#lesser evilism

[lordandgodoftheobvious]

(Stolen from Bluesky.)

[ID: two panel thirty rock meme.

[Panel One: Liz Lemon (Tina Fey) says: "The trans are gonna let the GOP win if they don't vote for a Democratic transphobe".

[Panel Two: Jack Donaghy (Alec Baldwin) says: "Lemon, it's 3 years until the primaries".

[End ID.]

[contemplatingoutlander]

Noam Chomsky on "Lesser Evilism"

“There’s another word for lesser evilism. It’s called rationality. Lesser evilism is not an illusion, it’s a rational position. But you don’t stop with lesser evilism. You begin with it, to prevent the worst, and then you go on to deal with the fundamental roots of what’s wrong, even with the lesser evils.” [color emphasis added] —Noam Chomsky | Scheer Intelligence podcast | Jan. 17, 2020

Chomsky further explains why it is a rational decision to vote for the lesser to two evils:

"Even if there’s core, deep problems with the institutions, there still are choices between alternatives, which matter a lot. Small differences in a system with enormous power translate into huge effects. Meanwhile, you don’t stop with a lesser evilism; you continue to try to organize and develop the mass popular movements, which will block the worst and change the institutions. All of these things can go on at once. But the simple question of what button do you push on a particular day? That is a decision, and that matters. It’s not the whole story, by any means. It’s a small part of the story, but it matters.” [color emphasis added] ——Noam Chomsky | Scheer Intelligence podcast | Jan. 17, 2020

We witnessed how "small differences in a system with enormous power translate into huge effects" in the first Trump administration, as evidenced by how Trump's decision to stack the Supreme Court with far-right justices has resulted in Roe v. Wade being overturned, the Voting Rights Act being weakened, and the Bruen decision further weakening the nation's ability to control guns.

And Trump did all that damage just in his first term, when he still had "adults" in his administration willing to rein him in.

Imagine what changes to our nation Trump could make with only sycophants in his administration who want to implement Project 2025, just for starters.

Noam Chomsky's message is important to remember as we approach the 2024 election. If you are on the left and choose to sit out the election or vote for a third party because you view Biden as a "lesser evil," you are wittingly or unwittingly supporting the "greater evil" that is Trump. We learned that the hard way in 2016. Please don't let history repeat itself. Our nation could not survive a Trump dictatorship.

___________ Norm Chomsky image source (before edits/ quote)

[xerserise]

Hey, all you lesser-evil fans. What are you going to do if your lesser evil wins? Are you going to wait another four years so you can vote for lesser evil again, or are you going to fight all evils during those four years with as much passion as when you scream about how important it is to not let the greater evil win?

[fuckyeahmarxismleninism]

The incoherence of the Biden-Trump debate will be repeated every election cycle until Blacks and progressives break with the corporate duopoly.

By Glen Ford

“The party is me, right now. I am the Democratic Party,” Joe Biden shot back at the “clown” Donald Trump, who repeatedly tried to associate the former vice president with the Green New Deal, Medicare for All and Black Lives Matter demands to rein in the police — all issues supported by super-majorities of Democrats, and even large chunks of Republican voters, but opposed by the candidate now representing the Party.

“You just lost the left,” Trump twice hollered, wishfully. In an actual democracy the Democrats would, indeed, have committed political suicide by nominating a corporate hack and career race-baiter like Biden as their standard-bearer. But the U.S. is a corporate dictatorship where the rich have two parties and the rest of us effectively have none.

The trick will continue to work until voters, especially Blacks, stop rewarding Democrats for their serial betrayals. There is nothing smart or “strategic” about falling for the same trick every election cycle – and anybody that tells you different is in on the con game.

[anarchistin]

[odinsblog]

Look, just to be absolutely positively clear here: Vernon Jones is a sellout and a coon. Also, any “Democrat” who explicitly supports Trump or tells people to vote for Trump is not to be trusted. Not. at. all.

Now that I’ve gotten that out of the way, this right here is what you get when you always “vote blue no matter who”. You get Republicans wearing the letter “D” behind their name. And I can almost promise you that Representative Jones supporters, at some point in the election cycle that got him elected, said, “He’s black! And we might not like all his policy positions, but he’s a Democrat, so we gotta vote for the lesser of two evils.”

And now look at the absolute fucking mess they have.

Vernon Jones is hardly the first conservative Democrat to support or openly endorse Trump over the last few years, but he is probably the best example of how centrist Dems successfully weaponize race (and in Hillary’s case, gender, and in Pete Buttigieg’s case, sexual orientation) in politics, where one aspect of a person’s identity is their only purity test.

Being gay didn’t make Mayo Pete any less conservative. Being a woman didn’t make Hillary any less conservative. Being black didn’t make Vernon any less of a sellout. But when the DNC uses weaponized identity politics, they will say things like, “disliking Hillary means you are a sexist,” or “disliking Pete means you’re homophobic”. As if our dislike of them had nothing to do with their conservative ideology, or their terrible political track records.

YES, attributes like race, gender and sexual orientation absolutely positively ARE important. They are. But they should never ever be more important than a person’s history of what they’ve said, done and supported.

I’m black. And I am here to tell anyone who will listen that even though he is also a black man, Representative Vernon Jones does not have black people’s or anyone else’s best interest at heart. Not even close.

“Vote blue no matter who” is a terrible mentality. It’s lazy thinking, made for sheeple who don’t wanna kick the tires or look under the hood before spending all their hard earned money on buying a new car.

It’s like a not-so-secret password that the Republican foxes have learned, and use to gain entry into the Democratic henhouse. Effectively, all a Republican has to do is call themselves a Democrat, and then they get the full backing of the DNC and centrist Democratic voters.

If you have any questions how harmful adhering to the #VBNMW okie doke is, please remember, it wasn’t even 30 days ago that people were seriously considering voting for people like Mike Bloomberg, and many many many prominent black, women, and gay Democrats immediately endorsed Mr. Stop-and-Frisk.

I’m telling you, #VBNMW is an establishment scam. And if nothing else, this election cycle should have proved just how successfully conservative “Democrats” (ie, Republicans) have used it.

Link: https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/492724-georgia-democratic-legislator-bucks-party-with-trump-endorsement

[odinsblog]

GREATER GOOD > LESSER EVIL

These are not different sides of the same coin. They are polar opposites, light years apart

Greater good is reaching for the stars

Lesser evil is a race to the bottom

If mainstream media and the Democratic Party had pushed the former narrative even half as much as they dutifully pushed the latter, we probably would have had better presumptive nominees in 2016 and in 2020

When you routinely feel compelled to quantify your candidate as a “lesser evil,” that should tell you something

[xerserise]

We'd believe you...

We'd believe that you truly consider the Democratic Party the lesser evil if there were more of you working to change what the party stands for, at local and national levels. If you were actively pushing candidates further and further to the left, throughout the election cycle and their terms of service as elected representatives. If you built systems of mutual aid that didn't end up getting swallowed up by the non-profit-industrial complex. If you compromised with the people to the left of you, instead of demanding that people to the left of you unite behind your preferred candidate.

But you don't.

We'd believe that you truly consider the Democratic Party the lesser evil if there weren't so many of you acting as cheerleaders for lesser evil. If there weren't so many of you telling people not to criticize lesser evil, that lesser evil is doing the best it can, that lesser evil is our best option and we better unite behind it or we're to blame for the greater evil, that we can all go back to brunch once lesser evil is temporarily back in power, .

But you do.

So we don't.