Their unwillingness to act on climate change is a major (if not the biggest) reason we need representation. The Democrats hand power back to Republicans who undo this session’s climate action.
Destroying the world more slowly by slightly impacting one election at a time brought us here.
I understand and support the sentiment: something needs to change. I just don’t think that re-framing electoral politics will work unless it’s backed by a mass movement of organised workers. If that happens, the question becomes, why bother with the middlemen? They can legislate for themselves without having to beg the ruling class for mild compromises.
Destroying the world more slowly by slightly impacting one election at a time brought us here.
That’s kinda what I was driving it. How many elections would it take to abolish FPTP? We’d have to wait for that and only then could we think about voting in politicians who might do something and the system would still be dominated by capital. That makes a three-step process out of a two-step process.
Seems like a request to wait for an indefinite number of election cycles—the same request of those who say to vote for this or that faction of the capitalist party and one day, just maybe, conditions will be just right for one of those parties to effect any change. Too many African, Latin American, and Asian homes and lives would be destroyed while they wait patiently for the US to get its act together.
It would take too long to work unless you know of a massive campaign across the western world to implement FPTP. If it doesn’t exist already, it must be built within the next year or so or the west will be locked into another four-ish years of no progress. And that’s just for a shot at electing politicians who might vote to abolish FPTP. Before they even come within hearing distance of, never mind face-to-face with, the contradictions of imperialism.
Currently, almost all I see in the west is how to do business as usual but in green. That means denying progress to the subjugated masses so that USians can maintain their standard of living. Oppressed people shouldn’t have to wait for the US to figure out how to tactically solve the world’s ills through an electoral technicality. Round and round we’d go with electoralism.
At this point, there is one, single option: revolution. Anything else will take too long. Luckily for humanity, whatever the US thinks or wants is largely irrelevant. The world is revolving anyway. The only question for the world is what form the revolution takes. And the additional question for USians is whether they want to be part of the change or to ruin everything out of spite and self-interest.
While I agree with revolution, I don’t think pursuing that is at odds with voting a certain way once a year. There’s already a movement to eliminate FPTP in the USA and it has been making real progress. This additional step is necessary (within the framework of voting) for the other two steps to work - the second step keeps getting undone.
Personally I’ve been pushing for this since the 2000 presidential election. It has indeed been painfully slow… But it does seem to be getting somewhere. Not to imply we shouldn’t be organizing outside of elections, too.
I have to admit, I did not expect this response. I’m struggling to see how an anti-capitalist argument in favour of socialist revolution is right wing.
A possibility? It’s happening as we speak. Time will tell.
It’s a spoiler, a red herring. “Don’t bother doing the thing that could actually threaten our power. Instead, focus on this other thing that has no shot of happening.”
And in your view, the thing that threatens their power is voting Dem? Please let me know if I’ve misunderstood. If not: (i) how does this ‘solution’ help people who aren’t in the US and (ii) the Dems are in power and have been in power recently before this, and recently before that, and they achieved… what? They brought as much horror to the world as the GOP.
They brought as much horror to the world as the GOP.
This is such a ridiculously wrong statement that if I hadn’t already been talking with you and could see you’re not an idiot, I’d assume you’re too stupid to reason with and just start calling you names. How could you possibly come to that conclusion?
how does this ‘solution’ help people who aren’t in the US
Depends on the country, but it’s generally applicable to most places. A revolution is not happening. Change within the system. And for some places, having Dems in charge in the US allows the US to pressure those countries to change in better ways.
Democratic strongholds are making massive gains on climate change. Look at California. That’s what happens when we get a democratic supermajority.
The federal government has had a Democratic supermajority exactly once in the past few decades. For a few months. And they used it to get us the Affordable Care Act.
Biden got the IRA done without a supermajority, but he’s a brilliant politician.
You fuckers keep claiming democrats are ineffective or colluding or something but you haven’t actually given dems a chance to fix anything yet.
Give us a democratic supermajority for 8 years and you’ll be amazed at what gets accomplished.
If someone has decided voting isn’t worth it to the point that they’re trying to convince others not to vote, they’re generally too stupid and emotionally invested to change their mind. Or they’re a shill.
This discussion (and name calling) isn’t for you. It’s for the audience. People feeling hopeless and powerless who might buy into the “don’t vote” bullshit. Voting matters.
Voting 3rd party is effectively the same thing as not voting. I mentally tend to consider those as the same thing. But yes I should have clarified that.
How would you respond to GP’s point that most Democrats are corrupt too? Nobody here is arguing that they’re as bad as Republicans. But just electing them with no regard to their policy positions will produce right wing Democrats who will ultimately hold the same positions as Republicans, and then they’ll split into two FPTP-supporting parties like the Democratic-Republican party did. We will have won a name and nothing more.
