• @tsonfeir@lemm.ee
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    944 months ago

    All it takes is enough people choosing not to participate in a clearly two-party system , and we have Trump for 20 more years.

    Go ahead, do your protest vote. Vote your conscience. Whatever you call it.

    Yeah, we need a better voting system… but we don’t have one at the moment.

      • @Deceptichum@sh.itjust.works
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        4 months ago

        So never?

        Like there is literally zero reason for them to ever put forward a candidate who tries to bring about this change if they can never lose your vote.

        • @xmunk@sh.itjust.works
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          93 months ago

          The time to have a meaningful vote is in primaries and usually in elections outside the president. Senators and House Reps can advocate for and potentially enact a better voting system. Your state congress might also be a good place to focus if your state isn’t yet in the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact - that wouldn’t get us all the way to prop rep or ranked choice but it’d at least get us past the idiocy that is the electoral college.

          • Semi-Hemi-Lemmygod
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            13 months ago

            The time to have a meaningful vote is in primaries

            People keep saying this but nobody I’ve voted for in the primaries has won going all the way back to Kucinich.

            I’m beginning to think it doesn’t actually work.

            • @xmunk@sh.itjust.works
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              13 months ago

              It’s fucking hard to overcome centrist corporate democrats but the number of progressives in office has been creeping up.

          • @Ensign_Crab@lemmy.world
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            -53 months ago

            The time to have a meaningful vote is in primaries

            This would carry more weight if Democrats had a presidential primary where the nominee wasn’t preordained since 2012.

        • @Ensign_Crab@lemmy.world
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          13 months ago

          The only time neoliberals even pretend to want rcv is when they’re using it to set limits on how people to their left should vote.

      • @Ensign_Crab@lemmy.world
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        -133 months ago

        This looks like you’re setting a criterion you know won’t be met. In the unlikely event that it is met before the two party hegemony yields fascism or societal collapse, I have little faith that there won’t be a shiny new criterion to prevent voting against the duopoly.

    • Hugucinogens
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      4 months ago

      I don’t think you’re wrong per se, but maybe, maybe, a political party should have to serve its voters’ interests to get them to vote it, instead of relying on the other guy being a ghoul to gather fear-votes and blackmail-votes from those it ignores.

      Not an American, but given similar experiences in my country (Greece), I absolutely do not blame them.

      Our right wing politician just got the most popular re-election and standalone election statistics, and the only reelection-higher-than-first-election numbers, in our country’s political history.

      And everyone hates him.

      I’m going to over-over-simplify, but the reason for those numbers, is that our left has failed at serving the rights and interests of the people, and then has been cannibalising itself, getting corrupted, and losing members for at least 15 years.

      If a system is so corrupt that it doesn’t take care of its citizens, they’re naturally going to stop caring and supporting it. The ghouls will take over, because ghouls thrive in corruption better. 100%-Hitler will win, when his only opponent is 75%-Hitler, because 100%-Hitler is actually liked by some part of the populace.

      This kind of fattening-of-the-ruling-class has been the way almost every single empire has weakened itself into collapsing over time, in human history.

      • @tsonfeir@lemm.ee
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        34 months ago

        We need to trim the fat, so to speak. But that takes revolution, and—Americans—can’t agree on where the fat is.

      • Semi-Hemi-Lemmygod
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        33 months ago

        I’m going to over-over-simplify, but the reason for those numbers, is that our left has failed at serving the rights and interests of the people, and then has been cannibalising itself, getting corrupted, and losing members for at least 15 years.

        Yet another country where this sort of thing happened: A feckless, corrupt, out-of-touch left loses to a douchebag on the right that everyone hates. It happened in the US, it happened in Argentina, and it keeps on happening in Britain, and I’m sure there’s a bunch of other countries I’m forgetting.

    • @Ensign_Crab@lemmy.world
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      23 months ago

      Yeah, we need a better voting system… but we don’t have one at the moment.

