i keep seeing people trying to subtly shame people into voting for democrats by saying its “damage control” and i really see where ur coming from and i really empathize with u, but i just gotta ask, damage control for who?
is it damage control for the trans women thrown in mens prisons under both democrats and republicans?
is it damage control for the people in the global south who have been suffering the horrors of US imperialism for decades, if not more than a century?
is it damage control for the migrant workers who were harassed, jailed, and deported by barack “deporter in chief” obama?
is it damage control for the black people who were forced into modern day slavery because of the clintons tough on crime policies?
a lot of the people saying this led relatively comfortable lives before the trump administration came along. sure, they pay lip service to oppressed people (only in so far as trump and his administration perpetuates their oppression) but in the end most of them cant conceive that the problems faced by the people who are forced to live in this country go deeper than a few people in office.
You are right – there were plenty of problems before Trump came into power, and I had my eyes opened in the past few years to just how bad things were BEFORE, and how we shouldn’t grow complacent and absolutely need to move forward. We can’t just elect a Democrat president and call it a day.
I’ll answer your question about damage control. There’s a few people I can think of:
People who need healthcare. Trump and the Republicans have been coming after Obamacare since day one.
Trans people. This administration is re-defining whether trans people even EXIST, legally.
Schoolchildren. With Betsy and her fleet of yachts in charge, the already fucked up American school system is getting screwed over massively.
Rape victims. We just had a literal rapist put onto the Supreme Court.
These two concepts can exist at once:
1. Things were terrible before, in so many ways, and massive reform is needed; the Democrats have been complacent, the two party system sucks ass, the system is broken.
2. Things are more terrible now.
I believe in voting Democrat as strongly as I can for now because we need to stop the Republicans. The Republicans are worse, as a whole, and need to be stopped.
Do you think Trump’s level of shit is our only voting option? That it’s acceptable to have him, and the party who elected him, in power?
I’m not going to subtly shame you. I’m going to loudly and explicitly shame you. If you can vote, vote the Republicans out of power, or you suck.
Kiss my ass.
As one of those trans people that got “legally erased”, i just wanna point out that the only real application of the “legally erased” thing by the trump administration is in filing title XI stuff, so education. that doesnt mean anything if a bunch of us are too chronically poor to afford it and so many of us are forced into illegal trades like the sex industry and drugs.
also, i dont think the system is broken at all, its working exactly as designed. it was designed from the start to be as undemocratic as possible. thats why trump is in the white house despite getting millions less votes than hillary. class domination, white supremacy, and patriarchy are just a part of what makes america america, full stop. you cant legislate settler colonialism away, you cant legislate patriarchy away, you cant legislate capitalism away. the people who uphold all these things are the ruling class in BOTH parties. theyre in the same social groups, they go to each others weddings and parties. trump and the clintons are FRIENDS, STILL TO THIS DAY. they honestly dont care abt us other than paying lip service to our oppression while doing nothing to actually deal with it.
things are terrible for more people, thats true. the point of this post is that a lot of these #Resistance liberals didnt care about oppression before trump and theyll go back to not caring about oppression once hes out off office and a democrat wins. things are absolutely unbearable for a lot of people globally, and its because of the US ruling class of both parties, theyre both the enemies of peace, prosperity, and democracy.
vote if you want to, if itll ease your guilty conscience, but dont pretend like youre better than everyone because it took an overt racist (as opposed to covert racists like hillary) getting elected to get you to realize that stuff here is fucked.
So if the trans community has to face a man theyll stay home and do nothing but
If its a woman online yall got death amd rape threats for days.
Sounds like the trans community likes trump. And wishes for more of it since they dont wish to vote.
Simple. You dont vote, you like whats happening.
Thanks for tellinv us your true motivations.
Yes, us realizing both parties fucking hate us and that voting is literally just choosing a color means we like Trump. #NailedIt
As a poor, mentally ill trans person who also got “erased” and is surviving on scant government benefits and healthcare, I voted blue bc I don’t want to fucking kill myself over not being able to afford psych meds and hormones.
Also I’ll (likely) never need an abortion but recognise other people do, and Dems want to keep all that legal.
The people who want to exterminate us are depending on our apathy.
The point of voting blue in 2018 isn’t to make the US perfect. We cannot accomplish that in one fell swoop. There’s gerrymandering, voter apathy, voter suppression, and generations of older party-line fucks we have to deal with.
Voting blue in 2018 is to make it lessimmediately threatening for PoC, LGBT+ people, the disabled, and any other marginalized demographic. It’s a stopgap against Republicans who are aligned with Nazis, white supremacists, and sexual abusers.
Correcting politics in the United States is going to take decades of new voters staying on top of politics and not falling prey to apathy, like our predecessors.
People telling you not to waste a vote on 3rd Party this midterm aren’t saying “never vote 3rd party.” Republicans have united behind one utterly heinous front.We need to unite behind Democrats, for the time being.
Repeating this key sentence:
“Voting blue in 2018 is to make it less immediately threatening for PoC, LGBT+ people, the disabled, and any other marginalized demographic [WOMEN]. It’s a stopgap against Republicans who are aligned with Nazis, white supremacists, and sexual abusers.”
Reblogging in the memory of everyone who said to me, 2 years ago, “how much damage can he do?” and “it’s like choosing the lesser of two evils” and “you’re overreacting” and “he won’t get elected it’ll never happen”.
a lot of my friends have been noting that none of the “get out there and vote!” posts actually have any resources attached to them, so they’re great for motivation but if you don’t know how to vote they can really stress you out. so i compiled a list of resources that hopefully can help!
