>It's almost as if the thought process had been fed to you
>intentionally.

Nah, much more thought went into how I voted, and trust I was conflicted even up to placing my actual vote, but chose that I could not reward a party with my consensual vote when I saw all of the fuckery they implemented. Experiencing it in NYC was just different. In my office alone there were about 14 people who participated in the Primary and were ready for vote for the first time. My supervisor was a Trumper AFTER Sanders lost the primary, and he wasn't able to vote in the primary because the morning of he went to his polling place to vote before work only to be told that his site wouldn't be opened until 8AM. And this was in upstate New York, red territories, NOT the blue city parts. That again feels intentional because Clinton could NOT have a close victory or loss in NY of all places. Remember this is the same week that DeBlahsio said Hillary had it in the bag AFTER 200,000 voters in Brooklyn alone had their names wiped off of voter registries, and where Sanders had 4 25,000+ rallies in NYC 2 days before the election with NO mainstream media attention. SMH still makes me mad even thinking back on it.

>>hit their 5% of the popular vote to receive national funds.
>>That was the only chance of getting anything substantial out
>>of 2016.
>
>Something substantial, meaning: splitting the progressive vote
>in general elections for the next fifty years, instead of just
>the next 5 years. Some substantial change is substantial for
>the worse.

If that is the risk, the TRUE risk, then the party should not be making that concession and decision in THEIR interest, but against their constituency. Clinton as the candidate was completed manufactured, and once shown to be outdated they could not concede because there were too many special interests in play to suspend her election - again. (Most of the war for oil actions would have been in place in 2008 had she not lost then, imo).

>In a majority-rule, first-past-the-post system (as laid out in
>the constitution), third parties can ONLY split their votes in
>a self-defeating way.
>
>I told myself that line about national funding when I voted
>for Nader in 2000. It was nonsense then and it's nonsense now.

I call BS on that Nader logic. I didn't even get to vote in that election. Wasn't old enough until 2004 and saw Bush get reelected even with all our enthusiasm to get him out of there. That came down to "blue no matter who" mentality as well. Hell, in 2000 more Democrats voted for Bush than ones that voted for Nader. We have to be in a democracy based in actual politics and not just blue vs red.

>
>>Secondly, I did it from New York state, so it was little
>risk
>>that Clinton was going to lose based on that voting base.
>
>Perhaps I was confusing you with that other dude who voted
>Stein in Michigan. If you were in NY, then it's true that your
>vote itself was irrelevant. However the opinions you spread,
>undermining the only electable progressive party, do nothing
>but harm to your claimed progressive interests.

Honestly we are so backwards that we have to fight for thinking and conversations before we can even jump into politics. People aren't even asking the right questions here. It happened again during the Local and State elections. But AOC has been a bright spot and has followed the Sanders model and had success.

>>If
>>Clinton lost NY of all states there would be a MUCH bigger
>>issue with her as an overall candidate. I even asked for
>>Hillary supporters to still vote for her but on the Working
>>Families Party line to show that they wanted to hold her
>>accountable to actual policy implementation. I was not a
>>Hillary hater.
>
>LOL, this is funny. I know you.

Haha no worries, if we cross paths there is no hate.


>>Thirdly, many people who voted (or didn't vote) PLEADED with
>>the DNC to make real changes to their platform even in
>>Sanders' loss.
>
>THEY DID. I don't know where you got this impression that they
>didn't change the platform, but all the mainstream reporting
>at the time held that they were making huge concessions to
>Sanders's positions, and even Sanders himself said it was the
>most progressive platform in Democratic party history.

To be fair, that was low hanging fruit, and not entirely genuine. He had to say that, and it was "more" progressive than what Hillary had before his influence, but still fell short on ISSUES that people cared about. A lot of it was window dressing, and just "vote for me and you'll see" but that is very different from having a record that would turn out progressives and independents.

>It's all kind of irrelevant anyway. The party platform is not
>a legally binding document. It really doesn't mean anything
>after the convention is over. I don't know why those Sanders
>supporters were pleading in the first place.

