Something that always bothers me during election time, even in leftist spaces, is the lack of any discussion of direct election tampering. In addition to voter suppression and gerrymandering and such, we know electronic voting machines are seemingly designed for the purpose of tampering, and the dem primaries were blatantly rigged with shitty apps, coin flips, and "rouding errors" that somehow all went for establishment candidates. So, are we really sure any vote totals are legit, or is it a giant psy-op whose results are tailored to produce the preferred political climate for capital?

  • Homestar440 [he/him]
    hexagon
    ·
    4 years ago

    Voting matters because there are limits to how far capitalists can go.

    This fact means that there is every incentive for capitalists to bring electoral politics under its direct control. So suppose you had methods of manipulation like gerrymandering, voter purging and such, but you innovated a way to get direct control over results, by replacing paper ballots with electronic machines, say. You would still need to monitor and pander to the public, in the manufacturing consent style of vigorous debate within tightly controlled bounds (mainstream electoral politics), but you would never need to worry about the public getting out of hand, you could tailor the results and the partisan reactions and rationalizations. That's why it's conspiracy theory hours, it's kind of unproveable.