Every two years there is a new flood of "voteposting" (i.e. dunking on shitlibs who think voting is sufficient praxis by mockingly parroting dem messaging). I believe this was started by Clinton's "pokemon go to the polls," which was emblematic of the disconnect between the Democratic party and young leftists. Voteposting is, admittedly, very funny, but I worry that the message that voteposting gets across is that voting is useless. Unless I'm seriously mistaken, voting does seem to be a utility gain on average, even if the candidate we vote for only sucks marginally less than the other guy.
Questions I'd like to make progress on:
* Is voting productive?
* Is voteposting productive?
* What memetic strategies are most effective for this issue?
the problem with voting is that any individual vote is of low value, while posturing against voting makes you cool. thus, it's always in your interest to be negative about voting to look cool because that coolness is of higher expected value than your vote. (even if you ultimately vote and don't tell anyone about it)
this is particularly true because, in the first instance, nobody can really psychologically handle lesser evilism. you almost always either go for "they're both evil = it's pointless" or "one is actually good" in practice. "this is bad, but less bad, so i have to eat the trade off" is a very difficult position to stay comfortable with, particularly when the situation is complicated. (e.g. you don't want to let parties blackmail you into supporting their evil because it is a lesser evil, and sometimes the "lesser evil" is nothing of the sort - e.g. the Starmer Labour government of the UK is as-much if not greater evil than the previous Conservative administration despite nominally being centre-left.)
on the other hand in some cases like the current US midterms it seems fairly clear cut that one side is stupid and evil and the other side is useless and evil but in a less harmful way. ignoring any 6d chess moves where you go "vote Republican to accelerate the implosion of the US"
>>2938403but what if trump does a fascism
>>2938378>* Is voting productive?no
>* Is voteposting productive?no
>* What memetic strategies are most effective for this issue?none
>Every two years there is a new flood of "voteposting" (i.e. dunking on shitlibs who think voting is sufficient praxis by mockingly parroting dem messaging)
You have it twisted. Every two years, both parties unleash their bot swarms and rabid supporters for the upcoming elections flooding every nook and cranny of both the infowaves and physical reality. The “voteposting” you speak of has been here consistently beyond and before election season.
>but I worry that the message that voteposting gets across is that voting is useless
It is bourgeois democracy, not proletarian democracy
>>2938403voting democrat would accelerate the implosion of the US
>>2938413Not voting accelerates the destruction of the united states
If you plant bombs in every voting station (or say you have), you would invalidate the entire election (based and revolutionary since we are in an era when the objective conditions support PPW).
>>2938411bourgeois democracy can, in some cases, allow an element of choice. that shouldn't be dismissed. it is a coke or pepsi choice, a bourgeois choice, but it is nevertheless a choice.
in "normal times" this would be pedantic, but retaining this in mind is useful for when you want to compare somewhere like NZ to somewhere like the UK. NZ is basically a functioning bourgeois democracy where you can pick between coke and pepsi freely - you're not going to vote in communism, but you get a choice of flavor. the various bourgeois interests lend support to one side or the other, the media has its strong biases against anything too contrary to bourgeois interests but is basically fair in analysing the approved choices, and so on.
meanwhile the UK has degenerated into something else where not only are elections and leaderships stage-managed by the press, but the entire purpose of the exercise is to manufacture consent for the flavor already chosen (or more accurately, destroy the flavor not chosen), because the system has degenerated to the point where even allowing the coke-or-pepsi choice is too risky. instead of being trusted to resolve minor intra-bourgeois disputes the public have to be stage managed by a unified front of the people who run the place.
(hence why, anomalous amongst centre-left bourgeois parties, the UK Labour party has continued and worsened the reactionary culture war policies of its predecessor, while the NZ Labour party proposes to stop the incumbent National-lead coalition's culture war policies. NZ permits voters to choose which flavor of bourgeois rule they want, while the UK has already decided what the public are getting.)
>>2938403>posturing against voting makes you cool.Yeah I've also made this observation. Relatedly, i think metairony has basically killed discourse. People would rather stand for nothing (and thus be immune to sincere criticism) than stand for something and be wrong.
