FAQ
Q: why not organize and stop treating the bus as a legitimate entity? why aren’t you working to stop the bus?
A: do both. cut the fuel line. break windows. put oatmeal in the gas tank. but maybe your efforts don’t succeed this election cycle. and if so don’t fucking throw away your vote if it can help your neighbors fucking survive. “harm reduction” is not a political strategy for action. it is a last minute, end of the line decision to save lives, after all other resources have been exhausted.
Flipently equivocating people horrified with deliberately acts of mass genocide with being overly fussy about choice of icecream is not going to win you any support from people who refuse to vote Dem.
In fact it just makes me more disgusted with the “vote blue, no matter who” crowd.
I guarantee you that trump isn’t going to save the brown people in the middle east. We don’t have to compare it to ice cream then. How about voting between killing brown people vs killing brown people, subjugation women, and taking from the working class to give to our oligarchs. Does that help make it clearer?
The point is not voting helps the second result move along
pretty sure biden was president when roe v wade was overturned, so i don’t see how giving him power again would help the women you’re mentioning. also pretty sure biden has been helping oversee the oppression of the working class from dc for about 50 years, so i am not exactly convinced he’s going to do anything about it if he literally can’t lose any more elections.
You do realize that trump put 3 Supreme Court justices and flipped the court right?? Do trump supporters just not understand cause and effect?
The depressing thing is that not only Trump supporters but most people in my experience do not have a firm grasp on cause and effect, especially politically and historically
And who are the Democrats and who are the GOP in your analogy? Because both do a fine job of checking off all of those boxes.
Have fun sailing off the cliff.
The Democrats have been less terrible than the GOP for decades now. They need to actually start offering solutions and helping people though. The Democrats need to actually earn votes, not just shame you for voting for Republicans
Though I agree that would be ideal, it also takes more work than just saying “see those guys want to make your life worse, we might not do that openly, vote for us because there’s no other choice”
Humans are lazy, and power hungry. Even Democrats.
The Democrats know who they need to vote for them, and those people have made it clear what they want. There are no “moderate” Republicans that are gonna vote Biden, so he needs to actually listen to the people who will vote for him and give them what they want. And they want it now because they aren’t gonna fall for the the Democrat bait and switch anymore.
People can get as mad as they want about people using their vote to get what they want, but that’s literally hiw the system is designed to work.
so he needs to actually listen to the people who will vote for him and give them what they want
Why? It’s more work. And who are you gonna vote for anyways? Someone else that will end up with Drumpf again?
Like I said, humans are lazy and power hungry.
And you wonder why you can’t convince people to vote for your ghoul.
I’m German. I really hope you guys don’t vote for the fascist this time, but seeing comments like yours make me extremely happy that my partner emigrated from the US instead of still being there.
The box is empty, isn’t it?
Great zinger. Still not voting for Genocide Joe.
Wouldn’t expect a Trumper to. Did I say Trumper? I wanted to say ‘fascist enabling fuckwit’.
God you people really are amoral scum.
I’m doing the moral calculations. Fuck Biden, but fuck Trump more. If I vote for Biden, millions suffer. If I vote for Trump (or waste my vote so he wins), even more suffer. Doesn’t take too much evaluating to pick being slapped in the face vs bring punched in the face.
I absolutely support the undecided campaign in the primaries to put pressure on Biden, but putting pressure on him and the DNC by letting Trump be in charge for another 4 years is a terrible idea. Even without Trump in office the GOP is quickly eroding even the semblance of democracy we’ve had for a while, but with 4 years of Trump accelerating that I think this would be the last time my vote even slightly matters. Then I’d also need to evacuate from the country because I’m trans and don’t want them ruining my life. I’m voting for Biden in the general to avoid that, and then afterwards I guess I have to figure out what I can even do about the still-evolving bad situation that I helped successfully slow.
If reducing suffering and not letting an impossible perfect be the enemy of the better is amoral, I don’t understand your definition of moral. I’m a utilitarian if you couldn’t tell.
Says the person voting for Trump.
I understand your position and hate that we live in a shitty world where that choice is forced on people, but from what i see it from here, you guys have a choice between choosing the guy who’s not good but is at least doing some good, and the active fascist idolizing Hitler, with every neutral vote being effectively helping the fascist.
Not much of a choice, yes, but that’s where you are, and any vote not going to the not good guy will help the fascist. So that’s your choice, will you choose to fly over the cliff along with everybody else in the rest of the car or help avoiding that?
Biden isn’t doing any harm reduction for anyone right now. Maintaining the status quo will just put us right back here in 2-4 years time. Holding Biden’s feet ti the fire and making him implement actual harm reduction now in return for voting for him in November is what any sane voting block needs to do.
