Wow that’s horrifying. Hilarious and horrifying.

It has a common meter.

I love your downvote. “Nuh uh! Facepals is cool! You take that back!” lol

(part II because it was too long for the comment window)

As far as the ‘“Democratic”’ process being fundamentally broken - that’s a valid question. Also irrelevant as to whether someone is responsible for the act of voting, and so is not covered here.

Your argument is shifting to an admittance that our electoral system might not actually be democratic, but you’re still incoherently clinging to the assertion that voters are responsible for the outcome regardless.

No, it’s not shifting. What I’m saying is there are challenges to making a fair election. Every year, local and state republicans rush to gerrymander districts, they make it easy to prevent others from voting, they close polling stations in majority Democratic areas. All fundamentally anti-Democratic and anti-American. And they do it loudly and proudly. With the only accountability that they be tossed from office, and they weren’t - again. Four years ago they were. That was nice.

Voters are responsible for THEIR VOTE. Who they vote for, they are responsible for voting for them. As a fan of a team, if i go to the game and cheer, if the team loses, am I responsible? You’re saying yes? Or no? i don’t know. You seem to be saying if the team wins (Harris is a good candidate), then we’d be good fans (enough votes) and should go cheer (vote). It’s kinda messed up, kind of backwards. It doesn’t work like that.

We support the team, and cheer, and hope they win. In a democratic contest there’s no “cheering” just voting. And that voting actually does determine who wins.

This is a Catch-22. You cannot reform a state that is designed to prevent reform without first reforming the state.

This is interesting because the elements that make up what you refer to as “a state” are not the same as the elements that make up a democratic election. By definition, and implementation, democratic elections are designed to change the state. That change might be more of the same for four years, or it might be radically different. The democratic election is the same EITHER WAY. And that’s NOT the same thing as being prevented from allowing change, though you desperately want to see it that way.

. . suggesting that our political parties would eliminate their own structural advantages over third parties if we just voted harder is some serious doublethink.

Voted harder? wtf is that. Are you saying if the democratic party added a plank to their platform to eliminate the elctoral college and the democratic party members voted for it they wouldn’t do it? IF THEY HAVE THE VOTES THEY DO THE THING. That’s how parties work at the most basic level. One vote - done . .really hard . .ly? . . is not a thing.

More to the point, how do you think a proposal to add that to the DNC party platform is done? In secret? By people in dark robes holding candles? No. It doesn’t always get the votes in the DNC, even inside the party you have to build coalitions to support things, that’s the nature of politics in any form.

The future is a dystopian wasteland and there was never anything we could have done to avert it without working outside the system. Luigi Mangioni did more to support the environmental movement and resist economic disparity with three bullets than has been accomplished in the last three decades, including Occupy.

Well that’s pretty dark. I disagree, but I see your point. I think it’s a shame we couldn’t build on the momentum of Biden and continue to make good changes, but not enough people voted for Harris. So. Here we are.

This election was so critical for that reason.

They say that at every election.

Yeah they do. Trump is completely unhinged though. Seriously, what they voted for is beyond bad. Beyond Reagan bad. Beyond GeeDubz bad. Way beyond. It was absolutely stupid and wrong to have not even tried to defeat it.

Even if Harris had won we’d still be fucked. She was never going to end fracking, much less support the kind of radical transformation our society needs to avoid ecological catastrophe and systemic collapse.

Once again, I completely disagree. And how did fracking get in there? I think she’d be supportive of renewables and we’re not going to get that now. Radical transformation is not usualy good and now that we don’t have intelligent compentent leaders it’s going to be even worse. It is a tragedy that so many people chose to sit this out. A tragedy for progressives. republiQan christian nationalists and nazis were all counting on so many sitting it out, because it helps them. And so it did.

Outcomes-based morality is entirely a thing.

Sure, just outside the scope of “are people responsible for their vote”. Saying my vote in November is approving all possible actions is silly. Skipping maintenance at Cherynobyl is not relevant, that has nothing to do with who owns their own voting. Neither does ends-justifies-the-means pondering.

