Voting matters. Y’all should grow up. Yes, voting doesn’t solve everything but it clearly matters.
Babe it's 4pm, time for LiberalSocialist to demonstrate a weird sudden regression in their political awareness before lurching forward again
The democrats still control both chambers until next year. They’re refusing to do a god damn thing. Ukraine gets a trillion dollars every 2 weeks. What the fuck do we get?
I don’t know. But they don’t put forth anti-lgbt and anti-abortion bills either, which if the Republicans get control of the govnermnt, they definitely would. Voting for Dems to prevent that is reason enough.
Which is why :i-voted: for democrats. But refusing to do anything when you have power is one thing, refusing to do anything when your power is going to disappear in 2 months is no different than being a fascist in my eyes.
They have access to the lifeboats and they’re just standing around while republicans are shooting everyone to get to the lifeboats to burn them.
And 100% of that 1% were hexbear users!!! You know it's true!!! When in doubt, blame the socialists!!!! :so-true:
It’s only a certain segment of online socialists who advocate for “both sides are equally bad” and that we shouldn’t vote for either of them.
And as we all know, online socialists make up for the majority of non-voters.
Non-voters certainly do not represent the average alienated working-class voter.
This is a materialist take. :very-intelligent:
I’m not gonna go dunk on average prole workers for not voting for Dems. I get them not voting because of time, energy or just lack of faith.
What I can’t stand is people who say “not voting” is actually the correct stance to take!!!
Well, the non-voting masses are operating on the same line of thinking. Whether we want it or not, they will keep operating in that way, as long as the establishing remains the same. Yes, having everyone vote for the lesser evil would improve conditions somewhat, but that is idealistic wishing. People don't operate according to the most morally positive action, they act according to the conditions they live in.
And so the discussion that should be had is why so much of the American population ( or in any liberal democratic country ) continues behaves that way, and what would be an effective way to channel that apathy into a new kind of energy.
Personally I think the democratic party needs to fail before any sort of progressive party, let alone leftist party can form. They have shown that they won't stop reaching right so I basically look at this as a long or short term benefit choice.
Also in regards to
Yes, having everyone vote for the lesser evil would improve conditions somewhat, but that is idealistic wishing.
While a little nitpicky, I think it is important to make the distinction that the Democrats have never shown any interest in improving conditions and will only (slightly) slow their decay. They will never deliver on the sort of change that is large enough to be meaningful
The difference between slightly slowing decay and even slow improvement is such an important one
or just lack of faith.
why should leftists have faith in the Democrats
Biden was never going to pass an abortion bill or other things, and if he really cared he would push the party to rush that stuff through during the lame duck session.
Voting doesn't matter. I know because :i-voted:
Biden was never going to pass an abortion bill, sure. But Biden will never pass a nation wide transitioning ban. Trump would.
Absence of evil without the codification of good just delays the inevitable codification of evil.
Good. Let's fucking delay the god damned evil instead of letting it proceed unimpeded please.
Yup. That is what leftists advocate for. Not for an organization around the actual mechanisms of working class power. Nope, just standing around and doing nothing.
Under your strategy you will just end up with evil. Good job! :thumb-cop:
Did I ever say to stop doing praxis? If I did, I'm sorry, my mistake. But I don't remember saying anything about stopping doing praxis.
Idk, do you think voting for Democrats is praxis? Cause it isn't. It is just evil delayed.
Evil delayed is preferable to evil immediately.
And because it seems to be up in the air, let me just clarify that a single well placed Molotov cocktail is worth a million votes. But if there's such a fuss about bubbling in some circles on a sheet of paper for fifteen minutes a year to have a shot at buying trans kids another year or two, I know y'all don't have what it takes to riot when it really counts.
I just want to point out how absolutely bonkers this line of argumentation is to any Libyan, Syrian, Pakistani, Yemeni, Honduran, who else am I missing????....
