#voter suppression and rigged systems

[gynoidgearhead]

[Image caption for first post: a series of electoral maps, first showing the states in the contiguous US by percentage of votes for each candidate; then showing all counties in the contiguous US shaded by quantity (white versus shaded) and skew (hue) of votes; then a representation with dots placed approximately showing where each vote was cast geographically, resulting in a map full of blue, red, and purple blotches and lines tracing the country. End caption.]

A reminder that first past the post, winner take all, red/blue electoral college maps promote political tribalism and encourage gross stereotyping. It turns the political process into a game to be won or lost, a sport with teams where the goal is the beat the other side. It erodes nuance, destroys bipartisanship, and crushes third party thought.

More Trump voters live in California than Texas. More Biden voters live in Texas than New York. No political candidate ever carries a state with even 70% of the vote.

Election maps like these move us closer to the truth.

Remember that the loudest, most extreme voices may make the best TV and the most viral videos- but they aren't the reality of your neighbors. Or of mine.

[wiisagi-maiingan]

Regular reminder that making a bunch of guilt trippy (and often inaccurate) posts about voting does not actually make people who are on the fence about it any more likely to want to support your preferred candidate and they also don't help the people who DO want to vote but can't because of registration issues and voter suppression.

People who are already deeply disillusioned and bitter by a rigged and violent electoral system are not going to be swayed by you spamming "vote blue no matter who" or your seven paragraph essay about how they personally are responsible for the US's descent into fascism.

[iwritethingssometimes]

I'm seeing some posting about a feeling of fishiness about the recently completed US Election.

In the attempt to do something more productive than my last post, I'm gonna do an adhoc examination of how feasible I think a "rigged election" actually is, looking at a few methods that could have been used. So, to start with, what is the actual evidence here?

Most of it is... honestly vibes based, which I get, but don't put a lot of stock in, There was a lot of energy around the Harris campaign, and she had some good polls, but Donald Trump has proved nothing else in the past fucking decade, its that the polls literally do not matter for him, and he can outperform them by a hundred miles.

But. There's also some numbers.

None of this has been verified yet, and I want to make that clear, but this year has largely reported record turnout in a ton of states, especially the swing states, and yet, so far.

The number of votes seems much lower this year.

Not republican votes, not democrat votes, all votes. Hell, third party voting collapsed this year--whatever else you take from this election, this was not a case of the left splitting the vote.

Now, it's true that the vote count hasn't been completed, and it's possible that the numbers will make more sense once that's done. It's also true that the states didn't have quite the same turn-out as last year... but it was only a percentage point or two lower.

Add that to the frequent postings about people having their ballots rejected for... questionable reasons, and.

Well. It starts going from a "the moon is fake!" conspiracy to "Epstein had sex slaves" conspiracy.

But, okay, is it even possible for Trump to have faked the vote like this? People talked about it, but it was mostly in terms of legal challenges trying to overturn a Harris victory, or pulling in the supreme court to decide narrow districts. This, by all accounts, seems to be a straight forward Trump sweep.

So if there is shenanigans afoot, how could he have done it?

There's three feasible(ish) pathways, in my opinion:

Voter suppression and manipulation pre-ballot: Yeah this happened. It's also irrelevant to any possibility that the vote counts were tampered with. Look, this election was flooded with misinformation, legal suits, court cases, and election officials doing everything in their power to fuck with people's right to vote. It was filled with ballot boxes being lit on fire. Elon Musk did a fucking paid vote scheme! Of course there was voter suppression! But there always is, and although it was worse this year than many others, it wouldn't cause any numerical mismatch between turn out and votes, and there's not much that can be done now for this election. Even if someone voted because Musk slipped them $100, no court will ever be able to prove they didn't just happen upon $100 bucks and then voted for Trump.

Voting machines were manipulated: A few hours ago I would have said this was practically impossible, but apparently a bunch of election officials and cyber-security experts were sounding the alarm about this a few months ago, so, uh. That being said, I've seen people claiming that Starlink or whatever hacked voting machines, and no. No, Starlink did not hack voting machines. No one "hacked" voting machines. They weren't connected to the internet, or any wireless communication systems, because anyone with any degree of cybersecurity knowledge will tell you that's how you create an insecure system. Now, it's not impossible, technically speaking, than Elon Musk or fucking Russia managed to hire engineers and somehow bribe enough officals to get access to the machines and install hardware that would allow external access, but in that case we live in a Bond movie and somehow have bigger problems. So, if the voting machines themselves were compromised in any technological way, it would have required direct, physical access, which should be basically impossible, unless...

Ballot officials fucked with the vote This is the one I think is plausible. Basically, in this case, what could have happened is that various election officials at different levels of the process more or less lied about the vote count. This could have happened in a lot of different ways--they could have found reasons to reject mail-in ballots, which several states attempted to make legal, they could have found reasons to reject in-person ballots, which several states attempted to make legal. They could have, if the corruption ran deep enough to make this feasible, just... not counted or reported votes that swung for Harris. They could have, if the election machines work similar to the ones up here in BC, seen the results from the machines, then called the central election office over the phone--because remember, the ballot boxes should not be connected to anything. I don't know. There's a lot of options, and it varies from state to state, because remember, each state runs their own elections, and has their own rules and procedures.

So yeah, three explanations, only one of which is really plausible.

