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Aren't you?
(midwest.social)
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this post was submitted on 27 Apr 2024
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Correction: "I'm voting for Biden to make sure the things that are happening right now continue to get slowly better, instead of getting immediately and significantly worse."
That's what they said back in '96 when I voted for Ralph Nader. Now we're on the precipice of American democracy falling to fascism, if not now, then very likely in 2028. That doesn't look to me anything like slowly getting better.
Some things have definitely improved in that time, e.g. the recognition of same-sex marriage, or the nascent resurgence of labor unions. Those things have been the result of slow, tough, hard work by the grassroots.
In that same time, though, the Democrats have been slowly helping to put the mechanisms of a fascist state in place, like the PATRIOT ACT, FISA, neutering the 4th Amendment, bolstering the Espionage Act, and setting up collaborative efforts between state police, Federal agencies, and the corporate sector to crush protest movements.
That said, the world is indeed shades of grey, and I voted for Biden in 2020 to stay fascism, if only for a little bit. It's better to vote for the right-wing candidate versus the fascist candidate. I want to vote for him again, but there are some lines that must never be crossed, and I can't in good conscience vote for a President enabling genocide. (The fact that both candidates do is madness.)
Maybe my calculus would be different if there were a reasonable chance that Democrats would do the things that are within their power to do to check the rise of fascism, but I have no confidence of that, as the track record shows otherwise.
Edit: Auto-correct damage.
Hey! So I know you are getting people being snarky and whatnot, but I have a legitimate question.
Could you address the question regarding how the Democrats are at least the party that are at least making slow progress, as opposed to not voting against the party that will turn the country into a Christian theocracy if given the chance?
Like I understand that you don't like either candidate - neither do we - but realistically, we know the winner will be either a Republican or a Democrat. Why not support the one that at least won't regress the country 500 years?
Because incrementalism is how we got to this situation in the first place.
Damn, you're way more succinct than I am.
I've covered a lot of it in other replies, so to keep it brief by analogy: It's like a survivor from a foundered ship clinging to a bit of flotsam (assuming there's no chance of timely rescue) rather than swimming for land in the distance. The flotsam keeps him safe from drowning for the moment, but thirst or hypothermia will do him in within days at the outside. His only chance to survive long-term is to abandon it and set to swimming.
The Democrats in this analogy are the flotsam, if it wasn't obvious. Bill Clinton got into office in 1992, after 12 years of Republican Presidents, and quickly made it clear that he represented the status quo, clinging-to-flotsam choice, rather than making things better. I believed that the long-term health of democracy required making the hard choice to swim for it. I wasn't smart enough to predict the exact shape of the future back then, but here we are, on the edge of slipping below the waves. That's the opposite outcome of making things better.
The Democrats don't even understand the threat of right-wing populism, so they can't counter it. (It's not even clear that they would, if they did.) The way to save our democracy, therefore, is to fight for something better.
What is the plan to fight for something better? Like... I'm really not trying to be snarky, I swear, but voting for any party that is not R or D on election Day is never going to result in someone other than someone from one of those two parties being president. That just won't happen. So unless there is an alternative path for change, I don't see the point of voting for someone other than a democrat to at least mitigate the damage
There can be better. That's the real kick in the teeth. Voting for President doesn't have to be the biggest thing any of us do. I want to get Biden reelected because it gives us time. Time to carry that momentum into more significant, broader changes. Time to do better and do more and stop sitting on our collective hands for all the remaining days on the calendar.
Do you know who won '96? Maybe the edit added that though.
Can you clarify whether you're talking about Clinton or Biden?
Where do they say they lived in Florida?
Biden is slowly worse, Trump is quickly worse. Liberalism is not about moving leftward, it's about continuing Capitalist hedgemony.
Slowly worse is still better than quickly worse, as that means there's more time to find a better solution.
Lol things have not gotten slowly better through voting ever or have you somehow missed the last 100 years?
End of segregation. Interracial marriage legalized. Voting rights for native americans. LGBT rights...
Nope, no progress there.
I seem to remember those things happening because of protest and struggle.
Did those happen because people voted, or was it because of large-scale protests and pressure?
Both. You can't get what you want by only doing one or the other. If you don't vote, you can't pressure sane politicians that don't get elected, and the insane fascists are just going to ignore you. And we all know that voting alone isn't the solution
People need to stop acting like voting is the end all/be all, or that not voting/withholding your vote sends a message rather than let's psychos who want to destroy democracy have their way.
They like to pretend like successful protests are a people's moment, but protests don't go anywhere without in-power support. MLK was establishment as fuck. The National Guard provided a replacement when his PA system failed at the million man march. You gotta make your opinions known by voicing them publicly and supporting candidates that are sympathetic to your cause. Even better, become part of the establishment yourself and be the helpful politician you wish you could vote for.
MLK was not establishment as fuck, most of his protests were illegal, and he regarded the "white moderate" who agree with his goals, but think things must be done slowly and within the system as just as great if not greater obstacle than the klansman.
We have the largest protests since the Iraq War, and your "sane" politicians are telling us to fuck off.
Have you?
Well no, which is why I ain't voting. Since it's useless
This is literally the stupidest argument I've ever heard in my life, and that's saying quite a lot.
You best not be in a swing state. We'll anyway, if you aren't going to be trying to improve things with the rest of us, shut up and get out of the way
Voting doesn't improve anything. We've already said this
Then shut up and let the grown ups talk
No u
Do you unironically believe that life hasn't gotten better for literally everyone that's not a Rockefeller since 1924? I think you may have brain damage. Which is a much more treatable condition than it was in 1920 fucking 4.
Stupid, stupid take.
Voting does not change the whims of the powerful. The powerful continue to push their will. Currently that will is massacres and genocide. Genocide Joe does have a nice ring to it. Vote or don't. The powerful will get their way.
Voting is easy in my state, so I will. My current amusement is voting against incumbents. Preference is Third Party > Democrat > Republican.
Beyond the entertainment of voting: keep building mutual aid networks, be a good neighbor and use a pokeball if 2025 gets ghastly.
Well no the powerful won't get their way if we unite and scare them into submission. Our societies have done this multiple times
Bro. Some elections are decided by 10s of votes. I live in a city of 12k people, on smaller elections less than a thousand people vote. By simply showing up you are effectively voting for 10-12 people. It takes like 10 minutes, and ballot measures alone make it worth while.
If you don't vote you're just accepting what those who did vote collectively voted for.
I don't accept shit. I oppose the whole system and I live my life in way meant to destabilize it.
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