the non libs should do whatever they do AND vote though. there's no harm in voting for the lesser evil if you don't use it as an excuse to not also do other things.
Take a look around at all the new wars your lesser evil administration has started, the genocide it's helping perpetrate, and tell me who the accelerationists are here.
the idea that we should make everything go to shit as quickly as possible so that it all collapses because then it will be rebuilt as [your political ideology] and everything will be awesome.
First of all, that's not what accelerationism actually is, second of all, if someone is going to vote, it is far more sensible for them to vote third party so that there is at least some possibility of non-libs getting into power. Otherwise, this or that lib getting into power makes little difference.
The USian Dem party is not a lesser evil. It's the same as the other part of your uniparty, except that it pretends to be different from its twin.
Hell, Trump seems to be more senile and less capable of running your genocide machine than Harris. I don't see you call everyone to vote for him for the sake of burying the settler-colonial project earlier and reducing harm this way.
voting third party in the USA is kinda like not voting at all from what I've heard. the system is kinda fucked up like that. it's a bit better over here in germany, there isn't really a "third party", just lots of parties of varying sizes. but yea ideally you would vote for a better party and that would actually lead to change. tho I doubt that voting for a third party does more good than voting for the lesser of the two big evils.
voting third party in the USA is kinda like not voting at all
Not exactly. Even within the mind prison of liberal electoralism, voting for a third party in a FPTP system is different from not voting at all.
If the "lesser evil" becomes afraid that they are going to lose because of people voting for non-evil third parties, they will have an incentive to be less evil in order to convince those voters to come back.
On the other hand, if the "lesser evil" feels safe that people are going to vote for them as long as they're less evil than the other evil candidate there's really nothing holding them back from being 99.9% as evil as the greater evil. In fact, becoming almost as evil as the other guy becomes the rational strategy for appealing to centrist voters who could opt for the greater evil if the lesser evil is not seen as being evil enough.
This has the further effect of moving the Overton window to the right as you know have two very evil candidates taking up public space and attention, thereby normalising the greater evil access pushing public opinion towards more evil.
Politicians might all be evil off-putting losers but they're not idiots. They're rational actors seeking to maximise personal gains. By declaring that you will vote for somebody no matter what they do you're effectively telling them not to pay attention to you and to spend their efforts courting the right instead.
On the other hand by being willing to withhold your vote, thereby causing the "lesser evil" to lose, you're putting a price tag on your support, giving them an incentive to be less evil.
Of course this effect is greatest the less safe the seat in question is. If either evil candidate has a safe seat and is expected to win with a huge majority, voting for either evil, voting third party or not voting at all becomes pointless as public input is no longera meaningful part of the political process.
History will know who collaborated with the genociders by whose names and SSNs are attached to the ballots.
I hope you'll still be able to sleep with the constantly-incrementing volume of blood you'll have to wash your hands in to maintain your comfort. You disgust me how you just keep trying to cudgel.
This whole debate is so warped tbh. No-one ever says that voting for a candidate/party who would have won anyway is "throwing your vote away" but it does exactly as much good as not voting at all. Similarly, if you wake up the day after the election, and the Bad Dude won, well, your vote wouldn't have changed anything anyway.
You can register your dissent by voting third party. It's not much, but that's all you're allowed to do.
It always seems to work out in such a way that we owe them everything always and they never owe us shit, despite us supposedly being the ones responsible whenever they lose
Since voting for the non-Trump one is completely meaningless, voting third party actually has a greater real effect. It doesn't get the third party elected this time, but the larger the percentage of third party is per election cycle, the more it might seem possible to get one elected, and that might in turn lead to real perceptible changes. It might lead to, eventually, 16 years down the line, to a critical mass where enough people will think it's viable and get someone else elected. Or it might scare the existing power-monopoly into doing some democratic actions.
See you don't even live here. You have no fuckin idea what you are talking about, and as others have already told you in detail it doesn't matter anyway. Direct action is what we have.
One of the big "reasons to vote for Biden" was because he wasn't Trump and it would be a return to "normal".
Then the 2024 election got closer and everybody forgot that Biden was just supposed to be a place holder and started crowing about how he's the "greatest most progressivest president evah!" when he absolutely wasn't. The Dems and their supporters decided that "no, because Biden won the 2020 election it was ACTUALLY because everybody was voting FOR Biden instead of AGAINST Trump" and got all butt hurt when people pointed out that "maybe the Dems should have spent 4 years getting a better candidate ready to run for President with a D by their name in 2024" because Biden kinda sucks.
