Signtist comments on Democrats: Stop dividing the left

[–] Signtist@bookwyr.me -4 points 9 months ago (1 child)

I'm not advocating for people to accept the lesser evil, I'm asking them to understand that their vote is no longer a form of acceptance - it doesn't hold enough power for you to use it that way anymore. Your acceptance or rejection of the system comes from your actions outside of the polling place, in the form of protests and what inevitably comes after protests if they're ignored for long enough.

A vote in the presidential election currently only holds the power to slightly shift the current power between bad and worse. It's like the trolley problem - there's no real 3rd track right now, no matter how much we want one. If we start building one now at the local level, maybe there will be one for someone later, but we've gotta make our own lever choice without it for now.

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[–] anarchiddy@lemmy.dbzer0.com 6 points 9 months ago (1 child)

I’m not advocating for people to accept the lesser evil, I’m asking them to understand that their vote is no longer a form of acceptance

This is a fun rhetorical trick, but I'm not interested in playing a semantic game over the definition of 'acceptance'. This:

A vote in the presidential election currently only holds the power to slightly shift the current power between bad and worse

is absolutely advocating for the lesser evil. Fine if you don't want to call that 'acceptance', but what I'm pointing to is not the choice itself, it's the act of advocating for it to begin with. Spending any amount of energy trying to convey the importance of voting for the moderate wing of fascism is a distraction from the message that both parties pose an existential threat to the working class. If your goal is to build support for radical systemic change, then there should be no ambiguity about what actions are necessary to achieve it. To use your bullshit trolly problem analogy- the 'two tracks' forced choice is a distraction from the fact that we need to stop the fucking trolly. Even if we end up pulling that lever in the end, you will never get enough people to get off to help derail it if you keep ensuring them that the worst will be averted even if they chose not to.

You can't build a popular movement against the democratic coalition while openly admitting that you have no choice but to support them no matter how aligned they are with the fascists. Liberals will continue happily existing in the status quo until it's made clear to them that their privileged position within it is threatened along with everyone else's if they choose not to act.

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[–] Signtist@bookwyr.me -3 points 9 months ago (1 child)

I don't understand your point. Voting is not a form of protest or revolution - you either overthrow the government, or you don't; voting is just the thing you do in the meantime to hopefully keep living to eventually overthrow the government. If the system worked, sure, voting would keep it working, but thinking of voting as a way to change the system at this point is like thinking an oil change will fix a broken engine. I vote for the lesser evil not because I accept them or want them to be in charge, but because I know the person I want in charge will never be placed in charge by the current system. I advocate for revolution because I know we need it, and that the system cannot be fixed in my lifetime without it, but voting is an entirely separate thing, and can only be used as a tool to keep the world from falling apart quite as quickly as it would under the greater evil.

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[–] anarchiddy@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 points 9 months ago (1 child)

At the risk of repeating myself, i'll try restating the point- the problem isn't the choice of voting in-itself, it's the choice of placing rhetorical weight on it at all in a system that is designed to diffuse the political power of the working class to begin with.

The overwhelming majority of liberals will do nothing more than whinge about how unfortunate it is that we live in such a broken system so-long as they remain secure in their personal status within that system. It isn't just about 'overthrowing the government' - it's about stirring the masses into action by raising the issue to such a volume that they can no longer ignore it. That means making it quite clear that democrats writ large risk becoming victims of the fascist movement they helped to create if they continue 'biding their time' until a more convenient moment. It isn't even about boycotting general elections - it's about making it perfectly clear that they cannot count on voters holding their noses indefinitely, and that they do not have a winning coalition without the working class. That will eventually be true no matter what we say as leftists - under late stage capitalism conditions will continue getting worse until eventually enough people will have lost all faith in democracy itself that the only people voting are various factions of the capitalist class and the petty-bourgeois (if we aren't there already, frankly).

Democrats believe that voters may not like the way they govern, but they'll still vote for them anyway to avoid a hostile opposition party. Any popular movement for radical change will be predicated on the notion that nothing short of drastic action will avert that inevitability

The fundamental problem with liberalism is that it makes well-meaning people believe that justice will eventually arrive simply on its own merit, when liberal democracy itself is designed to ensure that popular reform can never happen without organized resistance.

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[–] Signtist@bookwyr.me -3 points 9 months ago (1 child)

Ah, I see. You think that democrats will change if we just stop voting for them. They wont. As I said, they're essentially just Republican lite. We'll either have 2 parties that are almost the same, or the democratic party will simply dissolve and we'll just have 2 identical republicans running for office. Either way, yes, we will have to bring about change with organized resistance.

However, in the case that the ruling class still allows for the republican-lite party, it's better to let the democrats keep only mostly destroying the world instead of letting the republicans openly see how quickly they can tear everything down, because that leaves less rebuilding we'll need to do when the time comes for that. Refusing to vote for the lesser evil is like refusing to eat what meager rations you get from your jailers as you work toward your jailbreak - you'd be a fool to deny it simply because it's part of the system you plan to dismantle, because your task will be harder for it.

