Turns out, if you’re further left than either realistic candidate (because FPTP), it makes it really easy to figure out who you should vote for. “I wonder if I should vote for the person who’s not left enough for my liking, or the one is so far beyond that as to be the diametric opposite of left. Whatever shall I do?”
Well, the electoral college isn’t actually FPTP, it’s even worse than that.
You’re not wrong. I was keeping it simple.
Both candidates fall under the latter category. An AG that was a prosecutor with a history of perpetuating the war on drugs and arguing in court innocent men should stay imprisoned because prison labor is good for the economy, who was also vice president to one of the most right wing men ever elected?
That’s literally the state half of the fascist alignment of corporate and state power.
Yeah, the “you’re voting for genocide” argument is also ridiculous, as the choices essentially boil down to:
🔲 One genocide (with a potential of partial mitigation)
🔲 2+ genocides (and the one being even worse)
🔲 Don’t care (in green)
🔲 Don’t care (in yellow)etc.
Genocide is bad. That should not be a controversial statement. I will use my vote to choose the least genocide that it has the power to choose, and I will use my other energy to advocate for less (and hopefully zero) genocide.
You don’t have to like that fact. I certainly don’t like it. But this is exactly what harm reduction looks like.
This is just a monstrous reframing of a bipartisan genocide. Voting dem or voting rep is a vote for genocide, full stop, because they support the same genocide to the same magnitude, materially. Pretending Dems are better because genocide makes some of their voterbase sad is wrong.
I will use my vote to choose the least genocide that it has the power to choose
Then vote Greens or PSL.
Then vote Greens or PSL.
Sorry, I’m not going to vote “don’t care” on genocide no matter how many faux leftists pretend it’s the morally superior option.
It’s morally superior to vote for genocide but pretend your flavor of genocide isn’t the exact same as the other flavor of genocide.
Look, if you don’t care about LGBT folks, women who need abortions, asylum seekers, etc. you can pull that “don’t care” lever. But “I care about making a symbolic, but ultimately toothless, gesture about Palestine more than I care about the lives of thousands, possibly millions of others” is what voting third-party is telling the system right now. If that makes you feel morally superior, we’re at an impasse because I don’t know how to explain to someone that an action to save lives is more powerful than an unrealistic gesture about saving even more lives, but which will realistically increase the amount of death and suffering.
Is there a red line for you in the sand, or would you vote for Hitler if 101% Hitler was running? When do you abandon hope in the Democrats, if being genocidal Imperialists doing nothing to help marginalized groups, and are running to the right of Trump in 2016 with respect to immigration, doesn’t?
That’s a non-sequitur, because that’s not what’s happening by any means. But thanks for ceding the point that you’re okay feeling morally superior by doing something that’ll get more people killed.
Look, if you don’t care about LGBT folks, women who need abortions, asylum seekers, etc. you can pull that “don’t care” lever
Not a person living in USA, wouldn’t a coalition govt be better then, as the Roe vs Wade issue happened while the Democrats were in power?
Or are coalitions not allowed?
Or is the central govt powerless in such issues?The US government is essentially a theatre troup trying to convince the public there is nothing outside the 2 party system, while both parties serve their donors alone.
The overturning of Roe vs. Wade was a direct consequence of Trump’s election, as it was the three justices he was able to appoint (including Mitch McConnell’s fuckery about Merrick Garland) who changed the Supreme Court’s makeup to include so many right-wing partisans.
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The US has two parties: center-right and far right.
(This is a lie internet lefties tell each other)
What’s the lie?
While it isn’t what they mean, I would say both parties are different flavors of far-right. Both are genocidal imperial warmongers that promulgate oppression of the marginalized in support of neoliberal capitalism. One does it openly while the other plays a game of taking credit for social changes it opposed and occasionally throwing a bone or two to those constituencies even while materially screwing them over in all other ways. And it will throw them under the bus the moment they can get away with it.
Really, they are part of the same team and they fight those opposed to them far harder than they fight each other. Good cop/bad cop for the same precinct.
That Democrats would be considered right-of-center in other countries. They’re clearly a center-left party.
Center-left? In what way? They are genocidal imperialists, they aren’t anticapitalist in any form.
They want to use the power of government to reduce the harms of capitalism, via minimum wages, social safety nets, child tax credit, subsidizing more environmentally friendly energy production and electric cars.
No they are not as far left as you and the people you talk to online, I didn’t say that. You are allowed to want different policies. You’re just incorrect to call them right wing.
They want to use the power of government to reduce the harms of capitalism, via minimum wages, social safety nets, child tax credit, subsidizing more environmentally friendly energy production and electric cars.
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No they don’t, lol
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That isn’t “center-left,” that’s center-right.
No they are not as far left as you and the people you talk to online, I didn’t say that. You are allowed to want different policies. You’re just incorrect to call them right wing.
Leftism starts at anti-Capitalism.
Ok I don’t expect you to see it but this is exactly why I said it’s a lie that online lefties tell themselves. Globally, in real life politics, yes you absolutely can be center-left without demanding the overthrow of Capitalism.
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They’re clearly a center-left party.
by what measure?
