I have a related degree, but it’s no secret that you target those who are never going to vote for you with propaganda to make them cynical and abstain from voting. It’s what Cambridge Analytica was infamous for (Brexit, first Trump campaign, etc.), but there are others.
The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing. Cynicism was a significant factor in the downfall of the Weimar Republic. That cynicism was in large part fostered and exacerbated by Nazi propaganda.
Everyone is susceptible to propaganda, but especially those who think they aren’t. Propaganda is especially effective when it contains a kernel of truth.
I’m curious why you frame your vote as a reward to a candidate for checking your boxes, and not a tool to exert some control over your material conditions. It just seems like such a strange way to treat your vote.
American politics is an emotive subject if you’re American, which I assume you are.
Apply your argument to the brexit referendum, where many of the same arguments you’re making were made by pro-brexit campaigners, and where mainstream politicians on both sides of the aisle have also failed many British people, especially the working classes.
While the latter was and still is absolutely true, it was also used by Cambridge Analytica, to decrease voter turn-out in targetted demographic groups.
Would you have voted in that referendum?
The end result was arguably emboldened racists, a divided Europe, lack lustre economic and job growth, poor treatment of migrants, a country closer to far-right rule than it has been in a long time, and a select elite getting richer. But then life would have gotten worse for many people even if the UK had voted to stay in the EU, and the leave result did give the establishment a much necessary bloody nose, so you could argue there wasn’t much point voting either way.
This is a genuine question. I don’t have easy answers.
Here’s the thing though, you could argue that voting in favour of brexit, would have emboldened the centrists and the establishment in the UK, to keep making the lives of the working class worse. Brexit gave them a much necessary bloody nose.
In French they say “Choisir entre la peste et le choléra”. Choosing between plague or cholera. Let’s take the French example:
The French will likely soon get to choose between Le Pen and Macron’s successor. The latter is a likely corrupt centrist dickhead from a party which has lead the country to the brink and emboldened fascists. The former is Le Pen, a Russian aligned fascist.
The propaganda will tell people Macron’s successor is a neo-liberal thief and part of why France is in deep trouble. Which is absolutely true. But the alternative is a literal fascist. You can vote for Macron’s successor, but then the establishment thinks it’s business as usual. You can not bother voting at all, but then it’s likely Le Pen wins…
Electoral systems which favour multi-party governments are often better. But then look at Germany, where ever more parties are forced into a coalition against the far right AfD, because people vote for AfD(or don’t vote against them) in increasing numbers. The propaganda tells them that mainstream parties are incompetent, corrupt, and have ended up costing thousands their jobs. Which is absolutely true.
If Germans don’t vote or vote for smaller parties, they potentially let the fascists in.
If they do vote for a bigger party, who are often quite pro-Israel for historical reasons, it’s likely these parties will think they can get away with business as usual, which emboldens the fascists and further disenfranchises voters for next time around…
Personally, I would always vote for the lesser evil, but I get where you’re coming from.
I’m just curious if you’re getting involved in grassroots activism, promoting candidates you agree with, canvassing the neighborhood to try to drum up support, etc. Because these are the sorts of things that need to happen in order to produce a candidate you agree with. It’s completely disienguous to put the entire onus of finding a candidate you agree with on other people.
I want you to vote. I care less about who you vote for than I do you voting at all. Exercising your civic right to choose your representation is a big deal, and I encourage you to stop getting mad at other people for not doing your own legwork, and instead get out there and promote a candidate you agree with. Hell, maybe you should run yourself. I don’t know, but I do know that sitting around getting mad because you don’t like the major candidates without doing anything about it gets us all nowhere.
I’m mad that you chuckle fucks keep riding the vote harder while continuing to give your support to candidates neither of us, allegedly, want instead of letting those candidates just lose because they literally suck.
What would that accomplish? Sincerely, no one has been able to explain to me how the slightly-less-bad candidate losing provides any benefit whatsoever.
It’s not like the other mainstream candidate doesn’t also suck, and moreso in fact.
It’s not like if enough people sit out the election it triggers some secret clause written into the Constitution in invisible magic ink. One of the candidates that suck still wins.
I’m genuinely curious, what is supposed to happen if we let them lose? Who does that help besides the slightly shittier candidate?
I’ve read through like this entire comment section, and most of your comments specifically, and I haven’t seen it. Care to link or quote the comment where you answer this question? I can’t find it
Oh so now someone has to promote candidates they agree with in order to be involved in grassroots organizing
this is an anarchist space
Why is it so hard for people to get that the problem is the system, that by promoting any candidate for any role is promoting the system itself? There will never be a candidate I agree with because the people who are empowered by the American constitution to dissolve the union aren’t elected officials.
“I tried nothing and it didn’t work” isn’t a strategy that works for me.
I’m not going to sit on my butt and complain into the void. I will do everything I can to get to where I want the world to where I hope it can go.
Organizing is not in conflict with anarchism.
Pretending the system doesn’t exist or that not participating in any way will change it is a fool’s errand.
