George Takei's Based Voting Take [Rule}
George Takei's Based Voting Take [Rule}
Image Transcription:
A tweet from the George Takei Twitter account which states:
"A Democrat was in the White House when my family was sent to the internment camps in 1941. It was an egregious violation of our human and civil rights.
It would have been understandable if people like me said they’d never vote for a Democrat again, given what had been done to us.
But being a liberal, being a progressive, means being able to look past my own grievances and concerns and think of the greater good. It means working from within the Democratic party to make it better, even when it has betrayed its values.
I went on to campaign for Adlai Stevenson when I became an adult. I marched for civil rights and had the honor of meeting Dr. Martin Luther King. I fought for redress for my community and have spent my life ensuring that America understood that we could not betray our Constitution in such a way ever again.
Bill Clinton broke my heart when he signed DOMA into law. It was a slap in the face to the LGBTQ community. And I knew that we still had much work to do. But I voted for him again in 1996 despite my misgivings, because the alternative was far worse. And my obligation as a citizen was to help choose the best leader for it, not to check out by not voting out of anger or protest.
There is no leader who will make the decision you want her or him to make 100 percent of the time. Your vote is a tool of hope for a better world. Use it wisely, for it is precious. Use it for others, for they are in need of your support, too."
End Transcription.
The last paragraph I find particularly powerful and something more people really should take into account.
Hoo boy. Against my better judgment, I'll wade into this pool.
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If voting for either party gets you the same result, fascists wouldn't be so focused on elections and trying so hard to take the vote away.
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Withholding your vote doesn't do anything. When has losing an election pushed either party left?
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Voting doesn't prevent you from engaging in other forms of direct action.
Both parties suck. People will needlessly suffer and die no matter who wins. But there are also people who will suffer and die under one party but not the other, and the same can't be said the other way around. Our democracy is fundamentally flawed, but voting is a tool at our disposal, and we're in no position to turn anything down.
Before Obama, I could still remain quiet when people said "voting for anyone is implicit approval," or whatever - and for the most part, they're right - voting is a pretty low level of change.
I voted for Obama because even if he is a bit of a tool, he's black, and now a huge group of minority kids saw someone who looks like them in the white house. I voted for him not because of the "HOPE" on his signs but literally to give black kids hope. (And yeah, for the most part, it's false hope, just like it is for white kids, welcome to the club.) He was a positive symbol and, if it's a symbol who is also a centrist Democrat, that's better then a centrist Democrat that isn't a positive symbol. And a shit ton better than Mitt Romney or whoever the other guy was.
And then Trump happened, and any respect for the "don't vote" viewpoint drained out. If you still think both parties are the same at this point, you might want to start asking yourself what else is going on with you - because "not great" is not identical to "fucking terrible"...
Biden isn't doing what I want him to do - health care, income inequality, corruption in Congress, etc - but the infrastructure bill isn't a bad thing. It's actually a good thing, we need it. We need a lot more, but 1 > 0.
Also, to be blunt... we've seen this before. We know from recent history what happens when the DNC nominates the safe, centrist, establishment candidate, who fails to appeal to voters and loses to a Republican. That was 2016. Hillary Clinton lost to Trump. And who did the DNC rally behind right before Super Tuesday? That's right... Joe Biden.
The amount of people in this thread who don't understand how our voting system works is too damn high
You're absolutely correct in your points
Especially the "against my better judgement" part, this comment section went to hell really quick
Thank you. I'm also often reminded of this meme when discussions around this happen:
I continue to hold my nose and vote blue because in virtually every case the Democratic candidate is far better than the Republican candidate (from my left leaning perspective).
What frustrates me is that I have no power to push the party further left. In my fantasy, crowds of people can shout from the streets "Democratic party, do X or I will withhold my vote!" and the Democrats will lose an election, realize their folly, and move to the left. In reality, they'll just write those crowds off as unrealistic and unreliable and likely move center to try and court more "independent" votes. With two parties dominating and the current electoral system, that's just how it goes.
I don't have the energy to be the difference, politically. I try to do the right thing and I help people I can in small ways - at work, in my small social circles, and by donating to organizations I trust will help. Hell, I'm afraid to be part of the shouting crowd because doing anything openly could jeopardize my work situation or even my employment. To add to that, I am antisocial, anxious, and too stressed in daily life to really engage in effective, direct action.
I'm just tired and disheartened. I feel like when I hold my nose and vote blue, sometimes I'm endorsing what I often perceive as a shift to the right.
Powerful, self-interested, wealthy people on the right though... they can just throw so much money at a problem. It takes so, so many more of us to fight against it. Deep down I know reducing my involvement just gives those assholes more power. It's what some of them are fighting to do - dishearten the masses so that they'll just give up.
I don't really have a point I guess. I'm just tired. I know that the right is becoming so openly fascist because they know they don't have the popular support... but they have the resources to drag this out. Maybe even change rules to make it so that breaking the law, even violence, becomes the only way to fight back. I just hope it ends soon. I'm tired of thinking about what it means when they continue to get close to half the votes all across the country.
Change in the party has to come from within. Even though Sanders didn't get the nomination, he pushed the entire party a good bit to the left.
