There were over 1000 protests over the weekend. The one I went to in Surprise, AZ had almost 1000 people, in a fairly conservative area with mostly older, white demographics. I think the tide is turning.
To us on the outside, getting filtered news that trickles down, it just seems like there are no candidates. One is 79 and one is 83, where are all the young politicians? Why does the media choose to only emphasize a few of them at the time?
Actually, both major parties (not always at the same time) have a long track record of working very hard to promote voting for third-party candidates, doing things like funneling funds covertly (or simply nudging donors) to fund their efforts, assigning party activists to support third-party efforts, etc.
Of course, they exclusively do this for third parties whose appeal is, or is expected to be, mainly to people whos preference, if choices were limited to the major parties, would be for the other major party.
Because it's not just rhetoric, as long as the electoral system isn't reformed to change this, getting people to vote for a minor party instead of your opponent like demoralizing them and getting them to stay home, or disenfranchising them (two other things the major parties have been known to try to do to populations likely to vote for their opponents otherwise) is a lot easier and exactly half as useful, per voter, as getting them to switch to you from the other major party.
It is also helped because many of the people who are insiders in the major party are secretly voting for the third party when the majority of primary voters (who are rarely well informed) force someone they don't like on the party. They can't do anything this time, but they can send a message to each other where they failed.
It actually works just as well if the third party fails to attract the voters with its message but provides a reason not to vote for the targeted major party candidate that would not work as well if the messenger was the major party using the third party as a stalking horse. Because discouraging voters that would otherwise vote for the other party has the exact same effect on the outcome as moving them to a minor party.
But when one side represents fascism and the other doesn't the choice is still easy.
Down ballot. There are very few elections where nothing on the ballot is of stake.
Biden was no longer a candidate even by the time the last election happened.
Look to Mamdani. Note that the real election there was in the primary. If you squint a bit, the US electoral system looks like the French one. There's two rounds of voting, and in the first one you get to pick who is the crook that will be put up against the fascist in the final round.
It's going to be boring and time consuming, but people have to use the levers they do have available to do internal Democrat party politics if they want to improve the situation.
That 38 year old, along with the rest of the center left candidates, all dropped out to ensure the 70 year old candidate could beat the other 70 year old candidate. "The South" had nothing to do with it.
Only 54% in SC say homosexuality should be accepted by society. 42% in Arkansas. In 2025! https://www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/comments/1lxzznb/acceptance...
How many EC votes do the states with a 70+ rating add to?
The two-party system will always leave you with suboptimal choices when it comes to casting your vote, but the alternative to Trump was two decades younger.
At the risk of sounding sarky, you are going to have to do more than protest at the weekend (!) to stop what is happening to you.
Yes, some protests happen when it's convenient for the protesters. That does not invalidate their protests, nor any others with a similar message. It does not weaken the message nor the movement.
This is still moot. Even if they appear such (even if they are such) it does not diminish the validity nor righteousness of their message.
> A "peaceful protest" is an oxymoron.
This is false by a plain understanding of the words. A "protest" is an expression against something. "Peaceful" means nonviolent. Obviously expressions can be nonviolent.
> adjective Not involving violence or employing force.
>Undisturbed by strife, turmoil, or disagreement