I have a hard time taking seriously people who warn me that the next US presidential election will decide between democracy and fascism and then spend most of their time yelling at anonymous strangers online about not voting.
Why are you not desperately trying to get out the vote in swing states? Or stockpiling ammo and batteries for your insurrectionary cell?
There's a thing people do, sometimes, when they think their "side" is going to lose: instead of working to fix it, they start to lay the groundwork for a narrative that absolves them personally of guilt. You see this a lot in corporate environments.
Right now in the UK, the Conservative Party is full of people doing this. They're building the narrative that "we should be doing X", so that when they lose the next election they can say "I said we should do X and I wasn't listened to, the fault is with the people who didn't do X." (In the case of the Conservative Party, X is mostly full-on fascist stuff like brutalising refugees, deporting minorities, making life ever-worse for trans people and - for some of them - moving to ban abortion.)
When I see online Biden Guys shouting at people to vote, I get the sense that they're doing the same thing.
It's not persuasive to you and it isn't intended to be: it's intended first and foremost as self-persuasion, to make them feel absolved, and then secondarily to try to win influence among other Biden Guys in the post-defeat disaster.
@passenger@HeavenlyPossum
This. And what Democrats in the "US" do to absolve themselves of responsibility for their mediocre loser politics is to blame anyone and everyone to their left
@passenger@HeavenlyPossum thank you for putting it so well. These people aren't actually interested in convincing people to vote, because that involves listening to their concerns, so what do they actually want? And yes, that is what they want
The US popular vote margin has been very low for decades. The last time it cracked 10% was in 1984. In 2020, it was less than 5% and in 2016 it was barely 2%. For structural reasons, US presidential elections are very nearly coin tosses.
If you genuinely believe that the 2024 election is all that stands between freedom and fascism, and that election is barely better than a coin toss, what are you doing materially to prepare for a nearly 50% chance of fascism starting in January 2025?
@HeavenlyPossum I've often thought it's odd that the margins are always so close. My guess is that the Democrats are always adjusting their policies to be nearly indistinguishable from those of the Republicans. Sometimes they justify it with their dogmatic "median voter hypothesis", but in the end, that's just a rationalization.
Some of it is institutional and structural, as with the first-past-the-post system that makes it nearly impossible for anything other than a balanced two-party system to emerge.
Some of it had to do with, I suspect, how little difference there is between the two parties, and some of it has to do with the process of “schismogenesis” that American society is undertaking.
@HeavenlyPossum is it even really 50% with Genocide Joe being on the other side of that coin toss? if you vote, and all of the candidates are fascists, then only fascists will win the election, no matter how you vote.
I know, I just don’t have the right vocabulary to distinguish between the US status quo and someone who so thoroughly embodies the sort of classical fascism of preening buffoons like Mussolini that Trump does.
i think one of the most useful descriptions has been "a perfect marriage between corporation and state". it's misattributed to Mussolini, and i'm not sure who did say it.
politicians are capitalists too, they are bosses too, and their job is literally to command the affairs of the capitalist nation state, as well as facilitating exploitation via profit taking. when they talk about "running the country like a business", they're not joking. it's all they know how to do.
the means to make profit has always been legitimated by the state, which means that all nation states are inherently fascist, no matter whether one gets to choose which member of the ruling the class will "represent" you.
it's very easy to demonstrate, too. just look at how much power the state has given to corporations, and how hard it has worked to suppress the power of the working class.
l don’t disagree, and I take Aimé Césaire’s point that much of what we think of as fascism in the period of the 1920s-1940s was really just European colonialism applied to the metropolitan core.
That said, there is a difference, if only of degree, between the status quo up until now and the sort of jack-booted thuggery promised quite explicitly by Trump.
@HeavenlyPossum If the only choice is 'democracy or fascism' then you don't have democracy. Telling me I must vote a certain way doesn't a democracy make.
@timthelion@HeavenlyPossum True, but doesn't change much. Once a fascist party is one of the main contenders for power, democracy is in abeyance. The only way back to democracy is for the democrats to beat the fascists
@johnquiggin@HeavenlyPossum How are the Democrats going to give us democracy. They've had plenty of power in my lifetime and I've been hearing from that the choice is between them and fascism my whole life. I don't see any change.
Remember when Obama held a trifecta and the democrats promised everyone so much and the only thing they delivered was Mitt Romney’s plan for gigantic public handouts to health insurance shareholders?
