2d ago

We can beat Trump together — but there's only one way to do it

www.rawstory.com We can beat Trump together — but there's only one way to do it

The headlines over the past few weeks have been unrelenting. The Trump administration is activating the full power of the federal government against perceived enemies, from liberal groups to elections officials to a former FBI director.Meanwhile, autocratic powers like China and Russia are running i...

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Ah ok. Then I assume you voted for the PSL candidate who isn't quite on-board with full communism now (She still believes in markets) , but could probably be swayed that way right?
- I did not give any consideration to candidates with no chance of winning, for obvious reasons.
  I voted for the one who wasn't a rabid fascist, and also stood a snowball's chance of beating the rabid fascist. So the Dem candidate.
  If it was useful to vote for allies instead of enemies (say, if our elections were some variety of ranked choice) I would have voted for whoever was most socially liberal and closest to market socialism (since that's about the farthest we can hope to push the needle in a term or two; after that I'd start considering positions moderately to the left of that, rinse and repeat).
  But it isn't, so I didn't. Dirty break is the only strategy that makes sense in our political environment. Obstruct the worst major party while you build a better platform grassroots style, and then once that platform is popular and normalized, and the worst major party is neutralized, then start running outside the Dem tent.
  Voting for a candidate with no chance of success, with a population effectively propagandized against the platform, does not improve the material conditions of the working class in any way.
  
  Ah, so the very least you could do, not voting for capitalism, you refused to do. However you have concocted a series of didactic expressions to help you rationalize your unwavering support of the "lesser evil". But added some additional qualifiers that make your position indistinguishable from the average blue no-matter who voter. I'm sure eventually, somehow, your pragmatically compromised morality will certainly defeat fascism.
  In the meantime, things have gotten a lot worse for a lot of people, so maybe it's time for you and the other liberals to try something different?
  
  Ah, so the very least you could do, not voting for capitalism, you refused to do.
  What? Only if by "least" you mean "least helpful". Capitalism was going to win that election. It's probably going to win the next one. The choice we have is between fighting Christo-nationalist fascist capitalism, or milquetoast neo-liberal capitalism.
  The very least we can do is choose the fight with fewer literal casualties. Accelerationism is cringe.
  In the meantime, things have gotten a lot worse for a lot of people
  That's exactly my point. Protest voting keeps not doing anything, fascists keep winning. You have to abandon this strategy, it obviously isn't working. The Dems aren't going to "learn their lesson", and your third party darling isn't going to gain 49.97% of the vote overnight.
  There are appropriate axes of praxis for principles and integrity. FPTP elections ain't one of them. Elections are a support action. You're not going to get to vote for someone you like until after a lot of people spend a lot of time on some serious local work.
  
  Fascists keep winning cause the Dems are also fascist. Either support actual non-fascist parties or just accept you're no better than Blue MAGA.
  
  Either use a strategy that helps more than it hurts, or just accept that you're no better than a right wing troll farm bot.
  
  We have been by turning these fuckers against each other. It's what got us the death of Charlie Kirk which was a needed step and almost got us the death of Trump. The only thing that works in stopping fascists is violence cause that's all they understand. Not peaceful protests and votes for different colored fascists.
  
  Electoralism is the least you can do. It accomplishes next-to-nothing. So you may as well vote for the best candidate. Not the "most-viable" candidate in your extremely imperfect understanding of US voting trends, not the one you can post on facebook about how your vote "matters," but the literal best one that doesn't support capitalism. Everything else you can possibly do is much more important and has greater impact. Not voting for capitalism costs you nothing, you will never be punished for not voting for capitalism, no one is worse off for you not supporting capitalism, it is the least you can do. Yet you can't even manage to do that, because the status quo is what you support. The genocide is what you support. Capitalism is what you support. Even within an imperfect system where you are free not to support those things, you will still choose to support them.
  As for local work I volunteer at a workers association. They run no candidates, they accept no cash for services, they are volunteer based, do grass roots work, hold workshops on theory, provide legal, dental, and medical benefits to their members. They have nothing to do with who you are voting for, and the only political help you can give them is trying to end capitalism. Yet you won't even do that, even when it costs you nothing. You are more interested in voting for "student loan forgiveness for pell grants recipients who run a business in a disadvantaged area for 3-years." You don't know why you support that, you don't even know that is what you support, but you don't care. And that is the actual problem.
  
  Electoralism is the least you can do. It accomplishes next-to-nothing. So you may as well vote for the best candidate.
  Sorry comrade, you've got it exactly backwards. It's so dumb it makes you look like an agent provocateur deliberately trying to diffuse leftist action. Electoralism is good at one thing: select from a binary choice. A smart person uses that little bit of power to try to secure more fertile ground to "do grass roots work, hold workshops on theory, provide legal, dental, and medical benefits to their members.”
  They have nothing to do with who you are voting for, and the only political help you can give them is trying to end capitalism
  Exactly. Voting for someone who says they want to end capitalism does not end capitalism. Especially if that person won't win anyway.
  If you want to end capitalism, you have to realize it is a deeply entrenched, centuries old institution. You're not going to overturn it in an election. You're going to overturn it with decades of grassroots work, and it's easier to do that when leftists aren't being thrown in camps.
  Look at DSA, they're probably the most reasonable third party, and even Mamdani is running as a Democrat. They understand that BNMW is a temporary, but crucial, strategy for the current political climate. If we want a better political climate, it starts with direct action, not spoiler votes. Spoiler votes don't end capitalism, they prolong it.

102 comments