There are no ethical choices under first-past-the-post voting. We must instead make a decision that reduces the most harm.
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A referendum will be held alongside the general election in Oregon, USA to switch to ranked-choice voting.
To any fellow Oregonians reading this, vote yes and tell all your friends to vote yes as well!
Register to vote:
There are important ballot measures in a ton of states this year as well. If you’re in a blue area, there might even be a decent candidate or 2. Always check to see what’s happening in your community, if only to prevent harmful stuff from slipping through unopposed.
Your landlord and bosses vote, so you should as well. Don’t make things easy for them. Make them require voter suppression to stand a chance. Power will never be given, so it must be seized.
I’m jealous. Here in Canada, our current PM’s entire election campaign was based on the promise of scrapping FPTP. Then he reversed course pretty much day 1 after getting elected.
It’s frustrating for sure, I was even more annoyed when we had a referendum in BC and people opted to keep things the same.
Oof, yeah, thats pretty bad. As an Albertan, I definitely feel the pain of ignorant voters.
That was by design. BC used a FPTP voting system for the referendum, with multiple options for “which system would you prefer?” and no option for “I would prefer any of these over FPTP.” So FPTP “won” while “Not FPTP” had their votes split.
I could be wrong but I remember voting and they actually had it split into two questions. The first was whether you wanted to keep the current system, and the second was if no what system would you prefer. Unfortunately people just decided to stick to what they were familiar with even if it’s a flawed system.
EDIT: Double checked and yeah, it was two questions the first of which was whether the system should change or not. 61% of voters opted to keep the existing system. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018_British_Columbia_electoral_reform_referendum
It was a two-prong campaign, and he did legalize weed. The election thing still pisses me off though.
But the sonic meme says voting is unethical
For anyone wondering why the first-past-the-post voting system (used by most countries) is bad, what the alternatives are, and why those alternatives are better, Nicky Case has an excellent write-up that covers all of that: https://ncase.me/ballot/
That was a very informative and interesting read. Thank you for sharing!
Love me some approval voting!
(used by most countries)
That might be true for head of state, but not so clear for legislature houses. From a look at the maps on this wiki page I’d say a majority of countries have some kind of at least limited PR.
And saves millions of lives at home and abroad.
What population of people outside of your country is going to be “saved” by a round-2 Biden ticket exactly?..
You can’t possibly believe in the man taking >$5.5M from Israel to run the Palestinian state into the dirt, right?
You Can’t Be Neutral on a Moving Train
Your options are:
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Keep the train going as it is while yelling at the conductor to stop the train.
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Replace the conductor with a guy who is obviously going to speed up the train and kill even more people. In fact, they’re going to implement multi-track drifting and start killing people that weren’t in any danger from the first guy.
I dunno, seeing as how those really are my only two choices, one of them seems a lot better than the other.
I’ve never seen any sort of logical response to this argument.
Person A: Maybe we should reduce harm
Person B: But Biden is bad and evil!
Person A: I agree, but Trump is worse and more evil.
Person B: These are both the same!
Clearly, there are people that will be under attack under Trump that won’t under Biden. I’m not voting Republican or Democrat in the primaries, but I’m voting against Trump in the general. Not for Biden, but against Trump, because he’s far more dangerous in the same ways that Biden was, and spreads out his harm to others as well.
I’ve never seen any sort of logical response to this argument.
I can provide one, and I'll also say, I've never seen a logical response to this argument, beyond drive-by downvotes.
Voters have something politicians want (votes) and politicians have something voters want (the ability to set policy). That means that there’s a negotiation to be had. And the worst thing you can do in a negotiation is to say that you’ll unconditionally agree to whatever terms the other side offers.
To use an example, there’s a game/social experiment called “The Ultimatum Game.” In it, the first player offers the second player an offer on how to split $100, and the second player chooses to accept or deny the offer. If both players behave as rational, “homo economicus” the result will be that player 1 offers a $99-$1 split. But in practice, most second players will reject offers beyond a certain point, usually around $70-$30, and most first players will offer more even splits because of that possibility. The only reason that the $99-$1 case is “rational” is because it’s a one-off interaction. There is a cost associated with accepting such a deal, and that cost is that you’ve established yourself as a pushover for all future interactions, and there is no reason that anyone would offer you more than $1 if the game were repeated.
