I really appreciate yourresponse. I organize a local anarchist mutual aid group in my area. Mainly focused on helping the houseless and supporting protests. We are also working on expanding into other areas like supporting folks who are at risk from ICE, as well starting zine stuff. Ultimately we are aiming to develop grassroots structures to support people, and in the long term we wish to build structures of power separate from the government.
Ultimately its not necessarilly a belief that good cant come from bad. I definitely think most of the time bad brings bad, but not always. Part of it is I feel that I am responsible for what those that I vote for do. Or at least what they promise to do before getting elected. In the case of Kamala, she would continue to support Israel's genocide and I wasn't willing to sacrifice Palestinians to protect myself. That and I conflict about whether or not it is really harm reduction? However this is something I feel I have to just figure out by myself at this point. I have heard the arguments for both sides of it and I just gotta figure out what I believe on the matter. The other part (which makes resolving that conflict hard) is that I believe voting for representatives legitimizes them, and thus the system they work for. I don't want to support a system that disempowers me by handing my power to politicians.
Which yeah, all of that is largely principle and symbolic or abstract but I do believe that stuff to be important. Partly because symbolic acts still have impact. But also they are informed by my morals, values, beliefs, etc. Compromising on them is corrupting. The issue though is that in the dilemma around voting is that two different sets of values are in conflict. Harm reduction versus autonomy and self-determinism. Probably others but I have spent enough time as is trying to organize these thoughts for this comment.