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I'm in Kentucky. Does my vote affect the Presidential election? No. Does it affect the Democratic primary? No. Can Kentucky's Senate seats flip blue? No. Can my district's House seat flip blue? No. Can my districts' seats in the state senate and house flip? No. Can a liberal get elected mayor in my town? No. Does getting mad at me for this somehow change the calculus? No. That said, I do vote, if only to head off this exact discussion (and hey, maybe we'll get lucky again and keep Beshear) and also get a sticker, but come on. Voting doesn't do poo poo in huge swathes of the country, and the Grand Effect on marginalized people between me filling out a ballot and me hypothetically drinking myself unconscious on Election Day instead is nonexistent. Thanqol posted:I would like you to imagine you saying those words to Mitch McConnel Voting hasn't stopped Big Mitch yet. Hell, he's at the point now where there's literally not enough potential voters left in the state to unseat him.
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Oct 27, 2023 07:17
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Josef bugman posted:Do you think that a) is not still the likeliest outcome even if the left continues to vote? Absolutely not. I know you're not American and don't necessarily have the best idea of what's actually going on here, but the right has been underperforming pretty consistently basically since Trump was elected. That said, all this talk about personal voting choices is pretty off-target. The way to get what you want isn't by going out and personally voting for it, it's by convincing a bunch of other people to also go out and vote for it. The reason leftist policies aren't being passed is that the left isn't big enough. There aren't enough people who genuinely place a high priority on leftist policies. As long as that's the case, the left is going to lack political influence regardless of what political system we're working under. We need to get out there and start winning people over, instead of watching the fascists win in hopes that an anti-capitalist revolution will eventually spawn after the fascists oppress enough people.
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Oct 27, 2023 07:18
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Thanqol posted:Who won the last few UK elections? Do you think there is a connection? Yeah the Tories did, but labour is also supporting the same things now and when Corbyn was there and offering not those things I voted for them. But now they aren't offering things I want so I won't vote for them. Why do I owe people my vote if they don't do anything to help people?
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Oct 27, 2023 07:19
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Josef bugman posted:Yeah the Tories did, but labour is also supporting the same things now and when Corbyn was there and offering not those things I voted for them. But now they aren't offering things I want so I won't vote for them. Do you think labour would be supporting those policies if they won the last few elections?
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Oct 27, 2023 07:23
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Thanqol posted:Do you think labour would be supporting those policies if they won the last few elections? ... That I voted in them for? Do I need a time machine to change this? Or do I have to deal with earth 2 labour now? Seriously I don't understand your point here.
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Oct 27, 2023 07:33
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Main Paineframe posted:Absolutely not. I know you're not American and don't necessarily have the best idea of what's actually going on here, but the right has been underperforming pretty consistently basically since Trump was elected. Very important post. There's a lot to be said about the power of voting beyond the 20 minutes out of my year I spend to do my personal vote. Like to your point of convincing people, in 2016 I was a big Bernie supporter and had campaigned for him in the primary, and I voted for him or some third party candidate in the general, but after he lost the primary I still did phonebanking and canvassing and GOTV (this one is key, since as you say the left is small and apathetic) for Clinton to get other people to vote for her because holy hell Trump. It is possible to do this.
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Oct 27, 2023 07:36
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Josef bugman posted:... That I voted in them for? Do I need a time machine to change this? Or do I have to deal with earth 2 labour now? My point is that after losing, a political party adopts the ideas of the winner, in the hopes that it stops losing. After a decade of tory government politics has drifted right. That sucks. It's not going to drift left without a decade of labour government. You're locked in a generational struggle for the very shape of what's politically possible, checking out and not voting means left AND right will move further right.
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Oct 27, 2023 07:40
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Main Paineframe posted:Absolutely not. I know you're not American and don't necessarily have the best idea of what's actually going on here, but the right has been underperforming pretty consistently basically since Trump was elected. Yeah, it especially is annoying since the whole nothing matters and both sides-isms not only ignores this but is essentially preaching letting things get worse for the sake of some nebulous paradise future that almost always is so deeply steeped in theory that it ignores political realities of the times.
