Small acceptable amounts allows for a slightly larger amount next time.
5d 19h ago by lemmy.world/u/K1nsey6 in latestagecapitalism
this is a bullshit argument
one side in US politics is pretty ANTI death camp while the other is very much PRO death camp. lesser evil voting in this case is ANTI death camp
you putz
no side in us politics is anti death camps
Except here, in the real world world, one side built the death camps while the other side is filling them up.
How many death camps did Biden build?
And don't start about some other country where they don't have control over.
I can start with Gaza because it was US money and weapons that enabled it. In addition to an enormous ICE and immigrant detention center expansion. There are 69 cops cities around the US with cops being trained by IDF because of Biden.
And what good did not voting do for you? Do you think the people in Gaza or Iran are greatful you didn't vote for Biden?
When people are getting slaughtered when their entire civilization is getting leveled, they're not concerned about the political party of the person doing it. They're not over there chanting death to Biden or death to Trump. They're chanting death to America.
And the only abstention of my vote was for a Democrat or Republican that does not imply that I did not vote
And you do you feel good about yourself now that thousands of people are dead that would otherwise be alive if Trump didn't win the election?
Because few dozen thousand dead poor brown people is just the piece to pay for you to feel morally superior about how you didn't vote for Biden/Harris.
You talking the same ones that would still be dead if Biden got reelected? Are you living in this fantasy land that Biden would have stopped bombing and paying for their genocide, which he refused to acknowledge was happening, if he got elected?
So now Biden is responsible for the war in Iran?
You are deeply unserious.
Who was it that wanted the world's most lethal military, who was it that had run scenarios about bombing Iranian enrichment facilities, who was it that proclaimed the US would protect the interests of Israel at any cost? Biden/Harris did, they already laid the foundations to repeat what Trump is doing.
How many Iraqis died because they "ran scenarios" ??
Again you are not a serious person.
War games are not practiced unless there's intent
Answer the question you coward.
Trump used Biden's scenarios when he attacked Iran the first time. As usual Democrat provided the blueprints for Republicans
Answer the question.
Except if you consider that one side committed a genocide and then the other side committed even more genocide.
And refusing to side with the better options actively works the worse option in the hand.
No these "better options" choosing to do genocide lead to a worse option. You can't fault someone for not voting for genocide. When the option is a turd sandwich or a shit stew don't be surprised when people choose neither.
And now the whole fucking restaurant is literally made out of shit. Great job not voting there.
lol I did vote, I just understand that when people don't vote for someone its the politician's fault for not running better policies and being more likeable and not someone who didn't like them so they didn't vote for them. If you would hold your leaders more accountable for being shitty then we wouldn't be in this mess but yeah yell at me a stranger on the internet with zero power.
Literally all Kamala had to do was say she was against the genocide, she made that choice not me.
More "both sides" bullshit. Dumbasses like you are part of the reason Trump got into to power.
Oh yeah its my fault the democrats decided to support a genocide and cost themselves the election. You would rather blame me someone with zero power than the leaders who have failed you, pathetic.
Yes, actually. A politicians first job is to get elected. It doesn't matter how good their policies are if they just never get elected.
So if the anti-genocidenvoting block was actually a thing that voted reliably, then politicians could cater to those people instead of the pro Israel crowd.
And even ignoring that, when the choices are the guy that was somewhat pushing back on Netanyahu and making some effort to help Palestine, Vs the guy who is enthusiastic to go all in with Netanyahu, and cleanse the entire region so he build property their and make money and gave Israel the go ahead to start several all new wars. And we get one of those two options no matter what, then not voting is implicit support for the second, much worse option.
Bro you don't even know who was running why are you talking? it was Kamala vs Trump not two men. Biden also did not push back against Israel most of the death and destruction of Gaza happened under Biden. He let them do a genocide what push back could there have been? He had all the power to stop it and did nothing.
All I am saying is when the options are two shitty candidates don't be surprised when people stay home instead. You need someone who can inspire people to come out in vote and if they can't do that they will lose. You keep talking about people that didn't vote when you should ask yourself why was Kamala so fucking terrible that she lost to a child rapist? That is on her and no one else. You don't blame the fucking fans when a sports team loses, they aren't the ones playing the game. It was her job to win not anyone else's and she failed miserably.
He had all the power to stop it and did nothing.
Huh, I didn't realise Biden was Prime minister of Israel.
And like I said, a politicians first job is to get elected. And unless your whole party is corrupt and full of yes men, I president isn't an all powerful dictator. If pro-genocide Zionists vote and anti genocide people don't, then if course every politician is going to be pro Israel. All you do by not voting is reinforce the pro Israel position. Not voting means you're just as responsible for what happened then the people actively voting for genocide.
Kamala was a shitty candidate that completely failed to inspire the democratic based to show up to vote. But that's a completely different discussion.
What the fuck are you even saying? The pro-Palestinian voters should have voted for anti-Palestinian candidates to show that the pro-Palestinian voting bloc was worth pursuing? Are you actually saying that?
I'm saying if you don't vote, then politicians have no reason to try and win your vote, they will instead try to win the vote of people who do vote, like Zionists.
And then since there is no option for your vote, even not casting it, that is decidedly pro Palestine, then the obvious best course of action is to vote for the least pro-iseael candidate. This also in theory gives incentive for the more pro-iseael party to shift to try and win more votes and opens room for a more pro Palestinian position on the other side.
If you actually care about the lives of Palestinian people and don't just want to use them as a political chess piece, then this is the obvious course of action.
This is ridiculous. Just try thinking about this for second. You are saying that if the people demand something, and the politicians on both sides of the aisle don't want to give it to them, it's the people's fault.
At this point, you have to admit that the politicians represent elite interests and not the people. How in the world could any other conclusion be valid? And if that's the case, and people realize this, then literally the outcome will be the same whether you vote or don't vote.
Listen, you're all about harm reduction right? You think Trump made things worse. Let's analyze that. Let's compare Trump and Obama. Trump launched a war against Iran and he lost. Obama launched a war against Libya and turned it into an open-air slave market. Net net, Trump did less harm to Iran than Obama did to Libya. On deportations, Trump has deported 1.5M people so far. Obama deported 3M. Net net, Trump did less harm via deportation than Obama did.
So when we look at Palestine, and we see that the US hasn't actually engaged directly in Palestine but rather Israel has done all of the work, what are we to conclude? That somehow Trump has made Palestine worse? I think Trump is incompetent, ignorant, and aloof. He doesn't care what happens and he's not really engaged. It's Israel doing the harm in Palestine. In this way, blaming Trump for the conditions in Palestine is like blaming the president for a drought. It's not in his control.
No. The conclusion is not "you should vote for genocide if you don't want genocide to prove to the genocidaires that you're still willing to vote for them even if they engage in genocide because otherwise they have no incentive to stop genocide". That's so clearly and obviously ridiculous it's a wonder you're willing to even say it. The conclusion is that your vote doesn't matter because the empire is going to do whatever it needs to do to maintain its power and voting is impotent to change those things.
This is ridiculous. Just try thinking about this for second. You are saying that if the people demand something, and the politicians on both sides of the aisle don't want to give it to them, it's the people's fault.
It's a democracy and primaries exist. If "the people" vote for a shitty candidate in the primaries, then that's on them.
You're acting as if the pro Palestine position is near universal and the democrats are just saying no for no reason (or corruption/malice whatever) but the reality is most of the voter base either doesn't give a shit about Palestine or is probably Israel.
And that's kind of my whole point. Those people vote, so if pro Palestine people don't vote then you don't get prop Palestine candidates, so it's a self fulfilling prophecy.
Yes politicians overwhelmingly represent corporate interests, but acting like there is 0 political pressure from actual voters is nonsense. Not voting is giving tacit approval for the politicians to only care about the ekete or the other side.
Trump didn't run against Obama.
we see that the US hasn't actually engaged directly in Palestine but rather Israel has done all of the work
So that applied to Biden too?
you should vote for genocide
And now you're back to claiming the US is responsible for the genocide.
You're starting to sound like a MAGA.
It’s a democracy and primaries exist. If “the people” vote for a shitty candidate in the primaries, then that’s on them.
Victim blaming. The entire primary process is, like every other structure in the country, designed by the elite to maintain their power. It's been that way since the founding. The goal is the image of legitimacy and disempowerment of the masses.
You’re acting as if the pro Palestine position is near universal and the democrats are just saying no for no reason (or corruption/malice whatever) but the reality is most of the voter base either doesn’t give a shit about Palestine or is probably Israel.
So you're saying that if the majority of voters want genocide, then that's the position the Ds should hold, and those of us opposed should just suck it up and vote for them because if we don't.... their opponents will win.... Do you realize what you're even saying?
And that’s kind of my whole point. Those people vote, so if pro Palestine people don’t vote then you don’t get prop Palestine candidates, so it’s a self fulfilling prophecy.
Almost like voting doesn't matter because what's going to happen is whatever the elite ruling class wants to happen.
Yes politicians overwhelmingly represent corporate interests, but acting like there is 0 political pressure from actual voters is nonsense. Not voting is giving tacit approval for the politicians to only care about the ekete or the other side.
In a different thread we discussed the changes that occurred in the country's past. Women's suffrage came up. It's pretty obvious that women got the vote by applying pressure outside the ballot box. The same is true for civil rights. Nixon had to give ground on civil rights because of what was happening outside the ballot box, not inside. In fact, he and his administration deliberately disenfranchised people through the war on drugs (which every single subsequent administration enhanced). Because it turns out that they control how the voting system works.
Trump didn’t run against Obama.
Then perhaps you're not paying attention to the point, which is that the party affiliation doesn't reduce harm, and that people who believe in the goodness of Ds deliberately ignore the immense harm Ds have done and continue to do.
we see that the US hasn’t actually engaged directly in Palestine but rather Israel has done all of the work
So that applied to Biden too?
Yes, Biden didn't engage directly in Palestine. Israel did all the work. Both Trump and Biden, both Ds and Rs in Congress, participate merely by sending more and more weapons, money, and training to Israel regardless of what they do. Biden openly supported the genocide, Trump openly supported the genocide. No harm was reduced nor increased based on voting.
And now you’re back to claiming the US is responsible for the genocide.
The US is responsible for genocide because they have provided unending support for Israel regardless of their actions. Trump didn't make it worse, Biden didn't make it better. The fact that you can't see this makes it look like you're just interested in attaching your favorite brand to an issue that people care deeply about in order to win points.
You’re starting to sound like a MAGA.
Such a thought terminating cliche.
So how did people that go against what the elites want get into power?
I'm saying that's how a democracy works you fucking idiot, if the majority of voters feel strongly about something politicians will promise it to secure their votes. Please for the love of god read a book.
Unless you vote for someone in the primary that shares your views.
Yet a fucking gain, you are pushing your dumb fucking false dichotomy that because activism works that means voting is pointless. You seem physically incapable of not seeing the world in black and white. You are as dumb as every right wing Trump voter I've ever spoken to.
It does reduce harm. As I've mentioned Trump stripped healthcare from 1.6m Americans, that is harm that wouldn't have happened if he didn't get elected. And your only answer to it was that democrats didn't magically make it impossible to do that before he did it. Because you don't seem to understand basic civics.
There was, Biden didn't do much but he did pressure Netanyahu on Palestine, he witheld some military aid over Yahu's invasion of Rafah, he also dropped aid and supplies into Gaza and pushed for the construction of the floating dock. Yes, it wasnt enough but it's more than what Trump ever did and that's the point.
If a democrat being elected stops even a single bomb, then it's worth doing. That's the point and you have no argument against that besides doing mental gymnastics to try and blame Obama for everything bad Trump has done (a typical MAGA tactic btw) or just saying "nuh uh they're literally exactly the same" even though you've already admitted that voting changes things.
Biden did make it better and trump did make it worse. The whole pointless fucking war with Iran, the invasion of Lebanon are fucking proof of that. But again you don't give a shit about these people. So much so that you're ignoring everyone I bring it up.
Literally all you care about is feeling good about yourself. You willfully ignorant of any reality that doesn't feed your superiority complex and you are just simply a shitty human being.
So how did people that go against what the elites want get into power?
You mean a handful of representatives and handful of senators? It's called tokenization and appeasement.
I’m saying that’s how a democracy works you fucking idiot, if the majority of voters feel strongly about something politicians will promise it to secure their votes. Please for the love of god read a book.
That's what I've been asking you to do. Because you're empirically wrong. Princeton did a huge report on this. It is not the case that when the majority of voters feel strongly about something politicians will DO anything about it. Sure they'll promise it, but the promises empirically have no follow through.
Instead, consistently what we have seen is when a minority of people are willing to disrupt life, THAT'S when politicians will actually do something. Again, Richard Nixon did absolutely nothing because the voters wanted it. He was forced by the violence on the ground by a minority of activists to give them concessions. And then to DOUBLY PROVE that voting isn't the path, he then disenfranchised entire generations of people by launching the war on drugs, criminalizing cannabis and heroin specifically to target the people who were gaining traction, and every single president and congress after him supported the program.
