this post was submitted on 02 Apr 2025
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We can do both, we can vote to try to change things and we can also try to force things when the people we vote for don't do the things they said they would to get us to vote. I don't know why so many people act like it has to be one or the other
What you described is pretty much how electorialism works in the real world, both in the past and the present, and thanks to that we live in an absolute utopia.
But on a more serious note, liberal democracy is just an illusion of freedom and an illusion of "power for the people". In reality, it's been meticulously crafted to only benefit the rich with its barriers for entry designed to keep the poor out - for instance, one has to get an expensive education to even get started (or have a load of money to buy a degree outright), having enough money to fund a platform for yourself to get enough supporters to form a party, then do expensive advertising of your party's message, having funds to combat any kind of political meddling from the competition, connections that one wealthy enough might get are also incredibly helpful, etc. There's a reason why the vast majority of politicians parents links are blue on wikipedia - it's not a meritocracy.
There's many more critiques like how checks & balances are there to keep the capitalist system and not necessarily to stop abuses as certain populists are demonstrating nowadays, how people are essentially powerless after voting for the next 4-5 years, electorialism being used to distract from class struggle (via reactionary politics, culture wars) which keeps people from turning against the rich properly and instead choosing which side of the rich one wants to support, etc.
In short, if there's going to be any meaningful, good change for us workers, it isn't going to come from electorialism, and its important to be aware of this fact, not grow too complacent.
At the same time, there's no revolution to be seen, partly precisely because of the things outlined above so yeah...
i dont think direct action and self organizing should be a reaction to people voted into power acting against the interests of the people. i see then as the goals in themselves.
we should not be ruled by anyone, not even people we voted for. the power needs to be with us, the people. representative democracy is taking that power away.
so i would say, even when politions in power do what the people who elected them want them to do, we should still self organize, to regain our own power and not be relient on the mercy of politions
no thx. voting is silly
And that unwillingness to engage in silliness is how we fucking got the fascists burning the country down. Good thing people chose to be "serious" instead 🙄
it has nothing to do with unwillingness. it's simply part of my survival as a trans abolitionist to refuse voting for trans and Palestinian genocide such as what the Democrats are enacting in collaboration with Republicans
So instead you allow worse through tacit support.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I've gone through this song and dance before. I believe that electoralism has its place to minimize the harm to society, but plenty of others would rather hide behind their morality instead of supporting a bad candidate in the face of guaranteed worse outcomes.
The trans genocide is explicitly pushed by the people that were voted into power by 1/3 of the country and co-signed by another third who couldn't be bothered to vote. I voted against it to protect my trans loved ones, and it baffles me that trans people wouldn't even vote in their own best interests.
But I'm not going to bother engaging past this, as we both know how this conversation is going to go. Good day.
enjoy your blue trans genocide bestie! Kamala will give us free HRT in the concentration camps
Enjoy your real trans genocide then, I guess.
Sure the entire political system is being dismantled and nobody has to vote next time around, but at least you didn't vote for a genocide that is only getting worse because you didn't.
They gotta huff that copium so they don't have to think about how their inaction helped turn a made up blue trans genocide into a real red trans genocide.
I almost find it hilarious how unhinged the far left is, but the hellscape we get to live in takes away all the humor short of the gallows.
I am someone that most people would call a far leftist. Accelerationsim is the most dumb political position to have and I think anyone who follows it is a bad person.
Agreed. I probably paint the far left with too broad a brush, but I get so fucking sick of the far left accelerationists pretending like they give a fuck about anything other than destroying shit.
oh there's nothing more beautiful about the trans experience than being blamed for your own murder because you weren't nice enough to the cis people complacent in it
I am trans. I blame people like you for in part causing it to get worse for people like both of us.
and I blame shitlibs for normalizing supporting a transphobe like Kamala for being the "lesser evil". the same lesser evil that when asked what she's gonna do about trans rights said she's gonna follow the law
I do too. But there were only two viable options and the main third one was aiming to make sure the less bad option didn't get in. If I have to choose between genocide or genocides I'm going to choose the former every single time.
I said nothing about being nice. I said you should take action. All people should take all possible actions they reasonably can to prevent this kind of shit. That includes voting. Being complacent is not an option.
there's nothing more offensive about the liberal mindset than assuming that anarchists not voting are inactive. most of your actions are inspired by our tactics so stfu
Right, yeah, I am a liberal, Of course. I am a cis, heterosexual liberal who does nothing but tweet and whose only effective political action is voting once every two years. I believe that we should never do anything but vote, which is exactly the sentiment I expressed in my comment. I said "we should vote and only vote and do nothing else because the market will solve itself and the system would function perfectly if only we were to participate". These are my words, and they are what I believe. Yes. Very much so. Very much so.
My actions are inspired by the tactics of smart active anarchists because I am a liberal and not an anarchist and I assumed you were inactive because you did not vote rather than assuming you missed one of the venues of activism that is exceedingly easy to reach. Because I am a liberal.
I know I am not being totally fair here. I know "go vote" is the advice liberals often give and that electoralism gets used as a way to divert from direct action. Voting will not change the system. It will not get us out of the clusterfuck we are in. It is not a substitute for action. I understand your perspective in this. Voting for someone who will not do anything about the fascist policies that are being introduced and who supports an active genocide feels bad, it feels like buying into a broken system and giving it legitimacy by your participation. But it frustrates me. Because people who discourage voting are playing into fascists hands. Because anarchists, marxists, syndicalists, communalists and the like cannot effect change by voting. But fascists can. Fascists already have enough power to sway the system in their favour, to use the government for their ends. Voting is not change, it is harm reduction. It is trying to cede as little ground as possible to fascists for as much time as possible, buying time to effect real change before we are all disappeared and shipped off to some concentration camp somewhere. Taking real political action gets exponentially harder everytime the fascists get more power. And in the last election, they have gotten a lot more power.
!Lemmysilver
Honestly, I think you're being more than fair in calling out someone who refuses to do one of the most basic actions to slow the roll of naked fascism.
Like you, I get the pull of not wanting to participate in the shit system and normalizing the shitty behaviors we're seeing in government, but the fact of the matter is that this disengagement with electoralism is exactly the reason we're in the situation we're in. Too many people treat politics as a purity contest and are willing to take their ball and go home no matter the consequences rather than engage and vote for someone moderately distasteful even in the face of naked evil.
100% this. I get so sick of supposed activists who can't even be bothered to do the least amount of work reduce the harm against their per causes, even when one of the options is objectively much, much worse. The obsession with purity politics is one of the biggest weapons that can be welded against their cause, given that it can be used to break the back of popular support of someone they even partially agree with to let the right take power again.
Maybe one day we will collectively learn this lesson. But I'm not holding my breath.
There’s nothing more naive than prepubescent anarchists.
Sure let’s kill every semblance of order and pretend it will all self regulate in the end. Just like the free market does… oh wait
Trust me anarchy bro, it will work somehow
Of course there are naive anarchists, but there exist workable and well-defined systems of anarchism that have seen some forms of success, and there are theories on anarchism beyond "shit will regulate itself". I would reccomend picking up some of the work of Murray Bookchin on municipal libertarianism an communalism to see such a theory.
What forms of success? Some kind of mid war interregnum state for 2 months?
Maybe you shouldn’t put faith in things that were never proven to work?
Theories are aplenty I am sure. Everyone can come up with one. They are like asses - everyone has one
Right, of course, we should never try anything new. All things should stay as they are always, never put faith in a better future. I guess I am a monarchist now or whatever.
Well you contributed to it being worse which makes you morally inferior, but go off I guess