Trying to reach the “I don’t do politics” crowd with “harm reduction” doesn’t really work as a strategy.
Like, they’re already admitting that when something is an unappealing and controversial, they’d rather check out than engage. Going on to explain the gritty strategy for approaching unappealing and controversial politics is just adding more reasons onto the “I don’t do politics” pile.
It’s a crass comparison, but it would be like if someone said “I don’t play MOBAs” and the response was to immediately launch into an explanation of League’s current meta-strategy. Don’t be surprised when they immediately check out of the conversation. (Yes I know games are frivolous and politics is life and death – but the people who “don’t do politics” don’t see it that way)
More than that, nearly all of the “I don’t do politics” people are almost certainly never going to see this image. We’re in an online forum dedicated to talking about politics. The only people who see this are the people who already choose to spend their personal time on the subject. So ask yourself, is this image really about the people who are checked out of politics? Because, practically (regardless of intent) all this really seems to be is a thought-terminating cliche to throw at anyone who points out that running a “We’re the lesser evil candidate!” doesn’t actually engage or activate anyone who’s already checked out!
More than that, nearly all of the “I don’t do politics” people are almost certainly never going to see this image. We’re in an online forum dedicated to talking about politics.
And yet plenty of people here insist that they don’t do bourgeois politics.
But bourgeois politics is sure as fuck going to do them.
Removed by mod
Nine people get on a bus, but it is decided that only votes cast from the 3 people sitting at the front of the bus will get to decide the direction.
Why shouldn’t people trapped at the back of the bus with no sway over the vote express their opposition to the system itself?
I really don’t understand the issue people have with individuals who are in safe red or blue states voting in protest
I really don’t understand the issue people have with individuals who are in safe red or blue states voting in protest
It’s less problematic, but still not great. Elections maintain legitimacy on the perception of democracy - the more the democratic result is at variance with the results of the system, the greater the ‘winning’ candidate is undermined. A clear vote against the fascist discourages cooperation from various fence-sitting ghouls who, nonetheless, retain significant power to hinder the incoming administration. A significant enough disconnect between the democratic result and the result of the system can, and historically has in other countries, led to mass unrest and the overthrow of ‘illegitimate’ victors, though in the US the difference between winner and loser in this area has never been above statistical noise.
By contrast, a victory of the plurality of the vote is seen as legitimizing, encouraging careerist middle-of-the-road ghouls, both politicians and bureaucrats, to cooperate with and enable the regime to a greater degree.
Put less verbosely:
It’s best to deny fascists victory. However, if the circumstances (of the nation or your vote specifically) do not allow for that, it’s best to deny fascists the perception of a democratic mandate.
Protest voting in a safe state is better than non-voting, but it still has a negative effect in the case of a fascist victory.
I really don’t understand the issue people have with individuals who are in safe red or blue states voting in protest
safe is not safe… in australia this most recent election we had a lot of “safe” conservative seats switch (🥳)
I really don’t understand the issue people have with individuals who are in safe red or blue states voting in protest
Because if all the individuals who think they’re in safe zones actually got out and voted seriously instead of protest voting or abstaining, THERE WOULD NOT BE ANY SAFE RED AREAS.
Key sentence in that article: “The findings suggest that Mr. Trump’s brand of conservative populism once again turned politics-as-usual upside down”
As in: people don’t fucking want status quo.
Democrats: if we just status quo harder we’ll attract the unicorn moderates and win!
/Wrist
For that to actually for real happen, there would have to be a campaign and a candidate to convince enough people to do that. “We’re the harm reduction option” clearly isn’t that campaign.
The people who don’t vote don’t care when it comes down to it. its like when people call Nazis Nazis as if offends them. Or when someone calls a gay person gay… It’s just like… Oh okay.
Some of the people refuse to believe that the accelerator and steering wheel do anything, even though the pro-cliff people are clearly steering and accelerating.
Some people think we’ve already gone over the cliff, and thus trying to drive the bus is meaningless.
They’re wrong, but they believe it, and people’s beliefs are sometimes too precious to let go.
And some people aren’t on the bus, just on video chat, but for some reason are still arguing to drive off the cliff.
