I have to caulk it up to young people learning about socialism and communism for the first time, but they're only reading Marx and Lenin.
Like hey guys, they lost pretty hard. Maybe we shouldn't do exactly the same thing and in fact there's decades of work outlining what we should do instead?
Yes! Their positions and actions are suspiciously very demobilising.
No unity even in the most basic stuff. No willingness to hold a constructive conversation. Things have to be done in their way or you're labeled an enemy. Doctrine above humanity. Incessant nitpicking.
How do they intend to build socialism if they can't even have an honest, good faith conversation?
A "leftist" earlier this week told me that Joe Biden is responsible for Dobbs because it happened in 2022. That's a cosplaying Republican. The red hat will be back on his head end-of-day November 3rd.
It was crazy the amount of red scare shit circling when I started on Lemmy. It was like they were trying to radicalize people by pitting them against the "crazy leftists."
God, please never let McCarthyism make a come back. What a waste of our time and energy.
The problem is there are crazy "leftists" on lemmy. Your instance defederated from the instances home to the worst of them, so you probably didn't get to experience it.
Imagine people the adhere to some of the worst parts of right-wing fascism, but with "leftist" branding.
I can understand looking back to them for some useful stuff. "Commieblock" housing served a purpose at the time, for example. They brought huge masses of people into an urban environment with indoor plumbing, electricity, and climate control, which were not a given in their previous living situations. They were meant as an interim solution to last a few decades. For what they set out to do, they were a great success. The only problem was that the followup to better options was never done.
But the Leninist/Maoists can never leave it at pulling out successes like that. It's almost always "America bad", "Holodomor isn't real", or "Cuba only sucks because of sanctions".
america is bad, research by anticommunist historians after the fall of the soviet union lead to the irrefutable conclusion that holodomor isn't real (holodomor means intentional genocidal famine, not just that there was a famine that lots of people died in) and cuba has problems but the main reason it sucks is because of sanctions.
Famine because of bad policy is not a win, either. That's the best case interpretation. However, there are plenty of tankies who will tell you there were no mass deaths at all.
may i see the tankies saying there was no mass death during the famine? I have never in many years of interacting with communists heard someone say that.
This is why I pull largely from my half crazed redneck version of leftism. Cant make an authoritarian out of someone who doesnt listen to aurhority outside of his fucken clan. I will listen to cops and be polite because I dont want the dumbfuck gorilla with a gun to shoot me. Makes it harder to spread the ideas of militant unions.
Is what we've been doing in the US working very well? Maybe the democrat party should look at why nobody is fired up to vote for them, even though the alternative is people like trump. It should be very easy to appeal to normal people, but even with cartoonish opposition, the democrats can't bring themselves to much better. All I'm saying is you're asking some tiny minority of the electorate (socialists) to introspect, when you're better off asking the same of the people and parties that actually have power.
Cynical tinfoil hat moment but — making concessions to voters to beat the GOP means giving away valuable capital (physical and political) that those at the top would rather retain for themselves. It would certainly explain how both sides only ever get worse instead of better, and how ejections continuously come down to 51/49. They don’t have to be any good, they just have to be 1% better than the other one. A race to the bottom.
Your vote for Dems is what endangers the vulnerable like those in poverty. You consent to wealth and income inequality with your vote, and can only blame yourself for not improving your country.
I did that in 2016 and it didn’t progress shit. It made it worse like it will if we do that this year. I organized and pushed leftists in primaries and I was beaten by "moderates." Specifically, nobody had a chance against the incumbent. It fucking sucks but I don’t want a declared fascist putting more assholes on judicial benches or pushing anti-trans, anti-women policies.
I’m with you on both parties sucking. But please, grow up. If you want to help, do it before the nominees are set. And don’t drag others into your misguided principles.
wtf have I done? I already said. Organized and gotten people elected to school boards, city council, and our mayor too. We primaried for state and federal elections but didn’t get our candidates. We didn’t pout and waste our votes on people who had no chance of getting elected. We sucked it the fuck up and tried to make sure Republicans didn’t get elected.
I don't believe you at all. Any person informed enough to do what you said knows voting for Democrats only makes out situation worse by consenting to neoliberal capitalism. None of the hundreds of people affiliated with the Green party I've met have said that, so you're lying.
It hasn't though. Dems aren't Communists, but they've moved slowly toward the left over decades.
Even if strategy A is a total failure, that's no indication that strategy B will succeed just because it isn't strategy A. That's a ridiculous conclusion. It's like saying "Bloodletting didn't cure my cancer, therefore healing crystals will!".
they’ve moved slowly toward the left over decades.
Absolutely false. Dems have moved to the right for decades since Clinton's attacks on the working class with NAFTA. Obama called himself a moderate republican and governed like it. Read "Listen, Liberal" by Thomas Frank for a detailed description of this.
Even if strategy A is a total failure, that’s no indication that strategy B will succeed just because it isn’t strategy A
Then try it and see, that's how it works. Instead you want to consent to the Democratic party's right wing policies without getting any concession for your vote. ___
You're not a "raging leftist" if you vote for Biden. At least vote PSL or Green use a brutal domestic terrorism campaign as leverage to blackmail politicians into overturning first-past-the-post as part of a multi-prong strategy that, even as extreme as you are, still includes a pragmatic hedge in the form of a vote for the lesser of two evils
Of course nobody should be terrorizing anyone. What I’m riffing off of is a perspective someone shared that basically you don’t protest with a vote for a loser, you protest by agitating for systemic change.
In the meantime while the broken system is in place, you feed it a minimally shitty input.
Reasonable people can definitely disagree on this.
One thing that may be interesting to think about: some percentage of the time an argument is made disingenuously to try to siphon off votes. An entirely genuine recommendation of an identical strategy is fair – as I said reasonable people can disagree – but perhaps calls for some introspection.
It’s too bad when your strategy mirrors that of your worst enemy! So the far leftist could perhaps instead chain himself to legislators’ doors (vehement objection to the system) while consenting to acknowledge reality with a disgusted harm reduction vote for the marginally less-bad elderly man.
The best available choice isn't always one that you want to make. It's fine to hate the idea of voting strategically, I hate it too, but it's naive to think you can positively affect the system by going with the option you want the most.
Hard to believe I had to scroll down so far for this. I heard HER on NPR this morning, did a doubletake when reading the post. Thank you. Is it surprising it's a woman protecting women from the dictates of long-dead ignorant men? No, although sadly it's not a given. Is it surprising an AG is assumed to be male? Even by a person who supports what they do? Just shows how far we have yet to go.
Some of those who work forces are the same who burn crosses: many that advocate for not voting from a "progressive" point of view are actually the ones who wouldn't be in power if you did. They think it's hilarious when we don't vote, and they love it.
I used to be alarmed that people were being taken in by this stuff, but I now think the overwhelming majority of people saying it are just shill accounts. For a couple of different reasons, I think the percentage that are actual human accounts that sincerely believe it is extremely small.
I notice they've pivoted to just general nihilism about the US economy and the state of things as of a few weeks ago -- I think they might have concluded, as I did, that expressing this type of viewpoint and doing such a bad job of it and getting unanimously yelled at in the comments was actually having the opposite effect, highlighting to people how important it is to vote and how it absolutely makes a difference.
This is something that I've noticed is worse on Lemmy than it was on Reddit, and it was already pretty bad on Reddit. Insulting people doesn't get them to support your viewpoint. To convince disillusioned voters to hold their nose and vote blue no matter who, they have to be convinced why their individual vote has an impact in a system where the electoral college can (and regularly does) vote contrary to the popular vote. They have to be shown that it's worth participating in a system that makes progress slow and difficult but allows evil to be done quickly and with great impact.
Thank you for your perspective. It’s nice to know that you think I couldn’t possibly be a real human being just because I’m a financially impoverished minority in these United States and sick of being told that I need to vote for someone else’s option time and again because it’s the best possible option. Every time the leftist majority makes a decision I want, they don’t look for concessions to bring me in. They just beat me over the head with fearmongering.
If you want voters, appeal to them. I’m not responsible for the message put out by the party not convincing me.
Different user, but it's obvious to anyone who's been paying attention that he will just give more tax breaks to the rich and corporations. The wealth divide will grow even further.
And Trump will further destroy protections that Americans rely on.
Most pollution sources in the U.S. are placed in close proximity to residential areas in which POC & impoverished people reside. Trump crippled the EPA and as a result air quality for said people dropped like a rock that was already at the bottom of the ocean.
This isn't fear mongering, this is the shit we witnessed the first time around. The second time will be just as bad at a minimum.
Even if Trump doesn't get elected, eventually another republican will. And with goals of theirs looking like that, I don't know if this country will be safe in the foreseeable future.
Hopefully by Zoomers (currently aged 12 – 27) pushing back hard on it when they actually vote in large numbers. Because, you know, young people don't vote.
Thus all the social media PsyOps. Like it or not, TikTok is critical to the future of our country.
You could join an organization of people trying to fix the system for you and people like you. You'd probably find quite a lot of common cause with the people there, if the Democratic establishment is too worker-hostile for you even in its Bidenized form (which I could understand).
Is the economy okay when everyone knows their costs are close to double what they were five years ago? Like that you lost a vote (however small the margin) literally shows your view is unpopular. But please keep hoping you know and want better for people without doing the work and ignoring the will of people.
“I’m in this Class Project. The whole class is in on it and every time we do a class project half the class tells me that I have to agree with them or else the other half decides how to do the project. I try telling them I will agree with them if they’re open to concessions to me. They just yell harder and threaten that it will be all my fault if I don’t agree with them.”
Your waiting for concessions reminds me of Martin Niemoller's "First they came for". You're waiting for specific focus on your needs, but in the meantime by abstaining from the process you are enabling others suffering.
You sound politically self-centered. It's fair to feel that way. But perhaps you should participate so that you can sway the process towards a side that is attempting the opposite of harm.
You could work to better the world you live in with the tools at your disposal (voting, for the lesser of two evils). If you don't, then you only have yourself to blame when no one helps you.
Did it my entire political existence. I’m the one that wasn’t helped. This is your party having no one to blame but themselves for how this is turning out at this point.
Things are not great in the US (and worldwide). But I always get pushback when I encourage people to vote and remind them that this is not North Korea or Russia, your vote still actually matters! Whoever you are, you can help prevent your country's slide into fascism...
And yet, you're such a genius at political science that you've got essential insights on how voting works that the rest of us aren't privy to. It is a mystery.
When... it is accurately counted and applied? That should be a low bar, but dictators in the aforementioned countries regularly win with more than 100% of the total vote percentage.
But voting only determines which face of aristocracy is in power?
If someone unacceptable wins, it gets fiat discarded.
Not even hypothetical. Remember that time a bland vaguely well intentioned nerd won an election against the grandson of the guy who was gonna be German ambassador in the business plot government, and they just threw the whole election out and gave it to the third generation fascist oligarch guy?
Do real action, and while theres nothing wrong with spending five minutes to vote, remember it is not politics and won't save you, get you infrastructure, or stop a bullshit war. Not ever.
Thanks. Suddenly I want to support your candidate. The scales have fallen from my eyes. You have enlightened me. I’m forever grateful. How could I not have realized that the decision was “stupid”? I needed no rationalization or evidence, just a person thinking I’m stupid on the internet!
I hear you and want to be on your side during the revolution. I just don't want a revolution. Conditions are bad right now but violent revolt is a coin flip. The people who will suffer most are the most vulnerable. The children that witness it will suffer for it their entire lives. If we did win, the only faint glimmer of hope will be future generations don't squander it like their fathers and their fathers fathers and their fathers fathers fathers....
I'm sorry my compassion cripples me from making the extreme but arguably understandable choice of uprising.
We both know you would never suffer having your dumbass opinions changed, you have too much tied up in this. It's why you're being so emotional. Maybe you should take a break and go outside.
This just emphasizes to me that every vote matters. Sure, both parties are terrible and the chance of a third party making any headway, nevermind winning an election is, at best, unlikely.
But not voting is being complicit in what comes next. Good or bad, you're okay with whatever happens.
Harm reduction through voting is surreal, but it's required at this point. Don't be a filthy fucking collaborator, go vote.
They are both imperfect but only one is legitimately terrible. I'm actually pretty tired of everyone feeling the need to qualify this sentiment, as if the Democrats haven't been behind basically every bit of progress in the US going back a century or more.
It's like someone who keeps pointing out "Yeah, but we're also running low on food!" on an spacecraft that is almost out of air.
True, these are both problems, but one is a MUCH bigger immediate threat and needs to be solved before we can spend time on the other, and doing nothing simply isn't the correct option.
Not that I'm disagreeing with your thesis as applied to the modern day, but pre-Lyndon Johnson, the Democrats were the racist party. There was a massive sea change during the era of Nixon, when the Democrats decided after quite a bit of heated internal debate that they couldn't possibly stomach depending on the support of the segregationists, whatever the cost, and the Southern Strategy scooped all the for real lynch-mob enthusiasts all up for Nixon. Except for Carter's brief flirtation with actual human decency, which the US isn't okay with for some reason, the Democrats got accustomed to losing elections for quite a while, until Clinton decided to make a pact with the neoliberal bastards since all the actual progressives were so ground down into not-voting-land that they weren't even worth appealing to anymore. That worked and that set the tone which has continued to the modern day of slight steady progress under Democrats versus absolute naked fascism under the Republicans (accelerating year by year to its current breakneck pace.)
Side note, if you want to have your heart broke a little bit, read Hubert Humphrey's speech at the DNC in NINETEEN FUCKING FORTY EIGHT, where he calls out the Democratic party for their acceptance of racism:
My friends, to those who say that we are rushing this issue of civil rights, I say to them we are 172 years late. To those who say that this civil-rights program is an infringement on states’ rights, I say this: The time has arrived in America for the Democratic Party to get out of the shadow of states' rights and to walk forthrightly into the bright sunshine of human rights.
