this post was submitted on 14 May 2024
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Yes. Let's allow the authoritarians win. Dumbasses.
The authoritarians are already in power. Student antiwar demonstrations are being crushed by the police, border detentions are up, labor demonstrations have been crushed just a few short years ago and there is an active campaign to control media sources.
Biden fired the guy who used to run the NLRB, and put in a bunch of actually pro-labor people, who gave lots of material support to all this union activity that coincidentally has been meeting with all sorts of success over the last couple of years.
He did also break the rail strike, and then his NLRB kept working the issue after people weren't paying attention, and got the rail workers the sick days they were asking for in the first place.
To me, it sounds like he wanted to avoid the disruption to the economy that the rail strike would have caused (which would have caused inflation which actually was sort of his fault, in contrast to the Covid and price-gouging inflation which is currently happening which people are blaming him for even though it isn't his fault).
You can say, I guess, that he broke the rail strike because he hates workers, and then wasn't paying attention when his NLRB got them the sick days after, and that he just didn't bother to break all of the other strikes that were happening coincidentally before during and after that, including historic ones like UAW and the writer's guild strike. Or maybe that he hates rail workers specifically but not the other kind. Or something. I don't know.
Or were there labor demonstrations other than the rail strike that were crushed that I missed?
Can you tell me more about this?
The opposing party has signaled that harassing and detaining protesters isn't enough, they want them KILLED.
Is that just absent in your mind?
wow it sucks that we live in a fascist state. lets organize to oppose it instead of vote for the lesser of the two fascist ruling class parties.
WHY INSTEAD OF??
You can do two things, and one of the things you suggest is EXACTLY what the fascists want. This is not an either/or. You can do both.
It feels easier to organize opposition if the people in the White House are just saying stupid shit about protesters instead of urging for sending in the National Guard so they can nuke Gaza without listening to the complaints.
Encouraging people not to vote for Biden is the most effective way to help Trump win. No amount of mental gymnastics changes this fact.
running any other candidate is the most effective way to prevent a trump win. there are no mental gymnastics here.
instead of exchanging pithy remarks, why not talk about what youre worried about? do you think trump will accept being declared the loser?
Do you really think you're going to get a third of America to not only rally behind a candidate that isn't the two-party front runners, but also rally behind the same candidate?
I'm worried about people refusing to vote Biden because he sucks and then the outspoken, proud fascist winning and stripping rights from myself and my friends, giving Israel even more support, halting support to Ukraine, and attempting to dismantle the little democratic power we have.
No, I don’t think that. I mean, I think it’s possible, but the effects of a big third party campaign are wide ranging.
If you want an unarguable example of a third party campaign changing the dialogue on a fundamental level even in the face of a loss, look at perot.
Not only was his campaign considered not to be a spoiler, but it rendered nafta dead in the water, just waiting for someone to drag it in to shore. There’s a reason no politician since then made it a priority and no media, political or popular support materialized to protect it instead of replacing outright.
If you’re worried about fascist Biden losing to fascist trump, have you considered what trump being declared the loser looks like? At what point do you stop saying “I was not Palestinian so I said nothing”?
If you truly feel fear, real existential fear, about Biden losing: stop worrying about voting. It can’t protect you and you’re looking at January 6 electric boogaloo no matter what.
Take concrete steps to make yourself, your family and your community more resilient, maintain your health and wellbeing, and avoid life altering disruption from whatever is gonna happen no matter who is declared the winner.
The '96 election was not an existential threat at the level of the '24 election.
At the margins we have voting for Biden or voting third party will do nothing but prop up Trump's dedicated voter base. This is your impact. You can hate Biden and still vote for him if it means keeping Trump out of office.
I don't subscribe to your belief of widespread violent revolt if Trump loses.
I say this a lot and it’s to keep people from wasting their time, not as some attempt to shout people down: I will never vote for Joe Biden again. You cannot convince me.
Again, that’s not to shout anyone down or be aggressive, but to firmly seat us in the context of an actual Biden voter (you) or a hypothetical Biden voter (someone else).
Usually when people talk about Perot, they mean ‘92. That’s the one where he was in all the debates and the one that brought nafta into the public eye in a big way. It’s the one that was initially called a spoiler for the republicans but later research proved was a nearly even draw from prospective and past voters of both parties.
Perot 92 is my favorite example of a third party run in our lifetimes because it shows how that external pressure can deeply change the two parties and was in no way “throwing one’s vote away”.
