I've seen this exchange a bunch of times, and I think it's interesting. At first blush, it seems maddeningly circular. Basically, if voting could effect change, those in power wouldn't allow voting. This implies that the presence of electoral mischief is proof of the efficacy of voting. Meaning, the more voter suppression or fraud you see, the more powerful voting must be. You can guess where this kind of shit ends up, and yes, I have literally seen a lib suggest voting out electronic voting machines because the vote totals can't be trusted.
The solution is simple, instead of "if voting mattered they'd fuck with voting" it should be "voting doesn't matter because they fuck with voting." Before it was gerrymandering, closing polling places and hacking voting machines it was property ownership and race requirements, it's just the modern way of ensuring the ruling class gets it preferred outcome.
Well yeah electoralism can never be the thing because, of course, the ruling class can easily fuck with it. No argument there. I just disagree that it can't change anything. You can overwhelm their mechanisms and force an unwanted result, OR force them into a situation where an angry populace knows damn well who won and it isn't who they say won, you can distract and force them to waste resources on the front, it is certainly a psychic plain on which the struggle can be waged, even if it's one designed to lean in their direction.
It just can't be THE ONLY thing, ofc. Because then Bernie happens. They just turboload all their resources into election fuckery and since they aren't being pressured on any other front, it works.
Young people showing up in the general doesn't mean shit, you need young people to show up to primaries to vote in progressives. If meaningful numbers of incumbents are losing seats to people more left wing than them, they will move to the left to keep their seats.
No, they will put more money and resources into strengthening propaganda and barriers to entry, liberals can't move left because they can't, by definition, oppose capitalism
Most American politicians have virtually no hardline beliefs of their own, all they care about is power for their team.
A liberal ideologue like the folks from /r/neoliberal (and truthfully Joe Biden fits the bill here so idk why anyone says he can be pushed left) are someone you need to defeat in the electoral arena, a political hack like Kamala Harris will support whatever she needs to support to keep getting elected and moving upwards, be that a right wing policy like more police or a left wing one like Medicare for all.
I'm not talking about implementing socialism in full, that was never going to happen from electoral politics, but you can absolutely get major social democratic reforms this way.
Ths abolition of slavery, social security, to Medicare and the civil rights act, every single big sweeping legislative reform in the countries history happened because of groundswell protests that forced the hand of political hack liberal politicians. Sure it's better if you get one of your own in, but even Bernie would've needed the same sort of protest movements to force the hands of other liberals.
When young people actually showed up to vote for a candidate we like, they called us racist misogynist privileged Berniebros.
Young people showed up in 2018 and we didn't even get meaningful obstruction of the GOP agenda.
deleted by creator
They are trying to make it less allowed to be fair
I've seen this exchange a bunch of times, and I think it's interesting. At first blush, it seems maddeningly circular. Basically, if voting could effect change, those in power wouldn't allow voting. This implies that the presence of electoral mischief is proof of the efficacy of voting. Meaning, the more voter suppression or fraud you see, the more powerful voting must be. You can guess where this kind of shit ends up, and yes, I have literally seen a lib suggest voting out electronic voting machines because the vote totals can't be trusted.
The solution is simple, instead of "if voting mattered they'd fuck with voting" it should be "voting doesn't matter because they fuck with voting." Before it was gerrymandering, closing polling places and hacking voting machines it was property ownership and race requirements, it's just the modern way of ensuring the ruling class gets it preferred outcome.
Well yeah electoralism can never be the thing because, of course, the ruling class can easily fuck with it. No argument there. I just disagree that it can't change anything. You can overwhelm their mechanisms and force an unwanted result, OR force them into a situation where an angry populace knows damn well who won and it isn't who they say won, you can distract and force them to waste resources on the front, it is certainly a psychic plain on which the struggle can be waged, even if it's one designed to lean in their direction.
It just can't be THE ONLY thing, ofc. Because then Bernie happens. They just turboload all their resources into election fuckery and since they aren't being pressured on any other front, it works.
Voting won't get us socialism, but it certainly could get us a number of major social democratic programs. It happened in the past.
the past was when the communist party was literally mainstream, and everyone was in a union. so good luck
Young people showing up in the general doesn't mean shit, you need young people to show up to primaries to vote in progressives. If meaningful numbers of incumbents are losing seats to people more left wing than them, they will move to the left to keep their seats.
No, they will put more money and resources into strengthening propaganda and barriers to entry, liberals can't move left because they can't, by definition, oppose capitalism
Most American politicians have virtually no hardline beliefs of their own, all they care about is power for their team.
A liberal ideologue like the folks from /r/neoliberal (and truthfully Joe Biden fits the bill here so idk why anyone says he can be pushed left) are someone you need to defeat in the electoral arena, a political hack like Kamala Harris will support whatever she needs to support to keep getting elected and moving upwards, be that a right wing policy like more police or a left wing one like Medicare for all.
I'm not talking about implementing socialism in full, that was never going to happen from electoral politics, but you can absolutely get major social democratic reforms this way.
Ths abolition of slavery, social security, to Medicare and the civil rights act, every single big sweeping legislative reform in the countries history happened because of groundswell protests that forced the hand of political hack liberal politicians. Sure it's better if you get one of your own in, but even Bernie would've needed the same sort of protest movements to force the hands of other liberals.
Except young people didn't actually show up in big numbers for Bernie. It was still only like 30% turnout.