From conversation to mobilization

Conversation
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Is conversation enough in the US at this time?

Science education and funding will not be immune.

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At the moment, the impact upon science education of the nutbars having taken over the Supreme Court will be minimal. But if the old segregationists remember their lessons from Brown v. Board of Education, we might start to see communities dropping their public schools in favor of voucherization which will allow them to use tax dollars to fund religious indoctrination, creationism, alternative civic education, et cetera. The racists, fundamentalists and halfwits are definitely on the march, and the long-run consequences could be dire. However, most of the policy questions are still primarily in legislative hands, and so mobilization at the ballot box is still of primary importance (and, of course, in the long run the judiciary is a product of elections, too – but it’s a young Supreme Court full of serious crazies, and that won’t go away soon).

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Without meaning to sound contrarian, I would say that conversation was never enough. Of course right now, legislation and court rulings are not landing where most people in this country are at, and the fault with that ultimately lies in poor voter turnout.

  1. Most people want reasonable gun control measures. Most do not want to take away guns, but rather to have an array of measures that control who, how, and what can be purchased.
  2. Most people want women to have their reproductive rights, and that includes the right to have an abortion.
  3. Most people want voting to be secure but also easy to do.
    All of these are not happening because of poor voter turnout.
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@Mark_Sturtevant

I totally agree, yet I do not consider low voter turnout as that large of a factor.

First-past-the-post is very flawed. Not even sure it is democratic.

In Canada, one of our provincial elections 43% of voters voted. 40% of those voted for one party and it won a majority. How does 17.2% allow for a mandate?

From gerrymandering, to over-representation of rural areas, to basically ignored any votes to other parties or surplus votes from a region, not considering non-votes effectively, and then you have the senate which grants tiny states power to compete with the likes of NY and California (50% of your nations entire GDP and significantly more population). Then you also have weird areas where many people do not have valid id and its required for voting. The voter suppression is real (more indirect and population based).

@Puck_Mendelssohn

I see the increasing wins for states rights accelerating that reduction of the public system. In Conservative states, I can see them immediately deploying their strategies with the evangelicals blessing to start by teaching “both sides”.

I am praying for my southern neighbours. I hope Monday and July the 4th can be positive turning points. Gen strike, let’s go!

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Also, here a Canadian omen of things to come:

Date accessed: June 26, 2022

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Now it’s less redundant.

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