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The Lesser Evil
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this post was submitted on 16 Aug 2024
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the_dunk_tank
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It's the dunk tank.
This is where you come to post big-brained hot takes by chuds, libs, or even fellow leftists, and tear them to itty-bitty pieces with precision dunkstrikes.
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Libs vote and go to a 4 year long brunch. They ain't changing nothing.
the non libs should do whatever they do AND vote though. there's no harm in voting for the lesser evil if you don't use it as an excuse to not also do other things.
There is harm in voting it legitimizes the system. We want the evil empire to die, why should we bow to its customs?
that sounds like it leads to accelerationism.
Sounds like you're the exact sort of lib who turns their brain off when the dems are in office and you just wanna go back to brunch for 4 more years
Take a look around at all the new wars your lesser evil administration has started, the genocide it's helping perpetrate, and tell me who the accelerationists are here.
Think of it more like "revolutionary defeatism."
Yeah but it's not
What's accelerationism?
the idea that we should make everything go to shit as quickly as possible so that it all collapses because then it will be rebuilt as [your political ideology] and everything will be awesome.
First of all, that's not what accelerationism actually is, second of all, if someone is going to vote, it is far more sensible for them to vote third party so that there is at least some possibility of non-libs getting into power. Otherwise, this or that lib getting into power makes little difference.
Ah, I understand. I can assure you that not voting does not lead to accelerationism
The USian Dem party is not a lesser evil. It's the same as the other part of your uniparty, except that it pretends to be different from its twin.
Hell, Trump seems to be more senile and less capable of running your genocide machine than Harris. I don't see you call everyone to vote for him for the sake of burying the settler-colonial project earlier and reducing harm this way.
There is harm in voting for the lesser evil. It's called the ratchet effect, it pulls everything to the right.
Vote third party.
This is a good argument for voting third party
voting third party in the USA is kinda like not voting at all from what I've heard. the system is kinda fucked up like that. it's a bit better over here in germany, there isn't really a "third party", just lots of parties of varying sizes. but yea ideally you would vote for a better party and that would actually lead to change. tho I doubt that voting for a third party does more good than voting for the lesser of the two big evils.
Ah, I'm beginning to understand how you guys got Hitler
Thanks but I'm not voting between Hitler and blue Hitler
Ah okay. Your people just really love genocide so you can't comprehend why someone wouldn't want to vote for genocide.
Hey, you're starting to realize how it's not actually a democracy over here.
when did I say that it's a democracy? not once.
Voting only matters in a functional democracy ya dork.
so you think the election is not controlled by votes at all? interesting
I mean not really. Its more controlled by the dnc/rnc corporations. They set the only two options people get to choose between. And both of those options do the bidding of the same donors.
Like a teacher letting students vote on new paint color for the room. "Would you like to paint the room pastel purple or lavender?"
The students could vote for green(and maybe most of them prefer that if) they wanted but most don't even veiw that as an option because of the structure.
Not our votes.
Not exactly. Even within the mind prison of liberal electoralism, voting for a third party in a FPTP system is different from not voting at all.
If the "lesser evil" becomes afraid that they are going to lose because of people voting for non-evil third parties, they will have an incentive to be less evil in order to convince those voters to come back.
On the other hand, if the "lesser evil" feels safe that people are going to vote for them as long as they're less evil than the other evil candidate there's really nothing holding them back from being 99.9% as evil as the greater evil. In fact, becoming almost as evil as the other guy becomes the rational strategy for appealing to centrist voters who could opt for the greater evil if the lesser evil is not seen as being evil enough.
This has the further effect of moving the Overton window to the right as you know have two very evil candidates taking up public space and attention, thereby normalising the greater evil access pushing public opinion towards more evil.
Politicians might all be evil off-putting losers but they're not idiots. They're rational actors seeking to maximise personal gains. By declaring that you will vote for somebody no matter what they do you're effectively telling them not to pay attention to you and to spend their efforts courting the right instead.
On the other hand by being willing to withhold your vote, thereby causing the "lesser evil" to lose, you're putting a price tag on your support, giving them an incentive to be less evil.
