I’ve been seeing a lot of anti-voting sentiment going around. Can’t believe I have to say this, but you need to vote. Not only is there more to the election than just the president. (State policy, Senate, house), but not voting is not an act of protest. C’mon guys
And I don’t think I should have to remind y’all that while neither candidate has a good outlook on Palestine… at least one won’t end democracy in the US.
Dunno, looks like there’s more than 2 candidates to me
No there really isn’t, not the way US politics work.
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Create a pledge to vote for a leftist candidate. If it surpasses ~85 million signatures, everyone who signed it will vote for the leftist candidate. Otherwise, they will all vote for Biden, since a minimum of 85 million votes are required to guarantee an election win.
I’d sign that shit, and I bet just about every leftist around here would, too. There’s literally no downside.
It is immensely difficult to get 85 people to agree to do something—never mind 85 million—but still not impossible. You almost definitely won’t be able to get 85 million signatures, but you’re more than welcome to try. If you don’t succeed, however, I encourage you to consider the realm of possibility when filling out your ballot. Voting for a third-party candidate and voting for Mickey Mouse—or a dead guy, or Vermin Supreme, or yourself—are equally irrelevant if the third-party candidate does not stand a chance of winning.
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I wasn’t telling people not to vote. I’m voting
Whats the point? To chose between disney fascist and a consevative fascist?
Yes! It has and always will be about voting for the person you dislike the least. You need to grow up if you think otherwise
This is a very burguerfull comment
You need to do some critical thinking. Vote for the person who best aligns with your beliefs, not which of the two big names you hate less.
You need to do some critical thinking. The reason one would dislike one candidate more is because they align less with beliefs.
Vote for an independent candidate. People have this wild notion that voting for a third-party candidate means you’re throwing your vote away.
You’re not. You’re voting for the candidate that best represents your values. People who say otherwise have fallen for the brainrot talking point that’s been around since Ross Perot ran in '96.
If only Perot had just won those extra 370 electoral college votes.
Hm, almost as though Democrats should be pressured by voters to abolish the electoral college… wonder what will change their stance on that.
Maybe… if the Democrats saw their support weakening as a result of their terrible policies… hmmmm.
Democrat-leaning states are already working towards that.. The idea is that if they have 270 electoral votes worth of states signed up, they will all agree to change their electoral delegates to follow the national popular vote, effectively ending the electoral college. It’s not really a democratic push, but it’s an idea that would only be popular with the party that aligns with the national majority. They currently have 205 EVs committed.
Huh, thanks for making me aware of this. I’ll look into this more. Genuinely appreciate the insight.
^ this guy wants trump to win the election.
Ah yes, label me as a Trump sympathizer, cause that definitely helps your cause with the average joe.
Helps my cause more than you or anyone else voting 3rd party.
How is it wise to vote for a candidate that has no discernible chance of winning the election, and is therefore incapable of actually representing my interests in government?
Nothing wild about it.
Either
- vote for the only worthy contender against Trump
or
- vote for someone who isn’t that contender and therefore not for the only worthy contender Biden
If you decide for the latter you’ll risk to never really vote again. Read the signs on the wall. It’s the “What would I have done if I was a german under Hitler” phase, the USA citizens are in right now. If your prefer the stuff that’s going on in Hungary under Orban or worse, go on, vote 3rd party.
Edit:
Germany is in a similar situation in the next federal parliament election although we got more weighty contenders in the parliament than only dems and reps. Our Biden vote equals to 2 parties (labour party and the greens) out of 6. The remaining 4 parties would be a Trump vote (AfD). The outcome of that election would define the politics for unforseeable future and was and is the reason for the mass protests in germany.
Edit 2:
We’d probably have more leeway as the AfD would not straight be elected but mainly the CDU who would choose the chancelor (Either Söder or the german Trump light Friedrich Merz). There would be many more compromises made with AfD (farfarfar right) with a CDU chancelor than under a new labor (SPD) and Greens chancelor. The dream would be if The Greens got a majority. Then Habeck would be chancelor.
BoTh SiDes ArE ThE SaMe
At what point did they say that? Of course the Republicans are miles worse than the Democrats, but why should people sit there and be like “oh, let me just vote for genocide lite when the other party is genocide standard”
Edit: slight edit since Kbin notifs are weird.
