rule
FAQ
Q: why not organize and stop treating the bus as a legitimate entity? why aren’t you working to stop the bus?
A: do both. cut the fuel line. break windows. put oatmeal in the gas tank. but maybe your efforts don’t succeed this election cycle. and if so don’t fucking throw away your vote if it can help your neighbors fucking survive. “harm reduction” is not a political strategy for action. it is a last minute, end of the line decision to save lives, after all other resources have been exhausted.
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ITT: people calling for revolution who will never do a damn thing about it. It's easy to pretend violence is the answer when you'll never participate, let alone start something.
Way too many of these chucklefucks just want to LARP as pure and radical revolutionaries. My wife and I are disabled and live on a fixed income of her disability payments and the SNAP program. If this "revolution" they want so bad does come, then we're among the most likely to just fucking starve in the disruption. I'm also one of the people the GOP declared they want to "Eradicate from Public Life" with Project 2025.
Now, I'm not much of a Genocide Enjoyer. I think it's one of the worst things you can do in fact. But I also don't take too kindly to being effectively told that I specifically should just die because these wannabe revolutionaries refuse to entertain a world where we both vote for Biden to keep Trump from destroying democracy more than the GOP already has (harm reduction), AND engage in direct action to push Biden away from blindly supporting Israel.
Refusing to vote for a genocide supporter IS a form of direct activism.
Ah yes. Direct action. Famously done by checks notes Not doing something. So brave.
Not doing something would be to continue to vote for a president who is funding a genocide.
Nah, I'm good. I'll continue to vote for Biden because he's infinitely more likely to be swayed to stop the genocide than Trump who if I'm not mistaken has literally expressed a desire to accelerate the genocide on top of all the other heinous shit in Project 2025.
You can hate me all you want for not lining my family up to starve to death in "muh glorious revolution" or to lose our means of continuing to live when Trump tries to gut the Social Security that my family lives off of, or the SNAP benefits that feed us, or however they decide they want to eradicate my disabled trans ass from public life. Call me selfish for wanting myself and my family to continue living in addition to doing what I can to stop the genocide. I really don't care. LARP away my dude.
How does voting for someone who is funding a genocide going to sway that person to stop funding it? It's just illogical. There are plenty of Democrats who are active Zionists and support the war, probably a fair number are wealthy donors. The only way to sway the policy of the Democratic party is to threaten to their power.
I don't think you're selfish, and I don't hate you lol, I just think you're not seeing the enormous potential of forming a leftist voting coalition. Imagine how amazing it would be if the Democratic Party was trying to cater to the votes of leftists, and not to "moderates" who think that an openly white nationalist candidate is a viable potential option.
That would be fantastic, I'd love it if the Democrats would stop doing what they've been doing the last 30+ years of punching left and chasing the "Moderates" rightward. But let's think about this logically for a minute. What are the possible outcomes of what you're proposing?
Maybe we get incredibly lucky and Trump gets screwed over by these prosecutions and splits the GOP thus lowering the threshold for us to get an actual Leftist in? I'm not sure we can count on it with how the Judiciary is bending over backwards to try to delay these prosecutions until the election where presumably they'd all "have to get put on hold because it's looks bad to be putting a presidential candidate on trial." Y'know, that old chestnut.
Realistically, we have to reckon with the fact that First Past the Post Winner Take All Voting and the Electoral College screws us here. There's a reason these systems mathematically tend towards a 2 party system. It's incredibly frustratingly difficult, nigh on mathematically impossible to break through the tendency for Strategic Voting that this system breeds. It's the Prisoner's Dilemma, but on a massive scale. A scale where we can only afford what, maybe a hundred thousand people getting scared and bailing on the plan at most for us all to get the worst possible outcome?
Not in America, but I’m trans and have a number of trans friends in the states who are really scared right now. I live in Australia and have participated in pro-Palestine protests (if that’s who you’re implying with that). I loathe Biden, I think he’s a shitty old white dude, and I wish y’all could do better. But if protesting against Biden allows Trump to be elected, then there WILL be far worse consequences, both domestically and abroad. Thousands of trans people will lose their lives, and countless more will lose access to life-saving care. He will likely cut off support to Ukraine considering how he’s ingratiated himself to Putin before. He hasn’t indicated he’d stop supporting Israel either.
That's 100% on Biden for being a legit protest target, not on the individuals with a moral compass who are pointing out his issues.
If we don't want our non-fascist option to be protested against because it means they lose then there should be a better choice available
I’m sorry, but I genuinely think that’s reductive and stupid. In Australia, I get to have a choice. And every time I’ve voted, I exercised that choice to put someone other than our Democrats equivalent first on my ballot. Knowing my vote would still flow to them before electing someone who would rather see me dead. You don’t get to have that choice, and you can blame your founding father’s and the various people in control of your government since for that fact. But if you choose not to vote because Biden isn’t good enough, you are making a conscious choice towards fascism.
God. I called it in June 2016 and I’m calling it again now. Y’all are going to end up with Trump again because of people like you. And it’s going to fucking suck to be an Aussie online again for four years. Probably bloody longer.
Edit: It’s not even like 2016 where some people were sounding warning bells that Trump was going to be fascist. He’s been your president before this time around. You have seen what he is capable of, watched as he interfered with the peaceful transfer of power. If he takes office again, from my perspective, it will be the end of democracy in your country. You won’t get that choice again. At least not for a while and not without a lot of suffering first.
It's fun to watch people write paragraphs of shit acting like they've got a point and then say something this objectively stupid because they don't actually know what they're on about.
I live in California, if I chose to not vote I'm making a conscious choice to support Biden, as that is who my states electoral votes are going to. If I chose to vote for any third party it's the same outcome. Only if I explicitly vote for Trump (or another potential fascist) am I actually supporting fascism
I can assure you that's not happening here, though I've seen so many people online try to fear monger that it might. If t actually were a threat I'd get in lock-step for Biden to prevent fascism, but it's not so I won't.
if enough Californians opposed genocide to make it so that Biden didn't get the California electoral votes, imagine the impact. seriously. it would be unprecedented.
Well too bad. This is what we got. Either join the rest of us in reality or become yet another person helping fascists seize power.
See my other comment, I'm not doing that at all.
Stay mad, it's funny
What group of voters would be exterminated under Biden?
Then it should be easy for every voter to call for harm reduction.
That's a pretty selfish thing to say. To borrow from the stupid metaphor, I don't want the driver to continue to run people over on the way to the ice cream parlor
The route to the cliff would run over way more people, and attempting to wrest control of a speeding bus is liable to hit even more. Why not vote for the ice cream place and make the avoidance of collisions a key priority? That seems like a safer option for everyone.
As if Trump wouldn't exterminate them harder. With just the choice between these 2 candidates, I vote for the lesser genocider and then apply as much pressure as possible to lower that genocidey-ness even more. Short of a revolution, it's the best we can do.
And then they think they’ll be part of the vanguard when the power vacuum opens up, and will give way to a glorious socialist utopia. Guess what, turbo, you’ll be up against that wall too, and it’s just going to be roving gangs of authoritarians.
Even if you assume those LARPers are willing to sacrifice themselves in bloody revolution for the good of the common folk…
Who do you think suffers most when civil war disrupts supply chains, essential services, and the legal system?
It’s the dang common folk they’re supposedly dying to protect!
As easy as it is to vote, its even easier to whine about why not doing it is better(?) Maybe?
Then they come at u like theyre so very superior for not voting. Like theyre going to start a revolution by yelling at the people supposedly closest to them in ideology. Bc, clearly, voting is only done by libs, so if u advocate for voting ur a superlib. Then theyll simp for china or russia, and act like even neoliberal countries dont have leftist parties attempting to participate in the government theyre so keen on making u forsake.
Almost like theres a vested interest in there... somewhere.....
a lot of the individuals ITT are here in good faith i believe. i’m more trying to get meaningful change to happen than sow discord by calling them morons.
You, i like you
c:
Ive gotten righty whities to agree with me on all sorts of wild leftist ideas, its about finding the angle and humanizing the problem.
A-fuckin-goddamn-men.
You need to communicate with people. Berating them is entirely self serving. No one ever said "you know what? I am a moron, thanks for pointing out my worldview is entirely wrong and I'm an asshole in those exact words."
You can get people to realize they're wrong, but calling them names is exactly the wrong way to do it.
