I was banned from a certain “leftist” sub for arguing it’s stupid to dismiss voting or dislike voting instead of whatever-else because election outcomes have very practical consequences for a lot of people in the here and now and you might need to start looking at Plan B’s in the event your systemic revolution that gets rid of the US government and allows you to rebuild– a messy process that you’ve not elaborated on– doesn’t happen.
Far as I’m concerned, it’s proof some leftists are just as dumb and easily mislead as ultra conservatives; your rhetoric is indistinguishable from anti-voting memes that came right out of a Russian bot farm.
There’s a certain leftist opposition to structure in general.
I had a comrade who was actively trying to get out of jury duty because he has fair objections to the legal system. Others in our organization were encouraging him to wear communist pins and whatnot so he doesn’t get selected.
But like… what if some reactionary takes your place on the jury? Is that preferable to you being selected and needing to briefly take part in a deeply flawed system that you believe should be overhauled? Shouldn’t people who have dedicated their life to fixing these systems make it a point to operate within them in some capacity?
It’s as if they are worried participating in the system in any way will somehow taint you.
Agreed. Voters holding out for the perfect candidate infuriate me. The only “perfect” candidate is staring at you in the mirror. Outside of that, compromises are necessary.
Those subs are just propaganda tools for russian and chinese bots and propagandists - and the useful idiots. You cannot really tell any of them apart.
There are discrete opportunities to firebomb walmarts and I support each instance
You guys act like we’re hypocrites if we don’t firebomb a wal-mart every sunday.
🤣
If you think voting is useless, I gotta ask then why do so many politicians try to surpress it?
That’s what makes it useless
As a black person, if voting is useless, then why did Jim Crow era South come up with millions of ways to stop Black people from voting? Why do d still have systems set in place to make voting for minorities harder, like laws about former felons not being able to vote?
If you’re a minority (race and gender, fuck even poor white men) your ancestors didn’t fight and die for voting rights just for you to sit here and go “oh it doesn’t really do anything”
Teaching the population learned helplessness.
Politicians and Russian bots.
I don’t believe firebombing walmart will do us any good. I believe forcibly removing the current administration by physical means or otherwise is necessary to achieving some long term progress towards recovery. Might not be peace at the end of that tunnel, but it will be better than letting than ruin things even more like they continue to be as I type this out.
Firebombing a single building does nothing. You need coordinated violence with a massive group of people. Things that many tend to write off as “riots” like the 2020 BLM protests. My problem is never with voting, but it’s with people who tell everyone to use every tool and refuse to use political violence. Why is it ok to refuse to use 1 tool, but not the other? Both are completely necessary to achieve the end goal desired. We should be seeing more Luigis and Tyler Robinsons at the very least every month instead of telling everyone that peaceful protests and a bit of community outreach is the only things worth doing outside of election time.
Why is it ok to refuse to use 1 tool, but not the other?
I think it’s okay that some of us want to exercise our rights but draw the line at breaking the law.
If you want to blow up (or even give up) your own life for the cause, that’s your choice. It’s not mine.
And some people draw the line at supporting candidates that don’t support human rights or support Israel, yet that one gets you yelled at and told “we have to use every tool available”.
The partisan purity tests on the left are a big part of the reason why Republicans keep winning general elections.
Republican policies are bad for anyone who isn’t rich. Their party is literally promoting fascism at this point. But somehow the fact that a Democrat isn’t 100% what you want them to be means you should stay at home and not vote?
Be advised that the thing Republican voters are best at is falling in line. They will vote for a candidate they actively hate … as long as that candidate has an R next to their name on the ballot.
The time for purity tests is the primary. Vote for non-AIPAC, pro-trans candidates then. Cast your ballot for the person who best represents your interests. Actively campaign for them and convince everyone you meet to vote for them.
But in a general election, if you refuse to vote because you don’t like the Democrat (with whom you agree on 80% of issues), you’re ceding the choice of representative for your state or district to the people who will vote Republican no matter what. And I doubt you will agree with even half of that person’s votes.
You might feel like you’ve done something valuable and righteous, but all you’ve really done on a practical level is make it easier for the right-wing candidate to win a majority.
Even if you’re not enthusiastic about voting for the Democrat, you can feel good about voting against the Republican.