So, no, voting "just to vote" isn't something that is a zero sum game. If you are voting for a candidate that you don't want to win to try to keep some other candidate from winning, the only thing that the candidate sees is that somebody voted for them. Once they win, they don't need to listen to you anymore.
Spending 4 hours at a homeless shelter or comforting a random crackhead on the street will be a greater net good for the world than spending 4 hours in line to vote for my preffered genocidal maniac.
This argument is only somewhat valid if you agree that there is a lesser evil between the two, we don't agree with that, that's what you peoples don't understand about our position.
None of you have ever provided any evidences that the Democrats are less bad than the Republicans, not a single one of you ever did. You just accept it as true without questions.
You stupid motherfuckers fucking giving legitimacy to the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie by participating in its elections, giving direct sanction to our ruling class, makes it almost impossible to fucking do anything, you dumb piece of shit
You put us in a position where violent revolution is the only option to cause real change, but you're the same dumb fucks who cheer and oink as the cops murder us, so thanks for nothing, fucker
like I said in other comments, I'm not saying you should only try changing the system from within. voting doesn't take a lot of time though, and I don't see why you shouldn't use the methods within the system to try to make it get shitty less quickly while ALSO trying to change the system in other ways. unless you're an accelerationist I guess. I don't see any harm in voting for the lesser evil as long as you don't use it as an excuse to not also do other stuff. you can do both, and I'm worried that people that act like it's either or might make things worse than they're already going to be.
it doesn't change anything about those things, but it can change some other things. the only two viewpoints I can see from which voting is bad is either if you're an accelerationist (in which case you should probably just vote for the side which you think is worse) or if you think that voting "legitimizes the system" and makes it stronger, somehow. though I'm not a fan of accelerationism and I don't think that "the system" would care if all left leaning people just stopped voting. I definitely don't think it would make anything better
The time and energy spent on voting and campaigning would be better spent planting gardens and building community yes. Then , AFTER you have a strong community, you can making voting easy in you area and coordinate yourselves as a larger voting bloc.
Once a critical mass of communities is organized enough to change an election, both right wings will pull the accelerationism lever as a hail mary. All the while blaming the communities organized enough to attempt protecting themselves.
At no point will the ruling class allow an election to change things.
I do see harm in the system. I said I don't see any harm in voting. you just conveniently took out the in voting part. not voting won't make anything better.
when voting there's only really two options. the giga evil and the mega evil. third party would be ideal but that's basically the same as not voting at all in the current system.
No, you can't. The Amerikan political system is hardened and inured against actions from the inside, otherwise tHe SqUaD would've actually been able to do something with their tenures that wasn't "get their numbers slashed by half by the time 2024 rolled around", and the Black Misleadership Cabal-- I mean, the Congressional Black Caucus wouldn't be shucking, jiving, stepping, and fetching for the peckerwood democrats.
well, do you think libs seeing tweets like this will go do stuff? or do you think they'll just do even less and not even vote? I also dislike how this narrative discourages people that aren't libs from voting. you can change the system and also go vote once every 4 years, they are not mutually exclusive. my comment was more aimed at the users of this community than the libs
Trump is more senile and less capable of managing your genocide machine.
Otherwise, they are effectively the same.
You are welcome to try and explain why a second-in-command of the administration that has been continuing almost all Trump's policies is different from Trump.
Did i say that? I said leftists in the US have never had a candidate to vote for. It has always been right wing vs fascist. Blue nice fascist vs red mean fascist.
They dont have to be identical for their policy effects to be the same.
It’s funny when the vote shaming lib shows up and doesn’t even understand the local elections mean more than the presidential elections. At least my lib friends understand that aspect.
Just change the system bro, it's so easy bro. Use the paid time off and strong public transit that I as a German assume everybody has and cast a vote for 99% hitler, as long as you live in one of the 10 states where your vote actually matters of course.
Yeah dude you can totally change the system that's why everything has just gotten worse every year for the past fucking forever, all the good changing the system we're doing voting for the lesser evil. Keep up the good work
Voting gives away the only actual legal leverage you have (outside of donations, which AIPAC can outspend you on seeing the U.S. literally ships the money that gets funded right back to them).
