Upon further review...

[CashRules]

...if I lived in a state where the outcome of the last presidential election was in doubt, it would have been a mistake not to vote for Hillary Clinton. Oh God, that hurt. Jesus Fucking Christ, there is no end to how stupid Trump can be or how much he will try to fuck over anybody with a net worth less than several million dollars. There needs to be a mandatory sentence of life in prison for anyone who still supports this fuckwit.

[Gendo]

As a North Carolina voter who was very close to voting for Hillary, and ended up voting for Johnson, I'm torn by this issue. At least part of my vote for Johnson was due to the assumption that Trump had no chance anyway.

[CashRules]

Three elderly people in my family just got informed that Social Security will be deducting $348 from their next SC check (leaving one of them with a net total of $224 to survive on next month) and then deducting $116/month thereafter. This is not because of the Federal Government but because our state government decided back in March to no longer pay the Medicare Part B premiums for poor Tennesseans. It's still the same fucking mindset exhibited by Bannon and all his minions, Trump included. The state never bothered to notify anybody so they found out when the Fed decided to take out three months of premiums at once.

[the_dork_lord]

I still don't regret not voting for Clinton.

[Derived Absurdity]

I live in a deep red state where my vote meant diddly shit and I still voted for Hillary, because fuck Trump.

[Gendo]

I live in a deep red state where my vote meant diddly shit and I still voted for Hillary, because fuck Trump.

Ironically, after helping me not switch my mind to voting for her.

[Derived Absurdity]

Well, I changed my mind because of Troy. Tbh I would have voted for her anyway, because my pure hatred for Trump and all his enablers knows no bounds, and if I had refused to vote I would have enabled him.

I'm all for tactical third-party voting or whatever, and I still don't begrudge anyone who did that (because voting should be the very least of your political participation, to be frank), but I didn't think it was the best move at the time.

[the_dork_lord]

If you hate Trump's enablers, why vote for his greatest enabler?

[Gendo]

If you hate Trump's enablers, why vote for his greatest enabler?

That was DA's argument that kept me from voting for her.

[Derived Absurdity]

If you hate Trump's enablers, why vote for his greatest enabler?

Cute. But you knew what I meant. Voting for her was the only real option I had to help prevent Trump on that day, so that's what I did. It really is that simple.

[Derived Absurdity]

If you hate Trump's enablers, why vote for his greatest enabler?

That was DA's argument that kept me from voting for her.

Could you expand on that?

[CashRules]

Now the fuckwit is claiming he fired James Comey because of how Comey handled the Hillary e-mail investigation. Right, you fired the guy for helping you get elected, it had nothing at all to do with the fact that he has since been investigating YOU. Sure Trump, that makes perfect sense.

[Gendo]

If you hate Trump's enablers, why vote for his greatest enabler?

That was DA's argument that kept me from voting for her.

Could you expand on that?

As mentioned a few weeks ago; your quote in this post.

If Trump wins (which he won't), the responsibility will be solely on two, and only two, groups of people: those who actually voted for him, and those who voted for a challenger who is so repulsive that she made sure that large swathes of people couldn't bring themselves to support her. The blame should not rest on those people who can't support Hillary; the blame should rest on those who actively supported such a vile person in the first place and made sure she was the only possible alternative.

Although I quite possibly would have ended up voting third party anyway, when I was seriously considering voting for Hillary just a couple days before the election, I found myself thinking about and agreeing with that statement; and decided that voting for Hillary would only continue to allow people like Trump to have a chance.

[Islandmur]

If you hate Trump's enablers, why vote for his greatest enabler?

That was DA's argument that kept me from voting for her.

Could you expand on that?

As mentioned a few weeks ago; your quote in this post.

If Trump wins (which he won't), the responsibility will be solely on two, and only two, groups of people: those who actually voted for him, and those who voted for a challenger who is so repulsive that she made sure that large swathes of people couldn't bring themselves to support her. The blame should not rest on those people who can't support Hillary; the blame should rest on those who actively supported such a vile person in the first place and made sure she was the only possible alternative.

