We need to get over the idea that voting is a way for us to express our personal ideals. Voting is one move in a chess game that never ends—one each voter plays with a hundred million other voters. You can't win on the first move, and if you're in a bad board position it may take a long time to get out of it. (Narrator voice: we're in a bad board position, in many ways.)
If you don't play, though, or don't make alliances with other players, you're likely to lose. Losing now will be very bad.
"Avoid totalitarian fascism" is step one. "Switch to preferential voting" is many steps after that, but you've got to not have totalitarian fascism first. So that has to be the priority.
@dgoldsmith I keep telling people that here in Arizona, we have a legitimate chance of electing a real progressive senator this November, Ruben Gallego, and that we only have that chance because we were willing to accept incremental progress six years ago and elect Kyrsten Sinema even though she sucks.
I didn't vote for Sinema because I like her. I voted for her because she was a step closer to getting someone I do like into that seat.
@Thad@dgoldsmith exactly. I donated to her campaign and encouraged others to do so. Also asked friends who live there to support her because any Democrat, even one as frustrating as Sinema, is better than any Republican. If nothing else, it gives Democrats control of the Senate which allows Biden to appoint judges.
@dgoldsmith
After looking through this conversation with different viewpoints, I think there may be something I can add to help understanding. For those with a similar viewpoint as Debbie, I think the motives are clear and make sense, but I also think there is pushback due to who you are expecting to change. The friction is likely due to putting the burden on the less powerful (because it's easier), rather than on the people directly involved. "Punch up instead of down" sort of thing.
@jerliyah Everyone has to make the choices that feel right to them. And there is no doubt that the Democratic leadership is a mess and stuck in the past, and they need to get that message. I just think we need to acknowledge the reality of our current electoral system, and I think that withholding votes is not an effective way to move in the direction we want given that system. I don't particularly like that, but I think that’s where we are.
@dgoldsmith
I getcha, welp, hopefully we all get some good luck 😅
However the future goes, I hope you're doing alright on your side (discussions like these can be stressful).
Stay safe and healthy ✌️
@dgoldsmith I wholeheartedly agree that politics requires making alliances. What frustrates me is that it’s the Democratic Party who refuses to come to the table. At some point you would think they’d reach out to progressives and Green Party voters and say just that—“Look, we can’t give you everything you’re asking for, but we can give you this.” But that’s not what they do. Instead they continue to say, “We’re your only hope and you’d be a fool to vote for anyone else.” Maybe give people a reason to want to support the party and candidate. You know, ASK FOR and EARN a person’s vote. Is that so hard? #USPolitics
@TMRuppert I wish the Democrats were doing that too, and I try to make what difference I can in the primary, but we have to work with the tools we have. There are other ways to apply pressure. Part of it is the older generation of D leaders, who are in many ways stuck in the past.
The reason to support the Democrats is that their platform is much, much closer to your own than the Republicans' is. That's enough, even before we get into the issue of blocking the rise of fascism.
@TruthSandwich@dgoldsmith Granted, the Democratic Party platform is better for leftists than the Republican Party platform. But you sidestepped my point entirely. If, as top Democratic Party officials say, and we know it to be true, that their party is in a genuine fight and needs every possible vote, why do they refuse to make accommodations for progressives and Green Party voters? Shouldn’t Democrats be courting the Greens, rather than stiff-arming them and saying, “If we lose democracy it’s your fault!”
@TMRuppert@TruthSandwich Without squabbling over the details (which aren't important), the Democratic party makes tons of mistakes, especially the centrist wing. They are still fighting the battles of the 1980s. Also, the party is not a monolith on issues like this.
“I am not a member of any organized party — I am a Democrat.” — Will Rogers
@TruthSandwich@TMRuppert I see that people are frustrated when Democrats take positions that offend them, and I do empathize. They frustrate me too. But the choice seems pretty clear to me. It's not the choice I want, but it's the one I have and it's not hard for me to make.
There was never any guarantee that your preferred candidate would be viable. If your views are far enough from the mainstream, that pretty much ensures that they won't be.
The wrong way to look at this is as being stuck with the "lesser of evils". What makes it wrong is that it casts "good but not my ideal" as "evil but less evil", which sets the zero point impossibly high.
@dgoldsmith Agreed.. Also fun to spot you here on Mastodon as boosted by someone I follow. Small world events always amuse me, although I don't know if you remember me from Taligent... It's been a long time! Hope you are well.
@croyle I recognize the face but not the name (I'm absolutely terrible with names—my memory just doesn't work that way). It has been a long time. Hope you're doing well too.
@Qbitzerre Getting what we want immediately is not an option on the table. We work with the tools we have. Giving up is guaranteed to fail. That's all I'm going to say.
@Qbitzerre Do you actually believe there is no difference for society whether Ds are in charge vs. Rs? That's a very privileged point of view. As a trans woman, I don't have that kind of privilege.
