2d ago

To those in countries where democracy might last another election - harm reduction is not optional

509 comments

Meanwhile, the people who want ice cream:

Well yeah but the one of the people who voted for ice cream downvoted a post about gaza one time so CLEARLY the entire bus sacrificing themselves just in case it might save gaza is the better option. Also there's an atomic bomb factory in a heavily populated area at the bottom of the cliff so basically the same amount of people as the entire population of gaza are going to die if this happens but protecting Gaza is more important than protecting loved ones apparently.

Posts like this are literally driving a wedge into the people who don't want the bus to fall off the cliff, and dividing them.
This has to be a psyop launched by cliff voters, right? They are probably laughing looking at y'all tearing into each other....

Yeah.... But also, Carlin was right saying this shit is all a stage. We've got groups of bullies picking on us, and I'd rather throw bricks than help them decide who to pick on next.

If "harm" and "less harm" are the only two options, then the only question is how quickly you die. There's the argument that we have to do "harm reduction" in order to buy time to organize for something better, but we've been procrastinating for decades apparently. Since all of history informs us that humans act only when inaction is no longer tenable (and sometimes not even then), really the only material difference between "harm reduction" and accelerationism is, again, the timeline.

The people who want to get ice cream are also helping a psychopath murder innocent civilians so it's a bit of a toss up

I keep being told I'm a fascist for voting for the harm reduction by people on lemmy though.

Indeed, "word up." Although, the voting machines received upgrades and who knows what really occurred.

How are we at a point in time where adults need this explained to them..

Everyone's upset about the vegan ice cream voters not voting for regular ice cream.
No one is upset at the regular ice cream people for being unwilling to vote for a vegan ice cream place because their choice is default in their mind.
Both sides are holding each other hostage. One has a moral reason and the other just doesn't want to compromise.
And yet.

Is voting for controlled opposition harm reduction?
Like I agree that Kamala was the correct choice, but her inevitably milquetoast liberal policies would keep us stagnant until people voted in the next Republican out of boredom
- Like I agree that Kamala was the correct choice, but her inevitably milquetoast liberal policies would keep us stagnant until people voted in the next Republican out of boredom
  Luckily, as voting in Republicans has historically shown us, voting in the Republican will lead us to radicalize and become socialists. /s
  If the core issue is that we're not putting in the work after engaging in harm reduction, harm acceleration is not likely to fix that problem.

You're on a bus with 9 people. 1 guy takes up 2/3rds of the bus by himself. 3 people take up 90% of what remains, and the last 5 are stacked on top of each other on the last remaining seat.
The one guy with 2/3 of the bus says he wants to throw two of the other passengers off a cliff at random so he can have their seats. 2 of the 3 in the next segment think this is a terrible idea and say we should keep things as they are, with one voting for it because he thinks somehow everyone will benefit from the top guy having more space. The bottom segment votes 3-2 in favor of the idea, because they hate the people in the second group for taking up space they could use, and like the idea of possibly throwing them off a cliff.

What everyone forgets is that the actual voting already happened. The bus company, Cliff driving Committee, voted before the bus embarked. They voted for the bus driver to drive off the cliff to cut spending to maintenance and health insurance to the driver and bus. There only so much the riders can say at that point
- The only option the riders have to not drive off the cliff is to take control of the bus.

Chuck Schumer: we beat them at their own game and got them to agree to only drive the buss halfway off the cliff as long as we all stand at the front.
clapclapclapclapclapclapclapclapclapclap

Remember, no matter how beautiful, morally righteous, or gratifying your strategy is, you should really look at the results
- You're right. And the results show that the idea that the election was lost because progressives stayed home is a complete historical myth.
  https://www.politico.com/news/2025/06/26/2024-election-turnout-trum-00426544
  
  This is that garbage Pew report from
  … 8,942 U.S. citizens ages 18 and older who are members of the Center’s American Trends Panel (ATP). We verified their turnout in the five general elections from 2016 to 2024 using commercial voter files that collect publicly available official state turnout records.
  It’s bullshit and the reason why is right there - and the fact that they ran the survey two weeks after the election. Idiocy.
  
  I don't see how your link supports your assertion.
- My strategy of voting as much as possible ended up with Republicans controlling all three branches of the federal government.
  Not the best results.
  
  Right, not the best. Would you change your strategy?

A vote is not an endorsement, it's a move.
- The voters disagree, and they are the ultimate determiners of this.
- More people need to understand this, I think.
  One video of a red voter had him expressing regret for his vote. In one expression he said "I guess I'm democrat now" with the same distaste as someone saying "guess I eat dogs now".
  I don't think he'd have as much hesitation changing a vote in the future if he didn't feel like doing so makes him into a monster he helped to paint.

"I voted for the cliff because I know the ice cream place is down below it and I wanted to get there faster." - Have to assume this person exists, but I'm not sure who they would be in the analogy. 🤔
Edit: Oh, I just had to scroll down a few more comments to find them.
- I think like seven people on the bus would fight to swerve towards the cliff if they were told China is on the edge of it.
- Amazing how consistently they show up on here.
  
  MAGA FBI agents on Lemmy discouraging people from voting.

