Comment on Stay Mad
ssj2marx@lemmy.ml 4 months agowe can’t fix our current situation in one election.
We can never fix the current situation in one election. Fixing the American system, within the parameters set forth by that system, requires a dedicated voting bloc that lasts multiple elections refusing to vote for the Dems until they shift far enough left. As long as you are focused on the next election, your proscription for fixing American politics is just as unrealistic as a random Twitter tankie declaring a general strike.
If Project 2025 is successful, we won’t ever have another democratic election. Our election is going to work like Russia’s does after that point, and we will have a dictator of she kind that pretends to hold elections.
So, unfortunately, this is not the way.
Our election is going to work like Russia’s does
We already have sham elections, ours just pretends to have two democratic parties instead of one.
You are very right, and I feel your pain. I’m not judging you for feeling that way, at all.
I just don’t think that abstaining from voting is going to work in favor of fixing this issue. If anything we need to keep voting to keep the country as left as it can be for now, until we can shift the two parties we are forced to pick from farther to the left.
As I said in another comment, this mode of thought is completely defeatist. If you rule out the possibility of a violent uprising and look at how to change our system from within the system itself, the ONLY way to push the country left is for a dedicated bloc of people to refuse to vote for centrist Democrats for multiple elections in a row until the party center aligns with that bloc. That’s the reason why every one of the last few elections has been “the most important election in history” and all the other crap.
This is naiive accelerationist nonsense.
You do not fix systems by ignoring them and letting badgers tear them apart for years in your absence.
The vast majority of the time, actual change comes from people engaging with the system and slowly pushing it in the right direction.
If every single incentive structure rewards the Democrats for shifting to the right, please tell me how on earth they are under any pressure at all to shift back to the left. The answer is that they’re not, and the people who believe that they’re engaging in the system and pushing it in the right direction are simply fooling themselves as they take part in the system’s unstoppable rightward movement.
Why you gotta smoke the UAW president, Shawn Fein?
fine_sandy_bottom@discuss.tchncs.de 4 months ago
Perfect! Don’t vote for the dems for several elections. I’m certain this plan will usher in a new era of progressive politics. Well done. You idiot.
ssj2marx@lemmy.ml 4 months ago
To push the Dems left you can either a) reward them for moving left or b) punish them for moving right. Continuing to vote for them year after year as they continually move to the right accomplishes neither of these things.
fine_sandy_bottom@discuss.tchncs.de 4 months ago
You’re talking about the political will of a nation as you would training a puppy. It’s incredibly reductive and simply not how the overton window works.
If the republicans win the next several elections the democrats will move further to the right to try to steal votes off them. The republicans will have to move further to the right to differentiate themselves from the democrats.
Not surprisingly, the more republicans win elections the further right everything moves.
Your position is exactly where the conservatives would have you. They can’t win your vote so their best outcome is to convince you not to vote.