But the naked criminality you attribute to the “system” or both major parties or whatever, is relatively recent.

A long list of avoidable tragedies, intentional harm, and blatant corruption are evidence against this being a “recent” development. Our government has been criminal since before you and I were born, to the point of being actively genocidal against queers like me since long before the AIDS crisis.

True, but hidden criminality, coverups, military decisions are different from loudly announcing the crime on live TV and there being no accountability. That’s what i think is relatively recent.

Bush still got to be president when the courts overturned the 2000 election. Nixon only resigned with the promise of a pardon for his crimes, and the media has been abetting the State since it was founded.

Bush got to be president because the Republican-packed SCOTUS overturned the results. That’s not the system working, that’s it being broken right in front of us.

Nixon’s resignation was a huge win and a very tenuous moment because it could have gone to shit real quick. His crimes, relative to trump & co are pretty laughable now. His policy decisions and the disgusting way they were created are worse than what he was pardoned for. I think it was terrible, and I wouldn’t have done it, but I understand the desire to close the book asap and avoid a sort of Belfast situation for 30 years.

There’s no utility in pretending like America was ever anything but a sanctioned criminal enterprise.

I mean, obviously I disagree so - not sure what to say there. I think that’s an absurdly reductivist view.

By the time primaries are happening, the parties have already narrowed the field of available candidates to only those politicians which the parties find acceptable. Third-parties are only ever spoilers for the main parties because our electoral system is designed to limit choice.

I think the field of primary candidates are there because they have a number of signatures and party affiliation. If that’s what the party finds “acceptable” to run in the primary, I don’t have a problem with that. That’s nothing. What you’re saying is they’ve carefully vetted and weeded out all possible anti-party positions and only allowed those blessed by corporate patrons and the party elite. No. Bernie himself disproves this, but there are many others in history.

That’s a much different thing than they’re all listening to the same fashion consultant or trying to be Reagan lite or whatever the fuck. That’s just politicians being idiots, yeah it happens to the best of parties. Even Deez Nutz has made a few faux-pas on the campaign trail.

Third parties are never big enough to win the Electoral College. That’s why they’re always spoilers. They could (a) be viable national parties before spoiling the Dems again (or, on occasion the Republicans - though that won’t happen again), or (b) work tirelessly to get rid of the Electoral College, which there is a lot more support for than ever before in history.

And third parties should not be bitching they can’t get a fair shake because they’e too goddamned stupid to understand what it takes to win an election. That’s like I wanted to coach the Seattle Mariners but they wouldn’t let me because the system is rigged to only allow people the “club” chooses - oh what a giveaway! C’mon.

“Just because North Korea is a one-party state doesn’t mean the voters have no vote.” That’s what you sound like when you pretend that having two capitalist parties to vote between is the same thing as having actual agency.

No? “In philosophical discussions, agency often relates to free will and personal responsibility—the idea that individuals can intentionally influence events through their choices and actions.” You’re complaining a single voter can’t overturn national foreign policy, therefore they dont’ have agency. I’m saying that’s not a thing; it never has been and it never will. A single voter can vote for the representative to craft the national policy they want. That’s what we have. It takes a lot of effort to run a nation with anything like competence.

If you want the luxury gay space communism we all demand and deserve, you have to go to a shit-ton of boring meetings, put up with many, many narcissistic chowderheads, smile a lot, and work with people who agree with you. Are the - whatever party - doing that? No. No they’re not, and you know why? It’s not because the system is rigged by corporate money (although it certainly is) - it’s because they don’t have any idea how to work together. That’s the bottom line.

The Democrats have a party structure and a national presence and they’ve made it work - inelegantly, barely at times, and not very successfully in the face of abject corruption, but they have it. Whatever third party you might be hoping for -does not. And what’s more they’re not even working on it.

