This goes to all the peeps who support parliamentary voting as a valid political action.
If your society has been steadily progressing towards fascism for decades regardless of your voting (like the USA has been), is there any point, any action which will convince you that voting ultimately doesn’t work?
Is so, what is it? What would your government have to do for you to acknowledge that voting doesn’t matter? For many people, it was of course, supporting genocide (which is why so many states desperately try to deny a genocide is ongoing). But if genocide isn’t, what is yours?
Eventually a society which has been slowly progressing towards fascism regardless of voting, will become fascist. And we all know what comes after that. There’s always one thing where I think even the most hardcore parliamentarian will agree that voting ultimately didn’t work: When they’re personally being force-marched to the mass grave-sites.
Would that be your point? Or does it come earlier? If so, when?
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Use all the tools at your disposal. Vote for the better of the candidates, and then also take direct action or whatever.
It’s stupid to “protest the system” by rejecting the method it does give you to steer it. If it’s ineffectual, you’ve lost nothing. If you happen to be one of 10,000 that markedly changes the outcome away from an outwardly evil candidate, then you have made a significant positive difference.
If the system imposes two evil candidates or options to me, I reject the system. I’m just not deluded about my state in the machine like most liberals.
Right, just cocksure that nonparticipation changes anything, like most anarchists.
Like if you don’t-vote hard enough, maybe nobody will be president. That moral high ground is totally better than slowing a descent into outright dictatorship. Organizing will be easier if you’re all in one camp.
It’s not as if your whole thing is realism, material conditions, and harm reduction, yeah? We’d be identically fucked if awful old neoliberal Hillary got three supreme court picks and believed diseases are real. Four years under The Idiot did a great job recruiting for your side… and not his.
Right, just cocksure that nonparticipation changes anything, like most anarchists.
No, just cocksure that participation changes nothing.
It changes who gets command of a global superpower.
yeah, that’s basically giving up any power you do have.
let me know how the direct action works out.
It’s not power. It’s an illusion. Direct action is what has given us anything from the 40 hour week to civil rights.
Voting takes up a relatively small amount of time. In my case, just filling in a mail in ballot, so I didn’t even need to drive somewhere. If that’s the extent of the required participation every few years, I would do so even if the tangible benefits were marginal, since the costs are so trivial.
Some anarchists historically have refused to participate in voting to deny legitimizing the state. This is an ideologically pure and legitimate stance, but it’s difficult for me to see what that achieves practically other than the ideological purity.
If I try to look as objectively and dispassionately as possible at the practical outcomes of democrat and republican governments in the US, the democrat governments, while still corporate captured and moving further to the right, does pass some legislation that has, at times, reduced suffering for some of the most in need. It is still completely insufficient, but for many, I’m sure it has made life more bearable, and in many cases saved lives.
Climate legislation has a similar result, with Republicans blocking all bills that could help, where as democrats were able to get some passed that, while insufficient due to still having to appease capitalist interests, are definitely way better than nothing. Seeing as we have so little time to impact climate change, I will generally prioritize practical outcomes more than ideological purity, because ultimately if global warming gets bad enough, there will be very little humanity left to be ideologically anything at all.
There are many other parts of society that would also very quickly suffer under this republican candidate and underlings in particular, such as trans people, immigrants, and women.
That leaves the genocide, which both parties will continue to participate in, and which makes voting for either party ideologically disgusting. Again, I personally try to detach my own feelings on this and to consider the practical outcome, which is that regardless of my choice to vote or not, that suffering and inhumanity will most likely continue, and my lack of a vote does nothing to reduce it. With that in mind, I only consider the things my vote potentially could change, which so far are still worth the 5 minutes I personally have to commit.
Ultimately I know that my vote only delays a fascist state, but it also makes it more survivable for some along the way, and that’s not to be dismissed, even if the same group making it more survivable for some is simultaneously enabling genocide.
There’s a lot of variables, and it’s deeply unjust that I’m forced into a position to have to weigh these variables between greedy power hungry cretins who enable so much suffering, but that’s what I’m left with. You could think of it as picking which enemy you want to face.
