#grassroot the vote

[la-tramontana]

when it comes to voting

It's time to stop relying on political machines and staffers to do the work and act like organizers. Anyone and everyone can do it, but it's important to remember that if you want to move someone from INACTION to ACTION, the biggest influence on that person's behavior is going to be a personal relationship with strong rapport.

That means you.

Make a list of your contacts. ALL your contacts, including the annoying ones. Online and offline. Your neighborhood. Everyone who could roughly be called your monkeysphere. Your target is a list of 10 - 300 people who you have some ability to contact.

Next, power-mapping.

Who knows who? Who influences who? Who is in a friend group together? Chunk them up into key groups. Try to find a person in every group who you think could influence others, and who you could also influence. Identify people in powerful positions.

Do you have friends who have more influence in their particular friend groups than you? Do you have friends who you might be able to convince to go to a protest with you?

It's time to agitate, which means targeted asks. Get your identified influencers, people who already want to be engaged in politics, who will vote but won't do more yet (in unions, we call these "strike captains") to say "yes" to actions such as: protesting, spreading the word, joining a project like Sister District, registering people to vote, as you are able. If they say no, that's fine. Let them cool off, rebuild the relationship stronger, and ask again.

Ask people to ask people, specific people who you know they know, to vote. Check in a couple weeks later to ask about what so-and-so said.

You can't do all of this yourself. Organizing means pulling other people in and sharing responsibility. Your goal is to spend as little time "in charge" as possible.

Document barriers to voting and organize mutual aid to cover those barriers. This may mean helping people pay for their IDs, driving people to the polls, etc. The likely fact is that if you know 50 - 100 people you probably know some people who have some resources and some people who are going to need some help. Connect these people to each other.

Leave the hard no's, the ones who want nothing to do with politics whatsoever, alone and focus on influencing as many people as you can around them. You might be surprised at the outcomes you can achieve.

Something that's worked for me, but YMMV: if anyone asks, you aren't agitating and you aren't organizing and you definitely aren't a leftist of any type. You're a centrist leaning slightly conservative with neutral values (smile). You don't care about specific outcomes, you just want the election to be representative of people's views. You want to get young people involved in "something." It's important to participate in democratic traditions.

Make a timeline of 3 months or so leading up to the election with concrete, achievable goals every week. Your goal is to flip as many of your targets to a. VOTE and b. ORGANIZE their own monkeyspheres. Use gentle peer pressure: "I know so-and-so registered to vote lately, have you? Do you need help?"

Don't forget to remind people of both a. the stuff that pisses you off and b. what you hope to win. Without hope ya got nothing.

Don't use regurgitated lines or scripts; come up with your own motivations, your own way of saying things. The less you sound like you're working for the democratic party, the better.

Here's the money line that got my famously "neutral" and "apolitical" turf of 200 to swing active and anarchist: "No, I'm not going to tell you how to vote. That's your business. Check the issues and see what you think. I just want you to vote in the strike authorization. Don't you think our group should get a say in the outcome?"

[la-tramontana]

It's time to stop relying on political machines and staffers to do the work and act like organizers. Anyone and everyone can do it, but it's important to remember that if you want to move someone from INACTION to ACTION, the biggest influence on that person's behavior is going to be a personal relationship with strong rapport.

That means you.

Make a list of your contacts. ALL your contacts, including the annoying ones. Online and offline. Your neighborhood. Everyone who could roughly be called your monkeysphere. Your target is a list of 10 - 300 people who you have some ability to contact.

Next, power-mapping.

Who knows who? Who influences who? Who is in a friend group together? Chunk them up into key groups. Try to find a person in every group who you think could influence others, and who you could also influence. Identify people in powerful positions.

Do you have friends who have more influence in their particular friend groups than you? Do you have friends who you might be able to convince to go to a protest with you?

It's time to agitate, which means targeted asks. Get your identified influencers, people who already want to be engaged in politics, who will vote but won't do more yet (in unions, we call these "strike captains") to say "yes" to actions such as: protesting, spreading the word, joining a project like Sister District, registering people to vote, as you are able. If they say no, that's fine. Let them cool off, rebuild the relationship stronger, and ask again.

Ask people to ask people, specific people who you know they know, to vote. Check in a couple weeks later to ask about what so-and-so said.

