With the US midterms around the corner, the usual mob of McCarthyists are already out in force, harassing anyone they perceive to be a) non-American or anti-American, and/or b) a revolutionary anarchist/socialist, and/or c) someone who criticisms the Democratic party and the abject failure of the two-party system to work in the interests of the people instead of in the interests of capital.
My take on this is as follows:
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We already take mod actions based on electoralism, especially when it involves shaming others for being anti-electoralism. E.g. the classic: “If you criticize the Democrats you are helping Trump hurr durr” type of claim. So this is simply codifying the rule.
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Based on past experience, this situation is only going to get worse as we get closer to November 3, as Democrats start accusing leftists of being foreign actors and paid shills at every turn simply because we refuse to parrot the “vote blue no matter who” line. To be clear, my view is that Americans are solely responsible for the rise of fascism in their own country, not the Russians or the Chinese (and no, that doesn’t mean I support those states either - they are also responsible for their own bullshit).
Given that context, the proposed rule is simple:
No shaming people for being anti-electoralism.
Important note: I have no problem with people voting, or promoting voting, but if it veers into shaming people for not voting, or shaming those who vote according to their conscience, then it wouldn’t be allowed.
Examples of electoralism’s tendency to troll and shame others:
- “A vote for third party is a vote for Trump.” aka “You are a Trump supporter, nah nah!” ❌
- “You are a Nazi/fascist if you don’t vote Democrat.” aka “You are a nazi/fascist Trump supporter, nah nah!” ❌
- “Its very suspicious you are being critical of [Democratic candidate] just before an election. You clearly want Trump to win.” aka “You are a secretly a Trump agent/supporter, nah nah!” ❌
- “Voting is the only way to make change in this country” aka “Work strictly within the system, or you are a terrorist, nah nah!”. ❌
- “A vote for Jill Stein is a vote for Trump.” aka “How dare you vote third party, what is this a functioning democracy?”. ❌
- “Are you even American? It’s suspicious you are talking so much about US politics.” aka “Fuck off foreigners, only Americans can have a legit opinion on US politics, you must be a foreign agent.” ❌
- Lastly, assuming someone doesn’t vote, or votes against the Democrats just because they are critical of Democrat policies and politicians is just bad-faith bullshit. Please don’t make bad-faith assumptions. Though we are critical of the Democrats I think the vast majority of our US members still hold their noses and throw them a vote, despite everything.
Examples of electoralists not being assholes:
- “Get out and vote to help make a difference in the mid-terms!” ️✅
- “Voting is super important to help reduce harms, alongside your other activism.” ️✅
- “This is an important election, every vote counts” ️✅
Further context and readings:
- https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/tanze-vatt-7-reasons-to-hate-election-season#toc6
- https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/rafael-v-da-silva-kauan-willian-and-victor-khaled-anarchism-in-the-face-of-fascism-and-the-elec#toc4
- https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/it-s-going-down-the-election-cycle-as-counter-insurgency
This vote will end in 7 days, with simple majority voting,
As always, I encourage our other FAF admins and users to share their takes on this topic in this post. Also, should it be “No shaming people for being anti-electoralism” or “No shaming people for being anti-electoralist”? I only used the ism ending simply because I think it’s maybe better understood as a concept, but I’m not sure its grammatically correct :p
expiry: 7
Have at it, mateys.
Firmly against, because even discussing how its perceived by others has been called “shaming” before. Even this posts conflates (reductive versions of) simple statements of fact alongside ones clearly meant as more of the attack that this sort of rule should be for, which I find to be a bad approach to even kick this off with.
So I’m against this rule. Really, really firmly against.
The timing of this post, honestly, bothers me so much more.
Well the timing is what prompted it, because its always a nightmare for mods during election season when everyone seems to become a little more rabid than usual. But I’m hearing the feedback, easier for mods isn’t necessarily better for users.
Nah, let people to publicly embarrass themselves
So… “We already do it but now we want to ask you if you’re on board with this”?
Does that mean that if the vote result is negative, will you stop “taking mod action” about it? If the answer is no that’s PTB behaviour IMHO.
