cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/16451158
this post was submitted on 25 Jul 2026
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Its amazing to me that there are still people who believe their are "two sides " and that voting works.
Just gotta vote harder guys and next time we won't get an Israeli puppet!
Careful, you'll trigger the Lemmy libs
Maybe they can vote for me to stop.
It will work if they just down vote my comment hard enough.
I think the problem is about meeting an issue from multiple angles. Don't let perfect be the enemy of good.
You are right, voting within a system is not a meaningful way to change the system. The relationship between public desire and legislature is almost non-existent, financial interests however are often 1:1. The powerful get access to political and 'advise' them on issues they know little about.
But most people aren't platforming politicians that are informed. They're not writing to their prepresentatives. They're not attending meetings. They're not driving other change.
So yes, while it would be ideal for us to collectively run against the conveyor belt into fascism, to break it down systematically... if most citizens will only choose which direction to jog on the belt, then you should still encourage them to jog against it, rather than protest by sitting down.
I don't think anybody is in a moral position to say 'voting for the lesser of two evils is bad/pointless' unless they're engaged in literally any activism at all to the alternative, and supporting others in the same. Otherwise their moral idealism is self-righteous harmful 'slacktivism', nothing more.
Most people won't do anything more than vote (or abstain). Most people already barely read policy at all. For such people, recommending they sit down on the belt and be carried righteously into fascism from a position of moral superiority is still moving forward on the belt.
Why is it a moral position? It's an analysis. It's a material position. Civil Rights was not won by voting. Women's Suffrage was not won by voting. The analysis is pretty clear that progress isn't made by voting. That's not a moral position.
The people taking up a moral position are the one's saying "It's immoral for you to have that analysis. You must vote to be moral and deserving of interaction and acceptance".
Moral judgment of an amoral analysis. Voting doesn't work is an amoral analysis. Telling people that voting does work is lying to them and directs their psychology towards a feeling of false agency that robs them of the opportunity to do something meaningful. If they want to change the world, and you tell them voting will change the world, you're actively harming all of us. If instead you told them the truth that voting has never worked and that all progress we can point to has been made through other means, not only are you being honest, you're creating the conditions for change to happen.
This assumes that we're moving TOWARD fascism. The reality is that the country was founded as a fascist country by patriarchal pedophilic Christian white supremacists. It's always been a fascist country, which is why the Nazis studied the American systems of control to model their systems of control on. The Nazis were mimicking the US. And the US elite, those for whom the founders designed the constitution, they funded and collaborated with the Nazis because they were all fascists. We've never not been fascist. The conveyor belts is not moving us towards fascism. It's taking away your comforting illusion that you're safe in the interior of a fascist country because you've assimilated to it. Guess what. We're not safe in here. And voting for Ds will not bring that safety back.
Tankie spotted
It must be so easy and reassuring to live in a world where voting works and only the radical "tankies" think it doesnt.