Guess what? Other forms of organizing and protest will also be opposed. And we should still do them.
If a movement is real and serious that organizing to vote in primaries is really not a big deal. Blue no matter who is really just a last resort and if you don’t want to then you should at least spoil your ballot.
PS anything you consider more effective than voting can still be done btw. Change is not an all or nothing (tho given the mindset around many here they should not be surprised when they really do keep getting nothing)
Lol this post really angered the dumbest idiots from .ml who think voting is useless and can’t be bothered to spend 5min twice a year to do it.
They don’t notice that blue states have longer lifespans and more protections for trans people. They don’t see that voting for more left leaning candidates has had real tangible benefits on thousands of lives and that getting candidates which are even further left would do even more good.
Instead they spend their time organizing for a revolution that isn’t coming like evangelicals preparing for the rapture, with no more ability to bring it about and with less public support.
Except they aren’t doing that instead of voting, they could take 5 min out of their day to go vote twice a year without getting in the way of their revolution at all. But they don’t even use the bare minimum of effort to do something that has been rigously studied to materially improve lives.
When Biden made sure trans people couldn’t be discriminated against legally with executive order 13988 they were organizing for the revolution. While Zhoran Mamdani is reducing the cost of housing and groceries they are organizing for the revolution. If the DSA gets enough people in power that funding to Israel cut off they will still be wasting their time organizing for a revolution that never comes. They will still be smugly useless.
No no no, you got it all wrong. I have been educated today by people much smarter than me that you make the biggest difference by not voting. A vague revolution will then be organized at some point, and an utopia follows. This is clearly easier than taking over the Democratic party on grassroots level.
Nobody has said that the biggest difference is made by withholding votes, but that organizing is far more important as far as action is concerned than voting. The purpose of organizing is to create educated, professional socialists that can then organize the rest of the working class, proliferate pro-socialist ideas, and explain core socialist theory, while struggling alongside the working classes in unionizing, protesting, and more.
Revolution isn’t planned in advance, it happens when capitalism hits crisis, and an already-existing organization is capable of taking the working class to smashing and replacing the state. That requires a party that is already widely supported by the working class for proving itself through struggle.
Utopia does not follow. What follows is even more intense struggle, but the establishment of worker control of society and the ability to direct production and distribution to meet the needs of the people.
The fundamental problem with “taking over the DNC” is that you cannot replace the system built to reinforce capitalism brick by brick within it. The state in capitalism is a capitalist state, it isn’t a neutral state that takes on the character of whatever party is in power, but instead a state that takes on the character of whatever reinforces the economic base of society. That’s why revolution is necessary, even if the DSA split from the DNC and won every election.
Revolution isn’t planned in advance, it happens when capitalism hits crisis, and an already-existing organization is capable of taking the working class to smashing and replacing the state.
I fear the Republican party is way ahead on this one… And whenever they get power, they will reinforce their lead.
Regarding your last paragraph, I feel quite strongly that taking over the DNC and replacing the system is orders of magnitudes easier than organizing the “necessary revolution”, fighting it, winning it and being able to set up a functioning state afterwards. Rather than being crushed by the billionaire-backed army, getting millions killed in a bloody civil war and/or surviving the aftermath of state collapse, where Russia, China, Iran, Mexico etc. are getting involved to push their interests.
Who would the Republicans overthrow? The capitalist class is already in power. Further, again, you cannot replace the system from within it, it has to be overthrown and replaced. That’s why revolutionary change is critical. The fact is, the working class vastly outnumbers the capitalist class, police, and military. That’s why the BLM protests were so scary to the ruling class.
Overthrow is maybe not a suitable word here, but they would gladly capture the remaining pieces of American democracy. They would love nothing more than fully control the media, police (ICE) with no oversight whatsoever, courts, any possible opposition etc.
The fact is, the working class vastly outnumbers the capitalist class, police, and military.
This is true in almost any totalitarian state. In Iran, perhaps 20-30% of the people support the government, but that’s enough to keep them in check. In Russia, possibly even fewer. In North Korea, almost certainly fewer. But it’s enough to keep the whole country in the hands of a few very wealthy men.
What I’m trying to say here is that the revolution you’ll end up seeing is more likely a one where the Republicans capture all institutions and slowly but surely turn the US into what Russia is today.
