this post was submitted on 25 Jul 2024
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United States | News & Politics
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While gerrymandering and voter suppression aren't nothing, the system is just completely incapable of responding to signals it never receives. If you don't vote, the system is not incentivized or designed to promote people who have your political interests in mind. There's a lot of critical reforms that need to happen, none of them as urgent as ranked choice voting, but as little as your vote means for a federal election:
It means A LOT MORE for local elections, and these people have a shocking amount of power for how much people care about local races.
It's still at least some signal to the system that can be interpreted or responded to. It can't hurt. Throw your vote away on RFK or the Libertarian Party if you want. Hell, I voted for Jorgensen last election. But I'm telling you that not voting when you could is almost always going to lead to the worst possible outcome for people who share your political interests.
since you're not seeing the circular reasoning here; i'll try to make it more apparent: how do you vote when your vote is blocked?
It's not blocked as much as it's made more and more difficult, because they can't hard block it (yet). So, the best advice, if you actually want advice and not just to bitch on the internet (it's fine if that's all you want, btw), is to organize. Organization is the single most powerful tool in political efforts, full stop. Examine the problem that affects voters in a given area and organize with the explicit goal of helping voters overcome those barriers. I'm not just talking about getting people to the polls, I'm talking demanding local policy changes, getting after state legislators, yelling at anyone who will (and many who won't) listen, organize and run local campaigns for city council or county supervisor. Those races can actually be competitive in deep red/blue areas, especially if locals know a particular person on their team is a shithead. Those positions also hold a shocking amount of power, and open up political communication channels that would otherwise be inaccessible. Idk if you're a communist, and I don't care, the American communists of the 1800s didn't just sit back and wait for the US to collapse, they got out there and faced likely being murdered to try and organize slaves to break up an unjust system. Get outside and stomp some grass if you want to see something different, bitching on the internet won't change anything.
we agree on this; our signals got crossed somewhere.