Also Democrats: Ve shall round up und eradicate ze undesirables from society!!! Ve shall put zem into ze camps and ve shall enslave them to benefit ze superior class!!!
https://fxtwitter.com/lastreetcare/status/1806869510483476829
Also Democrats: Ve shall round up und eradicate ze undesirables from society!!! Ve shall put zem into ze camps and ve shall enslave them to benefit ze superior class!!!
https://fxtwitter.com/lastreetcare/status/1806869510483476829
Imagine still believing this
I did say a fighting chance. The thing is, that chance improves if politicians see their voters want it to change and will abandon them if it doesn't. That realization takes time and effort though, and isn't going to happen in a substantive way by November.
Persuade more voters to think like you, organize enough chances for your local representative (regardless of party) to see that change and things might start to change, otherwise you're just screaming into the void.
Imagine still believing this
It's the one saving grace of an electoral system. Politicians have to chase votes. If they don't, they don't get elected. Changing voters minds is the hard part, politicians follow along.
this is why the democrats non-stop browbeat and punch left instead of delivering on policy their constituents want
Where and when are enough people coming together to say they want something different? Bear in mind it'll have to be enough people to alter the balance of the next election, making themselves heard regularly.
The whole punching left thing is because they perceive that lots of voters don't want to go further left. If we want that to stop we need them to see that it's actually harming their chances of being elected. As I said, that's going to take a lot of people all saying it and making sure their representatives or hopefuls hear it, loud and clear.
So you agree, we need to threaten to withhold our vote for Biden, and follow through on the threat if he doesn't change course?
As I said before, that sort of change is going to take longer than the few months we have left before the election. Right now the choice is Biden or Trump for the next term. It sucks, but that is what it is. Don't forget the down-ticket elections too.
It'll do more good for you to stick your ballot up your ass. From a utilitarian perspective it will result in a higher net-gain of happiness.
Oww. Just think of the paper cuts! If that's your thing I'm certainly not going to kink shame, but it's not for me. ;)
Seriously though, yes I know that in a lot of places you're not going to achieve anything substantive by voting. What you do achieve though is keeping the numbers up. If the Dems get no votes in Republican leaning areas it doesn't tell them they're not left enough, it tells them they're not right enough as that's where the votes are. Does it make a big difference? Probably not, but it does make some difference, and that might be enough to start to swing things in future elections.
Oh no, the happiness wouldn't be yours, it would be mine, because you would be in pain.
You literally do not get it. It's literally confirmation bias for the Dems however you vote. If you give them votes they will think 'hey moving right is clearly working!' if you don't vote for them they think 'well dang we need to move more right!'. They've been doing this song and dance since the 60's, you cannot affect them by voting or participating in their electoral sham.
That's a fair point, which is why I keep saying that they actually need to hear people's voices. Enough people to affect the election need to be making a clear statement that they need to see things change in a particular way for parties to get their vote to make anything change. That needs to happen early enough to give the parties time to change their tune without scaring off the rest of their voters though, and I do not think there is time before November for the either party to reinvent themselves.
I can understand, and share, the anger at the Dems for how Biden's governed, though they currently control neither the legislative branch nor the judiciary. The question isn't whether they're good, it's whether the only other possible option is worse, and that sucks, but probably not as much as living through that other option.
So what's the window between presidential, state, and local elections, plus run-offs, school districts, sherriff, and all the others that 'is the time'?
And how many do you need to convince?
Half the voters for an entire party in a matter of weeks, every four years? Does this seem realistic to you?
And why would the party actually respond to those demands if you could organise the magic number of people in the exact right window of time?
I'm genuinely curious...
The presidential elections, along with the other positions elected then, are the highest stakes, so it's probably best not to try to upset them. That means starting in December and going for the next 3.5 years or so. This particular election seems more risky than most because of trump's position on may things, including his stated desire to be a dictator and his intention to fully support the worst things the dems have done and push them even further. Were it almost anyone else with the republican nomination I'd be less concerned.
What's the margin between the first and second place parties? You probably need to convince around that number of the leading parties voters. It's a straight numbers matter. Figure out how many are needed to swing the election, and that's how many you need to convince.
It's probably a lot less than that. As I said, it only needs to be enough to swing the election away from them. As to time frame, it needs to be all the time, not just for a few weeks. The party/candidate needs enough time to react to your demands and change it's position without scaring away the rest of it's voters.
They'd have to respond if they wanted to win the next election. Ultimately politicians need to keep wining to stay in their job. Imperil that and they have to listen or lose their job.
This is very silly. It's just another list of contradictions and wishful thinking without any demonstratable evidence.
Elsewhere you say that movements should be grassroots first. Elsewhere in the thread you then state that down-ticket races won't have much effect. Elsewhere still you argue that presidents taking executive action and pressuring them to do so is largely worthless because they don't control the other houses. All of these points seem strangely contradicatory, almost as if you're full of shit
But that will affect down-ballot races! School boards! Run-offs! Blah blah blah....
Also, if you think a presidential election cycle as defined by the parties is only six months long then you haven't been paying attention.
Dictators famously require being voted in and run on that ambition.
They also famously do that, succeed, and then insist four years later that in order to do it, they'll need a second term.
If you think Trump is a unique threat then you haven't read basically any American history whatsoever.
Nor do you understand how political power in the US works.
And if you believe he is a unique threat why don't you support any and all options to ensure he never again occupies the presidency?
