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It's almost like the generations and groups that care about not going to war and whatnot don't go out and vote...
Anti-war lefties tend to be comfortable voting for third party candidates.
Yup. The only practical effect of which is to enable the Right.
Voting for the center-right Democrats enables the right as well, as necessary as some may feel it is to prevent the openly fascist candidates from winning. Democrat PACs give money to run ads for the most insane fascist Republican primary candidates, with the strategy being they are easier to win against, which has worked for them before. Hillary's campaign helped Trump's campaign in a similar manner. Over time this drags politics to the right.
This is a downward spiral, you can pick the fascist aesthetic of it or the one that says "don't worry everything is fine."
Almost like, instead of sitting out and complaining, we need to get involved in the primaries and go for the farthest left candidates who can win...
It's easy to sit on the sidelines and complain or to say voting is pointless. This enables the status quo. What's harder but meaningful is getting involved and affecting real change.
Agree and I also disagree that criticizing aspects and futility of presidential voting implies it's completely meaningless. The ideological consensus within the two main parties that came together over the past 30 years has never existed before, and the system was basically designed around independent rich landowners controlling the government, factions developing within this system was one of the main concerns. That's where it is now, two factions which each operate as a single ideological unit, led by some of the most historically disliked and unpopular people, both funded by planet-destroying interests.
In terms of action I look to what has led to major changes in the past, labor and class organization and agitation, and accepting that things are looking bad and that it's necessary to acknowledge this. Understanding how the present day system was basically designed around suppressing things like the Populist movement and any class consciousness, the Taft-Hartley act pacifying unions, and how fucked it is right now, is to me more important than blindly accepting the terms of party politics and letting that control your political behavior and dictate your opinions. That's why I have no time for entertaining the "don't criticize Democrats because you help fascism" line. People can vote strategically but the logical conclusion of that is to accept the status quo and the impending doom this system has already manifested, and continues to do at an accelerating rate.
Saying both parties are the same is absolutely the same as saying it's meaningless.
That’s why I have no time for entertaining the “don’t criticize Democrats because you help fascism” line.
No one is saying that. What I'm saying is that saying both parties are the same is helping the bad guys. Criticize the Democrats sure, but also note that all those criticisms apply except worse to the Republicans. Criticize and demand change in a way that helps progressives rather than conservatives.
Consider that Gore would be president if a bunch of goofs hadn't voted for Nader. Consider that we face a very real possibility of another trump presidency because a number of us don't like Biden.
People can vote strategically but the logical conclusion of that is to accept the status quo
That's just utter nonsense. The logical conclusion is to vote as best you can in the moment, and work for better options next time. Like getting likeminded people involved in the vehicle most likely to carry the necessary changes, in America, that's the Democrats.
It's hard to say Democrats are the ones to make necessary changes when they are in real material terms bringing the whole political sphere to the right by helping the most insane Republicans win primaries. Like Hillary's campaign early on wanted Trump to be the GOP primary winner, what a joke that would have been, they'd look ridiculous! Lots of races around the country have had the same influence, Democrat PACs run ads on behalf of the fascist GOP candidates, it helps them sometimes because they get to say "hey if you don't vote for me you're helping the crazy person over there." Over time it's clear what this is doing though, since the 90s-00s, this is a downward spiral. Change has to come from outside, the more people think the Democrat apparatus is the machine for change the more history will simply repeat itself, further sliding to the right as what's been the case since Reagan. Why would it be different? Bernie was the nail in the coffin, the delegates aren't interested, unless you can replace the delegates there's no hope in the Democrat machine. People need to wake up to this and move on to new organization, and it will happen as people become more desperate and stressed by the degrading conditions of life in the US. I have more hope in the labor movement right now than I do in party politics despite the obligation to vote, that's where the improvements have come from historically anyway.
Like Hillary’s campaign early on wanted Trump to be the GOP primary winner
And did they do anything to make that happen? Right, they didn't.
