Some people out there seem to be confused, but I always vote in every local and every national election for every office and every ballot initiative since I was 18 years old. Some of my greatest civil rights heroes have fought and died so that we can all vote and I honor their memory in the ballot box every single time.
To some of us, especially those of us like myself who have been scheduling secretaries for US senators, it often seems like a morally reprehensible choice between compromised corporate Democrats and fascist-minded Republicans. Where I live in California, I have the luxury of voting my conscience for president for third-party candidates that better align with my ideas of justice and equality.
But in any and every contested race, as my mom Mary Morello always said, we have to fight the fascist every which way we can, recognizing that even if there’s but an inch of difference between two candidates, there are a lot of vulnerable people who could be greatly harmed in that inch. So vote your ass off, but don’t just exercise your right to vote. Exercise your right to fight for, organize for, struggle for, and manifest the kind of world you’d like to really see without compromise and without apologies before, during, and after election day. And let’s stop the fascists every which way we can. Power the people.
I’d expect nothing else from him.
Yea, I put blue dicks in my ass, but not blue dicks that I have identified as seperate to my identity manifested from the dick-in-ass-illusion complex the Buddha spoke of.
This is what you people sound like.
This is what your posts read like.
It’s for marketing purposes!
I get the stupidest mother-fuckers to reply to me!
Look how true this statement is boys. I do wanna fuck a really fat bitch. Like, fukken help a bro decimate some cute-faced thuquabdanite sweetling slut tonight, on the Discovery Channel. We filming this shit dawg! Get you a fold of the gelatinous foid! It all festers in this digital hellscape, I tell you boy. Bitch Priest of the normative order! I am Cthulhu for I have forty dicks, ready to go, for all types of cunts! There we go. Now I’m in the mood. You scalp a ho before? Then you ain’t in the real world! It a jungle out here! Good gravy!
GIGO
It’s goo goo retard
I hate this title - it’s a bit misleading with respect to the point he’s making.
A bit? Fuckers.
It honestly seems downright disingenuous, as though the author of the article wanted to make a “both sides” article but then realized Tom isn’t a fucking moron.
Ready for a warzone in here?
It’s like the exact opposite of the article content.
Seems reasonable to me. God knows no one in Pennsylvania has been any better off for voting John Fetterman. Play the game as best you can with the cards you have, and fold when that’s the right choice, and then work to make the game function better through organizing and other means.
You think Dr. Oz would have been better? I have my doubts.
It would not have made a difference. It’s like asking if you’d rather face the firing squad or face the wall and get shot in the back. Same outcome regardless of “choice”, but by choosing Fetterman, the whole democratic party is weakened by the exercise.
Fetterman votes with Democrats 90% of the time. Dr. Oz would have voted with Democrats 0% of the time. That’s a big difference.
The context here being that John fetterman votes against his party more often than any other senator, Democrat or Republican. And he breaks with them on larger issues. He breaks with the party pretty often in big ways when it comes to nominations too.
That 90% is including a lot of procedural votes. But still the point sorta stands and he voted in line with the Democrats more often than my gut reaction expected.
That’s also not to say that I think dr oz would be better than fetterman but the fact is fetterman being in office is a failure of the dnc.
My understanding is people who followed Fetterman’s career judge that he dramatically changed after his stroke, which happened after the primary. The party voters chose his pre-stroke self. The dnc has a lot of failures under their belt, but I don’t think not trying to invalidate the primary voter’s choice because the guy had a stroke was one of them.
Is it? Because they still haven’t passed or blocked anything meaningful. It’s really easy to “Vote with the party” when you know they’re going to lose regardless. Your metric may be true, but it’s ultimately meaningless.
You could say that about anyone in the minority party at any time. You’re assuming Fetterman would change his voting pattern with Democrats in the majority, with no data to back up that assertion.
I don’t like Fetterman either, but the time to fight him is in the primary. In the general election you pick the lesser evil, and the lesser evil is never the Republican.
I’m sorry, no evidence except every word that comes out of his mouth.
That’s self-contradictory. If he’s sneakily voting with Democrats now just to flip when they’re in the majority, why would he say that stuff and blow his cover? Is he being sneaky or not? Make up your mind.
I think it’s far more likely that he disagrees with Democrats on some high profile stuff, but still agrees and votes with the Democrats for a bunch of other stuff. That’s still better than having Dr. Oz, who would vote in lockstep with Republicans on absolutely everything.