Can we blast the last point with a megaphone 24/7 in people’s faces or is that too much to get the point across?
There are none so deaf as those who refuse to listen.
As Mark Twain once remarked, “It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon him not understanding it.”
We need a “neither” option. If that one wins neither candiate gets to be president and the parties have to pick someone else. Not voting counts as neither.
If only.
Do you think people who are too stupid to vote for their own and their fellow citizens’ best interests are going to understand it in analogy form? Just try a straight forward “Hey, when you use a stapler on your own forehead, it actually hurts you, believe it or not, you fucking moron.”
Just try a straight forward “Hey, when you use a stapler on your own forehead, it actually hurts you, believe it or not, you fucking moron.”
We tried. Unfortunately, they’re too stupid to understand that too.
I realized after I wrote that that that, itself, is an analogy. So, maybe just carry a stapler. :)
Being made aware I’m lashed to a bunch of psychotic apes is terrifying and makes me want to kill the rest of the people on the bus and take control myself.
People are the absolute worst.
Every time I see people complaining about 3rd party voters all I can picture is the “Am I so out of touch?” meme. Like, y’all already shot yourselves in the face 3 times in a row and it surprisingly didn’t fail 1/3 times, but you’ll blame literally anyone but yourselves. Run a candidate people want, run policies people want, and support that candidate and those policies instead of throwing everything you can against them because you like money, and we would not be anywhere near where we are now. People vote for trump because they don’t want another fucking “nothing will fundamentally change” politician. The country is already shit. It needs to change. But dems are happy with it how it is. They don’t care about immigrants, or poor people, or social security, or women’s rights, or whatever. They just hold onto those as carrots on a stick. They just want to keep making millions, and would rather trump win so they don’t have to actually embrace populist policy. That’s why people don’t vote. The choice isn’t ice cream or drive off a cliff. Its do we drive into a wall and die now, or drive off a cliff so it takes slightly longer to die, the drive off a cliff people shot the 2 people who asked if they could vote for ice cream and that’s why the others didn’t vote.
Run a candidate people want, run policies people want, and support that candidate and those policies instead of throwing everything you can against them because you like money
Golly gee, if only there were some way that parties decided what candidates they were going to run, and what policies that candidate supported.
Unfortunately, as we all know, such decisions are made by The Secret Cabal and us lowly voters have no part in it.
Signed, someone who had a fever dream in 2016 and 2020 and remembered voting in something called a ‘primary’ for some ‘Bernie Sanders’ guy.
I can count on one finger the times that the person I voted for in a primary went on to win the general election.
And then he got brain damage and became a Republican.
Voting in the primaries doesn’t appear to do anything.
Sure dude, keep pretending the DNC doesn’t run anything and that they have zero influence or agenda and it’s all the perfect will of the people. You’re right, the people with billions of dollars in charge of the party are really just chill dudes who listen to what people really want.
Sorry for not thinking that every public poll was rigged by The Shadow Elite and that Bernie actually won the primaries by millions of votes which were shredded without a single hint of evidence left behind by the Puppetmasters of the DNC.
Maybe people are voting for what they want, and the issue is a lack of education…?
No, no, it must be the Shadow Cabal sabotaging all the polls. I’m SURE of it!
My brother in christ, could you strawman any harder?
NOBODY thinks bernie ‘actually won’. Pretty much everyone who saw the 2016 election knows that Hillary won the primary, due to smear campaigns against bernie backed by establishment democrats. You know, the EXACT same thing that’s going on with Zohran Mamdani RIGHT FUCKING NOW. He WON the primary, and not by some secret cabal type shit but by the will of the voters by running gasp populist policies that actually help out the working class. And the establishment DNC is doing everything they can to smear him even AFTER getting the will of the voters, in favor of Andrew Cuomo or Eric Adams.
“If liberals are so fucking smart then why do they lose so god damn always?”
Instead of blaming the leftists who may or may not have voted (which for what it’s worth, I have never met a leftist irl who abstained voting even in a ruby red state) why don’t you fucking blame the people who are actively driving the bus off the cliff?