In the same way, an organized political faction that can credibly threaten to withhold support unless a baseline of demands are met will have more political leverage compared to a faction that unconditionally supports the “lesser evil.” If a politician only needs to be marginally less bad than the alternative to win your vote, then they have no incentive to be more than marginally less bad. It’s the same way that if you know the second player will act rationally, you can get away with only offering them $1 because $1>$0. Declaring a minimum baseline and sticking to it is a valid political strategy, in the same way “I won’t accept less than $30, even if it means I get nothing” is a valid game strategy.
Whether you think that applies in this particular case is another question, but if you were looking for an logical explanation of the reasoning, there it is.
Whether you think that applies in this particular case is another question
If this was what you were presenting this as (a logical response to the argument above) then it shouldn’t be another question. It should apply directly to this argument.
Your comment only applies to a negotiation between 2 parties and doesn’t address the actual problem at hand whatsoever. So yeah, its not a logical response to the above argument at all.
It establishes the logical framework for the opposing case. Making the opposing case requires additional assumptions, such as, where your minimum requirements ought to be set, exactly how good/bad Biden is, etc. Those would be tangents that I don’t really want to get sidetracked by, because my goal was just to establish the logical framework for the opposing case. My comment was long enough as it is, and I’ve frequently had comments that long been (rudely) dismissed as being too long. My purpose for that comment is not to persuade but to explain.
but have you considered: what if I drain you of twelve gorillion dollars, or give you nothing, and that’s the negotiation? what then? have you considered that: what if I just like heedlessly extend the metaphor to the current political state of affairs in such a way that it reinforces my own biases and points, what then, what would you do then? surely, the logic doesn’t hold up if I tell you that the alternative is horrible, right?
wait, you’re telling me the logic does hold up still in that instance? how about no? have you considered what if I just said no, to that? what if I just denied the logic and decided to be obstinate, what then? what if actually, I like eating shit, huh?
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What population of people outside of your country is going to be “saved” by a round-2 Biden ticket exactly?..
People living in Ukraine, Gaza, and Taiwan to name a few. Also everyone in countries in Europe besides Ukraine. In fact most of the countries of the world, because authoritarian dictatorships will carve the world into spheres of influence. To be clear, dictators will be killing millions of people in their spheres of influence with genocides and ethnic cleansings.
You can’t possibly believe in the man taking >$5.5M from Israel to run the Palestinian state into the dirt, right?
Do you mean giving to? If we’re still talking about Biden then I believe he will do the least harm.
You Can’t Be Neutral on a Moving Train
This supports my argument as I am arguing we need to pick the side that will do the least harm. There is no way to be neutral with FPTP voting.
we need to pick the side that will do the least harm. There is no way to be neutral with FPTP voting.
I don’t think you need to actually “pick a side,” in the sense like they’re the team you support and root for. Vote for the best candidate available to you, yes; but don’t stop complaining about the paltriness of your choice. Don’t stop agitating for an end to an ongoing genocide that is being supported by your best-of-two-bad-choices rep.
People living in Ukraine, Gaza, and Taiwan to name a few.
Ukraine’s war will continue regardless.
The Palestinian genocide will continue regardless.
Taiwan isn’t under any threat of being killed by the millions at the moment, so I’m not even sure how he would “save” them?..
Do you mean giving to?
No 😂. Look up a list of the most “donations” taken from Israel by any political candidate. Did you genuinely not look into things like this before defending him with a shitty Sonic meme?
This supports my argument
This is also wrong. You are allowing genocide to continue by agreeing with the current status-quo. Acting like voting in the same man taking in millions to kill over 100,000 brown people (most of which are women and children) will somehow SAVE Palestine (I noticed you used “Gaza” there by mistake, nbd I fixed that for you) is so painfully ignorant it just has to be on purpose.
Stop drinking the state-narrative kool-aid you dork.
Ukraine’s war will continue regardless.
No, Russia will conquer Ukraine if someone doesn’t support them. Trump isn’t going to support Ukraine. Biden will.
The Palestinian genocide will continue regardless.
No, Trump will encourage Israel to finish the genocide.
Taiwan isn’t under any threat of being killed by the millions at the moment, so I’m not even sure how he would “save” them?..
From China who famously wants to invade Taiwan.
