And I’m being serious. I feel like there might be an argument there, I just don’t understand it. Can someone please “steelman” that argument for me?
For me: Voting represents support for both the process and the government that results from that process. By voting you are essentially expressing that you submit to the electoral process as the sole means for the exercise of political power. Even if you don’t like the results, you’ve agreed to accept it because the rules are more important than the results.
Some obvious problems with that: What if the process itself isn’t fair in the first place? We don’t really get to choose our leaders. We get presented with a set of options which are acceptable to capitalists and are asked our opinion on which we like more. You could write multiple books on the ways the US electoral process has been structured to disenfranchise people and reduce the impact they can have on their government, but fundamentally it comes down to the fact that the government doesn’t represent people and that’s a feature, not a bug.
So we end up with a pair of awful candidates who both have done and will do more awful shit. If the election randomly fell out of the sky without context, sure, you could argue about one being technically better than the other. But it didn’t. It’s this way for a reason. It’s this way because people are willing to cede their expression of political power to it despite the fact that it’s clearly unaccountable to them.
Voting is just supporting the system that’s deprived us of any real democracy while normalizing fascism to protect itself. Voting is a fairly low information form of political expression. You don’t get the choice to be like “Oh I’ll begrudgingly support this candidate, but this this and that are things I don’t like and want them to change.” You get two boxes. Each one represents EVERYTHING the candidate stands for plus the implicit choice of accepting the process in the first place.
If people want things to get better, they have to organize and take real, tangible actions rather than just begging capitalist politicians to do stuff for us every 2-4 years. People should be doing this regardless of who’s in office, but let’s put a fine point on it: People are worried that Trump is gonna be fascist, take away people’s rights, and end democracy. Are you just going to accept that because he won the election? Are the rules that bind the process more important to you than the results? If not, you should be willing to do what it takes to stop him instead of chastising that people didn’t show up to participate in a sham of an electoral system.
For what it’s worth, I actually did go to the polls to vote specifically on an equal rights ballot measure in NY. At least that has a semblance of direct democracy. There I’m explicitly saying “I support this policy specifically” instead of supporting a candidate who just says they support those things while also doing awful shit. It passed, so that’s nice. If anything I’m more pissed at Californians for voting against a measure to END SLAVERY than I am with people who didn’t want to vote for a person currently engaged in supporting a genocide.
I’m curious where this notion comes from:
By voting you are essentially expressing that you submit to the electoral process as the sole means for the exercise of political power.
Do you? Does voting necessarily mean that you can’t also express political power in other ways? Sure, it’s true that most voters don’t really engage with politics outside of the major elections, but that’s got nothing to do with them being voters, many Americans don’t even engage with the elections at all. Why would it be the case that participating in voting means you submit to the electoral process as the sole means of exercising political power? In fact this seems easily disproven by the fact that most political power in this country is exercised by the capital class, but those people still vote.
Even if you don’t like the results, you’ve agreed to accept it because the rules are more important than the results.
Is this actually a condition of voting? What sets these conditions? Are you talking about the social notions of ‘civility politics’ or ‘decorum’ that liberals are so fond of? They’ll try to hold you to those standards regardless of whether or not you vote.
For what it’s worth, I agree with you broadly that there are serious problems with the electoral system, capitalism, the United States, whatever. I also agree that chastising nonvoters is also counter productive. I also agree that voting is probably not going to get us the broad systemic changes that we need. I just don’t really understand the argument that voting somehow precludes one from also doing the actual organizing and activism work we need.
There’s a philosophical and a practical side to this:
Philosophically, the core of a democratic system is the peaceful transition of power. The idea that you won’t just try to force your will over people with violence and will respect the will of the populace. This is a fine principle in a proper democracy with a fair process and political outcomes that fall within acceptable ranges. If you wanted more money for the trains and someone else wanted more money for the busses, that’s a disagreement you can live with. And if the voting system is set up so you had equal chances both to introduce topics/candidates and vote on them, then great. By accepting the election and not trying to go outside the system to get your way, you keep the peace and allow for that process to be a viable vehicle for change.
If this is a requirement for democracy, then the converse is that if a system isn’t fair and produces unacceptable results (eg, Nazis and genocide), participating in it merely legitimizes it. Obviously nothing physically stops you from organizing, but symbolically you’ve shown that you view the system as the sole legitimate way to exert political power and garner authority. And people will then turn around and say you should vote instead of doing xyz actions. “I don’t agree with your methods.”