Document barriers to voting and organize mutual aid to cover those barriers. This may mean helping people pay for their IDs, driving people to the polls, etc. The likely fact is that if you know 50 - 100 people you probably know some people who have some resources and some people who are going to need some help. Connect these people to each other.

Leave the hard no's, the ones who want nothing to do with politics whatsoever, alone and focus on influencing as many people as you can around them. You might be surprised at the outcomes you can achieve.

Something that's worked for me, but YMMV: if anyone asks, you aren't agitating and you aren't organizing and you definitely aren't a leftist of any type. You're a centrist leaning slightly conservative with neutral values (smile). You don't care about specific outcomes, you just want the election to be representative of people's views. You want to get young people involved in "something." It's important to participate in democratic traditions.

Make a timeline of 3 months or so leading up to the election with concrete, achievable goals every week. Your goal is to flip as many of your targets to a. VOTE and b. ORGANIZE their own monkeyspheres. Use gentle peer pressure: "I know so-and-so registered to vote lately, have you? Do you need help?"

Don't forget to remind people of both a. the stuff that pisses you off and b. what you hope to win. Without hope ya got nothing.

Don't use regurgitated lines or scripts; come up with your own motivations, your own way of saying things. The less you sound like you're working for the democratic party, the better.

Here's the money line that got my famously "neutral" and "apolitical" turf of 200 to swing active and anarchist: "No, I'm not going to tell you how to vote. That's your business. Check the issues and see what you think. I just want you to vote in the strike authorization. Don't you think our group should get a say in the outcome?"

Forever thinking about how, on election day in 2016, I wore a shirt with an American flag on it because it was what was clean. And the 20-ish year old bagging my groceries made a snide remark about it, followed by 'I didn't vote, they're all the same anyways.' And a fellow grocery worker chimed in agreement that he wasn't voting for the same reason.

And now I can't go to a local drag event without having to walk through a gauntlet of nazis.

I realize that the election is a year and a half away, but please don't fall for the 'they're the same' rhetoric this time around. Both candidates will suck, but they'll suck in different ways and one of them wants my community dead.

[nyxnoxxx]

people blaming non voters and third party voters for the outcome of the election need to understand that it's the PARTY'S responsibility to win over voters, it's the PARTY'S responsibility to listen to their base and adjust their policies based on what they call for, it's the PARTY'S responsibility to not alienate their constituents

the dems refused to listen to people calling for an end to the support of israel and for an end to funding genocide. the dems chose to swing right and appeal to conservatives and treat leftists and palestine supporters with outright contempt. they ran the worst presidential campaign they could have, and WE will be suffering the consequences

[ivygorgon]

Seeing a lot of Harris Walz signs and demonstrations in my red state. Love to see it!

[tomorrowusa]

Contrary to what you may hear from pundits and pollsters, people do not vote in blocs. Elections are won – or lost – by people casting their individual votes.

Don't assume you know how someone is voting based on superficial information based on stereotypes.

Of course when somebody waves a "stop the steal" banner and still gets agitated about Hillary's email server – that's somebody you shouldn't waste time on. But displaying a US flag, as long as it's not upside down, does not make somebody a MAGA Nazi.

Many cynical bothsiderists are not beyond persuasion. On the climate issue alone the difference between Biden and Trump is stark. It's necessary to make those differences stand out even more.

Not everybody is as engaged as you are. We all know about "low information voters" who mistakenly believe that Biden was responsible for SCOTUS killing Roe v. Wade or bizarrely think that Trump had a competent response to the COVID-19 emergency. In cases like that some tactful remedial history may be helpful.

The main point is that you can't leave it up to others to win this election. We all need to quit looking for some Deus ex machina to save America from Trump. When pro-democracy people feel that their own personal activities are what will make the difference between dictatorship and freedom, then freedom will win.

[dailyanarchistposts]

A.2.11 Why are most anarchists in favour of direct democracy?

For most anarchists, direct democratic voting on policy decisions within free associations is the political counterpart of free agreement (this is also known as “self-management”). The reason is that “many forms of domination can be carried out in a ‘free.’ non-coercive, contractual manner… and it is naive… to think that mere opposition to political control will in itself lead to an end of oppression.” [John P. Clark, Max Stirner’s Egoism, p. 93] Thus the relationships we create within an organisation is as important in determining its libertarian nature as its voluntary nature (see section A.2.14 for more discussion).

