cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/14778555
@MaxBlumenthal
“Democracy is on the ballot”
@DrJillStein
BREAKING: Jill Stein and her Campaign Manager and Deputy Campaign Manager, Jason Call and Kelly Merrill-Cayer, have been arrested at Washington University in St. Louis while supporting a protest against WashU’s ties to the war on Gaza. Video from @KallieECox
Direct video link: https://video.twimg.com/ext_tw_video/1784410882627227648/pu/vid/avc1/1280x720/0RbEXrPU8hvKoqwU.mp4
Source: https://twitter.com/MaxBlumenthal/status/1784440127734812900
How’s that working out for us? How do you see it actually working for us?
Even before Trump, no one could break through the stranglehold the two party system has. There’s an entire segment of people who are neither centrist nor conservative who have been and will continue to be without a voice. Those people will continue to vote blue/centrist because it’s better than the alternative. Or they will continue to vote red/conservative because there’s no alternative.
The closest we’ve seen to a viable third party candidate was Perot over 30 years ago with 19% of the vote. And you could argue he got by on his “outsider” charm much like trump, rather than any decent ideology.
Keep money and PACs and lobbying in the mix and there will be no change. Keep voting in blue/red and we keep the money flowing… but there’s no conceivable way to vote them out.
I get that in this moment in time it feels like life or death for democracy and it’s anybody but Trump, but let’s imagine that’s all behind us and the threat of Trump is gone. What now? How do we actually get representation instead of two parties run by and for corporations? Because nothing anyone has done in my lifetime so far has made a dent.
You can give up if you’d rather. Or you can look at what America in particular and the world in general used to be and take the wins the left has won and build off them, while learning from the losses.
Unfortunately, one of those lessons is never actually trust liberals, but that’s what the organizing is for.
And if our efforts can’t halt the oh so obvious disaster… Well, revolutions don’t happen when people are happy.
I do feel like giving up. But my question remains, what is the path forward? Let’s say I help “organize”, what does that look like? Protesting in streets doesn’t work in America, speaking with your money does… but I don’t have the money to compete with corporations and collectively we don’t, either.
sidebar: I’m currently at 0 internet points for my comment. Not saying it was you, it probably wasn’t, but my comment was genuine and not some shitpost or edgy hot take. I thought the reason we’re here and not reddit is (among many other things) because voting is used to highlight good conversations that we need to have (and to bury the bullshit), it’s not a hivemind agree/disagree button.
You get to choose between getting punched in the arm, or getting kicked in the face. If you don’t choose, the latter is more likely.
I downvoted both comments, because they’re both talking point by the “everyone gets kicked in the face” party. I also don’t really see “but how do we fix the world?” as a requirement to vote against getting kicked in the face.