On the practical side of this: people put a lot of time, energy, and political capital into supporting candidates in these elections. It eats up the public bandwidth, crowding out other forms of political participation. In addition, once someone works hard to get their candidate elected, there is an impulse, an incentive, to defend them. The people who said to suck it up, vote for Biden, then push him to the left turned around and chastised leftists for protesting over things like the continued anti-immigration policies or the support for Israel’s genocide. US electoral politics is a team sport. People get psychologically invested in their team. They don’t like it when you criticize their team. This makes them resistant to change even on policies they nominally support. I think encouraging people to maintain that emotional investment in elections is harmful. It hinders organizing efforts. It hurts attempts to build class consciousness because it gets people to think about their fellow workers as the enemy and capitalists as potential allies. And the corresponding obsession with 24 hour news cycles turns politics into a TV show. Trying to talk to libs about any history older than like a week ago or maybe at most a presidential term is impossible. If it wasn’t on their favorite TV show it doesn’t exist.
We need to be drawing people’s attention to actual types of political participation. Elections don’t just distract from that, they make people think they’re doing the right thing. It’s a release.
All that said, that’s not to say there’s never value in any part of the electoral system, it’s just very limited. Bernie’s attempts at running were part of what got me more engaged in politics and shifted me from being a progressive-ish lib to being more of a socialist. Important to that though was not just the policy platform, but the structure and messaging of the campaign promoted the importance of mass political participation. I ended up meeting some local socialist groups in the process of going to campaign volunteering. However, most of the time and energy still went into the election only for the system to block us at the end and Bernie to give in. Tons of hours of volunteer time went into doing little more than getting people to sign ballot petitions. We weren’t getting those people into a union or a mutual aid group or anything. We basically just tossed our energy into the void.
Steelman:
The US is currently a fascist, imperialist state. It has brutalized the global south, indigenous people, and POCs generally since its founding and will continue to do so unless the status quo is disrupted and changed significantly.
The Democratic party supports the same militaristic policies and the same neoliberal economic system that the Republicans do. The primary difference between the parties are various social issues that may make life somewhat better or worse for US citizens, but will never address the core problems of fascism, imperialism, and capitalism. Both parties support and protect the status quo. This status quo only benefits the bourgeois class and rich white people and harms literally hundreds of millions of others around the world.
The Democratic party is the only one of the two major parties that the Left has any degree of leverage over since the Democrats want the Left to vote for them. So, organizing to essentially boycott the Democratic party is a powerful method of protest that could effect real policy change. It is possibly the only effective method of protest left since the US police & surveilance state is cracking down on protests and the Left has no chance protesting violently against the most powerful military the world has ever seen.
The only way to make that threat matter to the Democratic party is to follow through if the demands aren’t met, even - or especially - if it means a second Trump term.
The liberal establishment has ignored and abandoned the working class for decades while dangling the carrot of milktoast social democratic reforms that rarely come to pass, but they blame the same people they abandoned for not energetically voting for them. They say it is a moral imperative to vote for them, but they are incapable of bettering the lives of working class people.
Strawman:
It would hurt my feelings too much to vote for COPmala Harm-us. Plus, Trump would let Putin annex Ukraine. Also, I’d risk touching grass if I went outside to participate in bourgeois electoralism. Gross.
Reality:
You can, and should, do more than one thing. Voting for Kamala is effectively playing defense against outright, full-throated fascism a la Mussolini even if you’d still consider the US fascist - it is clearly worse under Republicans. So vote, play defense, AND organize to raise class consciousness, provide mutual aid, protest when possible, and contribute to socialist causes. Letting Trump win would be a bad move. But, ultimately it is not the Left’s fault that he won. He won the popular vole and the electoral college vote by a large margin - larger than all third party socialist/socialist-adjacent candidates’ votes combined.
This is a great explanation, well done.
Buddy, you haven’t seen American fascism yet. Part of the problem is that people like you scream “fascist” so much that it’s lost it’s power. A fascist like Trump would have never been able to pull this off if that word hadn’t been trivializec.
Lemme tell the millions of children that have gone through the migrant camps, separated from their family, some of whom have disappeared, that their jailors aren’t fascists. Let me tell the latino women who have been forcibly neutered without their knowledge or consent that they’re trivializing fascism. Let’s go to those who were detained in Abu Ghraib, if any of them are still alive, that their abduction, rape, and torture by laughing US soldiers doesn’t count, it’s what happens to americans that’s worrying.
Honestly, this is the fucking smugness of somebody who knows they’re safe as long as they mask, because they’ve been safe as fascists have massively incarcerated and enslaved black people, as they’ve made ghettos of bipoc neighborhoods, as far right terrorists have shot up black churches and gay bars and lynchings are back on the up and up. Because that was trivial, what’s not trivial is if it can happen to them. Fuck dems fr.
Latinos voted heavily in favor of trump. They seem to want to be victimized.
The ones who voted for Trump voted because they think they’re not talking about them. The horrible violence will be visited upon whomever is to blame, and they don’t know anyone who’s to blame, so they have nothing to fear.
Dems do that shit too, what they’re ok with are death squads in Gaza, Nicaragua, Ukraine, because the Americans orchestrating and perpetrating those crimes against humanity would certainly never come back and apply their knowledge at home, where they live, surely. What’s more american than that?
