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Means to an end, maybe. But do the ends justify these means? And what makes you think a leftist utopia is even the ends of all this in the first place?

I’m really having trouble parsing your suggestion here.

1. DEMAND better.
2. Don’t just sit out election.

But surely a demand comes with a consequence if not met, right? What is the consequence in an election if not withholding your vote? But you said not to sit it out. Are you arguing in favor of voting 3rd party then? I have to assume that’s your intent, though you didn’t actually say that.

If that is your position, sure, but the problem with voting third party is that, without the mother of all grassroots followings, no third party candidate stands a shadow of a chance. And there was clearly no such popular candidate for president last election. And providing third parties with support is as bad as just not voting if they no chance of winning. It just amounts to not supporting your preferred candidate that does stand a chance.

That is fucked. I know and I agree. But that is the nature of First Past The Post voting and always will be. It’s a lot like the prisoners dilemma. The best possible outcome for you would be to get your most preferred third party candidate, but if you vote for them, and the rest of the voters don’t, you split the vote and end up giving your least preferred candidate an advantage instead. But voting your mosr preferred two-party candidate/popular candidate, or least of two evils as it may well be, comes with some negatives, but is an objectively better outcome.

We need election reform to get rid of FPTP and the two-party system with it. That is no small thing, I know, and there is no quick way to get that done. All we can do is advocate for it, vote for other advocates for it, and hope that eventually it becomes a party platform. But until then, we have to live with the reality and vote strategically. Demand better in so far as you use your voice and your dollars to support better candidates, vote in the primaries for the better candidate, but use your vote on election day with the system we have. Unfortunately, that does sometimes mean voting for a bit of evil to save yourself from a lot of evil.

What got us Trump 2.0 was people refusing to support Kamala. Apathy, protest, contempt, indifference, whatever their reasons, they didn’t show up and give her their votes. A big part of that is her fault for failing to live up to the standards the left expected of her, for failing to excite left wing voters. Those voters were perfectly justified in not being happy about the idea of voting for her, but, ultimately we are worse off because they didn’t. And choosing not to vote at all or to vote third party instead is on them alone.

I’m not going to lie, this mess will only end with the sitting congress and judiciary growing some nuts and shutting all of this shit down, OR with a military coup. I don’t see either happening. Realistically, we have likely had our last truly free election for the foreseeable future the way this is going. I hope I’m wrong.

I agree. It’s important to not lose the thread or your sense of reality when focusing on internal problems. Internal problems are usually differences of opinion, perspective, or goals, but with the same or similar basic values behind them. It’s important to keep those shared values in mind even while nitpicking the other stuff when you’re trying to influence the direction of your side. Keep in mind that you are all going generally the same direction while the Right is pulling against every step you take together, and just because your differences among the Left is your focus now doesn’t mean it is a bigger deal than your differences with the Right.

Fight all you want, by all means, bring those in power further left. But at the ballot box come election day, I don’t care if the dem wants to sacrifice puppies on weekends. Guaranteed their Republican opponent has a factory grinding puppies into various consumer products by the millions. And their 3rd party counterpart likely has a greater chance of getting elected to mayor of flavortown than to congress/president (and also still probably kills puppies casually among friends themselves).

Is this system bullshit? Yup. Is it the one we got? Yup. We need to deal within that reality. By all means, let’s work to change that system, but for the love of God, let’s not shoot ourselves in the foot when our favorite candidate doesn’t stand a chance in hell, or the more likely candidate is blatantly flawed (but still better than the alternative)