Your leverage is voting in the primaries, but I’m betting you don’t do that. A protest vote is a vote for the winner in our system no matter how you feel about it.
What leverage?
“Give into my demands or I’ll shoot myself in the foot”?
Sorry, that should be “give into my demands or I’ll sacrifice the lives of the weak and vulnerable because their lives mean less to me than making a political point”
^^^^^^ the protest non voters are part of why so many Ukrainians are dying, why Israel has stronger and more deadly weapons, why climate change just got massively accelerated, why research funding and USAID got gutted (including life saving vaccines and children’s cancer research). some many of you will die but not me so that’s a price I’m willing to pay.
If you’re going to not vote out of protest maybe don’t do it in the most impactful election of our lifetime.
Every election always seems to be framed as “the most important of our lifetime”. There will never be a perfect time to change our habits and actually do something different.
Now with another one of these big bogus showdowns looming down on us, I can already pick up the stench of another bummer. I understand, along with a lot of other people, that the big thing this year is Beating Nixon. But that was also the big thing, as I recall, twelve years ago in 1960 – and as far as I can tell, we’ve gone from bad to worse to rotten since then, and the outlook is for more of the same. —Hunter S. Thompson, Fear and Loathing: On the Campaign Trail ’72 (1973)
So if we don’t attempt to change now, then when? How long do we continue to let perfect be the enemy of good?
So if we don’t attempt to change now, then when? How long do we continue to let perfect be the enemy of good?
When the opposition is not an actual lunatic. There has not been a more damaging president in any way, we can’t even know the death count of the gutting of research and USAID, and those impacts will be felt for decades. He showed Iran that they have control over most of the world’s economy, and now we’re strengthening one of our biggest adversaries in Russia. We’ve ruined relations with EVERY country. Not to say anyone would have predicted it would be THIS bad, but the warning signs were there in what he was promising to do. Protest vote Romney vs Obama, that would suck but at least not destroy the entire world like Trump.
I see so many comments leading up to every election talking about needing to flip the system, make big changes, and upset the status quo.
What do we actually see? You all do absolutely nothing, then crawl back into your holes after world democracy slides deeper into hell.
Some of us are out there protesting, and organising, and trying to fix what we can in our community. But we also recognise that we need to work and vote within the system we are trapped in until we can dismantle it.
Even where there is no prospect of achieving their election the workers must put up their own candidates to preserve their independence, to gauge their own strength and to bring their revolutionary position and party standpoint to public attention. They must not be led astray by the empty phrases of the democrats, who will maintain that the workers’ candidates will split the democratic party and offer the forces of reaction the chance of victory. All such talk means, in the final analysis, that the proletariat is to be swindled. The progress which the proletarian party will make by operating independently in this way is infinitely more important than the disadvantages resulting from the presence of a few reactionaries in the representative body. If the forces of democracy take decisive, terroristic action against the reaction from the very beginning, the reactionary influence in the election will already have been destroyed.
Surprise surprise you immediately go to outdated classroom rhetoric that completely disregards any context of realpolitik. Your solution is outdated classroom theory that has no practical application. Congratulations, you’re a republican, because your solution is literally just let republicans win but be smug about your integrity while me and mine get bussed to camps. Fuck you dude.
Nevermind that even, his solution is literally just protest vote and let the republicans take over. It’s literally surrender with no fight back whatsoever, just smugness at maintaining their principles or some horseshit.
“You can’t vote for who actually represents you! You have to vote for your oppressor because if you don’t they will make me suffer! So, throw yourself under the bus to protect my comfort because I refuse to have solidarity with those who are currently oppressed by the status quo.”
The establishment party you keep trying to force people to vote for are already sacrificing the weak and vulnerable to maintain the system of capitalist-imperialist oppression. The party is the one sacrificing them by refusing to meet the demands of the people they are supposed to be representing.
The only (legal) leverage over the ruling class the people have is their vote for who to put in power. If you prove to always give them power regardless of if they meet the obligations of their representative position then you have thus abandoned any leverage you had to incentivize them to change.
