THIS is how we get the revolution. It happens...at the ballot box?

Added: 2026-05-22

[00:00:00]Now you may not be on my corner of the internet or my corner of Portland, Oregon, so you may not have been exposed to this discourse yet, but I really want you to hang in there with me because there has been an ongoing argument since oh, September 2024 about whether or not you should vote, whether or not there's any point in voting at all because we live in an entrenched two-party system.

[00:00:24]Now in the run-up to the 2024 election, there were a lot of privileged white mostly white leftists from protected states like California who would say things like, you know, you should vote, you should vote third party, right? Who would say that their conscience did not permit them to vote for Kamala Harris even though the other candidate on the ballot was a literal fascist. And there were some very big, very big, we're talking more than a million followers, creators on the left who said, "If you can't bring yourself to vote for a third party candidate, just don't vote." And of course, I was losing my ever [ __ ] loving mind at the time as a leftist who voted for Kamala Harris and didn't agree with every single one of her positions, but who understood that the other candidate was a literal [ __ ] fascist.

[00:01:12]Um, I was very, very frustrated. I was frustrated to people disingenuously say that they didn't know what harm reduction voting was, that both sides were exactly the same, that you can't solve anything through electoralism, it is just a pipe dream, it's just an illusion, it's just something to pacify you. Yeah, you may not be on this corner of the internet, so you may not realize how prevalent this discourse is, how many people will get on social media and be like, "There's no point in voting, you're just playing into the system."

[00:01:41]These are the same people who said that Zoran Momdani doesn't actually want any any reforms at all because he ran for elected office or Grant Plathner can't actually want the things that he advocates for because he's running for Congress, right? If you really if you really wanted democratic socialism, if you really wanted to tax the billionaires out of existence, he wouldn't run for Senate. I cannot tell you how many times I have heard that argument. And I'm like, What the [ __ ] are you doing? What the [ __ ] are you talking about? Now, I need you to watch this clip from Nick Powers cuz it's going to set the stage for the rest of this video. We've tried voting, and look where that's gotten us. Actually, did you know that non-voters have won nearly every election in modern United States history? Let's do some math. I made you a spreadsheet with every United States presidential election since 1900. As you can see here in the 2024 election, Donald Trump actually got less than 50% of the votes. But, let's look at this in a different way. These are the percentages of votes cast, but what about the percentages of the eligible voting population? In 2024, Donald Trump got about 32% of the estimated voter population, but non-voters took up 38%.

[00:02:47]If staying home were a candidate in the 2024 election, it actually would have won the race. But, that actually doesn't say much because non-voters have won nearly every election in the last 100 years. In fact, in the last 100 years, only two presidents have received more than half of the votes from the eligible voting population. And that was back during the Civil Rights Movement, and Lyndon B. Johnson right there signed the Civil Rights Act. So, if you're somebody who says that voting doesn't matter and you plan on staying home, congratulations, you're actually upholding the status quo. So, Nick just made this video, I presume, because we are hearing the same discourse making the rounds again, right? It's churning in the algorithm again, just like it did ahead of the 2024 election. Now, I know there are those fellow leftists who did not vote or did not vote for Kamala Harris in 2024 who will try and tell us that um she didn't lose because of them.

[00:03:43]They're just such a tiny fraction of voters that she didn't lose. But, we had an awful lot of people who couldn't bother to vote. Now, we had people who didn't vote because they were disenfranchised as voters because voting is very difficult to access, but I don't think that we should discount the ways that non-voters, people who are like, "Why should I bother? Why should I show up?" We cannot discount the ways that their choice not to exercise their right, their civic duty impacts all of us. We are in a position going into the 2026 midterms where we all have to vote.

[00:04:16]Viktor Orban, Donald Trump is following Viktor Orban's playbook almost to the letter. Viktor Orban was removed from power in an entirely peaceful electoral process.

