“
Do you vote? If not, is it because you think it doesn’t matter because things never change, or politicians are evil on both sides, or one vote in several million doesn’t count? Yeah, that’s learned helplessness.
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”
David McRaney (You Are Not So Smart: Why You Have Too Many Friends on Facebook, Why Your Memory Is Mostly Fiction, and 46 Other Ways You're Deluding Yourself)
“
But did you know that during the past quarter century, no presidential election has been won by more than ten million ballots cast? Yet every federal election during the same time period had at least one hundred million people of voting age who did not bother to vote!
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Andy Andrews (How Do You Kill 11 Million People? Why The Truth Matters More Than You Think)
“
Nothing you do in the White House matters. You know why not? Because as far as the mass of voting morons is concerned, while you're in office, you'll still be the worst single president they've ever had until you stop. Then it's some other poor bastard's turn. And even that doesn't matter, because ten, twenty years later, they'll look back on you, and wonder why they didn't appreciate you when they had you...You don't get to make a difference. You don't get to do jack shit. You know what you get?...You get an entry in the history book, and every 15 minutes, every day at Disneyworld, an animatronic puppet wearing your face will wave or nod when the spotlight hits it.
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Neil Gaiman (The Sandman, Vol. 8: Worlds' End)
“
For those of you who skipped their women's studies classes, first-wave feminism got women the vote; second-wave got them employed and divorced; third-wave is busy making them porn stars. More or less.
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”
Kathleen Parker (Save the Males: Why Men Matter Why Women Should Care)
“
Reader: Will you not admit that you are arguing against yourself? You know that what the English obtained in their own country they obtained by using brute force. I know you have argued that what they have obtained is useless, but that does not affect my argument. They wanted useless things and they got them. My point is that their desire was fulfilled. What does it matter what means they adopted? Why should we not obtain our goal, which is good, by any means whatsoever, even by using violence? Shall I think of the means when I have to deal with a thief in the house? My duty is to drive him out anyhow. You seem to admit that we have received nothing, and that we shall receive nothing by petitioning. Why, then, may we do not so by using brute force? And, to retain what we may receive we shall keep up the fear by using the same force to the extent that it may be necessary. You will not find fault with a continuance of force to prevent a child from thrusting its foot into fire. Somehow or other we have to gain our end.
Editor: Your reasoning is plausible. It has deluded many. I have used similar arguments before now. But I think I know better now, and I shall endeavour to undeceive you. Let us first take the argument that we are justified in gaining our end by using brute force because the English gained theirs by using similar means. It is perfectly true that they used brute force and that it is possible for us to do likewise, but by using similar means we can get only the same thing that they got. You will admit that we do not want that. Your belief that there is no connection between the means and the end is a great mistake. Through that mistake even men who have been considered religious have committed grievous crimes. Your reasoning is the same as saying that we can get a rose through planting a noxious weed. If I want to cross the ocean, I can do so only by means of a vessel; if I were to use a cart for that purpose, both the cart and I would soon find the bottom. "As is the God, so is the votary", is a maxim worth considering. Its meaning has been distorted and men have gone astray. The means may be likened to a seed, the end to a tree; and there is just the same inviolable connection between the means and the end as there is between the seed and the tree. I am not likely to obtain the result flowing from the worship of God by laying myself prostrate before Satan. If, therefore, anyone were to say : "I want to worship God; it does not matter that I do so by means of Satan," it would be set down as ignorant folly. We reap exactly as we sow. The English in 1833 obtained greater voting power by violence. Did they by using brute force better appreciate their duty? They wanted the right of voting, which they obtained by using physical force. But real rights are a result of performance of duty; these rights they have not obtained. We, therefore, have before us in English the force of everybody wanting and insisting on his rights, nobody thinking of his duty. And, where everybody wants rights, who shall give them to whom? I do not wish to imply that they do no duties. They don't perform the duties corresponding to those rights; and as they do not perform that particular duty, namely, acquire fitness, their rights have proved a burden to them. In other words, what they have obtained is an exact result of the means they adapted. They used the means corresponding to the end. If I want to deprive you of your watch, I shall certainly have to fight for it; if I want to buy your watch, I shall have to pay you for it; and if I want a gift, I shall have to plead for it; and, according to the means I employ, the watch is stolen property, my own property, or a donation. Thus we see three different results from three different means. Will you still say that means do not matter?
”
”
Mahatma Gandhi
“
The world THE WORLD IS increasingly designed to depress us. Happiness isn’t very good for the economy. If we were happy with what we had, why would we need more? How do you sell an anti-ageing moisturiser? You make someone worry about ageing. How do you get people to vote for a political party? You make them worry about immigration. How do you get them to buy insurance? By making them worry about everything. How do you get them to have plastic surgery? By highlighting their physical flaws. How do you get them to watch a TV show? By making them worry about missing out. How do you get them to buy a new smartphone? By making them feel like they are being left behind. To be calm becomes a kind of revolutionary act. To be happy with your own non-upgraded existence. To be comfortable with our messy, human selves, would not be good for business. Yet we have no other world to live in. And actually, when we really look closely, the world of stuff and advertising is not really life. Life is the other stuff. Life is what is left when you take all that crap away, or at least ignore it for a while. Life is the people who love you. No one will ever choose to stay alive for an iPhone. It’s the people we reach via the iPhone that matter. And once we begin to recover, and to live again, we do so with new eyes. Things become clearer, and we are aware of things we weren’t aware of before.
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”
Matt Haig (Reasons to Stay Alive)
“
It is an axiom of political science that if a representative is desired he should be chosen by popular vote; if professional skill is wanted, it can best be secured by appointment.” Coolidge
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Charles C. Johnson (Why Coolidge Matters: Leadership Lessons from America’s Most Underrated President)
“
If voting didn’t matter much, foreign governments wouldn’t try to influence it. And if voting didn’t matter much, we wouldn’t see efforts in America to make it harder for certain people to vote. Your vote does matter.
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”
Kim Wehle (What You Need to Know About Voting—and Why (Legal Expert Series))
“
—Now my father had a way, a little like that of Job's (in case there ever was such a man—if not, there's an end of the matter.—
Though, by the bye, because your learned men find some difficulty in fixing the precise æra in which so great a man lived;—whether, for instance, before or after the patriarchs, &c.—to vote, therefore, that he never lived at all, is a little cruel,—'tis not doing as they would be done by—happen that as it —My father, I say, had a way, when things went extremely wrong with him, especially upon the first sally of his impatience—of wondering why he was begot,—wishing himself dead;—sometimes worse:—
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Laurence Sterne (The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman)
“
Many political scientists used to assume that people vote selfishly, choosing the candidate or policy that will benefit them the most. But decades of research on public opinion have led to the conclusion that self-interest is a weak predictor of policy preferences. Parents of children in public school are not more supportive of government aid to schools than other citizens; young men subject to the draft are not more opposed to military escalation than men too old to be drafted; and people who lack health insurance are not more likely to support government-issued health insurance than people covered by insurance.35 Rather, people care about their groups, whether those be racial, regional, religious, or political. The political scientist Don Kinder summarizes the findings like this: “In matters of public opinion, citizens seem to be asking themselves not ‘What’s in it for me?’ but rather ‘What’s in it for my group?’ ”36 Political opinions function as “badges of social membership.”37
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Jonathan Haidt (The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion)
“
Black votes matter to many politicians — more so than black lives. That is why such politicians must try to keep black voters fearful, angry and resentful. Racial harmony would be a political disaster for such politicians. Racial polarization makes both the black population and the white population worse off, but it makes politicians who depend on black votes better off.
