timemachineyeah

drives me up a wall living in a very very red district, like “no democrat is ever going to win any local election, let alone a real leftist” district, like “our school board members ran on who was the most anti-mask” red, like “I pass white supremacist signs on the way to buy weed” red

and being in the local leftist community and the guy who runs the anarchist book club and the lady who helps keep the warming shelters open and the people who marched on city hall when a local business was getting death threats for having a drag show are all members of a discord and we get on this discord and have frank discussions about how best to vote

the people who do the protests and the mutual aid and all the real work

going “okay, they’re both fascists, but this one lacks ambition and seems happy to just glide in the position” or “they both suck, but this one can be reasoned with if you frame it patriotically enough” like we don’t even have a democrat to vote for. we know what a vote is. we know what we hope accomplish with it. we know what it can do, and we know what it can’t.

and going from those discussions to here where people think that your vote is some kind of fucking??? enabling maneuver??? as if someone isn’t going to end up in that seat regardless of what you do???

we didn’t build this system, we just live in it. we’re just trying to survive. a vote isn’t a statement of your values, it’s not an endorsement, it’s not a marriage contract, it’s a strategic play you make to keep alive.

the biggest mistake I see leftists making is overestimating their own popularity. “well but everyone would be leftist if they just-” no, stop, 1) you can’t possibly know that 2) everyone will not just

  • Dagwood222@lemm.eeEnglish
    145·
    8 months ago

    Frederick Douglas wasn’t allowed to vote.

    He worked hard for candidates who couldn’t promise to abolish slavery, because Douglas knew that a tiny step forward was vastly better than doing nothing.

    A lesser known hero was Dashiell Hammett. You might have heard of his books, ‘The Thin Man’ or ‘The Maltese Falcon.’ There have been dozens of movies based on his book, ‘Red Harvest.’ In 1941 he was richer and more famous than Stephen King is today.

    Hammett supported Left causes with his money and his actions. When WW2 broke out he was a triple 4-F. Too old; a veteran of WW1; and he’d been gassed and had a medical discharge. Hammett knew all about America’s Jim Crow laws, and the imprisonment of the Japanese Americans, and everything else. He volunteered, and fought hard, to get into the Army, because he hated Nazis that much.

    Mention those guys when someone tells you that they can’t vote for the Dems in 2024.

    • archomrade [he/him]@midwest.socialEnglish
      101·
      8 months ago

      What?? Frederick Douglas had a famously contentious relationship with Lincoln. He wrote scathing indictments about him in his paper “Douglass’ Monthly” and traveled the country agitating for Lincoln to abolish slavery. He even endorsed the dump-lincoln movement during the re-election campaign over his reconstruction plan. It was exactly his raving against Lincoln during his re-election that brought them together, because Lincoln needed Douglas’s support to win. It’s fucking wild to see someone name drop Douglas in defense of an incumbent candidate facing scrutiny.

      He didn’t ‘work hard for candidates who couldn’t promise to abolish slavery’, he worked hard to agitate them into action. This kind of revisionist history is fucking infuriating, especially when it’s used to undercut voices trying to push for progress.

      • Dagwood222@lemm.eeEnglish
        54·
        8 months ago

        So, me telling people to vote for less than perfect candidates instead of staying home is a block to progress?

        Or are you saying you think my single line about Douglas emcompases his entire career?

        • archomrade [he/him]@midwest.socialEnglish
          7·
          8 months ago

          People loudly critiquing Biden and threatening to withhold support is an effort to push for progress, and condemning those people and their method instead of joining their protest to bring the progress being pushed for absolutely undercuts that message. It is exactly what MLK and Malcom X and Frederick Douglass wrote about repeatedly.

          No progress has ever been made in the US by silently resigning to the lesser of evils, it has only ever been brought by loud, disruptive agitation by dedicated civil activists (including Douglass).

          Or are you saying you think my single line about Douglas emcompases[sic] his entire career?

          I’m saying your use of his name is nearly a 1-1 reversal of his actual historical significance. Frederick Douglass himself fought against a ‘less than perfect candidate’ until that candidate capitulated. I think it is safe to suggest that the abolition of slavery would not have happened without Douglass’ loud opposition to Lincoln.

          • Jimmyeatsausage@lemmy.worldEnglish
            13·
            8 months ago

            And so far, Biden seems to be a candidate that is able to moved further left by agitation. Keep pushing him, but we still gotta vote. He’s the convincable candidate. I doubt Douglass was saying shit like “this Lincoln guy isn’t perfect…let’s just elect Breckinridge and get it over with”

    • Cowbee [he/him]@lemmy.mlEnglish
      2·
      8 months ago

      You can disagree with the methods Frederick Douglass deployed in achieving meaningful change, or even believe they would have only worked in his time period, but to practice actual historical revisionism is wild.

      Douglass was loud and proud, and fought against progressives at the time who did not make the correct choices. He wasn’t a lesser of two evils voter, he was an abolitionist.

      Again, you can make the argument that we have different conditions now, but do not misrepresent historical radicals to suit your narrative.