The system is a broken one that is set up to ensure that the ruling oligarchy can continually oppress the working class so long as they threaten the middle with a “greater evil”. And it will continue as is until people stop letting perfect be the enemy of good by waiting for the perfect time to change their habits and actually vote for someone who truly represents them instead of continuing to abdicate all their political autonomy into the hands of the lesser evil.
They’re not our representatives. They never were. They’re the representatives of the ruling class.
Each election there is a set of choices on the table, usually only bad ones. But one of them always included extra suffering for minorities. It’s your duty in good solidarity with the minorities to vote against that.
If you want better choices you need to fight for a new table. That gets done every other day that isn’t election day. 99% of your time spent on getting a new table, like the French. 1% of your time protecting the vulnerable through harm reduction.
Yet libs yell at anyone that dates to criticize or demand more action than just standing on roadsides on a single weekend every 8 months. It’s always “you can’t say that now!!! You’ll discourage people from supporting our party!!!” even when the next election is over a year away.
I don’t know what to tell you there. You’re saying that people who think we should change the system from within get mad when you try to change the system from outside of it?
It feels like you’re just describing being a leftist in a world of neo-fascists and neo-liberals.
I didn’t say voting wins the libs over… I said being a revolutionary leftist doesn’t free you from voting. If you want to improve material conditions you have to fight with every tool you have. Voting is quick and easy and improves material conditions for minorities Neo-fascists want to oppress.
Libs are not going to be on our side in this. They’re part of the oppressive system we want to dismantle. A part that’s just as hard to overcome as the fascists.
Besides, making progress on a revolutionary front also forces libs to make concessions which only improve the outcomes of voting.
Fuck fascists and fuck the libs. We don’t vote lib because they’re good, we do it because it’s an easy way to limit oppression against marginalised communities while we work on anticapitalist pursuits like community building, mutual aid, and other more assertive strategies as the opportunity arises.
Right, so weeks out from the midterms your suggestion is… to withhold your vote from one party to send some sort of scolding message, while letting the pedophile and his army of racist goons continue to round up minorities and threaten to deport elected officials they disagree with?
No one is asking you to throw yourself under the bus, just to realise that we are all, globally, under the bus already. Some people are just trying to get their head out from under the wheels for the slim hope of dragging their mangled bodies out of the way of the next car.
I don’t care if it hurts them or not. I’m not voting for a lesser evil or a greater one. I’ll vote my conscience, and if more of you did we’d live in a better world.
Fucking non-voters complaining why the democratic party doesn’t cater to their whims, never connecting that it’s because they don’t fuckin vote. But you don’t become a tankie through reason or logic.
I vote in every fucking election. I am a former paid Democratic campaign staffer. I also will not cosign on a genocide nor will I vote for any candidate offering less than full-throatednsupoort for trans rights.
I love being Schrodinger’s voter to ShitLibs like you though. Pick a lane: either my vote is worth enough that the DNC should have to earn it by stepping over a bar that’s on the fucking floor, or my vote isn’t needed and the DNC doesn’t have to cater to me. But if you’re telling me it’s my fault when the other capitalist shitweasels win, I’m gonna have to tell you it’s the fault.ofnthe party that doesn’t care enough about my vote to piss off their Wall St Paymasters to earn it.
You’re an accelerationist, a lying ass tankie. You get republicans elected, you’re responsible for everything they do. You have more blood on your hands because of your ignorant principles. You help them kill trans kids. Fuckin worthless single issue trashbag MAGAt ass mindset. You work for fascists. Like a cop but somehow more stupid and useless.
There are loads of people who think you can’t demand better from your elected officials. People were out protesting Mamdani for being a liberal zionist and I saw plenty of commenters saying how they must’ve been paid opposition because how could anyone be criticising Mamdani?
Nobody is saying you cannot demand better from your elected officials.
But if you sit at home you let fascists win.
It’s not a protest, it’s a surrender.