I say "talk to a conservative in conservative language" and they'll understand you. Avoid "trigger" words like redistribution, socialism, LGBT+, etc... use words like "Liberty, freedom of expression, government overreach (when discussing infringement of LGBT+ rights) etc..."
i feel like sometimes people forget the little username in their phone represents a living breathing life that may or may not have had breakfast this morning :(
Ha, I think at least 70% of Internet arguments are caused by hangryness!
yes and the other 30% are caused by people being bags of flesh with bones and sickness inside
Fair
Well.... with the amount of bots confirmed to be out there.... and some of those living breathing lives are out to convince Americans that what they actually want to do is hand Dr. Fascismo the presidency by not voting or protest voting third party.
you can do so much more to defeat the reactionaries by visiting:
than a polling station
But they are though.
The cliff drivers aren't getting off the bus, even if we vote them down this time, if we don't change the system that allows them equal opportunity to drive us off a cliff they will eventually force it off the cliff.
Biden has long supported the system that allows it, prides himself on being able to find a middle ground with them, and though he talks about not going over the cliff has no long term plan for dealing with those that do, because again he believes in the system that allows them to want to drive off the cliff.
I believe I've stretched this metaphor about as far as it will go, but I'm going to try stretching it further.
There are actually two cliffs, fascism and climate change, even if we pull the bus away from one cliff we've still got the other in front of us and basically no one is even pretending to deal with that.
And to leave the broken bus scenario, I'm just going to say if you believe that a trump win will destroy American democracy, that we can't defeat his corrupt, senile version of fascism then the next republican demagogue will have no problems.
The problem is that "moderates" are very conservative and fascist-leaning as well. The Biden administration is still funding genocide, still turning away asylum-seeking migrants, hell Biden hasn't even followed through on releasing prisoners convicted of marijuana convictions.
And people ARE protesting now, but not as much as under Trump, and these things haven't changed. Biden allows barely engaged liberals to think everything is okay, but Biden is still AWFUL he just has better optics to liberals.
That Christian Nationalist USA is already present. It's emboldening is inevitable due to the inaction from Democrats and especially Biden: the alleged "moderate" president.
Biden is also actively arming a genocide in Gaza. A move I would say is extremely far from moderate in any position. Trump is a horrible choice for president. It was true in 2016 and it's true now. But if Biden refuses to do even the barest of minimums to defeat him in an election what does that say about Biden?
So sure, call it smugness, call it idiotic or whatever bullshit; continue to vilify those tired of voting for bullshit candidates and inaction. I'm sure that will help prove your point; as Biden does literally nothing to combat any of increasingly tense situations rising in the US under his tenure.
If I have to read one more both sides are terrible "take" that encourages voter apathy I'm going to lose my mind. Vote, people I don't care who you vote for but you have to vote because apathy is how we get fascism.
Do something rather than just throwing a piss fit and encouraging others to do nothing.
Nervous German laughter
We will probably get fascism with our next federal state's election, since AFD is projected to win by far more votes than any other party. Whelp.
I've met a young mom who, while not voting for AFD itself, does hope they will win the election because "then the voters will finally get heard and we also get to see what the party actually wants to implement, otherwise it's just big talk but it's interesting to see what they would do once they are in power." ...Can we not find out please? I hope it would just be big talk but I really don't care to find out. I am superwhite but I don't have a German passport and I don't want to know.
But back to the actual topic, I absolutely agree with you and not voting is always, always a bad idea. Hell, not two weeks ago I went to Berlin, paid for a hotel and stood in a long line to vote for the rigged elections in Russia. I know my voice will not be heard and it still felt imperative. Please, please go vote if you're in the USA ( - or anywhere where your voice will actually at least be counted). I hate to say it but our future also depends on what your country decides.
Oh yeah it's not foolproof you absolutely still can have people vote against their interests but encouraging apathy doesn't fix that
I guess it depends on the country, but here in France, our last two presidential elections were about choosing how fast fascism would come.
Not very versed in French politics but I imagine the fight to maintain democracy is difficult regardless of country. No matter how bad the choice gets though, not making it isn't the answer.
Burn both parties to the ground and bar them all from holding office ever again.
At least this would be doing something, you have my support.
sort of happening actually
Both texts in screenshot are agruments against apathy
This was a response to the comments.
D- does that mean youve still a mind? C-c- could we m-maybe sh-share?
Cuz I feel like itd come in handy when the foreign shills show up to tell me all about why the problem you just described is ackswallee not here on lemmy at all..... i guess we just that special.
Good to see the sane comments up top, but still.
This analogy is so absurd. Like if you have a vote on driving off a cliff, the answer is not to treat the vote as legitimate. The answer is to attempt to stop the bus by any means necessary. Pry open the engine panel and chuck a wrench in the gears, cut the fuel line, break the shifter lever, anything, just get off the fucking bus. Neither driver should be trusted.
EDIT: I am sick of hearing "WHY WON'T YOU VOTE THO"
First of all, I already said this:
That's the other problem with this post: the non-voter is a strawman. Most people with real critiques of the bus vote too because they understand this. Voting barely matters for the most part but you may as well do it. Most people yelling about "don't vote it's pointless" are like 15 years old doing baby's first radical politics.
I just don't understand why every time we criticise the bus we have to deal with loads of people yelling about why we don't take the voting more seriously, as if who we vote for is the bigger issue than the fact that we're stuck on a careening death machine with a bunch of people calmly debating how fast we should all die.
I think the answer to this is: so, what are you doing to stop the bus from going over the cliff that's better than voting? And can't you do both of them?
Because usually people aren't doing much else. Especially anything effective. They're just not voting.
This comment is why you're getting this spiel, because you need to understand something:
The people who don't vote are usually the most disenfranchised people, living paycheck to paycheck, stuck in survival mode, and they don't care who's in charge because they've noticed through hard lessons that they keep getting screwed no matter what. Also often they can't vote because they can't get off work. They're not terminally online yelling at people not to vote, those are probably mostly kids doing baby's first radical politics.
The sad reality is that electoral politics has a cold calculus to it where they've got the populace cut into rough thirds. About a third are susceptible to full on fascist propaganda and cannot currently be reached. Another third vote centre-left because they usually understand it's their only reasonable vote. Very few of them are actively engaged because it is a deeply disempowering system. Another third are who I mentioned.
That's not going to change just because you correctly debated with me about voting. I vote as far left as I meaningfully can, I just don't think it really matters and I think both psychologically and practically the faster people learn that the better.
I think understanding reality is much more important, and I think the fact that this insane bus analogy gets accepted paints a grim picture of how fucked up the electoral system really is. I also think it's wrong about the stakes - it's not cliff or icecream. It's cliff or slower cliff. Vote for the slower cliff, but don't ever mistake the drivers for your friends. You are voting for your preferred enemy.
I don't think the third are the ones who have power fantasies about them not voting but rather just people who don't bother. So they're not the ones I was talking about.
I'm talking about the ones who are so proud of their principled take of not voting and telling others how that doesn't change the system and how the actual change happens through other means. And then the other means they are doing are maybe some complaints on social media, which is just lol.
I think you are over prescribing power to a small handful of loud and proud voices because it's an easier scapegoat to say they are the reason for the issues with voting.
I didn't really define how big of a group they were or anything. I just find them annoying.
I mean, who are these people, though? I'll take your word for it, but I haven't really seen anyone IRL actually advocating for this as a strategy, and I haven't seen anyone legitimately advocate for it in a meaningful way, like, in a way that actually matters. The most I've seen to that effect is like, protest votes from people in california, which, sure, whatever, doesn't really end up mattering because their district is still going to overwhelmingly be blue. I haven't seen anyone legitimately advocate for just like "nah I don't wanna vote" as a legitimate strategy. The most solid stance I've seen people take is "I dunno if it matters, I would rather talk about local outreach" or whatever whatever.
I also don't understand why the consistent instinct against voter apathy is just like. This, always, it's always like, "oh you need to vote or else we'll all get annihilated by freiza's death ball" or like "you have to vote because not voting is for bitches" type stuff. I have very rarely seen the discussion go from like, this abstract talk to more concrete oh what has joe biden done positively, what might trump do very poorly, type of stuff, much less have I ever seen talk of actual interesting electoral politics about how people should vote, or who's vote matters where, or whatever.