This was a thread about making the specific argument you’re mad at me for making
It starts with fury. Everything is beyond messed up over there.
Add in: anger funnels focus. Tunnel vision. It almost feels morally wrong to think of another thing. Anger helps you in a physical fight, so this makes sense. Also, ordering lunch while your neighbor’s house burns down is kinda dickish.
Add in: first past the post voting. This is the big clincher. It forces two party systems mathematically, and most people understandably haven’t heard why.
Factoring in the information in that video, you realize your choice really is Harris or Trump. Third choices get transformed into a vote for the candidate you dislike the most. So you take the best option.
Take away the knowledge of first past the post, and you have every reason to think that third parties will work if you all just had some spine and imagination, god damnit. You resolve not to let yourself be one of the ones who sat by silently while horrible things happen!
Cast protest vote thinking it makes you one of the people who actually helped, not realizing first past the post transforms that vote into a vote for trump, and everybody keeps fighting instead of watching that video and letting the facts it points out inform what they do.
What’s the counter-argument in favor of genocide?
More importantly the vast majority of votes don’t matter because the system was created by slavers in order to guarantee their oppression never ends.
I think this point slides right past many people. The Electoral College and the 3/5ths compromise were the original American vote buying scheme. Southerners could literally buy slaves to increase their population and thus number of EC votes for president. They don’t do that anymore but does anyone remember the massive advertisement campaigns of Texas and Florida being cheaper places to live, work, and employ people in the 2010’s? They knew the next census was coming. They got a net gain of 4 more EC votes into their states by giving massive tax incentives to corporations and advertising cheap real estate. (It was 6 overall but 2 came from other red areas)
The EC was made for gaming the system, it’s still used to game the system, and it should be abolished. Without that marketing campaign PA wouldn’t have been the make or break state last night. A popular vote system is commonly derided as ignoring rural voters, but as we saw last night that’s not true. And any party that ignores such a large demographic would be setting itself up to be on the receiving end of another “southern strategy”.
The republicans have such a stronger political strategy than the democrats to the point that it’s embarrassing.
What’s the counter-argument in favor of genocide?
Thw arguement is the party that has been calling for a cease fire since the start if the conflict versus the one that will actively encourage Netanyahu.
They’ve been calling for it in the most disingneous way possible and Harris failed to separate herself from that. Biden has openly repeated every debunked lie Netanyahu or the IDF offers, even to the point of Netanyahu setting Biden up and walking away when we depended on that statement. We made fun of Trump for the exact same thing with Putin. And you can’t be a meaningful mediator if you’re transparently controlled by one side.
One lues about it and one boasts. Both are the same.
- An overly simplistic/naive view of the world. (Not sure what they expect here? Stopping weapons and technology transfer? Maybe the US going to war with Israel to stop the Gaza atrocities? Or are they just expecting something symbolic? If Harris publicly denounced Israel’s actions, would that be enough?)
- Thinking that the US President has more power than they do in reality (Congress and the Courts, checks and balances)
- Some logical fallacies they’ve convinced themselves into believing. False Dilemma Fallacy maybe? https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/common-logical-fallacies
Only a Sith deals in absolutes
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I can’t speak for others, but I can tell you why I didn’t vote for Harris.
I am a lifelong independent voter. In 2016 I wrote in Kanye West, in 2020 I wrote in Nobody, this year I didn’t even vote. (I also voted Bush in '04, Ron Paul in '08, and Obama in '12) I go to the polls even if I am planning to writing in a presidential pick because there are usually ballot issues or other races I care about.
I decided not to vote when the DNC opted to not hold a primary even though absolutely no one wanted a Biden second term and the deal was elect Biden in 2020 and they’d find someone good for '24. After Biden’s disastrous debate and he dropped out, I was angry because everyone said no to Kamala already in 2020, but they still ran her.
On the issues, Kamala is too centrist for me and Gaza is a deal breaker. Most Palestinian casualties have been civilians and waaaaay too many children. Using my tax dollars to kill foreign children is not acceptable. I don’t care that Israel is our ally or they they provide us an important strategic resource in the region. I honestly don’t care if Israel wants to do a genocide or if Palestine wants to do a bunch or terrorism, that’s on them. But we don’t have to support it and I won’t vote for anyone who will.
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I strongly disagree with aspects of your perspective but I appreciate your honest engagement
I strongly think what you did is incorrect but I appreciate you sharing your view, and disapprove those who downvoted you. Upvoted.
Agreeing with you on Palestine, but I think Trump will be way worse, in that case and many others.
If Gaza is such a hot topic for you, how do you justify letting someone that absolutely despises muslims and would love to see them eradicated, enter the white house and likely lift all restrictions on Israel and delivery anything they ask for? There’s little doubt that Haris would have changed the situation much at all, but a Trump win basically solidifies the Palestinian’s fate to die as Israel’s war equipment guinea pigs. Do you feel like your inaction is fine because either way, the genocide doesn’t end?
