I’m a raging leftist but I’m getting tired of “deontologists” telling me they refuse to vote for Biden then telling me how great Xi Jinping is.
I have to caulk it up to young people learning about socialism and communism for the first time, but they’re only reading Marx and Lenin.
Like hey guys, they lost pretty hard. Maybe we shouldn’t do exactly the same thing and in fact there’s decades of work outlining what we should do instead?
That’s the charitable interpretation. The less charitable one is astroturfing aiming to further destabilize “the west”
Yes! Their positions and actions are suspiciously very demobilising.
No unity even in the most basic stuff. No willingness to hold a constructive conversation. Things have to be done in their way or you’re labeled an enemy. Doctrine above humanity. Incessant nitpicking.
How do they intend to build socialism if they can’t even have an honest, good faith conversation?
A “leftist” earlier this week told me that Joe Biden is responsible for Dobbs because it happened in 2022. That’s a cosplaying Republican. The red hat will be back on his head end-of-day November 3rd.
It was crazy the amount of red scare shit circling when I started on Lemmy. It was like they were trying to radicalize people by pitting them against the “crazy leftists.”
God, please never let McCarthyism make a come back. What a waste of our time and energy.
The problem is there are crazy “leftists” on lemmy. Your instance defederated from the instances home to the worst of them, so you probably didn’t get to experience it.
Imagine people the adhere to some of the worst parts of right-wing fascism, but with “leftist” branding.
Fuck man, even Marx and Lenin don’t cotton to the common tankie arguments about all non-socialist movements being the same.
Is what we’ve been doing in the US working very well? Maybe the democrat party should look at why nobody is fired up to vote for them, even though the alternative is people like trump. It should be very easy to appeal to normal people, but even with cartoonish opposition, the democrats can’t bring themselves to much better. All I’m saying is you’re asking some tiny minority of the electorate (socialists) to introspect, when you’re better off asking the same of the people and parties that actually have power.
“Democrat party”
Good point.
IYKYK
CMYK
I can understand looking back to them for some useful stuff. “Commieblock” housing served a purpose at the time, for example. They brought huge masses of people into an urban environment with indoor plumbing, electricity, and climate control, which were not a given in their previous living situations. They were meant as an interim solution to last a few decades. For what they set out to do, they were a great success. The only problem was that the followup to better options was never done.
But the Leninist/Maoists can never leave it at pulling out successes like that. It’s almost always “America bad”, “Holodomor isn’t real”, or “Cuba only sucks because of sanctions”.
you kinda had me in the first half, ngl.
america is bad, research by anticommunist historians after the fall of the soviet union lead to the irrefutable conclusion that holodomor isn’t real (holodomor means intentional genocidal famine, not just that there was a famine that lots of people died in) and cuba has problems but the main reason it sucks is because of sanctions.
Famine because of bad policy is not a win, either. That’s the best case interpretation. However, there are plenty of tankies who will tell you there were no mass deaths at all.
may i see the tankies saying there was no mass death during the famine? I have never in many years of interacting with communists heard someone say that.
Sure, I’ll just wade through a decade of Reddit comments to find some to satisfy your curiosity.
Maybe don’t make shit up then if you don’t have examples
You’re not a “raging leftist” if you vote for Biden. At least vote PSL or Green
This post is about you, you idiot.
Your vote for Dems is what endangers the vulnerable like those in poverty. You consent to wealth and income inequality with your vote, and can only blame yourself for not improving your country.
You’re not a “raging leftist” if you vote for Biden. At least
vote PSL or Greenuse a brutal domestic terrorism campaign as leverage to blackmail politicians into overturning first-past-the-post as part of a multi-prong strategy that, even as extreme as you are, still includes a pragmatic hedge in the form of a vote for the lesser of two evilsOf course nobody should be terrorizing anyone. What I’m riffing off of is a perspective someone shared that basically you don’t protest with a vote for a loser, you protest by agitating for systemic change.
