And frankly, even if you’re literally portioning rations for the revolution you plan to start tomorrow, the idea of not taking the absolutely minute amount of time, in the grand scheme of things, that it takes to potentially positively affect change is still absurd. If this really was the revolution, then the people’s army couldn’t afford to leave strategic advantages like that on the table.
Somebody said something to this effect once: Voting isn’t about picking which hero is going to save us; it’s about picking the kind of villain we have to fight against.
I just don’t even understand how this is still a conversation. It’s literally not an either/or dichotomy here. All of those things you want to do to prepare for the revolution or whatever? You can still do all of them and vote. You lose absolutely nothing by voting. Zero. It’s just such a batshit mentality from the very onset.
After really trying to engage sincerely with a couple of these folks online the only conclusion I can reach is that they are trying to suppress the vote under the guise of being extremist left. Like you say, there’s zero rational strategy to not using or tanking your vote, and only can be defended if you claim both candidates are the same. They persist in saying that, with trash like “Revolution is necessary, electoralism cannot work.” to rationalize not voting toward the lesser of two evils.
Exactly this. I think there are only two people you hear saying this: the overtly bad actors trying to suppress votes or the few extremely gullible idiots who stupidly get wrapped up in the lies of former. Thankfully I think it’s usually clear before long which of the two you’re talking to and only one of them is worth your time, and they’re the rarer of them.
All of those things you want to do to prepare for the revolution or whatever? You can still do all of them and vote.
I mean, a few of the things I want to do to prepare for a revolution are explicitly illegal, and I don’t have enough commas in my bank account to get away with treason.
And this has any relevancy on voting… How? Either you’re going to the do the illegal things, which can be done on any day other than Nov 5 or you aren’t going to the do the illegal things and you can still vote on Nov 5.
I don’t give a shit about your personal revolutionary savior cosplaying fantasy; it is entirely non-sequitur to the topic of how voting is still the reasonable choice even for the revolutionarily-motivated.
I’m not going to vote on November 5th.
Because I mailed my ballot on October 23rd.
Your masturbatory revolutionary cosplay fantasies are still non-sequitur nonetheless.
Yes, it was an attempt at a joke. Hence me saying I don’t have enough commas
Guess today’s not the day for jokes.
Today is the day we need jokes the most.
I know a guy who was working for the Fire Department in New York on 9/11/2001.
He told me that when he brought a newspaper on 9/12 he was disappointed that they’d cut the comics page.
He said it was a day he really needed to see Charlie Brown and Lucy.
Guess I need better jokes then
Canonical Strawman Leftist™ describing their utopia: “Everyone votes on everything, and we engage in thoughtful discussion to persuade our neighbors to make good choices with their votes.”
Same leftist describing today: “Voting is pointless, and it’s impossible to change anyone’s mind.”
Do you know how much fuckin time that would take? I’m glad we hire people to do these things. I just wish they were better at them.
I dislike leftist Seinfeld, even if he’d hate it.
LMFAO OP just tearing through the haters in the comments
The burden of proof is on revolutionaries. Always!
You not only need to show that your radically new society is a genuine improvement (and won’t collapse into a brutal dictatorship) but also that it’s enough of an improvement to be worth the millions of lives that would be lost during the revolution! Furthermore, you need to show that the new society you propose can accommodate people whose ideology is different from your own.
Assuming that humans will all think and behave the same way has never worked throughout human history. Liberal democracy (and to a lesser extent enlightened monarchy) has been the only time period to accommodate diverse opinions, scientific and economic flourishing, and strong protections for individual liberty (and sexuality) simultaneously with a large population. All of the other systems were either very small (and so relied on the close bonds of kinship and inter-familial relationships) or domination by brutal despots.
Thus, as much as we hate our current system for its many flaws, it’s so much better than everything that has gone before that the bar has been set very high.
Wow I literally just watched this episode
One day you’ll understand what “non voting leftists” truly mean. When kamala wins, and the world still spirals into fascism, maybe you’ll see what they mean
What the fuck are you on about. The other guy is saying, on record, he’s the fascist.
Your side has been saying the world was going to end since Obama was elected.
It’s the same, tired, racist, bullshit.
Fuck off, Nazi.
