Vespair

I like this comic

And I think you're wrong. I think coddling people and indulging their juvenile entitlement desires to take their ball and go home does real world harm.

And coddling people from the harsh realities of their circumstances helps them even less. It's time to buck up, buttercup.

Your masturbatory revolutionary cosplay fantasies are still non-sequitur nonetheless.

Absolute bullshit. The people who are actually boots on ground doing the work are not the people making the claims. They know the hard work that is necessary and they know the benefit of voting even if the impact is incremental. The whole objection is that the people who talk about protest voting are the ones who only drop into the game at the finish line.

Exactly this. I think there are only two people you hear saying this: the overtly bad actors trying to suppress votes or the few extremely gullible idiots who stupidly get wrapped up in the lies of former. Thankfully I think it's usually clear before long which of the two you're talking to and only one of them is worth your time, and they're the rarer of them.

And this has any relevancy on voting.... How? Either you're going to the do the illegal things, which can be done on any day other than Nov 5 or you aren't going to the do the illegal things and you can still vote on Nov 5.

I don't give a shit about your personal revolutionary savior cosplaying fantasy; it is entirely non-sequitur to the topic of how voting is still the reasonable choice even for the revolutionarily-motivated.

Why? Ahem...

🎵 Some of those that work forces... 🎵

Withholding your vote isn't punishing your politicians, it's punishing yourself. Absolutely nothing about voting implies you cannot hold your politicians accountable.

Disingenuous. Nobody is suggesting not to vote outside the binary; what they're suggesting is to be realistic, rational, intelligent, and understand that you can't start a race at the finish line.

There is no viable third party in America on a presidential scale. Period.

This does not mean there never will be.

But no, that change is not ever going to happen by a sudden upset win in the presidency. Ever. EVER. If you give a shit about breaking the binary, get out in the fucking streets and do the hard but necessary work of building a third party up from the roots. If you want to see a Green Party president, then put in the work of proving first that Green Party local representatives, school board members, etc., are worthy candidates with a proven track record. (Green is just an example, substitute it with whatever you want and don't get caught up in that irrelevant choice)

Yes, this is long, and yes, this sucks. It doesn't matter. Life sucks. This is how real change happens.

Unless you're just an accelerationist, in which case, fuck you for being willing to risk the lives of countless decent citizens just because you're too lazy to do the hard work of building a movement up from the ground floor. Revolution might be necessary, but you're a dick if you run to it before exhausting more reasonable less-violent options.

Bottom line, being in reality means understanding that the presidential election is a binary until we do the hard work so that it isn't, and pouting about it isn't protest; it's bending over and taking whatever they want to give you in abject impotency.

Now explain to me what of the measures you are taking to prevent this are somehow rendered moot by the act of voting.

And frankly, even if you're literally portioning rations for the revolution you plan to start tomorrow, the idea of not taking the absolutely minute amount of time, in the grand scheme of things, that it takes to potentially positively affect change is still absurd. If this really was the revolution, then the people's army couldn't afford to leave strategic advantages like that on the table.

Somebody said something to this effect once: Voting isn't about picking which hero is going to save us; it's about picking the kind of villain we have to fight against.

I just don't even understand how this is still a conversation. It's literally not an either/or dichotomy here. All of those things you want to do to prepare for the revolution or whatever? You can still do all of them and vote. You lose absolutely nothing by voting. Zero. It's just such a batshit mentality from the very onset.