No.1655
>Is voting really as big of an inconsequential meme as many people on the far left make it out to be?
It's even worse, because voting does have real consequences: pacification and self-degradation of the voters as well as affirmation of the state.
Voting is a political actions, and any action is carried out with an intend. The intend of the voter is to change the state's policy to one that he percieves as closer to his interest - but the thing is that the state can NEVER act in the real interest of concrete individuals, because that would mean to stop dominating them and the state would cease to be a state.
Ideologically and on a psychological level, voting however IS percieved as a valid and functioning political action, thus those who carry it out experience themselves as politically active, as 'standing up for their interest'. They thusly tend to not engage in any other form of political action, feeling satisfied by this carrying-out of politcal measurement. So, instead of putting their energy into causes that might really change, challenge or subvert the current state and relations, they affirm them - because voting is the base of legtitimacy for democratic states! Voting is presented as this real transformation of political will into political institutions - and if a majority of the population engages with it, a majority of the population signs off on the legtitimacy of statehood.
Only when the population starts disregarding the political events and institutions forming our current relations can we really start attacking them - in any other case those who still vote and still believe in the state will see such attacks as attacks on themselves, as they identify with the notion of a certain party and it's rightful function within a state or maybe even the state itself.
I'm as happy as the next person that Trump got defeated, but on the other hand it was a defeat for every anarchist too, because a huge amount of the US populace signed with their votes also the believe in the legitimacy of the state structure that's ensuring their exploitation and the aggression against so many other countries.