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I had more I wanted to say on this topic when I first read it, but at the time I also had more energy. Had I not had other obligations, I would've written out my more detailed thoughts then. As it is, however, I'll have to settle for the (relative) shortform, as I find this thread exhausting from the outset and the sheer quantity of incredibly angry back-and-forth here has only made it worse.

To suffice the ideas of mine that I still remember, then:

• I have a feeling that while you may not consider me specifically to be a "cuckoo," that this post was still partially aimed at people like myself, since I've spent a fair chunk of time arguing to the immense faults of the Democrat Party, some of which was in discussion with you.
• If the above is true, I feel dehumanized and find this topic incredibly depressing.
• Regardless of the above, I find jumping to assumptions of bad faith on the part of those with whom you disagree on this topic understandable, but needlessly conspiratorial.

But to end my comment, I'd like to point out an area on which you and I can find common ground: Your point of "Seemingly doing nothing to actually mount resistance against authoritarianism" suggests you feel that the people arguing against voting / the Democrat Party are doing a poor job of offering alternative solutions. On this, I agree. Solutions for that scenario are hard to come by and often complicated, and where people do have things to suggest a portion of them are very flawed; voting Green, not voting, and the occasional implicit suggestion for violence, etc. All of those have huge problems that I know I don't need to explain to you.

For that, all I can say is that I agree that leftists can do better and should. I've seen the good suggestions before. Things like mutual aid, education, organizing, joining events — all of these are very useful things that are significantly more important than one vote in a broken electoral system. Unfortunately, as you've noticed, frustrated and angry people tend to be bad at mentioning these things.

I only ask that you consider that these people are frustrated, angry, and restless, rather than actively fake.

Great points! Now that the election is over, let's focus on revamping the Dem party instead of huffing copium by blaming 3rd party leftists for not being conservative enough to vote for a rightwing party!

Let's just get a few facts out of the way:

• Genocide is the worst crime humanity is capable of
• The US has a direct hand in multiple genocides
• Record levels of homelessness in the richest nation on earth is unacceptable
• Death from preventable illnesses in the richest nation on earth is unacceptable
• Highest infant mortality in the western world in the richest nation on earth is unacceptable
• Democrats are not interested in changing the status quo
• Republicans want a return to chattel slavery
• Neither party is willing to help us, nor will they ever allow us to vote third party by adding ranked choice or anything like that
• Therefore, our best bet to break the cycle is to collectively vote for, say, the green party

You think leftists are unrealistic for being disgusted with Democrats? The genocide was live streamed to the world. Did you not see any of it? Did it not move you?

By the way, the Democratic party is not left-wing. It is right-wing. Please educate yourself.

Also, are we hopeless? Fuck no. Boycotts have been making progress. Noncompliance has accomplished a lot. Unionizing, if you can swing it, can accomplish a lot. Meshtastic can offer resiliant communications if Trump declares a national emergency. Democrats want you to panic. Leftists want you to organize.

I suppose it must make the world a lot simpler if you assume the US Democratic and Republican parties represent the full range of beliefs that exist in the world, and anyone who doesn't neatly fit into those categories is simply lying.

This post is beyond delusional. It’s like the meme about everything I don’t like is woke. The liberal version basically being everything I don’t like is a Russian/MAGA bot. Is it really that hard to believe that left leaning people don’t agree with the Democratic Party platform? You’re deeper in your bubble than you realize my friend.

Ah, yet another long post by a white democrat who thinks they're a leftist and shouldn't be questioned.

EDIT: come join us while we make fun of you: https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/post/43337677

Happy International Worker's Day. Every single leader of emancipatory movements in the history of labor rights would disagree with you, having fought and been very vocal against the different flavors of oppression in order to get the liberal concessions that you seem to cherish today. Hopefully if you participate, you might find some leftists celebrating in the crowd. Please don't get too angry at them for not defending genociders, I'm sure a lot of them ended up voting for Kamala anyway, but at least they got the confirmation that even opposing genocide is too great a hurdle for them.

I'm tired but I guess I'll still address some of the traits you identified:

Claiming to be leftists

I'm a leftist

Dedicating most of their posting to dismantling any power possessed by the left

Okay that doesn't sound like leftist behavior, you're totally right. I just hope you don't mean that "power possessed by the left" is the democratic party, but sure, that broadly sounds like liberals or feds.