Women's suffrage was never earned by a majority of people voting. They couldn't even vote. The fact that they got suffrage flies directly in the face of your point that people who didn't vote Harris because of genocide demonstrated that because they won't vote then the party can ignore them. I mean, it's so obvious how contradictory your position is. Your cognitive dissonance is really fucking with your ability to reason.
Yet a fucking gain, you are pushing your dumb fucking false dichotomy that because activism works that means voting is pointless
That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying that voting is pointless and you try to gave examples of how voting wasn't pointless and I showed how every single one of them was due to activism, and then showed the women's suffrage was the proof that voting wasn't even needed. Activism is both necessary and sufficient. Voting, empirically, is neither necessary nor sufficient.
If a democrat being elected stops even a single bomb, then it’s worth doing.
Again, I don't actually think there's cause and effect here. The military is driven by the bi-partisan consensus of global dominance. It's absolutely true that under Biden fewer bombs were dropped. But it's not reasonable to conclude from a single data point that this means Democrats reduce bomb droppings. None of the historical data supports it. Hell, the Democrats ran Operation Paperclip! There is no evidence that Democrats drop less bombs and insisting that just because for one term it was true then that means it will always be true doesn't make any sense.
And again, using this logic, Trump is deporting fewer people than Obama did so he represents harm reduction. I know you don't want to agree to that, I don't want to agree to it either. My point is not to say that Trump is or isn't harm reduction but that the strategy of lesser evil voting is both morally and logically bankrupt.
The whole pointless fucking war with Iran, the invasion of Lebanon are fucking proof of that
Again, you can't use Biden's exceptional presidency as proof when all historical proof refutes you. What Trump has done in Iran is far less damaging than what Obama and Hillary did in Libya, but Clinton did in Yugoslavia, what Truman did in Korea, what Johnson did in Vietnam. You have got to stop pretending that history started in 2020.
As I’ve mentioned Trump stripped healthcare from 1.6m Americans, that is harm that wouldn’t have happened if he didn’t get elected
So I was mistaken about this. I thought you were referring to the end of federal subsidies for the ACA. What you're actually talking about is the defunding of Medicaid. The defunding of Medicaid was indeed a classic Republican pattern of reducing entitlements (with some exceptions) and reducing entitlements generally always causes harm. Yes. This is a valid point, that voting for Ds, generally speaking will expand entitlements and social safety nets. They tend to cock it up a lot, like they did by promising single payer and then abandoning the will of the voters and creating the ACA, but this form of harm reduction is true.
It's not enough for me to say that we should vote for genocidaires so long as they expand our entitlements at home. It used to be when I was younger and didn't understand the role the US plays in the world. It's not anymore. If they want my vote, they're going to have to reduce the military, reduce the prisons, and end support for Israel.
You mean a handful of representatives and handful of senators? It's called tokenization and appeasement.
Ah classic "yes you proved my entire point wrong with your examples, but they don't count because I said so"
Literally just maga but with different talking points, lmao.
Way to not engage with any of the other content in the comment including the empirical evidence and focusing on your shallow understanding of the world to assert that it's me acting in bad faith.
Because you just keep pretending I'm arguing something I'm not and pushing the idea that activism working means voting doesn't.
Also you've already said you agree with me, so there's no point addressing any of your other nonsense. Sorry I'm not going to "debate" you any more.
I did vote dumbass, its not my fault Kamala wasn't popular that is on her for her stupid positions.
an abstention from voting COUNTS AS A VOTE FOR TRUMP
no, it doesn't. only votes for trump count as votes for trump.
Listen, the time for doing something about the problem about two shitty options is NOT at the literal last second, when you have no other options BUT those two shitty ones. At that point, and ONLY at that point, it becomes about choosing the lesser of two evils. If you don't, you get the worse of two evils, it's as simple as that. You want things to change, or maybe more than just two evils? Make the effort to change shit BEFORE things get locked to two shitty choices. Every year more people are riled up about this, so how about organizing to do shit BEFORE the only play left is to fumble and give the ball to the fascists? Because this moral grandstanding literally fucks everyone, and I'm speaking as a non-American, being fucked by stupid American choices such as not voting for Kamala because she was "pro-genocide" (while Trump is watering at the mouth thinking about building hotels atop the ashes of Palestinian lands).
We've been saying the same thing since at least before 2020. And somehow it wasn't the right time ever since then.
There wasn't a chance to have something different, the democrats didn't have a primary... They selected who they wanted to move forward without a single vote cast.
You vote for the lesser evil because that's the limit of what you can achieve in the voting booth. But voting isn't the only thing you can do to change society, obviously. I think these kinds of posts are missing the bigger picture
This is a false premise. Instead of choosing which evil we want to accept, we can choose which evil we prefer to resist.
The electoral system also gives that lesser evil legitimacy, insert robot voice: "they were voted for democratically, these protesters all just hate democracy and {country.capitalized()}!".
In all seriousness, what you are putting forward requires actual resistance, not just marching in the streets like is too common nowadays, but actual efforts to make it hell for people in power, and it actually makes it harder if the people in power can make you look unreasonable because you voted for them.
But even if you don't vote, someone else will, and they will still get to play that "democracy" card.
No one is saying don't vote. They are saying that your vote is impotent.
Your vote is very important, its just most people either don't use it, or only vote at the highest level. Votes for low level local positions can be very impactful and can be decided by dozens of votes. And if more people did that it would have knock on effects down the line all the way up to national government.
That's a god of the gaps argument.
If only people would vote they would have more power
No. People don't vote because their vote doesn't matter. Public opinion doesn't matter. Public support doesn't matter. Gay rights came after violent riots. Civil rights came after violent riots. Labor rights came after violent riots. Because the voting wasn't working.
You have it all backwards. People aren't powerless because they don't vote. People don't vote because they're powerless.
That's a completely reductive and simplistic view on politics.
It's a combination of the 2. Yes civil rights came after violent riots, but only because Kennedy/Johnson were in power at the time. If the republicans were in power in 63, then civil rights wouldn't have been passed.
Gay rights only went through, firstly in states with Dem governments, then nationally because of dem appointed supreme court judges.
This isn't a case of you can only do one or the other, you can and should do both. Because that's the only way you actually get change.
You're describing an actual strategic framing which is voting for the person you would like to be your opponent in the actual conflict that is needed. Vote for Ds not because they'll fix things but because when you decide to finally riot you'd rather have a D in office than an R. That's a valid strategy, but voting doesn't change things. Voting just makes it easier for you to change things.
I do want to point out that corporate profits are higher under D administrations, that it was the D President Truman that oversaw Operation Paperclip to save 10k Nazis from standing trial and that committed genocidal aggression against Korea, that it was the D President Obama that destroyed Libya while it was the most successful and prosperous country in all of Africa, and that it was D President Clinton who saw nothing wrong with having black house slaves in the Arkansas Governor's Mansion when he and Hillary lived there.
You're right that the D's public relations strategy doesn't afford them the operating room to crack down hard on protestors and riots. However, it should also be noted that after Atwater articulated the Southern Strategy and essentially beat the Ds for a decade, the Ds decided that they needed to be more like the Rs and adopt their own version of the Southern strategy, hence Biden's Crime Bill and Clinton's war against welfare. Because the Ds weren't up for the fight, they triangulated in order to win, and by triangulated we mean that they literally took up far-right positions on purpose in order to win. And look what happened? Everything got worse and now the Ds won't even entertain addressing it.
You are wrong.
Good to know
True, and I agree, but we do actually have to resist for that to be the case. Not just with the signs and angry letters we've been using to try to convince the corrupt to simply not be corrupt anymore, but with actions that actually prevent them from making things worse, up to and including their death, if necessary. Until then we really are just voting for the lesser evil and letting them do whatever they want.
Resist by giving them legitimacy
That's a very silly take that isnt true at all. How can you say that by not voting you're taking away their legitimacy? This is the kinda shit that makes people think you're anti leftist voting psy op to keep the conservatives in power.
The US does it all the fucking time when they claim such and such a leader is illegitimate because they didn't get enough votes. Not having people vote for you delegitimizes you. How do you not see that?
Because you're making a false equivalence. They absolutely have NOT done that for an actual US/presidential election. Keep trying to get people to throw their vote away, im sure keeping the republicans in power will help leftist causes. Get real.
Resist all of them
...but you don't live in a world where one party is building 50 and the other 51. That's just a strawman to avoid taking responsibility for having to choose between the actual options, not the options you wish you had.
bOtH sIdEs
I fucking hate that we keep getting this "both sides bad" ideology, now "both sides deathcamp" ffs, right during Trump's reign where we are seeing concentration camps and illegal wars right after a boring Biden presidency.
It's coming up to election season, so all the sabateuor bots are spinning up again to try and convince people like you not to vote.
That's why it's the same 10 accounts in every fucking group. Same dudes, over and over, making the same illogical bad-faith arguments.
@terranoid @Triumph ITs a good cop/ bad cop situation. In the US the DNC "failed" to punish Trump for an attempt to overthrow the Goverment.
Additionally the border camps got correctly called concentration camps in 2019 and Biden started to fill them.
https://www.bu.edu/articles/2019/are-ice-detention-centers-concentration-camps/
How long do you think it takes to run a trial? Like, gather evidence, interrogate witnesses, investigate, etc. In fact, what do you think happens to bring about a trial?
And why would the DNC be involved with that?
Also, was Biden President in 2019?
@webadict And here is it how it actually done when the "Opposition" isn't on your team:
Bolsonaro sentenced to 27 years in jail - what you need to know
@tompearce49 @webadict One can only hope. I for my part couldn't wipe the grin off my face for a week at least.
@IngridAusOL @webadict Schön wenn Demokratie funktioniert wie sie sollte, oder?
Wünschte wir würden das selbe bei uns mit dem AFD Verbotsverfahren anstoßen.
Okay, so which question does that answer? Unfortunately, Trump lives in the US where the President somehow has complete immunity to everything, which seems more like an indictment on the Supreme Court than on Biden or other Democrats. It might even be an indictment of the voters, for electing Trump and giving him immunity to his crimes.
@webadict You didnt ask questions you implied that they couldnt Persecute Trump "Because there wasnt enough time". Biden could have jailed him due to the same immunity from the Supreme court.
Also you know blaming the voters for not persecuting Trump is a new low.
Additionally I almost forgot about Yoon Suk Yeol who got arrested for a similar coup attempt:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arrest/_of/_Yoon/_Suk/_Yeol
weird that other countries seem to be able to punish coup attempts. Almost as long there is political will...
A new low? Okay, pal. I'm not entirely sure where you think my old low was, but sure? I asked some pretty basic questions because I legitimately don't think you know how the US legal system works. And it's fair not to. Pointing to other countries on how corruption is dealt with, insofar as what could've or should've been done, doesn't override the way that the US system works. Why don't you point to other corruption cases for lower offices in the US? Those also take years to investigate and prosecute. Some of the lower office corruption cases can be wrapped up in a little as a few months, but then tend not to.
Does that help point out the issue?
@webadict So you ignored the comment i made about Garland?
‘Fatal Mistake’: Democrats Blame DOJ As Trump Escapes Accountability For Jan. 6
“Merrick Garland wasted a year,” Rep. Jerrold Nadler said ahead of the fourth anniversary of the 2021 Capitol riot.
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/january-6-doj-trump/_n/_67783f7ce4b0f0fdb7b19d36
Also i am not your "pal". Its simply ultra low when liberals keep blaming DNC failures on the electorate. No wonder Democrats approval rating is sub 30% with their own base.
Again, little buddy, I must ask if you think the DNC controls the DoJ? Blaming Merrick Garland is certainly a fair point, and it's one you can bring against Biden himself since he nominated him! That is fair. But, you still haven't used US corruption cases to support your words on how long the average corruption case takes to investigate and prosecute.
Like, I get you want to blame Democrats for everything because you have some sort of agenda or personal grievance or whatever the fuck. I don't really give a shit why. They are surely to blame for many things, and the DNC is also to blame for many things. But, I really don't think the Democrats are to blame for Trump not being held accountable. Especially since Trump has been held accountable on several smaller scales by mostly Democrats.
But, anyway, feel free to call all your perceived enemies liberals or whatever, my dude. You're doing great! :)
@webadict
If you don't like to debate leftists then don't come into our places and start shit as soon as you loose.
You ignored everything I said because you don't really think about your positions. You're just a little guy who links news articles. You don't know anything, buddy. I'm sorry that you don't think I'm a leftist because I vote for harm reduction. I want my trans friends to live, and that will keep them alive longer.
@webadict Yes i linked articles.
Because that way, unlike you i don't have to make shit up to make a point.
I have not read anything from you that indicates an informed position.
The DNC is indefensible and already signalled that they throw Trans people under the bus.
Harm reduction needs to reduce harm. I dont see any harm reduction with Dems in power. Id love to link examples but making you read articles is apparently bad.
What did I make up? That sounds like a thing you made up, pal.
Like, your point about Dems throwing trans people under the bus is almost there. You almost figured it out! The problem is that (centrist) Dems in general can be bullied into positions that are better because they are particularly spineless. They do not protect trans people... But they also don't actively ruin their lives. And that is better than the alternative. That's why it is called "harm reduction", pal. Do you not understand that?
Do you think trans people do not overwhelmingly vote Democratic? It's like fucking almost 90%. Or do you think that isn't true?
