On Organizing Inaction
what. the fuck. am I supposed to do?
“If genocide isn’t your red line, you don’t have one.” Ok, I voted uncommitted to show that I object. I browbeat my family into doing the same. I promoted it on social media. I donated esims. I donated to gofundmes. I fed people at encampments. The Democratic party worse than ignored it, they miscategorized the entire intent. So now I have two choices. (Don’t even fucking @ me about Stein, she’s an opportunistic loon who happens to be right about ONE FUCKING THING, good for her.)
Choice one: vote for a pro-labor, pro-choice, pro-genocide candidate. Maaaaybe my kid gets some rights back, maybe not. Maybe we get some Supreme court picks, maybe we get Congress to pass abortion protections nationwide, more likely we get 4 years of obstructionist nonsense, helpless flailing followed immediately by campaign fundraising emails, and the same status quo of circling the drain. Israel gets beachfront property and natural gas reserves and the world continues not to care about Palestine, Syria, Lebanon, Sudan, Congo, or the global rising tide of fascism and everyone gets to make their last minute resource grabs before the real climate shit hits the fan.
Choice two*: don’t vote. I’m in Michigan, so this is a vote for a literal fucking fascist. The Democrats learn absolutely nothing from it and whine for the next eternity about “purists” and “the radical Left” and apathy and whatever else isn’t “uh, maybe we fucked up by letting an ally who does our dirty work break international law that flagrantly.” Regardless of whether he or his far more effective handlers are able to achieve half of what they want- and have wanted, I’m old enough to remember when Project 2025 was called the Contract For America- we go from a semi-functioning shitshow to an actively dysfunctional shitshow. At best, the government simply stops being able to manage half its programs and all the services people think they don’t benefit from grind to a halt. At worst, we get Christian Dominionist fascism as the law of the land, across the land, or a civil war, possibly both at once. Anyone even remotely on the margins economically or socially is fucked so hard most will never recover. Israel gets WW3 and the world continues not to care about anything except last minute resource grabs before the real climate shit hits the fan. Which, hey, at least if people start nuking each other, we might delay. Silver lining, amirite?
[The preceding two sentences are sarcasm. If that’s not apparent, please pause to look up your middle school English teacher and go apologize.]
There is no third option. No third party that’s built electoral power, no coalition with targeted requests, no path forward out of this — and since power abhors a vacuum, if there is no clear vision of a just world, you get whoever wants power the most, and I promise you not one person who wants power for its own sake is a good person to have in charge.
No matter how much I rage, it does not change the fact that I can do one of two things, both of them suck, and one of them sucks less for me and mine. But if you come out and say “ok, but this is reality” you are supposed to, by virtue of your social capital, somehow magic a third choice into existence.
“Maybe if enough of us stay home the Democrats will learn.” No they fucking won’t, they didn’t even let Uncommitted speak. Name one piece of evidence that they can learn on this particular topic.
“Palestine is being slaughtered NOW, your problems are only hypothetical.” My tubes are tied and I’m a tired perimenopausal harridan. I own a house. Is “I don’t know how much longer we’ll be able to get T so my kid doesn’t kill himself” or “I don’t want any of my nieces to be raped and bleed out in a back alley abortion like my great grandmother” as immediate as a bomb? No. You’re right, it is not. But how does sacrificing trans kids and pregnant people and immigrants stop the bombing, exactly? I want powerpoints explaining how this investment will pay off.
“We should shut it all down.” Yes, absolutely, we should. There’s a general strike being planned, for 1 May 2028. Is there consensus on having one sooner? How long can we hold out? What’s “everything?” Weapons factories? Shipping? Blockades? If you shut down authorizations in Congress, do they stop sending weapons or just figure they’ll fill out the paperwork later?
What can we actually do, assuming we could get some kind of consensus of even 2–3% of the country, to stop the bombs? You can participate in BDS no matter how you vote. You can protest in the streets no matter how you vote. Why is the shame being heaped on women voting, and how does that actually help?
And also, how is it not an insult for a middle class white lady to choose that when people whose lives are already under constant threat of fascist murder in this country are trying their absolute damnedest to keep their voting rights from being erased? “Oh, you’re just legitimizing the system. No, I don’t actually have an alternative to offer you, but you should stop working with electoral systems.”
I’m absolutely not going to condescend to anyone with more at stake than me who picks differently. [I will absolutely shame fellow WW who are like “phew, I can girlboss my way into ignoring everything but my own personal rights again!” but that’s not who we’re talking about here. I’m speaking to committed activists who regularly do more than vote.] This is a very difficult question; every single one of my friends who’s been fighting for a just world their whole life is struggling this year. We talk about it, how we think we’re leaning, and why, but no one feels good about the choice either way because the simple truth is that there are only two choices, and you can coulda shoulda woulda about that all you like, it won’t change.
*Choice 2.5 would be to vote swap with someone in a solidly blue state, something I did regularly when I lived in one, but in the absence of an organized write in campaign this just gets read as low turnout. Anyone want to write in Hind Rajab?
