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theCalamity posted:Perhaps there are no good candidates for them to vote for? Perhaps they feel that both sides share the same ideological goals with slight differences? There's a myriad of reasons for someone to not vote in an election which doesn't preclude them from participating in a revolution. 80 million Americans didn't vote. This directly benefitted the very people who we're supposed to be in a revolution against. If the level of effort to wage a revolution cannot be met at the same effort of checking voting boxes for the least-shittiest candidate, how many of those people do you actually expect will also have the motivation to march in a revolution? cat botherer posted:Revolutions are always lead by a relatively small number. However, a revolution offering a real improvement over people's lives can quickly gain significant popular support over a system with no interest in doing that - they can and have been successful at capturing the formerly apathetic, even if the vast majority is soft support. See the Chinese revolution, Vietnam, or the Bolsheviks. Which Chinese revolution? Because there were multiple ones, multiple suppressed. And they largely didn't gain the upper hand until the Japanese invaded and decimated the Chinese National forces. Vietnam is practically the same story, since the Viet Cong benefitted heavily from both World War 2 perfecting their tactics and Chinese military and logistical support during the Vietnam War Which Nation State or World War will benefit our revolution? CommieGIR fucked around with this message at 16:38 on Jun 26, 2022 |
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Jun 26, 2022 16:34
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DarkCrawler posted:The only actually potentially succesful party/electoral strategy left for the Left is to do what the Tea Party did for the GOP, and radicalize enough of the Democratic base. There is nothing unique about democratic voters that prevents them from doing this. It does require more unified messaging to have the same effect as talk radio/FOX/Facebook, and founding of some sort of communal events/institutions/infrastructure to have the same effect as churches/other local gathering places. Well when the Left gets a few sugar daddy billionaires willing to build that infrastructure for them over decades and also run a globe-spanning propaganda machine to blare the Left's message in to every brain whether they want to hear it or not maybe that can happen the same way. I'm not particularly expecting the people on the winning side of class warfare to do that though.
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Jun 26, 2022 16:35
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cat botherer posted:I held my nose and voted in 2020, and I was probably wasn't going to in 2022, but now that's a definite. I have a tendency to break down and vote at the last second because of my conditioning, but I think that's over with. Same, unfortunately I got heavily involved with Obama's 2008 campaign, got one look at his cabinet and decided I was done with that poo poo and felt...ripped off I guess. I worked pretty hard for Bernie and really didn't want Hillary. We know how that went. 2020 was exactly as you described. I grew up in Delaware and know more than a little bit about Joe Biden and what he represents but I was prepared to vote for anyone instead of Trump. Except now, if I'm being honest, I don't see how things would really be all that different if Trump had beaten Biden. I really don't. And I can't honestly argue in good faith that he wouldn't have done a better job. That's hosed up. Only thing I ever really got for my trouble donating to and volunteering for the Democratic party were endless solicitations asking me for money and free time they loving well know I don't have and a ton of email spam and physical junk mail. If it's Trump v Biden 2: This Time It's Electoral, I just might sit out the first election in my lifetime - mid terms or otherwise. I'm 55 and have voted in every election since my first ballot for Dukakis. I'll probably still vote for ballot measures and local seats but just write in myself for President. There's a reason I've been a registered Independent all my life and it's always been because neither party really represents me, my values, nor my priorities - not even tangentially - and the idea of one being slightly better/less worse than the other has never been particularly inspiring. I've always voted and I usually vote Democrat FWIW. The dems could have had some balls and gotten in front of UHC, gay issues, legal weed, voting against the Iraq War and any number of things that took even an OUNCE of courage. Courage they do not possess or foster. TL/DR: Probably no one cares but the OP struck a chord with me
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Jun 26, 2022 16:36
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I AM GRANDO posted:Yeah, it seems like a lot of people can’t let go of the belief that voting is politically meaningful, such that refusing to vote is some kind of big deal that requires commitment and deliberation and becomes a part of you—the reverse image of the liberal who sees elections as the only kind of political action that can ever be taken. Yep, a single vote has never made a difference.