Not that I particularly care to defend the Weimar communists, but there’s this presumption that there exists this “The Left” and that if only “The Left” could unite (around the speaker’s preferred party, leader, or platform) then “The Left” could stop “The Right.”
Dramatically more relevant would seem to be von Papen’s appointment of Hitler as chancellor, despite his electoral loss, because the capital class sought common cause with the Nazis.
Of course, the capital class sought common cause with the Nazis, as they are now doing with Trump. The question is, was it a good idea for the Stalinists to help them on the theory of "After Hitler, us". You should ask yourself the same question
I'd say those unwilling to condemn Thaelmann for not supporting an SPD government in 1932, which he did on the basis of those very words, (with an inconsequential substitution). What do you think?
This is a really tedious attempt at character assassination by analogy—if contemporary anarchists like us don’t support Biden and refrain from criticizing the democrats, then we will be just like the accelerationist Weimar Stalinists who empowered Hitler by refusing to align with the SPD in a coalition government.
There’s so much wrong with this that it’s frustratingly hard to know where to start.
a better analogy is "harm reduction is handing out clean needles to prevent illness. voting is handing out dirty needles in response to already present illness."
@HeavenlyPossum Well in my case I'm not american so I can't do any of that. But I can go yell at people, and I'm justified because this has permanent global consequences eg. Ukraine and even less of already scarce hope of climate action.
@HeavenlyPossum I'm not financially independent, so no, but I have done volunteer work and attended protests in the places I have lived, and am actively learning my local language to hopefully do stuff here. Unfortunately the USA situation is a distant priority but a credible threat, much like say a dam being negligently maintained two hundred kilometers upstream; not my job by virtue of geography, but I will be affected if something goes wrong, so my complaints are valid.
@HeavenlyPossum No and a lot of these people also say we shouldn't care about swing states because they deserve what happens to them for wanting gun rights and voting for Trump in the first place. The vote Blue no matter who people are just virtue signaling
@HeavenlyPossum
I hate it when people pester me about voting. I believe in dismantling hierarchical structures, including the state. Voting within existing systems is ineffective in achieving meaningful change or challenging core issues.
@Radical_EgoCom@HeavenlyPossum It is effective at preventing a total collapse of democracy though. If enough people thought the same it would allow the worst people to get into office. People that vote for those people are obsessed and would drag themselves over broken glass to vote. Sadly then you may end up in a position where All of your autonomy is taken away. You can talk to the other inmates of the labour camp about hierarchical structures.
If you genuinely believe that the 2024 election could result in a total collapse of democracy and the imposition of labor camps, what are you materially doing to prevent that outcome?
@TheShuck
Voting merely provide an illusion of choice while upholding the status quo. Systemic issues, such as corporate influence, limit the impact of individual votes and undermine the democratic process. Real change requires a more radical approach. I acknowledge the historical struggles for suffrage and civil rights, but I also acknowledge that meaningful societal change requires dismantling oppressive structures rather than attempting to reform them through conventional political channels.
@Radical_EgoCom If the choice is between someone openly telling you that they're going to start a dictatorship and one that isn't your interpretation of that is that they're both the same. What ridiculous, student politics bullshit. You can't change anything if you're imprisoned or worse can you. How much change did the Jews bring about during the holocaust?
@TheShuck 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.
@NickSchwanck@TheShuck
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
@NickSchwanck@TheShuck
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?
It very nearly didn’t, because Trump attempted a coup, and failed the time before, when a majority of US voters cast ballots for Clinton but Trump became president anyway.
Twice in my adult life, the US president was the loser of the election.
@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
@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
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
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.
Yes. Dr. King WAS assassinated. One year, to the day, after his Beyond Vietnam speech. If you're not familiar with that one, go read it.
Malcom X was assassinated too. And Fred Hampton. And many more-- including a sitting president.
When asked where the Dr. Kings and Fred Hamptons of today are, Chris Hedges answers: "In prison, or dead."
The things you fear are already happening. Fascism is already inside the house. The coup Smedley Butler tried to warn us about already happened, more than sixty years ago.
@supergrobi@HeavenlyPossum
Not voting and doing nothing else would be effectively supporting fascism, but that's clearly not what I proposed. Direct action has historically been much more effective at combating fascism than voting. The Battle of Cable Street is a perfect example. Did the people just wait for an election to vote away Mosely's fascist thugs? No. They got together into the streets, forced the fascist out, and stopped the spread of fascism in their country.
