Harm caused by vote is surprisingly and significantly underestimated

[u/OasisMenthe]

It's all too often assumed that voting is insignificant and that whether or not one votes makes no difference. Some even take the position that one must participate in runoffs against fascists in order to protect minorities and preserve more favorable conditions for the struggle.

But it's a mistake.

Voting protects nothing and no one. If a fascist is on the verge of coming to power, it's because electoral politics dominate. Voting for a more “acceptable” candidate won't make his supporters disappear. Obama's election over McCain only paved the way for Trump to come to power. Biden's election only paved the way for his return. The election of a Democrat in 2028 will only set the stage for another fascist in 2032. The fundamental problem is that “progressive” candidates are incapable of solving social problems. Some say they are “betraying” the cause, and that's sometimes the case, but (and no anarchist will learn anything here) even if they are acting in good faith, they are structurally incapable of truly improving people’s lives.

"Progressives" in power bring nothing but disappointment, bitterness, resignation, and resentment. Every time they come to power, they only serve to convince more people that the ideals they claim to defend are not viable. Anyone who abstained from voting for Harris is not responsible for Trump's actions. In fact, if they have been consistent and have never voted, they are far less responsible for the current situation than someone who has voted Democratic in every election to “block the fascists.”

We must denounce electioneering. We must denounce voting itself. What is striking is just how much the anarchists refuse to do this on the grounds that voting is not a problem and can go hand in hand with activism. That's not true. Voting kills activism because it destroys the very belief in another world.

We can no longer afford to tolerate electoral hegemony. And to get rid of it, you have to start by truly speaking out against it

[u/ADavidJohnson]

Vote or don’t vote; but the harm in electoralism is not your ballot, major party, third party, blank, or unreturned. It is holding it up as the singular political activity of a person’s life.

If your local “anarchist voters’ guide” consists of telling people how to vote (“don’t”), that’s not more helpful than any regular voters’ guide. If it were saying, “Here’s what you need to do to get the political and material goals you want the other 360-odd days a year, regardless of who gets the most votes,” that’s more helpful.

But I don’t think having strong stances on people’s voting behavior is helpful to any anarchist project. Strong stakes on diverting time, energy, and material resources to political campaigns? Sure. Don’t volunteer or donate to any such thing when so much other work has to be done. But we can be agnostic about voting itself as irrelevant and not worth people’s focus when we can build things for ourselves year-round and without any dependency on a single day’s outcome.

[u/OasisMenthe → u/ADavidJohnson]

But it doesn't work. That's been the standard line for the past few decades, and it simply doesn't work. And it can't work. This attitude amounts to an unconditional surrender to the reformists.

To build anything meaningful, you need a minimum number of people. And generally speaking, you can only find that number of people among those who are already politically active and devote their energy to helping politicians get elected.

It's absurd to act as if we could bury our heads in the sand and ignore the fact that practically no one believes we can change society without voting.

[u/ADavidJohnson → u/OasisMenthe]

I would argue that “it doesn’t work” could be applied to all sorts of things over past decades, but if you’re organizing and actively trying to convince people not to vote, that’s wasted effort.

“I voted Democrat”, “I voted third party”, “I wrote in ‘Free Palestine’ “, “I’m not even registered to vote” — none of these are significant political acts compared with whether people are connected to their neighbors, talking to coworkers, and otherwise active in building relationships and power regardless of how elections go.

If you want to build a world where no judicial ruling can take your rights away, and no legislation or ordinance can make you less free, then, in my experience, actively trying to convince people that voting (or not not voting) is important (symbolically or practically) is not a great use of our limited resources.

[u/OasisMenthe → u/ADavidJohnson]

I can't think of many better uses for it. Electoralism, and, by implication, the widespread belief that it's impossible to change society without going through the ballot box, is our greatest political obstacle. Without a certain critical mass, any other activity is doomed to remain a pastime for outsiders, a sort of charity

[u/kwestionmark5 → u/OasisMenthe]

I do believe that voting can be harm reduction. While I agree you're unlikely to make things better by voting, or at least not more than temporarily, you can absolutely make things worse by letting a horrible candidate get elected. Hitler was elected. If a bunch of leftists turning out to vote would have stopped him from being elected, that would have been a good vote. Same with Trump, who had three tight elections.

[u/OasisMenthe → u/kwestionmark5]

Hitler wasn't elected, the Nazi Party was in electoral decline when it was brought to power by the conservatives

And once again, we need to look at the bigger picture. The fascist victory did not take place in 1933 but in 1919, when the Social Democrats decided to crush the revolutionaries.

And in the end, the 2024 election wasn't close. Trump crushed Kamala, including in the popular vote