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Thomas Sowell
“
And this is a small point by comparison, but why do Republicans persist in substituting "Democrat," with its "rat" ending, when "Democratic" would be correct? Because they want us to know, in every word they speak, how much they hold us in contempt. In my lifetime, the Republicans have never accepted a Democratic president as legitimate, no matter how many people vote for him [or her.])
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Karen Joy Fowler (Radical Hope: Letters of Love and Dissent in Dangerous Times)
“
To the matter at hand: though English has traditionally been a largish department, you will find there are very few viable candidates capable of assuming the mantle of DGS. In fact, if I were a betting man, I’d wager that only 10 percent of the English instruction list will answer your call for nominations. Why? First, because more than a third of our faculty now consists of temporary (adjunct) instructors who creep into the building under cover of darkness to teach their graveyard shifts of freshman comp; they are not eligible to vote or to serve. Second, because the remaining two-thirds of the faculty, bearing the scars of disenfranchisement and long-term abuse, are busy tending to personal grudges like scraps of carrion on which they gnaw in the gloom of their offices. Long story short: your options aren’t pretty.
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Julie Schumacher (Dear Committee Members)
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We long ago ceased expecting that a President speak his own words. We no longer expect him actually to know the answers to questions put to him. We have, in effect, come to elect newscasters-and by a similar process: not for their probity or for their intelligence, but for their "believability."
"Hope" is a very different exhortation than, for example, save, work, cooperate, sacrifice, think. It means: "Hope for the best, in a process over which you have no control." For, if one had control, if one could endorse a candidate with actual, rational programs, such a candidate demonstrably possessed of character and ability sufficient to offer reasonable chance of carrying these programs out, we might require patience or understanding, but why would we need hope?
We have seen the triumph of advertising's bluntest and most ancient tool, the unquantifiable assertion: "New" in what way? "Improved" how? "Better" than what? "Change" what in particular? "Hope" for what?
These words, seemingly of broad but actually of no particular meaning, are comforting in a way similar to the self-crafted wedding ceremony.
Whether or not a spouse is "respecting the other's space," is a matter of debate; whether or not he is being unfaithful is a matter of discernible fact. The author of his own marriage vows is like the supporter of the subjective assertion. He is voting for codependence. He neither makes nor requires an actual commitment. He'd simply like to "hope.
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David Mamet (The Secret Knowledge: On the Dismantling of American Culture)
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Voting is vitally important, even if an individual vote doesn’t sway a particular election one way or another. It is the only way that “We the People” self-govern. The ability to self-govern is a privilege and a gift--one that we honor by showing up at the ballot booth, even if your vote doesn’t “matter” in altering a particular race. It’s sometimes hard for Americans to fathom that not everyone on the planet enjoys the privilege of self-government. If we want to keep that privilege, we need to exercise it.
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Kim Wehle (What You Need to Know About Voting—and Why (Legal Expert Series))
“
Voting is vitally important, even if an individual vote doesn’t sway a particular election one way or another. It is the only way that “We the People” self-govern. The ability to self-govern is a privilege and a gift – one that we honor by showing up at the ballot booth, even if your vote doesn’t “matter” in altering a particular race. It’s sometimes hard for Americans to fathom that not everyone on the planet enjoys the privilege of self-government. If we want to keep that privilege, we need to exercise it.
”
”
Kim Wehle (What You Need to Know About Voting—and Why (Legal Expert Series))
“
You’re so bright, Trav, and so intuitive about people. And you have … the gift of tenderness. And sympathy. You could be almost anything.” “Of course!” I said, springing to my feet and beginning to pace back and forth through the lounge. “Why didn’t I think of that! Here I am, wasting the golden years on this lousy barge, getting all mixed up with lame-duck women when I could be out there seeking and striving. Who am I to keep from putting my shoulder to the wheel? Why am I not thinking about an estate and how to protect it? Gad, woman, I could be writing a million dollars a year in life insurance. I should be pulling a big oar in the flagship of life. Maybe it isn’t too late yet! Find the little woman, and go for the whole bit. Kiwanis, P.T.A., fund drives, cookouts, a clean desk, and vote the straight ticket, yessiree bob. Then when I become a senior citizen, I can look back upon …” I stopped when I heard the small sound she was making. She sat with her head bowed. I went over and put my fingertips under her chin. I tilted her head up and looked down into her streaming eyes. “Please, don’t,” she whispered. “You’re beginning to bring out the worst in me, woman.” “It was none of my business.” “I will not dispute you.” “But … who did this to you?” “I’ll never know you well enough to try to tell you, Lois.” She tried to smile. “I guess it can’t be any plainer than that.” “And I’m not a tragic figure, no matter how hard you try to make me into one. I’m delighted with myself, woman.” “And you wouldn’t say it that way if you were.” “Spare me the cute insights.
”
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John D. MacDonald (The Deep Blue Good-By)
“
Laypeople complain about the rule of experts and they demand greater involvement in complicated national questions, but many of them only express their anger and make these demands after abdicating their own important role in the process: namely, to stay informed and politically literate enough to choose representatives who can act on their behalf. In the words of Ilya Somin, “When we elect government officials based on ignorance, they rule over not only those who voted for them but all of society. When we exercise power over other people, we have a moral obligation to do so in at least a reasonably informed way.”17
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Thomas M. Nichols (The Death of Expertise: The Campaign Against Established Knowledge and Why it Matters)
“
How are we going to bring about these transformations? Politics as usual—debate and argument, even voting—are no longer sufficient. Our system of representative democracy, created by a great revolution, must now itself become the target of revolutionary change. For too many years counting, vast numbers of people stopped going to the polls, either because they did not care what happened to the country or the world or because they did not believe that voting would make a difference on the profound and interconnected issues that really matter. Now, with a surge of new political interest having give rise to the Obama presidency, we need to inject new meaning into the concept of the “will of the people.” The will of too many Americans has been to pursue private happiness and take as little responsibility as possible for governing our country. As a result, we have left the job of governing to our elected representatives, even though we know that they serve corporate interests and therefore make decisions that threaten our biosphere and widen the gulf between the rich and poor both in our country and throughout the world. In other words, even though it is readily apparent that our lifestyle choices and the decisions of our representatives are increasing social injustice and endangering our planet, too many of us have wanted to continue going our merry and not-so-merry ways, periodically voting politicians in and out of office but leaving the responsibility for policy decisions to them. Our will has been to act like consumers, not like responsible citizens. Historians may one day look back at the 2000 election, marked by the Supreme Court’s decision to award the presidency to George W. Bush, as a decisive turning point in the death of representative democracy in the United States. National Public Radio analyst Daniel Schorr called it “a junta.” Jack Lessenberry, columnist for the MetroTimes in Detroit, called it “a right-wing judicial coup.” Although more restrained, the language of dissenting justices Breyer, Ginsberg, Souter, and Stevens was equally clear. They said that there was no legal or moral justification for deciding the presidency in this way.3 That’s why Al Gore didn’t speak for me in his concession speech. You don’t just “strongly disagree” with a right-wing coup or a junta. You expose it as illegal, immoral, and illegitimate, and you start building a movement to challenge and change the system that created it. The crisis brought on by the fraud of 2000 and aggravated by the Bush administration’s constant and callous disregard for the Constitution exposed so many defects that we now have an unprecedented opportunity not only to improve voting procedures but to turn U.S. democracy into “government of the people, by the people, and for the people” instead of government of, by, and for corporate power.