Without threatening to withold votes, within an incredibly narrow electoral only parameter, in a tiny time frame where anything less than total guarunteed success means its not worth doing. This is what you've asserted here and throughout this thread.
Also, as I've asked multiple times elsewhere (funny how you don't respond to those) please provide some examples of the Democrats making an about face on policy within one election cycle, based purely on electoralism. Bonus points if you can provide some examples of that without even threatening to withhold votes.
Except during the build up to elections for that party, which, in America, is essentially all of the time. See below and keep in mind it doesn't include any kind of local elections for councillers, governers, state positions etc:
And if you don't achieve that magic number in that tiny window, then you have to vote for a party that will make it even harder to do next time and start again by your logic.
But you assert that if they refuse to change their position, you have to vote for them anyway. So there is no threat of them losing an election, because you advocating for voting for them no matter what, and having not using any leverage you might have. (This is another key point you never address whenever it's put to you) So why would they change their position? Do you see your circular logic yet?
They don't care about losing their job. They care about not going against the wants of donors who will provide them their next job. They'll become lobbyists, or sit on boards, or even just be given cushy party positions that aren't voted on in exchange for their loyalty to the donor class.
And the donor class and party sure as shit don't care about candidates losing their positions. They can just drop another one in, usually at less cost than the previous one since they're not established and have no leverage of their own.
In fact, the people who run the party machinary often stand to benefit from their candidates losing elections, as it increases donations which give them power, keep them employed, increase their salaries and comissions etc.
For your assertion to be true you'd have to believe that the only political apparatus is the candidate themselves, independent of the party structure or donors, and that each of them is a purely motivated being of pure civic duty with no other options or oppurtunities.
Again, you know that's not the case so your arguement is either disingenuous bullshit or you don't have literally any understand of the electoral process that you profess to be so confident in your opinions of how its the only option.
I mean no disrespect by this, but I'm going to pick only a few points from your reply, I believe you and I have hashed over the others already in many threads.
Each of those is in a specific context. Yes any meaningful movement is going to have to be grassroots first, without that it has do driving force to overcome entrenched interests. Down ticket races wont have as much of an effect if biden is president and, preferably, the dems end up controlling at least one house. If trump wins the presidency then I would want to see both houses controlled by the dems, and certainly at least one. So whether the down ticket races are critical, or have less effect rather depends on who gets the presidency. Assuming the worst and voting accordingly there would seem like prudent course of action.
As I said elsewhere, each of those is on it's own cycle. The major election of president, and the down ticket votes at that point are probably the most consequential, so deciding to demand changes in policy for them is probably best done early in the cycle, rather that in the last few months, to give he candidates time to incorporate that into their plans. I appreciate that many people probably are shouting about this, but it's clear that it's not loud enough, or coordinated enough to affect the candidates or other voters.
I know their positioning isn't defined that soon before the election, but if you want to see it change they need time to do so. We've seen that can be moderately swift (the unaffiliated protests for example got some small results in a shorter space of time) but changing messaging in the run up to the election is seen as damaging, so parties try not to do it.
I refer you to the rather well known case of a certain wannabe artist in Germany. He'd made it clear that he would act like a dictator and was voted in to an amount of power, from which he seized total control. The way I see it, if trump is willing to say he wants to be a dictator, it's one if the few things he's said that I should believe.
I am not aware of him saying he wanted to be a dictator before his first term, but could easily have missed that. Not winning a second term is what seems to have pushed him over the edge into saying that. The rest of his hateful rhetoric, yes that was going from before term one.
Short of violence, as far as I can see making sure he doesn't win this election will do that as he'll be far to gone to demenia by the next election to be a threat. Who'll take his place is a separate question, but there is time to deal with that before then. That's what's confusing me about so many people's responses here. The reality is that there are only two people who can be the next president, bad and worse. It's an atrocious choice to have to make, but it seems clear to me that one one course of action makes sense. I know that to others a different course makes sense. That's why I keep asking: given the electoral reality in front of us right now, what course of action would you, personally, have people take, and what what would you anticipate the outcome of that being?
I've tried to explain this is a previous post, but again, withholding votes makes sense, if, and only if, the candidate knows why and can respond to that without losing more of their other voters. If you've made your case to biden's campaign then I apologise for underestimating you. The same goes for the down ticket candidates, they can only respond if they know your position and it makes sense from a voter count to do so.
I don't think I've said anything about the democrats making an about face in one election cycle and certainly not without voters threatening to withhold their votes. I have tried to explain that I'm not saying people shouldn't threaten to withhold their votes, but should do so in a way that gets that information to the parties early enough that they can incorporate it into their plan. Ultimately, if a party thinks it can win an election if it can win over those voters and not lose more voters it already has, it has to do that to win. The uncommitted protest showed that a large enough group of voters making it clear their vote was contingent on certain changes can and will have an effect. It wasn't a huge effect on biden's Gaza policy, but it was noticeable. Critically it was done in a way that didn't risk letting a worse option take over the White House again.
I've addressed this multiple times. I'm not advocating voting for them no matter what. I am advocating voting for biden in this election because the alternative is worse and the odds are so close to 50/50 that the risk of trump getting in is too high. Down ticket I would be more comfortable seeing more dems get in, primarily as insurance against a trump presidency, but also because so many of the republicans are cleaving so hard to trump that they're the worst choice in their races too.
