Look, between the “let’s not do anything at all” party and the “wants us, specifically, dead” party, I’ll take the “let’s not do anything at all” party.
You don’t have to 100% like everything a given party is doing to recognize that they’re the least bad option. Sure, they aren’t really actively good, but a vote for them is a vote against the people who want to kill us. (And voting third party is just tossing your vote in the garbage, unfortunately.)
I totally understand that, and I completely sympathize with the harm reduction position, but it’s a trap!
If you always vote blue no matter who, then the Democrats have no incentive to ever become more progressive - they already have your vote, they don’t need to appeal to you by advancing progressive policies. On the other hand, they have lots of incentives to shift towards the right, to appeal to their wealthy donors. The result is that the democrats will always be ever so slightly better than the republicans, but both parties shift towards the right and authoritarianism over time.
This means that, in the short term, what seems to be harm reduction, is actually long-term harm maximization. Every election, both parties get worse. This brings us to 2024, where the lesser evil candidate was a pro-genocidal protofascist.
We can’t just keep doing the “don’t blame me, I voted for Kodos” bit or things will never get better, only ever worse.
Look, between the “let’s not do anything at all” party and the “wants us, specifically, dead” party, I’ll take the “let’s not do anything at all” party.
You don’t have to 100% like everything a given party is doing to recognize that they’re the least bad option. Sure, they aren’t really actively good, but a vote for them is a vote against the people who want to kill us. (And voting third party is just tossing your vote in the garbage, unfortunately.)
– Frost
I totally understand that, and I completely sympathize with the harm reduction position, but it’s a trap!
If you always vote blue no matter who, then the Democrats have no incentive to ever become more progressive - they already have your vote, they don’t need to appeal to you by advancing progressive policies. On the other hand, they have lots of incentives to shift towards the right, to appeal to their wealthy donors. The result is that the democrats will always be ever so slightly better than the republicans, but both parties shift towards the right and authoritarianism over time.
This means that, in the short term, what seems to be harm reduction, is actually long-term harm maximization. Every election, both parties get worse. This brings us to 2024, where the lesser evil candidate was a pro-genocidal protofascist.
We can’t just keep doing the “don’t blame me, I voted for Kodos” bit or things will never get better, only ever worse.