The capitalist class as a whole already fully controls the media, police, and courts, with no oversight. The Republicans form a representative body of one wing of the capitalist class, but this is not something that can meaningfully increase power through revolution. The state represents the capitalist class as a whole.
As for Russia, Putin’s approval rating is around 76%. In Iran, the population is currently rallying around the government against the onslaught of Israel and the US. For the DPRK, according to defectors, about 63% of people support Kim Jong-Un, so the actual number is probably higher within the DPRK. I think your idea of “totalitarianism” is underdeveloped, Trump’s approval rating is about 30%, which is much lower than the countries you listed. Iran and Russia are reactionary nationalist states under threat from western imperialism, which boosts national unity in resisting this. The DPRK is a socialist country under siege, which also boosts approval rates.
The US Empire is the one bringing people together in resisting it.
You should vote but upholding voting as the pinnacle of political engagement is silly. To change the system you must organize opposition to that system with support for a better one and that will never happen by just voting better in a system built for and captured by the capitalist class that have hegemony today.
Bad faith interpretations of revolutionary rhetoric is exhausting. No one is saying we should not fight for reforms either but that cannot be the end goal - it is simply a stepping stone to larger organization within society as it enable more people to get involved and, ideally, engenders class solidarity among workers.
All right, well please talk some sense to your comrades here who are actively pushing the don’t vote narrative. You probably talk their language better than I do anyway.
I’d also like to see more of that organizing and changing the system from people who dismiss voting. Talk is cheap.
None of the people I work with think you should not vote. That’s like annoying redditors who live inside and don’t talk to people. I am helping run my DSA chapter - organizing is all i think about to a problematic degree.
I’d also like to see more of that organizing and changing the system from people who dismiss voting. Talk is cheap.
Voting is fairly low effort to do. Running a campaign is a bit harder, but that is also like a marathon. It does take some time to be able to do well. I see
.mlas someone who just showed up and wondered why they didn’t get very far.It does not bother me that they don’t want to join a party. I get it. I think their critique around the DNC is right, but they should still at least spoil their ballot. I do find blue no matter who to be a last resort type thing.
Beyond that I don’t see them organizing workers or communities anywhere. FBI is taking them down? I don’t doubt feds are going to be doing opposition. I don’t think people too apathetic to vote are going to be gung ho about a protest that could turn violent, or even just talking with the general public if they are having a crashout in lemmy comment sections.
I think their critique around the DNC is right, but they should still at least spoil their ballot
And they could also kindly just shut up about not voting against Trump. They need to be called out, so that apathy doesn’t spread further.
You should vote but upholding voting as the pinnacle of political engagement is silly. To change the system you must organize opposition to that system with support for a better one and that will never happen by just voting better in a system built for and captured by the capitalist class that have hegemony today.
This is a large part of my point. At a minimum it is low effort action. On its own its not a big deal, but people need small steps to gain confidence. Besides that it is also a call to action that got answered. This means other calls to action: sit ins or strikes, will have more credibility. The group has already shown some numbers at polls and its not just a hypothetical group.
Taking down the whole system? No push back from me. The attitude toward voting creates apathy around it which leaks to other parts of the movement.
I love the fact that Chile is so long and thin they have to split it up into three strips to put out a map in a square box.
This calls for a new meme about country aspect ratios
Chile wins hands down! For the smallest, I believe the winner is Egypt.
Really? That’s your take away? That the reason we shouldn’t vote is because there will be opposition? Either you’re rage baiting in bad faith, lack reading comprehension, or are so wracked by cognitive dissonance you cannot process the criticism.
The criticism has been, for decades now, that the Democrats are collaborators with fascists, they are enablers of fascists, and they are, in fact, mask-on fascists. That’s the critique.
Obama won. We didn’t have a problem with “there will be opposition”. And then he expanded DHS and ICE massively, deported record numbers of people, and appointed Tom Homan to run the decorations. Trump used Homan in both terms to deport less people than both Obama/Biden and Biden/Harris, and he used the framework that Obama/Biden put in place. Biden took office between those terms. He had intimate knowledge of what he and Obama did to expand the departments, and yet all he did for 4 years was choose different priorities for the department. No attempts at all to prevent a future Republican from doing exactly what we knew they would do.
