electoralism

I don't. I haven't found it to be a worthwhile use of time. I have sympathy for queer people who are terrified of a Trump victory. The situation is horrifying, many people are already fleeing from GOP states as refugees. That kind of personal terror, if someone isn't already hardened by experience, theory, and hardship, is very difficult to overcome. So i don't bring it up with people who aren't comrades, and I mostly don't engage when others do. except on reddit, because fuck

In real life? I tell them I don’t support genocidal parties and they don’t say anything back because they’re too scared to defend genocide in front of anyone who isn’t white

How do you choose to engage with these kinds of people?

Personally I don't. I'll go out of my way to avoid these people. If I'm forced to I just bully them.

What's the general opinion on the vote in leftist circles?

Consensus seems to be "If your line is not genocide, please go die." Maybe a little less crass but that seems to be it.

I thought voting was dumb and a waste of time before, but I'm certainly not endorsing someone who enables a genocide.

My usual go to is, if you think the Republicans are that dangerous, then why are you voting for the party that thinks it’s very important to come to a middle ground with them? Either they concede, or implicitly admit they don’t actually think the Republicans are that dangerous, or they appeal to standards and norms fetishizing, in that case you corner them that they’re really concerned about the standards and norms with marginalized people as a fig leaf.

That being said, if your primary concern is that they’re not engaged in activism, well it’s probably better to just take a “do you want to do the bare minimum of civics?” tactic. Like if you can get them to show up and organize for the good fight, what does it matter that they keep doing the vote song and dance?

Remind them of the robust activist circles that emerged to resist trump and the solidarity everyone to the left of Nazis felt knowing we were hating Trump together. The election of Biden pacified that big tent and the libs went back to brunch, ignoring a genocide. If Trump were overseeing this genocide, we'd have 2020 levels of protest and movement-building again.

Ask them if there’s anything Biden could do to make them not vote for him. Just a yes/ no, don’t ask them for their specific red line.

If the say no- ask them how that makes them any different from Trump voters (they criticize his voters for following him blindly and the worst thing that can happen to them is being compared to a Trump voter.)

If they say yes; then it’s just degrees of difference from you and them.

Unconditional support means they don't ever have to do anything you want. Also it's undemocratic.

get really high, then ignore them

If appeals to empathy and opposition to genocide don't work just let your position known and focus on other people. There is nothing you can do that would move them if they excuse genocide.

I just don't engage anymore. It usually ended in me saying "I don't know how to make you care about other people" and that's a conversation-terminator usually.

There's no depths the lib will not sink to vote blue. They're reduced to pointing at the genocide and the brutal cop crackdown and saying "wow this would be so much worse under Trump". It's nothing new though. Every election from Bill Clinton on has been vote for me and fuck you. Unsurprisingly, things have only steadily gotten worse.

Ask them what is their plan if Trump wins. Like what if you vote for Biden, and it's not enough, and Trump wins. I genuinely want to know. Like, it's a coin toss right? What are they doing to prepare?

Live inside their walls and whisper theory in their sleep

I study and archive their cum

how do I engage them? well armed

Accept the disagreement and move on with your life. There is nothing you can realistically do. Many people need to be personally failed or broken by this country to see that this "blue no matter who" shit isn't going anywhere.

If you're in a blue state get them to concede that smaller downballot elections are good places for third option parties to succeed and create change, as well as important things like funding for schools. Then just tell them that your state is already gonna vote for Biden so it doesn't matter if you don't. Like I'm still voting for the local school funding. I'll probably be forced to vote Democrat on most of the downballot votes because I don't want to see more chuds on the city council. But lol lmao I'm not voting for Brandon. Expose the proceduralist demon factory of national politics to them.

I don't

Unless you live in a swing state, just tell them that the presidential election is a sham election with a decided outcome already and given that it already has a decided outcome, lesser-evilism is inapplicable. Lesser-evilism, pragmatism, utilitarianism, consequentialism, and all the other -isms they like to throw around are completely inapplicable since all those -isms require a causal link between your action and the resultant outcome. But if there is no causal link, then whatever action they take is basically what they feel the action would be most compatible in a moral and just world. If they vote for Biden, they're saying "in my moral and just world, genocide of brown Ay-rabs is good aktually." A vote for Biden is functionally the same as turning in a homework assignment titled "why Biden is cool despite condemning millions of Palestinians to death." They could turn in any writing assignment like "why socialism is good" (this is the PSL vote) or "why sports showboating needs to come back and why people who hate showboating are loser nerds" (this is the Afroman vote), so the fact they've turned in a "genocide is good as long as Biden does it" essay means they absolutely deserve to get shit on.

Disdain, mostly. Seriously, I have some people that I was friends with for years and all at once I just don't care for them. Some of them are Gen-X gay and trans. I get that they have trauma, but ignoring textbook genocide so Biden will maybe be nicer to them in his second term disgusts me. I asked them to read the White House statement on Nex Bennet and come back to me, but I know that ain't gonna happen.

I don't

Claim that you are color blind

It's not like I want Trump to win; I'm not mad at people voting for Biden because they're scared of Trump. Not voting for the "harm-reduction candidate" is an act of desperation in practical terms. It is trying to signal to an entity that doesn't care to hear it that what they're doing is so terrible I won't participate in their political project in even the barest terms. I can't really blame people who think, maybe correctly, that there is still a worse alternative for them personally.

But I won't brook people shaming me for choosing not to participate.

I try not to unless I absolutely have to. If I absolutely have to, I ask them why their cracker-ass bloo saviors paid into funds pursuing Project 2025 in the first place. Followed by a staunch, unbending stance that no blue cracker or misleading coon can purchase, cudgel, or cajole a vote for genocide out of me, regardless of what happens to them. I genuinely don't like settler-Amerikans or their waterbearers enough to bend my principles for them at this point.