I just knew the comments were going to be us tearing each other apart.
I'm just thinking out loud here. What if Progressives that are registered as Democrats changed their registration to independent? Also, stop sending them your money. We could organize it to happen over one week. Then keep it that way for 30 days. See how much power we truly have. If we can show the Democratic party that they would never win another election without us, maybe they would be more likely to listen.
We have to be careful though, I know this President is running roughshod over the Constitution with the blessing of SCOTUS and Congress but they don't have enough votes or State legislatures to amend the Constitution. If they get that, then that truly is the end of this experiment.
- Every single independent that I know guzzled down the Orange Kool-Aid.
- I just knew the comments were going to be us tearing each other apart.
  That'd be point of re-re-re-rehashing this. Zohran Mamdani, using the big S word, recently won a primary. So now we all gotta go back and drag through this mud some more.
- You can't play Mexican standoff because the Dems have an out: the center voter. If they left doesn't vote them in, the Dems will go to the center to find voters. And a center voter is worth double because it's a vote for you plus a vote taken away from the GOP.
  
  The Harris campaign tried to appeal to the centrists, and look how that turned out.
- I’m just thinking out loud here. What if Progressives that are registered as Democrats changed their registration to independent? Also, stop sending them your money. We could organize it to happen over one week. Then keep it that way for 30 days. See how much power we truly have. If we can show the Democratic party that they would never win another election without us, maybe they would be more likely to listen.
  I mean, honestly, if you manage to coordinate action on that scale, you're probably better off either attempting to take over the Dems or start a third party entirely.
  We have to be careful though, I know this President is running roughshod over the Constitution with the blessing of SCOTUS and Congress but they don’t have enough votes or State legislatures to amend the Constitution. If they get that, then that truly is the end of this experiment.
  Next election isn't for a year and a half, and there's no guarantee that it'll mean anything. If you want to try anything radical in electoral terms, now's definitely the time to do so. The chances of failure substantially changing our position is... low, unlike previously.
- We just saw Progressives not voting for Harris, which lost her the election. The Democrats ignored that.
  The good part is that the Democrats have no plan right now. So if anything Progressives should register to primary in better candidates. Also donations, but to individual candidates. This is why New York mattered so much. If Progressives can win, then it is a huge problem for the neoliberals.
  
  Nope. That's not what happened in 2024. This is victim blaming. Progressives did not cause Harris to lose. Progressives refused to go full Orwell and pretend that Harris was the messiah. They had no problem speaking out about her failures and trying to get her to do better. But in the end, progressives still turned out to vote for her. Harris didn't even lose because people stayed home. If the voter turnout had been higher Trump would have done even better.
  Biden won in 2020 because of two key reasons. First, he had covid helping him. Second, he adopted a lot of policies popular with the working class that would provide direct support to the embattled working and middle classes. Harris abandoned this path and only offered paltry heavily means-tested wonkish tax credits for a handful of people. She certainly wasn't running on something like Medicare for All.
  Yes, progressives shat on Harris in a lot online discussions; she was a deeply flawed candidate. A lot of liberals took a more Orwellian bent, wanting to censor any and all criticism of her. They forget that responding to criticism is the fire that forges strong candidates. Instead they shielded her from criticism, and it just made her look weak.
  Harris lost because her policies were so uninspiring that she couldn't appeal to enough low-engagement voters to get her over the top. The politically active people on the left who spend time talking politics on social media? Yeah, they held their nose and voted for Harris. Her status on Gaza cost her a lot of Muslim votes, but Muslims aren't hardly a reliably progressive voter base. If it weren't for the right's raging Islamophobia, most practicing Muslims would naturally be Republicans. It's only the right's historic Islamophobia that gives Democrats any chance with Muslim voters. Naturally, the religious conservatism of most Muslims should fit right in with Republican values. And predictably, as Harris chose to run a campaign leaning in to Islamophobia, Muslim voters found little reason to support her. Resisting Islamophobia is one of the few reasons most Muslims have to support Democrats. If Democrats aren't going to resist Islamophobia, then Muslims might as well support the party that aligns with more of their beliefs.

This is kind of a good analogy for ranked choice voting, to be honest.
- The bus analogy would have been better if the only two choices were 1. to run over a bunch of poor brown kids (Israel's genocide) and being pissed on by billionaires before driving off a cliff OR 2. run over slightly fewer brown kids while being given moldy bread to eat.
  If liberal democrats truly believed in democracy than they would fight to give us a multiparty system where people don't have to vote for genocide just to prevent a more evil tyrant from taking power.
  
  Ranked choice voting is the answer. Our team sports mentality is why we support our team even when they're wrong. Without a team mentality Trump would never have been able to take over the Republican party. With us or against us will be the end of our country.

More like two options: one runs the bus off the cliff while the other sets it on fire. Sure, we'll live longer in the fire scenario. Maybe we can even put it out!
But I'm still looking for the fucking exit.

