#nonvoting fandom

[sinigangsta-ao3]

as the election cycle in the u.s. draws nearer, i might find myself peeling away from fandom spaces (especially on the former bird app) bc i really don’t wanna deal with any half-baked takes on the current state of global affairs…

but i’m just sharing this here for anyone who might find this helpful. it’s an old article from 2018 about low voter turnout during midterm elections and increasingly low voter turnout in general (particularly within left-leaning, poor, young, hispanic/latine & asian american communities). but the sentiment still remains:

if you are eligible and have access, please 👏🏼 fucking 👏🏼 vote

the choices this year (especially for the presidential candidates) aren’t ideal. the system is flawed (and racist and inequitable by design). and monumental positions and policies have been enacted by margins of difference due to low voter turnout.

voter suppression is very real. not too long ago, people who identified like i did (and people who had even fewer privileges than me) would never have been allowed to have their voices heard. we have that option now.

and while the tools presented to us aren’t the ideal tools to get the job done, it would be irresponsible for us not to use them while we are also constantly reimagining and finding ways to reform the government and the systems that are supposed to serve us.

again: i’m not telling you how to vote. i’m not telling you what to vote for. i’m just imploring you to please consider not throwing away this right that so many have fought and died for—and consider how you can repurpose it this election season in a way that can start the (extremely) slow and incremental move toward collective good.

[skypalacearchitect]

#it's also ironic because many of these people are responsible for getting Trump a second term as president

#they're responsible for Kamala's voter turnout being 13 MILLION votes fewer than Biden's in 2020 and for losing all the swing states #they made “Kamala Supports Genocide” the 2024 version of “But Her Emails”

#their actions directly reduced Democratic voter turnout - and now they want Jews to help clean up the mess they made

For two days now my feeds have had nonstop messages from my friends - some posting multiple times in quick succession - about how tragic it is that Trump won, how many people are under threat, and how if any (insert group name here) is ever persecuted, they of course would be on the good side and would help.

On October 7th, my non-Jewish friends posted nothing.

Some would respond sympathetically to what I posted, but on their own feeds they wrote nothing. To be precise, I had *ONE* non-Jewish friend who did post that the attack had been bad - and he quickly had to lock and delete it because his other friends, who I didn't know, flooded it with raging, death-level antisemitism. A few days later he tried again, with the same result.

I can't help but doubt my friends' commitments to ACTUALLY helping anyone threatened by fascism.