Election 2020

[IdleRich]

I don't think the two are comparable and in any case your school of thought is the Biden is the lesser evil compared to Trump, so what's the problem?

There's no specific problem there. My point is just that choosing to demonstrate that you deny the legitimacy of an election by not participating is never going to help you because it just means the side you would have voted for is less likely to win and - assuming that the vote was called for by the people who are in power - then the side that wins will simply have their victory enacted anyway.
So in Brexit, if a Remainer said "I don't see this vote as legitimate I won't vote" then that just means one fewer vote for Remain, and ultimately, it means that Brexit is more likely to win the vote and so Brexit is more likely to happen.
Similarly, in the Georgia run-offs when Lin Wood told Republican voters to boycott it cos it wasn't gonna be legitimate, Democrats were laughing themselves silly and repeating that cos they just wanted to win and anyone against them boycotting it was only going to help them.,
Basically I don't see how boycotting an election can ever help you except possibly in some sort of extraordinary circumstances.

 

[boxedjoy]

in a two-party system, if the choice is between not voting, or voting against the party who are going to make life difficult for the people already alienated in society, then I'm going to hold my nose and accept things aren't perfect and put my X in the box. It's easy to be theoretical and say that you don't support any party (and you're probably right to not fully endorse any in 2020), but in very real terms all it means is, as @IdleRich says, there's one less vote balancing out the vote for the party that supports discrimination etc.

 

[thirdform]

There's no specific problem there. My point is just that choosing to demonstrate that you deny the legitimacy of an election by not participating is never going to help you because it just means the side you would have voted for is less likely to win and - assuming that the vote was called for by the people who are in power - then the side that wins will simply have their victory enacted anyway.
So in Brexit, if a Remainer said "I don't see this vote as legitimate I won't vote" then that just means one fewer vote for Remain, and ultimately, it means that Brexit is more likely to win the vote and so Brexit is more likely to happen.
Similarly, in the Georgia run-offs when Lin Wood told Republican voters to boycott it cos it wasn't gonna be legitimate, Democrats were laughing themselves silly and repeating that cos they just wanted to win and anyone against them boycotting it was only going to help them.,
Basically I don't see how boycotting an election can ever help you except possibly in some sort of extraordinary circumstances.

Yes, and you and boxedjoy are missing that it was remainers who called the referendum. They unleashed their own frankenstein's monster that they could not control.

Also bore off with this helping the most underprivileged shtick, this has always been a prime white guilt cop out excuse.

 

[thirdform]

in a two-party system, if the choice is between not voting, or voting against the party who are going to make life difficult for the people already alienated in society, then I'm going to hold my nose and accept things aren't perfect and put my X in the box. It's easy to be theoretical and say that you don't support any party (and you're probably right to not fully endorse any in 2020), but in very real terms all it means is, as @IdleRich says, there's one less vote balancing out the vote for the party that supports discrimination etc.

You're assuming that labour or the dems don't support discrimination though.

It wasn't the tories who invented the benefits integrity project, for instance. It wasn't tories who created the system for surveilling brown and muslim kids through a comprehensive counter-terrorism program. That was labour's doing.

 

[thirdform]

It wasn't Trump who deported over 3M migrants from the American Border, that was Obama's doing. The grass is far less green when you actually don't have any investment in politics. Both of you seem to. (which like fair enough) but the idea that not voting gives power to discriminators seems to be bizarre. You actually believe things can be better under current conditions. I don't, and I've long since accepted defeat.

 

[thirdform]

What the British and American psyche both share is externalising their problems. The whole thing is a victim grift, be that on the left, and increasingly these days on the right. This is why I can't be enthused about saving this country. Saving it would indicate that people are willing to abandon their hubris. I don't see that happening any time soon.

This is what I mean though, @IdleRich and @boxedjoy. The whole less bad option is a hubris complex.

 

[boxedjoy]

I did the anti-Iraq marches in my teens and never thought at 15 I would find myself voting for Labour at any point in my life.

But here we are with a Prime Minister who refers to people like me as "tank top batty boys" and a Home Secretary who would be happy staking out migrant dingys on the beach with a harpoon. Starmer's fucking useless and I hate what's happening in our climate and I'm not going to stop being critical of him or Labour (or the SNP in Scotland for similar reasons) but it doesn't mean I'm not prepared to accept the lesser of two evils if it's going to have any impact, even if it's only slight.

I don't believe things can be better under current conditions so much as I fear they can be worse.

 

[constant escape]

And that post-defeat stage I would imagine is like trying to cross some infinite sea, which is why I clutch onto some degree of denial while trying to speculate a strategy for said defeat. Needless to say I'm trafficking almost purely in abstraction in that regard.

 

[thirdform]

you didn't answer the questions. what's the better alternative?

Well to offer an alternative you have to first define what democracy is. As in, what is the inner form of democracy from which all outward phenomena of democracy manifest?

and when you break it down like that, democracy itself is self-contradictory, (or should I say self-refuting) because it splits society into a broadly amorphous mass and its elected representatives. But the people, the folk or the community don't really exist outside of either romantic or national forms. It's easy to say Marxists are reductive with their idea of exploiters and exploited, but democrats are even worse. the common man and the elite. This is all well too vague for describing things.

 

[IdleRich]

Yes, and you and boxedjoy are missing that it was remainers who called the referendum. They unleashed their own frankenstein's monster that they could not control.

Also bore off with this helping the most underprivileged shtick, this has always been a prime white guilt cop out excuse.

No you're completely missing the point. Forget Brexit or Trump or whatever or which side wins, I'm asking if it can ever be an advantage to "delegitamise" an election by boycotting it, and if so how.
Honestly, why is it so hard for you to grasp the points being made? I don't get why you struggle so much with simple things - you charge off in the wrong direction and then share a hardcore tune and it's so frustrating cos sometimes you might even know the answer or at least be able to point in the right direction, but... it's just so fucking frustrating.

