Watch the full conversation here: https://youtube.com/live/OVl9FGe8fno?feature=shareChris, Marcelina, and Max join Katie to discuss the historic UAW strike. ...
Democrats might suck as far their desire, willingness, and ability to implement actual leftist reforms, but they are not as purposefully cruel. Suffering is real, more suffering is worse than less suffering, and one party is openly sadist.
Cop City is a complete counter to this argument. It’s in Atlanta, a Democrat stronghold. It’s obvious Cop City is a response to the George Floyd uprising, which the Democrats alongside the Republicans suppressed through counterinsurgency. Your fundamental error is believing the two parties aren’t part of a domestic counterinsurgency apparatus. An effective COIN apparatus employs the carrot and the stick. Of course the carrot is less immediately painful than the stick. That’s the function of the carrot. But do you think the good cop is somehow better than the bad cop, especially when they’re working together as a team?
Also, one party will make your goal of making the world a better place (which I assume is your ultimate goal) much more risky than the other. Why would you make your goal more difficult to achieve out of spite?
This is not really substantiated. You could easily make the argument that the Republicans are so openly reprehensible that people are far more likely to rise up like we saw with how the George Floyd uprising was partially fueled by Trump being an open fascist. Both this argument and your argument make the error that the Republicans and Democrats aren’t working together. Just because they have different roles doesn’t mean they aren’t part of the same team.
I realize that the Democrats are not going to bring about communist utopia, but as a trans person, one party winning power makes me scared of going about daily life, makes me wonder if my medication will be banned, whether I’ll be prohibited from public areas because of my identity – the other doesn’t. But I guess you don’t care about any of that.
Democrats don’t enshrine anything into law, meaning whatever fascist bullshit the Republicans come up with will be put up without a fight. Plus, federalism means those bullshit laws get passed anyways regardless who’s president. We saw this with Roe vs Wade where Democrats didn’t do shit after the Supreme Court ruled in favor of reproductive rights. They don’t do shit when they’re in power, and they aren’t an opposition party when not in power.
If you think voting Democrat will make your revolution less likely or take longer, and you are willing to let harm happen to make it happen faster than you are an accelerationist - a morally tenuous position at best.
Voting Democrat is at best a stalling tactic until Republicans drive the car off the cliff. If it’s in the context of you and your loved ones fleeing the US to a more progressive country, then yes, voting Democrat makes perfect sense since you would be out of the car when the car goes overboard. But if you have no real plans of immigrating to another country, voting Democrat means nothing since the car is going overboard anyways. Or it would be going overboard unless we wrestle control of the car from both the Democrats and Republicans.
You could easily make the argument that the Republicans are so openly reprehensible that people are far more likely to rise up
This is accelerationism, it harms people and the outcome is very uncertain so it’s not worth it, I am not for it.
Democrats don’t enshrine anything into law, meaning whatever fascist bullshit the Republicans come up with will be put up without a fight
So Democrats are not your ideal communists so you’re just gonna let fascists in power?
Voting Democrat is at best a stalling tactic
YES!!! FUCK!!! You get it! Vote Democrat and stall the fucking shit hitting the fan and build dual power, build community. Dunking on people ain’t the way to make progress.
You completely miss my point about the Democrats and Republicans being part of domestic counterinsurgency. And as for your point about stalling, stalling itself isn’t a real political strategy. The problem is that you’re elevating what is at best a mediocre political tactic into a political strategy. It’s not “you should vote,” but “you should vote for this particular referendum because the local community is politically engaged and actually wants this referendum to pass.” But as a tactic, there will be plenty of cases where the pursuing this tactic is a complete waste of time and energy. Presidential elections are a complete waste of time for people outside of battleground states. I live in a state, county, and city where the presidential results have been the same since Reagan. Literally everyone here knows which presidential candidate will win in 2024 and 2028 and 2032 and so on, so there’s really no point in voting for who gets to be president. The time spend canvasing or donating money or even trying to convince strangers to vote is better off just feeding homeless people.
Votes are earned.
Cop City is a complete counter to this argument. It’s in Atlanta, a Democrat stronghold. It’s obvious Cop City is a response to the George Floyd uprising, which the Democrats alongside the Republicans suppressed through counterinsurgency. Your fundamental error is believing the two parties aren’t part of a domestic counterinsurgency apparatus. An effective COIN apparatus employs the carrot and the stick. Of course the carrot is less immediately painful than the stick. That’s the function of the carrot. But do you think the good cop is somehow better than the bad cop, especially when they’re working together as a team?
This is not really substantiated. You could easily make the argument that the Republicans are so openly reprehensible that people are far more likely to rise up like we saw with how the George Floyd uprising was partially fueled by Trump being an open fascist. Both this argument and your argument make the error that the Republicans and Democrats aren’t working together. Just because they have different roles doesn’t mean they aren’t part of the same team.
Democrats don’t enshrine anything into law, meaning whatever fascist bullshit the Republicans come up with will be put up without a fight. Plus, federalism means those bullshit laws get passed anyways regardless who’s president. We saw this with Roe vs Wade where Democrats didn’t do shit after the Supreme Court ruled in favor of reproductive rights. They don’t do shit when they’re in power, and they aren’t an opposition party when not in power.
Voting Democrat is at best a stalling tactic until Republicans drive the car off the cliff. If it’s in the context of you and your loved ones fleeing the US to a more progressive country, then yes, voting Democrat makes perfect sense since you would be out of the car when the car goes overboard. But if you have no real plans of immigrating to another country, voting Democrat means nothing since the car is going overboard anyways. Or it would be going overboard unless we wrestle control of the car from both the Democrats and Republicans.
This is accelerationism, it harms people and the outcome is very uncertain so it’s not worth it, I am not for it.
So Democrats are not your ideal communists so you’re just gonna let fascists in power?
YES!!! FUCK!!! You get it! Vote Democrat and stall the fucking shit hitting the fan and build dual power, build community. Dunking on people ain’t the way to make progress.
You completely miss my point about the Democrats and Republicans being part of domestic counterinsurgency. And as for your point about stalling, stalling itself isn’t a real political strategy. The problem is that you’re elevating what is at best a mediocre political tactic into a political strategy. It’s not “you should vote,” but “you should vote for this particular referendum because the local community is politically engaged and actually wants this referendum to pass.” But as a tactic, there will be plenty of cases where the pursuing this tactic is a complete waste of time and energy. Presidential elections are a complete waste of time for people outside of battleground states. I live in a state, county, and city where the presidential results have been the same since Reagan. Literally everyone here knows which presidential candidate will win in 2024 and 2028 and 2032 and so on, so there’s really no point in voting for who gets to be president. The time spend canvasing or donating money or even trying to convince strangers to vote is better off just feeding homeless people.
Ok, this makes sense (sorry for the necro-reply, I’ve been mostly away from Lemmy), I agree it’s a waste to campaign for president in certain states.