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Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 30th 2023 at 11:03:59 AM
They stand for the same things they've stood for the last thirty years and more.
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Yep.
It is. It is a path that had led to marriage equality, and to the Affordable Care Act, and to a nuclear deal with Iran. But it is the path that has lead to the drone war, too. The path that has led to crackdowns on whistleblowers, to millions of deportations, to wage stagnation, to increasing disparities between our wealthy and our poor.
It is a path that the Democratic Party wagers most Americans can live with, its successes celebrated, and its failure justified by the realities of politics and the demands of expediency. That is good enough, for now.
Ekuran: It's gotten more liberal certainly. Leftist though? That's usually associated in my experience with left wing economics, and in that regard the democrats and the GOP are still parties dominated by neoliberal economics. That's begun to recede since 2008, and at least the democrats never really bough into the idiotic austerity policies that's tearing Europe apart.
Re: third parties
I think people's main motivation for voting third party this time is that they think it will send some kind of message to the Democratic Party (i.e., "support an actual progressive or you'll lose").
Since my 90s history is rusty, can someone remind me how effective this was when Ross Perot ran? Did his sizeable share of the votes actually accomplish anything with the relevant parties?
How dare you disrupt the sanctity of my soliloquy?Yeah, third parties will never win at the top. The problem is that people think "if I vote for a third party in the presidential election, that party will become a main party!"
But third parties won't win that vote. It's smarter to help them in local elections and to vote them into office as governors or mayors.
Also related to voting, a lot of people say they won't bother voting in a "safe state", which isn't smart. Yeah, New York is "safe", but if all the left wing voters stay home because it's safe, the Republicans might take the state. And on the flipside, if more Democrats in Texas tried voting, they may actually be able to turn their state into a swing state.
Voter apathy is never good. The more people vote, regardless of state, the better.
On-topic, I recall seeing a survey where 56% of Clinton's prospective are doing so because they don't want Trump to win, while 52% of Trump's prospective voters are doing so because they don't want Clinton to win. Definitely a Lesser of Two Evils election this year, and I can't recall it ever being that bad.
"Why would I inflict myself on somebody else?"Speaking of North Carolina, US Fourth Circuit strikes down NC voter ID law as discriminatory.
Note, link is New York Times so you may have paywall issues.
