote for or against either”, but it’s also indistinguishable from “I just don’t care anymore” or “I was in a coma that November”
I think not voting at all is a stronger message
Have you observed that to be moving the DNC to the left over the past few decades? My observation is that after Kamala received fewer votes than Biden and lost to Trump, in the face of the historic (yet still measly) 4% of the primary vote being for Uncommitted, the entrenched neoliberals are digging in their heels and continuing to oppose progressive primary candidates in 2025 and 2026 primaries. My conclusion is that they don’t care, and we can’t trust them to get any message other than “you’re fired, and being replaced by this progressive candidate.” And the only way to do that is by voting for a progressive primary challenger in the primary.
I see people who don’t vote saying they never receive any flyers, calls, texts, canvassers, or any other kind of outreach from any campaigns. And then I see people who voted in either the primary or the general say they are bombarded with those types of outreach. So it’s hard for me to conclude anything other than that campaigns by and large ignore people with a public record of not voting. Because it’s harder and costs more to get a non-voter to vote than it is to get a voter to vote against the opposition. And in first-past-the-post, that is truly what your vote is in the general. Not a vote for the best, but a vote against the worst who is most likely to win.
“First-past-the-post” is a terrible moniker to describe the sort of single ballot plurality wins elections common in the USA. It’s metaphor is clumsy to the point of inaccuracy, since there isn’t any predermined scale that declares a winner. Whether only 3 votes are cast or 3 million, the winner is whomever has the biggest pile. A better sports metaphor might be “shotput”, but I think “plurality wins” is clear enough.
That being said, that the democratic establishment is ignoring the signals doesn’t mean that they aren’t relatively strong. The party’s voters are moving to the left, so even if the consultant gang isn’t responding to the collective “ew” of Uncommitted someone is.
Yeah, agreed on the wording.
What I mean is whether the signal is being ignored or misinterpreted is kind of immaterial. The desired result is not being observed, so a different tactic is required. We consistently have more non-voters than primary voters, so why not try voting in the primaries where each vote carries more weight than it does in the general? It certainly can’t be construed as a tacit approval of neoliberal policies like a vote for such a nominee in the general could be. So you still get a more clear and direct message than you did with non-voting.
In Canada, we have “centrists” that are really just fascists that don’t openly hate gay people. There is almost no difference between our current prime minister and the guy so many people were voting against. The stupid thing is that we have a proper progressive party.
My message to you is this: The conservatives know you’re scared and are using that. Their only tactic is to tell you that you need to vote against someone who is worse than them and then they get their power either way. It’s always “we can argue over the shade of blue once you put this specific shade of purple into power” and then nothing happens. The name-brand conservatives complain about them being woke, the “moderates” act like the problem is solved, and the left has to deal with both those idiots refusing to do any work.
Democrats have won multiple times since Carter and we’re still broke and rent is still insane. You’re preaching to the choir, but we didn’t operate concentration camps on American soil, or start two-three(who knows!?) wars.
Better, at the moment is all I can get. One italian kid having the balls to shoot a ceo isn’t enough for these sheep to actually do what’s necessary to fix the disunited states.
That’s the thing, there will always be those COUPLE OF DEMOCRATS that come out of nowhere and flip on ONLY the key issues we care about. Lieberman, Manchin, Sinema, Collins, Fetterman, etc.
Funny how we always just have to vote a little harder, right?
A lot of moderate and right wing Dems here.
Might as well pin this. Going to need this until November.
Just your friendly reminder that online right-wing operatives have a strong inclination to sow defeatism and apathy and push people to vote third party when it’s abundantly clear that there won’t be a race anywhere in the country where the Democrat isn’t better than the Republican in a binary choice election. Clearly, Bernie agrees.
Let’s not back the 3rd party that’s leaps and bounds better than either shade of fascism. Let’s keep the status quo that’s holding us all down firmly in place.
If voters keep rewarding bad behavior from their politicians the next version of trump to come along will be way worse.
- Democratic party whom I align with 70% of time (as does Sanders): ~50% odds of winning
- Republican party whom I align with 0% of time: ~50% odds of winning.
- Third party whom I may or may not align with depending whom (and who are you actually fucking talking about?): 99.999% chance of losing, and thanks to the spoiler effect all but enables the greater poison to win.
Genius. Simply genius. Please, learn how Democratic primaries work, get engaged, and all your concerns will be assuaged.
