saw someone say maybe another trump win is good because it will mobilize the left a little more
threw up in my mouth a bit through the tears
A lot of those types of leftists fantasize about a glorious revolution, but many revolutions have happened and no utopias exist so…
I think Contrapoints made the same argument in one of her videos.
Agreed. I would add to that – there’s actually an incredibly instructive example to draw by looking at the non-violent-revolutionary movements that did achieve big social change in the past. The US labor movement in the late 1800s, Gandhi’s independence movement, the US civil rights movement with its partial victory, things like that. There are a ton of examples of people who achieved big things to revise the systems that rule their daily lives, starting from a way less advantaged position than the left in the modern day US. It’s not easy, no, but compared to an Indian person under the British Raj it’s an absolute cakewalk.
Strangely enough, the people who are so incredibly upset with the broken system in the US as it pertains to this election (which, yeah, I get that), are somehow totally uninterested in looking at what actions big or small might produce positive change. They’re solely focused on criticizing Biden and only Biden, or on saying that it’s so broken that we might as well let Trump come to power because what’s the difference.
It’s like “The plane is having engine trouble and I don’t know if we’re going to make it. I’m real scared and upset about the situation we’re in. I know! Let’s shoot the pilot in the head.”
Lol this is what gets me about the “get the guillotine” folks.
They think they’ll be the youth on the propaganda poster, waving the flag over the rubble of a conquered city, as if that’s realistic, or that it wouldn’t come with massive loss of life (not just in the capital class), lawlessness, and a huge power vacuum that will obviously be filled by an authoritarian (and likely a bigoted fascist).
I’ve seen some people on lemmy when I first started lurking, try to claim that some of the most dystopian nations are really close to utopia and are actually trying really hard guys. I think many of them were those types of leftists.
Specifically America needs a revolution. There have been many revolutions around the world and its America that counteracts all of the wins for the people. If America had a revolution then finally we might be able to make some progress.
There’s no utopias because of America.
All those armchair warriors that have a couple guns and say they’re ready for the revolution, but aren’t even participating in any activism besides edgelording on forums.
Sure you are, champ. Sure you are. Why don’t you instacart yourself some hot pockets and a gallon of ice cream.
If you aren’t part of at least three mutual aid groups providing mesh support in your tri-county area, I don’t wanna hear a goddamn thing about the revolution from you.
It blows my mind that we’re still discussing this after the German left took this approach with Hitler.
There is no “after fascists”. Fascists are the enemy that we unite against. Hitler wouldn’t have come into power if the leftists and moderates cooperated and had a healthy relationship. Even if some factions of the left/moderates want to play off fascists for power, there’s still plenty of people in the relevant group who dislike the fascists. Unite with them to take down the fascists and elements of their party who empower them.
We’ll get nowhere if we assume the entire group of leftists/moderates are fascist supporters. We need to ally.
??
There is no “after fascists”? What the hell are you talking about? Are you aware Germany is currently one of the strongest economies, one of the top political players, one of the most influential countries we have today? They also have laws specifically prohibiting denying the holocaust and disseminating Nazi propaganda, because they learned and our . They learned their lesson with fascism and now are actively fighting against it, while being a great country to live in; This is after fascists. Sure, it wasn’t the next fucking day. But it happened, which is more than can be said about the US.
So yeah, maybe sometimes the solution is to burn the country down and hope it rises from the ashes. If it does, it’ll be stronger. If it doesn’t, maybe it shouldn’t.
The trolls ive spoken to here are afraid of leftist solidarity. They claim they want change, but whine and cry the second you call for all roads for change to be taken. Mutual aid, direct action, and voting are praxis. We will have an impossible time trying to get any of those first 2 done under dumbass.
As someone on the far end of the left spectrum, any and all leftward movement must be embraced at all opportunities. How am i to convince anyone to work together with me, if I shit on their methods? All must be embraced. Some will be more effective, some less, but thats how we make connections.
Its about time this country learned what solidarity is.
Very well spoken. Even if the progress is minor, it’s helping some people, and that’s important. Obamacare was not the ultimate, perfect healthcare fix, but it did give a whole lot of people affordable healthcare where they didn’t previously. It was a cause worth supporting for that reason. And as someone who had to rely on it for a time, I greatly appreciate it.
If we’ve made someone’s life better or easier, we’ve succeeded. That to me is practical leftism. We help as many as we can as much as we can. Since we aren’t in unilateral power, that means we have to compromise. And working with colleagues will be more successful than being combative. The lone socialist in the Virginia House was able to get a lot done that way.
