i feel like not voting might actually be more effective for anyone further left than the democrats, if enough of us dont vote the democrats wont win an election until they make themselves worthy of being voted for.
and if the democrats dont make meaningful changes to their policy and the decline of the amerikkkan empire accelerates under continuous fascist administration, perhaps the degraded material conditions will facilitate a pro gamer moment from the proletariat :big-cool:
on the other hand, if the left keeps voting for the democrats amerikkkan hegemony will decline more slowly and by the time the material conditions for a pro gamer moment arise domestically it will already be too late, and human civilization will likely collapse under the strain of climate change and unchecked environmental exploitation.
The problem with this take is that it assumes the leadership of the Democrats actually give a rats ass about winning elections. The people at the top care about two things: staying on top of the party, and keeping the donations rolling in. When they lose, the message to the left is how dare you, but the message to the normies is, omg the most evil of all evil republicans is in power and democracy is on the line you need to donate now! And they do, and the party bigwigs stay flush with cash. If anything it’s the sort of hyper majority the libs fantasize about that scares them the most because then they’d have no excuses for failing to deliver to those that imagine themselves the base.
Also, accelerationism is a fools gambit, no proletariat gamer moment is going to spring spontaneously into existence if things just get bad enough. Only organization, building alternative power structures, will set the working class up for seizing power.
Yep, the only benefit of the degradation of American hegemony is the harm reduction to the imperial periphery. If conditions actually got bad as to cause some sort of coup in the US, it will almost certainly go to some Pentagon ghouls that can appease the boater kulaks.
I think there's some power in a protest vote, especially if it outflanks the DNC on its left.
A non-voter is easily written off by them as being an apolitical or apathetic citizen and it's less likely that the DNC will chase them.
A groundswell of votes for 3rd party candidates, even if they're just for Jill Stein or someone similar, is going to signal to the DNC "Hey, there's a large and growing contingent of active and engaged voters who are delegitimising your duopoly and you can either chase their votes by pushing left-leaning candidates and policy or you risk getting left behind". Obviously this is only under the circumstances that there's an actual groundswell of voters that are large enough to be taken seriously, although that could be as small as like half a percent - elections have been won by narrower margins than that in the past.
Do I think that this is a sufficient strategy to push someone like Biden left?
Absolutely not. (But it sure beats Va*sh's strategy to bully Biden left, which I'm almost certain that he's going to drop on his followers any day now...)
Do I think that electoralism is the path to achieving anything?
Almost certainly not, aside from the potential of maybe getting awareness and mainstream attention on key issues or of delegitimising the entire system of liberal democracy by revealing it for what it is (see: the disillusionment of the historical Bernie Bro).
But I do believe that if you're going to put any stock in the act of voting at all, you'd make a better case for a further-left protest vote than you would for a purposeful abstentionism.
You do you though. Nobody's gonna be looking over your shoulder when a ballot is under your nose and I'm convinced that voting is pretty insignificant so I don't think it's worth spending much time considering or discussing, and it's certainly not something worth starting a struggle session over (whether online or, Marx forbid, within any actual party/movement).
i feel like not voting might actually be more effective for anyone further left than the democrats, if enough of us dont vote the democrats wont win an election until they make themselves worthy of being voted for.
and if the democrats dont make meaningful changes to their policy and the decline of the amerikkkan empire accelerates under continuous fascist administration, perhaps the degraded material conditions will facilitate a pro gamer moment from the proletariat :big-cool:
on the other hand, if the left keeps voting for the democrats amerikkkan hegemony will decline more slowly and by the time the material conditions for a pro gamer moment arise domestically it will already be too late, and human civilization will likely collapse under the strain of climate change and unchecked environmental exploitation.
The problem with this take is that it assumes the leadership of the Democrats actually give a rats ass about winning elections. The people at the top care about two things: staying on top of the party, and keeping the donations rolling in. When they lose, the message to the left is how dare you, but the message to the
normies is, omg the most evil of all evil republicans is in power and democracy is on the line you need to donate now! And they do, and the party bigwigs stay flush with cash. If anything it’s the sort of hyper majority the 
libs fantasize about that scares them the most because then they’d have no excuses for failing to deliver to those that imagine themselves the base.
Also, accelerationism is a fools gambit, no proletariat gamer moment is going to spring spontaneously into existence if things just get bad enough. Only organization, building alternative power structures, will set the working class up for seizing power.
Yep, the only benefit of the degradation of American hegemony is the harm reduction to the imperial periphery. If conditions actually got bad as to cause some sort of coup in the US, it will almost certainly go to some Pentagon ghouls that can appease the boater kulaks.
I think there's some power in a protest vote, especially if it outflanks the DNC on its left.
A non-voter is easily written off by them as being an apolitical or apathetic citizen and it's less likely that the DNC will chase them.
A groundswell of votes for 3rd party candidates, even if they're just for Jill Stein or someone similar, is going to signal to the DNC "Hey, there's a large and growing contingent of active and engaged voters who are delegitimising your duopoly and you can either chase their votes by pushing left-leaning candidates and policy or you risk getting left behind". Obviously this is only under the circumstances that there's an actual groundswell of voters that are large enough to be taken seriously, although that could be as small as like half a percent - elections have been won by narrower margins than that in the past.
Do I think that this is a sufficient strategy to push someone like Biden left?
Absolutely not. (But it sure beats Va*sh's strategy to bully Biden left, which I'm almost certain that he's going to drop on his followers any day now...)
Do I think that electoralism is the path to achieving anything?
Almost certainly not, aside from the potential of maybe getting awareness and mainstream attention on key issues or of delegitimising the entire system of liberal democracy by revealing it for what it is (see: the disillusionment of the historical Bernie Bro).
But I do believe that if you're going to put any stock in the act of voting at all, you'd make a better case for a further-left protest vote than you would for a purposeful abstentionism.
You do you though. Nobody's gonna be looking over your shoulder when a ballot is under your nose and I'm convinced that voting is pretty insignificant so I don't think it's worth spending much time considering or discussing, and it's certainly not something worth starting a struggle session over (whether online or, Marx forbid, within any actual party/movement).