this post was submitted on 22 Aug 2024
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The first step is admitting that the US isn't a democracy to begin with and never has been. At its most democratic, it is "democracy for the rich with some labor unions that aren't completely powerless as negotiating entities for subsets of workers but nevertheless have little to do with what the ruling parties of the country do."
If you go back in time to the original language, you get that language coupled with genocide and slavery. As time goes on, it doesn't get a lot better. Civil rights paved the way for liberals to act like "we've got democracy now because people have the right to vote", but ignores mass incarceration and its disenfranchisement, it ignores the electoral college, it ignores voter suppression, it ignores gerrymandering, it ignores lobbying, it ignores how little regular people have anything to do with what people are candidates to vote on in the first place. What is democratic about that system, for a person who can afford to drop thousands on buying politicians? Sure, something. What is democratic about that system, for a person who is working two jobs to make ends meet and getting eaten alive on means testing and debt? What is democratic about that system, for a person who gets racially profiled and thrown in jail over false accusations, if not gunned down in the street over absolutely nothing other than the whims of police?
I don’t really disagree with anything you wrote.
The thing I still can’t understand is that the consensus of Lemmygrad and other leftist Lemmy instances is that both of these things are somehow true at the same time
And I can’t understand this logic. Voting simultaneously doesn’t matter but also matters and is a full throated endorsement of genocide.
I also agree that we don’t have a real democracy, but if the choice is between “fake democracy with project 2025” and “fake democracy with milquetoast corpos” I’m not sure why I would do anything to help the openly fascist fascists take power.
What I don't understand is how the vote blue demographic still doesn't understand what the arguments of the non-voters actually even are.
It feels like trying to explain that the Divine Right of Kings is nonsense to a medieval peasant. They just flat out don't seem to get it and worry that if they think about it too much, it'll make God mad.
Omg, that analogy is perfect. I think I'll start using it.
It's much more a case of electoralism does nothing to help the working class people, only the rich and by voting for the parties and participating in their system, you're accepting their false idea that voting for one of two genocidal parties is the only option.
So it's an idea that electoralism will do nothing to stop the genocide, but will provide support for the very system that has lead to this "choice" between two actively genocidal parties. The US tries to frame itself as a democracy, but if the people actively opposed the system, recognising it as undemocratic, the ruling class would need to actively give concessions to the working class, or face revolt.
It's like a worker's strike. If your boss treats you like shit and doesn't listen to anything you or the vast majority of their employees say, then you make your voices heard one way or another, if the "official channels" for making your voice heard don't work, then you need to use a different method, the alternative of passive acceptance of the system does nothing but show the people in charge that they can continue on their current path and people will do nothing to stop them.
So since the democrats refuse to budge on this issue of genocide, we can surmise that "electoralism can't work, voting won't fix this." as the powers that be will not change their minds on this issue. Voting for the democrats shows that despite them actively supporting a genocide, the voting public won't "strike" and will meekly accept anything they do, regardless of how horrific it is. So this is why "voting for the democrats is bad."
If a person apply the conspiray theories that the Pax Americana advocates made towards any citizens of the countries that they hate like Russia or China, then that person could say that electoralism always failed in the Western European diaspora because the voters who make voting decision that you do not like are "brainwashed".
It's always projection with westerners, same as when they say that the people from (insert enemy country here) are bloodthirsty and violent and therefore must be destroyed.
You appear to be presenting some sort of dichotomy that is based on your interpretation of an amalgamation of positions you have read and does not relate to any specific take, so I'm not sure what to say on it.
There are people who are supporting PSL or other such efforts, for example. That is already one way it goes that contradicts your dichotomy, where it's not as simple as "vote for nobody" or "vote blue no matter who". Supporting an effort like PSL can be useful for educating and organizing, without having behind it the belief that a PSL candidate will win the presidency against all of the inertia, funding, celebrity, and third-party-blocking they are up against. Similar to how some of the energy behind Bernie's campaigns had value for educating and organizing in spite of him not succeeding.
You don't seem to be someone who thinks you're using binary thinking. "Vote blue no matter who" folks often seem to be talking of strategy and compromises. But what kind of compromises? What kind of strategy? What are you gaining from going up to the democrat party and effectively saying, "Look, I'm going to vote for you no matter what, as long as you aren't the other ones." That tells them they don't need to do anything differently, they don't need to listen to you, they don't need to care one lick what you have to say. They can continue doing their genocides and their billionaire-supporting acts and you'll vote for them anyway because the wrong other one might get in if you don't. What are you accomplishing? When has power ever listened more when you apply zero accountability to them and just say "you're not as bad as the other one, so I guess you"?
To me, it ends up sounding like some of you have effectively given up. Like you don't believe there's ground to be gained here and you're just trying to stave off collapse. Because if you truly believing the country is like a rolling bus headed for a cliff, are you thinking about how to do anything that will turn things around for the most marginalized, disenfranchised, colonized peoples? Or is the only thing you've got, "This bus driver will drive it off the cliff at 1mph rather than 2mph?"
What is your idea for turning this around? "Not total collapse right away vs. total collapse right away" isn't a solution (if it were even a believable description of democrat vs republican and that's a stretch to begin with).
