kescusay @ kescusay @lemmy.world

Developer and refugee from Reddit

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2 yr. ago

Cute story.

True story. If you dispute it, you dispute math. It's literally how FPTP voting works.

Your goal is a permanent Republican majority. Might as well start openly rooting for Trump.

My apologies. I've been getting inundated by people who purport to believe that dividing the left up is a winning strategy, and mistakenly clumped you in with them.

Ah, so just divide the Democrats up to destroy their power. Typical.

I know I'm not going to convince you, so this is for everyone else reading this thread. Because of our shitty electoral college and FPTP system, calls for third parties on the left translate into more political power for the right. Here's how it works...

Let's say you have two main political parties, the Snuggling Puppies party and the Kicking Puppies party. The Snugglers usually win, because the Kickers are violent weirdos.

Then the Kickers get the bright idea of helping out fringe parties that also love puppies, like one called the Worshipping Puppies party, which takes their love of puppies to the extreme. They secretly fund and promote these other parties, and it's very effective. In the next election, it's so effective that the Kickers win.

Wait, what? How? It's simple. With the people who love puppies dividing their votes between multiple candidates who love puppies, the Kickers get a plurality.

Let's keep it simple and say the Kickers clandestinely supported three parties that are ideologically opposed to them, meaning people who love puppies divided their votes up four ways. Each of the puppy-loving parties gets 19.5% of the vote, for a pro-puppy total of 78%! But the Kickers didn't divide up their vote, so with a 22% plurality, the winner is... The party that everyone else hates!

It's a classic divide and conquer strategy. It only works when astroturfers manage to convince people on the left puppy lovers to divide themselves up, rather than consolidate to fight back against the right people who hate puppies.

When? When exactly did we give them those "necessary majorities?" The last time Democrats held a 60-vote supermajority in the Senate was a two-week stretch during the Obama presidency, while Ted Kennedy was dying in a hospital bed.

And do you think denying Democrats Senate seats in the future will help my kids more somehow? Spell out how carrying water for Republicans is going to help them.

Define "direct action." I asked for specificity. Don't dance around what you mean, say it clearly.

Then you get Trump.

What actions would you propose? Be specific.

4%

That's... That's pretty low.

That's the fucking POINT. We don't have a great democracy. We want one, but we're currently fucked by the undemocratic electoral college, a system specifically designed to winnow our choices down to two.

So your options are a member of a rather pedestrian centrist party, or a deranged and demented monster.

If you're not American, as implied by your comment, then you may be used to functional democratic systems. Well, we're currently stuck with what we've got. So as an outsider looking in, who do you want in charge of the world's largest military? Harris or Trump? Pick one.

☐ Trump
☐ Harris

Pick one.

Like I said: Not serious.

We're done. Bye.

I'm not really going to relax until December 17th. That's when the electoral college meets to vote.

Amen (and thanks for the links).

He says he's going to vote for Trump. I have a suspicion that quite a number of politicians who gobble his mushroom publicly in order to court the loony vote will privately vote for Harris.

Profiles in courage they are not.

It takes a simple plurality to eliminate the filibuster.

Thank you. With that one sentence, you've made it clear I never have to take any of your assertions seriously.

It takes a majority to invoke the "nuclear option" and override Senate Rule XXII, not a plurality. Given the makeup and structure of the Senate, a plurality that is not also the majority on any given vote is for all intents and purposes impossible.

The "nuclear option" for overcoming the filibuster and changing its rules didn't even exist until Harry Reid came up with the idea in 2013. Before that, it was just a given that the only way to overcome a filibuster was by reaching 60 votes in favor of cloture.

Since that time, the Senate has only been either in Republican hands, or in razor-thin majority Democratic hands. There are several Democratic senators from conservative states who are on record since 2013 as opposing ending the filibuster for legislation.

That means any attempt to do so for the last ten years would have been a non-starter. And the only way to change that is to elect more Democrats, not fewer. Which you oppose.

So like I said, I'm done making the mistake of taking you seriously.

She. And part of her platform as mayor is a massive increase in homeless shelter beds, specifically to get homeless people off the streets and into safer environments.

So... She's actively not "driving them away," near as I can tell.

The game you're playing: "Democrats are imperfect! They haven't done everything possible to protect your kids! Please pay no attention to the fact that they've been hamstrung by the filibuster in the Senate for decades, and a Supreme Court that's been stacked due to the electoral college giving Republicans two popular-vote losers as president in the span of 16 years. Ignore all that and fight like hell to keep Democrats out of office!"

You're fucking transparent, and again, someone fighting to get Republicans elected doesn't get to speak on behalf of my children.

I know it's troubling, but try to remember that polling is pretty much fucked right now. The pollsters are having a horrible time trying to get statistically valid samplings, and it's quite possible that the poll in question is very much off the mark.

Every time I see him, I like him more. When the crowd starts going nuts, it's obvious he's genuinely touched by it.

The guy is just amazingly genuine and nice.