No 😂. Look up a list of the most “donations” taken from Israel by any political candidate. Did you genuinely not look into things like this before defending him with a shitty Sonic meme?
Oh, you meant donations he received. Yeah, most US politicians have through AIPAC. I had no idea what you were talking about.
This is also wrong. You are allowing genocide to continue by agreeing with the current status-quo. Acting like voting in the same man taking in millions to kill over 100,000 brown people (most of which are women and children) will somehow SAVE Palestine (I noticed you used “Gaza” there by mistake, nbd I fixed that for you) is so painfully ignorant it just has to be on purpose.
No, Trump will encourage Israel to finish the genocide. All Palestinians in Gaza, the West Bank, and Israel will be killed. Gaza is just one part of Palestine, not the whole thing. edit: typo
I actually drink a lot of Kool-Aid with Stevia In the Raw. It helps me stay hydrated. My favorite is the Sharkleberry Fin flavor.
^ what it looks like when a both-sideser gets cornered, folks!
“Ukraine’s war” but Palestinian genocide. The situation in Ukraine is no less of a genocide, and it’s Russia’s war, Ukraine is just trying to survive.
You can’t simultaneously think they have a chance of winning AND that they’re losing so badly it’s a genocide.
Palestine is roughly 100:1 KD and you libs are calling it a war.
This feels like hella AstroTurf from the dumbies that moved from Reddit
I said they’re both genocide. Just because the oppressor could lose doesn’t remove the possibility of genocide. Germany lost WW2, but they absolutely committed genocide.
Russia has abducted 20k Ukrainian children. Russia has destroyed museums, schools, cultural monuments, and churches. Russia has changed the language in the regions they conquered. It has been declared a genocide by many nations, scholars, and the international criminal court.
What “KD ratio” is required for a genocide to count in your mind?
The way to tell MAGA propagandists from real lefitst activists is that propaganda will ignore primaries and local elections. General elections in America are for forming coalitions, not rejecting them.
Anyone making memes telling you not to form a coalition against MAGA is working to further the goals of MAGA.
To be clear, I’m using this meme to address ethical concerns I see people have with voting. Namely that we should ignore those concerns. I think we should vote for Biden in 2024.
I saw your comment further down and I wanted to address any potential confusion where it can be seen. I think we fundamentally agree that people should vote.
But the sonic meme says voting is unethical
No, just that there are no ethical choices under first-past-the-post voting. For example, abstaining from voting is a choice even if it’s not voting. Voting for the candidates, not just the president, that will result in the least amount of harm to people is what is optimal. People use ethical concerns as a reason to not vote, but no matter what a person chooses, even the least bad choice is still unethical. Therefore these ethical concerns should not weigh into our decision making process.
This is comparable to no ethical consumption under capitalism. Steve Shives made a good example in his video on Don’t Look Up, so I’m going to steal it here. We shouldn’t dismiss Hollywood out of hand for making movies like Don’t Look Up even though everyone who works in the film industry benefits from capitalism in unethical ways. Even though it is true that they benefit in unethical ways, this line of reasoning would silence everyone. We all benefit in unethical ways from capitalism. It’s the nature of living in a capitalist system that we cannot escape as long as we live under capitalism. Even the least bad consumption is still unethical. So these ethical concerns shouldn’t weigh into our criticism of a movie like Don’t Look Up.
There is no ethical consumption under capitalism. There are no ethical choices under FPTP voting. So, these ethical concerns should not weigh into our criticism of capitalism or our decisions about who to vote for. We should vote even if the choice of who we vote for isn’t ethical. The goal should be to reduce the most harm to people.
Thank you for the explanation. I essentially agree with your position, but also fear most of the people upvoting this meme aren’t appreciating a distinction between choosing “no ethical action” and “inaction”. Things inside the US are slowly, but unquestionably moving in a better direction today than they have been the past century. It’s upsetting when people who claim to care for their fellow citizens advocate for surrendering the already extremely limited power they posses to turn the steering wheel.
Maybe you should direct the same level of energy at actual MAGA instead of attacking leftists who have constantly told you dorks he’s going to lose…
Open your eyes.
This isn’t harm reduction. Stop co-opting real leftist terms for this crap. The USA has always been fascist and will always be so until it is destroyed. You people won’t learn till you get all of us killed for the little bit of privilege afforded to you thru this colonist imperial hellhole
Not necessarily. They might just be some mug repeating the talking points of one.
