My favorite analogy is: You don’t have to choose what’s for dinner, but you’re going to be forced to eat whatever was chosen.
Ever since I was old enough, I’ve voted in every single election I was eligible for. I don’t care what people say or how unlikely it was for my candidate to win, I would still get out and vote.
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How much change has bitching on the Internet accomplished?
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Extending the analogy- if you are forced to eat shit or shittier shit every dinner you’ll fucking die, and you need to find a way to stop being force-fed shit every night.
To all the burn it down and rebuild leftists (by protesting and not voting for the lesser of 2 evils) tell me how well that went for the Communists in Germany and Italy the last time mask off fascism rose to power there…
Edit: Not one of these “Self-righteous leftists” have addressed my question about what happened to leftists in Germany or Italy when fascist took power there. Its almost like they dont give a shit about the Prolitariat and would rather engage in purity politics rather than support the working class or marginalized communities. Absolutely pathetic astroturfing, or simply a complete disregard for the Materical Conditions on the ground in America.
Vote for the system least likely to break you and you allies while you work to dismantle it.
Not voting for the lesser of two evils is the most childish shit. People like to bring up that Geralt quote, as if the situation in that story wasn’t made a hell of a lot worse by his decision not to choose.
If you’re not gonna vote blue all the way down, then you need to put your money where your mouth is and start burning it down so you can rebuild it. Otherwise you aren’t protesting, you’re just being lazy.
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Looks at the 2016 US election…
I legitimately regret not voting for Hilary…
I get exactly how you feel. “Fuck the establishment, this’ll be the year that a third party wins!” To be young and optimistic again…
The amount of people I knew who were like, “There’s no way Hillary could lose so I don’t need to vote,” or, “Bernie got fucked so I’m not voting out of spite,” were too damn high
The “best” part was seeing how low the voter turnout was in our district that typically leans blue, well in 2016 the turnout was hella low and it went hella red for the first time in a long time
Looking at raw numbers the red was pretty consistent from election to election but that year so many people who would vote blue didn’t vote that it swung the election
Felt bad but now those people I know haven’t missed a single election
Meh, I still kinda regret having voted for her
“I wish the Democratic Party would put forth a candidate worth voting for!”
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Sometimes that’s the best time to learn is when the country is at stake.
is it already Presidential election in he US? when did the primaries end? man I feel out of touch
Election day is tomorrow, alot of state representatives and senators are on the ballot
Do you think that Germany or Italy wouldn’t have gone fascist if the leftists just voted harder?
The historian in me eagerly awaits your reply
https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/piano_drop.jpg
I’m not saying that voting harder back then would have changed anything, but drawing a parallel between then and America today where mask of Fascism is very much on the ballot tomorrow and a year from now in the presidential election. Not voting to protect one’s ideological purity is the height of privilege.
Okay but voting didn’t prevent fascism in those countries. Fascism didn’t happen because some communists and anarchists refused to vote, it happened because of class war on the part of the petite bourgeoisie and precarious haut bourgeoisie
Voting is like paying taxes: It sucks, you don’t get anything you want, but not voting leads to problems.
I mainly vote to prove it doesn’t help and I haven’t been proven wrong since 2000
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I agree, which is why I’ve been voting in local and primary elections since 2000. And it doesn’t work because the system of government we have is shitty, old, and broken.
We tried that with Bernie, also doesn’t work
It might not look like it helped but who knows what would have happened if you and several others didn’t go.
I guess the entire world going straight to hell at 300 mph is better than at 400 mph. Still going to hell, though.
That’s the spirit!
If you’re someone who is living paycheck-to-paycheck, you’re only voting for one party, because no matter who you elect the end result is still low wages and severely high cost of living.
Yep. We’ll still have a shitty health care system, a shitty education system, a shitty transportation system, a shitty housing system, a shitty food system, a shitty economic system, and a shitty diplomatic system.
But goddamn do we have a lot of guns so we’ve got that going for us.
I find a lot of people arguing that one shouldn’t vote because although easy, it is the least effective form of political engagement.
I’d argue that you should vote because it is the easiest form of political engagment and, if possible considering your material conditions, you should also try to participate in other forms of engagement.
Yep, I think that’s uncontroversial…
Slaps table THANK YOU!
Especially since those people refuse to actually provide an alternative form of political engagement besides vague references to a revolution, which has absolutely zero chance of coming out in the Prolitariat’s favor in Americas current political climate, because there is nowhere near enough class conciousness for that to happen.
Even when the Proletariat does win, they often still install a dictatorship. Because those are the kinds of people who lead revolutions.
Dictators appropriate revolutions, not lead them. It’s much easier to kill a couple leaders than to take over a country, afterall.
Yes, voting is the baseline. It’s the least you can do.
I’m sure that there are anarchists out there who refuse to vote out of principle, but they still do activist work such as participating in mutual aid groups and so on. They’re wrong, but at least they’re still helping society in some way. I think the vast majority of people who don’t vote are just lazy, though.
I consider voting to be the minimum buy-in to ask something of your representative. You may not get that thing, especially if your ask is far outside the mainstream. That’s part of a democracy. The next part of democracy is protecting its status as a liberal democracy, where the people’s freedoms are protected from the government so there is remove for improvement.
No, I won’t get out and vote.
I will stay in and vote by mail.
I live in Oregon, which has had all-mail elections since the 1990’s. It’s so great being able to sit down with my husband, some endorsements, the voter’s guide, and a computer to make my decision. So much better than scratching my head over half the ballot (well at least the title sounds good) and voting straight for the other half (vote blue no matter who).
On one hand, I wish I could do that in my country. On the other hand, voting already takes me less than 10 minutes including “commute” (walking down a single block), so it’d probably be a bigger hassle.
Voting is important, but only an organized revolution is capable of breaking the system that fucks us up
Start it then.
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Not every state or county is having an election, you can check to see if you can/should participate here https://ballotpedia.org/Elections_calendar
THANK you. There’s been so much negative trolling on lemmy, really getting me down. Seeing your post actually reminded me I need to re-register.
I read that electron and I was so confused. I should go put on my glasses.
Liberals, please acknowledge that if there is a possibility every election that fascism will win, fascism will eventually win unless you take political action outside of electoralism
This is why it’s important to build strong democratic institutions to resist fascism, populism, and the like. They won’t last forever, but they can take a few election cycles of abuse. Part of the problem with many countries that have truly fallen to fascism or fascist-like movements is that they started out with weak or non-existent institutions. Contrast that with the US, where even the election of Donald Trump of the “Lock Her Up” slogan (very fascist) got basically nowhere with both prosecuting Hillary Clinton and overturning the 2020 election.
This sounds nice but doesn’t really address what I said in any way.
How so? Fascism is rarely a matter of a single election. It’s usually a slide. Providing a bulwark against that slide means you have several election cycles to snuff out fascism and return to liberal democracy.
So you’re just crossing your fingers and hoping the fascism goes away on its own?
What are the historical and material causes of fascism? How do they influence how you should respond to fascism?
Rereading the thread, I think we’re in agreement. I was more adding onto your point, that building strong institutions and norms is important along with political activism. Institutions and norms slow the rot from the inside, political action slow it from the outside.
Fascism has already won if you’re a person of color.
No, that is just the status quo in a settler colonial state. Fascism has distinct economic structures that haven’t coalesced yet.
Oui. C’est correct.
I can’t get out and vote.
I can though in about two weeks. And the election will probably be just as significant.
My local election is just to renew some levy
This attitude is why Americans have two shitty right-wing parties
No, it isn’t.
It’s the fact that the two shitty right-wing parties are essentially all powerful that we have two shitty right-wing parties.
The system is designed to have two parties. With fptp voting you encourage a system of two parties that agree on most things because you’re not allowed to have a party with nuance as that will be a wasted vote and simply allow your most disliked candidate to win by splitting the vote.
