TheHiddenCatboy @ jhymesba @lemmy.world

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577

Joined

2 yr. ago

That assumes this poster has a goal to stop the genocide. ;)

This poster doesn't care one whit about the plight of Palestinians. It has but one goal -- to be the nerdy girl that helps peel votes off the votes from the nerdy guy so her friend, the jerkish cheerleader favoured by the Jocks, can win the SGA election 49 to 48 to 3 (I've posted this example of how government works in First Past the Post if you'd like to understand what I mean by nerd girl and cheerleader in SGA). The purpose of this poster and others like it is to throw the election to Trump so we're subjected to Project 2025, which incidentally aligns with Putin's and Xi's goals.

Please think carefully before you listen to this poster or any other like it.

This should be seen as a violation of Rule 3 (Be Civil). The poster makes a particularly heinous claim, that Democrats as a whole are child murderers. It's just as wrong as Republicans saying we are a bunch of baby-murderers.

This poster is not here to engage in honest open debate. It's here to attack us and make us feel bad about ourselves, so we aren't as comfortable expressing our political ideology. It's here to make us ashamed of voting for the major party closest to our position. It's here to make enough of us sit out or vote third party so that the Republicans could win. Is it doing so to serve the interests of Putin and Xi? Is it doing so because it thinks this is really the best answer to the problems that face the country? Is it doing so because it wants to see it all burn down? It doesn't matter. Reader, if YOU want to ensure that you don't want Project 2025 to happen, do not give this bad-faith poster what it wants and vote third party or stay home.

PS: Democrats aren't killing kids. We actually do have problems with killing kids, but that's just as true when it's Hamas or Iran killing Israeli kids as it is when it's Israelis killing Palestinian kids. We just don't see a way out that makes this whole shitshow a fuckton worse. Keep that in mind as you read this bad-faith poster's words.

• Restoring the Spoils System we dismantled back in the 1800s because it was corrupt and filled with cronies.
• Oppressing gays and minorities in the name of 'eliminating woke ideology', like what is all over Project 2025.
• Forcing Christianity down non-believers' throats, like Project 2025 advocates for over and over and over again.
• Enabling Russia to run roughshod over Ukraine.
• Attacking people who look like immigrants, including forced deportations.
• Forcing Culture-War Bullshit down our collective threats.
• Attacks on the rights of women, transgenders, and gays.
• Ignoring climate change.
• Outlaw abortion.
• Defund PBS.
• Cut Food Stamps.
• Push a law made by an anti-masturbationist in the 1800s...

Oh yeah.

• Encouraging Israel to walk over every 'red line' without consequences...

Just so that you, the reader, know exactly what this poster is trying to get you to forget. They want you to throw your vote away. They are the bookish nerd girl working for the pretty but vile cheerleader to get the 51 Nerds to throw the election to the 49 Jocks by peeling off 3 of our votes. In fact, whenever you see posts like the one I'm replying to, remember. That's what they're trying to do. Make you one of the three dunces that let the 49 Jocks dictate to the 51 Nerds how things are going to go.

So, like to so many other posters like this, I pose the question:

What is the alternative?

There are 49 Jocks led by a narcissistic jerk of a cheerleader in our school, and they have promised to close the book club and the game club, and make it easier for the jocks to abuse the Nerds, and the only thing between them and that is us 51 Nerds. When the SGA elections happen, the person with the most votes wins, and if that means 49 Jocks to 48 Nerds to 3 Nerds that bought the bullshit and voted third party or stayed home, it's a 49 to 48 win for the Jocks and we 51 Nerds will just have to make do without Book and Game club. Is this person seriously advocating voting third party or staying home because Team Blue is too purple for their tastes? That's a good way to get Project 2025 up the back entrance, sideways, without lube or dinner. A reminder to everyone else who might be swayed by this individual. There's a reason why they are net -50 on votes right now and have 65 downvotes, and it's not groupthink.

This is where I point you to a simple fact. We don't always get what we want in elections. I know, that's defeatist mindsets, but let's get real. We live in a country where 3 out of every 4 voting aged adults say they are NOT liberal.

I know the lines that come next, but I think that's just ignoring the polling, which is never a good place to be. The good news is that the largest collection of people, the people who call themselves Moderates, outnumber the hard-alt-Right side of the Conservative spectrum. Like us on the Left, they don't want to see a Trump in office, nor Project 2025 implemented. But they also don't want to see many changes in their lives. Here's the hard part -- they get a say as well. If you push Medicare for All, just saying 'it's that or Trump', they're going to say, "I don't want either, so I'm just going to stay home." It's a lot easier to sell putting 3 million houses on the market, or forgiving loans after you've paid the principle back, or even 'if you want, you can pay a premium to Medicare and switch to that, or keep your insurance otherwise.' As the reminder goes to all voters -- it's not a marriage where you must find the Best Candidate Ever. It's public transit. You take the bus that gets you closest to where you're trying to go, and not all busses go exactly to the destination. Doubly so when other people want to go to different places than you want to!

