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The state of US political discourse
(lemmy.ml)
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this post was submitted on 08 Aug 2024
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United States | News & Politics
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My favorite part about the liberals coming in here to muster a defense is how their only argument is “but Trump would be worse,” conveniently saying nothing about how they are literally advocating for genocide.
“But she called for ceasefire,” they cry, while simultaneously sending their daily billion dollars of bombs and ammo.
Also omitting how the DNC is clearly complicit with the GOP and will objectively not make things better, just worse at a slower pace. As shown by the last 50 years.
Their responses will get increasingly absurd and nonsensical the further this goes on. Behavior paralleling Israeli Zionists.
Oh look, it happened again, liberals aligned with fascists. Really weird how that just keeps happening over and over and over and over and over and over.
Who are the ones that want fascism again?
Bad Cop Worse Cop, and no matter how much you try to cooperate, Bad cop keeps doing all the things Worse Cop was threatening to do to you 20 minutes ago.
Tell me what you want me to do. Should I not vote? Who is defending Kamala or the Democratic party here? Just because I'm relatively happy that Kamala gives the US a better chance at avoiding another Trump presidency, that doesn't mean I'm happy with Kamala being the nominee. Or happy with her being genocidist. How does that make me an apologist for genocide when I have a binary choice in front of me between two people who are going to continue sending weapons to an apartheid state committing genocide? I mean fuck, the US is the worlds largest terror organization -- are you going to accuse me of supporting them because they take money out of my paycheck? There isn't really anything I can do about it besides try to vote in the direction that leans away from that.
I don't generally care how you vote. The idea that your vote, as an individual, matters at all, is a construct intended to disempower you. Turn you into an individualistic lever pull that can be counted on regardless of how many horrific things they do.
If you care how you vote, you should be getting organized with likeminded people to create a voting block that makes demands. "Move in our direction or we will vote for you, otherwise we won't". This is literally the only way you could ever have meaninfulg voting power. If you are a reliable voter for X party, literally nobody cares about your positions anymore, and certainly not as an individual. Political party X just tries to get you to turn out and to turn you into a donor. You could also try to take over the party from a grassroots level, but you will quickly find that they will ruthlessly oppose you and would rather lose forever than give up their party positions.
But the latter point leads to my actual suggestion, which is to understand that your voting power is incredibly limited and constrained under bourgeois electoralism (like the American system). They will never, ever let us win through their political system. We may make very slow gains in a few arenas, largely reflecting social changes that do not threaten the interests of those at the top of the core economic system. Those changes are valuable. But they hit a hard limit pretty quickly because everything is tied to the economic system. And backslides are also possible so long as the economic interests at the top aren't threatened. So sure, vote, but don't let electoralism dominate your political activity. It takes a few minutes to hours to vote per year. Spemn the rest of your political energy on building non-electoral power.
To build Non-Electoral power, we must spread political education (theory, history, geopolitics) and organizing skills (engaging in action, recruitment, support). To help with that process, you must become politically educated yourself - politically educated in mass political power and identifying the economic forces we are up against - and gain organizing skills yourself. Both are facilitated by joining a socialist organization, though it is also 100% A-Okay to just start reading and questioning and gaining skills in thought. I usually recommend that people start with media criticism and (re)learning history. For example, start perusing FAIR.org and read A People's History of The United States.
Now, keeping in mind that I don't care very much how you vote, to answer your question about what to do when the "Democratic" system gives you two options (chosen by the ruling class, not you, by the way)...
If you care about voting, work to form the aforementioned voting bloc and develop political discipline that lasts beyond single elections. If you succeed, your bloc will mean the "lesser evil" (try measuring the evil, is it even always lesser?) loses an election. But then you will have established power as a bloc, a set of votes that must be won. And you will learn something very important from the result. One option is that you will be cut off from the party you are most trying to influence. They will be declaring that they would rather lose than make the change(s) you care about. Like not doing genocide, Christ. Then you will know you cannot win through their system, or at least that party, and can change your effort. Try (and still probably fail) at a third party. Or focus your efforts on non-electoral political work. The other possible outcome is that they relent. Then congratulations! Keep making demands and start voting strategically for them until they inevitably balk, rinse and repeat until they consistently refuse (this will happen).
Or you can skip the process if realizing the bourgeous electoral system is an expression of the ruling class's power and begin working against it. End the thought process of thinking you can somehow have a lesser evil genocider, mass murderer, country destroyer, child impoverished, Jim Crower. Engage in the political education and organization I mentioned before and give up agonizing over your meaningless solitary vote.
