Voting is NOT the way out of the situation that we’re in. You should still vote but it’s critical to understand that the absolute best that voting can achieve is the lesser evil.

If we want a solution that is actually good, we need to a fundamental change in the structure of society that can only happen outside of traditional electoral politics.

The structure fundamentally responsible for our problems - unequal distribution of resources and labour and the concentration of wealth into the hands of a very, very small minority (100 individuals have more wealth than an entire continent of ~1,460,000,000 people) - is the same one which completely dominates the outcome of elections.

Money decides who can run a campaign, buy support, pay for smear campaigns, control the media narrative, dominate the conversation by astroturfing social media, etc. etc. The system is so fundamentally controlled by money that there is absolutely no way to beat it using the rules of that very same system.

We need to build alternative systems that work outside of capitalism, for example, mutual aid (helping/supporting someone in return for their help/support in future), establishing co-operatives for food, housing, etc. to meet our needs, and establishing networks of support built on trust, mutual respect, and solidarity. Then we can withdraw our labour from capitalism entirely, causing it to collapse, and form the structure of a new society in the shell of the old.

Only by building an alternative to the system, can we truly make things better.

Only by knowing that voting can’t build that alternative, we realise that means we need to take action beyond voting.