Thanks! Im gonna take this. Lemmy is finnaly big enough for Russian disinformation Agents 🥲
What’s this mean? I’m OOTL.
The Russian military is known to employ “disinformation officers” to spread discord or undermine trust in Western democracies online. A very common talking point they use is how the US (or whatever other country’s citizens they are targeting) is a fascist state and your vote doesn’t count, so you should not vote. Other common tactics include deliberately bringing up obscure conspiracy theories to lend them more credibility, spreading fake news, and posting lots of comments that sound right at a first glance but are complete BS once you think about them/research them. They are known to target both left and right-leaning people.
Generally, the most vulnerable are those who are not aware of their presence (and thus absorb the ideas like a sponge) or already hold the extreme political views they spread. These people are likely to propagate the content in question, increasing the damage. Remember, their goal is not to convince you to agree with them—it’s to get you to distrust your government and your country’s institutions.
Disinformation officers aren’t an idea unique to Russia. China has also been accused of hiring people to do the same thing (“wumaos”), and the Israeli army openly brags about their disinformation officers, although they don’t call them that, obviously.
The picture depicts one such (alleged) Russian disinformation officer. I am using it to accuse the parent commenter of being a disinformation officer or someone who repeats the ideas spread by a disinformation officer.
Russian disinformation Agent
It is harm reduction to vote for the less fascist of the two fascist candidates with a chance of winning.
So, do you start licking the boot from the toe or the heel?
Or are you the kind of person who just deep-throats the whole boot?
I gotta say this is a little bit funny to post this and then also there’s another guy posting this in the same reply, it’s very botlike. no comment on the politics but I find it amusing as a response
Ratio
This isn’t harm reduction.
It is harm reduction. Fewer people will be harmed if we elect the candidate that will do the least harm.
Stop co-opting real leftist terms for this crap.
I am a social democrat which is a leftist political position. This is a real leftist term. Gatekeeping won’t get rid of this idea. Internalize it.
edit: To be clear, I’m referring to: There are no ethical choices under FPTP voting. I hope that clears up any confusion.
The USA has always been fascist and will always be so until it is destroyed.
There has been a fascist movement in the United States since the 30’s. Hitler and the Nazis copied off of the US’s Jim Crow era laws. But the US as a nation state has never been fascist. If Republicans win this November then the US will become a christo-fascist authoritarian dictatorship for the first time and probably for a long time.
You people won’t learn till you get all of us killed for the little bit of privilege afforded to you thru this colonist imperial hellhole
The people who are going to get us all killed are the privileged accelerationists who think they stand to benefit from sacrificing us all to fascism. They think they going to accelerate social change, but there won’t be anyone left to benefit from it.
Social Democracy entrenches Capitalism, it’s a Center-Right position.
Additionally, the US has absolutely been fascist and has committed numerous genocides in its history.
You would do well to read Leftist theory.
You’ve been telling me what to do for a while now. I think reading theory is a good idea. Please read a US history book. I also recommend reading Ur Fascism.
https://archive.org/details/umberto-eco-ur-fascism/umberto-eco-ur-fascism.lt/page/4/mode/2up
Social democracy in the US is a center left position in the year 2024. Fascism did not exist before the 20th century. Genocides did. A county doing genocides does not mean they are a fascist country. We did that as a democracy. A flawed democracy, that suppresses majority rule, but as a democracy.
Social Democracy is a pro-Capitalist position that continues Imperialism and does not approach Socialism. Fascism is not just genocide, but the US has never been truly democratic.
The social democracy I am describing in my arguments would do away with capitalism but not market economies. The fact this doesn’t exist yet or isn’t in the theory you have read about social democracy isn’t relevant. The US has never had true majority rule. Our democracy overrepresents some people and thus underrepresents others. This must be fixed. The US is still fundamentally a democracy despite its flaws. That’s why the fascists want to do away with our democracy, so they can have total power, as just being overrepresented is insufficient for their aims.
You’re describing Market Socialism, which is a thing, not Social Democracy, which is another thing.
How do you want to “fix” US democracy? It’s working as it always has for hundreds of years.
I’m describing what I’m describing. This is social democracy as I see it. I am arguing workers owning companies is not at odds with social democracy and is a policy that should be pursued as part of such a system.