Or how about you LEARN from the last decade?
Because this right here is why establishment dems AND republicans ain’t doing too hot. You look at Trump’s victories and never ask ‘why did all these people vote for this fucking asshole?’. Instead, you write everyone who voted Trump as a racist or a sexist or a NAZI and while they’re perfectly willing to associate with NAZIs, it’s important to fucking learn why the fuck they voted for that asshole. And yeah, some of them definitely voted for racism or sexism reasons, but you’re absolutely braindead if you think the fact that he ran on eliminating corruption (‘drain the swamp’) and ran on making things better for the working class (‘price of eggs’). Was he lying? Yup. Is he a corrupt fascist? 100%, but unlike literally everyone else in the 3 presidential campaigns he ran in (excluding bernie ofc) absolutely NOBODY was speaking to the working class or populist policies. It was ‘I’m with her’ or ‘Trump bad’ or ‘It’s my turn’.
So, feel free sitting on your high horse saying ‘oh, well if the voters weren’t so dumb we would be at brunch’ instead of focusing on the people whose entire job it was to inspire people to vote for them, and keep dividing the working class more and more. You’re only playing into their hands, and yes I am talking about the billionaires that you’re sucking off rn.
Both can be true. The major US parties are both rotten to the core and as such the leadership of the democrats has much of the responsibility for this, but people not voting are still fascism enablers, albeit to a lesser degree than those voting for trump for non-fascism reasons.
Voting third party is one thing, it’s the only way outside of revolution you’re going to escape from the established two parties. Not voting only signals apathy and the only explicit statement is “I’m ok with whoever wins, including the raping racist hitler v2”.
Do me a favor pal: show me proof that it was leftists who didn’t vote this time. In fact, show me proof that the people who didn’t vote were against harm reduction. Show me any proof any evidence from ANYWHERE that the people who refused to vote… were refusing to vote? Show me any evidence that says that says anything with any certainty about ANYONE who did not vote?
Oh, you can’t? Well that makes sense, because we don’t actually KNOW who left the electorial arean. We don’t know WHY they left the electorial arena, and we don’t know WHAT they were thinking. So, I’d love to know why everyone seems so certain that it was the left who stopped voting entirely as opposed to the non-MAGA right or even the liberal center. And the reseaon everyone is CERTAIN it’s the left if because that’s been the reused talking point that’s been dragged out every time there’s been a lull in the insanity since Jan 20th. Almost like somebody doesn’t want the subject to die. Almost like someone profits off of the left and the center fighting each other instead of fighting the 1%.
People who stopped voting entirely may be facism enablers, I’m not disagreeing. But, there’s no actual, solid evidence to blame that shit on any one group in particular. And even despite that, it’s absolutely INSANE that we’re hyper focused on the imagined people we THINK didn’t vote for the reasons we think they didn’t vote, and yet IGNORE the people we KNOW voted for this and IGNORE the reasons they’re telling us they voted for this.
Like tf? Thinking billionaires have been and are continuing to demonize any actual progressive candidate and are propagandizing broad swaths of the electoral is an inane conspircay theory when it’s something we have seen evidence of time and time and time again, and in the same breath saying that people who voted for trump are lying about why they voted for trump based on ‘just trust me bro’ is absolutely ludicrous.
I never said it was the left lol, everything I said applies regardless of political leanings. Though in all likelihood there were at least some leftists that didn’t.
Also the commenters that were saying as much on this extremely left leaning platform are probably the ones mainly adressed by OP.
Do me a favor pal: show me proof that it was leftists who didn’t vote this time. In fact, show me proof that the people who didn’t vote were against harm reduction. Show me any proof any evidence from ANYWHERE that the people who refused to vote… were refusing to vote? Show me any evidence that says that says anything with any certainty about ANYONE who did not vote?
Oh, you can’t? Well that makes sense, because we don’t actually KNOW who left the electorial arean. We don’t know WHY they left the electorial arena, and we don’t know WHAT they were thinking.
If there’s one thing that Lemmy has taught me, it’s that people on the left aren’t any smarter than those on the right. Just less vile.
