this post was submitted on 09 Dec 2024
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Lefty Memes
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Aye, they do, but when it comes to voting they unify.
Take the UK for example. Of our three main parties the Conservatives are, well, conservative, Labour are (ostensibly) leftwing, and Liberal Democrats are centre-left.
In the end, most of my 44 years have been spent under a series of Tory governments because leftists who don't see Labour as left enough don't vote out of protest, and leftists who see Labour as too left will vote Lib Dem. Meanwhile, those in the centre or on the right will vote Tory. Sure, there are far right parties here, but they're mostly cranks and outright racists.
We only have a Labour government right now because the Tories went too lunatic and Starmer's lot shifted enough to the centre to attract those who would vote LibDem.
Prior to our last election, I saw a whole bunch of fellow lefties going apeshite because Starmer isn't leftwing enough, and still crying that Corbyn was fucked over (which, to be fair, he was), so much so that I genuinely feared for five more years of Tories reaming us. There was very little room for pragmatism.
As somebody who was an EU immigrant in the UK for over a decade and also lived in other countries of Europe, lets just say that New Labour are plain Rightwing (so, not even Center-Left, although the original Labour definitelly were Leftwing) and the Liberal Democrats are pure rightwing (whislt the Tories have been Far Right since at least the Leave Referendum).
The ideology of "Thatcher's Greatest Achievement" - a "relaxed about wealth" ideology which loves privatisation and derregulation - which took over Labour is not Left of center and the LibDems have always been even more Neolibs than that.
The Overtoon Window in England (not as much the other UK nations) is way to the Right of the rest of Europe, so its understandable that many there think that when they neither grew up back in the days when Labour was actually a party of the Working Class and never saw politics elsewhere in Europe.
*cries in Hungarian*
It's because voting is useless. Many leftists don't bother with voting and focus on things that actually work.
Voting typically has a lower risk than trying to overthrow the government. (assuming elections are still somewhat legitimate, that is)
Direct action isn't directly "trying to overthrow the government" It's trying to improve one's own life directly, instead of begging the elites to do so for you.
Oh I read that comment as you saying "don't bother voting", which I hope that isn't what you meant.
It is what I mean. I consider nation-state parliamentary voting useless at best and counter-productive at worst.
Sorry, but I'm gonna have to disagree with that.
Not voting allows bad actors to take over the government and impose authoritarian rule.
Example: USA and Project 2025
Democrats might be useless and doesn't do enough to help people, but Republicans are actively trying to make people's lives worse, not to mention, their climate denialism and disregard for the climate, which its effects could echo throughout the world, since why would other countries try to fix the climate when the most powerful nation in the world (in terms of military strength) doesn't even care about the climate. Everyone would follow the US's footsteps and just start ignoring any environmental damage.
Voting doesn't always bring immediate positive results, but its still important to vote, or else you end up with a society that goes backwards.
I don't know where you live, but suppose you were a US Citizen living in the US, and saw this shitshow of a fraudster trying to become the country's leader, would you refuse to vote in the election to allow the wannabe fascist to take over the country and ruin so many lives?
Voting doesn't cost you anything, and you can still do whatever "direct action" you need to do at the same time, it's not mutually exclusive.
Voting legitimizes the act of voting being helpful and therefore justifies the millions on manhours wasted on electoralism, which is leaving people practicing it burnt out and disappointed at the end and doesn't stop society sliding into fascism as is the final stage of capitalism.
You can disagree with me all you want. Voting doesn't work. It's a waste of time. Do literally anything else and don't even waste any time thinking about it.
Lol the "leftist hate leftist" joke is so much funnier considering our disagreement right in the comments below that same meme
Edit: Not to hate or anything, but just disappointed you don't see things the same way I do, oh well, I hope your one missing vote doesn't flip any election results. fingers crossed
It might be useless, but ultimately it's the only tool that the majority have at their disposal.
Leftists have never been the majority though so we can't rely on voting to adress our issues and interests. Last time I saw numbers more Ameicans wanted a party to the right of the Republicans than Americans who wanted a party to the left of Democrats. We're the absolute political minority yet many of our policies poll higjer than candidates from either party.
Not at all. Direct action is always an option.