Your vote is wasted regardless if you’re a wage worker.
while this is true, most western nations have some level of FPP, and while they usually have two major parties, Like Conservative-Progressives and Labour in Canada, they still have more than two parties represented in the legislative body. I’m unaware of the last time someone was elected to congress who ran as a party other than R/D (no independents don’t count).
I think cause and effect are mixed here. Americans having to pick between two shitty right wing parties is the reason why one would feel like every election is the most important election. The fact that they’re so much alike is the biggest reason why they create as much dissent as possible.
Back in the 1970s, The Moral Majority took over the GOP by voting. They would show up at every local GOP club at every event. If 20 people had shown up the last time they picked the new dog catcher, the MMs would show up with fifty people. They didn’t have a lot of money or connections yet, but they had people showing up all the time. Need someone to pass out petitions? MMs were there. Drive folks to the polls? Meanwhile, the Dems had counted on the Unions to do those jobs. That’s why the GOP hated the Unions and did everything to dismantle them.
No one is going to hand you power.
and yet nearly half of American union workers vote Republican. Usually because they are more concerned about “conservatives” two bread-butter issues, abortion or gun rights.
I agree with everything you just said but I don’t think either big US party can be reformed to serve people instead of capital. Whichever organizing done by people, through the the voting system or otherwise, will fall flat if allowed to be co-opted by them, the two party system ensures it.
https://www.snopes.com/tachyon/images/graphics/news/1956republican.jpg
That’s the 1956 GOP Party Platform.
Politicians do what it takes to get elected. Period.
If people show up and do the job, things will change.
The own website you got the image from says that is mixed factuality https://web.archive.org/web/20230624204530/https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/1956-republican-platform/
I’m shocked - SHOCKED - that a quick meme isn’t an exact representation of a much longer document.
Well, yes and no. The Democrat Party is structured to prevent takeovers like what happened to the GOP (e.g. super-delegates). I think it is moving to the left, but glacially slowly. 20 years ago, somebody like Bernie would have been a joke. Now, he’s a viable contender. Maybe in another 50 or 60 years, they’ll be where European leftist parties are now.
Or, and here’s a wild idea, you can vote in the coming election. The entire House and a third of the Senate changes hands every two years. The GOPs vote in every single election. That’s the absolute least we should be doing. Pushing for more Squad members starts in your town.
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super-delegates
Super-delegates had the their role in the nomination massively reduced, with no role whatsoever in the first round of voting. Bernie is not a viable contender at the moment because he represents only the left flank of the party. He’s also toxic in the general election. Praising Castro and honeymooning in the USSR just aren’t great things to have on a president’s resume.
I sincerely doubt they’ll change past what their owners allow them to. Maybe that’s a step towards actual change but it’s certainly not enough by itself.
Politicians do what it takes to get elected. Period.
What part of that confuses you?
Nelson Rockefeller was one of the richest men in America. He thought he was a shoo-in to be the GOP candidate in 1968. Nixon had no big backers and was seen as a loser by the media.
Except Nixon had spent all his time after his California Sneate race loss working 24/7 for every GOP candidate he could find. He made speeches, raised money, helped organize, and when he went into the 1968 convention, he ran rings around what the establishment wanted.
Money is huge in politics, but organization can beat it.
So you’re telling me with enough organization within the system we can swap a piece of shit for a piece of shit? Sign me tf up
That’s a defeatist additute. You can be a realist withotu being a defeatist. There’s always hope. I probably have as little faith in electoral politics as you do, but forming real relationships with real neighbors we can actually create the world our politicians would never support.
I don’t think so. In Michigan, for example, seven parties have auotmatic ballot access for the general election. Often people will say the would prefer one of the so-called third party candidates, but they just cant’ vote for them this year because the greater of two evils is so incredibly evil but next year will be different.
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Its a state and local election where our democracy’s rubber hits the road. Literally the bare minimum of civic duty in America.
Fun fact: other countries exist.
My state is doing a special election. No fucking idea what on, but thankfully they’ll have info outside the polling stations so I’ll do some googling before submitting a ballot.