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Oct 27, 2023 07:45
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Thanqol posted:My point is that after losing, a political party adopts the ideas of the winner, in the hopes that it stops losing. After a decade of tory government politics has drifted right. That sucks. It's not going to drift left without a decade of labour government. You're locked in a generational struggle for the very shape of what's politically possible, checking out and not voting means left AND right will move further right. But they don't as a matter of course. The GOP is not changing their PoV on anything and they continue to weild influence across wide swathes of the USA despite not winning the last presidential election. How does me voting for people and supporting them make them change their minds? Did the UK get less right wing after Tony Blair was in charge or did the messaging just change? But I can't vote for anyone who even passingly represents me. The leader of the opposition supported doing war crimes to Gaza and saying that "women can't have dicks" how and why should I vote for people who do and say these sort of things?
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Oct 27, 2023 07:48
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Thanqol posted:Do you know how politics changes? You know, on a deep, structural level? You win multiple elections in a row. I simply do not have confidence that the Democrats, as a whole, can accomplish much. They had opportunities to codify Roe v Wade, but did not. They had an opportunity to protect our voting rights and failed to do so. They had many opportunities to actually make things better, but didn't. Some of these Democrats are flat out against the goals that I want and I don't want to give them the power to destroy the things that I want to see happen. XboxPants posted:If both options were transphobes, but one of them was a radical Zionist who wanted Palestine completely wiped out, and the other was pushing for a ceasefire leading to an eventual two state solution, then you bet I'd vote for the pro-Palestinian transphobe over the ethnic cleansing transphobe. If I'm going down anyway I'm gonna save as many people as I can on the way down. Main Paineframe posted:We need to get out there and start winning people over
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Oct 27, 2023 07:49
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Main Paineframe posted:That said, all this talk about personal voting choices is pretty off-target. The way to get what you want isn't by going out and personally voting for it, it's by convincing a bunch of other people to also go out and vote for it. The reason leftist policies aren't being passed is that the left isn't big enough. There aren't enough people who genuinely place a high priority on leftist policies. As long as that's the case, the left is going to lack political influence regardless of what political system we're working under. We need to get out there and start winning people over, instead of watching the fascists win in hopes that an anti-capitalist revolution will eventually spawn after the fascists oppress enough people. That's a key thing. I don't know how anyone other than me voted in any election. I've never seen a single other person's submitted ballot. I have to take their word on it, and I've certainly seen my share of people who for example claim they voted for Obama but that was before they knew he was a hardcore communist Kenyan Muslim and that burning them so hard is why they're Trump Train today. I barely know for sure if most people voted; I can check records if I have a real name, but who has time for that? On the other hand, I definitely know who and what people campaigned for, and against. The issues they pushed, the issues they tried to sink or dismiss, and not only what candidates they tried to boost but whose voters they tried to discourage into staying home, because that's an intrinsically public act. If someone spent fall of 2022 hanging out in left-leaning spaces repeatedly insisting that the big red wave was coming because Democrats were bound and determined to let Trump and company walk because of decorum, wanted to throw elections so they could raise more donations as a minority party, or that surely Americans would remember that Joe Biden stole $600 out of their wallets, it's hard to assign any importance to whether they after the fact claimed to hold their nose and vote for a Democrat. They worked hard, not to improve the party by pressuring politicians or winning primaries, or encouraging the people around them to do the same, but by trying to get people in earshot to check out and go home. It's hard to differentiate it from the astroturfed #walkaway campaign right-wingers tried to demoralize Dem voters.
