this post was submitted on 13 Sep 2023
488 points (93.0% liked)

politics

19103 readers
3906 users here now

Welcome to the discussion of US Politics!

Rules:

  1. Post only links to articles, Title must fairly describe link contents. If your title differs from the site’s, it should only be to add context or be more descriptive. Do not post entire articles in the body or in the comments.

Links must be to the original source, not an aggregator like Google Amp, MSN, or Yahoo.

Example:

  1. Articles must be relevant to politics. Links must be to quality and original content. Articles should be worth reading. Clickbait, stub articles, and rehosted or stolen content are not allowed. Check your source for Reliability and Bias here.
  2. Be civil, No violations of TOS. It’s OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It’s NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.
  3. No memes, trolling, or low-effort comments. Reposts, misinformation, off-topic, trolling, or offensive. Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.
  4. Vote based on comment quality, not agreement. This community aims to foster discussion; please reward people for putting effort into articulating their viewpoint, even if you disagree with it.
  5. No hate speech, slurs, celebrating death, advocating violence, or abusive language. This will result in a ban. Usernames containing racist, or inappropriate slurs will be banned without warning

We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.

All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.

That's all the rules!

Civic Links

Register To Vote

Citizenship Resource Center

Congressional Awards Program

Federal Government Agencies

Library of Congress Legislative Resources

The White House

U.S. House of Representatives

U.S. Senate

Partnered Communities:

News

World News

Business News

Political Discussion

Ask Politics

Military News

Global Politics

Moderate Politics

Progressive Politics

UK Politics

Canadian Politics

Australian Politics

New Zealand Politics

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
 

The Pennsylvania Democrat recalled his time serving as a Hillary Clinton surrogate in 2016, even after he supported Bernie Sanders in the primary.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] banneryear1868@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Well it depends on your own politics and goals so I can only speak from my own perspective. It's a bleak time to be a socialist because we don't have any political representation in NA really. The route I see is more mimicking what civil rights leaders were doing in the 50s-60s which was organizing labor unions. We don't have a big cultural moment like they did though and the labor movement isn't what it used to be, partly because of bipartisan views against it, union busting and policies watering it down, and we're fragmented, there's no class consciousness in today's political dialogue. Huge demonstrations like the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom (where the famous "I have a dream" speech was delivered), or direct actions like the freedom rides, I don't think is really possible in today's cultural setting.

I think if you're just a regular working person you can begin by organizing and trying to unionize your workplace, but even that has risks. Maybe that just means finding coworkers who share your sentiments, but ultimately it's talking to people. I'm in a unionized workplace so what do I do next, I try and get involved and do what I can. I've also joined my workplace's DEI committee to input more solidarity and political economy-aware notions of what that means opposed to the default corporate diversity industry's ideas, I saw an opportunity there and it's been very well received by some key coworkers... So assuming you're doing what you can in your job setting, the one thing that will define your "success" in life, the embodiment of your relationship to capital and the economy. Next you can get involved politically. For me that has been things like canvassing for someone who was running for office who shared my political ideology and goals, for the most left wing party in my country. At one point a close friend ran for office so I got a glimpse of that world, and we were able to increase the party's share of the popular vote in that riding, a highly contested riding between the dominant 2 parties who spend millions of dollars there, so we all considered that a success for a third party candidate there.

I think meaningful political action is really about the context of your own life and what you're able to do. No matter what it is, it really comes down to unglamorous work and talking to people. Maybe that's collecting enough signatures for a motion against a proposed bylaw to be accepted by your municipality, canvassing your own representative by organizing people, volunteering for a candidate you agree with. It could be cultural too like supporting events and causes that your politics aligns with. I have a few direct actions I do personally on the environmental front which involve restoring habitats and bit of civil disobedience (not law-breaking). It's all work though, it's not about liking some social media post or saying "agree" under a post like this, that's all meaningless distraction. Anything done online is meaningless basically.