Stuff changed. Are you happy with the changes? Cause I’m not. I want positive change, but I’d rather have the status quo than this. And I’d especially rather have incremental improvement rather than rapid devolution.
Refusing to vote in your best interests because you want faster change is absurd. Make changes happen where and when you can, and vote rationally.
Yup. No doubt. But the choice between “things are bad” and “fascism” is, while distasteful, an easy choice. The spoiler effect means that in a First Past the Post voting system, mathematically, if you decide to instead vote for the idealistic but unpopular “things could be better,” all you’re doing is removing a vote from “things are bad,” which only benefits “fascism.”
It sucks. I know it sucks. But it’s what we have right now. Ideally we can make a better system, but we won’t get there by letting fascism win. At least not without a LOT MORE people dying.
Again, make positive change where and when you can, and vote rationally.
The problem is that we already had, “Things are bad,” and that’s what generated the threat of fascism in the first place. Voting for more “things are bad” will just keep growing fascism until it inevitably wins. The only way to avert fascism in the long term is by pushing for things to actually be good, and that won’t happen as long as people keep supporting the “things are bad” people as the only alternative.
What we need is to acknowledge that “things are bad” is not a viable alternative and not something we are willing to accept or vote for. That means either forcing the Democratic party to change or building an alternative from the ground up, because regardless of how difficult those things may be, they are the only things that could possibly avert fascism. Voting for the lesser evil has a zero percent chance of success, it’s a total dead end. We have to try things that at least have the potential for success rather than sleepwalking into fascism.
This is the status quo. If you want positive change then you need to make a change instead of repeating the same behavior over and over while expecting different results.
I legitimately don’t understand how you can gesture at everything terrible happening around you while arguing that voting differently for once is “voting against your own best interests.” If that’s the case then what’s happening now is in your best interest, and you should be happy about that because this is the result of constantly maintaining the status quo every single election.
What’s happening right now is happening because people didn’t go out and vote against it. Trump didn’t gain a significant number of votes from 2020 to 2024, Harris just didn’t get nearly as many as Biden did. Yes, there were plenty of reasons behind this, but regardless, she would have been better than Trump.
The only thing necessary for the triumph of fascism is for people to not vote for the only viable non-fascist candidate.
I’m not trying to defend the system. It’s broken. I’m just saying vote rationally based on the reality you live in.
What’s happening right now is happening because people didn’t go out and vote against it
But in American elections generally (and specifically the US presidential election), with very few notable exceptions, there’s no way to vote against a candidate. I wish there were. For example, in Brazil you can “white ballot” or null vote, which people do as a protest. In Colombia this can actually force a redo on the election. But in America we can only vote in favor of one of the options presented or not vote in that race.
What’s happening now is the culmination of things that have been happening for a long time. Trump getting defeated wouldn’t have stopped it and we can look at the 2020 election as proof of this. Even after he croaks, this will happen (as evidenced by Dick Cheney’s late demise) until the people stand up against it.
The system is broken and following the rules and path laid out by that very system isnt going to fix things.
*Gestures at everything*
Stuff changed. Are you happy with the changes? Cause I’m not. I want positive change, but I’d rather have the status quo than this. And I’d especially rather have incremental improvement rather than rapid devolution.
Refusing to vote in your best interests because you want faster change is absurd. Make changes happen where and when you can, and vote rationally.
The status quo still involves people dying.
Yup. No doubt. But the choice between “things are bad” and “fascism” is, while distasteful, an easy choice. The spoiler effect means that in a First Past the Post voting system, mathematically, if you decide to instead vote for the idealistic but unpopular “things could be better,” all you’re doing is removing a vote from “things are bad,” which only benefits “fascism.”
It sucks. I know it sucks. But it’s what we have right now. Ideally we can make a better system, but we won’t get there by letting fascism win. At least not without a LOT MORE people dying.
Again, make positive change where and when you can, and vote rationally.
The problem is that we already had, “Things are bad,” and that’s what generated the threat of fascism in the first place. Voting for more “things are bad” will just keep growing fascism until it inevitably wins. The only way to avert fascism in the long term is by pushing for things to actually be good, and that won’t happen as long as people keep supporting the “things are bad” people as the only alternative.
What we need is to acknowledge that “things are bad” is not a viable alternative and not something we are willing to accept or vote for. That means either forcing the Democratic party to change or building an alternative from the ground up, because regardless of how difficult those things may be, they are the only things that could possibly avert fascism. Voting for the lesser evil has a zero percent chance of success, it’s a total dead end. We have to try things that at least have the potential for success rather than sleepwalking into fascism.
Is genocide not fascism?
This is the status quo. If you want positive change then you need to make a change instead of repeating the same behavior over and over while expecting different results.
I legitimately don’t understand how you can gesture at everything terrible happening around you while arguing that voting differently for once is “voting against your own best interests.” If that’s the case then what’s happening now is in your best interest, and you should be happy about that because this is the result of constantly maintaining the status quo every single election.
What’s happening right now is happening because people didn’t go out and vote against it. Trump didn’t gain a significant number of votes from 2020 to 2024, Harris just didn’t get nearly as many as Biden did. Yes, there were plenty of reasons behind this, but regardless, she would have been better than Trump.
The only thing necessary for the triumph of fascism is for people to not vote for the only viable non-fascist candidate.
I’m not trying to defend the system. It’s broken. I’m just saying vote rationally based on the reality you live in.
But in American elections generally (and specifically the US presidential election), with very few notable exceptions, there’s no way to vote against a candidate. I wish there were. For example, in Brazil you can “white ballot” or null vote, which people do as a protest. In Colombia this can actually force a redo on the election. But in America we can only vote in favor of one of the options presented or not vote in that race.
What’s happening now is the culmination of things that have been happening for a long time. Trump getting defeated wouldn’t have stopped it and we can look at the 2020 election as proof of this. Even after he croaks, this will happen (as evidenced by Dick Cheney’s late demise) until the people stand up against it.
The system is broken and following the rules and path laid out by that very system isnt going to fix things.