this post was submitted on 01 Jul 2024
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If they are "SJWs", the claim isn't really that they aren't politically active, is it? In fact, the claim is that they aren't spending the four years between presidential elections focused on the next presidential election. As it happens, if you are building political power, spending all that time and energy focused on a single national race is almost certainly a waste of resources. So, what's the claim here? That "SJWs" spend far too much time concerned about the actual lives of people to engage in "enough" political advocacy to convince a preexisting party to handle those issues instead?
I think it makes far more sense to do the work and advocacy that is required to make people's lives better directly, and thus have built a popular movement that the major parties want to jump on the bandwagon of, rather than spend years trying to convince these lumbering facets of the establishment that they should do the work instead.
The claim is that they glom onto good causes when visibly suitable, which is for major elections. It's that the vast majority are not active in any election other than when they pop up for a presidential election. Posting on Facebook, TikTok, Instagram, and other message boards does not mean politically active per se unless you count screaming into an echo chamber.
What you're talking about in the second paragraph is what is desired, what is usually seen are Instagram and message board posts with little actual action until a presidential election where suddenly they pop out of the woodwork and scream that things aren't fair.
No shit things aren't fair, those of us actually being active trying to get local support for the same ideas get pissed at the sudden influx of people with good intentions but no idea how to act on them other than lambast the groups who aren't perfect enough for them.
I don't know how you got "only focused on the presidential election for four years" fromy previous post.
That would be the context of the thread you were responding to. As in:
And, yeah, limiting the focus to visibility campaigns on social media does mean that the focus is limited to visibility campaigns. So, you know, don't do that. There are plenty of orgs doing lots of work, and complaining about this poster's visibility campaign or that poster's lack of practical activity on social media is an exercise in second-ordrr futility. Expect activity other than visibility campaigns in places where activity other than visibility campaigns can actually happen, and not on social media where they mostly can't.
Ahh… so, we can just make up all the unverifiable work all the SJWs do so as to have a counter-argument.
Okay. Let’s assume this is a proven point and go with that.
If there actually is a lot of work in-between elections… then it’s NOT done by SJWs. Maybe understand that the term “SJW” is not all-encompassing. It doesn’t include people actually doing work.
It’s a short-hand derogatory to mean- keyboard warriors that whine about social unjust and do nothing else.
THOSE are the people I’m referencing. Savvy?
How are you verifying the existence of these keyboard warriors who only whine? I know plenty of people politically active in my community who also have a penchant for arguing online. It is somewhat more difficult for me to verify the behavior of people who I only know online, owing to the fact that I can only tell what those people do by what they post and what makes it way to my feeds.
I count how many are moaning in my local message boards vs the people that show up for actual actions in person. The difference is staggering.
So are you going to seriously suggest that there aren’t any movements during election years that tell people not to vote? Because I’ll have you remember something called “Bernie Bros” which as I recall, were urging people NOT to vote in 2016, and in 2020 some of them even voted for Trump.
THOSE PEOPLE WERE/ARE SJWS.
You’re too tied up in trying to defend people who aren’t considered SJWs. I’m not talkin g about the people you are. So just stop man.
We probably agree on this here but you’re FAR too busy defending people I’m not even talking about.
It’s essentially the newer slang-term for “keyboard warrior”
Treating Bernie Bros and SJWs as interchangeable is a new one to me (overlapping, I suppose, but I remember some quite rabid anti-SJW Bernie Bros and visa versa), but I'll grant you that both camps get hit with the keyboard warriors when they're online, regardless of how active they are in meatspace.
And I'm less trying to defend them as I am calling out the absolute futility of trying to do activism beyond visibility and outreach campaigns online, and judging someone's political efficacy based solely on their online output.
If we want to build movements that actually, y'know, have political power to do something, it takes a lot more offline work (even if the online work can shine a light on good offline work)
He just hates everyone to Netanyahu's left.
Well, what I’m talking about- and always have been- are the people urging everyone not to vote- while pretending to give a shit about things happening in other countries. Those using the suffering of other people as a platform to get people to not vote- either because thy are so misguided and ignorant about how things work, or are actively trying to work against democracy.
Regardless of the reason- not voting doesn’t fix the problem. Regardless of the term “SJW” or whatever you wish to call them- THEY are who I’m talking about.
