Because It Does - Tumblr Posts
Americans, these are things we are NOT saying in 2024:
"Voting blue won't solve anything." Yes it will: if enough of us do it, it will solve a problem called Trump's second term in the White House. We unfortunately live in a two-party system. If you refuse to vote, you're effectively voting for Trump. I shouldn't need to explain this to people, yet here we are.
"It doesn't matter who's president. Both candidates are the same anyway." No, they are REALLY not. Biden was never my first choice, and his shipments of arms to Israel are despicable, but don't try to tell me even for a second that a second Trump term would be the same for the world as a second Biden term.
"But voting blue won't fix [fundamental underlying problem in America]." Voting for Democrats cannot fix every issue, this is true. But by saying this and ONLY this you are discouraging people from voting by making them feel hopeless. Voting is one of many tools in our arsenal, not the only tool, but an important one, and it does matter.
"You shouldn't vote blue, you should do [other thing] instead." See above: you can vote and protest and organize at the same time. It's not either/or. You can do it all. Stop discouraging voters from exercising their rights under the guise of leftism.
"Voting is just legitimizing government power. It makes you part of the system." Literally just shut up. Women and people of color didn't fight for their voting rights to have you say things like this. If you live in America and you can legally vote, then you should fucking vote, and vote blue. There is no neutral option.
"Voting blue just makes you complicit in [this bad policy]." Inaction, and allowing Trump to have a second term, is worse for the entire world than any Democrat policy. Yes, even that one. Voting is not about finding a perfect unproblematic candidate. It is about choosing the lesser of two evils.
"Voting doesn't work because—" STOP IT. STOP DISCOURAGING PEOPLE FROM VOTING.
You know who wants you NOT to vote? Trump supporters, that's who. You should be suspicious of ANYONE who is suggesting that your vote doesn't matter, or that both candidates are the same, or that Biden's policy on XYZ means you shouldn't vote for him. Trump supporters aren't trying to get your vote by saying, "Vote for Trump!" They're trying to get your vote by DISCOURAGING YOU FROM VOTING AT ALL.
I don't like Biden either, but Trump is unequivocally worse. Voting doesn't fix everything, but it is the minimum fucking requirement of living in a democracy. Voting for president has real, tangible, immediate impacts on people's lives, and choosing not to vote is not the rebellion you think it is, it is just relinquishing your voice. So fucking vote. THIS IS A GROUP PROJECT AND DAMN IT WE ARE NOT FAILING BECAUSE OF YOU.
A message to all the anti-voters out there.
You will not be sticking it to Biden.
You will not be making the world a better place.
You will not be making your voice heard. You will be silencing it.
~•~
Yesterday, Michael Fanone — the former police officer who was nearly killed by Trump rioters on January 6 — called Donald Trump an "authoritarian" with "a violence fetish."
Hours later, his mom was swatted.
If you allow Trump to win a second term, this will become the norm.
Speaking out will no longer be a freedom. It will be a prison sentence. Or worse.
VOTE BLUE....
If your vote didn’t count Republicans wouldn’t be spending billions to keep black, brown, and other marginalized people from voting. Anyone who wants a just, prosperous, safe, and peaceful America needs to vote for Biden/Harris. If you don’t then the Republican Nazis will make your life a living nightmare.
“By the usual measures, Biden should be cruising to reëlection. Violent crime has dropped to nearly a fifty-year low, unemployment is below four per cent, and in January the S. & P. 500 and the Dow hit record highs. More Americans than ever have health insurance, and the country is producing more energy than at any previous moment in its history. His opponent, who is facing ninety-one criminal counts, has suggested that if he is elected he will fire as many as fifty thousand civil servants and replace them with loyalists, deputize the National Guard as a mass-deportation force, and root out what he calls “the radical left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country.””
— Joe Biden’s Last Campaign
We will beat Trump. We will beat fascism.
We are all in this together, forever. This fight does not end in November. Every election is a fight for democracy and we will win.
Always the writer, never the reader.