Being able to say “I’m not going to vote if there is no progressive candidate, I don’t care if republicans win again” must be nice when you’re not the one being actively hunted down by ICE. But hey, at least you’ll have a good view at immigrants being detained and sent to another alligator alcatraz from your high horse.
i’m the kind of person that ice is actively hunting down (and was caught back in the 1980’s by ice’s predecessor) and refusing to vote for a pro-empire candidate; trump or not; is the only way to reverse ice’s existence.
ice has been an incoming thing since 2001. the republicans have accelerated it, the democrats are actively refusing to abolish or reverse it, so supporting either democrats or republicans will not reverse it.
The United States is a strange country. Murder, terrorism and genocide are perfectly normal, but someone who is disgusted by these and refuses to play along is somehow considered weird.
Being able to vote blue no matter who and going back to brunch with the only change being LGBT flavoured concentration camps and bombs going to to Israel must be nice. Blue MAGA mindset is disgusting
So you’ll choose the greater of two evils then? You’d knowingly inflict more suffering on more people so you can maintain some sense of moral superiority?
Or are you a plant, here to intentionally discourage people from choosing the lesser of two evils and lesson overall suffering?
Because, let’s be honest, there not a whole lot USians can actually do in the face of their government. Actually standing up to, and fighting the government which would be the actually best thing, is absolutely terrifying to the average person.
You aren’t asking a big enough question to actually grasp what the lesser evil even is.
The first question you really want to ask is “what is the primary contradiction?” We can discuss what that might be, US hegemony or Western imperialism or neocolonialism, but this will inform our understanding of how we should vote. Only once we identify the primary contradiction should we cast our votes in whatever way will advance the struggle against it.
Let’s say we identify US hegemony as the primary contradiction. Does voting for Harris help advance the struggle against US hegemony? No! She would have been a fine steward of the empire, if she was president the hegemon would be in better shape than it is under Trump and the struggle against it would be even harder.
Trump is wrecking the empire, and in light of this, Trump winning is actually a lesser evil. What we see under Trump is the US pulling back from all of its soft-power while threatening its own allies. Yes, it has become more violent, but the violence isn’t a sign of strength. The US is in a weaker position than it has ever been in my life. All is chaos under heaven, the situation is excellent.
But, if Trump winning was the lesser evil, does that mean we vote for Trump? Also no! It’s important for him to not actually ever be popular within the US, because that also erodes his own legitimacy among the US population and makes the US itself harder to govern. The fact that he “won” with 49.9% of the vote isn’t the best outcome, better would be losing the popular vote again, but it’s still good because forcing USAmericans to confront the weakness of their elections also weakens its position as the hegemon. They look at their own elections, look at Trump winning twice without ever getting a majority, and ask “do we live in a democracy?”
(The answer is no by the way.)
His unpopularity is why there was an uprising against ICE in Minnesota. There wouldn’t even be protests against ICE if Harris was president, and there weren’t under Biden despite him deporting more than Trump in his first term, but under Trump people can easily see what they have always been: colonial occupation troops. Under Democrats the streets are empty, under Trump the people fight back. The BLM uprisings happened under Trump, but it was Bill Clinton that gave us the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994 to fill the prisons with Black people. This has to be factored in when we ask what the lesser evil is.
They’re both great evils, so identifying the primary contradiction is the only way we can identify what is to be done.
Notably, this is not accelerationism. The goal here isn’t to make things worse so they get better. The goal is to make the US empire weaker, because we have identified US hegemony as the primary contradiction and that’s what we are struggling against. Revolutionary defeatism, in other words.
The lesser evil is actually a mass armed uprising, but you privileged fascists-in-denial reject that course out of hand because it might personally inconvenience you, and would rather knowingly support Holocaust 2 than lift a finger for humanity.
You guys always cope any acknowledgement of what’s gonna have to be done with “I will not stop caping for genocide until you provide me your exact actionable information plus detailed plans for insurrection” ok officer, would you prefer a pdf or a text document?
Lets be real, I could give you every detail and you would still look for reasons to decide it pales in comparison to your strategy of uh…going 99% Hitler to win elections and still losing.
Join your local communist party and start organizing with your neighborhood like the rest of us, dude. I promise it’s less scary when you’re not alone. As it stands, you chose evil over courage.
There’s not a whole lot I can achieve here from Australia. But have you actually done anything that will contribute to change? I somehow doubt it.
You say that “I will not lift a finger to defy genocide until you provide me with detailed plans for insurrection”.
But the fact that you have no plans for insurrection is telling. If you can’t come up with a realistic and actionable plan that a large enough people will go for, how can you expect people to start a resistance? People don’t like uncertainty, that’s just basic human psychology.
If I were American, and people had a realistic and actionable plan I’d like to think I’d be all for it. But after all this time of all the bullshit from the US government and there still not being actual realistic talk of insurrection, might just mean that it’s a little unrealistic.
