Voting is not the end-all of activism
Voting is (an optional) part of the toolkit, it's not the only tool.
Today is an “I guess” vote. A “get it over with” vote. So much of our experience navigating American politics is about distressing compromises with “lesser evils.” It’s not about a genuine chance to enact the change we deserve, it’s about merely knowing who we don’t feel comfortable living under. We know enough to know that we don’t want fascism -- or at least Trump’s historically overt variety.
This election isn’t about Joe Biden as President. Anyone with any sense of moral decency (that chooses to vote) is simply trying to get Trump out of here.
America consumerizes voting as a solitary ticket to solving our societal ills. That’s what voting advocates sell us. That’s what corporations sell us. That’s what democrats sell us. They’re all selling the dream because they benefit from us buying into the illusion. I was looking for art for this piece, and I saw clip art that said: “most important election ever.” Why would someone make general art of a phrase like that unless they were conditioned to being in a country where things will only get worse within this system?
A lot of people aren’t voting today, for various reasons. Some people aren’t interested in choosing between two alleged sexual abusers, and some find the system too illegitimate to participate in. They know that genuine equality can never come through a system predicated on exploitation. I feel that way, but I also view voting as a means to end and this time. I don’t believe in Biden, but I know that the people who will be frontline demonstrating capitalism, whoever’s in office, will have a lot less emotional and physical capacity to act with the restrictive medical policies that another four years of Trump promises. At least Biden will likely protect that much.
In theory, voting is one of the most powerful, tangible means of making your voice heard in a democracy. But this is an oligarchy. The wealthy set the agenda, which is why every four years we choose between two different political stratagems that benefits them at our expense.
The only way we can eliminate this “choosing between evils'' binary is through genuine political education. It’s going to take the masses learning the hopelessness of the two-party system, and the multi-pronged links between racist, classist policy and capitalism. It’s going to take realizing the social construct of race that created the lie of white supremacy. It’s going to take an understanding that the nature of capitalism is death, and that there’s no way to reform fatalistic policy or put Black faces on it. The people can’t ask an exploitative system to condemn or dismantle itself.
I’m not sure what the future holds, or even what all the “solutions” to our status quo are, but what I do know is that as more people become radicalized, and more great minds come together, we can figure out a better world.
I hope in time the act of voting is properly framed as (an optional) part of the social agency toolkit instead of the only tool at our disposal. Consistently voting in a lesser evil is not the end-all of what we should expect for our lifetime. This doesn’t have to be “the way it is.” I feel like people, given power, will oppress as human nature. But rebellion is also human nature amongst the powerless. Empires intentionally fail their people long enough, the people revolt, and radical things happen. It’s happened throughout human history.
But the only way that more people can accept that as a legit possibility in this lifetime is through radical education. That means more reading, more actions, more truth-telling, more valuing of knowledge, and less illusion that a ballot is the gateway to legitimate liberation.
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Venmo: Andre-Gee
Thank u bro.