At least Biden still feel the need to pander to the LGBT community and other minorities, which means he can still be made to compromise on certain issues. With Trump it’s straight up fascism.
Just on this reasoning alone, Biden’s got my vote, considering that Trump will still do the genocide anyway, if not worse.
I don’t understand why Hexbears think that voting for Biden means supporting his policies. It is entirely possible to strategically vote to protect the lives of minorities from being endangered. If we can buy 4 more years of time to organize while protecting minority lives, then that’s a bargain I am willing to make, no matter how repulsive Biden’s genocide is to me. I don’t understand the willingness to gamble with accelerationism.
The American electoral system is designed to punish those who do not toe the line, so we’re only going to get punished if we do not at least pretend to “play by the rules”. There is nothing you can do to change that except for a revolution, and until we have the strength and numbers to do so, we have to play by the rules. If Trump wins, then any socialist project is dead in the water.
(Note: I am not American so I can’t actually vote, but you get the point.)
“If you don’t want bad genocide you have to vote for good genocide”
That’s so fucking dumb.
“You have to vote for the Dems because the GOP are worse” is the fucking blind and morally bankrupt approach to electoralism that people like you have been pushing for decades now, and look where it got us.
Knock it off. Get smarter. Do not, under any circumstances at all, endorse genocide. Why does that need to be said??? What the fuck.
Go ahead and call your rep and ask them to stop sending bombs to Israel then.
Have you done that? Did you remember to say please?
Or did your actual plan stop at “vote for the guy committing genocide”?
It’s fucking moronic that you think writing them a blank check, a blank check for fucking genocide even you moral vacuum, you think writing them a blank check gives you influence? Think it through. Like, just use your brain. You have zero influence over them at all if you will support them even for genocide. It’s so fucking stupid and morally bankrupt.
You’re giving them a fucking endorsement and you’re calling it influence. How is the impotency of that not obvious to you?
If voting for Biden is the only acceptable way to register your disapproval of his actually existing genocide, and you believe Trump will do a somehow worse hypothetical genocide, than it stands to reason that voting for Trump should be the only acceptable way to register your disapproval of the "worse" genocide. After all, why should Trump listen to people that will never vote for him?
This is what I've been saying to libs recently. I'm just going to vote for Trump (not actually. I just want to shut up liberals). They don't have a response to that at all, they think it's unthinkable and there's no arguing with it. It's only when you're an uncommitted leftist is when you owe them votes. Yet under their same metrics, I can easily claim a vote for Trump is strategic to prevent genocide, because maybe then the Democrats would understand my disapproval and change their tune on Palestine (I don't believe this and also don't believe presidential elections in the US matter, I'm just fucking sick of smug liberals telling me I must, no matter what, throw in a vote for 150 year old who's slaughtering Palestinians just because he's a Democrat)
Hey any libs reading this. Go argue with conservatives about voting for Biden. They outnumber us like 100:1 and are way closer to Biden politically than we are.
I am not going to vote for Trump; I wouldn’t even think about voting for Trump. But objectively, a Biden loss could really put some wind in the sails of the American left and, of course more importantly, get politicians to think twice before engaging in such unbridled imperialism like we see in Gaza right now.
Meanwhile, a Biden win will pretty much erase any meager gains we’ve made in recent years, and the Democrats will take away the lesson that the left, young people, queer people, and even POC to a certain extent can all be ignored. Tell enough reactionary suburban white folks “GOP bad” and that’s all you need to win.
I don't like cleaning up shit, but sometimes you just hold your nose and do it.
Wtf does this gibberish even mean, this is about genocide you dumb fuck, you're literally just a fascist, don't come in here and start babbling about "holding your nose" you filthy wretch
I’m not going to gamble with Trump’s fascistic Plan 2025.
fascism is already here in effect if not appearance. the president wants to pass an extremely draconian immigration bill and is simultaneously backing the wholesale slaughter of Palestinians. you need to understand that for all intents and purposes Biden is as bad as Trump, even on minority rights. the lip service from Democrats about book bans and abortion restrictions is worthless because they refuse to step outside the bounds of liberal norms to actually defend oppressed people.
And you think Biden's foreign policy hasn't been a much bigger catastrophe for the world than Trump's was? How can you post so good on economics and MMT and China and then post this kind of liberal dredge?
One, Trump is a complete wildcard, you can never predict what he’s going to do, for better or for worse. Biden has been consistent with his hostile foreign policy. As Putin has said, we’d rather deal with someone predictable than someone who is not.
Two, it is undeniable that Biden’s domestic policy with regards to LGBT minorities is far better than Trump, not because he is a progressive or anything, but at the moment he still sees the need to pander to them for votes, so he is delaying the atrocities for his own perceived advantage. If the progressive left abandons the Democratic Party, then this will only accelerate the Democratic Party into going mask off and at that point, we’d lose the support of the only major political party in the US that still gives a shit about this, at least on paper.
Also, as I have said, I don’t think anyone should gamble with Trump’s fascistic Plan 2025.
Three, I don’t believe in electoralism, in that the voting base has no say in meaningfully changing the platform of either party. Not voting for the Democrats is not going to change their genocidal policies that they have already committed to. Any voting as such is purely strategic in service of a future revolutionary movement, to placate the ruling class into delaying their atrocities against us (i.e. policies that they still have yet to change their tune on, such as LGBT issues etc.), while we use the time we bargained for to build up our strengths.
Trump is incredibly fucking stupid, in addition to being a wildcard. Not only can we never predict what he's going to do, the ruling class can't predict what he's going to do. Worse (for them) is that he'll just do stuff even if it's counterproductive or harms US interests.
Biden's domestic policy is basically "let the red states do whatever they want to queer people because it's good for elections" which really isn't that much better than Trump. The state-level anti-trans legislation that has passed during Biden's term is going to lead to more deaths. He owns that because he doesn't care about us.
If you're telling me the only reason Democrats aren't actively joining a bipartisan genocide of queer people is because they believe they need to pander to the progressive left, something I agree with, then that's literally a hostage situation. "Vote for us or we'll fucking kill you."
I'm a trans woman and I can only speak for myself as just one individual, but I am not going to vote for someone else's genocide to maybe (not even certainly, maybe) protect myself. I already voted for this once. It's my fault. If I had any bravery I'd find a way to throw by body into the gears of the machine to slow it down, not cowardly protect myself by throwing other people in my place.
Israel is doing this genocide waving a rainbow flag. They butcher children in my name. They wear my fucking colors and pretend like they're progressive and pro-queer while they pound Gaza with 2000 pound bombs.
I already voted for this once and I want to die. Have you been listening to the news? Not the bullshit from CNN/MSNBC/NPR but the real news from DemocracyNow and Al Jazeera- even TikTok is a better source than the center-left horseshit these days. Have you been listening? The horror stories I keep hearing are making it hard to keep going. I voted for this. I'd rather die than vote for this again.
Bushnell has had more influence on American politics than every vote either us have ever cast in our entire lives.
I don’t disagree with you to be honest, and since you are an American (I believe so) and I’m not, the decision is really yours.
I’m just saying that in a hostage situation like you described, when one kidnapper wants to murder you, and the other thinks you still have some value to them, it is not unreasonable to try to placate them to buy yourself more time while you work out an escape plan/seeking for help.
I agree that both are atrocious and genocidal, but given that left wing movements are so fragmented and weak in the US, you have to think strategically, not just for the moment, but for how you’re going to build strength over a longer term. That’s all I’m saying.
That’s interesting, and understandable, although coming from a Chinese/East Asian culture I certainly have more of an emphasis on “playing the long game” mentality. Not seeking direct confrontation, but being smart about it and playing with cards we’re dealt with etc. to come out on top.
