The last few years have been a mess, and I've repeatedly struggled to clarify my thoughts. So now I'm trying to actual tackle that by starting a Substack.
My first post, "I'm Not Political" addresses the need for those who have disengaged to step up in what is a critical moment in history.
That's where I'll be posting articles relating to primarily US and Canadian politics, though this will naturally intersect with culture and technology. So if you are interested in that type of thing and/or enjoy my first post, subscribing via email will get you alerted to anything new that goes up.
Welcome to Elle, fellas. If we have to be here, at least we get to do it together.
My first post, "I'm Not Political" addresses the need for those who have disengaged to step up in what is a critical moment in history.
That's where I'll be posting articles relating to primarily US and Canadian politics, though this will naturally intersect with culture and technology. So if you are interested in that type of thing and/or enjoy my first post, subscribing via email will get you alerted to anything new that goes up.
Welcome to Elle, fellas. If we have to be here, at least we get to do it together.
Recently Spotted:
SupremeAC (8m)
We're not going to get anywhere with this. To me you're coming across exactly as polarized as any republican voter. The only good republican is one who can be convinced to vote democratic.
Reverting trans people is taking it too far. When I argue that good policy comes from compromising, you pull out one example that is so extreme you see no way to compromise it, implying that this proves compromise is impossible.
I have all respect for every kind of people, and I don't want to come over as bashing you Yoda. I understand that you are very much taken aback by republican policy, but the only peacefull way democracy can go on is to listen to eachothers concerns. It's just that American politics seem to make this very hard to do.
Though before I get into that, voters actually agree with Democrat's agenda much more than they vote for Democrats. For example, Florida voted for Trump, but approved a ballot measure raising the minimum wage to $15. $15 minimum wage is an entirely Democratic issue.
Let me take you back to 2015. We're well into Obama's second term. Republicans have refused to work with Democrats on anything. We're years past when The Affordable Care Act, a compromise healthcare bill modeled after Republican Mitt Romney's healthcare plan from when he was governor of Massachusetts, got zero Republican votes, and was continuously tried to be repealed. Even came right out and said their only goal was to block Obama's agenda at all costs. And yet Democrats continue to desire to find that mythical bipartisanship you propose.
There is a recurring, stupid procedural issue in US government. It is the debt ceiling. There's a running total of debt for the US, and a cap on it. If the US ever reaches that cap, it could cause absolutely worldwide financial chaos as the US defaults on its debt. It shouldn't exist. They have to just raise it.
Republicans in recent years have used the debt ceiling as a bargaining chip. McConnell introduced a bill to raise the debt ceiling. When he was surprised the Democrats actually had the votes to pass the bill, he filibustered it. HE FILIBUSTERED HIS OWN BILL. He only introduced it because he didn't think the votes were there to pass it.
It was in 2010 they publicly and proudly went 100% obstructionist and refused to negotiate. In reality I'm not simply saying Democrats shouldn't negotiate just moralistically, but they literally can't in any meaningful way. Any attempt to work cooperatively is largely a distraction and waste of time. Republicans refuse to negotiate. They refused even to have hearings for Obama's supreme court nominee. And this is all before Trump. Before it got a lot more explicitly bigoted and hateful. Before the incentives became say the most crazy things possible for attention to win the primary because voter suppression and gerrymandering meaning a primary is much more of a threat than the general.
There may be nobody shot, via legislation, yet (though those voters you mentioned are picking up the slack). But Idaho wants life in prison for providing gender-affirming care, and their rhetoric is literally to shoot us. If you move into abortion rights, GOP representatives are already floating the death penalty for having an abortion.
It has been so, so common to call the ones who predicted Jan 6 as hyperbolic, for those who predicted the overturning of Roe v Wade as hyperbolic, that it will move onto gay marriage and contraception as hyperbolic. By pretending bipartisanship is possible, and continuing to insist that it's important, it's only giving Republicans what they want. Republicans don't want to pass anything at the national level. They want to give tax cuts, and gain power via the courts. That's it. If you have to have bipartisanship to help people, they can just say "No" and nothing ever happens. They've done that for over a decade now.