Like, you don't see harm reduction because you think that the harm done by both parties is the same. And that's really sad on a lot of levels. You are either very, very privileged; very, very misinformed; very, very stupid; or part of an intersection of disadvantaged groups. And I don't think you are the last one, buddy.
@webadict Centrist dems didn't budge on gaza before an important election. Trans Issues will also be ignored Also gavin Newson:"CA Gov Gavin Newsom "Completely Aligns" With Charlie Kirk On Trans Issues In Podcast"
One of the top candidates for presidency agreed with Charlie Kirk.
BTW about lying: ALMOST 90% is already a lie.
"Three-quarters (75%) of voting eligible trans respondents (adult U.S. citizens) reported that they had voted in the 2020 presidential election." Not even for dems
I suppose being pedantic that I obviously meant trans people who voted doesn't matter because I don't think you give a shit, especially because that 75% voting is higher than the general populace, but okay. Where's the stats on their voting record? Do you... Do you not want to link those because I'm right?
How long did it take Müller to break silence, Garland to charge?
Mueller (that's his name, btws, he's not German) is probably a bad person to use, mostly because he was a Republican, but also because I'm not sure which silence you mean: The Clinton emails or like, the rampant corruption from Trump? Because those are both unrelated to charges being brought forth, since the email thing was still being investigated for more than a year afterward, and the Mueller Report took a couple years? Garland (who was also a Republican) also took years. These are all multi-year long investigations, you need to bring up something faster, buddy.
As I said elsewhere, it's extremely relevant as policy needs to be viewed as a continuum.
And you didn't use a continuum. You used two examples. Where are the other examples in America that show this? Can we look at how long Watergate took? That seems a pretty resounding example because it took years for that one too.
This is why the United States public sits by with handwringing and zero action. Every admin since Nixon has been to the right of Nixon. Socially left and economically right is just right with a few concessions. They fragment, lie, white/pink/green/rainbow/sanewash our history, our education, our politics, our economy, our personalities, our health, our lives so that people think they are very clever and pay attention to garbage they shouldn't, and view things to which we should give heavy attention via a fragmentary lens. And this is why fascism will win, here
Eta: the continuum is all over Lemmy, if you cba
Hm, that is a pretty self-defeating attitude, and it kinda infers that instead of debating online that you should be out there fighting the system. I kinda agree with you, so I think your efforts are better off elsewhere.
If you want, I agree that it shouldn't be like that. So, I will just concede the argument, because I would rather we do better together than have you think that I like it that way or something. Is that fair?
It's self defeating on you, not me. Yeah as soon as I recover from a serious injury for which I am somewhere in between paperwork and approval, I'll be back out there.
I mean, I did just concede the argument, so I guess that's true. Regardless, I'll still be out there with you.
I look forward to it.
@webadict ‘Fatal Mistake’: Democrats Blame DOJ As Trump Escapes Accountability For Jan. 6
“Merrick Garland wasted a year,” Rep. Jerrold Nadler said ahead of the fourth anniversary of the 2021 Capitol riot.
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/january-6-doj-trump/_n/_67783f7ce4b0f0fdb7b19d36
The boring Biden presidency where kids we still being put in cages, where children were put in solitary confinement, where racialized mass incarceration in the US is still the worst in the world and including parole and supervision is triple the volume of any other country on the planet and with some of the worst recidivism and the only country charging prisoners hundreds of dollars a day? Boring like protecting Trump and the rest from DOJ prosecution over the Epstein situation? Boring like 1100 killed by police? Boring like bombing the Nord Stream 2 and bombing Yemen, Syria, and Iraq?
This is what we mean. You are so far into harm reduction that you are literally incapable of understanding that Biden's term was not boring but mass murderously tragic.
Boring? There was and still is literally a genocide going on.
But thanks for proving the meme right.
How many were active during biden's campaign, how many did he not shut down?
Why was nothing done about abortion rights?
Why did he support (and not just "not being vocal" about) the israeli state during an active genocide?
Your "blue team" is just as complicit.
I don't think the person you're replying to is defending Biden. It isn't a defense of Biden's failure to act to say that Trump is, quite obviously, worse in every aspect. It is insane to think otherwise because the genocide got WORSE under Trump.
The point is that dipshits/losers/morons/accelerationists sit here and say both sides are bad, when one side is actively worse and they do not care that the one obviously worse side is killing multiple-folds more people while they pretend to smugly assert how good it must be to choose no evil while everyone else struggles to work with the hand they've been forcibly dealt.
You let me know when you step up and assassinate a billionaire, alright, bud? I'll respect your stance then.
Want to hear something interesting though? Trump is actually not worse than Obama in every way.
Trump has deported 1.5 million people across all of his years in office so far. Want to guess how many Obama deported?
3 million.
So actually Trump is the lesser evil when it comes to deportations if you take this approach.
The reality is that they're both horrible but for different reasons.
I think that is a really gross thing to say from someone who didn't pay attention to the ongoing rapes of children in ICE concentration camps. I think that's a gross thing to say to the militarized presence of ICE kidnapping people as they left their court hearings to be here. I think that's a gross thing to say to the people attacked by ICE for protecting their neighbors. I think that's a gross thing to say to the people who got married and had to pick up their partner's green card because they were arresting them and shipping them all over the country.
To say that it's a smaller number is insane because it treats immigrants not as people that are still suffering right now (I have neighbors that still can't fucking go to work because ICE is still here), but as numbers and this one is smaller. That is such a dumb and pathetic argument that it shows you as hopelessly heartless or desperately dumb, and I don't thing it matters which is worse.
That's literally what harm reducer less evil people are saying. "Dropping 50 bombs is better than dropping 51 bombs" and "50 concentration camps is better than 51".
If you agree that reducing it down to just these raw numbers is disgusting, congratulations, you got the point! Lesser evil voting is pretty disgusting. Thank you for playing.
You just said 1.5 million apples are better than 3 million oranges.
So, you're not even right in that vein.
But, like, if they were the same degree wrong, 1.5 million would be better, right? Or do you disagree?
I disagree with the entire framing of harm reduction as a valid reason to vote for the lesser evil in elections. I think it's absurd and horribly wrong for exactly the reasons you stated. 1.5M is actually less than 3M, but that doesn't mean it's harm reduction.
Harm reduction doesn't always mean harm. It does eventually mean that things that do nothing are better than harm, and things that do more good are better than less good. But right now, harm is being caused no matter how you choose. So if you are forced to pick, you should pick less. Every time.
I think that is a really gross thing to say from someone who didn’t pay attention to the ongoing rapes of children in ICE concentration camps. I think that’s a gross thing to say to the militarized presence of ICE kidnapping people as they left their court hearings to be here. I think that’s a gross thing to say to the people attacked by ICE for protecting their neighbors. I think that’s a gross thing to say to the people who got married and had to pick up their partner’s green card because they were arresting them and shipping them all over the country.
To say that it’s a smaller number is insane
So.... all this is just what? Partisanism? You can't extend this to prison system and police killings? You can't extend this to the bombing and total destruction of sovereign nations? You can't extend this to shipping arms to genocidal regimes and protecting them in the UN? It's only valid harm reduction if you're voting for Democrats regardless of the active harm they do?
I mean, do you not see the contradiction in your own words here?
There is no contradiction. That 3 million number is bad, but it is still better than the 1.5 million number because of the methods used. Because prisoners didn't go down under Republicans. The prison system didn't get better under Republicans. Police killings didn't get better under Republicans. Like, I know it's gauche to try to compare hurt, but I do not see any Republicans calling for a rehabilitation system instead of a punitive system, but I do see some Democrats call for it, even if very few.
Like, it's sort of like telling me to pick between 1000 thefts being committed vs 100 murders, and, like, yeah, obviously I'll take 1000 thefts over the murders. I don't want either, but I have two fucking choices.
Which would you pick? Remember, there's quantitatively less crimes with the murders! Oh, you didn't pick? That just means someone else gets to pick for you.
Like, it’s sort of like telling me to pick between 1000 thefts being committed vs 100 murders, and, like, yeah, obviously I’ll take 1000 thefts over the murders. I don’t want either, but I have two fucking choices.
It's nothing like this. You're literally doing the thing you said shouldn't be done. You think that because Trump made it visible, it's worse, and because Obama's deportations were less visible, they're better. That's essentially saying that the deciding factor is whether or not white people are made uncomfortable by it. Literally, you're saying Obama deporting twice as much people is still LESS BAD than Trump deporting half as many because we all have to see it happening on the streets instead of it happening quietly through the prison-industrial complex.
I think that's disgusting, quite frankly.
Trump has concentration camps where children are being raped and disappeared. Like systematically. As part of the deportation process. I do not think that is better. Do you think it is better? I think that is worse. Obama didn't have fucking goon squads kidnapping and shooting people in the streets, camping out at bus stops and churches. Like, I get that Obama was cruel, but he did not let ICE fuck children and shoot people with impunity. And that is the difference. And you are trying to pretend it is better to have the 1.5 million even if severalfold more of them are raped and murdered as a result. I think that's worse. Do you not?
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10408271/
First line
Since 2007, there have been reports of sexual assault within Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention centers across the US.
Your study has a lot of issues, but mainly that it relies on data provided by ICE, but also that it does not clarify the difference in sexual assault under Obama vs. Under Trump. It could show a difference under Trump vs. Biden (or rather, Trump's first term), but I don't think you really read the report.
Regardless, there is currently ongoing rapes in concentration camps under Trump II, and a fuckton more than this study shows under both, so I really don't see how this proves me wrong. Thanks for confirmation.
You just can't seem to choose whether it's OK to quantify harm and advocate for harm reduction on that basis or whether harm is qualitative and cannot be reduced to simple numerical comparison.
Which is it: it's disgusting to the tell the victims of sexual violence under Obama and Biden that Trump is presiding over more of it and that's why it's OK to vote for Ds, or it's virtuous to vote lesser evil and harm reduction on a quantitative basis?
Did Biden prosecute the perpetrators of sexual violence against detained immigrants? Did he address the harm? Or did he ignore the harm?
It sounds to me like you are deeply attached to the idea that Democrats are NOT actively participating in the system and that the Republicans are. To me, the evidence is clear that this is a Good Cop / Bad Cop situation and they both work for the same department and you're just being duped by the routine.
I think you are the only one confused. I do not think your data shows that rapes of children was somehow less under Biden. Or even that rapes were less. They kinda cart out those pregnant children every day out there in New Jersey.
The only thing I see you do is take no stance. And that is because you have the privilege to take none. Maybe no one you know is being hurt worse from the decision of others. I think you should feel lucky. You must have a great life.
No, I am taking a stance. You just don't like it. My stance is that voting Democrat won't save anyone, that the Democrats have demonstrated that they will not only oversee the same atrocities of the Republicans but that they will not punish the criminals and they will give the fascist more tools every time they get to elected. My stance is that the only way to protect our siblings and elders and children is to fight, in the streets, in the workplaces, in public, shut down the economy, and force the issue because historically it is the only thing that has ever worked in this country. Women's suffrage, labor rights, civil rights, and gay rights all came from riots and strikes, not from banging pots and voting.
Yes, that is not taking a stance. You just don't like it. You can't say what should be done, only one thing that shouldn't. That's what losers do because you can hide behind it and never take a real stance. Congratulations, you get to pretend you're winning.
Man, I'll just softball you. Can you list which elected Democrats believe that women should not be allowed to vote? Because there are a small but growing number of elected Republicans that have stated that women, in some capacity, should not be allowed to vote. Because they're the same.
I literally said what to do. Just because your brain blackholes it when you read it doesn't mean I didn't say what should be done.
Your softball is virtue signalling. Of Democrats don't say those things. They are the Good Cop in the system. Instead they say things like American politics should gate kept.
According to Zack Rosen, founder of California YIMBY and the Abundance Network, the problem with politics is Americans being too involved. Bemoaning the rise of small-dollar political donations in fundraising documents leaked to the Prospect, Rosen is blunt: “Small dollar internet fundraising makes politics dumber.” Rosen misses what he considers to be a bygone era of elite dominance. Lamenting the current state of democratized influence, Rosen says “the old gatekeepers were political professionals who could count cards; small dollar donors today are amateurs yanking the handles of ActBlue slot machines.”
The Democrats don't have to believe that women shouldn't vote, because the Republicans are doing it for them. The Democrats just sit there and do nothing to stop them. As we saw with Biden/Harris. They had the full unredacted Epstein Files. They did nothing with them. The Supreme Court said the POTUS could do anything they wanted to protect democracy. Biden said Trump was a threat to democracy. And then they all just let him run again. And then Biden refused to give Harris a chance to build a campaign until the last possible second. The Democrats CREATED this mess.
Trump's deportation czar in both terms was Tom Homan. Homan was an Obama appointee, which is why Obama deported 3m people, 100% more than Trump has deported. The use of ICE and BORTAC in US cities was created by Obama changing the structure of information sharing and coordination, increasing headcount, and inceasing budget. The Republicans are using the tools the Democrats created and the Democrats don't dismantle the tools when they get power. Instead, they enhance the tools and then act like it's the voter's fault when a Republican uses the tools.
