You vote for the lesser evil because that’s the limit of what you can achieve in the voting booth. But voting isn’t the only thing you can do to change society, obviously. I think these kinds of posts are missing the bigger picture
…but you don’t live in a world where one party is building 50 and the other 51. That’s just a strawman to avoid taking responsibility for having to choose between the actual options, not the options you wish you had.
The Dems have gleefully supported deportation policies that also put families in cages just like under Trump, they have supported Israel’s genocide before Trump and during Trump. The lesser evil is still evil.
The lesser evil is still evil.
Yeah no shit otherwise we wouldn’t call it “lesser evil”
“The Dems” don’t share opinions on any of those issues, so how the fuck are you going to pretend to slander an entire political party over your ignorance of that reality?
The Democrats range from the far left to the moderate right. You couldn’t get five of them to agree on a restaurant, but you’re gonna pretend we’re all down with genocide and ICE camps? GTFO here and don’t come back til you’re sober and serious. This is a serious topic and it deserves better than sophomoric, Fox-News-Worthy takes on the Democratic Party.
For the love of Christ. If it comes down to 50 death camps vs 51 death camps and you couldn’t muster up enough loud vocal grass roots support for ‘no death camps’ to make it feel like there is even an outside chance of winning enough that people don’t feel that they have to vote for the lesser 50, then maybe you should examine why that is. I’m tired of this stupid fucking argument.
Godless commie isn’t interested in improving America.
They come up with these tired ass cliche posts that only encourage voter apathy, which results in fascist victories.
They have no concept of pragmatic and realistic steps towards improvement and they think the magic third party fairy will swoop down and sprinkle magic dust that will allow a third party candidate to win, and they don’t give a shit if America gets worse while they believe in this fantasy.
Such a stupid point. In a scenario in which both political parties are building death camps, you are either one of the people who want the death camps to be built and would likely be evilmaxxing (vote for the one building more death camps), or you’re one of the people who will end up in the death camps in which case you wouldn’t be voting at all, you’d be fleeing.
This is how you know someone only cares about their own moral superiority complex and is the type of person that loves handing out arbitrary purity tests.
People like you are actually just at harmful to left wing goals as any fascist or neoliberal. You are the rot from within.
Ah the irony. A post telling voters to think about more than a single election day, in plaik English, and you still can’t imagine doing so.
It’s a strange world we live in… And I get it, you’re too busy to care about politics. You want that one vote to absolve you of responsibility for everything before and after it. Meh.
Nope, I’m active in bringing about change in other ways, through supporting my community, going to protests, organising actual resistance networks, community lobbying, boycotting, direct action and
violencewhere needed.But it’s just none of that stops me from all voting in every possible election I can, as it’s still one of the most impactful things you can do as an individual to enact change.
I love how you think concentration camps and genocide are “arbitrary purity tests” instead of fully disqualifying positions to hold.
People who do lesser evil voting are, on the whole, far more invested in the morality and virtue signaling and far less invested in the material analysis of what’s actually happening and how to change it.
Reading comprehension.
I’m not saying concentration camps are the purity test. I’m saying people like you are the kind of people that do arbitrary purity tests.
What’s the purity test then? Are we not calling out dems for supporting genocide?
The problem is, not voting doesn’t push the Overton window in your direction. When you choose to simply abstain, rather than voting against the greatest evil, you give up ground to your opponents without getting anything in return.
Voting is a critical part of making lasting change. It might be useless on its own, but that doesn’t make it any less necessary.
You’re mistaken. No one is saying not to vote. They are saying that your vote actually doesn’t matter. It is not true that voting pushes the Overton window. Look at the Maine Senate race. We just had a huge campaign between an entrenched war mongering Democrat and literal US military mercenary with a Tottenkopf tattoo (removed recently) who is a petite bourgeois luxury food farmer who organized his neighbors to fight for his private property economic interests against a large capitalist enterprise. The overton window is so far right it’s not even funny.
If voting made critical lasting change, it would be outlawed. The founders made sure that the masses could not change the system by voting. That’s why 70% percent of the Senate represents only 30% of the population. You can’t fix that with voting. The wars planned under Bush 2, which absolutely were influenced by the Bush 1 circle, were carried out by Bush 2, and then by Obama, and then by Trump. The Senate doesn’t respond to votes. The president doesn’t respond to votes. And the House has over 100 Democrats supporting ICE.
What is it going to take for you to realize this? Go. Vote. But pretending it does anything is delusion. Every single improvement of rights came through violence, from labor rights to civil rights to gay rights. It took riots, it took bloodshed. The system is designed to force this to be true.
