FAQ
Q: why not organize and stop treating the bus as a legitimate entity? why aren’t you working to stop the bus?
A: do both. cut the fuel line. break windows. put oatmeal in the gas tank. but maybe your efforts don’t succeed this election cycle. and if so don’t fucking throw away your vote if it can help your neighbors fucking survive. “harm reduction” is not a political strategy for action. it is a last minute, end of the line decision to save lives, after all other resources have been exhausted.
The people who don't vote are usually the most disenfranchised people, living paycheck to paycheck, stuck in survival mode, and they don't care who's in charge because they've noticed through hard lessons that they keep getting screwed no matter what. Also often they can't vote because they can't get off work. They're not terminally online yelling at people not to vote, those are probably mostly kids doing baby's first radical politics.
The sad reality is that electoral politics has a cold calculus to it where they've got the populace cut into rough thirds. About a third are susceptible to full on fascist propaganda and cannot currently be reached. Another third vote centre-left because they usually understand it's their only reasonable vote. Very few of them are actively engaged because it is a deeply disempowering system. Another third are who I mentioned.
That's not going to change just because you correctly debated with me about voting. I vote as far left as I meaningfully can, I just don't think it really matters and I think both psychologically and practically the faster people learn that the better.
I think understanding reality is much more important, and I think the fact that this insane bus analogy gets accepted paints a grim picture of how fucked up the electoral system really is. I also think it's wrong about the stakes - it's not cliff or icecream. It's cliff or slower cliff. Vote for the slower cliff, but don't ever mistake the drivers for your friends. You are voting for your preferred enemy.
Yeah. I don't envy nor blame those who vote for the biggest crash because they think their suffering will be over without having considered the suffering that will just be new.
People often just want change and those that don't are just comfortable where they are. The slow route might be nicer for them but and even for others in the long run, but it doesn't matter what they want change will have to come, they can just be proactive about it or let it be out of their control and in the hands of those that just want it to stop.
I think also people get frustrated by voting because it pretends to give them political power but what they get is almost no influence over their actual lives. I think it drives people a little bit crazy, because they actually believe this is the best they can do.
That's why I tell people that they can vote but they need to understand that real change comes from direct action, so they shouldn't put so much emotional energy into the vote. They should put their energy where it matters.