this post was submitted on 05 May 2026
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Work Reform
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they weren’t assumptions but additional points and in addition you never answer my question.
Additional points that were irrelevant, because they didn't counter any of my actual beliefs.
And as to your question... what I usually hear from the leftists in my town is that any participation in the electoral process makes you a sellout liberal NPC genocide supporter. Or it's "validating the current system" or some other such nonsense.
The simple fact is that local elections in my city are usually won by a few hundred to few thousand votes. Voter turnout is extremely low, even by American standards, there is almost always an actual progressive (and often even socialists) on the ballot, and they almost always come in second place. If even half of the leftist nonvoters came out and voted, these people would win, and even the soulless corporate shills competing against them would have to shift to the left to stay relevant.
It wouldn't be THE fix to ALL our problems, but it would fucking help a lot of desperate people.
you went local when the larger convo is national.
as a leftist myself i push hard on local elections, and my usual comment to the folks running is, and i’ve actually said this, “local is most important because we know where you live”
national is horseshit and voting there does “legitimize” the exploitation and capitalist system we’ll never vote our way out of.
but locally, if i can get the town of 14k people to spend its money better and treat renters like they matter instead of the businesses on main st.. that’s a local win.
Larger convo was about voting generally, not about the federal elections.
And my point was that voting can make an impact. To expand on that point, the impact is cumulative. If this year a bunch of leftists who normally didn't vote decide to vote, we'll get better local governments across the country. In the next cycle, the Overton Window will have shifted left and more elections, perhaps at the state or even congressional level will result in candidates who aren't completely beholden to the bourgeoisie . The cycle after that, maybe we get a 3rd party candidate winning the electoral votes for a state. Or maybe enough states have shifted to the left that we get a critical mass on the National Popular Vote Pact and functionally do away with the electoral college.
It's clear I'm not talking about you, since you actually vote. But I know for a fact that among the American left the idea of voting at all is considered cringe. And I believe these people are at best misguided and at worst finding a righteous-sounding excuse for not wanting to bother.
Also, my city is more like half a million than 14 thousand. And it's got soooooooo many leftists. We would easily be the biggest voting block in the city if more of us actually bothered, because most of the rest of the population doesn't.
Finally, this:
is nonsense. Not voting doesn't register nationally as opposition or disapproval or dissatisfaction. It registers as apathy, and apathy legitimizes the status quo. If you want to make a statement in a national election, vote 3rd party. Write in a candidate. Do anything other than not vote.
I don’t disagree with a lot of what you say except that I have a novel feeling that the window only ever ratchets right and never returns left. but i don’t really know how to research that.
I don't have anything more than life experience and anecdote to base this on, but I think the reason it feels that way is sooooo many more leftists refuse to vote than reactionaries.
BTW, thank you for having a discussion with me and not just a pissing match. I appreciate that.