FAQ
Q: why not organize and stop treating the bus as a legitimate entity? why aren’t you working to stop the bus?
A: do both. cut the fuel line. break windows. put oatmeal in the gas tank. but maybe your efforts don’t succeed this election cycle. and if so don’t fucking throw away your vote if it can help your neighbors fucking survive. “harm reduction” is not a political strategy for action. it is a last minute, end of the line decision to save lives, after all other resources have been exhausted.
This analogy is so absurd. Like if you have a vote on driving off a cliff, the answer is not to treat the vote as legitimate. The answer is to attempt to stop the bus by any means necessary. Pry open the engine panel and chuck a wrench in the gears, cut the fuel line, break the shifter lever, anything, just get off the fucking bus. Neither driver should be trusted.
EDIT: I am sick of hearing “WHY WON’T YOU VOTE THO”
First of all, I already said this:
That’s the other problem with this post: the non-voter is a strawman. Most people with real critiques of the bus vote too because they understand this. Voting barely matters for the most part but you may as well do it. Most people yelling about “don’t vote it’s pointless” are like 15 years old doing baby’s first radical politics.
I just don’t understand why every time we criticise the bus we have to deal with loads of people yelling about why we don’t take the voting more seriously, as if who we vote for is the bigger issue than the fact that we’re stuck on a careening death machine with a bunch of people calmly debating how fast we should all die.
I think the answer to this is: so, what are you doing to stop the bus from going over the cliff that’s better than voting? And can’t you do both of them?
Because usually people aren’t doing much else. Especially anything effective. They’re just not voting.
This comment is why you’re getting this spiel, because you need to understand something:
The people who don’t vote are usually the most disenfranchised people, living paycheck to paycheck, stuck in survival mode, and they don’t care who’s in charge because they’ve noticed through hard lessons that they keep getting screwed no matter what. Also often they can’t vote because they can’t get off work. They’re not terminally online yelling at people not to vote, those are probably mostly kids doing baby’s first radical politics.
The sad reality is that electoral politics has a cold calculus to it where they’ve got the populace cut into rough thirds. About a third are susceptible to full on fascist propaganda and cannot currently be reached. Another third vote centre-left because they usually understand it’s their only reasonable vote. Very few of them are actively engaged because it is a deeply disempowering system. Another third are who I mentioned.
That’s not going to change just because you correctly debated with me about voting. I vote as far left as I meaningfully can, I just don’t think it really matters and I think both psychologically and practically the faster people learn that the better.
I think understanding reality is much more important, and I think the fact that this insane bus analogy gets accepted paints a grim picture of how fucked up the electoral system really is. I also think it’s wrong about the stakes - it’s not cliff or icecream. It’s cliff or slower cliff. Vote for the slower cliff, but don’t ever mistake the drivers for your friends. You are voting for your preferred enemy.
I don’t think the third are the ones who have power fantasies about them not voting but rather just people who don’t bother. So they’re not the ones I was talking about.
I’m talking about the ones who are so proud of their principled take of not voting and telling others how that doesn’t change the system and how the actual change happens through other means. And then the other means they are doing are maybe some complaints on social media, which is just lol.
I mean, who are these people, though? I’ll take your word for it, but I haven’t really seen anyone IRL actually advocating for this as a strategy, and I haven’t seen anyone legitimately advocate for it in a meaningful way, like, in a way that actually matters. The most I’ve seen to that effect is like, protest votes from people in california, which, sure, whatever, doesn’t really end up mattering because their district is still going to overwhelmingly be blue. I haven’t seen anyone legitimately advocate for just like “nah I don’t wanna vote” as a legitimate strategy. The most solid stance I’ve seen people take is “I dunno if it matters, I would rather talk about local outreach” or whatever whatever.