Have you checked to see how many AirBNB houses you have in your area? There are over a thousand in the area where I live. Of course, AirBNB knows how bad the real number would make them look, so they obfuscate it, but every AirBNB listing can represent a house where a couple might get started. But why sell a home at even 400k when you can rent every room in that house for $250 a night. $250 * 3 (Bedrooms) * 7 * 52 = 273k a year to START, and that number keeps going up and up and up...

So, I'm reading the article. This is what I'm getting out of it.

• Medicare for All is off the table.
• Harris is worried that a full-throated embracing of Medicare for All will turn off voters happy with their current insurance.
• She's got other plans, such as building off of Biden's wins in Student Loans, Infrastructure, and Medicare expansions.
• The votes aren't there for Medicare for All.
• Progressives are taking the mindset that it's better to stop Trump than hold Harris accountable.
• This doesn't mean they are going to go quietly into that night.

My thoughts are that the Progressives would be served by pushing for RCV in more places, while pushing Progressive candidates in the Primaries in 2026 and 2028. Hopefully the shitgibbon will be dead by then and the next person won't be worse on Team Red, so the Progs have some room to hold the Dems accountable. And hopefully the Progs recognise the reality on the ground and maybe advocate for Medicare Buyin before Medicare for All.

That said? If you're saying "We'd like better behaviour out of the Dems, but no way do we want Trump in office," I'll never have beef with you.

You should be interested in both how it should work, and how it DOES work, because you'll never win if you don't learn how to play the game.

I'm going to try to be nice here and say I don't think throwing 'MAGA' around is helpful unless it's clear you deserve it, but I don't know how theprogressivist has interacted with you in the past, so I can't speak for them, just for me. If your goal is to hold the Dems' feet to the fire, I'm here for that. I think you need to be realistic and accept the fact that you can't win America on a straight Liberal platform with all the fear-mongering Team Red has put on that word.

Right now, I have but one thing on my mind -- Trump must not win in November. Once we deal with him, we can start pushing our own side, for sure, but we need to come together during election season and kick the Alt-Right to the curb. Project 2025 waits if we falter.

I'm 100% here for this. Put pressure on her. Vote for Progressive candidates in the Primary. Push for RCV or something similar so we aren't having to do 'risk mitigation' votes and instead can vote Progressive knowing the main-stream leftist gets our vote if the Progressive doesn't, or the Progressive vote percentage in the House matches the polls. Protest the shit out of milquetoast third-way bullshittium decisions that just enrich the Moneyed Class. But when the alternative to Team Milquetoast is Team Fascist, I expect EVERYONE to show up for Milquetoast.

Loved this ad.

That's a mistake on the part of the prosecution, but it may have been made necessary because they couldn't prove that beyond a shadow of a doubt, but had the insurrectionist dead to rights on what they did get him for.

Sometimes, you take the sentence you can get. :(

Yeah, I guess that's all you can do. I'm all good with people who are willing to speak out and call us out on our bullshit, but not if their answer is 'vote third party or stay home'. There's real harm to people I care about in that course of action!

Heh, true. Still, a few days is a few days the bad actors can operate without being called out, so it's hard. It's not the community that has me down. It's the bad actors, and the fact I can't call 'em out as what they are. Because 'civility'...

Excellent points. Thanks!

One thing that the dishonest debaters like to do is come in and claim they really represent a group of people while proposing ideas that would result in serious harm to that group of people if implemented.

I pointed out how votes can be poisoned through the Schoolhouse Example elsewhere in this thread. A few votes in a weak location can result in all of us being 'represented' by people who mean to harm our interests.

There are two major factions vying for political control in the USA. Democrats are our 'Left' party, and yes, it'd be pretty darn Right in another country, but the US isn't a Left-Leaning country by any measure, so the Dems are the best we can get. They represent a slow-walk towards the cliff of civil rights destruction, and yes, I'd love an alternative to them. But we must remember the Other Side -- an Alt-Right Authoritarian Dictatorship in waiting, led by a convicted felon with a need for this office and a plan (Project 2025) for when he gets in that will result in real harms to workers and minorities -- a full-tilt run at that cliff I mentioned before.

How can you claim to be pro-worker while depressing the turnout for the major party most favourable to workers? How can you claim to be pro-minority by making minorities stay home or vote third party? How can you do this knowing that Cheerleader will win 48/30/16 if you listen to the bogus memes being put out by Team Bookish Girl? You can't...unless your goal is to ensure that the Democrats lose and thus giving the election to the Republicans and subjecting all of us to Project 2025.

