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Biden’s Gains Against Trump Vanish on Deep Economic Pessimism, Poll Shows
(www.bloomberg.com)
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this post was submitted on 24 Apr 2024
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politics
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I think working for leftist candidates sounds great. Working for better outcomes outside the electoral system sounds great. I think what people are telling you, that you're deliberately misinterpreting as "I should just shut up and be happy" or that you can't do those things for some reason, is that in this particular election it'd be good to vote for the better outcome instead of the worse one.
But yes, working for better candidates in general sounds great, working for Ranked Choice Voting to solve the problem at a little more underlying level sounds great. Working to try to misrepresent the best outcome that's currently available to make him look worse than he is (thus helping to promote an even worse outcome) sounds bad. Surely that all makes sense?
I have never participated in a presidential election that wasn't "VOTE BLUE OR ELSE!" And it's never going to be any different.
The bottom line is that I am just too weird to ever, ever be happy with my government. For the same reason all my favorite shows get cancelled: Politics is mass market and I'm not a viable customer base.
There's your problem, I think. If all you do is vote for president every four years then it's gonna be deeply unsatisfying, and the level of actual impact you're gonna be able to have on the system (especially as a left wing person) is gonna be pretty much nonexistent.
I think working for the pres campaign of someone you really believe in (Bernie Sanders from back in the day, some local school board, maybe like a state congressional seat) might be more satisfying. And there are plenty of people who are working for positive change outside of just showing up periodically to vote for which corporate candidate, and sometimes they get big wins.
I think it's easier to make change on a local level than on a national level and definitely than on a presidential-election level. But yeah, I feel you on this. I'm just saying that change is possible. I mean... weed is legal now in a bunch of places. When I was growing up people still sometimes went to prison for a long long time for that shit. It never made any sense, and everyone knew the system was busted, but nothing ever changed for decades and decades, until one day, hey! It did.
I vote in every election. Even in the odd years when it's for prothonotary and constable and weird shit like that. So it's not like all I'm doing is voting for a president every four years. My parents have been involved in the local Democratic Party since the 80s so I know all about going door to door and bothering my neighbors.
I thought that, too, until I saw how much "change" my dad could make when he got elected to the town council. Same ugly car-brained developments going up with no plans for bike infrastructure beyond "here's some road paint, good luck."
When I asked him about it he shrugged and said "That's the best we can do. Trust me, the other designs were a lot worse."
And that summarizes my experience with government: This is literally the best we can do. We have to run like crazy to stay in place. We'll get one step ahead - like not getting busted for weed - and take two or more steps back - Roe overturned, Israel killing children, Trump still not in fucking jail.
It's futile and disheartening and I'm sick of it, and I don't get to opt out. I just have to wait until it falls apart and vote blue like a good little human.
My dad got into local politics because he thought he could help, but after two terms on the town council he's so sick of not getting a damn thing done he's resigning.
If I rewound by 20 years and told you or your dad back then that if you got real involved in politics you could get weed legalized, what would you have told me?
Sounds about right that it took 20 years. It takes the government a really long fucking time to do reasonable and sane things. And the more reasonable and sane, the longer it's going to take. Just look how we started a war against Iraq fucking five minutes after a bunch of Saudis crashed planes into things, but we still don't give hungry children food in school
Plus I'm in an illegal state, and broke federal law to bring my medicine here. So it's been 20 fucking years and it's still not done yet. Oh, and Roe is now overturned, Israel is still killing children, and there are shitty car-brained developments still going up.
I guess what I'm saying is, what is the alternative?
If you're a Nicaraguan whose family got killed in the 80s by contras, or a Honduran whose kid got taken away in Arizona who still hasn't seen him and probably never will, I think it probably sounds pretty silly for someone who could have worked to make the system that's trying to destroy them behave more humanely to say "Yeah I could have, but it would have been a bunch of work and taken time, so I didn't. I just got discouraged and decided it was all the same."
I don't think it will happen in 20 years, or 200, if you're waiting for "the government" to do these reasonable and sane things. That's just the nature of the beast; they will not. But, they're amenable to working for change. If your dad was political then you and he are probably well familiar with it... yeah, the people on the evil side more or less never stop and they have some advantages. It sucks. But again, what's the alternative? Just wait for it to get worse until they start coming for you directly in an immediate and physical sense?
That's why I'm so frustrated: There isn't an alternative to this shitty, broken, infuriating system. We have to vote blue as fast and often as we possibly can just to keep from backsliding completely. Any gains we make are gonna either be wiped out with the next session of Congress, or they're going to make something else even worse in the event we miraculously make something better. If I honestly thought being active in politics did anything but give me heartburn, I'd do it.
But it's going to collapse eventually, as all things will, and that gives me a little bit of peace.
He knows it. He loves it. He's gloating.
mozz wouldn't do that to me. They're good people, despite our disagreements.