It’s a ridiculous assertion. Dr. Oz would obviously have been worse. As terrible as Fetterman is, Oz would have been in full lockstep with Trump and the Senate would be under even firmer control of the GOP right now. Trump could have been more successful legislatively if they had another Senator to make winning votes easier. If nothing else, it would have provided another seat they could use to let Senators like Collins and Murkowski do their performative BS on more votes so its easier for them to win re-election.
People don’t realize that Fetterman votes with Democrats 90% of the time. That’s a lot better than having a Trump sycophant in that seat.
This is the answer.
Fetterman makes me want to punch my walls. But still better than something like Oz.
Same way manchin was far better in that wva seat. Now it’s that coal baron who doesn’t even bother to hide corruption and gleefully votes everything Republican.
There is no “folding” in life. There is no walking away. You can abstain from giving specific input, but you are still subject to and share responsibility for the results. What is needed is people that push to have the best possible choice for a given election and will vote for the best choice available. Doing only one is not enough.
There is a point at which the “best possible” is not sufficiently distinct from the worst possible that it becomes irrelevant for the individual in question. There was literally no benefit to Fetterman over Oz for most people. The only option was to work to make sure neither of them ever get another chance and to try to mitigate the harm that was going to be done when either one wins. I want to be clear, I don’t think this applies to the party as a whole but this is why (from the perspective of many) it does, because in their specific case the outcome is the same regardless. It’s a perfectly rational choice at the scale of the individual, because their interests, aren’t even on the ballot.
You and anyone else that doesn’t think Oz would have been significantly worse, or thinks it “doesn’t affect them”, is naive or arguing in bad faith. The better option can suck, but both-sidesing the situation to excuse not voting at all serves nobody but the worse option.
To pull from the quote from the OP:
But in any and every contested race, as my mom Mary Morello always said, we have to fight the fascist every which way we can, recognizing that even if there’s but an inch of difference between two candidates, there are a lot of vulnerable people who could be greatly harmed in that inch. So vote your ass off…
Chomsky said much the same - he has spilled all kinds of ink chronicling how terrible the Democrats have been over the course of multiple decades (in addition to Republicans of course), but he’s been quite clear on the fact that there is indeed a difference, and a difference that matters.
Name one bill that Is would have changed the outcome on? Go ahead, I’ll wait.
Nice tautology. You can’t justify not voting by of the predictably bad results of not voting.
No, there’s definitely “folding” in life. Or “logging out”, or whatever euphemism you can think of.
You just don’t get to deal back into the game after you fold.
The problem with fascism is that it will take an interest in you even if you don’t take an interest in politics. People that are folding are not able to really opt out.
Sounds like someone isn’t liking the backlash he’s getting.
Anyone backlashing against someone in a deep blue state for not engaging in performative pro-Democratic Party politics that go against their conscience is a moron.
I would agree with this if Trump hadn’t won the popular vote in 2024. Even though it doesn’t matter for the result, the outcome would still have been slightly less terrible than Trump winning both the Electoral College and the popular vote. From a harm reduction perspective, those deep blue state voters who oppose Trump but failed to vote for Harris still contributed to the outcome in a way that has served to further empower Trump.
And what did winning the popular vote in 2016 do for Clinton? As long as we live in an anti-democratic system where some votes are worth more than others and the electoral college exists, acting like the popular vote is what decides vote (and therefor getting angry at people living in deep blue states for not voting blue) is absolutely asinine.
You also can’t have it both ways; if it’s so important to get every single vote even in deep blue states, then you have to take the concerns of these voters seriously and not just demand they perform for the party’s sake. If their votes are so necessary then they must be earned.
And what did winning the popular vote in 2016 do for Clinton?
Do you not remember “the Resistance”? Have you not noticed the difference between how corporate America behaved following 2016 vs. now? There is this idea of a “mandate” that can help animate the implementation of the new regime, Trump having the popular vote win in 2024 to point at was a significant factor in how things played out after that election. If Trump had only won the Electoral College again he would have been less empowered by the election outcome.
You also can’t have it both ways; if it’s so important to get every single vote even in deep blue states, then you have to take the concerns of these voters seriously and not just demand they perform for the party’s sake. If their votes are so necessary then they must be earned.