How would you respond to GP’s point that most Democrats are corrupt too?
Sorry, skipped this. I would say a) it’s an order of magnitude less than Republicans, and b) democratic voters are more willing to hold their candidates to task.
Nobody here is arguing that they’re as bad as Republicans.
You may not be, but plenty of people do make this argument, at which point I start calling them irredeemably stupid.
But just electing them with no regard to their policy positions
Every Democrat is better than every Republican, period. Given the choice between the two, it’s an obvious choice.
The time to care about policy positions is in the primaries, in local elections in safe Democrat districts, and in internal democratic party elections (which you may not even know happen, but I attend all of them and it’s an excellent way to meet face to face with the people who in 10 years will be running your state).
And then, yes, when you get a place that’s safely Democratic, you have the democrats split into a more left and a more right wing. But the new right wing of the democrats is the old left wing.
Why are you arguing with (and name calling) people who aren’t even here?
That’s not a given.
Internal elections that most working class people can’t attend is one of our problems; they’re taking advantage of voter fatigue.
What you’re describing already happened. Every Democratic-Republican was better than every Whig. And then the Democrats were bribed further and further right. If we don’t demand that they make themselves easy to replace, then it will happen again.
Every Democrat is better than every Republican, period. Given the choice between the two, it’s an obvious choice.
How is this not a given? With the modern GOP, how could you ever trust anyone who allies themselves with that party? Even if they’re personally a saint, they’re still allied to the GOP.
Internal elections that most working class people can’t attend is one of our problems; they’re taking advantage of voter fatigue.
Guess which states have implemented vote-by-mail? Democratic strongholds.
Vote only for candidates against FPTP. When that’s gone, we can just vote for candidates who are against big oil.
How many election cycles can we postpone climate action for?
Their unwillingness to act on climate change is a major (if not the biggest) reason we need representation. The Democrats hand power back to Republicans who undo this session’s climate action.
Destroying the world more slowly by slightly impacting one election at a time brought us here.
I understand and support the sentiment: something needs to change. I just don’t think that re-framing electoral politics will work unless it’s backed by a mass movement of organised workers. If that happens, the question becomes, why bother with the middlemen? They can legislate for themselves without having to beg the ruling class for mild compromises.
That’s kinda what I was driving it. How many elections would it take to abolish FPTP? We’d have to wait for that and only then could we think about voting in politicians who might do something and the system would still be dominated by capital. That makes a three-step process out of a two-step process.
Seems like a request to wait for an indefinite number of election cycles—the same request of those who say to vote for this or that faction of the capitalist party and one day, just maybe, conditions will be just right for one of those parties to effect any change. Too many African, Latin American, and Asian homes and lives would be destroyed while they wait patiently for the US to get its act together.
It would take too long to work unless you know of a massive campaign across the western world to implement FPTP. If it doesn’t exist already, it must be built within the next year or so or the west will be locked into another four-ish years of no progress. And that’s just for a shot at electing politicians who might vote to abolish FPTP. Before they even come within hearing distance of, never mind face-to-face with, the contradictions of imperialism.
Currently, almost all I see in the west is how to do business as usual but in green. That means denying progress to the subjugated masses so that USians can maintain their standard of living. Oppressed people shouldn’t have to wait for the US to figure out how to tactically solve the world’s ills through an electoral technicality. Round and round we’d go with electoralism.
At this point, there is one, single option: revolution. Anything else will take too long. Luckily for humanity, whatever the US thinks or wants is largely irrelevant. The world is revolving anyway. The only question for the world is what form the revolution takes. And the additional question for USians is whether they want to be part of the change or to ruin everything out of spite and self-interest.
The Red Deal may be of interest (click drop-down menu under ‘articles’): https://therednation.org/environmental-justice/
While I agree with revolution, I don’t think pursuing that is at odds with voting a certain way once a year. There’s already a movement to eliminate FPTP in the USA and it has been making real progress. This additional step is necessary (within the framework of voting) for the other two steps to work - the second step keeps getting undone.
Personally I’ve been pushing for this since the 2000 presidential election. It has indeed been painfully slow… But it does seem to be getting somewhere. Not to imply we shouldn’t be organizing outside of elections, too.
Can’t argue with that.
You’re the world’s biggest sucker if you think that’s even a possibility.
Or more likely, a russian/right wing shill
“Voting is useless” is right wing propaganda.
I have to admit, I did not expect this response. I’m struggling to see how an anti-capitalist argument in favour of socialist revolution is right wing.
A possibility? It’s happening as we speak. Time will tell.
It’s a spoiler, a red herring. “Don’t bother doing the thing that could actually threaten our power. Instead, focus on this other thing that has no shot of happening.”
