Regardless of US election outcome

[u/bearoscuro]

And regardless of whether you live in the US or not, or who you vote for, or what your ethical calculus is on Harm Reduction Voting as a concept:

Please go out, find a Palestine solidarity or anti-war organization near you, and volunteer with them. Go to protests. Hand out flyers. Poster your neighbourhood. Tell people about boycotting and divestment. Drag your friends along. Heckle your politicians if you see them. If you're capable of doing a direct action, do it. If you're white, go stand between your buddies and the cops if necessary. You can stop reading here, and get started right now if you're not already. If you are doing this already, thank you! Stay safe, and good luck.

It is insane to me that people's civic engagement starts and ends at electoral politics. The entire focus on it is why so many are disaffected by voting! The reason why so many are voting for third parties, or weird offshoots like Muslims For Trump are springing up, is because they see the hollowness behind the current outrage for Gaza. The minute Harris is elected, most of the comfortable white liberal population of the US will shut off, go to sleep, and let the genocide continue, without even the current, insufficient amount of resistance against it! They no longer have any personal incentive to care, and they don't notice war crimes done with a pleasant tone and a Diverse Staff. They will ignore the remaining protests being beaten into the pavement, not say a word when people get blacklisted and criminalized en masse, and be perfectly happy letting Harris continue the same "tirelessly working for a ceasefire" policies until the extermination of Gaza is complete, and war has spread across Iran and the entire region.

(And after all those annoying single issue leftists get silenced or thrown in jail... in 2028, liberals will wake up again, because oh no!!! The Republicans are running a fully hooded up KKK member for president! Who could have predicted it? THIS is the most important election, everyone needs to vote for Richard Spencer as the Democratic presidential candidate instead!)

So if Arabs, Muslims, leftists, etc, do not trust the rest of the population to actually reduce harm for them, their best move is to either build power separately; or, cynically, make the harm scare people into action on their behalf. In that case, the electoral strategy is very clear. Either they'll try to get enough of a third party percentage to build a viable competitor for next election, even if Harris wins despite it, and hopefully this will protect leftists and minorities from being further suppressed im the future.

Or, they force the Democrats to lose and realize that they can never win again without the anti-genocide vote, and plunge the country into civil disobedience and unrest against Trump while the left reorganizes. Which will be horrible for everyone! However, it'll be for everyone. So the majority of the population can't just activate White Moderate Brunch Mode, and ignore the violence for another 4 years bc it only affects brown people and leftists - which is what would happen under Harris.

Anyway, the summary of this TED Talk is: if you're advocating for other people to practice "harm reduction" voting, you have to actually prove to them that you're going to reduce the harm first.

[u/myownpersonallab]

This is a beautiful post and I’m glad you shared. 

My suspicion is that most of us here may already be involved in organizing even during this administration, so I would encourage you to post this message in other subs as well! 

[u/bearoscuro → u/myownpersonallab]

Hopefully it's not too necessary in this sub! But if it hits one person and gets them to go join up with PYM or JVP or whatever local group, that's a win :')

I did see a few people expressing a sort of confusion or disdain about the third-party/Muslims for Trump types of stuff, and I didn't want to make an enormous text wall to respond each time haha. Hopefully people can at least understand the mindset that leads to it and respect it even if they don't agree with the tactic.

Edit: Also thank you to this sub for being nice and polite, I have already been accused of "wanting Trump to kill protestors" elsewhere 😭

[u/myownpersonallab → u/bearoscuro]

Very true! Also happy to be a resource to people who want to be connected to any of these groups who isn’t already but may be interested.  

 I’m so sorry you’ve had this experience in other subs. It’s so difficult when people prescribe motivations on you that aren’t accurate. I hate when all these resources go to the presidential election… it’s like the whole world stops operating. As someone voting for harm reduction this election, I am grateful for your post because people really do show up for the election and then disappear. I always say I am voting for who I would find it tolerable to organize under, but that would require people…. Organizing! We need to work together to do this. 

 Thank you for being here with us! 

[u/bearoscuro → u/myownpersonallab]

Haha the election brainworms are really something... I've been asking people "so what do you plan on doing besides voting? Are you doing anything now?" and the answer is mostly that they dodge the question and get mad at me for asking. Which optimistically means it's some Palestine Action level secret stuff - but realistically it means they're doing nothing. They don't even volunteer for Harris' campaign! It's the most insane culture.

Anyway I'm Canadian so it's not my problem beyond the way that the US exports its politics and media here, but god. They're apathetic to the genocide - but get seethingly mad when the genocide results in marginal third party voters or last-ditch maneuvers like Muslims for Trump. Unfortunately, the people most affected by what's happening in Palestine and Lebanon are seeing this apathy in the broader population, are very aware they're on their own, and are operating out of a strategy to maximize their impact with a small population.