#pol – @leeniela on Tumblr

leeniela reblogged

Voters in both England and France just used tactical voting, and voted for candidates they didn’t necessarily love to ensure that the unacceptable candidate would lose. And kept the unacceptable party from taking power.

Like. In the last four days, both of those elections happened.

The left wing alliance in France saw LaPen’s party winning in the first round of voting and hated that so hard that 138 of their candidates who were in third place — and could have split the vote — dropped out, and told their voters to vote for the one that would stop the RN from taking control.

It worked.

People in the UK went aggressively tactical. The Labour Party has turned to be much much more centrist in the last five years. Got voted for anyway, because it got the Tories out.

It worked.

I don’t know if Biden will stay in. I don’t know it’s the right choice for him to stay or go. As interested as I am in politics, this is an incredibly complex thing and one of the most important decisions of the decade.

But y’all. Don’t care how that goes. We’re voting to prevent the fascists from winning.

almostdefinitelydying

^ fucking this

#pol

leeniela reblogged

gothwizardmagic

ingravinoveritas

Full three minute-long clip of David on the Reasons to be Cheerful podcast talking about Pride Month and gay/trans rights. Truly heart-wrenching to hear him get so genuinely emotional/choke up as he keeps going. Notable moments:

David: "When I was at school, calling somebody gay was like the worst thing you could be called in the playground, and now we celebrate it...[choking up] and it makes me a little bit emotional. That it just gives people a chance to be seen and celebrated and to be just--combating some of that snide nastiness that is...when Target have to...[trying not to cry] when Target in America have to take down their displays because people are so intolerant, I think we all need to put up our rainbow flags and we need to march and shout and--[crying] I didn't expect this to get me this emotional, I'll be honest with you, but--you just want your children to grow up in a world that is kind, and you want your children to be kind and you want your children to be accepted for whoever they are. Whatever they want to be. They should be allowed to be whoever they want to be." David: "When you look at it--when you take a step back and see how far we've come, it does give you hope. Because sometimes when you're right in the middle of day-to-day you think, 'Where are we going guys, come on?' Ed Miliband: "We were in the era of Section 28 and all that stuff. But it has to be fought for." David: "Yes, we can't take our foot off the gas, that's the thing. And we can't expect that we will always travel in the right direction toward acceptance. We've got to--we've all got to be fighting that fight every day."

#audio #pol

leeniela reblogged

madeofspite

captainjonnitkessler

Every time I advocate for voting people are like "no you shouldn't vote! Read this literature, it'll totally change the way you view voting!" And every single time it's the same fucking "you shouldn't vote because both parties are exactly the same so it won't make a difference who wins" bullshit wrapped up in some fancy language

captainjonnitkessler

"OP you need to read 'Voting is not Harm Reduction" OP has read Voting is not Harm Reduction. It opens with the acknowledgement that for the most vulnerable people, even a tiny degree of harm reduction can mean life or death and then continues to advocate for not participating in that harm reduction lest you "participate in your own oppression". Pardon me for not finding "vulnerable people should die for my ideology" very convincing.

crypticarchivist

“Vulnerable people should die for my ideology”

Thank you for summing up my entire issue with anti-vote people in one sentence.

An empty idealogical gesture that doesn’t make anything better, let alone even engage in harm reduction, is not leftism.

Especially if they think there’s nothing that can be done that will make a difference, so they’re just planning to make empty idealogical gestures until circumstances get bad enough that someone else gets forced to start a revolution for them because if they were going to do it instead of ranting about how useless voting is they’d have tried it already.

That’s not leftism and I will never shut up about how that’s not leftism. Because leftism is not about dying an honorable death on a hill that’s stupid.

I don’t even know what to call it. Defeatism maybe.

lynati

People who think of themselves as white knights but who are actually empty suits of armor set to crash into the people they claim to protect.

#pol

leeniela reblogged

nelehgrimm

lonnson

Dude, how can it be that every single fucking thing about US politics trends on here immediately, yet when 27 countries in the EU vote and there's a historic, alarming lurch to the right (far right parties have won the elections in Italy, Austria and France), it's not even trending? In Germany, the AFD, a right-wing populist, anti-democratic, racist party with a wing that is officially extremist (read: Nazis) and is in parts monitored by the office for the protection of the constitution, is the second strongest party (also among 17-24 year olds!). Guess I'll die.

#pol