Now, I want to be clear, I don't think this election was fraudulent. Not yet, at least, I need to see actual evidence, or this is nothing more than a theory, but I also want to be clear.

...3 makes sense.

3 would explain why urban areas seemed to be underrepresented in this election, while rural areas surged. 3 would explain a discrepancy between voter turn out and votes counted. 3 would fit the strategy Trump and MAGA loyalists have been describing for the last four years, of infiltrating the election machinery and manipulating it to their own ends.

So I'm not saying it's likely that Trump fucked with the vote, not without evidence. Not yet.

But I will say this looks a hell of a lot more plausible than any claims made in the aftermath of the 2020 election.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Matt Johnson at The UnPopulist:

Joe Rogan, a UFC commentator and comedian who hosts the most popular podcast in the United States and possibly the world, has developed a reputation as an anti-tribal and fiercely independent voice who is beholden to no political party or faction. In the eyes of his regular guest Jordan Peterson, Rogan is “the most powerful journalist who’s ever lived,” and he has managed to gain such broad appeal because he “just asks questions.” But the notion that Rogan is an honest broker of information who has an overriding commitment to the truth is absurd. In fact, he has only one consistent mission: attempting to debunk mainstream media narratives by entertaining conspiracy theories. He’s more of a populist than a non-partisan—and he’s definitely no truth-seeker. Nothing illustrates this better than his warmly favorable treatment of both Donald Trump and RJK Jr., along with the parade of other cranks he features who peddle outlandish conspiracy theories and constantly congratulate themselves for being “anti-establishment” or “heterodox.” The effect, whether he intends it or not, is to overwhelm our epistemic infrastructure and pave the way for dangerous populist demagogues.

The Most Popular MAGA Pundit in the World

In his much-discussed interview with Trump last week, Rogan’s approach was to first encourage Trump to air his typical barrage of conspiratorial falsehoods—and then to endorse them himself. Take, for example, the segments on elections and voting, which were always shaped by Rogan’s MAGA-friendly framing. When Rogan told Trump that “a lot of weirdness ... was going on during the 2020 elections,” he was basically affirming Trump’s Big Lie and ignoring the fact that the 2020 election was the most scrutinized contest in American history. The rest predictably followed:

Trump claimed that “old-fashioned ballot screwing” had taken place, such as “people ... dropping in phony votes.” Rogan agreed.

Trump claimed “the Russia hoax” swayed the 2020 election. Rogan agreed.

Trump claimed the temporary suppression of the Hunter Biden laptop story also swayed the election. Rogan agreed.

Trump claimed Democrats weaponized the justice system against him. Rogan agreed.

Trump alleged that Democrats are opposed to certain forms of voter ID “because they want to cheat.” Rogan responded: “It doesn’t make sense any other way.” Voter ID laws are a solution in search of a problem, given that there is little evidence of widespread voter fraud, but Rogan preferred to attribute to Democrats the most sinister motivation imaginable. Rogan also said “mail-in ballots are a problem” and worried about vote-counting machines getting hacked—a version of a famously discredited conspiracy theory for which Fox News had to pay $787 million in a settlement with a voting systems firm for pushing it on its airwaves.

When the discussion turned to the topic of denying election results, it was the perfect opportunity for Rogan, the interviewer renowned by fans as a tenacious truth-seeker, to press the most high-profile election denialist American politics has ever seen. That’s not what happened. Instead of challenging Trump’s years-long insistence that he actually won the 2020 election, or his enlisting of attorneys like Sidney Powell to claim communist-designed voting machines rigged the contest against him, or his attempts to overthrow the election by sending fake slates of electors to Washington, or his incitement of an insurrectionary mob at the U.S. Capitol to halt the certification of the vote, Rogan brought up ... the Russia investigation. Democrats are especially prone to denying election results, he told the man who believes he beat Hillary Clinton in the popular vote in 2016 and Joe Biden in the Electoral College vote in 2020.

But the segment on elections and voting wasn’t only about 2020. Consider their exchange about Haitian migrants in Springfield, Ohio. After Trump declared that Democrats had turned Springfield into a “horror show” by “dropping” immigrants into the community, Rogan’s follow-up wasn’t to press Trump for corroboration, given that state Republican officials said this was nonsense and have asked Trump to stop endangering an innocent minority group. Instead, Rogan asked Trump to hypothesize about what must be motivating Democrats to allow a flood of immigrants into the country. As if that was not a loaded enough question, Rogan then proceeded to say this: “One of the things that’s been very clear is that they’ve moved a large percentage of these migrants—they’re coming across the border illegally—[into] swing states.” Never mind that the Haitians in Springfield are legal. In one fell swoop, Rogan managed to seamlessly transition from asking a question about immigration to asserting the Great Replacement conspiracy theory that Democrats are importing illegal voters to steal elections—exactly Trump’s view.

[...] Rogan’s embrace of RFK Jr. isn’t ultimately down to his personal charms—Rogan is dependably supportive of health and wellness conspiracism just generally. During the Covid pandemic, the Joe Rogan Experience was among the most formidable engines of misinformation about the disease, alternative treatments, and vaccine safety, with appearances by conspiracists like Bret Weinstein, Robert Malone, and Pierre Kory. He regularly invites conspiracists onto his show to pump out hours of uninterrupted anti-vaccine propaganda. Alex Jones—one of the most prolific and notorious conspiracy theorists of our time, who accused the grieving families of Sandy Hook victims of being crisis actors who were part of a plot to take Americans’ guns—has been a guest many times. Conspiracy theorists like Weinstein who rant about the horrors of vaccine injuries, the life-saving properties of ivermectin, and the totalitarian machinations of the WHO for long stretches, are honored guests.

