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.
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.