Q: why not organize and stop treating the bus as a legitimate entity? why aren’t you working to stop the bus?
A: do both. cut the fuel line. break windows. put oatmeal in the gas tank. but maybe your efforts don’t succeed this election cycle. and if so don’t fucking throw away your vote if it can help your neighbors fucking survive. “harm reduction” is not a political strategy for action. it is a last minute, end of the line decision to save lives, after all other resources have been exhausted.
ITT: people calling for revolution who will never do a damn thing about it. It's easy to pretend violence is the answer when you'll never participate, let alone start something.
Way too many of these chucklefucks just want to LARP as pure and radical revolutionaries. My wife and I are disabled and live on a fixed income of her disability payments and the SNAP program. If this "revolution" they want so bad does come, then we're among the most likely to just fucking starve in the disruption. I'm also one of the people the GOP declared they want to "Eradicate from Public Life" with Project 2025.
Now, I'm not much of a Genocide Enjoyer. I think it's one of the worst things you can do in fact. But I also don't take too kindly to being effectively told that I specifically should just die because these wannabe revolutionaries refuse to entertain a world where we both vote for Biden to keep Trump from destroying democracy more than the GOP already has (harm reduction), AND engage in direct action to push Biden away from blindly supporting Israel.
And then they think they’ll be part of the vanguard when the power vacuum opens up, and will give way to a glorious socialist utopia. Guess what, turbo, you’ll be up against that wall too, and it’s just going to be roving gangs of authoritarians.
As easy as it is to vote, its even easier to whine about why not doing it is better(?) Maybe?
Then they come at u like theyre so very superior for not voting. Like theyre going to start a revolution by yelling at the people supposedly closest to them in ideology. Bc, clearly, voting is only done by libs, so if u advocate for voting ur a superlib. Then theyll simp for china or russia, and act like even neoliberal countries dont have leftist parties attempting to participate in the government theyre so keen on making u forsake.
Almost like theres a vested interest in there... somewhere.....
Yeah because the guy promising to end democracy and bring about Christian nationalism is exactly the same as the moderate we have now. I hope you’re getting paid to be that stupid.
”I won’t vote to support genocide!”
At the end of the day someone becomes president, and spoiler alert the other option is still worse. It’s cute you think your principles are more important than the safety and security of at-risk groups domestically (and frankly abroad as well). Short-sighted and idiotic.
”We might not even get ice cream!”
Okay well organize and protest that after we’ve avoided the cliff.
”Haha Americans are stupid for the entrenched political system that they find themselves in”
Hope you enjoy your five minutes of smugness, because a Christian nationalist USA doesn’t benefit anyone in the world in the long run.
a lot of the individuals ITT are here in good faith i believe. i’m more trying to get meaningful change to happen than sow discord by calling them morons.
It's so weird to see it framed as an either/or. Voting is the absolute bare minimum you can do to participate. So yeah go vote, and also organize your friends and network with like minded people around you and work towards the change you want. I doubt any of the ideologically pure abstainers here have even ever turned out to vote much less actually worked on a campaign.
The cliff drivers aren't getting off the bus, even if we vote them down this time, if we don't change the system that allows them equal opportunity to drive us off a cliff they will eventually force it off the cliff.
Biden has long supported the system that allows it, prides himself on being able to find a middle ground with them, and though he talks about not going over the cliff has no long term plan for dealing with those that do, because again he believes in the system that allows them to want to drive off the cliff.
I believe I've stretched this metaphor about as far as it will go, but I'm going to try stretching it further.
There are actually two cliffs, fascism and climate change, even if we pull the bus away from one cliff we've still got the other in front of us and basically no one is even pretending to deal with that.
And to leave the broken bus scenario, I'm just going to say if you believe that a trump win will destroy American democracy, that we can't defeat his corrupt, senile version of fascism then the next republican demagogue will have no problems.
People keep acting like we have forever to make change. Meanwhile we are in the midst of a literal climate crisis, and people are literally starving to death with the help of U.S. dollars.
The problem is that "moderates" are very conservative and fascist-leaning as well. The Biden administration is still funding genocide, still turning away asylum-seeking migrants, hell Biden hasn't even followed through on releasing prisoners convicted of marijuana convictions.
And people ARE protesting now, but not as much as under Trump, and these things haven't changed. Biden allows barely engaged liberals to think everything is okay, but Biden is still AWFUL he just has better optics to liberals.
Yeah, I agree that it’s a shit situation and an undesirable choice. But the unfortunate political reality we currently live in is that it’s either Biden or Trump.
Yes, the Biden administration is supplying weapons to Israel that are being used for genocide. Trump has commented that Israel needs to “finish the problem.”
Yes, the Biden administration is turning away asylum seekers on our southern border. Trump has said that migrants are “poisoning the blood” of our nation.
But I will again will contrast that Trump rescinded the Obama-era policy of not pursuing marijuana charges at the federal level in states where it was legal. A clear and significant step backward.
Here’s the fucking frighting thing, the moderates I know(relatives mostly) hate Biden because of the price of gas and groceries, that he isn’t killing everyone trying to cross the southern border, and believe Trump will be better for America in these crazy times. It’s fucking depressing to hear
That Christian Nationalist USA is already present. It's emboldening is inevitable due to the inaction from Democrats and especially Biden: the alleged "moderate" president.