It's kinda funny how reality makes a mockery of this kayfabe "lesser" evil bullshit, you think a kid getting torn to shreds by a drone missile gives a fuck about the so-called "lEser EvIliSm of uS doMeStiC pOlTics"
Don't play on morality and then expect people to vote for a foreign policy that is absolutely indistinguishable between parties and if NOT voting makes a person morally culpable for "something", then what does voting for people who drone children do to your morality, hmmm? Or is politics all about convenience?
Every person who shouts about how democrats are the lesser evil should, for the good of humanity, be strapped into the clockwork orange machine and made to watch the collateral murder tape for a month.
fifteen minutes a year
Congrats on the well-functioning voting apparatus in your area. In mine it’s 6 hours and a day of lost wages. I still do it for the reasons you’re stating and because local elections are more competitive, but that’s just a nonstarter for a lot of people. Like, there are systemic reasons for people not voting. It’s not all moral failing
If you keep nagging people to vote for evil delayed, they will not trust you to ever codify good, and therefore when you claim that you will, they will rightfully point at you and proclaim "Liar!".
You vote on election day and spend the rest of your time organizing. That is all I'm saying. Come election day, you vote for the Democrats. Why? Because they're better (less bad) than the alternative.
you know you can just read hexbear.net, right? you don't actually have to post
The only way he'd be able to do that is if he managed to get back into power, and the only way he could get back into power is if the Dems don't do enough to keep the GOP out of the White House. If they lose, it's on them for not earning left wing and working class votes and for not un-gerrymandering the electoral districs or fundamentally reforming the electoral college whilst they had a majority.
As it stands they're holding women's and LGBT rights to ransom, but after Roe v Wade was overturned, we know now that they can't even protect what rights already exist. From what I can tell from the other side of the Atlantic, Americans don't really have any incentive to vote if they're not already living comfortably.
No. :gigachad:
Fr tho: Even if the Dems kept the House, they would've just trotted out Manchin or Sinema like they always do so they don't actually have to do anything they promised.
That’s just cope. Biden was gonna put forth an abortion bill and Manchin and Sinema (who’re in the Senate btw not the House) would’ve done jack shit against it.
That’s just cope. Biden was gonna put forth an abortion bill and Manchin and Sinema (who’re in the Senate btw not the House) would’ve done jack shit against it.
Why didn't he do that before the midterms?
I know he could’ve pushed for the bill before, or even now, but that doesn’t excuse not voting for the Dems. The otherside are literal fascists. Just see what bills they’re passing in Florida and Texas and stuff. The mere fact that the Dems wouldn’t pass anti-gay, anti-trans and anti-abortion bills is enough reason to vote for them.
I disagree with not voting for harm reduction, but viewing it as a primarily individual failing is liberal bullshit. Systemic problems exist for systemic reasons.
Yeah systemic solutions are definitely needed. But in this case the Reps won the House with less than 1% votes in these districts. At this stage, your individual votes definitely matter!!! That’s the point of the post!
Lmao, no they don't. Less than one percent doesn't mean my vote mattered.
Oh, did my one vote stop them from winning by less than a percent?
No, youre being ridiculous, and I am taking your argument at face value instead of arguing with what I think you're trying to articulate so you can understand why what you're saying is wrong and modify it to not be ridiculous.
Oh do you do get what I’m saying and just not want to engage with it. The fact that voting matters especially when it comes to these tight races that can make the different between capitalism and fascism and the ideology of not voting because “both sides bad” hurts our progressive cause and hurts the people we’re trying to protect.
No. I dont understand what youre trying to say. I can at most guess. Which is why I'm pointing out what youre actually saying is gobblyremoved and asking you to articulate your actual thoughts in a coherent way.
Maybe you should do some introspection on what your thoughts are here then. Writing things out can be helpful to organize and develop them for a lot of people
:biden-forgor: oh shoot he just forgot to accomplish the entire 2020 democratic platform. We just gotta give him ONE MORE CHANCE, it'll be different this time, they super duper swear and pinky promise.
With the Dems, there's always an excuse.
They would've found their House versions of those 2, as many as they needed.
If the Dems actually cared about these things, they would've codified them a long time ago and not waited until after Roe was overturned.