I bet a lot of people living in Germany in the '30s said "I don't do politics" too. Oops.
- In Germany the Social Democratic Party (SPD) in the early 1930s prioritized legalistic resistance (e.g speeches, court challenges) over mass mobilization. They rejected general strikes against Hitler even after the Reichstag fire. Also there was No mass uprising when Hitler dismantled civil liberties, the people and the parties had no coordinated strike network.
  Guess what happened. Guess whats happening now.
- I bet a lot of people living in Germany in the '30s said “I don’t do politics” too.
  Thats a wildly ironic statement. The last election held in Germany before the fascist took over was the highest voter turnout in the weimar republics history, over 86%. Theres so many parrellels between the end of the Weimar republic and the US right now, and you are talking about the period of time and the place that maga modeled their 2024 strategy after. And I think you're mistaken about the voters then as you are about voters now.
  In the late 20s and early 30s the SDP (social democratic party-- the centrists in Germany) failed to address the rise of the conservatives and in some cases cooperated with them. They were the party who negotiated the treaty of versailles after vanquishing the left shortly before the treaty negotiations, which was disastrous for a lot of industries and created new classes of privilege, and an opening for the conservatives (NSDAP) to whine about money and make a stage show of austerity, just like GOP conservatives have been doing for years in the US. The actual financial burden of the treaty on Germany was manageable-- but unpopular, especially during a global depression when fear ran high.
  The SDP dem centrists were seen as corrupt, weak, and indifferent to the struggles of their voters-- much as todays dems are. The SDP were fighting gentelmans games and writing sternly worded letters while the far right NSDAP systematically took power bit by bit. The SDP were fragmented and weak by internal division, and distracted by the center of the party fighting the left (the KDP)-- who were ostensibly allies but disliked each other. Do you see all the parrellels with 2024? I sure do.
  Whats different than today is that the left back then were agitating for actual communism, whereas the US progressives today are more like republicans from the early 80s. Today's Progressives are 99.99% capitalists-- barely leftists at all by European standards, and they are just flatly not communists. There's less reason for US dems and the US left to come to blows, but they still do today, like an eternal clockwork. The German KDP were also generally unpopular, and tended to garner only single digit percentages in national votes. Much like today's progressives, but they were needed for centrists to win elections, same as today.
  The fascists appealed to a muscular uniparty nationalism after labeling the centrists as weak and corrupt, and the KDP as nuts, especially after just battling the Russians-- exactly like trump is doing. Its not that German people said they "didnt do politics", its that the centrists lost the trust of the voters so enough of them sought the strength of a group that said they were sick of the centrists and leftists ineffective and perceived as corrupt bullshit. The KDP were also hated along with Hitlers NSDAP far right, who each had militia groups of WW1 veterans that took low level actions and intimidations against each other. Picketting, stinkbombs, fights, the occassional murder. I've left out the competing histories of antisemites and zionists, but theres a lot going on there too, although less important to the NSDAP's rise than the economic and trust issues of the parties themselves with the voters. But I will say that the eventual holocaust of Jews and Poles didnt just arise out of nowhere, there was a lot that led to it, some of it related to trade boycotts of all things, and people seldom talk about what politcs and disputes actually led to the murderous hatreds of the holocaust. They prefer george bush-esque "they hate us for our freedoms" or "no one knows why Hitler hated Jews" type of reductive avoidance of any investigation of facts.
  So-- same as then-- dont blame the voters. Blame the doddering centrists leadership of then and today. Theres a reason that 85 year old German president Hindenburg who ran as a centrist and then made a deal appointing Hitler chancellor is ridiculed throughout history, same as Biden looks like he will be. A very reduced and dementia ridden Hindenburg died in office one year after appointing Hitler chancellor and was often ridiculed and doubted by voters in all parties, in exactly the same way Biden was/is. After he died Hitler consolidated the presidency with the chancellory and there was then no one to realistically challenge him. You'd think people would learn that trusting 86 year presidents like idiot Paul von Hindenburg -- Or Biden-- or trump to run a country doesn't work out well for the voters.
- They also said "we didn't know", 2000 feet downwind of a human oven factory. "And if we did what could we have done?". Those people are still alive and they're not a small minority of even our country.
- Actually the turnout was the highest in that time and the conservative centrists and "progressive" centrists made sure to demobilize people and hand power to the Nazis.

FPTP is the real winner here. It's why we have Trump. Why can't we vote for proportional representatives or ranked choice?
- I believe there are three reasons our broken two party system stagnates and rots:
  Our slavery founders intended for our system to be a plutocratic republic that would resist change, not a democracy
  The purpose of every state is to maintain order which requires preserving itself
  Fixing our system would require our politicians to vote against their own interests, to risk their own power and status... This goes against every ideal that capitalists believe in. Capitalists believe that as long as they follow the rules, they are entitled to everything they can take. The fact that the rules were written by the rich to favor the rich is of no concern to them.
  
  In short: organize and arm yourselves. The Dems won't save you because that ain't how they make their money.

Pugjesus doesnt seem to understand that you can elect people with a D by their name who will vote with republicans on critical votes. But hey as long as the D team wins on election day, thats all that matters I guess, right Pug?
- Right? We elected Biden and he failed. Not trying to say he is a bad person or meant to blahblah - he simply failed at dealing with Trump. And that includes all the online narratives funded by foreign governments and Elon Musk in the hundreds of millions if not even more.
  Like the Dems had control, they failed. And as a people, WE failed, because we let bad leaders into office, whose qualifications are fundraising, kissing ass to rich people, and making speeches. They aren't coming up with ideas, they aren't leading.
  Because they are status quo. They aren't progressive. They are same-ers. So after Jan6, they said "let's keep stuff the same," and they kept Merrick Garland and the stupid Mueller report and so many more things I can't even handle thinking about because it's such an absolute gross failure of their main job in office. And he will die for it most likely, which is pretty sad, and not something he wanted obviously. But he's old as fuck, and good at kissing ass, so he listened to whoever that wanted the same stuff, and made his fancy speeches, and we got fucked. Like he's that really nice math teacher that absolutely sucks at teaching math, that I don't want to hate, but he made us fail by not doing his job.
  And the Dems failed yet again to deliver a fair primary, which is how we got Kamala, and boy people did not like that one bit
  
  People liked when they switched to Kamala. Then Kamala embraced Trumps 2020 platform and her popularity plummeted.

