There’s groups like Run for Something that recruit progressives to run for state and local office
A surprising number of potentially winnable seats are never contested. Let’s show up anywhere and everywhere to fight back
If you’re worried about Republicans messing with elections themselves, you also have the power to help there too by running for state and local offices. Elections - even for federal positions - are run by state and local officals not by the federal government
Given the low average salary of elected officials, this is really only an option for those who are already low income, independently wealthy, or in a dual income household (ideally if the other partner has decent income).
I replied to that post, but mostly to remind folks not to take for granted their free time and energy. I can’t afford to run right now since I’m working 3/4 part time and raising two kids mostly on my own, but if you’re ten years younger and aren’t as bogged down by work or family, please do so.
Run in local primaries, be your own AOC and fuck over complacent “safe seat” Dems. I’d love to see a FOSS nerd in office, even if it’s a fucking state comptroller or something. Lol
Not dogging on you specifically, but think how much easier guerilla warfare with the US military would be. 🤔
The time for easy solutions was before the election.
As an anecdote, I once won an election for precinct chairman and I did fuck nothing to campaign. Lowest “office” imaginable but still.
remind folks not to take for granted their free time and energy.
So much this. I have time. But that’s it. No resources, and no energy. To boot, local politics is run mob-style by this corrupt piece of shit and his pet lackey, with his brother having a stranglehold on the congressional seat. It is well-documented that unless you play the game to the machine’s satisfaction, you’re going to get buried. The only competitive local races are the school boards because of the multitudes of local seats. And even in my “solid blue” area, the Karens Against Liberty types still win seats. It’s corruption all the way down.
The idealistic part of me wants to believe it’s a fight worth having. But the realistic part of me knows I’m going to get ignored at best, and torn to shreds at worst.
That’s why I bring up energy. Maybe I should bring up resources, too. Elections cost money just to participate. That said, the guy who owns the Italian sub place I used to frequent won a spot on city council where I used to live, so who knows. I imagine he mostly leveraged a large Italian family and his Italian market, but those are resources a commoner like us can have.
You do your part just being informed, though, and if you ever know anyone with a few thousand to blow, encourage them. I actually should do likewise, but I only know one guy who fits that description and he’d likely do it and lose interest part way, lol
Run in local primaries
I should note the organization I meantioned earlier (Run for Something) offers support both for general elections and to people trying to primary incumbent Dems too
Don’t have to do it without support or guidance!
True. Actually, I did look into it a little before primary season because I got a couple blind texts asking if I’d be interested in running, for some reason. I ignored them since I did not have time with a newborn at home. I have no reason to think they were scams, but I thought it was interesting since my previous registered address didn’t have that. I might get more involved in a few years.
I’m down but I won’t win. It’ll be fun dropping f bombs at debates tho
If all you did was show up and say, “Fuck these guys” you’d get my vote. The bar for good governance has pretty much never been this low in the history of our nation.
I’m gonna run as a Republican because I’m going to lose. Might as well pull a funny.
The Democrats had Sinema and Manchin (Fetterman is probably in that bucket too). We could use turncoats on the Republican side.
Actually now that you mention this, what if a ton of socialists/anarchists/whatever run as Republicans and just force the party super far left?
And when you win you just pull a Fetterman and switch to independent or whatever.
Let me introduce you to the wonderful Jeff Van Drew.
That’s been the Democrats’ strategy for years!
Imma meme my way into office guys! Lmao
Found Elon
🤢 oh god I’m gonna be sick
Nothing wrong with livin’ the dream, livin’ the meme!
Why do you reject electioneering, bro. It’s just so easy, you only need to vote once every 2 years, bro. It doesn’t take any effort, bro.
Don’t waste your time electioneering. It doesn’t work. Provenly. Put your effort in literally anything else that would improve your life except this shite. Take direct action. Organize your workplace. Feed the homeless. Whatever.
“Dude just vote for the genocidal parties who hate you, and if that doesn’t work, proudly establish yourself as a member of that party that hates you, so when the fascists starts gunning down the other genocidal party for not being genocidal enough, you can say ‘At least i ran for office instead of helping my community outside of electoralism’.”
Liberals think that the people affected by neoliberalism can somehow run for office, when its expensive as fuck even on the local levels. If I had that money I’d just move out of the country, not try to fix a rotten apple from the inside-out.
What’s surprising is that my comment wasn’t downvoted to hell.
Very much so, usually if you call out the idea that elections aren’t the end of change, people downvote and call you $BAD_COUNTRY’s shills.
I think trying to approach change from every avenue is the best way forward
Politics frankly won’t change much in the next 4 years unless a bunch of progressives and liberals move to every purple state from the deep blue and deep red states. I still have some faith in newer generations not being as right leaning, but it would take decades for younger generations to vote at the scale of Baby Boomers and Gen X.
Plus Federated spaces need to grow more as well if we want to try to prevent misinformation from spreading as much as we see in the privately owned social media companies.
I believe there needs to be a push to change the voting system away from First Past the Post voting. As this is the main thing that keeps us in this mess of a two party system. The change needs to happen through grassroots organizing at the local election level all the way up to the state level to be successful in passing an alternative voting system in each state. Alaska and Maine both have already moved away from First Past the Post voting, so it is possible to do.
I also reccomend applying to the DNC here in addition to usernames link.
EDIT: Looks like the nationwide party portal has no open positions, better to check out state-specific sites.
Why waste time on performative gestures in two years like this rather than actually doing something right now?
The midterms are not the only elections! There are elections this year in many states and localities. This is not some technicality either - there already have been 48 local elections since January 1st and more come up every single week. State and local elections are way more frequent around the country than you think. Plus special elections pop up all the time too. See one election calendar below
You should be doing both if you can. Doing local stuff can help to get a local office
Realistically, the United States is heading to Balkanization. Probably the single best thing you can do to prepare for that Balkanization is making sure that your city, county, and state elected officials are people who represent you, and that you agree with. You don’t want to be stuck on an island in a sea of fascists with elected officials who will sell you out in an instant.
