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[Nafai1123]

Since it's not mandatory, and no significant legislation has been put forward to make it mandatory, how would you go about making this a reality?

Get people elected who believe in expanding the ease/ability to vote (aka not Republicans).

 

[Deepwater]

Obviously you did not learn a fucking thing.

Always pick Lawful Evil over Chaotic Evil, for fuck's sake.

I know it's cool to be self fellating over one's own perceived pragmatism, but you're not really winning any awards by saying you'll prefer to vote for a war criminal like Bush who actually has a proven track record for wrecking the economy and plunging us in not one, but TWO wars.

Like, really guys? MANY people suffered over Bush. The hypothetical scenario should have been taken facetiously but no, guys, voting for Bush over Trump would not have been the better or pragmatic choice, no matter how much you try to convince yourselves otherwise.

 

[Gallbaro]

Many states already do this.

Isn't it applied to fed elections as well?

 

[sugarhigh4242]

Get people elected who believe in expanding the ease/ability to vote (aka not Republicans).

There's a concrete proposal being made: Mandatory time off on election day for workers to go to the polls. What have not-Republicans done to make that proposal a reality?

 

[Zoe]

Isn't it applied to fed elections as well?

All elections are treated the same where I live.

 

[Nafai1123]

There's a concrete proposal being made: Mandatory time off on election day for workers to go to the polls. What have not-Republicans done to make that proposal a reality?

You asked how to make it a reality and the simple answer is to get people elected who would enact these policies and make it a reality.

 

[Morrigan Stark]

I know it's cool to be self fellating over one's own perceived pragmatism, but you're not really winning any awards by saying you'll prefer to vote for a war criminal like Bush who actually has a proven track record for wrecking the economy and plunging us in not one, but TWO wars.

Like, really guys? MANY people suffered over Bush. The hypothetical scenario should have been taken facetiously but no, guys, voting for Bush over Trump would not have been the better or pragmatic choice, no matter how much you try to convince yourselves otherwise.

Yes, Bush was terrible, but you're deluding yourself if you think a Trump presidency won't lead to even more suffering and even worse quality of life.

 

[God Dayumm]

You asked how to make it a reality and the simple answer is to get people elected who would enact these policies and make it a reality.

Careful. Some people around here would call that a purity test

 

[Deepwater]

Yes, Bush was terrible, but you're deluding yourself if you think a Trump presidency won't lead to even more suffering and even worse quality of life.

And I won't be complicit in being responsible for either, and will happily keep my black ass home away from the voting booth.

Shame on yall for this pragmatic normalization of lesser of the two evil shit. Marginalized groups of people lose either way.

 

[Hex]

Since it's not mandatory, and no significant legislation has been put forward to make it mandatory, how would you go about making this a reality?

Make it a holiday I guess as odd as that is.
Give businesses some kind of tax incentive to offset the missing hours.

 

[Boney]

You asked how to make it a reality and the simple answer is to get people elected who would enact these policies and make it a reality.

See, this right here is the disconnect.

I know I've repeated it a lot, but Sheldon Wollin in Democracy Incorporated really lays bare how the American state works and how lulling people into passivity legitimizes the corporate pillaging.

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2014...totalitarianism-as-a-threat-to-democracy.html (This 3 hour interview is just fantastic btw)

There’s been a kind of conjuncture between the way that social and educational institutions have shaped a certain kind of mentality among students, among faculty, and so on, and the media itself, that are in lockstep with the requirements of the kind of political economic order that we have now, and that the basic question, I think, has been that we have seen the kind of absorption of politics and the political order into so many nonpolitical categories–of economics, sociology, even religion–that we sort of lost the whole, it seems to me, unique character of political institutions, which is that they’re supposed to embody the kind of substantive hopes of ordinary people, in terms of the kind of present and future that they want. And that’s what democracy is supposed to be about.

But instead we have it subordinated now to the so-called demands of economic growth, the so-called demands of a kind of economic class that’s at home with the sort of scientific and technological advances that are being applied by industry, so that the kind of political element of the ruling groups now is being shaped and to a large extent, I think, incorporated into an ideology that is fundamentally unpolitical, or political in a sort of anti-political way. What I mean by that: it’s a combination of forces that really wants to exploit the political without seeking to either strengthen it or reform it in a meaningful way or to rejuvenate it. It sees the political structure as opportunity. And the more porous it is, the better, because the dominant groups have such instrumentalities at their control now in order to do that exploitation–radio, television, newsprint, what have you–that it’s the best possible world for them.

The strategy is not to get someone elected to do something, but to get the people elected respond.
Karl Popper in The Open Society writes that the question isn't how do you get people to rule, that's the wrong question. Most people attracted to power are venal or mediocre at best. The question is, how do you get the power elite frightened of you. That's why Nixon is such a grand example of this. The man was scared that mobs would get into the White House and rip his head off, he was scared of a nation wide coal miner strike which would send the country into chaos.

Things like the women's March would be a modern day equivalent, where Planned Parenthood now under attack, there's going to be a major push back. It's happening with the GOP American health care act, it's where people will draw the line and get out and make damn sure they hear them.

 

[sugarhigh4242]

You asked how to make it a reality and the simple answer is to get people elected who would enact these policies and make it a reality.

Do you see how this is not a strategy?

 

[fantomena]

I have purity tests about abortion, anti-trade, worker rights and pro-union.

If a candidate doesn't fully support one or more of these then that candidate can fuck off.

 

[Zoe]

Make it a holiday I guess as odd as that is.
Give businesses some kind of tax incentive to offset the missing hours.

Making it a holiday doesn't work. The kind of people who can't leave work (despite already being protected by law) are the kind of people who work jobs that are still open on holidays.

And remember, the original premise of this thread was about local elections. Do you realize how many local elections there could be in a single year?

 

[Earthstrike]

Bush vs Trump. Who do you vote for in the general election?

The lesser evil candidate, or do you vote third party?

I wouldn't vote for either candidate

Bush. How is this even difficult.

 

[eBay Huckster]

You asked how to make it a reality and the simple answer is to get people elected who would enact these policies and make it a reality.

(Or, if you're in a state that allows it, get it on the ballot.)

Bush vs Trump. Who do you vote for in the general election?

The lesser evil candidate, or do you vote third party?

I wouldn't vote for either candidate

Third party, straight up, and I was one of the people most frequently preaching pragmatism last year.

(None of this really addresses that Stump's post probably should've ended this thread.)