- cross-posted to:
- politicalmemes@lemmy.world
- cross-posted to:
- politicalmemes@lemmy.world
cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/16451158
You must log in or # to comment.
Voting gives the system an appearance of consent and legitimacy. Mass non-compliance is the answer.
“But they’ll steal the elections!!!”
Oh yeah? Just like all those state and special elections they’ve been losing by double-digit electorate shifts for the last 18 months? Including the one covering FUCKING MAR-A-LAGO???
Grow the fuck up. Get registered to vote, and when elections come round, VOTE, DAMN IT. Fascism only wins if you just give up and let it.
“But they’ll steal the elections!!!”
LOL. Yup. That’s the crux of the terror that knocks people out of their considerate, critical, creative forebrain, and pushes them into their reactive social-dominating survival-focused fearful limbic reflex where they’re easier to control.
This time, America… stop falling for it. :) We can still mend this.
Fascism only wins if you just give up and let it.
And so don’t fall for the false dichotomies. ;D
More than voting may be required. And that does not mean badgering your fellow Americans into deeper divisive groupthink. :)
If you are form the US, you are having your primaries by now.
Those are the ones where good people appear and need your vote to stay on the race. Go participate there, instead of complaining about the main election.
As a lifelong Independent, this post can F all the way off.
Yes, this is my civil, indoor voice.
Don’t you MFing tell me not to have opinions and free will, and that I should change who I am so I don’t make a bunch of establishment Dems that genuinely don’t care if I’m alive or dead have bad feels. Maybe the Dems should Fing field people that don’t gobble billionaire scroat like they invented it.
And Democrats can maybe, just once in a while, not happily fundraise and capitulate and do the policy strategy version of pump and dump schemes around the central point of “hey, we’re not the Nazis, we’re the mildly annoying guys that whimper when Nazis do Nazi shit, but do eventually give them everything they want. So it’s Nazi shit FAST or Nazi shit less fast with some of us around :D”
“Both sides suck” posts should encourage anyone with guts to see how much of the country wants a god damned set of independent candidates or even, (shudder) another MFing option between Shibag A and XXXL Shitbag B. People need to shed the chains of both parties and run at the local level. Give both sides a fucking scare.
Scratch a neo-liberal a fascist bleeds.
People who won’t vote for the Democrats don’t necessarily see the world the same way as people who do vote D. Really go have a look at https://www.politicalcompass.org/uselection2020
There are ethical lines some people actually won’t cross, e.g. voting for the Ds who make anthropogenic climate change worse and so are causing a mass extinction, sell weapons to people actively committing a genocide, further an economic system that rewards narcissistic sociopaths and punishes ethical people, …
Go look at the linked graph above again. You may not agree, but understand that there are people who do, and to get these people to vote for the Ds, you need to convince them why voting for omnicidal, genocidal, greedy sociopaths is the right thing to do. The “lesser evil” argument doesn’t work on them, because if you look at the linked graph above and compare the distances between the parties, and understand there are ethical lines between the Ds and leftists/socialists/Greens/etc. they won’t cross; then it means vastly better arguments need to be put forth. Yes the Rs are psychopaths and openly racist, but compared to the slightly less (compare the distances on the graph) sociopathic Ds, then
“It is infinitely better to vote for freedom and fail than to vote for slavery and succeed.” - Eugene V. Debs, Appeal to Reason, 1900-10-13.
“Wage-labor is but a name; wage-slavery is the fact.” - Eugene V. Debs, The Socialist Party and the Working Class 1904-09-01
If there are no ethical options, then activity making the world more evil isn’t something these people will do.
Yeah but not voting just shifts everything further right.
voting establishment dems… also shifts everything further right
I really don’t think you should abstain, I really think you should vote. But if you think abstaining is going to do any good, then for the love of all that is holy, do direct action.