No, people have been trying to fix US democracy to be more inclusive for centuries. Black men got the right to vote in 1870. But of course people of color are still facing voter suppression to this day. Woman got the right to vote in 1919. People fought for these rights. We need to keep fighting until majority rule is established in the United States. Then we will need to fight to keep it that way. I’ll name a few things that we need to do, but this is not a comprehensive list. We need to abolish the electoral college, and make both the House of Representatives and Senate proportional to the population. The House of Representatives is currently capped at 435. And every state in the union needs to agree to change the Senate to be reflective of the population from the current two senators per state. As long as our democracy has these and other flaws fascists and corporations alike are going to have undue leverage over our democracy.
We have a system, and we do not have the political will to get rid of that system. Go ahead and build a coalition towards a better system, but until that coalition is tangible, harm reduction is not complicity.
Obvious troll or clinically idiotic patsy
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harm_reduction
I finally figured out what some people were concerned about. Apparently there is already a phrase called harm reduction or harm minimization that I wasn’t aware of. This phrase specifically refers to reducing harm around drug and sex related activities. This is a naming collision on my part for the title of the meme.
However I stand by my usage of the words for the title. I was using the words harm and reduction together because that is what makes sense to me for the topic based on the definitions of those individual words. I wasn’t referring to harm reduction the phrase and I think that was clear to most people. Also, it’s just for the title of an internet meme. No one is co-opting the phrase harm reduction or using that phrase incorrectly. I hope that clears up that confusion.
Made sense to me, even knowing the original meaning of the phrase. Good splainer though
Is this /s?
Arguing against voting for Biden is a pro-genocide tactic because it increases the probability of more genocide. Anti-voting activism is an inviable strategy.
I genuinely will never understand the libs that vote for the “least fascist” option as if that’s ever going to improve your life.
Maybe vote w/ your conscience instead of pushing further to the right than y’all already are?
Gotta change the voting system if you want to make it safe to vote for your favorite. Anything that satisfies no favorite betrayal would work. My favorite is Approval Voting but any of them would work.
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No, I am serious. If people have an ethical concern about voting in the US, this is my response. It’s comparable to no ethical consumption under capitalism. Vaush explained the idea in one of his streams.
Vaush explained the idea in one of his streams.
Yeah, I quit watching him. Dude is pretty problematic. “Genocide is bad and wrong, but still vote for Biden, because party loyalty is more important.” At least he has the balls to criticize Biden, which is more than I can say for some people.
Vaush isn’t perfect, but no one is arguing party loyalty is what is important here. There are no ethical choices in FPTP voting so we have to make a decision that reduces the most harm.
This is the fun part about arguing with Russian agents and people who drank the kool-aid, they shove words into your mouth. Either they’re deliberately trying to make you look bad, or they’re so stuck in their own world view they can’t hear anything other than what they already believe.
I wish it were /s, but I don’t think so
Seems pretty tasteless to call something “harm reduction” when it literally involves supporting the person making a genocide possible. Imagine being a person who lost their entire family in Palestine to torture and starvation and reading this post.
You’d prefer the party that got Roe v Wade overturned then? Cause not voting Dems is being fine with whatever happens. And no, no silly revolution is gonna happen that will save you. Get out of dreamland now and accept this shitty choice put before you and just do the bare minimum at least.
You won’t get through to him, he’s way too deep in dreamland. Just check his history.
Oh hi, I think you meant to reply to this person, because I didn’t say any of that horseshit you’re arguing against
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Pretty bold of you to bring up Roe V Wade as an example of why we need more democrats. Roe V Wade was one of the best examples of democrats effortlessly orienting liberals with the democratic party by sitting on their hands for years as the threat of having abortion rights taken away become more and more clear. The democrats could have codified it, but they didn’t because they knew that abortion rights were one of their main avenues to muster up enthusiasm and support for their party. By letting Roe V Wade get eviscerated, the democrats secured support from oblivious liberals for years to come.
“Vote for us, or you’ll lose abortion rights! (as the democrats do jack shit to protect the right)”. The democrats would rather lose than shift left, and that revelation becomes terrifying when the issue comes down to genocide.
The same is true for Trump. The man that liberals get into such a tizzy about was literally propped up by the democrats in order to orient liberals and centrists with the democratic party. By propping up Trump, democrats have coerced liberals into writing a blank check and offering blind support to whoever isn’t the republican. And now we’ve seen the logical conclusion of this strategy: liberals supporting genocide since at least genocide isn’t as bad as orange man.
