Who Owes Their Vote to Whom?

[Doktor Howl]

I have been spending a lot of time on Facebook recently, while waiting for morally-questionable tests to run on a very improbable technology that may provide an existential threat to all existing life.  Keep that last bit in your brain while I go forward.

I have seen a lot of people on the left hollering about "vote shaming" and about how "they don't owe us their vote," and I can see where they're coming from.  I don't like being told what to do, either, even if the command is implied rather than explicit.  You are perfectly free to vote for Biden or Trump or Jorgenson or that guy from the Green Party that nobody's ever heard of.  You are perfectly free to not vote at all.  So, that being said, I won't be listening to any more bitching about "vote shaming".  Vote mockery, yes, but that's not quite the same thing.

I acknowledge that you are not require to vote the way I think you should vote.  Clear?  Clear.

Next item:  While you are not required to do shit, Ruth Bader Ginsberg was not required, legally or morally, to retire 10 years ago to avoid the possibility of being replaced by the other side.  Leaving aside the idea that most male SCOTUS justices never retire and don't take this kind of shit, why on Earth should she have retired?  It's not like there weren't any pressing ideas in the court, and the odds of getting someone like RBG again were - and are - slim.  All of this insistence that she should have used a time machine to see that every possible election went wrong and every single thing that could fail did fail is basically reasoning used for people to feel better about not voting last time around, and giving the Big Orange Smear three (3) court picks.

She didn't owe you shit.  She participated in the process, which sometimes involves more than the equivalent of garage band guitarists pointing at Mark Knopfler and saying "He's doing it wrong."

I acknowledge that she never owed you a Goddamn thing.  Clear?  Clear.

Next item:  That thing about Biden climbing in bed with the moderate republicans.  Turns out he doesn't owe you shit, either.  He needs a broader base of support - the 2016 election proved that - and the left has already told him in no uncertain terms how they feel.  So he went elsewhere, and the Lincoln project now has a seat at the table and most of the leftists don't (leaving aside that the Lincoln Party nerds actually, you know, *vote* on election day).  Either we get another four years of Trump, or Biden wins and owes nothing at all to the left.  Sounds like another crushing victory for the forces of progressive principle.

I guess that works, if your aim is to haul your toga to the side to display your progressive battle scars to the rest of the Occupy Wall Street general assembly veterans.

I acknowledge the fact that Biden doesn't owe you a seat at the table.

Last item:  Given the fact that nobody owes anybody shit, I see no reason not to cease doing my dangerous and blatantly unethical work.  After all, if you can put the country into the hands of a dumbass and his minions, I can put this sort of crap into the hands of people who can't see past the next grant proposal.  You'll probably survive four years of this sort of thing, and it will teach you a lesson or two.  Or we'll all die. One or the other.

Leslie Groves was never *serious* about having a good time in the end times.

I acknowledge that I'd better get back to work.

Yours, again and again and again (potentially),
Doktor Howl

[Doktor Howl]

Relevant reading:  https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Horsemen_(Supreme_Court)

[Fomalhaut]

This might not be the most relevant thing to your entire post (the Four Horsemen link was informative, thank you), but in regards to "vote shaming/mockery" I've had some thoughts on that topic from my experience with it.

The 2016 presidential election would have been the first I was old enough to vote in. Coincidentally, I was going through a very hard time as an individual, and long  story short, I had an experience that lead me to be put under a psychiatric hold in the hospital ("danger to self"). They put me on the wrong medication, which made me hallucinate for days (and was mistakenly viewed by the staff,  who had no access to my medical history since I'd never been a previous patient there, as symptoms of a disorder rather than a negative reaction to the meds). During this time, the election happened, and I was obviously unable to vote because I was unable to get out of there in time.  In fact, I woke up from a week-long memory-holed blackout in a closed psychotic ward and it was absolutely traumatizing.

Upon getting released and witnessing the aftermath of the election, all I got was shit for not voting. Musician friends shared things like "if you didn't vote, we don't want you at our shows or listening to our music". People put on blast that it was the fault of people like me that Trump was elected. How I should just go kill myself for not voting (kind of ironic considering the hospitalization situation and how attempting suicide will get you in there). I wasn't expecting sympathy or anything, but as much as the progressive left claims to understand how certain people can be barred from voting due to poverty or systemic racism, there's never any discussion of how the mental health system can be complicit in silencing our votes as well. Maybe because it isn't as common of an experience, but it's also difficult to discuss because it inherently involves discussion of the mental health system as acting as anything other than helpful  (and that seems to be faux pas as well in many circles, despite mistakes being common and it not being a perfected system by any stretch of term, which seems to be the most obvious to those who have gone through it).

I guess my thought is that vote-mockery and shaming may have some place as a source of positive peer pressure to be active in our civic duties and make change, idfk,  but it's definitely gone too far in certain instances, possibly due partially to not allowing any leeway for extenuating circumstances that aren't the ones normally brought up. The militant nature it has adopted can leave people feeling pretty alienated from those who simultaneously claim to want their votes, alliance, and support. Thus, it can be counterproductive, since they risk losing potential support, not so much due to ideological disagreement, but due to alienation. On another front, that politically fueled alienation then trickles into our real life connections with others and tears apart formerly inclusive,  creative social circles and collectives that actively go against the status quo in a not-blatantly-political fashion, which I think our society could use more of (and maybe a little less arguing on Facebook), but what the fuck do I know, people can do what they like.. Haha.

None of this is to say that the alienation lead to me feeling more willing to support the right wing, either, (though I can see how it could for others if they found social support from more right leaning people instead. That didn't happen in my case, and I came from a volatile, Conservative family so the Right's shit never appealed to me) but to just being even more exhausted and bitter regarding the entire political process and voting in general...again, irony.

*my apologies for editing things to death, it's always to either add a thought or fix grammar, not to alter the nature of my post or seem disingenuous.   

[The Johnny]

[...]

It seems that your friends and aquaintances that were "shaming people that didnt vote" were specifically targetting those who COULD vote but didnt regardless... perhaps it is your mistake to feel alluded by something that was directed at others... now if they actually targeted you, knowing fully your situation, then they dont seem to be your actual friends and/or theyre huge assholes.

[Fomalhaut]

[...]

It seems that your friends and aquaintances that were "shaming people that didnt vote" were specifically targetting those who COULD vote but didnt regardless... perhaps it is your mistake to feel alluded by something that was directed at others... now if they actually targeted you, knowing fully your situation, then they dont seem to be your actual friends and/or theyre huge assholes.

I guess it really might have been my mistake to lump in my not being able to vote with them "shaming people who didn't vote". Not the one who told me to kill myself, they were likely  just being an asshole. What I went through was more like an odd instance of what could be considered voter suppression (that  was mostly related to a medical mistake in my case, but I had never given any thought about whether or not people in psych wards during elections had the opportunity to vote or not, until that happened). It's totally possible that I took some of it too personally at the time, and misunderstood that they meant specifically  intentionally not voting. Still, I wouldn't have joined with them shaming those people either, personally. I understand it's meant as a form of positive peer pressure, but it doesn't seem to me to be a very effective one. (to each their own, though).

Thanks for response! It's helpful to get feedback from unbiased sources and question my previous perspectives on things sometimes.