Feel free to find another way to participate, but trying to push others to not do what they can, to me, is (at best) an effort to continue the downward trend.
This is absurd. Electoral organizing isn’t the only kind of organizing. Organizing outside of electoral campaigns is not doing nothing. Telling people the only way to organize or do anything to influence politics is through election campaigns is absolutely in conflict with anarchism.
Yeah… Reading your other comments, I think you actually have a decent take on this, but I think the way you’re communicating it isn’t working for the audience…
What’s the point of communicating if you know that you’re being misunderstood?
It’s not about reading comprehension, it’s about frame coherence. Other people don’t have your particular history of experiences, so some things that make obvious sense to you need more context for other people (the same is true in reverse, obviously).
false. I vote every election, I dont vote for everything on the ballot, sometime i leave the ballot empty. two very different things
So… You didn’t “not vote”. Cool. What I said. Awesome.
I think there is some fundamental confusion here that I can’t go into your brain and point to.
spend some time there and understand that there are many people willing to show up for the right candidate but wont show up for the shitshow that is the dem party currently.
There are many things on a ballot, and many different dems. There are members of the DSA running under the dem ticket. There are members of the WFP running under the dem ticket.
I will apologize only slightly for the caps here - NOT VOTING SENDS A MESSAGE THAT YOU ARE OK WITH ANY OUTCOME. Whether you want that to be the message or not is inconsequential. If you want to do something about the candidates, DO IT MORE THAN A MONTH AND CHANGE BEFORE AN ELECTION.
“I’m grateful people are dying, children are being murdered, and families are being torn apart because I feel like some people realized Trump does bad things” is a pretty shit take IMO.
You are confusing individual action to limit further harm with a candidate’s strategy to win votes. They are not the same thing. No one is saying “we want apathetic do-nothings to win” they’re saying “I’d rather not have the villians win, if possible”
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So what’s your solution? Pouting in the corner and saying “I’m not playing”?
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Plenty have been targetted with propaganda.
I have a related degree, but it’s no secret that you target those who are never going to vote for you with propaganda to make them cynical and abstain from voting. It’s what Cambridge Analytica was infamous for (Brexit, first Trump campaign, etc.), but there are others.
The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing. Cynicism was a significant factor in the downfall of the Weimar Republic. That cynicism was in large part fostered and exacerbated by Nazi propaganda.
Everyone is susceptible to propaganda, but especially those who think they aren’t. Propaganda is especially effective when it contains a kernel of truth.
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Yes that is just as bad as Trump and Co actively dismantling institutions and lining their pockets at our expense. What a tough choice.
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I’m curious why you frame your vote as a reward to a candidate for checking your boxes, and not a tool to exert some control over your material conditions. It just seems like such a strange way to treat your vote.
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That is certainly a lovely list to vote for.
American politics is an emotive subject if you’re American, which I assume you are.
Apply your argument to the brexit referendum, where many of the same arguments you’re making were made by pro-brexit campaigners, and where mainstream politicians on both sides of the aisle have also failed many British people, especially the working classes.
While the latter was and still is absolutely true, it was also used by Cambridge Analytica, to decrease voter turn-out in targetted demographic groups.
Would you have voted in that referendum?
The end result was arguably emboldened racists, a divided Europe, lack lustre economic and job growth, poor treatment of migrants, a country closer to far-right rule than it has been in a long time, and a select elite getting richer. But then life would have gotten worse for many people even if the UK had voted to stay in the EU, and the leave result did give the establishment a much necessary bloody nose, so you could argue there wasn’t much point voting either way.
This is a genuine question. I don’t have easy answers.
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Here’s the thing though, you could argue that voting in favour of brexit, would have emboldened the centrists and the establishment in the UK, to keep making the lives of the working class worse. Brexit gave them a much necessary bloody nose.
In French they say “Choisir entre la peste et le choléra”. Choosing between plague or cholera. Let’s take the French example:
The French will likely soon get to choose between Le Pen and Macron’s successor. The latter is a likely corrupt centrist dickhead from a party which has lead the country to the brink and emboldened fascists. The former is Le Pen, a Russian aligned fascist.
The propaganda will tell people Macron’s successor is a neo-liberal thief and part of why France is in deep trouble. Which is absolutely true. But the alternative is a literal fascist. You can vote for Macron’s successor, but then the establishment thinks it’s business as usual. You can not bother voting at all, but then it’s likely Le Pen wins…
Electoral systems which favour multi-party governments are often better. But then look at Germany, where ever more parties are forced into a coalition against the far right AfD, because people vote for AfD(or don’t vote against them) in increasing numbers. The propaganda tells them that mainstream parties are incompetent, corrupt, and have ended up costing thousands their jobs. Which is absolutely true.
If Germans don’t vote or vote for smaller parties, they potentially let the fascists in.
If they do vote for a bigger party, who are often quite pro-Israel for historical reasons, it’s likely these parties will think they can get away with business as usual, which emboldens the fascists and further disenfranchises voters for next time around…
Personally, I would always vote for the lesser evil, but I get where you’re coming from.