@dgoldsmith exactly how many decades do I need to vote for people who oppose everything I care about in order to be allowed to vote for people I support?
@Notvoting It's not about you (or me). I don't expect the US to have the kind of society I want in my lifetime. But if people don't fight we won't get there. Voting is part of the fight. The fact you can't get what you want immediately is not relevant.
Feel free not to vote, but I am utterly unconvinced by your reasoning.
Imagine how irresponsible it would be for the democratic party to do nothing about
Abortion rights
Voting rights
Trans rights
The rise of fascism
Protecting immigrants
The minimum wage
Or climate change (the infrastructure bill was garbage written by joe Manchin)
Imagine if the party instead
Courted anti trans bigots
Abused immigrants
Gave away a bunch of money to oil and gas companies
Supports genocide
Actively murdering Yemeni
Normalized the fascists
Hmm.. Voting is a game that divides the losers into two or more camps, so that they can be busy fighting and debating each other while the winners go to the bank.
@andymouse While elements of that are true, voting still makes a real difference in outcomes that I care about: women's rights, LGBT rights, attempts to counter the climate crisis (inadequate, but better than actively furthering it).
@Notvoting I agree it is not helpful but it is far from the same thing as supporting Trump.
No one has to “earn” your vote. Voting is a responsibility we have to each other. I vote for Ds because far fewer people will be harmed with them in charge: women, POC, LGBT, and other vulnerable minorities. That doesn't mean I'm happy with Ds. I make what difference I can in primary voting, where there's a choice between Ds.
@Notvoting Yes, I chose those words intentionally, so I do hear myself. Voting is an action I can take that has the potential to make some things better for myself and others in some ways. I'm not doing it to reward the people I vote for, so why should they have to "earn" my vote? I choose them based on who I think will move the country most in the direction I'd like it to go, in the context of the deeply flawed system we have. That is the only political power available to voters.
@Notvoting It's a given that Biden is not doing everything I want and is doing a lot of things I don't want. It's also a given (to me) that Trump would be substantially worse. That's the only choice that is open to me, and I think it's one worth making. So I vote.
@dgoldsmith so the plan is for democrats to do nothing forever and win every election while maintaining the perfect status quo
Should work fine.
I just don't see why it's not the responsibility of democratic leadership to not lose my vote but it is my responsibility to give them my vote for nothing in return
Doesn't see like democracy to me or at least a democracy that means anything
@Notvoting I am giving them my vote because they have a track record of doing things more the way I think things should go than the Rs do. The Ds did not overturn Roe v Wade. You're arguing a straw man, and I think I've made my point more than enough.
@dgoldsmith so how about this. What if there are voters who don't share your point of view and in order to court those voters the democrats could do literally anything but they refuse to
@dgoldsmith
Your toot only applies to FPTP, under which we are forced to vote against what we don't want rather than for what we do want. Personally, my vote has never counted, I live in a constituency where one party has a big lead. So I can vote for whoever I like without worrying about how it affects the outcome :o)
As a mathematician who has studied game theory, unfortunate Democrats chose a strategy that was guaranteed to lose for them in the long term over 40 years ago, and haven't turned back.
The Republicans won't accept any move to the left. Sometimes they lose elections this way, but it means their leaders steadily move right.
But Democratic voters decades ago announced "vote Blue, no matter who", and in doing so, unfortunately lost any leverage with the DNC.
@TomSwirly I don't disagree with any of this, though primaries are still a chance to push things left. As I said, there is a long, long road to travel, and yes, we could lose our democracy in the near future.
@dgoldsmith This makes me feel that voting should be abolished and democracies should invent some other process of expressing personal ideas. I don’t think that it makes sense to take part in political games.
@aemstuz That's not how I understand it. I understand it as democracy has a huge number of inherent problems but we haven't found anything that works better. It doesn't mean stop trying to find one.
@dgoldsmith I’ve been through a few votes by now. This evergreen refrain of “the lesser of two evils” is political opiate manufactured for the masses by the party pair that own this country. I recommend to all thinking people George Washington’s farewell address. It is dense, but a worthwhile read. He warned us to watch out for and oppose exactly what American politics has become. :-(
@kvc If you think there's no difference in what people will experience under Biden vs. under Trump, there's nothing I can say that will convince you. The fact that Biden is a flawed candidate in many, many ways doesn't change that fact.
And yes, I do oppose what American politics has become. As I said, we've gotten to a very bad place and we have a long, long road to get to where we want to be. Refusing to vote is refusing to do part of the work to get there.
@dgoldsmith I take no issue with voting! It is our responsibility! I do, however, take issue with that damaging narrative that everyone should support the status quo by falling in line with partisan duarchy. I just pine for democracy.
