@benroyce
1. I agree with having to show up to get changes made. I brought it up because I'm not saying that we shouldn't vote for Democrats because they suck, a lot of non-voters (or third-party voters) think that way.
2. I mean, for a start, by not calling them left wing. You can't vote people out, you can only vote people in, and the people running as Democrats are usually centrists. I literally can't tell them through voting because the people who represent my ideals aren't in the race.
"a lot of non-voters (or third-party voters) think that way."
right because they're morons. of course the dems suck. because the morons don't vote
"You can't vote people out, you can only vote people in, and the people running as Democrats are usually centrists"
because no one shows up in the primaries. how did mamdani get in, despite no support from the dem org? because people showed the fuck up
people not voting is the *cause*, not the *effect*
stop thinking of establishment dems as some alien omnipotent force that must be interacted with. in fact they're quite weak. just fucking ignore them
stop thinking the establishment at all. you build it up to be this insurmountable enemy. it's an illusion that causes inaction
we show the fuck up in the primaries, and then we just own the joint. that's it
it all depends upon people showing the fuck up. beginning and ending of the topic
You might find this article interesting. It shows how compulsory voting in Australia led to policy shifts in government that benefited those on low incomes, pretty much vindicating everything you've been saying about why high voter turnout matters so much.
@StarkRG @benroyce
@ApostateEnglishman
It starts before showing up in the primaries; have to make sure there are primaries to show up to. If there aren't any leftists running, we can't vote for them.
@Fishercat @StarkRG @ApostateEnglishman
and that's where we are right now, before the primaries
some of you reading along here:
RUN FOR OFFICE
we will amplify you
@StarkRG @benroyce Pleasure. And since this is getting boosted a lot, I'll repeat what I said to you before: I know hardcore anarchists - the sort who think all top-down power structures (including the state itself) should be completely dismantled, and the only real democracy is grassroots and community-led - who 👉🏼still vote👈🏼, because they recognise that however broken the current system may be, keeping the far right out of government, both locally and nationally, is still hugely important!
@StarkRG @benroyce @ApostateEnglishman I firmly believe that doing any little bit of harm reduction you have available to you, however insignificant, is worth doing. And voting is one of those things (particularly in local council elections in the UK, where turnout is around 30% but actually the ideology of the council makes a huge difference to things in people's day to day lives like road or cycle lane funding, recycling collections etc)
voting is just tactics in a larger war
and "waah, but i want perfect, waah" is immature impotency
@StarkRG @benroyce @afewbugs Yeah. I was part of a team of 18 volunteers who dropped around 13,000 leaflets across two campaigns - an unofficial one against Reform UK, and an official one in support of the independent candidate - in the run-up to a local by-election. Sadly Reform still narrowly won, but we did manage to shave a few percentile points off their vote share.
Yet most of us think the electoral system is beyond repair. Allowing cynicism to become inaction is, as Ben says, juvenile. 🤷🏻♂️
@StarkRG @benroyce @ApostateEnglishman it's a commitment to personal purity, never sullying yourself by touching a system that's less than 100% perfect, over actually attempting to make things a bit better in the world
@afewbugs @StarkRG @ApostateEnglishman
yup
and this toxic idealism is selfish, self-serving navel gazing ineffectuality
nonvoters don't have political positions, they have psychological positions
it's a form of coping. it has nothing to do with making the world a better place
morality without action isn't morality, it's ego masturbation
also:
action is always imprecise and messy
and toxic idealists can't deal with that
so they are not moral people. they're just utterly useless whiners
@benroyce @afewbugs @StarkRG @ApostateEnglishman It's also a great way of not having to take responsibility for any decisions you make except OOPS it's not. But I'm convinced a lot of people - on some level, maybe not top level but it's in there - think it is.