Ok, but by that logic there is no point withholding your vote at all, as it isn't an incentive, but seems to be what you're advocating. I agree that most politicians are going to walk out into a comfortable second job for the people who bankrolled them, but in order to do that they need to be of value to them first. In order to do that they need to stay in power for long enough to get some of what the donor wants done. That is why they do care about being re-elected at least a few times. Without that they don't get their fairytale ending. Withholding votes is therefore a useful tactic. I haven't argued against that at all, all I have stated is that as the election nears, unless you can honestly say you've made the candidates for each position, from president down, aware of your position and what they need to do to win your vote, withholding it isn't useful. In the case of the presidential election in particular I would say vote to minimise harm, in the other elections give thought to what your vote, or non-vote, will actually cause. If you're in a solidly non-swing State your individual action probably doesn't change anything but the margin one candidate wins by, so it might be reasonable to make a point. In a swing State it might be more of a case of aiming to minimise harm again. It sucks. All of it sucks, but that's the state of things right now.
This is just an endless repetition of the same tired arguements you've posted multiple times in this reply alone, never mind the myriad replies to me and others. So I'll try to strip this down to the simplest core points possible.
I don't care who you vote for. Vote whatever and move on. If you're concerned about the state of the world, pull the lever and then focus your attention on something more productive. Anything more productive.
We've gotten away from it with this distraction, but this original post is about the wholesale criminalisation and incarceration of unhoused people in order to use them for defacto slave labour.
You're spending all this time and energy and intellectual effort on gaming out elaborate electoral fantasies like; if only we could get the politicians to hear us, in the right way, at the right time, then they'd change. They won't. They don't 'hear you' not because of timing or messaging, but because their material interests are entirely in supporting policies like this.
You're spending all this effort building an elaborate and doomed philosophy and strategy out of magical thinking and then more trying to get others on board.
You'd be better off going and handing out toiletries to the homeless, doing mutual aid, literally anything else.
This thinking has locked us in a rightward spiral for the last half century.
I trust you know the definition of insanity.
To be clear, I agree with the sentiment of your post, but that doesn't change what is in front of us. Yes, it's lamentable, yes it shouldn't need to be like this, and yes, it didn't need to be like this, but it is. As I've asked several of your fellow posters, given the reality in front of us, what would you personally suggest people do, and what do you anticipate the results being, both electorally and socially?
Democrats need to lose this election. There has to be an electoral consequence for openly supporting an active genocide. No, this doesn't mean supporting Trump -- his genocidal rhetoric should get the lowest amount of support possible.
I'm probably going to vote for some non-genocidal presidential candidate with no chance at winning, then vote for Democratic congresspeople. If enough people do this the message will be "the votes are here, but not if you're going to do all the things you say we should be terrified of Trump doing anyway." Democrats holding at least one house of Congress will also (minimally) impede Republicans and prevent idiot lib pundits from writing "maybe everybody just wants fascism?" articles.
Hopefully this will open space for a significantly more left candidate in 2028, the way Hillary eating shit in 2016 opened space for Bernie to be the plurality favorite in 2020. Between that and libs finally taking the bad stuff Biden is doing seriously once Trump is in office, maybe we'll shift a few things in a slightly better direction.
And that's just the electoral piece. Beyond that, working on genuine harm reduction projects, trying to unionize your workplace, joining political organizations left of the Democratic Party, and trying to persuade people that Democrats are a dead end are all good things to do.
This isn't a complete plan for getting to bare minimum improvements on issues like climate change, healthcare, imperialism, etc. (and note how that standard is never applied to Democrats), but my thinking is it can open up avenues to those improvements that aren't currently available.
That's possibly a reasonable approach, although I think the Dems would need a solid majority in both houses for a trump presidency to be even moderately safe. I do like it as a way to open up space in future, but as I said, it relies on the Dems controlling both houses or the republicans will end up just getting around them in some dubious manner. I haven't been able to find a prediction or polls for the congress though, so I don't really know how that's looking like it'll stack up.
A Biden presidency isn't moderately safe. Internationally, we're supporting a genocide and a dozen other horrible things. Domestically, there has been no notable federal action on women's right and LGBT rights, less than nothing is being done to address our increasingly (under Biden) overfunded and overmilitarized police, Biden put down an imminent strike, we're going backwards on the environment, and a dozen other horrible things. Jesus Christ, Dems are talking about violating international law and denying asylum requests at the southern border, in addition to doing nothing about nutjobs like Greg Abbot trying to close the border unilaterally.
You have to let go of the idea that "oh we can't risk Republicans getting power," because Dems are doing so much of what Republicans said they'd do just a few years ago. Democrats are a speed bump at best; the ride is unsafe whether that speed bump is there or not.
I was more referring to the amount of damage an unchecked trump presidency could do. Biden is bad, but trumps been pretty clear he wants to be worse. As I said, I think your approach of not Biden for president and Dems for congress might be reasonable providing there are enough anti-trump numbers in both houses to prevent the worst that trump tries to do.
What do you mean the next few months? Hasn't Biden been president for almost four years?
Yes, but I haven't seen much in the way of wide spread and coordinated campaigns to put issues that matter in front of him and other Dems until fairly recently. That's the issue, without a group of voters, large enough to change the outcome of elections, making their voices heard early enough for the parties to change their platforms without scaring off the rest of their voters little will change.
The uncommitted campaign was in April.
People have been protesting, organising, and in some cases taking legal action for ten months now since October 7th.
There's been an international protest, legal, and lobbying effort for Palestinian rights since the late 1940s.
But who swear infinite loyalty that they never actually will refuse to vote for said party, no matter what.
