• AHemlocksLie@lemmy.zip
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    7 days ago

    I’ll agree that a huge chunk of the democratic party, most especially at the apex of power in the party, are shit stains, but I think democrats get a lot of leeway to do what they do because people continuously vote republicans into office, so they don’t really have to cater to their base because their base thinks the republicans are even worse. If a lot of the leftists and other nonvoters who typically abstained from voting opted in instead, we might starting seeing democrats win more often, and if people are less scared of republicans getting into office, democrats have to start actually responding to their base’s demands. Keep in mind that low voter turnout almost always favors republicans, so simply by increasing the portion of people who actually cast votes, we weaken the republican party and push the democrats towards actually having to answer to people.

    Is it a perfect solution? God, no. Is it all we should do? Absolutely the fuck not. But democrats are only so effective at keeping us from pulling to the left because most Americans on the left (of their political spectrum) are too busy focusing on preventing even more drift to the right. If elections and votes didn’t matter, the republicans wouldn’t spend so much damn time and energy on disenfranchising voters and gerrymandering.

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        6 days ago

        Of course not. It’s a small piece of what we should be doing overall. No election is going to singlehandedly fix anything substantial. We should participate anyway so we can choose who we’re putting pressure on through other means.