Aye, they do, but when it comes to voting they unify.
Take the UK for example. Of our three main parties the Conservatives are, well, conservative, Labour are (ostensibly) leftwing, and Liberal Democrats are centre-left.
In the end, most of my 44 years have been spent under a series of Tory governments because leftists who don’t see Labour as left enough don’t vote out of protest, and leftists who see Labour as too left will vote Lib Dem. Meanwhile, those in the centre or on the right will vote Tory. Sure, there are far right parties here, but they’re mostly cranks and outright racists.
We only have a Labour government right now because the Tories went too lunatic and Starmer’s lot shifted enough to the centre to attract those who would vote LibDem.
Prior to our last election, I saw a whole bunch of fellow lefties going apeshite because Starmer isn’t leftwing enough, and still crying that Corbyn was fucked over (which, to be fair, he was), so much so that I genuinely feared for five more years of Tories reaming us. There was very little room for pragmatism.
Direct action isn’t directly “trying to overthrow the government” It’s trying to improve one’s own life directly, instead of begging the elites to do so for you.
Voting legitimizes the act of voting being helpful and therefore justifies the millions on manhours wasted on electoralism, which is leaving people practicing it burnt out and disappointed at the end and doesn’t stop society sliding into fascism as is the final stage of capitalism.
You can disagree with me all you want. Voting doesn’t work. It’s a waste of time. Do literally anything else and don’t even waste any time thinking about it.
Leftists have never been the majority though so we can’t rely on voting to adress our issues and interests. Last time I saw numbers more Ameicans wanted a party to the right of the Republicans than Americans who wanted a party to the left of Democrats. We’re the absolute political minority yet many of our policies poll higjer than candidates from either party.
As somebody who was an EU immigrant in the UK for over a decade and also lived in other countries of Europe, lets just say that New Labour are plain Rightwing (so, not even Center-Left, although the original Labour definitelly were Leftwing) and the Liberal Democrats are pure rightwing (whislt the Tories have been Far Right since at least the Leave Referendum).
The ideology of “Thatcher’s Greatest Achievement” - a “relaxed about wealth” ideology which loves privatisation and derregulation - which took over Labour is not Left of center and the LibDems have always been even more Neolibs than that.
The Overtoon Window in England (not as much the other UK nations) is way to the Right of the rest of Europe, so its understandable that many there think that when they neither grew up back in the days when Labour was actually a party of the Working Class and never saw politics elsewhere in Europe.
Aye, they do, but when it comes to voting they unify.
Take the UK for example. Of our three main parties the Conservatives are, well, conservative, Labour are (ostensibly) leftwing, and Liberal Democrats are centre-left.
In the end, most of my 44 years have been spent under a series of Tory governments because leftists who don’t see Labour as left enough don’t vote out of protest, and leftists who see Labour as too left will vote Lib Dem. Meanwhile, those in the centre or on the right will vote Tory. Sure, there are far right parties here, but they’re mostly cranks and outright racists.
We only have a Labour government right now because the Tories went too lunatic and Starmer’s lot shifted enough to the centre to attract those who would vote LibDem.
Prior to our last election, I saw a whole bunch of fellow lefties going apeshite because Starmer isn’t leftwing enough, and still crying that Corbyn was fucked over (which, to be fair, he was), so much so that I genuinely feared for five more years of Tories reaming us. There was very little room for pragmatism.
It’s because voting is useless. Many leftists don’t bother with voting and focus on things that actually work.
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Direct action isn’t directly “trying to overthrow the government” It’s trying to improve one’s own life directly, instead of begging the elites to do so for you.
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It is what I mean. I consider nation-state parliamentary voting useless at best and counter-productive at worst.
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Voting legitimizes the act of voting being helpful and therefore justifies the millions on manhours wasted on electoralism, which is leaving people practicing it burnt out and disappointed at the end and doesn’t stop society sliding into fascism as is the final stage of capitalism.
You can disagree with me all you want. Voting doesn’t work. It’s a waste of time. Do literally anything else and don’t even waste any time thinking about it.
deleted by creator
It might be useless, but ultimately it’s the only tool that the majority have at their disposal.
Leftists have never been the majority though so we can’t rely on voting to adress our issues and interests. Last time I saw numbers more Ameicans wanted a party to the right of the Republicans than Americans who wanted a party to the left of Democrats. We’re the absolute political minority yet many of our policies poll higjer than candidates from either party.
Not at all. Direct action is always an option.
deleted by creator
As somebody who was an EU immigrant in the UK for over a decade and also lived in other countries of Europe, lets just say that New Labour are plain Rightwing (so, not even Center-Left, although the original Labour definitelly were Leftwing) and the Liberal Democrats are pure rightwing (whislt the Tories have been Far Right since at least the Leave Referendum).
The ideology of “Thatcher’s Greatest Achievement” - a “relaxed about wealth” ideology which loves privatisation and derregulation - which took over Labour is not Left of center and the LibDems have always been even more Neolibs than that.
The Overtoon Window in England (not as much the other UK nations) is way to the Right of the rest of Europe, so its understandable that many there think that when they neither grew up back in the days when Labour was actually a party of the Working Class and never saw politics elsewhere in Europe.
*cries in Hungarian*