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In All Seriousness: PSL or Greens? (hexbear.net)

submitted 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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There's been a lot of memes going around, but I genuinely have a question. If PSL were on the ballot, I would obviously vote for them. However, they're write-in only in my state. Would writing in PSL have the same effect, or could the vote more easily be invalid or ignored.

In other words, is it better to vote for Greens if PSL is write-in only?

EDIT: THANKS FOR INPUT! I've decided to write in Hilary Clinton, have a wonderful day!

But really probably writing in PSL. Elections don't matter too much though, so I'm ever in an area where PSL is active, I'll make sure to join (which has been the plan for a while). Thanks again!

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[–] [email protected] 14 points 2 months ago (1 children)

It's recognizing that if it's just tallying how many people are anti-establishment, you might as well put it towards a party that takes principled stances on things and could plausibly do something if it accrued political power.

But for the time being, "Look how many of us are communists", and a barometer for the reach of the party.

(I'm an anarchist communist who's often critical of PSL, but I'm still open to working with them and will vote for them)

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago (1 children)

That's one of the least important reasons to vote PSL, in my opinion.

Communists and radicals will always be a small minority in most countries under capitalism, and probably have been even at the outset of most revolutions. It's only after taking power and changing people's material conditions that we'll see typical people identifying with Communism. Take into consideration the fact that we're talking about the electorate in the US and multiply that by a thousand. Numbers of Communists or people voting for Communists in the US is dismally low and will stay that way for a long time. We don't need PSL to run a national campaign for that poll. It's a terrible reason to focus on a Presidential campaigns over building local support through campaigns and wins, honestly.

But, again, hope I'm wrong and I hope PSL does well and grows.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Ok I agree that organizational work is way more important, but I'm not about to join PSL specifically, so what are the more important reasons to vote PSL that you were thinking of?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago

Well, if they were running for local positions I think that it would be important to vote for them for those positions so that they can build power locally, and if they had already built popular support through local campaigns throughout the country and then ran the Presidential campaign then it would be important to vote for them for that to escalate their position and put them into direct conflict with the highest levels of the DNC/GOP.