but it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to look at Trump and conclude that he’s infinitely worse This line is smoking gun proof that everyone in this thread trying to engage with you is talking exclusively over your head. You

I take it that means you disagree. Well congratulations, your orange man won. Was it worth it?

He’s not our man, dumb-ass. Previously: It’s not wrong to say regulatory capture is a problem, it just doesn’t go far enough. The US government was never not captured by the bourgeoisie, because the US was born of a bourgeois revolution[1]. The wealthy, white, male, land-owning, largely slave-owning Founding Fathers constructed a bourgeois state with “checks and balances” against the “tyranny of the majority”. It was never meant to represent the majority—the working class—and it never has, despite eventually allowing women and non-whites (at least those not disenfranchised by the carceral system) to vote. BBC: [Princeton & Northwestern] Study: US is an oligarchy, not a democracy The game is rigged. The election cycle’s pomp and circumstance is to divert your energy and attention from the fact that it’s a big club, and you ain’t in it.

He’s not our man. No, he’s not. Despite that, there sure are a lot of folks here who were eager to hand him the keys of the country, and continue to to defend their choice. The game is rigged. The election cycle’s pomp and circumstance is to divert your energy and attention from the fact that it’s a big club, and you ain’t in it. Mostly agree, with the caveat that it’s not all pomp and circumstance, only mostly pomp and circumstance. Take genocide for example, which seems to be the theme of the thread: we didn’t get the choice of no genocide, our only options were more vs less. Those are shitty options, but if we have that wiggle room, it’s worth voting for less in order to prevent more. Damage mitigation. Still genocide, still shitty options, but tangibly distinct options. We’re given a crumb of freedom - use it. It’s the only official voice we’ve got. Fortunately there lots of other options too - everything from shouting into the void like I’m doing here in this thread, to throwing molotovs at Nazis: each tool comes with its own risk-to-impact ratio. Voting is low impact, but it’s safe and (for most people) accessible. It’s the bare minimum. There’s a lot of strawman in this thread against the non-existent argument of voting and only voting. I’m with you on that one: that would be fucking stupid. But that’s not what I’m advocating for.

No, he’s not. Despite that, there sure are a lot of folks here who were eager to hand him the keys of the country, and continue to to defend their choice. Trump already has the keys. That ship has sailed. If he has a third term it will be through extralegal measures, not the ballot box.

Correct. That’s what I’m bitching about.

Take genocide for example, which seems to be the theme of the thread: we didn’t get the choice of no genocide, our only options were more vs less. Those are shitty options, but if we have that wiggle room, it’s worth voting for less in order to prevent more. Damage mitigation. Still genocide, still shitty options, but tangibly distinct options. Whether it would have been a “lesser” genocide is unfalsifiable. We’ll never really know. But I don’t have the faith in it that you have. I’m not sure what a more competent genocidal administration would have done. Consider what many US Palestinians did: threaten to withhold their votes if Harris didn’t say there was at least some daylight between herself and Biden regarding Gazans. And she wouldn’t even do that much. That’s how you use the vote, if you use it at all. You use it as leverage. If the Democrats know you’ll “vote Blue no matter who” or “vote Blue no matter what,” then they’ll ignore you altogether, because you’re already in their pocket. You’ve made yourself irrelevant.

Whether it would have been a “lesser” genocide is unfalsifiable. We’ll never really know. But I don’t have the faith in it that you have. I’m not sure what a more competent genocidal administration would have done. Correct. But I’m confident the Harris administration wouldn’t have taking the swan-dive that Trump’s did. Same with all the other evils he’s committed outside the scope of genocide: bad under Harris, worse under Trump. Given what we know about the two, that assumption seems pretty reasonable. If you disagree, well like you said, that comes to which candidate we have less faith in. For me, Trump is the obvious rock-bottom worst outcome, but I can’t compare to an administration that never happened, so speculate as you will. Consider what many US Palestinians did: threaten to withhold their votes if Harris didn’t say there was at least some daylight between herself and Biden regarding Gazans. And she wouldn’t even do that much. But that’s how you use the vote, if you use it at all. You use it as leverage. If the Democrats know you’ll “vote Blue no matter who” or “vote Blue no matter what,” then they’ll ignore you altogether, because you’re already in their pocket. You’ve made yourself irrelevant. Half correct. Withholding votes won’t get their attention - we’ve seen that play out again and again. Democrats would rather lose than change. If you want their attention and real change, you’ll need to do things other than vote.