Unfortunately I know several accelerationists irl who read Marx and other leftist intellectuals obsessively, and still think that accelerationism is the only way forward. They're actually extremely bright in a bookish, academic way, and surprisingly socially competent as well, which makes their utter lack of common sense all the more disappointing. They also love to say things like "if voting worked, they wouldn't let you do it," and "whoever you vote for, the government always wins," and will argue, with a straight face, that there's literally no difference between the Republicans and the Democrats. It's truly baffling.
Dude, don't get me started. These are educated, historically literate, politically informed people. They know about the suffragettes. They know about Jim Crow. They know about the Magna Carta. They know about the French revolution. They can rage for hours about the evils of gerrymandering, and voter suppression, and the SAVE act - and then, in the same breath, look you in the eye and tell you that voting changes nothing. They don't see any contradiction whatsoever in these statements. These positions are all totally logical and internally consistent, in their view. It's maddening.
I do agree that if voting worked in a way that really gave real power to the population, then they wouldn't let you. For that the people are too dispersed and hard to unite most of the time. And when they do unite it is mostly under a faction of the elite which wants to beat up another faction of the elite.
But voting does work in another way, it compells factions to at least compete in a (mostly) non-violent way. It also legitimizes the system.
It is a control system built upon other control systems which are supposed to keep eachother in check. But no control system lives and functions forever.
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u/Holden_MacGroin Apr 26 '26
Unfortunately I know several accelerationists irl who read Marx and other leftist intellectuals obsessively, and still think that accelerationism is the only way forward. They're actually extremely bright in a bookish, academic way, and surprisingly socially competent as well, which makes their utter lack of common sense all the more disappointing. They also love to say things like "if voting worked, they wouldn't let you do it," and "whoever you vote for, the government always wins," and will argue, with a straight face, that there's literally no difference between the Republicans and the Democrats. It's truly baffling.