>>2938421>bourgeois democracy can, in some cases, allow an element of choiceNot without a worker’s party, which is something you currently do not have.
>>2938424as inane a statement as saying that without a worker's soda, there's no choice in the beverage market. there clearly is! there may be no good choices, but dr. pepper doesn't suddenly taste like pepsi just because they're both capitalist commodities. choice is permitted within very restrictive parameters, and if you just go "so it's not a choice at all" you lose the ability to analyse cases where you are genuinely not being given a choice at all, because you can no longer distinguish them from cases where you are given a restricted choice.
>>2938427>as inane a statement as saying that without a worker's soda, there's no choice in the beverage marketThat is a horrible analogy.
>there clearly isn’t
>there may be no good choicesThere are good choices, for the bourgeoisie. And you have two options without a worker’s party:
- Follow their will like cattle
- Reject their seizure of your consent and progress the real movement
>if you just go "so it's not a choice at all" you lose the ability to analyse cases where you are genuinely not being given a choice at all, because you can no longer distinguish them from cases where you are given a restricted choice.You do not get to dictate policy as a proletarian without a worker’s party. Attempts to do so without the backing a worker’s party is nothing more than pro capital delusion. I do not lose my ability to analyze, I simply acknowledge the reality of the situation and act accordingly. The blood spilt by capital will never be on my hands.
>>2938427you're obviously right but dont expect the tards here to understand
>>2938431stop masturbating to your own rhetoric. you present two options and then (charitably) follow neither of them. you are not "progressing the real movement", you are making stupid posts on leftypol.org.
my analogy is perfectly apt for the situation it describes. in a functional bourgeois democracy, the options acceptable to the bourgeoisie are put on the table and then the various bourgeois sects contest for who has control. you gain valuable information when you recognise this process and observe that it has broken down in some countries and you lose it when you dismiss it with "yeah but they're still bourgeois tho???"
the blood spilt by capital is still being spilt, and your hands are bloodied by your worse-than-useless incompetence at stopping it, the task you pretend to have set yourself.
because there are a lot of stupid people out there: none of this is an argument for voting per se. i take no position on whether you should drink coke, pepsi, or dr. pepper, or abstain entirely. but even for an abstainer: if, tomorrow, they switched every soda brand in your country so that it contained the pepsi recipe, wouldn't that raise an eyebrow? >>2938445>stop masturbating to your own rhetoric. you present two options and then (charitably) follow neither of them. you are not "progressing the real movement", you are making stupid posts on leftypol.org. Everything is a larp and a joke when comes to communism. Nothing is pretend or funny when comes to rescuing “liberal democracy” from itself. Such is the will of the bourgeoisie.
Marx has already stated that even when the times are tough, even when you’re all by your lonesome to keep trying anyways. To keep pushing for class consciousness. And he has already made it abundantly clear that electoralism does not work without a worker’s party.
>my analogy is perfectly apt for the situation it describes your analogy is trash and shows your lack of comprehension of the purpose of the worker’s party.
>the options acceptable to the bourgeoisie are put on the table and then the various bourgeois sects contest for who has controlSo many false choices, yet the only ones you can actually make are either be cattle, or walk as far as you can.
>you gain valuable informationGood joke
>the blood spilt by capital is still being spilt, and your hands are bloodied by your worse-than-useless incompetence at stopping it, the task you pretend to have set yourselfMy hands are perfectly clean. Yours however are very dirty after peddling this delusional nonsense. Encouraging participation in the system only allows it to strengthen it’s legitimacy, not the other way around.
>coke, pepsi, or dr. pepperIt is all sprite
>>2938455if your "pushing for class consciousness" by the means of posting on the internet had any impact whatsoever (and mercifully, it doesn't) it would be to drive people away from class consciousness and Marxism by giving the impression its average adherent is an imbecile. you can't parse simple posts on leftypol.org correctly and yet you expect anyone here to take seriously the notion you've any understanding whatsoever of Marx. fuck off.