It is obvious that individuals must work together in order to lead a fully human life. And so, ”[h]aving to join with others humans” the individual has three options: “he [or she] must submit to the will of others (be enslaved) or subject others to his will (be in authority) or live with others in fraternal agreement in the interests of the greatest good of all (be an associate). Nobody can escape from this necessity.” [Errico Malatesta, Life and Ideas, p. 85]

Anarchists obviously pick the last option, association, as the only means by which individuals can work together as free and equal human beings, respecting the uniqueness and liberty of one another. Only within direct democracy can individuals express themselves, practice critical thought and self-government, so developing their intellectual and ethical capacities to the full. In terms of increasing an individual’s freedom and their intellectual, ethical and social faculties, it is far better to be sometimes in a minority than be subject to the will of a boss all the time. So what is the theory behind anarchist direct democracy?

As Bertrand Russell noted, the anarchist “does not wish to abolish government in the sense of collective decisions: what he does wish to abolish is the system by which a decision is enforced upon those who oppose it.” [Roads to Freedom, p. 85] Anarchists see self-management as the means to achieve this. Once an individual joins a community or workplace, he or she becomes a “citizen” (for want of a better word) of that association. The association is organised around an assembly of all its members (in the case of large workplaces and towns, this may be a functional sub-group such as a specific office or neighbourhood). In this assembly, in concert with others, the contents of his or her political obligations are defined. In acting within the association, people must exercise critical judgement and choice, i.e. manage their own activity. Rather than promising to obey (as in hierarchical organisations like the state or capitalist firm), individuals participate in making their own collective decisions, their own commitments to their fellows. This means that political obligation is not owed to a separate entity above the group or society, such as the state or company, but to one’s fellow “citizens.”

Although the assembled people collectively legislate the rules governing their association, and are bound by them as individuals, they are also superior to them in the sense that these rules can always be modified or repealed. Collectively, the associated “citizens” constitute a political “authority”, but as this “authority” is based on horizontal relationships between themselves rather than vertical ones between themselves and an elite, the “authority” is non-hierarchical (“rational” or “natural,” see section B.1 — “Why are anarchists against authority and hierarchy?” — for more on this). Thus Proudhon:

“In place of laws, we will put contracts [i.e. free agreement]. — No more laws voted by a majority, nor even unanimously; each citizen, each town, each industrial union, makes its own laws.” [The General Idea of the Revolution, pp. 245–6]

Such a system does not mean, of course, that everyone participates in every decision needed, no matter how trivial. While any decision can be put to the assembly (if the assembly so decides, perhaps prompted by some of its members), in practice certain activities (and so purely functional decisions) will be handled by the association’s elected administration. This is because, to quote a Spanish anarchist activist, “a collectivity as such cannot write a letter or add up a list of figures or do hundreds of chores which only an individual can perform.” Thus the need “to organise the administration.” Supposing an association is “organised without any directive council or any hierarchical offices” which “meets in general assembly once a week or more often, when it settles all matters needful for its progress” it still “nominates a commission with strictly administrative functions.” However, the assembly “prescribes a definite line of conduct for this commission or gives it an imperative mandate” and so “would be perfectly anarchist.” As it “follows that delegating these tasks to qualified individuals, who are instructed in advance how to proceed, … does not mean an abdication of that collectivity’s own liberty.” [Jose Llunas Pujols, quoted by Max Nettlau, A Short History of Anarchism, p. 187] This, it should be noted, follows Proudhon’s ideas that within the workers’ associations “all positions are elective, and the by-laws subject to the approval of the members.” [Proudhon, Op. Cit., p. 222]

Instead of capitalist or statist hierarchy, self-management (i.e. direct democracy) would be the guiding principle of the freely joined associations that make up a free society. This would apply to the federations of associations an anarchist society would need to function. “All the commissions or delegations nominated in an anarchist society,” correctly argued Jose Llunas Pujols, “must be subject to replacement and recall at any time by the permanent suffrage of the section or sections that elected them.” Combined with the “imperative mandate” and “purely administrative functions,” this “make[s] it thereby impossible for anyone to arrogate to himself [or herself] a scintilla of authority.” [quoted by Max Nettlau, Op. Cit., pp. 188–9] Again, Pujols follows Proudhon who demanded twenty years previously the “implementation of the binding mandate” to ensure the people do not “adjure their sovereignty.” [No Gods, No Masters, vol. 1, p. 63]

By means of a federalism based on mandates and elections, anarchists ensure that decisions flow from the bottom-up. By making our own decisions, by looking after our joint interests ourselves, we exclude others ruling over us. Self-management, for anarchists, is essential to ensure freedom within the organisations so needed for any decent human existence.

