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this post was submitted on 14 Jun 2026
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Asklemmy
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Because the alternate is literally fascism. Until we do away with first past the post, there are only two real choices. And if you don't choose the lesser of two evils, then you're part of the problem and you're literally responsible for people dying.
The question was about behavior. Imagine if there are 4 children - Voting Blue kills 2 children and voting Red kills 3 children. By voting Blue - we've saved 1 child and start celebrating. The problem here is the behavior of cheering such leadership, by cheering we're burying the core problem of "Child killing" and erasing the acknowledgement of "No child should be killed" ideal from the mind of the masses.
Because voting is specifically a popularity contest, and most people aren't very politically engaged.
Blue is marginally better than red, in terms of trying to secure conditions where actual action can be effective. Summarizing another commenter, you're not voting for good vs evil, you're determining which mainstream option is going to be more difficult to fight against and trying to ensure they don't win.
I don't think you can erase the acknowledgement of "no child should be killed" from the masses. The people who already believe that aren't going to stop, and the ones who don't aren't going to start.
But we celebrate saving one child because, again, it's a popularity contest.
The red voters are pretty stalwart supporters. Their voting habits don't vary much no matter what their party does. They'll celebrate killing 3 children because their party tells them that they were the bad kind of children.
The blue voters are much more variable. They like to think of themselves as decent, principled, thinking people. When you inundate them with the child killing, they're more likely to stay home. And since blue is marginally better for us, that works against our purposes. Ironically, loudly condemning the killing of 2 children makes it more likely that it will be 3 children after the next election.
You're absolutely right that they're ghouls who don't deserve to be celebrated. But we don't celebrate them because they deserve it, we celebrate them to reduce the chances of getting the worse alternative.
Once the worse alternative is eliminated, and there are better alternatives that stand a chance to win by calling out the lesser evil for still being evil, we should absolutely 100% do that. But until then, I don't want to demoralize the voters who can help stave off the greater evil until we have a viable alternative, be it an actual leftist candidate with broad appeal or a sufficiently organized revolutionary force.
Which is going to happen when exactly?
Never. the democrats could never survive losing their crutch, the republican party. That's why trumps prosecution was slow walked. Couldnt possibly pass up the opportunity to hold the people hostage through their fear.
If this is what leadership looks like, the democrats are worthless.
The Democrats are also "literally fascism" and your insistence otherwise is exactly the denialism the question is about
I have tons of issues with the Democratic party, but they're not fascists. I think maybe you don't know what that word means.
Sorry, I forgot it's only fascism when westerners are the victims. Otherwise it's just sparkling ethno supremacist genocide for land.
I think you might be illiterate
"If you don't pull the lever for genocide then you are literally responsible for people dying."
From the people who love to invoke 1984, too. Freedom is slavery, war is peace, refusing genocide is endorsing genocide.
This doesn't sound like you actually believe it, it sounds like you're trying to project the guilt and shame you feel at being tricked into becoming a nazi by a bunch of geriatric Epstein associates.
What is it that you think "Nazi" actually means? Who tricked me into what, exactly?
No you misunderstood, I didn't vote for Trump or Stein (or any other spoiler candidates) so I didn't support genocide.
No you voted for biden and copmala who personally oversaw and armed the beginning of the genocide. Why do you not see non white people as human?
Oh wow, I didn't know my vote went back in time to 1948!
Also, who the fuck is "Compmala"? Definitely never voted for someone with that name.
My bad I should have said the beginning of this round of escalation the point remains you genocide enabling racist.
Ah, so you're an Israel supporter lmao.
For the record, Israel is committing this century's holocaust in occupied Palestine, and they're trying to do the same in Lebanon.
BlueMaga will scream about voting for the lesser evil and then admit they have to engage in total denial of the evil their chosen candidate actually committed in other to stomach voting for them. When you've contorted yourself to the point of trying to argue that the Democrats aren't responsible for genocide, but Jill fucking Stein is, you've completely cooked your brain trying to justify defending the indefensible.
Why are 3rd party candidates a spoiler? Can you explain where spoiler effect comes from, and how it works?
Nah I'm good. This isn't some groundbreaking revelation. Assuming you don't already know the answer to this and are just trying to bait me into an argument, I'm certain you can easily find an answer to this question.
What is the lesser of the two evils?
Consideration A: While the neoliberals ignore the empire crumbling around them and act as if they could still subjugate the whole world, the fascists notice the imperial decline and act accordingly.
Consideration B: European puppet rulers bought into the dem narrative that trump is their enemy. Clearly this was only intended to divide & conquer the people, not the rulers, but the puppets seem to be true believers. This forms a rift inside the empire while trump is the face of it.
A makes the neoliberals the choice of empire power reduction; B makes the fascists the choice of empire power reduction.