But as for your question of where the line in the sand is for me to consider it not worth voting; I would consider it pointless if either party would result in near enough the same amount of suffering overall, and the only difference is the flavor (a random example, choosing between a Soviet Union style authoritarian state vs a mafia state like modern Russia)
Or,
The election is so thoroughly corrupt that my votes, if counted at all, will consistently be rendered useless by an absurd number of fake votes to where the whole thing is a charade (modern Russia).
But that’s just my two cents :)
Voting might technically take a little time but the amount of effort dedicated to the whole voting farce is billions of dollars and millions of volunteer work hours. If all this effort was put into a improving the lives of everyone, it would be a massive massive improvement for every human in earth. But since people treat voting as life or death instead of the farce that it is, it’s wasted like that instead. And all those motivated people of course become a burnt out shells when politicians inevitably betray them.
Voting isn’t a small thing. It’s almost all consuming for the USA and most other nations during that period
I agree, it’s a terrible shame that people will become so deeply involved with a broken system instead of putting that effort into prefigurative politics, direct action, or mutual aid.
Though at least for some people, the outcome of an election may indeed be a life or death scenario, such as those who may be deported back to countries that may be seeking asylum from political prosecution, or back into living conditions that are difficult to survive in, or women who cannot access a life saving abortion, or the stripping of medicaid for those who have medical conditions that would make it impossible to afford survival.
It also would likely effect the ability for people to unionize or strike, or to engage in rent strikes without legal prosecution.
I will say, at least in this particular election, I don’t begrudge people getting politically involved quite so much, since it’s not out of the question that one party may genuinely install a full on fascist dictator for life, and that’d suck way harder than the normal fascist-lite we’ve usually had. I hope that more people will do so with their eyes open as to what they’re engaging with this time, and do not become deceived that it is a solution in itself.
But yeah, ultimately agree. Voting should’ve just been a box you tick quickly in between more important direct action, and it sucks that it ends up being more of what you describe instead.
What do you mean by “doesn’t work”? Doesn’t get us to an anarchist society? Well yeah, if you had enough votes to get there you wouldn’t even need to vote. People would just forget about all these made up ideas because who needs them? We can make up better ideas whenever we want.
If you mean “the outcome of the election will have no material impact on the world in which we live” then… i’m gonna have to disagree.
TBH i could leave this reply here but i’m going to elaborate anyway.
Yeah, both parties are strongly pro-genocide, against the wishes of the American people i might add. Genocide is not up for a vote. There are things that are, however. Such as how Arabic looking people will be treated in the US or how trans people will be treated–whether they’ll be allowed to exist at all.
I also don’t think it’s inevitable that a society that’s moving in a fascist direction will become full on fascist. I’m not gonna bet on it in the US’s case, the US has been kinda crypto-fascist since at least W and before. Really, the US’s problems predate and kind of inspired the modern concept of “fascism”. Voting won’t fix that, though. Not in the US or elsewhere.
Anti-fascist politics are not up for a vote, either. That doesn’t mean there’s nothing that can be done. Quite the opposite, there’s a ton that can be done. Build a local anti-fascist, pro-community coalition and power base. Hell, you can build local political (electoral) power, too.
The Republicans didn’t get to where they are now because all the old fossils from the 1950s suddenly went insane. It took decades of pushing crazy politics on a local level to get to where we are. They got up early and worked real fucking hard to make sure fascism was accepted, that it would be on the ballot, and that it would win. We could do the same, if we wanted. It’d be even easier for us, in some senses. Our goal is much more reasonable and does not require total power over everyone’s lives. We just don’t have anywhere near the same resources.
What do you mean by “doesn’t work”?
Is it increasing the lives of everyone practicing it sustainably and without externalities?
If someone’s going to show up to a climate protest, and because Trump isn’t in charge, they can be 99% confident that they won’t be shot and killed for it, their life is increased. Sustainably, and probably without externalities.
Not having Trump is by no means victory, but it’s an important prerequisite for a lot of progress.
If someone’s going to show up to a climate protest, and because Trump isn’t in charge, they can be 99% confident that they won’t be shot and killed for it, their life is increased. Sustainably, and probably without externalities.
One person is not “everyone”
I’ll be sure to tell that person that, while they’re screaming for a medic, who the police are also shooting bullets at while they’re trying to get to them.
