A.R. Moxon, Verified Duck 🦆
Because we are all invited by the media environment to be pundits rather than participants in the democratic process, here are my 10 predictions for the election.
1) There will be an election. There will be, practically speaking, two choices at the top.
(This is my boldest prediction.)
🧵
Ben Royce 🇺🇦 🇸🇩
@mmalc @pmonks @mloxton @genewitch @Remittancegirl @JuliusGoat @zenkat
the #UK does better than the #US in terms of political structure
but #australia looks at both of us and calls us poor bastards, with their compulsory voting, preferential voting (what we call ranked choice voting), and parliamentary democracy
we're jealous aussies
mmalc
@pmonks @mloxton @genewitch @Remittancegirl @JuliusGoat @zenkat @benroyce
United Kingdom: “Hold my beer”
A parliamentary system may still be subject to “peculiarities". Labour just won a “landslide" with more than double the majority of the previous government but with a significantly smaller percentage of the vote (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_Kingdom_general_elections#21st_century).
For the US *Presidency* (as long as there is one), IMHO there should be universal suffrage with some form of ranked voting.
pmonks (330ppm)
@mloxton @genewitch @Remittancegirl @JuliusGoat @zenkat @benroyce Was about to reply and say this. And not to digress (but I can’t help it as I love nerding out about this stuff), it’s one of the reasons why imho the parliamentary system is superior to the (garbage) US system - it actively encourages multiple parties, including established ones collapsing and new ones forming when citizens don’t feel like they’re being represented by the status quo. It may seem chaotic to those used to the (detrimentally) static US system, but this inherent “chaos” works to the benefit of the public, which I assume we all agree should be a priority for a system of governance.
Of course I’m under no delusions that the US would ever adopt a parliamentary system, sadly. NIH syndrome is too strong in this country.
Matthew Loxton
"People like [him]" are not the reason we only have two parties. That's a function of the "winner take all" system. It will inevitably drive towards a two-party state over time.
Ben Royce 🇺🇦 🇸🇩
@genewitch @Remittancegirl @JuliusGoat @zenkat
the problem is we get enough people who act like you and suddenly it's monumentally stupid because you help the GOP
all i get from you is you are entitled and privileged to act without thought as to strategy
like nader voters in florida in 2000
the iraq war is a direct line to nader voters in florida in 2000
they meant well, their hearts were big
but their brains were very very small
genewitch
@benroyce@mastodon.social
@Remittancegirl@mstdn.social
@zenkat@sfba.social
@JuliusGoat@mastodon.social perhaps you didn't read what I typed. I said a state that is going 100% red, or 100% blue. obviously a swing state (as Florida was considered) there's different considerations. I've never lived in a swing state, just blue or red (for examples, California and Louisiana).
it's people like you that are the reason we only have two parties, and both parties are generally poor picks. orange man bad or a Californian who indicts journalists and is a chucklehead.
super.
Ben Royce 🇺🇦 🇸🇩
@genewitch @Remittancegirl @JuliusGoat @zenkat
yes
you're helping #racism and #misogyny with a 3rd party vote, whether you admit it or not
we need a voting system where a 3rd party vote is not self-defeating
with #rankedchoicevoting #rcv people can vote their conscience rather than deal with shit strategy in our crappy #FPTP system
it's creeping in: maine, nyc, etc. #democrats are more receptive than #GOP, who want voter suppression
that should lead you the way to better, if you care
genewitch
@benroyce@mastodon.social
@Remittancegirl@mstdn.social
@zenkat@sfba.social
@JuliusGoat@mastodon.social is it really throwing my vote away? voting blue in a red state is "throwing my vote away" at least voting third party I am putting my vote where I believe it matters, toward having more than two parties.
maybe you'd have a point if there was no electoral college.
Ben Royce 🇺🇦 🇸🇩
@Remittancegirl @zenkat @JuliusGoat
yes
those who push not voting and "BoTh SiDeS tHe SaMe" are
1. russian troll farm/MAGA agent provocateur working learned helplessness,
2. sadistic edgelords trolling for shits and giggles, they understand what they are doing, or
3. well meaning, big-hearted but atrociously fucking clueless "deep thinkers"
then the fertile ground these douchebags operate on:
the unawares and despondent, who are turned against their own self-interests and immobilized
genewitch
@benroyce@mastodon.social
@Remittancegirl@mstdn.social
@zenkat@sfba.social
@JuliusGoat@mastodon.social I'm going to vote third party like I always do in states where the electoral college votes 100% red or blue.