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Jun 26, 2022 16:37
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Tired, old trope: talking about how the Democratic Party's inaction or willing facilitation to make everything worse maybe disillusioned you from voting in the future Extremely exciting derail: You can't be a real revolutionary if you don't vote
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Jun 26, 2022 16:38
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so now that we're at "Trump = Biden" posts, how long until we get to the "Trump > Biden" posts (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
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Jun 26, 2022 16:38
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CommieGIR posted:No, what I asked is why one would prevent the other. Voting does not cut into major revolution time. It doesn't stop you from preparing for one. Why can you not to both to suppress what harm you can and buy time for the revolution to build? one can vote and consider oneself a revolutionary in much the same way one can volunteer to join the american armed forces and consider yourself a leftist. one is an expression of faith in the integrity of the system; the other is actively attempting to undo the system for its failures. no man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other, or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and Mammon.
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Jun 26, 2022 16:38
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CommieGIR posted:80 million Americans didn't vote. This directly benefitted the very people who we're supposed to be in a revolution against. If the level of effort to wage a revolution cannot be met at the same effort of checking voting boxes for the least-shittiest candidate, how many of those people do you actually expect will also have the motivation to march in a revolution? Why do you think voting is a prerequisite for participating in a revolution? Voting is vastly different from participating in a revolution. You assume that the least-shittiest candidate doesn't have their boot on the neck of that potential voter. That potential voter could just say gently caress it, not vote at all, and then participate in a revolution. And y'all say "it takes 10 minutes of your time" when we've seen people wait in line for HOURS in various weather conditions.
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Jun 26, 2022 16:40
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Yeowch!!! My Balls!!! posted:no man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other, or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and Mammon. .....voting is not your master. You can literally do two things at once, otherwise the idea that humans apparently cannot prepare for the future while trying to maintain the now is laughable. If you seriously believe that, you'd have to accept that nothing is possible. Yeowch!!! My Balls!!! posted:one can vote and consider oneself a revolutionary in much the same way one can volunteer to join the american armed forces and consider yourself a leftist. Considering the number of leftists I know as a veteran who became leftists because of their service experience: Not only is this wrong, its outright delusional.
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Jun 26, 2022 16:40
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The GOP seems to have done an excellent job juggling God and Mammon actually.
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Jun 26, 2022 16:41
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CommieGIR posted:.....voting is not your master. You can literally do two things at once, otherwise the idea that humans apparently cannot prepare for the future while trying to maintain the now is laughable. If you seriously believe that, you'd have to accept that nothing is possible. voting is an act of expressed faith that the system is still able to save you. last cycle, the comparison was far more direct than before: both joining the military -and- voting for democrats indicated your willingness to kill a bunch of brown people in order to preserve the system as it is. you cannot serve both god and mammon. eventually you will have to make a choice.
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Jun 26, 2022 16:46
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Tatsuta Age posted:so now that we're at "Trump = Biden" posts, how long until we get to the "Trump > Biden" posts Well you see both sides are fascists so that is why there is no difference between AOC and Cruz. I don't know why no one outside of a dead forum will talk to me.
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Jun 26, 2022 16:46
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Yeowch!!! My Balls!!! posted:the simple reality is that democrats do not plan to do anything about Roe v Wade, now or in the future. In NYC where I live, my cousin's wife traveling here from Eastern Europe on a tourist visa received a free abortion, provided by the state, the day after seeing a doctor. The undocumented can get Medicaid here as well, so this applies to everyone. There are no Democratic states with abortion restrictions, at least nothing like Republican states. California has said that it will fund access for out-of-state women seeking abortions. Can we stop with this weak rear end line of argumentation?
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Jun 26, 2022 16:49
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If progressive dems want to do what the tea party did for the Republicans it's going to be a lot of work. Democratic voters are generally more educated and fragmented than Republicans and, completely anecdotally, seem to have less spare time. So endless spamming on Facebook and sit-ins at Democratic strong holds wouldn't hurt but it would not be as simple. An aggressive information campaign would be required but paradoxically I think the target audience tends to be demotivated by information spamming as opposed to Republicans. It might work but I'm not sure the exact same tactics apply.
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Jun 26, 2022 16:49
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Madkal posted:Well you see both sides are fascists so that is why there is no difference between AOC and Cruz. I don't know why no one outside of a dead forum will talk to me.
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Jun 26, 2022 16:50
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Of the American non-voters who are potential voters for a progressive cause, I assume the folks not voting out of generalized apathy but not any significant inconvenience are not the pillars of a revolution anyways. But I also assume a lot of people don't vote because they have a boot on their neck from both parties and doing calculus about the lesser evil is quite frankly bullshit when you're living with a boot on your neck. And guess what, many of those people do get out and vote anyways. But convincing yourself that voting for the lesser evil who will murder you 2% less is worth your time probably doesn't say a lot about your potential revolutionary spirit one way or another.