How do you force a party to do something it's diametrically opposed to while insisting you and everyone will always support them and obliterating even the mildest possible leverage you have?
Yes, which is 'fairly recently'. The good news is it did have some effect, which rather illustrates what I'm saying. Enough voters speaking in one voice, in a way that doesn't cause the republicans to have more power, works.
They have, yes, and I take my hat off to them for spending that energy doing it, but there aren't enough of them. Until there are enough that their numbers make an electoral difference, all the protesting achieves is 'awareness' amongst the electorate. Given enough time and dedication that might be enough to swell the numbers to the point they have an effect, but until that point politicians are going to carry on. As I mentioned to someone else, the opinion polls I've found regarding American's view of the conflict suggest about the same number of people see it as genocide as those who don't, which is utterly horrifying, but explains why politicians are sticking to their path. When those numbers change, so will the political response.
You don't. You, as a large enough group, make that support contingent on conditions being met. The issue is that if your group is too small, it has no effect, but if it's bigger than that, is ignored, and withholds its votes, it hands victory to the opposing party, which is likely to be detrimental to that group, so the group needs to be large enough that it can't be ignored. Gathering that size of group, coordinating them and getting the message across is a large undertaking, but without it you've got little chance of having an effect.
Believe me, a website full of marxist are well aware of the power of numbers.
My point, again, is that you advocate that the only acceptable action is one that makes organising, growing those numbers, and using that power impossible.
Your arguement is bullshit, full of impossibilities, internal contradictions, and circular logic. And we both know fine well what you're doing here. But like an insomniac cat with a ball of string, it can be fun to bat it around for a while, especially if others might stumble in here and see how it unravels.
It's not so much the only acceptable action as the one that minimises the damage over the next term. It certainly doesn't make organising or growing numbers impossible, just difficult. As far as I can see though, the thing that makes it even more difficult is that no one is making a clear and compelling case for a different approach. So, as I've asked several of your fellow posters, given the current reality, what, in your personal opinion, should people do, and what do you expect the outcome of that to be?
Your original premise, that you've repeated, is that not doing this is unacceptable. You also never addressed why you draw the line there when I asked elsewhere.
Then why would one do something that you acknowledge makes the task much more difficult? And then add all the other myriad restrictions you've dictated (and haven't address when I've pointed them out)? Unless of course, you're full of shit and are doing piss-weak concern trolling.
Literally hundreds of millions, perhaps billions, of people throughout history have done this to great success, as I have pointed out elsewhere. Once again, you don't engage on those points. I wonder why.
People in this thread have articulated everything from broad marxist philosphies on developing proletarian power, to specific use of strikes, to even electoral strategies that fit within your deliberately impossibly narrow 'acceptable' electoral frame. You've ignored or handwaved all of them away.
If you don't engage in good faith, you don't get further effort and discussion. And you haven't, even when you've been offered it.
But if you really want to look deeper into the issue I'd suggest starting here.
As mentioned in another thread, I've been getting replies on about 25 threads, and I'm trying to reply to each in a reasonable way. I wasn't really expecting this level of response to what I thought was a relatively uncontroversial comment that the supreme court had been packed by trump. We've definitely covered a fair amount more since then, and I appreciate the time people have taken to do so. I've also noticed that you are one of the most prolific of those responders, so thank you, I know I am almost certainly trying your patience.
It seems to me that at each election, the sensible thing to do is act to minimise the resultant harm. Between elections is when the work of changing course needs to happen. Yes there are multiple cycles of elections at different levels, each can be treated as it's own task. I think that's what you're asking, but I'm not certain.
Because not doing so makes it even harder. The further right politics drifts the harder it will be to pull it left and the harder life will be for a great many people.
The only things I've be advocating are not doing anything that would increase the chance of trump winning and making sure that candidates in any election know why you would withhold your vote early enough that they can actually do something about it without losing more of the rest of their voters.
I think we're talking at cross-purposes here. Yes, many have advocated for different approaches throughout history, and in other countries, with some success. What I am referring to is the here-and-now. Over the last electoral cycles, where has the messaging been to actually inspire large enough groups of the electorate that there is a better way? The fact that large enough groups haven't been inspired to demand change means the messaging isn't getting out effectively.
They have, and I thank them for it. I have tried to respond as best I can, if I have missed points, or not articulated myself well that's on me, but I have certainly not handwaved away anyone. I do worry that the approach of "I'm not going to vote for biden because he is evil/hasn't earned my vote/isn't left enough/whatever" ignores the fact that the outcome of the presidential election is a simple either/or at this point. Assuming you are closer to biden's politics that trumps, not voting just tips the balance slightly towards trump. This doesn't penalize biden in any meaningful way, but it does penalize the people who trump wants to harm. He's made it clear he supports all the same genocide that biden does, but to an even greater degree, so that won't change for the better, and he's demonizing minorities, so they'll suffer even more. To me that seems like a simple choice, but it seems it's not to everyone. Further down ticket I feel like the dems remain the least bad choice, if only to limit trump should he get in.
One of the other posters suggested they would vote for a presidential candidate who couldn't win, and then dems doe the rest of the ticket, and whilst that certainly wasn't my first approach, I agreed that it could actually work. They made a good point that that could open up some space for more left wing candidates by showing the votes were there if they were earned. That approach sort of matches with what I was saying before that as long as the dems hold one or more of the houses it would limit the harm from a trump presidency. I don't like the concept, but I can see how it could have the desired outcome.