Climate change and nuclear war will probably combine to cause near human extinction within the next few decades.
We do not have a long game to play anymore. Or rather, the long game started over 100 years ago and we're about to lose. Not to mention while you're slow and steady, people die.
I don’t understand why Hexbears think that voting for Biden means supporting his policies. It is entirely possible to strategically vote to protect the lives of minorities from being endangered
Except voting for Biden is not strategically voting "to protect the lives of minorities from being endangered" considering the fact Biden has Trump beat on deportations, police funding, prosecution of minority protest/civil rights groups; and normalizing genocide by VOTING for the man who is committing it definitely doesn't protect Muslims and Arabs,
Who's left, queer people who he left to the right-wing mass harassment wolves during the last four years because he was comfortably in power? Like these are basic facts the bluemagas refuse to digest
Your failure of analysis lies in the fact you don't recognize that Biden is the accelertionist candidate, while Trump's incompetence, unpopularity and animosity he receives from the democratic wing of capital is the far safer bet in terms of harm reduction
Right now capital is united, with Trump in office Dems are gonna have an impossible task of going along with him after the apocalyptic anti-trump narrative they've seeded the media with, it's in that disconnect just like after 2016 the new left can actually grow and organize
It's easier to oppose Trump than Biden, and for that reason alone minorities like me want to see the dems eat shit
As I said in my comment, I don’t understand why people are so adamant about not voting for Biden.
For me (perhaps coming from a Chinese perspective, although I can’t speak for everyone), it’s a no brainer: play with the cards you’re dealt with, think about how to win the long game etc. It’s all about being strategic, and how to buy time and build an actual movement from under an oppressive regime. Moralizing about it is not going win you the war. And I want us to win in the end.
For example, the CPC cooperated with the KMT to form a national front against fascist Japan, even though the KMT had massacred some 95% of the communist party members during the Long March. It was not something to feel good about, even with great humiliation, but it was necessary for the communist movement to survive and ultimately prevail.
I don’t know if I should say this, but it is becoming quite clear to me that Western leftists are more interested in moralizing the issues than to actually build a revolutionary movement. Perhaps this is why there are so few left wing movements left in the Western imperial core? I don’t think they actually want to win and take power. I’m not saying this is the main problem, but certainly worth thinking more about it.
I don’t know if I should say this, but it is becoming quite clear to me that Western leftists are more interested in moralizing the issues than to actually build a revolutionary movement. Perhaps this is why there are so few left wing movements left in the Western imperial core? I don’t think they actually want to win and take power. I’m not saying this is the main problem, but certainly worth thinking more about it.
Ok this doesn't make any sense in the context of voting for Biden and the Democratic Party, the left will NEVER win voting for the dems which should be clear to anyone who's been alive these last forty years
Biden's victory in 2020 obliterated the American left and the Sanders movement that gave it steam, ironically the only one moralizing here is the person demanding we vote for a genocider because Trump will hypothetically be worse or god forbid "unpredictable"
I am more than comfortable throwing the democratic party in front of the Republican bus and buying the left time to properly organize without the disgusting kayfabe of the DNC splitting our movement, if the dems are serious about their opposition to Trump than they will be forced to split the establishment and weaken the imperial structure overall and if they're just bullshitting and will happily go along with Trump's fascism then the swathes of radicalized youth that will create will aid our movement too
Either way that is far more strategic than making deranged ahistorical comparisons with the CPC's relationship with the KMT during the Sino-Japanese War
Because for some of us, watching Palestinians be murdered is enough for us to be adamant about opposing Biden. How many dead kids does it take for you to even understand someone else holding a grudge? Is it that unbelievable?
For the revleft participation in the system is endorsement of it.
You can't tell people to vote in one election and then tell people that actually it needs to be overthrown and think that's going to happen 5 years later.
At some point or another you just have to commit to it being broken and build your movement based entirely on the fact that it is broken and can not be supported in any way whatsoever.
You are not convincing anyone that there is a need for revolution by telling them that actually there is a reason to participate in the system that you want revolution against. Maybe that passes among very well educated theory-heads but it does not work when you exit theory spaces and start talking to the masses.
Participation in the system can be used as a tool to subvert the system in part by helping convince those who have yet to be convinced that a different system is needed.
That's not to say we should vote for Biden, just that there is usefulness in continuing to participate in these systems while also working to get rid of those we see as obsolete.
Lenin did not advocate for voting for liberals. Lenin advocated for participation in the system as a means of platforming and spreading communist thought, not as a means of actually achieving anything because he knew very well it would not.
His position would be vote for PSL or other communists.
I think I may not have been clear in my last comment.
I agree and was not saying he advocated for voting for liberals. We should not be voting for Biden and I personally plan on voting for the PSL candidates at this time.
My argument was with the "participation in bourgeois elections is an endorsement of those systems" part of the comment.
I think you are mistaking Lenin supporting the Bolshevik party with the position of liquidators. Lenin's conception of the party was that participation was an endorsement, but that the party's underground and illegal aspects need to be covered if possible. Essentially using the pretense of electoralism in order to actually strengthen the illegal party apparatus.
Essentially using the pretense of electoralism in order to actually strengthen the illegal party apparatus.
I thought that came across in my original comment?
My comments are pretty lazy and short here, so they won't capture additional nuance, but he's also saying (in the piece I linked) there are other benefits to participating in bourgeois elections that can help strengthen the party by helping fence-riders or those that haven't been exposed to socialist rhetoric be convinced to join the party. This is in addition to other subversive actions.
If your sole political effort is participation in elections, that's obviously endorsement of the existing system. Just in case, I was also not the person advocating for a vote for Democrats.
At least Biden still feel the need to pander to the LGBT community and other minorities, which means he can still be made to compromise on certain issues. With Trump it’s straight up fascism.
I mean no offense to the people who think that Trump is someone who can turn America into a full-blown white supremacist state, but they’re dead wrong. Without the ruthlessness of Biden, Trump could never get it off the ground in a million years.
Which is it? So, with Trump the US is going to be a fascist but not full-blown white supremacist state while with Biden the US will be full-blown white supremacist but not fascist.
Or is this just you doing a bit for your own amusement?
In my comment in this thread I was specifically commenting on LGBT/queer community (since OP was making a point about Biden celebrating Transgender Day of Visibility while doing genocide in Gaza).
In terms of protecting LGBT community, Biden is definitely the lesser evil here. That’s why I said ‘Trump is straight up fascism’ because it was specifically related to the LGBT issues, especially with Project 2025.
However, if we’re talking about the broader strategy of forging a white supremacist state in America through global geopolitics, then Biden is certainly a much more ruthless figure in this regard, and far more likely to succeed than Trump.
Of course, you can say that these are both the same thing. Fine, that’s arguable.
But if we’re talking about what our American comrades can do from within the imperial core at this very moment, I never said that Biden is good, I said that we can placate the Democratic Party by a few more years if it means buying a few more years to protect LGBT minorities while building strength for a revolutionary movement from within. If Trump wins and fascist thugs openly commit violence, then you won’t even have a left wing movement to begin with. Note, I am specifically talking about what American comrades can do from within. It doesn’t mean Biden is less capable on an international geopolitical level, simply that it is far easier to do anti-imperialism than under Trump from within. That’s all I’m saying.
These are two separate issues, there is no contradiction here. At least in my own understanding of the situation.
So, your point is that it would be easier to do anti-imperialism under Biden than Trump, but if Biden is a much more ruthless imperialist than Trump, wouldn't the greater ease of anti-imperialist action cancel out the greater ruthlessness of Biden? So functionally, there's no real difference between Trump (harder to do anti-imperialist work but the chief imperialist is more incompetent) vs Biden (easier to do anti-imperialist work but the chief imperialist is more competent).
