The problem in democracy is, that instead of a minimum IQ, there is a minimum age for voting rights.
IQ is pretty much a bullshit statistic that largely correllates to education and economic standing than anything else. There isn't some grand variance in intelligence, actually, what's at play is competing class interests and socioeconomic factors determining diet and access to education.
@Twongo Hitler got to power using democratic ways. He only got absolute majority by burning the Reichstag and blaming the left. Of course democracy works only if the population is educated and if people in USA say "oh trump was nice in the first term let's give him Senate Parliament and supreme Court" then it's an education problem. Not voting just helps Trump.
Hitler gained power because the working classes were organizing, such as in the KPD, and the capitalists needed a butcher to kill them and root out trade unionists, as well as to regain colonies lost to Germany in World War I. The inter-ally debts to the US were largely siphoned by Europe from Germany as repayment for losing the war, which strained the economy and forced the working classes into millitancy, with which the capitalist class responded by sending their attack dogs on ethnic minorities and labor organizers.
Trump took power because as imperialism is crumbling, the small business owners are feeling at risk of falling to the level of the working classes. This isn't due to "lack of education," it's easy to blame the right for being stupid when in reality they aren't, they are willingly and knowingly acting in their own interests against the people.
Voting could not have prevented fascists from taking power in either state, because the driving factor isn't people's ideas, but their material conditions.
@Cowbee Hitler got to power by voting. He did have a militia yes but he got to power through voting. Also through voting he gained the needed super majority. Trump also got to power through voting. He also has militant followers and both tried to coup before getting elected but in power they got through voting.
You're confusing the election, which is largely a formality and political theater in dictatorships of capital, with the forces at play that have already decided who will take power. History is not a series of snapshots, but a process that develops dialectically over time.
Hitler was not elected, Hindenburg was, and he conceded power to Hitler. Trump was elected, but that's not why he gained power. Both gained power because that was what the capitalist class wanted, and the elections are largely a formality beyond that. Even if, say, Hillary had won, these two candidates are more similar than different, both were acceptable by capitalists, one merely preferred by some capitalists over the other.
Fascism rises when the spoils of imperialism dry up and reaction is brought homeward. It isn't a political preference, but driven economically, and as such is predictable. It has only ever been stopped through force, like when the Red Army defeated the Nazis in World War II.
Voting is one of many tools at our disposal - and right now we need all the tools we can get.
So, don't shit on voting - do vote!
Do the other things too, but don't skip the vote.
You're right that voting is a tool; you're wrong about whose tool it is and what it's used for.
It can be used for either liberation or oppression. Ceding it to the oppressors does not help you. Promoting apathy among those who would otherwise support liberation helps the oppressors.
What is your goal here?
You are fundamentally confused such that you think there's any agency in voting in the first place. The only real impact it has is to completely short circuit and subsume all political activity away from any outside organizing that is, historically, literally the only thing that has ever worked to accomplish anything.
My goal is this is a forum. Someone says something wrong and then you say the correct thing under them. That's what you do on forums.
You are spreading misinformation and promoting apathy among those who would otherwise support liberation. You are an ally to our oppressors.
There it is. If you're not a liberal you're personally getting checks written by Putin or whomever's the villain of the month.
Nice try FBI
You literally voted to escalate a genocide because the system you're playing apologist for presented you no other choice. What misinformation am I spreading? You're the one acting as an enemy of liberation. You literally voted for a genocide. You are literally an ally to our oppressors.
It's honestly fucking frightening how you're capable of that kind of doublethink.
And you're not just an ally of our oppressors in that sense. You want to waste YEARS of time PER ELECTION of people who would otherwise be doing tangible good in their communities working outside of the genocidal system you cap for.
Last election the choice was between Palestinian genocide and Palestinian genocide. You are smoking crack if you think the oligarchy is ever going to provide you with a meaningful choice to loosen their hold on you through the civic ritual of voting.
False equivalence. Last election was a choice between Palestinian genocide vs significantly more Palestinian genocide + Ukrainian genocide + it's looking Venezuelan genocide is about to be kicking off + who the fuck knows, we've got three more years of this shitshow and that's assuming we even have another election.
You chose significantly more Palestinian genocide + Ukrainian genocide + probable Venezuelan genocide + an untold number of atrocities to come.
