this post was submitted on 24 May 2024
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Exactly. This is what I cannot understand from all these "true hyper-leftist" people. You do realize that the future of the USA is at stake here, and that our system is fundamentally rigged to not allow any real alternative as a choice, right? Your brain-dead "BIDEN BAD VOTE THIRD PARTY" is just going to enable Trump and then you'll never be able to vote for anyone ever again as you are forced to participate in alt-right Trump rallies every single day and post on the Trumpernet about how much you love Trump. This isn't much of an exaggeration -- this where they want to go if Trump wins.
You're not supporting Biden. This isn't how our vote works. You're voting for the person less likely to fundamentally fuck our country up. And in case you still don't quite understand who this is, that is Biden.
The largest current of leftists aren't saying you cannot vote for Biden, and that you should vote third party, but that ultimately change comes from outside the electoral system.
Unfortunately unless a revolution falls into our laps and magically solves all our problems, the modicum of control we have over the steering of this ship is limited to voting and advocating for others to vote
Revolution isn't magical, it's the boiling point for society as material conditions decay. It may seem impossible when you're living in it, but eventually the material conditions will reach a point where revolution will occur.
This is painfully obvious for those who have read and agree with Marx's analysis of Capitalism. A quick into text is Wage Labor and Capital. Capitalism is fundamentally unsustainable and cannot continue to exist forever. International Imperialism has made this last far longer, but society develops alongside technology, and eventually the global south will throw off the global north.
Therefore, whether you are an Anarchist, or Marxist, it remains important not to simply wait for a Revolution, but to build up parallel structures, parties, groups, organizations of mutual aid, and so forth, to help guide along the revolutionary movement and gain trust in existing leftist structures. Unionization is huge for this as well.
Voting is good, sure, but will never bring about positive change, merely delay decay.
Can we safely encourage Republicans to vote 3rd party?
Yes.
They’ll never accept that, because they fundamentally see nothing wrong with the system. They want to preserve the broken machine, even if it doesn’t work for them. They think changing the oil will repair it, when it was designed to break.
More like we don't want to crash our only car when we don't have another means of transportation, and oops, now we can't get to work.
It's great to say "the system is broken and must be replaced." I agree! But nobody who says that, me included, has ever had anything resembling an actual plan to replace the system or to prevent something even worse from taking over once the system is destroyed.
Everyone gave the GOP shit for screaming about how Obamacare needs to be "repealed and replaced" but never saying what it should be replaced with (though that was because the "replace" part was a lie and they just wanted to go back to the bad old days of people being trapped in a job or entirely unable to get insurance because of a preexisting condition). It's the same thing with people saying the entire system of government needs to be replaced.
There are numerous other models of government being practiced all over the world. Choose one of them (I would recommend Swiss democracy).
It's all well and good to say "choose another system of governance" but how do we implement this change? What is the mechanism under which we can replace our current system of government with Swiss democracy, without the old government just saying "lolno" and bombing it to shit? The only method I can think of is a constitutional convention, and right now we're closer to the right wing being able to call one and rewrite it to take pur rights back 200 years than we are to leftists implementing Swiss democracy.
Like... I would be thrilled if that were within the realm of possibility, but as it stands any possible options for dramatically overhauling our system of governance is more likely to lurch us straight into permanent hard-right minority rule by a bunch of fascists. That's what I mean when I say I've never seen an actual plan by leftists to overhaul the system--it's all arguing about what the sexy end goal should be, without bothering to talk about the boring minutiae of how to actually get to it. So far as I can tell, the "plan" to make all these needed changes, so far as any thought is put into it at all, is just a silent assumption of either "we lobby our politicians and they do what we tell them and nobody opposes our ideas" or "we do a violent revolution and kill all the bad guys without harming the good guys and we definitely win and accomplish our goal without someone else taking advantage of the chaos to do a fascism instead," depending on how radical the change is.
Constitutional amendments
Make sure the old government doesn't have enough votes.
