cross-posted from: https://lemmy.blahaj.zone/post/17869503
I know I’m going against the grain here, I’m obviously no Harris lover, but also I’d prefer to be allowed to continue existing. If that’s controversial in leftist spaces then maybe I don’t want to spend any more time in leftist spaces.
It’s as if voting wasn’t the one single thing you could do as a citizen.
It IS the only one that can’t be twisted by media interpretation, demonized and attacked with military and police, or straight up ignored.
Well, except for all the ways that voting is broken and doesn’t work. Gerrymandering and the electoral college and what not. And how your options are conservative neoliberal genocide supporter or outright neo fascist.
You couldn’t vote for an actual progressive candidate if you wanted to. The entire American political system is designed to prevent that exact thing from happening.
The larger of a lead someone wins with, the harder it is for those tactics to work. Please everyone, vote.
That’s presuming that Kamala has any interest in changing those things. The progressive wearing down of voting rights has continued mostly unabated for the last 50 years. It’s not like this state of affairs is new or something.
The details of who you vote for are another discussion. I’m simply saying voting is the only thing you can do that is guaranteed to contribute to the direction the government goes in, no matter how small. All other activity is important, but not guaranteed to result in anything.
I dont think voting itself is harmful on it’s own, no. I do understand why Palestinian Americans will not vote for people committing acts of genocide against them. And more to the point, I just recognize that this is a death spiral of western democracy right? The Democratic party is unwilling to do literally anything that would interrupt the neoliberal status quo of America. This aligns them with conservatives. They fight back against workers rights and protect the military industrial complex. The Democratic party has done shockingly little to ever actually fight back against Trumpism and modern fascists in America. They could have done significantly more, but many of those actions would jeaopardize american neoliberalism. It’s their priority to preserve it.
What I’m saying is, even if Kamala wins, we will be back here in 4 more years. Each time losing more ground to fascists because elected officials will do little more than token gestures to stop them. I hope she is elected, and I hope I’m wrong and she does an aboutface and codifies reproduction rights, codifies queer rights, and dismantles the supreme court and the electoral college. Biden could have done these things too.
And does voting stop you doing the other things?
It does if you treat it like the media does, billions of dollars in campaign coverage in the year leading up to election day and then nothing until it’s time to do it all over again.
It a pretty easy and very impactfull thing to do… so go vote first and the do whatever else you are suggesting after.
not voting is a strawman used to manipulate you.