@Kalkaline@leminal.space @immutable@lemm.ee @Mountain_Mike_420@lemmy.ml
See the previous discussion on Hexbear just a week and a half ago: https://lemmygrad.ml/post/5376884
The first one is the case. In my opinion, some of our comrades could use a reminder that our focus doesn't need to be on telling people who to vote for — that's just more electoralism brainworms. (As comrade @darkernations@lemmygrad.ml pointed out, there are countries with functional democracies that don't have this problem, but I'll leave that part to other comrades and assume you're US citizens who are eligible to vote in the state in which you reside.)
Vote for whoever you want. We're just trying to explain that there's a reason for the "most important election ever!!!1!!eleven" that keeps being pulled every election — the solution is not to be found in electoralism at all. It's a tiny band-aid that will at best delay the rise of fascism, but will not actually solve the root problem.
Maybe the first step is to understand how other nations could have systems more democratic than the West by letting go of the exceptionalism and bigotry that blinds one from this.
I agree, there are much better systems of democracy. I’m not blind to that and I don’t think America is exceptional, far from it.
How does “not voting” bring about this better system? What’s the plan? Do I just not vote and keep not voting and then someone comes by and says “hey, we are the people with all the power, we noticed you guys stopped voting so now we’ve decided that we should have a more fair proportional allotment of representatives and we will draw districts with the shortest split line algorithm to prevent gerrymandering”
Is that what happens? Does my awareness that better systems exist somehow make them appear here? Does it somehow wrestle control from those with power who made this system to perpetuate this power and will defend it with violence? Do they just give up because enough of us don’t vote?
Given your follow up queries - at this stage anyway - I am not sure you do know. For example, could you answer the following: why is China significantly more democratic than the US?
All liberal democracies are dictatorships of the bourgoisie no matter the technical processes of how they elect their political leaders and once you understand why and how then you will have at least the theoretical grounding to proceed further.
"Does my awareness that better systems exist somehow make them appear here? Does it somehow wrestle control from those with power who made this system to perpetuate this power and will defend it with violence?"
“Three keys to success: read, read, read.” - Lenin
"Whoever wants to know a thing has no way of doing so except by coming into contact with it, that is, by living (practicing) in its environment. ... If you want knowledge, you must take part in the practice of changing reality. If you want to know the taste of a pear, you must change the pear by eating it yourself..." ~ Mao, On Practice
Yes, it does, actually. The whole point we are making is that organizing and actually working to make an actual effort at educating more and moving people leftwards than electoralism is the result of seeing that electoralism itself is unsuccessful in applying meaningful change for the WILL of the working class, or the mandate, if you will; the ability to actually change the material conditions of our governance to serve the working class only.
That will/mandate is instead held by the ruling class, whom decides either or not to concede changes or to apply austerity and to never give up power. That will/mandate is held by the means of production; to which you have been largely removed from if you are a younger as they have been mostly offshored to other countries for profit extraction but still live, enjoy (greatly more benefits at the cost of the third world) and suffer under the relations of that production...which you'd know exactly why if you read Marx AND Lenin.
Every country has it's own path to socialism.
"Champions of reforms and improvements will always be fooled by the defenders of the old order until they realise that every old institution, how ever barbarous and rotten it may appear to be, is kept going by the forces of certain ruling classes. And there is only one way of smashing the resistance of those classes, and that is to find, in the very society which surrounds us, the forces which can—and, owing to their social position, must—constitute the power capable of sweeping away the old and creating the new" ~ Lenin, Three Sources, Three Components of Socialism
I’ve found the core mistake you are all making.
I can do two things at once
I can both vote and do those things.
If someone thinks their only input is voting, fine go after them. I’ve unionized workplaces (both successfully and unsuccessfully), I’ve read the theory, and I’ve worked with my neighbors in building mutual aid and education about leftist ideas.
I’m still going to vote strategically for the party least likely to use the state sanctioned violence against my organizing efforts.
And if the reception I’ve received here as someone who would be sympathetic to your cause and who is actually working towards trying to achieve better results is any indication, this will never happen. I have been downvoted, belittled, and insulted.
Good fucking job on the solidarity everyone.
"for the party least likely to use the state sanctioned violence against my organizing efforts."
https://www.aa.com.tr/en/americas/74-arrested-at-democratic-national-convention-in-chicago/3311531
That's just one recent example. Do you want me to show you more of "that party's" sanctioned violence? We have members of our community here that saw first-hand repression of their communities under Walz' governance during the Floyd riots. People who have already had state-sanctioned violence by that party.
I think right there is the core mistake you are making.
If you vote for usa, you are complicit in genocide.
Good thing there’s no part of the ballot that says:
[ ] USA [ ] Not USA
That's not a good thing wtf
This might legitimately be the dumbest group of people ever assembled.
You said
What the fuck does “vote for usa” mean? I’m making a joke that there’s no place on the ballot to vote for or against USA.
Dems and Reps are usa
Not voting = against usa
You're projecting.
You can just vote 3rd party i.e. Jill Stein.