I also don’t understand why the consistent instinct against voter apathy is just like. This, always, it’s always like, “oh you need to vote or else we’ll all get annihilated by freiza’s death ball” or like “you have to vote because not voting is for bitches” type stuff. I have very rarely seen the discussion go from like, this abstract talk to more concrete oh what has joe biden done positively, what might trump do very poorly, type of stuff, much less have I ever seen talk of actual interesting electoral politics about how people should vote, or who’s vote matters where, or whatever.
I dunno. It’s just annoying, I’ve seen this argument play in the abstract probably hundreds of time at this point, straight up, no joke, and also in real life. That’s only me counting this election season, too, and not the last 3-4 elections where basically the same set of conversations occurred.
I don’t know how you are on Lemmy without seeing the sort of people who advocate not voting and instead of doing something else to change the system. They’re everywhere. I’m betting even in this comment section.
You seem to be confusing those who genuinely don’t care to vote and those who aren’t voting because they’re totally changing the system some other way (lol). Two different groups. And I’m only talking about the second
Yeah, I mean, I don’t think the two groups are that dissimilar. I think both groups are also probably also fine with voting. I just haven’t seen anyone who actually thinks that voting is bad, I think at most I’ve seen people who think it’s a waste of time, or useless, maybe, but it’s kind of hard to make a convincing argument, generally, that taking say the, you know, at most like 7-8 hours to vote is a completely unjustifiable waste of time. That’d be a pretty extreme example and I don’t expect someone voting in that circumstance would realistically change anything, though, it’s more probable that someone could probably vote in like, just around an hour.
My point is more just that these people aren’t like, illogical ingrates, I guess. I dunno. I see both sides of this issue, I think people are mostly talking past each other and taking out mutual aggression because they don’t really have any other way to feel like they’re doing anything politically productive. Like in this thread the most disagreement I’ve seen is people who are like “Joe Biden isn’t ice cream!”. That’s not really a real disagreement with the core point being made, it’s like, a disagreement with the framing of the issue.
My other point, I guess, is that talking about these things in the abstract is a pretty quick way to get everyone pissed off. It sort of, “gets to the heart of the disagreement”, right, in terms of, oh, here’s where our worldviews diverge, but it doesn’t really do any of the work of convincing someone. I think in this case it’s a pretty narrow gap, to convince someone, it doesn’t seem like there’s that big of a divide. Anyone given to like, “Oh joe biden sucks I wish I could vote for someone more left wing” is probably going to mostly agree with everything else you might say.
Instead of like this argument in the abstract, it would probably have a higher success rate to argue about like, the NLRB not sucking right now, or the infrastructure bill and the amtrack stuff, or the student loan forgiveness, stuff like that, actual policies, and then I’d imagine people arguing the opposite would be like “oh well none of that stuff is really extreme at all or as extreme as we wanted”, or basically “too little too late”, and then, you know, I mean I’ve never seen anyone do this, but I think at that point you’d just have to like, give them the point of voting to maintain from a backslide, vs revolutionary action which helps actually make progress. Both are somewhat important and also somewhat contextual.
Like this whole thing is just a “dual power” problem, I guess. I dunno, I just find it really grating to like read through thread after thread of this same exact discourse happening when nobody’s goals are actually mutually exclusive, you know? It’s like neoliberal identity politics taken to the extreme, where everyone identifies as a revolutionary or as a reformist and everyone assumes and argues their own position instead of like just acknowledging their similarities and doing something about their common goals. It gives me serious COINTELPRO handbook vibes.
I think you are over prescribing power to a small handful of loud and proud voices because it’s an easier scapegoat to say they are the reason for the issues with voting.
I didn’t really define how big of a group they were or anything. I just find them annoying.
bro. do both.
cut the fuel line. break windows. put oatmeal in the gas tank.
but maybe your efforts don’t succeed this election cycle. and if so don’t fucking throw away your vote if it can help your neighbors fucking survive.
