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this post was submitted on 06 Jul 2024
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the_dunk_tank
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European lefty here with some questions for the anti-both crowd.
With the FPTP voting system, aren't you limited to a binary choice between Trump and Biden? I agree that Biden has been shamefully complicit in the Palestinian genocide (among broken campaign promises and rightful health concerns), though I would imagine that "finish the job" Trump would be a more destructive choice. Would it not be marginally better to have Biden in office?
I don't hold Biden in the view of someone who is a champion of environmentalism or global peace, but an anti-NATO, anti-climate science, fraudster surely would be more likely to implement harmful changes that are difficult to reverse versus a generic neoliberal?
Of course, this is through the perspective of your current voting system; ideally you would have third-party options that you could realistically elect that are not fronted by genocide supporters. In a case where you had the option for ranked choice or approval voting, who would your ideal party or candidate be?
(Not a troll/criticism post - genuinely curious about the spectrum of American politics coming into the election!)
Biden, and the democratic party more broadly have two roles to play (outside of maintaining capitalism).
When it's time to fulfill role 1. the party always hedges, because they fear that taking any strong actions will alienate centrist voters, or more importantly donors. This means that on many issues, any progress made is not enough to undo the damage done under a republican government. On other issues the situation declines under either party. There are very few significant issues where the democrats are actually able to overcome the republicans long term.
All of this is very disappointing, but on its own it would still be preferable to republicans ruling completely unopposed.
The problem is when you factor in role 2. The republicans are not an unstoppable force of highly competent and well liked people. A party that was dedicated to taking serious actions to improve the lives of the average voter could easily beat the republicans electorally, if they wouldn't also have to take on the democratic party and all of their media influence. When the democrats pursue role 2. they have no reason to hold back. Their continued existence relies on giving it their full effort. They will try to prevent any organization from accumulating enough power to push them left, while actively pushing the republicans to the far right to strengthen their own position.
Having to choose between two terrible candidates isn't something that's happened on accident. It's the result of the ongoing actions of the democratic party.
At this point, with the ticking clocks of climate change and rising fascism, a democrat in the white house is not remotely adequate to make a difference. We're headed to multiple simultaneous catastrophes either way. The only thing voting for Biden accomplishes is supporting the party that brought us here in clinging to power until their last breath.
Right now there is no 'realistic' alternative outside of the two party electoral system. I don't know if there will be one in the future, but there's certainly no hope in helping to reinforce it.
I think your explanation has best explained it - you see it more as both parties sort of upholding an undemocratic status quo (as you said, Republicans actively doing x activity with Democrats either not doing enough to counteract or being implicit) rather than the Dems/Biden offering a tangible actual long-term change. I understand as well that the party had better candidates than Biden/Hillary but the candidacy is heavily dependent on funding/donations, which is wildly inequitable. Thank you for taking the time to explain, very informative.
This again. You may be genuinely asking, but we get someone stumbling in here every day at the moment looking to repeat the same 'lesser evils' voting argument ad infinitum, so I hope you'll understand that I'm going to try to outline some of thr major points in brief and am not interested in a protracted debate about them.
The point that is nearly always ignored is that for the most part people don't actually care if someone wants to vote for Biden for whatever reason, but the amount of time people dedicate to this argument and electoral politics in general would be better spent doing literally anything else. Organising, mutual aid, protest, 'lawfare', community defense, whatever.
Perhaps most important is that the parameters of bourgeois electoral politics are set to ensure that no option outside of ruling class interests can be achieved. The spectacle of the campaigns are release valve for societal pressure, a way to sap and distract the energy of potential activists into something safe for the status quo.
And if we are going to engage with electoral politics...
On 'lesser evil' voting...
The mantra that is always repeated is that the lesser evil is always the tactical choice, that someone else 'would be worse' but that isn't necessarily the case, especially if you don't think electoral politics is the primary way to exercise power.
If you feel that one issue is most important - the genocide in Gaza for example - and the lesser evil candidate is currently doing it, without any possibility of policy change, then any other candidate offers at least the potential for change. A possibility of change is logically better than the certainty of none.
One could argue that in a political duopoly where both parties serve the same interest, they also each serve a specific purpose. With the further right party making regressive change and then the 'lesser evil' party protecting and solidifying those gains. Viewed like this, voting for the 'lesser evil' party isn't necessarily the most tactical choice. When the 'lesser evil' party commits atrocities or cements regressive policy there's less push back from the populace because their supporters excuse it rather than oppose it. Take the reaction to Biden's continuation of internment camps on the border for example; was there more opposition when Trump was doing it or Biden? Or for a UK example, the fact that both Labour and Tory politicians have said that only Labour has the 'good will' and 'credibility' to enact NHS reform (meaning deeply unpopular privatisation). It's too unpopular for the 'more evil' party to do openly, so the 'lesser evil' party will have to do it under false pretenses.
