When I read the headline, I thought it was about Samantha Bee reacting to the realization that our governance system is so blatantly anti-democratic that even in the face of overwhelming bi-partisan campaigns to promote voting as a solution to social problems, vast swaths of the population recognize that it’s useless.
But actually it was just about Samantha Bee promoting voting. Oh well!
George Caleb Bingham’s painting, County Election, 1852, portrays some old-timey election day shenanigans:
Defeatism is useless and voting is merely the least we can do when it comes to civic engagement.
For Black folks in the US, voting is an act of defiance.
Dude, you really should go have a drink. On me.
Go ahead, have another… 
hehe, ‘BeezNutz’
ooooh please folks - go register and vote
That’s so Tammany Hall.
All the user names are pretty great 
Yes the current system is hugely flawed, but I find it extreme to call it useless. It seems not unreasonable to project that Trump’s executive power would be reduced if/when the Republicans lose their congressional majority come November.
Voting is just one tool among many - something that should be done in self-defense if nothing else.
Lesbocracy?
You’re right. Hadn’t seen that.
#4 took me a hot minute to get…
and no.3 I still fail to see… oh.
That was less a “party” than it was purchasing votes with alcohol. Its a big part of why we no longer allow electioneering in or near polling places.
Sometimes it was about force feeding people alcohol, beating the shit out of them, dragging them from polling place to polling place to vote multiple times, then leaving them for dead. It might be how Edgar Allen Poe died.
So yeah. Sounds fun. But was actually a major type of 19th century election fraud.
Yeah, No.3 I don’t get.
Whatever it takes to get people to vote against these fascist pigs.
Out of interest, what is the voting situation like there?
Here in the UK, we have a similar problem with voter apathy, but when you look into it it’s not unjustified. We have FPTP and a ‘choice’ of heavy rightwing or “we’re a bit less rightwing than the other party” options plus ‘vote wasted by the undemocratic FPTP voting system’
I always vote, but i have to admit it’s mostly out of sheer stubbornness. My vote has NEVER counted and it looks like it never will unless i relocate to a new area…
Great idea! I’d love a beer with my democracy sausage.
I agree very strongly. That’s part of why voting in US elections is generally useless. What we want is to actually participate in steering the course of our society, to practice self-rule. That’s been replaced with the cynical farce of our electoral system. Resigning ourselves to uncritically accept that as civic engagement is defeatist. We don’t have to accept it! We don’t have to pretend that voting makes our voice heard, that it makes this a “democracy”. We can set our standards higher.
Things definitely won’t get any better if we continue with the defeatist attitude that demanding real democracy is unrealistic.
“King was working to take down signs that prevented black people from riding buses where they wanted to, and to ride in trains, public transportation, preventing them from voting, and all of those things that black people were prevented from doing in the south. In the north, blacks always could vote, but as Malcolm said ‘You may have the vote but you ain’t no voting for nothing because they’ve already decided that you are not going to have any power’,” explains historian James H. Cone.
Well, we wouldn’t want to be extreme. After all, things are pretty great. certainly we aren’t facing any radical problems which might require extreme changes to our social, political, and economic systems.
Just keep on an even keel, keep voting, and things will work themselves out, I’m sure.
GBOA had an alter-ego called ‘Lesbian Dopeheads on Mopeds’, for what it’s worth.
I for one welcome our new lesbian overlords…
