Elections in the United States are much less popular than they once were. In 2012, the presidential election only earned a 55% turnout nationwide. That’s the most popular election in the country. Many other elections earn minimal turnouts and even less attention.
Why do people participate in elections? In Moldbug’s terms, elections are to power what pornography is to sex. People enjoy elections because it’s a simulation of having power over other citizens. The reality is that participating in an election is always a waste of time at the individual level, and only useful for the people actually driving the electioneering activity.
It’s not going to be possible to get everyone to abandon their addiction to pseudo-power. But whenever you want to replace a behavior in someone, you have to offer an alternative that meets a similar desire.
In short, you have to go after the issues that politicians use to get people to turn out to vote, and then help people either solve them for themselves or do it collectively. Instead of giving them a simulacrum of power through the democratic political process, you have to help them to take responsibility for solving their own problems.
The two typical responses to tough problems are either to petition the government to solve them or to throw up one’s hands and complain that the government blocks the solutions. Instead, better to route around whatever blocks there are and get it done, and damn the consequences.
“#BlackLivesMatter! #ICan’tBreathe! Burn down this abortion clinic!”
If black lives matter, then blacks should form civil defense organizations to push out the gangs.
But this is just an occasion for more government programs intended to fix the previous program.
Yes, politics is not the solution; politics is the problem (pace Reagan).
For some, voting may be analogous to power as porn is to sex, but for others voting may be analogous to power as a prophylactic is to sex. Its purpose is to prevent political opponents the full exercise of political power.
Voting conservative is a rearguard action, the difference between retreating to a safer redoubt and getting slaughtered on the battlefield.
One of the Republican Party’s best arguments is their ability to keep the Supreme Court from becoming more radical.
It’s the difference between legalizing 5 million illegal aliens and legalizing all 30 million.
Given only two options, many of us prefer decline over collapse.
Unless I’m missing something, the Resartus isn’t ready to step in and assume power yet.
>Voting conservative is a rearguard action, the difference between retreating to a safer redoubt and getting slaughtered on the battlefield.
Is this true? When has it been true?
>Given only two options, many of us prefer decline over collapse.
On this path, you get both, without much in the way of a delay. On the other, you get a short-term shock followed by a major improvement. I don’t deny that there are trade-offs involved.
>Is this true? When has it been true?
Ronald Reagan cuts taxes and spends Soviet Union into submission. Berlin Wall falls. Or Chief Justice John Roberts instead of Chief Justice Cass Sunstein.
>On the other, you get a short-term shock followed by a major improvement.
I’ll ask the same question here. Is this true? When has it been true?
If the Republicans win, you get tax cuts, No Child Left Behind, and Medicare Part D. If the Democrats win, you get Medicare, Medicaid, the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act, the Community Reinvestment Act, the Federal Reserve, Obamacare, etc.
To find a true reactionary “major improvement”, you need to go to parts of history where there were reactionary pretenders to the throne waiting patiently for their opportunity to assume authority. In 21st century America, there is no extant Hohenzollern, Bourbon, or Stuart line sitting patiently on the sidelines. We need to build something first (as you wrote in the OP). Or do you mean to imply that a period of one-party rule might help focus our efforts?
That’s my general approach, outlined here: https://henrydampier.wordpress.com/2014/02/02/shooting-an-elephant/
Obviously not enough people listened to me, else the GOP wouldn’t have picked up all those seats in November.
>We need to build something first (as you wrote in the OP). Or do you mean to imply that a period of one-party rule might help focus our efforts?
Both would be good, but I always ask for more than I expect to get.
An analogy I use is that everyone always tries to stop the frog from boiling by turning the heat down. That is impossible, but there is an alternative. If one assists in turning up the heat as high as possible as quickly as possible, the frog jumps out. The AAA strategy is the way to go.
The temperature is going to 100 degrees C one way or another.
One of the reasons that voting is hopeless for whites is because they are so atomized.
Voting in a national election is entirely pointless.
But, regardless of your opinion on democracy and voting, it’s hard to deny that ethnic groups can band together and vote as a bloc to capture Congressmen, state legislators, and local government positions. The best example of this would be the Hasids and some of the other obscure Orthodox Jewish groups.
I rather agree with your overall take; but I still find it amusing to head to the polling place and vote for the kookiest third-party kook on the ballot. And you know, if it became trendy enough for a plurality of voters to regularly do that, even as sheer entertainment, the consequences would be even more amusing– and even, eventually, positive.