But come on. Do everything you can do. Don’t stay home on election day. Express a preference.
i don’t think abstaining is the answer either. well not necessarily. it depends. i voted D last presidential election, with great nausia. but i will defend to the death everyone who did not vote or voted third party.
my thought is this, in order to stop this ratchet rightward, not only republicans must be stopped, but so too the democrats. and as such when there is any option for a progressive candidate(and i mean provably so) they should be voted for. but if the choice is between a republican and an establishment democrat you should vote third party. voting for less systemic harm is not good enough, voting for the status quos is not good enough.
and for the people wingeing about the spoiler vote. they get to choose one and only one:
either the progressives have so small a number that a candidate that represents them is not viable, in which case they are not responsible for the loss of the election, the democrat establishment is
OR
the progressives are numerous enough that their abstention forces the democrats to lose. in that case they are not responsible for the loss of the election, the democrat establishment is
To a point. At some point, lesser-evil, blue-no-matter-who people realize that they cannot prevent the right from gaining power without the help of these other people they have lost. They realize the only way to get these people to vote D is to shift D leftward. Then everything shifts to the left. This process has already started and barking at the people forcing this change won’t do a thing against the Rs. Helping the change progress faster might.
The problem is that when leftists don’t vote, the Democrats look at the data analytics and they see fewer leftists and more centrists. If you didn’t vote, they think you’re a centrist. They’re gonna go rightwards to try to get you to vote for them. So if you’re a neutral voter, you’re accountable for the rightward shift in the Overton window.
True but this process only works to a point when they’ve lost so many such voters that they keep losing elections the more centrist/right they go. I think we’re somewhere around, perhaps just past that point as of the last prez election. Once that crisis is reached, either it’s handled internally by alternative ideas - like running leftist candidates, or externally by having independent leftists candidates beat D candidates in elections.
No, the point is to agitate you against an establishment that wants to prevent you from having a better choice.
Liberals who are passionately defending lesser evil electoralism before primaries have even started are either idiots in denial or moderates who don’t want to talk about why their party is nearly as unpopular as Trump.
I think most people are more willing to be apathetic than energized if they accept that their choices amount to little to no change.
Nihilism is a problem and the step before that is Cynicism. We can’t really know the person but we can know their fruits: are they spending their energy (outside of voting and shit posting) to enact positive change? If the answer is yes, no matter how futile, then they are not the problem
Most people can see that their choices result in little to no change without anyone having to point to it, and will sit out elections regardless.
Democrats refusing to address that apathy is the problem, not people making it known.
both sides are pretty bad, but you still gotta get on the bus
Americans are truly a lost cause if they still think voting will get them out of this.
You need to organize yesterday and actively resist in a militant way paving the way for real democratic institutions by and for the people. Yet you still fail to see that the whole system is designed to keep you ignorant, enjoying the bread and circuses until you get to make a vote that changes absolutely nothing every 4 years and then go home satisfied that you practiced your democratic rights under capitalism. And you also fail to realize the severity of the situation you’re in, any other country would be rioting right now but you’re out there filming shit with the hope that some magic entity will step in and save you, or complaining about it on the internet.
Wake the fuck up Americans, for the sake of the rest of the world and yourselves as well.
how about vote AND riot?
I refuse to stop shit talking democrats, if they weren’t absolutely complicit warmongers we wouldn’t be in this mess in the first place.
How so?
Beyond the more general point, a concrete example - if the Biden admin didn’t supply unlimited bombs to Israel, they would not have lost to Trump. There’s enough numbers to support this claim.
What do you mean how so?
The democrats are prolific warmongers, they just think they’re smarter about it than Republicans.
Oh I’m not arguing that, I’m just asking how that would have kept us out of this mess.
If they weren’t prolific warmongers and instead did things that were actually popular at home then they would probably be seen as more trustworthy and not lost to Trump repeatedly, idk how more to spell it out for you
Yeah… I already voted last election but the below makes me concerned…
Note the article says this is being pitched but nothing surprises me anymore
Remember when we mended the problem of proprietary rigged voting machines (such as the Diebold machines) from the Bush Jr era?
… No?
Neither do I.
Because that never happened.
Much to mend yet.
Now the question is which is easier, convincing millions of people to vote for “anyone not a republican” or convincing a candidate to be more than “not republican”
Hey, primaries are around now. It’s a great time for that!
Participate in primaries. THIS is the election you want for that.
Depends on where you are. My state doesn’t have primaries till August and by then it’s basically already decided.
Same here, most primary candidate drop out before I even get my mail in ballot. Also there hasnt been a fair primary in 12 years so like so for over a decade party direction has been at the mercy of quid pro quo backroom deals, or straight up just appointing a candidate. Why would the next one suddenly be a fair representation of the will of voters?
