this post was submitted on 14 Oct 2024
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Look, if you don't care about LGBT folks, women who need abortions, asylum seekers, etc. you can pull that "don't care" lever. But "I care about making a symbolic, but ultimately toothless, gesture about Palestine more than I care about the lives of thousands, possibly millions of others" is what voting third-party is telling the system right now. If that makes you feel morally superior, we're at an impasse because I don't know how to explain to someone that an action to save lives is more powerful than an unrealistic gesture about saving even more lives, but which will realistically increase the amount of death and suffering.
Is there a red line for you in the sand, or would you vote for Hitler if 101% Hitler was running? When do you abandon hope in the Democrats, if being genocidal Imperialists doing nothing to help marginalized groups, and are running to the right of Trump in 2016 with respect to immigration, doesn't?
That's a non-sequitur, because that's not what's happening by any means. But thanks for ceding the point that you're okay feeling morally superior by doing something that'll get more people killed.
So either there's no red line, or genocide doesn't matter if it's against Muslims for you.
There's no red line that Americans can VOTE on. We don't get to vote on how America goes to war, period. You really want to frame this in the context that your actually doing something other than undermining a fair election. You've gone way past the red line in your support of Trump.
then is the system fair?
societies generally throw away the rules and stop relying on these institutions when it becomes clear they arent actually doing anything for us. why arent us?
That's actually prety obvious after reading Marx: the system still works as intended for whom it was intended to work, namely for bourgeoisie and their lackeys. The contradictions aren't yet big enough to cause the overthrowing of it. Liberals, people who we are trying to convince here to open their eyes and see that they are voting for genocide, for actual mass extermination of entire people, actually (with small exceptions) already have their eyes open - they just don't see anything undesirable in the picture: brown people half of world away and their deaths are perfectly ignorable for them, their lives are pretty comfortable and they just want to stop reading uncomfortable opinions and get back to brunch.
Sure there is, you can vote Green or PSL. If you disapprove of the Democrats but will never not vote for them, you're the same as the rabid supporters of Zionism that vote for the Dems, materially. Are you looking to join a Leftist party, try to destabilize the system and establish Socialism? If not, it seems like you're just supporting the status quo and not lifting a finger no matter how bad it gets.
No, I don't support Trump, that's why I support leftist candidates and advocate for people to abandon the Dems and Reps.
You sure can if you believe that making an insignificant point in a ballot box is worth more than the actual lives of people who would die because of a Trump administration but not under a Harris one. But if you want to make an actual difference. the ballot box is one of the very few times you need to hold your nose and do the uncomfortable thing of choosing liberalism over fascism.
But if you're okay with fascism, sure. Go and make your vote a spoiler that helps the fascists win. I'm sure the people who die because doctors who were scared to provide medically necessary abortions will be grateful that you did the morally superior, but entirely ineffective, thing.
You can vote for fascism if that's what you want, I reject it.
You're voting fascism in, the Dems have failed for half a century to codify abortion rights because they don't care.
You're all or nothing take on it sounds a little fascist to me...
You wouldn't know what fascism was if you lived in Mussolini's Italy or Nazi Germany. Read Blackshirts and Reds, at least the first chapter.
You're literally making the choice to put fascism in power. I'm trying to stop you from making the same mistake I made in 2016.
You're literally voting for fascism, not sure what you mean here.
Words have definitions. Harris, for everything I don't like about her, is a liberal. Not a fascist. Trump, on the other hand, is a fascist.
The choices here are simple: fascism (Trump), not-fascism (Harris), or "I really don't care, do u?"
Why are you encouraging people to do things that will make it more likely for fascists to win and destroy what little leftist organizing there is in America? The only rational conclusion is that you want fascism. But you keep avoiding that question. Is it because you're taking a page out of the alt-right playbook?
You wouldn't know fascism if you lived in Nazi Germany. Read the first chapter of Blackshirts and Reds, fascism is just Capitalism in decay, and neither the DNC nor GOP are capable of stopping that.