Also
I only voted to drive off of a cliff as a joke. I wanted to trigger those sweet tooth ice cream eaters. I didn't want to die.
Someone told me about people, who regretted eating ice cream. What if you are allergic to milk, amd die from eating ice cream? What if ice cream is a recent creation by
<Jewish enough sounding name>
to make children and adults addicted to ice cream, to the rest of their lives? Driving off from a cliff is therefore preferable to ice cream, and someone told me only ice cream eaters will die in a fire.

im sure the illogical thinkers will start thinking logically any day now

Another day of pretending that voters gaza concerns wouldn't be the easiest thing in the world to adress. But no not even a speaking spot at the democratic conversation. But please growel more, surely you are bound to be treated with the respect in the future.
- How are things going in Gaza and the middle east now?
  Do you think the Trump presidency is going well for Gazans?
- "The DNC are wretched, immoral incompetents and must be pushed to reform, or pushed out" and "Voting against fascism on election day is morally non-negotiable" are not mutually exclusive positions.
  
  Two contradictory musts? That would be exclusive.

This one's much simpler than that; one party will throw people I love into a concentration camp in the next four years, one party will not. I will vote for those who will not. The rest is just bullshit.
- You sound like one of those dangerous shitlibs, not wanting people to be thrown into concentration camps. Don't you know that the lives of the likes of you and me are acceptable sacrifices so that the wannabe revolutionaries can (checks notes) do nothing but feel really smug about how superior they are to The Establishment?
  
  There's a part of me that thinks these people fell for very well crafted propaganda that kept them away from the voting booth and, like Magats, they keep doubling down instead of admitting they got duped and moving on.
  In a binary system where my choices are Nazis or not Nazis, anyone who comes along and tells me not voting is the best option is my fucking enemy.
  
  Pretty accurate portrayal.
- Meanwhile both parties massacre people in other countries by the tens of thousands, sometimes by the millions.
  If caring about that is bullshit to you, i find it rich that you expect anyone to care about the life of you or the people you care about.
- Time to stop thinking this will end in 4 years with an election. American democracy died on January 20th.
- The delusion that democrats don't also put many people in cages is a huge part of how we got here.

This is why the Democratic Party sucks so bad. The never offered people something to vote for. They didn't even offer something harmless - they only ever offered to drive off a cliff more slowly. When in power, they never did anything against the DHS, the MIC, ICE, the Patriot Act. They didn't even talk about fighting landlords, the bosses, the rich. The Dems even refused police reform, instead increasing budgets. The only thing the party elites ever fought fiercely is Bernie Sanders and the progressive caucus.
The Democratic Party is just as much to blame for Trump as the GOP. Stop blaming progressives for this miserable one party state - start holding your politicians accountable.
- Stop blaming the broken system on your passive complicity with the violation of human rights for minorities.
  You’d let it all fall down even if it meant tens of thousands of POC and queer lives being destroyed in the process.
  Your accelerationism hurts us long before it ever hurts you, which is kind of one of the points of OP’s meme tbh.
  
  There's a lot of assumptions in your angry reply - and you should be angry. Just not at principled progressives, among them a lot of POC and queer folks, who did not vote for a party that never really did anything for them. You should try to overcome your naivete and accept the obvious - that this current development was inevitable with a Democratic party that is only different from Republicans in the sense that they keep up an act of civility that only ever applies to conservatives. Just look how vile the party establishment attacks Mamdani but had no problems compromising with, and clapping for Trump.
  Stop attacking leftists and start forming coalitions (but this time NOT with blue conservatives), because the time when you had the luxury to do so has passed.

The other four didn't vote because there wasn't a party against genocide.
- Hey thanks for not helping. Wait, no. No thanks. You failed everyone and yourself, guaranteed extra double genocide and learned nothing.
- Electoral puritanism like this is a big part of why we now have concentration camps in America.
  Thanks for that.
  
  Funny how Democrats never used to have to complain about Purity Tests back when they were doing things like attempting to pass universal healthcare. In fact I’d literally never even heard the phrase (in that context) before last year and suddenly it’s everywhere.
  
  The camps already existed with Biden, Trump is just putting more money into them
  
  The puritanism is that both parties are fascist.
- Single issue voter is still committed to being uncommitted.
  
  An issue easily adressed but stubbornly dismissed for no reason
- And those four are functionally equivalent to people who didn't vote because they're okay with either option
  
  Genocide is much more like driving off a cliff than having ice cream or not voting.
  It's kind of sad that I even have to say this.
- When your main issue isn't on the ballot, it doesn't matter in the election.
- The other four didn't think this through because only one party had a subset of their coalition who opposed genocide, and also opposed 2 other genocides: the one Russia perpetrates against Ukraine, and climate change (leaving aside things like, you know, women's rights and LGBTQ+ rights... And not as a case-in-point the internal genocide of poor people when 50,000 Americans will now die from being dropped from Medicaid thanks to a bill that only ~~Republicans~~ the cliff-divers would have passed).
- There's a genocide on the bus too?
  Libs will tell the craziest stories just to avoid reality.
  
  Libs will tell the craziest stories just to avoid reality.
  "Avoiding reality is when you use literary devices that are so complex literal children can parse them."
  I'm sorry that you can't quite grasp what an analogy is yet. I hope you continue your education at some point.

