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The last few decades of politics (lemmy.world)
submitted 1 year ago by [M] to c/politicalmemes@lemmy.world
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Glad they're taking off the gloves a little, but it's always been a non-option to just make our lives significantly and irrevocably better like M4A or the PRO act and although they're good at trying and failing, they never talk about the consequences as dire as they actually are with few exceptions.

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[–] 23 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (33 children)

And yet, if I have a choice to be policed by Chauvin or Thao, there is no question that I choose Thao.

Yes, the ultimate goal is to deprive both of these men of their power. But for that to happen we need Chauvin to take his knee off our neck.

This is barely a metaphor by the way. Since Trump pardoned Chauvin and the Democrats didn’t. Evidently I must have been thinking of another pardon.

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  • [–] 17 points 1 year ago (5 children)

    You know we need to destroy the power of both

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  • [–] 14 points 1 year ago* (4 children)

    Of course. And my belief is that neither voting nor abstaining from voting for anyone is going to achieve that.

    However, it may make the task easier or harder.

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  • [–] 4 points 1 year ago (3 children)

    yeah the other option is revolution, and with that it's still not guaranteed you end up with what you want when the dust settles. Good chance China or Russia will take advantage and jump in and fill the power vacuum in the US when civil war happens.

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  • [–] 5 points 1 year ago

    There's another real possibility.

    History seems to be repeating itself. Right now the U.S. is in the "Germany in 1933" phase. If we don't deal with the situation ourselves then it's possible that a coalition of other countries could do the job for us, in which case "innocent" Americans will be nothing more than collateral damage.

    Who knows how much the world's Nuclear arsenal will change the situation, but if any regime in the last 100 years is stupid and pig headed enough to try and win a thermonuclear war.... that's possibly why he says so many stupid and out of pocket things- to convince people that is definitely an option.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago* (1 child)

    Revolution is so far away in the US I think it's just an unserious idea at this point, and it has a poor track record in history anyway. Personally, I think political organizing outside of the parties is the best model, then use that organized power to disrupt the status quo and demand concessions. Syndicalism, basically, but it doesn't need to be only at the workplace. Shut down roads, block police from going anywhere, etc. Anything you can. But there needs to be a large constituency that supports these actions first. How to build that is an important question.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago

    These things have a way of happening suddenly, once the Tipping Point arrives. Nobody foresaw the fall of the Soviet Unions and the Iron Curtain. Sure, it seemed inevitable at some point, but when it happened, the world was shocked by both the suddeness that it happened, and the speed at which it progressed.

    NOBODY in the entire world woke up that morning, thinking that the Berlin Wall would come down by the end of the day.

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  • [–] 8 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    No you need the guy with the camera to set it down and throw a fucking Molotov.

    Become ungovernable. We already live in a police state.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    In case you choose Thao you get same course but in slow pace. The whole Trump thingy just accelerated things and showed the real faces of current politicians not only in us but worldwide

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  • [–] 0 points 1 year ago

    If you do nothing other than voting, then maybe. But I'm saying voting is just a small part of a larger overall strategy. And the non-voting actions are how things will get better.

    This is largely how we got the new deal. Roosevelt was forced to adopt a lot of these programs by the organized demands of the labor movement.

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  • [–] -3 points 1 year ago (19 children)

    That's a nice false dichotomy you made there.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago (18 children)

    How is it a false equivalency?

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago* (17 children)

    False dichotomy, not false equivalency. Two different things.

    if I have a choice to be policed by Chauvin or Thao, there is no question that I choose Thao.

    Right here is the false dichotomy, considering the context of the comment this was written in reply to (the one by meatbridge) being a metaphor for voting, equating Chauvin to Republicans and Thao to Democrats.

    You frame it as if we only had two choices. Which is verifiably wrong.

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  • [–] 11 points 1 year ago (15 children)

    If we are talking about voting in U.S. federal elections, voters only have two choices. Third party candidates can not win with the current structure. If all states switched to ranked choice voting, and if states divided House seats by percentage of voters per party instead of winner-take-all for each gerrymandered region of a map, THEN there could be more than two options. I would like to see that happen.