I haven’t been excited about voting for a lot of people in my life, but I am still quite proud of the fact that my vote helped a dead man beat John Ashcroft for a seat in the Senate.
Also, even for those who only care about 1 issue (whether Gaza or Trans rights or something else), it’s important to have some sense of nuance on that issue and not frame it in completely black-and-white terms. Chances are that a given AIPAC Democrat candidate is less hostile to Palestinians than their Republican opponent, or that an anti-trans Democrat on the wrong side of trans sports and bathroom issues is running against a Republican that wants trans folk jailed or killed. The Democrats are far, far from perfect, but they are still better than the Republicans on every single issue.
And yet, you aren’t out there assassinating CEOs.
Curious.
/s
It’s easy as fuck to tell everyone else to be a martyr. I think that’s the dilemma we might be in here
My problem is never with voting, but it’s with people who tell everyone to use every tool and refuse to use political violence. Why is it ok to refuse to use 1 tool, but not the other?
Devil’s advocate-- Trump is provoking the public so he could invoke the Insurrection Act and legitimise the use of violence to purge any opposition.
There has already been numerous instances of violations of constitution and civil rights, but where does the public draw the line? I don’t know, but I think the test will be the midterms on whether or not Trump will rig it. Or, if not the midterms, wait in two years if he doesn’t want to step down.
You can use the logic of “they’re just waiting for us to get violent so they can oppress us harder” all the way to the camps.
Not saying you’re necessarily wrong about the insurrection act but if he was really trying to do it he would whether someone really did it or not. I mean he’s already been shot at. Hes got the false grounds to go for it.
Unfortunately you’re batting for the other side. All they want to do is throw out any reason they can to keep the status quo of non violence so they can continue to steamroll forward. Because the secret is that they’re fragile. It’s not a majority of the population that’s doing this, it’s a very small minority with a slightly larger minority supporting it and a vast majority saying “well don’t get too rowdy yet, that’s what they want.”
Trump wasn’t even elected on the second term when he was shot at so he doesn’t have the grounds to invoke the Insurrection Act. But now as the president, he can’t use that prior incident. He’s waiting for any excuses to invoke the act as incumbent president.
It’s not a majority of the population that’s doing this, it’s a very small minority with a slightly larger minority supporting it and a vast majority saying “well don’t get too rowdy yet, that’s what they want.”
Everyone seem to have forgotten about last year when people talked about raising arms in response to the brutal ICE abuse, and the government floated the idea of invoking the Insurrection Act. The government did tone down the raids and scapegoated Gregory Bovino, but in any case, are people really willing to be martyrs and raise arms next time around if it’s brought up again?
He’s been shot at since he was president again… there are a lot of assassination attempts, it’s hard to keep up
But that’s never how it fucking works out! You refuse to use the one tool that most people can use with very little effort, time, cost and risk. Then, you DON’T USE ANYTHING FUCKING ELSE!!!
I’m absolutely fine with firebombing walmarts or whatever else violence is needed. I’m not naive enough to believe voting alone will get us all the way. But I’m also not stupid enough to believe any of you fucks actually do shit. You fucking never do!
Did BLM actually change things?
Locally it did. Seattle still has less than half the cops we did before 2020, it’s awesome.
The people too scared to vote because there might be a guy saying mean things about them. Are the same ones claiming they’ll be the face of the revolution.
“Both sides are the same, you shouldn’t bother voting”
The bad guys win, things get worse
“See? I was right!”
The issue is that even if you voted for the democrat every time, due to them not improving the living situation considerably you’ll always end up having the worse guy win at some point.
The only thing that would really help would be to finally start improving the living reality of the people.
That’s why we need people to vote in the primaries.
Wilding v. DNC is the court case where the DNC admitted that they don’t have to abide by the primaries because they are a private entity and can nominate whomever they want.
They admitted this in open court because so many people voted in the primaries for Bernie, and yet they nominated Hillary, that they could no longer hide this fact from the majority of the Democrat voting public.
The truth was short lived though, as that case is almost completely memory holed, and everyone pretends like none of that happened a decade ago.
I was there. I remember. Sure, vote in the primaries and vote for the “lesser evil”, but we won’t win anything without infiltrating the Democrat bureaucracy and forming unions and serious protests.