…people not voting is a failure of coalition-building, full-stop…
…meanwhile, a successful coalition is now calling the shots instead; that’s american democracy in action, like it or not…
NOBODY thinks bernie ‘actually won’.
I have seen numerous people on here say that Bernie actually won.
Pretty much everyone who saw the 2016 election knows that Hillary won the primary, due to smear campaigns against bernie backed by establishment democrats.
Oh goodness, I’m glad nothing like that would happen in the general election! If only the Dems had played fair, the GOP certainly would have!
Also, would you like to remind me what a smear campaign does? Does it alter the brainwaves of the hapless Moderate Voter™ to obeying their DNC masters or something?
… or does it appeal to their pre-existing ideas and prejudices to sway them towards a candidate?
No, that sounds too much like voters having agency, and not being mere conduits for the Will Of The Proletariat™. It must be the brainwave altering thing.
And the establishment DNC is doing everything they can to smear him even AFTER getting the will of the voters, in favor of Andrew Cuomo or Eric Adams.
… okay?
He WON the primary, and not by some secret cabal type shit but by the will of the voters by running gasp populist policies that actually help out the working class. And
Yeah, he won in the primary for NYC. Which is good. Great, in fact! But New York City is not all of America, and it’s really quite worrying that so many people here think it is.
“If liberals are so fucking smart then why do they lose so god damn always?”
What does that say, then, if socialists are constantly losing to liberals in this environment?
If we’re using success as a measure of intelligence or correctness, that would lead to some… very concerning conclusions that I would not buy into. But I’m also not the one connecting intelligence and electoral success.
Instead of blaming the leftists who may or may not have voted (which for what it’s worth, I have never met a leftist irl who abstained voting even in a ruby red state) why don’t you fucking blame the people who are actively driving the bus off the cliff?
Bruh, in the past few days alone, on this very comm, there have been numerous, highly upvoted memes and comments in which liberals are blamed for the current state of fascism in this country. I don’t think “Antifascist unity, but only for anti-electoralists ^.^” is all that compelling.
And for the record, I do fucking blame the people who are actively driving the bus off the cliff. And I have done so vocally and repeatedly. But for some reason, many online leftists prefer a circlejerk to examining whether advocating against electoral participation may have helped the literal fucking fascist get elected by a single goddamn percentage point.
Because this right here is why establishment dems AND republicans ain’t doing too hot. You look at Trump’s victories and never ask ‘why did all these people vote for this fucking asshole?’. Instead, you write everyone who voted Trump as a racist or a sexist or a NAZI and while they’re perfectly willing to associate with NAZIs, it’s important to fucking learn why the fuck they voted for that asshole. And yeah, some of them definitely voted for racism or sexism reasons, but you’re absolutely braindead if you think the fact that he ran on eliminating corruption (‘drain the swamp’) and ran on making things better for the working class (‘price of eggs’).
Jesus fucking Christ.
The fact that you fell for that shit - that people are just deeply ‘economically anxious’ or ‘anti-corruption’ goes to show how little you’ve spoken with conservative and swing voters in your lifetime.
Was he lying? Yup. Is he a corrupt fascist? 100%, but unlike literally everyone else in the 3 presidential campaigns he ran in (excluding bernie ofc) absolutely NOBODY was speaking to the working class or populist policies. It was ‘I’m with her’ or ‘Trump bad’ or ‘It’s my turn’.
Yeah, no one was running on a campaign of increasing the minimum wage, a national ban on price gouging, lowering the cost of living, increasing corporate taxes while reducing taxes on small businesses, legalizing marijuana, forgiving student loan debt, increasing child tax credits, and expanding public healthcare systems.
Imagine if someone did that? It’d be wild. They’d probably get incredible support, especially from leftists, and win in a landslide.
I mean, imagine if one of the major party candidates ran with that platform, and was still smeared as a neoliberal shill by self-proclaimed leftists who treated a Trump victory as a defeat for the dreaded shitlib menace? That would be absolutely ghoulish if people who claimed to be leftists were that dedicated to a Trump victory so they could continue to feel good and pure about being against The Man and The System. They’d have literal blood on their hands.
