First and most obvious hitting that critical mass… before you hit it, everything is hell, you are stuck with BS laws, and you can’t do anything about it. Your vote is worthless.
In my town this november there was one ballot issue… in short, it was summarized as "put a million dollars towards schools, build a new school on an unused empty lot owned by the school system, build a new sports field for one of the schools). Digging deeper that would be paid for by a proporty tax that would cost… up to 100 a year for people making over 150k.
So… the whole town was plastered in “vote no” signs, when I went to the polling place a guy outside asked me to “strongly consider voting no”. I was one of the 17% that voted yes.
So that basically tells me… demographically we need an insane change for the politics of this area to be less stupid, and that’s before factoring in that not only does it involve a HUGE change to reach 51%… but realistically we need more like 65-70% to counteract the inevitable gerymandering that will happen if we ever get anywhere close. I will be staying here, and I’d be happy to encourage all my progressive friends to stay and/or move here. But when it comes down to it, I’d be shocked if there is a swing in the next 50 years, and I certainly wouldn’t encourage anyone in a group that is likely to be directly oppressed to move here.
And what’s more, if you’re going to have kids it’s not fair to raise them in that environment; to draft them into a struggle as they mature; to bequeath upon them the battle that you likely wont live to see won.
I noped myself right out of America to a proper socialised democracy and now i live the American dream rather than spend my life and my kids lives fighting for it.
Well it comes down to 2 problems though.
First and most obvious hitting that critical mass… before you hit it, everything is hell, you are stuck with BS laws, and you can’t do anything about it. Your vote is worthless.
In my town this november there was one ballot issue… in short, it was summarized as "put a million dollars towards schools, build a new school on an unused empty lot owned by the school system, build a new sports field for one of the schools). Digging deeper that would be paid for by a proporty tax that would cost… up to 100 a year for people making over 150k.
So… the whole town was plastered in “vote no” signs, when I went to the polling place a guy outside asked me to “strongly consider voting no”. I was one of the 17% that voted yes.
So that basically tells me… demographically we need an insane change for the politics of this area to be less stupid, and that’s before factoring in that not only does it involve a HUGE change to reach 51%… but realistically we need more like 65-70% to counteract the inevitable gerymandering that will happen if we ever get anywhere close. I will be staying here, and I’d be happy to encourage all my progressive friends to stay and/or move here. But when it comes down to it, I’d be shocked if there is a swing in the next 50 years, and I certainly wouldn’t encourage anyone in a group that is likely to be directly oppressed to move here.
And what’s more, if you’re going to have kids it’s not fair to raise them in that environment; to draft them into a struggle as they mature; to bequeath upon them the battle that you likely wont live to see won.
I noped myself right out of America to a proper socialised democracy and now i live the American dream rather than spend my life and my kids lives fighting for it.