Crickets
The primaries that they can decide not to have? Or that the winner didn’t really win?
at least one state had open primaries, I’d need to check if others do but we got ours from a ballot measure.
Wow, how generous of them to give one state a primary, maybe.
according to balotopedia it’s 14 with open primaries
Truly the land of democracy, lol.
Nah, if people cared about politics before Election Day we could be pushing for better candates in the primaries.
We absolutely will continue to get the choice between a shit sandwich and a shit burrito every time if we keep refusing to take part in the ingredient selection.
I’m gonna need to stop you right there.
Pushing for better candidates means defining a coherent set of qualities one wants in a candidate and then actually doing legwork for them instead of flinging shit everywhere from the lazy safety of your bedroom in your parents’ house.
You’re supposed to “improve living reality” before and after voting, not instead of… Voting doesn’t preclude protesting or working to that end.
Last time the democrats had control of all three branches of government, americans got slightly better healthcare, and now insurance companies can’t just refuse to cover conditions they claim you had before you got insurance. Also no more lifetime maximums.
True, but do democrats improve more than the previous republican made it worse? It doesn’t feel like it.
Also I wouldn’t use Healthcare as an example of something that works in the US
No, because it’s easier to destroy than to build.
Also Republicans have had complete control of government more than Democrats over the last few decades, so you’d expect Republican policy to be moved further.
Also thousands of innocent civilians were murdered on the other side of the planet by those democrats, but they were brown so they didn’t count?
Go touch grass
Don’t dismiss my comment. Those lives are worth your comfort?
You’re not here in good faith.
Go touch grass
You think someone arguing on behalf of the victims of American imperialism is arguing in bad faith automatically?
That’s a fucked up level of dehumanization, brother, lol.
You don’t think the bad guys were the guys doing a genocide?
Bill to Criminalise Being Poor narrowly passes with a 51/49 vote.
Bill to provide Israel with 12,000 brand new “child-melter 4000s” passes with unanimous bipartisan support.
Right. That’s why the whole democracy process isn’t supposed to begin and end with election day… But I have a suspicion, and it is just a suspicion, that a lot of the public don’t actually have as much of a problem with genocide as we assume they would.
I’m not entirely certain my own neighbours could locate Palestine or Israel on a map.
So in other words even if voting did work you’re going to end up with someone as shitty as the average American and they’re still going to commit genocide
That’s not what happens when voting works.
It’s what happens when you vote and then do nothing else.
That’s not what happens when voting works.
Yes it is
It’s what happens when you vote and then do nothing else.
I do agree with that
Very depressing and completely real, unfortunately.
The state of public education and historical knowledge honestly makes me second guess the idea of re-education camps, lol. Seems preferable to decades of bloodshed fighting unlimited waved of ignorant propagandized fascists.
Maybe a clockwork orange style eye opening device with the Gaza genocide playing in one eye and both sides of the American political elite saying there’s no evidence of humanitarian violations in the other.
As Eminem once put it, “Talk is cheap, motherfucker, if you’re feeling frogish, leap.”
Does voting cause Americans some obscure form of pain or anguish?
I can see no other reason why not to vote.
Americans aren’t really allowed to take off work.
Just so people know because this is important, many states have laws requiring employers to allow time off to vote. Check your local laws. Some states even require that time to be paid.
A problem is that, actually, some are. It’s the carrot on a stick problem allowing the problem to get much, much worse, at a rapid rate.
Like, the big stone door at the end of the tunnel is open, but closing, and there are only 10 people-spaces available. So, 1000 people fight each other to survive, rather than rushing through the door and ripping the spine out of the person closing the door.
“Oh, you have an issue with the door closing person? Maybe if you ran faster and beat more other people you wouldn’t have an issue with it.”
I’m not USian, but here are some assorted reasons why one might choose not to vote. I do not necessarily agree (or disagree) with any of them, and this is my attempt at a reasonably balanced analysis as a person who is not an expert in politics, but has read a lot of arguments in the comments.
-
Voting makes you complicit.
(Let’s say for the sake of argument that it is a given that Democrats will continue aiding Israel’s genocide and ethnic cleansing just as much as the Republicans, but will improve things for marginalised communities domestically.)