Good thing nothing of the sort happened, and certainly useful low-information idiots didn’t pass that around, engaging in a level of coprophagic propaganda that would embarrass anyone with a hint of basic decency.
You’re only playing into their hands, and yes I am talking about the billionaires that you’re sucking off rn.
“When you don’t think everyone is secretly a socialist at heart, you’re sucking off the billionaires!”
I’m so sorry for not spending all of my time circlejerking with other leftists. I have the deep and abiding misfortune of actually living in the USA.
Lmao. You might live in the USA but your posting history tells me exactly what I need to know about how much you actually talk to IRL people. Dude you moderate like 20 communities and spend your days posting on HERE. You don’t actually speak to irl people. And yes, as someone living in a ruby red state, volunteering with mutual aid groups and political action groups in a ruby red state, yes I HAVE actually spoken to conservatives lately, along with liberals, leftists, and people who have showered since this election. Get off the computer every minute of every day, actually go out and touch grass and DO something material in your life, because you look like a rage-bait bot with control issues who hasn’t spoken to another living human person before. Assuming, ofcourse, that you’re not just a shill account meant to spread propaganda.
Dude you moderate like 20 communities and spend your days posting on HERE.
Yeah, I take like an hour out of my day before work to make one whole post in each of the ~10 communities I mod. Clearly I’m out of control.
The urge to reply back to people who haven’t the first goddamn clue what they’re talking about is more damning and time-consuming, but I make room for it, out of miserable compulsion to not let idiocy go unchallenged in the comment sections I frequent, if nothing else.
yes I HAVE actually spoken to conservatives lately,
And you still believe that they’re just anti-corruption and economically anxious, like some Very Serious Liberal Writer ready to write his sixth consecutive election column about having pancakes with them good holsum country folk?
That’s disturbingly naive that you’d still fall for that. But considering what you’ve said in this comment thread, unsurprising.
NOBODY thinks bernie ‘actually won’
HA! Hahahaha! My dude, just sit here. They will be by. They usually ramp up around elections and the cause of Bernie not being in charge of all things is always DWS and the DNC. He actually won but they stole it by not letting people see how awesome he was. Yes, literally. Yes, a lot of them. Yes, every goddamned time.
unlike literally everyone else in the 3 presidential campaigns he ran in (excluding bernie ofc) absolutely NOBODY was speaking to the working class or populist policies.
Bullshit. 100% pure, uncut, arrogant “leftist” bullshit. No, I will not google it for you. PoliSci 101 is over, fascism is in place and it’s time to learn how difficult it is to get three progressives to agree on anything in actual, real-life, not-the-internet practice.
This fucked up “take” is the exact same since NADER and what have you got? A party? A name? A fucking t-shirt slogan ffs? No. Nothing.
Beyond worthless. Actively cancerous to actual progress. It’s painful because everyone goes through it and no one listens to the people with experience and the fascists vote in lock-step and we lose again.
Politics is stuck in a time loop.
Pug. Long time fan here but I’m curious if you’ve read “Shattered” yet? It is a well researched book about the inner machinations of the Hillary campaign and goes into depth as to what / how things went horribly wrong. I used to think like you, but the reality is it’s a bit of column A and a bit of column B.
Tl;dr: even if Bernie had polled well among mainstream voters, it would have taken mountains to move the whale that is Hillary. She had ties to every corner of the DNC. It’s not totally that she had to rig the primary, but it was a fools errand to run against someone as powerful and well connected as her.
I mean, my argument isn’t that Hillary didn’t have deep ties to the DNC, or that the DNC didn’t want a coronation in 2016, but that the bias of the DNC and the influence of Hillary’s campaign on the primary beyond that of a normal candidate was not significant enough to create the massive amount we lost by. If we’d lost by 1-2%, or even as high as 4-5%, maybe there’d be a stronger argument, but at 12%, without evidence of serious malfeasance beyond favoritism, it’s pretty clear that… Bernie was just not the more popular candidate. While frustrating, the core problem was not Hillary being well-connected - it’s the US still being an immensely right-wing country.
