Political philosophers in the year 300 BC:
“Hey, so electoralism is a rigged game, because only wealthy and prestigious families have enough money to finance the popularity contest to get themselves or their puppet candidates elected.”
Marxists in the 1800s, with the rise of representative governments:
“Hey, this system is proving to be the safest shell for capitalist rule, because wealthy capitalists are able to stack every election to get their puppets elected, and people have the illusion that they live in democracies”
Goldfish-brained liberals in the 2020s:
“Electoralism is gonna work this time, we just didn’t vote hard enough before!”
I’d love to have a discussion about this. I am a socialist through and through. I believe that the system needs to be dismantled to achieve any meaningful change, and that no progress can realistically be made within the system.
I’d argue that there are 4 actions within the system. Vote red, vote blue, vote third party, and don’t vote. I’d argue that all 4 options will never lead to meaningful change. However, given this, every American who is eligible to vote is forced into playing the game, there is no way to abstain. Even not voting leads to a meaningful outcome within the system, and thus is still playing the game.
If no actions within the system can change things, I pose that the only way to disrupt this system is by dismantling it from the outside via revolution.
This however, cannot be done overnight, even if you are consistently acting on it. These types of things take a general sense of civil unrest to get kicked off. I believe that under capitalism, this unrest is inevitable, and once it hits a tipping point, the revolution will start. In the meantime, I feel we have two actions we can take.
First, we should be ushering in the revolution. Organize, make people aware of the alternative, disrupt the system in any means you reasonably can, try to get people to be sympathetic to the cause, etc. Don’t slack on your responsibility to prepare and eventually initiate the revolution.
Second, since we have no choice but to play the game we’ve been dropped in to, you should vote for short term damage mitigation. If you are forced to take an action within the system, I feel people have a moral obligation to try to reduce the harm to others as much as possible. This involves making a vote, since not voting results in almost the same outcome as a vote for the candidate furthest away from the one you considered least harmful.
I have yet to see an argument that shows how not voting is going against or dismantling the system. However, considering so many people believe that not voting is the right choice, I’m really interested in hearing someone explain it to me, as there must be some reasoning behind it that I’m not seeing.
how not voting is going against or dismantling the system.
Its refusing to play their rigged game, and spending your energies elsewhere.
Every single positive change from the US came not through voting or participation in the electoral process, but from force or the threat of force from below, usually in the form of mass protests, or enemies of the US empire defeating them militarily.
emphasis on spending your energy elsewhere. like actually go do stuff, and i don’t mean the no kings parades.
The simple argument is that electoralism cannot work. Therefore, workers should front and vote for our own parties, to measure strength and prove the inability to gain change via electoralism.
I don’t know if I understand what you are suggesting. Are you saying the working class should vote third party, or each person should vote for themself? Or when you say vote for our own parties do you mean not vote at all?
The working class should vote for socialist parties like PSL, participate in them, and organize with them. That’s about the best we can do within the bounds of electoralism, but we should use that to organize for dual power and revolution.
Oh, then I think we agree with each other. I’m specifically wondering why someone would abstain from voting
I’d argue that there are 4 actions within the system. Vote red, vote blue, vote third party, and don’t vote. I’d argue that all 4 options will never lead to meaningful change.
Second, since we have no choice but to play the game we’ve been dropped in to, you should vote for short term damage mitigation.
Let’s draw the logical conclusion here.
Short term damage mitigation is the goal. There are three options that incur short term damage. Option 4, however, lets one continue working or resting, therefore incurring no damage at all.
As all 4 options don’t lead to any meaningful change, option 4 is the best option.
I don’t think I understand what you’re saying. Are you saying that the time it takes to look into a candidate is the damage being done? I was thinking on a larger scale. All 4 options lead to a politician getting sworn in, who will inevitably, directly cause people to die. Picking the option that appears to be likely to kill the least people would theoretically cause the least damage in their 4 years. I’m calling 4 years the short term here.
All 4 options lead to the same politician getting sworn in.
You should’ve seen the hoods the other guy would have made us wear. Enabling a genocide of our colonial subjects is a small price to pay to maintain 5% of our dignity. I’m on the left btw
A more appropriate caption would probably be something to the tune of “we sure showed the lesser evil”
When the Democrats run a candidate who tries to act more hawkish on Iran than the GOP, gives a big speech about how we’re not giving our over funded military enough and how she’ll give us the “deadliest military in history,” gives a speech on immigration where she literally says DO NOT COME
, all while currently and presently doing all that they can to assist Israel conducting an actual fucking genocide…… it should be really obvious that people like you don’t even know that the fuck is going on. You’re not even supporting a lesser evil, at this point it’s just a fucking more polite evil. They’d still be ramping up deportations, you just wouldn’t have Kamala posting dipshittery gloating about it on Twitter, AND FOLKS LIKE YOU WOULD BE AT BRUNCH NOT GIVING A FUCK
The US Empire has continued to decay because of the “lesser evilist” mantra. The way out is worker organizing.
Ok dude while yes voting for the lesser evil is not the best option it’s still better than just letting the evil evil win. Until there is another candidate that has a real chance of winning that is not a Democrat or a Republican then voting for the lesser evil is our best shot. We may not have another election because Trump is in power or at the bear minimum these next 3 and a bit years are going to fucking suck the first year already has.
the lesser evil in this last election still meant doing a genocide.
The question then is, what is the lesser evil?
And regardless of the answer, why is the “lesser evil” doing maximum genocide?
No, the best shot for positive change is abandoning electoralism and organizing directly. That’s the point of the meme.
So you just say fuck it for the time being and just watch people’s family’s be ripped apart because you didn’t vote for the lesser evil? (For this administration I know it wasn’t because of people not voting trump was just way more popular than Harris)
You know the lesser evil is also ripping families apart right? What part of organize directly did you not understand? You don’t have to just watch.
It’s absolutely incredible how stunted people are in their political thinking that they’re unable to imagine any meaningful political action aside from pulling a lever every 4 years. The west is so cooked.
I can imagine more meaningful political action than pulling a lever every 4 years but you can both pull the lever and do the political action it doesn’t have to be one or the other
If y’all actually did meaningful political action then you wouldn’t be living under a fascist regime today lmfao
Where do you live that it’s not going to shit? There pretty much isn’t anywhere that isn’t trying to turn into a hell scape currently
I live in a shithole western country too. The fact that my country is going to shit doesn’t preclude me from understanding why. Meanwhile, if you want to see a country that’s not going to shit just go look at China or Vietnam.
No, you organize directly.
…yes voting for the lesser evil is not the best option it’s still better than just letting the evil evil win.
Who said that we should just let the evil win? I don’t see that anywhere.
It’s so weird to me how many people accept the binary that’s been handed to them. As though the ones that hand you that choice would ever let one of the options be to your advantage.
The meme is literally about not voting for the lesser evil (which is currently the only other actual option in our political system) that in turn means letting the evil win
which is currently the only other actual option in our political system
Premise: false
Isn’t it weird how continuing to do the things that got us here, isn’t fixing the problems that were created? I wonder why that could be. I guess we’ll never know.
What’s the answer then?
I’m not sure that you’re gonna find “The Answer” that you want on here, but this is my attempt: Vote for someone that isn’t the lesser evil. Self Organize on a local level. Fight fascist supporters even when they pretend to be the good guys. Unionize.