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Oct 27, 2023 07:51
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theCalamity posted:I simply do not have confidence that the Democrats, as a whole, can accomplish much. They had opportunities to codify Roe v Wade, but did not. They had an opportunity to protect our voting rights and failed to do so. They had many opportunities to actually make things better, but didn't. Some of these Democrats are flat out against the goals that I want and I don't want to give them the power to destroy the things that I want to see happen. I don't recall them having a significant enough majority to codify roe v wade yet. Hell, legally speaking the majority view was that Roe V Wade was settled law for decades on end. Meaning it wasn't needed to put a bill into law up until the republican extremists seized the court. It isn't the Democratic party's fault the Republicans subverted every expectation and demand of the office of the Supreme Court either. Archonex fucked around with this message at 07:59 on Oct 27, 2023 |
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Oct 27, 2023 07:52
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Time to direct people to my effortpost on reactionary rhetorics again. The argument that specific narrower changes or shifts are insufficient and therefore should not be considered, like the argument that the push for specific changes are futile, are both part of the reactionary playbook used to sabotage good faith discussion. There's a reason Republican talking points targeting Democrats and leftists reliably focus on equivocation between the parties, and setting ever-shifting standards for what counts as "really mattering".
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Oct 27, 2023 07:53
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Discendo Vox posted:Time to direct people to my effortpost on reactionary rhetorics again. The argument that specific narrower changes or shifts are insufficient and therefore should not be considered, like the argument that the push for specific changes are futile, are both part of the reactionary playbook used to sabotage good faith discussion. There's a reason Republican talking points targeting Democrats and leftists reliably focus on equivocation between the parties, and setting ever-shifting standards for what counts as "really mattering". So are you saying that Selec and company are actually conservative reactionaries or some other type of reactionary on the left or that they've bought into conservative political ploys? Because I can agree with the latter at the least, and basically said as much earlier. I don't know enough about them to say anything about the rest of the possibilities there. 
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Oct 27, 2023 07:55
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A large amount of state propaganda from Russia is targeted at leftists to convince them that it is not worth voting and that it will never change anything even locally.
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Oct 27, 2023 07:59
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I'm on the side of "Let's try to implement alternatives to FPTP voting so we don't have to vote blue if the blue is lovely, but in the meantime vote blue"
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Oct 27, 2023 07:59
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Archonex posted:So are you saying that Selec and company are actually conservative reactionaries or some other type of reactionary on the left or that they've bought into conservative political ploys? The arguments are, objectively, from the reactionary, conservative and authoritarian rhetorical playbooks. The rules forbid discussing the motives of the people making them, over and over, to interrupt and derail discussion to talk about how the only productive form of action is civic disengagement and studying violent revolution. It is very, very important that these users, and arguments, be entertained. Does anyone remember what topic was being discussed before selec's post?
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Oct 27, 2023 08:00
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Josef bugman posted:But they don't as a matter of course. The GOP is not changing their PoV on anything and they continue to weild influence across wide swathes of the USA despite not winning the last presidential election. Bluntly put, Trump is their Corbyn. Electorally unpalatable, dedicated force of fanatics who won't vote for anyone more electorally palatable even if it drives the party off the brink. They're just more organized about it. The fact that he won once has emboldened his supporters beyond all reason, but do you think he'll also go up in 2028 if he loses in 2024? In 2032 if he loses 2028? Tony Blair got where he was because Labour lost multiple elections in a row to Maggie Thatcher and her crew. Labour was tired of losing. They wanted to win. So they gave up on ideas they thought were losers and won power. The conservatives do the same. I think what you have not internalized is that we, leftists, are the minority. We're the minority. There's no sleeping mass of leftist voters out there waiting to be activated by The Right Policies. Every time we try that it falls flat. We win by influencing the loving centrists by pushing where we can, how we can. I hate them too but they've got the balance of power and unless you're going to start organizing in army regiments then that's the only way it changes.
