#I don’t think not voting is the answer

[area51-escapee]

Early voting starts today here in Texas. And I feel worse than ever trying to make sense of all this.

I remember back to being 15/16, whenever Trump first started campaigning, and I remember how things were then. I understood easily the fact that voting for trump was voting for all sorts of bigotry, that voting for trump was voting for his ideals, and voting for trump made you responsible for what he did. It made sense to me, I’d say I internalized that, it still makes sense to me, and I still believe that to be true.

And that’s why I can’t bring myself to vote for Kamala Harris. I’ve tried to change my own mind, I’ve tried to convince myself that it would be a good idea, that I would regret it if I didn’t. But when I see the horrible things this administration has done, and then I see her repeatedly reaffirming that she will not stop sending arms to Israel, when I see her repeating the same “Israel has the right to defend itself” bullshit, and then I see the men, women, and children harmed by Israel’s so called “self defense”. I can’t do that. I cannot support that. I can’t be responsible for that. I wouldn’t be able to leave the voting booth and see more carnage knowing I supported that. I wouldn’t be able to face the people asking me for help with fundraisers knowing I supported this. It makes me sick, nauseous with guilt. I just can’t do it.

And it’s not as if her stance on Palestine is the only issue I have with her. I feel strongly about the fact she boasts about her border security being “stronger” than trump’s, that she plans to continue that fucking wall, that she’s just another democrat who has left the trans community behind. But even if my only problem was Palestine, I still feel it’s horrible and demeaning to say that makes me a “single issue voter”. It’s not a single issue. It is approximately 42,000 issues. Likely a lot more. And knowing that she will overlook that, that she will continue to aid in that. I just cannot bring myself to support that. I would feel responsible every single day.

The thing is I can understand the people who have weighed their options and decided that they are willing to vote for Harris because they believe it will be the best for the most people. I don’t fault people for that. What I can’t understand is the callous way that people disregard the very real concerns that people like me have with her. That people can’t understand why I would have such a hard time looking past destroyed homes and displaced families and toddlers hospitalized by air strikes. I can’t understand why more people aren’t as angry about this as we should be.

It’s hard to understand all this. And it’s hard to know that from my position, no matter what, I will still be fucked. Every week it feels like, another democrat up for election in some area throws trans people under the bus to gain the votes of people who hate us, including the one person I actually felt some hope about voting for. I have to rely on state elections to get me and the people around me anywhere, because regardless of who is in the White House, unless they enact things Nationally, we are still left behind down here, and as a trans person especially it’s become obvious that I’m only worth consideration by vicious transphobes who have made attacking us a priority, that elections alone won’t save us.

Elections alone won’t stop the horrible treatment of migrants at the border, it won’t stop cop cities from being built, it wont stop the death penalty, and it especially won’t stop the weapons being sent to Israel to enact horrific crimes. I wish it was enough but it’s not. And my only hope is that especially in the event that Harris wins the presidency, that people will still care, that people will stick to what they said about “pushing Kamala left”, that people will still be angry and still fight for the things that matter, but having seen the way things went after Biden was elected, I have a horrible feeling I know exactly how it’ll go.

[mylittleredgirl]

oh ho ho i have looked up the massachusetts ballot questions and i am so personally excited to vote against the MCAS, the high school standardized test students must pass to graduate. it never impacted my own education because i was in the very last class not to have to take it (late 90s), but i was selected for the pool of beta testers the year before it was universally implemented.

i had a great time actually—get out of class for two days for a test that doesn’t even matter? i enjoyed the process of taking standardized tests (when they didn’t matter) because i had spent most of my pre-high-school days in a homeschool environment without grades, so they reminded of the trivia workbook pages that were rationed out and treated as rewards (in a one room schoolhouse with 5 kids, you take the thrills you could get—public school education was pretty amazing after that).

the most memorable part of it for me was that we got little boxes of raisins as a snack and mine had an inchworm in it. but even then as a dumbass teenager i remember giving feedback that this would be demoralizing and unfair if imposed on everyone. schools chose who would put in the test group, and every one was an A student! what kind of sample was that?

the MCAS wouldn’t become a compulsory requirement for graduation until no child left behind, but it still immediately changed things. my sister was one year behind me, and her experience in the same classes i had taken the year before was so much less inspiring. history and civics teachers who had been painstakingly gathering copies of real articles for decades about historical events had to teach from state approved textbooks. the cross-disciplinary fun projects for multiple subjects were cancelled. older teachers started phoning it in and planned their retirement.

anyway, one of the things i have always felt most grateful for in my life is that i squeaked through my public education before state testing choked it. it was a small rural public school (pretty well funded though, there are a lot of fancy summer homes in property taxing distance), and had very passionate teachers who were having extra creative fun squeezing out the last of their independence, knowing that testing was coming. i was one of the canaries in the coal mine and i will take great pleasure if my vote helps shut it down.