TLDR: I’m going to watch a shitty vampire show.
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I’m just curious if you’re getting involved in grassroots activism, promoting candidates you agree with, canvassing the neighborhood to try to drum up support, etc. Because these are the sorts of things that need to happen in order to produce a candidate you agree with. It’s completely disienguous to put the entire onus of finding a candidate you agree with on other people.
I want you to vote. I care less about who you vote for than I do you voting at all. Exercising your civic right to choose your representation is a big deal, and I encourage you to stop getting mad at other people for not doing your own legwork, and instead get out there and promote a candidate you agree with. Hell, maybe you should run yourself. I don’t know, but I do know that sitting around getting mad because you don’t like the major candidates without doing anything about it gets us all nowhere.
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What would that accomplish? Sincerely, no one has been able to explain to me how the slightly-less-bad candidate losing provides any benefit whatsoever.
It’s not like the other mainstream candidate doesn’t also suck, and moreso in fact.
It’s not like if enough people sit out the election it triggers some secret clause written into the Constitution in invisible magic ink. One of the candidates that suck still wins.
I’m genuinely curious, what is supposed to happen if we let them lose? Who does that help besides the slightly shittier candidate?
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I’ve read through like this entire comment section, and most of your comments specifically, and I haven’t seen it. Care to link or quote the comment where you answer this question? I can’t find it
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Oh so now someone has to promote candidates they agree with in order to be involved in grassroots organizing
this is an anarchist space
Why is it so hard for people to get that the problem is the system, that by promoting any candidate for any role is promoting the system itself? There will never be a candidate I agree with because the people who are empowered by the American constitution to dissolve the union aren’t elected officials.
“I tried nothing and it didn’t work” isn’t a strategy that works for me.
I’m not going to sit on my butt and complain into the void. I will do everything I can to get to where I want the world to where I hope it can go.
Organizing is not in conflict with anarchism.
Pretending the system doesn’t exist or that not participating in any way will change it is a fool’s errand.
Feel free to find another way to participate, but trying to push others to not do what they can, to me, is (at best) an effort to continue the downward trend.
This is absurd. Electoral organizing isn’t the only kind of organizing. Organizing outside of electoral campaigns is not doing nothing. Telling people the only way to organize or do anything to influence politics is through election campaigns is absolutely in conflict with anarchism.
Who said it was?
You’re coming to absolutely ridiculous conclusions based on fabrications of what I said.
Feel free to point to where I said any of that.
I’ll wait.
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I mean, the DSA is doing a half way decent job of that in at least a few electorates…
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Yeah… Reading your other comments, I think you actually have a decent take on this, but I think the way you’re communicating it isn’t working for the audience…
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What’s the point of communicating if you know that you’re being misunderstood?
It’s not about reading comprehension, it’s about frame coherence. Other people don’t have your particular history of experiences, so some things that make obvious sense to you need more context for other people (the same is true in reverse, obviously).
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I think you grossly underestimate my understanding.
No, my answer does not change. If you take the time to read it rather than blindly respond to me recommending to vote anyway, you may discover why.
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Yes.
It is. And I consider it foolish to pretend otherwise.
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No, you clearly did not understand.
“Not voting” is a message of apathy, not discontent.
“Not voting” is being OK with things as they are.
“Not voting” is not taking every avenue possible.
“Not voting” is nothing more than giving up.
You should try reading my comment again.
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You really enjoy being wrong, don’t you?
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So… You didn’t “not vote”. Cool. What I said. Awesome.
I think there is some fundamental confusion here that I can’t go into your brain and point to.
There are many things on a ballot, and many different dems. There are members of the DSA running under the dem ticket. There are members of the WFP running under the dem ticket.
I will apologize only slightly for the caps here - NOT VOTING SENDS A MESSAGE THAT YOU ARE OK WITH ANY OUTCOME. Whether you want that to be the message or not is inconsequential. If you want to do something about the candidates, DO IT MORE THAN A MONTH AND CHANGE BEFORE AN ELECTION.
If thats a message you are OK with, go for it.
I’m not.
Edit: mobile typo.
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Lol, then walk away bro. All I see if you here struggling to prove yourself right.
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You’re glad we’re at war with Iran? You’re glad ICE is murdering citizens and disappearing non citizens with impunity? You are 14
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“I’m grateful people are dying, children are being murdered, and families are being torn apart because I feel like some people realized Trump does bad things” is a pretty shit take IMO.
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You are confusing individual action to limit further harm with a candidate’s strategy to win votes. They are not the same thing. No one is saying “we want apathetic do-nothings to win” they’re saying “I’d rather not have the villians win, if possible”
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I wasn’t the person you replied to here, but I think we are talking about Palpatine vs Team Rocket here.
I’d vote for Team Rocket over Palpatine any day of the week.
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I don’t believe I said that at any point, and I’d encourage you to not try and put words in my mouth.
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I suggested people vote.
You continue to try and make my words something they aren’t, and you can fuck right off with that behavior.
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