The Democrats at least call for a ceasefire in Gaza, even though they send weapons to Israel. Trump openly admits that he would like Bibi to flatten the place with no regard for human life.
But I guess both parties are the same.
To the dead Palestinian children they are.
Are you a dead Palestinian Child? No.
Not voting is basically the same as giving Netanjahu Carte Blanche to kill more innocent palestinians.
While I understand not being happy with the Status Quo there’s also always a worse option. You now elected that “Worse Option™”.
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As I am not eligible to vote in the US I certainly didn’t.
I accept my responsibility in how things have turned out. I would feel absolutely horrible and would be wrought with guilt for my entire life if it had come down to a single vote, but I would not have voted for either Kamala or Trump even if I had gone to the polls.
I understand that makes me responsible in a very small way for Trump winning and I don’t like it, but I accept that. It was a risk I was willing to take in February when I decided not to vote.
Gaza wasn’t why I decided not to vote at all, the disconnect between voter and politician and the way queer issues were completely abandoned this election were why I didn’t vote. If Kamala had said she would end our alliance with Israel if they didn’t stop killing civilians she still wouldn’t have gotten my vote because I wasn’t casting one to begin with.
- Due to the failings of the electoral college system, my state was almost guarenteed to vote the same way as it has for the last 30 years
- I did not strongly agree with either party/candidate
- I dispise the current two party system that both major parties are incentivized to maintain
- Voting for a third party who is incentivised to push for change via ranked voting and other methods does aid them even if they don’t win
If my state was likely to be contested, I may have voted differently. Voting for a third party in my case however had a greater impact than fighting or joining the tide of my state
Voting third party is fine. Protest voting is acceptable, though this result still fucking sucks. Strategic voting doesn’t have to be the default choice.
Anybody that did NOT vote, thinking it would be any sort of protest, is completely idiotic. Self imposed disenfranchisement only forfeits your own ability to say anything about the results.
They believe it because that’s what people have been told to believe.
It should be glaringly obvious that trump’s implied policy that he will let Israel “finish the job” is far worse than the dems poor attempts at negotiating cease-fires or any other moderation on Israel’s aggression.
All the propaganda has focused on the democrat (in)action regarding Israel. Zero on trump’s plans.
That’s what the propaganda machine has been pushing.
what moderation ? biden literally told everyone that ukraine is not even getting a paperclip unless we give israel 20 billion as well. he continued saying israel has unconditional support while we were getting footage of pregnant women & kids getting shot at by idf or burning alive in hospital from use of incendiary shells. then harris repeated the same statement on live tv. all this while the working class has been struggling to survive, layoffs everywhere, and price of everything getting doubled.
its not something that can be washed with but that guy will do worse. you can look otherway but dnc basically threatened their voters base with more genocide if not elected. the fact we are even fighting over this instead mass protesting for biden and his administration to be prosecuted shows just how hollow & pathetic the dnc base has become.
There you go again.
Dems bad, who cares if trump is worse.
Well, you’ll get what you wanted when Israel finishes off Gaza and everything else, or starts WWIII when they can’t keep the bombs inside their extermination camp.
yes the 15 millions or so didn’t care that trump is worse because dnc has become bad enough and its not just the genocide in gaza. threatening people make them do irrational things, specially true for us americans.
there is solid basis that harris would have done nothing to reign netanyahu same as trump. she had accepted even larger donation from aipac than biden who was basically emptying our emergency stockpile faster than we can replenish. if anything there’s chance that trumps narcissism clashes with that stooge and he actually does something good for gaza out of his ego.
Uh, I don’t have anything against America as a whole, but saying y’all don’t like irrational things rings pretty fucking false in my ears atm.
It only took 90 years until the majority apparently forgot 1935-1945 completely.
You know there’s an entire rest of the world that exists right? A rest of the world that has already started preparing sanctions against Israel if the conflict continues to escalate?
Realistically, we’ve seen this all beat for beat before. Israel treats Palestine as an apartheid state, eventually a group forms to try and resist Israel, Israel crushes that group’s bones into dust for a few years, and then once they can offer no more resistance, Israel returns Palestine to an apartheid state. The pattern has repeated itself several times now.
You’re out of your mind if you think the israel / Palestine conflict stays local to that area under either administration. This is going to literally and figuratively blow up in our faces. Research the concept of “blowback”.
At no point did I suggest otherwise. In fact , I clearly stated WWIII was on the table. Go make up something else I said.
Arguably WW3 started when Russia invaded Ukraine.
That’s because nobody believes biden/Harris and for good reason. They’re lying, they have just as much of a plan to turn Gaza into prime oceanfront real estate for wealthy NYC metro area zionists with dual citizenship as the republicans. They’ll just paint the bombs with progress pride and blm flags while lying to your face about their intentions and speaking out of both sides of their mouth depending on their audience. It’s sickening. They’re both going to genocide Palestinians, does it really matter if they’re turned to glass in days or in weeks?
