#socioeconomic politics

[politijohn]

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[hadesoftheladies]

the problem isn't just women and girls losing abortion rights. it's the fact that men and boys still have more political influence. that has consistently spelled bad things for human societies. men and boys are most likely to vote for harmful policies to other human beings and the environment. they are the LEAST connected to and educated on socioeconomic matters (because of their privilege) and have no incentive nor credentials to lead. they don't even understand the problems (if them taking the fraudulent "male loneliness epidemic" seriously is anything to go by) and giving them more political influence is like placing a tripped out toddler in the driver's seat with millions of people more qualified and educated in the backseat.

these men don't know what goes on in their homes, how to run houses, what their children's birthdays are, and you think they'll know what medical aid even looks like? they don't even book their own children's doctor's appointments. they are the LEAST educated on societal infrastructure they don't know ANYTHING about how a society runs or keeps running and you want to give them more political influence/administrative power?!

FUCKIGN DUMB!

[anghraine]

I'm trying to redirect my political thoughts from my fandom escape blog again, but I found something interesting enough that I thought I'd talk a little about it.

Occasionally I choose suffering (looking at the more granular 2024 exit poll breakdowns rather than the summaries that I mostly don't trust much at this point). Anyway, I did find something intriguing, if not particularly surprising, in the CNN exit polls, which were done in Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas, and Wisconsin with a sample size of 22,914 voters.

(I mention the specific states forming the sample because this pretty notably excludes any blue states while including some reliably Republican ones.)

Anyway, most exit polls including CNN's let respondents identify their place on the US political spectrum: conservative, moderate, or liberal (reminder that "liberal" in US usage can be a pejorative for "less leftist than me" but also a shorthand for "radical leftist" but also for "anyone who doesn't seek a cishet white Christian ethnostate", but also can be a more neutral synonym for progressives and/or leftists and is often used that way, as here). So you can look at the election results for each of these ideological factions and what share of the overall sample size they represent.

The interesting thing: this "liberal" category accounted for very similar proportions to 2020 of the overall vote in the sample (24% in 2020, 23% in 2024—a difference well within the margin of error of exit polling). There is no need to explain liberals/leftists staying home in 2024: at least in terms of proportions of the overall electorate, they didn't. Just under 1/4 of voters in 2024 were liberals or leftists, just as in 2020.

Okay, if the most leftwards faction of the US political spectrum actually formed a similar proportion of the electorate, then who did they vote for?

Harris. In CNN's own exit polls from 2020, 89% of this faction voted for Biden, and (surprisingly!) a full 10% voted for Trump. God knows what motivated that 10% Trump share after four years of his hellscape of an administration at the height of COVID, but in any case, that support cratered in 2024. 91% of this group voted for Harris and only 4% for Trump. It's an estimate, but it looks like these very peculiar Trump voters had enough of him in 2024 and around half either voted third party this time or for Harris.

So which faction is Trump's victory coming from? Further consolidation of the far right?

In part, yes! 90% of conservatives voted for Trump in 2024, vs 85% in 2020—likely, some conservatives who voted third party or even for Biden in 2020 came "home" this year. However, conservative turnout was actually a little down in 2024, proportionally speaking: conservatives dropped from 38% of the sample in 2020 to 34% in 2024.

But there's one more major faction in all this: "moderates" or centrists. To be clear, we're talking about the US version of centrism, given that this is a US organization polling US voters about US politicians, not "Bernie would be center-right in Denmark" or whatever. This moderate faction jumped from 38% of the overall sample in 2020 to 42% in 2024, and they swung hard towards Trump, though Harris still won a plurality of them. In 2020, 64% of moderates voted for Biden vs 34% for Trump. In 2024, 57% of them voted for Harris vs 40% for Trump—that is, the Democratic lead among centrists dropped precipitously from +30 to +17.

Tl;dr—ideologically speaking, this data suggests that Trump owes his victory to gains among both right-wing and centrist voters rather than some faction of would-be leftists or progressives apathetically staying home or voting third-party or otherwise deserting Democrats (because they're insufficiently radical or for any other reason).

