In every election “left-leaning” neoliberals always try to guilt-trip Marxists into voting for their candidates with the usual schpiel: “Your party doesn’t have enough votes to win. You are just letting conservatives win”. What do you tell these people?
generally “no.”
but if it’s someone I actually like, and want to help come to better stances, I’ll explain that it’s useless to care who the president is. The Senate and the supreme court matter more in terms of policy, and every single “left” leaning president has still been behind some vile shit.
When they were telling us to “vote blue no matter who” back in 2019, I would calmly explain that Biden’s politics aren’t far off from Republican ones, and that his career spits in the face of what his supporters think of him.
as it seems to me, the lines like “you’re just letting the conservatives win” and “if you don’t participate in the system you’re against the progress” are ultimately just things they tell themselves so they feel like they’re in some way useful. I would posit that most of them know, on some level, that voting doesn’t do anything of note. I would further posit that most of them know that they’re wasting their time caring about who the president is, but do it out of fear for the future. they lack the theory and the understanding to know that the existing system doesn’t include our voices, so like a person blinded by a dark room, they’re swinging around wildly in the hopes that they’ll hit something. A lot of them just need to be sat down and talked to in human terms, person to person. Enough of that and they’ll come around on their stances.
Can we vote for members of the communist party? And you are saying that voting for the communist party makes no difference?
If you buy in to Lenin’s philosophy, voting for a (non-electoralist) communist party is good because they can direct the support into other outlets which can actually do good (mutual aid, dual power, general propogandizing)
Voting in and of itself does nothing. At least as far as the presidential vote matters. Comrades should still be actively engaged in workers’ parties, and should still vote in local elections to ensure that the best candidates get elected.
But voting for a communist in the presidential election is nothing more than a moral victory, they’d never let a communist win. They won’t normally even put a communist on the ballot. If you want to go to your local voting booth in 2024 and write in Cornel West (or what have you) you’re more than empowered to do so. But the two-headed party will still win.
The only way we’re exacting any kind of meaningful change under the current system is through strikes and the whatnot. Otherwise, it’s a waste of time. Not to come across as pessimistic, of course. If a communist was to get enough votes that MSM was forced to mention them, that would go a long way in bringing attention to our stances and bring some legitimacy to our parties. Of course, that would come with a lot of slander, and if McCarthy-era rhetoric ramps up, anyone who voted for the communist would be at risk of arrest. But the average liberal would be more aware of far-left parties, which I guess is a good thing.
Top response.