People are worried that everything is going to go to shit if Trump wins. But things have already gone to shit. People are presently dying at the hands of this horrible system, from racist police, from not having access to healthcare, from homelessness, from hunger, from bombs being dropped on them… And we have Democrats in charge. It doesn’t do any good. The problem is that we spend the bulk of our life having our labor exploited, and no real democracy at all.
Democrats on city council are the ones cutting General Assistance, shutting down health clinics, and giving away money through tax breaks to corporations.
Democrats are the ones who introduced workfare, which gutted the welfare system.
No matter who wins, they will be in charge of the state which makes sure that housing is for profit, that food is for profit, that wars are for profit, and that empire keeps expanding for profit.
Besides that, Trump doesn’t scare me, his supporters do. And they don’t go away if you vote for Hillary. They’ll still be around, just like they are around right now. We can’t vote them out of existence, we need to develop organizations that have the philosophical grounding to undercut Trumps false populism while critiquing the status quo.
Hillary is the Status Quo. She doesn’t want any radical reforms. People know that the system isn’t working. Trump’s rhetoric is filled with answers– wrong answers. Racist answers. Misogynistic answers. But answers.
And the American left is more than happy to brow beat one another into shutting up about how horrible Clinton is, which leaves the vast majority of people who are looking for answers as to why everything sucks so badly, to look to Trump for a critique of the situation.
Lesser evilism voting, and the vote-shaming and stifling of dissent that comes with it, actually weakens the left, and makes it more difficult for us advance our agenda because it allows the only critique of the status quo to come from right-wing demagogs like Trump.
We must build a leftist party that can take on both the Democrats and Republicans. I think the Green Party can be that party, but maybe not. Something has to change though. If we don’t, things will just continue to get worse and worse and the lesser evil will get more and more evil- and the greater evil will grow in response.
Fight back.
I worry about Trump being elected. He has the makings of a would be fascist dictator and the policies that would cause the depression and rioting that would give him an excuse for crack downs, martial law and war abroad as a way to distract the masses and make himself popular again. His temperament would escalate arguments into wars, and his trade policies are a known and time tested precussor to war. His policies towards Muslims would lead to a massive increase in terrorism, which in turn would lead him to crack down on civil liberties at home and give him an excuse to start new wars abroad. He has already promised to kick the shit out of ISIS and take their oil, but ISIS is an amorphous entity with new branches springing up to seize power in different parts of the middle east, a perfect recipe for war against the entire Muslim world. His temperament would lead him to escalate personal arguments with other world leaders into wars and I don’t trust him to be anywhere near the nuclear button. In fact, he has already openly said that there’s no point in having nuclear weapons if you are too afraid to use them.
The post is an illustration of the principle of “Present Indeterminate Inequality of Evil.” This principle is a counterweight to the oft quoted rationale of “lesser of N evils.” The fact is, one cannot make a contemporaneous judgement on which is the lesser evil in the long run. The PIIE principle will cite/reference arguments like this advocating/tolerating the appearance of a greater present evil as means to induce a lesser evil outcome in the long run to substantiate uncertainty around which is actually the lesser evil. PIIE, of course, cannot make a determination of the validity if these counter arguments. Just as it cannot make a determination of the validity of a lesser evil rationale.
I can’ t tell if your to far left or too far right. Cops are not racist Most of the homeless have mental issues and if any children are starving it is because they won’t eat Michelle Obama lunches. I think our only hope is Trump because of the refugee problems.If they come into this country they will destroy it like what is happening in Europe. I think he will prevent this . I don’t trust eight party and Trump is an outsider.
It worries me that we have gotten to the point where people will tolerate two such hideous candidates as Clinton and Trump. On the other hand, I don’t spend much time worrying about which one of them will win, because I don’t think either of them would really be any better than the other. Different, maybe. But not much, if any, better.
” And we have Democrats in charge”… In fact we have Republicans in charge. Who controls both chambers of congress? Congress has FAR MORE power than the president. Without a complacent congress the president is irrelevant.
I’m not worried about Trump winning. First of all, he’s not going to win. Second of all, the POTUS has very little direct authority. Finally, while some of his scumbaggery is not standard pol style, I’d put it in the same scumbaggery league as most pols at this level. So, what difference does it really make?