The thing is, Democrats have always had zero margin for error heading into 2024. Manchin was always unlikely to hang on to his seat. In West Virginia, the likely Republican candidate for Senate in 2024 is Jim Justice, the current governor of the state. Justice was elected governor as a Democrat, but switched parties at a Donald Trump rally in 2017, just a few months into his term, in one of the more pathetic “kiss the ring” maneuvers you will ever see from a full-grown adult. Manchin was most likely toast the minute Justice declared for the seat, and some polls have Justice beating Manchin by over 20 points.
Manchin was going to lose, and Democrats who hoped that he’d help them hang on to the Senate were simply fooling themselves. Frankly, instead of a conservative “Trump-lite” Democrat, the party should go find the most pro-abortion, pro-labor city commissioner in Wheeling and try to run a single-issue campaign on reproductive rights. That kind of candidate can lose just as hard as Manchin would have, but with a lot more dignity.
Ah yes. That tired refrain. “BUT BUT BUT YOU CAN’T HAVE THAT!”
it’s a 2 party system BECAUSE you vote for one of two parties, and you’re an idiot for abjectly refusing to even consider a 3rd party. In any case you say that as if Primaries aren’t a thing that happens between candidates of the same party. not that the DNC doesn’t fuck that over.
I voted 3rd party plenty of times and realized it’s never gonna happen with our current system. So get fucked in your imaginary world where a 3rd party could ever win. And primaries don’t exist for senate races
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vote_splitting#Spoiler_effect
It’s amazing. How many of you have given up. Yeah. I KNOW. all these argument your tossing a large part of how we got here in the first place. 2 party systems inherently favor the right. which is why the Overton Window has only shifted conservative since I’ve been alive. probably since the Boomers were younger than I am now.
none of all the down votes, none of all the shit people are throwing at me change that. the 2 party system is how we got here, and the lack of YOUR ability to even conceive of something different is how we stay on the path sliding further into fascism.
there are solutions, but we’ll never have them unless people start pressing for candidates who would put those solutions into law. as it stands now with the ‘established’ politicians and parties, they both benefit from sharing power in the 2 party system. democrats and republicans are both complicit.
Things like ranked choice ballots, taking steps to curb or eliminate gerrymandering, reversing Citizens United, etc. The reality is, however, neither of the 2 parties are going to support any of these changes until they start loosing votes because they don’t. Which means you need to stop voting for people who don’t support those things to have change. and you need to start being active in the local politics, advancing people who support these things.
Is it dangerous to vote for a 3rd party when trump is running? absolutely. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: trump is the greatest modern argument for the 2a; a But voting for candidates, and pushing local party leadership to candidates that aren’t merely “the lesser of two evils” is the only way to change the system.
You’ll note, that I’ve never called anyone to not vote for biden- and will likely be supporting him, knowing full well I’m selling the future for the present. Doesn’t mean I’m not pushing for people who support changing the system. But the established parties, as they are now, will never change the system, and the system can’t be fixed without change.
Ergo, the only change we can accomplish is by how we vote. and our votes are valuable- which is why asshole corpos are dropping millions of dollars in campaign donations to get their bought-and-paid for people to win, why Russian and China and who knows who else are running social media and propaganda campaigns to get their guy to win.
you and @halferect are now singing the main verse in the tired old song of “My Ass Won’t Wipe Itself, So I just Sit in My Shit.” and it pisses me off. Your ass won’t wipe itself so you wipe it. politics won’t change itself, so you change it- and you change politics by voting for different people. it’s totally profound, right? (/s on that. it’s pretty freaking self evident. see why Manchin is leaving the senate- people are realizing he’s always been a coal stooge, realizing he is a coal stooge, and will always be a coal stooge. The only way to get not-a-coal-stooge is to put someone else in office.)
Gotta love victim blaming the voting block for how the system is rigged. “Why aren’t you all changing the world, ya lazy fucks?”
If you really are older than the boomers than at least we’ll be rid of you soon enough!