look I don’t live in America but as that country continues to claim to be the power of the fucking world and likes to try to effect it as such I’ve been following y’all’s politics closer than my own country’s since 2016. Perhaps not smart, or strategic, or selfless or whatever, but instinctively that’s where my focus has been. Insistently. Non stop. For fucking 6 years now.
So if you can listen to this outsider’s perspective…
Joe Biden fucking sucks, the Dems fucking suck, that’s all incredibly clear. We all know it. They’re shit. They’re a disappointment, they’re weak cowards, and they clearly, like all the dems before them, give more of a shit about winning the next election than actually making an influential difference, and yes, sometimes you do need to prioritise one over the other.
Anyway that’s my long-winded way of getting to the point which is you still have to fucking vote, and you still have to FUCKING VOTE DEMS. THEY SUCK. I KNOW. I FUCKING KNOW.
But everyone who doesn’t vote for the democratic party is an advantage to the republicans. Your third party isn’t gonna fucking win in this two party system. They’re not. You can be on your high horse about it and vote for someone you feel is better than the Dems, but they’re a third party. They’re not going to win.
And you can choose not to vote at all, because everyone is shit, and they ARE, but what the fuck are you doing to help there. You’re leaving it to everyone else to try and win what has truly become a fucking war. You’re foisting the responsibility off yourself and onto everyone else. That’s not gonna help.
Vote. The fucking. Dems. Because they are shitty and useless, but the Republicans are evil, and will go out of their way to hurt everyone who isn’t them. Anyone who is queer, poor, has a uterus, a darker skin colour, a different belief. The republicans are the ones voting to make teaching about sexuality illegal, voting to make letting your kid be trans illegal, voting to make it illegal to have an abortion. The dems are fucking shit but they don’t go looking for those results, they don’t go trying to spread fear and hate and actively damage the lives of everyone they don’t agree with.
You HAVE to vote and you HAVE to vote Dems or you will be actively allowing the country to fall back into the hands of Donald Trump and the ghouls that have risen up in his image. You will be making it easier for the fucking demons that make up the republican party to get away with everything they want, and that means hurting everyone else.
Vote for the goddamn democratic party if you have any kind of hope at all left that your country won’t fall into complete ruin.
Vote Democrat also because THEY MIGHT CONSIDER CHANGING THE LEGAL MEANS OF VOTING TO RANKED/RUNOFF VOTING. Some places ALREADY HAVE. And if they do, it would mean that the people you REALLY want to vote for have a chance at winning future elections in a way that will never happen now, when you have to be more concerned with keeping the worst possible person from a seat more than getting the best possible person on it.
While it isn’t guaranteed that (the current) Democrats in every state will support this happening, Republicans will NEVER ALLOW IT if they are power, because they know if they do, they’d lose the ability to STAY in power.
Republicans have been playing a long game for decades. It’s time to start doing the same, if we ever want to win.
Yeah biden totally sucks it’s not like he appointed a liberal black female supreme court justice who blocked a bunch of dumb trump policies in past positions or anything + appointed a bunch of other judges. Or froze student loans + interest during the pandemic + given people a temporary opportunity to expand what’s covered under their pslf, or signed us back up to the paris climate accords or met his campaign promise of ensuring 100 million covid vaccines in his first 100 days in office (which does take political maneuvering/dictates to the FDA etc), or reverse the trans military ban, or increase refugee admissions to 62,500 from trump’s 15,000, or etc etc
The thing is presidents are not magic. Some of what he’s trying to do has been watered down because it’s hard to get shit passed with so much opposition, including pressure by donors that legitimately will make or break his chance at a second term, some of it is in process in congress (getting bills passed takes time, sometimes years), some of it is down in writing but getting the logistics into place (esp during a pandemic) has hurdles, some of it is stalled in Congress by, guess who, Congress. Which is why he’s telling people pissed about Roe to vote in other elections. Like Biden put together something to reverse Trump’s tax shit to increase taxation on the rich and corporations. Guess where that is right now? Stalled in Congress.
This mindset that the dems are completely useless in every way other than a door stop to the republicans needs to stop bc it feeds into people’s indifference. Are they imperfect? Yes. Are they following through on every promise? No. Are they half-assing some of the ones they are following through on? Yes.
Is this what damn near every politician in the goddamn world does? Fucking yes, dumbasses. Welcome to politics, it’s a shitty world where nobody fully follows through on their promises because of their self interest. Boo hoo, grow up, that’s how it’s always been. Politicians are always worrying about their own interests and it’s not about moral purity or them being SUPER duper honest and 100% sincere, it’s about what ones are at least aligned in a direction you can at least work with.
That’s why people need to vote but also be politically active. You have to elect then harass your congresspeople (and even more local politicians) until they’re sick of you. You need to protest. You need to make them fear losing re-election by virtue of not getting votes even more than they fear displeasing their corporate donors.
It’s okay to be mad and it’s okay to think they’re a big bunch of assholes only worried about their careers, but we also can’t let ourselves fall into a trap of thinking they never do anything at least a little useful, bc they sometimes do, and that’s why we need them in power. It’s just OP is right that they suck a lot, so we also need to not let up on absolutely riding their asses until they have no peace so they do what we need.
But we can’t fall into a trap of helplessness and hopelessness and acting like they’re actually useless, because it disheartens people from voting. Which is why the conversation needs to be a more frank assessment of the situation (and yes that includes acknowledging they’re in it for themselves, but we can still work with that sometimes by threatening their interests) and we also need to understand the uphill battle going on even for the people trying to do what we need.
Also, people who are outside the country? Kindly shut up if it comes to anything that might discourage people into just falling into apathy, please.
Outsider perspectives in the vein of “yeah, y’all your country’s falling into fascism/other problems the way ours did/almost did, watch out and act” is genuinely helpful but “your politicians are useless, and it’s hopeless but things could get worse!” isn’t actually shit that gets people out to the polls and isn’t isn’t actually a realistic assessment of a situation where at least some problems have been/are being worked on.
This is not a black or white situation of “if they don’t do exactly what they said it doesn’t count!”. It’s not just about avoiding getting the opposite of our interests. It’s also that when people half ass something it’s at least half done and we can push for the other half.