Harris was and is shit, but it doesn't take a rocket scientist to look at Trump and conclude that he's infinitely worse. You really going to pretend that opposition to genocide was a motivating factor in allowing Trump to win? Cuz you've enabled, and are in some part responsible for, a shit ton more genocide.
You're also hyperfocusing on the presidential election: voting impacts a lot more than just who gets to be god-emperor of the US for 4 years.
So you knowingly voted to throw Palestinians under the extermination bus, is that it? And you consider yourself to be on the right side of history? And you never considered that perhaps your slavish ideological devotion to following the rules of a fascist political system was slow-boiling you into a fascist?
Ukranian genocide
You're talking about the ten years of ethnic cleansing the Ukranian nazi government was doing to ethnic Russians within its borders, right? You wouldn't possibly consider yourself to be against genocide while supporting these guys, right? Because nobody could possibly be that deluded, right? Tell me you're not that programmed.
Last election was a choice between Palestinian genocide vs significantly more Palestinian genocide + Ukrainian genocide + it’s looking Venezuelan genocide is about to be kicking off + who the fuck knows, we’ve got three more years of this shitshow and that’s assuming we even have another election.
You are doing the thing right now. The other choice is "none of those things," actually, and you don't get that by voting harder because as you've just demonstrated you were not given the choice. Is any genocide acceptable to you? The line is never "less genocide," it is "no genocide."
Vote in the preliminaries, where you can select which bag of shit you'll get to vote for officially. You may even end up with a decent choice on election day off your area is dope like NYC or Seattle.
Even if you're stuck in the cousin-fuckingly-deep south like me, where your vote will almost certainly be washed out by a horde of Nazis: still do it. Especially in smaller elections - school boards, city level stuff, whatever you can get in on. Those are the ones where you can really start to turn the tide. All it takes is for the usual rednecks to start feeling apathetic, and a handful of us bleeding-heart-commie-socialist-hippie-libruls to step up, and BAM, we've got a progressive oasis elected in our desert of red. Which still isn't much, but it's a foothold.
But it does require us to do the bare-assed minimum amount of effort in support of change, which is to vote.
You should definitely vote but it shouldn't be the only thing you do.
No
Psyop alert 
Badjacketing is bad. Don't do that.
You're right, I dont know that they are a psyop. I do, however, know that the position of 'voting is not worthwhile if you are a leftist' that they are taking above is the same position that many psyops would like to have in the minds of leftists. Put more simply, what might they have said differently if they were a psyop? Nothing, I presume.
It is better to root out psyop talking points that diminish our ability to form a collective voice, than it is to allow foolish notions like 'dont vote' to continue in our spaces.
Yes. Voting is useful for showing solidarity with the movement and demonstrating how the current system doesn't work. Just because it isn't capable of causing any meaningful change doesn't mean it's useless.
Just because it isn't capable of causing any meaningful change doesn't mean it's useless.
I see a lot of folks on .ml and .hexbear not understand this part. It's like all change must be meaningful, and if it's not then it's not worth our time.
Lenin taught us that we need to build within the system of the masses in order to tip them over, not overturn it outright. There is a specific time and place for when change is the most impactful
Lenin's position on integrating with the masses meant running working class parties in opposition to establishment parties, ie voting PSL over DNC. The vanguard's task is to become a party that the working class puts their full support behind, so that when revolution does happen, the vanguard can serve as the spearpoint to direct the masses in one unified direction and crush the capitalist state, replacing it with a socialist one.
bro just one more vote bro, bro I swear just one more vote and it'll fix democracy bro
Just you wait another few more years and I'm gonna vote so hard it'll make your head spin
Chile actually voted out their dictator.
So did Brazil, and they actually threw theirs in prison.
No, Bolsonaro was not a dictator; if he had been, we wouldn't have been able to remove him. He had far less power than he thought; that's why voting worked.
I would argue the same is true of Trump. It certainly was in his first term. This term has all the aesthetics of authoritarianism, but he is failing to consolidate power, which is kind of pathetic considering how much power in the US was ready to surrender on day one.
then what happened
I mean this isn’t a “white lib” thing. Most people don’t want political violence or related.
Is this not also true for liberals who aren't white?
yes. i did not create this image
Weird how voting always seems to work for the right wing
Maybe voting would actually work if…you know…you actually voted
Maybe people would vote more if the counter offer wasn't also fascism