“harm reduction” is not a political strategy for action. it is a last minute, end of the line decision to save lives, after all other resources have been exhausted.
in response to your edit:
objectively false. in the 2020 election more eligible US voters turned out than any election in recent history, and still those who did not vote outnumbered those who voted for the winner. you are saying falsehoods.
Bless you for this comment.
How many commenters here have even tried to figure out how ‘busses’ (the electoral process) work and find a way to get involved?
Spend 5 hours a week (yes, you can find the time, deduct it from your screen time!) and you could basically take over your local party committee. That alone won’t change the national trend, but you might just be able to influence a city council or school board race.
Local races hinge on a handful of votes very often. In our area, we managed to keep two anti-LGBTQ+ candidates off the school board last election. This impacts the lives of literally thousands of youth and their families and it hinged on about 80 votes. Vote, yes, but at least skim the Chilton manual for your bus in between elections. It really does matter
If it’s so easy have to actually tried giving time to a campaign and having it win and change your local policy?
Have you done what you preach?
I have tried. The super easy barely an effort easy win of showing up and supported by my picks… Didn’t work. Like at all. The DNC in fact even refused to acknowledge half my candidates even though they had more grassroots support, and then funded former Republicans. In a blue city, they still thought the conservative options were better candidates. And lost. We all lost. But sure we held back some morons from school board. But stopping a couple people from getting elected is way different than getting policy makers you want in.
I agree that people need to be doing things but thinking a few hours and shouting at people to vote blue will do anything against the bigger systemic issues and flaws of the operating class of the DNC being happy to be useless then you are far more comfortable in your life than people like me.
The people who don’t vote are usually the most disenfranchised people, living paycheck to paycheck, stuck in survival mode, and they don’t care who’s in charge because they’ve noticed through hard lessons that they keep getting screwed no matter what. Also often they can’t vote because they can’t get off work. They’re not terminally online yelling at people not to vote, those are probably mostly kids doing baby’s first radical politics.
The sad reality is that electoral politics has a cold calculus to it where they’ve got the populace cut into rough thirds. About a third are susceptible to full on fascist propaganda and cannot currently be reached. Another third vote centre-left because they usually understand it’s their only reasonable vote. Very few of them are actively engaged because it is a deeply disempowering system. Another third are who I mentioned.
That’s not going to change just because you correctly debated with me about voting. I vote as far left as I meaningfully can, I just don’t think it really matters and I think both psychologically and practically the faster people learn that the better.
I think understanding reality is much more important, and I think the fact that this insane bus analogy gets accepted paints a grim picture of how fucked up the electoral system really is. I also think it’s wrong about the stakes - it’s not cliff or icecream. It’s cliff or slower cliff. Vote for the slower cliff, but don’t ever mistake the drivers for your friends. You are voting for your preferred enemy.
Yeah. I don’t envy nor blame those who vote for the biggest crash because they think their suffering will be over without having considered the suffering that will just be new.
People often just want change and those that don’t are just comfortable where they are. The slow route might be nicer for them but and even for others in the long run, but it doesn’t matter what they want change will have to come, they can just be proactive about it or let it be out of their control and in the hands of those that just want it to stop.
I think also people get frustrated by voting because it pretends to give them political power but what they get is almost no influence over their actual lives. I think it drives people a little bit crazy, because they actually believe this is the best they can do.
That’s why I tell people that they can vote but they need to understand that real change comes from direct action, so they shouldn’t put so much emotional energy into the vote. They should put their energy where it matters.
My logic is what about vote and pry the bus apart? If you have the option to might as well go for it as part of the ‘any means necessary’, a tool is a tool.
I don’t know why everytime I try to say that we should stop this bus half the passengers jump up and yell “BUT WHY WOULDN’T YOU VOTE”.
I never said that. I said the vote is illegitimate and we need to stop the bus. I still vote.
stop the bus != don’t vote
Alright, so what do you do to overthrow the system then? Nothing, that’s right. Screw you.