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[–] anarchiddy@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 points 9 months ago (1 child)

You think that democrats will change if we just stop voting for them

I don't know how many times I have to repeat this point for you to wrap your head around it:

the problem isn't the choice of voting in-itself, it's the choice of placing rhetorical weight on it at all

Democrats will continue losing on their own as conditions for millions of Americans continue getting worse and the democrats continue obstructing popular efforts to fix it. That isn't me organizing against them or boycotting elections - that's a very simple statement of fact. Millions of Americans will lose enthusiasm for the democrats if they do nothing. They will continue doing nothing if they think they can still win their elections by appealing to the center. If the people who are screaming at the democrats to take drastic action proudly keep proclaiming that they will dutifully keep voting for them anyway, there's a very good likelyhood that they will both lose due to voter attrition and mis-diagnose the problem as having not appealed to the center enough. They assume (because the left keeps telling them so) that they aren't losing support from the left, so they must just be unsuccessfully appealing to the center right.

Clarity of message is everything. Democrats have rock-bottom approval because they continue to obstruct systemic change. Full stop. They will continue losing votes to voter apathy if they continue undermining the popular momentum in the base. Full stop. There is no amount of 'lesser-evil' proclamations that will reverse that trend, but it will absolutely mislead liberals into conflating a lack of enthusiasm for democrats for an abundance of appetite for reactionary policy.

You are making that mistake right now. "You're just republican lite" is the same type of damaging conflation as when Zionists accuse anti-zionists of being antisemitic.

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[–] Signtist@bookwyr.me -3 points 9 months ago (1 child)

Democrats in office right now will never, never put up a fight. Ever. And neither will republicans. People can scream all they like - nearly all high-level American politicians today got into politics for their own benefit, and are happy to continue receiving "lobbying" money in exchange for the destruction of the world. Vote for them, don't vote for them, they don't care.

The lesser evil proclamations are not at all about reversing the trend, because it won't be reversed. The only thing that will reverse the trend within this generation will be outright revolution. Voting for the lesser evil is about minimizing the damage in the meantime while we organize the revolution.

If we decide to go the route of changing the democratic party slowly from within, like with Mamdani, then it will also work, but only by the time local city council and mayoral candidates advance in the government enough to become presidential candidates, which will be decades. And even in that case, we need to minimize the damage to make sure the country survives until then.

The democratic party won't ever put forth a leftist candidate until there are literally no other candidates for it to choose from, so we either wait until we've swapped everyone out, or we revolt.

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[–] anarchiddy@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 points 9 months ago (1 child)

Democrats in office right now will never, never put up a fight

Aside from a few notable exceptions, I agree. That's the reason why it's important to have a clear message - "Democrats cannot be trusted to represent our interests, they are our opposition to radical change....."

Immediately following that with ".... but we must continue voting for them anyway" confuses that message. It also serves as evidence that there is no popular movement for radical change because those people advocating for it keep voting for status quo anyway. Again, it's not about how you actually cast your ballot, it's about spending all your time proselytizing about how important it is to support them anyway, even if begrudgingly. It turns your leftist principles into nothing but a performance.

The only thing that will reverse the trend within this generation will be outright revolution

You can't do either of those things by gaslighting liberals into thinking radical change isn't possible because radical change isn't even popular enough to overcome soft-power legacy media, so you must continue participating in lesser-evil politics until the revolution comes.

The civil rights act didn't get passed because liberals patiently waited until there was a critical mass of popular support - it passed because the movement and MLK specifically agitated liberals repeatedly and threatened to interfere with their political standing if they continued obstructing the change they pretended to care about. Liberals then, and liberals now, threaten the destruction of the union by obstructing that change which is being demanded.

The democratic party won’t ever put forth a leftist candidate until there are literally no other candidates for it to choose from

This is almost true, but just a little misleading - it's not the democratic party that won't allow it, it's liberals who make up the party that will selfishly obstruct radical change until their place of privilege within the existing system is materially threatened, either by the fascists they have been collaborating with or by hemorrhaging the working class they have abandoned. Any protest, direct action or """revolution""" will amount to how large of a threat that is, and if the online 'radical leftists' can't even agree on an uncommitted stance in public then those aren't really leftists at all, they're just liberals in denial.

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[–] Signtist@bookwyr.me -1 points 9 months ago (1 child)

The message isn't “Democrats cannot be trusted to represent our interests, they are our opposition to radical change…..” it's "Nobody within our government gives a shit about our interests." And they won't until we get new blood in, but that doesn't happen at the top, it happens at the bottom, and we force it to the top through years and years of consistent voting. The liberals who make up the democratic party aren't going anywhere until they're replaced, but even their replacements are liberals. Again, we need to change the bottom to change the top.

