Quote Originally Posted by xerx View Post
You say that Clinton lost because she's an obvious monster with no charisma. If we grant that, then she lost because of her platform, political history, and self-presentation. It means that she lost, via a popular poll, in spite of her large support within the establishment.
OK, I'll grant that Trump wasn't the establishment's first choice. But A) he only won because of strategic miscalculation on the "establishment's" part, and B) he himself was the establishment, and was completely usable by the establishment, and if there was even a chance he weren't he would never have been elected.

You seem to be pretending that I'm saying voting makes literally no difference to the outcome of any race. My point is that it's not a meaningful difference. If a manager tells employees they can either accept a pay cut or work longer hours, and the workers vote for longer hours, that's not a victory for the workers, no matter if the manager would have preferred they accepted the pay cut. In the same way, when people are offered a "choice" between two rulers, it makes no difference if the majority of our ruling class would prefer one side to win rather than the other. Even when we select the other candidate, the establishment still wins, and everyone else loses.

"Democracy" exists because it settles disputes between various factions of the ruling class without much bloodshed while dispelling class consciousness among the lower classes. It's a relatively minor concession, because the only fight is between elite and elite -- who would fight anyway, and need some way of resolving their disagreements -- and it ensures non-elites are pacified into not coming for them all as a class. Yes, if you think the elections aren't crooked -- which in America isn't a sure bet -- the people are permitted to choose which faction they'd like to rule them. But they don't get to name their own candidates, nor their own terms. Notice that the best example of an "anti-establishment" candidate you can come up with is a billionaire whose opponent was close enough with him to attend his wedding, He did quite a lot for certain factions of the elite (e.g. investors in private military contracting, oil, or agriculture) but did jack shit for anyone who wasn't an elite. Do you think this is just coincidence? "The people" are just dumb enough to consistently choose time and time again candidates who do nothing for them? If you honestly believe that Trump was the person Americans thought was best suited to be President, do, or Joe Biden for that matter, why not just advocate a nuclear holocaust of the country? Clearly we're retarded.

On the contrary, by refusing to participate, you're helping to cement the establishment's boldest claim: that government should be entirely in the hands of a professional class of managers, technocrats, and business persons — the people who contribute the most to political life, being, therefore, the people who deserve to decide its outcomes.
What are you smoking? How do you think we got a professional class of managers, technocrats, and business persons in the first place?! They all snuck in when everyone forgot to vote during one election season or the other? All you can do is say that we should do the same thing we've always done; the very thing that landed us in this position, as if you can cast out Satan through the power of Satan.

"Vote, vote vote," as people vote for falling standards of living. People vote every goddamned election. The problem isn't that we need to do more of it.

2. Refusing to vote out of apathy or due to a fundamental disagreement with representative democracy as a system of government. This isn't a form of participation.
Yes, and that's a good thing.