Absolutely! LFG!
People on twitter be like “you think we need to change the system? That pales in effectiveness to my strategy, helping neoliberalis win elections” and then not win elections
Even if you don’t think voting will fix everything, just remember that it won’t -hurt- anything. Just vote.
Alright I guess Im gonna vote for Trump since it cant hurt.
I, too, remember when biden winning in 2020 ended trump and fascism.
Thankfully we only live four to eight years at a time so I have no idea what you’re talking about. This problem will go away completely if we elect John democrat.
Unjerk: voting for harm reduction and local elections is important but don’t stop there. Join a mutual aid group, attend local meetings if you can and care for your neighbors.
To be fair, it won’t be a full blown dictatorship until he takes a third term by force. Until then it’s just sparkling tyranny.
“Dictatorship” is not just a synonym for any unelected leader. Begging you people to learn what the words you use mean
Begging you motherfuckers to read Lenin and Rosa Luxembourg if you’re going to try to speak on the critiques of bourgeois dictatorship.
Voting in and of itself is completely pointless. What happened in Serbia happened because of a principled political movement, pursuing the betterment of conditions under a wellorganised structure capable of agitating for clear goals. Under such circumstances voting is a useful tool to build upon momentum and further approach wielding state power.
Saying “voting ended the regime” is like saying “voting killed the Tzar” or “voting instituted the civil Rights Act” or “voting decapitated Louis XVI” or “voting enacted womens suffrage”.
To make it more absurd it is like looking at a holiday feast and then declaring it is there because you put a nice tablecloth on the table.Also
Well said. Now instead of authoritarian neoliberalism they may get progressive neoliberalism for example. Just a different form of suffering. It solved a little.
Sounds like something the “i dont vote” crowd thought up
I dont shower!
When was the last time showering prevented disease?
It can work, but not always. cough Russia cough
And I am sure the Pedophile of the United States will find some way to throw the votes not in his favor out of the window.
Fuck yeah. ✊🏼
If somebody tells you not to vote, they’re voting for the other guy.
Sometimes they are just dumb. Yes, that dumb. They exist, they have communities on reddit and they ban you if you dare argue against their logic.
There’s communities here that ban you for arguing to vote too lol. I’d argue that’s far more common in lefty spaces than liberal ones.
Fortunately I haven’t seen those yet, maybe defederated?
Because there are massive groups of people on the internet with vested interests in convincing you not to vote (because it helps their allies win).
And ten times as many bots that are doing the same.
Brazil is hanging in there as well. By a thread, but it’s still…
This is basically why I’m cynical about voting. People will post stuff like this and ignore the 2+ years of street action that got them there.
AKA. I would be a lot more confident going into these USA midterms if my fellow Americans had been going on rowdy strikes the last two years.
This
And yet it was the voting that worked, not the street action. Strikes, rallies, and everything else like them primarily produce change by convincing people to vote. And for that reason, they are important! Doing those is great, but doing those and not voting and then expecting change is nonsensical.
That’s insane.
No that’s not why strikes work. Strukess work because workers force their employers to give them better rights. Democrats are better on labor compared to Republicans but people don’t only strike around election time.
The street action in Minnesota didn’t force ice out because some dude won an election. They forced ice out due to organized street action.
You are like a child looking at a dinner table, declaring the food is there because you put on the tablecloth
But voting doesn’t counter the street action, it’s not a zero sum game. At the very least people should vote for the right people, even if that’s all they do. And if they wanna do more, like protest, then that’s great because it’s really needed. But in the end I’m of the opinion that you can’t complain about how bad it is and then refuse to vote. If you vote and then your candidate is shit, you have a reason to complain. If you vote and it turns out they meddled with it, then you can complain. And obviously you can also complain if half of the country voted for some douchebag. But people who encourage not voting are actively lowering the chances of the right people to win, even in a system where the vote is rigged. The more people vote for change, the harder it is to cover up
I have one occasion I did not vote and got to complain: I was out of state and my absentee conveniently arrived the day after the election. I ain’t got proof of fuckery but I’m sure it happened
But voting doesn’t counter the street action
it does suck the energy out of street action. every time someone is out door-knocking or phone banking, they’re not organizing non-electoral resistance.
So on voting day you vote, takes like 10 minutes maybe then you’re free to carry on with whatever else. It’s an easy activity that has no downside and you can still do the other things.
Non-electoral resistance usually requires a higher risk tolerance from the individual engaging in it, so not everyone doing door knocking or phone banking would be willing to do what you are thinking anyway.
food-not-bombs, skill-shares, and other community-building is an important facet of resistance, and takes essentially no risk tolerance at all. but every time you grab a clipboard and start collecting signatures, you’re not spending the time building community.
I’ve done both. I don’t think local community building is worthless, it can be potent, but it really depends on what region we are talking and it requires you to stick around to build rapport. There are some places where its just a cultural wasteland of ignorant chuds and rightwing nutcases. And it only has of course a local impact. Its not on par with the importance of national politics.
As someone who essentially grew up lacking roots in any particular place and doesn’t care for much of the people in my local area it also isn’t really something I care to engage with anymore.