>>2938460>if your "pushing for class consciousness" by the means of posting on the internet had any impact whatsoever (and mercifully, it doesn't) it would be to drive people away from class consciousness and Marxism by giving the impression its average adherent is an imbecile. you can't parse simple posts on leftypol.org correctly and yet you expect anyone here to take seriously the notion you've any understanding whatsoever of Marx. That is a lot of seethe
>fuck off.No u
> I worry that the message that voteposting gets across is that voting is useless.It is tho
>>2938445I would never drink soda
>>2938470watching a leftist vote is like watching an obese person drinking diet soda
>>2938469I would drink soda unfortunately
>>2938475Fat fucks of the world unite
watch a bunch of liberals try to explain how bourgeois electoralism is communist.
Read Lenin's State and Revolution. He makes it clear the only use of bourgeois electoralism is to empower a sovereign proletarian party to reveal the sterility and fruitlessness of that very political system and of voting under capitalism in general.
Thats it. As Marx and Lenin made clear the state serves its ruling class. Its character isn't subjective, thats the role of a state - to reinforce and maintain the power of that society's ruling class.
If you lazy cunts actually were the commies you say you are, this wouldnt even be a question. This is as basic as what is a proletarian. You people are having a debate on it. Lol. Try reading. Literally any question you have they solved with words and deeds over 100 years ago. 200 for Marx.
In that same works he also explains why reforms dont work, also a relevant topic of today.
To advocate bourgeois electoralism is to be a liberal. Very simple.
DNCbot website
Voting is only good if you’re voting for the accelerationist candiate (Donald trump) reformism of any kind is inherently counterrevolutionary
>>2938485elections aren't democracy you retarded faggot.
>>2938474>watching a leftist vote is like watching an obese person drinking diet sodawow did you just come up with that yourself, you should be like a comedian with funny puppets or a writer for family guy something. of course fat people drink diet coke you braindead rube, they're the fucking target market, people who are trying to consume fewer calories and thereby become less fat. hahaha why don't they just make the whole airplane out of the black box?! your brain is obese.
>>2938485Via a vanguard, not the DNC with a shitty mask on. And the status of vanguard is not contingent on "winning" those bourgeois elections, but through solidarity and leadership with the proletariat and all oppressed masses.
To paint the DSA or any other bourgeois party as even sovereign forget the vanguard, is RETARDEDLY DISHONEST. BOASTFULLY DISHONEST.
ergo, there is no point of participating in these elections, they are a sham and neither do communists nor the working class have anything to gain by perpetuating and legitimizing their psyop of democracy for them.
Thanks for playing, the doors on the left.
honestly i just think the vote vote vote bernstein and lassalle slowed and reverb video is great and i listen to it at least a few times a day
>>2938544social democracy is when awesum choonz (this is true and factual)
Everytime there's US presidential/congress election there's a flood of posters who claim voting is useless, you should never vote, you're a labor aristo/shitlib/lumpen/anticommunist if you do. But if you do vote, you should vote for the GOP because "accelerationism"
Also if you're a burger you're responsible for Gaza and every crime of the US empire of the past 40 years (including if you're a zoomer). But you should never ever vote for anyone opposing this or Israel, because they're all sucdems, and social democracy is basically fascism, except for the GOP. Which is accelerationism.