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Grace Lee Boggs (The Next American Revolution: Sustainable Activism for the Twenty-First Century)
“
Even if your husband is full of himself, he should be allowed to dream. Let him. Don’t burst his bubble. Why would any man want to come home to a wife who rolled her eyes and said, “Right!,” every time he had an idea or made a resolution? Maybe your husband wants to run for local political office. You know he doesn’t have a prayer. He’s running anyway. You want to say, “You’ve got to be kidding!” But in this case he doesn’t want to hear the truth. He wants your support. So give it to him. Call all your friends and tell them to vote for him, stand by his side when he gives speeches, buy buttons and balloons and throw him a campaign party. It doesn’t matter if he wins or loses, what matters is that you believe in him.
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Ellen Fein (The Rules(TM) for Marriage: Time-tested Secrets for Making Your Marriage Work)
“
Education, Not Income, Predicted Who Would Vote for Trump.”35 Why should education have mattered so much? Two uninteresting explanations are that the highly educated happen to affiliate with a liberal political tribe, and that education may be a better long-term predictor of economic security than current income. A more interesting explanation is that education exposes people in young adulthood to other races and cultures in a way that makes it harder to demonize them. Most interesting of all is the likelihood that education, when it does what it is supposed to do, instills a respect for vetted fact and reasoned argument, and so inoculates people against conspiracy theories, reasoning by anecdote, and emotional demagoguery.
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”
Steven Pinker (Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress)
“
It is relatively easy to accept that money is an intersubjective reality. Most people are also happy to acknowledge that ancient Greek gods, evil empires and the values of alien cultures exist only in the imagination. Yet we don’t want to accept that our God, our nation or our values are mere fictions, because these are the things that give meaning to our lives. We want to believe that our lives have some objective meaning, and that our sacrifices matter to something beyond the stories in our head. Yet in truth the lives of most people have meaning only within the network of stories they tell one another.
Meaning is created when many people weave together a common network of stories. Why does a particular action – such as getting married in church, fasting on Ramadan or voting on election day – seem meaningful to me? Because my parents also think it is meaningful, as do my brothers, my neighbours, people in nearby cities and even the residents of far-off countries. And why do all these people think it is meaningful? Because their friends and neighbours also share the same view. People constantly reinforce each other’s beliefs in a self-perpetuating loop. Each round of mutual confirmation tightens the web of meaning further, until you have little choice but to believe what everyone else believes.
Yet over decades and centuries the web of meaning unravels and a new web is spun in its place. To study history means to watch the spinning and unravelling of these webs, and to realise that what seems to people in one age the most important thing in life becomes utterly meaningless to their descendants.
”
”
Yuval Noah Harari (Homo Deus: A History of Tomorrow)
“
If we don’t keep people in space, we’re gonna die on this planet because there are so many deep-dish morons without the slightest understanding of science legislating on, surprise, science. These ripped trash bags would be lucky to pass a third grade Earth Science course but they’re making decisions right now for you and me. Decisions that are going to hurt out children and our children’s children. So instead of actually electing someone whose built a campaign on something substantial or informed, instead of that, we have to choose between an unfrosted pop-tart and a flattened packing peanut for our next president and neither one of them has the slightest idea just what NASA is researching why it’s so vital. These factory reject dildos are the worst of the worst and no matter we do, or how mad I get, or how many lives in the future will depend on the things that NASA is learning regularly these wet handshakes have made a decision. For what? For votes.
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Kay Simone (One Giant Leap)
“
I reviewed five areas of research showing that moral thinking is more like a politician searching for votes than a scientist searching for truth: • We are obsessively concerned about what others think of us, although much of the concern is unconscious and invisible to us. • Conscious reasoning functions like a press secretary who automatically justifies any position taken by the president. • With the help of our press secretary, we are able to lie and cheat often, and then cover it up so effectively that we convince even ourselves. • Reasoning can take us to almost any conclusion we want to reach, because we ask “Can I believe it?” when we want to believe something, but “Must I believe it?” when we don’t want to believe. The answer is almost always yes to the first question and no to the second. • In moral and political matters we are often groupish, rather than selfish. We deploy our reasoning skills to support our team, and to demonstrate commitment to our team.
”
”
Jonathan Haidt (The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion)
“
For many citizens, libraries are the one place where the information they need to be engaged in civic life is truly available for free, requiring nothing more than the time to walk into a branch. The reading room of a public library is the place where a daily newspaper, a weekly newsmagazine, and a documentary film are all available for free. In many communities, the library's public lecture room is the only place to hear candidates for office comparing points of view or visiting professors explaining their work on climate change, immigration or job creation. That same room is often the only place where a child from a family without a lot of money can go to see a dramatic reading or a production of a Shakespeare play. (Another of these simple realities in most communities is that a big part of public librarians job is to figure out how to host the community's homeless in a safe and fair manner.) Democracies can work only if all citizens have access to information and culture that can help them make good choices, whether at the voting booth or in other aspects of public life.
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John Palfrey (BiblioTech: Why Libraries Matter More Than Ever in the Age of Google)
“
The first principle of moral psychology is Intuitions come first, strategic reasoning second. To demonstrate the strategic functions of moral reasoning, I reviewed five areas of research showing that moral thinking is more like a politician searching for votes than a scientist searching for truth: We are obsessively concerned about what others think of us, although much of the concern is unconscious and invisible to us. Conscious reasoning functions like a press secretary who automatically justifies any position taken by the president. With the help of our press secretary, we are able to lie and cheat often, and then cover it up so effectively that we convince even ourselves. Reasoning can take us to almost any conclusion we want to reach, because we ask “Can I believe it?” when we want to believe something, but “Must I believe it?” when we don’t want to believe. The answer is almost always yes to the first question and no to the second. In moral and political matters we are often groupish, rather than selfish. We deploy our reasoning skills to support our team, and to demonstrate commitment to our team.
”
”
Jonathan Haidt (The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion)
“
It is relatively easy to accept that money is an intersubjective reality. Most people are also happy to acknowledge that ancient Greek gods, evil empires and the values of alien cultures exist only in the imagination. Yet we don’t want to accept that our God, our nation or our values are mere fictions, because these are the things that give meaning to our lives. We want to believe that our lives have some objective meaning, and that our sacrifices matter to something beyond the stories in our head. Yet in truth the lives of most people have meaning only within the network of stories they tell one another.