That’s what the propaganda machine has been pushing.
And there was a strong push from the Russians.
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Maybe people believe that it will save a starving child in the future. Like, some future where politicians finally listen to them?
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Because they are poorly educated americans maybe
The result of 40+ years of republicans destroying the education system, who’d ever have guessed
wtf ? what kind of education you got to think that genocide should be non-issue for voters ?
They’re a trash person with no real empathy and failed to realize that arabs had control of 25 electoral votes.
A lot of people did in fact set aside Gaza until Trump was stopped. As for those that didn’t, they should have listened to Bernie Sanders. I did months ago and went all-in on Dem support. There were multiple times when I wrote up an angry post about US support of Israel and then didn’t post it because I didn’t want to turn a voter into a non-voter or worse a Trump supporter.
I understand their position of never rewarding ethnic cleansing and war crimes though. They chose to make sure the Dems know they would never “settle” for the illegal killing of civilians. The support for Israel made it especially hard for Arab Americans to vote Dem. It’s difficult to support a party that has been in power during the whole conflict yet gives unconditional support for the internationally condemned murder of Arabs.
I’m sure a lot also felt disenfranchised by the bipartisan protest suppression and condemnation. Even in Dem states peaceful protesters were punished, and sometimes pro-Israeli protesters who attacked got away with it. Then there was the whole “vote with us or else” pressure that went on for months. Dissenters like the “uncommitted” voters were insulted by the party that wanted their unconditional support.
So it’s not like it’s completely insane. But as Sanders points out that position only makes things worse and has done so.
Not voting for someone who is aiding and abetting genocide is morally correct, it’s not complicated.
If genocide isn’t a red line for you, what is?
So you didn’t vote for anyone for president?
Stein and Kennedy were only on ballots to help Trump win, and he is even worse on Palestine than Harris.
So in the US “democracy”, if you vote for any party other than the Democrats, you are voting for the Republicans ?
Since voting for both the Democrats and the Republicans is the same as supporting fascism ( unless you want to make me believe that supporting Genocide is not fascist ), I guess it is easy to understand why many people chose not to vote.
But I guess a fascism that pretends to be democratic is better in your eyes than one that is explicit. In my opinion none of the two deserve any support.
Also imagine how full of themselves the Democratic party elite must be to run the VP of a president that people see negatively on both foreign policy (Gaza) and the economy ( a lot of people see their financial situation as worse off after Biden’s 4 years). And Kamala H. literally aligned herself with Biden on everything !
There was no reason to vote for her other than “she is not Trump”. She gave no hope to the electorate for a better future, and for this reason people didn’t show up and vote for her.
A vote for Stein or Kennedy instead of Harris is like voting Republican since they are spoilers that have said they want Trump to win and only criticize Dems for genocide, which makes their purpose clear because Trump has said he wants more genocide.
Voting 3rd party for president is like not voting at all. It doesn’t send any signals to the main parties like it would in a system with more than two parties. Well, in some cases it would send a signal that their spoiler candidates worked out.
And yes, she failed to get an increase in turnout because she ended up just being more ofnthe same by cozying up with Cheney and not focusing on progressive policies.
If you want to read an interesting comment written by another user that answers some of your positions, I’ll copy-paste it here:
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The DNC learned nothing from 2016. It is the definition of irrationality to do the same thing twice and expect different outcomes.
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Bernie could garner huge crowds and massive support by campaigning on the basis of policy that has mass appeal, such as universal healthcare. Kamala chose not to do this because she prioritised business as usual over stopping Trump.
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You say “things will get worse under Trump”. That’s true. But things got worse under Biden/Harris after Trump’s first term as president - environmental policy, the border camps, reproductive rights, trans rights, cop city, the genocide of Palestinians etc. So when you say “we must vote for Kamala or things will get worse” that line of reasoning is at best unconvincing and at worst it betrays the 4-year state of amnesia you have lived in because you are so politically detached from the consequences of your voting.
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Telling people to protect democracy—the system where you vote for the candidate who best represents your political values—by voting for a person who in no way represents your political values in order to save democracy is tortured logic.
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No, I’m not an accelerationist. Me advocating for people not to vote for Kamala Harris is not an accelerationist position because we should not be giving a mandate for a genocide, climate change, and civil rights-eroding accelerationist by voting for them.
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How many delegates did Harris win in the last primaries? How many did she win in the primaries to get her to run for president this time? Is this what you claim as your democracy?
