I’m also very disappointed in the so-called accomplishments of the Biden/Harris administration, but I firmly believe the DNC’s complete unwillingness to run a primary without thumbing the scale is the main reason for how awful the last 12 years have been. If they could just run a normal goddamn primary without the bullshit we may be able to unify behind the nominee a little easier.

Yeah, could potentially make a lot of states unsafe to go to because you “broke” a law you weren’t subject to.

So you think it’s totally fine that people just doing their fully legal job in the state they live and work in should be subjected to arrest warrants that prevent them from ever safely entering a completely different state?

“Sorry boss, I can’t go to that conference. It’s hosted in Texas and I’ll be arrested as I exit the plane.”

Well that still puts you pretty safely in the range, actually. The typical cutoff year is 1996. I’m 30. You were 7 (or almost 7) but you don’t remember 9/11?

I hate to break it to you, but memory of 9/11 is kind of a litmus test for the Millennial/Gen Z border. If you don’t remember it you’re likely Gen Z or right on the border where generational definitions get really fuzzy.

Are you serious right now? You’ve never once bothered to look at the events of the 2016 primary, but you’re happy to call any disagreement propaganda?

Literally all you have to do is Google “Clinton pied piper” and “Clinton primary tampering” and you’ll find countless articles talking about it.

Big Bernie fan. I disagree on your wording. Bernie probably couldn’t draw enough people. Unfortunately the Democratic Party in collusion with Hillary’s campaign denied the people the right to vote in an impartial election, so it’s impossible to know.

Hillary probably didn’t need to tamper with the election to win, but she did tamper with the election. Moreover in doing so she handed the presidency to the authoritarian toddler that she elevated as a pied piper. She’s directly responsible for Trump gaining power. She needs to stay the hell away from US politics, she’s done more than enough harm.

Republicans didn’t force her to collude with the DNC to tamper with the primary. Nor did they force her to campaign on such gems as “$15/hr minimum wage is too high” and “we don’t need universal health care” and “if you don’t vote for me you’re sexist.”

No, my problem is that the Democratic party is corrupt, and continuing to prop it up will make the problem worse, not better.

I’m not letting perfect be the enemy of good. If the DNC can run fair primaries (which doesn’t mean my preferred candidate wins), I’ll recognize them as legitimate political contests. Until then, I’m simply tired of hearing “it’s not the right time” because it’s never the right time. If we keep waiting for the “right time,” then more people will die because we all refused to hold the Democratic Party responsible now.

And I do mean they are responsible. They gave us Trump very directly. They propped up his campaign to radicalize the right in order to shove an extraordinarily unpopular candidate through. That they now continue to use the same pied piper strategy only shows that they’ll continue to radicalize the right in order to coerce votes from people who don’t like them. Refusing to stand up to that makes you responsible for everything their pied pipers accomplish.

First, I must confess that over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen’s Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to “order” than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice

https://www.africa.upenn.edu/Articles_Gen/Letter_Birmingham.html

I strive for positive peace, which is not possible through the moderate Democratic party as it is. Voting for Biden simply because he isn’t Trump, and insisting that that is the only way forward because it is an absence of tension, is not a good long term strategy. I’m not interested in arguing further unless you can actually argue rather than just spew insults.

Go ahead though, call MLK a “priv.”

Democrats winning seats doesn’t mean we’ve moved left. My point was the Democrats themselves have moved right. Pretty sharply around the Clinton administration, too.

Voting third party, or if none are available that suit me, don’t vote for president. I’d still be filling out the rest of the ballot. I’d appear as an active voter who left the field blank, indicating my vote is up for grabs if someone actually earns it

That’s the only option available to me in the general that doesn’t implicitly endorse the current actions of the Democratic Party, actions that I believe are harmful to our country and will lead to our downfall just as surely as the explicit dismantling of the Republicans.

Can we stop this “a 3rd party vote is a vote for the opposition” nonsense? That completely ignores the entire reason for voting 3rd party and it’s mathematical bullshit. With Democratic votes on the left and Republican on the right, it is a 0/0 vote for each side. A Dem vote is a 1/0 vote and a Republican vote is a 0/1 vote. If you insist the two sides must add to one, then it’s a half vote for each side, 0.5/0.5.