I guess that makes me a racist misogynistic "deep thinker"
Madeleine Morris
@benroyce @zenkat @JuliusGoat But to paint both parties as equally atrocious allows for a position of eschewing all personal responsibility to engage, while enjoying a perpetual righteous indignation. You get to look like you care while making sure nothing you do moves the needle. There is a bit of exploitation of the misery of others hidden in that position.
Madeleine Morris
@benroyce @zenkat @JuliusGoat I do think you’re honing in on a certain very contemporary psychological outlook. I see that there is an unacknowleged enjoyment in a position of paralysis. I personally despise both parties positions on Gaza/Israel. I could choose to condemn them all equally. But how would that help change anything? The best you can do is vote for the most viable progressive candidate on offer to edge the less murderous party closer to something fairer.
zenkat
Repeat for emphasis:
Standing aside and crossing yours arms while things get worse makes you complicit.
Ben Royce 🇺🇦 🇸🇩
the essential lie those who do not #vote tell themselves is that by not participating they are not part of the shit show
assuming they aren't AI bots working a learned helplessness toxic idealism political angle to immobilize the far left, they live and breathe in reality, they do not inhabit a magic ivory tower, and they are a part of this, like it or not, there is no escape
and thus they *must* choose, if they are moral
or they are immobilized in a way that helps malice
A.R. Moxon, Verified Duck 🦆
I can endlessly predict who will or will not support the right thing, and why things can't change because of the way things are. I can spend my time shouting at people for not making the same choice as me to establish not change but my own rightness.
I can do this, but it won't differentiate me.
A.R. Moxon, Verified Duck 🦆
Or I can lash myself to reality as tightly as possible, and observe with as much precision as I can what the stakes are, what the outcomes of each of two choices might be, and realize that no easy or self-exonerating outcomes exist, but some outcomes are better than others.
Ben Royce 🇺🇦 🇸🇩
Are you listening to A.R. Moxon / Julius Goat #America?
You vote
Not because you get perfect
That's not on the menu, and never will be
You vote simply because you move in a better direction
That's all you ever can do in this world
Voting does not make you complicit
Standing aside and crossing yours arms while things get worse makes you complicit
A.R. Moxon, Verified Duck 🦆
Or I could blame people with scant political representation for being disaffected toward elections, tell them that they their non-participation means they will deserve their suffering ... but blaming marginalized people for their own suffering doesn't differentiate from fascists.
A.R. Moxon, Verified Duck 🦆
Or I could choose from my relatively unthreatened position to not participate at all, as if non-participation in some way frees me from the moral burdens that attend belonging to this U.S. empire and all its crimes.
A.R. Moxon, Verified Duck 🦆
Or I could pretend that by voting for the least-bad option, I am similarly exonerated from the same moral responsibility that attends belonging to a militarized empire.
A.R. Moxon, Verified Duck 🦆
Yes, I could choose to use the election as a tool for self-exoneration, and it wouldn't make me a fascist ... but it wouldn't differentiate me from fascists.
Again, what we want here is simple witness. A refusal to accept false equivalencies by creating a real differentiation.
A.R. Moxon, Verified Duck 🦆
It's a focus on what *is* that leads to conviction to improve it.
I would observe that fascism feeds best on equivalencies. This leads me to believe that it is fought by creating differentiation.
Witness is one thing I try to do to differentiate myself from fascism.
A.R. Moxon, Verified Duck 🦆
I could pretend that our status-quo party isn’t in the business of empire and capital and all the violence and entrenched supremacy that comes with it, but I wouldn’t be telling a true story. It wouldn't make me a fascist ... but it wouldn't differentiate me.
A.R. Moxon, Verified Duck 🦆
I could pretend that the other party isn’t a hate group animated by every bigotry, intending to demolish any progress made over the centuries, but I wouldn’t be telling a true story. It wouldn't make me a fascist ... but it wouldn't differentiate me.
A.R. Moxon, Verified Duck 🦆
I could pretend that all of this will be solved by the election, and that nothing is needed but my vote, but I wouldn't be creating differentiators.