In the meantime while the broken system is in place, you feed it a minimally shitty input.
use a brutal domestic terrorism campaign
The fuck? Just vote for third parties where did you get that bullshit from?
In the meantime while the broken system is in place, you feed it a minimally shitty input.
You consent to this system with a vote for Dems.
Reasonable people can definitely disagree on this.
One thing that may be interesting to think about: some percentage of the time an argument is made disingenuously to try to siphon off votes. An entirely genuine recommendation of an identical strategy is fair – as I said reasonable people can disagree – but perhaps calls for some introspection.
It’s too bad when your strategy mirrors that of your worst enemy! So the far leftist could perhaps instead chain himself to legislators’ doors (vehement objection to the system) while consenting to acknowledge reality with a disgusted harm reduction vote for the marginally less-bad elderly man.
Do you think being incredibly stupid is a prereq for being a raging leftist or something?
Do you think being incredibly stupid is a prereq for being a raging leftist or something?
It is a prereq for voting for Biden
No, understanding how the voting system works isn’t stupid
You misunderstand the voting system because you vote for someone you don’t like.
The best available choice isn’t always one that you want to make. It’s fine to hate the idea of voting strategically, I hate it too, but it’s naive to think you can positively affect the system by going with the option you want the most.
Voting for someone you disagree with is not voting strategically, it’s voting against your interests based on what you assume others will do.
What do you think happens if I do that?
Actual progress towards changing the Democratic party instead of consenting to it’s right wing policies that are enabled by your vote.
I did that in 2016 and it didn’t progress shit. It made it worse like it will if we do that this year. I organized and pushed leftists in primaries and I was beaten by “moderates.” Specifically, nobody had a chance against the incumbent. It fucking sucks but I don’t want a declared fascist putting more assholes on judicial benches or pushing anti-trans, anti-women policies.
I’m with you on both parties sucking. But please, grow up. If you want to help, do it before the nominees are set. And don’t drag others into your misguided principles.
I did that in 2016 and it didn’t progress shit.
Did your lazy ass do anything else?
If you want to help, do it before the nominees are set.
Jill Stein is a good candidate in a historically weak election for the ruling class.
I’ve gotten dozens of people to vote Green in my state, what have you done?
“There are dozens of us.” lol
wtf have I done? I already said. Organized and gotten people elected to school boards, city council, and our mayor too. We primaried for state and federal elections but didn’t get our candidates. We didn’t pout and waste our votes on people who had no chance of getting elected. We sucked it the fuck up and tried to make sure Republicans didn’t get elected.
I’ve been looking through your comments and have confirmed you are a fake. Where can I see any evidence of your “efforts” to help the Green party?
I don’t believe you at all. Any person informed enough to do what you said knows voting for Democrats only makes out situation worse by consenting to neoliberal capitalism. None of the hundreds of people affiliated with the Green party I’ve met have said that, so you’re lying.
How did you come to that conclusion?
Decades of your strategy failing every time to move the Dems to the left.
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It hasn’t though. Dems aren’t Communists, but they’ve moved slowly toward the left over decades.
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Even if strategy A is a total failure, that’s no indication that strategy B will succeed just because it isn’t strategy A. That’s a ridiculous conclusion. It’s like saying “Bloodletting didn’t cure my cancer, therefore healing crystals will!”.
they’ve moved slowly toward the left over decades.
Absolutely false. Dems have moved to the right for decades since Clinton’s attacks on the working class with NAFTA. Obama called himself a moderate republican and governed like it. Read “Listen, Liberal” by Thomas Frank for a detailed description of this.
Even if strategy A is a total failure, that’s no indication that strategy B will succeed just because it isn’t strategy A
Then try it and see, that’s how it works. Instead you want to consent to the Democratic party’s right wing policies without getting any concession for your vote. ___
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Project 2025, stupid. Letting Trump win means no progressive wins again in this country. Anti progress.
