Sunny Moraine: The thing I think we need to internalize is that voting is in fact a huge part of how you fix this problem. It’s just that I get the sense a lot of people think “voting” only consists of the presidency No, you have to vote in every election on every level. That’s how you start to change a party

The thing I think we need to internalize is that voting is in fact a huge part of how you fix this problem. It’s just that I get the sense a lot of people think “voting” only consists of the presidency No, you have to vote in every election on every level. That’s how you start to change a party

I mean I think the overall point is 100% correct, that is simply the situation we’re faced with, I just fucking hate it and I don’t blame people who feel like the strategy of consistently voting lesser-of-two-evils has led to a severe slide in quality

“Vote harder” is in fact kind of key here, I think there’s just a woeful lack of clarity regarding what that actually means

And it’s a *desperately* hard sell, trying to convince someone that how they make something less repellant is to immerse themselves in it much deeper for much longer

You can't drain the tank of sewage if you're unwilling to reach the plug.

I point very much to Minnesota, where a /shit-ton/ of progress is being made on the state level precisely because of who's in state government on the representative side.

Like, I pass billboards reminding me that abortion is still legal here. There are PSA ads inside the buses telling me about mental health & addiction help, free meals for children over the summer, who to contact about labor rights violation. I have earned (a tiny bit of) sick leave as an _adjunct_.

I will also point specifically to @naomikritzer.bsky.social 's blog, with all the USEFUL information on extremely local candidates, because this means that I don't have to research them all myself. Would that everyone had access to such a thing for their own local elections!

Yes! Showing up at the polls for primaries is the way things actually change! And then in the general you really have to show up for down-ticket/ballot measures.

Here *judges* are elected The very people who turn legislation into physical reality It’s bizarre how little attention their races get

The problem is that voting is presented as the _only_ way to fix the problem, has been for decades and demonstrably hasn't. All you're saying is good advice but people were saying this thirty years ago already.

The Democrats seem happy to just urge people to vote more but barely interested in even getting that message out themselves, let alone do much to get out the vote?

I agree with that on the national level, I think you’ll find a very different picture in a lot of states In any case I’m not sure what your point is besides “Democrats suck in ways that are awfully hard to fix”, in which case I agree with that too!

And yet it doesn’t seem to have broken through somehow, so probably it should continue to be said!

I mean it hasn’t gotten less true!!

Also yeah, I know that’s A big problem with it, but I also stand by what I said about another huge problem being that “voting” has come to mean mostly just “every four years, for president” and there’s a lot of blame for that to go around

So again, if what I said is good advice, then it should continue to be said, and said more clearly than I think it has been

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