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Oct 27, 2023 08:02
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Discendo Vox posted:The arguments are, objectively, from the reactionary, conservative and authoritarian rhetorical playbooks. The rules forbid discussing the motives of the people making them, over and over, to interrupt and derail discussion to talk about how the only productive form of action is civic disengagement and studying violent revolution. It is very, very important that these users, and arguments, be entertained. Does anyone remember what topic was being discussed before selec's post? Right, just wanted to check to avoid the inevitable derail. But yeah, you are correct that some of the arguments are straight out of right winger's playbooks. They're fairly old tricks of the tongue too, given that both sides-ism is a longstanding propaganda campaign by extremist conservatives to disincentivize voting by anyone not a Republican. Ditto for nothing matters-ism's. Archonex fucked around with this message at 08:07 on Oct 27, 2023 |
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Oct 27, 2023 08:05
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Thanqol posted:I think what you have not internalized is that we, leftists, are the minority. We're the minority. There's no sleeping mass of leftist voters out there waiting to be activated by The Right Policies. Every time we try that it falls flat. We win by influencing the loving centrists by pushing where we can, how we can. I hate them too but they've got the balance of power and unless you're going to start organizing in army regiments then that's the only way it changes. I think one of the biggest political divides is between people who recognize that their less popular opinions are unpopular and thus they need to convince others to make it happen, and those who believe deep down they are part of a silent majority such that it only takes a leader bold enough to say what we all are thinking and silence the minority of bad people. Mind, it's not that the latter never happens, it's just that a sizable portion of the electorate (left, right, and center alike) is very reluctant to accept the first as a possibility.
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Oct 27, 2023 08:14
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Killer robot posted:I think one of the biggest political divides is between people who recognize that their less popular opinions are unpopular and thus they need to convince others to make it happen, and those who believe deep down they are part of a silent majority such that it only takes a leader bold enough to say what we all are thinking and silence the minority of bad people. Extremely well put.
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Oct 27, 2023 08:28
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Killer robot posted:I think one of the biggest political divides is between people who recognize that their less popular opinions are unpopular and thus they need to convince others to make it happen, and those who believe deep down they are part of a silent majority such that it only takes a leader bold enough to say what we all are thinking and silence the minority of bad people. Except that policies which fall under a generally "leftist" umbrella are insanely popular in both the US and UK when polled in a reasonably neutral fashion. They just get absolutely monstered by a compliant media apparatus during election season. How do you solve that? Apparently you don't, planet just dies instead
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Oct 27, 2023 09:17
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Killer robot posted:I think one of the biggest political divides is between people who recognize that their less popular opinions are unpopular and thus they need to convince others to make it happen, and those who believe deep down they are part of a silent majority such that it only takes a leader bold enough to say what we all are thinking and silence the minority of bad people. I think Bernie 2016 is hard to let go of. Out of nowhere, the first candidate bold enough to call himself socialist in a century offhandly announces he's running and from the word go was a serious threat to Hillary Clinton, ending up with a 55-45 split iirc. Certainly felt like we were right there, but no. Turns out a good chunk of that was just anti-Hillary, and when the electorate was presented with loving Joe Biden instead, they flocked to him. So now even the best case scenario put forward is "Win, and then never stop winning, and then after twenty years of continuous victories we can start moving to possibly implement the first incremental reform you were interested in back when you thought Obama was cool". And if you're somewhere where winning is impossible, then  , I guess.
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Oct 27, 2023 09:21
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Failed Imagineer posted:Except that policies which fall under a generally "leftist" umbrella are insanely popular in both the US and UK when polled in a reasonably neutral fashion. They just get absolutely monstered by a compliant media apparatus during election season. How do you solve that? Apparently you don't, planet just dies instead Importantly they tend to be popular in an abstract "wouldn't it be nice" discussion then nosedive whenever people are asked to commit to a specific. Not even just in the media, but if you just talk to random people. "Universal healthcare" or even the more specific "Medicare for All" are a great example. People who love the idea (most people) have several different mutually exclusive pictures of what it means and how it would work, but when you start talking specifics, no matter what they are, it hemorrhages support. And it gets even worse when someone who tolerates (even if not loves) their current health care has to face the idea of giving it up for an untested claimed improvement. Now, nearly all of those options would be better than the status quo, but people who agree with that on principle will still threaten to burn it all down if it's German-style multi-payer vs UK-style single-payer vs Canadian-style single-payer or whatever else, even if you're just in a room with nary a reporter in sight. That's even if your room doesn't include the people who say they support universal health care but think the only way it works is if we close the borders or or just let fat people and addicts die for their lifestyle choices or something. And pretty much every other area where people by and large agree that "change" is necessary is the same way or worse.
