I was afraid this was going to be some horrible Morrissey kind of thing
https://twitter.com/prisonculture/status/1197986142362181633?s=21
That being said, if I have to compare:
- Someone who reliably votes every few years, but takes no other meaningful political action,
vs
- A non-voting but committed activist
…then the one that I’d be inclined to label as an apathetic and destructive arsehole isn’t #2.
Voting can be useful as a damage-limitation measure in some circumstances. But voting alone is nowhere near adequate to the needs of the times.
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Evidence that this is not true:
A) People voted for Trump
That is all.
To what end?
Successful revolutions have leaders, they don’t necessarily get voted on but they do ensure there are goals and that actions are taken that ensure there is movement towards those goals. So it is with revolutionaries as it is with activists.
Activism that does not go all the way to overthrow the current political system must work within that system otherwise what’s the point? You change peoples minds but they still vote along party lines?
Martin Luther king voted.
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Voting is the smallest and easiest political action by the public. The people who won’t turn out to vote damn sure won’t be turning out for any other form of activism.
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Malcolm X and the Panthers, OTOH, did not. And Dr King was not a person who believed that voting alone was sufficient.
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The anarchists who show up at every natural disaster with food and medicine.
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The refugee advocates trekking across the desert to replenish caches of water.
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The kids getting their asses kicked by the cops at BLM and DAPL protests.
Plenty of non-voters amongst them, and they do a hell of a lot more good than can ever be achieved by voting for some corrupt dixiecrat scumbag.
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This is why I say that voting isn’t the last step on the journey to change, but the first.
Vote for “least worst” if that’s all there is. Then phone, write letters, join an org, form an org, talk to people, learn to see spin, run for office yourself, even an office you don’t believe in. Lately we’ve seen a lot of abolitionists running for prosecutor spots, because one of the things you can do with power is choose not to wield it. And vote in the “little” elections like park board and school district, or run there yourself. One, your one vote out of 500 can sway things more, and two, these are foundational points in the bigger picture. If you want lasting change, flipping a million schoolboards will do more than a presidential election. We are where we are because the Right recognized that a long time ago.
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Awful politicians stay in office because voters don’t vote them out. Expressing displeasure isn’t enough…
…but voting is also not enough! Agreed! It’s not an either-or thing, but voting is the direct tool we have to actually replace lousy politicians with better politicians.
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Yup. And I don’t think that you’ll find any post where I ever advocated not voting.
However, I also find the constant sneering at non voters (most of whom are working class and/or PoC) by establishment liberals (most of whom are white and middle class) to be both counterproductive and infuriating.
If you want people to vote for your candidates, give them candidates that are worth voting for.
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We also need to keep in mind that many “non-voters” are not opting out, but are (rather) being kept out. Long lineups are a hardship for some, but are impossible if you have precarious employment or disabilities that prevent you from standing for large periods of time. Yet they are counted the same as the apathetic and protest non-voters. (This is why I love the fact that schools and seniors centres are used as polling places where I am. Large, accessible facilities, usually with parking and fairly centrally located to the community.).
That’s why I prefer “If you can vote, do so” because it grants that some people are eligible on paper, but not in the reality of some systems.
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Not voting is one of those forms of political “action” in which only the privileged can afford to engage. For many people, the difference between a Donald Trump and a Joe Biden (or even a Bloomberg) is an existential matter; they don’t have the luxury of agonizing over how participating in the system perpetuates oligarchic hegemony.
There have been general elections in the UK where the outcome didn’t make a hell of a lot of difference in overall national policy (1997 comes to mind), but that isn’t the case this year. I feel for all the people who despise the Tories and embrace the Labour platform, but can’t stomach Corbyn. The only adult in charge of a major party in Britain is Nicola Sturgeon, and she wants to take her constituency out of the UK altogether.
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Indeed. Principles are great…if there’s a world left to practice them. That’s why despite my anarchist leanings, I vote at every opportunity.
“One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors.” ~ Plato, The Republic
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There are plenty of reasons non-privileged don’t vote, starting with GOP voter suppression efforts, but that doesn’t really contradict what I said, which is that only people of privilege can afford not to vote. People who advocate not voting – not you, but at least one other person in this thread – are probably not people for whom the outcome is important.
I’m a huge fan of political activity outside of the polls – I’ve been arrested more than once while doing it – but it isn’t a substitute for voting.
give them candidates that are worth voting for
Who is supposed to be doing the “giving” here? People can run for office, and voters can either come out to vote for them, or not.
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The legislation that brought about all those things was enacted by elected representatives, chosen by the voters. Much of that progress is threatened now because too many people chose representatives who hate it, and too many others stayed home.
No matter what else you do, voting makes a difference, and the worst among us always vote.
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And if voting didn’t make a difference there wouldn’t be so many powerful interests working to disenfranchise large portions of the electorate.
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Or spending so much money trying to sway people one way or the other.
There are clearly politicians gaming the system all over the world, but believing voting makes no difference is purely a waste of energy.
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that’s a different thing from a “don’t vote” activist
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