People should not actively vote FOR increasing genocide, which supporting Trump does. Not only there but bringing it here against US Arabs and LGBTQ people. And also opens up the VERY real possibility of this country turning into a dictatorship in which there won’t be more votes.
Tell that to women and trans people. If Trump wasn’t elected we’d still have roe v Wade and federal judges that would strike down a lot of the anti trans laws being put out, plus those states wouldn’t have been empowered to do so in the first place.
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You’re either a plant or you’re dangerously uninformed.
If Trump and his christofascist sect wins, all arabic people in the region will be expelled or genocided.
If the crazies behind Trump with their playbook “Project 2025” get their way it would be really the “Lord have mercy” phase in humanities history.
This article shows the grand picture which should frighten every world citizen, considering we talk about the greatest military power with an unhinged Commander in Chief who is commanded himself by even more sinister manipulators.
“Many Republicans express their unwavering support for Israel in biblical and apocalyptic terms. Rep. Mike Johnson, a Christian evangelical, made his first public appearance after being elected House speaker last October at a conference of the Republican Jewish Coalition, where he said that “God is not done with Israel.””
Compare that to president Biden openly criticising Netanyahu and vice-president Harris calling for a ceasefire now.
Your insult just doesn’t make sense. I hope you see that. I heard that nearly every US president after WW2 was unconditionally pro Israel. And at least some of the dems (including the president) currently seem to begin to grasp that Israel is going terribly wrong with their methods in the war on Gaza. Your current government has the best chances to bring it to an end if they go just one step further. Biden said in the interview on MSNBC he’d always support them with their Iron Dome but it seemed, although he didn’t say it directly, that he wouldn’t support them above that, if Netanyahu crosses a red line.
Choose wisely.
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In politics what people do is way more important than what they say. Not saying Trump is reasonable in any way, he killed Soleimani for no reason at all. But Biden have a genocide in his curriculum
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Where did i insult you?
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Biden is not my government. Idc if he curses and tell Netanyahu to eat shit, as long as he is providing weapons and money he is a genocidal ghoul. You are so easily fooled by nice words but dont forget who’s the weapon supplier to this genocide
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Jup. That execution was extremely dangerous and I’m sure Iran is still pondering how they could take revenge. Another possible fubar situation if he comes to power. Iran launching a new 9/11 as a retribution for their national hero.
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Not meant that you insulted me but rather 46. You’re free to do of course but I don’t think it fits. I can’t imagine it’s Biden who’s giving commands to carpet bomb Gaza, block aid deliveries or to shoot ~100 people fighting for said deliveries.
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I’m not well informed about the independent candidates in the US and their stance to help for Israel. But even if there are some very left parties with no-aid for Israel policy would they stand any chance against Orange Cheato? After him it’s just game over. He would be dictator for lifetime. And Don Jr. after. Remember it’s very hard for US presidents to traditionally not support Israel militarywise. This doctrine seems to become a bit brittle lately with the dems.
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Actually Trump did MUCH WORSE… And is literally saying he would turn Gaza into a glass now…
But you knew that Russian troll.
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Lol. As if trans people in red states will be any better off with Biden as president again. Or trans people in blue states any worse under Trump. The feds aren’t doing anything about all the states that are doing the most heinous shit to trans people already.
Don’t threaten me with my sister’s death to coerce me to support the genocidal regime currently in power.
They don’t keep us safe. We keep us safe.
You can assure me that a Republican triple majority won’t pass a national abortion ban?
Why would they need either the legislature or the presidency?
Because you can’t unilaterally pass federal laws as the minority party?
If you’re the majority party on the Supreme Court I think it’s quite evident that neither of the other two branches really matter.
What laws have the Supreme Court passed, exactly?
The Republican Party is not the party of small government. They are a fascist death cult and they will bring their anti-trans bills from red states to the federal government. Trans people will be erased from public life. Trans people will be discriminated in the work force and undoubtedly find it difficult to pay rent as a result. Trans people are going to end up homeless on the streets if Republicans win in 2024.
