I absolutely understand the backlash to #MastodonForHarris and the fact that so many fundraisers go unfunded on here while this one was a wild success. One of the main criticisms seems to be "Well, they don't need it - they have billionaire donors", which is...true. At the same time, showing that an alternative fundraising model can work can also alter those dynamics, right? Like, this is a Catch-22.
1/n
I think many of us want to see billionaires have less influence on society. The best way, ofc, is to eat them, but that ain't happening - at least not in the near future. And if you're an anarchist, it's obviously preferable to work outside existing political structures (and that's fine!). But if you're *not* an anarchist, then there's this sense of trying to find ways to move the needle.
2/n
One way, ofc, is to look for vetted charities doing good work and setting up recurring donations. I setup a bunch of those directly and a bunch more through my employer. But another way is to try to reduce the influence of billionaires on the political system. And this brings us back to the Catch-22 I mentioned earlier. The system won't change until a politician can win based mostly on small-dollar donations.
3/n
But that won't happen in one election cycle, and it's not a steady march towards progress. There are intermediate steps, candidates who try soliciting mostly small-dollar donations but fail, then ones who maybe try a smaller percentage and win, etc. And no one knows the exact formula here, right? Like, this is all a dynamic process.
4/n
If you've already given up on electoralism, fine. But I think especially this next election, we need to care. Up and down the ballot. As someone who is relatively comfortable income-wise, I've been conscious to increase donations (usually to vetted charities) as my income has gone up. That's the way I've approached trying to do the right thing.
I also donated to the fundraiser, because I think this election is important. I understand many others here disagree, and that's fine.
5/n
I donated because I'm worried about what Trump will do if he wins, and elections in the US depend heavily on money. I donated because every drop she raises from small-dollar donations is something she doesn't have to solicit from megadonors like the guy asking her to fire Lina Khan.
Giving in to the cynicism that she's bought anyway means the megadonors will have even more sway than they already do because there won't be any other sources of money.
6/n
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(he/him) @chiraag@mastodon.onlineThe long-term way to fix this is to eat the rich and destroy the power of capitalists. Absolutely. But in the meantime, we cannot just surrender the space to monied interests.
I strongly believe in a two-pronged approach - elect people who are progressive and hold their feet to the fire and build non-electoral alternative structures (worker co-ops, unions, etc) to attack the stranglehold monied interests have on the means of production.
7/n
I don't think it is smart - at all - to completely surrender the electoral sphere to conservatives and fascists. It makes it harder to actually build the non-electoral structures and results in strictly worse quality of life for literally everyone.
I am not under any illusions that Dems will bring about the revolution. But giving up that sphere entirely means the fascists - the actual neonazi and proud boy fascists - take over.
8/n
I cannot take anyone seriously who claims that elections don't matter. They're not enough - absolutely not. But they're absolutely important. Grad workers at private universities are able to unionize because of Obama's NLRB (which overturned the 2005 ruling by W's NLRB), which has been absolutely game-changing. Lina Khan is going after big tech companies and was appointed by Biden.
Elections have consequences. They're not enough, by far, but we can't ignore them.
9/9
I agree with you about basically everything here.
The thing I would add is that my personal reason for donating to #MastodonForHarris is to promote visibility of Mastodon, not to help Harris win (although of course I want Harris to win).
My primary electoral donation tactic is to make strategic donations to down-ballot politicians, who tend to be more resource limited, and so who I trust more to make good use of the funding they receive.
@chiraag One irony is that charities are far less necessary if the governments are progressive and build in great social safety nets. By concentrating on moving the governments towards progressive politics, we are actually helping the objects of the charities. It's not just money. It's also power.
@chiraag one of the biggest problems I see with this strategy is that with the Dems in charge, the majority of Amerikans feel comfortable not putting pressure on the government at all, let alone working towards the fall of capitalism.
We saw this with covid and Biden and with the panic over the children being trapped in inhumane conditions for trying to immigrate and Biden. Millions of people have become permanently disabled or died because Biden said "no more masks" and so the American populace took off their masks. And, for some reason, white Amerika does not seem to care about children in cages when the guys wearing blue pins are doing it.
The problem with continuing this system so that we can make it harder fascists to build their dream world is that when Democrats win, Amerika is okay with *their* fascist dreams coming to life. The left only unites to fight if the person they're fighting is a Republican.
@chiraag I will also say there is a cost to continuing to participate in this system, too. Humans suffer and die because we keep this system going regardless of who wins. Because the system is designed to run on human suffering. Some of us got left behind a long time ago.
Elections have consequences, but so does allowing Amerika to still exist, and the consequences of Amerika existing are experienced by the entire world. Making people in Amerika slightly more comfortable by keeping the systems that are destroying our world still running is not a good long term strategy.