Young people have not been as enthusiastic supporters of the Biden administration [even] before President Biden was elected. So what's different about Gen Z generation in particular, who's known to be politically active, also very diverse and caring about a variety of social issues, is that when they're disappointed in what the government is doing or what the leaders are showing them, they're willing to take the issue in their own hand and try to intervene, try to get involved sometimes by speaking up by their vote.
But by and large, they have voted more than other generations have as youth, regardless of how disappointed they say they are in the government. So if the past couple of elections' trends hold, young people have been disappointed in the government and their elected leaders, but they voted.
[Bolding added]
The big thing is that movements start from local political offices and can grow from there.
It can start with representatives, the rare senator, or even taking over of a party at the state level:
Participate in local elections, back primary candidates. Once the numbers are there at the nationwide level, we can push for a more representative electoral system.
We can push system that uses ranked choice voting like Alaska did. We can also increase the size of the house of representatives to better match the idea of representation the founding fathers had for us. It's been nearly a 100 years that the house was capped at 435
The founding fathers had envisioned a house that grew with the size of the country:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congressional_Apportionment_Amendment
This laid the intent that we have 1 rep per 30,000 people and increase the constituents per rep by 10,000 each time the house reached another 100 seats.
Or in other words, the max constituents represented by each rep in the house should be:
30,000 + RoundedDown(Number of house seats/100)*10,000
So at 400+ seats (1 rep per 70,000) would make sense for a country of 28 million. Really, with the wording of the amendment and understanding that the examples lay out a mathematical formula for expanding the house indefinitely (but with more people per rep as it goes up) we would have over a 1,000 reps! In fact, some quick math shows that per the original intents, we would have 1700 reps with at most 200,000 constituents each. This would hold until our population reaches 340 million when we'd switch to 1800 reps and a cap per rep of 210,000.
There's a current "Uncap the House" movement, however, I'm unsure of how much momentum they've been gaining.
To see how the number of constituents has grown per member over the years:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_congressional_apportionment#Number_of_members
In other words, we're being shorted almost 1300 reps!
Wait, we're not supposed to be disappointed in our government? Could have fooled me.
Ah, nice, maybe we're not entirely doomed.
both parties ultimately stand for the same values
This is an extremely privileged take. Yes, both parties support corporations and capitalism. However, one party also supports the eradication of people they don't like. This is a very significant difference.
Its also an extremely privileged take to presume that financial destitution can't be just as crushing. We all face eradication, and trying to sideline economic issues for issues of human dignity will lose on both. It's divide and conquer politics. We are either unified, or we're not.
Guillotines much?
Both parties stand for the same values? Lol, what?
America has a right wing party, and a party of hyper right wing nutcases.
Unfortunately it's a flaw in FPTP voting systems. The biggest thing that would help (in any country with FPTP) would be to move to almost any other sort of voting. Ranked choice would be the least disruptive, in the short term, but still allow for long term corrections to function.
You know, the values of keeping rich people rich and poor people poor.
Oh is that why Democrats keep promoting social welfare programs, social mobility, and public safety nets? Keeping the poor poor is more of a republican thing.
This is the game Republicans play, block any progress, then get blame shifted to Democrats for not implementing their goals. Prove government doesn't work by making it not work, because the voters want it all immediately, regardless of procedure.
Bombing brown children, and pumping record amounts of oil.
We don't have fascism in the US yet. We have a party trying to get into fascist control. Voting can still stymie their attempts to do so and exposing their plans can cause them to lose supporters. Using the legal system to remove those breaking the laws and impeaching justices not upholding the constitution are how you prevent this.
These things are hard. If it was easy to prevent fascists from seizing power, we wouldn't have ever had fascist takeovers. Stopping fascism from taking root requires eternal vigilance as fascist sympathies ebb and flow.
I heartily disagree with the last panels initial premise: both parties don't stand for the same values. They both share values among some of their most prominent members. Namely neoliberal economic policy. But they are clearly not in sync with all policies: hence only one party attempting a fascist takeover. Ignoring the other things Democrats have accomplished that absolutely help people because they aren't the huge sweeping reforms we hoped for is doing the fascists' jobs for them.
These memes also press for Revolution, which is definitely the dumbest thing to propose at this point. Revolution definitely has its place: namely if fascists actually disband democracy. But a revolution is a HUGE risk no matter who does it. Look at revolutions in the rest past, especially those started by popular sentiment: many ended in a totalitarian government, often backed by the military, who took power the moment the leaders faltered. In many of these instances the people didn't win; they just traded one dictator for another. In order for a revolution to succeed, those revolting need to have both coordinated force of arms and a method of government ready to step in and take control to prevent societal collapse.
