this post was submitted on 12 Jun 2026
143 points (66.8% liked)

Late Stage Capitalism

3377 readers
1155 users here now

A place for for news, discussion, memes, and links criticizing capitalism and advancing viewpoints that challenge liberal capitalist ideology. That means any support for any liberal capitalist political party (like the Democrats) is strictly prohibited.

A zero-tolerance policy for bigotry of any kind. Failure to respect this will result in a ban.

RULES:

1 Understand the left starts at anti-capitalism.

2 No Trolling

3 No capitalist apologia, anti-socialism, or liberalism, liberalism is in direct conflict with the left. Support for capitalism or for the parties or ideologies that uphold it are not welcome or tolerated.

4 No imperialism, conservatism, reactionism or Zionism, lessor evil rhetoric. Dismissing 3rd party votes or 'wasted votes on 3rd party' is lessor evil rhetoric.

5 No bigotry, no racism, sexism, antisemitism, homophobia, transphobia, ableism, or any type of prejudice.

6 Be civil in comments and no accusations of being a bot, 'paid by Putin,' Tankie, etc. This includes instance shaming.

Introduction to Socialism (external links)

Wiki

Marxism-Leninism Study Guide: Advanced Course

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] frisbird@lemmy.ml 1 points 8 hours ago (1 children)

You write a lot of words for saying that you agree they are not the same

You really are attached to your own world view, to the point where you can't understand anything anyone is saying to you.

And, by that virtue, one must be better than the other

This is as ridiculous as it is wrong.

So, is voting the lesser evil bad or what?

Yes, lesser evil voting is useless and nonsensical. It's worse than useless. It's surrender.

Or is your point that Republicans are the lesser evil?

My point is that lesser evil voting requires you to have some kind of way of assessing lesser evil and so many of the things people bring up as examples, like Trump deporting 1.5M people, are actually counter-examples to their own point because instead of actually examining evil and quantifying it they have literally no idea how bad the Democrats are and assume everything they here about Republicans is immediately worse. Showing everyone how bad the Democrats are is an attempt to break down the lesser evil belief and show how it's built entirely on false premises.

I mean, I could go into a lot of depths about how the Supreme Court was stacked by Republicans

You could, but then we'd have to talk about how the Democrats literally said they wouldn't use remove the filibuster to save the courts, and then literally removed it later to raise the debt ceiling, demonstrating that the Democrats literally had the power to address the Supreme Court stacking and chose not to.

that they give some unilateral power to Republican presidents in their ruling

They don't actually.

with the caveat that they get to decide at any point what is included in that

Not in Trump v US they didn't. They established a clear framework for immunity and Biden could easily have operated within it. And even if he did, AND the Rs tried to take him to court AND the SCOTUS decided against Biden, it would have taken years, and Trump wouldn't be in office, and Biden would just as old and close to dying as he is now. Saying that SCOTUS is stacked by Rs and therefore everyone is powerless is loser behavior.

Like, I get the analogy

You clearly do not.

Most people would still rather have a good cop than a bad cop. Does that not make sense to you?

That's not at all how the analogy works. Good Cap / Bad Cop is a manipulation routine where two cops working the same case take up different roles. One is the Bad Cop, who threatens the suspect, hits them, insults them, takes or destroys their belongings, etc. The other is the Good Cop, who comforts the suspect, opens up to them about their own feelings, brings them good food and drink, promises to take care of them. The point of the Good Cop / Bad Cop routine is to manipulate someone into trusting the Good Cop.

The reason cops do this routine is because they work together for the same goal. This is the analogy for the Ds and the Rs. As structural parties, not as individuals, the parties play the roles of Good Cop / Bad Cop. One scares half the population while the other comforts that half. They switch places for the other half of the population. They look like enemies. But they work together, dine together, go to school together, car pool together, travel together, golf together, party together, play sports together. Their kids go to the same schools and play together. They are literally colleagues. And as a structure, both parties have shared goals - maintain US dominance abroad, maintain the wealth of the rich, prevent the masses from getting in the way.

Does that make sense to you? That you don't understand the Good Cop / Bad Cop analogy? That you didn't actually know what I was saying.

And since I have two options, yeah, I still think your logic points towards voting for Democratic politicians. Because that is what your logic points to, and you refuse to refute that.

My logic says voting for the Democrats empowers the Republicans in next administration while maintaining the genocidal mass murdering authoritarian programs. Of the 10 countries the US basically completely demolished, 2 were exclusively presided over by Republican presidents and 2 were exclusively presided over by Democrat presidents. The rest were bi-partisan.

The School of the Americas that trained South American death squads, terrorists, and dictators was a bi-partisan project.

The US sanctions program has killed 40 million people over 50 years. 100% bi-partisan.

Does that not make sense to you? They are on the same team, with the same goals. They are playing you for a fool, just like the cops do when they want you to confess. The politicians are manipulating you into a single important position - don't fight back.

[–] webadict@lemmy.world 1 points 8 hours ago (1 children)

Alright, so, let's follow your logic. If they're the same, then there's nothing lost voting for Democrats. Again, that's sort of the problem with your logic. You can say they're the exact same, but... That doesn't tell people not to vote for them. And that assumes you think they're the same, which we have established that you don't.

But like, then what about Democrats that aren't supported by the DNC? Are they also the exact same? What about the Democrats that pass ranked choice voting initiatives? Are they the exact same? I would say no.

See? You continue to have no stance. If they're the same, then voting for them should mean nothing to you. You should be okay with it, because, to you, it has no effect on anything.

Idk, pal, it just feels like you want a black and white world view, and you can only be good or bad. It's a really childish sort of mentality. It's weird that you continue to say Democrats are just as bad, and you attempt to label all Democrats as bad with that brush (and you do admit they aren't the same). But... That's not what your logic should conclude. And it makes me feel bad for you because you can't see that.

[–] frisbird@lemmy.ml 1 points 7 hours ago

Yeah, you don't get it. I don't care who votes for whom. I care that people are wasting their effort, their organizing, and their relationships on voting. In this comment section alone, but of course all over the country, people are spending hours and hours arguing for the virtues of voting, of campaigning and door knocking, they make moral black and white statements like "if you didn't vote for X then you voted for Y", and people are saying so hard that things would be better if only everyone would just stop having standards and vote for genocidaires like it's literally the only valid moral position.

The problem isn't voting or not voting. The problem is that electorialism itself is a way to absorb the energy we need to fight back. The Democrats aren't saving our neighbors, we are by being in the streets. The Democrats who get minor reforms passed are either cynically attracting your attention or genuinely attracting your attention while being funded by cynical leaders who are just trying to keep all of the energy contained to electoralism.

The way we win is in the street. It always has been. We can go back through history and show how nearly everything worth having was won by people fighting, not by rock the vote campaigns.