this post was submitted on 02 Mar 2024
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You can choose to commit suicide. It is an option. That doesn't mean you should take it.
So you're actually the desperate one if you think that not voting this election is committing suicide.
Yes. I am desperate to live. That's a virtue, not a vice.
At the end of the day, you just have an inaccurate view of reality. You're motivated by anger to think prolonging liberalism isn't worth it because it's a shit worldview that should be destroyed. I agree that it sucks and should be replaced, but I recognize that empowering fascism has no real upside. It doesn't matter what liberalism "deserves," as blame is only useful in guiding us to real justice. Mechanically, what is the best strategy for minimizing harm and maximizing well being?
The liberals are empowering fascism. Which is the problem you seem blind to.
But as always liberals will never be accountable for their faults, and when fascism rise they blame it on the left. Exactly as you're doing.
I asked someone on here if they'd punch a nazi, really disappointing response. Feel like this guy would say it's wrong too
You just can't accept the possibility that I agree about liberals & liberalism empowering fascism. You talk about blame and accountability, assuming those concepts are anything but instrumental in accomplishing real justice.
Real justice is making things as good as you can in the future, & being just is the practice of trying your best to do so with the information you have. Punishment for punishment's sake is a fools errand.
I don't give a flying fuck about making liberals suffer. I want what's best for me and others. Not voting won't make things better than if I vote Dem, the same as I did in 2020. That's the bottom line.
You're not making things better. You're trying for things to not be too much worse.
When the choices are both bad, I don't want to be an accomplice to any of them. I don't want to validate any of them. Because they're both bad. There just happen to be one worse than the other. But it'll happen eventually anyway regardless of your choice in this election.
You say this like it isn't my point. You're not invalidating shit. It can easily be argued that not voting makes you the accomplice of whoever wins the election. You chose not to vote, so you're fine with whoever wins. If Biden wins, you're responsible. If Trump wins, you're responsible. You could have weighted in on how much worse things should get, but I guess it's up to liberals and fascists.
You cannot get off the boat. You have to deal with it as much as everyone else. Not voting will not make you or other leftists better off, especially because there is no good plan or strategy on how to prepare for this mythical 2nd round. Like I said, death cult larper shit.
That cannot be argued. Because that would make it a parody of democracy like China or Russia.
Either you can not vote for either candidate, or your democracy is not worth more than those parodies of it.
If I lived in China or Russia, I would still vote if I could. I'd have to avoid psyop candidates for my own safety, but I'd definitely exert what little will I had to pick the lesser evils.
Why? Even with those shit elections, the are some issues on the ballot. I couldn't choose any anti authoritarian candidates, but I could vote for someone who'd be better on more contested issues. Maybe I could choose a candidate that follows science more, or is less aggressive about invading Taiwan. That last one is a big deal, as war is way worse than most people think. It's honestly hard to have net gains out of wars for the ones fighting.
In local elections, you can build up support for a slightly better narrative; a narrative that won't directly question the state, but make it suck less. States suck, but you HAVE to exist in them until they actually collapse. You can undermine them, but only if you have a plan. That strategy must be thought out, organized, and prepared for, just like how the theocratic fascists have done it. They built to the movement that exists now, convincing Christians to abandon liberalism in any form. They did this by WINNING elections, not by boycotting them.
If anything, it could be argued that a collapse of liberalism under Biden would be better for revolutionaries than a fascist takeover that eventually collapses. That fascist state will crush all leftist organizing in ways that liberals wouldn't even think of. They will force all Marxist discussions underground and do frequent raids of the tunnels. That doesn't sound like breeding ground for leftism to me.
If a liberal state collapses, people will be unenthusiastic about liberalism. If a fascist state that used to be liberal collapses, liberals can more easily argue that we need to return to liberalism. The only way your perspective makes sense is if you assume liberalism can't collapse without turning to fascism. I doubt that's backed up by history. Liberal states might turn authoritarian in their final moments, but that isn't really like the populist fascism of Trump.
Liberals are already fighting leftists. With more subtle ways than fascists are doing, but they are fighting hard.
In France the liberals spent months to convince people that the left was more dangerous than the fascists. They are litteraly fighting the left with the police. Forbidding protests and breaking them with heavy police forces. They are cooperating with the fascists, making laws with them against immigration and workers.
Basically the liberals are turning fascist light in order to fight the left. It's the most violent, the most radical Liberal government the Vth Republic had. Some conservative are also talking about giving the president a third run eventhough that's forbidden by the constitution.
The liberals don't fight fascism. They never did and they will never do it. They ally with them when they feel threatened. They join them when they feel there's an opportunity to do it.