Bush 2 and his military advisors planned to destroy 7 countries, among them Libya and Iran. Bush didn’t get around to Libya, so Obama/Biden with Clinton at the State Dept did Libya. Because they are collaborating on the same plan with the same atrocities for the same reasons.
And this goes back as far as memory will take us. Even before the realignment that we got today, Republic and Democrats collaborated to manage the civil rights crisis, maintain the power system, and build out systems to disenfranchise Black people (collaboratively) after they passed the civil rights act (collaboratively).
No one is saying “ooo, we can’t vote because they’ll oppose us”. We’re saying that voting is the system that the power elite hands us to make sure we feel like we have a say because if they didn’t do that then we’d riot.
Voting is Maggie Simpson’s steering wheel in the car - symbolic and powerless.
The only thing that will work and has ever worked is rebellion.
The criticism has been, for decades now, that the Democrats are collaborators with fascists, they are enablers of fascists, and they are, in fact, mask-on fascists. That’s the critique.
And you are not wrong, yet it is still where the DSA and the progressive movements live. At the end of your day you are discouraging people from helping them grow by being apathetic about voting. Like I said “Blue no matter who is really just a last resort and if you don’t want to then you should at least spoil your ballot.”
No one is saying “ooo, we can’t vote because they’ll oppose us”. We’re saying that voting is the system that the power elite hands us to make sure we feel like we have a say because if they didn’t do that then we’d riot.
Voting is Maggie Simpson’s steering wheel in the car - symbolic and powerless.
So… it will be opposed… I rest my case. Guess what the elite are going to work to make anything you try powerless. Should we stop trying all together? No we should do it anyway. Voting at is also low risk and low effort. If you cannot get your movement to do that there is no credibility you can do more.
Also if you read carefully you might notice i never said voting is the only thing we should be doing, but you won’t be doing that stuff either given how busy you are posting about how we should not vote. You should be proud of that btw; its the kind of leftist movement J. Edgar Hoover wanted to see. One apathetic about voting and without meaningful organization.
Voting is Maggie Simpson’s steering wheel in the car - symbolic and powerless.
So… it will be opposed… I rest my case
No. You’re still not hearing the criticism. Voting is impotent. It doesn’t have to be opposed because it’s structurally powerless. That’s why Princeton’s research showed that popular opinion, regardless of which power divisions between parties, has no measurable impact on legislation. Because doesn’t matter and never has. The parties do what they want and voting is the symbolic concession that makes people feel like the reason politicians are bad is because the voters failed.
No one is saying the voting will be resisted. We’re saying voting has never mattered in the history of the USA. It was designed that way by the founders. Mass movements are structurally incapable of changing the US via the ballot box by design.
You should be proud of that btw; its the kind of leftist movement J. Edgar Hoover wanted to see. One apathetic about voting and without meaningful organization.
It’s very important to understand how organizing works. Organizing for voting is wasted organizing. There are plenty of ways to organize that have nothing to do with voting and that organizing has far and away more impact because voting is impotent. And when more people become aware of the impotence of voting, alternative actions becomes the conversation. Voting is not a gateway drug to direct action. It’s a distraction from it.
The parties do what they want and voting is the symbolic concession that makes people feel like the reason politicians are bad is because the voters failed.
Well don’t give them the concession they want.
It’s very important to understand how organizing works. Organizing for voting is wasted organizing. There are plenty of ways to organize that have nothing to do with voting and that organizing has far and away more impact because voting is impotent. And when more people become aware of the impotence of voting, alternative actions becomes the conversation. Voting is not a gateway drug to direct action. It’s a distraction from it.
DSA has NYC to show for their efforts. They still have a long way. You don’t have anyone to take to the streets or staying power.
Well don’t give them the concession they want
Nope. You’re still not hearing the critique. Voting is a concession that the power elite give to the people. They really don’t care what people want but they know that if they didn’t allow voting they would have a rebellion to deal with. So voting is a concession they make to us. And they do it because it’s something they can control to ensure it doesn’t actually effect their class interests, even if the masses manage to organize and vote harder, because they know that if you can convince people voting is what matters they can reduce the chances of a rebellion.
DSA has NYC to show for their efforts.