Har har. I was sort of expecting that. As I said, I'm doing my best to engage in good faith, but I think we might be coming at this from such different directions that neither of us are actually getting our meaning across effectively.
Good faith isn't just about being polite and sounding civil. It's about actually engaging with other ideas presented. I don't believe you've done that, as evidenced by simply restating the exact same point again and again - vote Biden because he's better than Trump - across a dozen replies to me and more to others, despite the fact that they've articulated why they either don't agree or reject that extremely narrow framework altogether.
You seem to be caught in a trap that everything is about a message that would be accepted if only it was articulated correctly; whether that's me 'understanding you' or politicians 'hearing us' despite having directly opposing material interests.
I understand your meaning. I just don't agree and reject it for the many reasons I've stated.
The rest I've addressed elsewhere.
So continuing in this circular arguement would be pointless at this point since you clearly have nothing new to add. Hence, PigPoopBalls.
I concur, and I have genuinely been trying to engage with the ideas people post. You're right that I have been focused on an extremely narrow framework, because that is what I see before us. I've been asking what people suggest doing in that framework because I'm trying to understand people's position and what actions they think would be appropriate at that scale. The wide points eloquently made by you and other posters involve seem extreme to me, and I accept you may see that as a failing on my part. That makes it hard to engage with them on more than a superficial level. I felt like the conversations continuously ended up with us talking at cross-purposes, which is why I kept trying to bring them back to the points I was trying to understand.
I still struggle to see how people don't see trump as a greater threat to their freedom (or whatever freedom they feel they have) than biden, but I'm not trying to change anyone's mind either, just to comprehend their point of view.
I thank you for actually continuing to discuss this with me, but I think I've tried your patience more than sufficiently, so I'm going to disengage from the various threads we have now.
you need to practice silence, do not speak from ignorance. "Where and when are enough people coming together to say they want" through polls and protests it's very clear what people want, and elementary to demonstrate a lack of democrats' fulfillment. democrat voters want abortion legalized federally, they wanted it fucking decades ago, what have the democrats done besides let roe die during their control?
You're rather illustrating my point. Abortion should absolutely be legal, and the majority do seem to want it (though I fear that might be eroded as the hard-right brain rot spreads), but not enough people were making a fuss about it loudly enough until it was too late. By that I mean there needed to be massive protests about it from the moment people started caring about it to the moment the relevant legislation was passed. Continuous vigilance is also needed to avoid that being later eroded. Unfortunately none of that happened in sufficient numbers.
The difficulty is, of course, that most people don't care about this sort of thing until it affects them directly, and those who do care get exhausted trying to make it happen without the numbers needed.
Given the current reality though, what would you, personally suggest people should do, and what do you anticipate the result would be?
Well we've tried expressing our disapproval of the genocide on Palestine but the entire country basically called the cops on us. Apparently we have yet to reach a critical mass of people who are against mass murder and ethnic cleaning because the Democrats have made it clear they want a strong Israel, much like how they want there to be a strong Republican party.
This is the rather bleak and depressing crux of the matter. Nothing substantial will change until that, or at the very least, that appearance of that indifference changes.
And we should do this by strengthing the very power structures that destroy the movement, control the narrative against it, and continue to vote for those doing both those and the genocide at the same time? Does that sound like a winning strategy to you?
Ideally not strengthening the power structures (that would be what giving the republicans power would do), but not deliberately giving power to the more tyrannical and despotic presidential candidate and his party would seem like a sane approach. Given the reality we face, that either Biden or trump will be the next president and that each legislative houses will be controlled either by the Dems or republicans, what would you personally suggest people do, and what do you think the short and long term outcomes of that approach would be?
Nope. Both parties are the same power structure. Try again.
Organise in opposition, using any and all methods to produce results including but not limited to; protest, strike action, lawfare, self-governance, direct action, sabotage, and armed resistance.
The outcomes will be what they have always been, some losses and some victories, but history has proven these tactics and struggles to have produced great leaps forward and historic gains that have been very difficult to roll back. Including almost all of successes for the global working class, minority populations, and social progress for hundreds of years.
This is historical fact.
Now please provide some examples of historic postive change brought about purely by electoralism. And you can have extra points if you can name some brought about purely by electoralism that did not include either withholding or threatening to withold votes, since that's the hill you've decided to die on.
Sure, but one side is currently on a zealous charge trying to extend it far harder than the other.
Would be a fine idea if the party who would have power in the interim were not basically religious zealots hell bent on destroying everything that previous movements have built up. By the time the Dems had reorganised and rebuilt there would be little left for them to govern.
These are all good methods for getting noticed, yes. The question is, do you want to get your way because you made more noise than the other side, or because enough people believe in the same thing as you? The former is precarious, as it can be rolled back in the same way. the latter is more enduring. Maybe you can do the first and then back it up with the second, I'm not sure. Protests of various sorts can be useful to gain recognition and get people to think about your cause, but only up to the point you inconvenience them too much. After that you start to see opinions hardening against the cause.
I think I've been unclear somewhere, as withholding votes is what I've been saying everywhere, but do it in a coordinated and widespread way, not ad-hoc as people seem to be suggesting here. A small number of votes withheld without a clear explanation to the candidates as to why, and enough time for them to incorporate that into their strategy, says nothing to them and risks handing power to a worse and less controllable option. Get enough people together that their votes are actually consequential and have everyone contact the candidates explaining what they need to do to win their votes, then you'll have a reliable effect.
They're the same side. You could do with improving your reading comprehension.