Honestly, seriously. Would harm reduction have happened if Kamala was elected. Yes. Did I personally core for her? Yes.
Did this get them elected? No? Shut the fuck up and stop blaming voters because the Democrats don't know how to do politics on purpose so they don't lose their bribes.
Want a better analogy? There's a bus driving for a cliff and one group votes to minimize the impact of driving off the cliff while another group says please please drive faster off the cliff and do a backflip. A third group says guys, can we perhaps maybe not drive off the cliffd? And the rest call them insane and drive off the cliff
- I blame both. The Democratic Party and everybody who did not vote for them. My heart is big, there is enough room to hate everyone!
  
  That's the spirit!
  
  Do you think Republican politics have the slightest responsibilities or none at all? I think all this thread, and the analogy itself plays into polarization, which is not a good way to actually put the much needed bridges... Everyone can do a lot. There are plenty of tasks and battles. Voting is one, very relevant every X many years. Focus on the everyday too. And on every neighbor. All needs should be covered. Do your best. Allow yourself to rest. We can do this.
- Bad ice ream is still better than driving off a cliff. You can tell me all day how bad the ice cream is and how shitty the place is because they don't even try to make good ice cream, they don't even try to get customers or do a good job. It's still better than driving off a cliff. I wouldn't blame the ice cream store for making shitty when people choose not to vote for it. They knew the alternative and still decided to leave it up to fate.
  Sure, a nice ice cream shop is easier to get people to vote on, but when the alternative is going off a cliff, the ice cream is kind of a moot point. But sure, let's blame the ice cream shop for not being attractive enough when anything but going off the cliff should be the obvious choice. Yes, the ice cream shop could have made it easier, but any sane person can see she obvious choice.
  Let's put it this way. If one side is saying they will kill everyone who isn't straight and white, and the other side says they want to ban gay marriage. Now I think queer rights is really important but I would vote for the second to prevent the firsr. But people seem to be screaming "I'm never voting against gay rights!" Cool, so when the other guy wins and it's way worse, at least you feel good.
  
  I keep voting for ice cream and I get told "we can't get ice cream because we have to vote to not go off a cliff again"
- Honestly, seriously. Would harm reduction have happened if Kamala was elected. Yes. Did I personally core for her? Yes.
  Did this get them elected? No?
  What's the relevance of this inane statement, again?
  
  The Democrats aren't the ice cream party. They are the "drive off the cliff slowly party" and spent most of their efforts on attacking people who didn't want to drive off the cliff at all. Driving off the cliff is what both the Republicans and Democrats stand for and it is only "harm reduction" in the framework that people have to accept that the oligarchy will harm them and gives them the illusion of choice how they want to be harmed, rather than a democratic choice between being harmed and not being harmed.

Fully agree with Nina Turner. If you don't wanna do politics, you blindly leave major decisions over your life to others, who - as we can see world-wide - don't necessarily have your interest at heart. Democracy, human rights, freedom or any other such ideas require a populace to vigilantly fight for them and not let those with opposed agendas undermine them.
But that analogy afterwards is simply dishonest on many levels.
Firstly, if you are talking about "harm reduction" or the "lesser of two evils", ice cream is hardly a fair representation of the lesser evil.
Secondly this mixes in non-political people, who do not participate in the democratic process with moral objectors and the duped.
Thirdly: It diverts equal blame (literally in the response) to those groups and to the voters, who actually want the bigger evil or the powerful actors enacting it. This presupposes some moral value on active vs. passive behavior, which can be argued.
And lastly: Even if we find a fitting ice-cream substitute like throwing one of the passengers under the still moving bus, or - how another user suggested - braking before driving off the same cliff: The two who voted for that lesser evil also fight the four voters who are against evil harder, than they are fighting the ones who want the bigger evil. Why? Because they'd rather still drive off the cliff than not. And then they turn around and dishonestly shame the anti-driving-off the-cliff crowd for wanting to speed up instead. That is not a very good strategy.
Are they the same? No. But please keep your arguments honest, or you might get the exact opposite reaction from people, than you are hoping.
- Even if you engage in politics you have such a small amount of power that it’s effectively the same as letting other people make decisions for you.
  Republicans in Congress just made a bunch of decisions for me that I had no influence over despite having voted every time for the past quarter century.
  
  Although I understand your point and would want to add that something like the Citizens United decision further diminishes power of the people without immense funds, I would like to point out, that participating in a democratic process doesn't merely mean drawing a cross onto a piece of paper every 2 or 4 years. Much more is possible and in fact necessary.
  As an example and can be witnessed right now, there is a severe lack of organizing of pro democratic forces. Which is also the result of a decades-long campaign by the capital-interest-serving political establishment to delegitimize or outright destroy such movements and organizations, from worker's unions to independant media to the "Bernie Bros".
  Make no mistake though. They did this, because they know, that this type of collective political actions bare real power. It is upon each one of us wanting to defend democracy, basic rights and the rule of law to do our part to take back that power. Voting is but a small part of that, if you don't have the people you need actually running, because they can't afford to and you cannot seriously pressure those elected like the donor-class does.

The "drive off the cliff" party vs the "drive off the cliff, but ever so slightly slower and also we'll wave some rainbow flags I guess" party. I know who I'm voting for!
- Also, I'm installing a bigger motor so you have a reason not to vote for the other party, because they'd get to go even faster
- I know who I’m voting for!
  I mean, this, but unironically. I'm not quite suicidal enough to want to die faster.

Allowing the Democratic Party to keep fielding right-of-center neoliberals who've consistently and repeatedly made concessions to the far right over the last four decades without ever demanding anything back, and allowed them to shift the Overton Window way over to Nazi territory, is NOT harm reduction. If you hadn't been such cowards the last three elections, there could have been a credible opposition party by now, but no, you're just going to keep chickening out every single "most important election in history" (aka every election ever).
- You change the party in the primaries. You choose which party wins in the general.
  When your choice is between a shit sandwich and fascism, you eat the fucking sandwich.
  