If you vote for them while they are actively in the middle of commiting a genocide, then you have exactly zero principles outside of 'Well I've got mine." Well done, you've reinvented libertarianism.
I mean, you can vote for a lesser evil and also work on changing the system entirely so that it's not evil any more.
Libs vote and go to a 4 year long brunch. They ain't changing nothing.
the non libs should do whatever they do AND vote though. there's no harm in voting for the lesser evil if you don't use it as an excuse to not also do other things.
There is harm in voting it legitimizes the system. We want the evil empire to die, why should we bow to its customs?
that sounds like it leads to accelerationism.
Take a look around at all the new wars your lesser evil administration has started, the genocide it's helping perpetrate, and tell me who the accelerationists are here.
Sounds like you're the exact sort of lib who turns their brain off when the dems are in office and you just wanna go back to brunch for 4 more years
Think of it more like "revolutionary defeatism."
Yeah but it's not
What's accelerationism?
the idea that we should make everything go to shit as quickly as possible so that it all collapses because then it will be rebuilt as [your political ideology] and everything will be awesome.
First of all, that's not what accelerationism actually is, second of all, if someone is going to vote, it is far more sensible for them to vote third party so that there is at least some possibility of non-libs getting into power. Otherwise, this or that lib getting into power makes little difference.
Ah, I understand. I can assure you that not voting does not lead to accelerationism
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The USian Dem party is not a lesser evil. It's the same as the other part of your uniparty, except that it pretends to be different from its twin.
Hell, Trump seems to be more senile and less capable of running your genocide machine than Harris. I don't see you call everyone to vote for him for the sake of burying the settler-colonial project earlier and reducing harm this way.
There is harm in voting for the lesser evil. It's called the ratchet effect, it pulls everything to the right.
Vote third party.
This is a good argument for voting third party
voting third party in the USA is kinda like not voting at all from what I've heard. the system is kinda fucked up like that. it's a bit better over here in germany, there isn't really a "third party", just lots of parties of varying sizes. but yea ideally you would vote for a better party and that would actually lead to change. tho I doubt that voting for a third party does more good than voting for the lesser of the two big evils.
Ah, I'm beginning to understand how you guys got Hitler
Thanks but I'm not voting between Hitler and blue Hitler
Ah okay. Your people just really love genocide so you can't comprehend why someone wouldn't want to vote for genocide.
Not exactly. Even within the mind prison of liberal electoralism, voting for a third party in a FPTP system is different from not voting at all.
If the "lesser evil" becomes afraid that they are going to lose because of people voting for non-evil third parties, they will have an incentive to be less evil in order to convince those voters to come back.
On the other hand, if the "lesser evil" feels safe that people are going to vote for them as long as they're less evil than the other evil candidate there's really nothing holding them back from being 99.9% as evil as the greater evil. In fact, becoming almost as evil as the other guy becomes the rational strategy for appealing to centrist voters who could opt for the greater evil if the lesser evil is not seen as being evil enough.
This has the further effect of moving the Overton window to the right as you know have two very evil candidates taking up public space and attention, thereby normalising the greater evil access pushing public opinion towards more evil.
Politicians might all be evil off-putting losers but they're not idiots. They're rational actors seeking to maximise personal gains. By declaring that you will vote for somebody no matter what they do you're effectively telling them not to pay attention to you and to spend their efforts courting the right instead.
On the other hand by being willing to withhold your vote, thereby causing the "lesser evil" to lose, you're putting a price tag on your support, giving them an incentive to be less evil.
Of course this effect is greatest the less safe the seat in question is. If either evil candidate has a safe seat and is expected to win with a huge majority, voting for either evil, voting third party or not voting at all becomes pointless as public input is no longera meaningful part of the political process.
Hey, you're starting to realize how it's not actually a democracy over here.
when did I say that it's a democracy? not once.
Voting only matters in a functional democracy ya dork.
so you think the election is not controlled by votes at all? interesting
History will know who collaborated with the genociders by whose names and SSNs are attached to the ballots.
I hope you'll still be able to sleep with the constantly-incrementing volume of blood you'll have to wash your hands in to maintain your comfort. You disgust me how you just keep trying to cudgel.