 

[thirdform]

I did the anti-Iraq marches in my teens and never thought at 15 I would find myself voting for Labour at any point in my life.

But here we are with a Prime Minister who refers to people like me as "tank top batty boys" and a Home Secretary who would be happy staking out migrant dingys on the beach with a harpoon. Starmer's fucking useless and I hate what's happening in our climate and I'm not going to stop being critical of him or Labour (or the SNP in Scotland for similar reasons) but it doesn't mean I'm not prepared to accept the lesser of two evils if it's going to have any impact, even if it's only slight.

I don't believe things can be better under current conditions so much as I fear they can be worse.

But what is this slight impact? I can't see it. If you can tell me what the slight impact is beyond mere belief, then I'm all ears.

 

[IdleRich]

Yes, and you and boxedjoy are missing that it was remainers who called the referendum. They unleashed their own frankenstein's monster that they could not control.

Also bore off with this helping the most underprivileged shtick, this has always been a prime white guilt cop out excuse.

Honestly this just shows such a weird misunderstanding of everything I was even talking about... you might as well have come back with something demanding to know what my favourite pizza topping is... I mean, what the fuck are you on about?

 

[thirdform]

No you're completely missing the point. Forget Brexit or Trump or whatever or which side wins, I'm asking if it can ever be an advantage to "delegitamise" an election by boycotting it, and if so how.
Honestly, why is it so hard for you to grasp the points being made? I don't get why you struggle so much with simple things - you charge off in the wrong direction and then share a hardcore tune and it's so frustrating cos sometimes you might even know the answer or at least be able to point in the right direction, but... it's just so fucking frustrating.

Do I think it can be an advantage? Well no, because I'm anti-electorial and attach practically nil importance to parliamentary procedure. This is why I was focusing so heavily on remainers, because even if I can say in hindsight what they could have done is delegitimise it and refuse to vote to tank the referendum (on a mass scale of abscentee ballots) they would not have done that because broadly speaking, and I'm talking about the flagship campaign here, not some bloke on a brixton estate, their interests lie in politics, not outside of them.

 

[IdleRich]

I just always find it so weird, that I say something and you respond to something that I never said, or wasn't even talking about, and randomly misrepresent what my position on that would have been if I had been talking about it... and then you get really really angry about it and then do some other totally unconnected rant that isn't related to the thing you were annoyed about that wasn't related in any way to what I said anyway. I don't understand who you're performing for or why?
It reminds me of that guy on Harry Enfield who always goes "If Noel Edmonds came to my house and started doing x or y* I'd get really annoyed about it" except you don't bother with the if and you seem to think Noel is already there going through your stuff and somehow it's my fault.

 

[boxedjoy]

seeing 43% of voters - nearly half of people who turned up in 2019 - were happy to support the incompetence and barely diguised bigotry of the PM, and knowing those personal beliefs were going to shape the next five years of public policy, rather than at least vote for the party willing to publically be seen to be trying to do better on this stuff (even if they were failing in many ways) - the message Labour takes from that is to then lurch to the right to have any chance of being successful. So then your people doing better work - Whittome, Zultana, for example - becoming less prominent figures in the party, having less opportunity and voice to shape the direction of proposed policy from the opposition.

 

[thirdform]

seeing 43% of voters - nearly half of people who turned up in 2019 - were happy to support the incompetence and barely diguised bigotry of the PM, and knowing those personal beliefs were going to shape the next five years of public policy, rather than at least vote for the party willing to publically be seen to be trying to do better on this stuff (even if they were failing in many ways) - the message Labour takes from that is to then lurch to the right to have any chance of being successful. So then your people doing better work - Whittome, Zultana, for example - becoming less prominent figures in the party, having less opportunity and voice to shape the direction of proposed policy from the opposition.

I mean, this is romanticism isn't it though? It was Dianne Abbott who called for a reformation of prevent in parliament in 2018, not its abolition.

 

[thirdform]

I just always find it so weird, that I say something and you respond to something that I never said, or wasn't even talking about, and randomly misrepresent what my position on that would have been if I had been talking about it... and then you get really really angry about it and then do some other totally unconnected rant that isn't related to the thing you were annoyed about that wasn't related in any way to what I said anyway. I don't understand who you're performing for or why?
It reminds me of that guy on Harry Enfield who always goes "If Noel Edmonds came to my house and started doing x or y* I'd get really annoyed about it" except you don't bother with the if and you seem to think Noel is already there going through your stuff and somehow it's my fault.

Not at all. Your argument is just based on fear. fear that the other side might win. I'm saying they've already won prior to the calling of any votes. Yes, I agree that elections are useless, but for different reasons.

 

[thirdform]

I mean to state the obvious: maybe abstaining from an election can delegitimise it by creating an actual oppositional bloc who can stick to political principles.

It's hardly a democracy if you have 30-40% of abscentee ballots is it? Even by leaver standards.

 

[thirdform]

you're quarelling over 4%, with a vain belief that were people somehow enlightened to the rigging of the campaign, they would vote differently. Why or how that would be the case, you refuse to answer.

 

[boxedjoy]

you can talk about privilege and power but I think the real sign of privilege is thinking you can sit this stuff out because it doesn't affect you, and whether that's from a position of comfort or a position of nihilism it's still the same effect - to me it looks like social conservatism that daren't risk it's own comfort for the sake of others. When you take no action, you're taking no action against something as much as you are taking no action for something, and if that's the position you want to be in that's fine, but the leopards don't care whose face they have to eat to be fed.