[...]

Heterodox Media Has a Right-Wing Conspiracism Problem

Rogan has presented his podcast as a counterweight to the “establishment” media. That means he regularly platforms figures that traditional outlets won’t because they don’t meet basic journalistic standards. He evades accountability by always pointing out that he’s a mere comedian and entertainer, a clever rhetorical shield. This grants him the latitude to speculate as recklessly as he wants, indulge some of the wildest conspiracy theories around, and consistently get basic facts wrong while allowing his guests to do the same. So long as his audience laps it up, he has no reason to approach things any differently. But that’s also why the backlash from Trump’s MAGA base was so threatening to him: that’s an occasion in which he risked losing his audience. Rogan has become wholly captured by his audience even as he maintains the pretense that he’s a fair-minded and inquisitive political observer who is capable of seeing through what he regards as the sinister machinations and distortions of both major political parties. That’s why, when the wave of MAGA resentment came crashing down on him when he endorsed RFK Jr., he caved.

Kamala Harris’ supporters never expected Rogan’s endorsement, and there’s no Democratic equivalent of Catturd to chastise Rogan for supporting a third-party candidate. Nor does Rogan have much of a non-right audience. So all his incentives lean in the direction of becoming a right-wing conspiracy theorist—especially since, right now, there are more conspiracies on the right. Indeed, there are few, if any, MAGA conspiracy theories that Rogan hasn’t amplified. Last year, he suggested that Jan. 6 was a “false flag” operation in which “intelligence agencies were involved in provoking people into the Capitol.” He defended Arizona’s Republican senatorial candidate, Kari Lake’s, debunked claims about voter fraud in her state’s gubernatorial race: “All that Kari Lake stuff in Arizona they tried to dismiss, it doesn’t look like that’s invalid. It looks like there’s real fraud there.”

Rogan, of course, isn’t the only one. There is an entire industry of self-styled “heterodox” thinkers who have gravitated toward the right. Peterson, Rogan’s frequent guest, was once merely critical of campus identity politics and other forms of “wokeness.” He’s now a committed political partisan indistinguishable from a standard-fare Fox News commentator (e.g., characterizing Harris as “a master of chaos and deception” who is full of “envy” and “spite”; or describing Trump’s indictments as a “horrible” form of political “persecution”). Rogan and Peterson are part of an alternative media community providing an intellectual permission structure for people to support MAGA under the guise of “independent thought,” “heterodoxy,” or “classical liberalism.”

But Rogan plays a crucial role in this right-wing alternative media ecosystem. Because he has always presented himself as non-partisan, millions of listeners trust that he doesn’t have an agenda. Heterodox intellectuals and influencers like Peterson constantly decry traditional media as captured by elite interests, and they present shows like the Joe Rogan Experience as the alternative. But when Rogan and his guests shower praise on Trump and relentlessly attack his political opponents, they prove that they aren’t the anti-establishment crusaders they claim to be—they’re just supporting one establishment over another. In many ways, Rogan is the perfect embodiment of the Trump-era podcaster.

Joe Rogan claims to be an independent voice, but is in reality a right-wing conspiracy theorist whose podcast has a largely MAGA audience.

[critical-skeptic]

Does Majority Actually Rule?

If majority truly ruled, we wouldn’t be stuck with the ongoing nightmare that is the orange turd. Back in 2016, Hillary Clinton won the popular vote by nearly three million, and under a system where true majority rule prevailed, she would have taken office. The QMAGA lunacy—those rabid cries of 'Stop the Steal,' conspiracy theories, and violent tantrums—might have been snuffed out in its infancy. Instead, what actually governs this country is a patchwork of archaic and deeply flawed systems—mechanisms explicitly designed to cheat, disenfranchise, and favor the entrenched power of wealthy elites and their obedient base.

Take gerrymandering, for example. Districts are twisted into obscene, nonsensical shapes to ensure that certain votes carry far more weight than others, diluting the influence of dissenting voices and creating the illusion of choice. It’s a grotesque mockery of democracy, all while the charade of 'representative government' carries on for the masses. But let’s not kid ourselves—the Electoral College is the most egregious relic of this system, a rusted cog in the machinery of democratic decay. It's a mechanism so broken that its failures have become a predictable farce, celebrated only when a Republican ekes out a rare popular vote win—such moments are so unusual, they become their own news cycles.

Consider the 2020 election: Joe Biden won the popular vote by over 7 million votes—a staggering 81.3 million (51.3%) to Donald Trump’s 74.2 million (46.8%). Despite this, Biden's margin of victory in the Electoral College was only 306 to 232. Fast forward to 2024. Trump narrowly won the popular vote with 74.7 million votes (50.5%) against Kamala Harris’s 71 million (48%). And yet, suddenly, he’s awarded 312 Electoral College votes to Harris’s 226. This stark discrepancy—a narrow popular vote lead yielding an outsized electoral win—lays bare the inherent distortion within the system.

