Whether it’s right or wrong to support the democrats unconditionally and indefinitely is a seperate question from whether that’s the position being described (which it is).
Personally, I would argue that it’s an incredibly short-sighted, ineffective, and illogical tactic. It sacrifices every ounce of bargaining power before negotiations have even begun.
The “logic” of lesser-evilism is easily disproven. We are given $100 to split, I make an offer, you choose whether to accept or refuse, if you refuse, neither of us get anything. What value should you accept? According to lesser-evilism, you should accept even if I offer a $99-$1 split, because $1 is the lesser evil to $0. But if I know that you’ll accept $1, that’s all I’ll ever offer you. In reality, when this experiment has been tried in practice, most people reject offers below about $30, and few people do the $99-$1 split because they know it’ll get rejected. The “optimal” strategy of lesser-evilism only makes sense if the game is not repeated, otherwise, it makes much more sense to set an absolute minimum condition and reject any offers below that number.
The position that y’all argue for is accepting the $99-$1 split in a political context, of having no conditions, no negotiations, nothing. It’s absurd! If we can present a credible threat that a critical mass of voters won’t go along with a certain policy (like genocide), then the party will have no choice but to give it to us if it wants to remain relevant. And if it refuses anyway, then, conveniently, the same action let’s us build up a third party towards potentially replacing them with someone more cooperative.
Lesser-evilism is presented as if it were obviously correct and indisputable. In reality, it is a specific tactic and one that has proven itself completely ineffective, and also doesn’t hold up under scrutiny. It is a choice to subscribe to lesser-evilism, and at least in my view, the wrong choice.
Well, I’m not american, but their politics touch the rest of the world.
I think people should have voted democrat because people were offered the 99-1 split, refused to choose, and got nothing.
Don’t get me wrong, what the u.s is funding is abhorrent, but under trump its going to be worse.
If both sides are fundamentally unacceptable, then the only thing that matters is changing the fundamental situation. And the most effective means of doing that is demonstrating a credible threat that we won’t just fall in line behind a 99-1 split. Building power in this way is more important than getting one genocidaire elected over the other, because it is only through building power that we have a chance of having an option that isn’t a genocidaire.
The left (or what pitiful excuse for the left we have in the US) has been following this inane strategy of lesser-evilism for decades now, and it’s a large part of the reason things have gotten this bad in the first place. Even if we could’ve elected a democrat, the underlying conditions that gave rise to Trump and that are feeding fascism will never be addressed by the democratic party, especially if people refuse to apply genuine pressure to them. As long as those conditions are not fixed, we will keep getting Trumps and people worse than Trump.
The system is the way it is by design. They want to force us into a position where we have to chose the lesser evil. The democrats have even funded far-right republican candidates in order to put voters into a position where they have no choice but to vote for them to stop them - the same “pied piper” strategy that Clinton used with Trump.
Ranked choice voting is kind of a catch-22. Neither major party supports it, so unless a third party candidate wins, then we can’t get it (at least on a large scale) - but the fact that we don’t have it makes it much more difficult for third party candidates to win. And even if we got it, there’s still things like gerrymandering, the electoral college, and Citizen’s United, which essentially allows unlimited spending on campaigns, that make our elections undemocratic.
That’s why I consider simply accepting the choices we’re presented with an unacceptable, losing proposition. There are certain demands that must be met, for the sake of the survival of the planet, the defeat of the far-right, and the end of the ongoing genocide. The framework we’re presented with and told is the only way, tells us that these changes are impossible. It’s an unstoppable force against an immovable object, except, the unstoppable force is actually unstoppable, because it is governed by the laws of nature, while the “immovable object” is just a system of arbitrary rules made up by human beings.
Such systems have given way in the past. If they didn’t we would still be living under monarchy. In the times of kings, we did not even have the incredibly flawed form of “democracy” we have now to exert influence over what happens, and yet, the people exerted the necessary influence to achieve change. In the same way, when our so-called “democratic” systems cannot address the many different crises we are facing, we must look to more fundamental ways of exerting force through collective action.
There is no one “magic bullet” solution, but if we can identify the things that absolutely must be done then we can start looking through the full toolbox for what means might be used to achieve them. However, if we set out goals and priorities based on what the system tells us is possible, then we are putting those human laws above natural, physical laws - which is insanity.
It was the lesser of evils. Not voting for them lets even more bad stuff happen.
