While there is a difference, you are right that there is not much of a difference. Not sure why that matters when Republicans are in power, though.

I do call out the establishment Democrats. Just today I called out the elevation of huge racist Chris Coons. But doing so here would be yelling into the void because it's mostly right-wingers.

@WilyRickWiles It's not about the "election". Whoever gets into office learns quickly what they are allowed to do. It's about sending a message to the people behind the throne that we're not entirely stupid and we won't be convinced by propaganda.

They want a globalist in power, not because these people believe in peace, love and togetherness. They want people who will take a particular wage to get a particular amount of stuff and then STFU and do as they're told.

Washington is run by the four banks that own the debt on all the nations and major corporations of this world. It's why BTC made the shit the bed at first and try to force regulation. It's why they locked up Ross Ulbricht for LIFE when pedophiles get out in 6 years. He built a secret website with technology that they didn't like.

Why didn't Obama pardon Leonard Peltier? He talked about it when he was community organizer Obama, when he was Senator Obama? Didn't mention it at all as President Obama. What would giving clemency to one NDN hurt?

The only people who got pardoned where people willing to play the game.

They want to fundamentally rewrite and reduce the civil liberties of the American public and a vote for Democrats is a vote for reducing freedom of speech and movement.

@WilyRickWiles, @dd54 Be nice to Rick. It's like walking away from a cult. It's next to impossible to conceive of because 1) it means you wasted years of your life and 2) all your friends are in it.

When it's done you feel stupid for not doing it sooner. Naw, I'm not a Republican. I'm just sending a message. It's about SENDING A MESSAGE.

@ThomasinaPaine Sending a message? What evidence supports the effectiveness of that strategy? I'll concede that it sends a message to out-of-state interest groups that they can swoop in and exploit low or third party voting with an astroturf campaign. No, abstention is ineffective and third party voting is pointless barring the enactment of ranked choice voting.

The difference between your politics and mine is that your strategy to take on "those four banks" is to drop out. Mine is to use multiple tactics--all of the tactics at my disposal--to confront them.

@WilyRickWiles What supports it? When you study people systems you see behavioral patterns repeat individually and as a group. When you are permissive with someone who has misbehaved badly they take greater and greater advantage. When you stop, they regroup. There was a UK election where people were just so sick of everyone that they just didn't vote in large numbers. It dropped to like 11% and that forced a huge change in how the people in that district were treated...for awhile.

Your approach is that rather than dumping the cheater for someone else if you just clean up more, lose weight, and go to the gym he'll love you again. It doesn't work that way.

Like children, those in power only learn when they sit in the time out chair for awhile.

@ThomasinaPaine The problem I see with your strategy is that there are two viable parties. You aren't interested in organizing, so that means you can only teach a lesson to one party at a time. Assuming that you are able to communicate your message, which is dubious because politics is complex, the parties and their backers have the advantage of using their platforms to influence the narrative. Just look at the durability of the "white working class swing voter" narrative despite all of the recent research about non-voters and polarization. Was the Democrats' loss in 2016 enough to teach them a lesson? In 2018 and 2020, the Democratic leadership continued decades-long trends of supporting candidates friendly to capital and voter attrition with young, working class, and rural voters, while some outside left-leaning groups supported more progressive candidates. Their strategy turned out to be moot because negative partisanship (hatred of Trump) caused a surge in turnout. We can only speculate on whether that surge could have been anticipated. Regardless, the party's backers also have the ability to move their support from one party to another, neutralizing your strategy.

@ThomasinaPaine Bottom line, vote tactically, but admit its limits and acknowledge that power dynamics are more complicated than "the four banks decide everything." Each voter will make their own calculation.

@WilyRickWiles I voted for one of those viable parties for many years. I campaigned, held house parties, donated, went door to door, and watched them continue to drone (despite Code Pink's many protests with Iraq Veterans Against the Wars), wrote the White House, wrote my Senators--both of whom I helped in many ways, and they honestly don't care or give a shit.

They will tell you, me, and everyone what we want to hear and vote according to what their wealthier special interests groups tell them to.

More drones went out each year under Obama than the year before. The ACA was created during a supermajority where not a single Republican vote was needed--instead of Single Payer we got that and excuses. The TARP program under Obama helped banks, not homeowners.

Honestly, other than a few social bones they throw to keep up appearances what did they do that couldn't have been accomplished through referendum's quicker? What was done was done in a way to create a greater divide and bring NO ONE together.

We are a broken nation and I am ashamed to say its because of people like you and I. Left leaning media is 98% of what's available to transmit politics, social media..also left leaning. We control the message and quite frankly it is not a loving message.

It's hate your neighbor because they're Nazis.

That is on you and I.

@ThomasinaPaine While I agree with much of what you just said, there were small accomplishments which seem insufficient in the face of decades of larger losses. And while the Democrats have abandoned working class and rural people, and are insensitive to them, "hate your neighbor because they're Nazis" is a stretch. In fact, I find your message not much better. You seek to demonize and collectively punish left-leaning individuals when you know that there are more powerful interests distorting narratives and dividing people.

@dd54 I was responding to what she wrote about sending a message through her vote or abstention.

@dd54 And I think you're chasing the wrong dog by going after protesters like me and supporting Trump. I am fighting all the ways available to me. Cheers.