Sure, Trump won the popular vote this time around, a rare occurrence for Republicans, who have routinely lost it for decades. But when the popular vote handed Biden a decisive win in 2020, many on the right simply couldn’t handle it. Cue the insurrectionist tantrums at the Capitol, an embarrassing display of fragility masquerading as patriotism. All because they couldn’t accept that both the flawed Electoral College system and the popular vote had gone against them. Spare us the sanctimonious civics lessons and cries of "majority rules." Your hypocrisy is glaring when you invoke majority rule only when it serves your narrative. The reality? Any criticism, dissent, or inconvenient fact is dismissed with cries of fraud—introspection be damned.

The truth is, for many who scream about democracy and freedom, genuine democratic rule is their worst nightmare. It’s not about representing the majority’s will; it’s about maintaining power through any means necessary. Twisting rules, exploiting systemic rot, and gerrymandering their way to victory, all while claiming moral superiority. Gerrymandering, voter suppression, and the Electoral College are tools wielded to amplify minority rule and silence opposition. When it works in your favor, you celebrate. When it doesn’t, you rage against the system and pretend to be its victim. It’s all part of the grotesque machinery, and the numbers don’t lie: a 7 million popular vote lead netted Democrats a fragile 306-232 Electoral College win, while a 3.7 million vote lead for Republicans in 2024 inflated to 312-226. That grotesque imbalance isn’t a triumph; it’s a stark reminder of how deeply broken and manipulable the system is.

So, by all means, celebrate your so-called 'win' in 2024. The clock is ticking toward 2026, and every second that passes exposes the hollow victory for what it is—a testament to a system rigged to distort and magnify small victories while disregarding the broader will of the people. Don’t delude yourself into thinking it’s a triumph of majority rule. It’s a masterclass in gaming a decaying system, a desperate clinging to power that betrays just how terrified you are of genuine democracy.

[omegaphilosophia]

Unmasking the Actions of Corrupt Politicians: A Closer Look at Political Malpractice

Corrupt politicians engage in a wide range of unethical and illegal activities to maintain and expand their power, often at the expense of the public interest. Some common actions and behaviors associated with corrupt politicians include:

Bribery: Accepting money, gifts, or favors in exchange for political favors, such as favorable legislation or government contracts.

Embezzlement: Misappropriating public funds for personal use or diverting money intended for public programs.

Nepotism: Appointing or promoting family members and close associates to government positions, often without regard for their qualifications.

Cronyism: Favoring friends and allies in political appointments, regardless of their competence or suitability for the role.

Kickbacks: Receiving a portion of the funds from government contracts awarded to certain businesses or individuals.

Extortion: Using threats or coercion to obtain money or support for personal or political gain.

Money Laundering: Funneling ill-gotten gains through legitimate financial channels to conceal their origin.

Corrupt Campaign Financing: Accepting illegal campaign contributions or using campaign funds for personal expenses.

Obstruction of Justice: Interfering with investigations, destroying evidence, or intimidating witnesses to avoid accountability.

Vote Rigging: Manipulating election results through voter suppression, ballot stuffing, or other fraudulent means.

Abuse of Power: Using one's political position to harass, intimidate, or retaliate against perceived enemies or whistleblowers.

Influence Peddling: Selling access to government officials or decision-makers to private interests seeking favorable outcomes.

Gerrymandering: Manipulating electoral district boundaries to favor one's political party and ensure re-election.

Lobbying Malpractice: Engaging in unethical lobbying practices, such as misrepresenting facts or exerting undue influence on legislators.

Conflict of Interest: Failing to disclose or address personal financial interests that may compromise one's ability to make impartial decisions.

Corrupt politicians undermine the principles of democracy, erode public trust in government, and divert resources away from essential public services. It's crucial to combat corruption through transparency, accountability, and legal mechanisms to uphold the integrity of political systems.

[cherienymphe]

i don’t want you to think i’m coming at you or anything bc this is coming from a place of genuine respect:

even with the third party votes Kamala still wouldn’t be any where near to beating him in the election. 500,000 wouldn’t have pushed her any higher, i’m afraid. non voters exist bc they refuse to participate in a system that has us fighting for the same rights every year only for them to take it away. voting for both just meant genocide was conditional. that u can accept that if it meant peace for urself. dems have a track record of leaning right and Kamala’s campaign proved that. i hate trump as well and am devastated he’s been elected again, but the same thing would’ve happened under Kamala as well. she still supports genocide, said she’ll amplify her efforts of creating borders n supports fracking.

people have been telling those who keep asking questions about “what they should do” for years and no one bothers to listen bc they are comfortable. the only way for any of us to feel safe is to have America as a whole to be demolished. forming communities and helping one another instead of putting the blame on people who wouldn’t have had an impact anyway.

she referred to herself as top cop. the divide is something they want for all of us as a people. the ones to blame the most are trump voters because they’re the reason he’s in office now. ballots in certain states were being set on fire, bomb threats were sent out and georgia purposefully didn’t send out mail in ballots which rendered them disqualified.

you do not have to reply to this n i don’t know if youll even see it, but i genuinely want you to know that this election was rigged from the very start and a lot of the states that have had problems with their ballots are marginalised communities. voter suppression is apart of this. this happens every election year.

I hear all of that and I don't even disagree with all of that, but the point people make against third party voters (or people who don't vote at all) is that one of those two people will be president. That's just the reality and people always want to bring up third party and such 3 months before Election Day. No offense but I never see any of you campaigning and trying to get people to support third parties the entire 3.5 years between. 3 months before D-Day is too late. It would be wonderful to elect someone who is against genocide and prioritizes what you do but that's not the reality and I believe in living in reality.

