It’s just annoying that there’s no real leftists to vote for in a country where we let money control elections (cf. Citizens United decision). I might have a “vote” but it doesn’t feel like I get any say when the election is between bourgeois parties.
Obviously not voting and voting for the actual fascists are bad options, but just voting for the liberals isn’t great either. What do y’all think?
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PSL usually runs a candidate so you could vote for them just to raise class consciousness even though they obviously won’t win.
voting is so low effort and low impact that I don’t think there’s much to do. The advice I’ve heard for the US is to focus mostly on the downballot candidates that actually have good policies (which their party will never actually support) and in the Federal ones to go for actually left-ish candidates in case your state isn’t a swing one.
But by the time you’re voting, the big elections are already settled in the opinion polls anyway so you’re not making much of a difference by yourself. The real use of elections is to use the lead up to the vote in order to push your politics to people who only actually think about politics once every 4 years. Voting itself is just a religious ritual in the USA.
Yeah, you’re probably right. I guess it was more of a vent post as the 2024 election cycle starts to get US news coverage.
The election coverage lasting 18 months but the voting act itself being a couple of days (and voting day not even being a holiday!) is proof enough of the farce of USA electoralism. Instead of worrying about a vote within 14 months, I recommend you use that time and energy to agitate with people you know about how many promises “union President” Biden broke and to look into actual alternatives like the CPUSA or the PSL. I don’t think you necessarily shouldn’t vote if you have the time, but how you vote depends a lot on where you live, and you shouldn’t worry too much about it for now.
Liberal “democracy” is not the solution, it just pretends to provide the illusion of choice when in reality you will always be voting for the bourgeoisie. The Marxist solution to electoralism is democratic centralism, where one party (the proletariat embodied as a party) controls the power and voting happens in different levels (municipal, provincial, national) and people vote for the people who are in charge, rather than for a party. The purpose of the party must be to serve the people, not some branding or political façade or being a place to allow the bourgeois/fascists to grow larger.
It’s a pretty good con they pulled too. I’m certainly not advocating in favor of the US system.
Out of curiosity, is there any Marxist writing on democratic centralism?
I know I keep going on an on about it. But it’s just that good. Roland Boer’s Socialism with Chinese Characteristics: A Guide for Foreigners goes into Deng’s critique of the earlier approach to democratic centralism in China. It’s chapter 2, iirc. He discusses the contradictions between democracy and centralism and possible solutions to getting the right balance.