Letting
TrumpBiden win means no progressive wins again in this country.Imagine thinking you’re defending democracy by voting for someone you don’t want. LOL
Wow, you can type the opposite thing that someone said and pretend that you have a point. How incredibly stupid of you.
What exactly is Biden’s plan to avoid letting a progressive win in the country ever again? Because Trump is the one with Project 2025.
Imagine thinking you’re defending democracy by voting for someone you don’t want. LOL
I, on the other hand, express democracy by voting for a candidate that I support, Jill Stein.
What exactly is Biden’s plan to avoid letting a progressive win in the country ever again?
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-election/dnc-war-third-party-candidates-rcna143290
I guess I’ll say it for the record but Kris Mayes is a woman.
Hard to believe I had to scroll down so far for this. I heard HER on NPR this morning, did a doubletake when reading the post. Thank you. Is it surprising it’s a woman protecting women from the dictates of long-dead ignorant men? No, although sadly it’s not a given. Is it surprising an AG is assumed to be male? Even by a person who supports what they do? Just shows how far we have yet to go.
“Sadly” it’s not a given?
Please tell me you don’t mean to imply that protecting women from the dictates of long-dead ignorant men is only good if a woman is doing it?
No sorry, I meant it’s sad there are some horrible right-wing women in positions of power.
👍
What’s wrong with that??
Nothing’s wrong with it, the post just said “the man preventing people from being punished”, emphasis mine.
Ah ok read your comment with different energy thanks for clarifying
Not my comment, but no worries.
No it’s yours now, as a gift
Thanks, I will treasure it.
This just emphasizes to me that every vote matters. Sure, both parties are terrible and the chance of a third party making any headway, nevermind winning an election is, at best, unlikely.
But not voting is being complicit in what comes next. Good or bad, you’re okay with whatever happens.
Harm reduction through voting is surreal, but it’s required at this point. Don’t be a filthy fucking collaborator, go vote.
You need a different voting system for third parties to be viable
Some of those who work forces are the same who burn crosses: many that advocate for not voting from a “progressive” point of view are actually the ones who wouldn’t be in power if you did. They think it’s hilarious when we don’t vote, and they love it.
Yep
I used to be alarmed that people were being taken in by this stuff, but I now think the overwhelming majority of people saying it are just shill accounts. For a couple of different reasons, I think the percentage that are actual human accounts that sincerely believe it is extremely small.
I notice they’ve pivoted to just general nihilism about the US economy and the state of things as of a few weeks ago – I think they might have concluded, as I did, that expressing this type of viewpoint and doing such a bad job of it and getting unanimously yelled at in the comments was actually having the opposite effect, highlighting to people how important it is to vote and how it absolutely makes a difference.
Thank you for your perspective. It’s nice to know that you think I couldn’t possibly be a real human being just because I’m a financially impoverished minority in these United States and sick of being told that I need to vote for someone else’s option time and again because it’s the best possible option. Every time the leftist majority makes a decision I want, they don’t look for concessions to bring me in. They just beat me over the head with fearmongering.
If you want voters, appeal to them. I’m not responsible for the message put out by the party not convincing me.
What do you suppose trump will do to help you?
I’m not sure you replied to the right person.
I did. you’re claiming voting is pointless, but all abstaining can lead to is trump
I never said Trump would help me. So your question is irrelevant.
Your actions will help elect him. 2+2=4 whether you’re acknowledging it or not
Did you miss the primaries? There’s more than just the president, you know.
What an unhelpful comment.
“I’m in this Class Project. The whole class is in on it and every time we do a class project half the class tells me that I have to agree with them or else the other half decides how to do the project. I try telling them I will agree with them if they’re open to concessions to me. They just yell harder and threaten that it will be all my fault if I don’t agree with them.”
“Have you tried participating in Group Projects?”
Your waiting for concessions reminds me of Martin Niemoller’s “First they came for”. You’re waiting for specific focus on your needs, but in the meantime by abstaining from the process you are enabling others suffering.