Handwaving bullshit excuses. Not the time. Most important election of our lifetimes. Unique threat. Blah blah blah Already addressed elsewhere.
No one here is advocating for reforming the Democrats. Again, zero reading comprehension, zero understanding.
Ahistorical nonesense. Change has almost never been made by electoral majority but by the threat of the alternative being less palatable to the ruling class / party than changing their position. As stated elsewhere there are countless examples throughout history both recent and ancient. Go and read something, anything really. You haven't provided a single example of success for your proposed method dispite me asking numerous times for some. Because you're full of shit.
No, your original premise was that you cannot withhold your vote for Biden because Trump would be worse. You've moved the goalposts when people have taken apart that circular logic. Now you say you can withhold your vote, but only if you're guarunteed a certain victory within a set of arbitrary paramaters set by you that make it impossible, while hand-waving away or outright opposing and even supportive non-electoral strategy - just like you did with the point above. Almost as if you're totally full of shit.
The vast majority here think electoralism is worthless and have made this point to you. You've then proposed and even more limited and worthless version of it. Plus showing almost total ignorance of the very basics of how it even works.
And then you copy and paste, repeat, copy and paste, repeat... we're done here, I'm bored now.
First of all, almost every single poll in history, across most of the planet, has had a majority favouring at least some policy that the bourgeois parties can not and will not accept.
Honest question... how do you possibly rationalise this circular logic to yourself that you absolutely have to vote for a particular party no matter what, whilst also saying that political parties have to chase votes and you can make them change their policies by 'showing them' you want something different (but not withdrawing you vote)? You do realise how totally contradictory and incompatible those two things are right?
The president is a bit of a special case, in that there's one of them, and of the two candidates one has said he wants to be a dictator, whilst also enthusiastically supporting all the worst positions the Dems have taken and wanting to make them more extreme. So, judged between those two one is clearly a less bad option. I'm certainly not saying either is a good option, but that's the current situation, and anything that increases the risk of trump getting in, especially with a republican majority in one or both houses, is surely a bad idea.
Down-ticket, individuals withholding their votes will have minimal effect teaching them anything. It has to be a large enough groundswell that it can't be ignored as it'll effect the outcome. Changes start with the electorate, not with politicians. Get enough people of one mind and then things will change. That is neither easy nor quick to do though, and I don't see it happening before November.
Nope. You've retreated into you endless loop of electoral hypothetical again, where only two things are ever possible and you have to do one of them anyway. Without addressing the contradication at the core of it, which is why I asked you how you rationalised it.
No it's not. There's more than two presidential candidates. And all elected positions are filled only by one eventual winner from the crop of candidates, just like literally every election. For someone preaching that the only possibility is electoralism in the narrowest term, you don't seem very knowledgable on, you know, actual elections, including the specific ones you're referencing.
And you can (and in some cases do) argue that anything short of voting for, capmapigning for, donating to, and never ever showing any disatisfaction with the Democrats qualifies as this. Why stop at withholding your vote? Or campaigning for change 'at the wrong time'? Have you been door knocking and phone banking for Biden? If not, why not? If you have, why aren't you doing it now, and in every spare moment, or quitting your job to do it full time? Have you donated every cent you own to the Democratic party? What about selling any property or other assets you have? Aren't you part of the problem?
(And that's just within your myopic electoral view, never mind non-electoral strategies from the common to the extreme)
Maybe I should have been clearer. There are only two candidates with any realistic prospect of winning the election, and only one position to fill. There are many representatives and senators, so their individual contribution to the whole is less. The president is the head of the executive and isn't diluted in the same way.
You're reading things I haven't said, so I can't really answer that.
Imagine still believing this
Lol no they don't. Rhetoric chases people's votes, the material outcomes are predetermined by the systems of capital ownership, because the solicitation of donations is still the largest determinate of election outcome (outside of incumbency). Regardless if you win or lose, you have to enact policies that benefit your donors, or potential future donors, and given that we are living in the largest historical wealth gap, the material interests of politicians is to rhetorically chase the populace, but actually enact policies that only benefit the wealthy.
As you have so aptly demonstrated, the absolutely piss-poor political education that people in the U.S. receive insures that we will continue to be taken on the ride again and again.
Also, we don't need to use any thought to reply to you, when you demonstrate so little insight.
Those 'donations' are then used to influence voters to vote for the candidate. Votes are the single largest determinate of the outcome of an election because that's what's counted. Voters opinions are swayed in a lot of different ways, but I doubt, for instance, a far-right thug, no matter how well funded, could earn your vote. If enough voters to affect the outcome of the election have firm enough convictions that a certain thing is wrong and will not vote for a candidate that supports it, then the candidates in that election will not support it. The difficult part is getting enough people to actually make their position known in a way that can't be overlooked.
Again, rhetoric is cheap. But access to spread rhetoric from the media requires money, Money requires you to do things that people with money like, which is at odds with your rhetoric. Rinse and fucking repeat. This isn't hard.
Correct, I will never vote for a far right 'thug' which is why I won't vote for Joe Biden.
You are right, money is required to spread rhetoric in the media, but the dominance of traditional large scale media seems to be waning somewhat as people consume more and more online the avenues to do so multiply, and the cost drops. Considering some of the weird advertising I see around the 'net the cost can't be all that high now, which hopefully opens up space in people's focus of attention to receive more diverse messages. This is what I mean by saying voters opinions are swayed in a lot of different ways. Voters, in general, may not entirely agree with you, but present a compelling enough case as to why one side is worth voting for, or the other side isn't, you do see a swing in voting. Populists exploit this very effectively because it's what they're good at. The rest of the political spectrum needs to wake up to it and make their case in ways that actually resonate with voters.