The point is never that we need more democrats. The point is always that we need fewer Republicans. Democrats refuse to make things better, but they typically block things from getting worse, which is a better starting point than anything the GOP would give us.
So please, organize, protest, do whatever activism you can do, but on voting day take the little bit of time and effort to block Republicans from undoing all that hard work, even if it means voting strategically for a pile of shit.
The left will always be fighting against the administration to some extent, and through voting we get to pick our enemy, and the dems are going to be an easier fight and on fewer fronts.
There are things you can do outside of voting for one shit party. You could vote for a different party for example, push for voting reform, protest, bomb military installations and other guerrilla tactics, go and help people directly, make propaganda, etc. In my own country that just had a local election more seats were won by the lib dems (normally a minority party) than the conservatives who are the party currently in charge.
Revolutions don’t happen because people like you don’t want them to happen. That and because people fall for pro-government propaganda.
You could vote for a different party for example
Not in the US you can’t. It’s basically the same as not voting. You can argue that it’s in favour of republicans, even.
Okay what about the other things I just said?
The other things are not related to voting. Do all those things you want to do, but voting takes 30m and almost zero effort. If you can manage to do those other things, you can and should vote as well. The effort to outcome ratio is much higher, even though the outcome is fairly small. The effort is essentially zero.
Also it’s not 30 minutes. It requires registering to vote whenever you move address, and for you to actually be in the country. Then there is setting reminders it’s election day, which requires watching the news to know there is an election.
Voting for someone who supports genocide is understandably something people don’t want to do. Or have you forgotten the point of this conversation?
It’s pretty weird that you hold up the fucking lib Dems as your party of radical revolution.
The fact of the matter is that we are never going to get a radical left government, regardless of the voting system. Unless you’re spending time in an ivory tower of academia, you will know that the majority of people in this country are centrists of some flavour. Corbyn got massacred at the polls, and he was Labour leader. Going back you’ve got Foot.
The best we’ve ever had it is when Atlee, an ex army major who practically ran the home war effort, couched left wing reforms (foundation of the welfare state, nationalisation of coal and rail) as nationalistic. That’s how we get these things through. You’re never going to change the minds of British people by bombing.
If you’re of an anarchist mindset, then it’s far more beneficial to vote for harm reduction one day per four years, and organise in parallel outside that
I am not holding them up as a revolutionary party. All I was saying is they are becoming more popular than a current majority party. I am trying to make the point that voting for a traditionally minority party isn’t always fruitless.
The fact of the matter is that we are never going to get a radical left government, regardless of the voting system. Unless you’re spending time in an ivory tower of academia, you will know that the majority of people in this country are centrists of some flavour. Corbyn got massacred at the polls, and he was Labour leader. Going back you’ve got Foot.
My comment was aimed at Americans who don’t want to vote for the democrats. Not at labour voters in the UK. I am not against voting for labour. If I am still here at the time of the general election I will probably be voting for them or for the Green party. I wasn’t able to vote in the current election as I wasn’t in the country and also wasn’t on the electoral register for the area I would be living in if I was.
I don’t think I qualify as an anarchist. Though I do like some anarchist ideas. I personally don’t understand politics well enough to have an exact position with certainly like some people seem to. I am somewhat of a fan of socialist market economy, but I don’t think you can truly know if something does or doesn’t work until you actually try it.
I think you’d benefit from reading Leftist theory. Marxism and Anarchism are the two largest overall currents in leftist theory.
I have read some theory and I do know those are the main two currents. Doesn’t mean I know enough about them or politics in general to choose either them or something else. Most of the books people actually recommend are ancient and hard to understand even if they are relevant. We have actually spoken about politics before somewhere if I remember correctly.
Fair enough; I got the wrong end of the stick. I apologise.
I think the best case for the argument is also around in the UK, which is that reform UK (which, for those abroad, is our resident right wing nutjob party) has put electoral pressure on the party and pulled them to the right, and the same thing has happened with the greens on the left.
That being said, I think the best time to cast that vote is during local elections (or MEPs back when we were still in Europe) where there’s something closer to proportional representation, or when you don’t live in a swing seat. For those in the US who are in safe republican seats, I’d agree that 3rd party is a pretty good way to get your voice heard. In knife edge places, I’d argue for tactical voting, but equally it’s not my country.