The Democrats are already guilty of genocide, both parties are the greater evil. Why is it not even an option to try and push the Democrats slightly to the left of fascism?
The choice is more genocide or slightly less genocide. Put forth a reasonable and actionable third option that is better and I’d be all for it. But with the way the US government works, that’s unrealistic. Unless you actually have a realistic and actionable way to change it, that a large enough group will actually go for you have no choice but to work within the shirty system that the government has.
The choice between genocide and slightly less genocide is no choice at all. That’s like asking someone to choose between being stabbed in the lung or the heart. Both are likely to kill you. Any reasonable person in that situation would be doing everything in their power to find another way. Arguing that being stabbed in the lung is somehow the rational choice is ridiculous.
Then fucking present a realistic and actionable third chois? Why is this so difficult? This has been an issue for years, but where are the realistic third options?
You haven’t present one because you can’t. All of your “solutions” or “better options” are either unrealistic on not actionable.
If I were in a situation where I had to pick between being stabbed in the lung or the heart and there are no realistic alternatives that are likely to increase my odds of survival, I’d choose my lung and hope I can get medical attention in time. You’ve basically given a variation of the trolley problem here.
The actionable choice has nothing to do with voting. It has everything to do with organizing, be it in your workplace or your community. You have to create structures that can actually hamstring the power of the state to oppress you and those you care about. You can argue these are unrealistic or not actionable but history shows us that this is actually how progress is made. Even in the US the abolitionist movement, labor movement, and the civil rights movement did not win their demands through strategic voting.
If you want to argue that getting stabbed in the lung is more survivable… okay sure. But you’re an idiot if you think fighting back and trying to disarm your attacker isn’t the rational choice, especially when Americans by and large can’t just pick up and leave. It’s fight or flight but you’re here arguing for people to just accept their demise.
No matter how you spin there’s an obvious worse option because the alternative (including resigning to vote) includes that and more.
Obviously there should be a straight up better option that doesn’t include that but you’ve gotta pick the best option out of those you’re dealt. A small step towards good, even if just a side step is better than leaping head first into the maw of evil. Something your votes do give you some agency over.
Being able to say “I’m not going to vote if there is no progressive candidate, I don’t care if republicans win again” must be nice when you’re not the one being actively hunted down by ICE. But hey, at least you’ll have a good view at immigrants being detained and sent to another alligator alcatraz from your high horse.
i’m the kind of person that ice is actively hunting down (and was caught back in the 1980’s by ice’s predecessor) and refusing to vote for a pro-empire candidate; trump or not; is the only way to reverse ice’s existence.
ice has been an incoming thing since 2001. the republicans have accelerated it, the democrats are actively refusing to abolish or reverse it, so supporting either democrats or republicans will not reverse it.
Liberal nazification has progressed to the point where “not endorsing the r@pe and genocide of millions” is now “being on a high horse”.
The United States is a strange country. Murder, terrorism and genocide are perfectly normal, but someone who is disgusted by these and refuses to play along is somehow considered weird.
Being able to vote blue no matter who and going back to brunch with the only change being LGBT flavoured concentration camps and bombs going to to Israel must be nice. Blue MAGA mindset is disgusting
So you’ll choose the greater of two evils then? You’d knowingly inflict more suffering on more people so you can maintain some sense of moral superiority?
Or are you a plant, here to intentionally discourage people from choosing the lesser of two evils and lesson overall suffering?
Because, let’s be honest, there not a whole lot USians can actually do in the face of their government. Actually standing up to, and fighting the government which would be the actually best thing, is absolutely terrifying to the average person.
You aren’t asking a big enough question to actually grasp what the lesser evil even is.
The first question you really want to ask is “what is the primary contradiction?” We can discuss what that might be, US hegemony or Western imperialism or neocolonialism, but this will inform our understanding of how we should vote. Only once we identify the primary contradiction should we cast our votes in whatever way will advance the struggle against it.
Let’s say we identify US hegemony as the primary contradiction. Does voting for Harris help advance the struggle against US hegemony? No! She would have been a fine steward of the empire, if she was president the hegemon would be in better shape than it is under Trump and the struggle against it would be even harder.
Trump is wrecking the empire, and in light of this, Trump winning is actually a lesser evil. What we see under Trump is the US pulling back from all of its soft-power while threatening its own allies. Yes, it has become more violent, but the violence isn’t a sign of strength. The US is in a weaker position than it has ever been in my life. All is chaos under heaven, the situation is excellent.
But, if Trump winning was the lesser evil, does that mean we vote for Trump? Also no! It’s important for him to not actually ever be popular within the US, because that also erodes his own legitimacy among the US population and makes the US itself harder to govern. The fact that he “won” with 49.9% of the vote isn’t the best outcome, better would be losing the popular vote again, but it’s still good because forcing USAmericans to confront the weakness of their elections also weakens its position as the hegemon. They look at their own elections, look at Trump winning twice without ever getting a majority, and ask “do we live in a democracy?”
