This is downvoted to hell here too huh? Gods, the libs of lemmy…
The libs are descending into the same “you’re either with us or against us” hysterics they indulged in back in 2016 - it’s pretty much a telltale sign that they know their candidate has dropped the ball.
This is a debate within the anarchist community for several reasons. First of if we were in a pre-revolutionary era and a lot of people were already active in some sort of non-hierarchical groups and about to take over society, yes at that point voting would be damaging to the cause. Currently we are not at this point.
Also many anarchists consider direct democracy as way going forward towards autonomous local organisation. Rojava would be a recent example of this case.
Personally, I think it is meaningful to vote. The important thing is not rely on it. One can easily vote and do community-organising as well. I agree that voting does not challenge any of the hierarchical structures that are in place. Not voting, doesn’t neither. At least at this point in time.
The downvotes tell me that there’s a lot of “anarchists” around here that will turn into panicky liberals as soon as the going gets tough.
While I will concede that the anarchist “voting doesn’t matter” refrain is a pretty useless and possibly self-defeating argument (purely for strategic reasons), it still isn’t a fundamentally wrong one.
My advise: if voting is a distraction, then don’t get distracted. It costs nothing. Cast it and care no more, focus on other things immediately after doing it. :)
You can’t build a better future by just voting, but you can use it to stop someone from running your society totally into ground.
In my imagined future, a country can climb down from voting to sortition, and decentralize the power of sortitioned representatives further downward until the state is just a label, but abandoning the present because of a future that’s out of reach - that’s not wise.
The present system needs attending to, until the next step is within reach.
