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Americans are reaching very high levels of political disengagement. Most Americans know it doesn’t matter who they vote for. They haven’t seen real reforms out of either party, except to make the rich a lot richer. Combine that with the hassle it is to vote in many places and people have just stopped caring unless their personal life gets too bad.
It’s exhausting voting for promises that never materialize or seem to always monkey paw into a way for corporations to suck up all the benefits. People are tired.
And yeah, it’s on purpose. The more disengaged people get, the more the elite can legally rob them.
People tend to react first to what hits their daily life—it doesn’t mean bigger issues don’t matter, it just shows how human priorities work.
I don’t think this is accurate. If your only interaction to Americans is the terminally online dipshits, I can see why you’d think that. Americans are just ignorant, especially now with how consolidated mainstream media has become. Fox News is never going to report on the real tragedies the American military creates when it bombs civilians, and for a lot of people Fox, CBS, CNN, etc are their only source of news. They’re very effective propagandists.
But try as they might, not even the most adept propagandist can hide the gas prices. It’s an inconvenient truth not even Trump can lie his way out of.
so when they finally notice the high gas prices, do they not even wonder why?
if they do, your excuse for them falls apart… if they don’t the claim is automatically proven
War is a game to Americans because it’s a far away concept, since they always invade. What America needs is to have war come to their land, when it’s their homes on fire and their streets are battlegrounds, maybe they’ll stop being such war loving trash. This is the fault of every American, from MAGA dirtbags to leftists infighting while the fascists win. You and your garbage society led us to this.
I just hope America suffers, the way they’ve made everyone else suffer through the decades
I see your point, but it would have to be something massive and sustained long term. 9-11 was on home turf, and it didn’t exactly persuade Americans to chill out and do much internal reflection. Quite the opposite.
The British empire probably experienced the same sort of thing, everything happened somewhere else. When it turned up in France and the beaches of Normandy, shit gets a bit more real.
This is my theory, europe saw the devastation of ww2, they saw how it killed and maimed millions of people of all classes, and really by necessity they built a progressive society out of the ashes. They needed universal healthcare because everyone’s job got bombed, they needed workers rights to vacation because there weren’t enough regular jobs for people.
US never had that, we went from wild west to wealthiest country in the world with little transition and the same wild west economics of 150 years ago still runs the country today.
The shitty thing is we actually were on the path to being on par with European post war countries when it comes universal healthcare. It’s just that anytime FDR or Truman tried to implement it, universal healthcare got shot down by greedy and racist politicians. We also used to have a much more inclusive and well funded welfare state and banking/investing regulations, but Republicans over the last 50 years voted to get rid of them.
Add to that the constant American exceptionalism that is pushed to us Americans. We’re constantly told that our military is by far the best and can handle any adversary easily. When you think you have that much power, you want to use it. As Trump’s dementia continues to set in, he has less and less filter on using that power.
Americans were steeped in “we’re number 1!” At what exactly? I just saw a video of homeless children living in tents in American inner cities. So I don’t know what this “best country in the world” talk is all about.
American media is so corrupting, it teaches them to love war and violence and to always see themselves as the good guys no matter what conflict or war. Same with policing, where American tv and movie heroes are the cops who break the rules, abuse suspects and murder just to “get the job done”. So the whole culture is hammering you with this “Americans can do no wrong” mentality.
When you look at it from the outside it’s maddening, it’s like talking to a drug addict who insists he isn’t. But I can see why Americans living in America don’t see how messed up their views are, and this includes the American left which is very different than the left elsewhere. Nobody seems to be left enough to anyone and every other leftists is “fake”, nobody is good enough to be an ally. I honestly don’t get how America can survive with so much brain rot.
It’s not even just the media. It’s everything. Even when I go to my local AHL team games they not only do the national anthem to enforce nationalism, but they’ve also started doing god bless America to enforce the Christo fascism. It’s really revolting.
#1 most billionaires that’s what it all boils down to. High gdp per capita, highest gdp, and it’s all just corrolaries of catering the economy to billionaires.
I’m not sure I care for you lumping all of us in the same boat. I am not my government and I’ve done my best to prevent this. In the end many of us are just cogs with little power. And some of us are indeed suffering.
i respect their opinion cause as a whole americans also need to account for their neighbors. At the same time it’s near impossible cause America is huge and not everyone travels. It took bernie’s fighting oligarchy tour an entire year to pass a foreign concept of democracy to some areas.
And yet the french will riot in the streets when they try to raise the retirement age and we just bitch on the internet when trump kills people by the thousands on a whim. We have exactly the government we deserve.
Some of us are out and about trying to make waves. What the fuck else are we to do?
Yes we’re less than 10% of the population. The other 90% does not give a fuck if you die, they just want cheaper gas.
