Lmao I read that whole entire comment, and it wasn’t easy, and it’s all frantic backpedaling.

For the record I think the study you’re citing makes a methodological mistake by applying an issues based measurement framework in a representative democracy, but I have no intention of elaborating because you’re not arguing in good faith and you’re just going to waste everyone’s time.

Anyway next time post the version of the study that actually passed peer review and got published, not a draft.

Closer than my attempt at nuance? I didn’t know I made an attempt at nuance yet. I thought I just vaguely gestured towards the nuance and said it exists. Can you please explain what my position is on how much I think voting can accomplish so I’m all caught up with the conversation?

The socialist alliance party is working with Israel? Wowzers, I didn’t know that! Can you provide a source, or are you making things up?

See, the problem with Dessalines’ meme is that it uses “work” as a binary category. As in, something either has no effect or it completely restructures society. It is absolutely true that electoralism can’t completely restructure society, and there are many valid explanations for why that is in communist theory. However, Dessalines reveals his lack of understanding by equating completely restructuring society with “working”.

If we were to construct a true binary between working and not working, it would be between having zero effect, and having any effect, no matter how small. The beating of a butterfly’s wings has some effect on the world, and could theoretically contribute towards a tornado that sucks up all the bourgeoisie and allows the workers to democratise the means of production. So obviously voting has some tiny effect, since it’s stronger than a butterfly’s wings. Voting works, in other words. But that’s a virtually meaningless statement if we’re constructing a binary as Dessalines did.

The correct approach is to ask “how much can voting accomplish”, and with that question we can actually arrive at an answer with some nuance and a justification from within the theory. But the binary question Dessalines asks can afford no nuance, and is obviously not supported by theory or anything else. Which proves that even if Dessalines read theory, he didn’t understand much of it.

Your use of “work” is doing a lot of heavy lifting and is very reductive. I’d recommend reading theory until you properly understand the issue, Dessalines.

I wonder if people trust ChatGPT more or less than an international celebrity who is also their best friend.

What we need is a socialist revolution