That does indeed look right up my alley, thank you very much <3.

I’d also recommend “The Ecological Rift: Capitalism’s War on the Earth” to anyone interested, for probably a bit more polemic piece that, from what I see from “Climate Leviathan”'s description, probably roughly argues around similar dynamics.

I only recenlty learned I have had undiagnosed autism my whole life (in my thirties now), and being able to recontextualise that I literally did have an - on average - different way of experiencing reality, with some filters missing, some intuitive normalities just not developing, and my brain focusing in a different way, that’s helping me a whole lot. Finally I don’t have to gaslight myself into thinking I am just lacking will and strength of character to fit into this world, as that’s what my socialisation had been instilling into me.

With having been obsessed with history and philosophy from a young age, I am also often not able to understand that the vast majority of people actually lives in a world where those things are at best superficially engaged with. Personally, at least at this moment of time, I think that is genuinely dangerous, because, oh boy, looking at the current material situation of the world and taking historical situations to estimate the possible consequences, things are not looking good. I firmly believe we need a globalised, socialist/communist mode of production and more short term, an international political infrastructure to organise the challenges ahead, but I fear it will only come about after things will be getting worse for quite some time, still.

So, take this point of view as what it is: a view on the situation from an outsider, I am not American, I am a German communist. While I do probably look more closely at American politics than most likely the average American simply from being interested in politics to a pathological degree, I might not have the full picture of an American who is also as interested in politics.

I think in this particular moment, as much as the Democrats do their best to antagonise you, as much as you are correct that someone like Biden will continue with the same status quo bullshit that created the situation to begin with, as much as he won’t be helping the people suffering from (neo)-colonialism in a meaningful way overseas - I don’t think that this particular election is the time to vote third party. The chance may come, and best then to do it not as individuals based on your personal conscience, but as an organised group, with concrete messaging communicated. And even in other elections and outside this vote, organising for a third party - while I personally don’t have a lot of hope for electoral politics - is certainly better than investing energy into the Democratic party, whose supporters seem to have no problems spewing hatred towards you for not agreeing with their party line and view of reality.

But I think underestimating Trump could be genuinely dangerous. Not because he will “ruin America” or anything like that. Simply, because he will be in a position to dial up repression, potentially leaving you with a situation in 2-4 years, where the party you voted for has to move underground, either having gotten outlawed or further marginalised and infiltrated. The situation looks critical enough to me, that under a Trump presidency, unions and leftist orgs will face open persecution much more than under someone like Biden - who is admittedly bad enough. Persecution up to outright criminalising them, to encouraging right-wing militias to kill their members with a slap on the wrist as a consequence or no legal repercussions at all. Yes, I do think that is unfortinately a realisitic possibility. And at this point, I don’t think leftist orgs in the US have the resilience yet to efficiently organise in the underground.

That being said, I won’t tell you a vitriolic “you will be at fault” if you choose to vote and organise as you want to. I do also see advantages, like getting visibility for your issues and potentially by reaching certain threshholds getting public funding support and the likes (that exists in the US too, right?). But I’d still advise it in this election - as shitty and cynical as it is - to vote for the old fart that doesn’t swing the whip of the state as hard on your back as the one that might outright strangle you with it. Getting a proper communist, grassroots organisation running in the United States is important for the whole world, and I fear it will be impossible, or at least much, much harder under Trump (mostly, again, because there are no proper structures in place to move into illegality and organising underground, from everything I can tell.)

Oh, I won’t be forgetting any time soon, thank you for reminding me

Outside of voting, you have options. I’m not American, but I’d advise any communists to vote Biden simply because the repression under Trump could get really ugly, hindering any proper organisation. Just view it as what I think it also actually is: A cynical, pragmatic move to save you and other working people from more open repression, nothing more.