[00:04:29]So, look at the ways that the guy who Donald Trump aspires to be was toppled and removed. 80% of the population turned out. They were willing to stand in very, very long lines for hours and hours, take off work, lose income. They were willing to do anything and everything to get to the ballot box to vote Orban's party out, and we have to be willing to do the same thing to get Donald Trump's party, the Republicans, voted out as well. When we on our side don't show up and vote, Republicans win because Republican voters vote very consistently. All All of those older Gen X, Boomer, white Americans who overwhelmingly voted for Donald Trump, especially men, they're retired. They show up and they vote. They understand, come hell or high water, they're getting to the ballot box. We We have to have more tenacity, more determination, and more follow-through than they do. Now, every time I say, "Come hell or high water, we're all voting. Nothing will keep us from accessing our right to vote in the midterms and also not in 2028."

[00:05:33]Um I will get people in my comments who say, "You don't understand how voters are disenfranchised." I totally I totally agree with you. I am not saying it's easy to vote in the United States.

[00:05:42]Republicans have made it incredibly hard for Black Americans, for women, for most working-class people to be able to vote.

[00:05:48]They don't want you to exercise your right. Not having mandatory voting in the US is voter suppression. Not having election day be a national holiday is voter suppression. Not automatically registering people to vote when they turn 18 is voter suppression.

[00:06:07]Republicans don't want you to vote. They will do anything and everything to separate you from your constitutional right and your civic duty. And we cannot let Republicans get to have that power over us. Yeah, it will not be easy. It will be very inconvenient and in some places very difficult to vote. But do you know what's a whole hell of a lot more inconvenient than voting in the midterms?

[00:06:33]Fascism.

[00:06:35]You know what's a lot more difficult for us to live through and experience?

[00:06:40]Fascism. So like on some level, I don't [ __ ] care how hard it is. I don't care. People in other countries are willing to walk long distances, endure tremendous suffering to be able to vote.

[00:06:51]Our forefathers and foremothers were beaten, imprisoned, killed to earn the right to vote. And we're not [ __ ] letting Republicans take it away from us. This election is more consequential than any election in our lifetime and you better [ __ ] act like it. Sorry to get a little scoldy, but that leads me into this last point I want to make here. Oh, voting is not going to do anything. We just need a revolution.

[00:07:14]You're wasting your time. If you're one of those guys, all I got to say to you is pick up your rifle, champ. Pick it up.

[00:07:20]Start the revolution. Otherwise, you're just talking. Here's the other thing.

[00:07:24]Voting does make a difference cuz look at what happened in Hungary. They got rid of Viktor Orbán. That's what I said.

[00:07:30]All right, buddy. But they only did it cuz they all showed up. You got to show up in big numbers to get the kind of change that we need. And people like this who are of this bent that they can't make any difference, like I I really need you to understand that you're just playing into exactly what the billionaires and the economic elites want you to believe, that you're totally powerless. Another thing is you're looking at this from too much of an individualistic standpoint. You've watched way too many hero movies where one guy goes in and saves the world. You need to understand that one person is not going to make a lick of difference in anything.

[00:08:03]And so, in that way you know, yeah, your individual vote does not really matter all that all that much. Unless the election just comes down to one vote, and then everybody's vote matters, right? But you can't look at it as if it's just you, as if you're going to be the one who makes a difference. We only make a difference by all being together. We're not all going to be together if you don't show up.

[00:08:24]That's Patrick Wilver running for Congress in Georgia's first congressional district. I recommend that you go check out his platform. So, I understand the frustration of his video.

[00:08:33]I'm not dogging on him. But when he says to the folks who don't want to vote and don't think that voting matters, like, okay, well, then go start your revolution. I want to gently push back against him and anybody else and say, in 2026, voting is a revolutionary act. In 2026, this is how you get your revolution.

[00:08:54]Yeah, I do think that there are cosplay revolutionaries out there who think that it's some big violent act that's going to get us whatever utopia. But I think most people who are part of the revolution understand that it's mutual aid. They understand that it's community care. They understand that it's chipping away at the pillars of support. They understand that we have to dream of something better than the capitalist hellscape we've been living in, that we have to dream better than the Epstein class running the show. We have to build those parallel structures right now, so that when we vote in elections and we topple Donald Trump through an electoral process, when we remove the Republicans from power through elections, that in that power vacuum that comes, we are ready to step in with democracy. We're ready to step in with reforms. We're ready to step in with policy change in the pursuit of justice. But, the way that we get all of that, the way we get those parallel structures, that world we dream of now implemented and becoming reality is that we have to vote. We have to vote in order to get there. Voting isn't everything, but it is a key part of the revolution.