The Supreme Court is hearing a case about homeless encampments. Homeless encampments may soon lose the current legal protection they have under the Eight Amendment. The current logic being that chasing away people who have no where left to go is cruel and unusual punishment.
https://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/city-of-grants-pass-oregon-v-johnson/
Even blue states like Oregon and California asked the Supreme Court to review the case.
https://nypost.com/2024/03/09/opinion/the-supreme-court-could-soon-outlaw-homeless-camps/
Multiple prominent Democrats petitioned the Supreme Court to review Grants Pass, including California Gov. Gavin Newsom, San Francisco mayor London Breed, and Portland mayor Ted Wheeler.
It is not guaranteed that blue states will be safe havens for anyone. Here is an official statement from Governor Gavin Newsom.
“California has invested billions to address homelessness, but rulings from the bench have tied the hands of state and local governments to address this issue.
“The Supreme Court can now correct course and end the costly delays from lawsuits that have plagued our efforts to clear encampments and deliver services to those in need.”
If Trump wins in 2024, he wants to make homelessness illegal. Homeless people are going to end up in death camps.
Trump said his proposal calls for creating “tent cities” and relocating homeless people to “large parcels of inexpensive land” with access to doctors, psychiatrists, social workers and drug rehab specialists. He claims his plan will once again make cities “livable” and “beautiful.”
A trans homeless person is as least as likely to end up in a death camp as a cis homeless person. And trans people have a good chance of being homeless if they can’t get a job because Republicans allow corporations to discriminate against them in the work place. Trans people will be worse off no matter where they are in America.
If the Democrats are also pushing to make being homeless illegal why is that an incentive to vote for them? I guess I don’t get your point. You think Biden doesn’t feel the same way about Martin v Boise as Newsom?
If the Democrats are also pushing to make being homeless illegal why is that an incentive to vote for them?
My point is Democrats want to overturn the status quo. The blue states assume they are going to get to decide what happens to homeless people next, presumably for the better. Unfortunately for them, a second Trump term would undoubtedly render homelessness illegal at the federal level. Best-laid plans gone awry thanks to Trump.
If the Republicans win in 2024 they will have control of all three branches of the federal government. They will be able reshape America how they see fit, and states rights are not going to stop them. States rights were only ever a justification from Republicans to turn their states into authoritarian christofascist workshops. Now they going to take what they’ve learned and practiced to the federal level and won’t care about state rights whatsoever.
The blue states assume they are going to get to decide what happens to homeless people next, presumably for the better.
The blue states are pushing to be allowed to put homeless people in jail again. Martin v. Boise required you to have enough shelter beds/housing available before you could force homeless people to leave the street. The blue states are joining the SCOTUS case because they will not build shelters. If that doesn’t indicate that they have no intention of doing better, idk what does.
They will be able reshape America how they see fit
They don’t need the other two branches of government to do this. They’ve already got the only one that matters and are doing it now even with a Democrat in the Oval Office.
The blue states are joining the SCOTUS case because they will not build shelters.
Again, here is Governor Gavin Newsom’s official statement. He seems intent on providing services to homeless people. Presumably that would include shelter.
“California has invested billions to address homelessness, but rulings from the bench have tied the hands of state and local governments to address this issue.
“The Supreme Court can now correct course and end the costly delays from lawsuits that have plagued our efforts to clear encampments and deliver services to those in need.”
It’s fair to not trust what someone says. At least with Democrats when they outwardly claim to have homeless people’s interests at heart, since they are neoliberals as opposed to fascists I am inclined to believe them. However, I disagree with the need to remove homeless camps in order to provide services to people. If the services are good and this is effectively communicated to people, I think most people in need of those services will take them voluntarily.
This is opposed to the fascists in the Republican party who want to put homeless people in what will no doubt turn out to be death camps.
They don’t need the other two branches of government to do this. They’ve already got the only one that matters and are doing it now even with a Democrat in the Oval Office.
If Republicans want to make homelessness illegal at the federal level, they will need Congress to pass legislation and the presidency to sign the bill into law. All the Supreme Court can do is remove homeless encampments’ Eighth Amendment protection based on the current question they are trying to answer. They could also assign whether they think the federal or state governments have the authority to write legislation to address homeless encampments. As they did recently with Trump v. Anderson, where they decided not only that states don’t have authority to take Trump off the ballot but only Congress does. However the Supreme Court cannot write or sign into law any such legislation themselves.
