Americans who believe in lesser evilism are closet white supremacists

Submitted by ziq in LesserEvilism (edited )

Fact: Biden has been massively increasing funding to the police by another $32 billion.

Fact: Last year, police killings hit an all-time high of 100 people a month.

Fact: Black Americans are 3.23 times as likely as white Americans to be shot and killed by police

Fact: Native Americans are killed in police encounters at a higher rate than any other racial or ethnic group

Fact: Biden brags that he is spending much more on the policing of the USA's borders than his rivals, to keep migrants out. He has drastically increased ICE's budget by 25 billion. His asylum policy is stunningly cruel and dangerous.

Fact: Biden has approved more drilling projects than his predecessor, which will most affect indigenous groups, who live closest to many of these drilling sites.

Fact: The libs trying to sell the Democrat party as "harm reduction" and "the lesser evil" because "at least they aren't literally killing us" and "at least they won't increase state power" are willfully ignoring the piles of bodies their party leaves in its wake and the us they identify here clearly means middle class white settlers i.e. the segment of the population in settler-states that has historically been safest from government tyranny and most benefited from it. They want to uphold that status quo and keep the state laser-focused on the parts of the population that they don't really give two shits about - people of color.

Harm reduction via electoralism is a myth and the people peddling the myth are erasing indigenous, Latinx and black lives. They are putting their own safety as middle class white people ahead of the safety of the people their good old uncle Joe has had caged, beat to a bloody pulp and gunned down. And worst of all, they're deliberately working to give power to much more competent and effective white supremacists.

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ziq OP wrote (edited )

I feel like people in this sub have been missing the main point of the post. I don't blame you cuz ziq is pretty hyperbolic but you can still see reasoning behind their statement. I'll rephrase the main point of the original post to make a little bit more digestible and easier to expand on: "Lesser evilism is a more passive form of white supremacist thinking because it acts as a rationalization for giving someone with intentions to do harm to BIPOC people political power thus making anyone who supports that person, no matter their intentions, complicit in expanding the powers of white supremacist institutions."

The facts laid out in the original post are to present the question of: "How is the death of people of color and violations of their rights by the hands of authoritarian racist institutions an acceptable form of evil?" The point to answering this is to reveal that the thought processes needed for "lesser evil" thinking are hinged on their being a baseline of violence and oppression that's "acceptable". It requires the person who supports a candidate under the premise of harm reduction steel theirselves in their actions and motivations with the belief that some form of

(Comment ended there, idk why)

I like these points but want to clarify one thing. The "hyperbole" is as important as everything else in the post. Posts like this aren't meant to inspire self-involved reddit settlers to change their ways and stop stumping for racist orgs that fill the streets with murderous pigs. I didn't write it for them.

It's for the people who are quietely watching the white Democrats panicked vitriolic reactions to my post and hopefully coming to the understanding that a system of structural oppression that grants privileges, power and the spoils of colonialism to these people is never going to produce real allies. That liberation will never result from party politics or other systems of hierarchy. That white middle class settlers have close to zero chance of ever giving up the power the system grants them and will throw poc under the bus with no hesitation and lash out at anyone who pokes holes in their altruistic leftist fantasy while parotting all the tropes this post calls out, doubling down in insisting Biden is protecting marginalized people from being murdered when the stats show the direct opposite.

The reactions of the reddit leftists as they betray their true loyalties is 80% of the message. Their cognitive dissonance IS the point. This is lesser-evilism in a nutshell.

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kinshavo wrote

I think this lesser-evil discourse and the pressure to support a liberal/socdem republic through democracy usually overlaps with the weaponization of queerness and disability (and sometimes a deep ecologist discourse) in defense of this white settler's dream. Anyone have suggestions of texts about it?

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fortmis wrote

Can't think of anything now but will keep the search going in another brain tab. Hope someone else has some good suggestions. I'd love to read more. I totally agree with you. I am personally the most aware of how queerness and race are used to prop up the electoral system. Like the government has incidiously recruited millions of little minions willing to use their identity to validate a system they absolutely cannot accept to be irreparable. Not only does it keep democracy in a comatose state, drawing out its slow demise, but it also perpetuates harm for queers and POCs who aren't protected by their social / class / whatever standing.

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Fool wrote

But won't someone think of the <specific interest group> children!

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