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"If you didn't want fascism you should have voted!"

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"If you didn't want fascism you should have voted!"
981 comments

  • The two party system is bullshit, and the solution is electoral reform like ranked choice voting.

    One party, the Democratic party, usually (but not always) approves of such reform efforts.
    The other party, the Republican party, universally opposes such efforts with extreme fervor.

    So it makes sense to hate the two party system, but that system is one party's fault in particular.

    • This is just blind unconditional loyalty to the Democrats with extra steps.

      If your plan is really to get voting reform done, then obviously the best strategy is to make support for a candidate conditional on them supporting it - because democrats do not always or even "usually" support it. Otherwise, there is zero incentive to implement it and a strong disincentive to do so - you won the election using the old rules, but if you change the rules, who knows?

      You types are so silly about this issue. The very reason that we need RCV is the same reason we won't get it. In the same way that FPTP blocks popular support for other progressive causes like "Don't do genocide," it also blocks causes like, "Implement RCV." It's like if my car won't start and you tell me to just drive it to a mechanic. If we have some mechanism for implementing RCV, we should also just use that mechanism to get the other policies we want.

      Your position would be more sensible and coherent if you were looking to achieve it through a mechanism outside of voting, but to insist on trying to use the tool you recognize as broken to repair itself is an absurdity, it's completely irrational.

      The only question worth discussing regarding voting is whether or not any conditions should be imposed on the democrats at all. If you say yes, then we can have a conversation of what those conditions should be, obviously, "supporting genocide" is unacceptable, but whether RCV should be a red line is another conversation. But if you say no, then your position on RCV is completely irrelevant, you'll get it if the democrats say you do and won't if they say you don't and nothing about your behavior will change either way. It's pure fantasy at that point, your support for RCV exists purely within your own mind and has no influence or effect on anything that happens in the world, you might as well be trying to wish a pony into being.

      • Your position would be more sensible and coherent if you were looking to achieve it through a mechanism outside of voting, but to insist on trying to use the tool you recognize as broken to repair itself is an absurdity, it’s completely irrational.

        Your position would be much more sensible if RCV had never been achieved through voting. But it has. And notice the states where it does exist - these are the same places where lots of people vote for Democrats. And the places where it's banned statewide? Those are the places where lots of people vote for Republicans. We need more of the former, and less of the latter.

        I know I'd be a lot cooler, especially around here, if I just put on the Che Guevara shirt and say revolution is the only answer. But it just isn't. Because every example of that sort of thing just leads to more fascism under a different name. Voting works, it's the best choice, and I have yet to see any evidence other than wanting to be cool to convince me otherwise.

        But as for making it a red line for supporting democrats, sure. I mean honestly, credit to you for proposing something that might actually work. I think if there's a big enough movement to do that, every Democrat would get behind it.

        • I know I’d be a lot cooler, especially around here, if I just put on the Che Guevara shirt and say revolution is the only answer.

          Not what I said. Revolution is not the only mechanism for change that exists outside of voting, there are other forms of mass action such as strikes and protests.

          Because every example of that sort of thing just leads to more fascism under a different name

          That's completely ahistorical. Even if you write off all the biggest and most famous examples, like the Russian, American, Chinese, and French revolutions (which you shouldn't), the world is a big place and you wouldn't be making that kind of sweeping generalization if you'd actually looked into it.

          The reason people say this shit (aside from propaganda to discourage doing revolutions) is to signal that they themselves aren't interested in participating in a revolution. But the actual history is a lot more complicated than is allowed by this sort of sweeping proclamation about every country in every time that has ever existed.

          It's funny because this position of "revolution is always bad" is literally to the right of neocons. Neoconservatives are always fantasizing about the people of rival countries (Iran, Cuba, China, etc) rising up to overthrow their governments. They're allowed to be pro-revolution because they're sufficiently wedded to the establishment that they don't feel the need to disavow every revolutionary action ever to avoid suspicion, which allows these conservatives to be to take a position to the left of the average self-proclaimed anti-communist leftist who is desperate to make sure everyone knows they're not one of those kinds of leftists.

          But as for making it a red line for supporting democrats, sure. I mean honestly, credit to you for proposing something that might actually work. I think if there’s a big enough movement to do that, every Democrat would get behind it.

          Yes, and the same is true for setting red lines on other issues, such as Palestine. If enough people actually stood by it, the Democrats would be forced to change their position, or they would end up being replaced by another party.

981 comments