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Jun 26, 2022 16:51
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Have Some Flowers! posted:Sure hold them them to higher standards, I think it's fair for the reasons you mentioned. But if you hold these values, you should still want to act effectively to see them realized too. You probably shouldn't admit that you're willing to vote for someone who opposes reproductive rights. No matter how you justify it to yourself, that's what you're doing. And you are absolutely not pushing the Dems left by doing so. If anything you're pushing them even further right, because they'll see your vote as evidence that running anti-abortion candidates wins. I don't believe that voting is completely useless (yet) and that you should never vote. But this seems like an extremely clear case where you should definitely not vote for an anti-abortion, pro-gun piece of poo poo.
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Jun 26, 2022 16:52
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This lady sums up quite succinctly why people are increasingly fed up with the Democratic Party: https://twitter.com/PplsCityCouncil/status/1540906505829879810
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Jun 26, 2022 16:55
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Yeowch!!! My Balls!!! posted:you cannot serve both god and mammon. eventually you will have to make a choice. No, this is an outright pseudo-philosophical take that you dreamt up. The idea that voting somehow makes you are poor revolutionary is a good sign that you will get no revolutionaries at all, because apparently you placed some outright arbitrary demand on this. Nowhere did I say that a revolutionary that does not vote will not be a revolutionary worth having, I said that if they cannot commit to something so simple as voting despite how bad things look, how will they commit to something that could very well result in ending their life and their friends life? One of these requires SIGNIFICANTLY more commitment. So you are literally the guy at the Revolutionary Council door asking possible revolutionaries if they voted and turning them away. You are just a lovely gatekeeper spouting philosophical tripe. CommieGIR fucked around with this message at 17:05 on Jun 26, 2022 |
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Jun 26, 2022 16:56
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small butter posted:In NYC where I live, my cousin's wife traveling here from Eastern Europe on a tourist visa received a free abortion, provided by the state, the day after seeing a doctor. The undocumented can get Medicaid here as well, so this applies to everyone. a government full of Henry Cuellars will not help you, and the leadership has just finished telling you they will personally intervene to make sure there are as many of him in congress as possible. the party that was given a month's warning for this, and responded by having Pelosi read a poem, does not care. the sooner you can accept this, the better.
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Jun 26, 2022 16:58
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This isn't rocket science. People should be for/doing whatever keeps the Republicans out of power, whether that be voting, working on political campaigns (at every level of government), litigation, organizing their community for direct action campaigns, protest marches, sit-ins, et al. The only thing people shouldn't be doing is anything that puts Republicans in power. We are not in a thought experiment. Fascists taking power affects real people in the now. If you're for anything that puts Republicans in power then you may not be on the side you think you're on.The people who struggle to distinguish the differences in the two parties and act accordingly are going to have those differences made clear to them very soon. -Blackadder- fucked around with this message at 17:29 on Jun 26, 2022 |
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Jun 26, 2022 17:00
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Mendrian posted:If progressive dems want to do what the tea party did for the Republicans it's going to be a lot of work. In order to do what the tea party did for Republicans, you have to be willing to non-stop attack "DINOs" like they did "RINOs." Given what we have seen in the thread - that attacking Cuellar is going to far, because he has to win the election - I really don't think Democrats replicating that success is possible. People aren't even willing to suggest people go after Manchin, and he's directly responsible for a lot of our situation!
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Jun 26, 2022 17:01
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B B posted:This lady sums up quite succinctly why people are increasingly fed up with the Democratic Party: That was quite succinct and gets right at the point. The response of the democrats since the leak is going to turn away a lot of people who would vote for them. Begging for donations is going to make people resent the party. The party is so calcified that all they can do after the decision is to beg for money and tell people to vote harder, not realizing that people already voted the Dems into power. The Dems are demonstrating what they are doing with that power: absolutely nothing. It’s no wonder why people don’t want to vote for them
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Jun 26, 2022 17:07
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Yeowch!!! My Balls!!! posted:a government full of Henry Cuellars will not help you, and the leadership has just finished telling you they will personally intervene to make sure there are as many of him in congress as possible. So yes, when I see things like this I'm not going to stand up and defend this party as something to vote for. God knows down here in FL the national party has abandoned us, and just allowed the FL Dems to run mostly former Republicans for major positions in the state, which has gone about as well as you can imagine it would.