No matter if you stay with genocide Joe or decide to walk away from omelas with me, I urge you to reconsider your view that there will be no uprising if trump is declared the loser. If you believe he’s an existential threat, believe that January 6 was an attack on democracy, see project 2025 as a real threat, and recognize that the same base that will vote for trump cannot accept or trust the electoral system, it’s hard to reach the conclusion that nothing is gonna happen.
I don’t think anything’s gonna happen myself, but that’s because I don’t see trump as an existential threat, don’t think January 6 was a big deal, see project 2025 as the rights response to Covid laying the power of the administrative state bare and their plan to control it and generally recognize that the only way trust in the electoral system will ever be restored is through a trump victory in 2024 and a peaceful transition of power to the winner of 2028.
If we're considering foreign policy, a Trump victory means not only continued destruction in Gaza but potentially an additional genocide in Ukraine. Domestically he has demonstrated that he's unwilling to accept a loss and will stoop to transporting fake elector ballots to overturn the election. That's not to mention his platform which I see as abhorrent. I don't consider putting this guy in the Oval Office to be an acceptable solution. Voting for Biden is the only effective defense against this. I have accepted that we are going to have a terrible genocide enabling president after this election. This is taking a mental toll on me for sure but at the end of the day it can always be worse. If we don't agree on that premise then we won't agree on much here.
not according to people who are much smarter and better informed than you.
come on, you must be able to articulate your argument clearly without saying "a wizard said so!"
I could, but you don't care about educating yourself, and I would prefer to not waste my time.
suffice to say: you're not as smart as you think you are. significantly less.
So your response is to roll over and give them ULTIMATE power?
These are reasons to protest, fight, and get engaged in local politics, not to fucking give in to the fascists.
I didn't say roll over and give power to the fascist state. I said that we already have authoritarians in power. we do.
I agree especially with that last part. that's why i never, not even once suggested giving in to fascists.
That's where I disagree- Voting third party or not voting at all enables fascists. Period. There is no ethical option in a single-vote system. There is only harm reduction.
Is that an extreme view? Yes. Is it wrong? Not when the Republican leader says he'll be a dictator on day one. Our only option is to first make sure we don't fall under a fascist dictator and THEN continue to fight. It's not a problem that will be solved by voting, but voting HAS to be the first step.
Also yes.
I swear to god, it's like strategic voting doesn't exist at all.
If you live in a deep blue or red state who's basically guaranteed not to flip, with maybe extra considerations to which states tally their votes along which lines, because, as we know, states that tally their votes earlier in the process have a much higher sway, so, the DNC winning more overwhelmingly in those states, and especially if those states are swing states, has much more of an effect overall, then a protest vote to a candidate you agree with, in those circumstances, is pretty good.
It potentially shows the democratic party what you actually want, contests their claim of a mainstream, deep blue state, potentially in mass, and can give more legitimacy to those parties or those positions. Even better would probably be voting for a candidate like bernie, or someone internal to the DNC, in that scenario, since that's more likely to give them a lot more media attention in the future and realistically someone like that has the best chance of winning.
The same principles as all this apply to local elections, just at a much smaller scale, with less media attention, and potentially less information on both sides, since people generally don't give a fuck about understanding local elections even if they're the ones being fucking elected. Just send out money and a bunch of lawn ornament signs explaining nothing, and then expect, probably not wrongly, that everyone will just vote for whatever candidate is a part of the party that they generally agree with, even if nobody has any fucking idea what anyone really stands for. Better off even if there's no hint of an alternative being campaigned or even on the ballot despite everyone just telling people to run for local spots as though that's really a possibility for most.
Instead, instead of paying attention to why votes are shifting, and how they might appeal to that voter block, the mainstream DNC strategy seems to be to just like demand that leftists have to come over to the democratic party's side and then just accept all of their orders basically unquestioningly. To just pester them to vote more, and to vote harder, and to vote for the mainline DNC candidate, without any real conversations about how they might actually use their vote or why they might actually want to vote for their desired candidate. And of course that's the fucking messaging, because that's the messaging that allows them to get away with as little concessions to the left and the general population's popular sentiments as possible. Bonus points if you're always voting for damage prevention, too, because the urgency gives people a morally justifiable reason to just engage in relentless bullying tactics, rather than actually have a nuanced conversation about the ups and downs of a candidate and how they should use their vote, under what circumstances.
You can't blame people for smelling something fishy in all that, being unable to articulate why or think through for what circumstances they might want to vote in, and then just kind of feel burnt out and cynical about the whole prospect and not really want to vote. It's not exactly a hard strategy to see through when we've been seeing it for the last... 25, 30, 40 years maybe? I dunno, don't remember those elections before I was born, but they've been pulling this shit since bush got into office.