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When I list a number of legitimate grievances with Kamala Harris and Joe Biden’s regime and issues with Kamala’s election platform, none of which have a single thing to do with her race or gender, and you respond by calling me racist or misogynistic it drives home how little you are willing to listen to my political concerns and how intransigent your favoured party is. When you act this way and then tell me that people have to vote for Kamala in order to push her left while you yourself are unwilling to even acknowledge the fact that Kamala’s platform has serious issues, it signals to me that there will be no shifting left on anything. I already knew this fact but you have done an exceptional job of inadvertently teaching other people this lesson.
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When entering into negotiations with someone, it’s a uniquely terrible tactic to hand over your one state-sanctioned bargaining chip before making even one single demand.
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You are chasing the DNC to the right and one day you will wake up and wonder to yourself “How did I end up all the way over here?” I’m not following you into that marsh but you’re welcome to go into it yourself, just don’t get upset at me when I point out what you’re heading into and don’t get angry when I refuse to blindly follow you.
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Kamala Harris is the only thing that can stop fascism. Kamala Harris cannot do anything to protect reproductive rights, trans rights, Palestinian lives, the lives of Marcellus Williams and Robert Robertson etc. because she is powerless to do anything about it 🫠
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Kamala Harris said she would “follow the law” regarding trans people. She was angling to become the primary lawmaker in the US. Not only does this show a lack of whatever libs care about like “leadership” but it shows how cowardly and detestable she is because she understands the law and she is willing to follow it but not when it comes to things like international law, only when it’s laws that she can use to hide behind while trans people are subjected to further oppression through legislation that strips them of rights.
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Historically, fascism has never been stopped at the ballot box. You being convinced that this is possible does not sway my opinion on any matter aside from my estimation of your political awareness and your ability to achieve change.
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You had four years (eight+ if you count Trump’s regime and the lead-up to it in this calculation) to “stop fascism”. What did you do in this period of time? Did you push Biden and Kamala to adopt policies which have mass support? Did you do anything except go to back to brunch?
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When you accuse me of not organising irl, when you say that I’m not doing anything:
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I’m not about to dox myself
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I’m not going to make a laundry list of the things that I have done w/organising and activism just to impress (?) you, especially not when you’ve already told me that I haven’t done anything
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It’s a huge self-report and it’s obvious that you’re projecting
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You alienate others by telling them “I do not recognise your efforts and everything that you have done is unimportant in my estimation”
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You aren’t entitled to others’ votes. Stop pretending that you are.
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We aren’t splitting the so-called left, Kamala Harris did that all by herself.
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You have no red lines. There is nothing that could make you not support Kamala Harris and we know it. Telling people to drop their standards and ignore their conscience to vote for Kamala is a fatal strategy and you killed her campaign by deploying it.
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Selective invoking of people of colour to advocate for Kamala was ridiculous and disgustingly tokenistic. Yes, Angela Davis is smarter than I am. Telling me that I’m stupider than her and so I should take my political cues from her with regards to electoralism is a losing argument and it’s low-key ableist became you’re arguing that the person who lacks intelligence also has a commensurate lack of political virtue. Historically speaking, very intelligent people have had absolutely atrocious politics. Also people like Thomas Sowell and Clarence Thomas are almost certainly a lot smarter than I am. It would be wrong of me not to defer to their superior intellect and their politics, isn’t that right?
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You say that democracy is going to be strangled in its crib and that fascism has come to town. You are maybe posting about this online in your echo chamber and that’s it. You do not take politics seriously, not even your own, yet you demand that I take your politics more seriously than you yourself do. There are things that I am doing right now to avert this trend in politics. There are things that I would do if fascism proper had seized power, none of which I would post about online. We are not the same. Enjoy your brunch though.
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Almost all of your arguments for voting for Kamala Harris (aside from the “it will stop Trump” argument which, in retrospect, appears to be a dismal failure) also apply to reasons for voting for Trump. “You can push them left”, “By voting we will get a seat at the table”, “Voting third party or not voting at all is a wasted vote”, “We have to vote this way to protect the country”, “Politics is about comprise - you cannot expect them to be your perfect political candidate”, and whatever hold-your-nose-and-vote arguments you trot out. Did you ever stop to ask yourself why it is that you do not find these arguments for voting Trump to be convincing?
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Last time Trump got elected you were brutally vindictive. You took glee in the thought of people in red states and marginalised groups suffering due to policy and things like natural disasters, regardless of their politics or how they chose to vote. You were excited to tell these people that they were going to get deported and put into concentration camps. You will do it again this time too because you have learned nothing. November came and these people you targeted with your vicious schadenfreude remembered. They aren’t going to forget how effortlessly you abandoned them and how you wished the worst suffering and ill-fate upon them.
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You said that a non-vote or a 3rd party vote is a vote for Trump. We have been shouting from the rooftops that Kamala Harris is fundamentally unwilling and incapable of stopping Trump. History vindicates this position; Trump managed to win the popular vote while Harris underperformed by millions of votes, even compared to Joe Biden. Thus your support for Kamala Harris was therefore support for Donald Trump’s presidency. Congratulations on getting the candidate which you campaigned so hard to get elected.
