Youre right .If you vote for genocide, dont call yourself a communist. This meme is pure BS
At this point, I’m pretty sure this rhetoric is a result of deliberate ignorance about FPTP.
There’s only so many times we can explain elementary math to you people.
Deliberate ignorance, accelerationist “if we let the fascists win it’ll totally result in a communist revolution, trust me bro, you definitely won’t be one of the thousands whose bones are used for the foundation” idiocy, or actual fascists trying to depress left turnout. Take your pick.
The maybe, MAYBE, it’s time for the US to start thinking in another way of electing the government.
Communism isn’t about identity and moral superiority. It is about making strategic decisions that enable the ultimate revolution of the working class to do away with capitalism, that includes tactical, cynical decisions at times. Some communists tried to do the whole “never voting on principle” or “only voting for the perfect fringe candidate” bit already, so we know how that turns out - sectarianism removed from class, and underestimating the enemy. Think of how some communists thought if Hitler got elected, Germany would finally have a revolution - turns out, no, it just led to the last bit of the mask of humanity to fall off capital and them being killed in the most brutal fashion. That mask of humanity may be a lie and indeed just a mask, but it has real effects, and the inhumanity can always get worse.
The big project in these times of reactionary drift globally is to build as much organised proletarian power as is possible - catch and organise those that fall from the middle class, learn how to use guns and fly drones, learn how to coordinate as a movement, learn how to support each other in day-to-day life, gain some class consciousness. While those that lack consciousness and still hold dreams of escaping their proletarisation within capitalism enable fascism, as long as they can cling to the ideological dream of the wealth of the past without realising the very system that enabled the old wealth already had the crises of today within it.
Thinking its the same to organise all that under a senile proto-fascist like Biden compared to a full-blown fascist like Trump and his allies is genuinely foolish. It reads like an utopian socialist dream about moral fortitude and self-serving identity instead of trying everything that can materially advance the working class and its consciousness.
Just want to say that it’s incredibly refreshing to read a self-described communist calling out the utter lack of evidence supporting accelerationism/anti-electoralism as a way to achieve positive societal change. As a kinda anarcho-syndicalist (there are dozens of us!) that believes strongly in data-informed decision-making, it feels good to see philosophical allies in the wild and bolsters my hope that humanity will eventually be able to achieve greater levels of equity and equality.
Danke schön! Viel glück und alles gute!
Thank you for the kind words. Yeah, accelerationism is a bit of ideological nonsense to me, I think capitalism is doing fine on its own to reach the ultimate conclusion of its dynamics. I’m admittedly not as optimistic when it comes to positive change through electoralism, to me, it is much more about postponing negative change. But it is a tool in the toolkit - as you identify as an anarcho-syndicalist, one example would be how the Spanish anarchists participated in elections to explicitly get the huge amount of political prisoners freed in the preludes to the Spanish Civil War, a conscious decision where they, as an organised group, pressured the republican forces to give in to their demands. That’s also an example of where not voting can be a valid tactic - if you actually have a large, organised group of people that is able to use it as a means to pressure concrete government actions.
Granted, I am too disillusioned to be an anarchist. I worked within anarchist groups in the past and my personal experience has been, that they are maybe a bit too idealistic and loyal to principles instead of practicality. Finding consensus, in my experience, led to a whole slew of psychological dynamics within the discussions. Stuff like people feeling pressured to give up their own position, later regretting it, charismatic “leaders” de-facto still taking over discussions, and it being very vulnerable to inducing gridlock on purpose by bad-faith actors. Also, the idea of changing the minds of a vast amount of the population, instead of being willing to take power if necessary, is something I encountered a lot, and I simply don’t agree with, especially in light of how the present and future look.
That all being said, in my experience anarchists are at least more open to study and learn with a proper, reflective mind, while many MLs I met treat their own position as a holy, unshakable truth, which in my opinion, goes against everything the Marxist project has been about. They unironically talk about scientific Marxism, while treating it as a religion, it can be quite tiring in my opinion.
No matter what side we are on when it comes to how we see ourselves - good luck to you too, and most of all, good luck to all proletarians worldwide. We are all gonna need it in the decades to come.
Im not even sure what was your point. Just want to say that biden is not a proto fascist, he is a fascist. And trump is another. To think theres much difference between them is the same of thinking theres difference between the shit a dog did today and the one he did yesterday
Have you ever owned a dog? Their shits can be quite different in their nastiness from day to day. Your definition of fascism seems also to be lacking and reductive, thinking an out-of-their-time neolib like Biden puts out the same kind of repression on the working class as someone like Trump (Or Franco, Pinochet, Mussolini, Hitler) and the outlines in Project 2025 will.
Things will only get worse over the next few decades, we are currently still in a phase where the privileges of welfare state capitalism break away globally, leading to proper proletarisation of the population in the advanced capitalist, imperialist nations. That induces reactionary movements politically, and every year we can buy ourselves to organise and spread class consciousness before the violent repression is turned up to 11 is valuable.
Add the climate catastrophe on the top of capitalist decay, and things will get really, really ugly in the coming decades. If the communist movement isn’t properly organised as soon as possible, there is no guarantee that can be transformed into ultimately an opportunity for change.
You’re right which is why we should not vote and let the current genocide continue and add several more to the list when trump gets elected. Genocide for everyone!
Ok I’ll bite. What would you have people do instead and how do you think that would go if they did?
Let me guess, “Something something literally anything that interacts with outsiders makes you actual Hitler something something accelerationism something something historicism something something capitalism is scientifically destined to fall like, tomorrow if you just don’t vote for anyone but CPUSA guys I swear.”
EDIT: Wait do people not know that I’m mocking tankies here?
Im not the one to decide this. Its up to a party to elaborate the decision. As far as i can see, you should have a candidate that represents working people as a class. Its this interest that should be in the center of any left wing politician. And no, identitarism is not the intesrest of the working class. That being said, no man of the system will ever represent the working class, you need an authentic option. And yes, it means a communist option inevitably, but thats another discussion (why any other political position will be insufficient in the long run). But to even think about this is absurd to most usamericans
No shit, Sherlock.
But what are you going to specifically do come November? What specific outcome do you see if others don’t vote for Biden because he doesn’t pass your purity test? Do you see this outcome being good for the country, good for workers, or good for marginalized peoples?
Holodomor is a real thing that happened and was as wrong as everyone thinks. You will never undo that
