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Not going to. This was all predicted by people smarter than I, during the first Trump admin.
MAGAt gets primed for violence for years. MAGAt figures out he's been lied to all along. MAGAt uses that penchant for violence on the scum that has been lying to him. The only difference is that people assumed politicians would be the target.
1.) His steam acct name was apparently DonaldTrump, no progressive or liberal is going to want to be associated with that, even ironically.
2.) If you didn't vote in '22 or '24 & you were legally able, you're not a progressive or liberal, full stop.
I find it very hard to believe that that username would be available on Steam even in 2018 or whenever he made the account, unless you just mean the username that you can change to anything and not the actual login username associated with an account and profile
I don't think login names are public. I could be wrong.
Not a liberal. Some kinds of progressive don't see electoralism as worth their time. Especially if they live in deep reb/blue districts.
...
You gotta do that last year, or a little while later, after people have forgotten. Trying to say it doesn't matter who wins elections right now is... not going to be convincing.
It's actually exactly like what happened with vaccines. We had so many years living in a society which didn't have active urgent throw-you-in-the-camps-for-no-reason tyranny that people stopped believing it was really real, and they're still out confidently saying it's not worth taking basic easy steps to prevent.
I personally am of the opinion that voting isn't very important. I think it distracts from real action. I think the way fascists took the state without winning elections like in 2000 and the whole judicial thing makes it pretty obviously pointless. The fact there's nobody to vote for and the 'against' will often surrender or turn even after sorting through the bullshit empty words they all spout makes it incredibly demoralizing.
I can understand why someone who relies on high morale to keep functioning and puts a high value on truth wouldn't consider it worth the chronological and emotional costs.
As someone who occasionally engages in real politics and building actual relationships or mechanisms of coordination that could at least fractionally support me rather than ending my engagement when I choose which abusive parent is going to beat me for the next couple years and pretending one of them loves me–i often come in contact with those people. You shouldn't be so quick to write them off! They could teach you a lot, and you could do a lot to support each other.
If voting didn't matter, conservatives wouldn't be fighting tooth and nail to take it from you. Don't fall for the propaganda.
They're not mutually exclusive. Real world non-electoral politics is going to be necessary to get us out of this mess (especially now), and it also leads to a good and fulfilling life. There's something magic and human that happens with the people around you when you are fighting for something that's actually worth fighting for, I've seen it.
There's absolutely no reason in the world why it needs to be one or the other. Absolutely none. Unless you just like having a much harder challenge to overcome in your day to day activism, wondering if those people who you come into contact with are going to get "deported" or just never seen again.
Meanwhile, a bunch of people stuffed into an ICE facility in Louisiana without lawyers, medical care, edible food, all kinds of stuff, don't give even the tiniest flying fuck whether it was worth the "emotional costs" for you to keep them out of that situation.
It's interesting you bring up the 2000 election, too. That's one of the inflection points where the whole fuckin' world could have been different based on the results of the election.
Fuck i wrote a long post but the site ate it. Apologies for the curtness and lack of nuance in this version.
You need to learn to read to understand rather than confirm if you want to grow. This flat out rewriting of history to soothe your own feelings to scapegoat people you claim are almost on your side for your defeats at the hands of ruthless enemies at the cost of potential allies is not productive. Wishing people who are already engaged–people who I have seen with my own eyes take insane risks to build community and stand up unarmed to unaccountable men with automatic weapons–is absurd and not a good use if your time. If you need to take your feelings out on someone–not a healthy coping mechanism, but I get it–take them out on your actual enemy-unless we're your real enemy.
And you need to learn to work with people who have different skills capacities and values than your own if you want a coalition with any possibility of winning. Whether your model and skill set are closer to zohran mamdani or Alexander berkman, you're not going to be doing any good sowing division.
Allies are not best used as speed bumps–that is tankie shit. Do I need to remind you what happened to the USSR, Mr. Beria?
If you think me telling you my point of view and what's an important tactic to employ, in blunt terms, is "sowing division," I don't know what sort of diverse communities you have worked in before. I have worked together to build something with people very unlike me. I can do okay at it, I had to learn a lot. Presumably, if you work with activists, you're accustomed to it too: Having strong disagreements about things, talking with people who you don't see eye to eye with. Right? Maybe not.
There is a crisis going on right now. I am trying to wake you up to one vital tool to use to try to set a better course in the future, minimize the crisis and bring it to a less dangerous place and recover a better future. Sorry if I hurt your feelings but people are dying right now. All you can see is me in terms of "enemy" because I don't see things like you do, it sounds like, or be upset because I am talking bluntly about this upsetting situation. I would say, take your own advice: You need to learn to read to understand rather than confirm.
