June BlueSpruce

@benroyce @fathermcgruder Leftists didn’t like Hillary in 2016 or Kamala in 2024…see the pattern? These were all close elections. If we had won even 1 of them, everyone’s lives would have been better, and leftists would have had more space to push for change. Now we are fighting to survive. And millions of people all over the globe are dead who would still be alive. Voting is harm reduction at worst, transformative at best. There’s nothing evil about reducing harm.2/

@QasimRashid Women have to think 10 times before saying or doing pretty much anything, particularly around men. So this isn’t much to ask.

@benroyce@mastodon.social @fathermcgruder@jorts.horse One more comment: when the US was founded only white male property owners could vote. Women had to fight for the right to vote. Even though Black American men were guaranteed the right to vote by the 15th amendment and Black women by the 19th amendment, civil rights activists had to fight for the Voting Rights Act of 1965. People have died for the right to vote. Who are any of us to throw away that right? It’s disrespectful. 4/

@benroyce@mastodon.social @sayonaraminasan@urusai.social Agree with Ben. I have lived through several elections that felt at the time as if they were as disastrous as 2024. (They weren’t, but we didn’t know that at the time, and they helped pave the way for Trump II.) 1968 - Nixon 1980 & 1984 - Reagan 2000 & 2004 - GWB 2016 - Trump I Each time, the loss felt like a gut punch and caused huge damage. Each time, we kept fighting. If we hadn’t, the situation now would be much worse than it is.

@benroyce@mastodon.social @wokerati@mastodon.social @hoare_spitall@mastodon.world @JustRobForNow@mastodon.social @evoterra@podvibes.co if we had had higher turnout: Humphrey instead of Nixon in 1968 = a shorter Vietnam war, no Cointelpro etc. Gore instead of Bush in 2000 = action on climate change, better Supreme Court justices who would have decided differently on Citizens United, abortion, etc. etc. Clinton instead of Trump in 2016, Harris instead of Trump in 2024 = hugely better outcomes 2/

@benroyce @fathermcgruder After 50 years of activism and all of these disappointments, I have stopped looking to electoral politics as the main focus for transformative change. That comes from organizing in communities. Forcing elected officials to do the right thing. If you vote for the right people, they’re more likely to give in to the demands of communities, or do the least to block them. So I vote for the best possible available candidate and keep organizing. 3/

@QasimRashid You forgot the part where he also lifted sanctions on Russia and got a two-fer: Russia now has more money to beat up on Ukraine AND to help Iran drop bombs on our allies and soldiers. You might think he actually hates America.

@benroyce@mastodon.social @wokerati@mastodon.social @hoare_spitall@mastodon.world @JustRobForNow@mastodon.social @evoterra@podvibes.co on a host of issues, including Gaza. All of these things that we would have gotten if there had been better turnout are now leftist goals that we are struggling to achieve while trying to make sure our democracy doesn’t collapse. So tell me again how not voting can sometimes be progressive, and show me your receipts. I have mine. 3/

@benroyce@mastodon.social @wokerati@mastodon.social @hoare_spitall@mastodon.world @JustRobForNow@mastodon.social @evoterra@podvibes.co I can understand why someone would engage in a behavior and still label that behavior as harmful. Not voting is always harmful. The larger the turnout, the more likely the outcome will be more progressive. Republicans know this! That’s why, given that their policies and actions suck, they default to depressing turnout. Why is this so hard for leftists to see? 1/

@benroyce@mastodon.social @reflex@retrogaming.social @fathermcgruder@jorts.horse Exactly. If you hadn’t voted blue in those elections, how do you think the outcome would’ve been different? It’s fucking discouraging, I know. I have 55 years of voting. We are up against entrenched authoritarian forces. Voting is one of our tools. Not the only one but essential. Progressives not voting is what authoritarians want. It’s what they aim their disinfo/voter suppression campaigns at. Why help them?