Whether it’s right or wrong to support the democrats unconditionally and indefinitely is a seperate question from whether that’s the position being described (which it is).
Personally, I would argue that it’s an incredibly short-sighted, ineffective, and illogical tactic. It sacrifices every ounce of bargaining power before negotiations have even begun.
The “logic” of lesser-evilism is easily disproven. We are given $100 to split, I make an offer, you choose whether to accept or refuse, if you refuse, neither of us get anything. What value should you accept? According to lesser-evilism, you should accept even if I offer a $99-$1 split, because $1 is the lesser evil to $0. But if I know that you’ll accept $1, that’s all I’ll ever offer you. In reality, when this experiment has been tried in practice, most people reject offers below about $30, and few people do the $99-$1 split because they know it’ll get rejected. The “optimal” strategy of lesser-evilism only makes sense if the game is not repeated, otherwise, it makes much more sense to set an absolute minimum condition and reject any offers below that number.
The position that y’all argue for is accepting the $99-$1 split in a political context, of having no conditions, no negotiations, nothing. It’s absurd! If we can present a credible threat that a critical mass of voters won’t go along with a certain policy (like genocide), then the party will have no choice but to give it to us if it wants to remain relevant. And if it refuses anyway, then, conveniently, the same action let’s us build up a third party towards potentially replacing them with someone more cooperative.
Lesser-evilism is presented as if it were obviously correct and indisputable. In reality, it is a specific tactic and one that has proven itself completely ineffective, and also doesn’t hold up under scrutiny. It is a choice to subscribe to lesser-evilism, and at least in my view, the wrong choice.
Well, I’m not american, but their politics touch the rest of the world.
I think people should have voted democrat because people were offered the 99-1 split, refused to choose, and got nothing.
Don’t get me wrong, what the u.s is funding is abhorrent, but under trump its going to be worse.
If both sides are fundamentally unacceptable, then the only thing that matters is changing the fundamental situation. And the most effective means of doing that is demonstrating a credible threat that we won’t just fall in line behind a 99-1 split. Building power in this way is more important than getting one genocidaire elected over the other, because it is only through building power that we have a chance of having an option that isn’t a genocidaire.
The left (or what pitiful excuse for the left we have in the US) has been following this inane strategy of lesser-evilism for decades now, and it’s a large part of the reason things have gotten this bad in the first place. Even if we could’ve elected a democrat, the underlying conditions that gave rise to Trump and that are feeding fascism will never be addressed by the democratic party, especially if people refuse to apply genuine pressure to them. As long as those conditions are not fixed, we will keep getting Trumps and people worse than Trump.
I really wish we had some way of getting Ranked Choice voting, or people who gave a shit about politics.
The system is the way it is by design. They want to force us into a position where we have to chose the lesser evil. The democrats have even funded far-right republican candidates in order to put voters into a position where they have no choice but to vote for them to stop them - the same “pied piper” strategy that Clinton used with Trump.
Ranked choice voting is kind of a catch-22. Neither major party supports it, so unless a third party candidate wins, then we can’t get it (at least on a large scale) - but the fact that we don’t have it makes it much more difficult for third party candidates to win. And even if we got it, there’s still things like gerrymandering, the electoral college, and Citizen’s United, which essentially allows unlimited spending on campaigns, that make our elections undemocratic.
That’s why I consider simply accepting the choices we’re presented with an unacceptable, losing proposition. There are certain demands that must be met, for the sake of the survival of the planet, the defeat of the far-right, and the end of the ongoing genocide. The framework we’re presented with and told is the only way, tells us that these changes are impossible. It’s an unstoppable force against an immovable object, except, the unstoppable force is actually unstoppable, because it is governed by the laws of nature, while the “immovable object” is just a system of arbitrary rules made up by human beings.
Such systems have given way in the past. If they didn’t we would still be living under monarchy. In the times of kings, we did not even have the incredibly flawed form of “democracy” we have now to exert influence over what happens, and yet, the people exerted the necessary influence to achieve change. In the same way, when our so-called “democratic” systems cannot address the many different crises we are facing, we must look to more fundamental ways of exerting force through collective action.
There is no one “magic bullet” solution, but if we can identify the things that absolutely must be done then we can start looking through the full toolbox for what means might be used to achieve them. However, if we set out goals and priorities based on what the system tells us is possible, then we are putting those human laws above natural, physical laws - which is insanity.