      Every time I see this, I think of the cable employees from south park.

    • @Pacmanlives@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      That’s how we end up with Trump in the first place…… A lot of people didn’t like Killary Clinton and the Dems fucked Bernie in the contested convention

    • @OccamsRazer@lemmy.world
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      -83 months ago

      Trump can only be president for another 4 year term, and changing the term limit requires an Act of Congress. Implying that he somehow intends to subvert a very established part of the system is pretty alarmist, and also gives him far more power than what he actually has.

      • Billiam
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        103 months ago

        My dude, the Constitution is literally just a piece of paper. It can do nothing without the will of the population to enforce it. You think Trump cares what it says? Or the party that backs him? Or the millions of voters who are begging for an excuse to commit violence?

        Conversely, the government has whatever power the population gives it. If Trump decides he wants to be a dictator and stay in office, and the GOP don’t resist, the Constitution won’t magically force him out.

          • Billiam
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            53 months ago

            If Trump decides to stay in office

            You know we have footage from when he already tried that, right?

            and if nobody resists

            I didn’t say “nobody” I said “the GOP”. No one who has been paying attention the last eight years could reasonably say that the GOP as a whole would oppose Trump in his efforts to remain in office.

            • @OccamsRazer@lemmy.world
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              -13 months ago

              It’s not up to the GOP. A lot of people would need to be on board with that before it can happen, including a base who is ideologically supportive of the constitution and term limits in general. I won’t get into Jan 6 because that’s a quagmire of misinformation and nobody actually knows the truth yet. In my opinion, if that was an attempt to overthrow the government (as opposed to a rally or a protest), it was so weak as to be laughable. What were they going to do with a few thousand people and no guns? Anyway even if he did have delusions of being a dictator, a lot would have to change to make that possible.

          • @jhymesba@lemmy.world
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            23 months ago

            You know, once, I agreed with you that calls that one political party or the other would overthrow the will of the people and cling to power after being voted out were alarmist and full of bullshit. When Bush supporters said the Dems wouldn’t respect the results of the election in 2004, I pointed out that Clinton left the White House in 2000 without complaint. When Obama supporters said that they were worried Bush would pull off a coup, I pointed out that Bush 41 and Ford both left the office at the end of their terms when they lost the election. When McCain supporters said Obama wouldn’t leave the White House in '12, I reminded them of Clinton and Carter. And when Trumpers said in '16 that Obama would pull off a coup, I reminded them that their counterparts on the Left said the same thing in '08.

            I said the same thing after November 2020 to Biden supporters, thinking that Trump was more likely to leave the country in late December or early January to go to a place where America’s court system couldn’t get at him. I was pretty damn sure he was going to buddy-buddy up to Putin and other Dictators from a country without extradition to the US, like Saudi Arabia, North Korea, or even Russia, leaving the USA to do some ‘MAGA diplomacy only I can do,’ with him setting up some Right-Wing Shit-Agitation site on the web, collecting cash from gullible Americans thinking their problems are everyone else’s fault but their own.

            Then January 6th happened. And for the first time, we did NOT have a peaceful transfer of power.

            There’s still room to say ‘hey, he hasn’t overthrown the duly elected President yet…because if he had, he’d be President right now’. BUT…I don’t think it’s a far jump to say that Trump is very likely to pull a Putin on America’s Presidency to become President for Life if we give him a chance to.

      • @tsonfeir@lemm.ee
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        43 months ago

        I think being alarmed is pretty rational at this point. I feel you may not be paying attention to recent events.

        The GOP intends to coup. They’re not actually being quiet about it. If they get Congress, The Supreme Court, and the Presidency, they get the country.

        • @OccamsRazer@lemmy.world
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          -13 months ago

          I haven’t heard anything about subverting democracy, coup, or anything like that except from alarmists who have something to gain from peddling that brand of fear. Any time someone tries to convince you of something by using fear as a motivator, you should wonder what they have to gain by it.

