I’m so fucking sick of people pretending that the best way to deal with our damaged and failing democracy is to not oppose the ones accelerating the failure.

When both major candidates are accelerating the failure, a solution outside of the major candidates is necessary. Voting for the lesser of two evils is still voting for an evil. You can absolutely believe that harm reduction is a good thing, but to act as though it is sufficient to vote for a less evil candidate and not organize on the ground outside the electoral system is naiive.

My assumptions about people who embrace this ideology is that they think being straight white men will spare them and their loved ones when Christian fascists look to enforce their religious ethnostate. Maybe that will work, but what about when they cut all the rest of the social programs, wipe out worker protections/decrease wages to sustainable level, and destroy the environment for the sake of their corporate overlords?

Are these assumptions grounded in statistical analysis, or did you imagine a situation that fits with your world view and believe it as though it were real? There are many trans and POC comrades who disagree with you here.

Secondly, Social Programs are being cut, worker protections are weakening, wages are stagnating, and the environment is being destroyed. Trump may be worse on these, but again, simply voting for a slower rate is not sufficient.

Or they believe the people, after decades of stagnating wages, faltering education, and concerted efforts to divide us socially will all unite with our kitchen cutlery to overthrow a nation backed by the largest fucking military on the planet - and that if those efforts are successful, that the resulting political reorganization won’t just be co-opted by the cooperations that control the media and have already written a new fucking constitution.

You should read The State and Revolution. This is not the strategy or analysis Marxists have, you are again concocting an imagined scenario to fit your world view.

Whether they play or not, they’re in the game. But the approach they’ve taken just helps the folks who want to make things worse for them. We are super, super fucked.
Pretending that not participating is the morally correct play is denial backed by propaganda.

Again, stating that Voting is perhaps the least effective way to oppose fascism does not mean you should not vote, nor does it mean you should not work outside the electoral system. Rather, it's the opposite! Someone who votes alone is far less effective than someone who actively contributes to organizational efforts and unionizing, but skips voting. Doing both is even better!

[+] Monument@lemmy.sdf.org 1 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

[removed by mod]

[–] Cowbee@hexbear.net 6 points 11 months ago (1 children)

I agree with you.
I don’t only vote in every single election and argue with strangers online. I go to city council meetings. I email and call elected officials to argue policy. I design, print, and uh… distribute stickers with political messages around town. I’m directly involved with government transparency efforts, and I’m about to start prying at my local RCV group to figure out why they haven’t attempted to field a ballot initiative

This is all still well within the bounds of electoralism. Certainly more than most people can say, but it doesn't truly get at the heart of what historically drives major change, ie organizing and directly contesting.

And, yes, my assumptions are purely assumptions, but they’re rational, I think - the majority of opinions here (or perhaps loudest voices) argue for not voting, and I cannot connect that sentiment to one that trans folks and/or POC would embrace, since that strategy helps the people who want to harm them. But your arguments - which I understand to be that folks should take action, openly acknowledge the failure of the current system, and still vote - would benefit trans/POC folk, and that does invalidate my demographic assumptions.

People here are largely not suggesting simply that change happens by sitting on your thumbs and not voting. People here are arguing that voting, and electoralism in general, is a lost cause for enacting positive change. You should spend a bit of time on Hexbear and see the demographics, the trans space here is one of the largest on Lemmy and one of the most active. I believe the last informal survey found around 40-50% of Hexbear is trans.

I have to be honest. I don’t think I’ll read The State and Revolution. I am interested in your viewpoint, but 100+ pages on a sort of weirdly organized website aren’t really something I think I’m capable of sticking through.
Is it a correct assumption, though, that your intent was to express that the revolution/change would occur through gradual and peaceful social change rather than violent revolution?

No, it's not a correct assumption. Gradualism has never worked in the favor of the Working Class, historically. State and Revolution does not mean individual acts of terrorism are the way to go, either. The point of the text is that reform cannot work in a bourgeois democracy because the class in power will not relinquish power willingly. See what happened to Allende in Chile. Instead, revolution is more of an inevitability, so it's up to leftists to prepare and organize so that the revolution can be properly steered. Occupy Wall Street is an example of a movement with no solid base. Same with Chaz.

I really do suggest reading Leftist theory, you can download State and Revolution and read it on an EReader if you like.