He was still around in 1968, in the literal bloody battle, inside and outside the convention hall, for what the Democrats were going to be. They never fulfilled their promise completely, and they still haven't, and that year it cost them the presidency, just like it did in 2016.
I say this 1,000% agreeing that Biden has represented a big step forward and accomplished some genuine impressive things, and that voting for him in November is an affirmative good thing and not just a way to prevent Trump's end of the world. But the Democrats had to be dragged kicking and screaming by their progressive wing into doing good things, just as they have to be now on Israel among some other issues.
The difference is that they can be dragged into good things, which is enough. And they've done pretty much all of the progress the country has made since 1976; I'll fully agree with you there.
A hundred years ago the Republicans were still ok and the dems were well, pretty bad. Reminder that by 1924 the last Democratic president was fucking Wilson, ya know the man who showed birth of a nation at the whitehouse. It wouldnt be until FDR that the Democrats started to not be fucken horrible.
I agree. The problem is getting a new voting system to be implemented. Neither of the two parties want third parties to get a decent shot at dethroning them, so the two parties right now, are not going to willingly go for a new voting system since the current one ensures that they only have one rival during elections.
It doesn't benefit either party, so neither is going to agree to change it.
Been arguing with a tankie about this, decided to stop after they said a civil war and another genocide was preferable to voting for Biden because he supports Israel. Yeah ok bud
Yeah see, I don’t care for genocide. Genocide is not very cash money at all. So, see, in opposition to genocide, I’m gonna sit over here have a preference for a different not cash money genocide, you know, not really but yeah. Oh, and I’ve read accounts of war. I can handle it, I’m well read on the topic. Blood, guts, spit, and ass aren’t that scary. With all of my experience reading about war, I’m practically a shell shocked WWI vet anyway, hehe.
Yes, they have. I took it as satire but I can easily see people actually believing it.
Hell, just yesterday there was a guy still arguing that masks didn't really make a difference for COVID. That improved hygiene, lock downs/isolation, and social distancing was what made all the difference.
I then made a comparison to seat belts, airbags, and bicycle helmets and he then made arguments against those too. I just left the "conversation" at that point. I'm really hoping it was just a bot. The responses were pretty long.
As if they would be there in the frontlines when shit hits the fan. It shows very clearly they don't risk much (and lack the most basic level of empathy) if they really think Trump and Biden are the same. Ask our trans comrades. Or homeless people. Or journalists.
In abstention, they just found a way of feeling good about doing nothing at all. Voting is literally the least you could do and they won't do even that.
Not to mention that the less people think their votes are worth, the more every individual vote is actually mean.
If you have two elections, one with a 40% turnout and one with an 80% turnout, in the one where 40% of people voted, each voter was as important as two voters in the 80% one.
I mean the fewer people vote, the more power those who do vote end up having.
Your country's youth didn't vote? Enjoy the regressive concervatives that the old people elected taking away minority rights, reproductive rights, LGBT rights.
It didn't used to be that way. Big blowouts used to be common.
I think it's a result of the GOP holding on to electoral legitimacy purely through electoral tricks which are expensive / criminal to a pretty large degree, since except for a little violent minority, almost all of the country has moved on from supporting them or anything they stand for. They don't want to expend more money or risk than is needed, so they'll do more or less the minimum that seems like it'll let them hold on to power. Even that isn't really working that well anymore, and so their grip is slipping, and with Trump now running the show and demolishing the RNC's effectiveness just as thoroughly as he does everything else he touches, all bets are off for the upcoming election.
I think they're planning to move to simple explicit violence during this election, since that's all that is left if they want to avoid defeat, but you can't completely write off how effective their propaganda is at convincing people.
The propaganda has always been my gripe. I definitely blame people for having such hate in their hearts that it works on them, but it's the propagandists that twist reality in a way that make it "logical" for the average voter to believe their candidate is the "one who can save us."
I don't believe my father is that hateful, but boy did Fox News really get to him as far as "evil Democrats."
His arguments are always economic, he doesn't care one way or the other about trans issues, immigration, etc, but he'll eat up anything Fox has to say about "whales dying due to wind powered generators."
Yeah. I really don't like the mindset that Trump voters are evil or racist, they fully understand what he's about and they want it. A tiny percentage of them are that way; most are not. In my experience, Trump supporters I've talked to have been victimized by extremely powerful extremely expensive / well produced propaganda that's created this whole alternate reality in their minds that's extremely convincing, and they're just trying to do the right thing within that reality.
I don't know what the solution to that is, but treating them as bad people (and particularly, ignoring or downplaying the economic / societal abandonment of them that created legitimate anger and resentment which the propaganda can play into) is definitely not the answer.
I'm sorry, but those people have access to the exact same information I do. Maybe at first it was understandable that some people got taken in by it, but at this point there is no mistaking what Trump stands for, and anyone who continues supporting him is outright malicious or so ego driven they can't possibly admit a mistake and will definitely follow him to untold atrocities.
I hate the terms "both sides" and "America is divided" because it implies that there is some form of symmetry to this madness. This is not the case. Trump supporters can come back to earth any time they want, but I am absolutely not going to meet them halfway to their shitty fascist endgame, even if that means we get another decade of milquetoast liberal democrats.
I'm sorry, but those people have access to the exact same information I do.
No they don't. Or rather, the ones I've talked with extensively had no idea what was going on; media they genuinely trusted had given them this very incomplete, bizarre, and specifically constructed view of the world that was perfectly believable to them, but which bore absolutely no resemblance to reality. In particular it even has specific features to make it harder to be able to break yourself out of, make you resist learning new information that might challenge it. If you haven't had your brain inside that type of box or talked extensively with people who did it's sometimes hard to appreciate how pervasive and reality-defining it can be.
So like think of all those guys who went down to the border expecting there to be this army of Mexicans coming over and terrorizing the whole town, and they were ready to go down and help sign up for their patriotic duty to help, and they were surprised and confused when they got there and it was just a normal town. It's not like they were like "oh okay let me start shooting any Mexicans I see on the street because that's my main goal" -- they had a perfectly humane reason for being there, in their minds. They had a perfectly humane response (like "wtf these guys lied to me, what even is going on here"). It's easy to laugh at them because they were so wrong, but they really believed it. Because all the news they watch and all their friends they talk to and all the internet they observe told them that's what's going on.
I definitely will agree that there's a way-too-large minority that's like "hey I always wanted to shoot Mexicans / shoot up the Ramadan celebration / kill my family member who I suspect of being a Democrat." I'm not trying to give everyone a free pass. I'm saying that the root of it for a lot of the rank and file is being duped, not being evil.
(Not that that makes them any less dangerous of course)
I hate the terms "both sides" and "America is divided" because it implies that there is some form of symmetry to this madness. This is not the case.
Fully agree on this part. The movement as a whole and its leaders are extremely dangerous and evil, and the media for the most part is looking for any excuse to avoid saying "these guys are Nazis WTF how do we stop them," and "both sides" is one convenient excuse.
Trump supporters can come back to earth any time they want
Well, but they can't. Not on their own. They're either going to realize the reality through some outside force helping them see the truth, or they're going to keep growing in numbers and fervor until their leaders can use them to enact a for-real fascist takeover.
Some of them, yeah. Not all, and maybe that’s a pretty valid reason to criticize their moral courage. But Jordan Klepper has done some pretty fascinating interviews with e.g. Nikki Haley supporters who have realized what a monster Trump is.
(Some of whom say they’ll maybe still vote for him…)
I like the cut of your jib! It's too often I see blanket statements about all Republicans are Nazis, racist, etc. You can't understand your opposition or why they might believe what they believe if you just see everyone as cartoon evil.
I like the idea that "no person is the villain of their own story." As you say, they for the most part believe they are doing the right thing according to the information they've been subjected to. It's an incredibly difficult problem especially as we understand the importance of a free press.
No person is the villain in their own story, yet I see people blatantly run red lights nearly every day. Most people know perfectly well the shit they do is atrocious.
In Arizona it's simple. The Democrats are rising and the Republicans are falling. If the Arizona State Republicans don't make a substantive change it will go back to blowouts, just in favor of Democrats instead.
If it's a huge Democratic turn out in year X, then there's going to be a lot of Dem voters that say "well, my vote doesn't really matter so why bother" in year X+1. And vice versa.
So the turnout is going to edge closer and closer to equilibrium over time.
It's because it's all fake and designed to make you think you have a chance and that things are decided fairly. Your TV isn't cheap because it's subsidized by ads from whatever media company. It's cheap because the media keeping you in line is the most cost effective tool they can come up with. Prices are determined by how much you're pacified by the product rather than "market forces".
Problem is even if the attorney general doesn't prosecute, local courts prosecutors can. We need votes for local elections THE MOST, so please vote for every small thing.
They're brainwashed into believing they're affecting something. The outcomes are decided by the powerful who are getting them no matter what numbers they show you with the TVs that are allegedly subsidized by ads rather than how much they decide control over your media exposure is worth.
The trolley problem is usually a useful tool and nothing more, but it's actually a great analogy for voting. You have two choices. Let the trolley continue or change its path. You may have different reasons for your choices, but those are the only two real choices. You can leave a note on the lever expressing your displeasure, but it still doesn't get pulled. Not pulling it is as much a choice as pulling it. You're a participant either way.
You're a participant on the same ethical extent as a jigsaw killer victim. Someone else making fucked up circumstances around you doesn't morally implicate you for anything.
Honestly, if leftist spaces on the internet weren't so infested with insufferable ML campists, I feel like we could actually move the Overton window a bit more among progressive liberals. Libertarian left ideas are pretty popular when presented in the right context. The thing which turns your average person off is the historical association with autocracy and oppression that MLs cling to for some reason.
I have been pretty vocal about this, but I just run into a sectarian wall over and over again. I wish more like-minded people would spend more time challenging ML orthodoxy and less time bashing liberals. I honestly feel like most liberals aren't nearly as far gone as your average Lenin simp.
I always say, and I'm fairly confident it's true, they're more pro-autocracy than they are pro-leftist. They will defend a dictator when they harm people before they back the people being harmed. That's not leftist. Leftism is on the side of the people being oppressed. They absolutely do more harm than good by making people think being left they have to agree with that group, but they're a very loud minority.
While I don’t disagree that MLs online cause harm, it would be remiss of me not to point out that the root of the issue is decades of intergenerational indoctrination during the cold war that anything democratically socialist was directly equivalent to autocratic communism. There is a deep, cultural cognitive dissonance that occurs in the US about things like socialised medicine and welfare that I just don’t think tankies online influence as much as you think they do.
That's true. I guess you could expand the analogy to a very heavy lever that needs a lot of people to pull, and if not enough people pull it the right way the other thing happens. That's really butchering the analogy though and I don't think it's required. The point is to show that "not participating" is still a choice and still has an effect, so you are still playing a part just not one that's useful.
Considering that someone can win the presidency without winning the popular vote, and that the Senate gives states with tiny populations equal power, and that the House should have over a thousand members if we kept the same ratio, sometimes it doesn't matter if more people are pulling along with yout.
There's so many undemocratic things built into our government - mainly to appease slaveowners - it's really hard for me to work up any enthusiasm that my vote will do anything at all.
I can empathize with the people who have given up on voting, because I was at that point many times. Now I've lowered my expectations and given up hope, and I just vote because it means I don't get told I'm not allowed to complain.
Totally agree with everything. Voting is pretty quick and easy though. I absolutely agree with people performing other actions that can possibly be more effective as well, but those take much more time and effort. Everyone should vote because, even if it doesn't have much effect, the amount of effect it has compared to the amount of effort it takes is high.
Now that I can vote by mail I agree that the effort is worth the effect. But if I had to stand in line for hours just to see the Supreme Court or electoral college or Congress or a bunch of states jam the trolley handle in the other direction I don't think I could bring myself to do it if it didn't also mean I'm allowed to complain.
What bothers me, and I've seen expressed in other comments, is that the response to "voting doesn't matter" or "both sides are the same" is immediate dismissal, as if nobody should have any problem with the way things work.
Even the line "If you don't vote you can't complain" is mean and dismissive.
You keep talking about every vote not mattering in a vote that was won by 200-some-odd people with over 3000 write-ins. That person who can make a measurable impact wouldn't have been in the position to do anything if just a few hundred more people had believed it was hopeless and just stayed home. So how do you justify that with your beliefs?
I get that the presidential election is broken on many levels, and many people's votes have little or no bearing on the final outcome, or that any likely outcome will even be ideal, but the implausible has happened before, depending on how people vote.
The one thing that has never improved the outcome is to shrug your shoulders and do nothing.
Yeah, and the bad outcome isn't happening because there wasn't enough votes against it. It happens because the votes do nothing at all and are just a strawman for the actions of the powerful.
You really only havw two choices (for most elections) though. You can vote for the side you agree with more or not. Sure, there are lots of ways to do the latter, but it's that. I guess you also have the choice to vote against the side you agree with more, but that's not really a choice. In this case, it isn't a false binary.
You can also participate in many other things outside of voting, but that's totally separate and you can always do more separate things for anything. You can always follow a choice with other choices, but it doesn't change the effect of the first choice.
It's just like the trolley problem. The stakes are made up and your decision might cause some discussion on the Internet. The real outcomes are decided by people with power and everything you see in media is a puppet show.
Not voting as a means to show dissatisfaction is probably the dumbest fucking thing I’ve ever seen people do. And I say this knowing people willing vote for Trump.
It's like the people who try to run from the cops and then once they get caught and asked why they did it, they say "because I didn't want to go to jail." My bro you have articulated the problem and I get it, but the solution you have chosen is going to make it quite a lot worse.
it'd be cool if we could like vote for shit. But like, also fix the fucking voting system.
Would like to see more talk about that alongside voting itself. People seem too content with the shitty system we have. And i get it, it's a kill or be killed world out there or whatever the fuck, but like, we should have standards also.