You can’t demand better when you give up the only leverage you have against them.
Your leverage is voting in the primaries, but I’m betting you don’t do that. A protest vote is a vote for the winner in our system no matter how you feel about it.
What leverage? “Give into my demands or I’ll shoot myself in the foot”?
Sorry, that should be “give into my demands or I’ll sacrifice the lives of the weak and vulnerable because their lives mean less to me than making a political point”
^^^^^^ the protest non voters are part of why so many Ukrainians are dying, why Israel has stronger and more deadly weapons, why climate change just got massively accelerated, why research funding and USAID got gutted (including life saving vaccines and children’s cancer research).
somemany of you will die but not me so that’s a price I’m willing to pay.If you’re going to not vote out of protest maybe don’t do it in the most impactful election of our lifetime.
Every election always seems to be framed as “the most important of our lifetime”. There will never be a perfect time to change our habits and actually do something different.
So if we don’t attempt to change now, then when? How long do we continue to let perfect be the enemy of good?
When the opposition is not an actual lunatic. There has not been a more damaging president in any way, we can’t even know the death count of the gutting of research and USAID, and those impacts will be felt for decades. He showed Iran that they have control over most of the world’s economy, and now we’re strengthening one of our biggest adversaries in Russia. We’ve ruined relations with EVERY country. Not to say anyone would have predicted it would be THIS bad, but the warning signs were there in what he was promising to do. Protest vote Romney vs Obama, that would suck but at least not destroy the entire world like Trump.
Cool, so what is the plan?
I see so many comments leading up to every election talking about needing to flip the system, make big changes, and upset the status quo. What do we actually see? You all do absolutely nothing, then crawl back into your holes after world democracy slides deeper into hell.
Some of us are out there protesting, and organising, and trying to fix what we can in our community. But we also recognise that we need to work and vote within the system we are trapped in until we can dismantle it.
This:
—Karl Marx “Address of the Central Committee to the Communist League.” London, England. March 1850.
Vote within the system, sure. But make sure you voting for those who represent you, not the lesser evil who keeps you trapped in the system.
Surprise surprise you immediately go to outdated classroom rhetoric that completely disregards any context of realpolitik. Your solution is outdated classroom theory that has no practical application. Congratulations, you’re a republican, because your solution is literally just let republicans win but be smug about your integrity while me and mine get bussed to camps. Fuck you dude.
People claiming to be communists are actually just contrarians. In a true communist system they would be hard-core libertarians.
hmm
Nevermind that even, his solution is literally just protest vote and let the republicans take over. It’s literally surrender with no fight back whatsoever, just smugness at maintaining their principles or some horseshit.
“You can’t vote for who actually represents you! You have to vote for your oppressor because if you don’t they will make me suffer! So, throw yourself under the bus to protect my comfort because I refuse to have solidarity with those who are currently oppressed by the status quo.”
The establishment party you keep trying to force people to vote for are already sacrificing the weak and vulnerable to maintain the system of capitalist-imperialist oppression. The party is the one sacrificing them by refusing to meet the demands of the people they are supposed to be representing.
The only (legal) leverage over the ruling class the people have is their vote for who to put in power. If you prove to always give them power regardless of if they meet the obligations of their representative position then you have thus abandoned any leverage you had to incentivize them to change.
The system is a broken one that is set up to ensure that the ruling oligarchy can continually oppress the working class so long as they threaten the middle with a “greater evil”. And it will continue as is until people stop letting perfect be the enemy of good by waiting for the perfect time to change their habits and actually vote for someone who truly represents them instead of continuing to abdicate all their political autonomy into the hands of the lesser evil.
They’re not our representatives. They never were. They’re the representatives of the ruling class.
Each election there is a set of choices on the table, usually only bad ones. But one of them always included extra suffering for minorities. It’s your duty in good solidarity with the minorities to vote against that.
If you want better choices you need to fight for a new table. That gets done every other day that isn’t election day. 99% of your time spent on getting a new table, like the French. 1% of your time protecting the vulnerable through harm reduction.
