What exactly do you think the alternative is here? Not voting just surrenders what little power the electoral process does give you. Even if electoral politics aren’t a meaningful way to advance your vision of a better country, this is still an opportunity, however small, to reduce the harm that will be done under a Trump presidency. Like, even if you don’t expect Harris to meaningfully improve things (and there are a lot of areas where a former cop probably shouldn’t be expected to), the alternative is someone who continues to actively promise to make those same areas even worse.
Absolutely, and her record in those roles imo actually suggests at least some awareness of the kinds of problems that need to be solved there, though I’m sufficiently cynical about things that I would be surprised to see significant action on federal reforms. I’m cautiously optimistic about her, but my point is that even if you don’t think she’s any different from a rank-and-file Republican that would still make it irresponsible not to vote against Trump and the very specific plans he and the people around him have to make all of those problems even worse.
There is definitely room to push the Overton window farther left and (federal) electoral politics does not give an avenue to do that as long as the Republican party continues to drift further right. But the way to do that does not involve abandoning powerful federal offices like the goddamned presidency to right-wing loons.
What exactly do you think the alternative is here? Not voting just surrenders what little power the electoral process does give you. Even if electoral politics aren’t a meaningful way to advance your vision of a better country, this is still an opportunity, however small, to reduce the harm that will be done under a Trump presidency. Like, even if you don’t expect Harris to meaningfully improve things (and there are a lot of areas where a former cop probably shouldn’t be expected to), the alternative is someone who continues to actively promise to make those same areas even worse.
Characterizing her as just a “former cop” isn’t fair. She was a district attorney, then an attorney general, then a senator, then vice president.
Absolutely, and her record in those roles imo actually suggests at least some awareness of the kinds of problems that need to be solved there, though I’m sufficiently cynical about things that I would be surprised to see significant action on federal reforms. I’m cautiously optimistic about her, but my point is that even if you don’t think she’s any different from a rank-and-file Republican that would still make it irresponsible not to vote against Trump and the very specific plans he and the people around him have to make all of those problems even worse.
There is definitely room to push the Overton window farther left and (federal) electoral politics does not give an avenue to do that as long as the Republican party continues to drift further right. But the way to do that does not involve abandoning powerful federal offices like the goddamned presidency to right-wing loons.