this post was submitted on 07 Feb 2024
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Getting real sick of the "don't vote" anarchists. They remind me of insufferable debate-me atheists; you want to agree, but they make it hurt the whole time.
You really don’t want to agree though. Voter suppression only hurts you, they’re either blatant russian trolls or completely clueless about just how much blood and effort their ancestors had to give to earn that vote in the first place.
And this is exactly the kind of lack of perspective that guy is talking about. Imagine if there was no "lesser evil" and you lived in an authoritarian regime where those who love money and power continually rise to the top and take advantage of everybody else. There's not even a chance in that system for peaceful reform, and that's what don't vote idiots don't get because they've never been outside of a modern democracy and have very interesting history "study" habits (usually quoting things out of context and running away when someone tries to hold them to their shit).
I don't understand your argument. Things aren't the best, so fuck it do nothing? Let the people who will vote make all the decisions? I just don't get it. If you can't be bothered to vote, ever if it's for the lesser of two evils, then what can you be bothered to do besides comment online?
He's a "revolutionary" as depicted in the historical documentary The Life of Brian
Hopefully it serves as a wakeup call. Not intended to be unproductive, but you're right I shouldn't have been rude.
PoV: you live in a bourgeois democracy
Do you think that Russia invests significant resources in using English speakers to troll in niche reddit clones?
That honestly comes off as super conspiracy brained.
Sounds like what the russians would say!
Nah, there’s plenty of dipshits out there, hexbear can’t all be bots. Meant more on a general internet sense than specifically here.
I meant agree with the other stuff that anarchists talk about, like mutual aid and other ways of "being the change". I like voting.
Voting for a genocidal fascist should hurt.
It's hard to convince tens of millions of people that it matters when electing one party over another doesn't make a material difference in their lives that isn't negative.
Only one of the two parties actively campaigns on hurting people. It's not a difficult choice.
It doesn't matter what they campaign on when the end result is exactly the same regardless.
But it isn't exactly the same, not when you're one of the groups that loses their rights under republican control.
I don't like the Democrats one bit. It frustrates me to have to vote for them. BUT, they aren't the ones demonizing me and removing my healthcare because of an innate part of myself. I'm trans, and Republicans are doing their damnedest to kill us. Democrats aren't helping, but they aren't calling to put us on lists and remove all of our healthcare, or make it illegal for us to change our names. Being a casualty of the apathy of those that think it doesn't matter makes me want to cry, every day. And we aren't the only ones! There are so many other targets conservatives are hunting and actively trying to hurt (people that can give birth, immigrants, veterans, etc), and no vote is just letting them get away with it. The Democrats are complicit and aren't doing nearly enough, I'd vote for a leftist even after the primaries if one had any chance of election, but right now I have no choice for my own self preservation than to vote blue.
Please, I beg you, think of those that are vulnerable and hurting if conservatives have power. It's not a good choice to vote blue, but it's the least bad one.
the one good argument for that i've seen is: complacency
if anarchists (or x leftists) participate in a rigged democracy, they may start to feel like they're doing something, and doing enough by voting and promoting whomever... while that whom is guaranteed to fail even if they play the game and win the votes (see also: bernie sanders should've had the dnc nomination... the first time he won and the dnc directly intervened and gave it to hillary... and the second time there was collusion to manipulate the votes (buttiegeg dropped, all of his supporters went to biden, warren stayed on, and sanders would've won had she not)
but the left is always going to lose american democracy because democrats and republicans are entrenched...
so the argument goes, if they don't participate in the election, they'll demand other forms of change that will actually accomplish something...
In theory, not voting is a protest strategy where you tie up a wealth of votes behind some set of issues, and thus incentivize politicians to platform those issues to court those votes.
In reality, next to none of the suits in power want anything to do with your issues, and they are tickled pink that they've managed to convince you to voluntarily self-select out of the process.
yeah it breaks down when you realize voting is still powerful...
If we're going to talk about complacency, it has to be mentioned that the rightward lurch of the GOP is owed in large part to the tea party fringe going mainstream. If leftists were to organise and get involved in the party, and keep on doing it at every level, the democrats would have little choice but to give up ground to those ideas. The problem is that with politics the way it is, you have to be something of a cretin, or rich, to see much point in it, and so a lot of good people we'd love to see on the ballot aren't running because they have better things to do with their lives. Campaign finance and media coverage is so fucked up right now that a grassroots local governance campaign based on leftist thought is for most a pretty dire prospect. That's where I want to see us spending our energy, rather than giving up on democracy at all.
preface: you should vote in every election! not just presidential but there's an election every year that still matters... even judges are elected!
anyways, it's kinda like, if you have a shitty broken... say bicycle, where every bit and really the design is broken...
but you need to ride it to do stuff, so you keep spending a lot of resources fixing and maintaining it... jury rigging different bits and pieces to make it sorta rideable...
but if you just walked and recycled it and got/built a new bike with that same energy you spent on the old bike, you'd have a much better bicycling system...
i think there's a better alternative to throwing the whole bike away... but i do think a lot of good people get lost trying to fix their bike bike while ignoring fundamental flaws...