Fact of the matter is that third party and none voters believe that if others suffer then we all should suffer. That's what it boils down to for a lot of y'all and y'all can't be bothered that many don't agree with that. I'm not going to apologize because I wanted someone in office who would give me my rights back. It is the truth that we would've had a better chance appealing to Kamala over Trump. They are not the same.

Republicans are now in control of the senate and Trump is about to show you exactly why and how they are not the same at all

[princecharmingtobe]

Some insights I've gained working as a poll worker for early voting

I strongly wonder how much "voter suppression" is actually just sheer incompetence on the part of various systems/organizations. Because as a poll worker, I now want to fight both the BMV (my state's version of the DMV) and the postal service. And to a lesser extent the local election office.

Common issues we deal with that are not the result of malice, but of incompetence:

Person is still registered at an address they haven't lived at in years, despite being told when they update their license that it will also update their registration (can still vote)

Staff struggles to find person's registration in the system, find out it's because whoever entered them into the system in the first place put them in wrong (incorrect birthday, misspelled name, etc.). (can still vote)

Person was told they could register when they got their license at the BMV. The BMV evidently did not follow through (cannot vote, this one has caused us some drama)

Moved here from elsewhere, was told when they updated their license their registration would also be updated. See above. (can vote, but only if they can get back to the place they're registered in, which has varying degrees of difficulty)

Person requested an absentee ballot, did not receive it before the date they would need to be leaving the city by, so they came to vote in person instead. (can vote, we just gotta call the election office to have them cancel the absentee ballot). We had an especially odd case of a couple filling out their request forms and mailing them together. Wife received her ballot, husband doesn't even show up as having requested one.

Person received absentee ballot, filled it out, mailed it back with plenty of time... and for some reason it doesn't make it to the election office until months later. I personally have not experienced this as I'm only a volunteer poll worker, but my mom who worked more in the system saw it a few times.

None of these are malicious acts intended to rig the election one way or another, I've seen them happen to people of all different genders, races, backgrounds, ages, and political leanings. It's just sheer incompetence by certain groups. And I don't really know, from an outside position anyway, how to fix it. Mom says there's been talk for a while of wanting to remove registering at the BMV just cause they fuck it up so often, but there's push back against that. No idea what to do about the mail, there's already several things in place meant to make it organized and efficient and they still manage to fuck it up bad.

The best advice I can give to the common voter is: Register well ahead of time, do not leave it to the last minute. Even if you think you're good, check in when it gets closer to the election to be sure your shit went through as it should have. Look into early voting in your area (mine has it basically a full month leading up to election day). Make sure ahead of time that you have whatever you need to vote, my state requires ID. Double check you know what's required (sorry lady, your son's high school ID card is not a valid form of voter ID).

I can only speak for my own location, but we really do try our hardest to make sure everyone who is eligible to vote gets to. And it's really hard that people don't trust us and don't want to listen to us when we're trying to help them because they think we're The Enemy.

[eaglesnick]

The Continued Erosion of British Democracy

In May 2021 it was reported that:

“More than 2m voters may lack photo ID required under new UK bill” (Guardian: 11/04/21)

Although there was no evidence that our electoral process was in anyway flawed, being abused or interfered with, the right-wing Tory Party decided to introduce voter ID. US civil rights groups, who know something about Republican interference with the democratic voting process, have called what the Tory Party is doing “voter suppression".

In other words, the Tory government has introduced a legally binding voter requirement that has the effect of potentially  denying millions of the electorate their right to vote The fact that this group of voters – the young, the poor, the homeless, - are demographically more likely to vote Labour or Liberal Democrat is not a coincidence. This is a blatant attempt at ballot rigging.

Am I exaggerating? Possibly, but it is very odd, that older voters, who demographically tend to be vote Conservative, can use their bus passes as proof of identity, whilst students, who demographically tend to vote for more left-wing parties, are not allowed to use their student cards as proof of ID. 

 On top of the 2 million people estimated to have no photo identity at all, you can add those who do not know they need a valid form of photo ID to vote. Research shows that 25% of those born after 1995 do not realise they now need photo ID to be able to vote.

All of these figures and statistics are guess work at the moment, derived from various polls looking into the problem. Come voting day, and post electoral analysis, we should know exactly how many people will have been disenfranchised by these new rules. Well, that is what you would expect but this isn’t so. Sunak has no intension of  calculating how many voters don't have a "valid" photo ID.

Tory minister refuses to say if number of voters without photo ID will be fully recorded  (Guardian: 27/04/23)

Even the Daily Telegraph, usually a staunch supporter of Conservative Party policies, is disgusted with this anti-democratic interference with the right to vote.

“The new rules on voter ID are a democratic scandal. This expensive new system is a solution to a non-existent problem – the government should be making voting easier, not harder."

I couldn’t agree more.

[itwasperfectlysplendid]

This. We have no good options in our presidential race. My stomach turns at the thought of voting for Biden.

The two parties are basically the same. They're working for their own interests (spoiler, it's money) and it supports their interests to keep people from being properly active in politics.

They fan the flames to keep us arguing with each other while overcomplicating things because if we actually all engaged and worked together, they would lose a pretty substantial amount of their power.