Once again avoiding the question and making personal attacks instead.
Your words imply that you think I believe having Harris as president will fix things. I don't. What I do believe is it will slow the decline, hopefully enough for us to create ways to escape capitalism without having fascists commit more genocides than they already are. This is known as "harm reduction." It's a complex theory by which one takes actions to reduce the harm done with immediate actions when there's no immediate action that one can take to improve things. The ballot box in 2024 is not the time for a revolution, for said revolution would fail miserably, leaving us worse off. The ballot box in 2024 is the time for harm reduction.
What have I avoided?
That's not Harm Reduction. Harm Reduction doesn't mean to vote for genocidal imperialists as a temporary measure, it refers to implementing permanent solutions that increase liklihood of fixing the problem overall, like giving safer heroin to addicts and trying to get them help.
Well immediately above I asked:
You have asserted that the actions you advocate won't do that, but when I explain how they do exactly that, you simply make the assertion again. When that fails, you attempt to equivocate. But when I point out that more genocide is more harmful than less genocide, you simply ignore my statements and make your assertions again.
That's not helpful. It might convince some people, but only in the same way that repeating a lie enough makes some people believe it.
The Dems and Reps work together against Leftist organization. They colluded to kick PSL off the ballot in Georgia, Tim Walz sent in the National Guard against Black Lives Matter protestors, and more. When you say that abandoning the Democrats "makes it more likely for fascists to win and destroy leftist organizing," you ignore what fascism actually is: Capitalism in decay. It isn't the Republican party alone, it's the bourgeoisie. That is why I advocate for abandoning them and pushing for Leftist organization like PSL and FRSO.
You haven't explained how abandoning Democrats makes it more likely for fascism to win. Fascism isn't solely the Republican Party, it's bipartisan. Secondly, more genocide is absolutely worse, but you haven't explained how that would happen. If you don't analyze the root cause of genocide, how can you say the Dems are holding genocide back? Biden went above the Pentagon to approve the invasion of Lebanon, because support for Israel is economic and not moral.
Please answer my points, I repeat them because you ignore them.
you keep saying "vote" as if it means the same thing in a ranked-choice voting system and a first-past-the-post voting system.
newsflash: you're not making the difference you claim you're making. if anything, you're making it worse. congratulations! good job! you did it! you get a good star!
Not sure what you're getting at here, RCV or FPTP, doesn't make a difference, electoralism is useless.
Wake up, liberal! Lol
TIL advocating people to join revolutionary parties and overthrow the system is "supporting the status quo," while voting for the establishment parties is "punk." Is this a Twilight Zone episode?
Nah, just voting against genocide and Imperialism. Voting doesn't really matter anyways
Cool.
I can and I will.
Can't be a spoiler if I would never vote for a genocidal monster anyways. Harris is spoiling her own votes.
Please explain exactly what you're talking about here, that's BS.
You literally said "methinks," pot meet kettle. I shitpost because it's quick and work has uptime and downtime.
I find that arguing a person must vote for one of two pro-genocide parties already undermines your idea of a "fair election." What primary even nominated Harris as the Democrat candidate? -Not that our primary systems is particularly representative of a "fair election" system, either. I just don't remember when these were candidates voted on.
Yes yes, we all see the rhetorical trap you're trying to deploy. It's not exactly subtle.
Meanwhile in the real world, in most of the US there is no realistic alternative to the red/blue dichotomy, and so while we're actually building that alternative we have to choose between those two. At the national level and in most (possibly all) senate/house races, that's the reality of the situation. You either work with the coalition you think is less evil and try to convince them to be even less evil, or you admit that you're okay with the more evil option if it gives you a feeling of moral superiority.
You aren't building the alternative, you're arguing against building the alternative. You support the status quo.
Correct, you're doing the latter while I'm doing the former. Trying to work with Socialists and build a good party is better than sitting on your hands and giving the genocidal imperialists the keys forever.