Yeah, I mean. That’s how concessions work. Small victories that in a few locations that symbolically work to make people feel like progress is possible. We can see the history of how these things have worked both in the US and all across Latin America - social democracy emerges to absorb the anger of the masses, some concessions are made, and then a right-wing backlash inevitably reverses it all because the structure is still built by and for the power elite. The only way to address this is dismantling the structure entirely and rebuilding it. Mamdani getting elected is a nice symbolic victory and it will make some people’s lives better for a few years. Hell, he may even make a couple of long term beneficial changes. But the power stays the same.
You don’t have anyone to take to the streets or staying power.
Yeah, I mean, that’s what organizing is for and that’s why the US had two purges of leftists, outlawed communist organizing, huge propaganda campaigns, bipartisan media manipulation, and we are now entering into a third purge with both parties supporting it including putting people into prison with 70-year sentences for free speech.
Vote mongering groups have staying before because they don’t get disrupted violently by a bi-partisan coalition. Actually effective organizing has to put in a lot more effort to stay around long enough without being purged.
Yeah, I mean, that’s what organizing is for and that’s why the US had two purges of leftists, outlawed communist organizing, huge propaganda campaigns, bipartisan media manipulation, and we are now entering into a third purge with both parties supporting it including putting people into prison with 70-year sentences for free speech.
Let me guess… you are going to try anyway… even tho it is going to be opposed?
Yeah, I mean. That’s how concessions work. Small victories that in a few locations that symbolically work to make people feel like progress is possible. We can see the history of how these things have worked both in the US and all across Latin America - social democracy emerges to absorb the anger of the masses, some concessions are made, and then a right-wing backlash inevitably reverses it all because the structure is still built by and for the power elite. The only way to address this is dismantling the structure entirely and rebuilding it. Mamdani getting elected is a nice symbolic victory and it will make some people’s lives better for a few years. Hell, he may even make a couple of long term beneficial changes. But the power stays the same.
Cool, but your all or nothing still has nothing to show instead of having all. I am comfortable with the idea that I won’t be alive for the revolution. It can take a long time for society to change, but I do want to work toward it.
.mlis spinning its wheels pretending they are right. Really they are more worried about their perceived purity keeping their shirt clean than actually helping anyone. I don’t see people serious about a peaceful or violent overthrow, but I do see a group that just wants to shit on those trying to do something. In that way.mlis like that meme of the the dems and republicans being a saw and stopper, but the.mls are the stopper as they are discouraging people from joining those trying something.Wow. It’s like we’re successfully organizing and having an impact?
You can’t have it both ways friend. Either our path is impotent and we are small and unorganized or we actually have significant effects on the world and our strategies are working.
The people who believe in the ballot box have a legacy of 800k dead annually from bi-partisan sanctions, the largest criminal justice system by a factor of three, the most racially biased criminal justice system in the world, active maintenance of the domestic colonial genocide regime, active maintenance of the Israeli colonial genocide regime, domestic surveillance replete with sex pest cops stalking women, lynchings by cops and by white supremacists, 247 years of war, millions dead from wars of choice and aggression, and countless other atrocities and systems of unending oppression that both parties develop, maintain, advance, and protect.
Thank you for your effort in organizing the vote.
You can’t have it both ways friend. Either our path is impotent and we are small and unorganized or we actually have significant effects on the world and our strategies are working.
Feel free to elaborate.
I think you’re misunderstanding freagle’s point. The point isn’t that voting will be opposed, it’s that even if socialists won, they still cannot replace the system block by block into socialism. The state machinery itself is not neutral and system-indepentent, it’s developed and shaped specifically for the economic base that it reinforces. A socialist cannot use a capitalist state to create a socialist base and then a socialist state. That’s the critique.
Within that context, the solution is revolution. The point isn’t that refusing to vote will do anything, it’s that focusing so hard on elections within the context of a capitalist state redirects people’s attention from organizing efforts to the electoral process. It’s the actual worker organizing in parties, unions, and social organizations that unite the working classes and allow it to exert pressure. It’s how every major social reform has happened, and how every revolution has succeeded.