Thats a part of practical leftism indeed! Did the legalize end even the legal persecution of LGBTQ folks? Not entirely, look at the south. But it did( force a cultural shift. Suddenly it wasnt so cool to use gay as an insult and shit on queer ppl who looked/dressed/sounded a certain way.
The LGBTQ ppl in my life have been afforded the ability to step out of the closet with less fear than before. If im to march with them, this imperfect solution is working towards my ends as well.
Solidarity, comrade, regardless where ur politics are. I want liberation even for the righty whities that profess to hate us.
Specifically Voting is the starting shot from which all other actions flow in an election cycle
Doing all the other parts is basically just aesthetic shopping if you won’t do the part that changes material conditions at the macro level
I… understand.
This is what i mean by solidarity, amigo.
I disagree, on a fundamental level, that is. Voting is, as far as im concerned, the least you can do…
Still doing it. Ill still discuss with u voting options and effecting change via the electoral method. I vote in any and all elections in which i am eligible. Right now, i dont give two shits about convincing u about direct action being more effective. If i waste my time on that, that takes time from both of us in which we could be doing something productive (like discussing with those who are more likely to be swayed why direct action is important). Much more productive use of my time with u would be discussing which candidates are most likely to make material conditions better for us all.
And above all of that, you are (more than likely, anyway) a working class comrade who is exploited for their surplus value the same way i am. Why would i want to get on ur bad side? I want change, and ur preferred method is proven, clearly. Its best for us all to foster good relationships with one another. Then, you have another reliable voter in me, and i can rest assured that by working together (in say, going after the less reliable voters) u and I are pushing our communities in the correct (read: left) direction.
I say again, solidarity, amigo!
I like to point to one of the most successful Socialist parties that ever existing in the USA: The Socialist Party of Milwaukee. They got 3 mayors elected and effected actual change.
Part of the Socialist Party’s lasting success in Milwaukee can also be attributed to their pragmatism, Gousha says. Daniel Hoan made a point to exist within a capitalist free market system, they were fiscally conservative, and they worked with other parties to accomplish their goals.
Their pragmatism drew criticism from other socialists around the country, who called Milwaukeeans “sewer socialists” for not being revolutionary enough, according to Gousha.
"As Gene Zeidler said, 'The socialists of Milwaukee took that as a badge of honor. And they said, well you may think we need to be more revolutionary but you could not be elected dog catcher and we’re winning elections,’ " Gousha notes.
Majority of People: I want a pony.
Candidate 1: I’m going to kill all the ponies.
Candidate 2: I won’t do that, and will try to make ponies more affordable (because price-fixing the cost of ponies is not within my constitutional powers)
Leftist: “But that’s not good enough! I want a free pony. And a blowjob. I’m voting 3rd party 😤”
Do keep in mind these aggressive purist Gatekeeping / no true Scot leftists are very often just right-wing astroturfers. It hits two birds with one stone: they make leftism obnoxious, they often muddy the waters of violence, and wedge-drive the Democratic coalition to get Trump elected.
Either that or they’re very young and naive.
Don’t fall for it. You’ll see more of this the closer the election gets.
Oh, I’m not fooled (for the most part, anyway). I’m just giving the benefit of doubt and calling them out using their own arguments and trying to not make any assumptions or accusations.
The problem is they don’t often argue in good faith. Usually deflection and gish-gallop are their MO. So be concise and be mindful of the bystander audience.
Spot fucking on, but its that second group, the young and naive that make these points worth arguing and harping on about. Sometimes those of us whove been online our whole lives forget the indoctrinating power of the internet. Shit, thats what pushed me further and further left, and still does to this day.
And ur last sentence… oof… i know… brace yourselves, and kick up the counterefforts.
Great point - I don’t mean to disparage those newcomers to politics. We’ve all been there of course.
I guess I gate-kept a bit there myself, and my apologies for that.
$5 say the “They should earn my vote” line is a favorite of right wing and Russian trolls a la 2018’s #WalkAway movement.
i don’t believe you can prove anyone (not everyone, just one person) who doesn’t think biden is good enough is either right wing or “young and naive”
No but I can prove they’re short-sighted; and those two things go hand-in-hand. In my experience I’ve frankly yet to see someone older than like 22-years-old espouse such self-defeating beliefs and goals.
