Former democratic party activists are organizing Muslims and Arab-Americans in Swing states to vote against Biden with the demand that he support a ceasefire in Gaza.
I'll allow them a little bit of electoralism this time.
Former democratic party activists are organizing Muslims and Arab-Americans in Swing states to vote against Biden with the demand that he support a ceasefire in Gaza.
I'll allow them a little bit of electoralism this time.
Maybe this is what's hard for me to understand about the anti-electoral stance. From what I've gathered in this thread, my vote is simultaneously completely worthless and inffective, yet also the most precious thing I should only give to the most worthy.
I'm having a hard time figuring out how to word this comment to sound less snarky, but I am legitimately interested in your thoughts on this dichotomy. Or if you think this is not a good interpretation of your+other commenter's comments, I'll be happy to be corrected. Thanks.
It's pretty simple, if your vote is for a 'lesser evil' that is a negative choice proposition, hardly worthy of the word 'choice' or 'democracy'. Two bad choices are still two bad choices, even if one is marketed as slightly less bad. The entire Dem strategy for like decades now has been this prisoners dilemma proposition. They never provide federal protection enshrined in law because that would take away the leverage of this strategy. The only way to break out of this pattern is to really threaten it directly by not acquiescing to it like good little liberals. That is why you have cognitive dissonance over this topic. The social pressure of 'lesser evil' is so deeply embedded in the liberal worldview that any questioning of it is adjacent to being a terrible right-winger.
The cultural war divide benefits Dems, so they do everything to perpetuate it instead of reconciling it. You need to comprehend this to have a realistic understanding of US political economy.
I can acknowledge all of that, and understand it intellectually, and still see that a vote can reduce the speed of encroaching facism.
Trump lost Georgia by 11k votes, Bush won Florida by 537 votes -- sometimes meaningful things do happen with relatively tiny margins and if they can be swayed in a preferred direction, I'll take it.
How is this a threat? This is, I think, core to my failure to understand your position. To me that sounds like giving up and giving free rein to continue rolling back abortion rights, lgbtq protections, etc. This sounds completely irrational to me so if I've misunderstood you (or others, or this position in general) I am happy to be corrected on my assumptions. Thanks!
show me where any of this has stopped or slowed under Biden please. that is the issue.
give your vote away to a party that does not fight for these things but only uses them to receive your vote because you have no other option. that is the problem with continuing to vote for them without any real commitments or guarantees that they will do anything material to make things better or even stop the rightward momentum. if you can't understand that, then you should really learn more about political history.
Of course I can't :) unfortunately all I can say is that I believe it would have been (or will be) even worse under a second trump term, or many of the other republicans making a name themselves on the national stage. Lately, Joe sure is making your case a hell of a lot more clear.
I believe I understand this point and why it is important. A few others have pointed it out as well. I think I am drawing different conclusions from it though.
Of course you're right, always room to learn more. And by no means am I claiming advanced knowledge :)
One thing I regret about the way this discussion* has gone, is that the conversation has trended towards presidential and/or national elections. But, I guess it is a common touch point many people have a frame of reference for, and it was easy for me to go along with for that same reason. I wish we talked more about local organizing, alternative parties, and different aspects of election processes such as voting methodologies, primaries, ballot access.
* broadly throughout the entire thread; not specifically between you and I.
worth a read: https://mronline.org/2020/09/12/the-insidious-workings-of-the-political-ratchet/
once you understand the ratchet, it becomes more difficult to support the Dems that foreclose any real leftward movement in US politics in favor of centrist triangulation that moves the discourse further rightward
The USA is not a victim of encroaching fascism. The USA was fascist before it was even founded. Everything you can be that is "fascistic" was done by white European settler colonists before the Third Reich did it. Gas chambers, concentration camps, eugenics, wars of extermination, etc.
The Democrats aren't against this stuff. Ruth Bader Ginsberg relied on and reinforced the reliance on the Doctrine of Discovery for the legal basis of the USA. The Doctrine of Discovery is part and parcel of the religious decrees that demanded European settlers murder, rape, enslave, and break every non-European they came across.
The USA is the reservoir of fascism. In Mein Kampf, Hitler explicitly details how the program of the USA was what he wanted to emulate and apply to the Slavs. His entire leadership team studied the USA to base their program on it, everything from apartheid to propaganda.
The USA ruling class supported the ride of fascism in both Italy and Germany. When the USA finally entered the war it wasn't to end fascism it was to stop the growth of communism. The USA collaborated with the Vatican to bring Nazis to safety all over the US sphere of influence. They created NATO and staffed it with Nazis. They worked with NATO through Operation Gladio to reinforce and support Nazi partisans all throughout Europe.
Every time a vote comes up in the UN to condemn the glorification of Nazis, the USA votes against it.
