I voted for the “harm reduction” vote in the 2016 Presidential election. Mar Roxas wasn’t great, but he was better than Duterte. Surprise, surprise, Duterte won. Hundreds of thousands died.
For the 2022 Presidential election, I voted for a principled vote for Leody de Guzman. Surprise, surprise, the Marcos dynasty returns to power.
Then people are treating Biden/Trump round 2 as top priority. Newsflash, if democracy was at stake in the election, then you don’t have democracy. I’ve been watching the Biden administration from afar. Biden, Trump, they’re the same. Same killer police. Same concentration camps at the border. Same prison industrial complex. Same trans genocide. Same abortion bans. No meaningful climate action. And now, a genocide in Gaza. Biden doesn’t care. Voting isn’t harm reduction.
No, voting is not useless because my candidate lost. Voting is useless because it separates people from mass politics and makes it appear as if the ballot is the power. Instead of people acting for themselves, they delegate their power to a ballot and to a candidate. That is not power, that is an image of power.
I am unconvinced that without voting people would feel more included in “mass politics”
That’s because the mass politics you envision is precisely one predetermined by the liberal-“democratic” voting form, where people are precisely separated from their power. Voting can be part of a truly liberatory and emancipatory politics, but its current form is authoritarian. Even the concept of voting as harm reduction and voting for lesser evils already shows people have no power.
Yes, it is authoritarian and allows one to choose between two authoritarian alternatives that are not the same. Voting matters but can’t be the only political action you have.