@TheShuck@mstdn.social You keep assuming that there's absolutely nothing people can do to prevent themselves from being imprisoned if they don't vote, which isn't true. Direct action is much better at preventing authoritarians from coming into power than voting ever will.
@Radical_EgoCom @TheShuck Do you have an historical example to illustrate this point?
@NickSchwanck @TheShuck@mstdn.social
The Civil Rights Movement in the US during the 60's, when, due to their frustration with the slow progress of traditional electoral means, activists like Martin Luther King Jr. and Rosa Parks employed nonviolent direct action. The Montgomery Bus Boycott showcased the power of collective action. Another example is the LGBTQ+ rights movement, particularly the Stonewall riots in 1969, characterized by spontaneous, direct action against police harassment at the Stonewall Inn
@Radical_EgoCom @TheShuck Under a dictatorship, Rosa Parks and MLK will simply be killed.
MLK was.
@NickSchwanck @TheShuck@mstdn.social
You're missing the freaking point of the entire comment. If direct action won't work, what makes you think putting a little slip in a ballot box will be superior at beating fascist?
@Radical_EgoCom @TheShuck It worked last time.
@NickSchwanck @TheShuck@mstdn.social
Look at the state of the country and who's running for President and tell me again if voting last time stopped any fascist.
@Radical_EgoCom TFG would be in power *right now* if it didn't? It almost took only one election for him to cement his grip on power; let's not let his minions hand him another chance, please?
@NickSchwanck @TheShuck
@punissuer @NickSchwanck @TheShuck@mstdn.social I don't think we should let him or anyone like him gain power. I never proposed that at all.
@Radical_EgoCom well, last time, it did, even if barely.
By announcing something that can be understood as "voting is pointless" to a overwhelmingly leftist audience, you might just tilt the balance ever so slightly to his favor... @NickSchwanck @TheShuck
@punissuer @Radical_EgoCom @NickSchwanck @TheShuck
An overwhelmingly leftist audience ought to have noticed by now that rabid orange fascists never could have gotten anywhere NEAR national elections in the first place without the colossal betrayals of the Democrats leaving so many people feeling abandoned and angry.
Not to mention the Pied Piper Strategy pushing the GOP to the right so they can be used as cover to terrify everyone until we're too cowed to challenge the DNC's corruption. Overwhelming leftists are familiar with Manufactured Consent and how good cop / bad cop works, yes?
@violetmadder true. Buy doesn't that mean we *first* need to vote to ensure a maga-free administration? Only then we can use other means to get the dems to actually work on people's behalf. Otherwise, any change here won't have any effect since they won't influence anything.
@Radical_EgoCom @NickSchwanck @TheShuck
@punissuer @Radical_EgoCom @NickSchwanck @TheShuck
The administration is MAGA-ridden because we're being punished for getting too uppity in 2016. The DNC is enabling the monsters it wants us to fear, so it can hold us dangling over a pit of gnashing christofascist teeth until we apologize for talking about third parties. They would rather FEED US to the Republicans, on purpose, than let us push legislation that can threaten their corporate purse strings. Do you understand what I'm saying here? The threat is manufactured. They're not trying to save us-- they PUT US HERE.
Our votes already only influence about 10% of the legislation that's actually passed, and Lucy has been feeding us that "this election is too dangerous we'll let you kick the football next time" bullshit for more than sixty years-- during which time our last best chances to put the brakes on climate change were squandered.
Election outcomes are surface symptoms of deeper dynamics. Policy can't be changed on any fundamental level without a massive groundswell of grassroots movement-building and shifts in the mindset of the populace to back it up-- politicians must be dragged, kicking and screaming, against the billions of dollars' worth of power pulling them the other way. Praxis comes first.
We can't mobilize hundreds of thousands of outraged people into the streets to demand a better candidate or a better system, if we're spending all our time and energy badgering each other to sit down, shut up, and VOTE FOR A WAR CRIMINAL.
@Radical_EgoCom @TheShuck Well that's an excellent point. But by that metric, I can't think of an American president that wasn't a fascist.
@Radical_EgoCom @NickSchwanck @TheShuck Voting never put a fascist in power - not by itself. But a large fascist/nazi vote did help facilitate the power grab and ensuing reign of terror.
So even though it might not be sufficient to stop the brownskirts entirely by itself, I would not be advocating that the vote is inmaterial.