That is just the American mindset. Other countries with a similar two party system even broke from it. It can be done, it’s just that American culture was founded on rugged individualism, that ordinary Americans were convinced their individual personal interest matters more than the wider country.
It’s actually american law. Europe deliberately designed a parliamentary coalition system. America designed a party system. They differ greatly. The party system mathematically gravitates towards two parties, while the parliamentary system has far more varied outcomes.
You can say that law feeds a mindset, which then perpetuates the law, which then feeds the mindset, which…
But the wheel has to break somewhere, and laws are easier to change than the outlook of people you’ll never meet.
Tell me, what’s the alternative?
I don’t see one. You’re just fucking grandstanding.
So, I’m what, supposed to not vote at all?
Then the actual evil will win
Americans seem to think they are due some sort of fair and equitable civil society without having to fight for it. Actual evil will win anyway unless you fight the evil people and take a stand, constantly-- not occasionally when its only relevant to you. The problem is that americans are too spoiled and are lazy with their politics and morals. They just lay there like baby birds waiting to be fed, so the evils take advantage of that lethargy and here we are.
I’m a Euro and I am constantly pissed at American politics. And it’s blearing in our ears all day.
I couldn’t tell you who is the mayor of London, but everyone knows who the mayor of NYC is.
both are actual evil.
A: we have to get rid of vaccines, get rid of healthcare and go to war
B: we have to keep vaccines, keep healthcare and go to war
You: woah! They’re exactly the same!
Yes, both of those are, and I quote, “actual evil”.
Some infinities are bigger than others, what’s your point?
That both of your examples are, in fact, evil. They may not be the same, or equal, but both are, obviously, evil. Which was the argument.
As the kids say, you are doing the thing in the meme.
that’s not what I said but that’s not going to stop the bad faith takes
It’s exactly what you said
if that were true could link me saying that instead of typing something that I didn’t type.
both are actual evil.
There’s no other way to interpret this mate
there is but not if you refuse to operate in good faith
Lesser evil voting is simply the limited options given to us under a broken system.
Until the system can be broken, I’d still rather attempt to cause less harm and impede the organization to break the system as little as possible.
I’ll vote for the least establishment option amongst our de-facto options presented when it’s time to vote. In the meantime I’ll help with organizing, with advocacy, with 3rd party groups, with building alternatives to our capitalist system to support the revolution when it’s time.
Would you rather me not vote and allow one more to not be countered towards the more establishment option that would work towards pulling back our rights even faster?
There shouldn’t be any death camps, fucking obviously, but that would be 1 less we have to destroy in the coming days. Work to break the system so we don’t have death camps, but also work to slow it down as much as possible so we have less to fight to break the system.
Biden admitted he didn’t want the DOJ to go after Trump for sedition in a hope for bipartsianship. He could have released the Epstein files then unredacted but didn’t. He has a history of voting for federal increases to police budgets, he was the sponsor on the bill making it nearly impossible to discharge federal student loans in bankruptcy. And that’s just Biden.
What to know what’s most damning about the Democrats? In the build up to this situation, through it all, when they had enough power to do something they didn’t do it. Obama could of put in changes to federal student loans but didn’t, they were a problem way before then. They had decades to codify Roe vs Wade into law instead of a supreme court ruling.
At best they’re inactive and inattentive.
At best! And that’s extremely generous.
Problem solved! We’ll all just go…not vote?
Hmmm…that doesn’t seem right. Doesn’t that let all the people who really want to vote for the 51 death camps decide who’s in charge then?
Either way you get death camps, get off the trolley and discover there’s a no death camp option
What is the no death camp option in the United States? I would genuinely like to know.
The only option I’m aware of is voting more, not less. Vote in every primary and every local election. Make yourself part of the process.
By electing the same people that got us into this mess?
You didn’t answer the question. What’s the no death camp option?
What’s the no death camp option?
You have to create it, it wont be handed to you on a silver platter. You can start by not kissing the dems arses and yelling at them to do better or fold up shop. While showing the republicans the back of your hand too, obviously. They are playing you and using your vote like its a foregone conclusion, and you are letting them. Why not stand up for yourself? Or do you have any morals at all? American selfishness is another issue and it disguises itself as learned helplessness.
And how does not voting help that?
You didn’t answer the question.
don’t be petulant.
It would be the option for expressing power outside of voting…
And how has that gone for you? How many concentration camps has it stopped?
I mean it’s not going well, but I having trouble thinking of a time where a country voted its way out of having concentration camps either.
