Perfect is the enemy of better
Perfect is the enemy of better
43 comments
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I mourn every single person of colour's, queer person's, disabled person's, and otherwise marginalized person's life the non voters chose to sacrifice for their lofty ideal of revolution, or whatever else their reasoning was.
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Keeping fascists out of office, by any means necessary...means voting for their strongest opponent, every time there's an opportunity...in addition to every other means at our disposal. Not voting against them, gives them power in a vacuum.
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You had 3 choices with 2 outcomes. If you want to accelerate a western collapse without a working commune to fill the power vacuum or have no post game plan, you're an asshole.
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Voting for the lesser evil is harm reduction in the same way that giving a fentanyl addict morphine is harm reduction. You cannot vote your way out of fascism.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chilean_transition_to_democracy
One shouldn't put all one's faith in the ballot, but rejecting it unconditionally is just as fucking stupid. Ceding every tool imaginable to the fascists out of some bizarre purity complex helps no one.
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Hey, so actually the term "harm reduction" came exactly from that kind of scenario. Giving heroin addicts methadone is exactly harm reduction, probably the best possible example actually.
We can certainly vote for slower, weaker fascism.
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But you can vote to prevent them from taking power in the first place.
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Unfortunately voting for Democrats isn't harm reduction. It's just a vote against harm acceleration. Which has a value don't get me wrong. But it's not the same thing. The only way we'll ever see harm reduction. Is if we primary every candidate from every party. Actually making them compete and not just continuing to legislate based on momentum. As well as voting in every tiny local election. Focusing on them and empowering your local politicians and party. To take away from the national party's power.
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Unfortunately voting for Democrats isn’t harm reduction. It’s just a vote against harm acceleration.
... that's what 'harm reduction' means.
As a term, it's meant to suggest that voting for bourgeois democratic parties will never, itself, lead towards a more fundamentally equal society, else it would be a (theoretically) viable path in and of itself.
As a term, it suggests that there is a path that will result in a less horrific situation than if the alternative succeeds - such as more capitalist bourgeois democratic parties, or, more relevantly to recent events, outright fascist parties.
Harm reduction, in this context, means reducing the coming harm, not necessarily reducing current harm.
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"Harm reduction" doesn't mean reducing the current level of harm to a lower level, it means reducing the future increase of harm. Voting for harm reduction is literally the exact same thing as voting against harm acceleration. It is the same thing. The term comes from drug policy, where you recognize that people will harm themselves no matter what, so you focus on reducing that harm rather than trying ineffectively to eliminate it entirely.
Still though, voting as far left as can win in every local election is an excellent start. We're not going to change anything by voting for 3rd party no-names in the general election. We'll do it by building local representatives into Governors and members of Congress with track records that inspire confidence, and then pushing them nationally.
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If it doesn't reduce harm. It's not harm reduction. Prevention perhaps. But reduction has a different meaning. Reduction means not only stopping new harm. But reducing existing as well. Something that even if we are being extremely generous to Democrats is something they struggle to even attempt to do.
Don't get me wrong I'm 100% on board for the general message of the meme. Placing Perfection over achievable will get you the worst outcome every time. However voting itself can never be harm reduction. No matter how often you do it. That's going to require community action, making these elected officials feel accountable and responsible for their actions.
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Unfortunately voting for Democrats isn't harm reduction. It's just a vote against harm acceleration.
Ummm...that's literally what "harm reduction" is, though. You are minimizing the damage fascists can do, and giving yourself more time to get alternatives in place.
The only way we'll ever see harm reduction. Is if we primary every candidate from every party.
You can't do that if you don't vote against fascism in every election...even the ones where you don't have a favorite candidate. If you choose to sit out the elections that don't have an ideal candidate...then how do you expect one to run, once the fascists use their power to cancel future elections? You have to keep them out of office, if you want to have any hope of pursuing better alternatives.
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