this post was submitted on 03 Oct 2024
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United States | News & Politics
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Drag already asked how voting for the democrats legitimises them, and you didn't answer except for a symbolic reason. Drag wants a practical reason. Do you understand drag's critique? You gave a "practical" reason made out of symbolic reasons. Drag wants a practical reason made out of practical reasons.
Legitimacy comes from the consent of the governed.
If the governed stop voting, the legitimacy goes away.
Drag wonders if you have heard of monarchies. You don't want legitimacy, does that mean monarchy is better than capitalist democracy?
Have you not noticed how there aren't a lot of monarchies these days? That's what happens when a government is illegitimate. The governed decide to take matters into their own hands when they no longer respect their government's legitimacy.
I also wonder if you've ever noticed how dictatorships still have sham elections where they give themselves 90%+ of the vote?
Drag is not very smart, so drag can't extrapolate your comment into a specific answer to drag's question. Drag would like a yes or no, to whether you would rather America be a monarchy than its current electoral system.
No
That's literally impossible, you don't understand how monarchs function or why they declined. Learn some fucking history.
Drag agrees with you. A capitalist false democracy is bad, but any bit of power in the hands of the workers is better than the alternative. That's why our vote is important.
Sure, but that's why our vote should be used to agitate the masses by giving more support to socialist parties. Voting for imperialism and genocide and mass incarceration and border fascism/fascist collaboration is not a productive use of our votes.
Don't vote for someone you wouldn't be willing to donate to or volunteer for!
Drag doesn't believe more votes give more power to political parties. Drag thinks that's a myth made up by the government to disenfranchise leftists. Drag thinks you're falling for CIA propaganda.
If votes didn't give more power to political parties they wouldn't be removing third parties from the ballot, they wouldn't put in so much energy into convincing everyone to never vote third party, they wouldn't actively disenfranchise US citizens and take away their ability to vote, the US government's three letter agencies wouldn't have bothered killing off the Black Panther Party. CIA propaganda is convincing you to vote for the Party that supports the CIA, which gives them legitimacy.
The first two are adequately explained by parties wanting to win elections. The question of who wins the election isn't relevant to drag's point, drag's point is the power held by the winning party. Not increased by high voter turnout.
The third point is backwards. You said parties want less people to vote, because more votes make them more powerful. That's silly.
The fourth point is adequately explained by the Black Panthers doing direct action. Drag doesn't think the CIA cared how the Panthers voted.
The fifth point is irrelevant, because voting doesn't give the CIA power, just as drag says. You can't argue that voting gives government power because it gives government power. That's silly.
Drag wants you to take this discussion seriously, please. Drag is really putting an effort in and drag would like it if you did as well.