You are walking around holding signs. You dont strike, you dont burn government buildings down. You hold signs the fascist in power laughs at.
How the hell do you know what I do? You don’t know me.
I’m an American and fuck it sure feels like actually getting bombed would help people see what war really fucking is. I don’t think it’d end well, but it might be a lesson we actually need.
One would think the corpses of veterans would be enough for that.
Oddly enough, it actually does seem like Tucker Carlson and other MAGA people are calling for the 25th Amendment today so he doesn’t commit a war crime in Iran.
so he doesn’t commit a war crime in Iran.
You mean another one? on opening day Americans slaughtered 150 little girls in school with a double tap
You are right. I don’t think the girls school was the first one either.
The one thing I can agree with MAGA is generally they are against wars. That doesn’t mean the MAGA leaders are, but that was something their voting base was big on.
I actually agree with the voting base on a fair number of topics. They just keep fucking electing people that are the polar opposite of it.
Fair enough. They have a lot of the problems correct, it’s just the root cause they seem to misunderstand.
First of all, it’s not the gas prices this time
Americans, even MAGAs, have hated this war since day one. Read conservative Reddit and Facebook pages, no one is defending this that isn’t being paid to defend it
*humans
That is why its so important to teach the values of socialism in context of self identified selfishness.
If we can guarantee that everyone has the means to live healthy and comfortable…
Then you are guaranteed to live healthy and comfortable.
If everyone looks after their neighbours, then your neighbours will look after you.
We are a long way away from a world where human psychology does not contain an ego, first step to mediate that is to accept it and find a way to be at peace where it can no longer cause harm.
I mean, redpill/ blackpill/ hard right wing BS thinking is what got everyone in this mess in the first place. I’m not sure why doubling down on it would help.
It’s not an exclusively American trait, it’s just human nature. Uproar generally only happens when the material security is not being met by the ruling power. For example, the French revolution arguably only happened because of food shortages at the time, which was blamed on the aristocracy. That’s why the smart demagogues provide just enough material security and freedom so as not to agitate the entire population.
Yep, there are two things that can trigger regime change: precarious drops in material conditions and concerted foreign intervention. The Ancien régime’s food and debt crisis, Czar Nicholas’ economic collapse, post-WWI German austerity and economic struggles, Cold War coups and power plays all over the world, etc… It’s the same story over and over.
The core value of sedentary civilization is stability and predictability. No population has ever, or will ever, flip their lives upside down and plunge into an uncertain power vacuum out of the goodness of their hearts. And yet ideologues on the internet insist that they can will revolutions into existence with memes.
In that like other blackpilling thoughts it’s an incorrect abstraction that confirms you and you alone are the truly good person.
Go be an incel too while you’re at it. Everyone I know hates this fucking war.
Everyone I know hates this fucking war.
…because of the rising price of gas
I’m getting damn tired of this style of post.
We get a rare drop, where circumstances suddenly allow a leftist position to become the mainstream position. Then inevitably, someone posts “America only cares about <leftist position> because it started impacting normies”.
And somehow the reaction is not “Hell yeah it did, brother, now is our time, let’s rolllllll!” but instead passing that tweet around while going “tsk-tsk”.
What the actual fuck are we doing? If we got a gift horse, we’d probably say “Hold up lemme enroll in equine dentistry school for next semester”. Like goddamn.
To get them to care of the war at all, especially the MAGAts, is a goddamn miracle really. We should be pushing them to want to end it and exposing them to leftist, not neo-liberal, actual leftist thinking.
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OP is a psyop.
A psyop to convince people not to vote for Kamala Harris in 2026?
The logic:
- everyone against genocide is a Russian bot
- they’re still saying genocide is bad
- therefore they’re a Russian bot
an op to convince people that both parties are the same, so it doesn’t matter if you vote. The bad faith argument that voting for harm reduction is the same as voting for harm. It’s disingenuous and only serves to break leftist coalition and cause infighting, which only really benefits one side… the right, and it’s a textbook tactic of right-wing bullshit.
So yes, a psyop, or duped by a psyop. Eitherway, a dipshit.
voting for harm reduction
To claim Joe Biden was a “harm reduction” candidate, you need to ignore how he extended much of Trump’s Term 1 policies and - by refusing to prosecute and imprison any of his first term cabinet - paved the way for even more egregious abuses in his second term.
The Biden Administration did nothing to curb the abuses of the Republican Party. And, in many cases, normalized and entrenched the fascist policies and powers accrued to the executive branch under prior terms of office. When the ink is dry on the history books, he will be remembered as an enabler of Trump’s fascist regime in much the same way he was an enabler of the Bush fascist regime from 2001 to 2009.
Eitherway, a dipshit.
Harris adviser says VP ran ‘flawless’ campaign
I have to wonder if you genuinely believe people who say this.