The argument here is that voting for a politician that will perpetuate a genocide makes you complicit in a genocide in a way that inaction does not. The counter-argument is that refusing to exercise what influence you have in the choice between make a choice between Palestinian genocide or Palestinian genocide and trans genocide makes you complicit in trans genocide. This is literally the kind of thing that the trolley problem thought experiment was made to explore. -
Voting for the lesser evil increases harm in the long run.
The argument here is that demonstrating a willingness to vote for the lesser evil - with no red lines whatsoever - incentivises Democrats to only ever be slightly less bad than the Republicans, whereas having red lines and allowing Democrats who cross them to lose will incentivise the Democratic party to change their policies. The counter-argument is that Dems haven’t exactly demonstrated that they willing to adopt certain policies even when it would be demonstrably beneficial to their election prospects, and so the pragmatic thing to do is to delay harm for as long as possible to give a better chance that non-electoral politics will shift in the interim. The counter-counter-argument is that such a shift will not occur while that harm is being delayed, which leads us on to… -
Accelerationism.
(Yes, I’m aware that what I’m about to write isn’t the original meaning of accelerationism. Don’t @ me.)
The argument here is electoral politics either can never progress toward socialism/anarchism/your-flavour-of-leftism (if you’re a leftist), or even that it is no longer even capable of halting a descent into fascism (if you’re a pessimistic liberal), and so we should simply allow shit to get fucked so that a critical mass of people have it bad enough to do some revolution and/or non-voting-based direct action about it. The counter-arguments here include, but are not limited to: a) well, that’s just like, you’re opinion, man; b) that’s an awfully big gamble to take when there’s no guarantee that what will come after will be better; and c) you should prioritise the lives of people that currently exist, now, rather than those of hypothetical future people, and immediate harm reduction is of more benefit to those people specifically.
In case any one cares, I’m English. My position on voting is that I may vote in an election where the Greens or possibly the Lib Dems stand a chance of winning, but otherwise I spoil my ballot. Yes, I’m aware that the Lib Dems are shitlibs. Still better than Labour. I will never vote Labour for as long as it remains transphobic or as long as the likes of Luke Akehurst remain in the party.
This is literally the kind of thing that the trolley problem thought experiment was made to explore
no, it’s not. the trolley problem is a series of questions that help you to explore your own morality and understand your tendency (consequentialism or deontology or divine command theory, etc) and how far you’re willing to stick to your beliefs.
there are no correct answers to the trolley problem.
A runaway trolley is on course to kill five people, but if you pull a lever it will be diverted to a track where it will kill only one person. Should you pull the lever? Does that make you a murderer?
You: There is no correct answer to this.
A politician who will commit multiple genocides is fighting an election against a politician who will commit one genocide. Should you vote for latter politician? Does that make you complicit in genocide?
You: This is obviously completely different from a trolley problem, and consequentialist and deontological ethics are not relevant in this situation.
there is no correct answer. it depends on which ethical system you prefer. and in fact, the same reasoning someone would use to make their choice in the trolley problem is, hopefully, the same method they’d use in politics. and, to that end, deontologists never pull the lever.
voting for genocide is wrong
there is no correct answer. it depends on which ethical system you prefer. and in fact, the same reasoning someone would use to make their choice in the trolley problem is, hopefully, the same method they’d use in politics.
Literally the point that I was making in my original comment.
voting for genocide is wrong
If you’re a deontologist. Whereas a consequentialist would argue that allowing more genocide to occur when you could have voted for less genocide is wrong. And, as we’ve established, neither position is objectively the correct one. It depends on you as a person. And let’s not even get into virtue ethics.
great. it seems like you understand that the trolley analogy doesn’t have a single answer
and if you are attacking deontology, you are going to need to overcome all the justifications that deontologists (who make up a plurality of professional philosophers) would proffer.
so you can decide if the right thing for yourself to do is to vote for small genocide or to vote “against big genocide” (ifthe option offered is voting for small genocide) but you can’t decide for others.
This is a spot-on analysis, especially for someone not in the US.
The counter-counter-argument is that such a shift will not occur while that harm is being delayed, which leads us on to…
- Accelerationism.
I agree with what you said, up until this point. Non-electoral strategies are not harmed by voting because of accelerationist reasons, but because the messaging becomes muddled.