I dunno. It's just annoying, I've seen this argument play in the abstract probably hundreds of time at this point, straight up, no joke, and also in real life. That's only me counting this election season, too, and not the last 3-4 elections where basically the same set of conversations occurred.
I don't know how you are on Lemmy without seeing the sort of people who advocate not voting and instead of doing something else to change the system. They're everywhere. I'm betting even in this comment section.
You seem to be confusing those who genuinely don't care to vote and those who aren't voting because they're totally changing the system some other way (lol). Two different groups. And I'm only talking about the second
Yeah, I mean, I don't think the two groups are that dissimilar. I think both groups are also probably also fine with voting. I just haven't seen anyone who actually thinks that voting is bad, I think at most I've seen people who think it's a waste of time, or useless, maybe, but it's kind of hard to make a convincing argument, generally, that taking say the, you know, at most like 7-8 hours to vote is a completely unjustifiable waste of time. That'd be a pretty extreme example and I don't expect someone voting in that circumstance would realistically change anything, though, it's more probable that someone could probably vote in like, just around an hour.
My point is more just that these people aren't like, illogical ingrates, I guess. I dunno. I see both sides of this issue, I think people are mostly talking past each other and taking out mutual aggression because they don't really have any other way to feel like they're doing anything politically productive. Like in this thread the most disagreement I've seen is people who are like "Joe Biden isn't ice cream!". That's not really a real disagreement with the core point being made, it's like, a disagreement with the framing of the issue.
My other point, I guess, is that talking about these things in the abstract is a pretty quick way to get everyone pissed off. It sort of, "gets to the heart of the disagreement", right, in terms of, oh, here's where our worldviews diverge, but it doesn't really do any of the work of convincing someone. I think in this case it's a pretty narrow gap, to convince someone, it doesn't seem like there's that big of a divide. Anyone given to like, "Oh joe biden sucks I wish I could vote for someone more left wing" is probably going to mostly agree with everything else you might say.
Instead of like this argument in the abstract, it would probably have a higher success rate to argue about like, the NLRB not sucking right now, or the infrastructure bill and the amtrack stuff, or the student loan forgiveness, stuff like that, actual policies, and then I'd imagine people arguing the opposite would be like "oh well none of that stuff is really extreme at all or as extreme as we wanted", or basically "too little too late", and then, you know, I mean I've never seen anyone do this, but I think at that point you'd just have to like, give them the point of voting to maintain from a backslide, vs revolutionary action which helps actually make progress. Both are somewhat important and also somewhat contextual.
Like this whole thing is just a "dual power" problem, I guess. I dunno, I just find it really grating to like read through thread after thread of this same exact discourse happening when nobody's goals are actually mutually exclusive, you know? It's like neoliberal identity politics taken to the extreme, where everyone identifies as a revolutionary or as a reformist and everyone assumes and argues their own position instead of like just acknowledging their similarities and doing something about their common goals. It gives me serious COINTELPRO handbook vibes.
But maaaan, if we all, like, protest vote, they'll have to change the system because they, like, knew what it meant when we chose to not participate in their broken system, man.
bro. do both.
cut the fuel line. break windows. put oatmeal in the gas tank.
but maybe your efforts don’t succeed this election cycle. and if so don’t fucking throw away your vote if it can help your neighbors fucking survive.
“harm reduction” is not a political strategy for action. it is a last minute, end of the line decision to save lives, after all other resources have been exhausted.
in response to your edit:
objectively false. in the 2020 election more eligible US voters turned out than any election in recent history, and still those who did not vote outnumbered those who voted for the winner. you are saying falsehoods.
Bless you for this comment.
How many commenters here have even tried to figure out how ‘busses’ (the electoral process) work and find a way to get involved?
Spend 5 hours a week (yes, you can find the time, deduct it from your screen time!) and you could basically take over your local party committee. That alone won’t change the national trend, but you might just be able to influence a city council or school board race.
Local races hinge on a handful of votes very often. In our area, we managed to keep two anti-LGBTQ+ candidates off the school board last election. This impacts the lives of literally thousands of youth and their families and it hinged on about 80 votes. Vote, yes, but at least skim the Chilton manual for your bus in between elections. It really does matter
If it's so easy have to actually tried giving time to a campaign and having it win and change your local policy?
Have you done what you preach?
I have tried. The super easy barely an effort easy win of showing up and supported by my picks... Didn't work. Like at all. The DNC in fact even refused to acknowledge half my candidates even though they had more grassroots support, and then funded former Republicans. In a blue city, they still thought the conservative options were better candidates. And lost. We all lost. But sure we held back some morons from school board. But stopping a couple people from getting elected is way different than getting policy makers you want in.
I agree that people need to be doing things but thinking a few hours and shouting at people to vote blue will do anything against the bigger systemic issues and flaws of the operating class of the DNC being happy to be useless then you are far more comfortable in your life than people like me.
The people who don't vote are usually the most disenfranchised people, living paycheck to paycheck, stuck in survival mode, and they don't care who's in charge because they've noticed through hard lessons that they keep getting screwed no matter what. Also often they can't vote because they can't get off work. They're not terminally online yelling at people not to vote, those are probably mostly kids doing baby's first radical politics.
The sad reality is that electoral politics has a cold calculus to it where they've got the populace cut into rough thirds. About a third are susceptible to full on fascist propaganda and cannot currently be reached. Another third vote centre-left because they usually understand it's their only reasonable vote. Very few of them are actively engaged because it is a deeply disempowering system. Another third are who I mentioned.
That's not going to change just because you correctly debated with me about voting. I vote as far left as I meaningfully can, I just don't think it really matters and I think both psychologically and practically the faster people learn that the better.
I think understanding reality is much more important, and I think the fact that this insane bus analogy gets accepted paints a grim picture of how fucked up the electoral system really is. I also think it's wrong about the stakes - it's not cliff or icecream. It's cliff or slower cliff. Vote for the slower cliff, but don't ever mistake the drivers for your friends. You are voting for your preferred enemy.
Yeah. I don't envy nor blame those who vote for the biggest crash because they think their suffering will be over without having considered the suffering that will just be new.
People often just want change and those that don't are just comfortable where they are. The slow route might be nicer for them but and even for others in the long run, but it doesn't matter what they want change will have to come, they can just be proactive about it or let it be out of their control and in the hands of those that just want it to stop.
I think also people get frustrated by voting because it pretends to give them political power but what they get is almost no influence over their actual lives. I think it drives people a little bit crazy, because they actually believe this is the best they can do.
That's why I tell people that they can vote but they need to understand that real change comes from direct action, so they shouldn't put so much emotional energy into the vote. They should put their energy where it matters.
My logic is what about vote and pry the bus apart? If you have the option to might as well go for it as part of the 'any means necessary', a tool is a tool.
I don't know why everytime I try to say that we should stop this bus half the passengers jump up and yell "BUT WHY WOULDN'T YOU VOTE".
I never said that. I said the vote is illegitimate and we need to stop the bus. I still vote.
stop the bus != don't vote
In Australia we only have two options in the lower house. One of them is pretty close to driving off a cliff.
Things could always be better (I personally find with their recent car emissions legislation a bit weak) but our current government is doing OK.
Our current government is mediocre as shit and does nothing to fix anything. We take 5 steps towards the edge of the cliff each time Liberal get in and two steps forward and half a step back when Labor do. The end result is we’re going over the cliff, just in slow motion.
Same as the centre-left options all over the world. They are little more than controlled opposition designed to give the illusion of choice, but never actually challenge the status quo.
Alright, so what do you do to overthrow the system then? Nothing, that's right. Screw you.
Oh okay, sorry, I had a whole political activist strategy that takes local action and builds on that to make people's lives better and eventually put serious pressure on the overarching system, but since you said "nothing", I guess the answer is "nothing".
I mean you're wrong, but you don't sound like you want to hear the real answer.
Wouldn't cutting the brake lines of a moving bus be really dangerous? Why not vote for ice cream, then sabotage the bus while it's parked? At least the ice cream place has food, shelter, and a bathroom.
*brake
Also:
You might want to brush up on your mechanics knowledge. Cutting a fuel line will kill an engine fast.
And I never said not to vote. This idea that anyone trying to criticise the system is saying not to vote is a strawman. I literally said:
damn, people really can't read, huh?
I think it's selective misunderstanding. Dealing with the knowledge that voting won't really achieve much is super uncomfortable, so they'd rather pretend that you said "don't vote" so they don't have to think about what you really said.