Oh okay, sorry, I had a whole political activist strategy that takes local action and builds on that to make people’s lives better and eventually put serious pressure on the overarching system, but since you said “nothing”, I guess the answer is “nothing”.
I mean you’re wrong, but you don’t sound like you want to hear the real answer.
In Australia we only have two options in the lower house. One of them is pretty close to driving off a cliff.
Things could always be better (I personally find with their recent car emissions legislation a bit weak) but our current government is doing OK.
Our current government is mediocre as shit and does nothing to fix anything. We take 5 steps towards the edge of the cliff each time Liberal get in and two steps forward and half a step back when Labor do. The end result is we’re going over the cliff, just in slow motion.
Same as the centre-left options all over the world. They are little more than controlled opposition designed to give the illusion of choice, but never actually challenge the status quo.
Wouldn’t cutting the brake lines of a moving bus be really dangerous? Why not vote for ice cream, then sabotage the bus while it’s parked? At least the ice cream place has food, shelter, and a bathroom.
*brake
Also:
You might want to brush up on your mechanics knowledge. Cutting a fuel line will kill an engine fast.
And I never said not to vote. This idea that anyone trying to criticise the system is saying not to vote is a strawman. I literally said:
The thing is, doing that is a great way to lose credibility. You’re basically sinking to the same level as the fascists.
Anti fascist sabotage is bad because violence, hmm 🧐
As long as you don’t physically harm people, sabotage all the fascists you want. Just remember to vote.
I was very careful to avoid actual violence in my language. You were the one that equated it to fascism, which I assume you mean is the cliff driver.
Of course stopping the bus isn’t violent, and is not at all equivalent to the cliff driver.
So you’re saying that you would condemn the killing of Donald Trump if he gets into power and enacts his dictature?
I’m the smash the bus person, and I actually would. The truth is he’s only marginally worse than Joe in most of the ways that matter, and assassinations always lead to much worse reactions. Trump isn’t the problem, the apparatus that enables him is.
The solution is to build alternatives that remove people’s dependence on the state and capital, so the president matters less. That’s what I mean by smashing the bus. I never said to kill the driver, because his mates will kill you and stay in control.
Oh because of the violence? Driving off a cliff is also violent behaviour, and with the bus as it is the cliff is inevitable, because the cliff drivers will always get back in. Also, the other guy isn’t the icecream guy. He’s the guy who promised to stop for icecream but doesn’t want to tell you if or how fast he plans to drive off the cliff. He’s open to debate on the issue, but he has a lot cliff driving friends and they often cast the deciding vote in cliff driving matters.
They’re both getting us off the cliff, just one is being more coy and circumspect than the other.
The only reason to vote for the less-immediate cliff driver is to give you more time to stop the bus.
Let me know when you start the violence. It’s easy as fuck to sit behind your iphone calling others to die.
Coooool comeback.
Even easier to sit behind your iPhone telling people to vote even though it will never solve our problems.
And my theory of change is not actually violent - you’ll notice I didn’t advocate hurting anyone, just dismantling the machinery of violence. The other person called it equal to fascism, which I assume they equate to the cliff driver, so I took their assumption of violence as given, which I shouldn’t have. Stopping the bus is infinitely preferrable to driving it off the cliff.
Except, it’s not an attempt to end democracy, as fascism is.
disagree
Extremism is how you start a civil war…
damn, people really can’t read, huh?
I think it’s selective misunderstanding. Dealing with the knowledge that voting won’t really achieve much is super uncomfortable, so they’d rather pretend that you said “don’t vote” so they don’t have to think about what you really said.
Another way is pretending that you don’t actually mean it. Stopping the bus seems impossible to them, so they assume you must not actually be doing anything about it, but that’s wrong too. It’s just most people think of revolution in terms of storming the Bastille or whatever, they don’t realise that most of the work is constant, basic, on the ground, building mutual aid networks, because in a world where people starve because they don’t have enough money, feeding people is a radical act.