Of course this effect is greatest the less safe the seat in question is. If either evil candidate has a safe seat and is expected to win with a huge majority, voting for either evil, voting third party or not voting at all becomes pointless as public input is no longera meaningful part of the political process.
History will know who collaborated with the genociders by whose names and SSNs are attached to the ballots.
I hope you'll still be able to sleep with the constantly-incrementing volume of blood you'll have to wash your hands in to maintain your comfort. You disgust me how you just keep trying to cudgel.
This whole debate is so warped tbh. No-one ever says that voting for a candidate/party who would have won anyway is "throwing your vote away" but it does exactly as much good as not voting at all. Similarly, if you wake up the day after the election, and the Bad Dude won, well, your vote wouldn't have changed anything anyway.
You can register your dissent by voting third party. It's not much, but that's all you're allowed to do.
It always seems to work out in such a way that we owe them everything always and they never owe us shit, despite us supposedly being the ones responsible whenever they lose
Since voting for the non-Trump one is completely meaningless, voting third party actually has a greater real effect. It doesn't get the third party elected this time, but the larger the percentage of third party is per election cycle, the more it might seem possible to get one elected, and that might in turn lead to real perceptible changes. It might lead to, eventually, 16 years down the line, to a critical mass where enough people will think it's viable and get someone else elected. Or it might scare the existing power-monopoly into doing some democratic actions.
See you don't even live here. You have no fuckin idea what you are talking about, and as others have already told you in detail it doesn't matter anyway. Direct action is what we have.
Thanks for your opinion Mein Fuhrer
Germany covered up the usa attack on its critical energy infrastructure. You think your vote matters in a vassal state as subservient as this?
Edit: Biden attacked your country! Destroyed your infrastructure! Made your people's heating costs unaffordable!
not voting doesn't fix anything
Doing nothing is clearly better than legitimizing hitlerland
And voting does?
You are such a servile dog that it literally sickens me
Yes I am going to vote for the guaranteed extermination of Palestinians Mein Fuhrer
One of the big "reasons to vote for Biden" was because he wasn't Trump and it would be a return to "normal".
Then the 2024 election got closer and everybody forgot that Biden was just supposed to be a place holder and started crowing about how he's the "greatest most progressivest president evah!" when he absolutely wasn't. The Dems and their supporters decided that "no, because Biden won the 2020 election it was ACTUALLY because everybody was voting FOR Biden instead of AGAINST Trump" and got all butt hurt when people pointed out that "maybe the Dems should have spent 4 years getting a better candidate ready to run for President with a D by their name in 2024" because Biden kinda sucks.
So, no, voting "just to vote" isn't something that is a zero sum game. If you are voting for a candidate that you don't want to win to try to keep some other candidate from winning, the only thing that the candidate sees is that somebody voted for them. Once they win, they don't need to listen to you anymore.
democracy is not possible under capitalism due to the outsized power of the ownership class over the means of production
Really good video. I'm surprised I haven't heard of this person before. That's the best I've seen that contradiction explained.
thank you for telling me, sometims I fear that I'm annoyingly posting things everyone has already seen
I found a YouTube link in your comment. Here are links to the same video on alternative frontends that protect your privacy:
Spending 4 hours at a homeless shelter or comforting a random crackhead on the street will be a greater net good for the world than spending 4 hours in line to vote for my preffered genocidal maniac.
This argument is only somewhat valid if you agree that there is a lesser evil between the two, we don't agree with that, that's what you peoples don't understand about our position.
None of you have ever provided any evidences that the Democrats are less bad than the Republicans, not a single one of you ever did. You just accept it as true without questions.
You're saying that there's no harm in voting for evil? Seems pretty harmful and evil to me
You stupid motherfuckers fucking giving legitimacy to the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie by participating in its elections, giving direct sanction to our ruling class, makes it almost impossible to fucking do anything, you dumb piece of shit
You put us in a position where violent revolution is the only option to cause real change, but you're the same dumb fucks who cheer and oink as the cops murder us, so thanks for nothing, fucker