Although I quite possibly would have ended up voting third party anyway, when I was seriously considering voting for Hillary just a couple days before the election, I found myself thinking about and agreeing with that statement; and decided that voting for Hillary would only continue to allow people like Trump to have a chance.

Hu? That would have made sense (to me) if this had been before Hilary was chosen as the final candidate for her party... but unless the 3rd party had a chance of winning, how would not voting for Hilary help Trump lose?

[Gendo]

It's the big picture thing; not the immediate election thing. As DA said a few posts ago, voting Hillary is the only thing he could do to go against Trump on the actual election day. But the big picture is that voting Hillary increases the chances that in 4 years we'll just have another Trump (or Trump himself again).

[aels]

Shit, it's almost like Hillary and Trump weren't exactly the same level of evil and that sometimes adulthood requires one to to take imperfect solutions to complex problems. This bitterness is not directly aimed at anyone on this thread but I pretty much never want to hear another single word from anyone who acted like Hillary was Mrs Hitler and would DESTROY AMERICA and is then sad that Trump got into power like there isn't a direct fucking line between those two things. I mean, Jesus, fuck, however mad you are at a two party system, you can't pretend like there weren't two people in line for the crown of King of America and if you didn't vote for one of them, SURPRISE, you got the other one. If you chant your affirmations of moral purity loud enough, you can drown out the sounds of dying cancer patients and immigrants being forcibly removed from their families!

[CashRules]

The Democrats still fucked up by not nominating Sanders. Of course Sanders himself fucked up by even running as a Democrat when he may be the only politician in the U.S. who had enough clout to break the stranglehold of the two-party system.

[aels]

The Dems could have elected a rotten ham sandwich (make your own Steve Bannon jokes) and it would still would have been the morally superior option to Trump.

[vnufeld]

The Dems could have elected a rotten ham sandwich (make your own Steve Bannon jokes) and it would still would have been the morally superior option to Trump.

This.

[Blade Azaezel]

and let's face it, even if Hillary was just as evil as Trump...at least she'd be more fucking competent than the tangerine tosser. She wouldn't be tweeting about nuclear Armageddon and bitching about people on TV being mean about her.

[the_dork_lord]

The problem is that Clinton wasn't an "imperfect solution." Her politics are the reason Trump happened. Clinton is better than Trump in the same way that having HIV is better than having AIDS. If you have one, you don't double down on it; you try to cure it. The only cure to Clinton/Trump is independent movements, and the Democrats have made a history of destroying movements.

[Derived Absurdity]

This is why I say people put way too much importance on voting as a political act. Voting should be the very least of your political activity. The bulk of it should consist of movement-building or some shit or something else proactive to make the world better in the best way you see fit. The reason people think voting is so important is because they've been propagandized to channel all their political participation through methods that pose the least danger to the ruling power structure.

[the_dork_lord]

Well that as well. I'd be more accepting of people voting Clinton if they were activists as well. This was not the case.

My entire life, I've heard people tell me, "I know Democrat X isn't great, but after we elect them, we'll get active!" It never happens.

[Derived Absurdity]

Yeah people are never going to get active. Even after Trump there were a few goofy marches and protests and that was it. If the election of Trump as POTUS isn't going to get people politically active nothing will.

[the_dork_lord]

The primary reason they don't get active is that Democrats kill movements.

I'm not defeatist like you, but that's why I'll never encourage people to vote Dem.

[Anakin McFly]

and let's face it, even if Hillary was just as evil as Trump...at least she'd be more fucking competent than the tangerine tosser. She wouldn't be tweeting about nuclear Armageddon and bitching about people on TV being mean about her.

If that were the case though, competence is the last thing we want from an evil person.