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I don’t care about the US. America must die and if Trump is to be its undertaker then I am relieved to hear it. What you have done is to accelerate the destruction of the US. If I were cynical about achieving my political objectives, wouldn’t have said any of the above. If I was an accelerationist I would have been pushing for all of the things that you’ve been pushing for instead of pushing back against them. I would have even gone so far as to furnish your side with more poisoned chalice arguments (I do this with the far right, I exactly know how to do it). Instead I’ve been defending your political project against your own excesses and self-defeating narrow mindedness. You are right in the fact that I am your enemy but you are wrong to oppose me because you are a far greater enemy to yourself than I could ever have the stomach to be. You won’t listen to a word of what I’ve said because you refuse to learn and to reflect.
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A cynical person might argue that my strategy is to oppose you in the knowledge that this will make you react by becoming more deeply entrenched in your position, encouraging a sort of siege mentality in you, so that you see any criticism or difference of opinion as being an existential political threat that must be eradicated as a means to create more disaffected people to radicalise out of bourgeois democracy. This is not my intent. If things improve for the proles and the marginalised because of what I argue for then that’s a win for my political objectives. However I can’t control your actions and if you choose to respond by taking a hatchet to your precious liberal democracy then, likewise, that’s a win for my political objectives. Which way, western man?
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In other countries fascist get elected as well, it is not just a problem of the system itself ( don’t get me wrong, it is also a bad system, but it is not the only problem ), the big problem is that the Democratic party ( and a lot centrist parties in Europe as well ) are not electable.
People don’t want them, the Democrats don’t represent the average working person. It is not the fault of the people for not voting for them, the Democratic Party is not their party.
And since this centrist parties invest billions in every campaign to make every leftist party look unelectable ( and this happen with every voting system ), there is no big leftist opposition.
Obviously other countries with better electoral systems have it better than the US, but that is not where the problem starts and ends, it is just a small piece of a much bigger puzzle. After all everyone here knows what happened with Bernie, he was never going to be allowed to actually run.
The centrist parties fear the leftist ones much more than a right wing one, because they represent the same interest, the same people. That’s way they allied with old Republicans, that’s who they are the party of.
It is only the fault of the Democratic Party for loosing this election. They actually showed the people that they didn’t care about them. And probably a lot of US citizens already felt that they didn’t, so this just confirmed it for them.
Also not that many people gated for Stein or any other 3rd party candidate. They just didn’t vote, because the still believe what the Democrats told them about voting for 3rd parties never working, so they were left with nothing and just did nothing.
And you should hold Harris much more accountable for doing the genocide right now, rather than keep telling me about Trump. I know Trump wants the Genocide as well, but Kamala is already doing it, so to me that is not an alternative.
And if the Democrats don’t learn from this election, I don’t think they will win that many elections in the future. And honestly, they don’t deserve them, this is just a 100% Hitler (D) against 101% Hitler ® sort of situation.
After all, if they aim at right wing voters, why should right wing voters vote for them rather the the traditionally right wing party of the Republicans. People should really stop alienating non-voters / 3rd party voters when they are the only one that dont want to support Genocide. Really says a lot about the US.
But now I just started to rumble so I’ll end the comment here.
People don’t want them, the Democrats don’t represent the average working person. It is not the fault of the people for not voting for them, the Democratic Party is not their party.
This is fucking hilarious.
Dems do represent the working class. They are the ones who promote and occasionally pass minimum wage increases, worker safety laws, the ACA, funding for FEMA, social supports, and a ton of other things that positively impact the working class and 98% of the population.
The Republican party actively works to destroy all of those things so they can guve the wealthy tax breaks while lying about whether the working class will benefit.
The problem is messaging. Republicans are great at lying and riling people up, the Dems suck at propoting the positive things they attempt and occasionally succeed at.
And you should hold Harris much more accountable for doing the genocide right now, rather than keep telling me about Trump. I know Trump wants the Genocide as well, but Kamala is already doing it, so to me that is not an alternative.
You know Trump wants more and you are blaming Harris for what Biden is currently doing because she didn’t explicitly state she wouldn’t do a complete 180 and stop support entirely.
That is like saying pooring gasoline on a fire is an alternative to not putting it out. I guess that is an alternative…
You are deeply unserious.
You defense of Harris for not being like Biden, when she explicitly said she supports Biden policies, must be a bad joke, because it is not funny.
Also saying that the Democratic party supports the working class, while they are refusing to update the minimum wage, helped break some strikes and keep financing the military, like never before in history, instead of doing any sort of welfare, must be a belief born out of pure fantasy.
Since I’m tired of responding to comments, I found a great video published today on why Kamala lost, it focuses a lot on the economics and the messaging of the Democratic Party.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mSBi0m5xCJs
He shows a lot of main stream sources in the video so that shouldn’t be an issue for you.
