Vote when it's not trending? That sounds boring and hard!

Bernie was doing well in 2016 until the DNC kneecapped him.

Get money out elections if you want change, but neither party is willing to. The oligarchy works for itself

Did the DNC stop anyone from voting? There was nothing to stop us from outvoting the establishment. "Oh no, the moderators liked Clinton!" The RNC tried way harder with trump and failed.
Are we not as capable as goddamn republicans?
- Do you understand how superdelegates work? they're not assigned by vote.
  As well, the Bernie campaign was blocked from accessing the voter rolls because they reported a bug to the DNC that allowed them to view stuff the clinton campaign was doing. They did not exploit it, they just reported it.
  Also, did you read that hacked/leaked memo where the DNC chair admitted to intentionally sabotaging Bernie's campaign? no one has ever contested the contents of that memo. in fact the DNC chair resigned over it. (and you're an idiot if you think Hilary wasn't pressuring the DNC chair to do just that. Hilary always has someone else to throw under her campaign bus.)
- Yes they did actually, do you not know or remember what fucking happened??
- This response is ironic considering your post.
  Failure to acknowledge how the DNC and super delegates operated in 2016 is a great way to ensure the rightward ratchet.
- Funny how that comment is getting downvoted heavily.
  You annoyed somebody
Obama outperformed the establishment Democratic candidate in 2008 and became the candidate. It's not impossible.
- Oh to go back to a pre citizens united world! lol
  I am once again asking to get money out of politics.
  Get. Money. Out. Of. Politics.
  Get money out of politics.
You just proved OP's point.
Look at Obama. No one thought he could get past Hilary in 2008. He got his people motivated and hit the streets.
You want to get your candidate in? Organize!
- That was before citizens united. This doesnt prove op’s left bashing. Like I said earlier GET MONEY OUT OF THE POLITICAL PROCESS

remind me, what Primary did I get to vote in to pick against Harris?

That super cool one with Dean Philips and Marianne Williamson. But frankly there wasn't really a ready pool of willing candidates, and there still isn't.
The very public V.P. courtship process was sort of the de facto primary we got. Or the closest thing to it.
I would need to know what US state [if any] you are registerer to vote in to look up what your primary options were. And how you might have used it best to state an opinion.
In NJ:
We did have the uncommited option (got 9%, nearly the rest to Biden at the time, you could have also written in any other elegable person) However we also had a senate race:
In the democratic primary senator race, the results were (aprox) 9% for Lawrence Hamm 16% for Patricia Campos-Medina 75% for Andy Kim
If you want the US to be less involved with the Netanyahu government Kim was the worse of the three.
And this decision (ie who will be in the senate, driving laws) makes a huge difference in the party wide policy, that is the primary policy Biden (now Harris) is following.. Since the president is inherently a centrist roll. (Ie center of those the people elect, this can of course shift left/right/up/down/ect with the electorate)
Is the system perfect no.. (but posts on instant runnoff voting, or ranked choice will make the post a book, and they are not yet the system in play, last these systems would really only help reiterate the signal the primaries give.. It would be still someone in the center of the electorate at the top.. And if we are lucky more parties)
- I'm guessing the downvotes are people who don't like how much sense you're making and prefer whining online
- Maybe in bizzaro land, Harris wasn’t listed on my ballot in 2020

What Democratic primaries?

In case you're unaware, there were tons of them around the nation. There wasn't one for the president this time, but there were still plenty of primaries that were very influential. Your local officials have more impact on you than the president does.
- So even in local elections people are not allowed to vote for a third party?
- There wasn’t one for the president this time, but there were still plenty of primaries that were very influential.
  There technically was, it just not one where other candidates can really compete. The incumbent is pretty much guaranteed to win their primary.
2016 or 2020.

But... but... but that would mean... making an actual effort! Playing the long game! BO-RING!!!
bOtH pArTiEs ArE tHe SaMe LoL aMiRiTe

America would be a better place if people realised politics happens 24/7 and not once every 4 years.
- Because in people's mind, politic is purely about backstabbing and rich people party, and not about governing and policy making.
- When people say that, they usually don't mean voting in primaries or wasting your precious life in a party.

Not the best argument in 2024 given the circumstance but yes, in 2020, the "we need someone to beat Trump" crowd scoffed on the idea of Warren (my pick) or Bernie. But with the current system it kind of makes less sense too since Biden mostly won support in states he had no shot winning, so by the time it was even CAs turn there was no hope.

