Anarchism

My red line is the existence of nation states and standing armies. What is the point? The military runs any nation that has one even if the population is unaware. I've never been presented with an option when I lived in the US that didn't directly support US military interventionism and the destruction of the place my family originates from, so I didn't vote in federal elections. The constitution is literally broken and the structure of the government there is less democratic than Iran, but the Americans will never see it. The ultimate say on laws there are lifetime positions that come up when they randomly die or a fascist is in power, so they step down, it is the most comically ridiculous and frankly dishonest system I've ever come in contact within my life. Right now Americans are saying if you don't vote for an appointed candidate who is a literal fucking cop then you are supporting a fascist, they have gone into nonsense land and there is no return. What even is the point. It is so sad and tragic the totalitarian mind control they are forced to live under. Most of them will never travel and will never see it from the outside.

I'm in the (years long) process of migrating and establishing residency elsewhere, but the US is a prison and I'm actually not really allowed to just leave.

What do you mean by "doesn't work"? Doesn't get us to an anarchist society? Well yeah, if you had enough votes to get there you wouldn't even need to vote. People would just forget about all these made up ideas because who needs them? We can make up better ideas whenever we want.

If you mean "the outcome of the election will have no material impact on the world in which we live" then... i'm gonna have to disagree.

TBH i could leave this reply here but i'm going to elaborate anyway.

Yeah, both parties are strongly pro-genocide, against the wishes of the American people i might add. Genocide is not up for a vote. There are things that are, however. Such as how Arabic looking people will be treated in the US or how trans people will be treated--whether they'll be allowed to exist at all.

I also don't think it's inevitable that a society that's moving in a fascist direction will become full on fascist. I'm not gonna bet on it in the US's case, the US has been kinda crypto-fascist since at least W and before. Really, the US's problems predate and kind of inspired the modern concept of "fascism". Voting won't fix that, though. Not in the US or elsewhere.

Anti-fascist politics are not up for a vote, either. That doesn't mean there's nothing that can be done. Quite the opposite, there's a ton that can be done. Build a local anti-fascist, pro-community coalition and power base. Hell, you can build local political (electoral) power, too.

The Republicans didn't get to where they are now because all the old fossils from the 1950s suddenly went insane. It took decades of pushing crazy politics on a local level to get to where we are. They got up early and worked real fucking hard to make sure fascism was accepted, that it would be on the ballot, and that it would win. We could do the same, if we wanted. It'd be even easier for us, in some senses. Our goal is much more reasonable and does not require total power over everyone's lives. We just don't have anywhere near the same resources.

I think my voting red line would be when voting doesn't make a difference anymore.

For example if we had one participant in the election who wanted Bibi to finish the job in Gaza, deport all the illegal immigrants and any number of the legal ones, put his political opponents in prison, use the power of the presidency to make sure future elections were "fair," undo any and all climate regulations, IDK do I really need to keep going? And then if their opponent also wanted to do that, then voting doesn't matter. If instead of that, their opponent has literally any minor or major flaw whatsoever, but isn't planning on ending democracy and shooting all the anarchists and Palestinians, then voting to choose that participant can be a good thing.

I really don't get this logical framework where voting is doing some kind of favor for the politician class. They don't give a shit. They mostly get paid either way. Someone wins, maybe it's one person or the other, but in any case, voting is a way to influence the government to do thing A or thing B. If you don't care which one it is, then you don't need to vote. If thing B is objectively a murderous horror, then choosing thing A can be a good idea in terms of self-preservation, even if thing A is also not exactly what you want.

Kamala Harris isn't shooting any Palestinians. She didn't start the war, she's not in charge of the government that's aiding and supporting the war. She might or might not do enough to prevent if she wins. Probably she won't. How does that make it irrelevant whether we get her, or we get the guy who wants to accelerate the war and kill more Palestinians and also a whole bunch of other people of all kinds of ethnicities worldwide?

What is this argument? That if enough people don't vote, the government will say "Aww, you got me!" and fold and collapse and then it'll finally be anarchist utopia? No, they love people not giving a shit about politics. It lets them do whatever they want without worrying about suffering at the ballot box for it. If all the young motivated caring-about-Palestinians type of people stopped voting, they'd be thrilled, and then they'd just keep doing whatever and every so often gun down a protest or put them all in prison whenever they got out of line.