You mean Republican, right?
;)
Same as Democrats are not democratic, Republicans are not republican. ;)
Hard work undoing the newspeek this deep into the Orwellian hole.
Yup.
That said, please be kind to leftists, and try to primary a candidate people can vote FOR, rather than just voting against Republicans. (America needs more Mamdanis, and “vote blue no matter who” is a reasonable stance but a TERRIBLE slogan.)
Same goes for leftists: Be kinder to and more understanding of liberals. Not everyone has it in them to be a hardline revolutionary. (And don’t forget to vote in the primaries.)
Be kind to each other. Yes.
Defy the psyops to have you divided and conquered.
Remind each other…
The people of other groupthinks are not your enemy. They’re your allies who’ve fallen foul of the deceivers who’ve harmed you both. Time for libertarian-left and libertarian-right to unite, and stop falling for the ploys of their authoritarian counterparts. Freedom first.
Imagine the hammer is the polling box and all your solutions look like voting when your think all your problems look like nails.
Everyone should vote. Absolutely. Go out, do it, cast that ballot.
Voting won’t solve all of our problems. We need to go beyond just voting.
Amen.
Best comment.
No. Just no. The truth is still the truth, and saying the truth doesn’t mean you are trying to do anything but say the truth. Both sides should be banned from holding political office or any involvement in the political process. Clean flush.
What’s your plan to achieve that other than posting here?
I vote in the primaries and support the most progressive, and least polotician like people I can find on the ballot. My state is solid blue, so I don’t have to worry about a republican winning anything at the federal level.
And then when you wake up from the dream world where both parties a completely rebuilt, you need to vote for your actual choices.
If the Republicans never have a chance of winning again, it becomes much easier for the actual progressives to differentiate themselves from the more centrist Democrats.
Never said anything contrary to what you are saying. I just can’t stand posts like this BS that claim all people who say both sides are bad are really saying blah blah. Both sides are bad. That is just a fact. And I won’t call either of them good. That doesn’t mean anything more than it clearly says.
One should vote, it simply shouldn’t be the end of it.
If you voted Democrat and thought you made your part, wrong. You barely made one shift towards one slightly less terrible group. This is not victory. A part of what you should do, yes. All you should do - not.
Republicans also really love when you vote third party.
Republicans also really love when you vote third party.
(Or Democrat party too, depending on where the votes are being taken from)
Until enough people do, and sufficient votes are taken from the purple party, that they lose.
… But then, may also need to mend all the lobbying, gerymandering, voter suppression, rigged voting machines, electoral college, etc first/simultaneously.
Imagine if the people in USA got a system that helped them vote for what they want, not against who they don’t want. Imagine… :)
Using “Democrat” as an adjective is usually an indicator of someone who mostly consumes right wing media.
This thread is full of commenters trying to convince people not to vote (for good lefty reasons, of course!)
Until enough people do, and sufficient votes are taken from the purple party, that they lose.
Nope, you utterly miss the point. First past the post means that Republicans win when the anti-fascist vote is split.
If you don’t like the current candidates of the Democrat party, then go vote in the Democrat primary.
Imagine if the people in USA got a system that helped them vote for what they want, not against who they don’t want. Imagine… :)
There is this little thing called “objective reality”. First past the post sucks, but it is objective reality. You should try taking it into account, some time.
one week old account shilling for a political party
I remember when Gore lost Florida, and therefore the country, because less than one tenth of one percent of voters thought a protest vote for Nader was a good idea. In primaries and in smaller elections, sure, give third party votes a try. But the bigger the election, the more it converges on a choice between the two major parties, and one of them is worse than the other.
gore won that election. the supreme Court stole it.
The Republicans would never have been able to steal it, if third party votes had not made it close.
If everybody who voted Nader had voted for Gore instead, there would have been no wiggle room for the Supreme Court to butt in. And every Nader voter who was not an idiot know from the polls that Nader would not win.
With Gore instead of Bush, there would have been no Iraq War, for one thing. And the US would have taken climate change seriously.
Nope. Did not miss your point at all. You seemed to miss mine, and doubled down.