And all of this said, the "work with the other side" messaging and methodology is what Democrats have already been doing to abject failure. Joe Biden ran on Republicans having a post-Trump "epiphany". Joe Manchin's recurring excuse is he wants everything to be bipartisan and get Republican votes. Pretending Republicans are on-the-level is a huge part of the messaging problem. People want to see Democrats caring. They want to see them fighting. They want to see them defending their constituents. But when they're scared to say what they should because they want to be buddy-buddy to try and naively win votes in the future, it's a terrible look when those people are the ones calling your voters pedophiles, saying rape victims should enjoy it, labelling immigrants as drug dealers.
The above is the reason I'm confused by your voting strategy as a way of resolving this issue. As you've outlined above, the democrats have shown they have no interest in offering much, if any, resistance to the Republicans and if a party is not willing to follow democratic norms, it should be self-evident that we shouldn't assume they can be stopped by democracy, just because on a few cultural issues voting can have an impact.
But I know you ended the discussion with me on that point, taking your cues from JPS' anti-semite, so I guess I won't get a reply. But I'm actually genuinely curious, not to mention on your side. And I think there is a reasonable argument for non-federal block voting potentially having an effect, which has been the Republican strategy. But that wasn't the argument you were making, and if your strategy is to convince other people to vote...patronising them, mocking their response with absurd strawmen is not a good strategy lol. Either way, neither of us can vote in America.
Though America would be much better off if we both had that right, as foreigners.
So you could then opt to not vote?
Correct. My non-vote would clearly annoy more people than it would in Australia.
I'm happy to answer questions, we had simply exhausted the previous topic.
So if you mean, "if the election is rigged, why vote?" It's because it's not completely rigged, yet. Republicans aren't fully there for being able to overturn elections. A major reason they failed in 2020, despite really trying was that a few levers of power weren't in their control, and key positions in the Republican party refused to go along. If they were to win back power via elections (and gerrymandering, and voter suppression), it may be at that point voting can't do anything, but we're not there yet. Remember, Nazis were initially elected democratically.
If you mean, why elect Democrats if they won't fix the problem, give me a better option. It's possible electing Democrats for consecutive elections and/or large enough margins will force change within the Republicans. It's also possible with enough Democratic votes, the practical results look very different. Right now the margins are so slim, something only happens if it can be passed via budget reconciliation with 100% of Democrats on board. 90% or more Democrats are often on board for a tonne of terrific things. But since you almost always get 0 Republican votes, that makes it very difficult. Just 2 more Democratic Senators (bypassing Manchin and Sinema) and it could potentially look a lot different. It is also possible that any practical amount of change won't be enough and we're too far gone, but I don't see how giving up is a reasonable course of action by comparison.
And if you mean, "Voting isn't enough", certainly! Activism is much broader than "just vote". But voting is the start, and the premise of my article wasn't that someone who is politically apathetic needs to immediately become an activist, but rather, to give reasons why maybe they should care about elections, even if they don't think they're personally affected that much, because I guarantee they know and care about people in their lives who are.
FYI I can't vote in America, either. So I just want to see people who can make use of it.
I think this is probably the crux of where we disagree. To me, electoralism is not the first step, but the last step of activism. Indeed, pestering politicians either through bribery or harassment is generally more effective than voting. But in any case, the Republican block voting which has been so effective in creating the opportunity for the Republicans to do things like overturn Roe v Wade would not have been possible without the highly effective reactionary movement following the 60s, which not only built a political party willing to behave in a progressive manner (or regressive to people like us, I guess!) but also a constituency who were active in all forms of activism, from violence to the ballot box.
I can definitely respect your position better as described in that post, though!
P.S. It's a bit of an oversimplification to say that the Nazis were initially elected democratically, but in any case, the way the German elections were structured really bears no resemblance to the American system at all. It's not a useful comparison when we're talking about electoralism.
And my point isn't that 30s Germany had a similar electoral system, but that often authoritarianism starts with electing officials that go on to use the system to forcefully remain in power. Republicans want to use Hungary as a model.
Just saying you could have picked a more apropos example.