this post was submitted on 27 Apr 2024
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Correction: "I'm voting for Biden to make sure the things that are happening right now continue to get slowly better, instead of getting immediately and significantly worse."
lol looking at the last couple weeks all I see is a crackdown on supposed "open society" in order to combat anti-zionism while the war machine rattles on abroad.
This is like claiming global warming isn't real because it still snows sometimes.
It's more like saying global warming isn't real because a new ice age just started. Biden is leading the greatest attack on civil liberty seen since the fucking Patriot Act, and his warmonger inclinations in Ukraine and Israel aren't counterbalanced by fleeing from the fiefdom of Kabul, and if we take a broader look at how he's handled policy, we see the continued escalation of the war on immigrants (not that he hasn't pursued that lately too) and him basically shrugging at Roe being struck down.
Can't recall there being an active genocide going on with the full throated support of the US government when Biden got into office.
Are you trying to suggest trump will be better in that regard?
Don't you remember when Trump imposed sanctions against China because of the Uyghur genocide?
No?
Me neither.
I mean there was it was just not noticed by liberals
I think most reasonable accounts of the violence at the southern border (which has escalated again under Biden) would be considered a genocide
when hasn't the USG been supporting a genocide or three?
The things that are happening right now are happening under biden though... why do you think it would get better when he has initiated the worsening?
I guess I should clarify that I'm not naive enough to think that this all started under Biden because history has inertia. Biden, having been VP before president and a Senator for many years before that certainly had an outsized contribution to the things that are happening now. The things that are in motion now are not going to be solved by Biden or Trump or really any of the entrenched political class in the west and pretending they are is just fooling yourself. They are too ideologically poisoned and are busy self destructing.
Biden is slowly worse, Trump is quickly worse. Liberalism is not about moving leftward, it's about continuing Capitalist hedgemony.
Slowly worse is still better than quickly worse, as that means there's more time to find a better solution.
where's that evergreen ratchet meme
That's what they said back in '96 when I voted for Ralph Nader. Now we're on the precipice of American democracy falling to fascism, if not now, then very likely in 2028. That doesn't look to me anything like slowly getting better.
Some things have definitely improved in that time, e.g. the recognition of same-sex marriage, or the nascent resurgence of labor unions. Those things have been the result of slow, tough, hard work by the grassroots.
In that same time, though, the Democrats have been slowly helping to put the mechanisms of a fascist state in place, like the PATRIOT ACT, FISA, neutering the 4th Amendment, bolstering the Espionage Act, and setting up collaborative efforts between state police, Federal agencies, and the corporate sector to crush protest movements.
That said, the world is indeed shades of grey, and I voted for Biden in 2020 to stay fascism, if only for a little bit. It's better to vote for the right-wing candidate versus the fascist candidate. I want to vote for him again, but there are some lines that must never be crossed, and I can't in good conscience vote for a President enabling genocide. (The fact that both candidates do is madness.)
Maybe my calculus would be different if there were a reasonable chance that Democrats would do the things that are within their power to do to check the rise of fascism, but I have no confidence of that, as the track record shows otherwise.
Edit: Auto-correct damage.
Hey! So I know you are getting people being snarky and whatnot, but I have a legitimate question.
Could you address the question regarding how the Democrats are at least the party that are at least making slow progress, as opposed to not voting against the party that will turn the country into a Christian theocracy if given the chance?
Like I understand that you don't like either candidate - neither do we - but realistically, we know the winner will be either a Republican or a Democrat. Why not support the one that at least won't regress the country 500 years?
Because incrementalism is how we got to this situation in the first place.
Damn, you're way more succinct than I am.
Lol things have not gotten slowly better through voting ever or have you somehow missed the last 100 years?
Their username can answer this question
It is a little too on the nose
End of segregation. Interracial marriage legalized. Voting rights for native americans. LGBT rights...
Nope, no progress there.
I seem to remember those things happening because of protest and struggle.
Elected officials only care about protests when they start losing votes.
Did those happen because people voted, or was it because of large-scale protests and pressure?
Both. You can't get what you want by only doing one or the other. If you don't vote, you can't pressure sane politicians that don't get elected, and the insane fascists are just going to ignore you. And we all know that voting alone isn't the solution
People need to stop acting like voting is the end all/be all, or that not voting/withholding your vote sends a message rather than let's psychos who want to destroy democracy have their way.
We have the largest protests since the Iraq War, and your "sane" politicians are telling us to fuck off.
They like to pretend like successful protests are a people's moment, but protests don't go anywhere without in-power support. MLK was establishment as fuck. The National Guard provided a replacement when his PA system failed at the million man march. You gotta make your opinions known by voicing them publicly and supporting candidates that are sympathetic to your cause. Even better, become part of the establishment yourself and be the helpful politician you wish you could vote for.
MLK was not establishment as fuck, most of his protests were illegal, and he regarded the "white moderate" who agree with his goals, but think things must be done slowly and within the system as just as great if not greater obstacle than the klansman.
It seems to have been buried to the sands of time, but I once read an excellent article explaining why modern protest movements have a terrible track record compared to the ones from before the 1980s (or so). The book "If We Burn" by Vincent Bevins has a similar theme.
The long and short of it is that modern protests are too easy to organize, and don't represent any real power. You can start a Facebook event and get loads of people to show up and stand in the street, but that's pretty much it. In order to organize a protest in the 1960s, you had to have an established organization and power structure. You had to have regular meetings and a bureaucracy in order to get a large number of people to show up and protest. That same bureaucracy could also be used for other things, like supporting or opposing particular political candidates, and the oppositional and sympathetic establishment knew that.
A modern protest is toothless. It has no weight behind it. If you want to have enough power to take on the establishment that you oppose, you have to become equally structured and monied in order to fight them. That's what it means to become a part of the establishment. You might not join the established teams, but you're going to become so well organized and bureaucratic that angsty teams would immediately write you off as boring and just another part of the system if they ever had to participate in one of your long term planning sessions.
On an individual level my suggestion is to join the system and change it from within, because one person doesn't make for a very powerful organization. Plus, it's rare for any random person to have the chops or resources to build up a political organization for themselves. On the collective level, you gotta start holding committee meetings.
terrifying comment