@Radical_EgoCom@supergrobi@HeavenlyPossum How does voting prevent you carrying out direct action? What would unfortunately make direct action harder is a fascist administration that instead of arresting or sometimes murdering people from it, kills everyone involved or permanently puts them in camps. Unfortunately for a fascist regime none of that is hyperbolic.
Also, the US is in a much less fragile state than the Weimarer republic after a lost first worldwar, and with unbearable reparations to be paid.
At any rate, I'd think also sceptics can vote. Think of having a free ticket in the lottery that you are using now :) It can't do any harm, and if it does anything, it'll help.
But the Nazis did not come to power by winning an election; they held a plurality but not a majority in the Reichstag when von Papen appointed Hitler as chancellor. And I sincerely doubt they would have just given up after an electoral loss.
The problem with voting in “red” or “blue” states is not that those voters are skeptics. It’s that their votes have no effect on the outcome of the election, because the US’ absurd and anti-democratic electoral system.
@HeavenlyPossum@Radical_EgoCom@supergrobi The courts need to step up and enforce the relevant constitutional provisions that make Trump ineligible for a 2nd term which would help somewhat. There are good reasons for even the system itself not to rely solely on allowing anyone who can win a vote as the current crisis is demonstrating.
Defeating the Christo-fascists in November is very unlikely to end the current impasse. But losing to them will be far worse.
@alastair@supergrobi@HeavenlyPossum
I know that a fascist administration would make direct action harder. What I'm saying is that if direct action were used primarily by people instead of voting it would be extremely easy to disway and prevent fascist from taking power, much more effective than voting.
@Radical_EgoCom@supergrobi@HeavenlyPossum Except that the Nazis also used direct action to great effect in terms of committing violence on the streets. That's one of the big differences in fact is that I'm not really aware of US fascists having their own in-house militia to anything like the extent the Nazi Party did, though US leaders are great at leveraging the police instead.
@alastair@supergrobi@Radical_EgoCom@HeavenlyPossum You haven't heard of the Proud Boys, Patriot Prayer, Patriot Front, whatever you want to call the people who did J6, those types of groups? There's been a whole alphabet stew of them since 2016 and they've been fulfilling the same role as the SA filled for the historic Nazis. They've been rumbling with antifascists in major American cities for years now.
@Radical_EgoCom@supergrobi@HeavenlyPossum
If voting was unimportant and had no effect, the worst politicians wouldn't be jerrymandering districts and suppressing the votes of people of color, religious minorities and women.
@KawaTora@supergrobi@HeavenlyPossum
The reason why any of that gerrymandering works is because people only believe that voting is their only means of making change.
We also don’t have to conclude that voting is an effective tool for us because it is important to the people who rule over us. Intra-elite competition might be very important to individual members of the ruling class without offering any meaningful change to us.
@HeavenlyPossum@Radical_EgoCom@KawaTora that might make sense within some theory, but in the real world it would be exactly people with these theories where Trump-endorsed MAGA militias will come knocking at the door first.
I just cannot understand why you would prefer that.
@HeavenlyPossum@Radical_EgoCom@KawaTora we should prevent Trump from being able to deploy fascist militias in the first place, by the obvious means available to anyone: voting :)
So your position is that a) Trump will rule as a fascist if he wins, knowing that b) US presidential elections are nearly coin tosses, and c) the only plan for stopping Trump should be b) the coin toss vote.
The last time a US presidential candidate won with a margin greater than 10% was 1984. Structurally, US presidential elections are barely better than coin tosses, with typical margins of 5% or less.
You genuinely believe a Trump win will usher in a fascist dictatorship, but your only solution is to hope for an impossible electoral situation? That’s it?
@HeavenlyPossum@Radical_EgoCom@KawaTora let's just do what is possible to flip the coin in the right direction to avoid the worst (both fascist dictatorship and people wanting to fight it with violence).
If it's a coin flip, the more urgent it is to do everything to flip it against fascism
I just have a hard time believing that you’re actually afraid of the possibility of a fascist dictatorship if you have already foresworn the possibility of fighting fascists if they seize power.
You said that should not kill fascists, because that is a crime, but also believe fascists might take power and aggress against you.
In any case, Germans in the 1930s did not vote for Hitler and he came to power; Americans in 2016 did not vote for Trump and he came to power; I find the electoralism defense to be pretty weak.
@supergrobi@HeavenlyPossum@KawaTora
While there are nonviolent ways to combat fascism, inevitably violence will have to be used at some point and to some capacity to permanently get rid of fascism.
More to the point: Grobi thinks fascists pose an imminent threat of violence that is held at bay only by, at best, a few thousand votes in a handful of swing states. If ever there was a time to prepare for violence, it would be right now. The sense of urgency does not compute.