At “best” they are an accelerationist, seeing Trump as a useful idiot to burn it all down, and then they can swoop in and “save” us. At worse, you’ve reached the Kremlin Election Emergency Hotline…
I’d vote for kamala, thank god i’m not a USer. I’m just saying that the only way someone like trump can get there is when progressives stop being progressive, when democratic politicians are not pressured in pushing the overton window left, then inevitably fascists will throw it to the right. Your shitty attitude is part of the problem and your refusal to even entertain any thought outside the voting binary shows how much of a tool you are
Disingenuous. Nobody is suggesting not to vote outside the binary; what they’re suggesting is to be realistic, rational, intelligent, and understand that you can’t start a race at the finish line.
There is no viable third party in America on a presidential scale. Period.
This does not mean there never will be.
But no, that change is not ever going to happen by a sudden upset win in the presidency. Ever. EVER. If you give a shit about breaking the binary, get out in the fucking streets and do the hard but necessary work of building a third party up from the roots. If you want to see a Green Party president, then put in the work of proving first that Green Party local representatives, school board members, etc., are worthy candidates with a proven track record. (Green is just an example, substitute it with whatever you want and don’t get caught up in that irrelevant choice)
Yes, this is long, and yes, this sucks. It doesn’t matter. Life sucks. This is how real change happens.
Unless you’re just an accelerationist, in which case, fuck you for being willing to risk the lives of countless decent citizens just because you’re too lazy to do the hard work of building a movement up from the ground floor. Revolution might be necessary, but you’re a dick if you run to it before exhausting more reasonable less-violent options.
Bottom line, being in reality means understanding that the presidential election is a binary until we do the hard work so that it isn’t, and pouting about it isn’t protest; it’s bending over and taking whatever they want to give you in abject impotency.
This debate is not exclusive to the election run, it’s just that you ignore it until the finish line then berate people for “talking about it only at the end”
Absolute bullshit. The people who are actually boots on ground doing the work are not the people making the claims. They know the hard work that is necessary and they know the benefit of voting even if the impact is incremental. The whole objection is that the people who talk about protest voting are the ones who only drop into the game at the finish line.
What are you talking about. Every time the Dems go left they lose, so they go to the center to find voters. Want them to be more progressive? Then give them victories. Because when they lose, they go to the center to find voters.
Glad you’re not live from Moscow! But I didn’t make it a binary choice. The stupid fucking GOP did by nominating the Orange Shitstain of a fascist. Never Trump conservatives will be a huge part of Harris being elected. So let us get this election out of the way, get the shitstain incarcerated, and then we can keep pushing the agenda left. For the most part I agree with you, and voted 3rd party pretty consistently up to 2016.
Why so angry? NPC moment for real. If god forbid i was American i’d vote for kamala but this high and mighty attitude of never holding your politicians accountable and ostracizing anyone who even dares whisper such thing is exactly what allows fascists like trump to reach the vote. Your blind rage for any kind of complex thought that goes beyond “blue good and red bad” is not as democratic as you think.
Drink a goddamn chamomile
Withholding your vote isn’t punishing your politicians, it’s punishing yourself. Absolutely nothing about voting implies you cannot hold your politicians accountable.
I’ve never talked about not voting, if you read my comments. I just think acting high and mighty towards disillusioned people is part of the problem
And I think you’re wrong. I think coddling people and indulging their juvenile entitlement desires to take their ball and go home does real world harm.
If you view a section of the electorate as children that will push back on you and ‘go home’ then continue to engage them in patronizing ways, your acting against your own desires when you simply could have been quiet. Therefore, you also are doing real world harm. You just feel like your harm is somehow more just.
If the people you insist on patronizing don’t show up, you lose the election, is that worth feeling morally superior to someone else?
Who says not to hold them accountable? People are merely saying, when it comes down to it, vote knowing the actually possible outcomes for your preference. If someone is particularly bad, vote against them, if someone with a shot who is really good, vote for them.
Where was all the “we are just holding them accountable” during the primaries? Why wasn’t there a movement to challenge Biden in the primary, if it were so important to hold him accountable?
People are justifiably suspicious that in all the ways that could matter (down ballot, primaries, even day to day protests outside of election season) the “revolutionary left” is suspiciously quiet and suddenly they are yelling from the rooftops in the singular race that they can not “win”, only screw up.