Motherfucker, it is hard enough to work and go to school. I don't have to build a fucking governing vision for people, as if Republicans or Democrats actually do that. All I ever ask for these days is some basic fucking stuff, like idk, stop giving weapons to aparthied governments to kill brown people? And you think you can combat the totalitarian privatized neoliberal system of government through votes?
The net cost of running electoral campaigns at a national or even state level is absolutely staggering, costing hundreds of millions of dollars, even for online advertising space. For me 25000 dollars would be a game changer, hell even a thousand dollars would improve my life significantly, millions is out of the question. And this is besides the point that organic online viral campaigns do not have a real statistical affect on American electoral politics, because all the places that used to cater towards that have been astroturfed all to hell. Reddit is basically bot-farmed for foreign affairs. The biggest online organic movement is literally Palestine, and the government reaction has been to BAN TIKTOK. You are acting like it's a level playing field. It is not. We are at a large, intentional, systemic disadvantage, and we don't even have the money to get the ball rolling in the right direction. Mostly we just piss people off who can only hear rhetoric, which, while funny, doesn't actually do anything.
There are no 'populists' you utterly contemptible moron. There are liars for capital and that is it. Stop lecturing me on things you don't even have a basic grasp on.
OK, ignoring the ire in you post:
As we saw with the uncommitted protests, change can happen with enough pressure. It wasn't much, but it was a noticeable change in tone. Now imagine that amount of targeted pressure had been, or is, kept up for an extended period of time. Changes would absolutely happen.
The thing is, they do present that vision, even if all that amounts to is "more of the same, with some differences that may or may not matter to you". Without a compelling alternative vision voters aren't going to turn away from that, because it's the only message they're getting. I didn't mean you personally when I talked about presenting such a case, but a cohesive enough group has to form to do so in order to give people that alternative. I'm not talking about running an electoral campaign, that is clearly out of reach, but finding ways of getting that vision out in other ways. As you say,places like reddit are bot-farmed, or they're astroturfed, but still huge numbers of people go there and are exposed to the messaging published on those platforms. Again, none of this is about you doing it personally, but about getting people together to do it collectively.
The more people who get to hear the message and align with it, the easier it is to collect that money, making it easier to get the message out further. As I said, it's not about an election campaign, it's about getting enough people to decide they will demand a specific change.
Correct. It's probably good stress relief, but it's not achieving much in the way of getting more people to come together.
I'm not going to argue with you there, I was just using the more common word for it.
they literally don't when all they have to say is "we are better than the other guys" and you morons lap it up and go "next election we will really pressure them for sure"
If there aren't enough people making a noise about what's happening, why would they change? Getting that critical mass is the hard part. Ultimately this system claims to be democratic, so outcomes only changes under sufficient electoral presure.
spoiler: it's not democratic and never has been
I did say 'claims'. The point is that unless a significant proportion of the electorate are demanding a specific change it's less likely to be made. If enough people demand it in exchange for votes a politician can't ignore the issue without losing their next election and being replaced.
So your arguement is that to change an undemocratic system you must only work within the boundries of the facade of that system (electorialism), whilst also not doing that (you must still vote for the party).
I'm not saying you must vote for the party, we were originially just talking about the presidential election. However, individuals choosing not to vote for the party does tend to give the benefit to the opponent, which may not be a good choice in the current political climate. To be effective it has to be a large enough movement, making it's requirements known clearly, for there to be a measurable effect. Without that there is no impetus for the system to change. Get enough people demanding better than FPTP voting and you'll find a candidate that supports it. Find enough candidates across the nation who support it and it can be made to happen. Fix that and other changes become easier to achieve.
Yes, you are. And the elected president is the head of the party. Again, for someone so hung up on it, you don't actually seem to know anything about how elections or electoral politics work.
Here you are saying it again, as you have dozens of times throughout this thread, as you well know.
Plenty of movements throughout history have done this. Polling data shows this. It has no effect without the threat of combined removal of votes and (at least the implicit threat of) violent opposition.
You assert this repeatedly but never offer what those requirements are or how to achieve them. Only methods that directly limit the ability to do that. So please quantify your assertion and your strategy.
But I can't vote for those candidates because I have to vote for the supposedly 'lesser evil' of the two parties that oppose it, right? That's your original premise here.
Also, FPTP has been used in the UK since the middle ages despite the fact that it's always faced opposition from voters. So what's your timeline for this reform via narrow electoralism?
The elected president is typically the head of one of the parties, yes, although I haven't seen anything saying they must be (please let me know if there is a rule about that). However, they are separate to the party, being the executive rather than legislative branch. The way I see it, this year's election is uniquely evil, in that on the one hand you have Biden and on the other hand you have trump, who has stated his desire to be a dictator, and who wants to take all the worst positions the current administration have taken and make them even more extreme, whilst also stripping even more rights. Neither option is good, one is worse. Given that one of the two will be the next president of the United States of America, I would advocate for the less extreme one.
Yes, that's what I am saying. Apologies if I wasn't clear this time. Without that, no matter how big a movement is it'll be ineffective. However unless it is large enough the removal of votes will either achieve nothing or be counter productive by letting a worse option in.
As I mentioned to someone else, look at the margin between the first and second place parties, and you probably need a movement of that order of magnitude to be able to swing the election. Then you need all of those people making contact with their representative or potential representative and laying out exactly what is needed to get their vote. It's not complicated, just tough to get enough people to agree with you.
