I know it sounds like I’m feeding into some Doomer vibe, or like I’m giving up. I’m not, I will absolutely continue going to food drives and joining the occasional protest if I can, but my serious question I’ve been kinda struggling with is whether registration for voting is even worth it? I mean in my area there aren’t really 3rd parties, just a bunch of Jackass Democrats and Greedy Republicans yelling about how they’re more American. I suppose there are some referendums, but nothing that really helps people especially. I remember in 2016(I was a lib) I had told a friend that not voting creates a more dangerous situation for POC and LGBTQIA people that we know personally. The fucked up thing about what I said is that it kinda ignores the sad reality that Democrats often toss aside these groups as sacrifices for a few more votes. So Idk how to proceed. My potential vote for a Dem governor will make me feel worse than when I voted for Biden bc I know better. I can tell myself that I genuinely didn’t know better when I voted for Biden, I was a Dem who was willing to do anything to beat the Far Right, and I got what I wanted, just not what I expected. Sorry for the long Body Text, but as a USA comrade in a strongly Blue State, is voting worth anything? Thank you.
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Voting does not hurt so long as you don’t get the idea that it will fix things because it will not.
Unfortunately, the fantasy that ticking some boxes on a ballot a couple times a year is sufficient to solve our problems is… potent. Try telling someone they’ll need to do more and watch them have a fucking meltdown. They do less than the bare minimum and expect praise for it.
The national clown show should take up a very small fraction of your legitimate consideration imo.
But feel free to gum up the local scene. And if your orgs allies have a certain way to vote then do that.
One interesting to note is that whenever a party ends up in overwhelming majorities, there’s always factionalism that splits it up. If Democrats won an overwhelming majority we’d likely also have a lot more critiques of establishment elites coming from the left. It weakens their ability to justify neoliberalism under the guise of appealing to “moderates”
That being said shit’s complicated. They tried to deport my family just months after Trump got elected and he overturned the entire immigration apparatus within a few weeks. At the same time, Biden has been much more imperialist than Trump could’ve ever dreamed of and nobody is as effective at giving away money to “defense” contractors as Democrats. Bernie was genuinely actually on track to win the nomination in 2020 and betting markets, historically the single most accurate predictor, had him winning right up until the Clyburn endorsement of Biden.
All of these are simultaneously true and they should all be considered.
I gave some good money to Bernie then when I was 17 didn’t know better.
I see what you say but I want to argue it’s not worth much of our individual activism time/energy.
Voting is somewhat useless if it’s not organized strategically in a group which is what I suggest.
And our ‘democracy’ is very secure from what it means to actually be democratic. The maximum payout from voting as a form of activism is small because of this. That is why it not worthy of a large consideration.
Yes, if you’re actually organizing so much that spending an hour filling out a ballot based on some local union’s voter guide is gonna detract from that then you have a point. Also if you live in a state where voter suppression is much stronger, sure.
But I feel like that’s not a very common situation. I think when you factor in the impact that local elections have—Republicans are very successfully banning books about critical race theory currently by electing school board officials; sheriffs have an incredible amount of power with very little oversight and very few people vote on those races; local government officials can just sell your green space to bougie developers to further gentrification—if you factor in all that, I think you’d be hard-pressed to find an activist too busy to copy a voter guide.
You have an interesting stand point on things.
But I think a communist should be concerned with hard power in this environment. You are not going to do much to undermine the empire by voting. That should be the biggest interest of the region. For the folks we associate with we will need more than a vote, instead aligning on a basis of hard power.
National elections? The only reason to participate is if an actual socialist is on the ballot because your vote actually does help increase their reach. Or hell, an anti-imperialist even. They don’t even have to be explicitly socialist.
Local elections matter more. I try to stay informed and vote for seats in my community. I don’t want some batshit fundamentalist as the superintendent of the local school district.
Yes, I generally kinda agree with that sentiment, in America Besieged by Parenti(pretty sure, may have been Blackshirts and Reds) he mentions that a party that reaches a threshold of enough votes receives more funding by the government, so I may do this to vote for a PSL candidate. I guess for now I should look more into my local politics before I feel like registering.
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I AM ONCE AGAIN ASKING YOU FOR $23
If you donate me, I’m hot.
Make sure the non-socialist “anti-imperialist” isn’t just some fascist going “war bad bc Biden, if trump then war good)
Nope. Do you wanna support war hawk neocons or the-bad-kind of populism? I would rather not pick.
MSNBCNN: The Iron Lady stands strong against the Fascist Far Right
I was given advice once for babysitting and child raising in general. When a kid wants something that means an incredible amount to them, but basically nothing to you, then give it to them. Its a minor inconvenience sometimes but can make a significant, positive impact to others.
I suggest the same when it comes to voting. I’m not gonna bullshit, in the United States even being pressganged and obligated into “harm reduction” voting is part of a cope by liberals and not something I’m particularly sold on. I was told, repeatedly by well meaning white liberals, that a vote for Biden might mean nothing to me but was potentially life saving for immigrant communities. Despite me knowing full well and later being vindicated that the American electoral machine is fully captured by capital and the atrocities committed under the Trump administration would continue but now more quietly out of the public light– Well, if its gonna happen anyway why not take five minutes to send in a mail in ballot to signal support to the communities that fell that anxiety but aren’t fully aware of the depths of neo-liberal decay or so no one can say we didn’t even try to work within their rules-based-order. The process is already so captured anyway your vote or lack-there-off has zero impact on policies or elections, so its really a matter of “what option is gonna mean the most to my comrades that still believe in electorism?”
