The Democrats and Republicans agree that the world isn’t fair. Idealistically, the Democratic response to that fact is trying to make things more fair (minimum wage increases, regulation and customer protections, social services, etc) while the Republican response is to exploit the unfairness for personal gain.

I’ve toyed with the idea of staffing the House by sortition. Maybe not entirely random, pooling from State and local offices might be more practical, political efficacy is a skill and a little experience is valuable.

Victorian style top hat

Having this pop up in the middle of a dozen goofy 5 minute skits with guys in Garfield and Odie costumes was an unexpected surprise, but a welcome one.

Sometimes, and Congress can override the President, as happened in the case I linked. If 2/3s of Congress decides to block the president on everything, there’s not much the president can do.

deleted by creator

What good does voting for a presidential policy do when Congress just blocks it? Offering people things they actually want, but you have no ability to provide, is the oldest trick in politics.

Used to swear a lot, still swear but much less frequently.

The effect of swearing is fairly diluted, they’re used so often they don’t really carry any weight when you use them. I find that there are typically better ways to emphasize a point, and using them more sparingly makes them more effective.

Not particularly. She has basically no real experience in political office, despite running for several offices. Some of her policy positions sound fine, but without any way to actually implement those policies, they’re just empty words. Plus there’s some shady implications between her and Russia, and historically the Green party is funded by Republicans because they’re an effective spoiler.

So she sounds cool on the surface, but without more progressives in Congress her attractive policies aren’t remotely actionable. If you want a useful progressive candidate, vote for progressive in local and state elections every chance you have. This presidential election is not an effective time to vote third party.

Biden didn’t drop out because some online leftists refused to vote for him, he dropped out because big donors that back the Democrats wanted him to.

Back pocket for me. Even at my most active I’ve never had it fall out. Just have to remember to take it out when you sit down.

Vote progressives into local offices so they can get experience to work in state offices so they can get experience to work in Congress so they can get experience to be a good presidential candidate. Also to fill offices at every level with progressives.

Ducks. Masters of land, air, and water. Good ol’ duck, nothing beats that

Clearly she wasn’t referring to the office of Vice President, but was acknowledging that he was a president beset with numerous vices

Why should it? Why should anyone vote for a candidate with no political administration experience? Regardless of their stated positions, what evidence do voters have that any of the third party candidates have the skills necessary to execute the duties of the office effectively? Without progressives in Congress, how exactly is a progressive administration supposed to navigate gridlock better than the neo liberals?

With the exception of Donald Trump, every single US President previously served as a Senator, or Governor, or a Major General, or Secretary of State, or Director of the CIA, or something. Some kind of higher office to prove their fitness in a political administrative role.

If we want a progressive president, we need progressive members of Congress and State Governors. Not only so we have an experienced candidates to put forward, but by having a significant representation people will just psychologically consider a progressive candidate to actually be viable.

And if we want progressive Governors and Congresspeople, we need progressive mayors and County Commissioners and Attorneys General to pull from. And if we want those, we need progressive City Council members and School Board members and all the other local elected offices.

These third party candidates with no real political experience shooting straight for President are so counterproductive, it’s difficult to imagine they’re anything but bad faith, intentional spoilers.

And they will not be progressive.

20% of House reps are in the Progressive Caucus, we’re not starting at zero here.

And they will not make it into the party full time. Just see how vilified the Squad is.

The Squad exists. The bigger they get, the harder they are to bully. Seat by seat.

Building up dual power by organizing in Communist Parties, yes. That’s what I recommend.

Which is it? Can progressive candidates get elected, or not?

-You don’t stop fascism by voting it out, the conditions for it remain until Capitalism is overthrown.

How, pray tell, does one overthrow Capitalism? If you lack the support and coordination to elect progressives, where are you finding support and coordination for the revolution? I feel like a broken record, you keep ignoring this.

Again, even if everyone voted for PSL this election, they cannot beat the network of checks and balances. Capitalist States are designed against change.

Again, the more pieces of those checks and balances you control, the looser their grip.

The State must be smashed and replaced by a State-as-non-state, ie an organization of workers units in a syndicate

Magic and vibes.

The groundwork is organizing outside the bounds of Capitalist Electoralism, Congress will never shift progressive, you’re trying to rewrite history.

If it’s impossible for Congress to shift progressive, progressives don’t deserve to win.

More magic and vibes, trying to beat the overhwhelming forces of Capital with hopes and dreams, rather than material efforts.

If democratizing your workplace and directly engaging your local elections to generate more viable progressive representatives aren’t “material efforts”, I don’t recognize your use of the term.

Maybe the right way is to fix the reasons they feel that way in the first place, and pull them out of their echo chambers. Even the Nazis didn’t try to kill half the voting population.

The bad side of the Nazis was executing people.

Every time a third party candidate is proposed, the very fact that they are third party is used against them despite popular policy.

Proven, again, being the important distinction. Randos coming out of the woodwork every 4 years with swell official policies but no significant political administrative experience are not proven. Senators and governors are proven, they have a track record to look back on to see how effectively they actually implement their policies.

And to get progressive senators and governors, we need progressive mayors, county commissioners, city councilors, etc to seed those higher offices with proven political administrators. These third party candidates are shooting too high too fast, and spoiling the vote in the process.

In order to make it to the federal level, you must satisfy donors and wealthy Capitalists, and support their economic interests.

And how exactly do you plan to implement revolution? A coordinated, distributed grassroots network of leftists supporting a cause? Maybe try that. Build unions, vote for pro-union candidates at every opportunity, draft referendums to empower unions. You want to coordinate the proletariat? Do it.

You’re pretending fascism is an idea that magically sprouts out of thin air, rather than a known phenomenon as a reaction to Capitalist failure.

No, I’m not addressing the source of fascism at all, I’m purely concerned with its popularity. You need to change material conditions, which requires power, which requires support. If you have majority support, you have the votes. If you don’t, the revolution wouldn’t work anyway.

The way you combat lots of money is lots of people. If you have the apparatus to lead a successful revolution by the majority, you have the apparatus to elect progressives. If you don’t have it, you don’t have a revolution by the majority, you have a revolution of the minority.

Even if you could elect progressives, they still can’t enact change. The structure of the US is designed to uphold Capitalism, and as long as it is, it will act against any change to the status quo. The “democratic” apparatus is filtered and controlled by wealthy Capitalists, you yourself are arguing against progressive candidates in this election, pretending you’ll ever change your tone.

Again, the answer is to stop trying to skip the groundwork. Get as many progressives into as many offices as possible as soon as possible. When Congress starts shifting progressive, suddenly a progressive president isn’t so far fetched, and the general population is more likely to consider one. You can’t jump straight to President.

Engage your community, flood your local community boards with progressives. Get the ones who do well elected to city council. Prove that your policies work in your city, then your county, then your state. The presidency is the highest administrative office in the country. I don’t consider anyone without experience at the level of at least governor to be a serious candidate.