By: Jessica

In reply to Jessica.

re: only one portion of the population that doesn’t vote
Yes, I realize that, and that many people who don’t vote aren’t doing it for reasons related to that. But it is because there are people who do not vote, and the reasons why they don’t are incredibly diverse, that I feel incredibly uncomfortable adopting a sanctimonious attitude or creating a false dichotomy of (vote-responsible, don’t vote-irresponsible). (I also realize I’m using a great deal of repetition, but I feel like the above statements are the most efficient shorthand I’ve found for referencing this discussion – apologies for the redundancy).

Thanks for elaborating on the second point as to who you were specifically referencing.

I’m not sure who you mean by the “people” who don’t care because (some) people on the far-left don’t vote (although most anarchists I know are actually voting in this election). I also see some forms of protest and voting as providing feedback for each other, but in general I’m not referring to protest. I’m referring to community organizing and alternative methods of self-governance. These groups, generally working on the smaller scale, are not particularly interested in whether or not politicians are going to hear them (answer: because no politicians will listen to them). There’s also a great deal of shaming (not by you specifically) of people who choose to vote third-party who are expressing their distaste with the system within the means of the system, who are using the system to try to make politicians hear their voice – but are still being chided because they’ve “thrown away their vote” by not operating within the two-party system. That, to me, is relatively reflective of the way the system is entrenched and its unwillingness to entertain any type of alternatives.

I am not an anarchist, so I can’t specifically answer your points regarding the feasibility of anarchist organization. As an anthropologist, however, I will note that societies based on the idea of democracy have existed for the blink of an eye in the history of human social and political organization (specifically meant to address that forms of anarchism ignore basic notions about how human societies work).

Again, reducing other forms of action to protesting is problematic. The example of voting in and of itself reveals the necessity of direct action and community organizing. The right to vote has been held by men of color since 1870; due to policies of disenfranchisement, it wasn’t until the Civil Rights movement organized and engaged in direct action that many of those disenfranchising policies and practices were stripped away. Protest is not necessarily effective if one doesn’t vote (although really, the politicians obviously can’t tell if you vote or not unless you tell them so everyone is a potential voter). Direct action and community organizing? Can be effective, because you’re not relying on the election of an official (who may or may not hold to their campaign promises and outlined platform) to enact social change for you; you’re working to do it yourself.