A take I’ve heard that maybe you’ll understand is this:
Leftist organizing in the US isn’t going to change the system 90 days before election day. There’s simply too much momentum with the two party system we have.
So now the situation is, vote for whoever you’d rather have in charge of the country while you do your leftist organizing for the next several years. I know I’d rather do that work under a Harris presidency than a Trump one, for a million obvious reasons.
To do anything else is to simply not understand the reality of the situation.
That’s a reasonable argument, but it leads to some pretty uncomfortable conclusions for democracy.
During our next “leftist organizing for the next several years.”, why would the Democrats budge an inch given that they know all they need to do is hold fast until the last 90 days and we’ll all fall into line and vote for them anyway?
We end up like the boy who cries wolf. All our protest and campaigns mean nothing because our votes are, in the end, absolutely guaranteed. The Democrats can have whatever policy positions they like.
I don’t see how 4 years or 4 days makes any difference. If they are guaranteed your vote come election day, they have no reason to shift policy in order to obtain it.
I’d say then you don’t understand the purpose of on-the-ground political organizing or what it looks like. It’s not about changing the whole system in one go, it’s about radicalizing as many people as possible for a grassroots movement. You use that to get local politicians in power favorable to leftist causes. Then you apply pressure upward.
We’re currently more radicalized as a country than we’ve been since the Red Scare. Just because the progress is frustratingly slow does not mean it isn’t happening.
A take I’ve heard that maybe you’ll understand is this:
Leftist organizing in the US isn’t going to change the system 90 days before election day. There’s simply too much momentum with the two party system we have.
So now the situation is, vote for whoever you’d rather have in charge of the country while you do your leftist organizing for the next several years. I know I’d rather do that work under a Harris presidency than a Trump one, for a million obvious reasons.
To do anything else is to simply not understand the reality of the situation.
That’s a reasonable argument, but it leads to some pretty uncomfortable conclusions for democracy.
During our next “leftist organizing for the next several years.”, why would the Democrats budge an inch given that they know all they need to do is hold fast until the last 90 days and we’ll all fall into line and vote for them anyway?
We end up like the boy who cries wolf. All our protest and campaigns mean nothing because our votes are, in the end, absolutely guaranteed. The Democrats can have whatever policy positions they like.
I don’t see how 4 years or 4 days makes any difference. If they are guaranteed your vote come election day, they have no reason to shift policy in order to obtain it.
I’d say then you don’t understand the purpose of on-the-ground political organizing or what it looks like. It’s not about changing the whole system in one go, it’s about radicalizing as many people as possible for a grassroots movement. You use that to get local politicians in power favorable to leftist causes. Then you apply pressure upward.
We’re currently more radicalized as a country than we’ve been since the Red Scare. Just because the progress is frustratingly slow does not mean it isn’t happening.