“When someone says both sides, its obvious they have not been watching the actions of the political parties. Lets look how they vote.” - /u/armored_cat
Really annoys me when I read apathetic people saying that Dems and Reps are the same. Yes, there’s a lot of crony corpos in the Dems side but they are in no way even close to the same. There’s a lot of stuff the Dems have done that I’m not a fan of, but are still not even close to being the same as Reps.
This is a great comment that outlines the stark differences on voting records that I archived so it wasn’t lost.
They are not the same, make sure you vote to keep the fascists out. Also vote in the primaries so we can get more progressive/populist representatives as candidates. Voting is not the only answer to salvage the future but it’s definitely a part of the answer.
The thing that upsets me so much about the both sides argument is that while it’s an absolute nonsense, the dems have done a good job of working hard at doing nothing and allowing people to maintain this illusion.
Neoliberalism adopted during the clinton era and their pull right and unwillingness to stand for or fight for anything outside a few token causes is what lead us to where we are. Like think of all the blue collar voters that would probably still be voting blue if the dems didnt spend 2 decades being indifferent or anti-union and enacting policies that helped line the pockets of big businesses
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Also vote in local elections
They matter a huge amount for how your state, county, and city function.
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Yes, also very important and can’t believe I missed including local elections! Good call out!
No worries, many people overlook them or forget to bring them up all the time.
Hell this last election in my locality was with a hundred votes in some cases.
Talk to your neighbors, talk to locals, be the advocate for your community if you can. Even if all you flip is a single vote that’s a single vote more than before.
We’re learning that lesson in spades now with all the shriekers and Bible thumpers trying to stack school boards, ban books and curriculums.
Not only trying, but succeeding.
vote in local elections, vote in primaries. Get as many progressives in as you can.
I’m personally a pretty hardcore leftist, and from this position both liberalism and conservatism are too right leaning for me. Of course the democrats are closer to me, but I think it’s important to keep in mind they are conservative lite, not truly left leaning. Establishment Dems in particular do not have the best interests in the people in mind, similar to Republicans. “Both sides” are acting to preserve capitalism and consolidate power, not distribute it.
With that in mind, the typical “both sides” argument that there’s extremists on both sides is ludicrous to me. Extreme leftism doesn’t mean forgiving student debt or implementing a UBI, it’s banning corporations in lieu of co-ops, or replacing any company that provides things we need to survive with state-run monopolies (like single payer healthcare, for example). Neither side is left enough, and rhetoric that there’s a happy medium between the two parties will end with us being incredibly right leaning.
Edit: should have mentioned Biden forcing the striking rail workers to go back to work. That is not leftism; democrats are not an extremist party.
Completely agree, the Dems have a lot of changing to do before they’re close to representing what the people truly want and need. But they are the political party that’s more left leaning and could more easily be pushed to a progressive stance with proper primary turnout from voters. You raise a lot of additional points on areas they need to improve on that I didn’t cover in the post though.
Yeah, the US is now in this weird state where center right policies are accused of being communist.
Wait until you realize that both sides is true, but not because there isn’t a difference between them. Both parties do suck. One just sucks worse, and so long as we accept the two party system, that’s the way it’ll be. We’re stuck picking the lesser evil
The way I put it, I don’t like either, but one doesn’t want my friends dead, so I’ll begrudgingly vote for them.
I desperately want to vote for someone who genuinely supports the workers. There’s plenty of demand for American manufacturing, no one wants to take the jobs because they’ve historically been low paying, grueling, and dangerous and our culture has repeatedly beat it into people’s heads that they are failures if they work in a factory instead of an office.
Yeah, almost every issue with jobs in the US could be fixed with more pay. “Nobody wants to work anymore” my ass. Paying more would solve literally almost every single problem.
If they want domestic manufacturing, pay people more.
The solution to the “both sides” argument is to develop a rigorous system of values based on purely logical reasoning with a definitive answer to what is ethical and what cannot be tolerated. As long as people follow emotional arguments and lines of reasoning based on higher-level concepts that fail to highlight the chain of proof that has led to their truth, then uncertainty will cause inaction and complacency.
In my experience, there are two kinds of people that say both sides are the same.
Apathetic voters and libertarians (ie conservatives who figured out saying they’re a conservative makes most of the country hate them).
Exactly, nobody that says it is doing it to actually add anything or advance the conversation. One of my biggest pet peeves when discussing politics, just look at the link I posted. They’re nowhere close to the same, you’d have to be willfully ignorant of the data.
Exactly. It’s just a dog whistle.
I’m going to throw in a defense of saying both sides for the sake of argument. Both sides can be guilty of similar behavior and pointing that out should not imply symmetry between them. I personally find it frustrating to discuss topics that aren’t framed explicitly as right VS left because you immediately get piled of for “both sides aren’t the same!!”.
You’re unusual. Most people say “both sides” as an attempt to shut down discussion or as another flavor of “what aboutism”.
