cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/16451158
this post was submitted on 25 Jul 2026
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Getting slapped and getting stabbed are both bad. But not equally bad.
Voter: That guy's got a knife and he's coming for me! What do I do?
D: Vote for me and I'll keep you safe!
Voter: OK! Here I go... let's.... voooooooote!
D: I win the election, thanks to everyone who donated to my campaign. This is a win for all of us, not just me.
Voter: Ok, now take that guy's knife away.
D: How dare you criticize me after my very tenuous and delicate victory!
Voter: But he still has the knife and he's still coming for me.
D: Donate $25 to my campaign for re-election and we'll stop the knife wielding maniacs!
Voter: But you won already. Are you going to stop the knife wielding maniacs?
D: We can't unless you vote D in the next election.
Voter: But I voted D in this one, and you won, and he still has a knife
R: Haha! I have won the next election. Here I come with my knife that no one took from me!
D: How would we have lost?! It must be the voters' fault! Donate $25 to my campaign and we'll send out weird postcards saying that we'll know if you voted or not
Voter: Well, getting slapped is not as bad as getting stabbed!
To give some more specific examples:
Liberal voters: We pay more for healthcare than anyone else! Can you use our money for Medicare for All?
Politicians:
Voters: Why have we been blockading Cuba since fucking 1962? Make it stop!!
Politicians:
Voters: Scientist are warning about climate change!! We need to take drastic measures!
Politicians:
Voters: ICE is killing people and racially profiling! It's a danger to us all and must be abolished!!
Politicians:
Voters: Stop killing brown people with our tax dollars! Pull support away from Israel!!
Politicians:
Leftists: I can no longer support the Democratic Party
Liberal voters:
Withholding your vote only puts gasoline on the fire. Voting for something is not support, it is selecting from available paths and they are not of equal harm. The most important elections to vote in are primaries where you get to choose who you'll be choosing.
Please note that voting should always be done in conjunction with civil protest and mutual support networks.
Can you say this to a Palestinian-American or Latin American with a straight face? The Democratic Party is still complicit in genocide abroad and refuses to accept abolition of Trump's personal white supremacy army. Several Democrats are implicated in the Epstein Files and their colleagues are covering for them. If you don't think these are the appropriate lines in the sand to draw, then the line doesn't exist. The "lesser evil" rhetoric will justify anything.
I refuse to criticize anyone who is engaged in activism, and/or voting third party, rather than voting for the Democratic Party. We should all be joining leftists organizations, anti-capitalist reading groups, mutual aid groups, workers unions, tenants unions, self-defense groups, community gardens, and real grassroots communities built on trust. Such communities will form the foundation for future protests, boycotts, workers strikes, renters strikes, and, if necessary, civil disobedience. That is the only way the American people can regain control at this point.
Look at the data. Under Trump, Gaza got an embassy move, funding cuts to UNRWA, and open talk of annexation. Under Biden, it got bombs,but also pauses, pushback, and at least some rhetorical distance. That's not enough. It's nowhere near enough. But it's less. Same with Iran, Trump tore up the JCPOA and maxed sanctions; Biden at least kept diplomacy open. Same with SNAP, Trump gutted it; Biden restored some of it.
I'm not asking you to recognize this scale as legitimate. I'm saying it's the scale that actually exists and the difference is real.
The absence of your vote doesn't punish them, it hands the keys to the people who will do worse, faster, to the communities you're trying to protect. You want to build mutual aid and unions? So do I. But those need time and cover to grow. One administration gives you more of both than the other.
Being morally pure does absolutely nothing for the people lives that get actively worse.
While we do that we need to also work in primaries to get people into Congress that will apply pressure for change because if you look at any actual societal progress we've had it's been civil action in tandem with political pressure.
Fucking banger!
My point stands. D taking your vote and your donation while not doing anything is still less bad than R actively stubbing you with his knife.
LOL. And the good cop giving you a coffee with a gentle tone of voice is better than the bad cop screaming at you. The D is literally watching the guy with the knife and going "whatever" and you think they're on your side?
as an immigrant, can you guys please not vote for me to get stabbed?