I’m not sure how that can be reasonably applied. I’m also not sure why that should be the standard. I also see some potential critiques, for example “increasing the lives” is remarkably ambiguous and could support (for example) a Matrix situation where people have long and relatively peaceful lives but are not free.
Sorry I meant to write “improving the lives”
Personally, I thought that was quite obvious
That’s basically open to the same critique, it’s just more veiled. One could also say the voting improves people’s lives in a material sense. You’re in here arguing about the optics or whatever, which helps no one, improves no lives. Just telling people “don’t do this, it’s bad” gets you nowhere, You have to present the thing you can do instead that’s better. Just saying “well do direct action” is not compelling because you can very easily do both.
One could also say the voting improves people’s lives in a material sense.
One could argue this, sure, but practically we see that’s not the case, given that inequality is rising massively and poverty and wars are spiraling out of control.
Just saying “well do direct action” is not compelling because you can very easily do both.
Again, the point is that the vote legitimizes the voting system itself and all the effort expended in electioneering. You very assuredly cannot be doing both direct action and electioneering.
One could argue this, sure, but practically we see that’s not the case, given that inequality is rising massively and poverty and wars are spiraling out of control.
This is one factor. I think we can see that Republicans are worse at this than Democrats based on historical trends, though obviously it’s going in the wrong direction for both parties. However, this is not the only factor. One point of similarity does not mean there are no differences.
Again, the point is that the vote legitimizes the voting system itself…
The system legitimizes itself.
The majority of the US population already doesn’t vote, hell the majority of adult citizens do not vote. It was even less in the past, seeing as how women and non-whites (and non-property owners) couldn’t vote. Not voting makes zero difference in terms of the “legitimacy” of the US government. From a practical perspective, it’s not even what should be measured. The idea that the government reflects the vote is what gives the government legitimacy is weirdo liberal bullshit. The government should reflect the people, which it most certainly does not in all kinds of ways. (Though it does reflect the public in some really unfortunate ways, too.)
The majority of the US population already doesn’t vote, hell the majority of adult citizens do not vote. It
If they do not vote but also don’t do direct action, they’re just apathetic, which I also totally understand since the system is faling most in the working class.
Not voting makes zero difference in terms of the “legitimacy” of the US government.
It makes a lot of difference if people see others do other things than take part in electioneering to better the world.
I think my voting red line would be when voting doesn’t make a difference anymore.
For example if we had one participant in the election who wanted Bibi to finish the job in Gaza, deport all the illegal immigrants and any number of the legal ones, put his political opponents in prison, use the power of the presidency to make sure future elections were “fair,” undo any and all climate regulations, IDK do I really need to keep going? And then if their opponent also wanted to do that, then voting doesn’t matter. If instead of that, their opponent has literally any minor or major flaw whatsoever, but isn’t planning on ending democracy and shooting all the anarchists and Palestinians, then voting to choose that participant can be a good thing.
I really don’t get this logical framework where voting is doing some kind of favor for the politician class. They don’t give a shit. They mostly get paid either way. Someone wins, maybe it’s one person or the other, but in any case, voting is a way to influence the government to do thing A or thing B. If you don’t care which one it is, then you don’t need to vote. If thing B is objectively a murderous horror, then choosing thing A can be a good idea in terms of self-preservation, even if thing A is also not exactly what you want.
Kamala Harris isn’t shooting any Palestinians. She didn’t start the war, she’s not in charge of the government that’s aiding and supporting the war. She might or might not do enough to prevent if she wins. Probably she won’t. How does that make it irrelevant whether we get her, or we get the guy who wants to accelerate the war and kill more Palestinians and also a whole bunch of other people of all kinds of ethnicities worldwide?
What is this argument? That if enough people don’t vote, the government will say “Aww, you got me!” and fold and collapse and then it’ll finally be anarchist utopia? No, they love people not giving a shit about politics. It lets them do whatever they want without worrying about suffering at the ballot box for it. If all the young motivated caring-about-Palestinians type of people stopped voting, they’d be thrilled, and then they’d just keep doing whatever and every so often gun down a protest or put them all in prison whenever they got out of line.
I really don’t get this logical framework where voting is doing some kind of favor for the politician class.
Generally speaking, politicians (and one of the two US parties in particular, additional video from the second most recent Republican president because they are two in a row on this now) consider elections and voters to be a problem for them.