Another way is pretending that you don't actually mean it. Stopping the bus seems impossible to them, so they assume you must not actually be doing anything about it, but that's wrong too. It's just most people think of revolution in terms of storming the Bastille or whatever, they don't realise that most of the work is constant, basic, on the ground, building mutual aid networks, because in a world where people starve because they don't have enough money, feeding people is a radical act.
The thing is, doing that is a great way to lose credibility. You're basically sinking to the same level as the fascists.
Anti fascist sabotage is bad because violence, hmm 🧐
As long as you don't physically harm people, sabotage all the fascists you want. Just remember to vote.
I was very careful to avoid actual violence in my language. You were the one that equated it to fascism, which I assume you mean is the cliff driver.
Of course stopping the bus isn't violent, and is not at all equivalent to the cliff driver.
So you're saying that you would condemn the killing of Donald Trump if he gets into power and enacts his dictature?
I'm the smash the bus person, and I actually would. The truth is he's only marginally worse than Joe in most of the ways that matter, and assassinations always lead to much worse reactions. Trump isn't the problem, the apparatus that enables him is.
The solution is to build alternatives that remove people's dependence on the state and capital, so the president matters less. That's what I mean by smashing the bus. I never said to kill the driver, because his mates will kill you and stay in control.
Oh because of the violence? Driving off a cliff is also violent behaviour, and with the bus as it is the cliff is inevitable, because the cliff drivers will always get back in. Also, the other guy isn't the icecream guy. He's the guy who promised to stop for icecream but doesn't want to tell you if or how fast he plans to drive off the cliff. He's open to debate on the issue, but he has a lot cliff driving friends and they often cast the deciding vote in cliff driving matters.
They're both getting us off the cliff, just one is being more coy and circumspect than the other.
The only reason to vote for the less-immediate cliff driver is to give you more time to stop the bus.
Let me know when you start the violence. It's easy as fuck to sit behind your iphone calling others to die.
Coooool comeback.
Even easier to sit behind your iPhone telling people to vote even though it will never solve our problems.
And my theory of change is not actually violent - you'll notice I didn't advocate hurting anyone, just dismantling the machinery of violence. The other person called it equal to fascism, which I assume they equate to the cliff driver, so I took their assumption of violence as given, which I shouldn't have. Stopping the bus is infinitely preferrable to driving it off the cliff.
Except, it's not an attempt to end democracy, as fascism is.
disagree
Extremism is how you start a civil war...
This is a long established problem with FPTP voting (FPTP = First Past The Post: One voter = one vote). You don't really get to vote for your choice candidate, rather you vote against the worst of the two popular candidates by voting for the other guy.
Now there are plenty of election reform solutions, but in the US, both parties are weakened by the people having more choice, so neither party is willing to back amendments to the Constitution of the United States that would install a more public serving voting system.
This also means, according to CIA analysts who have studied nations on the brink and how they can avoid civil war, the US is very likely to see a civil war in its near future (next decade). But then we're also likely to see elections neutered anyway, so that the Republican party controls all elected positions (and appointed ones after that). And then local genocides can get underway.
So yes, if you're voting to make a point (other than you want the Heritage Foundation's Project 2025 to play out or want to delay it for a while) the point won't be heard. In fact, the Republicans and their foreign national propaganda machine supporters are probably very glad you're willing to withhold blue votes to make a point. It won't make that point, but they're glad for you for trying.
i don’t disagree but this is also a long established problem with people not showing up to vote, so jot that down.
Taking a wild guess here, I suspect people not voting comes from a number of addressable causes. Here in the States, we are far more enamored with capitalism than Democracy, and the way we regard our civic duties (e.g. trying to get out of jury duty, mostly due to the hardship it would cause by skipping work without pay). We work our labor class so hard they are too exhausted to parent, cook or engage in health activities, much less engage in civics. It doesn't help that this is exactly how our plutocratic masters want it.
After we address allowing people the time to think about what they want from government, and voting accordingly, then we can start looking into giving the people actual agency in their destinies, toward which election reform is only one front.
But all this is to say the United States doesn't really try very hard to get the people to engage in civics. Rather, it would really prefer that we lie down and let ourselves be ruled by the wealthy according to their ideals and business interests. That, of course, brings us back to the same problems feudalism has: one Joffrey or Caligula or John of England / Richard II can bring to ruin all that a dozen prior generations have built up. Even Charles III is living up to the traditional standards of monarchy, and the UK has a parliament and a constitution with which to keep his shenanigans in check. (Parliament is up to its own shenanigans to turn the UK hardline fascist, but that's another discussion.)
In elementary school government and western civilization class, we learn that we vote so that the government does what we want it to. But we quickly learn (sometimes as soon as intermediate or high-school) that our agency in selecting our government is very, very limited, and historian careers have been built on the corruption of government into an oligarchy with trivial democratic features.
Except right now, those trivial democratic features are the last line of defense between the two party state and a one-party autocracy. It's a state of affairs that shows not only did we take a wrong turn, but we're on a fast train to somewhere we never should have gone. Curiously, the never-Trump conservatives have been pouring billions into the proverbial railroad that lead us to Trump and the next line of Musolinni-wannabe strongman dictators. They didn't just buy the ticket, but laid the rails.
Wrong. Democrats consistently support & pass RCV, while Republicans repeal & ban it. If you want RCV, you need to support Dems in the meantime.
And RCV (ranked choice voting) isn’t really that much better. It has potential to be better if everyone voted honestly, but voting is a game.
STAR (score then automatic runoff) is the best we can feasibly achieve. It’s easy to teach and our current voting systems can account for this with little to no update (unlike RCV). Please look into star and push for this locally, then we can get this on a state by state basis.
https://www.starvoting.org
What is your source for the CIA analysts/brink of civil war claim?
A PBS interview of retired analysts who'd spent their life studying regions of civil unrest and the conditions that lead to civil war. It was since the Biden administration began so it shouldn't be too hard to hunt down.
As for the neutered elections, this had been part of the Republican project REDMAP, but is laid out in the Heritage Foundation Project 2025 as well.
As much as you really fucking hate to hear it: Biden won both his primaries handedly. The only way Bernie had a shot is if they clowncarred it too long like the Republican nomination that led to Trump. The DNC did not drop the ball, the American voters chose Biden.
The Democratic Party chose Biden, what was a tactical choice. The DNC uses FPTP for its primary as well (then has a list of 2000 principal party members whose votes are given additional weight. The DNC is a far right coalition party that still is guided by the interests of its monied contributors. But since the 1980s we've only been allowed to choose between them and the Christian Nationalist monsters.
Even after Occasio-Cortez won her primary, the DNC and DCCC changed their policy to prevent young upstarts like her from pushing aside establishment Democrat candidates. (Some of those policy changes were reversed due to pressure, but still the Democratic party is not interested in serving the public.)
How do we get a public-serving government? Dunno. Some say supporting our community mutual-aid organizations will help. (It will, actually) but in more contentious states law enforcement are looking for ways to harass and arrest mutual aid organizations, even for doing benign things like feeding the homeless. Civil war will lose the plot quickly, and will end up (typically) in a string of dictatorships, each overthrown by the next until everyone is related to casualties of war and are just plum tired of fighting, and we might get a democratic election out of it if we can fend off all the foreign influencers trying to pressure their puppets into power.
There are a few active anarcho-communist coalitions out there doing their thing, but they are continuously attacked by plutocrat financed militants and mischief-makers looking to make an example of them much like FBI's assassination campaign on the Black Panthers. We humans may just be too easily tempted by corruption to create a functional public-serving government that doesn't depend on a labor caste. (But do please keep working on it!)
Sounds like something a cliff hater would say.
We'll all be rich at the bottom of the canyon.
The wealth will trickle down!
You'll all realize your potential!
you mean potential energy? the one that goes downhill?
The four people vote and you still drive off a cliff due to gerrymandering
Liberalism is driving off a cliff and killing everyone because a third of people voted to do it.
There are 9 people on the bus. Five people vote to get shit burgers even though no one wants that, just because they think it will save them from the 3 people who vote to drive off the cliff. One person obstains. Two of the three people hijack the bus and drive off the cliff. Four of the five people blame the person who obstained as they drive off the cliff.
Fascists don't care if they win or lose. Voting can't save you once you've reached this point. You don't have slightly high blood pressure that you can treat by eating right. You have cancer. You fight the cancer with everything you have or you die.