It's been 40 years of this game in France. Liberals pretend to be left. When in power, they betray and do hard liberalism instead. And they blame all the problems on a lack of liberalism, and on immigration. Exactly like the fascists. So naturally people go to the far right.
What's left is two nuances of fascism.
The left is fighting still though. The fight is to be done on the left first sadly, because so many people are trying to win the race, believing that the liberals in power are not so bad in the meantime.
I'd rather have a fascist leader so that the liberals may wake up while the State is still robust enough to not turn this into a disaster. Because the longer we wait, the more the liberals will dismantle everything. And when there's no barrier, no counterpower, and they already started political repression, then the fascists will only have to do the same, but better.
Maybe that's why you're so scared btw. Maybe your country already lost too many of its defenses against fascism. If it is the case, you're doomed. It's already too late. You're fighting to save a sinking ship.
I'm not gonna vote in your country, but I will do everything I can for mine to not turn into a sinking ship. And it means not supporting the people who are actively sabotaging it.
Again, all I hear is "sorry, accept your death so the leftists from non minoritized groups can bring about rapture." It's always sad to see cultists like you. You care more about protecting your identity than protecting your life, ignoring easily proven truths to prevent being wrong.
After all this conversation you still don't understand. This is sad.
We don't agree on facts, making reasoning impossible. I think that fascism is far worse than liberalism, while you think they're comparable challenges. I see no benefits for fascism, you think it's an opportunity.
"Cut a liberal, a fascists bleeds," yet liberals and leftists died side by side in the good fight, WWII, and fights against fascist governments in the global south. Many other liberals and leftists stood by the sidelines as well.
"Imperialism is the highest form of capitalism," yet the Cold War was, in practical terms, a struggle between empires with blue and red excuses.
"The US has no left wing party and is far right by global standards," yet most parliamentary systems see leftists in power when they form coalitions with the more left leaning liberals. More often than leftists, liberals or even the far right are able to form majority coalitions by themselves. The US is also to the left of most countries, not because it isn't a corrupt plutocracy, but because most other countries are more dysfunctional liberal democracies, or fascist theocracies already.
Every county followed a similar strategy of increasing neoliberalism during the last 50 years, until every country started abandoning free trade in favor of nationalist policies following the financial crisis. Neoliberalism is on a downturn, yet many leftists haven't realized it because they equate it with capitalism. Capitalism has continued its steady erosion of material conditions, but not because of neoliberalism. The Marxist lens is not designed with nationalism in mind. It's a big fucking deal as fascism grows, and y'all don't appreciate it.
I don't call myself a socialist even though I want the closest thing to communism we can achieve. I don't call myself a liberal even though I see many constructs like rights, free expression, or democratic representation as useful. I will be honest with what I believe, but I am wary of any political identity. Identity is not ideology. It can easily overtake principles and focus movements towards existence rather than achievements.
You're distorting my words. So either you don't understand, you didn't read, or you don't care.
I'm not equating liberalism and fascism. They're not the same. What I'm saying is that liberalism leads to fascism. And thus, blaming leftists for not voting for liberals is dishonest.
The fault is not on the leftist. It is on the liberals. And voting liberals will not save you from fascism. It merely makes you an accomplice of the liberals, because they will claim your vote to support their policies.
Your whole argumentation is based on the fear of fascism. That's barely better than fascism that relies on the fear of immigrants.
Blame is an overrated concept. It only serves an instrumental purpose. It can help us make better predictions of how people will behave in the future, but it has no inherent value. Mechanically, liberal shittyness and their contributions to rising fascism means we can predict how much support they'll give us. It shows what matters to them and the calculus behind their actions.
Often they make their imprudent decisions because they have an inadequate understanding of the human ecosystem. They don't consider how the economic suffering caused by deregulation and policies that favor the rich are the system's biggest existential threat. Politicians worry about their political existence instead of the system's existence. When fascism is at the gates, preservation of the system matters more to their personal existence.
This is probably why you think leftists have a bargaining advantage, and they do. The left can allow liberalism to suffer, but they'll suffer with it. It's a game of chicken, a gamble, and not the only tool the left has. They could, and this might shock you, focus more on local politics and primary elections. They don't need to play chicken to get a leg up on liberals; they can win primaries and build leftist sentiment while doing so.
The DSA has 3 current members in congress, who represent ~2.25 million Americans. You might scoff at this small number in the grand scheme of things, but you also might not know how tiny their actual membership is. They have never had more than 100k active members. They've elected officials while being a similar size to lemmy, this tiny corner of the internet. And those are just current DSA congress members; there are 3 other former members in office because of DSA support.
