this post was submitted on 17 Jun 2025
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Vote in primaries, find and fundraise better candidates, and so on. It's not going to do much in the short term, but parties have major platform changes every generation.
Like what happened with Bernie Sanders? Like how things would be different with Obama?
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There's more than one position in government, and you're not going to get more progressive presidential candidates if you can't even be bothered to vote in more progressive house reps in the primaries...
I've already agreed that we should vote. But it's not enough.
Progressive ideas have effectively been taken off the table since the Cold War. Even if we can get more progressives in Congress, the establishment dems sideline them. It's easier for both parties to move to the right because this does not threaten the wealth and privileges of the oligarchy.
Any progressive running for president is, for that reason, fighting against the odds. And when they lose, they take the energy behind their campaign and redirect it to support "centrist" democrats. That's it, two political parties and we call ourselves a democracy.
Spoiler alert:
Bernie did not get more votes in the primary than Hillary.
Bernie did not get more votes, so Bernie did not win.
If you wanted Bernie to win, you needed to vote for him.
Why is this so fucking hard for people to understand.
You could make the same argument about any third party candidate, which would ignore their tremendous disadvantage in our current system. The DNC tilted support in Clinton's favour from the beginning:
Also, consider Obama. Obama did get more votes than Hillary. Obama had a majority in Congress. Obama literally ran on hope and change. And yet he continued in the same problematic behaviours. Government bailouts for the rich, drone strikes, holding prisoners in Guantanamo Bay for years without due process, persecuting whistleblowers, the list goes on.
Even when we find "better candidates" they either work for the system or fail to change it.