Biden is also actively arming a genocide in Gaza. A move I would say is extremely far from moderate in any position. Trump is a horrible choice for president. It was true in 2016 and it's true now. But if Biden refuses to do even the barest of minimums to defeat him in an election what does that say about Biden?
So sure, call it smugness, call it idiotic or whatever bullshit; continue to vilify those tired of voting for bullshit candidates and inaction. I'm sure that will help prove your point; as Biden does literally nothing to combat any of increasingly tense situations rising in the US under his tenure.
Please don’t misunderstand me: I’m not thrilled about the situation either.
But I’m also not going to coddle anyone that thinks making things significantly worse for untold millions to maintain some kind of ideological purity makes them somehow superior or less culpable.
If I have to read one more both sides are terrible "take" that encourages voter apathy I'm going to lose my mind. Vote, people I don't care who you vote for but you have to vote because apathy is how we get fascism.
Do something rather than just throwing a piss fit and encouraging others to do nothing.
Vote, people I don't care who you vote for but you have to vote because apathy is how we get fascism.
Nervous German laughter
We will probably get fascism with our next federal state's election, since AFD is projected to win by far more votes than any other party. Whelp.
I've met a young mom who, while not voting for AFD itself, does hope they will win the election because "then the voters will finally get heard and we also get to see what the party actually wants to implement, otherwise it's just big talk but it's interesting to see what they would do once they are in power." ...Can we not find out please? I hope it would just be big talk but I really don't care to find out. I am superwhite but I don't have a German passport and I don't want to know.
But back to the actual topic, I absolutely agree with you and not voting is always, always a bad idea. Hell, not two weeks ago I went to Berlin, paid for a hotel and stood in a long line to vote for the rigged elections in Russia. I know my voice will not be heard and it still felt imperative. Please, please go vote if you're in the USA ( - or anywhere where your voice will actually at least be counted). I hate to say it but our future also depends on what your country decides.
Not very versed in French politics but I imagine the fight to maintain democracy is difficult regardless of country. No matter how bad the choice gets though, not making it isn't the answer.
D- does that mean youve still a mind? C-c- could we m-maybe sh-share?
Cuz I feel like itd come in handy when the foreign shills show up to tell me all about why the problem you just described is ackswallee not here on lemmy at all..... i guess we just that special.
This analogy is so absurd. Like if you have a vote on driving off a cliff, the answer is not to treat the vote as legitimate. The answer is to attempt to stop the bus by any means necessary. Pry open the engine panel and chuck a wrench in the gears, cut the fuel line, break the shifter lever, anything, just get off the fucking bus. Neither driver should be trusted.
EDIT: I am sick of hearing "WHY WON'T YOU VOTE THO"
First of all, I already said this:
The only reason to vote for the less-immediate cliff driver is to give you more time to stop the bus.
That's the other problem with this post: the non-voter is a strawman. Most people with real critiques of the bus vote too because they understand this. Voting barely matters for the most part but you may as well do it. Most people yelling about "don't vote it's pointless" are like 15 years old doing baby's first radical politics.
I just don't understand why every time we criticise the bus we have to deal with loads of people yelling about why we don't take the voting more seriously, as if who we vote for is the bigger issue than the fact that we're stuck on a careening death machine with a bunch of people calmly debating how fast we should all die.
I think the answer to this is: so, what are you doing to stop the bus from going over the cliff that's better than voting? And can't you do both of them?
Because usually people aren't doing much else. Especially anything effective. They're just not voting.
This comment is why you're getting this spiel, because you need to understand something:
They’re just not voting.
The people who don't vote are usually the most disenfranchised people, living paycheck to paycheck, stuck in survival mode, and they don't care who's in charge because they've noticed through hard lessons that they keep getting screwed no matter what. Also often they can't vote because they can't get off work. They're not terminally online yelling at people not to vote, those are probably mostly kids doing baby's first radical politics.
The sad reality is that electoral politics has a cold calculus to it where they've got the populace cut into rough thirds. About a third are susceptible to full on fascist propaganda and cannot currently be reached. Another third vote centre-left because they usually understand it's their only reasonable vote. Very few of them are actively engaged because it is a deeply disempowering system. Another third are who I mentioned.
That's not going to change just because you correctly debated with me about voting. I vote as far left as I meaningfully can, I just don't think it really matters and I think both psychologically and practically the faster people learn that the better.
I think understanding reality is much more important, and I think the fact that this insane bus analogy gets accepted paints a grim picture of how fucked up the electoral system really is. I also think it's wrong about the stakes - it's not cliff or icecream. It's cliff or slower cliff. Vote for the slower cliff, but don't ever mistake the drivers for your friends. You are voting for your preferred enemy.
But maaaan, if we all, like, protest vote, they'll have to change the system because they, like, knew what it meant when we chose to not participate in their broken system, man.
cut the fuel line. break windows. put oatmeal in the gas tank.
but maybe your efforts don’t succeed this election cycle. and if so don’t fucking throw away your vote if it can help your neighbors fucking survive.
“harm reduction” is not a political strategy for action. it is a last minute, end of the line decision to save lives, after all other resources have been exhausted.
in response to your edit:
“the non-voter is a strawman.”
objectively false. in the 2020 election more eligible US voters turned out than any election in recent history, and still those who did not vote outnumbered those who voted for the winner. you are saying falsehoods.