Look, your argument is predicated on the assumption that a less competent imperialist is not capable of doing wider damage, especially in domestic terms.
You cannot just say, it’s 10% less imperialism, therefore it’s less bad. It’s not 99% or 100% Hitler. There are qualitative differences.
Just because Trump is less competent, doesn’t mean that in his bungling attempt to implement Project 2025 and emboldening of fascist thugs won’t cause a lot of damage to the minority community, and especially against nascent left wing movements within the US.
And the effects could be immediate - if fascist thugs are openly killing leftists like what the CIA did historically abroad, then you wouldn’t have a left wing movement to begin with. Without a left wing movement, how are you ever going to do anti-imperialism from within?
4 years later, Trump leaves the office. Guess what? Another competent fascist imperialist gets elected, and whatever little you could mitigate from Trump being a “less competent imperialist” against other countries over the past 4 years would be reversed anyway. Nothing gets fundamentally changed, while you get the entire left wing movement killed in its cradle.
Biden is certainly a far more competent imperialist, but it’s not like Trump is going to lessen whatever damage Biden is already committed to anyway, and Biden’s imperialist projects will still take years to implement. If you can buy a few more years of time to organize, then there is still a chance of growing your movement in both strength and numbers, and to be able to exert actual anti-imperialist actions a few years down the road. You give the American left wing movement a chance to survive, and to grow.
And one more important point: Trump is far more unpredictable than Biden. You truly can never predict what you’re going to get from Trump when it comes to foreign policies. That’s why Putin said he prefers Biden to Trump. It makes strategizing around Biden’s imperialism, paradoxically, less of a hurdle.
We need to look at the situation as a broader picture and as a long-term struggle that takes place not only over the next four years, but a decade or two even. Your left wing movement isn’t going to magically appear just because the conditions get worse.
Unless you live in a battleground state, arguing who should be president is an academic discussion. There's basically zero difference between someone who isn't a US citizen and someone who doesn't live in Ohio and Georgia.
The two parties are just a form of domestic counterinsurgency. Arguing that one is worse than the other is like arguing the good cop is better than the bad cop in a good cop-bad cop routine. In the end, neither parties really control what happens anyways. The national security state, as a "nonpartisan" entity, is what actually controls US politics. They are the means in which the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie is enforced to use Marxist terms. US electoral politics is just kabuki theatre.
Electoral figures are unable to meaningfully push back against the national security state. Sanders completely capitulated under the slightest of pressure. Someone like AOC is far worse given her incredibly sus background and should be considered as nothing more than an extension of the national security state. It's very obvious AOC is being groomed to be the next Obama, and if she plays her cards right to the detriment of the rest of us, she'll secure the presidency.
Since fascist paramilitaries have been thoroughly infiltrated by the feds, they should be considered the covert branch of the national security state. This makes a "united front" with reactionary paramilitaries like the boogaloo boys completely counterproductive.
Given that the national security state is the primary contradiction, if you're just focused on what's going on domestically in the US, every political action should understand this. Voting for either Trump or Biden makes little sense. Trump activated the national guard in 2020 while Biden gave massive funding to the police. Voting for who gets to be president is also pretty pointless since the national security state can always push the scale to get the candidate they want to be president. It's no coincidence that the vast majority of 2-term presidents did what they're told (the exception Nixon got hit with Watergate which prematurely ended his second term) and most president who are outsiders like JFK and Carter got 1 term.
The way out is that the national security state has to be sufficiently weakened for both socialist and fascist forces to break free and seize political power. Personally, I think it will be sufficiently weakened through external means by foreign state actors. If there's going to be a socialist revolution in the US, it's going lean heavily towards without rather than within. Yes, the right way for revolutions is through within, but think of it like this. The path towards socialism for 1941 Germany was 99.99% without (ie the triumphant Red Army defeating the fascist Nazi hordes and marching through what remained of Berlin). Whatever happens once the US balkanizes is pure alt-history fantasy that is pointless to speculate, but I do believe balkanization has to happen before a socialist revolution. There will, of course, be a massive human cost and a risk of nuclear annihilation fro successor states trying to nuke each other, but those are the breaks.
There is no socialist project to become dead in the water. What is possible is the project of Palestinian liberation, and THAT is being actively exterminated by Biden. You are fucking ghoulish to think of 4 more years of this as "4 more years of time to organize while protecting minority lives" while he literally exterminated Palestinians. Are they being protected right now while we bomb them?
Those of us with humanity are already getting punished, it doesn't matter if you play by the rules. And again Palestinians are wiped out while you are concerned with playing by the rules.
You have no use to any movement leftward if you are willing to sacrifice the Palestinians "strategically", you are nothing but another second international offering up other people on a platter. Your "bargain" makes you the enemy of socialists just as much as a republican. Go bathe in Arab blood or whatever you do for fun, we want no part in it
Look, we can agree to disagree. Many of the counter-arguments here make sense, and I don’t disagree with them, although I still believe that voting for Biden is a survival mechanism for the left. We play with the cards we are dealt with.
Perhaps you have not seen my responses to some of the replies below, but I have literally said that I do not believe in electoralism: that is, withholding the votes or not is not going to change Biden’s genocidal policy that they have already committed to. In this case, voting is purely strategic that seeks to maximize the chances of survival for any nascent left wing movements in the US.
I support 100% the Palestinian people, I simply think withholding the vote for Biden isn’t going to change the needle. Sorry, the Biden administration is ghoulish and there is nothing you can do about it without a strong left wing movement that can actually exert real, material impact on the ruling class regime. And to get there, we need to build a left wing movement.
The first thing to admit is that none of the protests the Western left is doing is working, and you want to help the Palestinians and stop their genocide? You need a real movement to achieve that political goal, and not fantasy about how withholding your votes can somehow stop Biden’s policies - how is this not just a belief in electoralism in another form?
And you are not going to win me over with the moralizing argument. I am biased by the history of the Chinese communist movement. The CPC had to collaborate with the KMT to fight against fascist Imperial Japan - the very same KMT that had just massacred 95% of the communist party cadres during the Long March. Do you know how fucking humiliating that is to the communists at the time? But Mao was built different, he could see the bigger picture, and knew how to steer the weak movement towards survival, and ultimately victory over the much stronger KMT. This was how we won, and why China is ruled by the Communist Party today. If you don’t know how to survive and play the long game, you won’t even make it past the infant stage because the capitalist class will instantly choke the infant to death in the cradle.
And you are not going to win me over with the moralizing argument. I am biased by the history of the Chinese communist movement. The CPC had to collaborate with the KMT to fight against fascist Imperial Japan - the very same KMT that had just massacred 95% of the communist party cadres during the Long March. Do you know how fucking humiliating that is to the communists at the time? But Mao was built different, he could see the bigger picture, and knew how to steer the weak movement towards survival, and ultimately victory over the much stronger KMT. This was how we won, and why China is ruled by the Communist Party today. If you don’t know how to survive and play the long game, you won’t even make it past the infant stage because the capitalist class will instantly choke the infant to death in the cradle.
Your argument falls apart because the KMT has already taken up arms against the IJA, proving that they refuse to be collaborators. And this is of course only the faction of the KMT led by Chiang Kai-Shek since the faction of the the KMT led by Wang Jingwei openly collaborated with the Japanese. If you want to say that the Democrats are like the KMT, then they are like the part of the KMT who were Japanese collaborators. Democrats and Republicans are part of the same government in the same way Japanese occupiers and Chinese collaborators were part of the same colonial government.
