the thing that's got me rankled lately is the widely-held belief that we can vote our way out of any of these problems—or that, in America's case, an obviously-failing Democratic Party will be better in a way that matters substantially for any of these issues. there were a whole host of ways to deal with Trump effectively over the past eight years. the Democrats chose *none* of them. instead, they went with the familiar option of tripping down a flight of stairs with their pants around their ankles, resulting in yet another too-close-to-call election. and the solution now is, apparently, to just vote harder.
one of the smaller moons crashing into our figurative world is that our electoral system is fundamentally broken, and continuing to support either party in the way that we have been is largely pointless in terms of big-picture outcomes.
Yeah, I’m writing a little bit on the slow, painful failure of liberalism next week. The best analogy I’ve seen is from Margaret Killjoy, who wrote that we’re in a bus that’s about to head over a cliff, and neither party is going to apply the brakes if they’re at the wheel, but one MIGHT be enticed to occasionally, briefly take its foot off the accelerator.
At the same time, the Democratic Party has never really been the progressive bastion it claims to be, and progressives need to maybe have a more pragmatic view of it. The Dems are never going to do the right thing JUST BECAUSE, but there have been plenty of historic examples of times that it has been strong-armed into doing the right thing by well-organized mass movements. The labor movement forced the concessions that got us the New Deal, the Civil Rights movement forced the concessions that got us the Voting Rights Act, the LGBTQ movement forced concessions on gay marriage and protections for LGBTQ couples, etc. If the left wants Dems to not suck, it needs to build the political power to force them to change.
This was a *fabulous* read. Also, peanut butter is fuckin awesome and is probably the only thing keeping me going at times, too.
As someone without children (for many reasons, including ones you mentioned) this was such an excellent read.
So good... linking this in my post coming out today for people who are on the fence about having kids.
Thank you, and thanks for sharing, Valerie!
In case you were curious: https://motherofadilemma.substack.com/p/using-my-voice
i feel a lot of this.
the thing that's got me rankled lately is the widely-held belief that we can vote our way out of any of these problems—or that, in America's case, an obviously-failing Democratic Party will be better in a way that matters substantially for any of these issues. there were a whole host of ways to deal with Trump effectively over the past eight years. the Democrats chose *none* of them. instead, they went with the familiar option of tripping down a flight of stairs with their pants around their ankles, resulting in yet another too-close-to-call election. and the solution now is, apparently, to just vote harder.
one of the smaller moons crashing into our figurative world is that our electoral system is fundamentally broken, and continuing to support either party in the way that we have been is largely pointless in terms of big-picture outcomes.
Yeah, I’m writing a little bit on the slow, painful failure of liberalism next week. The best analogy I’ve seen is from Margaret Killjoy, who wrote that we’re in a bus that’s about to head over a cliff, and neither party is going to apply the brakes if they’re at the wheel, but one MIGHT be enticed to occasionally, briefly take its foot off the accelerator.
At the same time, the Democratic Party has never really been the progressive bastion it claims to be, and progressives need to maybe have a more pragmatic view of it. The Dems are never going to do the right thing JUST BECAUSE, but there have been plenty of historic examples of times that it has been strong-armed into doing the right thing by well-organized mass movements. The labor movement forced the concessions that got us the New Deal, the Civil Rights movement forced the concessions that got us the Voting Rights Act, the LGBTQ movement forced concessions on gay marriage and protections for LGBTQ couples, etc. If the left wants Dems to not suck, it needs to build the political power to force them to change.