You sound politically self-centered. It’s fair to feel that way. But perhaps you should participate so that you can sway the process towards a side that is attempting the opposite of harm.
You could work to better the world you live in with the tools at your disposal (voting, for the lesser of two evils). If you don’t, then you only have yourself to blame when no one helps you.
Did it my entire political existence. I’m the one that wasn’t helped. This is your party having no one to blame but themselves for how this is turning out at this point.
So your life would be better if every time you voted the other politician won? That seems crazy.
280*
Letting people die for your ideology is easy. Fight for your ideology if it’s worth dieing over.
My ideology is that life is an unreasonable, unnecessary, and undesirable burden, and dying for it is free real estate.
the “Voting is Not Harm Reduction” article is possibly the most covert insidious thing that’s happened to online political discourse since 2019.
somehow, it’s managed to SEO weasel its way on top of every other article since the dawn of the internet for the search terms “voting harm reduction” and similar. and not just once, but reposted to every corner of the internet imaginable. literally try it now, if you set your google search to find articles before February 5, 2020, you will see inumerable articles with diversity of positions on the topic. after that? literally just the same article reposted and crosslisted, with the occasional reddit/twitter/tumblr comment thread.
it’s not even a bad article per se, it’s just indecently self-contradictory as OOP says, admitting at the beginning that small rights can be preserved by engaging in voting, and then pulling a 180 and accusing those who vote of perpetuating white supremacy.
like i get it, harm reduction has a specific meaning originating in addiction treatment. but for heavens sake, this flub of language doesn’t mean you should throw away one of the only miniscule rights the oppressor class has granted you to help your neighbors.
editing to add this comment thread and article which i think give helpful insight.
The anti harm-reduction crowd:
that’s how it feels fr sometimes :(
Almost as if someone was trying to specifically engineer that type of result
I’m gonna start my own little Alex Jones show where I’m convinced everything is a conspiracy
Not to mention that the less people think their votes are worth, the more every individual vote is actually mean.
If you have two elections, one with a 40% turnout and one with an 80% turnout, in the one where 40% of people voted, each voter was as important as two voters in the 80% one.
important
What do you mean by this precisely?
Impactful.
Is this some kind of new annoying bot? I refuse to believe a real person could be this stupid.
He’s trying to derail discussion.
I think they are a very, very funny and clever troll. (sarcasm)
I checked their posting history and, nope, they’re just a moron.
I mean the fewer people vote, the more power those who do vote end up having.
Your country’s youth didn’t vote? Enjoy the regressive concervatives that the old people elected taking away minority rights, reproductive rights, LGBT rights.
power
What do you mean by this precisely?
The outcome of the election, by vote percentage, is altered more by one vote if the total vote is 400 than it would be if the total vote was 800.
Call the zoo, the sea lion escaped!
I mean the ones who vote choose who makes decisions and passes laws.
deleted by creator
It’s like the people who try to run from the cops and then once they get caught and asked why they did it, they say “because I didn’t want to go to jail.” My bro you have articulated the problem and I get it, but the solution you have chosen is going to make it quite a lot worse.
Got banned from reddit r/latestagecapitalism for trying to say this
rightfully so, you ppl shouldn’t vote for Geocide Joe under any circumstances
Explain why taking the principled stance is worth risking Trump enacting Project 2025.
I would agree with you if the Republican candidate was more moderate, but we’re talking about someone who wants to make the shitty two party system a hellish one party system
Go fuck yourself russian bot.
TIL I’m a Russian bot. I see this stupid assumption being made all over Lemmy anytime someone advocates for not voting for Biden. Not everyone who disagrees with you is a Russian bot or a shill. Some of us have different opinions and you look like an idiot when you make this accusation.
All I’m hearing is a Russian bot doesn’t like that we are catching onto this bullshit and calling them out. A lot evidently. Good to know I’m not alone. Fuck off russian bot.
Cringe.