That’s just false, protests and criticisms happen outside of races too, you just don’t see it
There was a movement to hold biden accountable, you just ignored it
And how does non voting help
How does voting help? It’s just a dumb question, and I, personally, am not saying people shouldn’t vote. I’m just saying not to act like voting will stop fascism and not voting will enable it, it’s just not that simple
Yappin. Non answer
Nobody is saying or thinking that sincerely, but the idea of not voting is like playing a game of chess against facism and refusing to use your Queen.
Nobody thinks voting is the whole solution or the whole problem, and nobody thinks that all of our problems hinge solely on the vote.
Voting doesn’t solve everything and it doesn’t replace hard work. But rationally speaking, in raw terms of time and effort input vs impact output, the low cost of entry of voting simply makes it one of the most impactful things you can do to affect change in America pound-for-pound in terms of effort, period. Change is hard and voting in most places takes less than a hour total. If you tell me you’re trying to fight the good fight but you won’t sacrifice one hour for something with the equivalent punching weight many many times greater than that effort, I will assume you are either an absolute idiot or you’re just here in bad faith.
You’re never going to get an election victory that results in “now our opponent is dead forever. Congratulations you can stop paying attention and don’t have to try anymore”
There is no such thing as a final victory, you lose when you stop trying. No one wins forever.
I’m starting to suspect the anti-vax stuff is just people dressing up their fear of getting a needle, and the anti-electorial stuff is just people dressing up their excuse for why they don’t want to leave the house to run a quick errand.
You keep moving the goal posts in your commnets.
Now explain to me what of the measures you are taking to prevent this are somehow rendered moot by the act of voting.
I am not American, i am not talking about any measure, i am just saying that alienating people already alienated by politics doesn’t help either
And coddling people from the harsh realities of their circumstances helps them even less. It’s time to buck up, buttercup.
Genuinely laughing at how you construct a false premise and then continue building a mountain of straw men on top of it.
I guess that’s what happens when liberals abandon reality. Better luck constructing a coherent thought next time!
Genuinely laughing at how you construct a false premise and then continue building a mountain of straw men on top of it.
I guess that’s what happens when liberals abandon reality. Better luck constructing a coherent thought next time!
>You’re absolutely right. Most of these self-proclaimed leftists don’t even pretend to have any clue how to start a revolution, whilst demanding it as the only possible course of action.
Tbf, they’re mostly well aware that they’re too few in number to violently overthrow the system. So the opening of the OP is a bit of a strawman
Otoh they watch people looting an electronics store on tv and interpret it as ‘something is brewing’
There absolutely are folks precisely what the OP is talking about. One verbatim quote from an exchange I had: “Revolution is necessary, electoralism cannot work.”
He was absolutely adamant that voting is stupid and people shouldn’t bother because we need “true communism” that cannot come from voting.
True leftism is when you blindly vote lib, support capitalism, and obey the wealthy like a good puppy
There is no vote this election that will result in a better system. I’m not even sure there’s a vote that won’t result in a worse one.
Removed by mod
I was living in Germany in '88-'89 when the wall came down. You got me, I’m just out here destabilizing countries for hire. Actually I’m just an American who has lived in righty places and lefty places and it’s made me a proponent of ranked choice voting. I think we get railroaded into a choice between two shit shows every year.
Quick question, which places in USA have ranked choice voting and how many of those places are ‘lefty’ places?
There are a few but I’d have to look it up just like you. But I have lived in Portland, San Francisco, Minneapolis, Duesseldorf, Seattle. The ranked choice opinion comes from being someone who reads a lot and is generally anti-authoritarian. The US has two authoritarian parties.
There are a few but I’d have to look it up just like you.
Also look up which places have banned RCV and which political party is in power there.
The US has two authoritarian parties.
If you honestly believe that then you’re a dumbass.
I’d argue if you don’t believe it you are.
Weird you say no vote will result in a better system, and then claim to be a proponent of ranked choice voting. Which just happens to be on the ballot for at least one state.
So which is it?
Removed by mod
People were saying the same about Biden and look at all the stuff he did. Green energy, ira, drug price controls, chips act, etc. So yes voting Dems will give you a better system.
