I’ve noticed a lot of posts asking how we’re going to vote, and people coming in trying to shame people for not voting for Biden, or any candidate in the general election at all.

So I’m curious and, asking in good faith, want to know - what will make you stop voting for Biden?

  • @[email protected]English
    1•2 years ago

    You said

    Repeatedly voting for the lesser evil is what brought us into this position, because the only representation those minority groups have ever had is a party that didn’t truly make any progress for them except when politically convenient, and has held them hostage with the same “lesser evil” logic

    Make it convenient, then. What you and others already believe does exactly that:

    Mutual aid, agitation, strikes, and other forms of political action building toward a socialist revolution is the only path toward social and economic justice.

    I don’t think participation in the electoral process is mutually exclusive with mutual aid, agitation, strikes, and other forms of political action. Moreover, as the far right has demonstrated quite convincingly, it is easier to commandeer what already exists than to invent it anew. I believe support of political leaders would make it easier to facilitate social and economic justice, at least in the United States. But it’s not the only method that matters, and, again as the far right has demonstrated, not even the most important one.

    It actually bothers me a lot that leftists don’t really have large networks of parallel institutions like the right does…

    There’s already been a century of leftists trying to entry their way into American political institutions through elections, and if we’ve achieved any progress at all the progress is swiftly dismantled in times of economic crisis in favor of privatization and reactionary policies.

    Not all of it though (yet). I mean, before the Great Depression, social security didn’t exist. It’s still around even has it has come under attack in these times of manufactured (it’s always manufactured) economic crisis. So, why has that one stuck around while others have fallen away? What about progressive or socialist policies in other countries that have stood the test of time? How did their development progress over time such that they gained staying power?

    These questions are more important and interesting to me than “How do we dismantle and rebuild everything”.

    And if we have to start with Joe Biden vs Trump, then god damn it, Biden it is. And we’ll work from where we are and try to get where we want to go.

    • FunkyStuff [he/him]English
      21•2 years ago

      Make it convenient, then. What you and others already believe does exactly that:

      Voting for Democrats no matter what does the opposite! You’re telling them that they can keep doing what they’re currently doing, passively accept Palestinian genocide (not to mention trans genocide at home), because you’re too scared of the stick to stop falling for the carrot. The only way we can “make it convenient” for Democrats to cede to our demands is to withhold our support unless they earn it with actual progressive policies. And that is especially true in times of crisis like now, because they need every vote they can get. Folding early and telling them we’ll vote for them no matter what is no way to wield power, it’s actually just giving up what little power we have.

      I don’t think participation in the electoral process is mutually exclusive with mutual aid, agitation, strikes, and other forms of political action.

      That’s true, and normally I don’t get mad at people for voting for Dems for this exact reason, you can definitely do multiple things at once. But if participation in the electoral process means you’re compromising with a candidate who is actively supporting genocide, it IS mutually exclusive with anything remotely close to a leftist position.

      It actually bothers me a lot that leftists don’t really have large networks of parallel institutions like the right does…

      The kind of thing that happens when the FBI blackmails, maligns, or straight up murders them all…

      What about progressive or socialist policies in other countries that have stood the test of time?

      Social Democracy is only allowed to exist in the interim period between crises of capitalism. It is, objectively and demonstrably, the moderate wing of fascism because without failure every social democratic party will side with fascists before they side with communists once their precarious state of being is threatened. Quoting Stalin from Concerning the International Situation,

      but now that the proletariat is defeated, the bourgeoisie no longer needs fascism and can afford to use “democracy” instead, as a better method of consolidating its victory.

      So my conclusion is, if you wanna be a well behaved little voter and keep settling for genocidal imperialists, go ahead, keep telling Dems that Palestinian lives are not worth enough to change their policy positions at all. After all, we might get someone even scarier if we don’t :vote:, someone who doesn’t respect the norms!