Right because white power trump is so innocent from doing exactly that on home soil.
You realize that just makes Trump an inevitability right?
Bunch of you clowns on lemmy these days. Anti-vote, anti-Biden, anti-democrat. A concerted effort slinging made up crap like “genocide Joe” and other extreme hyperobole equating voting dem, or voting at all, as some sort of support for Israel’s actions.
None of you ever mention trump basically stating he’s going to give Israel free rein to wipe out hamas/palestine, hand Ukraine to the Russians, undermine NATO and fellate dictators everywhere, much less spare no effort to make himself a permanent dictator here in the US.
But hey, don’t vote Biden, amirite?
Where are you all brigading from anyway? Hexbear?
Watch : it’ll be the same Russian bots that pushed the pizza gate when Hilary was running against trump spewing this shit
Because it works 😕
I believe that the effective growth of this kind of stuff, coupled with the decay of “objective” journalism whatever its significant faults might have been, is behind the surge in authoritarianism worldwide in places that used to be democracies. Reduced to the core, the price of a machine that turns money into public opinion has been going down, down, down, to the point where all you need is like 30-40 people working 40 hours a week at it, in order to create a significant change in electoral results anywhere in the world you’d like to create one.
Trump is a bigger genocidal maniac than Joe will ever be.
“Finish the job” Donald.
Anyone who genuinely believes that voting doesn’t matter should ask themselves why conservatives ALWAYS make sure to vote, come hell or high water.
They’re brainwashed into believing they’re affecting something. The outcomes are decided by the powerful who are getting them no matter what numbers they show you with the TVs that are allegedly subsidized by ads rather than how much they decide control over your media exposure is worth.
go home, putin worshipping comrade.
Go fuck yourself random unrelated insult maker.
how does Putin’s taint taste?
Agreed, it’s never okay to sacrifice the unborn for political reasons.
Voting is the same as the trolley problem. You can make a conscious choice between two bad outcomes, but if you do nothing then one of those outcomes will happen anyway.
The trolley problem is usually a useful tool and nothing more, but it’s actually a great analogy for voting. You have two choices. Let the trolley continue or change its path. You may have different reasons for your choices, but those are the only two real choices. You can leave a note on the lever expressing your displeasure, but it still doesn’t get pulled. Not pulling it is as much a choice as pulling it. You’re a participant either way.
Except there’s not really a correlation between me pulling the lever in the voting booth and something happening.
Even if I vote as hard as I can the more bad thing can still happen because our system has big problems.
When people say “both sides are the same” they’re coming from a point of frustration with the system in general.
Signed,
An anarchist who’s had to pull the lever for a capitalist in every election he’s ever voted in.
That’s true. I guess you could expand the analogy to a very heavy lever that needs a lot of people to pull, and if not enough people pull it the right way the other thing happens. That’s really butchering the analogy though and I don’t think it’s required. The point is to show that “not participating” is still a choice and still has an effect, so you are still playing a part just not one that’s useful.
Considering that someone can win the presidency without winning the popular vote, and that the Senate gives states with tiny populations equal power, and that the House should have over a thousand members if we kept the same ratio, sometimes it doesn’t matter if more people are pulling along with yout.
There’s so many undemocratic things built into our government - mainly to appease slaveowners - it’s really hard for me to work up any enthusiasm that my vote will do anything at all.
I can empathize with the people who have given up on voting, because I was at that point many times. Now I’ve lowered my expectations and given up hope, and I just vote because it means I don’t get told I’m not allowed to complain.
Totally agree with everything. Voting is pretty quick and easy though. I absolutely agree with people performing other actions that can possibly be more effective as well, but those take much more time and effort. Everyone should vote because, even if it doesn’t have much effect, the amount of effect it has compared to the amount of effort it takes is high.
Now that I can vote by mail I agree that the effort is worth the effect. But if I had to stand in line for hours just to see the Supreme Court or electoral college or Congress or a bunch of states jam the trolley handle in the other direction I don’t think I could bring myself to do it if it didn’t also mean I’m allowed to complain.