We were pleading because we knew Hillary could be President of the Democratic Party, but not of the United States. The rest of the electorate that didn't get to participate in the primaries but would weigh in for the general are DECIDEDLY not Democrats. To nominate the most Democrat of all Democrats with scandals in tow would a supreme miscalculation, and it cherry bombed the electorate, especially in the way they handle the Convention and aftermath of Wikileaks.

>
>>They instead stood firm that Hillary "got more
>>votes", and therefore didn't need to bend to the side of the
>>party that was behind Sanders. They also basically said they
>>would make up for my vote by picking up moderates,
>>Republicans, and independents who wouldn't dare vote for
>>Trump. To quote MY Senator Chuck Schumer, "for every blue
>vote
>>we lose we'll pick up another 2 or 3".
>
>Still very true.

And fair of them to do, but it backfired and had consequences.

>>All that to say that THEY DID NOT WANT MY VOTE NOR WISH TO
>DO
>>ANYTHING TO OBTAIN IT. And 2016's results have shown that to
>>be a horrid strategy on their part.
>
>That's a specious argument. Just because we lost a close race
>after some of the self-described "progressives" got mad
>doesn't mean we wouldn't have lost by more if we'd given up on
>the centrists and the independents.

That is fair. It is my opinion though that Trump didn't win. Apathy won. He came in 2nd, and Clinton 3rd. If we actually talk about issues again I hope they prevail.

>>Honestly they would have
>>rather lose to Trump than lose to Progressivism. Trump was
>>never the enemy, which is why they nominated the person that
>>he could beat.
>
>LOL, you still think Bernie Sanders could have won a general
>election.

Well I thought Hillary wasn't going to win, so consider me batting .500. We will see this go round.

>>They cared more about protecting the 1% and
>>status quo, and 3 years later their mea culpa has been
>"Russia
>>did it".
>
>That's a strawman argument. Just because we state, with plenty
>of evidence, that Russia ran a propaganda campaign that
>influenced public opinion, does not mean that that was the
>only reason we lost the race.
>
>Another reason was that some people who call themselves
>progressives have no discipline and no sense of what their
>actual goals are and how to obtain them.

I disagree, 3 years later I can still explain why I voted Sanders. Most Clinton supporters I have spoken to over the years (including my own mom) have expressed a lot of regret. We are able to talk though because there are still policies we are able to galvanize around. A party of substance that fights for issues is true progressivism.

>And then there's just the fact that the party in power has a
>natural disadvantage after an eight-year term. And then there
>was the mountains of free media for Trump. And then there was
>the willingness of the press to trumpet unimportant stories
>(emails, etc) to claim that they're putting a check on the
>candidate that they were convinced would win.
>
>There were a lot of reasons we lost in 2016. Your personal
>decisions are very low on that list, but that doesn't make
>them any less irrational.

I think that is false, but if so then the best chance for that to happen would have been with an outsider housed within your party! Haha to double down on the party negative rather than embrace the country's urge for change was a terrible miscalculation.

>>I'm ready to not vote for bs in 2020 as well. Perhaps if
>they
>>want votes they should EARN them. That's what a Democracy is
>>supposed to be. They could even implement rank choice voting
>
>I hope you know that they can't do that (for general
>elections) without a constitutional amendment. And I hope you
>know that a constitutional amendment is laughable for the
>foreseeable future.

Well in an country that considers a living wage and health care laughable yeah I'm not holding my breath. There is only one candidate talking about systemic change, and not just individual iconography. But we'll see.

>>if they were afraid of spoilers but they thrive off of the
>>false choice of the 2 party system. Not going to fall it.
>
>The parties did not form the 2-party system. The constitution
>formed it through the stipulation that a winning candidate
>needs a majority of electors. The parties were formed as an
>imperfect but optimal response to that system.
>
>I know it's unsatisfying to be mad at math, especially math
>that we're powerless to change. But it's reality.
>

Yeah, but we have a constitution and an amendment process. That is literally the thing that is supposed to make the US different from every other country. When you empower people you can make this country whatever you want. When you instead have a Congress bent on telling people what they can't have who do they really represent? I am much more skeptical of a government that scandalizes, gaslights, and represses me than of a boogieman country that is supposed to me more of a threat to me than that.