I'm surprised an instance like this is okay with people showing up and arguing why letting a transphobic fascist take power is actually not as bad as it sounds.
I'm pretty sure they left the Electoral College out of this hypothetical scenario. Because the reality is, no matter how the general population votes, the Electoral College makes the ultimate decision. So the electoral College mightve decided to go for ice cream even though most people wanted to go off a cliff or didn't care at all.
And even more realistic, the only two options would have been 1) going off a cliff or 2) exploding into flames. because those are fair analogies for the options we have for US president these days.
And that's why so many people don't want to vote. I don't want to go off a cliff or burst into flames. No. I don't want either of those things.
Is this PsyOps to keep people discouraged?
The OP has a point and for some reason you don't like it. I wonder which of the people you'd be in this analogy.
I understand feeling angry and dejected, but if you act like there's absolutely no hope, then there won't be. Votes still matter in this country. Maybe they're not counted in exactly the way you'd like, but they're still important, and they make a difference.
The OP said the option was between going off a cliff or going for ice cream.
I'm telling you in reality our options are going off a cliff or bursting into flames. And THAT is why people don't vote.
By the way, votes do not matter. The Electoral College trumps all. Every time I've ever voted for something, the opposite thing won. Votes don't fucking matter.
The only psyop is the media telling everyone that votes do matter.
Right. They do all the campaigning and Fox News propaganda just for fun.
People like you think it's fun to watch. And you think it's meaningful. So they've got plenty of audience in people like you.
Why do you keep insisting that the only race that matters is for the Presidency? You keep hidng behind your superior moral stance based on the Electoral Colleges flaws. The electoral college only pertains to the presidency.
What’s going on in your local school board or city council races? If you can’t answer, then perhaps reconsider who may be falling for a psy-op.
That's the race that's being discussed, were not talking about local elections in this bus metaphor, it's very clearly the presidential election being discussed, which explains the mentioning of the EC
Please read the original post and let me know where the presidency is mentioned.
fucken 10/10 comment and i want to unabashedly praise you for your correctness
Also, you vote for going off a cliff or the committee to investigate driving off of cliffs, with a moratorium on steering, braking or accelerating because hey Jack, settle down, we're trying. Then when the committee gets into power they tell you to look out the right hand window at the lovely view whilst they edge closer to the cliff on the other side, and if you try to point out that we're getting awfully close to that cliff, the committee says, "Oh, well, do you want the cliff driving maniac in charge? That's what you'll get if you keep criticising us." Then the bus bursts into flames because it's horrifically out of service and unsafe no matter who's driving.
this analogy still applies if the electoral college is in place, it just alters (worsens) the demographics of the situation. not sure why you think it invalidates the whole model; that is simply incorrect. the model still applies it is just more complicated in reality.
harm reduction is a last minute decision. it’s not the strategy for political action. yes i agree the situation is fucked. but at least let’s do our due diligence, and if we find that the explosion has a higher survival rate than the cliff, i’m going to do my damndest to stop the bus before i have to make that decision, but i will always choose the one that has even a marginal chance of saving more lives.
Now there is a candidate in Texas who changed his name to Literally Anybody Else
That's who I'd vote for.
People need to lower their expectations about what voting is. It's like paying your taxes. It's not fun, you probably won't get what you want, and you have to do it every year. Also, individual votes don't really matter, especially if your candidate loses. And there's a ton of things in the way of getting things done so it's going to take a long time.
go away troll no one gets any benefit from this shit
The benefit is:
a) you know what needs to change
b) you know what country to move to if it doesn't change
c) it's entertaining
disgusting and disturbing lmao. fuck off with that nonsense
I never said genocide is entertaining. It's really not. How did you get from a joke about preferential voting not being in America to genocide? From what I understand of American politics both are potentially genocidal, so I don't even know how much preferential voting would help.
Where I live also doesn't have preferential voting if it makes you feel better.
sorry, don’t mean to claim that i’ll edit my comment
Approval Voting and the proportional variety, Sequential Proportional Approval Voting, are better choices than any ranked system, but pretty much dang near anything is better than the "choose one" standard.
The fact that we invented so many voting systems that work better than the current ones, but pretty much every nation with actual elections keeps using the same old flawed methods is really disheartening.
Australichads stay winning
The last time Australia stood up to the USA (having bases on their land) they got couped.
Or, more realistically:
Yeah, I really don't get this attitude on Lemmy. I get not wanting to crash the bus. But voting for the guy who at best will let the other guy crash the bus in the future or at worst crash the bus tomorrow isn't the answer.
I first thought that Lemmy was a little more of the early internet forums I remember, more anti-establishment, anarchist, left wing, but there's way too much "vote blue no matter who" which is the exact same mentality that has killed the Republican party. Is Candidate A an immoral shit bag? Doesn't matter; there's a D next to their name. Probably better than the guy with the R. Better not see if anyone else is on the list.
I can afford to vote my conscience. I live in a deeply red state, so my vote doesn't matter, something Democrats could try to fix, but they won't. Voting 3rd party does matter though, and it's the only way to truly affect real change and make a difference. It's the DNC and RNC's job to field a candidate who's worth your vote. If they don't do that, find someone who's worth it.
Youre not going to get a chance to vote third party again under donnie dump, tho.
Nah, they'll still let parties that don't have a chance run for election. Just look at Russia, they recently had an election...
Oh yes, fair point. Like the communist party of russia. There once was many, but they ensured only the one that they could best control remains
You will never get a chance to vote for what you want became America isn't a democracy. It's not a democracy if a club of rich people choose who you get to vote for. That's literally how Chinese democracy works except it's the party instead of the oligarchs.
Cant decide if this comment is more ignorant, or defeatist...
The bus is heading for a cliff. Someone stands up and says, "this is stupid! We should change the way we make decisions so this can't happen!" You hold that person down so they can't stop the driver because you want to tell the driver to get ice cream after the bus drives off the cliff.
Someone has not read the faq in the OP. And either theyve missed the million and one times i call for direct action, or theyre just another bad faith actor.
The US is not a democracy, it's an oligarchy. This is a fact. We talk about it constantly. The fact that oligarchs basically choose who can and can't run for the two major parties, and that the two major parties control the debates, mirrors the way the Chinese Communist Party controls who can run in elections. In both cases they let the people choose between the options that are acceptable to those who are actually in charge. This is just an observation of reality.
The US was built by slave owning oligarchs who didn't want to pay taxes for the genocide they'd been doing. They built a system od government around controlling the population. Only landed white men could vote. The facade of the system has changed over time but the system itself remains largely the same: a small group of landed white men get to control basically everything. This is just an observation of history.
The idea that any colonizer state can possibly be democratic is just absurd. Any system bult on genocide and oppression won't magically stop being built on genocide and oppression. The system must be completely replaced.
So the question to ask is if you advocate direct action to make sure this isn't something that can ever happened again, or if you just advocate direct action so you can go back to brunch until next time?
I would honestly recommend moving somewhere that federates with both lib and tankie servers because the tone/level of debate otherwise is pretty grim imho
Thus is the problem with our broken, binary choice system. Ranked voting may not be perfect, but it is exceeding better than the me we have now.
For all the fatalists I'll bring beer so we can watch the world burn together after you've voted
I'm a fan of harm reduction. There might still be harm, but it's more limited than it was previously.
It's not the whole solution and always needs further actions at the end of the day, but it's movement in the right direction.
Far better than just coasting along waiting for things to get worse.
this is why you do preferential voting
And overhauling our voting system to become such a thing requires engagement in our current system
Specifically pushing for candidates that support it and expressing how important it is to people in your locality (yes you have to talk to people IRL) and to the representatives who win
This implies that engagement in the political process changes anything. It's been basically mathematically proven that rich people always get their way in our current system and the vast majority get almost nothing. Rich people don't want voting reform. This system is way easier for them to game.
Oh I forgot that nothing ever changes in regards to voting so we shouldn't even try
Oh wait! Woman's suffrage, The Civil Rights Act (Ending the Jim Crow Era), various states going for universal mail-in ballots, various states currently passing Ranked Choice voting (and actively having movements for it), etc
Bruh those groups of votes (if there was a positive vote and not a court battle) came at the end of large, vitriolic, sometimes violent movements. Suffrage, civil rights, gay Rights, these things weren't pleasantly discussed then voted on and passed. There were bricks thrown through windows and buildings burnt down.