Encouraging leftists not to vote or to vote for third party candidates

There's a point to which you can push liberal concessions for damage control or for actually gaining some more concessions. I think criticizing voting is healthy since it's still playing the capitalist's game and a liberal "democracy" with almost no wiggle room anymore, but considering how little effort it takes to vote I'll always advocate to both play their game and also assume that nothing will come out of it without actual pressure.

I've mostly seen people advocate for withholding their vote in the favor of some concession (please don't do genocide), I've never seen someone say "don't vote and also don't do anything else", but I'm sure they exist, you find all kinds of confused people online.

Highlighting issues with the Democratic party as being disqualifying while ignoring the objectively worse positions held by the Republican party

Is genocide disqualifying for a political party or not? I'm asking you, specifically, if you think that a party that commits (funds, arms, protects, justifies, excuses, does constant propaganda for) a genocide in the face of their own atrocities, while actively silencing the voices within their own ranks that speak out, is worth defending? Again, I think the idea was to hopefully change the democratic party to the radical position of "anti genocide". That failure is on them, not the people who threatened not to vote for them.

Not highlighting that issue is frankly criminal.

Attacking anyone who promotes defending leftist political power by claiming they are centrists and that the attacker is “to the left of them”

Yeah that's leftism, that's always been leftism, but again I hope to god you don't mean that "leftist political power" here represents the democratic party, so I'm gonna assume you mean more broadly what they call "purity politics" and constant division in the left. I think it's fair to criticize people to the right of you, I'm to the right of anarchists and I welcome their criticism, even when I don't agree with it. If I spent my time shitting on them I think they would be completely legitimate in calling me out for someone with ulterior motives, or a reactionary shithead.

Using US foreign policy as a moral cudgel to disempower any attempt at legitimate engagement with the US political system

I want you to examine your own sentence just for a second. To disempower an attempt at legitimate engagement with the political system. Opposing genocide isn't used as a moral cudgel against whatever 10 steps removed version of power this is (and I'm not criticizing the way you put it, quite the opposite), it's used AGAINST GENOCIDE.

People are out in the streets and criticizing liberal complicity because we talk about GENOCIDE not some vague questionable US foreign policy.

Seemingly doing nothing to actually mount resistance against authoritarianism

So that's the democratic party, right? That's why I'm confused because leftists are out in the street, even the most liberal ones with their "fight oligarchy" campaign, while the democrats are still out defending genocide, doing filibusters without a cause, and generally trailing so far behind the average population that it's mind numbing. So I don't know what you mean when you say "leftists", because you seem to refer to two groups at the same time.

Anyway, voting goes both way, you can't pretend to vote in a vacuum for the lesser evil without recognizing that you empower them and their genocidal endeavors.

And I'll be a little more incisive: If you criticize a leftist of not caring about minorities (which I've seen a lot and is deeply ironic considering who did and didn't vote for the dems) you open yourself to be criticized for having proudly voted and called on everyone else to vote for a party that does genocide, and having attacked the ones that tried to actually make a difference in shifting their position or using that moment to show what their true colors are.

I'm not an american (but anti-electoral nonetheless), and I do get the critique and think it is perfectly valid if one views things through liberal framework - vote for the lesser evil, minimize suffering, not voting is letting the bad candidate on getting the upper hand, etc.

However, this isn't an objective position but an ideological one, as it operates within lesser-evilism, coalitionism within capitalist institutions and having a definition of "the left" that generalizes them to essentially having to be "pro-democracy somewhat progressive liberals", and any deviation makes them into a troll or a right winger or something like that.

What is important to realize is that most leftists aren't liberals - in fact, many leftists, particularly Marxists, view elections as:

• A way to legitimize the class rule that leads into passivity among the working class who are being ruled over, essentially recognizing that this "tool that we are given" is just an illusion and leads to neutralization of worker power,

• Enabling of 'capitalist-tribalism' in the form of "which capitalist manager do you support" which is seen in US through party loyalty and basically disarming the working class from realizing their own interests.

Essentially, their goal isn't to just "vote for the lesser evil" or "achieve the maximum good through the means we're given" but to abolish the system entirely, and electorialism/voting is counter-productive in that regard due to legitimizing effect that it has that I mentioned previously. This does go against the "liberal left" and their goals, and being on the same political wing does not automatically mean there's an alliance or shared goals, nor does it mean that two positions aren't going to have antagonistic goals.

