Andy Warhol
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For all of my US followers for whom general public official election day is coming up (Nov. 7th) PLEASE do not become so disillusioned with the current state of higher power politicians that you skip out on voting for local offices; off year and local elections are already critically unemphasized but these are the people who have the most direct power over jails, police, school curriculum, etc. Do not let your grief be weaponized as a distraction from also continuing to fight police brutality, queer and bipoc censorship in schools, bodily autonomy, housing inequality, etc, on the smaller scale battlefields where every vote truly does count
It can be so frustrating to vote in small local elections because info is harder to find, but if you take the time to google vote411 and go to their website, get your personal ballot, and then look up the candidates, you will always find that two people are running for a local school board, and one is a lovely person who has slowly been effecting positive change for three decades and the other is a real estate broker who wants more money. And then you have the power to vote against the money asshole and for the nice person in a race that can genuinely go down to a handful of votes. Feels awesome, man. Vote out the bitch who voted against reasonable COVID measures in your local high school 3 years ago.
Adding to this, because this year was one of the most dramatic examples of "voting in local elections really does make a difference" that I've personally seen. No one comes out for local elections. Ours were back in early October. It was the school board and the borough (our version of county) council. No one even knows these people's names most of the time.
But these year, there was a whole slate of profoundly anti-trans school board candidates, and there was an incumbent borough council member up for reelection who had been in there basically forever who had recently come down on the book-banning side with the local library.
And people came out! LOTS of people came out. I did early voting, and the place was bustling.
We are a red town in a red state, but people came OUT, and when it was all over, the anti-trans slate of school board candidates were emphatically swept out, and the borough council swung left and is now the most liberal one we've had in years, maybe decades.
The frustrating thing about democracy, of course, is that it just keeps happening. Next year we'll need to do it all over again. But it absolutely makes a difference. This year, there's not going to be any anti-trans nonsense from the school board - which very much IS happening in some of the other jurisdictions in our state - and we don't have to worry about culture war nonsense from the borough council. It's on a small scale, but it's a big win for us and the people who live here.
Even if you live in a red state, it's possible to carve out blue enclaves. It's the local government who are going to affect your everyday life the most directly anyway. Most local elections are so small-scale that just a few people can swing an election one way or the other. Taking half an hour to learn about the school board candidates and tell all your friends can potentially decide the election. And local is where most hard right candidates are starting from, so even if you just keep one of the bastards out, it could make a big difference down the road.