            • @OccamsRazer@lemmy.world
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              03 months ago

              I don’t watch Fox News or any other populist news channels. All they do is peddle fear of one brand or another. I’m basing my comments mostly on having watched the same type of drama and rhetoric every election cycle. That and seeing/hearing what people actually say and not immediately accepting what news outlets or other political demagogues say they said.

                • @OccamsRazer@lemmy.world
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                  -23 months ago

                  Ok well if you are right then I will track you down to apologize, but if I’m right, then you need to admit that you were being alarmist and partisan. Deal?

  • @LovingHippieCat@lemmy.world
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    813 months ago

    This article was written by Jeff Charles. A podcaster and political contributor who has appeared on fox News and Newsmax. He’s also anti sensible gun control, transphobic and believes being trans is just ignoring biology, believes that schools should ban books that have “ideology” in them (anything queer), thinks kids are being indoctrinated just because it occasionally comes up that there are different ways of being a person, says he’s an anarchist but will say libertarian sometimes to avoid “making people think he’s crazy” but just doing that shows that he doesn’t actually understand what anarchism is (or how crazy some libertarians are), and also talks about how the left wants Americans to be dependent on the state (all social programs). He’s also on point for some things, specifically things that most libertarians ascribe to, like fuck cops and anti drug war. But like most libertarians, he only believes in his “do whatever you want and leave me alone” mentality when it lines up with his personal beliefs.

    I don’t disagree that there are black voters who are frustrated with the dems, but this is not a very good article and is written by an ass who has to push the idea so he can continue to be brought onto Fox News and Newsmax to talk about it and so his site gets new subscribers. Subscribers that have to pay 50 bucks a year for his premium content. Which I’m honestly surprised doesn’t cost more. He’s also partnered with Doni Anthony who has his own site/substack, which when you’re on the landing page, the second article is, well, it requires subscribing and I’m not gonna do that. But it’s about a bill called the Inclusive Democracy Act of 2023 which is about restoring voting rights to people with criminal records/felonies who have done their time, the article is about the “hidden” reason the democrats support the bill, which is a far right conspiracy that average voters would never vote for a democrat so they have to make new voters to be able to win. It’s all baseless conspiracy stuff and is the same thought process for the “illegal immigrants voting” conspiracy.

    The point is that an article is only as reliable as the author is, and this author is just crap.

    • Hypx
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      343 months ago

      The poster of this article is almost certainly some kind of troll. If not a Russian agent, a fascism sympathizer. If you look at his posting history, it is almost entirely about attacking the Democratic party and Biden. Even when he is “pro-progressivism” it is usually in the form of a concern troll.

      As a result, everyone should ignore return2ozma. And it’s probably time to block him entirely. Also, report him for being a troll, since he breaks the rules on a regular basis.

      • @TankovayaDiviziya@lemmy.world
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        183 months ago

        If not a Russian agent, a fascism sympathizer.

        Even when he is “pro-progressivism” it is usually in the form of a concern troll.

        I have observed the same pattern with other users who are pro-Trump and pro-Russia. They would claim to profess an ideology and say they don’t support Russia and Trump, but then put their heads into the sand and pretend Trump and Russia did not do anything wrong.

      • Neato
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        3 months ago

        Yeah. He’s the second “both candidates suck” account I’m having to block. Seems like posting to generate voter apathy which helps Trump.

        • Hypx
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          193 months ago

          Saying “both sides are equally bad” is a common tactic for those who want the bad side to win.

      • @xmunk@sh.itjust.works
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        -143 months ago

        Please feel free to block him, but the articles are usually interesting and they bring up topics that the mainstream media doesn’t like to.

        • Hypx
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          233 months ago

          The problem is his dishonesty. It’s likely watching Foxnews or Newsmax. Sure, you can do it, but unless you’re intentionally about seeing the “other side” then it’s a waste of time. You’re just exposing yourself to right-wing and fascist propaganda.

