• dhork@lemmy.world
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    14 hours ago

    “Kamala Harris is not the perfect progressive candidate in every way. How can I possibly vote for her? I’ll sit this one out. That’ll show 'em!”

    • Aurenkin@sh.itjust.works
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      14 hours ago

      People need to accept that the electoral system in the US is just a trolley problem at the end of the day unfortunately.

      • Aceticon@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        3 hours ago

        Not quite.

        For starters it didn’t use to be a choice of “who would you rather see killed” - or in other words, nothing was forever lost if one side won instead of the other - and beyond that it has always been a cyclical choice, so it made sense for voters who felt insufficiently catered to, to punish a side on one cycle to try and get it to offer a better deal on the next cycle.

        Whether that remains the case - i.e. will Trump make himself dictator for life - is the big question.

        • Aurenkin@sh.itjust.works
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          3 hours ago

          That’s true but I didn’t mean it as a choice of who you’d rather see killed, just that the system is set up in such a way that as a rational voter you are forced into a situation where you must act to prevent the worst outcome rather than voting for your interests and what you believe in.

      • Apytele@sh.itjust.works
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        10 hours ago

        At this point the trolley problem is "would you like to vote for killing 1000 per year for the next four years or would you like to vote for killing 4000 people this year with the hope that maybe it’ll cause the whole trolley system to self destruct…? (The numbers are purely illustrative).

        Edit: apparently it’s not obvious that I think these are both horrible options, and I voted for the limping painfully along for an extended period.

        • Bronzebeard@lemm.ee
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          13 hours ago

          Making things worse based on the idiotic hope that it might somehow magically spark things to get better is the absolute dumbest fucking idea one can have.

        • MagicShel@lemmy.zip
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          13 hours ago

          If by “trolley system to self-destruct” you mean violent revolution and a new system of government imperfect in a completely different way, yes. Good luck with the wait.

          • Apytele@sh.itjust.works
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            10 hours ago

            That’s exactly what I mean, and I agree that it sounds awful. It’s like people go into these conversations deciding which side the other person is on based on which they can argue the most with.

    • NobodyElse@sh.itjust.works
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      13 hours ago

      I voted for her because she was the lesser evil, but describing her as just “not the perfect progressive candidate in every way” is a gross misrepresentation. She was probably the most right leaning Democratic candidate to run in a general election and was openly adopting many of the Republican stances. There were basically two Republicans running.

      • Moineau@lemmy.zip
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        9 hours ago

        Single issue voters are the reason the USA is now a dictatorship building concentration camps. That’s not an opinion.

      • TrickDacy@lemmy.world
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        13 hours ago

        There were basically two Republicans running.

        Fucking absurd. There is a reason you don’t name one specific

      • dhork@lemmy.world
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        13 hours ago

        Really? She was to the right of the Clintons? Obama? John Kerry, even? I think you have a selective memory.