They just don’t recognize that they’ll be crushed first when it rolls back. Maturity is learning not to commit all of your attention to the top of the mountain, but to always be mindful of the boulder.
Yep. Just vote and don’t expect to get to the top. We’re never getting there. We just vote and vote and vote and then eventually we die, pushing the same boulder the entire time.
It’s far from ideal, but the problem is that we let it roll back every 4-8 years. If Democrats consistently won due to progressive policies, the candidates would inevitably become more progressive to capture more of the constituency. Disengagement and disenfranchisement consistently cause the boulder to fall, leading to the lack of overall progress.
Don’t underestimate the efficacy of voter disenfranchisement and disengagement. Republicans don’t need to prop up Trump. People who loath him will vote for him simply due to party loyalty. Discrediting Biden is all it takes for a win.
Even without “both sides”, the situation worldwide is fucked. And “neither side” is going to change much. Yes, one is worse, but the better side still offers a bandaid over a gushing wound.
We just need to help them understand the system better. I voted third-party when was young, and many of my friends abstained. That was due to a lack of education about our government. It’s not about swaying them to vote one way or the other, but just to help them understand how our system functions. After that, if they want to vote for Trump with conviction, so be it. At least it’ll be an informed decision.
Anyone who believes there are more than two choices in this election was poorly educated on American democracy. I know I was when I voted Green Party at 20 years old. If I can help educate those that are as ill-informed as I was, I feel it’s my duty. After that, the choice is theirs.
The whole point I’m trying to make is that the system doesn’t work, voting lesser of two evils never helped in any meaningful way.
We need to stop capitalism, or we will all die, or at the very least suffer greatly.
That’s the whole point.
I’m not from the US, so I can’t vote for either side anyway, but we are all fucked. I watch the children and feel sorry for letting them down. They will not grow up into a world of peace and prosperity, only desolation and dystopia.
So while yes, Orange man very bad, the system will kill us anyway. Fascism will take your country, but capitalism took our entire planet.
It’s like you’re stuck in the water with a riptide pushing you away from shore. A really strong swimmer would just swim against it, but you’re not, so you swim parallel to shore because then later you can swim back in. At least it’s not pushing you further out.
Nope.
Just decide to quit and drown. This is what the young “I’ll show you by not participating” crowd sounds like to me.
Well, yes. That’s the thing: If you give up, you drown, if you keep going parallel, you never know when the tide might turn. If you’re 24 (that’s how I interpret your previous comment), you’ve only had the option of voting in one presidential election so far. In that election, progressives completed the monumental task of voting out an incumbent proto-facist. And for all of Bidens flaws, there can’t be much doubt that a lot has been heading in the right direction. Of course, there’s still a huge task ahead, but the previous election shows that Trump can be kept out of office, and the past three years show that things can get better.
Step 1: Forgiving student loans, Step 2: Working to reform the system.
Step 1: Pardon certain drug-related crimes, Step 2: Work to reform drug laws.
Step 1: Massive infrastructure investments, Step 2: More investment in public goods
Step 1: EO’s to protect reproductive rights, Step 2: Legislation to do the same.
My point is this: Biden has shown that he is working to make progress, and that he can actually get stuff done. The problem is that there’s a whole lot that needs doing, much more than anyone can do in two terms. We need to keep getting the best option into office, and we need to spend the next four years to ensure that the best option next time is better than Biden is now. If Trump gets four years, I fear that we’ll have a near impossible job.
I’m actually 42. This is my sixth presidential election. I’m old enough to know this post is writing a check our government can’t cash. It’s too broken.
Calm your tits. I’ve been voting D like a good little neoliberal since 2000.
I don’t need to give them more power. They’ve already elected two presidents without the popular vote, hold most of the Senate because it gives land more power than people, and the House because we haven’t fixed representation in a century. Not to mention the fuckery in every single one of the states they can pull off.
The fact that Republicans are able to do that sort of shit is how it’s broken. They’re not the problem, they’re a symptom of people winning game with broken mechanics. Like the end of Monopoly when one asshole has all the money.
I don’t blame people for giving up on a Sisyphean task
They just don’t recognize that they’ll be crushed first when it rolls back. Maturity is learning not to commit all of your attention to the top of the mountain, but to always be mindful of the boulder.
That is beautiful and so very true.
I chuckled at the first commenter’s description of this as a boulder, but honestly the metaphor is pretty robust.
Rock solid you might say.
Granite that I agree with the sediment.
Yep. Just vote and don’t expect to get to the top. We’re never getting there. We just vote and vote and vote and then eventually we die, pushing the same boulder the entire time.
It’s far from ideal, but the problem is that we let it roll back every 4-8 years. If Democrats consistently won due to progressive policies, the candidates would inevitably become more progressive to capture more of the constituency. Disengagement and disenfranchisement consistently cause the boulder to fall, leading to the lack of overall progress.