This is a pretty important point that seems to escape a lot of the electoralism crowd—Trump already became president once despite losing an election and the entire apparatus of state and authority in the US accepted this without question or disruption. Even when he was literally rounding people up in camps, he was untouchable, but now I am told that he is a threat in the future and that voting is sufficient to stop him as if the past did not happen.
This is quite the reversal from your earlier position that Trump is an imminent fascist threat who will deploy militias to the homes of people who disagree with him.
@supergrobi@HeavenlyPossum@dung_eater@KawaTora I'm not accepting any results of any election if I don't agree with them, and I would suggest everyone else abandon their lemming mentality and not accept a person or party that's morally and ethically repugnant.
@Radical_EgoCom@HeavenlyPossum@dung_eater@KawaTora there are certainly different opinions on how "fascist" is defined. Yes, I'd have to accept somebody voted into office who could be called a fascist (even though I oppose his/her views), hoping that checks and balances built into the constitution will keep that person from dismantling rule of law and democracy.
As said earlier, the USA is not the Weimarer republic after losing a world war.
@supergrobi Clearly you don’t know how fascism works.
Fascists do not play by your rules of law, nor do they care. Not only that, the failure of the liberal democracy is what elevates such people to power. So no, that’s just naïve and plain stupid.
You do not fight fascism by voting it away. You fight fascism by applying fist to fash face.
Because fascism is at it’s core a cult of strength. It revolves around violence and oppression. If you humiliate the fascist they will stay down – just look at Richard Spenser! (or Spencer, I don’t care).
@dung_eater@HeavenlyPossum@KawaTora well, US democracy hasn't yet been destroyed after >200 years, and European democracies haven't either since almost 80 years. Just because that happened once in Germany with a weak constitution and very special circumstances doesn't mean it is likely to happen now.
And to be honest, "fist to fash face" sounds very much like a cult of strength to me as well.
@HeavenlyPossum@dung_eater@KawaTora have you ever been to a country that could be considered not democratic? Seeing that made me appreciate the water I'm swimming in.
This is so…I don’t quite have the right words for it. Embarrassing? I feel embarrassed on their behalf.
This is such an exquisite illustration of the liberals’ preference for the form of democracy and freedom without caring about the practical substance of democracy and freedom,
But isn’t this telling? That liberals can envision fascists slotting into the formal structure of the status quo far more easily than they can imagine themselves siding with anti-fascists, whom they perceive to be the real threat to the status quo?
@HeavenlyPossum@dung_eater@KawaTora@Radical_EgoCom@AdrianRiskin@supergrobi I think that's, in fact, the main problem. Hardcore fascists will probably not ever be a majority of society and wouldn't be a serious threat on their own. They are mostly a threat because liberal governments find them more relatable than anarchists/communists (and, increasingly, environmentalists).
@supergrobi It is indeed easy to make mouth noises. That trivially true observation aside, we can also observe that it is correct to call Trump a fascist but incorrect to call Bernie a communist.
That's what democracy is for, that groups with vastly different opinions can get along peacefully (and you always have those differences with people in general).
We're talking with each other, but I guess that shouldn't preclude us from talking about the whole of society?
For me, Bernie is not a community, and Trump is a fascist of sorts. But in order for peace in society, I cannot want to force my view on large parts of the society that see this entirely different.
😛🤣😅😲 Yes you can, in fact, you do it every day by continuing to vote for and support a system with police and a military. We're just talking about which views deserve violent suppression, and whether the violence should be personal or not.
You’re conflating aggression to suppress with self-defense against someone else’s suppressive aggression.
Which, again, helps us better understand how ie Hitler could come to power over a public that predominantly opposed him but also fretted about things like decorum.
@supergrobi
I want none of it, but as an anarchist it alarms me that you support a system that criminalizes my belief system and not only permits but lionizes and upholds fascism
Are you being obtuse on purpose? I hope not, as that would speak ill of your ability to hold a conversation in good faith. You are surely aware that "the constitution" is not synonymous with the entirety of USA law. Not to mention, the constitution says a bunch of shit that we regard as fucked up today, like encoding slavery into its workings.
@supergrobi
YOU are the one who decided to reference the constitution. Why do that if you didn't want to talk about slavery? It's rather fundamental to any discussion of the value of the constitution.
Noted: you have diverted from confronting the fact that USA criminal law does indeed implicate anarchists just by their belief, although application of this law has been limited since the early 20th century. Bad form, bro.