How many commenters here have even tried to figure out how ‘busses’ (the electoral process) work and find a way to get involved?
Spend 5 hours a week (yes, you can find the time, deduct it from your screen time!) and you could basically take over your local party committee. That alone won’t change the national trend, but you might just be able to influence a city council or school board race.
Local races hinge on a handful of votes very often. In our area, we managed to keep two anti-LGBTQ+ candidates off the school board last election. This impacts the lives of literally thousands of youth and their families and it hinged on about 80 votes. Vote, yes, but at least skim the Chilton manual for your bus in between elections. It really does matter
The people who don't vote are usually the most disenfranchised people, living paycheck to paycheck, stuck in survival mode, and they don't care who's in charge because they've noticed through hard lessons that they keep getting screwed no matter what. Also often they can't vote because they can't get off work. They're not terminally online yelling at people not to vote, those are probably mostly kids doing baby's first radical politics.
The sad reality is that electoral politics has a cold calculus to it where they've got the populace cut into rough thirds. About a third are susceptible to full on fascist propaganda and cannot currently be reached. Another third vote centre-left because they usually understand it's their only reasonable vote. Very few of them are actively engaged because it is a deeply disempowering system. Another third are who I mentioned.
That's not going to change just because you correctly debated with me about voting. I vote as far left as I meaningfully can, I just don't think it really matters and I think both psychologically and practically the faster people learn that the better.
I think understanding reality is much more important, and I think the fact that this insane bus analogy gets accepted paints a grim picture of how fucked up the electoral system really is. I also think it's wrong about the stakes - it's not cliff or icecream. It's cliff or slower cliff. Vote for the slower cliff, but don't ever mistake the drivers for your friends. You are voting for your preferred enemy.
My logic is what about vote and pry the bus apart? If you have the option to might as well go for it as part of the 'any means necessary', a tool is a tool.
Our current government is mediocre as shit and does nothing to fix anything. We take 5 steps towards the edge of the cliff each time Liberal get in and two steps forward and half a step back when Labor do. The end result is we’re going over the cliff, just in slow motion.
Oh okay, sorry, I had a whole political activist strategy that takes local action and builds on that to make people's lives better and eventually put serious pressure on the overarching system, but since you said "nothing", I guess the answer is "nothing".
I mean you're wrong, but you don't sound like you want to hear the real answer.
Wouldn't cutting the brake lines of a moving bus be really dangerous? Why not vote for ice cream, then sabotage the bus while it's parked? At least the ice cream place has food, shelter, and a bathroom.
I think it's selective misunderstanding. Dealing with the knowledge that voting won't really achieve much is super uncomfortable, so they'd rather pretend that you said "don't vote" so they don't have to think about what you really said.
Another way is pretending that you don't actually mean it. Stopping the bus seems impossible to them, so they assume you must not actually be doing anything about it, but that's wrong too. It's just most people think of revolution in terms of storming the Bastille or whatever, they don't realise that most of the work is constant, basic, on the ground, building mutual aid networks, because in a world where people starve because they don't have enough money, feeding people is a radical act.
Oh because of the violence? Driving off a cliff is also violent behaviour, and with the bus as it is the cliff is inevitable, because the cliff drivers will always get back in. Also, the other guy isn't the icecream guy. He's the guy who promised to stop for icecream but doesn't want to tell you if or how fast he plans to drive off the cliff. He's open to debate on the issue, but he has a lot cliff driving friends and they often cast the deciding vote in cliff driving matters.
They're both getting us off the cliff, just one is being more coy and circumspect than the other.
The only reason to vote for the less-immediate cliff driver is to give you more time to stop the bus.
This is a long established problem with FPTP voting (FPTP = First Past The Post: One voter = one vote). You don't really get to vote for your choice candidate, rather you vote against the worst of the two popular candidates by voting for the other guy.
Now there are plenty of election reform solutions, but in the US, both parties are weakened by the people having more choice, so neither party is willing to back amendments to the Constitution of the United States that would install a more public serving voting system.
This also means, according to CIA analysts who have studied nations on the brink and how they can avoid civil war, the US is very likely to see a civil war in its near future (next decade). But then we're also likely to see elections neutered anyway, so that the Republican party controls all elected positions (and appointed ones after that). And then local genocides can get underway.
So yes, if you're voting to make a point (other than you want the Heritage Foundation's Project 2025 to play out or want to delay it for a while) the point won't be heard. In fact, the Republicans and their foreign national propaganda machine supporters are probably very glad you're willing to withhold blue votes to make a point. It won't make that point, but they're glad for you for trying.
Taking a wild guess here, I suspect people not voting comes from a number of addressable causes. Here in the States, we are far more enamored with capitalism than Democracy, and the way we regard our civic duties (e.g. trying to get out of jury duty, mostly due to the hardship it would cause by skipping work without pay). We work our labor class so hard they are too exhausted to parent, cook or engage in health activities, much less engage in civics. It doesn't help that this is exactly how our plutocratic masters want it.
After we address allowing people the time to think about what they want from government, and voting accordingly, then we can start looking into giving the people actual agency in their destinies, toward which election reform is only one front.