An actual equivalent of the KMT who fought against the Japanese in the US context would be something like the Nation of Islam. The NOI are hardly socialist and have Malcolm X's blood on their hands, but they also have pushed back against the national security state in a limited capacity. And they have their own paramilitary called the Fruit of Islam. This is why Kwame Ture always tried to build a united front between the NOI and other pan-Africanist groups. Various other lumpen groups like gangs could also have potential as unlikely allies in a united front.
If we want to actually use this chapter of Chinese history, this person is trying to be fucking Wang Jingwei. Or at best one of the right opportunists in the CPC who Mao purged during the Second Sino-Japanese War.
Mao wasn't supportive of the United Front for most of the time it existed. The Comintern had to drag him into it and he still kept sending urgent letters about how they needed to break with the KMT. The South Anhui Incident happened after Mao repeatedly warned about it. Mao and Enlai never fully got over what happened, and it wasn't just humiliation at the hands of the KMT, but at the fact that they had to obey the Comintern even when they felt that their mentality was still correct.
People tend to over sell the willingness to collaborate in a united front, but there is a decent amount of evidence that Mao was ready to kill Chiang in the Xi'an incident. According to Edgar Snow Mao was enraged at the order to let him go, and Enlai implies that it was out of discipline that they listened, not that they agreed (Snow's Private Notes on China pg 1-3 and Wu, The Sian Incident pg 101). But regardless, when the KMT did shit that was fascistic or collaborationist, you know what the CPC did? they fucking FOUGHT them. They did not maintain the alliance no matter what, they didn't simply play the long game like you want to imagine. They had lines and when those lines got crossed, they pushed back HARD.
When the KMT ordered both Communist armies to fall back to pre united front borders and surrender. Mao was requesting being allowed to do a preemptive strike as of November 7th 1940. Chiang assembled 200 thousand troops to invade CPC territory in preparation for an expedition if the 4th and 8th armies did not shrink and leave the front lines.
Mao then sent this in Jan of 1941 after the fight broke out
In accordance with an order by Chiang Kai-shek, our Fourth Army, numbering over ten thousand men under the command of General [Chen Yi?],258 is moving north from the southern Yangzi River region but was surrounded by a ring of seventy thousand troops sent by Chiang Kai-shek. Bloody fighting by both sides has been under way for eight days and nights. In the northwest more than three hundred thousand troops are already concentrated, surrounding the border region of Shanxi-Gansu-Ningxia, around which have been erected military blockade installations stretching for several thousand versts.259
The danger exists that our army will be completely destroyed. Simultaneously Chiang Kai-shek has sent more than twenty divisions, which have deployed in a broad offensive against our partisan army bases in four provinces: Jiangsu, Shandong, Anhui, and Hubei. They are preparing mass arrests and mass murder on a China-wide scale. The reactionary atmosphere is extremely serious. We are preparing in political and military terms to direct an energetic counteroffensive against such a broad offensive as is being waged by Chiang Kai-shek.
Even Dimitrov agreed with Mao's stance here after having said to avoid a rupture on Jan 4th, writing to Stalin that the United Front cannot exist under those conditions and concessions to Chiang must be halted until he acquiesces
No matter how grave and perilous the position of the Chinese Communists, they cannot let the criminal attack on the Fourth Army go unanswered and cannot fail to defend themselves against the armies of Chiang Kai-shek now attacking the Eighth Army and the Special Region. Thus, if Chiang Kai-shek does not suspend the aggressive actions being taken by his generals, large-scale internal, internecine war will inevitably flare up, which, of course, could only favor the Japanese.
In the interests of avoiding such an internecine war, alongside possible means of influencing Chiang Kai-shek through the Soviet network, the appropriate campaign should be undertaken in America, England, and other countries that would be able to exert a certain pressure on the Chinese government and to a certain degree influence Chinese public opinion. I submit that that campaign ought to be conducted through two avenues:
By exposing the criminal actions of the Chinese reactionaries, who are disrupting the unity of the Chinese people in its struggle against the Japanese invaders, in the foreign, China-sympathizing press.
By directing protests to Chiang Kai-shek from friends of the Chinese people (various societies, organizations, prominent public figures) and appeals to him and to the Chinese people not to allow the unleashing of internecine war and a schism in the united anti-Japanese front, not to allow the Japanese to conquer China “by the hands of the Chinese themselves.”
We can communicate instructions on organizing that campaign to our
comrades through entirely secure channels.
Mao refusing to stand down, and essentially causing a break in the United Front by standing firm led to the KMT having to give up, save face, and embarrass itself as the response from everyone including the US per Roosevelts direct pressure was that Chiang was in the wrong. Mao did not simply play the long game and turn the other cheek like you are implying, the takeaway here is NOT that communists should go with the flow.
The Communist won the civil war in no small part because they gained overwhelming support from the populace after events like the South Anhui Incident. You are a fool if you think it is moralizing to say genocide is a line in the sand. If you were actually biased by the history of the Chinese Revolution you would see these examples of the Communists standing their ground and not putting adherence to a united front over what was the correct political and strategic line.
But even if none of this nuance existed that you are just overlooking and painting the Chinese perspective as a singular thing, that would still not change the fact that you are comparing combatting an active invasion alongside fellow countrymen with supporting genocide. You are talking about collaborating not just with people you hate, but with a holocaust as it happens. You are not the brilliant Chinese communist making the tough call in 1937, no you are a fool defending the outright slaughter of Palestinians and collaboration with fascist genocidaires. You are not Enlai, you are a fucking Iron Front member.
Again, enjoy the blood bath, plenty of time to think about the long haul while the corpses pile up around you. fascist fuck
I don’t understand why Hexbears think that voting for Biden means supporting his policies.
If Biden was some feckless loser who just kept bumbling around the White House as a well meaning but ineffective in stopping the fascism the USA is based on/infected with, you'd probably be able to make a "critical support" argument to vote for Mr. Magoo to the Hexbear crowd. But this goes beyond anything that could justifiably be argued as "critical support".
Joe and the dems could pass a voting rights act to protect minority voting rights, just like they could protect abortion rights. What minority lives will they be protecting? They're doing urban warfare centers in every major region, and libs are apparently very comfortable with whole sale slaughter of non white people. It's looking more and more as if Genocide Joe is the more effective evil...
I don’t understand why Hexbears think that voting for Biden means supporting his policies
We are supposed to have a "representational democracy" where 'elected' officials represent the will of the people. Votes are consent. Consent is support. Holding your nose is consent. no matter who fear mongering is part of Manufacturing Consent.
The ruling class doen't need to give concessions knowing Manufactured Consent methods will keep them in power. They do not care if you consent gleefully or with distain. Consent is consent.
Voting for Biden or Trump is to maintain consent for the establishment. Voting outside the establishment is a non consent vote. It doesn't need to win, but a large enough faction where the Winston Smiths can't fudge to hide such as the
Show
vote.
They had to cover it. They had to factor it. Maybe not winning the war against....war but it embarassed the establishment. Clearly showing they do not represent us with their actions, and more importantly the World at large there is a reaistance movement to what bullshit our leaders are comitting. That not all wants this and it wasn't just "the Arab population" it was across the board and across demographics.
Ok but we have to know if we have the numbers and we're never going to know that if we vote for Democrats every year. Counting our numbers is critical and worth way more than voting for either fascist party.
Pretending to care about something does not mean he can be made to compromise on the issue, he and the dems will pretend to stand for something and then conveniently fail to pass or compromise away everything worthwhile until it's exactly the bill Republicans would have wanted anyway
Every time a Democrat is elected without being held to task to follow through on a progressive platform, the Democratic party slips to the right. Hillary was always well to the right of Obama. Biden is well to the right of Hillary.