But revolution also devalues what HAS been achieved by those still working within the system. The most obvious of these in the US are the great strides unions have made in recent years. Unions went from something only a handful of industries had and were largely despised by the general population, to exploding in numerous industries.
I heartily disagree with the last panels initial premise: both parties don't stand for the same values. They both share values among some of their most prominent members. Namely neoliberal economic policy. But they are clearly not in sync with all policies: hence only one party attempting a fascist takeover. Ignoring the other things Democrats have accomplished
While I agree with your stance, I don't think that conflicts with the panel's stance or the way many of the memes are posing.
I think the point here is more "they're slightly different shades of the same color, but we need something very different." In the grand scheme of politics and views, US Democrats and Republicans are extremely similar, especially right now. I wouldn't discount democrats refusal to step into fascism, nor some of the progressive policies they push for, but these are minor differences in the grand scheme of things. Many of the things many people want in this country are vastly different than either party's stance, and that's what's being pointed to.
These memes also press for Revolution, which is definitely the dumbest thing to propose at this point. Revolution definitely has its place: namely if fascists actually disband democracy. But a revolution is a HUGE risk no matter who does it. Look at revolutions in the rest past, especially those started by popular sentiment: many ended in a totalitarian government, often backed by the military, who took power the moment the leaders faltered.
I think you're blowing this out of proportion. They're pressing for drastic change. Is that revolution? Sure, but it's not necessarily violent. The majority of these memes don't seem to push that. Maybe some do, but those are definitely not the majority here.
I'd summarize by this comment lower in this thread - I think it summarizes the same stance as these memes from an outsiders perspective:
Can you US people make a party that isn't a bunch of ghouls already so we can stop having this argument every day
Counterpoint to yours on revolution: democratic systems are revolutionary. Elections can result in the overthrow of current governments in favor of new ones with the peaceful transition being a key factor.
More important than the president or Congress, remember that you're also voting for a ticket to the supreme Court, and that vote really really fucking matters.
Voting takes like 10 minutes
100% false. In the 2020 election in Mississippi, I had to wait in line for 2 hours. My wife had to call into the vet clinic she worked at to make sure she could to take a 3 hour lunch to vote even though it was 2 miles from where she worked. It was so disorganized and so slow.
I’m so glad I vote via mail now in Washington.
It was so
disorganizedsabotaged and so slow.FTFY
That's not the worst of it, people were waiting for over 10 hours in Georgia. All because the GOP rigged it so there'd be a shortage of voting locations. And they have the nerve to turn around and lie about the dems stealing the election. Absolute scum.
I voted by mail in 2016 and my ballot never got counted even though it was sent weeks before the deadline. I now vote in person unless I have no other choice.
Voting is the minimum effort required of actual change the system. Any arguments about it being hard are here to stop more direct action.
More Bjork memes please
I thought I could organize freedom
10 minutes might be the average, as even my backwards Republican controlled state has moved to vote by mail. I get the ballot, do a quick internet search on people or issues I don't understand, and move on with my day in less time than that typically. As a bonus, mail ballots are far easier to audit and recount than those ridiculous electronic voting machines which print the voter's choices next to the non-human readable QR code which is actually used for counting.
I don't have experience in states which put up barriers or hours of waiting in line for in-person and mail voting, and I admire those who put up with that shit
It's deeply ironic the use of an Icelandic singer in a meme to justify participating in the performance of the Theatre Of The Vote in the, unlike in Iceland, far from Democratic American Duopoly system.
Unironic would be to use Putin or some well known Russian figure.
Also, she's an anarchist so I'm not entirely sure this is even the kind of advice she would give.
Now you've made me curious. The depths of the interwebs reveal that she says she casts an empty ballot, no reasoning given. Iceland doesn't have compulsory voting.
Staying in Iceland: Jón Gnarr is also an anarchist and ran for office. Then, I'm an anarchist and the opposite of anti-electoral, if nothing else it's necessary to combat depoliticisation and protect liberal democracy as the stopgap measure it is. Fascists won't stop voting to try and capture the state least you can do is cancel out their vote by voting non-fascist.
I'm not even sure there's many anti-electoral anarchists around, actually arguing against voting instead of simply personally not voting (which lots of people do for various reasons), practically all the arguments you hear from that side is egg-headed theoretical moralising without reference to praxis.
I love björk so much she's so awesome
idk whats worse, having an uncropped reddit watermark or an uncropped ifunny watermark
Give it time. I can do both.
I would like to remind all EU citizens we are voting for the parlament in June. Make sure you are properly registered to vote !