Basically, we should get organized, because that’s the actual only path forward. If someone decides to vote, but still dedicates their actual time for organizing, they are doing far more than someone who only votes.
t’s that even if socialists won, they still cannot replace the system block by block into socialism. The state machinery itself is not neutral and system-indepentent, it’s developed and shaped specifically for the economic base that it reinforces. A socialist cannot use a capitalist state to create a socialist base and then a socialist state. That’s the critique.
And we should vote anyway. If your movement cannot be bothered to take an evening to do something that easy, even to spoil the ballot, it isn’t that serious or credible.
It’s the actual worker organizing in parties, unions, and social organizations that unite the working classes and allow it to exert pressure.
And I don’t disagree. Further elections don’t distract from this, but people who cannot be bothered to register to vote and act on it are also not going to have courage to strike which takes more effort and has the possibility to turn violent.
Basically, we should get organized, because that’s the actual only path forward.
Voting is a form of being organized and a small proof of willingness to action. Just so you know.
Parties like PSL run candidates to advertise their platform and recruit. Considering the DNC and GOP are both pro-capitalist parties, it isn’t spoiling the ballot, it’s putting socialism on the ballot. The DSA, for all of my criticisms of them, are genuinely trying to decide whether or not to break from the democrats, and if they do they’d be far more effective. By tying workers to the DNC, or your party to the DNC, you deflate action.
Voting is not organizing. You do not have to do anything to vote other than cast the vote. Organizing is far more than that, it involves actually materially contributing to an organization, be it party building, education, unionizing, protesting, cop watching, free breakfast programs like the Black Panthers, the clinics PTB runs in Belgium, etc. Trying to tie voting to organizing is part of the deflationary effort I mentioned, because people confuse voting for organizing and see it as a “pass.”
Organizing takes a lot of effort, but is worthwhile.
You do not have to do anything to vote other than cast the vote. Organizing is far more than that
True
Organizing takes a lot of effort, but is worthwhile.
Also true. And from my interactions with
.mltypes they won’t do either. How could they if they drag their feet at something so basic, yet expect me to believe they will grab a rifle when things get heated?By tying workers to the DNC, or your party to the DNC, you deflate action.
Same thing when you have that attitude around voting.
The bulk of your comment is a character attack with no actual relevance to the points brought up (nor any way to prove or disprove). The actual division is your belief that if someone does not vote, they will not act. I think that’s a more interesting topic. The biggest bloc of voting-eligible citizens is the non-voter bloc in the US, and that’s because a huge chunk of people correctly recognize that voting won’t change much.
From the standpoint of organizing for socialism, what is to be done with this? Parties like the PSL do run candidates, but again, it’s explicitly to advertise their platform and to recruit. They don’t shame people for not voting, they appeal to the fact that many people are disaffected by capitalism and don’t see a way out.
The DSA is struggling between a clean or dirty break with the DNC. Their entire platform, at present, is reformist, and depends on elections. They therefore do try to get people to vote, but they have a sizable wing that is revolutionary, and de facto treats it as the same way PSL does, for advertising. The big difference therefore for these socialists is the belief that the bigger tent of DSA is better than the more correct and disciplined but smaller PSL.
The idea that there is a simplistic “voting is harm” take is a strawman. We don’t actually disagree on much, except that you seem to be intent on attacking a position that does not in reality exist. The actual position brought forward is that our efforts should be focused on organizing, not electoralism, and treating voting like it’s equal or greater in importance than organizing is a waste of effort. Not that we should waste effort in preventing people from voting, nobody does that.
The biggest bloc of voting-eligible citizens is the non-voter bloc in the US, and that’s because a huge chunk of people correctly recognize that voting won’t change much.
And they are also not marching in the streets.
From the standpoint of organizing for socialism, what is to be done with this? Parties like the PSL do run candidates, but again, it’s explicitly to advertise their platform and to recruit.
And its a good idea. Like I’ve said before, voting is still part of organizing.
The DSA is struggling between a clean or dirty break with the DNC.
Okay. And?
It seems to me that you are very narrow minded about organizing and being able to do more than one thing. Is your community garden going to demolish the system? No. Its too small. Still I would not say its a waste of time. It is still a form of organizing and people taking action. Not all of us have access to one btw. Access to a ballot is still more accessible and we should vote as left as we can. If you are really that hung up on the DNC you can spoil your ballot on the general election day. Also did you know the ballot has more than just the presidential race?