Yes, in 2020 some of the lunatics were boosted but this is a relatively new phenomenon. And not to mention, is pretty damned strategic and as someone who understands how damaging republicans would be, I'm kind of okay with it.
Bernie was the nail in the coffin, the delegates aren’t interested, unless you can replace the delegates
If you aren't constrained by reality, sure, this is a valid point!
Except Bernie lost the primary vote 43% or so to 55%... Let me ask, this was important to you, did you vote in the democratic primaries? Did you canvas for Bernie? Bring friends to vote? If so, awesome. If not, you, like most folks under 40 once again lost to the people who actually show up and vote. Almost like the younger, more progressive wing keeps buying into stupid ideas like both parties are the same and thus voting is pointless...
I have more hope in the labor movement
(You might be shocked to learn that the labour movement has had most of their victories by gasp getting candidates elected, becoming a force to be reckoned with. Unions were the backbone of the progressive coalition for a long time and had all sorts of victories with, yup, electoral politics. Weird how that works huh?)
Nobody said voting was pointless, it's the bare minimum. Labor organizing provided an outside influence to party politics, the party politics weren't the vehicle for change there. Democrat delegates and members don't want Bernie or class policies, because they aren't a left party, they're a neoliberal capitalist institution supported by and for capital interests. Their branding is what you're talking about when the "vehicle for change" stuff comes out, if they stood by broadly supported left-rooted measures they would say as much, but they don't because it would lose them material support. For political involvement I have had close friends run for office as socialists, and campaigned with them in two elections. I'm also involved in my labor union doing unglamorous work and hopefully as a delegate one day.
Good luck with the superdelegates overriding anyone who wants to effect change. Bernie, specifically, and whoever the next person will be. The DNC is a disgrace.
I think Obama represented the best the DNC can hope for in producing a candidate, and Adolph Reed Jr's 1996 column criticizing Obama was a perfect prediction of what became of his legacy.
I'm super curious what you wanted to have happen. Overall, Clinton won the Democratic primary vote 55% to 43%. So, the votes should have been over-ridden because the candidate you and I preferred got fewer votes? (Yes, they also got more delegates but at the end of the day, the vote total was in line with the delegates.)
Yup.
It's a specially weird attempt at a cynical flex for the US today, given how demonstrably cause-and-effect the vote will keep abortion rights in specific places.
Also, I'm not in favor of stopping arms supplies to Ukraine and Biden's position in Israel is more moderate than recently suggested and leaning more moderate as political pressure mounts, so I'm not even aligned with the premise anyway.
It's almost like of US would stop military spending, no dictatorship would join them, and would continue to arm themselves.
It's very easy to criticize it when you never experienced an actual war and never lived in a country that was invaded, because other countries are afraid of attacking your country.
It's almost as if voting (very deliberately) doesn't actually impact what goes on behind the scenes (where capitalists control government), and that this happens no matter which of the 2 "teams" you vote for (or are we pretending that when dems use drones to bomb brown children it for "freedom"?)..
This is a pretty childish view. Both sides will do some things you dislike does not mean nothing changes.
You should read the playbook the heritage foundation is writing for 2024. It is goddamn terrifying.
Yes, both parties will have policies that we dislike. It's almost like the primaries, the mechanisms that control how a party acts, tend to be dominated by elders while our younger and more progressive members don't participate and instead complain that both parties are the same.
It's a self fulfilling prophecy. As long as the older generations outvote us, the outcomes will reflect their wishes.
outcomes will reflect their wishes.
Outcomes that alter the economic arrangements within this system aren't on the table though, and that's what's destroying the planet and justifying exploitation, there's a consensus between the parties on that. That's why the political topics up for debate (or ones masquerading as politics) are increasingly cultural issues. They may affect the distribution of certain people within this structure, or they may help ensure the "right people" are hurting within it, but the basic economic arrangement you find yourself in as a worker for instance remain unaffected. You don't succeed? That's an individual issue. Your justified and rational emotional reactions to this system are negative? That's an individual issue as well, maybe there's even a mental health outreach program to address this.