Of course it could be argued that if you are in a minority, you are governed by others (“Democratic rule is still rule” [L. Susan Brown, The Politics of Individualism, p. 53]). Now, the concept of direct democracy as we have described it is not necessarily tied to the concept of majority rule. If someone finds themselves in a minority on a particular vote, he or she is confronted with the choice of either consenting or refusing to recognise it as binding. To deny the minority the opportunity to exercise its judgement and choice is to infringe its autonomy and to impose obligation upon it which it has not freely accepted. The coercive imposition of the majority will is contrary to the ideal of self-assumed obligation, and so is contrary to direct democracy and free association. Therefore, far from being a denial of freedom, direct democracy within the context of free association and self-assumed obligation is the only means by which liberty can be nurtured (“Individual autonomy limited by the obligation to hold given promises.” [Malatesta, quoted by quoted by Max Nettlau, Errico Malatesta: The Biography of an Anarchist]). Needless to say, a minority, if it remains in the association, can argue its case and try to convince the majority of the error of its ways.

And we must point out here that anarchist support for direct democracy does not suggest we think that the majority is always right. Far from it! The case for democratic participation is not that the majority is always right, but that no minority can be trusted not to prefer its own advantage to the good of the whole. History proves what common-sense predicts, namely that anyone with dictatorial powers (by they a head of state, a boss, a husband, whatever) will use their power to enrich and empower themselves at the expense of those subject to their decisions.

Anarchists recognise that majorities can and do make mistakes and that is why our theories on association place great importance on minority rights. This can be seen from our theory of self-assumed obligation, which bases itself on the right of minorities to protest against majority decisions and makes dissent a key factor in decision making. Thus Carole Pateman:

“If the majority have acted in bad faith… [then the] minority will have to take political action, including politically disobedient action if appropriate, to defend their citizenship and independence, and the political association itself… Political disobedience is merely one possible expression of the active citizenship on which a self-managing democracy is based … The social practice of promising involves the right to refuse or change commitments; similarly, the practice of self-assumed political obligation is meaningless without the practical recognition of the right of minorities to refuse or withdraw consent, or where necessary, to disobey.” [The Problem of Political Obligation, p. 162]

Moving beyond relationships within associations, we must highlight how different associations work together. As would be imagined, the links between associations follow the same outlines as for the associations themselves. Instead of individuals joining an association, we have associations joining confederations. The links between associations in the confederation are of the same horizontal and voluntary nature as within associations, with the same rights of “voice and exit” for members and the same rights for minorities. In this way society becomes an association of associations, a community of communities, a commune of communes, based upon maximising individual freedom by maximising participation and self-management.

The workings of such a confederation are outlined in section A.2.9 ( What sort of society do anarchists want?) and discussed in greater detail in section I (What would an anarchist society look like?).

This system of direct democracy fits nicely into anarchist theory. Malatesta speaks for all anarchists when he argued that “anarchists deny the right of the majority to govern human society in general.” As can be seen, the majority has no right to enforce itself on a minority — the minority can leave the association at any time and so, to use Malatesta’s words, do not have to “submit to the decisions of the majority before they have even heard what these might be.” [The Anarchist Revolution, p. 100 and p. 101] Hence, direct democracy within voluntary association does not create “majority rule” nor assume that the minority must submit to the majority no matter what. In effect, anarchist supporters of direct democracy argue that it fits Malatesta’s argument that:

“Certainly anarchists recognise that where life is lived in common it is often necessary for the minority to come to accept the opinion of the majority. When there is an obvious need or usefulness in doing something and, to do it requires the agreement of all, the few should feel the need to adapt to the wishes of the many … But such adaptation on the one hand by one group must be on the other be reciprocal, voluntary and must stem from an awareness of need and of goodwill to prevent the running of social affairs from being paralysed by obstinacy. It cannot be imposed as a principle and statutory norm…” [Op. Cit., p. 100]

