this post was submitted on 15 Feb 2024
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So we should always vote for 99% Hitler to avoid 100% Hitler? So in a circumstance where one party kills minorities slowly and the other kills them quickly, we should always vote for the party that promises "slow death" instead of supporting groups that are anti-murdering minorities?
You seem to be under the impression that the only options are to vote for the guys who will murder as much as possible and the guys who will murder more slowly, but neither of those choices are acceptable, we should support people who do not support such a thing, if the bloated, corrupt American 2-party system isn't representative of the people, then why bother participating in it, why not actively oppose it? Your partner has a much better chance of surviving if people actively fight against this entire idea that any trans people need to be killed at all, even if it doesn't involve ticking a box on a piece of paper every 4 years. I've personally gotten trans people out of life or death situations in the past. There's a fuckton more a person can do to help people than just jerking themselves off over how they voted for the guy who only pledged to kill 50% of trans people instead of 100%. It isn't "damage control." It's participating in an unjust and inhumane system instead of working to dismantle it.
Would it have been better to support "good slave owners" over "bad slave owners?" Or would it have been better to oppose the entire institution of slavery, even if people are insisting that if you don't support the good slave owners then you're letting the bad slave owners win?
My partner and I are anarchists who participate in direct action. We're doing everything we can the other 1460 days of the quadyear. We're not having a conversation about those 1460 days. We're having a conversation about the 1 other day. The day when the only choices on the ballot are "fascist", "neoliberal", and "no preference". You don't get to write a fourth thing on the ballot, the electoral system is a machine and it will interpret your actions within defined parameters. You either pick a defined parameter or the machine picks for you.
Now, you dodged the question last time because it made you uncomfortable to give a straight answer, so I'm going to ask it again: will the machine interpret your actions as doing nothing to prevent my partner's death? Will you choose that outcome in the name of ideals?
I'm glad that you feel safe under Biden, i'm not being facetious, i genuinely am, but a million Gazans being terrorized, crippled and murdered daily by the dozens if not hundreds, by bombs supplied by Biden to a regime financially supported and militarily aided by Biden in commiting this genocide (a little reminder that US drones flying over Gaza give targeting information to the occupier so that it can more easily bomb children in refugee camps, doctors in hospitals, homes with entire families in them) do not feel so safe. By your logic, in voting for Biden you vote for their deaths. The only moral choice is to oppose ALL those who support and enable genocide, not just those who threaten you personally.
I appreciate this. I wanted to add this to my wall of text but it was getting too long already. I don't think this is an overall productive area of discussion right now though, I was too hostile, the lib is getting very heated, naturally as this is a very personal issue for them(Not blaming them at all, I'd probably be pissed too if I was in their shoes), so I think a bit of a cooling off period might be a good idea, give them a chance to touch grass and hopefully realise we are on the same side as them, and ultimately want the same things as them (safety for marginalised groups) but Biden will not be giving that to them.
You can't claim empathy and then accuse someone of liberalism in the same breath. It's a two-faced attempt to give off the appearance of peace while provoking the enemy to aggression, which manipulates public perception. For my part, I will not abuse people's perceptions, I will be honest. You're a liberal fascist apologiser and you're trying to get people killed.
No, that's not my logic. You've misunderstood my logic and replaced it with your own. You think that voting is an act of condoning and you're applying that to this situation. But I've been very clear that I think abstinence is a vote, and that you're voting for Palestinians to be killed by Trump, who will not be as easy to sway with public opinion as Biden. You've fundamentally failed to have any cognitive empathy and to step outside your own pre-existing ideas. Therefore you think I must surely agree with your opinions that I am arguing against. This is nonsense thinking
First of all i'm not voting at all in US elections because i'm not American and don't live in the US. But also, why does abstaining (which i'm not saying to do, if you think voting has an impact you can always vote third party or write in a candidate) count as a vote for Trump? A Republican could use the same argument as you to argue that: "If you abstain you are just giving your vote to Biden!". How is their argument any different? The argument that abstaining means voting for party B only works if you want party A to win. A leftist should want neither to win since both are enemies of the working class.
I'm not seeing Biden being swayed by public opinion at all, the only ones who seem to sway him are the neocon warmongers, Wall Street, and the military industrial complex. He continues to enthusiastically aid and abet the genocide of Palestine despite massive and repeated protests. He continues to back NATO militarization, anti-Russia, anti-China and anti-Iran war posturing. He has started to bomb yet another middle eastern country with his strikes on Yemen. And that's if you actually believe that he is the one making the decisions.
