I don’t usually post political stuff, but I don’t see ANYONE talking about this, and I really believe if we don’t do this, we will hand the U.S. over to fascists.

Your vote matters. Most of you reading this know it. But the truth is that the left is HORRIBLE at getting out to vote. From what I’ve read, registered democrats outnumber repubs by 10-15%. Yet on average less then 70% vote. There exists an apathy towards voting in a portion of the left that assumes that they don’t need to vote because “who would vote for that idiot Trump?”. They assume it’s a done deal, and don’t bother.

THOSE are the people we need to target. We need to set up community activists whose only purpose is to make sure democrats either fill out a mail in ballot, or have a ride to the voting booths. Every democrat needs to take a friend or two with them. We need to make voting a communal act where we encourage, check up on, and practically insist on their vote.

I believe that if we DON’T do this, it WILL BE the END of democracy. We have the numbers. Now we just need to get them out to vote.

  • wavebeam@lemmy.worldEnglish
    0·
    2 months ago

    I leaned way in for the 2016 and 2020 elections. I literally ran for city council (and lost) in 2020 to be part of the efforts to push things in big and small ways in the right direction. It was exhausting. People were awful and it was overall a terrible experience.

    Meanwhile, for years, my wife and I were in the long and frequently disappointing process of adopting children from our local foster care system; we decided that adopting kids who needed families was better than bringing any more children into this hellscape.

    3 weeks after I lost the miserable race for city council to a lawyer who had lost (sorry, settled) a sexual harassment lawsuit from his secretary only a couple years earlier, we took in our now-adopted kids. In the last 4 years we’ve had non-stop challenges, especially with my daughter, with behaviors - she was recently diagnosed with RAD. And we’ve chosen to pull back on basically anything that isn’t either helping us get some sense of stability, is at least enjoyable, or unavoidable.

    I agree that everyone who can should be doing anything they can above and beyond voting. But I feel like all I can muster with activism right now is voting, and caring for my kids the best I can.