I think that democrats criticism is valid, your system is shit and both options are bad don’t get me wrong, but at this rate you won’t even get the right to protest, which is your only tool as a leftist in a system as authoritative, control obsessed and abusive as yours.
I don’t want to convince you to vote, but their criticism is valid and shouldn’t be suppressed or censored in any way. Reducing republicans power through the midterms is, sadly, the best thing that you can do right now for the leftists communities in America.
I’m in favor of discouraging this behavior broadly but I think codifying it as a rule is unnecessary and possibly intentionally abrasive. If we already take mod action against behavior like this that edges on harassment, then i see no reason to codify it - especially now
Nay
Saying that not voting is a vote for trump (well, half a vote) isn’t wrong IMO, But be civil and accept criticism, that’s the only way we all learn and move forward.
So personally I’m against the blanket rule.
I can’t see that take as anything more than yet another obnoxious attempt at passing off blame onto individuals, ignore the power structures at play and you achieve less than nothing.
Edit: I phrased that poorly, I meant because there are so many very much obnoxious attempts all the time, it feels like another of them- I wasn’t at all trying to say that you were being obnoxious.
“A vote for third party/Jill Stein is a vote for Trump.”❌ is literally a harm-reduction argument ️✅. Anti-electoralism is being against the institutional power that vesting everything on elections creates and the spectacle to maintain it that critically diverts from mutual aid, not censoring those against supporting specific candidates (and using arguments logically proven from agreeable FPTP assumptions). (In fact, I would say that level of participation is electoralist.) I do not want us to become bureaucratic “alongside your other activism” boilerplaters.
Of the examples, only #4 seems like it should be removed for anti-electoralism. Of the rest, #2, #3, and #6 should be removed, but because they are already removeable as shitty bad-jacketing.
Every bullet point you listed are great examples, but limiting how things are discussed and determining whether it’s “shaming” is subjective and a slippery slope.
This is a big NO from me.
Nay.
No opinion should be above reproach and shaming people for bad opinions is foundational to open discourse. You should be ashamed of your bad opinions and so should I. We all need thicker skin.
Nope.
We all need more civil discourse.
Ignoring it doesn’t mean it won’t go away or not impact you.
I’m not sure, is anti-electorism, as an idea, something that needs explicit protection? I can empathise if someone is staunch anti-electoralist and it’s election season again - it probably leads to a lot of unpleasant conversations everywhere. However I don’t think it’s worth controlling someone’s free expression. People are going to be passionate on the internet. Shaming is a legitimate social tool, it’s upto you reject it.
While defending anti-electoralism might be a tough job, I think the idea needs to be defended on its own merit instead of a thumb on the scale. I don’t think anti-electorism as an idea is at par with other ideas (e.g. anti-capitalism) that require explicit, instance-wide protection.
Nay, it would be censoring of opinions plus what is considered shaming feels very subjective (and is also often dictated by your views which mean that an admin that is pro-voting and one that is against voting will behave very differently)
Though
Lastly, assuming someone doesn’t vote, or votes against the Democrats just because they are critical of Democrat policies and politicians is just bad-faith bullshit. Please don’t make bad-faith assumptions. Though we are critical of the Democrats I think the vast majority of our US members still hold their noses and throw them a vote, despite everything.
Assuming is generally bad so this could at least be added as a guideline
Nay
We can’t have good takes without having bad takes.
Trying to censor the collective editorial mechanisms against one particular topic feels like a bad idea to me.
Sometimes opinions are just unpopular, even our own strongly held ones. It’s okay to be against the grain sometimes because the alternative of groupthink is so much worse in my opinion.
No thank you to this change.
Nay
I mostly agree with you, but I think making it an instance rule is a bit too much when communities can already moderate themselves however they see fit.
Nay
While these types of statements are generally juvenile and obnoxious, they do not rise to the level of requiring official rules or moderation.
*… and it is not even close. Frankly, some of the proposals here are borderline fasccurious. It confuses the shit out of me because it is the opposite of why I chose db0.