  The Democratic Party has literally gone to court and won rulings arguing that they don't have to follow their own rules or primary processes. They're a private club, and they are free to put their thumb on the scale whenever and however they please. Those doing the most to change the Democratic Party are completely bypassing the party and organizing through external organizations. The Democratic Party will demand that you spend decades canvassing and working in the trenches before making any meaningful contribution. And they will only allow the most craven and corrupt to have any real seat at the table. You only get to climb the Democratic party structure if you tow the party line.
  
  ...if the primaries represent a legitimate coalition, sure; if not, fck 'em: they can go down with the ship, too...
  
  You don’t change the party in the primaries.
  I’ve been trying to do that for decades and it doesn’t work.
  That or this is what most of the party actually wants.
  Either way we’re screwed.
- Yes and now we're driving off a fucking cliff and there won't be any chances to elect a progressive candidate
  
  There never was a chance to elect a progressive candidate.
  Actually progressive candidates dont have the funds to compete on the scale necessary to fight back against a corrupt 2 party system that has had decades to secure its stranglehold.
  
  Not really. Historically, whenever there is an authoritarian takeover like this, it is never the centrist left party that actually stands up to them and kicks them out of power. You have to let that corrupt party burn completely. Only then is there free space in the landscape to allow the formation of a party that actually has any desire to stand up to authoritarianism. Democrats don't fight fascism; they build moats and walls around fascism to protect it.
  
  ...the car's on fire and there's no driver at the wheel, and the sewers are all muddied with a thousand lonely suicides, and a dark wind blows: the government is corrupt and we're on so many drugs with the radio on and the curtains drawn...we're trapped in the belly of this horrible machine and the machine is bleeding to death...
  ...the sun has fallen down, and the billboards are all leering, and the flags are all dead at the top of their poles...

Some of the people refuse to believe that the accelerator and steering wheel do anything, even though the pro-cliff people are clearly steering and accelerating.
Some people think we've already gone over the cliff, and thus trying to drive the bus is meaningless.
They're wrong, but they believe it, and people's beliefs are sometimes too precious to let go.
And some people aren't on the bus, just on video chat, but for some reason are still arguing to drive off the cliff.

If you don’t have ranked choice voting you do not live in a democracy
- Til that only Australians and the Irish live in democracy. It's used in other places, ofc, but on smaller scales.
  Not to say I'm against it or anything, I'm all for it, but your statement is a bit exaggerated.
  
  ...how's that working out for australia?..legitmate question; last i heard they were nearly as fascist as we are stateside...
  
  Many countries claim to be democracies but if the available choices are only x, y or z. The people are not truly expressing their will, 30% could like x, 30% could like y, they could all hate z but z gets elected because 40% like z.
  That’s not democracy.
  
  Wow. Really? Preferential voting should absolutely be more common.
  
  It's not bad to have high standards, as long as they don't get in the way of making things better
- Even if you have ranked choice voting, you probably still do not live in a democracy.
- Yes, you do. Just a shit one. I hope I don't have to explain how that it still a lot better than fascism.
  
  It just puts you on the top of the slide towards fascism
- So you'd let the bus drive off the cliff because non-vegan ice cream doesn't fulfill your standards for ice cream?
  
  No, I'd rather vote for vegan ice cream first, then vote against driving off a cliff.
  Unfortunately our current system doesn't allow for that, so obviously I vote against driving off a cliff, but it feels so stagnating.
  
  False analogy. The actual choice was had in 2024 was "drive of the cliff at 40 mph, or drive off a cliff at 38 mph."

The ice cream no longer exists. It hasn’t existed for a long time, and no amount of wishing will bring it back.
I want ice cream, too. But before we can have ice cream again, we need to not die.
- Really? Because Scandinavia has really nice ice cream. Europe too, with some problems.
- That's QUITTER talk! I'm voting for Rocky Road.
  
  I LOVE Rocky Road
  
  So the cliff?
- You're right - it's more like one group voting to drive off a cliff and the other voting to just drive really close to the cliff in case we decide to go off on some other vote, but so long as the cliff doesn't win now, we can focus on convincing people ice cream is the better option. We don't, and instead wait 4 more years to complain about the lack of ice cream, but that's a separate problem.
  
  Still better than not voting to not go off the cliff.
  
  Jeez more of this b b both sides same stuff.

The problem with this is that the choice isn't cliff or ice cream. The choice is the cliff in front of us or the cliff around the corner.
- Ice cream won't fix our problems either, but I agree that a more dire comparison is apt. In either case, one option offers immediate and unconditional death and destruction, and the other option offers a little more time before the next crossroads of that sort. It seems intuitive to me that, unless one is suicidal (and on a national scale, that is, necessarily, advocating for the deaths of millions other than yourself, personally), choosing not to immediately drive the bus off a cliff is the unambiguously correct and necessary choice any time your choices are reduced to those two options.
  
  Except we never get to the part where we're not driving off a cliff. Every election is trying to keep from going off the cliff, and we never get to go anywhere for any food.
  
  The choice is pretty clear for asylum seekers.

