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Have some civility.
(lemmy.ml)
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this post was submitted on 20 May 2025
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In this post: not realizing that the ideal solution is not a single step away, but rather multiple steps -- and they will not be simple to sell to a general populace.
I'll admit I'm not familiar with the term. 'Electorialism' seems to be, according to Wikipedia, a 'half-way step' between Authoritarianism and Democracy.
As far as I know, we are still not quite in an Authoritarian state here in the US. We are more likely to be headed in the opposite way from Electorialism; where we are transitioning from what is a democratic process to one where oligarchs have consolidated enough power and influence that they can just say, 'fuck it, we win.' In that case, yes, I do want to make a case against Electorialism.
In Electorialism, the dominant party, presumably the authoritarian one, conducts elections that allow their opponents a stage and promises to be free and fair while still controlling the levers of power. What we have seen in the last 8 years is a party, republicans, that are throwing every possible strategy at the wall in the effort to undermine and discredit elections with the end result that if they win, the election will be seen as fair and, if they lose, the election will be seen as unfair.
All concepts of what are optimal democratic processes are going to be just that: concepts. We live in the real world. There are millions of people you have to convince to move to your desired method of representation. I think we agree on the end-goal, I just disagree on how to get there and think we can't jump from a Trump presidency directly to a worker-owned utopia.
Help me out. What's our next step?
Mine is to help elect people to local, state and federal offices that want to make life for everyone better.
I understand your frustration as the entire thread is strawmanning liberal positions.
Essentially, capitalism coopts movements. Liberalism is an ideology which exists and has values, but since this is the primary vehicle for left leaning politics on a national level, companies spend a lot of lobbying effort stuffing liberalism with stuff that helps them.
Conservative have has gone through similar changes, stuffing a fiscal conservative viewpoint with bullshit culture war stuff as the primary vehicle for right wing politics.
When people critique electoralism, they see liberals as unable to organize because the movement has been cooped by big money and liberals refuse to admit they aren't in control of their own party.
When you campaign for liberal values, critics see you as providing ethical cover for the promises to lobbyists that had already been made behind your back which secured their campaign donations enabling them to run in the first place.
Things like funding Israel.
You can discuss being anti Israel, you can rally behind someone like John Fetterman or Krysten Sinema who promises to be a progressive, but the thing about electoralism is you can just lie and turn heel.
This is where I agree with you.
There are steps inside electoralism and steps outside.
If you're saying "just vote Democrat and wait 4 years for things to get better" I agree that's naive and there's action we can take outside of electoralism.
If they're "stay home and don't vote" I agree with you that's nauve and we can take action inside of electoralism too. It's just gonna be inherently pretty ineffectual.
Currently, when candidates we elect take big money and vote against our interests we can't do anything for 4 years about it. But because we have our "I voted" sticker it acts as a balm to the consciousness and deluded is into believing our fellow countrymen actually agree with the direction it takes.
Again, this is where I fully agree with you.
Protesting Kamala from my university campus seems like a better alternative to protesting Trump from El Salvador, even if the genocide is happening in both cases.
I haven't heard a compelling argument staying home and not voting is better.
I'm now mobile, so my formatting will suffer.
Capitalism = bad. I'm fully behind that, and see it as the root of the problem. What I don't see is a path forward that doesn't involve incremental progress, even if not all demographics are served. At least not without violence that will be disrupt even more.
I think this is where we disagree, but I might still be missing something.
You (assorted folks responding to me) want an epoch change where we rise up and take back the power we have. We have it right now, but the price to pay to enforce that is too high for me.
I want a progression where we work towards owning that power. We had it partially when unions were still strong, but it was undermined. In my mind, the solution is education, but I have no power to enact that directly. My ability to influence is limited to my local org and voting.
A green party, socialist party, etc, will never win an election in our current environment. Votes there are literally useless, if not spoiling a candidate that has at least some if your views. The system is rigged, sure, but you can't flip this table and walk away.
Can we separate this discussion into talking about politics and elections and eliminate Israel/Palestine? I'm a-religious, pro Palestine, pro humanitarian, but having that angle seems to quickly degenerate every conversation into 'both sides are genocide' and avoid the'how do we move forward' question. I think these can be separated, but maybe that is also a place we disagree.
No, you can't "eliminate palestine"