But all this is to say the United States doesn't really try very hard to get the people to engage in civics. Rather, it would really prefer that we lie down and let ourselves be ruled by the wealthy according to their ideals and business interests. That, of course, brings us back to the same problems feudalism has: one Joffrey or Caligula or John of England / Richard II can bring to ruin all that a dozen prior generations have built up. Even Charles III is living up to the traditional standards of monarchy, and the UK has a parliament and a constitution with which to keep his shenanigans in check. (Parliament is up to its own shenanigans to turn the UK hardline fascist, but that's another discussion.)
In elementary school government and western civilization class, we learn that we vote so that the government does what we want it to. But we quickly learn (sometimes as soon as intermediate or high-school) that our agency in selecting our government is very, very limited, and historian careers have been built on the corruption of government into an oligarchy with trivial democratic features.
Except right now, those trivial democratic features are the last line of defense between the two party state and a one-party autocracy. It's a state of affairs that shows not only did we take a wrong turn, but we're on a fast train to somewhere we never should have gone. Curiously, the never-Trump conservatives have been pouring billions into the proverbial railroad that lead us to Trump and the next line of Musolinni-wannabe strongman dictators. They didn't just buy the ticket, but laid the rails.
And RCV (ranked choice voting) isn’t really that much better. It has potential to be better if everyone voted honestly, but voting is a game.
STAR (score then automatic runoff) is the best we can feasibly achieve. It’s easy to teach and our current voting systems can account for this with little to no update (unlike RCV). Please look into star and push for this locally, then we can get this on a state by state basis.
A PBS interview of retired analysts who'd spent their life studying regions of civil unrest and the conditions that lead to civil war. It was since the Biden administration began so it shouldn't be too hard to hunt down.
As for the neutered elections, this had been part of the Republican project REDMAP, but is laid out in the Heritage Foundation Project 2025 as well.
As much as you really fucking hate to hear it: Biden won both his primaries handedly. The only way Bernie had a shot is if they clowncarred it too long like the Republican nomination that led to Trump. The DNC did not drop the ball, the American voters chose Biden.
Liberalism is driving off a cliff and killing everyone because a third of people voted to do it.
There are 9 people on the bus. Five people vote to get shit burgers even though no one wants that, just because they think it will save them from the 3 people who vote to drive off the cliff. One person obstains. Two of the three people hijack the bus and drive off the cliff. Four of the five people blame the person who obstained as they drive off the cliff.
Fascists don't care if they win or lose. Voting can't save you once you've reached this point. You don't have slightly high blood pressure that you can treat by eating right. You have cancer. You fight the cancer with everything you have or you die.
Fascists do care about winning, that is why they pump so much money into being elected, as elections are one of the most frictionless paths to power. That's why they change the rules to make themselves more likely to be elected. That's why they try to disenfranchise people who would vote against them. A coup is a risky thing, which is why they take all paths to power which are available.
You fight the cancer with everything you have or you die.
The problem is, you don't have much. There isn't a robust labor movement in the US which could provide a front against fascism. Any small scale or individual struggle might help you personally and save lives, but it's not gonna stop the bus. At most it's gonna pull some of the people from it before it drives of the cliff.
If you want to fight the guys who're about to hijack the bus, you need time. As much time as possible to amass the response. Voting for shit burgers is just what gives you that sliver of it. This is the thing you keep doing to be able to keep going, not the saving grace.
Fascists want to win because it means there will be less resistence from liberals, not because they will abide by the law. That's a pretty important distinction that I don't think liberals can integrate right now.
A successful coup is indistinguishable from a legal election, which is why they create as much chaos as possible and sew distrust before elections.
I'm not saying voting is completely useless but I am saying that you are deluded if you think voting will save you. It might not even buy you more time. Organize now. Figure out how you're going to eat while you're fighting. Download army manuals and start reading them. Start talking to other people about what to do when Trump takes power (acknowledging that he will claim power reguarless if he wins or loses the election).
A coup is less likely to be successful if you promise to revolt no matter how a fascist takes power. They rely on tricking enough people in to cooperating. If enough people will riot, some of the ghouls who back the fascist will back off and you lower their chances of success.
You don't have time. Sure, vote anyway because it's a low effort thing that might buy you time. It's basically a free lottery ticket. You probably aren't going to win, but it will be really great if you do and it's super low effort. But you wouldn't take out a loan assuming that ticket will pay off. Act like voting won't actually buy you time, because it probably won't.
At most it's gonna pull some of the people from it before it drives of the cliff.
Vote for shit burgers or don't. The time to build a movement was 4 years ago before liberals decided to go back to brunch. The thing is that fascism requires the complicity of liberals. A very small group of people could beat the driver to death, take the keys, and park the bus. Liberals will work with fascists to resist those people because they think they'll get the keys back later and get ice cream. Liberals can't accept that there is no ice cream and there never was.
I'm surprised an instance like this is okay with people showing up and arguing why letting a transphobic fascist take power is actually not as bad as it sounds.
I'm pretty sure they left the Electoral College out of this hypothetical scenario. Because the reality is, no matter how the general population votes, the Electoral College makes the ultimate decision. So the electoral College mightve decided to go for ice cream even though most people wanted to go off a cliff or didn't care at all.
And even more realistic, the only two options would have been 1) going off a cliff or 2) exploding into flames. because those are fair analogies for the options we have for US president these days.
And that's why so many people don't want to vote. I don't want to go off a cliff or burst into flames. No. I don't want either of those things.
