"Progressives should not make the same mistake that Ernst Thälmann made in 1932. The leader of the German Communist Party, Thälmann saw mainstream liberals as his enemies, and so the center and left never joined forces against the Nazis. Thälmann famously said that ‘some Nazi trees must not be allowed to overshadow a forest’ of social democrats, whom he sneeringly called ‘social fascists.’
After Adolf Hitler gained power in 1933, Thälmann was arrested. He was shot on Hitler’s orders in Buchenwald concentration camp in 1944."
Not a single party on the face of the earth is gonna switch to an alternative voting system. Democracy devolving into 2 parties is a problem in nearly every country and unfortunately the ones who can make the change are the ones who benefit from first pass the post voting
No “democratic” party is gonna switch to STAR or a similar voting system unless the citizens start being very loud.
On other hand, radicalizing people to support alternative voting is also very hard, because it is hard to explain and hard to understand for majority of people and its often viewed as if the supporter is trying to benefit from the said change and trying to sabotage democracy, when in reality, they are the ones who want real democracy
Vote for who YOU want to be president, regardless of if they have a chance to win or not. I wasn’t going to vote for Biden (or Trump) no matter what. I see people saying if you vote 3rd party you’re waisting your vote. You aren’t. You are supporting the candidate you like.
I am sorry, but this take is founded on a lack of knowledge about the spoiler effect in first past the post voting systems. Until more representative forms of voting are introduced this is an idealistic but ultimately misinformed take.
The spoiler effect is a system powerful encumbant politicians use to manipulate populaces at large in part by taking advantage of your better nature and belief in a flawed system. Voting your heart will just not be enough and it’s got hidden dangers. Pressure needs to be applied after this election to change the voting structure to a more stable and open system.
https://youtu.be/3Y3jE3B8HsE?si=qCvPLnk4u6FJ0ec2
Here’s a video that explains fairly susinctly what the spoiler effect is and how alternative voting systems disrupt it.
These posts are always missing the point. Voters will vote third party. Your moral claims won’t change that, but your candidate’s policies could. Also, most of us don’t live in swing states. Don’t pretend our vote matters when it never did.
Voters will but they can’t do so under the delusion that a) they are making any sort of change or b) that they aren’t hurting the actually viable candidate closest to them.
The winner of the election in every state will be the Democrat or the Republican, full stop. You can choose to help or harm the one closest to your opinion.
This is the type of delusion that eventually leads to fascism any way
“Hey don’t try to change anything because obviously only one of two people can win”
“Hey you have to change things from the inside of the party, you can’t just have a third party even though every half decent western government has multiple parties”
“If you don’t want to vote for a genocidal enabler of capitalism and class separation paid for by the same people who pay for trump/hitler, then you’re voting for trump/Hitler”
“You have to bring the super nuts authoritarian fascists into the group, and exclude the actual left wing people who are screaming for basic decency and rights for everyone”
“Oh no how on earth did the crazy right wingers take over the entire country who could have seen this coming? It’s totally not the fault of a governmental party that can’t sort their shit out and take on policies that a majority of it’s constituents want, but instead keeps sliding as far to the right as possible every time they have to move”
The delusion is thinking you can change things with a single election. If you don’t like the two party system (and I don’t) then you must get more involved in politics than voting for the president. You would need to elect principled progressives at every level of government, fight against fascism at every opportunity, and diligently protect the progress we have made.
Voting for a third party candidate is like showing up to a birthday party as they’re lighting the candles and complaining that nobody asked you about the decorations. It doesn’t matter if your objections are valid, you’ve missed the window to do anything about it.
He can write executive orders all day long but unless he’s repealing a previous order, it requires Congress to fund them.
And you might think he’ll just blunder along like last time, and I’d like to point out he did a lot of damage last time, but I believe he is FULLY aware of Project 2025 and I think he would try his best to enact much of it because it involves loyalty to him and enriching him. Either way, I’m not interested in finding out.