If you can't see the PR bullshit of the Democrats, if you don't understand that they're the Good Cop, then you're the loser. You have an opportunity to fight your way out, but instead you're telling all of us that we should trust the Good Cop because he clearly is nice and isn't like the Bad Cop. That's loser behavior
You write a lot of words for saying that you agree they are not the same. And, by that virtue, one must be better than the other. So, is voting the lesser evil bad or what? Or is your point that Republicans are the lesser evil?
I mean, I could go into a lot of depths about how the Supreme Court was stacked by Republicans, and that they give some unilateral power to Republican presidents in their ruling with the caveat that they get to decide at any point what is included in that.
But, I don't think you really know anything about US law or USSC rulings or anything like that. I also doubt you care.
Like, I get the analogy, but... Most people would still rather have a good cop than a bad cop. Does that not make sense to you? And since I have two options, yeah, I still think your logic points towards voting for Democratic politicians. Because that is what your logic points to, and you refuse to refute that.
You write a lot of words for saying that you agree they are not the same
You really are attached to your own world view, to the point where you can't understand anything anyone is saying to you.
And, by that virtue, one must be better than the other
This is as ridiculous as it is wrong.
So, is voting the lesser evil bad or what?
Yes, lesser evil voting is useless and nonsensical. It's worse than useless. It's surrender.
Or is your point that Republicans are the lesser evil?
My point is that lesser evil voting requires you to have some kind of way of assessing lesser evil and so many of the things people bring up as examples, like Trump deporting 1.5M people, are actually counter-examples to their own point because instead of actually examining evil and quantifying it they have literally no idea how bad the Democrats are and assume everything they here about Republicans is immediately worse. Showing everyone how bad the Democrats are is an attempt to break down the lesser evil belief and show how it's built entirely on false premises.
I mean, I could go into a lot of depths about how the Supreme Court was stacked by Republicans
You could, but then we'd have to talk about how the Democrats literally said they wouldn't use remove the filibuster to save the courts, and then literally removed it later to raise the debt ceiling, demonstrating that the Democrats literally had the power to address the Supreme Court stacking and chose not to.
that they give some unilateral power to Republican presidents in their ruling
They don't actually.
with the caveat that they get to decide at any point what is included in that
Not in Trump v US they didn't. They established a clear framework for immunity and Biden could easily have operated within it. And even if he did, AND the Rs tried to take him to court AND the SCOTUS decided against Biden, it would have taken years, and Trump wouldn't be in office, and Biden would just as old and close to dying as he is now. Saying that SCOTUS is stacked by Rs and therefore everyone is powerless is loser behavior.
Like, I get the analogy
You clearly do not.
Most people would still rather have a good cop than a bad cop. Does that not make sense to you?
That's not at all how the analogy works. Good Cap / Bad Cop is a manipulation routine where two cops working the same case take up different roles. One is the Bad Cop, who threatens the suspect, hits them, insults them, takes or destroys their belongings, etc. The other is the Good Cop, who comforts the suspect, opens up to them about their own feelings, brings them good food and drink, promises to take care of them. The point of the Good Cop / Bad Cop routine is to manipulate someone into trusting the Good Cop.
The reason cops do this routine is because they work together for the same goal. This is the analogy for the Ds and the Rs. As structural parties, not as individuals, the parties play the roles of Good Cop / Bad Cop. One scares half the population while the other comforts that half. They switch places for the other half of the population. They look like enemies. But they work together, dine together, go to school together, car pool together, travel together, golf together, party together, play sports together. Their kids go to the same schools and play together. They are literally colleagues. And as a structure, both parties have shared goals - maintain US dominance abroad, maintain the wealth of the rich, prevent the masses from getting in the way.
Does that make sense to you? That you don't understand the Good Cop / Bad Cop analogy? That you didn't actually know what I was saying.
And since I have two options, yeah, I still think your logic points towards voting for Democratic politicians. Because that is what your logic points to, and you refuse to refute that.
My logic says voting for the Democrats empowers the Republicans in next administration while maintaining the genocidal mass murdering authoritarian programs. Of the 10 countries the US basically completely demolished, 2 were exclusively presided over by Republican presidents and 2 were exclusively presided over by Democrat presidents. The rest were bi-partisan.
The School of the Americas that trained South American death squads, terrorists, and dictators was a bi-partisan project.
The US sanctions program has killed 40 million people over 50 years. 100% bi-partisan.
Does that not make sense to you? They are on the same team, with the same goals. They are playing you for a fool, just like the cops do when they want you to confess. The politicians are manipulating you into a single important position - don't fight back.
Alright, so, let's follow your logic. If they're the same, then there's nothing lost voting for Democrats. Again, that's sort of the problem with your logic. You can say they're the exact same, but... That doesn't tell people not to vote for them. And that assumes you think they're the same, which we have established that you don't.
But like, then what about Democrats that aren't supported by the DNC? Are they also the exact same? What about the Democrats that pass ranked choice voting initiatives? Are they the exact same? I would say no.
See? You continue to have no stance. If they're the same, then voting for them should mean nothing to you. You should be okay with it, because, to you, it has no effect on anything.
Idk, pal, it just feels like you want a black and white world view, and you can only be good or bad. It's a really childish sort of mentality. It's weird that you continue to say Democrats are just as bad, and you attempt to label all Democrats as bad with that brush (and you do admit they aren't the same). But... That's not what your logic should conclude. And it makes me feel bad for you because you can't see that.
Yeah, you don't get it. I don't care who votes for whom. I care that people are wasting their effort, their organizing, and their relationships on voting. In this comment section alone, but of course all over the country, people are spending hours and hours arguing for the virtues of voting, of campaigning and door knocking, they make moral black and white statements like "if you didn't vote for X then you voted for Y", and people are saying so hard that things would be better if only everyone would just stop having standards and vote for genocidaires like it's literally the only valid moral position.
The problem isn't voting or not voting. The problem is that electorialism itself is a way to absorb the energy we need to fight back. The Democrats aren't saving our neighbors, we are by being in the streets. The Democrats who get minor reforms passed are either cynically attracting your attention or genuinely attracting your attention while being funded by cynical leaders who are just trying to keep all of the energy contained to electoralism.
The way we win is in the street. It always has been. We can go back through history and show how nearly everything worth having was won by people fighting, not by rock the vote campaigns.
... I'm gonna be honest with you, my guy. I don't think you know what you're talking about. My local mutual aid group is run by a bunch of people that live around me. One of them is a house mom. One of them is a Democractic political aide. One of them is a trans programmer girl. My city council was helping helping get aid to everyone who needed it (while trying to avoid accidentally breaking laws setup by Republicans that were preventing them from doing so). A bunch of random people showed up when ICE was patrolling my city. Several of our Democratic politicians were out there, some getting arrested.
And you know what? I didn't see Republican politicians out there. And you can pretend that is because the Democratic politicians are just some arm of a billionaire class. But, they weren't. The DNC tries to push centrist candidates in our district, and they constantly lose because the DNC sucks. And they are being forced to change to us.
You can pretend that they are the same. But, they're not. And that is because of voting efforts. Mutual aid efforts. Door knocking efforts.
Maybe your city sucks because no one is willing to go out there. But, that does include you. You could be the one out there.
We don't care about your respect, we don't respect anything liberals do while defending empire and their shade of fascism
"Everyone is a liberal that disagrees with me" is a great lie to tell yourself at night.
My friend, read a bit of history, your whole society is based on genocide and exploitation.
I am not defending trump nor biden because the whole country should be treated as the Chernobyl exclusion zone.
Since you asked, Biden increased police, ICE, and detention center funding to their highest levels. Because of Biden's 69 cop cities across the country local police and ICE are being trained by IDF, the same people that trained Derek Chauvin when he murdered James Floyd. Before he left office he requested an additional 42k detention center beds be created.
Biden was enabling, paying for, and funding that genocide then denying there was one. Harris wanted the world most lethal military while reiterating Israel has a right to exist and rh is will protect their interests.
Idk, if given the choice between 50 death camps or 51 death camps, it would be pretty fucked up to choose 51.
Precisely. That's why you need to think more broadly. So you don't become evil and pretend it's OK.
Nobody is pretending it is okay.
But pretending like refusing to vote is morally superior than actively preventing the extra death camp is not.
No one is advocating refusing to vote. The post is explicitly stating that voting isn't helping. It's time to try something new
There are absolutely lots of people advocating refusing to vote. You can argue that OP isn't one of those people, but there are entire instances filled with people saying exactly that.
There are, but they have a very specific reason. And that reason is to discipline the party. That theory of action is pretty solid, but it's not what is being said here what's being said is that voting is impotent. You can vote all you want. You're pissing in the wind.
Nah, that theory of action is dogshit. A smattering of indignant leftists isn't going to discipline the party. Especially when the mechanism of action is... not doing something. That course of action is, in a disciplinary sense, indistinguishable from just being lazy or apathetic. It's not praxis, and it doesn't encourage praxis. 0/5 stars, terrible political action.
Voting isn't impotent. It's very weak, but it isn't impotent. It nudges things slightly, which isn't nothing.
It clearly doesn't, as the Overton window has been sliding right for decades.
As for disciplining the party, you clearly think that if the Republicans lost they would be moved. Why do you think that if the Democrats win on a right-wing platform they'll be nudged to the left instead of learning the lesson that they win more if they slide to the right?
the Overton window has been sliding right for decades.
Yes, sliding, as opposed to speeding. That is something.
you clearly think that if the Republicans lost they would be moved.
Where did you get that idea? I'm just saying your strategy doesn't work.
This is the meme. You're doing the meme. You are convincing yourself that sliding into fascism at our current rate is better than sliding into fascism at a hypothetical faster rate. That's the meme.
My strategy clearly works - civil rights happened because of riots, women's sufferage happened because of radical disobedience, labor rights happened because of literal paramilitary skirmishes, the 7 working class revolutions around the world unseated the ruling class through violence. It works. Hell, the American revolution happened this way.
So what if it's the meme? It's true.
And no, not voting and political demonstration are not the same thing. You can vote for lesser evil to slow fascism in the government while also using other means to facilitate change. They are not mutually exclusive strategies, they are complementary. Refusing to vote has never made a difference, it's a bad strategy.
Again, no on is talking about refusing to vote. We're talking about not spending all of our energy carrying water for fascist collaborators and calling it harm reduction.
You falling for the Good Cop / Bad Cop routine is not harm reduction.
We discussed this already. Yes, they are, and you claimed they had a good reason. It is in fact a terrible reason.
No one is talking about "spending all of our energy carrying water for fascist collaborators". If you don't have the energy to do more than one thing at a time, that's a you problem.
We as a society don't have the time to go door knocking for fascist collaborators who have not only done nothing to stop fascism but have actively created and supported the systems for it. You do not, in fact, need to go campaigning for Democrats with Tottenkopfs on their chest or who were attorneys general and had no problem enforcing the racist police system of the largest prison-industrial complex in the world. You can, in fact, just ignore those people and focus on things that actually get results
Terrible strategy. Do both. There is nothing to gain by not using every tool at our disposal.
Every fascist collaborator you spend labor on only brings us closer to fascism.
And every overt fascist you don't vote against brings us closer to fascism and faster. I don't know why this concept is so difficult to understand.
Because it's just not true.
You keep saying that without any reasoning or evidence. You're just bringing up other unrelated actions. You're wrong, learn from it and adapt as a person. Repeating a lie over and over doesn't change the reality.
You're hilarious. agamemnon, you are making the claim for which there is no evidence. You are the one saying that voting and particularly voting for genocidal war criminal administrators of empire somehow slows fascism down.
Obama shows us that is fundamentally not the case. Trump's entire operational and bureaucratic basis for deploying ICE into cities was created by Obama and Biden. Tom Homan, Trump's main deportation guy, was appointed by Obama and was Obama's main deportation guy. Trump is able to do what he's doing literally because we voted in Obama and Biden.
And after Trump showed us what he and his team would do in Term 1, we voted in Biden and what happened? The Supreme Court gave the president total immunity to anything while in office. Biden decided to do literally nothing to stop Trump coming back to power. He had the Epstein files. He had the same witnesses. He had the immunity. He did nothing. He did worse than nothing, he refused to give Harris the time she needed to run an actual campaign, deliberately driving a nail into the coffin of that absolute shitshow of a campaign. And Biden was a KNOWN fascist. From th Crime Bill to his full-throated support for Israel and their genocide of the Palestinians. He was a fascist, and he oversaw a genocide. It never slowed down.
You're relying on some counterfactual that if we hadn't have had that Biden term it would have been worse, or if we hadn't had those Obama terms, it would have been worse, but there's no way to validate those claims, and all th evidence is that they actively support the trajectory and they completely abandon any responsibility to slow it down or stop it.
Trump: did a bunch of terrible shit
Biden: did nothing
Trump: doing a bunch of terrible ahit
If you can't see how "doing nothing" is preferable to "doing a bunch of terrible shit" then we're at an impasse here.
I'd rather have a donkey trying to pull against me than an elephant. If you can't understand that, you're lost.
Stop viewing the world in imaginary binaries. You can do more than one thing.
Two things can be true at the same time. Biden can "do nothing" and also Biden can support Trump. That's what doing nothing was. You have problem saying that if I don't vote for Harris than it's equivalent to voting for Trump. But you're not willing to say that Biden doing nothing to stop Trump is equivalent to supporting Trump.