You know what stops pipelines? Physical altercations. You know what stops cop cities? Physical altercations. Voting has only ever increased the military, increased the police, and increased the prisons. Voting one way or the other literally has no impact. The only way to stop this stuff is to fight.
It isn’t there. Vote for whoever you want, but acknowledging that you were not given choices at all is important.
But you are. The thing is systems of governance for hundreds of millions of people, all with different wants, morals and desires across very different circumstances and locales is going to be extremely complex. Mix into that the shitty power dynamics of capitalism and you system with a lot of political inertia that eventually boils down to 2 pretty similar positions at the highest level. And trying to move that political lever at the very furthers end is difficult.
If you want your position given more weight, then you have to act at every level of governance, not just the very top with the presidential election.
Keep going please…Tell me how that would work in the US system of First Past The Post elections.
Or if First Past The Post elections is the problem, tell me how you would get rid of that system.
Keep going please…Tell me how that would work in the US system …
Well first I want you to imagine having a sense of decency, an ability to feel shame, and identify what morality you have, if any. Let me know when you get to that point and we’ll talk next steps. Whats worth you acting on? Not someone else, you.
Sigh…
So you don’t actually have a real solution for getting rid of the conservatives and neoliberals in office.
You just want everyone to know that you’re too cool to be an Republican or a Democrat. 👍
It would require not using elections to express power
It’s not like you can’t do both. Vote the lesser evil, get off the trolley.
Basically, don’t expect significant change from Democrats until we can get rid of the neo-liberals. Until then, you’re just voting harm that’s getting steadily worse.
I wish it was possible to get lesser evilists to think rationally and critically examine their ideology, but they’ve so internalized their ideology as “rational” that they can’t even recognize it as an ideology at all. They are exactly the sort of irrational, blind dogmatists they accuse everyone else of being.
@Objection @K1nsey6 Its wild 40+ years of neoliberalism where everything gets more and more right wing economically and the fascists are back and in power.
Yet they don’t examine what actually is happening or why and somehow its the Leftists fault.
When things go wrong, blame just gets redirected to the enemies and the only possible takeaway is to double down on what they were already doing. The doubt you have when praying doesn’t work is probably what caused it not to work in the first place, you just have to have faith. Your criticism of neoliberalism is the reason the Democrats can’t win hard enough to deliver on anything. Put the blinders on, don’t think, don’t look around, just keep on keeping on, tighten your belts for now and trust that things will work out somehow. The rise of the far-right is surely just a momentary fluke, not the result of anything structural, and it will be resolved when everyone simply comes to their senses, any minute now. Anyone who says otherwise is a Russian bot or a secret Trump supporter, seeking to lead you astray from the true faith.
Ideology is a hell of a drug.
Time to vote for Jill stein I guess
She’s literally a Russian asset.
Idk, if given the choice between 50 death camps or 51 death camps, it would be pretty fucked up to choose 51.
If you’re stuck in a system that only gives you the options of 50 death camps or 51 and you don’t work towards building an alternative system. Then you’re just evil lite.
Precisely. That’s why you need to think more broadly. So you don’t become evil and pretend it’s OK.
Nobody is pretending it is okay.
But pretending like refusing to vote is morally superior than actively preventing the extra death camp is not.
There are people in this very thread, and other parts of the fediverse, who are only here to attack those that point out it’s not okay while they actively pretend it’s okay.
No one is advocating refusing to vote. The post is explicitly stating that voting isn’t helping. It’s time to try something new
Except most of the time while one party isn’t perfect, the other party is actively building concentration camps. However since the mediocre party isn’t doing what one activist group wants, they try to get everyone to believe that the concentration camps really aren’t that bad. The world, not just the US, was slowly making progress before Trump in 2016. Covid was a global setback. The US fucking up everyone, everywhere in the world because the Democrats aren’t perfect is why the USA needs to die and no longer be able to bully the world into following US Capitalism. Europeans aren’t perfect either but they have far more social democracy actually happening in their countries.
Please note Obama and Biden (and Bush and Trump) are just fine with Guantanamo Bay, our tortuous concentration camp built on illegally seized Cuban land. Just one infamous example.
So… of course he can build more concentration camps. Why not? We already have them. The next D president isn’t going to come in and close the camps.
except people accept the party who “isnt perfect” and frame it in conotive terms like “isnt perfect” and then refuse to push back to ask for more from their own party. They just go along. Theres no pressure at all on the dems to do better except from progressives, who are actively and enthusiastically maligned by centrists for daring to ask for more. The dem leaders are not your friends and dont act in your interests at all-- they are zionism’s friends, and they are pretty far from simply “not perfect”.
