Actually, Voter Shaming Doesn’t Work
jacobin.com
Voter shaming has never been an effective tactic, but the fact that it’s being discussed as one by the likes of Pod Save America’s hosts speaks to the increasingly post-democratic sentiments that have become common among elite liberals.

It’s an election year, so the usual suspects are going to be screaming that any good person will vote party line Democrat and if you don’t you’re letting the fascists win and you’re a a bad person and a bad liberal/leftist/anarchist/communist/whatever.

Of course, every candidate from every major political party is a fascist of some flavor, but “you have to vote for the slightly better fascist or the slightly worse fascist will win” doesn’t have the same ring to it.

Just a reminder that voting is not the default, it’s not a civic duty, it’s not a requirement of being a good member of your community.

Voting, for United States citizens, is the personal choice to participate in one specific form of capitalist neoliberal politics - a form that claims the mantle of democracy while being one of the most profoundly undemocratic forms of government in history.

Don’t shame people for not voting.

Don’t shame people for voting third party.

Don’t shame people for write-in votes or protest votes.

Frankly, don’t talk about voting with random people at all. The choice to vote, or not, is a personal moral choice. You have no right to assume that someone considers voting to be a moral act - and there are strong arguments that voting in the United States is a profoundly immoral act - and assuming someone is a voter and asking them to pick a candidate to vote for is no different than assuming someone supports sex work and asking them to pick a sex worker to employ.

If you know someone is a registered voter, go ahead and talk to them about voting. But keep in mind voting third party, or abstaining from voting in a specific election, are also legitimate moral and political choices, and shaming someone for not voting party line Democrat is offensive, counterproductive, and rude.

And if you don’t know someone is a voter, don’t recommend they vote for or against someone or discuss electoral politics in general. Many of us find electoral politics profoundly immoral and the assumption that we would participate in such equally offensive.

Be respectful. Don’t vote shame. Thank you.

  • meyotch@slrpnk.net
    12·
    11 months ago

    Voting takes like maybe 2 hours of my time in a given year to maintain registration, scan an information pamphlet and the actual act of delivering a ballot. I do have circumstances such that voting access is easy for me. I realize it is not so universally, but there is still an untapped ‘market’ of people who could easily vote, but don’t.

    Like it or not, elections do have consequences. Even so, I agree shaming is likely ineffective as a motivational tool. Yes, i feel personally that people should vote strategically becuse in general it is a low cost activity with outsized consequences. Do a million other things too, because you have time.

    Ok lets use your rule: no shaming.

    What then are the more effective tools for uniting people to work in the same general direction? Successful movements seem to unite people in common cause without making it an explicit alliance between sects.

    I don’t have a lot of solid answers but I would claim this is a good place to start a discussion.

    • LibertyLizard@slrpnk.net
      3·
      11 months ago

      I agree. I think there are valid anarchist critiques of getting too invested in our current political process which is clearly deeply flawed but the reality is that some governments will be more permissive of anarchist organizing than others—and there is a lot of organizing to be done. It’s important to make that work the main focus but because voting has an outsized impact relative to its ease, it’s still worth doing. And in the current electoral system, strategically voting for the least bad of the top two options is the best choice.

      • meyotch@slrpnk.net
        3·
        11 months ago

        We live in a moribund neoliberal society and I will vote to preserve it because the alternative makes my immediate and foreseeable future significantly less cool.

        Kurt V said maturity is a bitter disappointment for which there is no remedy, that’s my voting vibe.

        I’m involved in party politics exclusively for local networking. Societal breakdown does not require social breakdown and I’m meeting the kind of people I want in my personal zombie movie.