>>2938378Social Democracy is the only viable praxis in the Imperial Core (Maoist PPW is currently viable in the Material Conditions of the Periphery/Semi-Periphery as proven by the ongoing Maoist PPWs in India, the Philippines, Turkey, and Peru, and will only be viable in the Material Conditions of the Imperial Core once Bourgeois Liberal Democracy is permanently suspended and/or World War III breaks out, with these two events being related and probably happening around the same time) as long as Bourgeois Liberal Democracy exists, and I advocate voting for Left-Liberal Democrats as a Lesser Evil to Christian Zionist Nationalist Evangelical MAGAtard Republicans, and I support AOC being the 2028 Democratic Presidential Nominee, though I would explicitly advise all Comrades to avoid joining the DSA or any other Leftist organizations in the U$, as doing so is just putting yourself on a list of the first people that will be rounded up and thrown in Concentration Camps if/when the U$ goes full Fascist, and I would also advise avoiding all Protests, especially anything Anti-Zionist/Pro-Palestine, as I suspect that the Zionist-Palestinian conflict is being purposely astroturfed into U$ politics (Comrades must remember that Real Communists (Marxist-Leninist-Maoists) refuse to take sides in Inter-Reactionary/Bourgeois/Imperialist Conflicts and that October 7th was a Mossad False Flag conducted by the Mossad operated Crypto-Zionist Theocratic Islamist Fascist Puppet organization called “Hamas”, to act as the Casus Belli for the Zionist Genocide of Gaza and throw the 2024 Presidential Election to Trump in coordination with the Controlled Opposition Biden/Harris administration in order to allow Trump to turn the U$ into a Fascist State, just like 9/11 was a CIA/Mossad False Flag to act as a Casus Belli for the U$ Imperialist Invasions of Baathist Iraq, one of the last Leftist Arab Nationalist States in the Arab world, and Afghanistan along with to coverup Project Hammer, and the 1999 Russian Apartment Bombings carried out by GRU/FSB/CIA that allowed the Fascist Vlasovite Yeltsin hand power over to the Fascist Vlasovite Eurasianist/Duginist Putin and act as the Casus Belli for the Genocidal Russian Invasion of Chechnya) in order to create a phony “Anti-Semitism” narrative, which combined with the DSA being falsely labeled as a “Communist threat” (their are many signs that the DSA is a psyop/honeypot organization created explicitly by the CIA/FBI/Mossad to act simultaneously as a Controlled Opposition for Centrist Neoliberal Corporate Democrats, a election bogeyman/scarecrow for Republicans, and as a elaborate trap to lure leftists onto a big “membership list” that will make it easy for them to be rounded up and thrown in Concentration Camps if/when the U$ turns completely Fascist, 😂🤣🤢🤮!) and the Republicans potentially purposefully throwing the US Senate to the Democrats in the upcoming Midterm elections (my gut still tells me Republicans will hold the Senate due to narrowly winning (less then 5 points) all the double-digit Trump states, ie. Texas, Ohio, Iowa, Alaska, etc. and Susan Collins winning due to her unique crossover appeal, but their are some signs of Republicans purposely throwing it, particularly the Paxton situation in Texas, but I still think he will ultimately win, and if I remember correct Texas has a law that insinuates that if a Democrat wins a statewide election they will refuse to certify the results and give the seat to the Republican anyway, 😂🤣🤢🤮!) and then screeching about imaginary “voter fraud” and a “stolen election”, will be the Casus Belli for the International Zionist Haute Bourgeoise to order Trump to to use the Insurrection Act to declare Martial Law and make himself President for Life, thus causing the U$ Bourgeois Dictatorship to rip off the phony mask of Bourgeois Liberal Democracy and reveal its true face of Fascism, which will allow them to round up all Leftists (everyone to the Left of Mitt Romney), Non-Whites (ie. Blacks/New Afrikans, Hispanics/Chicanos/Mestizos, Asians, Native Americans, etc.), Non-Christians (excluding Zionist Jews that will mostly flee to the Zionist State), Feminists, LGBTQIA+, Union Workers, Homeless people, etc. and throw them in Concentration Camps, thus meaning that the only hope will be the inevitable World War III between the U$ and PRC escalating into a Global Nuclear War that will destroy the entire Global Capitalist-Imperialist System, thus allowing for a World Maoist PPW to create a Global USSR (all of the SSRs and SFSRs of the future Global USSR are shown in the map I posted) that will place the Workers and Oppressed Nations of the World on the Shining Path to Communism, 🤢🤮✊😜🇨🇳🇰🇵🇨🇺🇵🇸🏳️🌈🏳️⚧️🚀☢️💇♀️👩🦲!
>>2938427trvth nvke that made the ragebaiters baited
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