(The answer is no by the way.)
His unpopularity is why there was an uprising against ICE in Minnesota. There wouldn’t even be protests against ICE if Harris was president, and there weren’t under Biden despite him deporting more than Trump in his first term, but under Trump people can easily see what they have always been: colonial occupation troops. Under Democrats the streets are empty, under Trump the people fight back. The BLM uprisings happened under Trump, but it was Bill Clinton that gave us the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994 to fill the prisons with Black people. This has to be factored in when we ask what the lesser evil is.
They’re both great evils, so identifying the primary contradiction is the only way we can identify what is to be done.
Notably, this is not accelerationism. The goal here isn’t to make things worse so they get better. The goal is to make the US empire weaker, because we have identified US hegemony as the primary contradiction and that’s what we are struggling against. Revolutionary defeatism, in other words.
The lesser evil is actually a mass armed uprising, but you privileged fascists-in-denial reject that course out of hand because it might personally inconvenience you, and would rather knowingly support Holocaust 2 than lift a finger for humanity.
And how many evil people in power have you killed? Have you taken up arms against your government? Have you attempted to begin organising an uprising?
If it’s the lesser of two evils, be the change you want to see in the world.
But you will never do that for the same reason there hasn’t been a big mass uprising. It’s fucking scary.
You guys always cope any acknowledgement of what’s gonna have to be done with “I will not stop caping for genocide until you provide me your exact actionable information plus detailed plans for insurrection” ok officer, would you prefer a pdf or a text document?
Lets be real, I could give you every detail and you would still look for reasons to decide it pales in comparison to your strategy of uh…going 99% Hitler to win elections and still losing.
Join your local communist party and start organizing with your neighborhood like the rest of us, dude. I promise it’s less scary when you’re not alone. As it stands, you chose evil over courage.
And you’re not achieving shit either.
There’s not a whole lot I can achieve here from Australia. But have you actually done anything that will contribute to change? I somehow doubt it.
You say that “I will not lift a finger to defy genocide until you provide me with detailed plans for insurrection”.
But the fact that you have no plans for insurrection is telling. If you can’t come up with a realistic and actionable plan that a large enough people will go for, how can you expect people to start a resistance? People don’t like uncertainty, that’s just basic human psychology.
If I were American, and people had a realistic and actionable plan I’d like to think I’d be all for it. But after all this time of all the bullshit from the US government and there still not being actual realistic talk of insurrection, might just mean that it’s a little unrealistic.
The Democrats are already guilty of genocide, both parties are the greater evil. Why is it not even an option to try and push the Democrats slightly to the left of fascism?
The choice is more genocide or slightly less genocide. Put forth a reasonable and actionable third option that is better and I’d be all for it. But with the way the US government works, that’s unrealistic. Unless you actually have a realistic and actionable way to change it, that a large enough group will actually go for you have no choice but to work within the shirty system that the government has.
The choice between genocide and slightly less genocide is no choice at all. That’s like asking someone to choose between being stabbed in the lung or the heart. Both are likely to kill you. Any reasonable person in that situation would be doing everything in their power to find another way. Arguing that being stabbed in the lung is somehow the rational choice is ridiculous.
Then fucking present a realistic and actionable third chois? Why is this so difficult? This has been an issue for years, but where are the realistic third options?
You haven’t present one because you can’t. All of your “solutions” or “better options” are either unrealistic on not actionable.
If I were in a situation where I had to pick between being stabbed in the lung or the heart and there are no realistic alternatives that are likely to increase my odds of survival, I’d choose my lung and hope I can get medical attention in time. You’ve basically given a variation of the trolley problem here.
The actionable choice has nothing to do with voting. It has everything to do with organizing, be it in your workplace or your community. You have to create structures that can actually hamstring the power of the state to oppress you and those you care about. You can argue these are unrealistic or not actionable but history shows us that this is actually how progress is made. Even in the US the abolitionist movement, labor movement, and the civil rights movement did not win their demands through strategic voting.
If you want to argue that getting stabbed in the lung is more survivable… okay sure. But you’re an idiot if you think fighting back and trying to disarm your attacker isn’t the rational choice, especially when Americans by and large can’t just pick up and leave. It’s fight or flight but you’re here arguing for people to just accept their demise.
Well said
No matter how you spin there’s an obvious worse option because the alternative (including resigning to vote) includes that and more.
Obviously there should be a straight up better option that doesn’t include that but you’ve gotta pick the best option out of those you’re dealt. A small step towards good, even if just a side step is better than leaping head first into the maw of evil. Something your votes do give you some agency over.
If genocide is bipartisan, the lesser evil is whichever will collapse the US the fastest.
That and more being shown in the media
The actual imperial policy doesn’t change.
This is written as if you’re trying to imply the other party is offering to dismantle ICE.
ICE concentration camps but with pride flags attached 😍