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.
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.