It doesn't matter who you vote for
Well, it does a little, but let's talk about what matters a whole lot more.
I want to talk for a moment about elections and, more importantly, why they don’t matter as much as you think they do.
I have struggled for decades with the idea of choosing who to vote for when none of the options represented a system of governance that felt good. I abhorred the idea of voting to keep the worst evil out of office. I did it once and vowed never to again.
The reality is that voting matters, but not in the way you think it does. Having people in power that can fuck shit up sucks, but I think we have enough collective evidence that no one in power, at least in the current political models that exist in the so-called global north, has stopped the shit from getting fucked up. Without the double negative, there are no good politicians.
And of course, this means that people who are politicians are working within a system that is broken. It’s a false representation of what democracy was intended to be. It is influenced heavily by capitalist interests for large corporations. It is centralized and unable to respond to actual problems because of bureaucratic bullshit. Don’t even get me start on the egos. The type of people that this system attracts are people who think they can play it. Even those people who start off with good intentions get sucked in quickly.
When I say there are no good politicians, I mean that some of them are rotten to the core, and others are obliged to play a rotten game. No matter who you vote for, the game remains the same.
Does that mean you shouldn’t vote? Not at all. Trying to keep the rotten-to-the-core politicians out of office is important, but it doesn’t change the system itself. So yes, go vote, but please don’t think it’s going to change much.
puts it in perspective for us here, and her article linked above is an eye-opener: it’s what we do beyond the election that has a much larger impact than who to vote for.“I’m not here to tell you whether or not to vote. That’s not what I care about. I care about what else you do with your time. I care about how you spend your time actually working to make the world a better place. I care about how you treat your neighbors. I think how you talk to and how well you tip your servers at restaurants is a far better litmus test for morality than ballots are.”
When I think about how the future is going to unfold, as people continue to struggle financially in our collapsing social and economic landscape, I can clearly envision a coming-together of people: a building of community. Not in an utopian kind of way, but in a we’re-all-stuck-in-this-shit-together kind of way where people can finally start to recognize that it’s our own collective action that has a larger impact than the top-down authoritarian structures of federal politics.
And it’s so wild to me because people have gotten on board with anti-oppression and statements like “you’re not free until we’re all free." We understand the oppression is linked together. We can see the alt-right targeting and re-targeting different groups of marginalized folks—someone new to be angry at every few years.
But we still don’t see the state as an oppressive system, despite centuries of human history in which states have been oppressive systems.
At what point will we stop glorifying the lesser evil in an evil system and focus instead on the work that actually, you know, works?
I’m currently reading
’ The Failure of Nonviolence and was reminded of the failure of this cycle or pattern of behaviour in our political system:This book is not only for anarchists, but it is written from an anarchist perspective, based on the belief that no matter how people understand their problems, rising up to solve them will necessitate conflict with the State, and those problems will not be solved until the State is destroyed. Many readers may not agree with this contention, but if they continue struggling for their own vision of freedom, the debate will come up again and again, because their struggle will bring them into conflict with the State, and if they should ever win, and have the opportunity to build a better state supposedly compatible with their liberation, they will be sorely disappointed, and all their dreams will be corrupted, as has happened so many times in the past.
Peter Gelderloos, The Failure of Nonviolence
And he’s right: you don’t need to be an anarchist or believe in an anarchist ideology, but every time we go back to leaning on the state to do any sort of liberation work, we are perpetuating the endless cycle of the broken system. Reformation of false democracy will not save anyone.
We need to do the work ourselves outside the system, on the ground, in the shit, together.
I come back to Joanna Macy’s framework for the work that will be required for what she refers to as The Great Turning:
Holding Actions are efforts aimed at preventing damage to our planet and communities, such as activism, advocacy, and policy changes. This work focuses on stopping harmful practices and protecting ecosystems and marginalized communities. This is the fight against.
Life-Sustaining Structures are efforts to build new systems and practices that promote sustainability, resilience, and social justice. Examples include creating local economies, renewable energy initiatives, and cooperative living arrangements. This is building new.
A Shift in Consciousness emphasizes personal and collective transformation. It encourages individuals to rethink their values, beliefs, and relationships with the Earth and each other. This shift often involves spiritual practices, education, and community building. This is decolonizing our minds.
This work is endlessly more important than who you vote for.
So yes, go vote. Let’s try and keep the rotten-to-the-core politicians out of power. But please do more: keep fighting against, building new, and shifting the collective consciousness towards something better at the ground level—in the shit—together.
Yep. For real.