Currently our standard is "literally fucking doing the bare minimum possible" and i honestly just cant fucking take this shit seriously anymore.
FPP is the problem with the US. And electoral colleges. And Gerrymandering the vote. Electoral oversight needs to be non-partisan. So much needs to change
the “Voting is Not Harm Reduction” article is possibly the most covert insidious thing that’s happened to online political discourse since 2019.
somehow, it’s managed to SEO weasel its way on top of every other article since the dawn of the internet for the search terms “voting harm reduction” and similar. and not just once, but reposted to every corner of the internet imaginable. literally try it now, if you set your google search to find articles before February 5, 2020, you will see inumerable articles with diversity of positions on the topic. after that? literally just the same article reposted and crosslisted, with the occasional reddit/twitter/tumblr comment thread.
it’s not even a bad article per se, it’s just indecently self-contradictory as OOP says, admitting at the beginning that small rights can be preserved by engaging in voting, and then pulling a 180 and accusing those who vote of perpetuating white supremacy.
like i get it, harm reduction has a specific meaning originating in addiction treatment. but for heavens sake, this flub of language doesn’t mean you should throw away one of the only miniscule rights the oppressor class has granted you to help your neighbors.
Your voting system is so fucked. Like voting should be something that people like to do. I want to vote for people that align with my values the most. But no, you have to be strategic and choose the lesser evil to not accidentally end up with fucking fsscists like Trump again. It's fucked. Still tho, please prevent Trump.
I ran into someone like this on Lemmy just yesterday. They said that "we" deserve to suffer if Trump gets elected. I said that I was guessing they weren't queer or a person of color. They were not. Therefore they were not part of "we." 'Innocent people that are definitely not me deserve to suffer so that America gets what it deserves' is a really fucking galling attitude.
If you really absolutely will not vote for moderates, at least vote for leninist-marxist peoples front of Arizona or something. There's a politican somewhere who will see that 0.15% and think "that could make or brake my campaign, how can I win them over?"
To fall asleep I need white noise to distract me
Otherwise I have to listen to me think
Otherwise I pace around, hold my breath, let it out
Sit on the couch and think about
How living's just a promise that I made
You sound ashamed about it. Our morals dim for the chocolate we eat. We live knowing the actual suffering propping the rest of us up is just far enough out of sight it doesn't keep us up at night.
You're not wrong. I'm pretty bummed about the whole situation, but I'm not gonna be convinced that the problems are my fault or under my influence when being born was just like being isekai'd into a trolley problem.
I'll stick to my anime and videogames because it's a much more fun distraction from reality than the misery of politics trying to convince me my input matters.
I find it hard to believe anyone who watches anime can be so oblivious to the constant themes ever present in almost all anime. Duty, self empowerment, sacrificing ones self for others, overcoming the impossible, applying your unique talents to defeat the enemy, etc. If you can enjoy any of that media you can motive yourself to solve the simple puzzles politics represent.
Edif:
But fuck if I give a about this helplessness you've adopted. You sound like some sort of lame parody of myself.
It's a very pretty picture, but I live in a world surrounded by people who want me disarmed and physically unable to confront the bad guys. Gimme a magic sword and the capacity to tank a lot of hits from the evil fighters I confront with talk no jutsu and I'll l give that effort a try.
My unique talent is putting into words how voting is a Rubik's cube your mom gives you so you'll shut up for a minute in the back of the car while she's driving. She's driving over a cliff and thinks a parachute will help her while making your death look like an accident despite how she's prepared with a parachute while driving over a cliff. If enough people understand what I'm saying, maybe they'll organize externally and actually do something that might help. I have more hope for this than faith in voting, but recognize that neither is likely to help anything.
I feel like some ad by her with surrounded by 280 people saying this is all that stands protecting you from these draconian laws (better worded) could be a good type of ad.
Speaking personally as a brit i'm not going to comment on whatevers going on with the american election but in the case of britain at least im absolutely not going to be voting for Keir Starmer since most of the left neoliberals in this country telling me i have to swallow my pride and vote for the most right wing and second worst (to his "credit", unlike Tony Blair, he doesnt have the blood of a million iraqis on his hands, only 30,000 palestinians) party leader labour's had in recent memory were the exact same people 5 years ago saying they couldnt in good faith vote for the most far left, trans positive labour leader in decades because he criticised Israel which led to the largest conservative majority in years.
Just remember there are people Mango who respond to every single post on the entire thread but can't handle reacting to a single counter argument to their ideas. That's why you need to vote, and if you are Mango and you try to over analyze this post and can't even see something hitting you in the face your vote wouldn't help me achieve my interests anyway. If you vote, keep doing what you are doing.
no evidence that any of these people are white? advocates a position that protects the interests of POC?
why is this posted here? this is such a useful and well formed post but i have this community blocked and only found this thru some modlog drama. whatever lol. saving this for later reposting somewhere more relavant. thanks for sharing OP. :)
I can imagine that there would be less reason for many to vote when there are only two options to vote for. What would it take for USA to implement a multi party system like many of the other democraties in the world?
Usually when I read “both sides are the same”, it’s a blue conservative like you trying to make people critical of the Democratic party seem unreasonable.
Both sides are capitalist and conservative, but there are differences for sure. Dont you want more differences?
If you wanna really shut up those people bitching from the sidelines, the best way to do so is to put them in the game! Force them to show us how to do things since it’s so easy and they have it all figured out.
Switching away from first past the post voting allows people to vote for who represents them best while still counting their vote against those they dont want to win. Just search for videos on FPTP voting if you want an explanation on how and why the spoiler effect exists.
Electoral reform is possible in each individual state (for now), we dont need federal reform! Maine and Alaska have already passed electoral reform.
Republicans are moving to make alternative electoral systems illegal in their states. Why would you want to use the same voting system republicans prefer?
More political parties means a higher percentage of the population is representedby their choices in the voting booth. More people involved in the electoral process, more people engaged.
Its a win win win all around for not just the people, but also for the democratic party. More people voting means more democratic votes. The numbers dont lie. So what’s the hold up blue states?
You believe it’s critical to vote for the democrats to beat the Republicans, thus you should 100% be fully invested in passing electoral reform in your state.
Electoral reform needs to be the number one priority for every democrat. This is a existential threat to our nation, so we must use EVERY tool at our disposal. No more waiting. This especially goes for those in blue states.
Consider starting a campaign to change how we vote in your own state! Force our representatives to compete with fresh outside ideas. We deserve the best representation, not excuses.
I've got some "they're both capitalism, so it's all the same". News flash: we have regulated capitalism. The choice is between regulated capitalism or the GOP desire of free for all capitalism.
Here's some "It's a black box running propriety software with a backdoor that'll fuck us all regardless of of our decisions about whether to interact with it."
You have to give people a reason to vote, man. People do not care if the candidate of change is a fascist when the guy in office already has demonstrated that he doesn't give a fuck if there's food on your family's table. You saw it in 2016.
For the vast majority of this country, the last 40 years have been one long, tortured loss of economic and social liberty, and Joe Biden's presidency has been an enthusiastic participant in it by doing next-to-nothing to alleviate it.
He did make hundreds of billions appear out of thin air overnight though, for more war.
I vote, but I can't really pretend that it accomplishes much.
We hand Democrats a majority and all they do with it is find a way to spend another half trillion on war that wasn't budgeted. When I point out that perhaps it'd be good if we didn't neglect our own people's needs, people call me a traitor or a Russian shill. (Neither of which are true.)
And for those trumpeting the AZ decision here, go look at Idaho, where abortion was criminalized and they got away with it. In a year 2/3 of the states will have similar laws just like in 2/3 of the states it's still legal to pay someone $7 an hour.
That is what people are talking about when they say voting doesn't matter, because if you're poor or working class, there is no effective difference between the two ruling parties.
If only there was a meme that specifically debunked this argument.
I actually agree with you about the behavior of electing "Democrats" in the abstract; the Hillary Clintons and Nancy Pelosis of the party have been selling out the working class for enough decades in a row now that it's easy to become disillusioned. But Biden's record is actually pretty far above the norm for Democrats. And, in this specific election, trying to apply this logic is like trying to fistfight the firefighters who are trying to put your house out, because you heard they misappropriated some of their funding last year.
I'm completely mystified by how you can look at an example where a 280 vote margin led to an attorney general who refuses to prosecute people in her state over a tyrannical law, and then go: "no, but see - voting doesn't matter!"
I mean, there's ignorance, and then there's willful stupidity.
I'm honestly not sure what you're getting at with this statement. Idaho has a Republican governor, a Republican Lt. governor, a Republican secretary of state, 2 Republican senators, 100% of the US Representatives for Idaho are Republicans, and 80% of the state senators are Republican.
Is there something I'm missing here? Can you explain why Idaho is in any way something other than a perfect example of why voting very much matters? As far as I can tell, voters in Idaho seem to overwhelmingly favor Republicans, and so they get Republican policies.
And how does Idaho vote exactly? Is it different than OR, WA, CO, CA? Do you think the way these states vote might have something to do with it? You're disproving your own point.
Of course people should vote where it's working. The argument on the federal level is that it's not working. It's not harm reduction because the federal Democrats are too cowardly or too compromised to enforce protective laws and the Constitution as evidenced by reality.
Only it's still not. The Democrats aren't willing to stop the state level Republicans. So they can just do whatever they want. The GOP would need to win the Senate and Presidency in addition to holding the House to make it actually worse. And at that point it's mathematically unlikely the Democrats would have held the presidency anyways.
They aren't doing anything? I recall some student loan forgiveness that happened recently that sure as hell wouldn't have happened under a republican. I dislike Biden too, but he is doing some things. Say it's not as much as we'd like, but stop spreading the bullshit nothing is happening.
Also, the Biden administration is enforcing anti-trust laws like we haven't seen in decades, which I'd say is a pretty massive step. Sure, yeah, not far enough yet but it's a step.
Biden has forgiven about $150 billion in student loan debt, has passed some big economic reforms which led to wealth inequality falling for the first time in quite a long time, wages at the bottom 10% of wage earners are going up faster than inflation even under fairly historic levels of inflation, his climate bill put the US on track for a 40% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2030, and he's been raising corporate taxes by quite a lot in order to pay for all that stuff. Given how unified most of the US government is against things like that happening it's actually fairly impressive.
There's some other stuff but those are the big ones I'm aware of. It's just that the news media doesn't have any reason to report on that type of boring progress stuff, and actually has a couple of big reasons not to report it in favor of some other more titillating types of stories.
That's cool. I notice your taking credit for state minimum wage laws now. And they're already talking about pushing back the climate change stuff.
But none of that is what I was mentioning. What is he doing to protect women and minorities from the conservatives coming after them? He doesn't have to be hands off. The 14th is incorporated against the states and Presidents have used that in the past. Or have we just given up and decided we can have climate change as long as it's evangelical Christian climate change?
I'm just gonna sit in quiet contemplation of how you've managed to make it sound halfway sensible "Yes, Biden's done some substantive good things even though the majority of the rest of the government is against those things, but they've been too effective at making sure he can't do more, so I oppose him."
The only people who can really do anything about that on a federal level are congress, not the president. Democrats don't control congress though. Even if they did, the federal government has limits to what they can do to control states. People need to vote in local elections for that stuff. Local elections influence your life far more than federal.
You are opposed to voting for democrats because they aren't doing something that isn't possible. Yeah, you definitely hold a well reasoned position that people should listen to.
That was applying the constitution's rules on equality (as ruled by the Supreme Court of the United States). The executive can use its power to enforce laws, but it can't use its power to create new laws. That is the purview of congress. Once congress creates the laws then the president is in a position to enforce them, but not before then.
You might want to learn about the civics and workings of the US if you're an American. Most of it isn't that complicated.
Enforce the Constitution against them. Reform SCOTUS by appointing more judges. (In the past even this threat was enough to bring SCOTUS around) We have rights and it's blindingly apparent the Democrats aren't willing to do more to protect them than ask the people violating them to stop in a polite manner.
And that's on the issues they claim to care about. On other things they are actively causing harm.
Oh so just change the entire framework of how states interact with the federal government. Cool.
I'm all for the adjustments you mentioned, but it's unreasonable to suggest all that is possible in one term, right now, based on this vote.
It's gonna take years of building legitimate progressive candidates, That's where the work is. It also comes from downticket mandate. Republicans are gobbling up every small posting, seen and unseen, and use that to drive policy and action.
The 14th amendment enforces the Constitution against the states. Has done since the civil rights era. This isn't anything new. In fact Biden's inaction is the new thing.
Fucking kill me now hoo lee dude. It's the same every time I'm so joever this shit. Take me off the wild ride, take me out of the fucking time loop. Is there a way to like block every single "voting advocacy" post, or something? I don't necessarily care to block users or communities but hoo lee shit it's like a drill plunged deep into my cortical nerves. It's like I'm trapped in groundhog's day but then it's just inane bitching about how everyone is a CCP or russian shill and a vote for biden is a vote for democracy, and a vote for anyone else is a vote for trump and fascism. And ummm errmmmm ackshually how maybe the democratic party should nut up and go full communism and wouldn't it be nice if I had a free pony, actually electoralism and reformism sucks because nihilism. Nobody has heard of dual power. Kill me please, kill me with hammers.
Never any discussion of, oh, are you in a district that is going to vote blue almost inevitably? Maybe a protest vote makes sense. What should you do in a swing state? What could you do in other cases? What are suitable times for protests or local advocacy, what are potential local advocacy groups? Any discussion on alternative voting systems, advocacy for those systems, etc. Nope, fuck that shit, easier just to bitch and moan. I'm doing it right now, because it's so easy, actually. Exhausting. Hoo lee. Please stop feeding the mao zedong CCP trolls, if that's what you think they are. Publically shaming their stupidity is not a good strategy. If they are stupid, which they are, then it will be self-evident to onlookers, you don't have to coddle the fence and in the process end up feeding the trolls more and engaging in unproductive schlock conversations about unproductive things. That's giving them what they want.