By better you mean to the left of trump, even though the DNC are now first term trump Republicans?
Shit take from A shit person. Fuck you.
I mean even if we entertain what you say is true (it’s not), yes – that is by definition better than the alternative binary choice.
It totally depends on the candidate, their platform and who is financing their campaign. Just voting for someone because theyre a democrat gives us people like Kristen Sinema, Joe Manchin and Marie Gluesenkamp Perez who end up voting with the fascists.
Fetterman, Manchin, and Sinema, bad as they are and were, were still the better choice compared to their general election opponents.
An occasional collaborator sucks,. but is less-bad than either an unrepentant facist or an aligned “moderate” like Collins.
People also fail to take account of Fetterman’s stroke, which clearly affected his allegiances.
He was known before it as a homespun man of the people.
Brain damage causes conservatism.
I feel like people forget that the alternative to Fetterman was Dr Oz.
Swapping Fetterman for Oz would have given the GOP majorities in both House and Senate, put Mitch McConnell back as Senate President, and generally been an objectively worse outcome.
Exactly this. I don’t disagree with wanting to cut the weakest members of the team to find someone better, but that’s for the primaries.
Looking at real numbers, Fetterman is better than Manchin or Sinema. Fetterman breaks with party lines around 25% of the time while Sinema was at 33% and Manchin was almost 40%. That makes him around twice as good as Manchin.
Idealogically, he also seems to stack up more favorably than both Manchin and Sinema, and a few other well know congressfolk that never get brought up in these conversations. Fetterman, like Manchin and Sinema, just seems to draw more attention to himself when he does it.
Do I dislike Fetterman and want him gone and replaced by someone better? Heck yeah! But the record shows he’s about 75% better than having Dr Oz as my senator would have been. Ignoring the times he did do what he was sent to do is very misleading to people that don’t take the time to look at actual data, which is going to be nearly everyone. Conor Lamb’s ideology score doesn’t look any better, so what we got is still about the best we had a chance to get.
This is such a good point I hate to see it buried. The GOP in those areas would vote in satan2 if he had a red hat and said nice things about them.
It totally depends on the candidate …
That’s what the primaries are for. Hope you have or will vote in yours this year.
Bernie also gave Pennsylvania Fetterman
Bernie couldn’t have predicted his traumatic brain damage
Thanks to the ignorant cunts who ignore primaries thinking they don’t matter.
When that happens your November choice is between whoever got through the primary or the MAGAt, so people sit it out and bitch about their choices.
If enough progressives actually got involved rather than whining about things they could make huge gains and reshape the pathetic Democrats, alas, it’s easier to whine on the internet then go pay attention in the summer and stand in line to vote.
Voters have helped train the party that they can be horrible politicians that are never held accountable because voters will keep coming back. And every election they get slightly worse, because there is no accountability. Our current political landscape is the fault of the VBNMW crowd that’s allowed it to happen, including getting trump elected.
New York, and now Michigan, and I’m sure others will follow suite electing more progressive candidates because suddenly people are realizing primaries matter. Pointing backwards and shouting at the past isn’t going to get all those fucking pedophiles out of office.
https://www.npr.org/2026/08/05/g-s1-137422/primary-elections
BE salty, but put that anger toward something useful, like helping a non establishment candidate win in a primary.
If Democrats don’t take at least one chamber of Congress in the fall, I genuinely worry they may never again. The little that’s left of American democracy won’t survive another 2 years of full MAGA control. Anyone urging you to not vote for the Democrat in your races or to not vote at all is either running a right-wing/foreign influence campaign or so clueless about the big picture as to be safely ignored.
Regardless of the outcome elections, the GOP isn’t leaving.
Good that you’re holding out hope. Some of us have already lost that lovin’ feeling.
To clarify, I was just saying the bell may already be rung, and I’m no longer of the view that we can definitely right this ship. BUT I am NOT saying we should not try. I’ll keep trying until the bitter end.
o noes the ml have to slag Bernie now
It’d be weird if he told people not to vote.
Uhh in all honesty I’m likely not voting this time around. You don’t vote out fascism, and even if you could… There’s that whole document that was leaked stating that the dhs will provide a free system to register to vote sooooo.
You don’t vote out fascism
This brings to mind an appropriate quote.
“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” – Edmund Burke
You may not be able to vote out fascism. But you can certainly let it in by not voting.
okay, russian bot
Fucking useless trash.
