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  • They say your time is much better spent guaranteeing people who already will vote blue show up to polls than trying to change the opinion of people who will vote red.

    So that looks like asking people "do you have a plan to vote?" And perhaps in a less nosy phrasing: "When will you vote?" "How will you get there?"

    People verbalizing a plan makes them more likely to follow through.

    There are many places you can sign up to go canvassing, which is great. I would suggest in addition to and maybe before that, make a list of everyone you know and would feel comfortable talking to, and talk to them about voting. You will get much more mileage from existing relationships. (It's like how sales differentiates a warm lead and a cold lead)

    Once you've exhausted that list then every little bit still helps. I do think high density events like farmers markets, community gatherings, concerts, games, etc have better rate of contact than door to door.

    • I realize I just essentially said to tell people to vote while you were asking for something more. I wanted to share that because some people think that posting "vote" is the same as having a conversation about voting. Posting is not nearly as effective.

      Another thing that might help is directly asking elected officials to intervene. Staffers for politicians keep a tally of calls and letters they receive for/against a given issue. So while your words may not move an elected, you and some friends can get them to act on an issue. If you have a group you can also request a meeting to discuss your issue which is even more effective. Politicians take notice of organized groups of constituents since that's a block of votes for/against them and possible a group knocking doors for/against them.

      The trouble is I don't know what the ask is. There should be a specific action you're demanding: "introduce this bill" "cosponsor this bill" "vote for/against this bill". And it has to be something they're able to do. I don't know what that thing would be.

      Pack the supreme court (but there's not time for that or majority in the house).

      Long term I think building true power means growing communities, joining unions and cooperatives. Most of us aren't rich or powerful enough to be heard, which is why organizing is so important. None of this is fair or easy to do.

  • turning off voters is the biggest reason why we don't vote imo in this environment and there's nothing you can do about shitty choices that the democrats will give us; but there's things you can do to overcome the other institutional part of it; aka gerrymandering:

    setup free voting ride shares with free filling snacks in gerrymandered states that will pick each person up from home; drop them off at their polling station; pick them up from there; and then drop them off at home w/o having to wait for everyone to finish voting. the lines are VERY long and take hours in heavily gerrymandered places like houston texas and people hate voting already; so making them wait or skip dinner to vote is a non-starter.

    setup free voting phone number and/or website that will help register you to vote (not just tell you what you need to do) on your behalf and include the option to mail you a pre-filled envelope and stamp if paper registration is required. advertise it HEAVILY on all forms of media everywhere and make it clear it's not from the government.

    then, assign a case worker to every client to ensure that the registration was completed and followup on the problems that gerrymandered places usually create to suppress votes. also get lawyers or people familiar with election laws to file inquiries on each voter's behalf each time a gerrymandered place manages to find a reason to disqualify a voter or an employer refuses to let them off to vote and use that case worker to manage it.

    expect it to fail the first few times because people hate talking about politics so they won't listen for the first few cycles.

  • The vast majority of Americans both already know how they feel about Trump and Biden and live in a solidly red or blue state. If you do want to focus on Biden, volunteer with phone banking or canvassing so that your efforts are directed to where they'll actually matter and be organized in line with their messaging. Personally, I'd say you're better off focusing on local races where you have more of an opportunity to come at it from a different angle and cut through people's fortified positions. And as another user said, focus on mobilization, it's easier to get someone who already agrees with you to register and make a plan than to convince someone to change their whole worldview.

    There are also strategies outside of electoralism, such as protests and counter-protests. You can join an organization and form tactics and strategies to subvert the right's actions, and engage with direct action to build trust and community that could be important in the future. Form strategies while being realistic about your goals and capabilities and coordinate with others.

  • Don't have a genocidal sundowning segregationist nominated without a rank-and-file voting process with multiple candidates. Or accept that you are not really in charge of any of this when it comes to The Democratic Party and therefore you should place your political focus on ways to build and wield power that do not depend on it.