If I have to read one more both sides are terrible “take” that encourages voter apathy I’m going to lose my mind. Vote, people I don’t care who you vote for but you have to vote because apathy is how we get fascism.
Do something rather than just throwing a piss fit and encouraging others to do nothing.
I guess it depends on the country, but here in France, our last two presidential elections were about choosing how fast fascism would come.
Not very versed in French politics but I imagine the fight to maintain democracy is difficult regardless of country. No matter how bad the choice gets though, not making it isn’t the answer.
Vote, people I don’t care who you vote for but you have to vote because apathy is how we get fascism.
Nervous German laughter
We will probably get fascism with our next federal state’s election, since AFD is projected to win by far more votes than any other party. Whelp.
I’ve met a young mom who, while not voting for AFD itself, does hope they will win the election because “then the voters will finally get heard and we also get to see what the party actually wants to implement, otherwise it’s just big talk but it’s interesting to see what they would do once they are in power.” …Can we not find out please? I hope it would just be big talk but I really don’t care to find out. I am superwhite but I don’t have a German passport and I don’t want to know.
But back to the actual topic, I absolutely agree with you and not voting is always, always a bad idea. Hell, not two weeks ago I went to Berlin, paid for a hotel and stood in a long line to vote for the rigged elections in Russia. I know my voice will not be heard and it still felt imperative. Please, please go vote if you’re in the USA ( - or anywhere where your voice will actually at least be counted). I hate to say it but our future also depends on what your country decides.
Oh yeah it’s not foolproof you absolutely still can have people vote against their interests but encouraging apathy doesn’t fix that
Tell the DNC to pick somebody else?
Burn both parties to the ground and bar them all from holding office ever again.
At least this would be doing something, you have my support.
I’ll believe it when I see it… otherwise the way it looks atm is that the dems want trump lol…
D- does that mean youve still a mind? C-c- could we m-maybe sh-share?
Cuz I feel like itd come in handy when the foreign shills show up to tell me all about why the problem you just described is ackswallee not here on lemmy at all… i guess we just that special.
Good to see the sane comments up top, but still.
Both texts in screenshot are agruments against apathy
This was a response to the comments.
And not-voting doesn’t mean the bus stays put.
It’s going somewhere.
A dilemma doesn’t go away just because you don’t like the options.
What if I’m obstaining from voting because my subdivision of the bus will always vote for the cliff instead of the ice cream regardless of what I do
Sounds like a post by a snowflake ice cream eater
The most convincing argument I’ve heard for voting third party instead of for Genocide Joe is that liberals were more politically engaged and had more of an activist mentality under Trump.
Also, I’ve given consideration to the idea that “vote blue no matter who” types would likely vote for a more leftist Democrat than the ones currently being offered. In a long term strategy, if leftists refuse to vote for Democratic candidates who are too far right, then the Democrats would have to either try to appeal to the Trump demographic (which they do unfortunately do), or appeal to the leftist demographic until they get the leftist votes back.
Voting IMO is more like choose between a cliff and a deep pit . A failure is guaranteed, try to minimize the fall.
good analysis, i concur
counterpoint, its not either or. this is a false dichotomy the democrats created and maintain as a rhetorical device to silence dissent. i will never vote for joe biden. ill vote for…, a couple of democrats down ballot. and that is the extent of my interaction with the legitimate systems of democracy in the US. if you dont live in a swing state, the presidential race is, effectively, not real for you. this is a basic tenant of “american electoral politics” , or as I like to call it, a tenant of US Authoritarianism
i encourage you to reconsider your position. the spoiler effect is real and so are elections and their consequences. someone is getting put into that seat and you have the opportunity to influence the situation.
this post may be helpful, encourage you to check it out
This is a long established problem with FPTP voting (FPTP = First Past The Post: One voter = one vote). You don’t really get to vote for your choice candidate, rather you vote against the worst of the two popular candidates by voting for the other guy.
Now there are plenty of election reform solutions, but in the US, both parties are weakened by the people having more choice, so neither party is willing to back amendments to the Constitution of the United States that would install a more public serving voting system.
This also means, according to CIA analysts who have studied nations on the brink and how they can avoid civil war, the US is very likely to see a civil war in its near future (next decade). But then we’re also likely to see elections neutered anyway, so that the Republican party controls all elected positions (and appointed ones after that). And then local genocides can get underway.
So yes, if you’re voting to make a point (other than you want the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 to play out or want to delay it for a while) the point won’t be heard. In fact, the Republicans and their foreign national propaganda machine supporters are probably very glad you’re willing to withhold blue votes to make a point. It won’t make that point, but they’re glad for you for trying.
Wrong. Democrats consistently support & pass RCV, while Republicans repeal & ban it. If you want RCV, you need to support Dems in the meantime.
And RCV (ranked choice voting) isn’t really that much better. It has potential to be better if everyone voted honestly, but voting is a game.
