this post was submitted on 22 Aug 2024
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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.
So explain it.
I’m sure it feels great up on that high horse to look down on the unwashed masses and tell them “you just don’t understand”
I’ve read Marx, I would love the system to be better. I’m not the vote blue demographic. I’m a human being living in America who understands how the current system of government works and the deep and inherent flaws in this system.
What does not-voting do to change anything? No one seems to be able to answer that simple question.
I get that voting doesn’t fix it. Does not-voting fix it? If not then why do you care if people vote or not? What actually fixes it and why does that thing give a shit whether or not people vote?
The "unwashed masses" don't vote. Even in the 2020 election, if "didn't vote" was a candidate, he would have won with an overwhelming landslide.
Then why are you having so much trouble understanding that the American empire's access to vast amounts of labor across the world breaks the American working class's bargaining power? So long as you guys don't fight against the expansion of the empire, things will continue to get worse for you at home. Yet still, you think that voting for this or that imperialist bastard is going to win you concessions.
Not only that, but your welfare state pretty much only exists because your ancestors fought for it (Literally, with violence), and the threat of the ussr scared your bourgeoise. The modern "left" america has nothing to stand on, or stand for. It has no real ability to bring about change because it cannot even discipline a genocider.
As part of a coordinated campaign like the uncommitted movement? It could have forced the Democrats to alter their strategies. Voting third party would have also been great. As long as you liberals would actually be willing to follow through, which you never are.
Oh hey, you just did it.
"I'm sure it feels great to be up on that high-horse and think you're looking down at the unwashed masses just because you won't work with the flawed system that will have the supreme court nuke any milquetoast, limp-dick incremental change" That smugness? That right there? I'd rather not vote just to spite some of you ghouls. If you agree with us, cool; but there are plenty of campaigning "VOOTERS" here that love trying to shove that garbage down our throat while justifying the heinous
Non-voting doesn't do anything on it's own. Organizing does. But in order to organize you need to understand WHY you need to organize, which is why we offer theory and Marx does offer some insight into, if you have read his work.
We give a shit if people vote because slogging into electoralism instead of engaging with socialist or at the very least, alternative political parties it just does the same thing as non-voting except it gives a general sense of false security to the collective yt conscious that everything is just a-okay. Because they offer tiny, shitty changes for the world's most destructive, blood-thirsty regime knowing that they are simply a stop-gap or a buffer to prevent a left-ward shift before the Supreme Court nukes it and are effective in neutralizing grassroots left movements.
Yea, so instead of embracing someone that is both doing the organizing and also voting, this community has been awful.
For a bunch of people so obsessed about organizing the people, maybe take a second to reflect on what a shit tier experience this has been for someone that would be your ally. I’m already doing a bunch of the organizing, and who simply believes that spending one minute to fill out a ballot for the least bad viable candidate is not a bad idea.
If this group of people are the ones convincing everyday Americans to band together for something better, it’s no mystery why there hasn’t been any traction.
And I’ll still be your ally because I believe in this cause, but I also believe that throwing my vote away on some fringe third party candidate doesn’t help organize jack shit. And because of that one point you all have just been assholes.
"Take a second to reflect on what a shit-tier experience-"
Yeah, we're shit to hostile actors and people who purposefully ignore and downplay what we say; going as so far to plug their ears even after we explained in as many different ranges as reactions as we can. I'll admit, it's msotly been negative; but you've had quite a few constructive replies to you.
You're just an example of why we act so hostile. It's because most of the time; they're here to stir shit about things they don't have any education on; even if you aren't. Don't believe me? Feel free to take a look around on some Ukraine threads and see for yourself. Nothing like excusing Nazis, right?
You have the ability to read theory, study and learn on why we act why we do.
"If this group of people are the ones convincing everyday Americans to band together.."
If you'd take two looks at most Americans; you'd see why most of us desire a cultural purge.
If you'd think about for two minutes why we are so hostile, maybe you'd get it. But no, you're doubling down. Perhaps, that could be a tiny, tiny part of it. Really.
Taking this personally and blaming a handful of people you briefly interacted with on the internet for the failures of communism in the US rather than taking into account the violent and pervasive worldwide campaign of anti-communism over decades makes you sound like a liberal who, however well-intentioned you may or may not be, has yet to make meaningful progress on unlearning the elitism that has been socialized into you from day one and has yet to begin internalizing the gravity of how violent these matters have been, historically, toward anyone who opposes imperialism, much less tries to organize a socialist state.
If you read this through that same socialized lens of people being ranked on a ladder of quality, you will probably think this is me "dunking on you" or "putting you down" or "trying to one up you". But it's not meant to be any of those things. I like to think of these things, as relating it to the framework of scientific socialism, as striving for "effective compassion." The end goal is a decolonized world where the working class is empowered and free, the ultimate end goal is communism. But the steps to get there require a combination of theory and practice along the way, to understand what is required in context and develop toward change that is effective toward these compassionate goals that side with the colonized, the marginalized, the working class.
This also requires a certain amount of learning from each other. No one person has all of the answers and if you don't already have the humility to consider what others are saying on the face of it without reaching for these sweeping proclamations about the entirety of an instance and the entirety of "leftist" efforts in the US, you need to develop some. We can't afford people viewing contestment of theory and practice as a game of personal attacks and wholesale dismissal with only minimal consideration. Unfortunately, many of us online are accustomed to getting a heaping helping of disdain, if not accusations of being a foreign agent, simply for taking a patient and diplomatic anti-imperialist stance.
Ultimately, when it comes to things like "being an ally," this isn't a secret club that requires a secret handshake. It's pretty transparent about what the ideological expectations are. Vague statements of organizing and caring about the same things make you, if honest in intention, a person who cares, but does not automatically mean you are ideologically aligned. This is something that I once had to learn when I was deep in liberal thinking still. Caring what happens to your fellow human beings is great. Doing something about it is even better. But populism alone is not marxist-leninist, nor anti-imperialist.
If you are already some of these things and I am misunderstanding, you are welcome to correct me on that. But if you are, it is all the more reason to take seriously the discussion of these things in the context of their mechanics, and try to look past whether people are nice to you in how they convey them.
I had lost my cool in this comment, but I edited now because I was inspired by your comment. Thank you. I should try to remain a compassionate and patient comrade.
I'm glad to hear that, thank you for being thoughtful. 🙏
ive read marx but i dont understand why you dont want to vote for kamala?!?!
Marx basically tells you to vote for kamala in Luke 1:16!