The OP has a point and for some reason you don't like it. I wonder which of the people you'd be in this analogy.
I understand feeling angry and dejected, but if you act like there's absolutely no hope, then there won't be. Votes still matter in this country. Maybe they're not counted in exactly the way you'd like, but they're still important, and they make a difference.
The OP said the option was between going off a cliff or going for ice cream.
I'm telling you in reality our options are going off a cliff or bursting into flames. And THAT is why people don't vote.
By the way, votes do not matter. The Electoral College trumps all. Every time I've ever voted for something, the opposite thing won. Votes don't fucking matter.
The only psyop is the media telling everyone that votes do matter.
Also, you vote for going off a cliff or the committee to investigate driving off of cliffs, with a moratorium on steering, braking or accelerating because hey Jack, settle down, we're trying. Then when the committee gets into power they tell you to look out the right hand window at the lovely view whilst they edge closer to the cliff on the other side, and if you try to point out that we're getting awfully close to that cliff, the committee says, "Oh, well, do you want the cliff driving maniac in charge? That's what you'll get if you keep criticising us." Then the bus bursts into flames because it's horrifically out of service and unsafe no matter who's driving.
this analogy still applies if the electoral college is in place, it just alters (worsens) the demographics of the situation. not sure why you think it invalidates the whole model; that is simply incorrect. the model still applies it is just more complicated in reality.
harm reduction is a last minute decision. it’s not the strategy for political action. yes i agree the situation is fucked. but at least let’s do our due diligence, and if we find that the explosion has a higher survival rate than the cliff, i’m going to do my damndest to stop the bus before i have to make that decision, but i will always choose the one that has even a marginal chance of saving more lives.
People need to lower their expectations about what voting is. It's like paying your taxes. It's not fun, you probably won't get what you want, and you have to do it every year. Also, individual votes don't really matter, especially if your candidate loses. And there's a ton of things in the way of getting things done so it's going to take a long time.
The fact that we invented so many voting systems that work better than the current ones, but pretty much every nation with actual elections keeps using the same old flawed methods is really disheartening.
4 vote to drive off the cliff at a slightly reduced speed, having been assured that they might get to look at a picture of some ice-cream, but only after democracy has been saved
Yeah, I really don't get this attitude on Lemmy. I get not wanting to crash the bus. But voting for the guy who at best will let the other guy crash the bus in the future or at worst crash the bus tomorrow isn't the answer.
I first thought that Lemmy was a little more of the early internet forums I remember, more anti-establishment, anarchist, left wing, but there's way too much "vote blue no matter who" which is the exact same mentality that has killed the Republican party. Is Candidate A an immoral shit bag? Doesn't matter; there's a D next to their name. Probably better than the guy with the R. Better not see if anyone else is on the list.
I can afford to vote my conscience. I live in a deeply red state, so my vote doesn't matter, something Democrats could try to fix, but they won't. Voting 3rd party does matter though, and it's the only way to truly affect real change and make a difference. It's the DNC and RNC's job to field a candidate who's worth your vote. If they don't do that, find someone who's worth it.
I would honestly recommend moving somewhere that federates with both lib and tankie servers because the tone/level of debate otherwise is pretty grim imho
And overhauling our voting system to become such a thing requires engagement in our current system
Specifically pushing for candidates that support it and expressing how important it is to people in your locality (yes you have to talk to people IRL) and to the representatives who win
This implies that engagement in the political process changes anything. It's been basically mathematically proven that rich people always get their way in our current system and the vast majority get almost nothing. Rich people don't want voting reform. This system is way easier for them to game.
This is written from an "I'm right, you're wrong" perspective. In real life, no one is running a drive off a cliff campaign, and the guy promising ice cream may not be able to deliver.
Also, fundamentally both left and right can make the argument the other side wants to run off a cliff.
It's not. In a christofascism, not everybody suffers. People just assume they will be in the not suffering group. If a bus runs off a cliff, not so much.
Like do these people actually think we get to vote on what the bus does? No, we're voting on the bus driver. We've got a screaming maniac and a doddering fool who keeps letting the maniac yank the wheel anyway, and they're both proven liars.
Pointing out that this situation is bad is not irresponsible. The irresponsible thing is to just vote and cheer on the fool because you're so afraid of the maniac.
Making a false equivalence between Biden and Trump is hilariously detached from reality, and you will have a really hard time convincing me you're arguing in good faith.
I love all the any means necessary people, like just vote for 5 seconds and get the damned ice cream. You don’t need to sabotage the bus, just act civilly inside the bus
political power is when you assure your leaders that there is nothing they could do to lose your vote short of fucking your mom and even then you would have to consider whether the other guy would fuck your mom worse
Nah, it’s the difference between a grassy cliff, and a muddy one. Doesn’t matter, still a fucking cliff.
To extrapolate your metaphor, I will vote, but for a third option: a dirt road. Yea I’ll be in the minority, but we are all good as dead anyway since everyone else including my state reps believe one cliff or the other is the path to Valhalla.
Haha! No trump is the muddy cliff. I don't know what the third option is yet. To be clear, I have plenty of reason to vote. But I also have plenty of reasons to not choose either candidate. Also, I happen to be in a red state which gives all of its electoral votes to one candidate, I will vote for who I want, since the outcome has already been determined.
