until 2018 mexico only technically had a multi-party system in the same way that the united states also technically has a multi-party system with the green, psl, libertarians, independence, etc. parties; with only the two of the parties overwhelmingly dominating the rest of the parties like democrats and republicans do in the united states. the policies that i think you’re referring to were only put in place to give legitimacy to mexican elections and even then they only did it because the americans pushed them into doing it to alleviate criticisms of their support for the pri.

during his first campaign, obama espoused a progressive agenda like amlo did and both politicians proved how effected they were at getting young people to vote, which means that we already know how to get young people engaged. clinton did the same thing back in the 1990’s for the united states, so it also means we’re pretty good at getting young people to vote whenever we feel like pulling that lever; but we chose to appeal to “moderates” instead because they don’t challenge the status quo.

obama’s lower second election results proved what happens when you drop that progressive agenda and sheinbaum proves that the youth will reliably come out to support your party if you don’t drop that progressive agenda like obama did.

i think you’re right in that too many people are too comfortable in their living situations to ever effect change and i also agree that this sentiment is mostly shared by older generations; the same is true to a very large degree in mexico so that’s only part of the problem.

however, the change didn’t come from fixing the system from within one of the dominant parties; it happened when people ditched the “liberal” party that was co-opting progressive movement like the democrats do in the united states and voted 3rd party instead.

this overton ratcheting effect that the democrats enable coupled with their unwillingness to push back against republican voter suppression is the yin to the yin-and-yang of our political reality and that, along with the self fulfilling third party propaganda is the yang that keeps americans vacillating between democrat and republicans with things continuing to get worse for the world.

the american system’s inherent contradictions will be the only thing to degrade people’s material conditions enough to vote third party if we don’ t change our collective mindset and; by then; the world will be in a very sorry state that i’m glad i won’t get to live through.

also: he would have proudly claimed it if it were true and spend another 6 hours explaining why. lol

aoc is guilty of more than that: she’s parroting the same isreali talking point that isreal has a right to exist (like bernie is doing) and she voted to add fuel to the active gazan fire rather than the emerging but still unlit kindling that is theil’s dragnet; democrats pride themselves on pride themselves on kicking critical and unaddressed cans down the road, but she couldn’t bring herself to do that in this instance.

add this to her vote on the resolution redefining antisemitism and you can see a pattern starting to emerge if you care to look.

the mexicans didn’t overcome the media. mexico’s status at the periphery of the global north ensured that enough of them had shitty enough material existences that their protests took on a genuine form and it galvanized the public to try voting for morena instead of pri or pan like they had been doing for almost a century by that point.

in fact: it was social media giving attention to these protests that made the younger mexicans aware that they weren’t alone in their suffering and they turned out in droves to vote like they sometimes do in the united states.

“overcoming the media” is another manufactured threshold like that other manufactured threshold of tens of millions of voters and only serves to re-enforce this self fulfilling propaganda when something a simple as basic media literacy will do the trick.

the global north has come to recognize the impact that social media has on the youth and that’s why isreal & the united states now have full control over tiktok and why europe is trying to impose age verification mechanisms on social media.

waiting for some mythical time when people stop relying on the media for change to happen is no different than repeating other fallacies like spoiler-voting or throwing-your-vote-away.

it happened in our lifetime under the same conditions and it’s living and breathing at our southern border… for now.

the mexican example happened in 2018 and proves that it’s possible without attention from the media and the number of people who didn’t vote in 2024 because of gaza; but did vote in 2020; as well as 3rd party voters combined already exceeds this tens of millions of american threshold.

the elections last week and the popularity of the no kings protests prove that we’re ripe for this sort of change; but we keep repeating this sort of propaganda to such a degree that it becomes self fulfilling prophecy.

we need to change our mindset; not a change in unchanging institutions like the media or the political duopoly.

i agree that the money is either going back; one way or another; to either the military industrial complex or silicon valley and aoc is guilty of more than indirectly helping isreal avoid criticism.

also: it is indeed spreading throughout the world and people like aoc are helping to make it happen under some (hopefully misguided) attempts to help genociders & capitalists do it.

two things can be true at the same time.

or you can just jump into it like mexico and the other historical examples have done and witness a dramatic improvements in your lifetime without the huge amounts of deaths.

that is until the americans reverse it… again.

opposition to the status quo is the definition of leftism, but anyone can be forgiven for not understanding this since westerners define it in the same terms as classical liberalism due to monarchies still (barely) being the status quo back then (and still existing to this day); back then, liberalism was “left” of that.

now-a-days neo-liberalism is the dominant hegemony and it’s pro-capitalist; anything to the left of that is modern day leftism.

the media and republican/democrat duopoly are powered by the same source, the american oligarchy; expecting the media to ever give airtime to 3rd party is unrealistic.

it’s self-fulfilling propaganda that we’re inflicting upon ourselves.

it’s telling that so many are unaware that flock is doing this in texas or anywhere else in the country; if the well educated and connected people don’t know, how is anyone else expected to know?

it bet we’ll get gun equity before we get healthcare, childcare, or educational equity. lol

The united snakes

i love this so i’m stealing it. lol

not only is it possible, but it has happened and is currently happening in our lifetimes: either read a non-western history book to see several historical examples of political duopolies being overturned by 3rd parties (until the americans reversed it) or look for modern sources showing a 3rd party named morena overthrow its american backed duopoloy in mexico less than 10 years ago.

the weapons that were earmarked for the iron dome were used against the gazans and the iranians. it doesn’t matter what their stated purpose is like it doesn’t matter if you give full or partial political cover for genociders like aoc is doing; you’re still helping genociders.

history has given us several examples of this happening; with mexico being the most recent one and in our lifetimes.

those examples prove over and over again that it’s the self-reinforcing propaganda that keeps us back, not two-party; spoiler-vote; fptp; electoral-college; etc. nonsense.

the american diet goes beyond food to include psychological triggers as well as including foods that have been proven to be addicting to some of us. so yes, i’ve changed it several times in the last 30 years; but that addiction keeps making me “fall off the wagon” every time i face diet influencing psychological triggers like layoffs, evictions, deportation, etc.

So voting for a third party, at best, lets the republicans continue their destruction of the country and sends a message to the democrats that we’re tired of their crap, which has happened twice now with zero changes

the democrats and republicans are 2 extremes of this same pro-late stage capitalist status quo system so expecting anything to change by vacillating between them is an unrealistic non-starter.

presidential elections do seem like a really lofty goal, but history has given us plenty of examples to prove that it’s possible; with mexico being the most recent one with amlo & shienbaum.

i think it’s a testament to the power of american propaganda that a 3rd party candidate won a presidential election in not only one of the largest and most populous countries of the world; but one of the closest possible to the united states and most of americans are still completely unaware that it actually happened and that it happened in our lifetime.

part of me envys you; my own middle aged body reminds me everyday that i’m middle aged and i curse the american diet & activity levels for it.

we’ve (americans) have been doing it for a little over a century now and you’ll be hard pressed to find a history book describing it as such outside of intellectual circles.