I don’t understand this, it seems like a non sequitur to the point I was making. I am not arguing any of these things. It’s generally not a good use of limited campaign resources or political capital to target these kinds of voters, that would be a bad strategy when that money and effort could be much better spent trying to actually win via the Electoral College.
Do you not remember “the Resistance”?
I remember protestors and journalists where I live getting beaten, gassed, and arrested while Democrats did more performative shit, Trump incited a riot, and nobody faced any consequences. Why, what do you remember?
If Trump had only won the Electoral College again he would have been less empowered by the election outcome.
This is magical thinking, corporations will do whatever gives them money and that’s all they’ve ever been doing. The only thing that can take power from Trump is Congress or SCOTUS. If a ‘mandate’ is so great at giving and taking power from Trump why don’t his opinion polls being in the trash fix anything? Is your premise that corporations look at politics once every 4 years and then shrug and move on? Just a snapshot on Election Day?
It’s generally not a good use of limited campaign resources or political capital to target these kinds of voters, that would be a bad strategy when that money and effort could be much better spent trying to actually win via the Electoral College.
Then don’t complain about voters you don’t want not voting for your candidate. It seems like focusing on winning only the votes of some Platonic ideal of an undecided voter instead of issues actually important to their base has done nothing but lead to Trump getting elected, but what do I know, I’m not a professional election loser.
I remember protestors and journalists where I live getting beaten, gassed, and arrested while Democrats did more performative shit, Trump incited a riot, and nobody faced any consequences. Why, what do you remember?
You are missing the point being made. There is a difference in how American society behaved following 2016 compared to 2024, a factor in that difference is Trump losing the popular vote in 2016 but winning it in 2024. Trump has more power now in part because he won the popular vote and had less power back then in part because he lost the popular vote. This is basic politics, a more decisive victory confers greater power than a less decisive victory.
Then don’t complain about voters you don’t want not voting for your candidate. It seems like focusing on winning only the votes of some Platonic ideal of an undecided voter instead of issues actually important to their base has done nothing but lead to Trump getting elected, but what do I know, I’m not a professional election loser.
I don’t think I am complaining, I am describing the situation to dispute the idea that criticism of these third party voters is “moronic”, or whatever the original comment was. It isn’t moronic to be critical of people who made a bad decision that served to empower Trump. I never suggested anything about Platonic ideal undecided voters, it seems like you are reading lots of things into my comments that are not there. I get the impression that you are not really engaging with my points and just throwing whatever you can come up with back at me.
You are missing the point being made. There is a difference in how American society behaved following 2016 compared to 2024, a factor in that difference is Trump losing the popular vote in 2016 but winning it in 2024
As I said, this is magical thinking. There is not a legal mechanism holding him in control if he loses the popular vote, and in no way did it reduce his power; he appointed three SCOTUS judges in his first term for fuck’s sake.
This is basic politics, a more decisive victory confers greater power than a less decisive victory.
Basic politics also says the person with the most votes wins an election, so toss it out if you’re trying to understand American politics. I’m also not sure you should be lecturing me about basic politics if you believe the checks on Trump are how many votes he got and not the other two branches of government
It isn’t moronic to be critical of people who made a bad decision that served to empower Trump
If they “empowered him” by not voting blue in a state that went blue was always going to go blue, why can’t they disempower him by disapproving of him? Is it possibly because approval has nothing to do with what power a politician has, and that Congress and SCOTUS instead hold the reins to power and are simply letting it happen?
No, it must be those dastardly people in blue states who simply didn’t vote hard enough!
I would argue the difference is not some tiny percentage of voters, but his first term had a lot more long term establishment people in it. He fucked off and went golfing and the assortment of people in the administration really set direction. Bad direction, but moderated.
After his 2020 loss and subsequent sore loser meltdown, anyone vaguely moderate went with the prevailing wisdom that he was out of the picture and abandoned him. Meanwhile just the worst people bet on alignment with him and stood by and crafted a plan and administration for 4 years to be just even worse.
But in any and every contested race, as my mom Mary Morello always said, we have to fight the fascist every which way we can, recognizing that even if there’s but an inch of difference between two candidates, there are a lot of vulnerable people who could be greatly harmed in that inch. So vote your ass off
I think this is reasonable. A “corporate Democrat”, even if bad, can be better than a Republican in many cases. The Democrat might end up being less bad, for lots of disadvantaged people, than a Republican would be. These aren’t ideal choices to make, but you have to deal with reality as it is.