I was just going to post this just for fun, but they actually raise a good point. Even with only Trump in office, without a Republican controlled congress, he can do a lot of damage with just executive orders. edit: added clarification to Trump v. Anderson
100% agree with this. All of it.
I’m deeply dissatisfied with Biden. I’m angry with him for not pressuring Israel, and I was already angry at him even before that. And I will likely end up voting against him in the primary because of it. But realistically:
(1) He will be the Democratic nominee for President
(2) He is an infinitely better choice than the fascist who already attempted a coup once
(3) Either he or Trump will be the next president
There really is only one way to go in the general. Especially if you’re here on Blahaj, which means you’re either LGBTQ+ or at least friendly to us.
Cool; I didn’t know Blahaj was a 2SLGBTQ+ instance. I just thought it was a kind and accepting space, like Beehaw.
Not to derail this thread too much, but I assume Allies are welcome to join? If Beehaw ends up leaving Lemmy, I’ll need to make a new account somewhere.
I’m not the authority here, but my understanding is that yes, allies are welcome.
At least, I hope so, since I originally came here as an ally who was also questioning some things about myself.
On the other hand, not voting or voting uncommitted in the presidential primary is completely fine. Literally no issue with that
I remembered South Park
?
ironically this video is 20 years old
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source; check me out at GitHub.
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
https://piped.video/9pSh0VAVYn4
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source; check me out at GitHub.
“The Republican and Democratic parties, or, to be more exact, the Republican-Democratic party, represent the capitalist class in the class struggle. They are the political wings of the capitalist system and such differences as arise between them relate to spoils and not to principles.
With either of those parties in power one thing is always certain and that is that the capitalist class is in the saddle and the working class under the saddle.
Under the administration of both these parties the means of production are private property, production is carried forward for capitalist profit purely, markets are glutted and industry paralyzed, workingmen become tramps and criminals while injunctions, soldiers and riot guns are brought into action to preserve ‘law and order’ in the chaotic carnival of capitalistic anarchy.
Deny it as may the cunning capitalists who are clear-sighted enough to perceive it, or ignore it as may the torpid workers who are too blind and unthinking to see it, the struggle in which we are engaged today is a class struggle, and as the toiling millions come to see and understand it and rally to the political standard of their class, they will drive all capitalist parties
of whatever name into the same party, and the class struggle will then be so clearly revealed that the hosts of labor will find their true place in the conflict and strike the united and decisive blow that will destroy slavery and achieve their full and final emancipation.” - Eugene V. Debs
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Americans: do what you want in the primaries. Vote for Biden in the general, because he will be the nominee. I am not stoked about that, but that’s the choice our system gives us.
Non-Americans: please, please do a bit of research on how weird and fucked up and fractious our electoral system is before going off on someone for voting “undecided” in the primaries, which is how I voted myself. Compared to the nationally-organized stuff you guys seem to mostly rely on, ours could charitably be described as “intentionally byzantine”.
The worst part is that your country isn’t even as cool as ancient Byzantium…
i approve this message 🥰
it’s almost like the US is running a software written in the 1700s and that stopped receiving regular updates around the 1960s
That’s… actually not a bad way to describe it.
Also note that we stopped updating our BIOS in 1929, which is the direct cause of this.
if voting changed shit it would have been made illegal. don’t legitimize slavery by acts of expressing gratitude for being able to pick your masters.
Most brain-dead take right here
…slavery???
stagnant wages, no real influence on the politics because the Overton’s window is so narrow and all major parties filled with out of touch millionaires and also just because the political system does not really benefit a common person in a meaningful way, the cost of living and debt crisis, needing to join the military for basic public services, creeping corporate censorship and oligopolization creating a generation of dependent, depressed people with growing self-censorship instinct?
Ok but none of this is slavery. I wouldn’t even call it indentured servitude. There’s a million miles between things sucking and being literally enslaved
Yeah I mean police brutality exists and although a peaceful revolution would be preferable to adventurist bloodshed, we must reckon with the high odds of the powers that be not giving up their power to “the mob” peacefully, this bears no comparison to the rampant abuse of the rural south before the Second American Revolution. But still for real emancipation I believe a third revolution is needed, first the colonial rule, then chattel slavery and now the oligarchic, imperialist capitalism need to go. The continued existence of the previous two was an impendance to the proper development of the United States (the latter two also a humanitarian tragedy, first directly, the latter indirectly*) while nowadays it is also and probably even more importantly, not just anymore due to the climate crisis but also due to hawkish foreign policies being on the rise – a threat to the continued existence of humanity.