Meaning is created when many people weave together a common network of stories. Why does a particular action – such as getting married in church, fasting on Ramadan or voting on election day – seem meaningful to me? Because my parents also think it is meaningful, as do my brothers, my neighbours, people in nearby cities and even the residents of far-off countries. And why do all these people think it is meaningful? Because their friends and neighbours also share the same view. People constantly reinforce each other’s beliefs in a self-perpetuating loop. Each round of mutual confirmation tightens the web of meaning further, until you have little choice but to believe what everyone else believes.
Yet over decades and centuries the web of meaning unravels and a new web is spun in its place. To study history means to watch the spinning and unravelling of these webs, and to realise that what seems to people in one age the most important thing in life becomes utterly meaningless to their descendants.
”
”
Yuval Noah Harari (Homo Deus: A History of Tomorrow)
“
Stay involved in democracy. Fight for democracy. It can be messy and frustrating, believe me, I know. I understand why many Americans are frustrated by government and feel like it doesn’t make a difference. It’s not perfect, and not supposed to be. It’s only as good as we are, as what we choose to care about, as the people we elect. We’re never going to get 100 percent of what we want right away. But what if we got some of it right away, and protected it, and kept moving forward until we got the rest? That’s what voting is about. It’s not about making things perfect; it’s about making things better. It’s about putting us on track so that a generation from now, we can look back and say, “things got better starting now.” Voting is about using the power we have and pooling it together to get a government that’s more concerned, more responsive, more focused on the things that matter. This precious system of self-government is how we’ve come this far. It’s worth our time and effort. It’s worth protecting. I was heartened to see voter turnout leap this year over where it usually is. That’s great. Now imagine if we did that every time? Imagine if sixty or seventy percent of us, or even more, voted every time. We’d have a government that looks more representative, that’s full of life experience that’s more representative, that understands what people are going through and how we can work together to make people’s lives better. We’d have a government full of people who could corral a pandemic, who believe in science and have a plan to protect this planet for our kids; who care about working Americans and have a plan to help folks start getting ahead; who believe in racial equality and are willing to do the work to bring us closer an America where no matter what we look like, where we come from, who we love, or how much money we’ve got, we can make it if we try. That’s not science fiction. It’s possible! We just have to keep at it. Dec. 2020
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”
Barack Obama
“
Politicians are the only people in the world who create problems and then campaign against them.
Have you ever wondered why, if both the Democrats and Republicans are against deficits, we have deficits? Have you ever wondered why if all politicians are against inflation and high taxes, we have inflation and high taxes?
You and I don’t propose a federal budget. The president does. You and I don’t have Constitutional authority to vote on appropriations. The House of Representatives does. You and I don’t write the tax code. Congress does. You and I don’t set fiscal policy. Congress does. You and I don’t control monetary policy. The Federal Reserve Bank does.
One hundred senators, 435 congressmen, one president and nine Supreme Court justices — 545 human beings out of 235 million — are directly, legally, morally and individually responsible for the domestic problems that plague this country.
I excused the members of the Federal Reserve Board because that problem was created by the Congress. In 1913, Congress delegated its Constitutional duty to provide a sound currency to a federally chartered by private central bank.
I exclude all of the special interests and lobbyists for a sound reason. They have no legal authority. They have no ability to coerce a senator, a congressman or a president to do one cotton-picking thing. I don’t care if they offer a politician $1 million in cash. The politician has the power to accept or reject it.
No matter what the lobbyist promises, it is the legislators’ responsibility to determine how he votes.
Don’t you see the con game that is played on the people by the politicians? Those 545 human beings spend much of their energy convincing you that what they did is not their fault. They cooperate in this common con regardless of party.
What separates a politician from a normal human being is an excessive amount of gall. No normal human being would have the gall of Tip O’Neill, who stood up and criticized Ronald Reagan for creating deficits.
The president can only propose a budget. He cannot force the Congress to accept it. The Constitution, which is the supreme law of the land, gives sole responsibility to the House of Representatives for originating appropriations and taxes.
Those 545 people and they alone are responsible. They and they alone should be held accountable by the people who are their bosses — provided they have the gumption to manage their own employees.
”
”
Charley Reese
“
If you think Trump’s policies got him elected, you have to explain why his positions substantially changed during the campaign and he still won. My filter explains it perfectly: Trump is so persuasive that policies didn’t matter. People voted for him even as his policies were murky and changing.
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Scott Adams (Win Bigly: Persuasion in a World Where Facts Don't Matter)
“
When students become valued clients instead of learners, they gain a great deal of self-esteem, but precious little knowledge; worse, they do not develop the habits of critical thinking that would allow them to continue to learn and to evaluate the kinds of complex issues on which they will have to deliberate and vote as citizens.
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Thomas M. Nichols (The Death of Expertise: The Campaign Against Established Knowledge and Why it Matters)
“
Government policy would advance in the direction of people if we just voted consistently for politicians who represent the interests of people. This is why corporations spend so much of their time trying to convince people that their vote doesn't matter.
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David Akadjian (The Little Book of Revolution: A Distributive Strategy for Democracy)
“
The left treats blacks like whimpering pets that they can trot out in commercials to gain more votes, taxes, and power. The right wants to treat them as adults.
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Taleeb Starkes (Black Lies Matter: Why Lies Matter to the Race Grievance Industry)
“
On November 4, while the votes were still being counted, Rick Perry, Trump’s former secretary of energy, wrote Meadows about his “AGRESSIVE STRATEGY.” “Why can’t the states of GA NC PENN and other R controlled state houses declare this is BS […] and just send their own electors to vote,” Perry mused. Perry sent the message to a group chat that included Meadows and two people who were still part of Trump’s cabinet at the time: Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Ben Carson and Secretary of Agriculture George Ervin “Sonny” Perdue III. “Interesting,” Carson wrote. Alternate electors were a central element of various plots to overturn Trump’s loss that were cooked up by his allies in the weeks after the election. There were basically five states that mattered in the 2020 presidential race: Arizona, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Georgia, and Wisconsin. The rest of the results were predictable. It was all coming down to the margin in those swing states. Of course, presidential elections aren’t technically decided in the states. They
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Denver Riggleman (The Breach: The Untold Story of the Investigation into January 6th)
“
Blacks are meant to push for social programs and vote Democrat even though the Dems have caused them nothing but trouble since the Civil Rights Act.
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Taleeb Starkes (Black Lies Matter: Why Lies Matter to the Race Grievance Industry)
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WE CAN BELIEVE ALMOST ANYTHING THAT SUPPORTS OUR TEAM Many political scientists used to assume that people vote selfishly, choosing the candidate or policy that will benefit them the most. But decades of research on public opinion have led to the conclusion that self-interest is a weak predictor of policy preferences. Parents of children in public school are not more supportive of government aid to schools than other citizens; young men subject to the draft are not more opposed to military escalation than men too old to be drafted; and people who lack health insurance are not more likely to support government-issued health insurance than people covered by insurance.35 Rather, people care about their groups, whether those be racial, regional, religious, or political. The political scientist Don Kinder summarizes the findings like this: “In matters of public opinion, citizens seem to be asking themselves not ‘What’s in it for me?’ but rather ‘What’s in it for my group?’ ”36 Political opinions function as “badges of social membership.”37 They’re like the array of bumper stickers people put on their cars showing the political causes, universities, and sports teams they support. Our politics is groupish, not selfish.
