(Comment copied from https://lemmy.ml/post/47291833. Might have gotten kind of buried there, and I was hoping for a few more responses, so I thought I’d give the question its own post . . . )

Would you ever consider voting DSA/Socially democratic, even if your views are to the left of them and you are anti-capitalist? What if voting for the PSL is not an option where you are? Would you ever vote for someone like Trump just to make things intentionally worse in the hopes of sparking off a revolution? Not sure if I will ever vote again at this point…

EDIT: And are there any other anti-capitalist parties besides the PSL? The Greens?

  • happybadger [he/him]@hexbear.net
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    4 hours ago

    I vote for ballot initiatives and then use the DSA’s voter guide for local elections. For president it’s always PSL. Voting for a DSA member isn’t getting an ML revolution, but it is sewer socialism at a local level. Sewer socialism is powerful in a country where the little infrastructure that does work still drives a 20th century society. Americans are radicalised into fascism twice a day on their commute.

    Would you ever vote for someone like Trump just to make things intentionally worse in the hopes of sparking off a revolution?

    Accelerationism falls into the same wishful thinking category as adventurism. Not wanting blood on my hands is why I don’t vote for democrats. If I throw a chaotic evil boomerang by voting for a fascist, that’s just voting for a democrat and hoping it blows back on enough people to do something before hitting me. The closest thing I’ve found to a good ML path is what the Black Panthers were doing in the 1960-70s. Electoralism and existing power structures might have been cynically engaged, like funding the mutual aid initiatives or electing a politician who might give them breathing room, but power came from organising in their communities and building up dual structures that linked intersectionally with other orgs. Revolution was putting up a stop sign where the city wouldn’t so that the residents watching learned that they had power. It was feeding hungry kids while their parents were engaged in discussions about their issues. Those things can’t be trusted to electoralism because politicians are temporary and usually replaced by their opposite.