What looks like "pandering", if you examine it past the most superficial performative level, is a race to the bottom.
In a swing state maybe it makes sense, but 75% of the population does not live in a swing state.
At least Biden still feel the need to pander to the LGBT community and other minorities, which means he can still be made to compromise on certain issues. With Trump it’s straight up fascism.
Just on this reasoning alone, Biden’s got my vote, considering that Trump will still do the genocide anyway, if not worse.
I don’t understand why Hexbears think that voting for Biden means supporting his policies. It is entirely possible to strategically vote to protect the lives of minorities from being endangered. If we can buy 4 more years of time to organize while protecting minority lives, then that’s a bargain I am willing to make, no matter how repulsive Biden’s genocide is to me. I don’t understand the willingness to gamble with accelerationism.
The American electoral system is designed to punish those who do not toe the line, so we’re only going to get punished if we do not at least pretend to “play by the rules”. There is nothing you can do to change that except for a revolution, and until we have the strength and numbers to do so, we have to play by the rules. If Trump wins, then any socialist project is dead in the water.
(Note: I am not American so I can’t actually vote, but you get the point.)
Not a great bit tbh
I mean, if I had been an American, I would vote for Biden. I’m not going to gamble with Trump’s fascistic Plan 2025.
But I’m not American, so it’s not exactly my business, although American foreign policy affects the entire world.
Israel, with full US backing, is destroying the entire concept of international law. ICJ? ICC? Security Council? All worthless.
Yes, American foreign policy affects the entire world, and right now America is letting Israel lay the groundwork for World War III.
I would never under any circumstances vote in favor of genocide.
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Stalin’s red army liberated Auswitch and ended the Holocaust. You would suggest voting for Hitler because Himmler might have been worse.
Who ended the holocaust again?
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“If you don’t want bad genocide you have to vote for good genocide”
That’s so fucking dumb.
“You have to vote for the Dems because the GOP are worse” is the fucking blind and morally bankrupt approach to electoralism that people like you have been pushing for decades now, and look where it got us.
Knock it off. Get smarter. Do not, under any circumstances at all, endorse genocide. Why does that need to be said??? What the fuck.
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“They won’t listen to me if I disagree with them so I’ll just go ahead and agree with them”
Fucking brilliant plan.
If the line in the sand isn’t at actual genocide, then you have no line.
And if you have no line, then your support is unconditional.
If your support is unconditional, then you have zero influence.
Stop endorsing genocide. If you have any standards at all, that has to be it.
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Go ahead and call your rep and ask them to stop sending bombs to Israel then.
Have you done that? Did you remember to say please?
Or did your actual plan stop at “vote for the guy committing genocide”?
It’s fucking moronic that you think writing them a blank check, a blank check for fucking genocide even you moral vacuum, you think writing them a blank check gives you influence? Think it through. Like, just use your brain. You have zero influence over them at all if you will support them even for genocide. It’s so fucking stupid and morally bankrupt.
You’re giving them a fucking endorsement and you’re calling it influence. How is the impotency of that not obvious to you?
Has the whole 'uncommitted' episode during the primaries just completely fly over your head you dumb fuck?
Nancy Pelosi Says U.S. 'Needs a Strong Republican Party' and Biden invites Trump to work together to lobby Congress on an immigration bill as both candidates visit border
What world do you live in dumbass?
I'm trans in a red state, they're gonna fucking kill me if they get the chance.
I still won't vote for genocide.
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Indistinguishable from red maga. Cackling genocidal zombie.
This reads like you'll support Trump's policies, so why don't you just vote for him then?
If voting for Biden is the only acceptable way to register your disapproval of his actually existing genocide, and you believe Trump will do a somehow worse hypothetical genocide, than it stands to reason that voting for Trump should be the only acceptable way to register your disapproval of the "worse" genocide. After all, why should Trump listen to people that will never vote for him?
This is what I've been saying to libs recently. I'm just going to vote for Trump (not actually. I just want to shut up liberals). They don't have a response to that at all, they think it's unthinkable and there's no arguing with it. It's only when you're an uncommitted leftist is when you owe them votes. Yet under their same metrics, I can easily claim a vote for Trump is strategic to prevent genocide, because maybe then the Democrats would understand my disapproval and change their tune on Palestine (I don't believe this and also don't believe presidential elections in the US matter, I'm just fucking sick of smug liberals telling me I must, no matter what, throw in a vote for 150 year old who's slaughtering Palestinians just because he's a Democrat)
Hey any libs reading this. Go argue with conservatives about voting for Biden. They outnumber us like 100:1 and are way closer to Biden politically than we are.
I am not going to vote for Trump; I wouldn’t even think about voting for Trump. But objectively, a Biden loss could really put some wind in the sails of the American left and, of course more importantly, get politicians to think twice before engaging in such unbridled imperialism like we see in Gaza right now.
Meanwhile, a Biden win will pretty much erase any meager gains we’ve made in recent years, and the Democrats will take away the lesson that the left, young people, queer people, and even POC to a certain extent can all be ignored. Tell enough reactionary suburban white folks “GOP bad” and that’s all you need to win.
Wtf does this gibberish even mean, this is about genocide you dumb fuck, you're literally just a fascist, don't come in here and start babbling about "holding your nose" you filthy wretch
fascism is already here in effect if not appearance. the president wants to pass an extremely draconian immigration bill and is simultaneously backing the wholesale slaughter of Palestinians. you need to understand that for all intents and purposes Biden is as bad as Trump, even on minority rights. the lip service from Democrats about book bans and abortion restrictions is worthless because they refuse to step outside the bounds of liberal norms to actually defend oppressed people.
And you think Biden's foreign policy hasn't been a much bigger catastrophe for the world than Trump's was? How can you post so good on economics and MMT and China and then post this kind of liberal dredge?
Three reasons:
One, Trump is a complete wildcard, you can never predict what he’s going to do, for better or for worse. Biden has been consistent with his hostile foreign policy. As Putin has said, we’d rather deal with someone predictable than someone who is not.
Two, it is undeniable that Biden’s domestic policy with regards to LGBT minorities is far better than Trump, not because he is a progressive or anything, but at the moment he still sees the need to pander to them for votes, so he is delaying the atrocities for his own perceived advantage. If the progressive left abandons the Democratic Party, then this will only accelerate the Democratic Party into going mask off and at that point, we’d lose the support of the only major political party in the US that still gives a shit about this, at least on paper.
Also, as I have said, I don’t think anyone should gamble with Trump’s fascistic Plan 2025.
Three, I don’t believe in electoralism, in that the voting base has no say in meaningfully changing the platform of either party. Not voting for the Democrats is not going to change their genocidal policies that they have already committed to. Any voting as such is purely strategic in service of a future revolutionary movement, to placate the ruling class into delaying their atrocities against us (i.e. policies that they still have yet to change their tune on, such as LGBT issues etc.), while we use the time we bargained for to build up our strengths.
Okay, some counterpoints:
Trump is incredibly fucking stupid, in addition to being a wildcard. Not only can we never predict what he's going to do, the ruling class can't predict what he's going to do. Worse (for them) is that he'll just do stuff even if it's counterproductive or harms US interests.
Biden's domestic policy is basically "let the red states do whatever they want to queer people because it's good for elections" which really isn't that much better than Trump. The state-level anti-trans legislation that has passed during Biden's term is going to lead to more deaths. He owns that because he doesn't care about us.
If you're telling me the only reason Democrats aren't actively joining a bipartisan genocide of queer people is because they believe they need to pander to the progressive left, something I agree with, then that's literally a hostage situation. "Vote for us or we'll fucking kill you."
