this post was submitted on 18 Dec 2024
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Political Memes

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cross-posted from: https://feddit.uk/post/21429342

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[–] gofsckyourself@lemmy.world 9 points 4 hours ago
[–] Sterile_Technique@lemmy.world 29 points 7 hours ago (1 children)

...and here's the short term effects of failing to resist the greater evil:

Voter apathy just handed us another 4 years of Trump. The lesser evil is looking pretty fucking good right now.

[–] Deceptichum@quokk.au -1 points 4 hours ago* (last edited 4 hours ago) (1 children)

The Left is looking as good as it always did. Look there instead.

You have to go back regardless so why push for an earlier stop?

[–] gerbler@lemmy.world 9 points 3 hours ago (1 children)

Because it's a two party system and voting third party isn't how you change that.

[–] Prunebutt@slrpnk.net -4 points 3 hours ago (1 children)

voting ~~third party~~ isn't how you change ~~that~~ anything.

FTFY

[–] Darorad@lemmy.world 0 points 1 hour ago

Voting lets us pick a weaker enemy.

[–] Nougat@fedia.io 104 points 12 hours ago (3 children)

That's absolutely not the long term effect of voting for the lesser evil.

That's the effect of more people voting for the greater evil.

[–] AnyOldName3@lemmy.world 16 points 11 hours ago (1 children)

Under first-past-the-post systems, as long as there are other people who support the greater evil, and evil's willing to use its power to increase its influence (whether that's removing anti-bias laws that restrict the press, raising limits on campaign donations, or more directly, things like gerrymandering), you'll get the shift towards evil from voting for the lesser evil, as the lesser evil will chase after the voters who vote for evil.

However, plenty of people notice that, and post memes like this one that encourage voting for a third party with no hope of winning or not voting at all, which only serves to accelerate the effect, as the lesser evil has to attract an even greater share of the evil demographic's vote to have any hope of winning. People say that voting third-party demonstrates to the lesser evil that it's worth courting non-evil voters, but that can't have any effect until the next election, and in the meantime, you're stuck with maximum evil for a whole term, and the hurdles to overcome grow larger.

The best hope is to start campaigning for a third party or non-evil candidate for the lesser evil party immediately after an election instead of leaving it until right before an election, as that hopefully gives enough time for support to grow enough that the lesser evil party will see non-evil as a meaningful demographic that's worth aligning with. It's not guaranteed to work, but if it doesn't, either evil is genuinely a majority and the democratic thing is to be evil, or the system isn't a democracy, and there's no way to remove evil by voting, so alternatives need to be considered.

[–] Nougat@fedia.io 13 points 11 hours ago (2 children)

So this image is positing that "left" is lesser evil and "right" is greater evil.

Just before line two, the greater evil has won. Because more people voted for the greater evil.

If more people had voted for the lesser evil, lines two through four would be reversed, and the result would be less evil.

Of course, the whole thing presumes that bOtH sIdEs are some unacceptable level of evil. Now, don't get me wrong, there are problems that need resolving, regardless of what kind of politics is involved. How and whether those problems get solved depends heavily on what kind of politics is involved.

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[–] corsicanguppy@lemmy.ca 5 points 9 hours ago

Yeah. This whole thing is a shell game to hide the fact that OP is gaming the candidate pool and ignoring the knock-on effects from the worst candidate being shut out every time.

Completely flawed.

[–] NoneOfUrBusiness@fedia.io 3 points 9 hours ago

It's the long term effect of voting for a lesser evil that knows it can get away with being shitty as long as it's better than the greater evil.

[–] greenshirtdenimjeans@sh.itjust.works 54 points 12 hours ago (1 children)

So we should vote for the more evil?

[–] Darorad@lemmy.world 28 points 12 hours ago* (last edited 12 hours ago) (4 children)

No, you should vote for a different lesser evil that they prefer even though it will be even less effective

[–] TwiddleTwaddle@lemmy.blahaj.zone 10 points 11 hours ago* (last edited 10 hours ago) (2 children)

No, you should band together and grind the system that only presents evil options to a halt.

[–] recreationalcatheter@lemm.ee 2 points 2 hours ago

Very altruistic and yet completely unrealistic.

Be real.

[–] Darorad@lemmy.world 10 points 11 hours ago (1 children)

That is something you do outside of electoral politics. You will not achieve that by not voting for the lesser evil.

[–] LibertyLizard@slrpnk.net 10 points 10 hours ago* (last edited 10 hours ago)

Voting for the lesser evil can enable this strategy to be more effective. Is it easier to organize against the system in the streets today or in a future where the military enforces the president's whims via emergency powers? I think the answer is fairly obvious.

Lesser evil voting is a rational response to a broken system, but it also isn't mutually exclusive with fighting against that system in other ways. And I believe it's even synergistic in many cases.

[–] Tinidril@midwest.social 4 points 10 hours ago (1 children)

Fuck no. You don't get to pull out "less effective" within a day of Pelosi shuffling a 74 year old cancer patient into the most critical committee position for fighting Trump. That's exactly the effectiveness you get with Democratic establishment habitual losers.