So you have the Republicans in power overtly stripping things away from people, actively weakening the rights of not just those groups but of all of us as a whole (just because it doesn't immediately affect you doesn't mean it never will - they'll use the privileged to take down the marginalized and then they'll stomp them down, too).

And then the Democrats play the counter: vote for us if you don't want to lose more rights! And then when they're in power they twiddle their thumbs and pretend they can't do anything because of the big bad Republicans.

Gerrymandering, voter suppression, propaganda... It's designed to limit our power.

The people who say the parties are the same, the system is rigged, etc., etc., are right. But they're also short-sighted.

If our only political actions are to show up at the poll every year to vote for a president, then yeah, chances are that your vote isn't going to really matter that much in the long run, especially if you don't like red or blue.

They cut voting stations in black areas in your state? What can you do to help them get their votes in anyway?

The real action starts with our connections with each other, supporting each other and having real conversations, putting pressure on local politicians or even running for office yourself if you have the means.

Work to gather local support for things like ranked choice voting, etc., and move up from there.

There will always be corruption in politics, but for things to change for the better, people have to be engaged and coordinated, and that takes time to build up.

So as much as it sucks, right now the choice has to be the party doing the least active damage to us our ability to improve things.

Use your vote to stall the backslide we're in and get to work on the rest.

Anti-voting rhetoric will be the death of the left. Literally.

Not a single fucking Republican voted to protect roe. It was fucking overturned in the first place bc trump got three Supreme Court appointments.

Every fucking thing wrong in this country is almost certainly the result of Republicans being in power. In 2020, Texas cut half of the polling places in black neighborhoods, and doubled them in white ones, regardless of population. It was Republicans bitching about mail in voting, and constantly, constantly fearmonger about voter fraud. Literally, their platform is about making civil rights harder to practice.

Would you like to know why? It’s because Republican politicians know better than anyone that higher voter participation means higher republican loss.

But what do I see from the online left, champions of the oppressed?

“Voting doesn’t do anything, the parties are the same, the system is rigged, etc, etc”

Don’t sit here and tell me you give a fuck about marginalized people if you aren’t ready to march your ass to the voting booth and vote out the party actively stripping their rights away.

Protest, donate, community build, unionize, and vote, vote, vote.

By the time direct action is the only option, it will be too fucking late.

[qveenpoppy]

there needs to be a recount. there's just too many signs of rigging the system and voter suppression for it to truly be over. (mail-in ballots haven't even been fully counted yet????)

[alwaysdebatable]

Is the US Political System Broken Beyond Repair?

Let’s get real. Has American democracy hit a point where it’s no longer functioning for the people? 🌍 The endless gridlock, rising political extremism, and influence of big money are leaving many asking if the system still works. 🏛️

Why does it feel like both parties care more about power than people? The gap between Democrats and Republicans has widened into a chasm, making compromise almost impossible. From healthcare to gun reform, real solutions seem farther away than ever. And with voter suppression and gerrymandering rampant, is every vote truly equal anymore?

Some argue that we’re living in a broken system rigged to benefit the elite. Is it time to dismantle and rebuild? Or can this divided political landscape still deliver real change?

Let’s debate: Can US politics be saved, or is it beyond fixing? 🔥👇

[seeveekat]

If voting didn't do anything, why is one party so fucking desperate to suppress voters especially making it hard for disabled people to vote and closing stations where minorities, mainly black people, are? Why have a whole system of throwing people in jail just to strip them of the ability to vote?

Like why go through all that if voting doesn't work? If its rigged from the start?

Y'all doomer ass, "the revolution will happen" mfs who probably never vote in local/non presidential elections are playing right into their fucking plan.

All fucking presidents are war criminals and honestly don't fucking vote for biden. I'm not telling you to do so. But if you don't even try to change the house or senate to a more progressive route, or you don't even try to swing for a more progressive governor in your state or even mayor of you city then honestly idk why you're complaining.

Voting goes beyond the president! It's the house! The senate! Your Mayor! For some places even your judges and sheriffs!!!

Don't vote for Biden but to say voting does nothing is just plain wrong and dangerous.

[thepolyamorouspolymath]

Oh look! Time for S to talk about old people voting and young people not and how it's voter suppression again!

Why is that? Young people are engaged. They have been since the Revolution!

But let's look at a Tuesday for an old person. Hmm... yep, retired, nothing pressing. Might still be working but if so probably have a significant PTO balance from having stayed at the sane company for years.

Now let's look at young people...

College students. Got class, can't miss class without penalty a lot of times (a guy I knew had to attend a Lan the day after his dad died bc you couldn't miss and there were no make ups.) Got hours in between but lines are unpredictable, could be there all day. Times also unpredictable, so may not be out of classes or have study sessions they can't miss or extracurricular needed to keep their scholarships.

Or

Working young people. Might have PTO, but it's like 5 days all year and they need that if they get sick, so taking time off to wait in line all day... good luck. Go after work? Ah that'd be great if they had regular hours but a lot of jobs for young people don't, and those that are in careers are being pushed by bosses to stay. Also, they live an hour or more commute from the office bc rent is too high for them to be closer.

Slightly older but still young? Got kids? You can't afford a sitter for an unspecified length of time to vote, it's November which bundling small children up in winter gear to make them wait in line forever is just a recipe for hell...

Do we see why young people don't vote yet?