I can also prove that right-wing extremists engage in political astroturfing routinely and that according to investigative reporting these far-right groups intend to muddy the waters.
Taken from there, it takes very little ink (inductive reasoning) to connect the dots.
The leftist in this comment also makes sure to plug their ears nice and good if u tell them that the first candidate is financed by foreign powers literally hostile to anything u hold dear, a situation beyond unprecedented.
Voting is the least u can do politically, but it is still praxis, and absolutely necessary given the circumstances.
Candidate 1: I will keep giving guns to the people killing ponies but I will feel bad about it and criticize them sometimes
Candidate 2: I will give the guns and not feel bad.
Leftist: hey can anyone just, you know, not help people kill ponies?
Centrist: omg I can’t believe you’re asking for so much from your candidates. Your ideological purity is the real enemy here. I bet you don’t even care about ponies
Haha yeah a very nuanced and realistic portrayal of leftists. Obviously we just want free ponies and blowjobs. Preventing geno-what? Never heard of it
Edit. Star Trek profile pic? Remember when the federation gave weapons and aid to the dominion because it was politically convenient and the cardassians are worse anyway? No neither do I.
Candidate 2: I’m going to give guns and money to the person killing ponies but tell them they shouldn’t do it.
Leftist: Either way ponies are going to be killed. Let’s try something different.
Centrist: Noooo, you have to vote for the proxy pony killer who can’t use his position to do anything or else you’ll get a pony killer in power who’ll use his position to do everything.
You said it so perfectly and I never realized it. “If you elect our guy, he won’t be able to do anything, but at least it’s better than if you elect the other guy. If you elect the other guy, somehow he’ll be able to do everything he wants. But vote for our impotent guy instead. It’s safe!”
Um what?
One follows the rules, and the other often doesn’t even think there are rules. The difference there isn’t hard to suss out. It’s like that joke about playing chess with a pigeon.
Already had a tankie tell me they’re voting 3rd party.
Putin thanks them while Ukrainians and Palestinians weep.
Don’t worry, tankies love Russia’s Legitimate Security Interests in performing genocide in Ukraine.
One literally hopped on a sock-puppet account immediately after I reported their other account for spam (several replies to each comment) and blocking his account and just continued with the same nonsense.
Commie! They’re kind of adorable, how they think their extraordinarily unique commenting style can be obfuscated by switching usernames and instances. I’ve never seen someone try so hard to have the worst possible takes on everything
Lmao they downvoted this with both of their accounts
i’m not a tankie and i never told you i’m voting for a so-called third party (though i am)
This is going to happen every election for the foreseeable future. Trump is not a illness he’s a symptom. Eventually a right winger is going to win because we’re stuck voting for a party that often ignores their constituents for business interests. That’s how we got Trump in the first place and the DNC learned nothing.
All the while we could vote third party like in most healthy democracies but we can’t because neither of the major parties want a third party and voters are to cowardly to vote 3rd party because “they won’t win anyway” even when they actually represent what they want in a on policy. See Nader and Bernie
Fact is neither Democrat or Republican is going to attempt to change s system that actively benefits them, especially in the higher positions of authority. The fact that voting 3rd party is considered throwing away your vote should be more embarrassing to Americans as a whole.
It’s not “considered” throwing your vote away. Under a FPTP voting system, it is throwing your vote away. Nobody who tells you that says it gleefully like we just love that we and you can’t vote third party effectively. It’s just the mathematical reality of our voting system and it has to be changed before voting third party becomes an option that is anything but symbolic and self-defeating.
The DNC is not the ephemereal vague boogeyman the left tries to make it out to be. It’s an organization focused on winning elections and accomplishing policies for the Democratic constituency. You are making the mistake of hating the player instead of the game.
If third party votes are important to you, join a local political group focused on expanding another voting choice method like Ranked Choice or STAR voting. You’re already on the easier half of the ideological spectrum to wage this fight from, since most sponsors of alternatives are from democratic groups.
He’s both a symptom and an illness.
I think people who are young enough to not remember the world before Obama don’t realize this is so so so so so far from the norm that we don’t have any clue what’s going to happen.
Biden would have been a decent GOP candidate in the 90s. It’d have sucked to see him elected but it would have been a few years of uncomfortable conservative stuff. Where people argue about how much power we want to give to corporations or whatever… But now it’s so far past that…
Tell me which democrats before Trump’s term was “ignoring their constituents for business interests” - show your work, please. Because you sound like a bipartisan moron.