Nah it's easy just rewire the whole government in your free time, that's what I don't understand about these people. They have all these great ideas about organizing and starting this and changing that. The suggestions they give are just not realistic in our society currently, but they act like you're the problem for voting.
Y'all understand that your little suggestion of starting a whole ass movement with the only resource of "unified voters" in one of the most diverse countries in the world will take a ton of time right ?
I'll even play let's say we:
Do you think this can be organized 1 before the election, 2 before the election with enough time to actually change things in it, 3 by people working full time jobs and probably living paycheck to paycheck 4 while being fought back against the entire time by media oligarchy? No it isn't realistic
What is realistic is trying to save the country from a centralization of powers into the executive branch (project '25) that will almost surely lead into fascism, which will then in turn fuck the rest of the world even worse.
As an organizer in my free time it's hardly unrealistic to suggest other people do the same. These are also well-demonstrated strategies, whereas individualistic lesser evil voting is not. You just disempower yourself.
And as you can see, this false logic also leads liberals to begin defending the lesser evils. Right now, they are defending genocide. My hope is that a few of them may break free of their propaganda and become true allies of people around the world and their own neighborhoods.
God forbid political power take work and time. Better to be ineffectual and rhetorically entrench the sociopathic status quo, eh?
No. It requires shedding the political myopia that ensures your complacency. But you should begin building it now, and it is okay for its birth to be fitful. Begin having conversations now to see who would be interested. Join a left org that may be interested in this. Stop defending genocide.
Yes. This is how it has been for hundreds of years. People with less time and means did far more than this. You just have to actually believe that politics is important.
How much time do you spend on social media, for example? Why not spend that time organizing meetings?
Our enemies include that but are even larger and more powerful.
Far more has been done before. You gave been taught complacency. And to defend the status quo.
You aren't saving anything. Your strategy makes you a complacent individual that simply allows the same system chugging along into depravity, like open support for genocide. You aren't even organized. How on earty could you ever take credit for anything? Pure fairy tales.
Do you even live in a swing state?
Im sure as someone who does it everyday you do think that
This is the largest point I'm trying to make the time and effort it will take cannot be completed before the election. I mean you even agreed:
Your response was No.
Do you think every American agrees and will just jump on board?
No defending it I hate it but stop acting like it can change before the election, it is not enough time which is my point, not a defense.
Couple hours after work, 10 mins before work, and while shitting. Drive times alone wouldn't be meet with this time.
Don't know what I took credit for but sure
Do you even live in America?
I don't do it every day. But I do it often enough to be reliable and have good capacity.
But it's not just me nor has it ever been. People from all nations have done this. People in far worse conditions. It is necessary and, historically, feasible so long as you can break false consciousness.
To begin building the necessary project you have to reject the political election myopia that our masters impose on us. Politics does not restart every 2-4 years. Only long-term engagement and the development and wielding of leverage will ever liberate us.
No, but why do they need to? Our task requires work and time. You keep acting like this makes it impossible. I suggest that this is a learned helplessness, of internalizing the false idea that there is no alternative. In fact, there has always been an alternative and others have blazed trails.
It is already a defense in that it is a form of apologetics for the genocidal status quo. It defends and entrenches the idea that your job, politically, is to decide who to cheerlead with a vote. It normalizes accepting and tolerating the genocide of Gaza, as even that us not enough for you to take sufficient pause. You are lost in propaganda, but you can free yourself through education.
A common dedicated organizing commitment is 1-2 meetings per week (often online) and around one action per month. Though there are often opportunities to do what works around anyone's schedule.
There is a tendency in bourgeois electoralism to dramatically exaggerate the impact of a given activity. Usually, but not always, voting. The purpose is to make the target audience feel like what they were told to do matters, was worthwhile, and to keep them doing it. This is what I am referring to by credit - of an exaggerated assignment of value to the activity I was responding to.
Why would that matter? My question to you does matter: if you don't live in a swing state your presidential vote is as worthless as it gets.
What would your point be if I were or were not American? Please don't be xenophobic.
It's absolutely wild seeing unhinged ranting posts get upvoted while posts like yours are getting downvotes. What the hell kind of community did I stumble into
Read theory, join an organization, learn to shoot and care for firearms, build community, etc.
100% agree with all of that. Also, vote the furthest left you can every chance you get because it helps move the Overton window to the left.
The people voting for Biden in the primary didn't move the Overton Window, the uncommitted movement did! Democrats went from being explicitly anti-ceasefire to support and Biden was forced out of the race. That is how you use the vote to get things done- organizing and strategy.