Sorry, the best we can do is vote for people who will stab you or people who won't stop the people who will stab you. As it turns out, voting isn't how we avoid getting stabbed. Who knew!?
that's unfortunate, but in this case, if it were up to me (I know it isn't), I'd pick the ones who won't stop the stabbing over the ones who will do the stabbing.
I don't wanna be selfish though. It's your choice, not mine. It only impacts me.
R can only stab when if elected. While D holds office, R may get to keep his knife but actually stabbing is a felony. Once R is in office, it is perfectly legal for him to stab and he can thus do much more stubbing. He also gets to direct federal funding toward stabbing.
Voting is what keeps R away out of office. Voting prevents stabbing.
These are some very complicated concepts, so let me draw you a diagram:
Have you ever seen an R go to jail while Ds are in office? Again. The Ds share in the bipartisan consensus to give military surplus to the police, they are fine with cop cities, they are fine with bombing brown people into oblivion, they are fine with couping other governments. They are always an accomplice to the stabbings. Keeping Rs out of office, which you mathematicallly cannot reasonably rely on, will do nothing to stop the stabbings.
The research across decades has shown no reduction of police violence under Democrats and no increase under Republicans. The research has shown corporate profits are higher under Ds than under Rs. Stop believing your bullshit flowchart. It doesn't match reality.
I assume said research does not include current ICE activities?
Again, Obama created the conditions that we are currently in. He overhauled DHS and ICE, ballooned their headcount and budget, created the policy framework to allow them to be deployed in cities around the country, and appointed Homan as the head of it all. Under Obama, 3M people were deported. Under Trump, he just hit 1.5M. And Homan was Trump's deportation czar for BOTH of his terms.
And again, Biden participated in the policy creation under Obama, and when he saw what Trump was doing, he took office and did NOTHING to change the policies. All he did was use his prerogative to not deploy them in this manner. He LITERALLY saw Trump with a knife and shrugged.
Obama deported a lot, and violated due process, but it's still not as bad as Trump's deportations because the deportees were released at the countries they were deported at - which sucks if said country is an active war zone, yes, but still not as bad as being sent to a prison like the one in El Salvador where not even SCOTUS can retrieve them.
Evil? Yes. As evil as Trump? no.
Just so we're clear, you're saying that the absolute best we can do is vote for people who will deport 3 million people, many to active war zones that we created, and create the policy structures required for other leaders to deploy unaccountable paramilitary forces to terrorize the domestic population and the alternative is voting for people who will use those policies to deploy unaccountable paramilitary forces to terrorize the domestic population? That's the choice? And you think that's proof that voting works?
Not the absolute best you can do in general - just the absolute best you can do with your right to vote.
The Two Party System means that either the Democrats' candidate becomes the president or the Republicans' candidate becomes the president - it's effectively impossible for a third party candidate to win, and the presidential power of the elected candidate does not get diminished just because less people voted in total. This means that if one candidate is more evil than the other - then the less evil candidate winning is the best possible outcome (out of only two possible outcomes) of the elections.
This does not mean that you can't do better in general. Just that whatever you do better is orthogonal to voting. If you are working on a mini black hole that you plan to unleash in Washington to erase the entire government thus eliminating all its evil, then on voting day you go and vote for the lesser evil and then go back to your garage and continue working on your singularity bomb. After voting. Because voting does impact - even if it can't magically fix anything - and voting does not hinder your ability to influence in more impactful ways.
That's what I'm saying.
But we already established that the choice is:
So exactly what does lesser evil voting impact? Tom Homan remains the deportation czar regardless. Deportations go up. Bombings go up. Genocides are maintained. Cultural erasure is maintained. White supremacy is maintained. Police become more militarized and more unhindered by policy. Corporate profits continue to grow and concentrate wealth. Cops continue to kill black people with impunity. Ecocide continues unabated. The military budget continues to grow. Police budgets continue to grow. The carceral system continues to be the largest in the world by a factor of 3 and heavily racially biased. Pedophiles continue to thrive in public life. Military and state propaganda continue to stream 24/7. Monopolies continue to run the economy. Bailouts continue to protect the elite.
What exactly does voting impact?