Or I could pretend the election doesn’t matter at all, and what I choose to do is immaterial, but I’d face the same problem.
A.R. Moxon, Verified Duck 🦆
10) People who would like to avoid awareness and the moral imperatives that attend awareness and conviction will accept and promote those simple narratives of false equivalence.
A.R. Moxon, Verified Duck 🦆
OK, I tricked you. Those aren’t predictions.
They're witness about what is happening already and existing patterns of behavior, which allows them to masquerade as predictions, because they don't just happen; *they keep happening.*
A.R. Moxon, Verified Duck 🦆
I think the counter to deliberate ignorance is witness. Witness isn't a debate, nor an argument. It’s simply paying the cost of awareness, observing with the benefit as much information as you can gather, and proclaiming things as you understand them to be.
A.R. Moxon, Verified Duck 🦆
8) If the status quo party wins, it will have to overcome attempts by the fascist party to overturn the results in the courts on some absolutely ridiculous grounds that the corrupt extremist far-right majority in the Supreme Court may well rule in favor of.
A.R. Moxon, Verified Duck 🦆
If our status quo party can overcome the fascists who have seized our highest courts, there is a very strong probability it will have to overcome an armed resistance of white supremacists who would rather see the country burn than share it.
A.R. Moxon, Verified Duck 🦆
And if they overcome all that, they will almost certainly still defend the great abuses present in our unsustainable status quo, which will, as usual, make marginalized people pay the highest costs. And this will impart upon us a moral imperative to fight them, if we are people of conviction.
A.R. Moxon, Verified Duck 🦆
9) Our media will create narratives of equivalence for all of this, too.
A.R. Moxon, Verified Duck 🦆
Some will decide both choices are exactly the same this for the understandable if distressing reason that the choices do have real serious problems and so they'd rather not participate. (Others will ignore those same real and serious problems with the better choice.)
A.R. Moxon, Verified Duck 🦆
7) If the openly fascist party succeeds, we are going to see horrible changes to the status quo in this country, and, as usual, already marginalized people will pay the highest costs.
A.R. Moxon, Verified Duck 🦆
We may truly see the end of democracy, the end of bodily autonomy, mass deportation, a quickly-dropping curtain of theocratic autocracy—particularly if it turns out our corrupted Supreme Court has succeeded in knocking down the final guard rails to full autocracy.
A.R. Moxon, Verified Duck 🦆
We’ll see the sabotage of safeguards for human health and thriving, and the deliberate demolition of what safeguards have been put in place to combat catastrophic climate change And this will impart upon us a moral imperative to fight them, if we are people of awareness.
A.R. Moxon, Verified Duck 🦆
The choice for that party now looks likely to be Kamala Harris.
4) Once that choice is made, the openly fascist party will create the most outlandish and bigoted narratives about the status quo choice, presented in the worst possible faith.
A.R. Moxon, Verified Duck 🦆
All attacks will center exactly where the fascists themselves are weakest. Maybe they’ll create some lurid and slanderous fictional version of Harris’ sexual history, for example. Maybe they’ll say she’s unfit for office and benefitted from unnatural advantages.
A.R. Moxon, Verified Duck 🦆
5) The media will test out these narratives of false equivalency, utilizing their practiced neutrality on matters of truth and fiction, and when they find a simple recipe that low-information voters like, they will ride it all the way to November.
A.R. Moxon, Verified Duck 🦆
6) A lot of people will ignore the real differences between the choices in order to proclaim the false equivalence that both choices are exactly the same. Some will do this because they’d like to support the worst choice and would rather seem neutral than bad.
A.R. Moxon, Verified Duck 🦆
2) One choice will be an open fascist, at the head of a party that intends to control our bodies and our lives, and is eager to harm and kill in order to do it. This choice will almost certainly be Donald Trump.
A.R. Moxon, Verified Duck 🦆
3) The other choice will head a party that is all too often capitulant to fascism, because they are a status quo party, and while our status quo includes centuries of significant progress, it is also an historically corporatized and capitalized and supremacist status quo.
A.R. Moxon, Verified Duck 🦆
This adherence to status quo means that until the status quo is changed, the order of the day will include not only defense of the progress made, but also more empire building, and more money for military and cops, and more bombs to bomb civilians in Gaza and elsewhere, and so on.
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