thought that has been growing in my head a lot over the last year is that a lot of stuff is driven by a growing recognition that we have basically no influence on our elected officials' decisions from people who normally deeply believe in The Political Process and it is causing meltdowns
this is a situation of where 1. tons of the behavior of electeds and people who do clearly have influence on them are incredibly public, where normally there'd be a lot more behind closed doors and 2. it's so fast and so obviously elite driven you can't even pretend you have influence on it
people who would sincerely talk about how negative posts are vote suppression forced to witness a series of events that is so obviously entirely elected officials and elites reacting to each other, happening so fast they can't make any plans around it, grappling with a sense of true powerlessness
"what should biden do, what should the democrats do" and it is just blatantly a situation where 99.99 percent of us have no influence on it, in such a small amount of time where we'd have no opportunity to have influence on it, and that reality really fucking some people up hard.
seeing that you can't "push them left" or indeed you cannot push them to do anything. whatever strategy you have in your mind, whether it's reasonable or workable or not, that it's basically political fanfic because none of us are in these meetings, are on these calls, are able to get their ear
this is not said as doomer stuff, but that thing leftists are constantly chided to be - 'realistic'. we have no influence here. whatever leadership ends up deciding, good or bad, we cannot affect. it's too fast and too closed off. it's vitally important, it's incredibly public, and we don't matter.
not "there's nothing to be done and we're fucked forever" but "in this specific circumstance - this incredibly important circumstance - we have absolutely no input and we're just stuck feeling shitty about it and trying to make the best out of whatever they end up choosing."
and a lot of people haven't ever had to really sit with that feeling of powerlessness over what happens with politics and politicians before, just scoffed at it as braindead edgy cynicism, and now that they're feeling it, they don't know what to do, so reactions go all over the place.
for me, i'm still on my "so much political change under 'normal' political means in the democrats cannot actually move forward until leadership either inexplicably 180s their approach, voluntarily retires, or dies of old age, so i'm generally in favor of things that get that ball rolling"
how much of the lashing out is just trying to grapple with that learned helplessness?
That they have to have EVERYONE clap at the fairies, or else they all die?
i figure a fucking lot! the 'tweets can be vote suppression' trend was a huge peak of this in my opinion. when things are good in their mind, when they feel like they matter, 'twitter isn't real life'. when they feel powerless, internet posts become the hyper real.
it's not just a way to punch left and scold your enemies: it's also a way to reassure yourself that you have input and influence on your representatives and particular political outcomes, because you're Posting Right.