The problem here is having only two choices.
Where I'm from we have coalition governments. It's very rare for one party to have a majority. So they have to argue for months and come to some kind of agreement with other parties. The good thing is that everyone can vote for what they really want. There's not really any 'lost votes'. The bad thing is that the coalition forming process is messy and slow and the result is much watered down. But I'd much rather have this than a two party system.
If I had been a US citizen I'd have voted for Harris though.
- The problem here is having only two choices.
  Yeah, our system is fucked. Unfortunately, we play with the cards we have, not the cards we want.

this sounds very utilitarian. you known who else was utilitarian? thanos!
- Who let Tim Pool in here
- A world with half as many people in it would be so nice. Thanos had the right idea.

But if we vote for the non-vegan ice cream place, we're telling the leadership that we're okay with non-vegan options and no progress will ever be made!
/s for the illiterate
- Except the two choices are never "ice cream and driving off a cliff." The options are "drive off a cliff at the speed limit" and "drive off a cliff full speed." If you demand the choice to not vote for a cliff diving, then it's your fault we're driving off a cliff.
  
  Disagree. It doesn't matter how fast you're driving off the cliff, everyone in the bus dies. The choices were more like "drive the bus into a building" and "drive the bus into a building and and explode." The time to demand a "don't crash" option was long before November 5th last year. As of November 5th, your choices were "explode" or "don't explode"
  The idea that both parties are equally bad misses the part where one of them explodes.

This is why I voted for Kamala, as it would've reduced harm for a little while...Long enough to figure out an effective counter. Right now, I am using my voice as best as possible to reduce further harm (with the Big Bad Bill coming into effect soon) I dread losing my insurance and wasting away because untreated it's a guarantee. Given that I live in a mostly Red State, I could be one of the 17 million affected, or spared because I work part-time... If there are elections in the future, I will be voting with harm reduction in mind every time. Unless America becomes a doomed Fascist Nation which devours itself from within.
- Stay strong, talk to your neighbours if feasible where you live, work together locally. Every major catastrophe in my area of the world, even ones which totally upended my country (Romania) for a generation, my family survived via community and friend groups.
  In a collapsed or collapsing state, mutual aid is mandatory for survival.
  
  survived via community and friend groups.
  People often downplay associativity and are often encouraged to because power to the people scares the oligarchs. You're easier to subdue if you're alone.
  Join your local community in any ways you can.
  
  As I am socially anxious; it's rough to interact with others. However, I will stay strong and try to participate when possible. As, communities do survive if they actually work with one another despite their differences. We can survive Trump's cursed presidency through working together. The rich fear that shit, this is why the policies Republicans are pushing are so disruptive for the working class. To reduce the odds of them being able to work communally to fight against oligarchs and their mouthpiece Republicans/MAGA sympathizers.
- You just had 4 years of Biden "reducing harm". How did that work out?
  
  You just had 4 years of Biden “reducing harm”. How did that work out?
  Has 'harm reduction' not been explained to you in simple enough terms yet, or are you just pretending to be incapable of digesting simple concepts?

not voting is a valid strategy but only when it's NOT apolitical. That's why many in power want you to either be A or B or apolitical not be neither A or B but still informed and capable.

We need a "neither" option. If that one wins neither candiate gets to be president and the parties have to pick someone else. Not voting counts as neither.
- If only.

Every time I see people complaining about 3rd party voters all I can picture is the "Am I so out of touch?" meme. Like, y'all already shot yourselves in the face 3 times in a row and it surprisingly didn't fail 1/3 times, but you'll blame literally anyone but yourselves. Run a candidate people want, run policies people want, and support that candidate and those policies instead of throwing everything you can against them because you like money, and we would not be anywhere near where we are now. People vote for trump because they don't want another fucking "nothing will fundamentally change" politician. The country is already shit. It needs to change. But dems are happy with it how it is. They don't care about immigrants, or poor people, or social security, or women's rights, or whatever. They just hold onto those as carrots on a stick. They just want to keep making millions, and would rather trump win so they don't have to actually embrace populist policy. That's why people don't vote. The choice isn't ice cream or drive off a cliff. Its do we drive into a wall and die now, or drive off a cliff so it takes slightly longer to die, the drive off a cliff people shot the 2 people who asked if they could vote for ice cream and that's why the others didn't vote.
- Run a candidate people want, run policies people want, and support that candidate and those policies instead of throwing everything you can against them because you like money
  Their absolutely pathetic response to Mamdani's victory in the primary was so flagrant, I'm not even sure how to react to the Democratic party going forward. Not only did they try to stack the deck in Cuomo's favor, but then they threw a fucking tantrum when Cuomo still lost despite their efforts. They just don't seem credible to me anymore.
- I'm starting to wonder if there isn't a concerted op going on to whip people into believing in an unending two party system forever.
- Run a candidate people want, run policies people want, and support that candidate and those policies instead of throwing everything you can against them because you like money
  Golly gee, if only there were some way that parties decided what candidates they were going to run, and what policies that candidate supported.
  Unfortunately, as we all know, such decisions are made by The Secret Cabal and us lowly voters have no part in it.
  Signed, someone who had a fever dream in 2016 and 2020 and remembered voting in something called a 'primary' for some 'Bernie Sanders' guy.
  
  I can count on one finger the times that the person I voted for in a primary went on to win the general election.
  And then he got brain damage and became a Republican.
  Voting in the primaries doesn’t appear to do anything.
  
