We Can’t “Just Vote”

Millions more of these won’t be enough.

I have seen the sentiment a thousand times if I have seen it once: We have to vote our way out of this mess.

In response to any number of tragedies – from shootings to abortion to a literal coup – Democrats have offered the ballot box as a fix for what ails the average American. There’s no question as to why: Many of the things Democrats are promising to do rely on having Democratic majorities in all branches of government, and the only way those majorities can come to fruition is people voting them in. People then get more of what they vote for. Electoral peace comes to the land. The circle of life continues.

Except that’s no longer the case, if it ever was. Republicans have broken the electoral system through major damage to the Voting Rights Act, aggressive gerrymandering at the state and federal level, and an empty headed buffoon functioning as a living conduit for whatever credulous Federalist Society lapdogs they could dredge up for the federal judiciary.

They have effectively suppressed the political and social majorities of the United States.

This is a dark truth to share, but we saw it in 2016 and it will only get worse: 3 million more votes will not produce a reliable Presidential victory. It was the canary in the coal mine for Biden too — a few thousand votes in a handful of states, and an 8 million vote margin would be squandered. How big does it have to get for us to wonder what exactly a vote is worth?

Democrats are going to need to get big brass ones now. They can’t continue waiting for voters to get their act together when we are actually terrifyingly aware of how ineffective our major lever of power is. Many of us committing to vote don’t actually have the ability to push back on GOP efforts — either because we live in Democratic areas in Democratic states, or we are actively suppressed by local and state GOP maneuvers. It’s not like we’re not trying.

We’re not getting mad at Democrats asking us to vote as much as their constant refusal to acknowledge that a lack of tactical thinking about institutional power for the last two decades has brought us to the point where voters can’t save the Democratic Party even if we wanted to. Ever since Bush v Gore, we have been on this crash course between a conservative reactionary movement and their inevitable rejection by majorities — maybe permanently damaging ones. From the moment the Civil Rights Act passed, the neo-Confederate movement knew that they were headed to permanent minority status and began planning how to secure their power against the voting public. They succeeded.

We are living in the birth of that nation. And our pro-democracy leadership is in denial.

They keep telling us that if we can overwhelm their opponents, then they’ll get the courage to do all (or some (or a tiny bit)) of the crazy shit the base keeps asking for in order to secure some lasting victory…until SCOTUS says that more than six Democrats meeting in public is unconstitutional. The absurdity is clear in every stretch of silence after the question: “And then what?”

The will of the people has been effectively circumvented, and we’re being told to turn the elections off and back on again, but really, really mean it this time. Voters aren’t insensate to the basics of electoral politics, but it’s not convincing us that the party needs more power if TPTB can’t be inventive with what they already have.

The country and the majority of its voters deserve sincere and visionary leadership in a moment of crisis, not a whining abdication of responsibility. Anyone who is following along knows that voting is a necessary part of the plan, but we’re also aware that voting can’t be the end of it. To convince us, Democrats are going to need to offer a vision that can move the majorities they seek, or those majorities will cease to matter in very short order.

We can’t just beg, plead and cajole people into voting. We can’t continue to hear about how many problems we can’t fix and what we can’t do, without some promises about what will be done when the Democratic trifecta is secure beyond reasonable doubt. I’m disinterested in fundraising emails asking me for money without acknowledging that we barely have swing districts left in which to spend it. No, if Democrats are going to make voting count, they’re going to have to do something they’ve never done before: Have a plan.