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Oct 27, 2023 09:44
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My position is not that voting is pointless, per se; it keeps us permanently teetering at the edge of collapse, when a collapse might spell catastrophe. Rather, voting will never actually make my life better, it will slow the rate at which it gets worse. The problems with this arrangement should be obvious. So one should vote, but that it cannot be the primary vector for change.
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Oct 27, 2023 09:54
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Thanqol posted:Tony Blair got where he was because Labour lost multiple elections in a row to Maggie Thatcher and her crew. Labour was tired of losing. They wanted to win. So they gave up on ideas they thought were losers and won power. The conservatives do the same. Labour lost Scotland under Blair and Brown which has made any ability to win in the UK that much harder for them because people stop voting for you if you do not deliver what you say you will and there is an alternative. The Labour Party is still not doing that much better than it was prior the Tory vote has simply collapsed under the weight of its myriad factions. The "ideas" aren't actually helping them to achieve power and, if they should achieve power, they want to use it in a way that is antithetical to what I want. Again I ask why should I vote for people who hate me and tell me to not vote for them? I am still spoiling my ballot and taking part in the electoral process even if it is in protest at the lack of choice given to me, but even that isn't enough because?
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Oct 27, 2023 10:08
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Josef bugman posted:Labour lost Scotland under Blair and Brown which has made any ability to win in the UK that much harder for them because people stop voting for you if you do not deliver what you say you will and there is an alternative. The Labour Party is still not doing that much better than it was prior the Tory vote has simply collapsed under the weight of its myriad factions. The "ideas" aren't actually helping them to achieve power and, if they should achieve power, they want to use it in a way that is antithetical to what I want. Do you know where a spoiled ballot goes? It goes in the bin. There is no report written. Nobody scrutinizes it. Nobody reads it. Nobody raises it to the local politicians. An election worker just puts it in the bin. It's the most impactful, and at the same time most pointless, invisible and self indulgent form of protest in the world. It's rolling coal for intellectuals, and like rolling coal, half of the fun of it seems to be grandiosely announcing that you're going to do it in an attempt to tweak the noses of strangers on the internet. The world is dominated by minorities of the population who have outsized influence and power because they can buy votes, you're a member of a political minority who has an undersized influence because not only are you not buying votes, you're throwing away the votes you do have. If political change happens it'll be despite you, not because of you.
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Oct 27, 2023 10:34
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Thanqol posted:Do you know where a spoiled ballot goes? Cool. What about not voting at all, that any better? Is going and voting for people currently cheering on bombing and murdering folk half the world over whilst calling for an expansion of the security state AND attacking vulnerable minorities a "win". Who would you vote for, would you vote Labour considering all of that is still the case?
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Oct 27, 2023 11:04
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Quixzlizx posted:What if I don't find totalitarian dictatorships inspirational? It's fascinating how people extolling the virtues of Comrade Lenin and his glorious state never actually lived in, let alone remember it Then people like my parents-in-law visit the hell 2020s USA and if asked, they're like "oh USSR? Absolute piece of poo poo. Sure wish the heroes of communism didn't kill half of my family. This place is a utopia."
