To all the burn it down and rebuild leftists (by protesting and not voting for the lesser of 2 evils) tell me how well that went for the Communists in Germany and Italy the last time mask off fascism rose to power there…
Edit: Not one of these “Self-righteous leftists” have addressed my question about what happened to leftists in Germany or Italy when fascist took power there. Its almost like they dont give a shit about the Prolitariat and would rather engage in purity politics rather than support the working class or marginalized communities. Absolutely pathetic astroturfing, or simply a complete disregard for the Materical Conditions on the ground in America.
Do you think that Germany or Italy wouldn’t have gone fascist if the leftists just voted harder?
The historian in me eagerly awaits your reply
https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/piano_drop.jpg
I’m not saying that voting harder back then would have changed anything, but drawing a parallel between then and America today where mask of Fascism is very much on the ballot tomorrow and a year from now in the presidential election. Not voting to protect one’s ideological purity is the height of privilege.
Okay but voting didn’t prevent fascism in those countries. Fascism didn’t happen because some communists and anarchists refused to vote, it happened because of class war on the part of the petite bourgeoisie and precarious haut bourgeoisie
Lol
Voting is like paying taxes: It sucks, you don’t get anything you want, but not voting leads to problems.
I mainly vote to prove it doesn’t help and I haven’t been proven wrong since 2000
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I agree, which is why I’ve been voting in local and primary elections since 2000. And it doesn’t work because the system of government we have is shitty, old, and broken.
Voting is important, but only an organized revolution is capable of breaking the system that fucks us up
Start it then.
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I find a lot of people arguing that one shouldn’t vote because although easy, it is the least effective form of political engagement.
I’d argue that you should vote because it is the easiest form of political engagment and, if possible considering your material conditions, you should also try to participate in other forms of engagement.
Yep, I think that’s uncontroversial…
Yes, voting is the baseline. It’s the least you can do.
I’m sure that there are anarchists out there who refuse to vote out of principle, but they still do activist work such as participating in mutual aid groups and so on. They’re wrong, but at least they’re still helping society in some way. I think the vast majority of people who don’t vote are just lazy, though.
I consider voting to be the minimum buy-in to ask something of your representative. You may not get that thing, especially if your ask is far outside the mainstream. That’s part of a democracy. The next part of democracy is protecting its status as a liberal democracy, where the people’s freedoms are protected from the government so there is remove for improvement.
And then there’s the marxist-leninists who saw the government ban black people and women from voting, see the Republicans trying to make it harder for black people to vote, and then said “when minorities vote it helps fascists”, because they’re clowns.
Slaps table THANK YOU!
Especially since those people refuse to actually provide an alternative form of political engagement besides vague references to a revolution, which has absolutely zero chance of coming out in the Prolitariat’s favor in Americas current political climate, because there is nowhere near enough class conciousness for that to happen.
Even when the Proletariat does win, they often still install a dictatorship. Because those are the kinds of people who lead revolutions.
This attitude is why Americans have two shitty right-wing parties
Liberals, please acknowledge that if there is a possibility every election that fascism will win, fascism will eventually win unless you take political action outside of electoralism
This is why it’s important to build strong democratic institutions to resist fascism, populism, and the like. They won’t last forever, but they can take a few election cycles of abuse. Part of the problem with many countries that have truly fallen to fascism or fascist-like movements is that they started out with weak or non-existent institutions. Contrast that with the US, where even the election of Donald Trump of the “Lock Her Up” slogan (very fascist) got basically nowhere with both prosecuting Hillary Clinton and overturning the 2020 election.
This sounds nice but doesn’t really address what I said in any way.
How so? Fascism is rarely a matter of a single election. It’s usually a slide. Providing a bulwark against that slide means you have several election cycles to snuff out fascism and return to liberal democracy.
So you’re just crossing your fingers and hoping the fascism goes away on its own?
What are the historical and material causes of fascism? How do they influence how you should respond to fascism?
Rereading the thread, I think we’re in agreement. I was more adding onto your point, that building strong institutions and norms is important along with political activism. Institutions and norms slow the rot from the inside, political action slow it from the outside.
Fascism has already won if you’re a person of color.
No, that is just the status quo in a settler colonial state. Fascism has distinct economic structures that haven’t coalesced yet.
THANK you. There’s been so much negative trolling on lemmy, really getting me down. Seeing your post actually reminded me I need to re-register.
Not every state or county is having an election, you can check to see if you can/should participate here https://ballotpedia.org/Elections_calendar
OP demanding people vote, ‘regretted not voting hillary’ and then calling people SJW in the comments. Just your average liberal fascist.
Lmao where did I demand people vote? I asked what the dude calling me out was doing irl besides being an internet sjw, while fully acknowledging that I very much am an internet sjw. Dude couldn’t give me one answer and called me going to multiple ceasefire protest in D.C. as being a performative action, like no shit, thats what protesting is, showing your disdain for what your country is doing with my physical presence. Y’all are so fucking dumb.
Liberals don’t respond to criticism with ableism challenge 2023 (IMPOSSIBLE)
Also calling someone a sjw isnt nazi terminology, thinking that sjw has a negative connotation makes you align with Nazis who view social justice with a negative connotation. Lol
The term literally came from the alt-right, a neo-nazi movement which started as a result of reddit banning r/jailbait
There is nothing wrong with being a social justice warrior lmfao, the fact that they abriviated it doesnt make it nazi terminology, nor does it make being a social justice warrior a negative thing. You are actively reinforcing nazi ideologies by implying that being an sjw is a bad thing… cause advocating for social justice is a good thing lmfao.
If by “came from” you mean “was hijacked by”.
I fail to see how “caring about social issues makes you a bad person” can come from anywhere other than the greasiest pedo-nazis.
Lmao what?!
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If you’ve never met or contacted your representatives, that’s likely by your own choice. They generally make themselves fairly available to some degree.
Electing a random citizen of my country instead of the current leader would make lives of people all around the globe better in mere months, no magic required.
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Its a state and local election where our democracy’s rubber hits the road. Literally the bare minimum of civic duty in America.
Fun fact: other countries exist.
My state is doing a special election. No fucking idea what on, but thankfully they’ll have info outside the polling stations so I’ll do some googling before submitting a ballot.
My local election is just to renew some levy
Doesn’t voting not matter because it all gets decided by the electoral collage anyway?
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