@supergrobi
Anyway, the origin of the expression "You can't shout fire in a crowded theater" is from an early 20th century trial against some pacifists who were being prosecuted for handing out anti-war pamphlets. The judge, who ruled against the pacifists, was comparing the theater to the USA's "theater of war" (i.e., WWI), and comparing handing out anti-war pamphlets to shouting fire in a crowded theater.
@supergrobi@SallyStrange@dung_eater@HeavenlyPossum@KawaTora@sidereal@Radical_EgoCom The civil war was not fought to do away with slavery. Slavery is still constitutional. The 13th amendment merely added an extra layer of legalism to the practice of slavery by requiring slaves to be held by the government and leased to individual capitalists rather than allowing them to own slaves directly.
Yet another "moderate who is more devoted to 'order' than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice"
I'm all for improving democracy (especially in the US), but having the basics of free elections and transfer of power is already an achievement I find to be appreciated and not to be taken for granted
I’m specifically critiquing your prioritization of elections has intrinsically legitimate even if they result in anti-democratic fascists taking power. The form of democracy (the formality of elections, etc) matters much less than the substance of democracy (people having a meaningful say in the decisions that affect them).
@HeavenlyPossum@KawaTora@dung_eater@Radical_EgoCom I'll say "in god we trust" that the institutions will hold. Sometimes in life it can't be avoided to have just that trust and no 100% security (but guesses of chances that the constitution was well thought-out enough to last 200 years, and so will likely survive this moron just as well - whatever deficiencies it may have otherwise)
You started this conversation by claiming that Trump was a fascist who would deploy fascist militias to our homes because of our political beliefs, but when confronted with the idea of actually resisting an actual fascist, you completely caved and resorted to faith in institutions that have already empowered Trump.
@supergrobi@Radical_EgoCom@HeavenlyPossum@dung_eater@KawaTora
Actually, quite the opposite. In pre-Nazi Germany, Hitler rose to power legally and everyone accepted this like lemmings. This led to the countless atrocities committed by Nazi Germany.
Rule of Law just means that the law applies equally to everyone regardless of class or status. And we certainly don't have that here or Dorito Mussolini would be in jail for contempt of court, if he wasn't already for other crimes.
Rule of Law is such a painfully vacuous concept, at its heart. The entirety of Hitler’s regime was perfectly legal under the Weimar constitution and the Nazis were scrupulously legalistic. Apartheid was law in South Africa. Chattel slavery was law in the United States. Opposing slavery, apartheid, and the Holocaust were crimes.
Rule of Law is a vague liberal hope that powerful coercive institutions will “do the right thing” and immense and obsequious deference when they don’t. “It’s painfully slow” takes on more than one meaning when the law is governed by actual fascists.
One man's noble cause is another one's horror, and if you want a peaceful society (which I do), then it has to play by some rules. Why not the constitution's?
“Rule of Law” is vacuous in any context. The law is formalized violence. Chattel slavery was rule of law under the US constitution; Trump rounding up people in camps and deploying police forces to assassinate an anti-fascist was rule of law. We cannot pretend the law is not the law when it produces outcomes that liberals find distasteful.
@HeavenlyPossum@Radical_EgoCom@KawaTora@Teri_Kanefield@dung_eater@CorvidCrone Obviously the constitution was improved to abolish slavery, after a whole civil war was fought over this question?
Yes, another TFG term would be horrible because of those things you mentioned, but abandoning the whole of democracy (and replacing it with what? and waging another civil war?) would be far worse?
“Rule of law” is internally incoherent. It presumes some Platonic “law” that floats above society as sovereign, binding all its participants, while simultaneously being democratically accountable to some public. This is how you end up with undemocratic results being touted as “rule of law” while also heinous but perfectly legal policies being dismissed as contrary to rule of law.
It’s a liberal ideology of obsequious deference to authority. Trump is probably not wrong to claim that the US president stands utterly above and outside the law (in a perfectly legal manner), because that’s the legal reality of US “rule of law.”
@HeavenlyPossum@KawaTora@Radical_EgoCom@dung_eater@Teri_Kanefield@CorvidCrone Well, give the painfully slow process of rule of law some more time and we'll see to that. Any lawyer (except for those being paid well by TFG while doing so) will tell you that it is of course total BS that the president should have total immunity.
Sure. When Obama ordered a US citizen murdered in Yemen, a country with which the US was not at war, he suffered no legal repercussions, because the president stands above and outside the law, and already demonstrated that US presidents hold precisely the legal power that Trump claims.
