Tuesday surprise
From your inbox to the ballot box 🫡
There aren’t a lot of you who subscribe to this, but I treasure every single member of my small band of merry thieves. (What I am stealing is your attention!)
We are all very busy, and the world is very insane, so I will keep this short.
Unless you’ve been living in a very nice cave, you are aware that today is Election Day in America. I hope, if you are able, that you have already voted. If you haven’t, I hope you plan to vote today. This is a difficult election for many1. We’re exhausted from years of political batshit fuckery— and that’s by design because it’s easy to reach for cynical nihilism in the face of waves arms around everything.
It’s easy to think that your vote doesn’t count.
It’s hard to vote for a candidate who enacts or enables policy you’re morally against.
It’s true that the two-party system sucks, and it’s also true that it’s the system we currently live in and have to operate under. Until we get ranked-choice voting, choosing a third-party candidate means effectively voting for the candidate furthest from your interests. You’re not “punishing” one of the establishment parties, but you are setting up the people and causes you claim to care about for a terrifying future under The Worst Option in the pursuit of moral purity.
I personally find it deeply weird to stan politicians and treat them like celebrities. At best, they’re going to fuck up sometimes because they’re human, and at worst, they’re going to make fucked up choices in the name of staying in power. Any kind of public figure— even the ones supposed to be in charge of bettering our lives as their job— has to think about public appeal. This means playing it safe in the name of public opinion and abandoning people and causes they’ve claimed to care about.
Some tuck that moral compass in their pocket where they can easily pull it out again. Some throw it on the ground and stomp on it.
Either way, it’s not great! But choosing not to participate plays directly into the hands of those who want to dismantle everything for their own purposes. It’s a choice between that or the imperfect ally we can hold accountable to continue to inch painfully forward on that long moral arc of the universe that bends toward justice.
It’s hard to do that with a guy who wants to throw you in a prison camp for the fundamental American right of protesting politician bullshit.
Enemies and Cowards
I love how
reframes it in his recent piece How to Think About Politics Without Wanting to Kill Yourself:“For the most part, it is wrong to think of elections as contests between ‘good’ and ‘bad’ candidates. With few exceptions, it is more accurate to divide most politicians into two broad categories: Enemies, and Cowards. The enemies are those politicians who are legitimately opposed to your policy goals. The cowards are those politicians who may agree with your policy goals, but will sell you out if they must in order to protect their own interests. Embrace the idea that we are simply pushing to elect the cowards, rather than the enemies. Why? Because the true work of political action is not to identify idealized superheroes to run for office. It is, instead, to create the conditions in the world that make it safe for the cowards to vote the right way.
Under this framework, you can set aside the tedious feelings of disappointment that come with holding moral views while also supporting any politician. Will your favorite candidate do something bad? Almost certainly. After all, they are cowards. The onus is on us to give the cowards a soft path to the moral choice. The education necessary to equip citizens with the facts; the persuasion necessary to move public opinion to the right place; the organizing necessary to mobilize people to fight for the right thing. These things are the substance of ‘politics.’ Elections can be seen as just another organizing task, one in an endless procession of efforts necessary to arrange the chess pieces of power in a way that will, eventually, produce the righteous outcome.”
I highly recommend reading the entire piece— preferably while waiting in line to vote.
Until next time.
Good thing the last few elections have been very cool and normal!!!