"Building an alternative" doesn't happen in the ballot box. It happens everywhere else.
It happens by a better voting system rather than FPTP, for which I'm doing actual, active advocacy. (Are you?)
It happens by working at a grassroots level to get people with better opinions elected, all the way down to local judges, city council members and library boards, where I, once again, am active. (Are you?)
It happens by getting involved in politics at a local level and building a movement. I'm doing that. (Are you?) It doesn't happen by throwing a tantrum in the voting booth.
The fascists know this. The fascists use this to their advantage. And the fascists would absolutely love for there to be 10 competing leftist parties acting as a spoiler effect for liberals. Because as bad as liberals are, fascists are worse.
Throwing out a "no u" when I point out how the things you are doing are paving the way for fascists is not a good argument unless your goal is to actually get fascists into power. And I will choose liberalism over fascism, because that's the harm reduction path to leftism, whereas letting the fascists win is the harm maximisation path.
i just want to pass by to point out that fptp is implemented on many places without the big results the proponents of this solution say it to be.
the same goes for mandatory voting. we have the same issues with electoralism.
FPTP is only one problem with the system. But it's still a problem pretty much everywhere that has it. There are many other things that make it particularly worse in the US, but that doesn't make it not a problem with it.
the main problem we should be striving to fix to actually end this madness is the undue influence of capital in our 'democracies' due to capitalism.
Mostly correct, actually, it's just important to highlight how unimportant the ballot box is.
No, because that's silly, and won't fix anything. Only revolution can.
Ah, the old "out of sight, out of mind" approach! Certainly won't be sufficient.
Yep, I am checking out my local chapters of FRSO and PSL and am going to sign on with one of them. They are DemCent, so I can't join both.
Fascism is Capitalism in decay, you can't separate liberalism over time from fascism. Fascism isn't an idea, but a defensive response to leftism.
You say this while saying you help perpetuate liberalism, paving the way for fascism, lmao
That's a lot of text to say "Yes, I want the fascist to win."
Making things worse isn't going to accelerate the revolution. It's going to make things worse and kill the most vulnerable in our society - the ones who would most benefit from a revolution. If you truly want a socialist revolution, you need to have enough people on your side. And having those people be dead is counterproductive.
In other words, you can't actually respond to my points so you'll misrepresent them. Typical liberalism.
Never said it would, that's why I am trying to do what I can before liberals speedrun America into fascism.
Yep, the Dems and Reps both are killing marginalized people, both domestically and abroad, so we have to abandon them and cease support for their genocide and imperialism
You're talking in circles and fundamentally missing the point that neither voting third-party nor not voting isn't going to make things better. It's only going to make things worse.
The ballot box is for harm reduction, and equivocating the level of evil of two candidates only ever helps the more evil option.
If you want to make your first actual point, feel free to do so. If you want to keep repeating the very talking points that got us the situation that allowed for this genocide in the first place, don't bother.
Things are getting worse if either the Dems or Reps win, Third Party is the only chance electorally.
Pretending equal evils are different based on vibes alone isn't harm reduction, it's harm acceleration.
If you want to make your first actual point, feel free to do so. If you want to keep repeating the very talking points that got us the situation that allowed for this genocide in the first place, don't bother.
In the above comment, we see the following:
It really insults the intelligence of those reading to think that they won't see through this.
Which of my points have you "debunked?" Lol
You've been whitewashing genocide and fascism, without meaningfully backing yourself up.
You insulted me directly, while leaving yourself wide open. You started directly insulting because you had no points other than claiming that genocide isn't that bad if the Dems do it.
I haven't had to, as all you've done so far is repeat already-debunked, faux-leftist points that enable fascists.
Ahh, more accusations. Genocide is bad. Fascism is bad. Thus my question: why are you advocating for actions that will lead to more genocide and fascism?
Lying about what I've said in a written forum isn't effective. Once again, and in larger font:
Genocide is always bad, and more genocide is worse.