Republicans want to stop young pe4ople from voting.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/republicans-want-raise-voting-age-184406390.html
edit ='peop4le' should be read as people. It was an innocent typo, not a secret signal. Really, not a secret signal at all. Nope, not a signal.
Can you US people make a party that isn't a bunch of ghouls already so we can stop having this argument every day
German here. He had parties that weren't a bunch of ghouls. Some don't exist anymore or have never been in power, others either replaced the good guys with ghouls or the good guys were corrupted by power and became ghouls themselves over time. Face it, electoral politics aren't enough.
Yeah, if everyone voted. I don’t understand why people are confused by this. Just vote. Get your friends to vote. We know that most Americans aren’t evil. Otherwise this entire country would be like Florida. But only like a third of Americans able to vote do so.
You know who votes like, all the fucking time? The ghouls. They love to vote. And we don’t show up. Defeating Trump one more time should end the MAGA movement and then we can focus on propping up a candidate in 2028 who will actually capture the change that we want to see. Midterms too!. But this process only starts if we ensure Biden remains in the White House. You may not like his foreign policy, but he believes in climate change and won’t suppress democracy. Trump will effectively end it via Project 2025, courtesy of the fascist Heritage Foundation.
You know who votes like, all the fucking time? The ghouls.
This is actually the greatest evidence for why voting works. The ghouls maintain a hold on government because the ghouls consistently vote.
It's a systemic issue, so: no, not really.
Ghouls as in age? While there's quite a lot of septuagenarians in Congress, there's also quite a few junior congresspeople who are younger.
If you mean ghouls as in those not chomping at the bit to hurt people: Democrats have quite a few progressive congresspeople. Not the majority, but that follows the US's population: the US isn't super progressive yet. It's getting there and quickly but centrist candidates still get more votes (as they do nearly everywhere) so the center needs to keep sliding.
Besides, exactly what countries are doing that much better right now? Which democracies aren't sliding into far-right? We've got Brexit in the UK, Italy has an actual fascist. Far-right Marine Le Pen got 41% in France. Germany's far-right party gained 13% since last election; and while they are doing well to protest that and aren't approaching majority, it's still quite a concerning trend.
This is nearly a world-wide trend which is quite concerning.
ifunny? What is this, 2006?
1992.
This is basically everything I've tried explaining to Anarkiddies through walls of text, summed into one meme. Thank you!
This is the issie with the voting system that the US uses. This makes it almost impossible for new parties to emerge because if they dont get the majority anywhere, they will not be in parliament (as opposed to, lets say 5% of the whole population voting them and them therefore getting 5% of the parliament seats).
Where I live, you have like 6 different parties in parliament and every decade or so, a new one emerges.
I really think people should vote the parties directly themselves, why would you need middle men?
Might be completely impossible, in 2016 the Libertarian Party managed to get enough votes to be legally allowed to participate in presidential debates in all future elections.. then they just.... didn't...
Almost like dishonest people do not play by the same rules they impose on everyone else.
Accelerationism is for dopes
Darn you american liberals are getting desperate. This is a fellow kids-level "please vote for the lesser evil" type of meme. But I am not american and have trouble seeing if your argument is a pipedream worthy of a genocide to pursue.
Thing is. It was under Biden the US decided we where lucky enough to get american bases on our soil. I really don't see much difference for people in the rest of the world.
I do however believe in democracy. Indirect democracy, where you vote for rulers, must have meaningful choices in order to be democratic.
I guess what I really am trying to say is. The rest of the world don't have a say in who decides if we get trade deals or tanks in the streets.
And if USA was my country I would have a difficult time voting for someone so cruel. Even if he was the lesser evil. Because democracy is built on the notion that you have to believe in free choices.
You get one of the evils - vote for the lesser one on election day, then spend the rest of the election cycle pushing for better.
Man, this is drenched in Anarchy overtones. If voting can help groups not get murdered how is it not also able to fight fascism and capitalist oppression? Seems like the latter would include the former in it.
Oh right, it's a meme, not an actual thought out take. Damn it.
The tone of your comment kind of suggests that you don't want an answer, but..
Voting is still an institutional structure (in the US).
We're only allowed to vote on the issues that the government brings forth on a national or state scale. The government is literally never going to bring capitalism to the table to vote, and fascism infiltrates the system before the vote by design. Those are two things that aren't ever going to be voted on here, at least not directly.
Unfortunately, the issues that tend to make it to the vote are popular ones that politicians attach they're names to so that they can stay in office. That's why it's possible to vote on (comparatively) smaller, more popular issues like trans rights, student loan debt, health care, etc.
