Sibling Rivalry: The One About Voting

look how vote blue no matter who turned out lol

hausofleif

"If you ready to die to stop someone else's genocide...then sign your ass up for the military and fight" was kind of following the video you stitched til I saw this. Couldn't even finish listening after that. If you aren't ready to die for another colonized person and to support them then we just do not have the same morals and that's fine. but nothing you say can make us see eye to eye if you dont care about the suffering of other people and are ready to mae a stand against it

Judy

If people refuse to support a candidate that supports genocide against Indigenous people, its pretty fucked up to say they are handing the presidency to Trump. In the system we currently have, voting is not that revolutionary imo

Judy

!!!! agreed.

Francesca Downs

Disclaimer: I love you both (wait, all three! Jacob is a gem too!) I would love to discuss this properly through a call rather than through a wall of text. If the opportunity ever presents itself, hit me up or let me know if you're open to having someone on that can do this viewpoint justice. Please don't mistake my tone for anything but respectful and loving disagreement with some (not all) of ya'll's perspectives. The views expressed in the TikTok clip are fundamentally reformist. I agree that it's easier to destroy/wreck something than to build it. However, I would argue that this TikToker achieves precisely what they're criticizing. And this is my issue with the "vote blue no matter who" crowd. It's exhausting having liberals attempt to guilt-trip some of the most disenfranchised would-be voters into voting for people that have done everything to lose our support. Talk about destroying any prospect for solidarity-building. It's cringe liberal rhetoric, tbh. Plus, when has guilt-tripping would-be-voters ever worked? It didn't work in 2016 for Hillary Clinton. I have yet to see any empirical evidence that it works. Regardless, you know what's more effective? Pushing political candidates toward developing a platform that goes beyond "we're not as racist as the other guys." If reform is the goal, then why are folks expending all this energy directing their ire towards disillusioned would-be voters - often folks they're in community with - instead of the very people who wield power and have the resources to develop popular policy proposals and stop the slaughter of our peoples? No shade, the "vote blue no matter who" crowd hasn't thought critically and concretely about the concept of solidarity, let alone international solidarity. As someone who is Arab, I can tell you that Democrats' foreign policies vis-a-vis the Middle East are not all that different from Republicans'. Biden has wreaked more havoc on Palestinians than Trump did. Obama increased air strikes in the region tenfold relative to Bush Jr. And yet I continually find folks reminiscing about the Obama days simply because his election was a historic event. Obviously I agree it was a huge deal. But why do folks get so caught up in identity politics at the expense of a materialist analysis that considers solidarity-building? Surely folks understand the reluctance to vote for Democrats who have directly contributed to the death of our loved ones... It's honestly not that complicated. It's a lot for one's conscience to bear. Yes, the alternative may be worse. We're well-aware. That's not revelatory. So though I agree that the argument for the lesser of two evils is not unsound (especially for domestic policy), if the vision for the future includes seeing the interrelatedness of our struggles, using that for international coalition-building, and translating that into global organizing with concerted actions that have economic consequences for war profiteers, defense contractors, corporations complicit with the violence of western imperialists and their colonial vassal states (e.g., Israel), then the guilt-tripping is simply counter-productive. It demonizes the very people who are currently politically homeless. How is that useful? How is that not a lost opportunity? Another point: I'm surprised no one clocked this but to refer to disillusioned voters/nonvoters as terrorists is beyond the pale, in my opinion. I don't know this TikToker but yeeesh. Currently, the polling suggests that Arabs and Muslims make up one of the most disillusioned voting blocs (i.e., they are likely to sit out the upcoming election at record rates). Which shouldn't surprise anyone. We have zero options that won't lead to our peoples' murder. Real talk. So this TikToker is calling a largely Arab and Muslim group (disillusioned would-be voters) terrorists for not participating in an electoral system that is avowedly orientalist and Islamophobic. I guess it's easier to demonize people with extremely valid grievances than to direct one's ire towards municipal, state and federal politicians. But we should all recognize it for what it is: intellectually lazy, unempathetic, and diametrically opposed to building solidarity. Liberals are better off organizing against lobbyists and planning boycotts of corporations that are much more harmful than a bunch of disenfranchised people. Another point worth mentioning is that the TikToker overlooks the fact that electoralism isn't everything. No people's liberation came solely from electoral politics. There are other avenues for people to express their political engagement.

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