Only 2 kinds of Americans: Amerikkkans & Americucks
Don’t worry I will anyone who isn’t an AIPAC shill or centrist will have my vote.
You need to include AIPAC adjacent, they are just one of many PACs backing Israel. And there’s a handful doing the work of AIPAC for free
Did/will you vote in your state primary this year?
Haha, jokes on you my state democratic party decided it knows best and didn’t bother to have a primary for any of my elected offices. Counting 2026, I haven’t had a primary to vote in for my last House election, my last US Senate election, my last Governor election, my last presidential election, my last school board election, or my last city council election. I feel soo represented
Which state? I’ve only ever heard of two states leaving the presidential race off it and then only in 2024.
Every state had no democratic primary for president in 2024
Well that’s just plain disinformation bullshit.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_Democratic_Party_presidential_primaries
Only Florida and Delaware left the presidential race of their Democratic primary ballots. There were like 7 candidates for the presidential race on the ballot in Texas.
I will be voting and I usually do.
🍻
even if moderates are victorious in the primaries
Just tell the DNC to ratfuck the primaries again, the people will obediently vote for the people happy to fund ICE at home and genocide abroad. There’s no way telling the dems they can do whatever they want without risking lower turnout can backfire.
History time.
Frederick Douglas was an escaped slave who became one of the most influential speakers of his time. In 1860 he had a choice. He could support an Abolitionist candidate for President, or he could throw in with Lincoln. Abe had said that he supported the Union over abolition. Douglas figured it was better to win and have a seat at the table than to lose.
edit -Alcohol Corn responded to this comment, then reedited his comments later.
Kind of skews the actual conversation.
Even when Dems win I don’t feel like I have a seat at the table.
At best I feel like I’m at the kids’ table. “That’s nice that you want that, sweetie. Now eat your veggies and maybe there will be pie”
The working class will never have a seat at their table, they use us as pawns to elect them and stay in power then toss our needs aside after the election.
Did progressives get a seat at the table with Biden? No, it just told the DNC they could do deeply unpopular things and still win.
4 years later, we had more deportions than ever plus genocide under Biden and now we get genocide and deportations to El Savvadorian concentration camps under Trump.
Are you trying to Both Sides this? What nonsense.
I am saying the DNC taking the left’s votes for granted allowed them to justify the policies that lost them the election.
The American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 (ARPA) was arguable the most progressive piece of legislation since Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society. Progressives absolutely had a table in Biden’s presidency, especially at the beginning. There’s a reason Bernie Sanders threw his full-throated support behind him.
I would very much agree he seemed to move further right over 4 years though, and his response to the Gaza genocide was really telling. And his cognitive capacity definitely decreased
Did the ARPA help you personally or anyone you know, personally?
I don’t know anyone who actually got their student loans paid off.
ARPA paid my health insurance premiums, in full, until this year.
My wife did, and it’s helped a lot. I don’t know if that moves the before for you at all.
Oh man, ARPA funded so many social service programs. Homeless services and public health in particular were hit hard when the Trump admin cancelled ARPA funding last year. Emergency shelters, rapid rehousing, permanent supportive housing, outreach, vaccination programs, medical programs for people without insurance, and the list goes on and on, this is just off the top of my head right now
Most of this money was distributed to local governments for local programs
Right. Because a Black woman being nominated for President is in no way progressive.
The black woman immediately embraced every regressive policy that had just killed the Biden campaign.
You ever hear of “black faces in high places”?
A black woman sending your neighbors to a concentration camp isn’t progress.
She got 65% of the vote in NYC.
Mamdani, running against a know sexual predator and a radio shock jock, got 51% of the vote.
He got fewer votes total, and a smaller percentage of the vote.
I’d love to be part of a big Progressive majority, but I know that we’re a small minority.
Do you genuinely think policy like “free healthcare” is less popular than “subsidies for health insurance, purchased through one of 50 marketplaces based on how much healthcare you think you will need in the next year”? That genocide and ICE are more popular than no genocide and not deporting your neighbors?
I noticed that you edited your responses without noting the fact.
Looks good to people coming in later, but it’s dishonest.
Good-bye.
John Brown was also an influential speaker of his time. A really cool dude. Though what happened to him shows that the US citizenry never had the stones to fight for what they believe in. They only think they do.
If you favor the ‘John Brown’ solution, why aren’t you in Gaza or Ukraine right now?
I lack sufficient materials.
