Cross-posted from “if the entire population just acted in a way they’ve never acted before…” by @Wheaties@hexbear.net in !chapotraphouse@hexbear.net
furryprovocateur:
literally why is gerrymandering legal. why is america the stupid idiot country.
ndiamichelle:
This could be counterproductive if people actually vote. Everywhere. We can blame the system and politicians all we want but if people don’t get off their ass to vote correctly or just vote in general that would probably solve a good chunk of our problems.
furryprovocateur:
enthralled at the interpretation of the world you have. the best way to vote out a system that exists to suppress votes and bottleneck specific populations from being heard is to vote harder. tell me more.
toloveviceforitself:
There’s a certain kind of democrat whose whole politics is basically “if the entire population just acted in a way they’ve never acted before on a level that borders on the miraculous, we could win without changing anything else about how democrats govern or campaign!” and they think that’s not only a useful insight, but a good justification for rejecting literally any alteration of their ideology, their strategy, or even suggestions that (on the occasions they have power) they alter the rigged system that requires such miracles in the first place.
Wait till you hear how different people have to act for a revolution to happen!
Yep. One of my
pet peevessources of blood pressure increase is leftists who dodge individual action, as if The Glorious Revolution willmanifestemerge out of the world like the AI bros waiting for AGI. As if networks, movements, organizations, aren’t made of people. As if extraterrestrials would drop in to do it for us. Here’s a thing: people don’t like organizing around and following hypocrites and selfish bastards. And being a selfish bastard also makes one vulnerable to blackmail from the rich and powerful (being compromised).Okay but I’m a posadist, so I do believe literally that aliens will drop in and do it all for us.
Also, idk where you’re from, but hypocrites and selfish bastards are pretty normal here. Everybody’s favorite leaders.
Posadism is fucking wild.
Just skimming the surface of it and I’m all what the actual fuck over here. Would be cool if aliens actually did drop in and help us all out. I suspect we’re just going to keep the capitalist machine churning while the world suffers and we undergo some radical changes in climate and weather as the wealth gap keeps increasing.
I mean shit my job pays me decent and I do stuff that I low-key think shouldn’t even be a job, I just have to keep on the wage slave train to get what I want for my minimum standard of living and it isn’t even plush.
I guess what I’m saying is it’s a fucking scam and I hope the aliens come soon.
I like the nuclear annihilation part but not the ‘aliens help rebuild utopia for survivors’ part.
See I like the aliens come help part and not the nuclear annihilation, mostly because that’s gonna be real bad for whoever survives.
The aliens could come and grant us a post scarcity economy with replicators or something like that. I mean, we may in the next 40 years see a real paradigm shift of how we organize our society because having like 20%+ unemployment caused by automation and shifting priorities is simply not sustainable for any country. Not sure if that’s what will end up happening, AI is not a magic panacea that it’s pandered as by tech bros, but I do think there’s a strong potential for it to replace a lot of the bullshit jobs that we have that kind of just exist because of the bureaucracy of corporate America and compliance regulations and such.
Anyways, I also doubt aliens would even visit here. We’re so violent as a species and have lots of things that go boom, there’s probably way better planets to visit than Earth in our galaxy. I know I’d stick a quarantine zone around our solar system and go on with life if I were an alien overlord.
That seems really unimaginative.
I mean for a revolution, not for being stronger assholes. Leaders in movements against capitalism and conservatism (hierarchy).
Yes that’s what I meant.
Whether reform or revolution, nothing will happen without a great deal of organizing and leadership.
So, uh, those of us who are more aware of these realities should probably go get involved with something irl.
Not to defend the “vote harder” logic, but gerrymandering to get more seats does make those seats more vulnerable. If you narrow the margins to get more seats, the margins are easier to overcome.
But politicians need to speak to their constituents needs in order for that to matter, and Ds are more interested in big donor checks than the rabble.
A potential strategy could be attacking Democrat seats. If a pressure group can show that they can oust a Democrat, they should be able to use that threat to influence others.
i mean yes, but also the usa has insanely low voter participation.
Sure, but places like Australia with mandatory voting shows that forcing increased participation doesn’t solve or really improve things. You would need to create conditions where a leftist/progressive politics could actually push forward a real policy after getting elected. But even that is hardly possible except under extreme catastrophe or duress in a capitalist system. The causality is that the major parties being undemocratic and out of step with the nation creates low voter turnout rather than the other way around.
Sure, but places like Australia with mandatory voting shows that forcing increased participation doesn’t solve or really improve things.
Sooo… blaming the population for not participating in a fundamentally anti-democratic system didn’t magically turn the fundamentally anti-democratic system into something democratic?
Colour me surprised.
yeah mandatory voting is not the solution. the argument that change must come from below has some merit, but in a climate of voter suppression it’s not a useful one.
Yeah, the point is that there needs to be some material or structural change that would buy people into a movement and motivate them to focus their efforts into some political project. Not that chiding individuals online, hoping people spontaneously thought and acted different or just getting more people to vote would magically fix things.