The point of that example was not to highlight a bad thing the US did, but rather to illustrate the structural impunity of violence in the US, which you a) attributed to Trump and b) denied existed expect as an aberration.
It’s not an aberration. It’s the rule. “Rule of law” means that most people are constrained by the law, while some people are protected by the law.
Rule of Law is a political philosophy stating that all subjects of the law are treated the same way by that law. We don't have that here in practice. Only on paper
Grobi is helpfully illustrating the liberal preference for form (elections and transfers of power) over substance. In 2016, Trump—whom Grobi has identified as a fascist and a threat to democracy—lost the election but still became president, because rule of law, in the sense that obedience to formal procedural rules take precedent over things like democracy and safety from fascists.
The US constitution still allows slavery and the whole document was designed to preserve the privilege of the elite owning class and the maintenance of their power structures. It's a joke, not a good argument for rule of law.
"Neither slavery nor involuntary servitudeexcept as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction."
In the US, police arrest and courts convict huge numbers of people, who are then legally compelled by prisons to labor in ways profitable to the state and its capitalist partners.
So if another Trump gets elected and turns into the next Hitler... 1, you're not thinking any farther ahead about that than "one step after another", and 2, all of those "steps" are going to involve obediently accepting whatever rules and laws the next Hitler passes down? That's your plan?
No wonder VBNMWs are so desperate to believe voting is magic. They've got nothing else.
That could start with a simple feat, which is casting your vote. The only drawback of this here is that it is not very heroic, and it doesn't involve physical violence while fighting for a noble cause, so it's not very attractive for folks here.
You started this conversation by telling me that anyone who doesn’t vote against Trump is facilitating fascism, and have spent the rest of the conversation rejecting any other effort to actually, materially fight fascism. By your own logic, you are facilitating fascism out of deference to decorum and institutions that enable fascism.
@HeavenlyPossum@dung_eater@KawaTora@violetmadder@Radical_EgoCom I did not reject any other effort to fight fasicsm, only (possibly) those that would want to destroy democracy and the constitution, and probably those that would mean self-justice (which anybody could then claim, with known results).
I do stand by the notion that not voting supports fascism, though.
Self-defense against fascists is not a threat to democracy and the constitution, but again, thanks for letting us know how it was possible for Hitler to rule over a public that didn’t want him.
@HeavenlyPossum@Radical_EgoCom@dung_eater@violetmadder@KawaTora I didn't object to self-defense against fascism, as long as it is not understood so broad that you can go beat up anybody preemptively just because you subjectively consider them fascists.
There's an enormous range of direct action, including all sorts of nonviolent civil disobedience, that doesn't necessarily involve punching anyone. Our society loves to erase all that and tell us the ONLY choice is the propagandized binary of voting vs wanton bloodshed. Even if you're a total pacifist who would never ever raise a hand even in self-defense, you do still have options that don't involve licking boots.
If laws are passed that require you to turn people in to the gestapo or personally stone them for being queer or reading the wrong books etc, are you actually going to do it because obeying the orderly rule of law is more important than justice? Would you turn in or kill your own child, or yourself? Would you meekly submit to slavery?
Laws don't define morality. At BEST, they hack a rough outline around it that inevitably hurts people where edge cases don't fit its technicalities. At worst... they dictate unimaginable horrors.
Personally, my fight starts with refusing to accept injustice as normal or tolerable-- a fight entirely inside my own head, not theatrically heroic or glorious at all. Gotta get outside that obedience vs violence binary and think creatively. Fight the fascists in your own head first.
For millions of Americans, their votes will have no effect on the outcome, since they live in states that are already so dominated by one party or the other that the result is a fait accompli.
Americans have also repeatedly learned that they can cast a majority of votes for one candidate and still “lose” the election.
Yes, I agree that things would get much worse for people living in red states; that does not mean their votes have any meaningful effect on the outcome of the presidential election. When you say “everyone,” what you really mean is “people living in a small handful of swing states which might have a causal effect on the outcome.”
@HeavenlyPossum isn't that a double-edged sword? How does TFG get those millions to vote for him, whose votes won't make any difference unless a significant part of them stayed home? @Radical_EgoCom@supergrobi
I was pointing out the absurdity of accusing people of supporting fascism by not doing something, but let’s now also consider the idea of believing fascists might take over while being unwilling to fight them.
Lobbying people who live in swing states, where the popular vote isn’t already pre-decided by one party or the other’s predominance, to vote for Biden.
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