And because that doesn’t happen, I just have to assume that Americans aren’t nearly as progressive as everybody on the Internet thinks they are.
Don’t underestimate the efficacy of voter disenfranchisement and disengagement. Republicans don’t need to prop up Trump. People who loath him will vote for him simply due to party loyalty. Discrediting Biden is all it takes for a win.
So everybody has to vote for someone they hate otherwise the other guy they hate will be in power.
Great democracy everybody. Glad the wrong lizard didn’t win.
I’m not defending the system. I’m suggesting we use it until we have a better option.
Whether you realize it or not, comments like that drive disengagement. It imparts hopelessness, which leads some to apathy.
Which makes sense because I’m definitely hopeless
They are getting crushed anyway.
Even without “both sides”, the situation worldwide is fucked. And “neither side” is going to change much. Yes, one is worse, but the better side still offers a bandaid over a gushing wound.
So I don’t really blame them.
We just need to help them understand the system better. I voted third-party when was young, and many of my friends abstained. That was due to a lack of education about our government. It’s not about swaying them to vote one way or the other, but just to help them understand how our system functions. After that, if they want to vote for Trump with conviction, so be it. At least it’ll be an informed decision.
I will say it: fuck the system.
The sooner it’s gone, the better.
It won’t be pretty, but this isn’t leading us to paradise either, we are killing the planet and can’t even take the foot off the gas.
We need a hard reset, and it’s coming. In the best scenario, the system is taken down before the enviromental collapse.
Are you an accelerationist? Do you believe making things worse faster will lead to systemic change for the better?
I believe the current path is leading to a bad ending, guaranteed.
And all I’m saying is that I don’t blame young people who may think other options might lead to something better.
Anyone who believes there are more than two choices in this election was poorly educated on American democracy. I know I was when I voted Green Party at 20 years old. If I can help educate those that are as ill-informed as I was, I feel it’s my duty. After that, the choice is theirs.
The whole point I’m trying to make is that the system doesn’t work, voting lesser of two evils never helped in any meaningful way.
We need to stop capitalism, or we will all die, or at the very least suffer greatly.
That’s the whole point.
I’m not from the US, so I can’t vote for either side anyway, but we are all fucked. I watch the children and feel sorry for letting them down. They will not grow up into a world of peace and prosperity, only desolation and dystopia.
So while yes, Orange man very bad, the system will kill us anyway. Fascism will take your country, but capitalism took our entire planet.
It’s like you’re stuck in the water with a riptide pushing you away from shore. A really strong swimmer would just swim against it, but you’re not, so you swim parallel to shore because then later you can swim back in. At least it’s not pushing you further out.
Nope.
Just decide to quit and drown. This is what the young “I’ll show you by not participating” crowd sounds like to me.
I’ve been swimming sideways to get out of the riptide for 24 years now. When do I get to start swimming back to shore?
Does drowning have any chance of ever getting you back?
Does swimming parallel to the shore have a chance of ever getting me back?
Well, yes. That’s the thing: If you give up, you drown, if you keep going parallel, you never know when the tide might turn. If you’re 24 (that’s how I interpret your previous comment), you’ve only had the option of voting in one presidential election so far. In that election, progressives completed the monumental task of voting out an incumbent proto-facist. And for all of Bidens flaws, there can’t be much doubt that a lot has been heading in the right direction. Of course, there’s still a huge task ahead, but the previous election shows that Trump can be kept out of office, and the past three years show that things can get better.
Step 1: Forgiving student loans, Step 2: Working to reform the system.
Step 1: Pardon certain drug-related crimes, Step 2: Work to reform drug laws.
Step 1: Massive infrastructure investments, Step 2: More investment in public goods
Step 1: EO’s to protect reproductive rights, Step 2: Legislation to do the same.
My point is this: Biden has shown that he is working to make progress, and that he can actually get stuff done. The problem is that there’s a whole lot that needs doing, much more than anyone can do in two terms. We need to keep getting the best option into office, and we need to spend the next four years to ensure that the best option next time is better than Biden is now. If Trump gets four years, I fear that we’ll have a near impossible job.
I’m actually 42. This is my sixth presidential election. I’m old enough to know this post is writing a check our government can’t cash. It’s too broken.
It’s broken because of GOP and you’re willing to give GOP more power to break it further
Calm your tits. I’ve been voting D like a good little neoliberal since 2000.
I don’t need to give them more power. They’ve already elected two presidents without the popular vote, hold most of the Senate because it gives land more power than people, and the House because we haven’t fixed representation in a century. Not to mention the fuckery in every single one of the states they can pull off.
The fact that Republicans are able to do that sort of shit is how it’s broken. They’re not the problem, they’re a symptom of people winning game with broken mechanics. Like the end of Monopoly when one asshole has all the money.
It doesn’t necessarily mean getting pushed further out.
It can always get worse.
That’s the neat part: It always gets worse.
No it’s obviously only progressives fault dems keep only doing conservative like policies