STAR (score then automatic runoff) is the best we can feasibly achieve. It’s easy to teach and our current voting systems can account for this with little to no update (unlike RCV). Please look into star and push for this locally, then we can get this on a state by state basis.
What do you say to the DNC for dropping the ball this hard?
As much as you really fucking hate to hear it: Biden won both his primaries handedly. The only way Bernie had a shot is if they clowncarred it too long like the Republican nomination that led to Trump. The DNC did not drop the ball, the American voters chose Biden.
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The Democratic Party chose Biden, what was a tactical choice. The DNC uses FPTP for its primary as well (then has a list of 2000 principal party members whose votes are given additional weight. The DNC is a far right coalition party that still is guided by the interests of its monied contributors. But since the 1980s we’ve only been allowed to choose between them and the Christian Nationalist monsters.
Even after Occasio-Cortez won her primary, the DNC and DCCC changed their policy to prevent young upstarts like her from pushing aside establishment Democrat candidates. (Some of those policy changes were reversed due to pressure, but still the Democratic party is not interested in serving the public.)
How do we get a public-serving government? Dunno. Some say supporting our community mutual-aid organizations will help. (It will, actually) but in more contentious states law enforcement are looking for ways to harass and arrest mutual aid organizations, even for doing benign things like feeding the homeless. Civil war will lose the plot quickly, and will end up (typically) in a string of dictatorships, each overthrown by the next until everyone is related to casualties of war and are just plum tired of fighting, and we might get a democratic election out of it if we can fend off all the foreign influencers trying to pressure their puppets into power.
There are a few active anarcho-communist coalitions out there doing their thing, but they are continuously attacked by plutocrat financed militants and mischief-makers looking to make an example of them much like FBI’s assassination campaign on the Black Panthers. We humans may just be too easily tempted by corruption to create a functional public-serving government that doesn’t depend on a labor caste. (But do please keep working on it!)
What is your source for the CIA analysts/brink of civil war claim?
A PBS interview of retired analysts who’d spent their life studying regions of civil unrest and the conditions that lead to civil war. It was since the Biden administration began so it shouldn’t be too hard to hunt down.
As for the neutered elections, this had been part of the Republican project REDMAP, but is laid out in the Heritage Foundation Project 2025 as well.
i don’t disagree but this is also a long established problem with people not showing up to vote, so jot that down.
Taking a wild guess here, I suspect people not voting comes from a number of addressable causes. Here in the States, we are far more enamored with capitalism than Democracy, and the way we regard our civic duties (e.g. trying to get out of jury duty, mostly due to the hardship it would cause by skipping work without pay). We work our labor class so hard they are too exhausted to parent, cook or engage in health activities, much less engage in civics. It doesn’t help that this is exactly how our plutocratic masters want it.
After we address allowing people the time to think about what they want from government, and voting accordingly, then we can start looking into giving the people actual agency in their destinies, toward which election reform is only one front.
But all this is to say the United States doesn’t really try very hard to get the people to engage in civics. Rather, it would really prefer that we lie down and let ourselves be ruled by the wealthy according to their ideals and business interests. That, of course, brings us back to the same problems feudalism has: one Joffrey or Caligula or John of England / Richard II can bring to ruin all that a dozen prior generations have built up. Even Charles III is living up to the traditional standards of monarchy, and the UK has a parliament and a constitution with which to keep his shenanigans in check. (Parliament is up to its own shenanigans to turn the UK hardline fascist, but that’s another discussion.)
In elementary school government and western civilization class, we learn that we vote so that the government does what we want it to. But we quickly learn (sometimes as soon as intermediate or high-school) that our agency in selecting our government is very, very limited, and historian careers have been built on the corruption of government into an oligarchy with trivial democratic features.
Except right now, those trivial democratic features are the last line of defense between the two party state and a one-party autocracy. It’s a state of affairs that shows not only did we take a wrong turn, but we’re on a fast train to somewhere we never should have gone. Curiously, the never-Trump conservatives have been pouring billions into the proverbial railroad that lead us to Trump and the next line of Musolinni-wannabe strongman dictators. They didn’t just buy the ticket, but laid the rails.
I’m surprised an instance like this is okay with people showing up and arguing why letting a transphobic fascist take power is actually not as bad as it sounds.
or maybe, yk, hijack the bus to stop it because it is headed towards a cliff anyway, just the question is how fast it’ll get there. This is what a revolution means.
I will not be voting for anyone who supports a genocide. That will not change. Now there are two ways to change the outcome.
- If you are a genocide supporter who wants to be elected, you could stop supporting genocide, and be vocal about it.
- If you are someone who wants me to vote for your candidate, you could demand that they stop supporting genocide. Or demand that whatever party you like stops nominating people who support genocide.