As the minority has the right to secede from the association as well as having extensive rights of action, protest and appeal, majority rule is not imposed as a principle. Rather, it is purely a decision making tool which allows minority dissent and opinion to be expressed (and acted upon) while ensuring that no minority forces its will on the majority. In other words, majority decisions are not binding on the minority. After all, as Malatesta argued:

“one cannot expect, or even wish, that someone who is firmly convinced that the course taken by the majority leads to disaster, should sacrifice his [or her] own convictions and passively look on, or even worse, should support a policy he [or she] considers wrong.” [Errico Malatesta: His Life and Ideas, p. 132]

Even the Individual Anarchist Lysander Spooner acknowledged that direct democracy has its uses when he noted that ”[a]ll, or nearly all, voluntary associations give a majority, or some other portion of the members less than the whole, the right to use some limited discretion as to the means to be used to accomplish the ends in view.” However, only the unanimous decision of a jury (which would “judge the law, and the justice of the law”) could determine individual rights as this “tribunal fairly represent[s] the whole people” as “no law can rightfully be enforced by the association in its corporate capacity, against the goods, rights, or person of any individual, except it be such as all members of the association agree that it may enforce” (his support of juries results from Spooner acknowledging that it “would be impossible in practice” for all members of an association to agree) [Trial by Jury, p. 130-1f, p. 134, p. 214, p. 152 and p. 132]

Thus direct democracy and individual/minority rights need not clash. In practice, we can imagine direct democracy would be used to make most decisions within most associations (perhaps with super-majorities required for fundamental decisions) plus some combination of a jury system and minority protest/direct action and evaluate/protect minority claims/rights in an anarchist society. The actual forms of freedom can only be created through practical experience by the people directly involved.

Lastly, we must stress that anarchist support for direct democracy does not mean that this solution is to be favoured in all circumstances. For example, many small associations may favour consensus decision making (see the next section on consensus and why most anarchists do not think that it is a viable alternative to direct democracy). However, most anarchists think that direct democracy within free association is the best (and most realistic) form of organisation which is consistent with anarchist principles of individual freedom, dignity and equality.

[aurosoulart]

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[havegaysex]

Why are you telling people to vote for the guy committing genocide :/

because voting is not an endorsement it's harm reduction.

Trump is going to be at best doing the same as Biden and likely much worse for Palestinians and all the countries suffering from American Imperialism than Biden is.

Republicans want to bring back child labor and get rid of social security, medicare, Medicaid. As someone who is surviving on Medicaid and social security I don't want those taken away. The Republican majority house already put a lot of limits on food stamps in this past term and I don't think we'll still have food stamps if we get a republican Congress and a Republican president.

They've made it pretty clear that if they get a republican Congress and a Republican president they're going to enact project 2025 and call a conference of states and try and take our rights back to the days when only wealthy white men had any rights when women and racial minorities had no rights, they want to make it illegal for LGBT+ folks to safely exist in public and get lifesaving healthcare.

In short

Do I support every single thing Biden has done as president?

No.

Do I like him?

Not particularly. But I'm still voting for him because apathy is not a choice.

Do I think that Joe Biden having another term means that we can actually make more progress for labor rights, trans healthcare, abortion access, advancement of the rights and protections for disabled people and so much more?

Yes absolutely.

Do I think that the genocide in Gaza needs to end and the United States needs to stop sending weapons to israel?

Yes, I think that un restricted flow of humanitarian aid into Palestine needs to happen, the siege needs to stop, and the country of Israel and the United States need to be held accountable at an international level. I think that the soldiers of the IDF/IOF need to be held accountable for their war crimes and pillaging that they continuously post evidence of on social medias. I'm trying to put a read more here so ce I've put a few linked articles and quotes from them.

A quote from the article below:

"While our map focuses solely on high school aged youth (age 13-17), some states, such as Oklahoma, Texas, and South Carolina, have considered banning care for transgender people up to 26 years of age. "

I've seen lawmakers in some states try to make it felony punishable by life in prison to get your trans child healthcare to keep them alive because they want to make it illegal for us to exist and a legal for anyone who helps us exist.

some quotes from the article above:

