@woventales@redpawcollective.co avatar

woventales

@woventales@redpawcollective.co

Minimally-used alternate account, focusing more on ecological/urban-planning issues than economic/radical ones: https://urbanists.social/@woventales

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ErikUden, to random
@ErikUden@mastodon.de avatar

Joe Biden has deported more people than Donald Trump [1], funded the police more than Trump [2], and has now helped to kill more Palestinians than Trump [3].

If you cannot allow criticism towards this person because you believe critiquing them is the same as endorsing the opponent, then you are participating in the very cult behavior you should be criticizing.

Yes, Trump would be worse, way worse...

...but it's horrible to compare Trump's potential genocide to Biden's currently real and ongoing genocide. Voting Democrat is harm reduction, portraying it overall as anything else is, in my privileged opinion, incorrect. In many individual examples I can, however, see how you come to view the Democrats not just as the lesser evil, but even positively.

Many vulnerable groups such as queer (especially trans) people are helped by a Democratic government, even maintaining the right to abortion is, visibly, helped by Democrats. There are examples in which voting the Democratic Party betters the lives of certain groups. Yet that change doesn't come sustainably and the tides may as well turn. If the Democratic Party is willing to throw one group of people under the bus for winning Republican voters, who is to say they won't do the same with your group?

If you don't give human rights to everyone, it's not a right anymore, it's being treated human as a privilege.

When it comes to foreign policy, unions, most social services, the treatment of the poor, healthcare, border policy, it's mostly the same between the two parties. Trump is merely the death of the euphemism.

A queer person won't vote for a party that doesn't support queer rights, so what should someone of another marginalized group not supported by the Democrats do?

Additionally, don't forget that it was the Democratic party that supported and funded Donald Trump's primary election in 2015 [4] as they always back the most far right candidate [5] in order to even make a distinction between the two parties visible.

What I'm trying to say is that you, as a democratic voter, cannot blame someone for supporting an alternative party, nor claim that supporting that third party is horrible merely because it may “allow for a Republican victory.” If it was in the Democrat's interest to change the election system or electoral college to allow for something other than effectively a two party system, then they would've done so.

I won't ride a high horse and claim it's morally wrong to support the Democrats, I don't think that. I do believe, however, that many people are disillusioned in voting for Democrats but know voting for Republicans only makes things worse. If not allowing a Republican victory was in the Democrat's interest, then they would adapt the party's stance to social, non-war/non-genocide, non-deportation, anticapitalist, pro-Housing, and pro-Healthcare for all positions. They don't, so what choice is there for people from marginalized groups other than voting for a third party? Can you tell them it's only morally right to vote for a party that worsens their living conditions or wishes to have them erased?

A representative democracy exists so people can voice their opinions through voting in the representation they favor — if you critique them because the USA's democratic system fails to represent them, hence they should vote for one of the two representations that are possible, but aim to kill them or worsen their lives, then you are critiquing an individual for the faultiness of the system.

And last but not least, any person should still be called out for “boycotting the election”, not voting is ridiculous which is perfectly explained by Jay Foreman here.

Participate in every election while you can. :voteblue: :dsa:

woventales,
@woventales@redpawcollective.co avatar

@tshirtman @ErikUden The Biden one's optimistic as well - we reelect the toothless genocide supporter and the DNC sees we're willing to put up with anything they (i.e. their corporate bankrollers) want to pass. They continue making noise about ecology and continue doing the absolute minimum to support it. If we prove that we /won't/ support their facade then there's at least a chance they're shaken up enough to not completely sideline everyone with a half-"radical" opinion.

woventales,
@woventales@redpawcollective.co avatar

@tshirtman @ErikUden The power behind the Democratic Party is very firmly centrist at this point, and the only reason they seem liberal is because the Republican Party is so ridiculously far-right. Both of them are equally in the pocket of oil companies, big commerce, etc., and are only going to do anything /actually/ productive to save the world if their entire foundations are shaken. Complacency doesn't do that; the only thing that does is or similar new blood.