          • @xmunk@sh.itjust.works
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            -83 months ago

            I don’t find them dishonest and at least one mod is certainly aware of the controversy surrounding them - they’ve commented on this article themselves.

            Nearly all the articles they post are factually interesting - they may be uncomfortable to think about (and politics is heavy shit so feel free not to engage) but they’re news. This isn’t right wing propaganda but it is a lot more centrist than what you’ll see on NBC or CNN - but that camp of the media was absolutely flabbergasted when Hillary lost to Trump (electorally).

            I’d prefer to keep seeing stories from this poster so I don’t get blindsided.

            • Hypx
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              183 months ago

              Everyone on the left that is reasonably informed is aware of the danger. Trump could plunge the US into a fascist dictatorship. As a result, we are all vigilant on trying to avoid it. But guys like return2ozma are trying to muddy the waters as much as possible.

              So be careful with this line of thinking. Same goes for mods who tolerate him. History of such characters tells us that sooner or later, return2ozma will say something outrageous, like making statements blatantly in favor of overt fascism or whatever. Eventually, the mods will have to respond or face a crisis.

              • @jordanlund@lemmy.worldM
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                3 months ago

                Oh, we’re all aware. But here’s the thing, they aren’t breaking the rules and the sources they are posting are all above board.

                We get it, the demo of Politics currently is VERY pro Biden, but when major news orgs like Newsweek and NBC are putting out negative press like this, it needs to be concerning to everyone.

                Burying their posts does a dis-service to the community by removing a contrarian opinion.

                Now, if they were posting links to Fox, or OANN, or, I don’t know, is Breitbart even a thing anymore? I’d remove that shit with a quickness and I’m pretty sure they KNOW that, which is why their links come from reputable sources.

                So long as it’s not written by the usual batshit crazy types like convicted fraud Dinesh D’Souza, we’re good.

                https://www.fbi.gov/contact-us/field-offices/newyork/news/press-releases/dinesh-dsouza-sentenced-in-manhattan-federal-court-to-five-years-of-probation-for-campaign-finance-fraud

                • Hypx
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                  153 months ago

                  The demo is focused on being anti-fascist. Biden just happens to be the main line of defense, if not the only one. Hence the sensitivity to those that only seem to attack Biden.

                  Anyways, if these people aren’t going to be banned, then I will say this: Everyone should block every users that seems like a troll on this topic. And the same goes for any communities that seem “off” on this issue. And for problematic instances, demand your local instance defederate them entirely. Hopefully, decentralized social media will be able to avoid the disasters that happened in centralized social media.

              • @aidan@lemmy.worldM
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                -63 months ago

                The goal of this sub is not to boost a candidate we as mods prefer to another. The reality is a lot of people have a lot of views I dislike, my role is not to suppress them.

                • Hypx
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                  143 months ago

                  There are limits to that type of thinking. As someone that is very familiar with what happened at Reddit, Twitter, even Digg before them, you are absolutely playing with fire here.

      • @LovingHippieCat@lemmy.world
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        53 months ago

        Sure I’ll bite. This article was written by John Burn-Murdoch, and from what I can tell, he is not related to Rupert Murdoch and just seems like a boring centrist. So let’s look at his first graph. It says it shows diminishing support for democrats among non-white voters, supposedly showing they’re now at 60% support for non-white voters entirely. So the argument is that they are leaving the dems because they’re being disillusioned. That 60% figure is suspicious though since actual voting shows completely different dynamics. In 2022 the breakdown actually shows around the same amount of support in particularly black voters, 93% of black voters supported the dems, which was around the same amount as the election in 2020 and 2018. But in the graph in your article it does not use those numbers. It uses share of non-white voters who identify as democrats, not actual voting patterns. The author uses that to show that black voters and other non-white voters are separating from the democrats, but never mentions the actual voting data showing that despite not identifying themselves as democrats, they still vote for democrats.