Arguably, if the US voter turnout would just perpetually remain high, the Democrats would be incentivized to be even worse. Then their strategy of always moving right and throwing minorities and rights under the bus to win over “moderate Republicans” since they couldn’t alienate poor or non-white voters because “what are they going to do, vote Republican!?!?! HAHAHAHAAHA! We’re the lesser evil!” might work.
The people most likely to be impacted by gerrymandering and voter suppression typically vote more left leaning (kind of why they are impacted in the first place), so I’m not sure why you would suggest that this would move things to the right.
If anything, it would shift things a bit left. Not as far as it needs to go, but certainly not ratcheting to the right. Thats kind of an odd take.
It’s so weird, because voting is patriotic and US Americans are super hyped on patriotism, but then they somehow don’t vote. I don’t get it.
Voting is generally accepted as “good” but zero practical allowances are actually afforded for it. You still have to get to work on time, kids are still going to school, all the normal things that overworked wage slaves deal with every day but now there’s one extra thing that involves waiting in line for an hour they don’t have. The OP is right, the deck is stacked against people actually participating and it’s not all their fault.
oh, i see. in my region almost all voting traditionally happens on sundays. ppl just swing by the voting booths between church and bbq or whatever they do on sundays.
Voting is on Tuesdays in the US. Your employer is not required to give you paid time off to go and vote. Some places have mail on voting or early voting at the election board, but that depends on your state. It’s very telling that even the most “Vote!” liberals are not advocating for making election day a federal holiday with guaranteed paid time off for voting.
In the US, many people are forced to work on Sundays to provide services to all the people who get the weekend off.
so are in my region, but the voting booths are open about 10h and are in range of like 10m by foot from everyones home. so ppl should be able to reach them before or after work.
I’ve talked to a lot of different people about this. People in different states, ages, professions, etc. Pretty much the main thing that keeps people from voting is that no one feels represented by either party. And for some people, they haven’t felt represented their whole lives.
Also the whole voting is patriotic thing is kind of bullshit at this point. No one that I know personally thinks of voting as a super important thing that everyone should be proud of. That’s just a media thing.
You see a small, loud subset of USAmericans on the web so I understand how you could think that we’re all “super hyped on patriotism” but the fact is that most of us just wake up, do normal human things then go to bed. This over-generalization of huge populations of people is making me tired.
I also see USAmericans on TV/news etc., but that probably doesn’t help, because the hyped ppl are often near the center of attention, eg. at sports events or rallies.
Cool, but… What do we do? What’s an alternative solution?
Anarchism. Direct action for mutual aid.
Of course there’s a ready-made, detailed FAQ list for anyone who asks that question. I don’t know why I didn’t expect that.
I can’t promise I’ll read all of that, but then again if I can’t read up on something then maybe I should stop publically calling things into question. Thank you for taking the effort to provide this information.
There’s a certain kind of democrat whose whole politics is basically
Certain kind? I think the entire basis for the existence of the democratic is ‘vote and insha’allah’. They have no vision for the future and are living in some fugue state
Did db0 defederate from hexbear or vice versa? None of their posts show up in my feed anymore and I can’t see any of the linked communities or comments from this post
Nope
I can see comments now but communities won’t load. Chapo shows as empty. Weird!
So I can think of two things, one try subscribing to a few to see of that does anything. Two try going to your user settings, click on the block tab, and scroll down to blocked communities and blocked instances to see if anything has been pre-set on your end.
It was blocked in my settings. Weird! I wonder if I somehow “pocket blocked” it or something because there was 1 other community (lemmit.online) blocked as well and I don’t block any communities or users as a rule. I was using a mobile app that had been essentially abandoned awhile ago too so maybe that created weirdness
Either way fixed now. Thanks!
sounds like an upgrade to me ngl
“Waahhhh I can’t handle seeing posts I disagree with so no one else should either”
If this is your reaction to seeing posts you disagree with, maybe you do need to stay defederated
- I’m not them
- its a commentary on advocating for censorship of content that is not harmful, just that you personally disagree with, which is reprehensible
- u a weenie
This comment seems really uncalled for. Number list format in 2025, filling it out to make three? So tacky. I have to side with the other weenie now just on pure style points. Fuck you for making me do this.
I feel 0 remorse on using a numbered list. Why would that possibly be something that becomes outdated based on year? Does an efficient ordered presentation of data become passé because, I don’t know, some fucking dorks decided it’s lame or whatever
I don’t even care about whatever the original post was about. I will die on this hill
Shit llm’s do.
Thank you for… proving my point further?
The points of you at either end, that kind of pucker like a convex asshole, because of being a weenie? I would say they only pointed them out, and not conclusively proved them to any high standard.
No, though I can’t either from anarchist.nexus, might be some federation shenanigans.
Edit: I can see comments though, just not seeing communities at the moment.
Dunno, I can see hexbear comments and posts
Unless one of them is doing it in some way that bypasses the built-in lemmy instance block it looks like a you problem, they appear in each others’ linked instances lists.
Since posting this comments now appear but communities still don’t show in feed and manually browsing they show as empty
Very well could be on my end but I don’t know what. I don’t have anything blocked or whatever. Weird
‘A certain kind’?
