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Don't worry, I'm sure you'll be privileged and safe
(lemmy.world)
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this post was submitted on 14 May 2024
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To be honest, I already wasn't voting for Biden because of his record of mass incarceration, support for the Iraq War, and ghoulish complicity in every major problem the country is facing today. The fact that he's fully and unwaveringly supporting Israel's genocide is entirely on brand and just makes the decision even easier than before. Four years ago, those concerns were the ones liberals were saying you had to hold your nose and look past, now they're not even on the radar anymore and it's moved on to significantly worse things. It's a perfect example of how the democrats move discourse to the right.
The US political system is truly vile in how it effectively brainwashes people into supporting genocide. Even in this thread you can see people defending Israel and saying it's "necessary" for the US to support them, not even sticking to their lesser evilist line but just openly saying it's a good thing for Biden to support them. Once people choose a camp they just end up knee-jerk defending their decision and adopting positions of their candidate to simplify their cognitive dissonance. In some ways, it's worse than a straight up autocracy because of how it manipulates people while still not allowing people any meaningful voice.
Of course the lapdogs of the empire are more than happy to not only adjust their own beliefs into whatever the elites want, but to then browbeat anyone trying to stand against it. Because to them, the positions of our rulers are completely immutable while the moral convictions of voters are up for debate.
What liberals like OP will never understand is that no matter how real the threat of violence towards me is, it will never be enough to convince me to endorse genocide. At least I can go to my grave with a clean conscience, and that's not worth much but it's worth a hell of a lot more than anything Biden would do for me.
Cool, you can go to the grave knowing you've assisted in the murder as many people as possible. Good job!
If not doing anything for someone counts as assistance, then rest assured that Biden will have my assistance.
Standing by and doing nothing when you could do something is assisting the end result. So if Trump wins, you can pop some champagne and celebrate how many additional Palestinians you've helped murder so you could indulge in a masturbatory excuse for civic participation.
Sorry, I'm having trouble understanding you with that boot so far down your throat.
I think what you just said is something along the lines of, our ruler, who is actively arming and supporting a genocide that he has the power to stop, is completely blameless, while I, having no power and doing nothing with it, am somehow responsible for the genocide. That the gist of it?
lmao
No, but maybe if you take a remedial English class, you can come back in a few years and actually parse what was said.
So then you agree that the fault lies with Biden and not me, cool cool.
Oh no, there's fault with Biden, but you'll have blood aplenty on your hands if Trump wins.
I'm simply obeying what my conscience dictates and I've already accepted all that could entail. No matter what happens, I won't feel guilty about my decision to not support genocide. I hope someday you too can recognize that supporting genocide is wrong, but I'm not holding my breath.
It's a shame you won't feel guilty about your decision to enable multiple genocides. But I guess some people just don't have the moral integrity to look beyond their own nose.
I wonder, am I also enabling, say, cancer? Nothing I’ve done has in any way caused anyone to get cancer, I also don’t have any ability to cure cancer, however, neither of those things seem to have any bearing over my complicity, in your fascinating worldview where simply existing is “enabling” every bad thing to happen.
What a great democracy we have! You can only vote for Biden!
"I can't believe that most people don't want my first OR second choice, even as a compromise position! This isn't REAL democracy!"
So you're okay with people just voting for whoever they prefer? No big deal if I vote for my first choice then?
You can vote for whoever you prefer, just know that you're responsible for the outcome. And if you can bear being responsible, in part, for a fascist dictatorship and the murder of countless minorities, well, that's... that's a choice. I mean, it's the kind of choice that marks someone as a fascist piece of shit, but it's a choice.
Hm, it's almost like we already live in a fascist dictatorship with the largest prison population in the world (proportionally), that is sending weapons to support a genocide, that is working to supress free speech. Hmmm. Wow if I had more than two brain cells I'd be able to figure out that voting for Biden is voting for fascism but gee I've only got the two.
Why does the blame for the results of a democratic farce that allows authoritarianism to rise falls on those not participating in said farce? If anything, is those participating in it, advocating for it and validating it that should be blamed when the system they enabled inevitably puts in power an authoritarian idiot like trump. (not my way of thinking, but if we are gonna point fingers...)
Who would you blame if Biden wins the popular vote and your "very democratic" electoral college gives the win to trump? Like it happened to Clinton.
Why do I think people who don't even bother to do the bare minimum to keep a fascist from gaining the highest office in the land share blame in letting a fascist gain the highest office in the land?
I wonder.
Offering non-cooperation without alternatives isn't anything except enabling fascism through passivity. You want to delegitimize the system? Go ahead. But you better have a fucking plan that gets real fucking rolling before inauguration day, or else I will regard it as the work of a dumb fuck fascist enabler.
Otherwise? Vote with the rest of us who aren't fascists or their useful idiots and avert fascism a little longer so we have the ability to make such plans, should we desire.
Whatever dumb fuck swing state was closest. And every Republican voter, of course.
Demanding a more democratic system that will actually give power to the voice of the people and make it harder for fascism/authoritarianism to rise seems like a better option to me than pretending the current system that allows people like trump into power, with ease and against the democratic consensus, will someday fix itself. Im not sure about this but I think most dictators and authoritarians around the world were "democratically" elected.