But before and after voting: Put your energy into unions like the IWW, into neighbourhood organisations for mutual aid, into community defense like the SRA or Redneck Revolt, into antifascist organisation, into refining your own position and presenting it to others. Create networks and connections. All preventing Trump is doing is buying time for now to do exactly that. Things will only get worse in the decades ahead, with no end in sight for the climate catastrophe and further decay of capitalism - and laying the groundwork of actually being able to do something is critically important right now, in my opinion.

Of course everyone is in the end their own master when it comes to decisions like this. Just - remember that by not voting in this specific election you also aren’t changing anything. And while I fully understand the desire to organise for a third party, they have been marginalised effectively, at least I personally don’t think electoral politics will bring any relevant changes, one way or the other. They are just about who carries the whip used against you, and in this case if the are openly and harshly, or covertly and less efficiently using it.

That all being said - I think a few people here overestimate the amount of tankies and communists that won’t vote Biden. The group is marginal in the big scheme of things. If Biden loses, you can be certain, they were not responsible, they are most likely less than 1% of voters. Personally, I’d blame the corporate core of the Democratic party and middle class liberals for being out of touch with reality.

Isn’t this one really obvious? They are selling toupées for your butt and accidentally added a “W”. Not confusing in the slightest, really.

Yes, you raise a very important point that I completely glanced over with sleep-deprived tunnel vision brain. Young males are a group, where ideological factors are a lot more prevalent. A constant barrage of presenting the desirable thing to be succesful - everything from sexual gratification to security in life depends on it - is given to, well, actually everyone, but even today still predominately young males. In addition, the ideological explanation presents no proper “out” that has analytical value: If you don’t succeed, you are just some sort of beta cuck or whatever. How about you buy this course by this YouTube influencer, on how to get money and pussy by changing your own inadequacy, which of course in reality throws the vast majority of their fans into dependence and diminishes any resources they had.

This demand to be succesful, dominant, happy and stoic, weighing on the superego as basically an old dream of success that is becoming more and more unattainable but is still presented everywhere, is also in conflict with material reality. Being the breadwinner of a household where you have a wife that delivers reproductive labour and sexual gratification to you, while you earn the money and keep her dependent? Even with chauvinists that are deep into that ideological prison, households being able to earn enough money without both people working (often even more than two jobs) is not what we are seeing in the present and the future. So, this discrepancy has to be explained in a way, that is compatible with their ideology.

As a side note: parts of the liberal, more well-off “left” (a very relative term here) will basically just give them the answer “well, you are a stupid, low-IQ chud loser, so its your own fault” - basically reinforcing the very “sink or swim, be succesful, if you can’t be, it means something about you is wrong” ideology that creates this whole mess to begin with.

But of course, the answer many will then land on is a variant of my previous post: It worked in the past, right? An outside malevolent force must have corrupted this. It’s the feminists. It’s the Jews. It’s the insert enemy here. That is the core of it again - discrepancy between material reality and ideological demands and dreams within society. Concerning young men, the extreme right also has good illusionary ways to provide them with a sense of being powerful when they are in reality not, through violence that doesn’t threaten the upper classes, and relative privilege within their ideological stratified view of reality.

Ironically, that material reality of proletarisation can even fuel “tradwife” romanticism for some women - basically, the dream of being a loved and loving housewife, being submissive to and dependent on their husband and his income, anything, just to escape the dread of having to work under current conditions without any of the security of the past. (Note that actual submissive impulses that people potentially have as a fetish are a whole other thing in that discussion, but it is relevant, that for some submissive people at least, that can of course also add to the allure of that fantasy, just as the idea of being a breadwinner that has a dependent person giving them sexual gratification and admiration is alluring to people with dominant fetishisations)

So, I am heading to bed for the night, because I have been awake all night and day and the day before to catch the debate - but the short answer is: The decline of the middle class and the petite burgeoisie - which I in this case view not in the traditional definition, but also broader, as all the people owning a little bit of capital i.e. savings for old age in some fond or maybe a house of their own. Also the disappearance of job security and stable work relations.

