If nothing else, we’ve seen proof positive over the past several years that in many cases local and congressional elections are just as - if not more - consequential than presidential elections. Just fucking vote, people. Even if you don’t like Biden, vote for progressive candidates and policies for your state. It’s also vitally important.
Republican governors, and state legislative bodies are doing everything they can to erode your right to choose, to allow poisons and toxins into your air and water, to suppress the rights of POCs and the LGBT community, and so many other things. Do everything you can to vote these fuckers out.
But they are. That’s not in my head, so don’t talk down to me as if it is.
What does that even mean? Are you saying he’ll uphold Roe or not?
I did not say that. However, if you’re willing to throw the election to Trump, because Biden might not be perfect, then we will get another 4 years and my rights will be fucked, as well as lots of other peoples.
then maybe get involved in the DNC. if you want large, entrenched institituions to change, get involved in changing them.
Do you think you’re the only person here who understands the GOP somehow? Because you keep acting as if you are.
After holding my nose and voting for Clinton in 2016, I went home, had a stiff drink, and sent money to the EFF, SAF, and ACLU because we’d be needing their services discouraging authoritarians however it shook out. I’ve repeated the donations every November since because we still do.
I’m not overjoyed that that scheme remains the only vaguely ethical option for the foreseeable future.
At this point, there is no other/better Republican candidate. There is no other/better Democratic candidate. There is no other/better third party candidate.
There is just Trump and Biden.
Absolutely no other person, real or hypothetical, past or present, matters in the least.
Local elections are considerably more consequential to your life than the general and there is the added bonus that your vote counts considerably more.
And the only way to change that is to talk to those voters one to one. Commiserating about it from inside an online bubble is unlikely to generate much of anything except shocked surprise on election night.
I know you aren’t happy with Biden. Most of us on the BBS aren’t, but shouting at each other over who they are going to vote for isn’t helping.
Democratic socialism doesn’t get it’s power from the corridors of power. It gets it from the community, the streets in villages, towns and cities. It gets it’s power from people looking out for other people in their communities, the communities looking out for other neighboring communities. Democratic socialism should be about the people, not the politicians
Voting is only the first option of political action, and it shouldn’t stop there. Go and ask the DSA if there are any mutual aid groups in your area. Redneck Revolt is another option, you might not agree with their gun politics (or you might, I’m not going to judge one way or the other) but they are active in some red areas of the US, and might know other groups who are local to you. The organising doesn’t stop today or on November 3rd. It needs to carry on and it would have needed to carry on even if Bernie won.
It’s OK to mourn for a few days, it is a loss for all of us. Recently I saw someone point out that choirs hold long notes by people dropping out and taking breaths while other people carry on. Recover, come back in a few days and let’s keep on going.
Collectively we have more power than we realise. Let’s use it.
There are essentially infinite options. Trump and Biden are the only two likely options that don’t involve dramatic civil unrest, and by saying that they are the only two options, what you’re actually saying is that you think they are both preferable to serious civil unrest.
I. e. You are saying that you aren’t willing to consider any options that involve fundamentally changing our system by working outside of it, rather than within it. You are so attached to the system that gave us Trump, that you would rather have Trump than destroy that system.
That thinking also means that you are prepared to risk marginalized groups and the rampant increase in minority hardship to continue for your as-yet-unproven hope of insurrection rather than trying to first right the wrong leading to that hardship, then working towards your goals.
It’s important to realize who’s propping up your mission of dismantling the system, because they are the ones who will suffer if you fail, versus trying to do so after this election.
Can we agree that if the revolution has not toppled the government by November 3rd, these are the two options prior to resuming the revolution on November 4th?
Unless the goal is to let Trump cause more human misery prior to the people’s victory, I don’t see a benefit in toppling Trump over toppling Biden.
Its worth correcting the headline - Sanders did not “drop out”, he suspended his campaign.
He is still collecting delegates, supporters are still voting for him, and most important is that it is not beyond possibility that Biden may blow up before the convention.
I’ve heard some version of this argument every election this century, and have even been swayed by it before, only to inevitably hear the exact same thing next time.
I would put it to you that using that argument in favor of someone who voted for the Iraq war, expanded the drone war, supported fascist coups in Latin America, and continued to support the School of the Americas, among many other similar things, is essentially saying that we should be willing to sacrifice all the victims of those policies as long as he’s slightly less shitty to people here in the US.
I’m not saying I think you’re a bad person if you look at the situation and think voting for Biden is the best choice, but it does involve the same willingness to sacrifice some people for the sake of others that every single choice we are presented with by this system does.
They are a classic illustration of how fun politics don’t inherently have anything to do with a left-right split, and that the “left”, including most progressives, in the US, are as much an urban movement, which holds rural people in some kind of contempt, as a left movement. I think this is a real problem for us, and the movement would benefit greatly from understanding that there is a potential for a rural leg movement, but a lot of the rhetoric we get from progressive politicians about guns, as well as things like state-level property taxes and land use regulations, seriously alienate them.