I have a gift for you. I don't necessarily disagree with the idea that jawing about it online is a waste of time, but also, with the energy devoted to this post you could have signed up with them. I also scattered some links to some other organizations and etc somewhere down in the threads.
All the links going from that link just go to donations. There's no actual "sign up" option, there's no organization for protests or local city council activism or anything. I am not overly impressed with that link.
I looked over it just now... I thought it was just me that I couldn't find the sign up link. I think you are right. And there's been some sort of controversy about it although I can't really make head or tail of it.
What the fuck man where do I go to have a productive impact
What the fuck man where do I go to have a productive impact
Hell, probably.
Also local city council meetings, but then that's kind of an eternal fool's errand, because those are going to be eternally swamped by the pettiest, most spiteful old people you've ever seen, who are almost always going to overwhelmingly vote against measures which might positively impact your community on the basis that the unworthy might take advantage of it, just like they've been doing for the past 50 years when all the public pools got filled in. It requires more organization and dedication to sit up in city council meetings and trudge through docket after docket of meaningless public works projects and city budgets that you can't affect at all in order to find something that you can vote on, and then figure out that actually your vote didn't matter. It requires a real passion for mediocre bureaucracies.
Also telegram channels, but those are mostly just a bunch of white supremacist dickbags, disillusioned teenagers, and fed honeypots, but then I repeat myself thrice.
Also local volunteer work, but then most of those are just band-aids that further enable neoliberal blood-sucking, and potentially even stifle alternatives, if you're extremely but reasonably cynical, mostly as evidence by the large amounts of neoliberal funding which go towards those sorts of programs.
Probably actually the best answer you're going to find is the worst jobs out there. Something like a local, relatively disorganized or low-key harm reduction group, where you're handing out needles or some such. Something that really nobody likes, basically. Giving out food, shelter, etc. to the homeless (possibly compost toilet or disposal materials, or even doing dump runs for them, helps out a ton), rather than just volunteering at a soup kitchen, or a shelter which probably is either super overcrowded or is subject to too many stipulations, which kinda make them totally useless. Building benches to put at bus stops, that sort of thing. Robbing FDIC ensured ATMs, which theoretically only very minorly increases inflation in an economy which extremely heavily favors the rich already. Actually don't do that one that's illegal. The only problem with those is that it's pretty easy to get arrested for defacing public property, giving out drug paraphenalia, or giving out non-FDA insured food, so, your mileage may vary on all that.
If you're talking more reformist shit, that's stuff where I kind of flame out because I don't know where to begin, but usually it's better done in larger more organized cities, to begin with, it probably involves groups like extinction rebellion, and it involves using more discrete political events, manufactured or otherwise, to push for support and gain leverage against political entities, which can then be transformed into gains, which then lend can itself to more organization. Biggest thing here is probably unionization, so long as it's done for the benefit of workers and not to protect corporations from firebombings. None of those are exactly things that you can sign up for online, usually, they just arise when they arise.
If you feel like your vote is useless because both choices are near the same level of bad (even if one of them is somewhat less bad,) consider voting for Literally Anybody Else. Look him up, he's pretty based (even though he does have one or two bad ideas.)
If you feel like your vote is useless because both choices are not even remotely close to even the same ballpark of the same level of bad but Biden's still pretty far from what you want, consider joining Bernie Sanders's activist organization, instead of trying to bring Trump to power through inaction while cloaking yourself in a tissue-thin veneer of bullshit to justify your Trump-enablement as a good thing somehow.
Dawg I'm not trying to bring Trump to power. I'm trying to send a message that we're not going to keep playing the game of the two parties putting forth their worst candidates and that if they're not going to represent us, we can and will replace them.
I'm more interested in the long-term game of breaking down the two-party dichotomy (though this doesn't directly do that) and all the political hatred it has enabled for many years which is only getting worse as time goes on. I consider this a higher priority than the short-term risk of Trump maybe getting into office for a single term more if there are more liberals that hold this sentiment than conservatives.
Also for the record, when I said "because both choices are near the same level of bad," I was addressing the sentiment in the literature being tweeted about, not how I actually feel. Of course Biden is significantly less bad than Trump.
Dawg I'm not trying to bring Trump to power. I'm trying to send a message that we're not going to keep playing the game of the two parties putting forth their worst candidates and that if they're not going to represent us, we can and will replace them.
Replacing the Democrats with a further-left party sounds like a great idea. Pressuring the Democrats to move to the left sounds like a great idea.
Failing to elect the Democratic nominee in the upcoming election will absolutely guarantee that both of those will become almost impossible for quite some time. If you didn't like that Bernie Sanders got cheated out of the nomination, I bet you'll be significantly more unhappy once he or anyone like him can get thrown in prison or shot in the head.
I'm not a lefty. Moving the Democrats further left is not my goal. In fact, unless the Republicans are moving left with them, it's against my goal. I don't want to get my favorite policies in office, I want people to stop hating on each other so extremely just because they don't sit on the same side of the fence. The two-party system has made this far too convenient for far too long.
This is the most white feminist take. Look up the word intersectional. Who are you willing to throw into the wood chipper in the name of harm reduction next?
I voted Williamson over Biden in the primary this year.
I wish all of the "uncommitteds" had done the same. It sucks that there's a candidate who actually supports universal health care, living wages, and maybe not spending all of our money on war (and genocide)... and that candidate will get zero delegates.
Lots of things work this way. You can play on a sports team and not bring too much to the table, and yet your team will win anyway. And yet, if everyone takes that attitude, then the team loses.
In fact, I would say that almost any real progress in the world depends on shared effort where each individual person who's part of it isn't individually critical to the outcome. Not wanting to take part in that kind of thing even when it's mind-bogglingly trivial (as voting is) is going to exclude you from the majority of good things you can do.
This is a false equivalence. An election is not a sports game and voters are not a team.
Not wanting to take part in that kind of thing even when it's mind-bogglingly trivial (as voting is) is going to exclude you from the majority of good things you can do.
I'm gonna start using times when I've articulated what I have to say, and someone clearly wants to get into a pointless and repetitious back-and-forth about it, as a good chance to link to activist organizations that people can join to make a good positive difference.
I think this is the behavior of a shill who simply has no argument against the things that are being said, but is on the clock to oppose it in some fashion, and pretending to be so pants-on-head mentally disabled that they can't comprehend the pretty straightforward things people are saying is the only thing they can come up with that still lets them be aggressive against it.
I think. I have no idea; maybe they're just a deeply combative person who's uninterested in reading. Like I say, I think if they are a shill, that this type of behavior actually has the exact opposite effect of what it's supposed to be doing. If it was me I think I would start talking about anarchism and rebellion and how the left needs to turn to real violence to achieve its ends... like sidestep the whole brain-dead argument of "voting won't produce electoral outcomes" and try to positively support something that will indirectly get people thinking in a different direction from political organizing, and still be destructive to the country overall.
Here's a list of jobs with the Biden campaign, for anyone who's okay with the establishment version of the left and wants a job that's more productive than optimizing Adwords campaigns to sell sneakers or whatever. Most are in-person in Delaware and pay about $90k.
(I actually completely by accident linked to an activist organization that does have quite a few concrete answers to your question "What good things?" It's not my problem if you weren't able to find them. But, what I was intending to do was just totally ignore your bad-faith combativeness and link to some useful resources, instead of engaging in this whole hostile exchange in any capacity.)
If you're concerned about climate change specifically, Extinction Rebellion is a protest group agitating to turn the governments of the world against their currently mass-suicidal course of policy. Biden's been able to do a certain amount about it even in the face of pretty stiff resistance from the entirety of our corrupted governmental system, but the current pace of change isn't going to be enough to give us a livable planet in the future, so getting involved in the solution seems like a good idea.
If only it were possible to make social media posts more than once.
Personally I think you're overstating the electoral impact of this post -- if it really were "one powerful argument posted on social media = 350 votes", then a community of 100 people could each make a post a week from now until the election and swing the election by one million votes.
I actually do think that's somewhat similar to how it works. It is widely acknowledged that authoritarian governments are running organized troll campaigns on social media; every big social media platform has a team assigned to detecting and combatting it. I don't think that would be happening if it simply produced 0 result. I think the result is less than 350, but it's definitely not 0.
This. You either become a bot in the hands of those you like or those who you don't like win with the help of their bots. Needless to say, I don't share your optimism, but I'm glad that we share the same despair.
I see how MGS2sation of the world is happening and I simply don't know how to exist here politically.
For the same reason I talk to my friends, get them registered to vote, and go with them to the polls. I can’t make a difference on a large scale, but I can make a small difference. I can get five other people to vote who might not have otherwise, and that’s important.
Oh look. It's time for another round of "the ethically bankrupt decisions of the powerful people in the world are your fault because voting is real."
It must be all the lead poisoning making people so shallow minded as to believe the toys they're sold and occupied with are anything but a means to keep them in line and shift blame. Your cheap TV tells you what they want you to think and exists for that. Voting is a black box that exists to convince you that there's a chance you can improve outcomes rather than just serve the rich. Political faces are literally only faces.
Change my mind. Prove to me that voting is actually implemented and a functional interaction with the world. Hint: Some words on my screen will be about as meaningful as a Harry Potter book at best. I see voting to be about as real of an attempt at achieving something as praying. It's a way to convince yourself your supposedly good intentions will have any sway over reality.
I’m a raging leftist but I’m getting tired of "deontologists" telling me they refuse to vote for Biden then telling me how great Xi Jinping is.
I have to caulk it up to young people learning about socialism and communism for the first time, but they're only reading Marx and Lenin.
Like hey guys, they lost pretty hard. Maybe we shouldn't do exactly the same thing and in fact there's decades of work outlining what we should do instead?
That's the charitable interpretation. The less charitable one is astroturfing aiming to further destabilize "the west"
Yes! Their positions and actions are suspiciously very demobilising.
No unity even in the most basic stuff. No willingness to hold a constructive conversation. Things have to be done in their way or you're labeled an enemy. Doctrine above humanity. Incessant nitpicking.
How do they intend to build socialism if they can't even have an honest, good faith conversation?
A "leftist" earlier this week told me that Joe Biden is responsible for Dobbs because it happened in 2022. That's a cosplaying Republican. The red hat will be back on his head end-of-day November 3rd.
It was crazy the amount of red scare shit circling when I started on Lemmy. It was like they were trying to radicalize people by pitting them against the "crazy leftists."
God, please never let McCarthyism make a come back. What a waste of our time and energy.
The problem is there are crazy "leftists" on lemmy. Your instance defederated from the instances home to the worst of them, so you probably didn't get to experience it.
Imagine people the adhere to some of the worst parts of right-wing fascism, but with "leftist" branding.
I can understand looking back to them for some useful stuff. "Commieblock" housing served a purpose at the time, for example. They brought huge masses of people into an urban environment with indoor plumbing, electricity, and climate control, which were not a given in their previous living situations. They were meant as an interim solution to last a few decades. For what they set out to do, they were a great success. The only problem was that the followup to better options was never done.
But the Leninist/Maoists can never leave it at pulling out successes like that. It's almost always "America bad", "Holodomor isn't real", or "Cuba only sucks because of sanctions".
you kinda had me in the first half, ngl.
america is bad, research by anticommunist historians after the fall of the soviet union lead to the irrefutable conclusion that holodomor isn't real (holodomor means intentional genocidal famine, not just that there was a famine that lots of people died in) and cuba has problems but the main reason it sucks is because of sanctions.
Famine because of bad policy is not a win, either. That's the best case interpretation. However, there are plenty of tankies who will tell you there were no mass deaths at all.
may i see the tankies saying there was no mass death during the famine? I have never in many years of interacting with communists heard someone say that.
Sure, I'll just wade through a decade of Reddit comments to find some to satisfy your curiosity.
Maybe don't make shit up then if you don't have examples
Fuck man, even Marx and Lenin don't cotton to the common tankie arguments about all non-socialist movements being the same.
This is why I pull largely from my half crazed redneck version of leftism. Cant make an authoritarian out of someone who doesnt listen to aurhority outside of his fucken clan. I will listen to cops and be polite because I dont want the dumbfuck gorilla with a gun to shoot me. Makes it harder to spread the ideas of militant unions.
Is what we've been doing in the US working very well? Maybe the democrat party should look at why nobody is fired up to vote for them, even though the alternative is people like trump. It should be very easy to appeal to normal people, but even with cartoonish opposition, the democrats can't bring themselves to much better. All I'm saying is you're asking some tiny minority of the electorate (socialists) to introspect, when you're better off asking the same of the people and parties that actually have power.
Cynical tinfoil hat moment but — making concessions to voters to beat the GOP means giving away valuable capital (physical and political) that those at the top would rather retain for themselves. It would certainly explain how both sides only ever get worse instead of better, and how ejections continuously come down to 51/49. They don’t have to be any good, they just have to be 1% better than the other one. A race to the bottom.
Now realize that the people at the top win no matter which party is in power.
“Democrat party”
Good point.
IYKYK
CMYK
You're not a "raging leftist" if you vote for Biden. At least vote PSL or Green
Your vote for Dems is what endangers the vulnerable like those in poverty. You consent to wealth and income inequality with your vote, and can only blame yourself for not improving your country.
What do you think happens if I do that?
Actual progress towards changing the Democratic party instead of consenting to it's right wing policies that are enabled by your vote.
I did that in 2016 and it didn’t progress shit. It made it worse like it will if we do that this year. I organized and pushed leftists in primaries and I was beaten by "moderates." Specifically, nobody had a chance against the incumbent. It fucking sucks but I don’t want a declared fascist putting more assholes on judicial benches or pushing anti-trans, anti-women policies.
I’m with you on both parties sucking. But please, grow up. If you want to help, do it before the nominees are set. And don’t drag others into your misguided principles.