More important than that is to get involved at all levels. It's not as flashy as the Presidency, but your vote for your local school board or town council carries a lot more weight than it does nationally.
If you're feeling very spicy, run for one of those positions
What frustrates me is that I have no power to push the party further left.
The way to do that is exactly the same way that the tea party and MAGA influenced their parties:
Show up at primaries. Vote for further left primary candidates. Primary centrists.
Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar won after the previous Democrat decided not to seek re-election. AOC successfully primaried a more centrist Democrat.
The Senate and House are really, really important. The president isn't a dictator, and the median senator honestly has a ton of power. Just look at how e.g. John McCain tanked Trump's Obamacare repeal, and how Manchin has controlled what went into Build Back Better.
President Bernie Sanders combined with a Republican House, a Republican Senate and our current Republican Supreme Court would get approximately nothing useful done.
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"Democrats have always fucked me over but I keep voting for them because the alternative is actively more harmful".
No, I don't find it touching nor powerful. This is a celebration of the failure of the 2 party system.
When you roll out the feasible alternative let me know. Until then, I'll be voting for the candidate whose rallies don't break out in chants of "kill f*ggots, kill all transgenders"
That is part of the calculus people are making when they express the idea they won't vote for candidate A for reasons X and candidate B for reasons Y.
It is how voters can express their political will during the primary and electoral process. If a candidate can modify their position on X or Y because of voter concerns, that would be a meaningful part of the democratic process influenced by the voters. They're trying to forge that alternative.
The real unfeasible alternative is actually just doing nothing and letting the donors buy their selected policies and voting for the lesser evil between them. That is just supporting the status quo.
That's not what he said and you know it, shut up.
Ok
No, I don’t find it touching nor powerful. This is a celebration of the failure of the 2 party system.
Liberal-splaining strategic voting is how my socialist brain interprets this. This isn't as condescending as others but yeah it's not powerful or touching it's a sad coping mechanism, even sadder because he's been so negatively affected personally by it.
Winner takes it all it the biggest bullshit ever. Anything but popular vote is worth jack shit.
I mean straight popular vote is also winner take all just not skewed by weird slavery shit counting rules
Wrong. It's "democrats advanced in fits and starts, sometimes stumbling and falling, but heading in the direction of the finish line. I keep voting for them because the other guys are trying to set off a dirty bomb on the race track."
Ok. And your point is? Not voting isn't going to do shit. You are not going to change the system by not participating. That's a losing strategy.
Vote for the most useful option, then go make a difference in local politics or wherever you can actually influence anything. Limiting your interactions with politics to whining isn't going to change anything for the better and is definitely not going to get rid of Republicans nor Democrats.
This is the way. Even if you think voting for the "lesser" option is demeaning, it does no harm if you continue to use direct action as well
[...] go make a difference in local politics or wherever you can actually influence anything.
I agree, however I think most anyone that may only be grumbling may find themselves doing so as they're stuck on the question of, how do I get involved? Where do I get started with any of it?
The answers will vary by locality and how they're organized, but some direction (that is, examples) is better than none.
If you're able to go to your town or city hall hearings, there's that. There are even some interesting/sad/entertaining videos of some from recent times that have been recorded and uploaded online for public viewing
This would all be resolved if America just changed first past the post voting.
We'll only change it with enough push from citizens
Push for a new system (like ranked choice or STAR) in your state for state elections and we can likely make it popular enough to get it to the national stage
That has to happen at the state level, as they control how the elections are conducted.
Something I try to drum up in these sorts of threads is that your state and local elections can be far more important to pushing progressive policy than federal elections. Most of the work for high speed rail, for example, has to be taken up by state government. The federal government might offer some funding, but they only hold that out there for states to choose to take or not. Same with bicycle lanes, housing, or diverting police funding into more comprehensive solutions. That's all state and local government.
Voting for Democrats at the federal level is merely to keep some of that funding sitting out there, and to not actively block progress otherwise. That's it. That's what voting them into the White House and Congress is for. The rest needs to be done in your local community.
That has to happen at the state level, as they control how the elections are conducted.
Ish.
If each state holds an internal ranked choice election and assigns their electors based on that, almost certainly the result would be that no one has 270 electoral college votes and the house of representatives gets to appoint whoever they want.
You'd have to have a national ranked choice vote. That's because ranked choice is inconsistent; you could have an election where A wins every state, but nationally D wins. More likely, though, you'd have vote splitting across states.
Or if the debates weren't managed by a private entity owned by the other two parties.
Canada has first past the post voting, and 3 active parties. My province has first pas the post and has 4 major parties (with a 5th one that is close but can't get a representative in). I'll agree that ranked voting at least would be a lot better.
And it's a disaster in Canada. The only reason the Conservatives ever take power up there is because of the giant vote split between NDP and the Liberals. Look how the conservatives are heavy favorites to win their next election despite every poll showing them with less than the combined votes of the Liberals and NDP: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_45th_Canadian_federal_election
In a democracy, if there is no alternative we have to vote for the lesser of the evil. It's better to keep things worse, than to make it more worse, if there is no alternative. If an alternative is there, then absolutely. We should all be encouraging an alternative system in a democracy. But if nothing's is available, then this.