woventales,
@woventales@redpawcollective.co avatar

@tshirtman @ErikUden "Even if biden did barely any reigning in" - exactly that. There's different strategies in play: the Republicans are the ones you use to make ridiculous plays (two steps back for climate/social justice) while Democrats are the ones you use as a smokescreen/controlled opposition to keep people thinking there's any hope within the "two-party" system (one step forward). It's not that they don't do any good, just that there's so much more that could be done.

woventales,
@woventales@redpawcollective.co avatar

@tshirtman @ErikUden An evil masterplan by an individual or organization, no. But the modern oligarchs, be they corporations or the 1%, do still act more or less in unison, and it's not far off an evil masterplan if you look at capitalism as a whole. It /is/ a masquerade against the common masses. There are people pushing against that, but it's not the parties in power, with all the money they're fed, and it's not the functionally-interchangeable politicians they prop up.

woventales,
@woventales@redpawcollective.co avatar

@tshirtman @ErikUden So one makes slightly better noises, and the only reason either of them might care about (interchangeable) masses is if they're able to be slotted into long-term plans for profits. How's that not the very definition of nuance? Sure you can draw fuzzy lines if you restrict your view to only capitalism, but as soon as you zoom out and look at the full picture, there are so many modes of governance which are /actually/ different in that /people/ come first.

woventales,
@woventales@redpawcollective.co avatar

@tshirtman @ErikUden It's not Trump's regime which has armed police clashing with students protesting for peace, or under which yet another Black man was killed (all while cop cities are still being built). Wages continue to lag inflation. GRSM and women's rights have been absolutely battered with nothing more than hand-wringing. Four more years of Biden might not be as immediately bad, but I'm honestly worried that 12 more years of democrats will kill things off as well.

woventales,
@woventales@redpawcollective.co avatar

@tshirtman @ErikUden It's not that no one good enough is in position. It's that we can't expect the system to change what benefits it at the expense of everyone else. We've got plenty of activists, we've got third parties, we've even got the left wing of democrats already in the House itself. It's not radical. We just have to make it clear /they're/ what we want rather than settling for whatever scraps we're thrown, because otherwise those scraps are all we'll be given.

woventales,
@woventales@redpawcollective.co avatar

@tshirtman @ErikUden That's really not what matters. Democracy done well isn't choosing the lesser of two evils, it's having a voice. Right now we don't have a voice unless we have millions of dollars. Yeah, sure, vote blue for the legislature, but don't delude yourself that Biden's good for the country. The flip side of "Trump did a lot of damage..." is that an equally driven liberal could do a lot of good. The only people allowed to seriously run are barely liberal.

woventales,
@woventales@redpawcollective.co avatar

@tshirtman @ErikUden When I'm saying "don't vote for Biden", it's with that same long view you wanted me to have earlier. Biden is a centrist. Clinton is a centrist. Obama was a left-leaning centrist. We don't get to vote for Sanders or even Warren because all the attention and the funding is funneled into candidates who are just going to maintain the status quo. When the Republicans are pulling one way and the Democrats are the pivot, who's the counterbalance?

woventales,
@woventales@redpawcollective.co avatar

@tshirtman @ErikUden See, there's compromise, and there's "put up and shut up". Only nine House democrats voted against supporting Israel's initial overreaction, and only two senators opposed continuing to fund Israel even this month. The Green New Deal was seen as too radical even before it met right-wing opposition. The democratic party /doesn't/ represent me and it doesn't even represent a lot of liberals. Pretending it's the only option is what gives Republicans power.

woventales,
@woventales@redpawcollective.co avatar

@tshirtman @ErikUden Maybe it should. I don't have any problem with Democrats where they are, I just have a problem with there not being a further-left alternative. Say Trump wins this election. Either the DNC rethinks their strategy and moves left (we get at least some social gains) or it moves right and the left wing stops deluding itself that they have any hope within the party, so the Greens or someone become large enough people and the media take them seriously.

woventales,
@woventales@redpawcollective.co avatar

@tshirtman @ErikUden (Oh, and 3/2, they're not the "good alternative". They're the "barely passable alternative".)

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