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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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 all of them