As I said, initially we were talking about the presidential election, where I would say that ensuring trump doesn't get in is vital. Swinging one or both houses to the Dems would also derisk trump being president. If you support an issue, say voting systems, you need enough people with you to ensure you are heard. Deciding to withhold your vote at a late stage, without explaining to the candidates exactly why will achieve nothing.
You literally have no fucking idea what you're talking about. The president, senators, congresspeople, and all the way down are all the party dipshit. Go and learn the absolute basics. No investigation, no right to speak.
I know how you see it, because you're copy and pasting the same ignorant vibes-based nonesense I've already addressed elsewhere but you couldn't reply to or defend. Next.
No, it's not, because you advocate against even threatening to withhold voting for a candidate. That is the original premise of your entire arguement you came here to make.
(Also, don't think I didn't notice you cut the rest of my quote to make it only about electoralism again and not other pressures)
Anything but assured victory is unacceptable and should not be risked. Also you must limit yourself to only a very narrow set of activities, during a tiny time window, that make that kind of organising impossible, while strengthing your opponent. This is definitely a good faith arguement.
You're repeating your contradictory circular logic again here because you can't engage with me addressing this point elsewhere. Are you not bored yet?
Straw man bullshit because you can't and won't address the actual points people, including me have made elsewhere in the thread. No one is advocating for this. You're arguing against a position that you made up because your orginal premise is, was, and has been shown to be bullshit concern trolling throughout this thread.
They're of the same party, yes, but doing a different part of the job of governance. I was trying to draw a distinction between the vote for president, and the votes for senators congress people and all the rest. My point was that there is a single president and so getting the least terrible is better than getting the more terrible. This does assume we agree on least and most terrible, but see below on that. The rest of the votes it makes more sense to do as you're saying, although I'd be worried about ending up with trump as president and both houses being controlled by the republicans. Having at least one of those three democrat controlled would reduce the harm a somewhat, and having more dem controlled would reduce it further. Not eliminate it, but make the situation worse more slowly.
There are only six realistically possible outcomes from the next election; trump or biden as president and either two dem houses, one of each, or two republican houses. Absolutely none of those are a good option, but one will happen, so it seems sensible to try to push towards the least harm.
Ok, are you saying that you see absolutely no difference in outcome between trump and biden being president? None at all? Because I know too many people who'll be actively harmed by trump being president who would not suffer that level of hard under biden to be willing to say that myself.
I was advocating primarily for avoiding trump being the next president, and suggesting that given the electoral reality as it stands, not deliberately acting to increase the chance of republicans being elected elsewhere. Withholding you vote is a sensible tactic, so long as the candidates in question know exactly why you are withholding it, and can adjust to that without losing more of their other voters. The trouble here is that for a lot of policies they all agree, so you withhold your vote from everyone. Fair enough, but there are also issues they disagree on, and now you need to consider those too.
Sorry, I'm not deliberately dropping bits, but people are replying to me on about 25 different threads, ranging from the rather curt 'fuck off' through the somewhat intemperate, to quite thoughtful discussions suggesting approaches that might meaningfully reduce the harm in this cycle whilst also hopefully leading to longer term change, so it's a little hard to keep up, especially when life is also occurring. I thought that bit got to the heart of what you were saying, as the previous bit (Plenty of movements throughout history have done this. Polling data shows this.) seemed to be agreeing with me. The call to, or implicit threat of violence, is, I feel, less necessary until all other options are exhausted.
I'm not saying it is unacceptable or should not be risked, I'm just pointing out that the outcome is likely to be neutral or (more) detrimental unless there is a large enough number to make it a more sure proposition. Sometimes that (more) detrimental outcome is worth risking, perhaps you see that it is in this election, but as I said above, I see trumps stated desires as harmful enough that they should be avoided. The rest of the ticket is sort of insurance against the presidential vote going to him, and so certainly easier to decide to withhold.
I may very well have misunderstood various peoples position then, as I haven't seen anyone say they're actually engaging with their candidates, only that they want to withhold their votes. If that engagement is implied I do apologise for misunderstanding everyone.
This whole repetitive arguement isn't going anywhere and I don't believe it's worth going through every point again when we're repeating ourselves.
You keep restating your position - vote for Biden because it's better than Trump - as though I don't understand it. I do. As I've said many times, I think your focus and insistence on this point and only this point is myopic to the point of being worthless.
I have no idea what you're trying achieve here. You don't seem interested in engaging with ideas beyond your very narrow view. Does your ego just need someone here to tell you that you're right and they'll pull the lever for Biden? Are you so conflicted about the shakiness of your rational for doing so that you require some sort of validation? If you're trolling then you're not very good at it since you appear more just confused and a little sad than anger inducing. Perhaps you're looking for some kind of gotcha to post elsewhere for likes? I honestly have no idea.
No they fucking don't? You already admited that they will let the republicans do what ever they want and not fight back. Why the hell would they chase votes if you already "have" to vote for them "because there no other choice." What are you going to do? Vote for the republicans? You have no leverage and they own you.
The time to be making them start chasing is at the beginning of their term, not at the end, and there need to be enough people doing it to make a difference to the outcome for it to matter. A few people trying to change the direction of the main political parties is like someone in a kayak trying to redirect an oil tanker. First you need to change the captain's mind, or in this case the electorate's mind. Then you have the numbers to make it infeasible for politicians to ignore you.