I've been shushing people who say there won't be free #elections in the #USA anymore

[benroyce@mastodon.social]

@LukefromDC @rupert @Asbestos

you always fight

and the fight has many avenues

voting is just one of the avenues

and morons who ignore it are failing simple strategy and tactics, and losing the fight

[apostateenglishman@mastodon.world]

@mastodonmigration @dlundh @Asbestos @benroyce I realise your fiery rants about voting abstention aren't meant to be amusing, but they do often make me smile in a "batten down the hatches, folks, Ben's off on one again!" kinda way. 🤭

[renardboy@mastodon.social]

@benroyce @mastodonmigration @dlundh @Asbestos I want a device to summon Ben irl so that whenever I'm having an conversation with someone and it comes up that they don't vote I can sic him on them and watch the ensuing carnage like a bloodsport

[benroyce@mastodon.social]

@ApostateEnglishman @mastodonmigration @dlundh @Asbestos

every tragedy is a comedy and every comedy is a tragedy, it's just a matter of perspective

it's why we can laugh so hard we cry and why we can cry so hard we laugh

and thus that people are laughing at this shitshow of a country is perfectly appropriate

us living in it though better feel the tragedy enough to show the fuck up and vote

[benroyce@mastodon.social]

@renardboy @mastodonmigration @dlundh @Asbestos

i'm an old man, you'd just watch me get beat up

but if i can hide behind a door i can give them a proper tongue lashing

[starkrg@myside-yourside.net]

@benroyce The Democrats are an organisation with a small (9 members) committee that determines the policies and direction of the party and a second, slightly larger (65 members) committee that runs things day-to-day. When was the last time you voted in a Democratic National Committee election? Or an Executive Committee one? They set the rules for how primaries and caucuses are run, they run the fundraisers. Average, everyday Americans get effectively zero say in the makeup of those committees.

[benroyce@mastodon.social]

@StarkRG

if enough showed the fuck up, all of that would be working for us

that the democratic party does not, and serves spineless centrists, is a direct consequence of not enough showing up to vote

what i'm saying is that this organizational inertia argument is real, as you say, but it's essentially nothing but a reflection of our will. *if* we show the fuck up

bad candidates do not lead to low voter turn out

well, they do, but more accurately:

low voter turn out leads to bad candidates

[lukefromdc@kolektiva.social]

@benroyce @rupert @Asbestos I have long said "EVERY tool in the toolbox" means exactly that.

Also note that even if Trump himself could be on both sides of the ballot, there would be all those referendums and downballot races to consider. It's worth your time for instance to take a few hours to look at every candidate for school board, and find out who is backed by Moms 4 Liberty or other Fundamentalist Christians. Then vote for their opponents, excluding any other extremists calling for things like mass drug testing or more prosecutions for truancy.

The corruption DeSantis had to resort to do defeat an abortion rights referendum in the last election now threatens to derail the rest of his agenda. That referendum got just under the 60% needed to win-and DeathSantis stole millions in taxpayer funds to blanket the airwaves with deceptive ads against both the abortion and cannabis referendums.

[starkrg@myside-yourside.net]

@benroyce It's a bit like that, sure, but it would take a long time of everyone showing up to vote to actually make a difference. I can't imagine the DNC as it exists now, allowing candidates more left wing than AOC or Omar. There's only so much voters can do with the system that exists, and that turns people off voting. Personally, I'm a strong proponent of compulsory voting. Don't just make it easier to vote, make it harder not to.

[benroyce@mastodon.social]

@StarkRG

right but imagining something better is easy. delivering on it takes sustained effort. so we have to fucking vote

it's a nasty analogy but it's true:

MAGA took over the Republicans. called centrist Republicans "RINOs" (Republicans in name only). hollowed out the shitty party and made it something much more shitty: fascism

we can take over and remake the dems as well

it's a shitty analogy because i hate any comparison to MAGA but it's a demonstration that sustained voting works

[sarae@ecoevo.social]

@benroyce @rupert @Asbestos @LukefromDC thank you, yes, as someone who's been a pragmatic movement person for years...yes

I had some serious fights with the Biden administration, I know they weren't my friends

but they also resourced some things I found extremely useful, as opposed to this "knock everything over and piss on it" strategy we saw last year from the feds

[starkrg@myside-yourside.net]

@benroyce Ooh, I'll disagree with "imagining something better is easy" it seems like it *should* be, but it doesn't seem to be in practice, especially if we say that Democrats are as left wing as we can hope for. We settle for the Democrats because that's the best of what's currently available, but we need to be telling them that we're not happy with them as they currently stand. I want to vote for actually progressive candidates, not just for the people who aren't literally evil.

[benroyce@mastodon.social]

@StarkRG

two things:

1. i was directly referencing your suggestion for compulsory voting. i agree. and? well to get it we have to show the fuck up. idea -> action. however easy or not the idea is is meaningless without the action

2. "we need to be telling them that we're not happy with them as they currently stand." right. but what is that? whining online or writing emails that get canned fake responses? that "telling" your referring to is our vote. vote them the fuck out. that's telling them

[lukefromdc@kolektiva.social]

@benroyce If the election is corrupted, be ready for a lot of new recruits the day after election day! If you sow defeatism those recruits won't be coming as they will be resigned not pissed off and motivated.

[benroyce@mastodon.social]

@LukefromDC

also if no one shows up to vote, and someone starts shooting: "why are they shooting? beats me. feds say it's terrorists. whatever"

but if we all show up to vote and the feds say "trump won a third term" we know it's bullshit. then when someone starts shooting in this scenario: "they're shooting because of the fascist lies! this is the fight! everyone join in!"

the vote provides the clarity of the people's will. without it, there is no clarity and all is lost

we have to vote

[starkrg@myside-yourside.net]

@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.

[benroyce@mastodon.social]

@StarkRG

"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*

[benroyce@mastodon.social]

@StarkRG

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 of 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

[starkrg@myside-yourside.net]

@benroyce Yeah, I agree with all that. The only thing I really disagree with you on is calling the Democrats left-wing. I'd allow "center-left" but I'd still strongly disagree with that categorisation, they are center-right. Just being less right wing than the Nazis doesn't make them left, it just makes them less right.

[jorny@mastodon.social]

@benroyce @em_and_future_cats

Swedish comedian and singer (and general mensch) Ronny Eriksson once joked about the difference between pessimists and optimists. When the pessimist says: "It can't possibly get any worse than this!" the optimist answers: "Yes it can!"

I thought about this quote a lot when I saw american progressives talking about not voting in the last election. Or Swedish leftists talking about that who is the american president doesn't matter.