* I think I get your point. We used to have that buffer called the middle class that for decades ensured some relative social peace and fostered some faith in the American dream because some people were able to advance socioeconomically. But we are the first generation to actually have a worse standard of living than our parents, so all of that is crumbling. I used to be a software developer but the absolute shitshow that has been the 4-month long failed job hunt in the current state of the market forced me to become a food delivery driver. It all feels so disempowering when you feel your efforts amount to nothing. And I believe it’s not just me. Lots of young people have been scammed into wasting their time and money pursuing degrees that produced no ROI for them. I now really think I should’ve trained to become an electrician or other deficient, decently paying blue-collar vocation but now if I don’t find at least a support/admin job in IT soon it will be another couple years of debt and uncertainty and feeling easily replaceable, cheated out of future after being promised an irrationally exaggerated market value.
But I feel like again, I’m not alone in this sentiment and soon we’ll see another wave of people training for highly demanded blue collar jobs, the market will saturate and some people will again end up feeling duped into another Ponzi scheme with their livelihoods. Because capitalism is a permanent crisis of overproduction, chaos and speculation, a dog eat dog world
inb4 Ayn Rand’s “Anthem”
I don’t really care about getting rich. I actually care about my craft and believe everyone should be able to do what they are passionate about without the fear of hunger, not receiving healthcare or homelessness. Most commercial software development is just as wasteful as marketing anyway.
Not sure how to tell you this, but the Right has spent years and millions of dollars trying to make voting illegal for its opponents.
So… I guess it does change shit, by your definition.
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/03/us/politics/trump-voter-rolls.html
The people of USA succesfully beat two tyrannical systems in 18th and 19th century so why wouldn’t they now if the current state of things deteriorates in that direction. And so did the Russians who have lived under the tsarist tyranny. Or the people oppressed by the colonial regimes who have not attained their independence as a gesture of good will. Or Cubans overthrowing Batista. Or Chileans ousting Pinochet. Or South Africans overthrowing the apartheid.
All of that required militancy. Polite pleas are not a language tyrants understand. But, by extension, blind faith in electoralism has failed when the KPD failed to respond with proper militancy to the Reichstag fire decree in 1933. The militancy must be proactive. One should not be deluded that a “progressive” government will welcome with open arms any advanced, massive expression of social anger any more than a reactionary one would. See France where it is basic street knowledge to wear at least a solid fucking helmet with plexiglass visor to any protest if you don’t want to say, lose an eye under the oh-so-benevolvent rule of the liberal Macron.
Aaron Bushnell had a gun pointed at him as he died.
Yes, that’s all true. But that’s a good argument for “You shouldn’t only vote,” not “You shouldn’t vote.” See the difference?
If the only action we take is voting, then the tyrants who aren’t constrained by law will win. If the only action we take is direct action, then the tyrants win as soon as they outgun us. If we use voting to advance things in civil society inside the lines and direct action to keep the tyrants playing inside the lines, we win.
Reactionaries, like real fucking fascist shock troops are actually a minority compared to interwar period. Most Trump voters are just tired, frustrated and desperate, not actually fanatically rallying behind him. His bravado may resonate with some social anger but it will probably run out of steam as soon as people find out he offers no real solutions. On the contrary, Nazis and fascists were able to rally a significant number of strata of the population. So let’s compare the relevance and position of the groups upon which the Italian, Spanish and German fascists based themselves:
- Demobilized soldiers and mercenaries like the Moroccans in Spain and Freikorps
Nowadays many people join the military in the US just to get free college and healthcare etc. And yet they still fall short of their recruitment targets. See the recent protests in solidarity with Aaron Bushnell. Also after WW I most armies were infantry based and there was initially mass unemployment amongst the veterans.
- Medium to large-scale landowners/peasants
1-3% of the society. And if anything, their militancy at least makes the ruling class tremble, lest it was adopted by workers.