Here’s the most confusing bit! Figuring out who you’re voting for. Don’t know who’s running? Ballotpedia is a godsend. The page in the link looks very confusing, but all you have to do is click your state in each of the right-hand boxes. Those will take you to a page that will explain who from each party is running for the Senate and the House. Ballotpedia will also tell you if your state has same-day voter registration. If you’ve missed the cutoff to register, you might still be able to do it on election day, so check that on your state’s voting page!
Polling places can be crowded and the wait can be long to vote. Don’t freak out! Bring a book or some music/podcasts to listen to while you wait.
If you can’t make it on the day, you still have options! Find your state on this Ballotpedia page and click to learn more. The page it takes you to will have links and information on how to get an absentee ballot in your state. If you plan on absentee voting, hurry! The deadlines to apply and vote are usually sooner than the actual election day.
Most of all, remember: this election could swing the house and the senate, giving Democrats more control over new laws and legislation for years to come. You’re not a bad person if you can’t vote, but it’s a lot easier than you might think!
Let’s get out there and change the world!
Also, if you enter your address in Ballotpedia, it’ll be able to give you a specific list of all the races that’ll be on your ballot, including things like local and state legislative elections (state legislative elections are important not only because they affect life in your state, but also because the state legislatures will be redrawing the congressional districts in 2020, and we don’t want more gerrymandering).
That said, if it’s too overwhelming, the most important candidates to focus on are those running for the Senate and House of Representatives.
Also, if you’d like more info about the candidates, such as what their positions are, check out BallotReady!
@peteseeger and others have talked about this topic at length already, but I just wanted to reiterate again that voting Democrat is not going to save us from a capitalist apocalypse. To the liberals reading this, most leftist posts advocating politics beyond electoral politics are not saying “don’t vote”. Yes, you should vote if you are able to and it should be understood as damage control for getting Republicans out of office. But you need to understand that it’s still just a slight time-staller for fascism and climate catastrophe. We only have 12 short years before the worst effects of climate change become irreversible, and any long-term proposals that only include voting Democrat are doomed to failure; Democrats are still capitalist, still imperialist, still driven by the same fundamental engine that got us into this mess. We need to start thinking outside the box of capitalist liberal democracy and start building a new world that actually works for everyone. Ecosocialism is the only viable long-term solution, guys. Democrats will not be our saviors.
(And just so we’re clear and so that this post isn’t misunderstood and hijacked by Rock The Vote types: YES, VOTE. Vote Republicans out of office. Then actively resist the subsequent Democrat establishment with your demands for a better world.)
Bob Marshall has been running anti-trans TV ads against her and sending out transphobic mailers (content warning: misgendering, transphobia.)
I know Danica Roem winning is a long shot but it would mean a great deal to me if she even came remotely close, as a bi/trans Virginian who’s dealt with Bob Marshall’s homophobic, biphobic, and transphobic shit for years.
She’s a seasoned investigative journalist for the local newspaper, who’s spent the last decade on the beat getting to know the problems of the district shes running for. Danica Roem is the most uniquely qualified person for Bob Marshall’s legislative seat because she knows, almost academically, exactly what’s wrong and how to fix it for the district.
During the last nine months, She’s focused her campaign on local issues: -fixing Route 28 by replacing traffic lights with overpasses throughout Centreville and replacing the traffic light at Orchard Bridge Drive with a flyover in Yorkshire; -bringing high-paying jobs to Innovation Park by finding a cost-effective way to extend the VRE westward from Broad Run to Gainesville with a stop at Innovation to make the area more marketable; -raising teacher pay in Prince William County and Manassas Park so it’s not the lowest in Northern Virginia; -expanding Medicaid to 3,700 uninsured residents of the 13th District who earn up to 138 percent of the federal poverty line; and -making Virginia a more inclusive commonwealth, so welcome everyone no matter what they look like, where they come from, how they worship or who they love.
She was also born in the district, Bob Marshall is from maryland and made his way down to virginia to set up his demented operation.
But please please please if you are in manassas park or prince william county in Virginia do not forget to vote on November 7th, and bring a valid photo ID!
PS: she’s also in a metal band called Cab Ride Home
REMINDER: AGAINST SEEMINGLY IMPOSSIBLE ODDS, DANICA ROEM WON!
Think of this next time someone tells you your vote ‘doesn’t matter’.
Reminder: The US midterm elections will will mostly be held on Tuesday, November 6, 2018. Register here.
Another reminder, with the midterms only a few days away.
Check your registration and find your polling place here.
thing that I have seen repeatedly just now: people who are like “well, there’s no point in voting because Trump didn’t get the most votes and he still won and that shows the system is rigged” – the slightly more aware posters will also invoke the 2000 election – and while it’s a legitimateproblem that the Electoral College works in a way that increasingly gives Republicans an unfair advantage, it’s also really dumb to invoke that DURING THE MIDTERMS. Because THERE ISN’T AN ELECTORAL COLLEGE FOR ANY OTHER OFFICE. The person with the most votes WINS. GET OFF YOUR DIDN’T-PAY-ATTENTION-IN-CIVICS-CLASS ASS AND VOTE.
Here’s the thing: if the Republicans don’t suffer significant losses in the midterms, then they will interpret this as meaning that the racism and the xenophobia and the scapegoating of Jews and muslims and transgender people are winning propositions, and they will double down on all of these things. Yes the Democrats are frustratingly mediocre, and it sucks. But things still have a LOT of room to get worse.
lovingdread 