FAQ
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.
My favorite morons ITT:
”Both options are cliffs!”
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.
You, i like you
c:
Ive gotten righty whities to agree with me on all sorts of wild leftist ideas, its about finding the angle and humanizing the problem.
A-fuckin-goddamn-men.
You need to communicate with people. Berating them is entirely self serving. No one ever said “you know what? I am a moron, thanks for pointing out my worldview is entirely wrong and I’m an asshole in those exact words.”
You can get people to realize they’re wrong, but calling them names is exactly the wrong way to do it.
I say “talk to a conservative in conservative language” and they’ll understand you. Avoid “trigger” words like redistribution, socialism, LGBT+, etc… use words like “Liberty, freedom of expression, government overreach (when discussing infringement of LGBT+ rights) etc…”
i feel like sometimes people forget the little username in their phone represents a living breathing life that may or may not have had breakfast this morning :(
”Both options are cliffs!”
But they are though.
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.
There are actually two cliffs
Yeah, and Trump is going to drive you off of both.
If you think that trump is capable of that then you admit the American system is so flawed that a diaper wearing dementia ridden criminal is all it will take to bring it down. That Pax Americana is on the death bed and electing Biden is just kicking the can down the road.
Without the looming existential threat of the climate apocalypse and the inevitability of children born today fighting in the water wars, Biden might be fine, but we need action now and anything else isn’t just lesser of two evils, it’s complete failure in our lifetimes…
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.
I wouldn’t water opposing genocide down to “ideological purity”. It’s opposing genocide, and that’s objectively right every time.
And that’s before getting into Joe’s inaction on pretty much any important issues during his term. If Trump wins the 2024 election then outside of the GOP that’s entirely on Joe Biden for failing to oppose genocide and run any sort of compelling administration.
you can do so much more to defeat the reactionaries by visiting:
- a gym
- a shooting range
- a library
- your local revolutionary organization’s meeting
than a polling station
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.
People frame it as an either/or because the reality is that voting doesn’t hold the personal power you think it does.
Due to how our elections work your vote just might be worthless. Add on all of the other issues at hand, and the prospective of voting is absolutely depressing for some of us.
This still doesn’t really make it an either/or situation, but one situation gives you the ability to potentially make a positive difference in the world, whereas the other, not so much.
Lemme tell you a story. In the last parliamentary election in Poland in October we had a record high turnout of 73% or so. This only emboldened the liberals and the pseudo-left to introduce lower health insurance contributions for the capitalists and tax breaks for IT sector but lift the food VAT cancellation despite some product categories still being affected by an inflation rate of up to 20% and gas and electricity prices freeze. Which is actually being justified by the “socdem” ruling triumvirate partner instead of them standing against it. But ig for them idpol matters much more than standing for poor people. Then they’re fucking surprised they vote for social conservatives. Just like many Trump voters who are not right-wing extremists but just disillusioned proletarians with false consciousness.
Recently state TV invited fucking landlords to discuss how to deal with non-paying tenants to a morning TV. On the contrary, the so hated social conservative PiS government has at least managed to introduce a vacant property tax. Now under the glorious liberal regime we can expect the rent to still gobble up more than a half of a large part of the population’s salary. Yay! So progressive, so European, so democratic! 🥰🎉✌️
Women’s rights were the hallmark of their campaign, but we still have one of the most barbaric laws regarding abortion and emergency contraception access in Europe due to the centre-right coalition partner torpedoing any change in this respect – hey, how is doing anything about Roe v. Wade being overturned going?
Also militarism. Both of them (Biden and Trump) will waste massive amounts of taxpayer and printed money on producing fucking scrap metal death machines. But Biden is actually more hawkish. In Poland we are already spending 4% of our GDP (twice the NATO target!) on that and in the past few years it increased by like 260%. All of this despite Russia actually virtually not increasing it’s military spending and incessant media reports about how they are using 50 year old equipment in Ukraine.
So many people fell totally duped in Poland right now, and rightly so. Now the hope lies in the streets, in the radicalization of women’s protests and gathering storm for a strike wave. Government of the rich, for the rich won’t do shit for the working class unless they feel fear. Luckily the farmers’ protests have shown the way to go.
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.
Trump is literally a fascist. You’re damn right Biden has better optics…because he isn’t a fascist. So who are you voting for then?
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.
I challenge your last point regarding marijuana convictions: https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2022/10/06/statement-from-president-biden-on-marijuana-reform/
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
This is what I’m saying - the moderates fucking suck and it’s not worth trying to win them over. Move the party left, the zombified vote-blue-no-matter-who Democrats will vote for a more leftist candidate just like they vote for a more moderate candidate.
