Still new here and trying to figure things out. Regarding voting, I'd like to get some feedback on some thoughts I've had.
I get that voting D/R is pointless since Ds just seatwarm for Rs at best, and actively implement R policies at worst. They have no incentive to work for left policies, and R policies will ultimately benefit them personally.
That being said, we're "punished" for not voting D by getting an actual insane R in office. If Rs are in control its way worse, right? or, maybe it has to get worse to get better?
So what is the dominant strategy here for National elections? My personal vote is extremely minor and unimportant so keeping that in mind, I can:
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not vote - Lower participation rate shows I don't endorse the system, and if enough people don't vote, does it mean anything?
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vote third party - I like this idea since, although super unlikely, it gives more pressure to D and R to moderate (lol) as neither want to lose power. Write in votes aren't going to turn in to anything big without some serious organizing, but I don't know if there's ever been a serious attempt to organize a mass write in campaign? Or if there will even be a viable third party candidate in 2024?
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vote D - 🤮
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Something else?
I haven't seen this discussed much in the short time I've been here so maybe I'm missing something obvious or misunderstanding something above, so would appreciate any help. Maybe the real answer is it really doesn't matter, but would like to make the best limited choice I can
I wouldn’t ever feel comfortable voting Democrat as I cannot, in good conscious, every vote for a group supporting Zionism and it’s like
if you're in a district or state that is securely for one party or the other you can literally vote however you want because it doesn't matter
electoralism strategy maybe only matters for people in states with competitive races
One of the perks of living in a +22D district is I can vote for what I actually want and at worst end up with a lib.
Since you're asking specifically about national elections, I'd say overall it doesn't matter. If you live in one of the few states (counties really) that actually decide the presidential election, then voting strategically for Dems makes sense, if it seems like harm reduction to you. I think the same argument goes for a senate seat or even congress that has a chance to be a toss up.
I think a lot of us overthink engaging in electoral politics because most of us were libs and therefore thought electoral politics is important, or have an over inflated sense of the importance of our own individual vote. The truth is as an individual, you might as well be asking, should i shout the name of candidate x into the void, or just forget about it. Our votes only matter as part of a group, an organization, or a movement
I think you're right, I might be overthinking it and the
brainwashing is a bit hard to silence.Our votes only matter as part of a group, an organization, or a movement
Are there any of these that you're aware of? I just know of R and D really. Is there even a viable alternative?
No viable electoral alternative nationally. But if you're specifically interested in voting, you should shift your focus locally. You may want to check out DSA. They sometimes back candidates or even run members
The thinking here is more "X group is voting as a block and expects this list of things from this candidate, if they do not do these things they will lose the support of our group going forward." These days this is the domain of mostly right-wing white church groups but in the past (and potentially again!) unions would also do this. So like, your 1 vote doesn't matter as much as 100 people in a group voting as a block.
Thanks this is what i wanted to get across. If we had a real labor movement, it would be fine to engage with electoral politics through it. But
ing just to doesn't really matter
Defensive voting can be pragmatic and has the largest effect the more local the election. Bourgeois electoralism will never allow for the direct challenging of the bourgeois order. All past entryist efforts to work socialist politicians and politics into mainstream political parties via electoral wins have failed and been recuperated. Even when Lenin said you should vote for the people's candidate he said it in the context of putting forth a candidate from the socialist party as a measuring stick for the popularity of the movement, not because any positive outcome can be expected. There is a long and bloody history of what happens to socialist leaders once they've been democratically elected, it would be no different in the states. The only way to advance socialist politics is to create separate bases of power that are not reliant on existing institutions but that can instead contest those decaying institutions for authority, i.e. Lenin's concept of dual power.
So vote for the shark eyed libs in your district so the local foaming at the mouth fascist doesn't start a progrom against the gays, but time and time again national level electoralism has proven to be the dead end of left movements. And let's be clear that your local libs will still stab you in the back given the chance, they are sellouts and corporate whores who have covered up just as many rape scandals as the GOP. The democratic party is the graveyard of social movements
Thanks for the thoughtful response. Dumb question coming up...
Even when Lenin said you should vote for the people's candidate he said it in the context of putting forth a candidate from the socialist party as a measuring stick for the popularity of the movement, not because any positive outcome can be expected.
Do we really not have a "peoples candidate?" It seems strange to me that the most left American politician that comes to mind is Bernie Sanders, and he's possibly (probably?) faking it
We don't have a people's party to begin with. Why would we have a candidate?
Here's what you do: Whatever you want.