Thanks god former colonized people and people who formally lived in dictatorship didn’t have American mentality and didn’t accept the reality. Americans are bunch of cowards
I’m not American. I get what you’re saying though. But the quote of Tom Morello in the article, after the bit I quoted with “vote your ass off”, then says:
…but don’t just exercise your right to vote. Exercise your right to fight for, organize for, struggle for, and manifest the kind of world you’d like to really see…
Always easy to armchair from a distance with nothing on the line.
Come, show us how it’s done by doing whatever it is you mean.
Where do you live, by the way?
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What gets lost in that argument is the fact that the battle is already lost when you nominate the corporate democrats. Kamala lost in July 2024.
The non voters were not incorrect all along, far from it. I speak as someone that still votes democratic to keep republicans out, but my vote is not guaranteed. I will not vote for an Israel hawk at this moment.
What gets lost in the debate is that there’s two parts to it:
- If you are voting in a general election, vote for the lesser evil choice
- If you are not working to support better choices BEFORE the general… BEFORE the primary… then you are allowing others to make that choice for you
Get the fuck off it. We all know it’s pointless in the general long term. Stop lying and make truthful arguments and maybe you will get somewhere.
Go fucking research what the two parties have voted for and passed and get the fuck off it yourself, fascism supporter - whether you intend to be or not. Which is not to say establishment Dems don’t suck because of course they do. But it still matters.
Wtf are you on about? Some Dem establishment talking points.
You saw the dem establishment arguing and took it. Huh. Doesn’t speak well to your understanding though does it? No.
Feel free to look at my comment history and learn a little.
Kind of hard to learn from someone who boasts of their own ignorance. What would anyone want to learn from you? How to lose an election and be a totally toothless and ineffective opposition?
Bro, you’ve been yelling like an angry spoiled kid. No one here is going to go ready your comment stream. Call your mom, maybe she’ll do it. Maybe not though.
You must be the guardian angel of the establishment dems on lemmy.
Ha ha, don’t let me tell you what I think of you being their bitch.
You say that, yet, I would present our democrats.
Really?
Vote in primaries if you are happy with the candidates. Primaries on average have about 10% voter turn out.
The primaries don’t have good candidates either because of the gatekeepers. There is no way out of this voting under the democratic establishment, and frankly, that you guys don’t see that yet, indicts your understanding.
Exactly. So many morons on here think that the “primary” is the first real contest. The “primary” they tell us to focus on isn’t the real primary. The real primary is the money primary - the contest that determines who actually appears on the primary ballot.
Obviously ignorant of what the two parties have voted for and done. Fascism appreciates your rabid support.
Even if establishment Dems do suck.
I thought I already responded to the uniparty hack, but you did two of them. Piss off. No one, no one of solid mind, agrees with your bullshit. You are the reason we lost in fact.
You fucking piss off. You either are part of the fascist agenda trying to help them win, or you swallowed their shit and are helping them win.
Pretty rich coming from a person who swallowed the fascist shit of Kamala’s campaign and is here asking for a second serving. You lot always want to whine that “this isn’t the time to criticize” the DNC candidate, even in the least consequential of elections. Get fucked.
You would vote for the leader of the Ku Klux Klan as long as they supported Medicare for All.
Fuck off, fascist sympathizer
Ah yes, the classic “It doesn’t matter anyway, so bring in the fascism, kill all the trans people and let everyone suffer” argument.
How DARE he not vote Blue no MATTER who!
-People who voted for INDEPENDENT ANDREW CUOMO!
But in any and every contested race, as my mom Mary Morello always said, we have to fight the fascist every which way we can, recognizing that even if there’s but an inch of difference between two candidates, there are a lot of vulnerable people who could be greatly harmed in that inch. So vote your ass off
Despite the misleading title, he is saying “vote blue no matter who” just without the (cringe) soundbite. Sure he’s not explicitly specifying what party to vote for but the intent of the two messages is the same - at a certain point in the election process, there are only two people who have any shot at winning. You must vote for one even if you hate them both. Abstaining may as well be a vote for the worst candidate.
Vote with your heart in the primary. Vote with your head in the general.
“ if there’s but an inch of difference between two candidates, there are a lot of vulnerable people who could be greatly harmed in that inch.”
Perfectly put and this is all I have been saying.