Like North Korea, they’re hoping to bypass all that and just shortcut right to the levers of power and start giving everything away for free. There are many reasons it doesn’t work like that, but the ones you haven’t covered are the ones you should be looking at.

Democracy in America is a sham, deliberately designed to offer the illusion of choice while ensuring that the oligarchs who have always owned and operated this country are not divested of their political power.

It’s a popular notion but no. It’s no sham. It really is everyone of age gets a vote and they can vote for whoever they want. Democracy in America does not account for Fox News. or naked corruption. Or masses of russian-funded disinformation content creators all backing trump. That’s nothing to do with Democracy in America. that’s to do with the fucked up situation Democracy in America is facing. You’re barking up the wrong tree.

If Harris wasn’t a bad candidate then why did she pull a Hillary and throw the election?

You think she threw the election? And that HIllary did as well? Weird. I . . disagree?

A good candidate would have turned out more people to vote and wouldn’t have lost to a grifter like Trump.

Oh, well when you put it like THAT . . . yeah, that’s what they should have done. I wonder why they didn’t spend millions and all their time trying to do that. I mean - you got a “good” candidate you’re hiding? Why? Who is this magical human who can defeat entrenched corruption and evil with a wave of their hand? Give them to us!

The fact that people are still not allowed to discuss the faults and weaknesses of the Dem campaign without being accused of treason to the party is yet more evidence for my argument that our government is working as intended

I mean - don’t we do that a lot? Pretty sure there’s been many discussions about that without anyone being accused of treason. If you’re saying “I know why the Democrats lost, and it’s because they didn’t give away the means of production” I’m not saying that’s treasonous, I’m saying that’s wildly incorrect. Very different.

You’re acting like our democratic process is actually democratic, but then refusing to accept that this implies that the result of the election must be a good reflection of the desires of the people.

Well, yeah Pro Tip: a valid democratic outcome can be bad. That’s true. Is that news? The fact that it’s a valid democratic outcome is good, but beyond that - it can usher in some pretty fucked up shit. Those are very different things.

If Trump is bad and president, then our democracy which elected him can’t be good.

No. Here’s a simile: a democratically elected corrupt asshole is like having a sibling who’s a corrupt asshole. Are they not a sibling because they’re corrupt? No, they’re a sibling - and they’re corrupt. It’s two different things.

Again - propaganda, fake religion, casual racism and bigotry - these are not part of the democratic process. These are attacks on the democratic process. And even with all that - if a person is allowed to vote for who they want to - then, it’s something. Something very good.

Did we get a corrupt asshole out of the deal? Yes. But not because of the way we chose. Because they lied, cheated, stole, misrepresented, etc. And enough people came out to vote for them, and not enough came out to vote for us. That’s not accounted for in the “everyone gets to vote” there’s no sliding scale (except for the Electoral College, ibid).

Tech Press Derides Tech Press For Doing Tech Press Things.

Also, no mention of, or comparison to, AI. At least Apple created a viable product somebody wanted.

The voter is responsible for their vote.

Votes themselves are meaningless without context, and their context is defined by the actions the elected person makes.

I don’t know that I’d define it that way - how can a vote be defined by somerthing subsequent to it? That’s like an act is good or bad depending on what happens - that’s not a thing.

It’d be nice if we had real government accountability, but you have to be clear-eyed and admit that the only people our politicians can be reigned-in by are billionaires, their lobbyists, and their media.

It would be nice, wouldn’t it. But the naked criminality you attribute to the “system” or both major parties or whatever, is relatively recent. I would say it stems from the TEA Party created by Fox News and billionaires to fulfill their mission of supporting a Nixonian Imperial Presidency which they’ve done.

Prior to that, politicians were able to be reigned in any number of ways which we still see today - their own party, the courts, the media, (or if you want to go old school, “the press”), sometimes their families. It’s relatively recent. So don’t use it as an “it’s always been this way” because that’s not true. You can make analogies to earlier times but they don’t hold up that well.

A voter chooses. That’s the entirety of the argument.