It's not laziness, it's not apathy, it's practical.

Notice voter turnout skyrocketed with early voting and mail in ballots. Why? Bc all those people COULD vote now and they DID. Why didn't we just keep that?

VOTER SUPPRESSION!

So when you say you're not going to vote bc the candidates suck... congrats bro, you just gave them exactly what they wanted.

Not going to vote because "it doesn't mean anything"? THEN WHY ARE THEY BOTHERING TO SUPPRESS IT?!? Voting isn't sex or drugs, they're not trying to withhold it because they hate fun!

The system is rigged and the only way to unrig it is for everyone who can to sacrifice their time if they can and vote not only their interests but the interests of all the young and the poor who can't vote bc they've made it functionally impossible.

"I live in a red state my vote doesn't ma-"

If your vote didn't matter they wouldn't try so hard to make it harder to vote in red states. Voting in red states can turn them into swing states like Georgia, Ohio, and Arizona. And voting in blue states can keep them from becoming swing states.

California used to be Red. Texas was Blue long ago. Florida was once a swing state. Obama took Indiana but it's gone redder since. Ten years ago Arizona and Georgia going blue was unthinkable.

Things change and we can make them change.

And that's before getting into more local elections. Turning cities blue, the state legislature.

Red states have flipped blue in recent years at those levels too.

Because people vote, and if we vote in high enough numbers we can turn a tight election into a walk in the park. If we vote in high enough numbers, we can turn a loss into a win. So many good things have happened in states where someone won by like 100 votes. (arizona is one)

[tygerbug]

This is also what people in the UK and other countries need to learn about US democracy - it is heavily rigged to allow an unpopular minority right-wing party to retain power of some kind, no matter what. The voters are not, on the whole, stupid. Left voices are being suppressed. The motivating force behind American politics has always been racism, as gatekeeping. There's an inequality baked into the system which is as natural to both parties as breathing. Gerrymandering, the Electoral College, and a million other inequalities every step of the way. If equality means that people who aren't rich cishet white men also get something, the powers that be will change the rules so that nobody gets anything. There will always be a void at the heart of the Democratic party, since they are apologists for capitalist power occupying the space where a genuinely leftist party would otherwise be, in order to prevent that party from existing, even as an idea. They want to win, but barely, not by much. Above all else they seek a balance, and bias toward politeness and apparent normalcy, that is woefully unsuited to our political reality.

"Do you want chicken on this flight, or do you want poop served in broken glass?" Well, now I have questions about the quality of the chicken, and where this flight is going, because why are you serving poop in broken glass? Sounds like the chicken is also going to be bad, and that we're going nowhere good. How did you let it get this bad? Because the voters wouldn't have chosen this in a fair fight.

"Stop blaming victims of the system for the system being corrupt."

[sublimeobservationarcade]

The Real America Is A Moral Maelstrom

Rich people in the United States tell poor people, especially poor black people, that their poverty is their own fault. The American ethos celebrates the self-made man. The great American delusion is that every individual has the opportunity to make something of themselves. To achieve greatness by pulling themselves up by their bootstraps. That this analogy represents something physically impossible and that it was originally coined as a joke is, perhaps, more telling about America than anything else. Especially as the white folk have rigged the game in their favour a long time back. The real America is a moral maelstrom. President Trump Congratulates Record Breaking Astronaut (NHQ201704240002) by NASA HQ PHOTO is licensed under CC-BY-NC-ND 2.0