And then many times they were based on a supreme Court decision that could be overturned, like Jim Crow and Roe v Wade.
Almost any time civil rights and representation has moved forward, it's been at the end of a sword. It gets removed the exact opposite way, the slow churn of the political machine being co-opted by bad players. Even when you see a military coup, it was at the end of a movement.
Voting won't change shit UNLESS you have fought to get what you want on the ballot or else politicians will ignore you to fundraise, that simple imo.
You mean to say they had political engagement?
If the supreme court justices that made those decisions were different because different people won the elections then there's a chance those decisions would have been different.
Politics takes place at many levels, city, county, state, country, there's many elections that are important.
If you don't engage in politics don't be made when shit doesn't go your way.
No, they fought, like violently demonstrated, took what was owed.
If you can lose your Rights cause you failed to vote in a Democrat once, you didn't actually have them to begin with.
By all means, vote the lesser of two evils, we're basically forced into it in America, but don't let voting fool you.
You have take what you need from the haves, just like the auto workers union is doing right now.
Yes. Vote Green!
yeah let me just get right on that
This is a good metaphor on voting. You are not the driver, you are a passenger. Your choices cannot change the route.
Four people vote for driving off a cliff. Three vote for driving into a wall. Two vote for getting ice cream.
Everybody on the bus dies. You blame the people who voted for ice cream.
This is written from an "I'm right, you're wrong" perspective. In real life, no one is running a drive off a cliff campaign, and the guy promising ice cream may not be able to deliver.
Also, fundamentally both left and right can make the argument the other side wants to run off a cliff.
I mean, one person is promising to end democracy in favor of chrisofacism. I feel like a "drive off the cliff" campaign is a pretty apt analogy.
It's not. In a christofascism, not everybody suffers. People just assume they will be in the not suffering group. If a bus runs off a cliff, not so much.
Yeah, it's a baby's understanding of politics.
Like do these people actually think we get to vote on what the bus does? No, we're voting on the bus driver. We've got a screaming maniac and a doddering fool who keeps letting the maniac yank the wheel anyway, and they're both proven liars.
Pointing out that this situation is bad is not irresponsible. The irresponsible thing is to just vote and cheer on the fool because you're so afraid of the maniac.
if this is happening there's a moral imperative to hijack the bus yourself
I love all the any means necessary people, like just vote for 5 seconds and get the damned ice cream. You don’t need to sabotage the bus, just act civilly inside the bus
Have fun sailing off the cliff.
The Democrats have been less terrible than the GOP for decades now. They need to actually start offering solutions and helping people though. The Democrats need to actually earn votes, not just shame you for voting for Republicans
Though I agree that would be ideal, it also takes more work than just saying "see those guys want to make your life worse, we might not do that openly, vote for us because there's no other choice"
Humans are lazy, and power hungry. Even Democrats.
The Democrats know who they need to vote for them, and those people have made it clear what they want. There are no "moderate" Republicans that are gonna vote Biden, so he needs to actually listen to the people who will vote for him and give them what they want. And they want it now because they aren't gonna fall for the the Democrat bait and switch anymore.
People can get as mad as they want about people using their vote to get what they want, but that's literally hiw the system is designed to work.
Why? It's more work. And who are you gonna vote for anyways? Someone else that will end up with Drumpf again?
Like I said, humans are lazy and power hungry.
I'm German. I really hope you guys don't vote for the fascist this time, but seeing comments like yours make me extremely happy that my partner emigrated from the US instead of still being there.
I'm doing the moral calculations. Fuck Biden, but fuck Trump more. If I vote for Biden, millions suffer. If I vote for Trump (or waste my vote so he wins), even more suffer. Doesn't take too much evaluating to pick being slapped in the face vs bring punched in the face.
I absolutely support the undecided campaign in the primaries to put pressure on Biden, but putting pressure on him and the DNC by letting Trump be in charge for another 4 years is a terrible idea. Even without Trump in office the GOP is quickly eroding even the semblance of democracy we've had for a while, but with 4 years of Trump accelerating that I think this would be the last time my vote even slightly matters. Then I'd also need to evacuate from the country because I'm trans and don't want them ruining my life. I'm voting for Biden in the general to avoid that, and then afterwards I guess I have to figure out what I can even do about the still-evolving bad situation that I helped successfully slow.
If reducing suffering and not letting an impossible perfect be the enemy of the better is amoral, I don't understand your definition of moral. I'm a utilitarian if you couldn't tell.
Says the person voting for Trump.
I guarantee you that trump isn't going to save the brown people in the middle east. We don't have to compare it to ice cream then. How about voting between killing brown people vs killing brown people, subjugation women, and taking from the working class to give to our oligarchs. Does that help make it clearer?
The point is not voting helps the second result move along
pretty sure biden was president when roe v wade was overturned, so i don't see how giving him power again would help the women you're mentioning. also pretty sure biden has been helping oversee the oppression of the working class from dc for about 50 years, so i am not exactly convinced he's going to do anything about it if he literally can't lose any more elections.
You do realize that trump put 3 Supreme Court justices and flipped the court right?? Do trump supporters just not understand cause and effect?
The depressing thing is that not only Trump supporters but most people in my experience do not have a firm grasp on cause and effect, especially politically and historically
And who are the Democrats and who are the GOP in your analogy? Because both do a fine job of checking off all of those boxes.
Voting IMO is more like choose between a cliff and a deep pit . A failure is guaranteed, try to minimize the fall.
good analysis, i concur
political power is when you assure your leaders that there is nothing they could do to lose your vote short of fucking your mom and even then you would have to consider whether the other guy would fuck your mom worse
I'd vote to fuck your mom...
Typing that out felt like a physical pang of regression, but I don't take it back
I also choose this guy's mom.
you mean whether the other guy would fuck mother nature worse?
Nah, it’s the difference between a grassy cliff, and a muddy one. Doesn’t matter, still a fucking cliff.
To extrapolate your metaphor, I will vote, but for a third option: a dirt road. Yea I’ll be in the minority, but we are all good as dead anyway since everyone else including my state reps believe one cliff or the other is the path to Valhalla.
Ah, so you're voting for trump I see!
/s, obviously that depends on where you are on top of other things
Haha! No trump is the muddy cliff. I don't know what the third option is yet. To be clear, I have plenty of reason to vote. But I also have plenty of reasons to not choose either candidate. Also, I happen to be in a red state which gives all of its electoral votes to one candidate, I will vote for who I want, since the outcome has already been determined.
I mean, even in your example, yes it does matter. They're both terrible choices, but the muddy cliff is likely to provide a softer, more survivable landing than the grassy one.
I was definitely not thinking about all the nuances beyond them both being cliffs. I think neither is good for America, and my gerrymandered state will go red regardless of votes.
But that's kinda the idea with harm reduction. You acknowledge that neither choice is good, so you go with the least bad choice to buy some time to make some better choices later.
except the options are: 1- going off a cliff and 2- going off a cliff
both will kill you instantly on impact tho
Then I'd vote for the bigger cliff, just to be sure
I think that's called "accelerationism". Though that might be when you tell the driver to go faster
I'd punch the driver and slam on the brakes but to each their own
I'd just take my teleport machine and zvoom out of there
Going off a cliff or going off a cliff but they'll put some nice tunes on the radio while we die.
Not voting is lazy in most circumstances for sure. What I hate is that people equate voting third party with not voting. I'm not voting blue. Y'all can't guilt me into it. I'm voting for a third party socialist. 😏
i gently would encourage you to look into game theory and the far reaching implications of the spoiler effect under first past the post
i do applaud your commitment to morally tenable candidates, however many folks find there is a deeper opportunity for good in the voting process, at least in the current environment, and i generally concur
I appreciate you being nice. I understand the concern you have with the spoiler effect. But our country has been stuck in this lesser evil game for my whole life. That being said I also live in a very blue state. If my state were to go red it won't be because of the few people like that vote third party.
You have to change the voting system if you want to change the game. I suggest volunteering with Election Science to switch your elections to Approval Voting, so you can vote for everyone you like, instead of just the person you hate least.
Yep I know. Sadly elected officials are needed to change the voting system so that's largely unhelpful.
I'd love to have ranked choices voting. But like only the third party candidates would possibly do that. Candidates from team red or blue have nothing to gain by doing that and stand to lose everything by doing it.