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Jonathan Haidt (The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion)
“
The remarks I have already quoted make abundantly clear how abject is Price's adherence to the democratic fallacy - i.e., the notion that what "millions" of people believe must be true, regardless of their overall intelligence or of how they came by the belief. It is a leitmotif in Price's work: "the majority opinion of Homo sapiens throughout our known history is worth, at a minimum, initial respect" (LM 26). I regret to say that the long history of almost universal human folly and error does not incline me to share Price's naive confidence on this point. Given that (to choose only one example among many) 47 percent of the American public believes that human beings were created, pretty much in their present form, a few thousand years ago - an opinion from which Price himself boldly dissents, actually acknowledging that the emergence of the human species may date to as early as four million years ago (PG 9) - Price's confidence in the intelligence of the masses does not appear warranted. And yet, the final sentence of Letter to a Man in the Fire repeats the dogma once again: "the proportional number of Homo sapiens who doubt the existence of a conscious Creator - the source of all good if nothing more - is likely no greater than it's ever been" (LM 108). This is fallacious on three separate grounds: first, the notion that truth is determined by a vote of the majority; second, the fact that outside of the pious United States, and especially in Europe, both the number and the proportion of those who call themselves atheists or agnostics has indeed risen markedly in the last hundred years; and third, the plain fact that during the past two centuries the intellectual elite (i.e., those who actually have some claim to expertise on matters of religion, philosophy, and science) have indeed become overwhelmingly skeptical in regard to the existence of a "conscious Creator.
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S.T. Joshi (God's Defenders: What They Believe and Why They Are Wrong)
“
But I still hate this country. You love the Army. But I don’t love the Army. This country’s Army is why I hate this country. What did this country ever do for me? Gimme a right to vote for men I cant elect? You can have it. Gimme a right to work at a job I hate? You can have that too. Then tell me I’m a Citizen of the greatest richest country on earth, if I don’t believe it look at Park Avenue. Carnival prizes. All carnival prizes. Pay fifty cents a throw and get a plasterparis bust of Washington—if you win. A man can just stand so much from anything, no matter how much he loves the thing.
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James Jones (The World War II Trilogy: From Here to Eternity, The Thin Red Line, and Whistle)
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In the United States, whoever you vote for, you still get a millionaire.
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N.T. Wright (Simply Jesus: A New Vision of Who He Was, What He Did, and Why He Matters)
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It's fashionable among progressives to wonder why so many "red state" voters don't vote in their own economic interests. This is simply another symptom of 18th-century rationalism, which assumes that everyone is rational and rationality means seeking self-interest. [...] People are not 18th-century reason machines. Real reason works differently. Reason matters, and we have to understand how it really works.
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George Lakoff (The Political Mind: Why You Can't Understand 21st-Century American Politics with an 18th-Century Brain)
“
Handling Resignations In the course of an organization’s work, boards and officers may be confronted with the resignation of a fellow officer, board member, or committee chairman. There are two reasons people resign from office. The first reason is that something arises in the personal life of the officer that demands his or her time and attention. The officer feels at this time that he or she can’t fulfill the duties of the office and do justice to the organization, so the officer submits a resignation. The second reason is that there is a rift or severe disagreement within the organization. An officer may become angry, disheartened, or vengeful, so he or she submits a resignation. The first thing that the organization should do after it receives a resignation is to figure out why the person is resigning. If the organization really needs this person’s active input, it should find a way to keep him or her. If the person is resigning because of lack of time, then perhaps the organization can appoint an assistant to help with the work. If the person is resigning because he or she can’t attend the meetings, the organization should consider changing the meeting date and time. If the person submits his or her resignation because of organizational problems, the organization needs to look at how its members communicate with each other. Perhaps the members need to be more willing to allow disagreements and hear what others are saying. If an organization strictly obeys the principle of majority rule while protecting the rights of the minority, it can resolve problems in an intelligent, kind, and civil way. A resignation should be a formal letter that includes the date, the name of the person to whom it is addressed, the reason for the resignation, and the person’s signature. The person resigning can mail his or her letter to the secretary or hand it to the secretary in person. Under no circumstance should the secretary or president accept an oral resignation. If a resignation is given to the officer this way, he or she should talk with the person and find out the reasons for the resignation. Perhaps just talking to the person can solve the problem. However, an officer who insists on resigning should put it in writing and submit it to the secretary. This gives the accepting body something to read and consider. Every resignation should be put to a vote. When it is accepted, the office is vacant and should be immediately filled according to the rules for filling vacancies stated in the bylaws. If an officer submits a resignation and then decides to withdraw it, he or she can do this until a vote is taken. It is unjust for a secretary or governing body not to allow a withdrawal of the resignation before a vote is taken. The only way a resignation can’t be withdrawn is if some rule of the organization or a state statute prohibits it. When submitting the resignation, the member resigning should give it to the secretary only and not mail it to everyone in the organization. (An e-mail resignation is not acceptable because it is not signed.) Sending the resignation to every member only confuses matters and promotes gossip and conjecture in the organization. If the member later decides to withdraw his or her resignation, there is much more explaining to do. The other members may see this person as unstable and not worthy of the position.
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Robert McConnell Productions (Webster's New World: Robert's Rules of Order: Simplified & Applied)
“
[t]he American National Election Studies group has been asking Americans the same question roughly every two years since 1958: “Do you trust the government in Washington to do what is right, all or most of the time?” Until the mid-sixties, 75 percent of Americans answered yes. A slide then began and continued steeply downward for fifteen years, so that by 1980, only 25 percent said yes. In the interim, of course, were the Vietnam War, two assassinations, Watergate and the near-impeachment of the president and the Arab oil embargo. So there were plenty of reasons for people to feel estranged, even antagonistic. But what matters most is that the trust did not recover. For the last three decades, the approval level has bumped around in the region from 20 to 35 percent. The trust percentage fell below half in about 1972. This means that anyone under the age of forty has lived their entire life in a country the majority of whose citizens do not trust their own national government to do what they think is right. Through four long decades, none of the massive changes Americans have voted for in leadership and in ideology have changed that. Think what it means for the healthy functioning of a democracy that two-thirds to three-quarters of its people do not believe that their government does the right thing most of the time.33
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Moisés Naím (The End of Power: From Boardrooms to Battlefields and Churches to States, Why Being In Charge Isn't What It Used to Be)
“
[t]he American National Election Studies group has been asking Americans the same question roughly every two years since 1958: “Do you trust the government in Washington to do what is right, all or most of the time?” Until the mid-sixties, 75 percent of Americans answered yes. A slide then began and continued steeply downward for fifteen years, so that by 1980, only 25 percent said yes. In the interim, of course, were the Vietnam War, two assassinations, Watergate and the near-impeachment of the president and the Arab oil embargo. So there were plenty of reasons for people to feel estranged, even antagonistic. But what matters most is that the trust did not recover. For the last three decades, the approval level has bumped around in the region from 20 to 35 percent. The trust percentage fell below half in about 1972. This means that anyone under the age of forty has lived their entire life in a country the majority of whose citizens do not trust their own national government to do what they think is right. Through four long decades, none of the massive changes Americans have voted for in leadership and in ideology have changed that. Think what it means for the healthy functioning of a democracy that two-thirds to three-quarters of its people do not believe that their government does the right thing most of the time.
