There is no freedom under capitalism, white supremacy, and cisheteropatriarchy. If none of this pushes you further left, then what will?
If last night’s political theater didn’t push you further to the left, then I don’t know what will.
If it wasn’t the complete and utter lack of policy proposals,
if it wasn’t the attempts to make clever jokes that felt like disingenuous “can you believe this guy” jabs to pander to an audience looking for Jim Halpert-like reactions to a screaming fascist on live TV,
if it wasn’t the casual mentions of mass deaths and the throwing around of numbers that “could have been worse” while millions sit in economic uncertainty wondering if they’ll be evicted from their homes in a couple of days,
if it wasn’t the democratic candidate claiming that schools should remain closed, not for our lives, the lives of school staff and children, but because it’s too expensive to open them,
if it wasn’t the endorsement of fracking while the planet burns and dries up,
if it wasn’t the blatantly racist comments about the “China Plague” left unremarked upon by the opponent and the moderator,
if it wasn’t the three white men screaming about “blacks”, “African Americans”, “law and order” and calls to increase police budgets after a spring and summer of uprisings following the continued murders of Black people by the state,
if it wasn’t the call of “stand back and stand by” to non-state affiliated white supremacists,
if it wasn’t the utter contempt for “the left” on both sides of the stage, then I don’t know what will push you further left.
If you didn’t watch the debate last night and feel utterly hopeless, and if you didn’t wonder why this was it, if you weren’t outraged that these two alleged rapists were being presented as your only valid choices, if you haven’t been through multiple recessions, deaths, wars, environmental disasters, the death grip of capitalism — under both democrats and republicans — and come out wondering why we keep investing our faith in this farce of a political system where our only choice is to keep enriching the rich and the warlords and the imperialists, then I must ask why you limit your imagination to this.
What is more frightening than settler-colonial nation-states letting the world burn while your families choke on the pollution in the air, while marginalized genders are targeted, assaulted, and killed, while your productivity is the only thing that defines your value under capitalism? Is revolution more frightening to you? Is creating a better world too uncomfortable for you? Do you reap just enough benefits from oppressive systems to let others die?
As Da’Shaun Harrison astutely said in their piece, “Civic engagement is about more than just going to a poll to say you did something. ‘Engage’ is a verb. It requires action. Voting can be a strategy one uses as a form of engagement, but not voting does not mean one is not doing their civic duty. Many of us who don’t vote are community organizers. Our everyday lives are about community outreach; lobbying at the local level on behalf of our communities; base-building in our respective cities; building coalitions with other on-the-ground organizing entities; creating campaigns around issues specific to our organizations’ interests and mission. We have a goal, and we reach that with or without ‘the vote’.”
By all means, vote. But do not delude yourself into thinking that a capitalist, imperialist, white supremacist is your savior. Feel free to vote but don’t pretend that your voice is heard by the electoral college, or that your senator who took a couple of weeks off while you tried to juggle your children, your job, your health, your sanity, gives a single shit about you.
By all means vote, but don’t for a second lie to yourself and pretend that the ballot box will define your freedom.
There is no freedom under capitalism.
There is no freedom under white supremacy.
There is no freedom under cisheteropatriarchy.
If none of this pushes you further left, then what will?
Further Reading:
Civic Engagement Does Not Begin And End With Voting by Da’Shaun Harrison
Instead Of Posting Black Boxes To Your Instagram, Abolish Whiteness by Da’Shaun Harrison
For Marginalized People In Georgia, The Fight For Survival Intensifies by Da’Shaun Harrison
We Are Witnessing The Cdc’s Violent Eugenicist History In Real-time by Da’Shaun Harrison
Abolish It All: A World Without Private Prisons Is Still A World With Slaves by Da’Shaun Harrison
Electoral Politics Won’t Save Us. Here Is What To Do Instead. by Reina Sultan
Dawning Climate Catastrophe And The Paradox Of Green Capitalism by Jude Casimir
As Long As American Settler Colonialism Exists, Forced Sterilizations Will Too by Reina Sultan
We Don’t Need To Investigate Ice—we Need To Dismantle It by Reina Sultan
From Europe To The United States: Empires In Decline, Fascism On The Rise by Anuhya Bobba
Despite Our Shared Heritage, I Don’t Feel Represented By Kamala Harris by Madhuri Sastry
Abolition Is Global: The United States And Israel’s Deadly Exchange by Reina Sultan
From Portland To New York, The United States Has Always Abducted People by Anuhya Bobba
In Our Resistance Against The State, Black And Indigenous Peoples Are Collectively Powerful by Red Dawn Foster and Miski Noor
Abolition And Restorative Justice: A Book List by Da’Shaun Harrison
Abolition Cannot Wait: Visions For Transformation And Radical World-building by K. Agbebiyi, Sarah T. Hamid, Rachel Kuo, and Mon Mohapatra
This Is What Accelerationism Fueled By White Supremacy Looks Like by Sherronda J. Brown
White Supremacist Protesters Across The Nation Want One Thing: Death by Lara Witt and Sherronda J. Brown
Sexual Assault And White Supremacy Are Foundational To The U.S. by Anuhya Bobba
Sanctions Kill: The Devastating Human Cost Of Sanctions by Robin Davis, Onyesonwu Chatoyer, and Nancy Wright
In All Sincerity, Fuck Joe Biden by Reina Sultan
Liberalism Demands That Victims Vote For More Rape Culture by Anuhya Bobba
The Necropolitics Of The Coronavirus: Who May Live, Who Must Die by Anuhya Bobba
There Is No Such Thing As A Good Landlord by Lara Witt
Prisons Are Always Immoral, They Are More So During A Pandemic by Reina Sultan
Mutual Aid And Radical Care In The Time Of Increased Uncertainty by Reina Sultan
The Rich Have Class Solidarity. So What About The Rest Of Us? by Anuhya Bobba
Enough Of The Disappointing And Violent White Moderate by Adrie Rose
Post-super Tuesday The Establishment Maintains Its Death Grip by Anuhya Bobba
Beyond Electoral Politics: Liberation For All Marginalized Communities by Reina Sultan
How White America’s Legacy of Voter Suppression Harms People of Color by Lara Witt and Sherronda J. Brown
53 Years After Freedom Summer, Voter Suppression Still Thrives in America by Danielle Dorsey
A Wrinkle in Conviction: Ava DuVernay, Black Celebrity, and the Manipulation of Revolutionary Aesthetic by Jude Casimir
The Voting Happened, Now What? by Lara Witt
I Am Not Cynical Or Jaded About Voting. I Never Believed In It In The First Place by Briana L. Ureña Ravelo