  Sure dude, keep pretending the DNC doesn’t run anything and that they have zero influence or agenda and it’s all the perfect will of the people. You’re right, the people with billions of dollars in charge of the party are really just chill dudes who listen to what people really want.

i mean i've had some ice cream, i contest the validity of the last position
- Username checks out?
  
  i also realize i've fallen off three cliffs (one of them several times) and there is definitely ice cream that makes you want to drive a bus over a cliff. you ever had that nasty chocolate ice cream that leaves your mouth feeling chalky?
- But have you ever ridden on a bus with three people who want to drive off a cliff and four who don't care? Because that's the reality here! \s
  
  But have you ever ridden on a bus with three people who want to drive off a cliff and four who don’t care? Because that’s the reality here! \s
  Sorry that they didn't teach what an analogy is in your elementary school.

Its more like 9 people on a bus, 3 vote to drive off a cliff, 2 vote for a break to get ice ream and then continue driving towards the edge of the cliff after, 2 scream why the fuck are we continuing to drive towards the edge of the cliff, the other two believe things will just be the same regardless if they vote or not. Meanwhile the people who want other people to vote for a pitstop on the way to impending doom and death are complaining that the people with the most realistic assessment of the situation are being unreasonable, unrealistic and and/ or unwilling to compromise and if we are going to die anyway we might as well have some icecream (delay the inevitable and hope we can fix things before we get to the edge of the cliff but at this rate it looks like it’ll only get worse because one side turns the mechanism as far as they can get away with and the other ratchets back into a convenient position for the other side to turn the mechanism to their advantage again) this is the more accurate assessment and it’s because education standards were destroyed and the ego’s of people who are too gullible for their own good and don't understand the scope of the corporate apparatus/ system where the ultra rich all collude and work together because they have like interests and the people who don't want to understand this, or can’t because they are naive just keep telling us we need to continue to participate in a system that disenfranchises us not because its been temporarily broken and needs fixing through participation but instead because the entire purpose of the system is to disenfranchise us and the only solution is to implement democratic representation that addresses the economic issues being manipulated without our input or consent. Any system of democratic representation that aims to exclude economically democratic governance is nothing but a class dictatorship.

You would eventually "drive off a cliff" with either party, as they will softlock you into never having better choices, and the overton window will keep moving to the right. The only possibility out is to vote third party.
- New York City's primaries just proved that this isn't the case.
  
  The New York primaries where the entire democrat establishment is either not mentioning Mamdani or pretending he'll make jewish babies into sausage then sell them in government stores after they gulag all the landlords? Those primaries?
  The democrats have repeatedly blocked even mildly progressive voices from running, even rigging the 2020 election in favor of Biden because they were scared shitless of milquetoast Sanders. They might let a few slip in local elections, but never the big one.
  They'd rather let the party lose (because their biggest donors aren't paying them to win, they're paying them to stay close enough to the GOP in platform and voters)
- The only possibility out is to vote third party.
  Username checks out.
  
  Hive mind
- So if you eventually drive off a cliff anyway might as well get it over with and do it now... Because ice cream is for children or gay or something
- The United States political system is setup in such a way that third parties are an immidate non starter, a garenteed loss.
  The only way out is to manipulate a party into changing its ideology like how the Christian Nationalists have been doing since the 80s.
- It's almost like the whole scenario and setup is just a dumb analogy about why the people who constantly fail are actually correct.
  
  It’s almost like the whole scenario and setup is just a dumb analogy about why the people who constantly fail are actually correct.
  It's astounding that an analogy seeking describe the process of voting in a FPTP system in terms so simple a child can understand is still so consistently misunderstood by Politically Serious People.
  I guess it would need to be dumbed down a little more to be truly universally digestible.

I do agree with people voting. But the disanalogy is that in the last one both parties wanted to drive off the cliff. Neither stood against genocide.
- Alright.
  8 people vote to drive the bus over a cliff into a crowd of people. 6 people vote to shoot the crowd of people from the safety of the bus. 10 people choose not to vote, some because they don't want to harm the crowd of people, others because they're lazy.
  It's a sour vote either way. But if the remaining people vote "Let's just get ice cream and not kill anyone", I'd find them morally in the clear, even should that vote fail.
- I mean, I would presume driving off the cliff, being a self-destructive act, is a reference to fascism rather than the Palestinian genocide.
  But yeah.
  
  Either works. Fascism and genocide are basically the same thing.

I'm sorry but this is an old tactic in my country. 2 major parties always fighting for power, and the one always ask to vote them because the other party will destroy the country.
And the blame goes to the no voters or the ice-cream voters or the voters that turn their back, not to the party itself or to their voters that did shit when they were in power for many years. Maybe its time to pay attention to what caused the problem and not to the result.
As for the USA, Trump is the outcome of the Democrats acting as Republicans for decades.
Edit: Last sentence is a bit oversimplification of the story, but Democrats had abandoned the working class and the low income people. They acted like moderate Republicans, especially in the economy.
- As for the USA, Trump is the outcome of the Democrats acting as Republicans for decades.
  Jesus fucking Christ, it's like no one has any memory of what Dem positions actually were for fucking decades - or Republican positions.
  
  I hear minimum wage is the same as it was in 2010. Also big companies pay less taxes than small business or not at all. Military budget goes up every year. Healthcare is a joke for the richest country of the world. etc..

Being made aware I’m lashed to a bunch of psychotic apes is terrifying and makes me want to kill the rest of the people on the bus and take control myself.
People are the absolute worst.

The analogy is wrong right analogy would have been either drive of the cliff or push a kid bound to wheelchair off the cliff.
- Push the kid off the cliff or drive off the cliff after giving the kid in a wheelchair the passenger seat, but yeah.

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