[Cassius Clay]

Honestly, the idea that you are willing to play chicken with the immediate threat of fascism and risk Trump winning in some type of slippery slope/big picture/long game strategy to avoid the next Trump is so hilariously nonsensical and tone deaf to me that I don't know how to begin to address it. The next Trump?? Lolololol. We will be lucky to survive this. Please tell me where the long game is when Trump winning might actually mean game over. You guys don't know the difference between battles and wars. And, yes, voting isn't everything, but it's silly to say it's not that important. Voting is an important battle, but it's not the war. But, sometimes, like in a playoff series, losing a particular battle means losing the war....and winning the battle means you might at least live to fight another day.

[Cassius Clay]

Clinton is better than Trump in the same way that having HIV is better than having AIDS. If you have one, you don't double down on it; you try to cure it.

A lot of people with HIV live normal lives on medicine. Looking for a cure for HIV is great, but you're like a quack who convinced people that your reckless experimental cure was the only solution and that they would have to get off their meds for it to work. Now, we have full-blown AIDS. Great cure.

[Gendo]

Honestly, the idea that you are willing to play chicken with the immediate threat of fascism and risk Trump winning in some type of slippery slope/big picture/long game strategy to avoid the next Trump is so hilariously nonsensical and tone deaf to me that I don't know how to begin to address it. The next Trump?? Lolololol. We will be lucky to survive this. Please tell me where the long game is when Trump winning might actually mean game over. You guys don't know the difference between battles and wars. And, yes, voting isn't everything, but it's silly to say it's not that important. Voting is an important battle, but it's not the war. But, sometimes, like in a playoff series, losing a particular battle means losing the war....and winning the battle means you might at least live to fight another day.

I think one of the problems with this argument is that we've heard it throughout every single election for at least the past 16 years, since I've been a voter. While I personally agree that Trump is far worse than the average bad choice, people from both sides have been saying the exact same thing:

"We can't afford to risk a third party vote this time, this election is far too important. If Bush/Kerry/Obama/McCain/Romney/Trump/Hillary wins this one, we may very well not have a country to defend in another four years. Just vote for the lesser of two evils this time around, and in four years when two more reasonable choices are running, then you can fight the system."

It's a boy who cried wolf syndrome. Now that the real wolf was actually running for president, people like me had been hearing these same concerns for a long time.

[the_dork_lord]

"A lot of people with HIV live normal lives on medicine."

What medicine do you have to prevent liberalism from turning into fascism?

[vnufeld]

Honestly, the idea that you are willing to play chicken with the immediate threat of fascism and risk Trump winning in some type of slippery slope/big picture/long game strategy to avoid the next Trump is so hilariously nonsensical and tone deaf to me that I don't know how to begin to address it. The next Trump?? Lolololol. We will be lucky to survive this. Please tell me where the long game is when Trump winning might actually mean game over. You guys don't know the difference between battles and wars. And, yes, voting isn't everything, but it's silly to say it's not that important. Voting is an important battle, but it's not the war. But, sometimes, like in a playoff series, losing a particular battle means losing the war....and winning the battle means you might at least live to fight another day.

This. I saw through this entire election cycle a man who used the same tactics as fascists first gain the Republican nomination and then win the election. Literally, the only difference was the use of twitter. As someone with a lot of Jewish relatives, he fucking terrified me and the idea that Hillary was worse than him or the cause for him just disgusts me. No, she wasn't the fucking reason for Trump coming along. He, or someone like him, was being built up for decades.

[vnufeld]

"A lot of people with HIV live normal lives on medicine."

What medicine do you have to prevent liberalism from turning into fascism?

When it looks like liberalism will do that, I'll worry about that. Until then, I'm more concerned about the wannabe fascist dictator and his enablers.

[the_dork_lord]

The Obama presidency led to the Trump presidency. What more of a sign do you want?

[the_dork_lord]

Also, no, Clinton didn't create Trump. Decades of neo-liberalism did. Clinton was simply an accomplice in that.

[the_dork_lord]

This. I saw through this entire election cycle a man who used the same tactics as fascists first gain the Republican nomination and then win the election. Literally, the only difference was the use of twitter.

