Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) said policy differences toward Israel between her and President Biden won’t stop her from supporting him in the November general election.
“Of course,” Omar said Tuesday, when asked by CNN’s Abby Phillip on “NewsNight” whether she would vote for Biden if the election were held that day, in a clip highlighted by Mediaite. “Democracy is on the line, we are facing down fascism.”
“And I personally know what my life felt like having Trump as the president of this country, and I know what it felt like for my constituents, and for people around this country and around the world,” Omar continued. “We have to do everything that we can to make sure that does not happen to our country again.”
We need to be rioting in the streets to change first past the post. The fact that we can only choose from the lesser of two horrible choices is inconceivable.
That said until we have better choices, we still need to consistently choose the better choice.
I think what you really need is a civil war to get anything changed. Historically this is how it tends to work.
enjoy the downvotes. lemmy is apparently full of limp-wristed pacifists. oh well. let them learn the hard way what happens when you are too chicken shit to stand up for what’s right.
I’m guessing you’ve never been in a civil war or looked up anything beyond the big battles they make you learn in high school?
The fact that we got out of the American Civil War without several follow on wars, dictators, and remote parts of the country deciding to leave by just ignoring the federal government is a fucking miracle first of all. But they’ve always been fought dirty. Right up there under religious wars. It’s not the Army you need to worry about, it’s your neighbor. The kid you grew up with who’ll give your name to the militia to keep suspicion off of them. It’s mobs armed with voter rolls burning anyone who registered with the other party too recently. It’s bombs in schools and malls. It’s people being arrested in the middle of the night and executed solely because each faction is afraid another faction managed to do something they didn’t see. (And there are always multiple factions in modern civil wars.) It’s the body of the only teacher who gave a damn turning up carved with the initials of a faction. Done of course by a different faction just to stir up animosity.
It’s not about being a coward. It’s about fighting in way that doesn’t turn into a fucking horror show.
J6 proved that they are willing to go there. it doesn’t matter if it’s ugly. you either get ahead of the game or let it roll over you. and if you don’t fight back, they will take a turn that ends even worse for the entire world.
That sounds like a reasonable opinion and not at all like a Russian shill talking point
stfu
no u
Yeah you got me, I’m a Russian shill bot. Let me know how voting for the lesser of two evil keeps helping your country improve.
https://apnews.com/article/trump-indictments-election-january-6-classified-documents-5cb04868bb1cdf91c19eafdb882af8c0
By not electing the 10000x worse evil.
You are so hyper focused on Trump you are missing the point.
From an outsiders perspective, it’s irrelevant who you pick, you need a change voting is incapable of creating.
tell you what: when russia’s overthrown putin, we can talk about civil war here. until then, fuck off.
ah you had me until you decided not to vote in ‘protest’. what a dipshit.
You might have been taught in school that democracy is some ideal or maybe living in a market economy has made you think voting should be like picking out a product on amazon and having it delivered to you the next day.
But the reality is that democracy is a grind. You aren’t going to get everything you want by voting in one election. You get a small amount of progress towards the things you want in each successive election. Are you willing to vote in every election available to you for as many decades as it takes to achieve what you want?
If you’re not willing to do this, it shows you’re not really dedicated to any of the causes you espouse.
You say that as though things are slowly getting better, when the opposite is happening. Your two party system is proving to be a failure.
What I also see happening is America drawing closer to civil war each year. You can prolong the inevitable, but it is coming and it will happen… the only question at this point is when?
PS: Love the name. It happens to be my Minecraft name. Huge Cowboy Bebop fan.
Trump’s going to win more than 50% of the vote in my state of Texas. Complaining about FPTP is so 1996 “Ross Perot Could Have Won” energy. In states and districts so heavily weighted that one party will take 60%+ it simply doesn’t matter.
That said, it might be nice if we had real proportional representation - party ballots and larger congressional delegations - such that voting for a Green or Libertarian or Reform party ballot means you might actually be sending someone who shares your views to the assembly, rather than just signaling dissatisfaction with the dominant parties.
Even the California Jungle Primary system would be preferable.
With a proportional representation system the parties hold all of the power and the only thing that matters is the negotiations that happen behind closed doors to form a coalition.
If the party you voted for isn’t part of the ruling coalition then your vote didn’t matter. Sure you got someone sitting in a seat in a legislature that shares your opinions on things but the agenda is already been determined by those who negotiated the coalition.
And while you may thinking that it’s possible that a party that shares your views might get into the ruling coalition, but it’s just as likely that a small far right party could get into a coalition, which is exactly what happened in Israel’s proportional representation system.
Or as we saw in the EU’s proportional representation system, a fringe separatist party can gain notoriety and expand their influence on the population and you end up with a Brexit.
“First past the post” or as I like to call it, a community representation system, has individual representatives control the seat. That individual representative can leave the party and will still hold the seat. Which means the party has to keep the representatives of the communities happy. And those representatives have to keep their communities happy. If a minority group in a community is willing to organize they can influence the representative, and that representative can influence the party. The power dynamics flow from the people upwards.
Proportional representation systems only look good from the perspective of a spreadsheet. From the perspective of power dynamics (which is all important in politics) they’re terrible systems. You get to vote for a party that completely conforms to a checklist, but that party may have zero impact on real policy. Sure you have to make an effort to influence your representative in a community representation system, but shouldn’t the people willing to make the most effort have the most influence?
What system do you think is better, then? Because, reading that post, the main takeaway I got was basically “the people that lost a vote don’t have much say in government,” which… That’s how democracy works? I’m confused.
In a multi-party system, that’s fine. Parties accrue delegates by appealing to a voting base. And candidates get onto the slate by working in and for the parties to bring in new supporters and achieve policy changes.
That depends on the parliamentary rules and constitutional provisions. But - generally speaking - if you’ve got a delegate you support in the parliament you’re much better off than if you’re casting a protest vote for an individual or group who will never hold a seat. Even if its a lone Ron Paul / Bernie Sanders esque voice, that’s a foundation around which to build a movement. By contrast, a Ralph Nader outsider who gets seen as a spoiler candidate every four years is going to build more hostility to your movement the more successful it gets.
Love my Jim Justice style politician
Why would I want a candidate that can win under a party banner that I support and then turn coat the moment they’re ensconced in a four or six year term of office?
Not if they’re doing the one-term Senate gambit, like Kristen Sinema. Six years cultivating favors with corporate interests, and then resign before you party can primary you out so you can take a job as a lobbyist.
Coalition governments build support by appealing to particular interests of the various party members. That means an “Abolish the National Debt” Party and a “Green New Deal Party” are going to form a different kind of government than a “Green New Deal” and a “Small Business Alliance” party. But if you’re interested in debt-politics and I’m interested in clean energy and third guy is interested in business start-up subsidies, we’re all better off supporting for our issue-centric partisan groups than aligning behind a “Generic Liberal” or “Generic Conservative”.