OK so if your choices is gas-chambers for you and your whole family, or gas-chambers for you and your whole family in 10 minutes, plus a cookie, you’d just vote for the second one, ye?
Not at all. That’s not our situation, though. Is not deporting all the immigrants or accelerating the slaughter in Gaza, to you, a “cookie”?
That’s not the discussion we’re having. I want to know your red line.
So it’s not gas chambers, then it’s somewhere earlier. So where is it?
I’ve answered your question very directly. I did it in my first sentence, and then spent a while explaining further what I meant.
Since you’ve attempted to prevent me saying things that don’t fit your favorite way of looking at it, let me take a moment to explicitly reject that way of conversing, and expand a little but more on some of the things that aren’t your favorite way of looking at it (“the discussion we’re having”):
What’s your red line? Climate destruction? Mass deportations? The collapse of even the fragile oligarch-friendly US “democracy” and the adoption of full-throated “enemies go into the camps, there is only one party” fascism, where hostile media gets shut down, protests get suppressed with deadly violence with no repercussions? Accelerated genocide in Gaza, new genocide in Ukraine? War in Europe? Shutting down NOAA and destroying climate science in the US? Destruction of universities that aren’t friendly to the allowed politics? Nuking hurricanes? A million people dying of a preventable disease? Are any of those red lines?
Because you could spend half a day trying to prevent those things from coming about, but you’re explicitly rejecting the idea of doing so. So if those kinds of things aren’t red lines for you, what in the loving fuck is? Or is this massive concern about bad things happening in the world limited to only one place and one issue, and something like billions of people dying because of climate change in the not-too-distant future excluded from the idea of being present within this invented concept of “red lines?”
None of these things are prevented by voting. I am doing the only thing that works: Direct action
I’ve answered your question very directly. I did it in my first sentence, and then spent a while explaining further what I meant.
You said you’d never reject voting so long as there’s a difference in the outcomes, no matter how small. I then presented you with one such example and you rejected voting. So what is it?
You already asked this question, I already explained that since the difference in this case is large, the choice to vote is significant. You pretended not to hear me and now you’re circling back as if I had said the thing I already explained I didn’t say.
You were the one that added, “no matter how small.” Take that back away, and you’ll have my accurate argument, which you’ll then be free to argue against.
Mass deportations can’t be prevented by voting?
Nuking hurricanes can’t be prevented by voting?
Shutting down NOAA can’t be prevented by voting?
You are wrong here, and you know it. Having to invent a thing I didn’t say, and then argue against that, is the tell that you don’t have something that works against what I actually said.
If you were trying to say, “Voting isn’t enough, we need to do some additional things,” and that started talking about the additional things, I’d be completely on board, and I wouldn’t be writing you these hostile messages. You backed yourself into this corner you now have to try to defend. I didn’t do that to you.
You didn’t say that. You said
I think my voting red line would be when voting doesn’t make a difference anymore.
Regardless, so there has to be a “big” difference? How big is big enough?
Is “Gas Chambers for everyone except caucasian people” vs “Gas Chambers for everyone except caucasian and slavic people” OK? How much should I expand until the difference is enough?
Some of those things in the post above i’ll grant you. Some of them absolutely are on the ballot though, undisputably: One of the candidates in this election has promised new concentration camps and forced deportation for millions, which counts as genocide. The other candidate has not.
One of the candidates is definitely going to side with Putin against Ukraine. The other (major) candidate is going to continue the “we’ll help Ukraine survive but not win” policy of the current administration.
One of the candidates has promised to shut down NOAA and was hugely detrimental to climate science (and science of all types) the last time he was in office. One has not and was not.
One of the candidates has spoken out in opposition to universities in general, the other one just wants to arrest anyone who complains about genocide too loudly. I’ll add: the wapo decided not to endorse this year because of Trump’s retribution against Bezos the last time he was in office and maybe there were some new threats made this time. (And that’s just the one that’s in the news lately. Trump got a lot of revenge on people he thought were not sufficiently loyal to him personally last time.)
The whole COVID thing… just in its entirety. Do you think if Hillary Clinton were President things would have gotten to where they are now? We could have beat this thing. We literally accidently wiped out a couple strains of the flu. We just… chose not to. I’m not saying COVID would have been beaten if Clinton were President but i will say there would be a real difference if the president weren’t up there encouraging people to drink bleach.
