A few weeks ago, philosophy YouTuber Contrapoints made some Twitter comments about electoralism vs. anti-electoralism. Ever since she released her video call...
There is political pragmatism and there is political naiveté.
Did you notice what happened when Biden’s performance dropped the Democrats’ chance of victory below 40%? Donors, private media, and politicians all started piling on the pressure for the Democrats to pick a more appealing candidate, and now Harris has already managed to pull the needle back to 45% with the help of a rush of donations and private media support. If losing to fascism is so bad, why don’t major players get that upset at 50%? Why don’t they push for 60% chance of winning, or 80%? Could they if they actually tried? How many big donors donate to both the Republicans and the Democrats?
When you do phonebanking, you’re not fighting against fascism, you’re fighting so that a company like Coinbase donates $100k less to the Democratic campaign and $100k more to the Republican one, presumably meaning the Democrats owe them one less favor and the Republicans owe them one more. You’re not fighting against fascism, you’re fighting to make the Democrats a bit more likely to crack down on crypto if they win, and Republicans a lit less likely.
The fascists have 50% of winning, and you can do less to change that as an individudal than you can change the stock price for Apple on NASDAQ. You can either spend all your time phonebanking and be utterly unprepared if we lose the coin flip, or you can do non-electoral things like help set up an underground railroad to Canada. (Or neither). Whether or not Natalie Wynn dies does not depend on whether you phone bank, it depends on whether she can get out in time as a political refugee if we lose the coin flip. And there we can improve her odds through preparation. Natalie is right that a lot of online anti-electoralism is roleplay (not even LARP, because that involves props), but to be fair so is a lot of (online) electoralism. Most people in the US neither phonebank nor prepare for fascist takeover, but if you’re going to do one, the latter is more meaningful.
This isn’t a fully general argument against elections. If the opponents weren’t fascists, making the Democrats less dependent on crypto donors and more dependent on people being willing to support them would be a meaningful improvement. If private advertisement or donations for political campaigns or other forms of corruption were illegal (and enforced), there wouldn’t be a force to counterbalance your shift of voting numbers. If there were three or more viable alternatives, there wouldn’t be an optimal point for donors to keep the parties’ sizes at. If polling was unreliable or illegal, donors wouldn’t have feedback on which party to donate to, so phonebanking in an untraceable way would help. If you’re in a local election with few enough donors you can overwhelm those donors with labor. And in the end, votes do count: Republican donors can’t retroactively increase or decrease their contribution depending on what you fill in, so there in the booth with nobody looking over your shoulder, you do actually decrease the chance of fascism by voting D.
As for it being funny that these discussions pop up around peak campaign times, how strange that people are inclined to talk about a phenomenon that is flooding every corner of social media.
There is political pragmatism and there is political naiveté.
Did you notice what happened when Biden’s performance dropped the Democrats’ chance of victory below 40%? Donors, private media, and politicians all started piling on the pressure for the Democrats to pick a more appealing candidate, and now Harris has already managed to pull the needle back to 45% with the help of a rush of donations and private media support. If losing to fascism is so bad, why don’t major players get that upset at 50%? Why don’t they push for 60% chance of winning, or 80%? Could they if they actually tried? How many big donors donate to both the Republicans and the Democrats?
When you do phonebanking, you’re not fighting against fascism, you’re fighting so that a company like Coinbase donates $100k less to the Democratic campaign and $100k more to the Republican one, presumably meaning the Democrats owe them one less favor and the Republicans owe them one more. You’re not fighting against fascism, you’re fighting to make the Democrats a bit more likely to crack down on crypto if they win, and Republicans a lit less likely.
The fascists have 50% of winning, and you can do less to change that as an individudal than you can change the stock price for Apple on NASDAQ. You can either spend all your time phonebanking and be utterly unprepared if we lose the coin flip, or you can do non-electoral things like help set up an underground railroad to Canada. (Or neither). Whether or not Natalie Wynn dies does not depend on whether you phone bank, it depends on whether she can get out in time as a political refugee if we lose the coin flip. And there we can improve her odds through preparation. Natalie is right that a lot of online anti-electoralism is roleplay (not even LARP, because that involves props), but to be fair so is a lot of (online) electoralism. Most people in the US neither phonebank nor prepare for fascist takeover, but if you’re going to do one, the latter is more meaningful.
This isn’t a fully general argument against elections. If the opponents weren’t fascists, making the Democrats less dependent on crypto donors and more dependent on people being willing to support them would be a meaningful improvement. If private advertisement or donations for political campaigns or other forms of corruption were illegal (and enforced), there wouldn’t be a force to counterbalance your shift of voting numbers. If there were three or more viable alternatives, there wouldn’t be an optimal point for donors to keep the parties’ sizes at. If polling was unreliable or illegal, donors wouldn’t have feedback on which party to donate to, so phonebanking in an untraceable way would help. If you’re in a local election with few enough donors you can overwhelm those donors with labor. And in the end, votes do count: Republican donors can’t retroactively increase or decrease their contribution depending on what you fill in, so there in the booth with nobody looking over your shoulder, you do actually decrease the chance of fascism by voting D.
As for it being funny that these discussions pop up around peak campaign times, how strange that people are inclined to talk about a phenomenon that is flooding every corner of social media.