As a direct answer to your question, the system is never going to allow the citizens to wholly change it. Systems like these are only ever changed with blood. But it might allow the citizens to decide what it supports and pays for.
Well I hear a lot of revolutionary LARPers so I do tend to get exhausted hearing about Anarchy and how it's the solution to all our problems. Elected politicians still have a good degree of power, we still elect them to power, so I feel like there's still a lot more we can do within the system before burning it down becomes a serious solution.
If you want to burn down the Supreme Court, okay. Congress? Hell yeah. Two party voting? Absolutely. But the entire system, top to bottom, definitely doesn't need a full restart. The things we want are hard, will be slow, but I've never thought "Man, we'd get a lot more done if there was more civil unrest."
Leftists are going 3rd party, the implication that they don't vote is stupid.
Perhaps, but pissing away your vote on a third party in a FPTP system is functionally no different to not voting.
Gonna have to switch to Approval Voting and proportional representation (also using Approval Voting) if you want to get rid of the two party system.
Or you know, actually try to pressure the Dems into running a different candidate when Biden will be a guaranteed loss.
Democrats not supporting democracy, love to see it.
They use the excuse that only Biden can win and we have to suspend our usual beliefs and right to vote for another democrat just this one last time to end the "threat to our democracy".
"They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety."
Don't worry folks, just give up your right to vote for who you want and follow the hivemind.
Ja, uber Trump, uns!
guaranteed loss
How much money did you bet on Biden's "guaranteed loss?"
If you didn't, why do you shun free money?
I don't need voting for that. I need private and anonymous communication, and the right to bear arms.
True facts, Amen to that brother.
Make sure if you use Tor for anonymous communication to donate your spare bandwidth for others in need! Even if you don't use Tor, donating at least 10mbps of your bandwidth can go a long way for people who rely on the network for their safety!
https://community.torproject.org/relay/setup/snowflake/standalone/
Ah the ol' revolution larp. Classic.
get your mail in ballots and ensure there’s another huge fraud claim when they’re counted in the exact same manner they always have been. it’s a new democratic tradition!
Voting does not take 10 minutes! First, Republicans are making it harder to vote early or by mail and closing polling stations so you have to wait in really long lines on a work day. Second, you should be taking the time to really research and understand everything on your ballot before committing to votes.
literall--
downvote.
My man, right wingers are literally murdering people.
Not to vote is not an option.
Edit: wouldn't mind to see more Björk memes 😅
I was trying to figure out who that was.
Vote for the person who’s helping commit genocide compared to vote for the person who says they want to commit genocide.
Voting is totally not an option.
Although I hope Haley ends up on the fucking ballot because she’s the only not clearly advocating for or actively supporting genocide Motherfucker I see so far that might stand a chance
Don't worry, Haley is more than happy to help Israel commit genocide as well. There's very, very few American politicians who have any backbone to condemn Israel's actions against the Palestinian people. We all just get to watch helplessly as the American government sends more bombs to be used on hospitals and schools.
It's like we're living in bizarro world right now. Democrats are begging Republicans to help them pass a bill to let Biden immediately shutdown the border and fund Israel with millions of dollars to commit genocide. All the people who used to vigorously oppose such things are perfectly fine with it now that it's the other political party supporting it. They don't have any principles other than voting blue. They've clearly realized the problems with nationalism, but they don't realize that they've just replaced it with their own blue nationalism.
voting takes like 10 minutes
ahahahahahahahahahaha you haven't seen the USA voting system lol. 2024 and its still not a federal holiday.
Aside from presidential elections, every election I took part of was in and out.
I still agree voting should be a federal holiday
Here's a good article about voter suppression. This is an extremely serious prolific problem, often targeting minorities specifically. Republican states have deliberately been restricting access to voting for the past 2 decades and have succeeded in having hundreds of vote restriction bills passed. They are still actively doing this today.
Even if it was, the most vulnerable working people wouldn't get it off. Sure we can make it a holiday but we should also allow people to early vote the entire week leading up to it and also allow mail-in ballots. That would also reduce the line problem that we see in some places.
You're right it takes 5
Yeah, we got it. You want us to vote for Biden. Are we gonna run the leftist shame campaign all the way to the election, then?
Maybe when the boomers are gone the Republican strategy will die with them...
I mean have you ever listened to a leftist member of a vulnerable group, or just someone in a vulnerable group at all. Cause as someone who is part of multiple vulnerable groups. I'm betting voting is not the first thing being brought up.
Ignore federal elections. VOTE IN EVERY LOCAL ELECTION.
Solid plan, according to what I’ve read.