This is an anarchist community, so here’s an anarchist perspective. Voting is not and cannot be harm reduction.
The idea of a ballot being capable of reducing the harm in a system rooted in colonial domination and exploitation, white supremacy, hetero-patriarchy, and capitalism is an extraordinary exaggeration. There is no person whose lives aren’t impacted everyday by these systems of oppression, but instead of coded reformism and coercive “get out the vote” campaigns towards a “safer” form of settler colonialism, we’re asking “what is the real and tragic harm and danger associated with perpetuating colonial power and what can be done to end it?”
https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/voting-is-not-harm-reduction
Harm reduction is harmful
Voting as harm reduction does more harm than good. Accepting reforms through voting makes people settle for a partial goal; it is a concession. From this position of compromise, the state entrenches its position, and it becomes more difficult to push further, for voters fear losing their partial gains. Accepting harm reduction also divides the movement, because some will be satisfied with the crumbs, while others want it all (see the split at the ZAD). Harm reduction also assumes that the harm (the government) cannot be removed entirely, which is an argument that there can be no anarchy.
Voting is not harm reduction
For the vast majority of issues, there’s no difference between the political parties. They are all the parties of business, climate destruction, deportation, incarceration, police, surveillance, drone strikes, sacred site desecration, et cetera. By getting you to believe that there is a lesser of two evils, the state dampens your desire for abolishing it, because you are meant to believe that things will be worse if you don’t vote and support a political party. Look at the fact that the George Floyd Rebellion occurred under Trump, where liberals, and progressives, and leftists didn’t get what they want, where the harm was supposedly greater, than under Biden, where those same people lie dormant, accepting the lesser evil world as a blessed reprieve.
https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/anonymous-why-you-shouldn-t-vote#toc1
This entire argument assumes no one does anything other than vote
A lot of internet anarchists are like any other internet leftist: their main “actions” are gatekeeping, purity tests, and virtue signaling that they’re real [whatever flavor of the left they claim]. They have zero pragmatism and no actionable plans – but they get pissed if anyone suggests something that doesn’t perfectly align with their professed ideals.
They don’t actually do anything for their cause in the real world: all they do is bitch on the internet and to their close circle of interchangeable friends. They’re the dead wood of progressiveness.
Which to be fair, is kind of the case for a majority of the population, which is perfectly fine for, and encouraged by, the people of power
Which to be fair, is kind of the case for a majority of the population
It’s clearly not. I don’t sit in a box until election day. I’ve got a household to tend to, friends to support, family to care for, and an economy to participate in. All of these actions have political implications and consequences.
People need to recognize that caring for an ailing parent, holding down a job at a convenience store, opening up your house to a roommate (or renting that unit for a profit), driving a car versus riding a bike, calling the cops, littering - these all carry political weight. How you spend the majority of your waking hours is still a consequence of your ideology even in constrained circumstances.
here’s an anarchist perspective
Both-sidesism isn’t anarchism. It’s nihilism. It’s the “nothing matters, so there are no rules” surface level “anarchism” take. You can’t hide behind hedonistic nihilism by calling it “anarchism”. You might as well just come out as the edgelord you want to be and tip your fedora.
no one is saying “both sides”, as though there are only two. we’re talking about what harm reduction is, and whether voting qualifies. it does not.
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Both-sidesism isn’t anarchism.
When neither side is an anarchist position? It’s not two sides. It’s one side with two faces.
hedonistic nihilism
Wtf are you talking about?
- Anarcho-nihilism is a thing. Personally I find it a little bleak, I think we should have a vision to move towards.
- So we can criticize voting itself, but not the parties that perpetuate it?
howabout this, rather than sit here and argue theory and bullshit… lets reframe what you’re doing here and see if that’s the person you idealize yourself to be.
You’re coming to the defense of a powertripping mod that abuses their position to push centrist bullshit and then bans anyone who disagrees with them.
Would you, as an anarchist, come to defend any other self-appointed hierarchical leader that pushes harmful misinformation and silences critics? Hmm? Is this your ideal anarchist community member?
it doesn’t matter if you vote
voting for harm reduction is the same as voting for harm
psyop, or duped by a psyop. Eitherway, a dipshit.
You might as well just come out as the edgelord you want to be and tip your fedora.
you don’t read and huff your own farts.
howabout this, rather than sit here and argue theory and bullshit
Engage with what is being said instead of trying to appeal to some reddit-tier fallacy argument.
And lets see… a “leftist” in “leftist spaces” making plays from the “alt-right handbook”, misrepresenting them as “leftist” opinions to fracture coalition… what would you call a person like that?
Maybe if you write it bigger then you win. Actual child
I’m done playing debatelord with you reddit rejects.
lol. Maybe if you write it bigger then you win. Actual child. I’m done playing debatelord with you reddit rejects.
it’s not too late to delete your comments and leave.
i’m not trying to win. i just wanted everyone to get a little amuse-bouche of the thread before they dive in.