From your list: Choose 1. Choose 4. Go to a PMC bar and declare you did 3 and score some free drinks. Choose them all. Choose none of them.
You know your vote doesn't matter much. So how much does it matter to you? Since my Left awakening, sometimes I vote, sometimes I don't. Sometimes I vote D, sometimes I vote 3rd party if available. Sometimes I write in my ex-roommates name and hope he somehow pulls off a longshot.
Basically, ask yourself how much strategy you're going to put into to something that ultimately yields nothing. You know the outcome already.
Do you consider yourself a marxist? could also post this to !communism101@lemmygrad.ml
Maybe it's because we're recently federated, but is that place a little dead or just newly synced?
Little dead, I try and get people to post their questions there so it can shown up on all
Personally I voot bloo but I don't make a big deal about it or lib out trying to make other people voot as well because that's cringe as hell
I live in a state that will likely never come close to voting anything other than republican within my lifetime. I personally show up to vote for local elections and vote for whatever socialist presidential nominee out of spite.
While my politics are ML I would consider voting for someone like Bernie again because I still find it favorable to the alternative.
Vote for Democrats in the general because it's better for the seat to be warned than occupied.
Vote progressive in primaries to get better Democrats in place.
Lol fuck that. The seat isn't "warned" if you vote for them regardless of what kind of warmongering neoliberal ghoul they shove down your throat. Grow a spine, set your minimum standards, and tell 'em they can fuck off until they give you what you want.
I made the decision a long time ago that I would never, under any circumstances, vote for a hawk. Didn't vote for Obama, didn't vote for Hillary, didn't (and won't) vote for Biden. These people were all deeply involved in lying to you to conduct decades-long wars of agression that cost hundreds of thousands of lives. That is fundamentally disqualifying, but you liberals don't give a shit because you think Iraqis and Afghans are subhuman. Fuck off with your liberal bullshit.
voting blue no matter who tells the Dem party apparatus that they can run anyone as long as they wear a blue tie. that just pushes the party further and further to the right. if you actually want “progressive” candidates, grow a spine and dont vote for “moderate” dems in ANY election
This is just basic logic. If your faction always caves and votes with the mainstay of the party then it isn't really a faction, more just a group of whiners. You have to be willing to lose it for the team if you want to be taken seriously. (Not that I think there's really anything to be gained from going to the mats in the primaries but whatever let the succdems do their thing I guess)
ik its pretty obvious for most of us, but i wanted to lay it out for the lemmy libs
People were fighting back against police brutality, seizing cities and turning them into autonomous zones, and seizing profiteering grocery stores and turning them into food banks when Trump was president. That all stopped and everyone went back to brunch the moment democrats took full control of the federal government. Since then, social murder through covid, homelessness, and police brutality have continued unabated. Abortion rights have been killed with no meaningful resistance despite plenty of forewarning. Unions have been crushed with bipartisan support. The harm normalization achieved by democrats is just as terrifying, if not more terrifying, than the harm acceleration achieved by republicans. Both branches of the capitalist party will always do everything in their power to prevent harm reduction.
Well said. Half the country is already exercising option 1, and that's not creating positive change. ACTUAL change is local, and slow. You need ground-swell to affect national elections.
If Trump were still president, Democrats would still be forcing covid as an issue
None of Trump's policies went away. They just got worse.
What do you mean "vote with your head" here? Like there's a right answer?
I'm very receptive to the concept of harm reduction but realistically, when was the last time you could say that about the Democrats? I guess if Bernie won?
Maybe Gore?
last election I just wrote in stalin and lenin repeatedly for any race that didn't have a radical enough candidate, so you could try that
You hold your nose and vote for the D.
Then you go out and work for good candidates in the D primaries.
Third party candidates only help the GOP. Anderson in 1980, and Nader in 2000. The GOP was pouring money to the Greens and Libertarians in 2016.
Lol real "the Democrats cannot fail, they can only be failed" energy here. If the dems were serous about appealing to left voters they could adopt leftist policies, but every election they instead put all their energy into browbeating the left for not voting for some centrist dipshit hard enough.
Rather hold my D and vote for my nose (as a write-in)
If third party voters keep costing Dems elections, then maybe they should try doing something to win us over lol.
if I have to hold my nose, why am I doing it? shouldn't they be responsive to their voters? or perhaps the party only exists to funnel energy away from the popular left... hmmmmmmmm
Hard disagree. Dems still fund genocide and Zionism. They are literally no different than the Republicans
Lol never again. Dems are worse than worthless. If you want people to vote for you, give us something to vote for
Nader in 2000
lol, imagine still whining about Nader and not realizing 2000 was a stolen election.