With it, the conservative “lets keep things as they were” mindset of people who had a decent enough life, i.e. mostly boomers that lived through the economic growth phase of the post-war era, but also younger people dreaming of that time or having profited from it through their parents, comes into crisis. But as this mindset argues from its own experience, it dreams of the past (“Things worked back then, right?”), while missing, that the very same “working” system was what had within it, already the inherent nature that eventually led to it decaying around us. So they need to explain the decline as something caused by an outsider, a malevolent force.

At the same time, this decline of the middle class leads them to try and grasp to divisions that might “save” them from proletarisation - becoming properly dependend on paycheck to paycheck and owning nothing but their own labour power to sell on the market. So, racism for example - if you are white, you might just be spared from the above fate. And you can kick down, targeting all those brown people below instead of punching up - the latter is a lot more risky after all. And the people up above can’t be at fault, after all, you (or the people you heard about from the past) had a great life when those were around, right? It just have to be the “right” people, like you and the people of your nationality/race/religion/other ingroup - often depressingly arbitrary.

This is still a very reductive summary, a lot is missing, globalisation, how it relates to the net rate of profit, how consolidation happens, details about the ideology of our current times. But broken down to it’s basics it can be summarised as such. The middle class is disappearing as a consequence of capitalist development, which leads to them becoming panicky and diving headfirst into ideology.

Well, anyway, good night, hope it was possible to understand what I was trying to bring across in my rambling

Yeah, while the republicans have basically openly moved to reactionary and fascist politics, thus implicitly accepting the status quo is over, the influential parts of the Democrats seem to have been clinging completely to the idea that the status quo is what is to be preserved - even though material reality will not make that possible.

Right now, we seem to be in a historical moment, where old privileges are breaking away from a continuing crisis in capitalism that basically has been smouldering since the (late) 70s and kept stable through neoliberal policies thus far. Old privileges being lost results in a reactionary shift worldwide at the moment. It will be harrowing, but there is at least always the possibility of the pendulum swinging the other way - right now, in the coming years, organisation, connecting people, openly presenting radical alternatives to prepare for that moment seems to be the most important work to me.

Too late, I watched it all. It would have been funny if it hadn’t been so sad.

You know, as much as one has to keep Machiavellian machinations and Realpolitik in mind… Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. Biden did not do well. They report about it in a way that gives them clicks. There is no plan.

Fucking cognitohazards in this subreddit, and I lost the game too, great.

Oh, this brought me back to when I was in a psychiatric clinic as a teenager and I reacted like that to something, and this one girl with borderline was just about ready to kill me…

“If the RIAA sued hell, I would make at least a favourable reference to the devil in the House of Commons.”

Oh no, she got gum all over her turtleneck :O

We must imagine Sisyphus in therapy

Ha, funnily enough, that is genuinely not all that far away from where I live, definitely reachable by train in 45-120 min, depending on circumstances, and I do have a Deutschlandticket, so don’t promise what you can’t keep

So, I don’t want to worry you too much, but I might be in love with your girlfriend.

And your washing machine.

And this washing powder.

We’re working on a polycule right now, maybe you can be part of it.

I can at least anecdotally confirm this isn’t just a US issue either. Here in Germany, I met a guy at a psychiatric clinic as a fellow patient with a very similar story (in this case working in logistics, not construction, but also in a position requiring hard manual labour).

His German wasn’t all that good, so that made exploiting him easier - and while his medical bills were covered and he in theory had the legal rights to have his de-facto disability from work recognized, his work environment and pressure had made him ignore his own health and rights out of fear of not being able to support his ex-wife and children, who were everything to him. He had also internalised that his self-worth stems from his superior work ethics. In the end, the bosses/owners of his medium-small employer downsized heavily and pocketed a lot of money, but with no way to prove any illegal stuff going on in the process easily. He was dropped because he couldn’t work as self-destructively any more with his chronic injuries/issues. That broke him.

This social dynamic is appaling and probably very universal in the majority of the world.

You’ve got a great point there, actually