I'd like to call these users out, but Rule 3 prevents me, even as these users refers to me and the rest of the actual pro-worker and pro-minorities 'Blue MAGA', but maybe this rational discussion can highlight what the threat from these dishonest debaters actually are.

This is something I have to comment on. This user says that it represents the working class, while advocating for switching votes from the political party closest to its platform to a third party.

A reminder of how politics works in the USA. Suppose you have a school with 100 kids voting for class president. The school is equally divided between the Jocks and the Nerds. The Jocks are represented by a pretty and charismatic, but quite vain and assholish, cheerleader. The Nerds are represented by a dull nerdy kid, complete with boxy glasses and a pocket protector. And the School is preparing these young Americans for life in the USA, so the election is First Past the Post.

The school has a slight lean towards the Nerds. As in 51 kids would vote for the dull nerdy kid rather than the pretty jerkish cheerleader. 49 would prefer the cheerleader. Now, the cheerleader has a single nerd in her orbit, a bookish girl who's good with maths. She sits down with the cheerleader and points out 'if the election were held today, you'd lose 51 to 49.' The cheerleader throws a temper tantrum, and then demands to know how to win, because her pappy didn't raise no loser. Bookish girl tells her 'You need to suppress the vote and distract the voters on the other side. If you peel off at least 3 voters, you'll win 49 to 48. Make a scandal up, present the other side with an alternative, and convince those nerds to stay home or vote third party, and you can win this.' The cheerleader and the bookish girl come up with a plan -- a scandal and a third party candidate.

The scandals are easy. One of the cheerleaders, friends with THE cheerleader, comes up with a rumour that the nerdy boy came on to her at prom. This gets the feminists in the boy's coalition up in arms, and they scream they won't vote for him because he's a skeesy boy who puts his hands on girls uninvited, despite no proof that he actually ever did something like that. And the distraction? Bookish girl. Cheerleader pretties her up, and positions her as an alternative to dull nerdy boy. And they also set up a few other distractions for election day, which will be outside of school hours. Enter a book club meeting and a video game tournament...during voting hours.

Election day comes. 4 gamers are playing at the tournament and two bookish kids are at the book club meeting, and not voting. 51 votes becomes 45 votes. Another 15 kids vote for Bookish Girl Candidate, in a mix of 'she's pretty' and 'Dull Nerd Candidate is a skirt-chaser!' That takes Team Nerd down to 30 votes. Of course, Bookish Girl Candidate was never in it to win, so she would have voted Team Cheerleader if it was closer, but between her and the 15 kids, Team Bookish Girl got 16 votes. But First Past the Post means Team Jock wins with 48 votes, and all 51 Nerds get the exact opposite of what they want for the next schoolyear as the Book and Game club get closed down in favour of more Jock activities.

Accounts like jimmydoreisalefty and others are the Bookish Nerd Girl in this example. They are here to convince us to stay home or vote Third Party, while screaming that Dull Nerd Boy shouldn't ever get our vote for a litany of reasons. Listen to them at your peril. They do not have your best interests in mind. They want Cheerleader to win, and to take away your Book Club and your Game Club. Or put more realistically, they want Team Trump to win and take away your civil rights and subject you to an authoritarian nightmare in the order of what Putin, Xi, Orban, Kim, Netanyahu, and other authoritarian strongmen dictators have planned for their nations.

This isn't Left-Wing vs. Right-Wing. It's Egalitarian vs Authoritarian, and the Authoritarians smell blood in the water. Be careful and mindful how you use your vote.

PS: Yes, I agree with Leate_Wonceslace here. This user is not an honest debater. It's here for nefarious purposes: To enable Trump to steal the election and force Project 2025 on us. Keeping this in the here and now, and keeping it real.

Here's a Newsweek article about her Russian ties, including her having a meeting with Putin and Flynn and being photographed doing so. I get the calls to be careful about seeing Russians everywhere and not recognising that the asshattery is inside the house and not just looking out from within, but seriously, when someone is clearly working with the Autocrats in Russia, we should call that shit out.

I admire your effort here. I'm guessing this is how the Mods want us to engage with these kinds of people. The only reason this person won't be responding back to you is he overstayed his welcome in this community and got escorted out, but I can imagine his response if he could reply.

IMO, this person was not here to challenge us or be challenged. He was here to attack the Left for a nefarious purpose, and Lemmy's politics community trends left, so here he is. But if he's sincere and not just wanting to get Trump in office, your advice about meeting us half-way would be very great for him to take, assuming he pops in with a new account...

I just want the best for people too.

Press downvote to doubt...