Fascism is a Euro-settler phenomenon. It predates the US. It was perfected in the US. It emerged in Europe from the reservoir of the US. It returned back to the US when it failed to defeat communism. The US maintained it the entire time.
The idea that fascism is encroaching is a lie. It's always been here. The only solution is revolution.
I think of it like this. In an ideal society (or at least vaguely functional political system), your vote would and should be precious. Yet in our shithole nation, this precious thing of yours is forced to be given to one of two genocidal evils.
is the face of a party who pretends like they'll take your vote and do something useful. Stand up for minorities, do something about climate change, maybe reduce the mass social murder in this country, or just do fucking anything at all. Yet time and again, they only make things worse. If your vote is precious and should only be given to the most worthy, why give it to a racist, senile, sex offending, warhawk?
And we all know that to vote for anyone other than the two candidates is a useless gesture, accomplishing nothing. So in practical terms, voting in this nation is voting for one of
this guy's two masks. Why fucking bother?
Edit to add-
Why? Why the shitting fuck would you decide "This genocider is deserving of my vote". That is a physical manifestation of your thought that this man should lead our country. You're not just passively thinking it, you're taking an active step to make sure that happens. If a daycare was trying to choose between John Wayne Gacy or Albert Fisch to be its director, it would be fucking insane to give it serious thought and then vote on one of them. You should demand to know why this is the choice in the first place, and not shrug and vote for one of them like a browbeaten little b----
Thanks for the emoji, I was starting to think I was doing something wrong if no hexbear folk would use emoji with me
The short answer is, one of the masks is attacking lgtbq and women's rights domestically, and the other isn't. I understand that their complicity- doing nothing to stop this or actually enact protections - is also part of your point.
I'm not well-versed in the specific meanings of your emoji, but I take
holden-bloodfeastthere to be an old dying capitalist whose bank account can never be sated no matter the cost. I don't think that type gives a shit about lgbtq issues one way or another. R's do it for culture war bullshit, and holding on to their christian voters. But it is possible for them to simply stop pursuing those goals and keep their voters, and its not like the D's will suddenly "step up" as the other mask of Mr Holden to start oppressing these groups. As long as the almighty economy keeps going and his bank account grows it doesn't matter one way or another to his kind. So when it comes to voting for one mask or the other, if one is going to win anyway, why not nudge things towards the one that is more humane, even if its just a drop in the bucket?Isn't part of your point that it will happen no matter what? If its going to happen, regardless of my vote, is it really an active step? This sounds like I'm being purposefully obtuse, but I'm not trying to be. I think maybe we're just going in circles.
Anyway, to address your addendum differently-- lately it seems on any given election cycle it's the last gasp of hope that we can keep a semi-functioning democracy. Other activities happen before that, in which I am not taking active steps to elect a ghoul (or sometimes we can even take active steps towards a non-ghoul!).
In that aspect, I think your serial killer daycare analogy is a bit weak, in that there are many more steps to electing someone to office than there are to hiring someone for a daycare; and the processes in place whittle the electoral field down to a very small group which would not be the case for hiring someone for daycare. When it comes to US electoral process, I understand it well enough to see how we got to that point, and recognize that even if the outcome is horrible I should use my tiny bit of influence to nudge us towards the less-successful serial killer. (err... tried to go back to the analogy, didn't work so well. leaving it in lmao)
Like I said, materially supporting genocide is a red line. The GOP is working to strip rights and protections from women and LGBT populations. Yeah, the Dems aren't actively participating. They are doing sweet fuck-all about it though. Their inaction on minority protections does not justify their culpability in genocide. Not to mention how many times the Dems have refused to codify such protections into law when they had the chance. They know for a fact that they're allowing the GOP to get away with their shit once the GOP is elected, and they just don't care. This lack of active attack means that people such as yourself can see them and say "well at least they're not the ones actively hurting me" and still ensure that nothing is actually done. The "attack - standback" cycle is endless, and each party benefits from not actually helping these minorities. It's like I was saying earlier, the Dems will absorb votes from people who think they'll help. And they'll never help. They don't want to. If you care about women and gay people, why vote for a party that willingly participates in that disgusting cycle?
Yes. You are taking the time out of your day to expend energy and thought into marking your ballot and getting it filed. In some states, a substantial part of your day. That is actively deciding to use your limited impact on this system to vote for the genocide guy.
Don't be a nerd about this. Of course there are more steps. It doesn't change the choice's similarities.
Anyway, other people smarter than I am seem to have a lot more energy for the Q&A session so I'm tapping out. My point was and is that Dem's "pretending to give a fuck" act about minority protections does not excuse them from participating in genocide. The fact that we're at this point shows that democracy has blatantly failed. Good luck with your inquiries
I'm sure people like me can be draining sometimes. I hope I haven't been too egregious in that regard. Thank you for your time and patience, & enjoy your day!