- Clergy
Even in the US religion is losing relevance
- Students
Massively shifted to the left almost everywhere
- Small business owners
They are still getting screwed every once in a while by the ruthless law of the accumulation of capital but still mostly they might be partly correct but still go into some major distortions in their understanding of things. Petty bourgeoisie is not a revolutionary class. But at the same time, they no longer compete with other small business owners of other (Jewish) ethnicity but actually rely heavily on unskilled migrant labor
- Organized criminals
Crime has mostly economic causes. For massive spike in crime that could serve as the manpower pool for the fascist militias, the system would actually need to be built on a prejudice against white males, not just in /pol/cel projections grounded in not seeing shit primarily through economic lenses.
So even if the unavoidable aggravation of capitalism’s agony happens sooner:
- to reject the possibility of emerging from it victorious is actually a defeatist internalization of downplaying the potential of own class, just what the porky wants
- to tail the liberals will not serve in any way to convince the less politically educated people that we are any alternative…
- …and if anything, ends up being a self-fulfilling prophecy for their besieged fortress myth about some leftist conspiracy
- most dictators came to power not by election, but by a coup or manipulation
- even if we think about the most notable example when they did, that is in Germany in the 30s, it’s all actually vastly different. While KPD’s sectarianism towards SPD and the refusal to take advantage of several revolutionary situations were what led to it not being able to successfully withstand Hitler, there are some key differences here:
Democrats are as much of a millionaire club as Republicans. SPD was a massive workers’ organization. CPUSA actually endorses Biden because that’s what most IMCWP parties not in power do: legitimize the status quo and maintain a watered-down programme. No diff here with CPRF in Russia. And such sort of passivity and conservatism is what permeated the leadership of KPD under Thälmann and it is the reason why a revolutionary party aspiring to stand as an independent force that won’t ever let itself be co-opted into the system is needed.
I get that feeling of FOMO. But ask yourself, which do you think matters more against millions of other voters whom you’ll never talk to:
a) voting
b) organizing to defend yourself against the Trump regime, by force if necessary where a loud and consequent group can easily sway thousands if not millions under the right conditions. That vs trying to basically convince people why one shade of the same color is better than the other which serves mostly narrowing their worldview and proving that you are not willing to stand up for your ideas.
They are, especially in the south. Or did you sleep in on 1/6? Express your democratic right, or loose it.
in this day and age, there is no progressive wing of the bourgeoisie. Revolutionary communists fight for a workers’ government and do not give any support to any capitalist party or politician. (…) However, mass dissatisfaction with the Democrats does not mean a majority of Americans are right-wing reactionaries. On the contrary, most people merely want stability, good jobs and wages, and a safe and healthy place to raise a family. But this simply isn’t possible for everyone under capitalism. The exploitation of wage-labor by capital and the relentless drive for profits precludes this. As an arch-capitalist himself, Trump can’t square the circle either, and he is merely filling the political vacuum in a temporary and distorted way. If reelected, those workers attracted by his poisonous bravado will eventually realize that no American president can magically wave their problems away.
https://socialistrevolution.org/election-2024-why-genocide-joe-and-trumps-system-has-to-go/
Evil is evil and lesser evilism is a disgusting idea.
And when it comes to Trump, just as Hegel put it, historical necessity is often expressed through accident. Donald Trump is a giant, catastrophic accident for the capitalist class.
Russian spies. Nice try.
Also I hope the Russian government is overthrown by it’s people and that the right to the self determination of the myriad of ethnic groups of Russia is actually honored instead of them being used as a cannon fodder to oppress another nation.
I live in Russia. First, that won’t happen soon, it’s a bad situation with apathy, fragmentation and decay. Second, that myriad of ethnic groups is by geographic distribution mostly unable to secede as states with clearly defined borders. Third, where they can (say, North Caucasus), they depend on central financing to not be terribly poor (and they are still very poor).
isn’t Tuva an exception in this case due to it’s isolation? Also a question of leadership, how relevant was Boris Kagarlitsky, actually?
Not of the third point.
Also a question of leadership, how relevant was Boris Kagarlitsky, actually?
