It’s an election year, so the usual suspects are going to be screaming that any good person will vote party line Democrat and if you don’t you’re letting the fascists win and you’re a a bad person and a bad liberal/leftist/anarchist/communist/whatever.
Of course, every candidate from every major political party is a fascist of some flavor, but “you have to vote for the slightly better fascist or the slightly worse fascist will win” doesn’t have the same ring to it.
Just a reminder that voting is not the default, it’s not a civic duty, it’s not a requirement of being a good member of your community.
Voting, for United States citizens, is the personal choice to participate in one specific form of capitalist neoliberal politics - a form that claims the mantle of democracy while being one of the most profoundly undemocratic forms of government in history.
Don’t shame people for not voting.
Don’t shame people for voting third party.
Don’t shame people for write-in votes or protest votes.
Frankly, don’t talk about voting with random people at all. The choice to vote, or not, is a personal moral choice. You have no right to assume that someone considers voting to be a moral act - and there are strong arguments that voting in the United States is a profoundly immoral act - and assuming someone is a voter and asking them to pick a candidate to vote for is no different than assuming someone supports sex work and asking them to pick a sex worker to employ.
If you know someone is a registered voter, go ahead and talk to them about voting. But keep in mind voting third party, or abstaining from voting in a specific election, are also legitimate moral and political choices, and shaming someone for not voting party line Democrat is offensive, counterproductive, and rude.
And if you don’t know someone is a voter, don’t recommend they vote for or against someone or discuss electoral politics in general. Many of us find electoral politics profoundly immoral and the assumption that we would participate in such equally offensive.
Be respectful. Don’t vote shame. Thank you.
Yes, presidential voting is usually a choice between two evils, but in this case it’s a choice between a status-quo neolibral and a genuine wannabe dictator the likes of which the US has not yet encountered.
This is full-on Mussolini territory, and I want to emphasize: It’s very difficult for Anarchism to grow as a movement if you’re being hunted down to be executed, unless you can beat the executioners militarily.
Let’s take a quick look at history:
In 1921 Mussolini was elected to the lower chamber of Italy’s parliament, the Chamber of Deputies, and the next year, tens of thousands of armed Fascists marched on Rome, demanding Mussolini be named prime minister.
Once Mussolini was elected by voters, it was much easier for him to gain further power. What happened to the Anarchists in Italy, who were at their peak before Mussolini was elected? They were forced to flee the country, destroying their ability to create communities in Italy and effect positive change there. Many of them traveled to Spain to help during the Spanish Civil War.
Okay, what about Hitler?
In the 1930. elections, the Nazi Party received 18.3% of all votes, a total of 6 million. Rocker was worried: “Once the Nazis get to power, we’ll all go the way of Landauer and Eisner” (who were killed by reactionaries in the course of the Munich Soviet Republic uprising).
The Anarchists were clearly worried about them getting increasing political power.
Hitler gained popularity nationwide by exploiting unrest during the Great Depression, and in 1932 he placed second in the presidential race. Hitler’s various maneuvers resulted in the winner, Paul von Hindenburg, appointing him chancellor in January 1933. The following month the Reichstag fire occurred, and it provided an excuse for a decree overriding all guarantees of freedom. Then on March 23 the Enabling Act was passed, giving full powers to Hitler. When Hindenburg died on August 2, 1934, the chancellorship and the presidency were merged, and Hitler secured his position as Führer (“leader”).
Well shit, so his winning of that election enabled him to do exactly what the Anarchists feared, further entrenching himself as a dictator within a year of attaining power, enabling him the legal power to hunt the Anarchists down with impunity, destroying all the years of hard work building up their unions, gathering their strength politically, and their ability to organize. Like the Italian Anarchists, they were forced to flee the country as well, and also helped in the Spanish Civil War (turn on subtitles).
What was German Anarchist sentiment after WWII?
Rocker thought young Germans were all either totally cynical or inclined to fascism and awaited a new generation to grow up before anarchism could bloom once again in the country.
So, basically snuffed the movement for decades. Ouch.
Also, let’s double back to Spain and the Spanish Civil War (I do that a lot), the third Fascist nation of that period. How were their fascists (Franco) able to win the war against the Spanish Anarchists? The Spanish fascists suddenly had two friendly world powers, Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy, ready to back them with troop training, shiploads of equipment and arms, soldiers, and economic aid. So the ramifications of them both winning their elections led to the ultimate downfall of the largest and most promising Anarchist revolution the world has ever seen.
I bet in both Germany and Italy, the alternatives were ‘less bad’ options, but holy shit it would’ve been so much better if those less bad options were chosen.