I hate how much emphasis is placed on voting relative to everything else–then they ratfuck our guys literally every single time.
You seemed to be going off on it pretty viciously. That is the problem. I think 'you really should. It's not much effort.' Would go a much longer way.
I wasn't even saying my position on the topic. I don't do that since 2016. I was repeating something i had heard, that I specifically stated was not my position. You had an extremely vitriolic reaction. I was suggesting that helps noone but the enemy.
Not even remotely what I said. I'm pretty sure I actually said specifically that the "everything else" was going to be vital. I think you should read to understand, not to confirm.
I didn't do that. Someone else did, and fuck those guys. It's a massive problem. Activism to fix that is absolutely vital, showing up and voting and nothing else is kind of pointless (again, definitely at this point).
The point is that giving up on elections completely means that it's all ratfucking and no citizen input into formal politics. That's why I compared it with getting vaccines: Whatever you're worried about as the theoretical health impacts, it is astronomically better than not doing it.
I get what you're trying to say that I'm coming off harsh, but if an apartment building burned down and some families died and a lot more were homeless, and after that I heard someone talking about how they took the batteries out of their smoke detector (in the same building) because they think it's better not to have them in, I would have the same reaction.
I mean I'm not purely trying to. It does upset me though. See the smoke detector analogy.
You said, "I personally am of the opinion that voting isn’t very important. I think it distracts from real action." Right?
Edit: Moderated the language, I don't need to be all mean about it. You may be right about that part.
May have confused it with the original more considered version that got munched. Sorry about that.
It can be very easy to yet lost in analogies hyperbole and persuasive rhetoric–especially when the algorithms try to sort us all into siloed echo chambers. We must delve into how our emotional positions are supported from time to time and link that back to reality when we fuck up–which I of course have never had a problem with, because I'm totally perffrct I'm every way.
What?
What was the thing you repeated that you had heard, but that isn't actually your position? I'm just confused by this.
Not really trying to give you a hard time, I get what you're saying about me coming on super-strong about it and I apologize about any kind of harshness. Like I say, it's just an important issue for me that is connected with real world harm, so I feel like if we can have a slightly upsetting conversation and then be set up for action that can help prevent some massive material harm in the world, that's okay.
But what if voting in this system doesn't prevent harm?
Or voting for major party candidates doesn't prevent harm?
Or voting for major party candidates increases harm long term and is how we got here?
What if putting too much emotional investment into a system designed to enable harm isnt healthy?
Not my position: ’the bullshit and victim blaming about voting is too much, the ratfuvking us too demoralizing, and it hurts my heart to back any of these people or stand side by side with assholes who victim blame me so hard for not endorsing one group of genocidal monsters over another'.
I do not have a (metaphorical) heart, and do not need a hope of victory to act out of spite. Which isn't to say i don't have my own reasons one way or another.
Then you need to do more, on top of voting, to try to further reduce the harm. And, also, don't throw away a crucial tool to move the needle towards "less death and suffering" because it would be way too upsetting.
Not complicated really. Lots of ways of fighting for a better world are upsetting. That's not really the metric of whether they are worth doing.
Again–Explicitly stating that this is not my position, and why it is not my position. I do not need to hear your scripted reactionary criticism of it fir the thousandth time. This wasn't new information the first time i heard it.
The Harris 2024 campaign climbed all the way up your asshole and clearly left a lot of its scripted reflexive reactionary bullshit there. You're just looking for people to attack and shit to strike left about. Fucking stop. This is not helpful. You are not convincing anyone by repeating the same shit. Blaming people for not being convinced by a politician with a multi billion dollar ad campaign is not going to convince them where it failed. It's just going to make you look like a bitter irrational dick.
I have done good productive work with people who literally wanted me dead. I have done good work with someone I met when they literally held me hostage with a knife to my throat. I do not think i could work with somebody who behaves like you're behaving right now. Let it go.
You said, “I personally am of the opinion that voting isn’t very important. I think it distracts from real action.” Right?
If that's not what you said or not what you think, tell me. What's your position on voting? Is it worth upsetting yourself by voting, if you can then take part in keeping thousands of people out of ICE detention or reduce the US government's destruction of the planet compared to the alternative? My position is that it is, but tell me.
No idea why you've moved to cursing and insulting me.
I don't think either of us is going to get anything else out of this.
Sure, have a good one
Because they can't do the bare minimum?
Read what i wrote, please.
I did, they’re right; these people can’t do the bare minimum. Plus they look for excuses like blaming the colour of the electorate.
The current leadership reflects those electorates and the participation, in every way. They really did get what they voted for, or didn’t.