Actually, there's a pretty huge difference: Hitler lost the election. In fact, people voted for Paul von Hindenburg because they saw him as a poor candidate, but the only one with a real chance to beat Hitler. They voted for the lesser evil, and the lesser evil won.

Hitler came to power anyway.

This is the problem with those of you who say we should have elected Clinton to stop Trump. Was Clinton less awful than Trump? Probably. But you don't beat fascism in the voting booth. Fascism has never been reliant on elections to build power.

[aels]

Clinton is better than Trump in the same way that having HIV is better than having AIDS. If you have one, you don't double down on it; you try to cure it.

Thanks to President Trump, a lot of people might get to find out the difference between HIV and AIDS in a fun, practical experiment! https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... are-repeal

[Monk]

Honestly, the idea that you are willing to play chicken with the immediate threat of fascism and risk Trump winning in some type of slippery slope/big picture/long game strategy to avoid the next Trump is so hilariously nonsensical and tone deaf to me that I don't know how to begin to address it. The next Trump?? Lolololol. We will be lucky to survive this. Please tell me where the long game is when Trump winning might actually mean game over. You guys don't know the difference between battles and wars. And, yes, voting isn't everything, but it's silly to say it's not that important. Voting is an important battle, but it's not the war. But, sometimes, like in a playoff series, losing a particular battle means losing the war....and winning the battle means you might at least live to fight another day.

I think one of the problems with this argument is that we've heard it throughout every single election for at least the past 16 years, since I've been a voter. While I personally agree that Trump is far worse than the average bad choice, people from both sides have been saying the exact same thing:

"We can't afford to risk a third party vote this time, this election is far too important. If Bush/Kerry/Obama/McCain/Romney/Trump/Hillary wins this one, we may very well not have a country to defend in another four years. Just vote for the lesser of two evils this time around, and in four years when two more reasonable choices are running, then you can fight the system."

It's a boy who cried wolf syndrome. Now that the real wolf was actually running for president, people like me had been hearing these same concerns for a long time.

True, but the Republican party continues to shift farther and father to the right (2008 being somewhat an aberration), so each election is been pretty much true. The Dems have shifted left, but it's been much more modest.

[the_dork_lord]

The Democrats have shifted left? In what world? 20 years ago, Clinton would have been a Republican. The Democrats have shifted heavily right. And you know why? Because they know they don't actually have to appeal to voters, so long as huge numbers of people insist on voting for the lesser evil.

[Monk]

The Democrats have shifted left? In what world? 20 years ago, Clinton would have been a Republican. The Democrats have shifted heavily right. And you know why? Because they know they don't actually have to appeal to voters, so long as huge numbers of people insist on voting for the lesser evil.

Huh? 20 years ago the Democrats basically were Republican-lite. That was Bill Clinton's whole spiel. He ran and governed as a centrist.

https://fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/hil ... s-liberal/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions ... story.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
https://www.vox.com/2016/7/29/12320238/ ... h-policies" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Yeah, they've shifted left.

[Cassius Clay]

The Democrats have shifted left? In what world? 20 years ago, Clinton would have been a Republican. The Democrats have shifted heavily right. And you know why? Because they know they don't actually have to appeal to voters, so long as huge numbers of people insist on voting for the lesser evil.

Huh? 20 years ago the Democrats basically were Republican-lite. That was Bill Clinton's whole spiel. He ran and governed as a centrist.

https://fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/hil ... s-liberal/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions ... story.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
https://www.vox.com/2016/7/29/12320238/ ... h-policies" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Yeah, they've shifted left.

It depends on how you define shifting left. Dork defines a left shift strictly in terms of labor. And, to folks like Dork, the fact that the WWC have been abandoning the Dems for decades is evidence of the Dems shifting right (and we're meant to believe that it's only a coincidence that they abandoned the party once civil rights became a priority ). Clinton had the most overall progressive platform in Dem history, if you include explicit human/civil shifts. Dork calls that overall progressive shift "neoliberalism".