What bothers me, and I’ve seen expressed in other comments, is that the response to “voting doesn’t matter” or “both sides are the same” is immediate dismissal, as if nobody should have any problem with the way things work.
Even the line “If you don’t vote you can’t complain” is mean and dismissive.
You keep talking about every vote not mattering in a vote that was won by 200-some-odd people with over 3000 write-ins. That person who can make a measurable impact wouldn’t have been in the position to do anything if just a few hundred more people had believed it was hopeless and just stayed home. So how do you justify that with your beliefs?
I get that the presidential election is broken on many levels, and many people’s votes have little or no bearing on the final outcome, or that any likely outcome will even be ideal, but the implausible has happened before, depending on how people vote.
The one thing that has never improved the outcome is to shrug your shoulders and do nothing.
Honestly, if leftist spaces on the internet weren’t so infested with insufferable ML campists, I feel like we could actually move the Overton window a bit more among progressive liberals. Libertarian left ideas are pretty popular when presented in the right context. The thing which turns your average person off is the historical association with autocracy and oppression that MLs cling to for some reason.
I have been pretty vocal about this, but I just run into a sectarian wall over and over again. I wish more like-minded people would spend more time challenging ML orthodoxy and less time bashing liberals. I honestly feel like most liberals aren’t nearly as far gone as your average Lenin simp.
I always say, and I’m fairly confident it’s true, they’re more pro-autocracy than they are pro-leftist. They will defend a dictator when they harm people before they back the people being harmed. That’s not leftist. Leftism is on the side of the people being oppressed. They absolutely do more harm than good by making people think being left they have to agree with that group, but they’re a very loud minority.
Yeah, and the bad outcome isn’t happening because there wasn’t enough votes against it. It happens because the votes do nothing at all and are just a strawman for the actions of the powerful.
You have more than two choices. Stop giving false information.
not effectively, you don’t.
Yeah, you could vote for someone who isn’t going to win (voting this way helps Trump win)
I call bullshit on voting that way helps Trump win.
Ok. You’re wrong, but you do you I guess
You really only havw two choices (for most elections) though. You can vote for the side you agree with more or not. Sure, there are lots of ways to do the latter, but it’s that. I guess you also have the choice to vote against the side you agree with more, but that’s not really a choice. In this case, it isn’t a false binary.
You can also participate in many other things outside of voting, but that’s totally separate and you can always do more separate things for anything. You can always follow a choice with other choices, but it doesn’t change the effect of the first choice.
You’re a participant on the same ethical extent as a jigsaw killer victim. Someone else making fucked up circumstances around you doesn’t morally implicate you for anything.
Well put
It’s just like the trolley problem. The stakes are made up and your decision might cause some discussion on the Internet. The real outcomes are decided by people with power and everything you see in media is a puppet show.
lol. you’re either completely delusional, or a very obvious Russian puppet.
Ah yes. Discredit your opposition with insults. Common fascist tactic.
There was no attempt to discredit. None was needed. The insults were the only point.
That’s a very strong statement, respect
Correct me if I’m wrong, but the Attorney General can’t overrule the Supreme Court anyways, so what difference does it make?
He decides which cases are prosecuted. He doesn’t have to overrule them if he never presses charges when someone is arrested for this.
2.4 MILLION PEOPLE… Why the fuck is every goddamn election 50/50!? Why the hell is it always the fucking razors edge!?
I’m no math guy but I feel like statistically it shouldn’t be possible for almost every goddamn election to be 50/50… 49/51… For fucks sake…
It’s because it’s all fake and designed to make you think you have a chance and that things are decided fairly. Your TV isn’t cheap because it’s subsidized by ads from whatever media company. It’s cheap because the media keeping you in line is the most cost effective tool they can come up with. Prices are determined by how much you’re pacified by the product rather than “market forces”.
