listen.

knitmeapony:

angryfishtrap:

nooneeverlookedforagirl:

jumpingjacktrash:

razziecat:

greenjudy:

jumpingjacktrash:

don’t vote for the best candidate.

vote for the one most likely to remove a republican.

it’s that simple.

Vote them out.

Vote for the candidate that sees every person as a human being.

not if they can’t win, buddy. i’m serious. LISTEN. VOTE OUT THE REPUBLICANS. EVEN IF THAT MEANS VOTING IN SOME REGULAR ASSHOLES.

if the candidate who sees every person as a human being is green party, then you vote for the democrat who sees every person as a stepping stone, because unless we get rid of the republican who sees every person as a target a lot of us are going to goddamn die. people are dying already. like, not to guilt you, but if we don’t get a democratic majority in the house and senate ASAP we’re screwed.

it doesn’t fucking matter if you voted for Jesus Actual Christ if he was running on a penny ante party ticket. we need you to vote for Joe Slick Bastard Democrat instead, because there is no such thing as a green party majority in the senate, do you understand? there will not be a green party speaker of the house. green party will not get to put up supreme court nominees.

if you vote for the Good People instead of the democrats, we’re gonna end up back in this toilet bowl again, only deeper this time because the republicans will take it as a mandate to do whatever they want.

take a deep breath, put on rubber gloves, and touch the poop. don’t be precious.

In the primary you vote for the best candidate. In the general you vote for the person who can remove the Republican. You have your chance to do both.

In the primary you vote for the best candidate. In the general you vote for the person who can remove the Republican.

I read on another post “this is about setting the difficulty of our boss battle for the next two years” and that is absolutely true.  You’re not voting for someone you agree with, you’re not voting for someone who is perfect or great or even good.

You are voting for the person who is a) going to get elected and b) is easiest to fight for what you need.  Until we move the needle, the best we can expect is ‘the best of all enemies’ and not ‘an ally’.

nihil-descent:

[Image: A Reddit comment by corathus59.

This is almost fifty years ago: I added psych as a major so I could access the books on homosexuality in our university library. They were locked in the back and you had to go through the librarian to get them. If you were not a psych major the Dean of Students would interrogate you as to why you wanted to read such deleterious material.

Seeing the newspaper that one of my professors and his friends had been arrested at his own house, having a barbecue in the backyard, for “associating with a known homosexual”. Believe me, these things twist you, and make you think twice when invited to a party at someone’s house.

Having a handsome young stranger make eyes at you at the all night diner as you study for finals, and wondering if he is one of the detectives assigned to entrapping gays. Going through the teeter totter emotions of wondering if he might be the love you are looking for, or is he the trap that will flush your whole life down the toilet.

Coming to barracks at the end of the day in the Air Force, and watching the swarm of OSI and Security Police escorting a friend out under arrest for having gone to a gay bar. Wondering if he would name you, because that was the only way you could stay out of jail – by naming at least five other gays.

All of the above were common experiences for many gays in America, not that long ago. Those of us who went through this are still among you. Don’t take for granted the new freedoms you have. Get out and vote this election no matter what. The Republicans mean to send us back to all this.]

dabblingindissent:

kropotkhristian:

Particularly if you live in Texas, please vote, just for the schadenfreude. Can you even imagine if Texas goes blue. Can you even imagine Ted Cruz losing. I’m getting giddy just thinking about the conservative meltdown. There is literally zero path to the Presidency for Republicans that doesn’t include Texas. If they have to sweat bullets for the next forever thinking that Texas might be a left-leaning state… guys, this just sounds like a fun time.

Vote for Beto for the schadenfreude.

unconsciouscomplaining:

twodotsknowwhy:

adjectivebear:

thefingerfuckingfemalefury:

Do not just assume that the Democrats are going to win…the only way we can GUARANTEE that the Democrats make gains in these midterms is for people to go out and vote

Whatever the polls say, get out there and vote democrat, whereever you are

Do not just assume that they’ll “Definitely win” and so it doesn’t matter if you go out and vote or not

Remember how many people didn’t vote in 2016 because Hillary was “definitely going to win?”

Vote.

Vote like you will be the tie-breaker

VOTE LIKE YOU WILL BE THE TIE-BREAKER.

krishnath:

mutantlexi:

brainstatic:

Any analysis of Democratic losses in red states that doesn’t begin and end with Shelby v. Holder isn’t worth listening to.

seriously, this is fucked up. I live in a town in Ohio that’s only slightly bigger (~30,000) and we have like 16 in the city limits alone, and another 10-15 in the surrounding area.

It is a classic voter suppression tactic, and it is sickening that it is allowed to happen without major repercussions for whomever engages in it.

hrefnatheravenqueen:

Hey there US friends! If you’re voting using these machines (Hart eSlate) or similar ones right now or in the near future, make sure that the machine has NOT changed your ballot before casting it, ‘k? It’s apparently an already known problem, and has been for years, but has never been fixed.