I think you're fooling yourself into believing in a version of the Democratic party that does not exist outside its supporters' propaganda rhetoric. It's just strange for someone choosing to call themselves an anarchist to functionally be indistinguishable from a liberal in their views on bourgeois elections...
P.S. I've tried to be polite and restrained in my responses so far but if i were you i wouldn't have the cheek to accuse others of lacking empathy when you don't even have enough empathy for Palestinians to stop voting for a party that is helping and defending their murderers.
Fine yes, whatever, you "win" I guess then, congrats. Electoralism is saved, let's all vote for the party that pledges to kill trans people slowly and painfully instead of the other party that wants to do it quicker, because nothing sends the establishment a clear message about how unacceptable their behaviour is quite like bending down and kissing the ring and letting them know that no matter how much we grumble and complain about them not representing us, we'll still gladly show up and announce to them that no matter much they want to kill us all, we'll still participate in their rituals and give them as much validity and legality as they want.
I can't believe I'm speaking to an anarchist who is pro-capitalist electoralism and lesser-evilism. I hope your partner gets out safe, but unlike yourself, apparently, I also want to see the millions of other trans people in the US safe. All of them have loved ones, and not all of them will make it out by voting for the "kill 50% of them" guy instead of the "100% of them" guy.
I'm not even American, and one of your comments made it seem like you aren't either, so your defence of this horrific system is mind boggling. Would you have voted for Göring over Hitler because he promised a more "moderate" holocaust? Because that's what it sounds like you're doing here.
Participating in their elections gives them legitimacy, the people refusing to participate shows that they need to change their ways if they want the support of the people. What good is protesting their actions 364 days of the year if on election day you just line up like a good little peon and behave yourself? That's the most important time to refuse to recognise their legitimacy, to make it clear their actions will not be tolerated by the people. The system in the US is as fucked up as it is right now partially because for the past 50 years people have been insisting on voting for the "lesser evil" instead of demanding a good politician, or demanding an entire systemic change. This isn't idealism, voting for the same horrible leaders who pledge to commit different levels of atrocities and hoping that if we just vote extra hard this time they'll change their ways despite 0 incentive to do so is.
You're constructing a false dichotomy between supporting electoralism and not voting. And you're conflating voting with supporting electoralism. I don't support the US, I don't support Biden in any single tiny way that can harm socialists or socialism, and my partner's vote does not make the US electoral system stronger. There's nothing I've said which in any way helps capitalist false democracy maintain power. You're inventing false positions and false actions to attribute to me.
So...voting in an electoral system isn't showing tacit or passive approval, or at least tolerance, of that system? I guess it's just a natural thing, like breathing air, something never to be questioned or challenged, perfectly normal and natural to be forced to choose between the slow death or the fast death of millions.
You accused me of ignoring your question earlier, but haven't actually responded to any of mine. It's Germany 1937, and you're telling me that Göring isn't perfect, but he's the best Nazi we've got, instead of just opposing the entire system for its inhumanity. Voting will not save your loved ones. Complacency is how things have gotten to this point, and voting is just showing how complacent you really are, as far as the bourgeoisie are concerned.
Sorry for being so insulting, I don't blame you for getting mad, this is clearly a very personal thing for you and I was quite tactless in talking to you. I think it's best if we stop this conversation here, it will just be going in circles after this. Feel free to get the last clever word in, as I'm not planning to respond beyond this, so when I don't respond, imagine that I'm just so "owned" by your clever defense of bourgeoisie electoralism that I'm going to move to the states and get US citizenship just so I can vote for Biden in this next election. I hope things work out well for you and your partner.
If it were 1937 and I were in Germany, I'd be in a concentration camp because I'm trans. I don't think I'm going to be submitting any ballots from there. But if by some miracle the Nazis set up a voting booth in Auschwitz, I would cast my vote for Göring in between fashioning a lump of broken brick into a shiv with which to stab the first Nazi bastard I get my hands on.
You seem to think that ballots are made of nitroglycerin and that Biden is stuffing his votes into bombs for Israel to drop on Gaza. I assure you, the number of votes cast in the Federal election does not affect the US military's munitions capacity.
Ah, now it makes sense.
As a supporter of Ukraine, don't you mean 1488?