Did your lazy ass do anything else?
Jill Stein is a good candidate in a historically weak election for the ruling class.
I've gotten dozens of people to vote Green in my state, what have you done?
"There are dozens of us." lol
wtf have I done? I already said. Organized and gotten people elected to school boards, city council, and our mayor too. We primaried for state and federal elections but didn’t get our candidates. We didn’t pout and waste our votes on people who had no chance of getting elected. We sucked it the fuck up and tried to make sure Republicans didn’t get elected.
I've been looking through your comments and have confirmed you are a fake. Where can I see any evidence of your "efforts" to help the Green party?
I don't believe you at all. Any person informed enough to do what you said knows voting for Democrats only makes out situation worse by consenting to neoliberal capitalism. None of the hundreds of people affiliated with the Green party I've met have said that, so you're lying.
How did you come to that conclusion?
Decades of your strategy failing every time to move the Dems to the left.
It hasn't though. Dems aren't Communists, but they've moved slowly toward the left over decades.
Even if strategy A is a total failure, that's no indication that strategy B will succeed just because it isn't strategy A. That's a ridiculous conclusion. It's like saying "Bloodletting didn't cure my cancer, therefore healing crystals will!".
Absolutely false. Dems have moved to the right for decades since Clinton's attacks on the working class with NAFTA. Obama called himself a moderate republican and governed like it. Read "Listen, Liberal" by Thomas Frank for a detailed description of this.
Then try it and see, that's how it works. Instead you want to consent to the Democratic party's right wing policies without getting any concession for your vote. ___
Project 2025, stupid. Letting Trump win means no progressive wins again in this country. Anti progress.
Imagine thinking you're defending democracy by voting for someone you don't want. LOL
Wow, you can type the opposite thing that someone said and pretend that you have a point. How incredibly stupid of you.
What exactly is Biden's plan to avoid letting a progressive win in the country ever again? Because Trump is the one with Project 2025.
Imagine thinking you’re defending democracy by voting for someone you don’t want. LOL
I, on the other hand, express democracy by voting for a candidate that I support, Jill Stein.
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-election/dnc-war-third-party-candidates-rcna143290
Of course nobody should be terrorizing anyone. What I’m riffing off of is a perspective someone shared that basically you don’t protest with a vote for a loser, you protest by agitating for systemic change.
In the meantime while the broken system is in place, you feed it a minimally shitty input.
The fuck? Just vote for third parties where did you get that bullshit from?
You consent to this system with a vote for Dems.
Reasonable people can definitely disagree on this.
One thing that may be interesting to think about: some percentage of the time an argument is made disingenuously to try to siphon off votes. An entirely genuine recommendation of an identical strategy is fair – as I said reasonable people can disagree – but perhaps calls for some introspection.
It’s too bad when your strategy mirrors that of your worst enemy! So the far leftist could perhaps instead chain himself to legislators’ doors (vehement objection to the system) while consenting to acknowledge reality with a disgusted harm reduction vote for the marginally less-bad elderly man.
Do you think being incredibly stupid is a prereq for being a raging leftist or something?
It is a prereq for voting for Biden
No, understanding how the voting system works isn't stupid
You misunderstand the voting system because you vote for someone you don't like.
The best available choice isn't always one that you want to make. It's fine to hate the idea of voting strategically, I hate it too, but it's naive to think you can positively affect the system by going with the option you want the most.
Voting for someone you disagree with is not voting strategically, it's voting against your interests based on what you assume others will do.
I guess I’ll say it for the record but Kris Mayes is a woman.
Hard to believe I had to scroll down so far for this. I heard HER on NPR this morning, did a doubletake when reading the post. Thank you. Is it surprising it's a woman protecting women from the dictates of long-dead ignorant men? No, although sadly it's not a given. Is it surprising an AG is assumed to be male? Even by a person who supports what they do? Just shows how far we have yet to go.
"Sadly" it's not a given?
Please tell me you don't mean to imply that protecting women from the dictates of long-dead ignorant men is only good if a woman is doing it?
No sorry, I meant it's sad there are some horrible right-wing women in positions of power.
👍
Also 280 votes, but simple math is hard for Americans.
What's wrong with that??
Nothing's wrong with it, the post just said "the man preventing people from being punished", emphasis mine.
Ah ok read your comment with different energy thanks for clarifying
Not my comment, but no worries.
No it's yours now, as a gift
Thanks, I will treasure it.
Some of those who work forces are the same who burn crosses: many that advocate for not voting from a "progressive" point of view are actually the ones who wouldn't be in power if you did. They think it's hilarious when we don't vote, and they love it.
Yep
I used to be alarmed that people were being taken in by this stuff, but I now think the overwhelming majority of people saying it are just shill accounts. For a couple of different reasons, I think the percentage that are actual human accounts that sincerely believe it is extremely small.
I notice they've pivoted to just general nihilism about the US economy and the state of things as of a few weeks ago -- I think they might have concluded, as I did, that expressing this type of viewpoint and doing such a bad job of it and getting unanimously yelled at in the comments was actually having the opposite effect, highlighting to people how important it is to vote and how it absolutely makes a difference.
This is something that I've noticed is worse on Lemmy than it was on Reddit, and it was already pretty bad on Reddit. Insulting people doesn't get them to support your viewpoint. To convince disillusioned voters to hold their nose and vote blue no matter who, they have to be convinced why their individual vote has an impact in a system where the electoral college can (and regularly does) vote contrary to the popular vote. They have to be shown that it's worth participating in a system that makes progress slow and difficult but allows evil to be done quickly and with great impact.
They have to be given hope, not fear.
Thank you for your perspective. It’s nice to know that you think I couldn’t possibly be a real human being just because I’m a financially impoverished minority in these United States and sick of being told that I need to vote for someone else’s option time and again because it’s the best possible option. Every time the leftist majority makes a decision I want, they don’t look for concessions to bring me in. They just beat me over the head with fearmongering.
If you want voters, appeal to them. I’m not responsible for the message put out by the party not convincing me.
What do you suppose trump will do to help you?
Different user, but it's obvious to anyone who's been paying attention that he will just give more tax breaks to the rich and corporations. The wealth divide will grow even further.
And Trump will further destroy protections that Americans rely on.
Most pollution sources in the U.S. are placed in close proximity to residential areas in which POC & impoverished people reside. Trump crippled the EPA and as a result air quality for said people dropped like a rock that was already at the bottom of the ocean.
This isn't fear mongering, this is the shit we witnessed the first time around. The second time will be just as bad at a minimum.
He'll also set forth many of the components of Project2025 which, if you haven't read, is scary to say the least.
I have, and it is terrifying.
Even if Trump doesn't get elected, eventually another republican will. And with goals of theirs looking like that, I don't know if this country will be safe in the foreseeable future.
Hopefully by Zoomers (currently aged 12 – 27) pushing back hard on it when they actually vote in large numbers. Because, you know, young people don't vote.
Thus all the social media PsyOps. Like it or not, TikTok is critical to the future of our country.
I’m not sure you replied to the right person.
I did. you're claiming voting is pointless, but all abstaining can lead to is trump
I never said Trump would help me. So your question is irrelevant.
Your actions will help elect him. 2+2=4 whether you're acknowledging it or not
You could join an organization of people trying to fix the system for you and people like you. You'd probably find quite a lot of common cause with the people there, if the Democratic establishment is too worker-hostile for you even in its Bidenized form (which I could understand).
Thank you for the resource. I’ll look into it!
Yah dude. The disillusionment with the current US governmental and economic system, I get that. It makes sense to me.
Is the economy okay when everyone knows their costs are close to double what they were five years ago? Like that you lost a vote (however small the margin) literally shows your view is unpopular. But please keep hoping you know and want better for people without doing the work and ignoring the will of people.
Did you miss the primaries? There's more than just the president, you know.
What an unhelpful comment.
“I’m in this Class Project. The whole class is in on it and every time we do a class project half the class tells me that I have to agree with them or else the other half decides how to do the project. I try telling them I will agree with them if they’re open to concessions to me. They just yell harder and threaten that it will be all my fault if I don’t agree with them.”
“Have you tried participating in Group Projects?”
Your waiting for concessions reminds me of Martin Niemoller's "First they came for". You're waiting for specific focus on your needs, but in the meantime by abstaining from the process you are enabling others suffering.
You sound politically self-centered. It's fair to feel that way. But perhaps you should participate so that you can sway the process towards a side that is attempting the opposite of harm.
You could work to better the world you live in with the tools at your disposal (voting, for the lesser of two evils). If you don't, then you only have yourself to blame when no one helps you.
Did it my entire political existence. I’m the one that wasn’t helped. This is your party having no one to blame but themselves for how this is turning out at this point.
So your life would be better if every time you voted the other politician won? That seems crazy.
Things are not great in the US (and worldwide). But I always get pushback when I encourage people to vote and remind them that this is not North Korea or Russia, your vote still actually matters! Whoever you are, you can help prevent your country's slide into fascism...
Tell me you're not a woman in Arizona who has an ectopic pregnancy, without telling me etc
There's an image which explains what I'm talking about
It is somewhere
It's very near
If you search, I think you will be able to locate it. Don't give up
And yet, you're such a genius at political science that you've got essential insights on how voting works that the rest of us aren't privy to. It is a mystery.
When... it is accurately counted and applied? That should be a low bar, but dictators in the aforementioned countries regularly win with more than 100% of the total vote percentage.
I can explain it to you, I can't understand it for you.
Bot, troll, whatever: blocked.
Hah you're doing the thing
Killing in the name of
I wonder how many get this reference.
But voting only determines which face of aristocracy is in power?
If someone unacceptable wins, it gets fiat discarded.
Not even hypothetical. Remember that time a bland vaguely well intentioned nerd won an election against the grandson of the guy who was gonna be German ambassador in the business plot government, and they just threw the whole election out and gave it to the third generation fascist oligarch guy?
Do real action, and while theres nothing wrong with spending five minutes to vote, remember it is not politics and won't save you, get you infrastructure, or stop a bullshit war. Not ever.
--
“I don’t think poor minorities who are tired of picking ‘the least evil option’ exist.”
Well you can kindly go fuck yourself.
Valid emotions behind a stupid decision don't make it less stupid.
Thanks. Suddenly I want to support your candidate. The scales have fallen from my eyes. You have enlightened me. I’m forever grateful. How could I not have realized that the decision was “stupid”? I needed no rationalization or evidence, just a person thinking I’m stupid on the internet!
I hear you and want to be on your side during the revolution. I just don't want a revolution. Conditions are bad right now but violent revolt is a coin flip. The people who will suffer most are the most vulnerable. The children that witness it will suffer for it their entire lives. If we did win, the only faint glimmer of hope will be future generations don't squander it like their fathers and their fathers fathers and their fathers fathers fathers....
I'm sorry my compassion cripples me from making the extreme but arguably understandable choice of uprising.
We both know you would never suffer having your dumbass opinions changed, you have too much tied up in this. It's why you're being so emotional. Maybe you should take a break and go outside.
This just emphasizes to me that every vote matters. Sure, both parties are terrible and the chance of a third party making any headway, nevermind winning an election is, at best, unlikely.
But not voting is being complicit in what comes next. Good or bad, you're okay with whatever happens.
Harm reduction through voting is surreal, but it's required at this point. Don't be a filthy fucking collaborator, go vote.
They are both imperfect but only one is legitimately terrible. I'm actually pretty tired of everyone feeling the need to qualify this sentiment, as if the Democrats haven't been behind basically every bit of progress in the US going back a century or more.
It's like someone who keeps pointing out "Yeah, but we're also running low on food!" on an spacecraft that is almost out of air.
True, these are both problems, but one is a MUCH bigger immediate threat and needs to be solved before we can spend time on the other, and doing nothing simply isn't the correct option.
* 50 years or more
Not that I'm disagreeing with your thesis as applied to the modern day, but pre-Lyndon Johnson, the Democrats were the racist party. There was a massive sea change during the era of Nixon, when the Democrats decided after quite a bit of heated internal debate that they couldn't possibly stomach depending on the support of the segregationists, whatever the cost, and the Southern Strategy scooped all the for real lynch-mob enthusiasts all up for Nixon. Except for Carter's brief flirtation with actual human decency, which the US isn't okay with for some reason, the Democrats got accustomed to losing elections for quite a while, until Clinton decided to make a pact with the neoliberal bastards since all the actual progressives were so ground down into not-voting-land that they weren't even worth appealing to anymore. That worked and that set the tone which has continued to the modern day of slight steady progress under Democrats versus absolute naked fascism under the Republicans (accelerating year by year to its current breakneck pace.)
Side note, if you want to have your heart broke a little bit, read Hubert Humphrey's speech at the DNC in NINETEEN FUCKING FORTY EIGHT, where he calls out the Democratic party for their acceptance of racism:
He was still around in 1968, in the literal bloody battle, inside and outside the convention hall, for what the Democrats were going to be. They never fulfilled their promise completely, and they still haven't, and that year it cost them the presidency, just like it did in 2016.
I say this 1,000% agreeing that Biden has represented a big step forward and accomplished some genuine impressive things, and that voting for him in November is an affirmative good thing and not just a way to prevent Trump's end of the world. But the Democrats had to be dragged kicking and screaming by their progressive wing into doing good things, just as they have to be now on Israel among some other issues.
The difference is that they can be dragged into good things, which is enough. And they've done pretty much all of the progress the country has made since 1976; I'll fully agree with you there.
A hundred years ago the Republicans were still ok and the dems were well, pretty bad. Reminder that by 1924 the last Democratic president was fucking Wilson, ya know the man who showed birth of a nation at the whitehouse. It wouldnt be until FDR that the Democrats started to not be fucken horrible.
Conservatives have always been terrible, no matter the political party.
