The Democratic People's Republic of Tankiejerk

I’ve said it once and I’ll say it again: leftists aren’t a big enough voting bloc to swing a presidential election.

When elections are won and lost on a literal single percentage point, that's not even fucking close to true.

I’m an anti-electoralist anarchist and I still voted for the cop.

Unironically, thank you.

Most leftists still vote despite their belief that our electoral system is a sham.

I would say that's probably true, yes.

Unfortunately, the number of leftists who don't vote or throw away their vote to play purity politics is still very significant. And, even more pertinently, they are very prominent here on Lemmy, where we are posting.

Leftists are either incredibly popular and powerful or incredibly weak and ineffective depending on which flavor of cope you’re going for this week.

The Dems are a big tent party that can only win against fascists as a coalition, not playing purity politics.

When even the smallest member of the coalition discourages participation, that's all it fucking takes to lose.

We aren’t responsible for your party being a hot mess

No, you very much aren't. But considering those who sat home and those who amplified "Both sides are the same!" calls for apathy and non-participation, those who've done so should sit down for a very long goddamn time and question whether they're responsible for the fascist party, the one that is even more of a mess, winning the last (and potentially last) election.

Like, if you want me to rate what groups are responsible for the loss of the 2024 election, "Leftists playing purity politics" is like, 7th or 8th down the list. But 'apathetic moderates', 'Zionists', 'gerontocrats', 'bipartisan cooperation twits', 'egg price ghouls' etc etc etc are not exactly a big part of the community here on Lemmy. If any one of those previous groups had not screwed the pooch, we wouldn't be in the current fascist mess regardless of what leftists had done. But likewise, if leftists alone hadn't cultivated an intensive left-purity culture that leads to weird situations like the DS fucking A un-endorsing AOC for being insufficiently leftist, we also probably wouldn't be in the current fascist mess. It's like needing the consent of a dozen fucking groups to blow our brains out, where just one refusing would've saved us; and instead every goddamn one of them deciding they really like the idea of seeing our brains splattered on the wall.

While I definitely have posts and comments castigating those other groups, "Left purists" are often the ones I return to precisely because it concerns me that this online social circle, where I post pushes back so hard on the concept that letting the fascists win is, in fact, a bad thing, and that inaction is not absolution from that.

"Neutrality is on the side of the oppressor", and all that jazz.

Everyone (or almost everyone - some of those same left purists agitate that apathetic moderates are actually Wholesome And Valid) agrees when I say "Fuck these other groups", which makes banging that particular drum less important. Like saying "Water is wet".

Whereas saying "Leftism is not a reason to let fascists win" gets the same response from a very nonzero contingent on here as "The Holodomor isn't a myth made up by Ukrainian Nazis to defame the Glorious Soviet Union and The Great Genius Stalin" - ie a negative reaction that should be emphasized to the community is not fucking normal and everyday if we are all going to pretend to try to be decent human beings here.