Wise words from commenter Sally last night.
We shouldn’t have to organise. We shouldn’t have to donate untold billions to GOTV or the messaging. Registration and voting should be easy and universal. Alas we don’t live in that world, or that country. I have lived in countries where voting is so easy, and so inexpensive. As Zelenskyy says when you surrender ground, winning is back is much harder than holding it. The multiplier is, I believe, about 3:1, probably more in reality. We have lost a lot of ground because people didn’t vote. Now we have to combat gerrymandering, suppression on so many levels – closed, and moved voting stations, ID’s that are hard to access, limited machines, long lines, work day voting, etc.. R legislators that kneecap incoming D governors, judges, police bosses, school boards, on and on. All working against democracy because they can’t win unless they cheat. So that’s what they do.
Now we have an enormous uphill battle to claw back their massive gains. They put in the decades of cheating and lying to gain this ground, and now they have it, they are not going to relinquish it. We have decades of work ahead. I can’t go with the “we have to motivate people to vote”. We live in a complex, interconnected society where your well being depends on everything else. You want air and water that doesn’t contain toxins. You want schools to educate your kids or kids around you so you can live in a functional society (ie people who, at minimum, can read and write and work machines, save your life in a hospital), roads, safe food, air travel, defence, libraries, safety standards, on and on and on. Vote.
Voting is a hard fought for right. It was hard fought for because the powerful did not want to dilute their power. It is also an obligation. I am obligated to participate in the democracy in which I live. I am not a free loader. If you don’t vote, you are letting other people determine your life. If voting didn’t matter, didn’t change things, they wouldn’t be always trying to stop us. The motivation to vote is that you are obliged to help determine the management of the society in which you live. In a system such as the US, if you have to vote for the lesser of two evils, then that’s what you do. If you have to be bribed, against the overwhelming poisons of the other side, try living in a place where you can’t vote.
Voting emancipates us. Voting (not guns) frees us from tyranny. Voting should be easy, with universal adult franchise, and every citizen’s obligation.
Vote.
My mom used to say that it’s going to get worse before it gets better. If we don’t vote, we will surely lose the next thing, and the next thing, and the next thing after that.
Voting is only a privilege if you fucking have privilege. For everyone else, it’s about survival.
So now we have a choice, in case it wasn’t already clear. Do we rise to the occasion and fight like hell? Like the people of Ukraine that we so admire? I surely hope so.
It’s time for us to get out of our comfort zones. And I’m not just talking about the women.