Kevin M. Kruse: So voting is better than *not* voting when it comes to getting what you want? Huh.

So voting is better than *not* voting when it comes to getting what you want? Huh.

BREAKING NEWS: Voters turned out in numbers not seen in decades to stop the far-right National Rally from taking power in the French National Assembly. Polls predicted a first-place finish for National Rally, which instead came in third in initial results as polling stations closed.

Projections in France's election show voters rejecting the far rightwww.npr.org Voters turned out in numbers not seen in decades to stop the far-right National Rally from taking power in the French National Assembly. Polls predicted a first-place finish for National Rally, which ...

I really wish the left (and I'm a leftist) would really fucking understand that you need to actually build shit from the ground up you need to put in the work. You can't expect shit to just happen. Also you can't expect that a 3rd party Pres would win (or would have meaningful power if they did)

Like if 3rd party somehow magically won the presidency, they currently have no fucking support in Congress or barely any locally (yes they might have some with progressives and some Dems, but not the point). If the left actually wants better candidates, they need to start locally and push for it.

I’m a liberal but feel the same. Bernie and the Squad were the best thing to happen to Dem politics in decades. I’d much rather have the Dem leadership looking to them than trying to tack center to Manchin or whoever.

I agree and I really wish they would stop shafting progressives. They need to do the exact same shit that was done here.

Manchin is not center. Everyone hates that traitor.

Well he's also not even Dem or running anymore so there's that

Yeah i was confused as to why his name even came up

I think just using Manchin as a catch all for the center-right (read right wing) Dems.

Yeah. Weird, right? bsky.app/profile/bcnj...

“I don’t vote because none of the candidates are ideologically pure… Wait, how did I end up in this conservative hellscape?!” is a take that seems to be unique to and pervasive among the American Tankie Left.

Then they retcon their choice to not vote by saying that if Democrats couldn't win enough power to stop bad things from happening, they must be making bad things happen, so you definitely shouldn't vote for them in the future.

Tankies:

"And even if we had voted for them, they would have found some other way to intentionally kill their signature policies, like expanding the child tax credit, upholding Roe, or student loan forgiveness."

The Green Lantern Theory of the Presidency, but only for things we like

TIL

Huge if true

Looks like. Also seems curiously effective to look fascists straight in the eye and call them by their right name, rather than endlessly wringing your hands about hurting their feelings.

It's so god damned easy to stop fascism.

But have you considered that I don't believe in "electoralism" and instead believe in... letting fascism win?

Right? I mean - you can’t be a victim if you don’t lose

Some dude on bluesky; Vote harder, ugh Me: yeah it actually works! Great news out of France, hope we can replicate it here

I mean the thing about giving people options they actually like probably also applies

Like everyone replying here is extremely correct about what happened, it's just that also if there was no left bloc to start with fewer votes might have been on the table (But then again, increased turnout)

Which is I guess actually saying there are problems comparing the systems

Buddy they're not even that different effectively. Leftists could sit out the two candidate runoff bc their guy didn't make it but they didn't.

The problem with the US system (and it's definitely a problem) is that you have to pick your coalition up front. You can organize and vote for your person in whichever primary but then in the general there are only two viable choices. The general is equivalent to France's runoff.

I think the option that is being "liked" here is "not living under a far-right authoritarian government."

When your choices are "guy who said out loud and on purpose that he plans to be a dictator on day one" and "guy nobody's excited about but ISN'T going to do that," any waffling between the two is an admission you don't actually see fascists at the helm as a bad thing.

Yeah, I don't feel confused about what's at stake in the U.S. elections. Maybe because I've lived through Nixon, Reagan, Bush 1, Bush 2, Trump . . .

Out of all of those, I suppose Bush 1 was the least objectionable, but still.

Nope. France beat the fascists by having people across the country strategically vote for whoever could beat the fascists. Hell, the left coalition will probably shatter soon. Many of them hate each other. They just didn't want the fascists to win.

You literally had moderates voting for far-left candidates they despise and lefties voting for moderated they loathed, all to keep the fascists out. It's exactly the opposite of what you're claiming.

Sure, except that in the US the onus is only ever put on the left to settle for centrists instead of the other way around

Nonsense. Candidates win primaries by running to the left of more centrist candidates all the time. Then the party comes together and votes for that candidate.

This literally happened by people voting strategically for parties that weren't their first choice so they could keep the fascists at bay!

The french left will be going bare knuckles by next week with each other but they all accept that you don’t ever give the facists an inch.

You vote for a party platform, not the leader of said party. Seriously, what the fuck is wrong with you?

Wow. Really? The whole fucking point of what happened in France is that people voted for the option that, in the first round, was NOT the option they liked. But they put that fact aside to defeat the fascists. And honestly if you don't understand that you need to read a book or ten.

Are you having difficulty deciding which option you like more?

The US system has parties negotiate internally before the election, others have parties negotiate after the election. The US system passes the compromise to the voter, but neither case really gives you control of that process.

That said, psychologically people have gotten themselves into a weird place in US politics where voters participate in that internal negotiation then somehow decide they can just ignore the result of it, which is pretty odd.

But that only works well when the electoral system is not straight FPTP. Remember in 2002 when the runoff was Chirac vs Le Pen? Imagine if the choice this year was Romney vs Trump.

It’s killing me that this is the result of a collective vote against fascism, which required leftists to vote for moderates and vice versa, and here leftists are concluding this means voters *shouldn’t* compromise. I don’t get it. When fascism is on the ballot, you vote against it. Full stop.

I actually saw someone interpret the results of the French election as a reason to vote for Jill Stein.

Better yet! Voters turning out in mass numbers can actually make a difference! Who knew?

bsky.app/profile/torr...

Dumbest fuckin’ idea I’ve ever heard. “The proposal is work of Rosa Brooks, a Georgetown law professor who served in Obama and Clinton administrations and as a volunteer policy adviser to the Biden campaign in 2020, and Ted Dintersmith, a venture capitalist…” www.semafor.com/article/07/0...

Already RTed you!

Cool, cool! 😎

omg

Would be nice if Americans had the sort of choice French people seem to have.

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