this post was submitted on 12 Jun 2024
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I'm going to vote for the democrat this November but I think most folks who talk about this issue are not disingenuous. Voting in the presidential election is a bare minimum, minimally effective political action. For me and most of the people I know it matters almost not at all because I don't live in a swing state. My local elections matter a hell of a lot more.
There are limits to the effectiveness of electoralism that are worth understanding. I think a lot of folks who talk about the Democrat's failures are advocating for political action beyond voting. Direct action is a far more effective form of political action that people should be putting their energies into.
Union organizing, renter's orgs, housing activism, talking to your neighbors, local politics, and lots more are much more effective ways to assert power in your life. Voting makes me feel helpless. We need to act as well. The primary thing preventing positive political change is the belief that we can't do anything to bring that change about.
Thank you. Your politics may be messed up over there, but you guys still live in a free, and democratic, country. The reason you all feel you have to vote Biden while hating him is there are genuinely a lot of people, your fellow countrymen, who support Trump, the GOP, and/or their policies. That and layers of corruption and manipulation, up and down the political and economic ladder.
So to fix the first, without abandoning democracy, show the other half of your country why your vision and values are worth embracing. Act. Speak. And do it in a way that draws the country together to agree: otherwise you're aiming for a class rule, where your side rules over the other - then you'd be better to split to two countries.
For the second, start by being uncorrupt and unmanipulative yourself, then take that to your workplace, your political activism, your journalism. Fight for truth even when the lies and the lier offer you an easier win.
You can't fix it all yourself, any more than your one vote will win the election. But your one vote matters, and your one life, lived well, matters much more.
So vote in your presidential election. Vote in your other elections. But also get out there and be the change you want to see. And take care you don't fall to the temptation of lies and greed, yourself.