I mean, even in your example, yes it does matter. They're both terrible choices, but the muddy cliff is likely to provide a softer, more survivable landing than the grassy one.
I was definitely not thinking about all the nuances beyond them both being cliffs. I think neither is good for America, and my gerrymandered state will go red regardless of votes.
Not voting is lazy in most circumstances for sure. What I hate is that people equate voting third party with not voting. I'm not voting blue. Y'all can't guilt me into it. I'm voting for a third party socialist. 😏
i gently would encourage you to look into game theory and the far reaching implications of the spoiler effect under first past the post
i do applaud your commitment to morally tenable candidates, however many folks find there is a deeper opportunity for good in the voting process, at least in the current environment, and i generally concur
I appreciate you being nice. I understand the concern you have with the spoiler effect. But our country has been stuck in this lesser evil game for my whole life. That being said I also live in a very blue state. If my state were to go red it won't be because of the few people like that vote third party.
Is 196 now a serious comment only community? Didn't notice can you show me where the new rule is stated?
Also since when are satire and trolling the same thing?
Its not like i m trying to derail an argument by saying democrats and reps are equally bad or something like that, I'm pointing out the false dilemma you make with a (in all all honesty kinda edgy) joke. That has nothing to do with trolling.
One could argue your butthurt response tells I have hit a nerve there.
Harm reduction is fine, but faced with a view going that way, why not use ranked choice. First choice might be I've cream, but if you can't do that, perhaps going somewhere else works.
The US doesn't have a parliamentary system. It is winner take all. There are no votes of no-confidence. There are no coalition governments. The winner of the electoral college which is NOT popular vote gets full control with no oversight.
If you vote for a party that does not win, you get zero representation, not partial or proportional representation.
Sweden, there is a specific paper you take among the options that says blank vote, you can also put in slips with blank votes when there is options to check on a public vote and it will be tallied. When many blank votes are cast, it could basically invalidate any of the other options too meaning we need a new one
Could you clarify how not voting is specifically a fascist statement?
Like what if there aren't any fascists on the ballot? Or why would not voting only be a vote towards fascism rather than towards libertarian, anarchism, moderatism or any other kind of "ism" out there?
All I see is panic. supposedly If the majority of women were pro-abortion, you wouldn't have to worry about Trump and republicans winning the next elections. women alone would flip the red states. but apparently not all women agree with abortion.
Q: why not organize and stop treating the bus as a legitimate entity? why aren’t you working to stop the bus?
A: do both. cut the fuel line. break windows. put oatmeal in the gas tank.
but maybe your efforts don’t succeed this election cycle. and if so don’t fucking throw away your vote if it can help your neighbors fucking survive.
“harm reduction” is not a political strategy for action. it is a last minute, end of the line decision to save lives, after all other resources have been exhausted.
In the way things are, we are capable of taking direct action. Under dump, itll be much harder when we are a de jure dictatorship with anyone left of reagan criminalized.
I am completely disillusioned by the Democrats. We got out and voted our asses off and won everything for them, and then things get even worse under their power.
I have zero faith in this system. It doesn't work. We have the same problems under Biden that we had under Trump. In fact, you could say things are much worse because we're running a goddamn genocide now.
Problem. Harm reduction voting requires at least one good faith candidate.
Right now we have choice between the scenic route to go off the cliff and the express route. Electoral boycotts are effective once they reach critical mass. Telling everyone they need to vote harm reduction without a good faith candidate is just suppressing the natural tendency of a democracy to flush a bad set of leaders.
We could also use a general strike but they'll just order us back to work and call it a union victory.
What the fuck are you on about? You take the fucking scenic path! At least that buys you some time and maybe you’ll crash into a tree along the way and manage to have a few survivors.
There’s no brakes on the trump train. The rails are headed right towards the cliff, it’s downhill, and somebody lubed them up with McDoubles (the rails and the conductor).
The problem is, that's been my entire life. And now I've seen the "less harmful" side actively stop people who would help from getting elected. Even to funding the "more harmful" side.
At some point you have to stop. Why can't I vote to just hit the brakes?
The scenic path is only good for those enjoying the scenery and not the people still having to use their spit and blood to power and lube the bus.
They won't care how it crashes and stops just that it does. You just aren't ready for it to be over. It doesn't matter what you want though anymore.
It won't matter if want it to keep going just a little bit longer, when it happens it will happen. And people will rejoice for the end of their suffering even if it just starts a new version of it.
In my primary election this month, we passed a resolution i was very keen on by less than a few hundred votes, by the current count. Theres more on there than dorito mussolini v status quo joe.
This argument (to me at least) assumes that the other 4 non-voters would have all voted for ice cream which, by just using basic logic, is false. If 3 out of 5 have already voted to drive off a cliff, one has to assume that at least 2 of the remaining 4 would also vote to drive off a cliff. Now this argument is back to square one... How do we find a solution which doesn't give 'driving off a cliff' as an option in the first place?
I think there's evidence out there that suggests that only ~1.8 people of the remaining four non-voters would advocate driving off of the cliff but your point still stands. --That is, if people continue to strictly subscribe to the binary Dem/Repub mindset.
Why do we always assume the ones who don't vote aren't going to vote to run us off the cliff?
My frustration with the get out and vote push is that there is always this weird assumption that the ones who aren't voting are some how going to magically push things into the "right" direction. What if we are all better off if they don't vote?
