There are only two parties that have a mathematical chance of winning. You can throw your vote away on a third party, hoping to get them 20x their highest ever turn-out in the hopes that they get more money if you want. But know that what you are actually doing is indistinguishable from simply not voting. Work on getting ranked-choice voting in your state first, then vote your conscience. Voting third party now just guarantees another 4+ years of Trump.
Whattrees
joined 2 years ago
The Dems have moved a LOT in 50 years in almost every aspect. You think the Dems of 50 years ago would have even tried to forgive student loans? Hell, even in 2016 it was laughed out of the park. Believe it or not, the Dems have moved on their position with Israel, just not enough to be hugely noticeable. The biggest change has been Israel increasing moving further right and the Dems staying where they have been/very slightly moving.
In the past few weeks we've seen Biden go from "Ceasefire is off the table" to "We helped organize a humanitarian pause." They just announced a plan to block violent settlers from the States. It's not much, and certainly not enough, but to act like the Dems have not moved on anything in 50 years is a level of stupid I cannot abide. Hell, the Dems of 50 years ago passed DOMA.
Maybe... Just maybe, don't threaten to throw the whole country, including yourself, under the bus just because you can't completely change a country's position they'd had for over 50 years in 2 months.
then there's all the other stuff like student loans, the child tax credit
I see someone isn't following what is happening or how this works. The President, leader of the Dems, changed federal policy to forgive student loans (or at least a big chunk of them for a big chunk of the population) and it got struck down by the Supreme Court thanks to the other party. The Dems passed the child tax credit and then couldn't get it through the house to renew it because of the other party.
Generally voting for democrats on the federal level just means halting or slowing down the inevitable ratchet towards fashism, not actually improving things
Let's say that's true, it's objectively not but let's pretend it is. Isn't that still the obviously better option? How the fuck is fascism today better than fascism tomorrow?
Yes, because that worked out so well last time a block of Dems threw a fit and decided not to vote. The party definitely learned a lesson and would never do something like 2016 again, right?
It literally is crazy. It's psychotic to think that the party would change their mind about the system that holds them in power after another 4 years of Trump, assuming we even get to have a real election again at all. Project 2025 anyone? It's psychotic to think that all the harm that will come from another 4 years of Trump, now with a grudge, nothing left to lose, and a playbook of how to not be stopped is somehow worth the hope that Dems will change their mind. You know what made the party pick Biden in 2020? The four years of hell before it. You know what will guarantee a "moderate" Dem as the only option in perpetuity? Another 4 years of Trump. Allowing him to win doesn't move the party left, it moves them right to try and get people who actually fucking vote from the middle to move over. The closest we ever came to an actually left president was after 8 years of a moderate Dem.
There would be the same reaction if FB or Instagram or any other big platform was found to be allowing ads next to objectionable content (content the company in the ads would not want associated with their brand) AND that platform said that it wasn't an issue, they won't change policies to prevent it, and told them to go fuck themselves.
Twitter could absolutely have filters in place to prevent ads from showing up next to literal Nazi posts with a simple word list. The posts Media Matters showed were not subtle or underhanded, they were saying the quiet parts out loud. It would be trivial to prevent ads entirely from those posts, but then they'd lose ad space. It would mean less if this had happened with borderline posts or posts using coded language.
Facebook faced a ton of backlash for it and only stayed around because they are big enough that companies thought they'd lose more money by not offering their app then they'd lose by offering it. Also, as bad as Facebook moderation is, they were actively removing posts and banning users for things they said about J6 (odd to call it a protest but ok), which Parlor was refusing to do until after they were removed from the app stores. Parlor wanted to be all about free speech (hmmm just like Twitter now says they want to be) and refused to moderate the calls for violence until they were forced to by the big three, which led a lot of users to be angry at them and leave for other free speech platforms even less moderate than FB or Parlor.
So, are you saying you don't have any evidence they colluded in the past, and no evidence that they colluded now, but are still believing it?
until they were able to get ads to show up
Yes, so they were able to get them to show up then. That means there are not mechanisms in place at Twitter that would prevent those ads from showing up next to Nazi posts. Which means the companies absolutely had a reason to pull ad funding. If you owned a company and were spending millions on ads, would you be ok knowing that it's possible your ad shows up next to Nazi posts or Holocaust denial? Would it matter that it doesn't happen most of the time? If it's possible then Twitter has massively dropped the ball.
Where in the article do they say those ads "always" show up beside Nazi posts? They outlined their methods, and showed screenshots for proof. Even the CEO confirmed that those ads did show up next to Nazi posts, she just claimed it didn't happen often. Media matters never claimed they happened all the time with every ad. If you had above a 5th grade reading level or had read the original article you'd know better.
Did any of those hearings end with a conclusion and solid evidence of collusion? How many of those companies or executives at those companies got convicted of market manipulation or conspiracy, or even charged?
Once again you are pointing to multiple independent companies, who are each other's direct competitors, doing something at the same time and attributing that to collusion when there is no evidence for that at all. Is it that hard to imagine that multiple companies would decide at the same time to stop offering an app that harms their brand? Especially when those companies were getting heat because Parlor was used to organize the Insurrection and had many calls for violence? Also, are you now claiming that they previously colluded in support of Twitter but are now colluding against it?
You seem to have a tenuous grasp on....well, everything, but certainly reality. Companies do what they think will make them the most money. If all three thought that having Parlor on their app store, or ads on Twitter next to neonazis would make them less money than not doing those things, they would decide not to do them. It's really really basic stuff.
By definition, a blockade is an act of war, regardless of who does it. I'm not sure why you'd think I wouldn't call the US blockading some country and act of war (although I have a guess), just as much as I'd call Israel blockading Palestine as an act of war.
The reason other countries don't respond to a US blockade with all-out war is because we get other countries to agree to the blockade first and then do it as a block, which means the blockaded country would have to be prepared to fight the US plus its allies. Given the relative size of the countries' militaries involved, the blockaded ones usually decide not to fight.
Agreeing with the US's decision to support Taiwan against China is not the same as support for all US military decisions, or even most of them.
That's a pretty wild guess given how China keeps doing military drills involving amphibious landings and flying into Taiwanese airspace/going into Taiwanese waters. You wouldn't practice amphibious landings to prepare a defense against the US, you'd do that to prepare for an invasion. China talks a lot about not using its military outside its borders, which has been mostly true, but they see Taiwan as within their borders so it doesn't really tell us much.
If China wants to limit imports of goods from Taiwan they absolutely could, and it would be difficult for the US/Japan to respond to, but if by "restricting trade" you mean a blockade then that is an act of war that the US/Japan would respond to much more aggressively. Just like China would respond if we blockaded them.
Are you saying there are no differences at all between which party is in power? That people's loves aren't objectively better under one party than another?