[–] Darorad@lemmy.world 2 points 1 hour ago

The Democrats having practically negative effectiveness is still infinitely more effective.

Obviously voting for dems isn't going to produce the fundamental changes we need, neither is voting third party or not voting.

Dems will at best slightly slow our descent into fascism. That gives us slightly more time to build dual power and engage in direct action.

We're far behind, and need every second of time we can squeeze in.

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[–] spittingimage@lemmy.world 37 points 12 hours ago (2 children)

Don't say that without proposing a better solution.

[–] Darorad@lemmy.world 13 points 10 hours ago

Are you suggesting that a feeling of moral superiority while things get worse isn't a better solution?????

[–] PineRune@lemmy.world 0 points 4 hours ago

The better solution people have been proposing (and one recently enacted) is promptly met with jail time. Everybody knows what it is but can't say it without risking getting banned or arrested.

[–] OhStopYellingAtMe@lemmy.world 21 points 11 hours ago* (last edited 49 minutes ago) (1 children)

In a two-party FTTP system, we really have no choice. Not voting for the “lesser evil” benefits the “greater evil,” every time.

[–] weeeeum@lemmy.world 1 points 2 hours ago

Honestly the dems have been so worthless that I dont care about them anymore. There hasnt been a real primary in almost 2 decades. They are probably gonna loose again anyways since they hate winning

Pelosi winning over AOC put the nail in the coffin. It there's a new left party I'll be voting for them.

[–] MrVilliam@lemm.ee 12 points 10 hours ago (2 children)

No, this is the long term effect of voting for "eLeCtAbLe" politicians in primaries. Putting a centrist in the general to run against the right in hopes of pulling voters from the right DOES NOT FUCKING WORK. Can we please finally accept that and move on?

[–] random@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 points 3 hours ago

then why don't far left candidates work in europe?

[–] NoneOfUrBusiness@fedia.io 3 points 9 hours ago

Putting a centrist in the general to run against the right in hopes of pulling voters from the right DOES NOT FUCKING WORK.

Which is why the DNC keeps doing it. They'd rather hand the country to fascists than let a leftist into office. Hence OP's post.

[–] shoulderoforion@fedia.io 12 points 11 hours ago

This reminds me of when Trump used the Sharpie to extend the NOAA circle on that map

[–] Prunebutt@slrpnk.net 5 points 10 hours ago (1 children)

To all the MFer here claiming "we have no other choice!" "Third parties spoil elections!", etc.: you're not getting it:

The solution is not to disengage, but rather to start building up true political power by mass organizing.

[–] sin_free_for_00_days@sopuli.xyz 10 points 10 hours ago (1 children)

Primaries. Fucking people need to show up for the primaries. I usually only see people coming out and bitching about their shitty choices in the general. It doesn't help that Americans really like to vote for incumbents, and that the fucking parties really like to only support incumbents.

[–] Prunebutt@slrpnk.net -1 points 3 hours ago* (last edited 2 hours ago)
  1. What primaries? The dems had primaries?
  2. As if the Dems would have let Bernie won
  3. (Most important point): Telling people they acted wrong doesn't address any systemic issue.
  4. Non-sequitur much?
[–] FourPacketsOfPeanuts@lemmy.world 5 points 12 hours ago* (last edited 12 hours ago) (1 children)

Quite amazing isn't it how hard it is for workers to "unite". But then at the same time in the years after the great depression, when communism still might have seemed an experiment worth trying, you get people easily giving in to fascism instead.

I know, I know, Reichstag fire etc. But fascist movements were not unique to Germany and even in socially conscious Britain the communist party never got traction.

In short, I think historically speaking people in the Western world are a bit "right of centre", esp concerning scapegoating foreigners and seeing something 'natural' in monopolies being built.

One interpretation of what we're seeing is the slow natural death of the left leaning post war social consensus, which was in some sense "artificially" created by the circumstances of the war, and we're now returning to the historic right leaning trend last seen at the end of the Victorian era.

Obviously it's not like people don't dislike the downsides to being "right of centre" but I've often found that, given the chance to mull the idea of a much more socialist country, people are surprisingly resistant to governments having the kind of monopoly that many companies do. I don't know, perhaps they've seen companies rise and fall, but once you give power to a government there's no going back?

(I'm not talking about your average Fox news intoxicated American, my experience is with regular working people in Britain, Germany, Italy etc)

[–] Dagwood222@lemm.ee 7 points 11 hours ago (1 children)

My take is that there are a lot of people on the Left who would rather lose every election than compromise any of their principles. They consider this noble, but I consider it foolish at best and criminal at worst. Actual human beings are going to die because Donald Trump won the election.

[–] Eldritch@lemmy.world 6 points 10 hours ago (1 children)

Yep. It's great that they can signal their virtue and ideological purity. What sucks is that they can't show solidarity to actually help people nationally. If they even help people locally. Attacking the people they could reason with. Ignoring/enabling the really bad people. And admonishing the rest of us. Accusing us of enabling genocide for trying to do things that will actually see the less people killed. What were we thinking!

[–] Dagwood222@lemm.ee 4 points 9 hours ago

The genocide in Gaza was terrible. Now we get to have one in Gaza, and Ukraine, and parts of the USA.

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