It is never about winning the election. Or voting in a third party.
What the radical left are doing is sitting out in protest of a broken system. Over here in the UK we had the lowest voter any living generation would have witnessed. The reason why is we are disenfranchised and won’t support the elites.
This is the kindling of a revolution.
Anyone who doesn’t understand this should school themselves on historic materialism. No amount of wining will change how large swafts of people react to their material condition.
What the radical left are doing is sitting out in protest of a broken system.
There has never, ever been anything approaching a protest that starts with the words “sitting out”.
That’s not revolution, that’s apathy and disinterest. That’s what the people in power want.
Don’t sit out. Stand up. Do something. Or don’t. But don’t lie to yourself and others and say that sitting out of the problem makes it any better.
There has never, ever been anything approaching a protest that starts with the words “sitting out”.
In a sense you’re right, but it seems like a lot of people participating in this discussion may have a misunderstanding of the history of disagreements about electoralism on the revolutionary left.
Historically, some members of the left don’t want to waste time and resources participating in electoralism that could be spent doing other things that contribute to the revolution that will happen when the Bourgeois electoral system inevitably collapses.
Others want to participate to signal the point when that collapse has inevitably occurred because the corruption will have become blatantly obvious.
Personally, I don’t think just going in and voting counts as the kind of participation that theory is describing (that is, running in elections, participating in campaigns, etc.)
On the other hand, it has also become blatantly obvious to me, personally, at this point that on a national level my vote just doesn’t count. My vote is dictated by the capitalist class owned and controlled media telling everyone which states will vote which way. The puppet politicians aren’t vying for popular support, they’re vying for oligarch support and the media they control to sway that population. It’s voter manipulation on an unbelievable scale that sounds like a conspiracy theory, but I can’t ignore that it has become blatantly obvious to me that the system is rigged by the capitalist class, and participation in it (at higher levels) is pointless.
when the Bourgeois electoral system inevitably collapses.
What you guys don’t get is that when the electoral system eventually collapses it will be far too late, and any chance of your revolution ever happening will be long gone.
This is a great point. I am a paying member of the SP. I attend major demos across the southwest. Currently building housing unions in my city.
Voting in neo-librisism I won’t do.
You’re not engaging with the challenge to your original statement.
You don’t protest by sitting out. So what are you doing?
Voting in neo-librisism I won’t do.
Yeah, we get it, you won’t vote against fascism and genocide. You’re too pure for that.
Let the suffering of minorities sanctify your cause.
It is never about winning the election. Or voting in a third party.
Thank you for admitting it. Many of us poors and minorities will die, but that is a sacrifice you are oh-so-nobly willing to make.
You are missing the point, voting in a party that has been moving slowly right isn’t a way to fix it.
Oh, I’m missing the point, of course, sending the disadvantaged to their deaths by a reactionary fascist regime is a small detail when you have the Upcoming Revolution™.
I mean, it’s been Upcoming™ for decades now, but THIS time, with no organization, it’ll happen; definitely, you guys! THIS time the blood of minorities will sanctify your efforts!
The genocidaires will make every move of any revolutionary more difficult and more costly by their control over the levers of power. It would have cost you next to nothing to help avert a genocide. And allowing the genocide will gain the revolution nothing.
And yet, here it is, ushered in primarily by the apathy of the American electorate; an apathy embraced and celebrated by would-be revolutionaries.
You are missing the point, voting in a party that has been moving slowly right isn’t a way to fix it.
Most of us are well aware voting them in wasn’t going to fix the core problems of the United States.
However, most of us are also well aware that voting them out is making the core problems worse. One need only apply a blindfold and throw a dart at any of the executive decisions made over the last week to find incontrovertible evidence of that.
Accelerationism is nothing but supporting facism. There is no magical moment where fascists run a nation into the ground, the system collapses, and somehow you get to decide what happens after.
What comes after can be just as bad - if not worse - than what came before. And you will do nothing - less than nothing - to stop it by choosing not to vote.
By doing so they’re allowing fascists to take over. Isn’t it in your best interest, as a leftist, to prevent the fascist take over of your country?
And before you say “The country is already run by fascists,” over here our immigration dept. is now starting to detain Native Americans. The president is deporting school children. Even other American citizens who aren’t white are being detained. That simply was not happening under the previous president.
Fascism is born from economic issues and tention usually created by rich people to move the blame. We have a labour party in place in the UK, Elon Musk has already involved himself in our politics. Reform uk is poling 25% and labour 26%. labour hasn’t even been in for half a year.
Fascism is battled in the streets and unions, historically this is what has happened.
Fascism can be seen as the endpoint of capitalism, when a system predicated on infinite growth hits the ceiling. While yes vote in your interest I wouldn’t depend on politicians to fix the systemic issue that is capitalism.
Edit for clarification: Reform UK are a nationalist party. Labour were a socialist party for workers, now they are liberals willing to sell whatever isn’t strapped down.
None of this changes the fact that by not voting against the fascists, you’re doing nothing to prevent them from taking control of the government.