You need a different voting system for third parties to be viable
I agree. The problem is getting a new voting system to be implemented. Neither of the two parties want third parties to get a decent shot at dethroning them, so the two parties right now, are not going to willingly go for a new voting system since the current one ensures that they only have one rival during elections.
It doesn't benefit either party, so neither is going to agree to change it.
Yes ok but still…
Genuinely not trying to be a dick, but I don't understand what your response means?
The response means, "I agree, but it's not relevant to the topic at hand."
Yes, we need a better system. In the meantime, we need to work with what we have.
OK. The op mentioned voting third parties so my comment was a response to that. Thanks for explaining thou
Wasn't sure at first but you brought me home safe in the second half
Been arguing with a tankie about this, decided to stop after they said a civil war and another genocide was preferable to voting for Biden because he supports Israel. Yeah ok bud
Yeah see, I don’t care for genocide. Genocide is not very cash money at all. So, see, in opposition to genocide, I’m gonna sit over here have a preference for a different not cash money genocide, you know, not really but yeah. Oh, and I’ve read accounts of war. I can handle it, I’m well read on the topic. Blood, guts, spit, and ass aren’t that scary. With all of my experience reading about war, I’m practically a shell shocked WWI vet anyway, hehe.
Jesse, what the fuck are you talking about?
I’m absolutely shocked that my comment calls for a /s.
Like, have things got so bad that obvious satire isn’t obvious anymore?
You must be new here.
"President stares directly at Sun" isn't satire anymore.
Ok, yeah. Haha. What a moment that was. God bless former president (hopefully forever) Donald J. Trump. Haha.
Yes, they have. I took it as satire but I can easily see people actually believing it.
Hell, just yesterday there was a guy still arguing that masks didn't really make a difference for COVID. That improved hygiene, lock downs/isolation, and social distancing was what made all the difference.
I then made a comparison to seat belts, airbags, and bicycle helmets and he then made arguments against those too. I just left the "conversation" at that point. I'm really hoping it was just a bot. The responses were pretty long.
It was pretty obvious to me, but I've certainly missed /s before, so....
Don't worry I understood your comment was satire but honestly it's not far off from the tankie I was arguing with.
As if they would be there in the frontlines when shit hits the fan. It shows very clearly they don't risk much (and lack the most basic level of empathy) if they really think Trump and Biden are the same. Ask our trans comrades. Or homeless people. Or journalists.
In abstention, they just found a way of feeling good about doing nothing at all. Voting is literally the least you could do and they won't do even that.
Not to mention that the less people think their votes are worth, the more every individual vote is actually mean.
If you have two elections, one with a 40% turnout and one with an 80% turnout, in the one where 40% of people voted, each voter was as important as two voters in the 80% one.
What do you mean by this precisely?
He's trying to derail discussion.
I think they are a very, very funny and clever troll. (sarcasm)
I mean the fewer people vote, the more power those who do vote end up having.
Your country's youth didn't vote? Enjoy the regressive concervatives that the old people elected taking away minority rights, reproductive rights, LGBT rights.
What do you mean by this precisely?
What do you mean by this precisely?
Call the zoo, the sea lion escaped!
I mean the ones who vote choose who makes decisions and passes laws.
Are you okay?
He is not ok.
The outcome of the election, by vote percentage, is altered more by one vote if the total vote is 400 than it would be if the total vote was 800.
Impactful.
2.4 MILLION PEOPLE.... Why the fuck is every goddamn election 50/50!? Why the hell is it always the fucking razors edge!?
I'm no math guy but I feel like statistically it shouldn't be possible for almost every goddamn election to be 50/50.... 49/51... For fucks sake...
It didn't used to be that way. Big blowouts used to be common.
I think it's a result of the GOP holding on to electoral legitimacy purely through electoral tricks which are expensive / criminal to a pretty large degree, since except for a little violent minority, almost all of the country has moved on from supporting them or anything they stand for. They don't want to expend more money or risk than is needed, so they'll do more or less the minimum that seems like it'll let them hold on to power. Even that isn't really working that well anymore, and so their grip is slipping, and with Trump now running the show and demolishing the RNC's effectiveness just as thoroughly as he does everything else he touches, all bets are off for the upcoming election.
I think they're planning to move to simple explicit violence during this election, since that's all that is left if they want to avoid defeat, but you can't completely write off how effective their propaganda is at convincing people.
The propaganda has always been my gripe. I definitely blame people for having such hate in their hearts that it works on them, but it's the propagandists that twist reality in a way that make it "logical" for the average voter to believe their candidate is the "one who can save us."
I don't believe my father is that hateful, but boy did Fox News really get to him as far as "evil Democrats." His arguments are always economic, he doesn't care one way or the other about trans issues, immigration, etc, but he'll eat up anything Fox has to say about "whales dying due to wind powered generators."
Yeah. I really don't like the mindset that Trump voters are evil or racist, they fully understand what he's about and they want it. A tiny percentage of them are that way; most are not. In my experience, Trump supporters I've talked to have been victimized by extremely powerful extremely expensive / well produced propaganda that's created this whole alternate reality in their minds that's extremely convincing, and they're just trying to do the right thing within that reality.
I don't know what the solution to that is, but treating them as bad people (and particularly, ignoring or downplaying the economic / societal abandonment of them that created legitimate anger and resentment which the propaganda can play into) is definitely not the answer.
I'm sorry, but those people have access to the exact same information I do. Maybe at first it was understandable that some people got taken in by it, but at this point there is no mistaking what Trump stands for, and anyone who continues supporting him is outright malicious or so ego driven they can't possibly admit a mistake and will definitely follow him to untold atrocities.
I hate the terms "both sides" and "America is divided" because it implies that there is some form of symmetry to this madness. This is not the case. Trump supporters can come back to earth any time they want, but I am absolutely not going to meet them halfway to their shitty fascist endgame, even if that means we get another decade of milquetoast liberal democrats.
No they don't. Or rather, the ones I've talked with extensively had no idea what was going on; media they genuinely trusted had given them this very incomplete, bizarre, and specifically constructed view of the world that was perfectly believable to them, but which bore absolutely no resemblance to reality. In particular it even has specific features to make it harder to be able to break yourself out of, make you resist learning new information that might challenge it. If you haven't had your brain inside that type of box or talked extensively with people who did it's sometimes hard to appreciate how pervasive and reality-defining it can be.
So like think of all those guys who went down to the border expecting there to be this army of Mexicans coming over and terrorizing the whole town, and they were ready to go down and help sign up for their patriotic duty to help, and they were surprised and confused when they got there and it was just a normal town. It's not like they were like "oh okay let me start shooting any Mexicans I see on the street because that's my main goal" -- they had a perfectly humane reason for being there, in their minds. They had a perfectly humane response (like "wtf these guys lied to me, what even is going on here"). It's easy to laugh at them because they were so wrong, but they really believed it. Because all the news they watch and all their friends they talk to and all the internet they observe told them that's what's going on.
I definitely will agree that there's a way-too-large minority that's like "hey I always wanted to shoot Mexicans / shoot up the Ramadan celebration / kill my family member who I suspect of being a Democrat." I'm not trying to give everyone a free pass. I'm saying that the root of it for a lot of the rank and file is being duped, not being evil.
(Not that that makes them any less dangerous of course)
Fully agree on this part. The movement as a whole and its leaders are extremely dangerous and evil, and the media for the most part is looking for any excuse to avoid saying "these guys are Nazis WTF how do we stop them," and "both sides" is one convenient excuse.
Well, but they can't. Not on their own. They're either going to realize the reality through some outside force helping them see the truth, or they're going to keep growing in numbers and fervor until their leaders can use them to enact a for-real fascist takeover.
So these guys who went to the border... Once they realized it was all fake, they swore off this media and stopped voting Republican?
Some of them, yeah. Not all, and maybe that’s a pretty valid reason to criticize their moral courage. But Jordan Klepper has done some pretty fascinating interviews with e.g. Nikki Haley supporters who have realized what a monster Trump is.
(Some of whom say they’ll maybe still vote for him…)
In my experience, it's mostly been the "You're one of the good ones!" type of racist that gets sucked in and consider it reasonable.
As in, without some seed of racism/misogyny/etc that propaganda fertilizer would mean nothing.
But that's my experience with magats I know.
I like the cut of your jib! It's too often I see blanket statements about all Republicans are Nazis, racist, etc. You can't understand your opposition or why they might believe what they believe if you just see everyone as cartoon evil.
I like the idea that "no person is the villain of their own story." As you say, they for the most part believe they are doing the right thing according to the information they've been subjected to. It's an incredibly difficult problem especially as we understand the importance of a free press.
No person is the villain in their own story, yet I see people blatantly run red lights nearly every day. Most people know perfectly well the shit they do is atrocious.
In Arizona it's simple. The Democrats are rising and the Republicans are falling. If the Arizona State Republicans don't make a substantive change it will go back to blowouts, just in favor of Democrats instead.
In Arizona it's because the Democrats are rising. Elections used to be blowouts for Republicans.
If it's a huge Democratic turn out in year X, then there's going to be a lot of Dem voters that say "well, my vote doesn't really matter so why bother" in year X+1. And vice versa.
So the turnout is going to edge closer and closer to equilibrium over time.
It's because it's all fake and designed to make you think you have a chance and that things are decided fairly. Your TV isn't cheap because it's subsidized by ads from whatever media company. It's cheap because the media keeping you in line is the most cost effective tool they can come up with. Prices are determined by how much you're pacified by the product rather than "market forces".
Problem is even if the attorney general doesn't prosecute, local
courtsprosecutors can. We need votes for local elections THE MOST, so please vote for every small thing.Anyone who genuinely believes that voting doesn't matter should ask themselves why conservatives ALWAYS make sure to vote, come hell or high water.
They're brainwashed into believing they're affecting something. The outcomes are decided by the powerful who are getting them no matter what numbers they show you with the TVs that are allegedly subsidized by ads rather than how much they decide control over your media exposure is worth.
go home, putin worshipping comrade.
Go fuck yourself random unrelated insult maker.
how does Putin's taint taste?
The trolley problem is usually a useful tool and nothing more, but it's actually a great analogy for voting. You have two choices. Let the trolley continue or change its path. You may have different reasons for your choices, but those are the only two real choices. You can leave a note on the lever expressing your displeasure, but it still doesn't get pulled. Not pulling it is as much a choice as pulling it. You're a participant either way.
You're a participant on the same ethical extent as a jigsaw killer victim. Someone else making fucked up circumstances around you doesn't morally implicate you for anything.
Except there's not really a correlation between me pulling the lever in the voting booth and something happening.
Even if I vote as hard as I can the more bad thing can still happen because our system has big problems.
When people say "both sides are the same" they're coming from a point of frustration with the system in general.
Signed,
An anarchist who's had to pull the lever for a capitalist in every election he's ever voted in.
Honestly, if leftist spaces on the internet weren't so infested with insufferable ML campists, I feel like we could actually move the Overton window a bit more among progressive liberals. Libertarian left ideas are pretty popular when presented in the right context. The thing which turns your average person off is the historical association with autocracy and oppression that MLs cling to for some reason.
I have been pretty vocal about this, but I just run into a sectarian wall over and over again. I wish more like-minded people would spend more time challenging ML orthodoxy and less time bashing liberals. I honestly feel like most liberals aren't nearly as far gone as your average Lenin simp.
I always say, and I'm fairly confident it's true, they're more pro-autocracy than they are pro-leftist. They will defend a dictator when they harm people before they back the people being harmed. That's not leftist. Leftism is on the side of the people being oppressed. They absolutely do more harm than good by making people think being left they have to agree with that group, but they're a very loud minority.
While I don’t disagree that MLs online cause harm, it would be remiss of me not to point out that the root of the issue is decades of intergenerational indoctrination during the cold war that anything democratically socialist was directly equivalent to autocratic communism. There is a deep, cultural cognitive dissonance that occurs in the US about things like socialised medicine and welfare that I just don’t think tankies online influence as much as you think they do.
That's true. I guess you could expand the analogy to a very heavy lever that needs a lot of people to pull, and if not enough people pull it the right way the other thing happens. That's really butchering the analogy though and I don't think it's required. The point is to show that "not participating" is still a choice and still has an effect, so you are still playing a part just not one that's useful.
Considering that someone can win the presidency without winning the popular vote, and that the Senate gives states with tiny populations equal power, and that the House should have over a thousand members if we kept the same ratio, sometimes it doesn't matter if more people are pulling along with yout.
There's so many undemocratic things built into our government - mainly to appease slaveowners - it's really hard for me to work up any enthusiasm that my vote will do anything at all.
I can empathize with the people who have given up on voting, because I was at that point many times. Now I've lowered my expectations and given up hope, and I just vote because it means I don't get told I'm not allowed to complain.
Totally agree with everything. Voting is pretty quick and easy though. I absolutely agree with people performing other actions that can possibly be more effective as well, but those take much more time and effort. Everyone should vote because, even if it doesn't have much effect, the amount of effect it has compared to the amount of effort it takes is high.
Now that I can vote by mail I agree that the effort is worth the effect. But if I had to stand in line for hours just to see the Supreme Court or electoral college or Congress or a bunch of states jam the trolley handle in the other direction I don't think I could bring myself to do it if it didn't also mean I'm allowed to complain.
What bothers me, and I've seen expressed in other comments, is that the response to "voting doesn't matter" or "both sides are the same" is immediate dismissal, as if nobody should have any problem with the way things work.
Even the line "If you don't vote you can't complain" is mean and dismissive.
You keep talking about every vote not mattering in a vote that was won by 200-some-odd people with over 3000 write-ins. That person who can make a measurable impact wouldn't have been in the position to do anything if just a few hundred more people had believed it was hopeless and just stayed home. So how do you justify that with your beliefs?
I get that the presidential election is broken on many levels, and many people's votes have little or no bearing on the final outcome, or that any likely outcome will even be ideal, but the implausible has happened before, depending on how people vote.
The one thing that has never improved the outcome is to shrug your shoulders and do nothing.
