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this post was submitted on 12 Apr 2024
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the “Voting is Not Harm Reduction” article is possibly the most covert insidious thing that’s happened to online political discourse since 2019.
somehow, it’s managed to SEO weasel its way on top of every other article since the dawn of the internet for the search terms “voting harm reduction” and similar. and not just once, but reposted to every corner of the internet imaginable. literally try it now, if you set your google search to find articles before February 5, 2020, you will see inumerable articles with diversity of positions on the topic. after that? literally just the same article reposted and crosslisted, with the occasional reddit/twitter/tumblr comment thread.
it’s not even a bad article per se, it’s just indecently self-contradictory as OOP says, admitting at the beginning that small rights can be preserved by engaging in voting, and then pulling a 180 and accusing those who vote of perpetuating white supremacy.
like i get it, harm reduction has a specific meaning originating in addiction treatment. but for heavens sake, this flub of language doesn’t mean you should throw away one of the only miniscule rights the oppressor class has granted you to help your neighbors.
editing to add this comment thread and article which i think give helpful insight.
The anti harm-reduction crowd:
that’s how it feels fr sometimes :(
Almost as if someone was trying to specifically engineer that type of result
I'm gonna start my own little Alex Jones show where I'm convinced everything is a conspiracy
obviously i have no proof, but if presented with further evidence of conspiracy i wouldn’t doubt it. probably not even the author’s fault, but more of an “unwitting pawn” situation.
end point, the material consequences of this article being pervasive is an advantage to conservative power, moreso than it is to indigenous people.
Honestly, this kinda shit probably wouldn't be that difficult to pull on the other side.
Spin up some bigoted rightwing shithead as a persona to get a conservative audience, then manipulate them to undermine the right's goals. They're already so primed to fall for bullshit conspiracy theories and magical thinking they'd probably be pretty easy to manipulate.
I thought about it. Like create a Truth Social account as be all vocal about “Yay Trump” and “The election is rigged fuck voting I don’t care” and talking up RFK and Qanon and accusing different people of crimes against conservatism if they don’t agree with me.
I decided (1) I’m not quite sure how to go about it or even good strategies, it seems like you need an army of people making 8 rubles an hour or whatever to really make an impact (2) I’m not a whore; just doing destructive lying all day doesn’t seem honorable or fun.
Or (3) it simply would still be facilitating the goal of right wing discourse.
Which is usually the issue at hand. Most right wing discourse is just monkeywrenching progress be it civil, social, scientific, etc. It isn't something you can invert.