But, what do we do as we're getting to the top? Do we just abstain from voting and let the Republicans pump more and more money into ICE for the next decade or two? Or do we vote for the weak, spineless liberals who won't fix anything, but also won't make things as bad as the Republicans would? Or do we vote for the 3rd party voters who 90% of the country hasn't even heard of, much less intends to vote for? We've seen what happens when people do that, and it's just as bad as voting for the Republicans themselves.

So please, tell me who I should actually vote for for president in the coming years, between the times where positive change hopefully starts to grow in the local elevations, but before it can reach up to the top and actually put forward a viable presidential candidate that even the people who aren't paying attention will vote for. Because the people whose family members got carted off to the next Alligator Auschwitz will want to know if we let the tyrants in on a technicality, or if we at least voted for their asshole younger brothers instead, since nobody else stood a chance of being in charge otherwise in the meantime.

I don't care if some liberal, who is never going to change one way or another, gets a big head because people voted for them, I care if they're going to be as bad as their republican counterpart during the time it takes for us to make the changes that we need to make that will actually change our government for the better, because the government itself is never going to do so.

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[–] anarchiddy@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 points 9 months ago (1 child)

The message isn’t “Democrats cannot be trusted to represent our interests, they are our opposition to radical change……” it’s “Nobody within our government gives a shit about our interests.”

Even that message is confused by following it with "but we must vote for them anyway". Either the system is broken and we must rebel, or the system can be mitigated by dutiful participation. There's no middle ground where we can minimize the decent into enslavement by biding our time until the revolution comes.

So please, tell me who I should actually vote for for president in the coming years

Vote for whoever the fuck you want. You wont change anything by voting for liberals, because liberals will increasingly lose regardless because people are that much more apathetic about them every cycle. If you want to prevent republicans from tearing everything down, then don't waste your time with lesser-evil bullshit. Spend that time agitating other liberals - make them see how complacently participating in a system that enslaves them only serves to ensure it will always enslave them. The only candidates worth voting for are those that the democratic establishment actively opposes.

By all means, vote for your favorite benevolent fascist. Just stop pretending like the strategy is to quietly comply with democratic obstruction until exactly the right moment when we all suddenly stand up and rebel against them, while simultaneously complaining about how leftist candidates just aren't popular because none of these liberals ever vote for them (see how circular this bullshit is?). That isn't how leftist organizing works. We gain momentum by showing how broken liberalism is, and we can't do that if we're sheep-dogging other leftists into committing themselves for the shitlib du jour 3 years in advance. Democrats get our vote only if the represent our interests. full-stop

You might think of yourself as a leftist, but from where i'm sitting you're just a liberal in denial.

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[–] Signtist@bookwyr.me 1 point 9 months ago (1 child)

There’s no middle ground where we can minimize the decent into enslavement by biding our time until the revolution comes.

Nobody is "biding their time" for a revolution; we're getting angrier and angrier by the day - it's nearly inevitable. Unless a political change happens, and quickly, it's coming. But still, it takes time, and voting will happen in the meantime. To ignore the entirety of the voting system simply because it's going to be overthrown anyway is dumb - these is a modicum of good we can do by making sure the country is in the least-terrible position that we can when we finish preparing (note: not waiting) for the revolution, and it's pretty clear that one side is better than the other.

However, the original poster I responded to has made me aware that the 2018 election in Mexico was actually a lot more similar to a US election than I first thought, and it's made me wonder if rallying people around a new party may actually be a viable choice. I'm still looking into it, but there may be a 3rd way to get ourselves out of this. Regardless, ignoring tools at our disposal simply because they won't fix things on their own is not going to make things any better. Even if the world is only a fraction of a percent better with a democrat in charge over a republican, it's a better choice than nothing. Hopefully a 3rd party option is more viable than I initially thought, though.

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[–] anarchiddy@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 points 9 months ago

Unless a political change happens, and quickly, it’s coming

What is?... Revolution? I mean way to be an optimist I guess...

to ignore the entirety of the voting system simply because it’s going to be overthrown anyway is dumb

I'm not advocating we ignore the electoral system
I don't want/think we will be overthrowing democracy

I'm advocating that we roundly object to liberal democracy - e.g. democracy revolving around individual capitalist principles. Vote, but vote for working-class representation. I roundly reject the idea that 3rd party voting or uncommitted votes are pointless or ill-advised, so long as liberals refuse to acknowledge the popular momentum of their base. If an acceptable candidate from the left flank does emerge, vote for them, by all means. Participate in primaries, canvas for quality representation. In the end, vote however you want. But certainly don't be running around whipping support for a milquetoast shitlib just because it's a lesser-evil to a republican, and don't be shaming others for sticking to their principles and holding democrats to a higher standard. *You cannot organize on lesser-evil electoral politics.

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