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Jun 26, 2022 17:07
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-Blackadder- posted:The people who are sheltered enough to not be able to distinguish the differences in the two parties and act accordingly are going to have those differences made clear to them very soon. Hey how about you not make assumptions about other people on the internet. You don't know a god drat thing about anyone here.
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Jun 26, 2022 17:07
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it's even more loving funny that people in this thread keep using Cuellar as an example of "why vote" he won his primary by less than 300 votes! if a small contingent of people maybe hadn't been demotivated by online doomerism, he would have lost! it's insanity!
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Jun 26, 2022 17:07
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B B posted:This lady sums up quite succinctly why people are increasingly fed up with the Democratic Party: If she goes viral, I hope she turns out better than Dasha did. I got a fundraising text on Friday night with Pelosi’s face on it and I responded the same way. I thought it must have been some kind of scam at first because it seemed so callous, but I guess it kind of was.
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Jun 26, 2022 17:08
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Mormon Star Wars posted:In order to do what the tea party did for Republicans, you have to be willing to non-stop attack "DINOs" like they did "RINOs." Given what we have seen in the thread - that attacking Cuellar is going to far, because he has to win the election - I really don't think Democrats replicating that success is possible. People aren't even willing to suggest people go after Manchin, and he's directly responsible for a lot of our situation! To do what the tea party did for the Republican Party, you need a highly centralized, highly organized, very well funded group of people and a complicit media apparatus. The only thing organic about the tea party movement was the inherent racism‘s it used to stoke their anger. The tea party was a coordinated effort to shift Republican party and the GOP voter base in a reactionary direction in order to serve various business interests. The GOP leadership and the money behind it actively encouraged the shift, and suffered a few acceptable losses along the way from people I got primaried. The only thing they probably did not expect was a true believer Conman winning the presidency, but they got everything they wanted from him anyway. The same dynamic simply does not exist within the democratic party, as the party itself is far more focused on suppressing the left and fundraising than it is about shifting their own politics. And as we have seen multiple times, the Dems are more than happy to help promote the farthest of right wing candidates to make their own center right policies seem more progressive.
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Jun 26, 2022 17:10
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The Tea party had a big impact due to having a lot of support across several fronts: tons of money from conservative think tanks, magnates and foundations, and an institutional media either willing to take it seriously as a grassroots movement ('centrist' media like CNN) or fully on board. I mean, Fox News even slipped a bit in the beginning and claimed it was THEIR revolt until they decided it was a better pitch if it seemed spontaneous and they were jsut covering it, not involved at all, fair and balanced, haha!  Anything close on the democratic side will see none of that. Media will cover it as rioting thugs, there is no funding pipeline of any sort for anything that isn't to the right of Amy McGrath, and democratic mayors and governors will happily order their police forces to stomp out any such protests with all the violence they don't want to see near a Supreme Court Justice's house.
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Jun 26, 2022 17:12
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Tatsuta Age posted:it's even more loving funny that people in this thread keep using Cuellar as an example of "why vote" He won because the Democratic Party circled the wagons to protect an anti-abortion incumbent when they knew this decision was weeks away, instead of supporting a pro-choice alternative.
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Jun 26, 2022 17:12
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Tatsuta Age posted:it's even more loving funny that people in this thread keep using Cuellar as an example of "why vote" Or maybe if the House leadership hadn't heavily campaigned & fundraised for the pro-rights/anti-choice candidate he would've lost. 
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Jun 26, 2022 17:15
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CommieGIR posted:No, this is an outright pseudo-philosophical take that you dreamt up. The idea that voting somehow makes you are poor revolutionary is a good sign that you will get no revolutionaries at all, because apparently you placed some outright arbitrary demand on this. Nowhere did I say that a revolution that does not vote will not be a revolutionary worth having, I said that if they cannot commit to something so simple as voting despite how bad things look, how will they commit to something that could very well result in ending their life and their friends life? One of these requires SIGNIFICANTLY more commitment. us discussing what one another literally are is not a discussion that will end well. there is a reason we treat low turnout as a sign of lack of faith in government. it is because voting is an expression of the population's belief that the system will respond to their needs. the purpose of voting, of democracy itself as a form of government, is to legitimize those in power. there are times voting is useful, despite the legitimization it offers! but if your goal is to delegitimize the system, you must be aware that your vote will (rightly) be taken by those in power as a sign that you still give them your assent to govern you. you cannot simultaneously proclaim "this system is legitimate" and "this system must be overthrown." the contradiction must be resolved, at some point. that is why I quoted the line in full, and not just the god and mammon part: you will ultimately have to choose one.