Agreed, but it doesn't have to be like that.
That’s what I said.
Not the point. Trump needs to be defeated, and the way we're going to do that is voting for Biden. There's no other way. It's not going to happen. You are absolutely deluded if you think there is another way.
After we fend off the Trump bullshit, then, yes, we have to make actual change to push us much further left. I don't get how all the ultra-leftists cannot fathom this simple fact.
That was the lie in 2020 and it didn't fucking happen. Now Biden is supporting genocide and we still gotta vote for him.
Because Trump is still a fucking threat, you assclown. His cronies are still in office. We are going to have to keep fighting this fight where it needs to be fought, then when that fight is done, THEN we push to the actual left. Is this so goddamn fucking hard for you "LOL DONT VOTE BIDEN SO TRUMP CAN BE PRESIDENT AGAIN" fucktwaddlers to understand?
I'm not American dawg. I hate biden as much as I want. Let me hate.
Nah, everyone is free to hate. However, support from others on this planet against Trump is also important. To some degree we all affect one another and his rise into the seat again would directly impact a LOT of people, even outside the U.S.
BUT
I'm hoping that there is now enough anger and frustration for us to carry the momentum past the voting gates and straight into very strong pressure towards all politicians. This IS fixable. The message is there, even if it will result in violence from our militarized police force.
This is ignorant fear mongering. If thats the way the system works as you say? Then its our duty as citizens to destroy the system entirely. If thats America then this is not a democracy and its certainly not a democracy worthy of being preserved. IF that is the system you claim Joe biden stands to preserve? Then we SHOULD let trump come in and tear the whole thing down.
I think trump is a fundamentally morally detestable character. Butt iv lived thru 1 trump presidency. Hes backwards, hes an ass. Hes not a good leader. But hes not the end of everything as we know it. And I'm not giving more power to a corrupt party of beaurocrats who continue to lie to my fucking face while selling me out to corporate interests behind my back and completely hollowing out our countries economic capability all the while refusing to make good on any of their promises and funneling all my tax money to foreign wars while we bleed for healthcare. Fuck this countries "democracy" the fact you even believe we live in a democracy is hilarious. Congress has a 14% approval rating. Our representatives do not represent the will of the america people. They represent the will of their largest financial donors.
If you think that's fear mongering then you clearly haven't been paying attention for the past 8 years.
I get what you're saying, but I'm trying to parse what is actual "things that can / will happen under a Trump presidency" vs "what the democrats and liberal media want us to think can / will happen under a Trump presidency". I'm likely voting Biden simply because I saw what a shitshow the Supreme Court became (and will be for quite some time) under a Trump presidency. But I also notice Biden did fuck all about it so part of me wonders if the democrats are doing nothing for the simple fact that they have a fearmongering device setting the up for the next election. I mean, honestly the state of politics in the US is just pathetic.
I feel the frustration, and agree with it. But the choice you’re describing does not exist. The options aren’t “fucked up status quo” with Biden and “start over fresh” with Trump, though. The options are “fucked up status quo” with Biden and “way fucking worse corporatism, inequality, treatment of any marginalized/minority group, personal freedoms, bodily autonomy, religious liberty, foreign relations, healthcare, education, environment… oh and let’s just completely give up the little voice we have” with Trump.
All the stuff that pisses you off about the corrupt bureaucrats in the Democratic Party exists across the board in the Republican Party, but worse.
I could see somebody voting for Trump hoping that the world ends more quickly and rebuilds so that their great-grandkids, if they exist/survive, might live in a better system. But the price for placing that unlocke unlikely bet is to fuck up the system now and in the near future, negatively affecting tens of millions to billions of actual people.
Ignorant? Look up Project 2025. Then tell me I'm exaggerating. You are either laughably ignorant about our situation, or you're a Trumper trying to convince people that everything will be fine when it will absolutely not be.
Vote blue in 2024, then push better agendas and vote true left next time. Because I can guarantee you if Trump wins, you won't be voting any more.