So why are you advocating for actions that fall in the "more genocide" camp?
In other words, you can't, so you call them "faux-leftist."
How would my actions lead to more genocide and fascism? Where do you think they come from?
Explain where the genocide is coming from, and how what I am advocating for leads to "more genocide." You keep repeating baseless assertions.
Jill Stein declared her goal as preventing Harris from winning the White House even though she knows she can't win herself, so basically her goal is to put Trump in power who is going to continue or worsen the genocide in Gaza while adding genocide on the US's queer population, women and immigrants and even descendants of immigrants that live there for multiple generations. As a little bonus he's going to give Ukraine to Russia by not delivering weapons to them anymore, thus helping a warmonger take over it's neighbouring country.
That is how your actions lead to more genocide.
Not a person living in USA, wouldn't a coalition govt be better then, as the Roe vs Wade issue happened while the Democrats were in power?
Or are coalitions not allowed?
Or is the central govt powerless in such issues?
The US government is essentially a theatre troup trying to convince the public there is nothing outside the 2 party system, while both parties serve their donors alone.
The overturning of Roe vs. Wade was a direct consequence of Trump's election, as it was the three justices he was able to appoint (including Mitch McConnell's fuckery about Merrick Garland) who changed the Supreme Court's makeup to include so many right-wing partisans.
Aah. Thank you.
Would the govt be able to create any laws to counter the case being overturned?
And unrelated:
Could the Green party and Democrats form a coalition and choose the President accordingly, if the results are bad?
I'm an Indian, where we have parliamentary democracy.
Parties can form coalitions and the leader set by the coalition becomes the Prime minister and the President is not as powerful, eventhough they're technically the head of the nation.
Is it different in USA? If Trumps gains most votes, can the Greens and Democrats channel votes against him by creating a coalition?
They certainly could, but why would they? Not only democratic party stand for a lot of things greens find unacceptable (and vice versa), but disproportion between both parties is so huge that greens would at best got given some paltry compensation (and a huge bill of firming democratic party atrocities with their names, this would essentially be their end) and most likely just become completely ignored and cut off after election.
That's hard to say. With the current makeup of the supreme court, it's likely they'd simply declare any law protecting abortion rights as unconstitutional because mumble mumble and get away with it. But what's preventing them from doing even that is that Republicans (thanks in large part to politicised redrawing of district boundaries) have a majority in one of the two legislative bodies, so the Democrats couldn't pass that protection regardless.
So likely the minimum that's needed to codify abortion rights would be a Democratic majority in both legislative houses and a Democratic president.
On the topic of coalitions: The US doesn't have coalitions in the ways many other countries have, partially because of the way the president is elected. Voters have a separate item on their ballot to elect (electors who will then vote in the electoral college for) the president. The way this occurs is through first past the post, where the largest portion of the votes (even if a minority) gets all the electors in that state (except in Nebraska and New Hampshire, where the state breaks it into districts). I'm in Michigan, for example. In 2016, Donald Trump got 47.5% of the vote in Michigan to Hillary Clinton's 47.3% and thus got all 16 of Michigan's electoral votes (out of 538). Had 11,000 more people voted for Clinton (let's say, by not voting for the Green party), she would have won Michigan's electoral votes, which is a 3% swing in the electoral college, but given that most states are pretty much guaranteed to go one way or the other (e.g. Indiana is a safe Republican state while neighbouring Illinois is a safe Democratic state), those 11,000 votes would be massively influential. This is why "swing states" are so stupidly pivotal in US elections.
So because of all of that, there's not an option for the Greens to join a coalition, even if they wanted to (which I don't think they would, as the US Green party is currently under the control of a Russian asset and it's well known that Putin wants a Trump victory).
The American electoral system is ridiculously, stupidly backwards and basically designed to empower certain people over others. If there were a parliamentary democracy here the US, and probably the world (given the US's love for foreign intervention), would be much better off.