I can’t square this with his previous statement that he didn’t vote for Kamala. I don’t care if it’s California. He has a platform and in my personal opinion it is irresponsible to use that platform to provide cover for people who could have helped stop this, and found a reason not to.
Sorry if I blasphemed Lord Tom. I eagerly await my downvotes for having done so.
Does it ever get tiresome for you guys, trying to browbeat voters? Oh, we can’t vote for anything other than the party’s chosen candidate, even if they get 60% of the vote. Only vote against them in the primaries, but not so much that they lose, that’s a vote for Trump. In fact, never vote anything other than the party line. The primaries also aren’t the time to protest the shitty candidates the DNC forces upon us.
Go fuck yourself with a sideways cactus, you shitty apologist.
Honestly, maybe you need some time away. Your post is pretty vitriolic for someone who didn’t even address you specifically or say anything in a disparaging way.
Never. I’m almost 60 and I’ll never get tired of understanding how this shit works and being angry that I have to live with the consequences of naive idealists’ shitty choices. It’s so fun.
If you understood how things worked, I would expect your worldview to be somewhat less disappointing when it comes to delivering tangible results. Yet, here we are, 4 decades later, and we still don’t even have a basic right to medical care.
Is it the platform that makes the difference for you?
I live in a contested state and voted for the democratic socialist candidate in the primary but I will, of course, vote for the mainstream dem in the general.
As a counterpoint, my uncle lives in a blue state and voted for a third party candidate in that last presidential election. My mom has basically gone no-contact with him over it. I think she’s just about equally as angry that I didn’t vote for the mainstream candidate in the primary but gives me a bit of a pass because I’m her son?
I think you make a good point about Tom having a platform that I hadn’t considered before. Did he use his platform to encourage people not to vote for her?
Yah. It’s the platform. I don’t remember what he did in 2024, honestly. But I recently saw a post where he said he didn’t vote for her because of her stance on Israel and I called him an asshole for it and got downvoted into the sun. 😂
Maybe don’t call them assholes for that.
I am not from tge US but it’s so frustrating, we really shouldn’t support this infighting. Anyone still supporting Israel IS disgusting, people are rightfully pissed of about this.
I still believe that there is no way forward other than voting Dem but the infighting and namecalling and belitteling of each other is infuriating.
This really just feels like another devide method of the ruling class.
If you want to beat the Rep you need more solidarity in the left wing and this starts by communicating like adults.
Yeah on further reflection that was inappropriate and I deserved to be down voted for that. I should have been more eloquent. I don’t disagree with anything you wrote.
If Dem candidates support zionist racism they will lose.
Dont harp on the voters as if they are the problem here. Harris could have won that election by not taking aipac money, but she chose the money. She chose to shout down student protestors. She also chose to parade around stages with Liz cheney talking about prayer and her glock. She made a lot of odd choices.
The reality here is that many Dem voters will just not vote for crimes against humanity, even if you euphamistically call it “strategic” voting. They do not care what you say, and you cant finger wag your way to convincing them to pull the lever for a genocider. I’m afraid thats the reality we live in, so maybe you should concentrate on pressuring Dem candidates to not lose a third of their base to idiocy.
I can’t believe that this era of extreme Trump bullshit, war on Iran, Trump supporting Israel 100, we still have people acting as if being aligned with Israel is the reason to not vote for a Democrat, despite them being far better on three dozen other issues.
In that society and country, it’s the only approach that can be taken.
It’ll take a while to win that war through the vote if it can be. There’s only one way to win it…progressively change one party from within and with the vote and there’s only one party that could be achieved with.
There is no other peaceful solution, other than a national shutdown large and long enough to bring production to a halt and force the Houses to act.
That’s it. Those two. No others.
I was downvoted to hell for saying this on the original post.
It is a privilege to be able to “vote with your conscience” when you’re life isn’t literally hanging in the balance of that vote.
Whether we like it or not, we are a two party system at the moment and voting third party in a presidential election is a wasted vote. I don’t care what anyone else says.
As cool as Tom is he still has the privilege of voting as white man, which is a very different experience compared to the rest of us.
he literally talks about not being white in the first post
Toms not white.
Well here he is applying nuance. He can vote that way thanks to the realities of California. He is trusting the audience to understand that nuance of that stance.
