ThIs TiMe It'S dIfFeReNt!

🐲🐏🤡🐑🐍

Cut my life into pieces, Suffercation, no breathing

Don’t gaf

ThE eLeCtIoN oF oUr LiFeTiMe https://x.com/thewhiterabbit/status/1986859395792445609?s=20

I know it's a meme but I find the "can't vote your way out of this" sentiment to be very near-sighted, especially in the US. If we ignore our electoral system, break democratic processes and fall into something like civil warfare, the chances are astronomical that the nation wouldn't survive even after all that ends.

The best thing people can do is to conduct a trifold response: 1. Use the full extent of the civil, democratic process. Contact elected officials, especially over extremely important issues. Cast your votes wisely and pragmatically, rather than a narrow-minded "they didn't do everything I wanted so I'll vote for the more problematic party" (ie. Nick Fuentes claiming he'll vote Democrat in protest). Use the systems the founding fathers gave us. They may not even work half of the time these days but we cannot be held blameless if we refuse to try. 2. Build and use parallel alternatives. Not just Bitcoin, not just Nostr, alternatives for as much as possible. Heck, even the maxi style "no second best" approach to specific tech is detrimental here. For example, Nostr is my home now, but I still have a Mastodon account. I think Nostr is superior in almost every way, but having options is a good thing. 3. Start a family. No, really, the best way to enact long-term change is to get married and have kids. You raise them well and they'll raise their kids well, and the cycle repeats. As that process goes on, more and more influence of wisdom will appear within the civil systems. This is why some historical generations are considered great, while others are not: the ones raised right enact the greatest change and wisest governance.

Well my question to you is; what has voting fundamentally changed in the last 50 years? More so when measured against campaign promises?

I applaud this list except for one small caveat with #1, these processes have been captured and they only work to buy time and nothing more. I am not a cynic but I think democracy itself is a failed idea and placing hope in its processes is merely setting yourself up for disappointment

A better question is what it HASN'T fundamentally changed, for both better and worse. If voting didn't work, we'd be in a constant state of dystopia in every facet. For example, as it stands right now, we've been see-sawing between crap economic policy and slightly less crap economic policy for over a century now and that always coincides with which parties and which philosophies have been voted for.

I understand and I wouldn't say you should place your hope in those processes so much as you should continue partaking in it so that you can have a clean conscience regardless of outcome, because you know you did what you could.

Nothing.

My nuanced take is that voting has some effect at the local level but not equivalent impact at the Federal level as that's where the playground of lobbyists and the donor class. That's why no matter who is president there is a war somewhere, the dollar keeps losing value, the debt goes up, spending increases and unemployment keeps rising steadily. We had a vegetable for president for a good four years and the machine kept chugging on, which already tells you that he was irrelevant to the larger picture. Unless we are voting out the Fed or for a constitutional convention, it's a pointless exercise in the long run.

For sure, local and even state elections are the most critical. I'd still argue the federal elections are very important, but not just presidential, but for the House and Senate too. However, local and state elections are the most important, especially if you're in a small town or rural environment. I'd say some of your concerns are systemic, not specifically a problem the electoral system. We need to elect people who have the stones to do things like you mentioned such as ending the Fed, calling for Constitutional Convention for several amendments and repeals (critically, the Seventeenth, and preferably the Nineteenth also) and so forth. As for Biden, it's pretty clear he really was nothing but a puppet, he had all sorts of handlers and figures behind him. T'was an excercise in trying to defeat America but they needed a puppet to make it look like it was honoring of our electoral system. One thing that always makes me hopeful is the knowledge that evil always overcompensates. Always. Tolkien actually observes this in the concept of "Morgoth's Ring": Sauron poured the majority of his essence into the ring, as a refined and concentrated form of his power. This made him extremely powerful, but was a centralized point of failure that led to his defeat. Morgoth, Sauron's master (and an analog of Lucifer), did the opposite: he poured out his essence across the entirety of the world, corrupting everything he could, but this left him weak and eventually led to his defeat as well. Same is true for the evil of our time: either it centralizes its power and tyranny and eventually topples under its own weight OR it tries to encompass everything and leaves itself vulnerable and weak if people open their eyes to see it.