My personal conclusion from this little stroll through history? Voting has major consequences when true fascists are on the ballot, and it doesn’t make any sense for an Anarchist to sit it out when so much is on the line.
It could be argued voting against Mussolini wouldn’t have mattered since he won the popular vote by a landslide, but Hitler did not have the popular vote, he only had 43.9% of the vote, but won due to the opposition diluting their vote across multiple parties (so voting there definitely would’ve mattered if people had voted defensively).
Compare that to the US election, which will be VERY close, and where your vote will DEFINITELY matter.
If we let the US become fascist from political inaction, that will inevitably make it harder for Anarchist movements to succeed both in the US and around the world (such as Rojava), just like Hitler and Mussolini made it harder for the Anarchists in Spain to succeed all those years ago.
@stabby_cicada@slrpnk.net, I (very friendily) toss down the gauntlet, and challenge you to refute my claims of history! :D
Have at thee!
A dictator “the likes of which the US has not yet encountered”? Really? All that history and you forgot Trump was already President for four years?
This is Democrat Party blue-no-matter-who rhetoric at its purest and most intellectually bankrupt. This time it’s different. This time there’s a real choice. This time your vote matters. This time democracy itself is at risk. This time the stakes are so high the only moral choice is to rally behind the status quo neoliberal.
I’ve heard that every election since 2004 and it has always, always been a lie.
News flash. They’re all status quo neoliberals. Biden continued Trump’s policies continued Obama’s policies continued Bush’s policies and they all worship together at the altar of Saint Kissinger and Saint Cheney.
You can claim Trump will end democracy, but democracy is already dead in America.
And it’s funny you raise the specter of anarchists being repressed and imprisoned and killed when that is happening right now. Anarchists facing twenty years sentences for distributing flyers and putting up posters in Cop City. Right here in Biden’s America.
I’m not sure how intensely you’ve investigated him, but the Trump of 2016 is not the same Trump of today. I know it’s long, but PBS Frontline did a good doc covering how different this is from any other election.
Obama never openly talked about suspending the constitution when he got in office. Bush never talked about reprisals for those who were against him becoming president. Clinton never incited his followers to attack the capital in a coup attempt. Old Bush never repeated Hitler’s talking points word for word:
Trump has his followers primed and ready to enact ‘Project 2025’ if he wins, with the first action to be “immediately invoking the Insurrection Act of 1807 to deploy the military for domestic law enforcement and directing the DOJ to pursue Trump adversaries.”
It is literally a blueprint to vesting complete control of the government under Trump. Even one of Bush’s old Deputy Attorney General is freaked out by it:
Project 2025 seems to be full of a whole array of ideas that are designed to let Donald Trump function as a dictator, by completely eviscerating many of the restraints built into our system. He really wants to destroy any notion of a rule of law in this country … The reports about Donald Trump’s Project 2025 suggest that he is now preparing to do a bunch of things totally contrary to the basic values we have always lived by. If Trump were to be elected and implement some of the ideas he is apparently considering, no one in this country would be safe.
I would implore you to reconsider your stance that this is ‘just like every other election’. I fully agree with you that every previous one didn’t matter as much (though Reagan really fucked over unions in the 80’s, along with a bunch of other problems we’re still dealing with from his presidency, I think it’s safe to say Carter would’ve been significantly less damaging).
Trump has morphed into a cult of personality that gives him incredible power over his followers, and he appears fully willing to use that cult to attempt a dictatorship. I feel I’ve provided sufficient evidence to substantiate that claim, and if you still feel like it doesn’t matter, then… Well, I don’t think there’s any evidence I could show that would convince you, short of a successful coup.
This isn’t just another neoliberal/conservative continuing the status quo of his predecessor, as the conservatives who represent that are against Trump because they cannot control him at this point.
I’m sorry. I’ve read the claims that 2024 is different than any other election in American history and that democracy is genuinely at stake. I’ve heard similar claims for every election in the last twenty years - including the ones Republicans won - and the dire predictions have always failed to materialize.
And I specify twenty years, and 2004, deliberately. Because 2000 showed the Democrat establishment they could not rely on the American left to support Clintonian secular neoliberal conservatism. And rather than actually appealing to the American left with goals and policies the left could support, the Democrats decided instead to vilify Republicans, convincing leftist voters they had to hold their noses and vote for centrist Democrats because a Republican victory would doom America and the world.
It’s been a lie in every election in the last twenty years, and I don’t believe it’s suddenly become true now.