I'm a trans woman and I can only speak for myself as just one individual, but I am not going to vote for someone else's genocide to maybe (not even certainly, maybe) protect myself. I already voted for this once. It's my fault. If I had any bravery I'd find a way to throw by body into the gears of the machine to slow it down, not cowardly protect myself by throwing other people in my place.
Israel is doing this genocide waving a rainbow flag. They butcher children in my name. They wear my fucking colors and pretend like they're progressive and pro-queer while they pound Gaza with 2000 pound bombs.
I already voted for this once and I want to die. Have you been listening to the news? Not the bullshit from CNN/MSNBC/NPR but the real news from DemocracyNow and Al Jazeera- even TikTok is a better source than the center-left horseshit these days. Have you been listening? The horror stories I keep hearing are making it hard to keep going. I voted for this. I'd rather die than vote for this again.
Bushnell has had more influence on American politics than every vote either us have ever cast in our entire lives.
I don’t disagree with you to be honest, and since you are an American (I believe so) and I’m not, the decision is really yours.
I’m just saying that in a hostage situation like you described, when one kidnapper wants to murder you, and the other thinks you still have some value to them, it is not unreasonable to try to placate them to buy yourself more time while you work out an escape plan/seeking for help.
I agree that both are atrocious and genocidal, but given that left wing movements are so fragmented and weak in the US, you have to think strategically, not just for the moment, but for how you’re going to build strength over a longer term. That’s all I’m saying.
In a hostage situation like you describe it's also not unreasonable to try to grab one of their guns~
That’s interesting, and understandable, although coming from a Chinese/East Asian culture I certainly have more of an emphasis on “playing the long game” mentality. Not seeking direct confrontation, but being smart about it and playing with cards we’re dealt with etc. to come out on top.
Climate change and nuclear war will probably combine to cause near human extinction within the next few decades.
We do not have a long game to play anymore. Or rather, the long game started over 100 years ago and we're about to lose. Not to mention while you're slow and steady, people die.
Why are you talking about this lol. It's project 2025.
Also what are you talking about domestic policies regarding LGBTQ lol
The palestinian people enduring a holocaust surely must be happy that a fascistic plan wont be happening. That would suck
We already have fascism. We are just at the "and then they came for me and there was nobody to speak out" part.
Anyone who doesn't feel the weight of the American jackboot on their neck come from a position of privilege
Except voting for Biden is not strategically voting "to protect the lives of minorities from being endangered" considering the fact Biden has Trump beat on deportations, police funding, prosecution of minority protest/civil rights groups; and normalizing genocide by VOTING for the man who is committing it definitely doesn't protect Muslims and Arabs,
Who's left, queer people who he left to the right-wing mass harassment wolves during the last four years because he was comfortably in power? Like these are basic facts the bluemagas refuse to digest
Your failure of analysis lies in the fact you don't recognize that Biden is the accelertionist candidate, while Trump's incompetence, unpopularity and animosity he receives from the democratic wing of capital is the far safer bet in terms of harm reduction
Right now capital is united, with Trump in office Dems are gonna have an impossible task of going along with him after the apocalyptic anti-trump narrative they've seeded the media with, it's in that disconnect just like after 2016 the new left can actually grow and organize
It's easier to oppose Trump than Biden, and for that reason alone minorities like me want to see the dems eat shit
Are you fucking serious
Voting is simultaneously meaningless and says nothing but at the same time u really for reals gotta be doing it pls
Yes they are, and it's sad to see here on hexbear.
Why even write all that then?
The global hegemon's shitty politics affects everyone.
As I said in my comment, I don’t understand why people are so adamant about not voting for Biden.
For me (perhaps coming from a Chinese perspective, although I can’t speak for everyone), it’s a no brainer: play with the cards you’re dealt with, think about how to win the long game etc. It’s all about being strategic, and how to buy time and build an actual movement from under an oppressive regime. Moralizing about it is not going win you the war. And I want us to win in the end.
For example, the CPC cooperated with the KMT to form a national front against fascist Japan, even though the KMT had massacred some 95% of the communist party members during the Long March. It was not something to feel good about, even with great humiliation, but it was necessary for the communist movement to survive and ultimately prevail.
I don’t know if I should say this, but it is becoming quite clear to me that Western leftists are more interested in moralizing the issues than to actually build a revolutionary movement. Perhaps this is why there are so few left wing movements left in the Western imperial core? I don’t think they actually want to win and take power. I’m not saying this is the main problem, but certainly worth thinking more about it.
damn i wonder if it has anything to do with the genocide he's doing
Death to America
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"Being opposed to an ongoing genocide is just moralizing. Also you should listen to my other opinions on morality."
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Ok this doesn't make any sense in the context of voting for Biden and the Democratic Party, the left will NEVER win voting for the dems which should be clear to anyone who's been alive these last forty years
Biden's victory in 2020 obliterated the American left and the Sanders movement that gave it steam, ironically the only one moralizing here is the person demanding we vote for a genocider because Trump will hypothetically be worse or god forbid "unpredictable"
I am more than comfortable throwing the democratic party in front of the Republican bus and buying the left time to properly organize without the disgusting kayfabe of the DNC splitting our movement, if the dems are serious about their opposition to Trump than they will be forced to split the establishment and weaken the imperial structure overall and if they're just bullshitting and will happily go along with Trump's fascism then the swathes of radicalized youth that will create will aid our movement too
Either way that is far more strategic than making deranged ahistorical comparisons with the CPC's relationship with the KMT during the Sino-Japanese War
Because for some of us, watching Palestinians be murdered is enough for us to be adamant about opposing Biden. How many dead kids does it take for you to even understand someone else holding a grudge? Is it that unbelievable?
For the revleft participation in the system is endorsement of it.
You can't tell people to vote in one election and then tell people that actually it needs to be overthrown and think that's going to happen 5 years later.
At some point or another you just have to commit to it being broken and build your movement based entirely on the fact that it is broken and can not be supported in any way whatsoever.
You are not convincing anyone that there is a need for revolution by telling them that actually there is a reason to participate in the system that you want revolution against. Maybe that passes among very well educated theory-heads but it does not work when you exit theory spaces and start talking to the masses.
Lenin disagreed.
Participation in the system can be used as a tool to subvert the system in part by helping convince those who have yet to be convinced that a different system is needed.
That's not to say we should vote for Biden, just that there is usefulness in continuing to participate in these systems while also working to get rid of those we see as obsolete.
Lenin did not advocate for voting for liberals. Lenin advocated for participation in the system as a means of platforming and spreading communist thought, not as a means of actually achieving anything because he knew very well it would not.
His position would be vote for PSL or other communists.
I think I may not have been clear in my last comment.
I agree and was not saying he advocated for voting for liberals. We should not be voting for Biden and I personally plan on voting for the PSL candidates at this time.
My argument was with the "participation in bourgeois elections is an endorsement of those systems" part of the comment.
I think you are mistaking Lenin supporting the Bolshevik party with the position of liquidators. Lenin's conception of the party was that participation was an endorsement, but that the party's underground and illegal aspects need to be covered if possible. Essentially using the pretense of electoralism in order to actually strengthen the illegal party apparatus.
I thought that came across in my original comment?
My comments are pretty lazy and short here, so they won't capture additional nuance, but he's also saying (in the piece I linked) there are other benefits to participating in bourgeois elections that can help strengthen the party by helping fence-riders or those that haven't been exposed to socialist rhetoric be convinced to join the party. This is in addition to other subversive actions.
If your sole political effort is participation in elections, that's obviously endorsement of the existing system. Just in case, I was also not the person advocating for a vote for Democrats.