[the_dork_lord]

I don't just count labor. Would you like a list of Clinton's war crimes as well? Or a record of her involvement with mass incarceration? When was civil rights a priority for the Democrats? When Bill was creating a prison population of POC larger than the slave population in the 1800s?

[Cassius Clay]

Once women and minorities became a major force within the party.

[the_dork_lord]

Do you have an answer to when the Democrats have made a meaningful fight for civil rights? Because the reality is that they did great damage to the civil rights movement by coopting it into channels safe for the system.

I don't understand what you're saying. Are you implying that I would have supported the Democrats before women and minorities made it to the upper echelons of the party? This is not remotely true. The Democrats have never, in their entire history, served our interests. And it took me supporting Obama - largely because he was black - to realize that.

Liberal feminism likes the idea of more female CEOs and Senators, but this does nothing for oppressed women. I have no interest in making the oppressors more diverse.

And if you insist Clinton isn't an oppressor, I'll ask again if you want a list of literal war crimes she's committed or of things she's done to the poor and POC.

[Derived Absurdity]

Have women in general ever been a major force within the party? As far as I can tell it's been primarily minority women. White women are still Republicans and have been Republicans for decades. At least the older ones.

[Cassius Clay]

you don't beat fascism in the voting booth. Fascism has never been reliant on elections to build power.

Maybe, but you can at least keep it at bay in the voting booth when you can. No one is saying voting is an absolute solution/cure. You're the one thinking in those absolute terms because you treat battles like wars and vice versa. Then you encourage people to not vote against an immediate threat because you have it all figured out.

[the_dork_lord]

Beating fascism means building movements independent of the class that creates fascism. The first step to that is to get people to stop relying on the Democrats, because the Democrats kill the movements that could actually stop fascism.

[Cassius Clay]

I think one of the problems with this argument is that we've heard it throughout every single election for at least the past 16 years, since I've been a voter. While I personally agree that Trump is far worse than the average bad choice, people from both sides have been saying the exact same thing:

"We can't afford to risk a third party vote this time, this election is far too important. If Bush/Kerry/Obama/McCain/Romney/Trump/Hillary wins this one, we may very well not have a country to defend in another four years. Just vote for the lesser of two evils this time around, and in four years when two more reasonable choices are running, then you can fight the system."

It's a boy who cried wolf syndrome. Now that the real wolf was actually running for president, people like me had been hearing these same concerns for a long time.

Don't know what to tell you, Gendo. You just gotta make a good judgement call. I disagree with this particular narrative regarding not voting for the lesser evil because I think the GOP is pure, unprincipled, power-seeking evil(due to their lack of genuine values, Trump was an inevitability)...and that one should vote against them any at every opportunity. But I would have had more respect for that narrative and strategy if we hadn't been staring down the barrel of a gun. Sometimes you make compromises/exceptions to your principles or overall agenda because a threat is too great. Standing up for yourself so that people don't walk all over you is a good principle. But, when an armed robber points a gun at a loved one and demands your nice watch, insisting on on "standing up for yourself" and not giving it up would be a highly irresponsible application of the principle. At that point its just pure hubris. And sometimes you put you personal bs and pet theories aside and form temporary alliances with enemies to defeat a more devastating enemy. The evil bastard Al Swearengen and Sheriff Seth Bullock recognize how dangerous George Hearst is and form a temporary alliance, the "game" in GOT is gonna seem real petty once the white walkers arrive, I've had beef with Cine for years(because he used to reek of a particular strain of condescending-smug-white-liberal-dude-that-knows-whats-best-for-minorities I can't stand), but when it's time to shit on Vegas we're temporary allies, I hate Bill Maher with a passion, but when it's time to vote against fascists(even though he's a piece of shit who enabled the problems in his own ways), we're temporary allies. And when it's done we can go back to fighting each other.

