vote for vote so you can vote
it does matter who wins, but they won’t let anyone win who matters
Event as a then leftist, I used to be skeptical of this rhetoric until I saw every single establishment come out the woodwork to smear Jeremy Cromblin for being the minorest of threats to bourgeois power.
Major newspapers with front page news 100% seriously accusing him of being a soviet sleeper agent, the head of the armed forces (who is legally obliged to be impartial) went on the BBC news to specifically criticise Corbyn and talk about how he’ll let everyone die to nukes, the notorious BBC moment of portraying him outside the Kremlin in a Ushanka like he’s V fucking Lenin himself, not a single major media outlet accurately reported on how the antisemitism report entirely cleared Corbyn, or how the chief UK rabbi fueling the smears is literally a childhood friend of
.I dunno, I could go on forever with examples - But that year I truly lost all hope in electoralism, and truly appreciated the bourgeois hold on fucking everything. I saw the machine come out in full force and it was scary.
similar experience here with Bernie, if a youtuber has made a ten part, sixty-two hour series on all the ratfucking and the establishment shredding its own institutions to stop him at all costs I’d watch it
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https://www.ajiunit.com/investigation/the-labour-files/
It’s pretty impressive how much they got away with.
Interesting! I may give these a watch / listen. Not that I’m not already largely aware of the shit, but good to know more details.
As a youth, I remember media talking heads using the term managed democracy being used to describe the various “regimes” that had free elections, but which in no sense did citizens democratically determine the direction of the country’s government. It didn’t take much introspection to apply that logic to the USA, but apparently introspection is a rare trait.
As Nyerere said, the United States is also a one-party state but, with typical American extravagance, they have two of them. We get to have free elections where the only thing we decide is to what degree of depravity the government will treat marginalized people.
Reverse polisci is just too good. The American two-party regime is a managed democracy that exhibits fragmented authoritarianism via rule by law due to its federalist structure.
As Nyerere said, the United States is also a one-party state but, with typical American extravagance, they have two of them.
I thought Mark Twain said that. Or did I fall for a Facebook quote meme
It’s attributed to Julius Nyerere, but is possibly apocryphal.
that is a very good way to phrase it.
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That was a Biden campaign promise in 2020- that nothing would fundamentally change. Why shouldn’t we believe that? It’s the only campaign promise that he’s delivered on.
I wish he’d delivered on it. Things have fundamentally changed, for the worse.
Idk if it’s really fundamentally worse, like yeah they’re cranking the dials on the misery machine but it’s still the same machine we’ve been strapped into
Fundamentally abortion is being outlawed
yes cranking the dials on the misery machine
once the dial starts enabling additional genocides I think that involves fundamental modification to the machine
I would say that what’s going on in Gaza today is an intensification of what’s already been going on. It’s not like October 7th happened and Israel hit the genocide button, October 7th happened as a result of the Palestinians being pushed closer and closer to the brink in a process that I would say has been genocide the entire time. It’s not a new knob, it’s the same ol’ genocide dial getting cranked up to 11, but they’ve been crankin’ the dial this whole time
not the genocide im talking about (god thats horrific to say), talking about trans people getting absolutely fucked under Biden
Depends on how fundamental I guess. The war in Ukraine feels pretty big, if nothing else.
The number of explicit genocides were enabling has gone up by one, that’s pretty shitty.
In bad country the people don’t believe in their rigged elections because they know nothing will fundamentally change.
If you’re under 30, you’ve voted before when has voting changed anything except for making things worse, yknow. They didn’t even get the weird euphoria of Obama in 2008 (except culturally, obviously, they couldn’t have voted yet).
The failure of the transformative, Hope and Change promises of the Obama campaign/administration to materialize is a big reason why younger Americans are more cynical of electoralism and more left-leaning.
Democrats: “Let’s run a candidate who completely embodies all the qualities that we’ve taught a generation of children to look for in elected leaders if they want to see positive change that reflects their values”
“Uh, let me be clear; Everything is going to get worse forever, fuck you.”Democrats: “Wait why are they turning on us?!”
Saying on day three of his presidency that whole “codifying Roe” thing was just a campaign strategy and they don’t actually give a shit should have really told everybody everything they needed to know
that and “let’s not look back, let’s move forward” when it came to going after Bush’s war criminal ass
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Who are these 26% and why are they so misinformed
That’s probably the people whose careers or the careers of their family or friends depend on political patronage
I was in high school in 2004-8 and in my senior year english lit, there were classmates that still thought Iraq had WMDs.
i know a guy who thought it was the iran war until about a year ago and said it was justified because iran had wmds
Saddam Hussein has the oil. We have decided to help the people of Israel to give our oil back to us by defeating Saddam Hussein. It’s freedom, Charlie.
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I’d be surprised if the majority of the US, hell even the west in general, didnt believe that lol
You can probably convince many Americans that the Japanese holdouts in the mountains were training with some secret, ancient samurai tactics that were so effective that the US had to nuke the country
Most here literally think the bombs were dropped to end the war and limit casualties.
Douglas MacArthur: Dropping the bomb was not justified
Nimitz: Dropping the bomb was not justified
US strategic bombing survey: Dropping the bomb was not justified
Literally every American: No other way to do it :(
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Rich radlibs and neolibs and conservatives
It doesn’t matter what the respondents chose, the article about them will be patronizing anyway.
My first real welcome to the machine moment with voting was Obama. I voted for him. I believed the hype and I was off on the hope and change.
It’s a bit crazy how they gave up on even that after Trump. They’re promising less than ever, despite them never following through in the past
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I couldn’t buy into the Obama hype. I tried but I couldn’t. Then he got elected and set up his cabinet and I knew I was right not to buy it.
The election felt like it was going to be a referendum on the banks for the sub-prime mortgage crisis and then those finance jackals that directly contributed to the problem were brought in to oversee the bailout. It was such a transparent “fuck you” to everyone else.
How Obama Cut Black Wealth in Half | Jacobin (uh oh I’m gonna get shit for this)
That’s the funniest/most depressing part! White America lost its shit over a black president and then
did more to fuck up black America’s generational wealth than their wildest dreams. But this country is so fucking racist they still hated him anyway for being a “Kenyan-born sharia sleeper agent” (their code for “not white as corn starch.”)
Same. : (
Those are rookie numbers, gotta push those down.
I have recaptured my youth!
where are you getting 26% from?
Oh they disagree that voting DOESN’T matter, Im dumb I should read more carefully
13% + 13%
but what about 10% + 16%
also 24 is the highest number
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The trend is improving, but that’s still 26% too high.
And no matter if you vote or not, you lose if you care
I mean, if more people here in NYC voted against Eric Adams in the mayoral race (who won the primary by less than 1% against a much better candidate), we would have a more functional city government- i.e., something that tangibly affects our day-to-day lives, in terms of housing costs, transportation access, education, health care, etc. To say nothing of the dozens of other elected offices covering our own districts, which in aggregate are at least as important as the mayor’s office.
So maybe at some point, we can collectively wake up to the fact that presidential elections aren’t the only thing happening in the country