"Led by the long-established Heritage Foundation think tank and fueled by former Trump administration officials, the far-reaching effort is essentially a government-in-waiting for the former president’s second term — or any candidate who aligns with their ideals and can defeat President Joe Biden in 2024. With a nearly 1,000-page “Project 2025” handbook and an “army” of Americans, the idea is to have the civic infrastructure in place on Day One to commandeer, reshape and do away with what Republicans deride as the “deep state” bureaucracy, in part by firing as many as 50,000 federal workers. “We need to flood the zone with conservatives,” said Paul Dans, director of the 2025 Presidential Transition Project and a former Trump administration official who speaks with historical flourish about the undertaking. “This is a clarion call to come to Washington,” he said. “People need to lay down their tools, and step aside from their professional life and say, ‘This is my lifetime moment to serve.’” The unprecedented effort is being orchestrated with dozens of right-flank organizations, many new to Washington, and represents a changed approach from conservatives, who traditionally have sought to limit the federal government by cutting federal taxes and slashing federal spending. Instead, Trump-era conservatives want to gut the “administrative state” from within, by ousting federal employees they believe are standing in the way of the president’s agenda and replacing them with like-minded officials more eager to fulfill a new executive’s approach to governing. The goal is to avoid the pitfalls of Trump’s first years in office, when the Republican president’s team was ill-prepared, his Cabinet nominees had trouble winning Senate confirmation and policies were met with resistance — by lawmakers, government workers and even Trump’s own appointees who refused to bend or break protocol, or in some cases violate laws, to achieve his goals. While many of the Project 2025 proposals are inspired by Trump, they are being echoed by GOP rivals Ron DeSantis and Vivek Ramaswamy and are gaining prominence among other Republicans. And if Trump wins a second term, the work from the Heritage coalition ensures the president will have the personnel to carry forward his unfinished White House business. “The president Day One will be a wrecking ball for the administrative state,” said Russ Vought, a former Trump administration official involved in the effort who is now president at the conservative Center for Renewing America. Much of the new president’s agenda would be accomplished by reinstating what’s called Schedule F — a Trump-era executive order that would reclassify tens of thousands of the 2 million federal employees as essentially at-will workers who could more easily be fired. Biden had rescinded the executive order upon taking office in 2021, but Trump — and other presidential hopefuls — now vow to reinstate it."

"There’s a “top to bottom overhaul” of the Department of Justice, particularly curbing its independence and ending FBI efforts to combat the spread of misinformation. It calls for stepped-up prosecution of anyone providing or distributing abortion pills by mail."

Personally I think that voting for Joe Biden is better than someone who wants to enact this stuff on day one. It's like they read handmaid's tale and want to make that the reality of this country.

"Chapter by chapter, the pages offer a how-to manual for the next president, similar to one Heritage produced 50 years ago, ahead of the Ronald Reagan administration. Authored by some of today’s most prominent thinkers in the conservative movement, it’s often sprinkled with apocalyptic language." Ronald Reagan is a big reason we have a lot of problems we have today with our economy and with a lot more things. The people that supported Ronald Reagan do not need another term in office.

A quote from the article linked below:

"Trump has given no indication that he would be more sympathetic to Palestinian claims, nor that he would place more pressure on Israel to agree to a ceasefire. “The approach of the United States would be that Israel needs to win this war, it was attacked brutally,” Trump’s ambassador to Israel, David Friedman, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, describing how Trump would act. Friedman is now a campaign surrogate for Trump."

Personally I think Trump telling Israel to finish the job is indicators that another Trump presidency doesn't mean that weapons would stop being sent to Israel from United States

I fail to see how another term of Donald trump will be any better for the victims of the ongoing genocide in Palestine than President Joe Biden.

i think our system is absolutely messed up and broken but I don't think abstaining from voting is going to actually help.

[jomiddlemarch]

New way to volunteer that's perfect for this site:

Non-partisan, website is super-cool, and they parter with, among others, Pizza to the Polls!

[cosmogyros]

I think the silliest thing to me about all those folks fervently advocating against voting is... even if everything they said were true, voting still wouldn't cause any harm. And it's easy. So why not do it?

Like, blah blah blah, conspiracy theories, psyops, "both parties are the same", doomerism and hopelessness, etc. – okay, fine. I could decide to believe in all of this shit AND still vote. And even from the worldview of someone who believes in all this shit... voting still wouldn't make things actively WORSE, right?

In fact it's kind of like a political version of Pascal's Wager (obligatory "I'm not Christian or even religious at all" disclaimer; it's just that anyone interested in philosophy knows about Pascal's Wager). Instead of picking a row here...

...You can pick a column, here:

So which column do you choose? Left or right?