There's something perversely beautiful about forming a momentary alliance with people you usually can't stand. The key is that it's momentary...it's just a battle, not the war. But many strategically-challenged "purists" fail to grasp this. And plenty of "leftists" suffer from this strategic incompetence. You should only be "pure" when it comes to organizing around your values with real, long-term allies...not temporary ones. It's okay to have temporary allies.

And this might be unfair, but the fact that y'all thought playing this principled "long game" in the face of immediate fascism was a good idea, calls your entire judgement into question...along with the validity of your this particular strategy in general.

[the_dork_lord]

Trouble is that it's not momentary. The moment you let the Democrats get their hands on a movement, you kill the movement.

In the socialist movement, we refer to the Democratic Party as the "graveyard of social movements." Democrats have a very long history of taking actual radical/populist movements, co-opting them, and defanging them, making them safe for the ruling class and for capitalism while appeasing a layer of people in the movement.

Take, for example, the case of gay rights. This was once a radical movement, starting with protestors physically defending themselves at Stonewall. When the Democrats took an interest in gay rights, it became a movement focusing almost all its energy on gay marriage -- which, to be clear, I am a supporter of, but it is far more a concern of rich white gay men on Central Park West than of working-class gay people. In the hands of Democrats, the LGBTQ movement has done little to nothing to address, for example, the prevalence of gay/trans youth homelessness, because to do so would challenge the fundamentals of capitalism, and Democrats don't do that. By appeasing a more reactionary layer within the gay rights movement, the Democrats were able to weaken the movement while still making themselves look like grand progressives.

Another example: Environmentalism. This was once a large radical movement. People would get on boats and block oil tankers, or sit in trees to prevent them from being cut down. Some still do, but ever since Democrats endorsed environmentalism, there is an appeased layer within the movement, and it has become about unenforced emissions standards and treaties. People who identify as environmentalists spend more time endorsing and voting for politicians in fruitless attempts to save the planet than any sort of meaningful activism.

There are numerous examples of this: The labor movement (once consisting of radical unions, now full of labor bureaucrats who sell out the rank and file daily). Feminism (now more about the quantity of rich women in Congress than about the struggling single mother). I could go on.

Here's the thing: You want to say we could have just worked to get Clinton elected and then organize during her presidency, but history shows it doesn't work that way. If you get a movement in bed with the Democrats, it will *die.* You keep telling us to vote lesser evil and let the Democrats have their way. When does that end?

[Derived Absurdity]

I don't think Troy is saying that we should get our movements in bed with Democrats. All he seems to be asking is for us to use them once every few years or so to stop the GOP. That doesn't necessarily entail working with them on anything else. That's a perfectly reasonable and consistent position: IMO the only thing the Democrats are any good for is to act as a bulwark/shield against the Republicans (and we need a bulwark/shield against the Republicans, because they're purely evil earth-destroying monsters with no humanity and no soul), so they need to be supported purely for that purpose, but beyond that, fuck 'em. They're not our friends or allies in any other arena besides keeping the Republicans at bay (and they're not even particularly good at that). If voting for them every four (or two, or whatever) years is what it takes to at least temporarily hault Cthulhu, then fine.

[the_dork_lord]

"All he seems to be asking is for us to use them once every few years or so to stop the GOP."

So ... get them to endorse and campaign for Democrats. How is that *not* getting in bed with Democrats?

"IMO the only thing the Democrats are any good for is to act as a bulwark/shield against the Republicans"

We don't need the Democrats to do that because mass movements could do it much better, if it weren't for the Democrats killing our movements. I cite Nixon and the EPA again as evidence. Democrats didn't get the Republicans to cave on environmental issues. The people did. We had people fighting for universal health care, until a large enough section of the public settled for Obamacare.

You guys say this is some kind of risky gamble, but history shows that when we fight, we win. If anybody is gambling, it's you. You're gambling that the Democrats' neoliberal agenda won't build fascism. And you lost that bet.