That's the logical answer in the short term, but it also makes you a "safe" voter that the Democrats don't have to care about in the long term.
Don't promise them your support in advance. Be a "swing" voter and make it clear to the party that if they want your vote they'll have to earn it.
Complain today about fewer options.
Complain tomorrow about Führer options.
It's ok to complain. The complaints are valid. Still vote and encourage others to vote.
If your two choices are between a 99% fascist and a 98% fascist. Vote for the 98% fascist.
Problem is that people actually think that it's 99% vs 98% (not saying you think that) when that's not the case. You have a guy that incited a riot against our democratic process and a guy that kept encouraging unity and actually helped fund infrastructure, local chip manufacturing, renewable funding, etc.
My father beat me when I was a kid, he ran for child services president and I voted for him. I heard that the other guy beat his kids more, so I really had a moral duty to vote for my dad. You guys, it's really important to vote for the guy who beats his kids less.
My local mayor wants to increase funding for the public transit, but he didn't say ACAB, so I'm not gonna vote for him even if the other other guy is gonna slash the public transit funding by half 😤😤
You make a good point.
The person you responded to also makes a good point.
There's no one-size-fits-all (all voters or all elections) solution on this one.
All we can ultimately do is encourage our fellow voters to open their minds, learn all they can about the issues and candidates, and make the best use they feel they can with their right to vote.
Shaming someone for not voting for your candidate is a great way to repel them from your camp long term. Respecting their decision, even if you disagree with it, sets a much better example of the sort of level-headedness you'd likely want people to associate with your causes.
Saying democrats or voting got black people rights is a slap in the face of those who literally fought for them.
I'm sure black people would have gotten better rights if no one voted for the lesser of 2 evils.
People fought for the rights, and politicians who supported those rights won elections because people voted for them.
It played a role. Because the Democrats and President Johnson were in charge during the Civil Rights movement, we got the Civil Rights Act. Because the Republicans and President Trump were in charge during the BLM movement, we got jackshit (on a federal level). This stuff matters.
The parties didn't have unanimous ideological consensus within them back then, that's really only been a thing during the last 30 years.
Great illustration of this from Biden during a campaign event in 2019:
At a New York City fundraiser Tuesday night, Biden told donors he has reached across the aisle throughout his career. "I was in a caucus with James O. Eastland," Biden said, according to a pool report. "He never called me 'boy'; he always called me 'son.' "
"Well, guess what? At least there was some civility," ... "We got things done. We didn't agree on much of anything. We got things done. We got it finished. But today, you look at the other side and you're the enemy. Not the opposition, the enemy. We don't talk to each other anymore."
Those "across the aisle" politicians he pointed to there were James O. Eastland and Georgia Sen. Herman Talmadge, both racist segregationist Democrats.
Apart from the main point he made, and I agree with it, I would love to hear more about his meeting Dr. King. That must be a very interesting story.
Dr. King was a Star Trek fan. He convinced Nichelle Nichols to stay on the show when she was toying with leaving to further her career. It's quite possible that Dr King was the fan meeting Mr Takai.
True, I forgot about his meeting with Nichelle Nichols. How cool is it that he was a Trekkie?
Voting out of anger or protest is what got Obama elected twice, Trump and Biden once..so far.
This upcoming election I'm voting for independent or 3rd party. Fuck blue or red.
Republicans keep their hold on power by systematically disenfranchising voters who disagree with their policies. In a perfect world, voting for a third-party candidate that has no chance to win might have some positive impact; in our world, it means you're doing the Republicans' work for them.
Notice how blue voters shame you instead of questioning why the party isn't attracting your vote. Think about how you're being shamed in to voting for a party which provides weapons for an ongoing fascist genocide, then they say if you don't support this the fascist will win, and it will be your fault. Not the Democrats fault, the ones who could easily run a popular candidate to beat the historically unpopular Trump, nope it's the fault of the voters they need, and they want to get them by shaming them in to it. Worked great in 2016, keep it up guys, best case the Democrats win and keep funding ad campaigns for fascist GOP candidates, don't forget Hillary's campaign helped Trump get the nomination. Downward spiral politics.
No, candidates "earn your vote" in the primaries -- the general election is damage control. The fact that needs to be explained is depressing.
We saw what abstaining and protest votes got us in 2016 and nobody should be stupid enough to fall for that again. I will absolutely shame someone for being an idiot incapable of pragmatism in a choice between "bad" or "irrecoverably catastrophic" when the options are already outside of their control.
You know Biden or Trump (or his proxy) is going to be the president in 2024. You also know MAGA voters are organized, motivated, and will turn out to vote for their candidate. It is a bald fact that 3rd party or protest votes will only serve to help Donald Trump get elected and nothing else.
Good fucking luck forwarding any leftist cause or candidates in your lifetime if Trump is elected.
This is how democracies die. Fascists come to power when their opposition fractures. I'm not telling you what to do, I'm just telling you how it is. Choose wisely.
Dems should band together and all vote for someone in a third party to show current party leadership you are no longer putting up with their choices and don't need them. Vote wisely.