I am not advocating voter apathy. I am stating that voter apathy is one inevitable consequence of widespread systemic voter disenfranchisement.
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No, I saw that, and I think it is great, and important.
Got evidence?
Every close election, whichever way it actually went.
I grew up working in Chicago politics, and now teach the mathematics of voting systems, and I’m well aware of the warts in our own system, both actual and theoretical. US elections nowadays are miserable - they always have been, really, but somehow modern communications seem to make them worse. However, I think the actual mechanics of voting (including the existence of the EC) are the among least of the problems with our system.
Insufficient.
These are Illinois-Nazi level of evildoers. Don’t overestimate their intellectual abilities.
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from the article
What the fucking fuck? How…I can’t even. Goddamnit.
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No argument from me. But my point is that people can overcome widespread systemic voter disenfranchisement by doing something. Like the people in Minneapolis did. Like the American colonists did. Like MLK Jr. and his followers did.
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Certainly I don’t want this Duke supporter to prosper so as to have greater resources to contribute to his cause.
OTOH, closing that bar resulted in 5-10 non-Nazis losing their jobs.
It’s not a simple calculation.
Can’t you read? I just told you it wasn’t simple.
So, it’s not simple? In any case, I assumed you didn’t know what you were talking about after you assumed I didn’t know what I was talking about:
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They may be a minority, but if they can get 30% of the electorate firmly supporting their agenda then, historically speaking, very bad things can happen – especially if another 20% foolishly thinks they can be controlled and if much of the remaining 50% decides to sit back and let things run their course (“because, hey, the system is corrupt, and how much damage can that racist buffoon do anyways?”).
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My point is that the primary issue driving the USA’s infamously low voter turnout is not voter apathy. The corruption of the US electoral system was deliberately created and maintained by the American ruling class.
In the red states, about 1/5 of African-American males are subject to felony disenfranchisement. In the red states, working class people risk destitution if they so much as request time off on a voting day. In all states, the system is so heavily gerrymandered that most voting is largely ceremonial.
I have never advocated that people should not vote. It’s fairly pointless, but it’s still usually worth a shot.
OTOH, I take great offence at the implication that the disenfranchisement of the American working class is due to the supposed moral and intellectual failings of the victims.
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Perhaps your definition of “run their course” is different from mine. Did you know that Trump has record disapproval ratings?
You’re right, it isn’t. It rarely is.
OTOH, it’s rather striking that a group of mostly young working people were willing to sacrifice that much to stand up for justice. They don’t have much in the way of power or resources, but they were willing to spend what they had.
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I don’t know where you’re getting that from, but some people enjoy being offended, I guess.
All I meant to point out was that Trump is very unpopular. Historically unpopular. Such people do not usually get things done in a Republic/Democracy.
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No one actually said that, except you and @d_r putting words in other people’s mouths. Saying voting is not by itself enough and that suppression is real is not the same as saying don’t vote or give into suppression. If you want to argue with what people here are actually saying, fine, I might even agree. And if you made that initial assumption that they meant don’t bother showing up, well okay, but now it’s been pointed out by at least two other people before this.
Observing an effect isn’t the same as endorsing it.
Of course it did. And people in those states also abstained because they underestimated the ability of Trump to get elected. But that’s not the same thing as people in this thread advocating either.
The non-Nazis are the ones who decided to close the bar by quitting and refusing to work for a Nazi supporter. There was business. Read the article. White supremacists showed up in force to support the establishment. The staff found it an intolerable environment. The owner is entirely free to hire white supremacists to serve his new clientele.
It’s very simple, sometimes the moral price of a paycheck is too high, and these workers made their decision that they didn’t want to be serving the white supremacists who decided to show up in support.
Now I do agree that it would be less clear to boycott businesses who simply rent their premises from the Nazi. A business space lease isn’t something you can simply drop because it turns out your landlord is a Nazi. But at the same time, even though I wouldn’t support it, the fact is people are free to take their business wherever they want, just as the white supremacists did. Hopefully they will realize that the businesses will still owe the landlord rent even if they go out of business. Hopefully people will think before making that decision.
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I do. Guess who else didn’t have 2/3s of the public behind him when he began to gain serious power? When you’re talking about fascists and their enablers, there comes a point where public disapproval ratings become a non-issue; that point comes when too many people who oppose them choose to let things “run their course” (in the sense I describe it). This is not the time for business as usual, and yet (to give one glaring example) I see no evidence of the DNC pushing required massive GOTV effort for 2018 (an effort which should have started in mid-November, 2016). And sadly, I can’t yet rule out the idea that their campaign signs in 3 years will read “Clinton 2020.”
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The non-Nazi staff quit when the Nazis started showing up. I’d imagine most of them probably didn’t like the idea of working for a White Supremacist either. Luckily it’s easier for a bartender to find a new job than it is for a bigoted bar owner to start a new business.
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Having been a bartender, I have to agree; it’s highly unlikely that I personally would have stayed on the job once it became public knowledge that my boss supported Duke, a well-known Klansman… but once other Nazi’s started showing up ‘in solidarity,’ it would have cleared out everyone else who didn’t want to be seen as a Nazi sympathizer.
And yeah, not everyone can afford to ‘just up and quit,’ that’s true; but sometimes your principles have to take precedence over your pockets.
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No, but it would be nice to at least keep our minds open and avoid the trap of ‘We are inherently BETTER than these people, we do not need them, their thought and apparatus makes them worth only scorn, ridicule, and makes them fair game to do with as we please if we gain power.’
That thinking is exactly what we are outraged over to begin with. Let us not become the thing we abhore.
The thing I abhor is fascism.
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Not sure why you’re replying to my reply by adding on to the comment I replied to, but whatever. Let me know if you want to try addressing my point instead of lobbing rhetorical insults masquerading as questions. I’ll be happy to politely discuss with you the costs of boycotts. But if you’re going to be a hotheaded jerk, I won’t be involved.
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