It’s a tricky one, since on the one hand he may be overestimating the electorate, but on the other folks inclined to listen to him may internalize the nuance and not get alienated by assumptions that he is selling out. I’m leaning towards the latter since he at least is calling people to vote instead of some blindly anti electoral take, which is fairly prominent in the online discourse.
Yes and no? There’s a lot of chuds who listen to RATM and somehow don’t get their message; but they’re not necessarily listening to Tom Morello, and very likely may not even know his name (or Zach, or Tim, or Brad). The people who listen to RATM and know who Tom Morello is, are far more likely to understand the nuance here.
I’ll be honest, most of the people I see critiquing elections or candidates like Kamala have nuance to their views. Which makes sense, because it takes reflection and thought to break with the normal for most people.
On the other hand, I see tons of binary “any criticism is anti-electoralism and literally fascist” takes online that totally lack nuance. Which also makes sense, because when confronted with a break in normality, most people tend to react emotionally, not logically.
I dont see that at all. Every kamala hater ive seen have nothing but genocide on their minds.
Lol just a couple posts down from yours
Sure, that’s a hard line for many people who vote with their conscious, and probably most protest voters agonized over the decision, knowing that in our system it could help Trump (although, as it turns out, even if every single third party vote went to Kamala, it still would not have been enough for her to win — protest voters are a tiny demographic).
That’s still more nuanced than “Blue no matter who” or “nothing but genocide on their minds.” (As if genocide isn’t a huge fucking thing that should break every politician who supports it, but that’s a separate argument.)
Nobody should vote, you can’t destroy the system by participating in it,
Yes, because ignoring the system works sooo much better.
Boo hoo you got morals. How dare you vote by your morals if it inconvenience me?
If Kamala Harris would have gotten a primary she would have come last? If Dems had a proper primary instead of panding to a senior buffon there would have been an actual promising candidate. Dems lost not because of people not voting; they lost because they didn’t represent anyone, other than the donor class.
Where I live in California, I have the luxury of voting my conscience for president for third-party candidates that better align with my ideas of justice and equality.
Which 3rd party candidate is he talking about? Because if he’s talking about Jill Stein, then he may as well be voting Republican. 3rd party candidates are just another scam being run on the public. They’re nothing more than astroturf laid out by the opposition, intended to lead voters away from one of the two main parties.
Jill steins policies are nothing like Republicans
A state that is pretty much guaranteed a democratic win is the only place where voting 3rd party isn’t a gop spoiler and can actually mean something…
That may be true, but last round, where was the decent third party candidate?
Stein had as part of her platform that Ukraine should surrender to Russia on the name of peace, for example.
that is not what she said
Ok, so the platform page had: “Stop fueling the war between Russia and Ukraine and lead on negotiating a peaceful end” This was just a stupid statement, acting like Russia didn’t just up and unilaterally invade a nation.
She said NATO should be disbanded. She wanted the UN Security Council both to be abolished and yet at the same time wanted the UN Security Council to hold Israel accountable.
Her platform was a lot of Russia’s invasion was actually all the fault of the west and the best way forward was to just capitulate to Russian aggression.
She was just a total shit candidate, with a lot of Russian agenda points featured in her campaign.
she explicitly, and immediately called the Russian invasion illegal.
I want to disband nato. I think the security council should be disbanded.
nato posturing was threatening to Russia. that doesn’t justify the invasion. she never excused it
You both have a point. And I agree with you both. If only you could agree with each other. Yes when you’re in a blue State like california. You absolutely have the privilege and luxury of voting for someone other than the two major parties. Because your States vote will safely be delivered to one of them consistently. But it was an actual issue on top of the bigger issue of Democrats being professional losers. Because let’s not forget that a lot of the loss Biden and Harris fought for hard.
But if I had a dime for every privileged blue stater’s vitriolic statements against those of us in red or purple States. Trying to promote some sort of solidarity against Trump. I’d have hundreds of dollars or more. All the condescending holier-than thou bullshit. Bullshit that’s ramping up again might I add.
Here in a red state, my vote is meaningless in a statewide election as well. And I might express that in close company of neighbors. National Democrats don’t even invest or try here most of the time. But if I am in mixed or unknown company, ie online. I would never attack others for implying otherwise, or stating that the people should show solidarity. (Like many on fedi actively do) They’re right. Everyone doesn’t have identical circumstances. And as Tom said, in consequential elections we need to stand together. Even if the candidate is imperfect.