The Dems being shit is no excuse to not vote for them, when, as I’ve said, the opponents are literally fascists. The Dems can be as useless and neoliberal shills as possible, but they’re not the ones taking away trans and gay and women’s rights.
This is just the "lesser of 2 evils" argument, one everyone here is already thoroughly familiar with, and either doesn't agree with it or does.
Odds are, no one here's minds are gonna be changed either way at this point, especially not with condescending "grow up" language.
The Soviet Union allied with the US and the UK because they were the lesser evil compared to the Nazis.
The Soviet Union allied with the US and the UK because they were the lesser evil compared to the Nazis.
Okay but the US and UK were actually contributing to beating the Nazis
It isnt a good analogy at all. The equivalent would be the USSR allying with people who claimed to oppose nazi-ism while arming the freikorps
in your other post you identified the GOP as literal fascists (yes). who are the Dems analogous to in this comparison?
Biden was gonna put forth an abortion bill and Manchin and Sinema (who’re in the Senate btw not the House) would’ve done jack shit against it.
on what possible basis are you making that claim. Biden litterally had the house and the senate and didn't do this.
I doubt they would have passed meaningful abortion legislation even if they kept the House. As someone else pointed out, they already have the House and still haven't done it. Why was that not all they were focused on since the Supreme Court decision was leaked?
That said, it's easier to criticize electoral politics when you vote (so libs can't turn the conversation around and blame you) and when Democrats are in power but ineffective. For someone real invested in voting, radicalization happens when they win but don't get the result they wanted.
Exactly! I was turned when I wanted Sanders and the Clintons and the Dem establishment literally fucked him over (while the Republicans let Trump win because the capitalists knew he wasn’t gonna do shit against them).
Damn if only Democrats used their majority in the house and senate over the last two years to do it but failed because they don't actually want to pass it or anything like it, just hold it over your head to make you dance.
Agreed, this is just cringy shit
Voting matters, Biden said he will do things!
Every fucking lib president in my lifetime has said they will do M4A and some bullshit about abortion being codified
None of them did anything, except Obama and his insane healthcare plan that he completely caved on.
bUt He SaId
I don't give a fuck what president Joe "Crime "Hyde "Urban Jungles" Amendment" Bill" Biden fucking said unless he said he was gonna go swallow a 12 gauge. Shaming people for not voting for useless libs is stupid; we have no idea how to get to leftism, but it sure isn't going to happen via rigged bougie electoralism.
Ed: Also this website has like 20k members, not all of whom are even active; if everyone here somehow lived in the right spots and voted, some libs STILL lose. Somebody needs to grandstand elsewhere.
Yeah guys, Biden's abortion bill! That thing he was totally going to do!!!
As I replied to @MeatfuckerDidNothing:
You still vote for the dems even if they’re centrists. Because the opponents are literally FASCISTS. Right now, YOU are the one who’s letting fascists control the government because of your hatred of centrists and neoliberals. Even the Soviet Union allied with the US and UK when it came time to fight the Nazis. Why won’t you do the same?
Wow. Could you not use a right-wing misogynist caricature?
You're pretty much literally reciting what the person pictured said. Like almost word-for-word.
Yeah 100%. Capitalism is the fuel that creates Fascism to defends itself. The Nazis came in power (rather than the socialists :ussr-cry:) because of capitalism. But you still vote for the neoliberals against the fascists. The USSR didn’t declare war on the entire world during WW2. They allied with the capitalists to defeat the fascists.
Right now, YOU are the one who’s letting fascists control the government because of your hatred of centrists and neoliberals.
that's just like...not how voting works. i did vote for dems btw, in races that ended up being close and important for senate and gubernatorial positions. but WE, we the voters that is, have little to do with who controls the government because we don't pick who runs and we don't have power to control what they do when they get there. in 2020, dems had a better position than they currently do, and yet did very little. they could have protected abortion before it was overturned, they could have pressured rbg to resign before she died in office, etc. etc. etc. if it weren't joe manchin and kristin sinema being the individual embodiments of a block to popular policy, they would simply be leading a slightly larger cohort of right-wing dems that would form an anti-anything-good voting bloc. how much do they need to have the senate by for you to not make excuses for them?