@benroyce@mastodon.social @wokerati@mastodon.social @hoare_spitall@mastodon.world @JustRobForNow@mastodon.social @evoterra@podvibes.co If someone’s engaged in a behavior you know to be harmful, understanding how they got there can be a first step toward supporting them in changing that behavior. But if you stop there, you’re just enabling the harm. Not voting is harmful to all of us. To be clear I’m speaking about people who choose not to vote, not people who get their votes taken from them. 4/

@aaron@chirp.zadzmo.org @benroyce@mastodon.social @wokerati@mastodon.social thank you. I am so sorry that you and your family member had to experience that. It’s completely wrong. I had to edit out that sentence because of character limits - I needed to clarify who I was talking to. But completely agree. How many people have died because of the actions of people who never should’ve become president in the first place? Millions.

@benroyce@mastodon.social @reflex@retrogaming.social @fathermcgruder@jorts.horse See my comments above. Leftists refusing to vote for centrists in the general election and thereby enabling Republicans to win has never, in my experience over the past 6 decades, made things better for leftists. Or anyone else! Esp those most vulnerable. E.g., BIPOC, LGBTQ+, poor/low income, Palestinians, Ukrainians. Al Gore was as centrist as they come. If he had won in 2000, the world would be very different now.

@indivisibleteam I would say, by now he is an actual war criminal.

@benroyce@mastodon.social @fathermcgruder@jorts.horse Thank you! I appreciate you - your posts give me heart to be loud about this. I made this argument many times in the run-up to 2024. 2024 reminded me so much of 1968. Which was a horrible year for many reasons. I could not get people to listen. And Trump is so much worse than Nixon was, a sentence I thought I would never have to say. But even when people make terrible mistakes re voting, we can’t give up on democracy. That’s the work.

@benroyce@mastodon.social @fathermcgruder@jorts.horse Ben, thank you for consistently, persistently, and bluntly addressing this issue in your posts.

@hanse_mina I cannot fucking wait for this to be us. If we don’t elect enough Democrats to take back the House AND the Senate this fall, it will take even longer. So donate. Make your calls. Volunteer. Fucking VOTE. Tell everyone you know who’s doubting whether voting makes a difference to look at Hungary. If you had told me 20 years ago that Hungary would be a healthier democracy than the United States, I wouldn’t have believed you. It’s within our power to change that. #Vote

@mastodonmigration@mastodon.online @benroyce@mastodon.social @fathermcgruder@jorts.horse The right and our foreign adversaries absolutely take advantage of our divisions, but they wouldn’t be able to if we didn’t create them in the first place. I would’ve hoped we would’ve learned our lesson by now. Maybe it took Trump 2 to do it, I don’t know.

@kyleford OMG. “The Meatspace Layer for AI.” Women are used to being treated like pieces of meat. How do you men like it?

@hajovonta @hanse_mina Thank you so much. Yes, I don’t want a minimize how much work the Hungarian people have to do to have a fully functioning democracy. It’s so encouraging to us that they rose up and took their country back. The huge margin that the opposition won by is what we need to emulate. Orban conceded immediately. We need such an overwhelming victory this fall and also in two years that all of the shenanigans the autocrats will try to pull will fail.

@blogdiva@mastodon.social Thank you for this thread! As always, I appreciate your incisive analysis. I am so glad that some influential people who actually follow the teachings of Jesus are standing up to the so-called Christian Nationalists, who don’t. As in this post by John Pavlovitz. I’m not a Christian myself, more of a pagan animist, but I admire the principles of Christianity as opposed to how it’s usually practiced. https://open.substack.com/pub/johnpavlovitz/p/loathe-thy-neighbor-5-jesusectomy

@benroyce@mastodon.social @fathermcgruder@jorts.horse ❤️

@NunavutBirder@mas.to Thank you! Where is this?

@alissaazar Fight fake dickheads with fake dicks 🙌🏻🙌🏻🙌🏻🙌🏻

@cmconseils@mastodon.social 😂

@MaryAustinBooks@mstdn.social Seattleite here 😂