IMO change ultimately has to come from outside the system as the stresses it inflicts become increasingly unbearable, and the recent increases in aggressive labor actions are a sign of this, just like has happened in the past. That doesn't mean strategic voting is totally meaningless either. People have to accept things aren't good first though, else why would they be motivated to change things. Pretending everything is okay if you just vote the right way, or even outright dismissing the idea you should criticize the person at the helm of the empire, is completely counterintuitive to affecting change.
I'm going to respond to both your responses in one.
Outcomes that alter the economic arrangements within this system aren’t on the table though, and that’s what’s destroying the planet and justifying exploitation
You've got a few things tangled together.
No, undoing capitalism is not on the table, nor is that desired by the majority of the population.
The planet destroying, at least the climate change part, a carbon tax is a simple effective solution we've known about for years. Other countries are implementing their own version. Now, something like that isn't really on the table yet in America simply because the Left cannot win a sizeable majority and instead barely ekes out a win against one of the worst people imaginable (after losing to said monstrosity.)
People have to accept things aren’t good first though
or even outright dismissing the idea you should criticize the person at the helm of the empire
Criticizing is important, that's how we get new and better candidates. Demanding better conditions is important. But, to go and say that voting is meaningless because both parties are the same is **exactly **what you want to do if you want to maintain the status quo. You must see that there's a difference between the two?
If people 40 and younger voted at the same rate as those 41 and older, I imagine the Democrats would have a supermajority, would be able to pass more climate legislation (though for what it's worth, the Inflation Reduction Act is one of the most significant pieces of climate legislation in decades) and a host of other meaningful reforms. Instead, we have to beg Joe goddamn Manchin. It's like when people complain about being fat but refuse to change their diet or exercise.
Democrats would have a supermajority
They have control in California and could implement class programs like socialized healthcare there, but they don't because they are funded by private business interests who don't want to lose profits.
Being left means being anti-capitalist, if you are supporting capitalist political goals that's a conflict of interest.
If you honestly think that California could, singlehandedly introduce a fundamentally different healthcare system than the rest of the country... I mean, wow. That's just... Not at all how things work.
Politics is a lot easier to talk about when you aren't constrained by reality although that talk doesn't mean much.
States already have their own regulatory frameworks for insurance and the provision of healthcare services, it's very doable for states to implement healthcare legislation. It just happened in Ohio to some degree, and that was a ballot initiative.
States already have their own regulatory frameworks for insurance and the provision of healthcare services
You understand that's fundamentally different than transforming into universal healthcare, right? You might as well say that I am qualified to run google as I've used search AND have a gmail account.
It just happened in Ohio to some degree, and that was a ballot initiative.
Are you actually comparing a right to abortion with implementing universal healthcare? Really?
There is no healthcare planning at the federal level in the US and states vary greatly in how they regulate healthcare. There is nothing stopping California Democrats from implementing publicly funded healthcare other than they don't want to do this because it runs contrary to the interest of their donors and PACs. State funded programs already provide primary care in cases where people aren't served by FFS. This even goes to municipal-level public health clinics. The idea a state government can't provide healthcare funding to it's citizens is contrary to programs that already exist. Expanding public health clinics and having the government negotiate fees with practitioners is absolutely doable because it already happens.
There is no healthcare planning at the federal level in the US
No one said there was?
But honestly... Well, it reminds me of when I was a really young kid and I watched soccer. I couldn't understand why the players ran really fast sometimes and couldn't just do that all the time.
That's sort of what this argument sounds like.
It's about as compelling as your nonsensical decision that protecting the right to abortion was pretty much the same as instituting a radically different form of healthcare.
I think this has been as productive as it's going to be. Cheers.