[juvian]

Base on look only ! Like I like Mr.mime even if he’s uncomfortable to look at cnbdhdnd

[fogwitchoftheevermore]

actually hold on there’s enough poll options for this.

every single soulmate pair in double life had some crazy twist of fate attached to them in some way. from teammates in past lives to people who’d never spoken but were perfect matches.

to be abundantly clear. this is not your Favorite. but the one that you look at and go “literally WHAT god put those two together”.

[rosesradio]

Valdangelace (Leo/Nico/Jason)

*elaboration in the tags is appreciated but please be respectful of others or you’ll be blocked, thank you!

[gwyoi]

I really don’t want to be catastrophizing but I do feel like history is rhyming. migrants at the boarder are already being treated horribly - Biden asking trump for help is a political play and trump will decline, but it speaks to how similar their approach to the boarder will be. Texas AG asked for the names and health records of people being represented by PFLAG, abortion rights are gone federally and embryos are recognized as “people” . Idaho is already overrun with nazi homesteaders. The war machine doesn’t stop and Biden lied about a ceasefire in Palestine.

[whenthemarshmallowmettheslayer]

We're mutuals on Tumblr but I saw you re logged that post about no lesser evils/"bootlicking individualistic liberals". Does this mean you don't believe in voting for Biden so Trump doesn't win?

Sorry about the belated reply. I’m going to take your ask as inherent permission to be brutally honest. I will vote for Biden to keep Trump out office if I do not think a third party option is likely to win but I fully admit by doing so I am voting for a man actively aiding a genocide and there will be blood on my hands. That by doing so I am complicit to a genocide even though I have been taking actions to help those in Gaza.

One might be deemed lesser evil but Biden is still evil.

However Trump has made it clear he’s with Israel as well. Either options equals a president who is condoning a genocide.

[youngpettyqueen]

I think about this a lot so I’m curious on the thoughts of the people

[akkivee]

hey i got double bingo lol!!!!!!!

the blank if you want it lol

[purplebehittindifferent]

Which is better? Undertale or Deltarune?

You- you wouldn’t make a mother choose between her children-

W- would you?

[calamitydaze]

Someone wrote a whole essay on the flag? Bruh. How many notes did it get there’s no way people are serious

like 200 i think? people are…. very serious 😬

[hoeterra]

Can’t wait till it turns out tumblr polls are susceptible to privacy deanonymization attacks and someone can tie an individual tumblr account to whatever anonymous key tumblr backend uses to make it so an account can’t vote in a poll more than once (something like a reconstruction attack or reidentification attack) and then, from that, use that account and its key to figure out how it answers in other polls to figure out exactly who that person is based on other info shared on other social medias/public info/online spaces (:

[leapdayowo]

I feel like it's important to point out that in the last few days alone, in the middle of the ongoing flap about How Old He Is, Biden has announced two MAJOR pieces of progressive legislation/priorities for his second term: a) major SCOTUS reform, term limits for SCOTUS justices, a constitutional amendment nullifying the "president god-king" ruling, and b) legislation to cap/stabilize rent costs nationwide and financially punish landlords who raise their tenant's rent by more than a certain percentage (the news I saw had it as no more than 5%) in a year.

It is important to note that aside from these both being necessary and needed (the SCOTUS reform alone, holy shit) Biden's response to challenges to his candidacy is to go MORE left, not LESS. The conventional wisdom for 800 years has always been that Democrats Need To Go More Centrist, a mainstream and longterm Democrat like Biden has absolutely heard it over and over, and we have heard so much about how we need to court Republicans who are tired of Trump by being more conservative. Biden is not doing that. He is making the electoral gamble that the way to win is by going even more left, which would also have implications for his policy agenda in a second term, especially when he was freed of re-election concerns and could just go "fuck it."

Now we, and I cannot emphasize this enough, need to reward him for the move leftward and incentivize him to do it more. When you shout endlessly at politicians to be more left and then just bitch at them for not being even more left even when they move in that direction, you discourage them from doing so and make the hoary old Move To The Center narrative come back yet again. So: