Reminder that Sanders is the opposition

2 years later and Hedges was right all along. Sanders actively stands in the way of creating a viable opposition to the 2 party state by funneling soc dem support to the democrats. Had he run third party he would have won, and at this point had he quit the democrats and started his own party it would gain lots of traction and create a new and powerful voice in American politics. Fuck Sanders, and anyone who supports the man at this point is a blatant cuckhold.

youtube.com/watch?v=zVii98IcUOs

I agree with all this except for this:
I really don't think think the U.S. govt would ever allow that to happen.
I think 3rd parties get way more votes than are reported and they'll never be reported accurately.

A viable third party wouldn't change the nature of the bourgeois state. Sanders has his uses in dragging people left while sanitizing socialism from years of propaganda, but you're a fool if you consider that any more than a stepping stone.

If that was the case Sanders wouldn't be the go-to punching bag the Dems, their scapegoat for Hillary's loss and there wouldn't be thousands of terrible articles and op-eds blaming him for not sticking together with Democrats.

The idea that he would have won running third party is very questionable, since his popularity was intimately tied to the fact that he used Democrat platforms to speak. Once Clinton dominated those, he'd be second plane either way, and if he had run and both lost Trump, which is the most likely scenario, the narrative that he had split the vote and that third-party candidates always help conservatives would be a lot more credible in the eyes of the general population and would set us back.

Sanders played his cards really well, and instead of complaining that he didn't go out to make inane fantasy scenarios real we should stick to following his lead on the things he got right and discuss the limitations of his model of Socialism.

USA
is that possible? How does voting in USA works?

Sanders is a kike, anyone who trusted him was a fool.

imagine the worst possible voting system. Then imagine it 10 times worse,

Wtf I’m a nazi now

It doesn't.

Sasuga, Hitler

More importantly, he refused to challenge voter suppression and election fraud.

There was some mild evidence of election fraud during the general in California at least. In Humboldt County, the only county with open source electronic voting machine software, Jill Stein got inexplicably more votes than everywhere else. They might have been trying to keep the Greens off the ballot for the next election by preventing them from reaching the quota.

This is on of the reasons that electronic voting should stand only as a secondary, on-demand option, or be used on stuff with lower importancy.

Every citizen must automatically get invitation for elections. All ballots must be anonymous. All ballots must be archived.

citation needed

He would have split the liberal vote and Trump would have won more comfortably

It was so frustrating to see the army of retards brigading this site during the primary trying to force this fraud or the idea of "American elections" here.

Friendly reminder that Sanders is the controlled opposition.

You mean being a cuck?

So, I take it that you're not a burger. The way the voting system is set up here in the states, and the way the two parties are so deeply entrenched in culture, and policy that there is NO possible chance for a third party could win, unless that party has enough support, and money, to essentially replace one of the two, this is nearly delusional navel gazing.

That's why it's time to get off your ass and start doing something about it. Organize a movement for approval voting (and proportional representation later).

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Do you honestly believe this horseshit?

Lenin was a retard for supporting invasion of poland, just like people in this thread advocating for it are retards too
he underestimated nationalistic fervor of the masses
for polish proletariat it was not a class war, but a war of national liberation
even if soviets somehow had won, they still would've been forced to maintain an occupational force in poland at all times
poland would've been a timebomb

The point of reformism for a Leftist isn't the reform in and of itself. It's to demonstrate that an alternative vision exists when shit really hits the fan and people have to choose something radical. That choice is going to be fascism unless you show people other options exists.

But this reform is not going to happen with the current constitution, there just isn't any way for 3rd parties to win within the constitution, much less without (both parties have passed a fair amount of policy that makes it impossible for 3rd parties to win.) Put on top of that that this is the one of the few issues that two out of two parties agree on. If there were a somewhat large voter reform movement in the US, a good half of them would (understandably) give up after hearing that the things they're trying to change is constitution level shit, some of them because the constitution is sacrosanct in many american's eyes, and the the rest would stop because they would need an amendment which is immedietly doomed to failure. The only way a reform movement MIGHT act as propaganda, would be in the fact that the parties would be shown ro be completely disinterested in the populace when their own power is questioned, and how easy it is for them to keep that power.

In fact, there is nothing in the federal constitution or any of the 50 state constitutions that mandates plurality voting. It is possible to pass Approval voting within the current system. Getting full proportional representation at a federal level would probably require a constitutional amendment, but Approval voting on its own at least is capable of overcoming Duverger's Law.

Also there's quite a big movement going on right now of passing ballot initiatives to commit states to constitutional conventions to pass a new amendment overturning Citizens United v. FEC, McCutcheon v. FEC, etc. to say that money in campaigns can be regulated.

highly doubt that tbh

What this kind of reform movement in particular does is two things: It educates people that our current democracy is insufficient and could be better. And it demonstrates that attempts were made in good faith to get these changes implemented. These are important details when a crisis arrives and demagogues try to convince people that the entire concept of democracy doesn't work.

Reminder that democrat platform is the only currently viable path for succdems to gain a measure of power in local elections

WSWS had his number from the start

The two political parties responsible for organizing the election system are the ones that count the votes. There were reports from this recent presidential primaries of trucks full of ballots just going missing and tons of ballots just being discarded or destroyed, on top of everything else.

If you actually believe that you're incredibly naive.

Get out class cuck

Tbh this is bullshit considering the Democratic Cops of America won with more people on indy candidatures or Green ones.

the whole secret ballot system is retarded
it basically gives all the cards to the one who is counting

you mean HAD

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Everybody hated Clinton and Trump.

What did he mean by this?

are you legit retarded?
it right there in the next sentence

leftypol needs to start adopting the anti-shill mentallity. Is there a real choice besides that right now? Do we win something supporting any of the hillaries/trumps? No? Then, why are you fighting right now against our best chance to bring back class speech/thinking?

Fuck off shill

In middle europe people give their vote in public, so its impossible or at least more difficult to fraud the results when everyone is open who they voted and media follows pretty much with cameras near the ballot box.

Third party candidates don't show up on ballots in most states and they're usually not featured on televised debates. That's why the Green Party and libertarian parties had their debates streamed on YouTube. It's such a dumb idea to run as a third party. He would make zero progress. The greens got what >1% of the vote last election?

Fuck off you retarded Holla Forumsyp.

People fought and died to have this right only to be BTFO by some faggot on leftypol.

Greens are shit though, one of the themes the green lady had was 9/11 disclosure. The libertarian party had their biggest vote percent ever, because people who didnt want to vote for hillary or trump voted the libguy as a protest vote. Sanders would have gotten the protest votes, majority of demvotes, and some sort of fragment of trump votes because trump was "anti-hillary choice" for many. This is kind of retarded to speculate though, because theres nothing we can do about it a anymore.

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They were idiots if they died for a voting system that is easier to corrupt.

The libertarian has largely been successful because of the amount of outside funding they're able to get from rich business people and classcucks. The Green Party is financially a lot less competitive, which is probably why they wanted Bernie to run for them and take over the ticket (he was really good at fundraising).

But also, I'm sorry to break it to you… he would have done far worse as a third party. He did great, but he lost to Hillary and running as a democrat gave him much more of a platform than running as a Green, or some new party would have given him. really the main issue is just not being on ballots in a lot of states… it's possible to win, but so much more trouble and definitely more expensive.

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You realize that only Democrats could have voted for him in the primary in most states? Only about 30% of the country are registered Democrats. He would have had a much better shot in the general where independents and Republicans could vote for him.

Secret ballots were a demand as much as "1 man 1vote" was a demand. It's a basic foundation of liberal democracies. It prevents really silly forms of abuse, like being forced to vote for someone or being persecuted (killed, imprisoned, discriminated against, etc) because of who you voted for. As far as I know, no one has taken issue with this particular practice… until now.

Yes, it just allows for other silly forms of abuse, like not counting people's votes.

That's pretty retarded argument, soviets managed to manipulate elections even without secret voting. The biggest benefit of secret voting is simply the fact that nobody can be hold responsible for their political views.

this is such a silly scenario
if secret police forces people to vote society obviously has a far more serious problem, and no secret ballot will help in this situation

also, when it is in the open this shit can easily spiral out of control

It sounds to me like the ideal form of democracy is direct, immediate, and completely anonymous.
Read Denton.

how can you manipulate elections when you have a public database of all the votes where everyone at any time access and verify that his/her vote is indeed registered and indeed legit
any "dead souls" shenanigans can be easily revealed

Wrong thread but the option of cleaning Poland of Poles is always on the table

Yes. I don't think it was ever a fair fight, but even then, I'm saying he did much better than he would have done. Recall that especially at the start of his run, he was getting crushed and no one knew who this old, bald Jew was… and they definitely would not care about some Green Party debate being hosted on Democracy Now's YouTube channel for 20k viewers.

Also I feel like people forgot why he ran in the first place: it was to make some basic social democratic programs mainstream and to push Hillary to be less neoliberal. I think he was somewhat successful. A lot of younger people are on board with Universal healthcare, free college, 15 dollar minimum wage, etc.

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yes, unless state take over this perfectly totalitarian-friendly infrastructure and won't define crime for discrimination based on political beliefs.

I think pretty much everyone, except you, agrees that it's a good thing. I've never heard anyone complain about this.

wtf are you even talking about?
what about public databases is totalitarian you fucking brainlet?

you can go to hell with your anonimoos secret ballot bullshit
I will never trust secret ballot election results ever

adress my actual arguments against secret ballot anytime now

public access to your political beliefs leaves you vulnerable to discrimination based on them. That is what totalitarian regimes did in the past.
What the hell is your problem with secret ballots? Try to name any problem which will comes to your mind, and I'll find a country which solved it long time ago.

How about this: I don't want people to know who I voted for. Is that a good enough reason?

We'll I don't vote… but if I did. I wouldn't want people to know who I voted for.

as if FBI doesn't already know that you're a filthy anarchoshit
you're a fucking paranoid idiot
again if you get jailed for being a filthy commie, you obviously have far worse problems that secret ballot wouldn't be able to solve

also what about issue voting?
how about voting on the structure of the investment fund?
how can you be discriminated there? because you voted for the 60% of the fund to be invested into anime sex dolls?

then don't vote
also burn your computer and go live innawoods you paranoid idiot

The dems are in the same situation that the Whigs were before the Civil War dude, a split in one of the two parties in a two party system means we could have Social Democrats vs Republicans, and to be isolated on one side of the ballot means porky is in trouble.

are you serious?
yes, you should be free to speak your opinion even if you fear discrimination on matters like these.

? I'm not the one concerned that the government is changing votes in secret.

I will never understand this
nobody asking you to reveal that you actually fap to traps

what can you possibly fear? red scare? fucking ku klux klan death squads?
is there any historical example when groups of people were persecuted for how they voted?

do I really need to bring all the shady shit going on in every election ever?

it might be a shock but yes, there were quite a few instances in the past when having "wrong" political opinion got you even killed. I even made extremely angry my baker once for making a joke about one party during elections

I asking specifially about voting
provide an example when people were gulaged en masse for voting for a specific person of specific cause

No one's going to take what you say seriously when you continually act disingenous like this.

What about example when people were gulaged en masse for NOT voting for a specific person of specific cause?

I'm not going to waste my time on google trying to prove wrong your special snowflake case scenario, but I remember that there were an instance when some redditor killed his parents for voting for Hillary imo pretty justified, and I'm sure (you) can find more.

However hard you will try to twist it, act of voting is declaration of your political opinion (or at least partially in representative democracy). More power your vote have, more power will your political opinions have, and bigger chance of discrimination based on your political views will arise. Secret voting can be (and in many countries already is) reliable way to hold referendum about stuff affecting voter's life, without fear of discrimination.

so your solution is to hide your head in the sand and not deal with this directly?

you're not solving this shit, you're just hiding it
I'm done with you, have a nice day faggot

Can't you have freely viewable voting databases without them explicitly making it public who voted and for who? Everyone could receive "vote ids" which they could use to check in a, again, available for everyone website if their vote was actually counted or nah.

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Wow what an "Opposition", wow such resistance!!! Pushing for Imperialism and free shit for lazy liberals is not revolutionary nor is it any form of the "Opposition" Social Democracy is not "Revolutionary" nor is Bernie Sanders. A Capitalist scumbag.

Well he is a senator, can't really be making enemies if you expect to pass anything.

Reminder that Sanders supported the bombing of Yugoslavia.

bernie killed rosa tbh

I know this is from personal experience, but I'm from rural America and people worship the guy like a literal god. I'm sure it's like that in other parts of the world as well.

M8 are you autistic. OP is calling sanders our opposition. As in OP is saying sanders stands in opposition to the left, which you, I, and OP all know and agree on.

If Bernie Sanders went 3rd party he never would have appeared on the CNN debates. He would have had to debate Hillary, Jim Webb and Martin O'Malley over public access.

We're talking about after he "lost" the primary, after he already got exposure.

if it leads to the destruction of the democratic party it is good.That would be the first step the left in burgerland needs.

Republicans are in a dominant position at all levels of government. If the Democratic Party is destroyed, it doesn't lead to some magic revolution it just means republicans expand their control. I'm aware many of you guys don't actually care, but it's something that has actual consequences irl.