Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2020/09/23/a-us-presidential-election-to-do-list.html
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I’m in the Gung Ho camp, and spend too much time on Twitter trying to motivate people to be the same.
My two go-to threads:
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I’m in the “Meh…” camp between 3 and 4: totally uninspired by Uncle Joe, but knowing he’s the only option in our duopoly system who can buy liberal democracy in America some time.
I’m making sure the people I know are registered to vote, encouraging them to vote for Biden even if they’re also uninspired (including one Florida voter!), and am voting for him myself (even though it will make no difference in my state). But I’m not going to pretend to be enthusiastic about yet another Third Way candidate, and he’s not getting any volunteer time or money from me (I’ll let his beloved big-money donors take care of that last).
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Can this get pinned to the top of Boing Boing and the BBS for the next two months?
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Add one more to the list for us expatriates:
(For the record, I have already voted: got my absentee ballot and mailed it back).
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Isn’t it curious that each and every thread in the BBs about Trump’s latest attempt at controlling the national conversation gets a shit ton of replies, but posts like this that explain what can be done, to get out of this mess: crickets.
So I guess that this post needs to be pointed out in all those other conversations, so that people see that maybe they can make better use of their time than falling for Trumps con each and every time.
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Came here to say exactly this as well. BB could do a lot more to promote Biden. Every day there’s a post on some attention-craving garbage that Trump did. Let’s get serious and give people some reason to get out of the “Meh” camp!
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Thanks for a great post.
Get out the vote!
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I’ve voted at every chance since 1968. Some years I exercise the franchise so much I’m about exhausted. Vote early, vote often, is my motto. We can do it.
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Just to be clear, “vote often” should not not mean voting multiple times in the same election, but voting even in the low-stakes elections like town council, or zoning proposals, or whatever.
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i know many people in the more realistic version of camp 1. people who live in states where their (national) vote doesn’t matter. there are plenty of states that are too blue, or too red, or too small…
i do think it might help, if the election is contested, to have just huge numbers voting against trump… but then he lost the popular vote last time too, and it didn’t help gore either ( maybe if more voters were named chad? )
i think maybe the most important thing would be getting people motivated about voting locally to get closer to police defunding and candidates supporting social justice reforms.
the big conversations seem to be about national issues though. and i think the local conversations seem to get a bit lost in the national one
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The inspiring part isn’t Biden himself. The inspiring part is the idea that we could have a functional government where progressives across the country can actually get things done instead of using all their energy and resources trying to muster some kind of desperate defense against a never-ending cavalcade of new horrors.
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Yeah, Biden may not be the most idealistic, he’s been a pragmatist his entire career. BUT: he does work well with idealists, and does his best to implement what is practical. He is the man we need to restore faith in the federal government, and VP Harris is just who we need to clean out the trash, and help inoculate against another such infection of fascists.
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There’s a fifth possibility: Voting doesn’t take much effort (for most of us) and on the one, sometimes 2 days a year when it’s available, there’s no reason not to…
But realistically, the two party system is not going to act in the intereats of the electorate, it’s going to behave in the way its financiers dictate. And companies are allowed to donate to both sides, making their contribution more powerful than mere votes.
The one thing the democratic party cannot allow, is for unfettered capitalism to face a serious challenge. So it would be far preferable for Trump to win, and for them to spend another four years in self pity, than for an arab spring to happen on these shores.
Sure, on the single day I’m allowed to vote with a ballot, I’ll use that vote for Biden, no problem. But don’t try to gaslight me into faking excitement I don’t feel, just because Trump is awful.
As proud Americans, we are constantly being sold on the latest technologies. The trendiest, newest technical solutions. It’s part of our heritage as Yankee inventors… except, come voting time, we are somehow steeped in ancie t tradition, trusting an 18th century apparatus to help us wrap our heads around 21st century problems…
Every 4 years like clockwork, truly progressive ideals are gently nudged off the table in exchange for putting out fires instead. The democratic party isnt interested in halting damage to the atmosphere, just slowing the damage a little bit more than the other guys. We’ll still get to Venusian hothouse hell under the democrats, it’ll just take us a few more years to get there.
On voting day, the democrats can have my vote. The rest of the year, they have my opposition.
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