Additional Source: https://abc13.com/politics/straight-party-voters-reporting-their-votes-were-changed/4556377/

bethany-sensei:

aeliad:

thebibliosphere:

I’d apologize for all the “get your ass out there and vote” reblogs, but as a disabled (queer) woman who can’t vote yet due to my migrant status, I’m relying on others to do the right thing and use their vote on November 6th to get out there and turn this train wreck into a rescue mission.

And allow me to make it abundantly clear, if you are able to vote in this election and you choose not to for false equivalency “but they’re all the saaaaame” nonsense, you are complicit in the evil that is about to unfold, and I’ll see you in hell.

I am in a liberal county in California. It’s overwhelmingly Democratic. My vote for senate might not “matter,” but I don’t care.

I’m still voting. Why?

Because “down-ticket” votes matter, too. 

Look into your school board. They set the textbooks that set the tone for your region. They educate future voters. They matter. Look into the city level, and county level. They set local ordinances that can change things. Look into your state propositions, those can make a huge difference. Look at your representatives. Even if you can’t vote someone out of office, vote against them if they’re a piece of shit. Make them realize they’re not loved.

Fuck. 

People fought and died for our right to vote. 

It’s a right. It’s a responsibility. 

VOTE.

I don’t care if you hate the system. I hate it, too. I don’t care if you’re “only voting for the lesser evil” they’re still less evil. I don’t care if you want a revolution. Vote, and then get back to planning that revolution. 

VOTE.

Here’s what a nice older hippie I used to work with told me:

She said that when her daughter turned eighteen and complained that “voting doesn’t matter anyway”, she looked at her child and she said in her firm Mom Voice

“Even if you don’t vote, you go to that polling site and you go and stand in that voting booth. You show up out of respect for everyone who has ever fought to give you that right that you want to throw away.”

I think about that a lot.

Also,

Yes your vote counts, go and vote!!

kaorusan241:

porcupine-girl:

moirailslut:

eliciaforever:

randomslasher:

hustlerose:

fuck every democrat who says the issue of trans rights is a “distraction.” fuck every single liberal who say that the threat of stripping every trans person of legal recognition is a red herring or a losing issue and if we focus on it too long we’ll throw the election. we’re talking about human rights, access to medical care, sex education, discrimination, citizenship, and a whole lot else, for millions of people.

trans people aren’t a “distraction.” we’re human beings. the fact that so many liberals turn their backs on trans people is fucking despicable.

Okay…but this, right here? This is exactly what the Republican party wants. Young voters turning against the Democratic party and either not voting at all, or voting in favor of some third party candidate that has literally zero chance of pulling in enough votes to win. They want division among the ranks. They want to split our vote. 

In political terms, calling something a ‘distraction’ means it’s a distraction tactic, not that the issue itself isn’t important. The Republican party has a very longstanding history of dropping hints of major policy changes right before big elections in the hopes of getting the “hot-headed liberals” all fired up about it so we start bickering among ourselves. They deliberately drop issues that they know are hot-button topics because these are the topics that have the potential to be the most divisive. 

They’re awful but they’re not dumb. They know trans rights is an issue that could potentially split the democratic vote. It’s an issue that’s very heavily weighted toward the younger side of the party, which again, was a deliberate move on their part. If they can convinced you that the “big bad Democrats don’t care about you little trans and nonbinary kids so why bother,” then they’ve effectively won the election in a walk because the democrats went in divided–again.

Look, the democratic party isn’t perfect. Not by a long shot. But it’s literally the only party that has a snowball’s chance in hell at overtaking the republican majority right now. If we as trans and nonbinary individuals ever want our identities respected and protected, it’s the only party that’s going to be able to get us there, because it’s the party going in the direction we need to go. If you want to vote in favor of our rights, then vote Democrat. No number of videos with pennies is going to change the fact that right now, in this political climate, third party candidates are not going to have enough power to effect the changes we want. 

Warning against something being a distraction doesn’t mean “don’t look at it or worry about it,” it means, “hey, I know this is majorly upsetting, and absolutely something needs to be done, but don’t let it divide us.” It’s literally because the issue is so important that democrats are warning against it as a distraction tactic–if we want to prevent that kind of change from happening under republican rule, we have to keep our heads and not let them keep us from voting as a unified party. 

Please don’t let the political rhetoric make you think that the democratic party isn’t going to be fighting for us and our rights. That’s kind of exactly what the Republican party wants you to think. It’s a division tactic. Don’t fall for it.

The Republican party has a very longstanding history of dropping hints of major policy changes right before big elections in the hopes of getting the “hot-headed liberals” all fired up about it so we start bickering among ourselves.

THIS THIS THIS THIS THIS

I’ve been voting since 1998. This is what they do every single election.

Wait but what are the democrats doing about this again?

Well, they can’t do jack shit unless they get a majority in either the House or the Senate, preferably both.

But in case you forgot, Democrats made it legal for trans people to change their gender on their passports. Democrats lifted the ban on trans people in the military that had been in place since the 1960s. Democrats have nominated a trans woman for Governor of Vermont.

STOP WITH THE “BOTH PARTIES ARE THE SAME” RHETORIC!

Are Democrats doing enough? Probably not. But they’ve done something and unlike Republicans aren’t trying to actively roll back the things they have done.

READ THIS WHOLE THREAD