askchapo

I vote and even canvas sometimes in local elections because you can actually make a difference there, but federally? Of course not. Who am I gonna vote for federally? The guy who sells bombs and supports genocide and does literally nothing of relevant systemic value for the global working class, or the guy who sells bombs and supports genocide and does literally nothing of relevant systemic value for the global working class? Voting at anything other than the ultra local level is a placebo. It's like homeopathy for college grads with a poli sci degree. Sure, you can list all of Biden's "accomplishments", and then anyone with 2 brain cells to rub together can point to a massively struggling working class in America and say "so what, how did that help them?" It didn't. You can list all of Obama's healtchare accomplishments and then go find literally millions of people who still can't afford even the most basic healthcare needs like insulin and inhalers. You could also go vote for the lady who was proud to vote against a federal minimum wage increase or the lady who has made an entire political career out of insider trading I guess. Or you can go vote for the dude who caused a huge train accident poisoning an entire Ohio town. Or any list of irrelevant boomers on any level who literally don't care one iota about any of you. Fat lot of good that does the vast majority of the working class. Even talking about it is a waste of everyone's goddamn time.

State level can matter when it comes to direct democracy things like referendums...I mean Ohio just got abortion legalization into their constitution, so that's pretty cool, and any leftist should have gone out and voted for that because direct democracy actually is kinda useful. But corporate owned representative democracy is a complete waste of everyone's time, and anyone who defends it should go think about who those representatives are actually representing, because unless you're a multinational CEO or board member, it's not you.

Local level can matter a lot depending on where you are, so I do still believe at least somewhat in local elections. You can actually knock on doors and talk to people about their neighborhood and get people to care and find people to support that will make a difference. I've also seen many times now that at the local level, money doesn't buy votes as easily. In my district a few years ago we had a local organizer who only had local organizations in her corner run against a fucking state government assistant who had the entire backing of the democratic party behind her. We got mailers every single day and pimply faced poli sci nerds from out of town showing up at our door every single day trying to talk about how she is going to fix crime and clean up the neighborhood. Meanwhile I canvased for the local organizer. She barely had mailers, certainly nothing fancy, she just had an army of people who care about the neighborhood and went out talking to neighbors about it. The organizer won like 60% of the votes. It was a goddamn blowout, because all she had to do was get people who live here to go talk to others who live here about what actually matters to people who live here. And she's not perfect of course, but she IS actually advocating for us and making meaningful systemic changes in the neighborhood. So that kind of shit actually does sort of matter and if you have a way to participate in that sort of democracy you should.

Anyway fuck voting, fuck electoralism without organizing, and fuck America.