The counterpoint to this argument is: If it's about harm reduction, why are Democrats pissing their pants and backing down on trans issues, letting conservatives dictate the terms of the conversation on trans issues, and are willing to throw us under the bus to win?

That doesn't feel like harm reduction to me, personally. It feels like a group who likes to claim harm reduction while also doing harm when it benefits them politically.

Well y'see I disagree with you so that's trolling.

You did call people stupid so I could see removing this for civility but since they listed trolling as the reason I'll say PTB.

And now this is the fourth attack against a leftist comm on LW in the past ten days. Are the Democrats ok, or have they gone full McCarthyist on us? If you are living in the US and think attacking the political left should be your priority right now, then I've got a bridge to sell you.

• https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/post/77038779
• https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/post/76743866
• https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/post/76643735
• https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/post/77150767

I have some questions for you. Why do you keep getting surprised when leftists continually reject your take on electoralism being absolutely critical?

The Democrats were just as bad on Gaza and Israel in general as the Republicans. And nothing has changed in that respect, except the token number of anti-zionists in the Democrats seem to be making some small gains (which is great btw, but not sufficient to move the needle on policy). But why should we not talk about that? Should we simply not mention it in case it puts someone off from voting for them, or are you arguing that it's simply not true that the democrats were and are really weak on their policy towards Israel, and that it is a massive electoral liability for them? Because I don't know a single leftist who believes the Dems would have reigned in Israel.

And in fact, leftists would like nothing more than for the Democrats to actually start standing up to genocide and make meaningful changes to US foreign policy. But what you seem to be mostly concerned about here is that domestic Americans don't have to suffer unnecessarily by the actions of their own government, while their government is busy waging/funding/profiting from overseas wars. That is the only harm reduction we are talking about here, in reality. And if history teaches us anything it is that the US will continue being a warmongering rogue state long after Trump is dead and buried, no matter which party is in power.

What might be harder for you to understand though is that for most of the Global South, there is little sympathy for the plight of domestic Americans. They have their own problems, many of which were caused by the US. So my question to you is, why should someone in Iran or Venezuela or Cuba or Palestine, or any number of countries that for very good reasons hold a dim view of the US, why would they care about the suffering of the US people? Do you understand why, for them, your suffering feels more like schadenfreude? Put yourself in their shoes for a moment.

And I have some more questions for you:

• Lemmy isn't America. Why should the whole of lemmy have to put up with Americans going crazy with conspiracy theories every election?
• Do you understand that most leftists already vote, for whatever it's worth? Suggesting we don't vote, or that we vote for Trump is both insulting and inaccurate. It's a bad-faith and misleading assumption.
• Do you understand that we don't need or want you to lecture us about the US political system? It just comes across as hugely condescending. Most leftists likely know a lot more about it than you do, because they actually read theory.
• Do you understand that many socialists believe that only revolution against the bourgeois can bring about substantive changes? So pushing electoralism down our throats is completely pointless. You are essentially arguing against a fundamental principle of revolutionary socialism. And while many of us still vote (because why not?), we don't believe it'll achieve much good in the long run (for reference, see the past 10 years). So banging on about how important it is to vote for the Democrats in a socialist community is never going to end well. It's a fundamental difference of political ideology there is really no point in arguing about ad-infinitum.
• Do you understand that every election season, folks like you brigade leftist comms for weeks before a US election to claim socialists are all bots and/or russian or chinese agents working for Trump? And then performatively declaring that whole instances and communities are foreign agents who want Trump to win. That's literally the last 4 posts in a row in YPTB. Claiming socialists are fascists or accelerationists, or trump supporters simply because they disagree with you on one point or another is bad-jacketing, and its a worrying form of modern day MacCarthyism. You simply shouldn't do it - it's nothing more than name calling, unless you have some serious evidence to offer. Do you understand why when you make unsupported accusations about community members in bad faith, you are not going to be welcomed back to that community?

My take is that these "red-peril" brainworms are just a distraction from the real enemy, which is the inevitable growth of fascism under neoliberal capitalism. And no, simply name-calling someone a "fascist" for pointing out establishment Democrats mostly do support Israeli genocide doesn't cut it. If you don't use the term with any real meaning, or conflate it with revolutionary socialism via "horseshoe theory" then I'm sorry, but it's clear you are simply trolling with right-wing tropes.

Hate to break it to you, lib... but after Genocide Joe you will have to do whole lot better than "harm reduction" (a concept you stole from the left anyway) and/or "lesser evilism."

Those lies have about as much going for them these days as the dog crap I had to scrape off my boots this morning - and I don't blame any mod for qualifying it as trolling.

YDI.