So you didn’t vote for anyone for president?
I’m not American, if I was I would have voted for Stein though.
But, given that Trump will very likely be as bad or worse, why give him the chance? Just to be able to make the statement?
If you have a particular ideological hang up revolving around the difference between explicit and implicit consent to be governed…
You can view yourself as morally correct for not voting for anyone whom you do not fully support.
Thus you have not given explicit consent to either candidate, or the voting system itself.
Its basically ‘Don’t blame me, I didn’t vote, therefore I am not responsible.’
Its the trolley problem, but you just walk away from both tracks and the lever, and then claim that you did not consciously act to cause any harm, therefore you are guiltless.
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Unfortunately by this logic it does also mean that you give implicit consent to literally everything your government does if you do not speak out against everything it does that you don’t like, or take some explicit action to countermand.
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It’s an extremely sophomoric, cowardly and irresponsible stance to take in a situation like this, but there is an underlying logic to it… its just that this logic is ridiculous and absurd.
I think of it exactly in terms of the trolley problem. The whole premise is that if you do nothing (don’t vote) more people die. By flipping the lever, fewer people die but you’ve taken an action that leads directly to their deaths. The philosophical question isn’t just “is it better for fewer people to die” but “in pulling the lever, are you directly responsible for those deaths?”
My answer would be that inaction is itself an action. In this scenario, you have found yourself responsible either way. Suppose you pull the lever, though, to save as many lives as you can… Wouldn’t the ones who die as a result of this have loved ones that absolutely do blame you?
A wise man once said, If you choose not to decide, You still have made a choice
Its the trolley problem, but you just walk away from both tracks and the lever, and then claim that you did not consciously act to cause any harm, therefore you are guiltless.
That’s the fucking point of the trolley problem. How can so many people get here and not fucking understand it’s supposed to present the dichotomy between utilitarianism and deontology. If you have a duty to not commit murder, and pulling a lever murders people, you can’t pull the lever. It’s a valid position.
If deontology is wrong, we should immediately round up every depressed person, kill them, and harvest their organs.
If you are talking about deontology and utilitarianism from two to three hundred years ago…
Maybe your characterizations are accurate.
But uh, in more modern ethical theory…
Both camps have realized that pure adherence to the older forms of these ideas leads to absurdities and moral prescriptions which do not broadly match actual empirical responses to hypothetical scenarios.
As a result, most modern ethical theories are some kind of a hybrid of deontologic and utilitarian principles.
Anyway, let me try to illustrate this with a 'hypothetical' ethical question:
You have 300 dollars. This is your food budget for for 30 days. Say you only eat one meal a day, and if you do not eat at least one meal every 3 days, you will starve to death.
An ethical meal, produced by well compensated and treated laborers, costs $40 dollars.
A non ethical meal, produced by unpaid slave laborers in a far away land, who often die of exhaustion and exposure, costs $10 dollars.
Both meals have equal nutritional value and tastiness.
Does the deontologist decide that any level of harm to people they don’t know is permissible and eat 30 $10 dollar meals?
Or do they decide no level of harm is permissible to others and buy only 7 $40 dollar meals and then starve?
Or do they purchase some combination of $10 and $40 dollar meals so as to minimize permissible harm to themselves and others according to some kind of calculation?
Is the deontologist in this third scenario not employing some kind of utilitarian calculation?
It’s simple, for a voter that doesn’t have other important things or believes the candidates to be equal in other things, like the economy, it becomes a moral choice to not vote for genocide.
If they believe there will be human rights violations elsewhere, like in the US, but one candidate and not the other, then the moral choice becomes to limit harm.
Much of this argument stems from different base assumptions, as follows-
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Neither Trump nor Harris will commit other human rights violations, and they are materially the same to my family; staying home is the moral action.
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Trump will commit human rights violations, voting for Harris is the moral action.
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They will both commit more human rights violations; staying home is the moral action.
The people who were saying to stay home and not vote fell into camps 1 or 3. If you’re unsure of why someone would believe in number 3 you should know we have illegal debtor’s prisons that are ignored by the federal government, LGBTQ abuse that has gone unchecked by the federal government, illegal denial of asylum directly by the federal government, … the list goes on. But rest assured there are reasons people would see them both as committing human rights violations in the US. This is not some Russian info op like the DNC fanboys would have you believe.
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Now Gaza burns faster. Congrats 3rd party fuckers.
Literally all of the third party voters could have voted a straight Democrat ticket and it wouldn’t have affected a single swing state. Third-party voting was down by about 60% versus 2020.
Maybe not for the popular vote, but in individual districts that were close, it could have. Also, the constant talk for sure influenced some to not bother voting at all due to not having a perfect candidate choice.
60% less than the last presidential election. The one Biden won.
Stop blaming third parties for the Democrats’ failure to build a coalition within its own party.