And let me be absolutely blunt. Even if it’s true this time, I don’t care. Because the actions of the American government that most infuriate me have consistent bipartisan support among the American oligarchy. I don’t care whether the next administration fires half the executive branch bureaucracy or eliminates the Department of Education or requires prayer in school. I care whether they continue to fund foreign wars. I care whether they actually act against climate change and the global refugee crisis. I care whether they support leftist governments worldwide instead of sabotaging them. I care about stopping the ongoing trend of consolidating more and more wealth in the hands of fewer and fewer billionaires.
And there’s absolutely no one and nothing I can vote for in the United States that will move our government a single step closer to any policy goal I support.
If the outcome of the 2024 presidential election would save a single Palestinian life, I would cast my vote gladly. But it won’t. And we all know it.
Damn dude, that’s some dark shit. I think I’ve made a strong case that letting fascism take root has ramifications worldwide, and overall would increase suffering. Neolibral US has caused incredible amounts of damage around the world, but not caring if it becomes a fascist state because they deserve what’s coming to them is… A very vengeful stance, and one I think is misguided, because if that’s the metric we go by, then Spain, Britian, France, Belgium… Hell, almost every country would deserve to have its people suffer under an autocratic fascist regime, as all of them had governments that were at one point in time incredibly evil.
If that’s the stance you have, you clearly are hurting very badly, and I’m sorry for whatever has happened to you, genuinely.
Don’t shame people for not voting
Sure, by then it’s too late. Encourage or better yet, help people to vote. Offer to go with them to the polls.
Nothing wrong at all with encouraging voter participation, regardless of who they may vote for.
When more people vote, it is better for everyone.
When more people vote, it is better for everyone.
Oh you sweet summer child.
Voting takes like maybe 2 hours of my time in a given year to maintain registration, scan an information pamphlet and the actual act of delivering a ballot. I do have circumstances such that voting access is easy for me. I realize it is not so universally, but there is still an untapped ‘market’ of people who could easily vote, but don’t.
Like it or not, elections do have consequences. Even so, I agree shaming is likely ineffective as a motivational tool. Yes, i feel personally that people should vote strategically becuse in general it is a low cost activity with outsized consequences. Do a million other things too, because you have time.
Ok lets use your rule: no shaming.
What then are the more effective tools for uniting people to work in the same general direction? Successful movements seem to unite people in common cause without making it an explicit alliance between sects.
I don’t have a lot of solid answers but I would claim this is a good place to start a discussion.
I agree. I think there are valid anarchist critiques of getting too invested in our current political process which is clearly deeply flawed but the reality is that some governments will be more permissive of anarchist organizing than others—and there is a lot of organizing to be done. It’s important to make that work the main focus but because voting has an outsized impact relative to its ease, it’s still worth doing. And in the current electoral system, strategically voting for the least bad of the top two options is the best choice.
We live in a moribund neoliberal society and I will vote to preserve it because the alternative makes my immediate and foreseeable future significantly less cool.
Kurt V said maturity is a bitter disappointment for which there is no remedy, that’s my voting vibe.
I’m involved in party politics exclusively for local networking. Societal breakdown does not require social breakdown and I’m meeting the kind of people I want in my personal zombie movie.
I’m just an outsider, but it seems to me that in 2016, many people on the left/anarchist /socialist/liberal whatever weren’t enthusiastic about Clinton and didn’t vote or voted third party. This led to Trump winning and subsequently nominate enough Supreme Court justices to set back abortion rights 50 years among many other things that probably are worse than whatever Clinton could have done.
You can express your preferences in primaries, local elections, in movements to change voting laws, but once candidates in a first past the post system are locked in, it’s intentional ignorance to pretend like it won’t be one of the two major party candidates that will win, and not voting for one helps the other one. If you’re okay with that, fine, but don’t pretend that not voting is a neutral act. You’re giving away your voice to whoever is voting one of the two major candidates, and I assure you the right does not care about their candidate’s past or unsavory aspects.
Agreed. This an anarchist community, and the system is considered terribly flawed whichever way you cut it, but how much does this high and mighty attitude of not participating in the unfair system matter to people that are actively harmed and have their lives ruined by the republicans?
Not voting in a moment like this is willingly letting minorities suffer just to feel “above” the system, because it will achieve nothing else. The fight for better system should be a constant one, not something you do one day in the least effective way and say that’s it.
Your comment in another thread made me think you still wanted engagement on this comment. I value good faith discussion, and while we may disagree on what that means, I think you’re engaging here in good faith. I value a diversity of thought, and while the conflict in YBTP is clearly a counter-example, we haven’t been banning and don’t typically ban people from the community who want to discuss anarchist politics with us.
The way I think about elections is foreign to a lot of people, and actually may not be that common among anarchists. I’d like to work on a metaphor to better explain it to people. Would you consider helping me by sharing a dialogue about it?