If you really need to square the circle also helps to chose your battles in a way that makes the most sense to you, even if its something extremely minor. I can take solice in my reluctant vote for Brandon not because I actually thought they would be remotely different in America’s overall policies for the very specific reason that Trump’s Department of Homeland Security chief was not confirmed by Congress and was obviously a fascist loyalist transforming the agency into his private army. Sure enough, Chad Wolf was removed from his position shortly after January 6th and the man chiefly responsible for abducting protestors off the streets of US cities had their career terminated because they didn’t align with the liberal rules based order.
That’s a pretty nuanced way of viewing it. If I know enough about local politics and I just mail vote, it’s a bit less of a waste of time than voting because I think it will affect the US in a meaningful way
voting can net local communities some gain. the corrupt nature of larger politics makes it hard to get substantial change tho. presidents don’t impact much change alone. chesa boudin, the recently ousted sanfran d.a. was making a lot of healthy changes and got booted by larger powers. jackson mississippi has had at least some success with overtaking corrupt politics, but only to be met with oversight bribes for the recent battle to fix their water supplies, amongst other attacks by larger governatorial forces. another example is chicago fighting to remove corrupt judges, only to be met with redistricting and redlining of community boundaries, and fraudulent voting practices with poor excuses from the state
average voters in this country have no say in foreign policy
it’s not an easy yes or no, what matters is that we’re collectively building up duel power as a part of a larger /for the people/ strategy that stops relying on corportaist leeches and their super pac funded elites. not an easy thing to do considering the extremely violent nature of politics and policing in this country. the forces against forwardness, and their strategies, at least make themselves evident in the struggle.
the name of the game right now is more militant organizing, and continue building up the new labor movement as much as possible. join political organizations, frso/psl. get involved locally first, where people can actually influence change
Thanks, I agree wholeheartedly. It’s upsetting to know how awful US democracy is, we have barely any affect on policy of any kind
This may get downvoted to hell but i’m cool with that. I think it’s worth taking an hour every couple years to get a mail-in ballot, vote for the least fashy people available, throw the thing in the mail and then completely ignoring bourguoise “democracy” for the next 2 years. Yeah, I voted for Biden. I spent less time on it in a year than I spent watching any given shitty Netflix series. It’s not revolutionary, but I think it’s worth the absolute minimum, as long as I put a lot more effort into actual revolution.
Put another way: you’re a grownup and you don’t need to justify your actions to other people if you’re focused on building a better world for everyone.
That’s what I think too mostly. No lie in my mind it’s a match of mental tennis going back and forth with “just vote for 20 min and you’re done for 2 yrs” and “those 20 minutes do nothing.” Ultimately I’m not a statesman, nobody is analyzing why I voted for X and if I did it for Y reason. I figure that as bad as the shitty person I vote for is, it’s like 20 minutes of filling out stuff related to politics(which I’m addicted to already) and if I can vote for a socialist leaning candidate then I most likely will just to show symbolic support and if the party receives enough support, they get more gov funding.But if it’s a Pelosi vs Republican scenario (I don’t live in CA so that’s not my case luckily) then I won’t vote.
If you have a lot of business interests it may be the case that whichever bourgeoisie party is in power matters to your bottom line due to different parties being partial to different taxation and regulatory policies.
IMO At the end of the day there is little to be gained by engaging in colonial political discourse unless you are somewhat wealthy. I think it is naive and undignified to participate in the process regardless of supposed lesser evils. In many ways it plays into the bourgeoisie worldview, that the poor and colonized are broken and in need of lofty democratic institutions upheld by wealthy colonizers and imperialists to save them. This creates a subservient, helpless, dependent attitude that communists should not glorify.
It may be that there are socialist organizations that try to gain new members during election cycles. I think this is mostly good, even if it doesn’t amount to much in terms of challenging and defeating capital. Many of us here on this platform likley came to alternatives to colonial discourse because a party like PSL was active during the election cycle. I myself met communists and came to communism while taking interest in the Green Party.
This creates a subservient, helpless, dependent attitude that communists should not glorify.
100% agree. The US has some of the lowest voter turnout largely because people realize that it doesn’t improve their lives, and both parties aren’t going to help them.
Voting for socialist / communist orgs is the one exception, because its at least a way to check our strength and numbers, but overall, participation in bourgeois politics pointlessley legitimates the system. Its like trying to fill a leaky bucket, ppl can do it if it makes them feel better but its not accomplishing anything.
Green party is interesting. My oldest brother voted for them bc he despised Hillary, which is fair. Jill Stein said she wants no funding to Ukraine. Based
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This answer is a vibe
I’ve been saying that when I see an anti-imperialist party show up on my ballot, that’s when I’ll seriously vote again. Til then, I’m spoiling my ballots so hard that neither party will be able to find a way to shadily count my ballot as one for them.
Depends on what it costs you. Some people have to spend a lot of time and money to vote. Myself, it’s like 10 minutes.
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Oh, I can answer this: No!
I know voting feels worthless, but it’s necessary to ensure that the system can represent us. Even “deep blue” places are often only like 65% blue - we’re really all a shade of purple. As for breaking out of this oppressive duopoly of Democrats and Republicans, you could start volunteering for https://starvoting.org/ and/or https://represent.us/…
What gives you the impression that the system has ever represented regular people?
I’ve studied alternative voting systems a lot (even made a website that lets you compare about 2 dozen of them at once). I’d love for us to switch to an Approval system. But if there’s one thing I’ve concluded from studying them it’s that you can’t fix a system of exploitation through “reform” without directly addressing the underlying power structures. I do believe these systems can help us break the duopoly, but, if anything, smaller parties can be even more susceptible to corporate takeover
Alternative voting systems do not fix the problem. Plenty of capitalist dictatorship countries like australia use ranked choice voting, and that has not stopped them from genociding aboriginal peoples. It can’t even get their cities decent internet speeds lol.
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