You need to still vote Democrat. Even if they aren't perfect, they're still better than letting a Republican in. Republicans always vote.
If Democrats can run on "not Republican" and simply be entitled to enough votes by that mere fact, they have no reason to ever make concessions to the left. This is affirmed by the continuous movement to the right on the part of Dems except in the language they use in their empty gestures. If a leftist spoiler fucks things up for them one election, they have reason to make concessions to take back that spoiler's base.
If you're in a fight, it's often good to use your hands to block, but if focusing only on that prevents you from striking back, all you are succeeding in is losing more slowly than otherwise.
If Democrats can run on "not Republican" and simply be entitled to enough votes by that mere fact, they have no reason to ever make concessions to the left. This
Tbf they're not going to make concessions regardless because the Dems looove losing and hate doing anything remotely left-wing
If the left is ever to be a genuine alternative to the Democratic party it's not going to be because you didn't voot Democrat in national elections but because of real organising (with a little help from shifting material conditions of course)
I agree but we need to block until we can strategize, build class consciousness, and actually organize to do something.
it's easier to organize when the Rs are in charge, from personal experience.
That's terrifying. It will allow so many people to be hurt even faster in the meantime.
even faster? the dems just continue the same policies. you just stop hearing about it. among latine communities, Obama was known as the deporter in chief, and he spearheaded the detention cells housing children. if anything, Trump was /less/ effective because it became a political issue libs were willing to discuss/fight back against.
I'm going to challenge you on the assertion that Dems are better than Republicans. How is a Dem better than a republican? There is a long list of things that the Dems have continued since Trump (and before!) that maybe they didn't implement themselves but they could have stopped and they have chosen not to. How is a Dem better?
At least Dems aren't spewing as much hate for minorities. Also, the infrastructure bill Biden implemented was actually pretty good. Republicans want to actively dismantle things like the Environmental Protection Agency. If there was another option that had a chance of winning I would vote for them. We need to figure out a way to build that. Until then, we need to at least delay the worst of it.
At least dems aren't spewing so much hate for minorities
"As much" is doing a lot of work there.
infrastructure bill
This bill? The one where they didn't make it adjust for inflation or actually force states to comply? As cool as that bill may be it isn't enough. Most of the projects haven't even started and there is no guarantee that they will. Especially if they lose the house. That funding over the same time (ten years) is barely more than the military budget and that is only true if the budget stays where it was which it didn't and won't. Some of that funding may also be going to sodium cyanide landmines which was something I only heard about recently but has been going on since 2014, thanks Obama.
Republicans want to dismantle the EPA
They aren't even in power and they're doing it anyways.
As it stands right now the Dems (barely, but still in hand) have congress and the executive. They have the senate by enough to ram judges through to get whatever they want from the courts but they won't for petty reasons like decorum. Petty especially in the light of losing the right to an abortion, losing right to equal treatment for members of the LGBTQ+ community, and curbing capacities of federal agencies. You're going to need to try harder to convince me that the Dems are better and we haven't even gotten started on foreign policy.
Edit: excuse my passive voice, the Dems could have passed laws to ensure that a right to an abortion or protections for the LGBTQ+ community were in place but did not. Saying they lost it is too passive, I should have said they, by conscious failure to act, stripped those rights
What do we actually do about this though? I want to make things better, but how? Not voting at all doesn't feel like sending a message. It feels like apathy. I also think it needs to happen with as little violence as possible. It needs to be someone that is voted in. We can't let violence decide because that always seems to end with some kind of authoritarian government.
You could always spoil your ballot. I think it might be time to remind you where you are though because violence can and has been used to get better governments, the American civil war for one but also Cuba, Vietnam, Zimbabwe off the top of my head were all improved by violent revolution against their oppressors. The Soviet Union too for that matter among others I'd hazard you are more willing to disagree with.
where's that quote about the Maoist uprising against the landlords...
What does it mean to spoil your ballot? I haven’t heard that expression before
If it's been made invalid intentionally (like idk you just scribbling all over or something)
You either mark your ballot in a way that ruins it (ie writing FUCK YOU across the whole page and not actually marking a vote), physically damage your ballot, or the most fun way which is write-in a 0% viable person that is funny. I know some guys who voted for Snoop Dog in the last election to spoil their ballot. It is a way to make it known you don't like any of the options but still made time to vote.
