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To people voting for Biden, what will make you not vote for him in the general election? (hexbear.net)

submitted 2 years ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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I've noticed a lot of posts asking how we're going to vote, and people coming in trying to shame people for not voting for Biden, or any candidate in the general election at all.

So I'm curious and, asking in good faith, want to know - what will make you stop voting for Biden?

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[–] [email protected] 22 points 2 years ago

Make it convenient, then. What you and others already believe does exactly that:

Voting for Democrats no matter what does the opposite! You're telling them that they can keep doing what they're currently doing, passively accept Palestinian genocide (not to mention trans genocide at home), because you're too scared of the stick to stop falling for the carrot. The only way we can "make it convenient" for Democrats to cede to our demands is to withhold our support unless they earn it with actual progressive policies. And that is especially true in times of crisis like now, because they need every vote they can get. Folding early and telling them we'll vote for them no matter what is no way to wield power, it's actually just giving up what little power we have.

I don't think participation in the electoral process is mutually exclusive with mutual aid, agitation, strikes, and other forms of political action.

That's true, and normally I don't get mad at people for voting for Dems for this exact reason, you can definitely do multiple things at once. But if participation in the electoral process means you're compromising with a candidate who is actively supporting genocide, it IS mutually exclusive with anything remotely close to a leftist position.

It actually bothers me a lot that leftists don't really have large networks of parallel institutions like the right does...

The kind of thing that happens when the FBI blackmails, maligns, or straight up murders them all...

What about progressive or socialist policies in other countries that have stood the test of time?

Social Democracy is only allowed to exist in the interim period between crises of capitalism. It is, objectively and demonstrably, the moderate wing of fascism because without failure every social democratic party will side with fascists before they side with communists once their precarious state of being is threatened. Quoting Stalin from Concerning the International Situation,

but now that the proletariat is defeated, the bourgeoisie no longer needs fascism and can afford to use “democracy” instead, as a better method of consolidating its victory.

So my conclusion is, if you wanna be a well behaved little voter and keep settling for genocidal imperialists, go ahead, keep telling Dems that Palestinian lives are not worth enough to change their policy positions at all. After all, we might get someone even scarier if we don't :vote:, someone who doesn't respect the norms!