We have these two horrible, awful parties no one really likes, politics is increasingly driven by “negative partisanship,” just a question of which party you hate more, and then everyone on the other side is assumed to be fully on board with the worst aspects of their side, when in reality almost everyone is following this same “lesser evil” logic, and it’s really just a question of which party’s faults they’re more aware and conscious of. One of the biggest advantages to non-electoral strategies is that you have the opportunity to distance yourself from that and define what you actually stand for and don’t stand for yourself. Someone who (correctly) sees someone like Joe Biden as a slimeball, could be more receptive to leftist ideas if they’re decoupled from him.
Now, you take a protest, a union, whatever, and it takes an official stance endorsing a politician, now you’re gonna be defined by that politicians words and actions, and unless it’s someone you can really trust and stand by, you’re right back to square one.
Point is, accelerationism is stupid and doesn’t work, and I can’t say that no one believes it, but I certainly don’t (although people often assume that it’s what I believe despite everything I say to the contrary). We can look at history and see very long periods of time when things were horrible for a lot of people and they weren’t able to change things just by really really wanting them to, because they lacked power and organization. It can also just lead to the left straight up getting exterminated, as has happened many times in history, like Nazi Germany, or Iran under the Shah, or the mass killings in Indonesia under Suharto. Sometimes, the bad guys just win.
Imo, anyone who actually believes in accelerationism is a fool who doesn’t read theory or study history, but it mostly just exists as an insult or accusation, rather than being something people actually believe.
-
Several reasons - People are lazy AF, maybe a bit “soft disenfranchised” in terms of not preceiving that they have credible information, and also there are active demoralization campaigns going on.
All those are reasons but none are valid excuses. Get off your ass and vote. Many places allow you to vote early. Federal law requires your employer to give you time off to vote.
No excuses… inform yourself and vote.
A lot of us have been disenfranchised yet the rest of the world keeps parroting the oligarch shit about pulling ourselves up by the boot straps.
There was a law a few years back that prevented giving water to people standing in line to vote. Lines in places where your vote matters can take hours. You also do not get time off work so you have to use a personal day or just get paid less that week.
The water law was specifically in Texas, not a federal law.
It’s stupid how difficult some places make it to vote. Also, in a surprise turn off events, the military was specifically ordered to make sure everyone gets a “down day” to vote.
Probably because of the amount of stupid people in the military that will vote red. I hope it flips this year though.
I guess the Tankies didn’t get the memo that Twitter is only for fascists and hookers now.
Lmfaoooo it’s so truuuuueeee hahaha
i regularly get flamed by asking my fellow so-called (internet) leftists one piercing question: “how?” i’ve been called a nazi, maga, etc. because i want people to actually consider how they would go about implementing their big ideas.
it’s great to have big endgame ideas, it’s important to have a direction. but if all you have are the big endgame ideas and nothing else, you are simply not a serious person and you have a lot of political literacy you need to work on. being terminally online and jockeying with nothing but ideas is not praxis, it’s not even theory. it’s just attention whoring for updoots and likes.
We need to democratize our workplaces
Reading this reminded me of a quote. I unfortunately can’t remember for the life of me who said this, but it was something to the effect of: “I appreciate many leftist ideas. But, in my experience, if your only acceptable outcome is ‘utopia’, and your only acceptable timeline is ‘immediately’, then things aren’t likely to go your way.”
It’s important to remember the famous song “everyone I don’t like is literally hitler” by rusty cage and that it applies to a shocking number of people online
People like that are on the same political level as that one Nickelback song.
They love to go on about the French Revolution, yet never acknowledge that it immediately led to dictatorship.
Kinda seems like leftists spend a LOT of time thinking about how to avoid counter-revolutions but whatever
The smart people are organizing in their local communities, not taking cellphones or other electronics to meetings. Meeting in basements or places with few to no windows. They’re aiding each other financially, emotionally, and morally. They’re arming up and practicing on the down low. If someone talks about their efforts online looking for more, it’s probably a honey pot.
It depends on what you’re trying to achieve.
Idealism is great, but you need to have some roots in what you can realistically effect. There are very left-wing people that can do both. I’m a liberal though.
Idealism isn’t great, don’t ever say that.