Great explanation - thank you for re-explaining it to another stranger who's wandered in here. You've explained it well as did another - it's moreso the case that the optics of Trump Vs. Biden or Rep Vs. Dem looks like a great difference to an outsider, when in reality they're upholding each other. And totally agreed on the participation of the broken system Vs. useful organisation, makes sense why you'd disregard the election.
Biden also believes in "finishing them", he just doesn't say it out loud. The Biden admin has sent an absolutely enormous amount of munitions to Israel (without which they don't have the military capacity to fight against Palestinians this long) and provided full diplomatic cover. The Biden admin has also sent boots on the groun in palestine, sending US soldiers to participate in the Nuiserat massacre.
Biden is also anti-climate and anti-science. His optics are better than of Trump, but his policies aren't. The whole thing about voting for Biden wouldn't be a discussion if Biden was materially and significantly better than Trump.
As a Canadian Lefty, I see a lot of frustration with the libs. Biden could have done anything about the supreme court. He's done less than the bare minimum for: climate change, healthcare, cost of living, and almost every other issue. The democrats don't do anything to push the overton window to the left, and at some point they're complicit with what the big bad republicans are doing. A lot of Lefty's don't like NATO. Trump being ant NATO is actually a good thing from that perspective. They say that Trump's an existential threat to the US and biden doesn't seem to be trying to get elected. Just my two cents
Being anti NATO is one of the only somewhat good things about Trump, because NATO is an offensive anti Russian alliance whose purpose has been instigating conflict and baiting Russia for decades.
We're closer now than ever before to nuclear apocalypse because of the NATO war in Ukraine, with Ukraines neonazis targeting Russian nuclear early warning radar and now the West giving Ukraine f16s, which are nuclear capable and Russia has plainly stated that they will treat any nuclear capable incursion into Russia as a nuclear attack.
And despite what deluded westerners tell themselves, Russian nuclear missiles are more likely to be fully functional than Western ones.
Biden is the orchestrator of the Palestinian genocide. It was he, not Trump who called Israel the "unsinkable aircraft carrier in the middle east" Biden is much more hardened zionist than Trump. So i reject any notion that Trump would be "worse" as liberal fearmongering and deflection.
NATO has been slowly destroying your European continent and making the EU a vassal state of the US. In just a short decade the notion of social democratic EU values was publically thrown out the window in favour of russophobia and austerity. Trump doesn't actually mean to back out of NATO but just to complain that NATO isn't robbing your little union quick enough. Enjoy the new Ukranian neonazi terrorists who will inevitably reach the conclusion that they were "stabbed in the back" once they are compelled to surrender by Russia.
Biden admin also don't believe in climate change. To them it is a wedge issue on a ballot ticket, not something to worry about. This is because the US is a capitalist system, not because the wrong walking corpse is in government.
Biden is not generic, he was the VP under war criminal Obama and has been in the political sphere for over 60 years. Hes the defacto ruler of the democratic party who relies on a small network of family and yes man. Trump is the outsider to Washington but managed to win because the dems boosted his campaign in the pied piper strategy of hillary. Biden is a hardened killer, sexist, racist thief. Trump is the normal one here.
Ideally we would adopt the same socialist model as China which is actually a democracy where people have a lot of say in how their lives are governed. The problem is not just the mechanics of electoralism but the capitalist system that was sustained through centuries of imperialism.
The problem with that you see is that the underlying assumption here that Biden "is holding back/not going all out" with the genocide is simply not true. Biden is going all out, he is one of the most rabid Zionist I've ever seen, he's doing everything that the USA can afford to do to support the genocide given the current geopolitical situation of the USA so unless Trump has the power to pull matter out of alternative timelines or something he literally can't do worst than Biden because America as a whole literally don't have the material capability to do worst.
Like some comrades have said multiple times, the only way Trump could do any worst is if he nuked gaza, which he won't do because the pentagon know that doing that would only accelerate the collapse of Israel.
Yeah, for practical purposes it’s just the two but at this point I’m getting tired of party leadership’s baffling insistence on staying the course against all good sense.
They’ve been up against Trump for eight to ten years now, and they haven’t even managed to adopt or maintain a coherent strategy. 2016 was an unpleasant surprise, yes, but they should have wised up over the next two elections. Instead what we’re getting is warmed over ‘90s politics in the face of a threat that’s been on the proverbial radar for some time now. They’re the fucking embodiment of institutional inertia. Couldn’t change to save their lives.