Sorry for the pedantry, but the term for cancelling an executive order is to rescind or revoke them. Only legislation is repealed.
After Adolf Hitler gained power in 1933
WHO GAVE HITLER POWER MOTHER FUCKER?
Nobody in history has been more vindicated than Ernst motherfucking Thälmann. A vote for a Social Democrat is a vote for fascism now just as it was then - and the Democrats aren’t even that!
I’m pretty sure if all Nazi voters instead voted SDP, Hitler wouldn’t have risen to power. The only reason the Nazi Party had any appeal whatsoever is because fractured voting meant chaotic governments, weak and ineffective chancellors, and leaving the president with no choice but to issue emergency decrees just to keep the state apparatus in semi-functional condition.
The one way, the only way, given the composition of the Reichstag, that the Nazis could have been kept out of power is if the Communists were willing to swallow their pride and work with the Centre Party, moderate right-wing parties, and SPD to keep Hitler out of the Chancery. Instead, look what happened. Hitler was appointed Chancellor and purged the Reichstag of opposition. The Enabling Act wasn’t passed because everyone wanted Hitler to have those powers. It was because you either voted with the chancellor or the SS would gun you down on the way back home.
That’s the problem with today’s so-called socialists. An absolutely myopic stance that what isn’t perfect might as well be the worst thing on the planet.
The SPD was joining with the right to crush workers’ movements long before the election of 1933. If the KPD had joined with them in a coalition it would have represented the KPD abandoning the German workers, and events from then on would have played out largely the same because the Social Democrats enthusiastically went after the Communists along with the Nazis, and it was once the Communists were taken out that the Nazis turned their ire towards the Social Democrats.
The only ways Wiemar Germany turns out different is if a) the SPD joins, rather than represses, the Spartacist Uprising, or b) the KPD manages to take control before being destroyed. It isn’t about being perfect, it’s about preventing the forces of reaction from having a foothold in the movement.
Then let it be. A liberal or conservative society is nonetheless better than fascism. What you have described is merely a situation where socialist and social-democratic politics have been electorally defeated by conservative ones.
The KPD chose to pout and fight to the bitter end rather than recognising that because they lacked the necessary amount of influence in the Reichstag to control the government, they could not get what they wanted, nor anything near it, and could only, at best, get an extremely watered-down version of the policies they want, or even settle for the status quo to prevent regressive policies from being enacted. Or even accept a mildly regressive policy to prevent a fascist one from being enacted. This is what democracy is meant to do. You give a little, and they give a little, and hopefully, we can both get a little bit of what we want or at least reduce the amount of the stuff we hate. If all of your positions are rigidly uncompromisable, you will find that a well-designed democratic system will keep you out of government and relegated to the sidelines unless you actually hold the popular mandate.
If the choice is to saw off your left foot or saw off your head, you must choose the lesser of the two. Refusing to choose does nothing to help you, and the KPD refused to choose.
Rather than accepting this reality, the. KPD decided it wouldn’t go down without a fight. Ultimately, they failed, and wouldn’t get the chance to govern (or even exist in public) for another two decades. Only after finding external help in the form of the Soviet Union and its Red Army did the KPD finally get what it wanted, subjugating the SPD. The new SED was ushered into government, will of the electorate be damned.
In the end, both the KPD and the Nazi Party wanted to destroy the Weimar Republic because they knew they could not get what they wanted by playing by its rules. The key historical difference is that the Nazis succeeded.
I don’t fault the KPD’s leaders for what they did. After all, we here in 2024 have the power of hindsight that was not available to them. But in the end, we must recognise that the KPD’s stubbornness certainly didn’t help with the collapse of the Weimar Republic and accelerated Hitler’s rise to power.
It is an uncomfortable position to be in when you are forced to criticise the decisions of those whose values you respect and agree with. But it must be done if the goal is to learn from history and not merely flaunt it.