We can't let violence decide because that always seems to end with some kind of authoritarian government? What about literally every communist revolution? Cuba, China, Vietnam, Burkina Faso, the DPRK, the USSR.
I don't think the US at this time is ready for a revolution, violent or otherwise. But, revolutionary socialism results in better material conditions for people, and all of the above are examples
And all of them accomplished more good than you are even suggesting in a naïve hope. You are tethered to some of the biggest war criminals in the world while being miserable about it and holding no cards, they use their authority to actually carry out their political will.
How is DPRK not authoritarian? Are you seriously standing up for that country?
Yes
The DPRK is an inspiration to the working class worldwide, proof that the evil US empire can be opposed and that a better world is possible
Ok but seriously they are starving their people and literally kill them and possibly their families if they try to leave.
bonus points if you can point to a source that doesn't lead to a Korean OAN equivalent tabloidIt's difficult, but the reality is that in order to make a comment about the country that people here won't clown on, you kinda need to relearn the history of the country from the beginning.
It's a difficult place for many people to live, and nobody here is looking at the dprk government and thinking "we should copy/paste that in my country" or anything, but what's important is that they did successfully overthrow capitalism, and they have successfully kept it out (at a mas shitssive cost, which was primarily induced by the USA). If you want to undermine capitalism in any way, it's worth analyzing them closely and incorporating that analysis into your understanding about how capitalism could successfully be undermined or defeated in [wherever you live].
When you do this over many countries and similar political movements with a socialist history, you find that it definitely wasn't voting that got them where they are/were. Shit's interesting.
Blowback did a season on the Korean war recently that gives a lot of good historical background. What the US and Japan did to them was pretty fucked.
literally kill them and possibly their families if they try to leave.
“Strengthens the ban on providing work authorizations for DPRK nationals by requiring Member States to repatriate all DRPK nationals earning income and all DPRK government safety oversight attachés monitoring DPRK workers abroad within their jurisdiction within 24 months from 22 December 2017.”
That's the reason people can't leave the DRPK.
Thanks to Lemmygrad, I just learned about it from that post
I don't see any incentive for dems to act in our best interest though. As Rs become more and more fascist they can slide right and continue to be "better than republicans." I guess this argument is for harm reduction.
It feels like we're getting slow cooked fascism. Republicans are actively 1 upping each other on nazi dog whistles to try and let voters know what team they're on while dems do absolutely nothing - was it always like this? Is "delaying" the inevitable like not seeing the doctor for a strange lump on your neck?
Dems don't just do nothing, they actively support and give money to the most bigoted and extreme Republicans, on the basis that they think they'll be easier to beat because more people will be threatened by them. They are fascist enablers gambling with our lives and trying to win our votes through coercion, while enacting polices that fuck us.
What would "seeing the doctor" be though? Civil war? World wide war? I'm afraid that if that would happen now, the fascists would win. It seems to me that they're capable of standing together and ready to fight. People on the left don't have that. We splinter ourselves based on smaller differences instead of working together for small incremental progress. If republicans lose several elections in a row, they'll eventually figure out they have to change tactics to stay relevant and maybe things can start shifting left.
organizing people to vote as a block, so you can meaningfully hold candidates' feet to the fire. merely voting democrat because "they're not those guys" gives them carte blanche to move further and further right, as they've done for 40 years since unions basically got killed off. also read state and revolution.
Organizing takes time and we clearly haven't gotten the message out well enough yet. We need to be on the defensive until there is enough support to really change things. Most people outside of forums like this don't even understand what's happening.
so the problem won't be solved by telling random posters to vote blue. glad we're on the same page.
No but it's part of it. Idk what else I can do right now besides try to get people on the same page. I wish I had a better suggestion. Also, we aren't random posters. Being on this forum means we care more than the average person. We're more likely to actually talk about stuff like this to people in our lives.
Idk what else I can do right now besides try to get people on the same page.
it helps to have a real and material theory of political change before trying to get people on the same page. seconding my recommendation to read state and rev, before the brainworms become terminal.
I do plan on reading more. Out of curiosity though, what do you think an average person could do right now?
start locally - like neighborhood level, your workplace, etc.. organize the people who see you day to day and show them that it's possible to make positive change by banding together. a union drive at work, a tenants union in your apartment building, whatever. that gives you a basis on which to start pursuing real political education and to start building class consciousness. eventually, you can start politicizing the org. don't rush it, though, or you'll turn people against you.
(different person) Join or organize a labour union. If you are joining a union then you can argue for it to be more political and hostile to capital, if you need to form the union that is enough work to focus on.
