I'm a climate doomer, because I know that no progress on the climate can happen unless Black voting rights in the US get sorted. And we aren't even paying attention to the Black voting problem, let alone close to solving it.

There is no path to making meaningful progress on climate change that doesn't go through Black people in the US getting to vote. None. The fact that we still can't accept this, is why I'm not optimistic about our chances to do anything meaningful about the climate.

@mekkaokereke Do you see any hope in this?
“The Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) is launching a super PAC to mobilize Black voters ahead of 2024 in an effort to give the House a Democratic majority and, in the process, elect the nation’s first Black Speaker of the House.”

The Rolling Sea Action Fund

https://thehill.com/homenews/race-politics/4103913-new-congressional-black-caucus-pac-set-to-mobilize-black-voters-ahead-of-2024/

@mickeleh Absolutely not. I think campaigns like this are less than helpful. They turn Black voters off. Especially Black men.

My threads on here are all about racist voter suppression. But the media conversation is always around "getting out the vote" or "mobilising Black voters?" The solution is to yell at the victims to try harder?

The word "suppression" didn't appear in this article even once.

No one is more motivated than Black voters. They don't need to be mobilized. They need help.

@mickeleh

Black people wait in line for 8 hours to vote, and take another day off work to register. GOP changes things to make it 9 hours, and requires 3 days off work. The Dem response to this is... to ask Black voters to suck it up because "democracy needs you!" and take the 3 days and 9 hour voting line?

And if Black voters don't take that 3 days off work and wait in line to vote for 9 hours, in sufficient numbers to win for the Dems, then we are blamed for losing the election?

@mekkaokereke @mickeleh Washington switched to mail-in ballots only before I turned 18. I've only ever voted by mail-in ballot.

My ignorance: I didn't realize Washington and Oregon (two of the whitest states) were the only two states that do this until the whole fracas about mail in ballots in 2020.

I still haven't gotten over realizing people have to wait multiple hours in line to vote. It's barbaric and backwards.

I fill out a form on my kitchen table weeks before the election. Takes 5 min

@sidereal @mekkaokereke @mickeleh I have voted in Florida, Texas, New York, and Washington, and Washington is by far the least stressful.

Texas and Florida are the worst. In Texas you have to stand in line while people on the edge of the property line where you're voting tell you to vote for their candidate. Only to go in and find that half the options have only one candidate who is, of course, republican.

In Florida, the voting place I was assigned was held in a church which just feels wrong. Also Florida might whine about voter registration lists being "fake" all while it took me ten damn years to get off their call to update your registration lists. I don't know how many times you have to tell Florida that "no, I don't live there anymore, I'm registered to vote in my new state. Stop harassing me. I'm not going back."