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Moisés Naím (The End of Power: From Boardrooms to Battlefields and Churches to States, Why Being In Charge Isn't What It Used to Be)
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On June 13, 2012, Michigan State Representative Lisa Brown was banned from the House floor because she pissed off House Republicans when she was defending the right to choose. She used the word “vagina” and that is what got most of the attention, but what she said about her religion is very important and should not be discounted or ignored. She said, "Yesterday we heard the representative from Holland speak about freedom of religion. I'm Jewish. I keep Kosher in my home. I have two sets of dishes, one for meat and one for dairy and another two sets of dishes on top of that for Passover. "Judaism believes that therapeutic abortions, namely abortions performed to save the life of the mother, are not only permissible but mandatory. The stage of pregnancy does not matter. Wherever there is a question of the life of the mother or that of the unborn child, Jewish law rules in favor of preserving the life of the mother. The status of the fetus as human life does not equal that of the mother. I have not asked you to adopt and adhere to my religious beliefs. Why are you asking me to adopt yours?
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Kimberley a Johnson (American Woman: The Poll Dance: Women and Voting)
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If the public has no idea about the substance of an issue, and will vote based on who they like rather than what they want, it is difficult to put too much blame on policymakers and their expert advisers for being confused themselves. How can a republic function if the people who have sent their representatives to decide questions of war and peace cannot tell the difference between Agrabah, Ukraine, or Syria?
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Thomas M. Nichols (The Death of Expertise: The Campaign Against Established Knowledge and Why it Matters)
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Citizens no longer understand democracy to mean a condition of political equality, in which one person gets one vote, and every individual is no more and no less equal in the eyes of the law. Rather, Americans now think of democracy as a state of actual equality, in which every opinion is as good as any other on almost any subject under the sun.
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Thomas M. Nichols (The Death of Expertise: The Campaign Against Established Knowledge and Why it Matters)
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You have never accepted anything in your life,” Rowan snarled, shooting to his feet and bracing his hands on the table. “And now you are suddenly willing to do so?”
“What am I supposed to do, Rowan?”
“You damn it all to hell!” He slammed his fist on the table, rattling the dishes. “You say to hell with their plans, their prophecies, and fates, and you make your own! You do anything but accept this!”
“The people of Erilea have spoken.”
“To hell with that, too,” he growled. “You can start your free world after this war. Let them vote for their own damned kings and queens, if they want to.”
She let out a growl of her own. “I do not want this burden for one second longer. I do not want to choose and learn I made the wrong choice in delaying it.”
“So you would have voted against it, then. You would have gone to Terrasen.”
“Does it matter?” She shot to her feet. “The votes weren’t in my favor anyway. Hearing that I wanted to go to Orynth, to fight one last time, would have only swayed them.”
“You’re the one who’s about to die. I’d say you get to have a voice in it.”
She bared her teeth. “This is my fate. Elena tried to get me out of it. And look where it landed her—with a cabal of vengeful gods swearing to end her eternal soul. When the Lock is forged, when I close the gate, I will be destroying another life alongside my own.”
“Elena had a thousand years of existence, either living or as a spirit. Forgive me if I don’t give a shit that her time has now come to an end, when you only received twenty years.”
“I got to twenty years because of her.”
Rowan began pacing, his stalking steps eating up the carpet. “This mess is because of her, too. Why should you bear its weight alone?”
“Because it was always mine to begin with.”
“Bullshit. It could have as easily been Dorian. He’s willing to do it.”
Aelin blinked. “Elena and Nehemia said Dorian wasn’t ready.”
“Dorian walked into and out of Morath, went toe to toe with Maeve, and brought the whole damn place crashing down. I’d say he’s as ready as you are.”
“I won’t allow him to sacrifice himself in my stead.”
“Why?”
“Because he is my friend. Because I won’t be able to live with myself from the honors he endured.”
“And you aren’t?” Rowan challenged, wholly unfazed. “He’s a grown man. He can make his own choices—we can make choices without you lording over them.
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Sarah J. Maas (Kingdom of Ash (Throne of Glass, #7))
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On 23 April, Ambedkar came again to see Gandhi in jail. He wanted an amendment in the Poona Pact, where by the Depressed Classes candidates for the
legislatures would need a minimum percentage of the ‘untouchable’ vote to be elected. Gandhi said he would think over the matter. He did—writing in the next issue of Harijan, he discussed the proposal and why he opposed it. ‘Dr. Ambedkar’s alternative,’ he wrote, ‘may well deprive the caste Hindus of any say whatsoever in the election of Harijan candidates and thus create an effectual bar between caste Hindus and Harijan Hindus.’
Both Ambedkar and Gandhi were justified, from their respective points of view. Ambedkar worried that if this clause was not introduced, only candidates beholden to the upper castes would be elected. Gandhi, on the other hand, was concerned about furthering the cleavages between Harijans and caste Hindus.
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Ramachandra Guha (Gandhi 1915-1948: The Years That Changed the World)
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I fucked her. I fucked her dad. I’m done. It’s over.” It’s Saint’s voice. The smell of cigarette smoke hits my nostrils and I see the shadows of both men standing on the back patio near the edge of the bushes. “So what? It doesn’t matter. None of it matters. We’ve deleted your video and failed attempts. What matters is we are back in control of the situation you fumbled. We have him in our custody, and no one needs to know anything else about it. Baret will follow suit if he knows what’s good for him.” Saint tried to record me? Aero must have known, which is why he stepped in and took over so coldly. “What if she gets pregnant? I can’t become what I’m meant to if—“ “As if that’s ever stopped us,” Callum interrupts with a laugh. “We’ll make our own rules, and she will fall in line. She owes you that much.” I hear a back being slapped. “Be grateful, son. You got some fine pussy out of the deal and a fucking badge of honor before the induction. The congregation will be more than fine with the unanimous vote now.
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Jescie Hall (That Sik Luv)
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The truth of the matter is that the system is not designed to allow for upstart third parties. It can adjust to accommodate a patently bogus third party, and it can tolerate the occasional Republican or Democrat bolting his party to pose as an ‘Independent,’ but a real third party doesn’t stand a chance. That is why you won’t find anything but Republicans and Democrats in the White House and the US Senate. Even the House of Representatives, reputedly the branch of the federal government most responsive to the people, counts just one Independent among its 435 members.34 That’s because we all know that voting for a third-party candidate is just throwing your vote away. Which is, sadly, quite true. True because the American system of ‘democracy’ is a winner-take-all system. And a minor party candidate, lacking funding and media support, has exactly no chance of winning. If, however, America were based on a representational system, as are the European democracies, winning would be a relative concept, and third-party votes would not be thrown away. For in that type of system, congressional or parliamentary seats are awarded proportionally based on the election outcome. In other words, your party need not ‘win’ to gain representation. Every vote for your party gains greater representation, and no votes are thrown away. It is easy to see how this type of democracy could quickly erode the entrenched ‘two-party’ system.
