I have seen some bad takes, but this one makes me want to power vomit.

This is a fine attitude when you have to choose between eating the shit sandwich and the shards of glass. It's not so good during the primary, when you're deciding whether the first option will be a shit sandwich.

This is also not a good thing when it's weaponized to make sure that no genuinely progressive candidate can be realistic.

maybe instead of demanding the votes of the left you should earn them. Of course, this only really applies in systems where 2 parties dominate while other parties aren't really a credible option for most people, like the US, which in itself is a systemic flaw that should be addressed if you want a healthy democracy.

You don't get to blame people for not voting your candidate because "it was less bad than the other", if your whole point is being less bad than the other, rather than actually being good, then you're already losing and you should start looking at how to fix this issue before it gets worse. When turnout is lower than usual, like in 2016 in the US but also other elections like Italy in 2022, it means that democracy isn't healthy and there's a systemic problem which is leading to voters getting disillusioned, disengaged and disenfranchised from politics, which is extremely bad and should signal to you that "There's an issue! We need to fix it!" not that "Voters are so lazy/dumb/scum for not getting off their couch and voting [for me]".

Finally, I'd like to reiterate that if you keep asking leftists to vote for you at every election (to beat the other bad guys), yet every time you move further away from the left and/or disappoint leftists, eventually leftists will stop believing your bullshit and not vote you anymore, and you deserve that.

"If Poliece voted for Hillary in 2016..."

Hillary Clinton is/was not obliged to anyones vote and should have run a better campaign to attract leftest by doing bare minimun actions like supporting trans people or election/education reform. She also could have chosen a different candidate for running mate rather then the complete personality void that she ended up with as a sop to some imaginary "moderate conservitive" that was simpathetic to humanity over their net worth.

But she didnt. I wish she ran a better campaign as well, we may have been better off with her in office in 2016, but the issues that trump brought into focus in our society were not caused by him. They have been here the whole time.

Your vote matters.

If 100% of voters voted liberal in the upcoming election, the one after that would have way more left leaning candidates.

Your vote directly matters.

Actually, the general elections are on leap year, so you can educate and organize 365 days a year!

It would also still be legal if the Democrats had pursued any of the early obvious corruption, especially the Mueller report, instead of waiting for an election to replace an obviously corrupt man.

Eventually voting against corruption is not a sufficient check on corrupt power.

"whine ineffectually about it the rest of the time, but throw your unquestioning support behind our shitfuckery when we need it, no matter how bad we get"

If Democrats had ever done anything to fight fascism instead of just enabling it literally for generations, we wouldn't need to defend abortion.

Edit: also, of course a liberal uses a car analogy. How much more accurate could you get than to relate the democratic party to a thing most Americans are forced to use against their will, that kills their children and destroys their future... With an incredibly racist history and only slightly less racist present.

I get the sentiment, but I don't owe anyone a vote. Voting for the lesser of two evils is one thing when it's someone useless like Obama, but the "good" option is balls deep in a genocide and destabilizing the world in his allegiance to another country. Not voting for the senile genocide guy is the least I can do.

I'll be the first to say it sucks. Despite busting the railway unions his NLRB was doing good shit. It really really sucks.

Vote local, vote often, and try to help people be able to do the same. We'll get better candidates if and when we start voting them into smaller positions first. Republicans are generally more likely to vote locally, and this allows them to gerrymander the voting districts and control stuff from the local level up. Change your town and state officials to be more progressive, and they'll support more progressive policies and politicians at higher levels of government.