I repeat, none of these are prevented through voting or else there wouldn’t be a genocide either. What politicians promise or not is irrelevant and mostly lies.
But that’s not what our discussion is about.
This isn’t an either-or choice, you know. You can do direct action and take an hour off every 1-4 years to go vote.
By saying that this vote matters, you are justifying the incredible amount of effort and money wasted in electioneering. If it was just everyone taking a couple of hours every 4 years it would be simple, buy it’s taking over whole societies for years on end.
I would vote the second one because that would give us 10 more minutes to protest and resist.
At what point will anarchists stop bikeshedding about voting?
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Are the liberals going to stop being annoying if anarchists write enough impassioned comments about how voting is in fact NOT infinitesimally good, but is ACTUALLY infinitesimally bad?
Seriously y’all, move on. This doesn’t matter. You definitely have better things to do with your time, even if it’s just idle leisure. Go, be free. Let anarchist voting discourse chain you no more.
Are you saying not using a democratic system is going to avoid facism???
Heh, democratic
Everyone knows that if less than 10% of the people vote, Peter Gelderloos all of a sudden becomes president. It’s the only way.
No, I’m saying that using this particular democratic system is not going to avoid fascism
Do we have another to use? If not how will we get it. What methods are you suggesting to bring it about?
Anarchism of course. Do you want me to link you to reading material?
“direct action”, otherwise unspecified. Maybe carrying a sign or blocking traffic will stop imperialism? Maybe stealing the neighbors’ Amazon packages? I don’t know, and I bet he comes up with nothing other than glittering generalities.
- Creating or helping encourage worker owned cooperatives
- Helping organize people into unions
- Participating in or forming a local mutual aid group to tackle a problem that your community faces (feeding the needy, making small candle heaters to help vulnerable people survive in colder regions, help your community become more climate resilient, etc)
- Creating community gardens to help feed, nutrify, and bring together your local community, especially helpful in downtrodden communities where nutritive food is not accessible by walking or bicycle.
- Educating your local community that anarchism and or its principles are an incredibly promising solution to many of societies problems
- Participate in meaningful demonstrations (occupy wall street, physically blocking climate destroying activities)
Those are just a few examples I can think of.
I have been raised with the phrase that voting a duty because a democratic system is not for granted and the rights to vote have been fought for. I live in the Netherlands and I don’t say it is perfect (far from) but we have a democratic, functional political system. It is moving to the right quickly but as long as I can vote I will. There is no anarchistic party of course but I at least use my vote to vote for left.
Voting as valid political action: Valid as in correct, no. Valid as in relevant, yes.
SocietalNational (personal: GER) progress towards fascism: ~20-30% far-right extremism (state-labelled) since 2015 with regional disparities. Regional liberal-antifascist campaigns have been moderately successful, but the response to CoViD impacted far-right radicalism, media campaigns against migration are constant and begin to bear fruits. East German antifascists begin to see local lost causes for campaigning.that voting ultimately doesn’t work
Function of voting systems is periodic ruler succession, the alternative without any disruption is inheritance. Anarchists don’t want any rulers, inherited or voted, but anarchists aren’t too commonly a critical population in a society.
that voting
ultimatelydoesn’t workFunctionality of voting systems is broken when trust in personal choice, equality and secrecy in voting of rulers is broken. Ruler sucession voting systems don’t ensure ruler behaviour.
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The thing foe me was that I felt by voting I was giving legitimacy to the system and in some way (even minimally) playing a part in its oppression and abuse. I want people to see that voting is not the only way to achieve change, and that “direct action gets the goods.”
On top of this I feel by voting “left” no matter what just as harm reduction, you are teaching politicians that that is enough to earn a vote. That as long as they maintain being marginally better than the opposition, it doesnt matter what they do. They can depend on your vote cause at least they arent the other guy. I view voting left no matter what is exactly what has gotten us into this mess, not as a way to fight it. I do not view voting as harm reduction, as voting has not stopped fascism in the past, and it will not now.
I vote on individual issues, and if there is a good enough candidate I will vote in local elections. Otherwise I do not vote.
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