we have to stop blaming voters for their apathy and instead try to understand why a campaign fails to mobilize them. scolding a voter for rejecting persistent mediocrity implies that we must accept it, simply by virtue of being less bad. pragmatically, this makes sense but not everybody has the privilege of accepting the least bad option when doing so appears to have little impact on their present untenable situation.
i exercise what little power i have to try to keep fascists from power but if others weren’t motivated to do the same, we have to actually speak to their grievances. Kamala campaign had every opportunity to reach these people and instead chose to basically say, “fuck what you want, we don’t need your votes.” so when she gets BTFO across the country, she has nobody to blame but herself for running a campaign that failed to stand for anything her constituents cared enough to vote for (i know there is also always voter suppression that favors Republicans too but she also failed to pursue effective legal remedy for that).
yeah it sucks hard that this happened, especially so for those of us first on the chopping block for fascism. but to break the cycle, the impetus is on our politicians to be better, not on the voters to settle for worse.
we have to stop blaming voters for their apathy and instead try to understand why a campaign fails to mobilize them. scolding a voter for rejecting persistent mediocrity implies that we must accept it, simply by virtue of being less bad. pragmatically, this makes sense but not everybody has the privilege of accepting the least bad option when doing so appears to have little impact on their present untenable situation.
i exercise what little power i have to try to keep fascists from power but if others weren’t motivated to do the same, we have to actually speak to their grievances. Kamala campaign had every opportunity to reach these people and instead chose to basically say, “fuck what you want, we don’t need your votes.” so when she gets BTFO across the country, she has nobody to blame but herself for running a campaign that failed to stand for anything her constituents cared enough to vote for (i know there is also always voter suppression that favors Republicans too but she also failed to pursue effective legal remedy for that).
yeah it sucks hard that this happened, especially so for those of us first on the chopping block for fascism. but to break the cycle, the impetus is on our politicians to be better, not on the voters to settle for worse.