Other than the fact that I already work for a small local non-profit, though I’ve been seeking to get out of it as soon as possible as I kind of just don’t believe in it as fully anymore after 2024. Private sector pays a lot better anyway. I’m going to start working for me, not a local community that seems to think I’m some kind of Leftist Autistic LGBT freak.
this wasn’t an indictment of you, personally. i’m indicting the energy-sink that is electoral politics. all that energy, just to lose half the time and have to build a new campaign for a new candidate every 2 or 4 years could be spent building something that actually helps us resist our oppression.
additionally what [email protected] fails to realize is electoral compaigning isnt perfectly safe either, theres recent precedent of a politician putting up campaign signs being sexually assaulted. of political opponents being raided. of voters for whatever opposition party having their name and location information recorded if not openly accessible online for targeting. putting your name on a clipboard is insecure and opens you up to harmful actors, both those who scam you for your time and money and those who hate you because you voted “the other guy”. meanwhile you dont have to put down any name or even have people know who you are for things like FnB, skill shares, mutual aid, etc. and the whole goal of other things like direct action often times is to never even be seen or noticed.
I don’t think they are ignoring it. This is a direct response to the people saying voting is pointless. Sure, the years of street action are important but if people didn’t vote then it would just be noise.
Go Serbia! You crazy kids are showing the world how it’s done. Thanks!
At the absolute least, voting (when possible) can stop things from breaking so quickly and making it easier to do the other things that fix things.
And once things are fixed, voting well will be one of the actions keeping things from breaking again.
Plus, it’s just one hour of effort with years’ worth of impact. Even if that impact is low, it’s a good tradeoff.
Voting out fascism never works except for all the times it has like the same fucking guy in 2020
Considering where we are now that doesn’t seem like a great argument.
There is no “beating fascism”, it’s an ethernal struggle, those fuckers are relentless. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose, doesn’t invalidate your wins however small and temporary
I hope the Serbians don’t go out to brunch like the Americans did.
The bigger problem here in the USA was that biden ran on a “return to normalcy” and didn’t even do that. And the reason trump won originally was partly bc many people were fed up with how things were and knew we needed change. trump is a “business man” (🙄) and americans believe the myth of meritocracy so they think that bc trump has money he’s a good businessman
So when shit didn’t get better under biden, the just got worse slower and in less dramatic ways, people wanted something else. Since Harris was literally bidens vp and didn’t distance herself from him, people voted for the other guy bc we suffer under a 2 party system
Was it absolutely fucking stupid for people to vote for trump a second time and think things would be better? Yes. But, the dems also failed to provide a good, better candidate. That’s why its so uplifting to see all of these leftist and DSA candidates. People are finally getting involved and saying we deserve better and won’t settle for less
This is the thing mainstream democratic voters struggle so much with.
If the Democratic Party cant translate electoral victory into positive action, then they won’t get votes next time.
They win an election on making things better and then tell you “oh well shoot, we couldn’t quite get there, we were so surprised to get power we didn’t know what to do with it, we passed a CHIPS act to give money to Intel though, is that what you wanted?”
Even the ACA, the hallmark 21st century legislation for the neoliberal democrats has approximately 2 thingss people like, young people can stay on their parents plan until 25 and pre-existing conditions cant be used to deny coverage. Everything else about it sucks though, we still have for profit insurance companies, whose power and profits are now enmeshed into the system even deeper and enshrined in law. Insurers so popular with the common man that when one of their CEOs gets gunned down the media has to give up on trying to make him a sympathetic character because of how much everyone fucking hates health insurance.
The democrats are constantly telling us how glacially slow any positive change has to be, that’s just the rules man. But the republicans get the slimmest majority and a flood of project 2025 / heritage foundation / ALEC bills are ready to go getting passed making sweeping changes to tax codes, environmental regulations, the social safety net.
And every election the people that say the Dems are a garbage party that cant win because of their garbage candidates that go on to twiddle their fucking thumbs get yelled at for depressing voter turnout.
You know what really depresses voter turnout, failing to deliver every time you win an election. There is some great chunk of this nation that will only go out and vote if they get angry enough or like what the current administration is doing enough to show up. The Dems only seem to be able to scratch together a victory on the angry enough side of the coin, because they’ve given up on giving the voters something to vote for. Why? Because those policies will almost certainly upset the donors, and they need those donors to run a bunch of tv ads that won’t convince a single Republican to cross over, but still need to be aired 24/7.
That’s the most frustrating part, all this money spent for the Dems to attempt to court a handful of theoretical republicans instead of actually energizing their base.
I’ll hold my nose and vote for these feckless cowards, but they could have a blue wave, a blue tsunami, a blue Armageddon, and I don’t expect them to do a damn thing. They’ll have some investigations, they will release some reports, they will probably impeach again. And none of that will change a damn thing.
Every time someone ignores a congressional subpoena they will tell the sergeant at arms to take a nap, not go arrest them. They will rubber stamp the next huge pile of money for ICE for fear of being labeled soft on crime or immigration. They won’t enshrine abortion rights it trans protections into law because it will be too controversial and there will always be just enough Dems in “tough districts” that turn tail.
Then they will act indignant when those voters that got nothing dont show up next time.
That was a failure of the judiciary. And the executive. Also the legislative. But the whole government? Nah. That’s a complete overreaction or something sorry I can’t keep this up
A surgeon saving your dog still counts if he later runs into traffic a second time. The vet’s office is not the shortcoming.
Except in this case the vet didn’t stitch up the wound or set the leg. The vet just stuck a Band-Aid on it. But it was still bleeding, the wound was still full of gravel, and the leg was still broken.
Also the vets the one who hits the dog with the car both times.
No one on this service can be trusted with an analogy.