WRT anarchism: it’s a philosophy I think we should implement a lot of concepts from (mutual aid, parallel organisation). The reason I mentioned it was that some have the view that we shouldn’t vote full stop; I am of the view that voting is not the be all and end all – vote tactically, be that for harm reduction if your vote is likely to count significantly, or third party if it won’t, and then go and advocate for your causes in the other days of the four year election cycle.
Yeah I’ve only actually been able to vote once. Missed one (forgot which day) and was out of the country for another. I wouldn’t have left for as long if I actually knew there was an election, but that’s hard to know when you don’t watch the news. Plus moving around a bunch means I am rarely actually on an electoral register to vote.
Voting for the Green Party is the bare minimum. Voting for Democrats or Republicans is capitulation.
I’m thinking about the people who could lose their lives and families because there is something that can be done about that.
I’m not sure voting will do anything about that
We have a full-blown fascist party and a right-wing liberal party that has shown itself willing to capitulate in every way to said party
Directly or indirectly, Project 2025 is coming, it seems
The United States needs to cease to exist before it’s too late
We need to change the United States into a socialist country with unimpeded majority rule before it is too late. Our only chance to do that is by delaying the fascist takeover for another four years. The United States becoming a christo-fascist dictatorship would be disastrous for everyone not just the US. Authoritarian dictatorships would start carving up the world into spheres of influence. Millions of people would die from dictators enacting genocide and ethnic cleansing in their spheres of influence.
I don’t think that voting for the same two parties is going to change that. Those two parties got us into this; they aren’t going to get us out.
The Democrats are not going to get us out of this, but we need time to convince people that socialism is the answer to our economic problems. We are going to have to elect socialist politicians. We need our democracy, as flawed as it is, in order to do that.
You might be interested in reading Socialism: Utopian and Scientific by Engels. Ideas take hold in a population based on their material conditions, not by “convincing them.” This was tried numerous times in the past, all of them abject failures.
Yes, convincing people that Socialism is good is a good thing to do, but that isn’t going to be what makes or breaks the movement.
This is certainly a defensible position, yes. I’m just not so sure we’re going to avoid the christo-fascist dictatorship with the Democrats. They forever capitulate to our christo-fascist party, and they themselves are authoritarian at heart. Just look at the White House and its support for genocide, border fascism, subjugation of protestors, defending of an inequitable hierarchical economic system that relies on forced labor, and those are just the first examples that come to mind
I think the Democrats are not a great political party. I’m registered independent. They are the only mainstream political party for pursuing progressive change that we have at the moment. We have to take our chances with the Democrats because it’s the clearest path to a better future that we have.
We do need to adopt socialist policies as a country in addition to that though. If we stick with neoliberalism then we are going to keep having this problem. The fascist movement will inevitably grow as the wealth disparity gets worse in the US. People are going to be looking for solutions to their problems, but neoliberalism inherently denies them the tools to fix the systemic issues they face. Neoliberals cling to civility politics and value property over justice for people to name a few. Fascism will provide them with easy, but incorrect, solutions in the form of out-groups to hate. The answer to our problems is socialism, but we need time to convince people.
I know it’s a long shot, because people are effectively conditioned from living in a neoliberal society to reject socialism without any evidence. But we have to try. The only way this gets better is convincing people that socialist ideas have merit while neoliberal and fascist ideas do not. People’s lives depend on nations developing and maintaining inclusive political and economic institutions. We are going to need to have this ideological reckoning at some point, so we might as well have it sooner rather than later.
Trying and then failing presents the same consequences as not trying. So we might as well do it now.
This sounds like you want to implement social changes within the existing system. This is the lie of progressives and radlibs. It will never work. We need to dissolve the United States of America. There is nothing here worth salvaging, save the people.
If the libs could read, they’d be furious with you right now 😂
I do get a lot of liberal anger sent right to my inbox
Sure wish they’d direct some of that rage toward the people who are killing us and our planet, but I suppose I’m an easier target lol
It’s not just about president, but also cabinet positions. And Bidens cabinet is pretty decent. Trumps cabinet is awful
Which members of his cabinet are trying to cease funding of Israel and how?
Which ones are actively opposing border fascism?
