This whole era has taught me so many on the right are ignorant bigots. Which you could say I should have known and I agree but I did expect more infighting and not such vast meek complicit silence from so called "patriotic conservatives" against obvious fascism

But also much more sadly many on the left are impotent spineless whiners who won't fight

Vote. Protest

Wringing your hands and paralyzed in mindless cynicism and toxic idealism is just pure loser

I agree but absolute ideological position globally has no meaning. The left in Saudi Arabia might be to the right of the right in Denmark but the only metric that matters is the push and pull to either side of the ideological center of a particular country

It does no good to say "the left in the USA is the right somewhere else" because all we care about is making the USA more left. We work with what is and iterate. This perspective is the only effective perspective

Again you're absolutely right. I'm just asserting that the functional perspective is more important than the structural perspective. We both want the USA to be more left. I'm concerning myself with how to do that while meanwhile this 10,000 foot view of the status quo you're providing while accurate doesn't provide any analytical value of how to do that.

We start where we are and iterate left. That where we start sucks is true but noting that it sucks doesn't help

might i suggest a perspective shift

I mean i don't differ with anything you say but i think it's important

"The democrats" is not some entity we should consider or even characterize. Simply because that mental framework is not useful and even counterproductive

"The democrats" are just an empty shell we fill with our will (or don't, if we don't vote)

That everything we dislike about the democrats is a direct consequence of the assholes out there who didn't vote

if enough showed the fuck up, all of that would be working for us

that the democratic party does not, and serves spineless centrists, is a direct consequence of not enough showing up to vote

what i'm saying is that this organizational inertia argument is real, as you say, but it's essentially nothing but a reflection of our will. *if* we show the fuck up

bad candidates do not lead to low voter turn out

well, they do, but more accurately:

low voter turn out leads to bad candidates

right but imagining something better is easy. delivering on it takes sustained effort. so we have to fucking vote

it's a nasty analogy but it's true:

MAGA took over the Republicans. called centrist Republicans "RINOs" (Republicans in name only). hollowed out the shitty party and made it something much more shitty: fascism

we can take over and remake the dems as well

it's a shitty analogy because i hate any comparison to MAGA but it's a demonstration that sustained voting works

two things:

1. i was directly referencing your suggestion for compulsory voting. i agree. and? well to get it we have to show the fuck up. idea -> action. however easy or not the idea is is meaningless without the action

2. "we need to be telling them that we're not happy with them as they currently stand." right. but what is that? whining online or writing emails that get canned fake responses? that "telling" your referring to is our vote. vote them the fuck out. that's telling them

1. I agree with having to show up to get changes made. I brought it up because I'm not saying that we shouldn't vote for Democrats because they suck, a lot of non-voters (or third-party voters) think that way.

2. I mean, for a start, by not calling them left wing. You can't vote people out, you can only vote people in, and the people running as Democrats are usually centrists. I literally can't tell them through voting because the people who represent my ideals aren't in the race.

"a lot of non-voters (or third-party voters) think that way."

right because they're morons. of course the dems suck. because the morons don't vote

"You can't vote people out, you can only vote people in, and the people running as Democrats are usually centrists"

because no one shows up in the primaries. how did mamdani get in, despite no support from the dem org? because people showed the fuck up

people not voting is the *cause*, not the *effect*

stop thinking of establishment dems as some alien omnipotent force that must be interacted with. in fact they're quite weak. just fucking ignore them

stop thinking of the establishment at all. you build it up to be this insurmountable enemy. it's an illusion that causes inaction

we show the fuck up in the primaries, and then we just own the joint. that's it

it all depends upon people showing the fuck up. beginning and ending of the topic

You might find this article interesting. It shows how compulsory voting in Australia led to policy shifts in government that benefited those on low incomes, pretty much vindicating everything you've been saying about why high voter turnout matters so much.

australiainstitute.org.au/post…

Voter turnout in the 2022 federal election hit a new low, threatening our democratic tradition - The Australia Institute

Voter turnout in the May election fell to the lowest it has since the introduction of compulsory voting

^{Greg Jericho (The Australia Institute)}