And in your view, the thing that threatens their power is voting Dem? Please let me know if I’ve misunderstood. If not: (i) how does this ‘solution’ help people who aren’t in the US and (ii) the Dems are in power and have been in power recently before this, and recently before that, and they achieved… what? They brought as much horror to the world as the GOP.
You’ve misunderstood.
They’re in power by a THREAD now, and they brought us the IRA, which is the best thing we’ve done for the climate in a long time, probably decades.
And they haven’t been in power before this since a few months in 2008 when they brought us the Affordable Care Act.
The example I keep using is California, where Dems have effectively a permanent supermajority. California will be 100% clean energy by 2045: https://www.energy.ca.gov/news/2021-03/california-releases-report-charting-path-100-percent-clean-electricity
This is such a ridiculously wrong statement that if I hadn’t already been talking with you and could see you’re not an idiot, I’d assume you’re too stupid to reason with and just start calling you names. How could you possibly come to that conclusion?
Depends on the country, but it’s generally applicable to most places. A revolution is not happening. Change within the system. And for some places, having Dems in charge in the US allows the US to pressure those countries to change in better ways.
Only because idiots like you don’t vote.
Democratic strongholds are making massive gains on climate change. Look at California. That’s what happens when we get a democratic supermajority.
The federal government has had a Democratic supermajority exactly once in the past few decades. For a few months. And they used it to get us the Affordable Care Act.
Biden got the IRA done without a supermajority, but he’s a brilliant politician.
You fuckers keep claiming democrats are ineffective or colluding or something but you haven’t actually given dems a chance to fix anything yet.
Give us a democratic supermajority for 8 years and you’ll be amazed at what gets accomplished.
Every assumption you just made was incorrect. But if you’re going to start with name calling, then this isn’t going to be a productive discussion.
If someone has decided voting isn’t worth it to the point that they’re trying to convince others not to vote, they’re generally too stupid and emotionally invested to change their mind. Or they’re a shill.
This discussion (and name calling) isn’t for you. It’s for the audience. People feeling hopeless and powerless who might buy into the “don’t vote” bullshit. Voting matters.
You just called me an idiot who doesn’t vote after I suggested for whom you should vote. What will your vast audience think of that?
Voting 3rd party is effectively the same thing as not voting. I mentally tend to consider those as the same thing. But yes I should have clarified that.
Electoralism isn’t going to save us.
If you have another option, you should reply to GP with it; I’m legitimately interested.
FPTP means first past the pole?
First-past-the-post
We don’t have time for that. Just vote Democrat, and vote in the primary.
Undoing FPTP will take a generation. I agree it should be done, but it’s not the priority.
This completely ignores GP’s point.
No, I’m saying we can get climate change fixed without undoing fptp. Just give democrats a permanent supermajority. Much like in California.
How would you respond to GP’s point that most Democrats are corrupt too? Nobody here is arguing that they’re as bad as Republicans. But just electing them with no regard to their policy positions will produce right wing Democrats who will ultimately hold the same positions as Republicans, and then they’ll split into two FPTP-supporting parties like the Democratic-Republican party did. We will have won a name and nothing more.
Sorry, skipped this. I would say a) it’s an order of magnitude less than Republicans, and b) democratic voters are more willing to hold their candidates to task.
Still a no brainer.
What does “holding them to task” look like if we’ll ultimately vote for anyone with a (D) next to their name? Like, yell at them or something?
Primary them. Oust them from the party.
See: Andrew Cuomo, Katie Hill, Al Franken…
That never happens on the Republican side.
You may not be, but plenty of people do make this argument, at which point I start calling them irredeemably stupid.
Every Democrat is better than every Republican, period. Given the choice between the two, it’s an obvious choice.
The time to care about policy positions is in the primaries, in local elections in safe Democrat districts, and in internal democratic party elections (which you may not even know happen, but I attend all of them and it’s an excellent way to meet face to face with the people who in 10 years will be running your state).
And then, yes, when you get a place that’s safely Democratic, you have the democrats split into a more left and a more right wing. But the new right wing of the democrats is the old left wing.
Why are you arguing with (and name calling) people who aren’t even here?
That’s not a given.
Internal elections that most working class people can’t attend is one of our problems; they’re taking advantage of voter fatigue.
What you’re describing already happened. Every Democratic-Republican was better than every Whig. And then the Democrats were bribed further and further right. If we don’t demand that they make themselves easy to replace, then it will happen again.
How is this not a given? With the modern GOP, how could you ever trust anyone who allies themselves with that party? Even if they’re personally a saint, they’re still allied to the GOP.
Guess which states have implemented vote-by-mail? Democratic strongholds.
Ignore my above comment. I see now; your position is vote dem.