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Oct 27, 2023 11:23
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Edgar Allen Ho posted:It's fascinating how people extolling the virtues of Comrade Lenin and his glorious state never actually lived in, let alone remember it The USSR was created in 1922, Lenin died in 1924
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Oct 27, 2023 11:29
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My personal opinion is that there are circumstances in which pragmatic electoralism segue from amusingly quaint to unacceptable. Overseeing a genocide is one of those circumstances. One can say "Trump would do the same!" Or "Trump would be worse!" But Trump is not president right now. He is not overseeing the Genocide. Biden is. I don't believe this is Russian propaganda. People are genuinely horrified. A massive number of Arab Americans are watching in real time as an American president is not hemming & hawwing, not paying lipservice to ceasefire, not acting the guise of a mediator, but full-throatedly endorsing the deprivation of water, food, electricity, fuel, livelihood, and existence for people who either look like them, could have been them, or are their children. ...And let me tell you, these peoples' social media getting flooded with 40+ year old democrats saying the likes of "of course you support Terrorism", "Have fun getting deported by Trump", "You think Trump is going to be any better?", or "check out this single sentence of lipservice, Biden 2024!" Is certainly not re-endearing them to the Democrats or the concept of holding their noses. It's entirely possible that the elected lesser evil will have permanently tarnished the Democrats' reputation among several voting generations of several ethnicities. Serious long-term damage that will not be repaired in their lifetimes. Russia, China, Iran, whoever the current boogeyman is, none of them need to do anything. You just have to turn on the TV and see the triumphant rhetoric of the state in implying that Palestinians are not dying in the obviously evident droves that they are. They don't need foreign intervention to see nearly every country we've designated Authoritarian or Terrorist do more than Biden ever will to stop this. Xi and Putin and Khamenei and etc just have to crack open beers and watch the shift happen. Neurolimal fucked around with this message at 12:34 on Oct 27, 2023 |
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Oct 27, 2023 11:49
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Digamma-F-Wau posted:I'm on the side of "Let's try to implement alternatives to FPTP voting so we don't have to vote blue if the blue is lovely, but in the meantime vote blue" Sadly, while this is a great idea, it doesn't really seem to be in the interests of either party to do so. Of course I could just be overly cynical about this, for example the presidential election process has changed quite a bit since the days of Ike. Ultimately, I think it's a hard sell because it would lead to new parties (that actually matter) cropping up and demanding their share of the pie. Which might be great for the voters, but not the currently existing parties.
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Oct 27, 2023 11:57
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Anyways, I hope Mike Johnson gets instantly ousted, so that Congress remains gridlocked for as long as humanly possible during this dire situation.
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Oct 27, 2023 11:57
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Failed Imagineer posted:The USSR was created in 1922, Lenin died in 1924 Lenin, uhm, did a few things between 1917 and 1922 some people may have opinions on.
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Oct 27, 2023 12:49
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OddObserver posted:Lenin, uhm, did a few things between 1917 and 1922 some people may have opinions on. And some even before
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Oct 27, 2023 12:59
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This Lenin fellow sounds pretty alright. I bet he led his people through a time of plenty and happiness.
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Oct 27, 2023 13:08
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Killer robot posted:Importantly they tend to be popular in an abstract "wouldn't it be nice" discussion then nosedive whenever people are asked to commit to a specific. Not even just in the media, but if you just talk to random people. "Universal healthcare" or even the more specific "Medicare for All" are a great example. People who love the idea (most people) have several different mutually exclusive pictures of what it means and how it would work, but when you start talking specifics, no matter what they are, it hemorrhages support. And it gets even worse when someone who tolerates (even if not loves) their current health care has to face the idea of giving it up for an untested claimed improvement. Now, nearly all of those options would be better than the status quo, but people who agree with that on principle will still threaten to burn it all down if it's German-style multi-payer vs UK-style single-payer vs Canadian-style single-payer or whatever else, even if you're just in a room with nary a reporter in sight. That's even if your room doesn't include the people who say they support universal health care but think the only way it works is if we close the borders or or just let fat people and addicts die for their lifestyle choices or something. Who are these people you encounter that are so knowledgeable & passionately opinionated about the various styles of socialized medicine programs? People I’ve met just want to pay less for—or even afford—their healthcare.
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Oct 27, 2023 13:39
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Nervous posted:This Lenin fellow sounds pretty alright. I bet he led his people through a time of plenty and happiness. Imagine all the people.
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Oct 27, 2023 13:40
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OddObserver posted:Lenin, uhm, did a few things between 1917 and 1922 some people may have opinions on. If there's a point there, you're not making it
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Oct 27, 2023 13:45
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Failed Imagineer posted:If there's a point there, you're not making it That Lenin's actions, both personally and in shaping the eventual USSR where not limited to the narrow window you picked, and very much corresponded to the brutal, autocratic and imperialist state it became.
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Oct 27, 2023 13:53
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