ETA? Because in the vast majority of solid blue states, First-past-the-post voting is still used. How those states vote is controlled at the state level. These are solid blue states we are talking about, no republicans in the way.
Nothing is stopping the democrats in these states from proving their intentions today. Prove it.
Are you responsible for Israel's holocaust in Palestine?
Yeah. The criticism of Biden in Gaza was valid, but Gaza wasn't on the ballot in 2024. A Trump election meant US support of more Israeli aggression.
Well. It was on the ballot. It just wasn't likely to win because it wasn't an issue considered important by the two major parties. You could have voted PSL or Green or one of the other parties, as over three million people did in the last election.
Besides, by that logic, Israeli aggression wasn't on the ballot either! Do you think Harris would have stopped Israel from starting war with Iran? The war with Iran was already beginning in 2024 before Trump even got into office. Maybe it would have taken a different form, maybe it wouldn't have happened this year, but Israel was going to attack Iran and the US was going to follow.
I don't think Harris would have bombed Iran.
But hey, it is better to do something that feels good than something which affects change, right?
There was already an economic war on Iran, which was already killing people and destabilizing their government. Harris would have waited a few more years for the economic war to collapse Iran's government and turn it into a situation similar to Syria, and only then would have started bombing. By then, Iran might not have been able to exert control over traffic through Hormuz.
Harris would have been a better manager of the empire. Instead, we got Trump, who is on track to lose to Iran.
Ahh, so you're an accelerationist.
I don't think you know what that means.
Accelerationism would mean voting for Harris because she'd be a better manager of the empire.
No. Wanting Trump to win is accelerationist because he's going to cause the empire to fall faster due to incompetence.
You aren't angry at Democrats for war crimes, you're angry at them because they are better at governing.
Emotions aside, is their assessment of events incorrect? Harris is a more sane war hawk, recognizing that doesn't make you an accelerationist.
An accelerationist is picking someone who will collapse the empire due to incompetence and destroying American institutions. Between Trump and Harris, I don't see Harris causing a collapse of American institutions like Trump.
Also, in regards to Iran, Trump has been far more antagonistic than Biden and Democrats in general were. The Biden administration at least needed a false flag attack to support Israel and a lot of the opposition came from Democrats. Trump got rid of Obama's multilateral nuclear treaty and has participated in Israeli attacks where Israel was the aggressor.
I think for many Accelerationism is speaking towards the capital transformations of society,
not the decline of empire. Even so, Trump is the accelerationist choice
Still applies more to Trump than Biden or Harris, given Trump's open corruption feeding into crony capitalism.
Like I've said before, it feels like the term is being changed because the argument behind how I'm using it is hard to refuse, so the choice is to try to redefine the word rather than discuss the argument.
No, people just know what the word means and that you're using it wrong
Accelerationism would mean accelerating the growth of the empire to bring about its collapse under the weight of its own contradictions, so, voting for the best imperial managers to keep growing the empire. That means voting for Democrats, they're better imperial governors. They're better at doing war crimes and getting away with it.
What I want is for the empire to lose. That's not accelerationism. That's revolutionary defeatism.
No. It means picking the person who will accelerate into whatever calamity which will cause a collapse.
I feel like there is a lot of revisionism of the definition because the definition is inconvenient to the opposing argument.
You're the one doing revisionism, completely overlooking the part of accelerationism where they seek to accelerate development.
Accelerationists believe that capitalism is a progressive self-revolutionizing force that is rapidly creating the conditions for its own obsolescence, and so we just need to develop capitalism more and more until it revolutionizes itself away. It views free trade as a system that breaks down nationalities, automation as a system that breaks down class antagonisms, and technological singularity as the ultimate end point of capitalism where profit and private property cease to exist. We enter an age of post-scarcity and transhumanism and algorithmic government i.e. the end of history. Capitalism collapses under the weight of its own contradictions.
This is a really bad idea because unchecked capitalist development is creating conditions for human extinction. Maybe if there weren't ecological limits the accelerationists would be right in the long-run, but in the real world we're running into the limits to growth and capitalist development has put us on the path towards the collapse of civilization rather than merely the collapse of capitalism.
This is all in contrast to revolutionary defeatism, which predates accelerationism by almost 100 years. It is the recognition that the workers do not benefit from capitalist wars, that instead, workers should seek the defeat of their own capitalist governments. If the empire loses, the world wins. There's no interest in developing the empire further to create the conditions for its collapse, there's only interest in seeing it collapse. That's like saying anyone who wants to end capitalism is an accelerationist. It's nonsense.
Just smugly doubling down on being wrong
Read this out loud into a reflective surface as many times as it takes.
That's still not what accelerationism is you smug idiot
Damn, that enthusiasm for"lesser evilism" sure dries up real fast when it might be you on the business end of it
Yeah you really affected change
A Harris election also meant more Israeli aggression.