I fully agree and I believe that voting Uncommitted was the best leftist option so I think that is a great example of how voting the furthest left we can does actually make a difference.
Exactly, and as turns out that any atrocity can be dismissed as long as there's a threat of somebody worse. In this way, they're admitting that the system is fundamentally broken since even a genocide can now be dismissed simply by pivoting to talking about Trump.
No offense dude, but I think you are pretty ignorant about American leftists. I mean, you're completely right that we're having to dismiss an atrocity and vote for a genocidist and that the system is fundamentally broken. But that's common knowledge in the US lol, even across the aisle. Politicians are bought and sold, ask any semi-informed citizen in the US, right or left. It's just that most people are too busy working to fucking LIVE to think there is anything we can about it, or they've been brainwashed to think that's how it should be (top down something or other...)
Shit is fucked here. Nobody's trying to hide it, like I didn't just "say the quiet part out loud." Obviously America is fucked, obviously the Democratic party is fucked. But I'm still gonna vote for Harris because America can still get worse and the Republican party isn't just fucked, its absolutely fuckaroo'd.
Serfs and people working 13 hour days found the time to organize for revolution while working for depressed imperislist wages. Working without a doctor less than a day a way. Working without any transportation aside from their own two feet. Walking 10-20 miles per day when fighting militarily.
The US left us not weak because it faces long or harsh working conditions. It is weak because it has bought into liberalism. It is fully propagandized and is convinced of its own anemia. And, if anything, it fails to fight because it is comparatively overcompebsated, living off of cheap goods provided by the working poor of other countries. The US left does not riot over shortages because there usually are none and when there are they just take it. They are disorgsnized, so they have no voice. They are miseducated, so they parrot the logic the ruling class tells them to follow (such as your logic in voting).
Now that a larger, whiter proportion of the US working class is proletarianizing through high debt, high commodity prices, lower wages, and longer hours you are seeing forms of radicalization. We should be building on that, not carrying water for the genocide of Palestinians. Feel free to check whatever voting box you want, but don't tell me you're "leftist" for doing it, lmao.
So not even any consideration of voting 3rd party? The concept that voting 3rd party is throwing away your vote is perpetuated by the 2 parties that want to stay in power. It’s easier to focus on one opponent, but the more people become comfortable with other options, the harder it is for the 2 parties to bullshit their way into power.
I'm definitely not voting RFK Jr's antivax ass. I mean he's a Kennedy. Still an elite in power.
Anyways, 3rd party candidates historically never have a chance. Ultimately if it were really my choice, the only parties we'd have are idk street parties. Because there'd be no government at all, or temporary governments when the need arises, or something more creative than the dumbass shit we have now.
If you're seriously suggesting voting third party you do not understand how voting works in the US. It is literally a wasted vote -- even if 60% of the nation voted for a third party, the delegates are already pledged to one of the two main parties. The correct place to put that energy is in local elections and in a nationwide push for ranked choice or some other alternative to FPTP.
2 parties are the Nash Equilibrium of our system. We'd love to vote for other candidates, but we can't beat the math.
What is the math on how much your political opinion needs to be accounted for when you are an automatic lever pull for a given party?
This sort of rationalizing by people who claim to be on the left is precisely what perpetuates the system.The dems know that when push comes to shove, you'll all go and vote for them no matter what they do.
If you want to propose a real solution, we're all ears.
A real solution is to do what the MAS movement in Bolivia did. It's not like many examples don't exist throughout the world.
Bolivia has proportional representation, not the 2 party FPTP we are stuck in in the US.
No third party will win in the US without election reform, which is only conceivably possible by voting against the right wing. Voting Democrat is the anti-genocide path. Again, unless there's some real new ideas.
Remind me what party do Biden belong to? Whig?
Bolivia ha organized labour that's able to coordinate things like general strikes across the country and massive protests. That's how MAS got in power. Maybe go read up on how MAS actually achieved power sometime, you'll learn something. Maybe even get some of them new ideas into that noggin of yours.
There you go, that's good advice, organize! Notice that it has literally nothing to do with your vote for President.
I very much do note that it has nothing to do with voting for the president. In fact, my whole point is that voting does not actually matter, and disproportionate focus on voting is precisely why people in US find themselves in the situation they are in.
You gonna bother explaining the MAS movement and provide a reasonable road map for how to achieve it?
here you go https://www.jstor.org/stable/43284846
have you also noticed the sharp reduction in shitlib takes on lemmy.world and them increasing on the rest of the lemmyverse? they're diversifying/spreading-out