Stop believing fairy tales created by white slave owning European colonists who wanted to make sure the masses wouldn't revolt and also that their vote would never really have an impact on their power.
You could not be more wrong. Factually, morally, tactically, strategically, you are wrong along every axis in every dimension of existence.
We can work together by standing together and voting our common interests or we can lose the country.
We should be supporting primary challengers for every Republican. Those moderate, DNC types? We should fund one in every goddamn red district in America.
There are more of us than there are of them. Instead of bitching about voting not mattering, make it fucking matter. Take over the Republican Party. Your local party has a couple thousand voters behind them. That's it. You can't find a couple thousand neighbors who think corruption is bad and kid-fucking is deplorable?
TRY HARDER FOR FUCK'S SAKE. STOP WHINING AND START WINNING.
Oh man if only we got organized and raised a ton of money and got a whole bunch of people connected via a whole communication and logistics and education capability suite. We could even celebrate together when we did it. We could throw a party. Hey. That's what we'll call it, we'll call it a party.
And since it's about voting, and saving democracy, we can call it, The Democratic Party!
This is great. It obviously won't happen overnight, but if we organize our new party, The Democratic Party, we could take that strategy you have and start winning. The leaders of the party will need to be people who understand this, but I mean, of course they would understand it, who wouldn't understand that we have to save democracy or lose it, and that it's not hard we just need to get a few thousand people in each district to overwhelm our opponents with votes.
No, this is great. I love this idea. Let's build...
Wait, there's already something called The Democratic Party? They already oppose the fascist Republicans? They already have a huge operation that's been around for a century? And they have a shit ton of money flowing into them constantly?
So then What the fuck is going on? Why are we in this situation? Are they just that bad at their jobs? Well then we should stop putting our effort behind them and start a new party! Wait, what? That just means the fascists will win? But you just said the Democrats have been around this whole time and the fascists are winning... Oh it's our fault for not voting correctly?
PROPAGANDA is what happened, you dumb fuck.
Republicans bought the airwaves. First they bought AM radio. Then local FM radio. Then local TV news. Then Fox News. Then they bought CNN, CBS etc. They bought all the social media companies. The Fascist Party literally controls all the information for more than half of the country.
That's how they "win."
Has fuckall to do with what the Democratic Party does or does not do.
And you'd already know that if you weren't just an asshole supporting the far-right while pretending to be a leftist rebel.
And voting helps this how?
There are people in this very thread, and other parts of the fediverse, who are only here to attack those that point out it's not okay while they actively pretend it's okay.
If you're stuck in a system that only gives you the options of 50 death camps or 51 and you don't work towards building an alternative system. Then you're just evil lite.
This is how you know someone only cares about their own moral superiority complex and is the type of person that loves handing out arbitrary purity tests.
People like you are actually just at harmful to left wing goals as any fascist or neoliberal. You are the rot from within.
Ah the irony. A post telling voters to think about more than a single election day, in plain English, and you still can't imagine doing so.
It's a strange world we live in... And I get it, you're too busy to care about politics. You want that one vote to absolve you of responsibility for everything before and after it. Meh.
Nope, I'm active in bringing about change in other ways, through supporting my community, going to protests, organising actual resistance networks, community lobbying, boycotting, direct action and violence where needed.
But it's just none of that stops me from all voting in every possible election I can, as it's still one of the most impactful things you can do as an individual to enact change.
This post doesn't say not to vote. It says not to vote for genocidaires.
In the flawed system of the US democracy not voting for one of the two main candidates is functionally the same as not voting.
It does literally nothing help the Palestinian people at all.
The US is not a flawed system of democracy. It's a genocidal empire designed by the founders to prevent the masses from having any influence over the power of the landed elite. Voting doesn't do anything for the Palestinians. If you want to help the Palestinians, you have to do something other than voting.
It is both a flawed democracy and a genocidal empire, those 2 things are not mutually exclusive.
Yes it does. Like you must know the trolley problem right? If voting for the other side stops even 1 death, stops 1 single bomb, then it's better than not voting.
The Trolley Problem is a thought experiment to illuminate moral reasoning. It is not a model of the world. In fact, it is the exact opposite of a model of the world. It is a deliberately forced break from reality in order to isolate the moral reasoning.
We don't have a trolley problem here in the US. We have a single genocidal empire with a veneer of democracy for the masses that was never intended, and never has, represented the will of the masses. It was design, from the beginning, to be a conflict resolution mechanism for the elite merchant class and establish legitimacy for their rule. For each mechanism that would have allowed the masses a say in politics, the founders designed a system to prevent it from having an effect. That's not a flawed democracy. That's a shell game.
In The Trolley Problem, you have perfect information about the future, so you can say definitively that making a choice has a specific outcome. You don't have that in politics. Your claim is that things are better under Ds than Rs. My claim is that Ds and Rs are a continuity of harm that reinforce each other.
Case in point - the deployment of ICE into major cities. People like to claim that Trump did this and Harris would not have. But no one seems to want to engage with the fact that it would have been impossible for either of them to do so without Obama. Obama created the mechanisms that allowed ICE and BORTAC to be deployed to major US cities. He expanded them immensely. And he literally appointed Tom Homan, the same person Trump has relied on for this stuff. Without voting in Obama, we wouldn't have had Trump deploying these units to the cities.
But even more evidence that there aren't 2 tracks, only one - We all watched Trump deploy ICE and BORTAC to major US cities during his first term. The mechanisms he used to do that were created by Obama. Biden took office and in four years never did anything to reverse or structurally limit the features Trump used. We all watched Trump do it in Term 1. Biden campaigned on reclaiming the country's soul. Then, instead of doing anything, he simply chose to change the priorities of ICE and BORTAC, knowing full well that any future president could just go right back to doing what Trump had done. And that's exactly what happened.
So think about this, right. You and your partner are raising a kid. You and your partner agree that the kid shouldn't be allowed to mess up the house. Then your partner decides to get into finger painting as an art form. OK.... Weird, but fine. And then the kid gets into the finger paints and ruins the house. And you tell your partner that they better stop this, so they clean the walls, but they leave the finger paints in the same place. And the kid gets them again. Are you blaming the kid this time? No. Clearly negligence is a thing. Now, in this family drama, we can pretend your partner is just absent minded after the first time, but if it happens for a decade and every time you try to get rid of the finger paints they stop you and demand you help them clean up the walls and that if you don't you're just helping the child destroy the house further, at what point do you stop and realize that your partner is actively obstructing you?
There aren't two tracks. There's one. Bush 2 planned 7 wars after Afghanistan: Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Iran. Obama attacked 4 of them. Biden/Harris attacked 3 of them. It's one track. It's just genocidal global domination with a blue tie on or a red tie on. The two "tracks" are just PR firms. They know you have a particularly psychology so they pander to you. They say "we're the only ones worthy of your vote" and then they collaborate to go and kill the same people with the same guns from the same money. They say "we're the only ones with the potential for a better future, those other people are going to ruin the country and then nothing can be salvaged" and then collaborate to maintain the largest prison and parole system in the history of the world, complete with prison slavery, racialized murder and torture, and the worst outcomes in the world.
You're literally watching a sport, with two teams on the field, and telling me "we have to root for one of them" when the sport is literally two teams of white people competing to see who can lynch more dark skinned children.
Obama created the mechanisms that allowed ICE and BORTAC to be deployed to major US cities.
Did Obama use ICE as secret police? Would Trump not have been able to create the same mechanisms?
Are you blaming the kid this time?
Super weird and inaccurate Synology, but yes I would blame the kid?
at what point do you stop and realize that your partner is actively obstructing you?
So in your apology because the partner is negligent, you might as well just let the kid run the house and do whatever the fuck they want??
YET AGAIN, you are purposely misinterpreting my poison into something else, so you have something you can actually argue against, because we've already established you agree with the point I'm actually making. So now you are just continuing to argue for the sake of arguing because doing so feeds your moral superiority complex.
You're literally watching a sport, with two teams on the field, and telling me "we have to root for one of them" when the sport is literally two teams of white people competing to see who can lynch more dark skinned children.
Another shitty apology, but in that case, if not rooting a team does nothing to stop it, but rooting for one of the teams spares the life of even a single one of those children, then you would have to be either dumb or heartless self serving piece of shit to not do so. So which one are you?
I mean this is just stunning. You literally cannot imagine that publicly voicing support for, organizing for, advocating for, and browbeating others on behalf of the team lynching one less brown kid might actually be counterproductive to the real work that needs to happen of dismantling the stadium, arresting the players, and abolishing the sport? You think it's perfectly reasonable to lend your voice, give them legitimacy, give them your time and effort voluntarily, and even attack people who disagree with that position while they are literally engaging in mass murder and somehow you think you'll be able to simultaneously build the movement that will tear the place down and eliminate it for ever?
I mean, I guess fair enough. I wouldn't work with you if that how you behaved. You can vote for whoever you want, as do I, but you won't catch me putting effort into defending these people and I wouldn't trust you to actually do the abolition work necessary if you're willing to browbeat people for choosing not to participate in the least effective form of civics related to the things that matter most.
Do you, boo. Root for them crypto-fascist mass murderers! Save that one kid while the other 50 and their parents, and your neighbors, watch you root for their murderers. If that's what you think brings about solidarity, I guess you sorta have to, right?
It's like talking to fucking brick wall. You can parctipate in activism as well as voting you fucking dumbass.
I love how you think concentration camps and genocide are "arbitrary purity tests" instead of fully disqualifying positions to hold.
People who do lesser evil voting are, on the whole, far more invested in the morality and virtue signaling and far less invested in the material analysis of what's actually happening and how to change it.
The problem is, not voting doesn't push the Overton window in your direction. When you choose to simply abstain, rather than voting against the greatest evil, you give up ground to your opponents without getting anything in return.
Voting is a critical part of making lasting change. It might be useless on its own, but that doesn't make it any less necessary.
You're mistaken. No one is saying not to vote. They are saying that your vote actually doesn't matter. It is not true that voting pushes the Overton window. Look at the Maine Senate race. We just had a huge campaign between an entrenched war mongering Democrat and literal US military mercenary with a Tottenkopf tattoo (removed recently) who is a petite bourgeois luxury food farmer who organized his neighbors to fight for his private property economic interests against a large capitalist enterprise. The overton window is so far right it's not even funny.
If voting made critical lasting change, it would be outlawed. The founders made sure that the masses could not change the system by voting. That's why 70% percent of the Senate represents only 30% of the population. You can't fix that with voting. The wars planned under Bush 2, which absolutely were influenced by the Bush 1 circle, were carried out by Bush 2, and then by Obama, and then by Trump. The Senate doesn't respond to votes. The president doesn't respond to votes. And the House has over 100 Democrats supporting ICE.
What is it going to take for you to realize this? Go. Vote. But pretending it does anything is delusion. Every single improvement of rights came through violence, from labor rights to civil rights to gay rights. It took riots, it took bloodshed. The system is designed to force this to be true.
Reading comprehension.
I'm not saying concentration camps are the purity test. I'm saying people like you are the kind of people that do arbitrary purity tests.
What's the purity test then? Are we not calling out dems for supporting genocide?
Vote local, vote to end FPTP.
Biden admitted he didn't want the DOJ to go after Trump for sedition in a hope for bipartsianship. He could have released the Epstein files then unredacted but didn't. He has a history of voting for federal increases to police budgets, he was the sponsor on the bill making it nearly impossible to discharge federal student loans in bankruptcy. And that's just Biden.
What to know what's most damning about the Democrats? In the build up to this situation, through it all, when they had enough power to do something they didn't do it. Obama could of put in changes to federal student loans but didn't, they were a problem way before then. They had decades to codify Roe vs Wade into law instead of a supreme court ruling.
At best they're inactive and inattentive.
At best! And that's extremely generous.
We need a revolution 🇦🇱✊🏼nothing will improve until the pedophile class lives in fear
Problem solved! We'll all just go...not vote?
Hmmm...that doesn't seem right. Doesn't that let all the people who really want to vote for the 51 death camps decide who's in charge then?
Either way you get death camps, get off the trolley and discover there's a no death camp option
What is the no death camp option in the United States? I would genuinely like to know.
The only option I'm aware of is voting more, not less. Vote in every primary and every local election. Make yourself part of the process.
By electing the same people that got us into this mess?
You didn't answer the question. What's the no death camp option?
What’s the no death camp option?
You have to create it, it wont be handed to you on a silver platter. You can start by not kissing the dems arses and yelling at them to do better or fold up shop. While showing the republicans the back of your hand too, obviously. They are playing you and using your vote like its a foregone conclusion, and you are letting them. Why not stand up for yourself? Or do you have any morals at all? American selfishness is another issue and it disguises itself as learned helplessness.
That's one of the major problems, Democrats claim to support the no death camp issue, but they want someone else to do all the work so they can come in afterwards, jump on our bandwagon as if they supported it the whole time
And how does not voting help that?
What is it with liberals when someone says you don't have to support the oligarchy they translate that to don't vote
Obvious troll is obvious. Your whole post is about not voting.