@kvc I'm just talking about voting. No one is saying we should be happy with the status quo. I pine for democracy, too. Unfortunately we got into a really bad situation and it's going to be a long, hard road to get out of it. I don't expect to live to see it.
@dgoldsmith Love the idea of voting being like one move in a long game. When it is your turn you can say, I don't have any good moves so I'm going to skip my turn, but that is very unlikely to be a successful strategy.
@dgoldsmith Exactly. Great analogy. Been trying to figure out what to say to a bunch of daughter's hipster friends who are saying they won't vote this time, because they are "tired of having their vote taken for granted". Gonna try this out.
@mastodonmigration Getting to vote for a candidate who reflects all your own values is a luxury: one we don't have in these times, sadly. Voting for a candidate who will do less harm is a necessity.
@dgoldsmith Yes. However, they are prepared for the harm reduction argument. It generally goes something like: Don't talk to us about harm reduction. We are tired of not having our voices heard, so we are going to punish you by withholding our support. Now clearly this is kind of a dissonant chain of reasoning, and likely involves a failure of imagination about how bad things can get. The trick may be to provide a concrete example frame of reference like your game analogy. Hope it works.
@mastodonmigration The Allies cooperated with Stalin during WW II. It wasn't because they liked him. “I'm not going to fight Hitler because I don't approve of allying with Stalin.” We live in a shitty world and the road to a less shitty one runs through voting for people you don't like and who don't listen to you.
Also, not voting does not punish the people you're not voting for. They'll be just fine. It's the people who will suffer under the worse choice whom you're punishing.
@dgoldsmith Indeed. The logic of this line of reasoning is impenetrable. The problem is logic does not carry the day. The enemy of my enemy makes perfect sense, unless one absolutely refuses any compromise. Such absolutism creates a paradox. They refuse to cooperate with someone who does awful things. However, the decision not to cooperate is a decision to strengthen an even more awful alternative. At which point they revert to the mantra of never supporting someone who does awful things.
@mastodonmigration This position only makes sense if you believe neither choice will have any effect on anything you care about. If you care about anyone who is not white, Christian, cishet, and male, or about the climate crisis, or about the environment in general, or about having a (badly flawed) democracy rather than a fascist dictatorship, then there is strong evidence that is not the case.
If that doesn't work, I don't know what else to say.
@dgoldsmith Oh, agree that it doesn't make any sense. Thinking that it comes from a very self centered privileged life where others are abstractions, consequences are relative inconveniences and power is wielded by sulking. The game analogy might have a chance because it enforces a kind of disciplined frame that might make the act of refusing to play a more obvious losing strategy. But, actually not very hopeful, these have been very frustrating discussions.
@wjmaggos@mastodonmigration I would love ranked-choice voting. And all sorts of other reforms. But those are a long way down the road to where we want to be.
#RCV is having a pretty big surge of support lately so there is hope that it will reach a tipping point soon.
Spreading the word and supporting local efforts for adoption helps us get there.
youre playing chess in a casino, the house always wins, and a bunch of people are working on alternative ways to get ahead.
sure, as long as youre content to lose most of the time, youll win now and then- sometimes big. but the whole thing is a farce on average, everyone keeps playing and keeps losing.
im not telling people dont vote. if you think it will lead to progress, it only slows disaster.
@trdebunked I don't agree with that analogy. Voting as a process works (for now); the problem is that rampant misinformation (especially from the corporate media) misleads voters as to what they are voting for. Democracy can't work without an informed electorate.
@dgoldsmith the thing is, people who think the system works arent going to try to fix it.
theres nothing i could say here that could do what lessigs "rebooting democracy" speech at dartmouth can do.
in 2024 a man actively and shamelessly abetting genocide is going to run against someone who will do even worse.
in s. america it can get more broken than that- mostly due to strategic interference from the same democracy that sabotages democracies all over the world. nah, its not QUITE working.
@trdebunked The goal is to get to better candidates, but the road leads through the choices we have now. It's going to be a very long road because we’ve let things get very bad. And yes, voting is not the only thing to do: there are many others as well. As long as the person who gets the most votes winds up in office, though, voting will be worthwhile, and that's still the case. There are still differences between the candidates worth voting for.
@dgoldsmith Unfortunately, most people have no idea how to play chess. Nor do they understand the need for a long term strategy when it comes to politics.
But with so many elections globally in 2024 (I read somewhere that 3 billion people will be affected by key elections this year), even if people focus on the short term that would be helpful. Because a lot of damage can be done during the next respective electoral terms by the current candidates. Sadly applies in so many countries right now.
@ceracole@dgoldsmith I am terrible at chess, but I know that I have to vote for the best candidate who is actually on the ballot and that I will never find the perfect candidate.
@cherylgk@ceracole Unfortunately, with our first-past-the-post system, voting for the best candidate on the ballot from your personal values is not necessarily the best strategy. That's one reason why I hate first-past-the-post. But it's what we have, for now.
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