#this kind of talk feel accelerationist and if we’re mad and disheartened at all the cruelty and loss we deal with now

[pidoop]

I kind of hate this framing. Even though I get it. And respect the people around me who feel that way. There’s so much anger and hopelessness created almost single-handedly by the Democratic party’s refusal to actually listen to their voter base in most key aspects. Even the few areas where they do make some progress, they move so slowly.

But I think this kind of messaging just creates more non-voters or people voting for a third party, which currently wouldn’t have the numbers to win a Presidential election, so we get a Republican president.

Democrats don’t care if Republicans win. That’s the whole problem we’re complaining about. The system is designed for Reps to move things toward the right, people get scared, vote for Dems, Dems make little if no movement back toward center, people get hopeless, don’t vote, Reps gain power, and the cycle continues.

They’re all funded by the same corporations and have pretty much the same goals, just dressed up in different clothes. Not voting for them rarely teaches them anything or sends a message. It just continues the cycle.

If losing taught them anything, they would’ve learned from Hilary’s loss in 2016 and put up Bernie in 2020, considering he was a very popular candidate. But THEY DON’T CARE.

What I like to ask people who strongly advocate against voting Democrat in presidential elections is, what do you think we can / should do outside of voting to move forward left wing / progressive policy / politics at any scale, large or small? Are you doing / advocating for any of those things now under Biden? If not, why not?

The way I see it, American presidential elections are like being told you have a car heading your direction to run you over. And the only thing you get to choose is the car’s speed. Of course we would all rather have the car stop, but some asshole fucked with the brakes. So we only get to choose if the car is doing 40mph or 80mph.

Both of these speeds would at least break your bones and most likely kill you. However, the car going 80 would get to you twice as fast, giving you less reaction time, less time to think about and try other ways to stop or slow down the car from the outside. Even if you found a good solution fast, you’d have half as long to build / carry it out.

Also, a lot of things that might stop or protect you from the car going 40 won’t work on a car doing 80. And if you manage to build a strong enough barrier in front of yourself for the car going 80 to crash into, the faster a car is going, the faster the debris that flies off, hurting passers by that would’ve been fine if the car was going 40. With twice as much time, you might even have time to help those other people find safety too. Or have been able to fix the fucking brakes somehow.

No self respecting leftist will tell you voting for Biden will fix anything. But it buys us more time and opportunities to work outside the system and bring about real change. And maybe even for real leftists to change the system from the inside, so that we’re not stuck minimizing damage forever.

Vote for leftists in primaries and local elections. Do everything you can to get leftists in the presidential ballots. And until you see one of them as a candidate in your presidential ballot, vote for the car to go at 40 instead of 80, IF THAT’S THE ONLY OPTION. And regardless of who wins, act like it’s the worst case scenario. Demonstrate, protest, riot, write letters to your elected officials, volunteer, get involved in local policy, go to town councils. There’s still a fucking car hurtling at us.