That Bernie polled even lower in 2020 against Biden, losing many of the areas he carried in 2016, also shows that a non-neglible proportion of the votes Bernie did get were from anti-Hillary votes, rather than pro-socialist sentiment.
Fair point. I do agree that the mainstream electorate skews skews further right than terminally ill online leftists. I just think running a robot over a populist against another populist was a severe miscalculation by the DNC, regardless of how well he polled. Hillary had the charisma of a wooden board and a lot of baggage. Polls are useful to getting a pulse of the people at a moment in time. Many polls showed Bernie outperforming Hillary against Trump. The context matters. But I hear you.
Run a candidate people want, run policies people want, and support that candidate and those policies instead of throwing everything you can against them because you like money
Their absolutely pathetic response to Mamdani’s victory in the primary was so flagrant, I’m not even sure how to react to the Democratic party going forward. Not only did they try to stack the deck in Cuomo’s favor, but then they threw a fucking tantrum when Cuomo still lost despite their efforts. They just don’t seem credible to me anymore.
I’m starting to wonder if there isn’t a concerted op going on to whip people into believing in an unending two party system forever.
Is that bold in a title?
Yes.
That’s cool, I didn’t know you could do that. Does all markdown work or only a subsection?
This is why I voted for Kamala, as it would’ve reduced harm for a little while…Long enough to figure out an effective counter. Right now, I am using my voice as best as possible to reduce further harm (with the Big Bad Bill coming into effect soon) I dread losing my insurance and wasting away because untreated it’s a guarantee. Given that I live in a mostly Red State, I could be one of the 17 million affected, or spared because I work part-time… If there are elections in the future, I will be voting with harm reduction in mind every time. Unless America becomes a doomed Fascist Nation which devours itself from within.
Stay strong, talk to your neighbours if feasible where you live, work together locally. Every major catastrophe in my area of the world, even ones which totally upended my country (Romania) for a generation, my family survived via community and friend groups.
In a collapsed or collapsing state, mutual aid is mandatory for survival.
survived via community and friend groups.
People often downplay associativity and are often encouraged to because power to the people scares the oligarchs. You’re easier to subdue if you’re alone.
Join your local community in any ways you can.As I am socially anxious; it’s rough to interact with others. However, I will stay strong and try to participate when possible. As, communities do survive if they actually work with one another despite their differences. We can survive Trump’s cursed presidency through working together. The rich fear that shit, this is why the policies Republicans are pushing are so disruptive for the working class. To reduce the odds of them being able to work communally to fight against oligarchs and their mouthpiece Republicans/MAGA sympathizers.
Best of luck. Whatever else happens, I hope you manage to make it through to the other side.
You just had 4 years of Biden “reducing harm”. How did that work out?
You just had 4 years of Biden “reducing harm”. How did that work out?
Has ‘harm reduction’ not been explained to you in simple enough terms yet, or are you just pretending to be incapable of digesting simple concepts?
This is just a troll, clearly wants to argue unnecessarily.
Look, I really appreciate the sentiment, but it’s time to acknowledge that those non-voters are not “misinformed future allies” any more than the MAGAs are. They are either accelerationists or fundamentally broken logically, and which form their indecision takes makes no difference -they are enemies of progress all the same, and to the extent there is ANY hope for the future, it relies on building a path AROUND them, not WITH them.
Yeah, it’s the height of cluelessness that Democrats act like anyone who isn’t a Trump supporter somehow owes their vote to the Democratic Party. If the only thing your party has to offer is Not Being Republicans then why should anyone owe them anything.
If the only thing your party has to offer is Not Being Republicans then why should anyone owe them anything.
Your moral purity in refusing to give the Dems an ‘unowed’ victory will be written on the tombstones of millions of people that the fascists are murdering. Thank you for your service in teaching those damn dirty Dems a lesson o7
You do realize this is exactly the kind of melodramatic over-the-top garbage that puts people off wanting to engage with politics in the first place, yeah?
“How dare you be such a jerk? Guess I have no choice but to make innocent people suffer over it. That’ll show you!”
Incredible, it’s like a constant stream of disingenuous mischaracterisation. You’re proving my point far more than you’re dispelling it.