        The next graph does the same thing, uses how people are identifying themselves in a poll as opposed to actual voting data and doesn’t even make much sense when actually looked at, especially since the y axis isn’t labeled so it’s confusing. I mean, does it show how nearly 100% of white voters in 2022 are republicans and close to 100% of white voters are liberal? It just makes no sense and is not a good representation when the author doesn’t even provide context to what the graph is trying to say. It makes no sense. Then he uses a book to try to illustrate that black voters are abandoning the democrats, but that book “Steadfast democrats: how social forces shape black political behavior”, was released in 2020 and is about how black voters are unified around the democrats and examines the reasons for this. So this author is using data to say what he wants to say that actually says the opposite of what he is trying to say. Then the next graph supposedly shows racial breakdowns for different more conservative beliefs and for those that identify as liberal or conservative. But it as a graph that also makes little sense. 75% of black voters identify as conservative while close to 90% or above identify as liberal? How can you have those numbers when they don’t add up to be 100%? There’s not 165% of black voters. This graph is suspicious as fuck, if you are gonna use percentages and want me to take you seriously, they need to add up to 100%. I’d also like to acknowledge here that multiple of the links in this article that are supposed to lead to actual other articles, actually just lead to the main page, that could be because I am not a subscriber, it’s just annoying and not the important part.

        Anyway, lets go to the next graph which the author introduces by saying that he extended the books research to include all non-white groups, despite it again not actually showing what he wants it to show. He claims it shows that different races are increasingly identifying as conservative, but it uses the book and a Pew Research Center American Trends Panel Wave 43 to make that case. But from what I can tell in that pew research trends panel, there is no mention on how many non-white voters identify as conservative, so I have no clue where he is getting that information unless it’s from the book which I also doubt given the book being about how black americans rally around the democrats consistently. The article finishes by saying that as the US becomes less racially segregated, more black and non-white Americans will change party affiliations to republican. But all it uses for that is just the census data which never mentions less racially segregated america leading to more non-white GOP voters. It also uses a republican pollster named Patrick Ruffini and his book “Party of the People Inside the Multiracial populist coalition remaking the GOP” as evidence, again, for showing how black voters are abandoning the democrats despite the fact that the share of republican black and non-white voters hasn’t changed much in the last couple of elections, the distribution is the same, it’s just that turnout was higher so there were more non-white GOP voters. Okay last thing on this incredibly long post, the article actually ends by saying that these voters are likely to become swing voters and that they likely will be won back by the dems, or at least can be. Essentially saying that all that he was saying in the article wasn’t actually influential and that the distribution in the voters could still be the same. He doesn’t use voting data for the entire article, which is the most important data to use when it comes to this.

        Anyway, I couldn’t find a lot on John Burn-Murdoch, but this article is still trash.

  • @Makhno@lemmy.world
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    343 months ago

    I work in construction, and there are several black co-workers of mine that support Trump.

    Idk why it is so hard for media to grasp that there are chuds of every race.

    • @rayyy@lemmy.world
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      133 months ago

      It is not unusual for decent workers, outnumbered by right wingers, to go-along-to-get-along to keep their asses out of unneeded troubles.

      • @Makhno@lemmy.world
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        43 months ago

        Nah dude. Plenty of non-white workers saying bigoted shit all the time.

        People need to stop attributing morality to skin color

    • @Bonskreeskreeskree@lemmy.world
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      133 months ago

      Construction is just a circle jerk of vocal trump supporters and people too concerned about being astrocized by their coworkers to speak up. Right ring identity is peer pressured onto people that don’t pay any attention to politics. It’s all just jokes and games to these idiots

          • @Makhno@lemmy.world
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            3 months ago

            So how far back can a “Trump circlejerk” go? 2016?

            Also, what type of area were you working in? Because I live/work in a metro area around our state capital, which is a factor when it comes to how diverse my workplace is. I can definitely imagine a rural workplace being more white-centric and conservative.