I will not budge. Will you?
Two candidates that support genocide, but one is a christofascist. No matter who you vote for, genocide support wins. But you think it’s better to give the christofascist better odds than to inconvenience yourself with a vote you don’t 100% agree with, and possibly abstain from your chance to ever vote again. Not voting won’t fix the issue, since there’s no threshold on voter turnout for the election to count. The struggle against genocide must be fought in other ways. So unfortunately, this fall you’re getting genocide, so please make sure you don’t get fascism too.
Direct action and or forcing the hands of politicians so more people have an incentive to voteTrying to get people to support genocide and half assed half measures (that keep the door open for making things worse than they were before, which is very in line with the ruling class’ interests), and when they don’t, imply they support fascism 😌
It’s not implying they support fascism, it’s implying they’re letting fascism happen faster, because they are.
See other comment
Agree we should work outside the system, disagree that we should not use our vote strategically.
Using it strategically does not equate to voting unconditionally
What do you mean, “support”?
First instance of the word: “supporting genocide” as in voting for someone who will facilitate said genocide via funding.
Second instance of the word: “supporting fascism” by refraining to vote for someone who will facilitate genocide but will stop the fascism creep ongoing in the USA using (in my not so humble opinion) crappy legislation which can be easily reverted.
To defend myself more directly, one wouldn’t ask a Palestinian American to vote for Biden, that is, unless you lack basic decency, ehich means the tactic that the person above me uses wouldn’t be effective for anyone seeing themselves as a victim or even victim-adjacent to the ongoing genocide.
And I’m saying that working outside of the system or trying to apply political pressure is a tactic that is abandoned by liberals by default, which makes their tactic ineffective against the creep of fascism.
Excuse my long ass comment, wanted to drop the sarcasm for a sec and say what i really mean.
I just think your humble opinion of the legislation being easily reversible is doing a lot of work here.
Are you really that sure that there will be no long term consequences if the guy comes into office who has explicitly stated his intention to become a “dictator for ‘a day’”, is really intent on stacking courts, fucking with elections, calling immigrants “vermin”, and so on?
Because if you’re wrong, there might be a civil war. And MAGA nut jobs statistically have more guns than us leftists.
You are assuming that the only options that exist are voting for either guy or not voting. Which is the main thing I’m trying to bring attention to as you are not the first person to comment in such a manner.
Also, Biden isn’t really doing much to reverse what Trump did, including stuff that affect immigrants.
If your main means to get more voters is shaming them instead of shaming your politicians then this lesser-of-two-evils game will only get worse, it had gone worse several times already.
I’m aware that more than two parties technically exist in your country. I’m also not under the illusion that voting for one of them in the general election has an effect that’s distinguishable from not voting.
I mean, except for the individual third party voter, who has to leave the house and stand in a queue when voting third party.
It’s great to have a political system that allows for diverse political parties. Sadly the US in not a country where such a system exists.
Under normal circumstances, you won’t be able to ever reach critical mass with a third party, and they won’t give up power.
I’d rather just not vote for genocide.
Aside from the obvious, that will just be continuing to tell the two parties that nominating genocide supporters is good. You can continue telling your favorite party that you are okay with genocide, but I will not, thank you very much. This is why you are stuck between two genocide supporters. When your chosen party leaves you with a genocide supporter as your only choice, you tell them that’s good.
And you are not going to fight the genocide in any other way, so don’t pretend. Your chosen party is one of the two that ratified bills to make any attempts at boycotts or sanctions illegal.
Also, both candidates are fascists. Look at what’s happening on our Southern border, look at just our recent history in the Middle East, and look at the fascist government committing genocide that we are supporting.
You don’t fight fascism in the ballot box. Every single example in history teaches you that.
The parties don’t really care if you don’t vote, so not voting doesn’t apply pressure to them to change.
Hypothetically speaking, if candidates A and B both support genocide but candidate B wants to take away your right to vote, I think we should vote for candidate A.
See you at the bottom of the cliff then.
Don’t dishearten they’re almost certainly not actually an American voter.
You’re effectively voting for “eh whatever”
Between genocider and genocider-but-worse, I’m not gonna stand by and let genocider-but-worse win power.
i admire your dedication and resolve. for the sake of everyone involved i hope your narrative plays out. :)
for me personally i find such a scenario unlikely and so choose to operate within the bounds of a model i find to be closer to reality to reduce the harm brought to my neighbors.
Except they are on a train and the tracks only lead off the cliff
All I see is panic. supposedly If the majority of women were pro-abortion, you wouldn’t have to worry about Trump and republicans winning the next elections. women alone would flip the red states. but apparently not all women agree with abortion.
Thus is the problem with our broken, binary choice system. Ranked voting may not be perfect, but it is exceeding better than the me we have now.