Besides, why blame the left for the electoral failure who abstained from voting? Why not blame MAGA for voting in an enemy that goes against your interests (as in, people who have actually voted)?

EDIT: Reading some of the comments over here, and what the fuck. Automatically labeling people as bots or trolls for daring to commit the crime of 'wrongthink' is definitely dehumanizing and the most toxic I've seen beehaw be. It's fine to disagree, it's fine to choose not to engage, but making a post calling a certain somewhat niche political position out, having people such as myself try and explain that this position is more complicated, then going full on "nah I'm right, you're wrong, everyone who disagrees is now blocked and also not human or Russian/Chinese agents" is genuinely loser behavior to put it bluntly, especially on a "Chat" community where discussion is expected.

Voluntarily disenfranchising yourself is complying in advance.

A broken tool still has its uses. A bent screwdriver can still be a prybar. A rusty sword can still kill, so don't ask people to drop it before have something better. It is possible to explore and acknowledge the failures and limitations of a system -- and to reduce overreliance on it -- without abdicating all influence over it.

The Democratic Party is a disappointment. They follow popular (polled) opinion rather than sticking to principles, and that makes them vulnerable to Overton shifts. As public opinion towards trans people has been poisoned by the Jugendverderber libel, Democrats have largely thrown trans people under the bus instead of fighting back. Likewise, Democrats stick closely to corporate interests because money is power. These issues may never be fixable.

The solution to this is not to capitulate and discard what political influence we still hold.

The first half of the solution is to primary the hell out of Democrats. A left-wing caucus within the party could easily tilt things in our favor, just like the Freedom Caucus tilted the RNC in the opposite direction once before. Bernie Sanders (link) and David Hogg (link) are now spearheading multiple campaigns to do exactly that. Even if you have no faith in your ability to change the norms of the party, just think how much impact your resistance could have if you held an office, even a low one, even for just a week. Do you have any idea how much trouble a county clerk can make?

The second half of the solution is to build solidarity-based power structures outside government to reduce overreliance on a broken system. Economic desperation, social isolation, and cultural "other"-ing make people easy to exploit and oppress regardless of the type of government, so attack those problems directly. Unions, mutual aid networks, churches, you know the drill. Put in the legwork to find them in your area or your profession.

Embrace nuance. Embrace diversity -- even political diversity. Political beliefs are not sacred, but the lives under those political systems are. Don't try to reduce the vast complexity of politics to 120 characters. Don't treat the ongoing wellbeing of human beings flippantly. If you think the problem is the existence of a state, then say so, but make your case for why making the state worse makes conditions for its subjects better. If you think voting third-party will teach the Democrats a lesson and drag them leftwards, then make your case and acknowledge the risks of what happens if you're wrong.

Don't just ridicule every positive effort you see. Doomer trolls (or cuckoos, if we're going with that) are pithy, but reductive, and their criticism is never constructive.

Encouraging leftists not to vote or to vote for third party candidates

Highlighting issues with the Democratic party as being disqualifying while ignoring the objectively worse positions held by the Republican party

These two things drive me fucking crazy, and you are absolutely spot on with all of this. Obviously, the Democrats aren't perfect. But the argument that X makes them complicit in Y issue is a null point when the alternative is unbridled, unchecked fascism.

WHATEVER POINT YOU WERE TRYING TO MAKE, IT WILL NOT BE SOLVED BY ELECTING FASCISTS. It doesn't matter if it's corruption, wars, homophobia, trade, the economy, taxes, it could even be people shitting in litter boxes.

Whatever it is, having the entire country taken down to the studs is not going to help your issue, in fact, it's probably going to make your problem significantly worse. The economy? Look up the tariff war that caused the great depression. Homophobia? Read up on the lavender scare and how it tanked our astronomy and weapons research, notably ICBM research. Wars? Need I say anything more? We've had insane wars due to Republican war hawks for decades. Whoever you were trying to protect, they are 100% B O N E D now. And now we are sending innocent people off to literal concentration camps, so don't give me any of that "the Dems don't respect human rights" crap. It's beyond the pale now and all this was warned of in advance by those morons who published P2025 before the election. And yet, people still fell for it. It's absolutely infuriating that we are gonna have to dig the country (and the economy) out of a massive pit once again, if it's even possible at this point. We will be extremely lucky to prize it back out of the hands of dictators before they run it into the ground like they did with Venezuela.