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  • [–] 0 points 1 year ago (10 children)

    You are correct that 3rd parties can't win. But how is voting for either of the other two options winning? I've seen both in power for the last few decades, and it's a shit-show either way.

    You may not like the other options, but that doesn't mean that they don't exist.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago (9 children)

    Because the goal of voting is to influence governance. It is not an end unto itself. Yes, you can vote for other parties. You can also vote for Donald Duck. It just has no effect.

    In terms of which party will govern, there are two options. Choose the one you despise least. And then do whatever you think is necessary to end the duopoly outside of the general election.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago (8 children)

    Well, what I think is ncecessary to end the duopoly is to show both of them that I'm not going to vote for either of them, until one of them starts to do what I want. And voting 3rd party sends a signal as to what policies they should adopt if they want my vote.

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  • [–] 0 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (7 children)

    I disagree. You'll never convince enough people to pursue this strategy to matter because it involves making your material position dramatically worse for some unknown but probably very extended period of time. If MAGA rules for the next 2 decades there won't be any way for leftists to gain power even if that did somehow result in enough people joining you. They are already moving quickly to end democracy in the US.

    I think if you want to make third parties viable there needs to be electoral reform, which will have to happen with the consent of at least one of the two existing parties. Or you pursue politics outside of electoralist strategies. Which is my view, and is a much more effective way to get concessions from the existing parties anyway.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago* (6 children)

    It comes down to whichever outcome you think is more likely to happen. Either:

    A) The Democratic leadership stops resisting, and starts doing what the voters want
    or
    B) A third-party will gain power

    I think B is much more likely, as the Democratic leadership has clearly demonstrated that they'd rather let the Republicans win, than do what the voters want. If you want to try to make A happen, then be my guest. I hope to be proven wrong. But from watching the Dems in the past few decades, it's clear to me that B is more likely.

    They are already moving quickly to end democracy in the US.

    You mean the Democracy where we get to vote for genocide or genocide? or how about the bombing of those kids, vs those other kids? Or how about this mass surveillance system vs that mass surveillance system?

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  • [–] 0 points 1 year ago* (5 children)

    The democracy where dissidents get arrested and disappeared to extralegal foreign prisons or the one where they don't. Where autocratic leaders can get peacefully deposed or the one where they don't.

    It's not about the policies of the democrats or republicans today. It's about any policy you want to enact by voting in the future.

    My argument is you create a situation where democratic leadership either gets removed by intra-party politics and replaced by allies, or existing has no choice but to concede due to pressure from a large organized movement. Or likely some combination of those things. Honestly, I see this already happening to some extent but if more people were engaged in this strategy it would happen faster.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago* (4 children)

    The democracy where dissidents get arrested and disappeared to foreign prisons or the one where they don't. Where autocratic leaders can get peacefully deposed or the one where they don't.

    Considering that these things happened both under the Democrats and the Republicans, you are going to have to be more specific.

    My argument is you create a situation where democratic leadership either gets removed by intra-party politics and replaced by allies, or existing has no choice but to concede due to pressure from a large organized movement.

    Once again, they've already signaled that they'd rather lose than do this. Fight for it if you want, but I'm not going to waste my time banging my head against the same wall.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago (3 children)

    And yet you'll bang your head against the wall of third parties that have failed to achieve anything whatsoever in over 150 years.

    I'm not sure what you're referring to with democrats. Dissidents who break laws have been targeted. I don't know of any who were targeted merely for speech as we've seen under this administration. But perhaps I am ignorant.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago (2 children)

    And yet you'll bang your head against the wall of third parties that have failed to achieve anything whatsoever in over 150 years.

    Yes. I still think that is going to be faster than the Democratic leadership changing their core values.

    I don't know of any who were targeted merely for speech...

    This happened during the anti-genocide college protests. He also arrested people who protested his speeches.

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  • [+] -7 points 1 year ago (3 children)

    Nice story bud. Too bad it's full of shit.

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  • [–] 5 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    You are trying to bring emotion to a math fight. Third parties will not be able to win under the current system.

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