This attitude pisses me off for a number of reasons.
Not everyone can afford to move out of these states as they become steadily shittier. Smart people leaving further entrenches the conservative majority in those states, which makes it harder to flip states. It makes it easier for Republicans to control the Senate, and harder for Democrats to accomplish anything (not that they ever fucking want to). And when Republicans put policies in place that fuck over the people who can’t leave, Democrats on the national level consider it to be a Red State Problem that they don’t have to worry about doing anything about, because all the people who can’t leave evidently deserve it for being outnumbered and not having enough money to move.
Thing is, Democrats’ lack of solidarity is gonna come back to bite them in the ass. When their negligence has caused a permanent Republican majority in the Senate, those Red State Problems they didn’t give a shit about are gonna be implemented at the national level. They’re not gonna stay Red State Problems.
Not that it makes it any better, but a lot of those people who can’t afford to move also can’t afford to vote (time off work, travel to a polling station, time to actually look into what’s going on)
That’s an extreme position that ignores a lot of realities. For someone living paycheck to paycheck with children to feed, losing a job to go vote is not even a question. They’re under duress.
Pretty much everywhere requires employers to give you some amount of time off to go vote, often paid. Voting by mail and early voting are much more widely available now.
I’m not saying that voter suppression doesn’t happen - it most certainly does - but for the vast majority of people, “had to work” simply isn’t a valid excuse.
Then they will be under more duress. I’ve been there. This is no excuse.
Meanwhile, employers should be sued for 95% of their wealth for interfering with the civic duty of their countrymen. And that IS NOT an extreme position.
I reject the premise that any state can be permanently lost. In 2020 Biden received more votes in Texas than he did in New York, and lost the state by only ~620k votes (under 6%), with 66 % voter turnout. Criminal Ken Paxton was going around saying that if he hadn’t been able to shut down Harris County sending out mail-in ballots to everybody like they had intended, Trump would have lost Texas. If we can get voter turnout up into the 70s in the big 4 metro areas (Houston, Dallas, Austin, San Antonio), we really could see the state go blue for state-wide and Federal offices. Unfortunately our Governor, Lt Governor, and Attorney General are all elected on mid-term years, and we have even shittier turnout in those years (dropped under 50% in 2022). But if we can get turnout up enough in a Presedential or US Senate year (both in 2024) then we can expect some serious national support in the next midterm to flip our state-wide offices.
Oh I don’t trust them at all. But we at least recently switched from the completely black box eSlate voting machines that store your vote on local internal memory, and were notoriously easier to alter the results in, to ones that print out a human-readable ballot that we can verify before scanning it into the ballot box. So that’s a huge step in the right direction. I believe if we can just get turnout high enough, there will be so much national funding for law suits to enforce bipartisan monitoring and media scrutiny and all that that I think it’d be hard for them to wash it all away.
… Democrats on the national level consider it to be a Red State Problem that they don’t have to worry about doing anything about, because all the people who can’t leave evidently deserve it for being outnumbered and not having enough money to move.
Conservative policies don’t only hurt progressives; they hurt everybody. If state conservatives are doing things which hurt everybody, they’re that much closer to being voted out.
They should start fighting to do a lot of things (and won’t), but I was talking about the Senate, which are statewide races largely unaffected by gerrymandering.
This attitude pisses me off for a number of reasons.
Not everyone can afford to move out of these states as they become steadily shittier. Smart people leaving further entrenches the conservative majority in those states, which makes it harder to flip states. It makes it easier for Republicans to control the Senate, and harder for Democrats to accomplish anything (not that they ever fucking want to). And when Republicans put policies in place that fuck over the people who can’t leave, Democrats on the national level consider it to be a Red State Problem that they don’t have to worry about doing anything about, because all the people who can’t leave evidently deserve it for being outnumbered and not having enough money to move.
Thing is, Democrats’ lack of solidarity is gonna come back to bite them in the ass. When their negligence has caused a permanent Republican majority in the Senate, those Red State Problems they didn’t give a shit about are gonna be implemented at the national level. They’re not gonna stay Red State Problems.
Not that it makes it any better, but a lot of those people who can’t afford to move also can’t afford to vote (time off work, travel to a polling station, time to actually look into what’s going on)
I will never ever ever ever accept “had to work” as an excuse to not vote.
Never.
That’s an extreme position that ignores a lot of realities. For someone living paycheck to paycheck with children to feed, losing a job to go vote is not even a question. They’re under duress.
Pretty much everywhere requires employers to give you some amount of time off to go vote, often paid. Voting by mail and early voting are much more widely available now.
I’m not saying that voter suppression doesn’t happen - it most certainly does - but for the vast majority of people, “had to work” simply isn’t a valid excuse.
Then they will be under more duress. I’ve been there. This is no excuse. Meanwhile, employers should be sued for 95% of their wealth for interfering with the civic duty of their countrymen. And that IS NOT an extreme position.
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I reject the premise that any state can be permanently lost. In 2020 Biden received more votes in Texas than he did in New York, and lost the state by only ~620k votes (under 6%), with 66 % voter turnout. Criminal Ken Paxton was going around saying that if he hadn’t been able to shut down Harris County sending out mail-in ballots to everybody like they had intended, Trump would have lost Texas. If we can get voter turnout up into the 70s in the big 4 metro areas (Houston, Dallas, Austin, San Antonio), we really could see the state go blue for state-wide and Federal offices. Unfortunately our Governor, Lt Governor, and Attorney General are all elected on mid-term years, and we have even shittier turnout in those years (dropped under 50% in 2022). But if we can get turnout up enough in a Presedential or US Senate year (both in 2024) then we can expect some serious national support in the next midterm to flip our state-wide offices.
deleted by creator
Oh I don’t trust them at all. But we at least recently switched from the completely black box eSlate voting machines that store your vote on local internal memory, and were notoriously easier to alter the results in, to ones that print out a human-readable ballot that we can verify before scanning it into the ballot box. So that’s a huge step in the right direction. I believe if we can just get turnout high enough, there will be so much national funding for law suits to enforce bipartisan monitoring and media scrutiny and all that that I think it’d be hard for them to wash it all away.
deleted by creator
Yeah 2024 is pretty damn crucial. Have several emmigration strategies if it goes poorly.
This problem will broaden to other states if Democrats continue to treat the issue flippantly.
deleted by creator
Conservative policies don’t only hurt progressives; they hurt everybody. If state conservatives are doing things which hurt everybody, they’re that much closer to being voted out.
Except for the whole “leaving the state” thing.
Sounds to me like Democrats should start fighting to eliminate gerrymander instead of whining about it.
They should start fighting to do a lot of things (and won’t), but I was talking about the Senate, which are statewide races largely unaffected by gerrymandering.