Which ones want to defund the racist police?
Which ones want to replace the inherently destructive economic system?
Which members of his cabinet believe housing is a basic human right?
Which support the immediate release of all those wrongly incarcerated for unjust reasons such as drugs?
Which support the immediate cessation of our reliance on slave labor?
Which support the removal of the barriers to communists and anarchists becoming citizens?
There is nothing salvagable about the United States. When you say Biden’s cabinet is “pretty decent,” you’re doing so from a position of blind privilege. They may be good for certain demographics, but even though I’m living paycheck to paycheck, I’m still in the upper crust of this awful system. I’ve not seen one “pretty decent” person in Washington. The closest would be, say, people like Ilhan Omar, AOC, and Sanders, but even they are moderately right-wing and ultimately support a system that will forever oppress marginalized groups until it is forcibly removed.
Bruh there are a multitude of issues that the cabinet handles. As much as what’s happening in Palestine is abhorrent, there are in fact other important things happening everywhere all the time. If you look at only one single issue, then you are blind to a great many things. And if you neglect the fact that one side would also handle that particular issue with even more bloodlust, then you’re just not a serious person.
This is downplaying a genocide, and it’s really cold and gross to refer to a fucking genocide as “one single issue”
Pretty easy not to fund a genocide, eh? Just … do fucking nothing, and you’ve succeeded
You liberals love to act like it’s such a high bar to clear to just not commit atrocities, and it’s absolutely appalling
Not to mention that I listed a whole slew of atrocities Democrats are complicit in, and those are just off the top of my kinda tired brain. “One single issue” my ass
Yeah, luckily not voting and Trump getting elected that person wouldn’t be thinking of their lost family. They wouldn’t be thinking about anything for that matter, as they’d be fucking dead. Trump has demonstrated his support for expanding the conflict and finishing the job. It is absolutely better for that person who lost their family to not be dead.
“Luckily”???
Luckily was sarcastic you idiot.
And yeah, it sucks but so do so many other things we have to choose in life. Cleaning up shit from a pet isn’t fun, but sometimes it needs to be done. Sometimes we also need to choose the president that’s not going to do as much damage. You have to get your hands dirty.
Not voting shouldn’t keep your conscience clean. Its like the trolley problem. 100 people on one track, one on the other. You can choose to pull the lever or not. Not pulling it is still a choice. There’s no option where you aren’t complicit because you could have done something.
Also, there’s no need to call me “idiot,” and being honest it’s quite ableist
Funny how liberals are always calling leftists things like “idiot” – really shows their complete disdain for anyone to the left of Reagan. I’ve had liberal Democrats straight-up gloat that they don’t care what leftists think. Mask. Fucking. Off.
Dude, I’m an anarchist. Don’t kid yourself that you’re the only real leftist because you tell people not to vote. Just fuck off with that shit.
Idiot also isn’t really ableist. It isn’t the medical term it used to be. It’s to call someone stupid, which was either willful or not. I don’t know. It feels more like prupsoeful misrepresentation of what I wrote, or you didn’t even try to understand it, because even the most impaired person almost certainly could.
Totally an “anarchist” who relentlessly echoes pro-state neoliberal propaganda and insults anyone who doesn’t accept it. Mhm surrrrrre you are
Ok but what else are we going to do? What can we do to stop the genocide? Are we in favor of dismantling the system that made this happen, or are we ok with it?
Protest, take direct action, whatever you want. Get organized with some other groups. There are plenty. (Edit: nothing you do is going to stop this genocide though. It’s far too late, though we can decrease the harm that is done.)
Telling people not to take an action isn’t helpful. You always see people (who say they’re leftist, although some are certainly right wing trolls) saying not to vote, and they never advocate for doing other things. How about protest, but also vote? Why would anyone advocate for not doing something? The only reason I can think of us to get their guy elected instead.
If your contribution is saying to do less, fuck off. If you’re saying to do more then welcome. You may actually help.
Yes, a million times this. Voting is just one small part of what we must do to fight for a better future. Giving up is not an option, there is far too much at stake. Vote, protest, occupy, run for office, take direct action, organize, and create a better world for the people who come after us. Solidarity forever.
They can’t think of any other options for political change other than voting. In that way american indoctrination has worked wonders for the ruling elite.
I see something fine, and now your meme is mine!