This whole debate is so warped tbh. No-one ever says that voting for a candidate/party who would have won anyway is "throwing your vote away" but it does exactly as much good as not voting at all. Similarly, if you wake up the day after the election, and the Bad Dude won, well, your vote wouldn't have changed anything anyway.
You can register your dissent by voting third party. It's not much, but that's all you're allowed to do.
It always seems to work out in such a way that we owe them everything always and they never owe us shit, despite us supposedly being the ones responsible whenever they lose
Since voting for the non-Trump one is completely meaningless, voting third party actually has a greater real effect. It doesn't get the third party elected this time, but the larger the percentage of third party is per election cycle, the more it might seem possible to get one elected, and that might in turn lead to real perceptible changes. It might lead to, eventually, 16 years down the line, to a critical mass where enough people will think it's viable and get someone else elected. Or it might scare the existing power-monopoly into doing some democratic actions.
Thanks for your opinion Mein Fuhrer
Yes I am going to vote for the guaranteed extermination of Palestinians Mein Fuhrer
Germany covered up the usa attack on its critical energy infrastructure. You think your vote matters in a vassal state as subservient as this?
Edit: Biden attacked your country! Destroyed your infrastructure! Made your people's heating costs unaffordable!
not voting doesn't fix anything
See you don't even live here. You have no fuckin idea what you are talking about, and as others have already told you in detail it doesn't matter anyway. Direct action is what we have.
One of the big "reasons to vote for Biden" was because he wasn't Trump and it would be a return to "normal".
Then the 2024 election got closer and everybody forgot that Biden was just supposed to be a place holder and started crowing about how he's the "greatest most progressivest president evah!" when he absolutely wasn't. The Dems and their supporters decided that "no, because Biden won the 2020 election it was ACTUALLY because everybody was voting FOR Biden instead of AGAINST Trump" and got all butt hurt when people pointed out that "maybe the Dems should have spent 4 years getting a better candidate ready to run for President with a D by their name in 2024" because Biden kinda sucks.
So, no, voting "just to vote" isn't something that is a zero sum game. If you are voting for a candidate that you don't want to win to try to keep some other candidate from winning, the only thing that the candidate sees is that somebody voted for them. Once they win, they don't need to listen to you anymore.
democracy is not possible under capitalism due to the outsized power of the ownership class over the means of production
Really good video. I'm surprised I haven't heard of this person before. That's the best I've seen that contradiction explained.
thank you for telling me, sometims I fear that I'm annoyingly posting things everyone has already seen
I found a YouTube link in your comment. Here are links to the same video on alternative frontends that protect your privacy:
Spending 4 hours at a homeless shelter or comforting a random crackhead on the street will be a greater net good for the world than spending 4 hours in line to vote for my preffered genocidal maniac.
This argument is only somewhat valid if you agree that there is a lesser evil between the two, we don't agree with that, that's what you peoples don't understand about our position.
None of you have ever provided any evidences that the Democrats are less bad than the Republicans, not a single one of you ever did. You just accept it as true without questions.
You're saying that there's no harm in voting for evil? Seems pretty harmful and evil to me
You stupid motherfuckers fucking giving legitimacy to the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie by participating in its elections, giving direct sanction to our ruling class, makes it almost impossible to fucking do anything, you dumb piece of shit
You put us in a position where violent revolution is the only option to cause real change, but you're the same dumb fucks who cheer and oink as the cops murder us, so thanks for nothing, fucker
So, what's your plan for reforming Nazi Germany from within? By the way, should we vote for Goebbels or Himmler?
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like I said in other comments, I'm not saying you should only try changing the system from within. voting doesn't take a lot of time though, and I don't see why you shouldn't use the methods within the system to try to make it get shitty less quickly while ALSO trying to change the system in other ways. unless you're an accelerationist I guess. I don't see any harm in voting for the lesser evil as long as you don't use it as an excuse to not also do other stuff. you can do both, and I'm worried that people that act like it's either or might make things worse than they're already going to be.
"Voting doesnt take alot of time"
Did you see the part of the tweet where a whole extended family was killed? They're doing a genocide
how does not voting change any of that?
How does voting?
it doesn't change anything about those things, but it can change some other things. the only two viewpoints I can see from which voting is bad is either if you're an accelerationist (in which case you should probably just vote for the side which you think is worse) or if you think that voting "legitimizes the system" and makes it stronger, somehow. though I'm not a fan of accelerationism and I don't think that "the system" would care if all left leaning people just stopped voting. I definitely don't think it would make anything better
Let's turn this around. There are two viewpoints from where voting is seen as good.