At least in 2008 I felt like it worked. Obama was a thousand times better than Clinton.

Totally fair point about 2024. Though I would suggest that given Sanders' outspoken opposition to what's happening in Gaza, we might have a very different situation in the middle East had progressives voted in sufficient numbers in 2020. (Which in of itself would be a good thing but when I see complaints about Harris also being bad for Palestineans, this is my first thought.)
- I doubt it would have made a difference. DWS would have ratfucked it for Hilary even if Bernie got more votes. Nobody ever remembers the unpledged delegates which are about 20% of the total and don't have to follow the will of the voters.
- Yeah, I know exactly why you memed it and I'm only poking fun since 2024 was primary-less. I'm not sure if anyone would have approached Gaza differently (save for some of the crazier options, like Tulsi Gabbard) because even Bernie might find himself in a bind on this one.
  At this point I almost fell like we just need more people to get into politics. More AOCs rising the ranks, but even getting smarter people running the DNC. Too bad most of the poli-sci people I've met in school were dense as hell.
  Edit: oh dear, 2020 was more depressing primary than I remember. Biden won such Democratic strongholds as... Oklahoma. Texas. Arkansas. Alabama. etc etc. I get that the minority blue in those states should get some say, but they are who you can thank for Biden. I mean, Florida handed him 162 delegates to Bernie's 57. Ugh.

You underestimate the power of whining online.

MAGA is the result of decades of talk radio and pseudo-journalism aimed at curating a very specific way of seeing the world.

They refined a narrative that was persuasive, easy to upload into people, consistent in how it framed emergent issues, and instilled a sense of urgency that encouraged its adherents to spread the gospel and get politically active.

Obviously, we need to vote. But if you think victory is getting a Bernie 2.0 to 51% in a primary, you’re gonna be sorely disappointed by the general. It needs to be a slam dunk. We need a cultural win before we can have an electoral win.

That cultural win gets won from the bottom up, the people need to vote politicians like AOC and Bernie into every seat that comes up for election in every layer of government and push every neoliberal incumbent out. From local school board elections to the senate. That means that people need to show up and vote in every primary and election and not wait for the big one once every four years. The left wing of the party needs to put more focus and money in these smaller elections and put actual leftists or progressives candidates on those local ballots. That’s how the Tea Party and Maga republicans gained power inside the GOP.
I bet many of the Bernie voters have never voted in a local election in the years prior to that primary.

Promote NPVIC and RCV in your state.

Electoral politics won't work in favour of leftist goals. The system is rigged from the start.

Best you can do is vote for a lesser evil.

How are they rigged? Except for requiring a majority, which seems reasonable, If we can't get a majority of the Left to agree with us, then what is your alternative? Force them to adopt your ideals?
- Multiple people have explained to you exactly how the primaries have been rigged.
- Money wins elections and nobody with money is going to help a leftist.
- Just look at how basically every left party in Europe has become a neoliberal painted in a different color. Germany has a coalition of "social democrats", a green party and liberals and they still cut welfare, try to deport black/brown people (sorely needed on the job market) and screw up climate politics.
  Every concession made in favour of the left has been reached through mass movements.

You would vote in the Republic primaries...
Don't try to stretch the Overton window. You need to move the right side of the window left.

This is how black people in the south managed the Democratic party; by voting for the least racist Democrats in the primaries, no matter who won the general election they were better off.

It's basically ad hoc ranked choice and it prevents extremist candidates from winning.

This is how black people in the south managed the Democratic party; by voting for the least racist Democrats in the primaries
The black voter enjoyed a heavy Republican bias for nearly a century, and suffered much of the same treatment (GOP treated them as a captured constituency, Dixiecrats suppressed their turnout with fraud, incarceration, and terrorism).
By Kennedy, the northern Dems were embracing civil rights not as an electoral strategy but a labor organizing strategy. The vote was largely split, with black voters biasing by party in individual regions rather than as a national block.
It wasn't into Clinton - when Southern Strategy Repubs had fully purged their party of black voters - that the trend was fully reversed. That wasn't a decision by the NAACP or the median black voter. It was a Nixonian gambit. Black voters were viewed as a handicap. Appealing to fascism was how you obtained a majority in American politics.
Reagan, the Bushs, and then Trump seemed to further this theory. You'll get two white voters for every black voter you lose, by being the most racist candidate in the ticket.

They fucked Bernie and just substituted Harris for Biden on somebody’s whim.