Also, a little bit hypocritical/naive, tbh, considering the US has its far share of fascism already. Theres no arguing that trump/republicans are the worst option with almost immediate consequences for the US but if the objective is to "fight against fascism", perpetuating the democrats in power as is wont do you any favours either. In terms of fascism/authoritarianism Trump is cyanide and Biden is mercury. Both will kill you but one will take much longer.
Thats very unrealistic, theres no "solution" that will guarantee Trump wont get into power. Not even voting. However, if a change wanted to be made, protest and denunciation of the problem would be a good start; Election boycott and abstentionism are part of it. Its a shame that it is now that people is voicing their discontent now instead of when trump was undemocratically elected but thats how this things go. I still dont believe that you can honestly blame the people not participating (nor those who do) for the results of an undemocratic and rigged system. But you do you.
And why is it that "we" have to come up with a magical solution that wil erradicate fascism in a few months when what you are advocating for not only cant prevent authoritarianism from getting into power but it enables it, encourages it and rewards it.
"Insults are the arguments of those who are wrong"
A million times, this.
By far the worst aspect of liberalism is the deflection of systemic critique in favor of blaming the individual instead. When liberal democracy fails it won't be because people didn't vote hard enough, it will be because the system failed to respond to the needs of the governed.
"As a voter, I have no power and my choices don't reflect on me at all, but these all-powerful candidates who mysteriously no one supports, certainly not a majority of voters, THEY'RE the ones who are to blame for everything! BTW, Trump and Biden are just as bad, don't @ me with your whining about 'minorities' or whatever, no war but class war!"
You're actually not that far off. A liberal democracy will never provide choices that undermine its own ideological supremacy. Leftists have always known that true progress is borne outside of the electoral system, not from within it. If that weren't the case then we wouldn't have such a deep and rich history of violent and non-violent protest.
Yes, the evil liberal democracy is tainting everyone's vote, scribbling it in with sharpie. It definitely couldn't be that most people are attached to the status quo in every system. No, it's the LIBERAL CONSPIRACY.
I'm sure who's elected doesn't have any effect on the viability of violent or non-violent protests. Both sides, right? :)
I think you've missed the point there, bud. Systems of power don't require a conspiracy of individuals to maintain it, they organize themselves.
You're so close. Systems of power organize around the distribution of material resources. But you're right - that's true with most systems.
Ah, so we're back to "Democracy Bad, the proles don't know what they want", great. The Party Line will never lead us astray, though!
I didn't say 'democracy bad'. I said systems of power do not provide the tools for their own subversion.
If a system of power grows from the influence of private wealth over a democratic institution, that institution isn't going to spontaneously provide an option to rid itself of that influence. A democratic institution will always need extrademocratic force in order to keep corrupting influences out.
I'm just gonna sit here for a bit. Maybe take up alcoholism.
Maybe consider logging off, touching some grass. Seems like you're having a bit of a morning.
"Touch some grass, then you'll realize that democracy is great only so long as there's an extrademocratic means to make sure the people vote the right way!"
Right, what grass should I be touching? The grass on Mussolini's grave?
Jesus bud, take a breath. Any grass is fine, better if it's accompanied by some fresh air
I didn't say that. Extrademocratic force (e.g. protests, civil disobedience, BDS, ect) is used when democratic institutions don't provide adequate choices, not in order to 'make sure people vote the right way'. That's how every civil rights movement in the US has happened since its founding.
Please, explain to me how protests and civil disobedience provide choices in an 'extrademocratic' way against genuinely democratic institutions.
Not how they are part of a democratic process. Not how they express the democratic will of the people. How they provide a counterbalance in an extrademocratic way, specifically.
? Sorry, i'm not actually sure what you're asking...
Extrademocratic is just my way of describing activity that exists outside of electoral politics. Protests and civil disobedience work by pressuring systems of power through force or the threat thereof. The same way a union strike pressures an employer to make concessions in collective bargaining, a protest pressures a democratic institution to make concessions to protestors.
The threat of withholding support and lowering popular support is the vector by which democratic institutions are made to provide better choices.
That's definitely not what I took it as. Maybe 'extra-electoral' might serve better there, since, you know, extra-democratic necessarily implies outside ('extra') of democracy.
Fair enough - the point remains.
Then we're back to:
Which is contradicted by one of the essential points of liberal democracy being the tolerance of and responsiveness to democratic action outside of electoral politics - ie protests and civil disobedience.
A couple things:
Even if you include things like civil disobedience within your concept of liberal democracy, there will still always be limits to what a liberal democracy will tolerate, even given popular support
the system of power isn't limited to the immediate outline of the government. In a liberal democracy in-particular, outsized power is granted to private entities through ownership and is protected through the state. An organized protest can just as easily be put down via disenfranchisement and employer boycotts as with water cannons and pepper spray, and often they are put down with both simultaneously. Especially when essential arms of liberal democracy are privately owned (I assume you consider mass media and journalism to be essential arms of democracy), it can more than protect itself from effective protest when that protest represent serious threats to its functioning.
All that to say: it's a bit disingenuous to claim a lack of support for any particular systemic change when that system actively defends itself against those changes by - among other things - manufacturing consent against them and lashing out against those who push for it.
You're getting spoon fed a basic political education and you still don't get it.
"How can anyone disagree with me!? They must just not 'get it', unlike those of us who are enlightened enough to simp for genocide."