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David McGowan (Understanding the F-Word: American Fascism and the Politics of Illusion)
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Henry McAville
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Each political party has marginalized the political center, because they feel that all they have to do is energize their base. It’s a political strategy. Before, you know, when I was in politics, it was a matter of both parties competing for the center, competing for the independents. That is gone now. —John Danforth, former U.S. senator from Missouri, 2006
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Andrew Gelman (Red State, Blue State, Rich State, Poor State: Why Americans Vote the Way They Do)
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The first principle of moral psychology is Intuitions come first, strategic reasoning second. To demonstrate the strategic functions of moral reasoning, I reviewed five areas of research showing that moral thinking is more like a politician searching for votes than a scientist searching for truth: • We are obsessively concerned about what others think of us, although much of the concern is unconscious and invisible to us. • Conscious reasoning functions like a press secretary who automatically justifies any position taken by the president. • With the help of our press secretary, we are able to lie and cheat often, and then cover it up so effectively that we convince even ourselves. • Reasoning can take us to almost any conclusion we want to reach, because we ask “Can I believe it?” when we want to believe something, but “Must I believe it?” when we don’t want to believe. The answer is almost always yes to the first question and no to the second. • In moral and political matters we are often groupish, rather than selfish. We deploy our reasoning skills to support our team, and to demonstrate commitment to our team.
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Jonathan Haidt (The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion)
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Americans on each side imagine that almost twice as many people on the other side hold extreme views than actually do. Both Democrats and Republicans also dramatically overestimate how much the other side dislikes them. These mistakes sound trifling but they can be catastrophic. If you feel threatened, you cannot feel curious. If you think the other side is more extreme and hateful than it actually is, you will vote for anyone, no matter how unhinged or divisive, to keep the other side out of office.
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Amanda Ripley (High Conflict: Why We Get Trapped and How We Get Out)
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The dynamic described by Thomas Frank in his book What Is the Matter with Kansas? was at work in Nazi Germany. Frank analyzes the reasons why Republicans were so successful in getting middle—and lower-middle class people to vote against their own economic interests in the “red” states. This “cultural egalitarianism,” this mobilization of anti-elitist resentments, is not socialist; it`s fascist. It is anti-socialist.
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Roderick Stackelberg (Into the Twenty-First Century: A Memoir, 1999 - 2012)
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But in the negotiations to fund the renovation of East River Park, which borders the East River in Manhattan from Chinatown up through the East Village, the construction of a new bathroom was somehow included. This called for a celebration, which meant a ribbon cutting to open the new facility. But why cut a ribbon when we could mark the occasion appropriately? Hence, the fated roll of toilet paper was ceremoniously cut, celebrated, and well publicized, which left enough of an impression on Steven Rubenstein, a PR guru in New York to moguls like George Steinbrenner and Rupert Murdoch, that when Chuck Schumer was looking for a new communications director, he recommended me. Chuck had just won a Senate seat two years earlier, upsetting longtime incumbent Al D’Amato. Chuck was (and is) a career politician and an extremely good one. After graduating from Harvard College and Harvard Law School, he disappointed his Jewish mother by running for a seat in the New York State Assembly rather than taking a job at a prestigious law firm. (I could relate.) His approach to the campaign was both genius and slightly crazy—he knocked on the doors of virtually every single voter in the district. And for a seat that couldn’t matter less to 99 percent of voters, voting for the earnest young man who took the time to come see them was a reasonable choice.
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Bradley Tusk (The Fixer: My Adventures Saving Startups from Death by Politics)
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I can totally understand why someone in Paris or London or Berlin might not like the president; I don't like the president, either. But don't those people read the newspaper? It's not like Bush ran unopposed. Over 57 million people voted against him. Moreover, half of this country doesn't vote at all; they just happen to live here. So if someone hates the entire concept of America—or even if someone likes the concept of America—based solely on his or her disapproval (or support) of some specific US policy, that person doesn't know much about how the world works. It would be no different that someone in Idaho hating all of Brazil, simply because their girlfriend slept with some dude who happened to speak Portuguese.
In the days following the election, I kept seeing links to websites like www(dot)sorryeverybody(dot)com, which offered a photo of a bearded idiot holding up a piece of paper that apologized to the rest of the planet for the election of George W. Bush. I realize the person who designed this website was probably doing so to be clever, and I suspect his motivations were either (a) mostly good or (b) mostly self-serving. But all I could think when I saw it was, This is so pathetic. It's like this guy on this website is actually afraid some anonymous stranger in Tokyo might not unconditionally love him (and for reasons that have nothing to do with either of them)...now I am not saying that I'm somehow happy when people in other countries blindly dislike America. It's just that I'm not happy if they love us, either. I don't think it matters. The kind of European who hates the United States in totality is exactly like the kind of American who hates Europe in totality; both people are unsophisticated, and their opinions aren't valid. But our society will never get over this fear; there will always be people in this country who are devastated by the premise of foreigners hating Americans in a macro sense. And I'm starting to think that's because too many Americans are dangerously obsessed with being liked.
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Chuck Klosterman (Chuck Klosterman IV: A Decade of Curious People and Dangerous Ideas)
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Broken Compass I will not pretend that these leaders I’ve referenced were motivated by their desire for biblical adherence. Perhaps there was a time when that case could have been made, but with the exception of Jerry Falwell Sr., who died long before the Trump evangelical was born, all of these men have utterly reversed their positions in favor of Donald Trump. After the Access Hollywood tape of Donald Trump leaked in October 2016, Ralph Reed, who was quoted in this chapter saying “character matters” in his condemnation of Bill Clinton, had a far more pragmatic view of the situation. In an email to the Washington Post, Reed referred to the contents of the recording as “disappointing” but ultimately dismissed the idea the recording should impact his endorsement of Trump, saying, “People of faith are voting on issues like who will protect unborn life, defend religious freedom, grow the economy, appoint conservative judges and oppose the Iran nuclear deal.” Translation: Character doesn’t matter now because voters don’t care.
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Ben Howe (The Immoral Majority: Why Evangelicals Chose Political Power Over Christian Values)
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No matter how highly placed they were, they were still officials, their views were well established and well known, famous. It could have rained frogs over Tan Son Nhut and they wouldn’t have been upset; Cam Ranh Bay could have dropped into the South China Sea and they would have found some way to make it sound good for you; the Bo Doi Division (Ho’s Own) could have marched by the American embassy and they would have characterized it as “desperate”—what did even the reporters closest to the Mission Council ever find to write about when they’d finished their interviews? (My own interview with General Westmoreland had been hopelessly awkward. He’d noticed that I was accredited to Esquire and asked me if I planned to be doing “humoristical” pieces. Beyond that, very little was really said. I came away feeling as though I’d just had a conversation with a man who touches a chair and says, “This is a chair,” points to a desk and says, “This is a desk.” I couldn’t think of anything to ask him, and the interview didn’t happen.) I honestly wanted to know what the form was for those interviews, but some of the reporters I’d ask would get very officious, saying something about “Command postures,” and look at me as though I was insane. It was probably the kind of look that I gave one of them when he asked me once what I found to talk about with the grunts all the time, expecting me to confide (I think) that I found them as boring as he did.
