Overcoming the Red Map Project
As a teenager, I subscribed to the anarchist refrain of “If voting changed anything, it would be illegal” (an aphorism wrongly attributed to Emma Goldman, role model and anarchist extraordinaire). I understood that “anything” was not to be taken literally, but nonetheless, the results of election after election over the years raised some suspicions about this slogan. While we can’t go back to see how an alternate timeline would have played out differently, we can cite all manner of examples to show that voting has the capacity to alter the course of history for the better… especially when marginalized citizens vote — or more precisely, are able to vote.
A more apt contemporary saying could be “If voting didn’t change anything, there would be no need for voter suppression“. For a more detailed analysis of current suppression beyond the 5 points in that article, try this podcast episode hosted by veteran broadcast journalist Warren Olney IV. As it turns out, BLOTUS was right about the 2016 election being “rigged” (but not in the way he was implying, of course). How many more election cycles before the effects of the REDMAP program are overcome?
Make Propaganda Fun Again
The propaganda video below was put together by ACRONYM, who are “committed to electing progressive candidates and building our modern digital infrastructure in the process”. Don’t get me wrong, the Democratic Party in its current form is absolutely not salvation for Murica, but this video is clearly on to something. The [alleged] billionaire who heads the GOP (and others who hoard resources and maneuver to conserve their power) are most comfortable when we don’t use tools like the vote. They will go to great lengths to deceive us into voting for them — or barring that, to prevent us from voting at all.
But is there a difference?
- Eddie Glaude Jr., Professor of Religion and African American Studies at Princeton University, describes most of the opposition party — or at least congressional members like Nancy Pelosi — as “Republican Light”.
- Hundreds of times over the decades, Noam Chomsky has said: “Of course there are differences, but they are not fundamental. Nobody should have any illusions. The United States has essentially a one-party system and the ruling party is the business party.” Yet in 2017, we also hear him say (in the context of climate change), that:
There’s been nothing like this in history. It’s kind of an outrageous statement, but it happens to be true, that the Republican Party is the most dangerous organization in human history. Nobody, not even the Nazis, was dedicated to destroying the possibility of organized human life.
Yes, voting within a corrupted system lends it further legitimacy, and picking your rulers certainly can be demeaning where the choice is between the lesser of two evils… but less evil is, well… less evil. And the fact remains that votes for both local and federal candidates can drastically affect your life. Contrary to assumptions, even anarchists have historically conducted voting as a means of resolving the course of action (read about the Spanish Civil War, the 20th century’s largest anarchist experiment). Although the results of the 2016 election in some respects dragged America far back into the 20th century, voting also can aid in reversing this damage. While voting is only a small gesture towards solving problems, it endures as a useful tool — even when in the U.S. the five most rural states exert ~50% more electoral votes and 3x as many senators per resident as the five most urban ones.
— Victor
American illustrator Ward Sutton decided to make his VOTE series of posters free to anyone who wants to download and print.