You’re ignoring a key aspect of voting in America, a voter can only choose between the two candidates they are offered. We don’t even have “none of the above” as an option.

Nope. A voter can choose anyone they want; themselves, Batman, Jill Stein, whatever local cowboy just stopped a crook at the Park-N-Save or whatever - the “only two options chosen for you” is a different discussion.

Yes, there are two major political parties. Primaries are usually held to determine which candidates those parties support - voters vote for that too, although that’s not as popular. There’s also other ways voters can affect “who is chosen”, but the main point - the crux of the biscuit, if you will, is that that voter’s vote, okay, that decisiont they make, is a decision - that they - make.. “If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice.”

The System, to which you ascribe the lack of choice to was created specifically to allow choice. It didn’t include political parties by default (Washington famously decried them) and the Electoral College, the bane of modern society was created as a compromise in what we look at now as a deeply disturbed age. It’s current incarnation is also deeply troubled by contemporary issues, I’m with you on that, but that doesn’t mean voters have no vote. They do! It’s theirs to say “here’s the direction we should go”.

it’s not holding the voter to account for what the elected leader does. It’s holding them to account for giving the leader the vote. It’s entirely different.

I’m unclear as to the functional difference between these two perspectives. Blaming voters for the decisions made on their behalf and blaming them for enabling the person who made those decisions are the same thing.

This is about the responsibility the voter has. It is, “To Vote”. To make their voice heard in the system that was conceived to hear their voice. That’s it. If they throw away that responsibilty, they’ve supported destruction. If they vote, they’ve supported the democratic principle of the country which is the very first and most important step. This is related to the original post, which, apologies I can’t recall enough of right now (and the comment window obscures it).

One of them was a good candidate.

If they were a good candidate, why did they lose?

You cannot be serious. Really? First of all, that’s a different discussion from “are people responsible for voting”. Secondly it’s a lot more nuanced. And thirdly - c’mon. Really? One reason they lost is some people didn’t vote, and thereby allowed the “bad” candidate to win. Is that not clear?

They were defeated by a minority of racist “christians” and a ton of pithed idiots who refused to vote on “principle”.

Then you should either admit that what is “good” in America is defined by racists and idiots (and therefore that our Democracy is working as intended), or admit that the “Democratic” process is fundamentally broken (and therefore blaming the voters for the outcome of the election is about as useful as blaming water for being wet).

Nope. Not sure how you get to that declaration but I think it might be a confusion of who wins the vote with what is good? I think? Not sure. As far as the ‘“Democratic”’ process being fundamentally broken - that’s a valid question. Also irrelevant as to whether someone is responsible for the act of voting, and so is not covered here.

For my two cents on the latter, yeah the Electoral College, first-past-the-post, and other considerations including party direciton and leadership are all problematic at the best of times. They should be addressed. Because enough people didn’t vote, we will not do so and thus the system still requires work. It takes a very, very long time.

With the environment in the precarious state it’s in, and the economic disparity of the world that time is running short. This election was so critical for that reason. And still a bunch of people who are able to read, write, perform relatively advanced arithmetic, operate powerful motor vehicles and fire powerful weapons, write heartbreakingly beautiful poetry and take care of others - didn’t vote. So we’re fucked. that’s what’s broken. The reasons why are a different conversation.

It’s an interesting thought. The idea of sudo is that people understand there are levels of permissions. That alone would be huge, and in 2025 that seems ridiculous.

Own what? 1/165,000,000th of the collective responsibility for the choices of the person they elected?

Or is it that elected leaders are actually responsible for their own actions?

You don’t get to have it both ways.

The voter is responsible for their vote. The elected leader should be held accountable by law, by society, and by the voters. All three failed here.

Those weren’t choices made for them.

By this logic, one could also blame Harris voters for their failure to elect Harris, and that’s the fatal crux of the argument.

Dude, back up off the pipe. No it doesn’t.