They're not needed in every jurisdiction. In some places you can change the voting method through referendum. It does suck when you can't do that though. I still like approval voting over rcv, but anything is better than choose one.
The threat of the spoiler effect could be used to move the Democratic Party's policy left. You're not thinking strategically.
feel free to elaborate im not seeing your vision right now
pretty straightforward
kind of already happening, if on a smaller scale.
to do it full scale as you suggest you’d need a infeasibly huge chunk of capital to run against an incumbent.
Yes exactly this movement!
I am not really suggesting that a third party candidate could win during this election, I agree about the capital. But you can pressure the Democrats to take on leftist policies as much as possible by refusing to vote for Democrats, and voting for a third party alternative.
I honestly don't see another way that Democrats would be prompted to change their policies, as it is they have remained moderate (aka conservative on a global political context). But if Democrats saw that 10% of the vote went to a Socialist, and they lost because of that?? They would change.
Right now the Democrats are catering towards conservative moderates who think that a white nationalist candidate a potentially viable option.
yeah i totally concur and have been consistently in favor of the uncommitted movement. i also think folks voting third party in deep blue states, where the risk of spoiling for a fascist win is low, aren’t incredibly off the mark. i’m not smart enough to understand polster analysis so i can’t pretend to know if these pressures are working, but i do support them.
so i don’t really get where your accusations of me not thinking strategically are coming from lol.
American with two Party system and no real choice trying ro rationalize HM?
go away if you aren’t going to do anything except troll please
Is 196 now a serious comment only community? Didn't notice can you show me where the new rule is stated?
Also since when are satire and trolling the same thing?
Its not like i m trying to derail an argument by saying democrats and reps are equally bad or something like that, I'm pointing out the false dilemma you make with a (in all all honesty kinda edgy) joke. That has nothing to do with trolling.
One could argue your butthurt response tells I have hit a nerve there.
Dude Satire is always politic AND Humor.
I never said 196 is not politicial, you are constructing a strawman here. I asked since when its ONLY SERIOUS, ergo since when jokes/satire/humour are banned.
On the usa-centrism: does this mean you are not allowed to joke 'bout dumb political systems because the majority here is oppressed by said system? I don't see how this matters here
i replied to the wrong comment here, my apologies
Ah Okay, haha no problem. I was quite dazzled someone would so obviously argue against something I never said ^^
yeah serious comment only, no more jokes sorry 😢
we get it america bad. now say sth constructive please
Fight for a real democratic system now? Unionize? Abolish capitalism?
Lots of constructive things to say out there, doesn't mean you can't make a joke about your opressors
P.S: Also raising awareness about a problem (2-party system) is constructive even in a satirical way imho
Except they are on a train and the tracks only lead off the cliff
Like, why do the people get to vote for driving off a cliff in the first place? Something is wrong, yo.
Harm reduction is fine, but faced with a view going that way, why not use ranked choice. First choice might be I've cream, but if you can't do that, perhaps going somewhere else works.
Abstaining does not mean "you are okay with either option" abstaining is a vote for people not having a choice.
Idk if it is same in us, but we have what is called blank voting, which is a vote that could be that. But not voting is a fascist statement.
Nine people= voting population of USA
Three vote to drive off cliff = MAGA plurality
Two vote for ice cream = Biden voters
Four abstain because it's shitty ice cream = abstaining voters who presumably don't want to die but also don't want shitty ice cream
If that's painfully stretched, I would like to see your definition of a straightforward metaphor...I guess "life is a rollercoaster" must take some PhD level analysis to understand.
His first term didnt have a project 2017 courtesy of the federalist society.
Yeah, I don’t think anyone knew the extent of the administrative state and to what extent it would stymie the efforts of an executive it opposed.
I kinda think if we hadn’t had Covid there wouldn’t be a project 2025. Trump would have just left office and assumed the country was too sclerotic to make any kind of changes, but instead there at the end he got to see what it was really capable of. For all the “it hurt itself in its confusion” moments, operation warpspeed (a trump joint!) showed what the state was capable of.
Now everyone with half a brain is thinking how they could take advantage of that. It’s surprising democrats don’t have their own plan to create a unitary executive…
"Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that."
Awesome! Are you going to vote third party?. I'm voting for either Dr West or Claudia La Cruz. I'd recommend either of them to you stranger 👈😎
Probably psl at the national level.
All I see is panic. supposedly If the majority of women were pro-abortion, you wouldn't have to worry about Trump and republicans winning the next elections. women alone would flip the red states. but apparently not all women agree with abortion.
Problem. Harm reduction voting requires at least one good faith candidate.
Right now we have choice between the scenic route to go off the cliff and the express route. Electoral boycotts are effective once they reach critical mass. Telling everyone they need to vote harm reduction without a good faith candidate is just suppressing the natural tendency of a democracy to flush a bad set of leaders.
We could also use a general strike but they'll just order us back to work and call it a union victory.
This entire post is just about keeping things the way they are and never allowing anything meaningful to change.
Also I love that in this analogy that Biden is ice cream. Very genuine post.
The problem is one of the three cliff votes is the driver.
Wait, is the ice cream at the bottom of the cliff?
Maybe, but you'll pay less taxes on the tickets one we get there.
Why do we always assume the ones who don't vote aren't going to vote to run us off the cliff?
My frustration with the get out and vote push is that there is always this weird assumption that the ones who aren't voting are some how going to magically push things into the "right" direction. What if we are all better off if they don't vote?
I tried in 2016 and 2020 and the dems told me to pound sand. I’m not going to be the one getting fucked by trump. Fuck around and find out.
This argument (to me at least) assumes that the other 4 non-voters would have all voted for ice cream which, by just using basic logic, is false. If 3 out of 5 have already voted to drive off a cliff, one has to assume that at least 2 of the remaining 4 would also vote to drive off a cliff. Now this argument is back to square one... How do we find a solution which doesn't give 'driving off a cliff' as an option in the first place?
What if I'm obstaining from voting because my subdivision of the bus will always vote for the cliff instead of the ice cream regardless of what I do
Saying that the options are “driving off a cliff or going for ice cream” is just such a stupid way to put it if you’re trying to convince leftists to vote for Biden.
It’s the fact that you think Biden is similar to going for ice cream is what’s most infuriating about liberals. It’s like driving off a cliff that will kill you vs driving off a cliff that will just maim you and possibly kill you later.
Pretending you think of Biden as the lesser of two evils in such a thinly veiled way is the annoying part. This attitude is losing Biden votes, these things are on you. It’s the “hold his feet to the fire” bullshit that you guys are feeding that you totally haven’t done, like at all.
That being said, I would probably vote Biden if I was American right now. Trump does look like shit. But I’m not for one fucking second going to pretend that I’d be sad if all of the democrats suddenly got (redacted) one day.
Biden is pretty good. He's not ideal, but he's doing a lot of things I like. I'm looking forward to the new Amtrak routes, for one. He also cancelled a hell of a lot of student debt. Reducing overdraft fees to $8 instead of $36 helps.
I think the NLRB also got some increased amount of power, no?
the post is written from the starter’s perspective of convincing the people who don’t vote at all (or perhaps vote third party) that they have a vested interest in helping their neighbor.
no one is claiming biden is ice cream. biden is currently enabling a genocide.
and please don’t tell me what i have or haven’t done to end that. you don’t know me, and you self admittedly aren’t a part of this election. kindly don’t come in here just to spread disrespect, insults, and thinly veiled violent threats.
Oh really? And what have you done that constitutes holding his feet to the fire? Because sharing shit like this certainly ain’t it man.
I will not be voting for anyone who supports a genocide. That will not change. Now there are two ways to change the outcome.
I will not budge. Will you?
Two candidates that support genocide, but one is a christofascist. No matter who you vote for, genocide support wins. But you think it's better to give the christofascist better odds than to inconvenience yourself with a vote you don't 100% agree with, and possibly abstain from your chance to ever vote again. Not voting won't fix the issue, since there's no threshold on voter turnout for the election to count. The struggle against genocide must be fought in other ways. So unfortunately, this fall you're getting genocide, so please make sure you don't get fascism too.
I'd rather just not vote for genocide.
Aside from the obvious, that will just be continuing to tell the two parties that nominating genocide supporters is good. You can continue telling your favorite party that you are okay with genocide, but I will not, thank you very much. This is why you are stuck between two genocide supporters. When your chosen party leaves you with a genocide supporter as your only choice, you tell them that's good.
