what harm is reduced by “harm reduction”? If anything a more accurate term would be slowing down fascism.
That’s exactly it. Harm reduction. Not eliminating harm altogether, but reducing the amount of it that takes place.
Will Harris continue and introduce policies that are antithetical to working-class interests? Yes. Would Trump do the same? Yes, and more.
The situation is complete shit, and nobody wants to just have to vote for the lesser of two evils. Of course we’d all like a stronger, more left-leaning party than the Democrats.
But not voting for the Democrats means getting the even worse fascist party.
When you only have two options, and one of them will inevitably be chosen as the outcome, the most you can possibly do is choose the one that leads to the least harm. Hence, harm reduction.
If we had ranked-choice/rated voting, third party votes as your primary vote cast would be ideal, but we don’t, and until we can even get close to something like that in the US, it’s imperative we don’t let fascists come into power.
You don’t solve Democrats being weak by siphoning their votes off to third-party candidates with even weaker overall pull on the voter base, just to let Republicans win.
“I would vote “harm reduction” if I knew that at the end of it all theres a plan to eventually fight back but I dont think there is one.”
You don’t increase your chances of a future plan being implemented to fight back against fascism by actively reducing the chances of winning the election of the party most likely to favor your ideal plan in the future.
You either get a 0% chance of your plan happening by voting fascist, or literally any number above 0% by voting for the party that’s not as fascist. And the choice will be made with or without you, so you might as well help to influence it.
You didn’t answer how harm reduction works as a long term strategy which is being done right now. In addition you didn’t answer whats the point of buying extra time.
You can check out the other comment I wrote in response to a similar response here, but I’ll give an additional short answer here too.
The point of buying extra time is to increase the chance of any other action being taken against the right succeeding. It doesn’t matter what that action is (although I did give a list in that other comment), and that’s not what my comment was originally about. It was solely about the fact that voting for the lesser of two evils is objectively better than letting the worse of two evils have a higher chance of getting into power.
Harm reduction doesn’t work as a long-term strategy on its own, but not doing it just means any other politically beneficial action you want to take is less likely to succeed, since there’s now an even bigger fascist in power.
I would be fine if the “harm reduction” politican didn’t actively go against other actions taken. If Liberals were willing to do anything in addition to harm reduction I would respect them even slightly. Fundamentally the problem is nothing else is being done, we have incompetent and lazy people on the “left” while the right is completely fascist. You and I may acknowledge that harm reduction alone cannot stand as a real political strategy but until Liberals understand that as well it fundementally stands as a false hope and leads people to complacency.
Of course, we can definitely agree on that. Liberals don’t seem to understand that voting Democrat isn’t the end of the road for positive political change.
But of course, if liberals have no power at all, then changing their mind won’t exactly lead to them doing any action in the end anyways. Regardless of how stacked the deck is, voting Democrat at least won’t lead to as bad a result.
That’s exactly it. Harm reduction. Not eliminating harm altogether, but reducing the amount of it that takes place.
Will Harris continue and introduce policies that are antithetical to working-class interests? Yes. Would Trump do the same? Yes, and more.
The situation is complete shit, and nobody wants to just have to vote for the lesser of two evils. Of course we’d all like a stronger, more left-leaning party than the Democrats.
But not voting for the Democrats means getting the even worse fascist party.
When you only have two options, and one of them will inevitably be chosen as the outcome, the most you can possibly do is choose the one that leads to the least harm. Hence, harm reduction.
If we had ranked-choice/rated voting, third party votes as your primary vote cast would be ideal, but we don’t, and until we can even get close to something like that in the US, it’s imperative we don’t let fascists come into power.
You don’t solve Democrats being weak by siphoning their votes off to third-party candidates with even weaker overall pull on the voter base, just to let Republicans win.
You don’t increase your chances of a future plan being implemented to fight back against fascism by actively reducing the chances of winning the election of the party most likely to favor your ideal plan in the future.
You either get a 0% chance of your plan happening by voting fascist, or literally any number above 0% by voting for the party that’s not as fascist. And the choice will be made with or without you, so you might as well help to influence it.
Couldn’t have said it better! Well done!
You didn’t answer how harm reduction works as a long term strategy which is being done right now. In addition you didn’t answer whats the point of buying extra time.
You can check out the other comment I wrote in response to a similar response here, but I’ll give an additional short answer here too.
The point of buying extra time is to increase the chance of any other action being taken against the right succeeding. It doesn’t matter what that action is (although I did give a list in that other comment), and that’s not what my comment was originally about. It was solely about the fact that voting for the lesser of two evils is objectively better than letting the worse of two evils have a higher chance of getting into power.
Harm reduction doesn’t work as a long-term strategy on its own, but not doing it just means any other politically beneficial action you want to take is less likely to succeed, since there’s now an even bigger fascist in power.
I would be fine if the “harm reduction” politican didn’t actively go against other actions taken. If Liberals were willing to do anything in addition to harm reduction I would respect them even slightly. Fundamentally the problem is nothing else is being done, we have incompetent and lazy people on the “left” while the right is completely fascist. You and I may acknowledge that harm reduction alone cannot stand as a real political strategy but until Liberals understand that as well it fundementally stands as a false hope and leads people to complacency.
Of course, we can definitely agree on that. Liberals don’t seem to understand that voting Democrat isn’t the end of the road for positive political change.
But of course, if liberals have no power at all, then changing their mind won’t exactly lead to them doing any action in the end anyways. Regardless of how stacked the deck is, voting Democrat at least won’t lead to as bad a result.