Young people are less likely to vote than old people, and old people are more likely to be conservative.
But even if that wasn't the case, more people voting is always better for a society.
Saying that the options are “driving off a cliff or going for ice cream” is just such a stupid way to put it if you’re trying to convince leftists to vote for Biden.
It’s the fact that you think Biden is similar to going for ice cream is what’s most infuriating about liberals. It’s like driving off a cliff that will kill you vs driving off a cliff that will just maim you and possibly kill you later.
Pretending you think of Biden as the lesser of two evils in such a thinly veiled way is the annoying part. This attitude is losing Biden votes, these things are on you.
It’s the “hold his feet to the fire” bullshit that you guys are feeding that you totally haven’t done, like at all.
That being said, I would probably vote Biden if I was American right now. Trump does look like shit. But I’m not for one fucking second going to pretend that I’d be sad if all of the democrats suddenly got (redacted) one day.
Biden is pretty good. He's not ideal, but he's doing a lot of things I like. I'm looking forward to the new Amtrak routes, for one. He also cancelled a hell of a lot of student debt. Reducing overdraft fees to $8 instead of $36 helps.
the post is written from the starter’s perspective of convincing the people who don’t vote at all (or perhaps vote third party) that they have a vested interest in helping their neighbor.
no one is claiming biden is ice cream. biden is currently enabling a genocide.
and please don’t tell me what i have or haven’t done to end that. you don’t know me, and you self admittedly aren’t a part of this election. kindly don’t come in here just to spread disrespect, insults, and thinly veiled violent threats.
The most convincing argument I've heard for voting third party instead of for Genocide Joe is that liberals were more politically engaged and had more of an activist mentality under Trump.
Also, I've given consideration to the idea that "vote blue no matter who" types would likely vote for a more leftist Democrat than the ones currently being offered. In a long term strategy, if leftists refuse to vote for Democratic candidates who are too far right, then the Democrats would have to either try to appeal to the Trump demographic (which they do unfortunately do), or appeal to the leftist demographic until they get the leftist votes back.
just to clarify, do you subscribe to that first argument? it’s kind of a crazy one lol
like Americans who subscribe to pacifist beliefs were a lot more mobilized during the Vietnam War. that doesn’t especially mean the Vietnam War was good for world peace. 🤨
In a long term strategy, if leftists refuse to vote for Democratic candidates who are too far right, then the Democrats would have to either try to appeal to the Trump demographic (which they do unfortunately do), or appeal to the leftist demographic until they get the leftist votes back.
You said it yourself. They have two choices and they’re currently doing the worse one. What makes you think they’ll change their mind along the way?
If the Democrats go full Trump eventually they would lose the moderate liberals and a third party could step in. I don't see that as the likelier option.
Something like 10-20% of voters in the primary did protest votes. It's a huge chunk of people.
And it's also people they currently see as their base, the Democrats are trying to appeal to the conservatives because they believe (correctly) that they can do just about anything and people will continue to vote for them.
I thought I remembered pretty definitively during elementary school that there was like, a big red button next to the bus driver, that the kids were supposed to hit in an emergency, while you were supposed to also steer the bus and keep from crashing in the meantime. I could be wrong, though, or that could not be the case on public buses or buses of other types, I dunno.
Also, the buses did infamously have emergency exit doors, so you could always just open the emergency door in the back of the bus and jump out. That's probably the other best option, relative to going over a cliff. Road rash can be pretty severe and bad, and you could get a concussion or snap your neck if you don't know how to do the jump out sideways rolly thing. I dunno though, seems like you could do it probably.
or maybe, yk, hijack the bus to stop it because it is headed towards a cliff anyway, just the question is how fast it'll get there. This is what a revolution means.
do you know how Mussolini, Salazar, Armas, Horthy, Pinochet or Franco came to power? And was the Silver Legion or KKK elected by anyone? Y'all will point out to Nazi Germany to justify participating in the legitimization of this evil plutocracy every few years, but if they are determined, they will try to take power no matter what and Jan 6 was just a proof (also NSDAP might have not won the March 5 elections if it wasn't for the terrorist tactics of staging the Reichstag fire and lastly, Proud Boys or any other fringe group is still nothing compared to SA/SS).
I will not be voting for anyone who supports a genocide. That will not change. Now there are two ways to change the outcome.
If you are a genocide supporter who wants to be elected, you could stop supporting genocide, and be vocal about it.
If you are someone who wants me to vote for your candidate, you could demand that they stop supporting genocide. Or demand that whatever party you like stops nominating people who support genocide.
Two candidates that support genocide, but one is a christofascist. No matter who you vote for, genocide support wins. But you think it's better to give the christofascist better odds than to inconvenience yourself with a vote you don't 100% agree with, and possibly abstain from your chance to ever vote again. Not voting won't fix the issue, since there's no threshold on voter turnout for the election to count. The struggle against genocide must be fought in other ways. So unfortunately, this fall you're getting genocide, so please make sure you don't get fascism too.
Aside from the obvious, that will just be continuing to tell the two parties that nominating genocide supporters is good. You can continue telling your favorite party that you are okay with genocide, but I will not, thank you very much. This is why you are stuck between two genocide supporters. When your chosen party leaves you with a genocide supporter as your only choice, you tell them that's good.