1: deccelerationists, they think their vote makes it less bad. Fools.
2: those who want to legitimize the system. Genocidal monsters.
The time and energy spent on voting and campaigning would be better spent planting gardens and building community yes. Then , AFTER you have a strong community, you can making voting easy in you area and coordinate yourselves as a larger voting bloc.
Once a critical mass of communities is organized enough to change an election, both right wings will pull the accelerationism lever as a hail mary. All the while blaming the communities organized enough to attempt protecting themselves. At no point will the ruling class allow an election to change things.
So you do see the harm? Sorry, a bit confused on whether or not you think they deserve to live
I do see harm in the system. I said I don't see any harm in voting. you just conveniently took out the in voting part. not voting won't make anything better.
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But the system is set up in a way that all votes for third party get discarded.
yea that's why you don't vote third party
But you said vote for the lesser evil
when voting there's only really two options. the giga evil and the mega evil. third party would be ideal but that's basically the same as not voting at all in the current system.
What you are describing is not a democracy.
Then kill the system. Kill it with fire
kinda sounds like a fucking joke that only a chump would validate
No, there's only one option if you don't live in a swing state. Did you not pay attention in social studies or something?
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Anyone who is currently committing genocide is certainly not the lesser evil, so you must be suggesting we vote for Trump.
This is a communist instance and I don't think you'll get much traction drumming up votes for him around here.
No, you can't. The Amerikan political system is hardened and inured against actions from the inside, otherwise tHe SqUaD would've actually been able to do something with their tenures that wasn't "get their numbers slashed by half by the time 2024 rolled around", and the Black Misleadership Cabal-- I mean, the Congressional Black Caucus wouldn't be shucking, jiving, stepping, and fetching for the peckerwood democrats.
You a goddamn lie.
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well, do you think libs seeing tweets like this will go do stuff? or do you think they'll just do even less and not even vote? I also dislike how this narrative discourages people that aren't libs from voting. you can change the system and also go vote once every 4 years, they are not mutually exclusive. my comment was more aimed at the users of this community than the libs
The truthful narrative discourages people from voting huh?
Simple fact of the matter is, Voting only works in democracies.
"You people who hate the evil empire should participate in the ritual that legitimizes the evil empire"
Liberals, every time
yea if all left leaning people just stopped voting the world would be a better place..
The US would be exactly the same as it is now. There has never been any left wing candidate allowed near the presidency.
you think Harris and Trump are identical in every way?
Trump is more senile and less capable of managing your genocide machine.
Otherwise, they are effectively the same.
You are welcome to try and explain why a second-in-command of the administration that has been continuing almost all Trump's policies is different from Trump.
Did i say that? I said leftists in the US have never had a candidate to vote for. It has always been right wing vs fascist. Blue nice fascist vs red mean fascist.
They dont have to be identical for their policy effects to be the same.
Whataboutism incoming.
I have no objections to voting in countries that are not part of the imperial core
Unironically yes
It’s funny when the vote shaming lib shows up and doesn’t even understand the local elections mean more than the presidential elections. At least my lib friends understand that aspect.
Just change the system bro, it's so easy bro. Use the paid time off and strong public transit that I as a German assume everybody has and cast a vote for 99% hitler, as long as you live in one of the 10 states where your vote actually matters of course.
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Lib
Yeah dude you can totally change the system that's why everything has just gotten worse every year for the past fucking forever, all the good changing the system we're doing voting for the lesser evil. Keep up the good work
eat shit you dumb motherfucker
I've heard this exact sentence every election for my entire life and things have only gotten worse
How do you propose we change the system entirely? Nobody here is suggesting not doing anything.
idk, the same way you want to do it + voting
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Voting gives away the only actual legal leverage you have (outside of donations, which AIPAC can outspend you on seeing the U.S. literally ships the money that gets funded right back to them).
If you vote for them while they are actively in the middle of commiting a genocide, then you have exactly zero principles outside of 'Well I've got mine." Well done, you've reinvented libertarianism.
what if voting makes people think they're done and can go back to brunch
oppa gangnam style
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Can you name me all the times this actually worked