this post was submitted on 28 Oct 2025
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Occupy Democrats
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I think many ITT need to hear this: perfect is the enemy of the good.
Hope and strive for perfection, sure! But anyone looking for a candidate that is going to exactly mirror their own own views on policy are as misguided as those who voted for the orange shit stain because he "talks just like me."
Please stop pretending that second worst rises to the level of "good".
I would say likewise that the better is not the enemy of the good enough. Criticizing the choices you are presented with is a positive act, and leads to having better choices.
When you're voting it's black and white, but at least when we're just talking online feeding lobbyists and polling company's sentiment analysis machines, then you can tell them what you really think.
Dude isn't even on the scale of perfect to good.
Sure. There is no such thing as a perfect candidate, but it's still your responsibility to vote for the best candidate.
The best candidate who can win. If 1% of the people who voted for Nader in Florida had voted Dem instead, George W Bush would not have been President. The world would be in a very different place if people hadn't voted against Al Fucking Gore in favor of a more environmentalist candidate.
24,000 Florida Democrats voted for Nader, but 308,000 Florida Democrats voted for Bush! That's almost 13 times more.
Additionally, exit polls showed that 1/3 of Nader voters would've voted for Bush instead, 1/3 would've voted for Gore, and 1/3 would've just stayed home.
This, however, is a myth that refuses to die, because the Democrats will always blame the left for their failures.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brooks_Brothers_riot
It would not have mattered. The riots would have simply stated earlier in the recount process and Jeb / Katherine Harris would have tossed out a few extra boxes of ballots sooner.
Dems were straight up robbed. They took it laying down. And that was the real end of the republican form of government, at least in Florida.
I can't argue with that
That's such a copout though. There is like 3% of the population that won't vote Democrat because they're not super-based anarcho-communists or whatever. There is a far larger percentage of people that won't vote Democrat because they fucking suck at doing half of what they promise, and only promise a quarter of what they should. Perfect is the enemy of good; good should be the enemy of student loans, or for-profit healthcare, or, oh yeah, fucking genocide. I voted for Kamala, I pushed people to vote for Kamala, but holy shit you can't just bury your head in the sand and pretend that everyone who didn't vote for her was just purity testing.
Good thing I didn't say what you said i said.
I mean, who else are you talking about if not Dems who didn't vote for Harris? Repubs who didn't vote for trump?
You didn't explicitly call them out by name but to me it's pretty obvious that's who you're talking about.
Possibly true, but not why we are where we are
Again, not why we are where we are, and it's a copout to say that. Here's why:
????
I'm so tired of these takes. Trump won. I could care less if the next one is a slightly left of center corporate Democrat. The GOP has to be avoided at all costs.
The only way to avoid the GOP is to burn the existing Democratic party to ashes. That's the lesson of the last three elections. The current Democrats are not capable of winning elections against the GOP.
Agreed there is no path to reform here.
Well, not all costs. If a Berniecrats gets as close to the Presidential nomination as Mamdani has to Mayor of NYC, it's pretty clear the Dem establishment will slit it's own throat in defiance.
Half the joke of it all is liberal Lemmyites screaming "Brainwashed! Russian not! Tankies!" at all the actual Harris campaign volunteers who had to carry her water for three months and are now complaining about it.
Anyone who still defends Biden/Harris in 2025 meds to touch some fucking grass. You're in the extreme minority. These candidates were openly reviled within their own voter base. That's why they lost.
insert thank you meme
It's like they lose systemic analysis the minute it affects them. Talk to a liberal about drug addiction and they will immediately (correctly) point out that no one chooses drug addiction; that even if an addict individually chose to stop, it does nothing to change the underlying conditions and would largely not affect the issue. Systemic problems, systemic solutions.
But the fucking second you point out that even if cohorts of people individually chose to hold their nose and vote Dem, it would do nothing to affect the broad unpopularity of the party or move the needle on voter engagement, OH LORDY did The Left ^tm^ not vote hard enough.
You don't have to vote every race and issue on the ballot.
Edit: It really is true. If you don't like any of the candidates in a race, you can skip it. In America there's no way to vote against, at least in national races like the president. There's no "white ballot" or voting "present".