[harriswalz4usabybr]

Speech Vice President Harris Gave at the Alabama State Capitol!

~BR~

[monkberryfields]

Honestly, I hate it here

[bitstitchbitch]

holy shit is this how republicans felt when the house couldn’t pick a fucking speaker? I’ve been saying all along that I wish the nominee was anyone other than Biden but the time to change nominees has come and gone and this shit’s embarrassing

[lighthouseas]

can't believe that this needs to be said but for the love of christ do not decide who to vote for in the presidential election from a fucking tiktok video. no, actually, tiktok user69420leftists saying that X Third Party Candidate is The Most Morally Pure and that if their 50k followers all decide to vote for them they will get elected is not true at all. please for the love of god check your sources before blindly promoting random ass third party candidates that, im sorry to say, are not going to win

[tomorrowusa]

Corporations pay their CEOs extravagantly while trying to cheat on taxes.

It would be one thing if, alongside the exorbitant executive pay, the quality of American CEO-ing was going up. But these executives are making off with bigger bags of boodle despite their persistent incompetence: Media executives keep running their businesses into the ground, tech firms are laying people off because of vibes, the planes keep nearly crashing, and examples of insane eye-popping greed—like Rite-Aid’s decision to claw back severance paid out to laid-off workers on the same day they handed their CEO a $20 million bonus—keep on coming. So it may come as no surprise that there’s a robust connection between the overindulged CEOs and the firms that are most flagrantly dodging their fair share of taxes. For a report released Wednesday, the Institute for Policy Studies teamed up with Americans for Tax Fairness to spelunk into the balance sheets at some of America’s best-known tax scofflaws between 2018 and 2022. What they found was pretty consistent: The firms took home high profits and lavished their top executives with exorbitant pay, all while stiffing Uncle Sam. The excess is stunning. “For over half (35) of these corporations,” the study reports, “their payouts to top corporate brass over that entire span exceeded their net tax payments.” An additional 29 firms managed this feat for “at least two of the five years in the study period.” Eighteen firms paid a grand total of zero dollars during that five-year span, 17 of which were given tax refunds. All in all, the 64 companies in the report “posted cumulative pre-tax domestic profits of $657 billion” during the study period, but “paid an average effective federal tax rate of just 2.8 percent (the statutory rate is 21 percent) while paying their executives over $15 billion.” Which firms are the worst of the worst? You can probably guess the company that tops the list because it’s the one run by The New Republic’s 2023 Scoundrel of the Year. During the five years of the study, Tesla took home $4.4 billion in profits as CEO Elon Musk carted off $2.28 billion in stock options, which, since his 2018 payday, have ballooned to nearly $56 billion—a compensation plan so outlandish that the Delaware Court of Chancery canceled it. Tesla has, during that same period of time, paid an effective tax rate of zero percent through a combination of carrying forward losses from unprofitable years and good old-fashioned offshore tax dodging.

Elon Musk is either the world's richest or second richest person. But he still wants more. Give him credit for pathological greed.

In all fairness, Musk is not alone when it comes to enriching himself while screwing workers.

What sort of innovations have these CEOs wrought from this well-remunerated period? T-Mobile’s Mike Sievert presided over the Sprint merger that led to $23.6 million in stock buybacks and 5,000 layoffs. Netflix’s Reed Hastings poured $15 billion in profit into jacking up subscription rates. Nextera Energy has devoted $10 million in dark money in a “ghost candidate scheme” to thwart climate change candidates. Darden Restaurants has been fighting efforts to raise the minimum wage. Metlife has been diverting government money meant to fund low-cost housing into other, unrelated buckraking ventures. And some First Energy executives from the study period are embroiled in a corruption scandal that’s so massive that even Musk might find it to be beyond the pale.

These oligarchs are going to spend lavishly to elect Republicans who would give them even bigger tax breaks.

Fortunately, they can't literally buy votes. If we return to old school grassroots precinct work then we can thwart the MAGA Republican puppets of billionaire oligarchs.

One to one contact is a more important factor than TV or online ads in convincing people to vote your way. It takes more effort, but democracy was not built by slacktivism in the first place.

[theenduringsun]

welcome to america. your choices for leaders are man who openly supports genocide, collection of various fascists in a trench coat, and maybe one halfway decent individual who won't get elected because they're not part of the bipartisan hellscape. but you have a say in your democracy though :-)