Also you're probably more of liberal than me little guy.
dont vote for liberals
'You are more liberal than me.'
You think a communist running a communist community is more liberal than you?
Do you even hear yourself?
I'm currently waiting to stand trial for breaking into an Israeli owned arms factory.
I lead a campaign to ban supermarkets from throwing away edible food instead of giving it the poor and hungry.
I volunteer and communist community soup kitchen for the homeless.
I organised the workers at my company into forming a union that has repeatedly won better deals for the workers across the industry.
I help maintain a free community vegetable garden and teach people how to be more self sufficient.
And yes, I help run my local communist community as part of all that, including teaching workshops on various subjects, maintaining the community library specialising in political theory books and teaching the best way to reduce harm in a capitalist society.
I advocate for people to be realistic and vote for what will lead to the best outcome, because I don't put my own self righteousness and moral superiority complex over the actual reality of people's lives.
You on the other hand will gladly give the actual fascists power if it means you get to act like your hands are clean. And you make arguments that are indistinguishable from those of radical free market capitalists.
Yes, you are much, much more of a liberal than me. You like to LARP as a communist because it makes you feel good, rather than working to advance the actual goals of communism. I know youre too full of yourself to accept that. But if you're even 1/10 the communist you like present yourself as, you would take this critism on board and actually evaluate if your actions serve the underlying purpose of making the world a better place to live for the exploited and impressed masses. But we both know you won't.
This is awesome. You're doing great work.
In your reading, what have you found Marxist political theorists posing as possible relationships with electorialism?
It's pretty split, plenty of authors are diehard revolutionists, others are reforms, but even among the reformists plenty think you should always vote for for socialist parties as a way to organise socialist groups.
But even among those authors, including Marx himself they acknowledge that it can be useful tool for achieving goals like universal sufferage and working class power. But with emphasis on it not being a replacement for actual organisation and struggle.
But personally I think it's worth considering the different political landscape at the time these authors were writing, with global communism on the rise, several countries becoming socialist and the fairly widespread popularity of socialist parties in the west. They were also pretty exclusively taking about implement socialism as the end all be all goal, and not considering the meantime.
So given that there is no real socialist party in the US and there is no real possibility of a revolution any time in the near future, it becomes better to try and lay the groundwork for the future, educate and organise. So it's better to use the power of your vote to vote against the party that is anti-educstion, anti-arts and that banned AntiFa as an organisation.
Come on, Tom. You know the answer. You're just not willing to say it.
What most of them said is to vote for the socialist parties over and over and over again, so long as there is a socialist party. But when there isn't? The only purpose of elections in a bourgeois democracy without a socialist movement is to produce the evidence required to convince people that voting doesn't work. The best socialist propaganda is getting a Democrat elected and then watch how they fuck everything up the same way the Republicans do and use propaganda to convince the masses that voting will not change anything. That's what they said about elections in bourgeois democracies and you know it.
And that's what's happening here. So many people have this false belief that the Democrats are better than the Republicans and that somehow voting for them will make things better. And it won't. And all the evidence is right there, bit the entire political apparatus is aligned to ensure people believe this lie. The job of the agitator is to break this lie down, shake up the beliefs of the masses, and demonstrate that voting in Biden, Harris, Obama, Clinton, and all the rest produced the exact same results and created the conditions for what is happening now.
Further, the Soviet theorists went after the he sheepdogs of the DemSocs in Western Europe and said that the DemSocs were actually collaborationists with the fascists and they shouldn't ever be voted for and should in fact be abandoned for their duplicitous position.
So many people have this false belief that the Democrats are better than the Republicans
They are. 1.6 million people had healthcare stripped from them by Trump.
Several states now will arrest women for having a miscarriage because of Trumps corrupt supreme court and republican stage legislature.
Inflation has increased massively forcing even more poor Americans into poverty.
Thousands of Iraqis are dead because of Trumps war, and Lebanon is currently being invaded because of Trumps support for Netanyahu.
And you will probably view this as a good thing, but plenty of Ukrainians are dead because of Trumps cutting military aid and trying to force Ukraine to make concession to Russia.
Americans have had billions stolen from them by Trump giving tax breaks and charging them pointless tariffs.
Trump also denied disaster aid to blue states after fires and floods, negatively effecting many Americans.
And he has turned ICE into his private police force.
To claim there is no difference just show you are willfully ignoring reality to hold an obviously flawed position. And quite frankly is insulting to the people the republicans have harmed. But again you don't give a single shit about them, because they're not real to you. They are just hypotheticals you use as pieces to push your own self serving moral superiority complex.
They are. 1.6 million people had healthcare stripped from them by Trump.
Because the economy is dying and Obama setup a system with a switch that said "flip this to remove millions of people from healthcare"
Several states now will arrest women for having a miscarriage because of Trumps corrupt supreme court and republican stage legislature.
Because RBG refused to retire and because the Democrats literally gave up, refused to remove the filibuster, then demonstrated that they were capable and willing to remove the filibuster to raise the debt ceiling, but not to "save America", clearly indicating that they could have stopped it but chose not to.
Inflation has increased massively forcing even more poor Americans into poverty.
Because the American economic empire is in free fall and has been for over a decade.
Thousands of Iraqis are dead because of Trumps war, and Lebanon is currently being invaded because of Trumps support for Netanyahu.
Bush 2 planned 7 wars after Afghanistan. Obama engaged 4 of them, one of them, Libya, was a total romp. Biden engaged 3 of them. Trump's war is not Trump's war. They are the wars of the US empire, which have been part of US policy for 99% of its existence. Democrats have committed genocide. Republicans have committed genocide. Democrats have advanced civil rights. Republicans have advanced civil rights.
And you will probably view this as a good thing, but plenty of Ukrainians are dead because of Trumps cutting military aid and trying to force Ukraine to make concession to Russia.
Trump was the first president to approve sending arms to Ukraine. Obama refused because he thought it would provoke Russia.
Americans have had billions stolen from them by Trump giving tax breaks and charging them pointless tariffs.
Corporate profits are always higher under Democrats.
Trump also denied disaster aid to blue states after fires and floods, negatively effecting many Americans.
Granted.
And he has turned ICE into his private police force.
Obama restructured ICE, CBP, and BORTAC allowing them to be deployed in US cities. Obama appointed Tom Homan. Obama and Homan deported 3m people. Trump has only managed to deport 1.5m so far. Oh, and Tom Homan was Trump's deportation czar too. In both terms.
They are just hypotheticals you use as pieces to push your own self serving moral superiority complex.
So, let's talk about this because I think I have a clearer picture of reality than you. I think Obama deporting 3m people is pretty bad. And I think that you pretending that the Democrats are better than Republicans on immigration is insulting to the 3m people Obama deported (5M if you count all the repatriations at the border). The Biden administration saw an uptick of the use of solitary confinement in border concentration camps. I think that's pretty bad and I think you pretending that the Ds are better than the Rs is insulting to the people who were tortured. I think the people the Rs harm are hypothetical to you, because you don't examine how the people that the Rs harm are the same people the Ds harm. It's like that AOC meme where she only cries in front of concentration camps when Trump is in office. You ignore the harm the Ds do, even when its greater, because it serves your moral superiority complex. You want to believe that voting for Ds and helping them get elected is a good thing and is harm reduction. It would pain you to think that what you actually did helped the Ds create more harm in the world while maintaining their narrative of legitimacy and morality. It sucks to realize that as racist as Trump is, Bill and Hillary lived in the Arkansas Governor's Mansion and had black house slaves and didn't think they should do anything about prison slavery or about racialized mass incarceration. In fact, they were part of the triangulation that the Ds did to target black people in order to get more votes in swing states.
I'm not trying to claim moral superiority here. I'm trying to demolish yours.
You are completely and utterly detached from reality.
Insert Sure Jan meme here
Your post says not to vote for the lesser evil. Voting for the greater evil would be stupid. Are you advocating for voting third party then? What is your actual suggestion?
It would be the option for expressing power outside of voting....
And how has that gone for you? How many concentration camps has it stopped?
I mean it's not going well, but I having trouble thinking of a time where a country voted its way out of having concentration camps either.
Britain ended slavery and the transatlantic slave trade through voting.
Is that really what happened though? Domestic political pressure from the electorate, rather than economic pressure from the merchant class, and geopolitical opportunism?
Yes, the abolition of slavery came about from ideological abolitionists like theAnti-Slavery society. And the PM that oversaw it, the Earl Grey was a diehard Abolitionist. He also famously championed the Reform act that enfranchised hundreds of thousands of Brits and removed the defacto ability for companies to openly buy seats in Parliament.
"Several factors led to the Act’s passage. Britain’s economy was in flux at the time, and, as a new system of international commerce emerged, its slaveholding Caribbean colonies—which were largely focused on sugar production—could no longer compete with larger plantation economies such as those of Cuba and Brazil. Merchants began to demand an end to the monopolies on the British market held by the Caribbean colonies and pushed instead for free trade. The persistent struggles of enslaved Africans and a growing fear of slave uprisings among plantation owners were another major factor."
Are you making the argument that decades of political pressure from multiple slavery Abolitionist groups as well as the prime minister being vehemently against slavery had nothing to do with it?
No, I'm making the argument that those factors were secondary to the real driving causes which were economic.
Well that's certainly a take
You know what stops pipelines? Physical altercations. You know what stops cop cities? Physical altercations. Voting has only ever increased the military, increased the police, and increased the prisons. Voting one way or the other literally has no impact. The only way to stop this stuff is to fight.
Like the Keystone XL pipeline that was delayed by Obama, then Trump tried to force it through and then was finally stopped when Biden signed an executive order revoking their permit?
Which cities are no longer "cop cities" (whatever that means) because of physical altercstions?
Voting passed civil rights, voting ended gay criminalisation, voting passed labour laws, healthcare reform and women's rights.
And when it goes the other way voting gets us war in Iran, gets criminalised abortions, legalised transphobia, qualified immunity for cops, "clean coal", legalised pedophilia, people executed by ice, and hundred of thousands of people deported.
There is literally no argument for fighting for your rights that excludes voting as well.
The Keystone XL pipeline was delayed by Obama in response to the physical altercations that were happening to prevent it. He didn't do that because we voted for him, he did it because we were willing to fight. More to the point, though, the Ds didn't actually come up with a way to stop it from happening. They delayed it using the office of the president, which immediately created the opportunity for Trump. Solving this with presidential action is exactly the sort of performative bullshit the Ds are great at. While Obama blocked the permit for the Keystone XL, he also drove the single largest expansion of fossil fuel production the US has ever seen under a single president.
Because it was never about voting him in to protect the environment. It was about putting your body on the line and fighting with riot police.
The fact that you don't know what a cop city is makes you woefully under equipped for this part of the conversation m. Go do some reading. Cop cities have strong bi-partisan support and the only thing stopping them is protestors physically disrupting construction sites.
Voting passed civil rights, voting ended gay criminalisation, voting passed labour laws, [and women's suffrage]
Only because there were riots and radical disobedience. I mean, think about women's suffrage. The women couldn't vote their way to suffrage, definitionally. They got it by making it impossible to ignore them. When all they did was lobby, they got nowhere for decades. They had to shut things down and make life very hard for everyone else to get what they wanted. They literally couldn't fucking vote, how could this be an example of the power of voting?
And when it goes the other way voting gets us war in Iran
The US has been at war for 99% of its existence. Truman, the Democrat, launched the genocidal war in Korea. Johnson, the Democrat, launched the genocidal war in Vietnam. Obama, the Democrat, launched the mass murdering war in Libya (which was planned under Bush 2). Biden sent millions of weapons to Israel and collaborated with them to continue the genocide in Palestine. The war in Iran is this administration's special war, but every single administration is bathed in blood and it goes back to the founding of the country.
gets criminalised abortions
Because the Democrats had multiple trifectas over the last 40 years and openly refused to codify Roe into law. And they did so by blaming their own party members as anti-abortion. So the Ds are telling you openly that the reason we don't have abortion protected in law is because the Ds literally can't do it because Ds oppose it. How much clearer do they need to be?
legalised transphobia
Bruh. The Supreme Court made transphobia illegal, not the Democrats. Transphobia has been a bipartisan legal structure across the US for well over a century.
qualified immunity for cops
Qualified immunity is a judicial doctrine, not a party position. Democrats aggressively supported qualified inmunity. It's only recently that Ds shifted their position and it's explicitly because of the riots in 2020, not because people voted for them.
clean coal
Obama was a huge proponent of clean coal. Are you daft?
legalised pedophilia
I mean, Biden explicitly didn't prosecute the Epstein case, he refused to let the DOJ release the files, he had all the knowledge as did his DOJ and they did nothing.
people executed by ice
All the data I have looked at is that cops killing people is independent of party in office. As in, it literally doesn't matter who you vote in, cops will kill people at about the same rate. Yes, the R's use of ICE and DHS in the streets of major cities is absolutely shocking.
But Obama and Biden developed these departments into the tool they are. They expanded data collecting and sharing for these departments. They created the structure required to deploy ICE and BORTAC into American cities. Hell, Homan was Obama's pick to run ICE and was his top deportation official. It's not surprising Trump would continue to rely on him for the same purpose.
and hundred of thousands of people deported
Obama still holds the current record for most people deported - 3 million, with an additional 2 million at the border.
I know that the narrative is that Democrats are the exact opposite of the things that are terrible about the Republicans, but it's a false narrative. They both advance the same agendas, and where they differ, the Ds make everything they do easily reversible or ignorable. But worse is that the Ds actively create the tools the Rs use.
So no. Voting doesn't create change. People in the streets creates change.
The Keystone XL pipeline was delayed by Obama in response to the physical altercations that were happening to prevent it. He didn't do that because we voted for him, he did it because we were willing to fight. More to the point, though, the Ds didn't actually come up with a way to stop it from happening. They delayed it using the office of the president, which immediately created the opportunity for Trump. Solving this with presidential action is exactly the sort of performative bullshit the Ds are great at. While Obama blocked the permit for the Keystone XL, he also drove the single largest expansion of fossil fuel production the US has ever seen under a single president.
You're intentionally missing the point here. You say fighting closes pipelines, not voting, but if Trump won in 2020 the pipeline would have gone through, because no amount of fighting would have got him to change his mind, but it did for Biden. So voting does, undeniably, make a difference.
The fact that you don't know what a cop city is makes you woefully under equipped for this part of the conversation m
And there's that classic smugness you people live and breathe for.
And as usually instead of just explaining what you mean by this random obscure bit of terminology that no one else uses, you just use it as a chance to jerk yourself off. This is exactly what I mean I say you guys only care about your own moral superiority and not about actually advancing the causes you pretend to believe in.
Like I try and look up what you mean, but the only reference to cop cities is just a training campus for cops in Atlanta.
Only because there were riots and radical disobedience
And because people voted. If the pro civil rights types just said "both sides are the same, so I'm not going to vote for segregation" and didn't vote, then republicans would have won and we wouldnt have got the civil rights act at all.
This is what you guys don't seem to understand. You need both political activism AND voting to make a difference, you can't just rely on one or the other. When you don't vote you effectively taking your hands off the reigns and letting everyone else steer where they want.
If you want politicians to make the changes you want, then you have to actually vote, because the pro Palestine people vote, the anti abortion types vote, the homophobes, transohobes and sexists vote. So politicians can either push policy for those people to win their votes or they can push policy for people like you who don't vote and gain nothing for it.
I'll ignore your self-victimization about your own ignorance and just go after the voting thing.
Again, women's suffrage is the example that shows you're wrong. They literally couldn't vote and still got what they needed because of what you call "activism". Except it was specifically radical activism. They spent decades lobbying politicians and letter writing and protesting acceptably and it go them nowhere. They broke the law, they ended up prison, they went on hunger strikes, they surrounded the white house. They got the ballot. Not by voting. By fighting.
So when we look at the civil rights movement, we see that Nixon was ALSO forced to concede policy positions and abandon his conservative positions. So clearly it's not the case that voting in Ds is the only way. Meanwhile, FDR the democrat refused any structural civil rights concessions and refused to entertain a federal anti-lynching bill and JFK the Democrat also avoided making any major concessions arguing that it would harm the Democrats in the South.
So as we see, the party in charge doesn't fucking matter, what matters is how forcefully you can make your case. This is known as "interest convergence". Until you can make meeting your demands less risky than ignoring your demands, nothing will happen. Republican and Democrat alike work this way. You have to force them.
Again your intentionally missing the point and pushing the false dichotomy that's it's either voting or protesting/fighting.
You can and should do both. And nothing you're arguing is a good point against voting.
It’s like trying to build muscle by studying math. Will studying math help you when you need to track your progress and understand angles and pulleys? Yes. But studying math isn’t going to build muscle. Nothing is stopping me from going to the gym and also studying math, but studying math isn’t actually the thing that will build muscle.
Voting isn’t solving any of our problems. Can it help a little bit with some of them? Maybe. But we need to be honest about what it will solve.
Keystone XL pipeline was canceled because of physical altercation, voting rights and civil rights were passed because of physical altercations. The gay community only won their rights because of physical altercations. What is it with liberals that are terrified of actual protest?
It was cancelled because Biden passed an executive order revoking their permit. If Trump won in 2020 they would have kept their permit and the pipeline would have been built.
You're trying to claim the giant souless billion dollar oil company would decide against making more profit simply because of some minor protests and confrontations with police. You're basically making the same argument free market capitalists do....
Biden canceling the permit was the final step, there was A LOT of activism and fighting well before that happened. And Biden only revoked the permit because SCOTUS killed the project August 2020
And would Trump, who made a big deal about supporting the pipeline in 2016, have cancelled the pipeline if he won in 2020?
He wouldn't have had a choice, SCOTUS killed it during his term. Regardless if he would have revoked the permit or not it couldn't move forward.
Okay, then tell me, who appoints scouts judges?
Joe Biden helped give us Thomas, Obama refusing to fight gave us Gorsuch, and RBGs arrogance gave us Comey-Barrett.
You're deflecting blame from trump purposefully filling the supreme court with corrupt justices. You are literally a MAGA, you're just in denial.
That's not shifting blame thats pointing directly at the cause. Your responses fly in the face of your claim to being a leftist, the amount of water you carry for the oligarchy doesn't leave any time for the actions you claim you've made.
The cause is the republicans filling the court with corrupt judges. You are doing incredible mental gymnastics in order to defend your favourite pedophile.
It isn't there. Vote for whoever you want, but acknowledging that you were not given choices at all is important.
But you are. The thing is systems of governance for hundreds of millions of people, all with different wants, morals and desires across very different circumstances and locales is going to be extremely complex. Mix into that the shitty power dynamics of capitalism and you system with a lot of political inertia that eventually boils down to 2 pretty similar positions at the highest level. And trying to move that political lever at the very furthers end is difficult.
If you want your position given more weight, then you have to act at every level of governance, not just the very top with the presidential election.
That's certainly a theory. But it doesn't really hold up. The reason we have 2 similar positions at the highest level is because they are one position, it's the position the dominant ruling class and it always has been. You think that somehow the desire of native Americans to be free mixed with the desire for black Americans for reparations mixed with poor immigrants to be safe mixed with poor white people to be healthy leads to Palestinian genocide?
Naw. Come on! You can't think that's how this works, can you?
If you only think in the broadest terms, sure, they are both capitalist neoliberal parties. But when you look at it more granularly and through the lense of long term change rather than the idea we could somehow have a communist USA by the next election, then they are very different.
Since we have no real socialist party and we are not anywhere near the critical mass required for a revolution, the best we can is lay groundwork for the future, educate and organise. And when one party is labelling AntiFa as terrorists, attacking education and the arts and disenfranchising left wing and minority voters, the best option is pretty clearly to use your vote to prevent that, rather than not voting or casting a token vote for 3rd parties. As it not only reduces harm in the short term, it makes it easier to achieve long term goals.
And primaries are a thing. Currently the Dems are similar on Palestine because most in the house are pro Israel, but we have already organised to get pro Palestine officials into office, so if we able to get even more, that would pressure the government to take action.
This has happened in other countries for example, Labour in the UK started as stuanchky pro Israel, with Starmer saying Israel had the right to cut off food and water. Then facing a rise in pro Palestine MP both in his own party and from the Greens, as well as activist pressure, he has steadily relented on that position to the point the UK now recognises Palestine as a country. And only hasn't gone further because there's is still a large Zionist contingent also putting their own pressure on government. But if pro Palestine people just didn't vote, they wouldn't have gotten any MPs and there would be no pressure on Labour and no reason for the government to attempt to court those voters.
Again it seems to me you are only viewing things through a very short sighted black and white lense.
You didn’t answer the question.
don't be petulant.
Keep going please...Tell me how that would work in the US system of First Past The Post elections.
Or if First Past The Post elections is the problem, tell me how you would get rid of that system.
It would require not using elections to express power
Keep going please…Tell me how that would work in the US system ....
Well first I want you to imagine having a sense of decency, an ability to feel shame, and identify what morality you have, if any. Let me know when you get to that point and we'll talk next steps. Whats worth you acting on? Not someone else, you.
edit: no reply, and theres your answer. You will only act when you are literally lit on fire, and until then you'll sit there and do nothing while flapping your mouth uselessly, same as you centrist lot always do. You are a walking liability to whatever political party will have you.
Sigh...
So you don't actually have a real solution for getting rid of the conservatives and neoliberals in office.
You just want everyone to know that you're too cool to be a Republican or a Democrat. 👍
You don't need to get rid of that system. All you do is need to vote for candidates that do not support the oligarchy. But liberals are not concerned about long-term success, their concern about the short-term win
I mean..yes. Exactly. That's what the primaries are for. Primary out the neoliberals.
The Republicans primary out anyone who isn't hard right enough for them. They vote, then they vote again, then they vote some more.
And now all branches of government are controlled by the hard right. Because they voted. A lot.
Incorrect.
In the 21st century alone, Democratic presidential candidates have accumulated tens of millions more raw votes than their Republican counterparts, heavily bolstered by high-population states like California and New York. For instance, in 2008 and 2020, Democratic candidates won the popular vote by margins of roughly 9.5 million and 7 million votes respectively.
Democratic primaries routinely draw higher raw voter turnout than Republican primaries.
When evaluating the "national house vote" (the cumulative number of votes cast nationwide for all members of the U.S. House of Representatives) the Democratic Party frequently captures a higher raw vote total. High-turnout midterm wave elections, such as the 2006 and 2018 midterms, saw immense raw vote advantages for Democrats.
Local election turnouts are heavily dominated by major metropolitan areas. America’s most populous cities (such as New York City, Los Angeles, and Chicago) feature massive electorates that vote overwhelmingly for Democratic candidates in local municipal races.
So your theory of is not supported by the evidence. Please try to explain why things are the way they are again, but this time include the fact that Democrats have consistently voted more at every single level than Republics for almost 30 years.
It's not like you can't do both. Vote the lesser evil, get off the trolley.
So the solution is get off the trolley but keep supporting the people that are creating the trolley situation?
They don't require your support to hold elections. What would "not supporting" elections by not voting do, exactly?
Who said anything about not voting? Liberals have locked themselves into a binary system of oppression that they claim to oppose
Ok, are you proposing to vote? For whom?
Literally whomever isn't a genocidaire
Ok. If the top two candidates both qualified as a "genocidaire" to you, what would you do? Vote third party? Not vote?
Both candidates literally have been genocidaires in the last 2 elections. And I voted my conscience. But I also acknowledged that my vote is not where my power to change things lies, because literally every choice I could make led to genocide in my name on my dollar. There was no choice I could make that would change anything. Not least of which because I am in a blue state that has so rarely voted Republican in the presidential election that the electoral college made my vote statistically impotent. But I live in a very red district of that blue state and I voted my conscience there as well acknowledging that literally nothing would change because my position was share by so few people that even if every single one of us came out to vote it wouldn't change a damn thing. The solution is not at the ballot box.
You can vote and pursue change through other means-- which it looks like you have done. The only losing move is to not participate in the election at all.
I said 'vote the lesser evil' you opposed. So I'd say you said that.
Basically, don't expect significant change from Democrats until we can get rid of the neo-liberals. Until then, you're just voting harm that's getting steadily worse.
For the love of Christ. If it comes down to 50 death camps vs 51 death camps and you couldn't muster up enough loud vocal grass roots support for 'no death camps' to make it feel like there is even an outside chance of winning enough that people don't feel that they have to vote for the lesser 50, then maybe you should examine why that is. I'm tired of this stupid fucking argument.
Tell me, what's the alternative?
I don't see one. You're just fucking grandstanding.
So, I'm what, supposed to not vote at all?
Then the actual evil will win
Americans seem to think they are due some sort of fair and equitable civil society without having to fight for it. Actual evil will win anyway unless you fight the evil people and take a stand, constantly-- not occasionally when its only relevant to you. The problem is that americans are too spoiled and are lazy with their politics and morals. They just lay there like baby birds waiting to be fed, so the evils take advantage of that lethargy and here we are.
both are actual evil.
A: we have to get rid of vaccines, get rid of healthcare and go to war
B: we have to keep vaccines, keep healthcare and go to war
You: woah! They're exactly the same!
The only solution liberals are capable of seeing are ones that involve their failed party and their failed ideology
You only say that because you want the 51 death camps party to win.
Lesser evil voting is simply the limited options given to us under a broken system.
Until the system can be broken, I'd still rather attempt to cause less harm and impede the organization to break the system as little as possible.
I'll vote for the least establishment option amongst our de-facto options presented when it's time to vote. In the meantime I'll help with organizing, with advocacy, with 3rd party groups, with building alternatives to our capitalist system to support the revolution when it's time.
Would you rather me not vote and allow one more to not be countered towards the more establishment option that would work towards pulling back our rights even faster?
There shouldn't be any death camps, fucking obviously, but that would be 1 less we have to destroy in the coming days. Work to break the system so we don't have death camps, but also work to slow it down as much as possible so we have less to fight to break the system.
Damn election season already?
This is true. The problem is, in a lot of US elections, you only have bad choices. You have really bad, and a little less bad than really bad. What I wouldn't give for ranked choice voting.
lesser evil won in 2020 & we got:
- genocide
- record police killings of Black Americans
- record COVID deaths
- record trans murders
- 1st declared LGBTQIA+ emergency
- homelessness criminalized
- record inflation
Democrats didn't try to repeal the Patriot Act. They kept reauthorizing it. They didnt try to address Citizens United, they ignored it. They didn't try to close Guantanamo Bay. They didn't try to roll back ICE funding. And all the stuff that Trump is currently doing, they will do absolutely nothing to roll any of it back. Liberal lesser evil enables the greater evil. When liberals say lesser evil, what they mean is the same evil but affects them less.
I will poke only one hole in your little list there.
lesser evil won in 2020
record COVID deaths
pretty sure any number of deaths would've been record numbers...
And now the bigger evil won in 2024 and we got:
- even more genocide
- literal racist death squads (broke record too)
- return of plenty more diseases
- even bigger record of trans murders
- declared LGBTQIA+ as enemies of the state
- homelessness killings and deportations
- even bigger record inflation that is making people go bankrupt
Thank you for proving the point that voting lesser evil slows the decline.
Fight for a third party during pre-election, but not during the election when it is obvious to everyone the third party isn't going to do anything.
It doesn't slow anything, there's an option of no harm but liberals are terrified of using it because the current system benefits THEM so much. All the harm that trump has created will be kept in place by Democrats once he's out, the exact same way they kept most of his first term stuff under Biden. Their ratchet effect always prevents Republican actions from ever slipping back.
What's the no harm option?
Expressing power outside the voting booth
OK, so what stops you from doing that as well as voting?
Nothing. And that's what we all have to do, since voting doesn't fix 99% of the problems we need to solve. It's like trying to build muscle by studying math. Will studying math help you when you need to track your progress and understand angles and pulleys? Yes. But studying math isn't going to build muscle. Nothing is stopping me from going to the gym and also studying math, but studying math isn't actually the thing that will build muscle.
Voting isn't solving any of our problems. Can it help a little bit with some of them? Maybe. But we need to be honest about what it will solve.
Can it help a little bit with some of them? Maybe
Congrats, you agree with me.
Hey, don't let me stop you from signing up for trigonometry in order to build strength.
I'll be at the gym.
Jesus Christ it really is like talking to Trump supporter.
My message is an always has been doing both. Dumbass.
Why stop at two things? You could also be praying, buying crystals, and never changing your lucky underwear
Because those don't do anything. Voting imperially, factually, undeniable makes some difference, you already admitted that.
Oh yes, I agree that voting makes some difference. But it's never stopped a war in 250 years. It's never stopped a genocide in 250 years. It's never liberated the working class in 250 years. It didn't give women the right to vote. It didn't give black people the right to vote. Honestly, I can't think of a single major policy that voting ever effected.
Oh wait. I know why I think that. Because it's been empirically proven: https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/perspectives-on-politics/article/abs/testing-theories-of-american-politics-elites-interest-groups-and-average-citizens/62327F513959D0A304D4893B382B992B
Oh yes, I agree that voting makes some difference
Cool, thanks for agreeing with me :)
I'm pretty sure record covid deaths happened in 2020 not 2021 when Biden was president.
Also, you do realize that "first declared" is better than leaving it undeclared right?
Declaring it and then do nothing about it causes as much harm as those that greater the circumstances to declare it
@K1nsey6 @harsh3466 and they "failed" to codify Roe v Wade, which enabled the bigger evil to reverse it
That's how they always work by laying the groundwork for Republicans to finished the job. To make it appear there are 2 opposing forces.
If I did something to prevent the fifty first death camp and you did nothing, I will sleep soundly.
Show me a path to 0 death camps and I will work towards it.
That’s not the point. The point is to move toward a better party. On every vote you move towards a better outcome.
The options at the moment are bad or total destruction. Let’s vote for bad so we have some chance to go for something better.
All this argument you have does is make less people vote for so we move towards total destruction faster.
Time to vote for Jill stein I guess
She's literally a Russian asset.
We mostly get three votes. We get to vote on how we spend our money, who we give it too. We can cast a ballot. We can vote through physical action.
All of which are constrained for you
Yes, but that's always the case. Reality has fundamentally constrained me, beyond that the will of others has constrained me. Of course I know you're speaking more to governments and systems of power than the experience of ancient people living in small tribes. In some form or fashion we are always constrained.
Yes, of course. What we're talking about is constraints directly on exactly what you think is capable of making change.
You can choose who you vote for, but only among people who support the genocide of Palestinians. You can choose who you vote for, but only among people who agree with the US prison system and military. You can choose who you vote for, but only among people who think we must defend the right of billionaires to buy the news media.
You can choose where you spend your money, but only among the businesses that are allowed to exist. You can choose which foodstuffs you buy, but 90% of food is provided by exactly 8 company's. You can choose which food you buy, unless you live in a food desert.
These constraints make it literally impossible for those choices to create the change you expect to see. Mice in the lab can choose what direction they navigate the maze. Prisoners can choose which gang they provide services to. Slaves can choose which expressions of submission they show to their masters.
None of these incrementally bring us to a better place.
Depends which country you're a citizen of I guess. If you're in a wealthier country or are a wealthier individual or in a particular circumstance (some countries help descendents immigrate) you can change your nationality and thus who you vote for. Also if you want to you can get into the race and become the next candidate or at least make an attempt.
Also you've never purchased anything illegal? You can 100% focus your money to businesses that are not allowed to exist. Also at least around where I am there's a local farmers market, it's very simple to buy directly from small farmers and co-ops. Simultaneously if I so wanted I could farm a good variety of things with very little money or space and trade with friends doing the same.
They do not make it impossible, they make it take more effort than most want to spend. I think you have a defeatist mindset. Changes start within and echo out. Don't just complain, organize and FSU.
Oh, I'm not a defeatist. I think we can absolutely change the world for the better. I just don't think any of the methods you listed are valid methods to do it. Because they are all structurally captured to ensure that they do not produce the change you're talking about.
In America, your assessment is divorced from reality. 80% of people live in a major city. There is no way they're growing their own food or buying their food from local farmers.
As for running for office, looking at the Senate, 70% of the population is represented by only 34% of the Senators. That means 30% of the population controls 66% of the Senators. Sure, you can run for office, but you're not changing the structural reality of the way decisions get made.
You cannot source the things you need for life 100% illegally. Even if you could, just because they're illegal doesn't mean they're captured. Large amount of heroin and cocaine are produced by the US government through their black operations in places like Afghanistan, Colombia, and Southeast Asia. Illegal doesn't mean subversive.
But let's take farming. In the US, small family farms produce less than 20% of the agricultural outputs in America. There's actually no way to live off farmers markets and small farmers. Sure, you can spend some of your money there. It won't change anything though. Besides, those farmers also need to buy equipment, fertilizer, pesticides, herbicides, and seeds. Most of your money goes to the mega corporations that supply them. Family farms operate on something like 10% margins. Labor costs between 10% and 40% depending on the type of farming. So the vast majority of the money you spend with small family farms goes to the massive corporations like Monsanto, John Deere, Bayer, Cargill, and the 3 or 4 major fertilizer producers.
If you’re in a wealthier country or are a wealthier individual [...] you can change your nationality and thus who you vote for
This is also ridiculous. It's the equivalent of moving to Japan so you can get green tea kitkats. No expats in history have ever formed a voting power strong enough to change politics in the place they moved to. So yes, you can actually change your nationality so that you can cast a different ballot. It doesn't actually DO anything. It's like moving to a different cost so your tears fall into a different ocean.
Your mindset isn't optimistic, it's delusional. So of course my mindset looks defeatist to you, because I can take every single example of "power" that you think you have and demonstrate how it's not power at all. But I am an optimist because I recognize that there's far and away more of us than there are of them, and that we are capable of overcoming the psychological abuse and training they have put us through so that we fight each other and by overcoming these things we can form strong bonds between all of us and together we have the actual power to shut down their systems and build new ones that serve us.
3 boxes and two were already burned.
Depends where you are I imagine.
I wish it was possible to get lesser evilists to think rationally and critically examine their ideology, but they've so internalized their ideology as "rational" that they can't even recognize it as an ideology at all. They are exactly the sort of irrational, blind dogmatists they accuse everyone else of being.
@Objection @K1nsey6 Its wild 40+ years of neoliberalism where everything gets more and more right wing economically and the fascists are back and in power.
Yet they don't examine what actually is happening or why and somehow its the Leftists fault.
When things go wrong, blame just gets redirected to the enemies and the only possible takeaway is to double down on what they were already doing. The doubt you have when praying doesn't work is probably what caused it not to work in the first place, you just have to have faith. Your criticism of neoliberalism is the reason the Democrats can't win hard enough to deliver on anything. Put the blinders on, don't think, don't look around, just keep on keeping on, tighten your belts for now and trust that things will work out somehow. The rise of the far-right is surely just a momentary fluke, not the result of anything structural, and it will be resolved when everyone simply comes to their senses, any minute now. Anyone who says otherwise is a Russian bot or a secret Trump supporter, seeking to lead you astray from the true faith.
Ideology is a hell of a drug.
✊🏼🇦🇱 Albania showed us how to fix this
Everything went to hell economically in the 1990's once the powers that be discovered that the suburban youth will pay $200 for bluejeans. After that, all bets were off and the greed rocket just kept rising and rising.
Unfortunately unhelpful when the greater evil is so extremely evil, so the only choice is to either vote against the greater evil or not vote at all (or at least not have any likelihood at all that your vote will make any difference).
Especially with the electoral college for president there really is no other choice in the US. There is no chance of a third party since if one of the three doesn't get a majority, then the winner is determined by those already in power. And most other federal elections there's very little chance of a third parry with no huge pool of money from one of the two parties actually winning. It happens, but very rarely and most who win these days were already in their positions before the removal of caps on corporate cash and the idea that corporations have human rights was ingrained by our corrupted Supreme Court.
- 77 million voted for Trump in 2024.
- 75 million voted for Harris.
- 89 million didn't vote.
I think some of the 89 million didn't vote because being actively complicit in genocide is an ethical line they will never cross.
I think the big difference between those who are prepared to vote for evil, and those who will never vote for genocidal parties; is how far they think ahead. Those who only look at the next 4 years, will keep voting for the lesser evil and make the world more evil even if they win; while those who look at least at the next 7 generations, will never vote for such evil parties.
For the Democrats to get votes from the non-voters, they have to convince them that crossing the genocide-line is OK, and that causing a mass extinction event more than 4 years from now should be ignored.
For the Greens to get some of those non-voters, they have to convince them it's better to do the right thing and be on the losing side for a while, because there's a chance (like in first-past-the-post UK, where the 8th biggest party, the Greens, now regularly poll better than both of the duopoly parties (Tories and Labour]) that others will eventually vote for the ethical party if they see more people doing it.
Inaction is a choice just as much as action. If you didn't vote, then you are just as complicit in any ongoing genocide, or the war in Iran as if you voted.
Now get off you stupid high horse and actually make a difference.
Killary ein the popular vote in 16 and she's an insanely evil genocidal miscreant.
@K1nsey6 #altText4you "Lesser evil voting is an ideology with zero limits on evil.
50 death camps can be justified as long as you can convince yourself the other party would build 51."
That is just the American mindset. Other countries with a similar two party system even broke from it. It can be done, it's just that American culture was founded on rugged individualism, that ordinary Americans were convinced their individual personal interest matters more than the wider country.
Politics isn't like ordering a product on Amazon. You pick what you want and get it delivered within 2 days.
The reality is politics is a grind. You vote in every election over decades to push things in the direction you want it to go.
In the US only a minority of people wanted abortion to be made illegal. They voted and voted and voted for many decades to make it happen. Don't agree with what they wanted, but they were dedicated to it and got it.
Leftists just sit on their asses whining on the internet about not getting what they want and unwilling to make an effort to even start. Mocking those that are doing the work to try to make things better because people that work are stupid and being lazy is smart. Leftism is all about convincing people it's smart to do nothing while things get worse and using the fact that things are getting worse as proof of their intelligence.
Americans are so selfish that you could double Thanos snap Israel and Palestine out of existence and we would still be in the same situation. Same with ICE.
It’s never been about justice for anyone outside our borders, it’s who’s making money and feeling satisfaction for their quality of life currently and whatever political party aligns with that.
I cast my vote for Harris in 2024 because she’s clearly the better person, we all have to live with the consequences, and I wasn’t a fucking bitch willing to stand on the sidelines while a reality TV star pedophile works to rob us even further.
Eat dirt and grow up OP.
Such a stupid point. In a scenario in which both political parties are building death camps, you are either one of the people who want the death camps to be built and would likely be evilmaxxing (vote for the one building more death camps), or you’re one of the people who will end up in the death camps in which case you wouldn’t be voting at all, you’d be fleeing.
Except most of the time while one party isn't perfect, the other party is actively building concentration camps. However since the mediocre party isn't doing what one activist group wants, they try to get everyone to believe that the concentration camps really aren't that bad. The world, not just the US, was slowly making progress before Trump in 2016. Covid was a global setback. The US fucking up everyone, everywhere in the world because the Democrats aren't perfect is why the USA needs to die and no longer be able to bully the world into following US Capitalism. Europeans aren't perfect either but they have far more social democracy actually happening in their countries.