The Dems have plenty of things they can do to earn my vote and they consistently choose not to do them. In response, I’m choosing not to give them my vote anymore. 2020 was the last time unless they can become a party that actually serves the people.

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Hey, guess what? You aren’t right about everything. Neither am I. I believe the system continuing as it is will result in more death and suffering than efforts to drag the Democrats left.

You need to learn to argue without accusing your opponent of ill intentions.

Two in particular:

1. The DNC has no interest in running an impartial and even-handed primary. It went so far as to argue in court that it was not bound by the language of its charter to run fair primaries. Since the Democratic primary is currently the only place that progressives can voice their political preferences, this practice effectively removes the right to political representation of anyone left of the party.

2. The Democratic Party engages in pied piper strategies, bolstering extremists within the Republican Party in order to increase their chances of winning the general (by promoting the “you have to vote D to avoid R” rhetoric that this thread started with). Specific to the current political climate, the DNC and the Hillary campaign promoted Trump in the 2016 Republican primary since they saw him as easier to beat than the rest of the field.

So they suppress voters to their left and intentionally radicalize the party and voters to their right.

You believe, because you don’t know for certain.

Followed up by you conjuring up all sorts of things you claim I believe to argue against strawmen.

And by the way, I phrase things as “I believe” because that’s what humans base their decisions on. None of us know anything 100%. I can recognize that we can work towards the same goal and have different beliefs about the best way to get there. I don’t automatically assume that everyone who disagrees with my methods also disagree with my goals.

I don’t believe a Democratic win will push anyone left. The Republicans clearly have no interest in that, they’d rather get rid of democracy altogether. And the Democrats see any victory as a mandate for their centrism and any loss as a reason to move right.

If a Democratic win moves us left, why didn’t 2020 accomplish this? Why didn’t 2008 accomplish this? Why has every Democratic victory after FDR moved the party to the right?

Because I believe that protecting democracy is a prerequisite to protecting citizens, especially marginalized groups. The Democratic Party, to me, is a threat to democracy. Different from the Republican party, yes. And much less severe. But a threat nonetheless.

This isn’t “both sides,” the Republicans have 0% chance of ever getting my vote, period. The Democrats can earn my vote but choose not to. In my opinion, they are an active participant in the erosion of democracy in this country. They just have the benefit of only having to do it within their own party.

See, the problem is that you and I disagree about the virtue of the Democratic Party. To me, they are an abusive bully who removes voices when it’s convenient (in their primaries), and then turns around and claims we must vote for them in order to preserve democracy. That rings hollow to those who have already had their voices muffled by the party itself. They’ve limited where I can express my voice to the very place that they have complete, unimpeachable control.

The only thing I have left is to express myself by refusing them a vote in the general. As you said, this is the unfortunate reality of the FPTP system. If they want my vote, they can implement a ranked choice system and I’ll happily put them on my list where they belong. Alternatively, they can run their primaries fairly and I’ll recognize the winner as legitimate.

I gave them my vote in 2016 literally only because of Trump and it nearly broke me. I gave them my vote in 2020 because of some specific promises the Biden campaign made that they then turned back on. In both cases the primaries were run in a specific way to engineer a win for their preferred candidate. Never explicitly against the rules because the party itself made the rules to allow it. And even then they were happy to break their charter’s promise to run primaries in a fair and even-handed way and argue in court they had no legal obligation to follow it.

In the case of Biden, I said in 2020 that that was my last free vote for the Democratic Party. They had 4 years to convince me they were willing to work with progressives, or else their vote from me would be contingent on them cleaning up their act. They have, on many occasions in the last 3 years, shown me that they have no intention of working in good faith with progressives.

I’m just done being abused. It’s time for them to actually follow their own empty words.

Ahh, yes. Just completely disregard any criticism of the Democratic Party as “right wing operatives.” It couldn’t possibly be that they abuse their position as the only other viable option in order to further their plutocratic goals, and the people who have been complaining about it for decades are simply tired of hearing “it’s not the right time” ad nauseum.

You know what will convince people who barely managed to vote for Hillary in 2016 and Biden in 2020 to vote against their conscience yet again? Knowing that they’ll be instantly blamed anyway when the majority doesn’t get their way? Insults and baseless accusations.