“Every other day besides election day”
Yet libs yell at anyone that dates to criticize or demand more action than just standing on roadsides on a single weekend every 8 months. It’s always “you can’t say that now!!! You’ll discourage people from supporting our party!!!” even when the next election is over a year away.
I don’t know what to tell you there. You’re saying that people who think we should change the system from within get mad when you try to change the system from outside of it?
It feels like you’re just describing being a leftist in a world of neo-fascists and neo-liberals.
I didn’t say voting wins the libs over… I said being a revolutionary leftist doesn’t free you from voting. If you want to improve material conditions you have to fight with every tool you have. Voting is quick and easy and improves material conditions for minorities Neo-fascists want to oppress.
Libs are not going to be on our side in this. They’re part of the oppressive system we want to dismantle. A part that’s just as hard to overcome as the fascists.
Besides, making progress on a revolutionary front also forces libs to make concessions which only improve the outcomes of voting.
Fuck fascists and fuck the libs. We don’t vote lib because they’re good, we do it because it’s an easy way to limit oppression against marginalised communities while we work on anticapitalist pursuits like community building, mutual aid, and other more assertive strategies as the opportunity arises.
Right, so weeks out from the midterms your suggestion is… to withhold your vote from one party to send some sort of scolding message, while letting the pedophile and his army of racist goons continue to round up minorities and threaten to deport elected officials they disagree with?
No one is asking you to throw yourself under the bus, just to realise that we are all, globally, under the bus already. Some people are just trying to get their head out from under the wheels for the slim hope of dragging their mangled bodies out of the way of the next car.
“I’ll vote for you, but you better change or I’ll vote for you again”
“I won’t vote, and make sure the side with the most repugnant people who vote for the most repugnant choice wins.”
So you can demand better. But actually taking any concrete action to hold a party accountable when they ignore your demands is beyond the pale.
Gotta love the “logic” of ShitLibs.
Yeah that’s not what they said (nor implied) though, is it?
You make the critical mistake in assuming that not voting for the Dems actually hurts them.
I’d say they’re also happy to be in perpetual “opposition”.
So really the only thing not voting is doing is saying that you want more dead children.
I don’t care if it hurts them or not. I’m not voting for a lesser evil or a greater one. I’ll vote my conscience, and if more of you did we’d live in a better world.
Fucking non-voters complaining why the democratic party doesn’t cater to their whims, never connecting that it’s because they don’t fuckin vote. But you don’t become a tankie through reason or logic.
I vote in every fucking election. I am a former paid Democratic campaign staffer. I also will not cosign on a genocide nor will I vote for any candidate offering less than full-throatednsupoort for trans rights.
I love being Schrodinger’s voter to ShitLibs like you though. Pick a lane: either my vote is worth enough that the DNC should have to earn it by stepping over a bar that’s on the fucking floor, or my vote isn’t needed and the DNC doesn’t have to cater to me. But if you’re telling me it’s my fault when the other capitalist shitweasels win, I’m gonna have to tell you it’s the fault.ofnthe party that doesn’t care enough about my vote to piss off their Wall St Paymasters to earn it.
You’re an accelerationist, a lying ass tankie. You get republicans elected, you’re responsible for everything they do. You have more blood on your hands because of your ignorant principles. You help them kill trans kids. Fuckin worthless single issue trashbag MAGAt ass mindset. You work for fascists. Like a cop but somehow more stupid and useless.
The Republican Party thanks you for your service.
They should be thanking Clinton and Obama for creating the material conditions that made Trump and fascism viable in US electoral politics.
“We can demand better! We are still going to abdicate power to you regardless of if you listen but we can still technically make the demands!”
There are loads of people who think you can’t demand better from your elected officials. People were out protesting Mamdani for being a liberal zionist and I saw plenty of commenters saying how they must’ve been paid opposition because how could anyone be criticising Mamdani?
I imagine they were talking specifically about the “liberal Zionist” thing, since it’s such an absurdly stupid claim to make about him.