And you are not going to fight the genocide in any other way, so don't pretend. Your chosen party is one of the two that ratified bills to make any attempts at boycotts or sanctions illegal.
Also, both candidates are fascists. Look at what's happening on our Southern border, look at just our recent history in the Middle East, and look at the fascist government committing genocide that we are supporting.
You don't fight fascism in the ballot box. Every single example in history teaches you that.
Direct action and or forcing the hands of politicians so more people have an incentive to vote
Trying to get people to support genocide and half assed half measures (that keep the door open for making things worse than they were before, which is very in line with the ruling class' interests), and when they don't, imply they support fascism 😌
i admire your dedication and resolve. for the sake of everyone involved i hope your narrative plays out. :)
for me personally i find such a scenario unlikely and so choose to operate within the bounds of a model i find to be closer to reality to reduce the harm brought to my neighbors.
I am not against voting, but the metaphor is really wrong and it doesn't communicate how voting changes almost nothing.
The problem is that Hilary supported Trump in pied piper strategy to have an easier person to run against. This means that you are doing exactly what they want you to do and they are protecting Trump because they need him to be the other candidate so you are forced to support ice cream made of genocide.
Democrats are terrorists now, that hold the entire country hostage and demand murder of civilians in Gaza for their financial gain. We don't have democracy either way, we will have genocide, wars and poverty either way. There really isn't that big of a difference, because they support each other so they can win against us, the people. They are the same team, funded by same people, running on same campaigns, running the same narrative of lesser evil vs evil, while actually working together.
Their next move is for democrats to support same policies that republicans do now, and fund even more extreme republicans so that can be their candidate. The strategy clearly works. Whatever you are voting against this elections, you will be forced to vote for the next.
Voting isn't going to fix that, but it will delay more of the shit we saw from 2016-2020. If you want to overthrow the government and see actual change happen, you can go first.
I am not so sure it will delay it. If we get a democrat then they will move the goal post for worse, if we don't we will lose democracy we don't have. During Trump there where some good antigovernment riots due to George Floyd and American army moved out of Afghanistan. During Biden, we got war in Ukraine and increased genocide in Gaza. Altough they both have same goals, there are benefits to having an evil idiot instead of evil smarter person in power.
Either way, you can vote for whoever you want and It won't really hurt. But it definitely wont help either.
Yeah the Democrats are driving us to get ice cream, they are driving us to their private casino after promising ice cream and telling us if we spend enough at the black jack table they might send over a waitress to take our order.
I'm tired of them being framed as good and their ideas as beneficial when really most are just enriching for the already wealthy and have forgotten about sacrifice and effort into the greater good of the common people.
So if our choice is between an actual evil asshole and an abuser who just wants people to shut up so they don't have to hear complaints, I'm not exactly blaming people that dislike both options and view harm reduction as just living with the pain.
We have to do and aim for better or no one will be interested in participating anymore.
I'm already tired of spending my life at the casino surrounded by drunks and addicts, and my only escape being getting on the bus driving to the cliff.
If neither side respects people, then I don't think they deserve them.
Millions of people on the bus. Some vote to drive to place A. Some want to drive to place B. Neither is the cliff.
But both A voters and B voters are using the bus-cliff false analogy to manipulate people to vote for their option.
In reality the chance that your vote would even affect the result is nearly zero.
Hundreds of millions of people on the bus. The difference between violent christofascism and at least a bare minimum respect for human rights is only made by a few million votes per election cycle, while a majority of voters still don’t vote at all.
And then you come in spreading fear uncertainty and doubt, encouraging more people not to vote.
Self examine whatever the heck it is you think you are doing because your position is untenable.
Some vote to drive to place A. Some want to drive to place B. Neither is the cliff.
But both A voters and B voters are using the bus-cliff false analogy to manipulate people to vote for their option.
Place A is "fuck everyone who isn't the same as us, they should die!"
Place B is "people different from us shouldn't die just for existing."
counterpoint, its not either or. this is a false dichotomy the democrats created and maintain as a rhetorical device to silence dissent. i will never vote for joe biden. ill vote for.., a couple of democrats down ballot. and that is the extent of my interaction with the legitimate systems of democracy in the US. if you dont live in a swing state, the presidential race is, effectively, not real for you. this is a basic tenant of "american electoral politics" , or as I like to call it, a tenant of US Authoritarianism
i encourage you to reconsider your position. the spoiler effect is real and so are elections and their consequences. someone is getting put into that seat and you have the opportunity to influence the situation.
this post may be helpful, encourage you to check it out
This isn't about the world. It's about a specific conflict. Conflicts are us vs. them by definition. The takeover of the American gov't by increasingly corporatist and fascist leaders is absolutely them vs. the American people, but also affects everyone in the world.
There are two ways to win this conflict. 1) Violent revolution by disorganized leftists against the most powerful military the world has ever seen, 2) voting to prevent full-on fascism and limit corporatism while building class consciousness and organizing better. The second scenario is obviously more likely to succeed, given the current state of the American left.
It's a false dilemma. --For the reasons people reduce it and argue that it is an exclusively binary decision would by the nature of those reasons implicitly argue against the concept of living under any form of a functional democracy itself.
tell that to Gazans who are undergoing forced starvation with genocidal intent, a process that one of the presidential candidates has vowed to “finish.”
sure, maybe voting isn’t harm reduction. but it seems capable of reducing at least a little bit of harm so…