I also live in a red state (I guess it used to be purple, but last time it was blue was before I was even born both at the presidential and Congress level). Voting for Dems on any level outside of the couple city districts basically does nothing. It’s why I find my vote better spent on third parties at every level. I’d rather be happy my vote went to someone I liked than wasted on someone I don’t.
So, it’s ok to promote spoilers, as long as you’re in an area where it won’t have any impact on the outcome?
You get how that still has the overall effect of legitimizing their role in other areas, right? You’re basically doing unpaid advertising for the opposition, and proving that this strategy is effective…while doing literally nothing to benefit your own position.
Which is exactly what 3rd parties are for in the US. At best, they are entirely ineffective. At worse, they help the opposition to maintain power.
At best they’re an indication of a demographic that wants a change that isn’t the other major party, signalling to the party that they might benefit from pivoting at least a little in that direction. That signal is usually ignored, of course, but we are talking about “at best”.
You’re assuming they represent a genuine alternative to the two major parties. What I’m saying is that they are a manufactured alternative, intended to dilute the opposition vote.
Jill Stein and several other Green party representatives all but admitted that this was the case during the 2024 election. They knew they had no chance of winning, and their stated intention was only to make sure the Democrats lost.
Holy hell, misleading title, JFC.
How so?
For one, he says he doesn’t vote for fascists just as much as he says he doesn’t vote for corporate Democrats. But then he goes on to say while he thinks you should vote for third-party candidates who you really would like to see get elected in some elections, sometimes you need to be practical and vote for a candidate that is not ideal, but better, and could actually be elected, for elections where that matters. Which is also what I’ve always said.
It is technically the truth, but skips the lede.
He does vote that way, but clarifies California is a place where he can, and if your situation is more competitive, you need to vote with that inch in mind.
I know it’s unpopular this month, but fuck Macklemore for not doing and saying as this man does.
In good weather, vote for the good people.
In the heart of the storm, when the volcano threatens to end humanity, and the plague is ravaging the people, vote for the goddamn candidate that didn’t RAPE CHILDREN and the candidate with the best chance of winning against the guy who wants to (and fully has successfully) protected his other child rapist friends.
It’s not rocket science.
Oh, and the guy who owns the most successful rocket scientists was hired by the rapist, and that guy did a fucking Nazi salute at his inauguration.
But let’s all celebrate Macklemore for… ::Checks notes:: opposing genocide? Really? The bar is that low? Fucking hell…
Of the two musicians, Tom Morello is the only who has expressly said that he did not vote for Harris in 2024, which seems inconsistent with your reason for elevating him while judging Macklemore.
“The blood is on your hands, Biden, we can see it all And fuck no, I’m not votin’ for you in the fall”
- Macklemore
Regardless of how he may have secretly voted, he told people not to vote for Trump’s opposition.
I do appear to have misunderstood this thread here, though… Why is he talking about opposing Nazi’s if he didn’t vote against Trump? Seems they are both trash… Imagine being so braindead you think the difference between Harris and Trump is “an inch”.
Regardless of how he may have secretly voted, he told people not to vote for Trump’s opposition.
My contention is with the lack of logic in your reasoning for elevating Tom Morello.
His words are not only at odds with your stated position, but they are at odds with his own words.
I don’t give a fuck about how you feel about Macklemore.
No they aren’t. Tom said that he is privileged to be able to vote with his conscience because he lives in California. He also went on to say that those who aren’t as lucky should consider that, if there’s even an inch of difference between the two choices you realistically have, to consider the people who are harmed by that inch you might be ceding to the opposition.
I agree with you. My contention, again, is with the logical inconsistency in lucidlethargy’s original comment.
If you read their comment in its entirety, they are very clearly talking about how they think that people should have voted for Harris in the general presidential election, and praising Morello’s recent words for seemingly supporting this perspective.
This ignores Morello’s previous statement that he did not vote for Harris in the 2024 presidential election.
I voted for Kamala Harris but I was originally going to vote Cornel West. I thought Cornel West would’ve saved this country.
Imagine if instead of supporting two useless people doomed to lose, you had campaigned for an actual progressive with broad appeal?
“an actual progressive with broad appeal”
Who? Be specific.
The electoral process overrides the voice of people anyways. It’s all a shit show to keep us all fighting.
if you don’t vote straight blue you’re part of the problem and can get fucked.