You realize that voting alone is very nearly politically irrelevant? Especially if your vote is reducible to an anonymous voting bloc? That most of the work that goes into making your vote mean something happens well before election day? Like, just voting on election days, no matter how many off-year election cycles and special elections someone votes in, if they aren't participating in an political movement that is properly reflective of their vote, then their share of political power is merely given over to someone else. The places where someone's vote has the most impact are the places where they're treated as an afterthought.
Like, consider the electoral college, and how the votes break down in most urban areas (which tend to be where most Internet users live). The margins in most urban areas tend to be very much in Democrat favor, so spending all your resources to win a few more votes (or even stop a small amount of votes being lost) does not actually result in very many, if any, additional EC votes. You could focus exclusively on a presidential race for unpopular candidates and pour all your effort into that for marginal value.
Or you could realize the top of the ballot is of limited value and in fact can be severely abridged by the down ballot races if overlooked(if we need reminders of "Vote Blue No Matter Who"'s shortcomings, please reference Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema), and realize that browbeating people into voting for a particular candidate instead of getting people engaged about things they care about is a way to burn out your political powerbase.
If you get real fancy, you can even realize that losing a particular election is mitigatable by on the ground action, and building political structures that don't rely upon the government to do all the hard work and never be out of the political favor of the party in power.
Cool. So not voting is still not going to bring change either. So…
We can agree to disagree. I’m not down with debating the topic where it’s required to read walls of text that are mostly irrelevant to the point.
Not voting is NOT going to create the change these idiots want. Period.
End of story.
What outcomes they get from not voting really depends on what they're doing outside of electoral politics. I get it: you're really invested in the election and maybe have went all in on the outcome of Biden v. Trump, and, to be fair, it's a damnably important election and Trump getting the seat again will do a ton of damage.
But you know what I learned from previous elections? No matter how much I personally care, or personally do, I might still wind up living under a Republican presidency bent on making my life worse. But that doesn't mean I'm gonna throw my hands up and say nothing can be done.
Building on-the-ground support networks and working together to build enough political power to make waves in elections is where it's at, as far as I'm concerned. I'm concerned about the outcomes of the elections, certainly, but the better we're able to help each other, the less impact an election (and therefore someone not voting) has.
Dude. We don't disagree with you. We just differ in that apparently we don't like getting chastised about who to vote for by people who don't participate until the presidential election, but you're ok with that so long as it's "for social justice". I get it's for social justice and if they cared enough to post online they should care enough to show up supporting a local candidate that has their ideals when it's not the presidential race. Shit is hard to do and I don't appreciate putting in the work and getting bitched at by couch warriors. How has that not gotten across to you?
Because you're complaining about people who you believe don't vote the way you want them to (in this case, not casting a vote). I mean, if you want to do the same thing you're criticizing people for, then you must at least believe that you are subject to that criticism. You think they're harraunging you for voting for someone while not visibility engaging in putting in the work. How is complaining about those people any different?
Let me be clear: the Democratic party and particularly the Biden campaign is failing hard at giving people something they want to vote for. They have gone all in on being a protest vote against Trump, and that's not very exciting, especially given the strong misgivings people have about the Biden Administration's role in supplying the weapons used in Gaza. Like, what is the Democratic Party planning to do to reach someone in Southeast Michigan who lost relatives to weapons Biden's admin sent to Israel? Who voted "uncommitted" in the primary because of that? Because I haven't seen anything besides "Trump would kill more of your family" which rings awfully hollow. This is in a state that was fairly key to Biden's previous victory. So, what work is being done on the ground to reach out? Like, that's the sort of things that actually need, like, visibility campaigns, so if that work is being done, why aren't showing off the work they're putting in?
The way I see it, so much online arguing is devoted to people complaining that "do-nothings are complaining about how I plan to use my vote!". There is so much more that can be done outside of elections and GOTV that spending all our efforts solely on the elections is a grave misuse. You think the people complaining about people voting for Biden and Trump are sitting on the couch and not doing anything? Encourage them to get out and do the things that make it so we don't have to vote for the same horrible dichotomy every four years. Are they doing the work? Encourage them to give visibility to the work they're doing (or the work people like them are doing). Stop complaining about how people handle dealing with bad choices in a system that isn't really responsive to them.
I will continue to complain about people who only show up once every four years and bitch about the choices. I do outreach pretty much every year in my local area for whatever election is up next, so seeing apathetic assholes who try to push that apathy on others instead of standing for what they believe the other three years is still going to rankle with me. If they can't hold their convictions and get involved then they should shut the fuck up about not voting when they can't bring themselves to. Don't vote, fine, but if you're not putting in the work for change don't try and bring everyone else down with your lazy shit.