I 100% get your point and agree with it. Dems, as an institution, are bad. So are the Republicans. My whole point is that the Republicans, as seen by recent anti-trans, anti-gay and anti-abortion bills in their states, are gonna sink to levels of depravity the Dems wouldn’t.
Sure, maybe, Biden lied and even if we won the House, he wouldn’t have put forth an abortion bill. I think he would’ve but I can understand why people think otherwise.
BUT if you have a Dem House, you won’t have anti-trans and anti-abortion bills either! Which is a distinct possibility in a republican government. Maybe not right now, but in 2024?
BUT if you have a Dem House, you won’t have anti-trans and anti-abortion bills either! Which is a distinct possibility in a republican government.
that's the rub. this is a very short-sighted thing to struggle with us about ideologically. you're absolutely right, pretty much the best median behavior you can expect from a dem-led governing coalition is a bit of respite from active harm, and that's if you're not black or an immigrant or someone in a part of the third world that we're currently bombing. when dems refuse to go solve people's problems, it's simply a matter of time before the fascist flood gates burst. spending energy thinking about, much less arguing about, voting and who's doing it hard enough is energy that you're not using figuring out how to build power for when the dem "do no harm by doing nothing at all, probably" coalition collapses terminally. it doesn't really matter whether they would or wouldn't end up trying to put out an abortion bill. if they did, it's only so little respite from the very real reactionary material forces that are building up as the internal stability of the imperial system breaks down as it is.
That’s a good point. My idea is not to just vote and keep voting for the Dems in hopes that things never get worse. You vote for the Dems and then use that time of respite to build up organisations for socialism and solidarity.
But I did vote for them. :i-voted: If they wanted more people to vote for them, they should have run better candidates.
Even if the Dem candidates are bad, you still vote for them because the other side is running nazis.
And the dems were funding those nazis because they don't care.
Yeah as I’ve said countless times. Dems are bad. But they’re not fascists. So you side with the Dems against the fascists.
But they’re not fascists
Approximately one million Iraqis, 2 million prison slaves, an indeterminate number of concentration camp tenants and an ever-growing list of police murder victims would like a word with you
To be unreasonably fair, liberals are also genocidal, it isnt an exclusive feature of fascism.
Sure, but now we're at the point of splitting hairs about who at the table are nazis and who at the table are simply arming, funding and refusing to hinder the nazis while also doing nazi shit
Iraq happened under Bush. But yeah, I get your point. Dems are bad. They’re capitalists. But just look at the anti-trans, anti-gay, anti-abortion legislation passing around in Rep states right now. Do you want that nationally?
Iraq happened under Bush
And the useless complicit fucks in the democratic party all voted for it. The president isn't king, I was very young at the time but I still remember every adult around me, even the so-called peace lovers, calling for the middle east to be nuked. I refuse to allow anyone to memory hole this.
But just look at the anti-trans, anti-gay, anti-abortion legislation passing around in Rep states right now. Do you want that nationally?
The last several decades have demonstrated comprehensively that what I want does not matter, as I am not in a position of power. You should instead be asking that question to the useless complicit fucks in the democratic party, because it would appear from their complete spineless inaction, nauseating displays of performative helplessness and seemingly pathological urge to please the fascists with needless 3/5ths-style compromises that they do, in fact, want that nationally.
That’s a good point. The Dems are, I guess, as bad as the Reps on a lot of issues. But I don’t see any issue where they’re worse while there are plenty where the Reps are just outright evil.
They don't need to be worse themselves when they just hand control over to the fascists at every opportunity. If there was a serial killer around, and I took people's donations promising to keep them safe, only to hand the gore-streaked maniac their housekeys as soon as I saw him, I would rightfully be convicted as an accomplice.
you are always posting the dopiest shit and it's getting harder and harder to believe you're not doing it on purpose
