A pithy idea – now going around in some progressive circles – is that elections are a waste of time.
The idea can be catchy. It all depends on some tacit assumptions.
For instance: elections are a waste of time if you figure the U.S. government is so far gone that it can’t get much worse.
Elections are a waste of time if you’ve given up on grassroots organizing to sway voters before they cast ballots.
Elections are a waste of time if you think there’s not much difference on the Supreme Court between Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Antonin Scalia, or Sonia Sotomayor and Samuel Alito.
Elections are a waste of time if you’re so disgusted with Speaker Pelosi that you wouldn’t lift a finger to prevent Speaker Boehner.
Elections are a waste of time if you don’t see much value in reducing – even slightly – the extent of injustice and deprivation imposed on vulnerable people.
Or, if you see the organizing of protests, community groups, unions and the like as “either/or” in relation to working for the election of better candidates.
Or, if you think the goal of those who struggled and suffered for the right to vote – seeing the ballot as an essential component of democracy p- is outdated and rendered moot by present-day frustrations and outrages.
Elections are a waste of time if you think corporate power has grown so immense that state power has become irrelevant.
Or, if you still believe it was smart when some of us progressives figured we had no stake in efforts to defeat Ronald Reagan in 1980 or George W. Bush in 2000.
Or, if you think it doesn’t much matter whether Californians elect to make possible Senator Carly Fiorina and Governor Meg Whitman, or whether Wisconsin voters remove Russ Feingold from the Senate.
Or, if you’d just as soon bypass any plausible path for electing more genuine progressives like Dennis Kucinich or Barbara Lee to government positions.
Or, if you see the raising of political awareness as an alternative to – rather than intertwined with – the building of progressive electoral power to challenge corporate power.
Elections are a waste of time if you don’t realize or care that the powerful forces behind Wall Street and the warfare state are thrilled if progressives retreat from electoral battles.
Elections are a waste of time if you conclude – due to chronic suppression of electoral democracy – that the ideal of electoral democracy should be discarded rather than pursued.
Elections are a waste of time if you think progressives should opt out of electoral struggles for government power, leaving it to uncontested dominance by the heartless and the spineless.
We’re not backing down in the face of Trump’s threats.
As Donald Trump is inaugurated a second time, independent media organizations are faced with urgent mandates: Tell the truth more loudly than ever before. Do that work even as our standard modes of distribution (such as social media platforms) are being manipulated and curtailed by forces of fascist repression and ruthless capitalism. Do that work even as journalism and journalists face targeted attacks, including from the government itself. And do that work in community, never forgetting that we’re not shouting into a faceless void – we’re reaching out to real people amid a life-threatening political climate.
Our task is formidable, and it requires us to ground ourselves in our principles, remind ourselves of our utility, dig in and commit.
As a dizzying number of corporate news organizations – either through need or greed – rush to implement new ways to further monetize their content, and others acquiesce to Trump’s wishes, now is a time for movement media-makers to double down on community-first models.
At Truthout, we are reaffirming our commitments on this front: We won’t run ads or have a paywall because we believe that everyone should have access to information, and that access should exist without barriers and free of distractions from craven corporate interests. We recognize the implications for democracy when information-seekers click a link only to find the article trapped behind a paywall or buried on a page with dozens of invasive ads. The laws of capitalism dictate an unending increase in monetization, and much of the media simply follows those laws. Truthout and many of our peers are dedicating ourselves to following other paths – a commitment which feels vital in a moment when corporations are evermore overtly embedded in government.
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