They’re one of those 100 posts a day weirdos that seem hopped up on Adderall. Or they’re a bot.
Ai would like a word with you.
You keep doing whatever you’re doing (mostly nothing). But don’t expect the rest of the world to not point out your bullshit while your pedophile president is raping the world.
You are again acting selfish by portraying yourself as victims, while your government is ruining the world. You are NOT the victims, you are the PERPETRATORS.
Fucking jokers, fix your shithole country if you want the world to stop making fun of you. Because no one else can, the only thing we can do to vent our frustrations is to call out your bullshit.
Oh just fix the country, why didn’t anyone tell us that sooner!
Oh, so you are expecting someone else to fix it for you, smh…
And in the meantime we should feel sorry for you, while you keep raping us. That sounds almost selfish…
you
You’re using this word very liberally.
I’m getting damn tired of this style of liberal comment in an anarchist community.
We get a rare drop, where circumstances suddenly allow a leftist position to become the mainstream position.
No you haven’t. You’ve got people who are upset their wallets are hit, that is not a leftist position in the mainstream. Two people can reach the same conclusion for wildly different reasons.
This is why the left is doomed. You cant see the opportunity to bring more into the fold, you only see purity test fails and a chance ro grand stand
The left isn’t doomed thanks, we’re doing just fine.
Liberals and centrists are however doomed as people are moving to either extreme and abandoning a failed system that has only delivered abysmal results.
Go cry about purity tests some more, maybe that will convince a leftist to vote for murdering children if you do it a few more times.
When people’s wallets are hit it’s exactly the right time to convert people.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Button,_Button_(The_Twilight_Zone)
the payout isnt commensurate with the original story but the logic is the same.
Americans are just so disconnected. That’s why we don’t see mass antiwar protests at the Whitehouse. The only mass protests we see are organized and planned in advance.
I dont know where OOP got that idea from. Americans were never for this and polling data bears that out, especially relative to most wars which have had extremely high levels of approval at the outset, even for ones like Vietnam and Iraq that later became massively unpopular.
Americans were never for this and polling data bears that out
when thousands of lives are on the line, it takes more than polling to convince people you stand for something
If you look at Trump’s approval rating, it only really starts to move when gas prices move. Also historically. I think it is quite obvious where OP got their idea from.
Americans were never for this and polling data bears that out,
So did Americans already impeach their oppressor?
Are the deathcamps demolished?
Are the panoptics destroyed?You talk like any one of those things is easy. The Soviets citizenry pretty definitively hated Moscow in many places, didn’t mean they could just go and kill Stalin. The police state or army would simply crush them, or must I remind what happened to the Hungarians and Czechs? It’s the same principle, even if all of California came to the unanimous agreement to overthrow the feds it would at best weaken the feds temporarily.
The problem isnt just Trump, it isnt just Congress, it isn’t just the courts, it’s the whole damned system. Interstate commerce, national political organizations, the pathetic pan American culture, and the thrive damned Bible thumpers. For this shit to be dealt with in any meaningful way the US needs to lose 20 states minimum, ideally total dissolving of the Union so no revanchistic assholes can leverage history. For either of these to happen the economy needs to collapse in near totality and the feds need to lose all ligitimacy for the simple fact that even doing one of your proposed ideas would see civil war start, for success to be possible the military itself needs to be incapable of purchasing jack or shit for loyalty due to currency collapse.
Comrade, I am exactly pointing out that ⅔ of the 🇺🇲population actively comply with their oppressions.
Nowhere am I suggesting that direct action is easy. It’s just ⅔ directly comply with electoralists.
Electoralism is an important tool and youre a fool to dismiss it so callously. While the feds may be a failure long term it is still useful to vote if only to deny the worst aspects of this failing system, it is also imperative that the local and state governments are if not friendly then at least non-hostile to the various factions of the left.
As loathesome as the Bolsheviks were one of the reasons for their success was the capture and befriendment of various local officials. It allowed them to move freely and openly where the Tzarists were slowed or even stopped by locals. Same principle the capture of city councils and ideally the states would allow the raising of militia not bound to the feds.
The walls may be falling, the roof leaking, and the ground floor covered in sewage but the foundations are made of granite and concrete which will outlast the rest of the house. You’d be a fool to try to build in the swamp next door when a perfectly fine foundation sits ripe for the taking.
Oh no the college is right fucked. But everything else as I said state and local? Better to use it to strengthen our own power, but that just may be the Norman in me talking. How I wish to harrow the Mormons.
But its in meme form! It has to be true!
This administration has made me a straight up anarchist. Fuck this bullshit government system, fuck all government, laws don’t matter anymore, fuck money and fuck corporations.