If you can’t understand how bad trump was and will be, you’re fucking retarded. I agree that trump is a symptom but the disease is dumbasses that value social issues like abolishing trans rights and wanting to restore the ability to say the “hard R” without getting fired.
Biden (or his cabinet, whatever) has done so much good for this country that it fills me with a white hot rage that there’s still so much opposition to what is essentially the best presidency we’ve had in decades. You know what? I think you’re part of the problem. I think you don’t know the first thing when it comes to policies, legislation, bills, laws, economic incentives, budgets, etc. I think you think you’re just “looking at both sides, man”.
Sorry if that’s a bit harsh but you guys speak so confidently about issues you know nothing about. I’ll try to make it easier: if you’re a Democrat, vote Biden. If you’re not a Republican, vote Biden. If you don’t like Biden but hate Trump, then vote Biden. If you’re unsure (then you shouldn’t be allowed to have kids, honestly) vote Biden and thank me later. If you’re a Trump supporter I’ll pray for you but vote Trump. If you’re a Republican and don’t like Trump, I’m so sorry.
Don’t get so shocked when someone points out that the Washington establishment shares a lot of common values. I think we all know that intuitively, and yet here you are cussing people out because they pointed it out yet again.
You want some issues that show how Obama failed, how Biden has failed? Okay. Campaign finance reform, housing, strict anti-monopoly legislation, stopping wars.
The biggest thing in your rant that you got totally wrong is that you talked about both sides as if there are only two sides. In reality everyone has their own agenda, but if you get stuck in that trap where you think there’s only two people that you could possibly support it’s easy to forget that neither of them cares about most of the things that you hold dear.
I get the feeling that a lot of these people think that somehow withholding their vote to punish Biden is some kind of ultimate punishment and it allows them to feel superior without having to do anything else to actually contribute.
Its tactical. The right is in distress bc theyre so damn unpopular and their base is shrinking while the left is growing. So, for our enemies, its time to turn us against each other and convince us “voting bad.” Bc low turn out is the only way they win. And they say, “but itll keep happening,” except, it wont. Bc theyre in distress. Bc theres less and less boomers to vote for shit. So now, on the eve of tides turning, “wah! Itll always be this way! Give up, dont vote! The right will eventually win!”
I think genocide is bad and that Build Back Better was always going to be killed by the Democratic Party from the very start
He is a C+ president at absolute best.
Which makes him the best president since LBJ
Which means we need to dispose of our current political and civic order and replace it with a better model.
Even something like Finland would be a drastic improve
It’s not that they are ok with Trump. They are just unhappy with both candidates. With that being said I do plan on voting for the Biden because while I don’t agree with him on everything I know that he won’t turn the country into a fascist dictatorship like Trump. The fact that this asshole is still legally allowed to run is insane.
Edit: I change my mind. After seeing Bidens debate performance it is pretty obvious that he is going to lose. Unless if the Democrats replace Biden with a candidate who can actually speak. I will be voting for Jill Stein instead.
Edit 2: Turns out Biden dropped out. I will now vote for whoever the democratic nominee is but after this election I will be voting 3rd party from now on.
Because there is still a reasonable veneer of democracy. The “both sides-ing” part of the electorate that doesnt see what is happening as a slow conversion to authoritarianism or fascism still know how to count and how elections are supposed to work. The system is getting slowly rigged from the inside, and it is extremely enabled by having questionable election results and need for recounts and exploitable legal actions.
You can see by watching coverage of Trump’s second impeachment that there are principled old guard Republicans with lines they won’t cross. There’s also huge portion of the non-maga “center and center right” electorate thinks that this is all just some overblown BS and dont love Trump, but think it’s all the same either way. A close election? Sure recount, sue, whatever, and those people will go along. Have a blowout confirmed by media and election polling and those people wake up and give a shit. All is not lost for democracy, but basically only half the electorate is even engaged in the discussion. In a close race a steal looks legit, in a landslide race that is overturned all the “nothing burger” crowd gets proof that there is blood in the water.
The US isn’t Russia yet, but the insides are changing because fuckwits “protest” by sitting on their couches, not voting or engaging, and whining about how it doesnt matter. IT. MATTERS. This whole conversation is like the “first/then they came for the XXX and I said nothing” situation, but it starts at the ballot box.
Because the alternatives are to roll over and take it or revolt with violence and we should strive for peaceful resolution before violent revolution.