Oh, and if you're curious as to how this compares to CNN's 2016 exit polls, I also checked those! Harris's 84-point lead among the most leftwards faction is a significant improvement from HRC's 74-point lead in 2016. Trump also got 10% of that group in 2016, as in 2020, so it's this campaign—not Hillary's or Biden's—that managed to eat into whatever the hell is going on with that group.

Harris's +17 with moderates is actually a slight improvement on Hillary's +12 in 2016. Biden's jump to a +30 lead among centrists in 2020 represented either a backlash against Trump from centrists, or Biden's own rapport with that group, or some mysterious issue some of those voters had with both HRC and Harris (I wonder what it could be!!), or some combination thereof. Regardless, there are a lot of actual ideologically centrist voters in the USA and not just would-be leftists who haven't heard the good news of Marx yet. And Trump has an iron grip on the right wing at this point: he beat Hillary with conservatives by +65 in 2016, then beat Biden with an even larger margin of +71, then leapt to a 81-point lead over Harris with right-wing voters this year.

[greensaplinggrace]

the darkling says “fine, make me your villain” because he is. what’s not clicking

[blackponderer]

“All About Love” by bell hooks, p. 122 - 123

[alwaysbewoke]

[maybe-boys-do-love]

Feel how u want about it, but idk any shows that depicted contemporary gay culture as honestly as Only Friends

[blood-mocha-latte]

btw i’m not just talking about gashey there IS a fic in the works. it was supposed to be 5k and now it’s an outlined longfic you know how it is

[dipperdesperado]

Social Ecology: A Solarpunk Practice

One of the most appealing ways I’ve found to think about solarpunk ideology is by using social ecology as a practical framework. Social ecology is a philosophy created by Murray Bookchin that holistically understands our ecological crisis. It declares that humans are inseparable from the environment, instead of our prevailing western assumption of being “above” or “removed” from it. Social ecology is a different mode of thinking than our dualistic, hierarchical, mechanical, and authoritarian social system.

The world is a complex place, and one of its most complex relationships is between humans and the natural environment. There needs to be a balance between the two since humans have an unparalleled capacity to influence and edit the environment. Harmony between our social systems and our environments is a necessary part of our liberatory practice. This is not achievable in the current societal mode of operation. Not only is our economic system problematic since it commodifies the environment, but it further exemplifies our domination of each other. After all, if humans can be exploited, then of course it'd be acceptable to exploit “lesser” living and/or natural bodies.

This complexity of the world is simplified as a necessity in hierarchical and authoritarian societies. Since information flow is vertical instead of decentralized and distributed, different levels of the pyramid have different levels of information. Hence, how the top of the pyramid can do things like say that climate change is not real in press releases while knowing the truth all along. By taking a radical approach to understanding our environmental issues and how they stem from our social structures, we can look at our ecology hurdles through a liberatory lens.

So, that’s great. Social ecology says, “Hey, the reason why the environment is dying is due to our domination-centered society.” Now what? What do we do? Well, thankfully social ecology has some programs to actually address the problems!

One layer of this is education. Like I said before, simple systems like authoritarian and hierarchical ones by their very design gate information off. Alternatively, by having an open flow of information that is accessible and trustworthy, people will be able to sow the seeds of discontent with the status quo and understand how it’s flawed. Most importantly, they’ll know that there is an alternative. This might be referred to as a "popular education initiative".

This is enhanced by direct democracy. The word democracy has taken on a different meaning in our current day and age, but direct democracy harkens back to its actual meaning. It just means that the people to who the decisions pertain make the decisions themselves. Those who were governed start to govern themselves. Instead of a representative that you have to cross your fingers and hope acts in your best interest, you and your community make the choices. The one-two punch of education and direct democracy will allow people to regain their agency in their lives and live how they desire.

To complement these values are the ideas of equity and sustainable development. While some of that is built into the program through the more direct ownership people have over their communities and themselves, having specific mentions of these is important. It should go without saying, but to be crystal clear, social ecology is useless if it doesn’t provide space for unity in diversity. People’s identities are so important to who they are and their experiences and only serve to strengthen the project. No matter their race, gender, class, ability, or another factor, everyone has value and would be deserving of love from the community. The confluence of ideas and experiences will lead to the most sustainable and ecologically sound development possible. Ideas and insights can be gained by the solidaric relationships formed between individuals and sister communities, locally and “internationally”. Listening to people who have known how to live with the environment harmoniously while upholding and even improving the quality of life is something that social ecology could provide.