So relevant that I’ve heard about him a few times, but never paid attention.
but election rigging in post-Soviet Russia was actually started by the CIA to not let the communists get back to power in 1996 elections. Which is actually yet another proof that what is needed in any country really is a revolution and actual thorough democratization of every aspect of social and economic life possible, instead of neo-aristocratic electoralism. And that to that goal, a party able to lead a way towards it is needed (instead of trying to work within those that actually just prop up the system and will actively fight back when that is challenged (look up SJ Voralberg case in Austria as the most recent example, or even more glaringly, CPRF purging anti-war faction or the Blairite hostile takeover in Labour a couple years ago)), which was sadly lacking in Russia in the 90s as well as today.
what is needed in any country really is a revolution and actual thorough democratization of every aspect of social and economic life possible
Good luck accomplishing any of that while under a dictatorship :)
the iranians revolted… into another dictatorship…
and the french revolution ended swell! wait
what about the cuban revolution? oh god damn it
lol i’m just kidding, i can think of a few. the italian civil war and the libyan civil war, and technically the russian revolution and german revolution but i guess it helps when the government you’re fighting against is getting brutally beaten in a war against other countries. but i can’t say all of those ended in an extremely democratic system
Incredible how the majority of their comments come at hrs when most Americans are in bed…
In the UK you can spoil your ballot if you’re unhappy with the options and is a recorded vote. Perhaps there’s something like that.
It’s not a good tool if one party is likely, but not guaranteed, to win without your vote, but is much worse than the other. You should only spoil your ballot if your constituency is has a large enough majority that your vote won’t matter at all, or none of the parties are less bad than the others.
If you’re voting on the single issue of Palestine in the US presidential elections (not the primaries), then no state has a large enough majority to justify as spoiled ballots, and one party wants to support a genocide while the other wants to discourage it (even if they’re doing a crap job of it), so there is a least bad option to vote for.
It’s not a good tool if one party is likely, but not guaranteed, to win without your vote, but is much worse than the other. You should only spoil your ballot if your constituency is has a large enough majority that your vote won’t matter at all, or none of the parties are less bad than the others.
The first instance is realistically the only case in which it would really matter that you spoiled your ballot, though. In the second example of when you might spoil your vote, it wouldn’t really matter at all, precisely because they have a large enough majority.
I live in maryland so my ballot doesn’t matter much regardless for the presidential election. If Biden loses maryland he loses. And I won’t be voting for him. The worst thing missing my vote will do for him is reducing his popular vote. Since that’s mostly a talking point, good.
I don’t understand the motivation to spoil your vote. First past the post is the shittiest voting system but the rational response is to vote tactically instead, perhaps reduce the majority of your disliked incumbent. Even if you can’t overturn a majority, MPs on smaller majorities may be less arrogant, and less likely to vote for unpopular policies. But sometimes you do overturn a majority. It will happen lots in this/next year’s election.
I don’t think any politician gives a shit about the numbers of spoiled ballots, they literally don’t look even once at those numbers.
Except we have an actual self proclaimed dictator, trying to gain power. These fucking “progressives” are helping him.
As someone with a modicum of common sense, it boggles my mind that these spoiled children think helping Trump seize power is a good idea for anyone including themselves.
This is objectively correct and based.
The sentiments in this thread (by large) are objectively correct and based as well. I am impressed with you, 196
o7
Browbeating people into voting is not helpful.
I’ll proceed to describe in this post the gigantic amount of political change and sweeping reforms we will achieve when we valiantly protest against the system by not voting up until we get the turnout to 10%:
Yes! Under Trump’s dictatorship there WILL sweeping changes, just not the ones you think. I mean ending democracy in this country will be a change. But you’ll sleep well (until the gestapo comes for you) thinking “you showed them!”.
Yep. We need A LOT more leftists to show up before protesting the vote is useful. As much as I hate Democrats, we’re not there yet. I’ll vote Biden, but I’ll lose sleep over voting for that disgusting ghoul. Still better than the alternative, until the alternative includes dismantling our whole entire system.
unexpected commentary to come from a mod.
based tho. https://www.vote.org/
With some of the rhetoric I was seeing I felt like it was my responsibility to say something.
Love u bae <3
tyyyy
If you are against both dominants in a two-party system, vote for the party more likely to win, so that the margin would become bigger, the winning party would split and the losing party would have unpredictable change.
I’m in the second world, just thinking.
In the US this seems to have already happened once, in the 50s.
