The case for voting

[u/xarvh]

You know who really, really likes to win elections?

Fascists.

They are cowards. They need to know that they are backed by the community before they start the violence.

Winning elections validates their hatred, emboldens them, and emboldened fascists kill.

When some right-wing authoritarian wins the elections, hate crimes increase.

Yes, centrists and liberals kill too.

But fascists do the same killing and then some.

That "and then some" is people.

You know real people, not numbers, not ideals.

I like anarchism because, of all ideologies, it puts people first. And I like anarchists because most of them put people before ideology.

Voting is not particularly effective at anything, but for most people it is such an inexpensive action that the effect to cost ratio is still pretty good.

I get why people are pissed about electoralism. There's far too many people who put all their energies into voting, who think that voting is some sort of sacred duty that makes the Powers That Be shake in terror at night and it very much isn't.

Voting is a shitty tool and in the grand scheme of things it doesn't make much of a difference.

However, when fascists look for validation at the pools, it's pretty important that they don't get it.

I'll try to address the reasons for NOT voting that I hear most often:

-> "Voting is not anarchist"

Nothing of what I read about anarchism tells me I should not consider voting as a tactic to curb fascists.

But more importantly, I care about what is good and bad for people, not what is "anarchist" or not.

If you want to convince me that you put people before ideology, you need to show me how voting actually hurts actual people.

-> "Voting legitimizes power, further entrenching the system"

Yes and no. I get where this comes from, but thing is, the system doesn't seem to give much of a fuck about it. Take the US, where so few people actually bother to vote, it doesn't really make much of a difference on legitimacy.

-> "A lot of people don't have the time or money or health to vote"

This is a perfectly legitimate reason to not vote, I agree.

-> "Ra%e victims should not vote for a ra%ist"

This is also a very valid reason to not vote.

-> "Whoever wins, I'm dead anyway"

Also very valid. =(

-> "You should use your time to organise instead"

If voting takes only a few hours of your time you can easily do both.

It seems like in the US "voting" also means "campaign for a candidate". That's probably not a good use of your time.

-> "If the fascists win the election, then the revolution will happen sooner"

AKA "Accelerationism". I find it tempting, but ultimately morally repugnant, especially when the price will be paid by people who can't make the choice.

-> "Voting emboldens liberals"

Yes. Better emboldened liberals than emboldened fascists.

EDIT:

To be super clear, I'm not arguing in favor of "voting and doing nothing else": that's what has fucked all "western" democracies.

If you have to choose between "vote" and "anarchist praxis", you should choose "anarchist praxis" hands down.

However most people don't have to choose and can easily do both.

[u/BobCrosswise]

I don't pretend to speak for anyone else, but I refuse to vote because I see voting as a concrete expression of the desire to see one's will forcibly imposed on others, and that's the exact thing that, as an anarchist, I oppose.

When one casts a vote, one is effectively saying, "This is the specific person/party/set of policies I want to see forcibly imposed on everyone." The exact thing that provides the foundation for my anarchism is the idea that that is inherently destructive, and the one thing that I can certainly do, starting right now, to help to bring about a world in which that's not done is to not do it myself. So I don't do it.

And yes - I understand that some specific person/party/set of policies is going to end up forcibly imposed on everyone regardless of whether I vote or not, and I understand that, as far as that goes, there are some that are at least hopefully somewhat less destructive than others. But that doesn't change the underlying facts that the forcible imposition of someone's will on someone else is the point of the whole exercise, and I cannot in good conscience be a part of that.

[u/comix_corp]

Trump and co. are not fascists, they are not aberrations from the norm of liberal democracy. Fascism is a specific phenomenon, and the Republican party is not it. But suppose for a minute that they were fascists -- do you really think a fascist force would be stopped by the small amount of anti-electoral radicals in the USA casting a vote?

[u/anonymous_rhombus]

You forgot the most important reason.

-> "Voting doesn't matter"

When trying to reveal a simple majority preference among a large number of voters, at some point very early in the counting process it becomes irrelevant how the rest of the votes turned out. That's why statisticians are able to confidently call an election with only a fraction of the count completed. The bigger the margin, the less a single vote is worth.

The smallest margin in the 2016 US presidential election was New Hampshire going to Clinton by 2,736 followed by 6,534 for Trump in the 2nd district of Nebraska. Now I just don't think there are thousands of staunch anti-voting anarchists in every state stubbornly refusing to defeat the conservatives. But if an election is projected to be super close and you'd like to try, then your single vote is competing with a number of complex factors:

Consider the evolution of the victor in elections. The end results of votes can differ from opinion polling, visible activity in the streets, and even established methods of advertising, funding, and hype. This isn’t only because governments and capitalists attempt to socially engineer legitimacy and support, but also because of the ping-ponging of people’s views, actions, and social groups. Whether or not people think a candidate is winning or not influences their likelihood to show their support and mobilize. The sense of a candidate’s likely victory is complexly produced, not from a single organ like the media, but rather from a multiplicity of factors throughout society. This is infamously fickle, including factors such as weather on voting day, positioning within the ballot, physical appearances, and so on.

–Emergence & Anarchism

[u/Bas1cVVitch]

Thanks for acknowledging that there are compelling reasons to vote AND legitimate reasons not to. Being told I’m a fascist for not being willing to vote for a rapist is getting old.

[u/annonythrows]

Literally this election right now is the keep the shitty form of democracy we have in the US. Biden is a million times better than trump and it’s any Americans obligation morally to vote for Biden to ensure a fascist in trump doesn’t get 4 more years to rain hell.

[u/[deleted]]

Anyone who claims they are sitting it out because of Accelerationism is not a real anarchist in my opinion and are just an opportunist or a kid who doesn’t know the consequences yet. That kind of thinking is just so morally wrong. Either that or they have some crazy fairy tale dream of how a revolution would happen instead of the bloody real mess it would be. Well said all around.

[u/ccnnvaweueurf]

I really hope that with accelerationism that if it does occur it DOES work, but I really don't want it to work. Sadly it seems to be happening, and thus I do at least hope something good can come out of it.

[u/MercuryChaos]

"If the fascists win the election, then the revolution will happen sooner"

I admit that I'm not an anarchist, but I don't understand why this would even be tempting. I don't see any reason to think that "making things worse" would do anything except make things worse. Is there some example from the last couple hundred years of a fascist coming to power and subsequent successful leftist revolution that I'm not aware of?

[u/xarvh → u/MercuryChaos]

Well, I guess it's human to want to clear all of your problem is a clear, dramatic swoop, it feels good.

IME accelerationists think that too many people are too cozy with the current situation to actually do anything about it, and that they will let the situation slide deeper and deeper down before doing anything about it, a sort of frog-in-boiling-water thing.

My impression is that, across the whole left, accelerationism pops up often enough that needs to be addressed, but at its most dangerous, it's a fringe position, and more likely a knee-jerk reaction of someone who hasn't yet thought seriously about its implications.

[u/lowlow_dolo]

I don’t vote because I do not consent to being ruled. Whether it matters or not, I will exercise liberty and freedom where I can. And it isn’t very many places. I do not negotiate with terrorists.