Derek Powazek 🐐Aug 5, 2024
What if voting wasn’t something you did to express your personal preference? What if it was something you did to protect the people you love?
Show threadDerek Powazek 🐐Aug 5, 2024

I keep hearing people I know who I thought genuinely cared for the people on the ragged edges of US society saying that they’re not going to vote for Harris. I wish they’d see voting as a thing we do *for each other* instead of something that speaks to your own self-centered opinion.

It’s just moral narcissism - the idea that how it makes you feel about yourself is the most important thing. It’s wildly, WILDLY selfish. And these are the same people who lecture others about privilege.

Wild.

Show threadDerek Powazek 🐐Aug 5, 2024

People say I shouldn’t shame others for not voting, but fuck that. We have this one lever we get to pull. This one task. If you can’t make that bare minimum requirement to participate in a democracy, I have no goddamn respect for you. You’re not more morally pure for opting out, you’re just a petulant child.

Voting isn’t everything, but it’s the first thing. If you have this right that so many fought and bled for and you don’t use it, shame on you.

Show threadDerek Powazek 🐐Aug 5, 2024
And if you’re so radical that you’re willing to take up arms to fight fascism, but you’re not willing to cast a vote for someone who isn’t perfect, you’re no radical, you’re just a fucking poser.
Show threadStuartBAug 5, 2024

@fraying
This is something I never could, and probably never will, understand.

"I don't agree with anything he says, but she isn't quite aligned with my beliefs either, so I'm not going to vote!"
And I've noticed there are 2 separate and distinct types of people who do this - those who are well enough off that they will barely notice the hit to their livelihood that letting The Other Guy win will entail, at least at first, and those who will suffer the most.
And I dont get either of them.

Show threadTexty the Bard

@stuartb @fraying One is privilege and the other is fatalism.

There's also the third crew: the ones who think if things get horribly worse, then "complacent" public will have no choice but to fight in their bloody revolution. But seeing as how even a pandemic that killed a million plus due to malevolent mismanagement didn't trigger that, nothing else will, either.

Aug 5, 2024 at 5:31amWeb
Show threadStuartBAug 5, 2024
@textualdeviance
I don't think Fatalism covers it - it's people actively voting to be hurt.
It seems to be more prevalent in the US, what with "The American Dream" and all, but over here in the UK, there are quite a few people convinced that they are dirt poor because "The Left" are keeping them poor with rules and regulations, and they would be millionaires within weeks if all the rules were removed by Conservatives.
@fraying
Show threadTexty the BardAug 5, 2024
@stuartb @fraying Oh, poor conservatives are a whole 'nother ball of wax (combo of racism and hating other poor people is usually involved.) I was thinking more of other marginalized groups. Some I've seen are just in a learned helplessness state. They figure their lives are going to be shit no matter who wins, and only a massive revolution will change anything, so there's no point expending the effort to vote.