The Roots Of America As Slaver Nation

America was a slaver nation with half the country set up around slavery as the economic model. The rest of the country benefitted from slavery through the banks and the financialization of slavery via bonds. There were some 6 million slaves with an average worth of a $1000 per slave – that was a lot of money back then. Abraham Lincoln, the Civil War, and the 13th Amendment put an end to chattel slavery in 1865. However, Reconstruction did not serve the black former slaves well, as the South got around it by their Black Codes and peonage slavery. Jim Crow laws would establish apartheid and keep African Americans repressed as second class citizens for a hundred years. It was not until the Civil Rights protest of the 1960’s that these onerous impositions would be lifted. Americans all over from east to west and north to south took advantage of the suppression of African Americans economically. Blacks were banned from buying property on white only housing estates post WW2. The FDR New Deal reflected the racist heart of the nation because the politics of the time demanded it. The Nazis had looked to America as a role model for their apartheid and eugenics policies in the 1930’s.  Indeed, the US would take in some 10, 000 Nazi party members as new migrants immediately after the war for scientific and security purposes. America remains a racist nation and you can see this evidenced in the health and education systems. Segregation still exists in schools and neighbourhoods across the country. Too few black doctors are a direct result of racist policies by the academic medical training institutions. The imbalance in funding levels between white and black schools and campuses is huge. Democracy in America has failed African Americans. This is not a place to look up to on that score. Photo by J SWING on Pexels.com America’s Identity Politics Greedy and exploitative behaviour hides behind identity politics and social issues. Voters are more motivated by emotive stuff like cultural values than just economics. Populist politicians like Trump and the new radical reactionary GOP clothe their campaigns in anti-woke stances on social issues. They champion socially conservative attitudes about LGBTQIA people and things like access to abortion and immigration. Critical Race Theory has been framed as a socially divisive bogeyman and banned in states like Florida. It seems that sensitive white folk do not want to be reminded of their history, slavery, apartheid, and the ongoing economic disparity between whites and African Americans. Better to ban all that bad news getting out to future generations of Americans. Nikki Hayley, one of the leading GOP candidates in the party’s primary race for the presidency cannot bring herself to mention what the Civil War was all about. The GOP want to whitewash American history in the 21C, as they have for a century or more in schools and colleges across the US. Nobody was taught about Wilmington, North Carolina or Tulsa, Oklahoma at school in America. These historical race massacres were conveniently left off the curriculum, it seems. The GOP & Neoliberal Economic Policies The GOP has led the charge via neoliberal economic policies to dismantle the New Deal over the last 30 plus years. Reagan began the removal of anti-trust laws to allow for the fleecing of middle America by big business. Americans get so blinded by distracting cultural issues that they miss the main game. The divide between rich and poor has never been greater in economic terms. Manufacturing jobs were outsourced offshore to make more money for investors and CEOs. Unions were gutted and their influence made redundant. Both sides of politics embraced the neoliberal way forward. Private equity takeovers have seen healthcare and higher education become unaffordable for most Americans. Money managers have taken over the economy and despite global crashes still rule the roost. Central bank bail outs to the tune of $29 trillion have cemented the power of the banks within the economy. Most Americans despise the system but are locked into it by the two party setup. Conservative voters stick with the GOP because of their socially conservative position, even though the GOP is the party of billionaires and big business. Stupid is as stupid does, I suppose. Photo by Aaron Kittredge on Pexels.com Gun Violence Plagues The US Gun violence continues to kill innocent Americans. “For God’s sake, how much more carnage are we willing to accept? How many more innocent American lives must be taken before we say enough is enough?” asked U.S. President Joe Biden in a nationally televised address in May — days after the deadliest U.S. school shooting incident in nearly a decade. Biden joined the nation in mourning after an 18-year-old gunman wielding a semi-automatic rifle killed 19 children and two adults at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas. - (https://www.voanews.com/a/us-gun-violence-soars-in-2022/6876785.html) Photo by Clement Eastwood on Pexels.com Fox News Poisoning America With Lies & Mistruths The polarization of pollical views and increasing tribalism means that many people only consume news from within their own bubble. Fox News is a prime example of this. It was recently successfully sued for $700 million dollars for libelous false reporting about the 2020 presidential election. There appear to be no standards of reporting upheld in the American media by any agency overseeing this. Fake news amid the social media platforms is rife. Trump has been fact checked and found to have lied many thousands of times to his followers on social media. A compulsive liar being elected to the presidency has been a nadir for America. If any one thing can be considered emblematic of the decline of the US it must be this. The re-election of Trump would be terminal in its catastrophic ramifications, not only for the US but for the world. President Trump oversaw close to a million Americans die from the Covid-19 pandemic in one of the richest nations on earth. Many of these victims were African Americans poorly served by the racist health system and medical profession. #UNGA President Donald J. Trump by National Archives and Records Administration is licensed under CC-CC0 1.0 The real America is a moral maelstrom because as odious as Donald J Trump is – it is his supporters who define large parts of the country. The toxic nature of racism exploited by the politics of grievance propels conmen like Trump. Trump is primarily motivated by greed and grifts many millions of dollars from his supporters. They are paying his legal bills right now. Trump has been successfully sued for $83 million by E. Jean Carroll, a writer he sexually abused and then defamed. Trump is about to be fined a further $350 million by the New York state for business fraud. In addition, he is subject to multiple criminal indictments for election interference, the January 6th Insurrection, stealing top secret national security documents, and several other matters. His life and career is like a runaway train and right now it is leaving the rails for a date with his diabolical destiny. If Trump is the champion of America’s Christian Nationalists, white supremacists, and generally loathsome folk I hope his messy demise is a salutary lesson for this self-entitled bunch. “The louder they roar, The harder that they fall.” (The Harder They Fall, Song by Koffee) “Many explanations are proposed for the continued rise of Donald Trump, and the steadfastness of his support, even as the outrages and criminal charges pile up. Some of these explanations are powerful. But there is one I have seen mentioned nowhere, which could, I believe, be the most important: Trump is king of the extrinsics. Some psychologists believe our values tend to cluster around certain poles, described as “intrinsic” and “extrinsic”. People with a strong set of intrinsic values are inclined towards empathy, intimacy and self-acceptance. They tend to be open to challenge and change, interested in universal rights and equality, and protective of other people and the living world. People at the extrinsic end of the spectrum are more attracted to prestige, status, image, fame, power and wealth. They are strongly motivated by the prospect of individual reward and praise. They are more likely to objectify and exploit other people, to behave rudely and aggressively and to dismiss social and environmental impacts. They have little interest in co-operation or community. People with a strong set of extrinsic values are more likely to suffer from frustration, dissatisfaction, stress, anxiety, anger and compulsive behaviour. Trump exemplifies extrinsic values. From the tower bearing his name in gold letters to his gross overstatements of his wealth; from his endless ranting about “winners” and “losers” to his reported habit of cheating at golf. Trump, perhaps more than any other public figure in recent history, is a walking, talking monument to extrinsic values.” - (George Monbiot, The Guardian, 1 Feb 2024) Robert Sudha Hamilton is the author of Money Matters: Navigating Credit, Debt, and Financial Freedom.  ©MidasWord Photo by Elena on Pexels.com Read the full article