And just-like-in-the-movies, there were a lot of correspondents who did their work, met their deadlines, filled the most preposterous assignments the best they could and withdrew, watching the war and all its hideous secrets, earning their cynicism the hard way and turning their self-contempt back out again in laughter. If New York wanted to know how the troops felt about the assassination of Robert Kennedy, they’d go out and get it. (“Would you have voted for him?” “Yeah, he was a real good man, a real good man. He was, uh, young.” “Who will you vote for now?” “Wallace, I guess.”) They’d even gather troop reflections on the choice of Paris as the site of the peace talks. (“Paris? I dunno, sure, why not? I mean, they ain’t gonna hold ’em in Hanoi, now are they?”), but they’d know how funny that was, how wasteful, how profane. They knew that, no matter how honestly they worked, their best work would somehow be lost in the wash of news, all the facts, all the Vietnam stories. Conventional journalism could no more reveal this war than conventional firepower could win it, all it could do was take the most profound event of the American decade and turn it into a communications pudding, taking its most obvious, undeniable history and making it into a secret history. And the very best correspondents knew even more than that.
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Michael Herr
“
The goal of gerrymandering to this degree is not just to make your vote count less; it’s to make you know your vote doesn’t count in the hope that you won’t vote again. Because why put in the effort if it doesn’t matter anyway? Cynicism is the ally of conservatism.
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Dan Pfeiffer (Un-Trumping America: A Plan to Make America a Democracy Again)
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In 2016, most of us voted out of hatred and fear: towards the opposite side—no matter which side you were on, the candidate—a Democrat or a Republican, towards immigrants, towards religion, or so many such misplaced fears. This cycle, why not vote for love and respect: towards America, towards others who are different, towards your family and elders, towards your neighbors, towards a community that practices different religions, and many such reasons.
After all, love trumps hate.
You have the power to vote out the current President and say:
You are fired!
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Aithal (2120 (The Galaxy Series Book 4))
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first published on tumblr 27 Aug 2020
Treason45 said crimes lies vomit murder unabated blood lust sadistic racist arousal the plantation slave master slave hole American rot, my gifts to America. THATS TREASON45 WORKING FOR ANOTHER NATION RUNNING FOR OFFICE IN AMERICA HOW LOVELY. JUST PRICELESS. #volume5
gwencalvo 8 27 20
From the racists who hurt humanity in texas to the racists in protests for the black lives matter movement TREASON45 wants humanity to be damaged for what reason TREASON45. BECAUSE OF THE PLANTATION MASTER IN YOUR HEAD? the racists in the world from the north to the south to east to the west who cant stand folk crossing or being near their fucking garbage lawn you cant handle that but you would fine with another nation on your lawn the green men that are not there and they are thats okay. And you are just fine with a TREASON45 who bows to another nation. All of this stupid racist garbage leads your existence not being yours but of that nations that TREASON45 WORKS FOR good luck with that racist bitches that nation will love destroying the fuck out of anything thats all it does no you dont get to keep your weapons or your fucking manicured lawn DO SOME RESEARCH RACIST ZUNTS#volume5
Real leaders in the world like 44 have attitude Biden does too so does Harris they are charismatic charming magnetic real honest and decent and thats something racists cant fucking handle. for racists its just a slave hole for humanity and that thought is pure white lunacy. TAXPAYERS voters have real power THEY ARE RUNNING FOR OFFICE VOTING FOR REAL LEADERS AND NOT TAKING THIS RACIST GARBAGE ANYMORE. WHY SHOULD WE?????????? ITS YOUR RACIST MADNESS. HUMANITY IS NOT HERE FOR YOUR RACIST VOMIT. why should voters continue to pay taxes and fund racist vomit cops and police unions who want to continue treating humanity like their fucking slaves to tame to hurt to murder to humiliate even when they are like mr blake trying to remain alive why continue this humiliation because you stupid racist cant handle that humanity has attitude that humans dare to think dare to live dare to walk away and try to get the fuck away from you A weapon had to be used on mr blake who could have been overpowered by one or two racist cops RACIST COPS WANT TO CONTINUE TO murder openly on AMERICAN STREETS.
SLAVERY COLONIAL AND ALL THAT FUCKING EVIL SHOULD NEVER NEVER SHOULD HAVE BEEN ALLOWED WHOEVER THE FUCK ALLOWED THAT FUCKING THING TO BE OF SLAVE HOLDER SLAVE HOLE THAT BITCH IS LIKE A TREASON45 who hides notes lies during a plague to kill citizens off allows military to be murdered by another nation permits kurd genocide concentration camp isis unleashed erases federal documents purges igs buys sells humanity trafficking it for the continuation of the slave hole AMERICAN ROT in the world uses taxpayer money to destroy the planet if there is no planet there is no existence and uses courts to hide his evil hides his evil.
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Gwen Calvo
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Anti-suffrage politicians came up with increasingly complicated strategies for avoiding female enfranchisement. Why not appoint a minister for women, backed by an advisory council which could actually include a number of ladies? That way their interests could be represented and debated while keeping them safely out of the way of 'real' government. Or we could build a separate chamber for ladies in Westminster where they could (essentially) pretend to be parliamentarians and even pass Bills among themselves. They could confine themselves to feminine matters like the Shops Act, the white slave trade, housing and so on. In the meantime the other two Houses would get on with important issues involving the armed forces, foreign affairs and the budget.
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Jane Robinson (Hearts And Minds: The Untold Story of the Great Pilgrimage and How Women Won the Vote)
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Meadows also received a text on December 20, 2020, from Mike Lindell, a mustachioed, self-described former crack addict who’d made a fortune as CEO of the bedding company My Pillow. Lindell, who was an infomercial star, major Trump rally fixture, and financial backer of various protests against the former president’s loss, implored Meadows to have federal agents seize voting machines in key states. He was famous for wearing a large cross necklace and his message was an overheated blend of Christian prayer and internet insanity. “Hey Mark, I felt I was suppose to text you this message … You being a man a faith and on the front line of the decisions that are going to be historical! I would ask that you pray for wisdom and discernment from God! You are one of the people the president trusts the most. That being said I want to add my input.… Everything Sidney has said is true!” Lindell wrote. “We have to get the machines and everything we already have proves the President won by millions of votes! I have read and not validated yet that you and others talked him out of seizing them … If true . I pray it is part of a bigger plan … I am grateful that on the night of the election the algorithms of the corrupt machines broke and they realized our president would win in spite of the historical fraud! I look for deviations every day in my business … when I find one I investigate relentlessly until I know why it happened and how it happened … (this is my gift from God that has made my business so successful) From 11:15 pm on the night of the election I have spent all my time running impossible deviations and numbers from this election … I also was blessed to be able to get info and help Sidney Lin General Flynn and everyone else out there gathering all the massive evidence! I have been sickened by politicians (especially republicans) judges, the media not wanting to see truth (no matter what the truth would be!) This is the biggest cover up of one of the worst crimes in history! I have spent over a million$to help uncover this fraud and used my platform so people can get the word not to give up! The people on both sides have to see the truth and when they do.… There will not be no civil war, people (including politicians!) are fearing! The only thing any of us should fear is fear of the Lord! Every person on this planet needs to know the truth and see the evidence!!! Mark . God has his hand in all of this and has put you on the front line … I will continue praying for you to have great wisdom and discernment! Blessings Mike.” Meadows seemed grateful
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Denver Riggleman (The Breach: The Untold Story of the Investigation into January 6th)