I mean, I’m over it. Do what you feel like. It’s clear whatever the future is, this argument we’re having now? Has no part in it. Vote or don’t vote for whoever you want. Feel or don’t feel guilt. I don’t particularly care about the details of how you see it. The time when it might have mattered either way? Is over. Sure, maybe pre-election it was like trying to convince you not to kill the hostage - but the hostage is dead now. Not arguing that battle anymore. It’s irrelevant. You do whatever it is you like, but I’m never, ever, ever going to see the action in any other way, and at this point there’s absolutely ZERO point in discussing otherwise. It’s all academic. The trolley problem stops being a moral quandry when everyone is dead already. If you feel good? Great! You get my unironic and genuine thumbs up. Live your best life, my friend.
I’m not entirely following the thread here because it feels like I’m simultaneously being told that it’s already Game Over but also that only the Democrats can save us.
They’ve shown very clearly the last five years that they have neither the ability nor the interest to do that. If anyone’s going to save the country, it’s not going to be them.
You do realize this is exactly the kind of melodramatic over-the-top garbage that puts people off wanting to engage with politics in the first place, yeah?
Sorry, I understand my death and the deaths of millions of other people are too ‘melodramatic’ for the tastes of middle-class suburbanites for whom politics is a species of sport.
Yeah keep ranting and accusing people of mass murder for not voting for your guy, that’ll win us over
Yeah keep ranting and accusing people of mass murder for not voting for your guy, that’ll win us over
If only the Dem circus was more entertaining, then you could’ve been convinced to vote against the slaughter of disadvantaged groups by literal fascists. But it wasn’t entertaining enough, so the lives of marginalized groups was a price you were willing to pay to give the Dems a ‘thumbs-down’.
At least some of them need to be peeled off, however, considering the raw numbers. If there are no gains at all in votes for the anti-fascist candidate, that just means the fascists would continue winning, indefinitely.
… assuming, of course, elections matter going forward.
There’s a third, less pleasant option that you’re avoiding. I understand why - I don’t relish it. But the ballot box has failed. Even if it hasn’t COMPLETELY yet, we are not even 5 months into this term, and look where we are. Harping on getting non-voters to vote is the 2025 equivalent of the reactionary generals running cavalry charges across no-man’s land in WW1. It is fighting the last war. But that war is lost.
Not avoiding. The cartridge box may end up as necessary. But regardless of whether fascism ends like Franco (by luck), like Pinochet (by ballot), like Portugal (by mass resistance), or like Italy (by the bullet), the ballot is both a useful addition (insofar as it can reduce the legitimacy of the government) and a necessary tool for the postwar society. I don’t want to endure a fascist government now because people were too stupid to vote, so I can say that I definitely don’t want to get rid of these fascist fucks only for it to happen the same way again.
If we let the principle of “Not voting against fascism is okay if you feel really strongly about teaching the shitlibs a lesson!” endure, we will be seeing it make additional visits, along with the fascist ghouls it benefits.
Also, I noted in the title that I was speaking to an international audience, and not just… here, in the US.
Oh, I’m not saying it’s okay. I would never say it’s okay. I AM saying that they’re a stubborn distraction, and engaging with them is a waste of time. It took us a good long time for people to finally realize that the MAGAs and Republicans were unreachable, and by then, how many millions of collective man-hours were wasted? The stakes in 2024 could NOT have been clearer, and these non-voters STILL rejected the logic. We don’t have the time or energy to waste now pursuing THEM either. Now is the time to engage in asymmetric warfare of various kinds, including not only protests, but ensuring continued access to “subversive” information despite the tightening noose of control by setting up reliable hosting for it outside of the US government’s control, and otherwise generally trying to preserve what we can in the face of what’s going to become an ever worsening environment. We simply don’t have the time to waste on these people.
i mean i’ve had some ice cream, i contest the validity of the last position
Replace ice cream with cocaine and that’s more realistic
Only organic cocaine for me, thank you.
Yeah fuck that. We’re throwing the cliff people off the cliff. Y’all can keep playing these stupid games.
Yeah fuck that. We’re throwing the cliff people off the cliff.
Any minute now.