    • Hypx
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      -33 months ago

      While that story is not impossible, it is vanishingly unlikely. I know that there’s enough racism in the construction industry that it’s a rare occurrence to even see multiple black people at a worksite.

      • @Makhno@lemmy.world
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        113 months ago

        I know that there’s enough racism in the construction industry that it’s a rare occurrence to even see multiple black people at a worksite.

        I’m one of 5 white guys out of close to 100 other production employees, lol. Have you ever worked in construction? At least here in VA it’s a healthy mix of latino, black and white

        • Hypx
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          -53 months ago

          I know enough to know that black constructor workers are surprisingly rare and usually discriminated against. Though I cannot say this with confidence for every region. Like I said, your claims are vanishingly unlikely, but not impossible.

          • @aidan@lemmy.worldM
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            93 months ago

            What? How can you know it’s vanishingly unlikely then in the same breath say you can’t know for every region?

            • Hypx
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              It is vanishingly unlikely given what we know about the subject. Even the possibility of running into multiple right-wing black people at once in normal circumstances, given that they’re around 5-10% of the black population, is very unlikely. Combined with an industry where they’re rare to begin with, even more so. As a result, it is exceedingly unlikely that this story is real. But again, not impossible.

      • @xmunk@sh.itjust.works
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        33 months ago

        What region do you live in? I think that’s accurate for the Northeast and Midwest (even in the area around Detroit) but the black belt in the south is quite different.

        • Hypx
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          It’s accurate for the West and Southwest too. But I don’t know enough for every region to be totally certain that it is the case. Therefore, I am saying that it is “vanishingly unlikely,” not that it is impossible.

  • AutoTL;DRB
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    44 months ago

    This is the best summary I could come up with:


    The Democratic Party has been gradually losing support among racial minority voters over recent years, a trend that has garnered no small level of attention in the political sphere.

    Several other polls have confirmed that this paradigm shift remains in full swing as nonwhites gradually veer away from the party they called home.

    Yet while the GOP will undoubtedly pick up a higher percentage than it has in the past, that doesn’t mean that an exodus to the Party of Lincoln is in the offing—especially when it concerns Black Americans.

    In February, folks like Turning Point USA’s Charlie Kirk and other prominent Right-leaning figures decided it would be a good idea to attack Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and the 1964 Civil Rights Act during Black History Month.

    Entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy also came under fire for employing rhetoric about the Black community that was reliant on stereotypes and almost wholly devoid of solutions.

    While more Black folks are seeing that the Democrats have no intention of doing anything meaningful to give African Americans a fairer shot, it is not as if they have a home with the GOP.


    The original article contains 673 words, the summary contains 188 words. Saved 72%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!

    • Neato
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      83 months ago

      You keep trying to harm chances to avoid fascism. All you’re doing is Trump posting.

        • Neato
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          73 months ago

          Sure. But there’s a difference between 1 minority political party and electing one President who promised to be a dictator who will almost certainly get rid of democracy. We still have a chance to get rid of fascism in the USA without a civil war or foreign intervention. November might change that.

          • HACKthePRISONS
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            -93 months ago

            >But there’s a difference between 1 minority political party and electing one President

            we’ve been fascist for decades. it’s not a minority political party, it’s wall street, the intelligence apparatus, the military industrial complex, the prison industrial complex, the media conglomerates, the republicans, and the democrats.

            voting for fascists won’t stop fascism.

            • Neato
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              73 months ago

              Oh ok then. You are conflating actual fascism, which we’ve seen, with regulatory capture. This isn’t helpful but if you want to persist, it’s going to get a LOT worse when the mask-off fascists get into power.

              voting for fascists won’t stop fascism.

              Fuck this and everything like it. If your solution is to vote third party or not vote you are supporting fascism and helping Trump get elected. There is no other interpretation.