And you are not going to fight the genocide in any other way, so don't pretend. Your chosen party is one of the two that ratified bills to make any attempts at boycotts or sanctions illegal.
Also, both candidates are fascists. Look at what's happening on our Southern border, look at just our recent history in the Middle East, and look at the fascist government committing genocide that we are supporting.
You don't fight fascism in the ballot box. Every single example in history teaches you that.
Hypothetically speaking, if candidates A and B both support genocide but candidate B wants to take away your right to vote, I think we should vote for candidate A.
The parties don't really care if you don't vote, so not voting doesn't apply pressure to them to change.
Direct action and or forcing the hands of politicians so more people have an incentive to voteTrying to get people to support genocide and half assed half measures (that keep the door open for making things worse than they were before, which is very in line with the ruling class' interests), and when they don't, imply they support fascism 😌
What do you mean, “support”?
First instance of the word: "supporting genocide" as in voting for someone who will facilitate said genocide via funding.
Second instance of the word: "supporting fascism" by refraining to vote for someone who will facilitate genocide but will stop the fascism creep ongoing in the USA using (in my not so humble opinion) crappy legislation which can be easily reverted.
To defend myself more directly, one wouldn't ask a Palestinian American to vote for Biden, that is, unless you lack basic decency, ehich means the tactic that the person above me uses wouldn't be effective for anyone seeing themselves as a victim or even victim-adjacent to the ongoing genocide.
And I'm saying that working outside of the system or trying to apply political pressure is a tactic that is abandoned by liberals by default, which makes their tactic ineffective against the creep of fascism.
Excuse my long ass comment, wanted to drop the sarcasm for a sec and say what i really mean.
I just think your humble opinion of the legislation being easily reversible is doing a lot of work here.
Are you really that sure that there will be no long term consequences if the guy comes into office who has explicitly stated his intention to become a “dictator for ‘a day’”, is really intent on stacking courts, fucking with elections, calling immigrants “vermin”, and so on?
Because if you're wrong, there might be a civil war. And MAGA nut jobs statistically have more guns than us leftists.
You are assuming that the only options that exist are voting for either guy or not voting. Which is the main thing I'm trying to bring attention to as you are not the first person to comment in such a manner.
Also, Biden isn't really doing much to reverse what Trump did, including stuff that affect immigrants.
If your main means to get more voters is shaming them instead of shaming your politicians then this lesser-of-two-evils game will only get worse, it had gone worse several times already.
I'm aware that more than two parties technically exist in your country. I'm also not under the illusion that voting for one of them in the general election has an effect that's distinguishable from not voting.
I mean, except for the individual third party voter, who has to leave the house and stand in a queue when voting third party.
It's great to have a political system that allows for diverse political parties. Sadly the US in not a country where such a system exists.
Under normal circumstances, you won't be able to ever reach critical mass with a third party, and they won't give up power.
It's not implying they support fascism, it's implying they're letting fascism happen faster, because they are.
See other comment
Agree we should work outside the system, disagree that we should not use our vote strategically.
Using it strategically does not equate to voting unconditionally
You're effectively voting for "eh whatever"
See you at the bottom of the cliff then.
Don't dishearten they're almost certainly not actually an American voter.
i admire your dedication and resolve. for the sake of everyone involved i hope your narrative plays out. :)
for me personally i find such a scenario unlikely and so choose to operate within the bounds of a model i find to be closer to reality to reduce the harm brought to my neighbors.
Between genocider and genocider-but-worse, I'm not gonna stand by and let genocider-but-worse win power.
The most convincing argument I've heard for voting third party instead of for Genocide Joe is that liberals were more politically engaged and had more of an activist mentality under Trump.
Also, I've given consideration to the idea that "vote blue no matter who" types would likely vote for a more leftist Democrat than the ones currently being offered. In a long term strategy, if leftists refuse to vote for Democratic candidates who are too far right, then the Democrats would have to either try to appeal to the Trump demographic (which they do unfortunately do), or appeal to the leftist demographic until they get the leftist votes back.
Buses tend to have an emergency stop that you're supposed to hit in the event that the driver has like, a heart attack, or something, right?
I am not against voting, but the metaphor is really wrong and it doesn't communicate how voting changes almost nothing.
The problem is that Hilary supported Trump in pied piper strategy to have an easier person to run against. This means that you are doing exactly what they want you to do and they are protecting Trump because they need him to be the other candidate so you are forced to support ice cream made of genocide.
Democrats are terrorists now, that hold the entire country hostage and demand murder of civilians in Gaza for their financial gain. We don't have democracy either way, we will have genocide, wars and poverty either way. There really isn't that big of a difference, because they support each other so they can win against us, the people. They are the same team, funded by same people, running on same campaigns, running the same narrative of lesser evil vs evil, while actually working together.
Their next move is for democrats to support same policies that republicans do now, and fund even more extreme republicans so that can be their candidate. The strategy clearly works. Whatever you are voting against this elections, you will be forced to vote for the next.
or maybe, yk, hijack the bus to stop it because it is headed towards a cliff anyway, just the question is how fast it'll get there. This is what a revolution means.
counterpoint, its not either or. this is a false dichotomy the democrats created and maintain as a rhetorical device to silence dissent. i will never vote for joe biden. ill vote for.., a couple of democrats down ballot. and that is the extent of my interaction with the legitimate systems of democracy in the US. if you dont live in a swing state, the presidential race is, effectively, not real for you. this is a basic tenant of "american electoral politics" , or as I like to call it, a tenant of US Authoritarianism
i encourage you to reconsider your position. the spoiler effect is real and so are elections and their consequences. someone is getting put into that seat and you have the opportunity to influence the situation.
this post may be helpful, encourage you to check it out
Millions of people on the bus. Some vote to drive to place A. Some want to drive to place B. Neither is the cliff. But both A voters and B voters are using the bus-cliff false analogy to manipulate people to vote for their option.
In reality the chance that your vote would even affect the result is nearly zero.
Hundreds of millions of people on the bus. The difference between violent christofascism and at least a bare minimum respect for human rights is only made by a few million votes per election cycle, while a majority of voters still don’t vote at all.
And then you come in spreading fear uncertainty and doubt, encouraging more people not to vote.
Self examine whatever the heck it is you think you are doing because your position is untenable.
Place A is "fuck everyone who isn't the same as us, they should die!"
Place B is "people different from us shouldn't die just for existing."
You: "both are the same."
Yeah, misrepresentation of other group points of view is strongly represented in both groups
Which group was supporting the razor wire on the Texas border that was actively killing people?
A great example of misrepresentation.
It's as actively killing anyone as ground actively kills people who jump out of airplane.
Should it be there? No. Is it safe? No.
But painting it as an "actively killing people" is misrepresentation of other group point of view. Thank you for a great example.
A great example of someone avoiding the topic.
On one side you have people saying "The existence of this is causing people to die, we should get rid of it."
On the other side you have people responding "technically this thing isn't killing anyone. It the blood loss and drowning that kills them." and refusing to engage with the actual concern here. Also, they keep insisting "bOtH sIdEs ArE tHe SaMe!"
Thank you for showing that you are completely disingenuous. Someone who actually wants to have a discussion and show a different point of view does not reply with "That is a misrepresentation and I will not elaborate any further." A person interested in a good faith discussion would say it is a misrepresentation and then state what the alternative point of view actually is.
When people refuse to do so it's usually because the actual point of view is indefensible, so the best they can do is refuse to define it and claim everything is a misrepresentation.
This isn't about the world. It's about a specific conflict. Conflicts are us vs. them by definition. The takeover of the American gov't by increasingly corporatist and fascist leaders is absolutely them vs. the American people, but also affects everyone in the world.
There are two ways to win this conflict. 1) Violent revolution by disorganized leftists against the most powerful military the world has ever seen, 2) voting to prevent full-on fascism and limit corporatism while building class consciousness and organizing better. The second scenario is obviously more likely to succeed, given the current state of the American left.
It's ok, this is Biden's alt account and we're aware of the situation
It's a false dilemma. --For the reasons people reduce it and argue that it is an exclusively binary decision would by the nature of those reasons implicitly argue against the concept of living under any form of a functional democracy itself.
voting is not harm reduction
Sounds like a post by a snowflake ice cream eater