They come out of the woodwork to say this kind of stuff when there's an election, but don't actually stand up for anything remotely revolutionary, during or outside of an election.
What is supposed to be strategic about voting for evil is never quite clear. And let's be clear, when people talk about voting for the lesser of two evils, that is effectively what they're saying: "you should vote for evil." Maybe these liberals would understand it better if their options were Emperor Palpatine and Lord Voldemort. Maybe then they'd get how ridiculous it sounds to say, "Strategically vote for the lesser evil of the two."
I think what it suggests is that they don't truly believe the candidate they're voting for is evil. And they go with that rhetoric because they think it's more appealing to someone who does view the candidate as evil.
I think it means they know at their core electoralism is a sham, but they just can't get past all the times they were told that voting is the most important thing you can do in your life and that a vote outside of the two "real" parties is a wasted vote. Consciously acknowledging that electoralism alone cannot fix the world is a harrowing experience for them.
I've had liberals genuinely tell me they truly feel good about themselves because they donate monthly to what amounts to a subscription service that gives a portion of your donation to "the most critical elections in the nation." Aside from casting a vote, this is the beginning and the end of their political action.
That shit just reminds me of paying for indulgences. Radlibs annoy me so much that I don't even bother explaining anything anymore, I just ask what they plan on doing when we end up having this conversation again 2 years from now when things are even more fucked. At the end of the day, they don't want to believe in a reality where they don't have any real power and will have to labor and sacrifice and learn and go outside to develop it. Having a simple binary choice laid out for them + some treats is worth all the chaos and misery apparently. I will never understand them.
Radlibs annoy me so much that I don't even bother explaining anything anymore, I just ask what they plan on doing when we end up having this conversation again 2 years from now when things are even more fucked.
A good way to respond to that type.
I really wish it was actually effective. Instead they just move the goalpost to a place they know they can always block from: they just demand that you provide a comprehensive, step by step plan as to how to overthrow the capitalists and proof that you're already doing it. When you can't they smugly write you off and continue overposting every tiny little morsel of palace intrigue and spicy Trump quote they can.
Still cathartic. I don't expect anything to be effective with them.
Maybe a response to the goalpost moving is, "Read Lenin if you want to know the steps. It's not my job to hold your hand. If you want to help with taking those steps, join our organization. Here's when and where our next meeting is."
If they are legitimately interested, it's worth elaborating, but a radlib isn't so I think this is enough.
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They straight up get hateful. I had a smug bruncher make a even smugger comment about "marginalized people" and me "throwing them away because I didn't vote" and it's like...my fucking partner isn't white and they aren't voting either..
Wild how you can say that people that are against voting for yet another capitalist shill who will maybe throw some breadcrumbs to the people is counter revolutionary. Because voting is, as we know, peak revolutionary behavior.
Aa of course, this time the democrats will move left instead of sprinting full speed to the right like they do everytime so-called progressives give them everything they ask for without asking for anything in return. Let me just check my list of successful socialist revolutions that happened out of "pragmatic" voting for the "lesser evil".
Weird, it's a blank page.
Try refreshing again to see if it's changed. If that doesn't work, refresh until something changes.
Material conditions that improve people lives do not necessarily move them leftwards, it move them to support what improved their lives. Which in case of USA is imperialism, though it's also a moot point because US imperialism is way past this point and they're getting neoliberalism no matter who they vote for.
There was a lemm.ee post with wording almost identical to this. I was going to respond but I realised I just didn't have the energy.
Why is voting a moral choice? Why can't it be a strategic pick so we have a choice over the opposition?
voting is a strategic choice, but voting for one fascist instead of another is not a sound strategy
But drumpf would genocide them even harder. In an election between 100% Hitler and 500% Hitler, voting for the former is harm reduction. \s
The time of reformism is over. Almost all parties which had indeed provided reforms for the working class in the past are now straight pushing counter-reforms.
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That's what I keep mentioning. I'll bring up the fact that Walz or Kamala isn't likely to give union workers or any worker better benefits. Reproductive rights are awesome; but when the supreme court is stacked with ghouls and we have state legislatures anyways...a president with that power isn't going to be able to do much if a state goes full reproductive nazi. I think the liberals purposefully ignore the fact that the supreme court can literally dismantle any electoral plan that comes up to actually benefit the average person.
Or they just know that and are purposefully playing blind to it.
Or they just know that and are purposefully playing blind to it.
I know what you mean. Often it is hard to see if one person is purposefully blind or like really don't understand it.
Often it is like if they don't care for history, ignoring what happened before. "Before" not in the sense of two weeks, but years, decades etc. I often stop arguing at such points, because it is exhausting to explain history. Regarding agitation this is ofc important, but Jesus Christ you need 100 more times to show them why they are false, when they need 10 seconds to write the weirdest shit.
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Yup. Doesn't even have to be past history. You can point right now that they aren't putting a single finger up against the genocide and they'll start brunching and calling you a single-issue purity tester and report everything you say. Half of them straight up accept and embrace the brain-worms while the other half is taken for a ride because they're so insulated from other takes by their own smugness, echo chambers and failure to yes, read into the past.
In the entire time I've been organizing, been online, etc I have a handful of liberals I've managed to convince rather than the far more reactionaries that expanded their way of thinking when I present them with alternatives. It is fucked up when I've had conservatives and libertarians be more open-minded and accepting of socialist views when presented properly and mindfully.
The only way he'll push anything is by calling the National Guard on it and they'll shove it while chanting "Move! Move! Move!"
The guy's argument does not ring hollow, I think he puts way too much importance on it but has some point to it, I think it's possible to say that said guy sucks but sucks slightly less so vote that way but don't expect much and keep up the fight. Either way both him being so mad about it and we mocking him is just quibbling over details, the joining of forces and cooperating with the proletariat must happen independent of election results, so yeah we should debate that but acting in our own interest should always take precedence to pettiness
When someone says Overton Window my eyes roll because I know I'm talking to a liberal reformist who is deeply unserious. I know because I used it all the time in my succ-dem phase when I was desperately trying to cling to reformism and Bernie and not confronting the reality of how the world works.