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Jun 26, 2022 17:15
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Yeowch!!! My Balls!!! posted:us discussing what one another literally are is not a discussion that will end well. No, I quoted that because you are gatekeeper. If you really believe that, then you are saying you will reject anyone who voted who tries to join the revolution because you have some convulsed idea of what qualifies you to be a revolutionary. I don't buy into that in the least. The people who vote will also be the people who are more likely to put the effort in at the revolution that may risk their freedom or even their lives. And please show me how voting in a system that DOES still have some validity disqualifies you from revolting. There's a reason that prisoner's had their voting rights stripped yet are still counted in census for voting districts.
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Jun 26, 2022 17:17
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I have a question for those in the thread who are arguing that we must continue to vote for democrats - no matter who they field - if they are the only option to vote for other than a republican. What would it take for you, personally, to change your mind about this? Is there anything that would be a threshold for which you decide that voting is not working? I'm not interested in hearing the argument that it is easy (often times it is not, especially in poor/majority POC districts) or that we need to do it to keep things from getting worse. My first vote was for Obama and since then the democrats have been increasingly unable to pass their stated agendas without means testing and compromises. That's not what I want to vote for. I want to vote for candidates that will fight for the things that I believe in. Sometimes that person runs with the democratic party, but many times they are unable to get the necessary funding to mount a campaign in our current electoral landscape. For me, as someone living in a state that has increasingly become a republican stronghold despite a majority of the population voting democratic, the threshold at which I consider voting to not be working has been crossed.
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Jun 26, 2022 17:17
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-Blackadder- posted:This isn't rocket science. People should be for/doing whatever keeps the Republicans out of power, whether that be voting, working on political campaigns (at every level of government), litigation, organizing their community for direct action campaigns, protest marches, sit-ins, et al. democrats refusing to take any action on behalf of their base when in power puts republicans in power, well poo poo looks like we're right back where we started
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Jun 26, 2022 17:17
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BiggerBoat posted:Except now, if I'm being honest, I don't see how things would really be all that different if Trump had beaten Biden. I really don't. And I can't honestly argue in good faith that he wouldn't have done a better job. That's hosed up. Yesterday Stephen Miller thanked Trump for protecting white babies. The Supreme Court makeup is the consequence of lost presidential and senate elections, victories of right wing electoralism. “ I don't see”. The material consequence are going to be right in front of you. The horrors for women’s health without legal abortion , in the past those were not in a social media era. Hysteresis, when effect lags cause significantly makes it hard to see. And the right exploits this.
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Jun 26, 2022 17:20
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It’s bizarre demanding people “hold their nose” and vote for candidates who will to further suppress the left. At the national level the Dems are a conservative liberal party. If you’re a progressive or leftist they don’t have remotely the same ideology. So why would I automatically vote for a group of people who don’t want the same things I do?
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Jun 26, 2022 17:21
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-Blackadder- posted:This isn't rocket science. People should be for/doing whatever keeps the Republicans out of power, whether that be voting, working on political campaigns (at every level of government), litigation, organizing their community for direct action campaigns, protest marches, sit-ins, et al. This only makes sense if you genuinely believe Democrats are significantly less fascist. If you take their agenda at face value of course they are, but that's not the lived experience of many Americans.
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Jun 26, 2022 17:22
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Tatsuta Age posted:it's even more loving funny that people in this thread keep using Cuellar as an example of "why vote" The House leadership swooped in during the final weeks with a lot of money and resources to save his sorry rear end. He likely would have lost if Pelosi had just stayed out of it and remained neutral. The progressives in his district were not demotivated at all.... but they might be now!
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Jun 26, 2022 17:22
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SMEGMA_MAIL posted:It’s bizarre demanding people “hold their nose” and vote for candidates who will to further suppress the left. It’s bizarre to advocate for anything that would allow a openly fascist party to win.
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Jun 26, 2022 17:24
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