A voter chooses. That’s the entirety of the argument. If the person they voted for turns out to be a psychic space monkey from Alderaan here to create a new religion which wasn’t known to them, well - okay that was unexpected, but the voter is only responsible for voting for them. If the person they voted for turns out to be a demented rapist hell-bent on stealing money and corrupting government for his own power AND THAT IS WELL-DOCUMENTED AND EXPLAINED BEFORE THE ELECTION, then they’re onboard with that. If they’re too stupid to understand that, well, okay everyone gets a second chance. Oh wait this was the second chance. Well, they’re fucked then.

Collective responsibility is always going to be a ethical nightmare because the responsibility is never actually collective.

What collective? No one’s saying trump voters should go to prison for selling secrets to the Saudis. No one’s saying the Jill Stein dipshits should be excommunicated from the . . well, actually that might be a good . . no, no they’re not saying that. Your logic is broken here - it’s not holding the voter to account for what the elected leader does. It’s holding them to account for giving the leader the vote. It’s entirely different.

Individuals in positions of power made all the choices that narrowed the Overton Window to two bad candidates . . .

I disagree entirely. One of them was a good candidate. Lots of them were good. They were defeated by a minority of racist “christians” and a ton of pithed idiots who refused to vote on “principle”. And now we’re all fucked.

If only we could have helped it somehow

Well they wouldn’t delete it when it was tracking everything and everyone they knew 24/7, they wouldn’t delete it when they jumped on the trump train in 2016, and they wouldn’t delete it when they kept Covid rolling in 2020, so why delete it now? Or Xitter? Embrace the evil! Lick it!

. . but we have to hold the poorly-educated and wildly propagandized voting base responsible for choices that were made for them?

I hold anyone who voted responsible for their vote - that’s their choice. If they were hoodwinked, hornswaggled, tricked, swindled, and brainwashed - or if they’re clearly understanding exactly what they’re voting for. It’s their muscles that pull the lever, so to speak, and it’s not forced on them. They own it.

Keeping us poors at each other’s throats so we don’t notice that wealth concentration in the USA has gotten worse than it was in France before the revolution.

That’s true. But a poor “christian” nazi who loves Trump is still an asshole who should be metaphorically pelted with rocks and garbage for what they’ve done. A young idealist who doesn’t know shit and therefore chose not to vote should own that too.

Those weren’t choices made for them. They spent the last several years loudly breaking all the norms and social contracts for trump or whoever was telling them to hurt others. Fox News didn’t make them. ExxonMobil didn’t make them. Facebook didn’t make them. They all helped, but that’s a different argument entirely.

I find it amusing that there are still people who want to hold the voting public accountable in this, the most heavily propagandized country on earth.

You mean holding voters accountable for their vote?

“Blender Artist Runs Out of Booze, Finds Old NyQuil in Bathroom: The Jaguar Cybertruck”

Note that it piggybacks on the SCROTUS decision earlier about preventing government from protecting anything from industry.

In its opinion, a three-judge panel pointed to a Supreme Court decision in June, known as Loper Bright, that overturned a 1984 legal precedent that gave deference to government agencies on regulations.

“Applying Loper Bright means we can end the F.C.C.’s vacillations,” the court ruled.

“Nyyeaahh nyyeaah nyyeaaaahh ppffthhhhthhth!!” they said.

Yeah, that’s the easy narrative for people to hate Democrats with but I don’t think it’s true. Furthermore, it seems like most of the people who promote that idea either weren’t of voting age at the time or aren’t US voters.

I’d be interested to see it as a post where we can slug it out. Start with the news reports and then make your case as to why you think that. We’ll see if there’s anything to learn.

he was absolutely pushed out of the nomination in favor of a more-corporate candidate.

By who? When? What did he say about it?

You don’t have the actual answers to that. But if you think you do - make a post, let’s see it.

roflcopter

Lots of good stuff has happened. It’s not in the news though. Or on the ticktwits or whatever bullshit they’re indoctriniating children with today.

This is frickin’ genius. Let’s get some yard signs pronto - Etsy people, Assemble!