Yeah, and the bad outcome isn't happening because there wasn't enough votes against it. It happens because the votes do nothing at all and are just a strawman for the actions of the powerful.
You have more than two choices. Stop giving false information.
You really only havw two choices (for most elections) though. You can vote for the side you agree with more or not. Sure, there are lots of ways to do the latter, but it's that. I guess you also have the choice to vote against the side you agree with more, but that's not really a choice. In this case, it isn't a false binary.
You can also participate in many other things outside of voting, but that's totally separate and you can always do more separate things for anything. You can always follow a choice with other choices, but it doesn't change the effect of the first choice.
ftfy
not effectively, you don't.
Yeah, you could vote for someone who isn't going to win (voting this way helps Trump win)
I call bullshit on voting that way helps Trump win.
Ok. You're wrong, but you do you I guess
Well put
It's just like the trolley problem. The stakes are made up and your decision might cause some discussion on the Internet. The real outcomes are decided by people with power and everything you see in media is a puppet show.
lol. you're either completely delusional, or a very obvious Russian puppet.
Ah yes. Discredit your opposition with insults. Common fascist tactic.
Not voting as a means to show dissatisfaction is probably the dumbest fucking thing I’ve ever seen people do. And I say this knowing people willing vote for Trump.
They are at least voting.
It's like the people who try to run from the cops and then once they get caught and asked why they did it, they say "because I didn't want to go to jail." My bro you have articulated the problem and I get it, but the solution you have chosen is going to make it quite a lot worse.
Yeah because it means you actually think votes have some correlation with outcomes. Pretty dang stupid.
it'd be cool if we could like vote for shit. But like, also fix the fucking voting system.
Would like to see more talk about that alongside voting itself. People seem too content with the shitty system we have. And i get it, it's a kill or be killed world out there or whatever the fuck, but like, we should have standards also.
Currently our standard is "literally fucking doing the bare minimum possible" and i honestly just cant fucking take this shit seriously anymore.
FPP is the problem with the US. And electoral colleges. And Gerrymandering the vote. Electoral oversight needs to be non-partisan. So much needs to change
the “Voting is Not Harm Reduction” article is possibly the most covert insidious thing that’s happened to online political discourse since 2019.
somehow, it’s managed to SEO weasel its way on top of every other article since the dawn of the internet for the search terms “voting harm reduction” and similar. and not just once, but reposted to every corner of the internet imaginable. literally try it now, if you set your google search to find articles before February 5, 2020, you will see inumerable articles with diversity of positions on the topic. after that? literally just the same article reposted and crosslisted, with the occasional reddit/twitter/tumblr comment thread.
it’s not even a bad article per se, it’s just indecently self-contradictory as OOP says, admitting at the beginning that small rights can be preserved by engaging in voting, and then pulling a 180 and accusing those who vote of perpetuating white supremacy.
like i get it, harm reduction has a specific meaning originating in addiction treatment. but for heavens sake, this flub of language doesn’t mean you should throw away one of the only miniscule rights the oppressor class has granted you to help your neighbors.
editing to add this comment thread and article which i think give helpful insight.
Your voting system is so fucked. Like voting should be something that people like to do. I want to vote for people that align with my values the most. But no, you have to be strategic and choose the lesser evil to not accidentally end up with fucking fsscists like Trump again. It's fucked. Still tho, please prevent Trump.
Got banned from reddit r/latestagecapitalism for trying to say this
I ran into someone like this on Lemmy just yesterday. They said that "we" deserve to suffer if Trump gets elected. I said that I was guessing they weren't queer or a person of color. They were not. Therefore they were not part of "we." 'Innocent people that are definitely not me deserve to suffer so that America gets what it deserves' is a really fucking galling attitude.
If you really absolutely will not vote for moderates, at least vote for leninist-marxist peoples front of Arizona or something. There's a politican somewhere who will see that 0.15% and think "that could make or brake my campaign, how can I win them over?"
They may ask that, but the answer is "no, appealing to the 0.15% of marxist-leninist voters would lose me 1% of my voter base"
PSL is the usual party Marxist-Leninists push for.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pakistan_Super_League ?
Party for Socialism and Liberation. That's what I see MLs voting for most of the time.
Letting people die for your ideology is easy. Fight for your ideology if it's worth dieing over.
My ideology is that life is an unreasonable, unnecessary, and undesirable burden, and dying for it is free real estate.
-Better Oblivion Community Center
I like to convince myself that maybe I'll be able to spend enough money to make the rest of my life suck less.
You sound ashamed about it. Our morals dim for the chocolate we eat. We live knowing the actual suffering propping the rest of us up is just far enough out of sight it doesn't keep us up at night.
You're not wrong. I'm pretty bummed about the whole situation, but I'm not gonna be convinced that the problems are my fault or under my influence when being born was just like being isekai'd into a trolley problem.
I'll stick to my anime and videogames because it's a much more fun distraction from reality than the misery of politics trying to convince me my input matters.
I find it hard to believe anyone who watches anime can be so oblivious to the constant themes ever present in almost all anime. Duty, self empowerment, sacrificing ones self for others, overcoming the impossible, applying your unique talents to defeat the enemy, etc. If you can enjoy any of that media you can motive yourself to solve the simple puzzles politics represent.
Edif:
But fuck if I give a about this helplessness you've adopted. You sound like some sort of lame parody of myself.
yep, you've got him.
It's a very pretty picture, but I live in a world surrounded by people who want me disarmed and physically unable to confront the bad guys. Gimme a magic sword and the capacity to tank a lot of hits from the evil fighters I confront with talk no jutsu and I'll l give that effort a try.
My unique talent is putting into words how voting is a Rubik's cube your mom gives you so you'll shut up for a minute in the back of the car while she's driving. She's driving over a cliff and thinks a parachute will help her while making your death look like an accident despite how she's prepared with a parachute while driving over a cliff. If enough people understand what I'm saying, maybe they'll organize externally and actually do something that might help. I have more hope for this than faith in voting, but recognize that neither is likely to help anything.
I like how the last one called Kris Mates a man.
I feel like some ad by her with surrounded by 280 people saying this is all that stands protecting you from these draconian laws (better worded) could be a good type of ad.
Speaking personally as a brit i'm not going to comment on whatevers going on with the american election but in the case of britain at least im absolutely not going to be voting for Keir Starmer since most of the left neoliberals in this country telling me i have to swallow my pride and vote for the most right wing and second worst (to his "credit", unlike Tony Blair, he doesnt have the blood of a million iraqis on his hands, only 30,000 palestinians) party leader labour's had in recent memory were the exact same people 5 years ago saying they couldnt in good faith vote for the most far left, trans positive labour leader in decades because he criticised Israel which led to the largest conservative majority in years.
Under Sir Kid Starver, Labour stopped members from voting for a ceasefire right at the start of the Palestinian genocide, members have repeatedly been expelled over bogus antisemitism charges, starmerite labour's trying to push to have the NHS privatised, the party has pivoted so far to the right that you have promiment members saying “Margaret Thatcher was a visionary leader for the U.K; no doubt about it", they've proposed policies to segregate trans people out of single sex NHS hospital wards and those are just the things from the last few months or so that i remember off the top of my head.
I'm going to vote for the Greens instead.
The lack of snide comments about the US educational system is deeply disturbing.
1,254,809 - 1,254,529 = 280
280*
Where's the white people twitter?
Just remember there are people Mango who respond to every single post on the entire thread but can't handle reacting to a single counter argument to their ideas. That's why you need to vote, and if you are Mango and you try to over analyze this post and can't even see something hitting you in the face your vote wouldn't help me achieve my interests anyway. If you vote, keep doing what you are doing.
why is this posted here? this is such a useful and well formed post but i have this community blocked and only found this thru some modlog drama. whatever lol. saving this for later reposting somewhere more relavant. thanks for sharing OP. :)
I can imagine that there would be less reason for many to vote when there are only two options to vote for. What would it take for USA to implement a multi party system like many of the other democraties in the world?
Usually when I read “both sides are the same”, it’s a blue conservative like you trying to make people critical of the Democratic party seem unreasonable.
Both sides are capitalist and conservative, but there are differences for sure. Dont you want more differences?
If you wanna really shut up those people bitching from the sidelines, the best way to do so is to put them in the game! Force them to show us how to do things since it’s so easy and they have it all figured out.
Switching away from first past the post voting allows people to vote for who represents them best while still counting their vote against those they dont want to win. Just search for videos on FPTP voting if you want an explanation on how and why the spoiler effect exists.
Electoral reform is possible in each individual state (for now), we dont need federal reform! Maine and Alaska have already passed electoral reform.
Republicans are moving to make alternative electoral systems illegal in their states. Why would you want to use the same voting system republicans prefer?
More political parties means a higher percentage of the population is representedby their choices in the voting booth. More people involved in the electoral process, more people engaged.
Its a win win win all around for not just the people, but also for the democratic party. More people voting means more democratic votes. The numbers dont lie. So what’s the hold up blue states?
You believe it’s critical to vote for the democrats to beat the Republicans, thus you should 100% be fully invested in passing electoral reform in your state.
Electoral reform needs to be the number one priority for every democrat. This is a existential threat to our nation, so we must use EVERY tool at our disposal. No more waiting. This especially goes for those in blue states.
Consider starting a campaign to change how we vote in your own state! Force our representatives to compete with fresh outside ideas. We deserve the best representation, not excuses.
I've got some "they're both capitalism, so it's all the same". News flash: we have regulated capitalism. The choice is between regulated capitalism or the GOP desire of free for all capitalism.
Here's some "It's a black box running propriety software with a backdoor that'll fuck us all regardless of of our decisions about whether to interact with it."
In 2/3 of the US it's still legal to pay someone $7 an hour, and has been since 2008 across multiple Democratic and Republican administrations.
It really does suck that both parties are rabidly capitalist.
Thank you for being exhibit A.
News flash: Minimum wage is by definition an example of regulated capitalism.
Want it to move up? Then move the overton window by telling the free for all side that they have no chance of winning.
You have to give people a reason to vote, man. People do not care if the candidate of change is a fascist when the guy in office already has demonstrated that he doesn't give a fuck if there's food on your family's table. You saw it in 2016.
For the vast majority of this country, the last 40 years have been one long, tortured loss of economic and social liberty, and Joe Biden's presidency has been an enthusiastic participant in it by doing next-to-nothing to alleviate it.
He did make hundreds of billions appear out of thin air overnight though, for more war.
You continue to be exhibit A, you carefully try to avoid saying capitalism but your message is clear. Cheers.
I vote, but I can't really pretend that it accomplishes much.
We hand Democrats a majority and all they do with it is find a way to spend another half trillion on war that wasn't budgeted. When I point out that perhaps it'd be good if we didn't neglect our own people's needs, people call me a traitor or a Russian shill. (Neither of which are true.)
And for those trumpeting the AZ decision here, go look at Idaho, where abortion was criminalized and they got away with it. In a year 2/3 of the states will have similar laws just like in 2/3 of the states it's still legal to pay someone $7 an hour.
That is what people are talking about when they say voting doesn't matter, because if you're poor or working class, there is no effective difference between the two ruling parties.
If only there was a meme that specifically debunked this argument.
I actually agree with you about the behavior of electing "Democrats" in the abstract; the Hillary Clintons and Nancy Pelosis of the party have been selling out the working class for enough decades in a row now that it's easy to become disillusioned. But Biden's record is actually pretty far above the norm for Democrats. And, in this specific election, trying to apply this logic is like trying to fistfight the firefighters who are trying to put your house out, because you heard they misappropriated some of their funding last year.
I'm completely mystified by how you can look at an example where a 280 vote margin led to an attorney general who refuses to prosecute people in her state over a tyrannical law, and then go: "no, but see - voting doesn't matter!"
I mean, there's ignorance, and then there's willful stupidity.
It's easy.
Go look at what happened with Idaho. It's a really, really bad example.
I'm honestly not sure what you're getting at with this statement. Idaho has a Republican governor, a Republican Lt. governor, a Republican secretary of state, 2 Republican senators, 100% of the US Representatives for Idaho are Republicans, and 80% of the state senators are Republican.
Is there something I'm missing here? Can you explain why Idaho is in any way something other than a perfect example of why voting very much matters? As far as I can tell, voters in Idaho seem to overwhelmingly favor Republicans, and so they get Republican policies.
And how does Idaho vote exactly? Is it different than OR, WA, CO, CA? Do you think the way these states vote might have something to do with it? You're disproving your own point.
votes 3rd party
Of course people should vote where it's working. The argument on the federal level is that it's not working. It's not harm reduction because the federal Democrats are too cowardly or too compromised to enforce protective laws and the Constitution as evidenced by reality.
It's really "relative" harm reduction because conservatives are literally trying to conduct harm amplification
Only it's still not. The Democrats aren't willing to stop the state level Republicans. So they can just do whatever they want. The GOP would need to win the Senate and Presidency in addition to holding the House to make it actually worse. And at that point it's mathematically unlikely the Democrats would have held the presidency anyways.
They aren't doing anything? I recall some student loan forgiveness that happened recently that sure as hell wouldn't have happened under a republican. I dislike Biden too, but he is doing some things. Say it's not as much as we'd like, but stop spreading the bullshit nothing is happening.
Also, the Biden administration is enforcing anti-trust laws like we haven't seen in decades, which I'd say is a pretty massive step. Sure, yeah, not far enough yet but it's a step.
Biden has forgiven about $150 billion in student loan debt, has passed some big economic reforms which led to wealth inequality falling for the first time in quite a long time, wages at the bottom 10% of wage earners are going up faster than inflation even under fairly historic levels of inflation, his climate bill put the US on track for a 40% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2030, and he's been raising corporate taxes by quite a lot in order to pay for all that stuff. Given how unified most of the US government is against things like that happening it's actually fairly impressive.