Leftists often believe electoral politics are a waste of time, yet they're ignorant of how much it has affected their current movement. Obama's ACA might have sucked, but it made single payer a significant part of the conversation. With no ACA, Bernie wouldn't have basically won the 2016 primary, a presidential run that made socialism a far more popular idea in America. Current DSA Representatives have promoted leftist ideas and positions more than they've affected votes in congress. They're a handful of votes, yet they've provided a dissenting voice to liberal slop.
Most of the people who vote for DSA members are left leaning liberals; liberals who have played a greater role in promoting leftism than any proud anti-voter I've ever met in person. I'm not saying you need to join the DSA and volunteer for their candidates. Just spend a few hours of your year voting.
Even if you still don't vote, VOLUNTEER IN YOUR COMMUNITY FFS. Local politics, electoral or otherwise, are the backbone of every single successful movement. Provide services to those in need. Follow cops around with guns. Educate people about politics. Do the leg work to improve lives. That's what earns trust and support. Providing
You really should stop with the ad hominem. I am irrelevant to the discussion because I'm not even a US citizen. I don't live in the US.
Now this is a far better and more convincing argumentation than the "vote Biden or else we're doomed" of the beginning.
Sorry, I forgot you weren't American. The point still stands. Vote and get involved in your country's government. Ally with the relative center in electoral politics; that's how it fundamentally works for leftists. Until the left is a majority, you will need to ally with liberals. The executive leader will always be a compromise with the center, even if they're from the left. That's why voting is only the starting point. Visible dissension alone is powerful, so make yourself hard to ignore.
I provided an in depth essay, but "vote Biden or else we're doomed" is still the bottom line. The jabs helped me determine how valuable the essay would be. If you were a full on troll, you'd have crashed the conversation when I showed disrespect. More importantly, it's fun to be sassy :)
In France there are two turns for the president election. The first turn usually has many parties, but because there are only two in the second turn, the first vote is often tactical. You vote for the one you prefer that you think has a chance at the second turn. This means there are a lot of negociations before the election between the parties, alliances and formation of large parties. The left is often divided, and thus often lose.
But there is a second election for the parliament. Unfortunately it's still a vote for one person over two turns, but it's regionalized, so depending on the demographics it can change.
So the situation is not as dire in France I'd say. The right is still liberal in France and not yet fully fascist. And even if we had a far right president, there would be another round for the parliament where the far right showed it's complete incompetency.
The problem today is that the liberals think they can play with the fire and get away with it. And that they are slowly turning fascist themselves. They must come back to talking with the left rather than with the far right.
So indeed we must talk to the liberals at some point, but in my opinion they must lose the power first to get back to reason, and they must do it before our democracy is too weak for it to be dangerous in the hands of the far right.
If what you're telling me is right, the fight to save the US was lost like 20 years ago. Now you're left scooping the flood. The real problem is that the republican party is rotten to the core, that money matters, and media are used for propaganda. Will any of this be worked on in the next term? I doubt it. So in 4 years will it be back to square 1?
Honestly, your system sounds very similar to many US states, including mine. We call them open primaries, and infuriating shit can happen. For our recent US Senate primary, this guy boosted a fascist nut who has no chance in this blue state, just so he didn't have to compete against another Democrat. Him and the other Democrat honestly aren't too different on policy, but him increasing fascist turnout in a statewide race probably impacted local races in a negative way.
One thing to remember about US states is that many are the size of countries. Our biggest state has nearly 2/3rds the population of France, beating out Poland and Canada in size. You can drive for 10 hours in one direction at highway speeds without leaving certain states. Our least populous state has a higher population than the smallest EU member. Alaska, the largest state by land area, is not only bigger than any EU member, it's 40% the size of the entire EU. States in America are comparable to counties in Europe, and the US itself is comparable to the entire EU.
California's governor, Gavin Newsom, is a closer comparison to Macron than Biden. Newsom is a slimy liberal that a ton of Democrats dislike, with Biden probably being more trustworthy than him.
When people complain about Biden, not only do they ignore that the president is the most dangerous person on earth, but they don't understand that he's been the most left wing president since Jimmy Carter from the late 70s. This isn't a good thing, as Carter himself was right wing compared to his party, especially on economic issues. We've had only neoliberal or fascist presidents for half a century, with Biden moving away from neoliberalism in many respects.
Biden was only preferable to the actual billionaires in the 2020 Democratic primary, yet he's been better than I expected. The left didn't turn out in that primary, and don't seem to understand that they missed their chance to pick a better president. Being against Biden this year is even worse than in 2020, as Trump is more dangerous now than back then, while Biden has been better in office than the left should have expected. It's a repeat of that election only the choice is more obvious, which is why it frustrates me that this is a conversation. I get why it is, but it's still ridiculous.