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Voting is changing the Oil to keep the engine running (lemmy.ml)
submitted 2 years ago by to c/politicalmemes@lemmy.world
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While Education and Organizing is building the parts for a new engine the rest of the year.

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[+] -6 points 2 years ago (15 children)

Actual leftist candidates--or progressive candidates, because those are very much not the same thing--wouldn't get even 10% of the primary votes, even if the DNC was entirely hands-off. They certainly wouldn't get the kind of donations that they would need to run a successful national campaign. Genuine leftists simply aren't popular in the US as a whole, even if Gen Z might trend more strongly towards certain aspects of socialism/communism/anarchism than people of my generation did.

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  • [–] 12 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    Actually it's been found Left Wing ideas win elections pretty easily

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  • [–] 0 points 2 years ago

    You're changing my premise.

    OP is saying that you should vote for leftists or progressives. I'm saying that they don't tend to have strong enough support in the American electorate to win primaries. You're saying that leftist or progressive ideas win elections. That's not the same thing at all.

    Certain progressive ideas have reached some kind of national consensus, like the idea that minimum wage needs to be a living wage. That's still not popular in a lot of places, but okay, let's roll with it. OTOH, major structural criminal justice reform--reduction in police, more addiction treatment programs (that aren't based in religion), reform-minded prison, etc.---does not have popular support. Republicans are largely law-and-order/crime-and-punishment types, and a significant percentage of Dems are as well. Running on a 'defund the police' platform tends to cost people elections, which is why you see Biden increasing funding for cops. It doesn't matter if data strongly suggests that the approach we're using doesn't work, and can't work; people that see crime as a moral issue can't accept anything other than punishment.

    If you want to change all of this, you have to start long before elections.

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  • [–] 4 points 2 years ago (12 children)

    no, clearly we need to show our disapproval by letting the literal fascists win!

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  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago

    This, I keep wondering what the hell the "Anarkiddies" expect, they act like we can just pull up to the CEO of Fascism's house with a katana and be all "Nothing personnel kid!"

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  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago (10 children)

    Don't be daft. You need to protest, demonstrate, educate, and engage in outreach and community building, and then when it's time to vote, you need to vote strategically. Calling everyone a literal fascist that's even a half-shuffle right of Bakunin isn't going to help you.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago (9 children)

    I'm sorry, are the republicans not literally engaging in fascism? I mean, they check almost every box

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  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago (8 children)

    Your comment implied that you lumped Democratic politicians into that as well.

    And no, not all Republicans are fascists. However, there are currently very, very few principled Republicans that are currently serving at a national level, and more and more are getting forced out by the party. John McCain and Mittens Romney were both Republican based on their political principles, and, while I disagreed with their politics, I don't believe that either of them could fairly be labelled as fascists. But one is dead, and the other is now out of politics, sooo...

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  • [–] 0 points 2 years ago (7 children)

    Oh, I'm sorry, but in a two party system (something that anything not proportional voting will never be), people refusing to vote letting the fascists win does not in fact mean the other party is fascist as well.

    Secondly, i rightfully don't give two flying fucks if you feel like republican politician X Y or Z is fascist or not, they have been engaging in fascist rhetoric and ideology for over 50 years, just because they have gone more mask off about it under Trump doesn't mean the party of "Mexicans are scary", "blacks are all criminals", "tough on crime", "gay should be illegal", "unquestioning patriotism", "Judaeo Christian nation" etc... haven't been fascist, they still very much fit any definition outside literally being part of the Italian Fascisti party.

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  • [–] 0 points 2 years ago (6 children)

    This only works when you redefine fascism to mean, "support for any single policy to the right of Mikhail Bakunin". Creating an overly and inappropriately broad definition for fascism that doesn't align with any common definition, and then labeling everything you don't like as fascist harms your cause more than it helps. Saying--for instance--that people who don't want homeless encampments near their business are fascists makes other people see you as unreasonable and not worth engaging with. If you want to turn people off, then that's a fantastic way to do it.

    people refusing to vote letting the fascists win does not in fact mean the other party is fascist as well.

    I can't even parse your meaning here. MAGA Republicans are 100% supporting fascist policies. Establishment Dems support some aspects of fascism, but are not fascist. Likewise, traditional/principled Republicans (now called RINOs) support some fascist policies, but are not fascist.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago (5 children)

    I just love how people will try and make excuses to pretend like republicans since Regan weren't fascist, no rhinos are fascist, just like the NeoCons are, yes fascist, not just some small amount of fascist overlap, but straight up cover most of all qualifications of ur-fascism

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  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago (4 children)

    As I said, this only works when you redefine fascism to mean anything to the right of Mikhail Bakunin.

    And fascism is, itself, a very slippery term. There's not a single definition or checklist that has universal or even near-universal support among academics. It's like defining a cult; Dr. Steven Hassan has a long checklist of items, but not all of those are present in every cult, and some of those behaviours only become dangerous signs when taken to an extreme.

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  • [–] 0 points 2 years ago (3 children)

    fascism its self is not a very slippery term, there are maybe 3 academic definitions of fascism, these are incredibly similar to each other, and are in some cases literally only semantically different, these are almost universally supported by academics (as long as you ignore the people literally calling for eugenics and ethnostates)

    and yes, just because someone or a group may match one point on these definitions doesn't make them fascist, but when they routinely fall under the vast majority of fascist traits, they just might be... fascist

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  • [–] 0 points 2 years ago (2 children)

    fascism its self is not a very slippery term, there are maybe 3 academic definitions of fascism,

    Cite your sources.

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  • [–] 0 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    Umberto Eco

    Ian Kershaw

    Robert Paxton

    but you won't be satisfied by this, will you? no, nothing can satisfy you, because I indirectly called you fascist, and instead of maybe doing some self reflection, that maybe just maybe, the actions and rhetoric of the republicans has been fascist, you need to double down, because at some point in time, you were a republican and can't imagine yourself supporting something evil. Well, surprise, many Germans didn't know what kind of evil they supported until it got total power.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago

    First: that's a list of names, rather than a listing of specific sources. So, cool.

    Second, all of them have differing definitions of fascism, and what specific elements are required for something to be fascist, and to what degree those elements need to be present. Some scholars have ended up with definitions that are too broad and can interpreted to mean that all political ideology that includes any hint of authoritarian control is fascist. Others have been too narrow, excluding political movements that are more widely seen as fascist.

    If you took a deep dive into my history, you'd see that I'm pretty unapologetic about having been pretty far right in the past; I was raised in what I would qualify as a far-right cult--according to the checklist used by Dr. Steven Hassan--with lovely christian political values like homophobia, racism, extreme misogyny, and fuck dem poors. Your refusal to try to see anything outside of your own views and to other people that don't already share your own values isn't going to do you any favors.

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