    • This is the only correct answer. The settler empire cannot and will never do right, neither by the subjects-of-empire they still subject to fascism, to tenement housing because anglo realty companies bought up everything else to stranglehold rent prices, to carceral slavery in moldering prisons with food that'd give you COVID before it nourished you, to murder in our beds at the hands of SWAT teams; nor by the rest of the world that they routinely violate, pillage, and commit genocide upon. Death to the empire, worse to those who bear its water.

      "I am now quite certain that the crimes of this guilty land will never be purged away but with blood. I had, as I now think, vainly flattered myself that without very much bloodshed it might be done." -- John Brown, December 2, 1859

    • ways to build and wield power that do not depend on it.

      How would one go about it? Would be useful if it's in a general context, as I'm not a North American.

      • As has consistently been the case for people in our position, our power comes from our ability to organize and take collective action and to develop the question you asked even further and for the conditions in our own countries. This in contrast to what our rulers tell us gives us power (in reality, they give us instructions on how to maintain their power), which is usually some kind of institutional cooption, like joining an NGO or nagging people to vote for their oppressors or doing some slight participation in a milquetoast political party.

        Increasing our organization and choosing good actions to take is not an easy process, though it is often surprisingly simple to describe. To be more organized we have to meet with one another, we must gain the skills to convince others to join up with us, to compile the information needed to contact interested parties, to strategically work in coalition with other organizations, to train each other regularly in the core tasks or running any organization. To choose the right actions to take, we must read political theory and history, teach this to each other, and understand how it applies (or does not) to our current situations. The political theory that is the most useful is that which is usually not taught, not even to criticize, but is glossed over or told stories about - it's the political theory of the left and a fearless critical reading of history.

        Because our institutions educationally neglect us so severely, particularly when it comes to the tools for our own liberation, it can take a while before you might feel like you are confident or ready to go. That is okay and normal. There's nothing wrong with taking some time to read or to simply try things out a little first.

        So I would recommend two things.

        The first is to begin reading the political theory of the left and history. There may already be great authors and movements where you live, or there may have been some in the past. They can help you get an idea for who our enemy is (the ruling class) and what different movements have attempted (successfully and not) in the past. Try just one book at first. I often recommend that people start with Blackshirts & Reds by Michael Parenti, as it is a good primer in what we all need to unlearn, or at least take a skeptical lens to, when it comes to the mass media telling of history and politics vs. what actually happened. The value of reading is that it will help you and everyone you talk to choose good actions to take collectively. Those who do not understand the nature of the system we must fight will choose the wrong actions and may even hurt our interests. So education is not just a good thing in itself, it is a tool of political organization.

        The second is to get involved with an organization that does mass left politics. There are certain kinds of organizations I would recommend avoiding and I'll explain more if you ask about it. But most organizations that take a proper ground-up approach and are not an NGO will probably be a useful experience for you and your ability to politically organize. It will likely be useful even if you eventually leave that group for another!

      • To add to the extensive information you've already been given, I would highly recommend the Anarchist FAQ, which is all good, but specifically section J breaks down the "what can we do about it" part.

        The anarchist Library in general is a fantastic resource, another good place to start might be David Graeber's Are You An Anarchist? The Answer May Surprise You! or Kropotkin's Mutual Aid.

        Happy exploring!

  • It's good to see that the propaganda accounts have learned the Fox News trick of having one person innocently ask a question so a bunch of other people can rush in and provide the answer (which is turning out to be, big shocker, that Biden is bad and we shouldn't vote for him.) As Fox discovered, it seems a lot more organic that way instead of just having someone stand in front of the camera and say over and over "DON'T VOTE FOR BIDEN."

    I am still waiting for them to learn to make accounts that are supporting Biden but doing a terrible job of it -- sort of a Lemmy version of Alan Colmes -- like "I'm glad the stock market and GDP are going up so much under Biden, as a rich person I think he's doing great with the economy and also he's sticking it to the Palestinians which I obviously support."

    I've seen a little sporadic trickle of accounts with very bad semiconservative opinions and then also supporting certain Democrats, but they seem pretty chaotic and probably like authentic homegrown trolls. I think the real fake-Biden-supporting propaganda potential has yet to be unlocked. I do support this new development in innocent questions, though; it seems like it's got some potential.

185 comments