Nah you're fine. I was just backing up what the other response was getting at.
Gotcha. Was hoping there wasn't something I was missing. Can always improve your understanding of theory!
I think the best way to put it is how the great Seamus Costello did https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iCldL_qukLQ
I found a YouTube link in your comment. Here are links to the same video on alternative frontends that protect your privacy:
I thought your point through all your posts here on Hexbear dot net is that Biden is a much more ruthless fascist than Trump.. Like you can't say:
and
Which is it? So, with Trump the US is going to be a fascist but not full-blown white supremacist state while with Biden the US will be full-blown white supremacist but not fascist.
Or is this just you doing a bit for your own amusement?
In my comment in this thread I was specifically commenting on LGBT/queer community (since OP was making a point about Biden celebrating Transgender Day of Visibility while doing genocide in Gaza).
In terms of protecting LGBT community, Biden is definitely the lesser evil here. That’s why I said ‘Trump is straight up fascism’ because it was specifically related to the LGBT issues, especially with Project 2025.
However, if we’re talking about the broader strategy of forging a white supremacist state in America through global geopolitics, then Biden is certainly a much more ruthless figure in this regard, and far more likely to succeed than Trump.
Of course, you can say that these are both the same thing. Fine, that’s arguable.
But if we’re talking about what our American comrades can do from within the imperial core at this very moment, I never said that Biden is good, I said that we can placate the Democratic Party by a few more years if it means buying a few more years to protect LGBT minorities while building strength for a revolutionary movement from within. If Trump wins and fascist thugs openly commit violence, then you won’t even have a left wing movement to begin with. Note, I am specifically talking about what American comrades can do from within. It doesn’t mean Biden is less capable on an international geopolitical level, simply that it is far easier to do anti-imperialism than under Trump from within. That’s all I’m saying.
These are two separate issues, there is no contradiction here. At least in my own understanding of the situation.
So, your point is that it would be easier to do anti-imperialism under Biden than Trump, but if Biden is a much more ruthless imperialist than Trump, wouldn't the greater ease of anti-imperialist action cancel out the greater ruthlessness of Biden? So functionally, there's no real difference between Trump (harder to do anti-imperialist work but the chief imperialist is more incompetent) vs Biden (easier to do anti-imperialist work but the chief imperialist is more competent).
Look, your argument is predicated on the assumption that a less competent imperialist is not capable of doing wider damage, especially in domestic terms.
You cannot just say, it’s 10% less imperialism, therefore it’s less bad. It’s not 99% or 100% Hitler. There are qualitative differences.
Just because Trump is less competent, doesn’t mean that in his bungling attempt to implement Project 2025 and emboldening of fascist thugs won’t cause a lot of damage to the minority community, and especially against nascent left wing movements within the US.
And the effects could be immediate - if fascist thugs are openly killing leftists like what the CIA did historically abroad, then you wouldn’t have a left wing movement to begin with. Without a left wing movement, how are you ever going to do anti-imperialism from within?
4 years later, Trump leaves the office. Guess what? Another competent fascist imperialist gets elected, and whatever little you could mitigate from Trump being a “less competent imperialist” against other countries over the past 4 years would be reversed anyway. Nothing gets fundamentally changed, while you get the entire left wing movement killed in its cradle.
Biden is certainly a far more competent imperialist, but it’s not like Trump is going to lessen whatever damage Biden is already committed to anyway, and Biden’s imperialist projects will still take years to implement. If you can buy a few more years of time to organize, then there is still a chance of growing your movement in both strength and numbers, and to be able to exert actual anti-imperialist actions a few years down the road. You give the American left wing movement a chance to survive, and to grow.
And one more important point: Trump is far more unpredictable than Biden. You truly can never predict what you’re going to get from Trump when it comes to foreign policies. That’s why Putin said he prefers Biden to Trump. It makes strategizing around Biden’s imperialism, paradoxically, less of a hurdle.
We need to look at the situation as a broader picture and as a long-term struggle that takes place not only over the next four years, but a decade or two even. Your left wing movement isn’t going to magically appear just because the conditions get worse.
I see. Here are my takes:
Unless you live in a battleground state, arguing who should be president is an academic discussion. There's basically zero difference between someone who isn't a US citizen and someone who doesn't live in Ohio and Georgia.
The two parties are just a form of domestic counterinsurgency. Arguing that one is worse than the other is like arguing the good cop is better than the bad cop in a good cop-bad cop routine. In the end, neither parties really control what happens anyways. The national security state, as a "nonpartisan" entity, is what actually controls US politics. They are the means in which the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie is enforced to use Marxist terms. US electoral politics is just kabuki theatre.
Electoral figures are unable to meaningfully push back against the national security state. Sanders completely capitulated under the slightest of pressure. Someone like AOC is far worse given her incredibly sus background and should be considered as nothing more than an extension of the national security state. It's very obvious AOC is being groomed to be the next Obama, and if she plays her cards right to the detriment of the rest of us, she'll secure the presidency.
Since fascist paramilitaries have been thoroughly infiltrated by the feds, they should be considered the covert branch of the national security state. This makes a "united front" with reactionary paramilitaries like the boogaloo boys completely counterproductive.
Given that the national security state is the primary contradiction, if you're just focused on what's going on domestically in the US, every political action should understand this. Voting for either Trump or Biden makes little sense. Trump activated the national guard in 2020 while Biden gave massive funding to the police. Voting for who gets to be president is also pretty pointless since the national security state can always push the scale to get the candidate they want to be president. It's no coincidence that the vast majority of 2-term presidents did what they're told (the exception Nixon got hit with Watergate which prematurely ended his second term) and most president who are outsiders like JFK and Carter got 1 term.
The way out is that the national security state has to be sufficiently weakened for both socialist and fascist forces to break free and seize political power. Personally, I think it will be sufficiently weakened through external means by foreign state actors. If there's going to be a socialist revolution in the US, it's going lean heavily towards without rather than within. Yes, the right way for revolutions is through within, but think of it like this. The path towards socialism for 1941 Germany was 99.99% without (ie the triumphant Red Army defeating the fascist Nazi hordes and marching through what remained of Berlin). Whatever happens once the US balkanizes is pure alt-history fantasy that is pointless to speculate, but I do believe balkanization has to happen before a socialist revolution. There will, of course, be a massive human cost and a risk of nuclear annihilation fro successor states trying to nuke each other, but those are the breaks.
why foreign state actors, rather than just collapsing by itself?
There is no socialist project to become dead in the water. What is possible is the project of Palestinian liberation, and THAT is being actively exterminated by Biden. You are fucking ghoulish to think of 4 more years of this as "4 more years of time to organize while protecting minority lives" while he literally exterminated Palestinians. Are they being protected right now while we bomb them?
Those of us with humanity are already getting punished, it doesn't matter if you play by the rules. And again Palestinians are wiped out while you are concerned with playing by the rules.
You have no use to any movement leftward if you are willing to sacrifice the Palestinians "strategically", you are nothing but another second international offering up other people on a platter. Your "bargain" makes you the enemy of socialists just as much as a republican. Go bathe in Arab blood or whatever you do for fun, we want no part in it
Look, we can agree to disagree. Many of the counter-arguments here make sense, and I don’t disagree with them, although I still believe that voting for Biden is a survival mechanism for the left. We play with the cards we are dealt with.
Perhaps you have not seen my responses to some of the replies below, but I have literally said that I do not believe in electoralism: that is, withholding the votes or not is not going to change Biden’s genocidal policy that they have already committed to. In this case, voting is purely strategic that seeks to maximize the chances of survival for any nascent left wing movements in the US.