Op: is this a democracy?

Bernie bros didn't show up to vote and lost the nomination.
You: the system is rigged ¯(ツ)_/¯

Ah, but you see, the primaries are rigged! They're rigged because, uh, um because the democrats are scared of change, yeah, and if we want real change we have to um. We have to uh.

Wait, no, because january 6 was bad,

lol did you actually follow the last democratic primaries? Because if you did and you don’t think that shit was rigged as fuck then you’re a fool or being disingenuous.
- LOL, the OP calls out people who complain about the democratic primaries without taking part in them, then you wave your hand so we all turn to look at you, and what do you say?
  DUR THEY WERE RIGGED, I WASNT THERE, I DIDNT TAKE PART IN THEM, BUT I AM A GREAT POLITICAL MIND I READ ALL ABOUT IT IN MY PARENTS BASEMENT GOOBER GOOBER!!
- It's a show. Has been since Raegan. Technically not a lie but never the truth. In some dimensions, it always was.
They’re rigged because, uh, um
Party Control of Party Primaries: Party Influence in Nominations for the US Senate
Using a simple and easily understood measure of party support, I show that candidates who are less connected to the party are less likely to win and also less likely to remain a candidate in the primary. I find that parties not only are effective in helping candidates win but also are influential in excluding certain electoral options from being presented to primary voters.
- That's not being rigged, it's a Democratic Party election. No shit someone from outside the party will have less influence.
- Unfortunately I cannot read that paper without paying money to a journal. Would you care to provide a summary of the methodology?
- Bernie did better in caucus states [controlled directly by the Party] than he did in states with primaries.

I kinda wish I could, but I can't vote in primaries unless I'm registered with the party and the way the ~~nazis~~ MAGAs have been acting I don't exactly want to put myself on a registered enemies list... I've been registered independent since 2016 :(

I don't think anyone is mad about this idea

My state has one of the very last primaries, after the outcome is already decided. I did vote for Bernie in 2016 and 2020, but it meant nothing because he had already dropped out of the race by then.

Fair. The state by state process seems so weird to me. (So, we should vote more folks into the DNC and change it! There's a theme here somewhere...)
- Expecting to change the system from within is laughably naive. We still can't pass legislation to replace the electoral college, 24 years after Al Gore got cheated.
  Shouting down people who try to talk about real problems with "Well then I guess you should've voted!" is obnoxiously unhelpful. Bitch, I fucking did vote, and the problem is still here, so what now?

I agree with the comic, just a kinda funny election year to post it.

Biden ran virtually unopposed in the primaries this year, despite his low approval numbers. And while you'd have to go back to the 19th century to find an incumbent denied the nomination, there have been serious challengers like Ted Kennedy to Jimmy Carter in more recent history. Seems the problem is also with lack of serious challengers, as well as lack of participation in the process from those looking for more significant change.

Yeah, odd without a primary. But think back to 2020. Bernie ran again and is strenuously opposed to what's happening in Gaza. If we'd shown up to vote in the 2020 primaries, I wonder/pray/doubt we'd be inches away from a trump presidency.

You know the GOP elites weren't really outvoted. A lot of them are comfortably still in office. A bunch of others just retired and handed them the keys. The biggest gift Trump gave the GOP is his ability to be a lightning rod of controversy and dominate the news cycle.

He is the best cover and distraction from their dogshit policies they could ever have dreamed of.

And that most Democrats don't support drastic changes and want tweaks.

Look up Jerry Falwell and the Moral Majority.

Jerry made the Evangelicals a huge power in the GOP by simply having his people show up at every single GOP organizing meeting.

If twenty people had picked the nominee for dog catcher last term, the Moral Majority would show up with 50. Those county clerks and sheriffs were soon followed by Mayors and Governors and Congress members...

Now that's a smart strategy, we need to get organized on this level.
- People need to stop focusing on how Hilary beat Bernie and look at how Obama beat Hilary.

We tried that. The result was Wilding vs DNC Services Corp.

As a leftist who's been voting in Democratic primaries for the last 24 years: Outside of some extreme enclaves in major cities there aren't enough of us to make a difference that way.

But conveniently there are enough of you that being alienated and not wanting to vote for the Dems is enough of you to lose the entire election and it's all your fault yadda yadda yadda.
Important enough to cost the election, yet not important enough to influence anything.
- It makes sense that we can cost them the election and not have any power in the primary, considering we're the minority

R E A L

Do all 3?

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