Rant on voting in the U.S.
Rant on voting in the U.S.
I know that November is five months away, so this is a little early, but the intensity to which U.S. adults pressure others to vote, even if they’re vaguely familiar with how corrupt the system is, utterly baffles me.
When we explain our abstinence, voters almost never respond with anything like ‘Yeah, I can understand. You do you.’ Normally it’s a generic ‘fuck you’ reply or pathetic begging. ‘Yeah, I know that the two candidates with any chance of winning are very similar and they might break their promises anyway because the material conditions have far more influence on their decisions… but still this guy might end up being 0.1% less awful than the other guy so please, please, PLEASE VOTE PRETTY PLEEEEEEEASE!!!’
What I hate most of all, though, is how people tear each other apart over these glorified public opinion polls, blaming everybody but the upper‐class scum who imposed this system on us in the first place. It’s normal for voters to chastise others for selecting a minor candidate because that’s a ‘wasted’ vote, and both they and the abstainers get the blame for another awful candidate winning, because that’s easier than blaming the upper classes. Ugh. That concludes my rant.
I used to tell my friends to vote. I would never tell them who to vote for, and I wouldn't harangue them. Basically, I would say that voting is useless at worst, and might move some needle at best, so why not just do it? I kind of still feel the same way, but I also am so disgusted with this bullshit right now, that I'm not telling anyone to vote. I actually apologized to a friend recently, for all the times I argued with him about voting.
People have been voting in US elections for several decades at least, but things just seem to keep getting worse. I think it's clear by now that whatever solves the problem of the United States being a shitty country, it ain't gonna be voting. Like, at this point anyone trying to tell me that voting for president in this election is a thing that matters is just telling me they don't understand politics.
“I, John Brown, am now quite certain, that the crimes of this guilty land will never be purged away, but with blood.”
the people of western countries are willing participants in the crimes of their countries. Their votes signal their fealty to the regime, the support of the legitimacy of the institution of the government. When they get angry at you not voting, they are getting angry that you do not support their crimes
Voting is a sacred ritual we must participate in in order to skive back our guilt as the principal beneficiaries of global hegemony. If someone I know is not participating the cognitive dissonance will become too great to bear for me and I will lose my mind.
The president isn't the only thing on the ballot. I don't see the revolution happening with the dearth of actually left wing politicians we currently have. Fuck the president, vote local.
Nothing but a violent revolution will actually change anything, but you can still flip the question on electoralism and ask them why they don't vote for a third party and condemn the country to a two party hellhole. They will still claim that it's "a vote for Trump" but it might get them to think outside the narrow box that every American is allowed to think inside.
'I John Brown am now quite certain that the crimes of this guilty land will never be purged away, but with Blood.'. True when he said it. Still true today.
Revolutions aren't successful unless they have some ties to those in power. So we need some comrades in office before making plans like that.
Communists would never be given real power within a system that is built and enforced around the capitalists.
The power the working class has doesn't need any office or government legitimacy, it exists no matter what. It's the power of producing everything a society requires to function and massively outnumbering the bourgeoisie. When the working class organises, material conditions are bad enough, and the right opportunity arrives, the working class is unstoppable.