Social ecology is an important vector in our social movements; the connected nature of all of our struggles means we have to create programs that address them all. By understanding that we are part of nature, along with the understanding that liberation has to be available for all, we can create robust socially revolutionary projects that will actually make life better for people. Not only that, but the people themselves will be doing the work themselves. We don’t need heroes. We just need each other.

[politijohn]

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[revenge-of-the-shit]

It's comforting to read fix-it fics where Padmé becomes Chancellor and fixes everything but these also miss part of the point. Palpatine didn't come to political power by himself. He rose to it, as she said, with thunderous applause. There were millions and millions of people out there who were in power who were complicit in the corruption of the Senate. It would be so, so interesting (and also so devastating and uncomfortably familiar) to see a story where Padmé becomes Chancellor and nothing changes at all beyond some surface level policies because she's surrounded by a body that refuses to do anything. If anything, some of the policies she'd pass would actively harm marginalized groups out of ignorance, given how she lives and breathes privilege and has no lived experience with what said groups go through.

[void-thegod]

Scientists outline a bold solution to climate change, biodiversity loss, social injustice

[blackponderer]

"Anarchafeminism" by Chiara Bottici (p. 52)

[motherdaughterholyspirit]

My swag cannot be replicated I've been carefully curating my vibe since I was 10 years old when I would stare out into the valley and think it's so desolate and beautiful.

[zorciarkrildrush]

When a rocket explodes a kid into a million pieces please turn to the camera and say "good!". And then I need you to take a cleaver and go kill another kid yourself. I need you to target a random person in a random house and hack them to pieces. You can't ask them if they're the right ethnicity, or if they have the right political opinions, or if they have the means to move elsewhere. You need to go in there and kill them and then you can keep on cheering from the sidelines at anybody else who gets killed. You have the moral highground, it's okay - they were physically in a place where it's cool to kill anybody you find.

[badolmen]

Them: you good?

Me: what unique socioeconomic circumstances led to the SDC’s apparent success in unifying an entire continent of diverse cultures and ethnicities? what motivated their initial attack on ‘the great energy producing deserts’? how did they destroy these ‘deserts’ across a wide geographic area with substantial human habitation and cultural importance? was there retaliation from the countries or allies of these countries where the attacks took place? what was the political situation of these vague ‘deserts’ that their destruction crippled western response to SDC mobilization in South America? were the ODIN attacks isolated to the US? if so as they appear to be why did no allied countries provide military or material assistance to the US? why did no potentially hostile nations of note such as Russia take advantage of the weakened US or clearly ally with the still young SDC? what is the political structure of the SDC? as a whole ass continent how are they involved with international trade, relations, and economy? did the UN have a response to their attacks on the US?

Them: um. I don’t -

Me: and that’s just immediate in-universe questions! aren’t you fascinated by the political and social circumstances surrounding a game centering on the American WASP fears of foreign invasion that was produced during Barack Obama’s presidency? the implications of building a literal wall to protect against organized military as opposed to nebulous illegals immigrants that the Trump campaign focused on a few years later? don’t you find the evolution of white European xenophobia and anti-immigration as it occurred in the US a horrific but fascinating cultural phenomenon? the impact of the Cold War heightened fears of military invasion and direct enemy contact; what was brought over from this specific conflict in the translation back to xenophobic anti-immigration policies? not to mentioned the impact of the 2001 terrorist attacks; and of course this all circles back to the portrayal of the SDC as the highly skilled, highly organized, but poorly politically defined Hispanic military invading from the south. you have to consider the historical context of those nations too in their portrayal - did the SDC leverage cultural attitudes regarding colonialism to solidify their control from within or another method to maintain popular favor/tolerance? do these countries retain their national identity under the SDC and if not how is the loss of that identity impacting the culture and interactions of the citizens?