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"
but i also fully recognize that my preference here doesn't matter whatsoever. doesn't matter if i keep it entirely to myself or shout it to the high heavens.
this is a decision where we're cut off from access and we do not have enough time to make ourselves heard banging on the windows outside.
i am admittedly even more cynical than i used to be about specifically influencing democratic leadership/seniority - and i mean them specifically, not every democrat - because 1/6 happened, multiple attempts on their lives have happened, and even this failed to get their asses in gear
if attempted coups and a guy trying to kill your husband because they were trying to kill you can't get you and the party to drop the We Want A Strong Republican Party schtick, then no amount of voters desires, be they normie centrists or radical commies like me, can get you to change your priors
we're just waiting for them to either die of old age in office or get hit with the gilligan's island coconut/flintstone's bowling ball that resets their personality entirely
People should become anarchists. Stop thinking about what the Democrats should do: start thinking about what you and other people can do in your community
i mean personally i'm a commie who's way in on local action, worker power, all that, which is why i say things about how change would happen under 'normal' political means. you can impact your local surroundings, and you should, but if you're looking for change on the elected officials front?
even if you elect a bunch of Actually Really Solid local people, a lot of Big Fucking Issues can't be dealt with until dem seniority either retires, gets the gilligan's island coconut, or dies of old age. the ol' "dick durbin is in that senate judiciary committee seat and he ain't changing shit"
a lot of people reasonably wanting to know "what can you do about SCOTUS???" and they wanna know that in terms of Normal Political Process and it's literally just "hope dick durbin dies of old age sooner rather than later because pretty much nothing can move forward till he does"
I guess I can say I'm a communist in some form "libertarian socialist" etc. but one advantage of being an anarchist specifically is that you assume that all of these elected officials are your enemies and part of a system that you're trying to do away with.
like, yeah: you'd have to go bigger, harder and more disruptive than THAT, at which point the liberal public steps in to disavow you and run interference for the status quo before the right even needs to lift a finger; bleak