There's some other stuff but those are the big ones I'm aware of. It's just that the news media doesn't have any reason to report on that type of boring progress stuff, and actually has a couple of big reasons not to report it in favor of some other more titillating types of stories.
That's cool. I notice your taking credit for state minimum wage laws now. And they're already talking about pushing back the climate change stuff.
But none of that is what I was mentioning. What is he doing to protect women and minorities from the conservatives coming after them? He doesn't have to be hands off. The 14th is incorporated against the states and Presidents have used that in the past. Or have we just given up and decided we can have climate change as long as it's evangelical Christian climate change?
I'm just gonna sit in quiet contemplation of how you've managed to make it sound halfway sensible "Yes, Biden's done some substantive good things even though the majority of the rest of the government is against those things, but they've been too effective at making sure he can't do more, so I oppose him."
Please explain how either of those protect people from Christian Nationalists criminalizing them and destroying their medical infrastructure?
The only people who can really do anything about that on a federal level are congress, not the president. Democrats don't control congress though. Even if they did, the federal government has limits to what they can do to control states. People need to vote in local elections for that stuff. Local elections influence your life far more than federal.
You are opposed to voting for democrats because they aren't doing something that isn't possible. Yeah, you definitely hold a well reasoned position that people should listen to.
Oh the president can, and has. Even to extremes, or am I the only one who remembers learning about the 101st Infantry Division escorting students?
That was applying the constitution's rules on equality (as ruled by the Supreme Court of the United States). The executive can use its power to enforce laws, but it can't use its power to create new laws. That is the purview of congress. Once congress creates the laws then the president is in a position to enforce them, but not before then.
You might want to learn about the civics and workings of the US if you're an American. Most of it isn't that complicated.
Stop? How would federal Democrats do anything to state Republicans?
Enforce the Constitution against them. Reform SCOTUS by appointing more judges. (In the past even this threat was enough to bring SCOTUS around) We have rights and it's blindingly apparent the Democrats aren't willing to do more to protect them than ask the people violating them to stop in a polite manner.
And that's on the issues they claim to care about. On other things they are actively causing harm.
Oh so just change the entire framework of how states interact with the federal government. Cool.
I'm all for the adjustments you mentioned, but it's unreasonable to suggest all that is possible in one term, right now, based on this vote.
It's gonna take years of building legitimate progressive candidates, That's where the work is. It also comes from downticket mandate. Republicans are gobbling up every small posting, seen and unseen, and use that to drive policy and action.
The 14th amendment enforces the Constitution against the states. Has done since the civil rights era. This isn't anything new. In fact Biden's inaction is the new thing.
Fucking kill me now hoo lee dude. It's the same every time I'm so joever this shit. Take me off the wild ride, take me out of the fucking time loop. Is there a way to like block every single "voting advocacy" post, or something? I don't necessarily care to block users or communities but hoo lee shit it's like a drill plunged deep into my cortical nerves. It's like I'm trapped in groundhog's day but then it's just inane bitching about how everyone is a CCP or russian shill and a vote for biden is a vote for democracy, and a vote for anyone else is a vote for trump and fascism. And ummm errmmmm ackshually how maybe the democratic party should nut up and go full communism and wouldn't it be nice if I had a free pony, actually electoralism and reformism sucks because nihilism. Nobody has heard of dual power. Kill me please, kill me with hammers.
Never any discussion of, oh, are you in a district that is going to vote blue almost inevitably? Maybe a protest vote makes sense. What should you do in a swing state? What could you do in other cases? What are suitable times for protests or local advocacy, what are potential local advocacy groups? Any discussion on alternative voting systems, advocacy for those systems, etc. Nope, fuck that shit, easier just to bitch and moan. I'm doing it right now, because it's so easy, actually. Exhausting. Hoo lee. Please stop feeding the mao zedong CCP trolls, if that's what you think they are. Publically shaming their stupidity is not a good strategy. If they are stupid, which they are, then it will be self-evident to onlookers, you don't have to coddle the fence and in the process end up feeding the trolls more and engaging in unproductive schlock conversations about unproductive things. That's giving them what they want.
I have a gift for you. I don't necessarily disagree with the idea that jawing about it online is a waste of time, but also, with the energy devoted to this post you could have signed up with them. I also scattered some links to some other organizations and etc somewhere down in the threads.
All the links going from that link just go to donations. There's no actual "sign up" option, there's no organization for protests or local city council activism or anything. I am not overly impressed with that link.
I looked over it just now... I thought it was just me that I couldn't find the sign up link. I think you are right. And there's been some sort of controversy about it although I can't really make head or tail of it.
What the fuck man where do I go to have a productive impact
Hell, probably.
Also local city council meetings, but then that's kind of an eternal fool's errand, because those are going to be eternally swamped by the pettiest, most spiteful old people you've ever seen, who are almost always going to overwhelmingly vote against measures which might positively impact your community on the basis that the unworthy might take advantage of it, just like they've been doing for the past 50 years when all the public pools got filled in. It requires more organization and dedication to sit up in city council meetings and trudge through docket after docket of meaningless public works projects and city budgets that you can't affect at all in order to find something that you can vote on, and then figure out that actually your vote didn't matter. It requires a real passion for mediocre bureaucracies.
Also telegram channels, but those are mostly just a bunch of white supremacist dickbags, disillusioned teenagers, and fed honeypots, but then I repeat myself thrice.
Also local volunteer work, but then most of those are just band-aids that further enable neoliberal blood-sucking, and potentially even stifle alternatives, if you're extremely but reasonably cynical, mostly as evidence by the large amounts of neoliberal funding which go towards those sorts of programs.
Probably actually the best answer you're going to find is the worst jobs out there. Something like a local, relatively disorganized or low-key harm reduction group, where you're handing out needles or some such. Something that really nobody likes, basically. Giving out food, shelter, etc. to the homeless (possibly compost toilet or disposal materials, or even doing dump runs for them, helps out a ton), rather than just volunteering at a soup kitchen, or a shelter which probably is either super overcrowded or is subject to too many stipulations, which kinda make them totally useless. Building benches to put at bus stops, that sort of thing.
Robbing FDIC ensured ATMs, which theoretically only very minorly increases inflation in an economy which extremely heavily favors the rich already. Actually don't do that one that's illegal.The only problem with those is that it's pretty easy to get arrested for defacing public property, giving out drug paraphenalia, or giving out non-FDA insured food, so, your mileage may vary on all that.If you're talking more reformist shit, that's stuff where I kind of flame out because I don't know where to begin, but usually it's better done in larger more organized cities, to begin with, it probably involves groups like extinction rebellion, and it involves using more discrete political events, manufactured or otherwise, to push for support and gain leverage against political entities, which can then be transformed into gains, which then lend can itself to more organization. Biggest thing here is probably unionization, so long as it's done for the benefit of workers and not to protect corporations from firebombings. None of those are exactly things that you can sign up for online, usually, they just arise when they arise.
Agreed, it's never okay to sacrifice the unborn for political reasons.
If you feel like your vote is useless because both choices are near the same level of bad (even if one of them is somewhat less bad,) consider voting for Literally Anybody Else. Look him up, he's pretty based (even though he does have one or two bad ideas.)
If you feel like your vote is useless because both choices are not even remotely close to even the same ballpark of the same level of bad but Biden's still pretty far from what you want, consider joining Bernie Sanders's activist organization, instead of trying to bring Trump to power through inaction while cloaking yourself in a tissue-thin veneer of bullshit to justify your Trump-enablement as a good thing somehow.
Dawg I'm not trying to bring Trump to power. I'm trying to send a message that we're not going to keep playing the game of the two parties putting forth their worst candidates and that if they're not going to represent us, we can and will replace them.
I'm more interested in the long-term game of breaking down the two-party dichotomy (though this doesn't directly do that) and all the political hatred it has enabled for many years which is only getting worse as time goes on. I consider this a higher priority than the short-term risk of Trump maybe getting into office for a single term more if there are more liberals that hold this sentiment than conservatives.
Also for the record, when I said "because both choices are near the same level of bad," I was addressing the sentiment in the literature being tweeted about, not how I actually feel. Of course Biden is significantly less bad than Trump.
Replacing the Democrats with a further-left party sounds like a great idea. Pressuring the Democrats to move to the left sounds like a great idea.
Failing to elect the Democratic nominee in the upcoming election will absolutely guarantee that both of those will become almost impossible for quite some time. If you didn't like that Bernie Sanders got cheated out of the nomination, I bet you'll be significantly more unhappy once he or anyone like him can get thrown in prison or shot in the head.
I'm not a lefty. Moving the Democrats further left is not my goal. In fact, unless the Republicans are moving left with them, it's against my goal. I don't want to get my favorite policies in office, I want people to stop hating on each other so extremely just because they don't sit on the same side of the fence. The two-party system has made this far too convenient for far too long.
I don't hate Republicans because they're on the other side of the fence.
I hate them because they're trying to kill some of my friends and family.
If Republicans gain control of the federal government again, people I know will die.
This is the most cishetwhiteman take, look up project 2025, and go fuck yourself.
Where'd you get cishetwhiteman from?
This is the most white feminist take. Look up the word intersectional. Who are you willing to throw into the wood chipper in the name of harm reduction next?
I voted Williamson over Biden in the primary this year.
I wish all of the "uncommitteds" had done the same. It sucks that there's a candidate who actually supports universal health care, living wages, and maybe not spending all of our money on war (and genocide)... and that candidate will get zero delegates.
But 1 < 260 ?
Lots of things work this way. You can play on a sports team and not bring too much to the table, and yet your team will win anyway. And yet, if everyone takes that attitude, then the team loses.
In fact, I would say that almost any real progress in the world depends on shared effort where each individual person who's part of it isn't individually critical to the outcome. Not wanting to take part in that kind of thing even when it's mind-bogglingly trivial (as voting is) is going to exclude you from the majority of good things you can do.
This is a false equivalence. An election is not a sports game and voters are not a team.
What good things?
No, it's an analogy.
You’re a really poor analogy
I'm gonna start using times when I've articulated what I have to say, and someone clearly wants to get into a pointless and repetitious back-and-forth about it, as a good chance to link to activist organizations that people can join to make a good positive difference.
Here's Bernie Sanders's group; they seem pretty effective.
You seem comically, almost willfully mystified by everything happening around you.
I think this is the behavior of a shill who simply has no argument against the things that are being said, but is on the clock to oppose it in some fashion, and pretending to be so pants-on-head mentally disabled that they can't comprehend the pretty straightforward things people are saying is the only thing they can come up with that still lets them be aggressive against it.
I think. I have no idea; maybe they're just a deeply combative person who's uninterested in reading. Like I say, I think if they are a shill, that this type of behavior actually has the exact opposite effect of what it's supposed to be doing. If it was me I think I would start talking about anarchism and rebellion and how the left needs to turn to real violence to achieve its ends... like sidestep the whole brain-dead argument of "voting won't produce electoral outcomes" and try to positively support something that will indirectly get people thinking in a different direction from political organizing, and still be destructive to the country overall.
Here's a list of jobs with the Biden campaign, for anyone who's okay with the establishment version of the left and wants a job that's more productive than optimizing Adwords campaigns to sell sneakers or whatever. Most are in-person in Delaware and pay about $90k.
(I actually completely by accident linked to an activist organization that does have quite a few concrete answers to your question "What good things?" It's not my problem if you weren't able to find them. But, what I was intending to do was just totally ignore your bad-faith combativeness and link to some useful resources, instead of engaging in this whole hostile exchange in any capacity.)
If you're concerned about climate change specifically, Extinction Rebellion is a protest group agitating to turn the governments of the world against their currently mass-suicidal course of policy. Biden's been able to do a certain amount about it even in the face of pretty stiff resistance from the entirety of our corrupted governmental system, but the current pace of change isn't going to be enough to give us a livable planet in the future, so getting involved in the solution seems like a good idea.
Another day, another dem lying and saying anyone who won't vote for Biden "isn't voting."
That right there, that's fascist behavior.
This message reached 2000 people at most, 1000 are from the US, 500 agree, 350 of them will vote. But they all live in different states.
Why even bother?
If only it were possible to make social media posts more than once.
Personally I think you're overstating the electoral impact of this post -- if it really were "one powerful argument posted on social media = 350 votes", then a community of 100 people could each make a post a week from now until the election and swing the election by one million votes.
I actually do think that's somewhat similar to how it works. It is widely acknowledged that authoritarian governments are running organized troll campaigns on social media; every big social media platform has a team assigned to detecting and combatting it. I don't think that would be happening if it simply produced 0 result. I think the result is less than 350, but it's definitely not 0.
This. You either become a bot in the hands of those you like or those who you don't like win with the help of their bots. Needless to say, I don't share your optimism, but I'm glad that we share the same despair.
I see how MGS2sation of the world is happening and I simply don't know how to exist here politically.
Yes, why do anything ever?
Said Sisyphus rolling his stone up to the hill
For the same reason I talk to my friends, get them registered to vote, and go with them to the polls. I can’t make a difference on a large scale, but I can make a small difference. I can get five other people to vote who might not have otherwise, and that’s important.
Let đe give you advice you haven't asked. Please, be prepared to lose.
Feels good, mostly.
Valid reason
Oh look. It's time for another round of "the ethically bankrupt decisions of the powerful people in the world are your fault because voting is real."
It must be all the lead poisoning making people so shallow minded as to believe the toys they're sold and occupied with are anything but a means to keep them in line and shift blame. Your cheap TV tells you what they want you to think and exists for that. Voting is a black box that exists to convince you that there's a chance you can improve outcomes rather than just serve the rich. Political faces are literally only faces.
Change my mind. Prove to me that voting is actually implemented and a functional interaction with the world. Hint: Some words on my screen will be about as meaningful as a Harry Potter book at best. I see voting to be about as real of an attempt at achieving something as praying. It's a way to convince yourself your supposedly good intentions will have any sway over reality.
I need something better than faith.