Seeking social justice through redistributive social and economic policies of government.
the extent and effort at which they create and enforce those policies is the measure of left or right in this country; not the existence of those policies because both republican and democrats say that they want those things; but when you investigate beyond the lip service you find that conservatives will give token-at-best support for the policies while leftists will support it with full vigor.
tldr: the democrats very tepid support for these things is what makes them center-right; because the party that calls itself conservative takes pride in doing this, while most democrats do it too and hope you don’t notice.
longer: democrats only push for re-distributive policies (if at all) once it becomes popular and they’re forced to respond; not because democrats are progressive. see biden’s decades long anti-gay crusade that suddenly stopped once he needed the votes and his expansion upon trumps draconian anti-immigration policies; or clinton’s establishment of anti-gay service and anti-gay marriage; and then see kamala backtrack on liberal positions like pre-k; community college, childcare, medicare expansion, etc. only the democrats very weakly seek social or economic policies of government and; for the most part; behave like republicans when it’s time to put their money where their mouth is; that’s why they’re center-right
it sounds like you’re judging these books by their cover without reading any of the material. we’re on social media so it’s par for the course; but your takes are going to be divorced from reality if you don’t bother to go further than shallow understanding.
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Well, from where you’re standing, everyone’s a leftie.
surely if you enable a genocide that makes you extreme right right? so it’s extreme right and extreme right
Liberal extreme right and authoritarian extrem right.
Eh, not sure it’s got anything to do with the political spectrum anymore. At this point I’m not sure what to call it but the US and allies’ obsession for maintaining ties with Israel no matter what feels divorced from… Well, a lot of things, really. But among them the left/right spectrum.
I can’t talk much. Canada is also selling Israel the supplies they use to do their mass murdering.
Support for Israel is right-wing, not because Israel is genocidal, but because support for Israel is how the US secures the Petro-Dollar and brutally extracts the Global South with predatory IMF loans. It’s Imperialism in action.
I don’t understand how the Democrats in USA can be considered left-wing. Sure, they are more left than the Republicans, but in my eyes they certainly not left-wing.
You said it yourself, they are less far-right than Republicans, so Liberals get to pretend they are punks and rebels despite supporting the status quo.
basically, the US is a one party system, but it has two parties
“The United States is also a one-party state, but with typical American extravagance, they have two of them.” - Julius Nyerere
The Left begins with anti-capitalism. If you aren’t against capitalism, you aren’t left.
Libs are seething at this absolute correct take. If you’re pro free market, you’re a liberal and thats as ‘left’ as you’ll ever be.
Libs are seething, period.
I suppose you could be a free-market type of market socialist? Heavily doubt its common though
Won’t even draw a hard line at genocide
It sucks. Liberals will be blaming Arab Americans going to Jill Stein if Harris loses, rather than Harris and Biden, just you wait.
Radicalization vs. sensibility
“Sensibility” is maintaining a dying genocidal Empire?
Ah yes, genocide and imperialism are just international peace and order :3
Stop with that rhetoric. It’s over done
As long as the people yearn for a truly free future socialism will never be finished. Liberalism will lead the workers to their graves while the capitalist nods. So no, I will never stop my rhetoric and I will never stop promoting freedom. If the workers being liberated offends you so much maybe you should vote for Trump
It doesn’t offend me at all. I just know you don’t know the difference between socialism and communism
Then you would know not everyone on the left side is communist
I didn’t say they were. That’s just you assuming what my political and social views are. Good try though
You just assumed my knowledge of leftism, I used the term Socialist because its a term that applies to all of them (on the left side).
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Sankara too, holy moly
The party of progress folks…
Get your nasty political memes out of here
That’s the old passage to lemmy.world. We don’t go there anymore.
Lemmy.world is anti-Marxist, including the moderators, so posting leftist memes there is a no-go.
He’s a troll account. You should see him over in https://lemmy.ml/c/comics just removing and banning anyone who even questions him. A sad little child.
Looks like I hurt the OPs poor trolls feelings.
I mean, she is prettier than Marx. Which one did you want to date?
I’m sorry but like, look at his beard. I’d date Marx
That is a pretty good reason.
sankara and luxembourg are both 10/10s
I’d like to see memes that are embracing the left but with a clear cut against authoritarianism. This one is too ambiguous.
when they say they’re left, but then they’re authoritarian
Marx and Engels were called “authoritarian” so frequently by their contemporaries that Engels wrote On Authority. What’s considered “authoritarian” is a moving target, an arbitrary line in the sand just for people who succeed in revolution, or at least in throwing off western Imperialist powers.
If your argument is that Marxism isn’t Leftist then that’s hilarious
my argument isn’t that marx isn’t left (especially since I’ve read his later works), nor that auth-left isn’t left… just that I’m an anti authotitarian leftist
Gotcha, you’re just anti-Marxist then. Can’t say I agree with that, but that’s less nonsensical than saying Marx isn’t left.
I don’t belive marx to be really auth, since he was striving for a stateless society, I just disagree with him on how we get there
so I’m not exactly an anti marxist, but neither a marxist
What Marx calls the “State” and what Anarchists call the “State” are different concepts, ergo what Marx calls “Stateless” would still have hierarchy, and what Anarchists call “Stateless” would still have implementations of class oppression. Marxists and Anarchists do not want the “same thing.”
If we take your statement that your only major aggreement with Marx is a “Stateless” society, but you’re working off the Anarchist definition of the State, then you are necessarily anti-Marxist. I’d rather you say that openly than try to twist Marxism despite being an Anarchist, so I hope it’s just a misunderstanding on your part.
well, then I’m an “anti-marxist” I wouldn’t really like to put it that way tho, since I agree with him on a lot of things
also sry for twisting things, it’s been a long time since I read marx