They enabled a genocide for some bribes and theres blood not just on their hands but all the way past their elbows. And in doing so they lost an election, which is catastrophic mismanagement and corruption. They’ll do it again too.
Point of contention: Dems are drowning in the blood they’ve spilled, and so are fucking Social Democrats and Democratic Socialist. I can’t even compare them to Lisbeth Báthorie anymore because she may have been maligned for teaching peasant girls to read!
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this is a bullshit argument
one side in US politics is pretty ANTI death camp while the other is very much PRO death camp. lesser evil voting in this case is ANTI death camp
you putz
Except here, in the real world world, one side built the death camps while the other side is filling them up.
How many death camps did Biden build?
And don’t start about some other country where they don’t have control over.
I can start with Gaza because it was US money and weapons that enabled it. In addition to an enormous ICE and immigrant detention center expansion. There are 69 cops cities around the US with cops being trained by IDF because of Biden.
And what good did not voting do for you? Do you think the people in Gaza or Iran are greatful you didn’t vote for Biden?
Except if you consider that one side committed a genocide and then the other side committed even more genocide.
And refusing to side with the better options actively works the worse option in the hand.
No these “better options” choosing to do genocide lead to a worse option. You can’t fault someone for not voting for genocide. When the option is a turd sandwich or a shit stew don’t be surprised when people choose neither.
Listen, the time for doing something about the problem about two shitty options is NOT at the literal last second, when you have no other options BUT those two shitty ones. At that point, and ONLY at that point, it becomes about choosing the lesser of two evils. If you don’t, you get the worse of two evils, it’s as simple as that. You want things to change, or maybe more than just two evils? Make the effort to change shit BEFORE things get locked to two shitty choices. Every year more people are riled up about this, so how about organizing to do shit BEFORE the only play left is to fumble and give the ball to the fascists? Because this moral grandstanding literally fucks everyone, and I’m speaking as a non-American, being fucked by stupid American choices such as not voting for Kamala because she was “pro-genocide” (while Trump is watering at the mouth thinking about building hotels atop the ashes of Palestinian lands).
We’ve been saying the same thing since at least before 2020. And somehow it wasn’t the right time ever since then.
There wasn’t a chance to have something different, the democrats didn’t have a primary… They selected who they wanted to move forward without a single vote cast.
More “both sides” bullshit. Dumbasses like you are part of the reason Trump got into to power.
Oh yeah its my fault the democrats decided to support a genocide and cost themselves the election. You would rather blame me someone with zero power than the leaders who have failed you, pathetic.
Yes, actually. A politicians first job is to get elected. It doesn’t matter how good their policies are if they just never get elected.
So if the anti-genocidenvoting block was actually a thing that voted reliably, then politicians could cater to those people instead of the pro Israel crowd.
And even ignoring that, when the choices are the guy that was somewhat pushing back on Netanyahu and making some effort to help Palestine, Vs the guy who is enthusiastic to go all in with Netanyahu, and cleanse the entire region so he build property their and make money and gave Israel the go ahead to start several all new wars. And we get one of those two options no matter what, then not voting is implicit support for the second, much worse option.
Bro you don’t even know who was running why are you talking? it was Kamala vs Trump not two men. Biden also did not push back against Israel most of the death and destruction of Gaza happened under Biden. He let them do a genocide what push back could there have been? He had all the power to stop it and did nothing.
All I am saying is when the options are two shitty candidates don’t be surprised when people stay home instead. You need someone who can inspire people to come out in vote and if they can’t do that they will lose. You keep talking about people that didn’t vote when you should ask yourself why was Kamala so fucking terrible that she lost to a child rapist? That is on her and no one else. You don’t blame the fucking fans when a sports team loses, they aren’t the ones playing the game. It was her job to win not anyone else’s and she failed miserably.
And now the whole fucking restaurant is literally made out of shit. Great job not voting there.
lol I did vote, I just understand that when people don’t vote for someone its the politician’s fault for not running better policies and being more likeable and not someone who didn’t like them so they didn’t vote for them. If you would hold your leaders more accountable for being shitty then we wouldn’t be in this mess but yeah yell at me a stranger on the internet with zero power.
Literally all Kamala had to do was say she was against the genocide, she made that choice not me.
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an abstention from voting COUNTS AS A VOTE FOR TRUMP
no, it doesn’t. only votes for trump count as votes for trump.
I did vote dumbass, its not my fault Kamala wasn’t popular that is on her for her stupid positions.
