How should US citizens vote?
How should US citizens vote?
It’s just annoying that there’s no real leftists to vote for in a country where we let money control elections (cf. Citizens United decision). I might have a “vote” but it doesn’t feel like I get any say when the election is between bourgeois parties.
Obviously not voting and voting for the actual fascists are bad options, but just voting for the liberals isn’t great either. What do y’all think?
voting is so low effort and low impact that I don't think there's much to do. The advice I've heard for the US is to focus mostly on the downballot candidates that actually have good policies (which their party will never actually support) and in the Federal ones to go for actually left-ish candidates in case your state isn't a swing one.
But by the time you're voting, the big elections are already settled in the opinion polls anyway so you're not making much of a difference by yourself. The real use of elections is to use the lead up to the vote in order to push your politics to people who only actually think about politics once every 4 years. Voting itself is just a religious ritual in the USA.
Yeah, you're probably right. I guess it was more of a vent post as the 2024 election cycle starts to get US news coverage.
The election coverage lasting 18 months but the voting act itself being a couple of days (and voting day not even being a holiday!) is proof enough of the farce of USA electoralism. Instead of worrying about a vote within 14 months, I recommend you use that time and energy to agitate with people you know about how many promises "union President" Biden broke and to look into actual alternatives like the CPUSA or the PSL. I don't think you necessarily shouldn't vote if you have the time, but how you vote depends a lot on where you live, and you shouldn't worry too much about it for now.
PSL usually runs a candidate so you could vote for them just to raise class consciousness even though they obviously won’t win.
If there are Marxists running, vote for the most popular one.
If a Socialist candidate is running, even a bad one (DSA social-democrats), vote for them, even if it's obvious they won't win.
If there isn't a Socialist running for that position, vote for the Democrat (or don't vote at all).
Pay special attention to ballot measures and referendums, because even in a system without Socialist candidates, these matter just as much as they otherwise would.