I support 100% the Palestinian people, I simply think withholding the vote for Biden isn’t going to change the needle. Sorry, the Biden administration is ghoulish and there is nothing you can do about it without a strong left wing movement that can actually exert real, material impact on the ruling class regime. And to get there, we need to build a left wing movement.
The first thing to admit is that none of the protests the Western left is doing is working, and you want to help the Palestinians and stop their genocide? You need a real movement to achieve that political goal, and not fantasy about how withholding your votes can somehow stop Biden’s policies - how is this not just a belief in electoralism in another form?
And you are not going to win me over with the moralizing argument. I am biased by the history of the Chinese communist movement. The CPC had to collaborate with the KMT to fight against fascist Imperial Japan - the very same KMT that had just massacred 95% of the communist party cadres during the Long March. Do you know how fucking humiliating that is to the communists at the time? But Mao was built different, he could see the bigger picture, and knew how to steer the weak movement towards survival, and ultimately victory over the much stronger KMT. This was how we won, and why China is ruled by the Communist Party today. If you don’t know how to survive and play the long game, you won’t even make it past the infant stage because the capitalist class will instantly choke the infant to death in the cradle.
Your argument falls apart because the KMT has already taken up arms against the IJA, proving that they refuse to be collaborators. And this is of course only the faction of the KMT led by Chiang Kai-Shek since the faction of the the KMT led by Wang Jingwei openly collaborated with the Japanese. If you want to say that the Democrats are like the KMT, then they are like the part of the KMT who were Japanese collaborators. Democrats and Republicans are part of the same government in the same way Japanese occupiers and Chinese collaborators were part of the same colonial government.
An actual equivalent of the KMT who fought against the Japanese in the US context would be something like the Nation of Islam. The NOI are hardly socialist and have Malcolm X's blood on their hands, but they also have pushed back against the national security state in a limited capacity. And they have their own paramilitary called the Fruit of Islam. This is why Kwame Ture always tried to build a united front between the NOI and other pan-Africanist groups. Various other lumpen groups like gangs could also have potential as unlikely allies in a united front.
If we want to actually use this chapter of Chinese history, this person is trying to be fucking Wang Jingwei. Or at best one of the right opportunists in the CPC who Mao purged during the Second Sino-Japanese War.
Mao wasn't supportive of the United Front for most of the time it existed. The Comintern had to drag him into it and he still kept sending urgent letters about how they needed to break with the KMT. The South Anhui Incident happened after Mao repeatedly warned about it. Mao and Enlai never fully got over what happened, and it wasn't just humiliation at the hands of the KMT, but at the fact that they had to obey the Comintern even when they felt that their mentality was still correct.
People tend to over sell the willingness to collaborate in a united front, but there is a decent amount of evidence that Mao was ready to kill Chiang in the Xi'an incident. According to Edgar Snow Mao was enraged at the order to let him go, and Enlai implies that it was out of discipline that they listened, not that they agreed (Snow's Private Notes on China pg 1-3 and Wu, The Sian Incident pg 101). But regardless, when the KMT did shit that was fascistic or collaborationist, you know what the CPC did? they fucking FOUGHT them. They did not maintain the alliance no matter what, they didn't simply play the long game like you want to imagine. They had lines and when those lines got crossed, they pushed back HARD.
When the KMT ordered both Communist armies to fall back to pre united front borders and surrender. Mao was requesting being allowed to do a preemptive strike as of November 7th 1940. Chiang assembled 200 thousand troops to invade CPC territory in preparation for an expedition if the 4th and 8th armies did not shrink and leave the front lines.
Mao then sent this in Jan of 1941 after the fight broke out
Even Dimitrov agreed with Mao's stance here after having said to avoid a rupture on Jan 4th, writing to Stalin that the United Front cannot exist under those conditions and concessions to Chiang must be halted until he acquiesces
Mao refusing to stand down, and essentially causing a break in the United Front by standing firm led to the KMT having to give up, save face, and embarrass itself as the response from everyone including the US per Roosevelts direct pressure was that Chiang was in the wrong. Mao did not simply play the long game and turn the other cheek like you are implying, the takeaway here is NOT that communists should go with the flow.
The Communist won the civil war in no small part because they gained overwhelming support from the populace after events like the South Anhui Incident. You are a fool if you think it is moralizing to say genocide is a line in the sand. If you were actually biased by the history of the Chinese Revolution you would see these examples of the Communists standing their ground and not putting adherence to a united front over what was the correct political and strategic line.
But even if none of this nuance existed that you are just overlooking and painting the Chinese perspective as a singular thing, that would still not change the fact that you are comparing combatting an active invasion alongside fellow countrymen with supporting genocide. You are talking about collaborating not just with people you hate, but with a holocaust as it happens. You are not the brilliant Chinese communist making the tough call in 1937, no you are a fool defending the outright slaughter of Palestinians and collaboration with fascist genocidaires. You are not Enlai, you are a fucking Iron Front member.
Again, enjoy the blood bath, plenty of time to think about the long haul while the corpses pile up around you. fascist fuck
“Just give me four more years of sharing tweets bro, I swear all those dead Palestinians are worth it bro”
If Biden was some feckless loser who just kept bumbling around the White House as a well meaning but ineffective in stopping the fascism the USA is based on/infected with, you'd probably be able to make a "critical support" argument to vote for Mr. Magoo to the Hexbear crowd. But this goes beyond anything that could justifiably be argued as "critical support".
Joe and the dems could pass a voting rights act to protect minority voting rights, just like they could protect abortion rights. What minority lives will they be protecting? They're doing urban warfare centers in every major region, and libs are apparently very comfortable with whole sale slaughter of non white people. It's looking more and more as if Genocide Joe is the more effective evil...
We are supposed to have a "representational democracy" where 'elected' officials represent the will of the people. Votes are consent. Consent is support. Holding your nose is consent.
no matter who fear mongering is part of Manufacturing Consent.
The ruling class doen't need to give concessions knowing Manufactured Consent methods will keep them in power. They do not care if you consent gleefully or with distain. Consent is consent.
Voting for Biden or Trump is to maintain consent for the establishment. Voting outside the establishment is a non consent vote. It doesn't need to win, but a large enough faction where the Winston Smiths
can't fudge to hide such as the
They had to cover it. They had to factor it. Maybe not winning the war against....war but it embarassed the establishment. Clearly showing they do not represent us with their actions, and more importantly the World at large there is a reaistance movement to what bullshit our leaders are comitting. That not all
wants this and it wasn't just "the Arab population" it was across the board and across demographics.
I found a YouTube link in your comment. Here are links to the same video on alternative frontends that protect your privacy:
Nice try Vaushite shill, I am immune to your pedo power
Ok but we have to know if we have the numbers and we're never going to know that if we vote for Democrats every year. Counting our numbers is critical and worth way more than voting for either fascist party.
Pretending to care about something does not mean he can be made to compromise on the issue, he and the dems will pretend to stand for something and then conveniently fail to pass or compromise away everything worthwhile until it's exactly the bill Republicans would have wanted anyway
Every time a Democrat is elected without being held to task to follow through on a progressive platform, the Democratic party slips to the right. Hillary was always well to the right of Obama. Biden is well to the right of Hillary.
What looks like "pandering", if you examine it past the most superficial performative level, is a race to the bottom.
In a swing state maybe it makes sense, but 75% of the population does not live in a swing state.
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Dont worry they can also use all the dead in China of WW2 as a shield for killing Palestinians. Classy
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It's fascism with Biden. Which logo and slogan is on the merch won't affect the genocidal nature of the empire.
I mean that's what a vote is.
Four more years of time to organize? Lmao organize what exactly?
Lmao this is an elaborate bit. So many good ones in here