I sometimes wonder if a lot of people on the left just don’t let themselves be consciously aware that yes, the people who back authoritarianism, fascism, and generally n*zi bullcrap will be voting. On all levels, local to national. All the time.
Because like, people who aren’t authoritarian in leaning will argue. Will point out that there’s cons and be depressed sometimes easily that there is no perfect candidate.
But- the very point of being an authoritarian is that once they choose their authority, they do what they are told.
They are told to vote by one politician they decided is on their side to vote for another one and will do it without many, if any, questions.
They’re told to vote (illegally if it’s during a service) by their pastor, by their boss, by their parents, by their spouse, by someone in authority over them that they have accepted as the authority, and they’ll go out and do it.
Some of them can snap out of it if it really goes too much against some spark inside, but the whole thing of their wanting a simplistic us vs them world view where they can just sit back and do what they’re told and feel better, comfortable, or even superior for doing it means that they’ll go do as they’re told and then feel good and superior about doing it.
This is how they’ve long-gamed the GOP to where it is today, that’s what is meant when people say “the Republicans just go out and vote”. They do that! And they vote without putting any thought into it, without stressing much about imperfections.
Non authoritarians/non-fascists are more likely to give up, or argue against candidates, or just be contrarian, and thus might rather shoot themselves in the foot when it comes time to just doing what is a civic duty to try and prevent the rise of what the other side will always, always turn out in their full numbers to back.
Even if they live in an area where theoretically they would be outvoted 20 to 2, they will show up ‘defiantly’ and cast their votes for the person they have been told by someone they have decided to trust told them to vote for. Even if they don’t know a damn thing about the candidate other than two talking points from a campaign ad or that were talked about at the church social.
This doesn’t make any voting at all useless, it doesn’t make anyone who votes sheep. It makes voting absolutely required by anyone opposing them. Not 'instead’ of community action and protests and letters or whatever the fuck else, but along with.
It means as long as there are any elections, yes, to avoid fascists winning elections 'fairly’ (not gonna get into gerrymandering here,) people have got to show up and vote against them, because the fascist voters aren’t going to take a mental health day or write in a joke or go third party. Some person whose authority clicked a little circuit in their brain on, who maybe got them riled up about <one thing> told them to vote for <whoever> and they are going to vote for <whoever>, regardless of whatever <other things> are out there being ignored as less consequential.
Just- more thoughts here.
“If they’re going to cheat to win why bother?”- because it’s a record to future generations and outside observers elsewhere in the world that not everyone was for it and that in fact, the fascists had to cheat to win. Future generations deserve to find whatever records weren’t burned if the fascists win and know that people wanted to be counted.
Also- they might not win. If there are enough votes against them and they botch whatever subplots they have, they might not win! Chances might be better than you’ve been led to believe!
Every election the fascists lose is a deep breath to go on shouting for change with. Every election the fascists lose is one less stupid, awful, thing that is added to the pile of stupid awful things that need to be torn down. Even if it doesn’t build utopia, it’s one less brick in their fortress they’re building, one more brick that’s laying around to throw at the motherfuckers.
And every time they win the smallest election and gain a little more power, that makes the direct action that a lot of people who scoff at voting like to talk about harder to do. It means it takes bigger and bigger pushes, and is more exhausting all the time.
Every time the fascists win it makes it harder to fight them, because it does mean we’ve lost ground, and that ground has to be made up before it becomes progress again.
Trying to fix or even reboot the way the country works without voting is like going straight for the boss fight without leveling up or even equipping gear. And there are a lot less exploits people on the side of justice can use, because most of the exploits require exploiting marginalized people and… frankly, require fascist behavior and world views to do without feeling dirty as fuck. That’s why they are exploits.
at each level of government, it is possible to keep republicans out of power with enough votes for democrats. electoral bullshit means the threshold for “enough” votes tends to be more than 50%, but it is reachable, and we need to reach it as often as possible. we’ve been seeing VERY clearly how much of a difference there is between having democrats and republicans in power, from abortion rights to trans rights to all sorts of other things
